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From bequest of
Martin S. Eichelberger
1893

BISHOP BURNET'S
« > #
HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIME:
MtOM
THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II. TO THE TREATY OF PEACE AT
UTRECHT, IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.

SI Ncto mitten,
WITH HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES,
FIFTY-ONE PORTRAITS.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
WILLIAM SMITH, 113, FLEET STREET.

LONDON 1
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PB.INTKBS,
WHITEFBJARS.

THE

HISTORY OF MY OWN TIMES,

BOOK IV.

OP THE REIGN OP KING JAMES THE SECOND.*

AM now to prosecute this work, and to give the relation of an
inglorious and unprosperous reign, that was begun with great
advantages ; but these were so poorly managed, and so ill
improved, that bad designs were ill laid, and worse conducted ;
and all came in conclusion to one of the strangest catastrophes
that is in any history. A great king with strong armies, and
mighty fleets, a vast treasure, and powerful allies, fell all at once :
and his whole strength, like a spider's web, was so irrecoverably
broken with a touch, that he was never able to retrieve, what for
want both of judgment and heart, he threw up in a day. Such
an unexpected revolution deserves to be well opened ; I will do it as fully as I can. But,
having been beyond sea almost all this reign, many small particulars, that may well deserve
to be remembered, may have escaped me ; yet as I had good opportunities to be well
informed, I will pass over nothing that seems of any importance to the opening such great
and unusual transactions. I will endeavour to watch over my pen with more than ordinary
caution, that I may let no sharpness, from any ill usage I myself met with, any way possess
my thoughts, or bias my mind : on the contrary, the sad fate of this unfortunate prince will
make me the more tender in not aggravating the errors of his reign. As to my own par
ticular, I will remember how much I was once in his favour, and how highly I was obliged
to him. And as I must let his designs and miscarriages be seen, so I will open things as fully
as I can, that it may appear on whom we ought to lay the chief load of them : which indeed
ought to be chiefly charged on his religion, and on those who had the management of his
conscience, his priests, and his Italian queen : which last had hitherto acted a popular part
with great artifice and skill, but came now to take off the mask, and to discover herself.
This prince was much neglected in his childhood, during the time he was under his father's
care. The parliament, getting him into their hands, put him under tho earl of Northumber-

* The reign of James II. presents one of those remark
able eras which occur in all histories, and this in ours
marks the time when first the nature of the constitution
was fully understood. For this enlightenment, we are
indebted to the mad ambition of the king, who, with that
infatuation, that blindness to present advantages whilst in
pursuit of an ulterior object, which characterised the
Stewarts, rushed forward totally regardless, and probably
ignorant, of the genius of the English people.
Few kings, perhaps none, ever mounted the throne
under more favourable auspices, A man of business, of

tried abilities, succeeded one who had been altogether
neglectful of public affairs. His zealous professions and
prudent conduct had of late reconciled the people, who
began to forget their suspicions ; the Dissenters especially,
deceived by his specious professions of liberal feelings, or
willing to risk much for emancipation from the pressure
of the dominant establishment, were inclined to trust
him. But when, in his inaugural speech, he declared
"that he would defend and maintain the Church, and
would preserve the government in Church and State as
established by law," all fear of the introduction of Popery

398 OF THE REIGN OF KING JAMES THE SECOND.
land's government, who, as the duke himself told me, treated him with great respect, and a
very tender regard. When he escaped out of their hands, by the means of colonel Bamfield,
his father wrote to him a letter in cipher, concluding in these plain words, « Do this as you
expect the blessing of your loving father." This was sent to William, duke of Hamilton,
but came after he had made his escape : and so I found it among his papers ; and I gave it
to the duke of York in the year 1674. He said to me, he believed he had his father's cipher
among his papers, and that he would try to decipher the letter ; but I believe he never did it.
I told him I was confident, that as the letter was written when his escape was under consi
deration, so it contained an order to go to the queen, and to be obedient to her in all things,
except in matters of religion. The king appointed sir John Berkeley, afterwards lord
Berkeley, to be his governor. It was a strange choice, if it was not because, in such a want
of men who stuck then to the king, there were few capable in any sort of such a trust.
Berkeley was bold and insolent, and seemed to lean to popery : he was certainly very arbi
trary, both in his temper and notions. The queen took such a particular care of this prince,
that he was soon observed to have more of her favour than either of his two brothers ; and
she was so set on making proselytes, hoping that " to save a soul " would cover a " multitude
of sins," that it is not to be doubted but she used more than ordinary arts to draw him over
to her religion. Yet, as he himself told me, he stood out against her practices.

vanished , and the people congratulated themselves on
possessing "the •word of a king, and a word never yet
broken.'' If James had made a wise use of the power he really-
possessed, a power far greater than it is good for a king to
have, he might have succeeded in his aims ; it needed but
ordinary skill and caution to make both court and country
alike subservient. But James snatched too hastily at the
prize he imagined to be within his grasp ; urged forward
by his eager priests, he too easily gave the alarm, and
incurred the distrust of his people. The rash exercise
of the dispensing power, in matters touching his peculiar
faith, at once aroused the dormant jealousy of the nation.
A new light appeared to have broken in upon men's
minds ; and they suddenly discovered that the absolute
power (which had often been resisted in practice, but
had hitherto been more strongly supported than opposed
in argument) was a chimera. The king's dispensing
power, which had been exercised unchallenged for so long
a lime, as to be considered even by Sir Edward Coke,
the best legal authority of his time, as an undoubted pre
rogative of the Crown, was now questioned and examined,
and found to be a baseless phantasm, inconsistent with the
"whole fabric of the constitution -, an absurdity which could
have no existence, whilst the other component parts of
the frame of government were in being. The visions of
the supporters of divine right and passive obedience faded
before the light of truth, and the liberties of England were
at length established on an unalterable basis.
De Lolme, in his admirable work on the constitution
of England, has some remarks " on the manner in which
revolutions and public commotions have always been ter
minated in England," wliich are well worth our attention.
"If," says he, "we read the history of other free states,
we shall see that the public dissensions that have taken
place in them have constantly been terminated by settle
ments in which the interests only of a few were really
provided for, while the grievances of the many were
hardly, if at all, attended to. In England, the very
reverse has happened; and we find revolutions always to
have been terminated by extensive and accurate provi
sions for securing the general liberty."
After tracing the same results through all the inter
mediate reigns till the termination of the civil wars, he
goes on : — " At the accession of James 1st, which, as it
plaeed a new family on the throne of. England, may be

considered as a kind of revolution, no demands were
made by the men who were at the head of the nation, but
in favour of general liberty.
" After the accession of Charles the 1st, discontents of
a very serious nature began to take place ; and they were
terminated, in the first instance, by the act called the
Petition of Right, which is still looked upon as a most
precise and accurate delineation of the rights of the people.
" At the restoration of Charles the 2nd, the constitution
being re-established upon its former principles, the former
consequences produced by it began again to take place;
and we see at that era, and indeed during the whole
course of that reign, <x continued series of precautions
taken for securing the general liberty.
" Lastly, the great event which took place in the year
1689, affords a Btriking confirmation of the truth of the
observation heretofore made. At this era the political
wonder again appeared — of a revolution terminated by a
series of public acts, in which no interests but those of
the people at large were considered and provided for ; no
clause, even the most indirect, was inserted, either to
gratify the present ambition, or favour the future views,
of those who were personally concerned in bringing those
acts to a conclusion. Indeed, if anything is capable of
conveying to us an adequate idea of the soundness, as well
as peculiarity, of the principles on which the English
government is founded, it is the attentive perusal of the
system of public compacts to which the revolution of the
year 1689 gave rise — of the Bill of Rights with all its
different clauses, and of the several acts which, till the
accession of the house of Hanover, were made in order to
strengthen it."
When we consider that, but for the unwise haste, the
unguarded precipitancy of King James, the liberties then
more firmly established and clearly defined than at any
earlier period would have been altogether, and probably
for ever, subverted ; and then regard the increasing pros
perity and glory of the nation, consequent upon their
establishment, every Briton must look upon those true
patriots, by whose agency the memorable revolution of
1689 was effected, with increasing veneration. The
history of this period is one which deserves to be deeply
studied, and the value of such an historian as Burnet,
whose minute detail, although sometimes tedious, increases
the difficulty of misrepresentation by the author cannot
be too highly appreciated.

REIGN OF KING JAMES II. 399
During his stay in France he made some campaigns under M. de Turenne, who took him
so particularly under his care, that he instructed him in all that he undertook, and shewed
him the reasons of every thing he did so minutely, that he had great advantages by being
formed under the greatest general of the age. Turenne was so much taken with his appli
cation, and the heat that he shewed, that he recommended him out of measure. He said
often of him : " There was the greatest prince, and like to be the best general of his
time." This raised his character so much, that the king was not a little eclipsed by him.
Yet he quickly rail into amours and vice ; and that by degrees wore out any courage that
had appeared in his youth. And in the end of his life he came to lose the reputation of a
brave man and a good captain so entirely, that either he was never that which flatterers gave
out concerning him, or his age and affairs wrought a very unusual change on him.
He seemed to follow his mother's maxims all the while he was beyond sea. He was the
head of a party that was formed in the king's small court against lord Clarendon. And it
was believed that his applications to lord Clarendon's daughter were made at first, on design
to dishonour his family, though she had the address to turn it another way *.
After his brother's restoration he applied himself much to the marine, in which he
arrived at great skill, and brought the fleet so entirely into his dependence, that even after
he laid down the command, he was still the master of our whole sea force. He had now for
these last three years directed all our counsels with so absolute an authority, that the king
seemed to have left the government wholly in his hands : only the unlooked-for bringing
in the duke of Monmouth put him under no small apprehensions, that at some time or other
the king might slip out of his hands : now that fear was over.
The king was dead ; and so all the court went immediately and paid their duty to him.
Orders were presently given for proclaiming him king. It was a heavy solemnity ; few
tears were shed for the former, nor were there any shouts of joy for the present king. A
dead silence, but without any disorder or tumult, followed it through the streets +. "When
the privy councillors came back from the proclamation, and waited on the new king, he made
a short speech to them ; which it seems was well considered, and much liked by him, for he
repeated it to his parliament, and upon several other occasions.
He began with an expostulation for the ill character that had been entertained of him.
He told them, in very positive words, that he would never depart from any branch of his pre
rogative : but with that he promised that he would maintain the liberty and property of the
subject. He expressed his good opinion of the church of England, as a friend to monarchy.
Therefore, he said, he would defend and maintain the church, and would preserve the govern
ment in church and state, as it was established by law.
This speech was soon printed, and gave great content to those who believed that he would
stick to the promises made in it ; and those few, who did not believe it, yet durst not seem
to doubt of it. The pulpits of England were full of it, and of thanksgiving for it. It was
magnified as a security far greater than any that laws could give. The common phrase was,
We have now the " word of a king, and a word never yet broken."
Upon this a new set of addresses went round England, in which the highest commenda
tions, that flattery could invent, were given to the late king; and assurances of loyalty and
fidelity were renewed to the king, in terms that shewed there were no jealousies, nor fears
left. The University of Oxford in their address promised to obey the king, " without limi
tations, or restrictions." The king's promise passed for a thing so sacred, that they were
looked on as ill bred, that put in their address, " our religion established by law ; " which
looked like a tie on the king to maintain it : whereas the stile of the more courtly was, to
put all our security upon the king's promise. The clergy of London added a word to this in
their address, " our religion established by law, dearer to us than our lives." This had such
* The progress of this match, and the distress it caused had lived in ease and plenty during his reign ; and Colley
lord Clarendon, are fully detailed in that nobleman's Cibber, no friend of the Stuarts, bears a similar testimony
'* Autobiography." in his autobiography. Sir John Reresby in his Memoirs,
f This statement of Burnet is contradicted by other makes the same observation. Wellwood and Calamy in
contemporaries. The carl of Dartmouth says, the com- their Memoirs unite in agreeing that the accession of
monalty especially deplored the loss of Charles, for they James was "hailed with the loudest acclamations.

400 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
an insinuation in it, as made it very unacceptable. Some followed their pattern. But this
was marked to be remembered against those that used so menacing a form.
All employments were ended of course with the life of the former king ; but the king
continued all in their places : only the posts in the household were given to those who had
served the king, while he was duke of York. The marquis of Halifax had reason to look
on himself as in ill terms with the king : so in a private audience he made the best excuses
he could for his conduct of late. The king diverted the discourse, and said, he would forget
every thing that was past, except his behaviour in the business of the exclusion. The king
also added, that he would expect no other service of him than what was consistent with law.
He prepared him for the exaltation of the earl of Rochester. He said, he had served him
well, and had suffered on his account, and therefore he would now shew favour to him : and
the next day he declared him lord treasurer. His brother, the earl of Clarendon, was made
lord privy seal : and the marquis of Halifax was made lord president of the council. The
earl of Sunderland was looked on as a man lost at court : and so was lord Godolphin. But
the former of these insinuated himself so into the queen's confidence, that he was, beyond
all people's expectation, not only maintained in his posts, but grew into great degrees of
favour. The queen was made to consider the earl of Rochester as a person that would be in the
interest of the king's daughters, and united to the church party. So she saw it was neces
sary to have one in a high post, who should depend wholly on her, and be entirely hers.
And the earl of Sunderland was the only person capable of that. The earl of Rochester did
upon his advancement become so violent and boisterous, that the whole court joined to sup
port the earl of Sunderland, as the proper balance to the other. Lord Godolphin was put in
a great post in the queen's household.
But before the earl of Rochester had the white staff, the court engaged the lord Godolphin,
and the other lords of the treasury, to send orders to the commissioners of the customs, to
continue to levy the customs, though the act that granted them to the late king was only for
his life, and so was now determined with it. It is known how much this matter was con
tested in king Charles the First's time, and what had passed upon it. The legal method was
to have made entries, and to have taken bonds for those duties, to be paid when the parlia
ment should meet, and renew the grant. Yet the king declared, that he would levy the cus
toms, and not stay for the new grant. But though this did not agree well with the king's
promise of maintaining liberty and property, yet it was said in excuse for it, that, if the
customs should not be levied in this interval, great importations would be made, and the
markets would be so stocked, that this would very much spoil the king's customs. But in
answer to this it was said again, entries were to be made, and bonds taken, to be sued, when
the act granting them should pass. Endeavours were used with some of the merchants to
refuse to pay those duties, and to dispute the matter in Westminster Hall ; but none would
venture on so bold a thing. He who should begin any such opposition would probably be
ruined by it ; so none would run that hazard. The earl of Rochester got this to be done
before he came into the treasury ; so he pretended, that he only held on in the course that
was begun by others.
The additional excise had been given to the late king only for life. But there was a clause
in the act, that empowered the Treasury to make a farm of it for three years, withoutTadding
a limiting clause, in case it should be so long due. And it was thought a great stretch of
the clause, to make a fraudulent farm, by wliich it should continue to be levied three years
after it was determined, according to the letter and intendment of the act. A farm was now
brought out, as made during the king's life, though it was well known that no such farm had
been made ; for it was made after his death, but a false date was put to it. This matter
seemed doubtful. It was laid before the judges. And they all, except two, were of opinion
that it was good in law. So two proclamations were ordered, the one for levying the cus
toms, and the other for the excise.
These came out in the first week of the reign, and gave a melancholy prospect. Such
beginnings did not promise well, and raised just fears in the minds of those who considered the
consequences of such proceedings. They saw, that, by violence and fraud, duties were now

OF KING JAMES II. 40)
to be levied without law. But all people were under the power of fear, or flattery, to such
a degree, that none durst complain, and few would venture to talk of those matters.
Persons of all ranks went, in such crowds, to pay their duty to the king, that it was not
easy to admit them all. Most of the Whigs that were admitted were received coldly at best.
Some were sharply reproached for their past behaviour. Others were denied access. The
king began likewise to say, that he would not be served as his brother had been : he would
have all about him serve him without reserve, and go thorough in his business. Many were
amazed to see such steps made at first. The second Sunday after he came to the throne, he,
to the surprise of the whole court, went openly to mass, and sent Caryl to Rome with letters
to the Pope, but without a character.
In one thing only the king seemed to comply with the genius of the nation, though it
proved in the end to be only a shew. He seemed resolved not to be governed by French
counsels, but to act in an equality with that haughty monarch in all things. And, as he
entertained all the other foreign ministers with assurances that he would maintain the
balance of Europe with a more steady hand than had been done formerly, so when he sent
over the lord Churchill to the court of France, with the notice of his brother's death, he ordered
him to observe exactly the ceremony and state with which he was received, that he might
treat him, who should be sent over with the compliment in return to that, in the same man
ner. And this he observed very punctually, when the marshal de Lorge came over. This
was set about by the courtiers, as a sign of another spirit, that might be looked for in a reign
so begun. And this made some impression on the court of France, and put them to a stand.
But, not long after this, the French king said to the duke of Villeroy, (who told it to young
Rouvigny, now earl of Galloway, from whom I had it,) that the king of England, after all
the high things given out in his name, was willing to take his money, as well as his brother
had done.
The king did also give out, that he would live in a particular confidence with the prince of
Orange, and the States of Holland. And, because Chudleigh, the envoy there, had openly
broken with the prince, (for he not only waited no more on him, but acted openly against
him ; and once in the Vorhaut had affronted him, while he was driving the princess upon the
snow in a traineau, according to the German manner, and pretending they were masked, and
that he did not know them, had ordered his coachman to keep his way, as they were coming
towards the place where he drove ;) the king recalled him, and sent Skelton in his room, who
was the haughtiest, but withal the weakest man, that he could have found Out. He talked
out all secrets, and made himself the scorn of all Holland *. The courtiers now said every
where, that we had a martial prince who loved glory, who would bring France into as humble
a dependence on us, as we had been formerly on that court.
The king did, some days after his coming to the crown, promise the queen and his priests,
that he would see Mrs. Sedley no more, by whom he had some children. And he spoke
openly against lewdness, and expressed a detestation of drunkenness. He sat many hours a
day about business with the council, the treasury, and the admiralty. It was upon this said,
that now we should have a reign of action and business, and not of sloth and luxury, as the
last was. Mrs. Sedley had lodgings in Whitehall : orders were sent to her to leave them,
This was done to mortify her ; for she pretended that she should now govern as absolutely
as the duchess of Portsmouth had done : yet the king still continued a secret commerce with
her. And thus he began his reign with some fair appearances. A long and great frost
had so shut up the Dutch ports, that for some weeks they had no letters from England : at
last the news of the king's sickness and death, and of the beginnings of the new reign, came
*o them all at once.
The first difficulty the prince of Orange was in, was with relation to the duke of Mon
mouth. He knew the king would immediately, after the first compliments were over, ask
him to dismiss him, if not to deliver him up. And as it was no way decent for him to break
with the king upon such a point, so he knew the States would never bear it. He thought
it better to dismiss him immediately, as of himself. The duke of Monmouth seemed sur-
* The prince of Orange soon detected him corresponding with those who were obnoxious to him, and desired his
recall.. — Singer's Clarendon Correspondence, i. 164.
D D

402 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
prised at this. Yet at parting he made great protestations both to the prince and pincess of
an inviolable fidelity to their interests. So he retired to Brussels, where he knew he could
be suffered to stay no longer than till a return should come from Spain, upon the notice of
king Charles's death, and the declarations that the king was making of maintaining the
balance of Europe. The duke was upon that thinking to go to Vienna, or to some court m
Germany ; but those about him studied to inflame him both against the king and the prince
of Orange. They told him, the prince, by casting him off, had cancelled all former obliga
tions, and set him free from them : he was now to look to himself; and instead of wandering
about as a vagabond, he was to set himself to deliver his country, and to raise his party
and his friends, who were now likely to be used very ill, for their adhering to him, and to hia
•interest. They sent one over to England to try men's pulses, and to see if it was yet a proper time
to make an attempt. Wildman, Charlton, and some others, went about trying if men were
in a disposition to encourage an invasion. They talked of this in so remote a way of specu
lation, that though one could not but see what lay at bottom, yet they did not run into
treasonable discourse. I was in general sounded by them : yet nothing was proposed that
ran me into any danger from concealing it. I did not think fears and dangers, nor some ille
gal acts in the administration, could justify an insurrection, as lawful in itself : and I was
confident an insurrection undertaken on such grounds would be so ill seconded, and so weakly
supported, that it would not only come to nothing, but it would precipitate our ruin. There
fore I did all I could to divert all persons with whom I had any credit from engaging in
such designs. These were for some time carried on in the dark. The king, after he had put
his affairs in a method, resolved to hasten his coronation, and to have it performed with great
magnificence : and for some weeks he was so entirely possessed with the preparations for that
solemnity, that all business was laid aside, and nothing but ceremony was thought on.
At the same time a parliament was summoned ; and all arts were used to manage elec
tions so, that the king should have a parliament to his mind. Complaints came up from all
the parts of England, of the injustice and violence used in elections, beyond what had ever
been practised in former times. And this was so universal over the whole nation, that no
corner of it was neglected. In the new charters that had been granted, the election of the
members was taken out of the hands of the inhabitants, and restrained to the corporation-
men, all those being left out who were not acceptable at court. In some boroughs they could
not find a number of men to be depended on : so the neighbouring gentlemen were made the
corporation-men : and, in some of these, persons of other counties, not so much as known in
the borough, were named. This was practised in the most avowed manner in Cornwall by
the earl of Bath ; who, to secure himself the groom of the stole's place, which he held all
king Charles's time, put the officers of the guards' names in almost all the charters of that
county ; which sending up forty-four members, they were for most part so chosen, that the
king was sure of their votes on all occasions.
These methods were so successful over England, that when the elections were all returned,
the king said, there were not above forty members, but such as he himself wished for. They
were neither men of parts, nor estates : so there was no hope left, either of working on their
understandings, or of making them see their interest, in not giving the king all at once.
Most of them were furious and violent, and seemed resolved to recommend themselves to the
king> hJ putting every thing in his power, and by ruining all those who had been for the
exclusion. Some few had designed to give the king the revenue only from three years to
three years. The earl of Rochester told me, that was what he looked for, though the post
he was in made it not so proper for hiin to move in it. But there was no prospect of any
strength in opposing anything that the king should ask of them.
This gave all thinking men a melancholy prospect. England now seemed lost, unless some
happy accident should save it. All people saw the way for packing a parliament now laid
open. A new set of charters and corporation-men, if those now named should not continue
to be still as compliant, as they were at present, was a certain remedy, to which recourse
might be easily had. The boroughs of England saw their privileges now wrested out of
their hands, and that their elections, which had made them so considerable before were here-

OF KING JAMES II. 403
after to be made as the court should direct ; so that from henceforth little regard would be
had to them ; and the usual practices in courting, or rather in corrupting them, would bo no
longer pursued. Thus all people were alarmed; but few durst speak out, or complain
openly: only the duke of Monmouth's agents made great use of this to inflame their party.
It was said, here was a parliament to meet, that was not the choice and representative of
the nation, and therefore was no parliament. So they upon this possessed all people with
dreadful apprehensions, that a blow was now given to the constitution, which could not be
remedied, but by an insurrection. It was resolved to bring up petitions against some elec
tions, that were so indecently managed, that it seemed scarcely possible to excuse them ; but
these were to be judged by a majority of men, who knew their own elections to be so faulty,
that to secure themselves they would justify the rest : and fair dealing was not to be expected
from those who were so deeply engaged in the like injustice.
All that was offered on the other hand to lay those fears, which so ill an appearance did
raise, was, that it was probable the king would go into measures against France. All the
offers of submission possible were made him by Spain, the empire, and the States.
The king had begun with the prince of Orange upon a hard point. He was not satisfied
with his dismissing the duke of Monmouth, but wrote to him to break all those officers who
had waited on him while he was in Holland. In this they had only followed the prince's
example ; so it was hard to punish them for that, which he himself had encouraged. They
had indeed shewn their affections to him so evidently, that the king wrote to the prince, that
he could not trust to him, nor depend on his friendship, as long as such men served under
him. This was of a hard digestion. Yet, since the breaking them could be easily made up
by employing them afterwards, and by continuing their appointments to them, the prince
complied in this likewise. And the king was so well pleased with it, that when bishop
Turner complained of some things relating to the prince and princess, and. proposed rougher
methods, the king told him, it was absolutely necessary that the prince and he should con
tinue in good correspondence. Of this Turner gave an account to the other bishops, and told
them very solemnly, that the church would be in no hazard during the present reign ; but
that they must take care to secure themselves against the prince of Orange, otherwise they
would be in great danger.
The submission of the prince and the States to the king made some fancy, that this would
overcome him. All people concluded, that it would soon appear whether bigotry, or a desire
of glory was the prevailing passion ; since if he did not strike in with an alliance, that was
then projected against France, it might be concluded that he was resolved to deliver himself
up to his priests, and to sacrifice all to their ends. The season of the year made it to be
hoped, that the first session of parliament would be so short, that much could not be done in
it, but that when the revenue should be granted, other matters might be put off to a winter
session. So that, if the parliament should not deliver up the nation in a heat all at once, but
should leave half their work to another session, they might come under some management,
and either see the interest of the nation in general, or their own in particular ; and manage
their favours to the court in such a manner as to make themselves necessary, and not to give
away too much at once, but be sparing in their bounty ; which they had learned so well in
king Charles's time, that it was to be hoped they would soon fall into it, if they made not
too much haste at their first setting out. So it was resolved not to force them on too hastily
in their first session, to judge of any election, but to keep that matter entire for some time,
till they should break into parties.
The coronation was set for St. George's day. Turner was ordered to preach the sermon ;
and both king and queen resolved to have all done in the protestant form, and to assist in all
the prayers : only the king would not receive the sacrament, which is always a part of the
ceremony. In this certainly his priests dispensed with him, and he had such senses given
him of the oath, that he either took it as unlawful with a resolution not to keep it, or he had
a reserved meaning in his own mind. The crown was not well fitted for the king's head : it
came down too far, and covered the upper part of his face. The canopy carried over him did
also break. Some other smaller things happened that were looked on as ill omens : and his
son by Mrs. Sedley died that day. The queen with the peeresses made a more graceful
d d 2

404 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
figure. The best thing in Turner's sermon was, that he set forth that part of Constantms
Chlorus's history very handsomely, in which he tried who would be tme to their religion, and
reckoned that those would be faithfullest to himself who were truest to their God.
I must now say somewhat concerning myself. At this time I went out of England.
Upon king Charles's death, I had desired leave to come and pay my duty to the king, by the
marquis of Halifax. The king would not see me. So, since I was at that time in no sort of
employment, not so much as allowed to preach any where, I resolved to go abroad. 1 saw
we were likely to fall into great confusion ; and were either to be rescued, in a way that I
could not approve of, by the duke of Monmouth's means, or to be delivered up, by a meeting
that had the face and name of a parliament. I thought the best thing for me was to go
out of the way. The king approved of this, and consented to my going ; but still refused to
see me. So I was to go beyond sea, as to a voluntary exile. This gave me great credit with
all the mal-contents : and I made the best use of it I could. I spoke very earnestly to the
lord Delamer, to Mr. Hambden, and such others as I could meet with, who I feared might
be drawn in by the agents of the duke of Monmouth. The king had not yet done that
which would justify extreme counsels ; a raw rebellion would be soon crushed, and give a
colour for keeping up a standing army, or for bringing over a force from France. I per
ceived many thought the constitution was so broken into, by the elections of the house of
commons, that they were disposed to put all to hazard. Yet most people thought the crisis
was not so near as it proved to be.
The deliberations in Holland, among the English and Scotch that fled thither, came to
ripen faster than was expected. Lord Argyle had been quiet ever since the disappointment
in the year eighty-three. He had lived for most part in Friezland, but came often to
Amsterdam, and met with the rest of his countrymen that lay concealed there : the chief of
whom were the lord Melvill, sir Patrick Hume, and sir John Cochran. With these lord
Argyle communicated all the advices that were sent him. He went on still with his first
project. He said, he wanted only a sum of money to buy arms, and reckoned, that as soon
as he was furnished with these, he might venture on Scotland. He resolved to go to his own
country, where he hoped he could bring five thousand men together. And he reckoned that
the western and southern counties were under such apprehensions, that without laying of
matters, or having correspondence among them, they would all at once come about him, when
he had gathered a good force together in his own country. There was a rich widow in
Amsterdam, who was full of zeal : so she, hearing at what his designs stuck, sent to him,
and furnished him with ten thousand pounds *. With this money he bought a stock of
arms and ammunition, which was very dexterously managed by one that traded to Venice,
as intended for the service of that republic. All was performed with great secrecy, and put
on board. They had sharp debates among them about the course they were to hold. He
was for sailing round Scotland to his own country. Hume was for the shorter passage : the
other was a long navigation, and subject to great accidents. Argyle said, the fastnesses of
his own country made that to be the safer place to gather men together. He presumed so
far on his own power, and on his management hitherto, that he took much upon him : so
that the rest were often on the point of breaking with him
The duke of Monmouth came secretly to them, and made up all their quarrels. He would
willingly have gone with them himself ; but Argyle did not offer him the command : on the
contrary he pressed him to make an impression on England at the same time. This was not
possible ; for the duke of Monmouth had yet made no preparations. So he was hurried into
a fatal undertaking before things were in any sort ready for it. He had been indeed much
pressed to the same thing by Wade, Ferguson, and some others about him, but chiefly by the
lord Grey, and the lady Wentworth, who followed him to Brussels desperately in love with
him. And both he and she came to fancy, that he being married to his duchess, while he
was indeed of the age of consent, but not capable of a free one, the marriage was' null : so
they lived together : and she had heated both herself and him with such enthusiastical con
ceits, that they fancied what they did was approved of God. With this small council he
» In lord Grey's papers it is stated that the celebrated Mr. Locke, being in Holland, companion to his natron the earl
of Slia/teslmry, then in exile, advanced 1,000/. towards this enterprise — Oxford edition of this work. ¦

OF KING JAMES II. 405
took his measures. Fletcher, a Scotch gentleman of great parts, and many virtues, but a
most violent republican, and extravagantly passionate, did not like Argyle's scheme : so he
resolved to run fortunes with the duke of Monmouth. He told me, that all the English
among them were still pressing the duke of Monmouth to venture. They said, all the west
of England would come about him, as soon as he appeared, as they had done five or six years
ago. They reckoned there would be no fighting, but that the guards, and others who adhered
to the king, would melt to nothing before him. They fancied the city of London would be
in such a disposition to revolt, that, if he should land in the west, the king would be in great
perplexity. He could not have two armies ; and his fear of tumults near his person would
oblige him to keep such a force about him, that he would not be able to send any against
him. So they reckoned he would have time to form an army, and in a little while be in a
condition to seek out the king, and fight him on equal terms.
This appeared a mad and desperate undertaking to the duke of Monmouth himself. He
knew what a weak body a rabble was, and how unable to deal with troops long trained.
He had neither money, nor officers, and no encouragement from the men of estates and inte
rest in the country. It seemed too early yet to venture. It was the throwing away all his
hopes in one day. Fletcher, how vehemently soever he was set on the design in general, yet
saw nothing in this scheme that gave any hopes : so he argued much against it. And he
said to me, that the duke of Monmouth was pushed on to it against his own sense and reason :
but he could not refuse to hazard his person, when others were so forward. Lord Grey said,
that Henry the seventh landed with a smaller number, and succeeded. Fletcher answered,
he was sure of several of the nobility, who were little princes in those days. Ferguson in
his enthusiastical way said, it was a good cause, and that God would not leave them unless
they left him. And though the duke of Monmouth's course of life gave him no great reason
to hope that God would appear signally for him, yet even he came to talk enthusiastically on
the subject. But Argyle's going, and the promise he had made of coining to England with
all possible haste, had so fixed him, that, all further deliberations being laid aside, he pawned a
parcel of jewels, and bought up arms ; and they were put aboard a ship freighted for Spain.
King James was so intent upon the pomp of his coronation, that for some weeks more
important matters were not thought on. Both Argyle's and Monmouth's people were so
true to them, that nothing was discovered by any of them. Yet some days after Argyle had
sailed, the king knew of it : for the night before I left London, the earl of Arran came to
me, and told me, the king had an advertisement of it that very day. I saw it was fit for
ine to make haste ; otherwise I might have been seized on, if it had been only to put the
affront on me, of being suspected of holding correspondence with traitors.
Argyle had a very prosperous voyage. He sent out a boat at Orkney to get intelligence,
and to take prisoners. This had no other effect, but that it gave intelligence where he was :
and the wind chopping, he was obliged to sail away, and leave his men to mercy. The
winds were very favourable, and turned as his occasions required : so that in a very few days
he arrived in Argyleshire. The misunderstandings between him and Hume grew very high ;
for he carried all things with an air of authority, that was not easy to those who were set
ting up for liberty. At his landing he found, that the early notice the council had of his
designs had spoiled his whole scheme ; for they had brought in all the gentlemen of his
country to Edinburgh, which saved them, though it helped on his ruin. Yet he got above
five-and-twenty hundred men to come to him. If with these he had immediately gone over
to the western counties of Ayr and Renfrew, he might have given the government much
trouble. But he lingered too long, hoping still to have brought more of his Highlanders
together. He reckoned these were sure to him, and would obey him blindfold : whereas if
he had gone out of his own country with a small force, those who might have come in
to his assistance might also have disputed his authority : and he could not bear contradiction.
Much time was by this means lost : and all the country was summoned to come out against
him. At last he crossed an arm of the sea, and landed in the isle of Bute ; where he spent
twelve days more, till he had eat up that island, pretending still, that he hoped to be joined
by more of his Highlanders.
He had left his arms in a castle, with such a guard as he could spare ; but they were

406 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
routed by a party of the king's forces : and with this he lost both heart and hope. And
then, apprehending that all was gone, he put himself in a disguise, and had almost escaped ;
but he was taken. A body of gentlemen that had followed him stood better to it, and forced
their way through ; so that the greater part of them escaped. Some of these were taken :
the chief 6f them were sir John Cochran, Ayloffe, and Rumbold. These two last were
Englishmen : but I knew not upon what motive it was, that they chose rather to run fortunes
with Argyle, than with the duke of Monmouth. Thus was this rebellion brought to a speedy
end, with the effusion of very little blood. Nor was there much shed in the way of justice ;
for it was considered, that the Highlanders were under such ties by their tenures, that it was
somewhat excusable in them to follow their lord. Most of the gentlemen were brought in
by order of council to Edinburgh, which preserved them. One of those that were with
Argyle, by a great presence of mind, got to Carlisle, where he called for post horses ; and said,
he was sent by the general to carry the good news by word of mouth to the king. And so
he got to London, and there he found a way to get beyond sea.
Argyle was brought into Edinburgh : he expressed even a cheerful calm under all his mis
fortunes. He justified all he had done ; for, he said, he was unjustly attainted : that had
dissolved his allegiance : so it was justice to himself and his family, to endeavour to recover
what was so wrongfully taken from him. He also thought, that no allegiance was due to
the king, till he had taken the oath which the law prescribed to be taken by our kings at
their coronation, or the receipt of their princely dignity. He desired that Mr. Charteris
might be ordered to attend upon him ; which was granted. When he came to him, he told
him he was satisfied in conscience with the lawfulness of what he had done, and therefore
desired he would not disturb him with any discourse on that subject. The other, after he
had told him his sense of the matter, complied easily with this. So all that remained was to
prepare him to die, in which he expressed an unshaken firmness. The duke of Queensbury
examined him in private. He said, he had not laid his business with any in Scotland : he
had only found credit with a person that lent him money ; upon which he had trusted, per
haps too much, to the dispositions of the people, sharpened by their administration. When
the day of his execution came, Mr. Charteris happened to come to him as he was ending
dinner : he said to him pleasantly, " serd venientibus ossa." He prayed often with him, and
by himself, and went to the scaffold with great serenity. He had complained of the duke of
Monmouth much, for delaying his coming so long after him, and for assuming the name of
king ; both wliich, he said, were contrary to their agreement at parting. Thus he died,
pitied by all. His death, being pursuant to the sentence passed three years before, of which
mention was made, was looked on as no better than murder. But his conduct in this matter
was made up of so many errors, that it appeared he was not made for designs of this kind.
Ayloffe had a mind to prevent the course of justice, and having got a penknife into his
hands gave himself several stabs ; and thinking he was certainly a dead man, he cried out,
and said, now he defied his enemies. Yet he had not pierced his guts ; so his wounds were
not mortal : and it being believed that he could make great discoveries, he was brought up
to London.
Rumbold was he that dwelt in Rye-house, where it was pretended the plot was laid for
murdering the late and the present king. He denied the truth of that conspiracy. He
owned, he thought the prince was as much tied to the people, as the people were to the
prince ; and that, when a king departed from the legal measures of government, the people
had a right to assert their liberties, and to restrain him. He did not deny but that he had
heard many propositions at West's chambers about killing the two brothers ; and upon that
he had said, it could have been easily executed near his house ; upon which some discourse
had followed, how it might have been managed. But, he said, it was only talk, and that
nothing was either laid, or so much as resolved on. He said, he was not for a common
wealth, but for kingly government; according to the laws of England; but he did not think
that the king had his authority by any divine right, which he expressed in rough but sig
nificant words. He said, he did not believe that God had made the greater part of' mankind
with saddles on their backs and bridles in their mouths, and some few booted and spurred to
ride the rest.

Engrirred'byBLT.it.yall

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL. NINTH EARL OF ARGYIX .
OB. lens.
KR.OM THE OBICHNAL.IN THE COLLECTION , OF
HIS GEACE TBE DTJKE -OP ARGYIX.

OF KING JAMES II. 4o7
Cochran had a rich father, the earl of Dundonald; and he offered the priests 5,000*. to
save his son. They wanted a stock of money for managing their designs ; so they interposed
so effectually, that the bargain was made. But, to cover it, Cochran petitioned the council
that he might be sent to the king ; for he had some secrets of great importance, which were
not fit to be communicated to any but to the king himself. He was upon that brought up
to London ; and, after he had been for some time in private with the king, the matters he
had discovered were said to be of such importance, that in consideration of that the king par
doned him. It was said, he had discovered all their negociations with the elector of Bran
denburg, and the prince of Orange. But this was a pretence only given out to conceal the
bargain ; for the prince told me, he had never once seen him. The secret of this came to be
known soon after.
When Ayloffe was brought up to London, the king examined him, but could draw nothing
from him, but one severe repartee. He being sullen, and refusing to discover any thing, the
king said to him ; " Mr. Ayloffe, you know it is in my power to pardon you, therefore say
that which may deserve it." It was said that he answered, that though it was in his power,
yet, it was not in his nature to pardon. He was nephew to the old earl of Clarendon by
marriage ; for Ayloffe's aunt was his first wife, but she had no children. It was thought,
that the nearness of his relation to the king's children might have moved him to pardon him,
which would have been the most effectual confutation of his bold repartee : but he suffered
with the rest.
Immediately after Argyle's execution, a parliament was held in Scotland. Upon king
Charles's death, the marquis of Queensbury, soon after made a duke, and the earl of Perth,
came to court. The duke of Queensbury told the king, that if he had any thoughts of changing
the established religion, he could not make any one step with him in that matter. The king
seemed to receive this very kindly from him ; and assured him, he had no such intention, but
that he would have a parliament called, to which he should go his commissioner, and give all
possible assurances in the matter of religion, and get the revenue to be settled, and such other
laws to be passed as might be necessary for the common safety. The duke of Queensbury
pressed the earl of Perth to speak in the same strain to the king. But, though he pretended
to be still a protestant, yet he could not prevail on him to speak in so positive a style. I had
not then left London ; so the duke sent me word of this, and seemed so fully satisfied with
it, that he thought all would be safe. So he prepared instructions by which both the revenue
and the king's authority were to be carried very high. He has often since that time told me,
that the king made those promises to him in so frank and hearty a manner, that he concluded
it was impossible for him to be acting a part. Therefore he always believed that tho priests
gave him leave to promise every thing, and that he did it very sincerely ; but that afterwards
they pretended they had a power to dissolve the obligation of all oaths and promises ; since
nothing could be more open and free than his way of expressing himself was, though after
wards he had no sort of regard to any of the promises he then made. The Test had been the
king's own act while he was in Scotland. So he thought the putting that on all persons
would be the most acceptable method, as well as the most effectual, for securing the protes
tant religion. Therefore he proposed an instruction obliging all people to take the Test, not
only to qualify them for public employments, but that all those to whom the council should
tender it should be bound to take it, under the pain of treason : and this was granted. He
also projected many other severe laws, that left an arbitrary power in the privy council.
And, as he was naturally violent and imperious in his own temper, so he saw the king's
inclinations to those methods, and hoped to have recommended himself effectually, by being
instrumental in setting up an absolute and despotic form of government. But he found
afterwards how he had deceived himself, in thinking that any thing, but the delivering up
his religion, could be acceptable long. And he saw, after he had prepared a cruel scheme of
government, other men were entrusted with the management of it : and it had almost proved
fatal to himself.
The parliament of Scotland sat not long. No opposition was made. The duke of
Queensbury gave very full assurances in the point of religion, that the king would never alter
it, but would maintain it, as it was established by law. And in confirmation of them ho

408 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
proposed that act enjoining the Test, which was passed, and was looked on as a full security;
though it was very probable, that all the use that the council would make of this discretional
power lodged with them, would be only to tender the Test to those that might scruple it on
other accounts, but that it would be offered to none of the church of Rome. In return for
this the parliament gave the king for life, all the revenue that had been given to his brother ;
and with that some additional taxes were given.
Other severe laws were also passed. By one of these an inquisition was upon the matter
set up. All persons were required, under the pain of treason, to answer to all such questions
as should be put to them by the privy council. This put all men under great apprehensions,
since upon this act an inquisition might have been grafted, as soon as the king pleased.
Another act was only in one particular case ; but it was a crying one, and so deserves to be
remembered. When Carstairs was put to the torture, and came to capitulate in order to the making a
discovery, he got a promise from the council, that no use should be made of his deposition
against any person whatsoever. He in his deposition said somewhat that brought sir Hugh
Campbell and his son under the guilt of treason, who had been taken up in London two years
before, and were kept in prison all this while. The earl of Melfort got the promise of his
estate, which was about 1,000*. a year, as soon as he should be convicted of high treason.
So an act was brought in, which was to last only six weeks ; and enacted, that if within
that time any of the privy council would depose that any man was proved to be guilty of
high treason, he should upon such a proof be attainted. Upon which, as soon as the act was
passed, four of the privy council stood up, and affirmed that the Campbells were proved
by Carstairs's deposition to be guilty. Upon this both father and son were brought to the
bar, to see what they had to say, why the sentence should not be executed. The old gentle
man, then near eighty, seeing the ruin of his family was determined, and that he was con
demned in so unusual a manner, took courage, and said, the oppression they had been under
had driven them to despair, and made them think how they might secure their lives and
fortunes : upon this he went to London, and had some meetings with Baillie, and others :
that one was sent to Scotland to hinder all risings : that an oath of secresy was indeed
offered, but was never taken upon all this. So it was pretended he had confessed the crime,
and by a shew of mercy they were pardoned : but the earl of Melfort possessed himself of
their estate. The old gentleman died soon after And very probably his death was hastened
by his long and rigorous imprisonment, and this unexampled conclusion of it ; which was so
universally condemned, that when the news of it was written to foreign parts, it was not
easy to make people believe it possible.
But now the sitting of the parliament of England came on. And, as a preparation to it,
Oates was convicted of perjury, upon the evidence of the witnesses from St. Omer's, who had
been brought over before to discredit his testimony. Now juries were so prepared, as to
believe more easily than formerly. So he was condemned to have his priestly habit taken
from him, to be a prisoner for life, to be set on the pillory in all the public places of the city,
and ever after that to be set on the pillory four times a year, and to be whipped by the
common hangman from Aldgate to Newgate one day, and the next from Newgate to Tyburn ;
which was executed with so much rigour, that his back seemed to be all over flayed. This
was thought too little if he was guilty, and too much if innocent, and was illegal in all the
parts of it : for as the secular court could not order the ecclesiastical habit to be taken from
him, so to condemn a man to a perpetual imprisonment was not in the power of the court :
and the extreme rigour of such whipping was without a precedent. Yet he, who was an
original in all things, bore this with a constancy that amazed all those who saw it. So
that this treatment did rather raise his reputation, than sink it.
And, that I may join things of the same sort together, though they were transacted at
some distance of time, Dangerfield, another of the witnesses in the popish plot, was also
found guilty of perjury, and had the same punishment : but it had a more terrible conclusion ;
for a brutal student of the law, who had no private quarrel with him, but was only trans
ported with the heat of that time, struck him over the head with his cane, as he got his last
lash. This hit him so fatally, that he died of it immediately. The person was apprehended,

OF KING JAMES II. 409
and the king left him to the law : and, though great intercession was made for him, the king
would not interpose. So he was hanged for it *.
At last the parliament met. The king in his speech repeated that, which he had said to
the council upon his first accession to the throne. He told them, some might think the keep
ing him low would be the surest way to have frequent parliaments : but they should find
the contrary, that the using him well would be the best argument to persuade him to meet
them often. This was put in to prevent a motion, which was a little talked of abroad, but
none would venture on it within doors, that it was safest to grant the revenue only for a
term of years.
The revenue was granted for life, and every thing else that was asked, with such a pro
fusion, that the house was more forward to give, than the king was to ask : to which the
king thought fit to put a stop by a message, intimating that he desired no more money that
session. And yet this forwardness to give in such a reign, was set on by Musgrave and
others, who pretended afterwards, when money was asked for just and necessary ends, to be
frugal patriots, and to be careful managers of the public treasure.
As for religion, some began to propose a new and firmer security to it. But all the
courtiers ran out into eloquent harangues on that subject ; and pressed a vote, that they took
the king's word in that matter, and would trust to it ; and that this should be signified in
an address to him. This would bind the king in point of honour, and gain his heart so
entirely, that it would be a tie above all laws whatsoever. And the tide ran so strong
that way, that the house went into it without opposition.
The lord Preston, who had been for some years envoy in France, was brought over, and
set up to be a manager in the house of commons. He told them the reputation of the nation
was beginning to rise very high all Europe over, under a prince whose name spread terror
everywhere. And if this was confirmed by the entire confidence of his parliament, even in
the tenderest matters, it would give such a turn to the affairs of Europe, that England would
again hold the balance, and their king would be the arbiter of Europe. This was seconded
by all the court flatterers. So in their address to the king, thanking him for his speech,
they told him they trusted to him so entirely, that they relied on his word, and thought
themselves and their religion safe, since he had promised it to them.
When this was settled, the petitions concerning the elections were presented. Upon those
Seymour spoke very high, and with much weight. He said, the complaints of the irregulari
ties in elections were so great, that many doubted whether this was a true representative of
the nation or not. He said, little equity was expected upon petitions, where so many were
too guilty to judge justly and impartially. He said it concerned them to look to these ; for
if the nation saw no justice was to be expected from them, other methods would be found, in
which they might come to suffer that justice which they would not do. He was a haughty
man, and would not communicate his design in making this motion to any ; so all were sur
prised with it, but none seconded it. This had no effect, not so much as to draw on a
debate. The courtiers were projecting many laws to ruin all who opposed their designs. The most
important of these was an act declaring treasons during that reign, by which words were to
be made treason. And the clause was so drawn, that anything said to disparage the king's
person or government was made treason : within which everything said to the dishonour of
the king's religion would have been comprehended, as judges and juries were then modelled.
This was chiefly opposed by serjeant Maynard, who, in a very grave speech, laid open the
* Burnet is not quite accurate in the account of this the end unfortunately pierced the sufferer's eye. Death
melancholy catastrophe ; for there is reason to believe was not the immediate consequence, but he lived so long
that the unfeeling law student alluded to, was punished to afterwards in Newgate as to raise a doubt with the snr-
allay the popular discontent, rather than because his geons who attended the coroner's inquest, whether the
offence merited the penalty of death. It seems at the flogging was not the cause of his death. Francis was tried
worst to have been only manslaughter. Mr. Francis, a. and condemned to be executed : intercessions for his life
Gray's-Inn student, asked Danserfield, after his flogging, would perhaps have succeeded, if Jeffreys had not declared
"how he liked his morning's heat ?" Dangerfield, in that " Francis must die, for the rabble was thoroughly
return, spat in his face, which Francis as hastily resented heated."— Higgons' Remarks on Burnet, 444; Wool-
by thrusting at him with a small cane he held in his hand; rych'sLife of Jeffreys, 262.

410 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
inconvenience of making words treason : they were often ill heard, and ill understood, and
were apt to be miscredited by a very small variation ; men in passion, or in drink, might say
things they never intended ; therefore, he hoped they would keep to the law of the twenty-
fifth of Edward the Third, by which an overt-act was made the necessary proof of ill inten
tions. And when others insisted, that " out of the abundance of the heart the mouth spake,"
he brought the instance of our Saviour's words, "Destroy this temple;" and showed how
near " the temple" was to " this temple," pronouncing it in Syriac, so that the difference
was almost imperceptible. There was nothing more innocent than these words, as our
Saviour meant, and spoke them ; but nothing was more criminal than the setting on a mul
titude to destroy the temple. This made some impression at that time. But if the duke of
Monmouth's landing had not brought the session to an early conclusion, that, and everything
else which the officious courtiers were projecting, would have certainly passed.
The most important business that was before the house of lords was the reversing the
attainder of the lord Stafford. It was said for it, that the witnesses were now convicted of
perjury, and therefore the restoring the blood that was tainted by their evidence was a just
reparation. The proceedings in the matter of the popish plot were chiefly founded on Oates's
discovery, which was now judged to be a thread of perjury. This stuck with the lords, and
would not go down. Yet they did justice both to the popish lords then in the Tower, and
to the earl of Danby, who moved the house of lords, that they might either be brought to
their trial, or be set at liberty. This was sent by the lords to the house of commons, who
returned answer, that they did not think fit to insist on the impeachments. So upon that
they were discharged of them, and set at liberty. Yet, though both houses agreed in this of
prosecuting the popish plot no further, the lords had no mind to reverse and condemn past
proceedings. But while all these things were in agitation, the duke of Monmouth's landing brought the
session to a conclusion. As soon as lord Argyle sailed for Scotland, he set about his design
with as much haste as was possible. Arms were bought, and a ship was freighted for
Bilboa in Spain. The duke of Monmouth pawned all his jewels ; but these could not raise
much, and no money was sent him out of England. So he was hurried into an ill designed
invasion. The whole company consisted but of eighty-two persons. They were all faithful
to one another. But some spies, whom Skelton, the new envoy, set on work, sent him the
notice of a suspected ship sailing out of Amsterdam with arms. Skelton neither understood
the laws of Holland, nor advised with those who did ; otherwise he would have carried with
him an order from the admiralty of Holland, that sat at the Hague, to be made use of as
the occasion should require. When he came to Amsterdam, and applied himself to the
magistrates there, desiring them to stop and search the ship that he named, they found the
ship was already sailed out of their port, and their jurisdiction went no further. So he was
forced to send to the admiralty at the Hague. But those on board, hearing what he was
come for, made all possible haste , and the wind favouring them, they got out of the Texel
before the order desired could be brought from the Hague.
After a prosperous course, the duke landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire ; and he with his
small company came ashore with some order, but with too much daylight, which discovered
how few they were.
The alarm was brought hot to London ; where, upon the general report and belief of the
thing, an act of attainder passed both houses in one day : some small opposition being made
by the earl of Anglesey, because the evidence did not seem clear enouo-h for so severe a sen
tence, which was grounded on the notoriety of the thing. The sum of 5000Z. was set on his
head. And with that the session of parliament ended ; wliich was no small happiness to the
nation, such a body of men being dismissed with doing so little hurt. The duke of Mon
mouth's manifesto was long, and ill penned ; full of much black and dull malice. It was
plainly Ferguson's style, which was both tedious and fulsome. It charged the king with
the burning of London, the popish plot, Godfrey's murder, and the earl of Essex's death :
and to crown all, it was pretended, that the late king was poisoned by his orders. It was
set forth, that the king's religion made him incapable of the crown : that three subsequent
houses of commons had voted his exclusion : the taking away the old charters and all the

OF KING JAMES II. 411
hard things done in the last reign were laid to his charge : the elections of the present par
liament were also set forth very odiously, with great indecency of style : the nation was
also appealed to, when met in a free parliament, to judge of the duke's own pretensions :
and all sort of liberty, both in temporals and spirituals, was promised to persons of all
persuasions. Upon the duke of Monmouth's landing, many of the country people came in to join him,
but very few of the gentry. He had quickly men enough about him to use all his arms.
The duke of Albemarle, as lord-lieutenant of Devonshire, was sent down to raise the militia,
and with them to make head against him. But their ill affection appeared very evidently :
many deserted, and all were cold in the service. The duke of Monmouth had the whole
country open to him for almost a fortnight, during which time he was very diligent in
training and animating his men. His own behaviour was so gentle and obliging, that he
was master of all their hearts, as much as was possible. But he quickly found what it was
to be at the head of undisciplined men, that knew nothing of war, and that were not to be
used with rigour. Soon after their landing, lord Grey was sent out with a small party.
He saw a few of the militia, and he ran for it ; but his men stood, and the militia ran from
them. Lord Grey brought a false alarm, that was soon found to be so ; for the men whom
their leader had abandoned came back in good order. The duke of Monmouth was struck
with this, when he found that the person on whom he depended most, and for whom he
designed the command of the horse, had already made himself infamous by his cowardice.
He intended to join Fletcher with him in that command ; but an unhappy accident made
it not convenient to keep him longer about him. He sent him out on another party, and
he, not being yet furnished with a horse, took the horse of one who had brought in a great
body of men from Taunton. He was not in the way ; so Fletcher, not seeing him to ask
his leave, thought that all things were to be in common among them that would advance
the service. After Fletcher had ridden about as he was ordered, as he returned, the owner
of the horse he rode on, who was a rough and ill-bred man, reproached him in very injurious
terms, for taking out his horse without his leave. Fletcher bore this longer than could have
been expected from one of his impetuous temper. But the other persisted in giving him
foul language, and offered a switch or a cane ; upon which he discharged his pistol at him,
and fatally shot him dead. He went and gave the duke of Monmonth an account of this,
who saw it was impossible to keep him longer about him, without disgusting and losing
the country people, who were coming in a body to demand justice. So he advised him to
go aboard the ship and to sail on to Spain, whither she was bound. By this means he was
preserved for that time.
Ferguson ran among the people with all the fury of an enraged man that affected to pass
for an enthusiast, though all his performances that way were forced and dry. The duke of
Monmouth's great error was, that he did not in the first heat venture on some hardy action,
and then march either to Exeter or Bristol ; where as he would have found much wealth, so
he would have gained some reputation by it. But he lingered in exercising his men, and
stayed too long in the neighbourhood of Lyme.
By this means the king had time both to bring troops out of Scotland, after Argyle was
taken, and to send to Holland for the English and Scotch regiments that were in the service
of the States ; which the prince sent over very readily, and offered his own person and a
greater force, if it was necessary. The king received this with great expressions of acknow
ledgment and kindness. It was very visible that he was much distracted in his thoughts,
and that what appearance of courage soever he might put on, he was inwardly full of appre
hensions and fears. He durst not accept of the offer of assistance that the French made
him ; for by that he would have lost the hearts of the English nation. And he had no mind
to be much obliged to the prince of Orange, or to let him into his counsels or affairs. Prince
George committed a great error in not asking the command of the army : for the command,
how much soever he might have been bound to the counsels of others, would have given
him some lustre ; whereas his staying at home in such time of danger brought him under
much neglect.
The kino- could not choose worse than he did, when he gave the command to the earl of

412 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Feversham, who was a Frenchman by birth, and nephew to M. de Turenne. _ Both his
brothers changing religion, though he continued still a protestant, made that his religion
was not much trusted to. He was an honest, brave and good natured man, but weak to a
degree not easy to be conceived. And he conducted matters so ill, that every step he made
was likely to prove fatal to the king's service. He had no parties abroad : he got no intelli
gence : and was almost surprised, and likely to be defeated, when he seemed to be under no
apprehension, but was a-bed without any care or order. So, that if the duke of Monmouth
had got but a very small number of good soldiers about him, the king's affairs would have
fallen into great disorder*.
The duke of Monmouth had almost surprised lord Feversham and all about him, while
they were a-bed. He got in between two bodies, into which the army lay divided. He
now saw his error in lingering so long. He began to want bread, and to be so straitened,
that there was a necessity of pushing for a speedy decision. He was so misled in his march
that he lost an hour's time ; and when he came near the army, there was an inconsiderable
ditch : in the passing which he lost so much more time, that the officers had leisure to rise
and be dressed, now they had the alarm ; and they put themselves in order. Yet the duke
of Monmouth's foot stood longer, and fought better than could have been expected : especially
when the small body of horse they had ran upon the first charge ; the blame of which was
cast upon lord Grey. The foot being thus forsaken, and galled by the cannon, did run at
last. About a thousand of them were killed on the spot, and fifteen hundred were taken
prisoners. Their numbers when fullest were between five and six thousand. The duke of
Monmouth left the field too soon for a man of courage, who had such high pretensions ; for
a few days before he had suffered himself to be called king, wliich did him no service, even
among those that followed him. He rode towards Dorsetshire, and when his horse could
carry him no further, he changed clothes with a shepherd, and went as far as his legs could
carry him, being accompanied only with a German, whom he had brought over with him.
At last, when he could go no further, he lay down in a field where there was hay and straw,
with which they covered themselves, so that they hoped to lie there unseen till night.
Parties went out on all hands to take prisoners. The shepherd was found by the lord
Lumley in the duke of Monmouth's clothes ; so this put him on his track, and having some
dogs with them they followed the scent, and came to the place, where the German was first
discovered. And he immediately pointed to the place where the duke of Monmouth lay.
So he was taken in a very indecent dress and postured.
His body was quite sunk with fatigue, and his mind was now so low, that he begged his
life in a manner that agreed ill with the courage of the former parts of it. He called for pen,
ink, and paper, and wrote to the earl of Feversham, and both to the queen and the queen
dowager, to intercede with the king for his life. The king's temper, as well as his interest,
made it so impossible to hope for that, that it showed a great meanness in him to ask it in
such terms as he used in his letters.. He was carried up to Whitehall, where the king
examined him in person ; which was thought very indecent, since he was resolved not to
pardon him. He made new and unbecoming submissions, and insinuated a readiness to
change his religion ; for he said the king knew what his first education was in religion. There
were no discoveries to be got from him ; for the attempt was too rash to be well concerted,
or to be so deep laid that many were involved in the guilt of it. He was examined on
Monday, and orders were given for his execution on Wednesday t.
* Lewis Duras was marquis de Blanquefort in France, proceedings, but consider him to have conducted him-
but naturalised here in 1665 ; created baron Duras of self with the discretion of a good general. James said,
Holdenby in 1672, and earl of Feversham in 1676. He in the hearing of Reresby, that Monmouth had "not
was lord chamberlain to the queen of Charles the Second, made one false step." The only companion with him when
and, even after her retirement to Portugal, continued to taken was count Horn. That he was worn down by fatigue
have the chief management of her affairs ; so that lie was is not surprising, if Reresby's account that he was not in bed
sometimes designated tho " king-dowager.' He was for three nights, is true  Reresby's Memoirs.
supple and insinuating, so that he retained the court F -f When Monmouth fell into the hands of king James's
favour, even in the two following reigns. He will be troops, on the 8th of July, 168.5, he immediately wrote
noticed in future pages. _ to the king, earnestly requesting an interview, and assur-
t Sir John Reresby and other authorities do not give ing him that he had something to impart of great import-
so unfavourable an account of the duke of Monmouth's ance, and which could only be related in person On

Ungrnvefl. "W'WTfMrte.

.JAMES SCOT, DrKF. OF MONMOUTH.

FROM '1TEE OKIl-.lNAJ. OF JULET. LX THE collection. OE
lIIS (ilOCF. Till'. DFKT, ()!•¦ Hr(-ClJ.-,r<-|].

OF KING JAMES II

413

Turner and Ken, tlie bishops of Ely and of Bath and Wells, were ordered to wait on him.
But he called for Dr. Tennison. The bishops studied to convince him of tho sin of rebellion.
He answered, he was sorry for the blood that was shed in it ; but he did not seem to repent
of the design. Yet he confessed that his father had often told him, that there was no truth
in the reports of his having married his mother. This he set under his hand, probably for
his children's sake, who were then prisoners in the Tower, that so they might not be ill used
on his account. He showed a great neglect of his duchess*. And her resentments for his
course of life with the lady "Wentworth wrought so much on her, that, though he desired
to speak privately with her, she would have witnesses to hear all that passed, to justify her-

the following day lie wroto to the queen- do wager (vide
Ellis's Letters illustrative of English Hist, iii.), aud tho
following to the earl of Rochester :
"From Ringwood, the ,9th of July, 1685.
" My Lord, — Having had some proofs of your kindness
when I was last at Whitehall, makes me hope now that
you will not refuse interceding for me with the king, being
I now, though too late, see how I have been misled ; were
I not clearly convinced of that, I would rather die a thou
sand deaths than say what I do. I writ yesterday to the
king, and the chief business of my letter was to desire
to speak to him ; for I have that to say to him that
I am sure will set him at quiet for ever ; I am sure the
¦whole study of my life shall hereafter be how to serve
him ; and I am sure that which I can do is more worth
than taking my life away ; and I am confident, if I may
be so happy to speak to him, he will himself be convinced
of it, being I can give him such infallible proofs of my
truth to him, that though I would alter, it would not bo
in my power to do it. This which I have now said, I
hope will be enough to encourage your lordship to show
me your favour, which I do earnestly desire of you, and
hope that you have so much generosity as not to refuse
it. I hope, my lord, and I mako no doubt of it, that you
will not have cause to repent having saved my life, which
I am sure you can do a great deal in it, if you please ;
being it obliges me for ever to be entirely yours, which I
shall ever be, as long as I have life. " Monmouth.
" For the Earl of Rochester,
Lord High Treasurer of England."
— Singer's Clareudon Corr. i. 143.
There have been two conjectures respecting the intel
ligence that Monmouth wished to communicate to James.
The one, that he was encouraged to the invasion by the
prince of Orange, is refuted by all the evidence we pos
sess — the other, that lie had such an encourager in the
intriguing earl of Sunderland, is much better substan
tiated. Among die Clarendon Papers is a document con
firming this last opinion. When returned to the Tower,
the hauteur of the duke gave way, and he again wrote to
the king. Tradition says that this revealed the treachery
of Sunderland ; but this communication never reached the
king. Colonel Scott gave of this the following narrative to
a friend. — "In the year 1734, I was in company ¦with
colonel Scott, at Boulogne-sur-Mer, in France, when the
colonel called me to him, and said. e Mr. Bowdler, you
are a young man and I am an old one, I will tell you
something worth remembering. When the duke of
Monmouth was in the Tower, under sentence of death, I
had tho command of the guard there; and one morning
the duke desired me to let him have pen, ink, and paper,
for he wanted to "write to the king. He wrote a very
long letter, and, when he had sealed it, he desired me to
give him my word of honour that I would carry that
letter to the king, and deliver it into no hands but his.
I told him I would most willingly do it, if it was in my
power, but that my orders were, not to stir from him till

his execution ; and, therefore, I dared not leave the
Tower. At this he expressed great uneasiness, saying, he
could have depended on my honour; but at length asked
me if there was any officer in that place on whose fidelity
I could rely. I told him that captain  -was one on
whom I would willingly confide, in anything on which my
whole life depended, and more I could not say of any
man. The duke desired he might be called. When he
was come, the duke told him the affair. He promised on
his word and honour that he would deliver the letter to
no person whatever, but to the king only. Accordingly,
he went immediately to court, and being come near the
king's closet, took the letter out of his pocket to give to
the king. Just then lord Sunderland came out of the
closet, and, seeing him, asked him what he had in his
hand ; he said it was a letter from the duke of Monmouth,
which he was going to give to the king. Lord Sunder
land said, ' Give it to me, I will carry it to him.' * No,
my lord,' said the captain, ' I pawned my honour to the
duke, that I would deliver the letter to no man but the
king himself.' 'But,' said lord Sunderland, 'theking
is putting on his shirt, and you cannot be admitted into
the closet; but the door shall stand so far open that you
shall see me give it to him.' After many words, lord
Sunderland prevailed on the captain to give him the letter,
and his lordship went into the closet with it. After the
Revolution, colonel Scott, who followed the fortunes of
king James, going one day to see the king at dinner, at
St. Gcrmains, in France, the king called him to him, and
said, l Colonel Scott, I have lately heard a thing that I
want to know from you whether it is true.* The king
then related the story, and the colonel assured him that
what his majesty had been told was exactly true. Upon
this the king then said, ' Colonel Scott, as I am a living
man, I never saw that letter, nor did I ever hear of it till
within these few days.' " — Singer's Clarendon Corr. i.
144. No one can hesitate in agreeing that the king ought
never to have admitted Monmouth to his presence, unless
lie intended to pardon him. That Monmouth did not act
heroically at this interview is perhaps true. Reresby says
that he heard the king relate that the duke confessed his
error, threw the blame on the earl of Argyle and Ferguson,
¦who had incited him to the invasion ; said that he assumed
the style of king to induce the gentry to join him ; and
begged for pardon on his knees. — (Reresby's Memoirs.)
That the king could relate all this, knowing that at the
conclusion he coldly left the offender, his own nephew,
to die on the scaffold, brands him indelibly as a heartless
monster. — See Dalrymple's Memoirs ; James's Memoirs;
Rose's Observations ; Clarke's Life of James, from the
Stuart Papers, &c.
* This is decidedly contradicted by a MS. belonging
to the Buccleugh fam'ly, and quoted by Mr. Rose in the
Appendix to his "Observations" on Mr. Fox's History of
James the Second. Tho last farewell of Monmouth and
his wife is there described as being mosf tender. He
who is standing within a day's space of death would
surely wish for foigivcness, and might readily be forgiven.

414 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
self, and to preserve her family. They parted very coldly. He only recommended to her
the breeding their children in the protestant religion. The bishops continued still to press on
him a deep sense of the sin of rebellion ; at which he grew so uneasy, that he desired them
to speak to him of other matters. They next charged him with the sin of living with the
lady Wentworth as he had done. In that he justified himself : he had married his duchess
too young to give a true consent. He said, that lady was a pious, worthy woman, and that
he had never lived so well in all respects, as since his engagements with her *. All the pains
they took to convince him of the unlawfulness of that course of life had no effect. They did
certainly very well in discharging their consciences, and speaking so plainly to him ; but
they did. very ill to talk so much of this matter, and to make it so public as they did : for
divines ought not to repeat what they say to dying penitents, no more than what the peni
tents say to them. By this means the duke of Monmouth had little satisfaction in them,
and they had as little in him.
He was much better pleased with Dr. Tennison, who did very plainly speak to him with
relation to his public actings, and to his course of life ; but he did it in a softer and less
peremptory manner. And having said all that he thought proper, he left those points, in
wliich he saw he could not convince him, to his own conscience, and turned to other things
fit to be laid before a dying man. The duke begged one day more of life with such repeated
earnestness, that as the king was much blamed for denying so small a favour, so it gave
occasion to others to believe, that he had some hope from astrologers, that, if he outlived that
day, he might have a better fate. As long as he fancied there was any hope, he was too
much unsettled in his mind to be capable of anything.
But when he saw all was to no purpose, and that he must die, he complained a little that
his death was hurried on so fast. But all on the sudden he came into a composure of mind
that surprised all that saw it. There was no affectation in it. His whole behaviour was
easy and calm, not without a decent cheerfulness. He prayed God to forgive all his sins,
unknown as well as known. He seemed confident of the mercies of God, and that he was
going to be happy with him. And he went to the place of execution on Tower Hill with
an air of undisturbed courage that was grave and composed. He- said little there : only that
he was sorry for the blood that was shed ; but he had ever meant well to the nation. When
he saw the axe, he touched it, and said it was not sharp enough. He gave the hangman
but half the reward he intended ; and said, if he cut off his head cleverly, and not so
butcherly as he did the lord Russel's, his man would give him the rest. The executioner
was in great disorder, trembling all over ; so he gave him two or three strokes without being
able to finish the matter, and then flung the axe out of his hand. But the sheriff forced
him to take it up ; and at three or four more strokes he severed his head from his body ; and
both were presently buried in the chapel of the Tower. Thus lived and died this unfortu
nate young man. He had several good qualities in him, and some that were as bad. He
was soft and gentle even to excess, and too easy to those who had credit with him. He was
both sincere and good natured, and understood war well. But he was too much given to
pleasure and to favourites f.
The lord Grey it was thought would go next. But he had a great estate that by his death
was to go over to his brother. So the court resolevd to preserve him till he should be
brought to compound for his life. The earl of Rochester had 16,000/. of him. Others had
smaller shares. He was likewise obliged to tell all he knew, and to be a witness in order to
the conviction of others, but with this assurance, that nobody should die upon his evidence J.
* Henriotta Maria Wentworth was the only daughter orders to put him to death if there was any danger of his
and heiress of the earl of Cleveland. — Reresby's Me- escape. The colonel took from the duke's person many
moirs. charms ; and added, when relating this to his nephew, the
t A still more favourable and interesting charac- earl of Dartmouth, that his tablet-book was full of unin-
ter of this unfortunate nobleman is given with some let- telligible astrological figures. The duke told him he
ters, and extracts from his " Diary," in "Wellwood's received them years previously in Scotland and that ho
Memoirs. Reresby says that many charms and spells now found them but foolish conceits  See also Dr.
were found in his pockets ; a fact we may readily believe Clark's Life of James the Second ; Oxford edition of this
when we know that then almost every one believed in work.
astrology and witchcraft. Colonel Legge was in the $ This dastardly peer, Ford, lord Grey de Wcrke
coach with him when conducted to London, and had afterwards had his estate restored, and, obtaining the'

OF KING JAMES II. 415
So the lord Brandon, son to the earl of Macclesfield, was convicted by his and some other
evidence. Mr. Hambden was also brought on his trial. And he was told that he must
expect no favour unless he would plead guilty. And he, knowing that legal evidence would
be brought against him, submitted to this ; and begged his life with a meanness, of which
he himself was so ashamed afterwards, that it gave his spirits a depression and disorder that
he could never quite master. And that had a terrible conclusion : for, about ten years after,
he cut his own throat.
The king was now as successful as his own heart could wish. He had held a session of
parliament in both kingdoms that had settled his revenue ; and now two ill-prepared, and ill
managed, rebellions had so broken all the party that was against him, that he seemed secure
in his throne, and above the power of all his enemies. And certainly a reign that was now
so beyond expectation successful in its first six months seemed so well settled, that no ordi
nary mismanagement could have spoiled such beginnings. If the king had ordered a speedy
execution of such persons as were fit to be made public examples, and had upon that granted
a general indemnity, and if he had but covered his intentions till he had got through another
session of parliament, it is not easy to imagine with what advantage he might then have
opened and pursued his designs.
But his own temper and the fury of some of his ministers, and the maxims of his priests,
who were become enthusiastical upon this success, and fancied that nothing could now stand
before him : all these concurred to make him lose advantages that were never to be reco
vered ; for the shows of mercy, that were afterwards put on, were looked on as an after
game, to retrieve that which was now lost. The army was kept for some time in the
western counties, where both officers and soldiers lived as in an enemy's country, and treated
all that were believed to be ill affected to the king with great rudeness and violence.
Kirk *, who had commanded long in Tangier, was become so savage by the neighbourhood
of the Moors there, that some days after the battle he ordered several of the prisoners to be
hanged up at Taunton, without so much as the form of law, he and his company looking on
from an entertainment they were at. At every new health another prisoner was hanged up.
And they were so brutal, that, observing the shaking of the legs of those whom they hanged,
it was said among them they were dancing ; and upon that music was called for. This was
both so illegal and so inhuman, that it might have been expected that some notice would
have been taken of it. But Kirk was only chid for it. And it was said that he had a par
ticular order for some military executions ; so that he could only be chid for the manner
of it.
But, as if this had been nothing, Jefferies was sent the western circuit to try the prisoners.
His behaviour was beyond anything that was ever heard of in a civilized nation. He was
perpetually either drunk or in a rage, more like a fury than the zeal of a judge. He required
the prisoners to plead guilty : and in that case he gave them some hope of favour, if they
gave him no trouble ; otherwise he told them he would execute the letter of the law upon
them in its utmost severity. This made many plead guilty who had a great defence in law.
But he shewed no mercy. He ordered a great many to be hanged up immediately, without
allowing them a minute's time to say their prayers. He hanged in several places about six
hundred persons. The greatest part of these were of the meanest sort and of no distinction.
The impieties with which he treated them, and his behaviour towards some of the nobility
and gentry that were well affected, but came and pleaded in favour of some prisoners, would
have amazed one if done by a bashaw in Turkey. England had never known anything like
it. The instances are too many to be reckoned upt.
favour of William the Third, was created by him earl + A very particular and impartial account of this whole-
Tankerville and viscount Grey of Glendale. This was sale murdering is given by Mr. Woolrych in his "Life of
in 1695, and soon after he was appointed first lord-corn- Jeffreys."
missioner of the treasury, and lord privy-seal. He died In his dying hours he was attended by Dr. Scot, a
in 1701. His " Secret History of the Rye-house Plot" very reputable clergyman of the period. Scot reminded
was published in 1754.  Grainger. him of what was reported of his cruelties in the west;
* Piercy Kirke, in 1680, was colonel of the 4th regi- Jeffrevs thanked him for the suggestion, and added, with
ment of foot. Ironically they were called "Kirke's emotion, " Whatever 1 did then, I did by express orders;
Lambs." " and I have this to say farther for myself, that I was not half

4J6 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
But that which brought all his excesses to be imputed to the king himself, and to the
orders given by him, was, that the king had a particular account of all his proceedings written
to him every day. And he took pleasure to relate them in the drawing-room to foreign
ministers, and at his table, calling it " Jeffreys's campaign;" speaking of all he had done m
a style that neither became the majesty nor the mercifulness of a great prince. Dykfield
was at that time in England, one of the ambassadors whom the States had sent over to con
gratulate the king's coming to the crown. He told me that the king talked so often of these
things in his hearing, that he wondered to see him break out into those indecencies. And upon
Jeffreys's coming back, he was created a baron, and peer of England : a dignity which,
though anciently some judges were raised to it, yet in these later ages, as there was no
example of it, so it was thought inconsistent with the character of a judge.
Two executions were of such an extraordinary nature, that they deserve a more particular
recital. The king apprehended that many of the prisoners had got into London, and were
concealed there ; so he said those who concealed them were the worst sort of traitors, who
endeavoured to preserve such persons to a better time. He had likewise a great mind to
find out any among the rich merchants, who might afford great compositions to save their
lives ; for though there was much blood shed, there was little booty got to reward those who
had served. Upon this the king declared he would sooner pardon the rebels, than those who
harboured them.
There was in London one Gaunt, a woman that was an anabaptist, who spent a great part
of her life in acts of charity, visiting the gaols, and looking after the poor of what persuasion
soever they were. One of the rebels found her out, and she harboured him in her house :
and was looking for an occasion of sending him out of the kingdom. He went about in the
night, and came to hear what the king had said So he, by an unheard of baseness, went and
delivered himself, and accused her that harboured him. She was seized on and tried. There
was no witness to prove that she knew that the person she harboured was a rebel but he
himself; her maid witnessed only that he was entertained at her house. But though the
crime was her harbouring a traitor, and was proved only by this infamous witness, yet the
judge charged the jury to bring her in guilty, pretending that the maid was a second witness,
though she knew nothing of that which was the criminal part. She was condemned, and
burnt, as the law directs in the case of women convicted of treason. She died with a con
stancy, even to a cheerfulness, that struck all that saw it. She said, charity was a part of
her religion, as well as faith ; this at worst was the feeding an enemy ; so she hoped she had
her reward with him, for whose sake she did this service, how unworthy soever the person
was, that made so ill a return for it. She rejoiced that God had honoured her to be the first
that suffered by fire in this reign ; and that her suffering was a martyrdom for that religion
which was all love. Penn, the quaker, told me he saw her die. She laid the straw about
her for burning her speedily, and behaved herself in such a manner that all the spectators
melted in tears.
The other execution was of a woman of greater quality — the lady Lisle. Her husband
had been a regicide, and was one of Cromwell's lords, and was called the lord Lisle. He
went at the time of the Restoration beyond sea, and lived at Lausanne. But three desperate
Irishmen, hoping by such a service to make their fortunes, went thither, and killed him as
he was going to church ; and being well mounted, and ill pursued, got into France. His
lady was known to be much affected with the king's death, and not easily reconciled to her
husband for the share he had in it. She was a woman of great piety and charity. The
night after the action, Hicks, a violent preacher among the dissenters, and Nelthorp, came
to her house. She knew Hicks, and treated him civilly, not asking from whence they came.
But Hicks told what brought them thither ; for they had been with the duke of Monmouth.
Upon wliich she went out of the room immediately, and ordered her chief servant to send an
information concerning them to the next justice of peace, and in the meanwhile to suffer
bloody enough for him who sent me thither." Mr. true ; but if James was a sanguinary monster, is that any
speaker Onslow had this from sir J. Jekyl, to whom it excuse for Jeffreys being the ruffianly instrument to gra-
was told by lord Somers, who heard it from Scot himself, tify his thirst for revenge, and for outraging the laws of
— (Oxford ed. of this work.) This may be, probably is, our nature, and of our country ?
t '

OF KING JAMES II. 417
them to make their escape. But, before this could be done, a party came about the house,
and took both them, and her for harbouring them. Jeffreys resolved to make a sacrifice of
her, and obtained of the king a promise that he would not pardon her. Which the king
owned to the earl of Feversham, when he, upon the offer of 1000/. if ho could obtain her
pardon, went and begged it*. So she was brought to her trial. No legal proof was brought
that she knew that they were rebels : the names of the persons found in her house were in
no proclamation : so there was no notice given to beware of them. Jeffreys affirmed to the
jury, upon his honour, that the persons had confessed that they had been with the duke of
Monmouth. This was the turning a witness against her, after which he ought not to have
judged in the matter. And, though it was insisted on, as a point of law, that till the per
sons found in her house were convicted, she could not be found guilty, yet Jeffreys charged
the jury in a most violent manner to bring her in guilty. All the audience was strangely
affected with so unusual a behaviour in a judge. Only the person most concerned, the lady
herself, who was then past seventy, was so little moved at it that she fell asleep. The jury
brought her in not guilty. But the judge in great fury sent them out again. Yet they
brought her in a second time not guilty. Then he seemed as in a transport of rage. He
upon that threatened them with an attaint of jury. And they, overcome with fear, brought
her in the third time guilty. The king would show no other favour, but that he changed
the sentence from burning to beheading. She died with great constancy of mind; and
expressed a joy that she thus suffered for an act of charity and piety.
Most of those that had suffered expressed at their death such a calm firmness, and such a
zeal for their religion, which they believed was then in danger, that it made great impres
sions on the spectators. Some base men among them tried to save themselves by accusing
others. Goodenough f, who had been under-sheriff of London, when Cornish was sheriff,
offered to swear against Cornish ; and also said, that Rumsey had not discovered all he
knew. So Rumsey, to save himself, joined with Goodenough, to swear Cornish guilty of
that for which the lord Russel had suffered. And this was driven on so fast, that Cornish
was seized on, tried, and executed within the week. If he had got a little time, the false
hood of the evidence would have been proved from Rumsey's former deposition, which
appeared so clearly soon after his death, that his estate was restored to his family, and the
witnesses were lodged in remote prisons for their lives. Cornish, at his death, asserted his
innocence with great vehemence ; and with some acrimony complained of the methods taken
to destroy him. And so they gave it out, that he died in a fit of fury. But Pen, who saw
the execution, said to me, there appeared nothing but a just indignation that innocence might
very naturally give. Pen might be well relied on in such matters, he being so entirely in
the king's interests. He said to me, the king was much to be pitied, who was hurried into
all this effusion of blood by Jeffreys's impetuous and cruel temper. But, if his own inclina
tions had not been biased that way, and if his priests had not thought it the interest of their
party to let that butcher loose, by which so many men that were like to oppose them were
put out of the way, it is not to be imagined, that there would have been such a run of
barbarous cruelty, and that in so many instances.
It gave a general horror to the body of the nation : and it let all people see, what might be
expected from a reign that seemed to delight in blood. Even some of the fairest of torics
began to relent a little, and to think they had trusted too much, and gone too far. The king
had raised new regiments, and had given commissions to papists. This was overlooked
during the time of danger, in which all men's service was to be made use of : and by law
they might serve three months. But now, as that time was near lapsing, the king began to
say, the laws for the two tests were made on design against himself : the first was made to
turn him out of the admiralty, and the second to make way for the exclusion ; and, he
added, that it was an affront to him to insist on the observance of those laws. So these
* This is denied by Macpherson ; but, another defender f Dean Swift has related that this wretch retired aftor-
of the Stuarts, the author of "the Caveat," admits its wards to Ireland, where he practised as an attorney, and
truth, and adds, that the ladies St. John and Abergavenny died there.. — Oxford edition of this work.
asked of James a one day's reprieve for her in vain ! —
Woolrych's life of Jeffreys, 195,

418 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
persons, notwithstanding that act, were continued in commission ; and the king declared
openly, that he must look on all those who would not consent to the repeal of those laws,
in the next session of parliament, as his enemies.
The courtiers began everywhere to declaim against them. It was said to be against the
rights of the crown to deny the king the service of all his subjects, to be contrary to the
dignity of peerage to subject peers to any other tests than their allegiance, and that it was
an insufferable affront done the king, to oblige all those whom he should employ, to swear
that his religion was idolatrous. On the other hand all the people saw, that, if those acts
were not maintained, no employment would be given to any but papists, or to those who
gave hopes that they would change : and, if the parliament test was taken off, then the
way was opened to draw over so many members of both houses, as would be in time a
majority, to bring on an entire change of the laws with relation to religion. As long as the
nation reckoned their kings were true, and sure to their religion, there was no such need of
those tests, while the giving employments was left free, and our princes were like to give
them only to those of their own religion. But since we had a prince professing another reli
gion, it seemed the only security that was left to the nation, and that the tests stood as a
barrier to defend us from popery. It was also said, that those tests had really quieted the
minds of the greater part of the nation, and had united them against the exclusion ; since
they reckoned their religion was safe by reason of them. The military men went in zealously
into those notions : for they saw, that, as soon as the king should get rid of the tests, they
must either change their religion, or lose their employments. The clergy, who for most part
had hitherto run in with fury to all the king's interests, began now to open their eyes. Thus
all on a sudden the temper of the nation was much altered. The marquis of Halifax did
move in council, that an order should be given to examine, whether all the officers in com
mission had taken the test, or not. But none seconded him : so the motion fell. And now
all endeavours were used, to fix the repeal of the tests in tho session that was coming on.
Some few converts were made at this time. The chief of these were the earl of Perth and
his brother, the earl of Melfort. Some differences fell in between the duke of Queensborough
and the earl of Perth. The latter thought the former was haughty and violent, and that he
used him in too imperious a manner. So they broke. At that time the king published the
two papers found in his brother's strong box. So the earl of Perth was either overcome
with the reasons in them, or he thought it would look well at court, if he put his conversion
upon these. He came up to complain of the duke of Queensborough. And his brother
going to meet him at Ware, he discovered his designs to him, who seemed at first much
troubled at it ; but he plied him so, that he prevailed on him to join with him in his pre
tended conversion, which he did with great shows of devotion and zeal. But when his
objections to the duke of Queensborough's administration were heard, they were so slight,
that the king was ashamed of them : and all the court justified the duke of Queensborough.
A repartee of the marquis of Halifax was much talked of on this occasion. The earl of Perth
was taking pains to convince him that he had just grounds of complaint, and seemed little
concerned in the ill effect this might have on himself. The marquis answered him, he needed
fear nothing, " His faith would make him whole :" and it proved so.
Before he declared his change, the king seemed so well satisfied with the duke of Queens
borough, that he was resolved to bring the earl of Pertli to a submission, otherwise to dismiss
him. So the king, having declared himself too openly to recall that so soon, ordered them
both to go back to Scotland ; and said he would signify his pleasure to them when- they
should be there. It followed them down very quickly. The duke of Queensborough was
turned out of the treasury, and it was put in commission ; and he, not to be too much
irritated at once, was put first in the commission. And now it became soon very visible,
that he had the secret no more ; but that it was lodged between the two brothers the earls
of Perth and Melfort. Soon after that the duke of Queensborough was not only turned out
of all his employments, but a design was laid to ruin him. All persons were encourao-ed to
bring accusations against him, either with relation to the administration of the government
or of the treasury. And, if any colourable matter could have been found against him it was
resolved to have made him a sacrifice. This sudden hatred, after so entire a confidence was

OF KING JAMES II. 419
imputed to the suggestions the earl of Perth had made of his zeal against popery, and of his
having engaged all his friends to stick firm in opposition to it. It was said, there was no
need of making such promises, as he had engaged the king to make to the parliament of
Scotland. Nobody desired or expected them : he only drove that matter on his own account :
so it was fit to let all about the king see, what was to be looked for, if they pressed anything
too severely with relation to religion.
But to leave Scotland, and return to England. The king, after he had declared that he
would be served by none but those who would vote for the repeal of the tests, called for the
marquis of Halifax, and asked him how he would vote in that matter. He very frankly
answered, he would never consent to it : he thought the keeping up those laws was neces
sary, even for the king's service, since the nation trusted so much to them, that the public
quiet was chiefly preserved by that means. Upon this the king told him, that though he
would never forget past services, yet since he could not be prevailed on in that particular,
he was resolved to have all of a piece. So he was turned out. And the earl of Sunderland
was made lord president, and continued still secretary of state. More were not questioned at
that time, nor turned out ; for it was hoped that, since all men saw what was to be expected,
if they should not comply with the king's intentions, this would have its full effect upon
those who had no mind to part with their places.
The king resolved also to model Ireland, so as to make that kingdom a nursery for his army
in England, and to be sure at least of an army there, while his designs were to go on more
slowly in the isle of Britain. The Irish bore an inveterate hatred to the duke of Ormond :
so he was recalled. But, to dismiss him with some show of respect, he was still continued
lord Steward of the household. The earl of Clarendon was declared lord-lieutenant. But the
army was put under the command of Talbot, who was made earl of Tirconnel*. And he
began very soon to model it anew. The archbishop of Armagh had continued lord chancellor
of Ireland, and was in all points so compliant to the court, that even his religion came to be
suspected on that account. Yet, it seemed, he was not thought thorough paced. So sir
Charles Porter, who was a zealous promoter of everything that the king proposed, and was a
man of ready wit, and being poor was thought a person fit to be made a tool of, was declared
lord chancellor of Ireland. To these the king said he was resolved to maintain the settlement
of Ireland. They had authority to promise this, and to act pursuant to it. But, as both
the earl of Clarendon and Porter were poor, it was hoped that they would understand the
king's intentions, and see through those promises, that were made only to lay men asleep ;
and that therefore they would not insist too much on them, nor pursue them too far.
But now, before I come to relate the short session of parliament, that was abruptly broken
off, I must mention one great transaction that went before it, and had no small influence on
all men's minds. And since I saw that dismal tragedy, which was at this time acted in
France, I must now change the scene, and give some account of myself. When I resolved
to go beyond sea, there was no choice to be made. So many exiles and outlawed persons
were scattered up and down the towns of Holland and other provinces, that I saw the danger
of going where I was sure many of them would come about me, and try to have involved
me in guilt by coming into my company, that so they might engage me into their designs.
So I resolved to go to France : and, if I found it not convenient to stay there, I intended to
go on to Geneva, or Switzerland. I asked the French ambassador if I might be safe there.
He, after some days, I suppose after he had written to the court upon it, assured me I
should be safe there ; and that, if the king should ask after me, timely notice should be given
me, that I might go out of the way. So I went to Paris. And there being many there
whom I had reason to look on as spies, I took a little house, and lived by myself as privately
as I could. I continued there till the beginning of August, when I went to Italy. I found
the earl of Montague at Paris, with whom I conversed much, and got from him most of the
secrets of the court, and of the negotiations he was engaged in. The king of France had been
for many years weakening the whole protestant interest there, and was then upon the last
* It is upon the affairs of Ireland, at this period, that Singer's Clarendon Correspondence affords its most useful
information.
ee2

420 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
resolution of recalling the edict of Nantes. And, as far as I could judge, the affairs of
England gave the last stroke to that matter.
This year, of which I am now writing, must ever be remembered as the most fatal to the
protestant religion. In Febraary, a king of England declared himself a papist. In June,
Charles the elector palatine dying without issue, the electoral dignity went to the house of
Newburgh, a most bigotted popish family. In October, the king of France recalled and
vacated the edict of Nantes*. And in December, the duke of Savoy being brought to it,
not only by the persuasions, but even by the threatenings of the court of France, recalled the
edict that his father had granted to the Vaudois. So it must be confessed, that this was a
very critical year. And I have ever reckoned this the fifth great crisis of the protestant
religion. For some years the priests were everywhere making conversions in France. The hopes of
pensions and preferments wrought on many. The plausible colours that the bishop of Meaux,
then bishop of Condom, put on all the errors of the church of Rome, furnished others with
excuses for changing. Many thought they must change at last, or be quite undone ; for the
king seemed to be engaged to go through with the matter, both in compliance with the
shadow of conscience that he seemed to have, which was to follow implicitly the conduct of
his confessor, and of the archbishop of Paris, he himself being ignorant in those matters beyond
what can be well imagined ; and because his glory seemed also concerned to go through with
everything that he had once begun.
Old Rouvigny, who was the deputy general of the churches, told me that he was long
deceived in his opinion of the king. He knew he was not naturally bloody. He saw his
gross ignorance in those matters. His bigotry could not rise from any inward principle. So
for many years he flattered himself with the hopes, that the design would go on so slowly,
that some unlooked for accident might defeat it. But after the peace of Nimeguen (in 1678),
he saw such steps made with so much precipitation, that he told the king he must beg a full
audience of him upon that subject. He gave him one that lasted some hours. He came
well prepared. He told him what the state of France was during the wars in his father's
reign : how happy France had been now for fifty years, occasioned chiefly by the quiet it
was in with relation to those matters. He gave him an account of their numbers, their
industry and wealth, their constant readiness to advance the revenue, and that all the quiet
he had with the court of Rome was chiefly owing to them : if they were rooted out, the
court of Rome would govern as absolutely in France as it did in Spain. He desired leave to
undeceive him, if he was made believe they would all change, as soon as he engaged his
authority in the matter : many would go out of the kingdom, and carry their wealth and
industry into other countries. And by a scheme of particulars he reckoned how far that
would go. In fine, he said, it would come to the shedding of much blood : many would
suffer, and others would be precipitated into desperate courses. So that the most glorious
of all reigns would be in conclusion disfigured and defaced, and become a scene of blood and
horror. He told me, as he went through these matters, the king seemed to hearken to him
very attentively. But he perceived they made no impression : for the king never asked any
particulars, or any explanation, but let him go on. And, when he had ended, the king said
he took his freedom well, since it flowed from his zeal to his service. He believed all that
he had told him of the prejudice it might do him in his affairs : only he thought, it would
not go to the shedding of blood. But he said, he considered himself as so indispensably
bound to endeavour the conversion of all his subjects, and the extirpation of heresy, that if
the doing it should require that with one hand he should cut off the other, he would submit
to that. After this Rouvigny gave all his friends hints of what they were to look for. Some
were for flying out into a new civil war. But, their chief confidence being in the assistance
they expected from England, he, who knew what our princes were, and had reason to believe
that king Charles was at least a cold protestant, if not a secret papist, and knew that the States
would not embroil their affairs in assisting them, their maxims rather leading them to connive
* The Edict of Nantes was issued by Henry the Fourth, of France, in 1598. Modieim, in his Ecclesiastical
History, gives a detail of its clauses, and of the events which elicited it.

OF KING JAMES II. 42i
at anything that would bring great numbers and much wealth into their country than to
oppose it, was against all motions of that kind. He reckoned those risings would be soon
crushed, and so would precipitate their ruin with some colour of justice. He was much
censured for this by some hot men among them, as having betrayed them to the court. But
he was very unjustly blamed, as appeared both by his own conduct, and by his son's ; who
was received at first into the survivance of being deputy general for the churches, and after
wards, at his father's desire, had that melancholy post given him, in which he daily saw new
injustices done, and was only suffered, for form's sake, to inform against them, but with no
hope of success *.
The father did, upon King Charles's death, write a letter of congratulation to the king,
who wrote him such an obliging answer, that upon it he wrote to his niece the Lady Russel,
that, having such assurances given him by the king of a high sense of his former services, he
resolved to come over, and beg the restoring her son's honour f . The Marquis of Halifax
did presently apprehend, that this was a blind, and that the king of France was sending
him over to penetrate into the king's designs ; since from all hands intimations were brought
of the promises, that he made to the ministers of the other princes of Europe. So I was
ordered to use all endeavours to divert him from coming over : his niece had indeed begged
that journey of him, when she hoped it might have saved her husband's life, but she would
not venture to desire the journey on any other consideration, considering his great age, and
that her son was then but five years old. I pressed this so much on him, that, finding him
fixed in his resolution, I could not hinder myself from suspecting, that such a high act of
friendship, in a man some years past fourscore, had somewhat under it : and it was said,
that, when he took leave of the king of France, he had an audience of two hours of him.
But this was a false suggestion : and I was assured afterwards that he came over only in
friendship to his niece, and that he had no directions nor messages from the court of France.
He came over, and had several audiences of the king, who used him with great kindness,
but did not grant him that which he said he came for ; only he gave him a general promise
of doing it in a proper time.
But whether the court of France was satisfied by the conversation that Rouvigny had
with the king, that they needed apprehend nothing from England ; or whether the king's being
now so settled on the throne made them conclude that the time was come of repealing the
edicts, is not certain. M. de Louvoy, seeing the king so set on the matter, proposed to him a
method which he believed would shorten the work, and do it effectually : which was to let
loose some bodies of dragoons to live upon the protestants on discretion. They were put
under no restraint, but only to avoid rapes and the killing them. This was begun in Beam.
And the people were so struck with it, that, seeing they were to be eat up first, and, if that
prevailed not, to be cast in prison, when all was taken from them, till they should change,
and being required only to promise to reunite themselves to the church, they, overcome with
fear and having no time for consulting together, did universally comply. This did so animate
the court, that, upon it the same methods were taken in most places of Guienne, Languedoc,
and Dauphine, where the greatest numbers of the protestants were. A dismal consternation
and feebleness ran through most of them, so that great numbers yielded. Upon which the
king, now resolved to go through with what had been long projected, published the edict
repealing the edict of Nantes, in which (though that edict was declared to be a perpetual
and irrevocable law,) he set forth, that it was only intended to quiet matters by it, till more
effectual ways should be taken for the conversion of Heretics. He also promised in it, that,
though all the public exercises of that religion were now suppressed, yet those of that per
suasion who lived quietly should not be disturbed on that account, while at the same time
not only the dragoons, but all the clergy and the bigots of France, broke out into all the
instances of rage and fury, against such as did not change upon their being required in the
king's name to be of his religion : for that was the style everywhere.
Men and women, of all ages, who would not yield, were not only stripped of all they had,
but kept long from sleep, driven about from place to place, and hunted out of their retire-
* Henry Rouvigne will be frequently noticed in future pages as earl of Galw:iy.
•j- Lord Russel was his great-nephew.

422 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
ments. The women were carried into nunneries, in many of which they were almost starved,
whipped, and barbarously treated. Some few of the bishops, and of the secular clergy, to
make the matter easier, drew formularies, importing that they were resolved to reunite them
selves to the catholic church, and that they renounced the errors of Luther and Calvin.
People in such extremities are easy to put a stretched sense on any words, that may give
them present relief. So it was said, what harm was it to promise to be united to the catholic
church : and the renouncing those men's errors did not renounce their good and sound doc
trine. But it was very visible with what intent those subscriptions or promises were asked
of them : so their compliance in that matter was a plain equivocation. But, how weak and
faulty soever they might be in this, it must be acknowledged here was one of the most violent
persecutions that is to be found in history. In many respects it exceeded them all, both in
the several inventions of cruelty, and in its long continuance. I went over the greatest part
of France while it was in its hottest rage, from Marseilles to Montpelier,. and from thence to
Lyons, and so to Geneva. I saw and knew so many instances of their injustice and violence,
that it exceeded even what could have been well imagined ; for all men set their thoughts
at work, to invent new methods of cruelty. In all the towns through which I passed, I
heard the most dismal account of those things possible ; but chiefly at Valence, where one
Derapine seemed to exceed even the furies of inquisitors. One in the streets could have
known the new converts, as they were passing by them, by a cloudy dejection that appeared
in their looks and deportment. Such as endeavoured to make their escape, and were seized,
(for guards and secret agents were spread along the whole roads and frontier of France,)
were, if men, condemned to the galleys, and, if women, to monasteries. To complete this
cruelty, orders were given that such of the new converts as did not at their death receive the
sacrament, should be denied burial, and that their bodies should be left where other dead
carcases were cast out, to be devoured by wolves, or dogs. This was executed in several
places with the utmost barbarity : and it gave all people so much horror, that, finding the
ill effect of it, it was let fall. This hurt none, but struck all that saw it, even with more
horror than those sufferings that were more felt. The fury that appeared on this occasion
did spread itself with a sort of contagion : for the intendants and other officers that had been
mild and gentle in the former parts of their life seemed now to have laid aside the compassion
of christians, the breeding of gentlemen, and the common impressions of humanity. The
greatest part of the clergy, the regulars especially, were so transported with the zeal that
their king showed on this occasion, that their sermons were full of the most inflamed
eloquence that they could invent, magnifying their king in strains too indecent and blas
phemous, to be mentioned by me.
I staid at Paris till the beginning of August. Barrillon sent to me to look to myself ; for
the king had let some words fall importing his suspicion of me, as concerned in the duke of
Monmouth's business. Whether this was done on design to see if such an insinuation could
fright me away, and so bring me under some appearance of guilt, I cannot tell : for in that
time everything was deceitfully managed. But I, who knew that I was not so much as
guilty of concealment, resolved not to stir from Paris till the rebellion was over, and that
the prisoners were examined and tried. When that was done, Stouppe, a brigadier-general,
told me that M. de Louvoy had said to him, that the king was resolved to put an end to the
business of the Huguenots that season : and since he was resolved not to change, he advised
him to make a tour into Italy, that he might not seem to do anything that opposed the
king's service. Stouppe told me this in confidence. So we resolved to make that journey
together. Some thought it was too bold an adventure in me, after what I had written and
acted in the matters of religion, to go to Rome. But others, who judged better, thought I
ran no hazard in going thither • for, besides the high civility, with which all strangers are
treated there, they were at that time in such hopes of gaining Eno-land, that it was not
reasonable to think that they would raise the apprehensions of the nation, by using any that
belonged to it ill : and the destroying me would not do them the service that could in any
sort balance the prejudice that might arise from the noise it would make. And indeed I met
with so high a civility at Rome, that it fully justified this opinion.
Pope Innocent the Eleventh, Odescalchi, knew who I was the day after I came to Rome.

OF KING JAMES II. 423
And he ordered the captain of the Swiss guards to tell Stouppe that he had heard of me,
and would give me a private audience a-bed, to save me from the ceremony of the pantoufle*!
But I knew the noise that this would make, so I resolved to avoid it, and excused it upon
my speaking Italian so ill as I did. But cardinal Howard and the cardinal d'Estrees treated
me with great freedom. The latter talked much with me concerning the orders of our
church, to know whether they had been brought down to us by men truly ordained or not ;
for, he said, they apprehended things would be much more easily brought about, if our orders
could be esteemed valid, though given in heresy and schism. I told him, I was glad they
were not possessed with any opinion that made the reconciliation more difficult ; but, as for
the matter of fact, nothing was more certain than that the ordinations in the beginninc of
queen Elizabeth's reign were canonical and regular. He seemed to be persuaded of the truth
of this, but lamented that it was impossible to bring the Romans to think so.
Cardinal Howard showed me all his letters from England, by which I saw that those who
wrote to him reckoned, that their designs were so well laid that they could not miscarry.
They thought they should certainly carry everything in the next session of parliament. There
was a high strain of insolence in their letters : and they reckoned, they were so sure of the
king, that they seemed to have no doubt left of their succeeding in the reduction of England.
The Romans and Italians were much troubled at all this : for they were under such appre
hensions of the growth of the French power, and had conceived such hopes of the king of
England's putting a stop to it, that they were sorry to see the king engage himself so in the
design of changing the religion of his subjects, which they thought would create him so much
trouble at home, that he would neither have leisure, nor strength, to look after the common
concerns of Europe. The cardinal told me, that all the advices written over from thence to
England were for slow, calm, and moderate courses. He said, he wished he was at liberty
to show me the copies of them ; but he saw more violent courses were more acceptable, and
would probably be followed. And he added, that these were the production of England, far
different from the counsels of Rome.
He also told me, that they had not instruments enough to work with : for, though they
were sending over all that were capable of the mission, yet he expected no great matters from
them. Few of them spoke true English. They came over young, and retained all the
English that they brought over with them, which was only the language of boys ; but, their
education being among strangers, they had formed themselves so upon that model, that really
they preached as Frenchmen, or Italians, in English words : of which he was every day
warning them, for he knew this could have no good effect in England. He also spoke with
great sense of the proceedings in France, which he apprehended would have very ill conse
quences in England. I shall only add one other particular, which will show the soft temper
of that good natured man.
He used me in such a manner, that it was much observed by many others. So two French
gentlemen desired a note from me to introduce them to him. Their design was to be
furnished with reliques ; for he was then the cardinal that looked after that matter. One
evening I came in to him as he was very busy in giving them some reliques. So I was called
in to see them : and I whispered to him in English, that it was somewhat odd that a priest
of the church of England should be at Rome, helping them off with the ware of Babylon.
He was so pleased with this, that he repeated it to the others in French ; and told the
Frenchmen, that they should tell their countrymen how bold the heretics, and how mild the
cardinals, were, at Rome.
I staid in Rome till prince Borghese came to me, and told me it was time for me to go.
I had got great acquaintance there. And, though I did not provoke any to discourse of
points of controversy, yet I defended myself against all those who attacked me with the
same freedom that I had done in other places. This began to be taken notice of. So upon
the first intimation I came away, and returned by Marseilles. And then I went through
those southern provinces of France, that were at that time a scene of barbarity and
cruelty. I intended to have gone to Orange ; but Tesse, with a body of dragoons, was then quar-
* Kissing his foot, or slipper.

424 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
tored over that small principality, and was treating the protestants there in the same manner
that the French subjects were treated in other parts. So I went not in, but passed near it,
and had this account of that matter from some that were the most considerable men of the
principality. Many inhabitants of the neighbouring places fled thither from the persecution :
upon wliich a letter was written to the government there, in the name of the king of France,
requiring them to put all his subjects out of their territory. This was hard. Yet they were
too naked, and exposed, to dispute anything with those who could command everything.
So they ordered all the French to withdraw. Upon which Tesse, who commanded in those
parts, wrote to them, that the king would be well satisfied with the obedience they had
given his orders. They upon this were quiet, and thought there was no danger. But the
next morning Tesse marched his dragoons into the town, and let them loose upon them, as he
had done upon the subjects of France. And they plied as feebly as most of the French had
done. This was done while that principality was in the possession of the prince of Orange,
pursuant to an article of the treaty of Nimeguen, of which the king of England was the
guarantee. Whether the French had the king's consent to this, or if they presumed upon
it, was not known. It is certain, he ordered two memorials to be given in at that court,
complaining of it in very high terms. But nothing followed on it. And, some months after,
the king of France did unite Orange to the rest of Provence, and suppressed all the rights
it had as a distinct principality. The king-wrote upon it to the princess of Orange, that he
could do no more in that matter, unless he should declare war upon it ; which he could not
think fit for a thing of such small importance.
But now the session of parliament drew on. And there was a great expectation of the
issue of it. For some weeks before it met there was such a number of refugees coming over
every day, who set about a most dismal recital of the persecution in France, and that in so
many instances that were crying and odious, that, though all endeavours were used to lessen
the clamour this had raised, yet the king did not stick openly to condemn it, as both
unchristian and unpolitic. He took pains to clear the Jesuits of it, and laid the blame of it
chiefly on the king, on madame de Maintenon, and the archbishop of Paris. He spoke often
of it with such vehemence, that there seemed to be an affectation in it. He did more. He
was very kind to the refugees. He was liberal to many of them. He ordered a brief for a
charitable collection over the nation for them all : upon which great sums were sent in.
They were deposited in good hands, and well distributed. The king also ordered them to Le
denizened without paying the fees, and gave them great immunities. So that in all there
came over first and last, between forty and fifty thousand of that nation. Here was such a
real instance of the cruel and persecuting spirit of popery, wheresoever it prevailed, that few
could resist this conviction. So that all men confessed that the French persecution came
very seasonably to awaken the nation, and open men's eyes in so critical a conjuncture : for
upon this session of parliament all did depend.
When it was opened, the king told them how happy his forces had been in reducing a
dangerous rebellion, in which it had appeared how weak and insignificant the militia was :
and therefore he saw the necessity of keeping up an army for all their security. He had
put some in commission of whose loyalty he was well assured : and they had served him so
well that he would not put that affront on them, and on himself, to turn them out. He told
them, all the world saw, and they had felt the happiness of a good understanding between
him and -his parliament : so he hoped nothing should be done on their part to interrupt it, as
he, on his own part, would observe all that he had promised.
Thus he fell upon the two most unacceptable points that he could have found out ; which
were, a standing army, and a violation of the act of the test. There were some debates in
the house of lords about thanking the king for his speech. It was pressed by the courtiers,
as a piece of respect that was always paid. To this some answered, that was done when
there were gracious assurances given. Only the earl of Devonshire said, he was for giving
thanks, beoause the king had spoken out so plainly, and warned them of what they might
look for. It was carried in the house to make an address of thanks for the speech. The
lord Guilford, North, was now dead. He was a crafty and designing man. He had no
mind to part with the great seal ; and yet he saw, he could not hold it without an entire

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IliOll THE ORIGINAL OF RILEY, IK" THE COLLECTION OF
THE KIGHT IIO.V" THE EAKL OF GI'lLDFORD,
OF KING JAMES II. 425
compliance with the pleasure of the court. An appeal against a decree of his had been
brought before the lords in the former session; and it was not only reversed with many
severe reflections on him that made it, but the earl of Nottingham, who hated him, because
he had endeavoured to detract from his father's memory, had got together so many instances
of his ill administration of justice, that he exposed him severely for it. And, it was believed,
that gave the crisis to the uneasiness and distraction of mind he was labouring under. He
languished for some time ; and died despised, and ill thought of by the whole nation *.
Nothing but his successor made him be remembered with regret : for Jeffreys had the
seals. He had been made a peer while he was chief justice, which had not been done for
some ages ; but he affected to be an original in every thing. A day or two after the session
was opened, the lords went upon the consideration of the king's speech ; and, when some
began to make remarks upon it, they were told, that by giving thanks for the speech, they
had precluded themselves from finding fault with any part of it. This was rejected with
indignation, and put an end to that compliment of giving thanks for a speech, when there
was no special reason for it. The lords Halifax, Nottingham, and Mordaunt, were the chief
arguers among the temporal lords. The bishop of London (Compton) spoke often likewise :
and twice or thrice he said, he spoke not only his own sense, but the sense of that whole
bench. They said, the Test was now the best fence they had for their religion : if they gave
up so great a point, all the rest would soon follow ; and if the king might by his authority
supersede such a law, fortified with so many clauses, and above all with that of an incapacity,
it was in vain to think of law any more : the government would become arbitrary and abso
lute. Jeffreys began to argue in his rough manner ; but he was soon taken down ; it appear
ing, that how furiously soever he raved on the bench, where he played the tyrant, yet where
others might speak with him on equal terms, he was a very contemptible man : and he
received as great a mortification, as such a brutal man was capable of.
But as the scene lay in the house of commons, so the debates there were more important.
A project was offered for making the militia more useful in order to the disbanding the army.
But, to oppose that, the court shewed, how great a danger we had lately escaped, and how
much of an ill leaven yet remained in the nation, so that it was necessary a force should be
kept up. The court moved for a subsidy, the king having been at much extraordinary charge
in reducing the late rebellion. Many, that were resolved to assert the business of the Test
with great firmness, thought, the voting of money first was the decentest way of managing
the opposition to the court : whereas others opposed this, having often observed, that the
voting of money was the giving up the whole session to the court. The court wrought on
many weak men with this topic, that the only way to g'-un the king, and to dispose him to
agree to them in the business of the Test, was to begin with the supply. This had so great
an effect, that it was carried only by one vote to consider the king's speech, before they should
proceed to the supply -f. It was understood, that when they received satisfaction, in other
things, they were resolved to give five hundred thousand pounds.
They went next to consider the act about the Test, and the violations of it, with the king's
speech upon that head. The reasoning was clear and full on the one hand. The court offered
nothing on the other hand in the way of argument, but the danger of offending the king,
and of raising a misunderstanding between him and them. So the whole house went unani
mously into a vote for an address to the king, that he would maintain the laws, in particular
that concerning the test. But with that they offered to pass a bill, for indemnifying those
who had broken that law ; and were ready to have considered them in the supply that they
intended to give.
The king expressed his resentments of this with much vehemence, when the address was
brought to him. He said, some men intended to disturb the good correspondence that was
between him and them, which would be a great prejudice to the nation : he had declared
* This is, totis verbis, differing fiom the character them. " Sir," said he to Captain Kendal, " do you not
given the lord keeper in his "Life'' by his brother, command a troop of horse in his majesty's service?" —
Mr. R. North. " Yes, my lord," replied the captain ; but my brother
t The Scotch earl of Middleton, then secretary of died last night, and has left me 7001. a year !" Mr.
state, seeing many go out to vote against the conrt who Speaker Onslow says he had this from his uncle, who was
were in its service, went down to the bar to reproach present. — Oxford ed.

426 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
his mind so positively in that matter, that he hoped they would not have meddled with it.
Yet, he said, he would still observe all the promises that he had made. This made some
reflect on the violations of the edict of Nantes, by many of the late edicts that were set out
in France, before the last that repealed it, in which the king of France had always declared,
that he would maintain that edict, even when the breaches made upon it were the most
visible and notorious. The house, upon this rough answer, was in a high fermentation. Yet,
when one Cook said, that they were Englishmen, and were not to be threatened, because this
seemed to be a want of respect, they sent him to the Tower ; and obliged him to ask pardon
for those indecent words. But they resolved to insist on their address, and then to proceed
upon the petitions concerning elections. And now those, that durst not open their mouth
before, spoke with much force upon this head. They said, it was a point upon which the
nation expected justice, and they had a right to claim it. And it was probable, they would
have condemned a great many elections; for an intimation was set round, that all those who
had stuck to the interest of the nation, in the main points then before them, should be chosen
over again, though it should be found that their election was void, and that a new writ
should go out. By this means those petitions were now encouraged, and were likely to have
a fair hearing, and a just decision : and it was believed, that the abject courtiers would have
been voted out.
The king saw that both houses were now so fixed, that he could carry nothing in either of
them, unless he would depart from his speech, and let the act of the test take place. So he
prorogued the parliament, and kept it by repeated prorogations still on foot for about a year
and a half, but without holding a session. All those who had either spoken, or voted, for
the test, were soon after this disgraced, and turned out of their places, though many of these
had served the king hitherto with great obsequiousness, and much zeal. He called for many
of them, and spoke to them very earnestly upon that subject in his closet : upon which the
term of closeting was much tossed about. Many of these gave him very flat and hardy
denials : others, though more silent, yet were no less steady : so that, when, after a long
practice both of threatening and ill usage on the one hand, and of promises and corruption
on the other, the king saw he could not bring them into a compliance with him, he at last
dissolved the parliament ; by wliich he threw off a body of men, that were in all other respects
sure to him, and that would have accepted a very moderate satisfaction from him at any
time. And, indeed, in all England it would not have been easy to have found five hundred
men so weak, so poor, and so devoted to the court, as these were. So happily was the nation
taken out of their hands by the precipitated violence of a bigoted court.
Soon after the prorogation, the lord Delamer was brought to his trial. Some witnesses
swore high treason against him only upon report, that he had designed to make a rebellion
in Cheshire, and to join with the duke of Monmouth. But, since those swore only upon
hearsay, that was no evidence in law. One witness swore home against him, and against
two other gentlemen, who, as he said, were in company with him ; and that treasonable
messages were then given to him by them all to carry to some others. That which gave the
greatest credit to the evidence was, that this lord had gone from London secretly to Cheshire,
at the time of the duke of Monmouth's landing, and that after he had stayed a day or two
in that county, he had come up as secretly to London. This looked suspicious, and made it
to be believed, that he went to try what could be done. The credit of that single witness
was overthrown by many unquestionable proofs, by which it appeared that the two gentle
men, who he said met with that lord in Cheshire, were all that while still in London. The
witness, to gain the more credit, had brought others into the plot, by the common fate of
false swearers, who bring in such circumstances to support their evidence, as they think will
make it more credible, but, being ill laid, give a handle to those concerned to find out their
falsehood. And that was the case of this witness ; for, though little doubt was made of the
truth of that which he swore against this lord, as to the main of his evidence, yet he had
added such a mixture of falsehood to it, as being fully proved, destroyed the evidence. As
for the secret journey to, and again between London and Cheshire, that lord said, he had been
long a prisoner in the Tower upon bare suspicion : he had no mind to be lodged' ao-ain there ;
so ho resolved in that time of jealousy to go out of the way : and hearino- thatTa child of

OF KING JAMES II. 427
wliich he was very fond, was sick in Cheshire, he went thither : and hearing from his lady
that his eldest son was very ill at London, he made haste back again. This was well proved
by his physicians and domestics, though it was a thing of very ill appearance, that he made
such journeys so quick and so secretly at such a time. The solicitor-general, Finch, pur
suant to the doctrine he had maintained in former trials, and perhaps to atone for the zeal ha
had shewed in the house of commons, for maintaining the act of the test, made a violent
declamation, to prove that one witness with presumptions was sufficient to convict one of
high treason. The peers did unanimously acquit the lord ; so that trial ended to the great
joy of the whole town ; which was now turned to be as much against the court, as it had
been of late years for it. Finch had been continued in his employment only to lay the load
of this judgment upon him ; and he acted his part in it with his usual vehemence. He was
presently after turned out : and Powis succeeded him, who was a compliant young aspiring
lawyer, though in himself he was no ill-natured man. Now the posts in the law began to
be again taken care of ; for it was resolved to act a piece of pageantry in Westminster-Hall,
with which the next year began.
Sir Edward Hales, a gentleman of a noble family in Kent, declared himself a papist,
though he had long disguised it ; and had once to myself so solemnly denied it, that I was
led from thence to see, there was no credit to be given to that sort of men, where their church,
or religion, was concerned. He had an employment ; and not taking the test, his coachman
was set up to inform against him, and to claim the 500Z. that the law gave to the informer.
When this was to be brought to trial, the judges were secretly asked their opinions ; and
such as were not clear, to judge as the court did direct, were turned out : and upon two, or
three, canvassings the half of them were dismissed, and others of more pliable and obedient
understandings were put in their places. Some of these were weak and ignorant to a scandal.
The suit went on in a feeble prosecution ; and in Trinity Term judgment was given.
There was a new chief justice found out, very different indeed from Jeffreys, sir Edward
Herbert. He was a well bred and a virtuous man, generous, and good-natured. He was
but an indifferent lawyer ; and had gone to Ireland to find practice and preferment there.
He unhappily got into a set of very high notions with relation to the king's prerogative.
His gravity and virtues gave him great advantages, chiefly his succeeding such a monster as
had gone before him. So he, being found to be a fit tool, was, without any application of
his own, raised up all at once to this high post *. After the coachman's cause had been
argued with a most indecent coldness, by those who were made use of on design to expose
and betray it, it was said, in favour of the prerogative, that the government of England
was entirely in the king : that the crown was an imperial crown, the importance of which
was, that it was absolute : all penal laws were powers lodged in the crown, to enable the
king to force the execution of the law, but were not bars to limit, or bind up, the king's
power : the king could pardon all offences against the law, and forgive the penalties ; and
why could not he as well dispense with them ? Acts of parliament had been often super
seded : the judges had sometimes given directions in their charges at circuits, to enquire
after some acts of parliament no more ; of which one late instance happened during the
* Sir Edward Herbert, born about 1646, was a younger having promised to he more complying in shedding blood !
brother of admiral Herbert, who will be next mentioned. — (Woolrych's Life of Jeffreys.) When James the
They were sons of sir Edward Herbert, knight, of London. Second abdicated, sir Edward followed him during his
He was of Winchester and New College. He took his exile, and was made by the ex-monarch earl of Portland,
bacheiors's degree in arts, and then became a student of and lord chancellor ; consequently he was excepted out of
the Middle Temple. He was successively attorney-general the bill of indemnity. His conduct as detailed above shews
in Ireland, and chief justice of Chester. In 1683 he that he was a mild, conscientious man. That he was fear-
was knighted, and made attorney to the duke of York, less of offending the highest powers when his duty required
when sir John Churchill was promoted to the mastership it is further proved by his exposing Jeffreys upon the
of the rolls in the place of sir H. Grimstone. In 1685, bench, by demonstrating his briberies and corruptions when
he was promoted to the lord chief justiceship of the king's in the west ; which " extremely offended " the king 
bench, and made a privy councillor. In 1686, he sat (Singer's correspondence.) Sir Edward published " A
as one of the ecclesiastical commissioners. In the fol- short Account of the Authorities upon which judgment
lowing year he was removed to be chief of the com- was given in sir Edward Hale's case." This was refuted
mon pleas, because he would not interpret the law in pamphlets by a Mr. Attwood, and sir Robert Atkins. —
in the king's bench so as to take away the life of a (Wood's Athena) Oxon.) King William gave his estate
soldier who deserted his colours upon Hounslow Heath, to his brother, admiral Herbert. — Oxford edition of thig
It is said that sir Robeit Wright was promoted to his scat, work.

428 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
former reign : an act passed concerning the size of carts and waggons, with many penalties
upon the transgressors ; and yet, when it appeared that the model prescribed in the act was
not practicable, the judges gave direction not to execute the act.
These were the arguments brought to support the king's dispensing power. In opposition
to this it was said, though not at the bar, yet in the common discourse of the town, that if
penalties did arise only by virtue of the king's proclamation, it was reasonable that the power
of dispensing should be only in the king : but since the prerogative was both constituted
and limited by law, and since penalties were imposed to force the observation of laws, that
were necessary for the public safety, it was an overturning the whole government, and the
changing it from a legal into a despotic form, to say that laws, made and declared not to be
capable of being dispensed with, where one of the penalties was an incapacity, which by a
maxim of law cannot be taken away, even by a pardon, should at the pleasure of the prince
be dispensed with ; a fine was also set by the act on offenders, but not given to the king, but
to the informer, which thereby became his. So that the king could no more pardon that,
than he could discharge the debts of the subjects, and take away property. Laws of small
consequence, when a visible error not observed in making them was afterwards found out,
like that of the size of carts, might well be superseded : for the intention of the legislature
being the good of the subject, that is always to be presumed for the repeal of an imprac
ticable law. But it was not reasonable to infer from thence, that a law made for the secu
rity of the government, with the most effectual clauses that could be contrived, on design to
force the execution of it, even in bar to the power of the prerogative, should be made so pre
carious a thing, especially when it was so lately asserted with so much vigour by the repre
sentatives of the nation. It was said, that, though this was now only applied to one statute,
yet the same force of reason would hold to annul all our laws : and the penalty being that
which is the life of the law, the dispensing with penalties might soon be carried so far,
as to dissolve the whole government : and the security that the subjects had were only from
the laws, or rather from the penalties, since laws without these were feeble things, which
tied men only according to their own discretion.
Thus was this matter tossed about in the arguments, with which all people's mouths were
now filled : but judges, who are beforehand determined how to give their opinions, will not
be much moved even by the strongest arguments. The ludicrous ones used on this occasion
at the bar were rather a farce, fitter for a mock trial in a play, than such as became men of
learning in so important a matter. Great expectations were raised, to hear with what argu
ments the judges would maintain the judgment that they should give. But they made
nothing of it ; and without any arguing gave judgment for the defendant, as if it had been
in a cause of course.
Now the matter was as much settled, as a decision in the King's Bench could settle it.
Yet so little regard had the chief justice's nearest friends to his opinion in this particular,
that his brother, admiral Herbert, being pressed by the king to promise that he would vote
the repeal of the test, answered the king very plainly, that he could not do it either in
honour, or conscience. The king said, he knew he was a man of honour, but the rest of his
life did not look like a man that had great regard to conscience. He answered boldly, he
had his faults, but they were such, that other people, who talked more of conscience, were
guilty of the like. He was indeed a man abandoned to luxury and vice. But, though he
was poor, and had much to lose, having places to the value of 4000/. a year, he chose to lose
them all rather than comply. This made much noise : for as he had a great reputation for
his conduct in sea affairs, so he had been most passionately zealous in the kino-'s service,
from his first setting out to that day. It appeared by this, that no past services' would be
considered, if men were not resolved to comply in every thing. The door was now opened,
so all regard to the test was laid aside. And all men that intended to recommend themselves
took employments, and accepted of this dispensing power. This was done even by some of
those who continued still protestants, though the far greater number of them continued to
qualify themselves according to law *-
* Arthur Herbert, the admiral, who spoke so fearlessly tho time his brother was trying the bishops He will he
to James, had been employed by Charles the Second at, noticed in future pages.  Noble. '
Tangier, and Algiers. He became an exile in Holland at

OF KING JAMES II. 429
Many of the papists, that were men of quiet or of fearful tempers, did not like these
methods : they thought the priests went too fast, and the king was too eager in pursuing
every thing that was suggested by them. One Peter, descended from a noble family, a
man of no learning, nor any way famed for his virtue, but who made all up in boldness and
zeal, was the Jesuit of them all that seemed animated with the most courage. He had,
during the popish plot, been introduced to the king, and had suggested things that shewed
him a resolute and undertaking man. Upon that the king looked on him as the fittest man
to be set at the head of his counsels. So he was now considered as the person who of all
others had the greatest credit. He applied himself most to the earl of Sunderland, and was
for some time chiefly directed by him*.
The maxim that the king set up, and about which he entertained all that were about
him, was, the great happiness of an universal toleration. On this the king used to enlarge
in a great variety of topics. He said nothing was more reasonable, more christian, and more
politic : and he reflected much on the church of England, for the severities with which dis
senters had been treated. This, how true, or just, soever it might be, yet was strange doc
trine in the mouth of a professed papist, and of a prince on whose account, and by whose
direction, the church party had been, indeed, but too obsequiously, pushed on to that
rigour. But, since the church party could not be brought to comply with the design of the
court, applications were now made to the dissenters : and all on a sudden the churchmen
were disgraced, and the dissenters were in high favour. Chief justice Herbert went the
western circuit after Jeffreys's bloody one. And now all was grace and favour to them.
Their former sufferings were much reflected on, and pitied. Every thing was offered that
could alleviate their sufferings. Their teachers were now encouraged to set up their con
venticles again, which had been discontinued, or held very secretly, for four or five years.
Intimations were every where given, that the king would not have them, or their meetings to
be disturbed. Some of them began to grow insolent upon this shew of favour ; but wiser inert
among them saw through all this, and perceived the design of the papists was now, to set
on the dissenters against the church, as much as they had formerly set the church against
them : and therefore, though they returned to their conventicles, yet they had a just
jealousy of the ill designs, that lay hid under all this sudden and unexpected shew of grace
and kindness : and they took care not to provoke the church party.
Many of the clergy acted now a part that made good amends for past errors. They
began to preach generally against popery, which the dissenters did not. They set themselves
to study the points of controversy: and upon that there followed a great variety of small
books, that were easily purchased and soon read. They examined all the points of popery
with a solidity of judgment, a clearness of arguing, a depth of learning, and a vivacity of
writing, far beyond any thing that had before that time appeared in our language. The
truth is, they were very unequally yoked ; for, if they are justly to be reckoned among the
best writers that have yet appeared on the protestant side, those they wrote against were
certainly among the weakest that had ever appeared on the popish side. Their books were
poorly but insolently written ; and had no other learning in them, but what was taken out
of some French writers, which they put into very bad English ; so that a victory over them
need have been but by a moan performance.
This had a mighty effect on the whole nation ; even those who could not search things to
the bottom, yet were amazed at the great inequality that appeared in this engagement. The
papists, who knew what service the bishop of Meaux's book had done in France, resolved to
pursue the same method here in several treatises, which they entitled " Papists represented
and misrepresented;" to which such clear answers were written, that what effect soever
that artifice might have, where it was supported by the authority of a great king, and the
terror of ill usage, and a dragoonade in conclusion, yet it succeeded so ill in England, that it
• Father Edward Peters had some abilities, but these would not sit at the council board with him. He was
were completely rendered nugatory by his vauify, ambi- James the Second's confessor. Frequent notices of bini
tion, and rashness. Ii is evident from the Clarendon will occur in the following pages, and further information
papers, that all the moderate statesmen of the period were 'may be found in Dodd's Hist, of the English Church,
opposed to him. Lords Clarendon, Nottingham, and others, Dalrymple's Memoirs, Clarendon Correspondence, &c.

430 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
gave occasion to enquire into the truo opinions of that church, not as some artful writers
had disguised them, but as they were laid down in the books that are of authority among
them, such as the decisions of councils received among them, and their established offices, and
as they are held at Rome, and in all those countries where popery prevails without any
intermixture with heretics, or apprehension of them, as in Spain and Portugal. This was
done in so authentic a manner, that popery itself was never so well understood by the
nation, as it came to be upon this occasion.
The persons who both managed and directed this controversial war, were chiefly Tillotson,
Stillingfleet, Tennison, and Patrick. Next them were Sherlock, Williams, Claget, Gee,
Aldrich, Atterbury, Whitby, Hooper, and above all these, Wake, who having been long in
France, chaplain to the lord Preston, brought over with him many curious discoveries, that
were both useful and surprising. Besides the chief writers of those books of controversy,
there were many sermons preached and printed on those heads, that did very much edify
the whole nation. And this matter was managed with that concert, that for the most part
once a week some new book, or sermon, came out, which both instructed, and animated,
those who read them. There were but very few proselytes gained to popery ; and these
were so inconsiderable, that they were rather a reproach than an honour to them. Walker,
the head of University college *, and five or six more at Oxford, declared themselves to be
of that religion ; but with this brand of infamy, that they had continued for several years
complying with tho doctrine , and worship of the church of England after they were recon
ciled to the church of Rome. The popish priests were enraged at this opposition made by
the clergy, when they saw their religion so exposed, and themselves so much despised.
They said, it was ill manners and want of duty to treat the king's religion with so much
contempt. It was resolved to proceed severely against some of the preachers, and to try if by that
means they might intimidate the rest. Dr. Sharp was the rector of St. Giles's, and was
both a very pious man, and one of the most popular preachers of the age, who had a peculiar
talent of reading his sermons with much life and zeal. -He received one day, as he was
coming out of the pulpit, a paper sent him, as he believed, by a priest, containing a sort of
challenge upon some points of controversy, touched by him in some of his sermons. Upon
this, he, not knowing to whom he should send an answer, preached a sermon in answer to it ;
and, after he had confuted it, he concluded shewing how unreasonable it was for protestants
to change their religion on such grounds. This was carried to court, and represented there,
as a reflection on the king for changing on those grounds.
The information, as to the words pretended to be spoken by Sharp, was false, as he himself
assured me ; but, without enquiring into that, the earl of Sunderland sent an order to the
bishop of London (Compton), in the king's name, requiring him to suspend Sharp imme
diately, and then to examine the matter. The bishop answered, that he had no power to
proceed in such a summary way ; but, if an accusation were brought into his court in a
regular way, he would proceed to such a censure, as could be warranted by the ecclesiastical
law : yet, he said, he would do that which was in his power, and should be upon the matter
a suspension ; for he desired Sharp to abstain from officiating, till the matter should he
better understood. But to lay such a censure on a clergyman, as a suspension, without
proof, in a judiciary proceeding, was contrary both to law and justice. Sharp went to
court to shew the notes of his bermon, which he was ready to swear were those from which
he had read it, by which the falsehood of the information would appear. But, since he was
not suspended, he was not admitted. Yet he was let alone ; and it was resolved to proceed
against the bishop of London for contempt.
Jeffreys was much sunk at court, and Herbert was the most in favour. But now Jeffreys,
to recommend himself, offered a bold and illegal advice, for settino- up an ecclesiastical com
mission, without calling it the high commission, pretending it was only a standing court of
delegates. The act that put down the high commission in the year 1 640 had provided by a
clause, as full as could be conceived, that no court should be ever set up for those matters
* This was Dr. Obadiah Walker.; see an account of him in Wood's Athcnse Oxon.

OF KING JAMES II. 431
besides the ordinary ecclesiastical courts. Yet, in contempt of that, a court was erected,
with full power to proceed in a summary and arbitrary way in all ecclesiastical matters, with
out limitations to any rule of law in their proceedings. This stretch of the supremacy, so
contrary to law, was assumed by a king, whose religion made him condemn all that supremacy,
that the law had vested in the crown.
The persons with whom this power was lodged, were the archbishop of Canterbury (San-
croft), and the bishops of Duresme (Crew), and Rochester (Sprat), and the lord chancellor, the
lord treasurer (Rochester), and lord chief justice (Herbert), the lord chancellor being made
president in the court " sine quo non;" for they would trust this to no other management.
The bishop of London was marked out to be the first sacrifice. Sancroft lay silent at Lam
beth. He seemed zealous against popery in private discourse ; but he was of such a timo
rous temper, and so set on the enriching his nephew, that he shewed no sort of courage.
He would not go to this court when it was first opened, and declare against it, and give his
reasons why he could not sit and act in it, judging it to be against law : but he contented
himself with his not going to it. The other two bishops were more compliant. Duresme
was lifted up with it, and said, now his name would be recorded in history : and when soma
of his friends represented to him the danger of acting in a court so illegally constituted, he
said, he could not live if he should lose the king's gracious smiles ; so low, and so fawning
was he *. Dolben, archhishop of York, died this year. So, as Sprat had succeeded him in
Rochester, he had some hopes let fall of succeeding likewise in York : but the court had laid
it down for a maxim, to keep all the great sees, that should become vacant, still empty, till
they might fill them to their own mind : so he was mistaken in his expectations, if he ever
had them.
The bishop of London was the first person that was summoned to appear before this new
court. He was attended by many persons of great quality, which gave a new offence : and
the lord chancellor treated him in that brutal way, that was now become as it were natural
to him. The bishop said, here was a new court of which he knew nothing : so he desired a
copy of the commission that authorised them. And after he had drawn out the matters by
delays for some time, hoping that the king might accept of some general and respectful sub
mission, and so let the matter fall ; at last he came to make his defence, all secret methods to
divert the storm prviong ineffectual. The first part of it was an exception to the authority
of the court, as being not only founded on no law, but contrary to the express words of the
act of parliament, that put down the high commission. Yet this point was rather insinu
ated, than urged with the force that might have been used; for it was said, that, if the
bishop should insist too much on that, it would draw a much heavier measure of indignation
on him ; therefore it was rather opened, and modestly represented to the court, than strongly
argued. But it may be easily believed, that those who sat by virtue of this illegal commis
sion would maintain their own authority. The other part of the bishop of London's plea
was, that he had obeyed the king's orders, as far as he legally could; for he had obliged
Dr. Sharp to act as a man that was suspended ; but that he could not lay an ecclesiastical
censure on any of his clergy without a process, and articles, and some proof brought. This
was justified by the constant practice of the ecclesiastical courts, and by the judgment of all
lawyers. But arguments, how strong soever, are feeble things, when a sentence is resolved
on before the cause is heard. So it was proposed, that he should be suspended during the
king's pleasure. The lord chancellor, and the poor-spirited bishop of Duresme were for this :
but the earl and bishop of Rochester, and the lord chief justice Herbert, were for acquitting
him. There was not so much as a colour of law to support the sentence ; so none could be
given. * Of this prelate, Dr. Nathaniel Crew, it is unnecessary taph, in Stene chapel, Northamptonshire, is as follows; — -
to relate moro than is told in his epitaph ; for he was a u Near this place lieth the body of the right reverend,
hasc-spirited, fawning, vain, ambitious truckler to the and right honourable Nathaniel, Lord Crew, lord bishop
higher powers ; who bought his preferment by a bribe of of Durham, and baron Stene, fifth son of John Lord
some thousands to Nell Gwyn, and whose charities were Crew. He was born Jan. 31, 1633; was consecrated
not bestowed until the last days of his existence. If bishop of Oxford, 1671 : translated to Durham in 1674 ;
more full particulars are required, they will he found in was clerk of the closet, and privy councillor in the reigns
the Biographia Britannica, by Dr. Kippis, Wood's Athenae of king Charles the Second, and king James the Second,
Oxon, and Hutchinson's Hist, of Durham. His epi- and died Sept. 18, 1721, aged eighty-eight."

432 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
But the king was resolved to carry this point, and spoke roundly about it to the earl of
Rochester. He saw he must either concur in the sentence, or part with the white staff. So
he yielded. And the bishop was suspended ab officio. They did not think fit to meddle
with his revenues. For the lawyers had settled that point, that benefices were of the nature
of freeholds. So, if the sentence had gone to the temporalities, the bishop would have
had the matter tried over again in the king's bench, where he was likely to find good
justice, Herbert not being satisfied with the legality and justice of the sentence. While this
matter was in dependence, the princess of Orange thought it became her, to interpose a little
in the bishop's favour. He had confirmed, and married her. So she wrote to the king,
earnestly begging him to be gentle to the bishop, who she could not think would offend
willingly. She also wrote to the bishop,expressing the great share she took in the trouble lie
was fallen into. The prince wrote to him to the same purpose. The king wrote an answer
to the princess, reflecting severely on the bishop, not without some sharpness on her for
meddling in such matters ; yet the court seemed uneasy, when they saw they had gained so
poor a victory ; for now the bishop was more considered than ever. His clergy, for all the
suspension, were really more governed by the secret intimations of his pleasure, than they
had been by his authority before. So they resolved to come off as well as they could.
Dr. Sharp was admitted to offer a general petition, importing how sorry he was, to find
himself under the king's displeasure : upon which he was dismissed with a gentle reprimand,
and suffered to return to the exercise of his function. According to the form of the ecclesi
astical courts, a person under such a suspension must make a submission within six months ;
otherwise he may be proceeded against as obstinate. So, six months after the sentence, the
bishop sent a petition to the king, desiring to be restored to the exercise of his episcopal func
tion. But he made no acknowledgment of any fault : so this had no other effect, but that
it stopped all further proceedings ; only the suspension lay still on him. I have laid all this
matter together, though the progress of it ran into the year eighty-seven.
Affairs in Scotland went on much at the same rate as they did in England. Some few
proselytes were gained ; but as they were very few, so they could do little service to the side
to which they joined themselves. The earl of Perth prevailed with his lady, as she was
dying, to change her religion : and in a very few weeks after her death he married very inde
cently a sister of the duke of Gordon's. They were first cousins ; and yet, without staying
for a dispensation from Rome, they ventured on a marriage, upon the assurances that they
said their confessor gave them, that it would be easily obtained. But Pope Innocent was
a stiff man, and did not grant those things easily : so that cardinal Howard could not at first
obtain it. The pope said, these were strange converts, that would venture on such a thing
without first obtaining a dispensation. The cardinal pretended, that new converts did not so
soon understand the laws of the church ; but he laid before the pope the ill consequences of
offending converts of such importance. So he prevailed at last, not without great difficulty.
The earl of Perth set up a private chapel in the court for mass, which was not kept so pri
vate, but that many frequented it.
The town of Edinburgh was much alarmed at this ; and the rabble broke in with such
fury, that they defaced every thing in the chapel : and if the earl of Perth had not been con
veyed away in disguise, he had very probably fallen a sacrifice to popular rage. The guards
upon the alarm came, and dispersed the rabble : some were taken ; and one that was a ring
leader in the tumult was executed for it. AYhen he was at the place of execution, he told
one of the ministers of the town, that was with him assisting him with his prayers, that he
was offered his life, if he would accuse the duke of Queensborough as the person that had
set on the tumult, but he would not save his life by so false a calumny. Mr. Macom, the
minister, was an honest but weak man. So, when the criminal charged him to make this dis
covery, he did not call any of those who were present to bear witness of it : but in the sim
plicity of his heart he went from the execution to the archbishop of St. Andrews, and told
him what had passed. The archbishop acquainted the duke of Queensborouo-h with it : and
he wrote to court, and complained of it. The king ordered the matter to be examined. So
the poor minister, having no witness to attest what the criminal had said to him, was declared
the forger of that calumny : and upon that he was turned out. But how severely soever

OF KING JAMES II. 433
those in authority may handle a poor incautious man, yet the public is apt to judge true.
And, in this case, as the minister's weakness and misfortune was pitied, so the earl of Perth's
malice and treachery was as much detested.
In summer this year, the earl of Murray, another new convert, was sent the king's com
missioner to hold a parliament in Scotland, and to try if it would be more compliant than
the English parliament had been. The king did by his letter recommend to them, in very
earnest words, the taking off all penal laws and tests relating to religion. And all possible
methods were used to prevail on a majority. But two accidents happened before the open
ing the parliament, which made great impression on the minds of many.
Whitford, son to one of their bishops before the wars, had turned papist. He was the
person that killed Darislaus in Holland; and, that he might get out of Cromwell's reach,
he had gone into the duke of Savoy's service, and was there when the last massacre was
committed on the Vaudois. He had committed many barbarous murders with his own
hands, and had a small pension given him after the restoration. He died a few days before
the parliament met ; and called for some ministers, and to them declared his forsaking of
popery, and his abhorrence of it for its cruelty. He said, he had been guilty of some execra
ble murders in Piedmont, both of women and children, which had pursued him with an
intolerable horror of mind ever after. He had gone to priests of all sorts, the strictest as
well as the easiest, and they had justified him in what he had done, and had given him
absolution. But his conscience pursued him so, that he died as in despair, crying out against
that bloody religion.
The other was more solemn. Sir Robert Sibbald,- a doctor of physic, and the most learned
antiquary in Scotland, who had lived in a course of philosophical virtue, but in great doubts
as to revealed religion, was prevailed on by the earl of Perth to turn papist, in hopes to find
that certainty among them, which he could not arrive at upon his own principles. But he
had no sooner done this, than he began to be ashamed, that he had made such a step upon so
little enquiry. So he went to London, and retired for some months from all company, and
went into a deep course of study, by wliich he came to see into the errors of popery, with so
full a conviction, that he came down to Scotland some weeks before the parliament, and
could not' be at quiet till he had published his recantation openly in a church. The bishop
of Edinburgh was so much a courtier, that, apprehending many might go to hear it, and that
it might give offence at court, he sent him to do it in a church in the country. But the
recantation of so learned a man, upon so much study, had a great effect upon many *.
Rosse and Paterson, the two governing bishops, resolved to let the king see how compliant
they would be. And they procured an address to be signed by several of their bench, offer
ing to concur with the king in all that he desired, with relation to those of his own religion,
(for the courtly style now was not to name popery any other way than by calling it the king's
religion) provided the laws might still continue in force and be executed against the presby
terians. With this Paterson was sent up. He communicated the matter to the earl of Mid
dleton, who advised him never to shew that paper ; it would be made use of against them,
and render them odious : and the king and all his priests were so sensible, that it was an
indecent thing for them to pretend to any special, favour, that they were resolved to move for
nothing but a general toleration. And so he persuaded him to go back without presenting
it. This was told me by one who had it from the earl himself.
When the session of parliament was opened, duke Hamilton was silent in the debate. He
promised he would not oppose the motion ; but he would not be active to promote it. The
duke of Queensborough was also silent ; but the king was made believe that he managed
the opposition under hand. Rosse and Paterson did so entirely forget what became their
characters, that they used their utmost endeavours to persuade the parliament to comply with
the king's desire. The archbishop of Glasgow opposed it, but fearfully. The bishop of
Dunkeld, Bruce, did it openly and resolutely ; and so did the bishop of Galloway. The
rest were silent, but were resolved to vote for the continuance of the laws. Such was the
meanness of most of the nobility, and of the other members, that few did hope that a resist-
* Sir Robert Sibbald published several works relative to the history of Scotland. He died about 1621. Charles
the Second patronized him — Gen. Biog. Diet.

434 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
ance to the court could be maintained. Yet the parliament would consent to nothing,
further than to a suspension of those laws during the king's life. The king despised this :
so the session was put off, and the parliament was quickly dissolved. And, soon after that,
both the archbishop of Glasgow and the bishop of Dunkeld were turned out, by an express
command from the king. And Paterson was made archbishop of Glasgow. And one
Hamilton, noted for profaneness and impiety, that sometimes broke out into blasphemy, was
made bishop of Dunkeld. No reason was assigned for. turning out those bishops, but the
king's pleasure.
The nation, which was become very corrupt, and both ignorant and insensible in the mat
ters of religion, began now to return to its old zeal against popery. Few proselytes were
made after this. The episcopal clergy were in many places so sunk into sloth and ignorance,
that they were not capable of conducting this zeal. Some of them about Edinburgh, and in
divers other places, began to mind those matters, and recovered some degrees of credit by the
opposition they made to popery. But the presbyterians, though they were now freed from
the great severities they had long smarted under, yet expressed on all occasions their uncon
querable aversion to popery. So the court was soon convinced, that they were not to be
depended on.
But, what opposition soever the king met with in the isle of Britain, things went on more
to his mind in Ireland. The earl of Clarendon, upon his first coming over, gave public and
positive assurances that the king would maintain their act of settlement. This he did very
often, and very solemnly ; and proceeded accordingly. In the mean while the earl of Tircon-
nel went on more roundly. He not only put Irish papists into such posts in the army as
became void, but upon the slightest pretences he broke the English protestant officers, to
make room for the others : and in conclusion, without so much as pretending a colour for it,
he turned them all out. And now an army, paid by virtue of the act of settlement to secure
it, was wrested out of legal hands, and put in the hands of those who were engaged, both in
religion and interest, to destroy the settlement, and those concerned in it ; which was too
gross a violation of law to be in any sort palliated. So the English protestants of Ireland
looked on themselves as at mercy, since the army was now made up of their enemies. And
all that the lord lieutenant, or the lord chancellor could say, did not quiet their fears : good
words could not give security against such deeds as they saw every day. Upon this the earl
of Clarendon, and the earl of Tirconnel, fell into perpetual jarrings, and were making such
complaints one of another, that the king resolved to put an end to those disorders by recall
ing both the earl of Clarendon and Porter. He made the earl of Tirconnel lord lieutenant,
and Fitton lord chancellor, who were both not only professed but zealous papists. Fitton
knew no other law but the king's pleasure *.
This struck all people there with great terror, when a man of Tirconnel's temper, so
entirely trusted and depended on by the Irish, capable of the boldest undertakings, and of
the cruelest execution, had now the government put so entirely in his hands. The papists of
England either dissembled very artificially, or they were much troubled at this, which gave
so great an alarm every where. It was visible, that father Peter, and the Jesuits, were
resolved to engage the king so far, that matters should be put past all retreating and com
pounding ; that so the king might think no more of governing by parliament, but by a mili
tary force ; and, if that should not stick firm to him, by assistance from France, and by an
Irish army.
An accident happened at this time, that gave the queen great offence, and put the priests
much out of countenance. The king continued to go still to Mrs. Sedley ; and she gained
so much on him, that at last she prevailed to be made countess of Dorchester. As soon as
the queen heard of this, she gave order to bring all the priests that were admitted to a par
ticular confidence, into her closet. And, when she had them about her, she sent to desire the
¦ Sir Alexander Fitton is thus mentioned by arch- conscience, though he wanted law and natural capacity, as
bishop King. ' ' He was detected of forgery, not only at well as honesty and courage, to discharge such a trust ¦ and
Westminster and Chester, but likewise fined by the house had no other quality to recommend him besides being a
of lords in parliament ; he was brought out of gaol, and converted papist ; that is, a renegade to his religion and
set in the nighest court of the kingdom to keep the king's his country. "—State of the Protestants in Ireland

OF KING JAMES II. 435
king to come and speak to her. When he came, he was surprised to see such a company
about her, but much more when they fell all on their knees before him. And the queen
broke out into a bitter mourning for this new honour, wliich they expected would be followed
with the setting her up openly as mistress. The queen was then in an ill habit of body, and
had an illness that, as was thought, would end in a consumption. And it was believed that
her sickness was of such a nature, that it gave a very melancholy presage, that, if she should
live, she could have no children. The priests said to the king, that a blemish in his life
blasted their designs ; and the more it appeared, and the longer it was continued, the more
ineffectual all their endeavours would prove. The king was much moved with this, and was
out of countenance for what he had done. But to quiet them all, he promised them, that he
would see the lady no more ; and pretended, that he gave her this title in order to the break
ing with her the more decently. And, when the queen did not seem to believe this, he
promised that he would send her to Ireland, which was done accordingly : but after a stay
there for some months, she came over again ; and that ill commerce was still continued.
The priests were no doubt the more apprehensive of this, because she was bold and lively,
and was always treating them and their proceedings with great contempt *.
The court was now much set on making of converts, which failed in most instances, and
produced repartees, that, whether true or false, were much repeated, and were heard with
great satisfaction.
The earl of Mulgrave was lord chamberlain. He was apt to comply in every thing that
he thought might be acceptable ; for he went with the king to mass, and. kneeled at it ; and,
being looked on as indifferent to all religions, the priests made an attack on him. He heard
them gravely arguing for transubstantiation. He told them, he was willing to receive instruc
tion : he had taken much pains to bring himself to believe in God, who had made the world
and all men in it ; but it must not be an ordinary force of argument that could make him
believe that man was quits with God, and made God again.
The earl of Middleton had married into a popish family, and was a man of great parts
and a generous temper, but of loose principles in religion. So a priest was sent to instruct
him. He began with transubstantiation, of which he said he would convince him imme
diately : and began thus, " You believe the Trinity." Middleton stopped him, and said, " Who
told you so ?" At which he seemed amazed. So the earl said, he expected he should con
vince him of his belief, but not question him of his own. With this the priest was so dis
ordered, that he could proceed no further. One day the king gave the duke of Norfolk the
sword of state to carry before him to the chapel ; and he stood at the door. Upon which
the king said to him, " My lord, your father would have gone further :" to which the duke
answered, " Your majesty's father was the better man, and he would not have gone so far."
Kirk was also spoken to, to change his religion ; and replied briskly, that he was already
pre-engaged, for he had promised the king of Morocco, that if ever he changed his religion,
he would turn Mahometan.
But the person that was the most considered, was the earl of Rochester. He told me,
that upon the duke of Monmouth's defeat, the king did so immediately turn to other measures,
that, though before that the king talked to him of all his affairs with great freedom, and
commonly every morning of the business that was to be done that day ; yet the very day
after the duke's execution the king changed his method, and never talked more to him of any
" Catherine Sedley was more distinguished for her wit ment. She died in 1717. — (Singer's Clarendon Corre-
and taste than for her beauty. Charles the Second once spondence ; Dalrymple's Memoirs ; Grainger.) She had
declared he thought his brother's mistresses were given to more wit than discretion. Meeting the duchess of Ports-
him by his confessor as penance. She was the daughter mouth and lady Orkney in the palace of George the First,
of Sir Charles Sedley, noticed in a previous page. The she exclaimed, " Who would have thought we three
priests at length prevailed, and she was ordered to retire w  s Bhould meet here ? " Speaking of some others
into France, or her pension of 4,0001. would cease. — of James the Second's favourites, she said, " Why does
(Reresby's Memoirs.) Her daughter by the king married he choose us? we are none of us handsome; and if we
the earl of Anglesea, and the duke of Buckingham. In have wit, he has not enough to find it out.'' To her two
the reign of William, the countess of Dorchester having sons by the earl of Portmore, she observed, " If any
returned to England, married the earl of Portmore. She body should call you sons of a w — e, you must bear it,
continued to correspond with the exiled king ; and her for you are so ; but if they call you bastards, fight till you
letters being intercepted, she was in danger of an impeach- die, for you are an honest man's sons." — Noble's History.
F F 2

436 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
business, but what concerned the treasury: so that he saw he had now no more the root he
formerly had. He was looked on as so much united to the clergy, that the papists were all
set against him. He had, in a want of money, procured a considerable loan, by which he
was kept in his post longer than was intended. At last, as he related the matter to me, the
king spoke to him, and desired he would suffer himself to be instructed in religion. He
answered, he was fully satisfied about his religion : but upon the king's pressing it, that he
would hear his priests, he said, he desired then to have some of the English clergy present,
to which the king consented ; only he excepted to Tillotson and Stillingfleet. Lord Roches
ter said, he would take those who should happen to be in waiting; for the forms of the
chapel were still kept up. And doctor Patrick and Jane were the men. Upon this a day
was set for the conference.
But his enemies had another story. He had notice given him, that he would shortly lose
the white staff: upon which his lady, who was then sick, wrote to the queen, and begged she
would honour her so far as to come, and let her have some discourse with her. The queen
came, and stayed above two hours with her. She complained of the ill offices that were done
them. The queen said, all the protestants were now turning against them, so that they
knew not how they could trust any of them. Upon which that lady said, her lord was not
so wedded to any opinion, as not to be ready to be better instructed. And it was said, that
this gave the rise to the king's proposing a conference ; for it has been observed to be a
common method of making proselytes with the more pomp, to propose a conference : but this
was generally done, after they were well assured, that, let the conference go which way it
might, the person's decision for whom it was appointed should be on their side. The earl
denied he knew any thing of all this to me : and his lady died not long after. It was further
said by his enemies, that the day before the conference he had an advertisement from a sure
hand, that nothing he could do would maintain him in his post, and that the king had engaged
himself to put the treasury in commission, and to bring some of the popish lords into it.
Patrick told me, that at the conference there was no occasion for them to say much.
The priests began the attack ; and, when they had done, the earl said, if they had nothing
stronger to urge, he would not trouble those learned gentlemen to say any thing ; for he was
sure he could answer all that he had heard. And so answered it all with much heat and
spirit, not without some scorn, saying, were these grounds to persuade men to change their
religion ? This he urged over and over again with great vehemence. The king, seeing in
what temper he was, broke off the conference, charging all that were present to say nothing
of it *.
Soon after that he lost his white staff, but had a pension of 4,000/. a year for his own life
and his son's, besides his grant upon the lord Grey, and another valued at 20,000/. So here
were great regards had to him : no place having ever been sold, even by a person in favour,
to such advantage. The sum that he had procured to be lent the king being 400,000/., and
it being all ordered to go towards the repair of the fleet, this began to be much talked of.
The stores were very ill furnished ; and the vessels themselves were in decay. But now
orders were given, with great dispatch to put the whole fleet in condition to go to sea, though
the king was then in full peace with all his neighbours. Such preparations seemed to be
made upon some great design.
The priests said every where, but chiefly at Rome, that the design was against the States ;
and that both France and England would make war on them all of the sudden ; for it was
generally known that the Dutch fleet was in no good condition. The interests of France,
and of the priests, made this to be the more easily believed. The embroiling the king with
the prince of Orange was that which the French desired above all other things, hoping that
such a war, being successful, might put the king on excluding the prince from the succession
to the crown in the right of his wife, which was the thing that both the French, and priests,
desired most ; for they saw that, unless the queen had a son, all their designs must stand still
at present, and turn abortive in conclusion, as long as the nation had such a successor in view.
* The " Memoirs of king James " say that this conference was an artifice of lord Sunderland's to get Rochester dis
charged. This and the particulars of other conferences upon the same subject, are in Sincer's Clarendon Correspon
dence.

OF KING JAMES II. 437
This carries me now to open the state of affairs in Holland, and at the prince of Orange's
court. I must first say somewhat of myself : for this summer, after I had rambled above a
year, I came into Holland. I stayed three, or four, months in Geneva, and Switzerland,
after I came out of Italy. I stayed also some time among the Lutherans at Strasburg and
Franckfort, and among the Calvinists at Heidleberg. Besides the further opportunities I had
to know their way in Holland, I made it my business to observe all their methods, and to
know all the eminent men among them. I saw the churches of France in their best state,
while they were every day looking when this dreadful storm should break out, which has
scattered them up and down the world. I was all the winter at Geneva, where we had
constantly fresh stories brought us of the miseries of those who were suffering in France.
Refugees were coming over every day, poor and naked, and half starved before they got thither.
And that small state was under great apprehensions of being swallowed up, having no
strength of their own, and being justly afraid that those at Bern would grow weary of
defending them, if they should be vigorously attacked. The rest of Switzerland was not in
such imminent danger : but, as they were full of refugees, and all sermons and discourses were
much upon the persecution in France, so Basil was exposed in such manner, that the French
could possess themselves of it when they pleased, without the least resistance. Those of Stras
burg, as they have already lost their liberty, so they were every day looking for some fatal
edict, like that which the French had fallen under. The churches of the Palatinate, as they
are now the frontier of the empire, exposed to be destroyed by every new war, so they are
fallen into the hands of a bigoted family. All the other churches on the Rhine see how near
they are to ruin. And as the United Provinces were a few years before this very near being
swallowed up, so they were now well assured that two great kings designed to ruin them.
Under so cloudy a prospect it should be expected, that a spirit of true devotion and of a
real reformation should appear more, both among the clergy and laity ; that they should all
apprehend that God was highly offended with them, and was therefore punishing some, and
threatening others, in a most unusual manner. It might have been expected, that those
unhappy contests between Lutherans and Calvinists, Arminians, and anti- Arminians, with
some minuter disputes that have enflamed Geneva and Switzerland, should have been at
least suspended, while they had a common enemy to deal with, against whom their whole
force united was scarce able to stand. But these things were carried on rather with more
eagerness, and sharpness, than ever. It is true, there has appeared much of a primitive
charity towards tho French refugees ; they have been in all places well received, kindly
treated, and bountifully supplied. Yet even among them there did not appear a spirit of
piety and devotion suitable to their condition : though persons who have willingly suffered
the loss of all things, and have forsaken their country, their houses, estates, and their friends,
and some of them their nearest relations, rather than sin against their consciences, must be
believed to have a deeper principle in them, than can well be observed by others.
I was indeed amazed at the labours and learning of the ministers among the reformed.
They understood the scriptures well in the original tongues : they had all the points of con
troversy very ready, and did thoroughly understand the whole body of divinity. In many
places they preached every day, and were almost constantly employed in visiting their flock.
But they performed their devotions but slightly, and read their prayers, which were too long,
with great precipitation and little zeal. Their sermons were too long and too dry : and they
were so strict, even to jealousy, in the smallest points in which they put orthodoxy, that one
who could not go into all their notions, but was resolved not to quarrel with them, could not
converse much with them with any freedom. I have, upon all the observation that I have
made, often considered the inward state of the reformation, and the decay of the vitals of
Christianity in it, as that which gives more melancholy impressions than all the outward
dangers that surround it.
In England things were much changed, with relation to the court, in the compass of a year.
The terror all people were under from an ill chosen, and an ill constituted, parliament, was
now almost over ; and the clergy were come to their wits, and were beginning to recover
their reputation. The nation was like to prove much firmer than could have been expected,
especially in so short a time. Yet after all, though many were like to prove themselves

438 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
better protestants than was looked for, they were not become much better Christians ; and
few were turning to a stricter course of life : nor were the clergy more diligent in then-
labours among their people, in which respect it must be confessed that the English clergy are
the most remiss of any. The curates in popery, besides their saying mass every day, their
exactness to their breviary, their attending on confessions and the multiplicity of offices to
which they are obliged, do so labour in instructing the youth, and visiting the sick, that, in
all the places in wliich I could observe them, it seemed to be the constant employment of
their lives : and in the foreign churches, though the labours of the ministers may seem mean,
yet they are perpetually in them. All these things lay so much on my thoughts, that I was
resolved to retire into some private place, and to spend the rest of my life in a course of stricter
piety and devotion, and in writing such books, as the state of matters with relation to religion
should call for, whether in points of speculation or practice. All my friends advised my
coming near England, that I might be easier sent to, and informed of all our affairs, and
might accordingly employ my thoughts and time. So I came down the Rhine this summer,
and was resolved to have settled in Groning or Friezeland.
When I came to Utrecht, I found letters written to me by some of the prince of Orange's
court, desiring me to come first to the Hague, and wait on the prince and princess, before I
should settle any where. Upon my coming to the Hague, I was admitted to wait on them.
I found they had received such characters of me from England, that they resolved to treat me
with great confidence ; for, at my first being with them, they entered into much free dis
course with me concerning the affairs of England. The prince, though naturally cold and
reserved, yet laid aside a great deal of that with me. He seemed highly dissatisfied with
the king's conduct. He apprehended that he would give such jealousies of himself, and
come under such jealousies from his people, that these would throw him into a French
management, and engage him into such desperate designs as would force violent remedies.
There was a gravity in his whole deportment that struck me. He seemed very regardless
of himself, and not apt to suspect designs upon his person. But I had learned somewhat of
the design of a brutal Savoyard, who was capable of the blackest things, and who for a foul
murder had fled into the territory of Geneva, where he lay hid in a very worthy family, to
whom he had done some services before. He had formed a scheme of seizing on the prince,
who used to go in his chariot often on the sands near Scheveling, with but one person with
him, and a page or two on the chariot. So he offered to go in a small vessel of twenty guns,
that should lie at some distance at sea, and to land in a boat with seven persons besides him
self, and to seize on the prince, and bring him aboard, and so to France. This he wrote to
M. de Louvoy, who upon that wrote to him to come to Paris, and ordered money for his
journey. He, being a talking man, spoke of this, and shewed M. de Louvoy's letter, and the
copy of his own : and he went presently to Paris. This was brought me by Mr. Fatio, the
celebrated mathematician, in whose father's house that person had lodged. When I told the
prince this, and had Mr. Fatio at the Hague to attest it, he was not much moved at it. The
princess was more apprehensive ; and by her direction I acquainted Mr. Fagel, and some
others of the States, with it, who were convinced that the thing was practicable. And so
the States desired the prince to suffer himself to be constantly attended on by a guard when
he went abroad, with which he was not without some difficulty brought to comply. I fancied
his belief of predestination made him more adventurous than was necessary. But he said as
to that, he firmly believed a providence ; for if he should let that go, all his religion would be
much shaken ; and he did not see how providence could be certain, if all things did not arise
out of the absolute will of God. I found those who had the charge of his education, had
taken more care to possess him with the Calvinistical notions of absolute decrees, than to
guard him against the ill effects of those opinions in practice : for in Holland the main thing
the ministers infuse into their people, is an abhorrence of the Arminian doctrine, which
spreads so much there, that their jealousies of it make them look after that, more than after
the most important matters.
The prince had been much neglected in his education ; for all his life long he hated con
straint. He spoke little. He put on some appearance of application ; but he hated business
of all sorts ; yet he hated talking, and all house games more. This put him on a perpetual

OF KING JAMES II. 439
course of hunting, to which he seemed to give himself up, beyond any man I ever knew :
but I looked on that always as a flying from company and business. The depression of
France was the governing passion of his whole life. He had no vice, but of one sort, in
which he was very cautious and secret. He had a way that was affable and obliging to the
Dutch : but he could not bring himself to comply enough with the temper of the English,
his coldness and slowness being very contrary to the genius of the nation.
The princess possessed all that conversed with her with admiration. Her person was
majestic and created respect. She had great knowledge, with a true understanding, and a
noble expression. There was a sweetness in her deportment that charmed, and an exactness
in piety and virtue that made her a pattern to all that saw her. The king gave her no
appointments to support the dignity of a king's daughter ; nor did he send her any presents,
or jewels, which was thought a very indecent, and certainly was a very ill-advised thing.
For the settling an allowance for her and the prince would have given such a jealousy of
them, that the English would have apprehended a secret correspondence and confidence
between them ; and the not doing it shewed the contrary very evidently. But, though the
prince did not increase her court and state upon this additional dignity, she managed her
privy purse so well, that she became eminent in her charities : and the good grace with which
she bestowed favours did always increase their value. She had read much, both in history
and divinity. And when a course of humours in her eyes forced her from that, she set her
self to work with such a constant diligence, that she made the ladies about her ashamed to
be idle. She knew little of our affairs till I was admitted to wait on her. And I began to
lay before her the state of our court, and the intrigues in it, ever since the restoration ; which
she received with great satisfaction, and shewed true judgment, and a good mind, in all the
reflections that she made. I will only mention one in this place : she asked me, what had
sharpened the king so much against Mr. Jurieu, the most copious, and the most zealous
writer of the age, who wrote with great vivacity as well as learning. I told her, he mixed
all his books with a most virulent acrimony of style, and among other things he had written
with great indecency of Mary Queen of Scots, which cast reflections on them that were
descended from her ; and was not very decent in one, that desired to be considered as zealous
for the prince and herself. She said, Jurieu was to support the cause that he defended, and
to expose those that persecuted it, in the best way he could. And, if what he said of
Mary Queen of Scots was true, he was not to be blamed, who made that use of it : and, she
added, that if princes would do ill things, they must expect that the world will take
revenges on their memory, since they cannot reach their persons : that was but a small suf
fering, far short of what others suffered at their hands. So far I have given the character of
those persons, as it appeared to me upon my first admittance to them. I shall have occasion
to say much more of them in the sequel of this work.
I found the prince was resolved to make use of me. He told me it would not be con
venient for me to live any where but at the Hague ; for none of the outlawed persons came
thither. So I would keep myself, by staying there, out of the danger that I might legally
incur by conversing with them, which would be unavoidable if I lived any where else. He
also recommended me both to Fagel, Dykvelt, and Halewyn's confidence, with whom he
chiefly consulted. I had a mind to see a little into the prince's notions, before I should
engage myself deeper into his service, I was afraid lest his struggle with the Louvestein
party, as they were called, might have given him a jealousy of liberty and of a free govern
ment. He assured me, it was quite the contrary : nothing but such a constitution could
resist a powerful aggressor long, or have the credit that was necessary to raise such
sums, as a great war might require. He condemned all the late proceedings in England,
with relation to the charters, and expressed his sense of a legal and limited authority very
fully. I told him, I was such a friend to liberty, that I could not lie satisfied with the
point of religion alone, unless it was accompanied with the securities of law. I asked his
senses of the church of England. He said, he liked our worship well, and our government
in the church, as much better than parity ; but he blamed our condemning the foreign
churches, as he had observed some of our divines did. I told him, whatever some hotter
men might say, all were not of that mind. When he found I was in my opinion for tolera-

440 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
tion, he said, that was all he would ever desire to bring us to, for quieting our contentions
at home. He also promised to me, that he should never be prevailed with to set_ up the
Calvinistical notions of the decrees of God, to which I did imagine some might drive him.
He wished some of our ceremonies, such as the surplice and the cross in baptism, with our
bowing to the altar, might be laid aside. I thought it necessary to enter with him into all
these particulars, that so I might be furnished from his own mouth, to give a full account of
his sense to some in England, who would expect it of me, and were disposed to believe what
I should assure them of. This discourse was of some hours' continuance : and it passed in
the princess's presence. Great notice came to be taken of the free access and long confer
ences I had with them both. I told him, it was necessary for his service, to put the fleet of
Holland in a good condition. And this he proposed soon after to the States, who gave the
hundredth penny for a fund to perfect that. I moved to them both, the writing to the
bishop of London, and to the king concerning him. And, though the princess feared it
might irritate the king too much, in conclusion I persuaded them to it.
The king, hearing of this admission I had, began in two or three letters to reflect on me,
as a dangerous man, whom they ought to avoid and beware of. To this no answer was
made. Upon the setting up the ecclesiastical commission, some from England pressed them
to write over against it, and to begin a breach upon that. I told them, I thought that was
no way advisable : they could not be supposed to understand our laws so well, as to oppose
those things on their own knowledge ; so that I thought this could not be expected by them,
till some resolute person would dispute the authority of the court, and bring it to an argu
ment, and so to a solemn decision. I likewise said, that I did not think every error in
government would warrant a breach : if the foundations were struck at, that would vary
the case ; but illegal acts in particular instances could not justify such a conclusion. The
prince seemed surprised at this ; for the king made me pass for a rebel in my heart : and he
now saw how far I was from it. I continued on this ground to the last.
That which fixed me in their confidence was, the liberty I took, in a private conversation
with the princess, to ask her, what she intended the prince should be, if she came to the
crown. She, who was new to all matters of that kind, did not understand my meaning,
but fancied that whatever accrued to her would likewise accrue to him in the right of mar
riage. I told her it was not so : and I explained king Henry the Seventh's title to her, and
what had passed when Queen Mary married Philip king of Spain. I told her, a titular
kingship was no acceptable thing to a man, especially if it was to depend on another's life :
and such a nominal dignity might endanger the real one that the prince had in Holland.
She desired me to propose a remedy. I told her the remedy, if she could bring her mind to
it, was to be contented to be Lis wife, and to engage herself to them, that she would give
him the real authority as soon as it came into her hands, and endeavour effectually to get it
to be legally vested in him during life : this would lay the greatest obligation on him pos
sible, and lay the foundation of a perfect union between them, which had been of late a little
embroiled : this would also give him another sense of all«our affairs : I asked pardon for the
presumption of moving her in such a tender point : but I solemnly protested, that no person
living had moved me in it, or so much as knew of it, or should ever know of it, but as she
should order it. I hoped she would consider well of it ; for, if she once declared her mind, I
hoped she would never go back or retract it. I desired her therefore to take time to think
of it. She presently answered me, she would take no time to consider of any thing, by
which she could express her regard and affection to the prince ; and ordered me to give him
an account of all that I had laid before her, and to bring him to her, and I should hear what
she would say upon it. He was that day a hunting ; and next day I acquainted him with
all that had passed, and carried him to her ; where she in a very frank manner told him, that
she did not know that the laws of England were so contrary to the laws of God, as I had
informed her : she did not think that the husband was ever to be obedient to the wife : she
promised him he should always bear rule ; and she asked only, that he would obey the
command of " husbands love your wives," as she should do that, " wives be obedient to
your husbands in all things." From this lively introduction we onoaoed into a long dis
course of the affairs of England. Both seemed well pleased with mo and with all that

OF KING JAMES II. 441
I had suggested. But such was the prince's cold way, that he said not one word to mo
upon it, that looked like acknowledgment. Yet he spoke of it to some about him in
another strain. He said, he had been nine years married, and had never the confidence
to press this matter on the queen, wliich I had now brought about easily in a day. Ever
after that he seemed to trust me entirely.
Complaints came daily over from England of all the high things that the priests were
every where throwing out. Penn, the quaker, came over to Holland. He was a talking
vain man, who had been long in the king's favour, he being the vice-admiral's son. He had
such an opinion of his own faculty of persuading, that he thought none could stand before
it : though he was singular in that opinion ; for he had a tedious luscious way, that was not apt
to overcome a man's reason, though it might tire his patience. He undertook to persuade
the prince to come into the king's measures, and had two or three long audiences of him
upon the subject : and he and I spent some hours together on it. The prince readily con
sented to a toleration of popery, as well as of the dissenters, provided it were proposed and
passed in parliament : and he promised his assistance, if there was need of it, to get it to
pass. But for the tests, he would enter into no treaty about them. He said, it was a plain
betraying the security of the protestant religion to give them up. Nothing was left unsaid
that might move him to agree to this in the way of interest : the king would enter into an
entire confidence with him, and would put his best friends in the chief trusts. Penn under
took for this so positively, that ho seemed to believe it himself, or he was a great proficient .
in the art of dissimulation. Many suspected that he was a concealed papist. It is certain,
he was much with father Peter, and was particularly trusted by the earl of Sunderland. So,
though he did not pretend any commission for what he promised, yet we looked on him as
a man employed. To all this the prince answered, that no man was more for toleration in
principle than ho was : he thought the conscience was only subject to God : and as far as a
general toleration, even 'of papists, would content the king, he would concur in it heartily :
but he looked on the tests as such a real security, and indeed the only one, when the king
was of another religion, that ho would join in no counsels with those that intended to repeal
those laws that enacted them. Penn said the king would have all or nothing : but that, if
this was once done, the king would secure the toleration by a solemn and unalterable law.
To this the late repeal of the edict of Nantes, that was declared perpetual and irrevocable,
furnished an answer that admitted of no reply. So Penn's negotiation with the prince had
no effect.
He pressed me to go over to England, since I was in principle for toleration : and he
assured me the king would prefer me highly. I told him, since the tests must go with this
toleration, I could never be for it. Among other discourses, he told me one thing, that was
not accomplished in the way in which he had a mind I should believe it would be, but had
a more surprising accomplishment. He told me a long series of predictions, which, as he
said, he had from a man that pretended a commerce with angels, who had foretold many
things that were passed very punctually. But he added, that, in the year 1688, there
would such a change happen in the face of affairs as would amaze all the world. And after
the Revolution, which happened that year, I asked him before much company, if that was
the event that was predicted. He was uneasy at the question ; but did not deny what he
had told me, which, he said, he understood of the full settlement of the nation upon a tolera
tion, by which he believed all men's minds would be perfectly quieted and united*.
* William Penn, the son of the admiral of the same Low, and finally became a member of the quaker frater-
name, noticed in previous pages, was born in London, nity, from which neither paternal nor magisterial severity
during 1644. His early education was at Chigwcll school, could separate him. In 1668, becoming an itinerant
in Essex ; and in 1660 he was a gentleman commoner of preacher, he was sent to the Tower, where during seven
Christchurch, Oxford. Attracted by the preachmg of a quaker months' confinement, he wrote his "No Cross, no Crown,"
named Low, he frequented their meetings, and was conse- and " Innocency with her open face," which obtained his
quently expelled from college. His father acted in the same releaso. When his father died he came into possession
spirit of severity, but at length sent him to France, where of 1,500?. a year, but this did not prevent his preaching,
he acquired the accomplishments usual at the period, for which he was committed to Newgate. His trial came
Upon his return he studied the law at Lincoln's Inn, but on at the Old Bailey. He pleaded his own cause, and
the plague forced him thence in 1665. Proceeding to was acquitted  (See State Trials.) After travelling for
some of his father's estates in Ireland, he again met with some tinio in Holland and Germany, he returned to this

442 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN

this
in all respects the greatest ui. ,,.
a clear judgment. He was a judicious and grave preacher, more instructive than affective;
and a man of a spotless life, and of an excellent temper. His book on the Creed is
among the best that our church has produced. He was not active in his diocese but too
remiss and easy in his episcopal function ; and was a much better divine than a bishop. He
was a speaking instance of what a great man could fall too : for his memory went from him
so entirely, that he became a child some years before he died.
Fell, bishop of Oxford, was a man of great strictness in the course of his life, and of much
devotion. His learning appears in that noble edition of St. Cyprian that he published. He
had made great beginnings in learning before the Restoration ; but his continued application
to his employments after that, stopped the progress that otherwise he might have made.
He was made soon after dean of Christchurch, and afterwards bishop of Oxford. He set
himself to promote learning in the university, but most particularly in his own college, which
he governed with great care : and was indeed in all respects a most exemplary man, a little
too much heated in the matter of our disputes with the dissenters. But, as he was among
the first of our clergy that apprehended the design of bringing in popery, so he was one of
the most zealous against it. He had much zeal for reforming abuses ; and managed it
perhaps with too much heat, and in too peremptory a way. But we have so little of that
among us, that no wonder if such men are censured by those who love not such patterns,
nor such severe task-masters *-
Ward, of Salisbury, fell also under a loss of memory and understanding : so that he who
was both in mathematics and philosophy, and in the strength of judgment and understanding,
one of the first men of his time, though he came too late into our profession to become very
eminent in it, was now a great instance of the despicable weakness' to which man can fall.
The court intended once to have named a coadjutor for him. But there being no precedent
for that since the Reformation, they resolved to stay till he should die.
The other two bishoprics were less considerable : so they resolved to fill them with the
two worst men that could be found out. Cartwright was promoted to Chester. He was a
man of good capacity, and had made some progress in learning. He was ambitious and
servile, cruel and boisterous, and, by the great liberties he allowed himself, he fell under much
scandal of the worst sort. He had set himself long to raise the king's authority above law ;
which, he said, was only a method of government to which kings might submit as they
pleased ; but their authority was from God, absolute and superior to law, which they might
country. In 1672 he married and settled at Rickmans- difficulties, he retired to his elegant residence at Ruscomb,
worth. In 1681, king Charles, in return for his father's near Twyford, in Buckinghamshire, and died there in 1 7 1 8.
services, and in consideration of a debt due to him from Burnet speaks of him too unfavourably ; he was unques-
tbe crown, granted Penn a province of North America. He tionably a man of sound sense and wit ; benevolent and
then devoted himself to establishing a colony there, and just. Dean Swift 6ays, " he spoke very agreeably, and
to prepare for it a constitution. His liberal and enlight-. with much spirit." — See Clarkson's Life of Penn, and his
ened conduct secured the success of this new country, numerous works in Wood's Athense Oxon.
now so well known as Pennsylvania. — (See " Frame of * Dr. John Pearson was a native of Norfolk, being born
Government of Pennsylvania.") Penn was much courted at Snoring in 1612. He was at Eton, and King's college,
and favoured by James the Second, but the " Clarendon Cambridge. His " Exposition of the Creed " consists of
Correspondence " informs us that he laboured to thwart a course of sermons, preached at St. Clement's, Eaat-
the Jesuitical influence that predominated in that reign, cheap. It needs no more commendation than is given by
Notwithstanding, William the Third and others suspected Burnet. In 1662 he was one of the commissioners for
him of favouring the Romish creed ; and though he fully reviewing the liturgy. He was successively master of
refuted this suspicion, (see his correspondence with arch- Jesus and Trinity colleges, Cambridge. He was pro-
bishop Tillotson) yet the king assured a friend of the earl moted to the see of Chester in 1673. — Biog. Britannica.
of Dartmouth, that " Penn is no more a quaker than I Dr. John Fell was born in 1625, at Longworth, in
am." — (Oxford edition of this work.) Queen Anne Berkshire. He was educated at Thame, and Christ-
favoured him, and he constantly attended her court, which church, Oxford. After various vicissitudes he was raised
certainly does not accord with the practice of his sect, to the bishopric of this city in 1676. His biographies of
A law-suit involved him in more trouble ; but whilst Dr. Hammond and Dr. Allestree have had many readers.
retired within the rules of the Fleet prison, he found His other works are numerous and excellent.  Wood's
opportunity to write his "Fruits of • Solitude," . and Athense Oxon. ; Biog. Britannica.
" Fruits of a Father's Love." Finally, overcoming his

OF KING JAMES II. 443
exert, as oft as they found it necessary for the ends of government. So he was looked on as
a man that would more effectually advance the design of popery, than if he should turn over
to it. And indeed, bad as he was, he never made that step, even in the most desperate state
of his affairs.
The see of Oxford was given to Dr. Parker, who was a violent independent at the time of
the Restoration, with a high profession of piety in their way. But he soon changed, and
struck into the highest form of the church of England ; and wrote many books with a strain
of contempt and fury against all the dissenters, that provoked them out of measure ; of which
an account was given in the history of the former reign. He had exalted the king's autho
rity in matters of religion in so indecent a manner, that he condemned the ordinary form of
saying the king was under God and Christ, as a crude and profane expression : saying, that
though the king was indeed under God, yet he was not under Christ, but above him. Yet,
not being preferred as he expected, he wrote after that many books, on design to raise the
authority of the church to an independence on the civil power. There was an entertaining
liveliness in all his books : but it was neither grave nor correct. He was a covetous and
ambitious man ; and seemed to have no other sense of religion but as a political interest, and
a subject of party and faction. He seldom came to prayers, or to any exercises of devotion ;
and was so lifted up with pride, that he was become insufferable to all that came near him.
These two men were pitched on as the fittest instruments that could be found among all the
clergy to betray and ruin the church. Some of the bishops brought to archbishop Sancroft
articles against them, which they desired he would offer to the king in council, and pray that
the mandate for consecrating them might be delayed, till time were given to examine parti
culars. And bishop Lloyd told me, that Sancroft promised to him not to consecrate them,
till he had examined the truth of the articles, of which some were too scandalous to be
repeated. Yet when Sancroft saw what danger he might incur, if he were sued in a premu-
nire, he consented to consecrate them.
The deanery of Christchurch, the most important post in the university, was given to Massey,
one of the new converts, though he had neither the gravity, the learning, nor the age that
was suitable to such a dignity. But all was supplied by his early conversion : and it was
set up for a maxim to encourage all converts. He at first went to prayers in the chapel.
But soon after he declared himself more openly*. Not long after this the president of Mag
dalen college died. That is esteemed the richest foundation in England, perhaps in Europe :
for, though the certain rents are but about four or five thousand pounds, yet it is thought
that the improved value of the estate belonging to it is about forty thousand pounds. So it
was no wonder that the priests studied to get this endowment into their hands.
They had endeavoured to break in upon the university of Cambridge in a matter of less
importance, but without success ; and now they resolved to attack Oxford, by a strange
fatality in their counsels. In all nations the privileges of colleges and universities are
esteemed such sacred things, that few will venture to dispute these, much less to disturb
them, when their title is good, and their possession is of a long continuance ; for in these not
only the present body espouses the matter, but all who have been of it, even those that have
only followed their studies in it, think themselves bound in honour and gratitude to assist
and support them. The priests began where they ought to have ended, when all other
things were brought about to their mind. The Jesuits fancied that, if they could get footing
in the university, they would gain such a reputation by their methods of teaching youth,
that they would carry them away from the university tutors, who were certainly too remiss.
Some of the more moderate among them proposed, that the king should endow a new col
lege in both universities, which needed not have cost above two thousand pounds a-year, and
in these set his priests to work. But either the king stuck at the charge which this would
put him to, or his priests thought it too mean, and below his dignity, not to lay his hand
* Dr. Douglas justly observes that Burnet's account of pensation on the 29th of December, 1686 — a dispensation
this transaction leads the reader to understand that that was a decided and unmitigated inroad upon our con-
Massey, at the time of his appointment to the deanery, stitution. — Dalrymple's Memoirs ; Sancroft MSS. in the
had not openly deserted protestantism ; but we now know Bodleian Library.
to the contrary. Massey produced and pleaded his dis-

444 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
upon those great bodies : so rougher methods were resolved on. It was reckoned, that by
frightening them they might be driven to compound the matter, and deliver up one or two
colleges to them ; and then, as the king said sometimes in the circle, they who taught
best would be most followed.
They began with Cambridge upon a softer point, which yet would have made way for all
the rest. The king sent his letter, or mandamus, to order F. Francis, an ignorant benedic-
tine monk, to be received a master of arts ; once to open the way for letting them into the
degrees of the university. The truth is, the king's letters were scarce ever refused in con
ferring degrees ; and when ambassadors, or foreign princes, came to those places, they usually
gave such degrees to those who belonged to them as were desired. The Morocco ambassa
dor's secretary, who was a mahometan, had that degree given him ; but a great distinction
was made between honorary degrees given to strangers, who intended not to live among
them, and those given to such as intended to settle among them ; for every master of arts
having a vote in the convocation, they reckoned that if they gave this degree, they must give
all that should be pretended to on the like authority : and they knew all the king's priests
would be let in upon them, which might occasion in present great distraction and contentions
among them ; and in time they might grow to be a majority in the convocation, which is
their parliament. They refused the mandamus with great unanimity, and with a firmness
that the court had not expected from them. New and repeated orders, full of severe threat
enings in case of disobedience, were sent to them : and this piece of raillery was everywhere
set up, that a papist was reckoned worse than a mahometan, and that the king's letters were
less considered than the ambassador from Morocco had been. Some feeble or false men of
the university tried to compound the matter by granting this degree to F. Francis, but
enacting at the same time, that it should not be a precedent for any other of the like nature.
This was not given way to : for it was said, that in all such cases the obedience that was
once paid would bo a much stronger argument for continuing to do it, as oft as it should bo
desired, than any such proviso could be against it.
Upon this the vice-chancellor was summoned before the ecclesiastical commission to
answer this contempt. He was a very honest but a very weak man. He made a poor
defence. And it was no small reflection on that great body, that their chief magistrate was
so little able to assert their privileges, or to justify their proceedings. He was treated with
greated contempt by Jeffreys*. But he having acted only as the chief person of that body,
all that was thought fit to be done against him was to turn him out of his office. That was
but an annual office, and of no profit : so this was a slight censure, chiefly when it was all
that followed on such heavy threatenings. The university chose another vice-chancellor
(Dr. Balderson), who was a man of much spirit ; and in his speech, which in course he made
upon his being chosen, he promised that, during his magistracy, neither religion, nor the
rights of the body, should suffer by his means. The court did not think fit to insist more
upon this matter : which was too plain a confession, either of their weakness in beginning
such an ill-grounded attempt, or of their feebleness in letting it fall, doing so little, after they
had talked so much about it. And now all people began to see that they had taken wrong
notions of the king, when they thought that it would be easy to engage him into bold things,
before he could see into the ill consequences that might attend them, but that being once
engaged he would resolve to go through with them at all adventures. When I knew him,
he seemed to have set up that for a maxim, that a king when he made a step was never to
go back, nor to encourage faction, and disobedience, by yieldino- to it.
After this unsuccessful attempt upon Cambridge, another was made upon Oxford, that
lasted longer, and had greater effects, which I shall set all down together, though the con
clusion of this affair ran far into the year after this that I now write of. The presidentship
of Magdalen's was given by the election of the fellows. So the king sent a mandamus,
requiring them to choose one Farmer, an ignorant and vicious person, who had not one quali
fication that could recommend him to so high a post, besides that of chanoino- his religion.
* This was Dr. Peachell. Tho coarse manner in which he was treated by Jeffreys is fully related in Woolrvch's
Life of this judge. '

OF KING JAMES II. 445
Mandamus letters had no legal authority in them ; but all the great proferments of the
church being in the king's disposal, those who did pretend to favour were not apt to refuse
his recommendation, lest that should be afterwards remembered to their prejudice. But
now, since it was visible in what channel favour was likely to run, less regard was had to
such a letter. The fellows of that house did upon this choose Dr. Hough, one of their body,
who, as he was in all respects a statutable man, so he was a worthy and a firm man, not
apt to be threatened out of his right. They carried their election according to their statutes
to the bishop of Winchester (Dr. Mews), their visitor, and he confirmed it. So that matter
was legally settled. This was highly resented at court. It was said, that, in case of a
mandamus for an undeserving man, they ought to have represented the matter to the king,
and staid till they had his pleasure : it was one of the chief services that the universities
expected from their chancellors, which made them always choose men of great credit at
court, that by their interest such letters might be either prevented or recalled. The duke
of Ormond was now their chancellor ; but he had little credit in the court, and was declining
in his age, which made him retire into the country. It was much observed that this univer
sity, that had asserted the king's prerogative in the highest strains of the most abject flattery
possible, both in their addresses and in a wild decree they had made but three years before
this, in which they had laid together a set of such high-flown maxims as must establish an
uncontrolable tyranny, should be the first body of the nation that should feel the effects of it
most sensibly. The cause was brought before the ecclesiastical commission. The fellows
were first asked why they had not chosen Farmer in obedience to the king's letter ? And
to that they answered by offering a list of many just exceptions against him. The subject
was fruitful, and the scandals he had given were very public. The court was ashamed of
him, and insisted no more on him ; but they said, that the house ought to have showed
more respect to the king's letter, than to have proceeded to an election in contempt of it.
The ecclesiastical commission took upon them to declare Hough's election null, and to put
the house under suspension. And, that the design of the court in this matter might be
carried on without the load of recommending a papist, Parker, bishop of Oxford, was now
recommended ; and the fellows were commanded to proceed to a new election in his favour.
They excused themselves, since they were bound by their oaths to maintain their statutes :
and by these, an election being once made and confirmed, they could not proceed to a new
choice, till the former was anuulled in some court of law : church benefices and college pre
ferments were freeholds, and could only be judged in a court of record : and, since the king
was now talking so much of liberty of conscience, it was said, that the forcing men to act
against their oaths, seemed not to agree with those professions. In opposition to this it was
said, that the statutes of colleges had been always considered as things that depended entirely
on the king's good pleasure : so that no oaths to observe them could bind them, when it was
in opposition to the king's command.
This did not satisfy the fellows : and though the king, as he went through Oxford in his
progress in the year 1687, sent for them, and ordered them to go presently and choose Parker
for their president, in a strain of language ill suited to the majesty of a crowned head, (for
he treated them with foul language, pronounced in a very angry tone,) yet it had no effect
on them. They insisted still on their oaths, though with a humility and submission that
they hoped would have mollified him. They continued thus firm. A subaltern commission
was sent from the ecclesiastical commission to finish the matter. Bishop Cartwright was
the head of this commission, as sir Charles Hedges was the king's advocate to manage the
matter. Cartwright acted in so rough a manner, that it showed he was resolved to sacrifice
all things to the king's pleasure. It was an afflicting thing, which seemed to have a peculiar
character of indignity in it, that this first act of violence committed against the legal posses
sions of the church, was executed by one bishop, and done in favour of another.
The new president was turned out. And, because he could not deliver the keys of his
house, the doors were broken open : and Parker was put in possession. The fellows were
required to make their submission, to ask pardon for what was passed, and to accept of the
bishop for their president. They still pleaded their oath, and were all turned out, except two

446 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
that submitted. So that it was expected to see that house soon stocked with papists*. The
nation, as well as the university, looked on all this proceeding with a just indignation. It
was thought an open piece of robbery and burglary, when men, authorised by no legal com
mission, came and forcibly turned men out of their possession and freehold. This agreed ill
with the professions that the king was still making, that he would maintain the church of
England as by law established : for this struck at the whole estate, and all the temporalities
of the church. It did so inflame the church party and the clergy, that they sent over
very pressing messages upon it to the prince of Orange, desiring that he would interpose and
espouse the concerns of the church ; and that he would break upon it, if the king would not
redress it. This I did not see in their letters. Those were of such importance, since the
writing them might have been carried to high treason, that the prince did not think fit to
show them. But he often said, he was pressed by many of those who were afterwards his
bitterest enemies, to engage in their quarrel. When that was communicated to me I was
still of opinion that, though this was indeed an act of despotical and arbitrary power, yet I
did not think it struck at the whole : so that it was not in my opinion a lawful case of
resistance ; and I could not concur in a quarrel occasioned by such a single act, though the
precedent set by it might go to everything.
Now the king broke with the church of England. And, as he was apt to go warmly
upon every provocation, he gave himself such liberties in discourse upon that subject, that it
was plain all the services they had done him, both in opposing the exclusion and upon his
first accession to the crown, were forgotten. Agents were now found out, to go among the
dissenters, to persuade them to accept of the favour the king intended them, and to concur
with him in his designs.
The dissenters were divided into four main bodies. The presbyterians, the independents,
the anabaptists, and the quakers. The two former had not the visible distinction of different
rites : and their depressed condition made, that the dispute about the constitution, and subor
dination, of churches, which had broken them when power was in their hands, was now
out of doors: and they were looked on as one body, and were above three parts in four of
all the dissenters. The main difference between these was, that the presbyterians seemed
reconcilable to the church ; for they loved episcopal ordination and a liturgy, and upon some
amendments seemed disposed to come into the church ; and they liked the civil government
and limited monarchy. But as the independents were for a commonwealth in the state, so
they put all the power of the church in the people, and thought that their choice was an
ordination : nor did they approve of set forms of worship. Both were enemies to this high
prerogative that the king was assuming, and were very averse to popery. They generally
were of a mind as to the accepting the king's favour ; but were not inclined to take in the
papists into a full toleration, much less could they be prevailed on to concur in taking off
the tests. The anabaptists were generally men of virtue, and of an universal charity : and
as they were far from being in any treating terms with the church of England, so nothing
but an universal toleration could make them capable of favour or employments. The quakers
had set up such a visible distinction in the matter of the hat, and saying thou and thee, that
they had all as it were a badge fixed on them ; so they were easily known. Among these
Penn had the greatest credit, as he had a free access at court. To all these it was proposed
that the king designed the settling the minds of the different parties in the nation, and the
* Dr. John Hough was a native of Middlesex, and 1743. — (Wood's Athena! Oxon. ; Wilmot's Life of Dr.
born in 1651. He was a demy of Magdalen college, Hough). Pious, serene, meek, and patient, virtuous
Oxford. In 1681, he went as chaplain to the duke of qualities that ensure firmness of character, his path to
Ormond into Ireland. He was prehendary of Worcester the grave was gently sloped and protracted. Extreme
when elected president of his college in opposition to old age did not affect him with the petulance which is its
Anthony Farmer. Dr. Samuel Parker, who was made usual accompaniment. A few weeks before his death, a
to supersede him, only lived a few months, and then a young clergyman awkwardly threw down the bishop's
professed Roman catholic was appointed to the president- favourite barometer. The offender was confounded with
ship, namely Bonaventure Gifford, a Sorbonne doctor and surprise and regret, but he was prevented apologizing, by
secular priest, bishop elect of Madaura At the Revolu- the bishop approaching him with his usual complacency,
tion, Dr. Hough and the fellows of Magdalen were re- Baying, " Sir, do not be uneasy ; I have observed this
Btored, and in 1690 he was enthroned bishop of Oxford, glass almost daily for upwards of seventy years, and never
then of Lichfield, and finally of Worcester. He died in saw it so low before."  Noble's Life of Grainger.

OF KING JAMES II. 447
enriching it by enacting a perpetual law, that should be passed with such solemnities as had
accompanied the Magna Charta ; so that not only penal laws should be for ever repealed,
but that public employments should be opened to men of all persuasions, without any tests,
or oaths, limiting them to one sort, or party, of men. There were many meetings among
the leading men of the several sects.
It was visible to all men, that the courting them at this time was not from any kindness
or good opinion that the king had of them. They had left the church of England, because
of some forms in it that they thought looked too like the church of Rome. They needed
not to be told, that all the favour expected from popery was once to bring it in under the
colour of a general toleration, till it should be strong enough to set on a general persecution :
and therefore, as they could not engage themselves to support such an arbitrary prerogative
as was now made use of, so neither should they go into any engagements for popery. Yet
they resolved to let the points of controversy alone, and leave those to the management of
the clergy, who had a legal bottom to support them. They did believe that this indignation
against the church party, and this kindness to them, were things too unnatural to last long.
So the more considerable among them resolved not to stand at too great a distance from the
court, nor to provoke the king so far, as to give him cause to think they were irreconcilable
to him, lest they should provoke him to make up matters on any terms with the church
party. On the other . hand, they resolved not to provoke the church party, or by any ill
behaviour of theirs drive them into a reconciliation with the court. It is true Penn shewed
both a scorn of the clergy, and virulent spite against them, in which he had not many
followers. The king was so fond of his army that he ordered them to encamp on Hounslow Heath,
and to be exercised all the summer long. This was done with great magnificence, and at a
vast expense; but that which abated the king's joy in seeing so brave an army about him
was, that it appeared visibly, and ou many occasions, that his soldiers had as great an aver
sion to his religion as his other subjects had expressed. The king had a chapel in his camp,
where mass was said ; but so few went to it, and those few were treated by the rest with so
much scorn, that it was not easy to bear it. It was very plain that such an army was not
to be trusted in any quarrel, in which religion was concerned.
The few papists that were in the army were an unequal match for the rest. The heats
about religion were likely to breed quarrels : and it was once very near a mutiny. It was
thought that these encampments had a good effect on the army. They encouraged one
another, and vowed they would stick together, and never forsake their religion. It was no
small comfort to them to see they had so few papists among them ; which might have been
better disguised at a distance, than when they were all in view. A resolution was formed
upon this at court, to make recruits in Ireland, and to fill them up with Irish papists ; which
succeeded as ill as all their other designs did, as shall be told in its proper place.
The king had for above a year managed his correspondence with Rome secretly. But now
the priests resolved to drive the matter past reconciling. The correspondence with that court,
while there was none at Rome with a public character, could not be decently managed, but
by cardinal Howard's means. He was no friend to the Jesuits ; nor did he like their over
driving matters. So they moved the king to send an ambassador to Rome. This was high
treason by law. Jeffreys was very uneasy at it. But the king's power of pardoning had
been much argued in the earl of Danby's case, and was believed to be one of the unquestion
able rights of the crown. So he knew a safe way in committing crimes : which was, to take
out pardons as soon as he had done illegal things.
The king's choice of Palmer, earl of Castlemain, was liable to great exception. For, as he
was believed to be a Jesuit, so he was certainly as hot and eager in all high notions, as any
of them could be. The Romans were amazed when they heard that he was to be the person.
His misfortunes were so eminent and public, that they who take their measures much from
astrology, and from the characters they think are fixed on men, thought it strange to see
such a negotiation put in the hands of so unlucky a man. It was managed with great
splendour, and at a vast charge *-
* For an account of this embassy, and its pageantry, see Misson's " Voyage to Italy," ii. 256.

443 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
He was unhappy in every step of it. He disputed with a nice sort of affectation every
punctilio of the ceremonial. And when the day, set for his audience, came there happened
to be such an extraordinary thunder, and such deluges of rain, as disgraced the show and
heightened the opinion of the ominousness of this embassy. After this was over, he had yet
many disputes with relation to the ceremony of visits. The points he pressed were, first
the makino- P. Renaldi, of Este, the queen's uncle, a cardinal : in which he prevailed ; and
it was the°only point in which he succeeded. He tried if it was possible to get father Petre
to be made a cardinal. But the pope was known to be intractable m that point, having fixed
it as a maxim not to raise any of that order to the purple. Count Mansfield told me, as ho
came from Spain, that our court had pressed the court of Spain to join their interest with
ours at Rome for his promotion. They gave it out that he was a German by birth, and
undertook that he should serve the Austrian interest. They also promised the court of
Madrid great assistance in other matters of the last importance, if they would procure this :
adding, that this would prove the most effectual means for the conversion of England.
Upon which, the count told me, he was asked concerning father Petre. He, who had gone
often to Spain through England, happened to know that Jesuit, and told them he was no
German, but an Englishman. They tried their strength at Rome for his promotion, but
with no success.
The ambassador at Rome pressed cardinal Cibo much to put an .end to the differences
between the pope and the king of France, in the matter of the franchises, that it might
appear that the pope had a due regard to a king that had extirpated heresy, and to
another king who was endeavouring to bring other kingdoms into the sheepfold. What
must the world say, if two such kings, like whom no ages had produced any, should be
neglected, and ill used, at Rome for some punctilios ? He added, that, if these matters were
settled, and if the pope would enter into concert with them, they would set about the
destroying heresy every where, and would begin with the Dutch ; upon whom, he said, they
would fall without any declaration of war, treating them as a company of rebels, and pirates,
who had not a right, as free states and princes have, to a formal denunciation of war. Cibo,
who was then cardinal patron, was amazed at this, and gave notice of it to the imperial car
dinals. They sent it to the emperor, and he signified it to the prince of Orange. It is
certain that one prince's treating with another, to invade a third, gives a right to that third
prince to defend himself, and to prevent those designs. And, since what an ambassador says
is understood as said by the prince whose character he bears, this gave the States a right to
make use of all advantages that might offer themselves. But they had yet better grounds
to justify their proceedings, as will appear in the sequel.
When the ambassador saw that his remonstrances to the cardinal patron were inef
fectual, he demanded an audience of the pope ; and there he lamented that so little regard
was had to two such great kings. He reflected on the pope, as shewing more zeal about
temporal concerns than the spiritual; which, he said, gave scandal to all Christendom. He
concluded, that, since he saw intercessions made in his master's name were so little considered,
he would make haste home : to which the pope made no other answer, but " lei e padrone,"
he might do as he pleased. But he sent one after the ambassador, as he withdrew from the
audience, to let him know how much he was offended with his discourses, that he received
no such treatment from any person, and that the ambassador was to expect no other private
audience. Cardinal Howard did what he could to soften matters. But the ambassador was
so entirely in the hands of the Jesuits, that he had little regard to any thing that the cardinal
suggested. And so he left Rome after a very expensive, but insignificant embassy.
The pope sent in return a nuncio, Dada, now a cardinal. He was highly civil in all his
deportment ; but it did not appear that he was a man of great depth, nor had he power to
do much. The pope was a jealous and fearful man, who had no knowledge of any sort, but
in the matters of the revenue, and of money : for he was descended from a family that was
become rich by dealing in banks. And, in that respect, it was a happiness to the papacy
that he was advanced : for it was so involved in vast debts, by a succession of many waste
ful pontificates, that his frugal management came in good time to set those matters in better
order. It was known that he did not so much as understand Latin. I was told at Rome,

OF KING JAMES 11. 449
that when he was made cardinal, he had a master to teach him to pronounce that little
Latin that he had occasion for at high masses. He understood nothing of divinity. I
remembered what a Jesuit at Venice had said to me, whom I met sometimes at the French
ambassador's there, when we were talking of the pope's infallibility : he said, that being in
Rome during Altieri's pontificate, who lived some years in a perfect dotage, he confessed it
required a very strong faith to believe him infallible : but he added pleasantly, the harder it
was to believe it, the act of faith was the more meritorious. The submitting to pope Inno
cent's infallibility was a very implicit act of faith, when all appearances were so strongly
against it. The pope hated the Jesuits, and expressed a great esteem for the Jansenists ;
not that he understood the ground of the difference, but because they were enemies to the
Jesuits, and were ill-looked on by the court of France. He understood the business of the
regale a little better, it relating to the temporalities of the church. And therefore he took
all those under his protection who refused to submit to it. Things seemed to go far towards
a breach between the two courts : especially after the articles which were set out by the
assembly of the clergy of France in the year 1682, in favour of the councils of Constance
and Basil, in opposition to the papal pretensions. The king of France, who was not accus
tomed to be treated in such a manner, sent many threatening messages to Rome, which
alarmed the cardinals so much, that they tried to mollify the pope. But it was reported at
Rome, that he made a noble answer to them, when they asked him what he would do,
if so great a king should send an army to fall upon him ? He said, he could suffer mar
tyrdom. He was so little terrified with all those threatenings, that he had set on foot a dispute
about the franchises. In Rome all those of a nation put themselves under the protection of
their ambassador, and are, upon occasions of ceremony, his cortege. These were usually
lodged in his neighbourhood, pretending that they belonged to him. So that they exempted
themselves from the orders and justice of Rome, as a part of the ambassador's family. And
that extent of houses or streets in which they lodged was called the franchises : for in it they
pretended they were not subject to the government of Rome. This had made these houses
to be well filled, not only with those of that nation, but with such Romans as desired to be
covered with that protection. Rome was now much sunk from what it had been : so that
these franchises were become so great a part of the city, that the privileges of those that lived in
them were giving every day new disturbances to the course of justice, and were the common
sanctuaries of criminals. So the pope resolved to reduce the privileges of ambassadors to their
own families, within their own palaces. He first dealt with the emperor's and the king
of Spain's ambassadors, and brought them to quit their pretensions to the franchises ; but
with this provision, that, if the French did not the same, they would return to them. So
now the pope was upon forcing the French to submit to the same methods. The pope said,
his nuncio, or legate, at Paris, had no privilege but for his family, and for those that lived
in his palace. The French rejected this with great scorn. They said, the pope was not to
pretend to an equality with so great a king. He was the common father of Christendom :
so those who came thither, as to the centre of unity, were not to be put on the level with the
ambassadors that passed between sovereign princes. Upon this the king of France pretended
that he would maintain all the privileges and franchises that his ambassadors were possessed
of. This was now growing up to be the matter of a new quarrel, and of fresh disputes,
between those courts.
The English ambassador being so entirely in the French interests, and in the confidence
of the Jesuits, he was much less considered at Rome than he thought he ou.ght to have been.
The truth is, the Romans, as they have very little sense of religion, so they considered the
reduction of England as a thing impracticable. They saw no prospect of any profits likely
to arise in any of their offices by bulls, or compositions : and this was the notion that they
had of the conversion of nations, chiefly as it brought wealth and advantages to them.
I will conclude all that I shall say in this place of the affairs of Rome with a lively saying
of queen Christina to myself at Rome. She said, it was certaiu that the church was
governed by the immediate care and providence of God : for none of the four popes that she
had known, since she oaine to Rome, had common sense. She added, they were the first
G G

450 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
and the last of men. She had given herself entirely for some years to the study of astrology :
and upon that she told me the king would live yet many years, but added that he would
have no son.
I come, from the relation of this embassade to Rome, to give an account of otner negotia
tions. The king found Skelton managed his affairs in Holland with so little sense, and
gave such an universal distaste, that he resolved to change him. But he had been so ser
vilely addicted to all his interests, that he would not discourage him. And, because all his
concerns with the court of France were managed with Barillon, the French ambassador at
London, he was sent to Paris.
The king found out one White, an Irishman, who had been long a spy of the Spaniards.
And when they did not pay his appointments well, he accepted of the title of marquis
d'Albeville from them in part of payment. And then he turned to the French, who paid
their tools more punctually. But though he had learned the little arts of corrupting under
secretaries, and had found out some secrets by that way, which made him pass for a good
spy, yet, when he came to negotiate matters in a higher form, he proved a most contempt
ible and ridiculous man, who had not the common appearances either of decency or of truth.
He had orders, before he entered upon business with the prince or princess, to ask of them
not only to forbid me the court, but to promise to see me no more. The king had written
two violent letters against me to the princess. She trusted me so far, that she showed them
to me : and was pleased to answer them according to the hints that I suggested. But now
it was put so home, that this was to be complied with, or a breach was immediately to
follow upon it. So this was done. And they were both so true to their promise, that I
saw neither the one nor the other till a few days before the prince set sail for England.
The prince sent Dykvelt and Halewyn constantly to me, with all the advertisements that
came from England. So I had the whole secret of English affairs still brought me.
That which was first resolved on was, to send Dykvelt to England with directions how
to talk with all sorts of people : to the king, to those of the church, and to the dissenters.
I was ordered to draw his instructions, which he followed very closely. He was ordered to
expostulate decently, but firmly, with the king, upon the methods he was pursuing, both at
home and abroad ; and to see if it was possible to bring him to a better understanding with
the prince. He was also to assure all the church party, that the prince would ever be firm
to the church of England, and to all our national interests. The clergy, by the methods in
which they corresponded with him, which I suppose was chiefly by the bishop of London's
means, had desired him to use all his credit with the dissenters, to keep them from going
into the measures of the court ; and to send over very positive assurances that, in case they
stood firm now to the common interest, they would in a better time come into a comprehen
sion of such as could be brought into a conjunction with the church, and to a toleration of
the rest. They had also desired him to send over some of the preachers whom the violence
of the former years had driven to Holland ; and to prevail effectually with them to oppose
any false brethren whom the court might gain to deceive the rest : which the prince had
done. And to many of them he gave such presents, as enabled them to pay their debts and
to undertake the journey. Dykvelt had orders to press them all to stand off, and not to be
drawn in by any promises the court might make them to assist them in the elections of par
liament. He was also instructed to assure them of a full toleration ; and likewise of a com
prehension, if possible, whensoever the crown should devolve on the princess. He was to
try all sorts of people, and to remove the ill impressions that had been given them of the
prince : for the church party was made believe he was a presbyterian, and the dissenters
were possessed with a conceit of his being arbitrary and imperious. Some had even the
impudence to give out that he was a papist. But the ill terms in which the king and he
lived put an end to those reports at that time. Yet they were afterwards taken up, and
managed with much malice to create a jealousy of him. Dykvelt was not gone off when
D'Albeville came to the Hague. He did all he could to divert the journey : for he knew
well Dykvelt's way of penetrating into secrets, he himself having been often employed by
him, and well paid for several discoveries made by his means.
D'Albeville assured the prince and the States that the king was firmly resolved to main-

OF KING JAMES II. 451
tain his alliance with them : that his naval preparations were only to enable him to preserve
the peace of Europe : for he seemed much concerned to find that the States had such appre
hensions of these, that they were putting themselves in a condition not to be surprised by
them. In his secret negotiations with the prince and princess, he began with very positive
assurances that the king intended never to wrong them in their right of succession : that all
that the king was now engaged in was only to assert the rights of the crown, of which they
would reap the advantage in their turn : the test was a restraint on the king's liberty, and
therefore he was resolved to have it repealed : and he was also resolved to lay aside all
penal laws in matters of religion : they saw too well the advantages that Holland had, by the
liberty of conscience that was settled among them, to oppose him in this particular : the
king could not abandon men, because they were of his own religion, who had served him
well, and had suffered only on his account, and on the account of their conscience. He told
them how much the king condemned the proceedings in France ; and that he spoke of that
king as a poor bigot, who was governed by the archbishop of Paris and Madame de Main-
tenon ; whereas he knew Pere de la Chaise had opposed the persecution as long as he could,
But the king hated those maxims : and therefore he received the refugees very kindly, and
had given orders for a collection of charity over the kingdom for their relief.
This was the substance both of what D'Albeville said to the prince and princess, and of what
the king himself said to Dykvelt upon those subjects. At that time the king thought he had
made a majority of the house of commons sure : and so he seemed resolved to have a session
of parliament in April. And of this D'Albeville gave the prince positive assurances. But
the king had reckoned wrong : for many of those who had been with him in his closet were
either silent, or had answered him in such respectful words, that he took these for promises.
But, when they were more strictly examined, the king saw his error : and so the sitting of
the parliament was put off.
To all these propositions the prince and princess, and Dykvelt in their name, answered,
that they were fixed in a principle against persecution in matters of conscience ; but they
could not think it reasonable to let papists in to sit in parliament, or to serve in public
trusts : the restless spirit of some of that religion, and of their clergy in particular, shewed
they could not be at quiet till they were masters : and the power they had over the king's
spirit, in making him forget what he had promised upon his coming to the crown, gave but
too just a ground of jealousy : it appeared that they could not bear any restraints, nor
remember past services longer, than those who did them could comply in everything with
that which was desired of them : they thought the prerogative, as limited by law, was great
enough : and they desired no such exorbitant power as should break through all laws : they
feared that such an attack upon the constitution might rather drive the nation into a com
monwealth : they thought the surest as well as the best way was to govern according to
law : the church of England had given the king signal proofs of their affection and fidelity ;
and had complied with him in everything, till he came to touch them in so tender a point
as the legal security they had for their religion : their sticking to that was very natural :
and the king's taking that ill from them was liable to great censure : the king, if he pleased
to improve the advantages he had in his hand, might be both easy and great at home, and
the arbiter of all affairs abroad : but he was prevailed on by the importunities of some rest
less priests to embroil all his affairs to serve their ends ; they could never consent to abolish
those laws which were the best, and now the only fence of that religion which they them
selves believed true. This was the substance of their answers to all the pressing messages
that were often repeated by D'Albeville. And upon this occasion the princess spoke so
often, and with such firmness to him, that he said, she was more intractable on those matters
than the prince himself. Dykvelt told me he argued often with the king on all these topics,
but he found him obstinately fixed in his resolution. He said he was the head of the family,
and the prince ought to comply with him ; but that he had always set himself against him,
Dykvelt answered that the prince could not carry his compliance so far, as to give up his
religion to his pleasure ; but that in all other things he had shown a very ready submission
to his will : the peace of Nimeguen, of which the king was guarantee, was openly violated
in the article relating to the principality of Orange : yet since the king did not think fit to
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462 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
espouse his interests in that matter, he had been silent, and had made no protestations upon
it : so the king saw that he was ready to be silent under so great an injury, and to sacrifice
his own concerns rather than disturb the king's affairs. To this the king made no answer.
The earl of Sunderland and the rest of the ministry pressed Dykvelt mightily to endeavour
to bring the prince to concur with the king. And they engaged to him, that, if that were
once settled, the king would go into close measures with him against France. But he put
an end to all those propositions. He said, the prince could never be brought to hearken to
them. At this time a great discovery was made of the intentions of the court, by the Jesuits of
Liege, who, in a letter that they wrote to their brethren at Friburg, in Switzerland, gave
them a long account of the affairs of England. They told them, that the king was received
into a communication of the merits of their order : that he expressed great joy at his becom
ing a son of the society ; and professed, he was as much concerned in all their interests as in
his own : he wished they could furnish him with many priests to assist him in the conversion
of the nation, which he was resolved to bring about, or to die a martyr in endeavouring it ;
and that he would rather suffer death for carrying on that, than live ever so long and happy
without attempting it. He said, he must make haste in this work, otherwise, if he should
, die before he had compassed it, he would leave them worse than he found them. They
' added, among many particulars, that, when one of them kneeled down to kiss his hand, he
took him up, and said, since he was a priest, he ought rather to kneel to him, and to kiss
his hand. And, when one of them was lamenting that his next heir was an heretic, he said,
" God would provide an heir."
The Jesuits at Friburg showed this about. And one of the ministers, on whom they
were taking some pains, and of whom they had some hopes, had got a sight of it. And he
obtained leave to take a copy of it, pretending that he would make good use of it. He sent
a copy of it to Heidegger, the famous professor of divinity at Zurich : and from him I had
it. Other copies of it were likewise sent, both from Geneva and Switzerland. One of those
was sent to Dykvelt ; who upon that told the king, that his priests had other designs, and
were full of those hopes that gave jealousies which could not be easily removed : and he
named the Liege letter, and gave the king a copy of it. He promised to him he would read
it ; and he would soon see whether it was an imposture framed to make them more odious
or not. But he never spoke of it to him afterwards. This Dykvelt thought was a con
fessing that the letter was no forgery. Thus Dykvelt's negotiation at London, and D'Albe-
ville's at the Hague, ended without any effect on either side.
But, if his treating with the king was without success, his management of his instructions
was more prosperous. He desired that those who wished well to their religion and their
country would meet together, and concert such advices and advertisements as might be fit
for the prince to know, that he might govern himself by them. The marquis of Halifax,
and the earls of Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, and Nottingham, the lords Mordaunt and
Lumley, Herbert and Russel among the admirals, and the bishop of London, were the per
sons chiefly trusted. And upon the advices that were sent over by them the prince governed
all his motions. They met often at the earl of Shrewsbury's. And there they concerted
matters, and drew the declaration on which they advised the prince to engage.
In this state things lay for some months. But the king resolved to go on in his design of
breaking through the laws. He sent a proclamation of indulgence to Scotland in February.
It set forth in the preamble, that the king had an absolute power vested in him, so that all
his subjects were bound to obey him without reserve : by virtue of this power, the king
repealed all the severe laws that were passed in his grandfather's name during his infancy :
he with that took off all disabilities that were by any law laid on his Roman catholic sub
jects, and made them capable of all employments and benefices : he also slackened all the
laws made against the moderate presbyterians : and promised he would never force his sub
jects by any invincible necessity to change their religion : and he repealed all laws imposing
tests on those who held any employments : instead of which he set up a new one, by which
they should renounce the principles of rebellion, and should oblige themselves to maintain
the king in this his absolute power against all mortals

OF KING JAMES II. 453
This was published in Scotland to make way for that which followed it some months after
in England. It was strangely drawn, and liable to much just censure. The king by this
raised his power to a pitch, not only of suspending, but of repealing laws, and of enacting
new ones by his own authority. His claiming an absolute power, to which all men were
bound to ohey without reserve, was an invasion of all that was either legal or sacred. The
only precedent that could be found for such an extraordinary pretension, was in the declara
tion that Philip the Second of Spain sent by the duke of Alva into the Netherlands, in
which he founded all the authority that he committed to that bloody man, on the absolute
power that rested in him. Yet in this the king went further than Philip, who did not pre
tend that the subjects were bound to obey without reserve. Every prince that believes the
truth of religion, must confess that there are reserves in the obedience of their subjects, in
case their commands should be contrary to the laws of God. The requiring all persons that
should be capable of employments to swear to maintain this, was to make them feel their
slavery too sensibly. The king's promising to use " no invincible necessity" to force his
subjects to change their religion, showed that he allowed himself a very large reserve in this
grace that he promised his subjects ; though he allowed them none in their obedience. The
laws that had passed during king James's minority had been often ratified by himself after
he was of age. And they had received many subsequent confirmations in the succeeding
reigns ; and one in the king's own reign. And the test that was now taken away was
passed by the present king, when he represented his brother. Some took also notice of the
word " moderate presbyterians," as very ambiguous.
The court finding that so many objections lay against this proclamation (as indeed it
seemed penned on purpose to raise new jealousies), let it fall, and sent down another some
months after that was more cautiously worded ; only absolute power was so dear to them,
that it was still asserted in the new one. By it, full liberty was granted to all presbyte
rians to set up conventicles in their own way. They did all accept of it without pretending
any scruples. And they magnified this, as an extraordinary stroke of providence, that a
prince, from whom they expected an increase of the severities under which the laws had
brought them, should thus of a sudden allow them such an unconfined liberty?- But they
were not so blind as not to see what was aimed at by it. They made addresses upon it full
of acknowledgments, and of protestations of loyalty. Yet, when some were sent among
them, pressing them to dispose all their party to concur with the king in taking away the
tests and penal laws, they answered them only in cold and general words.
In April the king set out a declaration of toleration and liberty of conscience for England.
But it was drawn up in much more modest terms than the Scotch proclamation had been.
In the preamble, the king expressed his aversion to persecution on the account of religion,
and the necessity that he found of allowing his subjects liberty of conscience, in which he did
not doubt of the concurrence of his parliament : he renewed his promise of maintaining the
church of England, as it was by law established : but with this he suspended all penal and
sanguinary laws in matters of religion : and, since the service of all his subjects was due to
him by the laws of nature, he declared them all equally capable of employments, and sup
pressed all oaths or tests that limited this : in conclusion, he promised he would maintain all
his subjects in all their properties, and particularly in the possession of the abbey lands.
This gave great offence to all true patriots, as well as to the whole church party. The king
did now assume a power of repealing laws by his own authority : for though he pretended
only to suspend them, yet no limitation was set to this suspension : so it amounted to a
repeal, the laws being suspended for all time to come. The preamble, that pretended so
much love and charity, and that condemned persecution, sounded strangely in the mouth of
a popish prince. The king's saying that he did not doubt of the parliament's concurring with
him in this matter seemed ridiculous ; for it was visible by all the prorogations, that the
king was but too well assured, that the parliament would not concur with him in it. And
the promise to maintain the subjects in their possessions of the abbey lands, looked as if the
design of setting up popery was thought very near being effected, since otherwise there was
no need of mentioning any such thing.
Upon this a now set of addresses went round tho dissenters. And they, who had so long

454 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
reproached the church of England, as too courtly in their submissions and flatteries, seemed
now to vie with them in those abject strains. Some of them, being penned by persons whom
the court had gained, contained severe reflections on the clergy, and on their proceedings.
They magnified the king's mercy and favour, and made great protestations of fidelity and
gratitude. Many promised to endeavour that such persons should be chosen to serve in
parliament, as should concur with the king in the enacting what he now granted so gra
ciously. Few concurred in those addresses : and the persons that brought them up were
mean and inconsiderable. Yet the court was lifted up with this. The king, and his priests,
were delighted with these addresses out of measure : and they seemed to think that they
had gained the nation, and had now conquered those who were hitherto their most irrecon
cilable enemies. The king made the cruelty of the church of England the common subject
of discourse. He reproached them for setting on so often a violent persecution of the dis
senters. He said he had intended to have set on this toleration sooner, but that he was
restrained by some of them, who had treated with him, and had undertaken to show favour
to those of his religion, provided they might be still suffered to vex the dissenters. He
named the persons that had made those propositions to him. In which he suffered much in
his honour : for as the persons denied the whole thing, so the freedom of discourse in any
such treaty, ought not to have been made use of to defame them.
But, to carry this further, and to give a public and an odious proof of the rigour of the
ecclesiastical courts, the king ordered an enquiry to be made into all the vexatious suits into
which dissenters had been brought in these courts, and into all the compositions that they
had been forced to make, to redeem themselves from further trouble : which, as was said,
would have brought a scandalous discovery of all the ill practices of those courts. For the use
that many that belonged to them had made of the laws with relation to the dissenters, was,
to draw presents from such of them as could make them ; threatening them with a process
in case they failed to do that, and upon their doing it, leaving them at full liberty to neglect
the laws as much as they pleased. It was hoped at court, that this fury against the church
would have animated the dissenters to turn upon the clergy, with some of that fierceness with
which they*themselves had been lately treated. Some few of the hotter of the dissenters
answered their expectations. Angry speeches and virulent books were published. Yet
these were disowned by the wiser men among them : and the clergy, by a general agreement,
made no answer to them. So that the matter was let fall, to the great grief of the popish
party. Some of the bishops, that were gained by the court, carried their compliance to a
shameful pitch : for they set on addresses of thanks to the king for the promise he had
made, in the late declaration of maintaining the church of England : though it was visible
that the intent of it was to destroy the church. Some few were drawn into this. But the
bishop of Oxford had so ill success in his diocese, that he got but one single clergyman to
concur with him in it. Some foolish men retained still their old peevishness. But the far
greater part of the clergy began to open their eyes, and see how they had been engaged by
ill-meaning men, who were now laying by the mask, into all the fury that had been driven
on for many years by a popish party. And it was often said, that if ever God should deliver
them out of the present distress, they would keep up their domestic quarrels no more, which
were so visibly and so artfully managed by our enemies to make us devour one another, and
so in the end to be consumed one of another. And when some of those who had been
always moderate, told these, who were putting on another temper, that they would perhaps
forget this as soon as the danger was over, they promised the contrary very solemnly. It
shall be told afterwards how well they remembered this. Now the bed-chamber and
drawing-room were as full of stories to the prejudice of the clergy, as they were formerly to
the prejudice of the dissenters. It was said they had been loyal as long as the court was in
their interests, and was venturing all on their account ; but as soon as this changed, they
changed likewise.
The king, seeing no hope of prevailing on his parliament, dissolved it ; but gave it out,
that he would have a new one before winter. And, the queen being advised to go to
the Bath for her health, the king resolved on a great progress through some of ths western
counties.

OF KING JAMES II. 455
Before he set out, he resolved to give the pope's nuncio a solemn reception at Windsor.
He apprehended some disorder might have happened if it had been done at London. He
thought it below both his own dignity, and the pope's, not to give the nuncio a public
audience. This was a hard point for those who were to act a part in this ceremony ; for all
commerce with the see of Rome being declared high treason by law, this was believed to
fall within the statute. It was so apprehended by queen Mary. Cardinal Pool was obliged
to stay in Flanders till all those laws were repealed. But the king would not stay for that.
The duke of Somerset, being the lord of the bed-chamber then in waiting, had advised with
his lawyers : and they told him, he could not safely do the part that was expected of him
in the audience. So he told the king that he could not serve him upon that occasion ; for
he was assured it was against the law. The king asked him, if he did not know that he
was above the law. The other answered, that, whatever the king might be, he himself was
not above the law. The king expressed a high displeasure, and turned him out of all
employments*. The ceremony passed very heavily: and the compliment was pronounced
with so low a voice, that no person could hear it ; which was believed done by concert.
When this was over, the king set out for his progress, and went from Salisbury all round
as far as to Chester. In the places through which the king passed he saw a visible coldness
both in the nobility and gentry, which was not easily borne by a man of his temper. In
many places they pretended occasions to go out of their counties. Some stayed at home.
And those who waited on the king seemed to do it rather out of duty and respect, than with
any cordial affection. The king on his part was very obliging to all that came near him,
and most particularly to the dissenters, and to those who had passed long under the notion
of commonwealth's men. He looked very graciously on all that had been of the duke of
Monmouth's party. He addressed his discourse generally to all sorts of people. He ran out
on the point of liberty of conscience : he said, this was the true secret of the greatness and
wealth of Holland. He was well pleased to hear all the ill-natured stories that were brought
him of the violences committed of late, either by the justices of peace, or by the clergy.
He everywhere recommended to them the choosing such parliament men, as would concur
with him in settling this liberty as firmly as the Magna Charta had been : and to this he
never forgot to add the taking away the tests. But he received such cold and general
answers that he saw he could not depend on them. The king had designed to go through
many more places : but the small success he had in those which he visited made him shorten
his progress. He went and visited the queen at the Bath, where he stayed only a few
days, two or three at most : and she continued on in her course of bathing. Many books
were now written for liberty of conscience ; and, since all people saw what security the tests
gave, these spoke of an equivalent to be offered, that should give a further security beyond
what could be pretended from the tests. It was never explained what was meant by this :
so it was thought an artificial method to lay men asleep with a high sounding word. Some
talked of new laws to secure civil liberty, which had been so much shaken by the practices
of these last years, ever since the Oxford parliament. Upon this a very extravagant thing
was given out, that the king was resolved to set up a sort of a commonwealth : and the
papists began to talk everywhere very high for public liberty, trying by that to recommend
themselves to the nation.
When the king came back from his progress, he resolved to change the magistracy in most
of the cities of England. He began with London. He not only changed the court of alder
men, but the government of many of the companies of the city : for great powers had been
reserved in the new charters that had been given, for the king to put in, and to put out, at
pleasure : but it was said at the granting them, that these clauses were put in only to keep
them in a due dependence on the court, but that they should not be made use of, unless great
provocation was given. Now all this was executed with great severity and contempt.
Those who had stood up for the king, during the debates about the exclusion, were now
turned out with disgrace : and those who had appeared most violently against him were put
* The duke of Grafton eventually introduced him. The conversation between James the Second and the duke of
Somerset is very similarly told in an unpublished Life of the King, by the earl of Lonsdale.— Oxford edition of
this work.

4o6 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
in the magistracy, who took liberties now in their turn to insult their neighbours. All this
turned upon the king, who was so given up to the humours of his priests, that he sacrificed
both his honour, and gratitude, as they dictated. The new men, who were brought in, saw
this too visibly to be much wrought on by it.
The king threw off his old party in too outrageous a manner ever to return to them again.
But he was much surprised to find that the new mayor and aldermen took the test, and
ordered the observation of Gunpowder-treason day to be continued. When the sheriffs came,
according to custom, to invite the king to the lord mayor's feast, he commanded them to go and
invite the nuncio ; which they did. And he went upon the invitation, to the surprise of all
who saw it. But the mayor and aldermen disowned the invitation ; and made an entry of it
in their books, that the nuncio came without their knowledge. This the king took very ill.
And upon it, he said, he saw the dissenters were an ill-natured sort of people, that could
not be gained. The king signified to the lord mayor that he might use what form of worship
he liked best in Guildhall chapel. ' The design in this was to engage the dissenters to make
the first change from the established worship : and, if a presbyterian mayor should do this
in one year, a popish mayor might do it in another. But the mayor put the decision of this
upon persons against whom the court could have no exception. He sent to those, to whom
the governing of the diocese of London was committed during the suspension, and asked
their opinion in it ; which they could not but give in behalf of the established worship : and
they added, that the changing it was against law. So this project miscarried ; and the
mayor, though he went sometimes to the meetings of the dissenters, yet he came often to
church, and behaved himself more decently than was expected of him.
This change in the city not succeeding as the court had expected, did not discourage them
from appointing a committee to examine the magistracy in the other cities, and to put in, or
out, as they saw cause for it. Some were putting the nation in hope that the old charters
were to be restored. But the king was so far from that, that he was making every day a
very arbitrary use of the power of changing the magistracy, that was reserved in the new
charters. These regulators, who were for most part dissenters gained by the court, went on
very boldly ; and turned men out upon every story that was made of them, and put such
men in their room as they confided in. And in these they took their measures often so
hastily, that men were put in one week, and turned out the other.
After this, the king sent orders to the lords-lieutenants of the counties, to examine the
gentlemen and freeholders upon three questions. The first was, whether, in case they should
be chosen to serve in parliament, they would consent to repeal the penal laws, and those for
the tests. The second, was, whether they would give their vote for choosing such men as
would engage to do that. And the third was, whether they would maintain the king's
declaration. In most of the counties the lords-lieutenants put those questions in so careless
a manner, that it was plain they did not desire they should be answered in the affirmative.
Some went further, and declared themselves against them. And a few of the more resolute
refused to put them. They said, this was the prelimiting and packing of a parliament,
which in its nature was to be free, and under no previous engagement. Many counties
answered very boldly in the negative : and others refused to give any answer, which was
understood to be equivalent to a negative. The mayor, and most of the new aldermen of
London, refused to answer. Upon this many were turned out of all commissions.
This, as all the other artifices of the priests, had an effect quite contrary to what they
promised themselves from it : for those who had resolved to oppose the court were more
encouraged than ever, by the discovery now made of the sense of the whole nation in those
matters. Yet such care was taken in naming the sheriffs and mayors that were appointed
for the next year, that it was believed that the king was resolved to hold a parliament within
that time, and to have such a house of commons returned, whether regularly chosen, or not,
as should serve his ends.
. It was concluded, that the king would make use both of his power and of his troops,
either to force elections, or to put the parliament under a force when it should meet : for it
was so positively said that the king would carry his point, and there was so little appearance
of his being able to do it in a fair and regular way, that it was generally believed some very

OF KING JAMES II. 457
desperate resolution was now taken up. His ministers were now so deeply engaged in illegal
things, that they were very uneasy, and were endeavouring either to carry on his designs
with success, so as to get all settled in a body that should carry the face and appearance of
a parliament, or at least to bring him to let all fall, and to come into terms of agreement
with his people ; in which case, they reckoned, one article would be an indemnity for all
that had been done.
The king was every day saying, that he was king, and he would be obeyed, and would
make those who opposed him feel that he was their king ; and he had both priests and flat
terers about him, that were still pushing him forward. All men grew melancholy with this
sad prospect. The hope of the true protestants was in the king's two daughters ; chiefly on
the eldest, who was out of his reach, and was known to be well instructed, and very zealous
in matters of religion. The princess Anne was still very stedfast and regular in her devo
tions, and was very exemplary in the course of her life. But, as care had been taken to put
very ordinary divines about her for her chaplains, so she had never pursued any study in
those points with much application. And, all her court being put about her by the king
and queen, she was beset with spies. It was therefore much apprehended that she would
be strongly assaulted, when all other designs should so far succeed as to make that season
able. In the mean while she was let alone by the king, who was indeed a very kind and
indulgent father to her. Now he resolved to make his first attack on the princess of Orange.
D'Albeville went over to England in the summer, and did not come back before the twenty-
fourth of December, Christmas eve : and then he gave the princess a letter from the king,
bearing date the fourth of November : be was to carry this letter ; and his dispatches being
put off longer than was intended, that made this letter come so late to her.
The king took the rise of his letter from a question she had put to D'Albeville, desiring
to know what were the grounds upon which the king himself had changed his religion.
The king told her, he was bred up in the doctrine of the church of England by Dr. Stewart,
whom the king his father had put about him ; in which he was so zealous, that when he
perceived the queen his mother had a design upon the duke of Gloucester, though he pre
served still the respect that he owed her, yet he took care to prevent it. All the while that
he was beyond sea, no catholic, but one nun, had ever spoken one word to persuade him to
change his religion ; and he continued for the most part of that time firm to the doctrine of
the church of England. He did not then mind those matters much ; and, as all young
people are apt to do, he thought it a point of honour not to change his religion. The first
thing that raised scruples in him was, the great devotion that he had observed among catho
lics : he saw they had great helps for it : they had their churches better adorned, and did
greater acts of charity, than he had ever seen among protestants. He also observed, that
many of them changed their course of life, and became good Christians, even though they
continued to live still in the world. This made him first begin to examine both religions.
He could see nothing in the three reigns in which religion was changed in England, to
incline him to believe that they who did it were sent of God. He read the history of that
time, as it was written in the chronicle. He read both Dr. Heylin, and Hooker's preface to
his Ecclesiastical Policy, which confirmed him in the same opinion. He saw clearly that
Christ had left an infallibility in his church, against which " the gates of Hell cannot pre
vail :" and it appeared that this was lodged with St. Peter from our Saviour's words to him,
St. Mat. xvi. ver. 18. Upon this the certainty of the Scriptures, and even of Christianity
itself, was founded. The Apostles acknowledged this to be in St. Peter, Acts xv. when they
said, " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us." It was the authority of the church
that declared the Scriptures to be canonical ; and certainly they who declared them could
only interpret them ; and wherever this infallibility was, there must be a clear succession.
The point of the infallibility being once settled, all other controversies must needs fall. Now
the Roman church was the only church that either has infallibility, or that pretended to it.
And they who threw off this authority did open a door to atheism and infidelity, and took
people off from true devotion, and set even Christianity itself loose to all that would ques
tion it, and to Socinians and Latitudinarians who doubted of every thing. He had dis
coursed of these things with some divines of tho church of England ; but had received no

458 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
satisfaction from them. The Christian religion gained its credit by the miracles which the
apostles wrought, and by the holy lives and sufferings of the martyrs, whose blood was the
seed of the church. Whereas Luther and Calvin, and those who had set up the church of
England, had their heads fuller of temporal matters than of spiritual, and had let the world
loose to great disorders. Submission was necessary to the peace of the church ; and when
every man will expound the scriptures, this makes way to all sects, who pretend to build
upon it. It was also plain, that the church of England did not pretend to infallibility ; yet
she acted as if she did ; for ever since the reformation she had persecuted those who differed
from her, dissenters as well as papists, more than was generally known. And he could not
see why dissenters might not separate from the church of England, as well as she had done
from the church of Rome. Nor could the church of England separate herself from the catho
lic church, any more than a county of England could separate itself from the rest of the king
dom. This, he said, was all that his leisure allowed him to write ; but he thought that these
things, together with the king his brother's papers, and the duchess's papers, might serve, if
not to justify the catholic religion to an unbiassed judgment, yet at least to create a favour
able opinion of it.
I read this letter in the original ; for the prince sent it to me together with the princess's
answer, but with a charge not to take a copy of either, but to read them over as often as I
pleased ; which I did till I had fixed both pretty well in my memory. And, as soon as I
had sen! them back, I sat down immediately to write out all that I remembered, which the
princess owned to me afterwards, when she read the abstracts I made, were punctual almost
to a tittle. It was easy for me to believe that this letter was all the king's inditing ; for I
had heard it almost in the very same words from his own mouth. The letter was written
very decently, and concluded very modestly. The princess received this letter, as was told
me, on the twenty-fourth of December, at night. Next day being Christmas-day, she
received the sacrament, and was during the greatest part of the day in public devotions : yet
she found time to draw first an answer, and then to write it out fair ; and she sent it by the
post on the twenty-sixth of December. Her draught, which the prince sent me, was very
little blotted, or altered. It was long, about two sheets of paper ; for, as an answer runs
generally out into more length than the paper that is to be answered, so the strains of
respect, with which her letter was full, drew it out to a greater length.
She began with answering another letter that she had received by the post ; in which the
king had made an excuse for failing to write the former post day. She was very sensible of
the happiness of hearing so constantly from him ; for no difference in religion could hinder
her from desiring both his blessing and his prayers, though she was ever so far from him.
As for the paper that M. Albeville delivered her, he told her, that his majesty would not bo
offended if she wrote her thoughts freely to him upon it.
She hoped he would not look on that as want of respect in her. She was far from sticking
to the religion in which she was bred out of a point of honour ; for she had taken much
pains to be settled in it upon better grounds. Those of the church of England who had
instructed her, had freely laid before her that which was good in the Romish religion, that so,
seeing the good and the bad of both, she might judge impartially ; according to the apostle's
rule of " proving all things, and holding fast that which was good." Though she had come
young out of England, yet she had not left behind her either the desire of being well informed,
or the means for it. She had furnished herself with books, and had those about her who
might clear any doubts to her. She saw clearly in the scriptures that she must work her
own salvation with fear and trembling, and that she must not believe by the faith of another,
but according as things appeared to herself. It ought to be no prejudice against the refor
mation, if many of those who professed it led ill lives. If any of them lived ill, none of the
principles of their religion allowed them in it. Many of them led good lives, and more might
do it by the grace of God. But there were many devotions in the church of Rome, on which
the reformed could set no value.
She acknowledged that, if there was an infallibility in the church, all other controversies
must fall to the ground ; but she could never yet be informed where that infallibility was
lodged : whether in the pope alone, or in a general council, or in both. And she desired to

OF KING JAMES II. 459
know in whom the infallibility rested, when there were two or three popes at a time, acting
one against another, with the assistance of councils, which they called general ; and at least
the succession was then much disordered. As for the authority that is pretended to have
been given to St. Peter over the rest, that place which was chiefly alleged for it was other
wise interpreted by those of the church of England, as importing only the confirmation of
him in the office of an apostle, when in answer to that question, " Simon, son of Jonas,
lovest thou me," he had by a triple confession washed off his triple denial. The words that
the king had cited were spoken to the other apostles, as well as to him. It was agreed by
all, that the apostles were infallible, who were guided by God's holy spirit. But that gift,
as well as many others, had ceased long ago. Yet in that, St. Peter had no authority over
the other apostles ; otherwise St. Paul understood our Saviour's words ill, who " withstood
him to his face, because he was to be blamed." And if St. Peter himself could not maintain
that authority, she could not see how it could be given to his successors, whose bad lives
agreed ill with his doctrine.
Nor did she see, why the ill use that some made of the scriptures ought to deprive others
of them. It is true, all sects made use of them, and find somewhat in them that they draw
in to support their opinions : yet for all this our Saviour said to the Jews, " Search the
Scriptures;" and St. Paul ordered his epistles to be read to all the Saints in the churches :
and he says in one place, " I write as to wise men, judge what I say." And if they might
judge an apostle, much more any other teacher. Under the law of Moses, the Old Testa
ment was to be read, not only in the hearing of the scribes, and the doctors of the law, but
likewise in the hearing of the women and children. And since God had made us reasonable
creatures, it seemed necessary to employ our reason chiefly in the matters of the greatest con
cern. Though faith was above our reason, yet it proposed nothing to us that was contradic
tory to it. Every one ought to satisfy himself in these things : as our Saviour convinced
Thomas, by making him to thrust his own hand into the print of the nails, not leaving him
to the testimony of the other apostles, who were already convinced. She was confident that,
if the king would hear many of his own subjects, they would fully satisfy him as to all those
prejudices, that he had at the reformation ; in which nothing was acted tumultuously, but
all was done according to law. The design of it was only to separate from the Roman
church, in so far as it had separated from the primitive church ; in which they had brought
things to as great a degree of perfection, as those corrupt ages were capable of. She did not
see how the church of England could be blamed for the persecution of the dissenters ; for the
laws made against them were made by the State, and not by the church ; and they were
made for crimes against the state. Their enemies had taken great care to foment the divi
sion, in which they had been but too successful. But, if he would reflect on the grounds
upon which the church of England had separated from the church of Rome, he would find
them to be of a very different nature from those for which the dissenters had left it.
Thus, she concluded, she gave him the trouble of a long account of the grounds upon
which she was persuaded of the truth of her religion : in which she was so fully satisfied,
that she trusted by the grace of God that she should spend the rest of her days in it ; and
she was so well assured of the truth of our Saviour's words, that she was confident the gates
of hell should not prevail against it, but that he would be with it to the end of the wbrld.
All ended thus, that the religion which she professed taught her her duty to him, so that
she should ever be his most obedient daughter and servant.
To this the next return of the post brought an answer from the king, which I saw not.
But the account that was sent me of it was : the king took notice of the great progress he
saw the princess had made in her enquiries after those matters : the king's business did not
allow him the time that was necessary to enter into the detail of her letter : he desired she
would read those books that he had mentioned to her in his former letters, and some others
that he intended to send her : and, if she desired to be more fully satisfied, he proposed to her
to discourse about them with F. Morgan, an English Jesuit then at the Hague.
I have set down very minutely every particular that was in those letters, and very nearly
in the same words. It must be confessed, that persons of this quality seldom enter nito such
a discussion. The king's letter contained a studied account of the change of his religion,

460 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
which he had repeated often : and it was perhaps prepared for him by some others. There
were some things in it, which, if he had made a little more reflection on them, it may be
supposed he would not have mentioned. The course of his own life was not so strict, as to
make it likely that the good lives of some papists had made such impressions upon him. The
easy absolutions that are granted in that church, are a much juster prejudice in this respect
against it, than the good lives of a few can be supposed to be an argument for it. The
adorning their Churches was a reflection that did no great honour to him that made it. The
severities used by the church of England against the dissenters, were urged with a very ill
grace by one of the church of Rome, that has delighted herself so often by being, as it were,
bathed with the blood of those they call heretics : and, if it had not been for the respect that a
daughter paid her father, here greater advantages might have been taken. I had a high
opinion of the princess's good understanding, and of her knowledge in those matters, before I
saw this letter : but this surprised me. It gave me an astonishing joy, to see so young a
person all of the sudden, without consulting any one person, to be able to write so solid and
learned a letter, in which she mixed with the respect that she paid a father so great a firm
ness, that by it she cut off all further treaty. And her repulsing the attack, that the king
made upon her, with so much resolution and force, did let the popish party see, that she
understood her religion as well as she loved it.
But now I must say somewhat of myself : after I had stayed a year in Holland, I heard
from many hands, that the king seemed to forget his own greatness when he spoke of me,
which he took occasion to do very often. I had published some account of the short tour I
had made, in several letters ; in which my chief design was to expose both popery and tyranny.
The book was well received, and was much read ; and it raised the king's displeasure very
high *.
My continuing at the Hague made him conclude, that I was managing designs against
him. And some papers in single sheets came out, reflecting on the proceedings of England,
which seemed to have a considerable effect on those who read them. These were printed in
Holland ; and many copies of them were sent into all the parts of England. All which
inflamed the king the more against me ; for he believed they were written by me, as indeed
most of them were. But that which gave the crisis to the king's anger was, that he heard
I was to be married to a considerable fortune at the Hague. So a project was formed to
break this, by charging me with high treason for corresponding with lord Argyle, and for
conversing with some that were outlawed for high treason.
The king ordered a letter to be written in his name to his advocate in Scotland, to prose
cute me for some probable thing or other; which was intended only to make a noise, not
doubting but this would break the intended marriage. A ship coming from Scotland the day
in which this prosecution was ordered, that had a quick passage, brought me the first news
of it, long before it was sent to D'Albeville. So I petitioned the States, who were then sit
ting, to be naturalized, in order to my intended marriage. And this passed of course, with
out the least difficulty ; which perhaps might have been made, if this prosecution, now begun
in Scotland, had been known. Now I was legally under the protection of the States of Hol
land ; yet I wrote a full justification of myself, as to all particulars laid to my charge, in
some letters that I sent to the earl of Middleton. But in one of these I said, that, being now
naturalized in Holland, my allegiance was, during my stay in these parts, transferred from
his majesty to the States. I also said, in another letter, that, if upon my non-appearance a
sentence should pass against me, I might be perhaps forced to justify myself, and to give an
account of the share that I had in affairs these twenty years past ; in which I might be led
to mention some things, that I was afraid would displease the king ; and therefore I should
be sorry if I were driven to it.
Now the court thought they had somewhat against me ; for they knew they had nothing
before. So the first citation was let fall, and a new one was ordered on these two accounts.
It was pretended to be high treason to say my allegiance was now transferred ; and it was
set forth, as a high indignity to the king, to threaten him with writing a history of the trans-
* This was his " Travels through France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland."

OF KING JAMES II. 401
actions passed these last twenty years. The first of these struck at a great point, which was
a part of the law of nations. Every man that was naturalized took an oath of allegiance to
the prince, or state, that naturalized him. And, since no man can serve two masters, or be
under a double allegiance, it is certain that there must be a transfer of allegiance, at least
during the stay in the country where one is so naturalized.
This matter was kept up against me for some time, the court delaying proceeding to any
sentence for several months. At last a sentence of outlawry was given ; and upon that
Albeville said, that, if the States would not deliver me up, he would find such instruments
as should seize on me, and carry ma away forcibly. The methods he named of doing this
were very ridiculous. And he spoke of it to so many persons, that I believe his design was
rather to frighten me, than that he could think to effect them. Many overtures were made
to some of my friends in London, not only to let this prosecution fall, but to promote me, if
I would make myself capable of it. I entertained none of these. I had many stories
brought me of the discourses among some of the brutal Irish, then in the Dutch service;
but, I thank God, I was not moved with them. I resolved to go on, and to do my duty, and
to do what service I could to the public, and to my country ; and resigned myself up entirely
to that Providence that had watched over me to that time with an indulgent care, and had
made all the designs of my enemies against me turn to my great advantage.
I come now to the year 1 688, which proved memorable, and produced an extraordinary
and unheard-of revolution. The year in this century made all people reflect on the same
year in the former century, in which the power of Spain received so great a check, that the
decline of that monarchy began then ; and England was saved from an invasion, that, if it
had succeeded as happily as it was well laid, must have ended in the absolute conquest, and
utter ruin of the nation. Our books are so full of all that related to that armada, boasted
to be invincible, that I need add no more to so known and so remarkable a piece of our his
tory. A new eighty-eight raised new expectations, in which the surprising events did far
exceed all that could have been looked for.
I begin the year with Albeville's negotiation after his coming to the Hague. He had
before his going over given in a threatening memorial upon the business of Bantam, that
looked like a prelude to a declaration of war ; for he demanded a present answer, since the
king could no longer bear the injustice done him in that matter, which was set forth in very
high words. He sent this memorial to be printed at Amsterdam, before he had communi
cated it to the States. The chief effect that this had, was, that the actions of the company
did sink for some days. But they rose soon again : and by this it was said, that Albeville
himself made the greatest gain. The East-India fleet was then expected home every day.
So the merchants, who remembered well the business of the Smyrna fleet in the year seventy-
two, did apprehend that the king had sent a fleet to intercept them, and that this memorial
was intended only to prepare an apology for that breach, when it should happen; but
nothing of that sort followed upon it. The States did answer this memorial with another,
that was firm, but more decently expressed : by their last treaty with England it was pro
vided, that, in case any disputes should arise between the merchants of either side, commis
sioners should be named on both sides to hear and judge the matter : the king had not yet
named any of his side ; so that the delay lay at his door : they were therefore amazed to receive
a memorial in so high a strain, since they had done all that by the treaty was incumbent on
them. Albeville, after this, gave in another memorial, in which he desired them to send
over commissioners for ending that dispute. But, though this was a great fall from the
height in which the former memorial was conceived, yet in this the thing was so ill appre
hended, that the Dutch had reason to believe that the king's ministers did not know the
treaty, or were not at leisure to read it ; for, according to the treaty, and the present pos
ture of that business, the king was obliged to send over commissioners to the Hague to judge
of that affair. When this memorial was answered, and the treaty was examined, the matter
was let fall.
Albeville's next negotiation related to myself. I had printed a paper in justification of
myself, together with my letters to the earl of Middleton ; and he, in a memorial, complained
of two passages in that paper. One was, that I said it was yet too early to persecute men

462 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
for religion, and therefore crimes against the state were pretended by my enemies : this, he
said, did insinuate, that the king did in time intend to persecute for religion. The other was,
that I had put in it an intimation, that I was in danger by some of the Irish papists. This,
he said, was a reflection on the king, who hated all such practices. And to this he added,
that by the laws of England all the king's subjects were bound to seize on any person that
was condemned in his courts, in what manner soever they could : and therefore he desired,
that both I, and the printer of that paper, might be punished. But now upon his return to
the Hague, I being outlawed by that time, he demanded, that, in pursuance of an article of
the treaty that related to rebels or fugitives, I might be banished the Provinces. And to this
he craved once and again a speedy answer.
I was called before the deputies of the States of Holland, that I might answer the two
memorials that lay before them relating to myself. I observed the difference between them.
The one desired that the States would punish me, which did acknowledge me to be their
subject. The other, in contradiction to that, laid claim to me as the king's rebel. As to
the particulars complained of, I had made no reflection on the king ; but to the contrary. I
said, my enemies found it was not yet time to persecute for religion. This insinuated, that
the king could not be brought to it ; and no person could be offended with this, but he who
thought it was now not too early to persecute. As to that of the danger in which I appre
hended myself to be in, I had now more reason than before to complain of it, since the
envoy had so publicly affirmed, that every one of the king's subjects might seize on any one
that was condemned, in what manner soever they could, which was either dead or alive. I
was now the subject of the States of Holland, naturalized in order to a marriage among
them, as they all knew ; and therefore I claimed their protection. So, if I was charged
with any thing that was not according to law, I submitted myself to their justice. I
should decline no trial, nor the utmost severity, if I had offended in any thing. As for the
two memorials that claimed me as a fugitive and a rebel, I could not be looked on as a
fugitive from Scotland. It was now fourteen years since I had left that kingdom, and three
since I came out of England with the king's leave. I had lived a year in the Hague openly ;
and nothing was laid to my charge. As for the sentence that was pretended to be passed
against me, I could say nothing to it, till I saw a copy of it.
The States were fully satisfied with my answers ; and ordered a memorial to be drawn
according to them. They also ordered their ambassador to represent to the king that he
himself knew how sacred a thing naturalization was. The faith and honour of every state
was concerned in it. I had been naturalized upon marrying one of their subjects, which was
the justest of all reasons. If the king had any thing to lay to my charge, justice should be
done in their courts. The king took the matter very ill ; and said, it was an affront
offered him, and a just cause of war. Yet, after much passion, he said, he did not intend
to make war upon it ; for he was not then in a condition to do it. But he knew there
were designs against him, to make war on him, against which he should take care to secure
himself; and he should be on his guard. The ambassador asked him, of whom he meant
that. But he did not think fit to explain himself further. He ordered a third memorial to
be put in against me, in which the article of the treaty was set forth ; but no notice was
taken of the answers made to that by the States : but it was insisted on, that, since the
States were bound not to give sanctuary to fugitives and rebels, they ought not to examine
the grounds on which such judgments were given, but were bound to execute the treaty.
Upon this it was observed, that the words in treaties ought to be explained according to
their common acceptation, or the sense given them in the civil law, and not according to any
particular forms of courts, where for non-appearance a writ of outlawry, or rebellion, might
lie. The sense of the word rebel in common use was, a man that had home arms, or had
plotted against his prince ; and a fugitive was a man that fled from justice. The heat with
which the king seemed inflamed against me, carried him to say, and do, many things that
were very little to his honour.
I had advertisements sent me of a further progress in his designs against me. He had
it suggested to him, that, since a sentence was passed against me for non-appearance, and
the States refused to deliver me up, he might order private persons to execute the sentence

OF KING JAMES II. 463
as they could: and it was written over very positively, that 5,000/. would be given to
any one that should murder me. A gentleman of an unblemished reputation wrote me
word, that he himseK by accident saw an order drawn in the secretary's office, but not yet
signed, for 3,000/. to a blank person that was to seize, or destroy, me *. And he also
affirmed, that prince George had heard of the same thing, and had desired the person to
whom he trusted it to convey the notice of it to me : and my author was employed by
that person to send the notice to me. The king asked Jeffreys what he might do against
me in a private way, now that he could not get me into his hands. Jeffreys answered, he
did not see how the king could do any more than he had done. He told this to Mr. Kirk
to send it to me ; for he concluded the king was resolved to proceed to extremities, and only
wanted the opinion of a man of the law to justify a more violent method. I had so many
different advertisements sent me of this, that I concluded a whisper of such a design might
have been set about, on design to frighten me into some mean submission, or into silence at
least : but it had no other effect on me, but that I thought fit to stay more within doors,
and to use a little more than ordinary caution. I thank God, I was very little concerned
at it. I resigned up my life very freely to God. I knew my own innocence, and the root
of all the malice that was against me. And I never possessed my own soul in a more
perfect calm, and in a clearer cheerfulness of spirit, than I did during all those threatenings,
and the apprehensions that others were in concerning me.
Soon after this a letter written by Fagel, the pensioner of Holland, was printed ; which
leads me to look back a little into a transaction that passed the former year. There was
one Steward, a lawyer of Scotland, a man of great parts, and of as great ambition. He had
given over the practice of the law, because all that were admitted to the bar in Scotland
were required to renounce the covenant, which he would not do. This recommended him to
the confidence of that whole party. They had made great use of him, and trusted him
entirely. Penn had engaged him, who had been long considered by the king, as the chief
manager of all the rebellions and plots that had been on foot these twenty years past, more
particularly of Argyle's, to come over : and he undertook that he should not only be received
into favour, but into confidence. He came, before he crossed the seas, to the prince, and
promised an inviolable fidelity to him, and to the common interests of religion and liberty.
He had been often with the pensioner, and had a great measure of his confidence. Upon his
coming to court, he was caressed to a degree that amazed all who knew him. He either
believed that the king was sincere in the professions he made, and that his designs went no
further than to settle a full liberty of conscience ; or, he thought, that it became a man who
had been so long in disgrace, not to shew any jealousies at first, when the king was so gra
cious to him. He undertook to do all that lay in his power to advance his designs in Scot
land, and to represent his intentions so at the Hague, as might incline the prince to a better
opinion of them.
He opened all this in several letters to the pensioner : and in these he pressed him vehe
mently, in the king's name, and by his direction, to persuade the prince to concur with the
king in procuring the laws to be repealed. He laid before him the inconsiderable number
of the papists : so that there was no reason to apprehend much from them. He also enlarged
on the severities that the penal laws had brought on the dissenters. The king was resolved
not to consent to the repealing them, unless the tests were taken away with them ; so that
the refusing to consent to this might at another time bring them under another severe pro
secution. Steward, after he had written many letters to this purpose without receiving any
answers, tried if he could serve the king in Scotland with more success, than it seemed he
was likely to have at the Hague. But he found there, that his old friends were now much
alienated from him, looking on him as a person entirely gained by the court.
The pensioner laid all his letters before the prince. They were also brought to me. The
prince upon this thought, that a full answer made by Fagel, in such a manner as that it
might be published as a declaration of his intentions, might be of service to him in many
* Burnet's informant was lord Ossory, afterwards duke of Ormond. — Burnet's Life by his Son.

464 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
respects ; chiefly in popish courts, that were on civil accounts inclined to an alliance against
France, but were now possessed with an opinion of the prince, and of his party in England,
as designing nothing but the ruin and extirpation of all the papists in those kingdoms. So
the pensioner wrote a long answer to Steward, which was put in English by me. ^
He began it with great assurances of the prince and princess's duty to the king. They
were both of them much against all persecution on the account of religion. They freely con
sented to the covering papists from the severities of the laws made against them on the
account of their religion, and also that they might have the free exercise of it in private.
They also consented to grant a full liberty to dissenters ; but they could not consent to the
repeal of those laws, that tended only to the securing the protestant religion ; such as those
concerning the tests, which imported no punishment, but only an incapacity of being in
public employments, which could not be complained of as great severities. This was a
caution observed in all nations, and was now necessary, both for securing the public peace
and the established religion. If the numbers of the papists were so small as to make them
inconsiderable, then it was not reasonable to make such a change for the sake of a few ; and
if those few, that pretended to public employments, would do all their own party so great a
prejudice, as not to suffer the king to be content with the repeal of the penal laws, unless
they could get into the offices of tiust, then their ambition was only to be blamed, if the
offers now made were not accepted. The matter was very strongly argued through the
whole letter ; and the prince and princess's zeal for the protestant religion was set out in
terms, that could not be very acceptable to the king. The letter was carried by Steward to
the king, and was brought by him into the cabinet council ; but nothing followed then upon it.
The king ordered Steward to write back, that he would either have all, or nothing. All the
lay-papists of England, who were not engaged in the intrigues of the priests, pressed earnestly
that the king would accept of the repeal of the penal laws ; which was offered, and would
have made them both easy and safe for the future. The emperor was fully satisfied with
what was offered ; and promised to use his interest at Rome, to get the pope to write to the
king to accept of this, as a step to the other : but I could not learn whether he did it, or
not. If he did, it had no effect. The king was in all points governed by the Jesuits, and
the French ambassador.
Father Petre, as he had been long in the confidence, was now brought to the council board,
and made a privy councillor : and it was given out that the king was resolved to get a car
dinal's cap for him, and to make him archbishop of York. The pope was still firm to his
resolution against it : but it was hoped that the king would conquer it, if not in the present,
yet at furthest in the next pontificate. The king resolved at the same time not to disgust
the secular priests : so bishop Leyburn, whom cardinal Howard had sent over with the epis
copal character, was made much use of in appearance, though he had no great share in the
counsels. There was a faction formed between the seculars and the Jesuits, which was some
times near breaking out into an open rupture. But the king was so partial to the Jesuits,
that the others found they were not on equal terms with them. There were three other
bishops consecrated for England. And these four were ordered to make a progress and cir
cuit over England, confirming, and doing other episcopal offices, in all the parts of England.
Great numbers gathered about them, wheresoever they went.
The Jesuits thought all was sure, and that their scheme was so well laid that it could not
miscarry ; and they had so possessed that contemptible tool of theirs, Albeville, with this,
that he seemed upon his return to the Hague to be so sanguine,that he did not stick to speak
out, what a wiser man would have suppressed though he had believed it. One day, when the
prince was speaking of the promises the king had made, and the oath that he had sworn to
maintain the laws and the established church, he, instead of pretending that the king still
kept his word, said, upon some occasions princes must forget their promises. And, when the
prince said, that the king ought to have more regard to the church of England, which was
the main body of the nation, Albeville answered, that the body which he called the church
of England would not have a being two years to an end. Thus he spoke out the designs of
the court, both too early and too openly ; but at the same time he behaved himself in all

OF KING JAMES II. 465
other respects so poorly, that he became the jest of the Hague. The foreign ministers,
M. d'Avaux, the French ambassador, not excepted, did not know how to excuse, or bear
with, his weakness, which appeared on all occasions and in all companies.
What he wrote to England upon his first audiences was not known ; but it was soon after
spread up and down the kingdom, very artificially and with much industry, that the prince
and princess had now consented to the repeal of the tests, as well as of the penal laws.
This was written over by many hands to the Hague. The prince, to prevent the ill effects
that might follow on such reports, gave orders to print the pensioner's letter to Steward ;
which was sent to all the parts of England, and was received with an universal joy. The
dissenters saw themselves now safe in his intentions towards them. The church party was
confirmed in their zeal for maintaining the tests. And the lay papists seemed likewise to
be so well pleased with it, that they complained of those ambitious priests, and hungry
courtiers, who were resolved, rather than lay down their aspirings and other projects, to
leave them still exposed to the severities of the laws, though a freedom from these was now
offered to them. But it was not easy to judge, whether this was sincerely meant by them,
or if it was only a popular art, to recommend themselves under such a moderate appearance.
The court saw the hurt that this letter did them. At first they hoped to have stifled it by
calling it an imposture. But when they were driven from that, the king began to speak
severely and indecently of the prince, not only to all about him, but even to foreign ministers :
and resolved to put such marks of his indignation upon him, as should let all the world see
how deep it was.
There were six regiments of the king's subjects, three English and three Scotch, in the
service of the States. Some of them were old regiments, that had continued in their service
during the two wars in the late king's reign. Others were raised since the peace in seventy-
three. But these came not into their service under any capitulation, that had reserved an
authority to the king to call for them at his pleasure. When Argyle and Monmouth made
their invasion, the king desired that the States would lend them to him. Some of the towns
of Holland were so jealous of the king, and wished Monmouth's success so much, that the
prince found some difficulty in obtaining the consent of the States to send them over. There
was no distinction made among them between papists and protestants, according to a maxim
of the States with relation to their armies : so there were several papists in those regiments.
And the king had showed such particular kindness to these, while they were in England,
that at their return they formed a faction which was breeding great distractions among them.
This was very uneasy to the prince, who began to see that he might have occasion to make
use of those bodies, if things should be carried to a rupture between the king and him : and yet
he did not know how he could trust them, while such officers were in command. He did
no see neither how he could get rid of them well. But the king helped him out of that
difficulty : he wrote to the States, that he had occasion for the six regiments of his subjects
that were in their service, and desired that they should be sent over to him.
This demand was made all of the sudden, without any previous application to any of the
States, to dispose them to grant it, or to many of the officers to persuade them to ask their
conge to go over. The States pretended the regiments were theirs : they had paid levy
money for them, and had them under no capitulation : so they excused themselves, that they
could not part with them. But they gave orders, that all the officers that should ask their
conge, should have it. Thirty, or forty, came and asked, and had their conge. So now the
prince was delivered from some troublesome men by this management of the king's. Upon
that, these bodies were so modelled, that the piince knew that he might depend entirely
on them : and he was no more disturbed by those insolent officers, who had for some years
behaved themselves rather as enemies, than as persons in the States' pay.
The discourse of a parliament was often taken up, and as often let fall : and it was not
easy to judge in what such fluctuating counsels would end. Father Petre had gained such
an ascendant, that he was considered as the- first minister of state. The nuncio had moved
the king to interpose, and mediate a reconciliation between the court of Rome and France.
But he answered, that, since the pope would not gratify him in the promotion of father
Petre, he would leave him to free himself of the trouble, into which he had involved himself,
n h

40G THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the best way he could. And our court reckoned, that as soon as the pope felt himself
pressed, he would fly to the king for protection, and grant him everything that he asked of
him in order to obtain it. That Jesuit gave daily new proofs of a weak and ill-governed
passion, and discovered all the ill qualities of one, that seemed raised up to be the common
incendiary, and to drive the king and his party to the precipice.
Towards the end of April the king though fit to renew the declaration that he had set out
the former year for liberty of conscience, with an addition, declaring that he would adhere
firmly to it, and that he would put none in any public employments, but such^ as would
concur with hiin in maintaining it. He also promised, that he would hold a parliament in
the November following. This promise of a parliament so long beforehand was somewhat
extraordinary. Both father Petre, and Penn, engaged the king to it, but with a different
prospect. Penn, and all the tools who were employed by him, had still some hopes of car
rying a parliament to agree with the king, if too much time was not lost : whereas the
delaying a parliament raised jealousies, as if none were intended, but that it was only talked
of to amuse the nation till other designs were ripe.
On the other hand, father Petre and his cabal saw that the king was kept off from many
things that they proposed, with the expectation of the concurrence of a parliament : and the
fear of giving new disgusts, which might obstruct that, had begotten a caution that was
very uneasy to them. They thought that much time was already lost, and that they made
but a small progress. They began to apprehend that the regulators, who were still feeding
them with hopes, and were asking more time, and more money, did intend only to amuse
them, and to wear out the business into more length, and to keep themselves the longer in
credit and in pay ; but that they did not in their hearts wish well to the main design, and
therefore acted but an insincere part with the king. Therefore they resolved to put that
matter to the last trial, reckoning that, if the king saw it was in vain to hope for anything in
a parliamentary way, he might be more easily carried to extreme and violent methods.
The king was not satisfied with the publishing his declaration : but he resolved to oblige
the clergy to read it in all their churches in the time of divine service. And now it appeared
what bad effects were likely to follow on that officious motion that Sancroft had made, for
obliging the clergy to read the declaration that king Charles set out in the year 1681, after
the dissolution of the Oxford parliament. An order passed in council, requiring the bishops
to send copies of the declaration to all their clergy, and to order them to read it on two
several Sundays in time of divine service.
This put the clergy under great difficulties. And they were at first much divided about
it. Even many of the best and worthiest of them were under some distraction of thought.
They had many meetings, and argued the point long among themselves, in and about
London. On the one hand it was said, that if they refused to read it, the king would proceed
against them for disobedience. It did not seem reasonable to run so great a hazard upon
such a point, that was not strong enough to bear the consequences that might follow on a
breach. Their reading it did not import their approving it. But was only a publication of
an act of their king's. So it was proposed, to save the whole, by making some declaration,
that their reading it was a mere act of obedience, and did not import any assent and appro
bation of theirs. Others thought, that the publishing this in such manner was only imposed
on them, to make them odious and contemptible to the whole nation, for reading that which
was intended for their ruin. If they carried their compliance so far, that might provoke the
nobility and gentry to carry theirs much further. If they once yielded the point, that they
were bound to read every declaration, with this salvo that it did not import their approving
it, they would be then bound to read everything that should be sent to them : the king
might make declarations in favour of all the points of popery, and require them to read them : '
and they could not see where they must make their stops, if they did it not now. So it
seemed necessary to fix on this, as a rule, that they ought to publish nothing in time of
divine service but that which they approved of. The point at present was not whether a
toleration was a lawful, or an expedient, thing. The declaration was founded on the claim
of a dispensing power, which the king did now assume, that tended to the total subversion
of the government, and the making it arbitrary ; whereas, by the constitution, it was a legal

OF KING JAMES II. 467
administration. It also allowed such an infinite liberty, with the suspension of all penal
laws, and that without any limitation, that paganism itself might be now publicly professed.
It was visible, that the design in imposing the reading of it on them was only to make them
ridiculous, and to make them contribute to their own ruin. As for the danger that they
might incur, they saw their ruin was resolved on • and nothing they could do was likely to
prevent it, unless they would basely sacrifice their religion to their worldly interests. It
would be perhaps a year sooner, or later, by any other management : it was therefore fit, that
they should prepare themselves for suffering ; and not endeavour to prevent it by doing that,
which would draw on them the hatred of their friends, and the scorn of their enemies.
These reasons prevailed : and they resolved not to read the declaration. They saw of what
importance it was that they should be unanimous in this. Nothing could be of more fatal
consequence than their being divided in their practice. For, if any considerable body of the
clergy, such as could carry the name of the church of England, could have been prevailed on
to give obedience, and only some number, how valuable soever the men might be, should
refuse to obey ; then the court might still pretend that they would maintain the church of
England, and single out all those who had not given obedience, and fall on them, and so
break the church within itself upon this point, and then destroy the one half by the means
of the rest. The most eminent were resolved not to obey : and those who might be prevailed
on to comply would by that means fall under such contempt, that they could not have the
credit or strength to support the established religion. The court depended upon this, that
the greater part would obey : and so they would be furnished with a point of state, to give a
colour for turning out the disobedient, who were likely to be the men that stood most in
their way, and crossed their designs most, both with their learning and credit.
Those few bishops that were engaged in the design of betraying the church, were persuaded
that this would be the event of the matter : and they possessed the king with the hope of it
so positively, that he seemed to depend upon it. The correspondence over England was
managed with that secrecy, that these resolutions were so communicated to the clergy in
the country, that they were generally engaged to agree in their conduct, before the court came
to apprehend that they would be so unanimous, as it proved in conclusion that they were.
The archbishop of Canterbury, Sancroft, resolved upon this occasion to act suitably to his
post and character. He wrote round his province, and desired that such of the bishops as
were able would come up and consult together in a matter of this great concern : and he
asked the opinion of those whom their age and infirmities disabled from taking the journey.
He found that eighteen of the bishops, and the main body of the clergy, concurred in the
resolution against reading the declaration. So he, with six of the bishops that came up to
London, resolved, in a petition to the king, to lay before him the reasons that determined
them not to obey the order of council that had been sent them : this flowed from no want of
respect to his majesty's authority, nor from any unwillingness to let favour be shown to
dissenters ; in relation to whom they were willing to come to such a temper as should be
thought fit when that matter should be considered and settled in parliament and convocation :
but, this declaration being founded on such a dispensing power as had been often declared
illegal in parliament, both in the year 1662 and in the year 1672, and in the beginning of
his own reign, and was a matter of so great consequence to the whole nation, both in church
and state, they could not in prudence, honour, and conscience, make themselves so far parties
to it, as the publication of it once and again in God's house, and in the time of divine service,
must amount to.
The archbishop was then in an ill state of health. So he sent over the six bishops with
the petition to the king, signed by himself and the rest. The king was much surprised with
this, being flattered and deceived by his spies. Cartwright, bishop of Chester, was possessed
with a story that was too easily believed by him, and was by him carried to the king, who
was very apt to believe everything that suited with his own designs. The story was, that
the bishops intended, by a petition to the king, to let him understand that orders of this kind
used to be addressed to their chancellors, but not to themselves ; and to pray him to continue
that method : and that by this means they hoped to get out of this difficulty. This was
very acceptable to the court, and procured the bishops a quick admittance. And they had
H h 2

4',8 THE HISTORV OF THE REiGN
proceeded so carefullv that nothing concerted among them had broken out ; for they had
been very secret and cautious. The king, when he heard their petition, and saw his mistake,
spoke roughlv to them. He said, he was their king, and he would be obeyed : and they
should be°made to feel what it was to disobey him. The six bishops, were St. Asaph, Ely,
Bath and Wells, Peterborough, Chichester, and Bristol. The answer they made the king
was in these words : " The will of God be done." And they came from the court in a sort
of triumph. Now matters were brought to a crisis. The king was engaged on his part, as
the bishops were on theirs. So all people looked on with great expectations, reckoning that
upon the issue of this business a great decision would be made, both of the designs of the
court, and of the temper of the nation.
The kino- consulted for some days with all that were now employed by him, what he
should do upon this emergent ; and talked with people of all persuasions. Lob. an eminent
man anion" the dissenters, who was entirely gained to the court, advised the king to send
the bishopfto the Tower. Father Petre seemed now as one transported with joy • for he
thouo-ht the king was engaged to break with the church of England. And it was reported
that he broke out into that indecent expression upon it, that they should be made to eat
their own dune- The king was long in doubt. Some of the popish nobility pressed him
earnestly to let" the matter fall : for now it appeared, that the body of the clergy were
resolved not to read the declaration. Those who did obey were few aud inconsiderable.
Only seven obeyed in the city of London, and not above two hundred all England over :
and of these some read it the first Sunday, but changed their minds before the second .
others declared in their sermons, that though they obeyed the order, they did not approve of
the declaration : and one, more pleasantly than gravely, told his people that, though he was
obho-ed to read it, they were not obliged to hear it ; and he stopped till they all went out,
and then he read it to the walls. In many places, as soon as the minister began to read it,
all the people rose and went out *.
The king; did what he could to encourage those that did obey his order. Parker, bishop
of Oxford, died about this time. He wrote a book against the tests full of petulant scur
rility, of which I shall only give one instance. He had reflected much on the whole popish
plot, and on Oates's evidence : and upon that he called the test, the sacrament of the
Oatesian villany. He treated the parliament, that euaeted the tests, with a scorn that no
popish writer had yet ventured on : and he said much to excuse transubstantiation, and to free
the church of Rome from the charge of idolatry. This raised such a disgust at him, even in
those that had been formerly but too much influenced by him, that, when he could not help
seeing that, he sunk upon it. I was desired to answer his book with the severity that he
deserved : and I did it with an acrimony of style, that nothing but such a time, and such a
man, could in any sort excuse. It was said, the king sent him my papers, hearing that
nobody else durst put them in his hands, hoping that it would raise his indignation, and
engage him to answer them. One Hall, a conformist in London, who was looked ou as half
a presbyterian, yet, because he lead "the declaration, was made bishop of Oxford. One of
the popish bishops was upon the king's mandamus chosen, by the illegal fellows of Magda
len's college, their president. The sense of the nation, as well as of the clergy, had appeared
so signally on this occasion, that it was visible, that the king had not only the seven peti
tioning bishops to deal with, but the body of the whole nation, both clergy and laitv.
The violent advices of father Petre, and the Jesuit party, were so fatally suited to the
king's own temper and passion, that they prevailed over the wiser counsels of almost all that
were advised with. But the king, before he would bring the matter to the council, secretly
engaged all the privy councillors to concur with him : and, after a fortnight's consultation,
the bishops were cited to appear before the council. The petition was offered to them ; and
they were asked if they owned it to be their petition. They answered, it seemed they were
* The earl of Dartmouth says he was then at West- none left but a few prebendaries in their stalls, the clw-
minster school. As soon as bishop Sprat, who was then listers, and Westminster scholars. The bishop could hardly
dean, gave order for the declaration being read, there was hold the proclamation for trembling, and every one looked
so great a murmur and noise in the Abbey, that no one under a strange consternation. — Oxford edition of this
could hear him ; but, before he had finished, there was work.

OF KING JAMES II. 409
to be proceeded against upon that account ; so they hoped the king would not press them to
a confession, and then make use of it against them : after they had offered this, they owned
the petition. They were next charged with the publication of it ; for it was then printed.
But they absolutely denied that was done by their means. The archbishop had written the
petition all in his own hand, without employing any person to copy it out : and though
there was one draught written of the petition, as it was agreed on, from which he had written
out the original which they had all signed, yet he had kept that still in his own possession,
and had never shown it to any person : so it was not published by them : that must have
been done by some of those to whom the king had shown it.
They were in the next place required to enter into bonds, to appear in the court of king's
bench, and answer to an information of misdemeanor. They excepted to this ; and said,
that by their peerage they were not bound to do it. Upon their insisting on this, they were
sent to the Tower, by a warrant signed by the whole board, except father Petre, who was
passed over by the king's order. This set the whole city into the highest fermentation that
was ever known in memory of man. The bishops were sent by water to the Tower : and
all along as they passed the banks of the river were full of people, who kneeled down and
asked their blessing, and with loud shouts expressed their good wishes for them, and their
concern in their preservation. The soldiers, and other officers in the Tower, did the same.
An universal consternation appeared in all people's looks. But the king was not moved
with all this. And, though two days after, upon the queen's pretended delivery, the king
had a fair occasion to have granted a general pardon, to celebrate the joy of that birth (and
it was given out by those papists that had always affected to pass for moderate men, that
they had all pressed this vehemently), the king was inflexible : he said, his authority would
become contemptible, if he suffered such an affront to pass unpunished.
A week after their commitment, they were brought upon a habeas corpus to the king's
bench bar, where their counsel offered to make it appear to be an illegal commitment : but
the court allowed it good in law. They were required to enter into bonds for small sums,
to answer to the information that day fortnight.
The bishops were discharged of their imprisonment : and people of all sorts ran to visit
them as confessors, one company going in as another went out. The appearance in West
minster-hall was very solemn : about thirty of the nobility accompanying them. All the
streets were full of shoutings the rest of the day, and with bonfires at night.
When the day fixed for their trial came, there was a vast concourse. Westminster-hall,
and all the places about, were full of people, who were strangely affected with the matter.
Even the army, that was then encamped on Hounslow Heath, showed such a disposition to
mutiny, that it gave the king no small uneasiness. The trial came on, which was chiefly
managed against the bishops by sir William Williams. He had been speaker in two
successive parliaments, and was a zealous promoter of the exclusion : and he had continued
many years a bold pleader in all causes against the court : but he was a corrupt and vicious
man, who had no principles, but followed his own interests. Sawyer, the attorney-general,
who had for many years served ths ends of the court in a most abject and obsequious manner,
would not support the dispensing power : so he was turned out, Powis being advanced to be
attorney-general : and Williams was made solicitor-general. Powis acted his part in this
trial as fairly as his post could admit of. But Williams took very indecent liberties. And
he had great advantages over Sawyer and Finch, who were among the bishops' counsel,
by reflecting on the precedents and proceedings during their being the king's counsel. The
king's counsel could not have full proof that the bishops' hands were truly theirs, and were
forced to have recourse to the confession they had made at the council board : which was
thought very dishonourable, since they had made that confession in confidence, trusting to
the king's honour, though it did not appear that any promise was made, that no advantage
should be taken of that confession. No proof was brought of their publishing it, which was
the main point. The presenting it to the king, and afterwards their owning it to be their
petition, when it was put to them at the council board, was all that the king's counsel could
offer for proof of this ; wliich was an apparent strain, in which even those judges that were

470 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the surest to the court, did not seem to be satisfied. It was much urged against them, that
this petition was a libel, tending to the defaming the king's government.
But to this it was answered, that they having received an order, to which they found they
could not give obedience, thought it was incumbent on them, as bishops and as subjects, to
lay before the king their reasons for it : all subjects had a right to petition the king : they, .
as peers, were of his great council, and so had yet a better claim to that : and that more
particularly in matters of religion ; for the act of uniformity in queen Elizabeth's time had
required them under a curse to look carefully after those matters ; the dispensing power had
been often brought into debate in parliament, and was always voted to be against law : and
the late king had yielded the point by recalling his declaration : so they thought, they had
a right to represent these things to the king. And occasion was often taken to reflect on
the dispensing power. To this the king's counsel replied, that the votes of one, or both
houses were not laws, till they were enacted by king and parliament : and the late king's
passing once from a point of his prerogative did not give it up, but only waved it for that
time : they urged much the sacredness of the king's authority ; that a paper might be true
in fact, and yet be a libel ; that in parliament the two houses had a right to petition, but it
was sedition to do it in a point of government out of parliament.
The trial did last long, above ten hours. The crowds continued in expectation all the
while, and expressed so great a concern for the bishops, that the witnesses who were brought
against them were not only treated with much scorn and loud laughter upon every occasion,
but seemed to be in such danger, that they escaped narrowly, going away by a back pas
sage. Two of the judges, Powel and Halloway, delivered their opinion, that there was no
seditious matter in the petition, and that it was no libel. Wright was now brought into
this court and made chief justice ; and Herbert was made chief justice of the common pleas:
Herbert was with the court in the main of the king's dispensing power, but was against them
in most particulars : so he could not serve their ends in this court. Wright was the more
proper tool. He in his charge called the petition a libel : but he did not think the publica
tion was proved.
The jury was fairly returned. When they were shut up, they were soon agreed upon
their verdict, to acquit the bishops. But it was thought to be both the more solemn, and
the safer way, to continue shut up till the morning. The king still flattered himself with
the hope that the bishops would be brought in guilty. He went that morning to the camp :
for the ill humour the army was in the day before, made him think it necessary to go and
keep them in awe and order, by his own presence.
The court sat again next day. And then the jury came in with their verdict. Upon
which there were such shoutings, so long continued, and as it were echoed into the city, that
all people were struck with it. Every man seemed transported with joy. Bonfires were
made all about the streets. And the news going over the nation, produced the like rejoic
ings and bonfires all England over. The king's presence kept the army in some order. But
he was no sooner gone out of the camp, than he was followed with an universal shouting, as
if it had been a victory obtained*. And so fatally was the king pushed on to his ruin, that
* The following are more particular details, relative to your Majesty, (our holy mother, the Church of England,
this memorable transaction. The petition was as follows : being, both in her principles and constant practice, nnques-
"The Petition of some of the Bishops to King tionab^ lo^' ^having, to her great honour, been
James the Second, against promulgating his ' Decla- m0re tha° °?ce P"bl,cly a<*nowledged to be so by your
ration for liberty of conscience.' gracious Majesty,) nor yet from any want of due tender
ness to Dissenters : in relation to whom they are willing
" To the King's Most Excellent Majesty. to come to such a temper, as shall be thought fit, when
" The humble Petition of William, Archbishop of that matter shall be considered and settled in Parliament
Canterbury, and of divers of the suffragan Bishops and Convocation ; but, among many other considerations,
of that province, now present with him, in behalf from this especially, because that declaration is founded
of ourselves and other of our absent brethren, and upon such a dispensing power, as hath been often declared
of the Clergy of our respective dioceses. illegal in Parliament ; and particularly in the years 1662
" Humbly suEwaTH, and 1672, and in the beginning of your Majesty's reign ;
" That the great averseness they find in themselves to and is a matter of so great moment and consequence to
tho distributing and publishing, in all their churches, your the whole nation, both in Church and State that your
Majesty's late declaration for liberty of conscience, pro- petitioners cannot in prudence, honour, or conscience, so
ceedeth neither from any want of duty and obedience to far make themselves parties to it, as the distribution of it

OF KING JAMES II.

471

he seemed not to be, by all this, enough convinced of the folly of those violent counsels. He
intended still to pursue them. It was therefore resolved on, to bring this matter of the con
tempt of the order of council, in not reading the declaration, before the ecclesiastical commis-
St. Asaph. It was declared against in the first parlia
ment called by his late majesty, and by that which was
called by your majesty.
The King, insisting upon the tendency of the petition
to rebellion, said, he would have his declaration pub
lished. Bath and Wells. We are bouud to fear God, and
honour the king: we desire to do both. We will honour
you : we must fear God.
Bristol. We will do our duty to your majesty iu every
thing to the utmost, which docs not interfere with oar duty
to God.
King. Is this what I have deserved of you, who hav&
supported the church of England, and will support it ? I
will remember you that have signed this paper : I wil!"
keep this paper ; I will not part with it. I did not expect
this from you ; especially from some of you ; I will be
obeyed in publishing my declaration.
Bath and Wells. God's will be done !
King, What is that ?
Bath and Wells and Peterborough. God's will be
done King. If I think fit to alter my mind, I will send to
you. God hath given me this dispensing power, and I
will maintain it. I tell you, there are seven thousand
men, and of the church of England too, that have not
bowed their knees to Baal.
This is the sum of what passed, as far as the bishops
could recollect it ; and this being said, they were dis
missed." — Archbishop Sancroft's MSS. ; Singer's Cla
rendon Corr. ii. 479, &c.
" On Friday, June 8th, at five in the afternoon, his
majesty came into the privy council. About half an hour
after, the archbishop and six bishops, who were attending
in the next room, were called into the council chamber,
and graciously received by his majesty. The lord chan
cellor took a paper then lying on the table, and, showing
it to the archbishop, asked him in words to this effect :- —
1 Is this the petition that was written and signed by your
grace, and which these bishops presented to his majesty ? '
The archbishop received the paper from the lord chan
cellor, and, addressing himself to his majesty, said to this
purpose : ' Sir, I am called hither as a criminal, which I
never was before in my life, and little thought I ever
should be, especially before your majesty : but, since it is
my unhappiness to be so at this time, I hope your majesty
will not be offended, that I am cautious of answering
questions. No man is obliged to answer questions that
may tend to the accusing of himself.* His majesty called
this chicanery, and hoped he would not deny his hand.
The archbishop still insisted upon it, that there could be
no other end of this question, but to draw such an answer
from him as might afford ground for an accusation ; and
therefore desired there might be no answer required of
him. St. ABaph said, ' All divines of all christian
churches agree in this, that no man in our circumstances
is obliged to answer any such questions.1 The king still
pressing for an answer with some seeming impatience, the
archbishop said, ' Sir, though we are not obliged to give
any answer to this question, yet, if your majesty lays your
command upon us, we shall answer it, in trust upon your
majesty's justice and generosity, that we shall not suffer
for our obedience, as we must if our answer should be
brought in evidence against us.' His majesty said, ' No,
I will not command you ; if you will deny your own hand,

all over the nation, and the solemn publication of it once
and agaiu, even in God's house, and in the time of his
divine service, must amount to in common and reasonable
construction. u Your petitioners, therefore, most humbly and ear
nestly beseech your Majesty, that you will be graciously
pleased not to insist upon the distributing and reading
your Majesty's said declaration.
" And your petitioners will ever pray, &c." — Singer's
Clarendon Corr. ii. 478.
This petition was signed by William Sancroft, arch
bishop of Canterbury ; William Lloyde, bishop of St.
Asaph ; Francis Turner, of Ely ; John Lake, of Chiches
ter ; Thomas Ken, of Bath and Wells ; Thomas White,
of Peterborough ; and Jonathan Trelawney, of Bristol.
It was signed in tho presence of, and consented to, by
Henry, bishop of London a ; Dr. Tillotson, dean of Can
terbury ; Stillingfleet, dean of St. Paul's ; Patrick, dean
of Peterborough ; Tcnison, vicar of St. Martin's in the
Fields; Grove, rector of St. Andrew's Undershaft; and
Sherlock, master of the Temple.
When the bishops came to present the petition, they
were " brought to the king in his closet within his bed
chamber, where the bishop of St. Asaph, with the rest, all
being upon their knees, delivered the petition to his
majesty. He was pleased at first to receive the petitioners
and their petition graciously, and, having opened it, said,
' This is my lord of Canterbury's own hand.' To which
the bishops replied, * Yes, Sir ; it is his own hand.'
But the king, having read it over, and then folding it up,
said thus, or to this effect :
King. This is a great surprise to me : here are strange
words. I did not expect this from you ; especially from
some of you. This is a standard of rebellion.
St. Asaph, and some of the rest, replied, that they
had adventured their lives for his majesty, and would lose
the last drop of their blood, rather than lift up a finger
against him.
King. I tell you this is a standard of rebellion : I
never saw such an address.
Bristol, falling down on his knees, said, Rebellion !
Sir, I beseech you, do not say so hard a thing of us. For
God's sake, do not believe we are, or can be, guilty of
rebellion; it is impossible that I, or any of my family,
should be so. Your majesty cannot but remember that
you sent me down into Cornwall, to quell Monmouth's
rebellion ; and I am as ready to do what I can to quell
another, if there were occasion.
Chichester. Sir, we have quelled one rebellion, and
will not raise another.
Ely. We rebel ! Sir, we are ready to die at your feet.
Bath and Wills. Sir, I hope you will give that liberty
to us, which you allow to ail mankind.
Peterborough. Sir, you allow liberty of conscience to
all mankind : the reading this declaration is against our
conscience. King. I will keep this paper. It ie the strangest
address which I ever saw : it tends to rebellion. Do you
question my dispensing power ? Some of you here have
printed and preached for it, when it was for your pur
pose. Peterborough. Sir, what we say of the dispensing
power, refers only to what was declared in parliament.
King. The dispensing power was never questioned by
the men of the church of England.

" On two other copies of the petition, one of which is in archbishop Sancroft's handwriting, are the following sub
scriptions : — Approbo, H. London, May 23 ; William, Norwich, May 23 ; Robert, Gloucester, May 21 ; Scth, Sarum,
May 26 ; P. Winchester : Tho. Exon, May 29.— Singer's Clarendon Corr- »• 4?8.

472.

THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN

sioners. They did not think fit to cite the archbishop and bishops before them : for they did
not doubt they would plead to their jurisdiction, and refuse to acknowledge their authority ;
which they hoped their chancellors, and the inferior clergy, would not venture on.

I know not what to say to you,' &c. The lord chancellor
said, ' Withdraw.' After about half a quarter of an hour,
they were called in again. Then the lord chancellor said,
L His majesty has commanded me to require you to
answer this question : Whether these be your hands that
are set to this petition?' His majesty himself also said,
* I command you to answer this question.* Then the
archbishop took the petition, and, having read it over, said,
1 1 own that I wrote this petition, and that this is my
hand.' Then the lord chancellor asked each of the
bishops ; and they all acknowledged their hands, and that
they delivered this petition. Then they were commanded
to withdraw. After a while, they were called in a third
time. Then the lord chancellor told them, ' It is his
majesty's pleasure to have you proceeded against for this
petition: but it shall be with all fairness at Westminster
Hall. There "will be an information against you, which
you are to answer; and in order to that, you are to enter
into a recognisance.' The archbishop said, ' that without
a recognisance they should be ready to appear, and to
answer, whenever they were called.' One of the bishops
Eaid. the lord Lovelace had been called before the council,
to answer to a complaint that was brought against him,
and that he was allowed to answer it in Westminster
Hall, without entering into any recognisance; and that
they hoped they might be allowed to answer in like man
ner. The lord chancellor said, * the lord Lovelace had
affronted his majesty, and behaved himself very rudely
before them ; and, therefore, his majesty would have him
proceeded against in the common way ; but, for the
bishops there present, his majesty was pleased to treat
them with all favour in respect of their character ; and
therefore he would have them enter into a recognisance.'
His majesty was pleased to say, ' I offer you this as a
favour, and I would not have you refuse it.' St. Asaph
said, * Whatsoever favour your majesty vouchsafes to
offer to any person, you are pleased to leave it to him
whether he will accept it or no ; and you do not expect he
Bhould accept it to his own prejudice. We conceive that
this entering into recognisance may be prejudicial to us;
and, therefore, we hope your majesty will not be offended
at our declining it.' Then the lord chancellor said,
' There are but three ways to proceed in matters of this
kind : it must be either by commitment, or by recogni
sance, or by subpoena out of the king's bench. His
majesty was not willing to take the common way in pro
ceeding against you, but he would give you leave to enter
into recognisance ;' and his lordship again advised them
to accept it. Some of the bishops said, they were in
formed that no man was obliged to enter into recognisance,
unless there were special matter against him, and that
there was an oath of it made against that person. This
they said, not considering that now the petition was made
special matter, and that their confessing it was as good
as an oath. But at last they insisted on this, that there
was no precedent for it, that any member of the house of
peers should he bound in recognisance for misdemeanour.
The lord chancellor said there were precedents for it ; but,
being desired to name one, he named none. The bishops
desired to be proceeded against the common way ; but
that was not allowed, and they were a third time com
manded to withdraw.
" A while after, they were called in the fourth time,
and asked, whether they had considered of it better ? and
whether they would accept of his majesty's favour ? The
archbishop said, he had the advice of the best counsel in
town, and they warned him of this, assuring him it would

bo to his prejudice ; and therefore he desired that it might
not be required, offering his promise again to appear and
to answer, whensoever he should be called. But his
majesty seemed to be displeased, and said, * You will
believe others before you will believe me.' So they were
the fourth time commanded to withdraw.
" A good while after this, the earl of Berkely camo
forth to the bishops, and endeavoured first to persuade tho
archbishop to enter into recognisance, which he thought,
had been agreed between them over-night ; for on Thurs
day night, almost at bed-time, his lordship came to the
archbishop at Lambeth, and, after half an hour's discourse,
at last came to speak of his appearing at council the next
day, and then advised his grace to offer a recognisance.
His grace said, ' I am advised to that way.' His lord
ship said, ' That is well ;' and soon after took his leave.
Now he seemed to look upon it as something strange,
that his grace should refuse to enter into recognisance ;
but finding him fixed, he endeavoured to persuade the
other bishops. He told them he would do it, if he were
in their case ; but finding them all of a mind, he went
outward from the council, bu'; soon after returned that
way into the council chamber again ; from whence, about
half an hour after, came forth Mr. Riley, a serjeant-at-
arms, with the wanant, signed with fifteen hands, to carry
the seven bishops to the Tower ; and another warrant,
with nineteen hands and seals, for the lieutenant of the
Tower to keep them in safe custody." — Singer's Claren
don Corr. ii. 481.
Dialogue between the King and Bishops, after tke
third or fourth coming in.
A. Sir, we appear before you this day, by virtue of.
your summons, as criminals ; the first time that ever I
stood as a criminal before any man, and I am sorry that it
happens to be before my sovereign- lord. We are advised,
Sir, that they, who are in this condition of criminals, are
not obliged to answer to any questions which may be to
their prejudice ; notwithstanding, if your majesty requires.
it of us, we will tell you the true matter of fact, trusting
in your majesty's justice and generosity, that no advan-.
tage shall be taken against us from our confession.
Q. Is this your petition ?
R. Pray, Sir, give us leave to see it ; and if, upon
perusal, it appears to he the same  yes, Sir, this is our.
petition, and these are our subscriptions.
Q. Who were present at the forming of it ?
R. All who have subscribed it.
Q. Were no other persons present ?
R. It is our great infelicity that we are here as crimi
nals; and your majesty is so just and generous that you
will not require us to accuse either ourselves or others.
Q. Upon what occasion came you to London ?
R. I received an intimation from the archbishop, that
my advice and assistance was required in the affairs of the
church. Q. What were the affairs which you consulted of?
R. The matter of the petition.
Q. What is the temper you are ready to come to with
the dissenters ?
R. We refer ourselves to the petition.
Q. What mean you by the dispensing power being de--
clarcd illegal in parliament?
R. The words are so plain that we cannot use any
plainer. Q. What want of prudence or honour is there in obey-
ing'the king?

OF KING JAMES II.

473

Citations were sent out requiring the chancellors and archdeacons to send in the lists of all
the clergy, both of such as had obeyed, and of those who had not obeyed the order of council.
Some of these were now so much animated, with the sense that the nation had expressed
of the bishops' imprisonment and trial, that they declared they would not obey this order :
and others excused themselves in softer terms. "When the day came to which they were
cited, the bishop of Rochester, though he himself had obeyed the order, and had hitherto
gone along, sitting with the other commissioners, but had always voted on the milder side,
yet now, when he saw matters were running so fast to the ruin of the church, he not only
would sit no longer with them, but wrote a letter to them ; in which he said, it was impos
sible for him to go on with them any longer, for though he himself had obeyed the order of
council, which he protested he did because he thought he was bound in conscience to do it,
yet he did not doubt but that those who had not obeyed it had gone upon the same prin
ciple of following their conscience, and he would much rather choose to suffer with them,
than to concur in making them suffer. This stopped proceedings for that day, and put
the court to a stand. So they adjourned themselves till December, and they never sat
any more.
This was the progress of that transaction, which was considered all Europe over as the

R. What is against conscience is against prudence and
honour too, especially in persons of our character.
Q. Why is it against conscience ?
R. Because our consciences oblige us (as far as we are
able) to preserve our laws and religion according to the
Reformation. Q. Is the dispensing power then against law ?
R. We refer ourselves to the petition.
Q. How could the distributing and reading the declara
tion make you parties to it ?
R. We refer ourselves to our petition, whether the
common and reasonable construction of mankind would
not make it so.
Q. Did you disperse a printed letter in the country,
or otherwise dissuade any of the clergy from reading it?
R. If this be one of the articles of misdemeanour
against us. we desire to answer it with the rest.
General, We acknowledge the petition : we are sum
moned to appear here to answer such matters of misde
meanour as shall be objected; we therefore humbly
desire a copy of our charge, and that time convenient may
be allowed us to advise about it, and answer it. We are
here in obedience to his majesty's command, to receive
our charge, but humbly desire we may be excused from
answering questions, from whence occasion may be taken
against us. — Singer's Clarendon Corr. ii. 483.
Henry, earl of Clarendon, in his Diary, May 18, 1688,
says, " In the evening, the bishops, six in number, pre
sented a petition to the king, praying that his majesty
would recall his proclamation for reading the Proclama
tion of Indulgence in the churches. It was written with
the archbishop's own hand, and signed by himself and the
other six. The king took them into the room within the
^bed-chamber ; when he had read the petition, he was
angry, and said, he did not expect such a petition from
them. This the bishop of St. Asaph told me when he
came home."
So angry was James, that the next day he appears to
have sent for all the judges to Whitehall, to consult them
upon this episcopal offence  (Singer's Clarendon Corr. ii.
172.) On the 28th, Lord Sunderland sent a summons
to them to appear before the king in council, on the 8th
of June, to answer to such matters of misdemeanour
as should be then objected against thorn  (Ibid. 173.)
The king was informed that lord Clarendon had been
present when the bishops' petition was drawn up at Lam
beth ; and this is not at all improbable, since he mentions
in his diary that he had frequent conferences subsequently
with them, at his own house. On the 8th of June they

appeared before the council, and were called upon to enter
into recognizances to appear in the court of King's Bench
on the first day of the following term ; and, upon refusing,
they were committed to the Tower : and the attorney-
general was ordered to prefer an information against them.
On the following day, lord Clarendon relates that " mul
titudes of people went to the Tower to the bishops.''
The lord chancellor (Jeffreys) told lord Clarendon that
he regretted very much that the king had been induced to
proceed with the prosecution of the bishopB, which at one
time he had declined ; " some men (he added) would hurry
the king to his destruction."
On the 15th of June the attorney-general moved to
have the bishops brought to the bar of the court of King's
Bench. " Both the hall and palace yard were extremely
crowded : all the way, as the bishops came from the
bridge, where they landed, to the very court, the people
made a lane for them, and begged their blessings. When
they were in court, the information against them was read.
The bishops' counsel offered several pleas, but they were
all overruled ; judge Powell dissenting from his brethren
on every point. At last they pleaded the general issue ;
and so their trials were appointed to be this day fortnight.
The court took their own recognizances to appear then,
the archbishop in 200/., the rest in 100/. each ; and so
they went home ; the people in like manner crowding for
their blessing. As I was taking coach in the little Palace-
yard, I found the bishop of St. Asaph in the midst of a
crowd, the people thinking it a blessing to kiss any of
these bishops' hands, or garments.'' — Ibid. 177.
On the 21st the chancellor had introduced to the king,
Sir Samuel Astry ; and, as he was to strike the jury, it
was immediately reported it was for foul play against the
bishops. — (lb. 178.) According to the same authority,
sir Robert Clarke had been very busy at sir Samuel Astry 's
about the jury. This was not portentous of good, and
the chance of justice being administered, was still farther
diminished, if, as the lord chancellor told lord Clarendon,
the judges were "most of them rogues." — lb. 179.)
On the 29th they were brought to trial ; the proceedings
lasted from nine in the morning until after six in the
evening. " When the jury withdrew, the court adjourned
until ten the next morning ; and at that time, the jury,
(sir Roger Langley, foreman) brought in their verdict
" not guilty ;" upon which there was a most wonderful
shout, that one would have thought the hall had cracked,
insomuch that the court took notice of it. In the even
ing multitudes of bonfires were made to celebrate the
acquittal.''

474 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
trial, whether the king or the church were like to prevail. The decision was as favourable
as was possible. The king did assume to himself a power to make laws void, and to qualify
men for employments, whom the law had put under such incapacities, that all they did was
null and void. The sheriffs and mayors of towns were no legal officers ; judges (one of
them being a professed papist, Alibon,) who took not the test, were no judges : so that the
government, and the legal administration of it, was broken. A parliament returned by such
men was no legal parliament. All this was done by virtue of the dispensing power, which
changed the whole frame of our government, and subjected all the laws to the king's
pleasure; for, upon the same pretence of that power, other declarations might have
come out, voiding any other laws that the court found stood in their way ; since we had
scarce any law that was fortified with such clauses, to force the execution of it, as those that
were laid aside had in them. And when the king pretended that this was such a sacred point
of government, that a petition, offered in the modestest terms, and in the humblest manner
possible, calling it in question, was made so great a crime, and carried so far against men of
such eminence ; this, I confess, satisfied me, that here was a total destruction of our consti
tution, avowedly begun, and violently prosecuted. Here was not jealousies, nor fears; the thing
was open and avowed. This was not a single act of illegal violence, but a declared design
against the whole of our constitution. It was not only the judgment of a court of law : the
king had now by two public acts of state, renewed in two successive years, openly published
his design. This appeared such a total subversion, that, according to the principles, that
some of the highest assertors of submission and obedience, Barklay and Grotius, had laid
down, it was now lawful for the nation to look to itself, and see to its own preservation.
And, as soon as any man was convinced that this was lawful, there remained nothing but to
look to the prince of Orange, who was the only person that either could save them, or had a
right to it : since by all the laws in the world, even private as well as public, he that has in
him the reversion of any estate, has a right to hinder the possessor, if he goes about to
destroy that, which is to come to him after the possessor's death.
Upon all this disorder that England was falling into, admiral Russel came to the Hague.
He had a good pretence for coming over to Holland, for he had a sister then living in it.
He was desired by many of great power and interest in England to speak very freely to the
prince, and to know positively of him what might be expected from him. All people were
now in a gaze : those who had little or no religion had no mind to turn papists, if they could
see any probable way of resisting the fury with which the court was now driving ; but men
of fortune, if they saw no visible prospect, would be governed by their present interest :
they were at present united ; but, if a breaking should once happen, and some men of figure
should be prevailed on to change, that might go far ; especially in a corrupt and dissolute
army, that was as it were let loose to commit crimes and violences every where, in which
they were rather encouraged than punished ; for it seemed to be set up as a maxim, that the
army by rendering itself odious to the nation would become thereby entirely devoted to the
court : but after all, though soldiers were bad Englishmen and worse Christians, yet the court
found them too good protestants to trust much to them. So Russel put the prince to explain
himself what he intended to do.
The prince answered, that, if he was invited by some men of the best interest, and the
most valued in the nation, who should, both in their own name and in the name of others
who trusted them, invite him to come and rescue the nation and the religion, he believed he
could be ready by the end of September to come over. The main confidence we had was in
the electoral prince of Brandenburg ; for the old elector was then dying. And I told Russel
at parting, that, unless he died, there would be great difficulties, not easily mastered, in the
design of the prince's expedition to England.
He was then ill of a dropsy, which, coming after a gout of a long continuance, seemed to
threaten a speedy end of his life. I had the honour to see him' at Cleves ; and was admitted
to two long audiences, in which he was pleased to speak to me with great freedom. He was
a prince of great courage. He both understood military matters well, and loved them much.
He had a very perfect view of the state Europe had been in for fifty years, in which he had
borne a great share in all affairs, having directed his own counsels himself. He had a won-

OF KING JAMES II. 475
derful memory, even in the smallest matters ; for every thing passed under his eye. He had
a quick apprehension, and a choleric temper. The heat of his spirits was apt to kindle too
quick, till his interest cooled him ; and that fetched him back, which brought him under the
censure of changing sides too soon, and too often. He was a very zealous man in all the
concerns of religion. His own life was regular, and free of all blemishes. He tried all that
was possible to bring the Lutherans, and Calvinists, to some terms of reconciliation. He
complained much of the rigidity of the Lutherans, more particularly of those in Prussia :
nor was he well pleased with the stiffness of the Calvinists : and he inveighed against the
synod of Dort, as that which had set all on fire, and made matters almost past reconciling.
He thought, all positive decisions in those matters ought to be laid aside by both parties,
without which nothing could bring them to a better temper.
He had a very splendid court ; and to maintain that, and his great armies, his subjects
were pressed hard by many uneasy taxes. He seemed not to have a just sense of the
miseries of his people. His ministers had great power over him in all lesser matters, while
he directed the greater ; and he suffered them to enrich themselves excessively.
In the end of his life the electoress had gained great credit, and governed his counsels too
much. He had set it up for a maxim, that the electoral families in Germany had weakened
themselves so much, that they would not be able to maintain the liberty of the empire
against the Austrian family, which was now rising by their victories in Hungary : the
houses of Saxe, and the Palatine, and of Brunswick, and Hesse, had done this so much, by
the dismembering some of their dominions to their younger children, that they were moulder
ing to nothing ; he therefore resolved to keep all his dominions entire in one hand : this
would make his family the balance to the house of Austria, on whom the rest of the empire
must depend : and he suffered his electoress to provide for her children, and to enrich herself
by all the ways she could think on, since he would not give them any share of his domi
nions. This she did not fail to do. And the elector, having just cause of complaint for
being abandoned by the allies in the peace of Nimeguen, and so forced to restore what he
had got from the Swedes, the French upon that gave him a great pension, and made the elec
toress such presents, that he was prevailed on to enter into their interests ; and in this he
made some ill steps in the decline of his life. But nothing could soften him with relation
to that court, after they broke the edict of Nantes, and began the persecution of the protest
ants. He took great care of all the refugees. He set men on the frontier of France to
receive and defray them ; and gave them all the marks of Christian compassion, and of a
bounty becoming so great a prince. But his age and infirmities, he being crippled with the
gout, and the ill understanding that was between the prince electoral and electoress, had so
disjointed his court, that little was to be expected from him.
Death came upon him quicker than was looked for. He received the intimations of it
with the firmness that became both a Christian and a hero. He gave his last advices to his
son, and to his ministers, with a greatness and a tenderness that both surprised and melted
them all : and above all other things he recommended to them the concerns of the protestant
religion, then in such an universal danger. His son had not his genius. He had not a
strength of body, nor a force of mind, capable of great matters. But he was filled with zeal
for the reformed religion ; and he was at that time so entirely possessed with a confidence
in the prince of Orange, and with a high esteem of him, as he was his cousin-german, that
we had a much better prospect of all our affairs, by his succeeding his father. And this
was increased by the great credit that Dankelman, who had been his governor, continued to
have with him ; for he had true notions of the affairs of Europe, and was a zealous pro
testant, and was likely to prove a very good minister, though he was too absolute in his
favour, and was too much set on raising his own family. All at the Hague were looking
with great, concern on the affairs of Europe ; these being, in many respects, and in many
different places, brought to a very critical state.
I must now look back to England, where the queen's delivery was the subject of all men's
discourse. And since so much depends on this, I will give as full and as distinct an account
of all that related to that matter, as I could gather up either at that time or afterwards.
The queen had been for six or seven years in such an ill state of health, that every winter

476 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
brought her very near death. Those about her seemed well assured that she, who had
buried all her children, soon after they were born, and had now for several years ceased
bearing, would have no more children. Her own priests apprehended it, and seemed to wish
for her death. She had great, and frequent distempers, that returned often, which put all
people out of their hopes, or fears, of her having any children. Her spirits were now much
on the fret. She was eager in the prosecution of all the king's designs. It was believed
that she had a main hand in driving him to them all. And he, perhaps to make her gentler
to him in his vagrant amours, was more easy to her in every thing else. The lady Dorches
ter was come back from Ireland ; and the king went often to her. But it was visible, she
was not likely to gain that credit in affairs to which she had aspired ; and therefore this was
less considered.
She had another mortification, when Fitz-James, the king's son, was made duke of Ber
wick *. He was a soft and harmless young man, and was much beloved by the king : but
the queens dislike kept him from making any great figure. He made two campaigns in
Hungary, that were little to his honour ; for, as his governor diverted the allowance that was
given for keeping a table, and sent him always to eat at other tables, so, though in the siege
of Buda there were many occasions given him to have distinguished himself, yet he had
appeared in none of them. There1 was more care taken of his person than became his age
and condition : yet his governor's brother was a Jesuit, and in the secret ; so every thing was
ventured on by him, and all was forgiven him.
In September, the former year, the queen went to the Bath, where, as was already told,
the king came and saw her, and stayed a few days with her. She after that pursued a full
course of bathing : and, having resolved to return in the end of September, an accident took
her to which the sex is subject ; and that made her stay there a week longer. She came to
Windsor on the sixth of October. It was said, that, at the very time of her coming to the
king, her mother, the duchess of Modena, made a vow to the lady Loretto, that her daughter
might by her means have a son. And it went current, that the queen believed herself to be
with child in that very instant, in which her mother made her vow ; of which, some travellers
have assured me, there was a solemn record made at Loretto f . A conception said to be
thus begun looked suspicious. It was now fixed to the sixth of October ; so the nine months
were to run to the sixth of July. She was in the progress of her big belly let blood several
times ; and the most astringent things that could be proposed were used.
It was soon observed that all things about her person were managed with a mysterious
secrecy, into which none were admitted but a few papists. She was not dressed, nor
undressed, with the usual ceremony. Prince George told me, that the princess went as far
in desiring to be satisfied by feeling the motion, after she said she was quick, as she could go'
without breaking with her ; and she had sometimes stayed by her even indecently long in
mornings, to see her rise, and to give her her shift ; but she never did either. She never
offered any satisfaction in that matter by letter to the princess of Orange, nor to any of the
ladies of quality, in whose word the world would have acquiesced. The thing upon this
began to be suspected ; and some libels were written, treating the whole as an imposture.
The use the queen made of this was, to say, that since she saw some were suspecting her as
capable of so black a contrivance, she scorned to satisfy those who could entertain such
thoughts of her. How just soever this might be with relation to the libellers, yet certainly,
if she was truly with child, she owed it to the king and herself, to the king's daughters, but
most of all to the infant she carried in her belly, to give such reasonable satisfaction, as might
put an end to jealousy. This was in her power to do every day ; and her not doing it gave
just grounds of suspicion.
Things went thus on till Monday in Easter week. On that day the king went to Roches
ter, to see some of the naval preparations ; but was soon sent for by the queen, who appre
hended she was in danger of miscarrying. Dr. Scarborough was come to Knightsbridge to
see bishop Ward, my predecessor, who had been his ancient friend, and was then his patient :
but the queen's coach was sent to call him in all haste, since she was near miscarrying.
* This was the king's illegitimate son by Arabella, sister to the lord Churchill. 
t See an account of this affair in Misson's Voyage d'ltalie, i. 314,

OF KING JAMES II. 477
Dr. Windebank, who knew nothing of this matter, . stayed long that morning upon an
appointment for Dr. Wallgrave, another of the queen's physicians, who the next time he saw
him excused himself; for the queen, he said, was then under the most apparent signs of mis
carrying. Of this the doctor made oath ; and it is yet extant.
On the same day the countess of Clarendon, being to go out of town for a few days, came
to see the queen before she went, knowing nothing of what had happened to her : and she,
being a lady of the bedchamber to queen dowager, did, according to the rule of the court, go
into the queen's bedchamber without asking admittance. She saw the queen abed, bemoan
ing herself in a most doleful manner, saying often, "Undone, undone:" and one that
belonged to her carried somewhat out of the bed, which she believed was linen taken from
the queen. She was upon this in some confusion ; and the countess of Powis coming in,
went to her, and said with some sharpness, what do you here ? And carried her to the door.
Before she had got out of the court, one of the bedchamber women followed her, and charged
her not to speak of any thing she had seen that day. This matter, whatever was in it, was
hushed up ; and the queen held on her course.
The princess had miscarried in the spring ; so as soon as she had recovered her strength,
the king pressed her to go to the Bath, since that had so good an effect on the queen. Some
of her physicians, and all her other friends, were against her going. Lowen, one of her phy
sicians, told me, he was against it : he thought she was not strong enough for the Bath,
though the king pressed it with an unusual vehemence. Millington, another physician, told
the earl of Shrewsbury, from whom I had it, that he was pressed to go to the princess, and
advise her to go to the Bath. The person that spoke to him told him, the king was much
set on it, and that he expected it of him, that he would persuade her to it. Millington
answered, he would not advise a patient according to direction, but according to his own
reason ; so he would not go. Scarborough and Witherly took it upon them to advise it ; so
she went thither in the end of May.
As soon as she was gone, those about the queen did all of the sudden change her reckoning,
and began it from the king's being with her at Bath. This came on so quick, that, though the
queen had set the fourteenth of June for her going to Windsor, where she intended to
lie in, and all the preparations for the birth and for the child were ordered to be made ready
by the end of June, yet now a resolution was taken for the queen's lying in at St. James's ;
and directions were given to have all things quickly ready. The Bath water either did not
agree with the princess, or the advices of her friends were so pressing, who thought her
absence from the court at that time of such consequence, that in compliance with them she
gave it out, it did not, and that therefore she would return in a few days.
The day after the court, had this notice, the queen said, she would go to St. James's, and
look for the good hour. She was often told, that it was impossible upon so short a warning
to have things ready. But she was so positive, that she said, she would lie there that night,
though she should lie upon the boards. And at night, though the shorter and quicker way
was to go from Whitehall to St. James's through the Park, and she always went that way ;
yet now, by a sort of affectation, she would be carried thither by Charing Cross through the
Pall Mall. And it was given out by all her train, that she was going to be delivered.
Some said it would be next morning ; and the priests said very confidently, that it would
be a boy.
The next morning, about nine o'clock, she sent word to the king, that she was in labour.
The queen dowager was next sent to ; but no ladies were sent for : so that no women were in
the room, but two dressers and one undresser, and the midwife. The earl of Arran sent notice
to the countess of Sunderland ; so she came. The lady Bellasis came also in time. The
protestant ladies that belonged to the court, were all gone to church before the news was let
go abroad ; for it happened on Trinity Sunday, it being that year on the tenth of June. The
king brought over with him from Whitehall a great many peers and privy councillors ; and
of these eighteen were let into the bedchamber ; but they stood at the furthest end of the
room. The ladies stood within the alcove. The curtains of the bed were drawn close, and
none came within them but the midwife and an under dresser. The queen lay all the while
abed ; and, in order to the warming one side of it, a warming-pan was brought : but it was

478 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
not opened, that it might be seen that there was fire and nothing else in h ; so here was
matter for suspicion, with which all people were filled.
A little before ten, the queen cried out as in a strong pain, and immediately after the
midwife said aloud, she was happily brought to bed. When the lords all cried out of what,
the midwife answered, the queen must not be surprised ; only she gare a sign to the countess
of Sunderland, who upon that touched her forehead, by which, it being the sign before agreed
on, the ting said he knew it was a boy. No cries were heard from the child ; nor was it
shewn to those in the room. It was pretended more air was necessary. The under dresser
went out with the child, or something else, in her arms to a dressing room, to which there
was a door near the queen's bed ; but there was another entry to it from other apartments.
The lring continued with the lords in the bedchamber for some minutes, which was either a
sign of much phlegm upon such an occasion ; for it was not known whether the child was
alive or dead ; or it looked like the giving time for some management. After a little while
they went all into the dressing-room ; and then the news was published. In the mean while,
nobody was called to lay their hands on the queen s belly, in order to a full satisfaction.
When the princess came to town three days after, she had as little satisfaction given her.
Chamberlain, the man-midwife, who was always ordered to attend her labour before, and who
brought the plaisters for putting back the milk, wondered that he had not been sent to. He
went according to custom with the plaisters ; but he was told they had no occasion for him.
He fancied, that some other person was put in his place; bnt he could not find that any had it
AH that concerned the milk, or the queen's purgations, was managed still in the dark. This
made all people inclined more and more to believe, there was a base imposture now put on
the nation. That still increased. That night one Hemings. a very worthy man, an apothe
cary by his trade, who fived in it- Martin's Lane, the very next door to a family of an emi
nent papist ; (Brown, brother to the viscount Montacnte, lived there :) the wall between his
parlour and theirs being so thin, that he could easily hear any thing that was said with a
louder voice, he (Hemings) was reading in his parlour late at night, when he heard one
coming into the neighbouring parlour, and say with a doleful voice, '" The prince of Wales is
dead :" npon which a great many that tired in the house came down stairs very quick : upon
this confusion he could no: hear any thing more ; but it was plain, they were in a great con
sternation. He went with the news next morning to the bishops in the Tower. The
countess of Clarendon came thither soon after, and told them, she had been at the young
princes door, but was denied access : she was amazed at it : and asked, if thev knew her.
They said they did, but that the queen had ordered, that no person whatsoever should be
suffered to come in to him. This gave credit to Hemings* storv. and looked as if all -was
ordered to be kept shut np close, till another child was found. One, that saw the child
two days after, said to me, that he looked stronj. and not like a child so newly bom. Win
debank met Walgrave the day after this birth, and remembered him of what he had told
him eight weeks before. He acknowledged what he had said, but added, that God wrought
miracles ; to which no reply could, or durst be made by the other : it needed none. So
healthy a child being so tittle like any of those the queen had borne, it was (riven out that
he had fits, and could not live. Bui those who saw him everv day observed no snch thing.
On the contrary, the child was in a very prosperous state. None of those fits ever happened
when the princess was at court ; for she could not be denied admittance, though all others
were. So this was believed to be given out to make the matter more credible. It is true,
some weeks after that, the court being gone to Windsor, and the child sent to Richmond, he
fell into such fits, that four physicians were sent for. They aU looked on him as a dying
child. The king and queen were sent for. The physicians went to a dinner prepared for
them : and were often wondering that they were not called for. They took it for oranted,
that the child was dead ; but when they went in after dinner to look on him, thev saw a
sound healthy child, that seemed to have had no sort of illness on him. It was said, that
the child was strangely revived of a sudden. Some of the physicians told Llovd, bishop et
St. Asaph, that it was not possible for them to think it was the same child. They looked on
one another, but durst not speak what they thought.
Thus I have related snch particulars as I could gather of this birth ; to which some more

OF KING JAMES II. 479
shall be added, when I give an account of the proof that the king brought afterwards to put
this matter out of doubt ; but by which it became indeed more doubtful than ever. I took
most of these from the informations that were sent over to the prince and princess of Orange,
as I had many from the vouchers themselves. I do not mix with these the various reports
that were, both then and afterwards, spread of this matter, of which bishop Lloyd has "a
great collection, most of them well attested. What truth soever may be in these, this is
certain, that the method in which this matter was conducted, from first to last, was very
unaccountable. If an imposture had been intended, it could not have been otherwise
managed. The pretended excuse that the queen made, that she owed no satisfaction to
those who could suspect her capable of such base forgery, was the only excuse that she could
have made, if it had been really what it was commonly said to be. She seemed to be soon
recovered, and was so little altered by her labour, either in her looks or voice, that this helped
not a little to increase jealousies. The rejoicings over England upon this birth were very cold
and forced. Bonfires were made in some places, and a set of congratulatory addresses
went round the nation. None durst oppose them ; but all was formal, and only to make
a shew *.
The prince and princess of Orange received the news of this birth very decently. The first
letters gave not those grounds of suspicion that were sent to them afterwards ; so they sent
over Zuylestein to congratulate : and the princess ordered the prince of Wales to be prayed
for in her chapel. Upon this occasion, it may not be improper to set down what the princess
said to myself on this subject two years before. I had asked her, in the freedom of much
discourse, if she knew the temper of her own mind, and ¦ how she could bear the queen's
having a son. She said, she was sure it would give her no concern at all on her own account ;
God knew best what was fit for her ; and, if it was not to serve the great ends of Providence,
she was sure that, as to herself, she would rather wish to live and die in the condition she
was then in. The advertisements formerly mentioned came over from so many hands, that
it was impossible not to be shaken by them. It was also taken ill in England, that the
princess should have begun so early to pray for the pretended prince ; upon which the
naming him discontinued. But this was so highly resented by the court of England, that
the prince, fearing it might precipitate a rupture, ordered him to be again named in the
prayers. The prince set himself with great application to prepare for the intended expedition ; for
Zuylestein brought him such positive advices, and such an assurance of the invitation he
had desired, that he was fully fixed in his purpose. It was advised from England, that the
prince could never hope for a more favourable conjuncture, nor for better grounds to break
on, than he had at that time. The whole nation was in a high fermentation. The proceed
ings against the bishops, and those that were still kept on foot against the clergy, made all
people think the ruin of the church was resolved on, and that on the first occasion it would
be executed, and that the religion would be altered. The pretended birth made them reckon
* However interest and party prejudice at the time When the lords of the council waited upon the princess
may have influenced Burnet and others to suspect the with the depositions made before them by the king, and
truth of the birth of prince James Francis Edward, better the queen-dowager, she avoided expressing any concur-
known by the political epithet of " the Pretender," few rence, but merely observed, " My lords, this was not
persons who will take tho trouble to compare" the con- necessary; for I have so much duty for the king, that his
flicting statements that were published then, and subsc- word must be more to me thau these depositions. '' —
quently, will think there is any circumstantial evidence Singer's Clarendon Corr. ii. 198, 199.
adduced that at all shakes the direct testimony that he Circumstantial evidence is certainly strong to justify
was the offspring of the queen. Lord Clarendon says that the suspicions that were entertained ; but all such evidence
it was " every where ridiculed, as if scarce airy one will bear two interpretations, and that which is in accord-
believed" the queen was preguant; yet that popular ance with direct testimony must prevail. The queen's
prejudice that she was incapable of child-bearing is refuted repugnance to be inspected is readily accounted for with-
«^by the fact that she subsequently gave birth to a nrjoce.qs out having recourse to the explanation that she was carry-
in 1692, during her exile m France. Princess Anne evi- ing on a deception. Full particulars relative to this much-
dently doubted the assertion that tho pretender was really disputed point can be obtained from the numerous
the ofrspiiug of the queen. The latter, during her preg- pamphlets of the time, the names of which can be found
naucy, carefully avoided letting the princess or any but her by a reference to Watt's Bibliutheca Britannica. See cspc-
immediate attendants have an opportunity to see her per- cially, " The several Declarations, &c. concerning the Birth
son, which, considering the reports about her non-preg- of the Prince of Wales ;" " A full answer to the Deposi-
nancy, was very injudicious. tions, &c." Life of J. Kettlewell ; Dalrymple's Memoirs.

480 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
that popery and slavery would be entailed on the nation. And, if this heat went off, people
would lose heart. It was also visible, that the army continued well affected. They spoke
openly against popery ; they drank the most reproachful healths against them that could be
invented, and treated the few papists that were among them with scorn and aversion. The
king saw this so visibly, that he broke up the camp, and sent them to their quarters ; and it
was believed, that he would bring them no more together till they were modelled more to
his mind. The seamen shewed the same inclinations. The Dutch had set out a fleet of
twenty-four men of war, on pretence to secure their trade : so the king resolved to set out
as strong a fleet. Strickland, who was a papist, had the command. He brought some priests
aboard with him, who said mass, or at least performed such offices of their religion as are
allowed in ships of war : and the chaplain, that was to serve the protestants in Strickland's
ship, was sent away upon a slight pretence. This put the whole fleet into such a disorder,
that it was likely to end in a mutiny. Strickland punished some for this ; and the king came
down to accommodate the matter. He spoke very softly to the seamen ; yet this made no
great impression ; for they hated popery in general, and Strickland in particular. When
some gained persons among the seamen tried their affections to the Dutch, it appeared they
had no inclinations to make war on them. They said aloud, they were their friends and
their brethren ; but they would very willingly go against the French. The king saw all this,
and was resolved to take other more moderate measures.
These advices were suggested by the earl of Sunderland, who saw the king was running
violently to his own ruin. So, as soon as the queen admitted men to audiences, he had some
very long ones of her. He represented to her, that the state of her affairs was quite
changed by her having a son. There was no need of driving things fast, now they had. a
succession sure : time would bring all about, if matters were but softly managed. He told
her, it would become her to set up for the author of gentle counsels, that she might by
another administration lay the flame that was now kindled. By this she would gain the
hearts of the nation, both to herself and to her son : she might be declared regent, in case
the king should die before her son came to be of age. He found these advices began to be
hearkened to ; but, that he might have the more credit in pressing them, he, who had but
too slight notions of religion, resolved to declare himself a papist. And then, he, being in
\he same interest with her, and most violently hated for this ill step he had made, gained
such an ascendant over her spirit, that things were likely to be put in another manage
ment. He made the step to popery all on the sudden, without any previous instruction or con
ference ; so that the change he made looked too like a man who, having no religion, took up
one, rather to serve a turn, than that Ke was truly changed from one religion to another.
He has since been accused, as if he had done all this to gain the more credit, that so he
might the more effectually ruin the king. There was a suspicion of another nature, that
stuck with some in England, who thought that Mr. Sidney, who had the secret of all the
correspondence that was between the prince, and his party in England, being in particular
friendship with the earl of Sunderland, the earl had got into that secret ; and they fancied
he would get into the prince's confidence by Sidney's means. So I was written to, and
desired to put it home to the prince, whether he was in any confidence or correspondence
with the earl of Sunderland, or not ? For, till they were satisfied in that matter, they would
not go on ; since they believed he would betray all, when things were ripe for it, and that
many were engaged in the design. The prince upon that did say very positively, that he
was in no sort of correspondence with him. His counsels lay then another way ; and, if
time had been given him to follow the scheme then laid down by him, things might have
turned fatally ; and the nation might have been so laid asleep with new promises, and a
different conduct, that in a slow method they might have gained that, which they were so
near losing, by the violent proceedings in which they had gone so far. The judges had
orders in their circuits to proceed very gently, and to give new promises in the king's name.
But they were treated every where with such contempt, that the common decencies were
scarce paid them, when they were on the bench. And they now saw that the presentments
of grand juries, and the verdicts of other juries, were no more under their direction. Things

OF KING JAMES II. 481
slept in England, as is usual, during the long vacation. But the court had little quiet,
having every day fresh alarms from abroad, as well as great mortifications at home.
I must now change the scene, and give a large account of the affairs abroad, they having
such a connection with all that followed in England. Upon the elector of Brandenburg's
death, the prince sent Mr. Bentinck with the compliment to the new elector ; and he was
ordered to lay before him the state of affairs, and to communicate the prince's design to him,
and to ask him, how much he might depend upon him for his assistance. The answer was
full and frank. He offered all that was asked, and more. The prince resolved to carry over
to England an army of nine thousand foot, and four thousand horse and dragoons. He
intended to choose these out of the whole Dutch army. But for the security of the States,
under such a diminution of their force, it was necessary to have a strength from some other
princes. This was soon concerted between the prince and the new elector, with the land
grave of Hesse, and the duke of Lunenberg and Zell, who had a particular affection to the
prince, and was a cordial friend to him on all occasions.
His brother, the duke of Hanover, was at that time in some engagements with the court
of France. But, since he had married the princess Sophia of the Palatine House, I ventured
to send a message to her by one of their court, who was then at the Hague. He was a
French refugee, named Mr. Boucour. It was to acquaint her with our design with relation
to England, and to let her know, that, if we succeeded, certainly a perpetual exclusion of all
papists from the succession to the crown would be enacted ; and, since she was the next
protestant heir after the two princesses, and the prince of Orange, of whom at that time
there was no issue alive, I was very confident, that, if the duke of Hanover could be disen
gaged from the interests of France, so that he came into our interests, the succession to the
crown would be lodged in her person, and in her posterity ; though on the other hand, if he
continued, as he stood then, engaged with France, I could not answer for this. The gentle
man carried the message, and delivered it. The duchess entertained it with much warmth,
and brought him to the duke to repeat it to him. But at that time this made no great
impression on him. He looked on it as a remote and a doubtful project ; yet when he saw
our success in England, he had other thoughts of it. Some days after this Frenchman was
gone, I told the prince what I had done. He approved of it heartily ; but was particularly
glad, that I had done at, as of myself, without communicating it to him, or any way
engaging him in it : for he said, if it should happen to be known that the proposition was made
by him, it might do us hurt in England, as if he had already reckoned himself so far master,
as to be forming projects concerning the succession to the crown.
But while this was in a secret management, the elector of Cologne's death came in very
luckily to give a good colour to intrigues and preparations. The old elector was brother to
Maximilian, duke of Bavaria. He had been long bishop, both of Cologne and Liege : he was
also elected bishop of Munster : but the pope would never grant his bulls for that see ; but
he had the temporalties, and that was all he thought on. He had thus a revenue of near
four millions of guilders, and four great bishoprics ; for he was likewise bishop of Hildesheim.
He could arm and pay twenty thousand men, besides that his dominions lay quite round the
Netherlands. Munster lay between them and the northern parts of Germany ; and from
thence their best recruits came. Cologne commanded twenty leagues of the Rhine ; by which,
as an entrance was opened into Holland, which they had felt severely in the year 1672, so
the Spanish Netherlands were entirely cut off from all assistance that might be sent them
out of Germany : and Liege was a country full both of people and wealth, by which an
entrance is open into Brabant ; and if Maestricht was taken, the Maese was open down to
Holland. So it was of great importance to the States to take care who should succeed him.
The old man was a weak prince, much set on chemical processes, in hopes of the philosopher's
stone. He had taken one of the princes of Furstenberg into his particular confidence, and
was entirely governed by him. He made hirn one of the canons of Cologne ; and he came
to be dean at last. He made him not only his chief minister, but left the nomination of
the canons that were preferred by him wholly to his choice. The bishop, and the dean and
chapter, name those by turns. So, what by those the elector named on his motion, what by
those he got to be chosen, he reckoned he was sure of succeeding the elector ; and nothing
i i

482 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
but ill management could have prevented it. He had no hopes of succeeding at Munster ;
but he had taken much pains to secure Liege.
I need not enlarge further on this story than to remember that he got the elector to
deliver his country up to the French in the year 1672, and that the treaty opened at Cologne
was broken up on his being seized by the emperor's order. After he was set at liberty, he
was, upon the recommendation of the court of France, made a cardinal, though with much
difficulty. In the former winter, the emperor had been prevailed on by the Palatine family,
to consent to the election of a coadjutor in Cologne. But this was an artifice of the cardi
nal's, who deceived that family into the hopes of carrying the election for one of their
branches. And they obtained the emperor's consent to it, without which it could not be
done. But so ill grounded were the Palatine's hopes, that of twenty-five voices the cardinal
had nineteen, and they had only six voices.
The contest at Rome about the franchises had now occasioned such a rupture there, that
France and Rome seemed to be in a state of war. The count Lavardin was sent ambas
sador to Rome ; but the pope refused to receive him, unless he would renounce the pretension
to the franchises. So he entered Rome in a hostile manner, with some troops of horse,
though not in form of troops ; but the force was too great for the pope. He kept guards
about his house, and in the franchises, and affronted the pope's authority on all occasions.
The pope bore all silently, but would never admit him to an audience, nor receive any mes
sage nor intercession from the court of France ; and kept off every thing, in which they
concerned themselves ; and therefore he would not confirm the election of a coadjutor to
Cologne. So, that not being done when the elector died, the canons were to proceed to a new
election ; the former being void, because not confirmed : for if it had been confirmed, there
would have been no vacancy.
The cabal against the cardinal grew so strong, that he began to apprehend he might lose
it, if he had not leave from the pope to resign the bishopric of Strasburg, which the French
had forced him to accept, only to lessen the pension that they paid him by giving him that
bishopric. By the rules of the empire, a man that is already a bishop, cannot be chosen to
another see, but by a postulation ; and to that it is necessary to have a concurrence of two-
thirds of the chapter. But it was at the pope's choice, whether he would accept of the
resignation of Strasburg or not ; and therefore he refused it. The king of France sent a
gentleman to the pope with a letter written in his own hand, desiring him to accept of that
resignation, and promising him upon it all reasonable satisfaction : but the pope would not
admit the bearer, nor receive the letter. He said, while the French ambassador lived at
Rome like an enemy, that had invaded it, he would receive nothing from that court.
In the bishoprics of Munster and Hildesheim, the deans were promoted, of whom both the
States and the princes of the empire were well assured. But a new management was set up
at Cologne. The elector of Bavaria had been disgusted at some things in the emperor's
court. He complained, that the honour of the success in Hungary was given so entirely to
the duke of Lorrain, that he had not the share which belonged to him. The French instru
ments that were then about him took occasion to alienate him more from the emperor, by
representing to him, that, in the management now at Cologne, the emperor shewed more
regard to the Palatine family than to himself, after all the service he had done him. The
emperor, apprehending- the ill consequences of a breach with him, sent and offered him the
supreme command of his armies in Hungary for that year, the duke of Lorrain being taken
ill of a fever, just as they were upon opening the campaign. He likewise offered him all the
voices that the Palatine had made at Cologne, in favour of his brother prince Clement.
Upon this they were again reconciled : and the elector of Bavaria commanded the emperor's
army in Hungary so successfully, that he took Belgrade by storm after a short siege.
Prince Clement was then but seventeen, and was not of the chapter of Cologne ; so he was
not eligible according to their rules, till he obtained a bull from the pope dispensing with
these tilings. That was easily got. With it the emperor sent one to manage the election
in his name, with express instructions to offer the chapter the whole revenue and govern
ment of the temporalties for five years, in case they would choose prince Clement, who
¦wanted all that time to be of age. If he could make nine voices sure for him, he was to

OF KING JAMES II. 483
stick firm to his interest ; but if he could not gain so many, he was to consent to any person
that should be set up in opposition to the cardinal. He was ordered to charge him severely
before the chapter, as one that had been for many years an enemy and traitor to the empire.
This was done with all possible aggravations, and in very injurious words.
The chapter saw that this election was likely to be attended with a war in their country,
and other dismal consequences ; for the cardinal was chosen by the chapter vicar, or guardian
of the temporalties : and he had put garrisons in all their fortified places, that were paid
with French money : and they knew he would put them all in the king of France's hands,
if he was not elected. They had promised not to vote in favour of the Bavarian prince ; so
they offered to the emperor's agent to consent to any third person. But ten voices were
made sure to prince Clement ; so ho was fixed to his interests. At the election, the cardinal
had fourteen voices, and prince Clement had ten. By this means the cardinal's postulation
was defective, since he had not two-thirds. And upon that, prince Clement's election was
first judged good by the emperor, as to the temporalties ; but was transmitted by him to
Rome, where a congregation of cardinals examined it ; and it was judged in favour of prince
Clement. The cardinal succeeded worse at Liege, where the dean was without any difficulty
chosen bishop ; and nothing but the cardinal's purple saved him from the violences of the
people at Liege. He met with all sorts of injurious usage, being hated there, both on the
account of his depending so much on the protection of France, and for the effects they had
felt of his violent and cruel ministry under the old elector. I will add one circumstance in
honour of some of the canons of Liege. They not only would accept of no presents from
those whom the States appointed to assist in managing that election before it was made ;
but they refused them after the election was over. This I saw in the letter that the States
deputy wrote to the Hague.
I have given a more particular account of this matter, because I was acquainted with all
the steps that were made in it. And it had such an immediate relation to the peace and
safety of Holland, that, if they had miscarried in it, the expedition designed for England
would not have been so safe, nor could it have been proposed easily in the States. By this
it appeared, what an influence the papacy, low as it is, may still have in matters of the
greatest consequence. The foolish pride of the French court, which had affronted the pope
in a point in which, since they allowed him to be the prince of Rome, he certainly could lay
down such rules as he thought fit, did now defeat a design that they had been long driving at,
and which could not have miscarried by any other means than those that they had found out.
Such great events may and do often rise from inconsiderable beginnings. These things
furnished the prince with a good blind for covering all his preparations ; since here a war in
their neighbourhood was unavoidable, and it was necessary to strengthen both their alliances
and their troops. For it was visible to all the world, that, if the French could have fixed
themselves in the territory of Cologne, the way was open to enter Holland, or to seize on
Flanders, when that king pleased ; and he would have the four electors on the Rhine at
mercy. It was necessary to dislodge them, and this could not be done without a war with
France. The prince got the States to settle a fund for nine thousand seamen, to be con
stantly in their service : and orders were given to put the naval preparations in such a case,
that they might be ready to put to sea upon orders. Thus things went on in July and
August, with so much secrecy and so little suspicion, that neither the court of England nor
the court of France seemed to be alarmed at them.
In July, admiral Herbert came over to Holland, and was received with a particular regard
to his pride and ill humour : for he was upon every occasion so sullen and peevish, that it
was plain he set a high value on himself, and expected the same of all others. He had got
his accounts passed, in which he complained that the king had used him not only hardly,
but unjustly. He was a man delivered up to pride and luxury ; yet he had a good under
standing ; and he had gained so great a reputation by his steady behaviour in England, that
the prince understood that it was expected he should use him in the manner he himself
should desire ; in which it was not very easy for him to constrain himself so far as that
required. The managing him was in a great measure put on me ; and it was no easy thing.
It made me often reflect on the providence of God, that makes some men instruments in
u2

434 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
great things, to which they themselves have no sort of affection or disposition ; for his pri
vate quarrel with the lord Dartmouth, who he thought had more of the king's confidence
than he himself had, was believed the root of all the sullenness he fell into towards the king,
and of all the firmness that grew out of that.
I now return to England, to give an account of a secret management there. The lord
Mordaunt was the nrst°of all the English nobility that came over openly, to see the prince
of Orange. He asked the king's leave to do it. He was a man of much heat, many notions,
and full of discourse ; he was brave and generous, but had not true judgment : his thoughts
were crude and indigested, and his secrets were soon known. He was with the prince in
the year 1686 ; and then he pressed him to undertake the business of England : and he
represented the matter as so easy, that this appeared too romantic to the prince to build
upon it. He only promised in general, that he should have an eye on the affairs of England ;
and should endeavour to put the affairs of Holland in so good a posture as to be ready to act
when it should be necessary : and he assured him, that, if the king should go about either to
change the established religion, or to wrong the princess in her right, or to raise forged plots
to destroy his friends, that he would try what he could possibly do. Next year a man of a
far different temper came over to him *.
The earl of Shrewsbury : he had been bred a papist, but had forsaken that religion, upon
a very critical and anxious enquiry into matters of controversy. Some thought, that,
thouo-h he had forsaken popery, he was too sceptical, and too little fixed in the points of
relioion. He seemed to be a man of great probity, and to have a high sense of honour.
He had no ordinary measure of learning, a correct judgment, with a sweetness of temper that
charmed all who knew him. He had at that time just notions of government, and so great
a command of himself, that, during all the time that he continued in the ministry, I never
heard any one complaint of him, but for his silent and reserved answers, with which his
friends were not always well pleased. His modest deportment gave him such an interest in
the prince, that he never seemed so fond of any of his ministers, as he was of him. He
* Noble gives the following spirited sketch of this dis- general of our forces in North America ; but Marlborough.
ringuished peer. Charles Mordaunt, third earl of Peter- his enemy and rival, thwarted him. Under the two first-
borough, and first of Monmouth, was one of the strangest Georges he became a conspicuous Whig; was continued
compounds that nature, in her most sportive moments, ever by them lord-lieutenant of Northamptonshire, and made
produced. Of great ancestry, a peer by creation, as well general of our marine forces. In these reigns he employed
as, afterwards, by descent ; yet, in his youth, he seemed his time more as a wit than as a politician ; caprice die-
to disregard decency, and the greatest of all moral obliga- tated, and inclination followed. He was insufferably
tions. Justice, indeed, ought to have claimed him, as a haughty, and loved popularity. A correspondent of Pope
shedder of human blood. Graceful and elegant in his and Svrift, and gifted in all that learning and genius could
manners and person, and a favourite with the Muses, he bestow ; yet he delighted to declaim in coffee-houses,
seemed emulous to mix only with the rough, and then where the stupid stare of astonishment was all his reward.
untutored, brave tars of the ocean. Leaving the naval Living on the borders of parsimony, yet he was always in
service, he charmed the senate with his oratory. Dis- debt. They who blamed could not but admire him :
gusted with James the Second's government, he obtained even the cynic Swift, after remarking that at sixty he
a command of part of the Dutch fleet ; hut William the was more spirited than the young, adds, *k I love the
Third brought him back to England, where he became a hang-dog dearly." An avowed atheist, he gained the
military officer, yet a councillor to his majesty. Under admiration of revealed religion's friends. He was like no
Anne he was a conqueror; and Spain would have been other human being, yet all human beings admired his sense,
transferred from the Bourbon to the Austrian family, if his wit, and his courage: this was so marked that he was
Charles had attended as much to fighting as to bull-feast- said to be without fear ; but he replied — l; No, I am not ;
ing. Never was a braver or more skilful general. An only 1 never saw occasion to fear." He died at Lisbon,
adept in the illusions of perspective, he imposed upon the aged seventy-seven, in the year 1735. His first wife was
enemy as to the numbers under his command; even his a daughter of sir Alexander Frazer ; whilst a widower the
gallantries aided his plans. He astonished the proud earl became deeply enamoured with the accomplished
Spaniards; the patient Germans ; even the sprightly French Anastasia Robinson, the daughter of an artist. She was
saw themselves excelled in courage, celerity, and stra- an opera singer, and a teacher of music and Italian, to
tagem. The parliament thanked him, but, imitating his support an aged parent : yet she rejected all the earl's
fickleness, withdrew their favour. Even at home, his pen advances towards an illicit connection. He married her
vindicated his sword; and at the change of the queen's privately, and concealed his union until 1735, and then
ministry, he blazed forth a knight of the garter, and as proclaimed it like no other husband. He went one
negotiator in all the Italian courts. Restless and alert, on evening to the rooms at Bath, -where a servant was ordered
the continent, or in England, he was ever on the wing : distinctly and audibly to announce " Lady Peterborough's
'- he saw more kings and postilions than any man in carriage waits." Every lady of rank and fashion rose
Europe." This quarter of the globe seemed too confined and congratulated the declared countess  Continuation of
for his pastimes. He asked for a commission as captain- Grainger.

Jiri)jr:&vc3_~by" J. Cacbxaxr.

CHARLES TALBOT, DTJKE OF SHKEWSBUKY.

FROM THE OKTG-TKAr, 0E IKETELLTCK IN THE (JOTJ.12CT.lOSf OF

TllK 1U.GBX nnXiu..E TjTF EARL OF SnKKVTSBrUY.

OF KING JAMES II. 485
had only in general laid the state of affairs before the prince, without pressing him too
much *.
But Russel t coming over in May brought the matter nearer a point. He was a cousin
german to lord Russel. He had been bred at sea, and was bedchamber-man to the king,
when he was duke of York ; but, upon the lord Russel's death, he retired from the court.
He was a man of much honour, and great courage. He had good principles, and was firm
to them. The prince spoke more positively to him than he had ever done before. He said,
he must satisfy both his honour and conscience, before he could enter upon so great a design,
which, if it miscarried, must bring ruin both on England and Holland : he protested, that
no private ambition, nor resentment, of his own could ever prevail so far with him, as to
make him break with so near a relation, or engage in a war, of which the consequences must
be of the last importance, both to the interests of Europe, and of the protestant religion ;
therefore he expected formal and direct invitations. Russel laid before him the danger of
trusting such a secret to great numbers. The prince said, if a considerable number of men,
that might be supposed to understand the sense of the nation best, should do it, he would
acquiesce in it.
Russel told me, that, upon his return to England, he communicated the matter, first to the
earl of Shrewsbury, and then to the lord Lumley, who was a late convert from popery, and
had stood out very firmly all this reign. He was a man who laid his interest much to heart :
and he resolved to embark deeply in this design.
But the man in whose hands the conduct of the whole design was chiefly deposited by the
prince's own order, was Mr. Sidney, brother to the earl of Leicester and to Algernon Sidney.
He was a graceful man, and had lived long in the court, where he had some adventures that
became very public. He was a man of a sweet and caressing temper, had no malice in his
heart, but too great a love of pleasure. He had been sent envoy to Holland in the year
1679, where he entered into such particular confidences with the prince, that he had the
highest measure of his trust and favour, that any Englishman ever had. This was well
known over England ; so that all who desired to recommend themselves to the prince did it
through his hands. He was so apprehensive of the dangers this might cast him in, that he
travelled almost a year round Italy. But now matters ripened faster ; so all centred in
him. But, because he was lazy, and the business required an active man, who could both
run about, and write over long and full accounts of all matters, I recommended a kinsman
of my own, Johnston, whom I had formed, and knew to be both faithful and diligent, and
very fit for the employment he was now trusted with J.
Sidney tried the marquis of Halifax, if he would advise the prince's coming over ; but, as
this matter was opened to him at a great distance, he did not encourage a further freedom.
He looked on the thing as impracticable ; it depended on so many accidents, that he thought
it was a rash and desperate project, that ventured all upon such a dangerous issue, as might
turn on seas and winds. It was next opened to the earl of Danby : and he not only went
in heartily to it himself, but drew in the bishop of London (Dr. Compton) to join in it. By
their advice it was proposed to the earl of Nottingham, who had great credit With the whole
church party ; for he was a man possessed with their notions, and was grave and virtuous
in the course of his life. He had some knowledge of the law, and of the records of parlia-
* Charles Talbot, afterwards duke of Shrewsbury, His death is said to have been caused by his wife, Adel-
embraced the protestant religion, with many other distin- leida, daughter of the marquis de Palliotti, an Italian,
guished persons, at the time of the popish plot. With who proved a domestic tyrant, and the plague of his life.
his religion he changed his politics, and this godson of Lord Dartmouth says, that if queen Mary had outlived
Charles the Second then became the opponent of arbitrary the king (William) she would certainly have married the
power. He lent William the Third 40,000^., who in duke, and that she was always agitated extremely when
return made him a privy councillor, a lord justice, prin- he came into her presence. A very full memoir of this
cipal secretary of state, adding a dukedom and the garter, nobleman, and of the political changes in which he was
The king used to describe him as " the only man of engaged, will be found in archdeacon Coxe's " Shrewsbury
whom the Whigs and Tories both spoke well." At the Correspondence."
time of queen Anne's death he was lord lieutenant of Ire- -j- This was Edward Russel, so distinguished afterwards
land, lord high treasurer, and lord chamberlain ; important as the victor at La Hogue, and better known as tho earl
employments that never were before united in the same of Orford. He will be mentioned in future pages.
possession. George the First continued to employ him ^ He was a son of lord Wariston, before mentioned.
in many high offices. He died, aged fifty-eight, in 1718. Afterwards he became secretary of state for Scotland.

180 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
ment, and was a copious speaker, but too florid and tedious. He was much admired by
many. He had stood at a great distance from the court all this reign ; for, though his name
was still among the privy councillors, yet he never went to the board. He upon the first
proposition entertained it, and agreed to it ; but at their next meeting he_ said, he had con
sidered better of that matter : his conscience was so restrained in those points, that he could
not go further with them in it : he said, he had talked with some divines, and named Tillot
son and Stillingfleet, in general of the thing ; and they were not satisfied with it ; (though
they protested to me afterwards, that they remembered no such thing.) He confessed he
should not have suffered them to go so far with him in such a secret, till he had examined it
better : they had now, according to Italian notions, a right to murder him ; but, though his
principles restrained him, so that he could not go on with them, his affections would make
him to wish well to them, and be so far a criminal as concealment could make him one.
The earl of Devonshire was spoken to ; and he went into it with great resolution. It was
next proposed to three of the chief officers of the army, Trelawny, Kirk, and the lord
Churchill. These went all into it : and Trelawny engaged his brother, the bishop of Bristol,
into it.
But, having now named the lord Churchill *, who is likely to be mentioned often by me
in the sequel of this work, I will say a little more of him. He was a man of a noble and
graceful appearance, bred up in the court with rto_literature ; but he had a solid and clear
understanding, with a constant presence of mind. He knew the arts of living in a court
beyond any man in it. He caressed all people with a soft and obliging deportment, and was
always ready to do good offices. He had no fortune to set up on : this put him on all the
methods of acquiring one. And that went so far into him, that he did not shake it off when
he was in a much higher elevation : nor was his expense suited enough to his posts ; but,
when allowances are made for that, it must be acknowledged, that he is one of the greatest
men the age has produced. He was in high favour with the king ; but his lady "j- was much
more in princess Anne's favour. She had an ascendant over her in every thing. She was a
woman of little knowledge, but of a clear apprehension, and a true judgment, a warm and
hearty friend, violent and sudden in her resolutions, and impetuous in her way of speaking.
She was thought proud and insolent on her favour, though she used none of the common arts
of a court to maintain it ; for she did not beset the princess, nor flatter her. She stayed
much at home, and looked very carefully after the education of her children. Having thus
opened both their characters, I will now give an account of this lord's engagements in this
matter ; for which he has been so severely censured, as guilty both of ingratitude and
treachery, to a very kind, and liberal, master. He never discovered any of the king's secrets ;
nor did he ever push him on to any violent proceedings : so that he was in no contrivance
to ruin, or betray, him. On the contrary, whensoever he spoke to the king of his affairs,
which he did but seldom, because he could not fall in with the king's notions, he always
suggested moderate counsels. The earl of Galway told me, that when he came over with the
first compliment upon the king's coming to the crown, he said then to him, that, if the king
was ever prevailed on to alter our religion, he would serve him no longer, but withdraw from
him ; so early was this resolution fixed in him. "When he saw how the king was set, he
could not be contented to see all ruined by him. He was also very doubtful as to the pre
tended birth. So he resolved, when the prince should come over, to go in to him ; but to
betray no post, nor do any thing more than the withdrawing himself, with such officers as he
could trust with such a secret. He also undertook, that prince George and the princess
Anne would leave the court, and come to the prince, as soon as was possible.
With these invitations, and letters, the earl of Shrewsbury, and Russel, came over in
September ; and soon after them came Sidney with Johnston. And they brought over a
* This was afterwards the celebrated duke of Marl- removed, she should herself become prime favourite,
borough. she obtained her removal by the aid of bishop Compton,
f Subsequently so celebrated as the court favourite, who suggested at the council that it was dangerous for a
Sarah, duchess of Marlborough. This intriguing peeress papist to be so intimate with tho princess  Earl of Dart-
was introduced to queen Anne by Mrs. Cornwallis, a mouth ia Oxford ed. of this work.
papist, and finding that if her introductress could be

OF KING JAMES II. 487
full scheme of advices, together with the heads of a declaration, all which were chiefly penned
by lord Danby. He, and the earl of Devonshire, and the lord Lumley, undertook for the
north : and they all dispersed themselves into their several countries, and among their friends.
The thing was in the hands of many thousands, who yet were so true to one another, that
none of them made any discovery, no not by their rashness ; though they were so confident,
that they did not use so discreet a conduct as was necessary. Matters went on in Holland
with great secrecy till September. Then it was known, that many arms were bespoken ;
and, though those were bargained for in the name of the king of Sweden, and of some of
the princes of Germany, yet there was ground enough for suspicion. All those that were
trusted proved both faithful, and discreet. And here an eminent difference appeared between
the hearty concurrence of those who went into a design upon principles of religion, and
honour, and the forced compliance of mercenary soldiers, or corrupt ministers, which is
neither cordial nor secret. France took the alarm first, and gave it to the court of England.
D'Avaux, the French ambassador, could no more give the court of France those advertise
ments that he was wont to send of all that passed in Holland. He had great allowances
for entertaining agents, and spies, every where. But Louvois, who hated him, suggested that
there was no more need of these ; so they were stopped : and the ambassador was not sorry,
that the court felt their error so sensibly. The king published the advertisements he had
from France a little too rashly ; for all people were much animated when they heard it from
such a hand. The king soon saw his error ; and, to correct it, he said on many occasions,
that whatever the designs of the Dutch might be, he was sure they were not against him.
It was given out sometimes, that they were against France, and then that they were against
Denmark : yet the king shewed he was not without his fears ; for he ordered fourteen more
ships to be put to sea, with many fire-ships. He recalled Strickland, and gave the command
to the lord Dartmouth; who was indeed one of the worthiest men of his court : he loved
him, and had been long in his service, and in his confidence ; but he was much against all
the conduct of his affairs : yet he resolved to stick to him at all hazards. The seamen came
in slowly ; and a heavy backwardness appeared in every thing.
A new and unlooked-for accident gave the king a very sensible trouble. It was resolved,
as was told before, to model the army, and to begin with recruits from Ireland. Upon
which the English army would have become insensibly an Irish one. The king made the
first trial on the duke of Berwick's regiment, which being already under an illegal colonel, it
might be supposed they were ready to submit to every thing. Five Irishmen were ordered
to be put into every company of that regiment, which then lay at Portsmouth ; but Beau
mont, the lieutenant-colonel, and five of the captains, refused to receive them. They said,
they had raised their men upon the duke of Monmouth's invasion, by which their zeal for
the king's service did evidently appear. If the king would order any recruits, they doubted
not, but that they should be able to make them : but they found it would give such an uni
versal discontent, if they should receive the Irish among them, that it would put them out
of a capacity of serving the king any more. But as the order was positive, so the duke of
Berwick was sent down to see it obeyed. Upon which they desired leave to lay down their
commissions. The king was provoked by this to such a degree, that he could not govern his
passion. The officers were put in arrest, and brought before a council of war, where they
were broken with reproach, and declared incapable to serve the king any more. But upon
this occasion, the whole officers of the army declared so great an unwillingness to mix with
those of another nation and religion, that, as no more attempts were made of this kind, so it
was believed that this fixed the king in a point, that was then under debate.
The king of France, when he gave the king the advertisements of the preparations in Hol
land, offered him such a force as he should call for. Twelve, or fifteen, thousand were named,
or as many more as he should desire. It was proposed, that they should land at Portsmouth,
and that they should have that place to keep the communication with France open, and in
their hands. All the priests were for this ; so were most of the popish lords. The earl of
Sunderland was the only man in credit that opposed it. He said, the offer of an anny of
forty thousand men might be a real strength ; but then it would depend on the orders that
came from France : they might perhaps master England ; but they would become the king's

488 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
masters at the same time ; so that he must govern under such orders as they should give ;
and thus he would quickly become only a viceroy to the king of France : any army less than
that would lose the king the affections of his people, and drive his own army to desertion, if
not to mutiny.
The king did not think matters were yet so near a crisis ; so he did neither entertain the
proposition, nor let it fall quite to the ground. There was a treaty set on foot, and the king
was to have an hundred merchant ships, ready for the transportation of such forces as he
should desire, which it was promised should be ready when called for. It is certain, that the
French ambassador, then at London, who knew the court better than he did the nation, did
believe, that the king would have been able to have made a greater division of the nation,
than it proved afterwards he was able to do. He believed it would have gone to a civil war ;
and that then the king would have been forced to have taken assistance from France on any
terms ; and so he encouraged the king of France to go on with his designs that winter, and
he believed he might come in good time next year to the king's assistance. These advices
proved fatal to the king, and to Barillon himself; for, when he was sent over to France, he
was so ill looked on, that it was believed it had an ill effect on his health ; for he died soon
after. Albeville came over fully persuaded that the Dutch designed the expedition against
England, but played the minister so, that he took pains to infuse into all people that they
designed no such thing ; which made him to be generally laughed at. He was soon sent
back ; and, in a memorial he gave into the States, he asked, what was the design of those
great and surprising preparations at such a season. The States, according to their slow forms,
let this lie long before them, without giving it an answer.
But the court of France made a greater step. The French ambassador in a memorial told
the States, that his master understood their design was against England, and in that case he
signified to them, that there was such a strait alliance between him and the king of
England, that he would look on every thing done against England, as an invasion of his own
crown. This put the king and his ministers much out of countenance : for, upon some sur
mises of an alliance with France, they had very positively denied there was any such thing.
Albeville did continue to deny it at the Hague, even after the memorial was put in. The
king did likewise deny it to the Dutch ambassador at London. And the blame of the put
ting it into the memorial was cast on Skelton, the king's envoy at Paris, who was disowned
in it, and upon his coming over was put in the Tower for it. This was a short disgrace ; for
he was soon after made lieutenant of the Tower. His rash folly might have procured the
order from the court of France, to own this alliance : he thought it would terrify the States,
and so he pressed this officiously, which they easily granted. That related only to the own
ing it in so public a manner. But this did clearly prove, that such an alliance was made ;
otherwise no instances, how pressing soever, would have prevailed with the court of France
to have owned it in so solemn a manner : for what ambassadors say in their master's name,
when they are not immediately disowned, passes for authentic : so that it was a vain cavil
that some made afterwards, when they asked, how was this alliance proved ? The memorial
was a full proof of it ; and the shew of a disgrace on Skelton did not at all weaken that
proof. But I was more confirmed of this matter by what sir William Trumball, then the English
ambassador at Constantinople, told me at his return to England. He was the most eminent
of all our civilians, and was by much the best pleader in those courts, and was a learned, a
diligent, and a virtuous man. He was sent envoy to Paris upon the lord Prestons being
recalled. He was there when the edict that repealed the edict of Nantes was passed, and
saw the violence of the persecution, and acted a great and worthy part in harbourino- many,
in covering their effects, and in conveying over their jewels and plate to England ; which dis
gusted the court of France, and was not very acceptable to the court of England, though it
was not then thought fit to disown or recall him for it *. He had orders to put in memo-
* Sir William Trumball, the friend of Dryden and excellence. Straitened in his means when commencing
the early patron of Pope, is another instance that poverty life, he laboured with a diligence in his profession as a
is ever an excitement favourable to the development of civilian that insured success. He was sent from the

OF KING JAMES II. 48!)
rials, complaining of the invasion of the principality of Orange ; which he did in so high a
strain, that the last of them was like a denunciation of war. From thence he was sent to
Turkey. And, about this time, he was surprised one morning by a visit that the French
ambassador made him, without those ceremonies that pass between ambassadors. He told
him, there was no ceremony to be between them any more, for their masters were now one.
And he shewed him Monsieur de Croissy's letter, which was written in cipher. The deci
phering he read to him, importing, that now an alliance was concluded between the two
kings. So, this matter was as evidently proved, as a thing of such a nature could possibly be.
The conduct of France at that time with relation to the States was very unaccountable,
and proved as favourable to the prince of Orange's designs, as if he had directed it. All the
manufacture of Holland, both linen and woollen, was prohibited in France. The importa
tion of herrings was also prohibited, except they were cured with French salt. This was
contrary to the treaty of commerce. The manufacture began to suffer much ; and this was
sensible to those who were concerned in the herring trade. So the States prohibited the
importing of French wine, or brandy, till the trade should be set free again on both sides.
There was nothing that the prince had more reason to apprehend, than that the French should
have given the States some satisfaction in the point of trade, and offered some assurances
with relation to the territory of Cologne. Many of the towns of Holland might have been
wrought on by some temper in these things ; great bodies being easily deceived, and not
easily drawn into wars, which interrupt that trade which they subsist by. But the height
the court of France was then in, made them despise all the world. They seemed rather to
wish for a war, than to fear it. This disposed the States to an unanimous concurrence in the
great resolutions that were now agreed on, of raising ten thousand men more, and of accept
ing thirteen thousand Germans, for whom the prince had, as was formerly mentioned, agreed
with some of the princes of the empire. Amsterdam was at first cold in the matter ; but
they consented with the rest. Reports were given out that the French would settle a regu
lation of commerce, and that they would abandon the cardinal, and leave the affairs of
Cologne to be settled by the laws of the empire. Expedients were also spoken of for accom
modating the matter, by prince Clement's being admitted coadjutor, and by his having some
of the strong places put in his hands. This was only given out to amuse.
But while these things were discoursed of at the Hague, the world was surprised with a
manifesto set out, in the king of France's name, against the emperor. In it the emperor's
ill designs against France were set forth. It also complained of the elector Palatine's injus
tice to the duchess of Orleans, in not giving her the succession that fell to her by her brother's
death, which consisted in some lands, cannon, furniture, and other moveable goods. It also
charged him with the disturbances in Cologne, he having intended first to gain that to one
of his own sons, and then engaging the Bavarian prince into it ; whose elder brother having
no children, he hoped, by bringing him into an ecclesiastical state, to make the succession of
Bavaria fall into his own family. It charged the emperor, likewise, with a design to force
the electors to choose his son king of the Romans ; and that the elector Palatine was press
ing him to make peace with the Turks, in order to the turning his arms against France. By
their means a great alliance was projected among many protestant princes to disturb cardinal
Furstemberg in the possession of Cologne, to which he was postulated by the majority of the
chapter. And this might turn to the prejudice of the catholic religion in that territory.
Upon all these considerations, the king of France, seeing that his enemies could not enter into
France by any other way but by that of Philipsburg, resolved to possess himself of it, and
then to demolish it. He resolved also to take Kaisarslauter from the Palatine, and to keep
it, till the duchess of Orleans had justice done her in her pretensions; and he also resolved
to support the cardinal in his possession of Cologne. But, to balance this, he offered to the
house of Bavaria, that prince Clement should be chosen coadjutor. He offered also to raise
court of France to that of Turkey iu 1687. William the literature, continued there until his death, which occurred
Third continued him in this appointment, and then made iu 1716, when he was seventy-eight. His letters are to
him a commissioner of the navy, privy councillor, and be found among those of Pope and others. He also
secretary of state. He represented Oxford university in wrote a life of archbishop Dolben. — Gen. Biog. Dictionary;
parliament during 1695. He retired from public life to Noble's Continuation of Grainger.
East Hamsted, in Berkshire, and, devoting his leisure to

490 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Fribourg, and to restore Kaisarslauter, as soon as the elector Palatine should pay the duchess
of Orleans the just value of her pretensions. He demanded, that the truce between him and
the empire should be turned into a peace. He proposed that the king of England and tho
republic of Venice should be the mediators of this peace. And he concluded all, declaring
that he would not bind himself to stand to the conditions now offered by him, unless they
were accepted before January.
I have given a full abstract of this manifesto-: for upon it did the great war begin, which
lasted till the peace of Ryswick. And, upon the grounds laid down in this manifesto, it will
evidently appear whether the war was a just one or not. This declaration was much cen
sured, both for the matter and for the style. It had not the air of greatness which became
crowned heads. The duchess of Orleans's pretensions to old furniture was a strange rise to
a war ; especially when it was not alleged that these had been demanded in the forms of
law, and that justice had been denied, which was a course necessarily to be observed in
things of that nature. The judging of the secret intentions of the elector palatine with
relation to the house of Bavaria was absurd. And the complaints of designs to bring the
emperor to a peace with the Turks, that so he might make war on France, and of the
emperor's design to force an election of a king of the Romans, was the entering into the
secrets of those thoughts which were only known to God. Such conjectures, so remote and
uncertain, and that could not be proved, were a strange ground of war. If this was once
admitted, all treaties of peace were vain things, and were no more to be reckoned or relied
on. The reason given of the intention to take Philipsburg, because it was the most proper
place by which France could be invaded, was a throwing off all regards to the common
decencies observed by princes. All fortified places on frontiers are intended both for resist
ance, and for magazines ; and are of both sides conveniences for entering into the neigh
bouring territory, as there is occasion for it. So here was a pretence set up, of beginning a
war, that puts an end to all the securities of peace.
The business of Cologne was judged by the pope, according to the laws of the empire :
and his sentence was final : nor could the postulation of the majority of the chapter be valid,
unless two-thirds joined in it. The cardinal was commended in the manifesto for his care
in preserving the peace of Europe. This was ridiculous to all, who knew that he had been
for many years the great incendiary, who had betrayed the empire, chiefly in the year 1672.
The charge that the emperor's agent had laid on him before the chapter was also complained
of, as an infraction of the amnesty stipulated by the peace of Nimeguen. He was not
indeed to be called to an account, in order to be punished for anything done before that
peace. But that did not bind up the emperor from endeavouring to exclude him from so
great a dignity, which was likely to prove fatal to the empire. These were some of the
censures that passed on this manifesto ; which was indeed looked on, by all who had consi
dered the rights of peace and the laws of war, as one of the most avowed and solemn decla
rations that ever was made of the perfidiousness of that court. And it was thought to be
some degrees beyond that in the year 1672, in which that king's glory was pretended as the
chief motive of that war. For, in that, particulars were not reckoned up : so it might be
supposed he had met with affronts, which he did not think consistent with his great
ness to be mentioned. But here all that could be thought on, even the hangings of Heidel
berg, were enumerated : and all together amounted to this, that the king of France thought
himself tied by no peace ; but that, when he suspected his neighbours were intending to
make war upon him, he might upon such a suspicion begin a war on his part.
This manifesto against the emperor was followed by another against the pope, written in
the form a letter to cardinal D'Estrees, to be given by him to the pope. In it he reckoned
all the partiality that the pope had shown during his whole pontificate, both against France
and in favour of the house of Austria. He mentioned the business of the regale ; his refusing
the bulls to the bishops nominated by him ; the dispute about the franchises, of which his
ambassadors had been long in possession ; the denying audience, not only to his ambassador,
but to a gentleman whom he had sent to Rome without a character, and with a letter
written in his own hand. In conclusion, he complained of the pope's breaking the canons
of the church, in granting bulls in favour of prince Clement, and in denying justice to car-

OF KING JAMES II. 491
dinal Furstemberg. For all these reasons the king was resolved to separate the character of
the most holy father from that of a temporal prince : and therefore he intended to seize on
Avignon, as likewise on Castro, until the pope should satisfy the pretensions of the duke of
Parma. He complained of the pope's not concurring with him in the concerns of the church
for the extirpation of heresy : in which the pope's behaviour gave great scandal both to the
old catholics, and to the new converts. It also gave the prince of Orange the boldness to go
and invade the king of England, under the pretence of supporting the protestant religion,
but indeed to destroy the catholic religion, and to overturn the government : upon which
his emissaries and the writers in Holland gave out that the birth of the prince of Wales was
an imposture.
This was the first public mention that was made of the imposture of that birth : for the
author of a book, written to that purpose, was punished for it in Holland. It was strange
to see the disputes about the franchises made a pretence for a war : for certainly all sovereign
princes can make such regulations as they think fit in those matters. If they cut ambas
sadors short in any privilege, their ambassadors are to expect the same treatment from other
princes : and as long as the sacredness of an ambassador's person, and of his family, was still
preserved, which was all that was a part of the law of nations, princes may certainly limit
the extent of their other privileges, and may refuse any ambassadors who will not submit to
their regulation. The number of an ambassador's retinue is not a thing that can be well
defined : but if an ambassador comes with an army about him, instead of a retinue, he may
be denied admittance. And if he forces it, as Lavardin had done, it was certainly an act of
hostility : and, instead of having. a right to the character of an ambassador, he might well
be considered and treated as an enemy.
The pope had observed the canons in rejecting cardinal Furstemberg's defective postula-
tion. And, whatever might be brought from ancient canons, the practice of that church for
many ages, allowed of the dispensations that the pope granted to prince Clement. It was
looked on by all people as a strange reverse of things, to see the king of France, after all his
cruelty to the protestants, now go to make war on the pope ; and on the other hand, to see
the whole protestant body concurring to support the authority of the pope's bulls in the
business of Cologne ; and to defend the two houses of Austria and Bavaria, by whom they
were laid so low but threescore years before this. The French, by the war that they had
now begun, had sent their troops towards Germany and the Upper Rhine ; and so had ren
dered their sending an army over to England impracticable : nor could they send such a
force into the bishopric of Cologne, as could any ways alarm the States. So that the inva
sion of Germany made the designs, that the prince of Orange was engaged in, both prac
ticable and safe.
Marshal Schomberg came at this time into the country 01 Cleves. He was a German by
birth : so when the persecution was begun in France, he desired leave to return into his own
country. That was denied him. All the favour he could obtain was leave to go to Portugal.
And so cruel is the spirit of popery, that, though he had preserved that kingdom from falling
under the yoke of Castile, yet now that he came thither for refuge, the inquisition repre
sented that matter of giving harbour to a heretic so odiously to the king, that he was forced
to send him away. He came from thence first to England, and then he passed through
Holland, where he entered into a particular confidence with the prince of Orange. And
being invited by the old elector of Brandenburg, he went to Berlin : where he was made
governor of Prussia, and set at the head of all the elector's armies. The son treated him
now with the same regard that the father had for him : and sent him to Cleves, to command
the troops that were sent from the empire to the defence of Cologne. The cardinal offered
a neutrality to the town of Cologne. But they chose rather to accept a garrison that Schom
berg sent them : by which not only that town was secured, but a stop was put to any
progress the French could make, till they could get that great town into their hands. By
these means the States were safe on all hands for this winter : and this gave the prince of
Orange great quiet in prosecuting his designs upon England. He had often said, that he
would never give occasion to any of his enemies to say that he had carried away the best
force of the States, and had left them exposed to any impressions that might be made on

492 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
them in his absence. He had now reason to conclude that he had no other risk to run in his
intended expedition, but that of the seas and the weather. The seas were then very boisterous :
and the season of the year was so far spent, that he saw he was to have a campaign in
winter. But all other things were now well secured by this unexpected conduct of the French.
There was a fleet now set to sea of about fifty sail. Most of them were third or fourth
rates, commanded by Dutch officers. But Herbert, as representing the prince's person, was
to command in chief, as lieutenant-general-admiral. This was not very easy to the States,
nor indeed to the prince himself ; who thought it an absurd thing to set a stranger at the
head of their fleet. Nothing less would content Herbert. And it was said, that nothing
would probably make the English fleet come over and join with the prince, so much as the
seeing one that had lately commanded them at the head of the Dutch fleet. There was a
transport fleet hired for carrying over the army. And this grew to be about five hundred
vessels : for, though the horse and dragoons in pay were not four thousand, yet the horses
for officers and volunteers, and for artillery and baggage, were above seven thousand. There
were arms provided for twenty thousand more. And, as things were thus made ready,
The declaration that the prince was to publish came to be considered. A great many
draughts were sent from England by different hands. All these were put in the pensioner
Fagel's hands, who upon that made a long and heavy draught, founded on the grounds of
the civil law, and of the law of nations. That was brought to me to be put in English. I
saw he was fond of his own draught : and the prince left that matter wholly to him : yet I
got it to be much shortened, though it was still too long. It set forth at first a long recital
of all the violations of the laws of England, both with relation to religion, to the civil
government, and to the administration of justice, which have been all opened in the series of
the history. It set forth next all remedies that had been tried in a gentler way ; all which
had been ineffectual. Petitioning by the greatest persons, and in the most private manner,
was made a crime. Endeavours were used to pack a parliament, and to pre-engage both
the votes of the electors and the votes of such as upon the election should be returned to sit
in parliament. The writs were to be addressed to unlawful officers, who were disabled by
law to execute them : so that no legal parliament could now be brought together. In con
clusion, the reasons of suspecting the queen's pretended delivery were set forth in general
terms. Upon these grounds the prince, seeing how little hope was left of succeeding in any
other method, and being sensible of the ruin both of the protestant religion, and of the con
stitution of England and Ireland, that was imminent, and being earnestly invited by men of
all ranks, and in particular by many of the peers, both spiritual and temporal, he resolved,
according to the obligation he lay under, both on the princess's account and on his own, to
go over into England, and to see for proper and effectual remedies for redressing such growing
evils, in a parliament that should be lawfully chosen, and should sit in full freedom, accord
ing to the ancient custom and constitution of England, with which he would concur in all
things that might tend to tho peace and happiness of the nation. And he promised in parti
cular, that he would preserve the church and the established religion, and that he would
endeavour to unite all such as divided from the the church to it, by the best means that could
be thought on, and that he would suffer such as would live peaceably to enjoy all due freedom
in their consciences, and that he would refer the enquiry into the queen's delivery to a par
liament, and acquiesce in its decision. This the prince signed and sealed on the tenth of
October. With this the prince ordered letters to be written in his name, inviting both the
soldiers, seamen, and others to come and join with him, in order to the securing their religion,
laws, and liberties. Another short paper was drawn by me concerning the measures of
obedience, justifying the design, and answering the objections that might be made to it. Of
all these, many thousand copies were printed, to be dispersed at our landing.
The prince desired me to go along with him as his chaplain, to which I very readily
agreed : for, being fully satisfied in my conscience that the undertaking was lawful, and just,
and having had a considerable hand in advising the whole progress of it, I thought it would
have been an unbecoming fear in me to have taken care of my own person, when the prince
was venturing his, and the whole was now to be put to hazard. It is true I, being a Scotch
man by birth, had reason to expect that, if I had fallen into tho enemies' hands, I should

OF KING JAMES II. 493
have been sent to Scotland, and put to the torture there. And, having this in prospect, I
took care to know no particulars of any of those who corresponded with the prince. So that
knowing nothing against any, even torture itself could not have drawn from m'e that, by
which any person could be hurt. There was another declaration prepared for Scotland.
But I had no other share in that, but that I corrected it in several places, chiefly in that
which related to the church : for the Scots at the Hague, who were all presbyterians, had
drawn it so, that, by many passages in it, the prince by an implication declared in favour of
presbytery. He did not see what the consequences of those were till I explained them. So
he ordered them to be altered. And by the declaration that matter was still entire.
As Sidney brought over letters from the persons formerly mentioned, both inviting the
prince to come over to save and rescue the nation from ruin, and assuring him that they
wrote that which was the universal sense of all the wise and good men in the nation : so
they also sent over with him a scheme of advices. They advised his having a great fleet,
but a small army : they thought it should not exceed six or seven thousand men. They
apprehended, that an ill-use might be made of it, if he brought over too great an army of
foreigners, to infuse into people a jealousy that he designed a conquest : they advised his
landing in the North, either in Burlington Bay, or a little below Hull : Yorkshire abounded
in horse : and the gentry were generally well affected, even to zeal, for the design : the
country was plentiful, and the roads were good till within fifty miles of London. The earl
of Danby was earnest for this, hoping to have had a share in the whole management, by the
interest he believed he had in that country. It was confessed, that the western counties
were well affected : but it was said, that the miscarriage of Monmouth's invasion, and the
executions which followed it, had so dispirited them, that it could not be expected they
would be forward to join the prince : above all things they pressed dispatch, and all possible
haste : the king had then but eighteen ships riding in the Downs : but a much greater fleet
was almost ready to come out : they only wanted seamen, who came in very slowly.
When these things were laid before the prince, he said, he could by no means resolve to
come over with so small a force : could not believe what they suggested, concerning the
king's army's being disposed to come over to him : nor did he reckon, so much as they did,
on the -people of the country's coming in to him : he said he could trust to neither of
these : he could not undertake so great a design, the miscarriage of which would be the ruin
both of England and Holland, without such a force as he had reason to believe would be
superior to the king's own, though his whole army should stick to him. Some proposed,
that the prince would divide his force, and land himself with the greatest part in the North,
and send a detachment to the West, under marshal Schomberg. They pressed the prince
very earnestly to bring him over with him, both because of the great reputation he was in,
and because they thought it was a security to the prince's person, and to the whole design,
to have another general with him, to whom all would submit in case of any dismal accident :
for it seemed too much to have all depend on a single life : and they thought that would be
the safer, if their enemies saw another person capable of the command, in case they should
have a design upon the prince's person. With this the prince complied easily, and obtained
the elector's consent to carry him over with him. But he rejected the motion of dividing
his fleet and army. He said, such a divided force might be fatal : for if the king should send
his chief strength against the detachment, and have the advantage, it might lose the whole
business ; since a misfortune in any one part might be the ruin of the whole.
When these advices were proposed to Herbert, and the other seamen, they opposed the
landing in the north vehemently. They said, no seamen had been consulted in that : the
north coast was not fit for a fleet to ride in during an east wind, which it was to be expected
in winter might blow so fresh, that it would not be possible to preserve the fleet ; and if the
fleet was left there, the channel was open for such forces as might be sent from France : the
channel was the safer sea for the fleet to ride in, as well as to cut off the assistance from
France. Yet the advices for this were so positive, and so often repeated from England, that
the prince was resolved to have split the matter, and to have landed in the North, and then
to have sent the fleet to lie in the channel.

494 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The prince continued still to cover his design, and to look towards Cologne. He ordered
a review of his army, and an encampment for two months at Nimeguen. ^ A train of artil
lery was also ordered. By these orders the officers saw a necessity of furnishing themselves
for so long a time. The main point remained, how money should be found for so chargeable
an expedition. The French ambassador had his eye upon this : and reckoned that, when
soever anything relating to it should be moved, it would be then easy to raise an opposition,
or at least to create a delay. But Fagel's great foresight did prevent this. In the July
before, it was represented to the States, that now by reason of the neighbourhood of Cologne,
and the war that was likely to arise there, it was necessary to repair their places, both on the
Rhine and the Issel, which were in a very bad condition. This was agreed to : and the
charge was estimated at four millions of guilders. So the States created a fund for the
interest of that money, and ordered it to be taken up by a loan. It was all brought in in
four days. About the end of September a message was delivered to the States from the
elector of Brandenburg, by which he undertook to send an army into his country of Cleves,
and to secure the States from all danger on that side for this winter.
Upon this, it was proposed to lend the prince the four millions. And this passed easily
in the States, without any opposition, to the amazement of all that saw it : for it had never
been known that so great and so dangerous an expedition in such a season had been so easily
agreed to, without so much as one disagreeing vote, either at the Hague, or in any of the
towns of Holland. All people went so cordially into it, that it was not necessary to employ
much time in satisfying them, both of the lawfulness and of the necessity of the undertaking.
Fagel had sent for all the eminent ministers of the chief towns of Holland : and, as he had a
vehemence as well as a tenderness in speaking, he convinced them evidently, that both their
religion and their country were in such imminent danger, that nothing but this expedition
could save them : they saw the persecution in France : and in that they might see what
was to be expected from that religion : they saw the violence with which the king of Eng
land was driving matters in his country, which, if not stopped, would soon prevail. He sent
them thus full of zeal to dispose the people to a hearty approbation and concurrence in this
design. The ministers in Holland are so watched over by the States, that they have no
more authority when they meet in a body, in a synod, or in a classis, than the States think
fit to allow them. But I was never in any place, where I thought the clergy had generally
so much credit with the people, as they have there : and they employed it all upon this occa
sion very diligently, and to good purpose. Those who had no regard to religion, yet saw
a war begun in the empire by the French. And the publication of the alliance between
France and England, by the French ambassador, made them conclude that England would
join with France. They reckoned they could not stand before such an united force, and that
therefore it was necessary to take England out of the hands of a prince, who was such a
firm ally to France. All the English that lived in Holland, especially the merchants that
were settled in Amsterdam, where the opposition was likely to be strongest, had such posi
tive advices of the .disposition that the nation, and even the army were in; that, as this
undertaking was considered as the only probable means of their preservation, it seemed so
well concerted, that little doubt was made of success, except what arose from the season ;
which was not only far spent, but the winds were both so contrary, and so stormy, for many
weeks, that a forcible stop seemed put to it by the hand of Heaven.
Herbert went to sea with the Dutch fleet, and was ordered to stand over to the Downs,
and to look on the English fleet, to try if any would come over, of which some hopes were
given ; or to engage them, while they were then not above eighteen or twenty ships strong.
But the contrary winds made this not only impracticable, but gave great reason to fear that
a great part of the fleet would be either lost, or disabled. These continued for above a fort
night, and gave us at the Hague a melancholy prospect. Herbert also found that the fleet
was neither so strong, nor so well manned, as he had expected.
All the English that were scattered about the provinces, or in Germany, came to the
Hague. Among these there was one Wildman, who, from being an agitator in Cromwell's
army, had been a constant meddler on all occasions in everything that looked like sedition,

OF KING JAMES II. 495
and seemed inclined to oppose everything that was uppermost. He brought his usual ill-
humour along with him, having a peculiar talent in possessing others by a sort of contagion
with jealousy and discontent. To these the prince ordered his declaration to be shown.
Wildman took great exceptions to it, with which he possessed many to such a degree, that
they began to say they would not engage upon those grounds. Wildman had drawn one,
in which he had laid down a scheme of the government of England, and then had set forth
many particulars in which it had been violated, carrying these a great way into king Charles's
reign ; all which he supported by many authorities from law books. He objected to the
prince's insisting so much on the dispensing power, and on what had been done to the
bishops. He said, there was certainly a dispensing power in the crown, practised for some
ages: very few patents passed in which there was not a "non obstante" to one or more acts
of parliament : this power had been too far stretched of late : but the stretching of a power
that was in the crown, could not be a just ground of war : the king had a right to bring any
man to a trial : the bishops had a fair trial, and were acquitted, and discharged upon it : in
all which there was nothing done contrary to law. All this seemed mysterious, when a
known republican was become an advocate for prerogative. His design in this was deep and
spiteful. He saw that, as the declaration was drawn, the church party would come in, and
be well received by the prince : so he, who designed to separate the prince and them at the
greatest distance from one another, studied to make the prince declare against those
grievances, in which many of them were concerned, and which some among thom had pro
moted. The earl of Macclesfield, with the lord Mordaunt, and many others, joined with
him in this. But the earl of Shrewsbury, together with Sidney, Russel, and some others,
were as positive in their opinion that the prince ought not to look so far back as into king-
Charles's reign : this would disgust many of the nobility and gentry, and almost all the
clergy : so they thought the declaration was to be so conceived, as to draw in the body of
the whole nation : they were all alarmed with the dispensing power : and it would seem
very strange to see an invasion, in which this was not set out as the main ground of it :
every man could distinguish between the dispensing with a special act in a particular case,
and a total dispensing with laws to secure the nation and the religion : the ill designs of the
court, as well as the affections of the nation, had appeared so evidently in the bishops' trial,
that if no notice was taken of it, it would be made use of to possess all people with an opinion
of the prince's ill-will to them. Russel said, that any reflections made on king Charles's reign
would not carry over all the high church party, but all the army, entirely to the king.
Wildman's declaration was. much objected to. The prince could not enter into a discussion
of the law and government of England : that was to be left to the parliament : the prince
could only set forth the present and public grievances as they were transmitted to him by
those upon whose invitation he was going over. This was not without some difficulty over
come, by altering some few expressions in the first draught, and leaving out some circum
stances. So the declaration was printed over again, with some amendments.
In the beginning of October, the troops marched from Nimeguen were put on board in the
Zuyder sea, where they lay above ten days before they could get out of the 'Texel. Never
was so great a design executed in so short a time. A transport fleet of five hundred vessels
was hired in three days' time. All things, as soon as they were ordered, were got to be so
quickly ready, that we were amazed at the dispatch. It is true, some things were wanting,
and some things had been forgotten. But when the greatness of the equipage was consi
dered, together with the secrecy with which it was to be conducted till the whole design was
to be avowed, it seemed much more strange that so little was wanting, or that so few things
had been forgotten. Bentinck, Dykvelt, Herbert, and Van Hulst, were for two months
constantly at the Hague, giving all necessary orders with so little noise that nothing broke
out all that while. Even in lesser matters favourable circumstances concurred to cover the
design. Bentinck used to be constantly with the prince, being the person that was most
entirely trusted and constantly employed by him : so that his absence from him, being so
extraordinary a thing, might have given some umbrage. But all the summer his Jady was
so very ill, that she was looked on every day as one that could not live three days to an end :
so that this was a very just excuse for his attendance at the Hague.

496 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
I waited on the princess a few days before we left the Hague. She seemed to have a
great load on her spirits, but to have no scruple as to the lawfulness of the design. After
much other discourse, I said, that if we got safe to England, I made no great doubt of our
success in all other things. I only begged her pardon to tell her, that if there should happen
to be at any time any disjointing between the prince and her, that would ruin all. She
answered me, that I needed fear no such thing : if any person should attempt that, she would
treat them so, as to discourage all others from venturing on it for the future. She was very
solemn and serious, and prayed God earnestly to bless and direct us.
On the sixteenth of October, O. S., the wind, that had stood so long in the west, came
into the east. So orders were sent to all to haste to Helvoet-Sluys. That morning the
prince went into the assembly of the States-general, to take leave of them. He said to them,
he was extremely sensible of the kindness they had all shown him upon many occasions :
he took God to witness, he had served them faithfully ever since they had trusted him with
the government, and that he had never any end before his eyes but the good of the country :
he had pursued it always : and if at any time he erred in his judgment, yet his heart was
ever set on procuring their safety and prosperity. He took God to witness, he went to
England with no other intentions, but those he had set out in his declaration : he did not
know how God might dispose of him : to his providence he committed himself: whatsoever
might become of him, he committed to them the care of their country, and recommended
the princess to them in a most particular manner : he assured them, she loved their country
perfectly, and equally with her own : he hoped that, whatever might happen to him, they
would still protect her, and use her as she well deserved ; and so he took leave. It was a
sad, but a kind parting. Some of every province offered at an answer to what the prince had
said : but they all melted into tears and passion ; so that their speeches were much broken,
very short, and extremely tender. Only the prince himself continued firm in his usual
gravity and phlegm. When he came to Helvoet-Sluys, the transport fleet had consumed so
much of their provisions, that three days of the good wind were lost before all were supplied
anew. At last, on the nineteenth of October, the prince went aboard, and the whole fleet sailed
out that night. But the next day the wind turned into the north, and settled in the north
west. At night a great storm rose. We wrought against it all that night, and the next
day. But it was in vain to struggle any longer. And so vast a fleet run no small hazard,
being obliged to keep together, and yet not to come too near one another. On the twenty-
first in the afternoon the signal was given to go in again : and o» the twenty-second the far
greater part got safely into port. Many ships were at first wanting, and were believed to
be lost. But after a few days all came in. There was not one ship lost ; nor so much as
any one man, except one that was blown from the shrouds into the sea. Some ships were
so shattered, that as soon as they came in, and all was taken out of them, they immediately
sunk down. Only five hundred horses died from want of air. Men are upon such oc
casions apt to flatter themselves upon the points of Providence. In France and England, as
it was believed that our loss was much greater than it proved to be, so they triumphed not
a little, as if God had fought against us, and defeated the whole design. We on our part,
who found ourselves delivered out of so great a storm and so vast a danger, looked on it as
a mark of God's great care of us, who, though he had not changed the course of the winds
and seas in our favour, yet had preserved us while we were in such apparent danger, beyond
what could have been imagined. The States were not at all discouraged with this hard
beginning, but gave the necessary orders for supplying us with every thing that we needed.
The princess behaved herself at the Hague suitably to what was expected from her. She
ordered prayers four times a day, and assisted at them with great devotion. She spoke to
nobody of affairs, but was calm, and silent. The States ordered some of their body to give
her an account of all their proceedings. She indeed answered little : but in that little she
gave them cause often to admire her judgment.
In England the court saw now, that it was in vain to dissemble, or disguise, their fears
any more. Great consultations were held there. The earl of Melfort, and all the papists,
proposed the seizing on all suspected persons, and the sending them to Portsmouth. The earl

OF KING JAMES II. 40?
of Sunderland opposed this vehemently. He said, it would not be possible to seize on many
at the same time ; and the seizing on a few would alarm all the rest : it would drive them
into the prince, and furnish them with a pretence for it : he proposed rather, that the king-
would do such popular things, as might give some content, and lay that fermentation with which
the nation was then, as it were, distracted. This was at that time complied with : but all
the popish party continued upon this to charge lord Sunderland, as one that was in the
king's counsels only to betray them ; that had before diverted the offer of assistance from
France, and now the securing those who were the most likely to join and assist the prince.
By their importunities the king was at last so prevailed on, that he turned him out of all
his places ; and lord Preston was made secretary of state. The fleet was now put out, and
was so strong that, if they had met the Dutch fleet, probably they would have been too
hard for them, especially considering the great transport fleet that they were to cover. All
the forces that were in Scotland were ordered into England ; and that kingdom was left in
the hands of their militia. Several regiments came likewise from Ireland. So that the
king's army was then about thirty thousand strong. But, in order to lay the heat that was
raised in the nation, the king sent for the bishops ; and set out the injustice of this unna
tural invasion that the prince was designing : he assured them of his affections to the church
of England ; and protested, he had never intended to carry things further than to an equal
liberty of conscience : he desired, they would declare their abhorrence of this invasion, and
that the}- would offer him their advice, what was fit for him to do. They declined the
point of abhorrence, and advised the present summoning a parliament; and that in the
mean while the ecclesiastical commission might be broken, the proceedings against the
bishop of London and Magdalen college might be reversed, and that the law might be again
put in its channel. This they delivered with great gravity, and with a courage that recom
mended them to the whole nation. There was an order sent them from the king afterwards,
requiring them to compose an office for the present occasion. The prayers were so well
drawn, that even those who wished for the prince might have joined in them. The church
party did now show their approbation of the prince's expedition in such terms, that many
were surprised at it, both then, and since that time. They spoke openly in favour of it.
They expressed their grief to see the wind so cross. They wished for an east wind, which,
on that occasion, was called the protestant wind. They spoke with great scorn of all that
the court was then doing to regain the hearts of the nation. And indeed the proceedings of
the court that way were so cold, and so forced, that few were likely to be deceived by them,
but those who had a mind to be deceived. The writs for a parliament were often ordered
to be made ready for the seal, and were as often stopped. Some were sealed, and given out :
but they were quickly called in again. The old charters were ordered to be restored again.
Jeffreys himself carried back the charter of the city of London, and put on the appearances
of joy and heartiness when he gave it to them. All men saw through that affectation : for
he had raised himself chiefly upon the advising, or promoting, that matter of the surrender,
and the forfeiture of the charters. An order was also sent to the bishop of Winchester, to
put the president of Magdalen college again in possession. Yet, that order not being
executed when the news was brought that the prince and his fleet were blown back, it was
countermanded ; which plainly showed what it was that drove the court into so much
compliance, and how long it was likely to last.
The matter of the greatest concern, and that could not be dropped, but was to be sup
ported, was the birth of the prince of Wales. And therefore the court thought it necessary,
now in an after-game, to offer some satisfaction in that point. So a great meeting was
called, not only of all the privy councillors and judges, but of all the nobility then in town.
To these the king complained of the great injury that was done both him and the queen, by
the prince of Orange, who accused them of so black an imposture : he said, he believed there
were few princes then alive, who had been born in the presence of more witnesses than were
at his son's birth : he had therefore called them together, that they might hear the proof of
that matter. It was first proved that the queen was delivered abed, while many were in the
room ; and that they saw the child soon after he was taken from the queen by the midwife.
But in this the midwife was the single witness ; for none of the ladies had felt the child in
K K

498 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the queens belly. The countess of Sunderland did indeed depose, that the queen called to
her to give her her hand, that she might feel how the child lay ; to which she added,
" which I did ;" but did not say, whether she felt the child, or not : and she told the duchess
of Hamilton, from whom I had it, that when she put her hand into the bed, the queen held
it, and let it go no lower than her breasts. So that really she felt nothing. And this
deposition, brought to make a show, was an evidence against the matter, rather than for
it ; and was a violent presumption of an imposture, and of an artifice to cover it. Many
ladies deposed that they had often seen the marks of milk on the queen s linen, near her
breasts. Two or three deposed, that they saw it running out at the nipple. All these
deposed, that they saw milk before the pretended delivery. But none of them deposed
concerning milk after the delivery ; though nature sends it then in greater abundance : and
the queenhad it always in such a plenty, that some weeks passed after her delivery before
she was quite freed from it. The ladies did not name the time in which they saw the milk,
except one, who named the month of May. But, if the particulars mentioned before, that
happened on Easter Monday, are reflected on, and if it appears probable by these that the queen
miscarried at that time ; then all that the ladies mentioned of milk in her breasts, particularly
she that fixed it to the month of May, might have followed upon that miscarriage, and be no
proof concerning the late birth. Mrs. Pierce, the laundress, deposed that she took linen from the
queen's body once, which carried the marks of a delivery. But she spoke only to one time.
That was a main circumstance ; and, if it had been true, it must have been often done, and was
capable of a more copious proof, since there is occasion for such things to be often looked on,
and well considered. The lady Wentworth was the single witness that deposed that she
had felt the child move in the queen's belly. She was a bed-chamber woman, as well as a
single witness ; and she fixed it on no time. If it was very early, she might have been
mistaken . or if it was before Easter Monday, it might be true, and yet have no relation to
this birth. This was the substance of this evidence, which was ordered to be enrolled and
printed. But when it was published, it had a quite contrary effect to what the court
expected from it. The presumption of law before this was all in favour of the birth, since
the parents owned the child : so that the proof lay on the other side, and ought to be
offered by those who called it in question. But, now that this proof was brought, which
was so apparently defective, it did not lessen but increase the jealousy with which the
nation was possessed : for all people concluded that, if the thing had been true, it, must have
been easy to have brought a much more copious proof than was now published to the world.
It was much observed, that princess Anne was not present. She indeed excused herself:
she thought she was breeding ; and all motion was forbidden her. None believed that to
be the true reason ; for it was thought that the going from one apartment of the court to
another could not hurt her. So it was looked on as a colour that showed she did not believe
the thing ; and that therefore she would not, by her being present, seem to give any credit
to it.
This was the state of affairs in England, while we lay at Helvoet-Sluys, where we conti
nued till the first of November. Here Wildman created a new disturbance. He plainly
had a show of courage, but was, at least, then a coward. He possessed some of the English
with an opinion, that the design was now irrecoverably lost. This was entertained by
many, who were willing to hearken to any proposition, that set danger at a distance from
themselves. They were still magnifying the English fleet, and undervaluing the Dutch.
They went so far in this, that they proposed to the prince, that Herbert should be ordered
to go over to the coast of England, and either fight the English fleet, or force them in : and
in that case the transport fleet might venture over ; which otherwise they thought could
not be safely done. This some urged with such earnestness, that nothing but the prince's
authority, and Schomberg's credit, could have withstood it. The prince told them, the
season was now so far spent, that the losing of more time was the losing the whole design:
fleets might lie long in view of one another, before it could be possible for them to come to
an engagement, though both sides equally desired it ; but much longer, if any one of them
avoided it ; it was not possible to keep the army, especially the horse, long at sea : and it
was no easy matter to take them all out, and to ship them again : after the wind had stood

OF KING JAMES II. 490
so long in the west, there was reason to hope it would turn to the east : and when that
should come, no time was to be lost : for it would sometimes blow so fresh in a few days as
to freeze up the river ; so that it would not be possible to get out all the winter long. With
these things he rather silenced than quieted them. All this while the men-of-war were still
riding at sea, it being a continued storm for some weeks. The prince sent out several advice
boats with orders to them to come in. But they could not come up to them. On the
twenty-seventh of October there was for six hours together a most dreadful storm : so that
there were few among us, that did not conclude, that the best part of the fleet, and by
consequence that the whole design, was lost. Many that have passed for heroes, yet showed
then the agonies of fear in their looks and whole deportment. The prince still retained his
usual calmness, and the same tranquillity of spirit, that I had observed in him in his happiest
days. On the twenty-eighth it calmed a little, and our fleet came all in, to our great joy.
The rudder of one third-rate was broken, and that was all the hurt that the storm had done.
At last the much-longed-for east wind came. And so hard a thing it was to set so vast a
body in motion, that two days of this wind were lost before all could be quite ready.
On the first of November, 0. S., we sailed out with the evening tide, but made little way
that night, that so our fleet might come out and move in order. We tried next day till
noon if it was possible to sail northward, but the wind was so strong and full in the east,
that we could not move that way. About noon the signal was given to steer westward.
This wind not only diverted us from that unhappy course, but it kept the English fleet in
the river : so that it was not possible for them to come out, though they were come down
as far as to the Gunfleet. By this means we had the sea open to us, with a fair wind and
a safe navigation. On the third we passed between Dover and Calais, and before night
came in sight of the Isle of Wight. The next day, being the day in which the prince was
both born and married, he fancied if he could land that day it would look auspicious to the
army, and animate the soldiers. But we all who considered that the day following, being
Gunpowder-treason day, our landing that day might have a good effect on the minds of the
English nation, were better pleased to see that we could land no sooner. Torbay was
thought the best place for our great fleet to lie in : and it was resolved to land the army
where it could be best done near it ; reckoning, that being at such a distance from London,
we could provide ourselves with horses, and put everything in order before the king could
march his army towards us, and that we should lie some time at Exeter for the refreshing
our men. I was in the ship, with the prince's other domestics, that went in the van of the
whole fleet. At noon on the fourth, Russel came on board us, with the best of all the
English pilots that they had brought over. He gave him the steering of tho ship, and
ordered him to be sure to sail so that next morning we should be short of Dartmouth : for it
was intended that some of the ships should land there, and that the rest should sail into
Torbay. The pilot thought he could not be mistaken in measuring our course ; and believed
that he certainly kept within orders, till the morning shewed us wo were past Torbay and
Dartmouth. The wind, though it had abated much of its first violence, yet was still full in
the east. So now it seemed necessary for us to sail on to Plymouth, which must have
engaged us in a long and tedious campaign in winter, through a very ill country. Nor were
we sure to be received at Plymouth. The earl of Bath, who was governor, had sent by
Russel a promise to the prince to come and join him : yet it was not likely that he would
be so forward as to receive us at our first coming. The delays he made afterwards, pretend
ing that he was managing the garrison, whereas he was indeed staying till he saw how the
matter was likely to be decided, showed us how fatal it had proved, if we had been forced
to sail on to Plymouth. But while Russel was in no small disorder, after he saw the pilot's
error, (upon which he bid me go to my prayers, for all was lost,) and as he was ordering the
boat to be cleared to go aboard the prince, on a sudden, to all our wonder, it calmed a little.
And then the wind turned into the south : and a soft and happy gale of wind carried in the
whole fleet in four hours' time into Torbay. Immediately as many landed as conveniently
could. As soon as the prince and marshal Schomberg got to shore, they were furnished
with such horses as the village of Broxholme could afford ; and rode up to view the grounds,
which they found as convenient as could be imagined for the foot in that season. It was
k k 2

500 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
not a cold night : otherwise the soldiers, who had been kept warm aboard, might have
suffered much by it. As soon as I landed, I made what haste I could to the place where
the prince was, who took me heartily by the hand, and asked me if I would not now believe
predestination. I told him I would never forget that providence of God which had appeared
so signally on this occasion. He was more cheerful than ordinary. Yet he returned soon
to his usual gravity. The prince sent for all the fishermen of the place, and asked them
which was the properest place for landing his horse, which all apprehended would be a
tedious business, and might hold some days. But next morning he was shown a place, a
quarter of a mile below the village, where the ships could be brought very near the land,
against a good shore, and the horses would not be put to swim above twenty yards. This
proved to be so happy for our landing, though we came to it by mere accident, that if we
had ordered the whole island round to be sounded, we could not have found a more proper
place for it. There was a dead calm all that morning : and in three hours' time all our
horse were landed, with as much baggage as was necessary till we got to Exeter. The
artillery and heavy baggage were left aboard, and ordered to Topsham, the seaport to Exeter
All that belonged to us was so soon and so happily landed, that, by the next day at noon
we were in full march, and marched four miles that night. We had from thence twenty
miles to Exeter, and we resolved to make haste thither. But, as we were now happily
landed and. marching, we saw new and unthought-of characters of a favourable providence
of God watching over us. We had no sooner got thus disengaged from our fleet, than a
new and great storm blew from the west, from which our fleet, being covered by the land,
could receive no prejudice ; but the king's fleet had got out as the wind calmed, and, in
pursuit of us, was come as far as the Isle of Wight, when this contrary wind turned upon
them. They tried what they could to pursue us ; but they were so shattered by some days
of this storm, that they were forced to go into Portsmouth, and were no more fit for service
that year. This was a greater happiness than we were then aware of: for the lord Dartmouth
assured me some time after, that whatever stories we had heard and believed, either of
officers or seamen, he was confident they would all have fought very heartily. But now,
by the immediate hand of Heaven, we were masters of the sea without a blow. I never
found a disposition to superstition in my temper : I was rather inclined to be philosophical
upon all occasions. Yet I must confess that this strange ordering of the winds and seasons,
just to change as our affairs required it, could not but make deep impressions on me, as well
as on all that observed it. Those famous verses of Claudian seemed to be more applicable to
the prince, than to him they were made on :
O nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat aether,
Et conjurati veniunt ad classica venti !
Heaven's favourite, for whom the slues do fight,
And all the winds conspire to guide thee right !
The prince made haste to Exeter, where he stayed ten aays, both for refreshing his troops
and for giving the country time to show their affections. Both the clergy and magistrates
of Exeter were very fearful and very backward. The bishop and the dean ran away. And
the clergy stood off, though they were sent for and very gently spoken to by the prince.
The truth was, the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance had been carried so far,
and preached so much, that clergymen either could not all on the sudden get out of that
entanglement, into which they had by long thinking and speaking all one way involved
themselves, or they were ashamed to make so quick a turn. Yet care was taken to protect
them and their houses everywhere : so that no sort of violence nor rudeness was offered to
any of them. The prince gave me full authority to do this : and I took so particular a care
of it, that we heard of no complaints. The army was kept under such an exact discipline,
that everything was paid for where it was demanded; though the soldiers were con
tented with such moderate entertainment that the people generally asked but little for what
they did eat. We stayed a week at Exeter before any of the gentlemen of the country about
came in to the prince. Every day some persons of condition came from other parts. The

OP KING JAMES II. 601
first were the lord Colchester, the eldest son of the earl of Rivers, and the lord Wharton,
Mr. Russel, the lord Russel's brother, and the earl of Abington.
The king came down to Salisbury, and sent his troops twenty miles further. Of these,
three regiments of horse and dragoons were, drawn on by their officers, the lord Cornbury
and colonel Langston, on design to come over to the prince. Advice was sent to the prince
of this. But because these officers were not sure of their subalterns, the prince ordered a
body of his men to advance and assist them in case any resistance was made. They were
within twenty miles of Exeter, and within two miles of the body that the prince had sent
to join them, when a whisper ran about among them that they were betrayed. Lord Corn
bury had not the presence of mind that so critical a thing required *. So they fell in con
fusion, and many rode back. Yet one regiment came over in a body, and with them about
a hundred of the other two. This gave us great courage, and showed us that we had not been
deceived in what was told us of the inclinations of the king's army. Yet, on the other hand,
those who studied to support the king's spirits by flatteries told him that in this he saw he
might trust his army, since those who intended to carry over those regiments were forced to
manage it with so much artifice, and durst not discover their design either to officers or
soldiers ; and that, as soon as they perceived it, the greater part of them had turned back.
The king wanted support, for his spirits sunk extremely. His blood was in such fermenta
tion, that he was bleeding much at the nose, which returned often upon him every dayf.
He sent many spies over to us. They all took his money, and came and joined themselves
to the prince, none of them returning to him. So that he had no intelligence brought him
of what the prince was doing but what common reports furnished, which magnified our
numbers, and made him think we were coming near him, while we were still at Exeter. He
heard that the city of London was very unquiet. News was brought him that the earls of
Devonshire and Danby, and the lord Lumley, were drawing great bodies together, and that
both York and Newcastle had declared for the prince. The lord Dclamere had raised a regi
ment in Cheshire. And the body of the nation did everywhere discover their inclinations
for the prince so evidently, that the king saw he had nothing to trust to but his army.
And the ill disposition among them was so apparent, that he reckoned he could not depend
on them. So that he lost both heart and head at once. But that which gave him the last
and most confounding stroke was, that the lord Churchill and the duke of Grafton left him,
and came and joined the prince at Axminster, twenty miles on that side of Exeter. After
this he could not know on whom he could depend. The duke of Grafton was one of king
Charles's sons, by the duohess of Cleveland. He had been some time at sea, and was a
gallant but rough man. He had more spirit than any one of the king's sons. He made an
answer to the king about this time that was much talked of. The king took notice of some
what in his behaviour that looked factious ; and he said he was sure he could not pretend to
act upon principles of conscience ; for he had been so ill bred that as he knew little of reli
gion so he regarded it less. But he answered the king, that though he had little conscience,
yet he was of a party that had a great deal. Soon after that, prince George, the duke of
Ormond, and the lord Drumlanrig, the duke of Queensberry's eldest son, left him, and came
over to the prince, and joined him, when he was come as far as the earl of Bristol's house,
at Sherburn. When the news came to London, the princess was so struck with the appre
hensions of the king's displeasure, and of the ill effects that it might have, that she said to
the lady Churchill that she could not bear the thoughts of it, and would leap out at window
rather than venture on it. The bishop of London was then lodged very secretly in Suffolk
Street. So the lady Churchill, who knew where he was, went to him, and concerted with
him the method of the princess's withdrawing from the court. The princess went sooner to
bed than ordinary. • And about midnight she went down a back-stairs from her closet,
attended only by the lady Churchill, in such haste that they carried nothing with them.
* This was the eldest son of the carl of Cki-endon. f This is mentioned in the Clarendon Correspondence,
His father's sorrow at this defection is touchingly expressed ii. 206. He was relieved by the lancet four times the
in his "Diary." He immediately had an audience of same week  Sir Patrick Hume's Diary; Rose's Obscr-
James the Second, who received him kindly. — Clarendon vations in Fox's History of James the Second.
Correspondence.

502 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
They were waited for by the bishop of London, who carried them to the earl of Dorset's,
whose lady furnished them with everything. And so they went northward, as far as
Northampton , where that earl attended on them with all respect, and quickly brought a
body of horse to serve for a guard to the princess. And in a little while a small army was
formed about her, who chose to be commanded by the bishop of London : of which he too
easily accepted *-
These things put the king in an inexpressible confusion. He saw himself now forsaken,
not only by those whom he had trusted and favoured most, but even by his own children.
And the army was in such distraction that there was not any one body that seemed entirely
united and firm to him. A foolish ballad was made at that time, treating the papists, and
chiefly the Irish, in a very ridiculous manner, which had a burden said to be Irish words,
" lero lero lilibulero," that made an impression on the army that cannot be well imagined
by those who saw it not. The whole army, and at last all people both in city and country,
were singing it perpetually. And perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect.
While the prince stayed at Exeter, the rabble of the people came in to him in great
numbers. So that he could have raised many regiments of foot if there had been any occa
sion for them. But what he understood of the temper the king's army was in, made him
judge it was not necessary to arm greater numbers. After he had stayed eight days at
Exeter, Seymour came in with several other gentlemen of quality and estate. As soon as
he had been with the prince, he sent to seek for me. When I came to him, he asked mc
why we had not an association signed by all that came to us, since, till we had that done,
we were as a rope of sand : men might leave us when they pleased, and we had them under
no' tie : whereas, if they signed an association, they would reckon themselves bound to stick
to us. I answered, it was because we had not a man of his authority and credit to offer and
support such an advice. I went from him to the prince, who approved of the motion ; as
did also the earl of Shrewsbury, and all that were with us. So I was ordered to draw it.
It was, in few words, an engagement to stick together in pursuing the ends of the prince's
declaration ; and that, if any attempt should be made on his person, it should be revenged
on all by whom, or from whom, any such attempt should be made. This was agreed to by
all about the prince. So it was engrossed in parchment, and signed by all those that came
in to him. The prince put Devonshire and Exeter under Seymour's government, who was
recorder of Exeter. And he advanced •with his army, leaving a small garrison there with
his heavy artillery under colonel Gibson, whom he made deputy-governor as to the military
part. At Crookhorn, Dr. Finch, son of the earl of Winchelsea, and warden of All-Souls college
in Oxford, was sent to the prince from some of the heads of colleges, assuring him that they
would declare for him, and inviting him to come thither, telling him that their plate should
be at his service, if he needed it. This was a sudden turn from those principles that they
* The princess Anne left tho Cockpit, where she then of Marlborough ; Clarendon Correspondence ; Colley
lodged, on the night of November the 25th. The carl of Gibber's Apology for his Life ; Dalrymple's Memoirs.)
Clarendon says that he heard the rumour next morning, Prince George, the duke of Ormond, lord Drumlanrig,
and the report was that some one had carried her away, and Mr. H. Boyle, had deserted James at Andover, on
nobody knew whither. The duchess of Marlborough the 24th. They had supped with the king the same
(then lady Churchill) managed the escape for her ; and evening, and left his quarters as soon as he had retired
the narrative she has given coincides closely with that to bed. Prince George left a letter for James (see this
given by Burnet. After stating the preliminary arrange- in Kennet's Hist, of England), excusing himself, and
ments she made with the bishop of London, she adds, blaming this unhappy monarch. When the prince heard
" The princess went to bed at the nsual time, to prevent of any one's defection from the king, he had been accus-
suspicion. I came to her soon after, and, by the back tomed to exclaim, " Est-il possible ? " The only remark
Btairs which went down from her closet, her royal high- James made upon the prince's desertion was, " Is Est-il
ness, lady Fitzharding, and I, with one servant, walked to possible gone too ? " In king James's " Memoirs " it is
the coach, where we found the bishop and tho earl of said, " ne was more troubled at the unnaturalness of the
Dorset. They conducted us that night to the bishop's action than the want of his service ; for the loss of a
house in the City, and the next day to my lord Dorset's, good trooper would have been of more consequence."
at Copt Hall. From thence we went to the carl of But on the monarch's return to London, and finding his
Northampton's, and from thence to Nottingham, where daughter had also fled, he burst into tears, emphatically
the country gathered round the princess ; nor did she saying, " God help me ! my own children have forsaken
think herself safe till she saw that she was surrounded by mc."  Clarendon Correspondence ii. 208.
the prince of Orange's friends." — (Account of the Duchess

OF KING JAMES II. 503
had carried so high a few years before. The prince had designed to have secured Bristol
and Gloucester, and so to have gone to Oxford, the whole west being then in his hands, if
there had been any appearance of a stand to be made against him by the king and his army ;
for, the king being so much superior to him in horse, it was not advisable to march through
the great plains of Dorsetshire and Wiltshire. But the king's precipitate return to London
put an end to this precaution. The earl of Bath had prevailed with the garrison of Plymouth,
and they declared for the prince. So now all behind him was safe. When he came to
Sherburn, all Dorsetshire came in a body and joined him. He resolved to make all the haste
he could to London, where things were in a high fermentation.
A bold man ventured to draw and publish another declaration in the prince's name. It
was penned with great spirit : and it had as great an effect. It set forth the desperate
designs of the papists, and the extreme danger the nation was in by their means, and
required all persons immediately to fall on such papists as were in any employments, and to
turn them out, and to secure all strong places, and to do everything else that was in their
power in order to execute the laws, and to bring all things again into their proper channels.
This set all men at work : for no doubt was made that it was truly the prince's declaration.
But he knew nothing- of it. And it was never known who was the author of so bold a
thing. No person ever claimed the merit of it : for though it had an amazing effect, yet, it
seems, he that contrived it apprehended that the prince would not be well pleased with the
author of such an imposture in his name. The king was under such a consternation, that he
neither knew what to resolve on, nor whom to trust. This pretended declaration put the
City in such a flame, that it was carried to the lord mayor, and he was required to execute
it. The apprentices got together, and were falling upon all mass-houses, and committing
many irregular things. Yet their fury was so well governed, and so little resisted, that no
other mischief was done ; no blood was shed.
The king now sent for all the lords in town, that were known to be firm protestants.
And, upon speaking to some of them in private, they advised him to call a general meeting
of all the privy councillors and peers, to ask their advice what was fit to be done. All agreed
in one opinion that it was fit to send commissioners to the prince to treat with him. This
went much against the king's own inclinations : yet the dejection he was in, and the des
perate state of his affairs, forced him to consent to it. So the marquis of Halifax, the earl
of Nottingham, and the lord Godolphin, were ordered to go to the prince, and to ask him
what it was that he demanded. The earl of Clarendon reflected the most, on the king's
former conduct, of any in that assembly, not without some indecent and insolent words,
which were generally condemned. He expected, as was said, to be one of the commissioners,
and upon his not being named he came and met the prince near Salisbury. Yet he suggested
so many peevish and peculiar things when he came, that some suspected all this was but col
lusion, and that he was sent to raise a faction among those that were about the prince. The
lords sent to the prince to know where they should wait on him, and he named Hungerford.
When they came thither and had delivered their message, the prince called all the peers and
others of chief note about him, and advised with them what answers should be made. A
day was taken to consider of an answer. The marquis of Halifax sent for me. But the
* At this meeting (November 27th), the lord chan- sion, the king said, " My lords, I have heard you all:
eellor Jeffreys, Godolphin, Falconberg, &c. recommended you have spoken with great freedom, and I do not take it
the calling a parliament. Lord Clarendon, in his " Diary," ill of any of you. I may tell yon I will call a parlia-
says, "I spake with great freedom, laying open most of ment; but for the other things you propose, they are of
the late miscarriages, and particularly the raising a regi- great importance, and you will not wonder that I take one
ment of Roman catholics at this very time under the com- night's time to consider of them.*' Lord Godolphin pre-
mand of the earl of Stafford, to be a guard to the king's vented any of the popish peers being present at this
person ; into which all the French tradesmen in town of council. The king complained much of the defection ot
that religion were received, and none were to be admitted his army, yet thought many would adhere to him. He
hut papists. 1 pressed this so earnestly, that the king said he considered the bleeding at his nose a great provi-
called out and said it was not true; there were no direc- dence; for, if it had not occurred on the day he intended
tions for admitting none but papists ; but I went on, say- to review the troops at Westminster, he believed, on good
ing I had been so informed, &c. My motion was for a reasons, that lord Churchill had intended to deliver him
parliament, and sending commissioners to treat with the up to the prince of Orange. This is supported by many
princo of Orange." Lords Halifax and Nottingham sup- statements in Macpherson's " Original Papers," i. 280. — ,
ported these propositions, but more mildly. In conclu- Clarendon Correspondence.

504 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
prince said, though he would suspect nothing from, our meeting, others might. So I did not
speak with him in private, but in the hearing of others. Yet he took occasion to ask me, so
as nobody observed it, " If we had a mind to have the king in our hands ?" I said, " By
no means ; for we would not hurt his person." He asked next, " What if he had a mind to
go away?" I said, "Nothing was so much to be wished for." This I told the prince.
And he approved of both my answers. The prince ordered the earls of Oxford, Shrewsbury,
and Clarendon, to treat with the lords the king had sent. And they delivered the prince's
answer to them on Sunday the eighth of December*.
He desired a parliament might be presently called, that no men should continue in any
employment who were not qualified by law, and had not taken the tests ; that the Tower of
London might be put in the keeping of the City ; that the fleet, and all the strong places of
the kingdom, might be put in the hands of protestants ; that a proportion of the revenue
might be set off for the pay of the prince's army ; and that during the sitting of the parlia
ment, the armies of both sides might not come within twenty miles of London; but, that
the prince might come on to London, and have the same number of his guards about him
that the king kept about his person. The lords seemed to be very well satisfied with this
answer. They sent it up by an express, and went back next day to London.
But now strange counsels were suggested to the king and queen. The priests, and all
the violent papists, saw a treaty was now opened. They knew that they must be the sacri
fice. The whole design of popery must be given up, without any hope of being able in an
age to think of bringing it on again. Severe laws would be made against them. And all
those who intended to stick to the king, and to preserve him, would go into those laws with
a particular zeal : so that they, and their hopes, must be now given up and sacrificed for
ever. They infused all this into the queen. They said she would certainly be impeached,
and witnesses would be set up against her and her son : the king's mother had been
impeached in the long parliament : and she was to look for nothing but violence. So the
queen took up a sudden resolution of going to France with the child. The midwife, together
with all who were assisting at the birth, were also carried over, or so disposed of, that it
could never be learned what became of them afterwards. The queen prevailed with the
king, not only to consent to this, but to promise to go quickly after her. He was only to
stay a day or two after her, in hope that the shadow of authority that was still left in him
might keep things so quiet, that she might have an undisturbed passage. So she went to
Portsmouth. And from thence, in a man of war, she went over to France : the king resolv
ing to follow her in disguise. Care was also taken to send all the priests away. The king
stayed long enough to get the prince's answerf . And when he had read it, he said he did
not expect so good terms. He ordered the lord chancellor to come to him next morning.
But he had called secretly for the great seal. And the next morning, being the tenth of
December, about three in the morning, he went away in disguise with sir Edward Hales,
whose servant he seemed to be. They passed the river, and flung the great seal into it ;
which was some months after found by a fisherman, near Fox Hall|. The king went down
to a miserable fisher-boat that Hales had provided for carrying them over to France.
Thus a great king, who had a good army and a strong fleet, did choose rather to abandon
* The time of this nobleman's going over to the prince intention en cela est d'avoir auprfis de lui le grand sceau,
of Orange, his interview with the latter, &c. are very pour l'emporter au besoin. Par les loix d'Angleterre on
interestingly told by him in his " Diary." — Clarendon ne peut rien faire sans le grand sceau ; et avec le grand
Correspondence. sceau, le roi peut empecher beaucoup de choses que ses
t The despatches of the French ambassador, M. Baril- ennemis voudroient faire. On croit par ce moyen jeter du
Ion, confirm the statements made by Burnet. He says, trouble et de la division dans le gouvernement qu'il faudra
that JameB only consented to send commissioners to the etablir." — (Mazure's Hist, de la Revolution, iii. 220.)
prince, because, by so doing, time would be gained to At all events the chancellor, Jeffreys, did no't throw it
enable the queen and himself to prepare for their flight. — into the river ; for James, in conversation with Barillon,
Mazure's Histoire de la Revolution. said, " The meeting of a parliament cannot be authorised
% Whether the great seal was found as stated by without writs under the great seal, and they have been
Burnet, seems very doubtful. Barillon says, that father issued for fifteen counties only; the others are burned;
Peters, who left a day or two before the king, had taken the great seal is missing ; the chancellor had placed it
precautions to have the great seal at his command, that in my hands eight days before I went away. They cannot
he might take it with him. Barillon's words are — "Son make another without me."— Ibid.

OF KING JAMES II. 505
all, than either to expose himself to any danger with that part of the army that was still
firm to him, or to stay and see the issue of a parliament. Some attributed this mean and
unaccountable resolution to a want of courage. Others thought it was the effect of an ill
conscience, and of some black thing under which he could not now support himself. And
they who censured it the most moderately, said that it showed that his priests had more
regard to themselves than to him ; and that he considered their interest more than his own ;
and that he chose rather to wander abroad with them, and to try what he could do by a
French force to subdue his people, than to stay at home, and be shut up within the bounds
of law, and be brought under an incapacity of doing more mischief ; which they saw was
necessary to quiet those fears and jealousies, for which his bad government had given so
much occasion. It seemed very unaccountable, since he was resolved to go, that he did not
choose rather to go in one of his yachts, or frigates, than to expose himself in so dangerous
and ignominious a manner. It was not possible to put a good construction on any part of
the dishonourable scene which he then acted.
With this his reign ended : for this was a plain deserting his people, and the exposing the
nation to the pillage of an army, which he had ordered the earl of Feversham to disband.
And the doing this without paying them, was the letting so many armed men loose upon
the nation : who might have done much mischief, if the execution of those orders that he
left behind him had not been stopped. I shall continue the recital of all that passed in this
interregnum, till the throne, which he now left empty, was filled.
He was not gone far, when some fishermen of Feversham, who were watching for such
priests, and other delinquents, as they fancied were making their escape, came up to him.
And they, knowing sir Edward Hales, took both the king and him, and brought them to
Feversham. The king told them who he was. And that flying about brought a vast
crowd together, to look on that astonishing instance of the uncertainty of all worldly great
ness ; when he who had ruled three kingdoms, and might have been the arbiter of all
Europe, was now in such mean hands, and so low an equipage. The people of the town were
extremely disordered with this unlooked-for accident ; and, though for a while they kept him
as a prisoner, yet they quickly changed that into as much respect as they could possibly pay
him. Here was an accident that seemed of no great consequence; yet all the stragglings
which that party have made ever since that time to this day, which from him were called
afterwards the Jacobites, did rise out of this : for, if he had got clear away, by all that could
be judged, he would not have had a party left : all would have agreed, that here was a
desertion, and that therefore the nation was free, and at liberty to secure itself. But what
followed upon this gave them a colour to say, that he was forced away, and driven out.
Till now, he scarce had a party, but among the papists : but from this incident a party grew
up, that has been long very active for his interests. As soon as it was known at Londcn
that the king was gone, the apprentices and the rabble, who had been a little quieted when
they saw a treaty on foot between the king and the prince, now broke out again upon all
suspected houses, where they believed there were either priests, or papists. They made great
havoc of many places, not sparing the houses of ambassadors : but none were killed, no
houses burnt, nor were any robberies committed. Never was so much fury seen under so
much management. Jeffreys, finding the king was gone, saw what reason he had to look to
himself ; and, apprehending that he was now exposed to the rage of the people, whom he had
provoked with so particular a brutality, he had disguised himself to make his escape. But
he fell into the hands of some who knew him. He was insulted by them with as much
scorn, and rudeness as they could invent. And, after many hours' tossing him about, he was
carried to the lord mayor, whom they charged to commit him to the Tower, which the lord
Lucas had then seized, and in it had declared for the prince. The lord mayor was so struck
with the terror of this rude populace, and with the disgrace of a man who had made all
people tremble before him, that he fell into fits upon it, of which he died soon after.
To prevent the further growth of such disorders, he called a meeting of the privy council
lors and peers, who met at Guildhall. The archbishop of Canterbury was there. They gave
a strict charge for keeping the peace, and agreed to send an invitation to the prince, desiring
him to come and take the government of the nation into his hands, till a parliament should

506 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
meet to bring all matters to a just and full settlement. This they all signed, and sent it to
the prince by the earl of Pembroke, the viscount Weymouth, the bishop of Ely, and the lord
Culpepper. The prince went on from Hungerford to Newbury, and from thence to Abing-
ton, resolving to have gone to Oxford to receive the compliments of the University, and to
meet the princess Anne who was coming thither. At Abington he was surprised with the
news of the strange catastrophe of affairs now at London, the king's desertion, and the dis
orders which the city and neighbourhood of London were falling into. One came from
London, and brought him the news, which he knew not well how to believe, till he had an
express sent him from the lords, who had been with him from the king. Upon this the
prince saw how necessary it was to make all possible haste to London. So he sent to
Oxford, to excuse his not coming thither, and to offer the association to them, which was
signed by almost all the heads, and the chief men of the university ; even by those, who,
being disappointed in the preferments they aspired to, became afterwards his most implacable
enemies. Hitherto the expedition had been prosperous, beyond all that could have been expected.
There had been but two small engagements, during this unseasonable campaign; one was at
Winkington, in Dorsetshire, where an advanced party of the prince's met one of the king's
that was thrice their number : yet they drove them before them into a much greater body,
where they were overpowered with numbers. Some were killed on both sides ; but there
were more prisoners taken of the prince's men : yet, though the loss was of his side, the
courage that his men shewed in so great an inequality as to number, made us reckon that we
gained more than we lost on that occasion. Another action happened at Reading, where the
king had a considerable body, who, as some of the prince's men advanced, fell into a great
disorder, and ran away. One of the prince's officers was shot : he was a papist ; and the
prince in consideration of his religion was willing to leave him behind him in Holland ; but
he very earnestly begged he might come over with his company ; and he was the only officer
that was killed in the whole expedition.
Upon the news of the king's desertion, it was proposed that the prince should go on with
all possible haste to London ; but that was not advisable : for the king's army lay so scat
tered through the road all the way to London, that it was not fit for him to advance faster,
than as his troops marched before him ; otherwise, any resolute officer might have seized or
killed him. Though, if it had not been for that danger, a great deal of mischief, that fol
lowed, would have been prevented by his speedy advance : for now began that turn, to
which all the difficulties, that did afterwards disorder our affairs, may be justly imputed.
Two gentlemen of Kent came to Windsor the morning after the prince came thither ; they
were addressed to me. And they told me of the accident at Feversham, and desired to
know the prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected with this dismal reverse of the fortune
of a great prince, more than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck, and
wakened him, and got him to go in to the prince, and let him know what had happened,
that some order might be presently given for the security of the king's person, and for taking
him out of the hands of a rude multitude, who said they would obey no orders but such as
came from the prince. The prince ordered Zuylestein to go immediately to Feversham,
and to see the king safe, and at full liberty to go whithersoever he pleased. But, as soon
as the news of the king's being at Feversham came to London, all the indignation that
people had formerly conceived against him, was turned to pity and compassion. The privy
council met upon it. Some moved, that he should be sent for; others said, he was king, and
might send for his guards and coaches, as he pleased ; but it became not them to send for
him. It was left to his general, the earl of Feversham, to do what he thought best. So he
went for him with his coaches and guards. And, as he came back through the city, he was
welcomed with expressions of joy by great numbers : so slight and unstable a thing is a*
multitude, and so soon altered. At his coming to Whitehall, he had a great court about
him *. Even the papists crept out of their lurking holes, and appeared at court with much
* This is all more fully stated, and confirmed by lord Clarendon in his " Diary." James returned to Whitehall
on the 1 6th of Deecmber. — Clarendon Correspondence.

OF KING JAMES II. 507
assurance. The king himself began to take heart ; and both at Feversham, and now at
Whitehall, he talked in his ordinary high strain, justifying all he had done ; only he spoke a
little doubtfully of the business of Magdalen college. But when he came to reflect on the
state of his affairs, he saw it was so broken, that nothing was now left to deliberate upon.
So he sent the earl of Feversham to Windsor, without demanding any passport ; and ordered
him to desire the prince to come to St. James's, to consult with him of the best way for
settling the nation.
When the news of what had passed at London came to Windsor, the prince thought the
privy council had not used him well, who, after they had sent to him to take the govern
ment upon him, had made this step without consulting him. Now the scene was altered,
and new counsels were to be taken. The prince heard the opinions, not only of those who
had come along with him, but of such of the nobility as were now come to him, among whom
the marquis of Halifax was one. All agreed that it was not convenient that the king should
stay at Whitehall. Neither the king, nor the prince, nor the city, could have been safe, if
they had been both near one another. Tumults would probably have arisen out of it. The
guards, and the officious flatterers of the two courts, would have been unquiet neighbours.
It was thought necessary to stick to the point of the king's deserting his people, and not to
give up that, by entering upon any treaty with him. And since the earl of Feversham, who
had commanded the army against the prince, was come without a passport, he was for some
days put in arrest.
It was a tender point how to dispose of the king's person *. Some proposed rougher
methods : the keeping him a prisoner, at least till the nation was settled, and till Ireland
was secured. It was thought, his being kept in custody, would be such a tie on all his
party, as would oblige them to submit, and be quiet. Ireland was in great danger ; and his
restraint might oblige the earl of Tyrconnell to deliver up the government, and to disarm the
papists, which would preserve that kingdom, and the protestants in it. But, because it
might raise too much compassion, and perhaps some disorder, if the king should be kept in
restraint within the kingdom, therefore the sending him to Breda was proposed. The earl
of Clarendon pressed this vehemently, on the account of the Irish protestants, as the king
himself told me : for those that gave their opinions in this matter did it secretly, and in con
fidence to the prince. The prince said, he could not deny but that this might be good and
wise advice ; but it was that to which he could not hearken : he was so far satisfied with
the grounds of this expedition, that he could act against the king in a fair and open war ;
but for his person, now that he had him in his power, he could not put such a hardship on
him, as to make him a prisoner ; and he knew the princess's temper so well, that he was sure
she would never bear it : nor did he know what disputes it might raise, or what effect it
might have upon the parliament that was to be called. He was firmly resolved never to
suffer any thing to be done against his person : he saw it was necessary to send him out of
London ; and he would order a guard to attend upon him, who should only defend and pro
tect his person, but not restrain him in any sort.
A resolution was taken of sending the lords Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere, to Lon
don, who were first to order the English guards that were about the court to be drawn off,
and sent to quarters out of town ; and, when that was done, the count of Solms with the
Dutch guards was to come and take all the posts about the court. This was obeyed with
out any resistance, or disorder, but not without much murmuring. It was midnight before
all was settled ; and then these lords sent to the earl of Middleton, to desire him to let the
king know, that they had a message to deliver to him from the prince. He went in to the
king, and sent them word from him, that they might come with it immediately. They came,
and found him a-bed. They told him, the necessity of affairs required, that the prince should
come presently to London ; and he thought it would conduce to the safety of the king's
person, and the quiet of the town, that he should retire to some house out of town : and they
proposed Ham. The king seemed much dejected, and asked, if it must be done immediately.
* Barillon, in one of his letters, relates a conversation From thisandastatemcntinsirJohnRcresbyV'Memoirs,"
with the king, shewing that he was perfectly aware how it seems rational to conclude that representations were
much his stay in England would embarrass his enemies, afterwards made which frightened him into flight.

508 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
They told him, he might take his rest first ; and they added, that he should be attended by
a guard, who should only guard his person, but should give him no sort of disturbance.
Having said this, they withdrew. The earl of Middleton came quickly after them, and asked
them, if it would not do as well, if the king should go to Rochester ; for since the prince was
not pleased with his coming up from Kent, it might be perhaps acceptable to him, if he should
go thither again. It was very visible, that this was proposed in order to a second escape.
They promised to send word immediately to the prince of Orange, who lay that night at
Sion, within eight miles of London. He very readily consented to it. And the king went
next day to Rochester, having ordered all that which is called the moving wardrobe to be
sent before him, the count of Solms ordering every thing to be done, as the king desired. A
guard went with him that left him at full liberty, and paid him rather more respect than
his own guards had done of late. Most of that body, as it happened, were papists. So
when he went to mass, they went in, and assisted very reverently. And, when they were
asked, how they could serve in an expedition that was intended to destroy their own religion,
one of them answered, " His soul was God's, but his sword was the prince of Orange's."
The king was so much delighted with this answer, that he repeated it to all that came about
him *. On the same day the prince came to St. James's. It happened to be a very rainy
day; and yet great numbers came to see him. But, after they had stood long in the wet,
he disappointed them ; for, he who neither loved shews nor shoutings, went through the
park. And even this trifle helped to set people's spirits on the fret.
The revolution was thus brought about, with the universal applause of the whole nation ;
only these last steps began to raise a fermentation. It was said, here was an unnatural
thing, to waken the king out of his sleep, in his own palace, and to order him to go out of it,
when he was ready to submit to every thing. Some said, he was now a prisoner, and remem
bered the saying of king Charles the First, that the prisons and the graves of princes lay not
far distant from one another : the person of the king was now struck at, as well as his
government ; and this specious undertaking would now appear to be only a disguised, and
designed, usurpation. These things began to work on great numbers. And the posting
the Dutch guards, where the English guards had been, gave a general disgust to tho whole
English army. They indeed hated the Dutch besides, on the account of the good order and
strict discipline they were kept under ; which made them to be as much beloved by the
nation, as they were hated by the soldiery. The nation had never known such an inoffen
sive march of an army ; and the peace and order of the suburbs, and the freedom of markets
in and about London, was so carefully maintained, that in no time fewer disorders had been
committed than were heard of this winter.
None of the papists or Jacobites were insulted in any sort. The prince had ordered me,
as we came along, to take care of the papists, and to secure them from all violence. When
he came to London, he renewed these orders, which I executed with so much zeal and care,
that I saw all the complaints that were brought me fully redressed. When we came to
London I procured passports for all that desired to go beyond sea. Two of the popish
bishops were put in Newgate. I went thither in the prince's name. I told them, the prince
would not take upon him yet to give orders about prisoners ; as soon as he did that, they
should feel the effects of it. But in the mean while I ordered them to be well used, and to
be taken care of, and that their friends might be admitted to come to them. So truly did I
pursue the principle of moderation, even towards those from whom nothing of that sort was
to be expected t.
* Lord Clarendon, in his "Diary" at the date Decern- appointed to attend him. Higgons says, "the very
ber 18, says, "I was told the three lords came to White- moment" the king left Whitehall, his daughter entered
hall last night after the king was in bed. The English it : this is a misrepresentation ; lord Clarendon says they
guards being first removed, and the Dutch in possession did not come to London until the next day.
of their posts, the lords were quickly admitted to the king; f The French ambassador, Barillon, was zealously
and when they had delivered their message, the king told active in promoting disunion among the English peers ; but
them, he had rather return to Rochester than to Ham ; William put an end to his activity by having him out of
whereupon the lords went back to Sion, and brought the England in twenty-four hours. He asked in vain for a
king word by nine this morning, that his majesty might go delay, and was sent at the appointed time to Dover under
to Rochester if he pleased ; and about eleven the king a Dutch escort  Echard's History of the Revolution,
took a barge and went down the river ; Dutch guards being 218.

OF KING JAMES II. 509
Now that the prince was come, all the bodies about the town came to welcome him. The
bishops came the next day : only the archbishop of Canterbury, though he had once agreed
to it, yet would not come. The clergy of London came next. The city, and a great many
other bodies, came likewise, and expressed a great deal of joy for the deliverance wrought
for them by the prince's means. Old Serjeant Maynard came with the men of the law. He
was then near ninety, and yet he said the liveliest thing that was heard of on that occasion.
The prince took notice of his great age, and said, that he believed he had outlived all the men
of the law of his time : he answered, " he should have out-lived the law itself, if his high
ness had not come over."
The first thing to be done after the compliments were over, was to consider how the nation
was to be settled. The lawyers were generally of opinion, that the prince ought to declare
himself king, as Henry the Seventh had done. This, they said, would put an end to all
disputes, which might otherwise grow very perplexing and tedious : and, they said, he might
call a parliament which would be a legal assembly, if summoned by the king in fact, though
his title was not yet recognized. This was plainly contrary to his declaration, by which the
settlement of the nation was referred to a parliament ; such a step would make all that the
prince had hitherto done, pass for an aspiring ambition, only to raise himself; and it would
disgust those who had been hitherto the best affected to his designs ; and make them less
concerned in the quarrel, if, instead of staying till the nation should offer him the crown, he
would assume it as a conquest. These reasons determined the prince against that propo
sition. He called all the peers, and the members of the three last parliaments, that were in
town, together with some of the citizens of London. When these met, it was told them,
that, in the present distraction, the prince desired their advice about the best methods of
settling the nation. It was agreed in both these houses, such as they were, to make an
address to the prince, desiring him to take the administration of the government into his
hands in the interim. The next proposition passed not so unanimously ; for, it being moved,
that the prince should be likewise desired to write missive letters to the same effect, and for
the same persons to whom writs were issued out for calling a parliament, that so there might
be an assembly of men in the form of a parliament, though without writs under the great
seal, such as that was that had called home king Charles the Second : the earl of Notting
ham objected to this, that such a convention of the States could be no legal assembly, unless
summoned by the king's writ. Therefore he moved, that an address might be made to the
king, to order the writs to be issued out. Few were of his mind. The matter was carried
the other way ; and orders were given for those letters to be sent round the nation.
The king continued a week at Rochester. And both he himself, and every body else,
saw that he was at full liberty, and that the guard about him put him under no sort of
restraint. Many that were zealous for his interests went to him, and pressed him to stay,
and to see the issue of things : a party would appear for him ; good terms would be got for
him ; and things would be brought to a reasonable agreement. He was much distracted
between his own inclinations, and the importunities of his friends. The queen, hearing what
had happened, wrote a most vehement letter to him, pressing his coming over, remembering
him of his promise, which she charged on him in a very earnest, if not in an imperious strain.
This letter was intercepted. I had an account of it from one that read it. The prince
ordered it to be conveyed to the king ; and that determined him. So he gave secret orders
to prepare a vessel for him ; and drew a paper, which he left on his table *, reproaching the
nation for their forsaking him. He declared, that though he was going to seek for foreign
aid, to restore him to his throne, yet he would not make use of it to overthrow either the
religion established, or the laws of the land. And so he left Rochester very secretly, on the
last day of this memorable year, and got safe over to France.
But, before I enter into the next year, I will give some account of the affairs of Scotland.
There was no force left there, but a very small one, scarcely able to defend the castle of Edin
burgh, of which the duke of Gordon was governor. He was a papist ; but had neither the
spirit, nor the courage, which such a post required at that time. As soon as the news came
* Directed to lord Middleton. He went away without informing some of his best friends.- — Clarendon Corres
pondence, ii. 234>

510 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
to Scotland of the king's desertion, the rabble got together there, as they had done in London.
They broke into all popish chapels, and into the church of Holy Rood House, which had
been adorned at a great charge to be a royal chapel, particularly for the order of St. Andrew
and the Thistle, which the king had resolved to set up in Scotland in imitation of the order
of the garter in England. They defaced it quite, and seized on some that were thought
great delinquents, in particular on the earl of Perth, who had disguised himself, and had got
aboard a small vessel : but he was seized on, and put in prison. The whole kingdom, except
only the castle of Edinburgh, declared for the prince, and received his declaration for that
kingdom with great joy. This was done in the north very unanimously, by the episcopal,
as well as by the presbyterian party. But in the western counties, the presbyterians, who
had suffered much in a course of many years, thought that the time was now come, not only
to procure themselves ease and liberty, but to revenge themselves upon others. They gene
rally broke in upon the episcopal clergy with great insolence and much cruelty. They
carried them about the parishes in a mock procession : they tore their gowns, and drove them
from their churches and houses. Nor did they treat those of them, who had appeared very
zealously against popery, with any distinction. The bishops of that kingdom had written a
very indecent letter to the king, upon tho news of the prince's being blown back by the
storm, full of injurious expressions towards the prince, expressing their abhorrence of his
design : and, in conclusion, they wished that the king might have the necks of his enemies.
This was sent up as a pattern to the English bishops, and was printed in the Gazette. But
they did not think fit to copy after it in England. The episcopal party in Scotland saw
themselves under a great cloud ; so they resolved all to adhere to the earl of Dundee, who
had served some years in Holland, and was both an able officer, and a man of good parts,
and of some very valuable virtues ; but, as he was proud and ambitious, so he had taken up
a most violent hatred of the whole presbyterian party, and had executed all the severest
orders against them with great rigour ; even to the shooting many on the highway, that
refused the oath required of them. The presbyterians looked on him as their most implacable
enemy ; and the episcopal party trusted most entirely to him. Upon the prince's coming to
London, the duke of Hamilton called a meeting of all the men of quality of the Scotch
nation then in town ; and these made an address to the prince with relation to Scotland,
almost in the same terms in which the English address was conceived. And now the admi
nistration of the government of the whole isle of Britain was put in the prince's hands.
The prospect from Ireland was more dreadful. Tyrconnell gave out new commissions for
levying thirty thousand men. And reports were spread about that island, that a general
massacre of the protestants was fixed to be in November. Upon which the protestants
began to run together for their common defence, both in Munster and in Ulster. They had
no great strength in Munster. They had been disarmed, and had no store of ammunition
for the few arms that were left them. So they despaired of being able to defend themselves,
and came over to England in great numbers, and full of dismal apprehensions for those they
had left behind them. They moved earnestly, that a speedy assistance might be sent to
them. In Ulster the protestants had more strength ; but they wanted a head. The lords
of Grenard and Mountjoy, who were the chief military men among them, in whom they
confided most, kept still such measures with Tyrconnell, that they would not take the con
duct of them. Two towns, that had both very little defence about them, and a very small
store of provisions within them, were by the rashness, or boldness, of some brave young men
secured : so that they refused to receive a popish garrison, or to submit to TyrconneVTs orders.
These were London-Derry, and Inniskilling. Both of them were advantageously situated.
Tyrconnell sent troops into the north to reduce the country. Upon which great numbers
fled into those places, and brought in provisions to them. And so they resolved to defend
themselves, with a firmness of courage that cannot be enough admired ; for when they were
abandoned, both by the gentry and the military men, those two small unfurnished and unfor
tified places, resolved to stand to their own defence, and at all perils to stay till supplies
should come to them from England. I will not enlarge more upon the affairs of that king
dom ; both because I had no occasion to be well informed of them, and because Dr. King,
now archbishop of Dublin, wrote a copious history of the government of Ireland during this

OF KING JAMES II. 511
reign, which is so well received, and so universally acknowledged to be as truly as it is finely
written, that I refer my reader to the account of those matters, which is fully and faithfully
given by that learned and zealous prelate *.
And now I enter upon the year 1689 : in which the two first things to be considered,
before the convention could be brought together, were, the settling the English army, and
the affairs of Ireland. As for the army, some of the bodies, those chiefly that were full of
papists, and of men ill affected, were to be broken. And, in order to that, a loan was set on
foot in the city, for raising the money that was to pay their arrears at their disbanding, and
for carrying on the pay of the English and Dutch armies till the convention should meet, and
settle the nation. This was the great distinction of those who were well affected to the
prince : for, whereas those who were ill affected to him refused to join in the loan, protending
there was no certainty of their being repaid ; the others did not doubt but the convention
would pay all that was advanced in so great an exigence ; and so they subscribed liberally,
as the occasion required.
As for the affairs of Ireland, there was a great variety of opinions among them. Some
thought that Ireland would certainly follow the fate of England. This was managed by an
artifice of Tyrconncll's, who, what by deceiving, what by threatening the most eminent pro
testants in Dublin, got them to write over to London, and give assurances that he would
deliver up Ireland, if he might have good terms for himself, and for the Irish. The earl of
Clarendon was much depended on by the protestants of Ireland, who made all their applica
tions to the prince by him. Those, who were employed by Tyrconnell to deceive the prince,
made their applications by sir William Temple, who had a long and well-established credit
with him. They said, Tyrconnell would never lay down the government of Ireland, unless
he was sure that the earl of Clarendon was not to succeed : he knew his peevishness and
spite, and that he would take severe revenges for what injuries he thought had been done to
himself, if he had them in his power ; and therefore he would not treat till he was assured of
that. Upon this the prince did avoid the speaking to the earl of Clarendon of those matters.
And then he, who had possessed himself in his expectation of that post, seeing the prince
thus shut him out of the hopes of it, became a most violent opposer of the new settlement.
He reconciled himself to king James ; and has been, ever since, one of the hottest promoters
of his interest of any in the nation. Temple entered into a management with Tyrconnell's
agents, who, it is very probable, if things had not taken a great turn in England, would have
come to a composition. Others thought that the leaving Ireland in that dangerous state,
might be. a mean to bring the convention to a more speedy settlement of England ; and that
therefore the prince ought not to make too much haste to relieve Ireland. This advice was
generally believed to be given by the marquis of Halifax ; and it was like him. The prince
did not seem to apprehend enough the consequences of the revolt of Ireland ; and was
much blamed for his slowness in not preventing it in time.
The truth was, he did not know whom to trust. A general discontent, next to mutiny,
began to spread itself through the whole English army. The turn that they were now
making from him was almost as quick as that which they had made to him. He could not
trust them. Probably, if he had sent any of them over, they would have joined with Tyr
connell. Nor could he well send over any of his Dutch troops. It was to them that he
chiefly trusted for maintaining the quiet of England. Probably the English army would
have become more insolent, if the Dutch force had been considerably diminished ; and the
king's magazines were so exhausted, that till new stores were provided, there was very little
ammunition to spare. The raising new troops was a work of time. There was no ship of
war in those seas, to secure the transport. And to send a small company of officers with
Some ammunition, which was all that could be done on the sudden, seemed to be an exposing
them to the enemy. These considerations made him more easy to entertain a proposition
that was made to him, as was believed, by the Temples ; (for sir William had both a brother
and a son that made then a considerable figure ;) which was, to send over lieutenant-general
Hamilton, one of the officers that belonged to Ireland. He was a papist, but was believed
• This work is archbishop King's " State of the Protestants in Ireland under the late King J.iuic6."

512 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
to be a man of honour ; and he had certainly great credit with the earl of Tyrconnell. He
had served in France with great reputation, and had a great interest in all the Irish, and was
now in the prince's hands ; and had been together with a body of Irish soldiers, whom the
prince kept for some time as prisoners in the Isle of Wight ; whom he gave afterwards to the
emperor, though, as they passed through Germany, they deserted in great numbers, and got
into France. Hamilton was a sort of prisoner of war. So he undertook to go over to Ire
land, and to prevail with the earl of Tyrconnell to deliver up the government ; and promised,
that he would either bring him to it, or that he would come back, and give an account of his
negociation. This step had a very ill effect ; for before Hamilton came to Dublin, the earl
of Tyrconnell was in such despair, looking on all as lost, that he seemed to be very near a
full resolution of entering on a treaty, to get the best terms that he could. But Hamilton's
coming changed him quite. He represented to him, that things were turning fast in England
in favour of the king ; so that, if he stood firm, all would come round again. He saw that
he must study to manage this so dextrously, as to gain as much time as he could, that so the
prince might not make too much haste before a fleet and supplies might come from France.
So several letters were written over by the same management, giving assurances that the
earl of Tyrconnell was fully resolved to treat and submit. And, to carry this further, two
commissioners were, sent from the council-board to France. The one was a zealous protestant,
the other was a papist. Their instructions were, to represent to the king the necessity of
Ireland's submitting to England. The earl of Tyrconnell pretended, that in honour he could
do no less than disengage himself to his master before he laid down the government. Yet he
seemed resolved not to stay for an answer, or a consent ; but that as soon as this message was
delivered, he would submit upon good conditions : and for these, he knew, he would have
all that he asked. With this management he gained his point, which was much time.
And he now fancied, that the honour of restoring the king would belong chiefly to himself.
Thus Hamilton, by breaking his own faith, secured the earl of Tyrconnell to the king ; and
this gave the beginning to the war of Ireland. Mountjoy, the protestant lord that was sent
to France, instead of being heard to deliver his message, was clapped up in the Bastille ;
which, since he was sent in the name of a kingdom, was thought a very dishonourable thing,
and contrary to the law of nations. Those who had advised the sending over Hamilton
were now much out of countenance ; and the earl of Clarendon was a loud declaimer against
it. It was believed, that it had a terrible effect on sir William Temple's son, who had raised
in the prince a high opinion of Hamilton's honour. Soon after that, he, who had no other
visible cause of melancholy besides this, went in a boat on the Thames, near the bridge, where
the river runs most impetuously, and leaped into the river and was drowned *.
The sitting of the convention was now very near. And all men were forming their
schemes, and fortifying their party all they could. The elections were managed fairly all
England over. The prince did in no sort interpose in any recommendation, directly or indi
rectly. Three parties were formed about the town : the one was for calling back the king,
and treating with him for such securities to our religion and laws, as might put them out of
the danger for the future of a dispensing or arbitrary power. These were all of the high
church party, who had carried the point of submission and non-resistance so far, that they
thought nothing less than this could consist with their duty and their oaths. When it was
objected to them, that, according to those notions that they had been possessed with, they
ought to be for calling the king back without conditions : when he came, they might indeed
offer him their petitions, which he might grant or reject as he pleased ; but that the offering
him conditions before he was recalled, was contrary to their former doctrine of unconditional
allegiance. They were at such a stand upon this objection, that it was plain, they spoke of
conditions, either in compliance with the humour of the nation ; or that, with relation to their
particular interest, nature was so strong in them, that it was too hard for their principle.
* Sir John Reresby says that Mr. Temple was well whereby some misfortunes have befallen the king's service,
married, steady, and accomplished. He had lately been is the cause of my putting myself to this sudden end ; I
appointed secretary of war by king William. When he wish him success in all his undertakings, and a better
drowned himself, he left a note in the boat to this effect : servant." — Reresby's Memoirs and Clarendon Correspond-
" My folly in undertaking what I could not perform, encc.

OF KING JAMES II. 6Ki
When this notion was tossed and talked of about the town, so few went into it, that the
party which supported it went over to the scheme of a second party : which was, that kino-
James had, by his ill administration of the government, brought himself into an incapacity of
holding the exercise of the sovereign authority any more in his own hand ; but, as in the
case of lunatics, the right still remained in him : only the guardianship, or the exercise, of it
was to be lodged with a prince regent : so that the right of sovereignty should be owned to
remain still in the king, and that the exercise of it should be vested in the prince of Orange,
as prince regent. A third party was for setting king James quite aside, and for setting the
prince on the throne.
When the convention was opened on the twenty-fourth of January, the archbishop came
not to take his place among them. He resolved neither to act for, nor against, the king's
interest; which, considering his high post, was thought very unbecoming. For if he
thought, as by his behaviour afterwards it seems he did, that the nation was running into
treason, rebellion, and perjury, it was a strange thing to see one, who was at the head of the
church, sit silent all the while that this was in debate, and not once so much as declare his
opinion by speaking, voting, or protesting, not to mention the other ecclesiastical methods
that certainly became his character. But he was a poor spirited and fearful man, and acted
a very mean part in all this great transaction. The bishops' bench was very full, as were
also the benches of the temporal lords. The earls of Nottingham, Clarendon, and Rochester,
were the men that managed the debates in favour of a regent, in opposition to those who
were for setting up another king.
They thought this would save the nation, and yet secure the honour of the church of
England and the sacredness of the crown. It was urged that if, upon any pretence what
soever, the nation might throw off their king, then the crown must become precarious, and
the power of judging the king must be in the people. This must end in a commonwealth.
A great deal was brought from both the laws and history of England to prove that, not only
the person, but the authority, of the king was sacred. The law had indeed provided a
remedy of a regency for the infancy of our kings. So, if a king should fail into such errors
in his conduct, as showed that he was as little capable of holding the government as an
infant was, then the estates of the kingdom might, upon this parity of the case, seek to the
remedy provided for an infant, and lodge the power with a regent. But the right was to
remain, and to go on in a lineal succession : for, if that was once put ever so little out of its
order, the crown would in a little time become elective ; which might rend the nation in
pieces by a diversity of elections, and by the different factions that would adhere to the
person whom they had elected. They did not deny but that great objections lay against the
methods that they proposed. But affairs were brought into so desperate a state by king
James's conduct, that it was not possible to propose a remedy that might not be justly ex
cepted to. But they thought their expedient would take in the greatest, as well as the best,
part of the nation : whereas all other expedients gratified a republican party, composed of
the dissenters, and of men of no religion, who hoped now to see the church ruined, and the
government set upon such a bottom, as that we should have only a titular king : who, as
he had his power from the people, so should be accountable to them for the exercise of it,
and should forfeit it at their pleasure. The much greater part of the house of lords was for
this, and stuck long to it ; and so was about a third part of the house of commons. The
greatest part of the clergy declared themselves for it.
But of those who agreed in this expedient it was visible there were two different parties.
Some intended to bring king James back, and went into this as the most probable way for
laying the nation asleep, and for overcoming the present aversion that all people had to him.
That being once done, they reckoned it would be no hard thing, with the help of some time,
to compass the other. Others seemed to mean more sincerely. They said they could not
vote nor argue, but according to their own principles, as long as the matter was yet entire ;
but they owned that they had taken up another principle, both from the law and from the
history of England : which was, that they would obey and pay allegiance to the king for
the time being. They thought a king thus de facto had a right to their obedience, and that
tht-y were bound to adhere to him, and to defend him, even in opposition to him with
L L

514 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
whom they thought the right did still remain. The earl of Nottingham was the person
that owned this doctrine the most during these debates. He said to myself, that though he
could not argue, nor vote, but according to the scheme and principles he had concerning our
laws and constitution, yet he should not be sorry to see his side out- voted ; and that, though
he could not agree to the making a king as things stood, yet if he found one made he would
be more faithful to him, than those that made him could be, according to their own
principles. The third party was made up of those who thought that there was an original contract
between the kings and the people of England : by which the kings were bound to defend
their people, and to govern them according to law ; in lieu of which the people were bound
to obey and serve the king. The proof of this appeared in the ancient forms of coronations
still observed : by which the people were asked if they would have that person before them
to be their king ; and, upon their shouts of consent, the coronation was gone about. But,
before the king was crowned, he was asked if he would not defend and protect his people,
and govern them according to law : and, upon his promising and swearing this, he was
crowned ; and then homage was done him. And, though of late the coronation has been
considered rather as a solemn instalment, than that which gave the king his authority, so
that it was become a maxim in law that the king never died, and that the new king was
crowned in the right of his succession, yet these forms, that were still continued, showed
what the government was originally. Many things were brought to support this from the
British and Saxon times. It was urged that 'William the Conqueror was received upon
his promising to keep the laws of Edward the Confessor, which was plainly the original
contract between him and the nation. This was often renewed by his successors. Edward
the Second and Richard the Second were deposed for breaking these laws ; and these depo
sitions were still good in law, since they were not reversed, nor was the right of deposinc
them ever renounced or disowned. Many things were alleged, from what had passed during
the barons' wars, for confirming all this. Upon which I will add one particular circum
stance, that the original of king John's magna charta, with his great seal to it, was then
given to me by a gentleman that found it among his father's papers, but did not know how
he came by it : and it is still in my hands. It was said in this argument, what did all the
limitations of the regal power signify, if upon a king's breaking through them all the people
had not a right to maintain their laws and to preserve their constitution ? It was indeed
confessed that this might have ill consequences, and might be carried too far. But the deny
ing this right in any case whatsoever, did plainly destroy all liberty, and establish tyranny.
The present alteration proposed would be no precedent but to the like case. And it was fit
that a precedent should be made for such occasions, if those of Edward the Second and
Richard the Second were not acknowledged to be good ones. It was said that if king
James had only broken some laws, and done some illegal acts, it might be justly urged, that
it was not reasonable on account of these to carry severities too far. But he had broken
through the laws in many public and avowed instances : he had set up an open treaty with
Rome : he had shaken the whole settlement of Ireland, and had put that island, and the
English and protestants that were there, in the power of the Irish : the dispensing power
took away not only those laws to which it was applied, but all other laws whatsoever by
the precedent it had set, and by the consequences that followed upon it : by the ecclesiastical
commission he had invaded the liberty of the church, and subjected the clergy to mere will
and pleasure : and all was concluded by his deserting his people, and flying to a foreign
power, rather than stay and submit to the determinations of a free parliament. Upon all
which it was inferred, that he had abdicated the government, and had left the throne vacant :
which therefore ought now to be filled, that so the nation might be preserved, and the regal
government continued in it.
As to the proposition for a prince regent, it was argued that this was as much against
monarchy, or rather more, than what they moved for. If a king's ill government did give
the people a right in any case to take his power from him, and to lodge it with another,
owning that the right to it still remained with him, this might have every whit as bad con
sequences as the other seemed to have : for recourse might be had to this violent remedy too

OF KING JAMES II. 515
often and too rashly. By this proposition of a regent, here were to be upon the matter two
kings at the same time : one with the title, and another with the power, of a king. This
was both more illegal and more unsafe than the method they proposed. The law of England
had settled the point of the subject's security in obeying the king in possession, in the
statute made by Henry the Seventh. So every man knew he was safe under a king, and
so would act with zeal and courage. But all such as should act under a prince regent,
created by this convention, were upon a bottom that had not the necessary forms of law for
it. All that was done by them would be thought null and void in law : so that no man
could be safe that acted under it. If the oaths to king James were thought to be still
binding, the subjects were by these not only bound to maintain his title to the crown, but
all his prerogatives and powers. And therefore it seemed absurd to continue a government
in his name, and to take oaths still to him, when yet all the power was taken out of his
hands. This would be an odious thing, both before God and the whole world, and would
cast a reproach on us at present, and bring certain ruin for the future on any such mixed
and unnatural sort of government. Therefore, if the oaths were still binding, the nation
was still bound by them, not by halves, but in their whole extent. It was said that, if the
government should be carried on in king James's name, but in other hands, the body of the
nation would consider him as the person that was truly their king. And if any should plot,
or act, for him, they could not be proceeded against for high treason, as conspiring against
the king's person or government ; when it would be visible that they were only designing
to preserve his person, and to restore him to his government. To proceed against any, or to
take their lives for such practices, would be to add murder to perjury. And it was not to
be supposed that juries would find such men guilty of treason. In the weakness of infancy,-
a prince regent was in law the same person with the king, who had not yet a will ; and it
was to be presumed the prince regent's will was the king's will. But that could not be
applied to the present case, where the king and the regent must be presumed to be in a per
petual struggle : the one to recover his power, the other to preserve his authority. These
things seemed to be so plainly made out in the debate that it was generally thought that no
man could resist such force of argument, but those who intended to bring back king James..
And it was believed that those of his party, who were looked on as men of conscience, had
secret orders from him to act upon this pretence ; since otherwise they offered to act clearly
in contradiction to their own oaths and principles.
But those who were for continuing the government, and only for changing the persons,
were not at all of a mind. Some among them had very different views and ends from the
rest. These intended to take advantage from the present conjuncture, to depress the crown,
to render it as much precarious and elective as they could, and to raise the power of the
people upon the ruin of monarchy. Among those, some went so far as to say that the whole
government was dissolved. But this appeared a bold and dangerous assertion : for that
might have been carried so far as to infer from it that all men's properties, honours, rights,
and franchises, were dissolved. Therefore it was thought safer to say that king James had
dissolved the tie that was between him and the nation. Others avoided going into new
speculations, or schemes of government. They thought it was enough to say that in extreme
cases all obligations did cease ; and that in our present circumstances the extremity of affairs, by
reason of the late ill government, and by king James's flying over to the enemy of the nation,
rather than submit to reasonable terms, had put the people of England on the necessity of
securing themselves upon a legal bottom. It was said, that though the vow of marriage
was made for term of life, and without conditions expressed, yet a breach in the tie itself sets
the innocent party at liberty. So a king, who had his power both given him and defined
by the law, and was bound to govern by law, when he set himself to break all laws, and in
conclusion deserted his people, did, by so doing, set them at liberty to put themselves in a
legal and safe state. There was no need of fearing ill consequences from this. Houses were
pulled down or blown up in a fire, and yet men found themselves safe in their houses. In
extreme dangers the common sense of mankind would justify extreme remedies ; though
there was no special provision that directed to them, or allowed of them. Therefore, they
l l 2

516 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
said, a nation's securing itself against a king, who was subverting the government, did
not expose monarchy, nor raise a popular authority, as some did tragically represent the
matter. There were also great disputes about the original contract : some denying there was any
such thing, and asking where it was kept and how it could be come at. To this others
answered that it was implied in a legal government : though in a long tract of time, and in
dark ages, there was not such an explicit proof of it to be found. Yet many hints from
law-books and histories were brought to show that the nation had always submitted and
obeyed in consideration of their laws, which were still stipulated to them.
There were also many debates on the word " abdicate ;" for the commons came soon to a
resolution, that king James, by breaking the original contract, and by withdrawing himself,
had abdicated the government ; and that the throne was thereby become vacant. They sent
this vote to the lords, and prayed their concurrence. Upon which many debates and con
ferences arose. At last it came to a free conference, in which, according to the sense of the
whole nation, the commons had clearly the advantage on their side. The lords had some
more colour for opposing the word " abdicate," since that was often taken in a sense that
imported the full purpose and consent of him that abdicated, which could not be pretended
in this case. But there were good authorities brought, by which it appeared that when a
person did a thing upon which his leaving any office ought to follow, he was said to abdicate.
But this was a critical dispute, and it scarcely became the greatness of that assembly, or the
importance of the matter.
It was a more important debate, whether, supposing king James had abdicated, the throne
could be declared vacant. It was urged that, by the law, the king did never die, but that
with the last breath of the dying king, the regal authority went to the next heir. So it
was said, that supposing king James had abdicated, the throne was {ipso facto) filled in that
instant by the next heir. This seemed to be proved by the heirs of the king being sworn
to in the oath of allegiance ; which oath was not only made personally to the king, but like
wise to his heirs and successors. Those who insisted on the abdication, said, that if the king
dissolved the tie between him and his subjects to himself, he dissolved their tie likewise to
his posterity. An heir was one that came in the room of a person that was dead ; it being
a maxim that no man can be the heir of a living man. If therefore the king had fallen
from his own right, as no heir of his could pretend to an)' inheritance from him as long as
he was alive, so they could succeed to nothing, but to that which was vested in him at the
time of his death. And, as in the case of attainder, every right that a man was divested of
before his death was, as it were, annihilated in him, and by consequence could not pass to
his heirs by his death, not being then in himself : so if a king did set his people free from
any tie to himself, they must be supposed to be put in a state, in which they might secure
themselves ; and therefore could not be bound to receive one who they had reason to believe
would study to dissolve and revenge all they had done. If the principle of self preservation
did justify a nation in securing itself from a violent invasion, and a total subversion, then it
must have its full scope to give a real, and not a seeming and fraudulent, security. They
did acknowledge that upon the grounds of natural equity, and for securing the nation in
after times, it was fit to go as near the lineal succession as might be : yet they could not
yield that point, that they were strictly bound to it.
It was proposed that the birth of the pretended prince might be examined into. Some
pressed this, not so much from an opinion that they were bound to assert his right if it
should appear that he was born of the queen, as because they thought it would justify the
nation, and more particularly the prince and the two princesses, if an imposture in that
matter could have been proved. And it would have gone far to satisfy many of the weaker
sort, as to all the proceeding against king James. Upon which I was ordered to gather
together all the presumptive proofs that were formerly mentioned, which were all ready
to have been made out. It is true, these did not amount to a full and legal proof;
yet they seemed to be such violent presumptions, that, when they were all laid together,
they were more convincing than plain and downright evidence : for that was liable to the

OF KING JAMES II. 517
suspicion of subornation ; whereas the other seemed to carry on them very convincing cha
racters of truth and certainty. But when this matter was in private debated, some observed
that, as king James, by going about to prove the truth of the birth, and yet doing it so
defectively, had really made it more suspicious than it was before ; so, if there was no clear
and positive proof made of an imposture, the pretending to examine into it, and then the
not being able to make it out, beyond the possibility of contradiction, would really give more
credit to the thing than it then had, and, instead of weakening it, would strengthen the pre
tension of his birth.
When this debate was proposed in the house of lords, it was rejected with indignation.
He was now sent out of England to be bred up in France, an enemy both to the nation and
to the established religion : it was impossible for the people of England to know whether
he was the same person that had been carried over or not. If he should die, another might
be put in his room, in such a manner that the nation could not be assured concerning him.
The English nation ought not to send into another country, for witnesses to prove that he
was their prince., much less receive one upon the testimony of such as were not only aliens,
but ought to be presumed enemies. It was also known that all the persons, who had been
the confidents in that matter, were conveyed away ; so it was impossible to come at them,
by whose means only the truth of that birth could be found out. But while these things
were fairly debated by some, there were others who had deeper and darker designs in this
matter. They thought it would be a good security for the nation, to have a dormant title to the
crown lie as it were neglected, to oblige our princes to govern 'well, while they would appre
hend the danger of a revolt to a pretender still in their eye. Wildman thought it was a
deep piece of policy to let this lie in the dark and undecided. Nor did they think it an
ill precedent that they should so neglect the right of succession, as not so much as to enquire
into this matter. Upon all these considerations no further enquiry was made into it. It is
true, this put a plausible objection in the mouth of all king James's party : here, they said,
an infant was condemned, and denied his right, without either proof or enquiry. This still
takes with many in the present age. And, that it may not take more in the next, I have
used more than ordinary care to gather together all the particulars that were then laid before
me as to that matter.
The next thing in debate was who should fill the throne. The marquis of Halifax
intended, by his zeal for the prince's interest, to atone for his backwardness in not coming
early into it : and, that he might get before lord Danby, who was in great credit with the
prince, he moved, that the crown should be given to the prince, and to the two princesses
after him. Many of the republican party approved of this ; for by it they gained another
point : the people in this case would plainly elect a king, without any critical regard to the
order of succession. How far the prince himself entertained this I cannot tell. But I saw
it made a great impression on Bentinck. He spoke of it to me, as asking my opinion about
it, but so that I plainly saw what was his own, for he gave me all the arguments that were
offered for it ; as, that it was most natural that the sovereign power should be only in one
person : that a man's wife ought only to be his wife : that it was a suitable return to the
prince for what he had done for the nation : that a divided sovereignty was liable to great
inconveniences : and, though there was less to be apprehended from the princess of anything
of that kind than from any woman alive, yet all mortals were frail, and might at some time
or other of their lives be wrought on.
To all this I answered, with some vehemence, that this was a very ill return for the steps
the princess had made to the prince three years ago : it would be thought both unjust and
ungrateful ; it would meet with great opposition, and give a general ill impression of the
prince, as insatiable and jealous in his ambition : there was an ill humour already spreading
itself through the nation, and through the clergy ; it was not necessary to increase this,
which such a step, as was now proposed, would do out of measure : it would engage the one
sex generally against the prince ; and in time they might feel the effects of that very sen
sibly ; and, for my own part, I should think myself bound to oppose it all I could, consider
ing what had passed in Holland on that head. We talked over the whole thing for many

518 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
hours, till it was pretty far in the morning. I saw he was well instructed in the argument ;
and he himself was possessed with it. So next morning I came to him, and desired my
conge. I would oppose nothing in which the prince seemed to be concerned, as long as I
was his servant : and therefore I desired to be disengaged, that I might be free to oppose
this proposition, with all the strength and credit I had. He answered me, that I might
desire that, when I saw a step made ; but till then he wished me to stay where I was. I
heard no more of this, in which the marquis of Halifax was single among the peers ; for I
did not find there was any one of them of his mind, unless it was the lord Culpepper, who
was a vicious and corrupt man, but made a figure in the debates that were now in the
house of lords, and died about the end of them. Some moved, that the princess of Orange
might be put on the throne ; and that it might be left to her to give the prince such a share
either of dignity or power as she should propose when she was declared queen. The agents
of princess Anne began to go about, and to oppose any proposition for the prince to her pre
judice ; but she thought fit to disown them. Dr. Doughty, one of her chaplains, spoke to
me in her room on the subject ; but she said to myself, that she knew nothing of it.
The proposition, in which all that were for the filling the throne agreed at last, was, that
both the prince and princess should be made conjunct sovereigns ; but, for the preventing
of any distractions, that the administration should be singly in the prince. The princess
continued all the while in Holland, being shut in there, during the east winds, by the freez
ing of the rivers, and by contrary winds after the thaw came : so that she came not to
England till all the debates were over. The prince's enemies gave it out, that she was kept
there by order, on design that she might not come over to England to claim her right. So
parties began to be formed, some for the prince, and others for the princess. Upon this the
earl of Danby sent one over to the princess, and gave her an account of the present state of
that debate ; and desired to know her own sense of the matter ; for, if she desired it, he
did not doubt but he should be able to carry it, for setting her alone on the throne. She
made him a very sharp answer : she said, she was the prince's wife, and would never be
other, than what she should be in conjunction with him, and under him ; and that she would
take it extremely unkindly, if any, under a pretence of their care of her, would set up a
divided interest between her and the prince. And, not content with this, she sent both lord
Danby's letter, and her answer, to the prince. Her sending it thus to him was the most
effectual discouragement possible, to any attempt for the future to create a misunderstand
ing or jealousy between them. The prince bore this with his usual phlegm : for he did not
expostulate with the earl of Danby upon it, but continued still to employ, and to trust him ;
and afterwards he advanced him, first to be a marquis, and then to be a duke.
During all these debates, and the great heat with which they were managed, the prince's
own behaviour was very mysterious. He stayed at St. James's : he went little abroad :
access to him was not very easy. He heard all that was said to him, but seldom made any
answers. He did not affect to be affable, or popular ; nor would he take any pains to gain
any one person over to his party. He said, he came over, being invited, to save the nation ;
he had now brought together a free and true representative of the kingdom : he left it
therefore to them to do what they thought best for the good of the kingdom ; and, when
things were once settled, he should be well satisfied to go back to Holland again. Those
who did not know him well, and who imagined that a crown had charms, which human
nature was not strong enough to resist, looked on all this as an affectation, and as a disguised
threatening, which imported, that he would leave the nation to perish, unless his method of
settling it was followed. After a reservedness, that had continued so close for several weeks,
that nobody could certainly tell what he desired, he called for the marquis of Halifax-, and
the earls of Shrewsbury and Danby, and some others, to explain himself more distinctly
to them.
He told them, he had been till then silent, because he would not say, or do, any thing
that might seem in any sort to take from any person the full freedom of deliberating and
voting in matters of such importance : he was resolved neither to court nor threaten any one ;
and therefore he had declined to give out his own thoughts. Some were for putting the
government in the hands of a regent ; he would say nothing against it, if it was thought

OF KING JAMES II 6W
the best mean for settling their affairs ; only he thought it necessary to tell them, that he
would not be the regent ; so, if they continued in that design, they must look out for some
other person to be put in that post : he himself saw what the consequences of it were likely
to prove ; so he would not accept of it : others were for putting the princess singly on the
throne, and that he should reign by her courtesy : he said, no man could esteem a woman
more than he did the princess ; but he was so made, that he could not think of holding any
thing by apron-strings ; nor could he think it reasonable to have any share in the govern
ment, unless it was put in his person, and that for term of life : if they did think it fit to
settle it otherwise, he would not oppose them in it ; but he would go back to Holland, and
meddle no more in their affairs. He assured them, that whatsoever others might think of a
crown, it was no such thing in his eyes, but that he could live very well, and be well pleased
without it. In the end, he said, that he could not resolve to accept of a dignity, so as to
hold it only for the life of another ; yet he thought that the issue of princess Anne should
be preferred in the succession, to any issue that he might have by any other wife than the
princess. All this he delivered to them in so cold and unconcerned a manner, that those
who judged of others by the dispositions that they felt in themselves, looked on it all as arti
fice and contrivance.
This was presently told about, as it was not intended to be kept secret ; and it helped not
a little to bring the debates at Westminster to a speedy determination. Some were still in
doubt with relation to the princess. In some it was conscience ; for they thought the equi
table right was in her. Others might be moved by interests, since if she should think herself
wronged, and ill used in this matter, she, who was likely to outlive the prince, being so much
younger and healthier than he was, might have it in her power to take her revenges on all
that should concur in such a design. Upon this, I, who knew her sense of the matter very
perfectly by what had passed in Holland, as was formerly told, was in a great difficulty.
I had promised her never to speak of that matter, but by her order ; but I presumed, in
such a case I was to take orders from the prince. So I asked him what he would order me
to do. He said, he would give me no orders in that matter, but left me to do as I pleased.
I looked on this as the allowing me to let the princess's resolution in that be known, by
which many, who stood formerly in suspense, were fully satisfied. Those to whom I gave
the account of that matter were indeed amazed at it ; and concluded, that the princess was
either a very good, or a very weak woman. An indifferency for power and rule seemed so
extraordinary a thing, that it was thought a certain character of an excess of goodness, or
simplicity. At her coming to England, she not only justified me, but approved of my pub
lishing that matter ; and spoke particularly of it to her sister princess Anne. There were
other differences in the form of the settlement. The republican party were at first for
deposing king James by a formal sentence, and for giving the crown to the prince and
princess by as formal an election. But that was overruled in the beginning. I have not
pursued the relation of the debates, according to the order in which they passed, which will
be found in the journal of both houses during the convention ; but, having had a great share
myself in the private managing of those debates, particularly with many of the clergy, and
with the men of the most scrupulous and tender consciences, I have given a very full account
of all the reasonings on both sides, as that by which the reader may form and guide his own
judgment of the whole affair. Many protests passed in the house of lords, in the progress of
the debate. The party for a regency was for some time most prevailing ; and then the pro
tests were made by the lords that were for the new settlement. The house was very full ;
about a hundred and twenty were present ; and things were so near an equality, that it was
at last carried by a very small majority, of two or three, to agree with the commons in voting
the abdication, and the vacancy of the throne ; against which a great protest was made ;
as also against the final vote, by which the prince and princess of Orange were desired to
accept of the crown, and declared to be king and queen ; which went very hardly *. The
* For particulars relating to this interesting period, see The following succinct account of the proceedings in
Parliamentary History ; Evelyn's Diary ; Clarendon Cor parliament, after the king's departure, is extracted from
respondence ;" Dalrymple's Memoirs ; Reresby's Memoirs, the Harleian MSS. 1218. 37. D. pp. 132, 280. Thoy
&c. &c. coincide with all the authorities here referred to. —

520

THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN

poor bishop of Durham, who had absconded for some time, and was waiting for a ship to get
beyond sea, fearing public affronts, and had offered to compound by resigning his bishopric,
was now prevailed on to come, and by voting the new settlement, to merit at least a pardon

On the 11 th of December, 1688, King James the
Second was going privately by water from Whitehall to
Gravesenil, in order to depart beyond sea. The lords
spiritual and temporal in and near the city of London, its
lord mayor and aldermen, in consequence met the same
day at Guildhall, to consult about the means of securing
the laws, liberties, and religion of the country, and pre
serving the peace and tranquillity of the City. They
first demanded the governor of the Tower to surrender it,
which he did, and they appointed another governor until
further orders. They then put forth a declaration, shew
ing their readiness to concur with his royal highness
the prince of Orange, in attaining a free parliament, which
will secure the laws, liberties, and property of all, and
uphold the protestant religion ; and also to desire him to
hasten to England, and in the mean time they declare
their resolution to preserve the peace of the country as
much as possible, and to keep under the popish party.
This declaration, by the hands of three temporal and one
spiritual peers, was the same day despatched to the prince
of Orange. The lords continued to meet daily in the
council chamber, at Whitehall, and issued orders to all
officers, " being protestants," to do their utmost to pre
serve the peace. On the 12th, this declaration was pub
lished, and on the same day they committed lord Jeffreys
to the Tower. On the 13th, they summoned all pro
testant soldiers to their respective regiments ; and the
same day, news being brought that tho king had been
stopped at Faversham, they sent four peers to his majesty,
to intreat and persuade him to return to Whitehall, with
further directions, that if he refused, to attend his majesty
on board any ship he might command, for the transporting
his majesty withersoever he pleased.
On the 21st, the lords assembled in council at St.
James's, by desire of the prince of Orange, who came to
them, and in a short speech requested them to advise of
the best means of obtaining a free parliament, preserving
tho protestant religion, and restoring and settling the
rights and liberties of the kingdom. After mutual com
pliments, the lords selected the following lawyers to advise
with them, viz. sir John Holt, sir Robert Atkins, sergeant
Mayuard, Mr. Pollexfen, and Mr. Bradbury.
On the 22nd, they chose a chairman and secretary, pro
tempore. There being present sixty-two peers, they
issued an order for the departure, or confinement, of the
papists of the neighbourhood of London.
On the 24th, lords Salisbury and Peterborough were
sent by them to the Tower, and sundry popish priests and
Jesuits to Newgate. They then petitioned the prince of
Orange to take upon him the management of affairs, and
of the public revenue, until the meeting of the conven
tion on the 22nd of the following January ; and that he
would issue circular letters, subscribed by himself, for the
election of members to serve in that convention ; and
which, in other words, was to be a regularly elected house
of commons, the writs to be directed to such returning
officers as were protestant. On the same day, the prince
published an order, because the necessity of affairs required
speedy advice, summoning all such persons as had served
as knights, citizens, or burgesses, in any of the parliaments
held in the reign of Charles the Second, to attend on the
26th inst., at St. James's ; and that the lord mayor,
aldermen, and fifty of the common council of the city of
London, to be there at the same time. On the 25th,
the lords dissolved themselves, and resolved not to meet
again until the convention.
On the 26th, various members of the parliaments in

the reign of Charles the Second, and the mayor, aldermen,
and common council of the city, attended at St. James's,
and the prince told them he sought their advice upon the
best mode of obtaining a free parliament, &c. They then
adjourned to the house of commons at "Westminster, and
chose a chairman. They then voted an address of thanks
to the prince, and of request that he would take upon
himself the government of public affairs, and direct an
election of members to serve in parliament to be duly
made. On the 27th, the prince gave a favourable reply to these
concordant addresses of the peers and commons; and on
the 29th, the writs were issued.
The convention parliament met on the 22nd of January,
and, upon motion in the house of commons, it was deter
mined, nem. con., that on the following Monday they
would take into consideration the condition and state of
the nation. Accordingly, on the 28th, the house resolved
itself into a committee of the whole house, for the above
purpose, and the following resolution agreed upon :
"Resolved — That king James the Second, having en
deavoured to subvert tho constitution of the kingdom, by
breaking the original contract between the king and peo
ple, and, by the advice of the Jesuits and other wicked
persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and hav
ing withdrawn himself out of this kingdom, has abdicated
the government, and that the throne is thereby vacant."
This resolution was immediately carried up to the
house of lords, for their conenrrence.
On Sunday, the 2nd of February, the lords informed
the commons of their assent to the above resolution, with
these amendments, " Instead of the word abdicated, read
deserted ; and leave out the words, and that the throne
is thereby vacant.'1''
On the 4th, the commons met and refused their assent
to these amendments, because, said they, " the word
deserted doth not fully express the conclusion necessarily
inferred from the premises to which your lordships have
agreed. For your lordships have agreed that king James
the Second has endeavoured to subvert the constitution
of the kingdom, &c. ; now the word deserted respects
only the withdrawing, but the word abdicated respects
the whole. If then," they continued, " king James the
Second has abdicated, or even only deserted, the govern
ment, the throne is thereby vacant. 2ndly. The com
mons conceive they need not prove to your lordships that
as to any other person the throne is also vacant ; your
lordships, as they conceive, having already admitted it,
by your addressing to the prince of Orange, on the 25th
of December last, to take upon himself the administration
of public affairs, both civil and military, &c. till the meet
ing of this convention ; by your lordships renewing the
same address to his highness since you met ; and by ap
pointing days of public thanksgiving to be observed
throughout the whole kingdom."
Having thus concluded, the commons Bought and ob
tained a conference of the lords upon the subject of the
amendments ; but the lords persisted in them, because
the word abdication is a word unknown to the common
law, and of doubtful interpretation — and because it im
plies a voluntary, express act of renunciation which is not
in this case. Moreover, though they applied to the prince
of Orange, as stated, yet no other inference can thence be
drawn, but only that the exercise of the government by
king James the Second is ceased ; and though the lords
were, and are, willing to secure the nation against his
return, yet they do not, neither can, agree that there is

OF KING JAMES II.

521

for all that he had done ; which, all things considered, was thought very indecent in him,
yet not unbecoming the rest of his life and character.
But, before matters were brought to a full conclusion, an enumeration was made of the
chief heads of king James's ill government. And in opposition to these, the rights and
liberties of the people of England were stated. Some officious people studied to hinder this
at that time. They thought they had already lost three weeks in their debates ; and the
doing this, with the exactness that was necessary, would take up more time ; or it would be
done too much in a hurry, for matters of so nice a nature. And therefore it was moved,
that this should be done more at leisure after the settlement. But that was not hearkened

such an abdication, or such a vacancy in the throne, as
thereby to render the crown elective ; for, by the consti
tution of the government, the monarchy is hereditary and
not elective, and no act of the king alone can bar or
destroy the right of the heir to the crown ; therefore, if
the throne be vacant of king James the Second, allegiance
is due to such person as the right of succession belongs to.
It was then moved in the house that the amendments
of the lords be agreed to. The first was negatived
without a division, and the second was negatived by 282
to 151.
A free conference was then desired by the commons,
and was granted by the lords ; the managers of which, on
the part of the first, were sir Robert Howard, Mr. Pol
lexfen, Mr. Paul Foley, sir John Holt, lord Falkland,
sir George Treby, Mr. Sommers, Mr. Garroway, Mr.
Boscawen, Mr. Thomas Littleton, Mr. Palmer, Mr.
Hampden, sir Henry Capel, sir Thomas Lee, Mr. Sache-
vercl, major Wyldman, colonel Birch, Mr. Eyres, sir
Richard Temple, sir Henry Goodrich, Mr. Waller, sir
John Guise.
The conference met on the 6th of February.
On the part of the commons it was urged, that though
there was no express resignation in word or writing, yet
there were overt acts quite as significant ; and though the
common law has no notice of such a word as abdication,
it was merely because the necessity for it was not contem
plated. Again, the word deserted is of as doubtful meaning
in our common law as the word abdicated. But the word
abdicated is of well understood meaning, it signifies to
renounce, throw off, disown, or relinquish anything or
person, so as to have no further to do with it. In sup
port of these opinions were quoted Grotius de Jure Belli
et Pacis, b. ii. c. 4, s. 4. " Venit enim hoc non ex jure
Civili sed ex jure Naturali, quod quisque potest abdicare
et ex naturali presumptione quae voluisse quis creditur
quod sufficienter significavit : " and then he goes on,
t* recusari hereditos non tantum verbis sed etiam potest et
quovis indicio voluntatis."
CalviD, in his Lexicon Juridicum, says, " Generum abdi-
cat qui sponsam repudiat :" he that divorces his wife, abdi
cates his son-in-law. Brisonius, in his Commentaries,
says, *' abdicare se magistratum est idem quod abire peni-
tus magistrate"
Again, Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, b. i. c. 4, s. 9,
says, abdicare means, " manifeste habere pro redelicto."
On the other hand, " deserted," by all authorities,
means merely a leaving, a leave withdrawing, a temporary
quitting, a negligence which leaves the party at liberty to
return to it again ; which neither the lords nor commons
intended to be the case in the present instance.
With respect to the objection to declaring the throne
vacant, Mr. Hampden made this question in answer,
" If the throne is not vacant, will your lordships inform
us who fills it ?M
The whole object of the lords, as intended by their
amendments, was, after much, discussion, cleared of all
ambiguity by this enquiry by the earl of Nottingham :
"What is meant by the commons by voting the throne to

be vacant ? Do you mean it is so vacant as to null the
succession in the hereditary line, and so all the heirs to be
cut off? which, we say, will make the throne elective :"
and, as he afterwards added, *( Do you, gentlemen of tho
house of commons, mean by abdication a renouncing for
himself, or for himself and heirs ?'' To which many able
replies were made and rejoindered upon : but none was so
conclusive to the point as that of sir Robert Howard.
" I would ask, he said, this question of any noble lord
that is here : Had there been an heir to whom the crown
had quietly descended in the line of succession, and this
heir certainly known, would your lordships have assem
bled without his calling? Would you have either admi
nistered the government yourselves, or have advised the
prince of Orange to take it upon him ? I doubt," he con
tinued, " you had been all guilty of high treason by the
laws of England, if a known successor was in possession
of the throne, as he must be if the throne was not vacant."
" We all know/' proceeded the same intelligent man,
" the monarchy is hereditary, but how to find out the suc
cessor in the line? You think it will be a difficult thing
to go upon the examination who is heir. I confess there
are difficulties on all sides ; but, it not being clear, must
we remain thus ? Use what words you will, fill it up, or
nominate, or elect ; it is the thing we are to take care of,
and it is high time it was done. My lords, there is no
such consequence to be drawn from this vote as an inten
tion or a likelihood of the altering the course of our
government so as to make it elective ; there have been
precedents of exclusions of the next heir, yet the throne
hath all along descended in an hereditary succession, and
the main constitution hath been preserved. My lords,
you have already limited the succession, and have cut off
6ome that might have a lineal right, for you have con
curred with us in the vote that it is inconsistent with our
religion and laws to have a papist to reign over us. Must
we not then come to an election if the next heir be a
papist ? Nay, suppose there was no protestant heir to be
found, would not your lordships then break the line ?"
Thomas Lee added, " It is plain your lordships were sen
sible we were without a government by your desiring the
prince to take the administration ; and in calling this con
vention that power has been exercised which should be in
all States, to make provision in all times and upon occasions
for extraordinary cases and necessities.'' Mr. Sergeant
Maynard added, " If we look but into the law of nature,
which is above all human laws, we have enough to justify
us in what we are now about, to provide for ourselves and
the public weal in such an exigence as this."
Mr. Paul Foley said, if the whole royal line should fail,
who would have the government but the lords and com
mons ? They being the only remaining apparent parts of
the government, are alone fit to supply the defect by pro
viding a successor. Eventually the conference ended
without any conclusion ; but, on the following day, the
house of lords informed the commons that they agreed to
the vote of the latter, sent up on the 28th of January
last, without any alteration.

522 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
to. It was therefore thought necessary to frame this instrument so, that it should be like a
new magna charta. In the stating these grievances and rights, the dispensing power came
to be discussed ; and then the power of the crown to grant a non-obstante to some statutes was
objected. Upon opening this, the debate was found to be so intricate, that it was let fall at
that time only for dispatch ; but afterwards an act passed condemning it singly ; and the
power of granting a non-obstante was for the future taken away : yet king James's party
took great advantage from this, and said, that though the main clamour of the nation was
against the dispensing power, yet when the convention brought things to a settlement that
did not appear to be so clear a point as had been pretended : and it was not so much as
mentioned in this instrument of government ; so that, by the confession of his enemies, it
appeared to be no unlawful power ; nor was it declared contrary to the liberties of the people
of England. Whereas, its not being mentioned then, was only upon the opposition that was
made, that so more time might not be lost, nor this instrument be clogged with disputable
points. The last debate was, concerning the oaths that should be taken to the king and queen.
Many arguments were taken during the debate, from the oaths in the form in which the alle
giance was sworn to the crown, to shew that in a new settlement these could not be taken.
And to this it was always answered, that care should be taken, when other things were
settled, to adjust these oaths, so that they should agree to the new settlement. In the oaths,
as they were formerly conceived, a previous title seemed to be asserted, when the king was
sworn to, " as rightful and lawful king." It was therefore said, that these words could not
be said of a king who had not a precedent right, but was set up by the nation. So it was
moved, that the oaths should be reduced to the ancient simplicity, of swearing to bear faith
and true allegiance to the king and queen. This was agreed to. And upon this began the
notion of a king de facto, but not de jure. It was said, that according to the common law,
as well as the statute in king Henry the Seventh's reign, the subjects might securely obey
any king that was in possession, whether his title was good, or not. This seemed to be a
doctrine necessary for the peace and quiet of mankind, that so the subjects may be safe in
every government that bringeth them under a superior force, and that will crush them, if they
do not give a security for the protection that they enjoy under it. The lawyers had been
always of that opinion, that the people were not bound to examine the titles of their princes,
but were to submit to him that was in possession. It was therefore judged just and reason
able, in the beginning of a new government, to make the oaths as general and comprehen
sive as might be ; for it was thought, that those who once took the oaths to the government,
would be after that faithful and true to it. This tenderness, which was shewed at this time,
to a sort of people that had shewed very little tenderness to men of weak, or ill informed,
consciences, was afterwards much abused by a new explanation, or rather a gross equivoca
tion, as to the signification of the words in which the oath was conceived. The true mean
ing of the words, and the express sense of the imposers was, that, whether men were satisfied,
or not, with the putting the king and queen on the throne, yet, now they were on it, they
would be true to them, and defend them. But the sense that many put on them was, that
they were only to obey them as usurpers, during their usurpation, and that therefore, as long
as they continued in quiet possession, they were bound to bear them, and to submit to them ;
but that it was still lawful for them to assist king James, if he should come to recover his
crown, and that they might act and talk all they could, or durst, in his favour, as being still
their king de jure. This was contrary to the plain meaning of the words ; " faith, and true
allegiance ;" and was contrary to the express declaration in the act that enjoined them. Yet
it became too visible, that many in the nation, and particularly among the clergy, took the
oath in this sense, to the great reproach of their profession. The prevarication of too many
in so sacred a matter contributed not a little to fortify the growing atheism of the present age.
The truth was, the greatest part of the clergy had entangled themselves so far with those
strange conceits of the divine right of monarchy, and the unlawfulness of resistance in any
case ; and they had so engaged themselves, by a'sserting these things so often and so publicly,
that they did not know how to disengage themselves in honour, or conscience.
A notion was started, which by its agreement with their other principles had a great effect

OF KING JAMES II. 623
among them, and brought off the greatest number of those who came in honestly to the new
government. This was chiefly managed by Dr. Lloyd, bishop of St. Asaph, now translated
to Worcester. It was laid thus : the prince had a just cause of making war on the king ;
in that most of them agreed. In a just war, in which an appeal is made to God, success is
considered as the decision of Heaven. So the prince's success against king James gave him
the right of conquest over him ; and by it all his rights were transferred to the prince. His
success was indeed no conquest of the nation, which had neither wronged him, nor resisted
him. So that, with relation to the people of England, the prince was no conqueror, but a
preserver, and a deliverer, well received, and gratefully acknowledged. Yet with relation
to king James, and all the right that was before vested in him, he was, as they thought, a
conqueror. By this notion they explained those passages of scripture, that speak of God's
disposing of kingdoms, and of pulling down one and setting up another; and also our
Saviour's arguing from the inscription on the coin, that they ought to render to Ceesar the
things that were Caesar's ; and St. Paul's charging the Romans to obey the powers that then
were, who were the emperors that were originally the invaders of public liberty which they
had subdued, and had forced the people and senate of Rome by subsequent acts to confirm
an authority that was so ill begun. This might have been made use of more justly, if the
prince had assumed the kingship to himself, upon king James's withdrawing ; but did not
seem to belong to the present case. Yet this had the most universal effect on the far greater
part of the clergy.
And now I have stated all the most material parts of these debates, with the fulness that
I thought became one of the most important transactions that is in our whole history, and
by much the most important of our time.
All things were now made ready for filling the throne ; and the very night before it was
to be done the princess arrived safely. It had been given out, that she was not well pleased
with the late transaction, both with relation to her father and to the present settlement.
Upon which the prince wrote to her, that it was necessary she should appear at first so cheer
ful, that nobody might be discouraged by her looks, or be led to apprehend that she was
uneasy, by reason of what had been done. This made her put on a great air of gaiety when
she came to Whitehall, and, as may be imagined, had great crowds of all sorts coming to
wait on her. I confess, I was one of those that censured this in my thoughts. I thought a
little more seriousness had done as well, when she came into her father's palace, and was to
be set on his throne next day. I had never seen the least indecency in any part of her
deportment before ; which made this appear to me so extraordinary, that some days after I
took the liberty to ask her, how it came that what she saw in so sad a revolution, as to her
father's person, made not a greater impression on her. She took this freedom with her usual
goodness ; and she assured me, she felt the sense of it very lively upon her thoughts. But
she told me, that the letters which had been written to her had obliged her to put on a cheer
fulness, in which she might perhaps go too far, because she was obeying directions, and acting
a part which was not very natural to her *. This was on the 12th of February, being
• It may he reasonably granted that we ought to sacri- -who were with her in her late progress took notiee, that
fice our private wishes to our conviction of the interests of when the news came of the king being gone, she seemed
our country, but whilst we submit to the sacrifice, there is not at all moved, but called for cards, and was as merry
no reason why we should conceal that "we possess the as she used to he : to which she replied, they did her
natural feelings of man, or shew any neglect of that decent wrong to make such reflections upon her actions ; that it
deportment which ought to be suggested by our suffering, was true she did call for cards, because she used to play,
Neither of the princesses shewed this natural deportment and she never loved to do any thing that looked like an
for their father's misfortunes. affected restraint. I answered, that I was sorry her royal
Lord Clarendon says, " I asked the princess Anne if highness should think, that shewing a trouble for the king,
she thought her father could justly be deposed ? To which her father's misfortune, should be interpreted by any as an
she said, those were too great points for her to meddle affected constraint ; that I was afraid, such her behaviour
with ; that she was very sorry the king had brought things rendered her much less in the opinion of the world, even
to the pass they were at ; but she was afraid it would not with her father's enemies, than she ought to be.". —
bo safe for him ever to return again. I asked her what Singer's Clarendon Corr. ii. 249.
she meant by that? To which she replied, ' Nothing.' Of queen Mary, when she first arrived at the palace
I then told her, I hoped her royal highness would not be from which her father had been compelled to retreat,
offended if I took the liberty to tell her that many good Evelyn remarks, " She came into Whitehall laughing
people were extremely troubled to find she seemed no and jolly as to a wedding, so as to seem quite transported.
more concerned for her father's misfortune ; that people She rose early the next morning, and in her undress, as it

524 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN, &c.
Shrove-Tuesday. The thirteenth was the day set for the two houses to come with the offer
of the crown. So here ends the Interregnum.
And thus I have given the fullest and most particular account that I could gather of all
that passed during this weak, unactive, violent, and superstitious reign ; in which all regard
to the affairs of Europe seemed to be laid aside, and nothing was thought on but the spiteful
humours of a revengeful Italian lady, and the ill laid, and worse managed, projects of some
hot meddling priests, whose learning and politics were of a piece, the one exposing them to
contempt, and the other to ruin ; involving in it a prince, who, if it had not been for his
being delivered up to such counsels, might have made a better figure in history. But they
managed both themselves and him so ill, that a reign, whose rise was bright and prosperous,
was soon set in darkness and disgrace. But I break off here, lest I should seem to aggravate
misfortunes, and load the unfortunate too much.
was reported, before her women were up, went about serious and silent, and seems to treat all persons alike
from room to room to see the convenience of the house ; gravely, and to be very intent on affairs." — (Evelyn's
lay in the same apartment where the queen lay, and Diary, ii. 6.) The duchess of Marlborough confirms this
within a night or two, sat down to play at basset, as the statement ; she says Mary " wanted bowels," and ani-
queen, her predecessor, used to do. This carriage was madverted upon her behaviour when she first arrived at
censured by many. She seems to be of a good nature, Whitehall, as being u very strange and unbecoming."—.
and that she takes nothing to heart ; whilst the prince, Account of the Duchess of Marlborough's Conduct, p. IS.
her husband, has a thoughtful countenance, is wonderful

625

BOOK V.

OP THE REIGN OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY.
NOW begin, on the first day of May, 1705, to prosecute this
work ; and have before me a reign, that drew upon it an universal
expectation of great things to follow, from such auspicious begin
nings ; and from so general a joy as was spread over these nations,
and all the neighbouring kingdoms and states ; of whom some
had apprehended a general depression, if not the total ruin, of
the protestant religion ; and all of them saw such a progress made
by the French in the design of enslaving the rest of Europe, that
the check wliich the revolution in England seemed to promise,
put a new life in those, who before were sunk in despair. It
seemed to be a double- bottomed monarchy, where there were two joint sovereigns ; but
those who knew the queen's temper and principles, had no apprehensions of divided counsels,
or of a distracted government.
That which gave the most melancholy prospect, was the ill state of the king's health,
whose stay so long at St. James's without exercise, or hunting, which was so much used by him
that it was become necessary, had brought him under such a weakness, as was likely to have
very ill effects ; and the face he forced himself to set upon it, that it might not appear too
much, made an impression on his temper. He was apt to be peevish ; it put him under a
necessity of being much in his closet, and of being silent and reserved; which, agreeing so
well with his natural disposition, made him go off from what all his friends had advised, and
he had promised them he would set about, of being more visible, open, and communicative.
The nation had been so much accustomed to this, in the two former reigns, that many studied
to persuade him, it would be necessary for his affairs to change his way, that he might be
more accessible, and freer in his discourse. He seemed resolved on it ; but he said, his ill
health made it impossible for him to execute it : and so he went on in his former way, or
rather he grew more retired, and was not easily come at, nor spoken to. And in a very few
days, after he was set on the throne, he went out to Hampton-court ; and from that palace
he came into town only on council days : so that the face of a court, and the rendezvous,
usual in the public rooms, was now quite broken. This gave an early and general disgust.
The gaiety and the diversions of a court disappeared ; and, though the queen set herself to
make up what was wanting in the king, by a great vivacity and cheerfulness, yet when it
appeared that she meddled not in business, so that few found their account in making their
court to her, though she gave a wonderful content to all that came near her, yet few came.
The king found the air of Hampton-court agreed so well with him, that he resolved to
live the greatest part of the year there : but that palace was so very old built, and so irre
gular, that a design was formed of raising new buildings there for the king and the queen's
apartments. This shewed a resolution to live at a distance from London ; and the entering
so soon on so expensive a building, afforded matter of censure to those who were disposed
enough to entertain it. And this spread a universal discontent in the city of London : and
these small and almost indiscernible beginnings and seeds of ill humour, have ever since gone
on in a very visible increase and progress.
The first thing the king did, was, to choose a ministry, and to settle a council. The earl
of Shrewsbury was declared secretary of state, and had the greatest share of the king's con
fidence. No exception could be made to the choice, except on account of his youth ; but he

520 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
applied himself to business with great diligence, and maintained his candour and temper
with more reservedness than was expected from one of his age. It was for some time under
consideration who should be the other secretary ; at last the earl of Nottingham was pitched
on. He had opposed the settlement with great earnestness, in his copious way of speaking ;
but he had always said, that, though he would not make a king, yet upon his principles, he
could obey him better than those who were so much set on making one . The high church
party did apprehend that the opposition they had given the king's advancement, and the zeal
that others had shewed for it, would alienate him from them, and throw him into other
hands, from whom no good was to be expected for them : and they looked for severe revenges
for the hardships they had put on these in the end of king Charles's reign. This grew daily
upon that party, and made them begin to look back toward king James. So, not to provoke
so great a body too much, it was thought advisable to employ the earl of Nottingham. The
great increase of chancery business had made many apprehend it was too much to be trusted
to one person; so it was resolved to put the chancery in commission; and the earl of Not
tingham was proposed to be the first in the commission, but he refused it. So Maynard,
Keck, and Rawlinson, three eminent lawyers, were made the three commissioners of the
great seal. And soon after that, the earl of Nottingham was appointed secretary of state.
This gave as much satisfaction to all the high party, as it begot jealousies and distrust in
others. The one hoped for protection and favour by his means : they reckoned he would
infuse all the prerogative notions into the king, and give him such a jealousy of every step
that the others should make in prejudice of these, that from thence the king would see cause
to suspect all the shew of kindness that they might put on to him, when at_ the same time
they were undermining some of those prerogatives, for which the earl of Nottingham seemed
to be so zealous. This had a great effect on the king, who being ignorant of our constitu^
tion, and naturally cautious, saw cause enough to dislike the heat he found among those who
expressed much zeal for him, but who seemed, at the same time, to have with it a great
mixture of republican principles. They, on the other hand, were much offended at the
employing the earl of Nottingham. And he gave them daily cause to be more displeased at
it ; for he set himself with a most eager partiality against the whole party, and against all
the motions made by them ; and he studied to possess the king with a very bad opinion of
them. And, whereas secretaries of state have a particular allowance for such spiesvas they
employ to procure intelligence, how exact soever he might be in procuring foreign intelli
gence, he spared no cost nor pains to have an account of all that passed in the city, and in
other angry cabals : and he furnished the king very copiously that way ; which made a deep
impression on him, and had very bad effects. The earl of Danby was made marquis of Car
marthen, and president of the council ; and lord Halifax had the privy seal f . The last of
* Daniel Finch, earl of Nottingham, and afterwards of 10,000/. from the East-India company. He opposed, and
Winchelsea, was one of the most conscientious men that was affected even to weeping, by the abjuration of the son
ever assisted in the council of an English monarch. He of James the Second; yet he submitted to queen Anne's
was born about the year 1647. Very early in life at government, and was re-appointed to the secretaryship.
Christ Church, Oxford, and the Inner Temple, he was Both bouses of parliament passed votes of approbation
proportionately young when introduced to state affairs ; dis- upon him at the time. In 1704 we shall find he resigned,
tinguished as a parliamentary orator, he soon acquired the but at the accession of George the First, was made a lord-
notice of James the Second, who made him a privy coun- justice, and lord-president of the council. In 1715, his
cillor and first commissioner of the admiralty. Every humanity deprived him of his office, for he was dismissed
act of his life was consistent. He signed the order for because he pleaded for the peers, who attempted to restore
proclaiming' James the Second ; but opposed the abroga- the Stuarts. The earl was a firm supporter of the pro-
tion of the test act, and maintained the cause of the seven testant faith. The university of Oxford, in full convoca-
bishops. His opinions relative to the revolution have tion, unanimously thanked him for his " Defence of the
been already noticed ; William the Third appreciated his Christian Faith, contained in his lordship's answer to
integrity, and would have made him lord chancellor, an Mr. Whiston's letter to him, concerning the eternity
office his father had so ably filled ; this he declined, but of the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost.' He died on
accepted the office of a state secretary. The impotent the first day of 1730. According to Noble, he had, by
pardon issued by James in 1 692, excepted the earl from his second wife, thirty children. — Noble's Continuation
those who were forgiven. When jealousies and intrigues of Grainger; Birch's Lives; Wood's Athenae Oxon.;
induced him to resign, and his character and conduct were Clarendon Correspondence.
examined, it arose resplendent from the scrutiny; not a f A clear insight into the character of this Belf-inte-
charge of peculation could be discovered, hut, on the con- rested nobleman may be found in Sir John Reresby's
trary, it ,wa» proved that he had rejected a douceur of " Memoirs.'*

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 527
these had gone into all the steps that had been made for the king, with great zeal, and by
that means was hated by the high party, whom for distinction sake I will hereafter call
Tories, and the other Whigs ; terms that I have spoken much against, and have ever hated :
but to avoid making always a longer description, I must use them ; they being now become
as common as if they had been words of our language. Lord Halifax soon saw that his
friendship with the Whigs was not likely to last long ; his opposing the exclusion stuck still
deeply with them ; and the business of the quo warranto's, and the delivering up of charters,
was cast on him : the slowness of relieving Ireland was also charged on him ; he had for
some time great credit with the king, though his mercurial wit was not well suited with the
king's phlegm. Lord Carmarthen could not bear the equality, or rather the preference that
seemed to be given to lord Halifax ; and therefore set on the storm that quickly broke out
upon him.
Lord Mordaunt was made earl of Monmouth, and first commissioner of the treasury ; and
lord Delamere, made earl of Warrington *, was chancellor of the exchequer : lord Godolphin
was likewise brought into the treasury, to the great grief of the other two, who soon saw, that
the king considered him more than them both. For, as he understood treasury business well,
so his calm and cold way suited the king's temper. The earls of Monmouth and Warrington,
though both most violent Whigs, became great enemies ; the former was generous, and gave
the inferior places freely ; but sought out the men who were most noted for republican prin
ciples, for them all : and the other, they said, sold every thing that was in his power. The
privy council was composed chiefly of Whigs.
Nothing gave a more general satisfaction than the naming of the judges ; the king ordered
every privy councillor to bring a list of twelve : and, out of these, twelve very learned and
worthy judges were chosen. This nomination was generally well received over the nation.
The first of these was sir John Holt, made lord chief justice of England, then a young man
for so high a post, who maintained it all his time with a high reputation for capacity, integ
rity, courage, and great dispatch. So that, since the lord chief justice Hale's time, that
bench has not been so well filled, as it was by him.
The king's chief personal favour lay between Bentinck and Sidney : the former was made
earl of Portland and groom of the stole, and continued for ten years to be entirely trusted by
the king, and served him with great fidelity and obsequiousness ; but he could never bring
himself to be acceptable to the English nation-)-. The other was made first, lord Sidney,
" He was not made earl of Warrington till after his healthy hoy was recommended to be placed with him in
removal from the office of chancellor of the exchequer. bed. Young Bentinck immediately volunteered to un-
Henry Booth, lord Delamere, was a son of the dergo this dangerous office ; the desired effect was pro-
loyal but unfortunate sir George Booth, who took up duced, but he was infected, and nearly died of the disorder.
arni3 in favour of Charles the Second, during the protec- The esteem thus gained was secured and strengthened in
torate. He was born in 1651 , at the family residence in after-life by the ability, integrity, and prudence, exhibited
Cheshire, which county he represented zealously in par- by Bentinck. He came with the prince when he married
liament ; promoting the exclusion bill, for which, we have the princess Mary ; he was the ambassador to warn James
seen in previous pages, be was brought into trouble during the Second of Monmouth's invasion. In Holland, he
the reign of James the Second. At the revolution, besides held a superior office in the prince's household, and the
the chancellorship of the exchequer, he was appointed to command of the 1st regiment of guards. He Bhewed ex-
the lord lieutenancy of Cheshire. At Whittington, in trcme intelligence in holding communication with tho
Derbyshire, a farm house is shewn, where he and the earls English protestants previous to the revolution, as well as
of Devonshire and Danby are said to have met, and con- in the arrangements preliminary to this constitutional
suited how they might assist the cause ot the prince of effort ; and when it was completed, he received the offices
Orange. One room is still called by the peasantry there of groom of the stole, keeper of the privy-purse, tmd a
" the plotting parlour." — (Dr. Akenside's Ode addressed privy councillor ; and, being naturalised, was raised to the
to the earl of Huntingdon.) He published several tracts ; peerage as earl of Portland, knight of the garter, and lieu-
one, entitled " The late Lord Russel's Case, with ohser- tenant-general of the forces. For a long time he con-
vations," throws light upon the history of the period. He tinued first favourite, and was employed upon the most deli-
died in 1694. — Kippis's Biog. Britannica; Grainger. cate embassies, &c. During one of these, at Paris, he was
f William Bentinck, descended from a noble family in shewn, in the royal palace, Le Brun's series of paintings,
Guelderland, was born about the year 1649. He-was illustrative of Louis the Fourteenth's victories, and was
liberally educated, and then placed as page of honour to asked whether William's were to be seen in his residence.
the prince of Orange. Whilst holding this situation, he "No," replied Bentinck, " the monuments of my master's
acted with a devoted heroism for the benefit of the prince, actions are to be seen everywhere but in his palace." Natu-
that secured to him his highness's perpetual friendship rally of a reserved temper, and consequently suspected of
and favour. Tho prince was ill of the small pox, and pride ; ignorant of our customs and language ; and viewed
the pustules not freely rising, to promote the eruption a with jealousy as a foreigner ; he did not want enemies, and

528 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
and then earl of Rumney, and was put in several great posts. He was made secretary of
state, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and master of the ordnance ; but he was so set on pleasure,
that he was not able to follow business with a due application. The earls of Devonshire
and Dorset had the white staffs : the first was lord steward, and the other was lord cham
berlain ; and they being both whigs, the household was made up of such, except where there
were buyers for places, which were set to sale ; and though the king seemed to discourage
that, yet he did not encourage propositions that were made for the detecting those practices.
Thus was the court, the ministry, and the council composed. The admiralty was put in
commission, and Herbert, made earl of Torrington, was first in the commission. He tried
to dictate to the board ; and when he found that did not pass upon them, he left it, and
studied all he could to disparage their conduct , and it was thought he hoped to have been
advanced to that high trust alone.
The first thing proposed to be done was to turn the convention into a parliament, accord
ing to the precedent set in the year 1 660. This was opposed by all the tories. They said
writs were indispensable to the being of a parliament. And though the like was done at
the restoration, yet it was said that the convention was then called when there was no king
nor great seal in England ; and it was called by the consent of the lawful king, and was
done upon a true and visible, and not on a pretended, necessity ; and they added, that after
all, even then the convention was not looked on as a legal parliament : its acts were ratified
in a subsequent parliament, and from thence they had their authority. So it was moved
that the convention should be dissolved, and a new parliament summoned ; for in the joy
which accompanied the revolution, men well affected to it were generally chosen ; and it
was thought that the damp, which was now spread into many parts of the nation, would
occasion great changes in a new election. On the other hand, the necessity of affairs was
so pressing, that no time was to be lost ; a delay of forty days might be the total loss of
Ireland, and stop all our preparations at sea ; nor was it advisable, in so critical a time, to
put the nation into the ferment, which a new election would occasion. And it was reason
able to expect that those who had set the king on the throne would be more zealous to
maintain him there than any new set of men could possibly be ; and those who submitted
to a king, de facto, must likewise submit to a parliament, de facto. So the bill passed ;
and a day was set for the call of both houses, and for requiring the members to take the
oaths. Eight bishops absented themselves ; who were Sancroft of Canterbury, Thomas of Wor
cester, Lake of Chichester, Turner of Ely, Lloyd of Norwich, Ken of Bath and Wells,
Frampton of Gloucester, and White of Peterborough. But, in the meanwhile, that they
might recommend themselves by a show of moderation, some of them moved the house of
lords, before they withdrew from it, for a bill of toleration, and another of comprehension ;
and these were drawn and offered by the earl of Nottingham : and, as he said to me, they
wore the same that he had prepared for the house of commons in king Charles's time, during
the debates of the exclusion ; but then things of that kind were looked on as artifices to lay
the heat of that time, and to render the church party more popular. After those motions
were made, the bishops that were in the house withdrew ; Sancroft, Thomas, and Lake,
never came ; the two last died soon after. Ken was a man of a warm imagination ; and, at
the time of the king's first landing, he declared heartily for him, and advised all the gentle
men that he saw to go and join with him. But, during the debates in the convention, he
went with great heat into the notion of a prince regent. And now, upon the call of the
house, he withdrew into his diocese. He changed his mind again, and wrote a paper, per
suading the clergy to take the oaths, wliich he showed to Dr. Whitby, who read it, as the
doctor has told me often. His chaplain, Dr. Eyre, did also tell me that he came with him
to London, where at first he owned he was resolved to go to the house of lords, and to take
these succeeded in supplanting him in the king's favour could only shew his regard by pressing to his breast Ben-
by Arnold van Keppel, afterwards earl of Albemarle, tinck's hand. The carl then withdrew into private life,
Bentinck, however, never lost William's highest esteem ; where he was distinguished for his benevolence and libc-
on his deathbed he sent for his old supporter; but the rality. He died in 1709. — Biog. Britannica; Shrews-
power of speech was gone when he arrived, and the prince bury Correspondence ; Noble's continuation of Grainger.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. f>29
the oaths. But the first day after he came to town, he was prevailed on to change his mind ;
and he has continued ever since in a very warm opposition to tho government. Sancroft
went on in his inactive state, still refusing the oaths, but neither acting nor speaking, except
in great confidence, to any against their taking them. These bishops did one thing very
inconsistent with their other actions, and that could not be easily reconciled to the rules of
good conscience. All presentations are directed to bishops, or to their chancellors ; but, by a
general agreement in the year 1660, the bishops resolved to except out of the patents, that
they gave their chancellors, the power of giving institution into cures, which before that, the
chancellors were empowered to give in the bishop's absence. Now the bishops were bound
to see that the clergy, before they gave them institution, took the oaths to the government.
In order therefore to decline the doing this, and yet avoid the actions of quare impedit, that
they would be liable to, if they did not admit the clerks presented to them, they gave new
patents to their chancellors, empowering them to give institution ; which they knew could
not be done but by tendering the oaths. So they gave authority to laymen to admit men to
benefices, and to do that which they thought unlawful, as was the swearing to an usurper
against the lawful king. Thus it appeared, how far the engagement of interest and parties
can run men into contradictions.
Upon the bishops refusing the oaths, a bill was brought into the house of commons,
requiring all persons to take them by a prefixed day, under several forfeitures and penalties.
The clergy that took them not were to fall under suspension for six months, and at the end
of those they were to be deprived. This was followed with a particular eagerness by some,
who were known enemies to the church : and it was then generally believed, that a great
part of the clergy would refuse the oaths. So they hoped to have an advantage against the
church by this means. Hambden persuaded the king to add a period to a speech he made,
concerning the affairs of Ireland, in which he proposed the admitting all protestants to serve
in that war. This was understood to be intended for taking off the sacramental test, which
was necessary by the law to qualify men for employments, and was looked on as the chief
security the church of England had, as it excluded dissenters from all employments. And it
was tried, if a bargain could be made, for excusing the clergy from the oaths, provided the
dissenters might be excused from the sacrament. The king put this into his speech, without
communicating it to the ministry, and it had a very ill effect. It was not only rejected by
a great majority in both houses, but it very much heightened the prejudices against the king,
as bearing no great affection to the church of England, when he proposed the opening such
a door, which they believed would be fatal to them. The rejecting this made the act
imposing the oaths to be driven on with the more zeal. This was in debate when I came
into the house of lords ; for Ward, bishop of Salisbury, died this winter : many spoke to the
king in my favour, without my knowledge. The king made them no answer ; but a few
days after he was set on the throne, he of his own motion named me to that see ; and he did
it in terms more obliging than usually fell from him. When I waited on the queen, she
said, she hoped I would now put in practice those notions with which I had taken the liberty
often to entertain her. All the forms of the conge-d'elire, and my election, were carried on
witli dispatch. But a great difficulty was in view. Sancroft would not see me ; and he
refused to consecrate me ; so, by law, when the mandate was brought to him, upon not
obeying it, he must have been sued in a premunire ; and for some days he seemed deter
mined to venture that ; but, as the danger came near, he prevented it, by granting a com
mission to all the bishops of his province, or to any three of them, in conjunction with the
bishop of London, to exercise his metropolitical authority during pleasure. Thus he did
authorise others to consecrate me, while yet he seemed to think it an unlawful act. This
was so mean, that he himself was ashamed of it afterwards ; but he took an odd way to
overthrow it, for he sent for his original warrant ; and so took it out of the office, and got it
into his own hands.
I happened to come into the house of lords, when two great debates were managed with
much heat in it. The one was about the toleration and comprehension, and the other was
about the imposing the oaths on the clergy. And I was engaged, at my first coming there,
to bear a large share in both,

530 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
That which was long insisted on, in the house of lords, was, that instead of the clause
positively enacting, that the clergy should be obliged to take the oaths, the king might be
empowered to tender them, and then the refusal was to be punished according to the clause,
as it stood in the act. It was thought such a power would oblige them to their good
behaviour, and be an effectual restraint upon them ; they would be kept quiet at least by it ;
whereas, if they came under deprivation, or the apprehensions of it, that would make them
desperate, and set them on to undermine the government. It was said, that the clergy, by
the offices of the church, did solemnly own their allegiance to God, in the sight of all their
people ; that no oath could lay deeper engagements on them than those acts of religious
worship did ; and if they should either pass over those offices, or perform them, otherwise
than as the law required, there was a clear method, pursuant to the act of uniformity, to pro
ceed severely against them. It was also said, that in many different changes of government,
oaths had not proved so effectual a security as was imagined ; distinctions were found out,
and senses were put on words, by which they were interpreted so, as to signify but little,
when a government came to need strength from them ; and it ill became those who had
formerly complained of these impositions, to urge this with so much vehemence. On the
other hand, it was urged, that no man ought to be trusted by a government, chiefly in so
sacred a concern, who would not give security to it ; especially, since the oath was brought
to such low and general terms. The expedient that was proposed would put a hardship
upon the king, which was always to be carefully avoided. The day prefixed was at the dis
tance of some months ; so that men had tinie sufficient given them to study the point : and,
if in that time they could not satisfy themselves, as to the lawfulness of acknowledging the
government, it was not fit that they should continue in the highest posts of the church. An
exception of twelve was proposed, who should be subject to the law, upon refusing the oaths
when required to it by the king ; but that was rejected ; and all the mitigation that was
obtained was a power to the king to reserve a third part of the profits of any twelve bene
fices he should name, to the incumbents who should be deprived by virtue of this act ; and
so it passed. I was the chief manager of the debate in favour of the clergy, both in the house
of lords, and at the conferences with the commons ; but, seeing it could not be carried, I
acquiesced the more easily ; because, though in the beginning of these debates I was assured,
that those who seemed resolved not to take the oaths, yet prayed for the king hi their chapels ;
yet I found afterwards this was not true, for they named no king, nor queen, and so it was
easy to guess whom they meant by such an indefinite designation. I also heard many things,
that made me conclude they were endeavouring to raise all the opposition to the government
possible. The bill of toleration passed easily. It excused dissenters from all penalties for their not
coming to church, and for going to their separate meetings. There was an exception of
Socinians ; but a provision was put in it, in favour of quakers ; and, though the rest were
required to take the oaths to the government, they were excused upon making in lieu thereof
a solemn declaration. They were to take out warrants for the houses they met in ; and the
justices of peace were required to grant them. Some proposed that the act should only be
temporary, as a necessary restraint upon the dissenters, that they might demean themselves
so as to merit the continuance of it, when the term of years now offered should end. But
this was rejected; there was now an universal inclination to pass the act; but it could not
be expected that the nation would be in the same good disposition towards them at another
time. I shewed so much zeal for this act, as very much sunk my credit, which had arisen
from the approbation I had gained, for opposing that which enacted the taking the oaths.
As for the act of comprehension, some progress was made in it ; but a proviso was offered,
that, in imitation of the acts passed in king Henry the Eighth's and king Edward the
Sixth's time, a number of persons, both of the clergy and laity, might be empowered to pre
pare such a reformation of things, relating to the church, as might be offered to king and
parliament, in order to the healing our divisions, and the correcting what might be amiss, or
defective, in our constitution. This was pressed with great earnestness by many of the
temporal lords. I at that time did imagine, that the clergy would have come into such a
design with zeal and unanimity; and I feared this would be looked on by them as taking

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. &31
the matter out of their hands ; and for that reason I argued so warmly against this, that it
was carried by a small majority to let it fall. But I was convinced soon after, that I had
taken wrong measures, and that the method proposed by these lords was the only one likely
to prove effectual; but this did not so recommend me to the clergy as to balance the censure
I came under, for moving, in another proviso of that bill, that the subscription, instead of
assent and consent, should only be to submit with a promise of conformity. There was a
proviso likewise, in the bill, for dispensing with kneeling at the sacrament, and being bap
tized with the sign of the cross, to such as, after conference upon those heads, should
solemnly protest they were not satisfied as to the lawfulness of them. That concerning
kneeling, occasioned a vehement debate ; for the posture being the chief exception that the
dissenters had, the giving up this was thought to be the opening a way for them to come
into employments : yet it was carried in the house of lords. And I declared myself zealous
for it : for, since it was acknowledged that the posture was not essential in itself, and that
scruples, how ill grounded soever, were raised upon it, it seemed reasonable to leave the
matter as indifferent in its practice as it was in its nature.
Those who had moved for this bill, and afterwards brought it into the house, acted a very
disingenuous part ; for, while they studied to recommend themselves by this shew of mode
ration, they set on their friends to oppose it ; and such as were very sincerely and cordially
for it, were represented as the enemies of the church, who intended to subvert it. When the
bill was sent down to the house of commons, it was laid on the table ; and, instead of pro
ceeding in it, they made an address to the king, for summoning a convocation of the clergy
to attend, according to custom, on the session of parliament. The party that was now
beginning to be formed against the government, pretended great zeal for the church, and
declared their apprehensions that it was in danger, which was imputed by many to the earl
of Nottingham's management. These, as they went heavily into the toleration, so they were
much offended with the bill of comprehension, as containing matters relating to the church,
in wliich the representative body of the clergy had not been so much as advised with.
Nor was this bill supported by those who seemed most favourable to the dissenters ; they
set it up for a maxim, that it was fit to keep up a strong faction both in church and state ;
and they thought it was not agreeable to that, to suffer so great a body as the presbyterians
to be made more easy, or more inclinable to unite to the church ; they also thought that the
toleration would be best maintained when great numbers should need it, and be concerned
to preserve it ; so this good design being zealously opposed, and but faintly promoted, it fell
to the ground.
The clergy began now to shew an implacable hatred to the nonconformists, and seemed to
wish for an occasion to renew old severities against them ; but wise and good men did very
much applaud the quieting the nation by the toleration. It seemed to be suitable, both to
the spirit of the Christian religion, and to the interest of the nation. It was thought very
unreasonable, that, while we were complaining of the cruelty of the church of Rome, we
should fall into such practices among ourselves ; chiefly, while we were engaging in a war, ,
in the progress of which we would need the united strength of the whole nation.
This bill gave the king great content. He in his own opinion always thought, that con
science was God's province, and that it ought not to be imposed on ; and his experience in
Holland made him look on toleration as one of the wisest measures of government : he was
much troubled to see so much ill humour spreading among the clergy, and by their means
over a great part of the nation. He was so true to his principle herein, that he restrained
the heat of some who were proposing severe acts against papists. He made them apprehend
the advantage which that would give the French, to alienate all the papists of Europe from
us ; who from thence might hope to set on foot a new catholic league, and make the war a
quarrel of religion ; which might have very bad effects. Nor could he pretend to protect
the protestants in many places of Germany, and in Hungary, unless he could cover the
papists in England from all severities on the account of their religion. This was so carefully
infused into many, and so well understood by them, that the papists have enjoyed the
real effects of the toleration, though they were not comprehended within the statute that
enacted it
m m 2

532 THK HISTORY OF THE REIGN
While domestic matters were raising great heats at home, we saw the necessity of making
vigorous preparations for the war abroad, and in Ireland. The king laid before both houses
the alliances, formerly made by the crown of England, with the States, and with the Empire,
together with the new ones that were now proposed, which made a rupture with France
necessary. So, by the advices of both houses, war was declared against France ; and the
necessary supplies, both for the quota that the king was to furnish, and for the reduction of
Ireland, were provided.
The next care was a revenue for the support of the government ; by a long course and the
practice of some ages, the customs had been granted to our kings for lire ; so the kmg
expected that the like regard should be shewn for him ; but men's minds were much divided
iu that matter. Some Whigs, who by a long opposition, and jealousy of the government,
had wrought themselves into such republican principles, that they could not easily come off
from them, set it up as a maxim not to grant any revenue, but from year to year, or at most,
for a short term of years. This, they thought, would render the crown precarious, and oblige
our kings to such a popular method of government, as should merit the constant renewal of
that grant. And they hoped, that so uncertain a tenure might more easily bring about an
entire change of government. For, by the denying the revenue at any time (except upon
intolerable conditions) they thought that might be easily effected, since it would render our
kings so feeble, that they would not be able to maintain their authority. The Tories
observing this, made great use of it, to beget in the king jealousies of his friends, with too
much colour, and too great success. They resolved to reconcile themselves to the king by
granting it, but at present only to look on, till the Whigs, who now carried every thing to
which they set their full strength, should nave refused it.
The king, as he had come through the western countries, from his first landing, had been
in many places moved to discharge the chimney-money, and had promised to recommend it
to the parliament. He had done that so effectually, that an act passed discharging it ;
thouo-h it was so much opposed by the Tories, that it ran a great hazard in the house of
lords. Those who opposed it, pretended, that it was the only sure fund that could never fail
in war, so that money would be freely advanced upon it : they said, a few regulations would
take away any grievance that might arise from it ; but it was thought they were not willing
that such an act should pass as would render the king acceptable to the body of the nation *.
It was also thought that the prospect they then had of a speedy revolution, in favour of
king James, made some of them unwilling to pass an act that seemed to lay an obligation
on him, either to maintain it, or by resuming his revenue, to raise the hatred of the nation
higher against him. When the settling the king's revenue was brought under consideration,
it was found there were anticipations and charges upon it, from which it seemed reasonable
to clear it. So many persons were concerned in this, and the season of the year was so
far advanced, that it was pretended they had not time to examine that matter with due care;
and therefore, bv a provisional act, they granted the king the revenue for one year; and
many intended never to carry the grant but from year to year. This touched the king very
sensibly. And many discourses that passed among four Whigs in their cabals, were com
municated to him by the earl of Nottingham, by which he concluded he was in the hand of
persons that did not intend to use him well.
A bill was prepared concerning the militia, which upon the matter, and in consequence of
many clauses in it, took it in a great measure both from the crown, and out of the lords
lieutenants ; who, being generally peers, a bill that lessened their authority so much, was
* This tax is as old as the time of the Conquest ; for shillings annually upon every hearth in all houses paying
in Domesday-book, fumage, or smoke-wioney, is, men- church and poor-rates. This was popularly known as
tioned as a payment made by every house that had a hearth, or chimney-money . It was repealed, as men-
chimney. This, in the lebn of Edward the Third, had tioned in the text, by statute 1 William and Mary, St. i,
extended into fuage, or for.age, hearth-silver, being a e. 10, being declared in the preamble, " not only a great
shilling for every fire. This was levied upon the inhabit- oppression to the poorer sort, but a badge of slavery upon
ants of Aquitaine by the Black Prince  (Rot. Pari. 25 the whole people, exposing every man's house to be
Edward iii. Froissart. c. 141.) The first parliamentary entered into and searched at pleasure, by persons unknown
levy of this tax was by statute 13 and 1-1 Charles 2, c. 10, to him."
which gave to the king an hereditary revenue of two

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 5.1.1
not likely to pass in the house of lords ; so it was let lie on the table. By this likewise,
which was chiefly promoted by the Whigs, the king came to think, that those who had raised
him to the throne, intended to depress his prerogative as much as they had exalted his per
son. He seemed to grow tender and jealous upon these points, the importance of every one
of them being much aggravated by the earl of Nottingham, who had furnished him with a
scheme of all the points of the prerogative, and of their dependence one upon another ; and
he seemed so possessed with this, that many of those who had formerly most of his confi
dence, found a coldness growing upon him, which increased their disgust, and made them
apprehend they should again see a reign full of prerogative maxims. One thing the house
of commons granted, which was very acceptable to the king ; they gave the States about
600,000?. for the charge they had been at in the fleet and army, which they furnished the
king with at the revolution.
They could not be brought to another point, though often and much pressed to it by the
king. He thought nothing would settle the minds of the nation so much as an act of indem
nity, with proper exceptions of some criminals that should be left to justice. Jeffreys was
in the Tower ; Wright, who had been lord chief justice, and some of the judges, were in New
gate ; Graham and Burton, who had been the wicked solicitors in the former reigns, were in
prison ; but the hottest of the Whigs would not set this on. They thought it best to keep
many under the lash ; they intended severe revenges for the blood that had been shed, and
for the many unjust things that had been done in the end of king Charles's reign ; they saw,
that the clogging the indemnity, with many comprehensive exceptions, would create king
James a great party ; so they did not think it proper to offer at that ; yet they resolved to
keep them still in their power till a better opportunity for falling on thein should offer itself :
therefore they proceeded so slowly in that matter, that the bill could not be brought to a
ripeness during this session. It is true the great mildness of the king's temper, and the gen
tleness of his government, wliich was indeed rather liable to censure, as being too remiss, set
people's minds much at ease ; and, if it gave too much boldness to those who began to set up
an open opposition to him, yet it gained upon the greater part of the nation, who saw none
of those moving spectacles that had been so common in former reigns ; and all promised
themselves happy days under so merciful a prince. But angry men put a wicked construc
tion on the earnestness the king shewed for an act of indemnity : they said, he intended to
make use of a set of prerogative men, as soon as legally he could ; and therefore he desired
the instruments of king James's illegal government might be once secured, that so he might
employ them. The earls of Monmouth and Warrington were infusing jealousies of the king
into their party with the same industry that the earl of Nottingham was, at the same time
instilling into the king jealousies of them ; and both acted with too much success, which put
matters much out of joint ; for though the earls of Shrewsbury and Devonshire did all they
could to stop the progress and effects of those suspicions with which the Whigs were pos
sessed, yet they had not credit enough to do it. The earl of Shrewsbury, though he had
more of the king's favour, yet he had not strength to resist the earl of Nottingham's pompous
and tragical declamations *.
There was a bill of great importance sent up by the commons to the lords, that was not
finished this session ; it was a bill, declaring the rights and liberties of England, and the
succession to the crown, as had been agreed by both houses of parliament, to the king and
queen and their issue ; and after them, to the princess Anne and her issue ; and after these,
to the king and his issue. A clause was inserted, disabling all papists from succeeding to
the crown ; to which the lords added, " or such as should marry papists." To this I pro
posed an additional clause, absolving the subjects, in that case, from their allegiance. This
was seconded by the earl of Shrewsbury ; and it passed without any opposition, or debate ;
which amazed us all, considering the importance of it. But the king ordered me to propose
the naming the duchess of Hanover, and her posterity, next in the succession. He signified
his pleasure in this also to the ministers ; but he ordered me to begin the motion in the
house, because I had already set it on foot. And the duke of Hanover had now other
* Tho representations of the earl of Shrewsbury to divert the king from his leaning to the Tories, arc told in tho
first pages of Coxc's " Shrewsbury Correspondence."

534 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
thoughts of the matter, and was separating himself from the interests of France. The lords
agreed to the proposition without any opposition ; so it was sent down to the commons.
There were great debates there upon it. Hambden pressed it vehemently ; but Wildman,
and all the republican party, opposed it. Their secret reason seemed to be, a design to
extinguish monarchy, and therefore to substitute none beyond the three that were named,
that so the succession might quickly come to an end. But it not being decent to own this,
all that they pretended was, that there being many in the lineal succession, after the three
that were named, who were then of the church of Rome, the leaving to them a possibility
to succeed, upon their turning protestants, might have a good effect on them, and dispose
them to hearken to instruction ; all which would be defeated by a declaration in favour of
the duchess.
To this it was answered, in a free conference, that for that very reason it was fit to make
this declaration ; since nothing could bring us into a more certain danger than a pretended
conversion of a false convert, who might by such a disguise ascend the throne, and so work
our ruin by secret artifices. Both houses adhered, after the free conference : so the bill fell
for that time : but it was resolved to take it up at the opening of the next session. And
the king thought it was not then convenient to renew the motion of the duchess of Hanover,
of which he ordered me to write her a particular account. It was fit once to have the bill
passed that enacted the perpetual exclusion of all papists ; for that, upon the matter, brought
the succession to their door. And if any in the line, before her, should pretend to change,
as it was not very likely to happen, so it would not be easily believed. So it was resolved
to carry this matter no further at this time. The bill passed without any opposition, in the
beginning of the next session, which I mention here, that I might end this matter all at
once *. The present session was drawn to a great length, and was not ended till August ;
and then it broke up with a great deal of ill humour.
One accident happened this summer, of a pretty extraordinary nature, that deserves to be
remembered. A fisherman, between Lambeth and Vauxhall, was drawing a net pretty
close to the channel, and a groat weight was, not without some difficulty, drawn to the
shore, which, when taken up, was found to be the great seal of England. King James had
• ¦ailed for it from the lord Jeffreys, the night before he went away, as intending to make a
secret use of it, for pardons or grants. But it seems, when he went away, he thought either
that the bulk or weight of it made it inconvenient to be carried off, or that it was to be
hereafter of no more use to him ; and therefore, that it might not be made use of against
him, he threw it into the Thames. The fisherman was well rewarded when he brought the
great seal to the king ; and by his order it was broken.
But now I must look over to the affairs of Ireland, and to king James's motions. Upon
his coming to the court of France, he was received with great shews of tenderness and
respect ; the French king assuring him, that, as they had both the same interests, so he
would never give over the war, till he had restored him to his throne. The only prospect
lie now had was to keep up his party in Ireland and Scotland. The message from Tyrcon-
nel, for speedy supplies, was very pressing ; and his party in Scotland sent one Lindsay over
* This "immortal bill," as Burke denominates it, is has a right to petition the king. 5. That a standing army,
in our code of laws, 1 William and Mary, sess. 2. c. 2. without consent of parliament, cannot be raised or main-
It embodies the declaration of rights presented by both tamed. 6. That protestant subjects may have arms for
houses of the convention to the prince and princess of their defence, suitable to their condition. 7. The election
Orange, and accepted by them with the crown. It is of members of parliament ought to be free. ' 8. That free-
extraordinary that the clause enacting that the kings and dom of speech in parliament cannot be questioned out of
queens of England should take the test oath upon their parliament. 9. That neither excessive bail, fines or
accession to the crown, and that if any such king or queen punishment ought to be inflicted. 10. That jurors should
embraced the Roman catholic religion, or married a Roman be duly empannelled. 1 1 . That all grants or promises of
catholic, their subjects should be absolved of their alle- fines and forfeitures before the party is convicted arc' void
giance, passed without any debate. The bill of rights 12. That parliaments ought to be held frequently Con'-
having declared the illegal conduct of James the Second, eluding with a declaration that the lords and commons
and his abdication of the throne, enacts, 1. that the king, " do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the
without the consent of parliament, shall not suspend the premises as their undoubted rights and liberties " The
operation of any law. 2. That creating new courts of declaration of rights is known to have been chiefly drawn
law is illegal. 3. That levying money by the king, un- up by Mr. Somers, afterwards lord chancellor and known
sanctioned by parliament, is illegal. 4. That the subject as " the great lord Somers."

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 535
to him. to offer him their service, and to ask what assistance they might depend upon. The
French ministry was at this time much divided. Louvois had the greatest credit, and was
very successful in all his counsels ; so that he was most considered ; but Seignelay was
believed to have more personal favour, and to be more entirely united to madam Maintenon.
These two were in a high competition for favour, and hated one another. Seignelay had the
marine, as the other had the army, for his province ; so, king James having the most
dependence on the marine, and looking on the secretary for that post as the most powerful
favourite, made his chief application to him ; which set Louvois to cross, and retard, every
tiling that was proposed for his service : so that matters for him went on slowly, and very
defectively. There was another circumstance in king James's affairs that did him much hurt.
Lauzun, whose adventures will be found in the French history, had come over to king James,
and offered him his service, and had attended on the queen when she went over to France.
He had obtained a promise of king James, that he should have the command of such forces as the
king of France would assist him with. Louvois hated Lauzun ; nor did the king of France like
to employ him ; so Louvois sent to king James, desiring him to ask of the king of France,
Souvray, a son of his, whom he was breeding to serve in war, to command the French troops.
But king James had so engaged himself to Lauzun, that he thought he could not in honour
depart from it. And ever after that, we were told, that Louvois studied, by all the ways he
could think of, to disparage him, and all the propositions he made : yet he got about 5,000
Frenchmen to be sent over with him to Ireland, but no great supplies in money. Promises
were sent the Scots of great assistance that should be sent them from Ireland : they were
encouraged to make all possible opposition in the convention ; and, as soon as the season of
the year would admit of it, they were ordered to gather together in the Highlands, and to
keep themselves in safe places there till further orders should be sent them. With these,
and with a small supply in money, of about five or six thousand pounds, for buying ammu
nition and arms, Lindsay was sent back. I had such a character given me of him, that I
entertained good thoughts of him. So, upon his return, he came first to me, and pretended
he had gone over on private affairs, being deeply engaged in debt for the earl of Melfort,
whose secretary he had been. I understood from him, that king James had left Paris to go
for Ireland ; so I sent him to the earl of Shrewsbury's office ; but there was a secret manage
ment with one of the under secretaries there for king James ; so he was not only dismissed,
but got a pass warrant from Dr. Wynne, to go to Scotland. I had given the earl of Shrews
bury such a character of the man, that he did more easily believe him ; but he knew nothing
of the pass warrant. So, my easiness to think well of people, was the chief occasion of the
mischief that followed, on his not being clapped up, and more narrowly examined. Upon
king James's landing in Ireland, he marched his army from Kinsale to Ulster ; and, when it
was all together, it consisted of 30,000 foot, and 8,000 horse. It is true the Irish were now
as insolent as they were undisciplined ; and they began to think they must be masters of all
the king's counsels. A jealousy arose between them and the French ; they were soon on
very bad terms, and scarcely ever agreed in their advices : all king James's party, in the isle
of Britain, pressed his settling the affairs of Ireland the best he could, and his bringing over
the French, and such of the Irish, as he could best govern, and depend on ; and advised him
to land in the north of England, or in the west of Scotland.
But the first thing that was to be done was to reduce Londonderry. In order to this,
two different advices were offered. The one was, to march with a great force, and to take
it immediately ; for the town was not capable of resisting, if vigorously attacked. The
other was, to block it up so, that it should be forced in a little time to surrender ; and to
turn to other more vigorous designs. But, whereas either of these advices might have been
pursued with advantage, a third advice was offered ; but I know not by whom, which was
the only bad one, that could be proposed ; and yet, by a sort of fatality, which hung over
that king, it was followed by him ; and that was, to press the town by a slow siege, wliich,
as was given out, would bring the Irish into the methods of war, and would accustom them
to fatigue and discipline. And this being resolved on, king James sent a small body before
it, which was often changed ; and by these he continued the siege above two months, in
which the poor inhabitants formed themselves into great order, and came to generous resolu-

53G THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
tions of enduring the last extremities. They made some sallies, in which the Irish always
ran away, and left their officers ; so that many of their best officers were killed. Those
within suffered little, but by hunger, wliich destroyed nearly two-thirds of their number.
One convoy, with two regiments, and provisions, was sent to their relief; but they looked on
the service as desperate, being deceived by Lundy, who was the governor of the place, and
had undertaken to betray it to king James ; but he finding them jealous of him, came to
the convoy, and persuaded them that nothing could be done ; so they came back, and Lundy
with them. Yet the poor inhabitants, though thus forsaken, resolved still to hold out ; and
sent over such an account of the state they were in, that a second and greater convoy was
sent, with about 5,000 men, commanded by Kirk, who, after he came in sight, made not that
baste to relieve them that was necessary, considering the misery they were in. They had a
river that came up to their town ; but the Irish had laid a boom and chains across it, and
had planted batteries for defending it : yet a ship sailing up with wind and tide broke
through ; and so the town was relieved, and the siege raised in great confusion *-
Iniskillen had the same fate : the inhabitants entered into resolutions of suffering any
thing, rather than fall into the hands of the Irish ; a considerable force was sent against
them ; but through their courage, ajid the cowardice of the Irish, they held out.
All this while an army was preparing in England, to be sent over for the reduction of
Ireland, commanded by Schomberg, who was made a duke in England, and to whom the
parliament gave 100,000 pounds for the services he had done. The levies were carried on in
England with great zeal ; and the bodies were quickly full. But, though both officers and
soldiers shewed much courage and affection to the service, yet they were raw, without expe
rience, and without skill. Schomberg had a quick and happy passage, with about 10,000
men. He landed at Belfast, and brought the forces that lay in Ulster together. His army,
when strongest, was not above 14,000 men ; and he had not above 2,000 horse. He
marched on to Dundalk, and there posted himself. King James came to Ardee, within five
or six miles of him, being above thrice his number. Schomberg had not the supplies from
England that had been promised him : much treachery, or ravenousness, appeared in many
who were employed ; and he, finding his numbers so unequal to the Irish, resolved to lie on
the defensive. He lay there six weeks in a very rainy season : his men, for want of due
care and good management, contracted such diseases, that he lost almost the one-half of his
army. Some blamed him for not putting things more to hazard : it was said, that he
measured the Irish by their numbers, and not by their want of sense and courage. Such
complaints were sent of this to the king, that he wrote twice to him, pressing him to put
somewhat to the venture ; but he saw the enemy was well posted, and well provided ; and
he knew they had several good officers among them. If he had pushed matters, and had
met with a misfortune, his whole army, and consequently all Ireland, would have been lost ;
for he could not have made a regular retreat. The sure game was to preserve his army ;
and that would save Ulster, and keep matters entire for another year. This was censured
by some ; but better judges thought the managing this campaign as he did, was one of the
greatest parts of his life. The Irish made some poor attempts to beat up his quarters ; but
even where they surprised his men, and were much superior in number, they were so shame
fully beat back, that this increased the contempt the English naturally had for them. In
the end of October, all went into winter quarters.
x I know not for what reason Burnet omitted to appointed governor. The siege commenced on tho 20ih
notice the chief instrument in persuading the inhabitants of April ; the town was miserably fortified, and the
of Londonderry to such a gallant defence, Dr. George besieging army large ; yet it was defended for one hundred
Walker. This divine was a native of the county of and five days, and eventually relieved. For his bravery,
Tyrone. As soon as he was ordained he obtained the Walker received the thanks of the house of commons ;
rectory of Donoughmore, where he raised a regiment when and the university of Oxford made him a doctor in divi-
James the Second landed. He threw himself and his nity. He was afterwards nominated to the bishopric of
men into Londonderry as soon as he understood that the Derry, but accompanying William the Third, was killed
ex-king had determined to besiege it. Colonel Lundy, at the battle of the Boyne in July 1690. His " True
the governor, either a traitor, or a coward, or both, shut Account of the Siege of Londonderry," is a' highly inte-
himself up in his chamber, and would not interfere in the resting work. — Ware's Works, by Harris ; Grey'sParlia-
defence, and was consequently turned out of the town by uientary Debates.
Mr. Walker; who, in conjunction with M:ijor Baker, was

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 5,37
Our operations on the sea were not very prosperous. Herbert was sent with a fleet to cut
off the communication between France and Ireland. The French had sent over a fleet with
a great transport of stores and ammunition. They had landed their loading, and were
returning back. As they came out of Bantry Bay, Herbert engaged them. The wind was
against him, so that it was not possible for the greatest part of the fleet to come up and
enter into action ; and so those who engaged were forced to retire with some disadvan
tage. But the French did not pursue him. He came back to Portsmouth, in order to refit
some of his ships ; and went out again, and lay before Brest till the end of summer. But
the French fleet did not come out any more all that summer ; so that ours lay some months
at sea to no purpose. But, if we lost few of our seamen in the engagement, we lost a great
many by reason of the bad victualling. Some excused this because it was so late in the
year before funds were made for it ; while others imputed it to base practices, and worse
designs. So affairs had every where a very melancholy face.
I now turn to give an account of the proceedings in Scotland. A convention of the states
was summoned there in the same manner as in England. Duke Hamilton was chosen pre
sident. And a letter being offered to them from king James, by Lindsay, they would not
receive nor read it ; but went on to state the several violations of their constitution and
laws made by king James. Upon these it was moved that a judgment should be given,
declaring that he had forfeited his right to the crown. Upon this, three parties were
formed : one was composed of all the bishops and some of the nobility, who opposed these
proceedings against the king, as contrary to their laws and oaths ; others thought that their
oaths were only to the king, as having the executive power to support him in that ; but
that, if he set himself to invade and assume the legislature, he renounced his former autho
rity by subverting that upon which it was founded. So they were for proceeding to a
declaratory judgment : a third party was formed of those who agreed with the former in
their conclusion, but not in coming to so speedy a determination. They thought it was the
interest of Scotland to be brought under the laws of England, and to be united to the par
liament of England ; and that this was the properest time for doing that to the best advan
tage, since England would be obliged by the present state of affairs to receive them upon
good terms. They were therefore willing to proceed against king James ; but they thought
it not reasonable to make too much haste in a new settlement ; and were for maintaining
the government in an interregnum till the union should be perfected, or at least put in a
probable way. This was specious, and many went into it ; but, since it tended to the
putting a stop to a full settlement, all that favoured king James joined in it ; for by this
more time was gained. To this project it was objected that the union of the two kingdoms
must be a work of time ; since many difficulties would arise in any treaty about it ; whereas
the present circumstances were critical, and required a speedy decision, and quick provision
to be made for their security ; since, if they continued in such a neutral state, they would
have many enemies and no friends : and the zeal that was now working among them for
presdytery must raise a greater aversion than ordinary in the body that was for the church
of England to any such treaty with them.
While much heat was occasioned by this debate, great numbers came armed from the
western counties, on pretence to defend the convention ; for the duke of Gordon was still in
the castle of Edinburgh, and could have done them much harm, though he lay there in a
very inoffensive state. He thought the best thing he could do was to preserve that place
long for king James ; since to provoke the convention would have drawn a siege and ruin
upon him with too much precipitation, while there was not a force in the field ready to come
and assist him. So it was said there was no need of such armed companies, and that they
were come to over-awe and force the convention.
The earl of Dundee had been at London, and had fixed a correspondence both with Eng-
gland and France ; though he had employed me to carry messages from him to the king, to
know what security he might expect, if he should go and live in Scotland without owning
his government. The king said, if he would live peaceably, and at home, he would protect
him. To this he answered, that, unless he were forced to it, he would live quietly. But he
went down with other resolutions ; and all the party resolved to submit to his command.

538 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Upon his coming to Edinburgh, he pretended he was in danger from those anned multitudes,
and so he left the convention ; and went up and down the Highlands, and sent his agents
about to bring together what force they could gather. This set on the conclusion of the
debates of the convention.
They passed the judgment of forfeiture on king James. And on the 11th of April, the
day in which the king and queen were crowned with the ordinary solemnities at West-
' minster, they declared William and Mary king and queen of Scotland. But with this, as
they ordered the coronation oath to be tendered to them, so they drew up a claim of rights,
which they pretended were the fundamental, and unalterable, laws of the kingdom. By
one of these it was declared, that the reformation in Scotland having been begun by a parity
among the clergy, all prelacy in that church was a great and insupportable grievance to that
kingdom. It was an absurd thing to put this in a claim of rights ; for which not only they
had no law, but which was contrary to many laws then in being ; so that, though they
might have offered it as a grievance, there was no colour for pretending it was a national
right. But they had a notion among them that every article, that should be put in the
claim of rights, became an unalterable law, and a condition upon which the crown was to
be held ; whereas grievances were such things as were submitted to the king and parliament
to be redressed, or not, as they should see cause ; but the bishops, and those who adhered
to them, having left the convention, the presbyterians had a majority of voices to carry
everything as they pleased, how unreasonable soever. And upon this, the abolishing epis
copacy in Scotland was made a necessary article of the new settlement.
Soon after the king came to St. James's, the episcopal party there had sent up the dean
of Glasgow, whom they ordered to come to me ; and I introduced him to the then prince.
He was sent to know what his intentions were with relation to them. He answered, he
would do all he could to preserve them, granting a full toleration to the presbyterians ; but
this was in case they concurred in the new settlement of that kingdom ; for if they opposed
that, and if, by a great majority in parliament, resolutions should be taken against them,
the king could not make a war for them ; but yet he would do all that was in his power to
maintain such of them as should live peaceably in their functions. This he ordered me like
wise to write back, in answer to what some bishops and others had written to me upon that
subject. But the earl of Dundee, when he went down, possessed them with such an opinion
of another speedy revolution, that would be brought about in favour of king James, that
they resolved to adhere firmly to his interests. So they declaring in a body with so much
zeal, in opposition to the new settlement, it was not possible for the king to preserve that
government there ; all those who expressed their zeal for him, being equally zealous against
that order.
Among those who appeared in this convention none distinguished himself more than sir
James Montgomery, a gentleman of good parts, but of a most unbridled heat, and of a rest
less ambition : he bore the greatest share in the whole debate, and promised himself a great
post in the new government. Duke Hamilton presided with great discretion and courage ;
so that the bringing the settlement so soon to a calm conclusion was chiefly owing to him.
A petition of grievances, relating to the lords of the articles, the judges, the coin, and several
other matters, was also settled ; and three commissioners were sent, one from every state,
to the king and queen, with the tender of the crown, with which they were also to tender
them the coronation oath and the claim of rights. And when the oath was taken, they were
next to offer the petition for the redress of grievances. The three commissioners were, the
earl of Argyle for the lords, sir James Montgomery for the knights, or, as they call them,
for the barons, and sir John Dalrymple for the boroughs. When the king and queen took
the oaths, the king explained one word in the oath, by which he was bound " to repress
heresies," that he did not by this bind himself to persecute any for their conscience. And
now he was king of Scotland, as well as of England and Ireland.
The first thing to be done was to form a ministry in Scotland, and a council, and to send
instructions for turning the convention into a parliament, in which the duke of Hamilton
was to represent the king as his commissioner. Before the king had left the Hague, Fagel
had so effectually recommended Dalrymple, the father, to him, that he was resolved to rely

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 539
chiefly on him for advice. And though he had heard great complaints of him, as indeed
there was some ground for them, yet, since his son was sent one of the three upon so
great a deputation, he concluded from thence that the family was not so much hated as he
had been informed : so he continued still to be advised by him. The episcopal party were
afraid of Montgomery's being made secretary, from whom they expected nothing but extreme
severities ; so they set themselves to divert that, and the lord Melvill, who had married the
duchess of Monmouth's sister, and had continued from 1660 firm to presbytery, and had been
of late forced to leave the kingdom, was looked on as an easy man, who would have credit
enough to restrain the fury of that party. So he was made sole secretary of state, which
proved a very unhappy step ; for, as he was by his principles bigoted to presbytery, and
ready to sacrifice every thing to their humours, so he proved to be in all respects a narrow-
hearted man, who minded his own interest more than either that of the king or of his
country. This choice gave a great distaste, and that was followed by a ministry, in the
framing of which he had the chief hand, who were weak and passionate men. All offices
were split into commissions, that many might have some share ; but it rendered them all
contemptible. And though Montgomery had a considerable post offered him, yet his missing
that he aimed at stuck deep, and began to work in him an aversion to the king, which broke
out afterwards into much fury and plotting against him. Nor did duke Hamilton think that
he was considered in the new model of the ministry, as he deserved, and might justly have
expected. The parliament there was opened with much ill humour ; and they resolved to carry the
redress of grievances very far. Lord Melvill hoped to have gained the presbyterian party,
by sending instructions to duke Hamilton to open the session with an act in favour of pres
bytery; but the majority resolved to begin with their temporal concerns. So the first
grievance, to which a redress was desired, was the power of the lords of the articles : that
relating so immediately to the parliament itself. The king consented to a proper regulation,
as that the number should be enlarged and changed as often as the parliament should desire
it, and that the parliament might bring matters before them, though they were rejected by
the lords of the articles. This answered all the just complaints that had been made of that
part of the constitution ; but the king thought it was the interest of the crown to preserve it
thus regulated ; yet it was pretended that, if the name and shadow of that were still kept
up, the parliament would in some time be insensibly brought under all those restraints that
were now to be provided against. So they moved to take it quite away. Duke Hamilton
wrote long letters both to the king and to the lord Melvill, giving a full account of the pro
gress of an ill humour that was got among them, and of the ill consequence it was likely to
have ; but he had no answer from the king ; and lord Melvill wrote him back dark and
doubtful orders : so he took little care how matters went, and was not ill pleased to see them
go wrong. The revenue was settled on the king for life ; and they raised the money which
was necessary for maintaining a small force in that kingdom, though the greatest part of an
army of six thousand men was paid by England. But even the presbyterians began to carry
their demands high ; they proposed to have the king's supremacy and the right of patronage
taken away ; and they asked so high an authority to their government, that duke Hamilton,
though of himself indifferent as to those matters, yet would not agree to them. He thought
these broke in too much on their temporal concerns, and would establish a tyranny in pres
bytery that could not be easily borne. He wrote to me very fully on that head, and I took
the liberty to speak sometimes to the king on those subjects ; my design being chiefly to
shelter the episcopal clergy, and to keep the change that was now to be made on such a
foot, that a door might still be kept open ; but lord Melvill had possessed the king with a
notion, that it was necessary for his service that the presbyterians should know that I did
not at all meddle in those matters, otherwise they would take up a jealousy of every thing
that was done ; and that this might make them carry their demands much further : so I was
shut out from all meddling in those matters ; and yet I was then and still continued to be
much loaded with this prejudice, that I did not study to hinder those changes that were then
made in Scotland. And all the king's enemies in England continued still to charge him for
the alterations then made in Scotland ; though it was not possible, had he been ever so

540 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
zealous for episcopacy, to have preserved it at that time ; and I could do no more than I did,
both for the order itself, and for all those who adhered to it there. A new debate was set on
foot in that parliament concerning the judges. By the law there, when the king names a
judge, he ought to be examined by other judges, whether he is qualified as the law directs ;
but, in the year 1661, because the bench was to be filled with a new set of judges, so that
there was none to examine the rest, the nomination the king then made was read in parlia
ment, and, no objection being made to any of them, they did upon that sit and act as judges.
It was expected that the same method should be followed at this time. But, instead of
that, the king continued such a number of the former judges as was sufficient to examine
those who were now to be advanced ; so that was ordered to be done. Upon this, those
who opposed every thing pretended that the nomination ought to be made in parliament ;
and they had prepared objections against every one that was upon the list; intending by
this to put a public affront on one of the first and most important actions of the king's
government. Duke Hamilton had a positive instruction sent him not to suffer this matter
to be brought into parliament ; yet he saw the party was so set and so strong that they had
a clear majority; nor did he himself very much approve of the nomination, chiefly that of
old Dalrymple, soon after made lord Stair, to be president. So he discontinued the par
liament. But while those animosities were thus fomented, the earl of Dundee had got together a
considerable body of gentlemen, with some thousands of Highlanders. He sent several mes
sengers over to Ireland, pressing king James to come either to the north of England, or to
Scotland. But at the same time he desired that he would not bring the lord Melfort over
with him, or employ him more in Scotch business ; and that he would be contented with
the exercise of his own religion. It may be easily supposed that all this went against the
grain with king James ; and that the lord Melfort disparaged all the earl of Dundee's under
takings. In this he was much supported by the French near that king, who had it given
them in charge (as a main instruction) to keep him up to a high owning of his religion, and
of all those who were of it ; and not to suffer him to enter into any treaty, or conditions,
with his protestant subjects, by which the papists should in any sort suffer, or be so much
as discouraged. The Irish were willing enough to cross the seas to England, but would not
consent to the going over to Scotland. So the earl of Dundee was furnished with some small
store of arms and ammunition, and had kind promises, encouraging him and all that joined
with him.
Mackay, a general officer that had served long in Holland with great reputation, and who
was the most pious man that I ever knew in a military way, was sent down to command
the army in Scotland. He was one of the best officers of the age, when he had nothing to.
do but to obey and execute orders ; for he was both diligent, obliging, and brave ; but he
was not so fitted for command. His piety made him too apt to mistrust his own sense, and
to be too tender, or rather fearful, in anything where there might be a needless effusion of
blood. He followed the earl of Dundee's motion, who was less encumbered with cannon and
other baggage, and so marched quicker than it was possible for him to follow : his men were
for the most part new levied, and without experience ; but he had some old bodies on whom
he depended. The heads of the clans among the Highlanders promised to join him ; but most
of them went to viscount Dundee. At last, after many marches and motions, they came
to an engagement at Killicranky, some few miles above Dunkeld. The ground was narrow,
and lord Dundee had the advantage. He broke through Mackay's army, and they ran for
it ; and probably, if the earl of Dundee had outlived that day, the victory might have been
pursued far ; but a random shot put an end to his life, and to the whole design ; for Mackay
rallied his men and made such a stand, that the other side fell into great disorder, and could
never be formed again into a considerable body. A fort was soon after built at Innerlochy,
which was called Fort William, and served to cut off the communication between the
northern and southern Highlanders*.
* Lord Clarendon says that he had it from sir George Dundee was alive, all Scotland would have joined him.
Mackenzie, that, if James the Second had placed himself But the earl of Melfort's advice and influence ruined his
at the head of the Scotch Highlanders, while the earl of cause — (Clarendon Correspondence.) John Graham,

Etifp-aTOtLtro- H Eohnw

JOHN GRALIAM, VISCOUNT OF DUNDKE

FltOH TTTF. OIUGLNAL OV LKI.V, I N" TJLE COLLECTION OF

THE 1-S1GIIT HO-Nul-K TILE EAIU, OF STRAJ'll.MOUl-

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 541
During all these public disorders that happened in so many different places, the trade
suffered considerably ; for the French, not setting out a fleet any more, sent out so many
cruisers and privateers into our seas, that England thereby suffered great losses ; there not
being at that time a sufficient number of frigates to convoy and secure the merchantmen.
We seemed to be masters at sea, and yet were great losers there.
Affairs went much better on the Rhine. The imperial army, commanded by the Duke of
Lorrain, took Mentz, which the French had entered after they took Philipsburg ; the siege
was slow and long, but prosperous in its conclusion ; and by this means Franconia, which
before lay exposed, was now covered. The elector of Brandenburg came down with an army,
and cleared the archbishopric of Cologne, which was before possessed by French garrisons.
Keizerwart and Bonn held him some time ; but the rest were soon taken. So now the
Rhine was open all up to Mentz. Nothing passed in Flanders, where prince Waldeck com
manded : and the campaign ended without any misfortunes on that side.
I now return to the affairs of England during the recess. The clergy generally took the
oaths, though with too many reservations and distinctions, which laid them open to severe
censures, as if they had taken them against their conscience. The king was suspected by
them by reason of the favour shewn to dissenters, but chiefly for his abolishing episcopacy
in Scotland, and his consenting to the setting up presbytery there. This gave some credit
to the reports that were with great industry infused into many of them of the king's coldness
at best, if not his aversion, to the church of England. The leading men in both universities,
chiefly Oxford, were possessed with this ; and it began to have very ill effects over all Eng
land. Those who did not carry this so far as to think, as some said they did, that the church
was to be pulled down, yet said a latitudinarian party was likely to prevail and to engross
all preferments. These were thought less bigoted to outward ceremonies ; so now it was
generally spread about that men zealous for the church would be neglected, and that those
who were more indifferent in such matters would be preferred. Many of the latter had
managed the controversies with the church of Rome with so much clearness and with that
success, that the papists, to revenge themselves, and to blast those whom they considered as
their most formidable enemies, had cast aspersions on them as Socinians, and as men that
denied all mysteries. And now some angry men at Oxford, who apprehended that those
divines were likely to be most considered in this reign, took up the same method of calumny,
and began to treat them as Socinians. The earl of Clarendon and some of the bishops, who
had already incurred the suspension for not taking the oaths to the government, took much
ill-natured pains to spread these slanders. Six bishoprics happened to fall within this year :
Salisbury, Chester, Bangor, Worcester, Chichester, and Bristol ; so that the king named
six bishops within six months. And the persons promoted to these sees were generally men
of those principles. The proceedings in Scotland cast a great load on the king ; he could
not hinder the change of the government of that church without putting all his affairs in
great disorder. The episcopal party went almost universally into king James's interests;
so that the presbyterians were the only party that the king had in that kingdom. The
king did indeed assure us, and myself in particular, that he would restrain and moderate the
violence of the presbyterians. Lord Melvill did also promise the same thing very solemnly ;
and at first he seemed much set upon it. But when he saw so great a party formed against
himself; and, since many of the presbyterians inclined to favour them, and to set themselves
in an opposition to the court, he thought it was the king's interest, or at least his own, to
engage that party entirely ; and he found nothing could do that so effectually as to abandon
the ministers of the episcopal persuasion to their fury. He set up the earl of Crawford as
the head of his party, who was passionate in his temper, and was out of measure zealous in
his principles : he was chosen to be the president of the parliament. He received and
encouraged all the complaints that were made of the episcopal ministers ; the convention,
when they had passed the votes declaring the king and queen, ordered a proclamation to be
viscount Dundee, was a frank, talented, noble-minded, well " — and immediately after expired. He died July
man. After he had received his death wound at Killi- 27 th , 1689  Dalrymple's Memoirs; Memoirs of Vis-
cranky, he asked how the victory was inclining? and, count Dundee, the Highland Clans, and the Glcncoo
being told "All is well" — "Then," he replied, "lam Massacre.

542 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
read the next Sunday in all the churches of Edinburgh, and in all the other churches in
the kingdom by a certain prefixed day ; bnt which was so near at hand that it was scarcely
possible to lay proclamations all ronnd the nation -within the time ; and it was absolutely
impossible for the clergy to meet together, and come to any resolution among themselves.
For the most part the proclamations were not brought to the ministers till the morning of
the Sunday in which they were ordered to be read ; so this having the face of a great change
of principles, many could not on the sudden resolve to submit to it ; some had not the pro
clamations brought to them till the day was past; many of these read it the Sunday
following. Some of those who did not think fit to read the proclamation, yet obeyed it ;
and continued, after that, to pray for the VHig and queen. Complaints were brought to the
council of all those who had not read, nor obeyed, the proclamation ; and they were in a
summary way deprived of their benefices. In the executing this, lord Crawford shewed
much eagerness and violence. Those who did not read the proclamation on the day
appointed had no favour, though they did it afterwards. And upon any word that fell from
them, either in their extemporary prayers or sermons, that shewed disaffection to the govern
ment, they were also deprived. All these things were published up and down England, and
much aggravated ; and raised the aversion that the church had to the presbyterians so high,
that they began to repent their having granted a toleration to a party that, where they pre
vailed, showed so much fury against those of the episcopal persuasion. So that snch of us
as had laboured to excuse the change thai the king was forced to consent to, and had pro
mised in his name great moderation towards our friends in that kingdom, were much out of
countenance, when we saw the violence with which matters were carried there. These
things concurred to give the clergy such ill impressions of the king that we had little reason
to look for success in a design that was then preparing for the convocation, for whom a
summons was issued out to meet during the next session of parliament.
It was told in the history of the former reign that the clergy did then express an inclina
tion to come to a temper with relation to the presbyterians, and such other dissenters as
could be brought into a comprehension with the church ; the bishops had mentioned it in
their petition to king James, for which they were tried ; and his present majesty had pro
mised to endeavour an union between the church and the dissenters, in that declaration that
he brought over with him ; but it seemed necessary to prepare and digest that matter care
fully, before it should be offered to the convocation. Things of such a nature ought to be
judged of by a large number of men, bnt must be prepared by a smaller number well
chosen ; yet it was thought a due respect to the church to leave the matter wholly in the
hands of the clergy. So, by a special commission under the great seal, ten bishops and
twenty divines were empowered to meet, and prepare such alterations in the Book of
Common Prayer and Canons as might be fit to lay before the convocation. This was
become necessary, since by the submission which the clergy iu convocation made to king
Henry the Eighth, which was confirmed in parliament, they bound themselves not to attempt
any new canons without obtaining the king's leave first, and that under the pains of a pre-
munire. It was looked on, therefore, as the properest way, to obtain the king's leave to
have a scheme of the whole matter put in order by a number of bishops and divines ; great
care was taken to name these so impartially, that no exceptions could lie against any of
them; they upon this sat closely to it for several weeks ; they had before them all the
exceptions that either the puritans before the war, or the nonconformists since the restora
tion, had made to any part of the church service ; they had also many propositions and
advices that had been offiaed, at several times, by many of our bishops and divines upon
those heads ; matters were wefl considered and freely and calmly debated; and all was
digested into an entire correction of every thing that seemed liable to anv just objection.
We had some very rigid, as well as some very learned, men among us; "though the most
rigid either never came to our meetings, or they soon withdrew from us, declaring themselves
dissatisfied with every thing of that nature : some teDing us plainly that they were against
all alterations whatsoever. They thought too much was already done for the dissenters in
the toleration that was granted them; but that they would do nothing to make that still
easier They said further that the altering the customs and constitution of our church,

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 543
to gratify a peevish and obstinate party, was likely to have no other effect on them but to
make them more insolent : as if the church, by offering these alterations, seemed to confess
that she had been hitherto in the wrong. They thought this attempt would divide us
among ourselves, and make our people lose their esteem for the liturgy, if it appeared that
it wanted correction. They also excepted to the manner of preparing matters by a special
commission, as limiting the convocation, and imposing upon it ; and to load this with a word of
an ill sound, they called this a new ecclesiastical commission. But, in answer to all this, it
was said, that if by a few corrections or explanations we offered all just satisfaction to the chief
objections of the dissenters, we had reason to hope that this would bring over many of them,
at least of the people, if not of the teachers among them ; or, if the prejudices of education
wrought too strongly upon the present age, yet, if some more sensible objections were put
out of the way, we might well hope that it would have a great effect on the next generation.
If these condescensions were made so as to own, in the way of offering them, that the non
conformists had been in the right, that might turn to the reproach of the church ; but, such
offers being made only in regard to their weakness, the reproach fell on them : as the honour
accrued to the church, who showed herself a true mother by her care to preserve her
children. It was not offered that the ordinary posture of receiving the sacrament kneeling
should be changed : that was still to be the received and favoured posture ; only such as
declared they could not overcome their scruples in that matter were to be admitted to it in
another posture. Ritual matters were of their own nature indifferent, and had been always
declared to be so ; all the necessity of them arose only from the authority in church and
state that had enacted them. Therefore it was an unreasonable stiffness to deny any abate
ment, or yielding in such matters, in order to the healing the wounds of our church. Great
alterations had been made in such things in all the ages of the church. Even the church of
Rome was still making some alterations in her rituals. And changes had been made among
ourselves, often since the reformation, in king Edward's, queen Elizabeth's, king James's,
and king Charles the Second's reigns. These were always made upon some great turn :
critical times being the most proper for designs of that kind. The toleration now granted
seemed to render it more necessary than formerly to make the terms of communion with the
church as large as might be, that so we might draw over to us the greater number from
those who might now leave us more safely ; and therefore we were to use the more care in
order to gaining of them. And, as for the manner of preparing these overtures, the king's
supremacy signified little if he could not appoint a select number to consider of such
matters as he might think fit to lay before the convocation. This did no way break in
upon their full freedom of debate ; it being free to them to reject, as well as to accept of,
the propositions that should be offered to them. But while men were arguing this matter
on both sides, the party that was now at work for king James took hold of this occasion to
inflame men's minds. It was said the church was to be pulled down, and presbytery was
to be set up : that all this now in debate was only intended to divide and distract the
church, and to render it by that means both weaker and more ridiculous, while it went off
from its former grounds in offering such concessions. The universities took fire upon this,
and began to declare against it, and against all that promoted it, as men that intended to
undermine the church. Severe reflections were cast on the king, as being in an interest
contrary to the church ; for the church was as the word, given out by the Jacobite party,
under which they thought they might more safely shelter themselves. Great canvassings
were every where in the elections of convocation men ; a thing not known in former times ;
so that it was soon very visible that we were not in a temper cool or calm enough to
encourage the further prosecuting such a design.
When the convocation was opened, the king sent them a message by the earl of Notting
ham, assuring them of his constant favour and protection, and desiring them to consider
such things, as by his order should be laid before them, with due care and an impartial zeal
for the peace and good of the church. But the lower house of convocation expressed a reso
lution not to enter into any debates with relation to alterations ; so that they would take
no notice of the second part of the king's message ; and it was not without difficulty carried
to make a decent address to the king, thanking him for his promise of protection. But

544 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
because in the draught which the bishops sent them they acknowledged the protection that
the protestant religion in general, and the church of England in particular, had received from
him, the lower house thought that this imported their owning some common union with the
foreign protestants ; so they would not agree to it. There was at this time but a small
number of bishops in the upper house of convocation, and they had not their metropolitan
with them ; so they had not strength nor authority to set things forward. Therefore they
advised the king to suffer the session to be discontinued. And thus, seeing they were in
no disposition to enter upon business, they were kept from doing mischief by prorogations
for a course of ten years. This was in reality a favour to them ; for, ever since the year
1662, the convocation had indeed continued to sit, but to do no business ; so that they were
kept at no small charge in town to do nothing, but only to meet and read a Latin litanv.
It was therefore an ease to be freed from such an attendance to no purpose. The ill recep
tion that the clergy gave the kino's message raised a great and just outcry against them ;
since all the promises made in king James's time were now so entirely forgotten.
But there was a very happy direction of the providence of God observed in this matter.
The Jacobite clergy, who were then under suspension, were designing to make a schism in
the church, whensoever they should be turned out and their places should be filled np by
others. Thev saw it would not be easy to make a separation upon a private and personal
account, they therefore wished to be furnished with more specious pretences ; and, if we
had made alterations in the Rubric and other parts of the Common Prayer, they would have
pretended that they still stuck to the ancient church of England, in opposition to those who
were altering it and setting up new models ; and, as I do firmly believe that there is a wise
providence that watches upon human affairs and directs them, chiefly those that relate to
religion ; so I have with great pleasure observed this in many instances relating to the revo
lution. And upon this occasion I could not but see that the Jacobites among us, who wished
and hoped that we should have made those alterations wliich thev reckoned would have been
of great advantage for serving their ends, were the instruments of raising such a clamour
against them, as prevented their being made. For by all the judgments we could afterwards
make, if we had carried a majority in the convocation for alterations, they would have done
us more hurt than good.
I now turn to a more important, as well as a more troublesome, scene. In winter a
session of parliament met full of jealousy and ill humour. The ill conduct of affairs was
imputed chiefly to the lord Halifax ; so the first attack was made on him. The duke of
Bolton made a motion in the house of lords for a committee to examine who had the chief
hand in the severities and executions in the end of king Charles's reign, and in the quo
warrantos, and the delivering up the charters ; the enquiry lasted some weeks, and gave
occasion to much heat ; but nothing appeared that could be proved, upon which votes or
addresses could have been grounded ; yet the lord Halifax having during that time concurred
with the ministry in council, he saw it was necessary for him to withdraw now from the
ministers, and quit the court. And soon after he reconciled himself to the Tories and became
wholly theirs ; he opposed every thing that looked favourably towards the government, and
did upon all occasions serve the Jacobites, and protect the whole party. But the Whigs
began to lose much of the king's good opinion by the heat that they showed in both houses
against their enemies, and by the coldness that appeared in every thing that related to the
public, as well as to the king in his own particular. He expressed an earnest desire to have
the revenue of the crown settled on him for life. He said he was not a king till that was
done, without that the title of a king was only a pageant. And he spoke of this with more
than ordinary vehemence ; so that sometimes he said he would not stay and hold an empty
name, unless that was done ; he said once to myself he understood the good of a common
wealth, as well as of a kingly government : and it was not easy to determine which was
best ; but he was sure the worst of all governments was that of a king without treasure
and without power. But a jealousy was now infused into many, that he would grow arbi
trary in his government, if he once had the revenue ; and would strain for a high stretch
of prerogative as soon as he was out of difficulties and necessities. Those of the Whigs who
had lived some years at Amsterdam, had got together a great many stories, that went about

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. £45
the City, of his sullenness and imperious way of dictating ; the Scotch, who were now come
up to give an account of the proceedings in parliament, set about many things that
heightened their apprehensions. One Simpson, a Scotch presbyterian, was recommended
to the earl of Portland as a man whom he might trust, who would bring him good intelli
gence ; so he was often admitted, and was entertained as a good spy ; but he was in a secret
confidence with one Nevill Payne, the most active and dexterous of all king James's agents,
who had indeed lost the reputation of an honest man entirely, and yet had such arts of
management that even those who knew what he was were willing to employ him. Simpson
and he were in a close league together, and he discovered so much of their most secret
intelligence to Simpson, that he might carry it to the earl of Portland, as made him pass
for the best spy the court had. When he had gained great credit, he made use of it to
infuse into the earl of Portland jealousies of the king's best friends ; and as the earl of Port
land hearkened too attentively to these, so by other hands it was conveyed to some of
them, that the court was now become jealous of them, and was seeking evidence against
them. Sir James Montgomery was easily possessed with these reports, and he and some others,
by Payne's management, fell a treating with king James's party in England ; they demanded
an assurance for the settlement of presbytery in Scotland, and to have the chief posts of the
government shared among them. Princes in exile are apt to grant every thing that is asked
of them : for they know that if they are restored they will have everything in their power ;
upon this they entered into a close treaty for the way of bringing all this about. At first
they only asked money for furnishing themselves with arms and ammunition ; but after
wards they insisted on demanding three thousand men to be sent over from Dunkirk ;
because, by duke Sehomberg's being posted in Ulster, their communication with Ireland
was cut off. In order to the carrying on this design, they reconciled themselves to the duke
of Queensbury, and the other lords of the episcopal party ; and on both sides it was given
out that this union of those who were formerly such violent enemies, was only to secure and
strengthen their interest in parliament, the episcopal party pretending, that since the king
was not able to protect them, they, who saw themselves marked out for destruction, were to
be excused for joining with those who could secure them. Simpson brought an account of
all this to the earl of Portland, and was pressed by him to find out witnesses to prove it
against Montgomery : he carried this to them, and told them that the whole business was
discovered, and that great rewards were offered to such as would merit them by swearing
against them. With this they alarmed many of their party, who did not know what was
at bottom, and thought that nothing was designed but an opposition to lord Melvill and
lord Stair ; and they were possessed with a fear that a new bloody scene of sham plots and
suborned witnesses was to be opened. And when it began to be whispered about that they
were in treaty with king James, that appeared to be so little credible, that it began to be
said by some discontented men, what could be expected from a government that was so soon
contriving the ruin of its best friends ? Some feared that the king himself might too easily
receive such reports ; and that the common practices of ministers, who study to make their
masters believe that all their own enemies are likewise his, were likely to prevail in this
reign as much as they had formerly done. Montgomery came to have great credit with
some of the whigs in England, particularly with the earl of Monmouth and the duke of
Bolton ; and he employed it all to persuade them not to trust the king, and to animate them
against the earl of Portland ; this wrought so much, that many were disposed to think they
could have good terms from king James ; and that he was now so convinced of former errors,
that they might safely trust him. The earl of Monmouth let this out to myself twice, but
in a strain that looked like one who was afraid of it, and who endeavoured to prevent it ;
but he set forth the reasons for it with great advantage, and those against it very faintly.
Matters were trusted to Montgomery and Payne ; and Ferguson was taken into it, as a
man that naturally loved to embroil things. So a design was managed, first to alienate the
city of London so entirely from the king, that no loans might be advanced on the money
bills ; which, without credit upon them, could not answer the end for which they were
given. It was set about that king James would give a full indemnity for all that was
N N

546 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
past ; and that, for the future, he would separate himself entirely from the French interest,
and be contented with a secret connivance at those of his own religion. It was said he was
weary of the insolence of the French court, and saw his error in trusting to it so much as he
had done. This corrupted party had gone so far, that they seemed to fancy that the
restoring him would be not only safe but happy to the nation. I confess it was long before
I could let myself think that the matter was gone so far ; but I was at last convinced of it.
I received a letter from an unknown hand, with a direction how to answer it : the sub
stance of it was, that he could discover a plot deeply laid against the king, if he might be
assured not to be made a witness, and to have his friends, who were in it, pardoned. By
the king's order, I promised the first ; but an indefinite promise of pardon was too much to
ask ; he might, as to that, trust to the king's mercy. Upon this he came to me, and I
found he was Montgomery's brother. He told me a treaty was settled with king James,
articles were agreed on, and an invitation was subscribed, by the whole cabal, to king
James, to come over, which was to be sent to the court of France ; both because the com
munication was easier and less watched when it went through Flanders than with Ireland,
and to let the court see how strong a party he had, and by that means to obtain the supplies
and force that was desired. He said he saw the writing and some hands to it ; but he knew
many more were to sign it ; and he undertook to put me in a method to seize on the original
paper. The king could not easily believe the matter had gone so far ; yet he ordered the
earl of Shrewsbury to receive such advices as I should bring him, and immediately to do
what was proper; so, a few days after this, Montgomery told me one Williamson was that
day gone to Dover with the original invitation ; I found the earl of Shrewsbury inclined
enough to suspect Williamson. He had for some days solicited a pass for Flanders, and had
got some persons, of whom it was not proper to show a suspicion, to answer for him. So
one was sent post after him, with orders to seize him in his bed, and to take his clothes and
portmanteau from him, wliich were strictly examined ; but nothing was found. Yet upon
the news of this the party was grievously affrighted, but soon recovered themselves ; the
true secret of which was afterwards discovered. Simpson was, it seems, to go over with
Williamson ; but first to ride to some houses that were in the way to Dover ; whereas the
other went directly in the stage-coach. It was thought safest for Simpson to carry these
papers ; for there were many different invitations, as they would not trust their hands to
one common paper. Simpson came to the house at Dover, where Williamson was in the
messenger's hands ; thereupon he went away immediately to Deal, and hired a boat, and
got safe to France with his letters. Montgomery finding that nothing was discovered by
the way wliich he had directed me to, upon that fancied he would be despised by us, and
perhaps suspected by his own side, and went over soon after and turned papist : but I know
not what became of him afterwards. The fear of this discovery soon went off; Simpson
came back with large assurances ; and 12,000Z. were sent to the Scotch, who undertook to do
great matters. All pretended discoveries were laughed at, and looked on as the fictions of
the court ; and upon this the city of London was generally possessed with a very ill opinion
of the king. The house of commons granted the supplies that were demanded for the reduc
tion of Ireland, and for the quota to which the king was obliged by his alliances ; and they
continued the gift of the revenue for another year. But one great error was committed by
the court in accepting remote funds ; whereby the interest of the money then advanced on
a fund, payable at the distance of some years, did not only eat up a great deal of the sum,
but seemed so doubtful, that great premiums were to be offered to those who advanced
money upon a security, which was thought very contingent ; since few believed that the
government would last so long. So here was a shew of great supplies, which yet brought
not in the half of what they were estimated at.
The tories seeing the whigs grow sullen, and that they would make no advances of money,
began to treat with the court, and promised great advances, if the parliament might be
dissolved and a new one be summoned. Those propositions came to be known ; so the
house of commons prepared a bill, by which they hoped to have made sure of all future
parliaments : in it they declared that corporations could not be forfeited, nor their charters
surrendered ; and they enacted, that all mayors and recorders who had been concerned in

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 5J7
the private delivering up of charters, without the consent of the whole body, and who had
done that in a clandestine manner before the judgment that was given against the charter
of London, should be turned out of all corporations, and be incapable of bearing office in
them for six years. This was opposed in the house of commons by the whole strength of
the tory party ; for they saw the carrying it was the total ruin of their interest through the
whole kingdom. They said a great deal against the declaratory part ; but whatsoever mio-ht
be in that, they said, since the thing had been so universal, it seemed hard to punish it with
such severity ; it was said that, by this means, the party for the church would be disgraced,
and that the corporations would be cast into the hands of dissenters. And now both parties
made their court to the king : the whigs promised every thing that he desired, if he would
help them to get this bill passed ; and the tories were not wanting in their promises, if the
bill should be stopped and the parliament dissolved. The bill was carried in the house of
commons by a great majority ; when it was brought up to the lords, the first point in debate
was upon the declaratory part, whether a corporation could be forfeited or surrendered ?
Holt and two other judges were for the affirmative, but all the rest were for the negative.
No precedents for the affirmative were brought higher than the reign of king Henry the
Eighth, in which the abbeys were surrendered ; which was at that time so great a point of
state, that the authority of these precedents seemed not clear enough for regular times. The
house was so equally divided, that it went for the bill only by one voice ; after which, little
doubt was made of the passing the act. But now the appplications of the tories were much
quickened ; they made the king all possible promises : and the promoters of the bill saw
themselves exposed to the corporations, which were to feel the effects of this bill so sensibly,
that they made as great promises on their part. The matter was now at a critical issue :
the passing the bill put the king and the nation in the hands of the whigs ; as the rejecting
it, and dissolving the parliament upon it, was such a trusting to the tories, and such a
breaking with the whigs, that the king was long in suspense what to do.
He was once very near a desperate resolution : he thought he could not trust the tories,
and he resolved he would not trust the whigs ; so he fancied the tories would be true to the
queen, and confide in her, though they would not in him. He therefore resolved to go over
to Holland, and leave the government in the queen's hands ; so he called the marquis of
Carmarthen, with the earl of Shrewsbury and some few more, and told them he had a
convoy ready, and was resolved to leave all in the queen's hands; since he did not see how
he could extricate himself out of the difficulties into which the animosities of parties had
brought him : they pressed him vehemently to lay aside all such desperate resolutions, and
to comply with the present necessity. Much passion appeared among them : the debate was
so warm, that many tears were shed ; in conclusion, the king resolved to change his first
design into another better resolution of going over in person to put an end to the war in
Ireland. This was told me some time after by the earl of Shrewsbury ; but the queen knew
nothing of it till she had it from me : so reserved was the king to her, even in a matter that
concerned her so nearly. The king's design of going to Ireland came to be seen by the pre
parations that were ordered ; but a great party was formed in both houses to oppose it.
Some did really apprehend the air of Ireland would be fatal to so weak a constitution ; and
the Jacobites had no mind that king James should be so much pressed as he would probably
be if the king went against him in person. It was by concert proposed in both houses on
the same day to prepare an address to the king against this voyage ; so the king, to prevent
that, came the next day and prorogued the parliament ; and that was soon after followed
by a dissolution.
This session had not raised all the money that was demanded for the following campaign,
so it was necessary to issue out writs immediately for a new parliament. There was a great
struggle all England over in elections ; but the corporation bill did so highly provoke all
those whom it was to have disgraced, that the tories were by far the greater number in the
new parliament. One thing was a part of the bargain that the tories had made, that the
lieutenancy of London should be changed ; for, upon the king's coming to the crown, he had
given a commission, out of which they were all excluded ; which was such a mortification
to them, that thev said they could not live in the City with credit, unless some of them were
nn 2

5i3 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
again brought into that commission. The king recommended it to the bishop of London, to
prepare a list of those who were known to be churchmen, but of the more moderate, and of
such as were liable to no just exception ; that so the two parties in the city might be kept
in a balance. The bishop brought a list of the most violent tories in the City, who had been
engaged in some of the worst things that passed in the end of king Charles's reign. A com
mittee of council was appointed to examine the list ; but it was so named that they approved
of it. Tins was done to the great grief of the whigs, who said that the king was now
putting himself in his enemies' hands ; and that the arms of the City were now put under a
set of officers, who, if there was a possibility of doing it without hazard, would certainly
use them for. king James. This matter was managed by the marquis of Carmarthen and
the earl of Nottingham ; but opposed by the earl of Shrewsbury, who was much troubled
at the ill conduct of the whigs, but much more at this great change in the king's government.
The elections of parliament went generally for men who would probably have declared for
king James, if they could have known how to manage matters for him. The king made a
change in the ministry to give them some satisfaction ; the earls of Monmouth and War
rington were both dismissed ; other lesser changes were made in inferior places ; so that
whig and tory were now pretty equally mixed ; and both studied to court the king, by
making advances upon the money bills.
The first great debate arose in the house of lords, upon a bill that was brought in acknow
ledging the king and queen to be their rightful and lawful sovereigns, and declaring all the
acts of the last parliament to be good and valid. The first part passed with little contra
diction, though some excepted to the words rightful and lawful as not at all necessary. But
the second article bore a lonp- and warm debate. The tories offered to enact that these
should be all good laws for the time to come, but opposed the doing it in the declaratory
way. They said it was one of the fundamentals of our constitution that no assembly should
be called a parliament, unless it was called and chosen upon the king's writ. On the other
hand, it was said, that whatsoever tended to the calling the authority of that parliament in
question, tended likewise to the weakening of the present government, and brought the
king's title into question. A real necessity upon such extraordinary occasions must supersede
forms of law : otherwise the present government was under the same nullity. Forms were
only rules for peaceable times ; but, in such a juncture, when all that had a right to come,
either in person, or by their representatives, were summoned and freely elected ; and when,
by the king's consent, the convention was turned to a parliament, the essentials, both with
relation to king and people, were still maintained in the constitution of that parliament.
After a long debate, the act passed in the house of lords, with this temper, declaring and
enacting that the acts of that parliament were, and are, good and valid ; many lords pro
testing against it : at the head of whom was the earl of Nottingham, notwithstanding his
great office at court. It was expected that great and long debates should have been made
in the house of commons upon this act. But, to the wonder of all people, it passed in two
days in that house, without any debate or opposition. The truth was, the tories had resolved
to commit the bill ; and, in order to that, some trifling exceptions were made to some words
that might want correction ; for bills are not committed unless some amendments are offered ;
and, when it was committed, it was then resolved to oppose it. But one of them discovered
this too early, for he questioned the legality of the convention, since it was not summoned
by writ. Somers, then solicitor general, answered this with great spirit : he said, if that
was not a legal parliament, they who were then met, and had taken the oaths enacted by
that parliament, were guilty of high treason : the laws repealed by it were still in force, so
they must presently return to king James : all the money levied, collected, and paid, by
virtue of the acts of that parliament, made every one that was concerned in it highly
criminal. This he spoke with much zeal, and such an ascendant of authority, that none
was prepared to answer it ; so the bill passed without any more opposition. This was a
great service, done in a very critical time, and contributed not a little to raise Somers's
character. The speaker of the house of commons, sir John Trevor, was a bold and dexterous man,
and knew the most effectual ways of recommending himself to every government. He had

OF KING AV1LLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 549
been in great favour in king James's time, and was made master of the rolls by him ; and,
if lord Jefferies had stuck at anything, he was looked on as the man likeliest to have had
the great seal. He now got himself to be chosen speaker, and was made first commissioner
of the great seal. Being a tory in principle, he undertook to manage that party, provided
he was furnished with such sums of money as might purchase some votes ; and by him
began the practice of buying off men, in which hitherto the king had kept to stricter rules *.
I took the liberty once to complain to the king of this method. He said, he hated it as
much as any man could do ; but he saw it was not possible, considering the corruption of
the age, to avoid it, unless he would endanger the whole.
The house of commons gave the king the customs for five years, which they said made it
a surer fund for borrowing money upon, than if they had given it for life : the one was sub
ject to accidents, but the other was more certain. They also continued the other branches
of the revenue for the same number of years. It was much pressed to have it settled for
life ; but it was taken up as a general maxim, that a revenue for a certain and short term
was the best security that the nation could have for frequent parliaments. The king did
not like this. He said to myself, why should they entertain a jealousy of him, who came
to save their religion and liberties, when they trusted king James so much, who intended
to destroy both ? I answered, they were not jealous of him, but of those who might succeed
him ; and. if he would accept of the gift for a term of years, and settle the precedent, he
would be reckoned the deliverer of succeeding ages, as well as of the present ; and it was
certain that king James would never have run into those counsels that ruined him, if he had
obtained the revenue only for a short term ; which probably would have been done, if
Argyle's and Monmouth's invasions had not so overawed the house, that it would then have
looked like being in a conspiracy with them to have opposed the king's demand. I saw
the king was not pleased, though he was persuaded to accept of the grant thus made him.
The commons granted a poll bill, with some other supplies, which they thought would
answer all the occasions of that year ; but as what they gave did not quite come up to what
was demanded, so when the supply was raised, it came far short of what they estimated
it at. So that there were great deficiencies to be taken care of in every session of parlia
ment, which ran up every year, and made a great noise, as if the nation was through mis
management running into a great arrear. An act passed in this session, putting the admi
nistration in the queen, during the king's absence out of the kingdom, but with this proviso,
that the orders which the king sent should always take place. In all this debate the queen
seemed to take no notice of the matter, nor of those who had appeared for it, or against it.
* Sir John Trevor was a native of Denbighshire. His of the house over which he presided, he actually had to
mother was aunt to lord chancellor Jeffreys ; and he is put the question against himself, and had to announce the
suspected to have been more intimate with his cousin's gratifying vote that " Sir John Trevor was guilty of cor-
ivife than either her husband or morality approved. Like rupt bribery." He never sax again as speaker ; yet he
Jeffreys, his career commenced humbly ; he was clerk to was never impeached, which enabled some wit to observe
a relative, a lawyer in the Temple, and became an adept of him, as he squinted miserably, that " Justice was blind,
in " the knavish part of the law," which rendered him hut Bribery only squints." Tillotson and he were not
of singular service to the gamesters whose society he fre- friends ; meeting that prelate near the house of lords, ho
quented. The two cousins appear to have been equally audibly muttered, " I hate a fanatic in lawn sleeves." "I
able, and equally corrupt. Trevor was knighted by hate a knave in any sleeves," retorted the bishop. Trevor
Charles the Second in 1671 ; was made solicitor- was notoriously penurious, of which the following is an
general and master of the rolls on the death of instance. One day, when taking his wine, the footman
sir John Churchill; and a privy councillor in 1688. ushered a relative into tho room. "You rascal," said
Jeffreys, at length, appears to have become jealous of Trevor to the servant, " how dare you bring my cousin
Trevor's distinction ; but the latter not only baffled his Roderic Lloyd, esq., prothonotary of North Wales,
efforts to humble him, but would probably have sup- marshal to baron Price, and so forth, and so forth, up my
planted the chancellor, if James had not abdicated the back stairs? Take my cousin, Roderic Lloyd, esq.,
throne. Even then Trevor remained in favour; the prothouotary of North Wales, marshal to baron Price,
mastership of the roll' was indeed taken from him for a and so forth, and so forth — take him instantly back down
short time, but he was continued speaker of the house of my back stairs, and bring him up my front stairs."
commons; and presided as chief commissioner of the great Remonstrance was vain ; but, whilst the grande entree
seal until Somers was elevated to the chancellorship, was being effected, Trevor removed the wine and glasses.
The most painful disgrace that ever fell upon him was for He died at his house in Clement's Lane, during the year
accepting 1000/. from the city of London, to patronise 1717 — York's Royal Tribes of Wales ; North's Life of
a bill to satisfy the orphanage debts. After sitting for six L. K. Guildford ; Woolrych's Life of Jeffreys.
hours, and listening to the vituperation of the members

650 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The house of commons, to the great grief of the whigs, made an address to the king, thanking
him for the alterations he had made in the lieutenancy of London.
But the greatest debate in this session was concerning an abjuration of king James : some of
the tories were at first for it, as were all the whigs ; the clergy were excepted out of it, to
soften the opposition that might be made. But still the main body of the tories declared
they would never take any such oath ; so they opposed every step that was made in it, with
a great copiousness of long and vehement arguing. They insisted much on this, that when
the government was settled, oaths were made to be the ties of the subject to it, and that all
new impositions were a breach made on that which might be called the original contract of
the present settlement : things of that kind ought to be fixed and certain, and not mutable
and endless : by the same reason that the abjuration was now proposed, another oath might
be prepared every year ; and every party that prevailed in parliament would bring in some
discriminating oath, or test, such as could only be taken by those of their own side : and
thus the largeness and equality of government would be lost and contracted into a faction.
On the other side, it was said, that this was only intended to be a security to the govern
ment during the war ; for in such a time it seemed necessary, that all who were employed
by the government should give it all possible security : it was apparent that the compre
hensive words in the oaths of allegiance had given occasion to much equivocation ; many
who had taken them having declared, which some had done in print, that they considered
themselves as bound by the oaths, only while the king continued in peaceable possession,
but not to assist or support his title if it was attacked or shaken : it was therefore necessary
that men in public trusts should be brought under stricter ties. The abjuration was debated
in both houses at the same time. I concurred with those that were for it. The whigs
pressed the king to set it forward : they said, every one who took it would look on himself
as unpardonable, and so would serve him with the more zeal and fidelity ; whereas those
that thought the right to the crown was still in king James, might perhaps serve faithfully
as long as the government stood firm ; but as they kept still measures with the other side,
to whom they knew they would be always welcome, so they would never act with that life
and zeal which the present state of affairs required. At the same time, the tories were as
earnest in pressing the king to stop the further progress of those debates : much time was
already lost in them ; and it was evident that much more must be lost, if it was intended to
carry it on ; since so many branches of this bill, and incidents that arose upon the subject of
it, would give occasion to much heat and wrangling : and it was a doubt, whether it would
be carried, after all the time that must be bestowed on it, or not : those who opposed it
would grow sullen, and oppose every thing else that was moved for the king's service : and,
if it should be carried, it would put the king again into the hands of the whigs, who would
immediately return to their old practices against the prerogative ; and it would drive many
into king James's party, who might otherwise stick firm to the king, or at least be neutrals.
These reasons prevailed with the king to order an intimation to'be given in the house of
commons, that he desired they would let that debate fall, and go to other matters that were
more pressing.
This gave a new disgust to the whigs, but was very acceptable to the tories ; and it
quickened the advances of money upon the funds that were given : it had indeed a very ill
effect abroad : for both friends and enemies looked on it as a sign of a great decline in the
king's interest with his people : and the king's interposing to stop further debates in the
matter, was represented as an artifice only to save the affront of its being rejected. The
earl of Shrewsbury was at the head of those who pressed the abjuration most ; so, upon this
change of counsels, he thought he could not serve the king longer with reputation or suc
cess. He saw the whigs, by using the king ill, were driving him into the tories ; and he
thought these would serve the king with more zeal, if he left his post. The credit that the
marquis of Carmarthen had gained was not easy to him ; so he resolved to deliver up the
seals. I was the first person to whom he discovered this; and he had them in his hands
when he told me of it ; yet I prevailed with him not to go that night : he was in some heat.
I had no mind that the king should be surprised by a thing of that kind ; and I was afraid
that the earl of Shrewsbury might have said such things to him, as should have provoked

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 651
him too much : so I sent the king word of it. It troubled him more than I thought a thing
of that sort could have done : he loved the earl of Shrewsbury, and apprehended that his
leaving his service at this time might alienate the whigs more entirely from him : for now
they who thought him before of too cold a temper, when they saw how firm he was, came
to consider and trust him more than ever. The king sent Tillotson, and all those who had
most credit with the earl, to divert him from his resolution ; but all was to no purpose.
The agitation of mind that this gave him threw him into a fever, which almost cost him his
life. The king pressed him to keep the seals till his return from Ireland, though he should
not act as secretary; but he could not be prevailed on*. The debate for the abjuration
lasted longer in the house of lords : it had some variation from that which was proposed in
the house of commons ; and was properly an oath of a special fidelity to the king, in opposi
tion to king James : the tories offered, in bar to this, a negative engagement against assisting
king James, or any of his instruments, knowing them to be such, with severe penalties on
such as should refuse it. In opposition to this, it was said, this was only an expedient to
secure all king James's party, whatever should happen ; since it left them the entire merit
of being still in his interests, and only restrained them from putting any thing to hazard for
him. The house was so near an equality in every division, that what was gained in one
day was lost in the next : and by the heat and length of those debates, the session continued
till June. A bill projected by the tories passed, relating to the city of London, which was
intended to change the hands that then governed it : but through the haste or weakness of
those who drew it, the court of aldermen was not comprehended in it : so, by this act, the
government of the city was fixed in their hands : and they were generally whigs. Many
discoveries were made of the practices from St. Germain's and Ireland ; but few were taken
up upon them : and those were too inconsiderable to know more than that many were pro
vided with arms and ammunition, and that a method was projected for bringing men
together upon a call. And indeed things seemed to be in a very ill disposition towards a
fatal turn.
The king was making all possible haste to open the campaign, as soon as things could be
ready for it, in Ireland. The day before he set out he called me into his closet. He seemed
to have a great weight upon his spirits, from the state of his affairs, which was then very
cloudy. He said, for his own part, he trusted in God, and would either go through with
his business, or perish in it : he only pitied the poor queen, repeating that twice with great
tenderness, and wished that those who loved him would wait much on her, and assist her :
he lamented much the factions and the heats that were among us, and that the bishops and
clergy, instead of allaying them, did rather foment and inflame them : but he was pleased
to make an exception of myself : he said, the going to a campaign was naturally no unplea
sant thing to him : he was sure he understood that better than how to govern England : he
added, that though he had no doubt nor mistrust of the cause he went on, yet the going
against king James, in person, was hard upon him, since it would be a vast trouble, both to
himself and to the queen, if he should be either killed or taken prisoner : he desired my
prayers, and dismissed me, very deeply affected with all he had said.
I had a particular occasion to know how tender he was of king James's person, having
learned an instance of it from the first hand : a proposition was made to the king, that a
third-rate ship, well manned by a faithful crew, and commanded by one who had been well
with king James, but was such a one as the king might trust, should sail to Dublin, and
declare for king James. The person who told me this, offered to be the man that should
carry the message to king James (for he was well known to him), to invite him to come on
board ; which he seemed to be sure he would accept of ; and, when he was aboard, they
should sail away with him, and land him either in Spain or Italy, as the king should desire ;
and should have twenty thousand pounds to give him, when he should be set ashore. The
king thought it was a well formed design, and likely enough to succeed, but would not
hearken to it. He said he would have no hand in treachery : and king James would cer-
* It would seem that the reason of the earl of Shrews- him retain office, he sent the seals to the Ling by the
bury's resignation was the disapproval of the bill for hands of lord Portland, June 3, 1690.— Cox's Shrews.
abjuring the Stuarts. No persuasions availing to make bury Correspondence.

552 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
tainly carry some of his guards and of his court aboard with him : and probably they would
make some opposition: and in the struggle some accident might happen to king James s
person • in which he would have no hand. I acquainted the queen with this : and I saw
in her a great tenderness for her father's person : and she was much touched with the answer
the king had made.
He had a quick passage to Ireland, where matters had been kept m the state they were
in all this winter : Charlemont was reduced, which was the only place in Ulster that was
then left in king James's hands. The king had a great army ; there were about thirty-six
thousand men, all in good plight, full of heart and zeal. He lost no time, but advanced in
six days from Belfast, where he landed, to the river of Boyne, near Drogheda, King James
had abandoned the passes between Newry and Dundalk, which are so strait for some miles,
that it had been easy to have disputed every inch of ground. King James and his court
were so much lifted up with the news of the debates in parliament, and of the distractions of
the city of London, that they flattered themselves with false hopes that the king durst not
leave England, nor venture over to Ireland. He had been six days come before king James
knew anything of it. Upon that, he immediately passed the Boyne, and lay on the south
side of it. His army consisted of twenty-six thousand men ; his horse were good ; and he
had five thousand French foot, for whom he had sent over in exchange five thousand Irish
foot. He held some councils of war to consider what was fit to be done ; whether he should
make a stand there, and put all to the decision of a battle ; or, if he should march off and
abandon that river, and, by consequence, all the country on to Dublin.
All his officers, both French and Irish, who disagreed almost in all their advices, yet
agreed in this, that though they had there a very advantageous post to maintain, yet their
army being so much inferior, both in number and in every thing else, they would put too
much to hazard, if they should venture on a battle. They therefore proposed the strength
ening their garrisons, and marching off to the Shannon with the horse and a small body of
foot, till they should see how matters went at sea ; for the French king had sent them
assurances that he would not only set out a great fleet, but that as soon as the squadron that
lay in the Irish seas, to guard the transport fleet and to secure the king's passage over,
should sail into the channel to join our grand fleet, he would then send into the Irish seas a
fleet of small frigates and privateers, to destroy the king's transports. This would have been
fatal, if it had taken effect : and the executing of it seemed easy and certain. It would
have shut up the king within Ireland, till a new transport fleet could have been brought
thither, which would have been the work of some months : so that England might have
been lost before he could have passed the seas with his army. And the destruction of his
transports must have ruined his army ; for his stores, both of bread and ammunition, were
still on board ; and they sailed along the coast as he advanced on his march; nor was there
in all that coast a safe port to cover and secure them. The king indeed reckoned that by
the time the squadron, which lay in the Irish seas, should be able to join the rest of the fleet,
they would have advanced as far as the chops of the channel, where they would guard both
England and Ireland : but things went far otherwise.
The queen was now in the administration. It was a new scene to her : she had for above
sixteen months made so little figure in business, that those, who imagined that every woman
of sense loved to be meddling, concluded that she had a small proportion of it, because she
lived so abstracted from all affairs. Her behaviour was indeed very exemplary : she was
exactly regular both in her public and private devotions : she was much in her closet, and
read a great deal : she was often busy at work, and seemed to employ her time and thoughts
in any thing, rather than matters of state : her conversation was lively and obliging : every
thing in her was easy and natural : she was singular in great charities to the poor ; of whom,
as there are always great numbers about courts, so the crowds of persons of quality that had
fled over from Ireland drew from her liberal supplies : all this was nothing to the public.
If the king talked with her of affairs, it was in so private a way, that few seemed to believe
it. The earl of Shrewsbury told me that the king had upon many occasions said to him,
that though he could not hit on the right way of pleasing England, he was confident she
would ; and that we should all be very happy under her. The king named a cabinet

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 553
council of eight persons, on whose advice she was chiefly to rely : four of them were tories
and four were whigs ; yet the marquis of Cacrmarthen and the earl of Nottingham, being of
the first sort, who took most upon them and seemed to have the greatest credit, the whigs
were not satisfied with the nomination. The queen balanced all things with an extraordi
nary temper ; and became universally beloved and admired by all about her.
Our concerns at sea were then the chief thing to be looked to : an unhappy compliment of
sending a fleet to convoy a queen to Spain proved almost fatal to us. They were so long-
delayed by contrary winds, that a design of blocking up Toulon was lost by it. The great
ships that lay there had got out before our fleet could reach the place. Our squadron
returned back, and went into Plymouth to refit there; and it was joined by that which
came from the Irish seas. These two squadrons consisted of above thirty ships of the line.
The earl of Torrington, that had the chief command, was a man of pleasure, and did not
make the haste that was necessary to go about and join them ; nor did the Dutch fleet come
over so soon as was promised ; so that our main fleet lay long at Spithead. The French
understood that our fleets lay thus divided, and saw the advantage of getting between them :
so they came into the channel with so fair a wind, that they were near the Isle of Wight
before our fleet had any advice of their being within the channel. The earl of Torrington
had no advice- boats out to bring him news ; and though notice thereof was sent post over-land
as soon as the French came within the channel, yet their fleet sailed as fast as the post could
ride ; but then the wind turned upon them, otherwise they would in all probability have
surprised us. But after this first advantage, the winds were always contrary to them and
favourable to us. So that the French officers in Ireland had reason to look for that fleet of
smaller vessels, which was promised to be sent to destroy the king's transport ships. And
for these reasons all king James's officers were against bringing the war to so speedy a
decision. In opposition to all their opinions, king James himself was positive that they must stay
and defend the Boyne : if they marched off and abandoned Dublin, they would so lose their
reputation, that the people would leave them and capitulate ; it would also dispirit all their
friends in England : therefore he resolved to maintain the post he was in, and seemed not a
little pleased to think that he should have one fair battle for his crown. He spoke of this
with so much seeming pleasure, that many about him apprehended that he was weary of
the struggle, and even of life, and longed to see an end of it at any rate : and they were
afraid that he would play the hero a little too much. He had all the advantages he could
desire : the river was deep, and rose very high with the tide : there was a morass to be
passed after the passing the river, and then a rising ground.
On the last of June, the king came to the banks of the river ; and as he was riding along,
and making a long stop in one place to observe the grounds, the enemy did not lose their
opportunity, but brought down two pieces of cannon, and, with the first firing, a ball passed
alone the king's shoulder, tore off some of his clothes and about a hand-breadth of the skin,
out of which about a spoonful of blood came ; and that was all the harm it did him. It
cannot be imagined how much terror this struck into all that were about him ; he himself
said it was nothing ; yet he was prevailed on to alight till it was washed and a plaister put
upon it ; and immediately he mounted his horse again, and rode about all the posts of his
army. It was indeed necessary to show himself everywhere, to take off the apprehensions
with which such an unusual accident filled his soldiers. He continued that day nineteen
hours on horseback ; but, upon his first alighting from his horse, a deserter had gone over
to the enemy with the news, which was carried quickly into France, where it was taken for
granted that he could not outlive such a wound ; so it ran over that kingdom that he was
dead. And upon it there were more public rejoicings than had been usual upon their
greatest victories ; which gave that court afterwards a vast confusion, when they knew that
he was still alive ; and saw that they had raised in their own people a high opinion of him
by this inhuman joy, when they believed him dead.
But to return to the action of the Boyne. The king sent a great body of cavalry to pass
the river higher, while ho resolved to pass it in the face of the enemy ; and the duke of

554 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Schomberg was to pass it in a third place, a little below him; I will not enter into the
particulars of that day's action, but leave that to military men*.
It was a complete victory; and those who were the least disposed to flattery, said, it was
almost wholly due to the king's courage and conduct ; and, though he was a little still by
reason of his wound, yet he was forced to quit his horse in the morass, and to go through it
on foot : but he came up in time to ride almost into every body of his army : he charged in
many different places, and nothing stood before him. The Irish horse made some resistance,
but the foot threw down their arris, and ran away. The most amazing circumstance was,
that king James stayed all the while with his guards, at a safe distance, and never came
into the places of danger or of action ; and, when he saw his army was every where giving
ground, was the first that ran for it, and reached Dublin before the action was quite over ;
for it was dark before the king forsook the pursuit of the Irish. His horse and dragoons
were so weary, with the fatigue of a long action in a hot day, that they could not pursue
far ; nor was their camp furnished with necessary refreshments till next morning ; for the
king had marched faster than the waggons could possibly follow. The army of the Irish
were so entirely forsaken by their officers, that the king thought they would have dispersed
themselves, and submitted ; and that the following them would have been a mere butchery,
which was a thing he had always abhorred. The only allay to this victory was the loss of
the duke of Schomberg ; he passed the river in his station, and was driving the Irish before
him, when a party of desperate men set upon him, as he was riding very carelessly, with a
small number about him. They charged, and in the disorder of that action he was shot ;
but it could not be known by whom ; for most of all the party was cut off. Thus that great
man, like another Epaminondas, fell on the day in which his side triumphed f.
King James came to Dublin, under a very indecent consternation : he said all was lost ;
he had an army in England that could have fought, but would not ; and now he had an
army that would have fought, but could not. This was not very gratefully, nor decently
spoken by him, who was among the first that fled. Next morning he left Dublin : he said,
too much blood had been already shed ; it seemed God was with their enemies ; the prince
of Orange was a merciful man ; so he ordered those he left behind him to set the prisoners
at liberty, and to submit to the prince : he rode that day from Dublin to Duncannon Fort ;
but, though the place was considerably strong, he would not trust to that, but lay aboard a
French ship that anchored there, and had been provided, by his own special directions to
sir Patrick Trant. His courage sunk with his affairs to a degree that amazed those who
had known the former parts of his life. The Irish army was forsaken by their officers for
two days ; if there had been a hot pursuit, it would have put an end to the war of Ireland ;
but the king thought his first care ought to be to secure Duhlin ; and king James's officers,
as they abandoned it, went back to the army, only in hopes of a good capitulation. Dublin
was thus forsaken, and no harm done, which was much apprehended ; but the fear the Irish
were in was such, that they durst not venture on any thing which must have drawn
severe revenges after it. So the protestants there, being now the masters, they declared
for the king. Drogheda did also capitulate.
But, to balance this great success, the king had, the very day after the battle at the Boyne,
the news of a battle fought in Flanders, between prince Waldeck and the marshal Luxem
bourg, in which the former was defeated. The cavalry did at the first charge run, but the
foot made an amazing stand. The French had the honour of a victory, and took many
prisoners, with the artillery ; yet the stand the infantry made was such, that they lost more
than they got by the day ; nor were they able to draw any advantage from it. This was the
battle of Fleurus, that, in the consequence of it, proved the means of preserving England.
* The battle of the Boyne was fought on the 1st of William the Second. Becoming unpopular with the Dutch,
¦July- _ on the death of this prince, he entered into the service of
f Frederic Schomberg, duke of Schomberg, marquis of Lewis the Fourteenth, in whose army he served with
Harwich, earl of Brentford, &c, was born in 1 608. His entire devotion. At this period he is first mentioned in this
father was count Schomberg ; his mother a daughter of work, and the most prominent features of his life have
lord Dudley. A German and a calvinist, he sought em- been noticed. — Birch's Lives.
ployment as a military adventurer in Holland, under

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 555
On the day before the battle of the Boyne, the two fleets came to a great engagement at
sea. The squadron that lay at Plymouth could not come up to join the great fleet, the wind
being contrary ; so it was under debate, what was fittest to be done : the earl of Torrington
thought he was not strong enough, and advised his coming in, till some more ships, that
were fitting out, should be ready ; some began to call his courage in question, and imputed
this to fear ; they thought this would too much exalt our enemies, and discourage our allies,
if we left the French to triumph at sea, and to be the masters of our coast and trade ; for our
merchants' richest ships were coming home ; so that the leaving them in such a superiority
would be both very unbecoming, and very mischievous to us. The queen ordered Russel to
advise, both with the navy board, and with all that understood sea affairs ; and, upon a view
of the strength of both fleets, they were of opinion, that though the French were superior
in number, yet our fleet was so equal in strength to them, that it was reasonable to send
orders to our admiral to venture on an engagement ; yet the orders were not so positive, but
that a great deal was left to a council of war. The two fleets engaged near Beachy, in Sussex ;
the Dutch led the van ; and, to shew their courage, they advanced too far out of the line,
and fought, in the beginning, with some advantage, the French flying before them ; and
our blue squadron engaged bravely ; but the earl of Torrington kept in his line, and con
tinued to fight at a distance : the French, seeing the Dutch came out so far before the line,
fell on them furiously, both in front and flank, which the earl of Torrington neglected for
some time ; and, when he endeavoured to come a little nearer, the calm was such, that he
could not come up. The Dutch suffered much, and their whole fleet had perished, if their
admiral, Calembourg, had not ordered them to drop their anchors, while their sails were all
up : this was not observed by the French ; so they were carried by the tide, while the
others lay still ; and thus in a few minutes the Dutch were out of danger. They lost many
men, and sunk some of their ships, which had suffered the most, that they might not fall into
the enemy's hands. It was now necessary to order the fleet to come in with all possible
haste : both the Dutch and the blue squadron complained much of the earl of Torrington ;
and it was a general opinion that if the whole fleet had come up to a close fight, we must
have beat the French : and, considering how far they were from Brest, and that our squadron
at Plymouth lay between them and home, a victory might have had great consequences.
Our fleet was now in a bad condition, and broken into factions ; and if the French had not
lost the night's tide, but had followed us close, they might have destroyed many of our ships.
Both the admirals were almost equally blamed ; ours for not fighting, and the French for
not pursuing his victory.
Our fleet came in safe ; and all possible diligence was used in refitting it ; the earl of Tor
rington was sent to the Tower, and three of our best sea officers had the joint command of
the fleet ; but it was a month before they could set out ; and, in all that time, the French
were masters of the sea, and our coasts were open to them. If they had followed the first
consternation, and had fallen to the burning our sea towns, they might have done us much
mischief, and put our affairs in great disorder ; for we had not above seven thousand men
then in England. The militia was raised, and suspected persons were put in prison ; in this
melancholy conjuncture, though the harvest drew on, so that it was not convenient for people
to be long absent from their labour, yet the nation expressed more zeal and affection to the
government than was expected. And the Jacobites, all England over, kept out of the way,
and were afraid of being fallen upon by the rabble. We had no great losses at sea ; for
most of our merchantmen came safe into Plymouth ; the French stood over, for some time,
to their own coast ; and we had many false alarms of their shipping troops,, in order to a
descent. But they had suffered so much in the battle at Fleurus, and the Dutch used such
diligence in putting their army in a condition to take the field again, and the elector of
Brandenburgh, bringing his troops to act in conjunction with theirs, gave the French so much
work, that they were forced, for all their victory, to lie upon the defensive, and were not able
to spare so many men as were necessary for an invasion. The DutGh did indeed send posi
tive orders to prince Waldeck, not to hazard another engagement till the fleet should be
again at sea : this restrained the elector, who, in conjunction with the Dutch, was much
superior to Luxembourg; and afterwards, when the Dutch superseded those orders, the

550 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
elector did not think fit to hazard his army. Such is the fate of confederate armies, when
they are under a different direction ; that, when the one is willing, or at least seems to be so,
the other stands off. The French riding so long, so quietly in our seas, was far from what
might have been expected, after such an advantage : we understood afterwards, that they
were still waiting, when the Jacobites should, according to their promises, have begun a
rising in England ; but they excused their failing in that, because their leaders were generally
clapped up.
That party began to boast, all England over, that it was visible that the French meant no
harm to the nation, but only to bring back king James; since now, though our coasts lay
open to them, they did us no harm. And this might have made some impression, if the
French had not effectually refuted it. Their fleet lay for some days in Torbay ; their
equipages were weakened ; and by a vessel that carried a packet from Tourville to the court
of France, which was taken, it appeared that they were then in so bad a condition, that if
our fleet (which upon this was hastened out all that was possible) could have overtaken
them, we should have got a great victory very cheap. But before they sailed, they made a
descent on a miserable village, called Teignmouth, that happened to belong to a papist :
they burnt it, and a few fisher-boats that belonged to it ; but the inhabitants got away ;
and, as a body of militia was marching thither, the French made great haste back to their
ships. The French published this in their gazettes, with much pomp, as if it had been a
great trading town, that had many ships, with some men of war in port. This both ren
dered them ridiculous, and served to raise the hatred of the nation against them ; for every
town on the coast saw what they must expect if the French should prevail.
In all this time of fear and disorder, the queen shewed an extraordinary firmness ; for
though she was full of dismal thoughts, yet she put on her ordinary cheerfulness when she
appeared in public, and shewed no indecent concern ; I saw her all that while once a week,
for I stayed that summer at Windsor : her behaviour was, in all respects, heroical ; she
apprehended the greatness of our danger ; but she committed herself to God, and was
resolved to expose herself, if occasion should require it : for she told me, she would give me
leave to wait on her if she was forced to make a campaign in England, while the king was
in Ireland.
Whilst the misfortunes in Flanders, and at sea, were putting us in no small agitation, the
news first of the king's preservation from the cannon ball, and then of the victory, gained
the day after, put another face on our affairs : the earl of Nottingham told me, that when
he carried the news to the queen, and acquainted her in a few words that the king was well,
that he had gained an entire victory, and that the late king had escaped ; he observed her
looks, and found that the last article made her joy complete, which seemed in some suspense,
till she understood that. The queen and council upon this sent to the king, pressing him
to come over with all possible haste ; since, as England was of more importance, so the
state of affairs required his presence here : for it was hoped the reduction of Ireland would
be now easily brought about. The king, as he received the news of the battle of Fleurus,
the day after the victory at the Boyne ; so on the day in which he entered Dublin, he had
the news of the misfortune at sea, to temper the joy, that his own successes might give him :
he had taken all the earl of Tyrconnel's papers in the camp ; and he found all king James's
papers left behind him in Dublin ; by these he understood the design the French had of
burning his transport fleet, which was therefore first to be taken care of; and since the
French were now masters at sea, he saw nothing that could hinder the execution of that
design. Among the earl of Tyrconnel's papers there was one letter written to queen Mary at
St. Germain's, the night before the battle ; but it was not sent. In it, he said, he looked on
all as lost, and ended it thus : " I have now no hope in any thing but in Jones's business."
The marquis of Caermarthen told me that some weeks before the king went to Ireland, he
had received an advertisement, that one named Jones, an Irishman, who had served so long
in Franco and Holland, that he spoke both languages well, was to be sent over to murder
the king. And sir Robert Southwell told me, that he, as secretary of state for Ireland, had
looked into all Tyrconnel's papers, and the copies of the letters he wrote to queen Mary,

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 557
which lie had still in his possession; and he gave me the copies of two of them. In one of
these he writes, that Jones was come ; that his proposition was more probable, and likelier
to succeed than any yet made : his demands were high, but he added, " if any thing can
be high for such a service." In another he writes, that Jones had been with the king, who
did not like the tiling at first ; but he added, we have now to satisfy him both in con
science and honour, that every thing is done that Jones desires. Southwell further told me,
that Deagle, the attorney-general, had furnished him with money, and a poniard of a par
ticular composition ; and that they sought long for a bible, bound without a common prayer
book, which he was to carry in his pocket, that so he might pass, if seized on, for a dissenter.
Some persons of great quality waited on him to the boat that was to carry him over ; he
was for some time delayed in Dublin; and the king had passed over to Ireland before he
could reach him : we could never hear of him more ; so it is likely he went away with his
money. A paper was drawn of all this matter, and designed to be published ; but, upon
second thoughts, the king and queen had that tenderness for king James, that they stopped
the publishing to the world so shameful a practice. The king said, upon this, to myself,
that God had preserved him out of many dangers, and he trusted he would still preserve
him ; he was sure he was not capable of retaliating in that way. The escape of a cannon-
ball, that touched him, was so signal, that it swallowed up lesser ones : yet, in the battle
at the Boyne, a musket ball struck the heel of his boot, and recoiling, killed a horse near
him ; and one of his own men, mistaking him for an enemy, came up to shoot him ; but he
gently put by his pistol, and only said, " Do not you know your friends ?"
At Dublin he published a proclamation of grace, offering to all the inferior sort of the
Irish, their lives and personal estates, reserving the consideration of the real estates of the
better sort to a parliament, and indemnifying them only for their lives ; it was hoped that
the fulness of the pardon of the commons might have separated them from the gentry ; and
that by this means, they would be so forsaken, that they would accept of such terms as
should be offered them. The king had intended to have made the pardon more comprehen
sive ; hoping, by that, to bring the war soon to an end : but the English in Ireland opposed
this. They thought the present opportunity was not to be let go, of breaking the great
Irish families, upon whom the inferior sort would always depend. And, in compliance with
them, the indemnity, now offered, was so limited, that it had no effect ; for the priests, who
ogverned the Irish with a very blind and absolute authority, prevailed with them to try
their fortunes still. The news of the victory the French had at sea was so magnified among
them, that they made the people believe that they would make such a descent upon England,
as must oblige the king to abandon Ireland. The king was pressed to pursue the Irish,
who had retired to Athlone and Limerick, and were now joined by their officers,' and so
brought again into some order : but the main concern was, to put the transport fleet in a
safe station. And that could not be had till the king was master of Waterford and
Duncannon Fort, which commanded the entrance into the river ; both these places capitu
lated, and the transports were brought thither. But they were not now so much in danger,
as the king had reason to apprehend ; for king James, when he sailed away from Dun-
cannon, was forced by contrary winds to go into the road of Kinsale, where he found some
French frigates that were already come to burn our fleet : he told them it was now too late,
all was lost in Ireland. So he carried them back to convoy him over to France, where he
had but a cold reception ; for the miscarriage of affairs in Ireland was imputed both to his
ill conduct and his want of courage. He fell under much contempt of the people of France ;
only that king continued still to behave himself decently towards him.
The king sent his army towards the Shannon ; and he himself came to Dublin, intending,
as he was advised, to go over to England ; but he found there letters of another strain :
things were in so good a posture, and so quiet in England, that they were no more in any
apprehension of a descent ; so the king went back to his army, and marched towards
Limerick. Upon this Lauzun, who commanded the French, left the town, and sent his
equipage to France, which perished in the Shannon. It was hoped that Limerick, seeing
itself thus abandoned, would have followed the example of other towns, and have capitu
lated. Upon that confidence the king marched towards it, though his army was now much

558 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
diminished : he had left many garrisons in several places, and had sent some of his best
bodies over to England ; so that he had not now above 20,000 men together. Limerick
lies on both sides of the Shannon, and on an island, that the river makes there : the Irish
were yet in great numbers in Connaught ; so that, unless they had been shut up on that
side, it was easy to send in a constant supply both of men and provisions : nor did it seem
advisable to undertake the siege of a place so situated with so small an army, especially in
that season, in which it used to rain long ; and by that means, both the Shannon would
swell, and the ground, which was the best soil of Ireland, would be apt to become deep,
and scarce practicable for carriages. Yet the cowardice of the Irish, the consternation they
were in, and their being abandoned by the French, made the king resolve to sit down
before it. Their out-works might have been defended for some time ; but they abandoned
these in so much disorder, that it was from hence believed they would not hold out long.
They also abandoned the posts which they had on the other side of the Shannon : upon
which the king passed the river, which was then very low, and viewed those posts;
but he had not men to maintain them ; so he continued to press the town on the Mun
ster side.
He sent for some more ammunition, and some great guns ; they had only a guard of two
troops of horse to convoy them, who despised the Irish so much, and thought they were at
such distance, that they set their horses to grass, and went to bed. Sarsfield, one of the
best officers of the Irish, heard that the king rode about very carelessly, and upon that, had
got a small body of resolute men together, on design to seize his person ; but now, hearing
of this convoy, he resolved to cut it off : the king had advertisement of this brought him in
time, and ordered some more troops to be sent to secure the convoy ; they, either through
treachery or carelessness, did not march till it was night, though their orders were for the
morning ; but they came a few hours too late. Sarsfield surprised the party, destroyed the
ammunition, broke the carriages, and burst one of the guns, and so marched off. Lanier,
whom the king had sent with the party, might have overtaken him ; but the general obser
vation made of him (and of most of those officers who had served king James, and were
now on the king's side) was, that they had a greater mind to make themselves rich by the
continuance of the war of Ireland, than their master great, and safe, by the speedy con
clusion of it.
By this the king lost a week, and his ammunition was low ; for a great supply that was
put on ship-board in the river of Thames, before the king left London, still remained there,
the French being masters of the channel : yet the king pressed the town so hard, that the
trenches were run up to the counterscarp ; and when they came to lodge there, the Irish
ran back so fast at a breach that the cannon had made, that a body of the king's men ran
in after them ; and if they had been seconded, the town had been immediately taken ; but
none came in time, so they retired : and though the king sent another body, yet they were
beaten back with loss. As it now began to rain, the king saw that if he stayed longer
there, he must leave his great artillery behind him : he went into the trenches every day ;
and it was thought he exposed himself too much. His tent was pitched within the reach
of their cannon ; they shot often over it, and beat down a tent very near it ; so he was
prevailed on to let it be removed to a greater distance : once, upon receiving a packet from
England, he sat down in the open field for some hours, reading his letters, while the
cannon balls were flying round about him. The Irish fired well, and shewed they had some
courage, when they were behind walls, how little soever they had shewn in the field.
The king lay three weeks before Limerick, but at last the rains forced him to raise the siege :
they within did not offer to sally out and disorder the retreat : this last action proving
unlucky, had much damped the joy that was raised by the first success of this campaign.
The king expressed a great equality of temper upon the various accidents that happened at
this time. Dr. Hutton, his first physician, who took care to be always near him, told me,
he had observed his behaviour very narrowly upon two very different occasions.
The one was, after the return from the victory at the Boyne, when it was almost mid
night, after he had been seventeen hours in constant fatigue, with all the stiffness that his
wound gave him ; he expressed neither joy nor any sort of vanity ; only he looked cheer-

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 559
ful ; and when those about him made such compliments, as will be always made to princes
even though they do not deserve them, he put all that by with such an unaffected neglect,
that it appeared how much soever he might deserve the acknowledgments that were made
him, yet he did not like them. And this was so visible to all about him, that they soon
saw that the way to make their court was, neither to talk of his wound, nor of his behaviour
on that day. As soon as he saw his physician, he ordered him to see that care should be
taken of the wounded men, and he named the prisoners, as well as his own soldiers. And
though he had great reason to be offended with Hamilton, who had been employed to
treat with the earl of Tyrconnel, and was taken prisoner in his sight, and was preserved by
his order ; yet since he saw he was wounded, he gave particular directions to look after
him. Upon the whole matter the king was as grave and silent as he used to be ; and the
joy of a day, that had been both so happy and so glorious to him, did not seem to alter his
temper or deportment in any way.
He told me he was also near him when it was resolved to raise the siege of Limerick ;
and saw the same calm, without the least depression, disorder, or peevishness : from this
he concluded, that either his mind was so happily balanced, that no accident could put it
out of that situation ; or that, if he had commotions within, he had a very extraordinary
command over his temper, in restraining or concealing them.
While he lay before Limerick, he had news from England that our fleet was now
out, and that the French were gone to Brest : so, since we were masters of the sea, the earl
of Marlborough proposed that five thousand men who had lain idle all this summer in
England, should be sent to Ireland ; and with the assistance of such men as the king should
order to join them, they should try to take Cork and Kinsale. The king approved of this
and ordered the earl to come over with them : and he left orders for about five thousand
more, who were to join him. And so he broke up this campaign and came over to Bristol,
and from thence to London. The contrary winds stopped the earl of Marlborough so, that
it was October before he got to Ireland *. He soon took Cork by storm ; and four
thousand men, that lay there in garrison, were made prisoners of war. In this action the
duke of Grafton received a shot, of which he died in a few days : he was the more lamented,
as being the person of all king Charles's children, of whom there was the greatest hope : he
was brave, and probably would have become a great man at sea f. From Cork, the earl of
Marlborough marched to Kinsale, where he found the two forts that commanded the port
to be so much stronger than the plans had represented them to be, that he told me, if he had
known their true strength, he had never undertaken the expedition in a season so far
advanced ; yet in a few days the place capitulated. The Irish drew their forces together,
but durst not venture on raising the siege ; but to divert it, they set the country about,
which was the best built of any in Ireland, all in a flame.
Thus those two important places were reduced in a very bad season, and with very little
loss ; which cut off the quick communication between France and Ireland. Count Lauzun,
with the French troops, lay all this while about Galway, without attempting any thing ;
he sent over to France an account of the desperate state of their affairs, and desired ships
might be sent for the transport of their forces : that was done ; yet the ships came not till
the siege of Limerick was raised : probably, if the court of France had known how much
the state of affairs was altered, they would have sent contrary orders ; but Lauzun was
• The best biography of this great general is by arch- the duke of Grafton performed this unpopular act. He
deacon Coxe, entitled " Memoirs of John, duke of Marl- subsequently served James the Second in various capa-
borough, with his original Correspondence." It contains cities ; but upon the arrival of the Prince of Orange, he,
much valuable information relative to this period. together with lord Churchill (afterwards duke of Mai-1-
t Henry Fitzroy was the illegitimate offspring of Bar- borough), were the first to join him ; yet he voted for the
bara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, by Charles the Second, appointment of a regent. Wheu the parliament had
He was born in 1663. In 1673 he had conferred upon declared William and Mary sovereigns, he adhered to
him the dukedom of Grafton. He saw a good deal of them, and bore the globe during the coronation ceremony.
naval service under sir Charles Bury, vice-admiral of The duke received his death-wound on the 28th of Sen-
England ; and acted gallantly against the duke of Mon- tembcr, 1690, whilst leading on the grenadiers to the
mouth. In 1687, the duke of Somerset having, as was breach in the walls of Cork. He is buried at Euston, in
;noticed in a previous page, declined introducing the pope's Suffolk.— :Grainger's Biog. Hist.
nuncio, the archbishop of Amasia, at his public audience,

6(50 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
weary of the service, and was glad to get out of it ; so he sailed away, without staying for
new orders, by wliich he lost the little reputation that he was beginning to recover at the
court of France. The earl of Tyrconnel went over with him, and gave full assurances, that
though the Irish were likely to suffer great hardships next winter, yet they would stand it
out, if they were still supported from France. It had appeared, upon many occasions, that
the French and tho Irish soldiers did not agree well together ; therefore he proposed, that
no more soldiers, but only a number of good officers, together with arms, ammunition, and
clothes, might be sent over to them. In the mean while, the Irish formed themselves into
many bodies, which, by a new name, were called rapparees *. These, knowing all the
ways, and the bogs, and other places of retreat in Ireland, and being favoured by the
Irish, that had submitted to the king, robbed and burned houses in many places of the
country ; while the king's army studied their own ease in their quarters more than the
protection of the inhabitants: many of them were suspected of robbing in their turn,
though the rapparees carried the blame of all : between them, the poor inhabitants had a
sad time, and their stock of cattle and corn was almost quite destroyed. in many places.
From the affairs of Ireland, I turn next to give an account of what passed in Scotland ;
matters went very happily, as to the military part : when the remnants of the earl of
Dundee's army (to whom many officers, together with ammunition and money, had been
sent from Ireland) began to move towards the low country, to receive those who were
resolved to join with them, and were between two and three thousand strong; they were
fallen upon, and entirely defeated by a Dutch officer, Levingston, that commanded the
forces in Scotland ; about an hundred officers were taken prisoners ; this broke all the
measures that had been taken for king James's interests in Scotland. Upon this, those
who had engaged in Montgomery's plot, looked upon that design as desperate ; yet they
resolved to try what strength they could make in parliament.
Lord Melvill carried down powers, first to offer to duke Hamilton, if he would join in
common measures heartily with him, to be commissioner in parliament, or if he proved
intractable, as indeed he did, to serve in that post himself. He had full instructions for
the settlement of presbytery ; for he assured the king, that without that, it would be
impossible to carry any thing ; only the king would not consent to the taking away the
rights of patronage, and the supremacy of the crown ; yet he found these so much insisted
on, that he sent one to the king to Ireland for fuller instructions in those points ; they were
enlarged, but in such general words, that the king did not understand that his instructions
could warrant what lord Melvill did ; for he gave them both up. And the king was so
offended with him for it, that he lost all the credit he had with him ; though the king did
not think fit to disown him, or to call him to an account, for going beyond his instructions.
The Jacobites persuaded all their party to go to the parliament, and to take the oaths ;
for many of the nobility stood off, and would not own the king, nor swear to him : great
pains were taken .by Paterson, one of their archbishops, to persuade them to take the oaths,
but on design to break them ; for he thought, by that means, they could have a majority
in parliament ; though some of the laity were too honest to agree to such advices ; but
with all these wicked arts they were not able to carry a majority. So, other things failing,
they saw a necessity of desiring a force to be sent over from France ; this appeared so
odious, and so destructive to their country, that some of them refused to concur in it ;
others were not pleased with the answers king James had sent to the propositions they had
made him. He had indeed granted all that they had asked, upon their own particular
interests, and had promised to settle presbytery ; but he rejected all those demands that
imported a diminution of his prerogative, in as firm a manner as if he had been already
set on the throne again : they proposed, finding his answer so little to their satisfaction, to
send him a second message.
Upon this the earls of Argyle, Annandale, and Breadalbane, withdrew from them ;
Annandale came up to the Bath, pretending his ill health : both lord Argyle and Breadal
bane went to Chester, pretending, as they said afterwards, that they intended to discover
* The maraudirg rebels were so called, because generally armed with a short pike, which in Irish is called
" a rapery."— Todd's Johnson's Diet.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 5fil
the whole matter to the king ; but he had passed over to Ireland before they got to
Chester. Montgomery upon this looked on the design as broken ; and so he went and
reconciled himself to Melvill, and discovered the whole negotiation to him. Upon which,
the earl of Melvill pressed the king to grant a general indemuity, and gave Montgomery
a pass to go to London ; and he wrote to the queen in his favour. But the king was
resolved to know the bottom of the plot, and particularly how far any of the English
were engaged in it : so Montgomery absconded for some time in London, since he saw no
hopes of pardon, but upon a full discovery. A warrant was sent to the Bath for the earl of
Annandale, of which he had notice given him, and went up privately to London. Mont
gomery sent Ferguson to him, assuring him that he had discovered nothing, and desiring
him to continue firm and secret : but when he had certain notice that Montgomery had
discovered all the negotiation among the Scotch, he cast himself on the queen's mercy,
asking no other conditions, but that he might not be made an evidence against others. He
himself had not treated with any in England, so as to them he was only a second-hand
witness ; only he informed against Nevil Payne, who had been sent down to Scotland, to
manage matters among them : he was taken there, but would confess nothing. Upon the
earl of Annandale's information, which he gave upon oath, the earl of Nottingham wrote
to the council of Scotland, that he had in his hands a deposition upon oath, containing
matter of high treason against Payne ; upon which it was pretended, that, according to
the law of Scotland, he might be put to the torture ; and that was executed with rigour.
He resisted a double question, yet was still kept a prisoner ; and this was much cried out
on, as barbarous and illegal. Montgomery lay hid for some months at London ; but when
he saw he could not have his pardon but by making a full discovery, he chose rather to go
beyond sea : so fatally did ambition and discontent hurry a man to ruin, who seemed capable
of greater things. His art in managing such a design, and his firmness in not discovering
his accomplices, raised his character as much as it ruined his fortune. He continued in
perpetual plots after this, to no purpose : he was once taken, but made his escape ; and at
last, spleen and vexation put an end to a turbulent life.
The lord Melvill had now a clear majority in parliament by the discovery of the plot ;
some absented themselves ; and others, to redeem themselves, were compliant in all things :
the main point by which Melvill designed to fix himself, and his party, was, the abolish
ing of episcopacy, and the setting up of presbytery. The one was soon done by repealing
all the laws in favour of episcopacy, and declaring it contrary to the genius and constitu
tion of that church and nation ; for the king would not consent to a plain and simple con
demnation of it. But it was not so easy to settle presbytery. If they had followed the
pattern, set them in the year 1638, all the clergy, in a parity, were to assume the govern
ment of the church ; but those being episcopal, they did not think it safe to put the power
of the church in such hands ; therefore it was pretended, that such of the presbyterian
ministers as had been turned out in the year 1662, ought to be considered as the only
sound part of the church : and of these there happened to be then threescore alive ; so the
government of the church was lodged with them ; and they were empowered to take to
their assistance, and to a share in the church government, such as they should think
fit : some furious men who had gone into very frantic principles, and all those who
had been secretly ordained in the presbyterian way, were presently taken in ; this was likely
to prove a fatal error at their first setting out : the old men among them, what by reason
of their age, or their experience of former mistakes, were disposed to more moderate counsels ;
but the taking in such a number of violent men, put it out of their power to pursue
them ; so these broke out into a most extravagant way of proceeding against such of the
episcopal party as had escaped the rage of the former year. Accusations were raised
against them ; some were charged for their doctrine, as guilty of Arminianism ; others
were loaded with more scandalous imputations ; but these were only thrown out to defame
them. And where they looked for proof, it was in a way more becoming inquisitors than
judges ; so apt are all parties, in their turns of power, to fall into those very excesses, of
which they did formerly make such tragical complaints. All other matters were carried, in
the parliament of Scotland, as the lord Melvill and the presbyterians desired. In lieu of
o o

502 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the king's supremacy, he had chimney-money given him ; and a test was imposed on all in
office, or capable of electing, or being elected to serve in parliament, declaring the king and
queen to be their rightful and lawful sovereigns, and renouncing any manner of title pre
tended to be in king James.
As for affairs abroad, the duke of Savoy came into the alliance ; the French suspected he
was in a secret treaty with the emperor, and so they forced him to declare it, before matters
were ripe for it. They demanded, that he would put Turin and Montmelian in their hands.
This was upon the matter to ask all, and to make him a vassal prince : upon his refusal,
a French army took possession of Savoy ; and marched into Piedmont, before he was ready
to receive them; for though the imperialists and the Spaniards had made him great
promises, in which they are never wanting, when their affairs require it, yet they failed so
totally in the performance, that if the king and the Dutch, who had promised him nothing,
had not performed every thing effectually, he must have become at once a prey to the
French. The emperor was this year unhappy in Hungary, both by losing Belgrade, and
by some other advantages, which the Turks gained ; yet he was as little inclined to peace,
as he was capable of carrying on the war.
The king at his first coming over from Ireland was so little wearied with that campaign,
that he intended to have gone over to his army in Flanders ; but it was too late ; for they
were going into winter quarters ; so he held the session of parliament early, about the
beginning of October, that so, the funds being settled for the next year, he might have an
interview with many of the German princes, who intended to meet him at the Hague, that
they might concert measures for the next campaign.
Both houses began with addresses of thanks and congratulation to the king and queen,
in which they set forth the sense they had of their pious care of their people, of their
courage and good government, in the highest expressions that could be conceived; with
promises of standing by them, and assisting them, with every thing that should be found
necessary for the public service : and they were as good as their word ; for the king, having
laid before them the charge of the next year's war, the estimate rising to above four
millions, the vastest sum that ever a king of England had asked of his people, they agreed
to it ; the opposition that was made being very inconsiderable ; and they consented to
the funds proposed, which were thought equal to that which was demanded, though these
proved afterwards to be defective. The administration was so just and gentle, that there
were no grievances to inflame the house, by which the most promising beginnings of some
sessions, in former reigns, had often miscarried.
Some indeed began to complain of a mismanagement of the public money ; but the
ministry put a stop to that, by moving for a bill, empowering such as the parliament should
name, to examine into all accounts, with all particulars relating to them ; giving them
authority to bring all persons that they should have occasion for, before them, and to
tender them an oath, to discover their knowledge of such things as they should ask of them.
This was like the power of a court of inquisition ; and how unusual soever such a com
mission was, yet it seemed necessary to grant it, for the bearing down and silencing all
scandalous reports. When this bill was brought to the lords, it was moved, that since the
commons had named none but members of their own house, that the lords should add
some of their number : this was done by ballot ; and the earl of Rochester having made
the motion, the greatest number of ballots were for him ; but he refused to submit to
this, with so much firmness, that the other lords, who were named with him, seemed to.
think they were in honour bound- to do the same ; so, since no peer would suffer himself to
be named, the bill passed as it was sent up. Many complaints were made of the illegal
coram itments of suspected persons for high treason ; though there was nothing sworn against
them .¦ but the danger was so apparent, and the public safety was so much concerned in
those imprisonments, that the house of commons made a precedent for securing a ministry
that should do the like upon the like necessity, and yet maintained the habeas corpus act ;
they indemnified the ministry for all that had been done contrary to that act.
Great complaints were brought over from Ireland, where the king's army was almost
as heavy on the country as the Rapparees were : there was a great arrear due to them -;

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 563
for wliich reason, when the king settled a government in Ireland, of three lords justices, he
did not put the army under their civil authority, but kept them in a military subjection to
their officers ; for, he said, since the army was not regularly paid, it would be impossible to
keep them from mutiny, if they were put under strict discipline, and punished accordingly.
The under officers, finding that they were only answerable to their superior officers, took
great liberties in their quarters ; and, instead of protecting the country, they oppressed it.
The king had brought over an army of seven thousand Danes, under the command of a very
gallant prince, one of the dukes of Wirtemburg ; but they were cruel friends, and thought
they were masters ; nor were the English troops much better. The Dutch were the least
complained of : Ginkle, who had the chief command, looked strictly to them ; but he did
not think it convenient to put those of other nations under the same severe measures *.
But the pay, due for some months, being now sent over, the orders were changed ; and the
army was made subject to the civil government ; yet it was understood that instructions
were sent to the lords justices to be cautious in the exercise of their authority over them ;
so the country still suffered much by these forces.
The house of commons passed a vote to raise a million of money out of the forfeitures
and confiscations in Ireland ; and in order to that, they passed a bill of attainder of all
those who had been engaged in the rebellion of Ireland, and appropriated the confiscations
to the raising a fund for defraying the expense of the present war ; only they left a power to
the king to grant away a third part of those confiscated estates, to such as had served in the
war ; and to give such articles and capitulations to those who were in arms, as he should
think fit. Upon this bill many petitions were offered, the creditors of some, and the heirs
of others, who had continued faithful to the government, desired provisos for their security.
The commons, seeing that there was no end of petitions, for such provisos, rejected them all ;
imitating in this too much the mock parliament, that king James held in Dublin ; in which
about 3,000 persons were attainted, without proof or process, only because some of them
were gone over to England, and others were absconding, or informed against in Ireland.
But when this bill was brought up to the lords, they thought they were in justice bound
to hear all petitions : upon this, the bill was likely to be clogged with many provisos ; and
the matter must have held long : so the king, to stop this, sent a message to the commons ;
and he spoke to the same purpose, afterwards from the throne, to both houses. He pro
mised he would give no grants of any confiscated estates, but would keep that matter entire,
to the consideration of another session of parliament ; by which the king intended only to
assure them, that he would give none of those estates to his courtiers or officers ; but he
thought he was still at liberty to pass such acts of grace, or grant such articles to the Irish,
as the state of his affairs should require.
There were no important debates in the house of lords. The earl of Torrington's business
held them long ; the form of his commitment was judged to be illegal ; and the martial
law, to which, by the statute, all who served in the fleet were subject, being lodged in the
lord hioh admiral, it was doubted whether, the admiralty being now in commission, that
power was lodged with the commissioners. The judges were of opinion that it was ; yet,
since the power of life and death was too sacred a thing to pass only by a construction of
law, it was thought the safest course to pass an act, declaring, that the powers of a lord
high admiral did vest in the commissioners. The secret enemies of the government, who
intended to embroil matters, moved that the earl of Torrington should be impeached in par
liament ; proceedings in that way being always slow, incidents were also apt to fall in that
might create disputes between the two houses, which did sometimes end in a rupture : but
* This gallant and successful officer is truly designated lantry and conquests in Ireland, the house of commons
by Mr. Noble, " a man of many titles." His names and voted him thanks, and even confirmed the grant of land
honours were Godart de Reede, baron de.Reede and Gen- given him by the king. This was the forfeited estate of
kel, lord Amoronger Middachiez, Liversall, Elst, Stewclt, William Dougan, earl of Limerick ; but four years after
RoenbeMi, &c., knight of the royal order of the elephant, the parliament voted this grant of more than 26,000
general of the cavalry of the United Provinces, grand acres too extravagant. Disgusted with this treatment, ho
commander of the Teutonic order, general of the dukedom left England, entering the service of Holland, where ho
of Guelder, and the county of Zutphen, and baron Agh- again greatly distinguished himself. He died in 170d —
rim, and earl of Athlone, in Ireland. He came into Noble's Continuation of Grainger.
England with William the Third in 1688. For his gal-
o o 2

504 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the king was apprehensive of that ; and, though he was much incensed against that lord,
and had reason to believe that a council of war would treat him very favourably, yet he
chose rather to let it go so than to disorder his affairs. The commissioners of the admi
ralty named a court to try him, who did it with so gross a partiality, that it reflected much
on the justice of the nation : so that, if it had not been for the great interest the king had
in the States, it might have occasioned a breach of the alliance between them and us. He
came off safe as to his person and estate, but much loaded in his reputation; some charging
him with want of courage, while others imputed his ill conduct to a haughty sullenness of
temper, that made him, since orders were sent him, contrary to the advices he had given, to
resolve indeed to obey them, and fight ; but in such a manner as should cast the blame on
those who had sent him the orders, and give them cause to repent of it.
Another debate was moved in the house of lords (by those who intended to revive the old
impeachment of the marquis of Caermarthen) whether impeachments continued from par
liament to parliament, or whether they were not extinguished by an act of grace. Some
ancient precedents were brought to favour this, by those who intended to keep them up ;
but in all these, there had been an order of one parliament to continue them on to the next :
so they did not come home to the present case ; and how doubtful soever it was, whether
the king's pardon could be pleaded in bar to an impeachment, yet, since the king had sent
an act of grace, which had passed in the first session of this parliament, it seemed very
unreasonable to offer an impeachment against an act of parliament. All this discovered a
design against that lord, who was believed to have the greatest credit both with the king
and queen, and was again falling under an universal hatred. In a house of commons, every
motion against a minister is apt to be well entertained ; some envy him, others are angry
at him ; many hope to share in the spoils of him, or of his friends, that fall with him : and
a love of change, and a wantonness of mind, makes the attacking a minister a diversion to
the rest. The thing was well laid, and fourteen leading men had undertaken to manage the
matter against him ; in wliich the earl of Shrewsbury had the chief hand, as he himself told
me ; for he had a very bad opinion of the man, and thought his advices would, in conclusion,
ruin the king and his affairs. But a discovery was at this time made, that was of great
consequence ; and it was managed chiefly by his means, so that put an end to the designs
against him for the present.
The session of parliament was drawing to a conclusion ; and the king was making haste
over to a great congress of many princes, who were coming to meet him at the Hague. The
Jacobites thought this opportunity was not to be lost ; they fancied it would be easy, in the
king's absence, to bring a revolution about ; so they got the lord Preston to come up to
London, and to undertake the journey to France, and to manage this negotiation They
thought no time was to be lost, and that no great force was to be brought over with king
James; but that a few resolute men, as a guard to his person, would serve the turn, now
that there was so small a force left within the kingdom, and the nation was so incensed at a
burthen of four miliums in taxes. By this means, if he surprised us, and managed his
coming over with such secrecy, that he should bring over with himself the first news of it
they believed this revolution would be more easy, and more sudden than the last. The men
.that laid this design were, the earl of Clarendon, the bishop of Ely (Dr. Turner-) the lord
Preston, and his brother Mr. Graham, and Penn, the famous quaker. Lord Preston resolved
to go over, and to carry letters from those who had joined with him in the design, to king
James and his queen. The bishop of Ely's letters were written in a very particular stvle
he undertook, both for his elder brother and the rest of the family, which "wa plan^y mtni
her of Ws 'and 1 H ^t ^^ ** h™ ^ t0 ^ Ja'Ws V A ^assured
wi h fl ' if al^e™Y°r the /™Ce °f ^aleS' and that th^ would ™ more part
with that, than with their hopes of Heaven. Ashton, a servant of that queen's, hired a
vessel to carry them over ; but the owner of the vessel, being a man zealous for th 'govern
ance ^If % TW'' WlUCh -T °nly' that he WaS t0 ™*y some P^ons over to
France. Ihe notice of this was carried to the marquis of Caermarthen; and the matter
was so ordered that lord Preston, Ashton, and a young man (Elliot) were got aboard and
falhng down the river, when the officer sent to take them came, on pretence to search ^

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARV. i(i5
press for seamen ; and drew the three passengers out of the hold, in which they were hid.
Lord Prestim left his letters behind him in the hold, together with king James's signet :
Ashton took them np. on design to have thrown them into the sea, but they were taken
from him.
Both they and their letters were brought to Whitehall. Lord Preston's mind sunk so
visibly, that it was concluded he would not die. if confessing all he knew could save him.
Ashton was more firm and sullen i Elliot knew nothing. There was among their papers
one that contained the heads of a declaration, with assurances of pardon, and promises to
preserve the protestant religion, and the laws : another paper contained short memorials,
taken by lord Preston, in which many of the nobility were named. The most important of
all was, a relation of a conference between some noblemen and gentlemen, Whigs and
Tories ; by which it appeared, that, upon a conversation on this subject, they all seemed
convinced, that upon this occasion France would not study to conquer, but to oblige
England ; and that king James would be wholly governed by protestants. and follow the
protestant and English interest. The prisoners were quickly brought to their trial ; their
design of going to France, and the treasonable papers found about them, were fully proved ;
some of them were written in lord Preston's, and some in Ashton's hand. They made but
a poor defence ; they said, a similitude of hands was not thought a good proof in Sidney's
case ; but this was now only a circumstance : in what hand soever the papers were written,
the crime was always the same, since they were open, not sealed. So they knew the con
tents of them, and thus were carrying on a negotiation of high treason with the king's
enemies : upon fuU evidence they were condemned.
Ashton would enter into no treaty -with the court ; but prepared himself to die. And he
suffered with great decency and seriousness. He left a paper behind him, in wliich he
owned his dependence on king James, and his fidelity to him ; he also affirmed, that he was
sure the prince of Wales was born of the queen : he denied that he knew the conteuts of the
papers that were taken with him. This made some conclude that his paper was penned by
some other person, and too hastily copied over by himself, without making due reflections
on this part of it ; for I compared this paper, which he gave the sheriff, and which was
written in his own hand, with those found about him ; and it was visible, both were written
in the same hand.
Lord Preston went backward and forward ; he had no mind to die, and yet was not willing
to teU all he knew : he acted a weak part in all respects. Wnen he was heated by the
importunities of his friends, who were violently engaged against the government, and after
he had dined well, he resolved he would die heroically ; but by next morning that heat went
off; and when he saw death in full view, his heart failed him. The scheme he carried over
was so foolish, so ill concerted, and so few engaged in it, that those who knew the whole
secret concluded, that if he had got safe to the court of France, the project would have been
so despised, that he must have been suspected, as sent over to draw king James into a snare,
and bring him into the king's hands. The earl of Clarendon was seized, and put in the
Tower ; but the bishop of Ely, Graliam, and Penn, absconded. After some months, the
king, in regard to the earl of Clarendon's relation to the queen, would proceed to no extremi
ties against him, but gave him leave to live, confined to his house in the country *.
The king had suffered the deprived bishops to continue, now above a year, at their sees ;
they all the while neglected the concerns of the church, doing nothing, but living privately
in their palaces. I had, by the queen's order, moved both the earl of Rochester, and sir
John Trevor, who had great credit with them, to try whether, in case an act could be
obtained, to excuse them from taking the oaths, they would go on, and do their functions in
ordinations, institutions, and confirmations ; and assist at the public worship, as formerly :
but thev would give no answer ; only they said, they would live quietly, that is, keep them
selves close, till a proper time should encourage them to act more openly. So all the
thoughts of this kind were, upon that, laid aside. One of the most considerable men of the
partv, Dr. Sherlock, upon king James's going out of Ireland, thought that this gave the
* These particulars are completely verified by the " Diaries " of Mr. Evelyn and lord Clarendon.

5G0 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
present government a thorough settlement ; and in that case, he thought it lawful to take
the oaths ; and upon that, not only took them himself, but publicly justified what he had
done : upon which he was most severely libelled by those from whom he withdrew *. The
discovery of the bishop of Ely's correspondence, and engagement in the name of the rest,
gave the king a great advantage in filling those vacant sees ; which he resolved to do upon
his return from the congress, to which he went over in January.
In his way he ran a very great hazard ; when he got within the Maese, so that it was
thought two hours' rowing would bring him to land, being weary of the sea, he went into
an open boat with some of his lords : but by mists and storms, he was tossed up and down
above sixteen hours, before he got safe to land. Yet neither he, nor any of those who were
with him, were the worse for all this cold and wet weather. And, when the seamen seemed
very apprehensive of their danger, the king said in a very intrepid manner, " What ! are you
afraid to die in my company?" He soon settled some points at which the States had stuck
long ; and they created the funds for that year. The electors of Bavaria and Brandenburg,
the dukes of Zell and Wolfenbuttel, with the landgrave of Hesse, and a great many other
German princes, came to this interview, and entered into consultations concerning the opera
tions of the next campaign. The duke of Savoy's affairs were then very low ; but the king
took care of him, and furnished, as well as procured him such supplies, that his affairs had
quickly a more promising face. Things were concerted among the princes themselves, and
were kept so secret, that they did not trust them to their ministers ; at least the king did
not communicate them to the earl of Nottingham, as he protested solemnly to me, when he
came back. The princes shewed to the king all the respects that any of their rank ever
paid to any crowned head : and they lived together in such an easy freedom, that points of
ceremony occasioned no disputes among them ; though those are often, upon less solemn
interviews, the subjects of much quarrelling, and interrupt more important debates.
During this congress, pope Alexander the Eighth, Ottoboni, died. He had succeeded
pope Innocent, and sat in that chair almost a year and a half; he was a Venetian, and
intended to enrich his family as much as he could. The French king renounced his preten
sions to the franchises ; and he, in return for that, promoted Fourbin and some others,
recommended by that court, to be cardinals ; which was much resented by the emperor.
Yet he would not yield the point of the regale to the court of France ; nor would he grant
the bulls for those whom the king had named to the vacant bishoprics in France who had
signed the formulary, passed in 1682, that declared the pope fallible, and subject to a general
council. When pope Alexander felt himself near death, he passed a bull in due form, by
which he confirmed all pope Innocent's bulls ; and by this he put a new stop to any recon
ciliation with the court of France. This he did to render his name and family more accept
able to the Italians, and most particularly to his countrymen, who hated the French as
much as they feared them. Upon his death, the conclave continued shut up for five months,
before they could agree upon an election. The party of the zealots stood long firm to Bar-
barigo, who had the reputation of a saint, and seemed in all things to set cardinal Borromeo
before him as a pattern : they at last were persuaded to consent to the choice of Pignatelli,
a Neapolitan, who, while he was archbishop of Naples, had some disputes with the viceroy,
• Dr. William Sherlock was a native of Southwark, dence," are excellent. He died in 1707. His son,
where he was born about the year 1641. His education afterwards bishop of London, " Sherlock-like," could not
was conducted at Eton and Peter House, Cambridge, be convinced respecting certain tenets, until decided by
where he took his doctor's degree in 1680. At the revo- the battle of Preston, as that of the Boyne had converted
lution he at first refused to take the new oaths of alle- his father.
giance, and exerted himself to induce others to be equally
lefi-actory. The government gave him time to consider, £? sherlock the elder, with jure divine
and his wife during this interval succeeded in persuading Did not comply till the battle of Boyne ;
him to change his opinions. A bookseller soon after see- S£ Sherlock the younger still made it a question
ing the doctor handing his wife along St. Paul's church- Which side he would take, till the battle of Preston.
yard, archly observed, " There goes Dr. Sherlock with So said the wits of the day ; and the benchers of the
his reasons for taking the oaths at his finger's ends." He Temple, in commending a loyal sermon of the junior
defended his change of sentiments in a pamphlet entitled Sherlock, preached the Sundav succeeding the battle of
" The Cure of Resistance to the Supreme Powers." His Preston, said, " it was a pity "it had not been delivered
controversial writings are of small estimation ; but some at least the Sunday before."— Noble's Continuation of
practical works, especially his " Discourse on Provi- Grainger ; Gen. Biog. Dictionary.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 507
concerning the ecclesiastical immunities, which he asserted so highly, that he excommuni
cated some of the judges, who, as he thought, had invaded them. The Spaniards had seemed
displeased at this ; which recommended him so to the French, that they also concurred to his
elevation. He assumed pope Innocent's name, and seemed resolved to follow his maxims
and steps ; for he did not seek to raise his family, of which the king told me a considerable
instance : one of his nearest kindred was then in the Spanish service, in Flanders, and
hastened to Rome upon his promotion ; he received him kindly enough, but presently dis
missed him, giving him no other present, if he said true, but some snuff. It is true, the
Spaniards afterwards promoted him ; but the pope took no notice of that.
To return to the Low Countries : the king of France resolved to break off the conferences
at the Hague, by giving the alarm of an early campaign ; Mons was besieged ; and the kino-
came before it in person. It was thereupon given up, as a lost place ; for the French minis
ters had laid that down among their chief maxims, that their king was never to undertake
any thing in his own person, but where he was sure of success. The king broke up tho con
gress, and drew a great army very soon together ; and, if the town had held out so long, as
they might well have done, or if the governor of Flanders had performed what he undertook,
of furnishing carriages to the army, the king would either have raised the siege, or forced the
French to a battle. But some priests had been gained by the French, who laboured so
effectually among the townsmen, who were almost as strong as the garrison, that they at
last forced the governor to capitulate. Upon that, both armies went into quarters of refresh
ment ; and the king came over again to England for a few weeks.
He gave all necessary orders for the campaign in Ireland, in which Ginkle had the chief
command. Russel had the command of the fleet, which was soon ready, and well manned.
The Dutch squadron came over in good time. The proportion of the quota, settled between
England and the States, was, that we were to furnish five, and they three ships of equal
rates and strength.
Affairs in Scotland were now brought to some temper ; many of tho lords, who had been
concerned in the late plot, came up, and confessed and discovered all, and took out their
pardon ; they excused themselves, as apprehending that they were exposed to ruin ; and
that they dreaded the tyranny of presbytery, no less than they did popery ; and they pro
mised that, if the king would so balance matters, that the lord Melvill, and his party, should
not have it in their power to ruin them and their friends, and in particular, that they should
not turn out the ministers of the episcopal persuasion, who were yet in office, nor force pres
byterians on them, they would engage in the king's interests faithfully and with zeal : they
also undertook to quiet the Highlanders, who stood out still, and were robbing the country
in parties ; and they undertook to the king, that, if the episcopal clergy could be assured of
his protection, they would all acknowledge and serve him. They did not desire that the
king should make any step towards the changing the government, that was settled there ;
they only desired that episcopal ministers might continue to serve in those places that liked
them best ; and that no man should be brought into trouble for his opinion, as to the govern
ment of the church ; and that such episcopal men as were willing to mix with the presby
terians in their judicatories, should be admitted, without any severe imposition in point of
opinion. This looked so fair, and agreed so well with the king's own sense of things, that he very
easily hearkened to it ; and I did believe that it was sincerely meant ; so I promoted it with
great zeal, though we afterwards came to see that all this was an artifice of the Jacobites to
engage the king to disgust the presbyterians ; and by losing them, or at least rendering them
remiss in his service, they reckoned they would be soon masters of that kingdom. For the
party resolved now to come in generally to take the oaths ; but in order to that, they sent
one to king James, to shew the necessity of it, and the service they intended him in it ;
and therefore they asked his leave to take them. That king's answer was more honest ; he
said he could not consent to that which he thought unlawful ; but if any of them took the
oaths on design to serve him, and continued to advance his interests, he promised it should
never be remembered against them. Young Dalrymple was made conjunct secretary of state,
with the lord Melvill ; and he undertook to bring in most of the Jacobites to the king's ser-

5C8 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
vice ; but they entered, at the same time, into a close correspondence with St. Germains : I
believed nothing of all this at that time, but went in cordially to serve many, who intended
to betray us.
The truth was, the presbyterians, by their violence and other foolish practices, were ren
dering themselves both odious and contemptible : they had formed a general assembly, m
the end of the former year, in which they did very much expose themselves by the weak
ness and peevishness of their conduct : little learning or prudence appeared among them ;
poor preaching and wretched haranguing ; partialities to one another, and violence and injus
tice to those who differed from them, shewed themselves in all their meetings. And these
did so much sink their reputation, that they were weaning the nation most effectually from
all fondness to their government ; but the falsehood of many, who, under a pretence of
moderating matters, were really undermining the king's government, helped in the sequel
to preserve the presbyterians, as much as their own conduct did now alienate the king from
them. The next thing the king did was, to fill the sees vacant by deprivation. He judged right
that it was of great consequence, both to his service and to the interests of religion, to have
Canterbury well filled ; for the rest would turn upon that. By the choice he was to make,
all the nation would see, whether he intended to go on with his first design of moderating
matters, and healing our breaches, or if he would go into the passions and humours of a high
party, that seemed to court him as abjectly as they inwardly hated him. Dr. Tillotson had
been now well known to him for two years ; his soft and prudent counsels, and his zeal
for his service, had begotten, both in the king and queen, a high and just opinion of him.
They had both, for above a year, pressed him to come into this post : and he had struggled
against it with great earnestness : as he had no ambition, nor aspiring in his temper, so he
foresaw what a scene of trouble and slander he must enter on, now in the decline of his age.
The prejudices that the Jacobites would possess all people with, for his coming into the
room of one, whom they called a confessor *, and who began now to have the public com
passion on his side, were well foreseen by him. He also apprehended the continuance of
that heat and aversion, that a violent party had always expressed towards him, though he
had not only avoided to provoke any of them, but had, upon all occasions, done the chief of
them great services, as often as it was in his power. He had large principles, and was free
from superstition ; his zeal had been chiefly against atheism and popery ; but he had never
shewed much sharpness against the dissenters. He had lived in a good correspondence with
many of them ; he had brought several over to the church by the force of reason, and the
softness of persuasion and good usage ; but was a declared enemy to violence and severities
on those heads. Among other prejudices against him, one related to myself : he and I had
lived, for many years, in a close and strict friendship ; he laid before the king all the ill
effects, that, as he thought, the promoting him would have on his own service ; but all this
had served only to increase the king's esteem of him, and fix him in his purpose.
The bishop of Ely's letters to St. Germains, gave so fair an occasion of filling those sees,
at this time, that the king resolved to lay hold on it ; and Tillotson, with great uneasiness
to himself, submitted to the king's command ; and soon after, the see of York falling void,
Dr. Sharp was promoted to it : so those two sees were filled with the two best preachers
that had sat in them in our time : only Sharp did not know the world so well, and was
not so steady as Tillotson was j. Dr. Patrick was advanced to Ely, Dr. Moore was made
* Dr. Sancroft. these interests he obtained, in succession the archdeaconry
t Dr. John Sharp was born in 1644, at Bradford, in of Berkshire, a prebend stall of Norwich, the rectory of
Yorkshire. His college education was at Christ's, Cam- St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and the deanery of Norwich. In
bridge. Notwithstanding his talents, it is probable he a former page has been noticed the displeasure he incurred
would not have advanced so rapidly, but from two fortu- during the reign of James the Second. At the revolution
nate connections. He obtained the domestic chaplaincy, he was presented to the deanery of Canterbury, and was
nnd tutorship of the four sons, of sir Heneage Finch, finally elevated to the see of York, as mentioned in the
eventually lord chancellor; and his father, a dry-salter, ' text above. He died in 1714. Dr. Sharp was devoted
was intimate with Mr. Joshua Tillotson, in the same line to scientific and literary pursuits. At college he was dis-
of business, uncle to the archbishop. This led to an intra- tinguished for his acquirements in chemistry, botany, and
duction of the son of the first, to the latter's nephew, and mathematics. During his retirement at Norwich, in James's
they never after ceased to be intimate friends. Through reign, he amused himself with forming a collection of

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY.

569

bishop of Norwich, Dr. Cumberland was made bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Fowler was
made bishop of Gloucester, Ironside was promoted to Hereford, Grove to Chichester, and
Hall to Bristol * ; as Hough, the president of Magdalen's, was the year before this, made
bishop of Oxford. So that in two years' time the king had named fifteen bishops ; and they
were generally looked on as the most learned, the wisest, and best men, that were in the
church. It was visible that in all these nominations, and the filling the inferior dignities,
that became void by their promotion, no ambition, nor court favour, had appeared ; men
were not scrambling for preferment, nor using arts, or employing friends to set them forward ;
on the contrary, men were sought for, and brought out of their retirements ; and most of
them very much against their own inclinations : they were men both of moderate principles,
and of calm tempers. This great promotion was such a discovery of the king and queen s

coins, chiefly British. Shakspeare was his favourite au
thor, and with his writings he was thoroughly acquainted.
He used to recommend young divines to read the scrip
tures, and then that great dramatist, observing that the
Bible and Shakspeare made him archbishop of York. —
Biog. Britannica. Oxford edition of this work.
" Dr. John Moore was a native of Market Harborough,
Leicestershire. He became a fellow of Clare Hall, Cam
bridge, was successively rector of various parishes, chaplain
to lord chancellor Nottingham, and to king "William and
queen Mary. The bishopric of Norwich was given him,
as stated above ; and, in .1707, lie was translated to Ely,
Attending Dr. Bentley's course, he was detained such a
lengthened time in the cold hall of Ely-house, that he
incurred an illness which eventually killed him, in 1714.
Dr. Clarke, his domestic chaplain, has given him a very
laudatory character in the preface to his works, which he
collected and published. He was a true bibliomaniac, for
his love of collecting old books was accompanied by one
of its most rabid symptoms, — a proneness to go a step
beyond the sin of coveting. The writer remembers to
have seen a warning given in a letter to a librarian to be
on the look out, " for the bishop of Ely was coming." —
" Cave — adsuui I " would have been an appropriate motto
for him. George the First bought his library, consisting
of 28,965 printed volumes, and 1790 MSS., and gave it
to the Cambridge university library. Some disturbances
happening at the same time in Oxford, a troop of horse
was despatched thither by the ministry, which occasioned
the following excellent epigram, by Dr. Trapp, or Dr.
Warton : —
The king observing, with judicious eyes,
The state of both his universities,
To one he sends a regiment; For why ?
That learned body wanted loyalty.
To th' other books he gave, as well discerning
How much that loyal body wanted learning.
To this sir William Browne, the physician, wittily
replied : —
The king to Oxford sent his troop of horse :
For tories own no argument but force.
With equal care to Cambridge books lie sent :
For whigs allow no force, but argument.
(Bentham's Hist, of Ely; Clarke's Preface as quoted;
Noble's Cont. of Grainger.)
Dr. Richard Cumberland, a native of London, and
educated at St. Paul's school, and Magdalen College, Cam
bridge, was quietly pursuing his antiquarian studies, and
his duties as a country priest, when, he was summoned,
without any application on his own part, to fill the see of
Peterborough. Never was there a more laudable, more
dignified character than his ; for Mr. Noble does not exag
gerate when, after describing his published works, his exer
tions as a clergyman, and his unostentatious, though muni

ficent charities, he adds " languages, divinity, history,
physic, mathematics, and indeed every branch of learning
and science were understood by him. He might, indeed,
be called the patriarch of splendid abilities; abilities,
guarded by religion and integrity, and adorned with tho
choicest flowers of eloquence." He died in 1718, aged 86,
and lies under a tomb he had erected in his own cathedral.
Indefatigable in all his duties and pursuits, even at the last
period of his life, his friends recommended quiet and
relaxation, or that he would wear himself out; to which
he replied, " I had better wear out, than rust out."
His memoirs are contained in the preface to one of his
works, " Sancboniatho's Phoenician History," which are
ably epitomised in the " Biographia Britannica."
Dr. Edward Fowler, a native of "Wester! cigh, Glouces
tershire, and educated at Oxford, though he graduated at
Cambridge, was an exemplary, mild-tempered, tolerant
man ; this, which obtained for him a place among those
designated Latitudinarians, and his strenuous opposition to
papacy, obtained for him the above preferment. He died
in 1714, aged eighty-two. — Wood's Athense Oxon. ; Biog.
Bri tan.
Dr. Gilbert Ironside was son of the bishop of Bristol,
of the same name. He was born at Winterborne Steple-
don, in Dorsetshire, matriculated, and graduated at Wad-
ham college, Oxford, was nominated bishop of Bristol in
1 689, and accepted this see under a promise that he should
be translated to a better. " Being then about sixty years
of age, he took to him a fair widow to be his wife ;" and
was, on the death of Dr. Herbert Croft, translated to Here
ford, as mentioned above. He seems to have died in
1712, as Dr. Bisse was translated to the see of Hereford
in that year. — Wood's Athense Oxon. ; Noble's Cont, of
Grainger, ii. 1 00.
Of Dr. Robert Grove, little is known to the editor.
He was a fellow of St. John's, Cambridge ; chaplain to
Dr. Henchman ; lecturer and rector of St. Mary Axe.
In 1681, he obtained his doctor's degree. In 1688 was
rector of St. Mary's Undershaft, and present at the sign
ing the petition to king James by the seven bishops. He
probably died in 1724, as in that year Dr. Waddington
was consecrated bishop of Chichester. — Wood's Athenae
Oxon. ; Clarendon Correspondence ; Noble's Cont. of
Grainger. Dr. John, or Joseph (for authorities differ) Hall was
the son of a vicar of Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire. He
was under the tuition of his uncle, Edmund Hall, at Pem
broke college, Oxford. Of this college he became the
master in 1664, and retained it forty-five years ; for when
consecrated bishop of Bristol, he was allowed to hold his
mastership and the rectory of St. Aldgates, adjoining his
college, in commendam. He may be said to have spent
his whole time in his college, dying there in 1709, and
though estimable as a scholar and a divine, yet certainly
not sufficiently attentive to his diocese. — Wood's Athene
Oxon. ; Noble's Cont. of Grainger.

570 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
designs, with relation to the church, that it served much to remove the jealousies that some
other steps the king had made were beginning to raise in the whigs, and very much softened
the ill humour that was spread among them.
As soon as this was over, the king went back to command his army in Flanders.
Both armies were now making haste to take the field. But the French were quicker
than the confederates had yet learned to be. Prince Waldeck had not got above
eighteen thousand men together, when Luxembourg, with an army of forty thousand
men, was marching to have surprised Brussels: and at the same time Boufflers, with
another army, came up to Liege. Waldeck posted his army so well, that Luxem
bourg, believing it stronger than indeed it was, did not attempt to break through, in
which it was believed he might have succeeded. The king hastened the rest of the troops
and came himself to the army in good time, not only to cover Brussels, but to send a detach
ment to the relief of Liege, which had been bombarded for two days. A body of Germans,
as well as that which the king sent to them, came in good time to support those of Liege,
who were beginning to think of capitulating. So Boufflers drew off; and the French kept
themselves so close in their posts all the rest of the campaign, that though the king made
many motions, to try if it was possible to bring them to a battle, yet he could not do it.
Signal preservations of his person did again show that he had a watchful Providence still
guarding him. Once he had stood under a tree for some time, which the enemy observing,
they levelled a cannon so exactly, that the tree was shot down two minutes after the king
was gone from the place. There was one that belonged to the train of artillery who was
corrupted to set fire to the magazine of powder ; and he fired the matches of three bombs :
two of these blew up without doing any mischief, though there were twenty-four more
bombs in the same waggon on which they lay, together with a barrel of powder : the third
bomb was found with the match fired, before it had its effect. If this wicked practice had
succeeded, the confusion that was in all reason to be expected upon such an accident, while
the enemy was not above a league from them, drawn up and looking for the success of it,
must have had terrible effects. It cannot be easily imagined how much mischief might have
followed upon it, in the mere destruction of so many as would have perished immediately,
if the whole magazine had taken fire, as well as in the panic fear with which the rest would
have been struck upon so terrible an accident ; by the surprise of it, the French might have
had an opportunity to have cut off the whole army. This may well be reckoned one of the
miracles of Providence, that so little harm was done, when so much was intended and so near
being done. The two armies lay along between the Sambre and the Maese ; but no action
followed. When the time came of going into quarters, the king left the armies in prince
Waldeck's hands, who was observed not to march off with that caution that might have been
expected from so old a captain : Luxembourg upon that drew out his horse, with the king's
household, designing to cut off his rear ; and did, upon the first surprise, put them into some
disorder ; but they made so good a stand, that, after a very hot action, the French marched
off, and lost more men on their side than we did. Auverquerque commanded the body that
did this service : and with it the campaign ended in Flanders.
Matters went on at sea with the same caution. Dunkirk was for some time blocked up
by a squadron of ours. The great fleet went to find out the French ; but they had orders
to avoid an engagement : and though for the space of two months Russel did all he could to
come up to them, yet they still kept at a distance, and sailed off in the night : so that
though he was sometimes in view of them, yet he lost it next day. The trading part of
the nation was very apprehensive of the danger the Smyrna fleet might be in, in which the
Dutch and English effects together were valued at four millions ; for though they had a
great convoy, yet the French fleet stood out to intercept them ; but they got safe into
Kinsale. The season went over without any action ; and Russel, at the end of it, came
into Plymouth in a storm : which was much censured, for that road is not safe, and two
considerable ships were lost upon the occasion. Great factions were among the flag officers ;
and no other service was done by this great equipment, but that our trade was main
tained. But while we had no success, either in Flanders or at sea, we were more happy in Ire-

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 571
land, even beyond expectation. The campaign was opened with the taking of Baltimore,
on which the Irish had wrought much, that Athlone might be covered by it. We took it
in one day, and the garrison had only ammunition for a day more. St. Ruth, one of the
most violent of all the persecutors of the protestants in France, was sent over with two
hundred officers to command the Irish army. This first action reflected much on his con
duct, who left a thousand men with so slender a provision of ammunition, that they were
all made prisoners of war. From thence Ginkle advanced to Athlone, where St. Ruth was
posted on the other side of the Shannon, with an army in number equal to his : the river
was deep, but fordable in several places : the castle was soon turned to a ruin by the cannon :
but the passing the river in the face of an enemy was no easy thing, the ford being so narrow
that they could not pass above twenty in front : parties were sent out to try other fords,
which probably made the enemy imagine that they never intended to pass the river just
under the town, where the ford was both deep and narrow. Talmash, a general officer,
moved, that two battalions might have guineas apiece to encourage them ; and he offered
to march over at the head of them : which was presently executed by Mackay with so much
resolution, that many ancient officers said it was the most gallant action they had ever seen.
They passed the river, and went through the breaches into the town, with the loss only of
fifty men, having killed above a thousand of the enemy ; and yet they spared all that asked
quarter. St. Ruth did not upon this occasion act suitably to the reputation he had formerly
acquired ; he retired to Aghrim, where he posted himself to great advantage, and was much
superior to Ginkle in number ; for he had abandoned many small garrisons to increase his
army, which was now twenty-eight thousand strong ; whereas Ginkle had not above twenty
thousand ; so that the attacking him was no advisable thing, if the courage of the English,
and the cowardice of the Irish, had not made a difference so considerable, as neither numbers
nor posts could balance.
St. Ruth had indeed taken the most effectual way possible to infuse courage into the Irish :
he had sent their priests about among them, to animate them by all the methods they could
think of; and, as the most powerful of all others, they made them swear on the sacrament
that they would never forsake their colours. This had a great effect on them ; for as when
Ginkle fell on them they had a great bog before them, and the grounds on both sides were
very favourable to them : with those advantages they maintained their ground much longer
than they had been accustomed to do. They disputed the matter so obstinately, that for
about two hours the action was very hot, and every battalion and squadron on both sides
had a share in it. But nature will be always too strong for art ; the Irish in conclusion
trusted more to their heels than to their hands; the foot threw down their arms and ran
away. St. Ruth and many more officers were killed, and about eight thousand soldiers
and all their cannon and baggage was taken. So that it was a total defeat ; only the night
favoured a body of horse that got off. From thence Ginkle advanced to Galway, which
capitulated ; so that now Limerick was the only place that stood out. A squadron of ships
was sent to shut up the river. In the meanwhile, the lords justices issued out a new pro
clamation, with an offer of life and estate to such as within a fortnight should come under
the king's protection.
Ginkle pursued his advantages ; and, having reduced all Connaught, he came and sat
down before Limerick, and bombarded it ; but that had no great effect ; and though most of
the houses were beat down, yet as long as the Connaught side was open, fresh men and pro
visions were still brought into the place. When the men of war were come up near the
town, Ginkle sent over a part of his army to the Connaught side, who fell upon some bodies
of the Irish that lay there and broke them, and pursued them so close as they retired to
Limerick, that the French governor, D'Usson, fearing that the English would have come in
with them, drew up the bridge, so that many of them were killed and drowned. This con
tributed very much towards heightening the prejudices that the Irish had against the French.
The latter were so inconsiderable, that if Sarsfield and some of the Irish had not joined with
them, they could not have made their party good. The earl of Tyrconnel had, with a par
ticular view, studied to divert the French from sending over soldiers into Ireland ; for he
designed, in case of new misfortunes, to treat with the king, and to preserve himself and

572 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
his friends; and now he began to dispose the Irish to think of treating, since they saw that
otherwise their ruin was inevitable. But as soon as this was suspected, all the military
men, who resolved to give themselves up entirely to the French interest, combined against
him. and blasted him as a feeble and false man who was not to be trusted. This was carried
so far that, to avoid affronts, he was advised to leave the army; and he stayed all this sum
mer at Limerick, where he died of grief, as was believed ; but, before he died, he advised all
that came to him not to let things go to extremities, but to accept of such terms as could be
got : and his words seemed to weigh more after his death than in his lifetime ; for the Irish
began generally to say, that they must take care of themselves, and not be made sacrifices
to serve the ends of the French*. This was much heightened by the slaughter of the Irish
whom the French governor had shut out and left to perish. They wanted no provisions in
Limerick. And a squadron of French ships stood over to that coast, which was much
Btronger than ours that had sailed up to the town. So it was to be feared that they might
come into the river to destroy our ships.
To hinder that, another squadron of English men of war was ordered thither. Yet the
French did not think fit to venture their ships within the Shannon, where they had no places
of shelter ; the misunderstanding that daily grew between the Irish and the French was
great ; and all appearance of relief from France failing, made them resolve to capitulate.
This was very welcome to Ginkle and his army, who began to be in great wants ; for that
country was quite wasted, having been the seat of war for three years ; and all their draught
horses were so wearied out, that their camp was often ill supplied.
When they came to capitulate, the Irish insisted on very high demands ; which were set
on by the French, who hoped they would be rejected : but the king had given Ginkle secret
directions that he should grant all the demands they could make, that would put an end to
that war : so every thing was granted, to the great disappointment of the French, and the
no small grief of some of the English, who hoped this war would have ended in the total
ruin of the Irish interest. During the treaty, a saying of Sarsfield's deserves to be remem
bered, for it was much talked of all Europe over. He asked some of the English officers
if they had not come to a better opinion of the Irish, by their behaviour during this war;
and whereas they said it was much the same that it had always been, Sarsfield answered,
as low as we now are, change but kings with us, and we will fight it over again with you.
Those of Limerick treated not only for themselves, but for all the rest of their countrymen
that were yet in arms. They were all indemnified and restored to all that they had enjoyed in
king Charles's time. They were also admitted to all the privileges of subjects, upon their
taking the oaths of allegiance to their majesties, without being bound to take the oath of
supremacy. Not only the French, but as many 'of the Irish as had a mind to go over to
France, had free liberty and a safe transportation. And upon that about twelve thousand
of them went over.
And thus ended the war of Ireland : and with that our civil war came to a final end.
The articles of capitulation were punctually executed ; and some doubts that arose out of
some ambiguous words, were explained in favour of the Irish. So earnestly desirous was the
king to have all matters quieted at home, that he might direct his whole force against the
enemy abroad. The English in Ireland, though none could suffer more by the continuance
of the war than they did, yet were uneasy when they saw that the Irish had obtained such
good conditions ; some of the more violent men among them, who were much exasperated
with the wrongs that had been done them, began to call in question the legality of some of
the articles : but the parliament of England did not think fit to enter upon that discussion;
nor made they any motions towards the violating the capitulation. Ginkle came over full
of honour after so glorious a campaign, and was made earl of Athlone, and had noble rewards
for the great service he had done ; though, without detracting from him, a large share of all
that was done was due to some of the general officers, in particular to Rouvigny, made upon
this earl of Galway, to Mackay, and Tallmash. Old Rouvigny being dead, his son offered
his service to the king, who unwillingly accepted of it ; because he knew that an estate which
* For more particulars concerning the public life of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, see tho Clarendon Corrcn-
pondence. Grainger mentions him.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 573
his father had in France, and of which he had still the income, would be immediately con
fiscated ; but he had no regard to that, and heartily engaged in the king's service, and has
been ever since employed in many eminent posts : in all which he has acquitted himself with
that great reputation, both for capacity, integrity, courage, and application, as well as suc
cess in most of his undertakings, that he is justly reckoned among the great men of the
age : and to crown all, he is a man of eminent virtues, great piety, and zeal for relic-ion.
The emperor's affairs in Hungary went on successfully this year, under the command of
prince Lewis of Baden; though he committed an error that was likely to have proved fatal
to him : his stores lay near him in great boats on the Danube, but upon some design he
made a motion off from that river ; of which the grand vizier took the advantage, and got
into his camp between him and his stores ; so that he must either starve, or break through
to come at his provisions. The Turks had not time to fortify themselves in their new camp,
so he attacked them with such fury, that they were quite routed, and lost camp and cannon
and a great part of their army, the grand vizier himself being killed. If the court of Vienna
had really desired a peace, they might have had it upon this victory on very easy terms ;
but they resolved they would be masters of all Transylvania ; and, in order to that, they
undertook the siege of Great Waradin, which they were forced to turn to a blockade ; so
that it fell not into their hands till the spring following. The emperor was led on by the
prophecies, that assured him of constant conquests, and that he should in conclusion arrive
at Constantinople itself : so that the practices of those whom the French had gained about
him, had but too much matter to work on in himself.
The news of the total reduction of Ireland confirmed him in his resolutions of carrying on
the war in Hungary. It was reckoned that England, being now disengaged at home, would
with the rest of the protestant allies be able to carry on the war with France. And the two
chief passions in the emperor's mind, being his hatred of heresy, and his hatred of France, it
was said, that those about him, who served the interests of that court, persuaded him that
he was to let the war go on between France, and those he esteemed heretics ; since he would
be a gainer, which side soever should lose ; either France would be humbled, or the heretics
be exhausted ; while he should extend his dominions and conquer infidels. The kino- had
a sort of regard and submission to the emperor, that he had to no other prince whatsoever ;
so that he did not press him, as many desired he should, to accept of a peace with the Turks,
that so he might turn his whole force against FrancD.
Germany was now more entirely united in one common interest than ever. The third
party that the French had formed to obstruct the war, were now gone off from those mea
sures, and engaged in the general interest of the empire : the two northern kings had some
satisfaction given them in point of trade, that so they might maintain their neutrality : and
they were favourable to the allies, though not engaged with them. The king of Sweden,
whom the French were pressing to offer his mediation for a peace, wrote to the duke of
Hanover, assuring him he would never hearken to that proposition, till he had full assurances
from the French, that they would own the present government of England.
That duke, who had been long in a French management, did now break off all commerce
with that court, and entered into a treaty both with the emperor and with the king. He
promised great supplies against France and the Turk, if he might be made an elector of the
empire : in which the king concurred to press the matter so earnestly at the court of Vienna,
that they agreed to it, in case he could gain the consent of the other electors ; wliich the
emperor's ministers resolved to oppose, underhand, all they could. He quickly gained the
consent of the greater number of the electors ; yet new objections were still made. It was
said, that if this was granted, another electorate in a popish family ought also to be created,
to balance the advantage that this gave the Lutherans ; and they moved that Austria should
be made an electorate. But this was so much opposed, since it gave the emperor two votes
in the electoral college, that it was let fall. In conclusion, after a year's negotiation, and a
great opposition, both by popish and protestant princes, (some of the latter considering more
their jealousies of the house of Hanover than the interest of their religion,) the investiture
was given, with the title of elector of Brunswick and great marshal of the empire. Tho

574 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
French opposed this with all the artifices they could set at work. The matter lay long in an
unsettled state : nor was he now admitted into the college ; it being said that the unanimous
consent of all the electors must be first had.
The affairs of Savoy did not go on so prosperously as was hoped for : Caraffa, that com
manded the imperial army, was more intent on raising contributions than on carrj'ing on the
war : he crossed every good motion that was made : Montmelian was lost, which was chiefly
imputed to Caraffa : the young duke of Schomberg, sent thither to command those troops
that the king paid, undertook to relieve the place, and was assured that many protestants in
Dauphiny would come and join him. But Caraffa, and indeed the court of Turin, seemed
to be more afraid of the strength of heresy than of the power of France ; and chose to let
that important place fall into their hands, rather than suffer it to be relieved by those they
did not like. When the duke of Savoy's army went into quarters, Caraffa obliged the
neighbouring princes and the state of Genoa to contribute to the subsistence of the imperial
army, threatening them otherwise with winter quarters ; so that how ill soever he managed
the duke of Savoy's concerns, he took care of his own. He was recalled upon the complaints
made against him on all hands, and Caprara was seDt to command in his room.
The greatest danger lay in Flanders, where the feebleness of the Spanish government did
so exhaust and weaken the whole country, that all the strength of the confederate armies
was scarce able to defend it : the Spaniards had offered to deliver it up to the king, either as
he was king of England, or as he was stadtholder of the United Provinces. He knew the
bigotry of the people so well, that he was convinced it was not possible to get them to
submit to a protestant government : but he proposed the elector of Bavaria, who seemed to
have much heat, and an ambition of signalising himself in that country, which was then the
chief scene of war : and he could support that government by the troops and treasure that he
might draw out of his electorate : besides, if he governed that country well, and acquired a
fame in arms, that might give him a prospect of succeeding to tho crown of Spain in the
right of his electoress, who, if the house of Bourbon was set aside, was next in that succes
sion. The Spaniards agreed to this proposal ; but they would not make the first offer of it
to that elector, nor would he ask it ; and it stuck for some time at this : but the court of
Vienna, adjusted the matter by making the proposition, which the elector accepted : and that
put a new life into those oppressed and miserable provinces.
This was the general state of affairs when a new session of parliament was opened at
Westminster, and then it appeared that a party was avowedly formed against the govern
ment. They durst not own that before, while the war of Ireland continued. But now,
since that was at an end, they began to infuse into all people that there was no need of
keeping up a great land army, and that we ought only to assist our allies with some
auxiliary troops, and increase our force at sea. Many that understood not the state of foreign
affaiis were drawn into this conceit, not considering that, if Flanders was lost, Holland must
submit and take the best terms they could get. And the conjunction of those two great
powers at sea, must presently ruin our trade, and in a little time subdue us entirely. But it
was not easy to bring all people to apprehend this aright ; and those who had ill intentions
would not be beaten out of it, but covered worse designs with this pretence : and this was
still kept up as a prejudice against the king and his government, that he loved to have a
great army about him ; and that when they were once modelled, he would never part with
them, but govern in an arbitrary way as soon as he had prepared his soldiers to serve
his ends.
Another prejudice had more colour and as bad effects. The king was thought to love the
Dutch more than the English, to trust more to them, and to admit them to more freedom
with him. He gave too much occasion to a general disgust, which was spread both
among the English officers and the nobility : he took little pains to gain the affections of the
nation, nor did he constrain himself enough to render his government more acceptable : he
was shut up all the day long ; and his silence, when he admitted any to an audience, dis
tasted them as much as if they had been denied it. The earl of Marlborough thought that
the great services he had done, were not acknowledged, nor rewarded, as they well deserved,

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 575
and began to speak like a man discontented. And the strain of all the nation almost was,
that the English were overlooked, and the Dutch were the only persons favoured or trusted.
This was national : and the English being too apt to despise other nations, and being of
more lively tempers than the Dutch, grew to express a contempt and an aversion for them,
that went almost to a mutiny. It is true the Dutch behaved themselves so well and so
regularly in their quarters, and paid for everything so punctually, whereas the English were
apt to be rude and exa ting ; especially those who were all this winter coming over from
Ireland, who had been so long in an enemy's country that they were not easily brought into
order ; so that the common people were generally better pleased with the Dutch soldiers
than with their own countrymen, but it was not the same as to the officers. These seeds of
discontent were carefully managed by the enemies of the government ; and by those means
matters went on heavily in the house of commons. The king was also believed to be so
tender in every point that seemed to relate to his prerogative, that he could not well bear
anything that was a diminution of it : and he was said to have taken a dislike and mistrust
of all those whose notions leaned to public liberty, though those were the persons that were the
firmest to him, and the most zealous for him. The men whose notions of the prerogative
were the highest were suspected to be Jacobites : yet it was observed that many of these
were much courted, and put into employments, in which they showed so little affection to
the government, and so close a correspondence with its professed enemies, that it was gene
rally believed they intended to betray it. The blame of employing these men was cast on
the earl of Nottingham, who, as the Whigs said, infused into the king jealousies of his best
friends, and inclined him to court some of his bitterest enemies.
The taking off parliament men, who complained of grievances, by places and pensions,
was believed to be now very generally practised. Seymour, who had in a very injurious
manner not only opposed everything, but had reflected on the king's title and conduct,
was this winter brought into the treasury and the cabinet council : yet, though a great
opposition was made and many delays contrived, all the money that was asked was at length
given. Among the bills that were offered to the king at the end of the session, one was to
secure the judges' salaries, and to put it out of the king's power to stop them. The judges
had their commission during their good behaviour; yet their salaries were not so secured to
them, but that these were at the king's pleasure. But the king put a stop to this, and
refused to pass the bill ; for it was represented to him, by some of the judges themselves, that
it was not fit they should be out of all dependence on the court ; though it did not appear
that there was any hurt in making judges in all respects free and independent. A parlia
ment was summoned to meet in Ireland, to annul all that had passed in king James's par
liament ; to confirm anew the act of settlement ; and to do all other things that the broken
state of that impoverished island required ; and to grant such supplies as they could raise,
and as the state of their affairs would permit.
Affairs in Scotland were put in another method : lord Tweedale was made lord chancellor,
and not long after a marquis in that kingdom : lord Melvill was put in a less important
post, and most of his creatures were laid aside : but several of those who had been in Mont
gomery's plot were brought into the council and ministry. Johnston, who had been sent
envoy to the elector of Brandenburg, was called home and made secretary of state for that
kingdom. It began soon to appear in Scotland how ill the king was advised, when he
brought in some of the plotters into the chief posts of that government : as this disgusted the
presbyterians, so it was very visible that those pretended converts came into his service, only
to have it in their power to deliver up that kingdom to king James. They scarcely disguised
their designs ; so that the trusting such men amazed all people. The presbyterians had very
much offended the king, and their fury was instrumental in raising great jealousies of him
in England . he well foresaw the ill effects this was likely to have, and therefore he recom
mended to a general assembly, that met this winter, to receive the episcopal clergy, to
concur with them in the government of the church, upon their desiring to be admitted : and
in case the assembly could not be brought to consent to this, the king ordered it to be dis
solved, without naming any other time or place of meeting. It was not likely that there
Could be any agreement, where both parties were so much inflamed one against another :

676 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
and those who had the greatest credit with both, studied rather to exasperate than to soften
them. The episcopal party carried it high : they gave it out that the king was now theirs,
and that they were willing to come to a concurrence with presbytery, on design to bring all
about to episcopacy in a little time. The presbyterians, who at all times were stiff and
peevish, were more than ordinarily so at this time: they were jealous of the king;
their friends were now disgraced, and their bitterest enemies were coming into favour : so
they were surly, and would abate in no point of their government : and upon that the
assembly was dissolved. But they pretended that by law they had a right to an annual
meeting, from which nothing could cut them off; for they said, according to a distinction
much used among them, that the king's power of calling synods and assemblies was cumula
tive, and not privative : that is, he might call them if he would, and appoint time and place ;
but that, if he did not call them, they might meet by an inherent right that the church had,
which was confirmed by law : therefore they adjourned themselves. This was represented
to the king as a high strain of insolence that invaded the rights of the crown, of which he
was become very sensible. Most of those who came now into his service, made it their busi
ness to incense him against the presbyterians, in which he was so far engaged, that it did
alienate that party much from him.
There was at this time, a very barbarous massacre committed in Scotland, which showed
both the cruelty and the treachery of some of those who had unhappily insinuated themselves
into the king's confidence. The earl of Bredalbane formed a scheme of quieting all the
Highlanders, if the king would give twelve or fifteen thousand pounds for doing it, which
was remitted down from England : and this was to be divided among the heads of the tribes
or clans of the Highlanders. He employed his emissaries among them, and told them the
best service they could do king James, was to lie quiet, and reserve themselves to a better
time : and if they would take the oaths, the king would be contented with that, and they
were to have a share of this sum that was sent down to buy their quiet. But this came to
nothing ; their demands rose high ; they knew this lord had money to distribute among
them ; they believed he intended to keep the best part of it to himself; so they asked more
than he could give. Among the most clamorous and obstinate of these were the Macdonalds
of Glencoe, who were believed guilty of much robbery and many murders, and so had gained
too much by their pilfering war to be easily brought to give it over. The head of that
valley had so particularly provoked lord Bredalbane, that as his scheme was quite defeated
by the opposition that he raised, so he designed a severe revenge. The king had, by a pro
clamation, offered an indemnity to all the Highlanders that had been in arms against him,
upon their coming in, by a prefixed day, to take the oaths : the day had been twice or thrice
prolonged, and it was at last carried to the end of the year 1691 ; with a positive threaten
ing of proceeding to military execution against such' as should not come into his obedience
by the last day of December.
All were so terrified that they came in ; and even that Macdonald went to the governor
of Fort William, on the last of December, and offered to take the oaths ; but he, being only
a military man, could not, or would not, tender them, and Macdonald was forced to seek for
some of the legal magistrates to tender them to him. The snows were then fallen, so four
or five days passed before he could come to a magistrate : he took the oaths in his presence,
on the fourth or fifth of January, when, by the strictness of law, he could claim no benefit
by it. The matter was signified to the council, and the person had a reprimand for giving
him the oaths when the day was past.
This was kept up from the king : and the earl of Bredalbane came to court to give an
account of his diligence, and to bring back the money, since he could not do the service for
which he had it. He informed against this Macdonald, as the chief person who had defeated
that good design : and that he might both gratify his own revenge, and render the king
odious to all the Highlanders, he proposed that orders should be sent for a military execution
on those of Glencoe. An instruction was drawn by the secretary of state, lord Stair, to bo
both signed and countersigned by the king (that so he might bear no part of the blame, but
that it might lie wholly on the king), that such as had not taken the oaths by the time
limited should be shut out of the benefit of the indemnity, and be received only upon mercy.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 577
But when it was found that this would not authorise what was intended, a second order was
got to be signed and countersigned, that if the Glencoe men could be separated from the rest
of the Highlanders, some examples might be made of them, in order to strike terror into the
rest. The king signed this without any inquiry about it ; for he was too apt to sign papers
in a hurry, without examining the importance of them. This was one effect of his slowness
in dispatching business ; for, as he was apt to suffer things to run on till there was a great
heap of papers laid before him, so then he signed them a little too precipitately. But all
this while the king knew nothing of Macdonald's offering to take the oaths within the time,
nor of his having taken them, soon after it was passed, when he came to a proper magistrate.
As these orders were sent down, the secretary of state wrote many private letters to Leving-.
ston, who commanded in Scotland, giving him a strict charge and particular directions for
the execution of them : and he ordered the passes in the valley to be kept, describing them
so minutely, that the orders were certainly drawn by one who knew the country well. He
gave also a positive direction that no prisoners should be taken, that so the execution might
be as terrible as was possible. He pressed this upon Levingston with strains of vehemence
that looked as if there was something more than ordinary in it : he indeed grounded it on
his zeal for the king's service, adding, that such rebels and murderers should be made
examples of.
In February a company was sent to Glencoe, who were kindly received and quartered
over the valley ; the inhabitants thinking themselves safe, and looking for no hostilities.
After they had staid a week among them, they took their time in the night and killed about
six-and-thirty of them, the rest taking the alarm and escaping. This raised a mighty outcry,
and was published by the French in their gazettes, and by the Jacobites in their libels, to
cast a reproach on the king's government as cruel and barbarous; though in all other
instances it had appeared that his own inclinations were gentle and mild rather to an excess.
The king sent orders to enquire into the matter; but when the letters written upon this
business were all examined, which I myself read, it appeared that so many were involved in
the matter, that the king's gentleness prevailed on him to a fault ; and he contented himself
with dismissing only the master of Stair from his service. The Highlanders were so inflamed
with this, that they were put in as forward a disposition as the Jacobites could wish for to
have rebelled upon the first favourable opportunity : and indeed the not punishing this with
a due rigour was the greatest blot in this whole reign, and had a very great effect in alien
ating that nation from the king and his government *.
An incident happened near the end of this session that had very ill effects ; which I unwil
lingly mention, because it cannot be told without some reflections on the memory of the
queen, whom I always honoured beyond all the persons I had ever known. The earl of
Nottingham came to the earl of Marlborough with a message from the king, telling him that
he had no more use for his services, and therefore he demanded all his commissions. What
drew so sudden and so hard a message was not known; for he had been with the king that
morning, and had parted with him in the ordinary manner. It seemed some letter was
intercepted, which gave suspicion : it is certain that he thought he was too little considered,
and that he had upon many occasions censured the king's conduct, and reflected on the
Dutch. But the original cause of his disgrace arose from another consideration : the princess
* A very interesting anecdote, connected with this cruel should proceed till the very moment of execution, when
massacre, is told by colonel Stewart, in his "Sketches of it was directed to supersede the- fatal order to fire. The
the Highlands." He relates that the belief that pun- colonel gave strict orders to the men not to fire till he
ishraent for cruelty, oppression, or misconduct, in an indi- pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket as the signal,
vidual, descended as a curse on his children, to the third When all was prepared, and the clergyman had performed
and fourth generation, was not confined to the common the last sacred rites of religion, the colonel pulled the
people — all ranks were influenced by this belief. The reprieve from his pocket — but with it the white hand-
late colonel Campbell, of Glenlyon, retained this creed kerchief; at the sight of which twenty bullets pierced
during a thirty years' intercourse with the world, as an the heart of the reprieved victim ! The paper dropped
officer in the 42nd regiment. He was grandson of the from the colonel's hand, and, striking his forehead, he-
laird of Glenlyon, who commanded the military at the exclaimed in unutterable agony, " The curse of God and
massacre of Glencoe. In the year 1771, he was ordered of Glencoe is here." He instantly retired from the ser-
co superintend the execution of a soldier, condemned to vice, and wept over this unfortunate accident till the day
death by the sentence of a court martial. - A reprieve, in of his death.
the mean time, arrived, with an order that the ceremony

578 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
thought herself too much neglected by the king, whose cold way towards her was soon
observed : after the king was on the throne, no propositions were made to her of a settle
ment, nor any advances of money. So she, thinking she was to bo kept in a necessitous
dependence on the court, got some to move in the house of commons, in the year 1690, when
they were in the debate concerning the revenue, that she should have assignments suitable to
her dignity. This both king and queen took amiss from her : the queen complained more
particularly that she was then ill, after the lying-in of the duke of Gloucester at Hampton
Court, and that she herself was treating her and the young child with the tenderness of a
mother, and that yet such a motion was made before she had tried, in a private way, what
the king intended to assign her. The princess, on the other hand, said she knew the queen
was a good wife, submissive and obedient to every thing that the king desired ; so she
thought the best way was to have a settlement by act of parliament. On the other hand,
the custom had always been that the royal family (a prince of Wales not excepted) was kept
in a dependence on the king, and had no allowance but from his mere favour and kindness ;
yet in this ease, in which the princess was put out of the succession during the king's life, it
seemed reasonable that somewhat more than ordinary should be done in consideration of that.
The act passed, allowing her a settlement of fifty thousand pounds. But upon this a cold
ness followed, between not only the king, but even the queen, and the princess. And the
blame of this motion was cast on the countess of Marlborough, as most in favour with the
princess : and this had contributed much to alienate the king from her husband, and had
disposed him to receive ill impressions of him.
Upon his disgrace, his lady was forbidden the court. The princess would not submit to
this ; she thought she ought to be allowed to keep what persons she pleased about herself.
And when the queen insisted on the thing, she retired from the court. There were, no
doubt, ill offices done on all hands, as there were some that pressed the princess to submit to
the queen, as well as others who pressed the queen to pass it over, but without effect : both
had engaged themselves before they had well reflected on the consequences of such a breach :
and the matter went so far, that the queen ordered that no public honours should be shown
the princess, besides many other lesser matters, which I unwillingly reflect on, because I
was much troubled to see the queen carry such a matter so far : and the breach continued to
the end of her life. The enemies of the government tried what could be made of this to
create distractions among us : but the princess gave no encouragement to them. So that
this misunderstanding had no other effect, but that it gave enemies much ill-natured joy and
a secret spiteful diversion*.
The king gave Russel the command of the fleet ; though he had put himself on ill terms
with him, by pressing to know the grounds of the earl of Marlborough's disgrace : he had
not only lived in great friendship with him, but had carried the first messages that had
passed between him and the king when he went over to Holland : he almost upbraided the
king with the earl of Marlborough's services, who, as he said, had set the crown on his head.
Russel also came to be on ill terms with the earl of Nottingham, who, as he thought, sup
ported a faction among the flag officers against him : and he fell indeed into so ill an humour
on many accounts, that he seemed to be for some time in doubt whether he ought to under
take the command of the fleet or not. I tried, at the desire of some of his friends, to soften
him a little, but without success.
The king went over to Holland in March to prepare for an early campaign. He intimated
somewhat in his speech to the parliament of a descent designed upon France ; but we had
neither men nor money to execute it. And, while we were pleasing ourselves with the
thoughts of a descent on France, king James was preparing for a real one on England. It
was intended to be made in the end of April : he had about him fourteen thousand English
and Irish : and marshal Belfonds was to accompany him with about three thousand French.
j "x. A '^y accoul!t, °!" tW9 affai,'' iS gh'Cn in the instanter, and threatening the royal displeasure, &c. in
duchess of Marlborough s letters, published in 1742, in case of disobedience. This is followed by Anne's answer,
which she terms this the famous quarrel.' It is accom- dated February 2nd, 1692, remonstrating, and anothe.
pamed by a long letter from queen Mary to the princess letter closing the correspondence by a positive refusal.
Anne, insisting upon her breaking with the Marlboroughs

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 579
They were to sail from Cherbourg and La Hogue, and some other places in Nonnandy,
and to land in Sussex, and from thence to march with all haste to London. A transport
fleet was also brought thither : they were to bring over only a small number of horses ; for
their party in England undertook to furnish them with horses at their landing. At the
same time the king of France was to march with a great army into Flanders ; and he
reckoned that the descent in England would either have succeeded, since there was a very
small force left within the kingdom, or at least that it would have obliged the king to come
over with some of his English troops : and in that case, which way soever the war of Eng
land had ended, he should have mastered Flanders, and so forced the States to submit : and
in case other designs had failed there was one in reserve, managed by the French ministry
and by Luxembourg, of assassinating the king, which would have brought about all their
designs. The French king seemed to think the project was so well laid that it could not
miscarry ; for he said publicly, before he set out, that he was going to make an end of the
war. AVe in England were all this while very secure, and did not apprehend we were in
any danger. Both the king and his secretaries were much blamed for taking so little care
to procure intelligence : if the winds had favoured the French, they themselves would have
brought us the first news of their design : they sent over some persons to give their friends
notice but a very few days before they reckoned they should be on our coast : one of these
was a Scotchman, and brought the first discovery to Johnstoun : orders were presently sent
out to bring together such forces as lay scattered in quarters : and a squadron of our fleet
that was set to sea was ordered to lay on the coast of Normandy ; but the heavens fought
against them more effectually than we could have done. There was for a whole month
together such a storm that lay on their coast, that it was not possible for them to come out
of their ports ; nor could marshal D'Estrees come about with the squadron from Toulon, so
soon as was expected. In the beginning of May, about forty of our ships were on the coast
of Normandy, and were endeavouring to destroy their transport ships : upon which, orders
were sent to marshal Tourville to sail to the channel and fight the English fleet. They had
a westerly wind to bring them within the channel, but then the wind struck into the east,
and stood so long there, that it both brought over the Dutch fleet and brought about our
great ships. By this means our whole fleet was joined : so that Tourville's design of getting
between the several squadrons that composed it was lost. The king of France, being then
in Flanders, upon this change of wind, sent orders to Tourville not to fight : yet the vessel
that carried these was taken, and the duplicate of these orders, that was sent by another con
veyance, came not to him till the day after the engagement.
On the nineteenth of May, Russel came up with the French, and was almost twice their
number ; yet not above the half of his ships could be brought into the action, by reason of
the winds : Rook, one of his admirals, was thought more in fault. The number of the ships
that engaged was almost equal : our men said that the French neither showed courage nor
skill in the action. The night and a fog separated the two fleets, after an engagement that
had lasted some hours. The greatest part of the French ships drew near their coasts ; but
Russel not casting anchor, as the French did, was carried out by the tide : so next morning
he was at some distance from them. A great part of the French fleet sailed westward
through a dangerous sea, called the Race of Aldemey : Ashby was sent to pursue them ;
and he followed them some leagues : but then the pilots pretending danger, he came back :
so twenty-six of them, whom if Ashby had pursued, by all appearance, he had destroyed
them all, got into St. Malo's. Russel came up to the French admiral and the other ships that
had drawn near their coasts. Delaval burnt the Admiral and his two seconds; and Rook
burnt sixteen more before La Hogue*.
* It is said that Louis the Fourteenth, knowing that of Orford in Suffolk, and viscount Bavfleur in Normandy.
admiral Russel was avaricious, sent him 20,000/., request- His various services and reverses will be noticed in future
ing him not to fight on this occasion, but to manoeuvre, pages. He died in 1727. That he was avaricious seems
Under pretence of deliberating, he sent to William the admitted; but he was beloved in private life, and idolised
Third, to know how he was to act. The answer was by his sailors. One of his festivals had an accompani-
laconic  " Take the money, and beat them." William ment quite iu the nautical style. He had made a cistern
raised him in 1697 to the peerage, by the title of the carl of punch, composed of four hogsheads of brandy, eight
pp 2

580 THE HISTORY Of THE REIGN
It was believed, that if this success had been pursued with vigour, considering the "con
sternation with which the French were struck upon such an unusual and surprising blow,
that this victory might have been carried much farther than it was. But Russel was pro
voked by some letters and orders that the earl of Nottingham sent him from the queen, which
he thought were the effects of ignorance : and upon that he fell into a crossness of disposition :
he found fault with every order that was sent him ; but would offer no advices on his part.
And he came soon after to St. Helen's, which was much censured ; for though the disabled
ships must have been sent in, yet there was no such reason for bringing in the rest that were
not touched. Cross winds kept them long in port ; so that a great part of the summer was
spent before he went out again. The French had recovered out of the first disorder which
had quite dispirited them. A descent in France came to be thought on when it was too
late : about seven thousand men were shipped, and it was intended to land them at St.
Malo's ; but the seamen were of opinion that neither there nor any where else a descent was
then practicable. They complained that the earl of Nottingham was ignorant of sea affairs,
and yet that he set on propositions relating to them, without consulting seamen, and sent
orders which could not be obeyed without endangering the whole fleet. So the men who
were thus shipped lay some days on board, to the great reproach of our counsels : but that
we might not appear too ridiculous, both at home and abroad, by landing them again in
England, the king ordered them to be sent over to Flanders, after they had been for some
weeks on shipboard. And so our campaign at sea, that began so gloriously, had a poor
conclusion. The common reflection that was made on our conduct was, that the providence
of God and the valour of our men had given us a victory, of which we knew not what use
to make ; and, which was worse, our merchants complained of great losses this summer ; for
the French having laid up their fleet, let their seamen go and serve in privateers, with which
they watched all the motions of our trade : and so by an odd reverse of things, as we made
no considerable losses, while the French were masters of our sea two years before, so now,
when we triumphed on that element, our merchants suffered the most. The conclusion of
all was Russel complained of the ministry, particularly of the earl of Nottingham ; and they
complained no less of him ; and the merchants complained of the admiralty : but they, in
their own defence, said that we had not ships nor seamen, both to furnish ont a great fleet
and at the same time to send out convoys for securing- the trade.
In Flanders the design, to which the French trusted most, failed : that was laid for assas
sinating the king : one Grandval had been in treaty with Louvois about it ; and it was
intended to be executed the former year. He joined with Du Mont to follow the king and
shoot him as he was riding about in his ordinary way, moving slowly, and visiting the posts
of his army. The king of France had lost two ministers one after another. Seignelay died
first, who had no extraordinary genius himself ; but he knew all his father's methods, and
pursued them so, that he governed himself both by his father's maxims and with his
tools. Louvois did not survive him long ; he had more fire, and so grew uneasy at the
authority madame de Maintenon took in things which she could not understand : and was
in conclusion so unacceptable to the king, that once, when he flung his bundle of papers
down upon the floor before him, upon some provocation, the king lifted up his cane : but
the lady held him from doing more : yet that affront, as was given out, sunk so deep into
Louvois' spirits, that he died suddenly a few days after. Some said it was of an apoplexy ;
others suspected poison : for a man that knew so many secrets would have been dangerous
if he had outlived his favour. His son, Barbesieux, had the survivance of his place, and
continued in it for some years; but, as he was young, so he had not a capacity equal to the
post. He found, among his father's papers, a memorandum of this design of Grandval's :
so he sent for him, and resolved to pursue it ; in which madame de Maintenon concurred,
and Luxembourg was trusted with the direction of it. Du Mont retired this winter to Zell,
as one that had forsaken the French service : from some practices and discourses of his a
hogsheads of water, twenty-five thousand lemons, twenty filled for all comers, and more than six thousand persons
gallons of lime juice, thirteen hundred pounds of sugar, fivo partook of this Caspian bowl.  Noble's Continuation of
pounds of grated nutmegs, three hundred toasted biscuits, Grainger.
and a pipe of mountain wine. Persons in a small boat

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 501
suspicion arose, of which sir William Colt, the king's envoy there, gave notice : so one Leef-
dale, a Dutch papist, was secretly sent to Paris, as a person that would enter into the design ;
but, in reality, went on purpose to discover it.
^ Grandval and he came back to Flanders to set about it : but Leefdale brought
him into a party that seized on him. Both king James and his queen were, as Grandval
said, engaged in the design : one Parker, whom they employed in many black designs,
had concerted the matter with Grandval, as he confessed, and had carried him to king
James, who encouraged him to go on with it, and promised great rewards. When
Grandval saw there was full proof against him, he confessed the whole series of the manage
ment without staying till he were put to tho torture. Mr. Morel, of Berne, a famous
medalist (who had for some years the charge of the French king's cabinet of medals, but
being a protestant, and refusing to change his religion, was kept a close prisoner in the
Bastile for seven years), was let out in April this year. And, before he left Paris, his
curiosity carried him to St. Germain's, to see king James : he happened both to go and come
back in the coach with Grandval ; and while he was there he saw him in private discourse
with king James : Grandval was full of this project, and, according to the French way, he
talked very loosely to Morel, not knowing who he was ; but fancied he was well affected to
that court. He said there was a design in hand that would confound all Europe : for the
prince of Orange, so he called the king, would not live a month. This Morel wrote over to
me in too careless a manner ; for he directed his letter with his own hand, which was well
known at court ; yet it came safe to me. The king gave orders that none belonging to him
should go near Grandval, that there might be no colour for saying that the hopes of life had
drawn his confession from him : nor was he strictly interrogated concerning circumstances ;
but was left to tell his story as he pleased himself. He was condemned ; and suffered with
some slight remorse for going into a design to kill a king. His confession was printed. But
how black soever it represented the court of France, no notice was taken of it : nor did any
of that court offer to disown or disprove it, but let it pass and be forgotten : yet so blind and
violent was their party among us, that they resolved they would believe nothing that either
blemished king James or the French court.
But though this miscarried, the French succeeded in the siege of Namur, a place of great
importance, that commanded both the Maese and Sambre, and covered both Liege and
Maestricht : the town did soon capitulate, but the citadel held out much longer. The king
came with a great army to raise the siege : Luxembourg lay in his way with another to
cover it, and the Mehaigne lay between. The king intended to pass the river and force a
battle ; but such rains fell the night before he designed to do it, and the river swelled so
much, that he could not pass it for some days : he tried, by another motion, to come and
raise the siege. But the town having capitulated so early, and the citadel laying on the
other side of the Sambre, he could not come at it : so after a month's siege it was taken.
This was looked on as the greatest action of the French king's life ; that, notwithstanding
-the depression of such a defeat at sea, he yet supported his measures so as to take that
important place in the view of a great army. The king's conduct was on this occasion much
censured : it was said, he ought to have put much to hazard, rather than suffer such a place
to be taken in his sight.
After Namur surrendered, that king went back to Paris in his usual method ; for, accord
ing to the old Persian luxury, he used to bring the ladies with him, with the music, poems,
and scenes, for an opera and a ball ; in which he and his actions were to be set out with the
pomp of much flattery. When this action was over, his forces lay on the defensive, and
both armies made some motions, watching and waiting on one another.
At Steenkirk, the king thought he had a favourable occasion for attacking the French in
their camp ; but the ground was found to be narrower and less practicable than the king
had been made to believe it was. Ten battalions began the attack, and carried a post with
cannon, and maintained it long, doing great execution on the enemy ; and if they had been
supported or brought off it would have proved a brave attempt ; but they were cut in pieces.
In the whole action the French lost many more men than the confederates did, for they
came so thick that our fire made great execution. The conduct of this affair was much

582 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
censured. It was said, the ground ought to have been better examined before the attack
was begun, and the men ought to have been better maintained than they were : for many
thought that, if this had been done, we might have had a total victory. Count Solms bore
the blame of the errors committed on this occasion. The English had been sometimes
checked by him, as he was much disgusted with their heat and pride : so they charged all
on him, who had some good qualities ; but did not manage them in an obliging manner.
We lost in this action about five thousand men, and many brave officers. Here Mackay was
killed, being ordered to a post that he saw could not be maintained : he sent his opinipn
about it ; but the former orders were confirmed : so he went on, saying only, " The will of
the Lord be done." He was a man of such strict principles, that he would not have served
in a war that he did not think lawful. He took great care of his soldiers' morals, and foiced
them to be both sober and just in their quarters : he spent all the time that he was master
of in secret prayers, and in reading of the Scriptures. The king often observed that when
he had full leisure for his devotions, he acted with a peculiar exaltation of courage. ITe had
one very singular quality : in councils of war he delivered his opinion freely, and maintained
it with due zeal ; but how positive soever he was in it, if the council of war overruled, even
though he was not convinced by it, yet to all others he justified it, and executed^ his part
with the same zeal as if his own opinion had prevailed. After the action at Steenkirk, there
was little done this campaign. A detachment that the king sent from his army, joined with
those bodies that came from England, broke in some way into the French conquests : they
fortified Dixmuyde and Furness, and put the country about them under contribution, and
became very uneasy neighbours to Dunkirk. The command of those places was given to
the count of Horn, who understood well the way to make all possible advantages by contri
butions ; but he was a man of no great worth, and of as little courage. This disgusted the
English still more ; who said the Dutch were always trusted and preferred, while they were
neglected. They had some colour to censure this choice the following winter ; for, upon the
motion of some French troops, Horn (without studying to amuse the enemy, or to gain
time, upon which much may depend in winter) did immediately abandon Dixmuyde. All
he had to justify himself was a letter from the elector of Bavaria, telling him that he could
send him no relief ; and therefore he ordered him to take care of the garrison, which was of
more importance than the place itself. Thus the campaign ended in Flanders ; Namur was
lost ; the reputation of the king's conducting armies was much sunk ; and the English were
generally discontented, and alienated from the Dutch.
Nothing was done on the Rhine. The elector of Saxony had promised to bring an army
thither ; but Shening, his general, who had great power over him, was gained by the French
to break his design. The duke of Saxony complained that the emperor favoured the circles
of Franconia and Swabia so much, that he could have no good quarters assigned him for his
army : and upon this occasion it was said that the emperor drew much money from those
circles, that they might be covered from winter quarters ; and that he applied all that to
carrying on the war in Hungary ; and so left the weight of the war with France to lie very
heavy on the princes of the empire. This contest went on so high, that Shening, who was
thought the ill instrument in it, going for his health to the hot baths in Bohemia, was seized
on by the emperor's orders; upon which great expostulations passed between the courts
of Vienna and Dresden. There were two small armies that acted separately on the Rhine,
under the command of the landgrave of Hesse and the marquis of Bareith : but they were
not able to cover the empire : and anotheT small army, brought together by the duke of Wir-
temberg, for the defence of his country, was totally defeated : not only cannon and baggage,
but the duke himself, fell into the enemy's hands.
But though the emperor did, as it were, abandon the empire to the French, he made no
great progress in Hungary : the Turks lay upon the defensive, and the season was spent in
motions, without either battle or siege. There was still some discourse, but no great proba
bility, of peace. Two English ambassadors dying, the one sir Thomas Hussay, soon after his
arrival at Constantinople, and the other, Mr. Harbord, on his way thither : the lord Paget,
then our ambassador at the emperor's court, was ordered to go thither, to mediate the peace.
He found the mediation was, in a great measure, spoiled by the Dutch ambassador before

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY 583
his arrival ; for he had been prevailed on, by the court of Vienna, to offer the mediation of
the Dutch upon a very high scheme. Caminieck and the Ukrain, and Podolia, with Moldavia
and Valachia, were demanded for Poland : Transylvania, with the person of count Tekeli
for the emperor ; and Achaia and Livadia, as an antemurale to cover the Morea for the
Venetians. The court of Vienna, by offering such a project, reckoned the war must go on,
which they desired. The ministers of the Porte, who were gained by the French to carry on
the war, were glad to see so high a project : they were afraid of tumults ; so they spread
this project over the whole empire, to show on what ignominious terms the mediation was
proposed; and by that they justified their going on with the war. But the lord Paget
offered the king's mediation upon another project ; wliich was, that every prince was to keep
what he was then possessed of: and Caminieck was only demanded to be razed. If this
had been offered at first, the Ottoman court durst not have refused it; the people were
become so weary under a long and unprosperous war : but the vizier suppressed this, and
made it still pass among them, that the English pressed the same project that the Dutch had
proposed ; which was the more easily believed there, because how ignorant soever they were
at that court, they knew well what an interest the king of England had in the States. So
the war was still carried on there : and Trumball, who came over to England at this time, told
the king that if, instead of sending embassies, he would send a powerful fleet into the Medi
terranean, to destroy the French trade and stop the commerce with Turkey, he would
quickly bring that court to other measures, or raise such tumults among them as would set
that empire, and even Constantinople itself, all in a flame.
In Piedmont, the campaign was opened very late, and the French were on the defensive ;
so the duke of Savoy entered into Dauphiny with an army ; and if he had carried on that
attempt with the spirit with which he began it, he had put the affairs of France on that side
into great disorder ; but he was either ill served or betrayed in it : he sat down before
Ambrun, and besieged it in form : so that a place, which he might have carried in three
days, cost him some weeks : and in every step he made it appear there was either a great
feebleness, or much treachery, in his counsels. He made no great progress ; yet the disorder
it threw that and the neighbouring provinces into was very great. He was stopped
by the small-pox, which saved his honour as much as it endangered his person : the
retreat of his army, when his life was in danger, looked like a due caution. He recovered
of the small-pox, but a ferment remained still in his blood, and broke out so often into
feverish relapses, that it was generally thought he was poisoned. Many months passed
before he was out of danger. So the campaign ended there with considerable losses to the
French, but with no great advantage to the duke. The greatest prejudice the French
suffered this year was from the season : they had a very bad harvest and no vintage in the
northern parts. We in England had great apprehensions of as bad a harvest from a very
cold and wet summer. Great deluges of rain continued till the very time of reaping. But,
when we were threatened with a famine, it pleased God to send such an extraordinary
change of the season, that we had a very plentiful crop ; enough both to serve ourselves
and to supply our neighbours, which made us easy at home, and brought in much wealth
for that corn which we were able to spare.
In the beginning of September there was an earthquake felt in most places in England,
and was at the same time felt in many parts of France, Germany, and the Netherlands.
No harm was done by it, though it continued for three or four minutes. I can write nothing
of it from my own observation, for it was not sensible in the place where I happened to be at
that time ; nor can it be determined whether this had any relation to those terrible earth
quakes that happened some months after this in Sicily and Malta, upon which I cannot
enlarge, having seen no other account of them than what was in public gazettes, which
represented them as the most dreadful by much of any that are in history : it was estimated
that about one hundred thousand persons perished by them in Sicily. It is scarcely to be
imagined that the earthquake, which about the same time destroyed the best part of the
chief town in Jamaica, could have any connection with these in Europe. These were very
extraordinary things, which made those who studied apocalyptical matters imagine that the

584 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
end of the world drew near; It had been happy for us if snch dismal accidents had struck
us with a deeper sense of the judgments of God.
We were indeed brought to more of an outward face of virtue and sobriety: and
the great examples that the king and queen set the nation had made some conside
rable alterations as to public practices, bnt we became deeply corrupted in principle •-
a disbelief of revealed religion, and a profane mocking at the Christian faith and
the mysteries of it, became avowed and scandalous. The queen, in the king's absence,
gave orders to execute the laws against drunkenness, swearing, and the profanation of
the Lord's day, and sent directions over England to all magistrates to do their duty in
executing them ; to which the king joined his authority upon bis return to England. Yet
the reformation of manners, which some zealous men studied to promote, went on but
slowly : many of the inferior magistrates were not only remiss bnt very faulty themselves :
they did all they could to discourage those who endeavoured to have vice suppressed and
punished : and it must be confessed that the behaviour of many clergymen gave atheists no
small advantage : they bad taken the oaths and read the prayers for the present govern
ment ; they observed the orders for public fasts and thanksgivings ; and yet they showed
in many places their aversion to our establishment but too visibly : so that the offence that
this gave in many parts of the nation was too evident : in some places it broke out in very in
decent instances, that were brought into courts of law and censured. This made many conclude
that the clergy were a sort of men that would swear and pray even against their consciences
rather than lose their benefices ; and by consequence that they were governed by interest
and not by principle. The Jacobites grew still to be more and more outrageous, while the clergy
seemed to be neutrals in the dispute ; and, which was yet the most extraordinary thing in the
whole matter, the government itself acted with so much remissness, and so few were enquired
after or punished, that those who were employed by the king behaved themselves in many
places as if they had secret instructions to be heavy upon his best friends, and to be gentle
to his enemies. Upon the whole matter, the nation was falling under such a general corrup
tion, both as to morals and principles, and that was so mnch spread among all sorts of people,
that it gave us great apprehensions of heavy jndgments from Heaven5.
The session of parliament was opened under great disadvantages. The earl of Marl
borough and some other peers had been put in the Tower upon a false accusation of high
treason, which was evidently proved to be a conspiracy, designed by some profligate crea
tures, who fancied that forgeries and false-swearing would be as acceptable and as well
rewarded in this reign as they had been formerly. But, tffl this was detected, the persons
accused were kept in prison, and were now only out upon bail : so it was said to be contrary
to the nature and freedom of parliaments for prisoners to sit in it. It was confessed that in
limes of danger, and such was the former summer, it must be trusted to the discretion of a
government, to commit such persons as were suspected : but when the danger was over, by
our victory at sea, those against whom there lay nothing besides suspicions, ought to have
been set at hberty : and this was thought reasonable. There was an association pretended
to be drawn against the government, to which the subscriptions of many lords were set so
dexterously, that the lords themselves said they could not distinguish between their true
subscriptions and those that were forged for them. But the manner of the discovery, with
several other chcumstances, carried such marks of imposture, that the lords of the council
ordered a strict prosecution of all concerned in it, which ended in a full conviction of the
forgery : and those who had combined iu it were whipped and pilloried, which, to the
reproach of our constitution, is the only punishment that our law has yet provided for such
practices. The lords passed some votes, asserting their privileges ; and were offended with
the judges for detaining some in prison, though there was no reason nor colour for their dis
pleasure. But where the privilege or the dignity of peerage is in question, it is not easy to
keep the house within bounds.
The debate went off in a bffl that indemnified the ministry for those commitments, but
* In" Poems od State Anana^ ™>L H., published in 1703, h a satire, by De Foe, entitled, " Reformatio., of
Jlinxers. —It gjws severe charac-^ra of some of the public officer of those times, and is alUw-ther well wonbr
perusal. ^ '

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 586
limited them for the future by several rules ; all which rules were rejected by the commons.
They thought those limitations gave a legal power to commit in cases where they were
observed ; whereas they thought the safer way was to indemnify the ministry, when it was
visible they did not commit any but upon a real danger, and not to set them any rules ;
since, as to the committing of suspected persons, where the danger is real and visible, the
public safety must be first looked to and supersede all particular laws. When this was
over, an attempt was made in both houses, for the abjuration of king James : the king him
self was more set on it than he had been formerly. It was rejected by the house of com
mons : and though some steps were made in it by the lords, yet the opposition was so great
that it was let fall.
The affairs at sea occasioned much heat in both houses. The earl of Nottingham laid
before the lords, upon an address they had made to the king, all the letters that had passed
between himself and Russel, with all the orders he had sent him : and he aggravated Russel's
errors and neglects very severely. But the house of commons justified Russel and gave him
thanks over and over again; and remained so fixed in this, that though the lords then com
municated the papers the earl of Nottingham had laid before them to the commons, they
would not so much as read them, but renewed their first votes that justified Russel's fidelity,
courage, and conduct.
The king was now possessed against him : for he dismissed him from his service, and put
the command of the fleet into the hands of three persons, Killigrew, Delaval, and Shovel :
the two first were thought so inclinable to king James's interests, that it made some
¦insinuate that the king was in the hands of those who intended to betray him to his enemies ;
for though no exception lay against Shovel, yet it was said, he was only put with the other
two to give some reputation to the commission, and that he was one against two : so that
he could neither hinder nor do any thing. The chief blame of this nomination was thrown
on the earl of Nottingham ; and of those who belonged to his office many stories were raised
and spread about, as if there had been among them, besides a very great remissness in some
of the concerns of the government, an actual betraying of all our secrets and counsels. The
opinion of this was spread both within and without the kingdom, and most of our confede
rates were possessed with it. He justified not only himself but all his under secretaries ;
both the king and queen continued still to have a good opinion of his fidelity ; but they saw
some defects in his judgment, with a most violent party heat, that appeared upon all occasions,
and even in the smallest matters. The bills for the supply went on with a heavy progress in
the house of commons ; those who could not oppose them yet showed their ill humour in
delaying them, and clogging them with unacceptable clauses all they could. And they
continued that wasteful method of raising money upon remote funds, by which there lay
a heavy discount on tallies ; so that above a fourth part was, in some of them, to be
discounted : the parties of whig aud tory appeared almost in every debate, and in every
question. ' The ill humour prevailed most in the house of lords, where a strong opposition was made
to every thing that was proposed for the government. They passed many votes, and made
many addresses to the king, which were chiefly designed to load the administration and to
alienate the king from the Dutch. The commons began with great complaints of the
Admiralty : and then they had the conduct in Flanders, particularly in the action at Steen-
kirk, before them : and they voted some heads of an address relating to those matters : but
by a secret management they let the whole thing fall, after they had passed those angry
votes. Any thing that the lords could do was of less moment when it was not likely to be
seconded by the commons ; yet they showed much ill humour.
This was chiefly managed by the marquis of Halifax and the earl of Mulgrave ; and they
drew in the earl of Shrewsbury, who was very ill pleased with the credit that some had
with the king, and lived in a particular friendship with the earl of Marlborough, and
thought that he was both ungratefully and unjustly persecuted. These lords had all the
Jacobites ready to assist them in every thing that could embroil matters ; a great many
whigs, who were discontented and jealous of the ministry, joined with them : they knew
that all their murmuring would signify little, unless they could stop a money bill : and,

5(10 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
since it was settled in the house of commons as a maxim, that the lords could not make any
alterations in money-bills, when the bill for four shillings in the pound land-tax came up,
they put their strength to. carry a clause, that the peers should tax themselves. And
though, in the way in which this clause was drawn up, it could not be defended, yet they
did all that was possible to put a stop to the bill ; and with unusual vehemence pressed for
a delay, till a committee should be appointed to examine precedents. This the earl of Mul-
grave pressed for many hours, with a force of argument and eloquence beyond any thing
that I had ever heard in that house. He insisted much upon the dignity of peerage ; and
made this, which was now proposed, to be so main a part of that dignity, that he exhausted
all the topics of rhetoric, to convince the lords, that, if they yielded to this, they divested
themselves of their true greatness ; and nothing would remain but the name and shadow of
a peer, which was but a pageant. But after all the pomp and heat of his oratory, the lords
considered the safety of the nation more than the shadow of a privilege ; and so they passed
the bill.
These lords also set on foot a proposition that had never been offered, but when the nation
was ready to break out into civil wars ; and that was, that a committee of lords and com
mons should be appointed to confer together, concerning the state of the nation ; this once
begun would have grown in a very short time to have been a council of state ; and they
would soon have brought all affairs under their inspection ; but this was so strongly opposed,
that it was soon let fall.
When the party that was set against the court saw they could carry nothing in either
house of parliament, then they turned their whole strength against the present parliament, to
force a dissolution ; and in order to that, they first loaded it with a name of an ill sound ;
and, whereas king Charles's long parliament was called the pensioner parliament, they called
this the officers' parliament ; because many that had commands in the army were of it :
and the word that they gave out among the people was, that we were to be governed by
a standing army, and a standing parliament. They tried to carry a bill that rendered all
members of the house of commons incapable of places of trust or profit ; so that every member
that accepted a place should be expelled the house, and be incapable of being chosen again to
sit in the current parliament. The truth was, it came to be observed, that some got credit
by opposing the government ; and that to silence them, they were preferred : and then they
changed their note, and were as ready to flatter as before to find fault. This gave a specious
colour to those who charged the court with designs of corrupting members, or, at least, of
stopping their mouths by places and pensions. When this bill was set on, it went through
the house of commons with little or no difficulty : those who were in places had not Strength
and credit to make great opposition to it, they being the persons concerned, and looked on as
parties : and those who had no places, had not the courage to oppose it ; for in them it would
have looked as an art to recommend themselves to one. So the bill passed in the house of
commons ; but it was rejected by the lords, since it seemed to establish an opposition between
the crown and the people, as if those who were employed by the one could not be trusted by
the other.
When this failed, another attempt was made in the house of lords ; in a bill that was
offered, enacting, That a session of parliament should be held every year, and a new parlia
ment be summoned every third year, and that the present parliament should be dissolved
within a limited time. The statutes for annual parliaments in king Edward the First, and
king Edward the Third's time, are well known ; but it is a question whether the supposition
" if need be" falls upon the whole act, or only upon those words, " or oftener:" it is cer
tain these acts were never observed, and the non-observance of them was never complained
of as a grievance. Nor did the famous act in king Charles the First's time, carry the neces
sity of holding a session further than to once in three years. Anciently, considering the
haste and hurry in which parliaments sat, an annual parliament might be no great incon
venience to the nation ; but by reason of the slow methods of sessions now, an annual par
liament in times of peace would become a very insupportable grievance. A parliament of
a long continuance seemed to be very dangerous, either to the crown, or to the nation ; if the
conjuncture, and their proceedings, gave them much credit, they might grow very uneasy to

OF KING WILLIAM AND OUEEN MARY 587
the crown, as happened in king Charles the First's time ; or in another situation of affairs,
they might be so practised upon by the court, that they might give all the money, and all
the liberties of England up, when they were to have a large share of the money, and were
to be made the instruments of tyranny, as it was likely to have been in king Charles the
Second's time. It was likewise hoped, that frequent parliaments would put an end to the
great expense candidates put themselves to in elections ; and that it would oblige the mem
bers to behave themselves so well, both with relation to the public, and in their private
deportment, as to recommend them to their electors at three years' end ; whereas when a
parliament was to sit many years, members covered with privileges were apt to take great
liberties, forgot that they represented others, and took care only of themselves. So it was
thought, that England would have a truer representative, when it was chosen anew every
third year, than when it run on to the end of a reign. All that was objected against this
was, that frequent elections would make the freeholders proud and insolent, when they knew
that applications must be made to them at the end of three years ; this would establish a
faction in every body of men that had a right to an election ; and whereas now an election
put men to a great charge all at once, then the charge must be perpetual all the three years,
in laying in for a new election, when it was known how soon it must come round. And as
for the dissolution of the present parliament, some were for leaving it to the general trien
nial clause, that it might still sit three years ; they thought that, during so critical a war,
as that in which we were now engaged, it was not advisable to venture on a new election,
since we had so many among us who were so ill affected to the present establishment : yet
it was said, this parliament had already sat three years ; and, therefore, it was not consistent
with the general reason of the act to let it continue longer. So the bill passed in the house
of lords ; and though a bill from them, dissolving a parliament, struck only at the house of
commons, the lords being still the same men ; so that, upon that single account, many
thought they would have rejected it, yet they also passed it, and fixed their own dissolution
to the twenty-fifth of March in the next year ; so that they reserved another session to them
selves. The king let the bill lie for some time on the table : so that men's eyes and expec
tations were much fixed on the issue of it. But, in conclusion, he refused to pass it ; so the
session ended in ill humour. The rejecting a bill, though an unquestionable right of the
crown, has been so seldom practised, that the two houses are apt to think it a hardship when
there is a bill denied *.
But to soften the distaste this might otherwise give, the king made considerable alterations
in his ministry. All people were now grown weary of the great seal's being in commission ;
it made the proceedings in chancery to be both more dilatory, and more expensive ; and
there were such exceptions made to the decrees of the commissioners, that appeals were
brought against most of them, and frequently they were reversed. Sir John Somers had
now got great reputation, both in his post of attorney-general, and in the house of commons ;
so the king gave him the great seal. He was very learned in his own profession, with a
great deal more learning in other professions, in divinity, philosophy, and history. He had
a great capacity for business, with an extraordinary temper ; for he was fair and gentle, per
haps to a fault, considering his post ; so that he had all the patience and softness, as well as
the justice and equity, becoming a great magistrate. He had always agreed in his notions
with the whigs, and had studied to bring them to better thoughts of the king, and to a
greater confidence in him t. Trenchard was made secretary of state ; he had been engaged
* King William was persuaded to consent to the trien- session, gave her consent to forty-three bills, and. rejected
nial bill, two years subsequently. His rejection of the forty-eight.
bill, as mentioned in the text, is the last time the prero- + John, lord Somers, baron Evesham, born in 1650, at
gative of the crown has been so employed ; and, although Worcester, was one of the brightest ornaments of his age.
the king has an undoubted right to withhold his consent His father sent him to Trinity College, Oxford ; and here
to any bill passed by the two houses, yet he would he now he formed an intimacy with the young duke of Shrews-
a very rash monarch who would venture to do it against bury, that never afterwards was weakened. He first
the united opinions of the collected wisdom of the nation, obtained public notice by the talents displayed by him as
In earlier periods of our history, the prerogative was pro- one of the counsel employed to defend, in 1688, the seven
fnsely exercised. In sir Symond Dewe's " Journal," p. bishops, or seven golden candlesticks, as they were
596, it is stated, that queen Elizabeth, at the close of a emphatically denominated. Always acting consistently

588

THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN

far with the duke of Monmouth, as was told formerly. He got out of England, and lived
some years beyond sea, and had a right understanding of affairs abroad : he was a calm and
sedate man, and was much more moderate than could have been expected, since he was a
leading man in a party. He had too great a regard to the stars, and too little to religion *.
The bringing these men into those posts was ascribed chiefly to the great credit the earl of
Sunderland had gained with the king ; he had now got into his confidence, and declared
openly for the whigs. These advancements had a great effect on the whole party, and brought
them to a much better opinion of the king. A young man, Mr. Montague, a branch of the
earl of Manchester's family, began to make a great figure in the house of commons. He
was a commissioner of the treasury, and soon after made chancellor of the exchequer. He
had great vivacity and clearness, both of thought and expression ; his spirit was at first
turned to wit and poetry, which he continued still to encourage in others, when he applied
himself to more important business. He came to have great notions with relation to all
the concerns of the treasury, and of the public funds, and brought those matters into new
and better methods : he shewed the error of giving money upon remote funds, at a vast dis
count, and with great premiums to raise loans upon them ; which occasioned a great outcry
at the sums that were given, at the same time that they were much shrunk before they pro
duced the money that was expected from them. So he pressed the king to insist on this as
a maxim, to have all the money for the service of a year to be raised within that year t.

with the whigs, he obtained the favour of William, who
made him solicitor- general in 1689, and attorney-general
in 1692. In the following year we have seen that he was
made lord keeper, and four years subsequently was enno
bled, and appointed lord high chancellor. Never had so
much dignity, or so much mildness, been displayed ; never
such a complication of endowments centred in one per.
son. He was a . prodigy. Lord Orford Baid he was
" a chapel in a place where every other room is pro
faned." In the city he only had to ask for the king,
and the money was had. The laws of England ^ere
known to him, and he was not ignorant of those of Greece,
Rome, or modern kingdoms. Foreign ambassadors, noble
men, and strangers saw, in an individual of private birth,
unused to courts, the manners of the most finished courtier :
professional men of all kinds found in him, for he admitted
them to his table, an adept in that science they had spent
a life in studying. A lucid eloquence was natural to him.
His arguments were called "geometrical stairs," support
ing each other. He was the truest patriot and sincerest
of all William's ministers ; yet, as will be seen in future
pages, even he could not escape the machinations of those
who desired place and power more than they respected
worth. In 1710, he finally retired from public affairs,
and died in 1716 — a warning against presumption to the
most talented — an idiot ! His great foible was a devo
tion to women, and this hastened his death. Unmarried,
his titles died with him. It is greatly to be lamented
that nearly all his MSS were destroyed in 1752 by a
fire in Lincoln 's-Inn. The few that escaped have been
published by lord Hardwicke. A good life of this great
man is still a desideratum. Whoever undertakes it, will
find valuable materials in those papere, andin the " Shrews
bury Correspondence." Maddock's Life of Somers, and
the sketch of his early years, by Cooksey, are very imper
fect. There is a memoir of him in the Biographia Bri
tannica. * Sir John Trenchard was of the legal profession. His
residence was Wolverton, in Dorsetshire. He narrowly
escaped being executed, for one of the witnesses swore that
Trenchard undertook to raise troops at Taunton, although,
as he was the first mover of the exclusion bill, it was con
sidered James the Second would have him destroyed.
He joined Monmouth's expedition, but escaped when it
was defeated. At the revolution he returned to England,
and represented Dorchester in Parliament. He was mai'.e

a Serjeant in 1689, and afterwards secretary of state, as
mentioned above. He enjoyed his distinctions a very short
time, dying in 1694  Noble's Continuation of Grainger.
f Charles Montague was the youngest son of a youngest
son of an earl of Manchester, and born at Horton, in
Northamptonshire, during 1661. The remainder of his
career may be told in the words of Dr. Johnson. He was
educated first in the country, and then removed to West
minster ; where, in 1677, he was chosen a king's scholar,
and recommended himself to Busby by his felicity in
extemporary epigrams. He contracted a very intimate
friendship with Mr. Stepney; and, in 1682, when Step
ney was elected to Cambridge, the election of Montague
being not to proceed until the year following, he was
afraid lest, by being placed at Oxford, he might be sepa
rated from his companion, and therefore solicited to be
removed to Cambridge. It seemed, indeed, time to wish
for a removal, for he was already a schoolboy of twenty-
one. At Trinity College, of which his uncle was the
master, he commenced his acquaintance with the great
Newton, which continued through his life, and was at
last attested by a legacy. In 1685, his verses on the
death of king Charles made such an impression upon the
earl of Dorset, that lie was invited to town, and introduced
by that universal patron of the wits. In 1687 he joined
with Prior in " the City Mouse and Country Mouse," a
burlesque of Dryden's " Hind and Panther." He signed
the invitation to the prince of Orange, and sat in the con
vention. About the same time he married the countess
dowager of Manchester, and intended to have taken orders,
but changed his purpose, and purchased for 1,500/. the
place of one of the clerks of council. After he had writtei.
his epistle on the victory of the Boyne, his patron, Dorset,
introduced him to the king, saying, " Sire, I have a
mouse to wait on your majesty." To which the king is
said to have replied, " You do well to put me in the way
of making a man of him." In 1691, being a member of
the house of commons, he argued warmly in favour of a
law to grant the assistance of counsel in trials for high
treason ; and in the midst of his speech, falling into some
confusion, was for a while silent ; but recovering himself,
observed, " how reasonable it was to allow counsel to
men called as criminals before a court of justice, when it
appealed how much the presence of thi's assembly would
disconcert one of their own body." He now rose last
into honours and employment, being made one of tho

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 589
But as the employing these men had a very good effect on the king's affairs, so a party
came to be now formed that studied to cross and defeat every thing ; this was led by Sey
mour and Musgrave. The last was a gentleman of a noble family in Cumberland, whose
life had been regular, and his deportment grave. He had lost a place in king James's time ;
for though he was always a high tory, yet he would not comply with his designs. He had
indeed contributed much to increase his revenue, and to offer him more than he asked ; yet
he would not go into the taking off the tests. Upon the revolution, the place out of which
he had been turned, was given to a man that had a good share of merit in that great event.
This alienated him from the king ; and he, being a man of good judgment, and of great
experience, came to be considered as the head of the party ; in which he found his account
so well, that no offers that were made him could ever bring him over to the king's interests.
Upon many critical occasions he gave up some important points, for which the king found it
necessary to pay him very liberally.
But the party of the tories was too inconsiderable to have raised a great opposition, if a
body of whigs had not joined with them ; some of these had such republican notions, that
they were much set against the prerogative : and they thought the king was become too
stiff in maintaining it ; others were offended because they were not considered nor preferred,
as they thought they deserved. The chief of these were, Mr. Paul Foley and Mr, Harley *.
The first of these was a younger son of one, who from mean beginnings had, by iron works,
raised one of the greatest estates that had been in England in our time. He was a learned,
though not a practising lawyer ; and was a man of virtue and good principles, but morose
and wilful ; and he had the affectation of passing for a great patriot by his constant finding
fault with the government, and venting an ill humour, and a bad opinion of the court.
Harley was a man of a noble family, and very eminently learned ; much turned to politics,
and of a restless ambition. He was a man of great industry and application, and knew
forms, and the records of parliament so well, that he was capable both of lengthening out
and of perplexing debates. Nothing could answer his aspiring temper ; so he and Foley
joined with the tories to create jealousies, and raise an opposition. They soon grew to be
able to delay matters long, and set on foot some very uneasy things that were popular ;
such as the bill against parliament -men being in places, and that for dissolving the parlia
ment, and for having a new one every third year.
That which gave them much strength was, the king's cold and reserved way ; he took no
pains to oblige those that came to him, nor was he easy of access ; he lived out of town
at Kensington, and his chief confidants were Dutch. He took no notice of the clergy, and
seemed to have little concern in the matters of the church, or of religion ; and at this
time some atheists and deists, as well as Socinians, were publishing books against religion
in general, and more particularly against the mysteries of our faith. These expressed great
zeal for the government, which gave a handle to those who were waiting for all advantages,
and were careful of increasing and improving them, to spread it all over the nation, that
the king, and those about him, had no regard to religion, nor to the church of England.
But now I go on to the transactions of this summer. The king had, in his speech to the
parliament, told them he intended to land a considerable army in France this year : so,
after the session, orders were given for hiring a fleet for transports, with so great a train of
artillery, that it would have served an army of forty thousand men. This was very accept
able to the whole nation, who loved an active war, and were very uneasy to see so much
money paid, and so little done with it ; but all this went off without any effect. Tho
commissioners of the treasury, a privy councillor, and was raised to the peerage. He was twice attacked by the
chancellor of the exchequer, as mentioned in the text, house of commons, so uncertain is popular favour, but was
He merited the gratitude of his country by effecting a as often protected by the counter-votes of the peers. He
re-coinage of the silver currency in two years, an under- again came iuto office upon the accession of George the First,
taking that was deemed impossible to complete. In 1696, but died soon after, in 1715, to the confusion of the chief
he projected the general fund, and raised the credit of practitioners of that time, Doctors Shadwell, Scigerthal,
the exchequer ; examined the grants of the Irish crown Blackmore, and Mead, who declared his disease to be a
lands, and was voted by the house of commons to have pleurisy, when it proved to be an inflammation of the
deserved bis majesty's favour. In 1698, he was advanced lungs. — Johnson's Lives of the Poets; Noble's Contiu.
to be first commissioner of the treasury, and appointed one of Grainger.
of the regency in the king's absence ; the year after, he * Afterwards earl of Oxford.

590 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
French had attempted this winter the siege of Rhinfeldt, a place of no great consequence ;
but it lay upon the Rhine, not far from Coblentz ; and by it Franconia would have been
open to them. They could not cut off the communication by the Rhine ; so that fresh sup
plies of men and provisions were every day sent to them by the care of the landgrave of
Hesse, who managed the matter with such success, that after a fortnight's stay before it, the
French were forced to raise the siege ; which was a repulse so seldom given them, that
upon it some said, they were then sensible that Louvois was dead. The French had also
made another attempt upon Huy, of a shorter continuance, but with the like success. The
campaign was opened with great pomp in Flanders ; for the king of France came thither in
person, accompanied by the ladies of the court, which appeared the more ridiculous, since
there was no queen at the head of them, unless madame de Maintenon was to be taken for
one, to whom respects were indeed paid with more submission than is commonly done to
queens ; so that what might be wanting in the outward ceremony, was more than balanced
by the real authority that she had. It was given out, that the king of France, after he had
amused the king for some days, intended to have turned either to Brussels on the one hand,
or to Liege on the other. In the mean while the French were working on the Dutch, by
their secret practices, to make them hearken to a separate peace ; and the ill humour that
had appeared in the parliament of England against them was an argument much made use
of, to convince them how little ground they had to trust to their alliance with England ; so
that, as French practices had raised this ill humour among us, they made now this use of it
to break our mutual confidence, and by consequence our alliance with the States. The king
made great haste, and brought his army much sooner together than the French expected :
he encamped at Park, near Louvain : by which he broke all the French measures ; for he
lay equally well posted to relieve Brussels or Liege. It was grown the more necessary to
take care of Liege, because though the bishop was true to the allies, yet there was a faction
formed among the capitulars, to offer themselves to the French ; but the garrison adhered
to the bishop ; and now, when so great an army lay near them, they broke the measures
which that faction had taken. The French king, seeing that the practices of treachery, on
which he chiefly relied, succeeded so ill, resolved not to venture himself in any dangerous
enterprise ; so he and the ladies went back to Versailles.
The dauphin, with a great part of the army, was sent to make head against the Germans,
who had brought an army together, commanded by the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of
Hesse, and the prince of Baden ; the Germans moved slowly, and were retarded by some
disputes about the command ; so that the French came on to Heidelberg, before they wera
ready to cover it. The town could make no long resistance, but it was too soon abandoned
by a timorous governor. The French were not able to hinder the conjunction of the Ger
mans, though they endeavoured it ; they advanced towards them. And though the Dauphin
was much superior in numbers, and studied to force them to action, yet they kept close ;
and he did not think fit to attack them in their camp. The French raised great contribu
tions in the Wirtemburg ; but no action happened on the Rhine all this campaign. The
French had better success, and less opposition, in Catalonia : they took Rosas, and advanced
to Barcelona, expecting their fleet, which was to have bombarded it from the sea, while
their army attacked it by land. This put all Spain under a great consternation ; the design
of this invasion was, to force them to treat of a separate peace; while they felt themselves
so vigorously attacked, and saw that they were in no condition to resist.
Affairs in Piedmont gave them a seasonable relief : the duke of Savoy's motions were so
slow, that it seemed both sides were resolved to lie upon the defensive. The French were
very weak there, and they expected to be as weakly opposed ; but in the end of July, the
duke began to move ; and he obliged Catinat to retire with his small army, having made
him quit some of his posts. And then he formed the siege of St. Bridget, a fort that lay
above Pignerol, and, as was believed, might command it. After twelve days' siege, the
French abandoned it, and he was master of it ; but he was not furnished for undertaking
the siege of Pignerol, and so the campaign went off in marches and countermarches ; but
in the end of it, Catinat, having increased his army by some detachments, came up to the
duke of Savoy. They engaged at Orbasson, where the honour of the action, but with that

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 591
tho gieatest loss, fell to the French ; for, though they carried it by their numbers, their bodies
being less spent and fuller, yet the resistance that was made was such, that the duke of
Savoy gained, more in his reputation, than he suffered by the loss of the day.
The two armies lay long in Flanders, watching one another's motions, without coming to
action. In July, Luxembourg went to besiege Huy, and carried it in two or three days.
The king moved that way, on design either to raise the siege, or to force a battle. Those
in Huy did not give him time to come to their relief; and Luxembourg made a feint towards
Liege, which obliged the king to send some battalions to reinforce the garrison of that
place. He had also sent another great detachment, commanded by the duke of Wirtem-
burg, to force the French lines, and to put their country under contribution ; which he
executed with great success, and raised above four millions. Luxembourg thought this was
an advantage not to be lost : so that, as soon as ho had received orders from the king of
France to attack the king in his camp, he came up to him near Landcn, upon the river
Gitte. He was about double the king's number, chiefly in horse. The king might have
secured himself from all attacks, by passing the river; and his conduct in not doing it
was much censured, considering his strength, and the enemy's. He chose rather to stay
for them, but sent away the baggage and heavy cannon to Mechlin, and spent the whole
night in planting batteries, and casting up retrenchments. On the twenty-ninth of July
the French began their attack, early in the morning, and came on with great resolution,
though the king's cannon did great execution ; they were beaten off with the loss of many
officers in several attacks ; yet they came still on with fresh bodies, till at last, after an
action of seven or eight hours' continuance, they broke through, in a place where there was
such a body of German and Spanish horse, that the army on no side was thought less in
danger. These troops gave way ; and so the French carried the honour of the day, and
were masters both of the king's camp and cannon : but the king passed the river, and cut
the bridges, and lay secure out of reach. He had supported the whole action with so much
courage, and so true a judgment, that it was thought he got more honour that day than
even when he triumphed at the Boyne. He charged himself in several places ; many were
shot round about him with the enemy's cannon : one musket-shot carried away part of his
scarf, and another went through his hat, without doing him any harm. The French lost so
many men, and suffered so much in the several onsets they had made, that they were not
able to pursue a victory, which cost them so dear. We lost in all about seven thousand ;
and among these there was scarce an officer of note ; only the count de Solms had his leg
shot off by a cannon ball, of which he died in a few hours. By all the accounts that came
from France, it appeared that the French had lost double the number, with a vastly greater
proportion of officers. The king's behaviour, during the battle, and in the retreat, was
much magnified by the enemy, as well as by his own side. The king of France was
reported to have said upon it, that Luxembourg's behaviour was like the prince of Conde s,
but the king's like M. Turenne's. His army was, in a few days, as strong as ever, by recall
ing the duke of Wirtemburg, and the battalions he had sent to Liege, and some other bodies
that he drew out of garrisons. And the rest of the campaign passed over, without any
other action ; only at the end of it, after the king had left the army, Charleroi was besieged
by the French : the country about it had been so eat up, that it was not possible to sub
sist an army that might have been brought to relieve it : the garrison made a brave resist
ance, and held out a month, but it was taken at last.
Thus the French triumphed every where ; but their successes were more than balanced
by two bad harvests, that came successively one after another ; they had also suffered much
in their vintage ; so that they had neither bread nor wine. Great diligence was used to
bring in corn from all parts ; and strict orders were given by that court, for regulating the
price of it, and for furnishing their markets; there was also a liberal distribution ordered
by that king foi the relief of the poor. But misery will be misery still, after all possible
care to alleviate it. Great multitudes perished for want, and the whole kingdom fell into
an extreme poverty ; so that all the pomp of their victories could not make them easy at
home. They tried all possible methods for bringing about a general peace ; or if that
failed, for a separate peace with some of the confederates ; but there was no disposition iu

592 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
any of them to hearken to it; nor could they engage the northern crowns to offer their
mediation. Some steps were indeed made, for they offered to acknowledge the present
goremment of England ; but in aU other points their demands were still so high, that
there was no prospect of a just peace till their aflaiis should have brought them to an
humbler posture.
But wh3e tile campaign, in all its scenes, was thus unequal and various, the French,
though mnch weaker at sea, were the most successful there; and though we had the superior
strength, we were very unprosperous ; and by our ill conduct we lost much, both in our
honour and interest, on that element The great difficulty that the French were under in
their marine was, by reason of their two great ports, Brest and Toulon; and from the bring
ing their fleets together, and sending them back again. The danger they ran in that, and
the delays that it put them under, were tile chief occasions of their losses last year; but
these were, in a great measure, made up to them now. We were sending a Tery rich fleet
of merchant ships to the Mediterranean, which was valued at many millions ; some of these
had lain ready a year and a half, waiting for a convoy, but were still put off by new delays;
nor could they obtain one after Russet's victory, though we were then masters at sea. They
were promised a great one in winter. The number of the merchant ships did still increase ;
so that the convoy, which was at first designed, was not thought equal to the riches of
the fleet, and to the danger they might run by ships that might be sent from Toulon to
intercept them. The court of France was watching this carefully; a spy among the Jacob
ites gave advice, that certain persons sent from Scotland to France, to shew with how small
a force they might make themselves masters of that kingdom, had hopes given, them for
some time : upon which several military men went to Lancashire and X orthumberland, to
see what could be expected from thence, if commotions should happen in Scotland. But in
February the French said they could not do what was expected; and the Scotch agents
were told that they were obliged to look after the Smyrna fleet, which they reckoned might
be of more consequence than even the carrying Scotland could be. The fleet was ready in
February, but new excuses were again made ; for it was said, the convoy must be increased
to twenty men of war ; Rook was to command it : a new delay was likewise put in, on
the pretence of staying for advice from Toulon, whether the squadron that was laid np there
was to lie in the Mediterranean this year, or to come about to Brest. The merchants were
very uneasy under those delays, since the charge was likely to eat up the profit of the
voyage ; but no dispatch could be had ; and very probable reasons were offered to justify
every new retardment. The French fleet had gone early out of Toulon, on design to have
destroyed the Spanish fleet, which lay in the bay of Puzzolo ; but they lay so safe there, that
the French saw they could not succeed in any attempt upon them ; afterwards ihey stood
off to the coast of Catalonia, to assist their army, -which was making some conquests there-
Yet these were only feints to amuse and to cover their true design. The fleet at Brest
sailed away from thence so suddenly, that they were neither completely manned nor
victualled ; and they came to Lagos Bay in Algarve. Tenders were sent after them, with
the necessary complement of men and provisions : this sudden and unprovided morion of the
French fleet looked as if some secret advice had been sent from England, acquainting them
with our designs. But at the secretary's office, not only there was no intelligence concerning
their fleet, but when a ship came in that brought the news of their having sailed from Brest,
they were not believed- Our main fleet sailed out into the sea for some leagues with Rook,
and the merchant ships ; and when they thought they were out of danger, they came back.
Rook was unhappy in that, which, npon any tier occasion, would have been a great hap
piness : he had a fair and a strong gale of wind, so that no advice sent after him could overT
take him ; nor did he meet with any ships at sea that could give him notice of the danger
that lay before him. He doubled the Cape of St. Vincent, and had almost fallen in with
the French fleet, before he was aware of it. He dreamed of no danger but from the Toulon.
squadron, till he took a fire-ship ; the captain whereof endeavoured to deceive him by a
false story, as if there had been only fifteen men of war lying at Lagos, that intended to join
D'Estrees. The merchants were for going on, and believed the information ; thev were con
firmed in this by he disorder the French seemed to be in; for they were cutting their cables.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARV. 693
and drawing near tlie shore. The truth was, when they saw Rook's fleet, they apprehended
by their numbers that the whole fleet of England was coming towards them ; and indeed
had they come so far with them, here was an occasion offered, which perhaps may not be
found again in an age, of destroying their whole strength at sea. But as the French soon
perceived their error, and were forming themselves into a line, Rook saw his error likewise,
and stood out to sea, while the merchants fled, as their fears drove them ; a great many of
them sticking still close to him ; others sailed to Cadiz, and some got to Gibraltar ; and,
instead of pursuing their voyage, put in there ; some ships were burnt or sunk, and a very
small number was taken by the French. They did not pursue Rook, but let him sail away
to the Madeiras ; and from thence he came, first to Kinsale, and then into England. The
French tried what they could do upon Cadiz, but found that it was not practicable. They
came next to Gibraltar, where the merchants sunk their ships, to prevent their falling into
their hands ; from thence they sailed along the coast of Spain, and burnt some English and
Dutch ships that were lying at Malaga, Alicant, and in some other places. They hoped to
have destroyed the Spanish fleet ; but they put in at Port Mahon, where they were safe.
At length, after a very glorious campaign, the French came back to Toulon. It is certain,
if Tourville had made use of all his advantages, and had executed the design, as well as it
was projected, he might have done us much mischief: few of our men-of-war, or merchant
men, could have got out of his hands. The loss fell heaviest on the Dutch ; the voyage was
quite lost, and the disgrace of it was visible to the whole world, and very sensible to the
trading part of the nation.
The appearances were such, that it was generally surmised our counsels were betrayed.
The secretary, that attended on the admirals, was much suspected, and charged with many
things ; but the suspicions rose high, even as to the secretary of state's office. It was said,
that our fleet was kept in port till the French were laid in their way, and was then ordered
to sail, that it might fall into their hands. Many particulars were laid together, wliich had
such colours, that it was not to be wondered at, if they created jealousy, especially in minds
sufficiently prepared for it. Upon enquiry, it appeared, that several of those, who, for the
last two years, were put in the subaltern employments, through the kingdom, did upon
many occasions shew a disaffection to the government, and talked and acted like enemies.
Our want of intelligence of the motions of the French, while they seemed to know every
thing that we either did, or designed to do, cast a heavy reproach upon our ministers, who
were now broken so in pieces, that they acted without union or concert : every one studied
to justify himself, and to throw the blame on others ; a good share of this was cast on the earl
of Nottingham : the marquis of Caermarthen was much suspected ; the earl of Rochester
began now to have great credit with the queen, and seemed to be so violently set against the
whigs, that they looked for dreadful things from him, if he came again to govern ; for, being
naturally warm, and apt to heat himself in company, he broke out into sallies, which were
carried about, and began to create jealousies, even of the queen herself.
I was in some sort answerable for this ; for, when the queen came into England, she was
so possessed against him, that he tried all his friends and interest in the court, to be admitted
to clear himself, and to recover her favour, but all in vain ; for they found her so alienated
from him, that no person would undertake it. Upon that he addressed himself to me : I
thought that, if he came into the service of the government, his relation to the queen would
make him firm and zealous for it : and I served him so effectually, that the queen laid aside
all her resentments, and admitted him, by degrees, into a high measure of favour and confi
dence *. I quickly saw my error ; and he took pains to convince me effectually of it ; for
* Some of the harshest treatment Dr. Burnet met rendon -was afterwards unhappily engaged in the conspiracy
with in the two former reigns, had passed through the against the government, in 1690, and some hotter whigs
hands of the earl of Rochester ; no two men ever differed were for the severest methods, the bishop became a hearty
more widely in their principles, both in church and state ; and successful advocate in his favour. These matters arp
yet the first good offices done that earl, with the king and but cursorily mentioned in the history, but will more fully
queen (after all other applications for introduction had appear from the four following original letters ; the first,
failed), their entire reconciliation to him, and the first written by the countess of Ranelagh ; tlie other three by
advantages be reaped in consequence of that reconciliation, the earl of Rochester himself ; —
were owing to our "author. And when the earl of Cla- Q u

5i>4

THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN

he was no sooner possessed of her favour, than he went into an interest, very different from
what I believed he would have pursued. He talked against all favour to dissenters, and for

" My lord,
" Your lordship knows that by my lord Rochester's
desiring me to help him to thank you for your forwardness
to do him favours with their majesties (out of the sense
he had, that he ought to be more grateful for them,
because he had not at all deserved them from your lord
ship), he had informed me, that you had done him such
favours ; and when, pursuant to his desire, I began to give
you humble thanks for him (who is a person in whom I
can be very sensibly obliged) I told your lordship I was
pleased in paying this duty, as much upon your account,
as upon his lordship's, as having attempted to conquer
him by weapons, fit to be used by one of your profession
and character; and I hoped he might be advantaged, as
well by being gained by you, as by reaping good fruits of
your mediation with their majesties. And now I present
your lordship, in the enclosed, with what appears tome an
evidence, that my hopes of his making ingenuous returns,
for your generous advances towards a friendship with him,
were not groundless ; since he would sure never have
pitched upon you, to manage an application of his about an
interest wherein the visible subsistence of his family is so
deeply concerned, if he did not firmly believe the reality
of your intentions towards him ; though he have no merits
of his towards you, or any thing else, bnt your Christian
beginnings towards him, to build that faith upon. „Nor
ran he, in my poor opinion, give you a clearer proof of his
being already overcome by you, than in choosing you to be
the person to whom he would in such an interest be
obliged ; since he thereby puts himself upon the peril of
being faithfully yours, or a very unthankful man ; which
I do so much assure myself he will not be, that I humbly
oeg your lordship to put this obligation upon him, to per
fect what you have already begun to do for him, of a like
nature, and to the same royal person : who would not, I
think, act unbecoming herself, nor the eminent station
God has placed her in, in assisting five innocent children,
who have the honour to be related to her royal mother,
who did still, with great tenderness, consider her own
family, when she was most raised above it; especially
when, in assisting them, her majesty will need only to
concern herself, to preserve a property made theirs by the
law of England, which as queen of this kingdom she is
obliged to maintain.
"I send your lordship my lord Rochester's letter to me,
that you may see he has thoughts that justify what I have
said here for him, and has expressed them much better
than I can do : so that as an argument to gain your par
don, for this confused scribble of mine, I present you with
his good writing. I am,
" Your lordship's humble and affectionate servant,
,l July IStli, 1689. " K. Ranelagh.'"
" My Lord,
" The good offices, your lordship has told me, you have
endeavoured to do me with the queen, of your own accord
and generosity, incline me to be desirous to he obliged to
your lordship, for the favour of presenting the enclosed
petition to her majesty. Your lordship will see, by the
reading it, the occasion and the subject of it ; and I am
sure I need not suggest any thing to your own kind
thoughts to add at the delivery of it, save only this, which
I thought not proper to touch in the petition, that I have
certainly as good a title in law to it as any man. has to any
thing he possesses ; as likewise that the pension is appro
priated, to be paid out of a part of the revenue, which
never was designed by any act of parliament, for any
public use of the government ; which I think has some

thing of weight and reason to distinguish it from those
pensions that are placed on the more public branches of
the revenue.
" I know not whether the queen can do me any good in
this affair, but I will believe her majesty cannot but wish
she could ; however, I think I should have been very
wanting to my children if I had not laid this case most
humbly before her majesty ; lest at one time or other she
herself might say, I had been too negligent in riot making
applications to her; which having now done, I leave the
rest, with all possible submission, to her own judgment,
and to the reflections, that some good-natured moments
may incline her to make towards my family. I should
say a great deal to your lordship, for my own confidence,
in addressing all this to your lordship, some passages of
my life having been such as may very properly give it that
name : but, 1 think, whatever you would be content to
hear on that subject will be better expressed by the per
son, who docs me the honour to deliver this to your lord
ship, from " My lord,
" Your lordship's most obedient servant,
" July 13, 1689. " Rochester."
" My lord,
" Upon what account soever it is, that your lordship is
pleased to let me hear from you, I take it to be something
of good fortune, whatsoever ill cause there may be in it
too. Therefore I humbly thank your lordship for the
honour of yours of the 18th from Salisbury; which was
sent me to this pretty place, where I love to be, as much
as you do at your palace ; and though I cannot do so
much good to others as your lordship does there to all
that are near you, yet I do more to myself than I can do
any where else. Quid sentire putas, quid credis, amice,
precari ? Sit mihi quod nunc est, etiam minus, ut mihi
vivam quod superest scvi. Forgive this transgressional
rapture, and receive my thanks, which I pay your lord
ship again, for your kind letter. For indeed I do take it
very kindly, that you were so much concerned, as to give
me a kind hint of that unseasonable discourse you came
to be acquainted with when you were last in London ; I
will make the best use of it I can, to prevent the like for
the future, if I have any credit. And in the mean time
I must make use of this opportunity to calm and soften
your resentments, towards this friend of mine, as you call
him in the beginning of your letter. I will allow you as
a servant to the king and queen, and a subject to their
crown, to have as great a detestation of the contrivance,
as you can wish ; and upon my word, I can accompany"
you in it. But when I consider you, as once you were, a
concerned friend of this lord, to have a respect for his
family, and particularly for my father, who lost not only
all the honours and preferments of this world, but even
the comforts of it too, for the integrity and uprightness of
his heart: you must forgive me, if I conjure you, by all
that's sacred in this generation in which we live together,
by the character that you bear, and by the religion you
profess, that you do not (as much as in you lies) suffer
this next heir of my good father's name and honour, to go
down with sorrow to the grave. I would not flatter
myself that your lordship should be moved with any fond
ness of mine, to endeavour to bring to pass, what is not
fit for a wise and a good man to propose ; that would be
to make a very ill use of your friendship to me, and I
would rather be corrected myself in my own desires, than
expose your lordship on such an account. But I hope
that they, who are the supreme directors of this matter

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY

595

setting up the notions of persecution and violence, which he had so much promoted in king
Charles's time, and professed himself an enemy to the present bishops, and to the methods
they were taking, of preaching and visiting their dioceses, of obliging the clergy to attend
more carefully to their functions;, and of endeavouring to gain the dissenters by gentle and
calm methods.
The king had left the matters of the church wholly in the queen's hands. He found he
could not resist importunities which were not only vexatious to him, but had drawn prefer
ments from him, which he came soon to see were ill bestowed ; so he devolved that care upon
the queen, which she managed with strict and religious prudence. She declared openly
against the preferring of those who put in for themselves, and took care to inform herself
particularly of the merits of such of the clergy as were not so much as known at court, nor
using any methods to get themselves recommended ; so that we had reason to hope, that, if
this course should be long continued, it would produce a great change in the church, and in
the temper of the clergy. She consulted chiefly with the archbishop of Canterbury, whom
she favoured and supported in a most particular manner. She saw what need there was of
it ; for a party was formed against him, who set themselves to censure every thing he did.
It was a melancholy thing to consider that, though we never saw an archbishop before him
apply himself so entirely, without partiality or bias, to all the concerns of the church and
religion, as he did ; and that the queen s heart was set on promoting them, yet such an
evil spirit should seem to be let loose upon the clergy. They complained of every thing
that was done, if it was not in their own way ; and the archbishop bore the blame of all.
He did not enter into any close correspondence, or the concerting measures with the minis
try, but lived much abstracted from them ; so they studied to depress him all they could.
This made a great impression upon him. He grew very uneasy in his great post : we were
all soon convinced, that there was a sort of clergymen among us that would never be satis
fied, as long as the toleration was continued ; and they seemed resolved to give it out, that

under God, may in their great wisdom and goodness
judge, that it may prove as much to their honour and
safety too, to pass over this particular, as if they should
pursue the strictest measures of justice in it. Though I
am a brother, if I did not, upon the greatest reflection I
can make, think I should be of the same opinion, if I
were none, I would not press this matter upon you. For
I cannot but think, that the queen would do, and would
be glad to avow it too, a very great thing for the memory
of that gentleman, so long in his grave. It is upon this
account I am begging of your lordship to do all that's pos
sible, to preserve every part and branch and member of
his family, from the least transient stain of infamy and
reproach. And if God was prevailed with by Abraham,
to have saved a whole city for the sake of ten righteous
men, I hope there may be as charitable an inclination to
Bpare the debris of our broken family, for the sake of him
who was the raiser of it.
" I ask your lordship's pardon for being thus importu
nate ; for I have great need of your help, and I hope I
shall have it from you. Losses of many and good friends
I have borne, and submitted with patience to the pleasure
of Almighty God ; but a calamity of this nature, that I
now deprecate, has in it something eo frightful, and on
some accounts so unnatural, that I beg you for God's
sake, from an angry man yourself, grow an advocate for
me and for the family on this account. I am ever,
" My lord,
" Your lordship's most faithful humble servant,
*' Rochester.
" New Park, March 21**, 1690-91."
" My lord,
" I was warm, I confess, in the last letter T gave your
lordship the trouble of, and I thank you for reproving the
vehemence of my style, in your last of the twenty-eighth ;
I am grown cooler, and acknowledge my fault; neither

did I commit it with an apprehension that your lordship
was inexorable, or that it would be so much as needful to
desire your assistance in that matter. But you may
remember, you had used a word to me, when you were
here, an attainder, that I acknowledge sounded very
harsh to me, and when I had reflected a little more upon
it, as likewise that your lordship did not use to speak by
chance, and consequently that you had good ground for
what you said, I own it heated me all over, which made
me express my thoughts to you with more transport than
was fit, and I will say no more of them, for fear of run
ning into new excesses. What your lordship proposes for
my lord Clarendon to desire, is perfectly agreeable to my
mind ; but I know not, whether it be not a, little too
early, and that such a petition might be presented with a
better grace, if he were once out of the Tower upon bail,
than it would be while he iB under this close confinement.
But as your lordship says, the affair of Mons must for the
present put a stop to every man's private thoughts, for
that is a matter of such vast importance to the public,
that it is but very fit, that all particular considerations
should give way to it, and wait the determination of that
great point : I cannot but believe the French are masters
of it before now, because all the letters that came by the
last post, that I could hear of, looked upon it as a thing
impracticable to relieve it, but we have had no letters
since Saturday. What the French will do next, whether
send their men into quarters for two months, or try to
follow their blow, is what men are now most anxious
about. One of my old friends, with whom of late I have
renewed my acquaintance, says upon all these mighty
occasions, l Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa
nocte premit Deus Ridetque si mortalis ultra Fas trepidat.1
But I confess to you I cannot be quite so overcome with
philosophy, as not to be concerned beforehand, at what
this dark night is to bring forth." Q Q 2

590 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the church was in danger, till a prosecution of dissenters should be again set on foot ; nor
could they look at a man with patience, or speak of him with temper, who did not agree
with them in these things. The bishops fell under the displeasure of the whigs by the
methods they took, not only of protecting, but of preferring some of these men, hoping by
that means both to have softened them and their friends ; but they took their preferments
as the rewards that they supposed were due to their merit ; and they employed the credit
and authority which their preferments brought them, wholly against those to whom they
owed them. The whigs were much turned against the king ; and were not pleased with
those who had left them, when they were so violent in the beginning of this reign ; and it
was a hard thing, in such a divided time, to resolve to be of no party, since men of that
temper are pushed at by many, and protected by no side. Of this we had many instances
at that time ; and I myself had some very sensible ones ; but they are too inconsiderable to
be mentioned. In this bad state we were, when a session of parliament came on with great
apprehensions, occasioned by our ill success, and by the king's temper, which he could no
way constrain, or render more complaisant, but chiefly from the disposition of men's minds,
which was practised on with great industry by the enemies of the government, who were
driving on jealousies daily.
A parliament had been summoned in Ireland by the lord Sidney ; but they met full of dis
content, and were disposed to find fault with every thing : and there was too much matter
to work upon ; for the lord lieutenant was apt to excuse or justify those who had the
address to insinuate themselves into his favour ; so that they were dismissed before they
brought their bills to perfection. The English in Ireland thought the government favoured
the Irish too much ; some said this was the effect of bribery, whereas others thought it was
necessary to keep them safe from the prosecutions of the English, who hated them, and were
much sharpened against them. The protecting the Irish was indeed in some sort necessary,
to keep them from breaking out, or from running over to the French : but it was very plain
that the Irish were Irish still, enemies to the English nation, and to the present government ;
so that all kindness shewed them beyond what was due in strict justice, was the cherishing
an inveterate enemy. There were also great complaints of an ill administration, chiefly
in the revenue, in the pay of the army, and in the embezzling of stores. Of these much
noise was made in England, which drew addresses from both houses of parliament to
the king, which were very invidiously penned ; every particular being severely aggravated.
So the king called back the lord Sidney, and put the government of Ireland into three lords
justices ; lord Capel, brother to the earl of Essex, sir Cyril Wyche, and Mr. Duncomb.
When they were sent from court, the queen did very earnestly recommend to their care, the
reforming of many disorders that were prevailing in that kingdom ; for, neither had the late
destructive war, out of which they were but beginning to recover themselves, nor their
poverty, produced those effects, that might have been well expected.
The state of Ireland leads me to insert here a very particular instance of the queen's pious
care in the disposing of bishoprics : lord Sidney was so far engaged in the interest of a great
family of Ireland, that he was too easily wrought on to recommend a branch of it to a vacant
see. The representation was made with an undue character of the person : so the queen
granted it. But when she understood that he lay under a very bad character, she wrote a
letter, in her own hand, to lord Sidney, letting him know what she had heard, and ordered
him to call for six Irish bishops, whom she named to him, and to require them to certify to
her their opinion of that person : they all agreed that he laboured under an ill fame ; and,
till that was examined into, they did not think it proper to promote him ; so that matter
was let fall. I do not name the person ; for I intend not to leave a blemish on him ; but set
this down as an example, fit to be imitated by Christian princes.
Another effect of the queens pious care of the souls of her people was finished this year,
after it had been much opposed, and long stopped. Mr. Blair, a very worthy man, came
over from Virginia, with a proposition for erecting a college there. In order to which, he had
set on foot a voluntary subscription, which arose to a great sum ; and he found out some
branches of the revenue there that went all into private hands, without being brouo-lit into
any public account, with which a free-school and college might be well endowed. The^English

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 597
born there were, as he said, capable of every thing, if they were provided with the means of
a good education ; and a foundation of this kind in Virginia, that lay in the middle, between
our southern and northern plantations, might be a common nursery to them all ; and put the
people born there in a way of further improvement. Those concerned in the management
of the plantations had made such advantages of those particulars, out of which the endow
ment was to be raised, that all possible objections were made to the project, as a design that
would take our planters off from their mechanical employments, and make them grow too
knowing to be obedient and submissive. The queen was so well pleased with the design, as
apprehending the very good effects it might have, that no objection against it could move
her : she hoped it might be a means of improving her own people, and of preparing some to
propagate the gospel among the natives ; and therefore, as she espoused the matter with a
particular zeal, so the king did very readily concur with her in it. The endowment was
fixed, and the patent was passed for the college called, from the founders, the William and
Mary College.
Affairs in Scotland grew more and more out of joint. Many whom the king had trusted
in the ministry there, were thought enemies to him and his government ; and some took so
little care to conceal their inclinations, that, when an invasion was looked for, they seemed
resolved to join in it. They wert taken out of a plot, which was managed by persuading
many to take oaths to the government, on design to betray it ; and were now trusted with
the most important posts. The presbyterians began to see their error, in driving matters so
far, and in provoking the king so much ; and they seemed desirous to recover his favour, and
to manage their matters with more temper. The king came likewise to see that he had
been a little too sudden in trusting some who did not deserve his confidence. Duke Hamil
ton had for some years withdrawn from business ; but he was now prevailed with to return
to council ; many letters were intercepted between France and Scotland ; in those from Scot
land, the easiness of engaging that nation was often repeated, if no time were lost ; it seemed
therefore necessary to bring that kingdom into a better state.
A session of parliament was held there, to which duke Hamilton was sent as the king's
commissioner ; the supplies that were asked were granted ; and now the whole presbyterian
party was again entire in the king's interest ; the matters of the church were brought to
more temper than was expected : the episcopal clergy had more moderate terms offered
them ; they were only required to make an address to the general assembly, offering to sub
scribe to a confession of faith, and to acknowledge presbytery to be the only government of
that church, with a promise to submit to it ; upon which, within a fortnight after they did
that, if no matter of scandal was objected to them, the assembly was either to receive them
into the government of the church, or, if they could not be brought to that, the king was to
take them into his protection, and maintain them in their churches, without any dependence
on the presbytery. This was a strain of moderation that the presbyterians were not easily
brought to ; a subscription that owned presbytery to be the only legal government of that
church, without owning any divine right in it, was far below their usual pretensions. And
this act vested the king with an authority, very like that which they were wont to condemn
as Erastianism. Another act was also passed, requiring all in any office in church or state,
to take, besides the oath of allegiance, a declaration called the assurance, owning the king
and queen to be their rightful and lawful sovereigns, and promising fidelity to them against
king James, and all his adherents. The council was also empowered to tender these, as they
should see cause for it, and to fine and imprison such as should refuse them. When the
session was near an end, Nevil Payne was brought before the parliament, to be examined,
upon the many letters that had been intercepted. There was a full evidence against him in
many of his own letters ; but he sent word to several of the lords, in particular to duke
Hamilton, that as long as his life was his own, he would accuse none ; but he was resolved
he would not die; and he could discover enough to deserve his pardon. This struck such
terror into many of them, whose sons or near relations had been concerned with him, that he
moving for a delay, on a pretence of some witnesses that were not then at hand, a time was
given him beyond the continuance of the session ; so he escaped, and that enquiry was stifled.
The session ended calmly ; but the king seemed to have forgotten Scotland so entirely, that

598 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
he let three months go over before he took notice of any of their petitions ; and, though he
had asked, and had supplies for an augmentation of forces, and many had been gained to
consent to the tax, by the hope of commissions in the troops that were to be levied ; yet the
king did not raise any new ones, but raised the supply, and applied it to other uses : this
began again to raise an ill humour, that had been almost quite laid down, in the whole course
of this session, which was thought a reconciling one. The clergy let the day prefixed, for
making their submission to the assembly, slip, and did not take the oaths ; so they could
claim no benefit by the act that had been carried in their favour, not without some difficulty.
And the law, that was intended to save them, did now expose them to ruin ; since by it,
they, not taking the oaths, had lost their legal rights to their benefices. Yet they were suf
fered to continue in them, and were put in hope, that the king would protect them, though
it was now against law. They were also made to believe, that the king did not desire that
they should take the oaths, or make any submission to presbytery : and it is certain, that no
public signification of the king's mind was made to them ; so they were easily imposed on
by surmises and whispers ; upon this the distractions grew up afresh. Many concluded
there, as well as in England, that the king's heart led him still to court his enemies, even
after all the manifest reasons he had to conclude, that the steps they made towards him were
only feigned submissions, to gain such a confidence as might put it in their power to deliver
him up.
The earl of Middleton went over to France in the beginning of this year ; and it was
believed he was sent by a great body among us, with a proposition, which, had he had the
assurance to have made, and they the wisdom to have accepted, might have much increased
our factions and jealousies. It was, that king James should offer to resign his title in favour
of his son, and likewise to send him to be bred in England, under the direction of a parlia
ment, till he should be of age ; but I could never hear that he ventured on this advice ; in
another he succeeded better. When king James thought the invasion from Normandy, the
former year, was so well laid, that he seemed not to apprehend it could miscarry, he had pre
pared a declaration, of which some copies came over. He promised nothing in it, and par
doned nobody by it ; but he spoke in the style of a conqueror, who thought he was master,
and therefore would limit himself by no promises, but such as were conceived in general
words, which might be afterwards expounded at pleasure. This was much blamed, even by
his own party, who thought that they themselves were not enough secured by so loose a
declaration : so the earl of Middleton, upon his going over, procured one of another strain,
which, as far as words could go, gave all content ; for he promised every thing, and pardoned
all persons. His party got this into their hands. I saw a copy of it, and they waited for
a fit occasion to publish it to the nation.
We were also at this time alarmed with a negotiation, that the court of France was setting
on foot at Madrid ; they offered to restore to the crown of Spain all that had been taken from
it, since the peace of Munster, on condition that the duke of Anjou should be declared the
heir of that crown, in default of issue by the king : the grandees of Spain, who are bred up
to a disregard and contempt of all the world besides themselves, were inclinable to entertain
this proposition ; though they saw that by so doing they must lose the house of Austria, the
elector of Bavaria, and many of their other allies. But the king himself, weak as he was,
stood firm and intractable ; and seemed to be as much set on watching their conduct, as a
man of his low genius could possibly be. He resolved to adhere to the alliance, and to carry
on the war, though he could do little more than barely resolve on it. The Spaniards thought
of nothing but their intrigues at Madrid ; and for the management of the war, and all their
affairs, they left the care of that to their stars, and to their allies.
The king came over to England in November ; he saw the necessity of changing both his
measures and his ministers ; he expressed his dislike of the whole conduct at sea ; and named
Russel for the command of the fleet next year ; he dismissed the earl of Nottingham, and
would immediately have brought the earl of Shrewsbury again into the ministry : but when that
lord came to him, he thought the king's inclinations were still the same that they had been for
some years, and that the turn wliich he was now making was not from choice, but force ; so that
went off, and the earl of Shrewsbury went into the country ; yet the king soon after sent for

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 699
him, and gave him such assurances, that he was again made secretary of state, to the general
satisfaction of the whigs *. But the person that had the king's confidence to the highest
degree, was the earl of Sunderland, who, by his long experience and his knowledge of men
and things, had gained an ascendant over him, and had more credit with him than any
Englishman ever had : he had brought the king to this change of councils by the prospect
he gave him of the ill condition his affairs were in, if he did not entirely both trust and
satisfy those, who, in the present conjuncture, were the only party that both could and
would support him. It was said, that the true secret of this change of measures was, that
the tories signified to the king plainly, that they could carry on the war no longer, and that
therefore he must accept of such a peace as could be had : this was the most pernicious thing
that could be thought on, and the most contrary to the king's notions and designs ; but they
being positive, he was forced to change hands, and to turn to the other party ; so the whigs
were now in favour again, and every thing was done that was likely to put them in good
humour. The commission of the lieutenancy for the city of London, on which they had set
their hearts, much more perhaps than it deserved, was so altered, that the whigs were the
superior number ; and all other commissions over England were much changed. They were
also brought into many places of trust and profit ; so that the king put his affairs chiefly
into their hands ; yet so, that no tory who had expressed zeal or affection for the government
was turned out. Upon this the whigs expressed new zeal and confidence in the king. All
the money that was asked for the next year's expense was granted very readily.
Among other funds that were created, one was for constituting a bank, which occasioned
great debates : some thought a bank would grow to be a monopoly. All the money of
England would come into their hands, and they would in a few years become the masters of
the stock and wealth of the nation. Others argued for it ; that the credit it would have,
must increase trade and the circulation of money, at least in bank notes. It was visible
that all the enemies of the government set themselves against it, with such a vehemence of
zeal, that this alone convinced all people, that they saw the strength that our affairs would
receive from it. I had heard the Dutch often reckon up the great advantages they had from
their banks ; and they concluded that, as long as England continued jealous of the govern
ment, a bank could never be settled among us, nor gain credit enough to support itself : and
upon that they judged that the superiority in trade must still lie on their side. This, with
all the other remote funds that were created, had another good effect ; it engaged all those
who were concerned in them, to be, upon the account of their own interest, zealous for main
taining the government ; since it was not to be doubted, but that a revolution would have
swept all these away. The advantages that the king, and all concerned in tallies, had from
the bank, were soon so sensibly felt, that all people saw into the secret reasons that made the
enemies of the constitution set themselves with so much earnestness against it t.
The enquiry into the conduct at sea, particularly with relation to the Smyrna fleet, took
up much time, and held long : great exceptions were taken to the many delays, by which it
seemed a train was laid, that they should not get out of our ports till the French were ready
to lie in their way, and intercept them. Our want of intelligence was much complained of :
the instructions that the admirals, who commanded the fleet, had received from the cabinet
council, were thought ill given, and yet worse executed ; their orders seemed weakly drawn,
ambiguous, and defective : nor had they shewn any zeal in doing more than strictly to obey
* It seems that, at their first interview, the earl of Paterson, a merchant. It was with extreme difficulty
Shrewsbury was so dissatisfied with the king, that after that he and his friends obtained a charter, which is dated
an angry altercation, he left London for his seat in Oxford- July 27, 1694, and was granted only for twelve years, the
shire. "William, in his cooler moments, saw the import- corporation to be determinable on a year's notice. The
ance of obtaining the earl's services, and employed the original capital subscribed was 1,200,0007., which they
blandishments of tho royal concubine, Elizabeth Villiers, lent to the government at eight per cent, interest, and an
afterwards countess of Orkney, and of the earl's favourite, allowance of 4,000/. annually for managing expenses.
Mrs. Lundee. Even these failed, and it was not until he The difficulties this corporation has had to encounter, tho
saw that the king intended really to confide in the whig important assistance it has afforded to our various adminis.
party, by appointing them to some of the chief offices, that trations, and the great influence it has over our moneyed
he was persuaded to accept the secretary's seals. — Seethe interests, arc subjects of important and interesting con-
Correspondence in Coxe's Shrewsbury Papers. sideration.
t The Bank of England was projected by Mr. W.

600 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
such orders : they had very cautiously kept within them, and had been very careful never to
exceed them in a tittle ; they had used no diligence to get certain information concerning
the French fleet, whether it was still in Brest, or had sailed out ; but in that important
matter, they had trusted general and uncertain reports too easily ; nor had they sailed with
Rook, till he was past danger. To all this their answer was, that they had observed their
orders : they had reason to think the French were still in Brest ; that therefore it was not
safe to sail too far from the coast of England when they had (as they understood) ground to
believe, that they had left behind them a great naval force, which might make an impression
on our coast, when they were at too great a distance from it ; the getting certain intelligence
from Brest, was represented as impracticable. They had many specious things to say in
their own defence, and many friends to support them ; for it was now the business of one
party to accuse, and of another to justify that conduct. In conclusion, there was not ground
sufficient to condemn the admirals, as they had followed their instructions ; so a vote passed
in their favour. The rest of the business of the session was managed both with dexterity
and success ; all ended well, though a little too late ; for the session was not finished before
the end of April. Prince Lewis of Baden came this winter to concert measures with the
king : he stayed above two months in England, and was treated with very singular respects,
and at a great expense.
The tories began in this session to obstruct the king's measures more openly than before ;
the earls of Rochester and Nottingham did it in the house of lords, with a peculiar edge and
violence : they saw how great a reputation the fair administration of justice by the judges,
and more particularly that equity, which appeared in the whole proceedings of the court of
chancery, gave the government ; therefore they took all occasions that gave them any handle
to reflect on these. We had many sad declamations, setting forth the misery the nation was
under, in so tragical a strain, that those who thought it was quite otherwise with us, and
that under all our taxes and losses, there was a visible increase of the wealth of the nation,
could not hear all this without some indignation.
The bishops had their share of ill humour vented against them ; it was visible to the whole
nation that there was another face of strictness, of humility and charity among them, than
had been ordinarily observed before : they visited their dioceses more ; they confirmed and
preached oftener than any who had in our memory gone before them ; they took more care
in examining those whom they ordained, and in looking into the behaviour of their clergy,
than had been formerly practised : but they were faithful to the government, and zealous for
it ; they were gentle to the dissenters, and did not rail at them, nor seem uneasy at the tole
ration. This was thought such a heinous matter, that all their other diligence was despised ;
and they were represented as men who designed to undermine the church, and to betray it.
Of this I will give one instance ; the matter was of great importance ; and it occasioned
great and long debates in this, and in the former session of parliament ; it related to the duke
of Norfolk, who had proved his wife guilty of adultery, and did move for an act of parlia
ment, dissolving his marriage, and allowing him to marry again. In the later ages of popery,
when marriage was reckoned among the sacraments, an opinion grew to be received, that
adultery did not break the bond, and that it could only entitle to a separation, but not such
a dissolution of the marriage, as gave the party that was injured a right to many again :
this became the rule of the spiritual courts, though there was no definition made about it
before the council of Trent. At the time of the reformation, a suit of this nature was pro
secuted by the marquis of Northampton ; the marriage was dissolved, and he married a
second time : but he found it necessary to move for an act of parliament to confirm this sub
sequent marriage. In the reformation of the ecclesiastical laws, that was prepared by Cran-
mer and others, in king Edward's time, a rule was laid down, allowing of a second marriage,
upon a divorce for adultery. This matter had lain asleep above an hundred years, till the
present duke of Rutland, then lord Roos, moved for the like liberty. At that time a scep
tical and libertine spirit prevailed, so that some began to treat marriage only as a civil con
tract, in which the parliament was at full liberty to make what laws they pleased ; and
most of king Charles's courtiers applauded this, hoping by this doctrine that the king might
be divorced from the queen. The greater part of the bishops, apprehending the consequence

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. f!01
that lord Roos's act might have, opposed every step that was made in it; though many of
them were persuaded, that in the case of adultery, when it was fully proved, a second
marriage might be allowed. In the duke of Norfolk's case, as the lady was a papist, and a
busy Jacobite, so a great party appeared for her. All that favoured the Jacobites and those
who were thought engaged in lewd practices, espoused her concern with a zeal that did
themselves little honour. Their number was such, that no progress could be made in the
bill, though the proofs were but too full, and too plain. But the main question was, whether
supposing the matter fully proved, the duke of Norfolk should be allowed a second marriage ?
The bishops were desired to deliver their opinions, with their reasons : all those who had
been made during the present reign, were of opinion, that a second marriage in that case was
lawful, and conformable, both to the words of the gospel, and to the doctrine of the primitive
church ; and that the contrary opinion was started in the late and dark ages. But all the
bishops that had been made by the two former kings, were of another opinion, though some
of them could not well tell why they were so. Here was a colour for men, who looked at
things superficially, to observe that there was a difference of opinion, between the last made
bishops, and those of an elder standing ; from which they inferred, that we were departing
from the received doctrine of our church ; and upon that topic, the earl of Rochester charged
us very vehemently. The bill was let fall at this time : nor was the dispute kept up, for no
books were written on the subject of either side.
Tlie king went beyond sea in May ; and the campaign was opened soon after. The
armies of both sides came very near one another : the king commanded that of the confede
rates, as the dauphin did the French. They lay between Brussels and Liege ; and it was
given out, that they intended to besiege Maestricht : the king moved towards Namur, that
he might either cut off their provisions, or force them to fight ; but they were resolved to
avoid a battle ; so they retired likewise, and the campaign passed over in the ordinary man
ner ; both of them moving and watching one another. The king sent a great detachment
to break into the French country at Pont Esperies ; but though the body he sent had made
a great advance, before the French knew any thing of their march, yet they sent away their
cavalry with so much haste, and in so continued a march, that they were possessed of the
pass before the body the king had sent could reach it ; whereby they gained their point,
though their cavalry suffered much. This design failing, the king sent another body towards
Huy, who took it in a few days. It was become more necessary to do this, for the covering
of Liege, which was now much broken into faction ; their bishop was dead, and there was
a great division in the chapter ; some were for the elector of Cologne, and others were for
the elector Palatine's brother ; but that for the elector of Cologne was the stronger party,
and the court of Rome judged in their favour. The differences between that court and that
of Versailles, were now so far made up, that the bulls for the bishops, whom the king had
named to the vacant sees, were granted, upon the submission of all those who had been con
cerned in the articles of 1682 ; yet after all that reconciliation, the real inclinations of the
court of Rome lay still towards the confederates : the alliance that France was in with the
Turk, was a thing of an odious sound at Rome. The taking of Huy covered Liege ; so that
they were both safer and quieter. The confederates, especially the English and the Dutch,
grew weary of keeping up vast armies, that did nothing else, but lay for some months advan
tageously posted, in view of the enemy, without any action.
On the Rhine, things went much in the usual manner ; only at the end of the campaign,
the prince of Baden passed the Rhine, and raised great contributions in Alsace, which the
French suffered him to do, rather than hazard a battle. There was nothing of any import
ance done on either side in Piedmont ; only there appeared to be some secret management
between the court of France, and that of Turin, in order to a peace ; it was chiefly nego
tiated at Rome, but was all the while denied by the duke of Savoy.
In Catalonia, the Spaniards were beat off from some posts, and Gironne was taken ; nor
was Barcelona in any condition to have resisted, if the French had set down before it. The
court of Madrid felt their weakness, and saw their danger so visibly, that they were forced
to implore the protection of the English fleet. The French had carried the best part of their
naval force into the Mediterranean, and had resolved to attack Barcelona, both by sea and

602 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
land, at the same time ; and, upon their success there, to have gone round Spain, destroying
their coasts every where. All this was intended to force them to accept the offers the French
were willing to make them ; but to prevent this, Russel was ordered to sail into the Medi
terranean with a fleet of threescore great ships. He was so long stopt in his voyage by con
trary winds, that the French, if they had pursued their advantages, might have finished the
conquest of Catalonia; but they resolved not to hazard their fleet ; so it was brought back
to Toulon, long before Russel could get into the Mediterranean, which was now left entirely
free to him. But it was thought that the French intended to make a second attempt, in the
end of the year, as soon as he should sail back to England : so it was proposed, that he might
lie at Cadiz all the winter. This was an affair of that importance, that it was long and
much debated, before it was resolved on. It was thought a dangerous thing to expose the
best part of our fleet, so much as it must be, while it lay at so great a distance from us, that
convoys of stores and provisions might easily be intercepted ; and indeed, the ships were so
low in their provisions, when they came back to Cadiz (the vessels that were ordered to carry
them having been stopped four months in the channel by contrary winds) that our fleet had
not then above a fortnight's victuals on board ; yet when the whole matter was thoroughly
canvassed, it was agreed, that our ships might both lie safe, and be well careened at Cadiz :
nor was the difference in the expense, between their lying there, and in our own ports, con
siderable. By our lying there, the French were shut within the Mediterranean ; so that the
ocean and their coasts were left open to us. They were in effect shut up within Toulon ;
for they, having no other port in those seas but that, resolved not to venture abroad ; so that
now we were masters of the seas every where. These considerations determined the king to
send orders to Russel, to lie all the winter at Cadiz ; which produced very good effects. The
Venetians and the great duke had not thought fit to own the king till then. A great fleet
of stores and ammunition, with all other provisions for the next campaign, came safe to
Cadiz ; and some clean men of war were sent out, in exchange for others, which were
ordered home.
But while we were very fortunate in our main fleet, we had not the like good success in
an attempt that was made on Camaret, a small neck of land that lies in the mouth of the
river of Brest, and would have commanded that river, if we could have made ourselves
masters of it. Talmash had formed the design of seizing on it ; he had taken care to be well
informed of every thing relating to it : six thousand men seemed to be more than were
necessary for taking and keeping it. The design, and the preparations for it, were kept so
secret, that there was not the least suspicion of the project, till the hiring transport ships
discovered it. A proposition had been made of this two years before to the earl of Notting
ham, who, among other things, charged Russel with it, that this had been laid before him
by men that came from thence, but that he had neglected it. Whether the French appre
hended the design from that motion, or whether it was now betrayed to them, by some of
those who were in the secret, I know not : it is certain, that they had such timely know
ledge of it, as put them on their guard. The preparations were not quite ready by the
day that was settled ; and, when all was ready, they were stopt by a westerly wind for
some time ; so that they came thither a month later than was intended. They found the
place was well fortified by many batteries, that were raised in different lines upon the rocks,
that lay over the place of descent ; and great numbers were there ready to dispute their
landing. When our fleet came so near as to see all this, the council of officers were all
against making the attempt ; but Talmash had set his heart so much upon it, that he could
not be diverted from it.
He fancied the men they saw were only a rabble brought together to make a show,
though it appeared very evidently that there were regular bodies among them, and that
their numbers were double to his. He began with a landing of six hundred men, and put
hinself at the head of them. The men followed him with great courage, but they were so
exposed to the enemies' fire, and could do them so little harm, that it quickly appeared it
was needlessly throwing away the lives of brave men to persist longer in so desperate an
undertaking. The greatest part of those who landed were killed or taken prisoners, and not
above an hundred of them came back. Talmash himself was shot in the thio-h of which he

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 603
died in a few days, and was much lamented ; for he was a brave and generous man, and a
good officer, very fit to animate and encourage inferior officers and soldiers ; but he was
much too apt to be discontented, and to turn mutinous ; so that upon the whole, he was
one of those dangerous men that are capable of doing as much mischief as good service.
Thus that design miscarried, which, if it had been undertaken at any time before the
French were so well prepared to receive us, might have succeeded, and must have had great
effects *.
Our fleet came back to Plymouth ; and after they had set the land forces ashore, being
well furnished with bomb-vessels and ammunition, they were ordered to try what could be
done on the French coast t. They lay first before Dieppe, and burned it almost entirely to
the ground. They went next to Havre de Grace, and destroyed a great part of that town.
Dunkirk was the place of the greatest importance : so that attempt was long pursued in
several ways, but none of them succeeded. These bombardings of the French towns soon
spread a terror among all that lived near the coast : batteries were every where raised, and
the people were brought out to defend their country : but they could do us no hurt, while
our bombs at a mile's distance did great execution. The action seemed inhuman ; but the
French, who had bombarded Genoa without a previous declaration of war, and who had so
often put whole countries under military execution, even after they had paid the contribu
tions that had been laid on them (for wliich they had protection given them), had no reason
to complain of this way of carrying on the war, which they themselves had first begun.
The campaign ended every where to the advantage of the confederates, though no signal
success had happened to their arms : and this new scene of action at sea raised the hearts of
our people, as much as it sunk our enemies. The war in Turkey went on this year with
various success : the Venetians made themselves masters of the isle of Scio, the richest and
the best peopled of all the islands of the Archipelago : those of that island had a greater
share of liberty left them, than any subjects of the Ottoman empire, and they flourished
accordingly. The great trade of Smyrna that lay so near them, made them the more con
siderable. The Venetians fortified the port, but used the natives worse than the Turks had
done : and as the island had a greater number of people upon it than could subsist by the
productions within themselves, and the Turks prohibited all commerce with them from
Asia, from whence they had their bread ; the Venetians could not keep this possession,
unless they had carried off the greatest part of the inhabitants to the Morea, or their other
dominions, that wanted people. The Turks brought their whole power at sea together, to
make an attempt for recovering this island : two actions happened at sea, within ten days
one of another ; in the last of which the Venetians pretended they had got a great victory :
but their abandoning Scio, in a few days after, showed that they did not find it convenient
to hold that island, which obliged them to keep a fleet at such a distance from their other
dominions, and at a charge which the keeping the island could not balance. The Turks
sent, as they did every year, a great convoy to Caminieck, guarded by the Crim-Tartars.
The Polish army routed the convoy, and became masters of all the provisions ; but a second
convoy was more happy, and got into the place ; otherwise it must have been abandoned.
There was great distraction in the affairs of Poland : their queen's intrigues with the court
of France gave much jealousy : their diets were broken up in confusion ; and they could
never agree so far in the preliminaries, as to be able by their forms to do any business. In
Transylvania, the emperor had, after a long blockade, forced Giula to surrender ; so that the
Turks had now nothing in those parts, on the north of the Danube, but Temeswaer. The
grand vizier came into Hungary with a great army, while the emperor had a very small one
to oppose him. If the Turks had come on resolutely, and if the weather had continued
good, it might have brought a fatal reverse on all the imperial affairs, and retrieved all that
• There appears no cause to wondet at the failure of infantry, who were immediately charged and cut to
this expedition. It had been the common topic of con- pieces by the French horse — Shrewsbury Correspond-
versation in' London for a month before it sailed, so that ence ; Coxe's Life of Marlborough ; Tindal's Contin. of
the enemy were quito prepared to oppose us. Then there Rapin's History.
was considerable confusion in landing from the boats, f- This expedition was at the king's express desire.
so that Talmash could only Hand with nine hundred See his letter, " Shrewsbury Correspondence," p. 44.

604 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the Turks had lost. But the grand vizier lay still, while the emperor s anny increased, and
such rains fell that nothing could be done. The affairs of Turkey were thus in great
disorder : the grand seignior died soon after; and his successor in that empire gave his sub
jects such hopes of peace, that they were calmed for the present.
At the end of the campaign, the court of France flattered their people with hopes of a
speedy end of the war : and some men of great consideration were sent to try what terms
they could bring the empire or the states to : but the French were yet far from offering con
ditions, upon which a just or a safe peace could be treated of. The States sent some as far
as to Maestricht, to see what powers those sent from France had brought with them, before
they would grant them the passports that they desired : and when they saw how limited
these were, the negotiation was soon at an end ; or rather it never b?gan. When the
French saw this, they disowned their having sent any on such an errand ; and pretended
that this was only an artifice of the confederates to keep one another and their people in
heart, by making them believe that they had now only a small remnant of the war before
them, since the French had instruments every where at work to solicit a peace.
The king came to England in the beginning of November, and the parliament was opened
with a calmer face than had appeared in any session during this reign. The supplies that
were demanded, the total amounting to five millions, were all granted readily. An ill
humour indeed appeared in some who opposed the funds, that would most easily and most
certainly raise the money that was given, upon this pretence, that such taxes would grow
to be a general excise ; and that the more easily money was raised, it would be the more
easy to continue such duties to a longer period, if not for ever. The truth was, the secret
enemies of the government proposed such funds as would be the heaviest to the people, and
would not fully answer what they were estimated at ; that so the nation might be uneasy
under that load, and that a constant deficiency might bring on such a debt, that the govern
ment could not discharge, but must sink under it.
With the supply bills, as the price or bargain for them, the bill for frequent parliaments
went on : it enacted, that a new parliament should be called every third year, and that the
present parliament should be dissolved before the first of January, 1695-6; and to this the
royal assent was given : it was received with great joy, many fancying that all their other
laws and liberties were now the more secure, since this was passed into a law. Time must
tell what effects it will produce ; whether it will put an end to the great corruption with
which elections were formerly managed, and to all those other practices that accompany
them. Men that intended to sell their own votes within doors spared no cost to buy the
votes of others in elections : but now it was hoped we should see a golden age, wherein the
character men were in, and the reputation they had, would be the prevailing considerations
in elections : and by this means it was hoped that our constitution, in particular that part
of it which related to the house of commons, would again recover both its strength and repu
tation, which was now very much sunk ; for corruption was so generally spread, that it was
believed every thing was carried by that method.
But I am now coming towards the fatal period of this book. The queen continued still
to set a great example to the whole nation, which shined in all the parts of it. She used all
possible methods for reforming whatever was amiss. She took ladies off from that idleness
which not only wasted their time but exposed them to many temptations : she engaged
many both to read and to work : she wrought many hours a-day herself, with her ladies
and her maids of honour working about her, while one read to them all. The female part of
the court had been in the former reigns subject to much censure, and there was great cause
for it ; but she freed her court so entirely from all suspicion, that there was not so much as
a colour for discourses of that sort. She did divide her time so regularly between her closet
and business, her work and diversion, that every minute seemed to have its proper employ
ment : she expressed so deep a sense of religion, with so true a regard to it ; she had such
right principles and just notions ; and her deportment was so exact in every part of it ; all
being natural and unconstrained, and animated with due life and cheerfulness : she considered
every thing that was laid before her so carefully, and gave such due encouragement to a
freedom of speech : she remembered every thing so exactly, observing at the same time the

Enfrr*rvea "by" "W! HoTl .

JOHN TILLOTSON, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
OH.10H1.
TROW THF. 0BIC-1NAC, OI' Sin GODI'EEy FCNKLI.E.R.rN THE COTXKCTT.OM OF
HIS OK.M'K THE AHl'HDISHOP Or CAXTEHIU' HY,

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 005
closest reservedness, yet with an open air and frankness : she was so candid in all she said,
and cautious in every promise she made ; and, notwithstanding her own great capacity, she
expressed such a distrust of her own thoughts, and was so entirely resigned to the king's
judgment, and so constantly determined by it, that when I laid all these things together,
which I had large opportunities to observe, it gave a very pleasant prospect to balance the
melancholy view that arose from the ill posture of our affairs in all other respects. It gave
us a very particular joy when we saw that the person, whose condition seemed to mark her
out as the defender and perfecter of our reformation, was such in all respects in her public
administration, as well as in her private deportment, that she seemed well fitted for accom
plishing that work for wliich we thought she was born : but we soon saw this hopeful view
blasted, and our expectations disappointed, in the loss of her.
It was preceded by that of archbishop Tillotson, who was taken ill of a fit of a dead palsy
in November, while he was in the chapel at Whitehall, on a Sunday, in the worship of God :
he felt it coming on him, but, not thinking it decent to interrupt the divine service, he
neglected it too long, till it fell so heavily on him, that all remedies were ineffectual ; and he
died the fifth day after he was taken ill *. His distemper did so oppress him, and speaking
was so uneasy to him, that though it appeared by signs and other indications that his under
standing remained long clear, yet he was not able to express himself so as to edify others.
He seemed still serene and calm, and in broken words he said he thanked God he was quiet
within, and had nothing then to do but to wait for the will of Heaven. I preached his
funeral sermon, in which I gave a character of him which was so severely true, that I
perhaps kept too much within bounds, and said less than he deserved. But we had lived
in such friendship together, that I thought it was more decent, as it always is more safe, to
err on that hand. He was the man of the truest judgment and best temper I had ever
known : he had a clear head, with a most tender and compassionate heart : he was a faithful
and zealous friend, but a gentle and soon conquered enemy : he was truly and seriously reli
gious, but without affectation, bigotry, or superstition : his notions of morality were fine
and sublime : his thread of reasoning was easy, clear, and solid : he was not only the best
preacher of the age, but seemed to have brought preaching to perfection : his sermons were
so well heard and liked, and so much read, that all the nation proposed him as a pattern,
and studied to copy after him : his parts remained with him clear and unclouded ; but the
perpetual slanders and other ill usage he had been followed with for many years, most par
ticularly since his advancement to that great post, gave him too much trouble, and too deep
a concern : it could neither provoke him, nor fright him from his duty ; but it affected his
mind so much, that this was thought to have shortened his days.
Sancroft had died a year before in the same poor and despicable manner, in which he had
lived for some years : he died in a state of separation from the church ; and yet he had not
the courage to own it in any public declaration : for neither living nor dying did he publish
any thing concerning it. His death ought to have put an end to the schism that some were
endeavouring to raise ; upon this pretence, that a parliamentary deprivation was never to be
allowed, as contrary to the intrinsic power of the church ; and therefore they looked on
Sancroft as the archbishop still, and reckoned Tillotson an usurper, and all that joined with
him were counted schismatics ; they were willing to forget, as some of them did plainly
condemn, the deprivations made in the progress of the reformation, more particularly those
in the first parliament of queen Elizabeth's reign, and the deprivations made by the act of
uniformity in the year 1662 : but from thence the controversy was carried up to the fourth
century ; and a great deal of angry reading was brought out on both sides to justify, or to
condemn, those proceedings. But arguments will never have the better of interest and
humour ; yet now, even according to their own pretensions, the schism ought to have ceased ;
since he, on whose account it was set up, did never assert his right ; and therefore that
might have been more justly construed a tacit yielding it ; but those who have a mind to
* Tillotson died on the 24th of November, 1694. His integrity and freedom from avarice is attested by the fact
that his widow, a niece of Oliver Cromwell, was supported by the bounty of king William. — Noble's Continuation
of Grainger.

COG THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
embroil church or state, will never want a pretence, and no arguments will beat them
from it.
Both king and queen were much affected with Tillotson's death : the queen for many
days spoke of him in the tenderest manner, and not without tears. He died so poor that, if
the king had not forgiven his first fruits, his debts could not have been all paid: so
generous and charitable was he in a post, out of which Sancroft had raised a great estate,
which he left to his family ; but Tillotson was rich in good works. His see was filled by
Tenison, bishop of Lincoln. Many wished that Stillingfleet might have succeeded, he being
not only so eminently learned, but judged a man in all respects fit for the post. The queen
was inclined to him ; she spoke with some earnestness oftener than once to the duke of
Shrewsbury on that subject: she thought he would fill that post with great dignity: she
also pressed the king earnestly for him : but as his ill health made him not capable of the
fatigue that belonged to this province, so the whigs did generally apprehend that both his
notions and his temper were too high ; and all concurred to desire Tenison, who had a firmer
health, with a more active temper, and was universally well liked for having served the cure
of St. Martin's, in the worst time, with so much courage and discretion ; so that at this
time he had many friends and no enemies *.
The small pox raged this winter about London, some thousands dying of them, which gave
us great apprehensions with relation to the queen, for she had never had them.
In conclusion, she was taken ill, but the next day that seemed to go off : I had the honour
to be half an hour with her that day, and she complained then of nothing. The day
following she went abroad ; but her illness returned so heavily on her that she could disguise
it no longer : she shut herself up long in her closet that night, and burned many papers, and
put the rest in order ; after that she used some slight remedies, thinking it was only a
transient indisposition ; but it increased upon her, and, within two days after, the small pox
appeared, and with very bad symptoms. I will not enter into another's province, nor speak
of matters so much out of the way of my own profession : but the physicians' part was
universally condemned, and her death was imputed to the negligence, or unskilfulness, of
Dr. Ratcliffe. He was called for, and it appeared but too evidently that his opinion was
chiefly considered, and was most depended on. Other physicians were afterwards called,
but not till it was too latef. The king was struck with this beyond expression. He came
on the second day of her illness and passed the bill for frequent parliaments, which, if he had
not done that day, it is very probable he would never have passed it. The day after, he
called me into his closet, and gave a free vent to a most tender passion ; he burst out into tears,
and cried out that there was no hope of the queen, and that, from being the most happy, he
was now going to be the most miserable, creature upon earth. He said, during the whole
course of their marriage, he had never known one single fault in her : there was a worth in
her that nobody knew besides himself ; though he added, that I might know as much of
her as any other person did. Never was such a face of universal sorrow seen in a court, or
in a town, as at this time : all people, men and women, young and old, could scarcely refrain
from tears. On Christmas-day the small pox sunk so entirely, and the queen felt herself so
well upon it, that it was for a while concluded she had the measles, and that the danger was
over. This hope was ill grounded, and of a short continuance ; for, before night, all was
sadly changed. It appeared that the small pox were now so sunk that there was no hope
of raising them. The new archbishop attended on her ; he performed all devotions, and had
much private discourse with her. When the desperate condition she was in was evident
* Dr. Thomas Tenison is described by Mackay in his Martin's-in-the-fields, to which he was presented in 1680,
" Memoirs," as being " a plain, good, heavy man j " a that he founded the library which has just been thrown
sketch that his conduct, as metropolitan, justifies us in open to the public. It was for his strenuous opposition
thinking accurate. Dr. Stillingfleet was every way his to popery, in the reign of James, that he obtained the
superior; but, iu those days, it was a point of import- bishopric of Lincoln in 1691, from whence he was trans-
ance to obtain a man for that high office who would lated to Canterbury. He died in 1715. — Biog. Britan. ;
not do any harm. Tenison appeared to disadvantage Noble's Continuation of Grainger.
from being in such close juxtaposition 10 Tillotson. He -t Dr. Ratcliffe always declared that he was not called
was born at Cottenham, in Cambridgeshire, during the in until human skill could be of no avail. Burnet's
year 1636. It was while he held the rectory of St. statement shows that medical aid was long deferred.

OF KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY. 607
beyond doubt, he told the king he could not do his duty faithfully, unless he acquainted her
with the danger she was in. The king approved of it, and said, whatever effect it might
have, he would not have her deceived in so important a matter. And, as the archbishop
was preparing the queen with some address, not to surprise her too much with such tidings,
she presently apprehended his drift, but showed no fear nor disorder upon it. She said she
thanked God she had always carried this in her mind, that nothing was to be left to the
last hour ; she had nothing then to do but to look up to God, and submit to his will ; it
went further indeed than submission, for she seemed to desire death rather than life ; and
she continued to the last minute of her life in that calm and resigned state. She had
formerly written her mind, in many particulars, to the king : and she gave order to look
carefully for a small scrutoire that she made use of, and to deliver it to the king : and,
having dispatched that, she avoided the giving herself or him the tenderness which a final
parting might have raised in them both. She was almost perpetually in prayer. The day
before she died she received the sacrament, all the bishops, who were attending, being
admitted to receive it with her : we were, God knows, a sorrowful company ; for we were
losing her who was our chief hope and glory on earth : she followed the whole office,
repeating it after the archbishop : she apprehended, not without some concern, that she
should not be able to swallow the bread, yet it went down easily. When this was over,
she composed herself solemnly to die ; she slumbered sometimes, but said she was not
refreshed by it ; and said often that nothing did her good but prayer ; she tried once or twice
to have said somewhat to the king, but was not able to go through with it. She ordered
the archbishop to be reading to her such passages of Scripture as might fix her attention
and raise her devotion. Several cordials were given, but all was ineffectual ; she lay silent
for some hours : and some words that came from her showed her thoughts began to break.
In conclusion, she died on the 28th of December, about one in the morning, in the thirty-
third year of her age, and in the sixth of her reign.
She was the most universally lamented princess, and deserved the best to be so, of any in
our age, or in our history. I will add no more concerning her in the way of a character : I
have said a great deal already in this work ; and I wrote a book, as an essay on her cha
racter, in which I have said nothing but that which I knew to be strictly true, without the
enlargement of figure or rhetoric*. The king's affliction for her death was as great as it
was just ; it was greater than those who knew him best thought his temper capable of : he
went beyond all bounds in it : during her sickness, he was in an agony that amazed us all,
fainting often, and breaking out into most violent lamentations. When she died, his
spirits sunk so low, that there was great reason to apprehend that he was following her ;
for some weeks after he was so little master of himself, that he was not capable of minding
business, or of seeing company. He turned himself much to the meditations of religion, and
to secret prayer ; the archbishop was often and long with him : he entered upon solemn and
serious resolutions of becoming in all things an exact and exemplary Christian. And now
I am come to the period of this book with a very melancholy prospect ; but God has ordered
matters since beyond all our expectations t.
* Burnet's work, with the queen's portrait, was pub- tion that was professed between her and the king was
lished in 1695. See an account of this essay in Mr. certainly genuine. Her private letters express naturally
D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, second series, article her love for him; and, after he was dead, a bracelet of
" True Sources of Secret History." her hair was found upon his arm. — Noble's' Continuation
t Burnet's character of queen Mary has never been of Grainger.
controverted in any material points. The mutual affec-

008

BOOK VI.

OP TIIE LIFE AXD REIGN OP KING WILLIAM THE THIRD.

HE two houses of parliament set an example that was followed
by the whole nation, of making consolatory and dutiful addresses
to the king. The queen was buried with the ordinary cere
mony, and with one piece of magnificence that could never
happen before ; for both houses of parliament went in procession
before the chariot that carried her body to Westminster Abbey ;
where places were prepared for both houses to sit in form, while
the archbishop preached the funeral sermon. This could never
happen before, since the sovereign's death had always dissolved
our parliaments. It is true, the earl of Rochester tried if he
could have raised a doubt of the legality of this parliament's continuance, since it was sum
moned by king William and queen Mary ; so, upon her death, the writ that ran in her name
seemed to die with her. This would have had fatal consequences, if in that season of the
year all things must have stood still till a new parliament could have been brought together :
but the act that put the administration entirely in the king, though the queen had a share in
the dignity of sovereign, made this cavil appear to be so ill grounded, that nobody seconded
so dangerous a suggestion.
The parliament went on with the business of the nation, in which the earl of Rochester
and that party artfully studied all that was possible to embroil our affairs. The state of our
coin gave them too great a handle for it. We had two sorts of coin : the one was milled,
and could not be practised on ; but the other was not so, and was subject to clipping : and
in a course of some years the old money was every year so much diminished, that it at last
grew to be less than the half of the intrinsic value. Those who drove this trade were as
much enriched as the nation suffered by it. When it came to be generally observed, the
king was advised to issue out a proclamation, that no money should pass for the future by
the tale, but by the weight, which would put a present end to clipping. But Seymour,
being then in the treasury, opposed this : he advised the king to look on, and let that
matter have its course : the parliament would in due time take care of it ; but in the mean
while the badness of money quickened the circulation, while every one studied to put out of
his hands all the bad money ; and this would make all people the readier to bring their
cash into the exchequer, and so a loan was more easily made. The badness of the money
began now to grow very visible ; it was plain that no remedy could be provided for it, but
by recoining all the specie of England ; and that could not be set about in the end of a
session. The earls of Rochester and Nottingham represented this very tragically in the '
house of lords, where it was not possible to give the proper remedy ; it produced only an
act with stricter clauses and severer penalties against clippers : this had no other effect but
that it alarmed the nation, and sunk the value of our money in the Exchano-e : guineas,
which were equal in value to twenty-one shillings and sixpence in silver, rose to thirty
shillings ; that is to say, thirty shillings sunk to twenty-one shillings and sixpence. This
public disgrace put on our coin, when the evil was not cured, was in effect a great point
carried, by which there was an opportunity given to sink the credit of the government,
and of the public funds ; and it brought a discount of about 40/. per cent, upon tallies.
Another bill was set on foot, which was long pursued, and in conclusion carried by the
tories : it was concerning trials for treason ; and the design of it seemed to be to make men

THE REIGN OF KING WILLIAM III. 609
as safe in all treasonable conspiracies and practices as was possible : two witnesses were to
concur to prove the same fact, at the same time : counsel in matters of fact, and witnesses
upon oath, were by it allowed to the prisoners ; they were to have a copy of the indictment
and the panel in due time : all these things were in themselves just and reasonable : and
if they had been moved by other men, and at another time, they would have met with little
opposition : they were chiefly set on by Finch, the earl of Nottingham's brother, who had
been concerned in the hard prosecutions for treasons in the end of king Charles's reign, and
had then carried all prerogative points very far ; but was, during this reign, in a constant
opposition to every thing that was proposed for the king's service : he had a copious way of
speaking, with an appearance of beauty and eloquence to vulgar hearers ; but there was a
superficialness in most of his harangues that made them seem tedious to better judges ; his .
rhetoric was all vicious, and his reasoning was too subtle. The occasion given for this bill
leads me to give an account of some trials for treason during the last summer, which, for the
relation they have to this matter, I have reserved for this place.
Lunt, an Irishman, who was bold and poor, and of a mean understanding, had been often
employed to carry letters and messages between Ireland and England when king James was
there. He was once taken up on suspicion, but he was faithful to his party, and would
discover nothing ; so he continued after that to be trusted by them. But, being kept very
poor, he grew weary of his low estate, and thought of gaining the rewards of a discovery.
He fell into the hands of one Taaff, an Irish priest, who had not only changed his religion,
but had married in king James's time. Taaff came into the service of the present govern
ment, and had a small pension. He was long in pursuit of a discovery of the imposture in
the birth of the prince of Wales, and was engaged with more success in discovering the
concealed estates of the priests and the religious orders, in which some progress was made.
These seemed to be sure evidences of the sincerity of the man, at least in his opposition to
those whom he had forsaken, and whom he was provoking in so sensible a manner. All
this I mention the more particularly to show how little that sort of men are to be depended
on ; he possessed those to whom his other discoveries gave him access, of the importance of
this Lunt, who was then come from St. Germains, and who could make great discoveries : so
Lunt was examined by the ministers of state ; and he gave them an account of some dis
courses and designs against the king, and of an insurrection, that was to have broken out in
the year 1692, when king James was designing to come over from Normandy : for he said
he had carried at that time commissions to the chief men of the party, both in Lancashire
and Cheshire. A carrier had been employed to carry down great quantities of arms to
them : one of the chests, in which they were put up, had broken in the carriage, so the
carrier saw what was in them ; and he deposed he had carried many of the same weight
and size : the persons concerned, finding the carrier was true and secret, continued to employ
him in that sort of carriage for a great while. Lunt's story seemed probable and coherent
in all its circumstances : so orders were sent to seize on some persons, and to search houses
for arms. In one house they found arms for a troop of horse, built up within walls very
dexterously. Taaff was all this while very zealous in supporting Lunt's credit, and in
assisting him in his discoveries. A solemn trial of the prisoners was ordered in Lancashire.
When the set time drew near, Taaff sent them word that, if he should be well paid for it,
he would bring them all off : it may be easily imagined that they stuck at nothing for such
a service. He had got out of Lunt all his depositions, which he disclosed to them ; so they
had the advantage of being well prepared to meet and overthrow his evidence in many cir
cumstances : and at the trial Taaff turned against him, and witnessed many things against
Lunt that shook his credit. There was another witness that supported Lunt's evidence, but
he was so profligate a man, that great and just objections lay against giving him any credit ;
but the carrier's evidence was not shaken. Lunt, in the trial, had named two gentlemen
wrong, mistaking the one for the other ; but he quickly corrected his mistake : he had seen
them but once, and they were both together, so he might mistake their names ; but he was
sure these were the two persons with whom he had those treasonable negotiations. Taaff
had engaged him in company in London, to whom he had talked very idly, like a man who
esolved to make a fortune by swearing : and it seemed, by what he said, that he had many

610 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
discoveries yet in reserve, which he intended' to spread among many, till he should ^ grow
rich and considerable by it : this was sworn against him. By all these things his evidence
was so blasted that no credit was given to him. Four of the judges were sent down to try
the prisoners at Manchester and at Chester, where they managed matters with an impartial
exactness. Any leaning that appeared was in favour of the prisoners, according to a charac
teristic that judges had always pretended to, but had not of late deserved so well as upon
this occasion, of being counsel for the prisoner. The evidence that was brought against
Lunt was afterwards found to be false ; but it looked then with so good an appearance, that
both the king's counsel and the judges were satisfied with it ; and so, without calling for the
rest of the evidence, the matter was let fall : and when the judges gave the charge to the
jury, it was in favour of the prisoners, so that they were acquitted. And the rest of those
who were ordered to be tried after them were all discharged without trial.
The whole party triumphed upon this as a victory, and complained both of the ministers
of state and of the judges : the matter was examined into by both houses of parliament, and
it evidently appeared that the proceeding had been not only exactly according to law, but
that all reasonable favour had been shewed the prisoners ; so that both houses were fully
satisfied : only the earls of Rochester and Nottingham hung on the matter long, and with
great eagerness, and, in conclusion, protested against the vote by which the lords justified
these proceedings. This examination was brought on with much noise, to give the more
strength to the bill of treasons : but the progress of the examination turned so much against
them who had made this use of it, that it appeared there was no just occasion given by that
trial to alter the law. Yet the commons passed the bill : but the lords insisted on a clause,
that all the peers should be summoned to the trial of a peer that was charged with high
treason : the commons would not agree to that ; and so the bill was dropped for this time;
By the late trial it had manifestly appeared how little the crown gained by one thing, which
yet was thought an advantage, that the witnesses for the prisoner were not upon oath.
Many things were upon this occasion witnessed in favour of the prisoners, which were after
wards found to be notoriously false : and it is certain that the terror of an oath is a great
restraint, and many, whom an oath might overawe, would more freely allow themselves the
liberty of lying in behalf of a prisoner to save his life.
When this design failed, another was set up against the bank, which began to have a
flourishing credit, and had supplied the king so regularly with money, and that upon such
reasonable terms, that those who intended to make matters go heavily, tried what could be
done to shake the credit of the bank. But this attempt was rejected in both houses with
indignation : it was very evident that public credit would signify little, if what was
established in one session of parliament might be fallen upon and shaken in another.
Towards the end of the session, complaints were made of some military men who did not
pay their quarters, pretending their own pay was in arrear ; but, it appearing that they had
been paid, and the matter being further examined into, it was found that the superior
officers had cheated the subalterns, which excused their not paying their quarters. Upon
this the enquiry was carried further, and such discoveries were made, that some officers were
broken upon it, while others prevented complaints, by satisfying those whom they had
oppressed. It was found out that the secretary of the treasury had taken two hundred
guineas, for procuring the arrears due to a regiment to be paid : whereupon he was sent to
the Tower, and turned out of his place. Many were the more sharpened against him,
because it was believed that he, as well as Trevor, the speaker, was deeply concerned in
corrupting the members of the house of commons : he had held his place both in king
Charles's and king James's time : and the share he had in the secret distribution of money,
had made him a necessary man for those methods.
But the house, being on this scent, carried the matter still further. In the former session
of parliament, an act had passed, creating a fund for the repayment of the debt owing to
the orphans, by the chamber of London ; and the chamber had made Trevor a present of a
thousand guineas, for the service he did them in that matter : this was entered in their
books, so that full proof was made of it. It was indeed believed that a much greater present
had been made him in behalf of the orphans ; but no proof of that appeared :^ whereas what

OF KING WILLIAM III. 611
had been taken in so public a manner could not be hid. This was objected to Trevor as
corruption and a breach of trust ; and upon it he was expelled the house : and Mr. Paul
Foley was chosen speaker in his room ; who had got great credit by his integrity, and his
constant complaining of the administration.
One discovery made way for another : it was found that in the books of the East India
company there were entries made of great sums given for secret services done the company,
that amounted to 170,000/. : and it was generally believed that the greatest part of it had
gone' among the members of the house of commons. For the two preceding winters there
had been attempts eagerly pursued by some for breaking the company, and either opening
a free trade to the Indies, or at least erecting a new company : but it was observed that
some of the hottest sticklers against the company did insensibly not only fall off from that heat,
but turned to serve the company as much as they had at first endeavoured to destroy it.
Seymour was among the chief of these : and it was said that he had 1 2,000/. of their money
under the colour of a bargain for their saltpetre. Great pains and art were used to stifle this
enquiry ; but curiosity, envy, and ill nature, as well as virtue, will on such occasions always
prevail to set on enquiries. Those who have had nothing desire to know who have had
something, while the guilty persons dare not show too great a concern in opposing dis
coveries. Sir Thomas Cook, a rich merchant, who was governor of the company, was
examined concerning that great sum given for secret service : but he refused to answer. So
a severe bill was brought in against him, in case he should not, by a prefixed day, confess
how all that money had been disposed of. When the bill was sent up to tho lords,
and was likely to pass, he came in and offered to make a full discovery, if he might be
indemnified for all that he had done, or that he might say, in that matter. The enemies of
the court hoped for great discoveries that should disgrace both the ministers and the
favourites : but it appeared that whereas both king Charles and king James had obliged the
company to make them a yearly present of 10,000/., that the king had received this but once ;
and that though the company offered a present of 50,000/. if the king would grant them a
new charter, and consent to an act of parliament confirming it, the king had refused to
hearken to it. There were indeed presumptions that the marquis of Caermarthen had taken
a present of five thousand guineas, which were sent back to sir Thomas Cook the morning
before he was to make his discovery. The lords appointed twelve of their body to meet
with twenty-four of the house of commons to examine into this matter ; but they were so
ill satisfied with the account that was given them by the four persons who had been
entrusted with the secret, that by a particular act, that passed both houses, they were com
mitted to the Tower of London till the end of the next session of parliament, and restrained
from disposing of their estates, real or personal. These were proceedings of an extraordinary
nature, which could not be justified but from the extraordinary occasion that was given for
them. Some said this looked like the setting up a court of inquisition, when new laws
were made on purpose to discover secret transactions ; and that no bounds could be set to
such a method of proceeding. Others said, that when entries were made of such sums
secretly disposed of, it was as just for a parliament to force a confession, as it was common
in the course of the law to subpoena a man to declare all his knowledge of any matter, how
secretly soever it might have been managed, and what person soever might have been con
cerned in it. The lord president felt that he was deeply wounded with this discovery ; for,
while the act against Cook was passing in the house of lords, he took occasion to affirm,
with solemn protestations, that he himself was not at all concerned in that matter. But
now all had broken out. One Firebrass, a merchant, employed by the East India company,
had treated with Bates, a friend of the marquis of Caermarthen ; and for the favour that
lord was to do them, in procuring them a new charter, Bates was to have for his use five
thousand guineas. But now a new turn was to be given to all this : Bates swore that he
indeed received the money, and that he offered it to that lord, who positively refused to take
it : but, since it was already paid in, he advised Bates to keep it to himself; though, by the
examination, it appeared that Bates was to have 500/. for his own negotiating the affair : it
did also appear that the money was paid into the hands of one of that lord's servants ;
but he could not be come at. Upon this discovery the house of commons voted an
r r 2

612 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
impeachment for a misdemeanour against the lord president. He, to prevent that,
desired to be heard speak to that house :n his own justification. When he was
before them he set ont the services that he had done the nation, in terms that wore not
thought very decent : he assumed the greatest share of the honour of the revolution to
himself : he expressed a great uneasiness to be brought under so black an imputation, from
which he cleared himself as much as words could do : in the end, he desired a present trial.
Articles were upon that brought against him : he, in answer to these, denied his having
received the money. But his servant, whose testimony only could have cleared that point,
disappearing, the suspicion still stuck on him. It was intended to hang up the matter to
another session ; but an act of grace came in the end of this, with an exception indeed as to
corruption : yet this whole discovery was let fall, and it was believed too many of all sides
were concerned in it; for, by a common consent, it was never revived; and thus the
session ended.
The first consultation after it was over was concerning the coin, what methods should be
taken to prevent further clipping, and for remedying so great an abuse. Some proposed the
recoining the money, with such a raising of the value of the species as should balance the
loss upon the old money that was to be called in. This took with so many that it was not
easy to correct an error that must have had very bad effects in the conclusion : for the only
fixed standard must be the intrinsic value of an ounce of silver : and it was a public robbery
that would very much prejudice our trade, not to keep the value of our specie near an
equality with its weight and fineness in silver. So that the difference between the old and
new money could onlv be set right by the house of commons, in a supply to be given for
that end. The lord keeper, Somers, did indeed propose that which would have put an
effectual stop to clipping for the future. It was, that a proclamation should be prepared
with such secrecy, as to be published all over England on the same day, ordering money to
pass onlv by weight ; but that, at the same time, during three or four days after the pro
clamation, all persons, in every county, that had money, should bring it in to be told and
weighed ; and the difference was to be registered, and the money to be sealed up, to the
end of the time given, and then to be restored to the owners ; and an assurance was to be
given, that this deficiency in weight should be laid before the parliament, to be supplied
another way, and to be allowed them in the following taxes. But though the king liked
this proposition, yet all the rest of the council were against it. They said this would stop
the circulation of money, and might occasion tumults in the markets. Those whose money
was thus to be weighed would not believe that tlie difference between the tale and the
weight would be allowed them, and so might grow mutinous ; therefore they were for leaving
this matter to the consideration of the next parliament. So this proposition was laid aside ;
which would have saved the nation above a million of money. For now, as all people
believed that the parliament would receive the clipped money in its tale, clipping went on,
and became more visibly scandalous than ever it had been.
There was indeed reason to apprehend tumults : for, now, after the queen's death, the
Jacobites began to think, that the government had lost the half of its strength, and that
things could not be kept quiet at home, when the king should be beyond sea. Some pre
tended they were for putting the princess in her sister's place ; but that was only a pretence.
to which she gave no sort of encouragement : king James lay at bottom. They fancied an
invasion in the king's absence would be an easy attempt, which would meet with little re
sistance ; so they sent some over to France, in particular one Charnock, a Fellow of
Magdalen College, who in king James's time had turned papist, and was a hot and active
agent among them. They undertook to bring a body of two thousand horse to meet such
an army as should be sent over ; but Chamock came back with a cold account, that nothing
could be done at that time ; upon which it was thought necessary to send over a man of
quality, who should press the matter with some more authority ; so the earl of Aylesbury
was prevailed on to go. He was admitted to a secret conversation with the French king,
and this gave rise to a design which was very near being executed the following winter.
But, if sir John Fenwick did not slander king James, they at this time proposed a shorter
and more infallible way, by assassinating the king ; for he said that some came over from

OF KING WILLIAM III. 613
France about this time who assured their party, and himself in particular, that a commission
was coming over, signed by king James, which they affirmed they had seen, warranting
them to attack the king's person. This, it is true, was not yet arrived ; but some affirmed
they had seen it, and that it was trusted to one who was on his way hither. Therefore,
since the king was so near going over to Holland, that he would probably be gone before
the commission could be in England, it was debated among the jacobites whether they ought
not to take the first opportunity to execute this commission, even though they had it not in
their hands. It was resolved to do it, and a day was set for it ; but, as Fenwick said, he
broke the design, and sent them word that he would discover it if they would not promise to
give over the thoughts of it ; and upon this reason, he believed, he was not let into the
secret the following winter. This his lady told me from him, as an article of merit to obtain
his pardon ; but he had trusted their word very easily, it seems, since he gave the king no
warning to be on his guard, and the two witnesses whom he said he could produce to vouch
this, were then under prosecution, and outlawed ; so that the proof was not at hand, and the
warning had not been given as it ought to have been. But of all this the government knew
nothing, and suspected nothing at this time.
The king settled the government of England, in seven lords justices, during his absence ;
and in this a great error was committed, which had some ill effects, and was like to have had
worse. The queen, when she was dying, had received a kind letter from, and had sent a
reconciling message to the princess, and so that breach was made up. It is true the sisters
did not meet ; it was thought that might throw the queen into too great a commotion, so it
was put off till it was too late ; yet the princess came soon after to see the king, and there
was after that an appearance of good correspondence between them ; but it was little more
than an appearance *. They lived still in terms of civility and in formal visits ; but the
king did not bring her into any share in business, nor did he order his ministers to wait on
her and give her any account of affairs. And now that he was to go beyond sea, she was
not set at the head of the councils, nor was there any care taken to oblige those who were
about her. This looked either like a jealousy and distrust, or a coldness towards her which
gave all the secret enemies of the government a colour of complaint. They pretended zeal
for the princess, though they came little to her ; and they made it very visible, on many
occasions, that this was only a disguise for worse designs.
Two great men had died in Scotland the former winter, the dukes of Hamilton and
Queensbury : they were brothers-in-law, and had been long great friends, but they became
irreconcilable enemies. The first had more application, but the other had the greater genius.
They were incompatible with each other, and indeed with all other persons ; for both loved
to be absolute, and to direct every thing. The marquis of Halifax died in April this year.
He had gone into all the measures of the tories, only he took care to preserve himself from
criminal engagements. He studied to oppose every thing, and to embroil matters all he
could. His spirit was restless, and he could not bear to be out of business. His vivacity
and judgment sunk much in his last years, as well as his reputation. He died of a gangrene,
occasioned by a rupture that he had long neglected. When he saw death so near him, and
was warned that there was no hope, he shewed a great firmness of mind, and a calm that
had much of true philosophy at least. He professed himself a sincere Christian, and la
mented the former parts of his life, with solemn resolutions of becoming in all respects another
man, if God should raise him up : and so, I hope, he died a better man than he lived.
The seven lords justices were the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord keeper, the lord privy
seal, the lord steward, the lord chamberlain, the first secretary of state, and the first commis
sioner of the treasury t. They had no character nor rank except when four of them were
together, and they avoided assembling to that number except at the council board, where
it was necessary ; and when they were together they had regal authority vested in them. They
were chosen by the posts they were in, so that no other person could think he was neglected by
the preference : they were not envied by this titular greatness, since it was indeed only
* This was brought about by lord keeper Somers — Shrewsbury Correspondence.
t Dr. Tenison, sir Jojn Somers, carl of Halifax, duke of Devonshire, duke of Dorset, duke of Shrewsbury, earl
of Godolphin.

614 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
titular ; for they had no real authority trusted with them. They took care to keep within
bounds, and to do nothing, but in matters of course, till they had the king's orders, to which
they adhered exactly, so that no complaints could be made of them because they took
nothing on them, and did only keep the peace of the kingdom, and transmit and execute
the king's orders. The summer went over quietly at home ; for though the jacobites showed
their disposition on some occasions, but most signally on the prince of Wales's birth-day, yet
they were wiser than to break out into any disorder, when they had no hopes of assistance
from France.
About the end of May the armies were brought together in Flanders ; the king drew his
main force towards the French lines, and the design was formed to break through and to
destroy the French Flanders. Luxembourg died this winter ; so the command of the French
armies was divided between Villeroy and Bouflers, but the former commanded the stronger
army. An attempt was made on the fort of Knock, in order to forcing the lines, and there
was some action about it ; but all on the sudden Namur was invested, and the king drew
off the main part of his army to besiege that place, and left above thirty thousand men under
the command of the prince of Vaudemont, who was the best general he had ; for prince
Waldeck died above a year before this. With that army he was to cover Flanders and
Brabant, while the king carried on the siege.
As soon as Namur was invested, Bouflers threw himself into it, with many good officers
and a great body of dragoons : the garrison was twelve thousand strong. A place
so happily situated, so well fortified, and so well furnished and commanded, made the attempt
seem bold and doubtful. The dry season put the king under another difficulty ; the Maese
was so low that there was not water enough to bring up the barks, laden with artillery and am
munition, from Liege and Maestricht, so that many days were lost in bringing these overland ;
and if Villeroy had followed the king close, it is thought he must have quitted the design ; hut
the French presumed upon the strength of the place and garrison, and on our being so little
practised in sieges. They thought that Villeroy might make some considerable conquest in
Flanders, and when that was done come in good time to raise the siege. Prince Vaudemont
managed his army with such skill and conduct, that as he covered all the places on which
he thought the French had an eye, so he marched with that caution, that though Villeroy
had above double his strength, yet he could not force him to an engagement, nor gain any
advantage over him. The military men that served under him, magnified his conduct highly,
and compared it to any thing that Turenne, or the greatest generals of the age had done.
Once it was thought, he could not get off; but he marched under the cannon of Ghent with
out any loss. In this Villeroy's conduct was blamed, but without cause ; for he had not
overseen his advantage, but had ordered the duke of Mayne, the French king's beloved son,
to make a motion with the horse which he commanded ; and probably, if that had been
speedily executed, it might have had ill effects on the prince of Vaudemont ; but the duke
de Mayne despised Villeroy, and made no haste to obey his orders, so the advantage was
lost, and the king of France put him under a slight disgrace for it. Villeroy attacked
Dixmuyde and Deinse : the garrisons were not indeed able to make a great resistance ; but
they were ill commanded. If their officers had been masters of a true judgment, or presence
of mind, they might at least have got a favourable composition, and have saved the gar
risons, though the places were not tenable ; yet they were basely delivered up, and about
seven thousand men were made prisoners of war. And hereupon, though by a cartel that
had been settled between the two armies, all prisoners were to be redeemed at a set price,
and within a limited time ; yet the French having now so many men in their hands, did,
without either colour or shame, give a new essay of their perfidiousness ; for they broke it
upon this occasion, as they had often done at sea, indeed as often as any advantages on their
side tempted them to it. The governors of those places were at first believed to have be
trayed their trust and sold the garrisons, as well as the places, to the French ; but they were
tried afterwards, and it appeared that it flowed from cowardice and want of sense ; for
which one of them suffered, and the other was broken with disgrace.
Villeroy marched towards Brussels, and was followed by prince Vaudemont, whose chief
care was to order his motions so, that the French might not get between him and the king's

OT KING WILLIAM III. 615
camp at Namur. He apprehended that Villeroy might bombard Brussels, and would have
hindered it if the town could have been wrought on to give him the assistance that he desired
of them. Townsmen upon all such occasions are more apt to consider a present, though a
small expense, than a great, though an imminent danger ; so prince Vaudemont could not
pretend to cover them. The electoress of Bavaria was then in the town ; and though Ville
roy sent a compliment to her, yet he did not give her time to retire, but bombarded the place
for two days, with so much fury, that a great part of the lower town was burnt down. The
damage was valued at some millions, and the electoress was so frighted, that she miscarried
upon it of a boy. When this execution was done, Villeroy marched towards Namur ; his
army was now so much increased by detachments brought from the Rhine, and troops
drawn out of garrisons, that it was said to be one hundred thousand strong. Both armies
on the Rhine were so equal in strength that they could only lie on the defensive, neither side
being strong enough to undertake any thing. M. de L'Orge commanded the French, and
the prince of Baden the imperialists : the former was sinking as much in his health as in his
credit, so a great body was ordered to march from him to Villeroy ; and another body equal
to that commanded by the landgrave of Hesse came and joined the king's army.
The siege was carried on with great vigour : the errors to which our want of practice ex
posed us were all corrected by the courage of our men : the fortifications, both in strength
and in the extent of the outworks, were double to what they had been when the French
took the place. Our men did not only succeed in every attack, but went much further. —
In the first great sally the French lost so many, both officers and soldiers, that after that
they kept within their works and gave us no disturbance. Both the king and the elector
of Bavaria went frequently into the trenches : the town held out one month, and the citadel
another. Upon Villeroy's approach, the king drew off all the troops that could be spared
from the siege, and placed himself in his way with an army of sixty thousand men ; but he
was so well posted, that after Villeroy had looked on him for some days he found it was
not advisable to attack him. Our men wished for a battle, as that which would not only
decide the fate of Namur, but of the whole war. The French gave it out that they would
put all to hazard rather than suffer such a diminution of their king's glory as the retaking
that place seemed to be. But the signal of the citadel's treating, put an end to Villeroy's de
signs ; upon which, he apprehending that the king might then attack him, drew off with
so much precipitation, that it looked more like a flight than a retreat.
The capitulation was soon ended and signed by Bouflers, who, as was said, was the first
mareschal of France that had ever delivered up a place. He marched out with five thousand
men ; so it appeared he had lost seven thousand during the siege, and we lost in it only
about the same number. This was reckoned one of the greatest actions of the king's life,
and indeed one of the greatest that is in the whole history of war. It raised his character
much, both at home and abroad, and gave a great reputation to his troops : the king had
the entire credit of the matter, his general officers having a very small share in it, being most
of them men of low genius, and little practised in things of that nature. Cohorn, the chief
engineer, signalized himself so eminently on this occasion, that he was looked on as the
greatest man of the age, and outdid even Vauban, who had gone far beyond all those that
went before him in the conduct of sieges : but it was confessed by all, that Cohorn had
carried that art to a much farther perfection during this siege. The subaltern officers and
soldiers gave hopes of a better race that was growing up, and supplied the errors and defects
of their superior officers. As the garrison marched out, the king ordered Bouflers to be
stopped, in reprisal for the garrisons of Dixmuyde and Deinse. Bouflers complained of this as
a breach of articles, and the action seemed liable to censure. But many authorities and ^pre
cedents were brought, both from law and history, to justify it. All obligations among
princes, both in peace and war, must be judged to be reciprocal ; so that he who breaks
these first sets the other at liberty. At length the French consented to send back the garri
sons, pursuant to the cartel : Bouflers was first set at liberty, and then these garrisons were
released according to, promise.
The officers were .tried arid proceeded , against by councils of war, according to martial law.
They were raised in the army by ill methods, and maintained themselves by worse : corrup-

616 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
tion had broken into the army, and oppression and injustice were much complained of. The
king did not approve of those practices, but he did not inquire after them, nor punish them
with a due severity ; nor did he make difference enough between those who served well, sold
nothing, and used their subalterns kindly, and those who set every thing to sale, and op
pressed all that were under them ; and when things of that kind go unpunished, they will
soon make a great progress. There was little more done during the campaign in Flanders ;
nor was there any action upon the Rhine.
In Italy there was nothing done in the field by force of arms ; but an affair of great conse
quence was transacted in a very mysterious manner. The duke of Savoy, after a very long
blockade, undertook the siege of Casal ; but he was so ill provided for it that no good account
of it could be expected ; the king had so little hopes of success, that he was not easily pre
vailed on to consent to the besieging it ; but either the French intended to gain the pope
and the Venetians, and in conclusion, that duke himself, with this extraordinary concession ;
or, since our fleet was then before Toulon, they judged it more necessary to keep their troops
for the defence of their coast and fleet, than to send them to relieve Casal ; so orders were
sent to the governor to capitulate in such a number of days after the trenches were opened,
so that the place was surrendered, though it was not at all straitened. It was agreed that
it should be restored to the duke of Mantua, but so dismantled, that it might give jealousy
to no side ; and the slighting the fortifications went on so slowly, that the whole season was
spent in it, a truce being granted all that while. Thus did the French give up Casal, after
they had been at a vast expense in fortifying it, and had made it one of the strongest places
in Europe.
Our fleet was all the summer master of the Mediterranean : the French were put into great
disorder, and seemed to apprehend a descent, for Russel came before Marseilles and Toulon
oftener than once : contrary winds forced him out to sea again, but with no loss. He him
self told me he believed nothing could be done there ; only the honour of commanding the
sea, and of shutting the French within their ports, gave a great reputation to our affairs.
In Catalonia the French made no progress ; they abandoned Palamos, and made Gironne
their frontier. The Spaniards once pretended to besiege Palamos, but they only pretended
to do it ; they desired some men from Russel, for he had regiments of marines on board :
they said they had begun the siege, and were provided with every thing that was necessary
to carry it on, only they wanted men, so he sent them some battalions ; but when they came
thither, they found not any one thing that was necessary to carry on a siege, not so much
as spades, not to mention guns and ammunition; so Russel sent for his men back again.
But the French of themselves quitted the place ; for as they found the charge of the war in
Catalonia was great, and though they met with a feeble opposition from the Spaniards, yet
since they saw they could not carry Barcelona, so long as our fleet lay in those seas, they
resolved to lay by in expectation of a better occasion. We had another fleet in our own
channel that was ordered to bombard the French coast : they did some execution upon St.
Malos and destroyed Grandvilfe, that lay not far from it : they also attempted Dunkirk,
but failed in the execuhon : some bombs were thrown into Calais, but without any great
effect, so that the French did not suffer so much by the bombardment as was expected f the
country indeed was much alarmed by it ; they had many troops dispersed all along their
coast so that it put their affairs in great disorder, and we were every where masters at sea.
Another squadron, commanded by the marquis of Caermarthen (whose father was created
duke of Leeds, to colour the dismissing him from business, with an increase of title), lay off
from the isles of Sell y, to secure our trade and convoy our merchants. He was an extravagant
man both in his pleasures and humours : he was slow in going to sea; and when he was
out he fancied the French fleet was coming up to him, which proved to be only a fleet of
merchant ships; so he left his station and retired into Milford haven, by which means that
squadron became useless.
This proved fatal to our trade; many of our Barbadoes ships were taken by French
crurzers and privateers. Two rich ships coming from the East Indies, were also taken one
hundred and fifty leaugues to the westward, by a very fatal accident, or by some treacherous
advertisement, for crurzers seldom go so far into the ocean ; and to complete the misfortunes

OF KING WILLIAM III. 617
of the East India company, three other ships that were come near Galway, on the west of
Ireland, fell into the hands of some French privateers. Those five ships were valued at a
million, so here was great occasion of discontent in the city of London : they complained
that neither the admiralty nor the government took the care that was necessary for preserv
ing the wealth of the nation. A French man-of-war at the same time fell upon our factory
on the coast of Guinea ; he took the small fort we had there, and destroyed it. These
misfortunes were very sensible to the nation, and did much abate the joy which so glo
rious a campaign would otherwise have raised ; and much matter was laid in for ill humour
to work upon.
The war went on in Hungary ; the new grand seignior came late into the field, but as
late as it was the imperialists were not ready to receive him : he tried to force his way into
Transylvania, and took some weak and ill-defended forts, which he soon after abandoned.
Veterani, who was the most beloved of all the emperor's generals, lay with a small army to
defend the entrance into Transylvania ; the Turks fell upon him and overpowered him with
numbers ; his army was destroyed and himself killed, but they sold their lives dear : the
Turks lost double their number and their best troops in the action, so that they had only
the name and honour of a victory ; they were not able to prosecute it, nor to draw any ad
vantage from it. The stragglers of the defeated army drew together towards the passes, but
none pursued them, and the Turks marched back to Adrianople, with the triumph of having
made a glorious campaign. There were some slight engagements at sea between the Vene
tians and the Turks, in which the former pretended they had the advantage, but nothing
followed upon them. Thus affairs went on abroad during this summer.
There was a parliament held in Scotland, where the marquis of Tweedale was the king's
commissioner. Every thing that was asked for the king's supply, and for the subsistence of
his troops, was granted. The massacre in Glencoe made still a great noise, and the king
seemed too remiss in inquiring into it ; but when it was represented to him that a session
of parliament could not be managed without high motions and complaints of so crying a
matter, and that his ministers could not oppose these, without seeming to bring the guilt of
that blood that was so perfidiously shed, both on the king and on themselves, to prevent
that, he ordered a commission to be passed under the great seal, for a precognition in that
matter, which is a practice in the law of Scotland of examining into crimes before the per
sons concerned are brought upon their trial. This was looked on as an artifice to cover that
transaction by a private inquiry ; yet when it was complained of in parliament, not without
reflections on the slackness in examining into it, the king's commissioner assured them that,
by the king's order, the matter was then under examination, and that it should be reported to
the parliament. The inquiry went on, and in the progress of it a new practice of the earl
of Bredalbane's was discovered ; for the Highlanders deposed that while he was treating with
them, in order to their submitting to the king, he had assured them that he still adhered to
king James's interest, and that he pressed them to come into that pacification, only to pre
serve them for his service till a more favourable opportunity. This, with several other
treasonable discourses of his being reported to the parliament, he covered himself with his
pardon, but these discourses happened to be subsequent to it, so he was sent a prisoner to
the castle of Edinburgh : he pretended he had secret orders from the king to say any thing
that would give him credit with them, which the king owned so far that he ordered a new
pardon to be past for him. A great party came to be formed in this session of a very
odd mixture ; the high presbyterians and the jacobites joined together to oppose every thing,
yet it was not so strong as to carry the majority, but great heats arose among them.
The report of the massacre of Glencoe was made in full parliament ; by that it appeared
that a black design was laid, not only to cut off the men of Glencoe but a great many more
clans, reckoned to be in all above six thousand persons. The whole was pursued in many
letters, that were written with great earnestness ; and though the king's orders carried
nothing in them that was in any sort blameable, yet the secretary of state's letters went
much further ; so the parliament justified the king's instructions, but voted the execution in
Glencoe to have been a barbarous massacre, and that it was pushed on by the secretary of
state's letters beyond the king's orders. Upon that they voted an address to be made to the

618 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
king, that he and others concerned in that matter might be proceeded against according to
law ; this was carried by a great majority.
In this session, an act passed in favour of such of the episcopal clergy, as should enter
into those engagements to the king that were by law required; that they should continue
in their benefices under the king's protection, without being subject to the power of the
presbytery. This was carried with some address before the presbyterians were aware of
the consequences of it, for it was plainly that which they call erastianism. A day was
limited to the clergy for taking the oaths ; and by a very zealous and dexterous manage
ment, about seventy of the best of them were brought to take the oaths to the king : and
so they came within the protection promised them by the act.
Another act passed that has already produced very fatal consequences to that kingdom,
and may yet draw worse after it. The interlopers in the East India, trade, finding that the
company was likely to be favoured by the parliament, as well as by the court, were resolved
to try other methods to break in upon that trade. They entered into a treaty with some
merchants in Scotland ; and they had, in the former session, procured an act that promised
letters patents to all such as should offer to set up new manufactures, or drive any new trade,
not yet practised by that kingdom, with an exemption for twenty-one years from all taxes
and customs, and with all such other privileges as should be found necessary for establishing
or encouraging such projects. But here was a necessity of procuring letters patents, which
they knew the credit that the East India company had at court would certainly render
ineffectual. So they were now in treaty for a new act, which should free them from that
difficulty. There was one Paterson, a man of no education, but of great notions, which, as
was generally said, he had learned from the buccaneers, with whom he had consorted for
some time. He had considered a place in Darien, where he thought a good settlement might
be made, with another over against it in the South Sea ; and by two settlements there, he
fancied a great trade might be opened both for the East and West Indies ; and that the
Spaniards in the neighbourhood might be kept in great subjection to them : so he made the
merchants believe, that he had a great secret, which he did not think fit yet to discover, and
reserved to a fitter opportunity, only he desired that the West Indies might be named in
any new act that should be offered to the parliament. He made them in general understand
that he knew of a country, not possessed by Spaniards, where there were rich mines, and
gold in abundance. While these matters were in treaty, the time of the king's giving the
instructions to his commissioner for the parliament came on ; and it had been a thing of
course, to give a general instruction to pass all bills for the encouragement of trade. John
stoun told the king that he heard there was a secret management among the merchants for
an act in Scotland, under which the East India trade might be set up ; so he proposed, and
drew an instruction, empowering the commissioner to pass any bill, promising letters patents
for encouraging of trade, yet limited so that it should not interfere with the trade of England.
When they went down to Scotland, the king's commissioner either did not consider this, or
had no regard to it, for he gave the royal assent to an act, that gave the undertakers, either
¦ of the East India or West India trade, all possible privileges, with exemption of twenty-one
years from all impositions ; and the act directed letters patents to be passed under the great
seal, without any further warrant for them. When this was printed, it gave a great alarm
in England, more particularly to the East India company ; for many of the merchants of
London resolved to join stock with the Scotch company, and the exemption from all duties
gave a great prospect of gain. Such was the posture of affairs in Scotland.
In Ireland, the three lords justices did riot agree long together ; the lord Capel studied to
render himself popular, and espoused the interests of the English against the Irish, without
-any nice regard to justice or equity : he was too easily set on by those who had their own
end in it to do every thing that gained him applause. The other two were men of severe
tempers, and studied to protect the Irish, when they were oppressed ; nor did they try to
make themselves otherwise popular than by a wise and just administration : so lord Capel
was highly magnified, and they were as much complained of by all the English in Ireland.
Lord Capel did undertake to manage a parliament so as to carry all things, if he was made
lord deputy, and had power given him to place and displace such as he should name. This

OF KING WILLIAM III. 619
was agreed to, and a parliament was held there, after he had made several removes. In the
beginning of the session, things went smoothly ; the supply that was asked for the support
of that government was granted ; all the proceedings in king James's parliament were
annulled ; and the great act of settlement was confirmed and explained as they desired : but
this good temper was quickly lost by the heat of some who had great credit with lord Capel.
Complaints were made of sir Charles Porter, the lord chancellor, who was beginning to set
on foot a tory humour in Ireland, whereas it was certainly the interest of that government
to have no other division among them but that of English and Irish, and of protestant and
papist. Lord Capel's party moved in the house of commons, that Porter should be
impeached ; but the grounds upon which this motion was made appeared to be so frivolous,
after the chancellor was heard by the house of commons, in his own justification, that he was
voted clear from all imputation by a majority of two to one : this set the lord deputy and
the lord chancellor, with all the friends of both, at so great a distance from each other, that
it put a full stop, for some time, to all business.
Thus factions were formed in all the king's dominions ; and he being for so much of the
year at a great distance from the scene, there was no pains taken to quiet these, and to check
the animosities which arose out of them. The king studied only to balance them, and to
keep up among the parties a jealousy of one another, that so he might oblige them all to
depend more entirely on himself.
As soon as the campaign was over in Flanders, the king intended to come over directly
into England ; but he was kept long on the other side by contrary winds. The first point
that was under debate upon his arrival was, whether a new parliament should be summoned,
or the old one be brought together again, which by the law that was lately passed, might
sit till lady-day *. The happy state the nation was in put all men, except the merchants,
in a good temper ; none could be sure we should be in so good a state next year ; so that
now probably elections would fall on men, who were well affected to the government ; a
parliament that saw itself in its last session, might affect to be froward, the members by
such a behaviour, hoping to recommend themselves to the next election; besides, if the
same parliament had been continued, probably the inquiries into corruption would have
been carried on, which might divert them from more pressing affairs, and kindle greater heats:
all which might be more decently dropped by a new parliament than suffered to lie asleep by
the old one. These considerations prevailed, though it was still believed that the king's own
inclinations led him to have continued the parliament yet one session longer ; for he reckoned
he was sure of the major vote in it. Thus this parliament was brought to a conclusion, and
a new one was summoned.
The king made a progress to the north ; and staid some days at the earl of Sunderland's,
which was the first public mark of the high favour he was in. The king studied to constrain
himself to a little more openness and affability than was natural to him ; but his cold and
dry way had too deep a root not to return too oft upon him : the jacobites were so descried,
that few of them were elected ; but many of the sourer sort of whigs, who were much
alienated from the king, were chosen : generally, they were men of estates ; but many
were young, hot, and without experience. Foley was again chosen speaker, the demand of
the supply was still very high, and there was a great arrear of deficiences : all was readily
granted, and lodged on funds that seemed to be very probable.
The state of the coin was considered, and there were great and long debates about the
proper remedies. The motion of raising the money above its intrinsic value was still much
pressed ; many apprehended this matter could not be cured, without casting us into great
disorders : our money, they thought, would not pass, and so the markets would not be
furnished ; and it is certain, that if there had been ill humours then stirring in the nation,
this might have cast us into great convulsions. But none happened, to the disappointment
of our enemies, who had their eyes and hopes long fixed on the effects this might produce.
All came, in the end, to a wise and happy resolution of recoining all the specie of England,
in milled money : all the old money was ordered to be brought in, in public payments or
* The "Shrewsbury Correspondence" informs us that a general election had been resolved before the king left
Namur.

620 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
loans, to the exchequer, and that by degrees ; first, the half-crown pieces, and the rest of the
money by a longer day ; money of a bad alloy, as well as clipped money, was to be received,
though this was thought an ill precedent, and that it gave too much encouragement to false
coining, yet it was judged necessary upon this occasion, and it gave a present calm to a
ferment that was then working all England over. Twelve hundred thousand pounds was
given to supply the deficiency of the bad and clipped money. So this matter was happily
settled, and was put in a way to be effectually remedied ; and it was executed with an order
and a justice, with a quiet and an exactness, beyond all men's expectation. So that we
were freed from a great and threatening mischief, without any of those effects that were
generally apprehended from it *
The Bill of trials, in cases of treason, was again brought into the house of commons, and
passed there ; when it came up to the lords, they added the clause for summoning all the
peers to the trial of a peer, which was not easily carried ; for those who wished well to the
bill looked on this as a device to lose it, as no doubt it was, and therefore they opposed it ;
but, contrary to the hopes of the court, the commons were so desirous of the bill, that when
it came down to them they agreed to the clause, and so the bill passed, and had the royal
assent. A severe bill was brought in for voiding all the elections of parliament men, where the
elected had been at any expense in meat, drink, or money, to procure votes. It was very
strictly penned ; but time must show whether any evasions can be found out to avoid it.
Certainly, if it has the desired effect, it would prove one of the best laws that ever was
made in England ; for abuses in elections were grown to most intolerable excesses, which
threatened even the ruin of the nation. Another act passed against unlawful and double
returns, for persons had been often returned, plainly contrary to the vote of the majority ;
and in boroughs, where there was a contest, between the select number of the Corporation,
and the whole populace ; both sides had obtained favourable decisions, as that side prevailed,
on which the person elected happened to be : so both elections were returned, and the house
judged the matter. But by this act, all returns were ordered to be made according to the
last determination of the house of commons. These were thought good securities for future
parliaments ; it had been happy for the nation, if the first of these had proved as effectual
as the last was.
Great complaints were made in both houses of the act for the Scotch East India company,
and addresses were made to the king, setting forth the inconveniences that were likely to
arise from thence to England ; the king answered, that he had been ill served in Scotland,
but he hoped remedies should be found to prevent the ill consequences, that they apprehended
from the act : and soon after this, he turned out both the secretaries of state, and the marquis
of Tweedale, and great changes were made in the whole ministry of that kingdom, both high
and low. No enquiry was made, nor proceedings ordered, concerning the business of Glencoe,
so that furnished the libellers with some colours in aspersing the king, as if he must have
been willing to suffer it to be executed, since he seemed so unwilling to let it be punished.
But when it was understood in Scotland, that the king had disowned the act for the East
India company, from which it was expected that great riches should flow into that kingdom,
it is not easy to conceive how great and how general an indignation was spread over the
whole kingdom ; the jacobites saw what a game it was likely to prove in their hands, they
played it with great skill, and to the advantage of their cause, in a course of many years,
and continue to manage it to this day. There was a great deal of noise made of the Scotch
act in both houses of parliament in England by some who seemed to have no other design
in that, but to heighten our distractions by the apprehensions that they expressed. The
Scotch nation fancied nothing but mountains of gold, and the credit of the design rose so
high, that subscriptions were made, and advances of money were offered, beyond what any
* The cause of the coin being so liable to suffer by mints were established at Bristol, Chester, Exeter, Nor-
clipping, was its being broad and thin, from being old and wich, and York. The pieces there struck have the first
hammered. The fresh issue, mentioned in the text, was letter of these names under the bust of the king. (EsBay
called "the grand recoinage of 1696." It amounted to on Medals, 153. ed. 1784.)
.£6,400,000 sterling. To expedite the issue, country

OF KING WILLIAM III. 621
believed the wealth of that kingdom could have furnished. Paterson came to have such
credit among them, that the design of the East India trade, how promising soever, was
wholly laid aside ; and they resolved to employ all their wealth in the settling a colony,
with a port and fortifications, in Darien; which was long kept a secret, and was only trusted
to a select number empowered by this new company, who assumed to themselves the name
of the African company, though they never meddled with any concern in that part of the
world. The unhappy progress of this affair will appear in its proper time.
The losses of the merchants gave great advantages to those who complained of the
administration ; the conduct, with relation to our trade, was represented as at best a neglect
of the nation, and of its prosperity. Some, with a more spiteful malice, said it was designed
that we should suffer in our trade, that the Dutch might carry it from us ; and how extrava
gant soever this might seem, it was often repeated by some men of virulent tempers. And
in the end, when all the errors, with relation to the protection of our trade, were set out
and much aggravated, a motion was made to create by act of parliament, a council of trade.
This was opposed by those who looked on it as a change of our constitution, in a very
essential point. The executive part of the government was wholly in the king ; so that the
appointing any council, by act of parliament, began a precedent of their breaking in upon
the execution of the law, in which it could not be easy to see how far they might be carried ;
it was indeed offered, that this council should be much limited as to its powers, yet many
apprehended, that if the parliament named the persons, how low soever their powers might
be at first, they would be enlarged every session ; and from being a council to look into
matters of trade, they would be next empowered to appoint convoys and cruisers ; this in time
might draw in the whole admiralty, and that part of the revenue or supply that was appro
priated to the navy : so that a king would soon grow to be a duke of Venice, and indeed those
who set this on most zealously did not deny that they designed to graft many things upon it.
The king was so sensible of the ill effects this would have, that he ordered his ministers
to oppose it as much as possibly they could. The earl of Sunderland, to the wonder of
many, declared for it, as all that depended on him promoted it ; he was afraid of the violence
of the republican party, and would not venture on provoking them ; the ministers were much
offended with him for taking this method to recommend himself at their cost ; the king
himself took it ill, and he told me, if he went on driving it as he did, that he must break
with him ; he imputed it to his fear ; for the unhappy steps he had made in King James's
time, gave his enemies so many handles and colours for attacking him, that he would
venture en nothing that might provoke them. Here was a debate plainly in a point of
prerogative, how far the government should continue on its ancient bottom of monarchy, as
to the executive part, or how far it should turn to a commonwealth ; and yet, by an odd
reverse, the whigs, who were now most employed, argued for the prerogative, while the
tories seemed zealous for public liberty : so powerfully does interest bias men of all forms.
This was going on, and probably would have passed in both houses, when the discovery of a
conspiracy turned men's thoughts quite another way : so that all angry motions were let fall,
and the session came to a very happy conclusion, with greater advantages to the king than
could have been otherwise expected. We were all this winter alarmed, from many different
quarters, with the insolent discourses of the jacobites, who seemed so well assured of a
sudden revolution, which was to be both quick and entire, that at Christmas they said it
would be brought about within six weeks. The French fleet, which we had so long shut
up within Toulon, was now fitting out, and was ordered to come round to Brest ; our fleet,
that lay at Cadiz, was not strong enough to fight them, when they should pass the straits ;
Russel had come home, with many of the great ships, and had left only a squadron there ;
but a great fleet was ordered to go thither ; it was ready to have sailed in December ; but
was kept in our ports by contrary winds till February : this was then thought a great unhap-
piness ; but we found afterwards, that our preservation was chiefly owing to it : and it was
so extraordinary a thing to see the wind fixed at south west during the whole winter, that
few could resist the observing a signal providence of God in it. We were all this while in
great pain for Rook, who commanded the squadron that lay at Cadiz, and was likely to
suffer for want of the provisions and stores which this fleet was to carry him, besides the

622 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
addition of strength this would bring him, in case the Toulon squadron should come about ;
we were only apprehensive of danger from that squadron, for we thought that we could be
in none at home, till that fleet was brought about ; the advertisements came from many
places that some very important thing was ready to break out : it is true, the jacobites fed
their party with such stories every year, but they both talked and wrote now with more
than ordinary assurance. The king had been so accustomed to alarms and reports of this
kind, that he had now so little regard to them as scarcely to be willing to hearken to those, who
brought him such advertisements. He was so much set on preparing for the next campaign,
that all other things were little considered by him.
But in the beginning of February, one captain Fisher came to the earl of Portland, and
in general told him there was a design to assassinate the king ; but he would not, or could
not then, name any of the persons who were concerned in it : he never appeared more, for
he had assurances given him, that he should not be made use of as a witness.^ Few days
after that, one Pendergrass, an Irish officer, came to the earl of Portland, and discovered all
that he knew of the matter ; he freely told him his own name, but would not name any of
the conspirators. La Rue, a Frenchman, came also to brigadier Levison, and discovered to
him all that he knew ; these two (Pendergrass and La Rue) were brought to the king apart,
not knowing of one another's discovery ; they gave an account of two plots then on foot,
the one for assassinating the king, and the other for invading the kingdom. The king was
not easily brought to give credit to this, till a variety of circumstances, in which the
discoveries did agree, convinced him of the truth of the whole design.
It has been already told, in how many projects king James was engaged for assassinating
the king ; but all these had failed : so now one was laid that gave better hopes, and looked
more like a military action than a foul murder. Sir George Berkeley, a Scotchman, received
a commission from king James, to go and attack the prince of Orange in his winter quarters ;
Charnock, Sir William Perkins, Captain Porter, and La Rue, were the men to whose conduct
the matter was trusted ; the duke of Berwick came over, and had some discourse with
them about the method of executing it. Forty persons were thought necessary for the
attempt ; they intended to watch the king as he should go out to hunt, or come back from
it in his coach ; some of them were to engage the guards, while others should attack the
king, and either carry him off a prisoner, or, in case of any resistance, kill him. This soft
manner was proposed, to draw military men to act in it, as a warlike exploit ; Porter and
Knightly went and viewed the grounds, and the way through which the king passed, as he
went between Kensington and Richmond park, where he used to hunt commonly on
Saturdays : and they pitched on two places, where they thought they might well execute
the design. King James sent over some of his guards to assist in it ; he spoke himself to
one Harris, to go over and to obey such orders as he should receive from Berkeley ; he ordered
money to be given him, and told him that, if he was forced to stay long at Calais, the
president there would have orders to furnish him *.
When the duke of Berwick had laid the matter so well here, that he thought it could
not miscarry, he went back to France, and met king James at St. Denis, who was come so
far on his way from Paris. He stopped there, and after a long conference with the duke of
Berwick, he sent him first to his queen at St. Germains, and then to the king of France,
and he himself called for a notary, and passed some act ; but it was not known to what
effect. When that was done, he pursued his journey to Calais to set himself at the head of
an army of about 20,000 men, that were drawn out of the garrisons which lay near that
frontier. These being full in that season, an army was in a very few days brought together,
without any previous warning or noise. There came every winter a coasting fleet from all
the sea-ports of France to Dunkirk, with all the provisions for a campaign ; and it was given
out that the French intended an early one this year. So that this coasting fleet was ordered
to be there by the end of January ; thus here were transport-ships, as well as an army,
brought together in a very silent manner ; there was also a small fleet of cruizers, and some
men of war ready to convoy them over ; many regiments were embarked, and king James
* For full particulars, see Blackmore's " History of the Assassination Plot."

OF KING WILLIAM III. 623
was waiting at Calais for some tidings of that on which he chiefly depended ; for upon the
first notice of the success of the assassination, he was resolved to have set sail : so near was
the matter brought to a crisis, when it broke out by the discovery made by the persons above
named. La Rue told all particulars with the greatest frankness, and named all the persons
that they had intended to engage in the execution of it ; for several lists were among them, and
those who concerted the matter had those lists given them, and took it for granted that
every man named in those lists was engaged ; since they were persons on whom they
depended, as knowing their inclinations, and believing that they would readily enter into the
project, though it had not been at that time proposed to many of them, as it appeared
afterwards. The design was laid to strike the blow on the loth of February, in a lane that-
turns down from Turnham Green to Brentford ; and the conspirators were to be scattered
about the green, in taverns and alehouses, and to be brought together upon a signal given.
They were cast into several parties, and an aid-de-camp was assigned to every one of them,
both to bring them together, and to give the whole the air of a military action : Pendergrass
owned very freely to the king, that he was engaged in interest against him, as he was of a
religion contrary to his. He said he would have no reward for his discovery ; but he hated
a base action ; and the point of honour was the only motive that prevailed on him : he
owned that he was desired to assist in seizing on him, and he named the person that was
fixed on to shoot him ; he abhorred the whole thing, and immediately came to reveal it. His
story did in all particulars agree with La Rue's ; for some time he stood on it, as a point of
honour, to name no person ; but upon assurance given him that he should not be brought as a
witness against them, he named all he knew. The king ordered the coaches and guards to
be made ready next morning, being the 15th of February, and a Saturday, his usual day of
hunting ; but some accident was pretended to cover his not going abroad that day. The
conspirators continued to meet together, not doubting but that they should have occasion to
execute their design the next Saturday : they had some always about Kensington, who came
and went continually, and brought them an account of every thing that passed there. On
Saturday, the 22d of February, they put themselves in a readiness, and were going out to
take the posts assigned them ; but were surprised, when they had notice that the king's
hunting was put off a second time ; they apprehended they might be discovered, yet as none
were seized, they soon quieted themselves.
Next night, a great many of them were taken in their beds ; and the day following
the whole discovery was laid before the privy council. At the same time, advices were sent
to the king from Flanders, that the French army was marching to Dunkirk, on design to
invade England. And now, by a very happy providence, though hitherto a very unaccept
able one, we had a great fleet at Spithead ready to sail ; and we had another fleet, designed
for the summer's service in our own seas, quite ready, though not yet manned. Many brave
seamen, seeing the nation was in such visible danger, came out of their lurking holes, in
which they were hiding themselves from the press, and offered their service ; and all people
showed so much zeal, that in three days Russel, who was sent to command, stood over to
the coast of France with a fleet of above fifty men of war. The French were amazed at
this ; and upon it their ships drew so near their coasts, that he durst not follow them in
such shallow water, but was contented with breaking their design, and driving them into
their harbours. King James stayed for some weeks there ; but, as the French said, his
malignant star still blasted every project that was formed for his service.
The court of France was much out of countenance with this disappointment ; for that
king had ordered his design of invading England to be communicated to all the courts in
which he had ministers : and they spoke of it with such an air of assurance, as gave violent
presumptions that the king of France knew of the conspiracy against the king's person, and
depended upon it; for indeed, without that, the design was impracticable, considering
how great a fleet we had at Spithead. Nor could any men of common sense have entertained
a thought of it, but with a view of the confusion into which the intended assassination must
have cast us. They went on in England seizing the conspirators ; and a proclamation was
issued out, for apprehending those that absconded, with a promise of a thousand pounds
reward to such as should seize on any of them, and the offer of a pardon to every conspirator
that should seize on any of the rest. This set all people at work, and in a few weeks most

624 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
of them were apprehended ; only Berkeley was not found, who had brought the commission
from king James, though great search was made for him. For, though the reality of such a
commission was fully proved afterwards, in the trials of the conspirators, by the evidence
of those who had seen and read it all written in king James's own hand (such a paper
being too important to be trusted to any to copy), yet much pains was taken to have found
the very person who was entrusted with it : the commission itself would have been a valuable
piece, and such an original as was not to be found any where.
The military men would not engage on other terms : they thought, by the laws of war,
they were bound to obey all orders that run in a military style, and no other ; and so they
imagined that their part in it was as innocent as the going on any desperate design during
ii campaign. Many of them repined at the service, and wished that it had not been put on
them ; but, being commanded, they fancied that they were liable to no blame nor infamy,
but ought to be treated as prisoners of war.
Among those who were taken. Porter and Pendergrass were brought in. Porter had been
a vicious man, engaged in many ill things ; and was very forward and furious in all their
consultations. The lord Cutts, who, as captain of the guards, was present when the king
examined Pendergrass, but did not know his name, when he saw him brought in pressed
him to own himself and the service that he had already done ; but he claimed the promise
of not being forced to be a witness, and would say nothing. Porter was a man of pleasure,
who loved not the hardships of a prison, and much less the solemnities of an execution ;
so he confessed all : and then Pendergrass, who had his dependence on him, freely confessed
likewise. He said, Porter was the man who had trusted him ; he could not be an instru
ment to destroy him ; yet he lay under no obligations to any others among them. Porter
had been in the management of the whole matter ; so he gave a very copious account of it
all, from the first beginning. And now it appeared, that Pendergrass had been but a very
few days among them, and had seen verv few of them ; and that he came and discovered the
conspiracy the next day after it was opened to him.
When by these examinations the matter was clear and undeniable, the king communicated
it in a speech to both houses of parliament. They immediately made addresses of congratu
lation, with assurances of adhering to him against all his enemies, and in particular against
king James; and after that, motions were made in both houses for an association, wherein they
should own him as their rightful and lawful king, and promise faithfully to adhere to him against
king James, and the pretended prince of Wales ; engaging at the same time to maintain the
act of succession, and to revenge his death on all who should be concerned in it. This was
much opposed in both houses, chiefly by Seymour and Finch in the house of commons, and
the earl of Nottingham in the house of lords. They went chiefly upon this, that " rightful
and lawful" were words that had been laid aside in the beginning of this reign ; that they
imported one that was king by descent, and so could not belong to the present king. They
said the crown and the prerogative of it were vested in him, and therefore thev would obey
him, and be faithful to him, though they could not acknowledge him their rightful and
lawful king. Great exceptions were also taken to the word " revenge," as not of an evan
gelical sound ; but that word was so explained, that these were soon cleared : revenge was
to be meant in a legal sense, either in the prosecution of justice at home, or of war abroad ;
and the same word had been used in that association, into wliich the nation entered, when
it- was apprehended that queen Elizabeth's life was in danger by the practices of the queen
of Scots. After a warm debate, it was carried in both houses, that an association should be
laid on the table, and that it might bo signed by all such as were willing of their own accord
to sign it ; only with this difference, that instead of the words " rightful and lawful king,"
the lords put these words, " That king William hath the right by law to the crown of these
realms ; and that neither king James, nor the pretended prince of Wales, nor any other
person, has any right whatsoever to the same." This was done to satisfy those, who said
they could not come up to the words "rightful and lawful:" and the earl of Rochester
offering these words, they were thought to answer the ends of the association, and so were
agreed to. This was signed by both houses, excepting only fourscore in the house of com
mons, and fifteen in the house of lords. The association was carried from the houses of
parliament over all England, and was signed by all sorts of people, a very few only excepted ;

OF KING WILLIAM III. 025
Tlie bishops also drew a form for the clergy, according to that signed by the house of lords,
with some small variation, which was so universally signed, that not above an hundred all
England over refused it.
Soon after this, a bill was brought into the house of commons, declaring all men
incapable of public trust, or to serve in parliament, who did not sign the association. This
passed with no considerable opposition ; for those who had signed it of their own accord, were
not unwilling to have it made general ; and such as had refused it when it was voluntary,
were resolved to sign it as soon as the law should be made for it. And at the same time,
an order passed in council, for reviewing all the commissions in England, and for turnino- out
of them all those who had not signed the association, while it was voluntary ; since this
seemed to be such a declaration of their principles and affections, that it was not thought
reasonable that such persons should be any longer either justices of peace, or deputy
lieutenants. The session of parliament was soon brought to a conclusion. They created one fund,
upon which two millions and a half were to be raised, which the best judges did apprehend
was neither just nor prudent. A new bank was proposed, called the Land Bank, because
the securities were to be upon land : this was the main difference between it and the Bank
of England ; and by reason of this, it was pretended, that it was not contrary to a clause in
the act for that bank, that no other bank should be set up in opposition to it. There was a
set of undertakers, who engaged that it should prove effectual, for the money for which it
was given. This was chiefly managed by Foley, Harley, and the tories : it was much
laboured by the earl of Sunderland ; and the king was prevailed on to consent to it, or
rather to desire it, though he was then told by many, of what ill consequence it would prove
to his affairs. The earl of Sunderland's excuse for himself, when the error appeared after
wards but too evidently, was, that he thought it would engage the tories in interest to
support the government*.
After most of the conspirators were taken, and all examinations were over, some of them
were brought to their trials. Charnoek, King, and Keys, were begun with : the design was
fully proved against them. Chamock showed great presence of mind, with temper, and
good judgment, and made as good a defence as the matter could bear ; but the proof was so
full, that they were all found guilty. Endeavours were used to persuade Charnoek to con
fess all he knew, for he had been in all their plots from the beginning. His brother was
employed to deal with him, and he seemed to be once in suspense ; but the next time that
his brother came to him, he told him, he could not save his own life without doino; that
which would take away the lives of so many, that he did not think his own life worth it.
This showed a greatness of mind that had been very valuable, if it had been better directed.
Thus this matter was understood at the time ; but many years after this, the lord Somers
gave me a different account of it. Charnoek, as he told me, sent an offer to the kino-, of a
full discovery of all their consultations and designs ; and desired no pardon, but only that he
might live in some easy prison ; and if he was found to prevaricate, in any part of his disco
very, he would look for the execution of the sentence. But the king apprehended, that so
many persons would be found concerned, and thereby be rendered desperate, that he was
afraid to have such a scene opened, and would not accept of this offer. At his death,
Charnoek delivered a paper, in which he confessed he was engaged in a design to attack the
prince of Orange's guards : but he thought himself bound to clear king James from havino-
given any commission to assassinate him. King's paper, who suffered with him, was to the
same purpose ; and they both took pains to clear all those of their religion from any acces
sion to it. King expressed a sense of the unlawfulness of the undertaking, but Chamock
seemed fully satisfied with the lawfulness of it. Keys was a poor ignorant trumpeter, who
had his dependence on Porter, and now suffered chiefly upon his evidence, for which he was
* The scheme of a Land Bank was suggested by Dr. per cent, was to be paid, and the privilege granted them
Hugh Chamberlain, and was patronised by the tories, or of lending a certain sum annually on landed securities.
landed interest, because they thought it would embarrass It was sanctioned by an act of parliament, but when the
the whigs, and their monied supporters, the bank of day of payment came, the projectors failed to fulfil their
England, &c. The new bank proposed to advance engagements, and the scheme proved entirely abortive.—
2,000,000/. for the service of government, for which seven Shrewsbury Correspondence.

621 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
much reflected on. It was said that servants had often been witnesses against their mastery
but that a master's witnessing against his servant was somewhat new and extraordinary.
The way that Chamock and Kinc took to vindicate king James did rather fasten the im
putation more upon him : thev did not denv that he had sent over a commission to attack
the prince of Orange, which, as Porter deposed, Chamock told him he had s- en. If this
had been denied by a dying man his last words would have been of some weight ; but in
stead of denvino- that which was sworn, he only denied that king James had given a
cornrnission for assassination ; and it seems great weight was laid on this word, for all the
conspirators agreed in it, and denied that king James had given a commission to assassinate
the prince of Orange. This was an odious word, and perhaps no person was ever so wicked
as to order such a thing in so crude a manner ; but the sending a commission to attack the
king's person was the same thing upon the matter, and was aU that the witnesses had de
posed ; therefore their not denying this, in the terms in which the witnesses swore it. did
plainly imply a confession that it was true. But some who had a mind to deceive them
selves or others, laid hold on this and made great use of it, that dying men had acquitted
king James of the assassination. Such slight colours will serve, when people are engaged
beforehand to believe as their affections lead them.
Sir John Friend and sir William Perkins were tried next. The first of thes-e had risen
from mean beginnings to great credit and much wealth : he was emploved bv king James.
and had all this while stuck firm to his interests : Lis purse was more con-idered than bis
head, and was open on all occasions, as the party applied to him. While Parker was for
merly in the Tower, upon information of an assassination of the king designed by him, he
furnished the money that corrupted his keepers, and helped him to make his escape out of
the Tower : he knew of the assassination, though he was not to be an actor in it ; but he
had a commission for raism g a regiment for king James, and he had entertained and paid the
officers who were to serve under him : he had also joined with those who had sent over
Chamock, in May 1695, with the message to king James mentioned in the account of the
former year ; it appearing now, that they had then desired an invasion with eight thousand
foot and one thousand horse, and had promised to join the** with two thousand horse upon
their landing. In this the earl of Aylesbury, the lord Montgomery, son to the marquis of
Powys. and sir John Fenwick, were also concerned. Upon all this evidence Friend was
condemned, and the earl of Aylesbury was committed prisoner to the Tower. Perkins was a
gentleman of estate, who had gone violently into the passions and interests of the court in
king Charles's time : he was one of the six clerks in chancery, arid took all oaths to the
government rather than lose his place. He did not only consent to the de-sign of assassina
tion, but undertook to bring five men who should assist in it, and he had brought up horses
for that service from the country, but had not named the persons, so this lay vet in his own
breast. He himself was not to have acted in it, for he likewise had a commission for
a regiment ; and therefore was to reserve himself for that service : he had also provided
a stock of arms which were hid under ground, and were now discovered : npon this evidence
he was condemned. Great endeavours were used both with Friend and him to confess all
they knew. Friend was more sullen, as he knew less ; for he was onlv applied to and
trusted, when they needed his money. • Perkins fluctuated more ; he confessed the whole
thing for which he was condemned, but would not name the five persons whom he was to
have sent in to assist in the assassination. He said he had engaged them in it, so he
could not think of saving his own life by destroying theirs. He confessed he had seen king
James's commission; the words differed a little from those which Porter had told, bnt
Porter did not swear that he saw it himself, he onlv related what Chamock had
told him concerning it, yet Perkins said they were to the same effect : he believed it
was all written with king James's own hand ; he had seen his writing often, and was confi
dent it was written by him : he owned that he had raised and maintained a raiment, bnt
he thought he could not swear against his officers, since he himself had drawn them into the
service; and he affirmed that he knew nothing of the other regiments. He sent for the
bishop of Ely. to whom he repeated all these particulars, as the bishop himself told me : he
seemed much troubled with a sense of his former life, which had been verv irre<mlar. The

OF KING WILLIAM III. 627
house of commons sent some to examine him, but he gave them so little satisfaction that
they left him to the course of the law. His tenderness in not accusing those whom he had
drawn in, was so generous, that this alone served to create some regard for a man who had
been long under a very bad character. In the beginning of April, Friend and he were exe
cuted together.
A very unusual instance of the boldness of the jacobites appeared upon that occasion :
these two had not changed their religion, but still called themselves protestants ; so three
of the nonjuring clergymen waited on them to Tyburn, two of them had been often with
Friend, and one of them with Perkins : and all the three at the place of execution joined to
give them public absolution, with an imposition of hands, in the view of all the people ; a
strain of impudence that was as new as it was wicked, since these persons died owning the
ill designs they had been engaged in, and expressing no sort of repentance for them. So
these clergymen, in this solemn absolution, made an open declaration of their allowing and
justifying these persons in all they had been concerned in : two of these were taken, and
censured for this in the king's bench, the third made his escape.
Three other conspirators, Rookwood, Lowick, and Cranborn, were tried next. By this
time the new act for trials in such cases began to take place, so these held long, for their
counsel stuck upon every thing : but the evidence was now more copious, for three other
witnesses came in, the government being so gentle as to pardon even the conspirators who
confessed their guilt, and were willing to be witnesses against others. The first two were papists,
they expressed their dislike of the design, but insisted on this, that as military men they were
bound to obey all military orders; and they thought that the king, who knew the laws of war,
ought to have a regard to this, and to forgive them. Cranborn called himself a protestant, but
was more sullen than the other two ; to such a degree of fury and perverseness had the jacobites
wrought up their party. Knightly was tried next : he confessed all, and upon that, though
he was condemned, he had a reprieve and was afterwards pardoned. These were all the
trials and executions that even this black conspiracy drew from the government ; for the king's
inclinations were so merciful, that he seemed uneasy even under these acts of necessary justice.
Cook was brought next upon his trial on account of the intended invasion, for he was
not charged with the assassination : his trial was considered as introductory to the earl of
Aylesbury's, for the evidence was the same as to both. Porter and Goodman were two wit
nesses against him : they had been with him at a meeting, in a tavern in Leadenhall-street,
where Charnoek received instructions to go to France with the message formerly mentioned.
All that was brought against this was, that the master of the tavern and two of his servants
swore, that they remembered well when that company was at the tavern, for they were
often coming into the room where they sat, both at dinner time and after it, and that they
saw not Goodman there ; nay, they were positive that he was not there. On the other hand,
Porter deposed that Goodman was not with them at dinner, but that he came to that house
after dinner, and sent him in a note, upon which he, with the consent of the company, went
out and brought him in ; and then it was certain that the servants of the house were not in
that constant attendance, nor could they be believed in a negative against positive evidence
to the contrary. Their credit was not such but that it might be well supposed, that, for
the interest of their house, they might be induced to make stretches. The evidence was be
lieved, and Cook was found guilty, and condemned : he obtained many short reprieves upon
assurances that he would tell all he knew ; but it was visible he did not deal sincerely ; his
punishment ended in banishment. Sir John Fenwick was taken not long after, going over
to France, and was ordered to prepare for his trial, upon which he seemed willing to discover
all he knew ; and in this he went off and on, for he had no mind to die, and hoped to save
himself by some practice or other. Several days were set for his trial, and he procured new
delays by making some new discoveries. At last, when he saw that slight and general ones
would not serve his turn, he sent for the duke of Devonshire, and wrote a paper as a
discovery, which he gave him to be sent to the king ; and that duke affirming to the lords
justices that it was not fit that paper should be seen by any before the king saw it, the
matter was suffered to rest for this time *-
• The ohief of these prosecutions are in the ' State Trials."
S S 2

628 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The summer went over, both in Flanders and on the Rhine, without any action. All
the funds given for this year's service proved defective, but that of the Land bank failed totally,
and the credit of the bank of England was much shaken. About five millions of dipt
money was brought into the exchequer ; and the loss that the nation suffered by the recoin-
ing of the monev, amounted to two millions and two hundred thousand pounds. The
coinage was carried on with all possible haste ; about eighty thousand pounds was coined
every week ; vet still this was slow, and the new money was generally kept up, so that
for several months little of it appeared. This stop in the free circulation of money put
the nation into great disorder. Those who, according to the act of parliament, were to have
the first payments in milled money, for the loans they had made, kept their specie up, and
would not let it 20 but at an unreasonable advantage. The king had no money to pay his
army, so they were in great distress, which they bore with wonderful patience. By this
means the king could undertake nothing, and was forced to lie on the defensive ; nor were
the French strong enough to make an impression in any place. The king had a mighty
army, and was much superior to the enemy, yet he could do nothing ; and it passed for a
happy campaign because the French were not able to take any advantage from those ill
accidents that our want of specie brought us under, which indeed were such, that nothing
but the sense all had of the late conspiracy, kept us quiet and free from tumults. It now
appeared what a strange error the king was led into, when he accepted of so great a sum to
be raised by a Land bank. It was scarcely honourable, and not very safe at any time ; but it
might have proved fatal at a time in which money was likely to be much wanted, which
want would have been less felt if paper credit had been kept up : but one bank working
against another, and the goldsmiths against both, put us to great straits ; yet the bank sup
plied the king in this extremity, and thereby convinced him that they were his friends in
affection as well as interest *.
The secret practices in Italy were now ready to break out. The pope and the Venetians
had a mind to send the Germans out of Italy, and to take the duke of Savoy out of the
necessity of depending on those they called heretics. The management in the business of
Casal looked so dark, that the lord Galway, who was the king's general and envoy there,
did apprehend there was something mysterious under it. One step more remained, to settle
the peace there ; for the duke of Savoy would not own that he was in any negotiation, till
he should have received the advances of money that were promised him from Encland and
Holland, for he was much set on the heaping of treasure, even durinc the war, to which end
he had debased his coin so, that it was not above a sixth part in intrinsic value of what it
passed for. He was always beset with his priests, who were perpetually complainino- of
the progress that heresy was like to make in his dominions. He had indeed granted a very
full edict in favour of the Vaudois, restoring their former liberties and privileo-es to them,
which the lord Galway took care to have put in the most emphatical wordsf and passed
with all the formalities of law, to make it as effectual as laws and promises can be ; yet
every step that was made in that affair went against the grain, and was extorted from him
by the intercession of the king and the States, and by the lord Galway's zeal.
* The following contemporary song was published in To show that our merciful senate don't fail
" Poems on Affairs of Stale,'- vol. ii — ed. 170:1. To begin at the head, and tax down to the tail
1. Ye ?a-v througa tlle nose by subjecting foes,
Good people, what will you of all be bereft ? ^ et f°r aU our expenses get nothing but blows •
Will you never learn wit while a penny is left ? At nonie we are cheated, abroad we're defeated
You are all, like the dog in the fable, betray'd But the end on't, the end on't, the Lord above knows.
To let go the substance and snatch at the shade ; 3
Your specious pretences, and foreign expenses, We parted with all our old money to shew
We war with religion, and waste all our ehink, We foolishly hoped for a plenty of new ¦
'Tisnipt and 'tis dipt, 'tis lent and 'tis spent, But might have remembei-'d, when we came to the push,
Till tis gone, till us gone to the devil I think. That a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
2. Ye D0W' Uke poor wrctches, are kept under hatches,
AVe pay for our new-born, we pay for our dead, At rack, and at manger, like beasts iu the ark
¦\\'e pay if we're single, we pay if we're wed ; Since our burgesses and knights make us pay for 'our lights',
Why should we, why should we be kept in the dark?

Alluding to the window tax.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 629
In conclusion, the French were grown so weary of that war, and found the charge of it
so heavy, that they offered not only to restore all that had been taken, but to demolish
Pignerol, and to pay the duke some millions of crowns; and to complete the whole, that the duke
of Burgundy should marry his daughter. To this he consented ; but to cover this defection
from his allies, it was further agreed that Catinat should draw his army together before the
duke could bring his to make head against him ; and that he should be ordered to attempt
the bombardment of Turin, that so the duke might seem to be forced by the extremity of
his affairs to take such conditions as were offered him. He had a mind to have cast
the blame on his allies, but they had assisted him more effectually at this time than on
other occasions. A truce was first made, and that, after a few months, was turned into
an entire peace ; one article whereof was, that the Milanese should have a neutrality
granted them in case the German forces were sent out of Italy. All the Italian princes
and states concurred in this, to get rid of the Germans as soon as was possible ; so the duke
of Savoy promised to join with the French to drive them out. Valence was the first
place that tlie duke of Savoy attacked ; there was a good garrison in it, and it was better
provided than the places of the Spaniards generally were. It was not much pressed,
and the siege held some weeks, many dying in it. At last the courts of Vienna and
Madrid accepted of the neutrality, and engaged to draw the Germans out of these parts
upon an advance of money, which the princes of Italy were glad to pay to be delivered
of such troublesome guests.
Thus ended the war in Piedmont, after it had lasted six years. Pignerol was demo
lished ; but the French, by the treaty, might build another fort at Fenestrella, which is
in the middle of the hills ; and so it will not be so important as Pignerol was, though it
may prove an uneasy neighbour to the duke of Savoy. His daughter was received in
France as duchess of Burgundy, though not yet of the age of consent, for she was but
ten years old.
Nothing of consequence passed in Catalonia : the French went no further than Gironne,
and the Spaniards gave them no disturbance. Both the king and queen of Spain were at
this time so ill, that, as is usual upon such occasions, it was suspected they were both poi
soned. The king of Spain relapsed often, and at last remained in that low state of health,
in which he seemed to be always rather dying than living. The court of France were glad
of his recovery ; for they were not then in a condition to undertake such a war as the dau
phin's pretensions must have engaged them in.
In Hungary the Turks advanced again towards Transylvania, where the duke of Saxony
commanded the imperial army. The Turks did attack them, and they defended themselves
so well, that though they were beat, yet it cost the Turks so dear, that the grand seignior
could undertake nothing afterwards. The imperialists lost about five thousand men ; but
the Turks lost above twice that number, and the grand seignior went back with an empty
triumph as he did the former year. But another action happened, in a very remote place,
which may come to be of a very great consequence to him. The Muscovites, after they
had been for some years under the divided monarchy of two brothers, or rather of a sis
ter, who governed all in their name, by the death of one of these came now under one czar :
he entered into an alliance with the emperor against the Turks ; and Azuph, wliich was
reckoned a strong place, that commanded the mouth of the Tanais, or Don, where it falls
into the Meotis-palus, after a long siege was taken by his army. This opened the Euxine
sea to him, so that if he be furnished with men skilled in the building and sailing of ships,
this may have consequences that may very much distress Constantinople, and be in the end
fatal to that empire. The king of Denmark's health was now on a decline, upon which the
duke of Holstein was taking advantage, and new disputes were like to arise there.
Our affairs at sea went well with relation to trade : all our merchant fleets came happily
home ; we made no considerable losses ; on the contrary, we took many of the French priva
teers ; they now gained little in that way of war, which in some of the former years had
been very advantageous to them. Upon the breaking out of the conspiracy, orders were
sent to Cadiz for bringing home our fleet ; the Spaniards murmured at this, though it was
reasonable for us to take care of ourselves in the first place. Upon that the French fleet

630 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
was also ordered to come about : thev met with rough weather, and were long in the pas
sage ; so that if we had sent a squadron before Brest, we had probably made some consider
able advantage; but the fleet was so divided, that faction appeared in every order and in
every motion; nor did the king studv enough to remedy this, but ratier kept it up, and
seemed to think that was the wav to please both parties ; but he found afterwards, that by
all Ms manao-ement with the tories he disgusted those who were affectionate and zealous for
him, and that the tories had too deep an alienation from him to be overcome with good
u*ao-e. Their submissions however to him gained their end, which was to provoke the
whigs to be peevish and uneasv. Our fleet sailed towards the isle of Rhee, with some bomb
vessels : some small islands were burnt and plundered, as St. Martin's was bombarded : the
loss the French made was not considerable in itself, but it put their affairs in great distrac
tion, and the charge they were at in defending their coast, was much greater than ours in
attacking it. This was the state of affairs in England and abroad during the summer.
Scotland was falling into great miserv by reason of two successive bad harvests, which ex
hausted that nation and drove awav many of their people ; the greatest number went over
to Ireland. A parliament was held at Edinburgh, and in a very thin house every thing
that was asked was granted. They were in a miserable condition, for two such bad years
lay extremely heavy on them.
This summer the French were making steps towards a peace : the court was very uneasy
under so long and so destructive a war : the country was exhausted, they had neither men
nor money ; "their trade was sunk to nothing, and public credit was lost. The creation of
new offices, wliich always was considered as a resource never to be exhausted, did not work
as formerly ; few buyers or undertakers appeared. That king's health was thought declining ;
he affected secrecy and retirement ; so that both the temper of his mind and the state of
his affairs disposed him to desire a peace. One Callieres was sent to make propositions to
the States, as D'Avaux was pressing the king of Sweden to offer his mediation : the States
would hearken to no proposition till two preliminaries were agreed to ; the first was, that
all thincs should be brought back to the state in which they were put by the treaties of
Munster and Nimeguen. This imported not only the restoring Mons and Charleroy, but
likewise Strasburg and Luxemburg, and that, in the state which they were in at present.
The other preliminary was, that France should own the king whensoever the peace should be
concluded. The emperor, who designed to keep off any negotiation as much as possible,
moved that this should be done before the treaty was opened ; but the king thought the
other was sufficient, and would not suffer the peace to be obstructed by a thing that might
seem personal to himself. To all this the court of France, after some delays, consented ; but
that spirit of chicane and injustice that had reigned so long in that court, did still appear
in everv step that was made, for they made use of equivocal terms in every paper that was
offered in their name. The States had felt the effects of these in their former treaties too
sensibly not to be now on their guard against them. The French still returned to them,
and when some points seemed to be quite settled new difficulties were still thrown in. It
was proposed by the French that the popish religion must continue still at Strasburg, that
the king of France could not in conscience yield. that point. It was also pretended that
Luxemburg was to be restored in the same state in which it was when tlie French took it.
These variations did almost break off the negotiation, but the French would not let it
fall, and yielded them up again ; so it was visible all this was only an amusement and an
artifice, by this shew of peace, to get tlie parliament of England to declare for it ; since as
a trading nation must grow weary of war, so the party they had among us would join in
with the inclination that was now become general, to promote the peace ; for though our
affairs were in all respects, except that of the coin, in so good a condition that we felt our
selves grow richer by the war, yet during each campaign we ran a greater risk than our
enemies did ; for all our preservation hung on the single thread of the king's life, and on
that prospect the party that wrought against the government had great hopes, and acted
with much spirit during the war, which we had reason to think must sink with a peace.
The parliament met in November ; and at the opening of the session, the king in his
speech to the two houses, acquainted them with the overtures that were made towards a

OF KING WILLIAM III. 631
peace ; but added, that tne best way to obtain a good one, was to be in a posture for carry
ing on the war. The great difficulty was to find a way to restore credit : there was a great
arrear due ; all funds had proved deficient, and the total failing of the Land bank had brought
a great confusion on all payments : the arrears were put upon the funds of the revenue,
which had been granted for a term of but five years, and that was now ending ; so a new
continuance of those revenues was granted, and they were put under the manao-ement of the
bank of England, which, upon that security, undertook the payment of them all. It was
long before all this was fully settled : the bank was not willing to engage in it, yet at last
it was agreed, and the bank quickly recovered its credit so entirely, that there was no dis
count upon the notes. The arrear amounted to ten millions, and five millions more were to
be raised for the charge of the following year ; so that one session was to secure fifteen mil
lions, a sum never before thought possible to be provided for in any one session. There was
not specie enough for giving that quick circulation which is necessary for trade ; so to
remedy that, the treasury was empowered to give out notes to the value of almost three
millions, which were to circulate as a species of money, and to be received in taxes, and
were to sink gradually, as the money should arise out of the fund that was created to answer
them ; by these methods all the demands, both for arrears and for the following year,
were answered. The commons sent a bill to the lords, limiting elections to future parlia
ments, that none should be chosen but those who had such a proportion of estate or
money : the lords rejected it : they thought it reasonable to leave the nation to their
freedom in choosing their representatives in parliament. It seemed both unjust and
cruel, that if a poor man had so fair a reputation as to be chosen, notwithstanding his
poverty, by those who were willing to pay him wages, that he should be branded with an
incapacity because of his small estate. Corruption in elections was to be apprehended from
the rich rather than from the poor. Another bill was sent up by the commons, but rejected
by the lords, prohibiting the importation of all East India silks and Bengals. This was
proposed to encourage the silk manufacture at home, and petitions were brought for it by
great multitudes, in a very tumultuary way ; but the lords had no regard to that.
The great business of this session that held longest in both houses, was a bill relating to
sir John Fenwick. The thing was of so particular a nature that it deserves to be related in
a^pecial manner ; and the great share that I bore in the debate when it was in the house of
lords, makes it more necessary for me copiously to enlarge upon it ; for it may at first view
seem very liable to exception, that a man of my profession should enter so far into a debate
of that nature. Fenwick, when he was first taken, wrote a letter to his lady, setting forth
his misfortune, and giving himself for dead unless powerful applications could be made for
him, or that some of the jury could be hired to starve out the rest ; and to that he added,
" This, or nothing, can save my life." This letter was taken from the person to whom he
had given it. At his first examination before the lords justices, he denied every thing, till
he was shewed this letter, and then he was confounded. In his private treaty with the
duke of Devonshire, he desired an assurance of life upon his promise to tell all he knew ;
but the king refused that, and would have it left to himself to judge of the truth and the
importance of the discoveries he should make : so he, resolving to cast himself on the king's
mercy, sent him a paper, in which after a bare account of the consultations among the jaco
bites (in which he took care to charge none of his own party) he said that king James and
those who were employed by him, had assured them, that both the earls of Shrews
bury and Marlborough, the lord Godolphin and admiral Russel, were reconciled to him, and
were now in his interests and acting for him *- This was a discovery that could signify
* The magnanimous conduct of the king upon this The innocence of the duke wa9 fully proved, and it ia
occasion is fully related in the " Shrewsbury Correspon- further shewn by the letter he wrote to the king upon the
dencc." He inclosed the calumniating paper to the duke first information of sir John Fenwick's capture, and before
of Shrewsbury, adding, " you are, I trust, too fully con he had brought charges against the duke. In this letter
vinced of the entire confidence I place in you, to imagine he expresses his conviction that, by proper management,
that such an accusation has made any impression on me ; sir John might be brought to give important information.
if it had I should not have sent you this paper. You will This was not the conduct of a man conscious of his own
observe the sincerity of this lionest man, who only- guilt.
accuses those in my service, and not one of his own party."

632 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
nothing but to give the king a jealousy of those persons; for he did not offer the least
shadow or circumstance, either of proof or of presumption, to support this accusation. The
king not being satisfied herewith, sent an order for bringing him to a trial, unless he made
fuller discoveries : he desired to be further examined by the lords justices, to whom he, being
upon oath, told some more particulars ; but he took care to name none of his own side but
those against whom evidence was already brought, or who were safe and beyond sea ; some
few others he named, who were in matters of less consequence that did not amount to high
treason ; he owned a thread of negotiations, that had passed between them and king James,
or the court of France ; he said the earl of Aylesbury had gone over to France, and had been
admitted to a private audience of the French king, where he had proposed the sending over
an army of thirty thousand men, and had undertaken that a great body of gentlemen and
horses should be brought to join them. It appeared by his discoveries, that the jacobites in
England were much divided : some were called compounders, and others noncompoundeTS.
The first sort desired securities from king -James for the preservation of the religion and
liberties of England ; whereas the second sort were for trusting him upon discretion without
asking any terms, putting all in his power, and relying entirely on his honour and genero
sity. These seemed indeed to act more suitably to the great principle upon which they all
insisted, that kings have their power from God, and are accountable only to him for the
exercise of it. Dr. Lloyd, the deprived bishop of Norwich, was the only eminent clergyman
that went into this ; and therefore all that party had, upon Sancroft's death, recommended
him to king James to have his nomination for Canterbury.
Fenwick put all this in writing, upon assurance, that he should not be forced to witness
anv part of it. When that was sent to the king, all appearing to be so trifling, and no
other proof being offered for any part of it, except his own word, which he had stipulated
should not be made use of, his majesty sent an order to bring him to his trial; but as the
'kino- was slow in sending this order, so the duke of Devonshire, who had been in the secret
management of the matter, was for some time in the country : the lords justices delayed the
matter till he came to town ; and then the king's coming was so near, that it was respited
till he came over. By these delays, Fenwick gained his main design in them, wliich was to
practise npon the witnesses.
His lady began with Porter ; he was offered, that if he would go beyond sea, he should
have a good sum in hand, and an annuity secured to him for his life ; he hearkened so far
to the proposition, that he drew those who were in treaty with him, together with the lady
herself, who carried the sum that he was to receive, to a meeting, where he had provided
witnesses, who should over-hear all that passed, and should, upon a signal, come in, and
seize them with the money : which was done, and a prosecution upon it was ordered. The
practice was fully proved, and the persons concerned in it were censured, and punished; so
Porter was no more to be dealt with. Goodman was the other witness : first they gathered
matter to defame him, in which his wicked course of life furnished them very copiously ; but
they trusted not to this method, and betook themselves to another, in which they prevailed
more effectually ; they persuaded him to go out of England : and by this means, -when the
last orders were given for Fenwick's trial, there were not two witnesses against him ; so
by the course of law, he must have been acquitted : the whole was upon this kept entire for
the session of parliament. The king sent to the house of commons the two papers that Fen
wick had sent him. Fenwick was brought before the house ; but he refused to give any
farther account of the matter contained in them ; so they rejected them as false and scanda
lous, made only to create jealousies. And they ordered a bill of attainder to be brought
against Fenwick, which met with great opposition in both houses, in everv step that was
made. The debates were the hottest, and held the longest, of any that I ever knew. The
lords took a very extraordinary method to force all their absent members to come up ; they
sent messengers for them to bring them up, wliich seemed to be a great breach on their
dignity ; for the privilege of making a proxy was an undoubted right belonging to their
peerage ; but those who intended to throw out the bill, resolved to have a full house. The
bill set forth the artifices Fenwick had used to gain delays ; and the practice upon Porter,
and Goodman's escape, the last having sworn treason against him at Cook's trial and like-

OF KING WILLIAM III. 633
wise to the grand jury, who had found the bill against him upon that evidence. So now
Porter appearing, and giving his evidence against him, and the evidence that Goodman had
given being proved, it was inferred that he was guilty of high treason, and that therefore he
ought to be attainted.
The substance of the arguments brought against this way of proceeding, was, that the law
was all men's security, as well as it ought to be their rule : if this was once broke through,
no man was safe ; men would be presumed guilty without legal proofs, and be run down,
and destroyed by a torrent : two witnesses seemed necessary, by an indisputable law of
justice, to prove a man guilty ; the law of God, given to Moses, as well as the law of
England, made this necessary ; and, besides all former ones, the law lately made for trials
in cases of treason, was such a sacred one, that it was to be hoped that even a parliament
would not make a breach upon it. A written deposition was no evidence, because the per
son accused could not have the benefit of cross interrogating the witness, by which much
false swearing was often detected : nor could the evidence given in one trial be brought
against a man who was not a party in that trial : the evidence that was offered to a grand
jury was to be examined all over again at the trial ; till that was done, it was not evidence.
It did not appear that Fenwick himself was concerned in the practice upon Porter ; what
his lady did could not be charged on him ; no evidence was brought that Goodman was
practised on ; so his withdrawing himself could not be charged on Fenwick. Some very
black things were proved against Goodman, which would be strong to set aside his testimony,
though he were present ; and that proof, which had been brought in Cook's trial against
Porter's evidence, was again made use of, to prove that as he was the single witness, so he
was a doubtful and suspected one : nor was it proper that a bill of this nature should begin
in the house of commons, which could not take examinations upon oath. This was the
substance of the arguments that were urged against the bill.
On the other hand it was said, in behalf of the bill, that the nature of government required
that the legislature should be recurred to, in extraordinary cases, for which effectual provision
could not be made by fixed and standing laws : our common law grew up out of the pro
ceedings of the courts of law ; afterwards, this, in cases of treason, was thought too loose :
so the law in this point was limited, first by the famous statute in king Edward the Third's
time, and then by the statute in king Edward the Sixth's time ; the two witnesses were to
be brought face to face with the person accused : and that the law, lately made, had brought
the method of trials to a yet further certainty, yet in that, as well as in the statute of
Edward III., parliamentary proceedings were still excepted ; and indeed, though no such
provision had been expressly made in the acts themselves, the nature of government puts
always an exception in favour of the legislative authority. The legislature was indeed
bound to observe justice and equity, as much, if not more, than the inferior courts ; because
the supreme court ought to set an example to all others ; but they might see cause to pass
over forms, as occasion should require ; this was the more reasonable among us, because there
was no nation in the world besides England, that had not recourse to torture, when the
evidence was probable but defective ; that was a mighty restraint, and struck a terror into
all people ; and the freest governments, both ancient and modern, thought they could not
subsist without it. At present, the Venetians have their civil inquisitors, and the Grisons
have their high courts of justice, which act without the forms of law, by the absolute trust
that is reposed in them, such as the Romans reposed in dictators, in the time of their liberty.
England had neither torture nor any unlimited magistrate in its constitution ; and therefore,
upon great emergencies, recourse must be had to the supreme legislature. Forms are neces
sary in subordinate courts, but there is no reason to tie up the supreme one by them : this
method of attainder had been practised among us at all times ; it is true what was done in
this way at one time was often reversed at another; but that was the effect of the violence
of the times, and was occasioned often by the injustice of those attainders ; the judgments
of the inferior courts were upon the like account often reversed ; but when parliamentary
attainders went upon good grounds, though without observing the forms of law, they were
never blamed, not to say condemned. When poisoning was first practised in England, and
put in a pot of porridge in the bishop of Rochester's house, this, which was only felony, was

631 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
by a special law made to be high treason ; and a new punishment was appointed by act of
parliament ; the poisoner was boiled alive. When the nun of Kent pretended to visions, to
oppose king Henry the Eighth's divorce, and his second marriage, and said, if he married
again, he should not live long after it, but should die a villain's death ; this was judged in
parliament to be high treason ; and she and her accomplices suffered accordingly. After
that, there passed many attainders in that reign, only upon depositions, that were read in
both houses of parliament : it is true these were much blamed, and there was great cause
for it ; there were too many of them ; for this extreme way of proceeding is to be put in
practice but seldom, and upon great occasions ; whereas many of these went upon slight
grounds, such as the uttering some passionate and indecent words, or the using some
embroidery in garments and coats of arms, with an ill intent. But that which was indeed
execrable, was, that persons in prison were attainted, without being heard in their own
defence ; this was so contrary to natural justice, that it could not be enough condemned.
In king Edward the Sixth's time, the lord Seymour was attainted in the same manner, only
with this difference, that the witnesses were brought to the bar, and there examined ;
whereas, formerly, they proceeded upon some depositions that were read to them : at the
duke of Somerset's trial, which was both for high treason and for felony, in which he was
acquitted of the former, but found guilty of the latter, depositions were only read against
him ; but the witnesses were not brought face to face, as he pressed they might be : upon
which it was, that the following parliament enacted, that the accusers (that is the witnesses)
should be examined face to face, if they were alive. In queen Elizabeth's time, the parlia
ment went out of the method of law, in all the steps of their proceedings against the queen
of Scots : it is true there were no parliamentary attainders in England during that long and
glorious reign, upon wliich those who opposed the bill insisted much ; yet that was only,
because there then was no occasion here in England for any such bill ; but in Ireland, where
some things were notoriously true, which yet could not be legally proved, that government
was forced to have, on many different occasions, recourse to this method. In king James
the First's time, those who were concerned in the gunpowder plot, and chose to be killed,
rather than taken, were by act of parliament attainted after their death ; which the courts
of law could not do, since by our law, a maris crimes die with himself ; for this reason,
because he cannot make his own defence, nor can his children do it for him. The famous
attainder of the earl of Strafford, in king Charles the First's time, has been much and justly
censured ; not so much because it passed by bill, as because of the injustice of it : he was
accused for having said, vpon the house of commons refusing to grant the subsidies, the king
had asked, " That the king was absolved from all the rules of government, and might make
use of force to subdue this kingdom." These words were proved only by one witness, all
the rest of the council who were present, deposing, that they remembered no such words,
and were positive, that the debate ran only upon the war with Scotland ; so that though
" this kingdom," singly taken, must be meant of England, yet it might well be meant of
" that kingdom," wliich was the subject then of the debate ; since then the words were
capable of that favourable sense, and that both he who spoke them, and they who heard
them, affirmed that they were meant and understood in that sense, it was a most pernicious
precedent, first to take them in the most odious sense possible, and then to destroy him who
said, them, upon the testimony of one single, exceptionable witness ; whereas, if, upon the
commons refusing to grant the king's demand, he had plainly advised the king to subdue his
people by force, it is hard to tell what the parliament might not justly have done, or would
not do again in the like case. In king Charles the Second's time, some of the most eminent
of the regicides were attainted, after they were dead ; and in king James's time, the duke of
Monmouth was attainted by bill : these last attainders had their first beginning in the house
of commons. Thus it appeared, that these last two hundred years, not to mention much
ancienter precedents, the nation had upon extraordinary occasions proceeded in this parlia
mentary way by bill. There were already many precedents of this method ; and whereas it
was said, that an ill parliament might carry these too far, it is certain the nation, and every
person in it, must be safe, when they are in their own hands, or in those of a representative
chosen by themselves ; as, on the other hand, if that be ill chosen, there is no help for it ; the

OF KING WILLIAM III. 635
nation must perish, for it is by their own fault ; they have already too many precedents for
this way of proceeding, if they intend to make an ill use of them ; but a precedent is only
a ground or warrant for the like proceeding, upon the like occasion.
Two rules were laid down for all bills of this nature ; first, that the matter be of a very
extraordinary nature : lesser crimes had better be passed over than punished by the legis
lature. Of all the crimes that can be contrived against the nation, certainly the most heinous
one is, that of bringing in a foreign force to conquer us ; this ruins both us and our posterity
for ever : distractions at home, how fatal soever, even though they should end ever so tragi
cally, as ours once did in the murder of the king, and in a military usurpation, yet were
capable of a crisis and a cure. In the year 1660, we came again to our wits, and all was
set right again; whereas there is no prospect after a foreign conquest, but of slavery
and misery ; and how black soever the assassinating the king must needs appear, yet a
foreign conquest was worse, it was assassinating the kingdom ; and therefore the inviting and
contriving that must be the blackest of crimes. But, as the importance of the matter ought
to be equal to such an unusual way of proceeding, so the certainty of the facts ought to be
such, that if the defects in legal proof are to be supplied, yet this ought to be done upon such
grounds as make the fact charged appear so evidently true, that though a court of law could
not proceed upon it, yet no man could raise in himself a doubt concerning it. Anciently,
treason was judged, as felony still is, upon such presumptions as satisfied the jury ; the law
has now limited this to two witnesses brought face to face ; but the parliament may still
take that liberty which is denied to inferior courts, of judging this matter as an ordinary
jury does in a case of felony. In the present case, there was one witness, viva voce, upon
whose testimony several persons had been condemned, and had suffered ; and these neither
at their trial, nor at their death, disproved, or denied, any circumstance of his depositions.
If he had been too much a libertine in the course of his life, that did not destroy his credit
as a witness : in the first trial this might have made him a doubtful witness, but what
had happened since had destroyed the possibility even of suspecting his evidence ; a party
had been in interest concerned to enquire into his whole life, and in the present case had full
time for it ; and every circumstance of his deposition had been examined, and yet nothing-
was discovered that could so much as create a doubt ; all was still untouched, sound and
true. The only circumstance in which the dying speeches of those who suffered on his
evidence, seemed to contradict him, was concerning king James's commission ; yet none of
them denied really what Porter had deposed, which was, that Chamock told him, that there
was a commission come from king James, for attacking the prince of Orange's guards : they
only denied that there was a commission for assassinating him. Sir John Friend, and sir
William Perkins, were condemned for the consultation now given in evidence against Fen
wick : they died, not denying it ; on the contrary, they justified all they had done. It
could not be supposed that, if there had been a tittle in the evidence that was false, they
should both have been so far wanting to themselves, and to their friends, who were to be
tried upon the same evidence, as not to have declared it in the Solemnest manner : these
things were more undeniably certain than the evidence of ten witnesses could possibly be.
Witnesses might conspire to swear a falsehood ; but in this case, the circumstances took
away the possibility of a doubt. And therefore the parliament, without taking any notice
of Goodman's evidence, might well judge Fenwick guilty, for no man could doubt of it in
his own mind.
The ancient Romans were very jealous of their liberty ; but how exact soever they might
be in ordinary cases, yet when any of their citizens seemed to have a design of making him
self king, they either created a dictator to suppress or destroy him, or else the people pro
ceeded against him in a summary way. By the Portian law, no citizen could be put to
death for any crime whatsoever; yet such regard did the Romans pay to justice, even above
law, that, when the Campanian legion had perfidiously broken in upon Rhegium, and pil
laged it, they put them all to death for it. In the famous case of Catiline's conspiracy, as
the evidence was clear, and the danger extreme, the accomplices in it were executed, not
withstanding the Portian law ; and this was done by the order of the senate, without either
hearing them make their own defence, or admitting them to claim the right, which the Vale-

636 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
rian law gave them, of an appeal to the people. Yet that whole proceeding was chiefly
directed by the two gTeatest asserters of public liberty that ever lived, Cato and Cicero ; and
Caesar, who opposed it, on pretence of its being against the Portian law, was for that reason
suspected of being in the conspiracy : it appeared afterwards, how little regard he had, either
to law or libertv, thouo-h, upon this occasion, he made use of the one to protect those who
were in a plot aoainst the other. This expression was much resented by those who were
against this bill, as carrying a bitter reflection upon them for opposing it.
In conclusion, the bill passed by a small majority of only seven in the house of lords ; the
royal assent was soon given to it. Fenwick then made all possible applications to the king
for a reprieve ; and as a main ground for that, and as an article of merit, related how he had
saved the kino-'s life, two years before, as was already told in the beginning of the year
1695. But as this fact could not be proved, so it could confer no obligation on the king,
since he had given him no warning of his danger ; and according to his own story, had
trusted the conspirators' words very easily when they promised to pursue their design no
farther, which he had no reason to do. So that this pretension was not much considered ;
but he was pressed to make a full discovery ; and for some days he seemed to be in
some suspense what course to take. He desired to be secured, that nothing which he con
fessed should turn to his own prejudice. The house of lords sent an address to the king,
entreating that they might be at liberty to make him this promise; and that was readily
granted. He then farther desired, that, upon his making a full confession, he might be
assured of a pardon without being obliged to become a witness against any other person : to
this the lords answered, that he had to do with men of honour, and that he must trust to
their discretion ; that they would mediate for him with the king, in proportion as they should
find his discoveries sincere and important : his behaviour to the king hitherto had not been
such as to induce the lords to trust to his candour ; it was much more reasonable that he
should trust to them. Upon this all hopes of any discoveries from him were laid aside :
but a matter of another nature broke out, which, but for its singular circumstances, scarcely
deserves to be mentioned.
There was one Smith, a nephew of sir William Perkins, who had for some time been in
treaty at the duke of Shrewsbury's office, pretending that he could make great discoveries, and
that he knew all the motions and designs of the jacobites : he sent many dark and ambicuous
letters to that duke's under secretary, which were more properly to be called amusements
than discoveries ; for he only gave hints and scraps of stories ; but he had got a promise not
to be made a witness, and yet he never offered any other witness, nor told where anv of
those he informed against were lodged, or how they might be taken. He was always askino-
more money, and bragging what he could do, if he were well supplied, and he seemed to
think he never had enough. Indeed, before the conspiracy broke out, he had given such
hints, that when it was discovered, it appeared he must have known much moreof it than
he thought fit to tell. One letter he wrote, two days before it was intended to have been
put in execution, shewed, he must have been let into the secret very far (if this was not an
artifice to lay the court more asleep), for he said, that as things ripened and came near
execution, he should certainly know them better. It was not improbable that he himself
was one of the five, whom Perkins undertook to furnish, for assisting in the assassination;
and that he hoped to have saved himself by this pretended discovery, in ease the plot mis
carried. Tlie duke of Shrewsbury acquainted the king with his discoveries, but nothmo-
could then be made either of them or of him. When the whole plot was unravelled, it then
was manifest from his letters, that he must have known more of it than he would own :
but he still claimed the promise before made him, that he should not be a witness. Upon
the whole, therefore, he rather deserved a severe punishment than any of those rewards
which he pretended to. He was accordingly dismissed by the duke of Shrewsbury, who
thought that even this suspicious behaviour of his did not release him from keepin'c the
promises he had made him. Smith, thereupon, went to the earl of Monmouth, and° pos
sessed him with bad impressions of the duke of Shrewsbury, and found him much inclined
to entertain them ; he told him that he had made great discoveries, of which that duke would
take no notice ; and because the duke's ill health had obliged him to go into the country

OF KING WILLIAM III. 637
two days before the assassination was intended, he put this construction upon it, that he
was willing to be out of the way when the king was to be murdered. To fix this imputa
tion, he shewed him the copies of all his letters, all of wliich, but the last more especially,
had the face of a great discovery. The lord Monmouth carried this to court, and it made
such an impression there, that the earl of Portland sent Smith money, and entertained him
as a spy, but never could by his means learn any one real piece of intelligence. When this
happened, the king was just going beyond sea ; so Smith's letters were taken, and sealed up
by the king's order, and left in the hands of sir William Trumball, who was the other secre
tary of state. This matter lay quiet till Fenwick began to make discoveries : and when
lord Monmouth understood that he had not named himself (about wliich he expressed too
vehement a concern) but that he had named lord Shrewsbury, it was said, that he entered
into a negociation with the duchess of Norfolk, that she should, by Fenwick's lady, encourage
him to persist in his discoveries ; and that he dictated some papers to the duchess that
should be offered to him as an additional one, in which many little stories were related
which had been told the king, and might be believed by him ; and by these the king might
have been disposed to believe the rest of Fenwick's paper : and the whole ended in some
discoveries concerning Smith, which would naturally occasion his letters to be called for, and
then they would probably have had great effect. The duchess of Norfolk declared, that he
had dictated all these schemes of his to her, who copied them, and handed them to Fenwick ;
and that he had left one paper with her ; it was short, but contained an abstract of the whole
design, and referred to a larger one, wliich he had only dictated to her. The duchess said,
she had placed a gentlewoman, who carried her messages to Fenwick's lady, to over-hear all
that passed ; so that she both had another witness to support the truth of what she related,
and a paper left by him with her. She said that Fenwick would not be guided by him ;
and said, he would not meddle with contrived discoveries ; that thereupon this lord was
highly provoked : he said, if Fenwick would follow his advice, he would certainly save him ;
but if he would not, he would get the bill to pass. And, indeed, when that matter was
depending, he spoke two full hours in the house of lords, in favour of the bill, with a pecu
liar vehemence. Fenwick's lady being much provoked at this, got her nephew, the earl of
Carlisle, to move the lords, that Fenwick might be examined, concerning any advices that
had been sent him, with relation to his discoveries : and upon this, Fenwick told what his
lady had brought him, and thereupon the duchess of Norfolk and her confident were likewise
interrogated, and gave the account which I have here related : in conclusion, Smith's letters
were read, and he himself was examined. This held the lords several days ; for the earl of
Portland, by the king's orders, produced all Smith's papers. By them it appeared, that he
was a very insignificant spy, who was always insisting in his old strain of asking money,
and taking no care to deserve it. The earl of Monmouth was, upon the accusation and
evidence above-mentioned, sent to the Tower, and turned out of all his employments : but
the court had no mind to have the matter farther examined into ; for the king spoke to
myself to do all I could to soften his censure, which he afterwards acknowledged I had done.
I did not know what new scheme of confusion might have been opened by him in his own
excuse. Tlie house of lords was much set against him, and seemed resolved to go great
lengths. To allay that heat, I put them in mind, that he set the revolution first on foot,
and was a great promoter of it, coming twice over to Holland to that end : I then moved,
that he should be sent to the Tower ; this was agreed to, and he lay there till the end of the
session, and was removed from all his places ; but that loss, as was believed, was secretly
made up to him, for the court was resolved not to lose him quite.
Fenwick seeing no hope was left, prepared himseK to die ; he desired the assistance of one
of the deprived bishops, which was not easily granted ; but in that, and in several other
matters, I did him such service, that he wrote me a letter of thanks upon it. He was
beheaded on Tower Hill, and died very composed, in a much better temper than was to be
expected ; for his life had been very irregular. At the place of his execution, he delivered
a paper in writing, wherein he did not deny the facts that had been sworn against him ;
but complained of the injustice of the procedure, and left his thanks to those who had voted
against the bill. He owned his loyalty to king James, and to the prince of Wales after

638 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
him ; but mentioned the design of assassinating king William in terms full of horror. Tlie
paper was supposed to have been drawn by bishop White, and the jacobites were much
provoked with the paragraph last mentioned. This was the conclusion of that unacceptable
affair, in which I had a much larger share than might seem to become a man of my
profession. But the house of lords, by severe votes, obliged all the peers to be present, and
to give their votes in the matter. Since I was therefore convinced, that he was guilty of
the crime laid to his charge, and that such a method of proceeding was not only lawful, but
in some cases necessary : and since, by the search I made into attainders and parliamentary
proceedings, when I wrote the History of the Reformation, I had seen further into those
matters, than otherwise I should ever have done ; I thought it was incumbent on me, when
my opinion determined me to the severer side, to offer what reasons occurred to me in justi
fication of my vote. But this did not exempt me from falling under a great load of censure
upon this occasion *.
As soon as the business of the session of parliament was at an end, the king went beyond
sea. The summer passed over very quietly in England, for the jacobites were now humble
and silent. The Frenoh were resolved to have peace at any rate, by the end of the year ;
they therefore studied to push matters as far as possible, during this campaign, that they
might obtain the better terms, and that their king might still, to outward appearance,
maintain a superiority in the field, as if nothing could stand before him, and from thence
might indulge his vanity in boasting, that, notwithstanding all his successes, he was willing
to sacrifice his own advantages to the quiet of Europe. The campaign was opened with
the siege of Ath ; the place was ill furnished, and the bad state, both of our coin and credit,
set the king's preparations so far back, that he could not come in time to relieve it. From
thence the French were advancing towards Brussels, on design, either to take or bombard
it; but the king, by a very happy diligence, preventing them, possessed himself of an
advantageous camp, about three hours before the French could reach it, by which they were
wholly incapacitated to execute their design. After this, there was no more action in
Flanders all the summer : the rest of the time was spent in negotiation.
The French were more successful in Catalonia ; they sent an army against Barcelona,
commanded by the duke of Vendome, and their fleet came to his assistance. The garrison
was under the command of a prince of Hesse, who had served in the king's army, and, upon
changing his religion, was now at the head of the German troops that were sent into Spain.
The viceroy (whether by a fate common to all the Spaniards, or from a jealousy that the
whole honour should accrue to a stranger, if the place should hold out) so entirely neglected
to do his part that he was surprised, and his small army was routed. The town was large
and ill fortified, yet it held out two months after the trenches were opened ; so that time
was given to the Spaniards sufficient to have brought relief from the furthest corner of Spain.
Nothing had happened during the whole course of the war, that did more evidently demon
strate the feebleness into which that monarchy was fallen ; for no relief was sent to Barcelona,
so that they were forced to capitulate. By this, the French gained a great point ; hitherto
the Spaniards, who contributed the least towards carrying on the war, were the most back
ward to all overtures of peace ; they had felt little of the miseries of war, and thought
themselves out of its reach ; but now France being master of so important a place, which
cut off all their communication with Italy, they became as earnest for peace as they had
hitherto been averse from it.
Nor was this all their danger : a squadron had been sent at the same time to seize on the
plate fleet in the West Indies ; the king ordered a squadron, which he had lying at Cadiz,
to sail after them, and assist the Spaniards. The French finding that the galleons were
already got to the Havanna, where they could not attack them, sailed to Carthagena, which
was in no condition to resist them. The plate had all been sent away before they came
thither ; but they landed and pillaged the place, and then gave it out that they had found
many millions there, which at first seemed incredible, and was afterwards known to be false:
yet it was confidently asserted at that time, to cover the reproach of having miscarried in
* The whole seciet histoiy of this proceeding, all tending to the honour of the duke of Shrewsbury and the whigs,
is to be found in archdeacon Cexe's " Shrewsbury Correspondence."

OF KING WILLIAM III. 639
the attempt on which they had raised great expectations, and to which many undertakers
had been drawn in. Our squadron was much superior to theirs, yet never engaged them ;
once indeed they came up to the French, and had some advantage over them ; but did not
pursue it. The French sailed to the north towards Newfoundland, where we had another
squadron lying, which was sent with some land forces to recover Hudson's bay. These
ships might have fallen upon the French, and would probably have mastered them ; but as
they had no certain account of their strength, so being sent out upon another service, they
did not think it proper to hazard the attacking them. So the French got safe home, and
the conduct of our affairs at sea was much censured ; yet our admiralty declared themselves
satisfied with the account the commanders gave of their proceedings. But that board was
accused of much partiality ; on all such occasions, the unfortunate must expect to be blamed :
and, to outward appearance, there was much room given either to censure the orders, or the
execution of them. The king owned he did not understand those matters ; and Russel,
now made earl of Orford, had both the admiralty and the navy board in a great dependence
on himself, so that he was considered almost as much as if he had been lord high admiral.
He was too much in the power of those in whom he confided, and trusted them too far ;
and it was generally believed that there was much corruption, as it was certain there was
much faction, if not treachery, in the conduct of our marine. Our miscarriages made all
people cry that we must have a peace, for we could not manage the war to any good purpose ;
since, notwithstanding our great superiority at sea, the French conducted their matters so
much better than us, that we were losers, even on that element where we used to triumph
most. Our squadron, in the bay of Mexico, did very little service ; they only robbtd and
destroyed some of the French colonies : and that sent to Hudson's bay found it quite
abandoned by the French, so that both returned home inglorious.
A great change of affairs happened this year in Poland ; their king, John Sobieski, after
he had long outlived the fame he had got by raising the siege of Vienna, died at last under
a general contempt. He was going backwards and forwards, as his queen's negotiations in
the court of France were entertained, or rejected. His government was so feeble and
disjointed at home, that all their diets broke up upon preliminaries, before they could,
according to their forms, enter upon business : he was set on heaping up wealth, which
seemed necessary to give his son an interest in the succeeding election. And, upon his death,
a great party appeared for him, notwithstanding the general aversion to the mother ; but
the Polish nobility resolved to make no haste with their election; they plainly set the crown
to sale, and encouraged all candidates that would bid for it. One party declared for the
prince of Conti, of which their primate, then a cardinal, was the head. The emperor did
all he could to support the late king's son ; but when he saw the French party were too
strong for him, he was willing to join with any other pretender.
The duke of Lorrain, the prince of Baden, and Don Livio Odeschalchi, pope Innocent's
nephew, were all named ; but these not being likely to succeed, a negotiation was secretly
managed with the elector of Saxony, which succeeded so well, that he was prevailed on to
change his religion, to advance his troops towards the frontier of Poland, to distribute eight
millions of florins among the Poles, and to promise to confirm all their privileges, and in
particular to undertake the siege of Caminieck. He consented to all this, and declared
" himself a candidate a very few days before the election : and so he was set up by the impe
rialists in opposition to the French party ; his party became quickly so strong, that though
upon the first appearance at the election, while every one of the competitors was trying his
strength, the French party was the strongest, and was so declared by the cardinal ; yet
when the other pretenders saw that they could not carry the election for themselves, they
united in opposition to the French interest, and gave over all their voices to the elector of
Saxony, by which his party became much the strongest : so he was proclaimed the elected
king. The cardinal gave notice to the court of France of what had been done in favour of
the prince of Conti ; and desired that he might be sent quickly thither, well furnished
with arms and ammunition, but chiefly with money. But the party for Saxony made
more dispatch ; that elector lay nearer, and had both his money and troops ready, so he
took the oaths that were required, and got the change of his religion to be attested by the

640 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
imperial court : he made all the haste he could with his army to Cracow, and he was
soon after crowned, to the great joy of the imperial party ; but the inexpressible trouble
of all his subjects in Saxony.
The secular men there saw, that the supporting this elective crown would ruin his
hereditary dominions ; and those, who laid the concerns of the protestant religion to heart,
were much more troubled, when they saw that house, under whose protection their
religion grew up at first, now fall off to popery. It is tme, the present family, ever since
Maurice's time, had showed very little zeal in that cause. The elected king had so small a
share of religion in himself, that little was to be expected from him, nor was it much appre
hended that he would become a bigot, or turn a persecutor ; but such was the eagerness of
the popish clergy towards the suppressing what they call heresy, and the perpetual jealousies
with which therefore they would possess the Poles, were likely to be such, in case he used
no violence towards his Saxon subjects, as possibly might have great effects on him : so that
it is no wonder if they were struck with a general consternation upon his revolt. His
electoress, though a very young person, descended of the house of Brandenburg, expressed
so extraordinary a measure of zeal and piety upon this occasion, that it contributed much to
the present quieting of their fears. The new king sent a popish stadtholder to Dresden ; but
so weak a man, that there was no reason to apprehend much from any conduct of his. He
also sent them all the assurances that could be given in words, that he would make no change
among them, nor has he hitherto made any steps towards it.
A very unusual accident happened at this time, that served not a little to his quiet
establishment on the throne of Poland. The czar was so sensible of the defects of his
education, that, in order to the correcting these, he resolved to go a little into the world for
better information. He was forming great designs ; he intended to make a navigable canal
between the Volga and the Tanais, by which he might carry both materials and provisions
for a fleet to Azuph ; and when that communication was opened, he apprehended great things
might be done afterwards. He therefore intended to see the fleets of Holland and England,
and to make himself as much master of that matter as his genius could rise up to. He sent
an embassy to Holland to regulate some matters of commerce, and to see if they would
assist him in the war he was designing against the Turks. When the ambassadors were set
out, he settled his affairs in such hands, as he trusted most to, and with a small retinue of two
or three servants, he secretly followed his ambassadors, and quickly overtook them. He
discovered himself first to the elector of Brandenburg, who was then in Prussia, looking on
the dispute that was likely to arise in Poland, in which, if a war should follow, he might be
forced to have a share. The czar concerned himself much in the matter, not only by reason
of the neighbourhood, but because he feared that, if the French party should prevail, France
being in alliance with the Turks, a king sent from thence would probably not only make a
peace with the Turks, but turn his arms against himself, which would hinder all his designs
for a great fleet. The French party was strongest in Lithuania ; therefore the czar sent
orders to his generals to bring a great army to the frontier of that duchy, to be ready to
break into it, if a war should begin in Poland : and we were told that the terror of this had
a great effect. From Prussia, the czar went into Holland, and thence came over to
England; therefore I will refer all that I shall say concerning him to the time of his leaving
England*. A fleet was ordered, at Dunkirk, to carry the prince of Conti to Poland. A squadron of
ours, that lay before that port, kept him in for some time ; at last he got out, and sailed to
* This was Peter Michaelowitz, known as Peter the shipwright in the dockyard ; and then came and worked
Great, czar of Russia. He was born in 1672, so that at in a similar capacity in England forfour months. Called
the time he heroically resolved to submit to the privations home suddenly to repress an insurrection, after effecting
he necessarily must undergo in making himself practically this, he addressed himself to national improvements,
acquainted with naval architecture, he was but 24 years founding schools, colleges, libraries, printing-presses, an
old. His whole life was spent in efforts that he considered observatory, &c. He died in 1725 and was succeeded
would benefit his country. He entered the army as a by his wife, the celebrated czarina Catherine, who had
common soldier, and performed the duties of every grade, been the not very virtuous daughter of a Livonian peasant.
until he attained the command of a body of troops, per- (Voltaire's Life of Peter the Groat. Tooke's View of
sonally exhibiting his conviction of the necessity of sub- Russia, &c.)
mitting to discipline. In Holland he laboured as a common

OF KING WILLIAM III. 641
Dantzic ; but that city had declared for the new king, so they would not suffer him to land,
with all those that had come with him. They only consented to suffer himself to land, with a
small retinue ; this he thought would not become him, so he landed at Marienbourg, where
he was met by some of the chief of his party. They pressed him to distribute the money
that he had brought from France, among them, and promised to return quickly to him with
a great force ; but he was limited by his instructions, and would see a good force before he
would part with his treasure. The new king sent some troops to disperse those, who were
coming together to serve him, and these had once almost seized on the prince himself; but
he acted after that with great caution, and would not trust the Poles. He saw no appear
ance of any force likely to be brought to him equal to the undertaking, and fearing lest, if he
stayed too long, he should be frozen up in the Baltic, he came back to Dunkirk. The cardinal
stood out still : the court of Rome rejoiced at the pretended conversion of the new king, and
owned him ; but he quickly saw such a scene of difficulties, that he had reason to repent
his embarking himself in such a dangerous undertaking. This may prove of such importance,
both to the political and religious concerns of Europe, that I thought it deserved that a
particular mention should be made of it, though it lies at a great distance from us. It had
some influence in disposing the French now to be more earnest for a peace ; for if they had
got a king of Poland in their dependence, that would have given them a great interest in
the northern parts, with an easier access, both to assist the Turks and the malcontents in
Hungary. The negotiation for a peace was held at Ryswick, a house of the king's, between the
Hague and Delft. The chief of our plenipotentiaries was the earl of Pembroke, a man of
eminent virtue, and of great and profound learning, particularly in the mathematics. This
made him a little too speculative and abstracted in his notions : he had great application ;
but he lived a little too much out of the world, though in a public station : a little more
practice among men would have given him the last finishing. There was somewhat in his
person and manner, that created him an universal respect : for we had no man among us
whom all sides loved and honoured so much as they did him : there were two others joined
with him in that embassy *.
The king of Sweden was received as mediator ; but he died before any progress was made
in the treaty : his son, who succeeded him in his throne, was also received to succeed him
in the mediation. The father was a rough and boisterous man ; he loved fatigue, and was free
from vice; he reduced his kingdom to a military state, and was ever going round it to see
how his troops were ordered, and his discipline observed ; he looked narrowly into the whole
administration : he had quite altered the constitution of his kingdom. It was formerly
changed from being an elective, to be an hereditary, kingdom ; yet, till his time, it had
continued to be rather an aristocracy than a monarchy. But he got the power of the
senators to be quite taken away, so that it was left free to him to make use of such council
lors as he should choose. The senators had enriched themselves, and oppressed the people ;
• Thomas Herbert, earl of Pembroke, was intended to private collector. Wilton will ever be a monument of
practise at the bar; but the death of his elder brother his extensive knowledge, and the princely presents it
precluded the necessity. His rank and fortune gave him contains, of the high estimation in which he was held by
great advantages; but it was his merit established him. foreign potentates, as well as the many monarchs he saw
A mind well furnished is Beldom confined to one, kind of and served at home. He lived rather as a primitive
excellence. Lord Pembroke had many. William sent christian, in his behaviour meek, in his dress plain, rather
him ambassador extraordinary to the states general, named retired, conversing but little. — (Noble's Continuation of
him of his privy council, made him colonel of a regiment of Grainger.)
marines, first commissioner of the admiralty, lord privy Edward Villiers, first earl of Jersey, held at several
seal, first plenipotentiary of the treaty of Ryswick, knight times the various appointments of master of tlie horse to
of the garter, lord high admiral of England and Ireland, the queen, one of the lord's justices of Ireland, ambassa-
president of the council, and seven times lord justice dor to the states general and to France, and lord cham-
during his absence on the continent. Queen Anne, George berlain of the household, dying the very day he was ap-
thc First, and George the Second, continued to employ him pointed to the office of lord privy seal in 1711. Letters
in various offices. By all these sovereigns he was highly of this nobleman, during tho negociation of the peace of
valued. Able in the cabinet, circumspect in negociations, Ryswick, are numerous in the u Shrewsbury Correspon-
shining in the senate, dignified as vice-regent, yet equally dence." Contemporary authorities agree in considering,
pre-eminent in retirement. His learning made him a fit him a very cool-headed, talented, man.
companion for the literati ; fond of ancient history, he Sir Joseph Williamson has been noticed in a previous
raised a collection of antiques that were unrivalled by any ppge. T T

042 THE HISTORY OF THE RElGN
they had devoured the revenues of the crown ; and in two reigns, in which the sovereign
was long in a state of infancy, both in queen Christina's and in this king's time, the senators
had taken care of themselves, and had stripped the crown. So the king moved for a general
resumption, and this he obtained easily of the states, who, as they envied the wealth of
the senators, so they hoped that, by making the king rich, the people would be less charged
with taxes. This was not all : he got likewise an act of revision, by which those who had
grants were to account for the mean profits, and this was applied even to those who had
grants upon valuable considerations ; for when it appeared that the valuable consideration
was satisfied, they were to account for all they had received over and above that, and to
repay this, with the interest of the money at 12 per cent, for all the years they had enjoyed
it. This brought a great debt on all the senators and other families of the kingdom ; it did
utterly ruin them, and left them at mercy : and when the king took from them all they had,
he kept them still in a dependence upon him, giving them employments in the army or
militia that he set up.
After that, he procured of the states of his kingdom an absolute authority to govern
them as he thought fit, and according to law ; but even this limitation seemed uneasy, and
their slavery was finished by another act which he obtained, that he should not be obliged
to govern by law, but by his mere will and pleasure. So successful was he, in the space of
five years, to ruin all the families in his kingdom, and to destroy their laws and liberties,
and that by their own consent. He died when his son was but fifteen years old, and gave
great hopes of being an active, warlike, and indefatigable prince, which his reign ever since
has demonstrated to the world *.
The first act of his reign was the mediation at Ryswick \, where the treaty went on but
slowly, till Harlai, the first of the French plenipotentiaries, came to the Hague, who, as
was believed, had the secret. He showed a fairer inclination than had appeared in the
others, to treat frankly and honourably, and to clear all the difficulties that had been started
before ; but while they were negotiating, by exchanging papers, which was a slow method,
subject to much delay and too many exceptions and evasions, the marshal Boufflers desired
a conference with the earl of Portland, and by the order of their masters, they met four
times, and were long alone. That lord told me himself, that the subject of those conferences
was concerning king James. The king desired to know how the king of France intended
to dispose of him, and how he could own him and yet support the other. The kino- of
France would not renounce the protecting him, by any article of the treaty ; but it was
agreed between them, that the king of France should give him no assistance, nor give the
king any disturbance on his account, and that he should retire from the court of France,
either to Avignon, or to Italy. On the other hand, his queen should have fifty thousand
pounds a year, which was her jointure, settled after his death, and that it should now be paid
her, he being reckoned as dead to the nation ; and in this the king very readily acquiesced :
these meetings made the treaty go on with more dispatch, this tender point being once
settled. A new difficulty arose with relation to the empire. The French offered Brisach and
Fribourg as an equivalent for Strasbourg : the court of Vienna consented to this, but the
empire refused it. These places belonged to the emperor's hereditary dominions, whereas
Strasbourg was a free city, as well as a protestant town ; so the emperor was soon brought
to accept of the exchange. All other matters were concerted. Spain was now as impatient
of delays as France: England and the States had no other concern in the treaty but to
secure their allies, and to settle a barrier in the Netherlands : so, in September, the treaty
was signed by all except the German princes : but a set time was prefixed for them to come
into it. The duke of Savoy was comprehended within it ; and the princes of the empire,
finding they could struggle no longer, did at last consent to it. A new piece of treachery
against the protestant religion broke out in the conclusion of all : the French declared that
that part of the palatinate which was stipulated to be restored in the state in which it was,
by virtue of that article was to continue in the same state, with relation to religion, in
* He was the celebrated frantically brave Charles the XII.
t Conducted by the regents appointed during the king's minority.

OF KING WILLIAM I IT. 643
which it was at that time : by this, several churches were to be condemned that otherwise,
according to the laws of the empire, and in particular of those dominions, were to be restored
to the protestants : the elector palatine accepted of the condition very willingly, being
bigoted to a high degree : but some of the princes, the king of Sweden in particular, as
duke of Deuxponts, refused to submit to it : but this had been secretly concerted among the
whole popish party, who are always firm to the interest of their religion, and zealous for
them ; whereas the protestant courts are too ready to sacrifice the common interest of their
religion to their own private advantage. The king was troubled at this treacherous motion,
but he saw no inclination in any of the allies to oppose it with the zeal with which it was
pressed on the other hand. The importance of the thing, sixteen churches being only con
demned by it, as the earl of Pembroke told me, was not such as to deserve he should venture
a rupture upon it : and it was thought the elector palatine might, on other accounts, be so
obnoxious to the protestants, and might need their assistance and protection so much, that
he would be obliged afterwards to restore these churches thus wrested from them. So the king
contented himself with ordering his plenipotentiaries to protest against this, which they did
in a formal act that they passed.
The king by this peace concluded the great design of putting a stop to the progress of the
French arms, which he had constantly pursued from his first appeamce on the stage, in the
year 1672. There was not one of the allies who complained that he had been forgotten by
him, or wronged in the treaty : nor had the desire of having his title universally acknow
ledged raised any impatience in him, or made him run into this peace with any indecent
haste. The terms of it were still too much to the advantage of France ; but the length and
charge of the war had so exhausted the allies, that the king saw the necessity of accepting
the best conditions that could be got. It is true, France was more harassed by the war,
yet the arbitrary frame of that government made their king master of the whole wealth of his
people : and the war was managed on both sides, between them and us, with this visible
difference, that every man who dealt with the French king was ruined by it ; whereas,
among us, every man grew rich by his dealings with the king : and it was not easy to see
how this could be either prevented or punished. The regard that is shown to the members
of parliament among us makes that few abuses can be enquired into or discovered : and the
king found his reign grow so unacceptable to his people, by the continuance of the war, that
he saw the necessity of coming to a peace. The States were under the same pressure ; they
were heavier charged, and suffered more by the war than the English. The French got
indeed nothing by a war which they had most perfidiously begun ; they were forced to
return to the peace of Nimeguen : Pignerol and Brisach, which cardinal Richelieu had con
sidered as the keys of Italy and Germany, were now parted with ; and all that base prac
tice of claiming so much under the head of reunions and dependencies, was abandoned : tho
duchy of Lorrain was also entirely restored : it was generally thought that the king of
France intended to live out the rest of his days in quiet ; for his parting with Barcelona
made all people conclude that he did not intend to prosecute the dauphin's pretensions'
upon the crown of Spain, after that king's death, by a new war ; and that he would only
try how to manage it by negotiation.
The most melancholy part of this treaty was, that no advantages were got Dy it in favour-
of the protestants in France : the French refugees made all possible applications to the king,
and to the other protestant allies ; but as they were no part of the cause of the war, so it
did not appear that the allies could do more for them than to recommend them, in the
warmest manner, to the king of France : but he was so far engaged in a course of super
stition and cruelty, that their condition became worse by the peace : the court was more at
leisure to look after them, and to persecute them, than they thought fit to do during the
war. The military men in France did generally complain of the peace as dishonourable and
base. The jacobites among us were the more confounded at the news of it, because the
court of France did, to the last minute, assure king James that they would never abandon
his interests : and his queen sent over assurances to their party here, that England would
be left out of the treaty, and put to maintain the war alone : of which they were so confi
dent, that they, entered into deep wagers upon it ; a practice little known among us before
t t 2

044 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the war, but it was carried on, in the progress of it, to a very extravagant degree ; so that
they were ruined in their fortunes, as well as sunk in their expectations, by the peace. It
was said, king James's queen made a bold repartee to the French king, when he told her
the peace was signed : she said she wished it might be such as should raise his glory as
much as it might settle his repose*.
But while the peace was concluded in these parts, the war between the emperor and the
Turks went on in Hungary. The imperial army was commanded by prince Eugene, a
brother of the count of Soissons, who, apprehending that he was not likely to be so much
considered as he thought he might deserve in France, went and served the emperor, and
grew up in a few years to be one of the greatest generals of the age.
The grand seignior came to command his armies in person, and lay encamped on both
sides of the Theisse, having laid a bridge over the river. Prince Eugene marched up to
him and attacked his camp on the west side of the river, and, after a short dispute, he broke
in and was master of the camp, and forced all who lay on that side over the river. In this
action many were killed and drowned : he followed them across the Theisse, and gave them
a total defeat : most of their janissaries were cut off, and the prince became master of all
their artillery and magazines : the grand seignior himself narrowly escaped, with a body of
horse, to Belgrade. This was a complete victory, and was the greatest blow the Turks had
received in the whole war. At the same time the czar was very successful on his side
against the Tartarians. The Venetians did little on their part, and the confusions in Poland
made that republic but a feeble ally : so that the weight of the war lay wholly on the
emperor. But though he, being now delivered from the war with France, was more at
leisure to prosecute this, yet his revenue was so exhausted, that he was willing to suffer a
treaty to be carried on by the mediation of England and Holland ; and the French, being
now no longer concerned to engage the Porte to carry on the war, the grand seignior
fearing a revolution upon his ill success, was very glad to hearken to a treaty, which was
carried on all this winter, and was finished the next year at Carlowitz, from wliich place it
takes its name.
By it both parties were to keep that of which they were then possessed ; and so this long
war of Hungary, which had brought both sides by turns very near the last extremities,
was concluded by the direction and mediation of the king of England : upon which I will
add a curious observation, that though it may seem to be out of the laws of history, yet,
considering my profession, will I hope be forgiven.
Dr. Lloyd, the present most learned bishop of Worcester, who has now for above twenty
years been studying the Revelations with an amazing diligence and exactness, had long
before this year said, the peace between the Turks and the papal Christians was certainly to
he made in the year 1698, which he made out thus : — The four angels, mentioned in the
fourteenth chapter of the Revelations, that were bound in the river Euphrates, which he
expounds to be the captains of the Turkish forces, that till then were subject to the sultan
at Babylon, were to be loosed, or freed from that yoke, and to set up for themselves : and
these were prepared to. slay the third part of men, for an hour, a day, a month, and a year.
He reckons the year, in St. John, is the Julian year of three hundred and sixty-five days,
that is, in the prophetic style, each day a year ; a month is thirty of these days, and a day
* No English state measure of such importance as the support the cause of James : it was base of all parties to
peace of Ry6wickwas ever carried on whilst our chief offi- abandon the interests of the house of Austria. There is
cers of state were in comparative ignorance concerning the no doubt that the terms were in favour of Fiance; and
negotiations. The duke of Shrewsbury, writing to the were of such a nature, that the agreement was rather a
earl of Jersey, then lord Villiers, says of the proceedings, cessation of hostilities than a peace. The "partition
" I am more ignorant than you can believe." The fact treaty," a part of this unworthy negotiation, was carried
of so much secresy being employed, evon to those who on similarly without consulting the English ministry ; and
in other respects were so much trusted, naturally causes was detrimental to our interests, as well as the cause of
a suspicion that some dirty, some disgraceful dctermina- future hostilities. By thus slighting his ministers, Wil-
tions were being concluded. It was unworthy of William liam incurred another annoyance, he lost their confidence,
and his protestant allies not to make some stipulations and eventually caused their secession from his service.
for tlie safety of the Fiench huguenots ; it was a defal- Tho whole of these negotiations arc unfolded and illus-
cation of honour on the part of Louis to acknowledge trated iu the " Shrewsbury Correspondence." See alse
"William as king of England, when he was pledged to the article " Bentinck," in the Biographia Britannica.

OF KING WILLIAM III. G4S
makes one ; which, added to the former number, makes three hundred and ninety-six. Now
he proves from historians that Ottoman came, and began his conquests at Prousse, in the
1302 ; to which the former number, in which they were to slay the third part of men, being
added, it must end in the year 1698 : and though the historians do not mark the hour, or
the twelfth part of the day, or year, which is a month, that is, the beginning of the destruc
tion the Turks were to make, yet he is confident, if that is ever known, that the prophecy
will be found, even in that, to be punctually accomplished. After this, he thinks their time
of hurting the papal Christians is at an end ; they may indeed still do mischief to the
Muscovites, or persecute their own Christian subjects, but they can do no hurt to the
papalins ; and he is so positive in this, that he consents that all his scheme should be laid
aside, if the Turks engage in a new war with them : and I must confess, that their refusing
now, in a course of three years, to take any advantage from the troubles in Hungary, to
begin the war again, though we know they have been much solicited to it, gives for the
present a confirmation to this learned prelate's exposition of that part of the prophecy *.
The king came over to England about the middle of November, and was received by the
city of London in a sort of triumph, with all the magnificence that he would admit. Some
progress was made in preparing triumphal arches, but he put a stop to it ; he seemed, by a
natural modesty, to have contracted an antipathy to all vain shows ; which was much
increased in him by what he had heard of the gross excesses of flattery, to which the French
have run beyond the examples of former ages, in honour of their king ; who having shown
too great a pleasure in these, they have been so far pursued, that the wit of that nation has
been for some years chiefly employed on these ; for they saw that men's fortunes were more
certainly advanced by a new and lively invention in that way, than by any service or merit
whatsoever. This, in which that king has seemed to be too much pleased, rendering him
contemptible to better judges, gave the king such an aversion to every thing that looked
that way, that he scarcely bore even with things that were decent and proper.
The king ordered many of his troops to be disbanded soon after the peace ; but a stop was
put to that, because the French were very slow in evacuating the places that were to be
restored by the treaty, and were not beginning to reduce their troops : so though the king
declared what he intended to do, yet he made no haste to execute it, till it should appear
how the French intended to govern themselves. The king thought it was absolutely neces
sary to keep up a considerable land force ; he knew the French would still maintain great
armies, and that the pretended prince of Wales would certainly be assisted by them, if
England should fall into a feeble and defenceless condition : the king of Spain was also in
such an uncertain state of health, so weak, and so exhausted, that it seemed necessary that
England should be in a condition to bar France's invading that empire, and to maintain the
rights of the house of Austria. But though he explained himself thus in general to his
ministers, yet he would not descend to particulars, to tell how many he thought necessary,
so that they had not authority to declare what was the lowest number the king insisted on.
Papers were written on both sides, for and against a standing force ; on the one hand, it
was pretended that a standing army was incompatible with public liberty, and according
to the examples of former times, the one must swallow up the other. It was proposed that
the militia might be better modelled, and more trained, which, with a good naval force,
some thought would be an effectual security against foreign invasions, as well as it would
maintain our laws and liberties at home. On the other side, it was urged, that since all our
neighbours were armed, and the most formidable of them all kept up such a mighty force,
nothing could give us a real security, but a good body of regular troops ; nothing could be
made of the militia, chiefly of the horse, but at a vast charge ; and if it was well regulated
* Dr. Lloyd is stated by the earl of Dartmouth to enraged the aged prelate extremely, he replied, with great
have had very erroneous opinions in his old age, respect- passion and rudeness, " So says your treasurer, but God
in* the overthrow of papacy, and the approach of the says otherwise, whether he likes it or not." So sincere
millennium. In the year 1712, he told the queen he was was the conviction of this worthy prelate upon these
convinced that within four years these events would occur, points, that he told tlie quoen, that if he was not right he
He was then more than eighty. He stated this in the did not know how to discern truth ; and requested he
presence of the lord-treasurer, Oxford, who objected dif- might be removed from his bishopric, as unfit to explair*
fcient interpretations to those made by the bishop, which the Gospel to others. — Oxford ed. of this work.

646 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
and well commanded, it would prove a mighty army ; but this of the militia was only talked
of to put by the other ; for no project was ever proposed to render it more useful ; a force
at sea might be so shattered, while the enemy kept within their ports (as it actually hap
pened at the revolution), that this strength might come to be useless when we should need
it most : so that, without a considerable land force, it seemed the nation would be too much
exposed. The words " standing army" had an odious sound in English ears ; so the popu
larity lay on the other side; and the king's ministers suffered generally in the good
characters they had hitherto maintained, because they studied to stop the tide that run so
strong the other way.
At the opening of the session of parliament, the king told them, that in his opinion a
standing land force was necessary : the house of commons carried the jealousy of a standing
army so high, that they would not bear the motion, nor did they like the way the king took
of offering them his opinion in the point : this seemed a prescription to them, and might
bias some in the counsels they were to offer the king, and be a bar to the freedom of debate.
The managers for the court had no orders to name any number ; so the house came to a
resolution of paying off and disbanding all the forces that had been raised since the year
1680 : this vote brought the army to be less than eight thousand. The court was struck
with this ; and then they tried, by an after-game, to raise the number of fifteen thousand
horse and foot. If this had been proposed in time, it would probably have been carried
without any difficulty ; but the king was so long upon the reserve, that now, when he
thought fit to speak out his mind, he found it was too late : so a force not exceeding ten
thousand horse and foot was all that the house could be brought to. This gave the king
the greatest distaste of any thing that had befallen him in his whole reign ; he thought it
would derogate much from him, and render his alliance so inconsiderable, that he doubted
whether he could carry on the government after it should be reduced to so weak and so
contemptible a state. He said, that if he could have imagined, that after all the service he
should have done the nation, he should have met with such returns, he would never have
meddled in our affairs ; and that he was weary of governing a nation that was so jealous as
to lay itself open to an enemy, rather than trust him, who had acted so faithfully during his
whole life, that he had never once deceived those who trusted him. He said this, with a
great deal more to the same purpose, to myself; but he saw the necessity of submitting to
that which could not be helped.
During these debates, the earl of Sunderland had argued with many upon the necessity
of keeping up a greater force. This was in so many hands, that he was charged as the
author of the counsel, of keeping on foot a standing army : so he was often named in the
house of commons, with many severe reflections, for which there had been but too much
occasion given during the two former reigns. The tories pressed hard upon, and the whigs
were so jealous of him, that he, apprehending that while the former would attack him the
others would defend him faintly, resolved to prevent a public affront, and to retire from the
court and from business ; not only against the entreaties of his friends, but even the king'9
earnest desire that he would continue about him : indeed, upon this occasion, his majesty
expressed such a concern and value for him, that the jealousies were increased by the con
fidence the court saw the king had in him. During the time of his credit things had been
carried on with more spirit and better success than before : he had gained such an ascendant
over the king, that he brought him to agree to some things that few expected he would have
yielded to : he managed the public affairs in both houses with so much steadiness and so
good a conduct, that he had procured to himself a greater measure of esteem than he had in
any of the former parts of his life ; and the feebleness and disjointed state we fell into, after
he withdrew, contributed not a little to establish the character which his administration had
gained him.
The parliament went on slowly in fixing the fund for the supplies they had voted : they
settled a revenue on the king for life, for the ordinary expense of the government, which was
called the Civil List. This they carried to 700,000/. a year, which was much more than the
former kings of England could apply to those occasions ; 600,000?. was all that was designed,
but it had been promised at the treaty of Ryswick that king James, being now as dead to

OF KING WILLIAM III. 647
England, his queen should enjoy her jointure, that was 50,0007. a year : and it was intended
to settle a court about the duke of Gloucester, who was then nine years old : so, to enable
the king to bear that expense, this large provision was made for the Civil List. But
by some great error in the management, though the court never had so much, and
never spent so little, yet payments were ill made, and, by some strange consumption, all
was wasted.
While the house of commons was seeking a fund for paying the arrears of the army, and
for the expense at sea and land for the next year, a proposition was made for constituting a
new East India company, who should trade with a joint-stock, others being admitted in a
determinate proportion to a separate trade. The old East India company opposed this, and
offered to advance a sum (but far short of what the public occasions required,) for an act of
parliament that should confirm their charters. The projectors of the new company offered
two millions, upon the security of a good fund, to pay the interest of their money at eight
per cent. Great opposition was made to this : for the king, upon an address that was made
to him by the house of commons, had granted the old company a new charter, they being
obliged to take in a new subscription of 700,0007. to increase their stock and trade. Those
empowered by this new charter were not charged with any malversation ; they had been
trading under great disadvantages, and with great losses, by reason of the war. It is tme
the king had reserved a power to himself, by a clause in the charter, to dissolve them, upon
warning given three years before such dissolution : so it was said that no injustice was done
them, if public notice should be given of such an intended dissolution. To this it was
answered, that the clause reserving that power was put in many charters, but that it was
considered only as a threatening, obliging them to a good conduct ; but that it was not ordi
nary to dissolve a company by virtue of such a clause, when no error or malversation was
objected. The old company came at last to offer the whole sum that was wanted ; but the
party was now formed, so they came too late ; and this had no other effect but to raise a
clamour against this proceeding, as extremely rigorous, if not unjust. This threw the old
company and all concerned in it into the hands of the tories, and made a great breach and
disjointing in the city of London. And it is certain that this act, together with the inclina
tions which those of the whigs, who were in good posts, had expressed for keeping up a
greater land force, did contribute to the blasting the reputation they had hitherto maintained
of being good patriots, and was made use of over England by the tories, to disgrace both
the king and them. To this another charge of a high nature was added, that they robbed
the public, and applied much of the money that was given for the service of the nation both
to the supporting a vast expense, and to the raising great estates to themselves. This was
sensible to the people, who were uneasy under heavy taxes, and were too ready to believe
that, according to the practice in king Charles's time, a great deal of the money that was
given in parliament was divided among those who gave it. These clamours were raised
and managed with great dexterity by those who intended to render the king, and all who
were best affected to him, so odious to the nation, that by this means they might carry such
an election of a new house of commons, as that by it all might be overturned. It was said
that the bank of England and the new East India company, being in the hands of whigs,
they would have the command of all the money, and, by consequence, of all the trade of
England : so a great party was raised against the new company in both houses ; but the
act for it was carried. The king was very indifferent in the matter at first, but the greatness
of the sum that was wanted, which could not probably be raised by any other project, pre
vailed on him ; the interests of princes carrying them often to act against their private
opinions and inclinations.
Before the king went into Holland, which was in July, news came from Spain that their
king was dying. This alarm was often given before, but it came much quicker now. Tlie
French upon this sent a fleet to lie before Cadiz, which came thither at the time that the
galleons were expected home from the West Indies ; and it was apprehended that, if the
king had died, they would have seized on all that treasure. We sent a fleet thither to secure
them, but it came too late to have done any service, if it had been needed ; this was much
censured, but the admiralty excused themselves, by saying that the parliament was so late in

643 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
fixing the funds for the fleet, that it was not possible to be ready sooner than they were.
The king of Spain recovered for that time, but it was so far from any entire recovery, that a
relapse was still apprehended. When the king went to Holland, he left some sealed orders
behind him, of which some of his ministers told me they knew not the contents till they
were opened : by these, the king ordered sixteen thousand men to be kept up : for excusing
this, it was said, that though the parliament had in their votes mentioned only ten thousand
land men, to whom they had afterwards added three thousand marines, and had raised only
the money necessary for that number, yet no determined number was mentioned in the act
itself : so, since the apprehension of the king of Spain's death made it advisable to have a
greater force ready for such an accident, the king resolved to keep up a force somewhat
beyond that which the house of commons had consented to : the leaving these orders sealed,
made the whole blame to be cast singly on the king, as it screened the ministers from a
share in this counsel. And we have more than once known ministers put the advices that
they themselves gave in such a manner on their masters, that in executing them our kings
have taken more care to shelter their ministers than to preserve themselves.
The king, before his leaving England, settled a household about the duke of Gloucester :
the earl of Marlborough, who was restored to favour, was made his governor, and I was
named by the king to be his preceptor. I used all possible endeavours to excuse myself: I
had hitherto no share in the princess's favour or confidence : I was also become uneasy at
some things in the king's conduct : I considered him as a glorious instrument, raised up by
God, who had done great things by him : I had also such obligations to him, that I had
resolved, on public as well as on private accounts, never to engage in any opposition to him,
and yet I could not help thinking he might have carried matters further than he did ; and
that he was giving his enemies handles to weaken his government. I had tried, but with
little success, to use all due freedom with him ; he did not love to be found fault with ; and
though he bore every thing that I said very gently, yet he either discouraged me with
silence, or answered in such general expressions, that they signified little or nothing. These
considerations disposed me rather to retire from the court and town, than to engage deeper
in such a constant attendance, for so many years as this employment might run out to.
The king made it indeed easy in one respect ; for, as the young prince was to be all the
summer at Windsor, which was in my diocese, so he allowed me ten weeks in the year for
the other parts of my diocese. All my endeavours to decline this were without effect ; the
king would trust that care only to me, and the princess gave me such encouragement, that I
resolved not only to submit to this, which seemed to come from a direction of Provi
dence, but to give myself wholly up to it. I took to my own province the reading and
explaining the Scriptures to him, the instructing him in the principles of religion, and the
rules of virtue, and the giving him a view of history, geography, politics, and government.
I resolved also to look very exactly to all the masters that were appointed to teach him other
things*. But now I turn to give an account of some things that more immediately belong
to my own profession.
This year, Thomas Firmin, a famous citizen of London, died : he was in great esteem for
promoting many charitable designs, for looking after the poor of the city, and setting them
to work, for raising great sums for schools and hospitals, and indeed for charities' of all
sorts, private and public : he had such credit with the richest citizens, that he had the com-
• William, duke of Gloucester, was the only offspring rally admired and beloved. It will be seen in a future
of queen Anne that almost outlived childhood. When page that he died in 1700, having just completed his
the king placed him under the tuition of the earl of eleventh year. His mother never ceased to remember or
Marlborough to learn the art of war, he complimented the to lament him, ever after signing herself, when writing
earl by saying, Teach him to be what you are, and my to lady, afterwards the duchess of, Marlborough " your
nephew cannot want accomplishments." His life was poor, unfortunate, faithful, Morley," the name she had
sacrificed, like Edward the Sixth s, to his too devoted adopted in her private correspondence with her confidante ;
attention to his studies. He understood the terms of who in this intercourse adopted the signature of " Free-
fortification and navigation ; would marshal a company of man."— (Noble's Continuation of Grainger ) We may
boys, who had voluntarily enlisted to attend him ; studied estimate the national sorrow upon this event bv remeni-
h.story, politics, geography, and religion, assiduously; bering how much the loss of the princess Charlotte was
delighted in martial sports and hunting, as relaxations ; lamented by every Englishman.
and was so pious and sweetly tempered, thai he was gene-

OF KING WILLIAM III. 640
mand of great wealth as oft as there was occasion for it : and he laid out his own time chiefly
in advancing all such designs. These things gained him a great reputation. He was called
a socinian, but was really an arian, which he very freely owned before the revolution ; but
he gave no public vent to it, as he did afterwards. He studied to promote his opinions, after
the revolution, with much heat : many books were printed against the Trinity, which he
dispersed over the nation, distributing them freely to all who would accept of them : profane
wits were much delighted with this : it became a common topic of discourse to treat all
mysteries in religion as the contrivances of priests, to bring the world into a blind submis
sion to them : priestcraft grew to be another word in fashion, and the enemies of religion
vented all their impieties under the cover of these words ; but while these pretended much
zeal for the government, those who were at work to undermine it made great use of all this :
they raised a great outcry against socinianism, and gave it out that it was likely to overrun
all ; for archbishop Tillotson and some of the bishops had lived in great friendship with Mr.
Firmin, whose charitable temper they thought it became them to encourage. Many under
took to write in this controversy ; some of these were not fitted for handling such a nice
subject. A learned deist made a severe remark on the progress of this dispute : he said, he
was sure the divines would be too hard for the socinians, in proving their doctrines out of
Scripture ; but if the doctrine could be once laughed at and rejected as absurd, then its
being proved, how well soever out of Scripture, would turn to be an argument against the
Scriptures themselves, as containing such incredible doctrines.
The divines did not go all in the same method, nor upon the some principles. Dr. Sher
lock engaged in the controversy : he was a clear, a polite, and a strong writer, and had got
great credit in the former reign by his writings against those of the church of Rome ; but
he was apt to assume too much to himself, and to treat his adversaries with contempt ;
this created him many enemies, and made him pass for an insolent, haughty man : he was
at first a jacobite, and while, for not taking the oaths, he was under suspension, he wrote
against the socinians, in which he took a new method of explaining the Trinity : he thought
there were three eternal minds ; two of these issuing from the Father, but that these were
one, by reason of a mutual consciousness in the three to every of their thoughts : this was
looked on as plain tritheism ; but all the party applauded him and his book. Soon after
that, an accident of an odd nature happened.
There was a book drawn up by bishop Overall, fourscore years ago, concerning govern
ment, in which its being of a divine institution was very positively asserted ; it was read in
convocation, and passed by that body, in order to the publishing it in opposition to the
principles laid down in that famous book of Parsons, the Jesuit, published under the name
of Dollman. King James the First did not like a convocation entering into such a theory
of politics ; so he wrote a long letter to Abbot, who was afterwards archbishop of Canter
bury, but was then in the lower house. I had the original, written all in his own hand, in
my possession ; by it he desired that no further progress should be made in that matter,
and that this book might not be offered to him for his assent. Thus that matter slept, but
Sancroft had got Overall's own book into his hands ; so in the beginning of this reign, he
resolved to publish it as an authentic declaration that the church of England had made in
this matter ; and it was published as well as licensed by him a very few days before he came
under suspension for not taking the oaths ; but there was a paragraph or two in it that they
had not considered, which was plainly calculated to justify the owning the United Provinces
to be a lawful government ; for it was there laid down that when a change of government
was brought to a thorough settlement, it was then to be owned and submitted to as a work
of the providence of God, and a part of king James's letter to Abbot related to this. When
Sherlock observed this, he had some conferences with the party in order to convince them
by that, which he said had convinced himself. Soon after that he took the oaths, and was
made dean of St. Paul's. He published an account of the grounds he went on, which drew
out many virulent books against him. After that they pursued him with the clamour of
tritheism, which was done with much malice by the very same persons who had highly mag
nified the performance while he was of their party ; so powerful is the bias of interest and
passion in the most speculative and the most important doctrines.

650 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Dr. South, a learned, but an ill-natured divine, who had taken the oaths, but with tlie"
reserve of an equivocal sense wliich he put on them, attacked Dr. Sherlock's book of the Trinity,
not without wit and learning, but without any measure of Christian charity, and without
any regard either to the dignity of the subject or the decencies of his profession. He
explained the Trinity in the common method, that the Deity was one essence in three subsis
tences *. Sherlock replied, and charged this as Sabellianism ; and some others went into
the dispute with some learning, but with more heat ; one preached Sherlock's notion before
the university of Oxford, for which he was censured ; but Sherlock wrote against that cen
sure with the highest strains of contempt. The socinians triumphed not a little upon thiSj
and in several of their books they divided their adversaries into real and nominal trinitarians.
Sherlock was put in the first class ; as for the second class, they pretended it had been the
doctrine of the western church ever since the time that the &urth council in the Lateran
sat. Some, who took advantage from these debates to publish their impieties without fear
or shame, rejoiced to see the divines engaged in such subtle questions ; and they reckoned
that which side soever might have the better in the turn of this controversy, yet in conclu
sion they alone must be the gainers by every dispute that brought such important matters
to a doubtfulness, which might end in infidelity at last.
The ill effects that were like to follow on those different explanations, made the bishops
move the king to set out injunctions, requiring them to see to the repressing of error and
heresy with all possible zeal, more particularly in the fundamental articles of the Christian
faith ; and to watch against and hinder the use of new terms, or new explanations, in those
matters. This put a stop to those debates, as Mr. Firmiris death put a stop to the printing
and spreading of socinian books. Upon all this, some angry clergymen, who had not that
share of preferment that they thought they deserved, begun to complain that no convocation
•was suffered to sit to whom the judging in such points seemed most properly to belong.
Books were written on this head ; it was said, that the law made in king Henry the Eighth's
time, that limited the power of that body, so that no new" canons could be attempted, or put
in use without the king's licence and consent, did not disable them from sitting; on
the contrary, a convocation was held to be a part of the parliament, so that it ought always
to attend upon it, and to be ready, when advised with, to give their opinions chiefly in mat
ters of religion. They had also, as these men pretended, a right to prepare articles and
canons, and to lay them before the king, who might indeed deny his assent to them, as he
did to bills that were offered him by both houses of parliament. This led them to strike at
the king's supremacy, and to assert the intrinsic power of the church, which had been
disowned by this church ever since the time of the reformation ; and indeed the king's
supremacy was thought to be carried formerly too high, and that by the same sort of men
who were now studying to lay it as low. It seemed that some men were for maintaining it
as long as it was in their management, and that it made for them ; but resolved to weaken
it all they could, as soon as it went out of their hands, and was no more at their discretion :
such a turn do men's interests and partialities give to their opinions.
All this while it was manifest that there were two different parties among the clergy ; one
was firm and faithful to the present government, and served it with zeal : these did not envy
the dissenters the ease that the toleration gave them ; they wished for a favourable oppor
tunity of making such alterations in some few rites and ceremonies as might brino- into the
church those who were not at too great a distance from it : and I do freely own that I was
* This amiable charitable man, and brilliant wit, de- induce him to exchange them even for the crosier and
serves more than the above solitary notice. Dr. Robert archiepiscopal mitre. He bore a long and excruciating
South was horn in 1633, became a scholar of Westminster malady with cheerfulness, and died in 1716. One speci-
and Christchurch, Oxford, seemed to make it a rule men of his reproving wit must be repeated.— Preaching
to joiu the triumphant party, and consequently adhered before Charles the Second, and his equally indecorous
successively to Cromwell, Charles, James, and William, courtiers, he perceived that the tenants of the royal pew
This pliancy did not arise from avarice ; his highest pre- were sleeping. He stopped, and calling thrice to Lord
ferment was a canonry, Christchurch, and a prebend stall Lauderdale, who awoke, and stood up, said to him " My
-at Westminster ; and the revenues of these, as well as part Lord, I am sorry to interrupt your repose, but I must beg
of his paternal patrimony, he dispersed annually in chari- that you will not snore quite so loud, lest yo'u should awaken
ties. He valued an old hat and walking stick so highly, his majesty." (Biog. Britannica. Wood's Athense Oxon.
having used them many years, that ho persuasions could Noble's Contiri. of Grainger.)

OF KING WILLIAM III. 651
of this number. Others took the oaths indeed, and concurred in every act of compliance
with the government, but they were not only cold in serving it, but were always blaming
the administration, and aggravating misfortunes : they expressed a great esteem for jacobites,
and in all elections gave their votes for those who leaned that way ; at the same time they
shewed great resentments against the dissenters, and were enemies to the toleration, and
seemed resolved never to consent to any alteration in their favour. The bulk of the clergy
ran this way, so that the moderate party was far out-numbered. Profane minds had too
great advantages from this, in reflecting severely on a body of men that took oaths, and per
formed public devotions, when the rest of their lives was too public and too visible a contra
diction to such oaths and prayers.
But while we are thus unhappily disjointed in matters of religion, our neighbours are not
so entirely united as they pretend to be. The quietists are said to increase not only in Italy,
but in France : the persecution there began at first upon a few jansenists, but it turned soon
to the protestants, on whom it has been long very heavy and bloody : this had put an end to
all disputes in those matters ; a new controversy has since been managed with great heat,
between Bossuet, the famous bishop, first of Condom and now of Meaux, and La Motte
Fenelon, who was once in high favour with Madame Maintenon, and was, by her means,
made preceptor to the dauphin's children, and afterwards advanced to be archbishop of Cam
bray. He wrote a treatise of spiritual maxims, according to the subtilty, as well as the
sublimity, of the writers called the mystics : in it he distinguished between that which was
falsely charged upon them, and that which was truly their doctrine ; he put the perfection of
a spiritual life in the loving of God purely for himself, without any regard to ourselves, even
to our own salvation ; and in our being brought to such a state of indifference, as to have no
will, nor desire of our own, but to be so perfectly united to the will of God as to rejoice in
the hope of Heaven, only because it is the will of God to bring us thither, without any
regard to our own happiness. Bossuet wrote so sharply against him, that one is tempted to
think a rivalry for favour and preferment had as great a share in it as zeal for the truth.
The matter was sent to Rome ; Fenelon had so many authorized and canonized writers of his
side, that many distinctions must be made use of to separate them from him ; but the king
was much set against him ; he put him from his attendance on the young princess, and sent
him to his diocese : his disgrace served to raise his character. Madame Maintenon's violent
aversion to a man she so lately raised, was imputed to his not being so tractable as she
expected, in persuading the king to own his marriage with her ; but that I leave to conjec
ture. There is a breach running through the Lutheran churches ; it appeared at first openly
at Hamburgh, where many were going into stricter methods of piety, who from thence were
called pietists : there is no difference of opinion between them and the rest, who are most
rigid to old forms, and are jealous of all new things, especially of a stricter course of devotion,
beyond what they themselves are inclined to practise. There is likewise a spirit of zeal and
devotion, and of public charities, sprung at home, beyond what was known among us in
former times ; of which I may have a good occasion to make mention hereafter.
But to return from this digression ; the company in Scotland, this year, set out a fleet,
with a colony, on design to settle in America ; the secret was better kept than could have
been well expected, considering the many hands in which it was lodged ; it appeared at last,
that the true design had been guessed, from the first motion of it : they landed at Darien,
which, by the report that they sent over, was capable of being made a strong place, with a
good port. It was no wonder that the Spaniards complained loudly of this ; it lay so near
Porto-Bello and Panama on the one side, and Carthagena on the other, that they could not
think they were safe when such a neighbour came so near the centre of their empire in Ame
rica : the king of France complained also of this, as an invasion of the Spanish dominions,
and offered the court of Madrid a fleet to dislodge them. The Spaniards pressed the king hard
upon this : they said they were once possessed of that place, and though they found it too
unhealthy to settle there, yet the right to it belonged still to them ; so this was a breach of
treaties, and a violent possession of their country. In answer to this, the Scotch pretended,
that the natives of Darien were never conquered by the Spaniards, and were by consequence
a free people ; they said, they had purchased of them leave to possess themselves of that

652 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
place, and that the Spaniards abandoned the country, because they could not reduce the
natives ; so the pretension of the first discovery was made void when they went off from it,
not being able to hold it ; and then the natives being left to themselves, it was lawful for the
Scots to treat with them : it was given out that there was much gold in the country. Cer
tainly the nation was so full of hopes from this project, that they raised a fund for carrying
it on, greater than, as was thought, that kingdom could stretch to : four hundred thousand
pounds sterling was subscribed, and a fourth part was paid down, and afterwards seventy
thousand pounds more was brought in, and a national fury seemed to have transported the
whole kingdom upon this project.
The jacobites went into the management with a particular heat : they saw the king would
be much pressed from Spain ; the English nation apprehending that this would be set up as
a breach of treaties, and that upon a rupture their effects in Spain might be seized, grew also
very uneasy at it ; upon which it was thought that the king would in time be forced to dis
own this invasion, and to declare against it, and in that case they hoped to have inflamed the
kingdom with this, that the king denied them his protection, while they were only acting
according to law ; and this, they would have said, was contrary to the coronation oath, and
so they would have thought they were freed from their allegiance to him. The jacobites,
havino- this prospect, did all that was possible to raise the hopes of the nation to the highest
decree : our Eno-lish plantations grew also very jealous of this new colony ; they feared,
that the double prospect of finding gold, and of robbing the Spaniards, would draw many
planters from them into this new settlement ; and that the buccaneers might run into them ;
for by the Scotch act, this place was to be made a free port ; and if it was not ruined before
it was well formed, they reckoned it would become a seat of piracy, and another Algiers, in
those parts. Upon these grounds the English nation inclined to declare against this, and the
kino- seemed convinced that it was an infraction of his treaties with Spain : so orders were
sent, but very secretly, to the English plantations, particularly to Jamaica and the Leeward
Islands, to forbid all commerce with the Scots at Darien. The Spaniards made some faint
attempts on them, but without success : this was a very great difficulty on the king ; he saw
how much he was likely to be pressed on both hands, and he apprehended what ill conse
quences were likely to follow, on his declaring himseK either way.
The parliament of England had now sat its period of three years, in which great things
had been done : the whole money of England was recoined ; the king was secured in his
government, an honourable peace was made *, public credit "was restored, and the payment
of public debts was put on sure and good funds. The chief conduct lay now in a few hands;
the lord Somers was made a baron of England ; and as he was one of the ablest, and the
most incorrupt judges that ever sat in Chancery, so his great capacity for all affairs made the
king consider him beyond all his ministers, and he well deserved the confidence that the king
expressed for him on all occasions. In the house of commons, Mr. Montague had gained
such a visible ascendant over all that were zealous for the king's service, that he gave the law
to the rest, which he did always with great spirit, but sometimes with too assuming an air.
The fleet was in the earl of Orford's management, who was both treasurer of the navy, and
was at the head of the admiralty ; he had brought in many into the service, who were very
zealous for the government, but a spirit of impiety and dissolution ran through too many of
them, so that those who intended to cast a load upon the government had too great advan
tages given by some of these. The administration at home was otherwise without exception,
and no grievances were complained of.
There was a new parliament called, and the elections fell generally on men who were in
the interests of the government ; many of them had indeed some popular notions, which
they had drank in under a bad government, and thought they ought to keep them under a
good one : so that those who wished well to the public did apprehend great difficulties in
managing them. The king himself did not seem to lay this to heart so much as was fitting ;
he stayed long beyond sea ; he had made a visit to the duke of Zell, where he was treated
in a most magnificent manner. Cross winds hindered his coming to England so soon as
he had intended; upon which the parliament was prorogued for some weeks after the
* The far greater part of Englishmen held an opposite opinion.

OF KING WILLIAM III.

053

members were come up ; even this soured their spirits, and had too great a share in the ill
humour that appeared among them.
The king's keeping up an army beyond the votes of the former parliament, was much
resented, nor was the occasion for doing it enough considered ; all this was increased by his
own management after he came over. The ministers represented to him, that they could
carry the keeping up a land force of ten or twelve thousand, but that they could not carry
it further : he said so small a number was as good as none at all, therefore he would not
authorize them to propose it ; on the other hand, they thought they should lose their credit
with their best friends, if they ventured to speak of a greater number. So, when the house
of commons took up the debate, the ministry were silent, and proposed no number ; upon
which those who were in the contrary interest, named seven thousand men, and to this they
added, that they should be all the king's natural-born subjects. Both the parts of this vote
gave the king great uneasiness ; he seemed not only to lay it much to heart, but to sink
under it : he tried all that was possible to struggle against it, when it was too late ; it not
being so easy to recover things in an after-game, as it was to have prevented this misunder
standing, that was likely to arise between him and his parliament. It was surmised that he
was resolved not to pass the bill, but that he would abandon the government, rather than
hold it with a force that was too small to preserve and protect it ; yet this was considered
only as a threatening, so that little regard was had to it ; the act passed with some oppo
sition in the house of commons ; a feeble attempt was made in the house of lords against it,
but it was rather a reproach than a service to the government, it being faintly made and ill
supported. The royal assent was given, and when it was hoped that the passing the act had
softened people's minds, a new attempt was made for keeping the Dutch guards in England,
but that was rejected, though the king sent a message desiring it*.

* It is easy to conceive how distressing this measure
must have been to the king. His guards, as he observed
with deep feeling, ** had constantly attended him in all
actions wherein he had been engaged.'" — (Chandler's De
bates, House of Commons, iii. 93.) They were his com
panions— his children — for all history concurs iu inform
ing ns that a general acquires a kind of parental regard for
those soldiers that have long been under his care and
command. The feeling is mutual : our soldiers during
the last war in Spain used to call lord Hill tk our father."
When William first heard that the vote had passed which
was to separate him from his Dutch guards, he paced his
apartment for some time with downcast eyes, and sud
denly pausing, said with more than usual passion, " If I
had a son, these guards should not quit me." He made
several efforts to avoid this painful separation. On the
18th of March, 1698, the journals of the house of com
mons inform us that the " earl of Ranelagh acquainted it,
that he had, in command from his majesty, a message to
deliver to this house, signed by his majesty, and all of his
own hand-writing ; which the said carl delivered in to
Mr. Speaker, who read the same to the house, and is as
folio we th : viz. —
" William Rex.
" His majesty is pleased to let the house know, that
the necessary preparations are made for transporting the
guards, who came with him into England ; and that he in
tends to send them away immediately, unless, out of con
sideration to him, the house be disposed to find a way for
continuing them longer in his service, which his majesty
would take very kindly.
" Upon which a question being proposed, that a dny be
appointed to consider of his majesty's said message, the
question was put, that that question be now put, and it
passed in the negative. "20/A of March, 1698.
** The lord NoFris reported from the committee appointed
on Saturday last, to draw up an humble address, to be

presented to his majesty; that they had drawn up an
address accordingly, which he read in his place, and after
wards delivered in at the clerk's table, where tho same
was read, and is as folio we th :—
" Most Gracious Sovereign,
" We, your majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects,
the commons in this present parliament assembled, do,
with unfeigned zeal to your majesty's person and govern
ment (which God long preserve), most humbly represent,
" That the passing the late act for disbanding the army
gave great satisfaction to your subjects ; and the punctual
execution thereof will prevent all occasions of distrust or
jealousy between your majesty and your people.
" It is, Sir, to your loyal commons, an unspeakable
grief, that anything should be asked by your majesty's
message, to which they cannot consent, without doing
violence to that constitution your majesty came over
to restore and preserve, and did at that time, in your
gracious declaration promise, that all those foreign forces
which came over with you, should be sent back. In duty
therefore to your majesty, and to discharge the trust
reposed in us, we crave leave to lay before you, that
nothing conduceth more to the happiness and welfare of
this kingdom, than an entire confidence between your
majesty and your people; which can no way be so 'firmly
established as by entrusting your sacred person with your
own subjects, who have so eminently signalized themselves
on all occasions during the late long and expensive war."
However we may sympathize with William upon this
trying occasion, at the same time we must feel that our
legislators were right in their determination — even his
ministers were silent, or opposed the motion without
energy. They rightly felt that the guards of England
should be Englishmen ; not only for the sake of the
national honour, hut because otherwise it would be a pre
cedent for the permanent employment of foreign troops,
the most effectual mode of enslaving and enervating a
nation. Rome declined from the moment she employed
mercenary legions.

054 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
In the carrying these points, many hard things were said against the court, and against
the king himself ; it was suggested that he loved not the nation ; that he was on the reserve
with all Englishmen, and shewed no confidence in them ; but that as soon as the session of
parliament was over, he went immediately to Holland ; and they said, this was not to look
after the affairs of the States, which had been more excusable ; but that he went thither to
enjoy a lazy privacy at Loo ; where, with a few favourites, he hunted and passed away the
summer, in a way that did not raise his character much. It is certain the usage he had met
with of late put his spirits too much on the fret ; and he neither took care to disguise that,
nor to overcome the ill humour, which the manner of his deportment, rather than any just
occasion given by him, had raised in many against him. Some, in the house of commons,
began to carry things much further, and to say, that they were not bound to maintain the
votes, and to keep up the credit oft he former parliament ; and they tried to shake the act made
in favour of the new East-India company : this was so contrary to the fundamental maxims
of our constitution, that it gave cause of jealousy, since this could be intended for nothing,
but to ruin the government : money raised by parliament upon bargains and conditions that
were performed by those who advanced it, gave them such a purchase of those acts, and this
was so sacred, that to overturn it must destroy all credit for the future, and no government
could be maintained that did not preserve this religiously.
Among other complaints, one made against the court was, that the king had given grants
of the confiscated estates in Ireland ; it was told before, that a bill being sent up by the
commons, attainting the Irish that had been in arms, and applying their estates to the pay
ing the public debts, leaving only a power to the king to dispose of the third part of them,
was likely to lie long before the lords, many petitions being offered against it ; upon which
the king, to bring the session to a speedy conclusion, had promised, that this matter should
be kept entire till their next meeting : but the next session going over without any pro
ceeding in it, the king granted away all those confiscations ; it being an undoubted branch
of the royal prerogative, that all confiscations accrued to the crown, and might be granted
away at the pleasure of the king ; it was pretended that those estates came to a million and
a half in value. Great objections were made to the merits of some, who had the largest
share in those grants ; attempts had been made, in the parliament of Ireland, to obtain a con
firmation of them, but that which Ginkle, who was created earl of Athlone, had, was only
confirmed : now it was become a popular subject of declamation, to arraign both the grants,
and those who had them ; motions had been often made for a general resumption of all the
grants made in this reign ; but in answer to this, it was said, that since no such motion was
made for a resumption of the grants made in king Charles the Second's reign, notwithstand
ing the extravagant profusion of them, and the ill grounds upon which they were made, it
shewed both a disrespect and a black ingratitude, if, while no other grants were resumed,
this king only should be called in question. The court party said often, let the retrospect go
back to the year 1660, and they would consent to it, and that which might be got by it
would be worth the while. It was answered, this could not be done after so long a time,
that so many sales, mortgages, and settlements had been made, pursuant to those grants ; so
all these attempts came to nothing. But now they fell on a more effectual method. A com
mission was given, by act of parliament, to seven persons named by the house of commons, to
enquire into the value of the confiscated estates in Ireland so granted away, and into the con
siderations upon which those grants were made. This passed in this session, and in the
debates, a great alionation discovered itself in many from the king and his government, which
had a very ill effect upon all affairs, both at home and abroad. When the time prefixed for
the disbanding the army came, it was reduced to seven thousand men ; of these, four thousand
were horse and dragoons, the foot were three thousand ; the bodies were also reduced to so
small a number of soldiers, that it was said we had now an army of officers : the new method
was much approved of by proper judges, as the best into which so small a number could
have been brought. There was at the same time a very large provision made for the sea,
greater than was thought necessary in a time of peace. Fifteen thousand seamen, with a
fleet proportioned to that number, was thought a necessary security, since we were made so
weak by land.

OF KING WILLIAM III. G55
I mentioned in the relation of the former year, the czar's coming out of his own country,
on which I will now enlarge : he came this winter over to England, and stayed some months
amono- us ; I waited often on him, and was ordered, both by the king, and the archbishop
and bishops, to attend upon him, and to offer him such informations of our religion and con
stitution, as he was willing to receive : I had good interpreters, so I had much free discourse
with him. He is a man of a very hot temper, soon inflamed, and very brutal in his passion ;
he raises his natural heat by drinking much brandy, which he rectifies himseK with great
application : he is subject to convulsive motions all over his body, and his head seems to be
affected with these ; he wants not capacity, and has a larger measure of knowledge than
might be expected from his education, which was very indifferent : a want of judgment,
with an instability of temper, appear in him too often, and too evidently ; he is mechanically
turned, and seems designed by nature rather to be a ship carpenter than a great prince ; this
was his chief study and exercise while he stayed here ; he wrought much with his own
hands, and made all about him work at the models of ships : he told me he designed a great
fleet at Azoff, and with it to attack the Turkish empire ; but he did not seem capable of
conductino- so great a design, though his conduct in his wars since this, has discovered a
greater genius in him than appeared at that time. He was desirous to understand our doc
trine, but he did not seem disposed to mend matters in Muscovy : he was indeed resolved to
encourao-e learning, and to polish his people, by sending some of them to travel in other
countries, and to draw strangers to come and live among them. He seemed apprehensive
still of his sister's intrigues. There was a mixture both of passion and severity in his temper.
He is resolute, but understands little of war, and seemed not at all inquisitive that way.
After I had seen him often, and had conversed much with him, I could not but adore the
depth of the Providence of God that had raised up such a furious man to so absolute an
authoritv over so great a part of the world.
David, considering the great things God had made for the use of man, broke out into the
meditation, " What is man, that thou art so mindful of him ? " But here there is an occa
sion for reversing these words, since man seems a very contemptible thing in the sight of God,
while such a person as the czar has such multitudes put as it were under his feet, exposed
to his restless jealousy and savage temper. He went from hence to the court of Vienna,
where he purposed to have stayed some time, but he was called home sooner than he had
intended, upon a discovery or a suspicion of intrigues managed by his sister : the strangers
to whom he trusted most were so true to him, that those designs were crushed before he
came back ; but on this occasion he let loose his fury on all whom he suspected ; some
hundreds of them were hanged all round Moscow, and it was said, that he cut off many heads
with his own hand, and so far was he from relenting, or shewing any sort of tenderness, that
he seemed delio-hted with it. How long he is to be the scourge of that nation, or of his
neighbours, God only knows ; so extraordinary an incident will, I hope, justify such a
digression. The king of Poland was not much better thought of by the Poles, though somewhat deeper
m his desions ; he had given that republic great cause of suspecting that he intended to turn
that free and elective state into an hereditary and absolute dominion. Under the pretence
of a civil war, like to arise at home, on the prince of Conti's account, and of the war with
the Turks, he had brought in an army of Saxons, of whom the Poles were now become so
jealous, that if he does not send them home again, probably that kingdom will fall into new
wars. The young king of Sweden seemed to inherit the roughness of his father's temper with the
piety and the virtues of his mother ; his coronation was performed in a particular manner ,
he took up the crown himself, and set it on his head ; the design of this innovation in the
ceremonial seems to be, that lie will not have his subjects think that he holds his crown in
any respect by their grant or consent, but that it was his own by descent ; therefore no other
person was to set it on his head ; whereas, even absolute princes are willing to leave this
poor remnant and shadow of a popular election among the ceremonies of their coronation ;
since they are crowned upon the desires and shoutings of their people. Thus the two
northern crowns, Denmark and Sweden, that were long under great restraints by their con-

C5C THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
stitution, have in our own time, emancipated themselves so entirely, that in their govern
ment they have little regard, either to the rules of law or the decencies of custom. A little
time will shew, whether Poland can be brought to submit to the same absoluteness of govern
ment ; they who set their crown to sale, in so bare-faced a manner, may be supposed ready
likewise to sell their liberties, if they can find u, merchant that will come up to their price.
The frequent relapses, and the feeble state of the king- of Spain's health, gave the world
great alarms. The court of Yienna trusted to their interest in the court of Spain, and in
that king himself; the French court was resolved not to let go their pretensions to that suc
cession without great advantages ; the king and the States were not now strong enough to
be the umpires in that matter ; this made them more easily hearken to propositions that
were set on foot by the court of France ; the electoral prince of Bavaria was proposed, he
being the only issue of the king of Spain's second sister, who was married to the emperor.
Into this, the king, the States, and the elector of Bavaria entered . the court of Spain
agreed to this ; and that king, by his will, confirmed his father's will, by which the succes
sion of the crown was settled on the issue of the second daughter, and it was resolved to
engage all the grandees and cities of Spain to maintain the succession, according to this set
tlement. The house of Austria complained of this, and pretended that, by a long tract of
reciprocal settlements, several mutual entails had passed between those two branches of the
house of Austria ; the court of France seemed also to complain of it, but they were secretly
in it, upon engagements, that the dominions in Italy should fall to their share ; but while
these engagements, in favour of the prince electoral, were raising great apprehensions every
where, that young prince, who seemed marked out for great things, and who had all the
promising beginnings that could be expected in a child of seven years old, fell sick, and was
carried off the third or fourth day of his illness ; so uncertain are all the prospects, and all
the hopes, that this world can give. Now the dauphin and the emperor were to dispute, or
to divide this succession between them ; so a new treaty was set on foot : it was generally
given out, and too easily believed, that the king of France was grown weary of war, and
was resolved to pass the rest of his days in peace and quiet ; but that he could not consent
to the exaltation of the house of Austria ; yet if that house were set aside, he would yield
up the dauphin's pretensions ; and so the duke of Savoy was much talked of, but it was
with the prospect of having his hereditary dominions yielded up to the crown of France ;
but this great matter came to another digestion a few months after.
About this time, the king set up a new favourite ; Keppel, a gentleman of Guelder, was
raised from being a page into the highest degree of favour that any person had ever attained
about the king ; he was now made earl of Albemarle, and soon after knight of the garter ;
and by a quick, and unaccountable progress, he seemed to have engrossed the royal favour
so entirely, that he disposed of every thing that was in the king's power. He was a cheer
ful young man, that had the heart to please, but was so much given up to his own pleasures,
that he coidd scarcely submit to the attendance and drudgery that was necessary to main
tain his post. He never had yet distinguished himself in any thing, though the king did it
in every thing. He was not cold, nor dry, as the earl of Portland was thought to be ; who
seemed to have the art of creating many enemies to himself, and not one friend : but the earl
of Albemarle had all the arts of a court, was civil to all, and procured many favours *.
The earl of Portland observed the progress of this favour with great uneasiness ; they grew
to be not only incompatible, as all rivals for favour must needs be, but to hate and oppose
'.Arnold Joost Yan Keppel cane over with William oorne by princes of the Plantagenet line, and by the
as a page, and had never been employed in offices more restorer of the Stuarts, as a dukedom, so that one more
important than copying letters, until the royal mistress, honourable could not have been selected. To this tbo
Mrs. Villiers, and the earl of Sunderland, employed and garter was appended, and the offices of master of the robes,
sustained him to supplant the other favourite, the earl of and a lordship of the bedchamber. He was equally trusted
Portland. The design proved successful, and however and variously employed by Anne and George the First.
we may lament that ministers of state are ever created He died, aged 43,inI718.. He was handsome, gav, lively,
through motives and intrigues so unworthy, yet in this courteous, liberal ; these were popular endowments, and
instance it is consolatory to know that the instrument made him idolized even by the English. He was faith-
was virtuous and talented. He was, in 1696, created ful, brave, and honourable, which makes him deserving the
baron Ashford, -viscount Bury, in England, and carl of commendation of mankind  Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
Albemarle, hx Normandy. This latter title had been

OF KING WILLIAM III. 057
one another in every thing, by wliich the king's affairs suffered much ; the one had more of the
confidence, and the other much more of the favour ; the king had heaped many grants on
the earl of Portland, and had sent him ambassador to France, upon the peace, where he
appeared with great magnificence, and at a vast expense, and had many very unusual
respects put upon him by that king, and all that court ; but upon his return, he could not
bear the visible superiority in favour, that the other was grown up to ; so he took occasion,
from a small preference that was given him, in prejudice of his own post, as groom of the
stole, and upon it withdrew from the court, and laid down all his employments. The king
used all possible means to divert him from this resolution, but without prevailing on him ;
he consented to serve the king still in his affairs, but he would not return to any post in the
household ; and not long after that he was employed in the new negotiation, set on foot for
the succession to the crown of Spain.
This year died the marquis of Winchester, whom the king had created duke of Bolton ;
he was a man of a strange mixture ; he had the spleen to a high degree, and affected an
extravagant behaviour : for many weeks he would take a conceit not to speak one word ;
and at other times he would not open his mouth till such an hour of the day, when he thought
the air was pure ; he changed the day into night, and often hunted by torchlight, and took
all sorts of liberties to himself, many of which were very disagreeable to those about him.
In the end of king Charles's time, and during king James's reign, he affected an appearance
of folly, which afterwards he compared to Junius Brutus's behaviour under the Tarquins.
With all this he was a very knowing, and a very crafty politic man ; and was an artful
flatterer, when that was necessary to compass his end, in which generally he was successful :
he was a man of a profuse expense, and of a most ravenous avarice to support that ; and
though he was much hated, yet he carried matters before him with such authority and suc
cess, that he was in all respects the great riddle of the age.
This summer, sir Josiah Child died ; he was a man of great notions as to merchandize,
which was his education, and in which he succeeded beyond any man of his time ; he applied
himself chiefly to the East-India trade, which by his management was raised so high, that
it drew much envy and jealousy both upon himself and upon the company ; he had a com
pass of knowledge and apprehension beyond any merchant I ever knew ; he was vain and
covetous, and thought too cunning, though to me he seemed always sincere *.
The complaints that the court of France sent to Eome, against the archbishop of Canibray's
book, procured a censure from thence ; but he gave such a ready and entire submission to it,
that how much soever that may have lessened him, in some men's opinions, yet it quite
defeated the designs of his enemies against him : upon this occasion, it appeared how much
both the clergy of France, and the courts of parliament there, were sunk from that firmness
which they had so long maintained against the encroachment of the court of Rome ; not so
much as one person of those bodies has set himself to assert those liberties, upon which they
had so long valued themselves ; the whole clergy submitted to the bull, the king himself
received it, and the parliament registered it ; we do not yet know by what methods and
practices this was obtained at the court of Rome, nor what are the distinctions, by wliich
they save the doctrine of so many of their saints, while they condemn this archbishop's
book ; for it is not easy to perceive a difference between them. From the conclusion of this
process at Rome, I turn to another, against a bishop of our own church, that was brought
to a sentence and conslusion this summer.
Dr. Watson f was promoted by king James to the bishopric of St. David's; it was
believed that he gave money for his advancement, and that in order to the reimbursing him
self, he sold most of the spiritual preferments in his gift. By the law and custom of this
church the archbishop is the only judge of a bishop, but upon such occasions he calls for the
* Sir Josiah Child was the second son of sir Richard tion, is in tlie church of Wanstead, Essex. — Morant'a
Child, a London merchant. His deep acquaintance with Hist, of Essex ; Grainger's Biog. History.
the principles of commerce is shewn by his work, entitled -f This was Dr. Thomas Watson, of St. John's col-
" A new discourse upon trade," to which is appended a lege, Cambridge. He had been preferred at the recom-
small essay on usury. It has passed through several edi- mendation of lord Dover, in 1687. — Wood's Athcnai
tions. He was created a baronet in 1673. He was sixty- Oxon.
nine when he died. His monument, with along inscrip- u i;

658 THE HISTORY. OF THE REIGN
assistance of some of the bishops ; he called for six in this cause ; I was one of tnem. It
was proved that the bishop had collated a nephew of his to a great many of the best prefer
ments in his gift, and that for many years he had taken the whole profits of these to himself,
keeping his nephew very poor, and obliging him to perform no part of his duty : it was also
proved that the bishop obtained leave to keep a benefice, which he held before his promotion
by a commendam, (one of the abuses which the popes brought in among us, from which we
have not been able hitherto to free our church ;) that he had sold both the cure and the profits to
a clergyman, for a sum of money, and had obliged himself to resign it upon demand, that is, as
soon as the clergyman could, by another sum, purchase the next presentation of the patron :
these things were fully proved. To these was added a charge of many oppressive fees, which
being taken for benefices that were in his gift, were not only extortion but a presumptive
simony. All these he had taken himself, without making use of a register or actuary; for
as he would not trust these secrets to any other, so he swallowed up the fees both of his chan
cellor and register ; he had also ordained many persons without tendering them the oaths
enjoined by law, and yet in their letters of orders, he had certified under his hand and seal
that they had taken those oaths ; this was what the law calls crimen falsi, the certifying
that which he knew to be false : no exceptions lay to the witnesses by whom these things
were made out, nor did the bishop bring any proofs on his side to contradict their evidence.
Some affirmed that he was a sober and regular man, and that he spoke often of simony with
such detestation, that they could not think him capable of committing it. The bishop of
Rochester withdrew from the court on the day in which sentence was to be given ; he con
sented to a suspension, but he did not think that a bishop could be deprived by tlie
archbishop. When the court sat to give judgment, the bishop resumed his privilege of peer
age, and pleaded it ; but he having waived it in the house of lords, and having gone on still
submitting to the court, no regard was had to this, since a plea to the jurisdiction of the
court was to be offered in the first instance, but could not be kept up to the last and then be
made use of. The bishops that were present agreed to a sentence of deprivation : I went
further, and thought that he ought to be excommunicated. He was one of the worst men,
in all respects, that I ever knew in holy orders ; passionate, covetous, and false in the black
est instances ; without any one virtue or good quality to balance his many bad ones. But
as he was advanced by king James, so he stuck firm to that interest ; and the party, though
ashamed of him, yet were resolved to support him with great zeal. He appealed to a court
of delegates, and they, about the end of the year, confirmed the archbishop^ sentence.
Another prosecution followed for simony, against Jones, bishop of St. Asaph, in which,
though the presumptions were very great, yet the evidence was not so clear as in the
former case. The bishops in Wales give almost all the benefices in their diocese ; so this
primitive constitution that is still preserved among them, was scandalously abused by some
wicked men, who set holy things to sale, and thereby increased the prejudices that are but
too easily received both against religion and the church.
I published this year an Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. It seemed a
work much wanted, and it was justly to be wondered at, that none of our divines had at
tempted any such performance in a way suitable to the dignity of the subject ; for some slight
analyses of them are not worth either mentioning or reading. It was a work that required
study and labour, and laid a man open to many malicious attacks ; this made some of my
friends advise me against publishing it : in compliance with them I kept it five years by me
after I had finished it; but I was now prevailed on by the archbishop and many of my own order,
besides a great many others, to delay the publishing it no longer. It seemed a proper addition to
the History of the Reformation, to explain and prove the doctrine which was then estabhshed.
I was moved first by the late queen, and pressed by the late archbishop to write it. I can
appeal to the Searcher of all hearts that I wrote it with great sincerity and a good intention,
and with all the application and care I was capable of. I did then expect what I have since
met with, that malicious men would employ both their industry and ill nature to find matter
for censure and cavils ; but though there have been some books written on purpose ao-ainst
it, and many in sermons and other treatises have occasionally reflected with great severity
upon several passages in it, yet this has been done with so little justice or reason, that I am

OF KING WILLIAM III. C59
not yet convinced that there is one single period or expression that is justly remarked on, or
that can give me any occasion either to retract or so much as to explain any one part of that
whole work, which I was very ready to have done if I had seen cause for it. There was
another reason that seemed to determine me to the publishing it at this time *.
Upon the peace of Ryswick a. great swarm of priests came over to England, not only those
whom the revolution had frighted away, but many more new men, who appeared in many
places with great insolence ; and it was said that they boasted of the favour and protection
of which they were assured. Some enemies of the government began to give it out, that the
favouring that religion was a secret article of the peace ; and so absurd is malice and calumny,
that the jacobites began to say, that the king was either of that religion, or at least a favourer
of it. Complaints of the avowed practices and insolence of the priests were brought from
several places during the last session of parliament, and those were maliciously aggravated
by some, who cast the blame of all on the king.
Upon this, some proposed a bill, that obliged all persons educated in that religion, or
suspected to be of it, who should succeed to any estate before they were of the age of
eighteen, to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and the test as soon as they
came to that age ; and till they did it, the estate was to devolve to the next of kin,
that was a protestant, but was to return back to them, upon their taking the oaths. All popish
priests were also banished by the bill, and were adjudged to perpetual imprisonment if they
should again return to England ; and the reward of an hundred pounds was offered to every
one who should discover a popish priest so as to convict him. Those who brought this into
the house of commons, hoped the court would have opposed it, but the court promoted the
bill ; so when the party saw their mistake, they seemed willing to let the bill fall ; and when
that could not be done, they clogged it with many severe and some unreasonable clauses,
hoping that the lords would not pass the act ; and it was said that if the lords should make
the least alteration in it, they in the house of commons, who had set it on, were resolved to
let it lie on their table when it should be sent back to them. Many lords who secretly
favoured papists on the Jacobite account, did for this very reason move for several alterations,
some of these importing a greater severity ; but the zeal against popery was such in that
house, that the bill passed without any amendment, and it had the royal assent. I was for
this bill, notwithstanding my principles for toleration and against all persecution for consci
ence sake : I had always thought, that if a government found any sect in religion incompati
ble with its quiet and safety, it might, and sometimes ought to send away all of that sect
with as little hardship as possible. It is certain that as all papists must at all times be ill
subjects to a protestant prince, so this is much more to be apprehended when there is a pre
tended popish heir in the case. This act hurt no man that was in the present possession of
an estate, it only incapacitated his next heir to succeed to that estate if he continued a papist ;
so the danger of this, in case the act should be well looked to, would put those of that religion
who are men of conscience on the selling of their estates, and in the course of a few years
might deliver us from having any papists left among us. But this act wanted several
necessary clauses to enforce the due execution of it : the word " next of kin," was very inde
finite, and the " next of kin," was not obliged to claim the benefit of this act, nor did the
right descend to the remoter heirs if the more immediate ones should not take the benefit of
it ; the test relating to matters of doctrine and worship, did not seem a proper ground for so
great a severity, so this act was not followed nor executed in any sort ; but here is a scheme
laid, though not fully digested, which on some great provocation given by those of that reli
gion, may dispose a parliament to put such clauses in a new act as may make this effectual.
The king of Denmark was in a visible decline all this year, and died about the end of sum
mer. While he was languishing, the duke of Holstein began to build some new forts in that
duchy ; this the Danes said was contrary to the treaties, and to the condominium which that
king and the duke have in that duchy. The duke of Holstein had married the king of Swe
den's sister, and depended on the assurances he had of being supported by that crown. The
young king of Denmark, upon his coming to the crown, as he complained of these infractions,
* This work has not been considered quite orthodox in its doctrines. Dr. South said that Burnet had served tho
Church of England as the Jews served St. Paul ; giving it forty stripes, save one.
U U 2

G60 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
so he entered into an alliance with the king of Poland and the elector of Brandenburg, and,
as was said, with the landgrave of Hesse and the duke of Wolfembuttel, to attack Sweden
and Holstein at once on all hands. The king of Poland was to invade Livonia ; the elector
of Brandenburgh was to fall into the regal Pomerania, and the other princes were to keep
the dukes of Zell and Hanover from assisting Holstein : the king of Denmark himself was to
attack Holstein, but his father's chief minister and treasurer, the baron Plesse, didnot like the con
cert, and apprehended it would not end well ; so he withdrew from his post which he had main
tained long with a high reputation, both for his capacity and integrity ; which appeared in this,
that though that king's power is now carried to be absolute, yet he never stretched it to new
or oppressive taxes ; and therefore seeing things were like to take another ply in a new reign,
he resigned his employment. He was the ablest and the worthiest man that I ever knew
belonging to those parts ; he was much trusted and employed by prince George, so that I
had great opportunities to know him.
The king of Sweden, seeing such a storm coming upon him from so many hands, claimed
the effects of his alliance with England and Holland, who were guarantees of the several
treaties made in the North, particularly of the last made at Altena but ten years before. The
house of Lunenburgh was also engaged in interest to preserve Holstein as a barrier' between
them and Denmark. The king of Poland thought the invasion of Livonia, which was to be
begun with the siege of Riga, would prove both easy and of great advantage to him. Li
vonia was anciently a fief of the crown of Poland, and delivered itself for protection to the
crown of Sweden by a capitulation : by that they were still to enjoy their ancient liberties ;
afterwards the pretension of the crown of Poland was yielded up about threescore years ago,
so that Livonia was an absolute but legal government : yet the king of Sweden had treated
that principality in the same rough manner in which he had oppressed his other dominions ;
so it was thought that the Livonians were disposed (as soon as they saw a power ready to
protect them, and to restore them to their former liberties) to shake off the Swedish yoke ;
especially if they saw the king attacked in so many different places at once.
The king of Poland had a farther design in this invasion ; he had an army of Saxons in
Poland, to whom he chiefly trusted in carrying on his designs there ; the Poles were become
so jealous, both of him and of his Saxons, that in a general diet they had come to verv severe
resolutions, in case the Saxons were not sent out of the kingdom by a prefixed day ; that king
therefore reckoned, that as the reduction of Livonia had the fair appearance of recovering the
ancient inheritance of the crown, so by this means he would carry the Saxons out of Poland,
as was decreed, and yet have them within call ; he likewise studied to engage those of Lithu
ania to join with him in the attempt. His chief dependence was on the czar, who had
assured him, that if he could make peace with the Turk, and keep Azuph, he would assist
him powerfully against the Swedes ; his design being to recover Narva, which is capable of
being made a good port. By this means he hoped to get into the Baltic, where if he could
once settle, he would soon become an uneasy neighbour to all the northern princes. The king
of Poland went into Saxony to mortgage and sell his lands there, and to raise as much money
as was possible for carrying on this war ; and he brought the electorate to so low a state,
that if his designs in Poland miscarry, and if he is driven back into Saxony, he who was the
richest prince of the empire will become one of the poorest. But the amusements of balls
and operas consumed so much, both of his time and treasure, that whereas the design was
laid to surprise Riga in the middle of the winter, he did not begin his attempt upon it before
the end of February, and these designs went no farther this year.
While the king was at. Loo this summer, a new treaty was set on foot, concerning the
succession to the crown of Spain ; the king and the states of the United Provinces saw the
danger to which they would be exposed if they should engage in a new war, while we were
yet under the vast debts that the former had brought upon us ; the king's ministers in the
house of commons assured him, that it would be a very difficult thing to brine them to enter
into a new war for maintaining the rights of the house of Austria. During the debates con
cerning the army, when some mentioned the danger of that monarchy fallinc into the hands
of a prince of the house of Bourbon, it was set up for a maxim, that it would be of no con
sequence to the affairs of Europe who was king of Spain, whether a Frenchman, or a Ger-

OF KING WILLIAM III. 661
man ; and that as soon as the successor should come within Spain, he would become a true
Spaniard, and be governed by tho maxims and interests of that crown ; so that there was no
prospect of being able to infuso into the nation an apprehension of the consequence of that
succession. The emperor had a very good claim ; but as he had little strength to support it
by land, so he had none at all by sea ; and his treasure was quite exhausted by his long war
with the Turks : the French drew a great force towards the frontiers of Spain, and they
were resolved to march into it upon that king's death ; there was no strength ready to
oppose them, yet they seemed willing to compound the matter ; but they said, the consider
ation must be very valuable that could make them desist from so great a pretension : and
both the king and the States thought it was a good bargain, if, by yielding up some of the
less important branches of that monarchy, they could save those in which they were most
concerned, which were Spain itself, the West-Indies, and the Netherlands. The French
seemed willing to accept of the dominions in and about Italy, with a part of the kingdom of
Navarre, and to yield up the rest to the emperor's second son, the archduke Charles : the
emperor entered into the treaty, for he saw he could not hope to carry the whole succession
entire ; but he pressed to have the duchy of Milan added to his hereditary dominions in Ger
many ; the expedient that the king proposed was, that the duke of Lorrain should have the
duchy of Milan, and that France should accept of Lorrain instead of it ; he was the empe
ror's nephew, and would be entirely in his interests. The emperor did not agree to this, but
yet he pressed the king not to give over the treaty, and to try if ho could make a better
bargain for him ; above all things he recommended secrecy, for he well knew how much the
Spaniards would be offended, if any treaty should be owned, that might bring on a dismem
bering of their monarchy ; for though they were taking no care to preserve it, in the whole,
or in part, yet they could not bear the having any branch torn from it. The king reckoned
that the emperor, with the other princes of Italy, might have so much interest in Rome, as
to stop the pope's giving the investiture of the kingdom of Naples ; and which way soever
that matter might end, it would oblige the pope to shew great partiality, either to the house
of Austria, or the house of Bourbon ; which might occasion a breach among them, with
other consequences, that might be very happy to the whole protestant interest ; any war that
might follow in Italy, would be at great distance from us, and in a country that we had no
reason to regard much ; besides, that the fleets of England and Holland must come, in con
clusion, to be the arbiters of the matter.
These were the king's secret motives ; for I had most of them from his own mouth ; the
French consented to this scheme, and if the emperor would have agreed to it, his son the
archduke was immediately to go to Spain, to be considered as the heir of that crown ; by
these articles, signed both by the king of France and the dauphin, they bound themselves not
to accept of any will, testament, or donation, contrary to this treaty, which came to be called
the partition treaty. I had the original in my hands, which the dauphin signed : the French
and the emperor tried their strength in the court of Spain ; it is plain the emperor trusted
too much to his interest in that court, and in that king himself; and he refused to accept of
the partition, merely to ingratiate himself with them ; otherwise it was not doubted but that,
seeing the impossibility of mending matters, he would have yielded to the necessity of his
affairs. The French did, in a most perfidious manner, study to alienate the Spaniards from
their allies, by shewing them to how great a diminution of their monarchy they had con
sented ; so that no way possible was left for them to keep those dominions still united to
their crown, but by accepting the duke of Anjou to be their king, with whom all should be
again restored. The Spaniards complained in the courts of their allies, in ours in particular,
of this partition, as a detestable project, which was to rob them of those dominions that
belonged to their crown, and ought not to be torn from it. No mention was made of this
during the session of parliament, for though the thing was generally believed, yet it not
being publicly owned, no notice could be taken of bare reports, and nothing was to be done,
in pursuance of this treaty, during the king of Spain's life.
In Scotland, all men were full of hopes that their new colony should bring them home
mountains of gold ; the proclamations sent to Jamaica, and to the other English plantations,
were much complained of as acts of hostility and a violation of the common rights of

002 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
humanity ; these nad a great effect on them, though without these, that colony was too
weak and too ill supplied, as well as too much divided within itself, to have subsisted long ;
those who had first possessed themselves of it, were forced to abandon it : soon after they
had gone from it, a second recruit of men and provisions was sent thither from Scotland ;
but one of their ships unhappily took fire, in which they had the greatest stock of provisions ;
and so these likewise went off; and though the third reinforcement, that soon followed this,
was both stronger and better furnished, yet they fell into such factions among themselves,
that they were too weak to resist the Spaniards, who feeble as they were, yet saw the neces
sity of attacking- them ; and they finding themselves unable to resist the force which was
brought against them, capitulated ; and with that the whole design fell to tlie ground, partly
for want of stock and skill in those who managed it, and partly by the baseness and treachery
of those whom they employed.
The conduct of the king's ministers in Scotland was much censured, in the whole progress
of this affair, for they had connived at it, if not encouraged it, in hopes that the design
would fall of itself; but now it was not so easy to cure the universal discontent, which the
miscarriage of this design, to the impoverishing the whole kingdom, had raised, and which
now began to spread, like a contagion, among all sorts of people. A petition for a present
session "of parliament was immediately sent about the kingdom, and was signed by many
thousands : this was sent up by some of the chief of their nobility, whom the king received
very coldlv. Yet a session of parliament was granted them, to which the duke of Queens
bury was sent down commissioner. Great pains were taken, by all sorts of practices, to be
sure of a majority; great offers were made them in order to lay the discontents, which ran
then very high ; a law for a habeas corpus, with a great freedom for trade, and every thing
that they could demand, was offered, to persuade them to desist from pursuing the design
upon Darien. The court had tried to get the parliament of England to interpose in that
matter, and to declare themselves against that undertaking. The house of lords was pre
vailed on to make an address to the king, representing the ill effects that they apprehended
from that settlement ; but this did not signify much, for as it was carried in that house by
a small majority of seven or eight, so it was laid aside by the house of commons. Some
were not ill pleased to sec the king's affairs run into an embroilment ; and others did appre
hend, that there was a design to involve the two kingdoms in a national quarrel, that by
such an artifice, a greater army might be raised, and kept up on both sides : so they let that
matter fall, nor would they give any entertainment to a bill that was sent them by the lords,
in order to a treaty for the union of both kingdoms. The managers in the house of commons
who opposed the court, resolved to do nothing that should provoke Scotland, or that should
take any part of the blame and general discontent, that soured that nation, off from the king.
It was further given out, to raise the national disgust yet higher, that the opposition the
king gave to the Scotch colony, flowed neither from a regard to the interests of England, nor
to the treaties with Spain ; but from a care of the Dutch, who from Curacoa drove a coasting
trade among the Spanish plantations, with great advantage, -which they said the Scotch
colony, if once well settled, would draw wholly from them. These things were set about
that nation with great industry ; the management was chiefly in the hands of jacobites :
neither the king nor his ministers were treated with the decencies that are sometimes observed,
even after subjects have run to arms. The keenest of their rage was plainly pointed at the king
himself ; next him, the earl of Portland, who had still the direction of their affairs, had a large
share of it. In the session of parliament, it was carried, by a vote, to make the affair of
Darien a national concern : upon that the session was for some time discontinued. When
the news of the total abandoning of Darien was brought over, it cannot be well expressed
into how bad a temper this cast the body of that people ; they had now lost almost two
hundred thousand pounds sterling upon this project, besides all the imaginary treasure they
had promised themselves from it : so the nation was raised into a sort of fury upon it, and in
the first heat of that, a remonstrance was sent about the kingdom for hands, representing
to the king the necessity of a present sitting of the parliament, which was drawn in so high
a strain as if they had resolved to pursue the effects of it by an armed force. It was signed
by a great majority of the members of parliament ; and the ferment in men's spirits was raised

OF KING WILLIAM III. 663
so high, that few thought it could have been long curbed, without breaking forth into great
extremities. The king stayed beyond sea till November : many expected to see a new parliament ; for
the king's speech, at the end of the former session, looked like a complaint, and an appeal to
the nation against them : he seemed inclined to it, but his ministers would not venture on it.
The dissolving a parliament in anger has always cast such a load on those who were thought
to have advised it, that few have been able to stand it ; besides, the disbanding the army had
rendered the members, who promoted it, very popular to the nation : so that they would
have sent up the same men, and it was thought that there was little occasion for heat in
another session. But those who opposed the king, resolved to force a change of the ministry
upon him ; they were seeking colours for this, and thought they had found one, with which
they had made much noise : it was this.
Some pirates had got together in the Indian seas, and robbed some of the Mogul's ships,
in particular one, that he was sending with presents to Mecca ; most of them were English.
The East India company having represented the danger of the Mogul's taking reprisals of
them for these losses, it appeared that there was a necessity of destroying those pirates, who
were harbouring themselves in some creeks in Madagascar. So a man of war was to be set
out to destroy them, and one Kid was pitched upon, who knew their haunts, and was thought
a proper man for the service ; but there was not a fund to bear the charge of this, for the
parliament had so appropriated the money given for the sea, that no part of it could be
applied to this expedition. Tlie king proposed the managing it by a private undertaking,
and said he would lay down three thousand pounds himself, and recommended it to his
ministers to find out the rest. In compliance with this, the lord Somers, the earls of Orford,
Rumney, Bellamount, and some others, contributed the whole expense ; for the king excused
himself, by reason of other accidents, and did not advance the sum that he had promised.
Lord Somers understood nothing of the matter, and left it wholly to the management of
others, so that he never saw Kid, only he thought it became the post he was in to concur in
such a public service. A grant was made to the undertakers, of all that should be taken
from those pirates by their ship. Here was a handle for complaint, for as it was against law
to take a grant of the goods of any offenders before conviction, so a parity between that
and this case was urged ; but without any reason : the provisions of law being very different,
in the case of pirates and that of other criminals. The former cannot be attacked, but in
the way of war ; and therefore, since those who undertook this must run a great risk in
executing it, it was reasonable, and according to the law of war, that they should have a
right to all that they found in the enemies' hands ; whereas those who seize common offen
ders, have such a strength by the law to assist them, and incur so little danger in doing it,
that no just inference can be drawn from the one case to the other. When this Kid was
thus set out, he turned pirate himself : so a heavy load was cast on the ministry, chiefly on
him who was at the head of the justice of tlie nation. It was said he ought not to have
engaged in such a project ; and it was maliciously insinuated, that the privateer turned pirate,
in confidence of the protection of those who employed him, if he had not secret orders from
them for what he did. Such black constructions are men, who are engaged in parties, apt to
make of the actions of those whom they intend to disgrace, even against their own con
sciences ; so that an undertaking, that was not only innocent but meritorious, was traduced
as a design for robbery and piracy. This was urged in the house of commons as highly
criminal, for which all who were concerned in it ought to be turned out of their employ
ments ; and a question was put upon it, but it was rejected by a great majority*. The
next attempt was to turn me out from the trust of educating the duke of Gloucester. Some
objected my being a Scotchman, others remembered the book that was ordered to be burnt;
so they pressed an address to the king for removing me from that post ; but this was like
wise lost by the same majority that had carried the former vote. The pay for the small
army, and the expense of the fleet, were settled, and a fund was given for it : yet those
who had reduced the army, thought it needless to have so great a force at sea ; they provided
* J89 to 133 Shrewsbury Correspondence. Captain William Kidd's fate is mentioned in a future part of
tliis work.

HG-i THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
only for eight thousand men. This was moved by the tories, and the whigs readily gave
way to this reduction, because the fleet was now in another management ; Russel (now earl
of Orford), with his friends, being laid aside, and a set of tories being brought into then-
places. The great business of this session was the report brought from Ireland by four of the
seven commissioners, that were sent by parliament to examine into the confiscations and the
grants made of them. Three of the seven refused to sign it, because they thought it false
and ill grounded in many particulars, of wliich they sent over an account to both houses ;
but no regard was had to that, nor was any enquiry made into their objections to the report.
These three were looked on as men gained by the court ; and the rest were magnified, as
men that could not be wrought on nor frighted from their duty. They had proceeded like
inquisitors, and did readily believe every thing that was offered to them that tended to
inflame the report ; as they suppressed all that was laid before them that contradicted their
design of representing the value of the grants as very high, and of showing how undeserving
those were who had obtained them. There was so much truth in the main of this, that no
complaints against their proceedings could be hearkened to ; and indeed all the methods
that were taken to disgrace the report had the quite contrary effect : they represented the
confiscated estates to be such, that, out of the sale of them, a million and a half might be
raised : so this specious proposition, for discharging so great a part of the public debt, took
with the house. The hatred into which the favourites were fallen, among whom and their
creatures the grants were chiefly distributed, made the motion go the quicker. All the
opposition that was made in the whole progress of this matter, was looked on as a courting
the men in favour ; nor was any regard paid to the reserve of a third part, to be disposed of
by the king, which had been in the bill that was sent up eight years before to the lords.
When this was mentioned, it was answered, that the grantees had enjoyed those estates so
many years, that the mean profits did arise to more than a third part of their value : little
regard also was shown to the purchases made under those grants, and to the great improve
ments made by the purchasers, or tenants, which were said to have doubled the value of
those estates. All that was said on that head made no impression, and was scarcely heard
with patience : yet, that some justice might be done both to purchasers and creditors, a
number of trustees were named, in whom all the confiscated estates were vested, and they
had a very great and uncontrolable authority lodged with them, of hearing and determining
all just claims relating to those estates, and of selling them to the best purchasers ; and the
money to be raised by this sale was appropriated to pay the arrears of the army. When
all this was digested into a bill, the party apprehended that many petitions would be offered
to the house, which the court would probably encourage on design at least to retard their
proceedings : so, to prevent this, and that they might not lose too much time, nor clog the
bill with too many clauses and provisos, they passed a vote of a very extraordinary nature ;
that they would receive no petitions relating to the matter of this bill. The case of the earl
of Athlone's grant was very singular : the house of commons had been so sensible of his good
service, in reducing Ireland, that they had made an address to the king, to give him a recom
pense suitable to his services : and the parliament of Ireland was so sensible of their obliga
tions to him, that they, as was formerly told, confirmed his grant of between 2000/. and
3000Z. a-year. He had sold it to those who thought they purchased under an unquestionable
title, yet all that was now set aside, no regard being had to it ; so that this estate was
thrown into the heap. Some exceptions were made in the bill in favour of some grants,
and provision was made for rewarding others, whom the king, as they thought, had not
enough considered. Great opposition was made to this by some, who thought that all
favours and grants ought to be given by the king, and not originally by a house of parlia
ment ; and this was managed with great heat, even by some of those who concurred in
carrying on the bill : in conclusion it was, by a new term as well as a new invention, con
solidated with the money bill that was to go for the pay of the fleet and army, and so it
came up to the house of Lords ; which by consequence they must either pass or reject. The
method that the court took in that house to oppose it, was to offer some alterations that
were indeed very just and reasonable ; but since the house of commons would not suffer the

OF KING WILLIAM III. 666
lords to alter money bills, this was in effect to lose it. The court, upon some previous votes,
found they had a majority among the lords : so, for some days, it seemed to be designed to
lose tlie bill, and to venture on a prorogation, or a dissolution, rather than pass it. Upon
the apprehensions of this, the commons were beginning to fly out into high votes, both
against the ministers and the favourites. The lord Somers was attacked a second time, but
was brought off by a greater majority than had appeared for him at the beginning of the
session. During the debates about tlie bill he was ill ; and the worst construction possible
was put on that : it was said he advised all the opposition that was made to it in the house
of lords, but that, to keep himself out of it, he feigned that he was ill ; though his great
attendance in tlie court of chancery, the house of lords, and at the council table, had so
impaired his health, that every year, about that time, he used to be brought very low, and
disabled from business. The king seemed resolved to venture on all the ill consequences that
might follow the losing this bill ; though those would probably have been fatal. As far as
we could judge, either another session of that parliament, or a new one, would have banished
the favourites, and begun the bill anew, with the addition of obliging the grantees to refund
all tlie mean profits. Many in the house of lords, that in all other things were very firm to
the king, were for passing this bill, notwithstanding the king's earnestness against it, since
they apprehended tlie ill consequences that were likely to follow if it was lost. I was one
of these, and the king was much displeased with me for it. I said I would venture his dis
pleasure rather than please him in that, which I feared would be the ruin of his government.
I confess I did not at that time apprehend what injustice lay under many of the clauses
in the bill, which appeared afterwards so evidently, that the very same persons who drove
on the bill were convinced of them, and redressed some of them in acts that passed in subse
quent sessions. If I had understood that matter aright, and in time, I had never given my
vote for so unjust a bill. I only considered it as a hardship put on the king, many of his
grants being thus made void ; some of which had not been made on good and reasonable
considerations, so that they could hardly be excused, much less justified. I thought the
thing was a sort of force, to which it seemed reasonable to give way at that time, since we
were not furnished with an equal strength to withstand it : but when I saw afterwards, what
the consequences of this aet proved to be, I did firmly resolve never to consent again to at
tack to a money bill as long as I lived. The king became sullen upon all this, and upon
the many incidents that are apt to fall in upon debates of this nature : he either did not
apprehend in what such things might end, or he was not much concerned at it : his resent
ment, which was much provoked, broke out into some instances, which gave such handles
to his enemies as they wished for : and they improved those advantages, wliich his ill con
duct gave them, with much spite and industry, so as to alienate the nation from him. It
was once in agitation among the party to make an address to him against going beyond sea,
but even that was diverted -with a malicious design. Hitherto the body of the nation
retained a great measure of affection to him : this was beginning to diminish, by his going
so constantly beyond sea as soon as the session of parliament was ended ; though the -war
was now over. Upon this it grew to be publicly said, that he loved no Englishman's face,
nor his company. So his enemies reckoned it was fit for their ends to let that prejudice go
ou and increase in the minds of the people, till they might find a proper occasion to graft
some bad designs upon it. The session ended in April ; men of all sides being put into a
very ill humour by the proceedings in it*.
The leaders of the tories began to insinuate to the favourites, the necessity of the king's
* The commissioners, who had been sent to inquire offensive to tho nation. The debates npon the bill of
concerning the grants of the Irish forfeited estates, were resumption were violent and lengthy in both houses, and
tho earl of Drogheda, sir Richard Leving, sir Francis it was not until the king directed his friends not to persist
Brewsrer, Mr. Annesley, Mr. Trenchard, Mr. Hamilton, in their opposition, that it was passed in the house of
and Mr. Langfbrd. The three first were whigs, and had lords. "When he gave the royal assent to it, and put an
refused to sign the report ; the others were zealous tories. end to the session, with becoming dignity he did not ac-
Thero is no doubt that a Urge- portiou of the forfeitures company the dismissal with the usual speech. — Shrewsbury
had been given to the king's Dutch supporters, and a Correspondence; Smollett's Hist, of England; Journals
large part of the ex-king's estates had been bessowe.1 of the houses.
Mpon William's mistress. This was ill-judged, and

666 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
changing his ministry, in particular of removing the lord Somers, who, as he was now-
considered as the head of the whigs, so his wise counsels, and his modest way of
laying them before the king had gained him a gTeat share of his esteem and con
fidence; and it was reckoned that the chief strength of the party lay in his eredit
with the king, and in the prudent methods he took to govern the party, and to mode
rate that heat and those jealousies, with which the king had been so long disgusted
in the first years of his reign. In the house of commons he had been particularly
charged for turning many gentlemen out of the commission of tlie peace : this was much
aggravated, and raised a very high complaint against him ; but there was no just cause for
it. When the design of the assassination and invasion, in the years 1695 and 1696, was
discovered, a voluntary association was entered into by both houses of parliament, and that
was set round the nation. In such a time of danger, it was thought that those who did not
enter voluntarily into it, were so ill affected, or at least so little zealous for the king, that it
was not fit they should continue justices of peace : so an order passed in council, that all
those who had so refused should be turned out of the commission : he had obeyed this order,
upon the representations made to him by the lords-lieutenants and the custodes rotulorum of
the several counties, who were not all equally discreet : yet he laid those representations
before the council, and had a special order for every person that was so turned out. All this
was now magnified, and it was charged on him that he had advised and procured these
orders ; yet this could not be made so much as a colour to proceed against him, a clamour
and murmuring was all that could be raised from it. But now the tories studied to get it
infused into the king, that all the hard tilings that had been of late put on him by the par
liament, were occasioned by the hatred that was borne to his ministers ; and that, if he
would change hands and employ others, matters might be softened and mended in another-
parliament : with this the earl of Jersey studied to possess the earl of Alberrnarle ; and the
uneasiness the king was in, disposed him to think, that if he should bring in a set of tories
into his business, they would serve him with the same zeal, and with better success than
the whigs had done ; and he hoped to throw all upon the ministers that were now to be
dismissed. The first time that the lord Somers had recovered so much health as to come to court, tlie
king told him it seemed necessary for his service that he should part with the seals, and he
wished that he would make the delivering them up his own act. He excused himself in
this : all his friends had pressed him not to offer them, since that seemed to show fear or
guilt ; so he begged the king's pardon if in this he followed their advice ; but he told the
king, that whensoever he should send a warrant under his hand, commanding him to deliver
them up, he would immediately obey it. The order was brought by lord Jersey, and upon
it the seals were sent to the king. Thus the lord Somers was discharged from this great
office, which he had held seven years, with a high reputation for capacity, integrity, and
diligence ; he was in all respects the greatest man I had ever known in that post : his being
thus removed was much censured by all but those who had procured it. Our princes used
not to dismiss ministers who served them well, unless they were pressed to it by a house of
commons, that refused to give money till they were laid aside. But here a minister (who
was always vindicated by a great majority in the house of commons when he was charged
there, and who had served both with fidelity and success, and was indeed censured for
nothing so much as for his being too compliant with the king's humour and notions, or at
least for being too soft or too feeble in representing his errors to him,) was removed without
a shadow of complaint against him. This was done with so much haste, that those who had
prevailed with the king to do it, had not yet concerted who should succeed him : they thought
that all the great men of the law were aspiring to that high post, so that any one to whom
it should be offered would certainly accept of it : but they soon found they were mistaken ;
for, what by reason of the instability of the court, what by reason of the just apprehensions
men might have of succeeding so great a man, both Holt and Trevor, to whom the seals were
offered, excused themselves. It was term time, so a vacancy in that post put things in
some confusion. A temporary commission was granted to the three chief judges, to judge in
the court of chancery ; and after a few days the seals were given to sir Nathan Wright, in

Xngravi-d-'by'W: T- Mote.

.lOlIX. FIRST LOK1) SOMF.KS.

£]<OM. THE OEIGIKAJ, OF EKEIXTJi.. IN 'J'HE COLLECTION OF

'HIE KT UOiJiW5 TBE TCAKL OJ-' HAItl WK'KE .

OF KING WILLIAM III. 667
whom there was nothing equal to the post, much less to him who had lately filled it*. The
king's inclinations seemed now turned to the tories, and to a new parliament : it was for
some time in the dark who had the confidence, and gave directions to affairs : we who looked
on were often disposed to think that there was no direction at all, but that every thing was
left to take its course, and that all was given up to hazard.
The king, that he might give some content to the nation, stayed at Hampton Court till
July, and then went to Holland : but, before he went, the minister of Sweden pressed him
to make good his engagements with that crown. Riga was now besieged by the king of
Poland : the first attempt of carrying the place by surprise miscarried ; those of Riga were
either overawed by the Swedish garrison that commanded there, or they apprehended that
the change of masters would not change their condition, unless it were for the worse. So
they made a greater stand than was expected ; and in a siege of above eight months very
little progress was made : the firmness of that place made the rest of Livonia continue fixed
to the Swedes. The Saxons made great waste in the country, and ruined the trade of
Riga. The king of Sweden, being obliged to employ his main force elsewhere, was not able
to send them any considerable assistance. The elector of Brandenburg lay quiet without
making any attempt : so did the prince of Hesse and Wolfembuttel. The two scenes of
action were in Holstein and before Copenhagen. The king of Denmark found the taking
the forts that had been raised by the duke of Holstein an easy work : they were soon carried
and demolished : he besieged Toninghen next, which held him longer. Upon the Swedes'
demand of the auxiliary fleets, that were stipulated both by the king and the States, orders
were given for equipping them here, and likewise in Holland. The king was not willing to
communicate this design to the two houses, and try if the house of commons would take
upon themselves the expense of the fleet : they were in so bad a humour, that the king
apprehended that some of them might endeavour to put an affront upon him, and oppose
the sending a fleet into the Sound : though others advised the venturing on this, for no
nation can subsist without alliances sacredly observed : and this was an ancient one, lately
renewed by the king ; so that an opposition in such a point, must have turned to the preju
dice of those who should move it. Soon after the session, a fleet of thirty ships, English and
Dutch, was sent to the Baltic, commanded by Rook. The Danes had a good fleet at sea,
much superior to the Swedes, and almost equal to the fleet sent from hence ; but it was their
whole strength, so they would not run the hazard of losing it. They kept at sea for some
time, having got between the Swedes and the fleet of their allies, and studied to hinder their
conjunction. When they saw that could not be done, they retired, and secured themselves
within the port of Copenhagen, which is a very strong one. The Swedes, with their allies,
came before that town and bombarded it for some days, but with little damage to the place,
and none to the fleet. The dukes of Lunenburg, together with the forces that the Swedes
had at Bremen, passed the Elbe, and marched to the assistance of the duke of Holstein.
This obliged the Danes to raise the siege of Toninghen, and the two armies lay in view of
one another for some weeks, without coming to any action. Another design of the Danes
did also miscarry. A body of Saxons broke into the territories of the duke of Bruns
wick, in hopes to force their army to come back to the defence of their own country : but
the duke of Zell had left things in so good order, that the Saxons were beat back, and all
the booty that they had taken was recovered.
* Sir Nathan Wright would never have attained the is not supported by any known facts, and one contradic-
high office to which he was promoted, by his own merits, tory narrative deserves to be recited. A watchmaker,
He was thrown and left upon an elevation by the tide of having a cause depending in chancery, sent to the lord-
fortune ; and preceded by Somers, as he was followed by keeper a very fine timepiece some few days before the
Cowper, was a most striking foil to two of the most case came to be heard ; hut sir Nathan returned it with
talented holders of our chancery seals. He rested on a the admonitory message, " I have no doubt of the good-
seat not too elevated for his ambition, but it was an im- ness of the piece, but it has one motion in it too much
perium far beyond the compass of his mind. He has for me." He was turned out of office in 1705, and died
been succinctly described as "a good common lawyer, a almost forgotten at Cancot Hall, Warwickshire, in 1721.
slow chancellor, and a civilian ; plain both in person and He was promoted at the suggestion of the earl of Roches-
conversation." In another part of this work, with the ter. — Noble's Continuation of Grainger ; Shrewsbury
excessive prejudice of a political adversary, Burnet has Correspondence.
also impugned sir Nathan's honesty and integrity. This

668 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
In the meantime, the king offered his mediation, and a treaty was set on foot. The two
young kings were so much sharpened against one another, that it was not easy to bring them
to hearken to terms of peace. The king of Denmark proposed that the king of Poland might
be included in the treaty, but the Swedes refused it : and the king was not guarantee of the
treaties between Sweden and Poland, so he was not obliged to take care of the king of
Poland. The treaty went on but slowly : this made the king of Sweden apprehend that he
should lose the season, and be forced to abandon Riga, which began to be straitened : so to
quicken the treaty he resolved on a descent in Zealand. This was executed without any
opposition, the king of Sweden conducting it in person, and being the first that landed : he
showed such spirit and courage in his whole conduct as raised his character very high : it
struck a terror through all Denmark : for now the Swedes resolved to besiege Copenhagen.
This did so quicken the treaty, that, by the middle of August, it was brought to a full end :
old treaties were renewed, and a liberty of fortifying was reserved for Holstein, under some
limitations : and the king of Denmark paid the duke of Holstein two hundred and sixty
thousand rix-dollars for the charge of the war. The peace being thus made, the Swedes
retired back to Schonen, and the fleets of England and Holland returned home. The king's
conduct in this whole matter was highly applauded ; he effectually protected the Swedes,
and yet obliged them to accept of reasonable terms of peace. The king of Denmark suffered
most in honour and interest. It was a great happiness that this war was so soon at an end ;
for, if it had continued, all the North must have engaged in it, and there the chief strength
of the protestant religion lay : so that interest must have suffered much, which side soever
had come by the worst, in the progress of the war ; and it is already so weak, that it needed
not a new diminution.
The secret of the partition treaty was now published, and the project was to be offered
jointly, by the ministers of France, England, and the States, to all the princes of Europe ;
but particularly to those who were most concerned in it : and an answer was to be demanded
by a day limited for it. The emperor refused to declare himself till he knew the king of
Spain's mind concerning it. The duke of Savoy and the princes of Italy were very appre
hensive of the neighbourhood of France. The pope was extremely old, and declined very
fast. The treaty was variously censured : some thought it would deliver up the Mediter
ranean sea and all our trade there, into the hands of France : others thought that the treaties
of princes were (according to the pattern that the court of France had set now for almost
half an age,) only artifices to bring matters to a present quiet, and that they would be after
wards observed as princes found their account in them. The present good understanding
that was between our court and the court of France, made that the party of our malcontents
at home, having no support from thence, sunk much in their heat, and they had now no
prospect ; for it seemed as if the king of France had set his heart on the partition treaty, and
it was necessary for him, in order to the obtaining his ends in it, to live in a good corres
pondence with England and the States. All our hopes were that the king of Spain might
yet live a few years longer, till the great mortgages that were on the revenue might be
cleared, and then it would be more easy for us to engage in a new war, and to be the arbiters
of Europe.
But while we were under the apprehension of his death, we were surprised by an unlooked-
for and sudden death of our young prince at home, which brought a great change on the
face of affairs. I had been trusted with his education now for two years, and he had made
an amazing progress. I had read over the Psalms, Proverbs, and Gospels, with him, and
had explained things that fell in my way very copiously ; and was often surprised with the
questions that he put me, and the reflections that he made. He came to understand things
relating to religion beyond imagination. I went through geography so often with him,
that he knew all the maps very particularly. I explained to him the forms of government
in every country, with the interests and trade of that country, and what was both good and
bad in it : I acquainted him with all the great revolutions that had been in the world, and
gave him a copious account of the Greek and Roman Histories, and of Plutarch's Lives :
the last thing I explained to him was the Gothic constitution, and the beneficiary and feudal
laws I talked of these things at different times nearly three hours a day : this was both

OF KING WILLIAM III. 669
easy and delighting to him. The king ordered five of his chief ministers to come once a
quarter, and examine the progress he made : they seemed amazed both at his knowledge
and the good understanding that appeared in him. He had a wonderful memory, and a
very good judgment. He had gone through much weakness and some years of ill health.
The princess was with child of him during all the disorder we were in at the revolution,
though she did not know it herself at the time when she left the court : this probably had
given him so weak a constitution, but we hoped the dangerous time was over. His birth
day was the 24th of July, and he was then eleven years old : he complained a little the
next day, but we imputed that to the fatigues of a birthday ; so that he was too much
neglected. The day after, he grew much worse, and it proved to be a malignant fever. He
died the fourth day of his illness, to the great grief of all who were concerned in him. He was
the only remaining child of seventeen that the princess had borne, some to the full time, and
the rest before it. She attended on him, during his sickness, with great tenderness, but
with a grave composedness that amazed all who saw it : she bore his death with a resigna
tion and piety that were indeed very singular. His death gave a great alarm to the whole
nation : the jacobites grew insolent upon it, and said, now the chief difficulty was removed
out of the way of the prince of Wales's succession. Soon after this, the house of Brunswick
returned the visit that the king had made them last year, and the eyes of all the protestants
in the nation turned towards the electoress of Brunswick, who was daughter to the queen
of Bohemia, and was the next protestant heir ; all papists being already excluded from the
succession. Thus, of the four lives that we had in view as our chief security, the two that we
depended most on, the queen and the duke of Gloucester, were carried off on the sudden,
before we were aware of it ; and of the two that remained (the king and the princess), as
there was no issue, and little hopes of any by either of them ; so the king, who at best was
a man of a feeble constitution, was now falling under an ill habit of body : his legs were
much swelled, which some thought was the beginning of a dropsy, while others thought it
was only a scorbutic distemper.
Thus God was giving us great alarms as well as many mercies. He bears long with us,
but we are become very corrupt in all respects : so that the state of things among us gives a
melancholy prospect. The nation was falling under a general discontent, and a dislike of
the king's person and government : and the king, on his part, seemed to grow weary of us
and of our affairs ; and partly by the fret, from the opposition he had of late met with,
partly from his ill health, he was falling as it were into a lethargy of mind. We were, upon
the matter, become already more than half a commonwealth ; since the government was
plainly in the hands of the house of commons, who must sit once a year, and as long as they
thought fit, while the king had only the civil list for life, so that the whole administration
of the government was under their inspection ; the act for triennial parliaments kept up a
standing faction in every county and town of England : but, though we were falling insensi
bly into a democracy, we had not learned the virtues that are necessary for that sort of
government : luxury, vanity, and ambition, increased daily, and our animosities were come
to a great height, and gave us dismal apprehensions. Few among us seemed to have a right
notion of the love of their country, and of a zeal for the good of the public. The house of
commons, how much soever its power was advanced, yet was much sunk in its credit ; very
little of gravity, order, or common decency, appeared among them : the balance lay chiefly
in the house of lords, who had no natural strength to resist the commons. The toleration of
all the sects among us had made us live more quietly together of late than could be expected,
when severe laws were rigorously executed against dissenters. No tumults or disorders had
been heard of in any part of the kingdom these eleven years since that act passed : and yet
the much greater part of the clergy studied to blow up this fire again, which seemed to be
now as it were covered over with ashes.
The dissenters behaved themselves more quietly with relation to the church, they having
quarrels and disputes among themselves : the independents were raising the old antinomian
tenets, as if men, by believing in Christ, were so united to him, that his righteousness
became theirs, without any other condition besides that of their faith : so that, though they
acknowledged the obedience of his laws to be necessary, they did not call it a condition,

670 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
but only a consequence, of justification. In this they were opposed by most of the presby
terians, who seemed to be sensible that this struck at the root of all religion, as it weakened
the obligation to a holy life : this year had produced a new extravagance in that matter.
One Asgil, a member of parliament, had published a book grounded on their notions, on
which he had grafted a new and wild inference of his own, that since true believers recovered
in Christ all that they lost in Adam, and our natural death was the effect of Adam's sin, he
inferred that believers were rendered immortal by Christ, and not liable to death ; and that
those who believed with a true and firm faith could not die. This was a strain beyond all
that ever went before it ; and, since we see that all men die, the natural consequence that
resulted from this was, that there neither are, nor ever were, any true believers. The pres
byterians had been also engaged in disputes with the anabaptists. They complained that
they saw too great a giddiness in their people, and seemed so sensible of this, and so desirous
to be brought into the church, that a few inconsiderable concessions would very probably
have brought the bulk of them into our communion : but the greater part of the clergy
were so far from any disposition this way, that they seemed to be more prejudiced against
them than ever.
The quakers have had a great breach made among them by one George Keith, a Scotch
man, with whom I had my first education at Aberdeen : he had been thirty-six years among
them : he was esteemed the most learned man that ever was in that sect : he was well versed
both in the oriental tongues, in philosophy, and mathematics : after he had been above
thirty years in high esteem among them, he was sent to Pennsylvania (a colony set up by
Penn, where they are very numerous), to have the chief direction of the education of their
youth. In those parts, he said, he first discovered that which had been always either denied
to him, or so disguised that he did not suspect it : but being far out of reach, and in a place
where they were masters, they spoke out their mind plainer ; and it appeared to him that they
were deists, and that they turned the whole doctrine of the Christian religion into allegories ;
chiefly those wliich relate to the death and resurrection of Christ, and the reconciliation of
sinners to God by virtue of his cross. He, being a true Christian, set himself with great
zeal against this, upon which they grew weary of him, and sent him back to England. At
his return, he set himself to read many of their books, and then he discovered the mystery
which was formerly so hid from him that he had not observed it. Upon this he opened a
new meeting, and by a printed summons he called the whole party to come and see the proof
that he had to offer, to convince them of these errors : few quakers came to his meetings,
but great multitudes of other people flocked about him : he brought the quakers' books with
him, and read such passages out of them as convinced his hearers that he had not charged
them falsely. He continued these meetings, being still in outward appearance a quaker, for
some years ; till having prevailed as far as he saw any probability of success, he laid aside their
exterior, and was reconciled to the church, and is now in holy orders among us, and likely
to do good service in undeceiving and reclaiming some of those misled enthusiasts*.
The clergy continued to be much divided : all moderate divines were looked upon by some
hot men with an evil eye, as persons who were cold and indifferent in the matters of the
church : that which flowed from a gentleness, both of temper and principle, was represented
as an inclination to favour dissenters, which passed among many for a more heinous thing
than leaning to popery itself. Those men, who began now to be called the high church
party, had all along expressed a coldness, if not an opposition, to the present settlement.
Soon after the revolution some great preferments had been given among them, to try if it
was possible to bring them to be hearty for the government ; but it appearing that they
were soured with a leaven, that had gone too deep to be wrought out, a stop was put to the
courting them any more. When they saw preferments went in another channel, they set
up a complaint over England of the want of convocations, that they were not allowed to sit,
nor act, with a free liberty, to consider of the grievances of the clergy, and of the danger the
church was in. This was a new pretension, never thought of since the Reformation. Some
books were written to justify it, with great acrimony of style and a strain of insolence that
* In this year ( 1 700) he published " Reasons for renouncing the sect called Quakers." He died about the
year 1715.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 671
was peculiar to one Atterbury, who had indeed very good parts, great learning, and was an
excellent preacher, and had many extraordinary things in him ; but was both ambitious and
virulent out of measure ; and had a singular talent in asserting paradoxes with a great air
of assurance, showing no shame when he was detected in them, though this was done in
many instances : but he let all these pass, without either confessing his errors or pretending
to justify himself : he went on still venting new falsehoods in so barefaced a manner, that
he seemed to have outdone the Jesuits themselves. He thought the government had so little
strength or credit, that any claim against it would be well received ; he attacked the supre
macy of the crown, with relation to ecclesiastical matters, which had been hitherto main
tained by all our divines with great zeal. But now the hot men of the clergy did so readily
entertain his notions, that in them it appeared, that those who are the most earnest in the
defence of certain points, when these seem to be for them, can very nimbly change their minds
upon a change of circumstances*.
An eminent instance of this had appeared in the house of lords, in the former session,
where the deprived bishop of St. David's complained of the archbishop of Canterbury : first,
for breach of privilege, since sentence was passed upon him, though he had in court claimed
privilege of parliament, to which no regard had been paid ; but as he had waived his privi
lege in the house of lords, it was carried, after a long debate, and by no great majority, that
in that case he could not resume his privilege. He excepted next to the archbishop's juris
diction, and pretended that he could not judge a bishop but in a synod of the bishops of the
province, according to the rules of the primitive times : in opposition to this, it was shown
that, from the ninth and tenth century downward, both popes and kings had concurred to
bring this power singly into the hands of the metropolitans ; that this was the constant prac
tice in England before the Reformation ; that by the provisional clause in the act passed in
the twenty-fifth of Henry the Eighth, that empowered thirty-two persons to draw a new
body of church laws, all former laws or customs were to continue in force till that new body
was prepared : so that the power the metropolitan then was possessed of stood confirmed
by that clause : it is true, during the high commission, all proceedings against bishops were
brought before that court, wliich proceeded in a summary way, and against whose sentence
no appeal lay : but, after that court was taken away, a full declaration was made, by an
act of parliament, for continuing the power that was lodged with the metropolitan. It was
also urged, that if the bishop had any exception to the archbishop's jurisdiction, that ought
to have been pleaded in the first instance, and not reserved to the conclusion of all : nor
could the archbishop erect a new court, or proceed in the trial of a bishop in any other way
than in that which was warranted by law or precedent. To all this no answer was given,
but the business was kept up, and put off by many delays. It was said, the thing was
• Sterne, the sentimentalist, treated his wife with un- has now little interest ; but those who would engage in
merited unkindness ; Sheridan wrote in favour of morality, the enquiry will find an ample reference to authorities in
and spoke vehemently against turpitude ; Atterbury, Dr. Kippis's edition of the Biographia Britannica, article
mentioned in the text, declares in his letters that he was " Atterbury." When the extreme tory party came into
devoted to a few friends and literary leisure, when it is power, during the reign of Anne, Atterbury was made
certain that a more bigoted theologian, or more ambitious bishop of Rochester. This was in 1713. But when
statesman, never lived. To the praise given him by other councils were adopted at the accession of George
Burnet, confined to his talents, may be added, that he was the First, he shewed his disaffection by refusing to join in
a kind father, and an attached friend. Francis Atterbury, signing the declaration against the claims of the pretender.
born at Middleton, or Milton-keynes, Buckinghamshire, He also persuaded Dr. Smallridge, bishop of Bristol, not
in 1662, proceeded in his course of education to West- to subscribe. In 1722 be was apprehended on a charge
minster school, and Christchurch college, Oxford. From of being concerned in a plot to restore the Stuarts to the
his youth he was distinguished for his literary excellence, throne. The evidence did not sufficiently substantiate
and this never deteriorated, any more than his proneness to the charge of high treason, so a bill was passed by the
controversy, which appeared when he was twenty-four, parliament to visit him with the punishment of banish-
His defence of Luther was the only instance in which, as ment. The chief opposition to this was founded upon its
a disputant, he was triumphant. His polemical opinions being an extraordinary mode of proceeding, and upon the
were too narrow, his political tenets too slavish, for him want of full evidence. The latter deficiency is now re.
to stand firm against Dr. Hoadley, the champion of moved, for testimony has since been brought to light that
Christian and civil liberty. Atterbury dazzled by his proves the bishop's disloyalty to the house of Hanover
wit, but Hoadley plainly stated the truth — so the first beyond a doubt. He retired to France, where he died
gained applause, and the other secured conviction. The in 1731. His sermons and letters are excellent. — Stack-
most lengthy of his controversies was with Dr. Wake, house's Memoirs of Atterbury ; Wood's Athense Oxon ;
concerning the rights, &c. of convocations, a subject which Boyer's Hist, of Queen Anne.

672 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
new, and the house was not yet well apprised of it ; and the last time in which the debate
was taken up in the house, it ended in an intimation that it was hoped the king would not
fill that see, till the house should be better satisfied in the point of the archbishop's
authority. So the bishopric was not disposed of for some years: and this uncertainty
put a great delay to the process against the other Welch bishops accused of the same
crime. In October, the pope died ; and at the same time all Europe was alarmed with the des
perate state of the king of Spain's health. When the news came to the court of France that
he was in the last agony, the earl of Manchester, who was then our ambassador at that
court, told me that M. Torcy, the French secretary of state, was sent to him by the king of
France, desiring him to let the king, his master, know the news, and to signify to him that
the French king hoped that he would put things in readiness to execute the treaty, in case
any opposition should be made to it : and in his whole discourse he expressed a fixed reso
lution in the French councils to adhere to it. A few days after that, the news came of his
death and of his will, declaring the duke of Anjou the universal heir of the whole Spanish
monarchy. It is not yet certainly known by what means this was brought about, nor how
the king of Spain was drawn to consent to it, or whether it was a mere forgery, made by
cardinal Portocarrero and some of the grandees, who, partly by practice and corruption, and
partly for safety, and that their monarchy might be kept entire (they imagining that the
power of France was far superior to all that the house of Austria would be able to engage
in its interests), had been prevailed on to prepare and publish this will ; and, to make it
more acceptable to the Spaniards, among other forfeitures of the crown, not only the suc
cessor's departing from what they call the catholic faith, but even his not maintaining the
immaculate conception of the Yirgin, was one.
As soon as the news came to Rome, it quickened the intrigues of the conclave, so they set
up Albano, a man of fifty-two years of age, who, beyond all men's expectations, was chosen
pope, and took the name of Clement the Eleventh : he had little practice in affairs, but was
very learned ; and, in so critical a time, it seems, a pope of courage and spirit, not sunk with
age into covetousness or peevishness, was thought the fittest person for that see. France had
sent no exclusion to bar him, not imagining that he could be thought on : at first they did
not seem pleased with the choice, but it was too late to oppose it : so they resolved to gain
him to their interests, in which they have succeeded beyond what they then hoped for.
When the court of France had notice sent them of the late king of Spain's will, real ot
pretended, they seemed to be at a stand for some days ; and the letters written from the
secretary's office, gave it out for certain that the king would stick to the partition treaty.
Madame de Maintenon had an unspeakable fondness for the duke of Anjou ; so she prevailed
with the dauphin to accept of the will, and set aside the treaty : she also engaged Pontchar-
train to second this.
They being thus prepared, when the news of the king of Spain's death came to Fontaine-
bleau, where the court was at that time, M. Spanheim, who was then there as ambassador
of Prussia, told me, that a cabinet council was called within two hours after the news came ;
it met in Madame de Maintenon's lodgings, and sat about four hours ; Pontchartrain was for
accepting the will, and the rest of the ministry were for adhering to the treaty ; but the
dauphin joined for accepting the will, with an air of positiveness, that he had never assumed
before : so it was believed to be done by concert with the king, who was reserved, and seemed
more inclined to the treaty : in conclusion, madame de Maintenon said, what had the duke of
Anjou done to provoke the king, to bar him of his right to that succession ? and upon this
all submitted to the dauphin's opinion, and the king seemed overcome with their reasons.
This was on Monday ; but though the matter was resolved on, yet it was not published
till Thursday ; for then, at the king's levee, he declared, that he accepted of the will, and
the duke of Anjou was now treated as king of Spain. Notice of this being sent to Spain,
an ambassador came in form to signify the will, and to desire that their king might go and
live among them. Upon which he was sent thither, accompanied by his two brothers, who
went with him to the frontiers of Spain. When the court of France published this resolu
tion, and sent it to all the courts of Europe, they added a most infamous excuse for this noto-

OF KING WILLIAM III. 673
rious breach of faith . they said, the king of France considered chiefly what was the inain
design of the treaty, which was to maintain the peace of Europe ; and therefore to pursue
this, he departed from the words of the treaty, but he adhered to the spirit and the chief
intent of it. This seemed to be an equivocation of so gross a nature, that it looked like the
invention of a Jesuit confessor, adding impudence to perjury. The king and the States were
struck with this ; the king was full of indignation to find himself so much abused ; so he
came over to England to see what was to be done upon so great an emergency. The Spaniards,
seeing themselves threatened with a war from the emperor, and apprehending that the empire,
together with England and the United Provinces, might be engaged to join in the war, and
b^ing unable to defend themselves, delivered all into the hands of France : and upon that,
both the Spanish Netherlands and the duchy of Milan received French garrisons : the French
fleet came to Cadiz ; a squadron was also sent to the West Indies ; so that the whole Spanish
empire fell now, without a stroke of the sword, into the French power. All this was the
more formidable, because the duke of Burgundy had then no children, and by this means,
the king of Spain was in time likely to succeed to the crown of France ; and thus the world
saw the appearance of a new universal monarchy, likely to arise out of this conjunction.
It might have been expected that, when such a new unlooked-for scene was opened, the
king should have lost no time in bringing his parliament together as soon as possible ; it was
prorogued to the 20th of November, and the king had sent orders from Holland to signify
his resolution for their meeting on that day ; but the ministers, whom he was then bringing
into his business, had other views ; they thought they were not sure of a majority in parlia
ment for their purposes, so they prevailed with the king to dissolve the parliament, and after
a set of sheriffs were pricked, fit for the turn, a new parliament was summoned, to meet on
the sixth day of February, but it was not opened till the tenth.
And now I am come to the end of this century, in which there was a black appearance
of a new and dismal scene ; France was now in possession of a great empire, for a small
part of which they had been in wars (broken off indeed in some intervals) for above two
hundred years ; while we in England, who were to protect and defend the rest, were, by
wretched factions and violent animosities, running into a feeble and disjointed state : the
king's cold and reserved manner, upon so high a provocation, made some conclude, that he
was in secret engagements with France ; that he was resolved to own the new king of Spain,
and not to engage in a new war : this seemed so different from his own inclinations, and
from all the former parts of his life, that it made many conclude that he found himself in an
ill state of health, the swelling of his legs being much increased, and that this might have
j such effects on his mind, as to make him less warm and active, less disposed to involve him
self in new troubles ; and that he might think it too inconsiderate a thing to enter on a new
war that was not likely to end soon, when he felt himself in a declining state of health ;
but the true secret of this unaccountable behaviour in the king was soon discovered.
The earl of Rochester was now set at the head of his business, and was to bring the tories
into his service : they had continued, from his first accession to the throne, in a constant
opposition to his interests ; many of them were believed to be jacobites in their hearts, and
they were generally much against the toleration, and violent enemies to the dissenters ; they
had been backward in every thing that was necessary for carrying on the former war ; they
had opposed taxes as much as they could, and were against all such as were easily levied
and less sensibly felt by the people ; and were always for those that were most grievous to
the nation, hoping that by those heavy burdens the people would grow weary of the war and
of the government : on the contrary, the whigs, by supporting both, were become less
acceptable to the nation : in elections their interest was much sunk ; every new parliament
was a new discovery that they were become less popular, and the others, who were always
opposing and complaining, were now cried up as the patriots. In the three last sessions, tlie
whigs had showed such a readiness to give the king more force, together with a management
to preserve the grants of Ireland, that they were publicly charged as betrayers Of their
country, and as men that were for trusting the king with an army ; in a word, they were
accused of too ready a compliance with the humours and interests of courts and favourites,
so they were generally censured and decried : and now, since they had not succeeded to the
x x

674 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
king's mind, some about him possessed him with this, that eitlier they would not, of could
not serve him. In some of them indeed, their principles lay against those things, whereas
the tories' principles did naturally lead them to make the crown great and powerful ; it was
also said, that the great opposition made to every thing the king desired, and the difficulties
that had been of late put upon him, flowed chiefly from the hatred borne to those who were
employed by him, and who had brought in their friends and creatures into the best posts,
and they were now studying to recover their lost popularity, which would make them cold,
if not backward, in complying with what the king might desire for the future : the whiga
did also begin to complain of the king's conduct, of his minding affairs so little, of his being
so much out of the kingdom, and of his ill choice of favourites ; and they imputed the
late miscarriages to errors in conduct, which they could neither prevent nor redress : the
favourites, who thought of nothing but to continue in favour, and to be still safe and secure
in their credit, concurred to press the king to take other measures, and to turn to another set
of men, who would be no longer his enemies, if they had some of the best places shared
among them ; and though this method had been almost fatal when the king had followed
it, soon after his first accession to the crown, yet there seemed to be less danger in trying it
now than was formerly. We were in full peace ; and it was commonly said, that nobody
thought any more of king James, and therefore it was fit, for the king's service, to encourage
all his people to come into his interests, by letting them see how soon he could forget all
that was past. These considerations had so far prevailed with him, that before he went out
of England, he had engaged himself secretly to them ; it is true, the death, first of the duke
of Gloucester, and now of the king of Spain, had very much changed the face of affairs, both
at home and abroad ; yet the king would not break off from his engagements.
Soon after his return to England, the earl of Rochester was declared lord lieutenant of
Ireland, and he had the chief direction of affairs *. And that the most eminent man of the
whigs might not oppose them in the new parliament, they got Mr. Montague to be made a
baron, who took the title of Halifax, which was sunk by the death of that marquis, with
out issue male. The man on whose management of the house of commons this new set
depended, was Mr. Harley, the heir of a family which had been hitherto the most eminent
of the presbyterian party ; his education was in that way ; but he, not being considered at
the revolution as he thought he deserved, had set himself to oppose the court in every thing,
and to find fault with the whole administration. He had the chief hand, both in the reduc
tion of the army, and in the matter of the Irish grants : the high party trusted him, though
he still kept up an interest among the presbyterians ; and he had so particular a dexterity,
that he made both the high church party and the dissenters depend upon him ; so it was
agreed that he should be speaker -j-. All this while, the new ministers talked of nothing but
negotiations, and gave it out, that the king of France was ready to give all the security that
could be desired, for maintaining the peace of Europe. At this time the emperor sent over
* Rochester, we have seen, was reconciled to queen commons. His eloquence was artificial : he never made
Mary by the influence of Burnet ; he was restored to the confidants, so his plans as a statesman were rarely dis
favour of the king by Mr. Harley.— Clarendon Corres- covered before his own appointed time. Sanguine in his
pondence. temperament, yet he had a perfect command over bis
f It will be only necessary to detail in this note the passion. Abounding in wit and humour, he justly
early and concluding events of Mr. Harley's life. Those applauded it when even employed upon himself, and
which marked his mid-career are related by Burnet, rebuked those who resented such playful freedoms. He
Robert Harley, born in Bow-street, Covent Garden, during was a strict dissenter, though a leader of the tories ; and
1661, was the son of sir Edward Harley. Being destined although among his chaplains he always had one of the
for the army, it does not appear to have been thought established church. Although he cherished the disseuters,
requisite to send him to an university, and bis education yet churchmen admired and supported him. Just before
ceased at a private school in Oxfordshire. He is thus an the death of queen Anne, in 1714, he retired from office,
instance that a man's fondness for, and excellence in lite- and the next year afforded another instance of popular
rary attainments, depend chiefly upon himself ; for he not fickleness, being impeached by the house of commons, and
only is the still remembered patron of learning, but ex- confined two years in the Tower, though eventually
celled as a writer. Upon the landing of William, he, in acquitted. He died in 1724. His books, the catalogue
common with his father and brothers, made exertions in of which fills four octavo volumes, were sold by auction;
his favour ; but from some disgust did not obtain employ- but his collection of MSS. fortunately are preserved entire
ment under William and Mary, though he came into in the British Museum. — Collins's Peerage ; Noble's Con-
favour at the closing of the former's life. No one under- tin. of Grainger ; Boyer's Queen Anne ; Coxe's Memoirs
stood better the duties of the speaker of the house of of Marlborough, &c.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 675
to England a minister to set forth his title to the Spanish monarchy, settled on his house by
ancient entails, often repeated, and now devolving on him by an undoubted right, since
by the renunciation made by the late queen of France, (as was stipulated by the treaty of
the Pyrenees, and then made by her in due form) this could not be called in question.
Our new ministers were scarcely civil to the emperor's envoy, and would not enter into any
consultations with him : but the Dutch who were about the king, and all the foreign minis
ters, spoke in another style ; they said that nothing but a general union of all the powers in
Europe, could hinder the conjunction of the two monarchies ; so, by what those who talked
often with the king gave out, it came to be soon known that the king saw the necessity of
a new war, but that he kept himself in a great reserve that he might manage his new minis
ters and their party, and see if he could engage them to concur with him.
But before I conclude the relation of this year, at which the century ends, I must close it
with an account of the king of Sweden's glorious campaign ; he made all the haste he could
to relieve Livonia, where not only Riga was for some months besieged by the king of Poland,
but Narva was also attacked by the czar, who hoped by taking it to get an entrance into the
Baltic : the czar came in person against it with an army of one hundred thousand men :
Narva was not provided for a siege ; it had a small garrison, and had very poor magazines,
yet the Muscovites attacked it so feebly, that it held out beyond all expectation till the end
of the year. Upon the king of Sweden's landing at Revel, the Saxons drew off from Riga,
after a long siege at a vast charge ; this being done, and Riga both opened and supplied, that
king marched next to Narva. The czar, upon his march towards him, left his army in such a
manner as made all people conclude he had. no mind to hazard his person ; the king marched
through ways that were thought so impracticable, that little care had been taken to secure
them ; so he surprised the Muscovites, and broke into their camp before they apprehended
he was near them ; he totally routed their army, took many prisoners, with all their artillery
and baggage, and so made a glorious entry into Narva*. This is the noblest campaign that
we find in any history, in which a king about eighteen years of age, led an army himself
against three kings, who had confederated against him, and was successful in every one of
his attempts, giving great marks both of personal courage and good conduct in them all ;
and which is more extraordinary, an eminent measure both of virtue and piety appeared in
his whole behaviour. In him the world hoped to see another Gustavus Adolphus, who con
quered, or rather possessed himself of Livonia, in the same year of his age, in which this
king did now so gloriously recover it, when almost lost by the invasion of two powerful
neighbours. There were great disorders at this time in Lithuania, occasioned by the fac
tions there, which were set on and fomented by the king, who seemed to aspire to be the
hereditary king of Poland. But as these things are at a great distance from us, so since
we have no public minister in those parts, I cannot give an account of them, nor form a true
judgment thereupon. The eighteenth century began with a great scene, that opened with it.
The new king of Spain wrote to all the courts of Europe, giving notice of his accession to
that crown, only he forgot England : and it was publicly given out that he had promised
the pretended prince of Wales, that in due time he would take care of his interests : the king
and the States were much alarmed when they beheld the French possessed of the Spanish
Netherlands : a great part of the Dutch army lay scattered up and down in those garrisons,
more particularly in Luxemburg, Namur, and Mons, and these were now made prisoners of
war : neither officers nor soldiers could own the king of Spain, for their masters had not yet
done it : at this time the French pressed the States very hard to declare themselves ; a great
party in the States were for owning him, at least in form, till they could get their troops
again into their own hands, according to capitulation ; nor were they then in a condition to
resist the impression that might have been made upon them from the garrisons in the Spanish
Guelder, who could have attacked them before they were able to make head : so the States
consented to own the king of Spain. That being done, their battalions were sent back, but
they were ill used, contrary to capitulation, and the soldiers were tempted to desert their
service, yet very few could be prevailed on to do it.
As soon as our parliament was opened, it appeared that the French had a great party in
* See Voltaire's Hist, of Charles the Twelfth.
x x 2

670 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
it ; it is certain great sums came over this winter from France ; the packet-boat came seldom
without 10,000 louis-d'or ; it brought often more : the nation was filled with them, and in
six months' time, a million of guineas were coined out of them : the merchants indeed said,
that the balance of trade was then so much turned to our side, that, whereas we were wont
to carry over a million of our money in specie, we then sent no money to France ; and had
at least half that sum sent over to balance the trade ; yet this did not account for that vast
flood of French gold that was visible amongst us : and, upon the French ambassador's going
away, a very sensible alteration was found in the bills of exchange : so it was concluded that
great remittances were made to him, and that these were distributed among those who
resolved to merit a share in that wealth, which came over now so copiously beyond the
example of former times. The king, in his speech to the parliament, in the most effectual
manner possible, recommended the settling the succession of the crown, in the protestant
line ; and with relation to foreign affairs, he laid them before the two houses that they might
offer him such advices as the state of the nation and her alliances required ; but he did not
so much as intimate to them his own thoughts concerning them. A design was laid in the
house of commons, to open the session with an address to the king, that he would own the
kino- of Spain : the matter was so far concerted, that they had agreed on the words of the
vote, and seemed not to doubt of the concurrence of the house ; but Mr. Monkton opposed
it with great heat, and among other things said, that if that vote was carried, he should expect
that the next vote to be put, would be for owning the pretended prince of Wales : upon this
occasion it appeared, how much popular assemblies are apt to be turned by a thing boldly
said, though the consequence is ever so remote ; since the connection of these two points lay
at some distance, yet the issue of the debate was quite contrary to that which was designed ;
it ended in an address to the king, to enter into new alliances with the States for our mutual
defence, and for preserving the liberty and peace of Europe : these last words were not carried
without much difficulty ; they were considered, as they were indeed, an insinuation towards
a war. Upon the view of the house, it appeared very evidently, that the tories were a great majo
rity ; yet they, to make the matter sure, resolved to clear the house of a great many that
weie engaged in another interest : reports were brought to them of elections that had been
scandalously purchased, by some who were concerned in the new East-India company.
Instead of drinking and entertainments, by which elections were formerly managed, now a
most scandalous practice was brought in of buying votes with so little decency, that the
electors engaged themselves by subscription to choose a blank person before they were trusted
with the name of their candidate. The old East-India company had driven a course of cor
ruption within doors with so little shame, that the new company intended to follow their
example, but with this difference, that, whereas the former had bought the persons who were
elected, they resolved to buy elections. Sir Edward Seymour, who had dealt in this corrup
tion his whole life-time, and whom the old company was said to have bought before, at a
very high price, brought before the house of commons the discovery of some of the practices
of the new company ; the examining into these took up many days. In conclusion, the
matter was so well proved, that several elections were declared void ; and some of the per
sons so chosen were for some time kept in prison ; after that they were expelled the house.
In these proceedings great partiality appeared; for when in some cases corruption was
proved clearly against some of the tory party, and but doubtfully against some of the contrary
side, that, which was voted corruption in the latter, was called the giving alms in those of
the former sort. Thus, for some weeks, the house seemed to have forgotten all the concerns of
Europe, and was wholly employed in the weakening of one side, and in fortifying the other.
To make some show of zeal for the public safety, they voted thirty thousand men for the
fleet ; but they would allow no marines, though they were told that a fleet without these was
only a good security for our own defence, but could have no influence on the affairs of
Europe, either to frighten, or to encourage those abroad ; such a fleet, as it could not offend,
so it was much too strong if it was intended only for a defence, and it looked like a needless
wasting the treasure of the nation to employ so much of it to so little purpose, and only to
make a show.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 677
While7 the house of commons was going on, minding only party matters, a design was laid
in the house of lords to attack the Partition Treaty, and some of those who were concerned
in it. They began with an address to the king, that he would order all the treaties made
since the peace of Ryswick, to be laid before them. This was complied with so slowly, that
they were not brought to the house till the 26th of February, and no notice was taken of
them till the 10th of March. It soon appeared that this was done by a French direction.
The court of France (perceiving that the Dutch were alarmed at their neighbourhood, and
were increasing their force, both by sea and land, and were calling upon their allies to furnish
their quotas, which they were bound by treaties to send to their defence) entered upon a
negotiation with them at the Hague, to try what would lay these fears. Upon this, in the
beginning of March, the States, in conjunction with Mr. Stanhope, the English envoy at the
Hague, gave in memorials, in which they insisted on the violation of the Partition Treaty,
and particularly on the French possessing themselves of the Spanish Netherlands ; they also
desired, that the emperor might have just satisfaction in his pretensions, and that in the mean
while, Luxemburg, Namur, Mons, and Ath, might be put in their hands ; and Ostend and
Newport into the hauds of the English, and both they and the Dutch might have a free trade,
as before, to all the Spanish dominions. The French seeing these demands run so high, and
being resolved to offer no other security for the peace of Europe, but the renewing the treaty
of Ryswick, set all their engines at work in England, to involve us into such contentions at
home as should both disable us from taking any care of foreign affairs, and make the rest of
Europe conclude, that nothing considerable was to be expected from England. As soon as
the news of those memorials could come to England, the marquis of Normanby and the rest
of the tories took up the debate concerning the Partition Treaty ; this they managed with
great dexterity, while the matter was as much neglected by the king, who went that day to
Hampton-court, where he stayed some time ; by this means, no directions were given, and
we were involved in great difficulties before the court was aware of it ; the king either could
not prevail with his new ministers, to excuse the treaty, if they would not justify it, or he
neglected them so far, as not to speak to them at all about it. Those who attacked it, said,
they meant nothing in that but to offer the king advices for the future, to prevent such
errors as had been committed in that treaty, both as to matter and form. They blamed the
giving such territories to the crown of France, and the forsaking the emperor ; they also com
plained of the secrecy in which the treaty was carried on, it not being communicated to the
English council, or ministry, but privately transacted by the earls of Portland and Jersey :
they also blamed the putting the great seal, first to blank powers, and then to the treaty
itself, which, the king's new ministers said, was unjust in the contrivance and ridiculous in
the execution. To all this, it was answered, that there not being a force ready and sufficient
to hinder the French from possessing themselves of the Spanish monarchy, which they were
prepared for, the emperor had desired the king to enter into a treaty of partition, and had
consented to every article of it, except that which related to the duchy of Milan ; but the
king, not thinking that worth the engaging in a new war, had obtained an exchange of it
for the duchy of Lorrain : the emperor did not agree to this, yet he pressed the king not to
break off the treaty, but to get the best terms he could for him, and above all things, he
recommended secrecy, that so he might not lose his interest in Spain, by seeming to con
sent to this partition. It is certain that, by our constitution, all foreign negotiations were
trusted entirely to the crown ; that the king was under no obligation by law, to communicate
such secrets to his council, or to hear, much less was he obliged to follow, their advices : in
particular it was said, that the keeper of the great seal had no sort of authority to deny the
putting it, either to powers for a treaty, or to any treaty which the king should agree to ;
the law gives no direction in such matters, and he could not refuse to put the great seal to
any thing, for which he had an order from the king, unless the matter was contrary to law,
which had made no provision in this case : they insisted most, on the other side, upon the
concluding a treaty of this importance, without communicating it first to the privy council ;
so the first day of the debate ended with this.
The earl of Portland apprehending that this might fall too heavy on him, got the king's'
leave to communicate the whole matter next day to the house ; so he told them that he had

678 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
not concluded the treaty alone, but had, by the king's order, acquainted six of his chief minis
ters with it, who were, the earls of Pembroke and Marlborough, the viscount Lonsdale, the
lords Somers and Halifax, and secretary Vernon ; upon which those lords, being likewise
freed by the king from the oath of secrecy, told the house, that the earl of Jersey, having
in the king's name called them together, the treaty was read to them, and that they excepted
to several things in it, but they were told that the king had carried the matter as far as was
possible, and that he could obtain no better terms : so when they were told, that no altera
tions could be made, but that every thing was settled, they gave over insisting on particu
lars ; they only advised that the king might not engage himself in any thing that would
bring on a new war, since the nation had been so uneasy under the last. This was carried
to the king, and a few days after that, he told some of them that he was made acquainted
with their exceptions, but how reasonable soever they were, he had driven the matter as far
as he could : the earl of Pembroke said to the house of lords, he had offered the king those
advices that he thought were most for his service, and for the good of the nation ; but that
he did not think himself bound to give an account of that to any other persons : he was not
the man struck at, so there was nothing said, either against him, or the earls of Marlborough
or Jersey ; upon this the debate went on ; some said this was a mockery to ask advice when
there was no room for it : it was answered, the king had asked the advice of his privy
council, and they had given it ; but that such was the regal prerogative, that it was still free
to him to follow it or not, as he saw cause.
In conclusion, the house of lords resolved to set out this whole matter in an address to the
king, complaining both of the Partition Treaty, and of the method in which it had been
carried on : the lord Wharton moved an addition to the address, that, whereas the French
king had broken that treaty, they should advise the king to treat no more with him, or rely
on his word without further security : this was much opposed by all those who were against
the engaging in a new war ; they said all motions of that kind ought to come from the house
of commons, who only could support such an advice, that did upon the matter engage us into
a new war ; nor would they lay any blame on the breaking of a treaty which they were
resolved to condemn; they also excepted to the words " further security" as ambiguous;
yet the majority of the house agreed to it; for there was such treachery in the French nego
tiations, that they could not be relied on without a good guarantee and tho pledge of some
strong places. It now plainly appeared, that the design was, to set on the house of commons
to impeach some of the lords who had been concerned in the Partition Treaty, for it was
moved to send the address to the house of commons for their concurrence ; but that was not
carried. The king seemed to bear all this with his usual coldness ; and the new ministers
continued still in his confidence, but he laid the matter much to heart ; now he saw the error
he had fallen into by the change he had made in the ministry : it was plain they resolved to
govern him in every thing, and not to be governed by him in any one thing.
As soon as this was over, the earl of Jersey did, by the king's order, bring to the house of
lords the memorials that had been given in at the Hague, and then by comparing dates, it
was easy to conjecture why the Partition Treaty had been let lie so long on the table, and it
seemed as if it was taken up at last only to blast this negotiation ; a French management
appearing very plainly in the whole steps that had been made. The house of commons began,
at the same time, not only to complain of the Partition Treaty, but likewise of the demand of
Ostend and Newport, nor would they show any concern for the emperor's pretensions ; the
Dutch demanded the execution of the treaty that king Charles had made with them, in the
year 1677, by which England was bound to assist them with ten thousand men and twenty
ships of war, if they were attacked ; some endeavoured all that was possible to put this off
for the present, pretending that they were not yet attacked ; others moved that the pay of
ten thousand men might be given to them, with the twenty ships, as a full equivalent to the
treaty ; yet they not liking this, it was in conclusion agreed to send the ten thousand men ;
five thousand of these were to be drawn out of the army in Ireland, and five thousand of
them were to be new levied ; but they took care that Ireland should not be provided with
any new forces in their stead, so jealous were they of trusting.the king with an army. The
representation sent over by the States, setting forth the clanger they were in, and desiring

OF KING WILLIAM III. 679
the assistance of England, was penned with great spirit, and in a very moving strain : the
house of lords did, upon a debate on that subject, make an address to the king to enter into
leagues offensive and defensive with the emperor and other princes and States, who were
interested against the conjunction of the French and Spanish monarchies ; but the house of
commons could not, upon this occasion, be carried further than to advise the king, to enter
into such alliances as should be necessary for our common security, and for the peace of
Europe. This coldness and uncertainty in our councils gave the French great advantages in
their negotiations, both in Germany and in Portugal. They tried the courts of Italy, but
without success; only the duke of Mantua consented that they should make a show, as if
they had surprised him, and so force him to put Mantua in their hands : the pope and the
Venetians would not declare themselves ; the pope favoured the French, as the Venetians
did the emperor, who began the war with a pretension on the duchy of Milan, as a fief of
the empire that devolved on him ; and he was making magazines, both in Tyrol and at
Trent : the French seemed to despise all he could do, and did not apprehend that it was
possible for him to march an army into Italy ; both the king and the States pressed him to
make that attempt. The elector of Bavaria, and some of the circles, had agreed to a
neutrality this year ; so there was no hope of doing much upon the Rhine, and the French
were making the Italians feel what insolent masters they were likely to prove ; so a general
uneasiness among them, determined the emperor to send an army into Italy under the com
mand of prince Eugene. England was all this while very unwilling to engage ; yet for fear
we should at last have seen our interest so clearly that we must have fallen into it, those who
were practised on to embroil us, so that we might not be in a condition to mind foreign affairs,
set on foot a design to impeach the former ministry.
The handle that brought this about was given by the earl of Portland ; when he was
excusing his own part in the Partition Treaty, he said, that having withdrawn himself from
business, and being at his country-house in Holland, the king sent to him, desiring him to
enter upon that negotiation ; upon that he wrote to secretary Vernon *, to ask his advice and
the advice of his other friends, whether it was fit for him to meddle in that matter, since his
being by birth a foreigner, seemed a just excuse for not engaging in a thing of such conse
quence : to this secretary Vernon answered, that all his friends thought he was a very proper
person to be employed in that treaty, since he had known the progress of all those treaties,
and the persons who were employed on that occasion ; and he named the lord Somers among
those who had advised this. The earl of Portland had mistaken this circumstance, which
did not belong to the last partition treaty, but to that of the year before, in favour of the
prince electoral of Bavaria. The house of commons hearing of this, required secretary Ver
non to lay before them that letter, with his answer to it ; for the earl of Portland said, that
he had left all papers relating to that matter in Holland. Vernon said he had received no
such letter in the year 1699 ; so that led them to enquire farther, and they required him to
lay before them all the letters he had relating to both treaties : he said, those were the king's
secrets, written in confidence by the persons he employed. But in such a case, a house of
commons will not be put off; a denial rather raises in them more earnestness in following
their point : it was said, the king had dispensed with the oath of secrecy when he ordered
' * James Vernon descended from a respectable family, porary work, said to have been written by a Mr. Davis,
seated at Haslington, in Cheshire. Early in life he was an officer of the customs, he is thus mentioned. " No
initiated in official business, being placed in the secretary man understands all parts of that great office (of secre-
of state's office. Afterwards he enjoyed the duke of tary) better than he, nor could manage it with more pru-
Shrewsbury's entire confidence as his private secretary, dence at so intricate a time as the last two years of his
and under secretary of state. There are three quarto administration. He is indefatigable in business, and may
volumes of his letters to this nobleman in the possession he called a drudge in office. An ill wife hath much
of the Buccletigh family. When lords justices presided soured his temper, which makes him rougher in business
during the absence of king William, he acted as secretary than could he expected from one of his sense and expe-
of state, and in 1697, upon sirW. Trumbull's resignation, rience ; but that roughness is attended with so much can-
he was permanently appointed to this office. Upon queen dour, and is distributed equally to all who have business
Anne's accession, he made way for the earl of Notting- with him, that makes it easier borne. Never any secre-
ham, but was appointed to the sinecure of a teller of the tary wrote so many letters with his own hand, or in a
exchequer. He died in 1727, aged eighty-three, and better style." — Clarendon Correspondence ; Shrewsbury
la buried at Watford, in Hertfordshire. In Mackay's Correspondence.
" Characters of the Court of Great Britain," a contem-

680 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
all matters to be laid before them, and they would admit of no excuse. Vernon upon this
went to the king, and told him, since these were his secrets, he was ready to expose himself
to the indignation of the house, and to refuse to show his letters : but the king said, his
refusing to do it would not only raise a storm against himself, from which the king could not
protect him, but it would occasion an address to the king, to order him to lay every thing
before the house, which in the state that things were in then, he could not deny : Vernon, upon
these orders given him, at two different times, carried all the letters, and laid them before
the house of commons : it appeared by these, that he had communicated the treaty to the
king's ministers, who were in town, about the end of August, 1698 : that lord Somers
being then at Tunbridge, he went to him, and that he had communicated the project, both
to the earl of Orford and the lord Halifax ; several objections were made by them to many
parts of the treaty, which were mentioned in Vernon's letters, but, if better terms could not
be had, they thought it was better to conclude the treaty, than to leave the Spanish monarchy
to be overrun by France, or to involve Europe in a new war. Lord Somers had also put the
seals to blank powers for concluding this treaty. When all this was read, those who were
set on to blow up the flame, moved the house to impeach some of the ministers who lad
been concerned in this transaction ; yet in this they proceeded with so visible a partiality.
that though the earl of Jersey had signed the treaty, had been plenipotentiary at Ryswick,
ambassador in France, and secretary of state, while the Partition Treaty was negotiating ;
yet he, having joined himself to the new ministry, was not questioned about it : the party
said, he had been too easily drawn into it, but that he was not in the secret, and had no
share in the councils that projected it.
On the first of April, the house of commons brought up a general impeachment of the
earl of Portland, for high crimes and misdemeanors ; but the chief design was against the
earl of Orford, and the lords Somers and Halifax. Their enemies tried again what use
could be made of Kid's business, for he was taken in our northern plantations in America,
and brought over : he was examined by the house, but either he could not lay a probable
story together, or some remnants of honesty raised in him by the near prospect of death,
restrained him ; he accused no person of having advised, or encouraged, his turning pirate ;
he had never talked alone with any of the lords, and never at all with lord Somers ; he said
he had no orders from them, but to pursue his voyage against the pirates in Madagascar. All
endeavours were used to persuade him to accuse the lords ; he was assured that, if he did it,
he should be preserved ; and if he did it not, ho should certainly die for his piracy ; yet this
could not prevail on him to charge them : so he, with some of his crew, were hanged, there
appearing not so much as a colour to fasten any imputation on those lords ; yet their enemies
tried what use could be made of the grant of all that Kid might recover from the pirates,
which some bold and ignorant lawyers affirmed to be against law *. So this matter was for
the fourth time debated in the house of commons, and the behaviour of those peers in it
appeared to be so innocent, so legal, and, in truth, so meritorious, that it was again let fall.
The insisting so much on it served to convince all people, that the enemies of these lords
wanted not inclinations, but only matter to charge them, since they made so much use of this :
but so partial was a great part of the house, that the dropping this was carried only by a
small majority : when one design failed, another was set up.
It was pretended, that by secretary Vernon's letters it was clearly proved, that the lord
Somers had consented to the Partition Treaty ; so a debate coming on concerning that, lord
Somers desired that he might be admitted to give an account of his share in it to the house
of commons ; some opposition was made to this, but it had been always granted, so it could
not be denied him : he had obtained the king's leave to tell every thing ; so that when he
appeared before the house, he told them, the king had written to him, that the state of the
king of Spain's health was desperate, and that he saw no way to prevent a new war, but to
accept of the proposition the French made for a partition ; the king sent him the scheme of
this, and ordered him to communicate it to some others, and to give him both his own opi
nion, and theirs, concerning it, and to send him over powers for a treaty, but in the most
* Queen Anno gave Kid's property, amounting to 6472/., to Greenwich Hospital. — Noble's Continuation of
Grainger.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 681
Secret manner that was possible ; yet the king added, that, if he and his other ministers
thought that a treaty ought not to be made upon such a project, then the whole matter must
be let fall, for he could not bring the French to better terms. Lord Somers upon this said,
that he thought it was the taking too much upon himself, if he should have put a stop to a
treaty of such consequence : if the king of Spain had died before it was finished, and the
blame had been cast on him for not sending the necessary powers, because he was not ordered
to do it by a warrant in full form, he could not have justified that, since the king's letter
was really a warrant, and therefore he thought he was bound to send the powers that were
called for, which he had done ; but at the same time he wrote his own opinion very fully to
the king, objecting to many particulars, if there was room for it, and proposing several things,
which, as he thought, were for the good and interest of England. Soon after the powers
were sent over by him, the treaty was concluded, to which he put the great seal, as he
thought he was bound to do : in this, as he was a privy councillor, he had offered the king
his best advice ; and, as he was chancellor, he had executed his office according to his duty.
As for putting the seal to the powers, he had done it upon the king's letter, which was a real
warrant, though not a formal one. He had indeed desired, that a warrant in due form might
be sent him for his own security ; but he did not think it became him to endanger the
public only for want of a point of form, in so critical a time, where great dispatch was requi
site. He spoke so fully and so clearly, that upon his withdrawing, it was believed, if the
question had been quickly put, the whole matter had been soon at an end, and that the pro
secution would have been let fall ; but his enemies drew out the debate to such a length,
that the impression which his speech had made, was much worn out ; and the house sitting
till it was past midnight, they at last carried it, by a majority of seven or eight, to impeach
him and the earl of Orford and the lord Halifax of high crimes and misdemeanors : the
general impeachment was brought up the next day to the lords' bar.
The commons were very sensible that those impeachments must come to nothing, and that
they had not a majority in the house of lords to judge in them as they should direct ; so
they resolved on a shorter way to fix a severe censure on the lords, whom they had thus
impeached : they voted an address to the king for excluding them from his presence, and
councils, for ever. This had never gone along with an impeachment before ; the house of
commons had indeed begun such a practice in king Charles the Second's time : when they
disliked a minister, but had not matter to ground an impeachment on, they had taken this
method of making an address against him, but it was a new attempt to come with an address
after an impeachment. This was punishing before trial, contrary to an indispensable rule of
justice, of not judging before the parties were heard : the lords saw that this made their
judicature ridiculous, when, in the first instance of an accusation, application was made to
the king for a censure, and a very severe one ; since few misdemeanors could deserve a harder
sentence. Upon these grounds, tho lords prevented the commons, and sent some of their
body to the king, with an address, praying him, that he would not proceed to any censure of
these lords till they had undergone their trial. The king received these addresses, so con
trary one to another, from both houses, but made no answer to either of them ; unless the
letting the names of these lords continue still in the council books, might be taken as a
refusing to grant what the commons had desired. They renewed their address, but had no
direct answer from the king ; this, though a piece of common justice, was complained of, and
it was said, that these lords had still great credit with the king : the commons had, for form's
Sake, ordered a committee to prepare articles of impeachment, but they intended to let the
matter sleep ; thinking that, what they had already done had so marked those lords, that
the king could not employ them any more, for that was the main thing they drove at.
While this was in agitation, a letter came to the king from the king of Spain, giving
notice of his accession to that crown ; it was dated the day after he entered into Spain, but
the date and the letter were visibly written at different times : the king ordered the letter tc
be read in the cabinet council ; there was some short debate concerning it, but it was never
brought into any further deliberation there. The earl of Rochester saw the king seemed
distrustful of him, and reserved to him in that matter, and was highly offended at it : he and
the rest of the new ministry pressed the king to own the king of Spain, and to answer his

682 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
letter ; and since the Dutch had done it, it seemed reasonable that the king should likewise
do it : they prevailed at last, but with much difficulty ; the thing was kept secret, and was
not communicated to the privy council, or to the two houses, nor did the king speak of it to
any of the foreign ministers : the Paris Gazette gave the world the first notice of it. This
being carried in such a manner seemed the more strange, because his ministry had so lately
condemned a former one, for not communicating the Partition Treaty to the council before it
was concluded ; and yet had, in a matter of great consequence, so soon forgotten the cen
sures they had thrown out so liberally upon the secrecy with which that matter had been
transacted. While things were moving in such a slow, and uncertain, pace in England, the
Dutch had daily new alarms brought them, of the forces that the French were pouring into
their neighbourhood ; into the Spanish Guelder on the one hand, and into Antwerp on the
other ; so that they were apprehensive of a design both upon Nimeguen, and Bergen-op-
zoom : they took the best care they could to secure their frontier : the negotiations went on
slowly at the Hague ; the French rejected all their demands, and offered nothing but to
renew the peace of Ryswick : this the Dutch laid again before the king, in a very awaken
ing strain ; and he sent all to the house of commons, but they could not be brought to
declare that the offers made by the French were not sufficient. D'Avaux, seeing this cold
ness in our counsels, refused to treat any more with the Dutch, in conjunction with the
envoy of England, and said his powers directed him only to them : this put a full stop to all
further treaty ; for the States said, they were engaged in such a close conjunction with
England, that they could not enter on a separate treaty. In the mean while they armed
powerfully ; and our fleet, in conjunction with theirs, were masters of the sea ; but for want
of marines, they were in no condition to make any impression on the enemy. The emperor
went on with his preparation for a campaign in Italy ¦ the French sent an army into the
Milanese, that they reckoned would be much superior to any force the emperor could send
thither : the duke of Savoy was engaged in the interest of France by king Philip's marrying
his second daughter : the pope still refused to give the investiture of Naples, or to accept the
annual present, for he would not quite break with the emperor.
The French practices were every where the more prevalent, because they gave out that
England would not engage in a war, and the face of our affairs looked but dark at home.
The emperor's ministers had an uneasy time among us ; the king encouraged them, but the
new ministers were scarcely civil to them, and studied to put them quite out of hope. The
king of Denmark entered into a treaty with the emperor and the States. Great pains were
taken to mediate a peace between Sweden and Poland. The court of France, as well as
that of Vienna, tried it ; both sides hoping that Sweden, if not Poland, might enter into
their interests : the French reckoned that Denmark and Sweden could never be on the
same side ; so, when they found they could not gain Denmark, they tried a mediation,
hoping to get Sweden into an alliance with them, but all attempts for a mediation proved
unsuccessful. The diet of Poland was put off, and their king, being delivered from them,
resolved to carry on the war. The Spaniards, and the subjects of their other dominions,
began to feel the insolence of the French very sensibly; but nothing was more uneasy to
them than the new regulations they were endeavouring to bring in, to lessen the expense of
the court of Spain. So they seemed well disposed to entertain a new pretender.
While all these things were in a ferment all Europe over, the declaring a protestant suc
cessor, after the princess and such issue as she might have, seemed to be forgotten by our
parliament, though the king had begun his speech with it. The new ministers spoke of it
with much zeal ; from this their friends made inferences in their favour, that certainly men,
in the interests of France, would not promote a design so destructive of all they drove at.
This was so little of a piece with the rest of their conduct, that those who were still jealous
of their sincerity looked on it as a blind, to cover their ill designs, and to gain them some
credit ; for they could not but see that if France was once possessed of the power and wealth
of Spain, our laws, and every thing that we could do to support them, would prove but
feeble defences. The manner in which this motion of the succession was managed did not
carry in it great marks of sincerity : it was often put off from one day to another, and it
gave place to the most trifling matters. At last, when a day was solemnly set for it, and

OF KING WILLIAM III. 683
all people expected that it should pass without any difficulty, Harley moved that some
things previous to that might be first considered. He observed that the haste the nation
was in, when the present government -was settled, had made us go too fast and overlook
many securities, which might have prevented much mischief, and therefore he hoped they
would not now fall into the same error. Nothing pressed them at present, so he moved
they would settle some conditions of government, as preliminaries, before they should proceed
to the nomination of the person ; that so we might fix every thing that was wanting to
make our security complete. This was popular and took with many, and it had so fair an
appearance that indeed none could oppose it ; some weeks were spent upon it. Suspicious
people thought this was done on design to blast the motion, and to offer such extravagant
limitations as should quite change the form of our government, and render the crown titular
and precarious. The king was alarmed at it, for almost every particular that was proposed
implied a reflection on him and his administration, chiefly that of not employing strangers,
and not going too often out of the kingdom : it was proposed that every thing should be
done with the advice of the privy council, and every privy councillor was to sign his advice.
All men who had places or pensions were made incapable of sitting in the house of commons.
All this was unacceptable to the king, so, many who had an ill opinion of the design of those
who were now at the helm, began to conclude chat the delays were affected, and that these
limitations were designed to raise disputes between the two houses, by which the bill might
be lost. When some time had been spent in those preliminaries, it came to the nomination
of the person. Sir John Bowles, who was then disordered in his senses, and soon after quite
lost them, was set on by the party to be the first that should name the electoress dowager of
Brunswick, which seemed done to make it less serious when moved by such a person : he
was, by the forms of the house, put in the chair of the committee, to whom the bill was
committed. The thing was still put off for many weeks ; at every time that it was called
for, the motion was entertained with coldness, which served to heighten the jealousy : the
committee once or twice sat upon it, but all the members ran out of the house with so much
indecency, that the contrivers seemed ashamed of this management : there were seldom fifty
or sixty at the committee : yet in conclusion it passed, and was sent up to the lords, where
we expected great opposition would be made to it : some imagined the act was only an
artifice, designed to gain credit to those who, at this time, were so ill thought of over the
nation, that they wanted some colourable thing to excuse their other proceedings. Many
of the lords absented themselves on design. Some little opposition was made by the marquis
of Normanby * ; and four lords, the earls of Huntington and Plymouth and the lords Guil
ford and Jefferies, protested against it. Those who wished well to the act were glad to have it
passed any way, and so would not examine the limitations that were in it : they thought it
* Of the public career of John Sheffield, successively William, though he did not invite him over. It was
known by the titles of earl Mulgrave, marquis Normanby, proposed that he should be asked to sign the invitation,
and duke of Buckinghamshire, little need be said in addi- hut the earl of Shrewsbury opposed it, on the ground that
tion to that which is scattered through the pages of Bur- Mulgrave would never concur. William asked him
net. He was born in 1 649, the son of Edmund, earl of what he would have done, if the proposal had been made ?
Mulgrave. His youth is remarkable for an effort, which To which he replied, " Sir, I would have discovered it to
Dr. Johnson justly observes "delights as it is strange, the king whom I then served." William answered, "I
and instructs as it is real." His father dying while he cannot blame you." After queen Anne's death be was
was a child, he was placed under so distasteful a tutor, a fixed opponent of the court ; and, having no public em-
that, although only twelve years old, he resolved to edu- ployment, is supposed to have amused himself by writing
cate himself. " His literary acquisitions are more won- his two tragedies. He died in 17'21. In early life, it is
derful, as those years in which they are commonly made said, he presumed to address princess Anne as a lover ;
were spent by him in the tumult of a military life, or the but, subsequently, courted and married three widows.
gaiety of a court." He served against the Dutch, in the In Mackay's " Characters," he is described as "a noble-
fleet commanded by prince Rupert and the duke of Albe- man of learning and good natural parts, but of no princi-
marle ; had the command of a troop of horse, and received pies. Violent for the high church, yet seldom goes to it ;
a summons to parliament when but eighteen ; but this very proud, insolent, and covetous, and takes all advan-
being censured by the duke of Newcastle as improper, his tages. In paying his debts, unwilling ; and is neither
objection was successful. He opposed the duke of Mon- esteemed nor beloved." He is said, however, to have
mouth, and was recompensed with the lieutenancy of had much tenderness, and to have been very ready to
Yorkshire, and the governorship of Hull. In 1680 he apologize for his violences of passion. — (Johnson's Lives
successfully conducted an expedition for the relief of of the Poets ; Clarendon Correspondence. ) He was the
Tangier. On the succession of James he was made lord builder of Buckingham house, now the royal palace/ at
chamberlain : yet, at the revolution, he submitted to king Pimlico.

684 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
bf great importance to carry the act, and that at another time those limitations might be
better considered : so the act passed, and the king sent it over by the earl of Macclesfield to
the electoress, together with the garter to the elector. We reckoned it a great point carried
that we had now a law ou our side for a protestant successor ; for we plainly saw a groat
party formed against it, in favour of the pretended prince of Wales. He was now past
thirteen, bred up with a hatred both of our religion and our constitution, in an admiration
of the French government ; and yet many who called themselves protestants seemed fond of
such a successor : a degree of infatuation that might justly amaze all who observed it, and
saw the fury with which it was promoted.
Another very good act passed this session, concerning the privilege of parliament. Peers
had, by law or custom, a privilege for themselves and their servants during the session, and
at least twenty days before and after. Of late they have reckoned forty days before and
after, in which neither they nor their servants could be sued in any court, unless for treason,
felony, or breach of the peace : the house of commons had also possessed themselves of the
same privilege ; but with this difference, that the lords pretended theirs was a right not
subject to the order of the house of lords ; whereas the commons held that their privilege
was subject to the authority of their house. Of late years, sessions were long and continued
by intermediate prorogations, so that the whole year round was a time of privilege : this
made a great obstruction in the course of justice, and none who were so protected could be
sued for debt. The abuse was carried further by the protections which some lords gave, or
rather sold, to persons who were no way concerned in their affairs ; but when they needed
this shelter, they had a pretended office given them, that was a bar to all arrests. After
many fruitless attempts to regulate these abuses, a bill was brought into the house of com
mons that took away all privilege against legal prosecutions in intermediate prorogations;
and did so regulate it during the sitting of parliament, that an effectual remedy was pro
vided for a grievance that had been long and much complained of. These were the only
popular things that were done by this parliament, the rest of their proceedings showed both
the madness and fury of parties.
The impeachments lay long neglected in the house of commons, and probably they would
have been let sleep, if the lords concerned had not moved for a trial : on their motion, mes
sages were sent to the commons to quicken their proceedings. At last, articles were framed
and brought up, first, against the earl of Orford : he was charged for taking great grants
from the king. Kid's business was objected to him. He was also charged for abuses in
managing the fleet, and victualling it, when it lay on the coast of Spain, and for some orders
he had given, during his command ; and, in conclusion, for his advising the Partition Treaty.
And, in setting this out, the commons urged that the king, by the alliance made with the
emperor in the year 1689, was bound to maintain his succession to the crown of Spain,
which they said was still in force : so the Partition Treaty was a breach of faith, contra-ry to
that alliance, and this passed current in the house of commons, without any debate or
enquiry into it ; for everything was acceptable there that loaded that treaty and these lords :
but they did not consider, that by this they declared they thought the king was bound to
maintain the emperor's right to that succession; yet this was not intended by those
who managed the party, who had not hitherto given any countenance to the emperor's
pretensions. So apt are parties to make use of any thing that may serve a turn, without
considering the consequences of it.
The earl of Orford put in his answer in four days. He said he had no grant of the king,
but a reversion at a great distance, and a gift of ten thousand pounds, after he had defeated
the French at La Hogue, which he thought he might lawfully accept of, as all others before
him had done : he opened Kid's matter, in which he had acted legally, with good intentions
to the public, and to his own loss : his accounts, while he commanded the fleet, had been
all examined and were passed ; but he was ready to waive that, and to justify himself in every
particular, and he denied his having given any advice about the Partition Treaty : this was
immediately sent down to the commons ; but they let it lie before them without coming to
n replication ; which is only a piece of form by which they undertake to make good their
charge.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 685
Articles were "next sent up against the lord Somers. In these, the two Partition Treaties
were copiously set forth, and it was laid down for a foundation, that the king was bound to
maintain the emperor's right of succession to the crown of Spain. Lord Somers was charged
for setting the seals, first to the powers, and then to the treaties themselves : he was also
charged for accepting some grants ; and the manner of taking them was represented as
fraudulent, he seeming to buy them of the king, and then getting himself discharged of the
price contracted for. Kid's business was also mentioned, and dilatory and partial pro
ceedings in chancery were objected to him. He put in his answer in a very few days : in
the Partition Treaty, he said, he had offered the king very faithful advice as a councillor, and
had acted according to the duty of his post as chancellor ; so he had nothing more to answer
for : as for his grants, the king designed him a grant to such a value ; the king was not
deceived in the value ; the manner of passing it was according to the usual methods of the
treasury, in order to make a grant sure, and out of the danger of being avoided. Kid's
business was opened as was formerly set forth; and, as to the court of chancery, he had
applied himself wholly to the dispatch of business in it, with little regard to his own health
or quiet, and had acted according to the best of his judgment, without fear or favour.
This was presently sent down to the house of commons, and upon that they were at a full
stand : they framed no articles against the earl of Portland, which was represented to the
king as an expression of their respect to him.
Some time after this, near the end of the session, they sent up articles against the lord
Halifax, which I mention here that I may end this matter all at once. They charged him
for a grant that he had in Ireland, and that he had not paid in the produce of it, as the
act concerning those grants had enacted : they charged him for another grant, out of the
forest of Dean, to the waste of the timber and prejudice of the navy of England : they
charged him for holding places that were incompatible, being at the same time both a com
missioner of the treasury and auditor of the exchequer : and, in conclusion, he was charged
for advising the two Partition Treaties. He was as quick with his answer as the other lords
had been. He said, his grant in Ireland was of some debts and sums of money, and so was
not thought to be within the act concerning confiscated estates. All he had ever received
of it was 400Z. If he was bound to repay it, he was liable to an action for it ; but every
man was not to be impeached who did not pay his debts at the day of payment. His grant
in the forest of Dean was only of the weedings; so it could be no waste of timber, nor a
prejudice to the navy • the auditor's place was held by another, till he obtained the king's
leave to withdraw from the treasury : as for the first Partition Treaty, he never once saw it,
nor was he ever advised with in it : as for the second, he gave his advice very freely about
it, at the single time in which he had ever heard any thing concerning it. This was sent
down to the commons, but was never so much as once read by them. When, by these
articles, and the answers to them, it appeared, that after all the noise and clamour that had
been raised against the former ministry (more particularly against the lord Halifax) for the
great waste of treasure during their administration, that now, upon the strictest search, all
ended in such poor accusations ; it turned the minds of many that had been formerly preju
diced against them. It appeared that it was the animosity of a party at best, if it was
not a French practice, to ruin men who had served the king faithfully, and to discourage
others from engaging themselves so far in his interests as these lords had done. They saw
the effect that must follow on this ; and that the king could not enter upon a new war, if
they could discourage from his service all the men of lively and active tempers, that would
raise a spirit in the nation for supporting such an important and dangerous war, as this now
in prospect was likely to prove.
This gave a general disgust to all England, more particularly to the city of London,
where foreign affairs and the interest of trade were generally better understood. The old
East India company, though they hated the ministry that set up the new, and studied to
support this house of commons, Irom whom they expected much favour ; yet they, as well
as the rest of the city, saw visibly that first the ruin of trade, and then, as a consequence of
that, the ruin of the nation must certainly ensue, if France and Spain were once firmly
united : so they began openly to condemn the proceedings of the commons, and to own a

r&"i THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
jealousy, that the louis-d'or sent hither of late had not come ever to England for nothing.
This iistjosition to blame the slowness in which toe hoes* of commons proceeded with rela
tion to foreign affairs, and the heat with which private quarrels were pursued, began to
spread itself thro no-h the whole nation. Those of the county of Kent sent up a petition to the
house, desirinz them to mind the public more and their private heats less, and to turn their
addresses to tie kinar to bilk of supplies, to enable him both to protect the nation and to
defend our allies. This was brought np by some persons of quality, and was presented by
then to the house : but it was looked on as a libel on their proceedinss : and the gentlemen
who brought it np were sent to prison, where they lay till the prorogation ; but they were
much visited, and treated as confessors *. This was highly censured : it -was sail the com
mons were the creatures of the people, and upon all other occasions they used to favour and
encourage petitions : this severity was condemned therefore as unnatural, and without a
precedent : it was much questioned, whether they had really an authority to imprison any
except their own members, or suoh as had violated the privilege of their house : but the party
thu^h: it vvas convenient, by snch an unusual severity, to discourage others from folio whig
the example set them by those of Kent ; for a design was laid to get addresses of the same
nature from all parts of the kini'dom. chiefly from the city of London. The mini -tors repre
sented to the kin 2 what an indignity this would be to the house of commons ; and that, if
he 'lid a :t discourage it, he mi oho look for unacceptable things from them. It might rather
disec.arage than give heart to our allies, if they should see snch a di-iointino'. and both chy
and country in an opposition to the house of commons. Some went, in bis name, to the
eminent men of th e city to divert it. yet with all this it came so near for snch an address in a
common council, that the lord mayor's vote turned it for the negative, so that fefl. But a
disposition to a war. and :¦:¦ a more hearty conenrrence with the kins:, appeared to be the
general sense of the nation, and this had a j-reat effect on the hense of commons : they began
to tali of a war as unavoidable ; and when the session drew near an end. they, by an address,
desired the king to enter into such alliances with the emperor, and other states and princes,
as were necessary for the support of us and our allies, and to brinj down the exorbitant
power of France. This was opposed with great zeal by those who were looked on as the
chief conductors of the jaeohite party, though many, who had in other thinss gone alon^
with them, thought tho- was the only means that were left to recover their credit with the
people; for the current ran so strong for a war. that those who struo-ided against h, were
looked on as little better than public enemies. They had found o :¦: i funds for a millioa
and a half. It is true one of these was very unacceptable to the kino; : it was observed that
t.oe aU 'merit tor the civil list did far exceed the sum that was designed, which was only
600,000/., and that as king James's queen would not take her jointure, so. by the duke of
Gloucester s death, the charge on it was now less than when it was granted: so thev took
almost 400W- a-week out of the excise, and, upon an assignation made of that for some
years, a great sum wis raised. This was very sensible to the conrt and the new ministers
found it no easy thing to maintain, at the same time, their interest both with the kin<r and
their party : this matter was at last yielded to by the king. AH the remainder of this
session relates to the impeachments.
The lords had resolved to begin with the trial of the earl of Orford, because the articles
against him were the hrst that were brought up ; and since the commons made no replica
tion, the lords, according to clear precedents, named a day for his trial, and jrave notice of
it to the house of commons. Upon this, the commons moved the lords to arree to name a
committee of both Louses for settling the preliminaries of the trial, and they named two
preliminaries! : one ^\s. that the lord who was to be tried should not sit as a peer: the
other was, that those lords who were impeached for the same matter, might not vote in the
trial of one another: they also acquainted the lords that the course of their evidence led
them to begin with the lord Somers. The lords judged their last demand reasonable, and
* Tie imprisoned - Kiz^-L Petitioners" were Joed- iBd Da-fM PoUriB. esq., of Competed: aU in the eosntT
nian Cbunpnejs. ot" ^"a-iut jer : sir Thomas Culpepper, of Kent— See Hist of tie Kentish Petreioa, pob&hed in
krrjLx of Preston Hill. Aylesford : William Culpepper, 1 7'.' 1 ; Xoble's Continuation of Grainger.
c5o _ of Hoffinztrame : Junes fLumhos, es%, of Chilston ;

OF KING WILLIAM III. C87
agreed to it, but disagreed to the others. They considered themselves as a court of justice,
and how great soever the regard due to the house of commons might be in all other respects,
yet in matters of justice, where they were the accusers, they could only be considered as
parties. The king, when he had a suit with a subject, submitted to the equality of justice ;
so the commons ought to pretend to no advantage over a single person in a trial : a court of
justice ought to hear the demands of both parties pleaded fairly, and then to judge impar
tially : a committee named by one of the parties, to sit in an equality with the judges, and to
settle matters relating to the trial, was a thing practised in no court or nation, and seemed
contrary to the principles of law, or rules of justice : by these means they could at least
delay trials as long as they pleased, and all delays of justice are real and great injustices.
This had never been demanded but once, in the case of the popish plot ; then it was often
refused : it is true it was at last yielded to by the lords, though with great opposition ; that
was a case of treason, in which the king's life and the safety of the nation were concerned ;
there was then a great jealousy of the court, and of the lords that belonged to it ; and the
nation was in so great a ferment, that the lords might at that time yield to such a motion,
though it derogated from their judicature : that ought not to be set up for a precedent for
a quiet time, and in a case pretended to be no more than a misdemeanor : so the lords
resolved not to admit of this, but to hear whatsoever should be proposed by the commons,
and to give them all just and reasonable satisfaction in it. The chief point in question, in
the year 1679, was, how far the bishops might sit and vote in trials of treason ; but without
all dispute, they were to vote in trials for misdemeanors. It was also settled in the case of
the lord Mordaunt, that a lord tried for a misdemeanor was to sit within the bar. In all
other courts men tried for such offences came within the bar. This was stronger in the case
of a peer, who, by his patent, had a seat in that house, from which nothing but a judgment
of the house for some offence could remove him : they indeed found that, in king James the
First's time, the earl of Middlesex, being accused of misdemeanors, was brought to the bar ;
but as that prosecution was violent, so there had been no later precedent of that kind to
govern proceedings by it : there had been many since that time, and it had been settled, as
a rule for future times, that peers tried for such offences were to sit within the bar. The
other preliminary was, that peers, accused for the same offence, might not vote in the trials
of the others : the lords found that a right of voting was so inherent in every peer in all
causes, except where himseK was a party, that it could not be taken from him but by a
sentence of the house ; a vote of the house could not deprive him of it : otherwise, a majority
might upon any pretence deny some peers their right of voting, and the commons, by
impeaching many peers at once for the same offence, might exclude as many lords as they
pleased from judging : it was also observed that a man might be a judge in any cause in
which he might be a witness : and it was a common practice to bring persons charged with
the same offence, if they were not in the same indictment, to witness the facts with which
they themselves were charged in another indictment ; and a parity of reason appeared in
the case of lords, who were charged in different impeachments, for the same facts, that they
might be judges in one another's trials. Upon these points many messages passed between
the two houses with so much precipitation, that it was not easy to distinguish between the
answers and the replies : the commons still kept off the trial by affected delays. It was
visible, that when a trial should come on, they had nothing to charge these lords with : so
the leaders of the party showed their skill in finding out excuses to keep up the clamour,
and to hinder the matters from being brought to an issue : the main point that was still
insisted on was a committee of both houses ; so, according to the forms of the house, it was
brought to a free conference.
In it the lord Haversham, speaking to the point of lords being partial in their own cases,
and therefore not proper judges, said that the house of commons had plainly showed their
partiality in impeaching some lords for facts in which others were equally concerned with
them, who yet were not impeached by them, though they were still in credit and about the
king ; which showed that they thought neither the one nor the other were guilty *. The
* Sir John Thompson, bart. -was created baron of house of commons by his daring speeches. He voted for
Haversham in 1696. He distinguished himself in the the exclusion bill, and in favonr of the revolution. In

G88 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
commons thought that they had now found an occasion of quarrelling with the lords, which
they were looking for : so they immediately withdrew from the conference, though they
were told that the lord Haversham spoke only his own private sense, and not by any direc
tion from the house. The house of commons sent up a complaint to the lords of this reflec
tion on their proceedings, as an indignity done them, for which they expected reparation :
upon this the lord Haversham offered himself to a trial, and submitted to any censure that
the lords should think he had deserved ; but insisted that the words must first be proved,
and he must be allowed to put his own sense on them : the lords sent this to the commons,
but they seemed to think that the lords ought to have proceeded to censure him in a
summary way, which the lords thought, being a court of judicature, they could not do till
the words were proved, and the importance of them discussed.
The house of commons had now got a pretence to justify their not going further in these
trials, and they resolved to insist upon it : they said they could expect no justice, and there
fore they could not go on with the prosecutions of their impeachments : and a day being set
for the lord Somers's trial, they excepting still, it was put off for some time ; at last a
peremptory day was fixed for it ; but the commons refused to appear, and said they were
the only judges, when they were ready with their evidence, and that it was a mockery to
go to a trial when they were not ready to appear at it. There were great and long debates
upon this in the house of lords: the new ministry and all the jaeobites joined to support the
pretensions of the commons : every step was to be made by a vote, against which many
lords protested ; and the reasons given, in some of their protestations, were thought to be
so injurious to the house, that they were by a vote ordered to be expunged ; a thing that
seldom happens. When the day set for the trial came, the other lords, who were also
impeached, asked the leave of the house to withdraw, and not to sit and vote in it : this
was granted them, though it was much opposed and protested against by the tory party,
because the giving such leave supposed that they had a right to vote. The lords went down
in form to Westminster Hall, where the articles against the lord Somers were first read ;
lord Somers's answers were next read ; and none appearing to make good the charge, the
lords came back to their house, where they had a long and warm debate of many hours,
concerning the question that was to be put; the judges told them that, according to the
forms of law, it ought to be guilty, or not guilty : but those of the party said, as it was
certain that none could vote him guilty, so, since the house of commons had not come to
make good the charge, they could not vote him not guilty : so, to give them some content,
the question agreed on to be put was, whether he ought to be acquitted of the impeachment,
or not ? That being settled, the lords went again to the Hall, and, the question being put,
fifty-six voted in the affirmative, and thirty-one in the negative. Upon this, the house of
commons passed some high votes against the lords, as having denied them justice, and having
obstructed the public proceedings ; and called the trial a pretended trial. The lords went
as high in their votes against the commons ; and each house ordered a narrative of the pro
ceedings to be published for satisfying the nation. A few days after this the earl of Orford's
trial came on, but, all the lords of the other side withdrawing, there was no dispute ; so he
was acquitted by an unanimous vote. The lords did also acquit both the earl of Portland
and the lord Halifax ; and because the commons had never insisted on their prosecution of
the duke of Leeds, which they had begun some years before, they likewise acquitted him,
and so this contentious session came to an end. The two houses had gone so far in their
votes against one another, that it was believed they would never meet ao-ain : the pro
ceedings of the lords had the general approbation of the nation on their side : most of the
bishops adhered to the impeached lords, and their behaviour on this occasion was much
commended. I bore some share in those debates, perhaps more than became me, considering
my station, and other circumstances : but as I was convinced of tlie innocence of the lords,
the house of lords he was the undaunted declarer of his incorporate." He was an acknowledged republican in
opinions. One instance is mentioned above ; and when politics, and, though a dissenter in religion, often acted
opposing the union with Scotland, he compared it to *' the with the tories and high church party. He died iu 1710,
toea of Nebuchadnezzar's idol, which were made of iron and was buried iu the church of Richmond, Surrey. 
and clay : they may cleave together, but they can never Noble's Continuation of Grainger ; Extinct Peerage, &c.

OF KING WILLIAM III. C89
so I thought the government itself was struck at ; and. therefore, when I apprehended all
was in danger, I was willing to venture every thing in such a quarrel. The violence, as
well as the folly, of the party, lost them much ground with all indifferent men ; but with
none more than with the king himself, who found his error in changing his ministry at so criti
cal a time ; and he now saw that the tories were at heart irreconcilable to him ; in particular,
he was extremely uneasy with the earl of Rochester, of whose imperious and intractable temper
he complained much, and seemed resolved to disengage himself quickly from him, and never
to return to him any more. He thought the party was neither solid nor sincere, and that
they were actuated by passion and revenge, without any views with relation to our quiet at
home, or to our affairs abroad.
But having now given an account of the session of parliament, I turn to another scene.
When the new ministry undertook to serve the king, one of their demands was, that a con
vocation should have leave to sit, which was promised ; and it sat this winter. Dr. Atter-
bury's book, concerning the rights of a convocation, was reprinted, with great corrections
and additions. The first edition was drawn out of some imperfect and disorderly collections,
and he himself soon saw that, notwithstanding the assurance and the virulence with which
it was written, he had made many great mistakes in it : so, to prevent a discovery from
other hands, he corrected his book in many important matters : yet he left a great deal of
matter to those who answered him, and did it with such a superiority of argument and of
knowledge in these matters, that his insolence in despising these answers was as extraordi
nary, as the parties adhering to him after such manifest discoveries. Dr. Kennet laid him
so open, not only in many particulars, but in a thread of ignorance that ran through his
whole book, that if he had not had a measure of confidence peculiar to himself, he must have
been much humbled under it*. The clergy hoped to recover many lost privileges by the
help of his performances : they fancied they had a right to be a part of the parliament : so
they looked on him as their champion, and on most of the bishops as the betrayers of the
rights of the church : this was encouraged by the new ministry : they were displeased with
the bishops for adhering to the old ministry ; and they hoped, by the terror of a convocation,
to have forced them to apply to them for shelter. The jacobites intended to put us all in
such a flame as they hoped would disorder the government. The things the convocation-
pretended to were, first, that they had a right to sit whensoever the parliament sat ; so that
they could not be prorogued but when the two houses were prorogued : next, they advanced
that they had no need of a licence to enter upon debates, and to prepare matters, though it
was confessed that the practice for a hundred years was against them : but they thought
the convocation lay under no farther restraint than that the parliament was under ; and as
they could pass no act without the royal assent, so they confessed that they could not enact
or publish a canon without the king's licence. Anciently the clergy granted their own
subsidies apart, but ever since the reformation the grant of the convocation was not thought
good till it was ratified in parliament : but the rule of subsidies being so high on the clergy,
they had submitted to be taxed by the house of commons ever since the year 1665 ; though
no memorials were left to inform us how that matter was consented to so generally, that no
opposition of any sort was made to it. The giving of money being yielded up, which was the
chief business of convocations, they had after that nothing to do ; so they sat only for form's
sake, and were adjourned of course ; nor did they ever pretend, notwithstanding all the danger
that religion was in during the former reigns, to sit and act as a synod ; but now this was
demanded as a right, and they complained of their being so often prorogued as a violation of
their constitution, for which all the bishops, but more particularly the archbishop of Canterbury,
was cried out on : they said, that he and the bishops looked so much to their own interests,
that they forgot the interests of the church, or rather betrayed them. The greater part of the
clergy wore in no good temper ; they hated the toleration, and were heavily charged with the
taxes, which made them very uneasy ; and this disposed them to be soon inflamed by those
who were seeking out all possible methods to disorder our affairs. They hoped to have engaged
them against the supremacy, and reckoned that in the feeble state to which the government was
* See the names of Kennet's works, and other authorities relating to this controversy, in Kippis s edition of the
Biog. Britannica.

600 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
now brought, they might hope either to wrest it quite from the crown, and then it would
fall into the management of the house of commons : or, if the king should proceed against
them according to the statute, and sue them in a premunire, this might unite the clergy into
such an opposition to the government as would probably throw us into great convulsions :
but many aspiring men among them had no other design but to force themselves into pre
ferment by the opposition they made. In the writ that the bishops had, summoning them
to parliament, the clause, known by the first word of it, " Premunientes," was still con
tinued : at first, by virtue of it, the inferior clergy were required to come to parliament, and
to consent to the aids there given : but after the archbishops had the provincial writ for a
convocation of the province, the other was no more executed, though it was still kept in the
writ, and there did not appear the least shadow of any use that had been made of it for
some hundreds of years ; yet now some bishops were prevailed on to execute this clause,
and to summon the clergy by virtue of it. The convocation was opened with speeches
full of sharp reflections on the bishops, which they passed over, being unwilling to begin a
dispute. Dr. Hooper, dean of Canterbury, was chosen prolocutor, a man of learning and good con
duct hitherto; he was reserved, crafty, and ambitious; his deanery had not softened him,
for he thought he deserved to be raised higher *. The constant method of adjournments
had been this ; the archbishop signed a schedule for that purpose, by which the upper house
was immediately adjourned, and that being sent down to the prolocutor, did also adjourn
the lower house. The clergy perceiving that, by this means, the archbishop could adjourn
them at pleasure, and either hinder or break off all debates, resolved to begin at disputing
this point : and they brought a paper to the upper house, in which they asserted their right
of adjourning themselves, and cited some precedents for it. To this the bishops drew a very
copious answer, in which all their precedents were examined and answered, and the matter
was so clearly stated and so fully proved, that we hoped we had put an end to the dispute.
The lower house sat for some time about the reply to this ; but, instead of going on with
that, they desired a free conference, and began to affect, in all their proceedings, to follow
the methods of the house of commons. The bishops resolved not to comply with this, which
was wholly new. They had upon some occasions called up the lower house to a conference,
in order to the explaining some things to them ; but the clergy had never taken upon them
to desire a conference with the bishops before : so they resolved not to admit of it, and told
them they expected an answer to the paper they had sent them. The lower house resolved
not to comply with this, but, on the contrary, to take no more notice of the archbishop's
adjournments. They did indeed observe the rule of adjourning themselves to the day which
the archbishop had appointed in his schedule, but they did it as their own act, and they
adjourned themselves to intermediate days.
That they might express a zeal in the matters of religion, they resolved to proceed against
some bad books. They began with one, entitled " Christianity not mysterious," written by
one Toland, a man of a bold and petulant wit, who passed for a socinian, but was believed
• This is one of the most erroneous, party- biassed, cha- of his contemporaries. He was born at Grimley, in
racters Burnet has given. So far was he from being am- Worcestershire, during the year 1 040, and educated at
titious, that no persuasions could induce him to accept Westminster, and Christchurch, Oxford. At the firat-
cither of the metropolitan mitres;' instead of being named school, Dr. Busby, its master, discerned his
reserved, he was good-humoured, affable, witty, yet never opening excellence, observing of him, " This boy is the
offending against the rules of good manners, much less least favoured in features of any in the school, but he will
against those of piety. He was the patriarch of the dio- be the most extraordinary of any of them." He at
cese of Bath and Wells, to which queen Anne promoted various times held the livines of Lambeth, and East
him in 1 704. . To his clergy he showed all the kindness Woodhay, Hampshire ; was chaplain to bishop Morley,
of a father; and many instances were known where he archbishop Sheldon, and princess Mary, whom he accom-
had raised the deserving, but indigent, pastor to compe- panied to Holland. At the revolution, he held the sauie
tency and independence. Such conduct gained him the office to her and king William, who, in 1691, gave bim
esteem of the good ; and his talents obtained him another the deanery of Canterbury. In 1703 he was raised to
large class of friends—the learned. He was " the lawyer, the see of St. Asaph, and the following year translated as
the casuist, the divine, the antiquary, the linguist, the before mentioned. He died in 1727.— General Biog.
philosopher, the classical scholar; yet always the refined Diet. ; Wood's Athense Oxon.; Noble's Continuation of
and accomplished gentleman.". Such is the concurrent Grainger.
testimony given in favour of Dr. George Hooper by most

OF KING WILLIAPd III. mi
to be a man of no religion*- They drew some propositions out of this book, but did it with
so little judgment, that they passed over the worst that were in it, and singled out some,
that how ill soever they were meant, yet were capable of a good sense. They brought up
the censure that they had passed on this book to the bishops, and desired them to agree to
their resolutions. This struck so directly at the episcopal authority, that it seemed strange
to see men who had so long asserted the divine right of episcopacy, and that presbyters were
only their assistants and council (according to the language of all antiquity), now assume to
themselves the most important act of church government, the judging in points of doctrine.
In this it appeared how soon men's interests and passions can run them from one extreme to
another. The bishops saw, that their design in this was only to gain some credit to them
selves, by this show of zeal for the great articles of religion ; so they took advice of men
learned in the law, how far the act of submission in the Twenty-fifth of Henry the Eighth
did restrain them in this case. There had been the like complaint made in the convocation,
1698, of many ill books then published: and the bishops had then advised both with
civilians and common lawyers in this matter. They were answered, that every bishop might
proceed in his own court against the authors, or spreaders, of ill books, within his diocese ;
but they did not know of any power the convocation had to do it : it did not so much as
appear that they could summon any to come before them : and when a book was published
with the author's name to it, thei condemning it, without hearing the author upon it, seemed
contrary to the common rules of justice. It did not seem to be a court at all, and since no
appeal lay from it, it certainly could not be a court in the first instance. When this question
was now again put to lawyers, some were afraid, and others were unwilling, to answer it ;
but sir Edward Northey, afterwards made attorney-general, thought the condemning books
was a thing of great consequence ; since the doctrine of the church might be altered, by
condemning explanations of one sort, and allowing those of another ; and since the convoca
tion had no licence from the king, he thought that, by meddling in that matter, they should
incur the pains in the statute ; so all further debate of this matter was let fall by the
bishops. The lower house going on to sit in intermediate days, many of the most eminent
and learned among them not only refused to sit with them on those days, but thought it
was incumbent on them to protest against their proceedings ; but the lower house refusing
to suffer this to be entered upon their books, they signified it in a petition to the archbishop.
The party sitting alone in those intermediate days, they entered into such a secresy, that
it could not be known what they sat so close upon. So the archbishop appointed five
bishops, together with ten they should name, as a committee to examine their books ; but
though this had been often done, yet, upon this occasion, the lower house refused to comply
with it, or to name a committee. This was such an unprecedented invasion of the episcopal
authority, that the upper house resolved to receive nothing from them till that irregularity
was set right.
Hereupon they, being highly incensed against me, censured my Exposition of the Articles,
which, in imitation of the general impeachments by the house of commons, they put in three
general propositions : — First, that it allowed a diversity of opinions, which the articles were
framed to avoid ; secondly, that it contained many passages contrary to the true meaning of
the articles, and to other received doctrines of our church ; thirdly, that some things in it
were of dangerous consequence to the church, and derogated from the honour of the reforma
tion. What the particulars were, to which these general heads referred, could never be
learned : this was a secret lodged in confiding hands. I begged that the archbishop would
dispense with the order, made against further communication with the lower house, as to
this matter : but they would enter into no particulars, unless they might at the same time
offer some other matters, which the bishops would not admit of.
In these proceedings the bishops were unanimous, except the bishops of London, Rochester,
and Exeter (Dr. Trelawney). The bishop of London had been twice disappointed of his
hopes of being advanced to the see of Canterbury ; so for several years he was engaged with
* Whoever wishes for more information relative to John Toland, the apostate, the deist, and the government
spy, may find it in the "Life" prefixed to his posthumous works. He was a native of Ireland, born in 1669, and
died in 1722.
Y Y 2

692 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the tory party, and opposed the court in every thing, but with little force or authority *;
The bishop of Rochester (Dr. Sprat) had been deeply engaged in the former reigns, and he
stuck firm to the party, to which, by reason of the liberties of his life, he brought no sort of
honour. These bishops gave no great reputation to the proceedings of the lower house, to
wliich they adhered : they likewise entered their dissent to the resolutions taken in the
upper house. From the fire raised thus in convocation a great heat was spread through
the whole clergy of the kingdom : it alienated them from their bishops, and raised factions
among them everywhere.
Thus ended the session of parliament and convocation, which had the worst aspect of any
that had sat during this reign. The new ministers pressed the king often to dissolve the
commission that recommended to ecclesiastical preferments, and to turn out some of the
whigs who were in employments, the lord Haversham in particular, who was in the
admiralty. But the king could not be prevailed on to do any thing ; yet he kept himself
so much on the reserve, that when he went out of England it was not certainly known
whether he intended to dissolve the parliament or not. When the king came to the Hague,
he found the negotiation with France quite at an end ; the king of France had recalled his
minister, the States had increased their force, and the French were very strong in their
neighbourhood : so that though no war was actually declared, yet it was very near
breaking out.
The emperor's army was now got into Italy. The entrance towards Verona was stopped
by the French, but prince Eugene came in by Vincenza ; and when the reinforcements and
artillery came up to him, he made a feint of passing the Po, near Ferrara : and having thus
amused the French, he passed the Adige, near Carpi, where a body of five thousand French
lay : these he routed, so the French retired to the Mincio. He followed them, and passed
that river in their sight, without any opposition. The French army was commanded by
the duke of Savoy ;' with him were the mareschal Catinat, and the prince of Vaudemont,
governor of Milan. These differed in opinion : the duke of Savoy was for fighting, Catinat
and prince Yaudemont were against it : so the mareschal Villeroy was sent thither with
orders to fight. Catinat, who was the best general the French had left, looking on this as a
disgrace, retired and languished for some time ; yet ho recovered. There were many small
engagements of parties sent out on both sides, in which the Germans had always the better ;
yet this did not discourage Villeroy from venturing to attack them in their camp at Chiari ; but
they were so well entrenched, and defended themselves with so much resolution, that the
French were forced to draw off with great loss : about five thousand of them were killed,
whereas the loss of the Germans was inconsiderable. Sickness likewise broke in upon the
French, so that their army was much diminished ; and after this, they were not in a condi
tion to undertake any thing. Prince Eugene lay for some time in his camp at Chiari,-
sending out parties as far as the Adda, who, meeting often with parties of the French, had
always the advantage, killing some and taking many prisoners. For several months prince
Eugene had no place of defence to retire to ; his camp was all : so that a blow given him
there must have ruined his whole army. Towards the end of the campaign he possessed
himself of all the Mantuan territory, except Mantua and Goito ; he blocked them both up ;
and when the season obliged the French to go into quarters, he took all the places on the
Oglio, and continued in motion the whole following winter. The French had no other
enemy to deal with, so they poured in their whole force upon him. He was then but a young
man, and had little assistance from those about him, and none at all during the summer from
tlie princes and states of Italy : for the pope and the Venetians pretended to maintain a
neutrality, though upon many occasions the pope showed great partiality to the French.
The people indeed favoured him, so that he had good and seasonable intelligence brought
him of all the motions of the French : and in his whole conduct he showed both a depth of
contrivance and an exactness in execution, with all the courage, but without any of the
rashness, of youth.
* Dr. Compton was a generous man, and if he had been told the unworthy suspicion cast upon him by Burnet, ho
probably would have said, as he once did on a similar occasion, " I am glad of it ; for he has given me an opportunity,
of setting you a good example in forgiving him."

OF KING WILLIAM III. <503
But to carry on the series of his motions as far as this period of my history goes, his
attempt in January following upon Cremona had almost proved a decisive one. Mareschal
Villeroy lay there with six or seven thousand men, and commanded a bridge on the Po :
prince Eugene had passed that river with a part of his army : the princess of Mirandola
drove out the French, and received a garrison from him. The duke of Modena put his
country in his hand, and gave him Bersello, the strongest place of his dominions. The duke
of Parma pretended he was the pope's vassal, and so put himself under the protection of that
see. Prince Eugene would not provoke the pope too much, so he only marched through
the Parmesan : here he laid the design of surprising Cremona with so much secresy, that the
French had not the least suspicion of it. Prince Eugene went to put himself at the head of
a body that he brought from the Oglio, and ordered another to oome from the Parmesan at
the same time, to force tlie bridge. He marched with all secresy to Cremona ; at the same
•time, through the ruins of an old aqueduct, he sent in some men, who got through and forced
¦one of the gates, so that he was within the town before mareschal Villeroy had any appre
hension of an enemy being near him. He wakened on the sudden with the noise, got out
to the street, and there he was taken prisoner. But the other body did not come up criti
cally at the time appointed, so an Irish regiment secured the bridge. And thus the design,
that was so well contrived and so happily executed in one part, did fail. Prince Eugene
had but four thousand men with him, so that, since the other body could not join him, he
was forced to march back, which he did without any considerable loss, carrying mareschal
Villeroy and some other prisoners with him. In this attempt, though he had not an entire
success, yet he gained all the glory to which the ambition of a military man could aspire ;
so that he was looked on as the greatest and happiest general of the age. He went on
enlarging his quarters, securing all his posts, and straitening the blockade of Mantua, and
was in perpetual motion during the whole winter. The French were struck with this ill
success ; more troops were sent into Italy, and the duke of Vendome went to command the
armies there.
The duke of Savoy was pressed to send his forces thither ; but he grew cold and back
ward. He had now gained all that he could promise himself from France : his second
daughter was married to king Philip and was sent to him to Barcelona, and he came and
met her there : Philip fell into an ill habit of body, and had some returns of a feverish dis
temper : he had also great disputes with tlie states of Catalonia, who, before they would
grant him the tax that was asked of them, proposed that all their privileges should be con
firmed to them. This took up some time, and occasioned many disputes. All was settled
at last ; but their grant was short of what was expected, and did not defray the charges of
the king's stay in the place. A great disposition to revolt appeared in the kingdom of
Naples, and it broke out in some feeble attempts that were soon mastered. The leaders of
these were taken and executed. They justified themselves by this apology, that till the
pope granted the investiture they could not be bound to obey the new king. The duke of
Medina was a severe governor, both.on his master's account and on his own. Some of the
Austrian party made their escape to Rome and to Vienna. They represented to the
emperor that the disposition of the country was such in his favour, that a small force of ten
thousand men would certainly put that kingdom wholly into his hands. Orders were upon
that sent to prince Eugene to send a detachment into the kingdom of Naples. But though
he believed a small force would soon reduce that kingdom, yet he judged that such a dimi
nution of his own strength, when the French were sending so many troops into the Milanese,
would so expose him, that it would not be possible to maintain a defensive with such van
unequal force. Yet repeated orders came to him to the same effect ; but, in opposition to
those, he made such representations, that at last it was left to himself to do what he found
safest, and most for the emperor's service ; with that the matter was let fall, and it soon
'appeared that he had judged better than the court of Vienna : but this was, by his enemies,
imputed to humour and obstinacy ; so that, for some time after that, he was neither consi
dered nor supported as his great services had deserved. This might flow from envy and
malice, which are the ordinary growth of all courts, chiefly of feeble ones ; or it might be a
practice of the French, who had corrupted most courts, and that of Vienna in particular ;

694 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
since nothing could more advance their ends than to alienate the emperor from prince
Eugene ; which might so far disgust him, as to make him more remiss in his service.
Our fleets lay all this summer idle in our seas on a bare defensive, while the French had
many squadrons in the Spanish ports and in the West Indies. In the North, the war went
on still : the king of Sweden passed the Duna, and fell on an army of the Saxons that lay-
on the other side, over against Riga, and routed them so entirely, that he was master of therr
camp and artillery. From thence he marched into Courland, where no resistance was made :
Mittau, the chief town, submitted to him. The king of Poland drew his army into
Lithuania, which was much divided between the Sapichas and Oginskis : so that all those
parts were breaking into much confusion. The court of Vienna pretended that they had
made a great discovery of a conspiracy in Hungary. It is certain the Germans played the
masters very severely in that kingdom, so that all places were full of complaints, and the
emperor was so besieged by the authors of those oppressions, and the proceedings were so
summary upon very slight grounds, that it was not to be wondered if the Hungarians were
disposed to shake off the yoke, when a proper opportunity should offer itself. And it is not
to be doubted but the French had agents among them, by the way of Poland as well as of
Turkey, that so the emperor might have work enough at home.
This was the state of the affairs of Europe this summer. Several negotiations were secretly
carried on : the elector of Cologne was entirely gained to the French interest, but was resolved
not to declare himself till his brother thought fit likewise to do it. All the progress that the
French made with the two brothers this summer was, that they declared for a neutrality,
and against a war with France. The dukes of Wolfenbuttel and Saxe Gotha were also
engaged in the same design : they made great levies of troops beyond what they themselves
could pay, for wliich it was visible that they were supplied from France. Here was a
formidable appearance of great distractions in the empire. An alliance was also projected
with the king of Portugal. His ministers were in the French interests, but he himself
inclined to the Austrian family. He for some time affected retirement, and avoided the
giving audience to foreign ministers. Ho saw no good prospect from England ; so, being
pressed to an alliance with France, his ministers got leave from him to propose one on terms
of such advantage to him, that as it was not expected they could be granted, so it was
hoped this would run into a long negotiation. But the French were as liberal in making
large promises, as they were perfidirus in not observing them : so the king of France agreed
to all that was proposed, and signed a treaty pursuant to it, and published it to the world.
Yet the king of Portugal denied that he had consented to any such project ; and he was so
hardly brought to sign the treaty, that, when it was brought to him, he threw it down and kicked
it about the room, as our envoy wrote over. In conclusion, however, he was prevailed on
to sign it ; but it was generally thought that when he should see a good fleet come from the
allies, he would observe this treaty with the French as they have done their treaties with
all the rest of the world. Spain grew uneasy and discontented under a French management.
The grandees were little considered, and they saw great^ designs for the better conduct of the
revenues of the crown likely to take place every where, which were very unacceptable to
them, who minded nothing so much as to keep up a vast magnificence at the king's cost.
They saw themselves much despised by their new masters, as there was indeed great cause
for it ; they had too much pride to bear this well, and too little courage to think how they
should shake it off.
But now to return to our affairs at home : The duke of Queensbury was sent down to hold
a parliament in Scotland, where people were in so bad a humour, that much practice was
necessary to bring them into any temper. They passed many angry votes upon the business
of Darien, but in conclusion the session ended well. The army was reduced one half, and
the troops that were ordered to be broken were sent to the States, who were now increasing
their force. This session was chiefly managed by the duke of Queensbury and the earl of
Argyle ; and, in reward for it, the one had the garter, and the other was made a duke.
In Ireland, the trustees went on to hear the claims of the Irish, and in many cases they
gave judgment in their favour. But now it began to appear, that whereas it had been given
out that the sale of the confiscated estates would amount to a million and a half, it was not

ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, FIRST DUKE OF ARGYLL.
OB. 1703.
-FROM THE OEIG11TAL 01? SIR P. LEI2", Or THE COIAVECTKOT OF
HIS GBACE.THE DTrKT". OF ARGYLL.

OF KING WILLIAM 111. 695
likely to rise to the third part of that sum. In the meanwhile, the trustees lived in great
state there, and were masters of all the affairs of that kingdom. But no propositions were
yet made for the purchasing of those estates. During the king's absence, the nation was in
a great ferment, which was increased by many books that were written to expose the late
management in the house of commons and the new ministry, the earl of Rochester in parti
cular, who was thought the driver of all violent motions. The few books that were pub
lished on the other side were so poorly written, that it tempted one to think they were
written by men who personated the being on their side, on design to expose them. The
earl of Rochester delayed his going to Ireland very long. He perceived that the king's heart
was not with him, and was very uneasy at that ; as on the other hand the king complained
inuch of his intractable temper and imperious manner, and, by his intercourse with him, the
king came to see that he was not the man he had taken him for ; that he had no great nor
clear notions of affairs abroad ; and that, instead of moderating the violence of his party, he
inflamed them : so that he often said, that the year in which he directed the councils was
one of the uneasiest of his whole life. The earl of Rochester finding the king's coldness
towards him, expostulated with him upon it, and said he could serve him no longer, since
he saw he did not trust him. The king heard this with his usual phlegm, and concluded
upon it that he should see him no more ; but Harley made him a little more submissive and
towardly. After the king was gone beyond sea, he also went into Ireland ; there he used
much art in obliging people of all sorts, dissenters as well as papists ; yet such confidence
was put in him by the high church party, that they bore every thing at his hands. It was
not easy to behave himself towards the trustees, so as not to give a general distaste to the
nation, for they were much hated, and openly charged with partiality, injustice, and corrup
tion. That which gave the greatest disgust in his administration there, was his usage of
the reduced officers, who were upon half pay, a fund being settled for that by act of par
liament. They were ordered to live in Ireland, and to be ready for service there. The earl
of Rochester called them before him, and required them to express under their hands their
readiness to go and serve iu the West Indies. They did not comply with this ; so he set
them a day for their final answer, and threatened that they should have no more appoint
ments if they stood out beyond that time. This was represented to the king, as a great
hardship put on them, and as done on design to leave Ireland destitute of the service that
might be done by so many gallant officers, who were all known to be well affected to the
present government. So the king ordered a stop to be put to it.
I am now come to the last period of the life of the unfortunate king James : he had led
for above ten years a very inactive life in France ; after he had in so poor a manner as was
told, abandoned first England, and then Ireland, he had entered into two designs, for reco
vering the crowns, which he may be said, more truly, to have thrown away than lost : the
one was broken by the defeat of the French fleet at sea before Cherbourg, in the year 1692 ;
the other seemed to be laid with more depth, as well as with more infamy, when an army
was brought to Dunkirk, and the design of the assassination was thought sure, upon which
it was reasonably hoped that we must have fallen into such convulsions, that we should have
been an easy prey to an army ready to invade us. The reproach that so black a contrivance
cast upon him, brought him under so much contempt, that even the absolute authority of the
French court could hardly prevail so far as to have common respect paid him after that. He
himself seemed to be the least concerned at all his misfortunes ; and though his queen could
never give over meddling, yet he was the most easy, when he was least troubled with those
airy schemes, upon which she was still employing her thoughts. He went sometimes to the
monastery of La Trappe, where the poor monks were much edified with his humble and
pious deportment. Hunting was his chief diversion, and for the most part he led a harmless,
innocent life ; being still very zealous about his religion. In the opening of this year, he
had been so near death, that it was generally thought the decline of it would carry him off.
He went to Bourbon, but had no benefit by the waters there ; in the beginning of September,
ho fell into such fits, that it was concluded he could not live many days : the king of France
came to see him, and seemed to be much touched with the sight : he, with some difficulty,

086 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
recommended his queen and son to his care and protection : the French king answered, he
would reckon their concerns as his own ; and when he left him, he promised those of hia
court that he would, upon king James's death, own the prince of Wales as king of England,
and that he would take care of them all. King James died on the 6th day of September.
He was a prince that seemed made for greater things than will be found in the course of his
life, more particularly of his reign : he was esteemed, in the former parts of his life, a man
of great courage, as he was quite through it a man of great application to business : he had
no vivacity of thought, invention, or expression ; but he had a good judgment, where his
religion, or his education, gave him not a bias, which it did very often : he was bred with
strange notions of the obedience due to princes, and came to take up as strange ones, of the
submission due to priests ; he was naturally a man of truth, fidelity, and justice ; but his
religion was so infused in him, and he was so managed in it by his priests, that the principles
which nature had laid in him, had little power over him when the concerns of his church stood
in the way : he was a gentle master, and was very easy to all who came near him ; yet he
was not so apt to pardon as one ought to be, that is the vicegerent of that God who is slow
to anger, and ready to forgive. He had no personal vices but of one sort : he was still wan
dering from one amour to another, yet he had a real sense of sin, and was ashamed of it :
but priests know how to engage princes more entirely into their interests, by making them
compound for their sins by a great zeal for holy church, as they call it. In a word, if it had
not been for his popery, he would have been, if not a great, yet a good, prince. By what I
once knew of him, and by what I saw him afterwards carried to, I grew more confirmed in
the very bad opinion which I was always apt to have, of the intrigues of the popish clergy,
and of the confessors of kings : he was undone by them, and was their martyr, so that they
ought to bear the chief load of all the errors of his inglorious reign, and of its fatal cata
strophe. He had the funeral which he himself had desired, private, and without any sort of
ceremony : as he was dying, he said nothing concerning the legitimacy of his son, on which
some made severe remarks : others thought that, having spoken so often of it before, he
might not reflect on the fitness of saying any thing concerning it in his last extremity. He
recommended to him firmness in his religion, and justice in his government, if ever he should
come to reign. He said, that by his practice he recommended Christian forgiveness to him,
for he heartily forgave both the prince of Orange and the emperor. It was believed, that
the naming the emperor was suggested to him by the French, to render the emperor odious
to all those of that religion *.
Upon his death, it was debated in the French council what was fit to be done with rela
tion to his pretended son : the ministry advised the king to be passive, to let him assume
what title he pleased, but that, for some time at least, the king should not declare himself :
this might be some restraint on the king of England, whereas a present declaration must pre
cipitate a rupture ; but the dauphin interposed with some heat, for the present owning him
king ; he thought the king was bound in honour to do it : he was of his blood, and
was driven away on the account of his religion ; so orders were given to proclaim him at
St. Germains. The earl of Manchester, then the king's ambassador at Paris, told me, that
his own court was going about it ; but a difficulty, proposed by the earl of Middleton, put
a stop to it : he apprehended that it would look very strange, and might provoke the court
of France, if among his titles he should be called king of France ; and it might disgust their
party in England, if it was omitted : so that piece of ceremony was not performed ; soon
after this, the king of Spain owned him, so did the pope and the duke of Savoy ; and the
king of France pressed all other princes to do it, in whose courts he had ministers, and pre
vailed on the pope to press the emperor, and other popish princes, to own him, though with
out effect. The king looked upon this as an open violation of the treaty of Ryswick, and
he ordered the earl of Manchester to leave that court without asking an audience. The
French pretended, that the bare owning of his title, since they gave him no assistance to
* It is unnecessary to say more concerning this misguided monarch. Those who would study his history, as viewed
by variously biassed partisans, must refer to the works of Hume, Macauley, Fox, D'Orleans, " Life of James the
Second, from the Stuart Papers,1' &c.

OF KING WILLIAM III. 697
make good his claim, was not a breach of the treaty ; but this could not pass on the world,
since the owning his right was a plain declaration that they would assist him in claiming it,
whensoever the state of their affairs should allow of it.
This gave a universal distaste to the whole English nation ; all people seemed possessed
with a high indignation upon it to see a foreign power that was at peace with us, pretend to
declare who ought to be our king ; even those who were perhaps secretly well pleased with
it, were yet, as it were forced, for their own safety, to comply with the general sense of the
rest in this matter : the city of London began, and all the nation followed, in a set of
addresses, wherein they expressed their abhorrence of what the French king had done, in
taking upon him to declare who should be their king, and renewed their vow of fidelity to
the king, and to his successors, according to the act of settlement. A great diversity of style
appeared in these addresses, some avoided to name the French king, the prince of Wales, or
the act of settlement, and only reflected on the transaction in France, in general and soft
words ; but others carried the matter farther, encouraging the king to go on in his alliances,
promising him all faithful assistance in supporting them, and assuring him that, when he
should think fit to call a new parliament, they would choose such members as should concur
in enabling him to maintain his alliances ; this raised the divisions of the nation higher.
All this summer the king continued at Loo, in a very ill state of health ; new methods save
some relief; but when he came to the Hague, on his way to England, he was for some time
' in so bad a condition, that they were in great fear of his life ; he recovered, and came over
in the beginning of November.
The first thing that fell under debate upon his return was, whether the parliament should
be continued, or dissolved, and a new one called ; some of the leading men of the former
parliament had been secretly asked, how they thought they would proceed, if they should
meet again : of these, while some answered doubtfully, others said positively, they would
begin where they had left off, and would insist on their impeachments. The new ministry
struggled hard against a dissolution, and when they saw the king resolved on it, some of
them left his service. This convinced the nation that the king was not in a double game,
which had been confidently given out before, and was too easily believed by many : the
heats in elections increased with every new summons. This was thought so critical a con
juncture, that both sides exerted their full strength. Most of the great counties, and the
chief cities, chose men that were zealous for the king and government, but the rotten part
of our constitution, the small boroughs, were in many places wrought on to choose bad
men ; upon the whole, however, it appeared, that a clear majority was in the king's interests,
yet the activity of the angry side was such, that they had a majority in choosing the speaker,
and in determining controverted elections ; but in matters of public concern, things went on
as the king desired, and as the interest of the nation required.
The king opened the parliament with the best speech that he, or perhaps any other prince
ever made to his people ; he laid the state of our affairs both at home and abroad before
them in a most pathetical manner ; he pressed it upon them to consider the dangers they
were in, and not to increase these by new divisions among themselves : he expressed a
readiness to forgive all offences against himself, and wished they would as readily forgive
one another ; so that no other division might remain but that of English and French, pro
testant and papist ; he had entered into some alliances, pursuant to the addresses of the
last parliament, and was negotiating some others, all which should be laid before them : and
this was accordingly done. Both houses began with addresses, in which they did very fully
renounce the prince of Wales. The house of lords ordered that all such as were willing to
do it should sign the address that was entered into their books. This was without a prece
dent, and yet it was promoted by those who, as was thought, hoped, by so unusual a practice,
to prevent any further proceedings on that head. No exception was made to any article of
the alliances ; one addition was only proposed, that no peace should be made till a full repa
ration was offered to the king for the indignity done him by the French king's declaring the
pretended prince of Wales king of England ; which was soon after proposed to the allies,
and was agreed to by them all. By the alliances, the king was obliged to furnish forty
-thousand men to serve in the armies, besides what he was to do by sea ; all was consented

698 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
to in every particular ; angry men showed much rancour against the king, and tried to cross
every thing that was proposed, both as to the quotas of the troops we were to furnish, and
as to the strength of our fleet. But the public interest was now so visible, and the concur
rent sense of the nation ran so vehemently for a war, that even those who were most averse
to it, found it convenient to put on the appearance of zeal for it. The city of London was
now more united than it had been at any time during this reign, for the two companies
that traded to the East- Indies, saw that their common interest required they should come to an
agreement ; and though men of ill designs did all they could to obstruct it, yet in conclusion
it was happily effected. This made the body of the city, which was formerly much divided
between the two companies, fall now into the same measures. But those who intended to
defeat all this good beginning of the session, and to raise a new flame, set on debates that
must have embroiled all again, if they had succeeded in their designs : they began with com
plaints of some petitions and addresses that had reflected on the proceedings of the last
house of commons ; but it was carried against them, that it was the right of the subjects to
petition as they thought themselves aggrieved ; yet they were not discouraged by this, but
went on to complain that the lords had denied justice in the matter of the impeachments.
This bore a long and hot debate in a very full house ; but it was carried, though by a
small majority, that justice had not been denied them ; after this, the party gave over any
further struggling, and things were carried on with more unanimity.
The house of commons began a bill of attainder of the pretended prince of Wales. This
could not be opposed, much less stopped ; yet many showed a coldness in it, and were absent
on the days in which it was ordered to be read ; it was sent up to the lords, and it passed in
that house, with an addition of an attainder of the queen, who acted as queen regent for him.
This was much opposed, for no evidence could be brought to prove that allegation, yet the
thing was so notorious, that it was passed, and was sent down again to the commons. It
was excepted to there as not regular, since but one precedent in king Henry the Eighth's
time was brought for it, and in that the commons had added some names by a clause in a bill
of attainder, sent down to them by the lords ; yet as this was a single precedent, so it seemed
to be a hard one : attainders by bill were the greatest rigours of the law, so stretches in them
ought to be avoided ; it was therefore thought more proper to attaint her by a bill apart,
than by a clause in another bill ; to this the lords agreed, so the bill against the pretended
prince of Wales passed. The lords also passed a new bill, attainting the queen, but that was
let sleep in the house of commons.
The matter that occasioned the longest and warmest debates in both houses, was an act
for abjuring the pretended prince of Wales, and for swearing to the king by the title of
rightful and lawful king, and to his heirs, according to the act of settlement : this was
begun in the house of lords, and the first design was, that it should be voluntary, it being
only to be tendered to all persons, and their subscription or refusal to be recorded, without
any other penalty. It was vehemently opposed by all the tory party, at the head of whom
the earl of Nottingham set himself. They who argued against it, said this government was
first settled with another oath, which was like an original contract, and it was unjust and
unreasonable to offer a new one : there was no need of new oaths, as there was no new
strength got by them : oaths, relating to men's opinions, had been always looked on as
severe impositions : a voluntary oath seemed to be by its nature unlawful ; for we cannot
swear lawfully unless we are required to do it. To all this it was answered, that in ancient
time, the oath of allegiance was short and simple, because then it was not thought that
princes had any right, other than what was conveyed to them by law ; but of late, and indeed
very lately, new opinions had been started of a divine right, with which former times were
not acquainted : so it was necessary to know who among us adhered to these opinions ; the
present government was begun upon a comprehensive foot, it being hoped that all parties
might have been brought to concur in supporting it : but the effects had not answered expec
tation ; distinctions had been made between a king de jure and a king de facto ; whereby
these men plainly declared with whom they believed the right was lodged : this opinion
must, whensoever that right comes to be claimed, oblige those who hold it to adhere to such
claimers ; it seemed therefore in some sort necessary that the government should know on

OF KING WILLIAM III. G99
whom it might depend : the discrimination made, by such a test, was to be without compul
sion, or penalty ; no hardship was put on any person by it : those who refused to give this
security would see what just cause of jealousy they gave, and would thereby be obliged to
behave themselves decently and with due caution : when a government tendered an oath,
though under no penalty, that was a sufficient authority for all to take it who were satisfied
with the substance of it : while, therefore, there was so great a power beyond sea, that did
so openly espouse this young man's pretensions, and while there was just ground to suspect
that many at home favoured him, it seemed very reasonable to offer a method, by which it
should appear, who obeyed the present government from a principle, believing it lawful, and
who submitted only to it, as to a prosperous usurpation. About twenty lords persisted in
their opposition to this bill ; those who were for it being thrice that number ; but, in the
house of commons, when it appeared how the lords were inclined, they resolved to bring in
a bill that should oblige all persons to take this abjuration. It was drawn by sir Charles
Hedges; all employments in church or state were to be subject to it: some things were
added to the abjuration, such as an obligation to maintain the government in king, lords, and
commons, and to maintain the church of England, together with the toleration for dissenters :
Finch offered an alteration to the clause, abjuring the prince of Wales, so that it imported
only an obligation not to assist him ; but though he pressed this with unusual vehemence, in
a debate that he resumed seventeen times in one session, against all rules, he had few to
second him in it : the debate, whether the oath should be imposed, or left free, held longer ;
it was carried, but by one vote, to impose it : the party chose that, rather than to have it
left free ; for they reckoned the taking an oath that was imposed, was a part of their submis
sion to the usurpation ; but the taking any oath, that strengthened the government, of their
own accord, did not suit with their other principles ; but to help the matter with a show of
zeal, they made the clause that imposed it very extensive, so that it comprehended all clergy
men, fellows of colleges, schoolmasters, and private tutors : the clause of maintaining the
government in kiug, lords, and commons, was rejected with great indignation; since the
government was only in the king ; the lords and commons being indeed a part of the con
stitution, and of the legislative body, but not of the government. This was a bare-faced
republican notion, and was wont to be condemned as such by the same persons who now
pressed it. It was farther said, that if it appeared that our constitution was in danger, it
might be reasonable to secure it by an act and oath apart ; but since the single point, that
required this abjuration, was the French king's declaring that the pretended prince of Wales
was our king, it was not fit to join matters foreign to that in this oath ; upon the same
reason, the clause in favour of the church, and of the toleration, were also laid aside. The
design of this act was to discover to all, both at home and abroad, how unanimously the
nation concurred in abjuring the pretended prince of Wales ; but here was a clause, to one
part of which (the maintaining the church) the dissenters could not swear ; and even the
more moderate men of the church, who did well approve of the toleration, yet might think it
too much to swear to maintain it ; since it was reasonable to oblige the dissenters to use
their liberty modestly, by keeping them under the apprehension of having it taken away, if
it was abused by them. One addition was offered, and received without any debate about
it, or the shadow of any opposition ; it was declared to be high treason to endeavour to pre
vent or defeat the princess's right of succession : the tories pretended great zeal for her, and
gave it out that there was a design to set her aside, and to have the house of Hanover to
succeed the king immediately ; though it could never be made appear that any motion of
this kind had ever been either made,' or debated, even in private discourse, by any of the
whole whig party. Great endeavours were used, and not altogether without effect, to infuse
this jealousy into the princess, and into all about her, not without insinuations, that the king
himself was inclined to it. When this clause was offered, its being without a precedent,
gave handle enough to oppose it, yet there, was not one word said in opposition to it, in either
house, all agreeing heartily in it. This ought to have put an end to the suspicion, but sur
mises of that kind, when raised on design, are not soon parted with.
Soon after the session was opened, the earl of Rochester wrote to the king, and asked leave
to come over; it was soon granted, but when he signified this to the council of Ireland, the

700 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
whole board joined in a request to him, that he would lay before the king the great griev
ances under which the whole kingdom lay, by the proceedings of the trustees, who stretched
the authority that the law gave them, in many instances, to the oppressing of the nation ;
he seemed uneasy at the motion, but promised to lay it before the king, which he did at his
coming over. Soon after that, petitions were sent round all the counties of Ireland, and
signed by many, representing both the hardships of the act, and the severe methods the
trustees took in executing it : all this was believed to be set on secretly by the court, in hope
that some temper might be found in that matter, so that the king's grants might again take
place in whole, or in part. The house of commons was moved to proceed severely against
the promoters of these petitions ; yet the complaining of grievances had been so often asserted
to be a right of the subject, that this was let fall ; but since no person appeared to justify
the facts set forth, and suggested in those petitions, they were voted false and scandalous,
and this stopped a further progress in that method. The heat with which that act had been
carried was now much qualified, and the trustees having judged for so many claims in favour
of Irish papists, showing too manifest a partiality for them, and having now sat two years,
in which they had consumed all the rents that arose out of the confiscated estates, the house
was applied to for their interposition, by many petitions relating to that matter. This was
the more necessary, because, as was formerly told, when that act was depending, they had
passed a vote against receiving any petition relating to it : the thing had now lost much of
the credit and value that was set upon it at first ; and though the same party still opposed
the receiving any petitions, yet the current was now so strong the other way, that they were
all received, and in a great many cases justice was done ; yet with a manifest partiality, in
favour of papists ; it being a maxim, among all who favoured king James's interests, to
serve papists, especially those whose estates were confiscated for adhering to him. One
motion was carried, not without difficulty, in favour of those who had purchased under the
grantees, and had made great improvements, that they should be admitted to purchase with
an abatement of two years' value of the estates : the earl of Athlone, whose case was singu
lar, as was formerly set out, having sold his grant to men, who had reason to think they
had purchased under a secare title, a special clause was offered in their favour ; but the party
had studied so far to inflame the nation against the Dutch, that in this the votes were equal,
and the speaker's vote being to turn the matter, he gave it against the purchasers. Many
bills were brought in relating to Irish forfeitures, which took up the greatest part of the
session. The commons, after a long delay, sent up the bill, abjuring the prince of Wales. In the
house of lords the tories opposed it all they possibly could : it was a new bill, so the debate
was entirely open ; they first moved for a clause, excusing the peers from it : if this had
been received, the bill would have been certainly lost, for the commons would never have
yielded to it : when this was rejected, they tried to have brought it back to be voluntary ;
it was a strange piece of inconsistency in men to move this, who had argued even against the
lawfulness of a voluntary oath : but it was visible they intended by it only to lose, or at
least to delay, the bill : when this was over-ruled by the house, not without a mixture of
indignation in some against the movers, they next offered all those clauses that had been
rejected in the house of commons, with some other very strange additions, by which they
discovered both great weakness and an inveterate rancour against the government ; but all
the opposition ended in a protestation of nineteen or twenty peers against the bill.
And now I am arrived at the fatal period of this reign. The king seemed all this winter
in a very fair way of recovery ; he had made the royal apartments in Hampton-court very
noble, and he was so much pleased with the place, that he went thither once a week and
rode often about the park : in the end of February, the horse he rode on stumbled and he
being then very feeble, fell off and broke his collar-bone : he seemed to have no other hurt
by it, and his strength was then so much impaired, that it wa3 not thought necessary to let
him blood, no symptom appearing that required it : the bone was well set, and it was
thought there was no danger ; so he was brought to Kensington that night : he himself had
apprehended all this winter that he was sinking ; he said to the earl of Portland both before
and after, this accident, that he was a dead man : it was not in his legs, nor now in his collar-

OF KING WILLIAM III 701
bone, that he felt himself ill, but all was decayed within, so that he believed he should not1
be able to go through the fatigue of another campaign. During his illness, he sent a message
to the two houses, recommending the union of both kingdoms to them. The occasion of this,'
was a motion that the earl of Nottingham had made, in the house of lords, when the act of
abjuration was agreed to : he said, though he had differed from the majority of the house in
many particulars relating to it, yet he was such a friend to the design of the act, that in order
to the securing a protestant succession, he thought an union of the whole island was very
necessary ; and that therefore they should consider how both kingdoms might be united ;
but in order to this, and previous to it, he moved, that an address should be made to the king,
that he would be pleased to dissolve the parliament now sitting in Scotland, and to call a
new one : since the present parliament was at first a convention, and then turned to a parlia
ment, and was continued ever since, so that the legality of it might be called in question ;
and it was necessary that so important a thing as the union of both kingdoms, should be
treated in a parliament against the constitution of which no exception could lie. The motion
was warmly opposed ; for that nation was then in such a ferment, that the calling a new
parliament would have been probably attended with bad consequences ; so that project was
let fall, and no progress was made upon the king's message. On the third of March, the king
had a short fit of an ague, which he regarded so little, that he said nothing of it : it returned
on him next day : I happened to be then near him, and observed such a visible alteration, as
gave me a very ill opinion of his condition ; after that he kept his chamber till Friday :
every day it was given out that his fits abated ; on Friday, things had so melancholy a face,
that his being dangerously ill was no longer concealed ; there was now such a difficulty of
breathing, and his pulse was so sunk, that the alarm was given out every where ; he had
sent the earl of Albemarle over to Holland to put things in a readiness for an early campaign.
He came back on the 7th of March in the morning, with so good an account of every thing,
that, if matters of that kind could have wrought on tho king, it must have revived him ; but
the coldness with which he received it showed how little hopes were left : soon after, he said,
?' Je tire vers ma fin, (I draw towards my end.") The act of abjuration, and the money
bill, were now prepared for the royal assent ; the council ordered all things to be in a readi
ness for the passing of those bills by a special commission, which according to form must be
signed by the king, in the presence of the lord keeper and the clerks of the parliament : they
came to the king, when his fit began, and stayed some hours before they were admitted ;
some in the house of commons moved for an adjournment, though the lords had sent to them
not to adjourn for some time ; by this means they hoped the bill of abjuration should be lost ;
but it was contrary to all rules to adjourn, when such a message was sent them by the lords,
so they waited till the king had signed the commission and the bills, and thus those acts
passed in the last day of the king's life.
The king's strength and pulse was still sinking, as the difficulty of breathing increased, so
that no hope was left. The archbishop of Canterbury and I went to him on Saturday morn
ing, and did not stir from him till he died. The archbishop prayed on Saturday some time
with him, but he was then so weak that he could scarcely speak, but gave him his hand, as
a sign that he firmly believed the truth of the Christian religion, and said, he intended to
receive the sacrament : his reason and all his senses were entire to the last minute : about
five in the morning he desired the sacrament, and went through the office with great appear
ance of seriousness, but could not express himself; when this was done, he called for the earl
of Albemarle, and gave him a charge to take care of his papers. He thanked Mr. Auver-
querque for his long and faithful services. He took leave of the duke of Ormond, and called
for the earl of Portland, but before he came, his voice quite failed, so he took him by the
hand, and carried it to his heart with great tenderness. He was often looking up to heaven,
in many short ejaculations. Between seven and eight o'clock the rattle began, the commen
datory prayer was said for him, and as it ended he died, in the fifty-second year of his age,
having reigned thirteen years and a few days. When his body was opened, it appeared that,
notwithstanding the swelling of his legs, he had no dropsy ; his head and heart were sound ;
there was scarcely any blood in his body ; his lungs stuck to his side, and by the fall from
his horse, a part of them was torn from it, which occasioned an inflammation, that was

70-2 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
believed to be the immediate cause of his death, which probably might have been prevented
for some time, if he had been then let blood. His death would have been a great stroke at
any time, but in our circumstances, as they stood at that time, it was a dreadful one. The
earl of Portland told me, that when he was once encouraging him, from the good state his
affairs were in, both at home and abroad, to take more heart ; the king answered bin, that
he knew death was that which he had looked at on all occasions without any terror ; some
times he would have been glad to have been delivered out of all his troubles, but he con
fessed now he saw another scene, and could wish to live a little longer. He died with a
clear and full presence of mind, and in a wonderful tranquillity. Those who knew it was
his rule, all his life long, to hide the impressions that religion made on him as much as pos
sible, did not wonder at his silence in his last minutes, but they lamented it much; they
knew what a handle it would give to censure and obloquy.
Thus lived and died William the Third, king of Great Britain, and prince of Orange. He
had a thin and weak body, was brown haired, and of a clear and delicate constitution ; he
had a Roman eagle nose, bright and sparkling eyes, a large front, and a countenance com
posed to gravity and authority : aU his senses were critical and exquisite. He was always
asthmatical, and the dregs of the small pox falling on his lungs, he had a constant deep cough.
Tlia behaviour -was solemn and serious, seldom cheerful, and but with a few : he spoke little
and very slowly, and most commonly with a disgusting dryness, which was his character at
all times, except in a day of battle ; for then he was all fire, though without passion : he
was then every where, and looked to every thing. He had no great advantage from his
education; De Wit's discourses were of great use to him, and he, being apprehensive of the
observation of those who were looking narrowly into every thing he said or did, had brought
himself under an habitual caution that he could never shake off, though in another scene it
proved as hurtful as it was then necessary to his affairs : he spoke Dutch, French, English
and German equally well ; and he understood the Latin, Spanish and Italian, so that he was
well fitted to command armies composed of several nations. He had a memory that amazed
all about him, for it never failed him ; he was an exact observer of men and things ; his
strength lay rather in a true discerning and a sound judgment, than in imagination, or inven
tion : his designs were always great and good ; but it was thought he trusted too much to
that, and that he did not descend enough to the humours of his people to make himself, and
his notions, more acceptable to them : this, in a government that has so much of freedom in
it as ours, was more necessary than he was inclined to believe : his reservedness grew on him,
so that it disgusted most of those who served him ; but he had observed the errors of too
much talking, more than those of too cold a silence. He did not like contradiction, nor to
have his actions censured, but he loved to employ and favour those who had the arts of com-
plasaince : yet he did not love flatterers. His genius lav chiefly to war, in which his courage
was more admired than his conduct : great errors were often committed by him, but his
heroical courage set things right, as it inflamed those who were about him : he was too lavish
of money on some occasions, both in his buildings, and to his favourites, but too sparing in
rewarding services, or in encouraging those who brought intellio'ence : he was apt to take HI
impressions of people, and these stuck long with him, hut he never carried them to indecent
revenges ; he gave too much way to his own humour almost in every thing, not excepting
that which related to his own health ; he knew all foreitm affairs -well, and understood the
state of every court in Europe very particularly ; he instructed his own ministers himself, but
he did not apply enough to affairs at home : he tried how he could govern us by balancing
the two parries one against another, but he came at last to be persuaded that the tories were
irreconcilable to him, and he was resolved to try and trust them no more. He believed the
truth of the Christum religion very firmly, and he expressed a horror at atheism and blas
phemy ; and though there was much of both in his court, yet it was alwavs denied to him,
and kept out of sight. He was most exemplarily decent and devout in the public exer
cises of the worship of God, only on week days he came too seldom to them : he was an
attentive hearer of sermons, and was constant in his private prayers, and in reading the scrip
tures : and when he spoke of religious matters, which he did not often, it was with a
becoming gravity. He was much possessed with the belief of absolute decrees : he said to

OF KING WILLIAM III. 70S
me, he adhered to these, because he did not sec how the belief of Providence could be main
tained upon any other supposition ; his indifference as to the forms of church government,
and his being zealous for toleration, together with his cold behaviour towards the clergy,
gave them generally very ill impressions of him ; in his deportment towards all about him,
he seemed to make little distinction between the good and the bad, and those who served
well, or those who served him ill : he loved the Dutch, and was much beloved among them ;
but the ill returns he met from the English nation, their jealousies of him, and their per-
verseness towards him, had too much soured his mind, and had in a great measure alienated
him from them, which he did not take care enough to conceal, though he saw the ill effects
this had upon his business. He grew, in his last years, too remiss and careless as to all
affairs ; till the treacheries of France awakened him, and the dreadful conjunction of the
monarchies gave so loud an alarm to all Europe ; for a watching over that court, and a
bestirring himself against their practices, was the prevailing passion of his whole life. Few
men had the art of concealing and governing passion more than he had ; yet few men had
stronger passions, which were seldom felt but by inferior servants, to whom he usually made
such recompenses, for any sudden, or indecent, vents he might give his anger, that, they were
glad at every time that it broke upon them : he was too easy to the faults of those about
him, when they did not lie ui his own way, or cross any of his designs ; and. he was so apt
to think that his ministers might grow insolent, if they should find that they had much
credit with him, that he seemed to have made it a maxim, to let them often feel how little
power they had, even in small matters : his favourites had a more entire power, but he accus
tomed them only to inform him of things, but to be sparing in offering advice, except when
it was asked ; it was not easy to account for the reasons of the favour that he shewed, in the
highest instances, to two persons beyond all others, the earls of Portland and Albemarle ;
they being in all respects men, not only of different, but of opposite characters ; secrecy and
fidelity were the only qualities in which it could be said, that they did in any sort agree. I
have now run through the chief branches of his character ; I had occasion to know him well,
having observed him very carefully in a course of sixteen years : I had a large measure of his
favour, and a free access to him all the while, though not at all times to the same degree :
the freedom that I used with him was not always acceptable ; but he saw that I served him
faithfully, so, after some intervals of coldness, he always returned to a good measure of con
fidence in me ; I was, in many great instances, much obliged by him ; but that was not my
chief bias towards him ; I considered him as a person raised up by God to resist the power
of France, and the progress of tyranny and persecution; the series of the five princes of
Orange, that was now ended in him, was the noblest succession of heroes that we find in
any history; and the thirty years, from the year 1672 to his death, in which he acted so
great a part, carry in them so many amazing steps of a glorious and distinguishing Provi
dence, that in the words of David, he may be called, " The man of God's right hand, whom
he made strong for himself." After all the abatements that may be allowed for his errors and
faults, he ought still to be reckoned among the greatest princes that our history, or indeed
that any other, can afford. He died in a critical time for his own glory ; since he had
formed a great alliance, and had projected the whole scheme of the war ; so that if it suc
ceeds, a great part of the honour of it will be ascribed to him ; and if otherwise, it will be
said he was the soul of the alliance, that did both animate and knit it together, and that it
was natural for that body to die and fall asunder, when he who gave it life was withdrawn.
Upon his death, some moved for a magnificent funeral ; but it seemed not decent to run into
unnecessary expense, when we were entering on a war, that must be maintained at a vast
charge ; so a private funeral was resolved on. But for the honour of his memory, a noble
monument and an equestrian statue were ordered. Some years must shew whether these
things were really intended, or if they were only spoken of to excuse the privacy of hia
funeral, which was scarcely decent, so far was it from being magnificent.

704

BOOK VII.

OF THE LIFE AND REIGN OF O.UEEX AXXE.

•Y the death of king William, pursuant to the act that had settled
the succession of the crown, it devolved on Anne, the youngest
daughter of king James, by his first marriage ; she was then
entered on the thirty-eighth year of her age. Upon the king's
death, the privy council came in a body to wait on the new
queen : she received them with a well considered speech *- She
expressed great respect to the memory of the late king, in whose
steps she intended to go, for preserving both church and state, in
opposition to the growing power of France, and for maintaining
the succession in the protestant line : she pronounced this as she
did all her other speeches, with great weight and authority, and with a softness of voice, and
sweetness in the pronunciation, that added much life to all she spoke. These, her first
expressions, were heard with great and just acknowledgments : both houses of parliament
met that day, and made addresses to her, full of respect and duty : she answered both very
favourably, and she received all that came to her in so gracious a manner, that they went
from her highly satisfied with her goodness, and her obliging deportment ; for she hearkened
with attention to every thing that was said to her. Two days after, she went to the parlia
ment, which, to the great happiness of the nation, and to the advantage of her government,
was now continued to sit, notwithstanding the king's demise, by the act, that was made five
years before, upon the discovery of the assassination plot. In her speech she repeated, but
more copiously, what she had said to the council, upon her first accession to the throne.
There were two passages in this speech that were thought not so well considered : she
assured them her heart was " entirely English ;" this was looked on as a reflection on the
late king : she also added, that they might " depend on her word." Both these expressions
had been in her father's first speech, how little soever they were afterwards minded by him.
The city of London, and all the counties, cities, and even the subaltern bodies of cities, came
up with addresses ; in these a very great diversity of style was observed ; some mentioned
the late king in terms full of respect and gratitude ; others named him very coldly ; some
took no notice of him, nor of his death, and simply congratulated her coming to the crown ;
and some insinuated reflections on his memory, as if the queen had been ill used by him.
The queen received all civilly ; to most she said nothing, to others she expressed herself in
general words, and some things were given out in her name, which she disowned.
Within a week after her coming to the crown, she sent the earl of Marlborough to Hol
land, to give the States full assurances of her maintaining the alliances that had been con
cluded by the late king, and of doing every thing that the common concerns of Europe
required. She gave notice also of her coming to the crown to all the princes and states of
Europe, except France and Spain. The earl of Marlborough stayed some days in Holland,
to very good purpose ; the king's death had struck them all with such a damp, that they
needed the encouragement of such a message, as he brought them : when they had the first
news of the king's death, they assembled together immediately ; they looked on one another
as men amazed ; they embraced one another, and promised they would stick together, and
adhere to the interests of their country : they sat up most of the night, and sent out all the
* See Chandler's Debates, House of Commons, iii. 197.

Engraved, "by J Cochran.

QLTEF.N ANNE.

OB 1.714.
FEOM THE OUIGINALBY KWELLEH.nr THE COLLECTION OF
T1-1E IV UQUPV THE F.AUL OF EGUEMOKT.

THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE. 705
orders that were necessary upon so extraordinary an emergency. They were now much
revived by the earl of Marlborough's presence, and by the temper that both houses of parlia
ment were in with relation to the alliances, and the war with France ; and they entered
into such confidence with the earl of Marlborough, that he came back as well satisfied with
them, as they were with him. The queen in her first speech had asked of the commons the
continuance of that revenue, which supported the civil list, and it was granted to her for
life, very unanimously, though many seemed to apprehend that so great a revenue might bo
applied to uses, not so profitable to the public, in a reign that was likely to be frugal, and
probably would not be 3ubject to great accidents. When the queen came to pass the act,
and to thank the parliament for it, she said, she intended to apply one hundred thousand
pounds of it to the public occasions of the present year : this was received with great
applause, and particular notice was taken of it in all the addresses that came up afterwards.
At the same time, the queen passed a bill for receiving and examining the public accounts ;
and in her speech she expressed a particular approbation of that bill. A commission to the
same effect had been kept up for six or seven years, during the former reign, but had been
let fall for some years ; since the commissioners had never been able to make any discovery
whatsoever, and so had put the public to a considerable charge, without reaping any sort of
fruit from it. Whether this flowed from the weakness or corruption of the commissioners,
or from the integrity or cunning of those who dealt in the public money, cannot be deter
mined. The party that had opposed the late king had made this the chief subject of their
complaints all the nation over, that 'the public was robbed, and that private men lived high,
and yet raised large estates out of the public treasure. This had a great effect over England ;
for all people naturally hearken to complaints of this kind, and very easily believe them : it
was also said, to excuse the fruitlessness of the former commissions, that no discoveries could
be made under a ministry that would surely favour their under- workmen, though they were
known to be guilty. One visible cause of men's raising great estates, who were concerned
in the administration, was this, that for some years the parliament laid the taxes upon very
remote funds, so that, besides the distance of the term of payment, for which interest was
allowed, the danger the government itself seemed to be often in (upon the continuance of
which the continuance and assignment of these funds was grounded) made that some tallies
were sold at a great discount, even of the one half, to those who would employ their money
that way, by which great advantages were made. The gain that was made, by robbing the
coin, in which many goldsmiths were believed to be deeply concerned, contributed not a
little to the raising those vast estates, to which some had grown, as suddenly as unaccount
ably. All these complaints were easily raised, and long kept up, on design to cast the
heavier load on the former ministry : this made that ministry, who were sensible of the mis
chief this clamour did them, and of their own innocence, promote the bill with much zeal,
and put the strongest clauses in it that could be contrived to make it effectual. The com
missioners named in the bill were the hottest men in the house, who had raised, as well as
kept up, the clamour, with the greatest earnestness. One clause put in the act, was not
very acceptable to the commissioners ; for they were rendered incapable of all employments
during the commission ; the act carried a retrospect quite back to the revolution ; it was
given out that great discoveries would be made by them, and the art and industry with
which this was spread over England, had a great effect in the elections to the succeeding
parliament. The coronation was on the 23rd of April, on St. George's day ; it was per
formed with the usual magnificence : the archbishop of York (Dr. Sharp) preached a good
and wise sermon on the occasion ; the queen immediately after that gave orders for naming
the electoress of Brunswick, in the collect for the royal family, as the next heir of the crown,
and she formed a ministry.
The coldness had continued between the king and her, to such a degree, that though
there was a reconciliation after the queen's death, yet it went not much farther, than
what civility and decency required : she was not made acquainted with public affairs *.
She was not encouraged to recommend any to posts of trust and advantage ; nor
had the ministry orders to inform her how matters went, nor to oblige those about
* See Duchess of Marlborough's Letters to and from Queen Anne.
z z

70(1 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
her : only pains had been taken to please the earl of Marlborough, with which he was
fully satisfied : nothing had contented him better than the command he had the fonnei
year of the troops, which were sent to the assistance of the States. The whigs had
lived at a great distance with the queen all the former reign: the tories had made
much noise with their zeal for her, chiefly after the death of the duke of Glocester,
though they came seldom to her : her court was then very thin, she lived in due abstrac
tion from business, so that she neither gave jealousy, nor encouraged faction : yet these
things had made those impressions on her, that had at first ill effects, which were soon
observed and remedied. The late king had sent a message to the earl of Rochester some
weeks before he died, letting him know that he had put an end to his commission of lord
lieutenant of Ireland, but that was not executed in form ; so the commission did still sub
sist in his person : he was upon that now declared lord lieutenant of Ireland. The lord
Godolphin was made lord treasurer ; this was very uneasy to himself, for he resisted the
motion long ; but the earl of Marlborough pressed it in so positive a manner, that he said
he could not go beyond sea to command our armies, unless the treasury was put in his hands ;
for then he was sure that remittances would be punctually made him. He was declared
captain-general, and the prince * had the title of generalissimo of all the queen s forces by
sea and land. It was for some time given out, that the prince intended to go beyond sea,
to command the armies of the alliance, but this report soon fell ; and it was said, the Dutch
were not willing to trust their armies to the command of a prince, who might think it below
him to be limited by their instructions, or to be bound to obey their orders. The late king
had dissolved the commission for executing the office of the lord admiral, and had committed
that great trust to the earl of Pembroke : the secrets of that board were so ill kept, and there
was such a faction in it, that the king resolved to put it in a single person ; the earl of Pem
broke was not easily brought to submit to it : he saw it would draw a heavy load on him,
and he was sensible that by his ignorance of sea affairs, he might commit errors ; yet he
took good officers to his assistance : he resolved to command the fleet in person, and he took
great pains to put things in such order that it might be soon ready. A land army was
designed to go with the fleet, to the command of which the duke of Ormond had been
named : but upon new measures, the earl of Pembroke was first sent to, not to go to sea in
person, and soon after he was dismissed from his post, with the offer of a great pension,
which he very generously refused, though the state of his affairs and family seemed to require
it. The prince was made lord high admiral, which he was to govern by a council ; the
legality of this was much questioned, for it was a new court, which could not be authorized
to act, but by an act of parliament ; yet the respect paid the queen made that no public
question was made of this, so that objections to it never went beyond a secret murmur.
The earl of Nottingham and sir Charles Hedges were made secretaries of state : the tories
would trust none but the earl of Nottingham, and he would serve with none but Hedges f :
the maxim laid down at court, was, to put the direction of affairs in the hands of the tories.
The earl of Marlborough assured me this was done, upon the promises they made to carry
on the war, and to maintain the alliances ; if they kept these, then affairs would go on
smoothly in the house of commons, but if they failed in this, the queen would put her
business in other hands, which at that time few could believe. The marquis of Normanby
was, to the admiration of all men, made lord privy seal, and soon after duke of Bucking
ham %. The earl of Abingdon, viscount Weymouth, lord Dartmouth, Seymour, Musgrave,
Greenvil, How, Lucon § Gower, Harcourt, with several others, who had, during the last
reign, expressed the most violent and unrelenting aversion to the whole administration, were
now brought to the council board, and put in good posts.
* Prince George of Denmark, the queen's husband, his colleague ; although he gave out as a more honourable
Unlike the same relation of her sister, he was not reason, that sir Charles ought to be restored because he had
acknowledged as king. lost his place for a conscientious vote in the house of com-
t Sir Charles Hedges was secretary of state to king mons. — Earl of Dartmouth in Oxford edition of this work.
William, and lost his office a short time before this + Duke of Normanby and Buckinghamshire. There
monarch's death ; but was restored under queen Anne, being suspected to be somewhere latent a claim to the
owing to the earl of Nottingham refusing to be secretary title of Buckingham. — Johnson's Lives of the Poets.
unless he was so reinstated. This was to prevent Vernon § Spelt Levison, though still often pronounced as spelt
Liking the ufBce, whom the carl did not wish to have for by Burnet.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 70?
Before the king's death, it was generally thought, that some in both houses, and many
more over the nation, would refuse the abjuration : they had opposed it so vehemently, that
no less could be expected from them. Some went out of town when the day came, in which
the houses resolved to try all their members ; but they soon came to other resolutions, and
with them almost the whole party came and took the oath, and professed great zeal for the
queen, and an entire satisfaction in her title. Some suspected this was treachery, on design
to get the government once into their hands, that so they might deliver it up, or at least that
they might carry a parliament so to their mind, that the act might be repealed ; and they
might think, that then the oath would fall with it. Distinctions were set about among
them, which heightened these suspicions ; for though in the oath they declared that the pre
tended prince of Wales had not any right whatsoever to the crown ; yet in a paper (which I
saw) that went about among them, it was said that " right" was a term of law, which had
only relation to " legal rights," but not to a " divine right," or to " birth right : " so since
that right was condemned by law, they, by abjuring it, did not renounce the " divine right,"
that he had by his birth. They also supposed that this abjuration could only bind, during
the present state of things, but not in case of another revolution, or of a conquest : this was
too dark a thing to be inquired after, or seen into, in the state matters were then in. The
queen continued most of the great officers of the household, all the judges except two, and
most of the lords lieutenants of counties ; nor did she make any change in the foreign ministry.
It was generally believed that the earl of Rochester and his party were for severe methods,
and for a more entire change, to be carried quite through all subaltern employments ; but
that the lord Godolphin and the earl of Marlborough were for moderate proceedings ; so that
though no whigs were put into employments, yet many were kept in the posts they had
been put into, during the former reign. Repeated assurances were sent to all the allies, that
the queen would adhere firmly to them.
The queen in her first speech to her parliament, had renewed the motion, made by the late
king, for the union of both kingdoms ; many of those who seemed now to have the greatest
share of her favour and confidence, opposed it with much heat, and not without indecent
reflections on the Scotch nation ; yet it was carried by a great majority, that the queen
should be impowered to name commissioners for treating of an union ; it was so visibly the
interest of England, and of the present government, to shut that back door against the prac
tices of France, and the attempts of the pretended prince of Wales, that the opposition made
to this first step towards an union, and the indecent scorn with which Seymour and others
treated the Scots, were clear indications that the posts they were brought into had not
changed their tempers ; but that, instead of healing matters, they intended to irritate them
farther by their reproachful speeches. The bill went through both houses, notwithstanding
the rough treatment it met with at first *.
Upon the. earl of Marlborough's return from Holland, and in pursuance of the concert at
the Hague, the queen communicated to both houses her design to proclaim war with France ;
they approving of it, war was proclaimed on the fourth day of May : the house of commons
made an address to thank the queen for ordering the princess Sophia to be prayed for ; and
as the right, that recommended her, was in her own blood, she was designed by her Christian
name, and not by her title : it came to be known that this was opposed in council by the
marquis of Normanby, but that it was promoted by the lord treasurer (Godolphin).
A report was spread about town, and over the nation, with such a seeming assurance, that
many were inclined to believe it, that a scheme had been found among the king's papers for
setting aside the queen ; some added, for imprisoning her, and for bringing the house of
Hanover immediately into the succession ; and that, to support this, a great change was to
be made in all the employments and offices over the whole kingdom ; this, many of those
who were now in posts, had talked of in so public a manner, that it appeared they intended
to possess the whole nation with a belief of it ; hoping thereby to alienate the people from
those who had been in the late king's confidence, and disgrace all that side, in order to the
carrying all elections of parliament for men of their party. Five lords had been ordered by
• In the compass of restricted notes, it is not possible to detail the proceedings connected with this most important
measure. The reader is therefore referred to De Foe's excellent " Historv of the Union."
z z 2

708 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the queen to visit the late kind's papers, and bring her such of them as related to the alli
ances, or other affairs, of the crown ; these were the dukes of Somerset and Devonshire, and
the earls of Marlborough, Jersey, and Albemarle : the whigs saw tlie design which was
driven at by those false reports ; so a motion was made in the house of lords by the earl of
Carlisle, and seconded by the lords Wharton, Halifax, and others, that an inquiry should be
made into the truth of that report, and of all other stories of that kind, that so, if there was
any truth in them, such as had been concerned in those wicked designs might be punished ;
and if they were found to be false, that those who spread them about might be chastised.
Upon this the house desired that those lords who had visited the late king's papers, would
let them know if thev had met with any among them relating to the queen* s succession, or
to the succession of the house of Hanover. Four of them were then in the house, only the
earl of Marlborough was ill that day, so the four who were present said, they had found nothing
that did in any sort relate to that matter, and this was confirmed by the earl of Marlborough
to some peers, who were sent by the house to ask him the same question. Upon which a
vote passed, that these reports were false and scandalous ; and an order was made for prose
cuting the spreaders of them. Some books had been published, charging the late ministry
and the whole whig party with the like designs : these books were censured, and the authors
of them were ordered to be prosecuted ; though both the marquis of Normanby and the earl
Nottingham did all they could to excuse those writers. When the falsehood of those
calumnies was apparent, then it was given out, with an unusual confidence, that no such
reports had been ever set about ; though the contrary was evident, and the thing was boldly
asserted in those books : so that a peculiar measure of assurance was necessary to face down
a thing which they had taken such pains to infuse into the minds of the credulous vulgar,
all England over. The earl of Nottingham, to divert this inquiry, moved, that another
might be made into those books, in which the murder of king Charles the First was justi
fied ; though the provocation given to some of these, was. by a sermon preached by Dr, Binks
before the convocation, on the 30th of January, in which he drew a parallel between king
Charles's sufferings and those of our Saviour ; and, in some very indecent expressions, save
the preference to the former. When the business of the session of parliament was all done,
the queen dismissed them, with thanks for the money they had given, recommending
earnestly to them a good agreement among themselves,, assuring them that as on the one
hand she would maintain the toleration, so on the other hand, her own principles would
oblige her to have a particular regard to those who expressed the truest zeal for the church
of England : thus the session ended, and the proclamation dissolvino; the parliament, with
the writs for a new one, came out not long after.
During some part of this parliament, a convocation sat ; the faction raised in the lower
house had still the majority ; several books -were written to show that, by our constitution,
the power of adjourning was wholly in the archbishop : the original book of the convocation
that sat in the year 1661, being happily found, it showed the practice of that convocation
agreed with the bishops in every particular ; but though it was communicated to the lower
house, that had no effect on them ; for when parties are once formed, and a resolution is
taken up on other considerations, no evidence can convince those who have beforehand
resolved to stick to their point. But the prolocutor dying, and the king's death following,
the convocation was by that dissolved ; since in the act, that impowered the parliament to
sit after the king's death, no provision was made to continue the convocation. The earl of
Rochester moved in the house of lords, that it might be considered whether the convocation
was not a part of the parliament, and whether it was not continued in consequence of the
act that continued the parliament ; but that was soon let fall, for the judges were all of
opinion that it was dissolved by the king's death.
Upon the queen's accession to the crown, all these angry men that had raised this flame
in the church, as they treated the memory of the late king with much indecent contempt,
so they seemed very confident, that for the future all preferments should be distributed
among them (the queen having superseded the commission for ecclesiastical preferments) and
they thought they were full of merit, and were as full of hopes.
Such an evil spirit as is now spread among the clergy, would be a sad speculation at any

OF QUEEN ANNE. 709
time, but in our present circumstances, when we are near so great a crisis, it is a dreadful
thing ; but a little to balance this, I shall give an account of more promising beginnings and
appearances, which though they are of an elder date, yet of late they have been brought
into a more regulated form. In king James's reign, the fear of popery was so strong, as
well as just, that many, in and about London, began to meet often together, both for devo
tion, and for their further instruction : things of that kind had been formerly practised, only
among the puritans and the dissenters ; but these were of the church, and came to their
ministers to be assisted with forms of prayer and other directions : they were chiefly con
ducted by Dr. Beveridge and Dr. Horneck. Some disliked this, and were afraid it might
be the original of new factions and parties ; but wiser and better men thought it was not fit
nor decent to check a spirit of devotion, at such a time : it might have given scandal, and
it seemed a discouraging of piety, and might be a mean to drive well-meaning persons over
to the dissenters. After the revolution, these societies grew more numerous, and for a
greater encouragement to devotion, they got such collections to be made, as maintained
many clergymen to read prayers in so many places, and at so many different hours, that
devout persons might have that comfort at every hour of the day : there were constant sacra
ments every lord's day in many churches : there were both great numbers and greater
appearances of devotion at prayers and saoraments than had been observed in the memory
of man *. These societies resolved to inform the magistrates of swearers, drunkards, pro-
faners of the lord's day, and of lewd houses ; and they threw in the part of the fine, given
by law to informers, into a stock of charity ; from this they were called societies of reforma
tion : some good magistrates encouraged them, but others treated them roughly. As soon
as queen Mary heard of this, she did, by her letters and proclamations, encourage these good
designs, which were afterwards prosecuted by the late king. Other societies set themselves
to raise charity schools for teaching poor children, for clothing them and binding them out
to trades : many books were printed, and sent over the nation by them, to be freely distri
buted ; these were called societies for propagating Christian knowledge : by this means some
thousands of children are now well educated and carefully looked after. In many places
of the nation, the clergy met often together, to confer about matters of religion and learning ;
and they got libraries to be raised for their common use. At last a corporation was created
by the late king, for propagating the gospel among infidels, for settling schools in our plan
tations, for furnishing the clergy that were sent thither, and for sending missionaries among
such of our plantations as were not able to provide pastors for themselves. It was a glorious
conclusion of a reign that was begun with preserving our religion, thus to create a corpo
ration for propagating it to the remoter parts of the earth, and among infidels : there were
very liberal subscriptions made to it by many of the bishops and clergy, who set about it
with great care and. zeal ; upon the queen's accession to the crown, they had all possible
assurances of her favour and protection, of which, upon every application, they received very
eminent marks.
The affairs of Scotland began to be somewhat embroiled ; by an act made soon after the
revolution, it was provided, that all princes succeeding to the crown should take the corona
tion oath before they entered upon their regal dignity ; but no direction was given concern
ing those who should tender it, or the manner in wliich it should be taken : so this being
left undetermined, the queen called together all the late king's ministers for that kingdom,
and in the presence of about twelve of them, she took the coronation oath ; men who were
disposed to censure every thing, said, that this ought not to be done, but in the presence of
some, deputed for that effect, either by the parliament, or at least by the privy council of
that kingdom. Another point occasioned a more important debate.
Upon the assassination plot, an act had passed in Scotland for continuing the parliament,
that should be then in being, six months after the death of the king, with two special
clauses in it ; the first was, that it should meet twenty days after the death of the king ;
but the queen did, by several prorogations, continue the parliament almost three months
after the king's death before it was opened. Some said the parliament was by this dis-
" Sec " An Accouut of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, tic.," published in 1699, with a portrait
bf King William.

710 THE HISTORY OF THF REIGN
solved, since it did not meet upon the day limited by the act to continue it ; but there was
another proviso in the act, that saved to the crown the full prerogative of adjourning, or dis
solving, it within that time ; yet in opposition to that, it was acknowledged, that as to
all subsequent days of meeting, the prerogative was entire, but the day that was limited,
that is the twenty-first after the king's death, seemed to be fixed for the first opening the
session. The second clause was, a limitation on the power of the parliament, during their sitting,
that it should not extend to the repealing laws ; they were empowered only to maintain the
protestant religion, and the public peace of the country ; it was therefore said, that the
queen was peaceably obeyed, and the country now in full quiet, so there was no need of
assembling the parliament : the end of the kw being compassed, it was said, 'the law fell of
itself, and therefore it was necessary to call a new parliament ; for the old one, if assembled,
could have no authority but to see to the preservation of religion, and the peace of the country,
their power being limited to those two heads by the act that authorized their sitting. In
opposition to this, it was said, that the act which gave them authority to sit as a parliament
for six months, gave them the full authority of a parliament : the directing them to take care
of some more important matters, did not hinder their meddling with other matters, since no
parliament can limit a subsequent one : it was also said, that, since the queen was now
engaged in a war, the public peace could not be secured without such a force and such taxes
to maintain it as the present state of affairs required. The duke of Queensbury, and his
party, were for continuing the parliament ; but duke Hamilton, and the others, who had
opposed that duke in the last parliament, complained highly of this way of proceeding : they
said, they could not acknowledge this to be a legal parliament, they could not submit to it,
but must protest against it ; this was ominous ; a reign was to be begun with a parlia
ment liable to a dispute ; and from such a breach it was easy to foresee a train of mischief
likely to follow. These lords came up, and represented to the queen and those in favour
with her, their exceptions to ah that was intended to be done ; every thing they said was
heard very calmly : but the queen was a stranger to their laws, and could not take it upon
her to judge of them, so she was determined by the advice of the privy council of that king
dom. The lords that came up to oppose the duke of Queensbury continued to press for a
new parliament, in which they promised to give the queen all that she could ask of them,
and to consent to an act of indemnity for all that was past in the former reign. But it was
thought that the nation was then in too great a heat to venture on that, and that some more
time was necessary to prepare matters, as well as men's minds, before a new parliament should
be summoned. Both parties went down, and both being very sensible that the presbyte
rian interest would, with its weight, turn that scale into which it should fall, great pains were
taken by both sides to gain that party. On the one hand, they were made to apprehend
what a madness it would be for them to provoke the queen in the beginning of her reign,
who might be enough disposed to entertain prejudices against them ; these would be much
heightened, if in a point, in which conscience could not be pretended, they should engage
in a faction against her, especially when they could not say that any cause of jealousy was
given ; on the contrary, the queen had, in all her public letters, promised to maintain pres
byterian government ; and though that save great offence in the late king's time, when those
public letters were printed, yet now this passed without censure. The other party was as
busy to inflame them ; they told them the queen was certainly in her heart against them :
all those who were now in her confidence, the earls of Rochester and Nottingham in par
ticular, were enemies to presbyterian government : good words were now given them to
separate them from a national interest, knowing well that if they went off from that, and so
lost the hearts of the nation, they lost that in which their chief strength lay : the party that
now governed, as soon as they should have carried the present point by their help, and
rendered them odious by their concurring in it, would strengthen themselves at court
by entering into the episcopal interest, and trying to introduce episcopacy into Scotland ;
which would be soon brought about, if the presbyterians should once lose their popularity :
these were the methods and reasonings that were used on both hands.
The parliament was brought together on the 9th of June ; at the opening the session duke

OF QUEEN ANNE. 711
Hamilton read a paper, importing, that this was not a legal parliament, since the only ends
for which they were impowered to meet, were already obtained ; the queen was obeyed,
religion was secured, and the peace of the country was settled ; so there seemed to be no
occasion for their continuance. Upon which he and seventy-four more withdrew ; but one
hundred and twelve members continued to sit, and voted themselves to be a free and legal
parliament, and declared, that pursuant to their ancient laws, it was high treason to impugn
their authority. They ratified all acts made in favour of presbyterian government, in which
they proceeded with such violence, that sir Alexander Bruce moving, that all those acts
might be read, for he believed some of them might be found inconsistent with monarchy, he
was for that expelled the house. They by one act recognized the queen's title ; by another,
they impowered her to name commissioners to treat of the union of the two kingdoms : and
by a third, they gave a tax sufficient to keep up the force that was then in Scotland for two
years longer ; and so the parliament was brought to a quiet conclusion.
Ireland was put under lords justices, named by the earl of Rochester, and the trustees
continued still in their former authority.
While our affairs were in this posture at home, the first step that was made beyond sea,
was by the house of Hanover ; it had been concerted with the late king before his sickness,
and was set on foot the week he died. The design was well laid, and the execution was
managed with great secrecy : the old duke of Zell, and his nephew the elector of Brunswick,
went in person with an army that was rather inferior in strength to that of the dukes of
Wolfenbuttel ; they entered their country, while their troops were dispersed in their quar
ters ; they surprised some regiments of horse, and came and invested both Wolfenbuttel
and Brunswick at once, and cut off all communication between them ; having them at this
disadvantage, they required them to concur in the common councils of the empire, to furnish
their quota for its defence, and to keep up no more troops than were consistent with the
safety of their neighbours ; for it was well known, that the greatest part of their men were
subsisted with French pay, and that they had engaged themselves to declare for France, as
soon as it should be required. Duke Rodolph, the elder brother, was a learned and pious
prince ; but as he was never married, so he had turned over the government to the care of
his brother duke Anthony, who was a prince of a temper very much different from his
brother's : he could not bear the advancement of the house of Hanover ; so in opposition to
them, he went into the interests of France ; but being thus surprised, he went away in dis
content, and his brother broke through all those measures in which he had involved himself;
in conjunction with duke Anthony, the duke of Saxe Gotha had entered into the same
engagements with France ; but was now forced to fall into the common interests of the
empire. Thus all the north of Germany was united, and ready to declare against France ; only the
war in Poland was so near them, that they were obliged to continue armed, and see the issue
of that war : the king of Sweden was engaged in it, with such a determined opposition to
king Augustus, that there was no hope of treating a peace, though it was endeavoured both
by England and the States : the king of Sweden seemed to have accustomed himself to
fatigue and danger, so that he grew to love both ; and though the Muscovites had fallen
upon the frontiers of Sweden, where they had gained some advantages, yet even that could
not divert him from carrying on the war in Poland. A diet was summoned there, but it
broke up in confusion, without coming to any conclusion, only they sent ambassadors to the
king of Sweden to treat of a peace. The king of Prussia was very apprehensive of the
consequences of this war, which was now in the neighbourhood of Prussia ; and the king of
Sweden threatened to invade Saxony with the troops that he had in Pomerania, which could
not be done, but through his territories. The king of Sweden delayed giving audience to the
ambassadors of Poland ; and marched on to Warsaw ; so the king of Poland retired to Cra
cow, and summoned those palatines who adhered to him, to come about him : when the king
of Sweden came to Warsaw, he sent to the cardinal to summon a diet for choosing a new
king ; this went further than the resentments of the Poles yet carried them : but the rest of
this matter will appear hereafter.
All Germany was now united, only the two brothers of Bavaria. The court of Vienna

712 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
set on foot several negotiations with the elector of Bavaria, but all to no purpose : for that
elector seemed only to hearken to their propositions, that he might make the better terms
with France : the elector of Cologne put Liege, and all the places that he had on the Rhine,
except Bonn, into the hands of the French ; it was said, that he kept Bonn, hoping to be
able to make his peace with the emperor, by putting that into his possession ; but he was
prevailed on afterwards to dehver that likewise to the French. In this the elector acted
against the advice of all his council ; and as the dean of Liege was making some opposition
to him, he was seized on, and carried away prisoner in a barbarous manner ; the elector, to
excuse his letting the French into his country, pretended, he only desired the assistance of
some of the troops of the circle of Burgundy to secure his dominions ; for as France -was not
ashamed of the slightest pretences, so she taught her allies to make excuses unbecoming the
dignity of princes.
The first step of this war was to be made in the name of the elector Palatine, in the siege
of Keiserwert, which, whilst in the enemy s hands, exposed both the circle of Westphalia,
and the States' dominions; for their places on the Waal, being in no good condition, were
laid open to the excursions of that garrison. Negotiations were still carried on in several
courts : Methnen was sent to try the court of Portugal ; he came quickly back with full
assurances of a neutrality, and a freedom of trade in their ports ; insinuations were given of
a disposition to go further, upon a better prospect and better terms : so he was presently sent
back to drive that matter as far as it would tro. The pope pretended he would keep the
neutrality of a common father, but his partiality to the French appeared on many occasions ;
yet the court of Vienna had that veneration for the se-e, that they contented themselves
with expostulating, without carrying their resentments further. The Yenetians and the
great duke followed the example set them by the pope, though the former did not escape so
well, for their country suffered on both hands.
The Prince of Baden drew together the troops of the empire ; he began with blocking up
Landau, and that was soon turned to a sieoje : Catinat was sent to command the French
army in Alsace, but it was so weak, that he was not able to make head with it. In the end
of April, the Dutch formed three armies ; one under the prince of Nassau, undertook the
siege of Keiserwert ; another was commanded by the earl of Athlone, and lav in the duchy
of Cleve, to cover the siege ; a third, commanded by Cohorn, broke into Flanders, and put
a great part of that country under contribution. Mareschal Boufflers drew his army together,
and having laid up great magazines in Ruremonde and Venlo, he passed the Maes with his
whole army. The duke of Burgundy came down post from Paris to command it; the States
apprehended that so great a prince would, at his first appearance, undertake somewhat
worthy of him, and thought the design might be upon Maestricht ; so they put twelve
thousand men in garrison there ; the auxiliary troops from Germany did not come so soon
as was expected, and cross winds stopped a great part of our army ; so that the earl of Ath
lone was not strong enough to enter into action with Mareschal Boufflers ; but he lav about
Cleve. watching his motions. The siege of Keiserwert went on slowly ; the Rhine swelling
very high, so filled their trenches, that they could not work in them. Mareschal Tallard
was sent to he on the other side of the Rhine, to cannonade the besiecers, and to send fresh
men into the town : the king of Prussia came to WezeL from whence he furnished the
besiegers with all that was necessary. There was one vigorous attack made, in wliich many
were killed on both sides : in conclusion, after a brave defence, the counterscarp was carried,
and then the town capitulated, and was rased according to acrreement. When the duke of
Burgundy saw that the siege could not he raised, he tried to get between the earl of Ath
lone and Nimeguen : the design was well laid, and wanted little of being punctually exe
cuted ; it must have had fatal effects had it succeeded ; for the French would either have got
into Nimeguen, or have forced the earl of Athlone to fight at a great disadvantage. But the
earl of Athlone so carefully watched their motions, that he got before them, under the
cannon of Nimeguen ; yet by this means he was forced to abandon Cleve. The French dis
charged their fury upon that town, and on the park, and all the delicious walks of that
charming place, little to the honour of the prince who commanded the army ; for upon such
occasions, princes are apt to be civil to one another, and not to make havoc of such embel-

OF QUEEN ANNE. 713
lishments as can be of no use to them. The earl of Athlone's conduct on this occasion raised
his credit as much as it sunk Boufflers', who, though he had the superior army, animated
by the presence of so great a prince, yet was able to do nothing, but was unsuccessful in
every thing that he designed ; and his parties, that at any time were engaged with those of
the earl of Athlone, were beaten almost in every action*.
Soon after this the earl of Marlborough came over and took the command of the army.
The earl of Athlone was set on by the other Dutch generals to insist on his quality of velt
marshal, and to demand the command by turns : he was now in high reputation by his late
conduct, but the States obliged him to yield this to the earl of Marlborough, who indeed
used him so well that the command seemed to be equal between them. The earl of Athlone
was always inclined to cautious and sure, but feeble, counsels ; but the earl of Marlborough,
when the army was brought together, finding his force superior to the duke of Burgundy,
passed the Maes at the Grave, and marched up to the French. They retired as ho
advanced : this made him for venturing on a decisive action ; but the Dutch apprehended
the putting things to such a hazard, and would not consent to it. The pensioner, and those
who ordered matters at the Hague, proceeded the more timorously, because, upon the king's
death, those who had always opposed him were beginning to form parties, in several of their
towns, and were designing a change of government : so that a public misfortune in their
conduct, would have given great advantages to those who were watching for them. The
pensioner was particularly aimed at : this made him more unwilling to run any risk. Good
judges thought that if the earl of Marlborough's advices had been followed, matters might have
been brought to a happy decision ; but as he conducted the army prudently, so he was
careful not to take too much upon him. The duke of Burgundy finding himself obliged to
retreat as the confederate army advanced, thought this was not suitable to his dignity ; so he
left the army, and ended his first campaign very ingloriously : and it seems the king was
not satisfied with mareschal Boufflers, for he never commanded their armies since that time f.
The earl of Marlborough went on, taking several places, which made little or no resistance ;
and seeing that mareschal Boufflers kept at a safe distance, so that there was no hope of an
engagement with him, he resolved to fall into the Spanish Guelder : he began with Venlo.
There was a fort on the other side of the river that commanded it, which was taken by the
lord Cutts in so gallant a manner, that it deserved to be much commended by every body
but himself: but he lost the honour that was due to many brave actions of his, by talking
too much of them. The young earl of Huntingto'n showed upon this, as upon many other
occasions, an extraordinary heat of courage. He called to the soldiers, who had got over the
pallisades, to help him over, and promised them all the money he had about him, which he
performed very generously, and led them on with much bravery and success. Upon the
fort being taken, the town capitulated. Ruremonde and Stevenzwert were taken in a few
days after ; for mareschal Boufflers did not come to their relief. Upon these successes, that
came quicker than was expected, the earl of Marlborough advanced to Liege, which was a
place of more importance, in which he might put a great part of his army in winter quarters.
The town quickly capitulated, the citadel was carried by storm, and another fort in the town
likewise surrendered. Here was a very prosperous campaign : many places were taken with
little resistance, and an inconsiderable loss, either of time or of men. The earl of Marl-
* Louis Francis, due de Boufflers, is so frequently 10,000 soldiers." He defended Lille for four months
mentioned in this work, that some notice of the dates against prince Eugene, and the latter told him, " I am
of his life is required. He was born in 1644, and vain of taking the town, but I would rather have tho
was a soldier from boyhood. Before he was twenty-five, glory of defending it as you have." For this service it
ho was a colonel of dragoons, under Crequi and Tu- was that Boufflers waB raised to the peerage ; and on
renne. His exploits as commander-in-chief were worthy entering the parliament, surrounded by his officers, he
of a great general, and drew forth appropriate com- turned and said to them, " It is to you I am indebted
plimeuts from his opponents. It has been stated in a for all these favours ; I have nothing to glory in but the
previous part of this work, that when king William took honour of having commanded so many heroes." He died
Namur, he detained Boufflers in retaliation for the French in 1 711. — Moreri's Hist. Dictionary.
having detained the garrison of Dixmude. " Then," said f Ho did subsequently, as is noticed in the previous
Boufflers, " my garrison, not myself, should be detained." note, and, with M. Villars at the battle of Malplaquct, in
" Sir," it was answered, " you are of more value than 1709.

IU THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
borough's conduct and aeportment gained him the hearts of the army. The States were
highly satisfied with every thing he did, and the earl of Athlone did him the justice to own
that he had differed in opinion from him in everything that was done, and that therefore the
honour of their success was wholly owing to him *.
The campaign was kept open till November, and at the end of it, an accident happened,
that had almost lost the advantages and honour got in it. The earl of Marlborough thought
the easiest and quickest, as well as the safest way of returning to the Hague, was by some
of those great boats that pass on the Maes. There was one company in the boat in which
he went, and two companies went in another, that was to be before him. There were also
some troops ordered to ride along the banks for their guard. The great boat that went
before sailed away too quick, and the horse mistook their way in the night. The French
had yet the town of Guelder in their hands, which was indeed all they had of the Spanish
Guelder. A party from thence was lying on the banks of the river, waiting for an adven
ture, and they seized this boat, the whole company being fast asleep. So they had now
both the earl of Marlborough and Opdam, one of the Dutch generals, and Gueldermalsen,
one of the States' deputies, in their hands. They did not know the earl of Marlborough, but
they knew the other two. They both had passes, according to a civility usually practised
among the generals of both sides. The earl of Marlborough's brother had a pass, but his ill
health made him leave the campaign, so his pass was left with his brother's secretary, and
that was now made use of for himself. It is true the date of the pass was out, but they
being in haste, and in the night, that was not considered. The boat was rifled, and they
took presents from those who they believed were protected by their passes. So, after a stop
of some hours, they were let go, and happily escaped the danger. The news of their being
taken got before them to the Hague ; upon which the States immediately met under no
small consternation. They sent orders to all their forces to march immediately to Guelder,
and to threaten the garrison with all extremities, unless they should deliver the prisoners ;
and never to leave the place till they had either taken it, or had the generals delivered to
them. But before these orders could be dispatched, the earl of Marlborough came to the
Hague, where he was received with inexpressible joy, hot only by the States, but by all the
inhabitants : for he was beloved there to a high degree. Soon after his return to England
the queen made him duke of Marlborough ; and both houses of parliament sent some of their
number to him, with their thanks for the great services he had done this campaign.
The campaign likewise ended happily on the Upper Rhine. Landau was taken after a
long siege : the king of the Romans came in time to have the honour of taking it : but with
so great a train, and so splendid an equipage, that the expence of it put all the emperor's
affairs in great disorder ; the most necessary things being neglected, while a needless piece of
pomp devoured so great a part of their treasure. The siege was stopped some weeks for
want of ammunition, but in conclusion the place was taken.
The necessities of the king of France's affairs forced him at this time to grant the elector
of Bavaria all his demands. It is not yet known what they were. But the court of France
did not agree to what he asked, till Landau was given for lost ; and then seeing that the
prince of Baden might have overrun all the Hondruck, and carried his winter quarters into
the neighbourhood of France : it was necessary to gain this elector on any terms. If this
agreement had been sooner made, probably the siege, how far soever it was advanced, must
have been raised. The elector made his declaration when he possessed himself of Ulm,
which was a rich free town of the empire. It was taken by a stratagem that, how successful
soever it proved to the elector, was fatal to him who conducted it ; for he was killed by an
accident, after he was possessed of the town. This gave a great alarm to the neighbouring
circles and princes, who called away their troops from the prince of Baden to their own
defence ; by this means his army was much diminished : but, with the troops that were left
him, he studied to cut off the communication between Strasburg and Ulm. The emperor
¦with the diet proceeded according to their forms against the elector; but he was now
* For the fullest particulars of these events, and ail others in the life of this great commander, reference niav be
made to Coxe's u Memoirs, &c. of the duke of Marlborough."

OF QUEEN ANNE. 715
engaged, and continued firm to the interests of France. Mareschal Villars*, who com
manded the French army in Alsace, had orders to break tlirough the Black Forest, and join
the Bavarians. His army was much superior to tho prince of Baden, but the latter
had so posted himself that, after an unsuccessful attempt, Villars was forced to return to
Strasburg. In Italy the duke of Vendome began with the relief of Mantua, which was reduced to
gTeat extremities by the long blockade prince Eugene had kept about it. He had so fortified
the Oglio, that the duke of Vendome t, apprehending the difficulty of forcing his posts,
marched through the Venetian territories (notwithstanding the protestations of the republic
against it), and came to Goito, with a great convoy for Mantua. Prince Eugene drew his
army all along the Mantuan Fossa, down to Borgofortes : he was forced to abandon a great
many places ; but apprehending that Bresello might be besieged, and considering the import
ance of that place, he put a strong garrison in it. He complained much that the court of
Vienna seemed to forget him, and did not send him the reinforcements they had promised.
It was thought that his enemies at that court, under colour of supporting the king of the
Romans in his first campaign, were willing to neglect every thing that related to him ; by
this means the best army the emperor ever had was left to moulder away to nothing.
King Philip took a very extraordinary resolution of going over to Italy, to pos
sess himself of the kingdom of Naples, and to put an end to the war in Lombardy :
he was received at Naples with outward splendour, but he made little progress in
quieting the minds of that unruly kingdom. He did not obtain the investiture of it
from the pope, though he sent him a cardinal legate with a high compliment. The
Germans thought this was too much, while the French thought it was not enough ;
yet upon it the emperor's ambassador left Rome. King Philip was conducted from
Naples to Final by the French fleet that had carried him from Barcelona to Naples.
As he was going to command the duke of Vendome's army, he was met by the duke of
Savoy, of whom there was some jealousy, that, having married his two daughters so greatly,
he began now to discern his own distinct interest, which called upon him to hinder the
French from being masters of the Milanese. King Philip wrote to the duke of Vendome
not to fight prince Eugene till he could join him. He seemed jealous lest that prince should
be driven out of Italy before he could come to share in the honour of it ; yet, when he came,
he could do nothing, though prince Eugene was miserably abandoned by the court of Vienna.
Count Mansfield, president of the council of war, was much suspected as corrupted by
France. The supplies promised were not sent into Italy. The apprehensions they were
under of the elector of Bavaria's declaring, some time before he did it, gave a colour to those
who were jealous of prince Eugene's glory, to detain the recruits and troops that had been
promised him for the emperor's own defence. But though he was thus forsaken, yet he
managed the force he had about him with great skill and conduct. When he saw Luzara
was in danger, he marched up to the king of Spain, and, as that king very oddly expressed
it, in a letter to the king of France, he had the boldness (audace) to attack him ; but, which
was worse, he had the boldness likewise to beat him ; and, if he had not been shut in by
rivers, and the narrowness of the ground, very probably he would have carried the advan
tage he had in that engagement much further. The ill state of his affairs forced him upon
that desperate action in which he succeeded beyond expectation. It put the French to such
a stand, that all they could do after this was only to take Luzara, and some other incon
siderable places ; but prince Eugene still kept his posts. King Philip left the army and
returned, after an inglorious campaign, into Spain, where the grandees were much disgusted
to see themselves so much despised, and their affairs wholly conducted by French councils.
The French tried, by all possible methods, to engage the Turks in a new war with the
emperor : and it was believed that the grand vizier was entirely gained, though the mufti,
* Louis Hector, due de Villars, was born in 1653, and + Of Lewis Joseph, due de Vendome, there is a good
died in 1734. He wrote his own "Memoirs," which memoir in the Dictionnaire Historique. He was born in
have been published with a continuation, and give much 1654, and died iu 1712.
information concerning this continental war.

716 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
and all who had any credit in that court, were against it. The grand vizier was strangled,
and so this design was prevented.
The court of France was in a management with the cardinal primate of Poland to keep
that kingdom still embroiled. The king of Sweden marched on to Cracow, which was
much censured as a desperate attempt, since a defeat there must have destroyed him and his
army entirely, being so far from home. He attacked the king of Poland, and gave him
such an overthrow, that, though the army got off, he carried both their camp and artillery.
He possessed himseK of Cracow, where he stayed some months, till he had raised all the
money they could produce ; and though the Muscovites with the Lithuanians destroyed
Livonia, and broke into Sweden, yet that could not call him back. The duke of Holstein,
who had married his eldest sister, was thought to be gained by the French to push on this
young king to prosecute the war with such an unrelenting fury, in which he might have a
design for himself, since the kjjng of Sweden's venturing his own person so freely might make
way for his duchess to succeed to the crown. That duke was killed in the battle of Cracow.
There was some hopes of peace this winter, but the two princes were so exasperated against
one another, that it seemed impossible to compose that animosity. This was very unaccept
able to the allies ; for both kings were well inclined to support the confederacy, and to
engage in the war against France, if their own quarrels could have been made up. The king
of Sweden continued still so virtuous and pious in his whole deportment, that he seemed
formed to be one of the heroes of the Reformation. This was the state of affairs on the con
tinent during this campaign.
One unlooked for accident sprung up in France. An insurrection happened in the
Cevennes in Languedoc ; of which I can say nothing that is very particular, or well assured.
When it first broke out, it was looked on as the effect of oppression and despair, which would
quickly end in a scene of blood ; but it had a much longer continuance than was expected ; and
it had a considerable effect on the affairs of France : for an army of ten or twelve thousand
men, who were designed either for Italy or Spain, was employed without any immediate
success in reducing them.
I now change the element, to give an account of our operations at sea. Rook had the
command. The fleet put to sea much later than we hoped for. The Dutch fleet came over
about a month before ours was ready : the whole consisted of fifty ships of the line, and a
land army was put on board, of twelve thousand men, seven thousand English and five
thousand Dutch. Rook spoke so coldly of the design he went upon before he sailed, that
those who conversed with him were apt to infer that he intended to do the enemy as little
harm as possible. Advice was sent over from Holland of a fleet that sailed from France,
and was ordered to call in at the Groyne. Munden was recommended By Rook to be sent
against this fleet ; but, though he came up to them with a superior force, yet he behaved
himself so ill, and so unsuccessfully, that a council of war was ordered to sit on him. They
indeed acquitted him, some excusing themselves, by saying, that if they had condemned
him, the punishment was death ; whereas they thought his errors flowed from a want of
sense : so that it would have been hard to condemn him for a defect in that which nature
had not given him. Those who recommended him to the employment seemed to be more
in fault. This acquittal raised such an outcry that the queen ordered him to be broke.
Rook, to divert the design that he himself was to go upon, wrote from St. Helen's that the
Dutch fleet was victualled only to the middle of September. So that, being then in July,
no great design could be undertaken, when so large a part of the fleet was so ill provided.
When the Dutch admiral heard of this, he sent to their ambassador, to complain to the
queen of this misinformation ; for he was victualled till the middle of December. They
were for some time stopped by contrary winds, accidents, and pretences, many of which
were thought to be strained and sought for ; but the wind being turned wholly favourable
after some cross winds, which had rendered their passage slow and tedious, they came, on
the 12th of August, into the bay of Cadiz. Rook had laid no disposition beforehand how
to proceed upon his coming thither. Some days were lost on pretence of seekinc for intelli
gence. It is certain our court had false accounts of the state the place was in both with

OF QUEEN ANNE. 717
relation to the garrison and the fortifications : the garrison was much stronger, and the forti
fications were in a better condition, than was represented. The French men of war and the
galleys that lay in the bay retired within the puntals. In the first surprise it had been easy
to have followed them, and to have taken or burnt them, which Fairborn offered to execute,
but Rook and the rest of his creatures did not approve of this. Some days were lost before
a council of war was called. In the meanwhile the duke of Ormond sent some engineers
and pilots to sound the south side of Cadiz, near the island of St. Pedro ; but while this was
doing, the officers, by the taking of some boats, came to know that those of Cadiz had sent
over the best of their goods and other effects to the port of St. Maries, an open village over
against it, on the continent of Spain ; so that hero was good plunder to be had easily,
whereas the landing on the isle of Cadiz was likely to prove dangerous, and, as some made
them believe, impracticable. In the council of war, in which their instructions were read,
it was proposed to consider how they should put them in execution. O'Haro, one of the
general officers, made a long speech against landing : he showed how desperate an attempt
it would prove, and how different they found the state of the place from the representation
made of it in England. The greater number agreed with him ; and all that the duke of
Ormond could say to the contrary was of no effect. Rook seemed to be of the same mind
with the duke, but all his dependents were of another opinion, so this was thought to be a
piece of craft in him. In conclusion, the council of war came to a resolution not to make a
descent on the island of Cadiz ; but, before they broke up, those whom the duke had sent
to sound the landing places on the south side came and told them that, as they might land
safely, so the ships might ride securely on that side : yet they had no regard to this, but
adhered to their former resolution : nor were there any orders given for bombarding the
town. The sea was for the most part very high while they lay there, but it was so calm
for one day, that the engineers believed they could have done much mischief, but they had
no orders for it ; and indeed it appeared very evidently that they intended to do nothing
but rob St. Maries.
A landing on the continent was resolved on, and though the sea was high, and the danger
great, yet the hope of spoil made them venture on it. They landed at Rota : a party of
Spanish horse seemed to threaten some resistance, but they retired, and so our men came
to St. Maries, which they found deserted, but full of riches. Both officers and soldiers set
themselves with great courage against this tempting but harmless enemy. Some of the
general officers set a very, ill example to all the rest, chiefly O'Haro and Bellasis. The duke
of Ormond tried to hinder it, but did not exert his authority ; for, if he had made some
examples at first, he might have prevented the mischief that was done. But the whole
army running so violently on the spoil, he either was not able, or, through a gentleness of
temper, was not willing, to proceed to extremities. He had published a manifesto, accord
ing to his instructions, by which the Spaniards were invited to submit to the emperor ; and
he offered his protection to all that came in to him : but the spoil of St. Maries was thought
an ill commentary on that text. After some days of unfruitful trials on the forts of that
side it appeared that nothing could be done ; so about the middle of September they all
embarked. Some of the ships' crews were so employed, in bringing and bestowing the
plunder, that they took not the necessary care to furnish themselves with fresh water. Rook,
without prosecuting his other instructions, in case the design on Cadiz miscarried, gave
orders only for a squadron to sail to the West Indies with some land forces ; and though he
had a fleet of victuallers that had provisions to the middle of December, he ordered them to
sail home : by this means the men of war were so scantily furnished, that they were soon
forced to be put on short allowance. Nor did Rook send advice boats, either to the ports
of Algarve or to Lisbon, to see what orders or advices might be lying for him, but sailed in
a direct course for England ; but some ships, not being provided with water for the voyage
to England, touched on the coast of Algarve to take in water.
They met with intelligence there that the Spanish plate fleet, with a good convoy of
French men of war, had put in at Vigo, a port in Galicia, not far from Portugal, where the
entrance was narrow and capable of a good defence. It widened within land into a bay or
mouth of a river, where the ships lay very conveniently. He who commanded the French

718 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
fleet ordered a boom to be laid across the entrance, and forts to be raised on both sides : he
had not time to finish what he designed, otherwise the place had been inaccessible ; but, as
it was, the difficulty in forcing this port was believed to be greater than any they would
have met with if they had landed on the isle of Cadiz. As soon as this fleet had put in at
Vigo, Methuen, the queen's minister at Lisbon, sent advertisements of it to all the places
where he thought our advice-boats might be ordered to call. Rook had given no orders for
any to call, and so held on his course towards Cape Finisterre. But one of his captains,
Hardy, whilst he watered in Algarve, heard the news there ; upon which he made all the
sail he could after Rook, and overtook him. Rook, upon that, turned his course towards
Vigo, very unwillingly as was said, and, finding the advice was true, he resolved to force
his way in.
The duke of Ormond landed with a body of the army, and attacked the forts with great
bravery, while the ships broke the boom and forced the port. When the French saw what
was done, they left their ships, and set some of the men-of-war and some of the galleons on
fire. Our men came up with such diligence that they stopped the progress of the fire ; yet
fifteen men-of-war and eight galleons were burnt or sunk: but our men were in time to save
five men-of-war and five galleons, which they took. Here was a great destruction made,
and a great booty taken, with very little loss on our side. One of our ships was set on fire
by a fire-ship, but she too was saved, though with the loss of some men, which was all the
loss we sustained in this important action. The duke of Ormond marched into the country
and took some forts, and the town of Ritondella, where much plunder was found : the
French seamen and soldiers escaped, for we, having no horse, were not in a condition to
pursue them. The Spaniards appeared at some distance in a great body, but they did not
offer to enter into any action with the duke of Ormond. It appeared that the resentments
of that proud nation, which was now governed by French councils, were so high, that they
would not put themselves in any danger, or to any trouble, even to save their own fleet,
when it was in such hands.
After this great success, it came under consultation, whether it was not advisable to leave
a good squadron of ships, with the land forces, to winter at Yigo. The neighbourhood of
Portugal made that they could be well furnished with provisions and all other necessaries
from thence. This might also encourage that king to declare himself, when there was such
a force and fleet lying so near him. It might likewise encourage such of the Spaniards as
favoured the emperor to declare themselves, when they saw a safe place of retreat and a
force to protect them. The duke of Ormond, upon these considerations, offered to stay if
Rook would have consented ; but he excused it : he had sent home the victuallers with the
stores, and so he could not spare what was necessary for such as would stay there : and
indeed he had so ordered the matter, that he could not stay long enough to try whether they
could raise and search the men-of-war and the galleons that were sunk. He was obliged to
make all possible haste home ; and if the wind had turned to the east, which was ordinary
in that season, a great part of our ships' crews must have died of hunger.
The wind continued favourable, so they got home safe, but half starved. Thus ended
this expedition, which was ill projected, and worse executed. The duke of Ormond told
me he had not half the ammunition that was necessary for the taking Cadiz, if they had
defended themselves well ; though he believed they would not have made any great resist
ance, if he had landed on his first arrival, and not given them time to recover from the
disorder into which the first surprise had put them. A great deal of the treasure taken at
Vigo was embezzled, and fell into private hands*. One of the galleons foundered at sea.
The public was not much enriched by this extraordinary capture, yet the loss our enemies
made by it was a vast one ; and, to complete the ruin of the Spanish merchants, their king
seized on the plate that was taken out of the ships, upon their first arrival at Vigo. Thus
the campaign ended ; very happily for the allies, and most gloriously for the queen, whose
first year, being such a continued course of success, gave a hopeful presage of what might be
hereafter expected.
* At Stowe, the seat of the duke of Buckingham, is a large chest, inlaid with mother of pearl,and called " The VWo
Chest." It is said to have contained treasure, and was brought here by sir Peter Temple, one of queen Anne's generals.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 719
The session of parliament comes next to be related. The queen did not openly interpose
in the elections, but her inclination to the tories appearing plainly, all people took it for
granted that she wished they might be the majority. This wrought on the inconstancy
and servility that is natural to multitudes ; and the conceit, which had been infused and
propagated with much industry, that the whigs had charged the nation with great taxes, of
which a large share had been devoured by themselves, had so far turned the tide, that the
tories in the house of commons were at least double the number of the whigs. They met
full of fury against the memory of the late king, and against those who had been employed
by him. The first instance wherein this appeared was in their address to the queen, con
gratulating her great successes : they added, that, by her wise and happy conduct, the
honour of the kingdom was " retrieved." The word " retrieved" implying that it was
formerly lost : all that had a just regard to the king's memory opposed it. He had carried
the honour of the nation further than had been done in any reign before his. To him they
owed their preservation, their safety, and even the queen's being on the throne. He had
designed and formed that great confederacy, at the head of which she was now set. In
opposition to this, it was now said that, during his reign, things had been conducted by
strangers, and trusted to them ; and that a vast treasure had been spent in unprofitable
campaigns in Flanders. The Partition Treaty, and every thing else with which the former
reign could be loaded, was brought into the account, and the keeping the word "retrieved"
in the address was carried by a great majority ; all that had favour at court, or hoped for
any, going into it*. Controverted elections were judged in favour of tories with such a
barefaced partiality, that it shewed the party was resolved on every thing that might serve
their ends.
Of this I shall only give two instances. The one was of the borough of Hindon, near me
at Salisbury, where, upon a complaint of bribery, the proof was so full and clear, that they
ordered a bill to disfranchise the town for that bribery ; and yet, because the bribes were
given by a man of their party, they would not pass a vote on him as guilty of it : so that a
borough was voted to lose its right of electing, because many in it were guilty of a corrup
tion, in which no man appeared to be the actor. The other was of more importance ; and,
because it may be set up for a precedent, I will be more particular in the report. Mr. John
How had been vice-chamberlain to the late queen, but missing some of those advantages that
he had proposed to himself, he had gone into the highest opposition that was made in the
house of commons to the court during the last reign ; not without many indecent reflections
on the person of the late king, and a most virulent attacking of all his ministers. He was
a man of some wit, but of little judgment, and of small principles of religion : he stood
knight of the shire for Gloucestershire, and had drawn a party in that county to join with
him in an address to the queen, in which reflections were made on the danger and ill usage
she had gone through in the former reign. This address was received by the queen in so
particular a manner, that it looked like the owning that the contents of it were true : but
she made such an excuse for this, when the offence it gave was laid before her, that probably
she was not acquainted with the matter of the address when she so received it. Upon this,
great opposition was made to his election. When it came to the poll, it appeared he had
lost it ; so the sheriff was moved for a scrutiny, to examine whether all those who had sworn
that they were freeholders of forty shillings a-year had sworn true. By the act of parlia
ment the matter was referred to the party's oath, and their swearing false was declared
perjury ; therefore such as had sworn falsely were liable to a prosecution : but, by all laws,
an oath is looked upon as an end of controversy, till he who swore is convicted of perjury :
and the sheriff, being an officer named by the court, if he had a power to review the poll,
this put the election of counties wholly in the power of the crown : yet, upon this occasion,
the heat of a party prevailed so far, that they voted How duly elected t.
* It was proposed to substitute the word "maintained," of William and Anne. In the latter, he was a privy
but, after a stormy debate, this was negatived by 180 to councillor, and vice-admiral of Gloucestershire. His
80  Chandler's Debates, House of Commons, iii. 205. other preferment will be noticed in a future page. He
+ Mr. John How was a native of Nottinghamshire, died in 1721. He was the author of " A Panegyric on
He represented Cirencester in the convention parliament, King William," and several minor productions. — Collins's
and was « member in every parliament during the reigns Peerage.

720 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The house of commons verj' unanimously, and with great dispatch, agreed to all tho
demands of the court, and voted all the supplies that were necessary for carrying on the
war. Upon the duke of Marlborough's coming over, a new demand for an additional force
was made, since the king of France had given out commissions for a great increase of his
armies. Upon that, the States moved the queen for ten thousand more men. This was
consented to, but with a condition, which, how reasonable soever it might be in itself, yet
the manner in which it was managed showed a very ill disposition towards the Dutch ; and
in the debate they were treated very indecently. It was insisted on that, before the pay
of these new troops should begin, the States should prohibit all trade with France, and break
off all correspondence with that kingdom. It was indeed true, that France could not have
supplied their armies in Italy but by the means of this secret trade ; so it was reasonable to
break it : but the imposing it on the Dutch, in the manner in which this was pressed, carried
in it too high a strain of authority over them. Theirs is a country that subsists not by any
intrinsic wealth of their own, but by their trade : some seemed to hope that the opposition,
which would be raised on this head, might force a peace, at which many among us were
driving so indecently, that they took little care to conceal it. The States resolved to
comply with England in every thing ; and though they did not like the manner of demanding
this, yet they readily consented to it. The ordinary business of a session of parliament was
soon dispatched, no opposition being made to the supply, at which, in the former reign,
things stuck longest.
When those matters were settled, a bill was brought in by the tories against occasional
conformity, which produced great and long debates *. By this bill, all those who took the
sacrament and test (which, by the act passed in the year 1 673, was made necessary to those
who held offices of trust, or were magistrates in corporations, but was only to be taken once
by them), and did after that go to the meetings of dissenters, or any meeting for religious
worship, that was not according to the liturgy or practice of the church of England, where
five persons were present more than the family, were disabled from holding their employ
ments, and were to be fined in 1001, and in bl. a day for every day in which they continued
to act in their employments, after their having been at any such meeting. They were also made
incapable to hold any other employment till after one whole year's conformity to the church,
which was to be proved at tho quarter session. Upon a relapse, the penalty and the time of
incapacity were doubled : no limitation of time was put in the bill, nor of the way in which
the offence was to be proved. But, whereas the act of the test only included the magistrates
in corporations, all the inferior officers or freemen in corporations, who were found to have
some interest in the elections, were now comprehended within this bill. The preamble of
the bill asserted the toleration, and condemned all persecution for conscience' sake in a high
strain. Some thought the bill was of no consequence, and that, if it should pass into a law,
it would be of no effect ; but that the occasional conformists would become constant ones.
Others thought that this was such a breaking in upon the toleration as would undermine it,
and that it would have a great effect on corporations ; as indeed the intent of it was believed
to be the modelling of elections, and by consequence of the house of commons.
On behalf of the bill, it was said the design of the test act was, that all in office should
continue in the communion of the church : that coming only once to the sacrament for an
office, and going afterwards to the meetings of dissenters, was both an eluding the intent of
the law and a profanation of the sacrament, which gave great scandal, and was abhorred by
the better sort of dissenters. Those who were against the bill said, the nation had been
quiet ever since the toleration, the dissenters had lost more ground and strength by it than
the church. The nation was now engaged in a great war ; it seemed therefore unseasonable
to raise animosities at home in matters of religion, at such a time, and to encourage a tribe
of informers who were the worst sort of men. The fines were excessive, higher than any
laid on papists by law ; and since no limitation, of time, nor concurrence of witnesses, was
provided for in the bill, men would be for ever exposed to the malice of a bold swearer, or
wicked servant. It was moved, that since the greatest danger of all was from atheists and
papists, that all such as received the sacrament for an office, should be obliged to receive it
* See these proceedings in Chandler's Debates, House of Commons, iii.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 7l'I
three times a-year, which all were bylaw required to do ; and to keep to their parish church
at least one Sunday a month, but this was not admitted. All who pleaded for the bill did
in words declare for the continuance of the toleration, yet the sharpness with which they
treated the dissenters in all their speeches showed as if they designed their extirpation. The
bill was carried in the house of commons by a great majority. The debates held longer in
the house of lords : many were against it, because of the high penalties : some remembered
the practice of informers in the end of king Charles's reign, and would not consent to the
reviving such infamous methods : all believed that the chief design of this bill was to model
corporations and to cast out of them all those who would not vote in elections for tories.
The toleration itself was visibly .aimed at, and this was only a step to break in upon it.
Some thought the design went yet further, to raise such quarrels and distractions among us
as would so embroil us at home, that our allies might see they could not depend upon us ;
and that we, being weakened by the disorders occasioned by those prosecutions, might be
disabled from carrying on the war, which was the chief thing driven at by the promoters of
the bill. So that many of the lords, as well as the bishops, agreed in opposing this bill,
though upon different views ; yet they consented to some parts of it, chiefly that such as
went to meetings, after they had received the sacrament, should be disabled from holdino-
any employments., and be fined in twenty pounds. Many went into this, though they were
against every part of the bill, because they thought this the most plausible way of losing it ;
since the house of commons had of late set it up for a maxim, that the lords could not alter
the fines that they should fix in a bill, this being a meddling with money, which they
thought was so peculiar to them, that they would not let the lords on any pretence break in
npon it.
The lords hereupon appointed a vert* exact search to be made into all the rolls that lay in
the clerk of the parliament's office, from the middle of king Henry the Seventh's reign down
to the present time ; and they found, by some hundreds of precedents, that in some bills the
lords began the clauses that set the fines ; and that when fines were set by the commons
sometimes they altered the fines, and at other times they changed the use to which they
were applied. The report made of this was so full and clear, that there was no possibility
of replying to it, and the lords ordered it to be entered in their books. But the commons
were resolved to maintain their point without entering into any debate upon it. The lords
also added clauses requiring proof to be made by two witnesses, and that the information
should be given in within ten days, and the prosecution commenced within three mouths
after the fact. The commons agreed to this, but would not alter the penalties that they had
set. The thing depended long between the two houses ; both sides took pains to bring up
the lords that would vote with them, so that there were above a hundred and thirty lords in
the house, the greatest number that had ever been together.
The court put their whole strength to carry the bill. Prince George, who had received
the sacrament as lord high admiral, aud yet kept his chapel in the Lutheran way, so that he
was an occasional communicant, came and voted for the bill. After some conferences,
wherein each house had yielded some smaller differences to the other, it came to a free con
ference in the painted chamber, which was the most crowded upon that occasion that had
ever been known ; so much weight was laid on this matter on both sides.
When the lords retired, and it came to the final vote " of adhering," the lords were so
equally divided, that in three questions, put on different heads, the '' adhering" was carried
but by one voice in every one of them ; and it was a different person that gave it in all the
three divisions. The commons likewise adhered, so the bill was lost. This bill seemed to
favour the interests of the church, so hot men were for it ; and the greater number of the
bishops being against it, thev were censured as cold and slack in the concerns of the church,
a reproach that all moderate men must expect when they oppose violent motions. A great
part of this fell on myself ; for I bore a large share in the debates, both in the house of lords
and at the free conference. Angry men took occasion from hence to charge the bishops as
enemies to the church, and betrayers of its interests, because we would not run blindfold
into the passions and designs of ill-tempered men ; though we can appeal to all the world,
and, which is more, to God himself, that we did faithfully and zealously pursue the true
3 a'

722 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
interests of the church, the promoting religion and learning, the encouraging of all good men
and good designs, and that we did apply ourselves to the duties of our function and to the
work of the gospel. Having this quiet within ourselves, we must bear the cross and submit
to the will of God. The less of our reward that we receive from men, we have so much the
more to look for from Him.
While the bill that had raised so much heat was in agitation, the queen sent a message to
the commons, desiring them to make some suitable provision for prince George, in case he
should outlive her. He was many years elder than the queen, and was troubled with an
asthma that every year had very ill effects on his health ; it had brought him into great
danger this winter, yet the queen thought it became her to provide for all events. Howe
moved that it should be 100,000/. a-year. This was seconded by those who knew how
acceptable the motion would be to the queen, though it was the double of what any queen
in Encland ever had in jointure ; so it passed without any opposition. But while it was
passing, a motion was made upon a clause in the act, which limited the succession to the
Hanover family, which provided against strangers, though naturalized, being capable to hold
any employments among us. This plainly related only to those who should be naturalized
in a future reign, and had no retrospect to such as were already naturalized, or should be
naturalized during the present reign. It was, however, proposed as doubtful whether, when
that family might reign, all who were naturalized before should not be incapacitated by that
clause from sitting in parliament, or holding employments ; and a clause was offered to
except the prince from being comprehended in that incapacity. Against this two objections
lay : one was, that the lords had resolved by a vote, to which the greater number had set
their hands, that thev would never pass any money bill sent up to them by the commons, to
which any clause was tacked that was foreign to the bill. They had done this to prevent
the commons from fastening matters of a different nature to a money bill, and then pretend
ing that the lords could not meddle with it ; for this was a method to alter the government
and bring it entirely into their own hands. By this means, when money was necessary for
preserving the nation, they might force not only the lords, but the crown, to consent to
every thing they proposed by tacking it to a money bill. It was said that a capacity for
holding employments, and for sitting in the house of lords, were things of a different nature
from money ; so that this clause seemed to many to be a tack, whereas others thought it
was no tack, because both parts of the act related to the same person. The other objection
was, that this clause seemed to imply, that persons already naturalized, and in possession of
the rights of natural born subjects, were to be excluded in the next reign ; though all people
knew that no such thing was intended when the act of succession passed. Great opposition
was made for both these reasons to the passing this clause ; but the queen pressed it with
the greatest earnestness she had yet shewed in any thing whatsoever : she thought it became
her, as a good wife, to have the act passed ; in which she might be the more earnest, because
it was not thou2ht adviseable to move for an act that should take prince George into a
consortship of the regal dignity. This matter raised a great heat in the house of lords:
those who had been advanced by the late king, and were in his interests, did not think it
became them to consent to this, which seemed to be a prejudice, or at least a disgrace to
those whom he had raised. The court managed the matter so dexterously that the bill
passed, and the queen was highly displeased with those who had opposed it, among whom
I had my share. The clause was put in the bill by some in the house of commons, only
because they believed it would be opposed by those against whom they intended to irritate
the queen.
Soon after this the commons sent up a bill in favour of those who had not taken the oath,
abjuring the prince of ^Vales. by the day that was named, granting them a year longer to
consider of it ; ror it was said, that the whole party was now come entirely into the queen's
interests : though, on the other hand, it was given out that agents were come from France,
on design to persuade all persons to take the abjuration, that they might become capable of
employments, and so might in time be a majority in parliament, and by that means the act
of succession, and the oath imposed by it, might be repealed. When the bill for thus pro
longing the time was brought up to the lords, a clause was added, qualifyinc those persons

OF QUEEN ANNE. 723
who should in the new extent of time take the oaths, to return to their benefices or employ
ments, unless they were already legally filled. When this was agreed, two clauses of much
greater consequence were added to the bill. One was, declaring it high treason to endeavour
to defeat tlie succession to the crown, as it was now limited by law, or to set aside the next
successor. This had a precedent in the former reign, so it could not be denied now. It
seemed the more necessary, because there was another person who openly claimed the
crown, so that a further security might well be insisted on. This was a great surprise to
many, who were visibly uneasy at the motion, but were not prepared for it, and did not see
how it could be resisted. The other clause was for sending the abjuration to Ireland, and
obliging all there (in the same manner as in England) to take it. This seemed the more
reasonable, considering the strength of the popish interest there. Both clauses passed in the
house of lords without any opposition ; but it was apprehended that the house of commons
would not be so easy : yet, when it was sent to them, they struggled only against the first
clause, that barred the return of persons, upon their taking the oaths, into places that were
already filled. The party tried their strength upon this, and upon their success in it they
seemed resolved to dispute the other clause ; but it was carried, though only by one voice,
to agree with the lords. When the clause relating to the succession was read, Musgrave
tried if it might not be made a bill by itself, and not put as a clause in another bill ; but he
saw the house was resolved to receive both clauses, so he did not insist on his motion. All
people were surprised to see a bill that was begun in favour of the jacobites turned so terribly
upon them, since by it we had a new security given, both in England and Ireland, for a
protestant successor.
At this time, the earl of Rochester quitted his place of lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He
was uneasy at the preference which the duke of Marlborough had in the queen's confidence,
and at the lord Godolphin's being lord treasurer. It was generally believed he was endea
vouring to embroil our affairs, and that he was laying a train of opposition in the house of
commons. The queen sent a message to him, ordering him to make ready to go to Ireland ;
for it seemed very strange, especially in a time of war, that a person in so great a post
should not attend upon it ; but he, after some days advising about it, went to the queen, and
desired to be excused from that emploj-ment. This was readily accepted, and upon that he
withdrew from the councils. It was immediately offered to the duke of Ormond, and he
was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland. The duke of Ormond, upon his first arrival from the
expedition to Cadiz, complained very openly of Rook's conduct, and seemed resolved to
carry the matter to a public accusation ; but the court found the party that prevailed in the
house of commons determined to justify Rook : so, to comply with this, the queen made
him a privy councillor ; and much pains were taken on the duke of Ormond to stifle his
resentments. He was in a great measure softened, yet he had made his complaints to so
many lords, that they moved the house to examine both his instructions and the journals
relating to that expedition. A committee of the house of peers sat long upon the matter :
they examined all the admirals and land officers, as well as Rook himself, upon the whole
progress of that affair. Rook was so well supported by the court, and by his party in the
house of commons, that he seemed to despise all that the lords could do. Some who under
stood sea matters said that it appeared, from every motion that he made during the expedi
tion, that he intended to do nothing but amuse and make a show. They also concluded,
from the protection that the ministry gave him, that they intended no other. He took
much pains to show how improper a thing a descent on Cadiz was, and how fatal the
attempt must have proved ; and, in doing this, he arraigned his instructions, and the design
he was sent on, with great boldness, and showed little regard to the ministers, who took
more pains to bring him off than to justify themselves. The lords of the committee pre
pared a report, which -was hard upon Rook, and laid it before the house ; but so strong a
party was made to oppose every thing that reflected on him, that though every particular
in the report was well proved, yet it was rejected, and a vote was carried in his favour,
justifying his whole conduct. The great employment given to the duke of Ormond so effec
tually prevailed on him, that though the enquiry was set on by his means, and upon his
susrsestions. yet he came not to the house when it was brought to a conclusion. So Rook,
°5 3 a 2

724 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
being but faintly pushed by him, and most zealously supported by his party, was justified
by a vote, though universally condemned by more impartial judges. The behaviour of the
ministry in this matter heightened the jealousies with wliich many were possessed, for it
was inferred that they were not in earnest in his whole expedition ; since the conduct
being so contrary to the instructions, the justifying the one was plainly condemning the
other. The report made by the commissioners appointed to take the public accounts was another
business that took up much time in this session, and occasioned many debates. They pre
tended that they had made great discoveries : they began with the earl of Ranelagh, who
had been in great posts, and had all the arts that were necessary to recommend a man in a
court, who stuck at nothing that could maintain his interest with those whom he served :
he had been paymaster of the army in king James's time, and, being very fit for the post, he
had been continued all the last reign : he had lived high, and so it was believed his appoint
ments could not support so great an expense : he had an account of one and twenty millions
lay upon him. It was given out that a great deal of the money, lodged in his office for the
pay of the army, was diverted to other uses, distributed among favourites, or given to
corrupt members of parliament ; and that some millions had been sent over to Holland. It
had been often said, that great discoveries would be made, whensoever his accounts were
looked into ; and that he, to save himself, would lay open the ill practices of the former
reign. But now, when all was brought under a strict examination, a few inconsiderable
articles of some hundreds of pounds was all that could be found to be objected to him ; and
even to these he gave clear and full answers. At last they found that, upon the breaking of
a regiment, a sum wliich he had issued out for its pay had been returned to his office, the
regiment being broke sooner than that pay was exhausted ; and that no entry of this was
made in his accounts. To this he answered, that his officer, who received the money, was
within three days after taken so ill of a confirmed stone, that he never again came to the
office, but died in great misery, and, during those three days, he had not entered that sum
in the books. Lord Ranelagh acknowledged that he was liable to account for all the money
that was received by his under officers, but here was no crime or fraud designed ; yet this
was so aggravated, that he saw his good post was his greatest guilt ; so he quitted that,
which was divided into two : one was appointed to be paymaster of the guards and garri
sons at home, and another of the forces that were kept beyond sea. Howe had the first, as
being the more lasting post*. With this all the clamour raised against the earl of Rane
lagh was let fall ; yet, to make a show of severity, he was expelled the house. But he
appeared, upon all this canvassing, to be much more innocent than even his friends had
believed him-f-.
The clamour that had been long kept up against the former ministry, as devourers of the
public treasure, was of such use to the party, that they resolved to continue it by all possible
methods. So a committee of the house of commons prepared a long address to the queen,
reflecting on the ill management of the funds, upon which they laid the great debt of the
nation, and not upon the deficiencies. This was branched out into many particulars, which
were all heavily aggravated. Y^et, though a great part of the outcry had been formerly
* The second was given to Mr. Fox. — Mackay's Cha- and turned of 60 years old." It is certain that the earl
racters. had not honesty sufficient to resist availing himself of any
-f- Richard Jones, earl of Ranelagh, has been styled resources that enabled him to live in the splendid estrava-
" one of the ablest men Ireland ever bred." Mackay's gauce that delighted him, but this must have been sustained
"Characters" describes him as having "a great deal of by considerable ability, or he could not have succeeded in
wit, having originally no great estate, yet hath spent more pleasing such opposite characters as the licentious Charles,
money, built more fine houses, and laid out more on the bigotted James, the phlegmatic William, and the
household furniture and gardening than any other noble- pious Anne. But his talents were not rendered amiable
man in England. He is a great epicure, and prodigious by a christian spirit. He never forgave his daughter,
expensive ; was paymaster all the last war, and is above lady Coningsby, for marrying contrary to his wishes, and
100,000/. sterling in arrear, which several parliaments gave the fortune he intended for her to Greenwich Hos-
have been calling him to account for, yet he escapes with pital. He died in 1711. His house and gardens at
the punishment only of losing his place. He is a. bold Chelsea became the public place of amusement, formerly
man, and very happy in jests and repartees, and hath often so well known as Ranelagh.  Clarendon Correspon-
turned the humour of the house of commons, when they dence ; Peerages ; Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
have designed to be very severe. He is very fat, black,

OF QUEEN ANNE. 725
made against Russel, treasurer of the navy, and his office, they found not so much as a
colour to fix a complaint there ; nor could they charge any thing on the chancery, the
treasury, or the administration of justice. Great complaints were made of some accounts
that stood long out, and they insisted on some pretended neglects, the old methods of the
exchequer not having been exactly followed ; though it did not appear that the public
suffered in any sort by those failures. They kept up a clamour likewise against the com
missioners of the prizes, though they had passed their accounts as the law directed, and no
objection was made to them. The address was full of severe reflections and spiteful insinua
tions ; and thus it was carried to the queen, and published to the nation, as the sense of the
commons of England.
The lords, to prevent the ill impressions this might make, appointed a committee to
examine all the observations that the commissioners of accounts had offered to both houses.
They searched all the public offices, and were amazed to find that there was not one article
in all the long address that the commons had made to the queen, or in the observations then
before them, that was of any importance, but was false in fact. They found the deficiencies
in the former reign were of two sorts ; the one was of sums that the commons had voted, but
for wliich they had made no sort of provision ; the other was where the supply that was
given came short of the sum it was estimated at : and between these two the deficiencies
amounted to fourteen millions : this was the root of the great debt that lay on the nation.
They examined into all the pretended mismanagement, and found that what the commons
had stated so invidiously was mistaken. So far had the late king and his ministers been
from misapplying the money that was given for public occasions, that he applied three
millions to the public service that by law was his own money, of which they made up the
account. They also found that some small omissions in some of the forms of the exchequer
were of no consequence, and neither had nor could have any ill effect : and whereas a great
clamour was raised against passing of accounts by privy seals, they put an end to that effect
ually, when it appeared on what ground this was done. By tho ancient methods of the
exchequer, every account was to be carried on, so that the new officer was to begin his
account with the balance of the former account. Sir Edward Seymour, who had been trea
surer of the navy, owed by his last account 180,000/., and he had received after that
140,000/., for which the accounts were never made up. Now it was not possible for those
who came after him to be liable for his accounts. Therefore the treasurers of the navy in
the last, reign were forced to take out privy seals for making up their accounts. These
imported no more than that they were to account only for the money that they themselves
had received ; for, in all other respects, their accounts were to pass according to the ordinary
methods of the exchequer. Complaints had been also made of the remissness of the lords
of the treasury, or their officers, appointed to account with the receivers of counties for the
aids that had been given : but, when this was examined, it appeared that this had been done
with such exactness that, of the sum of twenty-four millions for which they had accounted,
there was not owing above 60,000/., and that was for the most part in Wales, where
it was not thought advisable to use too much rigour in raising it ; and of that sum there was
not above 14,000/. that was to be reckoned as lost. The collectors of the customs likewise
answered all the observations made on their accounts so fully, that the house of commons
was satisfied with their answers, and dismissed them without so much as a reprimand. All
this was reported to the house of lords, and they laid it before the queen in an address, which
was afterwards printed with the vouchers to every particular. By this means it was made
out, to the satisfaction of the whole nation, how false those reports were which had been so
industriously spread, and were so easily believed by the greater part. For the bulk of man
kind will be always apt to think that courts and ministers serve their own ends, and study
to enrich themselves at the public cost. This examination held long, and was followed with
great exactness, and had all the effect that could be desired from it ; for it silenced that
noise which the late king's enemies had raised to asperse him and his ministers. With this
the session of parliament ended. In it the lords had rendered themselves very considerable,
and had gained an universal reputation over the whole nation. It is true, those who had
opposed the persons that had carried matters before them in this session were so near tliem

720 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
in number, that things of the greatest consequence were carried only by one or two voices „
therefore, as they intended to have a clear majority in both houses in the next session, they
prevailed with the queen, soon after the prorogation, to create four new peers, who had been
the most violent of the whole party : Finch, Gower, Granville, and young Seymour were
made barons. Great reflections were made upon this promotion. When some severe things
had been thrown out in the house of commons upon the opposition that they met with from
the lords, it was insinuated, that it would be easy to find men of merit and estate to make a
clear majority in that house. This was an open declaration of a design to put every thing
in the hands and power of that party. It was also an encroachment on one of the tenderest
points of the prerogative to make motions of creating peers in the house of commons.
Hervey, though of the other side, was at the same time made a baron by private favour.
Thus the session of parliament was brought to a much better conclusion than could have
been reasonably expected by those, who knew of whom it was constituted and how it had
begun. No harm was done in it : the succession was fortified by a new security, and the
popular clamours of corruption and peculation, with which the nation had been so much
possessed, were in a great measure dissipated.
The proceedings of the convocation, which sat at the same time, are next to be related.
At the first opening of it there was a contest between the two houses, that lasted some days,
concerning an address to the queen. The lower house intended to cast some reflections on
the former reign, in imitation of what the house of commons had done, and these were
worded so invidiously, that most of the bishops were pointed at by them ; but the upper
house refusing to concur, the lower house receded, and so they both agreed in a very decent
address. The queen received it graciously, promising all favour and protection to the
church, and exhorting them all to peace and union among themselves. After this, the lower
house made an address to the bishops, that they might find an expedient for putting an end
to those disputes, that had stopped the proceedings of former convocations. The bishops
resolved to offer them all that they could, without giving up their character and authority ;
so they made a proposition that, in the intervals of sessions, the lower house might appoint
committees to prepare matters, and when business was brought regularly before them, that
the archbishop should so order the prorogations, that they might have convenient and
sufficient time to sit and deliberate about it. This fully satisfied many of that body ; but
the majority thought this kept the matter still in the archbishop's power, as it was indeed
intended it should. So they made another application to the bishops, desiring them to refer
the points in question to the queen's decision, and to such as she should appoint to hear and
settle them. To this the bishops answered, that they reckoned themselves safe and happy
in the queen's protection, and would pay all due submission to her pleasure and orders. But
the rights, which the constitution of the church and the law had vested in them, were trusts
lodged with them., which they were to convey to their successors as they had received them
from their predecessors, and that it was not in their power to refer them. It would have
been a strange sight, very acceptable to the enemies of the church, chiefly to papists, to see
the two houses of convocation pleading their authority and rights before a committee of
council that was to determine the matter. This failing, the lower house tried what they
could obtain of the house of commons ; but they could not be carried further than a general
vote, which amounted to nothing, that they would stand by them in all their just rights
and privileges. They next made a separate address to the queen, desiring her protection,
praying her to hear and determine the dispute. She received this favourably ; she said she
would consider of it, and send them her answer. The matter was now brought into the
hands of the ministers. The earl of Nottingham was of their side, but confessed that he
understood not the controversy. The judges and the queen's council were ordered to
examine how the matter stood in point of law, which was thus stated to them. The
constant practice, as far as we had books or records, was, that the archbishop prorogued the
convocation by a schedule : of this the form was so fixed, that it could not be altered but by
act of parliament. There was a clause in the schedule that continued all matters before the
convocation, in the state in which they then were, to the day to wliich he prorogued them :
this made it evident that there could be no intermediate session ; for a session of the lower

OF QUEEN ANNE. 727
house could, by passing a vote in any matter, alter the state in which it was. It was kept
a secret what opinion the lawyers came to in this matter. It was not doubted but they
were against the pretensions of the lower house. The queen made no answer to their
address ; and it was believed that the reason of this was because the answer must, according
to the opinion of lawyers, have been contrary to what they expected ; and therefore the
ministers chose rather to give no answer, and that it should seem to be forgotten, than that
such an one should be given as would put an end to the debate, which they intended to
cherish and support.
The lower house finding that, by opposing their bishops in so rough, as well as in so
unheard-of, a manner, they were represented as favourers of presbytery, to clear themselves
of that imputation, came suddenly into a conclusion that episcopacy was of divine and apos
tolical right. The party that stuck together in their votes, and kept their intermediate
sessions, signed this, and brought it up to the bishops, desiring them to concur in settling the
matter, so that it might be the standing rule of the church. This was a plain attempt to
make a canon, or constitution, without obtaining a royal licence, which, by the statute con-
finning the submission of the clergy in king Henry the Eighth's time, made both them, and
all who chose them, incur a premunire. So the bishops resolved not to entertain the propo
sition, and a great many of the lower house apprehending what the consequence of such
proceedings might be, by a petition to the bishops, prayed that it might be entered in their
books, that they had not concurred in that definition, nor in the address made pursuant to
it. The lower house looked on what they did in this matter as a masterpiece : for if the
bishops concurred with them, they reckoned they gained their point ; and, if they refused it,
they resolved to make them who would not come up to such a positive definition pass for
secret favourers of presbytery. But the bishops saw into their designs, and sent them for
answer, that they acquiesced in the declaration that was already made on that head in the
preface to the book of ordinations ; and that they did not think it safe either for them or for
the clergy, to go further in that matter without a royal licence. To this a dark answer was
made, and so all these matters were at a full stand when the session came to an end, by the
prorogation of the parliament ; which was become necessary, the two houses being fixed in
an opposition to one another.
From those disputes in convocation, divisions ran through the whole body of the clergy,
and to fix these, new names were found out ; they were distinguished by the names of high
church and low church. All that treated the dissenters with temper and moderation,
and were for residing constantly at their cures, and for labouring diligently in them ; that
expressed a zeal against the prince of Wales, and for the revolution ; that wished well to the
present war, and to the alliance against France, were represented as secret favourers of pres
bytery, and as ill affected to the church, and were called "low churchmen :" it was said
that they were in the church only while the law and preferments were on its side ; but that
they were ready to give it up as soon as they saw a proper time for declaring themselves.
With these false and invidious characters did the high party endeavour to load all those who
could not be brought into their measures and designs. When the session was at an end, the
court was wholly taken up with the preparations for the campaign.
The duke of Marlborough had a great domestic affliction at this time. He lost his only
son, a graceful person and a very promising youth : he died at Cambridge of the small-pox.
This, as may be imagined, went very deep in his father's heart, and stopped his passing the
seas some days longer than he had intended. Upon his arrival on the other side, the Dutch
brought their armies into the field. The first thing they undertook was the siege of Bonn.
-In the meanwhile all men's eyes were turned towards Bavaria. The court of Vienna had
given it out all the former winter that they would bring such a force upon that elector, as
would quickly put an end to that war, and seize his whole country. But the slowness of
that court appeared on this as it had done on many other occasions ; for though they
brought two armies into the field, yet they were not able to deal with the elector's forces.
Villars, who lay with his army at Strasburg, had orders to break through and join the
elector : so he was to force his way to him at all adventures. He passed the Rhine, and set

728 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
down before Fort Keil, which lay over against Strasburg, and took it in a few days. Prince
Lewis was in no condition to raise the siege, for the best part of his army was called away
to the war in Bavaria ; he therefore posted himself advantageously at Stollhoffen ; yet he
could not have maintained it if the States had not sent him a good body of foot, which came
seasonably a few days before mareschal Villars attacked him with an army that was more
than double his number. But his men, chiefly the Dutch battalions, received them with so
much courage, that the French were forced to quit the attack after they had lost about four
thousand men in it. Yet, upon repeated orders from France, mareschal Villars resolved to
venture the loss of his whole army, rather than abandon the elector ; who, though he had
taken Newburg and had surprised Ratisbon, and had several advantages in little engage
ments with the imperialists, yet was likely to be overpowered by a superior force if he was
not relieved in time. The Black Forest was thought impracticable in that season, which
was a very wet one. This was too much trusted to, so that the passes were ill looked after,
and therefore Villars overcame all difficulties, and joined the elector ; but his troops were so
harassed with the march, that he was obliged to put them for some time into quarters of
refreshment. The duke of Marlborough carried on the siege of Bonn with such vigour, that they
capitulated within ten days after the trenches were opened. The French reckoned upon a
longer resistance, and hoped to have diverted this by an attempt upon Liege. The States
had a small army about Maestricht, which the French intended to fall upon, being much
superior to it ; but they found the Dutch in so good order, and so well posted, that they
retired within their lines as soon as they saw the duke of Marlborough, after the siege of
Bonn, was marching towards them. The winter had produced very little action in Italy.
The country was under another very heavy plague, by a continued succession of threatening,
and of some very devouring earthquakes : Rome itself had a share in the common calamity :
but it proved to them more dreadful than it was mischievous. Prince Eugene found that
his letters and the most pressing representations he could send to the court of Vienna had
no effect ; so at last he obtained leave to go thither.
The motions of the Dutch army made it believed there was a design on Antwerp. Cohorn
was making advances in the Dutch Flanders, and Opdam commanded a small army on the
other side of the Scheld, while the duke of Marlborough lay with the main army near the
lines in Brabant. Boufflers was detached from Villeroy's army with a body double in
number to Opdam's, to fall on him. He marched so quick that the Dutch, being surprised
at Eckeren, were put in great disorder ; and Opdam, apprehending all was lost, fled with a
body of his men to Breda. But the Dutch rallied, and maintained their ground with such
firmness, that the French retired, little to their honour ; since though they were much supe
rior in number, yet they let the Dutch recover out of their first con'fusion, and keep their
ground, although forsaken by their general, who justified himself in the best manner he could,
and cast the blame on others.
Boufflers's conduct was so much censured, that it was thought this finished his disgrace ;
for he was no more put at the head of the French armies ; nor was the duke of Marlborough
without some share of censure on this occasion, si^ce it was pretended that he ought to have
sent a force to support Opdam, or have made an attempt on Villeroy's army, when it was
weakened by the detachment sent with Boufflers.
The French lines were judged to be so strong that the forcing them seemed impracticable,
so the duke of Marlborough turned towards Huy, wliich was soon taken ; and after that to
Limburg, which he took with no loss but that of so much time as was necessary to bring
up a train of artillery ; and, as soon as that was done, the garrison were made prisoners of
war, for they were in no condition to maintain a siege. Guelder was also blocked up, so
that before the end of the campaign it was brought to capitulate. Thus the Lower Rhine
was secured, and all that country, called the Coudras, was entirely reduced. This was all
that our troops, in conjunction with the Dutch, could do in Flanders. We had the superior
army, but, what by reason of the cautious maxims of the States, what by reason of the
factions among them (which were rising very high between those who had been of the late

OF QUEEN ANNE. 729
king's party, and were now for having a captain general, and those of the Lovestein party,
who were for governing all by a deputation from the States), no great design could be under
taken by an army so much distracted.
In the Upper Rhine matters went much worse. Villars lay for some time on the Danube,
while the elector of Bavaria marched into Tirol, and possessed himself of Inspruck. The
emperor's force was so broken into many small armies, in different places, that he had not
one good army any where ; he had none at all in Tirol : and all that the prince of Baden
could do was to watch Villars's motions ; but he did not venture on attacking him during
this separation. Many blamed his conduct : some called his courage, and others his fidelity,
in question ; while many excused him, since his army was both weak and ill furnished in all
respects. Tlie duke of Vendome had orders to march from the Milanese to Tirol, there to
join the elector of Bavaria : upon which junction the ruin of the house of Austria would
have probably followed ; but the boors in Tirol rose and attacked the elector with so much
resolution, that he was forced to retire out of the country with considerable loss, and was
driven out before the duke of Vendome could join him, so that he came too late. He
seemed to have a design on Trent, but the boors were now so animated with their successes,
and were so conducted and supported by officers and troops sent them by the emperor, that
Vendome was forced to return back, without being able to effect any thing.
Nothing passed this summer in Italy. The imperialists were too weak, and too ill
supplied from Germany to be able to act offensively ; and the miscarriage of the design upon
Tirol lost the French so much time, that they undertook nothing, unless it were the siege of
Ostiglia, in which they failed. Bresello, after a long blockade, was forced to capitulate, and
by that means the French possessed themselves of the duke of Modena's country. The duke
of Buro-undv came to Alsace and sat down before Brisac, of which he was soon master, by
the cowardice, or treachery, of those who commanded, for which they were condemned by a
council of war.
The emperor's misfortunes grew upon him. Cardinal Calonitz and Esterhasi had the
government of Hungary trusted chiefly to them. The former was so cruel, and the other so
ravenous, that the Hungarians took advantage from this distraction in the emperor's affairs
to run together in great bodies, and in many places, setting prince Ragotski at their head.
Thev demanded that their grievances should be redressed, and that their privileges should be
restored. They were much animated in this by the practices of the French, and the elector
of Bavaria's agents. Some small assistance was sent them by the way of Poland. They
were encouraged to enter upon no treaty, but to unite and fortify themselves ; assurances
beiu£ given them that no peace should be concluded, unless they were fully restored to all
their ancient liberties.
The court of Vienna was much alarmed at this, fearing it might be secretly set on by the
Turks ; thouo-h that court gave all possible assurances that they would maintain the peace
of Carlowitz most religiously, and that they would in no sort encourage or assist the mal
contents. A revolution happening in that empire, in which a new sultan was set up, raised
new apprehensions of a breach on that side. But the sultan renewed the assurances of
maintaining the peace so solemnly, that all those fears were soon dissipated. There was a
great faction in the emperor's court, and among his ministers ; and it did not appear that he
had strength of o-enius enough to govern them. Count Mansfield was much suspected of
beino- in the interests of France. The prince of Baden and prince Eugene both agreed in
charging Ids conduct, though they differed almost in every thing else. Y'et he was so
possessed of the emperor's favour and confidence, that it was not easy to get him set aside.
In conclusion, he was advanced to a high post in the emperor's household, and prince Eugene
was made president of the council of war.
But what effect soever this might have in succeeding campaigns, it was then too late in
the year to find remedies for the present disorders : and all affairs on the south of the
Danube were falling into creat confusion. Tilings went a little better on the north side of
that river. The upper palatinate -was entirely conquered ; but near the end of the year
Auosburg was forced to submit to the elector of Bavaria, and Landau was besieged by the

730 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
French. Tallard, who commanded the siege, took it in fewer weeks than it had cost the
Germans months to take it in the former year. Nor was this all ; an army of the confede
rates was brought together to raise the siege : the young prince of Hesse commanded, but
the prince of Nassau Welburg, as a man of more experience in war, was chiefly depended
on, though his conduct showed how little he deserved it. The emperor's birthday was a
day of diversion, and the German generals, then at Spire, allowed themselves all the idle
liberties used in courts on such days, without the ordinary precaution of having scouts or
parties abroad, in the same careless state as if no enemy had been near them. Tallard,
having intelligence of this, left a part of his army to make a show, and maintain the works
before Landau, and marched with his best troops against the Germans. He surprised and
routed them ; upon which Landau capitulated. With this the warlike operations of this
campaign ended very gloriously, and with great advantage to the French.
But two great negotiations, then brought to a conclusion, very much changed the face of
affairs. All the confederates pressed the king of Portugal to come into the alliance, as his
own interest led him to it ; since it was visible that, as soon as Spain was once united to the
crown of France, he could not hope to continue long in Portugal. The almirante of Castile
was believed to be in the interests of the house of Austria, therefore, to send him out of the
way, he was appointed to go ambassador to France. He seemed to undertake it, and made
the necessary preparations ; he saw this embassy was intended for an exile, and that it put
him in the power of his enemies : so, after he had raised what was necessary to defray his
expense, he secretly changed his course, and escaped with the wealth he had in his hands to
Lisbon ; where he entered into secret negotiations with the king of Portugal and the
emperor. He gave great assurances of the good dispositions in which both the people and
garndees of Spain were, who were grown sick of their new masters. The risk he himself
ran seemed a very full credential. He assured them the new king was despised, and that
the French about him were universally hated : the Spaniards could not bear the being made
a province, either to France, or to the emperor.
He therefore proposed that the emperor and the king of the Romans should renounce all
their pretensions and transfer them to the archduke, and declare him king of Spain ; and
that he should be immediately sent thither ; for he assured them the Spaniards would not
revolt from a king that was in possession, till they saw another king who claimed bis
right ; and, in that case, they would think they had a right to adhere to the kin"- they
liked best. The king of Portugal likewise demanded an enlargement of his frontiers, and
some new accessions to his crown, which were reasonable, but could not be stipulated but
by a king of Spain.
In the treaty that the emperor had made with the late king, and with the States, one
article was, that they should be at liberty to possess themselves of the dominions which the
crown of Spain had in the West Indies, and he vested in them the right that their arms
should give them in these acquisitions ; upon which the king had designed to send a great
fleet, with a land army, into the bay of Mexico, to seize some important places there, with
a design of restoring them to the crown of Spain, upon advantageous articles for a free
trade, as soon as the Spaniards should receive a king of the house of Austria. This design
was now laid aside, and the reason that the ministers gave for it was, that the almirante
had assured them that, if we possessed ourselves of any of their places in the West Indies,
the whole nation would by that means become entirely French ; they would never believe
our promises of restoring them ; and, seeing they had no naval power of their own to recover
them they would go into the French interest very cordially, as the only way left to recover
these places.
An entire credit was given to the almirante ; so the queen and the States agTeed to send
over a great fleet, with a land army of twelve thousand men, together with a great supply
of money and arms to Portugal ; that king undertaking to have an army of twenty-eight
thousand men ready to join ours. In this treaty an incident happened, that had almost
spoiled the whole; the king of Portugal insisted on demanding the flag, and the other
respects to be paid by our admiral, when he was in his ports : the earl of Nottingham

OF QUEEN ANNE. 731
insisted it was a dishonour to England to strike, even in another king's ports ; this was not
demanded of the fleet that was sent to bring over queen Katharine ; so, though Methucn,
our ambassador, had agreed to this article, he pressed the queen not to ratify it.
Methuen *, in his own justification, said, he consented to the article, because he saw it
was insisted on so much, that no treaty could be concluded, unless that point were yielded ;
the low state of their affairs, in the year 1602, when the protection of England was all they
had in view, for their preservation, made such a difference between that and the present time,
that the one was not to be set up for a precedent to govern the other ; besides, even then
the matter was much contested in their councils, though the extremities to which they were
reduced made them yield it. The lord Godolphin looked on this as too inconsiderable to be
insisted on, the whole affairs of Europe seemed to turn upon this treaty, and so important a
matter ought not to be retarded a day for such punctilios as a salute, or striking the flag ;
and it seemed reasonable that every sovereign prince should claim this acknowledgment,
unless where it was otherwise stipulated by express treaties. The laying so much weight
on such matters very much heightened jealousies ; and it was said, that the earl of Notting
ham, and the tories, seemed to lay hold on every thing that could obstruct the progress of
the war ; while the round proceeding of the lord Godolphin reconciled many to him. The
queen confirmed the treaty t ; upon which the court of Vienna was desired to do their part.
But that court proceeded with its ordinary slowness, the mildest censure passed on these delays
was, that they proceeded from an unreasonable affectation of magnificence in the ceremonial,
which could not be performed soon, nor easily, in a poor but a haughty court ; it was done
at last, but so late in the year, that the new declared king of Spain could not reach Holland
before the end of October. A squadron of our fleet was lying there to bring him over ;
such as was wont to convoy the late king when he crossed the seas. But the ministers of
the king of Spain thought it was not strong enough ; they pretended they had advertise
ments that the French had a stronger squadron in Dunkirk, which might be sent out to
intercept him ; so an additional strength was sent ; this lost some time, and a fair wind.
It had like to have been more fatal ; for about the end of November the weather grew
very boisterous, and broke out on the 27th of November, in the most violent storm, both by
sea and land, that had been known in the memory of man : the city of London was so
shaken with it, that people were generally afraid of being buried in the ruins of their houses.
Some houses fell and crushed their masters to death ; great hurt was done in the southern
parts of England ; little happening in the north, where the storm was not so violent. There
was a great fall of trees, chiefly of elms, that were blown down by the wind. We had, at
that time, the best part of our naval force upon the sea ; which filled all people with great
apprehensions of an irreparable loss ; and indeed, if the storm had not been at its height at
full flood, and in a spring tide, the loss might have proved fatal to the nation. It was so
considerable, that fourteen or fifteen men of war were cast away, in which one thousand five
hundred seamen perished ; few merchantmen were lost ; such as were driven to sea were
safe : some few only were over-set. Thus the most threatening danger, to which the nation
could be exposed, went off with little damage : we saw all our hazard, since the loss of our
fleet must ht ve been the loss of the nation. If this great hurricane had come at low water,
or in a quarter tide, our ships must have been driven out upon the banks of sand that lie
before the coast, and have stuck and perished there, as some of the men of war did ; but
the sea being so full of water, all but some heavy ships got over these safe : our squadron,
which was then in the Maes, suffered but little, and the ships were soon refitted, and ready
to sail.
* Jonathan Methuen was the representative in parlia- Dean Swift unite in giving him a very degrading charac-
ment of Devizes from 1690 to 1702. Educated for the ter. The first says " he was a man of intrigue, but very
profession of the law, be practised with success, and rose muddy in his conceptions, and not quickly understood in
to the dignity of lord chancellor of Ireland. According any thing ;" the latter, still more virulent, describes him
to Mackay's " Characters," he was nearly promoted to as " a profligate rogue, without religion, or morals, hut
the same high office in England. It is an instance ofthe cunning enough, though without abilities of any kind."
ill government to whioh Ireland has for centuries been He was buried in Westminster abbey. His letters do not
subjected, that whilst he held the station of its highest show any deficiency of sense — Clarendon Correspondence ,
law offices, he was employed as ambassador to Portugal; Oxford edition of this work ; Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
where he died in 1706. Mackay's " Characters" and + But tlie obnoxious clause was expunged. — Noble.

732 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
About the end of December, the king of Spain landed at Portsmouth; the duke of
Somerset was sent by the queen to receive him, and to bring him to an interview, which was
to be at Windsor * ; prince George went and met him on the way, and he was treated
with great magnificence : the court was very splendid, and much thronged ; the queen's
behaviour towards.him was very noble and obliging : the young king charmed all that were
there ; he had a gravity beyond his age, tempered with much modesty ; his behaviour was
in all points so exact, that there was not a circumstance in his whole deportment that was
liable to censure ; he paid an extraordinary respect to the queen, and yet maintained a due
greatness in it. He had an art of seeming well pleased with every thing, without so much
as smiling once all the while he was at court, which was only three days : he spoke but
little, and all he said was judicious and obliging. All possible haste was made in fitting
out the fleet, so that he set sail in the beginning of January, and for five days he had a fair
wind with good weather, but then the wind changed, and he was driven back to Portsmouth.
He lay there above three weeks, and then he had a very prosperous navigation. The forces
that were ordered to go over to his assistance were by this time got ready to attend on him,
so he sailed with a great fleet, both of men of war and transport ships : he arrived happily
at Lisbon, where he was received with all the outward expressions of joy and welcome, and
at an expence, in a vain magnificence, which that court could not well bear ; but a national
vanity prevailed to carry this too far, by which other things that were more necessary were
neglected : that court was then very melancholy ; for the young infanta, whom the king
of Spain was to have married, as had been agreed, died a few days before his arrival.
While this negotiation with Portugal was carried on, the duke of Savoy began to see his
own danger, if the two crowns should come to be united ; and he saw, that if the king of
France drove the imperialists out of Italy, and became master of the Milanese, he must lie
exposed, and at mercy; he had married his two daughters to the duke of Burgundy, and to
king Philip of Spain ; but as he wrote to the emperor, he was now to take care of himself
and his son ; his alliance with France was only for one year, which he had renewed from
year to year, so he offered, at the end of the year, to enter into the great alliance ; and he
demanded for his share, the Novarize, and the Montfe-rrat. His leaving the allies, as he had
done in the former war, showed that he maintained the character of his family, of changing
sides, as often as he could expect better terms, by a new turn ; yet his interest lay so visibly
now on the side of the alliance, that it was very reasonable to believe he was resolved to
adhere firmly to it. So when the demands he made were laid before the court of Vienna,
and from thence transmitted to England, and Holland, all the assistance that he proposed
was promised him : the court of Vienna had no money to spare, but England and the States
were to pay him twenty thousand pounds a month, of which England was to pay him two
thirds, and the States the rest.
Since I am to relate the rest of this transaction, I must look back, and give some account
of his departing from the alliance in the former war, which I had from Monsieur Herval,
who was then the king's envoy in Switzerland, a French refugee, but originally of a German
* Charles Seymour, commonly known as " tne proud liveries were the same as those worn by the royal foot-
duke of Somerset." He was born in 1662, and died in men. His servants were directed by signs, and couriers
1748. He was interred in Salisbury cathedral. Noble preceded him to clear the country roads, that he might
relates several anecdotes, fully justifying the popular epi- pass without obstruction or observation. A countryman
thet applied to him. Under queen Anne he was master driving a pig, instead of obeying the mandate, held up
of the horse, privy councillor, and a commissioner for the the hog by the ears, indignantly exclaiming, " I see him,
union ; but upon the change of ministry he was super- and so shall my pig." He had two wives ; Eliza, only
seded. Indignant, he, with the duke of Argyle, forced child of the earl of Northumberland ; and Charlotte,
himself into the council at Kensington, summoned to daughter of the earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham.
deliberate upon the situation of the nation, the queen The latter once tapped him upon the shoulder with her
lying dead at the time. This disconcerted all the plans fan, upon which he indignantly rebuked her by observing,
of the tory party. George the First restored him to all " My first duchess was a Percy, and she never took such
his honours, but from these he was removed again for a liberty." His two youngest daughters were accustomed
expressing himself with indecorous warmth, because bail to stand and watch him by turns as he slept in the after-
was refused for his son-in-law, sir William Wyndham, noon. One of them being wearied, sat down, which he
suspected of treasonable correspondence with the exiled observing as he suddenly awaked, declared she should
court. Upon this he had all his servants' liveries taken remember. By his will he left her 20,000/. less than
in a cart and thrown into the yard of the palace. These her sister. Such a proud brute must have been a fool.

Engi-JWedTayWHoll.

CHAR1.ES SKYMOrK.DriiK OF SOME11SET.
OR. 174B.
FROM TEE OHICHNAL, OF KNTHJ.KW . IN" THE COXJJilCTlON OF
Till'. RtC.IIT lION"|J'TlIK KAULOF UCKKMOXT

OF QUEEN ANNE. 733
family of Augsburg, settled but lately in France. In January, 1696, when the plot for
assassinating the king and invading the nation was thought so surely laid, that it could not
miscarry, the king of France sent M. Chanley very secretly to the duke of Savoy, with a
full credence to the propositions he was to make, demanding a positive answer within six
hours ; with that the duke of Orleans wrote very warmly to him ; he said, he had employed
all his interest with the king his brother, to get these offers made to him, which he conjured
him to accept of, otherwise he must look for utter ruin, without remedy, or recovery. Chan-
ley told him, that at that present time, he was to reckon that king James was repossessed of
the throne of England, and that the prince of Orange was either dead, or in his hands ; so
he offered to restore Cazal and Pigneroll, and all that was afterwards agreed to by the treaty,
if he would depart from the alliance. The duke of Savoy being thus alarmed with a revo
lution of England, and being so straitened in time, thought the extreme necessity, to which
he would be reduced, in case that was true, must justify his submitting, when otherwise his
ruin was unavoidable. The worst part of this was, that he got leave to pretend to continue
in the alliance, till he had drawn all the supplies he was to expect for that year from
England, and the States, and then the whole matter was owned, as has been related in the
transactions of that year. I leave this upon the credit of him from whom I had it, who
assured me he was well informed concerning it.
The duke of Savoy having now secretly agreed to enter into the alliance, did not declare
it, but continued still denying it to the French, that so when the duke of Vendome sent
back his troops to him, at the end of the campaign, he might more safely own it. The
French had reason to suspect a secret negotiation, but could not penetrate into it, so they
took an effectual, though a very fraudulent method to discover it, which was told me soon
after by the earl of Pembroke. They got the elector of Bavaria to write to him, with all
seeming sincerity, and with great secrecy, for he sent it to him by a subject of his own, so
well disguised and directed, that the duke of Savoy was imposed on by this management :
in this letter, the elector complained bitterly of the insolence and perfidiousness of the French,
into whose hands he had put himself: he said, he saw his error now, when it was too late to
see how he could correct it ; yet if the duke of Savoy, who was almost in as bad a state as
himself, would join with him, so that they might act by concert, they might yet not only
recover themselves, but procure a happy peace for all the rest of Europe. The duke of
Savoy, mistrusting nothing, wrote him a frank answer, in which he owned his own designs,
and encouraged the elector to go on, and offered all offices of friendship on his behalf, with
the rest of the allies. The French, who knew by what ways the Savoyard was to return,
seized him, without so much as acquainting the elector with the discovery that they had
made : they saw now into this secret ; so when the time came, in which the duke of Ven
dome ought to have sent back his troops to him, they were made prisoners of war, contrary
to all treaties ; and with this the war began in those parts. It was much apprehended that,
considering the weak and naked state in which the duke of Savoy then was, the French
would have quickly mastered him ; but count Staremberg ventured on a march, which mili
tary men said was the best laid, and the best executed of any in the whole war : he marched
from the Modenese, in the worst season of the year, through ways that, by reason of the
rains that had fallen, seemed impracticable, having in many places the French both before
and behind him ; he broke through all, and in conclusion joined the duke of Savoy, with a
good body of horse. By this he was rendered safe in Piedmont ; it is true the French made
themselves quickly masters of all Savoy, except Montmelian, where some small actions hap
pened, much to the duke's advantage. The Switzers interposed to obtain a neutrality for
Savoy, though without effect.
The rising in the Cevennes had not been yet subdued, though mareschal Montravel was
sent with an army to reduce or destroy them : he committed great barbarities, not only on
those he found in arms, but on whole villages, because they, as he was informed, favoured
them : they came often down out of their hills in parties, ravaging the country, and they
engaged the king's troops with much resolution, and sometimes with great advantage : they
seemed resolved to accept of nothing less than the restoring their edicts to them ; for a con-

734 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
nivance at their own way of worship was offered them : they had many among them who
seemed qualified in a very singular manner, to be the teachers of the rest ; they had a great
measure of zeal without any learning ; they scarcely had any education at all ; I spoke with
the person who, by the queen's order, sent one among them to know the state of their affairs ;
I read some of the letters, which he brought from them, full of a sublime zeal and piety,
expressing a courage and confidence that could not be daunted ; one instance of this was,
that they all acTeed, that if any of them was so wounded in an engagement with the enemy,
that he could not be brought off, he should be shot dead, rather than be left alive to fall into
the enemy's hands ; it was not possible then to form a judgment of that insurrection, the
reports about it were so various and uncertain, it being as much magnified by some, as it was
undervalued by others : the whole number that they could reckon on was four thousand men,
but they had not arms and clothes for half that number, so they used these by turns, while
the rest were left at home, to follow their labour : they put the country all about them in a
great fright, and to a vast expence ; while no intelligence could be had of their designs, and
they broke out in so many different places, that all who lay within their reach were in a
perpetual agitation ; it was a lamentable thing that they lay so far within the country, that
it was not possible to send supplies to them unless the duke of Savoy should be in a con
dition to break into Dauphiny ; and therefore advices were sent them, to accept of such
terms as could be had, and to reserve themselves for better times.
In Poland, the scene was more embroiled than ever ; there was some appearance of peace
this summer, but it went off in winter : the old fierce cardinal drew a diet to Warsaw ;
there it was declared that their king had broken all their laws : upon that, they, by a formal
sentence, deposed him, and declared the throne vacant. This was done in concert with the
king of Sweden, who lay with his army at some distance from them, in the neighbourhood
of Dantzic, which alarmed the citizens very much : it was believed that they designed to
choose Sobieski, the eldest son of the late king, who then lived at Breslau, in Silesia, and
being in the emperor's dominions, he thought himseK safer than he proved to be ; the king
of Poland retired into Saxony in some haste, which made many conclude, that he resolved to
abandon Poland ; but he laid another design, which was executed to his mind, though in
the sequel it proved not much to his advantage ; Sobieski and his brother were in a corres
pondence with the party in Poland that opposed the king, upon which they ought to have
looked to their own security with more precaution : they, it seems, apprehended nothing
where they then were, and so diverted themselves at hunting, and otherwise in their usual
manner ; upon this some, sent by the king of Poland, took them both prisoners, and brought
them to Dresden, where they were safely kept ; and all the remonstrances that the emperor
could make upon such an act of hostility had no effect. This for a while broke their
measures at Warsaw ; many forsook them, while the king of Sweden seemed implacable in
his opposition to Augustus, whose chief confidence was in the czar : it was suspected that
the French had a management in this matter ; since it was certain that, by the war in
Poland, a great part of that force was diverted which might otherwise have been engaged
in the common cause of the great alliance. All the advices that we had from thence agreed
in this, that the king of Sweden himself was in no understanding with the French, but it
was visible that what he did contributed not a little to serve their ends. This was the state
of affairs at land.
I turn next to another element, and to give an account of the operations at sea, where
things were ill designed, and worse executed : the making prince George our lord high
admiral, proved in many instances very unhappy to the nation : men of bad designs imposed
on him, he understood those matters very little, and they sheltered themselves under his
name, to which a great submission was paid ; but the complaints rose the higher for that ;
our main fleet was ready to go out in May, but the Dutch fleet was not yet come over ; so
Rook was sent out to alarm the coast of France ; he lingered long in port, pretending ill
health ; upon that Churchill was sent to command the fleet ; but Rook's health returned
happily for him, or he thought fit to lay aside that pretence, and went to sea, where he con
tinued a month ; but in such a station as if his design had been to keep far from meeting

OF QUEEN ANNE. 735
the French fleet, wliich sailed out at that time ; and to do the enemy no harm, not so much
as to disturb their quiet, by coming near their coast ; at last he returned without having
attempted any thing *.
It was after this resolved to send a strong fleet into the Mediterranean : it was near the
end of June before they were ready to sail, and they had orders to come out of the streights
by the end of September : every thing was so ill laid in this expedition as if it had been
intended that nothing should be done by it besides the convoying our merchant ships, which
did not require the fourth part of such a force. Shovel was sent to command ; when he saw
his instructions he represented to the ministry that nothing could be expected from this
voyage ; he was ordered to go, and he obeyed his orders : he got to Leghorn by the begin
ning of September. His arrival seemed to be of great consequence, and the allies began to
take courage from it ; but they were soon disappointed of their hopes when they understood
that by his orders he could only stay a few days there ; nor was it easy to imagine what the
design of so great an expedition could be, or why so much money was thrown away on such
a project, which made us despised by our enemies, whilst it provoked our friends, who might
justly think they could not depend upon such an ally who managed so great a force with so
poor a conduct, as neither to hurt their enemies, nor protect their friends by it.
A squadron was sent to the West Indies, commanded by Graydon, a man brutal in his
way, and not well affected to the present state of affairs. The design was, to gather all the
forces that we had, scattered up and down the plantations, and with that strength to go and
take Placentia, and so to drive the French out of the Newfoundland trade : but the secret of
this was so ill kept, that it was commonly talked of before he sailed : the French had timely
notice of it, and sent a greater force to defend the place than he could bring together to attack
it. His orders were pressing, in particular, that he should not go out of his way to pursue
any of the enemy's ships whom he might see ; these he observed so punctually, that when
he saw a squadron of four French men of war sailing towards Brest, that were visibly foul,
and in no condition to make any resistance, he sent indeed one of his ships to view them,
who engaged them, but Graydon gave the signal to call him off, upon which they got safe
into Brest. This was afterwards known to be Du Casse's squadron, who was bringing
treasure home from Carthagena, and other ports of the West Indies, reported to be four
millions of pieces of eight ; but though here was a good prey lost, yet so careful was the
prince's council to excuse every thing, done by such a man, that they ordered an advertise
ment to be put in the gazette, to justify Graydon; in which it was said that, pursuant to
his orders, he had not engaged that fleet. The orders were indeed strangely given, yet our
admirals had never thought themselves so bound down to them, but that, upon great occa
sions, they might make stretches ; especially where the advantage was visible, as it was in
this case ; for since they were out of the way of new orders, and new occasions might
happen, which could not be known, when their orders were given, the nature of the service
seemed to give them a greater liberty than was fit to be allowed in the land service. When
he came to the plantations, he acted in so savage a manner, as if he had been sent rather
to terrify than to protect them : when he had'drawn the forces together that were in the
plantations, he went to attack Placentia : but he found it to be so well defended, that he
did not think fit so much as to make any attempt upon it : so this expedition ended
very ingloriously, and many complaints of Graydon's conduct were sent after him.
* Sir George Rooke was not a supporter of the whig between Sweden and Denmark, but the latter being
party in parliament, which appears to be the only reason refractory, he bombarded Copenhagen, and compelled
that actuated Burnet in always disparaging this gallant them to be reasonable. The king of Sweden urged him
seaman. William the Third had more magnanimity, for, to be more rigorous towards them, but Rooke very calmly
when urged by his ministry to discharge Rooke for opposing replied, u Sir, I was sent hither to serve your majesty
them in the house of commons, the king replied — " No ; not to ruin the king of Denmark." Party spirit eventu-
if you have anything to allege against his conduct in the ally prevailed, and in 1705 he was removed from the
navy, I may comply with your request; but I will never command of the fleet. When making his will, u friend
discharge a brave and experienced officer, who hath always remarked that his fortune was less than might have been
behaved well in my service, for no other reason than his expected, to which sir George answered — " True ; I do
conduct in parliament." He was a native of Kent, born not leave much, but what I do leave was honestly gotten ;
in 1650, and dying in 1709. Two or three anecdotes it never cost a sailor a tear, or the nation a farthing." —
will place his character in a true light. In 1700, when Campbell's Lives of the Admirals; Noble's Contin. of
serving in the Baltic, and endeavouring to mediate a peace Grainger.

730 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
There was also a great complaint through the whole fleet of their victualling ; we lost
many of our seamen, who, as was said, were poisoned by ill food ; and though great com
plaints were made of the victuallers before the fleet went out, yet there was not such care
taken to look into it as a matter of that consequence deserved : the merchants did also
complain that they were ill served with convoys, and so little care had been taken of the
Newcastle fleet, that the price of coals rose very high ; it was also said, that there was not
a due care had of our seamen that were taken by the privateers, many of them died by
reason of their ill usage, while others, to deliver themselves from that, went into the French
service. Thus all our marine affairs were much out of order, and these disorders were
charged on those who had the conduct of them ; every thing was unprosperous, and that
will always be laid heavily on those who are in the management of affairs : it is certain that,
in the beginning of this reign, all those who hated the late king and his government, or had
been dismissed the service by him, were sought out, and invited into employments : so it was
not to be expected that they could be faithful, or cordial, in the war against France.
The affairs of Scotland come next to be related : a new parliament was called, and many
were chosen to serve in it, who were believed to be in secret engagements with the court at
St. Germains : the lords, who had hitherto kept out of parliament, and were known to be
jacobites, came and qualified themselves by taking the oaths to vote in parliament : it was
set up for a maxim by the new ministry, that all the jacobites were to be invited home ; so
a proclamation was issued out, of a very great extent, indemnifying all persons, for all
treasons committed before April last, without any limitation of time for their coming home
to accept of this grace, and without demanding any security of them for the future. The
duke of Queensbury was sent down the queen's commissioner to the parliament; this
inflamed all those who had formerly opposed him : they resolved to oppose him still in every
thing, and the greater part of the jacobites joined with them, but some of them were bought
off, as was said, by him : he, seeing so strong an opposition formed against him, studied to
engage the presbyterian party to stick to him : and even the party that united against him
were so apprehensive of the strength of that interest, that they likewise studied to court
them, and were very careful not to give them any umbrage. By this, all the hopes of the
episcopal party were lost, and every thing relating to the church did not only continue in
the Same state in which it was during the former reign, but the presbyterians got a new law
in their favour, which gave them as firm a settlement, and as full a security, as law could
give ; for an act passed, not only confirming the claim of rights, upon which the crown had
been offered to the late king, one of its articles being against prelacy, and for a parity in the
church, but it was declared high treason to endeavour any alteration of it. It had been
often proposed to the late king to pass this into an act, but he would never consent to it ;
he said, he had taken the crown on the terms in that claim, and that therefore he would
never make a breach on any part of it ; but he would not bind his successors by making it
a perpetual law. Thus a ministry that carried all matters relating to the church to so great
a height ; yet, with other views, gave a fatal stroke to the episcopal interest in Scotland, to
which the late king would never give way. The great debates in this session were concern
ing the succession of the crown, in case the queen should die without issue. They resolved
to give the preference to that debate before they would consider the supplies ; it was soon
resolved that the successor to the crown after the queen, should not be the same person
that was king, or queen, of England, unless the just rights of the nation should be declared
in parliament, and fully settled in an independence upon English interests and councils.
After this they went to name particulars, which by some were carried so far, that those expe
dients were indeed the setting up a commonwealth, with the empty name of a king ; for it
was proposed that the whole administration should be committed to a council, named by
parliament, and that the legislature should be entirely in the parliament, by which no shadow
of power was left with the crown, and it was merely a nominal thing ; but the further enter
ing upon expedients was laid aside for that time, only one act passed that went a great way
towards them : it was declared, that no succeeding king should have the power to engage
the nation in a war, without consent of parliament. Another act of a strange nature passed,
allowing the importation of French goods, which, as was pretended, were to be imported in

OF QUEEN ANNE. 737
the ships of a neutral state. The truth was, the revenue was so exhausted, th.it they had
not enough to support the government without such help : those who desired to drink good
wine, and all who were concerned in trade, ran into it ; so it was carried, though with great
opposition ; the jacobites also went into it, since it opened a free correspondence with France ;
it was certainly against the public interest of the government in opposition to which private
interest will often prevail. The court of St. Germains, perceiving such a disjointing in Scot
land, and so great an opposition made in parliament, was from thence encouraged to set all
their emissaries in that kingdom at work, to engage both the chief of the nobility, and the
several tribes in the Highlands, to be ready to appear for them. One Frazer had gone
through the Highlands the former year, and from thence he went to France, where he pre
tended he had authority from the Highlanders, to undertake to bring together a body o!
twelve thousand men, if they might be assisted by some force, together with officers, arms,
ammunition, and money from France. After he had delivered this message to the queen at
St. Germains, she recommended him to the French ministers : so he had some audiences of
them. He proposed that five thousand men should be sent from Dunkirk to land near
Dundee, with arms for twenty thousand men ; and that five hundred should be sent from
Brest, to seize on Fort William, which commanded the great pass in the Highlands. The
French hearkened to all this, but would not venture much upon slight grounds, so they sent
him back with some others, in whom they confided more, to see how much they might
depend on, and what the strength of the Highlanders -was ; they were also ordered to try
whether any of the great nobility of that kingdom would engage in the design.
When these came over, Frazer got himself secretly introduced to the duke of Queensbury.
to whom he discovered all that had been already transacted ; and he undertook to discover
the whole correspondence between St. Germains and the jacobites : he also1 named many of
the lords who opposed him most in parliament, and said, they were already deeply engaged.
The duke of Queensbury hearkened very willingly to all this, and he gave him a pass to go
through the Highlands again, where he found some were still very forward, but others were
more reserved. At his return, he resolved to go back to France, and promised to make a
more entire discovery : he put one letter in the duke of Queensbury's hands, from the queen
at St. Germains, directed on tile back (but by another hand) to the Marquis of Athol : the
letter was written in such general terms, that it might have been directed to any of the great
nobility ; and probably he who was trusted with it had power given him to direct it to any,
to whom he found it would be most acceptable : for there was nothing in the letter that was
particular to any one person or family; it only mentioned the promises and assurances sent
to her by that lord. This Frazer had been accused of a rape, committed on a sister of the
lord AthoFs, for which he was convicted and outlawed ; so it might be supposed, that he, to
be revenged of the lord Athol, who had prosecuted him for that crime, might put his name
on the back of that letter. It is certain that the others, who were more trusted, and were
sent over with him, avoided his company, so that he was not made acquainted with that pro
ceeding. Frazer came up to London in winter, and had some meetings with the practising
jacobites about the town, to whom he discovered his negotiation ; he continued still to per
suade the duke of Queensbury of his fidelity to him : his name was not told the queen, for
when the duke of Queensbury wrote to her an account of the discovery, he added, that
unless she commanded it, he had promised not to name the person, for he was to go hack to
St. Germains, to complete the discovery. The queen did not ask his name, but had more
regard to what he said, because in the main it agreed with the intelligence, that her minis
ters had from their spies at Paris, The duke of Queensbury procured a pass for him to go
to Holland, but by another name ; for he opened no part of this matter to the earl of Not-
"tingnam, who wave the pass. The jacobites in London suspected Frazer's correspondence
with the dnke of Queensbury, and gave advertisement to the lord Athol, and by this means
the whole matter broke out, as shall be told afterwards. What influence s over this, or any
other practice might have in Scotland, it is certain the opposition in parliament grew still
greater ; and since the dnke of Queensbury would not suffer tnem to proceed, in t - o-s<? strange
limitations upon the crown, that had been proposed, though the queen ordered him to pass
the other bills, thev would give no supply ; so that the pav ¦ f the army, with the charge of
3 B

738 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the government, was to run upon credit, and by this means matters there were likely to come
to extremities. A national humour of rendering themselves a free and independent kingdom
did so inflame them, that as they had a majority of seventy in parliament, they seemed
capable of the most extravagant things that could be suggested to them : the greatest part
of the ministry forsook the duke of Queensbury in parliament ; both the earl of Seafield,
lord chancellor, the marquis of Athol, the lord privy seal, and lord Tarbet, the secretary of
state, with all that depended on them, broke off from him : yet upon the conclusion of the
session, Athol was made a duke, and Tarbet was made earl of Cromarty, which looked like
rewarding them for their opposition *. Soon after that, the queen resolved to revive the
order of the thistle, that had been raised by her father, but was let fall by the late king : it
was to be carried in a green ribbon, as the George is in a blue, and the glory was in the form
of a St. Andrew's cross, with a thistle in the middle. Argyle, Athol, Annandale, Orkney,
and Seafield were the first that had it, the number being limited to twelve f . And to such
a height did the disorders in that kingdom rise, that great skill and much secret practice
seemed necessary to set matters right there : the aversion and jealousy towards those who
had been most active in the last reign, and the favour showed to those who were in king
James's interests, had an appearance of bringing matters out of an excess, to a temper : and
it was much magnified by those who intended to flatter the queen, on design to ruin her.
Though the same measures were taken in England, yet there was less danger in following
them here than there : errors might be sooner observed, and easier corrected, where persons
are in view, and are watched in all their motions : but this might prove fatal at a greater
distance, where it was more easy to deny, or palliate, things, with great assurance. The
duke of Queensbury 's engrossing all things to himself, increased the disgust, at the credit he
was in : he had begun a practice of drawing out the sessions of parliament to an unusual
length, by which his appointments exhausted so much of the revenue, that the rest of the
ministers were not paid, and that will always create discontent ; he trusted entirely to
a few persons, and his conduct was liable to just exceptions : some of those who had the
greatest credit with him were believed to be engaged in a foreign interest, and his passing, or
rather promoting the act, that opened a correspondence with France, was considered as a
design, to settle a commerce there ; and upon that, his fidelity, or his capacity, were much
questioned. There were still high discontents in Ireland, occasioned by the behaviour of the trustees
there. The duke of Ormond was the better received when he went to that government,
because he came after the earl of Rochester ; till it appeared that he was in all tilings
governed by him ; and that he pursued the measures which he had begun to take, of raising
new divisions in that kingdom ; for, before that time, the only division in Ireland was, that
* James Douglas, second duke of Queensbury, was one of the secretaries of state for the united kingdoms.
born in 1662. When returned from travelling, Charles His political opponents represent him in very odious lights,
the Second appointed him a privy councillor for Scotland, but there is no doubt that he was a talented, virtuous
but these and other appointments he resigned when James man — Noble's Contin. of Grainger ; Lockhart Papers —
succeeded to the throne. William restored him to all Peerages.
his offices, appointed him a lord of the bedchamber, a George Mackenzie, lord Macleod, and Castlehaven,
captain in the Dutch guard, made him a lord of the trea- viscount Tarbet, and earl of Cromartie, was distinguished.
sury, permitted him to vote in the house of lords as a for his loyalty in the reigns of Charles, James, and Wil-
Scotch peer, though his father was living, and appointed liam. Besides the other appointments mentioned by Bnr-
him to the lord treasurersbip of Scotland. In 1 695, upon net, queen Anne appointed him justice-general, an office
the death of his father, he resigned all his military em- he resigned in 1710. He died in 1714, in his eighty-
ployments, but was made lord privy seal, an extraordinary fourth year. — Noble.
lord of session, knight of the garter, and for two sessions t The order of the thistle was instituted by James the
lord high commissioner. In this post he was retained by Fifth of Scotland, in the year 1554; revived by our
queen Anne, and she named him a commissioner of the James the Second in 1697, and re-established, as men-
union, of ^ hich he was a chief promoter, and for which tioned in the text, by queen Anne. The order consists '
he received extraordinary marks of public favour. Ho of the sovereign, and twelve brethren, or knights. The
was elected one of the sixteen representative peers of star is a St. Andrew's cross of silver embroidery, with
Scotland. In 1704 he was obliged to retire from office rays emanating between the points of the cross, on the
by the superior numbers of his political opponents, but centre of which is a thistle of green and gold upon a field
the next year returned to power as first lord of the trea- green, round which is a circle of gold, and on this the
sury, and privy seal. He was raised to the English peer- motto " Nemo me impune lacessit," (No one provokes
age as duke of Dovor, marquis of Beverley, and baron me with impunity. ) The jewel and collar correspond.
Rippon. From 1710 until his death in 1711, he was

OF QUEEN ANNE. 738
of English and Irish, protestants and papists ; but of late an animosity came to be raised
there, like that we labour under in England, between whig and tory. The wiser sort of the
English resolved to oppose this all they could, and to proceed with temper and moderation :
the parliament there was opened with speeches and addresses, that carried the compliments
to the duke of Ormond so far, as if no other person besides himself could have given them
that settlement which they expected from his government. The trustees had raised a
scandal upon that nation, as if they designed to set up an independence upon England ; so
"they began the session with a vote, disclaiming that as false and injurious. They expressed
on all occasions their hatred of the trustees and of their proceedings, yet they would not pre
sume to meddle with any thing they had done, pursuant to the act that had passed in
England, which vested the trust in them. They offered the necessary supplies, but took
exceptions to the accounts that were laid before them, and observed some errors in them.
This begat an uneasiness in the duke of Ormond ; for though he was generous, and above
all sordid practices, yet being a man of pleasure, he was much in the power of those who
acted under him, and whose intregrity was not so clear. One great design of the wiser
among them was, to break the power of popery, and the interest, that the heads of the Irish
families had among them : they enacted the succession of the crown, to follow the pattern
set them by England in every particular. They also passed an act concerning papists, some
what like that which had passed in England three years before ; but with some more effect
ual clauses, for the want of which we have not yet had any fruit from our act : the main
difference was that which made it look less invidious, and yet was more effectual, for break
ing the dependence on the heads of families ; for it was provided, that all estates should be
equally divided among the children of papists, notwithstanding any settlements to the con
trary, unless the persons on whom they were settled qualified themselves by taking the oaths,
and coming to the communion of the church : this seemed to carry no hardship to the family
in general, and yet gave hopes of weakening that interest so considerably, that the bill was
offered to the duke of Ormond, pressing him with more than usual vehemence, to intercede
so effectually, that it might be returned back under the great seal of England. They under
stood that the papists of Ireland had raised a considerable sum, to be sent over to England,
to support their practices, in order to the stopping this bill : it came over, warmly recom
mended by the duke of Ormond ; but it was as warmly opposed by those who had a mind
to have a share in the presents, that were ready to be made. The pretence for opposing it
was, that while the queen was so deeply engaged with the emperor, and was interceding
for favour to the protestants in his dominions, it seemed not seasonable, and was scarcely
decent, to pass so severe a law against those of his religion : though this had the less
strength, since it was very evident that all the Irish papists were in the French interest,
so there was no reason to apprehend that tho emperor could be much concerned for
them. The parliament of England was sitting when this bill came over, and men's eyes
were much set on the issue of it ; so that the ministers judged it was not safe to deny
it : but a clause was added, which they hoped would hinder its being accepted in Ireland.
That matter was carried on so secretly, that it was known to none, but those who were
at the council, till the news of it came from Ireland, upon its being sent thither; the
clause was to this purpose, that none in Ireland should be capable of any employment,
or of being in the magistracy in any city, who did not qualify themselves by receiving
the sacrament, according to the test-act passed in England, which before this time had never
been offered to the Irish nation. It was hoped by those who got this clause to be added
to the bill, that those in Ireland who promoted it most, would now be the less fond of
it, when it had such a weight hung to it : the greatest part of Ulster was possessed by the
Scotch, who adhered stiffly to their first education in Scotland ; and they were so united in
that way, that it was believed they could not find such a number of men who would qualify
themselves, as was necessary by this clause, to maintain the order and justice of the country.
Yet upon this occasion the Irish parliament proceeded with great caution and wisdom ; they
reckoned that this act, so far as it related to papists, would have a certain and great effect
for their common security ; and that when it was once passed, it would never be repealed ;
whereas if great inconveniences did arise upon this new clause, it would be an easier thing to
3 b 2

7v> THE HISTORY OF THE REIGK

obtain a repeal of it, in a subsequent parliament, either of TSngfand or Ireland- So the act
was passed, and those who thought they had managed the matter with a master-piece of
among, were outwitted by an Irish parliament. However this artifice, and scone other
things in the Dnke of Ormonds conduct, pot them into snch an iU humour, that the supply
faiD was dogged and lessened by many {-buses added to it The season ended in so much
beat, mat it was thought that parhamari would meet no more, if die dnke of Ormond was
continued indie «»niiifirf-
Thos the parts of die government that were thought the most easily managed, Scotland
and Ireland, had of late been pat into so much disorder, that it might prove no easy wont »
set them again in order : the government was every where going, as it were, ont of joint ; its
nerves and sTrensrth seemed to he mnch slackened : the trusting and employing not only tm»-
lent tones, but even known jacobites, as n brooght a weakness on the management, so it
raised a jealousy that conkl not be easily cured. Stories were confidendy vailed, and by
some easily befieved, that the queen -^is convinced of the wrong done her pretended brother,
and ihai she was willing to pat afiairs in die hands of person? who favoured Ins in n timi ;
it was also observed, that onr conrt kept t jo cold ovDities widi the house of Hanover, and
did noihing that was tender or cordial looking that way; nor were any employed who had
expressed a particular zeal for their interests. These things gave great jealousy : all that
was said in excuse for trusting snch persons, was. that it was fit once to try if goad usage
could soften them, and brinrr them entirely into the queen's interests; and assurances
were siren, that, if upon a triaL die eneet hoped far did not inflow, they should be again

This ~«~£s ihe state of corr attairs v.ben a new session of parfiament was opened in Xovatn-
ber : the queen, in Let sneeeh, expressed a great zeal fin* carrying on the war, and with rela
tion to die avoirs of Europe : she recommended izrion and good agreement to aU her people ;
she said she wanted words to express how earnestly she desired this. Ibis was understood
as an i»ti"viU^ of her desire, that there shook! be no further proceedings in the bul against
occasional nmifmmiiy : addresses full of respect vrere made to the queen, in return to her
speech ; and die leads, in HhmVj promised to avoid every thing that should occasion <£»-
ue5ge. or contention : hut noddng eonld by the heat of a party, which was -wrought on by
sane who bad designs that wexe to be denied, or disguised, till a proper time far owning
them should appeal. A motion was made in die house of commons for bringing in the hut
agsimsi oeeasaonal c-crfonnrry : great opposition was made to it ; the court was against it,
but it was carried by a great majority that sneh a bQl should be brought in. So a. new
draught was ibrined ; in it the preamble, that was m the fiumer bul, was lar out. The
number, besides the &mny, that made a eumeniide, was enlarged from five w> twelve : and
the ™p aet on those, who went to conventicles, after they had received the sacrament,
besides the less of their employment, was brought down to fifty pounds : these were arti
fices by which it -was hoped, upon sooth softenings, once to carry die bul on any tains ; and
when that point was gained, it would be easy afterwards to carry other rdus of greater
sev?sitv. There was now sooc-ti a division upon this matter, that it was birhy debated in the
bonse of commons : whereas, before- h wait there with such a torrent, that no opposition t*
it eonld be hearkened to. Those who opposed the bill went efaieny upon dds ground, that
tods bill put the dissenters in a worse condition than they were before : so it -was a breach
made upon tie toleration, which ought not to be done, since they had not deserved it by any
iO beha-rioCT of theirs, by which it could le pretended that they had forfeited any of the
benefits, designed by thai act : things of this kind could have no efleet, but to embroil U3
with new thsbaetioBS, and to disgust persons well aneeted to the queen and her oovemmeut :
it was necessary to ecrrnmie die happy quiet that we weTe now in, especially in this time of
war. in which even die severest of persecutor? made their stops, for fear of imitating SB
humour; too much. The old topics of hypocrisy, and of the danger die church was in, were
t caught up again on behalf of the bul, and the bul passed in the house of commons by a
great majority : and so it was sent up to the lords, where it occasioned one debate of many
hours, whether the bill should be entatained, and read a second time, or be thrown out:
to :- prince appeared no more for it, nor did be come to the bouse upon this occasion ; some

.1ATMF.S HFTLEK, SECOND DUKE OF OltMO^D.

OB. 1715.
TTROM THE OBIGINAI., OF HNEJJISR..15i THE COIIJICTICOST 01r
HIS l.RACF, ,THE DUIvF. OF DEVONSHIRE.

OF QUEEN ANNE. ' 741
who had voted for it, in the former session, kept out of the house, and others owned they saw
farther into the design of the bill, and so voted against it. Upon a division it was carried,
by a majority of twelve, not to give it a second reading, but to reject it.
The bishops were almost equally divided : there were two more against it than for it ;
among these, I had the largest share of censure on me, because I spoke much against the
bill : I knew how the act of test was carried, as has been already shown in its proper place ;
I related that in the house, and the many practices of the papists, of setting us of the church
against the dissenters, and the dissenters against us by turns, as it might serve their ends ;
I ventured to say, that a man might lawfully communicate with a church that he thought
had a worship and a doctrine uncorrupted, and yet communicate more frequently with a
cliurch that he thought more perfect : I myself had communicated with the churches of
Geneva and Holland : and yet at the same time communicated with the church of England :
so, though the dissenters were in a mistake, as to their opinion, which was the more perfect
church, yet allowing them a toleration in that error, this practice might be justified. I was
desired to print what I said upon that occasion, which drew many virulent pamphlets upon
me, but I answered none of them : I saw the jacobites designed to raise such a flame among
us, as might make it scarcely possible to carry on the war ; those who went not so deep, yet
designed to make a breach on the toleration by gaining this point ; and I was resolved never
to be silent, when that should be brought into debate ; for I have long looked on liberty of
conscience as one of the rights of human nature, antecedent to society, which no man could
give up because it was not in his own power : and our Saviour's rule, of doing as we would
be done by, seemed to be a very express decision to all men who would lay the matter home
to their own conscience, and judge as they would willingly be judged by others.
The clergy over England, who were generally inflamed with this matter, could hardly for
give the queen and the prince the coldness that they expressed on this occasion : the lord
Godolphin did so positively declare, that he thought the bill unseasonable, and that he had
done all he could to hinder its being brought in, that though he voted to give the bill a
second reading, that did not reconcile the party to him : they set up the earl of Rochester as
the only man to be depended on who deserved to be the chief minister.
The house of commons gave all the supplies that were necessary for carrying on the war :
some tried to tack the bill against occasional conformity to the bill of supply, but they had
not strength to carry it : the commons showed a very unusual neglect of all that related to
the fleet, which was wont to be one of their chief cares ; it was surmised, that they saw that
if they opened that door, discoveries would be made of errors that could neither be justified,
nor palliated, and that these must come home chiefly to their greatest favourites ; so they
avoided all examinations that would probably draw some censure on them.
The lords were not so tender ; they found great fault with the counsels, chiefly with the
sending Shovell to the Mediterranean, and Graydon to the West Indies ; and laid all the
discoveries that were made to them, with their own observations on them, before the queen,
m addresses that were very plain, though full of all due respect : they went on likewise in
their examinations of the outcry made of the waste of the public treasure in the last reign ;
they examined the earl of Orford's accounts, which amounted to seventeen millions, and
upon which some observations had been made by the commissioners, for examining the public
accounts ; they found them all to be false in fact, or ill grounded, and of no importance.
' The only particular that seemed to give a just colour to exception was very strictly
examined : he had victualled the fleet while they lay all winter at Cadiz : the purser's
receipts for the quantity that was laid into every ship were produced, but they had no-
receipts of the Spaniards, from whom they had bought the provisions ; but they had entered
the prices of them in their own books, and these were given in upon oath. This matter had
been much canvassed in the late king's time, and it stood thus : Russel, now earl of Orford,
when he had been ordered to lie at Cadiz, wrote to the board of victualling, to send one over
to provide the fleet ; they answered, that their credit was then so low, that they could not
undertake it : so he was desired to do it upon his own credit. It appeared that no fleet nor
single ship had ever been victualled so cheap as the fleet was then by him : it was not the
custom in Spain to give receipts ; but if any fraud had been intended, it would have been

742-' THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
easy to have got the Spaniards, after they had their money, to have signed any receipts that
could have been offered them for swelling up the accounts ; for the practices of swelling
accounts in their dealings with their own court, were well known there. Upon these reasons
the lords of the treasury had passed his accounts, and were of opinion that he had done a
great service to the government in that whole transaction. The house of lords did now
confirm this, and ordered an account of that whole matter to be printed.
The commons made no progress in any discoveries of ill practices in the earl of Ranelagh's
office, but concluded that matter with an address to the queen, that she would order a pro
secution. This was an artifice to make the nation still think, that great discoveries of cor
ruption might be made, if carefully looked after : it was expected, after such an outcry as
they had made, and after the expence the nation was put to, for this commission, and the
extraordinary powers that were lodged with the commissioners, that at least some important
discoveries should have been made by them.
The commons sent up a bill to the lords for continuing the commission another year : it
was observed that an alteration was made of the persons ; some who expected better places
got their names to be left out. The lords excepted to one Bierly, who was named to be one
of the commissioners, because he had been a colonel, and had not yet cleared the accounts of
his own regiment ; so they struck out his name, and named another ; and they added two
more, who were not members of the house of commons. The reason of this was, because the
members of that house would not appear before them to explain some particulars ; they only
sent their clerk to inform them, and when the lords sent a message to the house of commons
to desire them to order their members to attend on their committee, all the return they had
was, that they would send an answer, by messengers of their own ; but this was illusory,
for they sent no such message. So the lords thought it necessary, in order to their being
better informed, to put some in the commission for the future who should be bound to attend
upon them as oft as they should be called for. The commons rejected these amendments,
and pretended that this was of the nature of a money-bill, and that therefore the lords could
make no alterations in it. The message that the commons sent the lords upon this head*
came so near the end of the session, that the lords could not return an answer to it, with the
reasons for which they insisted on their amendments ; so that bill fell.
The charge of this commission amounted to eight thousand pounds a-year ; the commis
sioners made much noise, and brought many persons before them to be examined, and gave
great disturbance to all the public offices, what by their attendance on them, what by copy
ing out all their books for their perusal, and yet in a course of many years, they had not
made any one discovery ; so a full stop was put to this way of proceeding.
An incident happened during this session, which may have great consequences, though in
itself it might seem inconsiderable ; there have been great complaints long made, and these
have increased much within these few years, of great partiality and injustice in the elections
of parliament-men, both by sheriffs in counties, and by the returning officers in boroughs..
In Aylesbury, the return was made by four constables, and it was believed that they made
a bargain with some of the candidates, and then managed the matter, so as to be sure that
the majority should be for the person, to whom they had engaged themselves; they can
vassed about the town, to know how the voters were set, and they resolved to find some
pretence for disabling those who were engaged to vote for other persons than their friends,
that they might be sure to have the majority in their own hands. And when this matter
came to be examined by the house of commons, they gave the election always for him who.
was reckoned of the party of the majority, in a manner so barefaced, that they were scarcely
out of countenance when they were charged for injustices in judging elections. It was not
easy to find a remedy to such a crying abuse, of which all sides in their turns, as they hap
pened to be depressed, had made great complaints ; but when they came to be the majo
rity, seemed to have forgot all that they had formerly cried out on. Some few excused this
on the topic of retaliation ; they said they dealt with others as they had dealt -with them,
or their friends. At last an action was brought against the constables of Aylesbury, at the
suit of one who had been always admitted to vote in former elections, but was denied it in
the last election. This was tried at the assizes, and it was found there by the jurv, that the

OF QUEEN ANNE. 743
constables had denied him a right of which he was undoubtedly in possession, so they were
to be cast in damages ; but it was moved in the Queen's Bench to quash all the proceedings
in that matter, since no action did lie, or had ever been brought, upon that account. Powel,
Gould and Powis were of opinion, that no hurt was done the man ; that the judging of
elections belonged to the house of commons ; that as this action was the first of its kind, so
if it was allowed, it would bring on an infinity of suits, and put all the officers concerned in
that matter upon great difficulties : lord chief justice Holt, though alone, yet differed from
the rest ; he thought this was a matter of the greatest importance, both to the whole nation
in general, and to every man in his own particular ; he made a great difference between an
election of a member, and a right to vote in such an election; the house of commons were
the only judges of the former, whether it was rightly managed or not, without bribery,
fraud or violence ; but the right of voting in an election was an original right, founded either
on a freehold of forty shillings a-year in the county, or on burgageland, or upon a prescrip
tion, or by charter, in a borough : these were all legal titles, and as such were triable in a
court of law. Acts of parliament were made concerning them, and by reason of these, every
thing relating to those acts was triable in a court of law ; he spoke long and learnedly, and
with some vehemence upon the subject : but he was one against three, so the order of the
court went in favour of the constables *. The matter was upon that brought before the
house of lords by a writ of error ; the case was very fully argued at the bar, and the judges
were ordered to deliver their opinions upon it, which they did very copiously.
Chief justice Trevor insisted much on the authority that the house of commons had to
judge of all those elections ; from that he inferred that they only could judge who were the
electors : petitions were often grounded on this, that in the poll some were admitted to a
vote who had no right to it, and that others were denied it who had a right ; so that in some
cases they were the proper judges of this right ; and if they had it in some cases, they must
have it in all. From this he inferred that every thing relating to this matter was triable by
them, and by them only ; if two independent jurisdictions might have the same case brought
before them, they might give contrary judgments in it ; and this must breed great distrac
tion in the execution of those judgments.
To all this it was answered, that a single man, who was wronged in this matter, had no
other remedy but by bringing it into a court of law : for the house of commons could not
examine the right of every voter, if the man, for whom he would have voted, was returned,
he could not be heard to complain to the house of commons, though in his own particular he
was denied a vote, since he could not make any exceptions to the return ; so he must bear
his wrong without a remedy, if he could not bring it into a court of law. A right of voting
in an election was the greatest of all the rights of an Englishman, since by that he was
represented in parliament ; the house of commons could give no relief to a man wronged in
this, nor any damages ; they could only set aside one, and admit of another return ; but this
was no redress to him that suffered the wrong ; it made him to be the less considered in his
borough, and that might be a real damage to him in his trade ; since this was a right inhe
rent in a man, it seemed reasonable that it should be brought, where all other rights were
tried, into a court of law ; the abuse was new, and was daily growing, and it was already
swelled to a great height ; when new disorders happen, new actions must lie, otherwise there
is a failure in justice, which all laws abhor ; practices of this sort were enormous and crying ;
and if the judgment in the Queen's Bench was affirmed, it would very much increase these
disorders, by this indemnity that seemed to be given to the officers, who took the poll.
After a long debate it was carried by a great majority to set aside the order in the
Queen's Bench, and to give judgment according to the verdict given at the assizes. This
gave great offence to the house of commons, who passed very high votes upon it, against the
man ol Aylesbury, as guilty of a breach of their privileges, and against all others who should
for the future bring any such suits into courts of law ; and likewise against all counsel, attor
neys and others, who should assist in any such suits ; and they affirmed that the whole
matter relating to elections belonged only to them ; yet they did not think fit to send for the
" The arguments of the judges are given very fully in Lord Raymond's Reports, ii. 938—958, and in Salkeld's
Reports, 19.

744 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
man who had sued, or rather in whose name the suit was carried on ; so they let the matter
as to him fall, under a show of moderation and pity, and let it rest upon those general votes.
The lords on their part ordered the whole state of the case to be drawn up and printed,
which was done with much learning and judgment ; they also asserted the right that all the
people of England had, to seek for justice in courts of law, upon all such occasions ; and that
the house of commons, by their votes, struck at the liberties of the people, at the bw of
England, and at the judicature of the house of lords ; and they ordered the lord keeper to
send a copy of the case and of their votes to all the sheriffs of England, to be communicated
to all the boroughs in their counties. The house of commons was much provoked with this,
but they could not hinder it ; the thing was popular, and the lords got great credit by the
judgment they gave, which let the people of England see how they might be redressed for
the future, if they should meet with the injustice, partiality, and other ill practices that had
appeared of bte in elections, even beyond the examples of former times. This may prove
a restraint on the officers, now that they see they are liable to be sued, and that a vote of
the house of commons cannot cover them *.
During the session and on her own birth-day, which was the sixth of February, the queen
sent a message to the house of commons, signifying her purpose to apply that branch of the
revenue that was raised out of the first-fruits and tenths, paid by the clergy, to the increase
of all the small benefices in the nation : this branch was an imposition, begun by the popes,
in the time of the holy wars, and it was raised as a fund to support those expeditions : hut
when taxes are once raised by such an arbitrary power as the popes then assumed, and after
there has been a submission, and the payments have been settled into a custom, they are
always continued, even after the pretence, upon which they were at first raised, subsists no
more : so this became a standing branch of the papal revenue, until Henry the Eighth
seemed resolved to take it away : it was first abolished for a year, probably to draw in the
clergy, to consent the more -willingly to a change, that delivered them from such heavy impo
sitions : but in the succeeding session of parliament, this revenue was again settled as part
of the income of the crown for ever. It is true, it was the more easily borne, because the
rates were still at the old value, which in some places was not the tenth, and in most not
above the fifth part of the true value : and the clergy had been often threatened with a new
valuation, in which the rates should be rigorously set to their full extent.
The tenths amounted to about ll,OO0Z. a-year, and the first-fruits, which were more
casual, rose one year with another, to 5.000Z., so the whole amounted to between sixteen
and seventeen thousand pounds a-year : this was not brought into the treasury, as the other
branches of the revenue ; but the bishops, who had been the pope's collectors, were now the
king's, so person? in favour obtained assignations on them, for life, or for a term of years :
this had never been applied to any good use, hut was still obtained by favourites, for them
selves and their friends : and in king Charles the Second's time, it went chiefly among his
women and his natural children. It seemed strange, that while the clergy had much credit
at court, they had never represented this as sacrilege, unless it was applied to some religious
purpose, and that during archbishop Land's favour with king Charles the First, or at the
restauration of king Charles the Second, i«o endeavours had been used to appropriate this
* The decision of the conrt of queen's bench, m this Seareely any judicial decision ever occasioned such a dim
mest important case, was reversed in the house of lords rurbanee in the houses of partiameni. The commons
by a majority of fifty, opposed by only Eiste-tx;. Besides made strong resolutions vindicatory of their right alone to
sir John Trevor, the chief jnstice of the common pleas, determine aU matters relative to elections ; which, were
baron Price was the only judge that coincided -with the met by counter resolutions of Ibe peers, quite as strong,
three judges of the queen's bench. Chief baron Ward, declaring that to assert a person deprived of hisTotei

barcn Bury, baron Smith, and justice Tracy agreed -with . fully, was whhont a remedy by the ordinarv course of
Holt. 3'iSDces Neville and Blencowe were absent. Holt law. is destructive of the property of the subject, Sec.
emphatically and justly said npon this re-argument, " If This occasioned a free conference between the bouses,
rach an action comes to be tried before me, I will direct but as neither would yield, the queen soon after dissolved
the jury to make the defendant pay well for it It is the parliament. — Brown's Cases in Parliament, L 45-
nenyitr the plaintiff Ms English right, and if iLfe action Chandler's Debates House of Commons, in. 308, 388,
be not allowed, a man may be for ever deprived of it. It 8&5 ; House of Lords, B. 74, 98 : Raymond's Ben.
is a great privilege to choose such persons as are to bind ii. 958,
a man's life and property by the laws they maie."'

OF QUEEN ANNE. 745
to better uses : sacrilege was charged on other things, on very slight grounds ; but this,
which was more visible, was always forgotten *.
When I wrote the history of the reformation, I considered this matter so particularly,
that I saw here was a proper fund for providing better subsistence to the poor clergy ; we
having among us some hundreds of cures that have not of certain provision, twenty pounds
a-year; and some thousands that have not fifty : where the encouragement is so small, what
can it be expected clergymen should be ? It is a crying scandal that at the restauration of
king Charles the Second, the bishops and other dignitaries who raised much above a million
in fines, yet did so little this way : I had possessed the late queen with this, so that she was
fully resolved, if ever she had lived to see peace and settlement, to have cleared this branch
of the revenue of all the assignations that were upon it, and to have applied it to the aug
mentation of small benefices. This is plainly insinuated in the essay that I wrote on her
memory, some time after her death. I laid the matter before the late king, when there was
a prospect of peace, as a proper expression both of his thankfulness to Almighty God, and
of his care of the church ; I hoped that this might have gained the hearts of the clergy : it
might at least have put a stop to a groundless clamour raised against him, that he was an
enemy to the clergy, which began to have a very ill effect on all his affairs. He entertained
this so well, that he ordered me to speak to his ministers about it : they all approved it,
the lord Somers and the lord Halifax did it in a most particular manner ; but the earl of
Sunderland obtained an assignation, upon two dioceses, for two thousand pounds a-year for
two lives ; so nothing was to be hoped for after that. I laid this matter very fully before
the present queen, in the king's time, and had spoken often of it to the lord Godolphin.
This time was perhaps chosen to pacify the angry clergy, who were dissatisfied with the
court, and began now to talk of the danger the church was in, as much as they had done
during the former reign : this extraordinary mark of the queen's piety and zeal for the church
produced many addresses, full of compliments, but it has not yet had any great effect in
softening the tempers of peevish men. When the queen's message was brought to the house
of commons, some of the whigs, particularly sir John Holland and sir Joseph Jekyll t,
moved that the clergy might be entirely freed from that tax, since they bore as heavy a share
of other taxes ; and that another fund might be raised of the same value, out of which small
benefices might be augmented; but this was violently opposed by Musgrave, and other
tories, who said the clergy ought to be kept still in a dependence on the crown.
Upon the queen's message, a bill was brought in, enabling her to alienate this branch of
the revenue, and to create a corporation by charter, to apply it to the use for which she now
* Tlfe first-fruits, primitiie, or annates, were the first f Sir Joseph Jekyll, the son of a Northamptonshire
year's entire profits of a living, or other spiritual prefer- clergyman, was horn in 1663. Adopting the profession
ment, according to a valuation made under the direction of tlie law, he speedily rose to eminence, was made a
of Pope Innocent the Fourth, by Walter, hishop of Nor- sergeant in 1700, and in a few years after became chief
wich, in 1254 (38 Henry III.) and afterwards increased •< justice of Chester. At the death of William he was urged
during the pontificate of Nicholas the Third, in 1292 to resign this office, but no threats could induce him to
(20 Edward I.). This last valuation is still preserved in comply with this wish of the court party. In the reign
the Exchequer. Tenths, or decimat, were the tenth part of of Anne, as indeed throughout life, he was a truly consis-
tho annual profit of such preferment, according to the tent whig. It will ho noticed hereafter, that he was a
same valuation, claimed also by the popes under no more manager of the trial of Dr. Sacheverel. At the accession
valid title than the command to the Levites, contained in of George the First, he was knighted, and in 1717, upon
Numbers xviii. 26. This claim met with a vigorous the death of sir John Trevor, he was raised to the master-
resistance from the English parliament, and a variety of ship of the rolls. Of the jurisdiction of this court he had
statutes were made to restrain it. That passed in 1405 a dispute with lord chancellor King, and published an essay
(6 Henry IV. c 5) calls it "a horrible mischief and on the subject. He died in 1738, meriting the character
damnable custom." Yet the clergy continued to pay of " a gentleman who meant well, a lover of liberty and
this tax to the papal see as the head of the church, until his country, an useful subject, an upright lawyer, and an
tho statute 26 Henry VIII. c. 3, in 1535, made the king, amiable man." His wife, a sister of the great lord
for the time being, head of the church, and transferred to Somers, was fond of puzzling the learned Whiston, by
him the above payments. They continued to be paid to asking him odd questions connected with revelation.
the crown until queen Anne, as mentioned by Bumet, Once, she enquired of him " why Eve was made of one
gave them for the improvement of small livings, vesting of Adam's ribs?" He seemed to evade the question,
the funds in trustees by statute 2 Anne, ell. It has but when she persisted with it, he replied, that he knew
ever since been known as queen Anne's bounty. — Black- no better reason than " because it was the most crooked
stone's Commentaries, i. 284; Burn's Ecclcs. Law, ii. bone he had." — Gen. Biog. Diet.; Noble's Contin. of
260. Grainger ; Woolrych's Life of Jeffreys.

746 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
gave it ; they added to this a repeal of the statute of mortmain, so far as that it might be
free to all men, either by deed, or by their last wills, to give what they thought fit towards
the augmenting of benefices; it was suggested, how truly I cannot tell, that this addition
was made in hope that it would be rejected by the lords, and that the scandal of losing the
bill might lie on them. It occasioned a great debate in the house of lords : it was said, that
this bw was made, and kept up, even during the times of popery, and it seemed not reason
able to open a door to practices upon dying men. It was answered, that we had not the
arts of affrighting men bv the terrors of purgatory, or by fables of apparitions ; where these
were practised, it was very reasonable to restrain priests from those artifices by wliich they
had so enriched their church. th2t without some such effectual checks they would have
swallowed up the whole wealth of the world, as they had indeed in England, during popery,
made themselves masters of a full third part of the nation. The bishops were so zealous and
unanimous for the bill, that it was carried and passed into a law. The queen was pleased to
let it be known, that the first motion of this matter came from me ; such a project would
have been much magnified at another time ; and those who had promoted it would have
been looked on as the truest friends of the church ; but this did not seem to make any
great impression at that time ; only it produced a set of addresses from all the clergy of
England, full of thanks and just acknowledgments.
I come now in the last place to give the relation of the discoveries made of a plot which
took up much of the lords' time, and gave occasion to many sharp reflections that passed
between the two houses in their addresses to the queen. About the same time that the story
of Frazer's pass, and negotiations began to break out, sir John Macclean, a papist, and the
head of that tribe, or clan, in the Highlands and western isles of Scotland, came over from
France in a little boat, and landed secretly at Folkstone, in Kent ; he brought his lady with
him, though she had been delivered of a child but eleven days before. He was taken, and
sent up to London ; and it seemed, by all circumstances, that he came over upon some
important design : he pretended at first, that he came only to go through Engbnd and Scot-
land, to take the benefit of the queen's general pardon there ; but when he was told that the
pardon in Scotland was not a good warrant to come into Engbnd, and that it was high-treason
to come from France, without a pass, he was not willing to expose himself to the severity of
the law : so he was prevailed on to give an account of all that he knew, concerning the nego
tiations between France and Scotland. Some others were at the same time taken up upon
his information, and some upon suspicion : among these there was one Keith, whose uncle
was one of those who was most trusted by the court of >t. Germains. and whom they had
sent over with Frazer to bring them an account of the temper the Scotch were in, upon
which they might depend. Keith had been long at that court, he had free access both to
that queen and prince, and hoped they would have made him under secretary for Scotland ;
for some time he denied that he knew any thing, but afterwards he confessed he -was made
acquainted with Frazer's transactions, and he undertook to deal with his uncle to come and
discover all he knew, and pretended there was no other design among them but to by matters
so, that the prince of Wales should reign after the queen. Ferguson offered himself to
make great discoveries : he said Frazer was employed by the duke of Queensbury to decoy
some into a plot which he had framed and intended to discover as so>on as he had drawn
many into the guilt ; he affirmed that there was no plot among the jacobites, who were glad
to see one of the race of the Stuarts en the throne ; and thev designed when the state of the
war might dispose the queen to a treaty with France to get such terms given her. as king
Stephen and king Henry the Sixth had, to reign during her life. When I heard this. I could
not but remember what the duke of Athol had said to myself, soon after the queen's coming
to the crown; I said, " I hoped none in Scotland thought of the prince of Wales:" he
answered, '" he knew none that thought of him as long as the queen lived :'" I replied,
" that if any thought of him after that, I was sure the queen would live no longer than till
they thought their designs for him were well bid : " but he seemed to have no apprehen
sions of that. I presently told the queen this, without naming the person, and she
answered me very quick, there was no manner of doubt of that ; but thouo-h I could not but
reflect often on that discourse, yet since it was said to me in confidence. I never spoke of it

OF QUEEN ANNE. 747
to any one person, during all the enquiry that was now on foot : but I think it too material
not to set it down here. Ferguson was a man of a particular character ; upon the revolu
tion he had a very good place given him, but his spirit was so turned to plotting, that within
a few months after he turned about, and he has been ever since the boldest and most active
man of the jacobite party ; he pretended he was now for high church, but many believed
him a papist ; there was matter of treason sworn both against him and Keith, but there was
only one witness to it.
At the same time Lindsey was taken up, he had been under-secretary first to the earl of Mel
fort, and then to the earl of Middleton ; he had carried over from France the letters and orders
that gave rise to the earl of Dundee's breaking out, the year after the revolution ; and he had
been much trusted at St. Germains ; he had a small estate in Scotland, and he pretended
that he took the benefit of the queen's pardon, and had gone to Scotland to save that, and
being secured by this pardon, he thought he might come from Scotland to England ; but he
could pretend no colour for his coming to England ; so it was not doubted but that he came
hither to manage their correspondence and intrigues. He pretended he knew of no designs
against the queen and her government ; and that the court of St. Germains, and the earl of
Middleton in particular, had no design against the queen ; but when he was shewed Frazer's
commission to be a colonel, signed by the pretended king, and countersigned Middleton, he
seemed amazed at it ; he did not pretend it was a forgery, but he said that things of that
kind were never communicated to him.
At the same time that these were taken up, others were taken on the coast of Sussex ;
one of these, Boucher, was a chief officer in the duke of Berwick's family, who was then
going to Spain, but it was suspected that this was a blind to cover his going to Scotland ;
the house of lords apprehended that this man was sent on great designs, and suspecting a.
remissness in the ministry, in looking after and examining those who came from France, they
made an address to the queen, that Boucher might be well looked to ; they did also order-
sir John Macclean to be brought before them ; but the queen sent them a message, that Mac-
clean's business was then in a method of examination, and that she did not think fit to alter
that for some time ; but as for Boucher, and those who were taken with him, the earl of
Nottingham told the house, that they were brought up, and that they might do with them
as they pleased ; upon that the house sent back Macclean, and ordered the usher of the black
rod to take the other prisoners into his custody, and they named a committee of seven lords
to examine them. At this time the queen came to the parliament, and acquainted both
houses that she had unquestionable proofs of a correspondence between France and Scotland,
with which she would acquaint them, when the examinations were taken.
The commons were in an ill humour against the lords, and so they were glad to find occa
sions to vent it. They thought the lords ought not to have entered upon this examination :
they complained of it, as of a new and unheard-of thing, in an address to the queen : they
said it was an invasion of her prerogative, which they desired her to exert. This was a
proceeding without a precedent : the parliamentary method was, when one house was
offended with any thing done in the other, conferences were demanded, in wliich matters
were freely debated. To begin an appeal to the throne was new, and might be managed
by an ill-designing prince, so as to end in the subversion of the whole constitution ; and it
Was an amazing thing to see a house of commons affirm, in so public a manner and so posi
tively, that the lords taking criminals into their own custody, in order to an examination,
was without warrant or precedent ; when there were so many instances fresh in every man's
memory, especially since the time of the popish plot, of precedents in both houses, that
went much further ; of which a full search has been made, and a long list of them was read
in the house of lords. That did not a little confound those among them, who were believed
to be in a secret correspondence with the house of commons ; they were forced to confess
that they saw the lords had clear precedents to justify them in what they had done, of which
they were in great doubt before.
The lords upon this made a very long address to the queen, in which they complained of
the ill usage they had met with from the house of commons : they used none of those hard
words that were in the address made against them by the house of commons, yet they

74fcr THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
justified every step they had taken, as founded on the law and practice of parliament, and
no way contrary to the duty and respect they owed the queen. The behaviour of the houso
of commons was such, on this occasion, as if they had no mind that plots should be narrowly
looked into : no house of parliament, and indeed no court of judicature, did examine any
person without taking him into their own custody, during such examination; and if a
person's being in custody must restrain a house of parliament from examining him, here was
a maxim laid down, by which bad ministers might cover themselves from any enquiry into
their ill practices, only by taking the persons who could make discoveries into custody. The
lords also set forth the ill consequences that might follow upon one house of parliament
carrying their complaints of another to the throne, without taking first the proper method
of conferences. This address was drawn with the utmost force, as well as beauty and
decency of style ; and was reckoned one of the best pieces of its kind that were in all the
records of parliament. The queen, in her answer, expressed a great concern to see such a
dispute between the two houses.
Boucher, when he was examined, would confess nothing. He said he was weary of living
so long out of his country, and that having made some attempt to obtain a pass, when that
was denied him, he chose, rather than to live always abroad, to come and cast himself upon
the queen's mercy. It did not seem reasonable to believe this : so the lords made an address
to the queen, that he might have no hopes of pardon till he was more sincere in his disco
veries ; and they prayed that he might be prosecuted on the statute. He confessed his
crime, and was condemned, but continued still denying that he knew anything. Few
could believe this ; yet, there being no special matter laid against him, his case was to be
pitied. He proved that he had saved the lives of many prisoners during the war of Ireland,
and that, during the war in Flanders, he had been very careful of all English prisoners.
When all this was laid before the lords, they did not think fit to carry the matter farther,
so he was reprieved, and that matter slept.
About the end of January the queen sent the examinations of the prisoners to the two
houses. The house of commons heard them read, but passed no judgment upon them, nor
did they offer any advice to the queen upon this occasion ; they only sent them back to the
queen, with thanks for communicating them, and for her wisdom and care of the nation.
It was thought strange, to see a business of this nature treated so slightly by a body that
had looked, in former times, more carefully to things of this kind ; especially since it had
appeared, in many instances, how dexterous the French were in raising distractions in their
enemies' country. It was evident that a negotiation was begun, and had been now carried
on for some time, for an army that was to be sent from France to Scotland : upon this,
which was the main of the discovery, it was very amazing to see that the commons neither
offered the queen any advice, nor gave her a vote of credit, for any extraordinary expense
in which the progress of that matter might engage her : a credit so given might have had a
great effect towards defeating the design, when it appeared how well the queen was furnished
to resist it. This coldness in the house of commons gave great and just ground of suspicion,
that those who had the chief credit there did not act heartily, in order to the defeating all
such plots, but were willing to let them go on, without check or opposition.
The lords resolved to examine the whole matter narrowly. The earl of Nottingham laid
before them, an abstract of all the examinations the council had taken ; but some took great
exceptions to it, as drawn on design to make it appear more inconsiderable than they
believed it to be. The substance of the whole was, that there went many messages between
the courts of St. Germains and Versailles, with relation to the affairs of Scotland : the court
of Versailles was willing to send an army to Scotland, but they desired to be well assured of
the assistance they might expect there ; in order to which some were sent over, according to
what Frazer had told the duke of Queensbury : some of the papers were written in gibberish,
so the lords moved that a reward should be offered to any who should decipher these.
When the lords asked the earl of Nottingham if every thing was laid before them, he
answered that there was only one particular kept from them ; because they were in hopes
of a discovery, that was likely to be of more consequence than all the rest. So after the
delay of a few days to see the issue of it, which was Keith's endeavouring to persuade his

OF QUEEN ANNE. 749
uncle (who knew every step that had been made in the whole progress of this affair) to
come in and discover it, when they were told there was no more hope of that, the lords ordered
the committee, which had examined Boucher, to examine into all these discoveries. Upon
this the commons, who expressed a great uneasiness at every step the lords made in the
matter, went with a new address to the queen, insisting on their former complaints against
the proceedings of the lords, as a wresting the matter out of the queen's hands and
the taking it wholly into their own : and they prayed the queen to resume her prero
gative, thus violated by the lords, whose proceedings they affirmed to be without a
precedent. The seven lords went on with their examinations, and after some days they made a report
to the house. Macclean's confession was the main thing, it was full and particular : he
named the persons that sat in the council at St. Germains : he said the command was offered
to the duke of Berwick, which he declined to accept till trial was made whether duke
Hamilton would accept of it, who he thought was the proper person : he told likewise what
directions had been sent to hinder the settling the succession in Scotland ; none of which
particulars were in the paper that the earl of Nottingham had brought to the house of his
confession. It was further observed that all the rest, whose examinations amounted to little,
were obliged to write their own confessions, or at least to sign them. But Macclean had
not done this ; for after he had delivered his confession by word of mouth to the earl of
Nottingham, that lord wrote it all from his report, and read it to him the next day ; upon
which he acknowledged it contained a full account of all he had said. Macclean's discovery
to the lords was a clear series of all the counsels and messages, and it gave a full view of the
debates and opinions in the council at St. Germains, all which was omitted in that which
was taken by the earl of Nottingham, and his paper concerning it was both short and dark :
there was an appearance of truth in all that Macclean told, and a regular progress was set
forth in it.
Upon these observations, those lords who were not satisfied with the earl of Nottingham's
paper, intended to have passed a censure upon it as imperfect. It was said, in the debate
that followed upon this motion, either Macclean was asked who was to command the army
to be sent into Scotland, or he was not. If he was asked the question, and had answered
it, then the earl of Nottingham had not served the queen or used the parliament well, since
he had not put it in the paper : if it was not asked, here was a great remissness in a
-minister, when it was confessed that the sending over an army was in consultation, not to
ask who was to command that army. Upon this occasion the earl of Torrington made
some reflections that had too deep a venom in them : he said the earl of Nottingham did
prove that he had often read over the paper, in which he had set down Macclean's confes
sion, in his hearing, and had asked him if all he had confessed to him was not fully set down
in that paper ; to which he always answered, that every thing he had said was contained
in it. Upon this, that earl observed, that Macclean, having perhaps told his whole story to
the earl of Nottingham, and finding afterwards that he had written such a defective account
of it, he had reason to conclude (for he believed, had he been in his condition, he should
have concluded so himself,) that the earl of Nottingham had no mind that he should mention
any thing but what he had written down, and that he desired that the rest might be sup
pressed. He could not judge of others but by himself : if his life had been in danger, and
-if he were interrogated by a minister of state, who could do him either much good or much
hurt, and if he had made a full discovery to him, but had observed that this minister in
taking his confession in writing had omitted many things, he should have understood that
as an intimation that he was to speak of these things no more ; and so he believed he
.should have said it was all, though at the same time he knew it was not all, that he had
said. It was hereupon moved that Macclean might be sent for and interrogated, but the
party was not strong enough to carry any thing of that kind ; and by a previous vote it was
carried, to put no question concerning the earl of Nottingham's paper.
The lords were highly offended with Ferguson's paper, and passed a severe vote against
those lords who had received such a scandalous paper from him, and had not ordered him

750 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
to be prosecuted upon it, which they directed the attorney-general to do. It was apparent
there was a train of dangerous negotiations that passed between Scotland and St. Germains,
though they could not penetrate into the bottom and depth of it ; and the design of Keith's
bringing in his uncle was managed so remissly, that it was generally concluded that it was
not in earnest desired it should succeed. During these debates, one very extraordinary
thing happened. The earl of Nottingham did, upon three or four occasions, affirm that some
things had been ordered in the cabinet council, which the dukes of Somerset and Devonshire,
who were likewise of that council, did not agree with him in.
After all these examinations and debates, the lords concluded the whole matter with
voting that there had been dangerous plots between some in Scotland and the court of
France and St. Germains ; and that the encouragement of this plotting came from the not
settling the succession to the crown of Scotland in the house of Hanover. These votes they
laid before the queen, and promised, that when this was done, they would endeavour to pro
mote the union of the two kingdoms, upon just and reasonable terms.
This beinc ended, they made a long and vigorous address, in answer to that which the
commons had made against them. They observed how uneasy the commons had been at
the whole progress of their inquiry into this matter, and had taken methods to obstruct it
all they could ; which did not show that zeal for the queen's safety, and the preservation of
the nation, to which all men pretended. They annexed to their address a list of many pre
cedents, to show what good warrants they had for every step they had made. They took
not the examination to themselves, so as to exclude others who had the same right, and
might have done it as well as they if they had pleased. Their proceedings had been regular
and parliamentary, as well as full of zeal and duty to the queen. They made severe
observations on some of the proceedings in the house of commons, particularly on their not
ordering writs to be issued out for some boroughs, to proceed to new elections, when they,
upon pretence of corruption, had voted an election void ; which had been practised of late,
when it was visible that the election would not fall on the person they favoured. They
charged this as a denial of justice, and of the right that such boroughs had to be represented
in parliament, and as an arbitrary and illegal way of proceeding. This address was penned
with great care and much force. These addresses were drawn by the lord Somers, and were
read over and considered and corrected very critically by a few lords, among whom I had
the honour to be called for one. This, with the other papers that were published by the
lords, made a great impression on the body of the nation : for the difference that was
between these, and those published by the house of commons, was indeed so visible, that
it did not admit of any comparison, and was confessed even by those who were the most
partial to them.
An act passed in this session, which may be of great advantage to the nation, if well
executed ; otherwise, since it is only enacted for one year, it will not be of much use. It
empowers the justices of peace, or any three of them, to take up such idle persons as have
no callings nor means of subsistence, and to deliver them to the officers of the army, upon
paying them the levy money that i3 allowed for making recruits. The methods of raising
these hitherto by drinking and other bad practices, as they were justly odious, so they were
row so well known that they were no more of any effect : so that the army could not be
recruited, but by the help of this act. And if this is well managed it will prove of great
advantage to the nation ; since, by this means, they will be delivered from many vicious
and idle persons, who are become a burden to their country. And indeed there was of late
years so great an increase of the poor, that their maintenance was become in most places a
very heavy load, and amounted to the full half of the public taxes. The party in both houses,
that had been all along cold and backward in the war, opposed this act with unusual vehe
mence ; they pretended zeal for the public liberty and the freedom of the person, to which, by
the constitution, they said every Englishman had a right ; which they thought could not be
given away but by a legal government, and for some crime. They thought this put a power
in the hands of justices of peace, which might be stretched and abused to serve bad ends.
Thus men that seemed engaged- to an interest that was destructive to all liberty, could yet

OF QUEEN ANNE. 761
make use of that specious pretence, to serve their purpose. The act passed, and has been
continued from year to year with a very good effect ; only a visible remissness appears in
some justices, who are secretly influenced by men of ill designs*.
The chief objection made to it in the house of lords was, that the justices of peace had
been put in and put out in so strange a manner, ever since Wright had the great seal, that
they did not deserve so great a power should be committed to them. Many gentlemen of
good estates and ancient families had been of late put out of the commission, for no other
visible reason, but because they had gone in heartily to the revolution, and had continued
zealots for the late king. This seemed done on design to mark them, and to lessen the
interest they had in the elections of members of parliament : and at the same time, men of
no worth nor estate, and known to be ill-affected to the queen's title, and to the protestant
succession, were put in, to the great encouragement of ill-designing men. All was managed
by secret accusations and characters that were very partially given. Wright was a zealot to
the party, and was become very exceptionable in all respects. Money, as was said, did
every thing with him ; only in his court I never heard him charged for any thing but great
slowness, by which the chancery was become one of the heaviest grievances of the nation.
An address was made to the queen, complaining of the commissions of the peace, in which the
lords delivered their opinion, that such as would not serve or act under the late king, were
not fit to serve her majesty.
With this the session of parliament was brought to a quiet conclusion, after much heat
•and a great deal of contention between the two houses. The queen, as she thanked them fo*
the supplies, so she again recommended union and moderation to them. These words, which
had hitherto carried so good a sound, that all sides pretended to them, were now become so
odious to violent men, that even in sermons, chiefly at Oxford, they were arraigned as
importing somewhat that was unkind to the church, and that favoured the dissenters. The
house of commons had, during this session, lost much of their reputation, not only with fair
and impartial judges, but even with those who were most inclined to favour them. It is
true, the body of the freeholders began to be uneasy under the taxes, and to cry out for
a peace : and most of the capital gentry of England, who had the most to lose, seemed to be
ill-turned, and not to apprehend the dangers we were in, if we should fall under the power
of France, and into the hands of the pretended prince of Wales ; or else they were so fatally
blinded, as not to see that these must be the consequences of those measures in which they
were engaged.
The universities, Oxford especially, have been very unhappily successful in corrupting
the principles of those who were sent to be bred among them : so that few of them escaped
the taint of it, and the generality of the clergy were not only ill-principled but ill-tempered.
They exclaimed against all moderation, as endangering the church, though it is visible that
the church is in no sort of danger from either the numbers or the interest that the dissenters
have among us, which by reason of the toleration is now so quieted, that nothing can keep up
any heat in those matters but the folly and bad humour that the clergy are possessed with,
and which they infuse into all those with whom they have credit. But at the same time,
though the great and visible danger that hangs over us is from popery, which a miscarriage
in the present war must let in upon us, with an inundation not to be either resisted or
recovered, they seem to be blind on that side, and to apprehend and fear nothing from that
quarter. The convocation did little this winter, they continued their former ill practices ; but little
opposition was made to them, as very little regard was had to them. They drew up a repre
sentation of some abuses in the ecclesiastical discipline, and in the consistorial courts ; but
took care to mention none of those greater ones, of which many among themselves were
eminently guilty, such as pluralities, non-residence, the neglect of their cures, and the irre
gularities in the lives of the clergy, which were too visible.
Soon after the session was ended, the duke of Marlborough went over to Holland. He
had gone over for some weeks, at the desire of the States, in January, and then there was a
scheme formed for the operations of the next campaign. It was resolved that, instead of a
* This despotic statute, 2 & 3 Anne, c. xix. was allowed to expire.

7-52 THE HISTORY OF THE REIG.V
fruitless one in the Netherlands, they would have a small army there, to lie only on the
defensive, which was to be commanded by 31. Auverquerque ; but that, since the Rhine was
open, by the taking of Bonn, all up to the Moselle, their main army, that was to be com
manded by the duke of Marlborough, should act there. More was not understood to be
designed, except by those who were taken into the confidence. Upon this all the preparations
for the campaign were ordered to be carried up to the Rhine ; and so every thing was in a
readiness when he returned back to them in April. The true secret was in few hands, and
the French had no hint of it, and seemed to have no apprehensions about it.
The earl of Nottinohani was animated by the party, to press the queen to dismiss the
dukes of Somerset and Devonshire from the cabinet council, at least that they might be
called thither no more. He moved it often, but finding no inclination in the queen to
comply with his motion, he carried the signet to her, and told her he could not serve any
longer in councils to which these lords were admitted ; but the queen desired him to consider
better of it. He returned next day, fixed in his first resolution, to which he adhered the
more steadily, because the queen had sent to the earl of Jersey for the lord chamberlain's
staff, and to sir Edward Sevmour for the comptroller's. Tlie earl of Jersey was a weak
man, but crafty and well practised in the arts of a court : his bdy was a papist : and it was
believed that, while he was ambassador in France, he was secretly reconciled to the court of
St. Germains ; for after that he seemed in their interests. It was one of the reproaches of
the last reign that he had so much credit with the late king, who was so sensible of it, that
if he had lived a little while longer, he would have dismissed him. He was considered as
the person that was now in the closest correspondence with the court of France; and though
he was in himself a very inconsiderable man, vet he -was applied to by all those who wished
well to the court of St. Germains. The earl of Kent had the staff: he was the first earl
of England, and had a great estate. Mansell, the heir of a great family in Wales, was
made comptroller. And, after a month's delay, Harley, the speaker, was made secretary
of state.
But now I turn to give an account of the affairs abroad. The emperor was reduced to
the last extremities ; the elector of Bavaria was master of the Danube all down to Passau ;
and the mal-contents in Hungary were making a formidable progress. The emperor was
not in a condition to maintain a defensive war long on both hands, so that when these should
come to act by concert, no opposition could be made to them. Thus his affairs had a very
bbck appearance, and utter ruin was to be apprehended. Vienna would be probably
besieged on both sides, and it was not in a condition to make a long defence; so the
house of Austria seemed lost. Prince Eugene proposed that the emperor should implore the
queen's protection : this was agreed to. and count Wratislaw managed the matter at our
court with great appUcation and secrecy. The duke of Marlborough saw the necessity of
undertaking it, and resolved to try, if it was possible, to put it in execution. When he
went into Holland in the winter, he proposed it to the pensioner and other persons of the
greatest confidence ; they approved of it : but it was not advisable to propose it to the
States : at that time many of them would not have thought their country safe, if their army
should be sent so far from them ; nothing could be long a secret that was proposed to such
an assembly, and the main hope of succeeding in this design lay in the secresy with which
it was conducted. Under the blind of the project of carrying the war to the Moselle, every
thing was prepared that was necessary for executing the true design. When the duke went
over the second time, that which was proposed in public related only to the motions towards
the Moselle : so he drew his army together in May. He marched towards the Moselle ;
but he went further ; and, after he had gained the advance of some davs of the French
troops, he wrote to the States, from Ladenburg, to let them know that he had the queen's
order, to march to the relief of the empire, with which he hoped they would agree, aud allow
of his carrying their troops to share in the honour of that expedition. He had their answer
as quick as the courier could carry it, by which they approved of the design, and of his
carrying their troopc with him.
So he marched with all possible expedition from the Rhine to the Danube ; which was a
great surprise to the court of France, as well as to the elector of Bavaria. The kin" of

OF QUEEN ANNE. 753
France sent orders to mareschal Tallard to march in all haste with the best troops they had
to support the elector, who apprehended that the duke of Marlborough would endeavour to
pass the Danube at Donawert, and so to break into Bavaria. To prevent that, he vjosted
about sixteen thousand of his best troops at Schellenberg, near Donawert, which was looked
on as a very strong and tenable post. The duke of Marlborough joined the prince of Baden,
with the imperial army, in the beginning of July, and after a long march, continued from
three in the morning, they came up to the Bavarian troops towards tlie evening. They were
so well posted that our men were repulsed in the three first attacks, with great loss : at last
the enemy were beaten from their posts, which was followed with a total rout, and we
became masters of their camp, their artillery, and their baggage. Their general, Arco, with
many others, swam over the Danube : others got into Donawert, which they abandoned
next morning with that precipitation, that they were not able to execute the elector's
cruel orders, which were, to set fire to the town, if they should be forced to abandon it ;
great quantities of straw were laid in many places as a preparation for that, in case of a
misfortune. The best half of the Bavarian forces were now entirely routed, about five thousand of
them were killed. We lost as many, for the action was very hot, and our men were much
exposed ; yet they went still on, and continued the attack with such resolution, that it let
the generals see how much they might depend on the courage of their soldiers. Now we
were masters of Donawert, and, thereby, of a passage over the Danube, which laid all
Bavaria open to our army. Upon that the elector, with mareschal Marsin, drew the rest of
his army under the cannon of Augsburg, where he lay so well posted, that it was not possible
to attack him, nor to force him out of it. The duke of Marlborough followed him, and got
between him and his country, so that it was wholly in his power. When he had him at
this disadvantage, he entered upon a treat}7 with him, and offered him what terms he could
desire, either for himself or his brother, even to the paying him the whole charge of the war,
upon condition that he would immediately break with the French and send his army into
Italy, to join with the imperialists there. His subjects, who were now at mercy, pressed
him vehemently to accept of those terms : he seemed inclined to hearken to them, and mes
sengers went often between the two armies : but this was done only to gain time, for he sent
courier after courier, with most pressing instances, to hasten the advance of the French army.
When he saw he could gain no more time, the matter went so far that the articles were
ordered to be made ready for signing. In conclusion, he refused to sign them ; and then
severe orders were given for military execution on his country. Every thing that was within
the reach of the arm}*, that was worth taking, was brought away, and the rest was burnt
and destroyed.
The two generals did after that resolve on further action, and since the elector's camp
could not be forced, the siege of Ingolstad was to be carried on : it was the most important
place he had, in which his great magazines were laid up. The prince of Baden went to
besiege it, and the duke of Marlborough was to cover the siege, in conjunction with prince
Eugene, who commanded a body of the imperial army, which was now drawn out of the
posts in which they had been put, in order to hinder the march of the French : but they
were not able to maintain them against so great a force as was now coming up ; these formed
a great army. Prince Eugene, having intelligence of the quick motions of the French,
posted his troops, that were about eighteeen thousand, as advantageously as he could, and
went to concert matters with the duke of Marlborough, who lay at some distance. He
upon that marched towards the prince's army with all possible haste, and so the two armies
joined. It was now in the beginning of August. The elector, hearing how near M. Tallard
was, marched with M. Marsin and joined him. Their armies advanced very near ours, and
were well posted, having the Danube on one side and a rivulet on the other, whose banks
were high, and in some places formed a morass before them. The two armies were now in
view one of another. The French were superior to us in foot by about ten thousand ; but
we had three thousand more horse than they. The post of which they were possessed was
capable of being, in a very little time, put out of all danger of future attacks. So the duke
of Marlborough and prince Eugene saw how important it was to lose no time, and resolved
3 c

754 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
to attack them the next morning. They saw the danger of being forced otherwise to lie
idle in their camp, until their forage should be consumed, and their provisions spent. They
had also intercepted letters from mareschal Villeroy to the elector, by which it appeared that
he had orders to march into Wirtemberg, to destroy that country, and to cut off the com
munication with the Rhine, which must have been fatal to us. So the necessary dispositions
were made for the next morning's action. Many of the general officers came and represented
to the duke of Marlborough the difficulties of the design. He said he saw these well, but
the thing wa3 absolutely necessary. So they were sent to give orders everywhere, which
was received all over the army with an abcrity that gave a happy presage of the success
that followed.
I will not venture on a particular relation of that great day : I have seen a copious
account of it, prepared by the duke of Marlborough's orders, that will be printed some time
or other ; but there are some passages in it, which make him not think it fit to be published
presently. He told me he never saw more evident characters of a special providence than
appeared, that day ; a signal one related to his own person : a cannon-ball went into the
ground so near him, that he was some time quite covered with the cloud of dust and earth
that it raised about him. I will sum up the action in a few words.
Our men quickly passed the brook, the French making no opposition. This was a fatal
error, and was laid wholly to Tallard's charge. The action that followed was for some time
very hot, many fell on both sides : ten battalions of the French stood their ground, but were
in a manner mowed down in their ranks ; upon that the horse ran many of them into the
Danube, most of these perished : Tallard himself was taken prisoner. The rest of his troops
were posted in the village of Blenheim : these, seeing all lost, and that some bodies were
advancing upon them, which seemed to them to be thicker than indeed they were, and
apprehending that it was impossible to break through, they did not attempt it, though brave
men might have made their way. Instead of that, when our men came up to set fire to the
village, the earl of Orkney first beating a parley, they hearkened to it very easily, and were
all made prisoners of war : there were about thirteen hundred officers and twelve thousand
common soldiers, who laid down their arms, and were now in our hands. Thus all Tallard's
army was either killed in the action, drowned in the Danube, or become prisoners by capitu
lation. Things went not so easily on prince Eugene's side, where the elector and Marsin
commanded : he was repulsed in three attacks, but carried the fourth, and broke in ; and so
he was master of their camp, cannon, and baggage. The enemy retired in some order, and
he pursued them as far as men wearied with an action of about six hours, in an extremely
hot day, could go. Thus we gained an entire victory. In this action there were on our side
about twelve thousand killed and wounded : but the French and the elector lost about forty
thousand killed, wounded, and taken*.
The elector marched with all the haste he could to Ulm, where he left some troops, and
then with a small body got to Villeroy's army. Now all Bavaria was at mercy : the
electress received the civilities due to her sex, but she was forced to submit to such terms
as were imposed on her : Ingolstad and all the fortified places in the electorate, with the
magazines that were in them, were soon delivered up : Augsburg, Ulm, and Meming,
quickly recovered their liberty • so now our army, having put a speedy conclusion to the
war that was got so far into the bowels of the empire, marched quickly back to the Rhine.
The emperor made great acknowledgments of this signal service which the duke of Marl
borough had done him, and upon it offered to make him a prince of the empire. He very
decently said he could not accept of this till he knew the queen's pleasure : and, upon her.
consenting to it, he was created a prince of the empire, and about a year after Mindleheim
was assigned him for his principality.
Upon this great success in Germany, the duke of Savoy sent a very pressing message for
a present supply. The duke of Vendome was in Piedmont, and after a long siege had taken
VerceiL, and was likely to make a further progress. The few remains of the imperial army
* It was for this victory of Blenheim that the honour of 'Woodstock, now known as Blenheim House, &c. were
bestowed upon the duke of Marlborough. For particulars of this and others of the duke's exploits, the reader is again
referred to Coxe's " Memoirs and Correspondence " of that great general.

EngCED7ca_"by- \rLT.SyaIL.
JOHN cnniCimi.DUKE OF JM.VRUHOlJOrGTr.
OB 1722
jn{<>.M the co:llectto:n" of

his rauri-: the ditje ok MAKi.iionorcn

OF QUEEN ANNE. 75.*
that lay in the Modenese gave but a small diversion : the grand prior had so shut them up,
that they lay on a feeble defensive. Baron Leiningen was sent with another small army
into the Brescian ; but he was so ill supplied, that he could do nothing but eat up tho
country : and the Venetians wore so feeble and so fearful, that they suffered their country to
be eat up by both sides, without declaring for or against eitlier. The prince of Baden
insisted on undertaking the siegeJ of Landau, as necessary to secure the circles, Suabia in
particular, from the excursions of that garrison. This was popular in Germany, and though
the duke of Marlborough did not approve it, ho did not oppose it, with all the authority that
his great success gave him. So the prince of Baden undertook it, while the duke with his
army covered the siege. This was universally blamed, for, while France was in the con
sternation which the late great loss brought them under, a more vigorous proceeding was
likely to have greater effects ; besides that the imperial army was ill provided, the great
charge of a siege was above their strength. The prince of Baden suffered much in his repu
tation for this undertaking : it was that which the French wished for, and so it was suspected
that some secret practice had prevailed on that prince to propose it. It is certain that he
was jealous of the glory the duke had got, in which he had no share ; and it was believed
that if he had not gone to besiege Ingolstadt, the battle had never been fought. He was
indeed so fierce a bigot in religion, that he could not bear the successes of those he called
heretics, and the exaltation which he thought heresy might have upon it.
While the duke of Marlborough lay covering the siege, Villeroy with his army came and
looked on him ; but, as our soldiers were exalted with their success, so the French were too
much dispirited with their losses to make any attack, or to put any thing to hazard, in order
to raise the siege. They retired back, and went into quarters, and trusted to the bad state
of the imperial army, who were ill provided and ill supplied : the garrison made as vigorous
a defence, and drew out the siege to as great a length as could be expected. The prince of
Baden had neither engineers nor ammunition, and wanted money to provide them ; so that
if the duke had not supplied him, he must have been forced to give it over. The king of
the Romans came again to have the honour of taking the place : his behaviour there did
not serve to raise his character : he was not often in the places of danger, and was content
to look on at a great and safe distance : he was always beset with priests, and such a face
of superstition and bigotry appeared about him, that it very much damped the hopes that
were given of him.
When it appeared that there was no need of an army to cover the siege, and that the place
could not hold out many days, the duke of Marlborough resolved to possess himself of Triers,
as a good winter quarter, that brought him near the confines of France, from whence he
might open the campaign next year with great advantage ; and he reckoned that the taking
of Traerback, even in that advanced season, would be soon done, and then the communica
tion with Holland, by water, was all clear : so that during the winter, every thing that was
necessary could be brought up thither from Holland safe and cheap. This he executed with
that diligence, that the French abandoned every place as he advanced with such precipita
tion, that they had not time given them to burn the places they forsook, according
to the barbarous method which they had long practised. The duke got to Triers, and
that being a large place he posted a great part of his army in and about it, and left a
sufficient force with the prince of Hesse for the taking of Traerback, which held out
some weeks, but capitulated at last. Landau was not taken before the middle of
November. Thus ended this glorious campaign, in which England and Holland gained a very unusual
glory ; for as they had never sent their armies so far by land, so their triumphant return
helped not a little to animate and unite their counsels. Prince Eugene had a just share in
the honour of this great expedition, which he had chiefly promoted by his counsels, and did
so nobly support by his conduct. The prince of Baden had no share in the public joy :
his conduct was as bad as could be, and the fret he was possessed with, upon the glory that
the other generals carried from him, threw him, as was believed, into a languishing, of which
he never quite recovered, and of which he died two years after. 3 c 2

756 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
At the conclusion of the campaign, the duke of Marlborough went to Berlin, where he
concerted the measures for the next campaign, and agreed with the king of Prussia for eight
thousand of his troops, which were to be sent to Italy upon the queen's pay. He had settled
matters with the emperor's ministers, so that they undertook to send prince Eugene with an
army of twenty thousand men, who should begin their march into Italy as soon as it was
possible to pass the mountains : of these, the queen and the States were to pay sixteen
thousand. He returned by the court of Hanover, where he was treated with all the honour
that the success of the campaign well deserved. He met with the same reception in Holland,
and was as much considered and submitted to as if he had been their stadtholder. The
credit he was in among them was very happy to them, and was indeed necessary at that
time for keeping down their factions and animosities, which were rising in every province and
in most of their towns. Only Amsterdam, as it was the most sensible of the common
danger, so it was not only quiet within itself, but it contributed not a little to keep all the
rest so, which was chiefly maintained by the duke of Marlborough's prudent management.
England was full of joy, and addresses of congratulation were sent up from all parts of the
nation ; but it was very visible that, in many places, the tories went into these very coldly,
and perhaps that made the whigs more zealous and affectionate.
I now turn to the other element, where our affairs were carried on more doubtfully.
Rook sailed into the Straits, where he reckoned he was strong enough for the Toulon
squadron, which was then abroad in the Mediterranean. Soon after that, a strong squadron
from Brest passed by Lisbon into the Straits. Methuen, our ambassador there, apprehending
that if these two squadrons should join to attack Rook, it would not be possible for him to
fight against so great a force, sent a, man-of-war, that Rook had left at Lisbon, with some
particular orders, which made him very unwilling to carry the message, but Methuen pro
mised to save him harmless. He upon that sailed through the French fleet, and brought
this important advertisement to Rook, who told him, that on this occasion he would pass by
his not observing his orders, but that, for the future, he would find the safest course was to
obey orders. Upon this, Rook stood out of the way of the French, towards the mouth of
the Straits, and there he met Shovel with a squadron of our best ships ; so, being thus
reinforced, he sailed up the Straits, being now in a condition, if need were, to engage the
French. He came before Barcelona, where the prince of Hesse Darmstadt assured him there
was a strong party ready to declare for king Charles, as it was certain that there was a great
disposition in many to it. But Rook would not stay above three days before it : so that the
motions within the town, and the discoveries that many made of their inclinations, had
almost proved fatal to them. He answered, when pressed to stay a few days more, that his
orders were positive ; he must make towards Nice ; which it was believed the French intended
to besiege.
But, as he was sailing that way, he had advice that the French had made no advances in
that design : so he turned his course westward, and came in sight of the French fleet, sailing
from Brest to Toulon. The advantage he had was so visible, that it was expected he would
have made towards them : he did it not : what orders he had was not known, for the matter
never came under examination. They got to Toulon, and he steered another way. The
whole French fleet was then together in that harbour ; for though the Toulon squadron had
been out before, it was then in port.
A very happy accident had preserved a rich fleet of merchant ships from Scanderoon,
under the convoy of three or four frigates, from falling into their hands. The French fleet
lay in their way in the bay of Tunis, and nothing could have saved them from being taken
but that which happened in the critical minute in which they needed it : a thick fog covered
them all the while that they were sailing by that bay, so that they had no apprehension of
the danger they were in till they had passed it. I know it is not possible to determine,
when such accidents rise from a chain of second causes in the course of nature, and when
they are directed by a special providence ; but my mind has always carried me so strongly to
acknowledge the latter, that I love to set these reflections in the way of others, that they
may consider them with the same serious attention that I feel in myself.

OF QUEEN ANNE 757
Rook, as he sailed back, fell in upon Gibraltar, where he spent much powder, bombarding
it to very little purpose, that he might seem to attempt somewhat, though there was no
reason to hope that he could succeed : some bold men ventured to go ashore in a place where
it was not thought possible to climb up tlie rocks, yet they succeeded in it : when they got
up, they saw all the women of the town were come out, according to their superstition, to
a chapel there, to implore the virgin's protection : they seized on them, and that contributed
not a little to dispose those in the town to surrender. They had leave to stay, or go, as
they pleased ; and, in case they stayed, they were assured of protection in their religion,
and in every thing else ; for the prince of Hesse, who was to be their governor, was a papist.
But they all went away with the small garrison that had defended the place. The prince
of Hesse, with the marines that were on board the fleet, possessed himself of the place, and
they were furnished out of the stores, that went with the fleet, with every thing that was
necessary for their subsistence or defence ; and a regular method was laid down of supplying
them constantly from Lisbon.
It has been much questioned, by men who understand these matters well, whether our
possessing ourselves of Gibraltar, and our maintaining ourselves in it so long, was to our
advantage or not. It has certainly put us to a great charge, and we have lost many men in
it ; but it seems the Spaniards, who should know the importance of the place best, think it
so valuable, that they have been at a much greater charge, and have lost many more men,
while they have endeavoured to recover it, than the taking or keeping it has cost us. And
it is certain that in war, whatsoever loss on one side occasions a greater loss of men, or of
treasure, to the other, must be reckoned a loss only to the side that suffers most.
Our expedition in Portugal, and our armies there, which cost us so dear, and from which
we expected so much, had not hitherto had any great effect. The king of Portugal expressed
the best intentions possible ; but he was much governed by his ministers, who were all in
the French interests : they had a great army, but they had made no preparations for taking
the field ; nor could they bring their troops together for want of provisions and carriages ;
the forms of their government made them very slow, and not easily accessible. They were
too proud to confess that they wanted anything when they had nothing, and too lazy to
bestir themselves to execute what was in their power to do ; and the king's ill health
furnished them with an excuse for every thing that was defective and out of order. The
priests both in Spain and Portugal were so universally in the French interest, that even the
house of Austria, that had been formerly so much in their favour, was now in disgrace with
them. Their alliance with heretics, and their bringing over an army of them to maintain
their pretensions, had made all their former services be forgotten. The governing body at
Rome did certainly engage all their zealots everywhere to support that interest which is
now so set on the destruction of heresy. King Philip advanced towards the frontiers of
Portugal, his army being commanded by the duke of Berwick, who began to shine there,
though he had passed elsewhere for a man of no very great character. They had several
advantages of the Portuguese : some of the English and Dutch battalions, which were so
posted that they could not be relieved, and in places that were not tenable, fell into the
enemy's hands, and were made prisoners of war. Some of the general officers who came
over said to me, that, if the duke of Berwick had followed his advantages, nothing could have
hindered his coming to Lisbon. The duke of Schomberg was a better officer in the field
than in the cabinet ; he did not enough know how to prepare for a campaign, he was both too
inactive and too haughty ; so it was thought necessary to send another to command. The
earl of Galway was judged the fittest person for that service : he undertook it, more in sub
mission to the queen's commands than out of any great prospect or hopes of success. Things
went on very heavily there : the distraction that the taking Gibraltar put the Spaniards
in, as it occasioned a diversion of some of the Spanish forces that lay on their frontier, so it
furnished them with advantages, which they took no care to improve.
Rook, after he had supplied Gibraltar, sailed again into the Mediterranean, and there he
met the count of Thoulouse with the whole French fleet. They were superior to the
English in number, and had many galleys with them that were of great use. Rook called

758 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
a council of war, in which it was resolved to engage them. There was not due care taken
to furnish all the ships with a sufficient quantity of powder, for some had wasted a great
part of their stock of ammunition before Gibraltar, yet they had generally twenty-five
rounds, and it had seldom happened that so much powder was spent in an action at sea. On
the 12th of August, just ten days after the battle of Hocksted, the two fleets engaged.
Shovel advanced with his squadron to a close fight, for it was the maxim of our seamen to
fight as near as they could : he had the advantage, and the squadron before him gave way.
Rook fought at a greater distance ; many broadsides passed, and the engagement continued
till night parted them : some ships, that had spent all their ammunition, were forced on that
account to go out of the line, and if the French had come to a new engagement next day, it
might have been fatal, since many of our ships were without powder, whilst others had
enough and to spare.
In this long and hot action there was no ship of either side that was either taken, sunk,
or burnt. We made a show the next day of preparing for a second engagement, but the
enemy bore off, to the great joy of our fleet. The French suffered much in this action, and
went into Toulon so disabled, that they could not be put in a condition to go to sea again in
many months. They left the sea, as the field of battle, to us ; so the honour of the action
remained with us : though the nation was not much lifted up with the news of a drawn
battle at sea with the French. We were long without a certain account of this action ; but
the modesty in which the king of France wrote of it to the archbishop of Paris put us out
of all fears ; for whereas their style was very boasting of their successes, in this it was only
said that the action was to his advantage : from that cold expression we concluded the victory
was on our side.
When the full account was sent home from our fleet, the partiality on both sides appeared
very signally. The tories magnified this as a great victory, and in their addresses of congra
tulation to the queen, they joined this with that wliich the duke of Marlborough had gained
at Hocksted. I understand nothing of sea matters, and therefore cannot make a judgment
in the point. I have heard men, skilled in those affairs, differ much in their sentiments of
Rook's conduct in that action : some not only justifying but extolling it, as much as others
condemned it. It was certainly ridiculous to set forth the glory of so disputable an engage
ment in the same words with the successes we had by land. The fleet soon after sailed home
for England, Leak * being left with a squadron at Lisbon.
The Spaniards drew all the forces they had in Andalusia and Estremadura together, to
retake Gibraltar : that army was commanded by the duke of Villadarias ; he had with him
some French troops, with some engineers of that nation, who were chiefly relied on, and
were sent from France to carry on the siege. This gave some disgust to the Spaniards, who
were so foolish in their pride, that though they could do nothing for themselves, and indeed
knew not how to set about it, yet could not bear to be taught by others, or to see themselves
outdone by them. The siege was continued for above four months, during which time the
prince of Hesse had many occasions given him to distinguish himself very eminently, both
as to his courage, conduct, and indefatigable application. Convoys came frequently from
Lisbon with supplies of men and provisions, which the French were not able to hinder, or to
intercept. Pointy at last came, with a squadron of twenty French ships, and lay long in
the bay, trying what could be done by sea, while the place was pressed by land : upon that
a much stronger squadron was sent from Lisbon, with a great body of men and stores of all
sorts, to relieve the place and to raise the siege : and the court of France, not being satisfied
with the conduct of the Spanish general, sent mareschal Tesse to carry on the siege with
greater expedition. The Portuguese all this while made no use of the diversion given by the
siege of Gibraltar : they made great demands on us ; for England was now considered a3 a
source that could never be exhausted. We granted all their demands, and a body of horse
was sent to them at a vast charge. The king was in a very ill state of health, occasioned
by disorders in his youth ; he had not been treated skilfully, so he was often relapsing, and
* The life of this brave seaman, sir John Leake, was printed for private circulation by Mr. Stephen Martin Leake,
garter king at arm^. — Coble's Contin. of Grainger.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 759
was not in a condition to apply himself much to business. For some time our queen
dowager* was set at the head of their councils : her administration was much commended,
and she was very careful of the English and all their concerns.
In Italy the duke of Savoy had a melancholy campaign, losing place after place ; but he
supported his affairs with great conduct, and showed a firmness in his misfortunes beyond
what could have been imagined. Verceil and Yvrea gave the duke of Vendome the trouble
of a tedious siege ; they stood their ground as long as possible : the duke of Savoy's army
was not strong enough to raise these sieges, so both places fell in conclusion. The French
had not troops both to carry on the war and to leave garrisons in those places, so they
demolished the fortifications : after they had succeeded so far, they sat down before Verue
in the end of October. The duke of Savoy posted his army at Crescentino, over against it,
on the other side of the Po : he had a bridge of communication : he went often into the
place during the siege, to see and animate his men, and to give all necessary orders : the
sick and wounded were carried away, and fresh men put in their stead. This siege proved
the most famous of all that had been during the late wars ; it lasted above five months, the
garrison being often changed, and always well supplied. The French army suffered much
by continuing the siege all the winter, and they were at a vast charge in carrying it on ; the
bridge of communication was, after many unsuccessful attempts, at last cut off: and the
duke of Savoy, being thus separated from the place, retired to Chivaz, and left them to
defend themselves as long as they could, which they did beyond what could in reason have
been expected. The duke of Savoy complained much of the emperor's failing to make good
his promises ; but, in a discourse upon that subject with the queen's envoy, he said, though
he was abandoned by his allies, he would not abandon himself.
The poor people in the Cevennes suffered much this summer. It was not possible to come
to them with supplies till matters should go better in Piedmont, of which there was then no
prospect ; they were advised to preserve themselves the best they could. Marshal Villars
was sent into the country to manage them with a gentler hand. The severe methods taken
by those formerly employed being now disowned, he was ordered to treat with their leaders,
and to offer them full liberty to serve God in their own way without disturbance. They
generally inclined to hearken to this, for they had now kept themselves in a body much
longer than was thought possible in their low and helpless state : some of them capitulated.
and took service in the French army ; but as soon as they came near the armies of the allies
they deserted and went over to them, so that by all this practice that fire was rather covered
up at present than quite extinguished.
The disorders in Hungary had a deeper root and a greater strength : it was hoped that
the ruin of the elector of Bavaria would have quite disheartened them, and have disposed
them to accept of reasonable terms, if the emperor could have been prevailed on to offer them
frankly, and immediately upon their first consternation after the conquest of Bavaria. There
were great errors in the government of that kingdom : by a long course of oppression and
injustice the Hungarians were grown savage and intractable : they saw they were both
hated and despised by the Germans. The court of Vienna seemed to consider them as so
many enemies, who were to be depressed, in order to their being extirpated ; upon any pre
tence of plots, their persons were seized on and their estates confiscated. The Jesuits were
believed to have a great share in all those contrivances and prosecutions ; and it was said,
that they purchased the confiscated estates upon very easy terms. The nobility of Hungary
seemed irreconcileable to the court of Vienna. On the other hand, those of that court who
had these confiscations assigned them, and knew that the restoring these would certainly be
insisted on as a necessary article in any treaty that might follow, did all they could to
obstruct such a treaty. It was visible that Ragotski, who was at their head, aimed at the
principality of Transylvania : and it was natural for the Hungarians to look on his arriving
at that dignity, by which he could protect and assist them, as the best security they could
have. On the other hand, the court of Vienna, being possessed of that principality, would
not easily part with it. In the midst of all this fermentation, a revolution happened in the
Turkish empire : a new sultan was set up. So all things were at a stand till it might be
" Widow of Charles the Second,

7GD THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
known what was to be expected from him. They were soon delivered from this anxiety,
for he sent a chiaus to the court of Vienna, to assure them that he was resolved to maintain
the peace in all points, and that he would give no assistance to the malcontents. The court
of Vienna being freed from those apprehensions, resolved to carry on the war in Hungary as
vigorously as they could. This was imputed to a secret practice from France on some of
that court, and there were so many there concerned in the confiscations, that every proposi
tion that way was powerfully supported. Thus Italy was neglected, and the siege of Landau
was ill supported, their chief strength being employed in Hungary. Yet when the ministers
of the allies pressed the opening a treaty with the malcontents, the emperor seemed willing
to refer the arbitration of that matter to his allies. But though it was fit to speak in that
style, yet no such thing was designed. A treaty was opened, but when it was known that
Zeiher had the chief management of it, there was no reason to expect any good effect of it.
He was born a protestant, a subject of the palatinate, and was often employed by the elector
Charles Lewis, to negotiate affairs at the court of Vienna : he, seeing a prospect of rising in
that court, changed his religion, and became a creature of the Jesuits, and adhered steadily
to all their interests. He managed that secret practice with the French in the treaty of
Ryswick, by which the protestants of the palatinate suffered so considerable a prejudice.
The treaty in Hungary stuck at the preliminaries, for indeed neither side was then inclined
to treat : the malcontents were supported from France ; they were routed in several engage
ments, but these were not so considerable as the court of Vienna gave out in their public
new3. The malcontents suffered much in them, but came soon together again, and they sub
sisted so well, what by the mines of which they had possessed themselves, what by the
incursions they made, and the contributions they raised from the emperor's subjects, that
unless the war were carried on more vigorously, or a peace were offered more sincerely, that
kingdom was long likely to be a scene of blood and rapine.
So was its neighbouring kingdom of Poland. It was hoped that the talk of a new election
was only a loud threatening to force a peace the sooner ; but it proved otherwise. A diet
was brought together of those who were irreconcileable to king Augustus, and after many
delays Stanislaus, one of the palatines, was chosen and proclaimed their king ; and he was
presently owned by the king of Sweden. The cardinal seemed at first unwilling to agree to
this, but he suffered himself to be forced to it : this was believed to be only an artifice of his
to excuse himself to the court of France, whose pensioner he was, and to whom he had
engaged to carry the election for the prince of Conti. The war went on this year with
various success on both sides. King Augustus made u, quick march to Warsaw, where he
surprised some of Stanislaus's party, he himself escaping narrowly ; but the king of Sweden
followed so close that, not being able to fight him, he was forced to retreat into Saxony,
where he continued for some months. There he ruined his own dominions, by the great
preparations he made to return with a mighty force : the delay of that made many forsake
his party, for it was given out that he would return no more, and that he was weary of the
war, and he had good reason so to be. Poland, in the meanwhile, was in a most miserable
condition : the king of Sweden subsisted his army in it, and his temper grew daily more
fierce and gothic : he was resolved to make no peace till Augustus was driven out. In the
meanwhile his own country suffered much. Livonia was destroyed by the Muscovites :
they had taken Narva, and made some progresses into Sweden. The pope espoused the
interests of king Augustus ; for, to support a new convert of such importance, was thought
a point worthy the zeal of that see : so he cited the cardinal to appear at Rome, and to give
an account of the share he had in all that war.
The pope was now wholly in the French interest, and maintained the character they pre
tend to, of a common father, with so much partiality, that the emperor himself, how tame
and submissive soever to all the impositions of that see, yet could not bear it, but made loud
complaints of it. The pope had threatened that he would thunder out excommunications
against all those troops that should continue in his dominions. The emperor was so implicit
in his faith, and so ready in his obedience, that he ordered his troops to retire out of the
ecclesiastical state ; but all the effect that this had was to leave that state entirely in the
hands of the French, against whom the pope did not think fit to fulminate ; yet the pope

OF QUEEN ANNE. 761
still pretended that he would maintain a neutrality, and both the Venetians and the great
duke adhered to him in that resolution, and continued neutral during the war.
Having now given a view of the state of affairs abroad, I return back to prosecute the
relation of those at home, and begin with Scotland. A session of parliament was held there
this summer. The duke of Queensbury's management of the plot was so liable to exception,
that it was not thought fit to employ him ; and it seems he had likewise brought himself
under the queen's displeasure, for it was proposed by some of his friends in the house of
lords, to desire the queen to communicate to them a letter, which he had written to her of
such a date. This looked like an examination of the queen herself, to whom it ought to
have been left to send what letters she thought fit to the house, and they ought not to call
for any one in particular. The matter of that letter made him liable to a very severe censure
in Scotland ; for in plain words he charged the majority of the parliament as determined in
their proceedings by an influence from St. Germains. This exposed him in Scotland to the
fury of a parliament ; for, how true soever this might be, by the laws :>f that kingdom, such
a representation of a parliament to the queen, especially in matters which could not be proved,
was leasing-making, and was capital.
The chief design of the court in this session was to get the succession of the crown to be
declared, and a supply to be given for the army, which was run into a great arrear. In the
debates of the former session those who opposed every thing, more particularly the declaring
the succession, had insisted chiefly on motions to bring their own constitution to such a settle
ment, that they might suffer no prejudice by their king's living in England. Mr. Johnstoun
was now taken in by the ministers into a new management. It was proposed by him, in
concert with the marquess of of Tweedale and some others in Scotland, that the queen should
empower her commissioner to consent to a revival of the whole settlement made by king
Charles the First in the year 1641.
By that the king named a privy council and his ministers of state in parliament, who had
a power to accept of, or to except to, the nomination, without being bound to give the reason
for excepting to it. In the intervals of parliament, the king was to give all employments with
the consent of the privy council. This was the main point of that settlement, which was
looked on by the wisest men of that time as a full security to all their laws and liberties.
It did indeed divest the crown of a great part of the prerogative ; and it brought the parlia
ment into some equality with the crown.
The queen, upon the representation made to her by her ministers, offered this as a limita
tion on the successor, in case they would settle the succession, as England had done ; and,
for doing this, the marquess of Tweedale was named her commissioner. The queen did also
signify her pleasure very positively to all who were employed by her, that she expected they
should concur in settling the succession, as they desired the continuance of her favour. Both
the duke of Marlborough and the lord Godolphin expressed themselves very fully and posi
tively to the same purpose ; yet it was dexterously surmised, and industriously set about by
the jacobites, and too easily believed by jealous and cautious people, that the court was not
sincere in this matter, and that at best they were indifferent as to the success. Some went
further, and said that those who were in a particular confidence at court did secretly oppose
it, and entered into a management on design to obstruct it. I could never see any good
ground for this suggestion ; yet there was matter enough for jealousy to work on, and this
was carefully improved by the jacobites, in order to defeat the design. Mr. Johnstoun
was made lord register, and was sent down to promote the design. The jacobites were
put in hopes, in case of a rupture, to have a considerable force sent to support them from
Dunkirk. A session of parliament being opened, and the speeches made, and the queen's letter read,
all which tended to the settling the succession, that was the first debate. A great party
was now wrought on, when they understood the security that was to be offered to them :
for the wisest patriots in that kingdom had always magnified that constitution, as the best
contrived scheme that could be desired . so they went in with great zeal to the accepting of
it. But those who in the former session had rejected all the motions of treating with
England with some scorn, and had made this their constant topic, that they must in the first

762 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
place secure their own constitution at home, and then they might trust the rest to time and
to such accidents as time might bring forth ; now, when they saw that every thing that
could be desired was offered with relation to their own government, they (being resolved to
oppose any declaration of the succession, what terms soever might be granted to obtain it,)
turned the argument wholly another way, to show the necessity of a previous treaty with
England. They were upon that told that the queen was ready to grant them every thing
that was reasonable, with relation to their own constitution, yet without the concurrence of
the parliament of England she could grant nothing in which England was concerned ; for
they were for demanding a share of the plantation trade, and that their ships might be com
prehended within the act of navigation.
After a long debate the main question was put, whether they should then enter upon the
consideration of the limitations of the government, in order to the fixing the succession of the
crown, or if that should be postponed till they had obtained such a security, by a treaty with
England, as they should judge necessary. It was carried, by a majority of forty, to begin
with a treaty with England : of these, about thirty were in immediate dependence on the
court, and were determined according to the directions given them. So, notwithstanding a
long and idle speech of the earl of Cromarty's, which was printed, running into a distinction
among divines, between the revealed and secret will of God, showing that no such distinc
tion could be applied to the queen ; she had but one will, and that was revealed ; yet it was
still suspected that at least her ministers had a secret will in the case. They went no further
in this vote for a treaty with England, for they could not agree among themselves who should
be the commissioners ; and those who opposed the declaring the succession, were concerned
for no more when that question was once set aside. So it was postponed, as a matter about
which they took no further care.
They offered to the court six months' cess, for the pay of the army ; but they tacked to
this a great part of a bill which passed the former session of parliament, but was refused by
the throne. By that it was provided, that if the queen should die without issue, a parlia^
ment should presently meet, and they were to declare the successor to the crown, who should
not be the same person that was possessed of the crown of England, unless before that time
there should be a settlement made in parliament, of the rights and liberties of the nation
independent on English councils. By another clause in the act, it was made lawful to arm
the subjects, and to train them, and put them in a posture of defence. This was chiefly
pressed in behalf of the best affected in the kingdom, who were not armed ; for the High
landers, who were the worst affected, were well armed : so, to balance that, it was moved
that leave should be given to arm the rest. All was carried with great heat and much
vehemence ; for a national humour, of being independent on England, fermented so strongly
among all sorts of people without doors, that those who went not into every hot motion that
was made, were looked on as the betrayers of their country ; and they were so exposed to
a popular fury, that some of those who studied to stop this tide were thought to be in
danger of their lives. The presbyterians were so overawed with this, that, though
they wished well to the settling the succession, they durst not openly decbre it. The
dukes of Hamilton and Athol led all those violent motions, and the whole nation was
strangely inflamed.
The ministers were put to a great difficulty with the supply bill, and the tack that was
joined to it. If it was denied the army could be no longer kept up : they had run so far
in arrear, that, considering the poverty of the country, that could not be carried on much
longer. Some suggested that it should be proposed to the English ministry, to advance the
subsistence money, till better measures could be taken ; but none of the Scotch ministry
would consent to that. An army is reckoned to belong to those who pay it : so an army
paid from Engbnd would be called an English army : nor was it possible to manage such a
thing secretly. It was well known that there was no money in the Scotch treasury to pay
them, so if money were once brought into the treasury, how secretly soever, all men must
conclude that it came from England : and men's minds were then so full of the conceit of
independency, that if a suspicion arose of any such practice, probably it would have occa
sioned tumults. Even the army was so kindled with this, that it was believed that neither

OF QUEEN ANNE. 763
officers nor soldiers would have taken their pay, if they had believed it came from England.
It came then to this, that either the army must be disbanded, or the bill must pass. It is
true, the army was a very small one, not above three thousand ; but it was so ordered, that
it was double or treble officered ; so that it could have been easily increased to a much
greater number, if there had been occasion for it. The officers had served long, and were
men of a good character. So, since they were alarmed with an invasion, which both sides
looked for, and the intelligence which the court had from France assured them it was
intended ; they thought the inconveniences arising from the tack might be remedied after
wards. But the breaking of the army was such a pernicious thing, and might end so fatally,
that it was not to be ventured on. Therefore, by common consent, a letter was written to
the queen, which was signed by all the ministers there, in which they laid the whole matter
before her, every thing was stated and balanced ; all concluded in an humble advice to pass
the bill. Tins was very heavy on the lord Godolphin, on whose advice the queen chiefly
relied. He saw the ill consequences of breaking the army and laying that kingdom open to
an invasion, would fall on him if he should, in contradiction to the advice given by the
ministry of Scotland, have advised the queen to reject the bill. This was under consultation
in the end of July, when our matters abroad were yet in a great uncertainty ; for though
the victory at Schellemberg was a good step, yet the great decision was not then come. So
he thought, considering the state of affairs, and the accidents that might happen, that it was
the safest thing for the queen to comply with the advices of those to whom she trusted the
affairs of that kingdom.
The queen sent orders to pass the bill. It passed on the 6th of August, after the great
battle was over, but several days before the news of it came to us. When the act passed,
copies of it were sent to England, where it was soon printed by those who were uneasy at
the lord Godolphin's holding the white staff, and resolved to make use of this against him,
for the whole blame of passing it was cast on him. It was not possible to prove that he
had advised the queen to it : so some took it by another handle, and resolved to urge it
against him, that he had not persuaded the queen to reject it : though that seemed a great
stretch, for he being a stranger to that kingdom, it might have been liable to more objection,
if he had presumed to advise the queen to refuse a bill, passed in the parliament of Scotland,
which all the ministry there advised her to pass.
Severe censures passed on this. It was said, that the two kingdoms were now divided
by law, and that the Scotch were putting themselves in a posture to defend it ; and all saw by
whose advices this was done. One thing, that contributed to keep up an ill humour in the
parliament of Scotland, was more justly imputed to him. The queen had promised to send
down to them all the examinations relating to the plot : if these had been sent down, pro
bably in the first heat the matter might have been carried far against the duke of Queens
bury. But he, who staid all the while at London, got it to be represented to the queen, that
the sending down these examinations, with the persons concerned in them, would run the
session into so much heat, and into such a length, that it would divert them quite from con
sidering the succession, and it might produce a tragical scene. Upon these suggestions, the
queen altered her resolution of sending them down ; though repeated applications were made
to her, both by the parliament and by her ministers, to have them sent ; yet no answer was
made to these, nor was so much as an excuse made for not sending them. The duke of
Queensbury, having gained this point, got all his friends to join with the party that opposed
the new ministry. This both defeated all their projects and softened the spirits of those
who were so set against him, that, in their first fury, no stop could have been put to their
proceedings. But now the party that had designed to ruin him was so much wrought
on by the assistance that his friends gave them in this session, that they resolved to pre
serve him.
This was the state of that nation, which was aggravated very odiously all England over.
It was confidently, though, as was afterwards known, very falsely, reported, that great
quantities of arms were brought over and dispersed through the whole kingdom : and it
being well known how poor the nation was at that time, it was said, that those arms were
paid for by other hands, in imitation of what it was believed cardinal Richelieu did in the

764 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
year 1638. Another thing was given out very maliciously by the lord treasurers' enemies,
that he had given directions under hand to hinder the declaring the succession, and that
the' secret of this was trusted to Johnstoun, who, they said, talked openly one way, and
acted secretly another; though I could never see a colour of truth in those reports.
Great use was to be made of the affairs of Scotland, because there was no ground of
complaint of any thing in the administration at home. All the duke of Marlborough's
enemies saw his chief strength lay in the credit that the lord Godolphin was in at home,
while he was so successful abroad. So, it being impossible to attack him in such a course of
glory, they laid their aims against the lord treasurer. The tories resolved to attack him,
and that disposed the whigs to preserve him : and this was so managed by them, that it gave
a great turn to all our councils at home.
In the beginning of November, the session of parliament was opened. It might well be
expected that, after such a summer, the addresses of both houses would run in a very high
strain. The house of commons, in their address, put the successes by sea and land on a
level, and magnified both in the same expressions ; but the house of lords, in their address,
took no notice of Rook, nor of the sea. The lower house of convocation were resolved to
follow the example of the house of commons, and would have the sea and land both men
tioned in the same terms ; but the bishops would not vary from the pattern set them by the
house of lords : so no address was made by the convocation. The commons agreed to every
thing that the court proposed for supporting the war another year ¦ this was carried through
with great dispatch and unanimity. So that the main business of the session was soon over ¦
all the money bills were prepared and carried on in the regular method without any obstruc
tion. Those who intended to embroil matters saw it was not advisable to act above board,
but to proceed more covertly.
The act against occasional conformity was again brought in, but moderated in several
clauses ; for those who pressed it were now resolved to bring the terms as low as was possible,
in order once to carry a bill upon that head. The opposition in the house of commons made
to it was become so considerable (for the design was now more clearly discerned), that it was
carried in that house only by a majority of fifty. When the bill was to be committed, it
was moved that it should be committed to the same committee which was preparing the bill
for the land-tax. The design of this was, that the one should be tacked to the other, and
then the lords would have been put under a great difficulty. If they should untack the bill,
and separate one from the other, then the house of commons would have insisted on a maxim
that was now settled among them, as a fundamental principle never to be departed from,
that the lords cannot alter a money bill, but must either pass it or reject it, as it is sent to
them. On the other hand, the lords could not agree to any such tack, without departing
from that solemn resolution which was in their books, signed by most of them, never to admit
of a tack to a money bill. If they yielded now, they taught the house of commons the way
to impose any thing on them at their pleasure.
The party in the house of commons put their whole strength to the carrying this point :
they went further in their design. That which was truly aimed at, by those in the secret,
was to break the war and to force a peace. They knew a bill with this tack could not pass
in the house of peers. Some lords of their party told myself that they would never pass the
bill with this tack, so by this means money would be stopped. This would put all matters
in great confusion both at home and abroad, and dispose our allies, as despairing of any help
from us, to accept of such terms as France would offer them. So here was an artful design
formed to break, at least to shake, the whole alliance. The court was very apprehensive of
this, and the lord Godolphin opposed it with much zeal. The party disowned the design
for some time, until they had brought up their whole strength, and thought they were sure
of a majority.
The debate held long. Those who opposed it said, this now aimed at was a change of
the whole constitution, and was in effect turning it into a commonwealth ; for it imported
the denying, not only to the lords, but to the crown, the free use of their negative in the
legislature. If this was once settled, then, as often as the public occasions made a money
bill necessary, every thing that the majority in their house had a mind to would be tacked

OF QUEEN ANNE 765
to it. It is true some tacks had been made to money bills in king Charles's time ; but even
these had still some relation to the money that was given. But here a bill, whose operation
was only for one year, and which determined as soon as the four shillings in the pound was
paid, was to have a perpetual law tacked to it, that must continue still in force after the
greatest part of the act was expired and dead. To all this, in answer, some precedents were
opposed, and the necessity of the bill for the preservation of the church was urged, which
they saw was not likely to pass, unless sent to the lords so accompanied ; which some
thought was very wittingly pressed, by calling it a portion annexed to the church, as in a
marriage ; and they said they did not doubt but those of the court would bestir themselves
to get it passed, when it was accompanied with two millions as its price.
Upon the division, one hundred and thirty-four were for the tack, and two hundred and
fifty were against it : so that design was lost by those who had built all their hopes upon it,
and were now highly offended with some of their own party, who had by their opposition
wrought themselves into good places, and forsook that interest to which they owed their
advancement : these, to redeem themselves with their old friends, seemed still zealous for
the bill, which after went on coldly and slowly in the house of commons, for they lost
all hopes of carrying it in the house of lords, now that the mine they had laid was sprung.
While this was going on in the house of commons, the debate about the Scotch act was
taken up with great heat in the house of lords. The ill effects that were likely to follow
upon it were opened in very tragical strains : it was, after much declaiming, moved that the
lords might pass some votes upon it. The tories who pressed this, intended to add a
severe vote against all those who had advised it ; and it was visible at whom this was aimed.
The whigs diverted this : they said, the putting a vote against an act passed in Scotland
looked like the claiming some superiority over them, which seemed very improper at that
time, since that kingdom was possessed with a national jealousy on this head, that would be
much increased by such a proceeding. More moderate methods were therefore proposed and
agreed to, in order to the making up of a breach in this island, with which they seemed to
be then threatened. So an act was brought in, empowering the queen to name commis
sioners, to treat of a full union of both kingdoms, as soon as the parliament of Scotland
should pass an act to the same purpose. But if no such union should be agreed on, or if the
same succession to the crown, with that of England, should not be enacted by a day prefixed,
then it was enacted, that after that day no Scotchman, that was not resident in England
or in Ireland, or employed in the queen's service by sea or land, should be esteemed a
natural-born subject of England : they added to this a prohibition of the importation of
Scotch cattle, and the manufactures of Scotland. All this fell in the house of commons, when
sent down to them, because of the money-penalties, which were put in the several clauses
of the bill. The commons were resolved to adhere to a notion, that had now taken such root
among them that it could not be shaken, that the lords could not put any such clause in a
bill begun with them. This was wholly new : penalties upon transgressions could not be
construed to be a giving of money. The lords were clearly in possession of proceeding thus ;
so that the calling it in question was an attempt on the share which the lords had in the
legislature. The commons let this bill lie on the table, and began a new one to the same
purpose : it passed ; and the following Christmas was the day prefixed for the Scotch to
enact the succession, or, on failure thereof, then this act was to have its effect. A great
coldness appeared in many of the commons, who used to be hot on less important occasions :
they seemed not to desire that the Scotch should settle the succession; and it was visible
that some of them hoped that the lords would have used their bill as they had used that
sent down by the lords. Many of them were less concerned in the fate of the bill, because
it diverted the censure which they had intended to fix on the lord treasurer. The lords were
aware of this, and passed the bill.
Those who wished well to the union were afraid that the prohibition, and the declaring
the Scots aliens after the day prefixed, would be looked on as threatenings. And they saw
cause to apprehend that ill-tempered men in that kingdom would use this as a handle to
divert that nation, which was already much soured, from hearkening to any motion that
might tend to promote the union or the declaring the succession. It was given out by these,

7C6 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
that this was an indignity done their kingdom, and that they ought not so much as to treat
with a nation that threatened them in such a manner. The marquis of Tweedale excused
himself from serving longer : so the duke of Argyle, whose father was lately dead, was
named to be sent down commissioner, to hold a parliament in Scotbnd. He was then very
young, and was verv brave.
This being dispatched easier than was expected, the parliament went on to other business.
Complaints of an ill manacement, both at the board of the prince's council and at sea, rose
very high. This house of commons, during the whole continuance of the parliament, never
appointed a committee to look into those matters which had been formerly a main part of
their care. They saw thincs were ill conducted, but the chief managers of sea affairs were
men of their party, and that atoned for all faults, and made them unwilling to find them
out, or to censure them. The truth was, the prince was prevailed on to continue still in the
admiralty, by those who sheltered themselves under his name : though this brought a great
load on the government. The lords went on as they had done the former session, examining
into all compbints. They named two committees, the one to examine the books of the
admiralty, the other to consider the proceedings at sea. No progress was made in the first
of these ; for though there was a great deal suggested in private, yet, since this seemed to
be complaining of the prince, none would appear directly against him ; but the other afforded
matter enough both for enquiry and censure : the most important, and that which had the
worst consequences, was, that though there were twenty-two ships appointed for cruising,
yet they had followed that service so remissly, and the orders sent them were so languid
and so little urgent, that three diligent cruising ships could have performed all the services
done by that numerous fleet. This was made out in a scheme, in which all the days of
their being out at sea were reckoned up, wliich did not exceed what three cruisers might
have performed. It did not appear whether this was only the effect of sloth or ignorance,
or if there lay any designed treachery at bottom. It seemed very plain that there was
treachery somewhere, at least among the under-officers ; for, a French privateer being taken,
they found among his papers instructions sent him by his owners, in which he was directed
to lie in some stations, and to avoid others : and it happened that this agreed so exactly
with the orders sent from the admiralty, that it seemed that could not be by chance, but
that the directions were sent upon sight of the orders. The queen began this winter to come
to the house of lords upon great occasions to hear their debates, which, as it was of good
use for her better information, so it was very serviceable in bringing the house into better
order. The first time she came was when the debate was taken up concerning the Scotch
act. She knew the lord treasurer was aimed at by it, and she diverted the storm by her
endeavours, as well as she restrained it by her presence.
She came likewise thither to hear the debates topon the bill against occasional conformity,
wliich was sent up by the commons ; if it had not been for the queen's being present, there
would have been no long debate on that head, for it was scarcely possible to say much that
had not been formerly said : but to give the queen full information, since it was supposed
that she had heard that matter only on one side, it was resolved to open the whole matter
in her hearing : the topics most insisted on were, the quiet that we enjoyed by the toleration,
on which head the severities of former reigns were laid open, both in their injustice, cruelty,
and their being managed only to advance popery, and other bad designs ; the peaceable
behaviour of the dissenters, and the zeal they expressed for the queen, and her government,
was also copiously set forth ; while others showed a malignity to it. That which was chiefly
urged was, that every new law made in the matter, altered the state of things from what it
was when the act for toleration first passed ; this gave the dissenters an alarm, they might
from thence justly conclude, that one step would be made after another, until the whole
effect of that act should be overturned. It did not appear from the behaviour of any among
them, that they were not contented with the toleration they enjoyed, or that they were
carrying on designs against the church ; in that case it might be reasonable to look for a
farther security, but nothing tending that way was so much as pretended ; all went on
jealousies and fears, the common topics of sedition. On the other hand, to support the bill,
old stories were brought up to show how restless and unquiet that sort of men had been in

Engraved "by S.-Ereeman.

JOHN CAMPBELL, DUKE OF ARGYLL X- GREE1NWICH.

OB.17'13.

FROM THE OHIG-mAL OF KtTELI.EE. . LN" THE COLLECTION OF
THE HOHni-,! GEORGE AGAR ELLIS.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 767
former times. When it came to the question, whether the bill should be read a second time,
or not, it went for the negative by a majority of twenty lords.
Another debate, that brought the queen to the house, was concerning Watson, late lord
bishop of St. David's : his business had been kept long on foot in the courts below by all the
methods of delay that lawyers could invent ; after five years' pleading, tho concluding judg
ment was given in the exchequer, that he had no right to the temporalities of that bishopric ;
and that being affirmed in the exchequer-chamber, it was now by a writ of error, brought
before the lords, in the last resort ; but as the house seemed now to be set, he had no mind
to let it go to a final decision ; so he delayed the assigning the errors of the judgment until
the days were lapsed in which, according to a standing order, errors ought to be assigned
upon a writ of error ; in default of which the record was to be sent back. He suffered the
time to lapse, though particular notice was ordered to be given him, on the last day in which,
according to the standing order, he might have assigned his errors ; and the house sat that
day some hours on purpose waiting for it. Some weeks after that, when the session was so
near an end that he thought his cause could not be heard during the session, and so must in
course have been put off to another session, he petitioned for leave to assign his errors ; this
was one of the most solemn orders that related to the judicature of the lords, and had been
the most constantly stood to : it was not therefore thought reasonable to break through it,
in favour of so bad a man, of whom they were all ashamed, if parties could have any shame ;
he had affected, in every step he had made, to seek out all possible delays for keeping the see
still void, which by reason of a bad bishop and a long vacancy, was fallen into great dis
order ; yet after all this, he had still by law the benefit of a writ of error, which he might
bring in any subsequent session of parliament.
Upon this the queen resolved to fill that see; and she promoted to it the celebrated
Dr. Bull, who had written the most learned treatise that this age had produced, of the
doctrine of the primitive church concerning the Trinity ; this had been so well received all
Europe over, that in an assembly general of the clergy of France, the bishop of Meaux was
desired to write over to a correspondent he had in London, that they had such a sense of the
service he had done their common faith, that upon it they sent him their particular thanks ;
I read the letter, and so I can deliver it for a certain truth, how uncommon soever it may
seem to be *. The queen had a little before this promoted Dr. Beveridge to the see of
St. Asaph, who had showed himself very learned in ecclesiastical knowledge. They were
both pious and devout men, but were now declining ; both of them being old, and not likely
to hold out long t. Soon after this the see of Lincoln became vacant by that bishop's death :
Dr. Wake was after some time promoted to it : a man eminently learned, an excellent writer,
a good preacher, and, wliich is above all, a man of an exemplary life |.
* In the church of Brecknock is this inscription: and firmness. He was always ready to maintain the chai-ac-
" Here lieth the right reverend father in God, Dr. George ter of our church; supported the union with Scotland,
Bull, late bishop of this diocese ; who was excellently and every liberal measure that was proposed. He had one
learned, pious, and charitable; and who departed this life maxim to guide him as a statesman, worthy of his inte-
February the 17th, 1705, aged seventy-five." Dr. Bull, grity — " I am apt to think," he said, " that justice is a
boru at Wells, in Somersetshire, losing his parents whilst better rule than convenience." — Nelson's Life of Dr.
a child, devolved to the care of a sister much his senior. Bull, prefixed to his works; Wood's Athenae Oxiju. ;
Submitting to the drudgery of instructing infancy, and Biog. Britannica; Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
nobly resolving to fulfil the duty devolved upon her, she + Dr. William Beveridge, who has been styled " the
fully supplied the place of a mother to the orphan boy. great reviver and restorer of primitive piety," was born
Her guardianship did not cease with infancy, for whsr. at at Barrow, in Leicestershire, in 1638. His learning was
Exeter college, Oxford, and afterwards, he was guilty of made publicly known at an early period of his life, and
several indiscretions, she lured him back to virtue and continued, as well as his Christian practice, to characterize
learning, gardens of pure delight, whose produce is thorn- him throughout his career. He died bishop of St. Asaph,
less. From these he never strayed again. That Dr. Bull in 1708, and one of his episcopal brethren remarked as
was a good man, we have the testimony that the excellent Beveridge's eyes were closing — " There goes one of the
Mr. Nelson was his friend and biographer. Of his cccle- greatest, and one of the best men that ever England
siastical learning, wo have the testimony of the foreign bred." — Biog. Britannica ; Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
divines, mentioned in the text. The work there alluded J Dr. William Wake was descended from one of the most
to was his " Doctrine of the Primitive Chnrch concern- ancient families of our gentry ; a family distinguished for
ing the Trinity." " Few have exceeded Dr. Bull in the its courage and loyalty. His father, with boyish heroism,
performance of the duties of his profession, from the plain suffered the punishment that ought to have been inflicted
parish priest to the prelate." In his place as a peer of upon his friend Nicholls, and this in after-life was more
parliament he conducted himself with becoming calmness than repaid. Nicholls had risen to a judgeship, in the

768 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
A design was formed in this session of parliament, but there was not strength enough to
carry it on at this time, the earl of Rochester gave a hint of it in the house of lords, by say
ing that he had a motion of great consequence to the security of the nation, wliich he would
not make at this time, but would do it when next they should meet together. He said no
more to the house, but in private discourse he owned it was for bringing over the electoress
of Hanover to live in England ; upon this I will digress a little, to open the design and the
views, which he, and some others, might have in this motion.
It seemed not natural to believe that a party, which had been all along backward at best,
and cold in every step that was made in settling the succession in that family, should become
all on the sudden such converts as to be zealous for it ; so it was not an unreasonable jealousy
to suspect that somewhat lay hid under it : it was thought that they either knew, or did
apprehend, that this would not be acceptable to the queen ; and they, being highly dis
pleased with the measures she took, went into this design both to vex her, and in hopes that
a faction might arise out of it, which might breed a distraction in our councils, and some of
them might hope thereby to revive the prince of Wales's pretensions. They reckoned such
a motion would be popular ; and if either the court or the whigs, on whom the court was
now beginning to look more favourably, should oppose it, this would cast a load on them as
men, who after all the zeal they had expressed for that succession, did now, upon the hopes
of favour at court, throw it up ; and those who had been hitherto considered as the enemies
of that house, might hope by this motion to overcome all the prejudices that the nation had
taken up against them ; and they might create a merit to themselves in the minds of that
family, by this early zeal, which they resolved now to express for it.
This was set on foot among all the party ; but the more sincere among them could not
be prevailed on to act so false a part, though they were told this was the likeliest way to
advance the pretended prince of Wales's interests.
I now come to give an account of the last business of this session, with which the parlia
ment ended : it was formerly told what proceedings had been at law upon the election at
Aylesbury ; the judgment that the lords gave in that matter was executed, and upon that
five others of the inhabitants brought their actions against the constables upon the same
grounds. The house of commons looked on this as a great contempt of their votes, and they
voted this a breach of privilege, to which they added a new, and until then unheard-of
crime, that it was contrary to the declaration that they had made ; upon that they sent their
messenger for these five men, and committed them to Newgate, where they lay three months
prisoners : they were all the while well supplied, and much visited ; so they lay without
making any application to the house of commons : it was not thought advisable to move in
such a matter until all the money-bills were passed ; then motions were made in the interval
between the terms, upon the statute for a habeas corpus ; but the statute relating only to
commitments by the royal authority, this did not lie within it.
When the term came, a motion was made in the queen's bench upon the common-law, in
behalf of the prisoners for a habeas corpus ; the lawyers who moved it produced the commit
ment, in which their offence was set forth, that they had claimed the benefit of the law in
opposition to a vote of the house of commons to the contrary ; they said the subjects were
governed by the laws, which they might, and were bound to know, and not by the votes of
a house of parliament, which they were neither bound to know, nor to obey ; three of the
judges were of opinion, that the court could take no cognizance of that matter; the chief
justice was of another mind ; he thought a general warrant of commitment for breach of
privilege was of the nature of an execution ; and since the ground of the commitment was
specified in the warrant, he thought it plainly appeared that the prisoners had been guilty
time of the protectorate, and Mr. Wake was tried before many effective passes of the pen at Bossuet, Atterbury,
him and condemned for disaffection to the existing govern- and others. One of his most admirable, though misre-
ment, but the judge did not rest until he obtained the presented efforts, was the union of the Gallican and
prisoner's pardon from Cromwell. This is told in the English churches. He died in 1737, archbishop of
383rd number of the Spectator ; but the names, there Canterbury, to which metropolitical see he had been
omitted, are mentioned by Dr. Grey, in his edition of advanced in 1715. — Biog. Britannica; Noble's Contin.
Hudibras. Dr. Wake was a native of Blandford, and horn of Grainger.
in 1657. He was a talented controversialist, and made

OF QUEEN ANNE. 709
of no legal offence, and that therefore they ought to be discharged ; he was but one against
three, so the prisoners were remanded.
Upon that they moved for a writ of error, to bring the matter before the lords ; that was
only to be come at by petitioning the queen to order it : the commons were alarmed at this,
and made an address to the queen, setting forth, that they had passed all the money-bills,
therefore they hoped her majesty would not grant this. Ten judges agreed, that in civil
matters a petition for a writ of error was a petition of right, and. not of grace ; two of them
only were of another mind ; it was therefore thought a very strange thing which might have
most pernicious consequences, for a house of commons to desire the queen not to grant a
petition of right, which was plainly a breach of law and of her coronation oath ; they also
took on them to affirm, that the writ did not lie ; though that was clearly the work of the
judicature to declare, whether it lay or not, and that was unquestionably the right of the
lords ; they only could determine that ; the supplying the public occasions was a strange
consideration to be offered the queen, as an argument to persuade her to act against law ; as
if they had pretended that they had bribed her to infringe the law, and to deny justice ;
money given for public service was given to the country, and to themselves, as properly as
to the queen.
The queen answered their address, and in it said, that the stopping proceedings at law,
was a matter of such consequence, that she must consider well of it ; this was thought so
cold, that they returned her no thanks for it ; though a well-composed house of commons
would certainly have thanked her for that tender regard to law and justice. The house of
commons carried their anger farther ; they ordered the prisoners to be taken out of New
gate, and to be kept by their Serjeant ; they also ordered the lawyers and the solicitors to
be taken into custody, for appearing in behalf of the prisoners ; these were such strange and
unheard-of proceedings, that by them the minds of all people were much alienated from the
house of commons. But the prisoners were under such management, and so well sup
ported, that they would not submit nor ask pardon of the houso ; it was generally believed,
that they were supplied and managed by the lord Wharton ; they petitioned the house of
lords for relief ; and the lords resolved to proceed in the matter by sure and regular steps ;
they first came to some general resolutions, that neither house of parliament could assume
or create any new privilege that they had not been formerly possessed of; that subjects
claiming their rights in a course of law, against those who had no privilege, could not be a
breach of privilege of either house ; that the imprisoning the men of Aylesbury for acting
contrary to a declaration made by the house of commons, was against law ; that the com
mitting their friends and their counsel for assisting them, in order to the procuring their
liberty in a legal way, was contrary to law ; and that the writ of error could not be denied
without breaking the magna charta and the laws of England. These resolutions were com
municated to the house of commons at a conference.
They made a long answer to them : in it they set forth, that the right of determining elec
tions was lodged only with them, and that therefore they only could judge who had a right
to elect ; they only were the judges of their own privileges, the lords could not intermeddle
in it ; they quoted very copiously the proceedings in the year 1675, upon an appeal brought
against a member of their house ; they said their prisoners ought only to apply themselves
to them for their liberty ; and that no motion had ever been made for a writ of error in such
a case. Upon this second conference according to form, the matter was brought to a free
conference, where the point was fully argued on both sides ; the city and the body of the
nation were on the lords' side in the matter. Upon this the lords drew up a full representa
tion of the whole thing, and laid it before the queen, with an earnest prayer to her majesty,-
to give order for the writ of error ; this was thought so well drawn, that some preferred it to
those of the former sessions ; it contained a long and clear deduction of the whole affair, with
grsat decency of style, but with many heavy reflections on the house of commons.
By this time the whole business of the session was brought to a conclusion ; for the lords,
who had the money-bills, would not pass them, until this was ended : they carried their
representation to the queen, who in answer to it told them, that she would have granted the
writ of error, but she saw it was necessary to put a present conclusion to the session. This
3 D

770 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
being reported to the house, was looked on by them as a clear decision- in their favour ; there
fore they ordered their humble thanks to be immediately returned to her majesty for it : an
hour after that the queen came to the house of lords, and passed all the bills, and ended the
session with a speech full of thanks for the supplies so readily granted ; she took notice with
regret of the effects of the ill humour and animosity that had appeared ; and spoke of the
narrow escape we had made, which she hoped would teach all persons to avoid such danger
ous experiments for the future ; this was universally understood to be meant of the tack, as
indeed it could be meant of nothing else.
Thus this session, and with it this parliament came to an end ; it was no small blessing to
the queen, and to the nation, that they got well out of such hands ; they had discovered, on
many occasions, and very manifestly, what lay at bottom with most of them ; but they had
not skill enough to know how to manage their advantages, and to make use of their numbers ;
the constant successes with which God had blessed the queen's reign, put it out of their
power to compass that which was aimed at by them ; the forcing a peace, and of conse
quence the delivering all up to France. Sir Christopher Musgrave, the wisest man of the
party, died before the last session ; and by their conduct after his death, it appeared, that
they wanted his direction ; he had been at the head of the opposition that was made in the
last reign from the beginning to the end : but he gave up many points of great importance
in the critical minute, for which I had good reason to believe, that he had twelve thousand
pounds from the late king, at different times : at his death it appeared, that he was much
richer than by any visible computation he could be valued at ; which made some cast an
imputation on his memory, as if he had received great sums even from France *.
I shall conclude the relation of this parliament with an account of some things that were
begun, but not perfected by them ; there was a bill offered for the naturalization of some
hundreds of Frenchmen, to which the commons added a clause, disabling the persons so
naturalized from voting in elections of parliament ; the true reason of this was, because it
was observed that the French among us gave in all elections their votes for those who were
most zealous against France ; and yet, with an apparent disingenuity, some gave it as a
reason for such a clause, that they must be supposed so partial to the interests of their own
country, that it was not fit to give them any share in our government. The lords looked on
this as a new attempt, and the clause added was a plain contradiction to the body of the bill,
which gave them all the rights of natural-born subjects ; and this took from them the chief
of them all, the choosing their representatives in parliament ; they would not agree to it, and
the commons resolved not to depart from it ; so without coming to a free conference, the bill
fell with the session.
Another bill was begun by the lords against the papists : it was occasioned by several
complaints brought from many parts of the kingdom, chiefly from Cheshire, of the practices
and insolence of those of that religion : so a bill was ordered to be brought in, with clauses
in it, that would have made the act, passed against them four years before, prove effectual,
which for want of these has hitherto been of no effect at all ; this passed in the house of lords,
and was sent to the commons. They had no mind to pass it ; but to avoid the ill effects of
their refusing such a bill, they added a clause to it, containing severe penalties on papists
who should once take the oaths, and come into the communion of our church, if they should
be guilty of any occasional conformity with popery afterwards : they fancied that this of
occasional conformity was so odious to the lords, that every clause that condemned it would
bo rejected by them ; but when they came to understand that the lords were resolved to
agree to the clause, they would not put it to that hazard ; so the bill lay on their table, and
slept until the prorogation.
A general self-denying bill was offered in the house of commons by those very men, who
* Sir Christopher Musgrave, of Hartley, in Wftst- Carlisle, and lieutenant-general of the ordnance. In the
moreland, was, whilst a young man, very active in the first year of Anne, he had the office of one of the four
cause of tlie Stuarts. For this he was imprisoned and tellers of the exchequer. " He alwavs demonstrated
otherwise suffered during the protectorate, having engaged himself a loyal subject, an able statesman, and singular
in Sir George Booth's attempt to restore the ex-king, patriot to his country." Ho died in June, 1704, an* was
After the restoration he obtained the appointment of a buried in a chapel of the Minories in London  Collins'i
captain of the guard, was knighted, made governor of Baronetage.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 771
m the first session of parliament, when they hoped for places themselves, had opposed the
motion of such a bill with great indignation ; now the scene was a little altered, they saw
they were not likely to be favourites, so they pretended to be patriots. This looked so
strangely in them, that it was rejected ; but another bill of a more restrained nature passed,
disabling some officers, particularly those that were concerned in the prize-office, from serving
in parliament ; to this a general clause was added, that disabled all who held any office that
had been created since the year 1684, or any office that should be created for the future,
from sitting in parliament ; this passed among them, and was sent to the lords ; who did
no think fit to agree to so general a clause, but consented to a particular disability, put on
some offices by name : the commons did not agree to this alteration, they would have all, or
nothing, so the bill fell.
The conclusion of the parliament set the whole nation in a general ferment ; both sides
studied how to dispose people's minds in the new elections, with great industry and zeal : all
people looked on the affairs of France as reduced to such a state, that the war could not run
beyond the period of the next parliament; a well-chosen one must prove a public blessing,
not only to England, but to all Europe ; as a bad one would be fatal to us at home, as well
as to our allies abroad : the affairs of France were run very low ; all methods of raising
money were now exhausted, and could afford no great supplies ; so, in imitation of our
exchequer-bills, they began to give out mint-bills ; but they could not create that confidence
which is justly put in parliamentary credit. The French had hopes from their party here in
England, and there was a disjointing in the several provinces of the United Netherlands ;
but as long as we were firm and united, we had a great influence on the States, at least to
keep things entire during the war; so it was visible that a good election in England,
must give such a prospect for three years as would have a great influence on all the affairs
of Europe.
I must, before I end the relation of the parliament, say somewhat of the convocation that
attended upon it, though it was then so little considered, that scarcely any notice was taken
of them, and they deserved that no mention should be made of them. The lower house con
tinued to proceed with much indecent violence : they still held their intermediate sessions,
and brought up injurious and reflecting addresses to the upper house, which gave a very
large exercise to the patience, and forbearance, of the archbishop and bishops : the arch
bishop, after he had borne long with their perverseness, and saw no good effect of it, pro
ceeded to an ecclesiastical monition against their intermediate meetings ; this put a stop to
that, for they would not venture on the censures that must in course follow, if no regard was
had to the monition. At the final prorogation, the archbishop dismissed them with a wise,
well-composed speech ; he laid open to them their indecent behaviour, and the many wrong
steps they had made ; to this he added a severe, but grave reprimand, with much good
advice. The governing men among them were headstrong and factious, and designed to
force themselves into preferments, by the noise they made, and by the ill humour that they
endeavoured to spread among the clergy, who were generally soured, even with relation to
the queen herself, beyond what could be imagined possible.
Now having given a full relation of our counsels and other affairs at home, I shall next
consider the progress of those abroad. The first operation of the campaign was before
Gibraltar : Leak was sailing from Lisbon thither, and as he went out he met Dilks, who
was sent from England to increase his force ; by this addition he had a strong fleet of thirty
men of war, so he held on his course with all expedition, hoping to find Pointy in the bay
of Gibraltar ; but a great storm had blown all, but five ships, up the Mediterranean. Pointy
remained only with these, when he was surprised by Leak, who did quickly overpower him,
and took three capital ships ; the other two, that were the greatest of them, were run ashore,
and burnt near Marbella. Leak sailed to the Levant, to see if he could overtake those ships,
that the wind had driven from the rest ; but after a fruitless pursuit for some days, he
returned back to Gibraltar : that garrison was now so well supplied, that the Spaniards lost
all hopes of being able to take it ; so they raised the siege, turning it into a very feeble
blockade. This advantage came at the same time that Verue was lost, to balance it.
Now the campaign was to be opened, the duke of Marlborough designed that the Moselle
3 d 2

772 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
should be the scene of action, and care had been taken to lay up magazines of all sorts in
Triers : the States consented that he should carry the greatest part of their army to the
Moselle, and resolved to lie on the defensive upon their own frontiers ; for they reckoned
that how strong soever the elector of Bavaria's anny was at that time, yet whensoever
France should be pressed, with so great a force as they reckoned would be on the Moselle,
he would be ordered to send such detachments thither, that his army would be quickly dimi
nished, and so would not have the superior strength long. Prince Lewis of Baden seemed
to like this scheme of the campaign so well, and had concurred so cordially in the concert of
it. during the winter, that no doubt was made of his being both able and willing to enter
upon this new scene of the war : but as the duke of Marlborough was setting out, depending
on his concurrence, he received an express from him, excusing himself both on his own want
of health, and because the force he had about him was not considerable, nor was that which
he expected likely to come to him so soon as might be wished for. This could not stop the
duke of Marlborough, who had set his heart on opening the campaign in those parts, and
had great hopes of success ; so he resolved to push the matter as far as he could. He went
to the prince of Baden to concert matters with him, whose ill health seemed only to be a
pretence : it was true that the princes, and circles, of the empire had not sent in their quotas,
but it appeared that there was already strength enough, in conjunction with the army, that
the duke of Marlborough was to bring, to advance, and open the campaign with great advan
tage, at least until detachments should come from other parts : the prince of Baden at last
consented to this, and promised to follow with all the forces he could bring.
The duke of Marlborough was so satisfied with these assurances, that he came back to his
army, and quickened their march, so that he brought them to Triers ; ajnd he advanced eight
leagues further, through so many defiles, that the French might easily have made his march
both dangerous and difficult. He posted himself very near mareschal Villars's camp, not
doubting but that the prince of Baden would quickly follow him ; instead of that, he
repeated his former excuse of want of health and force. That which gave the worst sus
picions of him was, that it appeared plainly that the French knew what he intended to do,
and their management showed they depended on it ; for they ordered no detachments to
increase M. Villars's army; on the contrary, the elector of Bavaria, having the superior
force, pressed the States en their frontier. Huy was besieged and taken, after it had beyond
all expectation held out ten days : Liege was attacked next ; the town was taken, but the
citadel held out. Upon this, the States sent to the duke of Marlborough to march back with
all possible haste ; he had then eat up the forage round about him, and was out of all hope
of the prince of Baden's coming to join him ; so he saw the necessity of marching back, after
he had lost some weeks in a fruitless attempt : he made such haste in his march, that he lost
many of his men in the way, by fatigue, and desertion ; the French gave him no trouble,
neither while he lay so near their camp, nor when he drew off, to inarch away with so much
haste. To complete the ill conduct of the Germans, those who were left with the magazines
at Triers, pretending danger, destroyed them all, and abandoning Triers, retired back to the
Rhine. The prince of Baden's conduct through this whole matter was liable to great censure ; the
worst suspicion was, that he was corrupted by the French. Those who did not carry their
censure so far, attributed his acting as he did to his pride, and thought he, envying the duke
of Marlborough, and apprehending that the whole glory of the campaign would be ascribed to
him, since he had the stronger army, chose rather to defeat the whole design, than see another
carry away the chief honour of any successes that might have happened. The duke of
Marlborough came back in good time to raise the siege of the citadel of Liege ; and he
retook Huy in three days : after that, in conjunction with the Dutch army, he advanced
towards the French lines ; he for some days amused them with feints ; at last he made
the attack, where he had designed it, and broke through the lines, and gave a great defeat
to the body of the French that defended them, with the loss only of seven men on his side ;
and so without more opposition he came very near Louvain, the Dyle running between his
camp and the town ; a deluge of rain fell that night, and swelled the Dyle so, that it was
not possible to pass it. This gave the French time to recover themselves out of the first con-

OF QUEEN ANNE. 773
sternation, that the advantages he had gained put them in : after a few days, when the
passing the Dyle was practicable, the duke of Marlborough gave orders for it ; but the
French were posted with so much advantage on the other side, that the Dutch generals
persuaded the deputies of the States, that they must run a great risk, if they should venture
to force the passage. The duke of Marlborough was not a little mortified with this, but he
bore it calmly, and moved another way. After some few motions, another occasion was-
offered, which he intended to lay hold on : orders were given to force the passage ; but a
motion through a wood, that was thought necessary to support that, was not believed prac
ticable ; so the deputies of the States were again possessed with the danger of the attempt :
and they thought their affairs were in so good a condition, that such a desperate undertaking
as that seemed to be, was not to be ventured on.
This was very uneasy to the duke, but he was forced to submit to it, though very unwil
lingly : all agreed that the enterprise was bold and doubtful ; some thought it must have
succeeded, though with some loss at first ; and that if it had succeeded, it might have proved
a decisive action ; others indeed looked on it as too desperate. A great breach was likely
to arise upon this, both in the army, and among the States at the Hague, and in the towns
of Holland, in Amsterdam in particular ; where the burghers came in a body to the Stadt-
house, complaining of the deputies, and that the duke of Marlborough had not fuller
powers. I can give no judgment in so nice a point, in which military men were of very different
opinions, some justifying ths duke of Marlborough as much as others censured him : he
showed great temper on this occasion, and though it gave him a very sensible trouble, yet
fie set himself to calm all the heat that was raised upon it. The campaign in Flanders pro
duced nothing after this but fruitless marches, while our troops were subsisted in the enemy's
country until the time came of going into winter quarters. Prince Lewis's backwardness,
and the caution of the deputies of the States, made this campaign less glorious than was
expected ; for I never knew the duke of Marlborough go out so full of hopes as in the begin
ning of it ; but things had not answered his expectation.
This summer the emperor Leopold died : he was the most knowing, and the most virtuous,
prince of his communion : only he wanted the judgment that was necessary for conducting
great affairs in such critical times : he was almost always betrayed, and yet he was so finn
to those who had the address to insinuate themselves into his good opinion and confidence,
that it was not possible to let him see those miscarriages that ruined his affairs so often, and
brought them sometimes near the last extremities : of these every body else seemed more sen
sible than he himself. He was devout and strict in his religion, and was so implicit in his
submission to those priests, who had credit with him, the Jesuits in particular, that he owed
all his troubles to their counsels. The persecution they began in Hungary raised one great
war, which gave the Turks occasion to besiege Vienna, by which he was almost entirely
swallowed up ; this danger did not produce more caution ; after the peace of Carlowitz.
there was so much violence and oppression in the government of Hungary, both of papists
and protestants, that this raised a second war there, which, in conjunction with the revolt
of the elector of Bavaria, brought him a second time very near utter ruin : yet he could
never be prevailed on, either to punish, or so much as to suspect those who had so fatally
entangled his affairs : that without foreign aid nothing could have extricated them. He
was naturally merciful to a fault, for even the punishment of criminals was uneasy to him :
yet all the cruelty in the persecution of heretics seemed to raise no relenting in him. It
could not but be observed by all protestants, how much the ill influence of the popish religion
appeared in him, who was one of the mildest and most virtuous princes of the age, since
cruelty in the matters of religion had a full course under him, though it was as contrary to
his natural temper as it was to his interests, and proved oftener than once almost fatal to all
his affairs. His son Joseph, elected king of the Romans, succeeded him both in his here
ditary and elective dignities : it was given out, that he would apply himself much to business,
and would avoid tho^e rocks on which his father had struck, and almost split ; and correct
those errors to which his father's easiness had exposed him : he promised to those ministers,
that the queen and the States had in his court, that he would offer all reasonable terms to

774 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the Hungarians : and he consented to their setting a treaty on foot, in which they were to
be the mediators, and become the guarantees for the observance of such articles as should be
agreed on ; and he gave great hopes that he would not continue in that subjection to the
priests, with which his father had been captivated.
He desired to confer with the duke of Marlborough, and to concert all affairs with him :
the queen consented to this, and the duke went to Vienna, where he was treated with great
freedom and confidence, and he had all assurances given him that could be given in words ;
he found that the emperor was highly dissatisfied with the prince of Baden, but he had such
credit in the empire, especially with the circles of Suabia and Franconia, that it was neces
sary to bear with that, which could not be helped. The duke of Marlborough returned
through the hereditary dominions to Berlin, where he had learned so perfectly to accommo
date himself to that king's temper, that he succeeded in every thing he proposed, and
renewed all treaties for one year longer. He came from thence to the court of Hanover, and
there he gave them full assurances of the queen's adhering firmly to their interests, in main
taining the succession to the crown in their family, with which the elector was fully satis-.
fied ; but it appeared that the electoress had a mind to be invited over to England. From
thence he came back to Holland, and it was near the end of the year before he came over to
England. Thus I have cast all that relates to him, in one continued series, though it ran
out into a course of many months.
Tlie German army was not brought together before August ; it was a very brave one, yet
it did not much : the French gave way, and retired before them : Haguenau and some other
places were left by the French, and possessed by the imperialists : a blockade was laid to
Fort Lewis ; but nothing was done by that noble army, equal either to their numbers and
strength, or to the reputation that the prince of Baden had formerly acquired. This was
contrary to the general expectation : for it was thought, that being at the head of so great
an army, he would have studied to have signalized himself, if it had been but to rival the
glory that the duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene had acquired.
Prince Eugene had a hard time in Italy ; he had a weak army, and it was both ill-pro
vided and ill-paid ; he was long shut up within the country of Bergamo ; at last he broke
through to Cusano, where there was a very hot action between him and the duke of Ven
dome ; both sides pretended they had the victory ; yet the duke of Vendome repassed the
river, and the imperialists kept the field of battle. The French threatened Turin with a
siege, but they began with Chivas, which held out some months, and was at last abandoned ;
the duke of Feuillade commanded the army near Turin, and seemed to dispose every thing
in order to a siege ; but the design was turned upon Nice, though late in the year : they
made a brave resistance for many weeks ; in December they were forced to capitulate, and
the place was demolished by the French.
The firmness that the duke of Savoy expressed under all these losses, was the wonder of
all Europe ; he had now but a small army of eight thousand foot and four thousand horse,
and had scarcely territory enough to support these ; he had uo considerable places left him
but Turin and Coni ; but he seemed resolved to be driven out of all rather than abandon the
alliance. His duchess, with all the clergy, and indeed all his subjects, prayed him to sub
mit to the necessity of his affairs ; nothing could shake him ; he admitted none of his
bishops nor clergy into his councils, and as his envoy, the count Briangon, told me, he had
no certain father confessor, but sent sometimes to the Dominicans, and sometimes to the
Franciscans for a priest, when he intended to go to confession.
I turn next to Spain, which was this year a scene of most important transactions : the first
campaign in Portugal, before the hot season, produced nothing : the second campaign seemed
to promise somewhat, but the conduct was so feeble, that though the earl of Galway did all
that was possible to put things in a good posture, yet he saw a disposition in the ministers,
and in their whole management, that made him often despair, and wish himself out of the
service. Fagel, that commanded the Dutch forces, acted in every thing in opposition to
him, and it was visible that the ministers did secretly encourage that by which they excused
themselves. King Charles was so disgusted with these proceedings, that he was become quite weary

OF QUEEN ANNE. 775
of staying in Portugal ; so when the fleet of the allies came to Lisbon with an arniy on
board, of above five thousand men, commanded by the earl of Peterborough, he resolved to
go aboard, and to try his fortune with them. The almirante of Castile died about that time ;
some thought that was a great loss, though others did not set so high a value upon him, nor on
any of the intrigues that were among the grandees at Madrid ; they were indeed offended with
several small matters in king Philip's conduct, and with the ascendant that the French had
in all their councils ; for they saw every thing was directed by orders sent from Versailles,
and that their king was really but a viceroy : they were also highly provoked at some inno«
vations made in the ceremonial, which they valued above more important matters : many
seemed disgusted at that conduct, and withdrew from the court. The marquis of Leganes
was considered as most active in infusing jealousies and a dislike of the government into the
other grandees, so he was seized on, and sent prisoner to Navarre ; the grandees, in all their
conduct, showed more of a haughty sullenness in maintaining their own privileges, than of a
generous resolution to free their country from the slavery under which it was fallen ; they
seemed neither to have heads capable of laying any solid designs for shaking off the yoke,
nor hearts brave enough to undertake it.
Our fleet sailed from Lisbon with king Charles ; they stopped at Gibraltar, and carried
along with them the prince of Hesse, who had been so long governor of Barcelona, that he
knew both the tempers, and the strength, and importance of the place. The first design of
this expedition was concerted with the duke of Savoy ; and the forces they had on board
were either to join him, or to make an attempt on Naples or Sicily, as should be found most
advisable r there were agents employed in different parts of Spain to give an account of the
disposition people were in, and of what seemed most practicable. A body of men rose in
Catalonia about Vick ; upon the knowledge king Charles had of this, and upon other adver-s
tisements that were sent to our court, of the dispositions of those of that principality, the
orders which king Charles desired were sent : and brought by a runner, that was dispatched
from the queen to the fleet ; so the fleet steered to the coast of Catalonia, to try what could
be done there. The earl of Peterborough, who had set his heart on Italy and on prince
Eugene, was not a little displeased with this, as appeared in a long letter from him, which
the lord treasurer shewed me.
They landed not far from Barcelona, and were joined with many Miquelets and others of
the country ; these were good at plundering, but could not submit to a regular discipline,
nor were they willing to expose themselves to dangerous services. Barcelona had a garrison
of five thousand men in it ; these were commanded by officers who were entirely in the
interests of king Philip ; it seemed a very unreasonable thing to undertake, the siege of such
a place, with so small a force ; they could not depend on the raw and undisciplined multi?
tudes that came in to join them, who if things succeeded not in their hands, would soon
abandon them, or perhaps study to merit a pardon, by cutting their throats. A council of
war was called, to consult on what could be proposed and done ; Stanhope, who was one of
them, told me, that both English and Dutch were all of opinion, that the siege could not be
undertaken with so small a force ; those within being as strong as they were, nor did they
see any thing else worth the attempting : they therefore thought that no time was to be lost,
but that they were all to go again on board, and to consider what course was next to be
taken, before the season were spent, when the fleet would be obliged to return back again,
and if they could not fix themselves any where before that time, they must sail back with
the fleet. The prince of Hesse only was of opinion, that they ought to sit down before
Barcelona ; he said, he had secret intelligence of the good affections of many in the town,
who were well known to him, and on whom he relied, and he undertook to answer for their
success ; this could not satisfy those who knew nothing of his secrets, and so could only judge
of things by what appeared to them.
The debate lasted some hours ; in conclusion, the king himself spoke near half an hour ;
he resumed the whole debate, he answered all the objections that were made against the siege,
and treated every one of those who had made them, as he answered them, with particular
civilities ; he supported the truth of what the prince of Hesse had asserted, as being known
to himself; he said, in the state in which his affairs then stood, nothing could be proposed

77*5 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
that had not great difficulties in it, all was doubtful, and much must be put to hazard ; but
this seemed less dangerous than any other thing that was proposed : many of his subjects
had come and declared for him, to the hazard of their lives ; it became him therefore to let
them see, that he would run the same hazard with them ; he desired that they would stay
so long with him, until such attempts should be made, that all the world might be convinced
that nothing could be done, and he hoped that till that appeared, they would not leave him ;
he added, that if their orders did oblige them to leave him, yet he could not leave his own
subjects : upon this they resolved to sit down before Barcelona. They were all amazed to
see so young a prince, so little practised in business, argue in so nice a point, with so much
force, and conclude with such heroical resolutions. This proved happy in many respects ; it
came to be known afterwards, that the Catalans and Miquelets, who had joined them, hear
ing that they were resolved to abandon them and go back to their ships, had resolved, either
out of resentment, or that they might merit their pardon, to murder as many of them as
they could. When this small army sat down before Barcelona, they found they were too
weak to besiege it : they could scarcely mount their cannon : when they came to examine
their stores, they found them very defective ; and far short of the quantities that by their
lists they expected to find ; whether this flowed from treachery, or carelessness, I will not
determine ; there is much of both in all our offices. It soon appeared that the intelligence
was true concerning the inclinations of those in the town, their affections were entire for king
Charles ; but they were over-awed by the garrison, and by Velasco, who as well as the duke
of Popoli, who had the chief command, was devoted to the interests of king Philip. Deserters
came daily from the town and brought them intelligence : the most considerable thing was,
that fort Montjuy was very ill guarded, it being thought above their strength to make an
attempt on it ; so it was concluded that all the hopes of reducing Barcelona lay in the success
of their design on that fort. Two bodies were ordered to march secretly that night, and to
move towards the other side of Barcelona, that the true design might not be suspected, for
all the hopes of success lay in the secrecy of the march. The first body consisted of eight
hundred, and both the prince of Hesse and the earl of Peterborough led them : the other
body consisted of six hundred, who were to follow these at some distance, and were not to
come above half way up the hill till further order : Stanhope led this body, from whom I
had this account. They drew up with them some small field-pieces and mortars ; they had
taken a great compass, and had marched all night, and were much fatigued by the time that
they had gained the top of the hill ; three hundred of them, being commanded to another
side of the fort, were separated from the rest, and mistaking their way, fell into the hands of
a body of men, sent up from the town to reinforce the garrison in the fort ; before they were
separated, the whole body had attacked the out-works, and carried them ; but while the
prince of Hesse was leading on his men he received a shot in his body, upon which he fell ;
yet he would not be carried off, but continued too long in the place giving orders, and died
in a few hours, much and justly lamented. The governor of the fort, seeing a small body in
possession of the out- works, resolved to sally out upon them, and drew up four hundred men
in order to it ; these would soon have mastered a small and wearied body, disheartened by
so great a loss ; so that if he had followed his resolution all was lost, for all that Stanhope
could have done, was, to receive, and bring off such as could get to him ; but one of those
newly taken, happening to cry out, " 0 poor prince of Hesse," the governor hearing this,
called for him, and examined him, and when he learned that both the prince of Hesse and
the earl of Peterborough were with that body, he concluded that the whole army was cer
tainly coming up after them ; and reflecting on that, he thought it was not fit for him to
expose his men, since he believed the body they were to attack would be soon much superior
to him ; so he resolved not to risk a sally, but to keep within and maintain the fort against
them. Thus the earl of Peterborough continued quiet in the out- works, and being rein
forced with more men, he attacked the fort, but with no great hopes of succeeding : he threw
a few bombs into it, one of these fell happily into the magazine of powder, and blew it up :
by this the governor and some of the best officers were killed, which struck the rest with
such a consternation, that they delivered up the place. This success gave them great hopes,
the town lying just under the hill, which the fort stood on; upon this the party in Barce-

OF QUEEN ANNE. 777
lona, that was well affected to king Charles, began to take heart, and to show themselves ;
and after a few days' siege, another happy bomb fell with so good an effect, that the garrison
was forced to capitulate. '
King Charles was received into Barcelona with great expressions of joy : in the first trans
port, they seemed resolved to break through the articles granted to the garrison, and to make
sacrifices of the chief officers at least. Upon that the earl of Peterborough, with Stanhope
and other officers, rode about the streets to stop this fury, and to prevail with the people to
maintain their articles religiously ; and in doing this, Stanhope said to me, they ran a greater
hazard, from the shooting and fire that was flying about in that disorder, than they had
during the whole siege : they at last quieted the people, and the articles of capitulation were
punctually observed. Upon this unexpected success, the whole principality of Catalonia
declared for king Charles : I will not prosecute this relation so minutely in other parts
of it, having set down so particularly that which 1 had from so good a hand, chiefly to set
forth the signal steps of Providence that did appear in this matter.
Soon after, our fleet sailed back to England, and Stanhope was sent over in it, to give a
full relation of this great transaction * • by him king Charles wrote to the queen a long and
clear account of all his affairs ; full of great acknowledgments of her assistance, with a high
commendation of all her subjects, more particularly of the earl of Peterborough ; the queen
was pleased to show me the letter : it was all written in his own hand, and the French of it
was so little correct, that it was not like what a secretary would have drawn for him : so
from that I concluded he penned it himself. The lord treasurer had likewise another long
letter from him, which he showed me ; it was all in his own hand ; one correction seemed to
make it evident that he himself composed it. He wrote towards the end of the letter, that
he must depend on his " protection ;" upon reflection, that word seemed not fit for him to
use to a subject, so it was dashed out, but the letters were still plain, and instead of it,
" application" was written over head : these letters gave a great idea of so young and inex
perienced a prince, who was able to write with so much clearness, judgment, and force. By
all that is reported of the prince of Lichtenstein, that king could not receive any great
assistance from him ; he was spoken of as a man of a low genius, who thought of nothing but
the ways of enriching himself, even at the hazard of ruining his master's business.
Our affairs at sea were more prosperous this year than they had been formerly ; in the
beginning of the season our cruisers took so many of the French privateers, that we had
some thousands of their seamen in our hands : we kept such a squadron before Brest, that
the French fleet did not think fit to venture out, and their Toulon squadron had suffered so
much in the action of the former years, that they either could not, or would not venture out ;
by this means our navigation was safe, and our trade was prosperous.
The second campaign in Portugal ended worse than the first : Badajos was besieged, and
the earl of Galway hoped he should have been quickly master of it ; but his hopes were not
well grounded, for the siege was raised : in one action the earl of Galway's arm was broken
by a cannon ball : it was cut off, and for some days his life was in great danger ; the mis
carriage of the design heightening the fever that followed his wound, by the vexation that it
gave him. But now, upon the news from Catalonia, the councils of Portugal were quite
changed ; they had a better prospect than formerly, of the reduction of Spain ; the war was
* James Stanhope, baron and viscount Mahon, and filled, with equal reputation, the offices of first lord of the
earl Stanhope, descended from the earls of Chesterfield, treasury, and chancellor of the exchequer. As a ncgo-
was born in Herefordshire during the year 1673. Whilst ciator he was never surpassed, as was acknowledged at
a youth he resided for several years with his father in Paris, Madrid, the Hague, and Berlin, whither and else-
Spain, and acquired a perfect knowledge of its language, where he went, as ambassador and plenipotentiary. His
It is impossible in the compass of a note to follow him own sovereigns highly esteemed him, and the chief con-
through all his services, for England has given birth to tinental monarchs respected and personally valued him.
few who can compete with him in the successful exercise He died^suddenly. While speaking with great animation
of great and various talents. Entering the army, he in tho house of lords, he was seized witlva giddiness that
became, in 1705, a brigadier-general. His military ser- was tho prelude of death, which supervened the following
vices are associated with the histories of Namur, Cadiz, day, February the 5th, 1721. When George the First
Rodedello, Barcelona, Minorca, and Madrid. In the senate, received this mournful announcement he burst into tears,
whether as a commoner, or peer, he greatly distin- and retired for some hours into his closet. His funeral
guished himself. On the accession of George the First, was accompanied with the greatest honours — British
he was appointed secretary of state; and, in 1710, Peerage ; Noble's Contin. of Grainger.

778 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
now divided, which lay wholly upon them before ; and the French party in that court had
no more the old pretence to excuse their councils by, which was, that it was not fit for
them to engage themselves too deep in that war, nor to provoke the Spaniards too much, and
so expose themselves to revenges, if the allies should despair and grow weary of the war,
and recall their troops and fleets. But now that they saw the war carried on so far, in the
remotest corner of Spain, which must give a great diversion to king Philip's forces, it
seemed a much safer, as well as it was an easier thing to carry on the war, with more
vigour for the future. Upon this, all possible assurances were given the earl of Galway,
that things should be conducted hereafter fully to his content. So that by two of his dis
patches, which the lord treasurer showed me, it appeared that he was then fully convinced
of the sincerity of their intentions, of which he was in great doubt, or rather despairing
formerly. In Hungary matters went on very doubtfully ; Transylvania was almost entirely reduced ;
Ragotzi had great misfortunes there, as the court of Vienna published the progress of the
new emperor's arms, but this was not to be much depended on ; they could not conceal on
the other hand the great ravages that the malcontents made in other places : so that Hungary
continued to be a scene of confusion and plunder.
Poland was no better : king Augustus's party continued firm to him, though his long stay
in Saxony gave credit to a report spread about, that he was resolved to abandon that king
dom, and to return to it no more ; this summer passed over in motions, and actions of no
great consequence ; what was gained in one place was lost in another. Stanislaus got him
self to be crowned : the old cardinal, though summoned to Rome, would not go thither ; he
suffered himself to be forced to own Stanislaus, but died before his coronation, and that cere
mony was performed by the bishop of Cujavia : the Muscovites made as great ravages in
Lithuania, as they had done formerly in Livonia : the king of Sweden was in perpetual
motion ; but though he endeavoured it much, he could not bring things to a decisive
action. In the beginning of winter, king Augustus, with two persons only, broke through
Poland in disguise, and got to the Muscovite army, which was put under his command
The campaign went on all the winter season, which, considering the extreme cold in those
parts, was thought a thing impracticable before. In the spring after, Reinschild, a Swedish
general, fell upon the Saxon army, that was far superior to his in number : he had not above
ten thousand men, and the Saxons were about eighteen thousand : he gave them a total
defeat, killed about seven thousand, and took eight thousand prisoners, and their camp, bag
gage, and artillery : numbers upon such occasions are often swelled, but it is certain this was
an entire victory ; the Swedes gave it out, that they had not lost a thousand men in the
action ; and yet even this great advantage was not likely to put an end to the war, nor to
the distractions into which that miserable kingdom was cast. In it the world saw the mis
chiefs of an elective government, especially when the electors have lost their virtue, and set
themselves to sale. The king of Sweden continued in an obstinate aversion to all terms of
peace ; his temper, his courage, and his military conduct were much commended ; only all
said he grew too savage, and was so positive and peremptory in his resolutions, that no appli
cations could soften him ; he would scarcely admit them to be made ; he was said to be
devout almost to enthusiasm, and he was severely engaged in the Lutheran rigidity, almost
equally against papists and calvinists : only his education was so much neglected, that he
had not an equal measure of knowledge to direct his zeal.
This is such a general view of the state of Europe this summer, as may serve to show how
things went on in every part of it. I now return to England. The election of the mem
bers of the house of commons was managed with zeal and industry on both sides : the clergy
took great pains to infuse into all people, tragical apprehensions of the danger the church was
in : the universities were inflamed with this, and they took all means to sprea-d it over the
nation with much vehemence : the danger the church of England was in, grew to be as the
word given in an army ; men were known as they answered it : none carried this higher
than the jacobites, though they had made a schism in the church : at last, even the papists,
both at home and abroad, seemed to be disturbed, with the fears that the danger our church
was in, put them under ; and this was supported by the Paris Gazette, though the party

OF QUEEN ANNE.

779

seemed concerned and ashamed of that. Books were written and dispersed over the nation
with great industry, to possess all people with the apprehensions that the chnrch was to be
given up, that the bishops were betraying it, and that the court would sell it to the dissenters.
They also hoped that this campaign, proving less prosperous than had been expected, might
put the nation into ill humour, which might furnish them with some advantages. In oppo
sition to all this, the conrt acted with such caution and coldness, that the whigs had very
little strength given them by the ministers, in managing elections : they seemed rather to
look on as indifferent spectators, but the whigs exerted themselves with great activity and
zeal. The dissenters, who had been formerly much divided, were now united, entirely in the
interests of the government, and joined with the whigs every where.
When the elections were all over, the court took more heart ; for it appeared, that they
were sure of a great majority, and the lord Godolphin declared himself more openly than he
had done formerly in favour of the whigs : the first instance given of this, was the dismiss
ing of "Wright, who had continued so long lord-keeper, that he was fallen under a high
degree of contempt with all sides ; even the tories, though he was wholly theirs, despising
him : he was sordidly covetous, and did not at all live suitably to that high post : he became
extremely r:ch, yet I never heard him charged with bribery in his court, but there was a foul
rumour, with relation to the livings of the crown, that were given by the great seal, as if
they were set to sale, by the officers under him.
The seals being sent for, they were given to Cowper, a gentleman of a good family, of
excellent parts, and of an engaging deportment, very eminent in his profession, and who had
for many years been considered as the man who spoke the best of any in the house of com
mons : he was a very acceptable man to the whig party : they had been much disgusted
with the lord treasurer for the coldness he expressed, as if he would have maintained a
neutrality between the two parties ; though the one supported him, while the other designed
to ruin him : but this step went a great way towards the reconciling the whigs to him *.

* "William Cowper, viscount Fordwich, earl Cowper,
was a native of Hertfordshire, and supposed to have been
born at Hertford Castle ; but neither in the registers of its
churches, nor in the church where he was buried, is there
any testimonial of his merits, or a record of his age.
There is in Hertingfordbury church a splendid mausoleum
for the Cowper family, and inscriptions to the memory
of some of its members ; but of lord chancellor Cowper,
the most talented, and most honoured of the race, there
is not a tributary line. He, and bis brother Spencer,
devoted themselves to the law ; the latter was left behind
by his senior in the race for honourable distinction, yet
did not die unpromoted, for at his decease he was a justice
of the common pleas. The future lord chancellor soon
became distinguished for legal acquirements, for not long
after his admission to the bar, he was elected recorder of
Colchester. Our law records show how extensively he
was employed as an advocate, and how much he merited
this success. His superior qualifications and his consistent
conduct as one of the whig party, gained him the seals, as
mentioned above. The duchess of Marlborough claims
credit for his promotion. She says, " I prevailed with
her majesty to take the great seal from sir Nathan Wright,
a man despised by all parties, of no use to the crown, and
whose weak and wretched conduct in the court of chancery
had almost brought the office into contempt. His removal,
.however, was a great loss to the church, for which he had
ever been a warm stickler; and this loss was more sen
sibly felt, as his successor, my lord Cowper, was not only
of the whig party, but of such abilities and integrity, as
brought a new credit to it in the countcy.'' (Account of
theConductoftheDuchessofMarlborough.) Mrs. Masham
having superseded the duchess in the favour of Queen Anne,
by her intrigues, aided by Mr. Harley, and others of the
tory party, the whigs were removed from office, and lord
Cowper, notwithstanding the solicitation of the queen,
refused to retain the chancellorship connected with those

from whom he totally differed in politics. On the acces
sion of George the First, he again was placed upon the
woolsack, but finally resigned office in 1718. He died in
1723. To Swift he was opposed in politics, therefore by
him his lordship was virulently abused. In numbers
18, 23, and 27 of " The Examiner" the dean attacks
him by the name of " Will Bigamy," alluding to a charge
that was made against his lordship of having had a ficti
tious marriage with one lady, and then being legally united
to another. The truth, or falsehood of this charge, is not
certain. It may, perhaps, be admitted, that his abilities
were not of the highest cast, but the intrinsic value of his
character was sustained by the unimpeachable integrity he
possessed. This may be instanced by the objection which
he had to the easy enactment of private bills, and the
consequent fees he received; and to the new year's gifts,
that it had become customaTy for the lord chancellors to
receive. As an orator at the bar, and in the senate, he
was generally admired ; yet his contemporary, lord Ches
terfield, says, " his strength lay by no means in his reason
ing, for he often hazarded very weak ones. But such was
the purity and elegance of his style, that he never spoke
without universal applause. The ears and the eyes gave
him up the hearts and the understanding of the audience."
To elegance of style, and harmony of voice, he added the
most graceful and urbane manners. This appeared very
eminently when he sat as chief judge at the trial of the
earl of Oxford and other noblemen. It was so character
istic, that Pope, in detailing a complimentary dialogue
between two serge an ts-at-law, puts into their mouths these
words : —
1,1 'Twas, sir, your law ;" and, " Sir, your eloquence,'7
" Your's, Cowper's manner," and " Your's Talbot's sense."
One anecdote illustrative of his benevolent manner must
not be omitted. In 1705, Richard Cromwell, the ex-
protector, lost his only son, unmarried. By this, Richard

?80 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
A session of parliament met this summer in Scotland : there was a change made in the
ministry there : those who were employed in the former session could not undertake to carry
a majority; so all the duke of Queensbury's friends were again brought into employment.
The duke of Argyle's instructions were, that he should endeavour to procure an act, settling
the succession as it was in England, or to set on foot a treaty for the union of the two king
doms : when he came to Scotland, and laid his instructions before the rest of the ministers
there, the marquis of Annandale pressed that they should-first try that which was first named
in the instructions, and he seemed confident that if all who were in employments would con
cur in it, they should be able to carry it. Those of another mind, who were in their hearts
for the pretended prince of Wales, put this by with great zeal ; they said they must not
begin with that which would meet with great opposition, and be perhaps rejected ; that would
beget such an union of parties, that if they miscarried in the one, they would not be able to
carry the other ; therefore they thought that the first proposition should be for the union ;
that was popular, and seemed to be a remote thing ; so there would bo no great opposition
made to a general act about it. Those who intended still to oppose it, would reckon they
would find matter enough in the particulars to raise a great opposition, and so to defeat it.
This course was agreed on, at which the marquis of Annandale was so highly offended, that
he concurred no more in the councils of those who gave the other advice. Some did sin
cerely desire the union, as that which would render the whole island happy ; others were in
their hearts against it ; they thought it was a plausible step, which they believed would run,
by a long treaty, into a course of some years ; that during that time they would be con
tinued in their employments, and they seemed to think it was impossible so to adjust all
matters as to frame such a treaty as would pass in the parliaments of both kingdoms. The
jacobites concurred all heartily in this ; it kept the settling the succession at a distance, and
very few looked on the motion for the union as any thing but a pretence, to keep matters
yet longer in suspense ; so this being proposed in parliament, it was soon and readily agreed
to, with little or no opposition. But that being over, complaints were made of the acts
passed, in the parliament of England ; which carried such an appearance of threatening,
that many thought it became them not to enter on a treaty till these should be repealed.
It was carried, but not without difficulty, that no clause relating to that should be in the
act that empowered the queen to name the commissioners ; but that an address should be
made to the queen, praying her that no proceedings should be made in the treaty till the act
that declared the Scotch aliens by such a day, should be repealed : they also voted, that none
of that nation should enter upon any such treaty till that were first done. This was popular,
and no opposition was made to it ; but those who had ill intentions hoped that all would
be defeated by it. The session run out into a great length, and in the harvest-time, which
put the country to a great charge.
In Ireland, the new heat among the protestants there, raised in the earl of Rochester's
time, and connived at, if not encouraged by the duke of Ormond, went on still : a body of
hot clergymen sent from England, began to form meetings in Dublin, and to have emissaries
and a correspondence over Ireland, on design to raise the same fury in the clergy of that
kingdom against the dissenters that they had raised here in England : whether this was only
the effect of an unthinking and ill-governed heat among them, or if it was set on by foreign
practices, was not yet visible. It did certainly serve their ends, so that it was not
to be doubted that they were not wanting in their endeavours to keep it up, and to
promote it, whether they were the original contrivers of it, or not ; for indeed hot men,
became entitled to a life estato in the manor of Hurstley, he bad refreshments, and when in court be allowed him to
near Winchester. He 6ent his youngest daughter to take be seated and covered. One of the opponent counsel ob-
possession of the estate, hut instead of su-rrendering it to jeeting to this was immediately stopped by the chancellor,
her father, she and her sisters endeavoured to retain it, who eventually decreed in his favour. The chancellor's
pleading that he was superannuated, and that they would conduct was approved by queen Anne. Mr. Bulstrode
allow him an annuity. Richard's advanced age did not Whitelocke being in court, observed, " This day so many
prevent him behaving with becoming spirit. He pro- years ago, I saw my father carry the great seal before that
ceeded against his rebellious children, and having to appear man (CromnellJ through Westminster Hall." — Biog.
in court, bis sister, lady Fauconberg, sent him thither in Britannica by Kippis ; Miss Hawkins's Memoirs ; Noble's
her couch. Lord Cowper, remembering Cromwell's Contin. of Grainger.
toi-mer elevation, conducted him into an apartment where

OP QUEEN ANNE. 781
not practised in affairs, are apt enough of their own accord to run into wild and unreasonable
extravagances. The parliament of England met in the end of October : the first struggle was about the
choice of a speaker, by which a judgment was to be made of the temper and inclinations of
the members. The court declared for Mr. Smith ; he was a man of clear parts, and of a
good expression : he was then in no employment, but he had gone through great posts in
the former reign, with reputation and honour. He had been a commissioner of the treasury,
and chancellor of the exchequer : he had, from his first setting out into the world, been
thoroughly in the principles and interests of the whigs, yet with a due temper in all personal
things, with relation to the tories ; but they all declared against him for Mr. Bromley, a man
of a grave deportment, and good morals, but looked on as a violent tory, and as a great
favourer of jacobites ; which appeared evidently in a relation he printed of his travels *.
No matter of that sort had ever been carried with such heat on both sides as this was :
so that it was just to form a judgment upon it of the temper of the house, it went for
Mr. Smith by a majority of four-and-forty.
The queen, after she had confirmed this choice, made a speech, in which she recommended
union to them, in a very particular manner : she complained of the reports that were spread
by ill-designing men, of the danger the church was in, who under these insinuations covered
that which they durst not own -f. She recommended the care of the public supplies to the
commons, and spoke of the duke of Savoy in high and very obliging terms. This produced
addresses from both houses, in which they expressed a detestation of those practices of
infusing into her subjects groundless fears concerning the church : this went easily, for some
kept out of the way, from whom it was expected that they would afterwards open more
copiously on the subject. The chairmen of the several committees of the house of commons,
were men of whom the court was well assured.
The first matter with which they commonly begin is to receive petitions against the mem
bers returned, so that gave a further discovery of the inclinations of the majority : the cor
ruption of the nation was grown to such a height, and there was so much foul practice on
all hands, that there was, no doubt, great cause of complaint. The first election that was
judged was that of St. Albans, where the duchess of Marlborough had a house : she recom
mended admiral Killigrew to those in the town, which v/as done all England over, by per
sons of quality, who had any interest in the burghers ; yet though much foul practice was
proved on the other hand, and there was not the least colour of evidence to fix any ill prac
tice on her, some reflected very indecently upon her : Bromley compared her to Alice Piers,
in king Edward the Third's time, and said many other virulent things against her; for
indeed she was looked upon by the whole party, as the person who had reconciled the whigs
to the queen, from whom she was naturally very averse. Most of the controverted elections
were carried in favour of the whigs : in some few they failed, more by reason of private
animosities, than by the strength of the other side. The house of commons came readily in
to vote all the supplies that were asked, and went on to provide proper funds for them.
The most important debates that were in this session began in the house of lords ; the
queen being present at them all. The lorrl Haversham opened the motions of the tory side ;
he arraigned the duke of Marlborough's conduct, both on the Moselle and in Brabant, and
reflected severely on the Dutch, which he carried so far as to say, that the war cost them
nothing ; and after he had wandered long in a rambling discourse, he came at last to the
point which was laid to be the debate of the day : he said we had declared a successor to the
crown, who was at a great distance from us ; while the pretender was much nearer ; and
Scotland was armed and ready to receive him ; and seemed resolved not to have the same
* The right honourable William Bromley appears to raised to the chair without opposition. He died in 1732.
nave been the son of sir William Bromley, knight of the His " Travels," published when be was a young man,
Bath, resident at Baggington, in Warwickshire. Wealthy rendered him distinguished for his Jacobinical opinions. — .
and highly estimable in private life, he had great interest Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
with the party he supported. He represented the univer- f The debate npon this part of the queen's speech, was
rity of Oxford in parliament from 1701 until 1727, very animated in the house of lords — See Chandler's De-
Though he failed obtaining the speakership as mentioned bates, ii. 154 ; where Burnet's and other peers' speeches
above, yet when the ministry was changed, in 1710, he was are given.

782 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
successor, for whom England had declared ; these were threatening dangers that hung over
us, and might be near us. He concluded, that he did not see how they could be prevented,
and the nation made safe, by any other way, but by inviting the next successor to come and
live among us. The duke of Buckingham, the earls of Rochester, Nottingham, and Angle
sey carried on the debate, with great earnestness : it was urged, that they had sworn to
maintain the succession, and by that they were bound to insist on this motion, since there
was no means so sure to maintain it, as to have the successor upon the spot ready to assume
and maintain his right : it appeared, through our whole history, that whosoever came first
into England had always carried it : the pretending successor might be in England within
three days, whereas it might be three weeks before the declared successor could come : from
thence it was inferred that the danger was apparent and dreadful, if the successor should not
be brought over : if king Charles had been in Spain when the late king died, probably that
would have prevented all this war, in which we were now engaged *. With these lords, by
a strange reverse, all the tories joined ; and by another, and as strange a reverse, all the
whigs joined in opposing it. They thought this matter was to be left wholly to the queen ;
that it was neither proper nor safe either for the crown, or for the nation, that the heir
should not be in an entire dependence on the queen ; a rivalry between two courts might
throw us into great distractions, and be attended with very ill consequences : the next suc
cessor had expressed a full satisfaction, and rested on the assurances the queen had given her,
of her firm adherence to her title, and to the maintaining of it : the nation was prepared for
it by the orders the queen had given to name her in the daily prayers of the church : great
endeavours had been used to bring the Scotch nation to declare the same successor. It was
true, we still wanted one great security, we had not yet made any provision for carrying on
the government, for maintaining the public quiet, for proclaiming and sending for the suc
cessor, and for keeping things in order till the successor should come : it seemed therefore
necessary, to make an effectual provision against the disorders that might happen in such an
interval. This was proposed first by myself, and it was seconded by the lord Godolphin,
and all the whigs went into it ; and so the question was put upon the other motion, as first
made, by a previous division, whether that should be put, or not, and was carried in the
negative by about three to one.
The queen heard the debate, and seemed amazed at the behaviour of some, who, when
they had credit with her, and apprehended that such a motion might be made by the whigs,
had possessed her with deep prejudices against it ; for they made her apprehend, that when
the next successor should be brought over, she herself would be so eclipsed by it, that she
would be much in the successor's power, and reign only at her, or his, courtesy : yet these
very persons, having now lost their interest in her, and their posts, were driving on that very
motion which they had made her apprehend was the most fatal thing that could befall.
This the duchess of Marlborough told me, but she named no person ; and upon it a very
black suspicion was taken up, by some, that the proposers of this matter knew, or at least
believed, that the queen would not agree to the motion, which way soever it might be
brought to her ; whether in an address, or in a bill ; and then they might reckon, that this
would give such a jealousy, and create such a misunderstanding between her and the parlia
ment, or rather the whole nation, as would unsettle her whole government, and put all things
in disorder. But this was only a suspicion, and more cannot be made of it.
The lords were now engaged to go on in the debate for a regency ; it was opened by the
lord Wharton in a manner that charmed the whole house "j- : he had not been present at the
former debate, but he said he was much delighted with what he had heard concerning it ;
* The speech of lord Haversham is given in Chand- religion — for to him nothing would be more appalling than
ler's Debates, House of Lords, ii. 148. to be convinced of its truth. William employed him, bnt
¦j- Thomas, marquis of Wharton, is described by those would never make him prime minister. Anne advanced
who knew him, as perfectly a gentleman in his manners, him, butcould not trust him. George the First made him
of superior mental capacity, and highly courageous; hut lord privy seal. He died, aged sixty-six, in the year 1715.
he was the greatest libertine of his time. He gloried in He is believed to have written the ballad -of " Lilli-
being vicious ; he was a slave to women, wine, and every hullero." — Birch's Lives ; Mackay's Characters ; Noble's
excess. To support the consequent expense, no bribery Contin. of Grainger.
was too barefaced. Such a man necessarily scoffed at

OF QUEF.N ANNE. 783
he said, he had ever looked on the securing a protestant succession to the crown as that
which secured all our happiness : he had heard the queen recommend, from the throne, union
and agreement to all her subjects, with a great emotion in his own mind ; it was now evident
there was a divinity about her when she spoke ; the cause was certainly supernatural, for
we saw the miracle that was wrought by it ; now all were for the protestant succession ; it
had not been always so : he rejoiced in their conversion, and confessed it was a miracle : he
would not, he could not, he ought not to suspect the sincerity of those who moved for
inviting the next successor over ; yet he could not hinder himself from remembering what
had passed, in a course of many years ; and how men had argued, voted and protested all
that while. This confirmed his opinion that a miracle was now wrought, and that might
oblige some to show their change, by an excess of zeal, which he could not but commend,
though he did not fully agree to it. After this preamble he opened the proposition for the
regency, in all the branches of it ; that regents should be empowered to act, in the name of
the successor, till he should send over orders ; that besides those, whom the parliament
should name, the next successor should send over a nomination sealed up, and to be opened,
when that accident should happen, of persons who should act in the same capacity with
those who should be named by parliament ; so the motion being thus digested, was agreed
to by all the whigs, and a bill was ordered to be brought in, pursuant to these propositions.
But upon the debate on the heads of the bill, it did appear that the conversion, which the
lord Wharton had so pleasantly magnified, was not so entire as he seemed to suppose : there
was some cause given to doubt of the miracle ; for when a security, that was real and
visible, was thus offered, those who made the other motion, flew off from it. They pre
tended, that it was because they could not go off from their first motion ; but they were
told, that the immediate successor might indeed, during her life, continue in England, yet it
was not to be supposed that her son, the elector, could be always absent from his own domi
nions, and throw off all care of them, and of the concerns of the empire, in which he bore so
great a share. If he should go over for ever so short a time, the accident might happen, in
which it was certainly necessary to provide such an expedient as was now offered. This
laid them open to much censure, but men engaged in parties are not easily put out of coun
tenance. It was resolved that the regents should be seven and no more ; and they were
fixed by the posts they were in : the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord keeper, the lord
treasurer, lord president, lord privy seal, lord high admiral, and the lord chief justice for
the time being, were named for that high trust. The tories struggled hard, that the lord
treasurer should not be one, only to show their spite to the lord Godolphin, but the motion
was rejected with scorn ; for it seemed ridiculous, in a time, when there might be much
occasion for money, to exclude an officer from that high trust, who alone could furnish them
with it, or direct them how to be furnished. The tories moved, that the lord mayor of
London should be one, but that was likewise rejected ; for the design of the act was, that
the government should be carried on by those who should be at that time in the conduct and
secret of affairs, and were persons nominated by the queen ; whereas the lord mayor Was
chosen by the city, and had no practice in business. These regents were required to pro
claim the next successor, and to give orders for the like proclamation over England and Ire
land : the next successor might send a triplicate of the persons, named by her or him ; one
of these was to be deposited with the archbishop of Canterbury, another with the lord
keeper, and a third with his own minister, residing at this court ; upon the producing whereof,
the persons nominated were to join with the regents, and to act in equality with them ; the
last parliament, even though dissolved, was to be presently brought together, and empowered
to continue sitting for six months ; and thus things were to be kept in order till the successor
should either come in person, or send over his orders.
The tories made some opposition to every branch of the act, but in that of the parliament's
sitting the opposition was more remarkable. The earl of Rochester moved that the parlia
ment and the regents should be limited, to pass no act of repeal of any part of the act of
uniformity, and, in his positive way, said, if this was not agreed to, he should still think the
church was in danger, notwithstanding what they had heard from the throne in the begin
ning of the session. It was objected to this, that if the regal power was in the regents, and if

794 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the parliament was likewise a legal one, then, by the constitution, the whole legislature was
in them, and that could not be limited : for they could repeal any law that limited them.
But the judges were of opinion that the power of regents might be limited. So that, as the
design of moving this might be to have a new colour to possess the clergy that there was a,
secret design against the church, which might break out at such a time, the lords gave way
to it, though they thought it unreasonable, and proposed with no good design. The tories,
upon the yielding this to them, proposed a great many more limitations ; such as the
restraining the regents from consenting to a repeal of the act for triennial parliaments, the
acts for trials in cases of treason, and some others: and so extravagant were they in
their design of making the act appear ridiculous, that they proposed as a limitation that
they should not have power to repeal the acts of succession. All these were rejected with
scorn and indignation; the lords seeing by this their error in yielding to that proposed
by the earl of Rochester. The bill passed in the house of lords, but the tories protested
against it.
I never knew any thing in the management of the tories by which they suffered more in
their reputation than by this. They hoped that the motion for the invitation would have
cleared them of all suspicions of inclinations towards the pretended prince of Wales, and
would have reconciled the body of the nation to them, and turned them against all who
should oppose it ; but the progress of the matter produced a contrary effect. The manage
ment was so ill disguised, that it was visible they intended only to provoke the queen by it,
hoping that the provocation might go so far, that in the sequel all their designs might be
brought about, though by a method that seemed quite contrary to them, and destructive
of them.
The bill lay long in the house of commons, by a secret management that was against it.
The tories there likewise proposed that the next successor should be brought over, which
was opposed by the whigs, not by any vote against it, but by resolving to go through the
lords' bill first. The secret management was from Hanover. Some indigent persons, and
others employed by the tories, had studied to infuse jealousies of the queen and her ministers
into the old electoress. She was then seventy-five, but had still so much vivacity, that, as
she was the most knowing and the most entertaining woman of the age, so she seemed
willing to change her scene, and to come and shine among us here in England *. They pre
vailed with her to write a letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, intimating her readiness
to come over, if the queen and parliament should desire it. This was made public by the
intriguing persons in that court : and a colour was soon found to keep some whigs from
agreeing to the act-)-. In the act that first settled the succession, one limitation (as was told
in its proper place) had been, that when the crown should pass into that house, no man who
had either place or pension should be capable of sitting in the house of commons. The clause
in this bill, that empowered either the parliament that should be current at the queen's
death, or that which had sat last (though dissolved), to sit for six months, or till the suc
cessor should dissolve it, seemed contrary to this incapacitating clause in the former act.
Great exceptions were taken to this by some zealous whigs, who were so possessed with the
notion of a self-denying bill, as necessary to preserve public liberty from the practices of a
designing court, that for some weeks there was cause to fear not only the loss of the bill, but.
a breach among the whigs upon this head. Much pains were taken, and with very good.
effect, to heal this. It was at last settled : a great many offices were enumerated, and it:
* Sophia Hediwischia was the youngest of the twelve German, French, and Italian, and was a proficient in
children of Frederic, elector pa-latine, titular king of Latin. She was as great a worker with her needle as her
Bohemia, and Elizabeth, the only sister of Charles the contemporary, our queen Mary. These pureuits did not
First. She was horn at the Hague in 1630, and married injure her health, for she constantly used the exercise of.
Ernest Augustus, duke of Hanover, in 1658. The agi- walking: age had not marked her with wrinkles, not
tation of her mind, at the time of which Burnet treats in deprived her of teeth. — Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
the above page, is supposed to have hastened her death. -f- A pamphlet, recommending the visit to England of
She died suddenly in the gardens of Haurcnhausen, in the electoress, was published,- entitled, "A Letter from
1714. Queen Anne only survived her fifty-three days. Sir Rowland Gwynn to the earl of Stamford." The com-r
Sophia's long life was spotless. She had as many virtues, mons voted it seditious, &c. See Chandler's Debates of
and confessedly more accomplishments, than any of the H. of Commons, iii, 456.
princesses her contemporaries. She spoke Low Dutch,

OF QUEEN ANNE. 785
was declared that every man who held any of these, was thereby incapacitated from sitting
in the house of commons ; and every member of the house, who did accept of any other
office, was upon that excluded the house, and a new writ was to go out to those whom he
represented to choose again : but it was left free to them to choose him or any other, as they
pleased. It was desired by those who pressed this matter most, that it should take place
only in the next reign ; but, to remove all jealousy, the ministers were content that these
clauses should take place immediately upon the dissolution of the present parliament. And
when the house of commons sent up these self-denying clauses to the lords, they added to
them a repeal of that clause, in the first act of succession, by which the succeeding princes
were limited to govern by the advice of their council, and by which all the privy coun
sellors were to be obliged to sign their advices; which was impracticable, since it was
visible that no man would be a privy counsellor on those terms. The lords added the repeal
of this clause to the amendments sent up by the commons, and the commons readily agreed
to it.
After this act had passed, the lord Halifax, remembering what the earl of Rochester had
said concerning the danger the church might be in, moved that a day might be appointed to
enquire into those dangers, about which so many tragical stories had been published of late.
A day was appointed for this, and we were all made believe that we should hear many
frightful things ; but our expectations were not answered. Some spoke of danger from the
presbytery that was settled in Scotland : some spoke of the absence of the next successor :
some reflected on the occasional bill that was rejected in that house : some complained
of the schools of the dissenters : and others reflected on the principles that many had drank
in, that were different from those formerly received, and that seemed destructive of the
church. In opposition to all this, it was said that the church was safer now than ever it had been.
At the revolution, provision was made that our king must be of the reformed religion, nor
was this all ; in the late act of succession it was enacted, that he should be of the communion
of the church of England. It was not reasonable to object to the house the rejecting a bill
which was done by the majority, of whom it became not the lesser number to complain.
We had all our former laws left to us, not only entire, but fortified by late additions and
explanations ; so that we were safer in all these than we had been at any time formerly.
The dissenters gained no new strength, they were visibly decreasing ; the toleration had
softened their tempers, and they concurred zealously in serving all the ends of the govern
ment : nor was there any particular complaint brought against them : they seemed quiet
and content with their toleration, if they could be but secure of enjoying it. The queen
was taking the most effectual means possible to deliver the clergy from the depression of
poverty, that brought them under much contempt, and denied them the necessary means and
helps of study. The bishops looked after their dioceses with a care that had not been known
in the memory of man. Great sums were yearly raised by their care and zeal, for serving
the plantations, better than had ever yet been done. A spirit of zeal and piety appeared in
our churches, and at sacrament, beyond the example of former times. In one respect it was
acknowledged the church was in danger : there was an evil spirit and a virulent temper
spread among the clergy : there were many indecent sermons preached on public occasions,
and those hot clergymen, who were not the most regular in their lives, had raised factions
in many dioceses against their bishops. These were dangers created by those very men who
filled the nation with this outcry against imaginary ones, while their own conduct produced
real and threatening dangers. Many severe reflections were thrown out on both sides in the
progress of this debate.
It ended in a vote, carried by a great majority, that the church of England, under the
queen's happy administration, was in a safe and flourishing condition ; and to this a, severe
censure was added on the spreaders of these reports of dangers, that they were the enemies
of the queen and of her government. They also resolved to make an address to the queen,
in which, after this was set forth, they prayed her to order a prosecution, according to law,
of all who should be found guilty of this offence. They sent this down to the house of com
mons, where the debate was brought over again, but it was run down with great force.
3 E

78G THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The commons agreed with the lords, and both houses went together to the queen with this
address. Such a concurrence of both houses had not been seen for Some years. And indeed
there was in both so great a majority for carrying on all the interests of the government, that
the men of ill intentions had no hopes, during the whole session, of embroiling matters, but
in the debates concerning the self-denying clause above-mentioned.
But though the main designs and hopes of the party had thus not only failed them, but
turned against them, yet they resolved to make another attempt : it was on the duke of
Marlborough, though they spoke of him with great respect. They complained of the errors
committed this year in the conduct of the war. They indeed laid the blame of the miscar
riage of the design on the Moselle on the prince of Baden, and the errors committed in
Brabant on the States and their deputies : but they said they could not judge of these
things, nor be able to lay before the queen those advices that might be fit for them to
offer to her, unless they were made acquainted with the whole series of those affairs : there
fore they proposed, that by an address they might pray the queen to communicate to them
all that she knew concerning those transactions during the last campaign ; for they reckoned
that, if all particulars should be laid before them, they would find somewhat in the duke of
Marlborough's conduct, on which a censure might be fixed. To this it was answered, that
if any complaint was brought against any of the queen's subjects, it would be reasonable for
them to enquire into it, by all proper ways : but the house of lords could not pretend to
examine, or to censure, the conduct of the queen's allies : they were not subject to them, nor
could they be heard to justify themselves : and it was somewhat extraordinary, if they should
pass a censure, or make a complaint, of them. It was one of the trusts that was lodged
with the government, to manage all treaties and alliances ; so that our commerce with our
allies was wholly in the crown : allies might sometimes fail, being not able to perform what
they undertook : they are subject both to errors and to accidents, and are sometimes ill-
served : the entering into that matter was not at all proper for the house, unless it was
intended to run into rash and indiscreet censures, on design to provoke the allies, and by that
means to weaken, if not break, the alliance. The queen would no doubt endeavour to redress
whatsoever was amiss, and that must be trusted to her conduct.
So this attempt not only failed, but it happened upon this, as upon other occasions, that
it was turned against those who made it. An address was made to the queen, praying her
to go on in her alliances, and in particular to cultivate a perfect union and correspondence
with the states of the United Provinces. This had a very good effect in Holland, for the
agents of France were at the same time both spreading reports among us that the Dutch
were inclined to a peace ; and among them, that the English had very unkind thoughts of
them. The design was to alienate us from one another, that so both might be thereby
tho better disposed to hearken to a project of peace ; which, in the state in which matters
were at that time, was the most destructive thing that could be thought on. And all
motions that looked that way gave very evident discoveries of the bad intentions of those
who made them.
The next business of a public nature that came before the parliament was carried very
unanimously. The queen laid before the two houses the addresses of the Scotch parliament
against any progress in the treaty of union, till the act, which declared them aliens by such
a day, should be repealed. The tories upon this occasion, to make themselves popular, after
they had failed in many attempts, resolved to promote this ; apprehending that the whigs,
who had first moved for that act, would be for maintaining their own work : but they
seemed to be much surprised, when, after they had prefaced their motions in this matter,
with such declarations of their intentions for the public good, that showed they expected
opposition and a debate, the whigs not only agreed to this, but carried the motion further,
to the other act relating to their manufacture and trade. This passed very unanimously in
both houses ; and, by this means, way was made for opening a treaty, as soon as the session
should come to an end. All the northern parts of England, which had been disturbed for
some years with apprehensions of a war with Scotland, that would certainly be mischievous
to them, whatsoever the end of it might prove, were much delighted with the prospect of
peace and union with their neighbours.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 7C7
These wore the most important debates during this session ; at all which the queen was
present : she stayed all the while, and hearkened to every thing with great attention. The
debates were managed on the one side by the lords Godolphin, Wharton, Somers, Halifax,
Sunderland, and Townshend* : on the other side, by the duke of Buckingham and the lords
Rochester, Nottingham, Anglesey, Guernsey, and Haversham. There was so much strength
and clearness on the one side, and so much heat and artifice on the other, that nothing but
obstinate partiality could resist so evident a conviction.
The house of commons went on in creating funds for the supplies they had voted for the
next year : and the nation was so well satisfied with the government, and the conduct of
affairs, that a fund being created for two millions and a half, by way of annuities for ninety-
nine years, at six and a half per cent., at the end of which the capital was to sink ; the
whole sum was subscribed in a very few days. At the same time, the duke of Marlborough
proposed the advance of a sum of 500,000?. to the emperor, for the use of prince Eugene and
the service of Italy, upon a branch of the emperor's revenue in Silesia, at eight per cent.,
and the capital to be repaid in eight years. The nation did so abound, both in money and
zeal, that this was likewise advanced in a very few days. Our armies, as well as our allies,
were every where punctually paid. The credit of the nation was never raised so high in
any age, nor so sacredly maintained. The treasury was as exact and as regular in all pay
ments as any private banker could be. It is true, a great deal of money went out of the
kingdom in specie : that which maintained the war in Spain was to be sent thither in that
manner, the way by bills of exchange not being yet opened. Our trade with Spain and the
West Indies, which formerly brought us great returns of money, was now stopped : by this
means there grew to be a sensible want of money over the nation. This was in a great
measure supplied by the currency of exchequer bills and bank notes : and this lay so obvious
to the disaffected party, that they were often attempting to blast, at least to disparage, this
paper credit ; but it was still kept up. It bred a just indignation in all who had a true love
to their country, to see some using all possible methods to shake the administration, which4
notwithstanding the difficulties at home and abroad, was much the best that had been in
the memory of man : and was certainly not only easy to the subjects in general, but gentle
even towards those who were endeavouring to undermine it.
The lord Somers made a motion in the house of lords to correct some of the proceedings
in the common law and in chancery, that were both dilatory and very chargeable. He
began the motion with some instances that were more conspicuous and gross; and he
managed the matter so, that both the lord keeper and judges concurred with him : though
it passes generally for a maxim, that judges ought rather to enlarge than contract their
jurisdiction. A bill passed the house that began a reformation of proceedings at law, which,
as things now stand, are certainly among the greatest grievances of the nation. When this
went through the house of commons, it was visible that the interest of under-officers, clerks,
and attorneys, whose gains were to be lessened by this bill, was more considered than the
interest of the nation itself. Several clauses, how beneficial soever to the subject, which
touched on their profit, were left out by the commons. But what fault soever the lords
* Charles, viscount Townsend,was in early life a tory, became Walpole and Townsend, than things went wrong,
but joined the whig party when he observed that it was and a separation ensued." When lord Townsend was
the staunchest supporter of the protestant interest. Under solicited again to return to office, he at once replied.
queen Anne, he was lord-lieutenant of Norfolk, captain " No — for I may be hurried away by the impetuosity of
of her yeoman guard, &c. At the accession of George my temper, and by personal resentment, to adopt a line
the First, he was made principal secretary of state. In of conduct, which in my cooler moments I may regret."
1717, he went as lord-lieutenant to Ireland, and three He retired to his seat, Rainham, in Norfolk, and died
yeais after became president of the council. George the there suddenly, aged sixty-four, in 1738. He rang the
Second continued him in the secretary's place. He acted hell, and upon his servant obeying the summons, his lord-
for many years in conjunction with his brother-in-law, ship was found without any symptom of life. Slow in
Walpole, but they at length quarrelled, and Townsend decision, and perplexed in uttering his opinion, yet hi9
retired from office. Of this quarrel, a descendant has judgment was sound and his foresight sagacious. In pri-
said, "It is difficult to trace the causes of a dispute be- vate life, no one was more amiable ; and let it be remem-
tween statesmen, but I will give you the history of this Dered, to his credit, that he opposed the impeachment of
in a few words. As long as the firm was Townsend and his political rival, the earl of Oxford. — Noble's Contin.
Walpole, the utmost harmony prevailed ; but it no sooner Grainger ; Coxe's Life, &c. of sir Robert Walpole.
3e2

783 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
might have found with these alterations, yet, to avoid all disputes with the commons, thvy
agreed to their amendments.
There was another general complaint made of the private acts of parliament, that passed
through both houses too easily, and in so great a number, that it took up a great part of the
session to examine them, even in that cursory way, that was subject to many inconveniences.
The fees that were paid for these to the speakers and clerks of both houses inclined them to
favour and promote them : so the lord Somers proposed such a regulation in that matter, a3
will probably have a good effect for the future. The present lord keeper did indeed very
generously obstruct those private bills as much as his predecessor had promoted them. He
did another thing of a great example : on the first day of the year it was become a custom,
for all those who practised in chancery, to offer a new-year's gift to the lord who had the
great seal : these grew to be so considerable, that they amounted to 1500/. a-year : on this
new-year's day, which was his first, he signified to all who, according to custom, were
expected to come with their presents, that he would receive none, but would break that
custom. He thought it looked like the insinuating themselves into the favour of the court ;
and that if it was not bribery, yet it came too near it, and looked too like it. This con
tributed not a little to the raising his character. He managed the court of chancery with
impartial justice and great dispatch, and was very useful to the house of lords in the pro
moting of business.
When the session was near an end, great complaints were made in both houses of the
progress of popery in Lancashire, and of many insolences committed there, both by the laity
and priests of that religion. Upon this, a bill was brought into the house of commons with
clauses that would have rendered the bill passed against papists, in the end of the last reign,
effectual. This alarmed all of that religion ; so that they made very powerful (or, to follow
the raillery of that time, very weighty) intercessions with the considerable men of that house.
The court looked on and seemed indifferent in the matter, yet it was given out that so
severe a law would be very unreasonable, when we were in alliance with so many princes of
that religion, and that it must lessen the force of the queen's intercession in favour of the
protestants that lived in the dominions of those princes. The proceeding seemed rigorous, and
not suited to the gentleness that the Christian religion did so particularly recommend, and
was contrary to the maxims of liberty of conscience and toleration, that were then in great
vogue. It was answered that the dependence of those of that religion on a foreign jurisdic
tion, and at present on a foreign pretender to the crown, put them out of the case of other
subjects who might differ from the established religion ; since there seemed to be good reason
to consider the papists as enemies, rather than as subjects. But the application was made
in so effectual a manner, that the bill was let fall. And though the lords had made some
steps towards such a bill, yet, since they saw what fate it was likely to have in the house
of commons, instead of proceeding farther in it, they dismissed that matter with an address
to the queen, that she would give orders, both to the justices of the peace and to the
clergy, that a return might be made to the next session of parliament of all the papists in
England. There was another project set on foot at this time by the lord Halifax, for putting the
records and the public offices of the kingdom in better order. He had, in a former session,
moved the lords to send some of their number to view the records in the Tower,, which were
in great disorder, and in a visible decay for want of some more officers, and by the neglect
of those we had. These lords, in their report, proposed some regulations for the future, which
have been since followed so effectually, though at a considerable charge, by creating several
new officers, that the nation will reap the benefit of all this very sensibly. But lord Halifax
carried his project much further. The famous library, collected by sir Robert Cotton, and
continued down in his family, was the greatest collection of manuscripts relating to the
public, that perhaps any nation in Europe could show. The late owner of it, sir John
Cotton, had, by his will, left it to the public, but in such words, that it was rather shut up,
than made any way useful : and indeed it was to be so carefully preserved, that none could
be the better for it : so that lord moved the house to entreat the queen that she would be

OF QUEEN ANNE. 780
pleased to buy Cotton-house, which stood just between the two houses of parliament ; so
that some part of that ground would furnish them with many useful rooms, and there would
be enough left for building a noble structure for a library. To which, besides the Cotton
library and the queen's library, the royal society, who had a very good library at Gresham
college, would remove and keep their assemblies there, as soon as it was made convenient for
them. This was a great design, which the lord Halifax, who set it first on foot, seemed
resolved to carry on till it were finished. It will set learning again on foot among us, and
be a great honour to the queen's reign *.
Thus this session of parliament came to a very happy conclusion. There was in it the
best harmony within both houses, and between them, as well as with the crown, and it was
the best applauded in the city of London, over the whole nation, and indeed over all Europe,
of any session that I had ever seen. And when it was considered that this was the first of
the three, so that we were to have two other sessions of the same members, it gave an uni
versal satisfaction, both to our own people at home and our allies abroad, and afforded a
prospect of a happy end, that should be put to this devouring war, which in all probability
must come to a period, before the conclusion of the present parliament. This gave an
unspeakable satisfaction to all who loved their country and their religion, who now hoped
that we had in view a good and a safe peace.
The convocation sat at the same time : it was chosen as the former had been, and the
members that were ill-affected were still prevailed on to come up, and to continue in an
expensive but useless attendance in town. The bishops drew up an address to the queen, in
which, as the two houses of parliament had done, they expressed a just indignation at the
jealousies that had been spread about the nation of the danger of the church. When this
was communicated to the lower house, they refused to join in it, but would give no reason
for their refusal : they drew an address of their own, in which no notice was taken of these
aspersions. The bishops, according to ancient precedents, required them either to agree to
their address, or to offer their objections against it. They would do neither, so the address
was let fall ; and upon that a stop was put to all further communication between the two
houses. The lower house, upon this, went on in their former practice of intermediate
sessions, in which they began to enter upon business, to approve of some books, and to
censure others; and they resolved to proceed upon the same grounds that factious men
among them had before set up, though the falsehood of their pretensions had been evidently
made to appear. The archbishop had prorogued them to the first of March. When that
day came, the lower house was surprised with a protestation that was brought to the upper
house by a great part of their body, who, being dissatisfied with the proceedings of the
majority, and having long struggled against them, though in vain, at last drew up a protes
tation against them. They sent it up and down through the whole province, that they
might get as many hands to it as they could ; but the matter was managed with such
caution, that though it was in many hands, yet it was not known to the other side till they
heard it was presented to the president of the upper house. In it, all the irregular motions
of the lower house were reckoned up, insisting more particularly on that of holding interme
diate sessions, against all which they protested, and prayed that their protestation might be
entered in the books of the upper house, that so they might not be involved in the guilt of
the rest. This was signed by above fifty, and the whole body was but a hundred and forty-
five : some were neutral ; so that hereby very near one half broke off from the rest and left
them, and sat no more with them. The lower house was deliberating how to vent their
indignation against these, when a more sensible mortification followed. The archbishop
sent for them, and, when they came up, he read a letter to them, that was written to him
by the queen, in which she took notice that the differences between the two houses were
still kept up ; she was much concerned to see that they were rather increased than abated :
she was the more surprised at this, because it had been her constant care, as it should con
tinue always to be, to preserve the constitution of the church as it was by law established,
and to discountenance all divisions and innovations whatsoever : she was resolved to main-
. * This proposal did not succeed. The Cotton MSS. &c. are in the British Museum ; the library of the Royal
Society, at Someiset House, The library at the British Museum was opened to the public in 175i*.

780 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
tain her supremacy, and die due subordination of presbyters to bishops, as fundamental parts'
of it : die expected that the archbishop and bishops would act conformable to this resolu
tion, and in so doing they should be sure of the continuance of her protection and favour,
which should not be wantino- to any of the clergy, as long as they were true to the constitu
tion, and durifol to her and their ecclesiastical superiors, and preserved such a temper as
became those who were in holy orders. The archbishop, as he was required to read this to
them, so he was directed to prorogue them for such a time as should appear convenient to
him. They were struck with this, for it bad been carried so secretly that h was a surprise
to them alL "When they saw they were to be prorogued, they ran Tery indecently to the
door, and with some difficulty were kept in the room till the prorogation was intimated to
them. They went next to their own house, where, though prorogued, they sat sriD in
form, as if \hey had been a house, bnt thoy did not venture on passing any vote. So factious
were they, and so implicitly led by those who had got an ascendant over them, that though
they had formerly submitted the matters in debate to the queen, yet now, when she declared
her pleasure, they would not acquiesce in it.
The session of parliament being now at an end, the preparations for the campaign were
carried on with all possible dispatch. That which was most pressing was first done. Upon
Stanhope's first coming over, in the beginning of January, orders were immediately issued
out for sending over five thousand men, with all necessary stores, to Spain. The orders
were given in very pressing terms, yet so many offices were concerned in the execution, that
many delays were made ; some of these were much censured : at list they sailed in 31 arch
The fleet that had gone into the Mediterranean with king Charles, and was to return
and winter at Lisbon, wis detained by westerly winds longer in ttiose seas than had been
expected. The people of Valencia seemed to hope that they were to winter in those seas, and by this
they were encouraged to declare for king Charles : but they were mnch exposed to those
who commanded in king Philip's name. All Catalonia had submitted to king Charles
except Roses : garrisons were put in Gironne, Lerida, and Tortcsa : and the states of that
principality prepared themselves with great zeal and resolution for the next campaign, which
they had reason to expect would come both early and severely npon them. "There was a
breach between the earl of Peterborough and the prince of Lichtenstein, whom he charged
Tery heavily, in the king's own presence, with corruption and injustice. The matter went
far, and the king blamed the earl of Peterborough, who had not mnch of a forbearing or
forgiving temper in him. There was no method of communication with F-ngland yet settled.
"We did not hear from them, nor they from us. in five montlis ; this put them ont of aO
hope. Our men wanted every tiring, and eonld be supplied there with nothing. The revolt
in Valencia made it necessary to send snch a supply to them from Barcelona as could be
spared from thence. The disgust that was taken made it advisable to send the earl of Peter
borough thither, and he -willingly undertook the service. He marched towards that kingdom
with about fifteen hundred English and a thousand Spaniards : they were all ill equipped
and ill furnished, without artillery, and with very little ammunition : but, as they marched,
all the country either came in to them or fled before them. He got to Valencia without
any opposition, and was received there with all possible demonstrations of joy." Tins gave
a great disturbance to the Spanish councils at Madrid- They advised the king to begin
with the reduction of Valencia : it lay nearer, and was easier come at : and by tins the dis
position to revolt -would be checked, which might otherwise go further. Bnt this was over-
roled from France, where little regard was had to the Spaniards. They resolved to begin
with Barcelona : in it king Charles himself lay ; and, on taking it, they reckoned all the
rest would falL
The French resolved to sen I every thing tloat was necessary for the siege by sea, and the
count of Toulouse was ordered to He with ihe fleet before the place, whilst it was beaeoed
hj land. It was concerted t j begin the siege in March, for they knew that if thev begun it
so early our fleet could not come in time to relieve it. But two great storms, that came
soon one after another, did so scatter their tartanes and disable their ships of war, that as
some were cast away and others were much shattered so they all lost a month's time, and

OF QUEEN ANNE. 701
the siege could not bo formed before the beginning of April. King Charles shut himself up
in Barcelona, by which the people were both animated and kept in order. This gave all
the allies very sad apprehensions ; they feared not only the less of the place, but of his
person. Leak sailed from Lisbon in the end of March. He missed tho galleons very
narrowly, but he could not pursue them ; for he was to lose no time, but haste to Barcelona.
His fleet was increased to thirty ships of the line by the time he got to Gibraltar ; but,
though twenty more were following him, he would not stay, but hastened on to the relief of
the place, as fast as the wind served.
At the same time the campaign was opened on the side of Portugal. The earl of Galway
had full powers, and a brave army of about twenty thousand men, well furnished in all
respects. He left Badajos behind him, and marched on to Alcantara. The duke of Berwick
had a very small force left him to defend that frontier. It seems the French trusted to the
interest they had in the court of Portugal. His troops were so bad, that he saw in one small
action that he could not depend on them. He put a good garrison in Alcantara, where
their best magazine was laid in. But when the earl of Galway came before the town,
within three days the garrison, consisting of four thousand men, delivered up the place and
themselves as prisoners of war. The Portuguese would have stopped there, and thought
they had made a good campaign, though they had done no more ; but the English ambas
sador at Lisbon went to the king of Portugal, and pressed him that orders might be imme
diately sent to the earl of Galway to march on : and when he saw a great coldness in some
of the ministers, he threatened a present rupture if it was not done : and he continued
waiting on the king till the orders were signed and sent away. Upon receipt of these, the
earl of Galway advanced towards Placentia, all the country declaring for him as soon as he
appeared ; and the duke of Berwick still retiring before him, not being able to give the
least interruption to his march.
The campaign was opened in Italy with great advantage to the French. The duke of
Vendome marched into the Brescian to attack the imperialists before prince Eugene could
join them, who was now come very near. He fell on a body of about twelve thousand of
them, being double their number : he drove them from their posts with the loss of about
three thousand men killed and taken ; but it was believed there were as many of the French
killed as of the imperialists. Prince Eugene came up within two days, and put all in order
again. He retired to a surer post, waiting till the troops from Germany should come up.
The slowness of the Germans was always fatal in the beginning of the campaign. The duke
of Savoy was now reduced to great extremities. He saw the siege of Turin was designed :
he fortified so many outposts, and put so good a garrison in it, that he prepared well for a
long siege and a great resistance. He wrote to the queen for a further supply of 50,000/.,
assuring her, that by that means the place should be put in so good a state, that he would
undertake that all should be done which could be expected from brave and resolute men ;
and so careful was the lord treasurer to encourage him, that the courier was sent back the
next day after he came, with credit for the money. There was some hopes of a peace, as
there was an actual cessation of war in Hungary. The malcontents had been put in hopes
of a great diversion of the emperor's forces on tho side of Bavaria, where there was a great
insurrection, provoked, as was said, by the oppression of the imperial officers, who were so
accustomed to be heavy in their quarters, that when they had the pretence that they were
among enemies, it may be easily believed there was much just occasion of complaint, and
that they were guilty of great exactions and rapine. This looked formidably at first, and
seemed to threaten a new war in those parts ; but all was soon suppressed. The peasants
had no officers among them, no discipline, nor magazines, and no place of strength. So they
were quickly dispersed, and stricter orders were given for the better regulating the military
men, though it was not expected that these would be long observed.
While matters were in this disposition abroad, the treaty for the union of the two king
doms was brought on and managed with great solemnity. Commissions were given out for
thirty-two persons of each kingdom, to meet at London on the 18th of April. Somerset
House was appointed for the place of the treaty. The persons who were named to treat on
the English side were well chosen : they were the most capable of managing the treaty, and

792 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the best disposed to it, of any in the kingdom. Those who came from Scotland were not
looked on as men so well affected to the design : most of them had stood out in a long and
firm opposition to the revolution, and to all that had been done afterwards, pursuant to it.
The nomination of these was fixed on by the dukes of Queensbury and Argyle. It was
said by them, that though these objections did indeed lie against them, yet they had such an
interest in Scotland, that the engaging them to be cordially for the union, would be a great
means to get it agreed to in the parliament there. The Scotch had got among them the
notion of a federal union, like that of the ITnited Provinces, or of the cantons in Switzer
land. But the English resolved to lose no time in the examining, or discussing, of that
project, for this reason, besides many others, that as long as the two nations had two different
parliaments, they could break that union whensoever they pleased, for each nation would
follow their own parliament. The design was now to settle a lasting and indissoluble union
between the kingdoms, therefore they resolved to treat only about an incorporating union,
that should put an end to all distinctions and unite all their interests. So they at last
entered upon the scheme of an entire union*
But now to look again into our affairs abroad. The French seemed to have laid the design
of their campaign so well, that it had everywhere a formidable appearance ; and, if the
execution had answered their scheme, it would have proved as glorious, as it was in the
conclusion fatal, to them. They reckoned the taking of Barcelona and Turin sure ; and by
these they thought the war, both in Spain and Italy, would be soon brought to an end.
They knew they would be superior to any force that the prince of Baden could bring
together on the upper Rhine : and they intended to have a great army in Flanders, where
they knew our chief strength would be, to act as occasion or their other affairs should require.
But how well soever this design might seem to be laid, it appeared Providence had another,
which was brought to bear every where in a most wonderful manner, and in reverse to all
their views. The steps of this I intend to set out rather as a meditation on the providence of
God, than as a particular history of this signal year, for which I am no way furnished ;
besides that, if I were, it does not answer my principal design in writing.
The French lay thirty-seven days before Barcelona : of that time, twenty-two were spent
in taking Mountjoy. They seemed to think there was no danger of raising the siege, and
that therefore they might proceed as slowly as they pleased. The town was under such a
consternation, that nothing but the king's presence could have kept them from capitulating
the first week of the siege. There were some mutinies raised, and some of the magistrates
were killed in them. But the king came among them on all occasions, and both quieted
and animated them. Stanhope wrote, after the siege was over (whether as a courtier or not,
I cannot tell, for he had now on him the character of the queen's envoy to king Charles), that
the king went into all places of danger, and made all about him examples to the rest, to be
hard at work and constant upon duty. After Mountjoy was taken, the town was more
pressed. The earl of Peterborough came from Valencia, and was upon the hills, but could
not give them any great assistance. Some few from Gironne and other places got into the
* The commissioners, according to other authorities, Smollett ; George Lockhart, of Carnwath ; William
met at the Cockpit, for the first time, on the 16th of Seton, of Pitmedden; John Clark; Daniel Stewart; and
April. On the part of England were the lord chancellor Daniel Campbell.
Cowper ; lord high treasurer Godolphin ; the lord presi- The lord chancellor of England described the feelings
dent ; duke of Buckinghamshire, lord privy seal ; duke of that evidently actuated all the commissioners, when he
Somerset : duke of Bolton ; earl of Sunderland ; earl of said, they met, having " the general and joint good of
Kingston ; earl of Orford ; viscount Townsend ; lord Whar- both kingdoms solely in view ; " and the lord chancellor
toe ; lord Grey ; lord Powlet ; lord Somers ; marquis of of Scotland as succinctly described the probable results of
Hartington ; sir Charles Hedges and Mr. Harley, secre- the proposed union, by observing, "we are convinced that
taries of state ; Mr. Boyle ; lord chief justices Holt and an union will be of great advantage to both ; the protee-
Trevor; Mr. Xortbey, attorney-general; Mr. Simon Har- tant religion will be thereby the more firmly secured,
court, solicitor-general ; sir John Cook, and Dr. Waller. the designs of our enemies effectually disappointed, and
On the nart of Scotland were the earl of Seafield, lord- the riches and trade of the whole island advanced." The
chancellor , dnke of Queensbury ; earl of Mar ; earl of queen came twice to their meetings, for the purpose of
L<j:don; e?rl of Sutherland ; earl of Wemyss ; earl of encouraging and promoting the speedy progress of this
Leven ; earl of Stair ; earl of Rosebury ; lord Archibald great national bond of strength, which was finally effected
Campbell; viscount Duplin ; lord Ross, lord president of on the 23rd of July. This will be further noticed iu a
se=-i.jn ; lord Justice Clerk ; Mr. Francis Montgomery; future page — Chandler's Debates, H. of Commons, iii.
sir Alexander Ogilvie ; sir Patrick Johnston; sir James 47-1 ; Defoe's Hist, of the Union.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 793
town. The French engineers performed their part with little skill and success ; those they
relied most on happened to be killed in the beginning of the siege. The Levant wind was
all this while so strong, that it was not possible for Leak to come up so soon as was desired
to their relief.
But when their strength, as well as their patience, was almost exhausted the wind
turned, and Leak with all haste sailed to them. As soon as the count of Toulouse had
intelligence that he was near him, he sailed back to Toulon. Tesse, with king Philip (who
was in the camp, but was not once named in any action), continued three days before Barce
lona after their fleet sailed away : they could then have no hopes of carrying it, unless a
storm at sea had kept our fleet at a distance. At last, on the 1st of May, O. S., the siege
was raised, with great precipitation and in much disorder : their camp was left well furnished,
and the sick and wounded could not be carried off.
On the day of the raising the siege, as the French army was marching off, the sun was
eclipsed, and it was total in those parts. It is certain that there is no weight to be laid on
such things ; yet the vulgar being apt to look on them as ominous, it was censured as a
great error in Tesse not to have raised the siege a day sooner ; and that the rather because
the king of France had made the sun, with a motto of Nee .pluribus Impar, his device.
King Philip made all the haste he could to Perpignan, but his army was almost ruined
before he got thither. There was no manner of communication over land between Barcelona
and Portugal ; so the Portuguese, doubting the issue of that siege, had no mind to engage
further till they saw how it ended ; therefore they ordered their army to march aside to
Ciudad Roderigo, on pretence that it was necessary to secure their frontier by taking that
place : it was taken after a very short siege, and with small resistance. From thence they
advanced to Salamanca. But upon the news of raising the siege of Barcelona, they went
on towards Madrid ; the duke of Berwick only observing their motions and still retiring
before them. King Philip went, with great expedition and a very small train, from Per
pignan to Navarre, from thence he came post to Madrid ; but finding he had no army that
he could trust to, the grandees being now retired and looking as so many dead men, and he
seeing that the Portuguese were still advancing, sent his queen to Burgos, and followed her
in a few days, carrying with him that which was valuable in the palace. And it seems he
despaired ever to return thither again, since he destroyed all that could not be carried away ;
in which he acted a very extraordinary part, for he did some of this with his own hand : as
the gentleman, whom the earl of Galway sent over, told me was universally believed in
Madrid. The capital city being thus forsaken, the earl of Galway came to it by the end of June : he
met with no resistance indeed, but with as little welcome. An army of Portuguese, with
a heretic at their head, were certainly very strange sights to the Castilians, who retained all
the pride, without any of the courage, of their ancestors. They thought it below them to
make their submissions to any but to the king himself ; and if king Charles had come thither
immediately, it was believed that the entire reduction of Spain would have been soon
brought about. It is not yet certain what made him stay so long as he did at Barcelona,
even from the beginning of May till near the end of July. Those about him pretended it
was not fit to go to Madiid, till he was well furnished with money, to make a decent entry.
Stanhope offered to furnish him with what was necessary for the journey, but could not
afford a magnificent equipage for a solemn entry. King Charles wrote a very pressing-
letter to the duke of Marlborough, setting forth his necessities, and desiring greater supplies.
I saw this letter, for the duke sent it over to the lord treasurer. But little regard was had
to it, because it was suggested from many different hands that the prince of Lichtenstein was
enriching himself, and keeping his king poor. Others pretended the true cause of the delay
was a secret amour of that king's, at Barcelona. Whatsoever the cause of it might be, the
effects have hitherto proved fatal. It was first proposed that king Charles should march
through Valencia, as the nearest and much the safest way, and he came on that design as far
as Tarragona. But advice being brought him there that the kingdom of Arragon was in a good
disposition to declare for him, he was diverted from his first intentions, and prevailed on to
go to Saragossa, where he was acknowledged by that kingdom. But he lost much time,

704 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
and more in the reputation bf his arms, by delaying so long to move towards Madrid. So
king Philip took heart, and came back from Burgos to Madrid. The earl of Galway was
very uneasy at this slow motion which king Charles made. King Philip had some more
troops sent him from France, and the broken bodies of his army being now brought together,
he had an army equal in numbers to the earl of Galway, and so he marched up to him ; but
since so much depended on the issue of an action, the earl of Galway avoided it, because he
expected every day reinforcements to be brought up to him, both by king Charles and by
the earl of Peterborough from Valencia ; therefore, to facilitate this conjunction, he moved
towards Arragon ; so that Madrid was again left to be possessed by king Philip. At last,
in the beginning of August, king Charles came up, but with a very inconsiderable force. A
few days after, the earl of Peterborough came also with an escort rather than any strength,
for he had not with him above five hundred dragoons. He was now uneasy because he
could not have the supreme command ; both the earl of Galway and count Noyelles being
much more ancient officers than he was. But, to deliver him from the uneasiness of being
commanded by them, the queen had sent him the powers of an ambassador extraordinary ;
and he took that character on him for a few days. His complaining so much as he did of
the prince of Lichtenstein and the Germans, who were still possessed of king Charles's con
fidence, made him very unacceptable to that king. So he, waiting for orders from the queen,
withdrew from the camp, and sailed away in one of the queen's ships to Genoa. Our fleet
lay all the summer in the Mediterranean, which obliged the French to keep theirs within
Toulon. Carthagena declared for king Charles, and was secured by some of our ships : the
fleet came before Alicant ; the seamen landed and stormed the town ; the castle held out
some weeks, but then it capitulated, and the soldiers by articles were obliged to march to
Cadiz. Soon after that our fleet sailed out of the straits : one squadron was sent to the
West Indies, another was to lie at Lisbon, and the rest were ordered home. After king-
Charles had joined lord Galway, king Philip's army and his looked on one another for some
time, but without venturing on any action. They were near an equal ity, and both sides
expected to be reinforced; so, in that uncertainty, neither side would put anything to
hazard. But now I turn to another and a greater scene. The king of France was assured that the
king of Denmark would stand upon some high demands he made to the aflies, so that the
duke of Marlborough could not have the Danes, who were about ten or twelve thousand, to
join him for some time ; and that the Prussians, almost as many as the Danes, could not
come up to the confederate army for some weeks ; so he ordered the elector of Bavaria and
Villeroy to march iip to them, and to venture on a battle, since, without the Danes, they
would have been much superior in number. The States yielded to all Denmark's demands ;
and the prince of Wirtemberg, who commanded their troops, being very well affected,
reckoned that all being granted he needed not stay till he sent to Denmark, nor wait for their
express orders, but marched and joined the army the day before the engagement. Some
thought that the king of France, upon the news of the disgrace before Barcelona, that he
might cover that, resolved to put all to venture, hoping that a victory would have set all to
rights : this passed generally in the world. But the duke of Marlborough told me that
there being only twelve days between the raising of the siege of Barcelona and this battle,
the one being on the first of May, and the other on the twelfth, eight of which must be
allowed for the courier to Paris, and from thence to Brabant, it seemed not possible to put
things in the order in which he saw them in so short a time. The French left their baggage
and heavy cannon at Judoign, and marched up to the duke of Marlborough. He was
marching towards them on the same design ; for, if they had not offered him battle on the
twelfth, he was resolved to have attacked them on the thirteenth of May. They met near
a village called Ramillies (not far from the Mehaigue) from whence the battle takes its
name. The engagement was an entire one, and the action was hot for two hours : both the French
mousquetaires and the cuirassiers were there. The elector of Bavaria said it was the best
army he ever beheld. But, after two hours, the French gave way every where ; so it ended
in an entire defeat. They lost both their camp, baggage, and artillery, as well as all that

OF QUEEN ANNE. 7&5
they had left in Judoign, and in all possible confusion they passed the Dyle, our men pur
suing till it was dark. The duke of Marlborough said to me, the French army looked the
best of any he had ever seen ; but that their officers did not do their partj nor show the
courage that had appeared among them on other occasions. And when I asked him the
difference between the actions at Hockstedt and at Ramillies ; he said, the first battle
lasted between seven and eight hours, and we lost above twelve thousand men in it ; whereas
the second lasted not above two hours, and we lost not above two thousand five hundred
men. Orders were presently sent to the great cities, to draw the garrisons out of them, that
so the French might have again the face of an army ; for their killed, their deserters, and
their prisoners, on this great day, were above twenty thousand men. The duke of Marl
borough lost no time, but followed them close : Louvain, Mechlin, and Brussels submitted,
besides many lesser places : Antwerp made a show of standing out, but soon followed the
example of the rest : Ghent and Bruges did the same : in all these king Charles was pro
claimed. Upon this unexpected rapidity of success, the duke of Marlborough went to the
Hague, to concert measures with the States, where he stayed but a few days ; for they
agreed to every thing he proposed, and sent him back with full powers. The first thing he
undertook was the siege of Ostend, a place famous for its long siege in the last age. The
natives of the place were disposed to return to the Austrian family, and the French that
were in it had so lost all heart and spirit, that they made not the resistance that was looked
for. In ten days after they sat down before it, and within four days after the batteries
were finished, they capitulated. From thence the confederates went to Menin, which was
esteemed the best finished fortification in all those parts : it was built after the peace of
Nimeguen ; nothing that art could contrive was wanting to render it impregnable ; and it
was defended by a garrison of six thousand men, so that many thought it was too bold an
undertaking to sit down before it. The French army was become considerable by great
detachments brought from the Upper Rhine, where mareschal Villars was so far superior
to the Germans, that, if it had not been for this revulsion of his forces, the circles of Suabia
and Franconia would have been much exposed to pillage and contribution.
The duke of Vendome's conduct in Italy had so raised his character, that he was thought
the only man fit to be at tho head of the army in Flanders ; so he was sent for, and had
that command given him, with a very high compliment, which was very injurious to the
other officers, since he was declared to be the single man on whom France could depend, and
by whom it could be protected, in that extremity. The duke of Orleans was sent to com
mand in Italy, and mareschal Marsin was sent with him to assist, or rather in reality to
govern him. And so obstinately was the king of France set on pursuing his first designs,
that notwithstanding his disgraces both in Spain and in the Netherlands, yet (since he had
ordered all the preparations for the siege of Turin) he would not desist from that attempt,
but ordered it to be pursued with all possible vigour. The siege of Menin was in the mean
while carried on so successfully, that the trenches were opened on the 24th of July, and the
batteries were finished on the 29th ; and they pressed the place so warmly, that they capitu
lated on the 11th of August, and marched out on the 14th, being St. Lewis's day : four
thousand men marched out of the place.
It seemed strange that a garrison, which was still so numerous, should give up, in so
short a time, a place that was both so strong and so well furnished. But as the French were
much sunk, so the allies were now become very expert at carrying on of sieges, and spared
no cost that was necessary for dispatch. Dendermonde had been for some weeks' under a
blockade : this, the duke of Marlborough ordered to be turned into a formal siege. The
place was so surrounded with water, that the king of France, having once begun a siege
there, was forced to raise it ; yet it was now so pressed, that the garrison offered to capitu
late, but the dnke of Marlborough would give them no other terms but those of being-
prisoners of war, to which they were forced to submit. Ath was next invested ; it lay so
inconveniently between Flanders and Brabant, that it was necessary to clear that communi
cation, and to deliver Brussels from the danger of that neighbourhood. In a fortnight's
time, it was also obliged to capitulate, and the garrison were made prisoners of war.
During those sieges, the duke of Vendome, having fixed himself in a camp that could not

7!>G THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
bo forced, did not think fit to give the duke of Marlborough any disturbance, while he lay
with his army covering the sieges. The French were jealous of the elector of Bavaria's
heat, and though he desired to command an army apart, yet it was not thought fit to divide
the forces, though now grown to be very numerous. Deserters said the panic was still so
great in the army, that there was no appearance of their venturing on any action. Paris
itself was under a high consternation, and though the king carried his misfortunes with an
appearance of calmness and composure, yet he was often let blood, which was thought an
indication of a great commotion within, and this was no doubt the greater, because it was
so much disguised. No news was talked of at that court, all was silent and solemn ; so that
even the duchess dowager of Orleans knew not the true state of their affairs, which made
her write to her aunt, the electress of Hanover, to learn news of her.
There was another alarm given them, which heightened the disorder they were in. The
queen and the States formed a design of a descent in France, with an army of about ten
thousand foot and one thousand two hundred horse. The earl of Rivers commanded the
land army, as Shovel did a royal fleet that was to convoythem, and to secure their landing :
it was to be near Bordeaux ; but the secret was then so well kept, that the French could
not penetrate into it : so the alarm was general. It put all the maritime counties of France
to a vast charge, and under dismal apprehensions. Officers were sent from the court to
exercise them ; but they saw what their militia was, and that was all their defence. I have
one of the manifestos that the earl of Rivers was ordered to publish upon his landing : he
declared by it, that he was come neither to pillage the country, nor to conquer any part of
it ; he came only to restore the people to their liberties, and to have assemblies of the states,
as they had anciently, and to restore the edicts to the protestants ; he promised protection
to all that should come in to him. The troops were all put aboard at Portsmouth, in the
beginning of July, but they were kept in our ports by contrary winds, till the beginning of
October. The design on France was then laid aside ; it was too late in the year for the
fleet to sail into the bay of Biscay, and to lie there for any considerable time in that season.
The reduction of Spain was of the greatest importance to us ; so new orders were sent them
to sail first to Lisbon, and there to take such measures, as the state of the affairs of Spain
should require.
The siege of Turin was begun in May, and was continued till the beginning of September.
There was a strong garrison within it, and it was well furnished both with provisions and
ammunition. The duke of Savoy put all to the hazard : he sent his duchess with his chil
dren to Genoa, and himself, with a body of three thousand horse, was moving about Turin,
from valley to valley, till that body was much diminished ; for he was, as it were, hunted
from place to place, by the duke of Feuillade, who commanded in the siege, and drove the
duke of Savoy before him ; so that all hope of relief lay in prince Eugene. The garrison
made a noble resistance, and maintained their outworks long : they blew up many mines,
and disputed every inch of ground with great resolution : they lost about six thousand men,
who were either killed or had deserted during the siege ; and their powder was at last so
spent, that they must have capitulated within a day or two, if they had not been relieved.
The siege cost the French very dear : they were often forced to change their attacks, and
lost about fourteen thousand men before the place ; for they were frequently beat from the
posts that they had gained.
Prince Eugene made all the haste he could to their relief. The court of Vienna had not
given due orders, as they had undertaken, for the provision of the troops that were to march
through their country to join him. This occasioned many complaints and some delay. The
truth was, that court was so much set on the reduction of Hungary, that all other things
were much neglected, while that alone seemed to possess them. A treaty was set on foot
with the malcontents there, by the mediation of England and of the States ; a cessation of
arms was agreed to for two months ; all that belonged to that court were very uneasy while
that continued ; they had shared among them the confiscations of all the great estates in
Hungary, and they saw that, -if a peace was made, all these would be vacated, and the
estates would be restored to their former owners ; so they took all possible means to traverse
the negotiation, and to enflame the emperor. There seemed to be some probability of

OF QUEEN ANNE. 797
bringing things to a settlement, but that could not be brought to any conclusion during the
term of the cessation ; when that was lapsed, the emperor could not be prevailed on to renew
it : he recalled his troops from the Upper Rhine, though that was contrary to all his agree
ments with the empire. Notwithstanding all this ill management of the court of Vienna,
prince Eugene got together the greatest part of those troops that he expected in the Veronese
before the end of June : they were not yet all come up, but he, believing himself strong
enough, resolved to advance ; and he left the prince of Hesse with a body to receive the
rest, and by them to force a diversion, while he should be going on. The duke of Vendome
had taken care of all the fords of the Adige, the Mincio, and the Oglio, and had cast up
such lines and entrenchments every where, that he had assured the court of France it was
not possible for prince Eugene to break through all that opposition, at least to do it in any
time to relieve Turin. By this time the duke of Orleans was come to take the army out of
Vendome's hands ; but before that duke had left it, they saw that he had reckoned wrong
in all those hopes he had given the court of France, of stopping prince Eugene's march. For,
in the beginning of July, he sent a few battalions over one of the fords of the Adige, where
the French were well posted, and double their number ; yet they ran away with such preci
pitation, that they left every thing behind them. Upon that, prince Eugene passed the
Adige with his whole army, and the French, in a consternation, retired behind the Mincio.
After this, prince Eugene surprised the French with a motion that they had not looked for,
nor prepared against, for he passed the Po : the duke of Orleans followed him, but declined
an engagement ; whereupon prince Eugene wrote to the duke of Marlborough, that he felt
the effects of the battle of Ramillies, even in Italy, the French seeming to be every where
dispirited with their misfortunes. Prince Eugene, marching nearer the Apennines, had
gained some days' march of the duke of Orleans ; upon which, that duke repassed the Po,
and advanced with such haste towards Turin, that he took no care of the pass at Stradella,
wliich might have been kept and disputed for some days. Prince Eugene found no opposi
tion there ; nor did he meet with any other difficulty, but from the length of the march and
the heat of the season, for he was in motion all the months of July and August
In the beginning of September the duke of Savoy joined him with the small remnants of
his army, and they hasted on to Turin. The duke of Orleans had got thither before them,
and the place was now reduced to the last extremities. The duke of Orleans, with most of
the chief officers, were for marching out of the trenches ; Marsin was of another mind, and
when he found it hard to maintain his opinion, he produced positive orders for it, which put
an end to the debate. The duke of Savoy saw the necessity of attacking them in their
trenches : his army consisted of twenty-eight thousand men, but they were good troops ;
the French were above forty thousand, and in a well fortified camp : yet after two hours'
resistance, the duke of Savoy broke through, and then there was a great destruction, the
French flying in much disorder, and leaving a vast treasure in their camp, besides great
stores of provisions, ammunition, and artillery. It was so entire a defeat, that not above
one thousand six hundred men of that great army got off in a body, and they made all the
haste they could into Dauphiny. The duke of Savoy went into Turin, where it may be
easily imagined he was received with much joy : the garrison, for want of powder, was not
in a condition to make a sally on the French, while he attacked them ; the French were
pursued as far as men wearied with such an action could follow them, and many prisoners
were taken. The duke of Orleans, though he lost the day, yet gave great demonstrations
of courage, and received several wounds. Mareschal Marsin fell into the enemy's hands, but
died of his wounds in a few hours ; and upon him all the errors of this dismal day were cast,
though the heaviest part of the load fell on Chamillard, who was then in the supreme degree
of favour at court, and was entirely possessed of madam Maintenon's confidence. Feuillade
had married his daughter, and, in order to the advancing him, he had the command of this
siege given him, which was thus obstinately pursued till it ended in this fatal manner. The
obstinacy continued, for the king sent orders, for a month together, to the duke of Orleans,
to march back into Piedmont, when it was absolutely impossible ; yet repeated orders were
sent, and the reason of this was understood afterwards. Madam Maintenon (it seems) took
that care of the king's health and humour, that she did not suffer the ill state of his affairs to

798 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
be fully told him : he all that while was made believe, that the siege was only raised upon
the advance of prince Eugene's army, and knew not that his own was defeated and ruined.
I am not enough versed in military affairs to offer any judgment upon that point, whether
they did well, or ill, not to go out of their camp to fight ; it is certain, that the fight was more
disorderly, and the loss was much greater, by reason of their lying within their lines : in this
I have known men of the trade of different opinions.
While this was done at Turin, the prince of Hesse advanced to the Mincio, which the
French abandoned ; but as he went to take Castiglione, Medavi, the French general, sur
prised him, and cut off about two thousand of his men, upon which he was forced to retire
to the Adige. The French magnified this excessively, hoping, with the noise they made
about it, to balance their real loss at Turin. The prince of Vaudemont, upon the news from
Turin, left the city of Milan, and retired with the small force he had to Cremona. The duke
of Savoy and prince Eugene marched with all haste into the Milanese. The city of Milan
was opened to them ; but the citadel and some strong places that had garrisons in them stood
out some time ; yet place after place capitulated, so that it was visible all would quickly
fall into their hands.
Such a succession of eminent misfortunes in one campaign, and in so many different
places, was without example. It made all people conclude that the time was come, in
which the perfidy, the tyranny, and the cruelty, of that king's long and bloody reign, was
now to be repaid him with the same severe measure with which he had formerly treated
others. But the secrets of God are not to be too boldly pried into, till he is pleased to
display them to us more openly. It is certainly a year that deserves to be long and much
remembered. In the end of the campaign, in which Poland had been harassed with the continuance
of the war, but without any great action, the king of Sweden, seeing that king Augustus
supported his affairs in Poland by the supplies, both of men and money, that he drew from
his electorate, resolved to stop that resource : so he marched through Silesia and Lusatia
into Saxony. He quickly made himself master of an open country, that was looking for no
such invasion, and was in no sort prepared for it, and had few strong places in it capable of
any resistance. The rich town of Leipsic and all the rest of the country was, without any
opposition, put under contribution. All the empire was alarmed at this : it was at first
apprehended that it was set on by the French councils, to raise a new war in Germany, and
to put the North all in a flame. The king of Sweden gave it out that he had no design to
give any disturbance to the empire ; that he intended by this march, only to bring the war
of Poland to a speedy conclusion : and it was reasonable to believe that such an unlooked for
incident would soon bring that war to a crisis.
This was the state of our affairs abroad in this glorious and ever-memorable year. At
home, another matter of great consequence was put in a good and promising method : the
commissioners of both kingdoms sat close in a treaty till about the middle of July ; iti con
clusion, they prepared a complete scheme of an entire union of both nations ; some parti
culars being only referred, to be settled by their parliaments respectively. When every
tiling was agreed to, they presented one copy of the treaty to the queen, and each side had
a copy, to be presented to their respective parliament, all the three copies being signed by
the commissioners of both kingdoms *. It was resolved to lay the matter first before the
parliament of Scotland, because it was apprehended that it would meet with the greatest
opposition there.
The union of the two kingdoms was a work of which many had quite despaired, in which
number I was one ; and those who entertained better hopes, thought it must have run out
into a long negotiation for several years : but beyond all men's expectation it was begun and
finished within the compass of one. The commissioners brought up from Scotland, for the
treaty, were so strangely chosen (the far greater number having continued in an opposition
to the government ever since the revolution), that from thence many concluded that it was
not sincerely designed by the ministry, when they saw such a nomination. This was a piece
of the earl of Stair's cunning, who did heartily promote the design : he then thought that if
* See the speeches of the two lord chancellors and of the queen, on tliis occasion, in Chandler's Debates, iii. 477.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 790
such a number of those who were looked on as jacobites, and were popular men on that
account among the disaffected there, could be so wrought on, as to be engaged in the affair,
the work would be much the easier when laid before the parliament of Scotland : and in this
the event showed that he took right measures. The lord Somers had the chief hand in pro
jecting the scheme of the union, into which all the commissioners of the English nation went
very easily. The advantages that were offered to Scotland in the whole frame of it were so
great and so visible, that nothing but the consideration of the safety, that was to be procured
by it to England, could have brought the English to agree to a project, that, in every branch
of it, was much more favourable to the Scotch nation *.
They were to bear less than the fortieth part of the public taxes ; when four shillings in
the pound was levied in England, which amounted to two millions, Scotland was only to
be taxed at 48,000 pounds, which was eight months' assessment ; they had been accustomed
for some years to pay this, and they said it was all that the nation could bear. It is held a
maxim, that in the framing of a government, a proportion ought to be observed between
the share in the legislature and the burden to be borne ; yet in return of the fortieth part
of the burden, they offered the Scotch nearly the eleventh part of the legislature ; for the
peers of Scotland were to be represented by sixteen peers in the house of lords, and the com
mons by forty-five members in the house of commons; and these were to be chosen accord
ing to the methods, to be settled in the parliament of Scotland. And since Scotland was to
pay customs and excises, on the same footing with England, and was to bear a share in
paying much of the debt England had contracted during the war, 398,000 pounds was to
be raised in England, and sent into Scotland, as an equivalent for that ; and that was to be
applied to the recoining the money, that all might be of one denomination and standard, and
to paying the public debts of Scotland, and repaying, to their African company, all their
losses with interest ; upon which that company was to be dissolved, and the overplus of the
equivalent was to be applied to the encouragement of manufactures. Trade was to be free
all over the island, and to the plantations ; private rights were to be preserved, and the judi
catories and laws of Scotland were still to be continued : but all was put, for the future,
under the regulation of the parliament of Great Britain ; the two nations now were to be one
kingdom, under the same succession to the crown, and united in one parliament. There was
no provision made in this treaty, with relation to religion ; for in the acts of parliament, in
both kingdoms, that empowered the queen to name commissioners, there was an express
limitation that they should not treat of those matters.
This was the substance of the articles of the treaty, which being laid before the parliament
of Scotland, met with great opposition there. It was visible that the nobility of that king
dom suffered a great diminution by it ; for though it was agreed that they should enjoy all
the other privileges of the peers of England, yet the greatest of them all, which was the
voting in the house of lords, was restrained to sixteen, to be elected by the rest at every new
parliament ; yet there was a greater majority of the nobility that concurred in voting for the
union, than in the other states of that kingdom. The commissioners from the shires and
boroughs were almost equally divided, though it was evident they were to be the chief
gainers by it ; among these the union was agreed to by a very small majority : it was the
nobility that in every vote turned the scale for the union : they were severely reflected on
by those who opposed it ; it was said many of them were bought off, to sell their country
and their birth-right : all those who adhered inflexibly to the jacobite interest, opposed
every step that was made with great vehemence ; for they saw that the union struck at the
root of all their views and designs, for a new revolution. Yet these could not have raised
or maintained so great an opposition as was now made, if the presbyterians had not been
possessed with a jealousy, that the consequence of this union would be, the change of church-
government among them, and that they would be swallowed up by the church of England.
This took such root in many that no assurances that were offered could remove their fears :
it was infused in them chiefly by the old duchess of Hamilton, who had great credit with
them ; and it was suggested, that she, and her son, had particular views, as hoping, that if
* For the Scotch Jacobinical narrative of the Union, see Lockhart's "Memoirs;" and Swift's " Public spirit of
the Whigs ;" " The Examiner" may also be consulted.

300 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Scotland should continue a separated kingdom, the crown might come into their family, they
being the next in blood, after king James's posterity. The infusion of such apprehensions
had a great effect on the main body of that party, who could scarcely be brought to hearken,
but never to accept of the offers, that were made for securing their presbyterian government.
A great part of the gentry of that kingdom, who had been often in England, and had observed
the protection, that all men had from a house of commons, and the security that it pro
cured against partial judges, and a violent ministry, entered into the design with great zeal.
The opening a free trade, not only with England, but with the plantations, and the protec
tion of the fleet of England, drew in those who understood these matters, and saw there was
no other way in view to make the nation rich and considerable. Those who had engaged
far into the design of Darien, and were great losers by it, saw now an honourable way to be
reimbursed, which made them wish well to the union, and promote it : but that which
advanced the design most effectually, and without which it could not have succeeded, was,
that a considerable number of noblemen and gentlemen who were in no engagements with
the court (on the contrary, they had been disobliged, and turned out of great posts, and some
very lately) declared for it. These kept themselves very close and united, and seemed to
have no other interest but that of their country, and were for that reason called the
squadrone * : the chief of these were, the marquis of Tweedale, the earls of Rothes, Roxburgh,
Haddington, and Marchmont ; they were in great credit, because they had no visible bias
on their minds ; ill usage had provoked them rather to oppose the ministry than to concur
in any thing, where the chief honour would be carried away by others. When they were
spoken to by the ministry, they answered coldly, and with great reserves, so it was expected
they would have concurred in the opposition ; and they being between twenty and thirty in
number, if they had set themselves against the union, the design must have miscarried : but
they continued still silent, till the first division of the house obliged them to declare, and
then they not only joined in it, but promoted it effectually, and with zeal : there were great
and long debates, managed on the side of the union, by the earls of Seafield and Stair for the
ministry, and of the squadrone by the earls of Roxburgh and Marchmont ; and against it by
the dukes of Hamilton and Athol, and the marquis of Annandale. The duke of Athol was
believed to be in a foreign correspondence, and was much set on violent methods : duke
Hamilton managed the debate with great vehemence, but was against all desperate motions :
he had much to lose, and was resolved not to venture all with those who suggested the neces
sity of running, in the old Scotch way, to extremities. The topics, from which the argu
ments against the union, were drawn, were the antiquity and dignity of their kingdom,
which was offered to be given up, and sold : they were departing from an independent state,
and going to sink into a dependence on England ; what conditions soever might be now
speciously offered, as a security to them, they could not expect that they should be adhered
to, or religiously maintained in a parliament, where sixteen peers and forty-five commoners
could not hold the balance against above an hundred peers and five hundred and thirteen
commoners. Scotland would be no more considered as formerly by foreign princes and
states : their peers would be precarious and elective : they magnified their crown with the
other regalia so much, that since the nation seemed resolved never to suffer them to be carried
away, it was provided, in a new clause added to the articles, that these should still remain
within the kingdom. They insisted most vehemently on the danger that the constitution of
their church must be in, when all should be under the power of a British parliament : this
was pressed with fury by some who were known to be the most violent enemies to pres
bytery, of any in that nation ; but it was done on design, to inflame that body of men by
those apprehensions, and so to engage them to persist in their opposition. To allay that
heat, after the general vote was carried for the union, before they entered on the considera
tion of the particular articles, an act was prepared for securing the presbyterian government ;
by which it was declared to be the only government of that church, unalterable in all suc
ceeding times, and the maintaining it was declared to be a fundamental and essential article
and condition of the union : and this act was to be made a part of the act for the union,
* Campbell, in his " Lives of the Admirals," says, " If I might be allowed to translate this word into political
English, I should call them old whigs."

OF QUEEN ANNE. 80]
which in the consequence of that, was to be ratified by another act of parliament in England.
Thus those who were the greatest enemies to presbytery, of any in the nation, raised the
clamour of the danger that form of government would be in, if the union went on, to such a
height, that by their means this act was carried, as far as any human law could go, for their
security : for by this they had not only all the security that their own parliament could give
them, but they were to have the faith and authority of the parliament of England, it being
in the stipulation made an essential condition of the union : the carrying this matter so far,
was done in hopes that the parliament of England would never be brought to pass it. This
act was passed, and it gave an entire satisfaction to those who were disposed to receive any,
but nothing could satisfy men who made use of this, only to inflame others. Those who
opposed the union, finding the majority was against them, studied to raise a storm without
doors, to frighten them : a set of addresses against the union were sent round all the countries
in which those who opposed it had any interest : there came up many of these in the name
of counties and boroughs, and at last from parishes ; this made some noise abroad, but was
very little considered there, when it was known by whose arts and practices they were pro
cured. When this appeared to have little effect, pains were taken to animate the rabble to
violent attempts, both at Edinburgh and at Glasgow. Sir Patrick Johnston, lord provost
of Edinburgh, had been one of the commissioners, and had concurred heartily in the design :
a great multitude gathered about his house, and were forcing the doors on design, as was
believed, to murder him ; but guards came and dispersed them. Upon this attempt, the
privy-council set out a proclamation against all such riots, and gave orders for quartering the
guards within the town ; but to show that this was not intended to overawe the parliament,
the whole matter was laid before them, and the proceedings of the privy council were
approved. No other violent attempt was made after this, but the body of the people showed
so much sullenness, that probably, had any person of authority once kindled the fire, they
seemed to be of such combustible matter, that the union might have cast that nation into
great convulsions. These things made great impressions on the duke of Queensbury, and
on some about him ; he despaired of succeeding, and he apprehended his person might be in
danger : one about him wrote to my lord treasurer, representing the ill temper the nation
was generally in, and moved for an adjournment, that so with the help of some time and
good management, those difficulties, which seemed then insuperable, might be conquered.
The lord treasurer told me, his answer was, that a delay was, upon the matter, laying the
whole design aside ; orders were given, both in England and Ireland, to have troops ready
upon call ; and if it was necessary, more forces should be ordered from Flanders : the French
were in no condition to send any assistance to those who might break out, so that the circum
stances of the time were favourable ; he desired therefore that they would go on, and not
be alarmed at the foolish behaviour of some, who, whatever might be given out in their
names., he believed had more wit than to ruin themselves. Every step that was made, and
every vote that was carried, was with the same strength, and met with the same opposition :
both parties giving strict attendance during the whole session, which lasted for three months.
Many protestations were printed, with every man's vote : in conclusion, the whole articles of
the treaty were agreed to, with some small variations. The earl of Stair, having maintained
the debate on the last day, in which all was concluded, died the next night suddenly, his
spirits being quite exhausted by the length and vehemence of the debate *. The act passed,
and was sent up to London in the beginning of February.
The queen laid it before the two houses ; the house of commons agreed to it all without
any opposition, so soon, that it was thought they interposed not delay and consideration
enough, suitable to the importance of so great a transaction. The debates were longer and
more solemn in the house of lords ; the archbishop of Canterbury moved, that a bill might
be brought in, for securing the church of England ; by it all acts, passed in favour of our
church, were declared to be in full force for ever ; and this was made a fundamental and
essential part of the union. Some exceptions were taken to the words of the bill, as not so
* John Dalrymple was raised to his earldom by queeu Anne, in 1703, being at the same time sworn one of her
privy council. He had previously filled the offices in Scotland of lord justice clerk, lord advocate, and secretary of
Btate.
3 F

802 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
strong as the act passed in Scotland seemed to be, since the government of it was not
declared to be unalterable ; but thev were judged more proper, since where a supreme legis
lature is once acknowledged, nothing can be unalterable. After this was over, the lords
entered upon the consideration of the articles, as they were amended in Scotland ; it was
pretended that here a new constitution was made, the consequence of which, they said, was
the altering all the laws of England. All the judges were of opinion, that there was no
weight in this ; great exceptions were taken to the small proportion Scotland was rated at,
in the laying on of taxes ; and their election of peers to every new parliament, was said to
be contrary to the nature of peerage. To all the objections that were offered, this general
answer was made, that so great a thing as the uniting the whole island into one government,
eonld not be compassed, but with some inconveniences ; but if the advantage of safety and
union was greater than those inconveniences, then a lesser evil must be submitted to. An
elective peer was indeed a great prejudice to the peers of Scotland, but since they had sub
mitted to it, there was no just occasion given to the peers of England to complain of it.
But the debate held longest upon the matters relating to the government of the church ; it
was said, here was a real danger the church ran into, when so many votes, of persons tied
to presbytery, were admitted to a share in the legislature. All the rigour with which the
episcopal clergy had been treated in Scotland, was set forth, to shew with how implacable
a temper they were set against the church of England ; yet, in return to all that, it was now
demanded from the men of this church to enact, that the Scotch form should continue unal
terable, and to admit those to vote among us who were such declared enemies to our consti
tution. Here was a plausible subject for popular eloquence, and a great deal of it was
brought out upon this occasion by Hooper, Beveridge, and some other bishops, and by the
earls of Rochester and Nottingham. But to all this it was answered, that the chief
dangers the church was in were from France and from popery ; so that whatsoever secured
us from these, delivered us from our justest fears. Scotland lay on the weakest side of
England, where it could not be defended but by an army ; the collieries on the Tyne lay
exposed for several miles, and could not be preserved but at a great charge, and with a great
force : if a war should fall out between the two nations, and if Scotland should be con
quered, yet, even in that case, it must be united to England, or kept under by an army :
the danger of keeping up a standing force, in the hands of any prince, and to be modelled
by him (who might engage the Scotch to join with that army and turn upon England) was
visible : and any union, after such a conquest, would look like a force, and so could not be
lasting; whereas all was now voluntary. As for church matters, there had been such
violence used by all sides in their turns, that none of them could reproach the others much,
without having it returned upon them too justly. A softer management would lay those
heats, and bring men to a better temper : the cantons of Switzerland, though very zealous in
their different religions, yet were united in one general body; the diet of Germany was
composed of men of three different religions ; so that several constitutions of churches
might be put under one legislature ; and if there was a danger of either side, it was much
more likely that five hundred and thirteen would be too hard for forty-five, than that forty-
five would master five hundred and thirteen ; especiaUy when the crown was on their side ;
and there were twenty-six bishops in the house of lords to outweigh the sixteen votes from
Scotland. It was indeed said, that all in England were not zealous for the church ; to
which it was answered, that by the same reason it might be concluded, that all those of
Scotland were not zealous for their way, especially when the favour of the court lay in the
English scale. The matter was argued, for the union, by the bishops of Oxford, Norwich,
and myself, by the lord treasurer, the earls of Sunderland and "Wharton, and the lords Towns-
hend and Halifax ; but above all, by the lord Somers. Every division of the house was
made with so great an inequality, that they were but twenty, against fifty that were for the
union. When all was agreed to, in both houses, a bill was ordered to be brouo-ht in to enact
it ; which was prepared by Harcourt with so particular a contrivance, that it cut off aU
debates *- The preamble was a recital of the articles, as they were passed in Scotland,
* Simon Harcourt, son of sir Simon Harconrt, the first college, Oxford, and the Inner Temple. From 1690 to
sacrifice in Ireland for Charles the First, wa= of Pembroke the accession of queen Anne, he was a member of parba-

OF QUEEN ANNE. 803
together with the acts made in both parliaments for the security of their several churches ;
and in conclusion, there came one enacting clause, ratifying all. This put those upon great
difficulties, who had resolved to object to several articles, and to insist on demanding some
alterations in them ; for they could not come at any debate about them ; they could not
object to the recital, it being merely matter of fact ; and they had not strength enough to
oppose the general enacting clause, nor was it easy to come at particulars and to offer pro
visos relating to them. The matter was carried on with such zeal, that it passed through
the house of commons before those, who intended to oppose it, had recovered themselves out
of the surprise under which the form it was drawn in had put them. It did not stick long
in the house of lords, for all tlie articles had been copiously debated there for several days,
before the bill was sent up to them : and thus this great design, so long wished and laboured
for in vain, was begun, and happily ended, within the compass of nine months. The union
was to commence on the first of May, and until that time, the two kingdoms were still
distinct, and their two parliaments continued, still to sit *.
In Scotland, they proceeded to dispose of the sum provided to be the equivalent ; in this
great partialities appeared, which were much complained of ; but there was not strength to
oppose them. The ministry, and those who depended on them, moved for very extravagant
allowances to those who had been employed in this last, and in the former treaty ; and they
made large allotments of some public debts, that were complained of as unreasonable and
unjust ; by which a great part of the sum was diverted from answering the end for which
it was given. This was much opposed by the squadrone ; but as the ministers promoted it,
and those who were to get by it, made all the interest they could to obtain it (some few
of them only excepted, who, as became generous patriots, showed more regard to the public
than to their private ends) so those who had opposed the union were not ill pleased to see
this sum so misapplied ; hoping by that means, that the aversion, which they endeavoured
to infuse into the nation against the union, would be much increased ; therefore they let
every thing go as the ministers proposed, to the great grief of those who wished well to
the public. It was resolved that the parliament of England should sit out its period,
which, by the law for triennial parliaments, ran yet a year further ; it was thought necessary
to have another session continued of the same men who had made this union, since they
would more readily consolidate and strengthen their own work. Upon this ground, it
seemed most proper that the members to represent parliament should be named by the par
liament there : those who had opposed the union carried their aversion to the squadrone so
far, that they concurred with the ministry in a nomination, in which very few of them were
included, not above three of the peers, and fifteen commoners ; so that great and just excep
tions lay against many who were nominated to represent that kingdom : all this was very
acceptable to those who had opposed the union. The customs of Scotland were then in a
farm, and the farmers were the creatures of the ministry, some of whom, as was believed,
were sharers with them : it was visible, that since there was to be a free trade opened
between Scotland and England, after the first of May, and since the duties in Scotland, laid
on trade, were much lower than in England, that there would be a great importation into
Scotland, on the prospect of the advantage that might be made by sending it into England.
Upon such an emergency, it was reasonable to break the farm, as had been ordinarily done
upon less reason, and to take the customs into a new management, that so the gain to be
made in the interval might go to the public, and not be left in private hands : but the lease
ment for Abingdon, of which town he was also the recorder, most emincut men who have filled the highest legal sta-
Her majesty knighted him, and made him her solicitor- tions in this country. He died in 1727, aged sixty-seven.
general in 170'2, and five vears after promoted him to the — Noble's Contin. of Grainger ; Hist, of the Harcourt
attorney-generalship. This office he resigned in a few Family.
months by a voluntary surrender enrolled in court ; an * The articles of the union, twenty-five in number,
unprecedented act, that has not been imitated. The queen maybe seen in Chandler's Debates, bouse of commons,
recalled him to her service, made liim again attorney- iv. 16. They passed this house finally by the votes of
general, raised him to the peerage as baron of Stanton Har- two hundred and seventy-four, opposed by one hundred
court, and made him lord chancellor in 1712, as mil be and sixteen; in that of the peers by fifty-five, against
noticed in another page. George the First continued to twenty-nine ; and on the 16th of March, the queen gave
show towards him the royal patronage. No act of his to it the royal assent.
lordship's life forbids his being considered as one of the
3 f 2

804 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
was continued in favour of the farmers. They were men of no interest of their own, so it
was not doubted but that there was a secret practice in the case. Upon the view of the
gain, to be made by such an importation, it was understood that orders were sent to Hol
land, and other places, to buy up wine, brandy, and other merchandize. And another noto
rious fraud was designed by some in England, who, because of the great draw-back, that was
allowed for tobacco and other plantation commodities, when exported, were sending great
quantities to Scotland, on design to bring them back after the first of May, that so they
might sell them free of that duty ; so a bill was offered to the house of commons for pre
venting this. While this was going on, Harley proposed the joining another clause, to this
effect : that all goods that were carried to Scotland after the first of February (unless it
were by the natural-born subjects of that kingdom, inhabiting in it) in case they were
imported into England after the first of May, should be liable to the English duties ; and of
this the proof was to lie on the importer. This angered all the Scotch, who raised a high
clamour upon it, and said the union was broken by it ; and that such a proceeding would
have very ill effects in Scotland. But the house of commons were so alarmed with the news
of a vast importation, which was aggravated far beyond the truth, and by which they con
cluded the trade of England would greatly suffer, at least for a year or two, that they passed
the bill, and sent it to the lords, where it was rejected ; for it appeared plainly to them, that
this was an infraction of some of the articles of the treaty. It was suggested, that a recess
for some days was necessary, that so the commons might have an opportunity to prepare a
bill, prohibiting all goods from being brought to England that had been sent out, only in
order that the merchants might have the draw-back allowed. With this view the parlia
ment was prorogued for a few days ; but at their next meeting, the commons were more
inflamed than before ; so they prepared a new bill, to the same effect, only in some clauses
it was more severe than the former had been ; but the lords did not agree to it, and so
it fell.Thus far I have carried on the recital of this great transaction, rather in such a general
view, as may transmit it right to posterity, than in so copious a narration, as an affair of
such consequence might seem to deserve ; it is very probable that a particular journal of the
debates in the parliament of Scotland, which were long and fierce, may at some time or other
be made public ; but I hope this may suffice for a history. I cannot, upon such a signal
occasion, restrain myself from making some reflections on the directions of Providence in this
matter. It is certain the design on Darien, the great charge it put the nation to, and
the total miscarriage of that project, made the trading part of that kingdom see the
impossibility of undertaking any great design in trade ; and that made them the more readily
concur in carrying on the union. The wiser men of that nation had observed long, that
Scotland lay at the mercy of the ministry, and that every new set of ministers made use of
their power to enrich themselves and their creatures at the cost of the public ; that the
judges, being made by them, were in such a dependence, that since there are no juries
allowed in Scotland in civil matters, the whole property of the kingdom was in their hands,
and by their means in the hands of the ministers : they had also observed, how ineffectual
it had been to complain of them at court ; it put those who ventured on it to a vast charge,
to no other purpose but to expose them the more to the fury of the ministry. The poor
noblemen, and the poor boroughs made a great majority in their parliament, and were easily
to be purchased by the court ; so they saw no hopes of a remedy to such a mischief, but by
an incorporating union with England. These thoughts were much quickened by the prospect
of recovering what they had lost in that ill concerted undertaking of Darien ; and this was
so universal and so operative, that the design on Darien, which the jacobites had set on foot,
and prosecuted with so much fury, and with bad intentions, did now engage many to pro
mote the union, who, without that consideration, would have been at least neutral, if not
backward in it. The court was engaged to promote the union, on account of the act of
security, passed in the year 1704, which was imputed chiefly to the lord treasurer : threat
enings, of impeaching him for advising it, had been often let fall, and upon that his enemies
had set their chief hopes of pulling him down : for though no proof could be brought of his
counsel iu it, yet it was not doubted but that his advije had determined the queen to pass

OF QUEEN ANNE. 805
it. An impeachment was a word of an odious sound, which would engage a party against
him, and disorder a session of parliament ; and the least ill effect it might have would be to
oblige him to withdraw from business, which was chiefly aimed at. The queen was very
sensible that his managing the great trust he was in, in the manner he did, made all the
rest of her government both safe and easy to her ; so she spared no pains to bring this about,
and it was believed she was at no small cost to compass it, for those of Scotland had learned
from. England to set a price on their votes, and they expected to be well paid for them : the
lord treasurer did also bestir himself in this matter, with an activity and zeal, that seemed
not to be in his nature ; and indeed, all the application, with which the court set on this
affair, was necessary to master the opposition and difficulties, that sprang up in the progress
of it. That which completed all was, the low state to which the affairs of France were
reduced : they could neither spare men, nor money, to support their party, which otherwise
they would undoubtedly have done : they had, in imitation of the exchequer-notes here in
England, given out mint-bills to a great value ; some said two hundred millions of livres :
these were ordered to be taken by the subjects, in all payments, as money to the full value,
but were not to be received in payments of the king's taxes : this put them under a great
discredit, and the fund created for repaying them not being thought a good one, they had
sunk seventy per cent. This created an inexpressible disorder in all payments, and in the
whole commerce of France ; all the methods that were proposed for raising their credit had
proved ineffectual ; for they remained after all at the discount of fifty-eight per cent. A
court in this distress was not in a condition to spare much, to support such an inconsiderable
interest, as they esteemed their party in Scotland ; so they had not the assistance which
they promised themselves from thence. The conjuncture of all these things meeting together,
which brought this great work to a happy conclusion, was so remarkable, that I hope my
laying it all in one view will be thought no impertinent digression.
This was the chief business of the session of parliament ; and it was brought about, here in
England, both sooner, and with less difficulty, than was expected. The grant of the sup
plies went on quicker than was usual. There was only one particular to which great objec
tions were made ; upon the great and early success of the former campaign, it was thought
necessary to follow that with other projects, that drew on a great expense, beyond what had
been estimated, and laid before the parliament. An embarkation, first designed against
France, and afterwards sent to Portugal, and the extraordinary supplies that the duke of
Savoy's affairs called for, amounted to about 800,000Z. more than had been provided for by
parliament. Some complained of this, and said, that if a ministry could thus run the nation
into a great charge, and expect that the parliament must pay the reckoning, this might have
very ill consequences. But to this it was answered, that a ministry deserved public thanks,
that had followed our advantages with such vigour : if any thing was raised without neces
sity, or ill applied, under the pretence of serving the public, it was very reasonable to enquire
into it, and to let it fall heavy on those who were in fault ; but if no other exception lay to
it, than because the matter could not be foreseen, nor communicated to the parliament, before
those accidents happened that occasioned the expense, it was a very unjust discouragement,
if ministers were to be quarrelled with for their care and zeal : so it was carried by a great
majority to discharge this debt. All the other supplies, and among them the equivalent for
Scotland, were given, and lodged on good funds ; so that no session of parliament had ever
raised so much, and secured it so well, as this had done. The session came to a happy con
clusion, and the parliament to an end ; but the queen, by virtue of a clause in the act of
union, revived it by proclamation. Upon this, many of the Scotch lords came up, and were
very well received ; two of them, Montrose and Roxburgh, were made dukes in Scotland * ;
some of them were made privy councillors in England ; and a commission, for a new council,
was sent to Scotland : there appeared soon two different parties among the Scotch ; some of
them moved, that there should neither be a distinct government, nor a privy council con
tinued there, but that all should be brought under one administration, as the several counties
in England were ; they said, the sooner all were consolidated, in all respects, into one body,
* The Scotch people concluded that it was the promise of a dukery that overcame the earl of Roxburgh's objections
to the union, for he once had said " it should be prevented by the sword, if other means foiled."— Grainger.

80C THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the possibility of separating and disuniting them, would be the sooner extinguished ; this
was pressed with the most earnestness by those who were weary of the present ministry, and
longed to see their power at an end ; but the ministry, who had a mind to keep up their
authority, said, there was a necessity of preserving a show of greatness, and a form of govern
ment in those parts, both for subduing the jacobites, and that the nation might not be dis
gusted by too sudden an alteration of outward appearances. The court resolved to maintain
the ministry there till the next session of parliament, in which new measures might be
taken. Thus our affairs were happily settled at home, and the first of May was celebrated
with a decent solemnity, for then the union took place.
The convocation sat this winter ; and the same temper that had for some years possessed
the lower house, did still prevail among them : when the debates concerning the union were
before the parliament, some in the lower house spoke very tragically on that subject : a com
mittee was named to consider of the present danger of the church, though but a little while
before they had concurred -with the bishops, in a very respectful address to the queen, in
which it was acknowledged, that the church was under her majesty's administration, in a safe
and flourishing condition : this was carried by the private management of some aspiring
men amongst them, who hoped by a piece of skill to show what they could do, that it might
recommend them to farther preferment ; they were much cried out on as betrayers of their
party, for carrying that address ; so to recover their credit, and because their hopes from
the court were not so promising, they resolved now to act another part. It was given out,
that they intended to make an application to the house of commons, against the union ; to
prevent that, the queen wrote to the archbishop, ordering him to prorogue them for three
weeks : by this means that design was defeated, for before the end of the three weeks, the
union had passed both houses : but, when one factious design failed, they found out another ;
they ordered a representation to be made to the bishops, which set forth, that ever since the
submission of the clergy in Henry the Eighth's time, which was for a course of one hundred
and seventy-three years, no such prorogation had ever been ordered, during the sitting of
parliament ; and they besought the bishops, that from the conscientious regard which they
doubted not they had, for the welfare of this church, they would use their utmost endeavours,
that they might still enjoy those usages of which they were possessed, and which they had
never misemployed : with this they brought up a schedule, containing, as they said, all the
dates of the prorogations, both of parliament and convocation, thereby to make good their
assertion : and to cover this seeming complaint of the queen's proceedings, they passed a vote,
that they did not intend .to enter into any debate concerning the validity of the late proro
gation, to which they had humbly submitted. It was found to be a strange and a bold
assertion, that this prorogation was without a precedent : their charge in the preserving
their usages on the consciences of the bishops, insinuated that this was a breach made on
them : the bishops saw this was plainly an attempt on the queen's supremacy ; so they
ordered it to be laid before her majesty ; and they ordered also a search to be made into
the records ; for though it was an undoubted maxim that nothing but a positive law could
limit the prerogative, which a non-usage could not do, yet they ordered the schedule, offered
by the lower house, to be compared with the records ; they found that seven or eight proro
gations had been ordered, during the sitting of parliament, and there were about thirty or
forty more, by which it appeared, that the convocation sat sometimes before, and sometimes
after a session of parliament, and sat sometimes even when the parliament was dissolved.
Upon all this the queen wrote another more severe letter to the archbishop, complaining of
the clergy, for not only continuing their illegal practices, but reflecting on her late order, as
without a precedent, and contrary to ancient usages ; which as it was untrue in fact, so it
was an invasion of her supremacy : she had shewed much tenderness to the clergy, but if
any thing of this nature should be attempted for the future, she would use means warranted
by law for punishing offenders, how unwilling soever she might be to proceed to such
measures. When the day came on which this was to be communicated to the lower house,
the prolocutor * had gone out of town, without so much as asking the archbishop's leave ;
* This was dean Stanhope.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 807
so a very small number of the clergy appeared : upon this signal contempt, the archbishop
pronounced him contumacious, and referred the further censuring him to the day he set for
their next meeting : the prolocutor's party pressed him to stand it out, and to make no sub
mission ; but he had sounder advice given him by some who understood the law better ; so
he made a full submission, with which the archbishop was satisfied : yet a party continued,
with great impudence to assert, that their schedule was true, and that the queen was misin
formed, though the lord chancellor, made now a peer of England, and the lord chief justice
Holt, had, upon perusal of the records, affirmed to the queen, that their assertion was false,
and that there were many precedents for such prorogations.
And now I must look abroad into foreign affairs. The French were losing place after
place in Lombardy ; Cremona, Mantua, and the city of Milan were the only places that
were left in their hands : it was not possible to maintain these long without a greater
force, nor was it easy to convey that to them. On the other hand, the reducing those
fortresses was likely to be a work of time, which would fatigue the troops, and would
bring a great charge with it ; so a capitulation was proposed, for delivering up those
places, and for allowing the French troops a free march to Dauphiny. As soon as this
was sent to Vienna, it was agreed to, without communicating it to the allies, which
gave just cause of offence : it was said in excuse, that every general had a power to
agree to a capitulation ; so the emperor, in this case, was not bound to stay for the consent
of the allies. This was true, if the capitulation had been for one single place, but this was
of the nature of a treaty, being of a greater extent ; by this the French saved ten or
twelve thousand men, who must all have been, in a little time, made prisoners of war : they
were veteran troops, and were sent into Spain, of which we quickly felt the ill effects *.
The design was formed for the following campaign after this manner : the duke of Savoy
undertook to march an army into France, and to act there as should be concerted by the
allies ; some proposed the marching through Dauphiny to the river of the Rhone, and so up
to Lyons ; but an attempt upon Toulon was thought the most important thing that could
be designed ; so that was settled on. Mareschal Tesse was sent to secure the passes, and to
cover France on that side. This winter the prince of Baden died, little esteemed, and little
lamented ; the marquis of Bareith had the command of the army, on the Upper Rhine,
from whom less was expected ; he was so ill supported that he could do nothing. The
court of Vienna was so set on the reduction of Hungary, that they thought of nothing else :
the Hungarians were very numerous, but they wanted both officers and discipline : Ragotzi
had possessed himself of almost all Transylvania, and the Hungarians were so alienated
from the emperor, that they were consulting about choosing a new king.
The eyes of all Europe were upon the king of Sweden, who having possessed himself of
Saxony, made king Augustus soon feel, that now that his hereditary dominions were in his
enemy's hands, he could no longer maintain the war in Poland : so a treaty was set on foot,
with such secrecy, that it was concluded before it was apprehended to be in agitation. King
Augustus was only waiting for a fit opportunity to disengage himself from his Polanders,
and from the Muscovites ; an incident happened that had almost embroiled all again : the
Polanders and Muscovites attacked a body of Swedes, at a great disadvantage, being much
superior to them in number ; so the Swedes were almost cut to pieces. King Augustus had
no share in this, and did all that he durst venture on to avoid it : he paid dear for it, hard
conditions were put on him, to which the necessity of his affairs forced him to submit. He
made all the haste he safely could to get out of Poland ; he resigned back their crown to
them, and was contented with the empty name of king, though that seemed rather to be a
reproach than any accession of honour to his electoral dignity ; he thought otherwise, and
stipulated that it should be continued to him : be was at mercy, for he had neither forces
nor treasure : it was thought the king of Sweden treated him with too much rigour, when
he had so entirely mastered him ; the other was as little pitied as he deserved to be, for by
many wrong practices he had drawn all his misfortunes on himself. The king of Sweden,
being in the heart of Germany, in so formidable a posture, gave great apprehensions to the
* For full information relative to the continental war, the reader may refer to Campbell's Memoirs of Marlborough
and Eugene ; Quincy's Histoire Militaire ; Limier's Histoire ; Memoircs de la Torres, &c.

808 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
allies. The French made strong applications to him, but the courts of Prussia and Hanover
were in such a concert with that king, that they gave the rest of the allies great assurances
that he would do nothing to disturb the peace of the empire, nor to weaken the alliance :
the court of France pressed him to offer his mediation for a general peace ; all the answer
he gave was, that if the allies made the like application to him, he would interpose, and do
all good offices in a treaty. So he refused to enter into any separate measures with France,
yet the court of Vienna was under a great apprehension of his seeking matter for a quarrel
with them. The czar at this time overran Poland, so that king Stanislaus was forced to fly
into Saxony to the king of Sweden for protection ; both he and his queen stayed there all
the winter, and a great part of this summer. The czar pressed the Polanders to proceed to
the election of another king, but could not carry them to that ; so it was generally believed,
that they were resolved to come to a treaty with king Stanislaus, and to settle the quiet of
that kingdom, exhausted by a long and destructive war. The czar tried, if it were possible,
to come to a peace with the king of Sweden, and made great offers in order to it ; but that
king was implacable, and seemed resolved to pull him down, as he had done king Augustus.
That king's designs were impenetrable, he advised with few, and kept himself on great
reserves with all foreign ministers, whom he would not suffer to come near him, except
when they had a particular message to deliver. Our court was advised by the elector of
Hanover to send the duke of Marlborough to him : it was thought this would please him
much, if it had no other effect ; so he went thither, but could gain no ground on him. He
affected a neglect of his person, both in clothes, lodging, and diet ; all was simple, even to
meanness ; nay, he did not so much as allow a decent cleanliness : he appeared to have a
real sense of religion, and a zeal for it, but it was not much enlightened : he seemed to have
no notion of public liberty, but thought princes ought to keep their promises religiously, and
to observe their treaties punctually ; he rendered himself very acceptable to his army, by
coming so near their way of living, and by his readiness to expose his own person, and to
reward services done him ; he had little tenderness in his nature, and was a fierce enemy, too
rough, and too savage : he looked on foreign ministers as spies by their character, and treated
them accordingly ; and he used his own ministers rather as instruments to execute his orders,
than as counsellors.
The court of France finding they could not prevail on him, made a public application to
the pope, for his mediating a peace : they offered the dominions in Italy to king Charles, to
the States a barrier in the Netherlands, and a compensation to the duke of Savoy, for the
waste made in his country ; provided, that on those conditions, king Philip should keep
Spain, and the West Indies. It was thought the court of Vienna wished this project might
be entertained, but the other allies were so disgusted at it, that they made no steps toward
it : the court of Vienna did what they could to confound the designs of this campaign ; for
they ordered a detachment of twelve thousand men to march from the army in Lombardy
to the kingdom of Naples. The court of England, the States, and the duke of Savoy,
studied to divert this, with the warmest instances possible, but in vain : though it was repre
sented to that court, that if the duke of Savoy could enter into Provence with a great army,
that would cut off all supplies, and communication with France : so that success, in this
great design, would make Naples and Sicily fall into their hands of course ; but the impe
rial court was inflexible ; they pretended they had given their party in Naples such assur
ances of an invasion, that if they failed in it, they exposed them all to be destroyed, and
thereby they might provoke the whole country to become their most inveterate enemies.
Thus they took up a resolution without consulting their allies, and then pretended that it
was fixed, and could not be altered.
The campaign was opened very fatally in Spain : king Charles pretended, there was an
army coming into Catalonia from Roussillon, and that it was necessary for him to march
into that country ; the dividing a force, when the whole together was not equal to the
enemy's, has often proved fatal : he ought to have made his army as strong as possibly he
could, and to have marched with it to Madrid ; for the rest of Spain would have fallen into
his hands, upon the success of that expedition. But he persisted in his first resolution, and
marched away with a part of the army, leaving about sixteen thousand men under the earl

OF QUEEN ANNE. 809
of Galway's command. They had eaten up all their stores in Valencia, and could subsist
no longer there ; so they were forced to break into Castile : the duke of Berwick came
against them with an army not much superior to theirs ; but the court of France had sent
the duke of Orleans into Spain, with some of the best troops that they had brought from
Italy, and these joined the duke of Berwick a day before the two armies engaged. Some
deserters came over, and brought the earl of Galway the news of the conjunction ; but they
were not believed, and were looked on as spies, sent to frighten them. A council of war
had resolved to venture on a battle, which the state of their affairs seemed to make necessary :
they could not subsist where they were, nor be subsisted if they retired back into Valencia ;
so on the fourteenth of April, the two armies engaged in the plain of Almanza. The English
and Dutch beat the enemy, and broke through twice ; but the Portuguese gave way ; upon
that the enemy, who were almost double in number, both horse and foot, flanked them, and
a total rout followed, in which about ten thousand were killed or taken prisoners. The eari
of Galway was twice wounded ; once so near the eye, that for some time it put him out of
a capacity for giving orders ; but at last he, with some other officers, made the best retreat
they could. Our fleet came happily on that coast on the day that the battle was fought ;
so he was supplied from thence, and he put garrisons into Denia and Alicant, and retired to
the Ebro, with about three thousand horse, and almost as many foot. The duke of Orleans
pursued the victory : Valencia submitted, and so did Saragoza ; so that the principality of
Catalonia was all that remained in king Charles's obedience. The king of Portugal died this
winter, but that made no great change in affairs there : the young king agreed to every
thing that was proposed to him by the allies ; yet the Portuguese were under a great con
sternation, their best troops being either cut off, or at that time in Catalonia.
Marshal Villars was sent to command in Alsace : he understood that the lines of Stol-
hoven were ill kept, and weakly manned ; so he passed the Rhine, and without any loss, and
very little opposition, he broke through, and seized on the artillery, and on such magazines
as were laid in there. Upon this shameful disgrace, the Germans retired to Hailbron : the
circle of Suabia was now open, and put under contribution ; and Villars designed to pene
trate as far as to Bavaria. The blame of this miscarriage was laid chiefly on the imperial
court, who neither sent their quota thither, nor took care to settle a proper general for the
defence of the empire. In Flanders the French army, commanded by the duke of Vendome,
came and took post at Gemblours, in a safe camp ; the duke of Marlborough lay at Mel-
dert in a more open one : both armies were about one hundred thousand strong ; but the
French were rather superior to that number.
In the month of June, the design upon Toulon began to appear : the queen and the States
sent a strong fleet thither, commanded by sir Cloudesley Shovel ; who from mean beginnings,
had risen up to the supreme command ; and had given many proofs of great courage, con
duct and zeal, in the whole course of his life *. Prince Eugene had the command of the
imperial army that was to second the duke of Savoy in this undertaking, upon the success
of which the final conclusion of the war depended. The army was not so strong as it was
intended it should have been : the detachment of twelve thousand men was ordered to march
to Naples ; and no applications could prevail at the court of Vienna, to obtain a delay in
* " He who enjoys a title by birth, derives it from beloved even by his monarchs. Sir John Narborough
the virtues of his ancestors, but he who raises himself into soon became his patron, and eventually sir Cloudesley
high rank by his merit creates his nobility." Sir Cloudes- married his widow ; such are the strange occurrences in
ley Shovel was of the latter class ; born of obscure parents, this life of incalculable changes. At the time of his death,
and apprenticed to a shoemaker, circumstances did not the melancholy circumstances attending which will be
give a friendly aid to his aspirations for fame. Born and mentioned hereafter, he was rear admiral of England ;
resident in the obscure maritime town of Clay, in Norfolk, admiral of the white ; commander-in-chief of the fleet ; a
his early companions were the fishermen of that dangerous member of the council of prince George, lord high admi-
coast, and from being an auditor and a witness of their life ral ; elder brother of the Trinity House ; a governor of
and doings, he probably acquired a fondness for the naval Greenwich Hospital ; and member of parliament for
service. He ran away from the lapstone, and volunteered Rochester. " Tlie duties of the husband, the father, the
on board the ship commanded by sir Christopher Mynns. friend, and the relation were excellently performed by Bir
To know him, it appears, was a surety that you must love Cloudesley, who always gave in charity more than was
him ; for from this early period to the latest of his life, he expected, and was munificent to merit even beyond bis
was open-hearted, candid, generous, and brave — qualifica- princely income." — Campbell's Lives of the Admirals ;
tions that made him the idol of his brother sailors, and Noble's Contin. of Grainger.

810 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
that expedition : there were also eight or ten thousand recruits that were promised to be sent
to reinforce prince Eugene, which were stopped in Germany, for the emperor was under such
apprehensions of a rupture with Sweden, that he pretended it was absolutely necessary, for
his own safety, to keep a good force at home. Prince Eugene had also orders, not to expose
his troops too much : by this means they were the less serviceable : notwithstanding these
disappointments, the duke of Savoy, after he had for some weeks covered his true design,
by a feint upon Dauphiny, by which he drew most of the French troops to that side ; as
soon as he heard that the confederate fleet was come upon the coast, he made a very quick
march through ways that were thought impracticable, on to the river Var, where the French
had cast up such works, that it was reckoned these must have stopped his passing the river :
and they would have done it effectually, if some ships had not been sent in from the fleet,
into the mouth of the river, to attack these where there was no defence ; because no attack
from that side was apprehended. By this means they were forced to abandon their works,
and so the passage over the river was free : upon this, that duke entered Provence, and made
all the haste he could towards Toulon. The artillery and ammunition were on board the
fleet, and were to be landed near the place ; so the march of the army was as little encum
bered as was possible : yet it was impossible to advance with much haste in an enemy's
country, where the provisions were either destroyed, or carried into fortified places, which,
though they might have easily been taken, yet no time was to be lost in executing the great
design; so this retarded the march for some days : yet, in conclusion, they came before the
place, and were quickly masters of some of the eminences that commanded it. At their
first coming they might have possessed themselves of another, called St. Anne's hill, if prince
Eugene had executed the duke of Savoy's orders ; he did it not, which raised a high discon
tent ; but he excused himself by showing the orders he had received, not to expose the
emperors troops. Some days were lost by the roughness of the sea, which hindered the
ships from landing the artillery and ammunition. In the mean while, the troops of France
were ordered to march from all parts to Toulon : the garrison within was very strong ; the
forces that were on their march to Spain, to prosecute the victory of Almanza, were counter
manded ; and so great a part of Villars's army was called away, that he could not make any
further progress in Germany. So that a great force was, from all hands, marching to raise
this siege ; and it was declared, in the court of France, that the duke of Burgundy would
go and lead on the army. The duke of Savoy lost no time, but continued cannonading the
place, while the fleet came up to bombard it ; they attacked the two forts that commanded
the entrance into the mole with such fury, that they made themselves masters of them ;
but one of them was afterwards blown up. Those within the town were not idle ; they
sunk some ships in the entrance into the mole, and fired furiously at the fleet, but did them
little harm : they beat the duke of Savoy out of one of his most important posts, which was
long defended by a gallant prince of Saxe- Gotha ; who, not being supported in time, was
cut to pieces. This post was afterwards regained, and the fleet continued for some days to
bombard the place : but in the end, the duke of Savoy, whose strength had never been above
thirty thousand men, seeing so great a force marching towards him, who might intercept
his passage, and so destroy his whole army, and there being no hope of his carrying the
place, found it necessary to march home in time ; which he did with so much order and pre
caution, that he got back into his own country, without any loss ; and soon after his return,
he sat down before Suza, and took it in a few weeks. Our fleet did all the execution tbey
could on the town ; their bombs set some places on fire, which they believed were maga
zines ; for they continued burning for many hours ; in conclusion, they sailed off. They left
behind them a fleet of six-and-twenty ships in the Mediterranean, and the great ships sailed
homewards. Thus this great design, on which the eyes of all Europe were set, failed in the
execution, chiefly by the emperor's means : England and the States performed all that was
expected of them, nor was the duke of Savoy wanting on his part ; though many suspected
him, as backward, and at least cold in the undertaking *. It was not yet perfectly under-
* It would seem that the duke of Savoy was induced by the French and Bavarian ambassadors  Lamberti's
not to persist in the siege of Toulon, by the representa- Memoires ; lord Walpole of Woolerron's A newer to Lord
tions of the king of Sweden, who was prevailed upon to Bolingbroke's Letters on History.
interfere by count Piper, who iu his turn was acted upon

OF QUEEN ANNE. 811
stood what damage the French sustained ; many of their ships were rendered unserviceable,
and continue to be so still ; nor did they set out any fleet all the following winter ; though
the affairs of king Charles in Spain were then so low, that if they could have cut off the
communication by sea between Italy and Spain, they must soon have been masters of all
that was left in his hands ; so that from their fitting out no fleet at Toulon, it was con
cluded that they could not do it. When the design upon Toulon was broken, more troops
were sent into Spain : the earl of Galway did, with incredible diligence and activity,
endeavour to repair the loss at Almanza, as much as was possible : the supplies and stores
that he had from our fleet, put him in a capacity to make a stand ; he formed a new army,
and put the strong places in the best posture he could ; Lerida was the most exposed, and
so was the best looked to ; Tortosa, Tarragona, and Gironne, were also well fortified, and
good garrisons were put in them. The attempt on Toulon, as it put a stop to all the motions
of the French, so it gave him time to put the principality of Catalonia in a good state of
defence. The duke of Orleans, being reinforced with troops from France, sat down before
Lerida, in the end of September, with an army of thirty thousand men : the place was com
manded by a prince of Hesse, who held out above forty days : after some time he was forced
to abandon the town, and to retire into the castle ; the army suffered much in this long
siege. When the besieged saw how long they could hold out, they gave the earl of Galway
notice, upon which he intended to have raised the siege ; and if the king of Spain would
have consented to his drawing, out of the other garrisons, such a force as might have been
spared, he undertook to raise it, which was believed might have been easily done : and if he
had succeeded, it would have given a new turn to all the affairs of Spain : but count
Noyelles, who was well practised in the arts of flattery, and knew how much king Charles
was alienated from the earl of Galway, for the honest freedom he had used with him, in
laying before him some errors in his conduct, set himself to oppose this, apprehending that
success in it would have raised the earl of Galway's reputation again, which had suffered a
great diminution by the action of Almanza ; he said, this would expose the little army they
had left them, to too great a hazard ; for if the design miscarried, it might occasion a revolt
of the whole principality. Thus the humours of princes are often more regarded than their
interest ; the design of relieving Lerida was laid aside. The French army was diminished
a fourth part, and the long siege had so fatigued them, that it was visible, the raising it
would have been no difficult performance, but the thoughts of that being given over, Lerida
capitulated in the beginning of November : the Spaniards made some feeble attempts on the
side of Portugal, with success, for little resistance was made ; the Portuguese excusing them
selves by their feebleness, since their best troops were in Catalonia.
King Charles, finding his affairs in so ill a condition, wrote to the emperor, and to the
other allies, to send him supplies, with all possible haste : Stanhope was sent over, to press
the queen and the States to dispatch these the sooner. At the end of the campaign in Italy,
seven thousand of the imperial troops were prepared to be sent over to Barcelona ; and these
were carried in the -winter, by the confederate fleet, without any disturbance given them by
the French. Recruits and supplies of all sorts were sent over from England, and from the
States to Portugal. But while the house of Austria was struggling with great difficulties,
two pieces of pomp and magnificence consumed a great part of their treasure : an embassy
was sent from Lisbon, to demand the emperor's sister for that king, which was done with
an unusual and extravagant expense : a wife was to be sought for king Charles, among
the protestant courts, for there was not a suitable match in the popish courts : he had seen
the princess of Anspach, and was much taken with her ; so that great applications were
made to persuade her to change her religion, but she could not be prevailed on to buy a
crown at so dear a rate : and soon after she was married to the prince electoral of Bruns
wick, which gave a glorious character of her to this nation ; and her pious firmness is likely
to be rewarded, even in this life, with a much better crown, than that which she rejected.
The princess of Worfenbuttle was not so firm ; so she was brought to Vienna, and some time
after was married by proxy to king Charles, and was sent to Italy, in her way to Spain.
The solemnity with which these matters were managed, in all this distress of their affairs,
consumed a vast deal of treasure ; for such was the pride of those courts on such occasions,

812 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
that, rather than fail in a point of splendour, they would let their mcjt important affairs go
tp wreck. That princess was landed at Barcelona ; and the queen of Portugal the same
year came to Holland, to be carried to Lisbon, by a squadron of the English fleet.
But while matters were in a doubtful state in Spain, the expedition to Naples had all the
success that was expected : the detachment from Lombardy marched through the ecclesi
astical state, and struck no small terror into the court of Rome, as they passed near it : it
was apprehended some resistance would have been made in Naples by those who governed
there under king Philip ; but the in-bred hatred the Neapolitans bore the French, together
with the severities of their government, had put that whole kingdom into such a disposition
to revolt, that the small party which adhered to king Philip found it not advisable to offer
any resistance, so they had only time enough to convey their treasure, and all their
richest goods to Cayeta, and to retire thither : they reckoned they would either be relieved
from France by sea, or obtain a good capitulation ; or if that failed, they had some ships
and galleys, in which they might hope to escape. The imperialists took possession of
Naples, where they were received, with great rejoicings ; their ill conduct quickly moderated
that joy, and very much disposed the Neapolitans to a second revolt : but upon applications,
made to the courts of Vienna and Barcelona, the excesses of the imperialists, who carried
their ravenous disposition with them wheresoever they went, were somewhat corrected, so
that they became more tolerable. As soon as a government could be settled at Naples, they
undertook the siege of Cayeta, which went on at first very slowly ; so that those within
seemed to apprehend nothing so much as the want of provisions ; upon which they sent the
few ships they had to Sicily, to bring them supplies, for all they might want : when these
were sent away, the imperialists, knowing what a rich booty was lodged in the place, pressed
it very hard, and, in conclusion, took it by storm ; and so were masters of all the wealth
that was in it ; the garrison retired into the castle, but they were soon after forced to surren
der, and were all made prisoners of war. It was proposed to follow this success, with an
attempt upon Sicily ; but it was not easy to supply Naples with bread, nor was our fleet at
liberty to assist them ; for they were ordered to lie on the coast of Spain, and to wait there
for orders ; when these arrived, they required them to carry the marquis das Minas and the
earl of Galway, with the forces of Portugal, to Lisbon, which was happily performed : and
the earl of Galway found the character and powers of an ambassador, lying for him there.
The thoughts of attempting Sicily were therefore laid aside for this time ; though the
Sicilians were known to be in a very good disposition to entertain it. A small force was
sent from Naples to seize on those places which lay on the coast of Tuscany, and beloneed
to the crown of Spain : some of them were soon taken, but Porto Longone and Port Hercole
made a better resistance : this was the state of affairs in Italy and Spain all this year, and
till the opening of the campaign the next year.
Villars continued in Germany, laying Suabia under heavy contributions ; and very pro
bably he would have penetrated into Bavaria, if the detachments he was ordered to send
away had not so weakened his army, that he durst not venture further, nor undertake any
considerable siege. While the empire was thus exposed, all men's eyes turned towards the
elector of Brunswick, as the only person that could recover their affairs out of those extremi
ties, into which they were brought : the emperor pressed him to accept of the supreme com
mand ; this was seconded by all the allies, but most earnestly by the queen and the States :
the elector used all the precaution that the embarking in such a design required, and he had
such assurances of assistance from the princes and circles, as he thought might be depended
upon : so he undertook the command : his first care was to restore military discipline, which
had been very little considered or submitted to, for some years past ; and he established this,
with such impartial severity, that the face of affairs there was soon changed ; but the army
was too weak, and the season was too far spent, to enter on great designs. One considerable
action happened, which very much raised the reputation of his conduct : Villars had sent
a detachment of three thousand horse and dragoons, either to extend his contribution, or to
seize on some important post ; against these the elector sent out another body that fell upon
the French, and gave them a total defeat, in which two thousand of them were cut off : soon
after that, Villars retired back to Strasburg, and the campaign in those parts ended.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 81.3
I will take in here a transaction that lay not far from the scene of action. There was,
all this summer, a dispute at Neufchatel, upon the death of the old duchess of Nemours, in
whom the house of Longueville ended; she enjoyed this principality, which, since it lay as
a frontier to Switzerland, was on this occasion much considered. There were many pre
tenders of the French nation, the chief was the prince of Conti ; all these came to Neuf
chatel, and made their application to the states of that country, and laid their several titles
before them : the king of France seemed to favour the prince of Conti most ; but yet he
left it free to the states to judge of their pretensions, provided they gave judgment in
favour of one of his subjects ; adding severe threatenings, in case they should judge in behalf
of any other pretender. The king of Prussia, as heir by his mother to the house of Cha
lons, claimed it as his right, which the late king had, by a particular agreement made over
to him ; so he sent a minister thither, to put in his claim : and the queen, and the States,
ordered their ministers in Switzerland to do their best offices, both for advancing his preten
sions, and to engage the cantons to maintain them ; the king of Sweden wrote also to the
cantons to the same effect. The allies looked on this as a matter of great consequence ; since
it might end in a rupture between the protestant cantons and France ; for the popish cantons
were now wholly theirs. After much pleading, and a long dispute, the states of the prin
cipality gave judgment in favour of the king of Prussia ; the French pretenders protested
against this, and left Neufchatel in a high discontent : the French ambassadors threatened
that little state with an invasion, and all commerce with them was forbidden : the canton of
Bern espoused their concern with a spirit and zeal that was not expected from them : they
declared they were in a comburghership with them ; and upon that they sent a body of three
thousand men to defend them. The French continued to threaten, and Villars had orders to
march a great part of his army towards them ; but when the court of France saw that the
cantons of Bern and Zurich were not frightened with those marches, they let the whole
matter fall, very little to their honour : and so the intercourse between the French dominions
and that state was again opened, and the peace of the cantons was secured. The king
of Prussia engaged his honour that he would govern that state with a particular zeal, for
advancing both religion and learning in it ; and upon these assurances, he persuaded the
bishops of England, and myself in particular, to use our best endeavours to promote his pre
tensions ; upon which we wrote, in the most effectual manner we could, to Mons. Ostervald,
who was the most eminent ecclesiastic of that state, and one of the best and most judicious
divines of the age : he was bringing that church to a near agreement with our forms of wor
ship : the king of Prussia was well set, in all matters relating to religion ; and had made a
great step, in order to reconcile the Lutherans and the Calvinists in his dominions, by
requiring them not to preach to the people on those points, in which they differ ; and by
obliging them to communicate together, notwithstanding the diversity of their opinions ;
which is indeed the only wise and honest way to make up that breach.
The affinity of the matter leads me next to give an account of the differences between the
king of Sweden and the court of Vienna. That king, after he had been a very heavy guest
in Saxony, came to understand that the protestants in Silesia had their churches and the free
exercise of their religion stipulated to them by the peace of Munster, and that the crown of
Sweden was the guarantee for observing this. These churches were taken from them : so
the king of Sweden was in justice bound to see to the observing of that article : he very
readily embraced this opportunity, wliich had been long neglected or forgotten by his father.
When this was first represented to the court of Vienna, it was treated there with much
scorn ; and count Zabor, one of the ministers of that court, spoke of the king of Sweden in
a style that he thought furnished him with a just pretension to demand that he should be
sent to him, to be punished as he thought fit. This was soon yielded ; the count was sent
to the king, and made such an humble submission to him as was accepted. But the demand
for restoring the churches was a matter of hard digestion to a bigoted and haughty court.
The king of Sweden had a great army at hand, and he threatened an immediate rupture, if
this demand was not agreed to without delay. In this he was so positive, that the imperial
court at last yielded, they being then in no condition to resist a warlike prince, and an army
hardened by an exact discipline and the fatigues of a long war : so that every thing that was

814 THF, HISTORY OF l'HE REIGN
demanded, pursuant to that article of the treaty of Minister, was agreed to be performed
within a prefixed time. And upon that the king of Sweden marched his army, under the
most regular discipline, through Silesia, as had been agreed, into Poland. The Jesuits made
great opposition to the performance of what had been stipulated ; but the imperial court
would not provoke a prince, who they thought was seeking a colour to break with them ;
so, by the day prefixed, all the churches were restored to the protestants in Silesia. Upon
this, he was highly magnified, and great endeavours were again used to engage him in the
alliance ; but he was so set against the czar, whom he designed to dethrone, that nothing could
then divert him from it : yet he so far entered into the interests of religion that, as he wrote
to the king of France, desiring him not to oppose the king of Prussia in his pretensions on
Neufchatel, he also wrote to the cantons, desiring them to promote and support them.
The cantons, seeing those characters of zeal in him, sent a French gentleman of quality to
him, the marquis de Rochegude, to let him know what regard they had to his recommenda
tions, and to desire him to interpose his good offices with the king of France, for setting at
liberty about three hundred persons, who were condemned to the galleys, and treated most
cruelly in them, upon no other pretence but because they would not change their religion,
and had endeavoured to make their escape out of France. He received this message with
a particular civility, and immediately complied with it ; ordering his minister at the court
of France to make it his desire to that king, that these confessors might be delivered to
him. But the ministers of France said that was a point of the king's government at home,
in which he could not suffer foreign princes to meddle. He seemed sensible of this neglect,
and it was hoped that, when his affairs could admit of it, he would express a due resent
ment of it.
To end all the affairs of Germany, for this year, at once, I must mention a quarrel, raised
in Hamburgh, between some private persons, one of whom was a Lutheran minister, which
created a great division in that city. One side was protected by the senate, which gave so
great a disgust to the other side, that it was likely to end in a revolt against the magistrates,
and a civil war within the town. And it being known that the king of Denmark had for
many years had an eye on that place, the neighbouring princes apprehended that he might
take advantage from those commotions, or that the weaker sido might choose rather to fall
under his power, than under the revenges of the adverse party. The kings of Sweden and
Prussia, with the house of Brunswick, resolved therefore to send troops thither, to quiet this
distraction, and to chastise the more refractory ; while the emperor's ministers, together -with
the queen's, endeavoured to accommodate matters, without suffering them to run to
extremities. It remains that I give an account of the campaign in Flanders. The French kept close
within their posts, though the duke of Marlborough often drew out his troops to see if that
could provoke them ; but they were resolved not to fight on equal terms ; and it was not
thought advisable to attempt the forcing their posts : they lay for some months looking on
one another ; but both armies had behind them such a safe and plentiful conveyance of pro
visions, that no want of any sort could oblige either side to dislodge. The duke of Vendome
had orders to send detachments to reinforce mareschal Villars, in lieu of those detachments
that he had been ordered to send to Provence. The duke of Savoy seemed to wonder that
the confederates lay so quiet, and gave the duke of Vendome no disturbance ; and that
they could not, at least, oblige him to keep all his army together. At last, the duke of
Marlborough decamped, and moved towards French Flanders. The French decamped about
the same time, but lodged themselves again in such a safe camp, that he could not force them
into any action : nor was his army so numerous as to spare a body to undertake a siege, by
that means to draw them to a battle : so that the campaign was carried on there in a very
inoffensive manner on both sides. And thus matters stood in the continent every where
this season.
France set out no fleet this year, and yet we never had greater losses on that element.
The prince's council was very unhappy in the whole conduct of the cruisers and convoys.
The merchants made heavy complaints, and not without reason : convoys were sometimes
denied them, and when they were granted, they were often delayed bevond the time limited

OF QUEEN ANNE. 815
for the merchants to get their ships in readiness ; and the sailing orders were sometimes sent
them so unhappily (but, as many said, so treacherously), that a French squadron was then
lying in their way to intercept them. This was liable to very severe reflections ; for many
of the convoys, as well as the merchant-ships, were taken. And to complete the misfortunes
of our affairs at sea this year, when sir Cloudesley Shovel was sailing home with the great
ships, by an unaccountable carelessness and security, he and two other capital ships ran foul
upon those rocks beyond the Land's End, known by the name of the Bishop and his Clerks,
and they were in a minute broken to pieces ; so that not a man of them escaped. It was
dark, but there was no wind, otherwise the whole fleet had perished with them : all the rest
tacked in time, and so they were saved. Thus one of the greatest seamen of the age was
lost by an error in his own profession and a great misreckoning ; for he had lain by all
the day before and set sail at night, believing that next morning he would have time
enough to guard against running on those rocks ; but he was swallowed up within three
hours after *-
This was the state of our affairs abroad, both by sea and land. Things went at home in
their ordinary channels. But the conduct, with relation to Scotland, was more unaccount
able ; for, whereas it might have been reasonably expected that the management of the
newly united part of this island should have been particularly taken care of, so as to give
no just distaste to the Scots, nor offer handles to those who were still endeavouring to inflame
that nation and to increase their aversion to the union, things were on the contrary so
ordered, as if the design had been to contrive methods to exasperate the spirits of the
people there. Though the management of the Scotch revenue was to fall into the lord
treasurer's hands on the first of May, no care was taken to have all the commissions ready
at the day, with new officers to serve in them : so that the whole trade of Scotland was
stopped for almost two months, for want of orders to put it into the new course in which it
was to be carried on. Three months passed before the equivalent was sent to Scotland ; and
when wines and other merchandise were imported into England from thence, seizures were
every where made, and this was managed with a particular affectation of roughness. All
these things heightened the prejudices with which that nation had been possessed against
the union. It was also known that many messages passed between Scotland and France,
and that there were many meetings and much consultation among the discontented party
there : a great body appeared openly for the pretended prince of Wales, and celebrated his
birth-day very publicly, both at Edinburgh and in other places of the kingdom ; and it was
openly talked that there was now an opportunity, that was not to be lost, of invading the
kingdom, though with a small force ; and that a general concurrence from the body of that
nation might be depended on. These things were done in so barefaced a manner, that, no
check being given to them nor enquiry made after them by those who were in the govern-
* Sir Cloudesley sailed from Toulon to Gibraltar, and had inhumed the body. It was buried with every appro-
from thence returned to England. On the 22nd of Octo- priate honour in Westminster Abbey. He was fifty-seven
ber he came into the soundings, and in the morning had years old when thus lost. When queen Anne appointed
ninety fathoms water. About noon he lay to, but at six sir John Leake to be rear-admiral of England, she told
in the evening he made sail again, and stood away under him " she knew no man so fit to repair the loss of the
his courses, believing, as it is presumed, that he saw the ablest seaman in her service."
light on Scilly. Soon after which several ships of his In the prayer prepared by archbishop Tennison, in the
fleet made the signal of distress, as he himself did ; and it April of this year, imploring a blessing on our fleets and
was with much difficulty that sir George Byng, in the armies, was an unguarded expression, beseeching God to
Royal Ann, saved himself, having one of the rocks under be " the rock of our might." This gave occasion to the
his main chains. On board the Association were lost, following verses, said to have been laid on sir Cloudesley's
with sir Cloudesley, his sons-in-law, sir J. Norborough tomb :
and James, his brother, Mr. Trelawney, eldest son of the As Lambeth prav.(J) s0 was tne aire eTent|
bishop of Winchester, and several other young gentlemen E,se we had wanted here a monument>
of quality. It was reported that a great part of the crew Tna(. to our fleet kind Heaven wovlld be a rock .
were intoxicated, but none survived to tell the tale. Sir Nor djd Wnd Heaven the wise petition mock :
Cloudesley's body was thrown ashore the next day, and Tq what the metropoiitan did peni
being found by some fishermen, they shipped and then The w , md Mg cUrhs rep]iedj Amen.
buried him. The emerald ring they had taken from his >
finger betrayed them, and Mr. Paxton, purser of the —Campbell's Lives of the Admirals ; Noble s Contin. of
Arundel, compelled them to disclose the place where they Grainger.

810 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
ment, it gave occasion to many melancholy speculations. The management from England
looked like a thing concerted to heighten that distemper ; and the whole conduct of the fleet
afforded great cause of jealousy.
But to open this, as clearly as it has yet appeared to me, I must give an account of a new
scene at court. It was observed that Mr. Harley, who had been for some years secretary of
state, had gained great credit with the queen, and began to set up for himself, and to act no
more under the direction of the lord treasurer. There was one of the bedchamber women,
who, being nearly related to the duchess of Marlborough, had been taken care of by her,
together with her whole family (for they were fallen low), in a most particular manner.
She brought her not only into that post, but she had treated her with such a confidence, that
it had introduced her into a high degree of favour with the queen ; which for some years
was considered as an effect of the duchess of Marlborough's credit with her : she was also
nearly related to Mr. Harley ; and they two entered into a close correspondence *. She
learned the arts of a court, and observed the queen's temper, with so much application, that
she got far into her heart : and she employed all her credit to establish Harley in the supreme
confidence with the queen, and to alienate her affections from the duchess of Marlborough,
who studied no other method of preserving her favour but by pursuing the true interest of
the queen and of the kingdom. It was said that the prince was brought into the concert,
and that he was made to apprehend that he had too small a share in the government, and
that he was shut out from it by the great power that the duke of Marlborough and the lord
treasurer had drawn into their hands. It was said, all depended on them ; that the queen
was only a cipher in the government, that she was in the duchess of Marlborough's hands,
as her affairs were in the duke of Marlborough's hands. It was likewise talked among those
who made their court to the new favourites, that there was not now a jacobite in the nation,
that all were for the queen, and that, without doubt, she would reign out peaceably her
whole life ; but she needed not concern herself for a German family. These discourses began
to break out, and gave sad thoughts to those to whom they were brought. This went on
too long, little regarded : the duchess of Marlborough seemed secure of her interest in the
queen, and showed no jealousy of a favour to which herself gave the first rise. This was the
state of the court at the opening of the session of Parliament.
There were at that time three bishoprics vacant. Trelawny had been removed, the
summer before, from Exeter to Winchester, which gave great disgust to many, he being
considerable for nothing but his birth, and his interest in Cornwall t. The lord treasurer
had engaged himself to him, and he was sensible that he was much reflected upon for it.
But he, to soften the censure that this brought on him, had promised that, for the future,
preferments should be bestowed on men well principled with relation to the present consti
tution, and on men of merit. The queen, without regarding this, did secretly engage herself
to Dr. Blackhall for Exeter ; and Chester (being at the same time void, by the death of
Dr. Stratford) to sir William Dawes, for that see. These divines were in themselves men
of value and worth, but their notions were all on the other side : they had submitted to the
government, but they, at least Blackhall, seemed to condemn the revolution, and all that
had been done pursuant to it j. Dawes also was looked on as an aspiring man, who would
* This was Mrs. Masham. succeeded to the baronetcy. He was successively bishop
¦f- Dr. Jonathan Trelawney was one of the seven bishops of Chichester, Bristol, and Winchester, of which last-
committed to the Tower of London by James the Second, named see he died diocesan in 1721. "He was a man
as was noticed in a previous page. The popular feeling of polite manners, competent learning, and uncommon
in his favour is recorded in this verse of a contemporary knowledge of the world. He was friendly and open,
song : generous and charitable, a good companion, and a good
,,,,,,, m 1 jo a j i. n t i i-3 man." — Wood's Athense Oxon. ; Grainger's Biog. Hist.
" And shall Trelawney die ?¦ And shall Trelawney die ? . „ , . ' b "
First thirty thousand Cornish men will know the . i> ' _. , , „ . , T , ,
' , „ t Dr. Offspring Blackhall was a native of London, born
reason why. m ,654j and educated at Catherine Hall, Cambridge. It
He was the youngest son of sir Jonathan Trelawney of is true, that he refused for two years to take the oaths of
Polynt, in Cornwall, and received his education at West- allegiance to king William and queen Mary, but he sub-
minster-school, and Christchurch, Oxford. Destined for sequcntly became one of his majesty's chaplains in ordi-
the church, he persisted in devoting himself to the pro- nary. He was engaged in controversies with Toland and
fession, although in 1680, by the death of his brother, he Hoadley ; with the first, relative to the author of the Icon

OF QUEEN ANNE. 817
set himself at the head of the tory party : so this nomination gave a great disgust*. To
qualify this a little, Patrick, tho pious and learned bishop of Ely, dying at this time, the
queen advanced More, from Norwich, thither ; and Dr. Trimnell, a worthy person in all
respects, was named for Norwich t. Yet this did not quiet the uneasiness many were under
by reason of the other nominations, which seemed to flow from the queen herself, and so dis
covered her inclinations. To prevent the ill effects that this might have in the approachino-
session, some of the eminent members of the house of commons were called to a meeting
with the dukes of Somerset and Devonshire. These lords assured them, in the queen's
name, that she was very sensible of the services the whigs did her ; and though she had
engaged herself so far, with relation to those two bishoprics, that she could not recal the pro
mises she had made, yet for the future she was resolved to give them full content. But
while this was said to some whigs, Harley, and his friends St. John and Harcourt, took
great pains on the leaders of the tories (in particular on Hanmer, Bromley, and Freeman),
to engage them in the queen's interests ; assuring them that her heart was with them, that
she was weary of the tyranny of the whigs, and longed to be delivered from it. But they
were not wrought on by that management ; they either mistrusted it, as done only to
ensnare them, or they had other views which they did not think fit to own. This double-
dealing came to be known, and gave occasion to much jealousy and distrust. A little before
the session was opened, an eminent misfortune happened at sea. A convoy, of five ships of
the line of battle, was sent to Portugal, to guard a great fleet of merchant ships ; and they
were ordered to sail, as if it had been by concert, at a time when a squadron from Dunkirk
had joined another from Brest, and lay in the way waiting for them. Some advertisements
were brought to the admiralty of this conjunction, but they were not believed. When the
French set upon them, the convoy did their part very gallantly, though the enemy were
three to one : one of the ships was blown up, three of them were taken, so that only one
escaped much shattered ; but they had fought so long that most of the merchantmen had
time to get away, and sailed on, not being pursued, and so got safe to Lisbon. This coming
almost at the same time with the misfortune that happened to Shovel, the session was begun
Basilike, and with the latter concerning political obe- not until she had become Mare mortuum. Sir William
dience. He died in 1716. His sermons were published was born near Braintree, in Essex, during the year 1671.
with a preface by sir William Dawes ; their prominent He was educated at Merchant Taylor's ; St. John's, Ox-
excellence is their " plainness." The writer of the pre- ford ; and Catherine Hall, Cambridge. To tlie- master-
face says, " I, who had the happiness of a long and inti- ship of the latter he succeeded in 16T6. In 1707, he
mate friendship with him, do sincerely declare, that, in was elevated to the bishopric of Cliepter, and in seven
my whole conversation, I never met with a more perfect years after to the archbishopric of York. He died in 1754.
pattern of a true christian's life, than in him." — Bio- Without being a man of brilliant talents, he maintained
graphia Britannica. a high rank among the prelates of his time, by his unim-
* Sir William Dawes is a rare instance of a man, so peachable integrity and conscientious conduct. In all
devoted to his sacred profession, that from it he could be the relations of life he was very excellent. — Life prefixed
tempted neither by wealth nor dignities. Indeed he to his Works ; Biog. Britannica, by Kippis ; Noble's Con-
looked upon the clerical office as " the highest honour tinuation of Grainger.
that could be conferred upon him." Consequently, when, f Noble describes Dr. Charles Trimnell as "one of
by the death of his two elder brothers, the family estates the fourteen fortunate children of the Rev. Charles Trim-
and title descended upon him, he still persisted in entering nelJ, rector of Repton Abbots, Huntingdonshire." He
holy orders. Thus devoted to his profession, it is not was born in 1663, and being educated, as were his father
surprising that he became one of itsi most distinguished and brothers, at Winchester School, and New College,
ornaments. Being appointed to preach before queen Oxford, he showed his regard for these places of his early
Anne on the 30th of January, whilst the bishopric of Lin- celebrity, by desiring to have his body interred near their
coin was vacant, he expressed opinions so contrary to founder, William of Wyckham. In 16(18 he was ap-
those entertained by the ministry, that they prevailed pointed preacher at the Rolls Chapel, by sir John Trevor.
with her majesty not to promote him to that see. Being From that time his talents became publicly known. Ho
informed of this, he replied, " As to that I have no con- obtained the bishopric of Norwich, as mentioned above,
ceru, because my intention was never to gain a bishopric and in 1721 was translated to Winchester, of which see
by preaching." His wife, who died many years before he died the diocesan in 1723. "Warm, yet temperate ;
him, and whose eulogistic epitaph he composed, was gifted zealous, yet moderate ; his piety did not prevent him
with no very serene temper. Forgetting this, sir Wil- gaining a perfect knowledge of mankind ; nor did his assi-
liam, with pardonable weakness, and scarcely excusable duous performance of his clerical duties interfere with an
wit, said that she possessed the virtues celebrated as ap- eminent elegance of manners." The tory party even
pearing in other women renowned iu history, particularly admired him, although he preached " terrible whig ser-
those of the name of Mary, being truly M are pacificum. mons." — Biog. Britannica. Noble's Continuation of
To which one of his auditors replied, that she was so, but Grainger.
3 G

818 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
with a melancholy face ; and a dispute, upon their opening, had almost put them into great
disorder. It was generally thought that though this was a parliament that had now sat two years,
yet it was a new parliament, by reason it had been let fall, and was revived by a proclama
tion, as was formerly told : and the consequence of this was, that those who had got places
were to go to a new election. Others maintained that it could not be a new parliament,
since it was not summoned by a new writ, but by virtue of a clause in an act of parliament.
The duke of Marlborough, upon his coming over, prevailed to have it yielded to be a new
parliament ; but Harley was for maintaining it to be an old parliament. The house of com
mons chose the same speaker over again, and all the usual forms in the first beginning of a
new parliament were observed.
These were no sooner over, than the complaints of the admiralty were offered to both
houses. Great losses were made, and all was imputed to the weakness, or to a worse dispo
sition, in some who had great credit with the prince, and were believed to govern that whole
matter ; for, as they were entirely possessed of the prince's confidence, so when the prince's
council was divided in their opinions, the decision was left to the prince, who understood
very little of those matters, and was always determined by others. By this means they
were really lord high admiral, without being liable to the law for errors and miscarriages.
This council was not a legal court, warranted by any law, though they assumed that to
themselves ; being counsellors, they were bound to answer only for their fidelity. The com
plaints were feebly managed at the bar of the house of commons * ; for it was soon under
stood that not only the prince, but the queen likewise, concerned herself much in this
matter : and both looked on it as a design levelled at their authority. Both whigs and
tories seemed to be at first equally zealous in the matter, but by reason of the opposition of
the court, all those who intended to recommend themselves to favour abated of their zeal :
some were vehement in their endeavours to baffle the complaints : they had great advantages
from the merchants managing their complaints but poorly ; some were frightened, and others
were practised on, and were carried even to magnify the conduct of the fleet, and to make
excuses for all the misfortunes that had happened. That which had the chief operation on
the whole tory party was, that it was set round among them, that the design of all these
complaints was to put the earl of Orford again at the head of the fleet : upon which they all
changed their note, and they, in concurrence with those who were in offices, or pretended
to them, managed the matter so that it was let fall, very little to their honour. Unkind
remarks were made on some who had changed their conduct, upon their being preferred at
court ; but the matter was managed with more zeal and courage in the house of lords, both
whigs and tories concurring in it.
A committee was appointed to examine the complaints : they called the merchants who
had signed the petition before them, and treated them, not with the scorn that was very
indecently offered them by some of the house of commons, but with great patience and gen
tleness : they obliged them to prove all their complaints by witnesses upon oath. In the
prosecution of the enquiry, it appeared, that many ships of war were not fitted out to be
put to sea, but lay in port neglected, and in great decay ; that convoys had been often flatly
denied the merchants, and that when they were promised, they were so long delayed, that
the merchants lost their markets, were put to great charge, and, when they had perishable
goods, suffered great damage in them. The cruizers were not ordered to proper stations in
the Channel ; and when convoys were appointed, and were ready to put to sea, they had
not their sailing orders sent them till the enemies' ships were laid in their way, prepared to
fall on them, which had often happened. Many advertisements, by which those misfortunes
might have been prevented, had been offered to the admiralty, but had not only been
neglected by them, but those who offered them had been ill treated for doing it. The com
mittee made report of all this to the house of lords : upon which, the lord treasurer moved
* Burnet, with more propriety, would have said the Dawson, two Russia merchants, charged the managers of
complaints were "unsuccessfully" managed. For the the navy with fraud, malice, and ignorance. Admiral
journals of the house show that Mr. Heathcote and Mr. Churchill was particularly inculpated.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 810
that a copy of the report might be sent to the lord admiral, which was done, and in a few
days an answer was sent to the house, excusing, or justifying the conduct, in all the branches
of it. The chief foundation of the answer was, that the great fleets which were kept in the
Mediterranean obliged us to send away so many of our ships and seamen thither, that there
was not a sufficient number left to guard all our trade, while the enemy turned all their
forces at sea into squadrons for destroying it ; and that all the ships, that could be spared
from the public service abroad, were employed to secure the trade : the promise of convoys
had been often delayed, by reason of cross winds and other accidents, that had hindered the
return of our men of war longer than was expected, they being then abroad convoying other
merchant ships : and it was said that there was not a sufficient number of ships for cruizers
and convoys both. The paper ended with some severe reflections on the last reign, in which
great sums were given for the building of ships, and yet the fleet was at that time much
diminished, and four thousand merchant ships had been taken during that war. This was
believed to have been suggested by Mr. Harley, on design to mortify king William's
ministry. Upon reading this answer, a new and a fuller examination of the particulars was
again resumed by the same committee, and all the allegations in it were exactly considered.
It appeared that the half of those seamen that the parliament had provided for were not
employed in the Mediterranean, that many ships lay idle in port, and were not made use
of; and that in the last war, in which it appeared there were more seamen, though not more
ships, employed in the Mediterranean than were now kept there, yet the trade was so care
fully looked after by cruizers and convoys, that few complaints were then made ; and as to
the reflections made on the last reign, it was found that not half the sum that was named
was given for the building of ships ; and that instead of the fleet's being diminished during
that war, as had been affirmed, it was increased by above forty ships ; nor could any proof
be given that four thousand ships were taken during that war. All the seamen who were then
taken and exchanged did not exceed fifteen thousand, and in the present war eighteen thousand
were already exchanged ; and we had two thousand still remaining in our enemies' hands :
so much had the prince been imposed on in that paper that was sent to the lords in his
name. When the examination was ended, and reported to the house, it was resolved to lay the
whole matter before the queen in an address ; and then the tories discovered the design that
they drove at ; for they moved in the committee that prepared the address, that the blame
of all the miscarriages might be laid on the ministry, and on the cabinet council. It had
been often said, in the house of lords, that it was not intended to make any complaint of the
prince himself ; and it not being admitted that his council was of a legal constitution, the
complaining of them would be an acknowledging their authority ; therefore the blame could
be laid regularly no where but on the ministry. This was much pressed by the duke of
Buckingham, the earl of Rochester, and the lord. Haversham. But to this it was answered,
by the earl of Orford, the lord Somers, and the lord Halifax, that the house ought to lay
before the queen only that which was made out before them upon oath ; and therefore, since,
in the whole examination, the ministry and the cabinet council were not once named, they
could offer the queen nothing to their prejudice. Some of the things complained of fell on
the navy board, which was a body acting by a legal authority. The lords ought to lay
before the queen such miscarriages as were proved to them, and leave it to her to find out
on whom the blame ought to be cast. So far was the ministry from appearing to be in
fault, that they found several advertisements were sent by the secretaries of state to the
Admiralty, that, as appeared afterwards, were but too well grounded, yet these were
neglected by them ; and that which raised the clamour the higher was, that during the
winter, there were no cruizers lying in the Channel ; so that many ships which had run
through all dangers at sea were taken in sight of land, for the privateers came up boldly to
our ports. All this was digested into a full and clear address, laid by the house before the
queen. There was a general answer made to it, giving assurances that the trade should be
carefully looked to ; but nothing else followed upon it ; and the queen seemed to be highly
offended at the whole proceeding. At this time an inquiry likewise into the affairs of
Spain was begun in both houses. o G &

820 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The earl of Peterborough had received such positive orders recalling him, that though lie
delayed as long as he could, yet at last he came homo in August. But the queen, before
she would admit him into her presence, required of him an account of some particulars in
his conduct, both in military matters, in his negotiations, and in the disposal of the money
remitted to him. He made such general answers as gave little satisfaction ; but he seemed
to reserve the matter to a parliamentary examination, which was entered upon by both
houses. All the tories magnified his conduct, and studied to detract from the earl of
Gallway ; but it was thought that the ministry were under some restraints, with relation to
the earl of Peterborough, though he did not spare them, which gave occasion to many to
say they were afraid of him, and durst not provoke him. The whigs, on the other hand,
made severe remarks on his conduct. The complaints that king Charles made of him were
read, upon which he brought such a number of papers and so many witnesses to the bar to
justify his conduct, that, after ten or twelve days spent wholly in reading papers and in
hearing witnesses, both houses grew equally weary of the matter ; so, without coming to
any conclusion, or to any vote, they let all that related to him fall : but that gave them a
handle to consider the present state of affairs in Spain. It was found that we had not above
half the troops there that the parliament had made provision for : and that not above half
the officers that belonged to those bodies served there. This gave the house of commons a
high distaste, and it was hoped by the tories that they should have carried the house to
severe votes and warm addresses on that head ; which was much laboured by them, in order
to load the ministry. In this Harley and his party were very cold and passive, and it was
generally believed that the matter was privately set on by them. But the court sent an
explanation of the whole matter to the house, by which it appeared, that though by death
and desertion the number of the troops there was much diminished, yet the whole number
provided, or at least very near it, was sent out of England. The service in Spain was much
decried, and there was good reason for it ; things there could not be furnished, but at
excessive rates, and the soldiers were generally ill used in their quarters. They were
treated very unkindly, not by king Charles, but by those about him, and by the bigotted
Spaniards.
' During these debates, severe things were said in general of the conduct of affairs in both
houses. It was observed, that a vast army was well supplied in Flanders, but that the
interest of the nation required that Spain should be more considered. It was moved in both
houses that the emperor should be earnestly applied to, to send prince Eugene into Spain :
complaints were also made of the duke of Marlborough, as continuing the war, though, at
the end of the campaign of 1706, the French had offered to yield up Spain and the West
Indies ; but that was a false suggestion. All these heats in the house, after they had got
this vent, were allayed. The queen assured them all past errors should be redressed for the
future ; and with repeated importunities she pressed the emperor to send prince Eugene to
Spain. That court delayed to comply in this particular, but sent count Staremberg thither,
who had indeed acquired a very high reputation. The queen entered also into engagements
with the emperor, that she would transport, pay, and furnish, all the troops that he could
spare for his brother's service. These steps quieted the discontent the house had expressed
upon the ill conduct of affairs in Spain ; but upon Stanhope's coming over, he gave a better
prospect of affairs there ; and he found a readiness to agree to all the propositions that he
was sent over to make. All this while an act was preparing, both for a better security to
our trade by cruizers and convoys, and for the encouraging privateers, particularly in the
West Indies and in the South Sea. They were to have all they could take entirely to
themselves : the same encouragement was also given to the captains of the queen's ships,
with this difference, that the captains of privateers were to divide their capture according to
agreements made among themselves ; but they left the distribution of prizes, taken by men
of war, to the queen, who, by proclamation, ordered them to be divided into eight shares ;
of which the captain was to have three, unless he had a superior officer over him, in which
case the commodore was to have one of the three ; the other five parts were to be distributed
equally among the officers and mariners of the ships, put in five different classes. All the
clauses that the merchants desired to encourage privateers were readily granted, and it was

OF QUEEN ANNE. 821
hoped that a great stock would be raised to carry on this private war. This passed without
opposition, all concurring in it.
But as to other matters, the tories discovered much ill humour against the ministry, which
broke out on all occasions ; and the jealousies with which the whigs were possessed made
them as cold as the others were hot. This gave the ministers great uneasiness : they found
Mr. Harley was endeavouring to supplant them at court, and to heighten the jealousies of
the whigs ; for he set it about among the tories, as well as among the whigs, that both the
duke of Marlborough and the lord treasurer were as much inclined to come into measures
with the tories, as the queen herself was. This broke out, and was likely to have had very
ill effects, it had almost lost them the whigs, though it did not bring over the tories.
At this time two discoveries were made, very unlucky for Mr. Harley. Tallard wrote
often to Chamillard, but he sent his letters open to the secretary's office, to be perused and
sealed up, and so to be conveyed by the way of Holland : these were opened, upon some
suspicion in Holland, and it appeared that one in the secretary's office put letters in them,
in which, as he offered his service to the courts of France and St. Germains, so he gave an
account of all transactions here : in one of these he sent a copy of the letter that the queen
was to write, in her own hand, to the emperor ; and he marked what parts of the letter
were drawn by the secretary, and what additions were made to it by the lord treasurer.
This was the letter by which the queen pressed the sending prince Eugene into Spain, and
this, if not intercepted, would have been at Versailles many days before it could reach
Vienna. He, who sent this, wrote that by this they might see what service he could do
them, if well encouraged. All this was sent over to the duke of Marlborough, and upon
search it was found to be written by one Gregg, a clerk, whom Harley had not only enter
tained, but had taken into a particular confidence, without enquiry into the former parts of
his life ; for he was a vicious and a necessitous person, who had been secretary to the queen's
envoy in Denmark, but was dismissed by him for those his ill qualities. Harley had made
use of him to get him intelligence, and he came to trust him with the perusal, and the
sealing up, of the letters which the French prisoners here in England sent over to France :
and by that means he got into the method of sending intelligence thither. He, when seized
on, either upon remorse or the hopes of pardon, confessed all, and signed his confession :
upon that he was tried; he pleaded guilty, and was condemned as a traitor, for corre
sponding with the queen's enemies. At the same time Valiere and Bara, whom Harley had
employed, as his spies, to go often over to Calais, under the pretence of bringing him intelli
gence, were informed against, as spies employed by France to get intelligence from England,
who carried over many letters to Calais and Boulogne, and, as was believed, gave such
information of our trade and convoys, that, by their means, we had made our great losses at
sea. They were often complained of upon suspicion, but they were always protected by
Harley ; yet the presumptions against them were so violent, that they were at last seized
on and. brought up prisoners. These accidents might make Harley more earnest to bring
about a change in the conduct of affairs, in which he relied on the credit of the new favourite.
The duke of Marlborough and the lord treasurer, having discovered many of his practices,
laid them before the queen. She would believe nothing that was suggested to his prejudice.
She denied she had given any authority for carrying messages to the tories ; but would not
believe that he or his friends had done it, nor would she enter into any examination of his
ill conduct, and was uneasy when she heard it spoken of. So these lords wrote to tho
queen, that they could serve her no longer, if he was continued in that post ; and on the
Sunday following, when they were summoned to a cabinet council, they both went to the
queen, and told her they must quit her service, since they saw she was resolved not to part
with Harley. She seemed not much concerned at the lord Godolphin's offering to lay down,
and it was believed to be a part of Harley's new scheme to remove him ; but she was much
touched with the duke of Marlborough's offering to quit, and studied, with some soft expres
sions, to divert him from that resolution ; but he was firm and she did not yield to them. So
they both went away, to the wonder of the whole court. Immediately after, the queen
went to the cabinet council, and Harley opened some matters relating to foreign affairs.
The whole board was very uneasy : the duke of Somerset said he did not see how they

822 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
could deliberate on such matters, since the general was not with them ; he repeated this
with some vehemence, while all the rest looked so cold and sullen that the cabinet council
was soon at an end ; and the queen saw that the rest of her ministers and the chief officers
were resolved to withdraw from her service, if she did not recall the two that had left it.
It was said that she would have put all to the hazard, if Harley himself had not apprehended
his danger and resolved to lay down. The queen sent the next day for the duke of Marl
borough, and, after some expostulations, she told him Harley should immediately leave his
post, which he did within two days. But the queen seemed to carry a deep resentment of
his and the lord Godolphin's behaviour on this occasion ; and though they went on with her
business, they found they had not her confidence. The duchess of Marlborough did, for
some weeks, abstain from going to court, but afterwards that breach was made up in appear
ance, though it was little more than an appearance. Both houses of parliament expressed a
great concern at this rupture in the court, and apprehended the ill effects it might have :
the commons let the bill of supply lie on the table, though it was ordered for that day ; and
the lords ordered a committee to examine Gregg and the other prisoners. As Harley laid
down, both Harcourt, then attorney-general, Mansel, the comptroller of the household, and
St. John, the secretary of war, went and laid down with him. The queen took much time
to consider how she should fill some of these places ; but Mr. Boyle, uncle to the earl of
Burlington, was presently made secretary of state*.
Tlie lords who were appointed to examine Gregg could not find out much by him ; he
had but newly begun his designs of betraying secrets, and he had no associates with him in
it. He told them that all the papers of state lay so carelessly about the office, that every
one belonging to it, even the door-keepers, might have read them all. Harley's custom was
to come to the office late on post-nights, and after he had given his orders and written his
letters, he usually went away, and left all to be copied out when he was gone. By that means
he came to see every thing, in particular the queen's letter to the emperor. He said, he
knew the design on Toulon in May last, but he did not discover it; for he had not entered
on his ill practices till October : this was all he could say. By the examination of Valiere
and Bara, and of many others who lived about Dover and were employed by them, a dis
covery was made of a constant intercourse they were in with Calais under Harley's protec
tion : they often went over with boats full of wool, and brought back brandy, though both
the import and export were severely prohibited : they, and those who belonged to the boats
carried over by them, wer<i well treated on the French side, at the governor's house, or at
the commissary's ; they were kept there till their letters could be sent to Paris, and till
returns could be brought back, and were all the while upon free cost. The order that was
constantly given them was, that if an English or Dutch ship came up to them, they should
cast their letters into the sea ; but that they should not do it when French ships came up to
them : so they were looked on by all on that coast as the spies of France. They used to
get what information they could, both of merchant ships and of the ships of war that lay in
the downs ; and upon that they usually went over, and it happened that soon after some of
those ships were taken. These men, as they were papists, so they behaved themselves very
insolently, and boasted much of their power and credit. Complaints had been often made
of them, but they were always protected ; nor did it appear that they ever brought any
information of importance to Harley but once, when, according to what they swore, they
told him that Fourbin was gone from Dunkirk to lie in wait for the Russian fleet, which
proved to be true : he both went to watch for them, and he took a great part of the fleet.
Yet, though this was the single piece of intelligence that they ever brought, Harley took so
little notice of it, that he gave no advertisement to the admiralty concerning it. This par
ticular excepted, they only brought over common news and the Paris gazettes. These
examinations lasted for some weeks; when they were ended, a full report was made of them
to the house of lords ; and they ordered the whole report, with all the examinations, to be
^ He was then chancellor of the exchequer, and parti- was firm and manly. Such a character naturally gave him
culaily trusted by the lord treasurer. Mr. Speaker great influence and the above authority says, it was far
Onslow gives him a very high character for disinterested- beyond what any other public person acquired in tbeit
nee?, talents, and modesty. Yet in the hour of need he times. — Oxford ed. of this work.

OF QUEEN ANNE. ' 823
laid before the queen in an address, in which they represented to her the necessity of making
Gregg a public example : upon which he was executed. He continued to clear all other
persons of any accession to his crimes, of which he seemed very sensible, and died much
better than he had lived*.
A very few days after the breach that had happened at court, we were alarmed from
Holland with the news of a design, of which the French made then no secret, that they
were sending the pretended prince of Wales to Scotland, with a fleet and an army, to possess
himself of that kingdom. But before I go further I will give an account of all that related
to the affairs of that part of the island.
The members sent from Scotland to both houses of parliament were treated with very
particular marks of respect and esteem ; and they were persons of such distinction that they
very well deserved it. The first thing proposed in the house of commons, with relation to
them, was to take off the stop that was put on their trade. It was agreed unanimously to
pray the queen, by an address, that she would give order for it ; some debate arising only
whether it was a matter of right, or of favour. Harley pressed the last, to justify those
proceedings, in which he himself had so great a share, as was formerly set forth, and on
wliich others made severe reflections ; but, since all agreed in the conclusion, the dispute
concerning the premises was soon let fall. After this, a more important matter was pro
posed, concerning the government of Scotland, whether it should continue in a distinct privy
council, or not. All the court was for it : those who governed Scotland desired to keep up
their authority there, with the advantage they made by it ; and they gave the ministers of
England great assurances that, by their influence, elections might be so managed as to serve
all the ends of the court ; but they said, that, without due care, these might be carried so as
to run all the contrary way. This was the secret motive, yet this could not be owned in a
public assembly ; so that which was pretended was, that many great families in Scotland,
with the greatest part of the Highlanders, were so ill affected that, without a watchful eye,
ever intent upon them, they could not be kept quiet : it lay at too great a distance from
London to be governed by orders sent from thence. To this it was answered, that by the
circuits of the justiciary courts, and by justices of peace, that country might be well
governed, notwithstanding its distance, as Wales and Cornwall were. It was carried, upon
a division, by a great majority, that there should be only one privy council for the whole
island. When it was sent up to the lords, it met with a great opposition there : the court
stood alone : all the tories and the much greater part of the whigs were for the bill. The
court, seeing the party for the bill so strong, was willing to compound the matter ; and
whereas, by the bill, the council of Scotland was not to sit after the first of May, the court
moved to have it continued to the first of October. It was visible that this was proposed
only in order to the managing elections for the next parliament ; so the lords adhered to the
day prefixed in the bill. But a new debate arose about the power given by the bill to the
justices of peace, which seemed to be an encroachment on the jurisdiction of the lords regali
ties, and of the hereditary sheriffs and stewards, who had the right of trying criminals, in
the first instance, for fourteen days' time ; yet it was ordinary, in the cases of great crimes
and riots, for the privy council to take immediate cognizance of them, without any regard to the
fourteen days : so, by this act, the justices of peace were only empowered to do that which
the privy council usually did : and, except the occasion was so great as to demand a quick
dispatch, it was not to be doubted but that the justices of peace would have great regard to
all private rights ; yet, since this had the appearance of breaking in upon private rights,
this was much insisted on by those who hoped, by laying aside these powers given to the
justices of the peace, to have gained the main point of keeping up a privy council in Scot
land ; for all the Scotch ministers said, the country would be in great danger, if there were
not a supreme government still kept up in it. But it seemed an absurd thing, that there
should be a different administration where there was but one legislature. While Scotland
* He most fully acquitted Harley; and this statesman, cution, a paper, exculpatory of those who were suspected
it appears, with commendable kindness, allowed the of being concerned with him.— Oxford ed. of this work;
widow fiftv pounds annuallr out of his private purse. Ralph's Answer to the Duchess of Marlborough.; Nos.
Gregg delivered to the clergyman, at the time of his exe- 32 and 40 of the Examiner, written by Swift.

824 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
had an entire legislature within itself, the nation assembled in parliament could procure the
correction of errors in the administration : whereas, now that it was not a tenth part of tho
legislative body, if it was still to be kept under a different administration, that nation could
not have strength enough to procure a redress of its grievances in parliament, so they might
come to be subdued and governed as a province. And the arbitrary way in which the
council of Scotland had proceeded ever since king James the First's time, but more particu
larly since the restoration, was fresh in memory, and had been no small motive to induce the
best men of that nation to promote the union, that they might be delivered from the tyranny
of the council : and their hopes would be disappointed, if they were still kept under that
yoke. This point was in conclusion yielded, and the bill passed, though to the great dis
content of the court. There was a new court of exchequer created in Scotland, according to
the frame of that court in England : special acts were made for the elections and tho returns
of the representatives in both houses of parliament : and such was the disposition of
the English to oblige them, and the behaviour of the Scots was so good and discreet,
that every thing that was proposed for the good of their country was agreed to ; both whigs
and tories vied with one another, who should show most care and concern for the welfare of
that ^art of Great Britain.
On the twentieth of February, which was but a few days after the act, dissolving the
council in Scotland, had passed, we understood there was a fleet prepared in Dunkirk, with
about twelve battalions and a train of all things necessary for a descent in Scotland : and a
few days after, we heard that the pretended prince of Wales was come from Paris, with all
the British and Irish that were about him, in order to his embarkation. The surprise was
great, for it was not looked for, nor had we a prospect of being able to set out in time a
fleet able to deal with theirs, which consisted of twenty-six ships, most of them of above
forty guns. But that Providence (which has, on all occasions, directed matters so happily
for our preservation) did appear very signally in this critical conjuncture. Our greatest
want was of seamen to man the fleet, for the ships were ready to be put to sea : this was
supplied by several fleets of merchant ships that came home at that time with their convoys.
The flag-officers were very acceptable to the seamen, and they bestirred themselves so effec
tually, that, with the help of an embargo, there was a fleet of above forty ships got ready
in a fortnight's time, to the surprise of all at home, as well as abroad. These stood over to
Dunkirk just as they were embarking there. Upon the sight of so great a fleet, Fourbin,
who commanded the French fleet, sent to Paris for new orders. He himself was against
venturing out, when they saw a superior fleet ready to engage, or to pursue, them. The
king of France sent positive orders to prosecute the design. So Fourbin (seeing that our
fleet, after it had showed itself to them, finding the tides and sea run high, as being near
the equinox, had sailed back into the Downs) took that occasion to go out of Dunkirk on
the eighth of March : but contrary winds kept him on that coast till the eleventh, and then
he set sail with a fair wind. Our admiral, sir George Byng, came over again to watch his
motions ; and as soon as he understood that he had sailed, which was not till twenty hours
after, he followed him. The French designed to have landed in the Frith, but they outsailed
their point a few leagues ; a'nd, by the time that they had got back to the north side of the
Frith, Byng came to the south side of it, and gave the signal for coming to an anchor. This
was heard by Fourbin : he had sent a frigate into the Frith to give signals, which it seems
had been agreed on, but no answers were made. The design was to land near Edinburgh,
where they believed the castle was in so bad a condition, and so ill provided, that it must
have surrendered upon summons ; and they reckoned, that upon the reputation of that, the
whole body of the kingdom would have come in to them. But when Fourbin understood, on
the thirteenth of March, that Byng was so near him, he tacked, and would not stay to ven
ture an engagement. Bing pursued him with all the sail that he could make, but the French
stood out to sea : there was some firing on the ships that sailed the heaviest, and the Salis
bury, a ship taken from us, and then their vice-admiral, was engaged by two English ships,
and taken without any resistance*. There were about five hundred landmen on board her,
* There is no doubt but that there was an extensive as the French forces landed  (Colonel Hooke's Memoirs
plot in Scotland lo rise in favour of the pretender as soon &c, published in 1760.) The affairs of Scotland were

OF QUEEN ANNE. 825
with some officers and persons of quality ; the chief of these were the lord Griffin and the
earl of Middleton's two sons. Bing (having lost sight of the French, considering that the
Frith was the station of the greatest importance, as well as safety, and was the place where
they designed to land) put in there, till he could hear what course the French steered. The
tides ran high, and there was a strong gale of wind. Upon the alarm of the intended
descent, orders were sent to Scotland to draw all their forces about Edinburgh. The troops
that remained in England were ordered to march to Scotland, and the troops in Ireland were
ordered to march northward, to be ready when called for ; there were also twelve battalions
sent from Ostend under a good convoy, and they lay at the mouth of the Tyne till further
orders. Thus all preparations were made to dissipate that small force. But it appeared
that the French relied chiefly on the assistance that they expected would have come in to
them upon their landing. Of this they seemed so well assured, that the king of Franco sent
instructions to his ministers in all the courts that admitted of them, to be published every
where, that the pretended prince being invited by his subjects, chiefly those of Scotland, to
take possession of the throne of his ancestors, the king had sent him over at their desire,
with a fleet and army to assist him : that he was resolved to pardon all those who should
come in to him, and he would trouble none upon the account of religion : upon his being
re-established, the king would give peace to the rest of Europe. When these ministers
received these directions, they had likewise advice sent them, which they published both at
Rome, Venice, and in Switzerland, that the French had, before this expedition was under
taken, sent over some ships with arms and ammunition to Scotland ; and that there was
already an army on foot there, that had proclaimed this pretended prince king. It was
somewhat extraordinary to see such eminent falsehoods published all Europe over. They
also affirmed that hostages were sent from Scotland to Paris, to secure the observing the
engagements they had entered into : though all this was fiction and contrivance.
The States were struck with great apprehensions, so were all the allies ; for though they
were so long accustomed to the cunning practices of the court of France, yet this was an
original ; and therefore it was generally concluded that so small an army, and so weak a
fleet would not have been sent, but upon great assurances of assistance, not only from Scot
land but from England. And upon this occasion severe reflections were made, both on the
conduct of the admiralty, and on that tract of correspondence lately discovered, that was
managed under Harley's protection, and on the great breach that was so near the disjointing
all our affairs but a few days before. These things, when put together, filled men's minds
with thoughts of no easy digestion.
The parliament was sitting, and the queen, in a speech to both houses, communicated to
them the advertisements she had received. Both houses made addresses to her, giving
her full assurance of their adhering stedfastly to her, and to the protestant succession ; and
mixed with these, broad intimations of their apprehensions of treachery at home. They
passed also two bills : the one, that the abjuration might be tendered to all persons, and
that such as refused it should be in the condition of convict recusants ; by the other, they
suspended the Habeas Corpus act till October, with relation to persons taken up- by the
government upon suspicion. And the house of commons, by a vote, engaged to make good
to the queen all the extraordinary charge this expedition might put her to.
A fortnight went over before we had any news of the French fleet. Three of their ships
landed near the mouth of the Spey, only to refresh themselves ; for the ships being so filled
with landmen, there was a great want of water. At last all their ships got safe into Dunkirk.
The landmen either died at sea, or were so ill, that all the hospitals in Dunkirk were filled
with them. It was reckoned that they lost above four thousand men in this unaccountable
expedition ; for they were above a month tossed in a very tempestuous sea. Many suspected
persons were taken up in Scotland, and some few in England ; but further discoveries of
their correspondents were not then made. If they had landed, it might have had an ill
most culpably neglected, to say no worse, at this time, persion of the French fleet ; the latter nobleman was
Lord Hardvvicke, from good authority, has related, that silent, and the other only said, lifting up his eyes, " Well !
when lord Mar, as secretary of state for Scotland, informed man proposes, and God disposes." — Oxford ed. of this
lord Godolphin and the duke of Marlborough of the dis-. work.

820 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
effect on our affairs, chiefly with relation to all paper credit : and if, by this, the remit
tances to Piedmont, Catalonia, and- Portugal, had been stopped in so critical a season, that
might have had fatal consequences abroad. For if we had been put into such a disorder at
home, that foreign princes could no more reckon on our assistance, they might have been
disposed to hearken to the propositions that the king of France would then have probably
made to them. So that the total defeating of this design, without its having the least ill
effect on our affairs, or our losing one single man in the little engagement we had with the
enemy, is always to be reckoned as one of those happy providences for which we have much
to answer.
The queen seemed much alarmed with this matter, and saw with what falsehoods she had
been abused, by those who pretended to assure her there was not now a jacobite in the nation.
One variation in her style was now observed : she had never, in any speech, mentioned
the revolution, or those who had been concerned in it ; and many of those who made a consi
derable figure about her studied, though against all sense and reason, to distinguish her title
from the revolution : it was plainly founded on it, and on nothing else. In the speeches she
now made, she named the revolution twice, and said she would look on those concerned in
it as the surest to her interests. She also fixed a new designation on the pretended prince
of Wales, and called him the Pretender ; and he was so called in a new set of addresses,
which, upon this occasion, were made to the queen. And I intend to follow the precedent
as often as I may have occasion hereafter to mention him. The session of parliament was
closed in March, soon after defeating the design of a descent. It was dissolved in April by
proclamation, and the writs were issued out for the elections of a new parliament, which
raised that ferment over the nation that was usual on such occasions. The just and visible
dangers to which the attempt of the invasion had exposed the nation produced very good
effects ; for the elections did, for the most part, fall on men well affected to the government,
and zealously set against the pretender.
As soon as the state of affairs at home was well settled, the duke of Marlborough went
over to Holland, and there prince Eugene met him, being sent by the emperor to concert
with him and the States the operations of the campaign. From the Hague they both went
to Hanover, to settle all matters relating to the empire, and to engage the elector to return
to command the army on the Upper Rhine. Every thing was fixed. Prince Eugene went
back to Vienna, and was obliged to return by the beginning of June ; for the campaign was
then to be opened every where.
The court of France was much mortified by the disappointment they had met with in
their designs against us ; but, to put more life in their troops, they resolved to send the
duke of Burgundy with the duke of Berry to be at the head of their army in Flanders.
The pretender went with them, without any other character than that of the chevalier de
St. George. The elector of Bavaria with the duke of Berwick were sent to command in
Alsace, and marshal Villars was sent to head the forces in Dauphiny. Tlie credit, with
relation to money, was still very low in France : for, after many methods taken for raising
the credit of the mint-bills, they were still at a discount of 40 per cent. No fleets came this
year from the West Indies, so that they could not be supplied from thence.
The duke of Orleans was sent to command in Spain ; and, according to the vanity of that
nation, it was given out that they were to have mighty armies in many different places, and
to put an end to the war there. Great rains fell all the winter in all the parts of Spain, so
that the campaign could not be so soon opened as it was at first intended. The bills that
the duke of Orleans brought with him to Spain were protested, at which he was so much
displeased, that he desired to be recalled. This was remedied in some degree, though far
short of what was promised to him. The troops of Portugal, that lay at Barcelona ever
since the battle of Almanza, were brought about by a squadron of our ships to the defence of
their own country. Sir John Leak came also over thither from England, with recruits and
other supplies that the queen was to furnish that crown with ; and when all was landed, he
sailed into the Mediterranean, to bring over troops from Italy, for the strengthening of king
Charles, whose affairs were in great disorder.
After all the boasting of the Spaniards, their army on the side of Portugal was so weak

OF QUEEN ANNE. 827
that they could not attempt anything : so this was a very harmless campaign on both sides,
the Portuguese not being much stronger. The duke of Orleans sat down before Tortosa in
June, and though Leak dissipated a fleet of tartanes, sent from France to supply his army,
and took about fifty of them, which was a very seasonable relief to those in Barcelona ; upon
which it was thought the siege of Tortosa would be raised ; yet it was carried on till the
last of June, and then the garrison capitulated.
Leak sailed to Italy, and brought from thence both the new queen of Spain and eight
thousand men with him ; but, by reason of the slowness of the court of Vienna, these came
too late to raise the siege of Tortosa. The snow lay so long on the Alps, that the duke of
Savoy did not begin the campaign till July ; then he came into Savoy, of wliich he pos
sessed himself without any opposition. The whole country was under a consternation as
far as Lyons.
On the Upper Rhine, the two electors continued looking on one another without venturing
on any action ; but the great scene was laid in Flanders. The French princes came to Mons,
and there they opened the campaign, and advanced to Soignies, with an army of an hundred
thousand men. The duke of Marlborough lay between Enghien and Hal with his army,
which was about eighty thousand.
The French had their usual practices on foot in several towns in those parts. A con
spiracy to deliver Antwerp to them was discovered and prevented. The truth was, the
Dutch were severe masters, and the Flandrians could not bear it. Though the French had
laid heavier taxes on them, yet they used them better in all other respects. Their bigotry,
being wrought on by their priests, disposed them to change masters, so these practices suc
ceeded better in Ghent and Bruges. The duke of Marlborough resolved not to weaken his
army bv many garrisons; so he put none at all in Bruges, and a very weak one in the
citadel of Ghent, reckoning that there was no danger as long as he lay between those places
and the French army. The two armies lay about a month looking on one another, shifting
their camps a little, but keeping still in safe ground, so that there was no action all the
while. But near the end of June some bodies drawn out of the garrisons about Y'pres came
and possessed themselves of Bruges, without any opposition ; and the garrison in Ghent
was too weak to make any resistance, so they capitulated and inarched out. Upon this
the whole French army marched towards those places, hoping to have carried Oudenarde in
their way.
The duke of Marlborough followed so quick, that they drew off from Oudenarde as he
advanced. In one day, which was the last of June, he made a march of five leagues, passed
the Scheld without any opposition, came up to the French army, and engaged them in the
afternoon. They had the advantage both of numbers and of ground ; yet our men beat
them from every post, and, in an action that lasted six hours, we had such an entire advan
tage, that nothing but the darkness of the night and weariness of our men saved the French
army from being totally ruined. There were about five thousand killed and about eight
thousand made prisoners (of whom one thousand were officers), and about six thousand more
deserted ; so that the French lost at least twenty thousand men, and retired in great haste
and in greater confusion to Ghent. On the confederates' side, there were about one thousand
killed and two thousand wounded ; but our anny was so wearied, with a long march and a
long action, that they were not in a condition to pursue with that haste that -was to be
desired : otherwise great advantages might have been made of this victory. The French
posted themselves on the great canal that runs from Ghent to Bruges. Prince Eugene's
army of about thirty thousand men was now very near the great army, and joined it in a
few days after this action ; but he himself was come up before them, and bad a noble share
in the victory, which, from the neighbourhood of that place, came to be called the battle of
Oudenarde. The French had recovered themselves out of their first consternation during that time,
which was necessary to give our army some rest and refreshment ; and they were so well
posted, that it was not thought fit to attack them. Great detachments were sent as far as
to Arras, to put all the French countries under contribution, which struck such a terror

B28 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
every where, that it went as far as to Paris. Our army could not block up the enemy's on
all sides, the communication with Dunkirk by Newport was still open, and the French army
was supplied from thence. They made an invasion into the Dutch Flanders : they had no
great cannon, so they could take no place ; but they destroyed the country with their usual
barbarity. In conclusion the duke of Marlborough, in concert with prince Eugene and the States,
resolved to besiege Lisle, the capital town of the French Flanders. It was a great, a rich,
and a well fortified place, with a very strong citadel. It had been the first conquest the
French king had made, and it was become, next to Paris, the chief town of his dominions.
Marshal Boufflers threw himself into it, with some of the best of the French troops. The
garrison was at least twelve thousand strong, some called it fourteen thousand. Prince
Eugene undertook the conduct of the siege, with about thirty thousand men, and the duke
of Marlborough, with the rest of the army, lay on the Scheld at Pont-Esperies, to keep the
communication open with Brussels. Some time was lost before the great artillery could he
brought up : it lay at Sas van Ghent, to have been sent up the Lys, but now it was to be
carried about by Antwerp to Brussels, and from thence by land-carriages to the camp, which
was a long and a slow work : in that some weeks were lost, so that it was near the end of
August before the siege was begun. The engineers promised the States to take the place
within a fortnight after the trenches were opened, but the sequel showed that they reckoned
wrong. There were some disputes among them : errors were committed by those who were
in greatest credit, who thought the way of sap the shortest, as well as the surest, method ;
yet, after some time lost in pursuing this way, they returned to the ordinary method.
Boufflers made a brave and a long defence. The duke of Burgundy came with his whole
army so near ours, that it seemed he designed to venture another battle rather than lose so
important a place ; and the duke of Marlborough was for some days in a posture to receive
him ; but when he saw that his whole intention in coming so near him was only to oblige
him to be ready for an action, without coining to any, and so to draw off a great part of
those bodies that carried on the siege, leaving only as many as were necessary to maintain
the ground they had gained, he drew a line before his army, and thought only of carrying
on the siege ; for while he looked for an engagement no progress was made in that.
After some days the French drew off, and fell to making lines along the Scheld, but
chiefly about Oudenarde, that they might cut off the communication between Brussels and
our camp, and so separate our anny from all intercourse with Holland. The lines were
about seventy miles long, and in some places, near Oudenarde, they looked more like the
ramparts of a fortified place than ordinary lines : on these they laid cannon, and posted the
greater part of their army upon them, so that they did effectually stop all communication
by the Scheld. Upon which the States ordered all that was necessary, both for the army
and for the siege, to be sent to Ostend. And if the French had begun their designs with
the intercepting this way of conveyance, the siege must have been raised for want of ammu
nition to carry it on.
About this time six thousand men were embarked at Portsmouth, in order to be sent over
to Portugal; but they were ordered to lie for some time on the coast of France, all along
from Boulogne to Dieppe, in order to force a diversion, we hoping that this would oblige the
French to draw some of their troops out of Flanders, for the defence of their coast. This
had no great effect, and the appearance that the French made gave our men such apprehen
sions of their strength, that though they once began to land their men, yet they soon
returned back to their ships. But as their behaviour was not a little censured, so the state
of the war in Flanders made it necessary to have a greater force at Ostend. They were
upon this ordered to come and land there. Earl, who commanded them, came out and took
a post at Leffingen, that lay on the canal which went from Newport to Bruges, to secure the
passage of a great convoy of eight hundred waggons, that were to be carried from Ostend to
the army. If that had been intercepted, the siege must have been raised ; for the duke of
Marlborough had sent some ammunition from his army to carry on the siege, and he could
spare no more. He began to despair of the undertaking, and so prepared his friends to look

OF QUEEN ANNE. 829
for the raising the siege, being in great apprehensions concerning this convoy ; upon which
the whole success of this enterprise depended. He sent Webb with a body of six thousand
men to secure the convoy.
The French, who understood well of what consequence the convoy was, sent a body of
twenty thousand men with forty pieces of cannon, to intercept it. Webb, seeing the
inequality between his strength and the enemy's, put his men into the best disposition he
could. There lay coppices on both sides of the place where he posted himself, he lined these
well, and stood still for some hours, while the enemy cannonaded him, he having no cannon
to return upon them. His men lay flat on the ground till that was over. But when the
French advanced our men fired upon them, both in front and from the coppices, with that
fury, and with such success, that they began to run ; and though their officers did all that
was possible to make them stand, they could not prevail ; so, after they had lost about six
thousand men, they marched back to Bruges. Webb durst not leave the advantageous
ground he was in to pursue them, being so much inferior in number. So unequal an action,
and so shameful a flight, with so great loss, was looked on as the most extraordinary thing that
had happened during the whole war : and it encouraged the one side as much as it dispirited
the other. Many reproaches passed on this occasion, between the French and the Spaniards ;
the latter, who had suffered the most, blaming the former for abandoning them. This,
which is the ordinary consequence of all great misfortunes, was not soon quieted*
The convoy arriving safe in the camp put new life in our army. Some other convoys came
afterwards, and were brought safe ; for the duke of Marlborough moved with his whole
army to secure their motions, nor did the enemy think fit to give them any disturbance for
some time. By the means of these supplies, the siege was carried on so effectually that, by
the end of October, the town capitulated ; mareschal Boufflers retiring into the citadel with
six thousand men. The French saw of what importance the communication by Ostend was
to our army, which was chiefly maintained by the body that was posted at Leffingen ; so
they attacked that with a very great force. The place was weak of itself, but all about was
put under water, so it might have made a longer resistance. It was too easily yielded up
by those within it, who were made prisoners of war. Thus the communication with Ostend
was cut off, and upon that the French flattered themselves with the hopes of starving our
army, having thus separated it from all communication with Holland : insomuch that it was
reported the duke of Vendome talked of having our whole forces delivered into his hands as
prisoners of war, for want of bread and other necessaries. It is true, the duke of Marlberough
sent out great bodies, both into the French Flanders and into the Artois, who brought in
great stores of provisions ; but that could not last long.
The French army lay all along the Scheld, but had sent a great detachment to cover the
Artois ; all this while there was a great misunderstanding between the duke of Burgundy
and the duke of Vendome : the latter took so much upon him, that the other officers com
plained of his neglecting them ; so they made their court to the duke of Burgundy, and laid
the blame of all his miscarriages on Vendome. He kept close to the orders he had from
Versailles, where the accounts he gave, and the advices he offered, were more considered
than those that were sent by the duke of Burgundy. This was very uneasy to him, who
was impatient of contradiction, and longed to be in action, though he did not show the
forwardness, in exposing his own person, that was expected : he seemed very devout, even
to bigotry ; but by the accounts we had from France, it did appear, that his conduct during
the campaign gave no great hopes or prospect from him, when all things should come into
his hands : Chamillarcl was often sent from court to soften him, and to reconcile him to the
duke of Vendome, but with no effect.
The elector of Bavaria had been sent to command on the Upper Rhine : the true reason
was believed, that he might not pretend to continue in the chief command in Flanders : he
was put in hopes of being furnished with an army so strong, as to be able to break through
* People acquainted with general Webb soon were "four times—" "I wish, dear general," replied the
wearied of his victory, and his vanity. He was telling duke, " you had received one m your tongue, for then
the duke of Argyle some anecdotes of the action, for the you would have left others to relate your deeds of valour."
twentieth time :— " I was wounded," said the egotist, —Sir R. Onslqw in the Oxford ed. of this work.

3-50 THE HISTORY OP THE REIGN
into Bavaria. The elector of Hanover did again undertake the command of the army of the
empire : both armies were weak ; but thev were so equally weak, that they were not able
to undertake any thing on either side : so after some months, in which there was no con
siderable action, the forces on both sides went into winter quarters. Then the court of
France, believing that the elector of Bavaria was so much beloved in Brussels, that he had a
great party in the town, ready to declare for him, ordered an army of fourteen thousand men,
with a good train of artillery, to be brought together, and with that body he was sent to
attack Brussels ; in wliich there was a garrison of six thousand men. He lay before the
town five davs ; in one of these he attacked it with great furv : he was once master of the
counterscarp, but he was soon beaten out of it : and though he repeated his attacks very
often, he was repulsed in them all.
The duke of Marlborough hearing of this, made a sudden motion towards the Scheld : but
to deceive the enemy, it was given out, that he designed to march directly towards Ghent,
and this was believed by his whole army, and it was probably carried to the enemy ; for
they seemed to have no notice nor apprehension of his design on the Scheld : he advanced
towards it in the night, and marched with the foot very quick, leaving the horse to come up
with the artillery : the lines were so strong, that it was expected, that in the breaking through
them, there must have been a verv hot action : some of the general officers told me, that they
reckoned it would have cost them at least ten thousand men ; but to their great surprize, as
soon as they passed the river, the French ran away, without offering to make the least resist
ance : and thev had drawn off their cannon the day before. Our men were very weary
with the nights mareh, so they could not pursue ; for the horse were not come up, nor did
the garrison of Oudenarde sally out ; yet they took a thousand prisoners. Whether the
notice of the feint, that the duke of Marlborough gave out of his design on Ghent, occa
sioned the French drawing off their cannon, and their being so secure, that they seemed to
have no apprehensions of his true design, was not yet certainly known : but the abandoning
those lines, on which they had been working for many weeks, was a surprise to all the world :
their counsels seemed to be weak, and the execution of them -was worse ; so that they, who
were so long the terror, were now become the scorn of the world.
The main body of their army retired to Valenciennes ; great detachments were sent to
Ghent and Bruges : as soon as the elector of Bavaria had the news of this unlooked-for
reverse of their affairs, he drew off from Brussels with such precipitation, that he left his
heavy cannon and baggage, with his wounded men behind him ; so this dosiooi. in which
three thousand men were lost, came soon to an end. Those who thought of presages, looked
on our passing the lines on the same day, in which the parliament of England was opened,
as a happy one. Prince Eugene had marched, with the greatest part of the force that lay
before Lisle (leaving only what was necessary to keep the town, and to carry on the sap
against the citadel) to have a share in the action that was expected in forcing the lines ; but
he came quickly back, when he saw there was no need of him, and that the communication
with Brussels was opened.
The siege of the citadel was carried on in a slow but sure method : and when the besiegers
had lodged themselves in the second counterscarp, and had raised all their batteries, so that
they were ready to attack the place in a formidable manner ; mareschal Boufflers thought
fit to prevent that by a capitulation. It was now near the end of November ; so he had the
better terms granted him ; for it was resolved, as late as it was in the year, to reduce Ghent
and Bruges, before this long campaign should be concluded : he marched out with five thou
sand men, so that the siege had cost those within as many lives as it did the besiegers, which
were nearly eight thousand.
This was a great conquest ; the noblest, the richest, and the strongest town in those pro
vinces, was thus reduced ; and the most regular citadel in Europe, fortified and furnished at
a vast expense, was taken without firing one cannon against it. The garrison was obliged
to restore to the inhabitants all that had been carried into the citadel, and to make good all
the damages that had been done the town, by the demolishing of houses, wr.ile thev were
preparing themselves for the siege. All the several methods the French had tised, to oive a
diversion, had proved ineffectual ; but that, in which the observers of Providence rejoice most,

OF QUEEN ANNE. 8JU
was the signal character of a particular blessing on this siege : it was all the whole time a
rainy season, all Europe over, and in all the neighbouring places ; yet during the siege of tho
town, it was dry and fair about it : and on those days of capitulation, in which time was
allowed for the garrison to march into the citadel, it rained ; but as soon as these were elapsed,
so that they were at liberty to besiege the citadel, fair weather returned, and continued till
it was taken.
From Lisle, the army marched to invest Ghent, though it was late in the year ; for it was
not done before December : the French boasted much of their strength, and they had, by
some new works, made a show of designing an obstinate resistance. They stood it out, till
the trenches were far advanced, and the batteries were finished, so that the whole train of
artillery was mounted : when all was ready to fire on the town, the governor, to save both
that and his garrison, thought fit to capitulate : he had an honourable capitulation, and a
general amnesty was granted to the town, with a new confirmation of all their privileges.
The burghers did not deserve so good usage ; but it was thought fit to try how far gentle
treatment could prevail on them, and overcome their perverseness : and indeed it may be
thought that they had suffered so much by their treachery, that they were sufficiently
punished for it : Ghent was delivered' to the duke of Marlborough on the last of December
N. S., so gloriously was both the year and the campaign finished at once ; for the garrison
that lay at Bruges, and in the forts about it, withdrew without staying for a summons.
These being evacuated, the army was sent into winter quarters.
It had not been possible to have kept them in the field much longer ; for within two or
three days after, there was a great fall of snow, and that was followed by a most violent
frost, which continued the longest of any in the memory of man : and though there were
short intervals, of a few days of thaw, we had four returns of an extreme frost, the whole
lasting about three months. Many died in several parts, by the extremity of the cold ; it
was scarcely possible to keep the soldiers alive, even in their quarters ; so that they must
have perished, if they had not broken up the campaign, before this hard season. This coming
on so quick, after all that was to be done abroad was effectuated, gave new occasions to those
who made their remarks on Providence, to observe the very great blessings of this conjunc
ture, wherein every thing that was designed was happily ended just at the critical time that
it was become necessary to conclude the campaign : and indeed the concurrence of those happy
events, that had followed us all this year, from the pretender's first setting out from Dun
kirk, to the conclusion of it, was so signal, that it made great impressions on many of the
chief officers, which some owned to myself; though they were the persons from whom I
expected it least.
The campaign in Spain was more equally balanced : the duke of Orleans took Tortosa ;
Denia was also forced to capitulate, and the garrison were made prisoners of war. But these
losses by land were well made up by the successes of our fleet : Sardinia was reduced, after
a very feeble and short struggle : the plenty of the island made the conquest the more con
siderable at that time, for in Catalonia they were much straitened for want of provisions,
which were now supplied from Sardinia. Towards the end of the campaign, the fleet, with
a thousand land-men on board, came before Minorca, and in a few days made themselves
masters of that island, and of those forts that commanded Port Mahon, the only valuable
thing in that island : all was carried after a very faint resistance, the garrisons showing eitlier
great cowardice, or great inclinations to king Charles. By this, our fleet had got a safe
port to lie in and refit, and to retire into on all occasions ; for till then we had no place nearer
than Lisbon : this was such an advantage to us, as made a great impression on all the princes
and states in Italy.
At this time the pope began to threaten the emperor with ecclesiastical censures, and a
war, for possessing himself of Commachio, and for taking quarters in the papal territories :
he levied troops, and went often to review them, not without the affectation of shewing him
self a general, as if he had been again to draw the sword, as St. Peter did : he opened Sixtus
the Fifth's treasure, and took out of it five hundred thousand crowns for this service : many
were afraid that this war should have brought the emperor's affairs into a new entanglement ;
for the court of France laid hold of this rupture, and to inflame it, sent mareschal Tesse to

802 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Rome, to encourage the pope with great a*-urances of support. He was also ordered to try
if the great duke, and the repubhcs of Venice and Genoa, could be engaged in an alliance
against the imperialists.
The emperor bore all the pope's threats with great patience, till the duke of Savoy ended
the campaign ; that duke, at the first opening of it, marched into Savoy, from whence it was
thought his designs were upon Dauphiny. Villars was sent against him to defend that
frontier ; though he did all he could to decline that command : he drew all his forces together
to cover Dauphiny ; and by these motions, the passage into the Alps was now open : so the
duke of Savoy secured that, and then marched back to besiege first Exilles. and then Fenes
trella, two places strong by their situation, from whence excursions could have been made
into Piedmont ; so that in case of any misfortune in that duke's affairs, they would have
been very uneasy neighbours to him : he took them both. The greatest difficulty in
those sieges was from the impracticableness of the ground, which drew them out into such a
length, that the snow began to fall by the time both were taken. By this means the Alps
were cleared, and Dauphiny was now open to him : he was also master of the valley of
Pragelas, and all things were ready for a greater procuress in another campaign.
The emperor's troops, that were commanded by him, were, at the end of the season, ordered
to march into the pope's territories, and were joined by some more troops, drawn out of the
Milanese, and the Mantuan. The pope's troops began the war in a very barbarous maimer ;
for while they were in a sort of a cessation, they surprized a body of the imperialists, and
without mercy put them all to the sword ; but as the imperial army advanced, the Papalins,
or, as the Italians in derision called them, the Papagallians, fled every where before them,
even when they were three to one. As they came on, the pope's territories and places were
all cast open to them : Bologna, the most important, and the richest of them, capitulated ;
and received them without the least resistance. The people of Rome were uneasy at the
pope's proceedings, and at the apprehensions of a new sack from a German army : they
showed this so openly, that tumults there were much dreaded, and many cardinals declared
openly against this war. The emperor sent a minister to Rome, to see if matters could be
accommodated ; but the terms proposed seemed to be of hard digestion, for the pope was
required to acknowledge king Charles, and in every particular to comply with the emperor's
demands. The pope was amazed at his ill success, and at those high terms ; but there was no remedy
left ; the ill state of affairs in France was now so visible, that no regard was had to the grf at
promises, which mareschal Tesse was making, nor was there any hopes of drawing the
princes and states of Italy into an alliance for his defence. In conclusion, the pope, after
he had delayed yielding to the emperor s demands long enough to give the imperialists time
to eat up his country, at last submitted to every thing ; yet he delayed acknowledging kir.2
Charles for some months, though he then promised to do it ; upon which the emperor drew
his troops out of his territories. The pope turned over the manner of acknowledging kiDg
Charles, to a congregation of cardinals ; but they had no mind to take the load of this upon
themselves, which would draw an exclusion upon them from France, in every conclave ; they
left it to the pope, and he affected delays ; so that it was not done till the end of the follow
ing year.
The affairs in Hungary continued in the same ill state in which they had been for some
years ; the emperor did not grant the demands of the diet that he had called ; nor did he
redress their grievances, and he had not a force strong enough to reduce the malcontents ; so
that his council could not fall on methods, either to satisfy, or to subdue them.
Poland continued still to be a scene of war and misery ; to their other calamities, they
had the addition of a plague, which laid some of their great towns waste : the partv formed
against Stanislaus, continued still to oppose him, though they had no kincr to head them:
the king of Sweden's warlike humour possessed him to such a degree, that he resolved to
march into Muscovy. The czar tried how far submissions and intercessions could soften him :
but he was inflexible : he marched through the Ukrain, but made no great progress : the
whole Muscovite force fell on one of his generals, that had. about him only a part of his
army, and gave him a total defeat, most of his horse being cut off. After that, w e were, for

OF QUEEN ANNE. 833
many months, without any certain news from those parts : both sides pretended they had
great advantages ; and as Stanislaus's interest carried him to set out and magnify the Swedish
success, so the party that opposed him studied as much to raise the credit of the Muscovites :
so that it was not yet easy to know what to believe further, than that there had been
no decisive action throughout the whole year ; nor was there any during the followinw
winter. Our affairs at sea were less unfortunate this year than they had been formerly : the
merchants were better served with convoys, and we made no considerable losses. A squadron
that was sent to the bay of Mexico, met with the galleons, and engaged them : if all (their)
captains had done their duty, they had been all taken : some few fought well. The admiral
of the galleons, wliich carried a great treasure, was sunk ; the vice-admiral was taken, and
the rear-admiral run himself ashore near Carthagena ; the rest got away. The enemy lost
a great deal by this action, though we did not gain so much as we might have done, if all our
captains had been brave and diligent *- Another squadron carried over the queen of Portu
gal, which was performed with great magnificence ; she had a quick and easy passage. This
did in some measure compensate to that crown for our failing them, in not sending over the
supplies that we had stipulated ; it was a particular happiness that the Spaniards were so
weak, as not to be able to take advantage of the naked and unguarded state, in which the
Portuguese were at this time
In the end of October, George prince of Denmark died, in the fifty-sixth year of his age,
after he had been twenty-five years and some months married to the queen : he was asth-
matical, which grew on him with his years ; for some time he was considered as a dying man,
but the last year of his life, he seemed to be recovered, to a better state of health. The
queen had been, during the whole course of her marriage, an extraordinarily tender and affec
tionate wife ; and in all his illness, which lasted some years, she would never leave his bed ;
but sat up, sometimes half the night in the bed by him, with such care and concern, that she
was looked on very deservedly as a pattern in this respect.
This prince had showed himself brave in war, both in Denmark and in Ireland : his temper
was mild and gentle : he had made a good progress in mathematics : he had travelled through
France, Italy, and Germany, and knew much more than he could well express ; for he spoke
acquired languages ill and ungracefully. He was free from all vice ; he meddled little in
business, even after the queen's accession to the crown : he was so gained to the tories by the
act which they carried in his favour, that he was much in their interest : he was unhappily
prevailed with to take on him the post of high-admiral, of which he understood little ; but
was fatally led by those who had credit with him, who had not all of them his good quali
ties, but had both an ill temper and bad principles : his being bred to the sea, gained him
some credit in those matters. In the conduct of our affairs, as great errors were committed,
so great misfortunes had followed on them : all these were imputed to the prince's easiness,
and to his favourite's ill management and bad designs. This drew a very heavy load on the
prince, and made his death to be the less lamented : the queen was not only decently, but
deeply affected with it t.
* Admiral sir Charles Wager commanded in this action, f This prince was born at Copenhagen in 1653. If he
and acted moBt bravely. Mr. speaker Onslow, his friend, had possessed any superior talents, he would probably have
gives of him a very high character. Humanity, clearness been made king regnant, as were the husbands of the two
of mind, calm courage, and the most plain, kind manners, Marys. The queen was fully aware of his weakness and
under a rough exterior, characterised the man. His father indolence, therefore never permitted him to interfere in
was a captain in the navy, but dying when his son was state affairs. Although educated for the sea service, it
young, the widow married a quaker, among whom the was very apparent that he was unfit to manage our mari-
admiral being educated, his simple manners is in somo time affairs. Bravery was an hereditary virtue in his
.degree accounted for. (Oxford ed. of this work.) He family, and courage therefore was his most prominent
died in 1743, aged seventy-seven. One anecdote abun- superiority. He supported the tory party, perhaps, in gra-
dantly confirms Mr. Onslow's character of this noble titude for their having settled an annuity of 100,000/.
Englishman. The widow of Henry Cromwell, youngest upon him as long as he might survive his royal consort.
son of the protector, left her daughter at Fordham, sir He was too amiable to have any private enemies ; and
Charles Wager's residence, the latter at the time observ- deserves some commendation for his patronage of the fine
ing, " I have purchased the estate this child is heir to ; arts.
therefore I will educate and provide for her." A promise According to the carl of Dartmouth, this prince was the
ho strictly fulfilled.  Noble's Contin. of Grainger, &c. most indolent of all mankind. Charles the Second said
3 H

8"4 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
The earl of Pembroke was now advanced to the post of high-admiral ; which he entered
on with great uneasiness, and a just apprehension, of the difficulty of maintaining it well, in
a time of war : he was at that time both lord president of the council, and lord lieutenant
of Ireland. The earl of Wharton had the government of Ireland, and the lord Somers was
made lord president of the council : the great capacity and inflexible integrity of this lord,
would have made his promotion to this post very acceptable to the whigs, at any juncture,
but it was most particularly so at this time ; for it was expected that propositions for a
general peace would be quickly made; and so they reckoned that the management of that,
upon which not only the safety of the nation, but of all Europe, depended, was in sure hands,
when he was set at the head of the councils, upon whom neither ill practices nor false colours
were likely to make any impression. Thus the minds of all those who were truly zealous
for the present constitution, were much quieted by this promotion ; though their jealousies
had a deep root, and were not easily removed.
The parliament was opened in the middle of November with great advantage ; for the
present ministry was now wholly such, that it gave an entire content to all who wished well
to our affairs ; and the great successes abroad silenced those who were otherwise disposed to
find fault, and to complain. The queen did not think it decent for her to come to parlia
ment during this whole session ; so it was managed by a commission representing her person.
Sir Richard Onslow was chosen speaker, without the least opposition : he was a worthy man,
entirely zealous for the government ; he was very acceptable to the whigs, and the tories felt
that they had so little strength in this parliament, that they resolved to lie silent, and to
wait for such advantages as the circumstances of affairs might give them *. In the house
of commons, the supplies that were demanded were granted very unanimously, not only
for maintaining the force then on foot, but for an augmentation of ten thousand more : this
was thought necessary to press the war with more force, as the surest way to bring on a
speedy peace : the States agreed to the like augmentation on their side. The French,
according to their usual vanity, gave out, that they had great designs in view for the next
campaign : and it was confidently spread about by the jacobites, that a new invasion was
designed, both on Scotland and on Ireland. At the end of the campaign, prince Eugene
went to the court of Yienna, which obliged the duke of Marlborough to stay on the other
side till he returned. Things went on in both houses, according to the directions given at
court, for the court being now joined with the whigs, they had a clear majority in every
thing : all elections were judged in favour of whigs and courtiers, but with so much par
tiality, that those who had formerly made loud complaints of the injustice of the tories, in
determining elections, when they were a majority, were not so much as out of countenance
when they were reproached for the same thing : they pretended they were in a state of war
with the tories, so that it was reasonable to retaliate this to them, on the account of their
former proceedings : but this did not satisfy just and upright men, who would not do to
others that which they had complained of, when it was done to them, or to their friends.
The house of commons voted a supply of seven millions for the service of the ensuing year ;
the land-tax, and the duty on malt, were readily agreed to ; but it took some time to find
funds for the rest that they had voted.
A petition, of a new nature, was brought before the lords, with relation to the election of
the peers from Scotland : there was a return made in due form, but a petition was laid before
he had tried him both drunk and sober, but there was queen caused an inventory of his personal estate to be
nothing in him. He was made a tool at the revolution, taken. It amounted to 37,932/. Of this she took half,
but king William treated him with contempt. When and the other moiety was divided between the electoral
queen Anne came to the throne, she acted towards him house of Saxony, the royal families of Denmark and
similarly, though she would not allow others to neglect Sweden, and the family of the prince bishop of Lubec— *-
him in the least. All foreign princes despised him. He Noble's Contin. of Grainger.
died at length of eating and drinking to excess. (Oxford * Sir Richard Onslow was afterwards made lord Ons-
edition of this work.) Little is known of his patrimony, low ; he died in 1717. He was descended from one of
which was some small islands belonging to the Danish Cromwell's peers. His nickname, even among his own
crown, producing about 10,000?. a-year. These were party, was " stiff Dick." Lord Dartmouth describes him
mortgaged at the request of king William, to satisfy some as trifling, vain, and ridiculous in appearance. He was
pretensions of the Danes upon the duchy of Saxe Lawen- uncle to the Mr. Onslow, whose Notes are in the Oxford
burg, and were never redeemed. Dying intestate, the edition of this work.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 805
the house in the name of four lords, who pretended that they ought to have been returned :
the duke of Queensbury had been created a duke of Great Britain, by the title of duke of
Dover, yet he thought he had still a right to vote as a peer of Scotland : he had likewise a
proxy, so that two votes depended on this point, whether the Scotch peerage did sink into
the peerage of Great Britain. Some lords, who were prisoners in the castle of Edinburgh,
on suspicion, as favouring the pretender, had sent for the sheriff of Lothian to the castle,
and had taken the oaths before him ; and upon that, were reckoned to be qualified to vote or
make a proxy ; now it was pretended, that the castle of Edinburgh was a constabulatory,
and was out of the sheriffs jurisdiction ; and that therefore he could not legally tender them
the oaths : some proxies were signed, without subscribing witnesses, a form necessary by
their law : other exceptions were also taken, from some rules of the law of Scotland, which
had not been observed. The clerks being also complained of, they were sent for, and were
ordered to bring up with them all instruments or documents relating to tlie election : when
they came up, and every thing was laid before the house of lords, the whole matter was long
and well debated.
As to the duke of Queensbury' s voting among the Scotch lords, it was said, that if a peer
of Scotland, being made a peer of Great Britain, did still retain his interest in electing the
sixteen from Scotland, this would create a great inequality among peers ; some having a vote
by representation, as well as in person : the precedent was mischievous, since by the creating
some of the chief families in Scotland, peers of Great Britain, they would be able ti cany
the whole election of the sixteen, as they pleased. It was objected, that by a clause in the
act passed since the union, the peers of England (who were likewise peers of Scotland) had
a right to vote, in the election of Scotland, still reserved to them, so there seemed to be a
parity in this case with that : but it was answered, that a peer of England and a peer of
Scotland held their dignity under two different crowns, and by two different great seals ;
but Great Britain, including Scotland as well as England, the Scotch peerage must now
merge in that of Great Britain : besides, that there were but five, who were peers of both
kingdoms, before the union ; so that, as it might be reasonable to make provision for them,
so was it of no great consequence ; but if this precedent were allowed, it might go much
further, and have very ill consequences. Upon a division of the house, the matter was
determined against the duke of Queensbury.
A great deal was said both -at the bar by lawyers, and in the debate in the house, upon
the point of jurisdiction, and of the exemption of a constabulatory : it was said, that the
sheriff's court ought to be, as all courts were, open and free ; and so could not be held within
a castle or prison : but no express decision had ever been made in this matter. The prisoners
had taken the oaths, which was the chief intent of the law, in the best manner they could ;
so that it seemed not reasonable to cut them off from the main privilege of peerage, that
was reserved to them, because they could not go abroad to the sheriff's court : after a long
debate, it was carried, that the oaths were duly tendered to them. Some other exceptions
were proved and admitted, the returns of some, certifying that they had taken tlie oaths,
were not sealed, and some had signed these, without subscribing witnesses : other exceptions
were offered from provisions the law of Scotland had made, with relation to bonds and other
deeds, which had not been observed in making of proxies : but the house of lords did not
think these were of that importance, as to vacate the proxies on that account. So, after a
full hearing, and a debate that lasted many days, there was but one of the peers that was
returned, who was found not duly elected, and only one of the petitioning lords was brought
into the house ; the marquis of Annandale was received, and the marquis of Lothian was
set aside.
The Scotch members in both houses were divided into factions : the duke of Queensbury
had his party, still depending on him ; be was in such credit with the lord treasurer and the
queen, that all the posts in Scotland were given to persons recommended by him : the chief
ministers at court seemed to have laid it down for a maxim, not to be departed from, to look
carefully to elections in Scotland ; that the members returned from thence might be in an
entile dependence on them, and be either whigs or tories, as they should shift sides. The duke
of Queensbury was made third secretary of state ; ho had no foreign province assigned him,
3 h 2

630 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
but Scotland was left to his management : the dukes of Hamilton, Montrose, and Roxburgh,
had set themselves in an opposition to his power, and had carried many elections against
him : the lord Somers and Sunderland supported them, but could not prevail with the lord
treasurer to bring them into an equal share of the administration ; this had almost occasioned
a breach ; for the whigs, though they went on in a conjunction with the lord treasurer, yet
continued still to be jealous of him.
Another act was brought in and passed in this session, with relation to Scotland, which
gave occasion to great and long debates ; what gave rise to it was this : upon the attempt
made by the pretender, many of the nobility and gentry of Scotland, who had all along
adhered to that interest, were secured ; and after the fleet was got back to Dunkirk, and the
danger was over, they were ordered to be brought up prisoners to London ; when they came,
there was no evidence at all against them, so they were dismissed, and sent back to Scotland.
No exceptions could be taken to the securing them, while there was danger ; but since
nothing besides presumptions lay against them, the bringing them up to London, at such a
charge, and under such a disgrace, was much censured, as an unreasonable and an unjust
severity; and was made use of to give that nation a further aversion to the union. That
whole matter was managed by the Scotch lords, then in the ministry, by which they both
revenged themselves on some of their enemies, and made a show of zeal for the government ;
though such as did not believe them sincere in these professions, thought it was done on
design to exasperate the Scots the more, and so to dispose them to wish for another invasion.
The whig ministry in England disowned all these proceedings, and used the Scots prisoners
so well, that they went down much inclined to concur with them : but the lord Godolphin
fatally adhered to the Scotch ministers, and supported them, by which, the advantage that
might have been made from these severe proceedings was lost ; but the chief occasion given
to the act concerning treasons in Scotland, was from a trial of some gentlemen of that king
dom, who had left their houses when the pretender was on the sea, and had gone about armed,
and in so secret and suspicious a manner, that it gave great cause of jealousy • there was no
clear evidence to convict them, but there were very strong, if not violent presumptions against
them : some forms in the trial had not been observed, wliich the criminal court judged were
necessary, and not to be dispensed with. But the queen's advocate, sir James Stuart, was
of another mind : the court thought it was necessary by their laws, that the names of the
witnesses should have been signified to the prisoners fifteen days before their trial ; but the
queen's advocate had not complied with this, as to the chief witnesses ; so the court could
not hear their evidence : he did not upon that move for a delay, so the trial went on, and
the gentlemen were acquitted. Severe expostulations passed between the queen's advocate
and the court : they complained of one another to the queen, and both sides justified their
complaints in print. Upon this it appeared, that the laws in Scotland concerning trials in
cases of treason, were not fixed nor certain : so a bill was brought into the house of commons
to settle that matter ; but it was so much opposed by the Scotch members, that it was
dropped in the committee ; it was taken up and managed with more zeal by the lords.
It consisted of three heads : all crimes which were high-treason by the law of England
(and these only) were to be high-treason in Scotland : the manner of proceeding settled in
England was to be observed in Scotland ; and the pains and forfeitures were to be the same
in both nations. The Scotch lords opposed every branch of this act : they moved, that all
things that were high-treason by the law of England, might be enumerated in the act, for
the information of the Scotch nation ; otherwise they must study the book of statutes, to
know when they were safe, and when they were guilty. To this it was answered, that
direction would be given to the judges, to publish an abstract of the laws of high-treason,
which would be a sufficient information to the people of Scotland, in this matter : that
nation would by this means be in a much safer condition than they were now ; for the laws
they had were conceived in such general words, that the judges might put such constructions
on them as should serve the ends of a bad court ; but they would by this act be restrained
in this matter for the future.
The second head in this bill occasioned a much longer debate; it changed the whole
method of proceedings in Scotland : the former way there was, the queen's advocate signed

OF QUEEN ANNE. 837
a citation of the persons, setting forth the special matter of high-treason, of which they were
accused ; this was to be delivered to them, together with the names of the witnesses, fifteen
days before the trial. When the jury was empannelled, no peremptory challenges were
allowed ; reasons were to be offered with every, challenge, and if the court admitted them,
they were to be proved immediately. Then the matter of the charge, which is there called
the relevancy of the libel, was to be argued by lawyers, whether the matter, suppose it
should be proved, did amount to high-treason or not ; this was to be determined by a sen
tence of the court, called the interloquitur : and the proof of the fact was not till then to be
made : of that the jury had the cognizance. Anciently the verdict went with the majority,
the number being fifteen ; but by a late act, the verdict was to be given, upon the agree
ment of two-third parts of the jury : in the sentence, the law did not limit the judges to a
certain form, but they could aggravate the punishment, or moderate it, according to the
circumstances of the case. All this method was to be set aside ; a grand jury was to find
the bill, the judges were only to regulate proceedings, and to declare what the law was, and
the whole matter of the indictment was to be left entirely to the jury, who were to be twelve,
and all to agree in their verdict.
In one particular, the forms in Scotland were much preferable to those in England ; the
depositions of the witnesses were taken indeed by word of mouth, but were written out,
and after that were signed by the witnesses ; they were sent in to the jury ; and these were
made a part of the record. This was very slow and tedious, but the jury, by this means,
was more certainly possessed of the evidence ; and the matter was more clearly delivered
down to posterity ; whereas the records in England are very defective, and give no light to
a historian that peruses them, as I found when I wrote the History of the Reformation.
The Scotch opposed this alteration of their way of proceeding ; they said, that neither the
judges, the advocates, nor the clerks would know how to manage a trial of treason : they
insisted most on the having the names of the witnesses, to be given to the persons, some days
before their trial : it seemed reasonable that a man should know who was to be brought to
witness against him, that so he might examine his life, and see what credit ought to be given
to him : on the other hand it was said, this would open a door to much practice, either upon
the witnesses to corrupt them, or in suborning other witnesses to defame them. To this it
was answered, that a guilty man knew what could be brought against him, and without
such notice would take all the methods possible to defend himself : but provision ought to
be made for innocent men, whose chief guilt might be a good estate, upon which a
favourite might have an eye ; and therefore such persons ought to be taken care of. This
was afterwards so much softened, that it was only desired, that the names of the witnesses
that had given evidence to the grand jury should, upon their finding the bill, be signified to
the prisoner five days before his trial. Upon a division of the house on this question, the
votes were equal; so by the rule of the house, that in such a case the negative prevails, it
was lost. Upon the third head of the bill, the debates grew still warmer : in Scotland
many families were settled by long entails and perpetuities ; so it was said, that since by
one of the articles of the union, all private rights were still preserved, no breach could be
made on these settlements. I carried this farther; I thought it was neither just nor reason
able to set the children on begging for their fathers' faults : the Romans, during their liberty,
never thought of carrying punishments so far : it was an invention, under the tyranny of
the emperors, who had a particular revenue called the fisc, and all forfeitures were claimed
by them, from whence they were called confiscations : it was never the practice of free
governments : Bologna flourished beyond any town in the pope's dominions, because they
made it an article of their capitulation with the pope, that no confiscation should follow on
any crime whatsoever In Holland the confiscation was redeemable by so very small a sum,
as an hundred guilders : many instances could be brought of prosecutions, only to obtain
the confiscation ; but none of the lords seconded me in this : it was acknowledged, that this
was just and reasonable, and fit to be passed in good times ; but since we were now exposed
to so much danger from abroad, it did not seem advisable to abate the severity of the law :
but clauses were agreed to, by which, upon marriages, settlements might be made in Scot
land, as was practised in England ; for no estate is forfeited for the crime of him, who

838 THE IIISTORV OF THE REIGN
is only tenant for life. By this act also, tortures wore condemned, and the queen was
empowered to grant commissions of Oyer and Terminer as in England, for trying treasons.
The Scotch insisted on this, that the justiciary or the criminal court being preserved by an
article of the union, this broke in upon that. It was answered, the criminal court was still
to sit, in the times regulated ; but these commissions were granted upon special occasions.
In the intervals between the terms, it might be necessary upon some emergency not to delay
trials too long ; but to give some content, it was provided by a clause, that a judge of the
criminal court should be always one of the quorum in these commissions : so the bill passed
in the house of lords, notwithstanding the opposition of all the Scotch lords, with whom many
of the tories concurred ; they being disposed to oppose tho court in every thing, and to make
treason as little to be dreaded as possible.
The bill met with tlie same opposition in the house of commons ; yet it passed with two
amendments : by one, the names of the witnesses that had appeared before the grand jury,
were ordered to be sent to the prisoner ten days before his trial : the other was, that no
estate in land was to be forfeited, upon a judgment of high treason : this came up fully to
the motion I had made. Both these amendments were looked on as such popular things,
that it was not probable that the house of commons would recede from them : Upon that the
whigs in the house of lords did not think fit to oppose them, or to lose the bill : so it was
moved to agree to these amendments, with this proviso, that they should not take place till
after the death of the pretender : it was said, that since he assumed the title of king of
Great Britain, and had so lately attempted to invade us, it was not reasonable to lessen the
punishment, and the dread of treason, as long as he lived. Others objected to this, that
there would be still a pretender after him, since so many persons stood in the lineal descent
before the house of Hanover ; so that this proviso seemed to be, upon the matter, the reject
ing the amendment : but it was observed, that to pretend to the right of succeeding, was a
different thing from assuming the title, and attempting an invasion. The amendment was
received by the house of lords with this proviso ; those who were against the whole bill did
not agree to it. The house of commons consented to the proviso, which the lords had added
to their amendment, with a farther addition, that it should not take place till three years
after the house of Hanover should succeed to the crown.
This met with great opposition ; it was considered as a distinguishing character of those who
were for or against the present constitution, and the succession ; the Scots still opposing it
on the account of their formal laws : both parties mustered up their strength, and many,
who had gone into the country, were brought up on this occasion : so that the bill, with all
the amendments and provisos, was carried by a small majority : the lords agreeing to this
new amendment. The Scotch members in both houses seemed to apprehend, that the bill
would be very odious in their country ; so to maintain their interest at home, they, who
were divided in every thing else, did agree in opposing this bill.
The court apprehended from the heat with which the debates were managed, and the
difficulty in carrying the bill through both houses, that ill-disposed men would endeavour to
possess people with apprehensions of bad designs and severities, that would be set on foot ; so
they resolved to have an act of grace immediately upon it : it was the first the queen had
sent, though she had then reigned above seven years : the ministers, for their own sake, took
care that it should be very full ; it was indeed fuller than any former act of grace ; all trea
sons committed before the signing the act, which was the 19th of April, were pardoned,
those only excepted that were done upon the sea : by this, those who had embarked with
the pretender were still at mercy. This act, according to form, was read once in both houses,
and with the usual complements of thanks, and with that the session ended.
Other things of great importance passed during this session : the house of commons voted
an enlargement of the bank, almost to three millions, upon which the books were opened to
receive new subscriptions : and to the admiration of all Europe, as well as of ourselves at
home, the whole sum was subscribed in a few hours' time : this shewed both the wealth of
the nation, and the confidence that all people had in the government. By this subscription,
and by a further prolongation of the general mortgage of the revenue, they created good
funds for answering all the money that they had voted in the beginning of the session.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 039
¦ Our trade was now very high, and was carried on every where with advantage, but no
where more than at Lisbon ; for the Portuguese were so happy, in their dominions in
America, that they discovered vast quantities of gold in their mines, and we were assured
that they had brought home to Portugal, the former year, about four millions sterling, of
which they, at that time, stood in great need, for they had a very bad harvest ; but gold
answers all things : they were supplied from England with corn, and we had in return a
large share of their gold.
An act passed in this session, that was much desired, and had been often attempted, but
had been laid aside in so many former parliaments, that there was scarcely any hopes left to
encourage a new attempt : it was for naturalizing all foreign protestants, upon their taking
the oaths to the government, and their receiving the sacrament in any protestant church.
Those who were against the act, soon perceived that they could have no strength, if they
should set themselves directly to oppose it ; so they studied to limit strangers in the receiv
ing the sacrament to the way of the church of England. This probably would not have
hindered many, who were otherwise disposed to come among us : for the much greater part
of the French came into the way of our church. But it was thought best to cast the door
as wide open as possible, for encouraging of strangers : and therefore since, upon their first
coming over, some might choose the way to which they had been accustomed beyond sea, it
seemed the more inviting method to admit of all who were in any protestant communion :
this was carried in the house of commons, with a great majority ; but all those who appeared
for this large and comprehensive way, were reproached for their coldness and indifference in
the concerns of the church : and in that I had a large share ; as I spoke copiously for it,
when it was brought up to the lords : the bishop of Chester spoke as zealously against it,
for he seemed resolved to distinguish himself as a zealot for that which was called high-
church. The bill passed with very little opposition.
There was all this winter great talk of peace, which the miseries and necessity of France
seemed to drive them to : this gave occasion to a motion, concerted among the whigs, and
opened by the lord Halifax, that an address should be made to the queen, to conclude no
peace with France, till they should disown the pretender, and send him out of that kingdom,
and till the protestant succession shoidd be universally owned, and that a guaranty should
be settled among the allies for securing it. None durst venture to oppose this, so it was
easily agreed to, and sent down to the house of commons for their concurrence. They pre
sently agreed to it, but added to it a matter of great importance, that the demolishing of
Dunkirk should be likewise insisted on, before any peace were concluded : so both houses
carried this address to the queen, who received and answered it very favourably. This was
highly acceptable to the whole nation, and to all our allies. These were the most consider
able transactions of this session of parliament, which was concluded on the 21st of April.
The convocation was summoned, chosen, and returned as the parliament was : but it was
too evident that the same ill temper that had appeared in former convocations, did still pre
vail, though not with such a majority : when the day came in which it was to be opened, a
writ was sent from the queen to the archbishop, ordering him to prorogue the convocation
for some months : and at the end of these, there came another writ, ordering a further proro
gation : so the convocation was not opened during this session of parliament ; by this, a
present stop was put to the factious temper of those who studied to recommend themselves
by embroiling the church.
It did not cure them ; for they continued still by libels and false stories to animate their
party ; and so catching a thing is this turbulent spirit, when once it prevails among clergy
men, that the same ill temper began to ferment and spread itself among the clergy of Ire
land ; none of those disputes had ever been thought of in that church formerly, as they had
no records nor minutes of former convocations. The faction here in England found out
proper instruments to set the same humour on foot, during the earl of Rochester's govern
ment, and, as was said, by his directions ; and it being once set going, it went on by reason
of the indolence of the succeeding governors ; so the clergy were making the same bold claim
there that had raised such disputes among us : and upon that, the party here published those
pretensions of theirs, with their usual confidence, as founded on a clear possession and pre-

840 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
scription ; and drew an argument from that to justify and support their own pretensions,
though those in Ireland never dreamed of them till they had the pattern and encouragement
from hence. This was received by the party with great triumph, into such indirect practices
do men's ill designs and animosities engage them : but though this whole matter was well
detected and made appear, to their shame, who had built so much upon it, yet parties are
never out of countenance ; but when one artifice fails, they will lay out for another. The
secret encouragement with which they did most effectually animate their party, was, that
the queen's heart was with them : and that though the war and the other circumstances of
her affairs obliged her at present to favour the moderate party, yet as soon as a peace brought
on a better settlement, they promised themselves all favour at her hands. It was not certain
that they had then any ground for this, or that she herself, or any by her order, gave them
these hopes; but this is certain, that many things might have been done to extinguish those
hopes, which were not done ; so that they seemed to be left to please themselves with those
expectations, which kept still life in their party ; and indeed it was but too visible, that the
much greater part of the clergy were in a very ill temper, and under very bad influences ;
enemies to the toleration, and soured against the dissenters.
I now must relate the negotiations, that the French set on foot for a peace. Soon after
the battle of Ramillies, the elector of Bavaria gave out hopes of a peace ; and that the king
of France would come to a treaty of partition ; that Spain and the West Indies should go
to king Charles if the dominions of Italy were given to king Philip. They hoped that
England and the States would agree to this, as less concerned in Italy ; but they knew the
court of Vienna would never hearken to it ; for they valued the dominions in Italy with the
islands near them, much more than all the rest of the Spanish monarchy. But at the same
time that Louis the Fourteenth was tempting us, with the hopes of Spain and the West
Indies, by a letter to the pope, that king offered the dominions in Italy to king Charles.
The parliament had always declared the ground of the war to be, the restoring the whole
Spanish monarchy to the house of Austria, (which indeed the States had never done) so the
duke of Marlborough could not hearken to this ; he convinced the States of the treacherous
designs of the court of France, in this offer, and it was not entertained.
The court of Vienna was so alarmed at the inclinations some had expressed towards the
entertaining this project, that this was believed to be the secret motive of the treaty, the
succeeding winter, for evacuating the Milanese, and of their persisting so obstinately, the
summer after, in their designs upon Naples ; for by this means they became masters of both.
The French, being now reduced to great extremities, by their constant ill success, and by the
miseries of their people, resolved to try the States again ; and when the duke of Marl
borough came over to England, M. Rouille was sent to Holland, with general offers of peace,
desiring them to propose what it was they insisted on ; and he offered them as good a barrier
for themselves as they could ask. The States, contrary to their expectation, resolved to
adhere firmly to their confederates, and to enter into no separate treaty, but in conjunction
with their allies : so, upon the duke of Marlborough's return, they, with their allies, began
to prepare preliminaries, to be first agreed to, before a general treaty should be opened : they
had been so well acquainted with the perfidious methods of the French court, when a treaty
was once opened, to divide the allies, and to create jealousies among them, and had felt so
sensibly the ill effects of this, both at Nimeguen and Ryswick, that they resolved to use all
necessary precautions for the future ; so preliminaries were prepared, and the duke of Marl
borough came over hither, to concert them with the ministry at home *.
In this second absence of his, M. de Torcy, the secretary of state for foreign affairs -f, was
sent to the Hague, the better to dispose the States to peace, by the influence of so great a
minister ; no methods were left untried, both with the States in general, and with every man
they spoke with in particular, to beget in them a full assurance of the king's sincere inten-
* The duke upon this occasion, without naming it to plan. — Lord Dartmouth in the Oxford edition of this
the queen, used his influence to get himself appointed work.
captain-general for life. Lord Somers warned the queen + M. de Torcy's " Memoires" afford much valuable
of the dangerous powers a subject would acquire by such information relative to this period.
an appointment; and this entirely destroyed the duke's

OF QUEEN ANNE. 841
tions for peace ; but they knew the artifices of that court too well, to be soon deceived ; so
they made no advances till the duke of Marlborough came back, who carried over the lord
viscount Townshend, to be conjunct plenipotentiary with himself, reckoning the load too
great to bear it wholly on himself. The choice was well made : for as lord Townshend had
great parts, had improved these by travelling, and was by much the most shining person of
all our young nobility, and had, on many occasions, distinguished himself very eminently ;
so he was a man of great integrity, and of good principles in all respects, free from all vice,
and of an engaging conversation.
The foundation of the whole treaty was, the restoring of the whole Spanish monarchy to
king Charles, within two months : Torcy said, the time was too short, and that perhaps it
was not in the king of France's power to bring that about : for the Spaniards seemed resolved
to stick to king Philip. It was, upon this, insisted on, that the king of France should be
obliged to concur with the allies, to force it by all proper methods ; but this was not farther
explained, for the allies were well assured, that if it was sincerely intended by France, there
would be no great difficulty in bringing it about. This therefore being laid down as the
basis of the treaty, the other preliminaries related to the restoring all the places in the
Netherlands, except Cambray and St. Omer ; the demolishing or restoring of Dunkirk ; the
restoring of Strasbourg, Brisack, and Huningen to the empire ; Newfoundland to England ;
and Savoy to that duke, besides his continuing possessed of all he then had in his hands ;
the acknowledging the king of Prussia's royal dignity ; and the electorate in the house of
Brunswick ; the sending the pretender out of France, and the owning the succession to the
crown of England, as it was settled by law. As all the great interests were provided for
by these preliminaries, so all other matters were reserved to be considered, when the treaty
of peace should be opened : a cessation of all hostilities was to begin, within two months,
and to continue till all was concluded by a complete treaty, and ratified; provided the
Spanish monarchy was then entirely restored. The French plenipotentiaries seemed to be
confounded at these demands. Torcy excepted to the leaving Exilles and Fenestrella in the
duke of Savoy's hands ; for he said, he had no instructions relating to them : but in conclu
sion, they seemed to submit to them, and Torcy at parting desired the ratifications might be
returned with all possible haste, and promised that the king of France's final answer should
be sent, by the fourth of June ; but spoke of their affairs as a man in despair : he said, he
did not know but he might find king Philip at Paris, before he got thither, and said all that
was possible, to assure them of the sincerity of the king of France, and to divert them from
the thoughts of opening the campaign ; but at the same time king Philip was getting his
son, the prince of Asturias, to be acknowledged by all the towns and bodies of Spain, as the
heir of that monarchy.
Upon this outward appearance of agreeing to the preliminaries, all people looked upon
the peace to be as good as made ; and ratifications came from all the courts of the allies, but
the king of France refused to agree to them ; he pretended some exceptions to the articles
relating to the emperor and the duke of Savoy ; but insisted chiefly on that, of not begin
ning the suspension of arms, till the Spanish monarchy should be all restored ; he said, that
was not in his power to execute ; he ordered his minister afterwards to yield up all but this
last ; and by a third person, one Pettecum, it was offered, to put some more towns into the
hands of the allies, to be kept by them till Spain was restored. It appeared by this, that
the French had no other design in all this negotiation, but to try if they could beget an ill
understanding among the allies, or, by the seeming great concessions, for the security of the
States, provoke the people of Holland against their magistrates, if they should carry on the
war, when they seemed to be safe ; and they reckoned, if a suspension of arms could be once
obtained, upon any other terms than the restoring of Spain, then France would get out of
the war, and the allies must try how they could conquer Spain. France had so perfidiously
broken all their treaties, during this king's reign, that it was a piece of inexcusable folly, to
expect any other from them. In the peace of the Pyrenees, where the interest of France was
not so deeply engaged to preserve Portugal from falling under the yoke of Castile, as it was
now to preserve Spain in the hands of a grandson ; after the king had sworn to give no
assistance to Portugal, yet, under the pretence of breaking some bodies, he suffered them to

842 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
be entertained by the Portuguese ambassador, and sent Schomberg to command that army;
pretending he could not hinder one that was a German by birth, to go and serve where he
pleased : under these pretences, he had broken his faith, where the consideration was not so
strong as in the present case. Thus it was visible no faith that king could give was to he
relied on, and that unless Spain was restored, all would prove a fatal delusion : besides, it
came afterwards to be known, that the places in Brabant and Hainault, commanded by the
elector of Bavaria, would not have been evacuated by him, unless he had orders for it from
the king of Spain, under whom he governed in them ; and that was not to be expected : so
the easiness with which the French ministers yielded to the preliminaries, was now under
stood to be an artifice, to slacken the zeal of the confederates, in advancing the campaign, as
the least effect it would have ; but in that their hopes failed them, for there was no time lost
in preparing to take the field.
I do not mix with the relation that I have given upon good authority, the uncertain
reports we had of distractions in the court of France, where it was said that the duke of
Burgundy pressed the making a peace, as necessary to prevent the ruin of France, while the
dauphin pressed more vehemently the continuance of the war, and the supporting of the
king of Spain : it was said, that Madame Maintenon appeared less at court ; Chamillard,
who had most of her favour, was dismissed : but it is not certain what influence that had on
the public councils ; and the conduct of this whole negotiation showed plainly, that there
was nothing designed in it, but to divide, or to deceive the confederates ; and, if possible, to
gain a separate peace for France ; and then to let the allies conquer Spain as they could.
But the allies kept firm to one another, and the treachery of the French appeared so visible,
even to the people in Holland, that all the hopes they had, of inflaming them against their
magistrates, likewise failed. The people in France were much wrought on by this pretended
indignity offered to their monarch, to oblige him to force his grandson to abandon Spain ;
and even, here in England, there wanted not many, who said it was a cruel hardship put on
the French king, to force him into such an unnatural war : but if he was guilty of the injus
tice of putting him in possession of that kingdom, it was but a reasonable piece of justice to
undo what he himself had done : and it was so visible, that king Philip was maintained on
that throne, by the councils and assistance of France, that no doubt was made, but that, if
the king of France had really designed it, he could easily have obliged him to relinquish all
pretensions to that crown.
Thus the negotiations came soon to an end ; without producing any ill effect among the
allies ; and all the ministers at the Hague made great acknowledgments to the pensioner
Heinsius, and to the States, for the candour and firmness they had expressed on that occa
sion. The miseries of France were represented, from all parts, as extremely great ; the pros
pect for corn and wine was so low, that they saw no hope nor relief. They sent to all places
for corn, to preserve their people, many of the ships that brought it to them were taken by
our men of war ; but this did not touch the heart of their king, who seemed to have hard
ened himself against the miseries of his people. Villars was sent to command the armies in
Flanders, of whom the king of France said, that he was never beaten ; Harcourt was sent to
command on the Rhine, and the duke of Berwick in Dauphiny. This summer passed
over without any considerable action in Spain. There was an engagement on the frontier
of Portugal, in which the Portuguese behaved themselves very ill, and were beaten ; but the
Spaniards did not pursue the advantage they had by this action ; for they, apprehending that
our fleet might have a design upon some part of their southern coast, were forced to draw
their troops from the frontiers of Portugal, to defend their own coast ; though we gave them
no disturbance on that side.
The king of France, to carry on the show of a design for peace, withdrew his troops out
of Spain, but at the same time took care to encourage the Spanish grandees, to support his
grandson : and since it was visible that either the Spaniards, or the allies, were to be deceived
by him, it was much more reasonable to believe that the allies, and not the Spaniards, were
to feel the effects of this fraudulent way of proceeding. The French general, Besons, who
commanded in Arragon, had indeed orders not to venture on a battle, for that would have
been too gross a thing to be in any wise palliated ; but he continued all this summer com-

OF QUEEN ANNE. 843
manding their armies. Nothing of any importance passed on the side of Dauphiny : the
emperor continued still to refuse complying with the duke of Savoy's demands ; so he would
not make the campaign in person, and his troops kept on the defensive. On the other hand,
the French, as they saw they were to be feebly attacked, were too weak to do any thing
more than cover their own country. Little was expected on the Rhine ; the Germans were
so weak, so ill furnished, and so ill paid, that it was not easy for the court of Vienna to pre
vail on the elector of Brunswick to undertake the command of that army ; yet he came at
last : and upon his coming, the French, who had passed the Rhine, thought it was safest for
them to repass that river, and to keep within their lines. The elector sent count Mercy,
with a considerable body, to pass the Rhine near Basil, and on design to break into Franche
Comte ; but a detached body of the French, lying in their way, there followed a very sharp
engagement ; two thousand men were reckoned to be killed on each side ; but though the
loss of men was reckoned equal, yet the design miscarried, and the Germans were forced to
repass the Rhine. The rest of the campaign went over there without any action.
The chief scene was in Flanders, where the duke of Marlborough, trusting little to the
shows of peace, had every thing in readiness to open the campaign, as soon as he saw what
might be expected from the court of France. The army was formed near Lille, and the
French lay near Douay ; the train of artillery was, by a feint, brought up the Lys to
Courtray ; so it was believed the design was upon Ypres, and there being no apprehension
of any attempt on Tournay, no particular care was taken of it ; but it was on the sudden
invested, and the train was sent back to Ghent, and brought up the Scheld to Tournay.
The siege was carried on regularly : no disturbance was given to the works by sallies, so the
town capitulated within a month, the garrison being allowed to retire into the citadel, which
was counted one of the strongest in Europe, not only fortified with the utmost exactness, but
all the ground was wrought into mines ; so that the resistance of the garrison was not so
much apprehended as the mischief they might do by blowing up their mines. A capitula
tion was proposed, for delivering it up on the fifth of September, if it should not be relieved
sooner, and that all hostilities should cease till then. This was offered by the garrison, and
agreed to by the duke of Marlborough ; but the king of France would not consent to it,
unless there were a general suspension, by the whole army, of all hostilities ; and that being
rejected, the siege went on. Many men were lost in it, but the proceeding by sap prevented
much mischief ; in the end no relief came, and the garrison capitulated in the beginning of
September, but could obtain no better conditions than to be made prisoners of war.
After this siege was over, Mons was invested, and the troops marched thither, as soon as
they had levelled their trenches about Tournay ; but the court of France resolved to venture
a battle, rather than to look on, and see so important a place taken from them. Boufflers
was sent from court to join with Villars in the execution of this design : they possessed
themselves of a wood, and intrenched themselves so strongly, that in some places there were
three intrenchments cast up, one within another. The duke of Marlborough and prince
Eugene saw plainly it was not possible to carry on the siege of Mons, while the French army
lay so near it ; so it was necessary to dislodge them. The attempt was bold, and they saw
the execution would be difficult, and cost them many men. This was the sharpest action in
the whole War, and lasted the longest. The French were posted so advantageously, that
our men were often repulsed ; and indeed the French maintained their ground better, and
showed more courage than appeared in the whole course of the war : yet in conclusion they
were driven from all their posts, and the action ended in a complete victory. The number
of slain was almost equal on both sides, about twelve thousand of a side. We took five
hundred officers prisoners, besides many cannon, standards, and ensigns. Villars was dis
abled by some wounds he received, so Boufflers made the retreat in good order. The mili
tary men have always talked of this, as the sharpest action in the whole war, not without
reflecting on the generals, for beginning so desperate an attack. The French thought it a
sort of a victory, that they had animated their men to fight so well behind entrenchments,
and to repulse our men so often, and with so great loss. They retired to Valenciennes, and
secured themselves by casting up strong lines, while they left our army to carry on the siege
of Mons, without giving them the least disturbance. As soon as the train of artillery was

844 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
brought from Brussels, the siege was carried on with great vigour, though the season was
both cold and rainy : the outworks were carried with little resistance, and Mons capitulated
about the end of October ; with that the campaign ended, both armies retiring into winter
quarters. The most important thing that relates to Italy, was, that the pope delayed acknowledging
king Charles, by several pretended difficulties ; his design being to stay and see the issue of
the campaign ; but when he was threatened, towards the end of it, that if it was not done,
the imperial army should come and take up their winter quarters in the ecclesiastical state,
he submitted and acknowledged him. He sent also his nephew, Albano, first to Vienna, and
then to Poland ; he furnished him with a magnificent retinue, and seemed to hope, that by
the services he should do to the papal interests there, he should be pressed to make him a
cardinal, notwithstanding the bull against nepotism.
In Catalonia, Staremberg, after he received reinforcements from Italy, advanced towards
the Segra, and having for some days amused the enemy, he passed the river ; the Spaniards
designed to give him battle, but Besons, who commanded the French troops, refused to
engage ; this provoked the Spaniards so much, that king Philip thought it was necessary to
leave Madrid, and go to the army ; Besons produced his orders from the king of France, to
avoid all engagements, with which he seemed much mortified. Staremberg advanced and
took Balaguer, and made the garrison prisoners of war : and with that the campaign on that
side was at an end.
_ This summer brought a catastrophe on the affairs of the king of Sweden : he resolved to
invade Muscovy, and engaged himself so far into the Ukrain, that there was no possibility
of his retreating, or of having reinforcements brought him. He engaged a great body of
Cossacks to join him, who were easily drawn to revolt from the czar : he met with great mis
fortunes in the end of the former year, but nothing could divert him from his designs against
Muscovy ; he passed the Nieper, and besieged Pultowa : the czar marched to raise the siege,
with an army in number much superior to the Swedes ; but the king of Sweden resolved to
venture on a battle, in which he received such a total defeat, that he lost his camp, his artil
lery, and baggage : a great part of his army got off, but being closely pursued by the Mus
covites, and having neither bread nor ammunition, they were all made prisoners of war.
The king himself, with a small number about him, passed the Nieper, and got into the
Turkish dominions, and settled at Bender, a town in Moldavia. Upon this great reverse of
his affairs, king Augustus pretended, that the resignation of the crown of Poland was
extorted from him by force, and that it was not in his power to resign the crown, by which
he was tied to the republic of Poland, without their consent : so he marched into Poland,
and Stanislaus was not able to make any resistance, but continued under the protection of
the Swedes, waiting for another reverse of fortune. A project was farmed to engage the
kings of Denmark and Prussia, with king Augustus and the czar, to attack the Swedes in
so many different places, that the extravagant humour of their king was likely now to draw
a heavy storm upon them ; if England and the States, with the court of Vienna had not
crushed all this, and entered into a guaranty, for preserving the peace of the empire, and by
consequence, of the Swedish dominions in Germany. Dantzic was at this time severely
visited with a plague, which swept away almost one half of their inhabitants, though few
of the better sort died of the infection. This put their neighbours under great apprehen
sions, they feared the spreading of the contagion ; but it pleased God, it went no farther.
This sudden, and, as it seemed, total reverse of all the designs of the king of Sweden, who
had been for many years the terror of all his neighbours, made me write to Dr. Robinson,
who had lived above thirty years in that court, and is now bishop of Bristol, for a particular
character of that king. I shall set it down in his own words *.
* Dr. John Robinson was a native of Cleasby, in York- tinned at the Swedish court from 1 683 to 1708. Much
shire, where he was born in the year 1650. His educa- of his celebrity arose from his " Account of Sweden, as
tion concluded at Oriel college, Oxford, of which he it was in 1688," and the reader who wishes for farther
became a fellow, and a munificent patron. Going to information relative to that kingdom at this period, will
Sweden as domestic chaplain to our ambassador, he con- do well to consult it. On his return to England, he
tinned as resident whilst his superior was absent, and obtained the deanery of Windsor, the registrarship of the
finally, was promoted to the ambassadorship. He con- order of the garter, and a prebend stall at Canterbury.'

OF QUEEN ANNE. 845
He is now in the twenty-eighth year of his age, tall and slender, stoops a little, and in his
walking discovers, though in no great degree, the effect of breaking his thigh-bone about
eight years ago : he is of a very vigorous and healthy constitution, takes a pleasure in
enduring the greatest fatigues, and is little curious about his repose : his chief and almost
only exercise has been riding, in which he has been extremely excessive : he usually eatsi
with a good appetite, especially in the morning, which is the best of his three meals : he
never drinks any thing but small beer, and is not much concerned whether it be good or bad :
he speaks little, is very thoughtful, and is observed to mind nothing so much as his own
affairs, laying his designs, and contriving the ways of acting, without communicating them
to any till they are to be put in execution : he holds few or no councils of war ; and though in
civil affairs his ministers have leave to explain their thoughts, and are heard very patiently, yet
he relies more on his own judgment, than on theirs, and frequently falls on such methods as
are farthest from their thoughts : so that both his ministers and generals have hitherto had
the glory of obedience, without either the praise, or blame, of having advised prudently or
otherwise. The reason of his reservedness in consulting others may be thus accounted for ;
he came, at the age of fifteen, to succeed, in an absolute monarchy, and by the forward zeal
of the states of the kingdom, was in a few months declared to be of age : there were those
about him that magnified his understanding, as much as his authority, and insinuated that
he neither needed advice, nor could submit his affairs to the deliberation of others, without
some diminution of his own supreme power. These impressions had not all their effect till
after the war was begun, in the course of which he surmounted so many impossibilities (as those
about him thought them) that he came to have less value for their judgments, and more for
his own, and at last to think nothing impossible. So it may be truly said, that under God,
as well all his glorious successes, as the late reverse of them, have been owing solely to his
own conduct. As to his piety, it cannot be said but that the outward appearances have
highly recommended it, only it is not very easy to account for the excess of his revenge
against king Augustus, and some other instances ; but he is not suspected of any bodily
indulgences. It is most certain he has all along wished well to the allies, and not at all to
France, which he never intended to serve by any steps he has made. We hear the Turks
use him well, but time must show what use they will make of him, and how he will get
back into his own kingdom. If this misfortune does not quite ruin him, it may temper his
fire, and then he may become one of the greatest princes of the age. Thus I leave him and
his character.
The king of Denmark spent a great part of this summer in a very expensive course of
travelling through the courts of Germany and Italy, and it was believed he intended to go
to Rome, where great preparations were making, for giving him a splendid reception ; for it
was given out, that he intended to change his religion ; but whether these reports were alto
gether groundless, or whether their being so commonly believed, was likely to produce some
disorders in his own kingdom, is not certainly known ; only thus much is certain, that he
stopped at Florence, and went no further, but returned home ; and upon the king of Sweden's
misfortunes, entered into measures to attack Sweden, with king Augustus; who had called
a diet in Poland, in which he was acknowledged their king, and all things were settled
there, according to his wishes. The king of Denmark, upon his return home, sent an army
over the Sound into Schonen ; but his counsels were so weak, and so ill conducted, that he
did not send a train of artillery, with other necessaries, after them : some places, that were
not tenable, were yielded up by the Swedes, and. by the progress that he made at first, he
seemed to be in a fair way of recovering that province ; but the Swedes brought an army
together, though far inferior to the Danes in number, and falling on them, gave them such
In 1710, he was advanced to the see of Bristol. The when we know that he became lord privy seal, and bishop
chief of his other public employments and preferments are of London, and that if he had survived Dr. Tennison, he
noticed in future pages. He died in 1723. Stackhouse would have become archbishop of Canterbury ; such pre-
. in his " Memoirs of Dr. Atterbury," speaks of Dr. Ro- ferments are guarantees that he was talented; and the
binson with great contempt and asperity, but others who attributes of his heart seem similarly assured by his endow-
knew him well, speak of him as having deep and general ments of Oriel college and of a free school at his native
knowledge, as being religious, good humoured, and chari- place. — Gen. Biograph. Dictionary; Noble's Coniin. of
table; characteristics we may the more readily believe, Grainger.

846 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
an entire defeat, that the king of Denmark was forced to bring back, as well as he could,
the broken remnants of his army, by which an end was put to that inglorious expedition.
The Swedish army, that was in Poland, having got into Pomerania, the French studied to
engage them to fall into Saxony, to embroil the affairs of Germany, and by that means
engage the neighbouring princes, to recall the troops that were' in the queen's service, and
that of the other allies in Flanders ; but the queen and the States interposed effectually in
this matter, and the Swedes were so sensible, how much they might need their protection,
that they acquiesced in the propositions that were made to them ; so the peace of the
northern parts of the empire was secured. A peace was likewise made up, between the
grand seignior and the czar : the king of Sweden continued still at Bender ; the war in
Hungary went still on. The court of Vienna published ample relations of the great successes
they had there ; but an Hungarian assured me, these were given out to make the malcon
tents seem an inconsiderable and ruined party. There were secret negotiations still going
on, but without effect.
Nothing of importance passed on the sea : the French put out no fleet, and our convoys
were so well ordered, and so happy, that our merchants made no complaints : towards the
end of the year the earl of Pembroke found tho care of the fleet a load too heavy for him
to bear, and that he could not discharge it, as it ought to be done ; so he desired leave to lay
it down. It was offered to the earl of Orford : but though he was willing to serve at the
head of a commission, he refused to accept of it singly ; so it was put in commission, in
which he was the first.
I now come to give an account of the session of parliament, that came on this winter.
All the supplies that were asked for carrying on the war, were granted, and put on good
funds ; in this there was a general unanimous concurrence : but the great business of this
session, that took up most of their time, and that had great effects in conclusion, related to
Dr. Sacheverel : this being one of the most extraordinary transactions in my time, I will
relate it very copiously. Dr. Sacheverel was a bold insolent man, with a very small measure
of religion, virtue, learning, or good sense, but he resolved to force himself into popularity and
preferment, by the most petulant railings at dissenters, and low-churchmen, in several ser
mons and libels, written without either chasteness of style, or liveliness of expression : all was
one unpractised strain of indecent and scurrilous language. When he had pursued this
method for several years without effect, he was at last brought up by a popular election to a
church in Southwark, where he began to make great reflections on the ministry, represent
ing that the church was in danger, being neglected by those who governed, while they
favoured her most inveterate enemies. At the assizes in Derby (where he preached before
the judges) and on the fifth of November (preaching at St. Paul's in London) he gave
a full vent to his fury, in the most virulent declamation, that he could contrive, upon these
words of St. Paul's, " perils from false brethren ; " in which, after some short reflections
upon popery, he let himself loose into such indecencies, that both the man and the sermon
were universally condemned : he asserted the doctrine of non-resistance in the highest strain
possible, and said, that to charge the revolution with resistance, was to cast black and odious
imputations on it ; pretending, that the late king had disowned it, and cited for the proof of
that, some words in his declaration, by wliich he vindicated himself from a design of con
quest. He poured out much scorn and scurrility on the dissenters, and reflected severely on
the toleration ; he said the church was violently attacked by her enemies, and loosely
defended by her pretended friends : he animated the people to stand up for the defence of
the church, for which he said he sounded the trumpet, and desired them to put on the whole
armour of God. The court of aldermen refused to desire him to print his sermon ; but he
did print it, pretending it was upon the desire of Garrard, then lord mayor, to whom he
dedicated it, with an inflaming epistle at the head of it. The party that opposed the minis
try, did so magnify the sermon, that, as was generally reckoned, about forty thousand of
them were printed, and dispersed over the nation. The queen seemed highly offended at it,
and the ministry looked on it as an attack made on them, that was not to be despised. The
lord treasurer was so described, that it was next to the naming him, so a parliamentary
impeachment was resolved on ; Eyre, then solicitor-general, and others thought the short

OF QUEEN ANNE. 847
way of burning the sermon, and keeping him in prison during the session, was the better
method ; but the more solemn way was unhappily chosen *.
There had been, ever since the queen came to the crown, an open revival of the doctrine
of passive obedience and non-resistance by one Leslie, who was the first man that began the
war in Ireland, saying, iu a speech solemnly made, that king James, by declaring himself a
papist, could no longer be our king, since he could not be the defender of our faith, nor tho
head of our church ; dignities so inlierent in the crown, that he who was incapable of these
could not hold it. A copy of which speech the present archbishop of Dublin told me he
had, under his own hand. As he animated the people with his speech, so some actions
followed under his conduct in which several men were killed ; yet this man changed sides
quickly, and became the most violent jacobite in the nation, and was engaged in many plots,
and in writing many books against the revolution and the present government. Soon after
the queen was on the throne, he, or his son, as some said, published a series of weekly
papers, under the title of " The Rehearsal," pursuing a thread of arguments in them all
against the lawfulness of resistance, in any case whatsoever ; deriving government wholly
from God, denying all right in the people, either to confer or to coerce it. The ministers
connived at this, with what intention God knows f .
Whilst these seditious papers had a free course for many years, and were much spread
and magnified ; one Hoadley, a pious and judicious divine, being called to preach before the
lord mayor, chose for his text the first verses of the 13th chapter to the Romans, and fairly
explained the words there, that they were to be understood only against resisting good
governors, upon the Jewish principles ; but that those words had no relation to bad and
eruel governors : and he asserted, that it was not only lawful, but a duty incumbent on all
men to resist such : concluding all with a vindication of the revolution and the present
government. Upon this, a great outcry was raised, as if he had preached up rebellion :
several books were written against him, and he justified himself, with a visible superiority
of argument, to them all, and did so solidly overthrow the conceit of one Filmer, now
espoused by Leslie (that government was derived by primogeniture from the first patriarchs),
* Dr. Henry Sacheverel is one of many instances of Wood's Athena; Oxon. ; Gen. Biog. Dictionary ; Noble's
the importance conferred upon an obscure individual by Contin. of Grainger.
persecuting him. When the assailant is the national f Charles Leslie was a son of Dr. John Leslie, bishop
government, that at once elevates the assailed into the of Clogher. Originally he was intended for the law, but
prominent character of a political martyr. Sacheverel, left the pursuit of this for the more sacred profession. In
Wilkes, and Burdett, are sufficient examples. Dr. Sache- 1687 he obtained the chancellorship of Connor, and dis-
verel was the son of a clergyman at Marlborough, in Wilt- played great firmness in opposition to the papists, holding
shire, and born there in the year 1 672. It is curious a disputation with their bishop of his district, and prevent-
that two such opposite politicians as he and Addison, ing the intrusion of a high sheriff holding the same creed.
should be demys of Magdalen college, Oxford, at the He is to be praised rather than condemned for tlie part
same time ; and it is as remarkable that the Henry he took at the Revolution ; for he conscientiously be-
Sacheverel with whom Addison was so intimate at Ox- lieved it illegal to depose the reigning monarch, and
ford, is not the same person as is mentioned in the text, therefore, although still adhering to the protestant reli-
It was the extreme of error to proceed against the doctor gion, he refused to transfer his allegiance to king William.
in the most solemn of legal forms, namely, by impeach. He used his utmost exertions to restore the Stuart family,
ment — the hangman burnt his sermons, and the mob but finding their cause hopeless he returned to Ireland,
revenged this by setting fire to dissenters' chapels. His and died there in 1722. His numerous Works, political
prosecution is detailed at length in the State Trials, and and theological, are enumerated in his b'fe, given in the
though condemned, his was the triumph, and to his prose- Biographia Britannica. Dr. Johnson has praised him as
cutors it was, in effect, a defeat. He travelled in state a powerful and unanswerable defender of our religion.
through many parts of England ; wherever he approached Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, mentioned in the next para-
a town, thousands of persons came forth to meet him, and graph, is the prelate who gave rise to the celebrated Ban,
he reached his Welch living after a progress more suitable gorian controversy, -which took its appellation from his
to a conqueror than a degraded priest. After his three being at the time bishop of Bangor. The doctor main-
years' suspension were expired, his prosecutore, the house tained in this that the clergy could claim no civil power.
of commons, the tories being then in power, ordered him His opponents were Sherlock, Hare, Law, &c. Dr.
to preach before them, and thanked him for his sermon. Hoadley was born at Westerham, in the year_1676,
He was given the rectory of St. Andrews, Holborn, and receiving his education under his father at the Norwich
if his friends had remained at the head of affairs, he Grammar School, and at Catherine Hall, Cambridge.
probably would have been raised to the bishops' bench. His taste was for controversy, and, besides the above-men-
The closing years of his life he devoted strictly to the tioned, he had fierce encounters with Calamy, Atterbury,
duties of his profession, making no efforts to obtain pre- and others. From tlie see of Bangor he was successively
ferment, nor embroiling himself at all with politics. In removed to Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, where
private life he was eminently amiable. He died in 1 724.— he died in 1761 — Gen. Biog. Dictionary.

S48 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGX
that for some rime he silenced his adversaries : bat it was an easier thing to keep np a
clamour, than to write a solid answer, Sacheverel did, with great virulence, reflect on him.
and on me and several other bishops, carrying Iris venom as tax hack as to archbishop
GrindaL whom, for his moderation, he called a perfidious prelate, and a false son of the
chnrch. When it was moved t<:> impeach Kim, the lord mayd of London, being a member
of the house of commons, was examined to this point, whether the sermon was printed at
his desire or order. Upon his owning it. he would have been expelled the house ; but be
denied he had given any snch order, though Sacheverel affirmed it, and brought wiinrews to
prove it. Vet the house would not enter npon that examination ; but it was thought more
decent to seem to give credit to their own member, though indeed few believed him.
Souse opposition was made to the morio n for impeaching Sacheverel, but it was carried by
a oreaimajorirr*. The proceedings were slow, so those who intended to inflame the ehy
and the nation npon that occasion, had rime sufficient given them for laying their designs.
They gave it ont boldly, and in aU places, that a design was formed by the whigs to poll
down tj?p chnrch, and that thi- prosecution was any set on foot to try their strength ; and
that, npon their success in it. thev would proceed more openly. Though this was aU false
hood and forgery, yet it was propagated with s» mnch application and zeal, and the tools
employed in ir were so weD supplied with money (from whom was net then known), that
it is scarcely credible how generally it was believed.
Some things concurred to put the vulgar in ill humour ; it was a time of dearth and
scarcity, so that the poor were much pinched. The summer before, ten or twelve thousand
poor people of the palatinate, who were reduced to gnat misery, came into England : they
were well received and supplied, both by the queen and by tie voluntary charities of good
people: Hois hUed our own poor with prat indignation, who thought those charities, to
which they had a better right, were thus intercepted by strangers : and all who were ill
afiected so ; o'-o to heighten these their resentments. The clergy did generally espouse
Sac-h voro! as their champion, who had st>:*:-d in the breach : and so they reckoned his cause
was their own. Many sermons were preached, both in London and other places, to proTcke
fee people, in wliich fet-y succeeded beyond expect. toe n- Some accidents concurred to
delay the proceedings; mnch time was spent in preparing the articles of impeachment : and
the answer was by many shifts Ion? delayed : it was bold, without either subnrissiGn or
common respect : he justified every thing in bis sermon in a very haughty and assuming
style. In conclusion, the lords ordered the trial to be at the bar of their house ; bnt those
who found that by gaining ro :ire time the people were still more inflamed, moved that the
trial might be public in Westminster Hall, where the whole house of commons might be
present. This took so wife unthinking people, that h eonld net be withstood, though the
effects it would have were well foreseen. Hie preparing Westminster Hall was a work, of
some weeks.
At last, on the twenty-seventh of February, the trial began. Sacheverel was lodged in
the Temple, and came every day wife great solemnity in a coach to fee Hall ; great crowds
ran about his coach wife many shouts, expressing their concern for him in a very rude and
tumultuous manner. The trial lasted three weeks, in which all other business was at a
stand, for this took np all mens thoughts. The managers for the commons opened fee
matter very solemnly : their performances were mnch and justly commended. JekyTL Eyre,
Stanhope, King, bnt above all Parker, distinguished themselves in a very particular manner :
they did copiously justify both the revolution and fee present administration. There was
no need of witnesses : for the sermon being owned by him. all the evidence was brought
from it by laying his words together, and by showing his intent and meaning in them, which
appeared from comparing one place wife another. When his connsel, sir Simon Harcourt.
Dodd, Phipps, and two others, came to plead for him, they very freely acknowledged fee
lawfulness of resistance in extreme cases, and plainly justified fee revolution and our deli
verance by king William : bnt they sai I it was not fit in a sermon to name snch an exeep-
* Arr&rdiiaE -* losd Hsriwidfce. Siactei^eTs i— pei_:b- er^i m tie nk of she w&er pirir. — Oxford ed- ef H&is
edee; -5T£s cUcSt T^e£.?e.f by lard wlisraia. S-^or. slj? w:ifc: Shift's Foarlast Yeus of QneeB Asne
tint he heard " :: >/^t3 foreceH thai it -aweH probM*

OF QUEEN ANNE. 849
tion ; that the duties of morality ought to be delivered in their full extent, without supposing
an extraordinary case : and therefore Sacheverel had followed precedents, set by our greatest
divines, ever since the reformation, and ever since the revolution. Upon this they opened a
great field : they began with the declarations made in king Henry the Eighth's time : they
insisted next upon the Homilies, and from thence instanced in a large series of bishops and
divines, who had preached the duty of submission and non-resistance in very full terms,
without supposing any exception ; some excluding all exceptions in as positive a manner as
he had done. They explained the word revolution, as belonging to the new settlement upon
king James's withdrawing ; though, in the common acceptation, it was understood of the
whole transaction, from the landing of the Dutch army, till the settlement made by the
convention. So they understanding the revolution in that sense, there was indeed no resist
ance there. If the passage quoted from the declaration given out by the late king, while he
was prince of Orange, did not come up to that for wliich he quoted it, he ought not to be
censured because his quotation did not fully prove his point. As for his invective against
the dissenters and the toleration, they laboured to turn that off, by saying he did not reflect
on what was allowed by law, but on the permission of, or the not punishing, many who
published impious and blasphemous books. And a collection was made of passages in books
full of crude impiety and of bold opinions. This gave great offence to many, who thought
that this was a solemn publishing of so much impiety to the nation, by which more mischief
would be done than by the books themselves ; for most of them had been neglected, and
known only to a small number of those who encouraged them ; and the authors of many of
these hooks had been prosecuted and punished for them. As to those parts of the sermon
that set out the danger the church was in, though both houses had some years ago voted it
a great offence, to say it was in danger, they said it might have been in none four years ago,
when these votes passed, and yet be now in danger : the greatest of all dangers was to be
apprehended from the wrath of God for such impieties. They said the reflections on the
administration were not meant of those employed immediately by the queen, but of men in
inferior posts. If his words seemed capable of a bad sense, they were also capable of a more
innocent one ; and every man was allowed to put any construction on his words that they
could bear. When the counsel had ended their defence, Sacheverel concluded it with a
speech, which he read with much bold heat ; in which, with many solemn asseverations, he
iustified his intentions towards the queen and her government : he spoke with respect, both
of the revolution and the protestant succession ; he insisted most on condemning all resist
ance, under any pretence whatsoever, without mentioning the exception of extreme necessity,
as his counsel had done ; he said it was ths doctrine of the church in which he was bred up ;
and added many pathetical expressions, to move the audience to compassion. This had a
great effect on the weaker sort, while it possessed those, who knew the man and his ordinary
discourses, with horror, when they heard him affirm so many falsehoods, with such solemn
appeals to God. It was very plain the speech was made for him by others ; for the style
was correct, and far different from his own.
During the trial, the multitudes that followed him all the way as he came, and as he went
back, showed a great concern for him, pressing about him, and striving to kiss his hand.
Money was thrown among them, and they were animated to such a pitch of fury, that they
went to pull down some meeting-houses, which was executed on five of them, as far as
burning all the pews in them. This was directed by some of better fashion, who followed
the mob in hackney coaches, and were seen sending messages to them. The word, upon which
all shouted, was "The Church and Sacheverel ! " and such as joined not in the shout were
insulted and knocked down. Before my own door one, with a spade, cleft the skull of
another, who would not shout as they did. There happened to be a meeting-house near me,
out of which they drew every thing that was in it, and burned it before the door of the.
house. They threatened to do the like execution on my house ; but the noise of the riot
coming to court, orders were sent to the guards, to go about and disperse the multitudes and
secure the public peace. As the guards advanced the people ran away, some few were only
taken : these were afterwards prosecuted, but the party showed a violent concern for them :
two of them were condemned as guilty of high treason, small fines were set on the rest, but
3 i

850 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
no execution followed ; and after some months, they were pardoned. And indeed this
remissness in punishing so great a disorder was looked on as the preparing and encouraging
men to new tumults. There was a secret management in this matter that amazed all
people ; for though the queen, upon an address made to her by the house of commons, set
out a proclamation, in which this riot was with severe words laid upon papists and non
jurors, who were certainly the chief promoters of it, yet the proceedings afterwards did not
answer the threatenings of the proclamation.
When Sacheverel had ended his defence, the managers for the house of commons replied,
and showed very evidently that the words of his sermon could not reasonably bear any other
sense but that for wliich they had charged him. This was an easy performance, and they
managed it with great life ; but the humour of the town was turned against them, and all
the clergy appeared for Sacheverel. Many of the queen's chaplains stood about him, encou
raging and magnifying him ; and it was given out that the queen herself favoured him ;
though, upon my first coming to town, which was after the impeachment was brought up to
the lords, she said to me that it was a bad sermon, and that he deserved well to be punished
for it. All her ministers, who were in the house of commons, were named to be managers,
and they spoke very zealously for public liberty, justifying the revolution. Holt, the lord
chief justice of the king's bench, died during the trial. He was very learned in the law,
and had upon great occasions showed an intrepid zeal in asserting its authority ; for he ven
tured on the indignation of both houses of parliament by turns, when he thought the law
was with him. He was a man of good judgment and great integrity, and set himself with
great application to the functions of that important post*. Immediately upon his death
Parker was made lord chief justice. This great promotion seemed an evident demonstration
of the queen s approving the prosecution ; for none of the managers had treated Sacheverel
so severely as he had done : yet secret whispers were very confidently set about that,
though the queen's affairs put her on acting the part of one that was pleased with the scene,
yet she disliked it all, and would take the first occasion to show it.
After the trial was ended, the debate was taken up in the house of lords. It stuck long
on the first article. None pretended to justify the sermon, or to assert absolute non-resist
ance : all who favoured him went upon this, that the duty of obedience ought to be delivered
in full and general words, without putting in exceptions, or supposing odious cases : this had
* Sir John Holt was the son of sir Thomas Holt, who to demand of him reasons and explanations for his deci-
never rose above the dignity of a serjeant-at-law. He sion in an election cause, but he would not give any.
Was bom in 1642, at Thame. His youth gave no pre- The speaker and some of the members came into his
monitions of his maturer excellence, for. he was unman- court to urge their message, but he said to them, " I sit
ageably wild, both at Abingdon school, and Oriel college, here to administer justice ; if you had the whole house
Oxford. No sooner had he been called to the bar by the of commons in your belly, Mr. Speaker, I should disre-
benchers of Gray's inn, and fairly embarked in his pro- gard you ; and, if you do not immediately retire, I will
fcssion, than his application to his studies became un- commit you, and those with you."
wearied. He rapidly attained the degree of a Serjeant, An old decrepid woman being arraigned before*him for
and was chosen recorder of London ; but resigned this witchcraft, he enquired how it was proved, and being
latter office in 1687, being resolved not to submit to answered that it was by a spell, he asked to see it, and a
support the aibitrary measures of James the Second, piece of parchment was handed to him. Having interro-
When the convention met for the purpose of arranging' gated the prisoner as to how she obtained it, she told him
the conditions for William to succeed to the vacant that a young gentleman gave it to her, as a cure for her
throne, Holt, with four other barristers, Maynard, Pol- daughter's ague, which it had cured, and many others.
lexfen, Bradford, and Atkinson, were selected by the " I am glad of it," said Holt ; and then turning to the
peers to assist with their advice. In 1689, he reached jury, he added, "Gentlemen, when I was young,
the greatest elevation in his profession that he chose to thoughtless, and had spent my money, I, and some corn-
accept, being in that year advanced to the chief-justiceship panions equally unthinking, went to this woman's house,
of the king's bench. An offer was made to him of tlie then a public one ; having no money to pay our reckon-
lord chancellorship, but he replied, " I never had but one iug, I hit upon a stratagem to get off scot free. Seeinj
cause in chancery, and, as I lost that, I cannot think her daughter ill, I pretended I had a spell to cure her.
myself qualified for so great a trust." No sounder lawyer I wrote the classic line you see ; so that if any one is
ever sat in Westminster Hall; noneever more undauntedly punishable, it is I, and not the prisoner." She was ac-
maintained the dignity of a judge and the liberties of the quitted, and the chief-justice amply recompensed her for
people. In the Banbury cause he told the house of lords the deceit he had used towards her in former years. This
that they should respect the laws which had made them admirable man died in 1711, and was buried in Redgrave
so great  Presiding over that law, he should not regard church, Suffolk, where there is a fine monument to his
their decisions, nor give them reasons for his conduct, memory, and his statue, life size, sitting in his robes 
He similarly defied the house of commons. They sent Life, published in 1764 f Noble's Contin. of Grainger.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 851
been the method of all our divines. Pains were also taken to show that his sermon did not
reflect on the revolution. On the other hand it was said, that since the revolution had hap
pened so lately, and was made still the subject of much controversy, those absolute expres
sions did plainly condemn it. The revolution was the whole progress of the turn, from the
prince of Orange's landing, till the act of settlement passed. The act of parliament expressed
what was meant by the abdication and the vacancy of the throne ; that it did not only
relate to king James's withdrawing himself, but to his ceasing to govern according to our
constitution and laws, setting up his mere will and pleasure as the measure of his govern
ment. This was made plainer by another clause in the acts then passed, which provided,
that if any of our princes should become papists, or marry papists, the subjects were in those
cases declared to be free from their allegiance. Some of the bishops spoke in this debate on
each side. Hooper, bishop of Bath and Wells, spoke in excuse of Sacheverel : but Talbot,
bishop of Oxford * ; Wake, bishop of Lincoln ; Trimnel, bishop of Norwich ; and myself,
spoke on the other side. We showed the falsehood of an opinion, too commonly received,
that the church of England had always condemned resistance, even in the cases of extreme
tyranny. The books of the Maccabees, bound in our bibles, and approved by our articles
(as containing examples of life and instruction of manners, though not as any part of the
canon of the Scripture), contained a full and clear precedent for resisting and shaking off
extremity. The Jews, under that brave family, not only defended themselves against
Antiochus, but formed themselves into a free and new government. Our homilies were only
against wilful rebellion, such as had been then against our kings, while they were governing
by law. But at that very time queen Elizabeth had assisted first the Scotch and then the
French, and to the end of her days continued to protect the States, who not only resisted,
but, as the Maccabees had done, shook off the Spanish yoke, and set up a new form of
government : in all this she was not only justified by the best writers of that time, such as
Jewel and Bilson, but was approved and supported in it ; both her parliaments and convo
cations gave her subsidies to carry on those wars. The same principles were kept up all
king James's reign : in the beginning of king Charles's reign he protected the Rochellers,
and asked supplies from the parliament to enable him to do it effectually ; and ordered a
fast and prayers to be made for them. It is true, soon after that, new notions of absolute
power, derived from God to kings, were taken up : at the first rise given to these by Man-
waring, they were condemned by a sentence of the lords ; and though he submitted and
retracted his opinion, yet a severe censure passed upon him. But during the long discon
tinuance of parliaments that followed, this doctrine was more favoured : it was generally
preached up, and many things were done pursuant to it, which put the nation into the great
convulsions that followed in our civil wars. After these were over, it was natural to return
to the other extreme, as courts naturally favour such doctrines. King James trusted too
much to it ; yet the very assertors of that doctrine were the first who pleaded for resistance,
when they thought they needed it. Here was matter for a long debate. It was carried, by
a majority of seventeen, that the first article was proved. The party that was for Sacheverel
made no opposition to the votes upon the following articles, but contented themselves with
protesting against them. The lords went down to the hall, where the question being put
upon the whole impeachment, guilty or not guilty, fifty-two voted him not guilty, and sixty-
nine voted him guilty.
The next debate was what censure ought to pass upon him ; and here a strange turn
appeared : some seemed to apprehend the effects of a popular fury, if the censure was severe ;
to others it was said that the queen desired it might be mild ; so it was proposed to suspend
him from preaching for one year, others were for six years ; but by a vote it was fixed to
three years. It was next moved that he should be incapable of all preferment for those
* Dr. William Talbot was horn at Stourton Castle, in preferred in 1699. In succession, he filled the sees of
Staffordshire, during the year 1659. Whilst at Oriel Salisbury and Durham. His generosity exceeded his
college, Oxford, he particularly distinguished himself, princely income, but his son being lord chancellor of
The kindness of his distant relative, the duke of Shrews- England supplied his pecuniary deficiencies. He died in
bury, gave him the opportunity to obtain the court patron- 1730. — Hutchinson's Hist, of Durham Noble's Contin.
age. Queen Mary admired him as a pulpit orator, which of Grainger.
»ed the way to the bishopric of Oxford, to which he was

852 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGX
three years : upon that the house was divided, fifty -nine were for the vote and sixty were
against it. So that being laid aside, the sermon was ordered to be burnt in the presence of
the lord mayor and the sheriffs of London, and this was done ; only the lord mayor, being a
member of the house of commons, did not think he was bound to be present. The lords also
voted that the decrees of the university of Oxford, passed in 1683, in which the absolute
authority of princes and the unalterableness of the hereditary right of succeeding to the
crown were asserted in a very high strain, should be burnt with Sacheverel's sermon. The
house of commons likewise ordered the impious collection of blasphemous expressions that
Sacheverel had printed as his justification to be also burnt.
When this mild judgment was given, those who had supported him during the trial
expressed an inconceivable gladness, as if they had got a victory ; bonfires, illuminations,
and other marks of joy appeared, not only in London, but over the whole kingdom.
This had yet greater effects : addresses were set on foot from all the parts of the nation,
in which the absolute power of our princes was asserted, and all resistance was condemned,
under the designation of antimonarchical and republican principles : the queen's hereditary
right was acknowledged, and yet a zeal for the protestant succession was likewise pretended,
to make those addresses pass the more easily with unthinking multitudes. Most of these
concluded with an intimation of their hopes that the queen would dissolve the present par
liament, giving assurances that, in a new election, they would choose none but such as
should be faithful to the crown and zealous for the church. These were at first more
coldly received ; for the queen either made no answer at all, or made them in very general
words. Addresses were brought, upon the other hand, magnifying the conduct of the
parliament, and expressing a zeal for maintaining the revolution and the protestant
succession. Iu the beginning of April the parliament was prorogued, and the queen, in her speech
thereupon, expressed her concern that there was cause given for that which had taken up so
much of their time, wishing that all her people would be quiet and mind their own business ;
adding, that in all times there was too much occasion given to complain of impiety, but
that she would continue that zeal which she had hitherto expressed for religion and for the
church. This seemed to look a different way from the whispers that had been set about.
Soon after that she made a step that revived them again. The duke of Shrewsbury had
gone out of England in the end of the former reign, thinking, as he gave out, that a
warmer climate was necessary for his health. He stayed several years at Borne, where he
became acquainted with a Roman lady ; and she, upon his leaving Rome to return to
England, went after him to Augsburg, where she overtook him, and declared herself a pro
testant ; upon which he married her there, and came with her back to England in the year
1706. Upon his return, the whigs lived in civilities with him ; but they thought his
leaving England, and his living so long out of it, while we were in so much danger at home,
and his strange marriage, gave just cause of suspicion. The duke of Marlborough and the
lord Godolphin lived still in friendship with him, and studied to overcome the jealousies that
the whigs had of him ; for they generally believed that he had advised the late king to the
change he made in his ministry towards the end of his reign. He seemed not to be concerned
at the distance in which he was kept from business, but in the late trial he left the whigs in
every vote ; and a few days after the parliament was prorogued, the queen, without com
municating the matter to any of her ministers, took the chamberlain's white staff from the
marquis of Kent (whom, in recompense for that, she advanced to be a duke), and gave it
to the duke of Shrewsbury. This gave a great alarm ; for it was upon that concluded that
a total change of the ministry would quickly follow : the change of principles that he had ¦
discovered in the trial was imputed to a secret management between him and Harley, with
the new favourite. The queen's inclination to her, and her alienation from the duchess of
Marlborough, did increase, and broke out in many little things not worth naming : upon
that, the duchess retired from the court, and appeared no more at it. The duke of Shrews
bury gave the ministers very positive assurances that his principles were the same they
had been during the last reign, and were in no respect altered. Upon which he desired to
enter into confidences with them ; but there was now too much ground given for suspicion.

OF QUEEN ANNE 853
During this winter I was encouraged by the quee"n to speak more freely to her of her
affairs than I had ever ventured to do formerly. I told her what reports were secretly
spread of her through the nation, as if she favoured the design of bringing the pretender to
succeed to the crown, upon a bargain that she should hold it during her life : I was sure
these reports were spread about by persons who were in the confidence of those that were
believed to know her mind : I was well assured that the jacobites of Scotland had, upon her
coming to the crown, sent up one Ogilby, of Boyne, who was in great esteem among them;
to propose the bargain to her ; he, when he went back, gave the party full assurances that
she accepted of it : this I had from some of the lords of Scotland, who were then in the
secret with the professed jacobites. The earl of Cromarty made a speech in parliament, as
was formerly mentioned, contradicting this, and alluding to the distinction of the calvinists,
made between the secret and the revealed will of God. He assured them the queen had no
secret will, contrary to that which she declared. Yet at the same time his brother gave the
party assurances to the contrary. I told the queen all this ; and said, if she was capable of
making such a bargain for herself, by which her people were to be delivered up and sacrificed
after her death, as it would darken all the glory of her reign, so it must set all her people to
consider of the most proper ways of securing themselves, by bringing over the protestant
successors ; in which I told her plainly I would concur, if she did not take effectual means
to extinguish those jealousies. I told her, her ministers had served her with that fidelity,
and such success, that her making a change among them would amaze all the world. The
glory of queen Elizabeth's reign arose from the firmness of her counsels and the continuance
bf her ministers ; as the three last reigns, in which the ministry was often changed, had
suffered extremely by it. I also showed her, that if she suffered the pretender's party to
prepare the nation for his succeeding her, she ought not to imagine that, when they thought
they had fixed that matter, they would stay for the natural end of her life ; but that they
Would find ways to shorten it : nor did I think it was to be doubted, but that, in 1708,
when the pretender was upon the sea, they had laid some assassinates here, who, upon the
news of his landing, would have tried to despatch her. It was certain that their interest led
them to it, as it was known that their principles did allow of it. This, with a great deal
more to the same purpose, I laid before the queen. She heard me patiently : she was for
the most part silent ; yet, by what she said, she seemed desirous to make me think she
agreed to what I had laid before her ; but I found afterwards it had no effect upon her : yet I
had great quiet in my own mind, since I had, with an honest freedom, made the best use I
could have of the access I had to her.
The duke of Marlborough went beyond sea in February, to prepare all matters for an
early campaign, designing to open it in April, which was done. The French had wrought
so long upon their lines, that it was thought they would have taken as much care in main
taining them ; but, upon the advance of our army, they abandoned them. And though
they seemed resolved to make a stand upon the Scarp, yet they ran from that likewise ; and
this opened the way all on to Douay : so that was invested. The garrison was eight thou
sand strong, well furnished with every thing necessary to make a brave defence : the besieged
sallied out often, sometimes with advantage, but much oftener with loss. It was the middle
of May before the French could bring their army together : it appeared that they resolved
to stand upon the defensive, though they had brought up together a vast army of two
hundred battalions and three hundred squadrons. They lay before Arras, and advanced to
the plains of Lens. Villars commanded, and made such speeches to his army, that it was
generally believed he would venture on a battle, rather than look on and see Douay lost.
The duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene posted their army so advantageously, both to
cover the siege and to receive the enemy, that he durst not attack them ; but after he had
looked on a few days, in which the two armies were not above a league distant, he drew off.
So the siege going on, and no relief appearing, both Douay and the Fort Escarp capitulated
on the fourteenth of June.
I have now completed my first design in writing, which was to give a history of our
affairs for fifty years, from the twenty-ninth of May, 1660. So if I confined myself to that
I should here give over. But the war seeming now to be near an end, and the peace, in

854 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
which it must end, being that which will probably give a new settlement to all Europe, as
well as to our affairs, I resolve to carry on this work to the conclusion of the war. And
therefore I begin with the progress of the negotiations for peace, which seemed now to be
prosecuted with warmth.
All the former winter an intercourse of letters was kept up between Pettecum and Torcy,
to try if an expedient could be found to soften that article for the reduction of Spain to the
obedience of king Charles, which was the thirty-seventh article of the preliminaries. It still
was kept in agitation upon the foot of offering three towns to be put into the hands of the
allies, to be restored by them when the affairs of Spain should be settled ; otherwise to be
still retained by them. The meaning of which was no other than that France was willing
to lose three towns more, in case king Philip should keep Spain and the West Indies. The
places therefore ought to have borne some equality to that for which they were to be given in
pawn ; but the answers the French made to every proposition, showed they meant nothing
but to amuse and distract the allies. The first demand the allies made was of the places in
Spain, then in the hands of the king of France ; for the delivering up these might have been
a good step to the reduction of the whole. But this was flatly refused ; and, that the king
of France might put it out of his power to treat about it, he ordered his troops to be drawn
out of all the strong places in Spain, and, soon after, out of that kingdom, pretending he was
thereby evacuating it ; though the French forces were kept still in the neighbourhood : so a
show was made of leaving Spain to defend itself. And upon that king Philip prevailed on
the Spaniards to make great efforts, beyond what was ever expected of them. This was
done by the French king to deceive both the allies and his own subjects, who were calling
loudly for a peace : and it likewise eased him of a great part of the charge that Spain had
put him to. But while his troops were called out of that kingdom, as many deserted, by a
visible connivance, as made up several battalions ; and all the Walloon regiments, as being
subjects of Spain, were sent thither : so that king Philip was not weakened by the recalling
the French troops, and by this means the places in Spain could not be any more demanded.
The next, as most important towards the reduction of Spain, was the demand that Bayonne
and Perpignan might be put into the hands of the allies, with Thionville on the side of the
empire. By the two former, all communication between France and Spain would be cut off,
and the allies would be enabled to send forces thither with less expense and trouble. But it
was said these were the keys of France, which the king could not part with : so it remained
to treat of towns on the frontier of the Netherlands ; and even there they excepted Douay,
Arras, and Cambray. So that all their offers appeared illusory, and the intercourse by
letters was for some time let fall. But in the end of the former year, Torcy wrote to Pet
tecum, to desire either that passes might be granted to some ministers to come to Holland,
to go on with the negotiation, or that Pettecum might be suffered to go to Paris, to see if
an expedient could be found : and the States consented to the last. In the meanwhile, king
Philip published a manifesto, protesting against all that should be transacted at the Hague
to his prejudice, declaring his resolution to adhere to his faithful Spaniards. He also named
plenipotentiaries to go in his name to the treaty, who gave the States notice of their powers
and instructions ; and, in a letter to the duke of Marlborough, they gave intimations how
grateful king Philip would be to him, if by his means these his desires might be complied
with ; as the like insinuations had been often made by the French agents. But no notice
was taken of this message from king Philip, nor was any answer given to it. Pettecum,
after some days' stay at Paris, came back without the pretence of offering any expedient,
but brought a paper that seemed to set aside the preliminaries ; yet it set forth that the
king was willing to treat on the foundation of the concessions made in them to the allies,
and that the execution of all the articles should begin after the ratification. This destroyed
all that had been hitherto done ; and the distinction the king had formerly made between
the spirit and the letter of the partition treaty showed how little he was to be relied on. So
the States resolved to insist both on the preliminaries, and on the execution of them, before
a general treaty should be opened. By this message, all thoughts of a treaty were at a full
stand. In the beginning of February another project was sent, which was an amplification of
that brought by Pettecum ; only the restoring the two electors was insisted on as a preliminary,

En graved "by "Wr/Fry.

HEMY ST JOHN, VI SC OUNT BOLINGBROKE
OB. 1761.
FROM THE nnrm-H-AT. OF gNET.T.F.S, UT THE COULECTIOM OF
hie bight hoh™?5 the earl of egeemomt.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 855
as also the restoring the upper palatinate to the elector of Bavaria ; but the allies still
insisted on the former preliminaries. The court of France seeing that the States were not to
be wrought on to go off from the preliminaries, sent another message to them that the king
agreed to all preliminaries, except the thirty-seventh ; and if they would consent that his
ministers should come and confer with them upon that article, he did not doubt but what
should be proposed from him would be to their satisfaction. This seemed to give some
hopes, so the States resolved to send the passports ; but they foresaw the ill effects of suffering
the French ministers to come into their country, who, by their agents, were every where
stirring up the people against the government, as if they were prolonging the war without
necessity : so they appointed Gertruydenburg to be the place to which the French ministers
were to come to treat with the deputies they should send to meet them.
The ministers sent by France were the marquis d'Uxelles and the abbot de Polignac ; and
those from the States were Buys and Vanderdussen. The conferences began in March. The
French proposed that the dominions in Italy, with the islands, should be given to one of the
competitors for the Spanish monarchy, without naming which ; but it was understood that
they meant king Philip. The deputies did not absolutely reject this, but showed that the
emperor would never consent to parting with Naples, nor giving the French such footing in
Italy : the French seemed to be sensible of this. The first conference ended upon the return
of the courier whom they sent to Versailles. They moved for another conference ; and,
upon several propositions, there were several conferences renewed. The king of France
desisted from the demand of Naples, but insisted on that of the places on the coast of Tus
cany. At last they desisted from that too, and insisted only on Sicily and Sardinia. So
now the partition seemed as it were settled. Upon which, the deputies of the States pressed
the ministers of France to give them solid assurances of king Philip's quitting Spain and the
West Indies : to this (upon advertisement given to the court of France) they answered, that
the king would enter into measures with them to force it. Many difficulties were started
about the troops to be employed, what their number should be, and who should command
them ; all which showed the execution would prove impracticable. Then they talked of a
sum of money to be paid annually during the war ; and here new difficulties arose, both in
settling the sum and in securing the payment. They offered the bankers of Paris ; but
these must all break whensoever the king had a mind they should. So it plainly appeared
all was intended only to divide the allies by this offer of a partition, to which the States
consented, and at which the French hoped the house of Austria would have been provoked
against them. The French asked an assurance of the deputies, that no other articles should
be insisted on but those in the preliminaries. This the deputies positively refused ; for they
had, by one of the preliminaries, reserved a power to all the allies to make further demands,
when a general treaty should be opened : they said they themselves would demand no more,
but they could not limit the rest from their just demands. This was another artifice to
provoke the empire and the duke of Savoy, as if the States intended to force them to accept
of such a peace as they should prescribe. In another conference, the States rejected the offer
of a sum of money for carrying on the war in Spain, and therefore demanded that the
French would explain themselves upon the subject of evacuating Spain and the West
Indies, in favour of king Charles, before they could, declare their intentions with relation to
the partition ; and added, that all further conferences would be to no purpose till that was
done. The French were now resolved to break off the negotiation, and so they were pleased to
call this demand of the States a formal rupture of the treaty ; and upon the return of an
express that they sent to Versailles, they wrote a long letter to the pensioner, in the form of
a manifesto ; and so returned back to France in the end of July. This is the account that
both our ministers here and the States have published of that affair. The French have pub
lished nothing ; for they would not own to the Spaniards that they ever entered upon any
treaty for a partition of their monarchy, much less for evacuating Spain. Whether France
did ever design any thing by all this negotiation, but to quiet their own people, and to
amuse and divide the allies, is yet to us a secret ; but if they ever intended a peace, the
reason of their going off from it must have been the account they then had of our distractions

856 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
int England, which might make them conclude that we could not be in a condition to carry
on the war.
The queen's intentions to make a change in her ministry now began to break out : in
June, she dismissed the earl of Sunderland from being secretary of state, without pretending
any malversation in him, and gave the seals to the lord Dartmouth. This gave the alarm
both at home and abroad ; but the queen, to lessen that, said to her subjects here, in parti
cular to the governors of the bank of England, and wrote to her ministers abroad, that they
should assure her allies that she would make no other changes ; and said this herself to the
minister whom the States had here. All these concurred to express their joy in this resolu
tion, and joined to it their advice that she would not dissolve the parliament. This was
represented by those who had never been versed in the negotiations of princes in an alliance
as a bold intruding into the queen's councils ; though nothing is more common than for
princes to offer mutual advices in such cases. Two months after the change of the secretary
of state, the queen dismissed the earl of Godolphin from being lord treasurer, and put the
treasury in commission. Lord Powlet was the first in form, but Mr. Harley was the person
with whom the secret was lodged ; and it was visible he was the chief minister. And now
it appeared that a total change of the ministry, and the dissolution of the parliament, were
resolved on.
In the meanwhile Sacheverel, being presented to a benefice in North Wales, went down
to take possession of it : as he passed through the countries, both going and coming, he was
received and followed by such numbers, and entertained with such magnificence, that our
princes in their progresses have not been more run after than he was. Great fury and
violence appeared on many occasions, though care was taken to give his followers no sort of
provocation. He was looked on as the champion of the church ; and he showed as much
insolence on that occasion as his party did folly. No notice was taken by the government
of all these riots ; they were rather favoured and encouraged than checked : all this was like
a prelude to a greater scene that was to be acted at court. The queen came in October to
council, and called for a proclamation, dissolving the parliament, which Harcourt (now made
attorney-general in the room of Montague, who had quitted that post) had prepared. When
it was read, the lord chancellor offered to speak ; but the queen rose up, and would admit
of no debate, and ordered the writs for a new parliament to be prepared. At that time she
dismissed the lord Somers, and in his room made the earl of Rochester lord president of the
council. She sent to the duke of Devonshire for the lord steward's staff, and gave it to the
duke of Buckingham. Mr. Boyle was dismissed from being secretary of state, and Mr. St.
John had the seals* : the earl of Derby was removed from being chancellor of the duchy of
Lancaster, and was succeeded by the lord Berkeley. The lord chancellor came, upon all
these removes, and delivered up the great seal. The queen did not look for this, and was
surprised at it ; and not knowing how to dispose of it, she, with an unusual earnestness,
pressed him to keep it one day longer ; and the day following she, having considered the
matter with her favourites, Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley, received it very readily ; and it
was soon given to sir Simon Harcourt. The earl of Wharton delivered up his commission of
lord lieutenant of Ireland, and that was given to the duke of Ormond. And tlie earl of
Ormond, with some of the commissioners of the admiralty, withdrew from that board, in
whose room others were put. So sudden and so entire a change of the ministry is scarcely
* Henry St. John, afterwards Viscount Bolingbroke, discarded by his new master. In 1723 he obtained a
was possessed of a brilliant wit, that prevented the really pardon, but his attainder being unreversed, he was incapa-
superficial nature of his mind being detected. Disbelieving hie of sitting in the house of peers. Irritated by this, he
the Christian roligion without having justly examined its virulently opposed the ministry, particularly in a periodical
evidences, his principleswereunstable,andhepassed through called " The Craftsman." He was born at Battersea in
life with no more worthy director than his own selfish inte- 1678, and died there in 1751. Intimate with Swift,
rests. He was a tory, until his ambition was disappoiuted, Pope, and the other wits of the day, his miscellaneous
and then he ranked himself with their opponents. Justly letters are found in many of the biographies of his literary
suspected of being inimical to the Hanover interest, his contemporaries. Much information relative to public
papers were seized, upon which he fled to France, and affairs is contained in his political correspondence, which
became the pretender's secretary. A traitor is always sus- has been published in two quarto volumes. His second
pected, even by those in whose favour he forfeits his wife was a niece of madame de Maintenon. — Biog. Bri-
honour. — he was attainted in England, and soon after tannica.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 857
to be found in our history, especially where men of great abilities had served, both with zeal
and success, insomuch that the administration of all affairs, at home and abroad, in their
hands, was not only without exception, but had raised the admiration of all Europe. All
this rose purely from the great credit of the new favourites, and the queen's personal distaste
to the old ones. The queen was much delighted with all these changes, and seemed to
think she was freed from the chains the old ministry held her in : she spoke of it to several
persons as a captivity she had been long under. The duke of Somerset had very much
alienated the queen from the old ministry, and had no small share in their disgrace ; but he
was so displeased with the dissolution of the parliament, and the new model of the ministry,
that, though he continued some time master of the horse, he refused to sit any more in
council, and complained openly of the artifices that had been used to make him instrumental
to .other people's designs, which he did, among others, to myself.
The next, and indeed the greatest, care of the new ministry was the managing the elections
to parliament. Unheard-of methods were used to secure them ; in London and in all the
parts of England, but more remarkably in the great cities, there was a vast concourse of rude
multitudes brought together, who behaved themselves in so boisterous a manner, that it was
not safe, and in many places not possible, for those who had a right to vote, to come and
give their votes for a whig ; open violence was used in several parts : this was so general
through the whole kingdom, all at the same time, that it was visible the thing had been for
some time concerted, and the proper methods aad tools had been prepared for it. The clergy
had a great share in this ; for, besides a course for some months of inflaming sermons, they
went about, from house to house, pressing their people to shew on this great occasion their
zeal for the church, and now, or never, to save it. They also told them in what ill hands
the queen had been kept, as in captivity, and that it was a charity, as well as their duty,
to free her from the power the late ministry exercised over her.
While the poll was taken in London, a new commission for the lieutenancy of the city
was sent in, by wliich a great change was made : tories were put in, and whigs were left
out ; in a word, the practice and violence used now in elections went far beyond any thing
that I had ever known in England. And by such means, above three parts in four of the
members returned to parliament may at any time be packed. And, if free elections are
necessary to the being of a parliament, there was great reason to doubt if this was a true
representative duly elected.
The bank was the body to which the government of late had recourse, and was always
readily furnished by it ; but their credit was now so sunk, that they could not do as they
had done formerly : actions that some months before were at 130, sunk now so low as to
95, and did not rise above 101 or 102 all the following winter. The new ministers gave it
out that they would act moderately at home and steadily abroad, maintain our alliances, and
carry on the war. But before I enter on the session of parliament, I will give an account of
affairs abroad.
King Philip went to Arragon to his army, and gave it out that he was resolved to put all
to the decision of a battle with king Charles, who was likewise come to head his army : they
lay so near one another, that king Philip cannonaded the camp of his enemies, but his men
were beat off with loss, and drew away to a greater distance ; however, before the end of
July, there was an action of great importance near Almanara. The main body of king-
Philip's horse designed to cut off a part of king Charles's foot, that was separated from the
cavalry commanded by Stanhope. He drew his whole body together ; and though he was
much inferior in number, yet he sent to king Charles for orders to engage the enemy.
It was not without some difficulty, and after some reiterated pressing instances, that he got
leave to fall on.
As the two bodies were advancing one against another, Stanhope rode at the head of his
body, and the Spanish general advanced at the head of his troops. The two generals began
the action ; in which, very happily for Stanhope, he killed the Spaniard ; and his men,
animated with the example and success of their general, fell on and broke the Spanish horse
so entirely, that king Philip lost the best part of his cavalry in that action ; upon which he
retired towards Saragossa, but was closely followed by king Charles : and on the twentieth

858 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
of August they came to a total engagement, which ended in an entire defeat : and by this
means Arragon was again in king Charles's hands. King Philip got off with a very small
body to Madrid ; but he soon left it, and retired with all the tribunals following him to
Valladolid, and sent his queen and son to Victoria. Some of his troops got off in small
bodies ; and these were iu a little time brought together, to the number of about ten thou
sand men ; the troops that they had on the frontier of Portugal were brought to join them,
with which they soon made up the face of an army.
King Charles made all the haste he could to Madrid, but found none of the grandees
there ; and it appeared that the Castilians were firmly united to king Philip, and resolved
to adhere to him at all hazards. The king of France now showed he was resolved to main
tain his grandson, since, if he had ever intended to do it, it was now very easy to oblige
him to evacuate Spain. On the contrary, he sent the duke of Vendome to command the
army there ; and he ordered some troops to march into Catalonia, to force king Charles to
come back, and secure that principality. King Charles continued till the beginning of
December in Castile. In all that time no care was taken by the allies to supply or support
him. We were so engaged in our party-matters at home, that we seemed to take no
thought of things abroad, and without, us nothing could be done. The court of Vienna was
so apprehensive of the danger from a war likely to break out between the grand seignior
and the czar, that they would not diminish their army in Hungary. After king Charles left
his army, Starembergh seemed resolved to take his winter quarters in Castile, and made a
show of fortifying Toledo ; but for want of provision, and chiefly for fear that his retreat to
Arragon might be cut off, he resolved to march back to the Ebro : king Philip marched
after him. Starembergh left Stanhope some hours' march behind him, and he took up his
quarters in an unfortified village, called Brihuega ; but, finding king Philip was near him,
he sent his aide-de-camp to let Starembergh know his danger, and to desire his assistance.
Starembergh might have come in time to have saved him, but he moved so slowly, that it
was conjectured he envied the glory Stanhope had got, and was not sorry to see it eclipsed,
and therefore made not that haste he might and ought to have done.
Stanhope and his men cast up iutrenchments, and defended these very bravely as long as
their powder lasted ; but in conclusion they were forced to surrender themselves prisoners
of war. Some hours after that, Starembergh came up ; aud though the enemy were more
than double his number, yet he attacked them with such success that he defeated them
quite, killed seven thousand of their men, took their cannon and baggage, and stayed a whole
day in the field of battle. The enemy drew back ; but Starembergh had suffered so much
in the action, that he was not in a condition to pursue them ; nor could he carry off their
cannon for want of horses, but he nailed them up, and by slow marches got to Saragossa,
the enemy not thinking it convenient to give him any disturbance. As he did not judge it
safe to stay long in Arragon, so, in the beginning of January, he marched into Catalonia ;
but his army had suffered so much, both in the last action at Villa Viciosa and in the
march, that he was not in a condition to venture on raising the siege of Gironne, which
was then carried on by the duke of Xoailles : and no relief coming, the garrison, after a
brave defence, was forced to capitulate ; and by this means Catalonia was open to the enemy
on all sides.
The Spanish grandees seemed to be in some apprehensions of their being given up by the
French, and there was a suspicion of some caballing among them. Upon which, the duke
of Medina Cell, king Philip's chief minister, was sent a close prisoner to the castle of Segovia,
and was kept there very strictly, none being admitted to speak to him. He was not
brought to any examination ; but after he had been some months in prison, being often
removed from one place to another, it was at last given out that he died in prison, not
without the suspicion of ill practices. Nothing passed on the side of Piedmont, the duke of
Savoy complaining still of the imperial court, and upon that refusing to act vigorously.
After Douay was taken, our army sat down before Bethune ; and that siege held them a
month, at the end of which the garrison capitulated ; and our army sat down at one and
the same time before Aire and St. Venant, to secure the head of the Lys. St. Venant was
taken in a few weeks ; but the marshy ground about Aire made that a slower work : so

OF QUEEN ANNE. 85fJ
that the siege continued there about two months before the garrison capitulated. This cam
paign, though not of such lustre as the former, because no battle was fought, yet wasliy
military men looked on as a very extraordinary one in this respect, that our men were about
a hundred and fifty days in open trenches, which was said to be a thing without example.
During these sieges, the French army posted themselves in sure camps, but did not stir out
of them ; and it was not possible to engage them into any action. Nothing considerable
passed on the Rhine, they being equally unable to enter upon action on both sides.
The czar carried on the war in Livonia with such success, that he took both Riga and
Revel ; and, to add to the miseries of Sweden, a great plague swept away many of their
people. Sweden itself was left exposed to the Danes and the czar : but their dominions in
Germany were secured by the guaranty of the allies : yet, though the government of Sweden
did accept of this provisionally, till the king's pleasure should be known, it was not without
difficulty that he was prevailed on to give way to it.
I come now to give an account of the session of parliament, which was opened the twenty-
fifth of November. The queen, in her speech, took no notice of the successes of this cam
paign, as she had always done in her former speeches ; and instead of promising to maintain
the toleration, she said she would maintain the indulgence granted by law to scrupulous con
sciences ; this change of phrase into Sacheverel's language was much observed. The lords
made an address of an odd composition to her, which showed it was not drawn by those
who had penned their former addresses. Instead of promising that they would do all that
was possible, they only promised to do all that was reasonable, which seemed to import a
limitation, as if they had apprehended that unreasonable things might be asked of them ;
and the conclusion was in a very cold strain of rhetoric : they ended with saying, " They
had no more to add." The commons were more hearty in their address ; and in the end of
it they reflected on some late practices against the church and state. Bromley was chosen
speaker without any opposition * ; there were few whigs returned, against whom petitions
were not offered ; there were in all about an hundred ; and by the first steps the majority
made it appear that they intended to clear the house of all who were suspected to be
whigs. They passed the bill for four shillings in the pound, before the short recess at
Christmas. During that time, the news came of the ill success in Spain ; and this giving a handle to
examine into that part of our conduct, the queen was advised to lay hold on it : so, without
staying till she heard from her own ministers, or her allies, as was usual, she laid the matter
before the parliament as the public news brought it from Paris ; which was afterwards found
to be false in many particulars ; and told them what orders she had given upon it, of which
6he hoped they would approve. This was a mean expression from the sovereign, not used
in former messages, and seemed to be below the dignity of the crown. She ordered some
regiments to be carried over to Spain, and named the earl of Peterborough to go to the court
of Vienna, to press them to join in the most effectual measures for supporting king Charles
there. The lords, in their answer to this message, promised that they would examine into
the conduct of the war in Spain, to see if there had been any mismanagement in any part of
it ; and they entered immediately into that enquiry. They began it with an address to the
queen, to delay the despatch of the earl of Peterborough till the house might receive from
him such informations of the affairs of Spain as he could give them. This was readily
granted, and he gave the house a long recital of the affairs of Spain, loading the earl of
Galway with all the miscarriages in that war. And in particular he said, that in a council
of war in Valencia, in the middle of January, 1706-7, the earl of Galway had pressed the
pushing an offensive war for that year ; and that the lord Tyrawly and Stanhope had con
curred with him in that ; whereas he himself was for lying on a defensive war for that year
in Spain : he said, this resolution was carried by those three against the king of Spain's own
mind ; and he imputed all the misfortunes that followed in Spain to this resolution so taken.
Stanhope had given an account of the debates in that council to the queen ; and the earl of
Sunderland, in answer to his letter, had written by the queen's order that she approved of
* This was the right honourable William Bromley, noticed in a previous note, and who unsuccessfully stood for the
speakership in 1 705.

8G0 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
their pressing for an offensive war ; and they were ordered to persist in that. The earl of
Sunderland said in that letter, that the queen took notice that they three (meaning the earl
of Galway, lord Tyrawly, and Stanhope) were the only persons that were for acting offen
sively ; and that little regard was to be had to the earl of Peterborough's opposition. Upon
the strength of this letter, the earl of Peterborough afiirmed that the whole council of war
was against an offensive war. He laid the blame, not only of the battle of Almanza and all
that followed in Spain upon those resolutions, but likewise the miscarriage of the design on
Toulon ; for he told them of a great design he had concerted with the duke of Savoy, and of
the use that might have been made of some of the troops in Spain, if a defensive war had
been agreed to there. The earl of Galway and the lord Tyrawly were sent for ; and they
were asked an account of that council at Valencia. They said there were many councils
held there about that time ; and that both the Portuguese ambassador and general, and the
envoy of the States, agreed with them in their opinions for an offensive war ; and they
named some Spaniards that were of the same mind : they also said, that all along, even to
the battle of Almanza, in all their resolutions the majority of the council of war voted for
every thing that was done, and that they were directed to persist in their opinions, by letters
written to them in the queen's name by the secretaries of state : that as to the words in the
earl of Sunderland's letter, that spoke of them as the only persons that were of that opinion,
these were understood by them as belonging only to the queen's subjects, and that they
related more immediately to the earl of Peterborough, who opposed that resolution,*but not
to the rest of the council of war, for the majority of them was of their mind.
The earl of Galway gave in two papers ; the one related to his own conduct in Spain, the
other was an answer to the relation given in writing by the earl of Peterborough. The house
of lords was so disposed, that the majority believed every thing that was said by the earl of
Peterborough ; and it was carried that his account was honourable, faithful, and just ; and
that all the misfortunes in Spain were the effect and consequence of those resolutions taken
in the middle of January *-
From this censure on the earl of Galway, the debate was carried to that which was chiefly
aimed at to put a censure on the ministry here. So it was moved that an address should be
made to the queen, to free those, who were under an oath of secrecy, from that tie, that
a full account might be laid before the house of all their consultations. The queen granted
this readily, and came to the house, which was understood to be on design to favour that
which was aimed at. Upon this the duke of Marlborough, the earls of Godolphin and
Sunderland, and the lord Cowper, showed that, considering the force sent over to Spain under
the lord Rivers, they thought an offensive war was advisable ; that the expense of that war
was so great, and the prospect was so promising, that they could not but think an offensive
war necessary ; and that to advise a defensive one would have made them liable to a just
censure, as designing to protract the war. The design on Toulon was no way intermixed
with the affairs of Spain ; the earl of Peterborough fancied he was in that secret, and had
indeed proposed the bringing over some troops from Spain on that design, and had offered a
scheme to the duke of Savoy, in which that was mentioned, and had sent that over to Eng
land. But though the duke of Savoy suffered that lord to amuse himself with his own
project, which he had concerted for the attempt on Toulon, that duke had declared he would
not undertake it, if it was not managed with the utmost secrecy, which was sacredly kept,
and communicated only to those to whom it must be trusted for the execution of it. No
troops from Spain were to be employed in that service, nor did it miscarry for want of men.
These lords further said they gave their opinions in council, according to the best of their
judgment ; their intentions were very sincere for the service of the queen, and to bring the
war to a speedy conclusion. Yet a vote passed, that they were to blame for advising an
offensive war in Spain, upon which the loss of the battle of Almanza followed, and that this
occasioned the miscarrying of the design upon Toulon.
Here was a new and strange precedent of censuring a resolution taken in council, and of
desiring the queen to order all that had passed in couneil to be laid before the house. In all
* Ralph's " Answer to tho Duchess of Marlborough's Account of her own Conduct" gives an impartial statement
of the earl of Peterborough's services and conduct.

Engraved "by W T.Fry.

CHARLES MORDAUX T. EARL OF PETERBOROUGH

OB.17.s:

FROM THE ORIG-TN-AJ. OF DAHL, IX THE COLLECTION OF
<5f. THE RIGHT lllll'VTHE EAKL OF IWIiRPOOI .

OF QUEEN ANNE. -8(51
the hot debates in king Charles the First's reign, in which many resolutions taken in council
were justly censurable, yet the passing any censure on them was never attempted by men,
who were no way partial in favour of the prerogative ; but they understood well what our
constitution was in that point : a resolution in council was only the sovereign's act, who,
upon hearing his counsellors deliver their opinions, forms his own resolution : a counsellor
may indeed be liable to censure, for what he may say at that board, but the resolution taken
there has been hitherto treated with a silent respect ; but by this precedent it will be here
after subject to a parliamentary enquiry. The queen was so desirous to have a censure fixed
on her former ministry, that she did not enough consider the wound given to the prerogative
by the way in wliich it was done.
After this was over, another enquiry was made into the force we had in Spain, at the time
of the battle of Almanza : and it was found not to exceed fourteen thousand men, though the
parliament had voted twenty-nine thousand fer the war in Spain. This seemed to be a
crying thing ; tragical declamations were made upon it : but in truth that vote had passed
here only in the January before the battle of Almanza, which was fought on the fourteenth
of April. Now it was not possible to levy and transport men in so short a time. It was
made appear that all the money, given by the parliament for that service, was issued out
and applied to it, and that extraordinary diligence was used both in forwarding the levies
and in their transportation : they were sent from Ireland, the passage from thence being
both safest and quickest. All this and a great deal more to the same purpose was said, but
it signified nothing ; for when resolutions are taken up beforehand, the debating concerning
them is only a piece of form, used to come at the question with some decency : and there
was so little of that observed at this time, that the duke of Buckingham said in plain words,
that they had the majority, and would make use of it, as he had observed done by others,
when they had it on their side. So, though no examination had been made but into that
single point of the numbers at Almanza, they came to a general vote, that the late ministry
had been negligent in the management of the war in Spain, to the great prejudice of the
nation ; and they then ordered all their proceedings and votes to be put in an address, and
laid before the queen. And though they had made no enquiry into the expense of that war,
nor into the application of the money given by the parliament for it, yet in their address
they mentioned the great profusion of money in that service. This they thought would
touch the nation very sensibly ; and they hoped the thing would be easily believed on their
word. Protests were made against every vote in the whole progress of this matter. Some
of these carried such reflections on the votes of the house, that they were expunged.
I never saw any thing carried on in the house of lords so little to their honour as this
was ; some who voted with the rest seemed ashamed of it. They said, somewhat was to be
done to justify the queen's change of the ministry ; and every thing elsewhere had been so
well conducted as to be above all censure. So the misfortune of Almanza being a visible
thing, they resolved to lay the load there. The management of the public treasure was
exact and unexceptionable ; so that the single misfortune of the whole war was to be mag
nified : some were more easily drawn to concur in these votes, because, by the act of grace,
all those who had been concerned in the administration were covered from prosecution and
punishment. So this was represented to some as a compliment that would be very
acceptable to the queen, and by which no person could be hurt. They loaded singly the
earl of Galway with the loss of the battle of Almanza, though it was resolved on in a council
of war, and he had behaved himself in it with all the bravery and conduct that could be
expected from a great general, and had made a good retreat, and secured Catalonia with
inexpressible diligence. They also censured him for not insisting on the point of honour, in
the precedence to be given to the English troops, as soon as the Portuguese army entered into
Spain ; but by our treaty with that crown the army was to be commanded by a Portuguese
general, so it was not in his power to change the order of the army : if he had made the
least struggle about it, the Portuguese, who were not easily prevailed on to enter into Spain,
would have gladly enough laid hold of any occasion which such a dispute would have given
them, and have turned back upon it ; and so, by his insisting on such a punctilio, the whole
design would have been lost. We had likewise, in our treaty with them, yielded expressly

862 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
the point of the flag in those seas, for which alone, on other occasions, we have engaged
in wars ; so he had no reason to contest a lesser point. Yet a censure was likewise laid
on this. And this was the conclusion of the enquiries made by the house of lords this
session. Harley, in the house of commons, led them to enquire into some abuses in the victualling
the navy : they had been publicly practised for many years, some have said ever since the
restoration : the abuse was visible, but connived at, that several expenses might be answered
that way ; some have said, that the captain's tables were kept out of the gain made in it.
Yet a member of the house, who was a whig, was complained of for this, and expelled the
house ; and a prosecution was ordered against him ; but the abuse goes on still, as avowedly
as ever ; here was a show of zeal, and a seeming discovery of fraudulent practices, by which
the nation was deceived.
The money did not come into the treasury so readily as formerly, neither upon the act of
four shillings in the pound, nor on the duty laid on malt ; so, to raise a quick supply, there
were two bills passed, for raising three millions and a half by two lotteries, the first of
1,500,000Z., and the second of two millions, to be paid back in thirty-two" years ; and for a
fund, to answer this, duties were laid on hops, candles, leather, cards and dice, and on the
postage of letters. In one branch of this, the house of commons seemed to break in upon
a rule, that had hitherto passed for a sacred one. When the duty upon leather was first
proposed, it was rejected by a majority, and so, by their usual orders, it was not to be
offered again during that session ; but after a little practice upon some members, the same
duty was proposed, with this variation, that skins and tanned hides should be so charged :
this was leather in another name. The lotteries were soon filled up ; so, by this means,
money came into the treasury : and indeed this method has never yet failed of raising a
speedy supply. There was no more asked, though in the beginning of this session, the
house had voted a million more than these bills amounted to ; which made some conclude
there was a secret negotiation and prospect of a peace.
As the duke of Marlborough was involved in the general censure passed on the former
ministry, so he had not the usual compliment of thanks for the successes of the former cam
paign : when that was moved in the house of lords, it was opposed with such eagerness by
the duke of Argyle and others, that it was let fall : for this the duke of Marlborouoh was
prepared by the queen ; who, upon his coming over, told him that he was not to expect the
thanks of the two houses, as had been formerly : she added, that she expected he should
live well with her ministers, but did not think fit to say any thing of the reasons she had
for making those changes in her ministry : yet he shewed no resentments for all the ill usage
he met with ; and, having been much pressed by the States and our other allies, to continue
in the command of the army, he told me, upon that account, he resolved to be patient, and
to submit to every thing, in order to the carrying on the war ; and finding the queen's pre
possession against his duchess was not to be overcome, he carried a surrender of all her places
to the queen * : she was groom of the stole, had the robes, and the privy purse, in all which
she had served with great economy and fidelity to the queen, and justice to those who dealt
with the crown. The duchess of Somerset had the two first of these employments, and
Mrs. Masham had the last t.
The house of commons found the encouragement given tire palatines was so displeasing to
* The duchess showed her chagrin upon this occasion -f- Mrs. Masham was a poor relative of the duchess of
most violently. She was a weak, passionate, proud woman, Marlborough. She had been waiting woman to a lady
for even her own friendB give her this character. Her Rivers, of Kent, and was placed by the duchess near the
insolence to queen Anne is demonstrated by her letter, queen, because she thought she could trust her. Lord Dart-
given at p. 165 of the Defence of her Conduct, written mouth proposed that her husband should be raised to the
under her superintendence, by Hooke. She endeavoured, peerage, but the queen replied, she never designed to make
but failed, to acquire a similar ascendancy over Caroline, a great lady of her, for by so doing she should lose a use-
the queen of George the First. Having failed, she treated ful servant from about her person ; a peeress could not
her majesty with a petty insolence, that was every way lie on the floor, and do several inferior offices. The queen
pitiable. The queen viewed it in its proper light, and at length consented to the dignity being conferred, on
observed, at the palace, to sir Richard Onslow, " The condition that she continued to he her dresser. Lady
catiBe is because I am mistress of this house, and she not." Masham was vulgar and mean in her manners ; petulant
— Oxford ed. of this work; Lord Walpole Woolter- and passionate. — Lord Dartmouth in Oxford edition of
ton's Answer to Bolingbroke. this work.

JEngraveiLhy ~K_ T.TferalL

SARAH JENXIXOS, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH
01J.17I-J.
FROM THE ORIGINAL OI' SIR TITTER LKLY.JN 1'IIE COLLECTION ol'1

rns grace the duke of AiAi-a.BOK<>r<;ii

OF QUEEN ANNE. 363
the people, that they ordered a committee to examine into that matter. The truth of this
story was, that in the year 1708, about fifty palatines, who were Lutherans, and were ruined
came over to England ; these were so effectually recommended to prince George's chaplains,
that the queen allowed them a shilling a-day, and took care to have them transported to the
plantations : they, ravished with this good reception, wrote over such an account of it, as
occasioned a general disposition among all the poor of that country to come over, in search
of better fortunes : and some of our merchants, who were concerned in the plantations, and
knew the advantage of bringing over great numbers to people those desert countries, encou
raged them with the promises of lands and settlements there. This being printed, and spread
through those parts, they came to Holland in great bodies : the anabaptists there were par
ticularly helpful to them, both in subsisting those in Holland, and in transporting them to
England. Upon their coming over, the queen relieved them at first ; and great charities
were sent to support them : all the tories declared against the good reception that was given
them, as much as the whigs approved of it. It happened at a bad season, for bread was
then sold at double the ordinary price ; so the poor complained, that such charities Went to
support strangers, when they needed them so much : the time of our fleet's sailing to the
plantations was likewise at a great distance. The palatines expected to be all kept together
in a colony, and became very uneasy when they saw that could not be compassed ; some of
them were both unactive and mutinous ; and this heightened the outcry against them : some
papists mixed among them, and came over with them ; but they were presently sent back.
Great numbers were sent to Ireland, but most of them to the plantations in North America,
where it is believed their industry will quickly turn to a good account. The design was now
formed to load the late administration all that was possible ; so it was pretended that, in all
that affair, there was a design against the church, and to increase the numbers and strength
of the dissenters. It has indeed passed for an established maxim, in all ages, and in all
governments, that the drawing of numbers of people to any nation, did increase its intrinsic
strength ; which is only to be measured by the multitude of the people that inhabit and
cultivate it : yet the house of commons came to a sudden vote, that those who had encou
raged and brought over the palatines, were enemies to the nation : and, because a letter,
written by the earl of Sunderland, in the queen's name, to the council of trade, was laid
before them, by which they were ordered to consider of the best methods of disposing of
them, it was moved to lay the load of that matter on him, in some severe votes ; yet this
was put off for that time, and afterwards by several adjournments delayed, till at last it was
let fall.
But while the heat, raised by this enquiry, was kept up, the commons passed a bill to
repeal the act for a general naturalization of all protestants, which had passed two years
before ; pretending that it gave the encouragement to the palatines to come over, though
none of them had made use of that act, in order to their naturalization. This was sent up
to the lords : and the lord Guernsey, and some others, entertained them with tragical decla
mations on the subject ; yet, upon the first reading of the bill,' it was rejected. A bill, that
was formerly often attempted, for disabling members of the house of commons to hold places,
had the same fate.
Another bill for qualifying members, by having 6007. a-year for a knight of the shire,
and 300/. a-year for a burgess, succeeded better : the design of this was to exclude courtiers,
military men, and merchants, from sitting in the house of commons, in hopes that this being-
settled, the land interest would be the prevailing consideration, in all their consultations.
They did not extend these qualifications to Scotland ; it being pretended that estates there
being generally small, it would not be easy to find men so qualified, capable to serve. This
was thought to strike at an essential part of our constitution, touching the freedom of elec
tions ; and it had been, as often as it was attempted, opposed by the ministry, though it
had a fair appearance of securing liberty, when all was lodged with men of estates : yet our
gentry was become so ignorant, and so corrupt, that many apprehended the ill effects of this ;
and that the interest of trade, which indeed supports that of the land, would neither be
understood nor regarded. But the new ministers resolved to be popnlar with those who pro-
Hiotedit ; so it passed, and was much magnified, as a main part of our security for the future.

864 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Another bill passed, not much to the honour of those who promoted it, for the importa
tion of the French wine : the interest of the nation lay against this so visibly, that nothing
but the delicate palates of those who loved that liquor, could have carried such a motion
through the two houses. But, though the bill passed, it was likely to have no effect ; for it
was provided, that the wine should be imported in neutral vessels ; and the king of France
had forbidden it to be exported, in any vessels but his own : it seems he reckoned that our
desire of drinking his wine would carry us to take it on such terms as he should prescribe.
In the house of commons there appeared a new combination of tories, of the highest form,
who thought the court was yet in some management with the whigs, and did not come up
to their height, which they imputed to Mr. Harley ; so they began to form themselves in
opposition to him, and expressed their jealousy of him on several occasions, sometimes
publicly. But an odd accident, that had almost been fatal, proved happy to him ; it fell out
on the 8th of March, the day of the queen's accession to the crown : one Guiscard, who was
an abbot in France, had for some enormous crimes made his escape out of that kingdom ; he
printed a formal story of a design he was laying, to raise a general insurrection in the
southern parts of France (in conjunction with those who were then up in the Cevennes) for
recovering their ancient liberties,, as well as for restoring the edicts in favour of the Hugue
nots : and he seemed very zealous for public liberty. He insinuated himself so into the
duke of Savoy, that he recommended him to our court, as a man capable of doing great
service : he seemed forward to undertake any thing that he might be put on ; he had a pen
sion assigned him for some years, but it did not answer his expense ; so when he was out of
hope of getting it increased, he wrote to one at the court of France, to offer his service
there ; and it was thought he had a design against the queen's person ; for he had tried, by
all the ways that he could contrive, to be admitted to speak with her in private ; which he
had attempted that very morning : but his letter being opened at the post-house, and brought
to the cabinet council, a messenger was sent from the council, to seize on him. He found
him walking in St. James's park ; and having disarmed him, carried him to the lords, who
were then sitting : as he waited without, before he was called in, he took up a penknife,
which lay among pens in a standish ; when he was questioned upon his letter, he desired to
speak in private with secretary St. John, who refused it ; and he being placed out of his
reach, whereas Harley sat near him, he struck him in the breast with the penknife, again
and again, till it broke ; and indeed wounded him as much as could be done, with so small a
tool. The other counsellors drew their swords, and stabbed Guiscard in several places ; and
their attendants being called in, they dragged him out. Harley's wound was presently
searched ; it appeared to be a slight one, yet he was long in the surgeon's hands : some
imputed this to an ill habit of body ; others thought it was an artifice, to make it seem more
dangerous than indeed it was. Guiscard's wounds were deeper, and not easily managed ;
for at first he was sullen, and seemed resolved to die ; yet after a day, he submitted himself
to the surgeons ; but did not complain of a wound in his back, till it gangrened, and of that
he died. It was not known what particulars were in his letter, for various reports went of
it; nor was it known what he confessed *.
* The statute referred to by Burnet, is the 9 Anne, the discovery of the said offence, did with a penknife stab
c. 1 6. Its preamble is somewhat illustrative of the event, the right honourable Robert Harley, esquire, chancellor of
" Whereas Anthony de Guiscard, commouly called mar- her majesty's exchequer, and endeavoured to wound
quis de Guiscard, a French papist, residing in England others of hex majesty's privy council. And whereas no
under her majesty's protection, and subsisted by her sufficient punishment is provided for assaulting, or wound-
majesty's bounty for some years past, was charged with ing a privy councillor in the execution of his office : " it
holding a traitorous correspondence with France, and then enacts that to assault, wound, or attempt to kill a
being taken into custody for such his treason by Nathan privy councillor, so engaged, shall be felony. It further
Wileocks, one of her majesty's messengers in ordinary, pardons all those who wounded Guiscard.
by virtue of a warrant of the right honourable Henry It has been surmised that Guiscard had a design against
Saint John, esquire, one of her majesty's principal secre- the queen's life, but this is refuted by the fact that he had'
taries of state; and on the 8th of March, 1710, being been with her the evening before he attacked Harley,
under examination before a committee of her majesty's nobody being present at the interview, or within call, but
privy council for the same, perceiving his said treason to two ladies. When Mr. St. John refused to have a pri-
have been fully detected, being conscious of his guilt, and vate conference with him, he bent down as if to whisper
dreading the pain and infamy of his approaching punish- to Mr. Harley, and gave him two or three violent blows
ment, in hopes of preventing the same, and iu revenge for upon the breast, before he could be withheld. When the

OF QUEEN ANNE. 865
This accident was of great use to Harley; for the party formed against him, was ashamed
to push a man who was thus assassinated by one that was studying to recommend himself
to the court of France, and who was believed to have formed a design against the queen's
person. Her health was at this time much shaken. She had three fits of an ague ; the last
was a severe one ; but the progress of the disease was stopped by the bark.
The tories continued still to pursue the memory of king William ; they complained of the
grants made by him, though these were far short of those that had been made by king
Charles the Second ; but that they might distinguish between those, whom they intended
to favour, and others, against whom they were set, they brought in a bill, empowering some
persons to examine all the grants made by him, and to report both the value of them, and
the considerations upon which they were made : this was the method that had succeeded
with them before, with relation to Ireland ; so the bringing in this bill was looked on, as a
sure step, for carrying the resumption of all the grants that they had a mind to make void.
When it was brought up to the lords, the design appeared to be an unjust malice against the
memory of our deliverer, and against those who had served him best ; so upon the first
reading of the bill, it was rejected.
Their malice turned next against the earl of Godolphin : they found that the supplies
given by parliament were not all returned, and the accounts of many millions were not yet
passed in the exchequer ; so they passed a vote, that the accounts of thirty-five millions yet
stood out. This was a vast sum ; but to make it up, some accounts in king Charles's time
were thrown into the heap ; the lord Ranelagh's accounts of the former reign were the
greatest part ; and it appeared that in no time accounts were so regularly brought up, as in
the queen's reign. Mr. Bridges's accounts, of fourteen or fifteen millions, were the great
item, of which not above half a million was passed * ; but there were accounts of above
eleven millions brought in, though not passed in form, through the great caution and exact
ness of the duke of Newcastle, at whose office they were to pass ; and he was very slow,
and would allow nothing without hearing counsel on every article. The truth is, the methods
of passing accounts were so sure, that they were very slow ; and it was not possible for the
proper officers to find time and leisure to pass the accounts that were already in their hands.
Upon this, though the earl of Godolphin had managed the treasury with an uncorruptness,
fidelity, and diligence, that were so unexceptionable, that it was not possible to fix any cen
sure on his administration : yet, because many accounts stood out, they passed some angry
votes on that ; but since nothing had appeared, in all the examination they had made, that
reflected on him, or on any of the whigs, they would not consent to the motion that was
made, for printing that report ; for by that, it would have appeared who had served well,
and who had served ill.
When this session drew near an end, some were concerned to find that a body, chosen so
much by the zeal and influence of the clergy, should have done nothing for the good of the
church ; so it being apparent, that in the suburbs of London, there were about two hun-
surgeon came, Harley asked, the knife having broken in few years, to indigence. " Yet he had parts of understand -
one of the. wounds, if he was in immediate danger, as in ing and knowledge, experience of men and business, with
that case he would settle his affairs, for he did not fear a sedateness of mind, and gravity of deportment, which
death. This, says lord Dartmouth, was visible in his more qualified him for a wise man, than what the wisest
countenance, which was not in the least altered. After men have generally possessed." (Mr. Speaker Onslow in
Guiscard was taken into another room, he wanted to speak Oxford edition of this work.) It is a fact, that he spent
with the duke of Ormond, who, with lord Dartmouth, went 200,0007. in the construction of his residence, Canons, at
to him. The culprit expressed his sorrow for Mr. Har- Stanmore Parva, in Middlesex. Pope foresaw that this
ley, because he was truly a great man, and had much expense was beyond its owner's fortune, and therefore it is
obliged him. He confessed he had intended to murder not surprising that his prophetic verses relating to thifi
the duke of Marlborough. Lord Dartmouth evidently mansion were fulfilled. His lines are —
doubted his sanity.-Oxford edition of this work. „ AnQther ^ 9ee the lden ear
. • This gentleman Mr. John Brydges was afterwards, EmbrownSthe slope, and nod on the parterre ;
by descent, lord Chandos and created by George the lirst D ^^ b J ^ bu rfde hag ,anned
earl of Caernarvon and duke of Chandos. He inherited And laughing Ceres reassume the land."
a very small income, but being made paymaster ot the
forces, he, although expensive in his habits, amassed The duke died in 1744, and within three vears, Canons
in little more than ten yearB a fortune, amounting to was sold piece-meal by auction, and pulled down. His
nearly 700,000t Again, being " a bubble toevery pro- property was very far from being in the ruined state
ject," and by a profuse expenditure, he was reduced,.in a mentioned by Mr. Onslow. 3 K

8C6 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
dred thousand people more than could possibly worship God in the churches built there,
upon a message to them from the queen (to which the rise was given by an address to her
from the convocation) they voted that fifty more churches should be built ; and laid the
charge of it upon that part of the duty on coals, that had been reserved for building of
St. Paul's, which was now finished.
In the beginning of April, the dauphin and the emperor both died of the small-pox ; the
first on the third, the second on the sixth of the month : time will shew what influence the
one or the other will have on public affairs. The electors were all resolved to choose king
Charles emperor. A little before the emperor's death, two great affairs were fully settled ;
the differences between that court and the duke of Savoy were composed, to the duke s satis
faction : the other was of more importance ; offers of amnesty and concessions were sent to
the malcontents in Hungary, with which they were so well satisfied, that a full peace was
likely to follow on it : and, lest the news of the emperor's death should be any stop to that
settlement, it was kept up from them, till a body of ten thousand men came in and delivered
up their arms, with the fort of Cassaw, and took an oath of obedience to king Charles, which
was the first notice they had of Joseph's death.
The effects of this will probably go farther than barely to the quieting of Hungary ; for
the king of Sweden, the Crim Tartar, and the agents of France had so animated the Turks
against the Muscovites, that though the Sultan had no mind to engage in a new war, till the
affairs of that empire should be put in a better state, yet he was so apprehensive of the
janizaries, that, much against his own inclinations, he was brought to declare war against
the czar ; but both the czar and he seemed inclined to accept the mediation that was offered
by England and by the States ; to which very probably the Turks may the more easily be
brought, when they see no hope of any advantage to be made, from the distractions in
Hungary. It did not yet appear what would be undertaken on either side in Spain ; king Philip had
not yet opened the campaign ; but it was given out, that great preparations were made for
a siege : on the other hand, king Charles had great reinforcements sent him ; so that his force
was reckoned not inferior to king Philip's : nor was it yet known what resolutions he had
taken, since he received the news of the emperor's death.
The campaign was now opened on both sides in the Netherlands, though later than was
intended : the season continued long so rainy, that all the ways in those parts were imprac
ticable : nothing was yet attempted on either side ; both armies lay near one another, and
both were so well posted, that no attack was yet made : and this was the present state of
affairs abroad, at the end of May. At home Mr. Harley was created earl of Oxford, and
then made lord high treasurer, and had now the supreme favour : the session of parliament
was not yet at an end. There had been a great project carried on for a trade into the South
Sea; and a fund was projected for paying the interest of nine millions, that were in arrear
for our marine affairs.
From our temporal concerns, I turn to give an account of those which related to the
church : the convocation of the province of Canterbury was opened, the 25th of November,
the same day in which the parliament met ; and Atterbury was chosen prolocutor. Soon
after, the queen sent a licence to the convocation, empowering them to enter upon such con
sultations as the present state of the church required, and particularly to consider of such
matters as she should lay before them : limiting them to a quorum, that the archbishop of
Canterbury, the bishop of London, or tho bishop of Bath and Wells should be present, and
agree to their resolutions. With this licence, there was a letter directed to the archbishop,
in which the convocation was ordered to lay before the queen an account of the late excessive
growth of infidelity and heresy among us ; and to consider how to redress abuses in excom
munications ; how rural deans might be made more effectual ; how terriers might be
made and preserved more exactly, and how the abuses in licences for marriage might be
corrected. In this whole matter, neither the archbishop nor any of the bishops were so much as con
sulted with : and some things in the licence were new : the archbishop was not named the
president of the convocation, as was usual in former licences ; and in these, the archbishop's

OF QUEEN ANNE. 867
presence and consent alone was made necessary except in case of sickness, and then the arch
bishop had named some bishops to preside, as his commissaries : and in that case, the convo
cation was limited to his commissaries, which still lodged the presidentship and the negative
with the archbishop : this was according to the primitive pattern, to limit the clergy of a
province to do nothing, without the consent of the metropolitan ; but it was a thing new
and unheard-of, to limit the convocation to any of their own body, who had no deputation
from the archbishop. So a report of this being made, by a committee that was appointed to
search the records, it was laid before the queen ; and she sent us a message to let us know,
that she did not intend that those whom she had named to be of the quorum, should either
preside or have a negative upon our deliberations, though the contrary was plainly insinuated
in the licence. The archbishop was so ill of the gout, that after our first meetings, he could
come no more to us ; so was the bishop of London : upon which, the bishop of Bath and
Wells, seeing how invidiously he was distinguished from his brethren, in which he had not
been consulted, pretended ill health ; and we were at a stand till a new licence was sent us,
in which the bishops of Winchester, Bristol, and St. David's were added to be of the quorum.
The two last were newly consecrated, and had been in no functions in the church before : so
the queen not only passed over all the bishops made in king William's reign, but a great
many of those named by herself, and set the two last in a distinction above all their brethren.
All this was directed by Atterbury, who had the confidence of the chief minister ; and
because the other bishops had maintained a good correspondence with the former ministry, it
was thought fit to put marks of the queen's distrust upon them, that it might appear with
whom her royal favour and trust was lodged.
The convocation entered on the consideration of the matters referred to themby the queen ;
and a committee was appointed to draw a representation of the present state of the church,
and of religion among us ; but after some heads were agreed on, Atterbury procured that
the drawing of this might be left to him ; and he drew up a most virulent declamation,
defaming all the administration from the time of the revolution : into this he brought many
impious principles and practices, that had been little heard of or known, but were now to be
published, if this should be laid before the queen. The lower house agreed to his draught ;
but the bishops laid it aside, and ordered another representation to be drawn, in more general
and more modest terms. It was not settled which of these draughts should be made use of,
or whether any representation at all should be made to the queen ; for it was known that
the design in asking one was only to have an aspersion cast, both on the former ministry
and on the former reign. Several provisions were prepared, with relation to the other par
ticulars in the queen's letter ; but none of these were agreed to by both houses.
An incident happened that diverted their thoughts to another matter : Mr. Whiston, the
professor of mathematics in Cambridge, a learned man, of a sober and exemplary life, but
much set on hunting for paradoxes, fell on the reviving the Arian heresy, though he pre
tended to differ from Arius, in several particulars ; yet upon the main he was partly Apolli-
narist, partly Arian ; for he thought the nous, or word, was all the soul that acted in our
Saviour's body. He found his notions favoured by the apostolical constitutions ; so he
reckoned them a part, and the chief part of the canon of the scriptures. For these tenets
he was censured at Cambridge, and expelled the university : upon that, he wrote a vindica
tion of himself and his doctrine, and dedicated it to the convocation, promising a larger work
on these subjects. The uncontested way of proceeding in such a case was, that the bishop
of the diocese, in which he lived, should cite him into his court, in order to his conviction or
censure, from whose sentence an appeal lay to the archbishop, and from him to the crown ;
or the archbishop might proceed in the first instance in a court of audience : but we saw no
clear precedents, of any proceedings in convocation, where the jurisdiction was contested ; a
reference made by the high commission to the convocation, where the party submitted to do
penance, being the only precedent that appeared in history ; and even of this we had no
record ; so that it not being thought a clear warrant for our proceeding, we were at a stand.
The act that settled the course of appeals in king Henry the Eighth's time, made no mention
of sentences in convocation ; and yet, by the act in the first of queen Elizabeth, that defined
what should be judged heresy, that judgment was declared to be in the crown; by all this

806 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
(which the archbishop laid before the bishops in a letter, that lie wrote to them on thij occa
sion) it seemed doubtful whether the convocation could, in the first instance, proceed against
a man for heresy ; and their proceedings, if they were not warranted by law, might involve
them in a pramunire. So the upper house, in an address, prayed the queen to ask the
opinions of the judges, and such others as she thought fit, concerning these doubts, that they
might know how the law stood in this matter.
' Eight of the judges, with the attorney and solicitor-general, gave their opinion, that wo
had a jurisdiction, and might proceed in such a case ; but brought no express law nor prece
dent to support their opinion : they only observed, that the law-books spoke of the convo
cation as having jurisdiction, and they did not see that it was ever taken from them : they
were also of opinion, that an appeal lay from the sentence of convocation to the crown ; but
they reserved to themselves a power to change their mind, in case, upon an argument that
might be made for a prohibition, they should see cause for it. Four of the judges were
positively of a contrary opinion, and maintained it from the statutes made at the reforma
tion. The queen, having received these different opinions, sent them to the archbishop, to
be laid before the two houses of convocation ; and, without taking any notice of the diversity
between them, she wrote that, there being now no doubt to be made of our jurisdiction, she
did expect that we should proceed in the matter before us. In this it was visible, that
those who advised the queen to write that letter, considered more their own humours than
her honour. Yet two great doubts still remained, even supposing we had a jurisdiction ;
the first was, of whom the court was to be composed ; whether only of the bishops, or what
share the lower house had in this judiciary authority : the other was, by what delegates, in
case of an appeal, our sentence was to be examined : were no bishops to be in the court of
delegates ? or was the sentence of the archbishop and his twenty-one suffragan bishops, with
the clergy of the province, to be judged by the archbishop of York and his three suffragan
bishops ? These difficulties appearing to be so great, the bishops resolved to begin with that,
in which they had, by the queen's licence, an undisputable authority ; which was to examine
and censure the book, and to see if his doctrine was not contrary to the Scriptures, and the
first four general councils, which is the measure set by law to judge heresy. They drew
out some propositions from his book, which seemed plainly to be the reviving of Arianism ;
and censured them as such. These they sent down to the lower house, who, though they
excepted to one proposition, yet censured the rest in the same manner. This the archbishop
(being then disabled by the gout) sent by one of the bishops to the queen for her assent,
who promised to consider of it : but to end the matter at once, at their next meeting in
winter, no answer being come from the queen, two bishops were sent to ask it ; but she
could not tell what was become of the paper which the archbishop had sent her ; so a new
extract of the censure was again sent to her : but she has not yet thought fit to send any
answer to it. So Winston's affair sleeps, though he has published a large work in four
volumes in octavo, justifying his doctrine, and maintaining the canonicalness of the aposto
lical constitutions, preferring their authority not only to the epistles, but even to the gospels.
In this last I do not find he has made any proselytes, though he has set himself much to
support that paradox *,
The lower house would not enter into the consideration of the representation sent down to
them by the bishops : so none was agreed on to be presented to the queen ; but both were
printed, and severe reflections were made, in several tracts, on that which was drawn by the
lower house, or rather by Atterbury. The bishops went through all the matters recom
mended to them by the queen, and drew up a scheme of regulations on them all; but
* The eccentric William Whiston was horn in 1667, society for restoring primitive Christianity, and finally
at his father's rectory, Norton, in Leicestershire. His united with the Baptists. His delusions were many ; he
education was conducted at Tamworth Bchool, and Clare rejected some of the canonical books of the bible, but
Hall, Cambridge, of which he obtained a fellowship, admitted some of the apocryphal ones ; terrified many by
Dr. Moore, bishop of Norwich, to whom he was chap- his predictions of the coming millennium, and destruction
lain, gave him the living of Lowestoft1, which he resigned of the world, and died unconviuced of his errors in 1752.
;on succeeding to the professorship of mathematics, vacant As a mathematician he deserves much praise : and is to
by sir Isaac Newton's death. He began to promulgate be remembered with respect as one of the earliest of
his religious peculiarities in 1708, and after his depriva- rational geologists. The "Memoirs" of his own life aro
tion and expulsion from the university, he formed a worth perusing. — Biog." Britannica.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 800
neither were these agreed to by the lower house ; for their spirits were so exasperated, that
nothing sent by the bishops could be agreeable to them. At last the session of parliament
and convocation came to an end.
The last thing settled by the parliament was, the creating a new fund for a trade in the
South Sea ; there was a great debt upon the navy, occasioned partly by the deficiency of
the funds nppoiuted for the service at sea, but chiefly by the necessity of applying such
supplies as were given, without appropriating clauses, to the service abroad ; where it was
.impossible to carry it ou by credit, without ready money, so it was judged necessary to let
the debt of the navy run on upon credit ; this had risen up to several millions ; and the dis
count on the navy-bills ran high. All this debt was thrown into one stock ; and a fund was
formed for paying the interest at six per cent.
The flatterers of the new ministers made great use of this, to magnify them, and to
asperse the old ministry ; but a full report of that matter was soon after published, by which
it appeared, that the public money had been managed with the utmost fidelity and frugality ;
and it was made evident that when there was not money enough to answer all the expense of
the war, it was necessary to apply it to that which pressed most, and where the service could
not be carried on by credit : so this debt was contracted by an inevitable necessity ; and all
reasonable persons were fully satisfied with this account of the matter. The earl of Godol
phin's unblemished integrity was such, that no imputation of any sort could be fastened on
him ; so, to keep up a clamour, they reflected on the expense he had run the nation into,
upon the early successes in the year 1706 ; which were very justly acknowledged, and cleared
in the succeeding session, as was formerly told : but that was now revived ; and it was said
to be an invasion of the great right of the commons in giving supplies, to enter on designs
and to engage the nation in an expense, not provided for by parliament. This was aggra
vated with many tragical expressions, as a subversion of the constitution ; so with this, and
that of the thirty-five millions, of which the accounts were not yet passed, and some other
particulars, they made an inflaming address to the queen, at the end of the sessions. And
this was artificially spread through the nation, by which weaker minds were so possessed,
that it was not easy to undeceive them, even by the fullest and clearest evidences ; the
nation seemed still infatuated beyond the power of conviction. With this the session ended,
and all considering persons had a very melancholy prospect, when they saw what might be
apprehended from the two sessions, that were yet to come of the same parliament.
I now turn to affairs abroad. The business of Spain had been so much pressed from the
throne, and so much insisted on all this session, and the commons had given 1,500,000/. for
that service (a sum far beyond all that had been granted in any preceding session) so that it
was expected matters would have been carried there in another manner than formerly. The
.duke of Argyle was sent to command the queen's troops there, and he seemed full of heat ;
but all our hopes failed. The duke of Vendome's army was in so ill a condition, that if
Starembergh had been supported, he promised himself great advantages ; it does not yet
appear what made this to fail ; for the parliament has not yet taken this into examination.
It is certain the duke of Argyle did nothing ; neither he nor his troops were once named,
during the whole campaign ; ho wrote over very heavy complaints, that he was not sup
ported, by the failino- of the remittances that he expected : but what ground there was for
that does not yet appear ; for, though he afterwards came over, he was very silent, and
seemed in a o-ood understanding with the ministers. Starembergh drew out his forces ; and
the two armies lay for some time looking on one another, without coming to any action :
Vendome ordered a sieo-e to be laid to two small places, but without success. That of Car-
dona was persisted in obstinately, till near the end of December, and then Starembergh sent
some bodies to raise the siege, who succeeded so well in their attempt, that they killed two
thousand of the besieo-ers, and forced their camp ; so that they not only raised the siege, but
made themselves masters of the enemy's artillery, ammunition, and baggage ; and the duke
of Vendome's army was so diminished, that if Starembergh had received the assistance
which he expected from England, he would have pierced far into Spain ; but we did nothing,
after all the zeal we had expressed for retrieving matters on that side.
The emperor's death, as it presently opened to king Charles the succession to the here-

870 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
ditary dominions, so a disposition appeared unanimously, among all the electors, to choose
him emperor ; yet he stayed in Barcelona till September ; and then leaving his queen behind,
to support his affairs in Spain, he sailed over to Italy : he stayed some weeks at Milan,
where the duke of Savoy came to him ; and we were told, that all matters in debate were
adjusted between them. We hoped this campaign would have produced somewhat in those
parts, of advantage to the common cause, upon the agreement made before the emperor
Joseph's death. And Mr. St. John, when he moved in the house of commons for the sub
sidies to the duke of Savoy, said, all our hopes of success this year lay in that quarter : for
in Flanders we could do nothing. The duke came into Savoy, and it was given out that he
was resolved to press forward ; but upon what views it was not then known, he stopped his
course, and after a short campaign, repassed the mountains.
The election of the emperor came on at Frankfort, where some electors came in person,
others sent their deputies ; some weeks were spent in preparing the capitulations ; great
applications were made to them, to receive deputies from the electors of Bavaria and
Cologne ; but they were rejected, for they were under the ban of the empire ; nor were they
pleased with the interposition of the pope's nuncio, who gave them much trouble in that
matter ; but they persisted in refusing to admit them. Frankfort lay so near the frontier of
the empire, that it was apprehended the French might have made an attempt that way ; for
they drew some detachments from their anny in Flanders, to increase their forces on the
Rhine. This obliged prince Eugene, after he, in conjunction with the duke of Marlborough,
had opened the campaign in Flanders, to draw off a detachment from thence, and march with
it towards the Rhine ; and there he commanded the imperial army, and came in good time to
secure the electors at Frankfort ; who being now safe from the fear of any insult, went on
slowly in all that they thought fit to propose, previous to an election ; and concluded unani
mously to choose Charles, who was now declared emperor by the name of Charles the Sixth.
He went from Milan to Innspruck, and from thence to Frankfort, where he was crowned with
the usual solemnity. Thus that matter was happily ended, and no action happened on the
Rhine all this campaign.
The duke of Marlborough's army was not only weakened by the detachment that prince
Eugene carried to the Rhine, but by the calling over five thousand men of the best bodies
of his army, for an expedition designed by sea ; so that the French were superior to him in
number : they lay behind lines that were looked on as so strong, that the forcing them was
thought an impracticable thing ; and it was said, that Villars had written to the French
king, that he had put a ne plus ultra to the duke of Marlborough ; but, contrary to all
expectation, he did so amuse Villars with feint motions, that at last, to the surprise of all
Europe, he passed the lines near Bouchain, without the loss of a man.
This raised his character beyond all that he had done formerly ; the design was so well
laid, and was so happily executed, that in all men's opinions, it passed for a master-piece of
military skill ; the honour of it falling entirely on the duke of Marlborough, no other person
having any share, except in the execution. When our army was now so happily got within
the French lines, the Dutch deputies proposed the attacking the French, and venturing a
battle, since this surprise had put them in no small disorder. The duke of Marlborough
differed from them, he thought there might be too much danger in that attempt ; the army
was much fatigued with so long a march, in which their cavalry had been eight-and-fbrty
hours on horseback, alighting only twice, about an hour at a time, to feed their horses ; for
they marched eleven leagues in one day : the French were fresh ; and our army was in no
condition to enter upon action, till some time was allowed for refreshment ; and the duke of
Marlborough thought that, in case of a misfortune, their being within the French lines
mis-ht be fatal.
o
He proposed the besieging Bouchain ; which he thought might oblige the French to
endeavour to raise the siege ; and that might give occasion to their fighting on more equal
terms ; or it would bring both a disreputation and a disheartening on their army, if a place
of such importance should be taken in their sight : both the Dutch deputies and the general
officers thought the design was too bold, yet they submitted to him in the matter : it seemed
impracticable to take a place, situated in amorass, well fortified, with a good garrison in it,

OF QUEEN ANNE. r^.
in the sight of a superior army, for the French lay within a mile of them ; there was also
great danger from the excursions that the garrisons of Valenciennes and Conde might make
to cut off their provisions, which were to come to them from Tournay. All about the duke
studied to divert him from so dangerous an undertaking ; since a misfortune in his conduct
would have furnished his enemies with the advantages that they waited for. He was
sensible of all this, yet he had laid the scheme so well, that he resolved to venture- on it : the
French tried to throw more men into the place, by a narrow causeway through the morass
but he took his measures so well, that he was guarded against every thing : he saw what the
event of the siege might be ; so he bestirred himself with unusual application, and was more
fatigued in the course of this siege, than he had been at any time during the whole war.
He carried on the trenches, and by his batteries and bombs the place was soon laid in ruins.
Villars seemed to be very busy, but to no purpose ; yet, seeing he could not raise the siege,
he tried to surprise Douay ; but they discovered the design, and forced the body that was
sent thither to retreat in all haste. After twenty days, from the opening the trenches, the
garrison of Bouchain capitulated, and could have no better terms than to be made prisoners
of war. As this was reckoned the most extraordinary thing in the whole history of the war,
so the honour of it was acknowledged to belong wholly to the duke of Marlborough ; as the
blame of a miscarriage in it must have fallen singly on him. Villars's conduct on this occa
sion was much censured ; but it was approved by the king of France ; and with this the
campaign ended in those parts.
No action happened at sea, for the French had no fleet out : an expedition was designed
by sea for taking Quebec and Placentia ; and for that end, five thousand men were brought
from Flanders : Hill, who was brother to the favourite, had the command. There was a
strong squadron of men of war ordered, to secure the transport fleet ; they were furnished
from hence with provisions, only for three months; but they designed to take in a second
supply at New England. A commissioner of the victualling then told me, he could not
guess what made them be sent out so ill furnished ; for they had stores, lying on their hands,
for a full supply. They sailed, soon after the end of the session, and had a quick passage to
New England, but were forced to stay many weeeks on that coast, before they could be
supplied with provisions : they sailed, near the end of August, into the river of Canada,
which was thirty miles broad ; but they were ill served with pilots ; and at that season
storms were ordinary in those parts : one of these broke upon them, by which several ships
were overset, and about two thousand five hundred men were lost. Thus the design of
Quebec miscarried ; and their provisions were too scanty to venture an attempt on Placentia ;
so they returned home unprosperous.
This was a great mortification to the new ministry ; it being their first undertaking, ill
projected, and worse executed, in every step of it : it was the more liable to censure, because
at the very time that the old ministry were charged with entering on designs, that had not
been laid before the parliament, and for which no supplies had been given, they projected
this, even while a session was yet going on, without communicating it to the parliament ;
whereas, what the former ministry had done this way, was upon emergents, and successes,
after the end of the session ; but this matter has not yet been brought under a parliamentary
examination, so the discoveries, that may be made if that happens, must be referred to their
proper place. This was the state of our affairs during this campaign ; the merchants com
plained of great losses made at sea by the ill management of convoys and cruisers.
The war between the Turk and the czar came to a quick end ; the czar advanced with his
army so far into Moldavia, that he was cut off from his provisions : an engagement followed,
in which both sides pretended they had the advantage. It is certain the czar found he was
reduced to great extremities ; for he proposed, in order to a peace, to surrender Azov, with
some other places, and demanded that the king of Sweden might be sent home to his own
country. The grand vizier was glad to arrive at so speedy a conclusion of the war ; and not
withstanding the great opposition made by the king of Sweden, he concluded a peace with
the Muscovite, not without suspicion of his being corrupted by money to it. The king of
Sweden being highly offended at this, charged the grand vizier for neglecting the great advan
tages he had over the czar, since he and his whole army were at mercy ; and he prevailed so

872 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
far at the Porte, that upon it the grand vizier was deposed, and there was an appearance of a
war ready to break out the next year ; for the czar delayed the rendering Azov and the
other places agreed to be delivered up ; pretending that the king of Sweden was not sent
home, according to agreement ; yet to prevent a new war, all the places were at length
delivered up : what effect this may have, must be left to farther time.
Towards the end of the year the Danes and Saxons broke in by concert upon Pomerania,
resolving to besiege Stralsund ; but every thing necessary for a siege came so slowly from
Denmark, that no progress was made, though the troops lay near the place, for some months;
and in that time the Swedes landed a considerable body of men in the isle of Rugen : at last
the besiegers, being in want of every thing, were forced to raise the siege, and to retire from
that neighbourhood, in the beginning of January. They sat down next before Wismar, but
that attempt likewise miscarried, which rendered the conduct of the king of Denmark very
contemptible ; who thus obstinately carried on a war (at a time that a plague swept away
a third part of the people of Copenhagen) with as little conduct as success. Having thus
given a short view of affairs abroad ;
I come next to give the best account I can, of a secret and important transaction at home :
the ministers now found how hard it was to restore credit, and by consequence to carry on
the war ; Mr. Harley's wound gave the queen the occasion, which she seemed to be waiting
for ; upon his recovery she had created him an earl, by a double title, of Oxford and Morti7
mer. Preambles to patents of honour usually carry in them a short account of the dignity
of the family, and of the services of the person advanced; but his preamble was very
pompous, and set him out in the most extravagant characters that flatterers could invent ; ia
particular it said, that he had redeemed the nation from robbery, had restored credit, and had
rendered the public great service in a course of many years : all this was set out in too ful
some rhetoric, and being prepared by his own direction, pleased him so much, that whereas
all other patents had been only read in the house of lords, this was printed. He was at the
same time made lord treasurer, and became the chief, if not sole minister, for every thing was
directed by him. It soon appeared that liis strength lay in managing parties, and in engaging
weak people by rewards and promises, to depend upon him ; but that he neither thoroughly
understood the business of the treasury, nor the conduct of foreign affairs ; but he trusted to
his interest in the queen and in the favourite.
He saw the load that the carrying on the war must bring upon him ; so he resolved to
strike up a peace as soon as was possible. The earl of Jersey had some correspondence ia
Paris and at St. Germains, so he trusted the conduct of the negotiation to him. The duke
of Newcastle, who was lord privy seal, died of an apoplexy in July, being the richest subject
that had been in England for some ages ; he had an estate of above 40,0007. a-year, and was
much set on increasing it. Upon his death, it was resolved to give the earl of Jersey the
privy seal ; but he died suddenly the very day in which it was to be given him ; upon that
it was conferred on Robinson, bishop of Bristol, who was designed to be the plenipotentiary
in the treaty that was projected. One Prior, who had been Jersey's secretary, upon his
death was employed to prosecute that which the other did not live to finish. Prior had
been taken a boy out of a tavern, by the earl of Dorset, who accidentally found him readino-
Horace ; and he, being very generous, gave him an education in literature : he was sent to
the court of France in September, to try on what terms we might expect a peace ; his journey
was carried on secretly ; but upon his return, he was stopped at Dover ; and a packet, that
he brought, was kept, till an order came from court to set him free ; and by this accident
the secret broke out. Soon after that, one Mesnager was sent over from France, with preli-r
minaries ; but very different from those that had been concerted at the Hague, two years
before *.
* The man thus slightingly mentioned by Burnet as and educated at Westminster school by the kindness of
¦" one Prior," was the frequently employed ambassador, his uncle, a vintner, near Charinff-cross ; in whose house
and distinguished poet, Matthew Prior. His parents pro- he was found by the earl of Dorset, as mentioned in
bably were mean : had they been otherwise, he who had the text He entered a student at St. John's college
vanity enough to leave 500/. for a monument, would, we Cambridge, where he very soon became distinguished as a
may conclude, have informed us of his aristocratic lineage, poet. In conjunction with Mr. Montague he "ridiculed
He was born in 1664, at Wimborne, in Doisetshire ; Dryden' s " Hind and Panther," in their fable of " The

Eu.jVi-.wvfl V W T H.-ti-

ROBERT HART. FY. EARL OF OXFORD.

OB.lT-'l.
F1U1M THE ORICtlNAL OF SIR GODFLIEV KMtLUiB, IS
THE BRITISH MirSEPM.

OF QUEEN ANNE 873
By these, the king of France offered to acknowledge the queen, and the succession, to the
crown, according to the present settlement ; and that he would bona fide enter into such
measures, that the crowns of France and Spain should never belong to the same person ; that
he would settle a safe and proper barrier to all the allies ; that he would raze Dunkirk, pro
vided an equivalent should be given, for destroying the fortifications he had made there, at
so great an expense ; and that he would procure both to England and to the States the
re-establishing of their commerce. The court was then at Windsor : these propositions were
so well entertained at our court, that a copy of them was ordered to be given to count Gallas,
the emperor's minister ; he treated these offers with much scorn, and printed the prelimi
naries in one of our newspapers ; soon after that he was ordered to come no more to court*
.but to make haste out of England.
The proceeding was severe and unusual ; for the common method, when a provocation was
given by a public minister, was to complain of him to his master, and to desire him to be
recalled. It was not then known upon what this was grounded ; that which was surmised
was, that his secretary Gaultier (who was a priest) betrayed him ; and discovered his secret
correspondence, and the advertisements he sent the emperor, to give him ill impressions of
our court ; for which treachery he was rewarded with an abbey in France : but of this I
have no certain information.
When our court was resolved on this project, they knew the lord Townshend so well, that
they could not depend on his serving their ends ; so he was both recalled and disgraced : and
the lord Raby was brought from the court of Prussia, and advanced to be earl of Strafford,
and sent ambassador to Holland. It was not then known how far our court carried the
negotiations with France ; it was not certain whether they only accepted of these prelimi
naries, as a foundation for a treaty, to be opened upon them ; or if any private promise or
treaty was signed : this last was very positively given out, both in France and Spain. The
very treating, without the concurrence of our allies, was certainly an open violation of our
alliances, which had expressly provided against any such negotiation.
Many mercenary pens were set to work, to justify our proceedings, and to defame our
allies, more particularly the Dutch ; this was done with much art, but with no regard to
truth, in a pamphlet, entitled " The Conduct of the Allies, and of the late Ministry ; " to
which very full answers were written, detecting the thread of falsehood that ran through
that work *- It was now said, England was so exhausted, that it was impossible to carry
on the war : and when king Charles was chosen emperor, it was also said, he would be too
great and too dangerous to all his neighbours, if Spain were joined to the emperor and to the
City Mouse and Country Mouse." This brought its brought with him the Abbe Gaultier, and M. Mesnagcr,
authors into repute. In 1691, he was sent secretary to a minister from France, invested with full powers. The
our embassy at the Hague congress. His conduct so negociation commenced at Prior's house, where the queen's
pleased king William, that he made him a gentleman of ministers met Mesnager. The assembly of this important
the royal bedchamber. In 1697, he was secretary to night was in some degree clandestine, the design of treat-
another embassy at the treaty of Ryswick ; and held the ing not being yet openly declared, and, when the whigs
same office the following year at the court of France, where returned to power, was aggravated to a charge of high
-he is said to have been considered with great distinction, treason, though, as Prior remarks in his imperfect answer
,The next year he was at Loo with the king, from whom, to the report of the committee of secrecy, do treaty ever
after a long audience, he carried orders to England, and was made without private interviews and preliminary dis-
lipon his arrival became under-secretary of state in the ciissions. This negociation ended in the peace of Utrecht,
earl of Jersey's office; a. post which he did not retain wliich was completed in 1712. The duke of Shrewsbury is
long, because Jersey was removed ; but he was soon made said to have refused joining Prior in the embassy to France,
commissioner of trade. In 1721, he was elected a par- because of, the latter's mean birth; be this as it may,
liamentary representative of East Grinstead. Perhaps it upon the duke's return to England, Prior remained with
was about this time he changed his party; for he voted tlie style and dignity of our ambassador. In 1714. tho
for the impeachment of those lords who had persuaded tories went out of power, and Prior's splendour departed
the king to the partition treaty, a treaty in which he had with them. He was recalled, imprisoned for more than
'himself been ministerially employed. To trumpet forth two years, and threatened with an impeachment. When
the errors of the whigs, the friends of Harley esiab.isned .iberated, his fortune was at a very low ebb ; but by the
a periodical, called " T.he Examiner," to which Swift, sale of an edition of his works, he was raised to indepen-
Prior, and other wits of the party contributed. It is dence. He died at Wimpole, a seat of tho earl of Oxford,
worth perusing for the light it throws upon contemporary in 1721.— Johnson's Lives of the Poets.
-politics. The next public transaction in which Prior * This pamphlet was written by Dean Swift and
engaged, was that mentioned in the text. He was remem-- Mr. St. John.
bered at the French court, and returning in about a month,

874 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
hereditary dominions : it was also zealously, though most falsely, infused into the minds of
the people, that our allies, most particularly the Dutch, had imposed on us, and failed us on
many occasions. The jacobites did with the greater joy entertain this prospect of peace,
because the dauphin had, in a visit to St. Germains, congratulated that court upon it, which
made them conclude, that it was to have a happy effect with relation to the pretender's
affairs. Our court denied this : and sent the earl of Rivers to Hanover, to assure the elector, that
the queen would take especial care to have the succession to the crown secured to hi- family,
by the treaty that was to be opened : this made little impression on that elector ; for he saw
clearly, that if Spain and the West Indies were left to king Philip, the French would soon
become the superior power to all the rest of Europe ; that France would keep Spain in sub
jection, and by the wealth they would fetch from the Indies, they would give law to all about
them, and set what king they pleased on the throne of England. Earl Rivers stayed a few
days there, and brought an answer from the elector in writing ; yet the elector apprehended,
not without reason, that it might be stifled ; therefore he ordered his minister to give a full
memorial, to the same purpose, of which our court took no notice : but the memorial was
translated and printed here, to the great satisfaction of all those who were afraid of the ill
designs that might be hid, under the pretence of the treaty then proposed.
The earl of Strafford pressed the States to comply with the queen's desire, of opening a
treaty : they answered very slowly, being desirous to see how the parliament was inclined ;
but the parliament was prorogued from the 13th to the 29th of November, and from that to
the 7th of December. It was also reported in Holland, that the earl of Strafford (seeing
the States slow in granting the passports, and upon that apprehending these delays flowed
from their expecting to see how the parliament of England approved of these steps), told
them plainly, that till they agreed to a treaty, and granted the pas-ports, the session should
not be opened; so they granted them, and left the time and place of treaty to the queen's
determination. She named Utrecht as the place of congress, and the first of January O. S.
for opening it ; and wrote a circular letter to all the allies, inviting them to send plenipo
tentiaries to that place. The emperor set himself vehemently to oppose the progress of this
matter ; he sent prince Eugene to dissuade the States from agreeing to it, and offered a new
scheme of the war, that should be easier to the allies, and lie heavy on himself: but the
passports were now sent to the court of France ; that court demanded passports likewise, for
the plenipotentiaries of king Philip, and of the electors of Bavaria and Cologne : this was
offered by our court to the States, they refused it. but whether our ministers then agreed to
it or not, I cannot tell.
Before the opening the session, pains were taken on many persons, to persuade them to
agree to the measures the court were in : the duke of Marlborough, upon his coining over,
spoke very plainly to the queen against the steps that were already made ; but he found her
so possessed, that what he said made no impression, so he desired to be excused from coming
to council, since he must oppose every step that was made in that affair. Among others, the
queen spoke to myself; she said, she hoped bishops would not be against peace : I said, a
good peace was what we daily prayed for, but the preliminaries offered by France gave no
hopes of such an one : and the trusting to the king of France's faith, after all that had
passed, would seem a strange thing. She said, we were not to regard the preliminaries ; we
should have a peace upon such a bottom, that we should not at all rely on the king of
France's word ; but we ought to suspend our opinions, till she acquainted us with the whole
matter. I asked leave to speak my mind plainly ; which she granted : I said, any treaty
by which Spain and the West Indies were left to king Philip, must in a little while deliver
up all Europe into the hands of France; and, if any such pieace should be made, she was
betrayed, and we were all ruined ; in less than three years' time she would be murdered, and
the fires would be again raised in Smithfield : I pursued this long, till I saw she crrew
uneasy ; so I withdrew.
On the seventh of December, she opened the parliament : in her speech, she said, notwith
standing the arts of those who delighted in war, the time and place were appointed for treat
ing a general peace ; her allies, especially the States, had by their ready concurrence expressed

OF QUEEN ANNE. 87,5
an entire confidence in her ; and she promised to do her utmost to procure reasonable satis
faction to them all ; she demanded of the house of commons the necessary supplies for carry
ing on the war ; and hoped that none would envy her the glory of ending it by a just and
honourable peace ; she in particular recommended unanimity, that our enemies might not
think us a divided people, which might prevent that good peace, of which she had such
reasonable hopes, and so near a view.
The speech gave occasion to many reflections ; " the arts of those who delighted in war "
seemed to be levelled at the duke of Marlborough, and the preliminaries concerted at the
Hague ; her saying that the allies reposed an entire confidence in her, amazed all those who
knew, that neither the emperor, nor the empire, had agreed to the congress, but were opposing
it with great vehemence ; and that even the States were far from being cordial, or easy, in
the steps that they had made.
After the speech, a motion was made in the house of lords, to make an address of thanks
to the queen for her speech ; upon this, the earl of Nottingham did very copiously set forth
the necessity of having Spain and the West Indies out of the hands of a prince of the house
of Bourbon ; he moved that, with their address of thanks, they should offer that as their
advice to the queen ; he set forth the misery that all Europe, but England most particularly,
must be under, if the West Indies came into a French management ; and that king Philip's
possessing them was, upon the matter, the putting them into the hands of France. This
was much opposed by the ministers ; they moved the referring that matter to another occa
sion, in which it might be fully debated ; but said, it Was not fit to clog the address with it.
Some officious courtiers said, that since peace and war belonged, as prerogatives to the crown,
it was not proper to offer any advice in those matters, until it -was asked : but this was
rejected with indignation, since it was a constant practice, in all sessions of parliament, to
offer advices ; no prerogative could be above advice ; this was the end specified in the writ
by which a parliament was summoned ; nor was the motion for a delay received. The eyes
of all Europe were upon the present session ; and this was a post-night : so it was fit they
should come to a present resolution, in a matter of such importance. The question was put,
whether this advice should be part of the address ; and the previous question being first put,
it was carried by one voice to put it ; and the main question was carried by three voices :
so this point was gained, though by a small majority. The same motion was made in the
house of commons, but was rejected by a great majority; yet in other respects their address
was well couched ; for they said, they hoped for a just, honourable, and lasting peace, to
her majesty and to all her allies.
When the address of the lords was reported to the house, by the committee appointed tp
prepare it, the court tried to get the whole matter to be contested over again, pretending
that the debate was not now, upon the matter, debated the day before, but only whether
they should agree to the draught, prepared by the committee : but that part of it which con
tained the advice, was conceived in the very words, in which tho vote had passed ; and it was
a standing rule, that what was once voted, could never again be brought into question during
that session. This was so sacred a rule that many of those who voted with the court the
day before, expressed their indignation against it, as subverting the very constitution of par
liaments, if things might be thus voted and unvoted again, from day to day : yet even upon
this a division was called for, but the majority appearing so evidently against the motion,
it was yielded, without counting the house.
When the address was presented to the queen, her answer was, she was sorry that any
should think she would not do her utmost to hinder Spain and the West Indies from remain
ing in the hands of a prince of the house of Bourbon : and the lords returned her thanks
for this gracious answer ; for they understood, by the doing her utmost, was meant the con
tinuing the war. The court was much troubled to see the house of lords so backward ; and
both sides studied to fortify themselves, by bringing up their friends, or by getting their proxies.
The next motion was made by the earl of Nottingham, for leave to bring in a bill against
occasional conformity : he told these, with whom he now joined, that he was but one man
come over to them, unless he could carry a bill to that effect; but, if they would give way
to that, he hoped he should be able to bring many to concur with them in other things,

87G THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
They yielded this the more easily, because they knew that the court had offered, to the high
men in the house of commons, to carry any bill that they should desire in that matter : the
earl of Nottingham promised to draw it with all possible temper. It was thus prepared, that
all persons in places of profit and trust, and all the common-council-men in corporations, who
should be at any meeting for divine worship (where there were above ten persons, more than
the family) in which the common prayer was not used, or where the queen and the princess
Sophia were not prayed for, should upon conviction forfeit their place of trust or profit, the
witnesses making oath within ten days, and the prosecution being within three months after
the offence ; and such persons were to continue incapable of any employment, until they
should depose, that for a whole year together they had been at no conventicle. The bill did
also enact, that the toleration should remain inviolable, in all time to come ; and that if any
person should be brought into trouble for not having observed the rules that were prescribed
by the act that first granted the toleration, all such prosecution should cease, upon their
taking the oath prescribed by that act : and a teacher, licensed in any one county, was by
the bill qualified to serve in any licensed meeting in any part of England ; and by another
clause, all who were concerned in the practice of the law in Scotland, were required to take
the abjuration in the month of June next.
No opposition was made to this in the house of lords ; so it passed in three days ; and it
had the same fate in the house of commons ; only they added a penalty on the offender of
forty pounds, which was to be given to the informer : and so it was offered to the royal
assent, with the bill for four shillings in the pound. Great reflections were made on the fate
of this bill, which had been formerly so much contested, and was so often rejected by the
lords, and now went through both houses, in so silent a manner, without the least opposition :
some of the dissenters complained much that they were thus forsaken by their friends, to
whom they had trusted ; and the court had agents among them to inflame their resentments,
since they were sacrificed by those on whom they depended. All the excuse that the whigs
made, for their easiness in this matter, was, that they gave way to it, to try how far the
yielding it might go toward quieting the fears of those who seemed to think the church was
still iu danger, until that act passed ; and thereby to engage these, to concur with them, in
those important matters that might come before them. It must be left to time to show, what
good effect this act may have on the church, or what bad ones it may have on dissenters.
The next point that occasioned a great debate in the house of lords, which was espoused
by the court with great zeal, was a patent, creating duke Hamilton a duke in England :
lawyers were heard for the patent, the queen's prerogative in conferring honours was clear ;
all the subjects of the united kingdom had likewise a capacity of receiving honour ; the
commons of Scotland had it unquestionably ; and it seemed a strange assertion, that the
peers of that nation should be the only persons incapable of receiving honour : by the act of
union, the peers of Scotland were, by virtue of that treaty, to have a representation of six
teen, for their whole body ; these words, by virtue of that treaty, seemed to intimate, that
by creation or succession, they might be made capable. And, in the debate that followed in
the house, the Scotch lords, who had been of the treaty, affirmed that these words were put
in on that design : and upon this, they appealed to the English lords : this was denied by
none of them. It was also urged, that the house of lords had already judged the matter,
when they not only received the duke of Queensbury, upon his being created duke of Dover,
but had so far affirmed his being a peer of Great Britain, that upon that account, they had
denied him the right of voting in the election of the sixteen peers of Scotland. But in oppo
sition to all this, it was said, that tlie prerogative could not operate when it was barred by
an act of parliament ; the act of union had made all the peers of Scotland, peers of Great
Britain, as to all intents, except the voting in the house of lords, or sitting in judgment on a
peer : and as to their voting, that was vested in their representatives, by whom they voted :
the queen might give them what titles she pleased ; but this incapacity of voting otherwise
than by these sixteen, being settled by law, the prerogative was by that limited as to them :
they had indeed admitted the duke of Queensbury to sit among them, as duke of Dover;
but that matter was never brought into debate ; so it was only passed over in silence ; and
he was mentioned in their books, upon the occasion of his voting in the choice of the six-

OF QUEEN ANNE. 877
teen peers of Scotland, in terms that were far from determining this ; for it was there said,
that he claiming to be duke of Dover, could not vote as a Scotch peer. The Scotch lords
insisted, in arguing for the patent, with great vehemence, not without intimations of the dis
mal effects that might follow, if it should go in the negative. The court put their whole
strength to support the patent ; this heightened the zeal of those who opposed it ; for they
apprehended that, considering the dignity and the antiquity of the Scotch peers, and the
poverty of the greater part of them, the court would always have recourse to this, as a sure
expedient to have a constant majority in the house of lords. There was no limitation indeed
on the prerogative, as to the creation of new peers, yet these were generally men of estates,
who could not be kept in a constant dependence, as some of the Scotch lords might be.
The queen heard all the debate, which lasted some hours ; in oonclusion, when it came to
the final vote, fifty-two voted for the patent, and fifty-seven against it. The queen and the
ministers seemed to be much concerned at this, and. the Scotch were enraged at it ; they
met together, and signed a representation to the queen, complaining of it as a breach of the
union, and a mark of disgrace put on the whole peers of Scotland, adding solemn promises
of maintaining her prerogative, either in an united or separated state. This made the minis
ters resolve on another method to let the peers, and indeed the whole world see, that they
would have that house kept in a constant dependence on the court, by creating such a number
of peers at once, as should give them an unquestionable majority. On the twenty-second
of December, the bill for four shillings in the pound was ready for the royal assent; yet the
house of commons adjourned to the fourteenth of January, which was a long recess in so
critical a time.
A motion was made in the house of lords, by the duke of Devonshire, for leave to bring
in a bill, to give the prince electoral of Hanover, as duke of Cambridge, the precedence of
all peers ; this was granted, and so was likely to meet with no opposition. The earl of
Nottingham moved next, that before their recess, they should make an address to the queen,
desiring her to order her plenipotentiaries to concert with the ministers of the allies, the
grounds upon which they were to proceed in their treaties, and to agree on a mutual guaranty
to secure them to us, as well as to all Europe, and in particular to secure the protestant
succession to England. All the opposition that the court made to this was, to show it was
needless, for it was already ordered : and the lord treasurer said, the lords might, in order to
their satisfaction, send to examine their instructions. To this it was answered, that the
offering such an address would fortify the plenipotentiaries, in executing their instructions.
The court moved, that these words might be put in the address, " if the queen had not ordered
it ;" so, this being agreed to, the thing passed ; and the lords adjourned to the second of January.
But a new scene was ready to be opened in the house of commons ; the commissioners for
examining the public accounts made some discoveries, upon which they intended to proceed,
at their next meeting. Walpole, who had been secretary of war, and who had appeared
with great firmness in the defence of the late ministry, was first aimed at ; a bill had been
remitted to him of 500/. by those who had contracted to forage the troops that lay in Scot
land ; this made way to a matter of more importance : a Jew, concerned in the contract for
furnishing bread to the army in Flanders, made a present yearly to the duke of Marlborough
of between 5000/. and 6000/. The general of the States had the like present, as a perquisite
to support his dignity, and to enable him to procure intelligence : the queen ordered 10,000/.
a-year more to the duke of Marlborough, for the same service : the late king had also agreed,
that two and a half per cent, should be deducted out of the pay of the foreign troops, which
amounted to 15,000/. This the queen had by a warrant appointed the duke of Marlborough
to receive, on the same account.
He heard his enemies had discovered the present, made him by the Jew, while he was
beyond sea ; so he wrote to them, and owned the whole matter to be true, and added, that
he had applied these sums to the procuring good intelligence, to which, next to the blessing
of God and the bravery of the troops, their constant successes were chiefly owing *. This
* The duke of Marlborough's letter is given at length 5000Z. a-year from an army contractor? If the contractor
in Chandler's Debates of the House of Commons, iv. 235. can afford this out of his profits, it should go to the c-x-
What would he thought of a modern general accepting chequer, not as an apparent bnbe to the commander.

878 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
did not satisfy the commissioners ; but, though no complaints were brought from the army,
of their not being constantly supplied with good bread, yet they saw here was matter to
raise a clamour, which they chiefly aimed at ; so this was reported to the house of commons
before their recess.
A few days after this, the queen wrote him a letter, complaining of the ill treatment she
received from him, and discharged him of all his employments : this was thought very extra
ordinary, after such long and eminent services ; such accidents, when they happen, show the
instability of all human things; this was indeed so little expected, that those who looked for
precedents, could find none since the disgrace of Belisarius in Justinian's time : the only
thing pretended to excuse it was, his being considered as the head of those who opposed the
peace, on which the court seemed to set their hearts.
But they, finding the majority of the house of lords could not be brought to favour their
designs, resolved to make an experiment, that none of our princes had ventured on in former
times : a resolution was taken up very suddenly of making twelve peers all at once ; three
of these were called up by writ, being eldest sons of peers ; and nine more were created by
patent. Sir Miles Wharton, to whom it was offered, refused it : he thought it looked like
the serving a turn ; and that, whereas peers were wont to be made for services they had
done, he would be made for services to be done by him : so he excused himself, and the
favourite's husband, Mr. Mashani, was put in his room. And whereas formerly Jeffries had
the vanity to be made a peer, while he was chief justice, which had not been practised for
some ages, yet the precedent set by him was followed, and Trevor, chief justice of the com
mon pleas, was now advanced to be a peer. This was looked upon as an undoubted part
of the prerogative : so there was no ground in law to oppose the receiving the new lords
into the house. Nor was it possible to raise in the ancient peers a sense of the indignity
that was now put upon their house, since the court did by this openly declare, that they
were to be kept in absolute submission and obedience *.
When the second of January came, they were all introduced into the house of lords without
any opposition, and when that was over, the lord keeper delivered a message from the queen,
commanding them to adjourn forthwith to the fourteenth ; for by that time her Majesty
would lay matters of great importance before the two houses. Upon this a great debate
arose ; it was said that the queen could not send a message to any one house to adjourn,
when the like message was not sent to both houses. The pleasure of the prince in convening,
dissolving, proroguing, or ordering the adjournment of parliaments, was always directed to
both houses ; but never to any one house, without the same intimation was made, at the
same time, to the other. The consequence of this, if allowed, might be the ordering one
house to adjourn, while the other was left to sit still ; and this might end in a total dis
jointing of the constitution. The vote was carried for adjourning by the weight of the
* Thomas Trevor, Lord Trevor, was a member of it is best to endure in silence that which cannot be ob-
Gray's Inn. He was successively solicitor and attorney- viated.
general to King William. In 1701 he obtained the chief- Lord Dartmouth says he never was so much surprised
justiceship of the common pleas. George the first made as when the queen drew the list of twelve lords from her
him lord privy seal, and one of the lords justices of Great pocket, and desired him to bring warrants* for them. His
Britain. George the second further advanced him to be lordship, in answer to her queries, said it was not illegal
president of the council. This useful minister to four to create them ; but he doubted the expediency of the
sovereigns died in 1730, aged seventy-two.— (Noble's measure. She replied, she had made fewer peers than any
Contin. of Grainger. ) The eleven other gentlemen raised of her predecessors, and as the duke of Marlborongh and
to seats in the house of peers were the eldest sons of the the whigs now resolved to distress her, she must do what
earl of Northampton, and the earl of Aylesbury : George she could to help herself. Lord Oxford told his lordship
Hay, created baron Hay ; the Irish viscount Windsor, that it was resolved to let the Scotch lords see they were
made lord Mountjoy, in England ; Henry Paget, lord not so much wanted as they imagined, for now they
Burton; Thomas Mansel, baron Mansel; sir Thomas expected a reward for every vote they gave. — (Oxford ed.
Willoughby, baron Middleton ; George Granville, baron of this work.) Lord Wharton ironically asked one of
Lansdowne ; Samuel Masham, baron Masham ; Thomas this jury of peers whether they intended to vote by their
Foley, baron Foley ; and Allen Bathurst, baron Bathurst. foreman. Such creations as this are almost unjustifiable
— (Chandler's Debates, H. of Lords, ii. 360.) There under any circumstances ; yet in the reign of George the
was some effort made to remonstrate against this exercise third, when parties were nearly balanced, four of the tory
of the prerogative ; but the newly created lords were party were raised to the peerage, as lords Granville, Guern-
permitted to take their seats unmolested, their com- scy, Gower, and Conway, at the same time that onlv one
panions of more ancient title wisely considering that whig was raised to the upper house, Lord Hervey.

OF QUEEN ANNE. f-79
twelve new peers. It is true, the odds in the books is thirteen ; but that was, because one
of the peers, who had a proxy, without reflecting on it, went away when the proxies were
called for.
At this time prince Eugene was sent by the emperor to England, to try if it was possible
to engage our court to go on with the war ; offering a new scheme, by which he took a much
larger share of it on himself than the late emperor would boar. That prince's character was
so justly high, that all people for some weeks pressed about the places, where he was to bo
seen, to look on him. I had the honour to be admitted at several times, to much discourse
with him ; his character is so universally known, that I will say nothing of him, but from
what appeared to myself. He has a most unaffected modesty, and does scarcely bear the
acknowledgments that all the world pay him. He descends to an easy equality with those
with whom he converses : and seems to assume nothing to himself, while he reasons with
others. He was treated with great respect by both parties ; but he put a distinguished
respect on the duke of Marlborough, with whom he passed most of his time. The queen
used him civilly, but not with the distinction that was due to his high merit : nor did he
gain much ground with the ministers *.
When the fourteenth of January came, the houses were ordered to adjourn to the eight
eenth, and then a message was sent to both houses ; the queen told them, the congress was
opened, and that she would set a day for ending it, as well as she had done for opening it.
She had ordered her plenipotentiaries, to agree with the ministers of her allies, according to
all her treaties with them, to obtain reasonable satisfaction to their demands ; in particular
concerning Spain and the West Indies, by which, the false reports of ill-designing men, who,
for evil ends, had reported that a separate peace was treated, would appear, for there was
never the least colour given for this. She also promised, that the articles of the treaty should
be laid before the houses, before any thing should be concluded. Upon this, the house of
lords agreed to an address, thanking her majesty, for communicating this to them, and
for the promises she had made them, repeating the words in which they were made : it
was moved to add the words, " conform to her alliance ; " but it was said, the queen assured
them of that, so the repeating these words seemed to intimate a distrust, and that was not
carried. But because there seemed to be an ambiguity in the mention made of Spain and
the West- Indies, the house expressed, in what sense they understood them, by adding these
words, " which were of the greatest importance to the safety and commerce of these nations."
The commons made an address to the same purpose, in which they only named Spain and
the West-Indies.
The lord-treasurer prevented the duke of Devonshire, who had prepared a bill for giving
precedence to the duke of Cambridge ; for he offered a bill, giving precedence to the whole
electoral family, as the children and nephews of the crown : and it was intimated, that bills
relating to honours and precedence ought to come from the crown. The duke of Devonshire
would make no, dispute on this head ; if the thing passed, he acquiesced in the manner of
passing it, only he thought it lay within the authority of the house. On this occasion, the
court seemed, even to an affectation, to show a particular zeal in promoting this bill ; for it
passed tlirough both houses in two days, it being read thrice in a day in them both. For all
this haste, the court did not seem to design any such bill till it was proposed by others, out
of whose hands they thought fit to take it. There were two other articles in the queen's
* Francis Eugene, Prince of Savoy, was born in 1663. Christi " was his constant companion iu his tent, as well
His father was count of Soissons, and general of the Swiss as in his chamber, and it ia certain that he composed an
guards of France ¦ his mother, a niece of cardinal Maza- appropriate prayer for his private use during his campaigns.
rin, was apparently not the most virtuous of her sex. His merit at length won .'or him the chief command of
His earliest inclinations were for the priesthood; but his the armies of Austria, and his career of victories has
inconsiderate satires upon the gallantries of Lewis the established his claim to the title of the greatest of her
fourteenth compelled him to escape from the French generals. It is not within the intention or limits of these
dominions. He joined the Austrian army, served with notes to detail his campaigns. Those who wish for copious
distinguished honour against the Turks in Hungary, and information may consult his " Memoirs "written by him-
from that time became a devotee of the sword instead of self, and published at Weimar, in 1809. Campbell's
the breviary. Yet through life he was a noble example Lives of Marlborough and Eugene may be referred to
that the character of the Christian and the soldie. are advantageously. He was found dead in his bed at Vienna
perfectly compatible. Thomas a Kempis " De Imitatione in 1736.

880 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
message; by th; one, she desired their advice and assistance to quiet the uneas^nc^s. that the
peers of Scotland were under, by the judgment lately given : by the other, she complained"
of the licence of the press, an I desired some restraint might be j ut upon it. The lords
entered upon tie consideration of that part of the queens message, that related to the peers
of Scotland, and took up almost a whole week. The ct-urt proposed, that an expedient
might be found, that the peers of Scotland should net sit among them by election, but by
descent, in ease the rest of the peers of that nation should consent to it A debate followed
concerning the articles of the union, which of them were fundamental and not alterable; it
was said, that by the union, no private right could be taken away but by the consent of the
persons concerned ; therefore no alteration could be made in the right of the peers of Scotland,
unless they consents i to it. It was afterwards debated, whether an alt ration might be
made with this condition, in cas-e they should consent to it ; or whether the first rise to any
such alteration ought not to be givr;n. by a previous desire. This was not so subject to an
HI management ; the court sri liei to have a subsequent consent received as sufficient ; but
a previous desire was insisted on, as visibly fairer and juster.
The house of commons, after the recess, entered on the observations of the ce mmissio to :-rs
for taking the public accounts, and began with Walpole. whom they resolved to put out of
the way of disturbing them in the house. The thing laid t ;• his charge stood thus : after he,
as secretary of -war, had contracted with some for forage to the horse that lay in see tland,
he. finding that the two persons who contracted for it made some gain by it. named a friend
of his own as a tliiri person, that he might have a share in the gain ; but the other two had
no- mind to let him in, to know the secret of their management : so they offered him oOO/.
for his share : he accepted of it. ani the money was remitted. But they, not knowing his
address, directed their bill to Walpole, who endorsed it, an-I the person concerned received
the money. This was found cut. and Walpole was charged with it, as a bribe that he had
taken for his own use for making the contract. Both the persons that renoltted the money
and he who receive! it were examined, and affirmed that Walpole was neither directly nor
indirectly concerned in the matter ; but the house misted upon bos having endorsed the
bill, and not only voted this a corruption, but sent him to the Tower, and expelled him the
heuse. The next attack was on the duke of Marlborough. The money received from the Jew-
was said to be a fraul ; ani that, deducted out of the pay of tho- foreign troops, was said to
be public money, and to be accounted for. The debate held long : it appeared that, dunng
the former war. king William had 50.0001. a-year for contingencies : it was often reckoned
to have cost much more. The contingency was that service which could be brought to no
certain head, and was chiefly for procuring intelligence. The duke of Marlb : rough had only
10,000/. for the contingencies ; and that and all the other items joined together amounted
but to 30,000/., a sum mueh inferior to what had been formerly given ; and yet. with this
moderate expense, he had procured so good intelligence, that he was never surprised, and no
party he sent out was ever intercepted or cut off. By means of this intelligence, all bis
designs were so -well concerted, that he succeeded in every one of them ; and by many
instances the exactness of his intelligences was fully demonstrated. It was proved, both by
witnesses and by formal attestations from Holland, that ever since the year 1672 the Jews
had made the like present to the general of the States' army ; and it was understood as a
perquisite belonging to that command. No bargain was made with the Jews for the
English troops, that made by the States being appfied to them ; so that it appeared that the
making such a present to the general was customary. But that was denied; and they
voted the faking that present to be illegal ; and, though he had the queen's warrant to
receive the sixpence in the pound, or two and a half per cent, deducted from the pay of the
foreign troops, yet that was vote! to be unwarrantable, and that it ought to be accounted
for. The court espoused this with such zeal, and paid so well for it, that it was carried by
a great majority. Upon this, many virulent writers (whether set on to it, or officiously
studying to merit by it, did not appear) threw out. in many defamatory Hbels, a great deal
of their malice against the duke of Marlborough : they compared him to Catiline, to Crassus,
and to Anthony ; and studied to represent Aim as a robber of the nation, and as a public

Engr scred. ~by SSribmsai

ROBERT WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD.
OB.174G.
FROM THE ORI&rSTAL OF JARVIS, IN THE C OIOLE CTION OF
THOMAS WALPOLE E SQ"*E

OF QUEEN ANNE. 881
enemy. This gave an indignation to all who had a sense of gratitude, or a regard to justice ;
in one of these scurrilous papers, written on design to raise the rabble against him, one of
the periods began thus, " He was perhaps once fortunate." I took occasion to let prince
Eugene see the spite of these writers, and mentioned this passage : upon which, he made
this pleasant reflection, " That it was the greatest commendation could be given him, since
he was always successful ; " so this implied, that in one single instance he might be fortu
nate, but that all his other successes were owing to his conduct. I upon that said, that
single instance must be then his escaping out of the hands of the party that took him when
he was sailing down the Maese in the boat. But their ill-will rested not in defamation :
the queen was prevailed on to send an order to the attorney-general to prosecute him for the
15,000Z. that was deducted yearly out of the pay of the foreign troops, which he had received
by her own warrant. But what this will end in must be left to time.
The duke of Ormond was now declared general, and had the first regiment of guards ; and
the earl of Rivers was made master of the ordnance.
Secret enquiries were made in order to the laying more load on the duke of Marlborough,
and to see whether posts in the army or in the guards were sold by him ; but nothing could
be found. He had suffered a practice to go on, that had been begun in the late king's time,
of letting officers sell their commissions, but he had never taken any part of the price to
himself. Few thought that he had been so clear in that matter ; for it was the only thing
in which now his enemies were confident that some discoveries would have been made to his
prejudice ; so that the endeavours used to search into those matters, producing nothing, raised
the reputation of his incorrupt administration more than all his well-wishers could have
expected. Thus happy does sometimes the malice of an enemy prove ! In this whole trans
action we saw a new scene of ingratitude acted in a most imprudent manner, when the man
to whom the nation owed more than it had ever done in any age to any subject, or perhaps
to any person whatsoever, was for some months pursued with so much malice. He bore it
with silence and patience, with an exterior that seemed always calm and cheerful ; and
though he prepared a full vindication of himself, yet he delayed publishing it until the
nation should return to its senses, and be capable of examining these matters in a more
impartial manner *.
The Scotch lords, seeing no redress to their complaint, seemed resolved to come no more
to sit in the house of peers : but the court was sensible that their strength in that house
consisted chiefly in them and in the new peers. So pains were taken, and secret forcible
arguments were used to them, which proved so effectual, that, after a few days' absence, they
came back, and continued, during the session, to sit in the house. They gave it out, that
an expedient would be found that would be to the satisfaction of the peers of Scotland ; but,
nothing of that appearing, it was concluded that the satisfaction was private and personal.
The great arrear into which all the regular payments, both of the household and of salaries
and pensions, was left to run, made it to be generally believed that the income for the civil
list, though it exceeded the establishment very far, was applied to other payments, which
the ministers durst not own. And though secret practice on members had been of a great
while too common, yet it was believed that it was at this time managed with an extraordi
nary profusion.
Those who were suspected to have very bad designs applied themselves with great industry
to drive on such bills, as they hoped would give the presbyterians in Scotland such alarms
as might dispose them to remonstrate that the union was broken. They passed not all at
once; but I shall lay them together, because one and the same design was pursued in
them all.
A toleration was proposed for the episcopal clergy who would use the liturgy of the
church of England : this seemed so reasonable, that no opposition was made to it. One
clause put in it occasioned great complaints : the magistrates, who by the laws were obliged
to execute the sentences of the judicatories of their kirk, were by this act required to execute
* Perhaps the duke kept himself just without the letter of the law of bribery and peculation ; but his duchess was
willing to be, and effectually acted, as his proxy. They were both mean and avaricious.— See Coxe's Life Marl.
borough, &c.
O L

882 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
none of them. It was reasonable to require them to execute no sentences that mi,ght be
passed on any for doing what was tolerated by this act ; but the carrying this to a general
clause took awav the civil sanction, which in most places is looked on as the chief, if not the
only strength of church power. Those who were to be thus tolerated were required, by a
day limited in the act, to take the oath of abjuration : it was well known that few, if any
of them, would take that oath ; so, to cover them from it, a clause was put in this act
requiring all the presbyterian ministers to take it ; since it seemed reasonable that those of
the legal establishment should be required to take that, which was now to be imposed on
those, who were only to be tolerated. It was well understood that there were words in the
oath of abjuration to which the presbyterians excepted. In the act of succession, one of the
conditions on which the successor was to be received was, his being of the communion of the
church of England ; and by the oath of abjuration the succession was sworn to as limited by
that act. The word limitation imported only the entail of the crown ; hut it was suggested
that the particle ': as " related to all the conditions in that act. This was spread among so
many of that persuasion, that it was believed a great party among them -would refuse to
take it. So a small alteration was made by the house of lords of these words, ' ' as was limited,
into words of the same sense, " which was limited ;" but those who intended to excuse the
episcopal party, who they knew were in the pretender's interests, from taking the oath,
were for keeping in those words which the presbyterians scrupled. The commons accord
ingly disagreed to the amendment made by the lords ; and, they receding from it, the bill
passed as it had been sent up from the commons. Another act pasaed for discontinuing the
courts of judicature during some days at Christmas, though the observing of holidays was
contrary to their principles. This was intended only to irritate them.
After that, an act was brought in for the restoring of patronages ; these had been taken
away by an act in king William's reign ; it was set up by the presbyterians from their first
beginning as a principle, that parishes had, from warrants in Scripture, a right to choose
their ministers ; so that they had always looked on the right of patronage as an invasion
made on that. It was therefore urged that, since by the act of union presbytery, with all
its rights and privileges, was unalterably secured, and since their kirk-session was a branch
of their constitution, the taking from them the right of choosing their ministers was contrary
to that act : yet the bill passed through both houses, a small opposition being only made in
either. By these steps the presbyterians were alarmed, when they saw the success of every
motion that was made on design to weaken and undermine their establishment.
Another matter of a more public nature was at this time set on foot. Both houses of
parliament had in the year 1709 agreed in an address to the queen, that the protestant suc
cession might be secured by a guaranty in the treaty of peace ; and this was settled at the
Hague to be one of the preliminaries : but when an end was put to the conferences at
Gertmydenberg, the lord Townsend was ordered to set on foot a treaty with the States to
that effect. They entertained it readily, but at the same time they proposed that England
should enter into a guaranty with them, to maintain their barrier, which consisted of some
places they were to garrison, the sovereignty of which was still in the crown of Spain ; and
of other places which had not belonged to that crown, at the death of king Charles the
Second, but had been taken in the progress of the war ; for, by their agreements with us,
they bore the charge of the sieges, and so the places taken were to belong to them : these
were chiefly Lisle, Tournay, Menin, and Douay, and were to be kept still by them. But
as for those places which, from the time of the treaty of the Pyrenees, belonged to the
Spaniards, they had been so ill looked after by the Spanish governors of Flanders, who
were more set on enriching themselves and keeping a magnificent court at Brussels, than on
preserving the country, that neither were the fortifications kept in due repair nor the maga
zines furnished, nor the soldiers paid : so that whensoever a war broke out, the French made
themselves very easily masters of places so ill kept. The States had therefore proposed,
during this war, that the sovereignty of those places should continue still to belong to the
crown of Spain ; but they should keep garrisons in the strongest and the most exposed, in
particular those that lay on the Lys and the Scheld; and for the maintaining this they
a-ked 100,000Z. a-year from those provinces ; by which means they would be kept better

OF QUEEN ANNE. 883
and cheaper than ever they had been while they were in the hands of the Spaniards. They
also asked a free passage for all the stores that they should send to those places. This
seemed to be so reasonable, that since the interest of England, as well as of the States,
required that this frontier should be carefully maintained, the ministry were ready to hearken
to it. It was objected, that, in case of a war between England and the States, the trade of
those provinces would be wholly in the hands of the Dutch ; but this had been settled in
the great truce which, by the mediation of France and England, was made between the
Spaniards and the States. There was a provisional order therein made for the freedom of
trade in those provinces ; and that was turned to a perpetual one by the peace of Munster.
King Charles of Spain had agreed to the main of the barrier : some places on the Scheld
were not necessary for a frontier, but the States insisted on them, as necessary to maintain a
communication with the frontier : the king of Prussia excepted likewise to some places in
the Spanish Guelder. The lord Townsend thought that these were such inconsiderable
objections, that though his instructions did not come up to every particular, yet he signed
the treaty known by the name of the Barrier Treaty. By it, the States bound themselves
to maintain the queens title to her dominions and the protestant succession with their whole
force : and England was reciprocally bound to assist them in maintaining this barrier.
The mercenary writers, that were hired to defend the peace then projected with France,
attacked this treaty with great virulence, and by arguments that gave just suspicions of
black designs. They said it was a disgrace to this nation to engage any other state
to secure, the succession among us, which perhaps we might see cause to alter : whereas, by
this treaty, the States had an authority given them to interpose in our counsels. It was
also said, that if the States were put in possession of all those strong towns, they might shut
us out from any share of trade in them, and might erect our manufactures in provinces very
capable of them. But it was answered, that this could not be done as long as this treaty
continued in force, unless the sovereign of the country should join with them against us.
Some objected to the settlement made at Munster, as a transaction when we were in such
confusion at home, that we had no minister there ; but that treaty had only rendered the
truce and the provisional settlement made before, by the mediation of England, perpetual,
and we had since acquiesced in that settlement for above sixty years. By examining into
the particulars of the treaty it appeared that, in some inconsiderable matters, the lord
Townsend had gone beyond the letter of his instructions, in which he had so fully satisfied
the ministry, that though upon his first signing it some exceptions had been taken, yet these
were passed over, and the treaty was ratified in form.
But the present ministry had other views : they designed to set the queen at liberty from
her engagements by these alliances, and to disengage her from treaties. The house of com
mons went now very hastily into several resolutions that were very injurious to the States :
they pretended they had failed in the performance of all agreements, with relation to the
service, both at sea and land ; and as to the troops that were to have been furnished in
Portugal and Savoy, as well as the subsidies due to those princes. They fell next on the barrier
treaty : they gave it out that the old ministry designed to bring over an army from Holland
whensoever they should, for other ends, pretend that the protestant succession was in danger ;
and it was said there was no need of any foreign assistance to maintain it. In the debate,
it was insisted on, that it could be maintained safely no other way ; it was not to be doubted
but the king of France would assist the pretender ; England was not inclined to keep up a
standing army in time of peace to resist him : so that we could not be so safe any other
way, as by having the States engaged to send over their army, if it should be necessary.
But reason is a feeble thing to bear down resolutions already taken ; so the house of com
mons voted the treaty dishonourable and injurious to England ; and that the lord Townsend
had gone beyond his instructions in signing it ; and that he and all who had advised and
ratified that treaty were public enemies to the kingdom. These votes were carried by a
great majority, and were looked on as strange preludes to a peace. When the States heard
what exceptions were taken to the barrier treaty, they wrote a very respectful letter to the
queen, in which they offered to explain or mollify any part of it that was wrongly under-
3 l 2

884. THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
stood ; but the managers of the house of commons got all their votes to be digested into
a well-composed inflaming representation, which was laid before the queen : by it all the
allies, but most particularly the States, were charged for having failed in many particulars
contrary to their engagements. They also laid before the queen the votes they had
made with relation to the barrier treaty ; and that they might name a great sum that
would make a deep impression on the nation (which was ready to receive all things
implicitly from them), they said England had been, during the war, overcharged nine
teen millions beyond what they ought to have paid; all which was cast on the old
ministry. The States, in answer to all this, drew up a large memorial, in which every particular in
the representation was examined and fully answered. They sent it over to their envoy,
who presented it to the queen : but no notice was taken of it ; the end was already served,
and the entering into a discussion about it could have no other effect but to confound those
who drew it. The two first heads of the States1 memorial, that related to the service at sea
and in Flanders, were printed here, and contained a full answer to all that was charged on
them as to those matters, to the ample conviction of all who examined the particulars. The
house of commons saw the effect this was likely to have, so they voted it a false, malicious,
scandalous, and injurious paper ; and that the printing it was a breach of privilege. And,
to stop the printing the other heads, they put the printer in prison ; this was a confutation
to which no reply could be made ; yet it seemed to be a confession that their representation
could not be justified, when the answer to it was so carefully stifled. The house of com
mons went next to repeal the naturalization act, in wliich they met with no opposition.
The self-denying bill was brought into the house of commons, and, as was ordinary, it
passed easily there. The scandal of corruption was now higher than ever, for it was believed
men were not only bribed for a whole session, but had new bribes for particular votes. The
twelve new peers being brought into the house of lords, had irritated so many there, that for
two days, by all the judgments that could be made of the house, the bill was likely to have
passed that house : but upon some prevailing arguments, secretly and dexterously applied
to some lords, an alteration was made in it, by which it was lost. For whereas the bill,
as it stood, was to take place after the determination of the present parliament, this was
altered, so as that it should take place after the demise of the queen : so it was no more
thought on.
The house of commons voted two millions to be raised by a lottery ; for which a fund was
created that might pay both principal and interest in thirty-two years.
I look next to Utrecht, where the treaty was opened. The emperor and the empire sent
their ministers very late and unwillingly thither; but they submitted to the necessity of
their affairs ; yet with this condition, that the French proposals (for so the propositions that
were formerly called preliminaries came to be named) should be no ground to proceed on ;
and that a new treaty should be entered on, without any regard to them. It was also
agreed, to save the loss of time in settling the ceremonial, that the plenipotentiaries should
assume no character of dignity, until all matters were adjusted and made ready for signing.
The first of January was the day named for opening the congress ; but they waited some
time for the allies. In the beginning of February O. S. the French made their proposals in
a very high strain.
They promised that, at the signing of the treaty, they would own the queen and the suc
cession to the crown as she should direct ; Spain and the West Indies were to remain with
king Philip ; the dominions in Italy, with the islands, except Sicily, were to go to the
emperor, and the Spanish Netherlands to the elector of Bavaria : the trade was to be regu
lated as it was before the war ; some places in Canada were to be restored to England, with
the freedom of fishery in Newfoundland ; but Placentia was to remain with the French :
Dunkirk was offered to be demolished ; but Lisle and Tournay were to be given for it.
The States were to have their demands for the barrier ; and the frontier between France, the
empire, and Italy, was to be the same that it was before the war, by which Landau, Fenes
trella, and Exiles, were to be restored to France. These demands were as extravagant as

OF QUEEN ANNE 80S
any that France could have made in the most prosperous state of their affairs. This filled
the allies with indignation, and heightened the jealousy they had of a secret understanding,
between the courts of England and France.
But a great change happened in the affairs of France, at this very time, that their pleni
potentiaries were making these demands at Utrecht. The dauphiness was taken suddenly
ill of a surfeit, as it was given out, and died in three days ; and within three or four days
after that, the dauphin himself died ; and, in a few days after him, his eldest son, about
five or six years old, died likewise ; and his second son, then about three years old, was
thought to be in a dying condition. These deaths coming so quick one after another struck
that court. The king himself was for some days ill, but he soon recovered. Such repeated
strokes were looked on with amazement. Poison was suspected, as is usual upon all such
occasions ; and the duke of Orleans was generally charged with it : he was believed to have
dealt much in chemistry, and was an ambitious prince. While he was in Spain, at the
head of king Philip's army, he formed a project to set him aside, and to make himself king
of Spain ; in which, as the lord Townsend told me, he went so far, that he tried to engage
Mr. Stanhope to press the queen and the States to assist him, promising to break with
France and to marry king Charles's dowager. This came to be discovered. He was upon
that called out of Spain ; and it was thought that the only thing that saved him was the
king's kindness to his natural daughter, whom he had married. The king not only passed
it over, but, soon after, he obliged the duke of Berry to marry his daughter ; such care had
that old king taken to corrupt the blood of France with the mixture of his spurious issue.
King Philip was not at all pleased with the alliance, but wrote to his elder brother, expos
tulating for his not opposing the marriage more vigorously ; with which he professed himself
so displeased, that he could not be brought to congratulate upon it. This letter was sent
from Madrid to Paris, but was intercepted and sent to Barcelona, and from thence to the
Hague. Dr. Hare told me he read the original letter*.
The duke of Burgundy, when he became dauphin upon his father's death, had been let
into the understanding the secrets of government ; and, as was given out, he had on many
occasions expressed a deep sense of the miseries of the people, with great sentiments of
justice : he had likewise, in some disputes that cardinal de Noailles had with the Jesuits,
espoused his interests, and protected him. It was also believed that he retained a great
affection to Fenelon, the archbishop of Cambray, whose fable of "Telemachus" carried in it
the noblest maxims possible, for the conduct of a wise and good prince, and set forth that
station in shining characters, but which were the reverse of Louis the Fourteenth's whole
life and reign. These things gave the French a just sense of the loss they had in his death ;
and the apprehensions of a minority, after such a reign, struck them with a great conster
nation. These deaths, in so critical a time, seemed to portend that all the vast scheme
which the king of France had formed, with so much perfidy and bloodshed, was in a fair
way to be soon blasted. But I will go no further in so dark a prospect.
The French propositions raised, among the true English, a just indignation; more parti
cularly their putting off the owning the queen until the treaty came to be signed. The lord
treasurer, to soften this, said he saw a letter, in which the king of France acknowledged her
queen ; this was a confession that there was a private correspondence between them ; yet
the doing it by a letter was no legal act. In excuse of this, it was said, that the late king
was not owned by the French till the treaty of Ryswick came to be signed : but there was
a mediator in that treaty, with whom our plenipotentiaries only negociated ; whereas there
was no mediator at Utrecht : so that the queen was now, without any interposition, treating
with a prince who did not own her right to the crown t. The propositions made by the
French were treated here with the greatest scorn ; nor did the ministers pretend to say any
thing in excuse for them. And an address was made to the queen, expressing a just indig
nation at such a proceeding, promising her all assistance in carrying on the war, until she
should arrive at a just and honourable peace.
* This was Dr. Fiancis Hare, who died bishop of Chichester in 1740. He was chaplain-general of the anny,
under the duke of Marlborough  General Biog. Diet.
f Wag not the public entering into treaty with queen Anne an acknowledgment of her sovereignty'

886 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Tlie allies did offer their demands next, which ran as high another way. The emperor
asked the whole Spanish monarchy ; England asked the restoring Newfoundland, and the
demolishing of Dunkirk ; the States asked their whole barrier ; and every ally asked satis
faction to all the other allies, as well as to himself. England and the States declared that
they demanded Spain and the West Indies for the emperor : so the high pattern set by the
French in their demands, was to the full imitated by the allies. The French set a day for
offering their answer ; but when the day came, instead of offering an answer in writing, they
proposed to enter into verbal conferences upon the demands made on both sides. This had
indeed been practised in treaties where mediators interposed ; but that was not done until
the main points were secretly agreed to. The allies rejected this proposition, and demanded
specific answers in writing ; so, till the beginning of May, the treaty went on in a very
languid manner in many fruitless meetings, the French always saying they had yet received
no other orders : so that the negociation there was at a full stand.
The preparations for the campaign were carried on by the emperor and the States with all
possible vigour. Prince Eugene stayed three months in England in a fruitless negociation
with our court, and was sent back with general and ambiguous promises. The States gave
him the supreme command of their army, and assured him that, in the execution of the pro
ject that was concerted among them, he should be put under no restraint by their deputies
or generals, and that no cessation of amis should be ordered till all was settled by a general
peace. The duke of Ormond followed him in April, well satisfied both with his instruc
tions and his appointments ; for he had the same allowances that had been lately voted
criminal in the duke of Marlborough.
At this time the pretender was taken ill of the small-pox. He recovered of them ; but
his sister, who was taken with the same disease, died of it. She was, by all that knew her,
admired as a most extraordinary person in all respects ; insomuch that a very great cha
racter was spread of her, by those who talked but indifferently of the pretender himself.
Thus he lost a great strength, which she procured to him, from all who saw or conversed
with her. I turn next to give an account of the convocation.
There was a doubt suggested, whether the queen's license did still subsist after a proroga
tion by a royal writ. The attorney-general gave his opinion that it was still in force ; upon
which the bishops went on with the resolution in which the former session had ended, and
sent back to the lower house a paper, which had been sent to them from that house in the
former session, with such amendments as they thought proper. But then Atterbury started
a new notion, that as in a session of parliament a prorogation put an end to all matters not
finished, so that they were to begin all anew, the same rule was to be applied to convoca
tions, in pursuance of his favourite notion, that the proceedings in parliament were likewise
to be observed among them. The bishops did not agree to this, for, upon searching their
books, they found a course of precedents to the contrary. And the schedule, by which the
archbishop prorogued them, when the royal writ was sent to him, did in express words con
tinue all things in the state in which they were then, to the next meeting. Yet this did
not satisfy Atterbury and his party ; so the lower house ordered him to lay the matter
before the attorney-general for his opinion : he did that very partially, for he did not show
him the paper sent down by the bishops ; he only gave him a very defective abstract of it :
whereupon the attorney-general gave him such an answer as he desired, by which it was
very plain that he was not rightly informed about it. The bishops resolved to adhere to
the<nethod of former convocations, and not to begin matters afresh that had been formerly
nearly finished. By this means they were at a full stop, so that they could not determine
those points which had been recommended to them by the queen ; but they entered upon
new ones. There was then a bill in the house of parliament for building fifty new churches
in and about London and Westminster; so an office for consecrating churches and church
yards was prepared : and probably this will be all the fruit that the church will reap from
this convocation.
The censure that was passed on Whiston s book in the former session, had been laid before
the queen in -due form for her approbation ; but, at the opening of this session in December,
the bishops, finding that no return was come from the throne in that matter, sent two of

OF QUEEN ANNE. 887
their number to receive her majesty's pleasure in it ; the archbishop being so ill of the gout
that he came not among us all that winter. The queen had put the censure that we had
sent her, into the hands of some of her ministers, but could not remember to whom she gave
it ; so a new extract of it was sent to her, and she said she would send her pleasure upon it
very speedily : but none came during the session, so all further proceedings against him were
stopped, since the queen did not confirm the step that we had made. This was not unac
ceptable to some of us, and to myself in particular. I was gone into my diocese when that
censure was passed : and I have ever thought that the true interest of the Christian religion
was best consulted when nice disputing about mysteries was laid aside and forgotten.
There appeared at this time an inclination in many of the clergy to a nearer approach
towards the church of Rome. Hicks, an ill-tempered man, who was now at the head of the
jacobite party, had in several books promoted a notion that there was a proper sacrifice made
in the Eucharist, and had on many occasions studied to lessen our aversion to popery*,
The supremacy of the crown in ecclesiastical matters, and the method in which the reforma
tion was carried, was openly condemned. One Brett had preached a sermon in several of
the pulpits of London, which he afterwards printed, in which he pressed the necessity of
priestly absolution in a strain beyond what was pretended to even in the church of Rome.
He said no repentance could serve without it, and affirmed that the priest was vested with
the same power of pardoning that our Saviour himself had. A motion was made in the
lower house of convocation to censure this, but it was so ill supported that it was let fall t.
Another conceit was taken up of the invalidity of lay-baptism, on which several books
have been written : nor was the dispute a trifling one, since by this notion the teachers
among the dissenters passing for laymen, this went to the re-baptizing them and their con
gregations. Dodwell gave the rise to this conceit. He was a very learned man, and led a strict life :
he seemed to hunt after paradoxes in all his writings, and broached not a few : he thought
none could be saved but those who, by the sacraments, had a federal right to it ; and that
these were the seals of the covenant. So that he left all who died without the sacraments,
to the uncovenanted mercies of God : and to this he added, that none had a right to give
the sacraments but those who were commissioned to it ; and these were the apostles, and
after them bishops and priests ordained by them : it followed upon this, that sacraments
administered by others were of no value. He pursued these notions so far, that he asserted
that the souls of men were naturally mortal, but that the immortalizing virtue was conveyed
by baptism, given by persons episcopally ordained. And yet, after all this, which carried
the episcopal function so high, he did not lay the original of that government, on any
instruction or warrant in the Scripture ; but thought it was set up in the beginning of the
second century, after the apostles were all dead. He wrote very doubtfully of the time in
which the canon of the New Testament was settled : he thought it was not before the second
century, and that an extraordinary inspiration was continued in the churches to that very
time to which he ascribed the original of episcopacy J. This strange and precarious system
* Dr. George Hickes was a native of Yorkshire, being other works are numerous : among them are " Discourses
born at Newsham, in 1642. He was a rover from college on Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson." — Biograph. Britan.
to college, being in succession a member of four before he t The divine thus slightingly mentioned was Dr.
obtained his fellowship at Lincoln in 1664. During a Thomas Brett, who, however erroneous in his opinions,
lengthened tour upon the continent, he became intiiuato was contented to suffer in attestation that in them he
with Henry Justell, who entrusted him with his father's was sincere. He was a very learned and talented man.
manuscript work, " Codex canonum ecclesiae universalis." His native county was Kent, having been bom at Bct-
The duke of Lauderdale was his patron, whom he accom- tishangcr in 1667. He was of Queen's and Corpus-
panied into Scotland, where he was honoured with a doc- Christi colleges, Cambridge. His various preferments
tor's degree, as he was in due course at Oxford. His were resigned by him in 1715, when he joined the non-
highest regular preferment was the deanery of "Worcester, jui-ing churchmen, and he then retired to the family seat
and this he lost at the revolution, refusing to take the at Spring Grove. Here he devoted himself to literary
oaths. The nonjuring prelates consecrated him bishop of pursuits. He died in 1743. His " Essay on the Chro-
Thetford. He died in 1715. Besides being a profound nology of the Bible," his " Life of Mr. John Johnson,"
scholar in divinity, he was deeply versed in Saxon litera- and other works, are well worthy of perusal  Gen. Biog.
lure, as is testified by his " Thesaurus," and " Institu- Diet.
tioncs Grammatics," of the Anglo-Saxon language. His J Henry Dodwell was an Irishman, born at Dublin in

888 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
was iu great credit among us ; and the necessity of the sacrament and the invalidity of
ecclesiastical functions, when performed by persons who were not episcopally ordained, were
entertained by many with great applause. This made the dissenters pass for no Christians,
and put all thoughts of reconciling them to us far out of view ; and several little books were
spread about the nation, to prove the necessity of re-baptizing them, and that they were in
a state of damnation until that was done ; but few were, by these arguments, prevailed
upon to be re-baptized. This struck even at the baptism by midwives in the church of
Rome ; which was practised and connived at here in England, until it was objected to in the
conference held at Hampton Court, soon after king James the First's accession to the crown,
and baptism was not until then limited to persons in orders. Nothing of this kind was so
much as mentioned in the year 1660, when a great part of the nation had been baptized by
dissenters ; but it was now promoted with much heat.
The bishops thought it necessary to put a stop to this new and extravagant doctrine ; so
a declaration was agreed to, first against the irregularity of all baptism by persons who were
not in holy orders ; but that, yet according to the practice of the primitive church and the
constant usage of the church of England, no baptism (in or with water, in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) ought to be reiterated. The archbishop of York at first
agreed to this ; so it was resolved to publish it in the name of all the bishops of England :
but he was prevailed on to change his mind ; and refused to sign it, pretending that this
would encourage irregular baptism. So the archbishop of Canterbury, with most of the
bishops of his province, resolved to offer it to the convocation. It was agreed to in the
upper house, the bishop of Rochester only dissenting ; but when it was sent to the lower
house, they would not so much as take it into consideration, but laid it aside, thinking that
it would encourage those who struck at the dignity of the priesthood. This was all that
passed in convocation.
The supplies demanded were given, in all about six millions ; there were two lotteries of
1,800,000Z. a-piece, besides the four shillings in the pound, and the malt bill. A motion
was made for a clause to be put in one of the lottery bills, for a commission to enquire into
the value and consideration of all the grants made by king William. The ministers appre
hended the difficulty of carrying a money-bill, with a tack to it, through the house of lords ;
so they prevailed to get it separated from the money-bill, and sent up in a particular one,
and undertook to carry it. When it came up to the house of lords, a great party was made
against it : those who continued to pay a respect to the memory of king William thought
it was a very unbecoming return to him who had delivered the nation from slavery and
popery, to cast so particular an indignity on his grants. The bill made all its steps tlirough
the house of lords to the last, with a small majority of one or two. The earl of Nottingham
was absent the first two days, but came to the house on the last : he said he always
thought those grants were too large and very unseasonably made, but he thought there
ought to be an equal way of proceeding in that matter ; they ought either to resume them
all, or to bring all concerned in them to an equal composition : he therefore could not
approve of this bill, which, by a very clear consequence, would put it in the power of a fellow-
subject to resume or to cover grants at his pleasure ; and so it would put the persons, con
cerned in the grants, into too great a dependence on him. At the last reading of the bill
seventy-eight, in person or by proxy, were for the bill, and as many were against it. The
votes being equal, by the rule of the house, the negative carried it : so, for that time, the bill
was lost.
During the session, reports were often given out that all things were agreed, and that the
treaty was as good as finished ; but new stories were set on foot, and pretended delays, to
put off the expectation of peace. However, in the end of May, we were surprised with
letters from the camp, which told us that the army of the allies, being joined, was twenty-
1 641. He had a fellowship of Trinity college in that of history at Oxford, but soon was deprived of the office,
city, but resigned it to avoid going into holy orders, for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to William
Coming to England, and his literary attainments being and Mary. He died in 1711.  Brokesby's Life of H.
very apparent, he was, in 1688, elected Camden professor Dodwell.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 889
five thousand men stronger than the French ; an advantage that they never had before
during the whole course of the war : that prince Eugene therefore proposed that they should
marv'h towards the head of the Scheld, where the French army lay, and upon their advancing
the French would be obliged either to venture on action, or to retire ; and in that case
Cambray would be left open to the allies to sit down before it. The council of war agreed
to this, but to their great surprise the duke of Ormond showed orders not to act offensively
against the French : he seemed to be very uneasy with these orders, but said he must obey
them. This was much resented by the whole army, and by the ministers of the allies at the
Hague and at Utrecht ; and it struck us here in England with amazement.
Motions were made upon it in both houses of parliament, for it seemed we were neither to
have peace nor war. So it was proposed that an address should be made to the queen, that
she would set the duke of Ormond at liberty to act in concurrence with the other generals,
and carry on the war so as to obtain a good peace. Those who opposed this asked what
proofs they had of what was said, concerning the duke of Ormond's orders ; they had only
private letters, which were not produced : so it was said that there was not ground enough
to found an address upon, which ought not to be made on bare reports. The ministers
would neither confess nor deny the matter, pretending the oath of secrecy ; yet they affirmed
the duke of Ormond was at liberty to cover a siege
That which prevailed in both houses to hinder the address was, that the ministers in both
did affirm that the peace was agreed on, and would be laid before them in three or four
days. It was upon that suggested that this must be a separate peace, since the allies knew
nothing of it. The lord treasurer said, a separate peace was so base, so knavish, and so
villanous a thing, that every one who served the queen knew they must answer it with
their heads to the nation ; but it would appear to be a safe and a glorious peace, much more
to the honour and interest of the nation than the preliminaries that were agreed to three
years before : he also affirmed that the allies knew of it, and were satisfied with it : so the
motion fell ; and all were in great expectation to see what a few days would produce. In
order to this, it was proposed to examine into all the proceedings at the Hague and at
Gertruydenburg, in the years 1709 and 1710 : this was set on by a representation made by
the earl of Strafford ; for he affirmed in the house of lords that those matters had not
been fairly represented : he said he had his information from one of the two who had been
employed in those conferences : by this, it was plain he meant Buys. Lord Townsend had
informed the house, that those who treated with the French at Gertruydenberg did, at their
return, give an account of their negociation to the ministers of the allies in the pensioner's
presence, before they reported it to the States themselves. But upon this the earl of Straf
ford said they had been first secretly with the pensioner, who directed them both what to
say, and what to suppress. Upon this the house made an address to the queen, desiring her
to lay before them all that passed at that time, and in that negociation. But nothing fol
lowed upon this, for it was said to be designed only to amuse the house.
Snrprises came at this time quick one after another. At Utrecht, on the second of June
N. S., the plenipotentiaries of the States expostulated with the bishop of Bristol upon the
orders sent to the duke of Ormond. He answered he knew nothing of them, but said he
had received a letter, two days before, from the queen, in which she complained that, not
withstanding all the advances she had made to engage the States to enter with her upon a plan
of peace, they had not answered her as they ought, and as she hoped they would have done ;
therefore she did now think herself at liberty to enter into separate measures to obtain a peace
for her own convenience. The plenipotentiaries said this was contrary to all their alliances
and treaties ; they thought that, by the deference they had showed her on all occasions, they
had merited much better usage from her : they knew nothing of any advances made to them
on a plan of peace. The bishop replied, that, considering the conduct of the States, the
queen thought herself disengaged from all alliances and engagements with them. The
bishop did not in express words name the barrier treaty, but he did not except it ; so
they reckoned it was included in the general words he had used. This did not agree with
what the lord treasurer had said in the house of lords; and when the States envoy com-

890 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
plained to him of these declarations made them by the bishop, all the answer he made was,
that he was certainly in a very bad humour when he talked at that rate.
On the fifth of June, the queen came to the parliament, and told them on what terms a
peace might be had. King Philip was to renounce the succession to the crown of France,
if it should devolve on him ; and this was to execute itself by putting the next to him into
the succession. Sicily was to be separated from Spain, though it was not yet settled who
should have it. The protestant succession was to be secured ; and he who had pretended to
the crown was no more to be supported. Dunkirk was to be demolished, and Newfoundland
to be delivered to England. Gibraltar and Port-Mahon were to remain in our hands : we were
also to have the assiento, a word importing the furnishing the Spanish West Indies with
slaves from Africa. The Dutch were to have their barrier, except two or three places ; and
due regard would be had to all our allies.
Both houses agreed to make addresses of thanks to the queen, for communicating this plan
to them, desiring her to finish it. An addition to these last words, " in conjunction with
her allies," was moved in both houses, that so there might be a guaranty settled for the
maintaining the terms of the treaty ; but it was rejected by a great majority in both houses.
It was said, in opposition to it, that it would subject the queen and the whole treaty to the
pleasure of the allies, who might prove backward and intractable. And since England had
borne the greatest share of the burthen of the war, it was reasonable that the queen should
be the arbiter of the peace. On the other hand it was said, that if the allies did not enter
into a guaranty, we must depend on the faith of the French, and be at their mercy, and so
have nothing to trust to but the promises of a court noted, in a course of many years, for a
train of perfidy. But many had formed an obstinate resolution to get out of the war on
any terms ; so nothing that was offered, that seemed to obstruct the arriving speedily at that
end, was heard with patience ; and no regard was had to the faith of treaties. Yet both
houses observed one caution, not to express their being satisfied with the plan of the peace,
though it was covertly insinuated. Mention was also made of our treaties with our allies,
and of the protestant succession. The lords, who had all along protested against the steps
that the court had taken, entered the reasons of their protesting against the negative put on
adding the words, " in conjunction with her allies," and on the former vote, concerning the
orders sent to the duke of Ormond. These carried in them such just and severe reflections
on the ministry, as running the nation into an open breach of all public trust, and putting
every thing into the hands of the French, that by the strength of the majority they were
expunged. Yet they were printed, and copies of them were sent over the nation ; but
nothing could break through that insensibility which had stupified the people. A new set of
addresses ran about, full of gross flattery, magnifying the present conduct, with severe reflec
tions on the former ministry, which some carried back to king William's reign. Some
of these addresses mentioned the protestant succession and the house of Hanover with
zeal ; others did it more coldly ; and some made no mention at all of it. And it was
universally believed that no addresses were ,so acceptable to the ministers as those of the
last sort.
About the middle of June, the session of parliament came to an end. The queen, in her
speech, said she was glad to find they approved of her scheme of peace, though that was in
none of the addresses ; many who intended to merit by their officious zeal had indeed mag
nified it in both houses, but it was not in either of their addresses. The earl of Strafford
was again sent over, to induce the States to accept the offers that the French were making,
and to consent to a cessation of arms.
Prince Eugene ordered Quesnoy to be besieged ; and he, in conjunction with the duke of
Ormond, covered the siege ; but, when the place was so straitened that it could not hold
out above two or three days, the duke of Ormond sent prince Eugene word that he had
orders to proclaim a cessation of arms for two months. Prince Eugene disagreeing to this,
he signified his orders to all the German troops that were in the queen's pay. But the
States and the emperor had foreseen that this might happen, and had negociated so effec
tually with the princes to whom these troops belonged, that they had sent orders to their

OF QUEEN ANNE. 891
generals to continue with prince Eugene, and to obey his command. This they represented
to the duke of Ormond ; and he upon that told them they should have neither bread nor pay,
nor their arrears, if they refused to obey his orders. This last seemed unjust, since they had
served hitherto according to agreement ; so that their arrears could not be detained with
any colour of justice. Quesnoy capitulated, and the garrison were made prisoners of war.
It was said that the court of France had promised to put Dunkirk in the queen's hands, as
a sure pledge of performing all that they had stipulated, in order to a general peace. This
was executed in the beginning of July, and a body of our troops, with a squadron of ships,
were sent to take possession of the place. The duke of Ormond made a second attempt on
the generals of the German troops, to see if they would agree to the cessation of arms ; but
they excused themselves upon the orders they had received from their masters. So he pro
claimed the cessation at the head of the English troops : upon which he separated himself
from prince Eugene's army, and retired to Ghent and Bruges, possessing himself of them.
The fortified places near the frontier had orders to let the officers pass through, but not to
suffer the troops to possess themselves of them. The withdrawing the English forces in this
manner from the confederate army was censured, not only as a manifest breach of faith and
of treaties, but as treacherous in the highest and basest degree. The duke of Ormond had
given the States such assurances of his going along with them through the whole campaign,
that he was let into the secrets of all their counsels, which by that confidence were all
known to the French. And, if the auxiliary German troops had not been prepared to dis
obey his orders, it was believed he, in conjunction with the French army, would have forced
the States to come into the new measures. But that was happily- prevented. Yet all this
conduct of our general was applauded at home as great, just, and wise ; and our people were
led to think it a kind of triumph upon Dunkirk's being put into our hands ; not considering
that we had more truly put ourselves into the hands of the French by this open breach of
faith ; after which the confederates could no longer trust or depend on us. Nor was this
only the act of the court and ministry, but it became the act of the nation, which by a
general voice did not only approve of it, but applaud it.
Prince Eugene's next attempt was upon Landrecy, in which it seemed probable that he
would succeed ; but this prospect, and indeed the whole campaign, had a fatal reverse.
There was a body of eight thousand or ten thousand men posted at Denain, on the Scheld,
commanded by the earl of Albemarle, to secure the conveying bread and ammunition to the
army and to the siege. Villars made a motion as if he designed to give prince Eugene
battle, but, after a feint that way, he turned quick upon this body that lay on both sides of
the river, with only one bridge of pontoons ; the rest had been sent to the siege of Landrecy,
and there was not a supply of more brought. That bridge, with the weight that was on it,
broke, so the bodies could not be joined. But military men assured me that, if it had not
been for that misfortune, Villars's attempt might have turned fatally on himself, and to the
ruin of his whole army. But, in conclusion, he gave them a total defeat, and so made him
self master of those posts, which they were to defend. This opened a new scene : it not
only forced the raising the siege of Landrecy, but gave Villars an occasion to seize on
Marchiennes and some other places, where he found great stores of artillery and ammunition,
and furnished him likewise with an opportunity of sitting down before Douay. What
errors were committed, either in the counsels or orders, or in the execution of them, and at
whose door these ought to be laid, is far above my understanding in military matters : but,
be that as it will, this misfortune served not a little to raise the duke of Marlborough's
character, under whose command no such thing had ever happened. The effects of this
disgrace were great ; Douay was taken, after a long and brave defence ; prince Eugene
tried to raise the siege, but did not succeed in it. Indeed the States would not put things
to so great a venture, after such a loss : the garrison were made prisoners of war. Quesnoy
was next besieged : the great artillery that had been employed in the siege were left in
the place. The garrison improved that advantage ; so that the taking it cost the enemy
very dear.
These losses created a great distraction in the counsels at the Hague ; many were inclined
to accept of a cessation ; the emperor and the princes of the empire made great offers to the

892 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
States, to persuade them to continue the war ; at the same time, the French grew very inso
lent upon their successes, and took occasion, from a quarrel between the footmen of one of
the Dutch plenipotentiaries and one of theirs, to demand an extravagant reparation ; which
the Dutch not complying with, a full stop was put to all proceedings at Utrecht for some
months. Our court took some pains to remove that obstruction ; but the French king's
pride beino- now ao-ain in exaltation, he was intractable. St. John, being made viscount
Bolino-broke, was sent over with secret instructions to the court of France ; where, as it was
believed, the peace was fully concluded. But all that was published upon his return was a
a new cessation of arms, both by sea and land, for four months longer. Duke Hamilton
was named to go ambassador to France, and lord Lexington to Spain. The earl of
Strafford continued to press the States to come into the queen's measures, which it was
said he managed with great imperiousness. The States resolved to offer their plan to the
queen, in wliich they pressed the restoring Strasburg to the empire, to have Valenciennes
demolished, and Conde added to their barrier, and that the old tariff for trade should be
again restored.
The lord Lexington went first to Spain, where the cortes were summoned, in which that
king did solemnly renounce, for himself and his heirs, the right of succession to the crown
of France ; and limited the succession to the crown of Spain, after his own posterity, to the
house of Savoy. The like renunciation was made some months after that by the princes
of France to the crown of Spain. And Philip was declared incapable of succeeding
to the crown of France. It was something strange to see so much weigoht laid on these
renunciations, since the king of France had so often and so solemnly declared (upon his
claiming, in the right of his queen, the Spanish Netherlands, when the renunciation made by
his queen before the marriage, pursuant to the treaty of the Pyrenees, of all rights of succes
sion to her father's dominions, was objected to him) that no renunciation, which was but a
civil act, could destroy the rights of blood, founded on the laws of nature. But this was
now forgotten, or very little considered. At this time, the order of the garter had nine
vacant stalls ; so six knights were at one time promoted, the dukes of Beaufort, Hamilton,
and Kent, and the earls of Oxford, Powlet, and Strafford. The duke of Hamilton's being
appointed to go to the court of France gave melancholy speculations to those who thought
him much in the pretender s interest : he was considered, not only in Scotland, but here in
England, as the head of his party : but a dismal accident put an end to his life a few days
before he intended to have set out on his embassy.
He and the lord Mohun were engaged in some suits of law, and a violent hatred was
kindled between them ; so that, upon a very high provocation, the lord Mohun had sent him
a challenge, which he tried to decline ; but both being hurried by those false points of
honour, they fatally went out to Hyde Park, in the middle of November, and fought with
so violent an animosity, that, neglecting the rules of art, they seemed to run on one another,
as if they tried who should kill first ; in which they were both so unhappily successful, that
the lord Mohun was killed outright, and duke Hamilton died in a few minutes after. I will
add no character of him ; I am sorry I cannot say so much good of him as I could wish,
and I had too much kindness for him to say any evil without necessity. Nor shall I make
any reflections on the deplorable effect of those unchristian and barbarous maxims, which
have prevailed so universally, that there is little hope left of seeing them rooted out of the
minds of men ; the false notions of honour and courage being too strong to be weighed down
by prudent or religious considerations.
The duke of Shrewsbury was, upon duke Hamilton's death, named for the embassy to
France, and went over in the end of December. The same yacht that carried him to Calais,
brought oyer the duke d'Aumont, the French ambassador, who was a good-natured and
generous man, of profuse expense, throwing handfuls of money often out of his coach as he
went about the streets. He was not thought a man of business, and seemed to employ him
self chiefly in maintaining the dignity of his character and making himself acceptable to the
nation. I turn next to foreign affairs.
The war in Pomerania went on but slowly, though the czar and the kings of Denmark
and Poland joined their forces; upon which it was thought the interest of Sweden must

Ea.grrcrea.'by-I.'WIMate

SYDNFY, FIRST EARL OF GODOLPHIN.

t'KUM TT£E OHJIOLRAL OF HNKL.1.ER. O. THE roT.1 .TTPTION OF

rus i;iiA.ci-o tiif. unit of -Uari.hokoi'<;ii

OF QUEEN ANNE. C93
have sunk in those parts ; but the feebleness of one or other of those princes lost them great
advantages. Steinbock, the Swedish general, seeing the Danes were separated from their
allies, made a quick march towards them ; and though the Saxons had joined them before
he came up, yet he attacked them. The action was hot, and lasted some hours ; but it
ended in a complete victory on the Swedish side. At the same time the Swedes were ani
mated by reports from Constantinople, which gave them hopes of the war between the Turks
and the czar being likely to break out again, which the king of Sweden continued to solicit
and in which he had all the assistance that the French could give him.
This gave the emperor great apprehensions that disorders in Hungary might follow upon
it, which would defeat the measures he had taken to settle matters in that kinodom so that
being safe on that side he might turn his whole force against France, and by that means
encourage the States to continue the war. Those in Holland who pressed the acceptinc the
offers that France made them, represented that as a thing not possible to be supported. The
promises of the emperor and the princes of the empire had so often failed them, that they
said they could not be relied on : and the distractions in the North made them apprehend
that those princes might be obliged to recal their troops, which were in the service of the
States. The earl of Strafford was sent back to the Hague with the French plan, which came to
be called the queen's plan : but to draw them in the more, he was ordered to enter upon a
new barrier treaty with them, by which the former was to be set aside. By it the States
were to maintain the succession to the crown, when required to it by the queen, but not
otherwise. This gave still new occasions for jealousy : for whereas, by the former treaty,
they were strictly bound to maintain the succession, so that they were obliged to oppose
any attempts they saw made against it, they were by this treaty obliged to stay until
they were sent to ; and if our ministers should come to entertain ill designs that way, they
would take care no notice should be given to the States. The barrier for the Dutch came
far short of the former. The States wrote another letter to the queen, desiring her to inter
pose for restoring Strasburg to the empire, for adding Conde to their barrier, and for settling
the commerce on the foot of the ancient tariff ; as also for obtaining more reasonable terms
for the emperor. But things were so fixed between the court of France and ours, that there
was no room for intercession.
The earl of Godolphin died of the stone in September. He was the man of the clearest
head, the calmest temper, and the most incorrupt of all the ministers of state I have ever
known. After having been thirty years in the treasury, and during nine of those lord trea
surer, as he was never once suspected of corruption, or of suffering his servants to grow rich
under him, so in all that time his estate was not increased by him to the value of 4000/. He
served the queen with such a particular affection and zeal, that he studied to possess all
people with great personal esteem for her : and she herself seemed to be so sensible of this for
many years, that if courts were not different from all other places in the world, it might
have been thought that his wise management at home, and the duke of Marlborough's
glorious conduct abroad, would have fixed them in their posts, above the little practices of
an artful favourite, and the cunning of a man who has not hitherto showed any token of a
great genius, and is only eminent in the arts of deluding those that hearken to him.
Upon the earl of Godolphin's death, the duke of Marlborough resolved to go and live
beyond sea : he executed it in the end of November, and his duchess followed him in the
beginning of February. This was variously censured : some pretended it was the giving up
and abandoning the concerns of his country, and they represented it as the effect of fear, with
too anxious a care to secure himself ; others were glad he was safe out of ill hands, whereby
if we should fall into the convulsions of a civil war, he would be able to assist the elector of
Hanover, as being so entirely beloved and confided in by all our military men : whereas if
he had stayed in England, it was not to be doubted but, upon the least shadow of suspicion,
he would have been immediately secured ; whereas now he would be at liberty, being beyond
sea, to act as there might be occasion for it.
There were two suits begun against him ; the one was for the two and a half per cent.
that the foreign princes were content should be deducted for contingencies, of which an

894 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
account was formerly given ; the other was, for arrears due to the builders of Blenheim
house. The queen had given orders for building it with great magnificence ; all the bargains
with the workmen were made in her name, and by authority from her ; and in the pream
bles of the acts of parliament, that confirmed the grant of Woodstock to him and his heirs,
it was said the queen built the house for him : yet now, that the tradesmen were let run into
an arrear of 30,000?., the queen refused to pay any more ; and set them upon suing the
duke of Marlborough for it, though he had never contracted with any of them : upon his
going beyond sea, both those suits were stayed, which gave occasion to people to imagine,
that the ministry, being disturbed to see so much public respect put on a man, whom they
had used so ill, had set these prosecutions on foot, only to render his stay in England uneasy
to him.
Our army continued this winter about Ghent and Bruges ; and we kept a sort of garrison
in Dunkirk ; but that was so ill supplied with artillery and ammunition, that it was visible
they were not in a condition to keep the place, any longer than the French were willing to
let them stay in it. And during that time, they were neither allowed to have a place to
worship God, nor to bury their dead in, though by a mortality that raged there, some
thousands died. Our ministers continued still to press the States and the emperor to come
into the queen's measures ; the emperor, on some occasions, talked in a very positive strain,
as if he was resolved to put all to hazard, rather than submit to such hard conditions ; but
the apprehensions of a war in the neighbourhood of Hungary, and the low state of his
treasure, forced him to come down from that height, and engage the States to procure better
terms for him : the demand of Strasburg was rejected by the French, with so positive an
air, that our court did not move in it more ; nor did it appear that we obtained any one
condition of the French, but what was offered in their own project.
In conclusion, the States were forced to yield in every particular; and then our ministers,
to give some seeming content to the nation, and to bring the States into some confidence
with them, ordered the new barrier treaty to be signed ; and it was given out by their
creatures, that the French were highly offended at their signing this ; making it previous to
a general peace, and a sort of guaranty for it. Thus, after all the declamations that were
made on the first barrier treaty, the ministers came into a new one, which though not so
secure as the former, yet was liable to all the objections that were made against that. The
French, as we were assured, in the progress of the treaty, used all that course of chicane,
for which they have been so long famous ; and, after all the steps our court had made, to get
them a treaty of their own projecting, we were not at last able to gain any one point upon
them : they seemed to reckon, that now we had put ourselves in their hands, and that they
might use us as they pleased.
A proclamation was set out in the end of November, giving notice that the session of par
liament would be opened on the thirteenth of January; but though the proroguing the
parliament, after such a proclamation, was without a precedent, yet we were put off by seven
prorogations, some for a fortnight, and some for three weeks : it was said, we were daily
expecting a sudden conclusion of the treaty ; and until all was finished, the ministers could
not know what aids were to be demanded. What occasioned all these delays is yet a secret
to me ; so I can write nothing of it. Many expresses were sent to Vienna, and the returns
to those could not come quick. The demands for restoring the electors of Bavaria and
Cologne, together with a compensation for their losses, were insisted on. The emperor could
not do the former of these without the diet, by whose authority they were put under
the imperial ban : but neither the emperor nor diet could answer the other demand, it rose
so high.
While we were at home uneasy at the many prorogations and delays, the news from
beyond sea opened a new scene. The Swedes broke into Holstein, but were so closely fol
lowed by the Danes and Muscovites, that their retreat by land was cut oft, and the Danish
ships shut them from the Baltic sea ; they made great waste in the king of Denmark's share of
Holstein, and burnt Altena, a great and rich village, within a mile of Hamburg, which being
an open place, in no sort fortified, the burning it was thought contrary to the laws of war.
The king of Prussia died in February ; he was in his own person a virtuous man, and

OF QUEEN ANNE. 895
full of zeal in the matters of religion ; he raised above two hundred new churches in his
dominions ; he was weak, and much in the power of his ministers and flatterers ; but was
so apt to hearken to whispers, that he changed twice the whole set of his ministry : his
assuming the title of a king, and his affecting an extraordinary magnificence in his court,
brought a great charge on himself, and on all about him, which made him a severe master to
his subjects, and set him on many pretensions, chiefly those relating to the prince of Frize-
land, which were not thought well grounded. He was succeeded in his dignity by his son,
who had hitherto appeared to affect a roughness of behaviour, and seemed fond of his grena
diers, not only beyond all other military men, but beyond all men whatsoever : he seemed to
have a warlike inclination ; but what he will prove, now that he is on the throne, must be
left to time *.
The appearances of a new war between the Turk and the czar varied so often, that it was
doubtful in what it might end : the king of Sweden used all possible means to engage the
Turk in it ; but he threw himself, by his intractable obstinacy, into great dangers : the party
at the Porte that opposed the war, studied to get rid of that king, and of his importunities.
Orders were sent him to march back into his kingdom : and they undertook to procure him
a safe passage to it ; but he treated the person that was sent with this message with great
insolence, and fortified himself, as well as he could, with the Swedes that were about him,
and resolved to defend himself. A force much superior to his was brought against him ; but
he maintained himself so resolutely in his house, that some hundreds of those who attacked
him were killed : the Turks upon that set fire to the house, whereupon he was forced to
surrender, and was put under a guard, and most of his Swedes were sold for slaves ; he was
carried to a house near Adrianople, but not suffered to come to court : only the Sultan dis
owned the violence used to his person. In the mean while, the czar shipped an army from
Petersburgh, that landed in Finland : the Swedes were not able to stand before him ; every
place, as he advanced, submitted to him ; and he was now master of Abo, the capital of Fin
land, and of that whole province. Steinbock, with his army, maintained himself in Tonnin-
gen, as long as their provision lasted : but, all supplies being carefully stopped, he was forced
at last to deliver up himself and his army prisoners of war ; and these were the best troops
the Swedes had, so that Sweden was struck with a general consternation ; to this distracted
state has that furious prince abandoned his own kingdom. And there I must leave it, to
return to our own affairs.
After a long expectation we at last knew, that on the thirteenth of March the treaty of
peace between England, France, and the States was signed : upon this, the parliament was
opened on the ninth of April. The queen in her speech told the two houses, that she had
now concluded a peace, and had obtained a further security for the protestant succession, and
that she was in an entire union with the house of Hanover ; she asked of the commons, tho
necessary supplies, and recommended to both houses, the cultivating the arts of peace, with
a reflection upon faction. Upon this speech, a debate arose in the house of lords, concerning
some words, that were moved to be put in the address, (which of course was to be made to
the queen) applauding the conditions of the peace, and the security for the protestant succes
sion : this was opposed, since we did not yet know what the conditions of the peace were,
nor what that security was ; all that appeared was, that the pretender was gone out of
France into the Barrois, a part of Lorrain, for which that duke did homage to the crown of
France. An address of congratulation was agreed to, but without any approbation of the
peace. The house of commons observed the same caution in their address. But upon this,
a new set of addresses ran through the nation, in the usual strains of flattery and false
eloquence. The parliament sat above a month before the articles of peace (and of a treaty
of commerce, made at that same time) were laid before them. It was given out, that, until
the ratifications were exchanged, it was not proper to publish them ; but when that was
done, they were communicated to both houses, and printed.
By the treaty of peace, the French king was bound to give neither harbour nor assistance
to the pretender, but acknowledged the queen's title and the protestant succession, as it wa3
* He became Frederic the Great, or the Mad, for both designations are applicable. See his own " Memoirs of the
House of Brandenburg."

896 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
settled by several acts of parliament : Dunkirk was to be razed in a time limited, within five
months, after the ratification ; but that was not to be begun, until an equivalent for it was
put in the hands of France. Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay, and St. Christopher's were to
be given to England ; but Cape Breton was left to the French, with a liberty to dry their
fish on Newfoundland : this was the main substance of the articles of peace. The treaty of
commerce settled a free trade, according to the tariff in the year 1 664, excepting some com
modities, that were subjected to a new tariff in the year 1699, which was so high, that it
amounted to a prohibition : all the productions of France were to come into England under
no other duties but those that were laid on the same productions from other countries ; and
when this was settled, then commissaries were to be sent to London, to agree and adjust all
matters relating to trade : the treaty of commerce with Spain was not yet finished. As for
the allies, Portugal and Savoy were satisfied ; the emperor was to have the duchy of Milan,
the kingdom of Naples, and the Spanish Netherlands : Sicily was to be given to the duke of
Savoy, with the title of king : and Sardinia, with the same title, was to be given to the elec
tor of Bavaria, in lieu of his losses : the States were to deliver up Lisle, and the little places
about it : and, besides the places of which they were already possessed, they were to have
Namur, Charleroi, Luxemburg, Ypres, and Newport : the king of Prussia was to have the
Upper Guelder, in lieu of Orange, and the other estates, which the family had in Franche
Comte : this was all that I think necessary to insert here, with relation to our treaty : the
emperor was to have time to the first of June, to declare his accepting of it. It did not
appear what equivalent the king of France was to have for Dunkirk : no mention was made
of it in the treaty ; so the house of commons made an address to the queen, desiring to know
what that equivalent was. Some weeks passed before they had an answer ; at last the
queen by a message said, the French king had that equivalent already in his own hands ;
but we were still in the dark as to that, no further explanation being made of it. As to
Newfoundland, it was thought that the French settling at Cape Breton, instead of Placentia,
would be of great advantage to them with relation to the fishery, which is the only thing
that makes settlements in those parts of any value. The English have always pretended,
that the first discovery of Newfoundland being made in Henry the Seventh's time, the right
to it was in the crown of England. The French had leave given them in king Charles the
First's time to fish there, paying tribute, as an acknowledgment of that licence : it is true,
they carried this much further, during the civil wars ; and this grew to a much greater
height in the reign of king Charles the Second ; but in king William's time, an act of par
liament passed, asserting the right of the crown to Newfoundland, laying open the trade
thither to all the subjects of Great Britain, with a positive and constant exclusion of all aliens
and foreigners : these were the reflections on the treaty of peace ; but there were more
important objections made to the treaty of commerce. During king Charles the Second's
reign, our trade with France was often and loudly complained of, as very prejudicial to the
nation; there was a commission appointed in the year 1674, to adjust the conditions of our
commerce with that nation, and then it appeared, in a scheme that was prepared by very
able merchants, that we lost every year a million of money by our trade thither. This was
then so well received, that the scheme was entered into the journals of both houses of par
liament, and into the books of the custom-house : but the court at that time favoured the
interests of France so much, preferably to their own, that the trade went still on until the
year 1678, when the parliament laid, upon all French commodities, such a duty as amounted
to a prohibition, and was to last for three years, and to the end of the next session of par
liament : at the end of the three years, king Charles called no more parliaments; and that
act was repealed in king James's parliaments : but, during the whole last war, high duties
were laid on all the productions and manufactures of France ; which by this treaty were to
be no higher charged, than tho same productions from other countries. It was said that, if wc
had been as often beaten by the French, as they had been by us, this would have been
thought a very hard treaty; and if the articles of our commerce had been settled, before the
duke of Ormond was ordered to separate his troops from the confederates, the French could
not have pretended to draw us into such terms as they had insisted on since that time,
because we put ourselves into their power. We were engaged, by our treaty with Portugal,

OF QUEEN ANNE. 897
that their wines should be charged a third part lower than the French wines ; but if the
duties were, according to this treaty of commerce, to be made equal, then considering the
difference of freight, which is more than double from Portugal, the French wines would bo
much cheaper ; and the nation generally liking them better, by this means we should not
only break our treaties with Portugal, but if we did not take off their wines, we must lose
their trade, which was at present the most advantageous, that we drove any where : for,
besides a great vent of our manufactures, we brought over yearly great returns of gold
from thence ; four, five, and six hundred thousand pounds a-year. We had brought the
silk manufacture here to so great perfection, that about three hundred thousand people were
maintained by it *. For carrying this on, we brought great quantities of silk from Italy
and Turkey, by which people in those countries came to take off as great quantities of our
manufactures ; so that our demand for silk had opened good markets for our woollen goods
abroad, which must fail, if our manufacture of silk at home should be lost ; which, if once
we gave a free vent for silk stuffs from France among us, must soon be the case ; since the
cheapness of provisions and of labour in France, would enable the French to undersell us,
even at our own markets. Our linen and paper manufactures would likewise be ruined by
a free importation of the same goods from France. These things came to be so generally
well understood, that even, while flattering addresses were coming to court from all parts
of the island, petitions came from the towns and counties concerned in trade, setting forth
the prejudice they apprehended from this treaty of commerce. The ministers used all pos
sible arts to bear this clamour down ; they called it faction, and decried it with a boldness,
that would have surprised any, but those who had observed the methods they had taken for
many years to vent the foulest calumnies, and the falsest misrepresentations possible. But
the matter came to be so universally apprehended, that it could not be disguised.
The house of commons gave an aid of two shillings in the pound, though the ministers
hoped to have carried it higher ; but the members durst not venture on that, since a new
election was soon to follow the conclusion of the session : they went next to renew the duty
on malt, for another year ; and here a debate arose, that was kept up some days in both
houses of parliament, whether it should be laid on the whole island : it was carried in the
affirmative, of which the Scots complained heavily, as a burden that their country could not
bear : and whereas it was said, that those duties ought to be laid equally on all the subjects
of the United Kingdom, the Scots insisted on an article of the union, by which it was stipu
lated, that no duty should be laid on the malt in Scotland during the war, which ought to
be observed religiously. They said, it was evident, the war with Spain was not yet ended ,
no peace with that crown was yet proclaimed, nor so much as signed : and though it was as
good as made, and was every day expected, yet it was a maxim in the construction of all
laws, that odious matters ought to be strictly understood, whereas matters of favour were
to be more liberally interpreted. It was farther said on the Scotch side, that this duty was,
by the very words of the act, to be applied to deficiencies during the war : so this act was,
upon the matter, making Scotland pay that duty during the war, from which the articles of
the union did by express words exempt them. A great number of the English were con
vinced of the equity of these grounds, that the Scots went on ; but the majority was on the
other side. So, when the bill had passed through the house of commons, all the Scots of
both houses met together, and agreed to move for an act, dissolving the union ; they went
first to the queen, and told her how grievous and indeed intolerable this duty would be to
their country, so that they were under a necessity to try, how the union might be broken.
The queen seemed uneasy at the motion ; she studied to divert them from it, and assured
them that her officers should have orders to make it easy to them. This was understood
to imply that the duty should not be levied ; but they knew this could not be depended on :
so the motion was made in the house of lords, and most of the lords of that nation spoke
to it : they set forth all the hardships, that they lay under since the union ; they had no
more a council in Scotland ; their peers at present were the only persons in the whole island,
that were judged incapable of peerage by descent ; their laws were altered in matters of
the highest importance, particularly in matters of treason ; and now an imposition was to
• There must bo one cipher too many here. Burnet unquestionably intended to write 30,000.
3 M

898 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
be laid on their malt, which must prove an intolerable burden to the poor of that country,
and force them to drink water. Upon all these reasons they moved for liberty to bring in a
bill, to dissolve the union, in which they would give full security, for maintaining the queen's
prerogative, and for securing the protestant succession. This was opposed with much zeal
by the ministers, but was supported by others ; who, though they did not intend to give up
the union, yet thought it reasonable to give a hearing to this motion, that they might see
how far the protestant succession could be secured, in case it should be entertained ; but the
majority were for rejecting the motion : when the malt-bill was brought up to the lords,
there was such an opposition made to it, that fifty-six voted against it, but sixty-four were
for it, and so it passed.
The matter of the greatest consequence in this session was, a bill for settling the com
merce with France, according to the treaty, and for taking off the prohibitions and high
duties, that were laid on the productions of France. The traders in the city of London, and
those in all the other parts of England were alarmed, with the great prejudice this would
bring on the whole nation. The Turkey company, those that traded to Portugal and Italy,
and all who were concerned in the woollen and silk manufactures, appeared before both
houses, and set forth the great mischief, that a commerce with France, on the foot of the
treaty, would bring upon the nation ; while none appeared on the other side, to answer their
arguments, or to set forth the advantage of such a commerce. It was manifest, that none of
the trading bodies had been consulted in it ; and the commissioners for trade and plantations
had made very material observations on the first project, which was sent to them for their
opinion : and afterwards, when this present project was formed, it was also transmitted to
that board by the queen's order, and they were required to make their remarks on it ; but
Arthur Moor, who had risen up, from being a footman without any education, to be a great
dealer in trade, and was the person of that board in whom the lord treasurer confided most,
moved that they might first read it every one apart, and then debate it ; and he desired
to have the first perusal : so he took it away, and never brought it back to them, but gave it
to the lord Bolingbroke, who carried it to Paris, and there it was settled *. The bill was
very feebly maintained by those who argued for it ; yet the majority went with the bill
until the last day ; and then the opposition to it was so strong, that the ministers seemed
inclined to let it fall : but it was not then known, whether this was only a feint, or whether
the instances of the French ambassador, and the engagements that our ministers were under
to that court, prevailed for carrying it on. It was brought to the last step ; and then a great
many of those, who had hitherto gone along with the court, broke from them in this matter,
and bestirred themselves so effectually, that when it came to the last division, one hundred
and eighty-five were for the bill, and one hundred and ninety-four were against it : by so
small a majority was a bill of such great importance lost. But the house of commons, to
soften the ill constructions that might be made of their rejecting this bill, made an address
to the queen, in which they thanked her for the peace she had concluded, and for the foun
dation laid for settling our commerce ; and prayed her to name commissaries to regulate and
finish that matter.
To this the queen sent an answer, of a singular composition : she said, she was glad to see
they were so well pleased with the treaty of peace and commerce that she had made, and
assured them that she would use her best endeavours to see all the advantages that she had
stipulated for her subjects performed. This was surprising, since the house of commons had
sufficiently showed, how little they were pleased with the treaty of commerce, by their
rejecting the bill that was offered to confirm it ; and this was insinuated in their address
itself : but it was pleasantly said, that the queen answered them, according to what ought
¦ Mr. Speaker Onslow says, " Mr. Moor had very accurately and politely ; but his figure was awkward and
extraordinary talents, with great experience and know- disadvantageous. If," continues Mr. Onslow, who knew
ledge of the world, very able in parliament, and capable him intimately, " if he had raised himself by a course of
of the highest parts of business, with a manner in it, and virtue, he would have justly been deemed one of the
indeed in his general deportment, equal almost to any greatest among those who have wrought their own for-
rank. He knew every body, and could talk of every tunes. But, vendidit hie auropatriam — to Spain, at least,
body, which made his conversation a sort of history of the if not to France, in our commercial transactions at the
age. He was generous and magnificent ; wrote and spoke peace of Utrecht." — Oxford ed. of this work.

OF QUEEN ANNE. 899
to have been in their address, and not according to what was in it ; besides it was observable
that her promise to maintain what was already stipulated, did not at all answer the prayer
of their address. This was all that passed in this session of parliament with relation to the
peace. It was once apprehended, that the ministers would have moved for an act, or at least
for an address, approving the peace ; and upon that I prepared a speech, which I intended to
make on the subject : it was the only speech that I ever prepared beforehand ; but since that
matter was never brought into the house, I had no occasion to make it; yet I think
proper to insert it here, that I may deliver down my thoughts of this great transaction to
posterity. " My lords, this matter now before you, as it is of the greatest importance, so it may
he seen in very different lights ; I will not meddle with the political view of it ; I leave
that to persons who can judge and speak of it much better than I can : I will, only offer to
you what appears to me, when I consider it, with relation to the rules of morality and reli
gion ; in this I am sure I act within my proper sphere. Some things stick so with me, that
I could have no quiet in my conscience, nor think I had answered the duty of my function,
if I did not make use of the freedom of speech, that our constitution and the privileges of
this house allow me : I am the more encouraged to do this, because the bringing those of our
order into public councils, in which we have now such a share, was originally intended for
this very end, that we should offer such considerations, as arise from the rules of our holy
religion, in all matters that may come before us. In the opening my sense of things, I may
be forced to use some words that may perhaps appear severe : I cannot help it, if the nature
of these affairs is such, that I cannot speak plainly of them in a softer strain : I intend not
to reflect on any person ; and I am sure I have such a profound respect for the queen, that
no part of what I may say, can be understood to reflect on her in any sort : her intentions
are, no doubt, as she declares them to be, all for the good and happiness of her people ; but
it is not to be supposed that she can read long treaties, or carry the articles of them in her
memory : so if things have been either concealed from her, or misrepresented to her, she can
do no wrong ; and, if any such thing has been done, we know on whom our constitution lays
the blame.
" The treaties that were made some years ago with our allies are in print ; both the grand
alliance, and some subsequent ones : we see many things in these that are not provided for
by this peace ; it was in particular stipulated, that no peace should be treated, much less
concluded, without the consent of the allies. But, before I make any observations on this,
I must desire you will consider how sacred a thing the public faith, that is engaged in treaties
and alliances, should be esteemed.
" I hope I need not tell you, that even heathen nations valued themselves upon their
fidelity, in a punctual observing of all their treaties, and with how much infamy they branded
the violation of them : if we consider that, which revealed religion teaches us to know,
that man was made after the image of God, the God of all truth, as we know who is the
father of lies ; God hates the deceitful man, in whose mouth there is no faithfulness. In
that less perfect religion of the Jews, when the Gibeonites had, by a fraudulent proceeding,
drawn Joshua and the Israelites into a league with them, it was sacredly observed ; and the
violation of it, some time after, was severely punished. And, when the last of the kings of
Judah shook off the fidelity, to which he had bound himself to the king of Babylon, the
prophet thereupon said with indignation, shall he break the oath of God, and prosper ? The
swearing deceitfully is one of the worst character ; and he who swears to his own hurt, and
changes not, is among the best. It is a maxim of the wisest of kings, that the throne is
established by righteousness. Treaties are of the nature of oaths ; and when an oath is
asked to confirm a treaty, it is never denied. The best account that I can give of the disuse
of adding that sacred seal to treaties is this :
" The popes had for some ages possessed themselves of a power, to which they had often
recourse, of dissolving the faith of treaties, and the obligation of oaths : the famous, but fatal
story of Ladislaus, king of Hungary, breaking his faith to Amurath, the Turk, by virtue of
a papal dispensation, is well known. One e-f the last public acts of this sort was, when pope
Clement the Seventh absolved Francis the First, from the treaty made and sworn to at
3 m 2

900 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
Madrid, while he was a prisoner there : the severe revenge that Charles the Fifth took of
this, in the sack of Rome, and in keeping that pope for some months a prisoner, has
made popes more cautious, since that time, than they were formerly : this also drew such
heavy but just reproaches on the papacy, from the reformers, that some stop seems now to
be put to such a barefaced protection of perjury. But the late king told me, that he under
stood from the German protestant princes, that they believed the confessors of popish princes
had faculties from Rome, for doing this as effectually, though more secretly: he added, that
they knew it went for a maxim among popish princes, that their word and faith bound them
as they were men, and members of society ; but that their oaths, being acts of religion, were
subject to the direction of their confessors : and that they, apprehending this, did, in all their
treaties with the princes of that religion, depend upon their honour, but never asked the
confirmation of an oath, which had been the practice of former ages. The protestants of
France thought they had gained an additional security, for observing the edict of Nantes,
when the swearing to observe it was made a part of the coronation oath : but it is probable,
this very thing undermined and ruined it.
" Grotius, Puffendorf, and others, who have written of the law of nations, lay this down
for a rule, that the nature of a treaty, and the tie that arises out of it, is not altered by the
having, or not having, an oath ; the oath serves only to heighten the obligation. They do
also agree in this, that confederacies do not bind states to carry on a war to their utter ruin ;
but that princes and states are bound to use their utmost efforts, in maintaining them : and
it is agreed by all who have treated of these matters, that the common enemy, by offering
to any one confederate all his pretensions, cannot justify his departing from the confederacy ;
because it was entered into with that view, that all the pretensions, upon which the confede
racy was made, should be insisted on or departed from, by common consent.
" It is true, that in confederacies, where allies are bound to the performance of several
articles, as to their quotas or shares, if any one fails in the part he was bound to, the other
confederates have a right to demand a reparation for his non-performance : but even in that
case, allies are to act as friends, by making allowances for what could not be helped, and
not as enemies by taking advantages, on design to disengage them from their allies. It is
certain, allies forfeit their right to the alliance, if they do not perform their part : but the
failure must be evident, and an expostulation must be first made : and, if upon satisfaction
demanded, it is not given, then a protestation should be made, of such non-performance ; and
the rest of the confederates are at liberty, as to him who fails on his part : these are reckoned
among the customs and laws of nations ; and, since nothing of this kind has been done, I
cannot see how it can be made out, that the tie of the confederacy, and by consequence, that
the public faith, has not been first broken on our side.
" My lords, I camiot reconcile the carrying on a treaty with the French, without the
knowledge and concurrence of the other confederate states and princes, and the concluding it,
without the consent of the emperor, the principal confederate, not to mention the visible
uneasiness that has appeared in the others, who seem to have been forced to consent, by
declarations, if not by threatenings, from hence : I say, I cannot reconcile this with the articles
of the grand alliance, and the other later treaties, that are in print : this seems to come
within the charge of the prophet against those who deal treacherously, with those who had
not dealt treacherously with them ; upon which, the threatening that follows may be justly
apprehended : it will have a strange sound among all Christians, but more particularly among
the reformed, when it is reported, that the plenipotentiary of the head of the reformed
princes, said openly to the other plenipotentiaries, that the queen held herself free from all
her treaties and alliances : if this be set for a precedent, here is a short way of dispensing
with the public faith ; and if this was spoken by one of our prelates, I am afraid it will
leave a heavy reproach on our church ; and, to speak freely, I am afraid it will draw a much
heavier curse after it. My lords, there is a God in heaven, who will judge all the world,
without respect of persons : nothing can prosper without his blessing : he can blast all the
counsels of men, when laid in fraud and deceit, how cunningly soever they may be either
contrived or disguised : and I must think that a peace made, in opposition to the express
words of so many treaties, will prove a curse instead of a blessing to us : God is provoked

OF QUEEN ANNE. 901
by such proceedings, to pour heavy judgments on us, for the violation of a faith so often
given, which is so openly broken : by this our nation is dishonoured, and our church dis
graced : and I dread to think, what the consequence of those things is likely to prove. I
would not have expressed myself in such a manner, if I had not thought, that I was bound
to it by the duty that I owe to Almighty God, by my zeal for the queen, and the church,
and by my love to my countr)'. Upon so great an occasion, I think my post in the church
and in this house lays me under the strictest obligations to discharge my conscience, and to
speak plainly without fear or flattery, let the effect of it, as to myself, be what it will : I
shall have the more quiet in my own mind, both living and dying, for having done that,
which seemed to me an indispensable duty.
" I hope this house will not bring upon themselves and the nation, the blame and guilt of
approving that, which seems to be much more justly censurable : the reproach that may
belong to this treaty, and the judgments of God, that may follow on it, are now what a few
only are concerned in. A national approbation is a thing of another nature : the public
breach of faith, in the attack that was made on the Smyrna fleet forty years ago, brought a
great load of infamy on those who advised and directed it ; but they were more modest
than to ask a public approbation of so opprobrious a fact : it lay on a few ; and the nation
was not drawn into a share in the guilt of that, which was then universally detested, though
it was passed over in silence : it seems enough, if not too much, to be silent on such an
occasion. I can carry my compliances no further."
I now go on with the account of what was farther done in this session : the house of
commons was, as to all other things except the matter of commerce, so entirely in the hands
of the ministers, that they ventured on a new demand, of a very extraordinary nature, which
was made in as extraordinary a manner. The civil list, which was estimated at 600,000/.
a-year, and was given for the ordinary support of the government, did far exceed it : and
this was so evident that, during the three first years of the queen's reign, 100,000/. was
every year applied to the war ; 200,000/. was laid, out in building of Blenheim house, and
the entertaining the Palatines had cost the queen 100,000/. So that here was apparently a
large overplus, beyond what was necessary towards the support of the government. Yet
these extraordinary expenses had put the ordinary payments into such an arrear, that at
Midsummer, 1710, the queen owed 510,000/. : but, upon a new account, this was brought
to be 80,000/. less ; and at that time there was an arrear of 190,000/. due to the civil list ;
these two sums together, amounting to 270,000/., the debt that remained was but 240,000/.
Yet now, in the end of the session, when, upon the rejecting the bill of commerce, most of
the members were gone into the country, so that there were not one hundred and eighty of
them left, a message was sent to the house of commons, desiring a power to mortgage a
branch of the civil list, for thirty-two years, in order to raise upon it 500,000/.
This was thought a demand of very bad consequence, since the granting it to one prince
would be a precedent to grant the like to all future princes ; and, as the account of the debt
was deceitfully stated, so it was known that the funds set off for the civil list would increase
considerably in times of peace. So an opposition was made to it, with a great superiority
in point of argument, but there was a great majority for it. And all people concluded that
the true end of getting so much money into the hands of the court was to furnish their crea
tures sufficiently for carrying their elections.
The lords were sensible that the method of procuring this supply was contrary to their
privileges, since all public supplies were either asked from the throne, or by a message which
was sent to both houses at the same time. This practice was enquired into by the lords :
no precedents came up to it, but some came so near it, that nothing could be made of the
objection. But the ministers, apprehending that an opposition would be made to the bill if
it came up alone, got it consolidated with another of 1,200,000/. that was before them. And
the weight of these two joined together made them both pass in the house of lords without
oppositi on.
While this was in agitation, the earl of Wharton set forth in the house of lords the danger
the nation was in by the pretender's being settled in Lorraine ; so he moved that an address
should be made to the queen, desiring her to use her most pressing instances with the duke

902 THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN
of Lorraine to remove him, and with all princes, that were in amity or correspondence with
her, not to receive the pretender, nor to suffer him to continue in their dominions. This
was opposed by none but the lord North ; so it was carried to the queen. The day after
the lords had voted this, Stanhope made a motion to the same purpose in the house of com
mons, and it was agreed to, nemine contradkente. The queen, in her answer to the address
of the lords, said she would repeat the instances she had already used to get that person
removed, according to their desire in the address. This seemed to import that she had
already pressed the duke of Lorraine on that subject, though the ministers in the house of
lords acknowledced that they knew of no applications made to the duke of Lorraine, and
thought the words of the answer related only to the instances she had used to get the
pretender sent out of France. But the natural signification of the words seeming to relate
to the duke of Lorraine, the lords made a second address, in wliich they said, they were sur
prised to find that those instances had not their full effect, notwithstanding the kings of
France and Spain had showed their compliance with her desire on that occasion. All the
answer brought to this was, that the queen received it graciously. She answered the com
mons more plainly, and promised to use her endeavours to get him removed. It was gene
rally believed that the duke of Lorraine did not consent to receive him, till he sent one over
to know the queen 8 pleasure upon it, and that he was very readily informed of that.
In the end of May, Spratt, bishop of Rochester, died; his parts were very bright in his
youth, and gave great hopes : but these were blasted by a lazy, libertine course of life, to
which his temper and good nature carried him, without considering the duties, or even the
decencies, of his profession : he was justly esteemed a great master of our language, and one
of our correctest writers *. Atterbury succeeded him in that see, and in the deanery of
Westminster ; thus was he promoted, and rewarded for all the flame that he had raised in
our church. Compton, bishop of London, died in the beginning of July, in the eighty-first
year of his age : he was a generous and good-natured man, but easy and weak, and much
in the power of others : he was succeeded by Robinson, bishop of Bristol. On the eighteenth
of July, the queen came to the house of lords, to pass the bills, and to put an end to the
session : she made a speech to her parliament, in which, after she had thanked them for the
service they had done the public and for the supplies that the commons had given, she said,
she hoped the affair of commerce would be so well understood at their next meeting, that the
advantageous conditions she had obtained from France, would be made effectual, for the
benefit of our trade : she enlarged on the praises of the present parliament ; she said, at their
* The above character of Dr. Spratt, like many others the Second came to the throne ; and how mnch he conde-
given by Burnet, of those opposed to him in politics, is scended to the times, appears in the form of thanksgiving,
much too disparaging. Dr. Thomas Spratt, a native of which he drew up when the queen of this monarch was
Dorsetshire, was horn at Beaminster, in 1635. He was declared pregnant. His assistants in this were Thomas
a member, and subsequently a fellow, of Wadham college, White, bishop of Peterborough, and Nathaniel Crew,
Oxford, where he distinguished himself in the very opposite bishop of Durham. This caused much ridicule ; amongst
mental pursuits, poetry and mathematics. His talents were other pasquinades, giving rise to a ballad, which thus
versatile, and his political attachments equally protaean. commenced —
To please the anti-monarchists, he wrote an ode on Crom- Two Toms and Xat
well's death ; to satisfy the royalists under Charles the Tn council sat,
Second, he produced a " History of the Rye House Plot ;" To rig out a thanksgiving
and if James the Second had continued in the ascendant, And made a pray'r
the doctor might have been pleased to write a Jacobinical jror a thing in the air
narrative of Monmouth's invasion. When the Stuarts That's neither dead nor living.
were restored, he became chaplain to the duke of Buck
ingham. During the very first dinner, at which he was "When the revolution was completed, he still retained bis
present in this peer's residence, this witty profligate preferments. In 1692, two -villains, Blackhead and
remarked, that he wondered why it generally happened Young, coc?ealed a treasonable paper in the bishop's house,
that geese were placed near the clergy. " I cannot tell and then denounced him to the privy council. This tri-
the reason,'' rejoined Spratt, *' but I shall never see a bunal soon detected the baseness of this charge ; yet
goose again without thinking of your grrx-e." The duke Dr. Spratt always solemnly celebrated the anniversary
immediately discerned that his new chaplain was the man of his exculpation. He died in 1713. As a divine, he
he needed, and from that time Spratt always supervised his wls not pre-eminent, and the earl of Dartmouth probably
patron's literary works, and assisted him much in the com- justly as well as summarily observed of him, " he was
position of " The Rehearsal." After various intermediate highly valued bv men of wit, and little by those of his own
preferments, he obtained the bishopric of Rochester, in profession." — Biog. Britannica; Noble's Contin. of Grain-
1684. This preferment be managed to keep when James ger ; Oxford ed. of this work.

EappMyt-a bv-rr.T.KTnll.

FRANCIS ATTKRBURY, BISHOP OF HOC HESTER.

F1WLY1 TJIK ORIGINAL OF KNF.LLEK . US TUF.

IJOJM.FJAN f.AU JCI-CT, OX-I-'OKI).

OF QUEEN ANNE. 905
first meeting they had eased the subjects of more than nine millions, without any further
charge on them ; not to mention the advantage, which the way of doing it might bring to
the nation, and now they had enabled her likewise to pay her debts : they had supported
the war, and strengthened her hands in obtaining a peace. She told them, at her first comino-
to the crown, she found a war prepared for her ; and that she had now made her many
victories useful, by a safe and honourable peace. She promised herself that, with their con
currence, it would be lasting ; she desired they would make her subjects sensible, what they
gained by the peace, and endeavour to dissipate all the groundless jealousies, which had been
too industriously fomented ; that so our divisions might not endanger the advantages she
had obtained for her kingdoms : there were some (very few she hoped) that would never be
satisfied with any government; she hoped they would exert themselves to obviate the
malice of the ill-minded, and to undeceive the deluded : she recommended to them the
adhering to the constitution in church and state ; such persons had the best title to her
favour ; she had no other aim, but their advantage, and the securing our religion and
liberty ; she hoped to meet a parliament next winter, that should act upon the same princi
ples, and with the same prudence and vigour, to support the liberties of Europe abroad, and
to reduce the spirit of faction at home. Few speeches from the throne have in my time
been more severely reflected on than this was : it seemed strange the queen, who did not
pretend to understand matters of trade, should pass such a censure on both houses, for their
not understanding the affair of commerce ; since at the bar of both houses, and in the
debates within them upon it, the interest of the nation did appear so visibly to be contrary
to the treaty of commerce, that it looked like a contempt put on them, to represent it as
advantageous to us, and to rank all those who had opposed it, among the ill-minded, or at
least among the deluded. Nor did it escape censure, that she should affirm, that the nation
was by them eased of the load of nine millions, without any further charge, since the nation
must bear the constant charge of interest at six per cent, till the capital should be paid off.
The sharpness with which she expressed herself was singular, and not very well suited to her
dignity or her sex : nor was it well understood what could be meant by her saying, that she
found a war prepared for her, at her coming to the crown ; since she herself began it, upon
the addresses of both houses. It was also observed, that there was not, in all her speech,
one word of the pretender, or of the protestant succession ; but that which made the greatest
impression on the whole nation was, that this speech discovered plainly, that the court was
resolved to have the bill of commerce pass in the next session : all people concluded the
ministers were under engagements to the court of France to get it settled ; and this
was taken to be the sense of the queen's words concerning the making the peace lasting ;
what- effect this may have on the next elections, which are quickly to follow, must be left
to time.
I am now come to the end of the war, and of this parliament, both at once : it was
fit they should bear some proportion to one another ; for, as this was the worst parliament I
ever saw, so no assembly, but one composed as this was, could have sat quiet under such a-
peace. But I am now arrived at my full period, and so shall close this work : I had a noble
prospect before me, in a course of many years, of bringing it to a glorious conclusion ; now
the scene is so fatally altered, that I can scarcely restrain myself from giving vent to a just
indignation, in severe complaints : but an historian must tell things truly as they are, and
leave the descanting on them to others : so I here conclude this history of above three-and-
fifty years.
I pray God it may be read with the same candour and sincerity with wliich I have written
it, and with such a degree of attention, as may help those who read it, to form just reflec
tions, and sound principles of religion and virtue, of duty to our princes, and of love to our
country, with a sincere and incorruptible zeal to preserve our religion, and to maintain our
liberty and property *.
* Other authorities that may be consulted relative rials of the Reign of Queen Anne;" Salmon's His-
to the affairs of this reign, are Swift's " Four Last tory of England ; and Hamilton's " Transactions during
Years of the Reign of Queen Anno ;" Boyer's " An- Queen Anno's Reign."

904

THE CONCLUSION.

HAVE now set out the state of affairs for above half a cen
tury, with all the care and attention that I was capable of:
I have enquired into all matters among us, and have observed
them, during the course of my life, with a particular application
and impartiality. But my intention in writing was not so much
to tell a fine tale to the world, and to amuse them with a dis
covery of many secrets and of intrigues of state, to blast the
memory of some and to exalt others, to disgrace one party and
to recommend another ; my chief design was better formed, and
deeper laid : it was to give such a discovery of errors in govern
ment, and of the excesses and follies of parties, as may make the next age wiser, by what I
may tell them of the last. And I may presume that the observations I have made, and the
account that I have given, will gain me so much credit, that I may speak with a plain free
dom to all sorts of persons : this not being to be published until after I am dead, when envy,
jealousy, or hatred, will be buried with me in my grave ; I may hope, that what I am now
to offer to succeeding ages, may be better heard, and less censured, than any thing I could
offer to the present : so that this is a sort of testament or dying speech, which I leave
behind me, to be read and considered when I can speak no more : I do most earnestly beg
of God to direct me in it, and to give it such an effect on the minds of those who read it,
that I may do more good when dead, than I could ever hope to do while I was alive.
My thoughts have run most, and dwelt longest, on the concerns of the church and reli
gion : therefore I begin with them. I have always had a true zeal for the church of
England ; I have lived in its communion with great joy, and have pursued its true interests
with an unfeigned affection : yet I must say there are many things in it that have been very
uneasy to me.
The requiring subscriptions to the thirty-nine articles is a great imposition ; I believe
them all myself; but as those about original sin and predestination might be expressed
more exceptionably, so I think it is a better way to let such matters continue to be still
the standard of doctrine, with some few corrections, and to censure those who teach any
contrary tenets : than to oblige all that serve in the church, to subscribe them ; the greater
part subscribe without ever examining them ; and others do it because they must do it,
though they can hardly satisfy their consciences about some things in them. Churches and
societies are much better secured by laws, than by subscriptions : it is a more reasonable, as
well as a more easy method of government.
Our worship is the most perfect composition of devotion that we find in any church.
ancient or modern ; yet the corrections that were agreed to by a deputation of bishops and
divines in the year 1689, would make the whole frame of our liturgy still more perfect, as
well as more unexceptionable ; and will, I hope, at some time or other, be better entertained
than they were then. I am persuaded they are such as would bring in the much greater
part of the dissenters to the communion of the chnrch, and are in themselves desirable,
thouch there were not a dissenter in the nation.
As for the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it has been the burden of my life to see how it was
administered : our courts are managed under the rules of the canon law, dilatory and
expensive ; and as their constitution is bad, so the business in them is small ; and therefore
all possible contrivances are used to make the most of those causes that come before them ;
so that they are universally dreaded and hated. God grant that a time may come, in which

THE CONCLUSION. 905
that noble design, so near being perfected in king Edward the Sixth's days, of the Refor
matio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, may be reviewed and established : that so matrimonial and
testamentary causes, wliich are of a mixed nature, may be left, a little better regulated,
to the lay hands of chancellors and other officers : but that the whole correction of the
manners of the laity, and the inspection into the lives and labours of the clergy, may be
brought again into the hand of spiritual men, and be put into a better method. It would
be well if, after the poor clergy are relieved by the tenths and first fruits, a fund were
formed (of twenty or thirty pounds a-year) for the rural deans ; and that they, with at least
three of the clergy of the deanery named by the bishop, examined into the' manners both
of clergy and laity ; and after the methods of private admonition had been tried, according
to our Saviour s rule, but without effect, that the matter should be laid before the bishop"
who, after his admonitions were also ineffectual, might proceed to censures, to a suspension
from the sacrament, and to a full excommunication, as the case should require. This would
bring our church indeed into a primitive form, in which at present the clergy have less
authority, and are under more contempt, than in any church that I have yet seen. For,
though in the church of Rome the public authority is in general managed, according to the
method continued among us, yet it was in many particulars corrected by the council of
Trent ; whereas we, by that unhappy proviso in the act, authorizing the thirty-two com
missioners to reform our courts, are fatally tied down to all that was iu use in the twenty-
fifth year of king Henry the Eighth. Besides, in that church the clergy have, by auricular
confession, but too great an authority over the people ; I am far from thinking that to be a
lawful, or even a desirable thing ; but since that is not to be thought of, we are in a woful
condition, in which the clergy are, as it were, shut out from any share of the main parts of
the care of souls.
The want of a true well-regulated discipline is a great defect, owned to be so in the pre
face to the office of commination : and, while we continue in this condition, we are certainly
in an imperfect state. But this did never appear to me to be a just ground of separation :
which I could never think lawful, unless the terms of communion among us were unlawful,
and did oblige a man to sin : that seems to me the only justifiable cause of separation, of
leaving the established church, and of setting up a distinct or opposite communion. Nothing
under this seems to be a just ground of rending the body of Christ, or of disturbing the order
of the world and the peace of mankind, thereby drawing on that train of ill consequences
that must and do follow upon such a disjointing the society of Christians ; by which they
become alienated from one another, and in the sequel grow to hate and to devour each other,
and by which they are in danger of being consumed one of another.
I do wish, and will pray for it as long as I live, that some regard may be had to those
scruples, with which the dissenters are entangled ; and, though I think they are not all well
grounded, yet for peace sake I wish some things may be taken away, and that other things
may be softened and explained : many of these things were retained at the reformation, to
draw the people more entirely into it ; who are apt to judge, especially in times of ignorance,
by outward appearances, more than by the real value of things : so tlie preserving an exte
rior, that looked somewhat like what they had been formerly accustomed to, without doubt
had a great effect at first on many persons, who, without that, could not have been easily
brought over to adhere to that work : aud this was a just and lawful consideration. But it
is now at an end ; none now are brought over from popery by this means ; there is not there
fore such a necessity for continuing them still, as there was for keeping them up at first.
I confess, it is not advisable, without good reason for it, to make great changes in things
that are visible and sensible ; yet, upon just grounds, some may be made without any danger.
No inconvenience could follow, on leaving out the cross in baptism, or on laying aside sur
plices, and regulating cathedrals, especially as to that indecent way of singing prayers, and
of laymen's reading the litany : all bowings to the altar have at least an ill appearance, and
are of no use ; the excluding parents from being the sponsors in baptism, and requiring them
to procure others, is extremely inconvenient, and makes that to be a mockery, rather than
a solemn sponsion, in too many. Other things may be so explained, that no just exceptions
could lie to them.

906 THE CONCLUSION
Thus I wish the terms of communion were made larger and easier ; but since all is now
bound on us by a law that cannot be repealed but in parliament, there must be a great
change in the minds both of princes and people, before that can be brought about ; therefore
the dissenters ought to consider well what they can do for peace, without sinning against
God. The toleration docs not at all justify their separation, it only takes away the force of
penal laws against them ; therefore, as lying in common discourse is still a sin, though no
statute punishes it, and ingratitude is a base thing, though there is no law against it, so
separating from a national body, and from the public worship, is certainly an ill thing,
unless some sin be committed there, in which we think ourselves involved, by joining with
that body and in that worship. So that the toleration is only a freedom from punis'hment,
and does not alter the nature of the thing.
I say not this from any dislike of toleration ; I think it is a right due to all men : their
thoughts are not in their own power, they must think of things as they appear to them ;
their consciences are God's, he only knows them, and he only can change them. And as
the authority of parents over their children is antecedent to society, and no law that takes
it away can be binding, so men are bound antecedently to all society to follow what appears
to them to be the will of God ; and if men would act honestly, the rule of doing to all others
what we would have others do to us would soon determine this matter ; since every honest
man must own that he would think himself hardly dealt with, if he were ill used for his
opinions, and for performing such parts of worship as he thought himself indispensably
obliged to. Indeed the church of Rome has some colour for her cruelty, since she pretends
to be infallible. But these practices are absurdly unreasonable among those who own that
they may be mistaken, and so may be persecuting the innocent and the orthodox. Perse
cution, if it were lawful at all, ought to be extreme, and go, as it does in the church of Rome,
to extirpation ; for the bad treatment of those who are suffered still to live in a society is
the creating so many malcontents, who at some time or other may make those who treat
them ill feel their revenge. And the principle of persecution, if true, is that to which all
have a right, when they have a power to put it in practice ; since they, being persuaded
that they are in the right, from that must believe they may lawfully exert against others
that severity under which they groaned long themselves. This will be aggravated in them
by the voice of revenge, which is too apt to be well heard by human nature, chiefly when it
comes with the mask and appearance of zeal. I add not here any political considerations from
the apparent interest of nations, which must dispose them to encourage the increase of their
people, to advance industry, and to become a sanctuary to all who are oppressed. But
though this is visible, and is confessed by all, yet I am now considering this matter only as
it is righteous, just, and merciful, in the principle ; for if it were not so well supported in
those respects, other motives would only be a temptation to princes and states to be governed
by interest more than by their duty.
Having thus given my thoughts in general, with relation to the constitution of our church
and the communion with it, I shall proceed, in the next place, to that which is special, with
relation to the clergy. I have said a great deal on this head in my book of the Pastoral Care,
which, of all the tracts I ever wrote, is that in which I rejoice the most ; and though it has
brought much anger on me from those who will not submit to the plan there laid down, yet
it has done much good during my own life, and I hope it will do yet more good after I am
dead. This is a subject I have thought much upon, and so I will here add some things to
what will be found in that book.
No man ought to think of this profession, unless he feels within himself a love to religion,
with a zeal for it, and an internal true piety ; which is chiefly kept up by secret prayer,
and by reading of the Scriptures. As long as these things are a man's burden, they are
infallible indications that he has no inward vocation, nor motion of the Holy Ghost to under
take it. The capital error in men's preparing themselves for that function is, that they
study books more than themselves, and that they read divinity more in other books than in
the Scriptures. Days of prayer, meditation, and fasting, at least once a quarter in the
Ember week, in which they may read over and over again both offices of ordination, and
get by heart those passages in the epistles to Timothy and Titus that relate to this function,

THE CONCLUSION.

907

would form their minds to a right sense of it, and be an effectual mean to prepare them duly
for it.
Ask yourselves often (for thus I address myself to you, as if I were still alive), would you
follow that course of life, if there were no settled establishment belonging to it, and if you
were to preach under the cross, and in danger of persecution ? For, until you arrive at that
you are yet carnal, and come into the priesthood for a piece of bread. Study to keep alive
in you a flame of exalted devotion ; be talking often to yourselves, and communing with
your own hearts ; digest all that you read carefully, that you may remember it so well as
not to be at a loss when any point of divinity is talked of. A little study well digested in
a good serious mind will go a great way, and will lay in materials for your whole life.
Above all things raise within yourselves a zeal for doing good, and for gaining souls : indeed
I have lamented, during my whole life, that I saw so little trae zeal among our clergy : I
saw much of it in the clergy of the church of Rome, though it is both ill directed and ill con
ducted. I saw much zeal likewise throughout the foreign churches. The dissenters have a
great deal among them. But I must own that the main body of our clergy has always
appeared dead and lifeless to me ; and, instead of animating one another, they seem rather to
lay one another asleep. Without a visible alteration in this, you will fall under an universal
contempt, and lose both the credit and the fruits of your ministry.
When you are in orders, be ever ready to perform all the parts of your functions ; be not
anxious about a settlement ; study to distinguish yourselves in your studies, labours, exem
plary deportment, and a just sweetness of temper, managed with gravity and discretion ;
and as for what concerns yourselves, depend on the providence of God, for he will in due
time raise up friends and benefactors to you. I do affirm this, upon the observation of my
whole life, that I never knew any one who conducted himself by these rules but he was
brought into good posts, or at least into an easy state of subsistence.
Do not affect to run into new opinions, nor to heat yourselves in disputes about matters
of small importance. Begin with settling in your minds the foundations of your faith ; and
be full of this and ready at it, that you may know how to deal with unbelievers, for that is
the spreading corruption of this age. There are few atheists, but many infidels, who are
indeed very little better than the atheists. In this argument you ought to take pains to
have all well digested, and clearly laid in your thoughts, that you may manage the contro
versy gently, without any asperity of words, but with a strength of reason. In disputing,
do not offer to answer any argument of which you never heard before, and know nothing
concerning it ; that will both expose you and the cause you maintain ; and, if you feel your
selves grow too warm at any time, break off and persist no longer in the dispute ; for you
may by that grow to an indecent heat, by which you may wrong the cause which you
endeavour to defend. In the matter of mysteries be very cautious, for the simplicity, in
which those sublime truths are delivered in the Scriptures, ought to be well studied and
adhered to. Only one part of the argument should be insisted on, I mean the shortness and
defectiveness of our faculties, which, being well considered, will afford a great variety of
noble speculations, that are obvious and easily apprehended, to restrain the wanton sallies
of some petulant men.
Study to understand well the controversies of the church of Rome, chiefly those concerning
infallibility and transubstantiation ; for, in managing those, their missionaries have a par
ticular address. Learn to view poperj' in a true light, as a conspiracy to exalt the power of
the clergy, even by subjecting the most sacred truths of religion to contrivances for raising
their authority, and by offering to the world another method of being saved besides that
prescribed in the Gospel. Popery is a mass of impostures, supported by men, who manage
them with great advantages, and impose them with inexpressible severities on those who
dare call any thing in question that they dictate to them. I see a spirit rising among us,
too like that of the church of Rome, of advancing the clergy beyond their due authority to
an unjust pitch. This rather heightens jealousies and prejudices against us than advances
our real authority ; and it will fortify the designs of profane infidels, who desire nothing
more than to see the public ministry of the church first disgraced and then abolished. The
carrying any thing too far does commonly lead men into tho other extreme. We are tho

908 THE CU.NL'LUSION.
dif-pensers of the word and sacmments ; and the more faitliful and diligent we are in this, the
world will pay so much the more respect and submission to us. And our maintaining an
argument for more power than we now have will be of no effect, unless the world sees that we
make a good use of the authority that is already in our hands. It is with the clergy as with
princes, the only way to keep their prerogative from being uneasy to their subjects, and
from being disputed, is to manage it wholly for their good and advantage ; then all will be
for it, when they find it is for them. This will prevail more effectually than all the argu
ments of lawyers, with all the precedents of former times. Therefore let the clergy live and
labour well, and they will feel that as much authority will follow that, as they will know
how to manage well. And, to speak plainly, Dodwell's extravagant notions, which have
been too much drunk in by the clergy in my time, have weakened the power of the church,
and soured men's minds more against it, than all the books written, or attempts made against
it, could ever have done : and indeed the secret poison of those principles has given too many
of the clergy a bias towards popery, with an aversion to the reformation, which has brought
them under much contempt. This is not to be recovered, but by their living and labouring
as they ought to do, without an eager maintaining of arguments for their authority, which
will never succeed until they five better and labour more. When I say live better, I mean
not only to live without scandal, which I have found the greatest part of them to do, but to
lead exemplary lives ; to be eminent in humility, meekness, sobriety, contempt of the world,
and unfeigned love of the brethren; abstracted from the vain conversation of the world,
retired, and at home, fasting often, joining prayer and meditation with it, without which
fasting may do well with relation to the body, but will signify little with relation to the
mind. If to such a course of life clergymen would add a little more labour, not only performing
public offices and preaching to the edification of the people, but watching over them,
instructing them, exhorting, reproving, and comforting them, as occasion is given, from
house to house, making their calling the business of their whole life, they would soon find
their own minds grow to be in a better temper, and their people would show more esteem
and regard for them, and a blessing from God would attend upon their labours. I say it
with great regret, I have observed the clergy in all the places tlirough which I have travelled,
papists, lutherans, calvinists, and dissenters, but, of them all, our clergy are much the most
remiss in their labours in private, and the least severe in their lives. Do not think I sav
this to expose you, or to defame this church ; those censures have passed on me for my
freedom during my life, God knows how unjustly, my designs being all to awaken the
clergy, and by that means to preserve the church ; for which He who knows all things
knows how much and how long I have been mourning in secret, and fasting and praying
before him. And let me say this freely to you, now that I am out of the reach of envy
and censure, unless a better spirit possesses the clergy, arguments (and which is more), laws,
and authority, will not prove strong enough to preserve the church ; especially if the nation
observes a progress in that bias which makes many so favourable to popery and so severe
towards the dissenters ; this will recommend them the more to pity and favour, and will
draw a general odium upon you, that may end iu your ruin, or in a persecution, for which
the clergy of this age seem to be very little prepared ; God grant those of the next may be
more so.
Oh ! my brethren (for I speak to you as if I were among you), think what manner of
persons you ought to be, in all holy conversation and godliness, that so you mav shine as
lights in the world. Think of the account you must give for those immortal souls committed
to your care, which were redeemed by the blood of Christ, who has sent you in his name to
persuade them to be reconciled to God, and at last to present them to him faultless with
exceeding joy : he sees and observes your labours, and will recompense them gloriously in
that great day.
I leave all these things on your consciences, and pray earnestly that God may give his
blessing to this posthumous labour of mine, that our church may be so built up by your
labours, that it may continue to be long the joy of the whole earth in the perfection of its
beauty, and may be a pattern, as well as give protection, to all the churches of God.

THE CONCLUSION. 909
I now turn to my brethren and successors in the episcopal order. You are they in whose
hands the government of the church is put : in some respects it is believed to be wholly in
you, though I know, and have often felt it, that your power is so limited that you can do
little ; exemptions (a scandalous remnant of popery) take a great part of your diocess out
of your hands. This I have often wondered at, that some who plead that the government of
the church is settled by divine authority in the bishops, can yet, by the virtue of papal bulls,
confirmed by an unhappy clause in an act of parliament, exercise episcopal jurisdiction ;
which is plainly to act by virtue of the secular power, in opposition to that which, according
to their principles, is settled by a divine appointment. Archdeacons' visitations were an
invention of the latter ages, in which the bishops, neglecting their duty, cast a great part of
their care upon them : now, their visitations are only for form and for fees, and they are a
charge on the clergy ; so, when this matter is well looked into, I hope archdeacons, with
many other burdens that lay heavy on the clergy, shall be taken away. All the various
instruments, upon which heavy fees must be raised, were the infamous contrivances of the
canonists, and can never be maintained when well examined. I say nothing to you of your
lives ; I hope you are, and shall ever be, shining lights. I wish the pomp of living and the
keeping high tables could be quite taken away ; it is a great charge, and no very decent
one ; a great devourer of time ; it lets in much promiscuous company, and much vain dis
course upon you : even civility may carry you too far in a freedom and familiarity that will
make you look too like the rest of the world ; I hope this is a burden to you. It was indeed
one of the greatest burdens of my life to see so much time lost, to hear so much idle talk,
and to be living in a luxurious waste of that which might have been much better bestowed.
I had not strength enough to break through that, which custom has imposed on those
provided with plentiful bishoprics ; I pray God to help you to find a decent way of laying
this down.
The wives and children of bishops ought to be exemplary in their apparel, and in their
whole deportment, remembering that no part of the bishops' honours belongs to them. The
wife of a bishop ought to visit the widow and the fatherless, and, by a grave authority,
instruct and admonish, as well as oblige and favour, the wives of the rest of the clergy.
The children of bishops ought to be well instructed, and managed with all gravity ; bishops
ought not to press them beyond their inclinations to take orders ; for this looks as if they
would thrust them, how unfit or unwilling soever, into such preferments as they can give or
procure for them. On the contrary, though their children should desire to go into orders,
they ought not to suffer it, unless they see in them a good mind and sincere intentions with
the other necessary qualifications, in which they cannot be deceived, unless they have a
mind to deceive themselves. It is a betraying of their trust, and the worst sort of simony,
to provide children with great dignities and benefices, only as an estate to be given them,
without a due regard to their capacities or tempers. Ordinations are the only parts of the
episcopal function on which the law has laid no restraint, so this ought to be heavy on your
thoughts. Ordination weeks were always dreadful things to me, when I remembered those words,
" lay hands suddenly on no man, be not partaker of other men's sins ; keep thyself pure."
It is true, those who came to me were generally well prepared as to their studies, and they
brought testimonials and titles, which is all that in our present constitution can be demanded.
I never put over the examining them to my chaplains, I did that always myself, and
examined them chiefly on the proofs of revealed religion and the terms of salvation, and the
new covenant through Christ, for those are the fundamentals. But my principal care was
to awaken their consciences, to make them consider whether they had a motion of the Holy
Ghost, calling them to the function, and to make them apprehend what belonged both to a
spiritual life, and to the pastoral care. On these subjects I spoke much and often to every
one of them apart, and sometimes to them all together, besides the public examination of
them with my chapter.
This was all that I could do. But alas ! how defective is this ; and it is too well known
how easy the clergy are in signing testimonials. That which I here propose is, that every

910 THE CONCLUSION.
man who intends to be ordained, should be required to come and acquaint the bishop with
it a year before, that so he may then talk to his conscience, and give him good directions,
both as to his studies and the course of his life and devotions ; and that he may recommend
him to the care and inspection of the best clergymen that he knows in the neighbourhood
where he lives, that so he may have from him, by some other conveyance than the person
concerned, such an account of him as he may rely on. This is all that can be proposed, till
our universities are put in a better method, or till seminaries can be raised for maintaining a
number of persons, to be duly prepared for holy orders.
As to the labours of a bishop, they ought to think themselves obliged to preach as much
as their health and age can admit of: this the form of ordaining bishops sets before them,
together with the sense of the church in all ages. The complaint of the best men, in the
worst ages, shows how much the sloth and laziness of bishops will be cried out on, and how
acceptable the labours of preaching bishops have always been : the people run to hear them,
and hearken to their sermons with more than ordinary attention. You will find great com
fort in your labours this way, and will see the fruits of them. The discreet conduct of your
clergy is to be your chief care ; keep not at too great a distance, and yet let them not grow
too familiar. A bishop's discourse should be well seasoned, turned chiefly to good subjects,
instruction in the matters of religion, and the pastoral care ; and the more diverging ones
ought to be matters of learning, criticism, or history. It is in the power of a bishop to let
no man despise him.
A grave but sweet deportment and a holy conversation will command a general respect ;
and, as for some hot and froward spirits, the less they are meddled with they will be the
less able to do mischief; they delight in opposition, which they think will make them the
more considerable. I have had much experience this way ; nothing mortifies them so much
as neglect. The more abstracted bishops live (from the world, from courts, from cabals, and
from parties), they will have the more quiet within themselves, their thoughts will bo free
and less entangled, and they will in conclusion be the more respected by all, especially if an
integrity and a just freedom appear among them in the house of lords, where they will be
much observed, and judgments will be made of them there, that will follow them home to
their diocesses.
Nothing will alienate the nation more from them than their becoming tools to a court,
and giving up the liberties of their country, and advancing arbitrary designs ; nothing will
work more effectually on the dissenters than a course of moderation towards them ; this will
disarm their passions, and when that is done, they may be better dealt with in point of
reason ; all care ought to be taken to stifle new controversies in their birth, to check new
opinions and vain curiosities.
Upon the whole matter, bishops ought to consider that the honour given them, and the
revenues belonging to them, are such rewards for former services and such encouragements
to go on to more labour and diligence, as ought to be improved as so many helps and advan
tages for carrying on the work of the Gospel and their heavenly Father's business. They
ought to meditate on these things, and be wholly in them, so that their profiting may appear
to all. They ought to preach in season and out of season, to exhort, admonish, and rebuke,
with all authority.
But if they abandon themselves to sloth and idleness; if they neglect their proper function,
and follow a secular, a vain, a covetous, or a luxurious, course of life ; if they, not content
with educating their children well, and with such a competency as may set them afloat in
the world, think of building up their own houses and raising up great estates, they will put
the world on many unacceptable enquiries. Wherefore is this waste made ? why are these
revenues continued to men who make such an ill use of them ? and why is an order kept up
that does the church so little good, and gives it so much scandal ? The violences of arch
bishop Laud, and his promoting arbitrary power, ruined himself and the church both. A
return of the like practices will bring with it the like dreadful consequences. The labours
and the learning, the moderation and good lives of the bishops of this age, have changed tho
nation much with relation to them, and have possessed them of a general esteem ; some

THE CONCLUSION. qU
fiery spirits only excepted, who hate and revile them for that wliich is their true glory. I
hope another age may carry this yet much further, that so they may be universally looked
on as the true and tender-hearted fathers of the church.
The affinity of the matter leads me, before I enter on another scene, to say something con
cerning the patronage of benefices which have a care of souls belonging to them. It is a
noble dignity in a family ; it was highly esteemed in the times of popery, because the
patron was to be named in all the masses said in his church. There is a more real value
in it in our constitution, since the patron has the nomination of him to whom the care of
souls is to be committed, which must take place, unless some just and legal exception can
be made by the bishop. Even that is not easy to be maintained in the courts of law, where
the bishop will soon be run into so great an expense, that I am afraid many, rather than
venture on that, receive unworthy men into the service of the church, who are in the sequel
reproaches to it ; and this is often the case of the richest and best-endowed benefices.
Some sell the next advowson, which I know is said to be legal, though the incumbent lies
at the point, of death; others do not stick to buy and sell benefices, when open and vacant,
though this is declared to be simony by law. Parents often buy them for their children, and
reckon that as their portion : in that case, it is true, there is no perjury in taking the oath,
for the person presented is no party to the bargain. Often ecclesiastics themselves buy the
next advowson, and lodge it with trustees for their own advantage.
Where nothing of all this traffic intervenes, patrons bestow benefices on their children or
friends, without considering either their abilities or merit ; favour or kindred being the only
thing that weighs with them. When all this is laid together, how great a part of the bene
fices of England are disposed of, if not simoniacally, yet at least unworthily, without regard to
so sacred a trust as the care of souls ? Certainly patrons who, without due care and enquiry,
put souls into bad hands have much to answer for.
I will not say that a patron is bound always to bestow his church on the best man he can
find : that may put him on anxieties, out of which it will not be easy to extricate himself;
nor will it be always possible to balance the different excellences of men, who may have
various talents that lie several ways, and all of them may be useful, some more, some less.
But in this I am positive, that no patron answers the obligation of that trust, unless he is
well persuaded that the clerk he presents is a truly good man, has a competent measure of
knowledge, zeal, and discretion, so suited to the people for whom he names him, that he has
reason to believe he will be a faithful pastor and a prudent guide to them.
Patrons ought to take this on their conscience, to manage it with great caution, and in the
fear of God, and not to enter into that filthy merchandise of the souls of men, which is too
common ; it is likely to be a moth on their estates, and may bring a curse on their families,
as well as on their persons.
I do not enter into the scandalous practices of non-residence and pluralities, which are
sheltered by so many colours of law among us ; whereas the church of Rome, from whence
we had those and many other abuses, has freed herself from this, under which we still labour
to our great and just reproach. This is so shameful a profanation of holy things, that it
ought to be treated with detestation and horror. Do such men think on the vows they
made on their ordination, on the rules in the Scriptures, or on the nature of their function,
or that it is a care of souls ? How long, how long shall this be the peculiar disgrace of our
church, which, for aught I know, is the only church in the world that tolerates it ? I must
add, that I do not reckon the holding poor livings that lie contiguous a plurality, where
both are looked after, and both afford only a competent maintenance.
I have now gone through the most important things that occur to my thoughts with rela
tion to the clergy ; I turn next to such observations, reflections, and advices, as relate to the
laity. I begin with the body of the people. The commonalty of this nation are much the
happiest, and live the easiest and the most plentifully, of any that ever I saw. They are
very sao-acious and skilful in managing all their concerns, but at the same time it is not to
be conceived how ignorant they are in the matters of religion. The dissenters have a much
larger share of knowledge among them than is among those who come to our churches. This
ia the more to be wondered at, considering the plainness in which matters of religion are

912 THE CONCLUSION.
written in this age, and the many small books concerning these that have been published of
late years, which go at easy rates, and of which many thousands are every year sent about
by charitable societies in London, to be freely given to such as will but take them and read
them. So that this ignorance seems to be obstinate and incurable.
Upon this subject, all that I can propose lies in two advices to the clergy. The one is,
that they catechise the youth much at church, not only asking the questions and hearing
the answers, but joining to that the explaining the terms in other words, and by turning to
the bible for such passages as prove, or enlarge on, them. The doing this constantly, would
infuse into the next age a higher measure of knowledge than the present is likely to be
blessed with. Long sermons, in which points of divinity or morality are regularly handled,
are above the capacity of the people ; short and plain ones, upon a large portion of Scripture,
would be better hearkened to, and have a much better effect ; they would make the hearers
understand and love the Scriptures more. Preachers ought to dwell often in their sermons
on those sins that their hearers must needs know themselves guilty of, if they are so ; such
as swearing, lying, cheating, drunkenness, lewd deportment, breach of promise, love of the
world, anger, envy, malice, pride, and luxury. Short discourses upon these, and often
repeated in many glances and reflections on them, setting forth the real evil of them, with
the ill consequences that follow, not only to others but to the persons themselves, are the
best means that can be thought of for reforming them ; and these will have an effect on
some, if not on many. But above all, and in order to all the rest, they ought to be called
on upon all occasions to reflect on their ways, to consider how they live, to pray in secret
to God, confessing their sins to him, begging pardon and mercy for what is past, and his
Holy Spirit to assist, strengthen, and direct them for the time to come, forming sincere reso
lutions to amend their ways, with relation to every particular sin that they find they may
have fallen into. If the clergy will faithfully do their duty in this method, and join to it
earnest prayers for their people, they may hope through the blessing of God to succeed
better in their labours. The people ought to be often put in mind of the true end of the rest
on the Lord's day, which is chiefly to give them time and opportunity for meditations and
reflections on themselves, on what they have said or done, and on what has befallen them
the former week, and to consider what may be before them in the week they are entering
on. Ministers ought to visit their people, not only when they are sick unto death, but
when they are in an ill state of health, or when they are under affliction. These are the
times in which their spirits are tender, and they will best bear with a due freedom, which
ought to be managed in the most discreet and affectionate manner. And a clergyman ought
not to be a respecter of persons, and neglect the meanest of his cure ; they have as immortal
souls as the greatest, and for which Christ has paid the same ransom.
From the commonalty I turn to the gentry : they are for the most part the worst
instructed, and the least knowing of any of their rank, I ever went amongst. The Scotch,
though less able to bear the expense of a learned education, are much more knowing ; the
reason of which is this : the Scotch, even of indifferent fortunes, send private tutors with
their children both to schools and colleges ; these look after the young gentlemen mornings
and evenings, and read over with them what they have learned, and so make them more
perfect in it. They generally go abroad a year or two and see the world ; this obliges them
to behave themselves well. Whereas a gentleman here is often both ill-taught and ill-bred ;
this makes him haughty and insolent. The gentry are not early acquainted with the prin ¦
ciples of religion ; so that, after they have forgotten their catechism, thev acquire no more
new knowledge but what they learn in plays and romances. They grow soon to find it a
modish thing, that looks like wit and spirit, to laugh at religion and virtue, and so become
crude and unpolished infidels. If they have taken a wrong tincture at the university, that
too often disposes them to hate and despise all those who separate from the church, thouoh
they can give no better reason than the papists have for hating heretics, because they forsake
the church. In those seats of education, instead of being formed to love their country and
constitution, the laws and liberties of it, they are rather disposed to love arbitrary govern
ment and to become slaves to absolute monarchy. A change of interest, provocation, or
some other consideration may set them right again as to the public, but they have no inward

THE CONCLUSION. 9IS
principle of love to their country and of public liberty ; so that they are easily brought to
like slavery, if they may be the tools for managing it.
This is a dismal representation of things ; I have seen the nation thrice on the brink of
ruin by men thus tainted. After the restoration, all were running fast into slavery. Had
king Charles the Second been attentive to those bad designs (which he pursued afterwards
with more caution) upon his first return, slavery and absolute power might then have been
settled into a law, with a revenue able to maintain it. He played away that game without
thought, and he had then honest ministers who would not serve him in it. After all that he
did during the course of his reign, it was scarcely credible that the same temper should have
returned in his time ; yet he recovered it in the last four years of his reign ; and the gentry
of England were as active and zealous to throw up all their liberties, as their ancestors ever
had been to preserve them. This continued above half a year in his brother's reign ; and
he depended so much upon it, that he thought it could never go out of his hands. But he,
or rather his priests, had the skill and dexterity to play this game likewise away, and lose it
a second time ; so that, at the revolution, all seemed to come again into their wits. But
men who have no principles cannot be steady : now the greater part of the capital gentry
seem to return again to a love of tyranny, provided they may be the under-tyrants them
selves ; and they seem to be even uneasy with a court when it will not be as much a court
as they would have it. This is a folly of so singular a nature, that really it wants a name :
it is natural for poor men, who have little to lose and much to hope for, to become the
instruments of slavery ; but it is an extravagance peculiar to our age, to see rich men grow
as it were in love with slavery and arbitrary power. The root of all this is, that our gentry
are not betimes possessed with a true measure of solid knowledge and sound religion, with a
love to their country, a hatred of tyranny, and a zeal for liberty. Plutarch's Lives, with
the Greek and Roman History, ought to be early put in their hands ; they ought to be well
acquainted with all history, more particularly that of our own nation, which they should not
read in abridgments, but in the fullest and most copious collectors of it, that they may see
to the bottom what is our constitution, and what are our laws, what are the methods bad
princes have taken to enslave us, and by what conduct we have been preserved. Gentlemen
ought to observe these things, and to entertain one another often upon these subjects, to
raise in themselves, and to spread around them to all others, a noble ardour for law and
liberty. They ought to understand popery well, to view it in its politics as well as in its
religious corruptions, that they may observe and guard against their most secret practices,
particularly that main one that prevails so fatally among us of making us despise the foreign
churches, and hate the dissenters at home. The whole body of protestants, if united, might
be an equal match to the Church of Rome. It is much superior to them in wealth and in
force, if it were animated with the zeal which the monastic orders, but chiefly the Jesuits,
spread through their whole communion : whereas the reformed are cold and unconcerned as
well as disjointed in matters that relate to religion. The chief maxim by which men who
have a true zeal for their religion and their country ought to govern themselves is, to live
within the extent of their estates, to be above luxury and vanity and all expenses that waste
their fortunes. Luxury must drive them to court favour, to depend on ministers, and to
aspire after places and pensions ; and as the seeking after these does often complete the ruin
of broken families, so in many they prove only a reprieve and not a recovery ; whereas, he
who is contented with his fortune, and measures his way of living by it, has another root
within him, out of which every noble and generous thought will naturally spring. Public
liberty has no sure foundation but in virtue, in parsimony, and moderation ; where these fail,
liberty may be preserved by accidents and circumstances of affairs, but it has no bottom to
rest securely on. A knowing and virtuous gentleman, who understands his religion and
loves it, who practises the true rules of virtue without affectation and moroseness, who
knows enough of law to keep his neighbours in order, and to give them good advice ; who
keeps meetings for his county, and restrains vice and disorder at them ; who lives hospitably,
frugally, and charitably ; who respects and encourages good clergymen, and worships God,
both in his family and at church ; who educates his children well ; who treats his servants
gently, and deals equitably with his tenants and all others with whom he has any concerns ;
3 N

914 THE cuinl^o^iuin.
such a man shines, and is a public blessing to all that see him or come near him. Some
such instances are yet left among us, but alas! there are not many of them. Can there be
any thing more barbarous, or rather treacherous, than for gentlemen to think it is one of the
honours of their houses, that none must go out of them sober ? it is but a little more infamous
to poison them ; and yet this passes as a character of a noble housekeeper, who entertains
his friends kindly. Idleness and ignorance are the ruin of the greatest part, who, if they
are not fit for better things, should descend to any thing rather than suffer themselves to
sink into sloth ; that will carry them to the excesses of hunting, gaming, and drinking,
which may ruin both soul, body, and estate. If a man, by an ill-managed or a neglected
education, is so turned that every sort of study or reading is a burden, then he ought to try
if he has a genius to any mechanism that may be an entertainment to him. The managing a
garden is a noble, and may be made a useful, amusement ; the taking some part of his estate
into his own hands, if he looks carefully to it, will both employ his time well, and may turn
to a good account : in a word, some employments may be better than others ; but there is
no employment so bad as the having none at all : the mind will contract a rust, and an
unfitness for every good thing ; and a man must either fill up his time with good, or at
least innocent business, or it will run to the worst sort of waste, to sin and vice.
I have often thought it a great error to waste young gentlemen's years so long in learning
Latin by so tedious a grammar. I know those who are bred to the professions in literature
must have the Latin correctly ; and for that the rules of grammar are necessary : but these
are not at all requisite to those who need only so much Latin as thoroughly to understand
and delight in the Roman authors and poets. But suppose a youth had, either for want of
memory or of application, an incurable aversion to Latin, his education is not for that to be
despaired of; there is much noble knowledge to be had in the English and French languages.
Geography, history, chiefly that of our own country, the knowledge of nature, and the more
practical parts of -the mathematics (if he has not a genius for the demonstrative), may make
a gentleman very knowing, though he has not a word of Latin. There is a fineness of
thought and a nobleness of expression indeed in the Latin authors, that will make them the
entertainment of a man's whole life, if he once understands and reads them with deli edit ;
but if this cannot be attained to, I would not have it reckoned that the education of an ill
Latin scholar is to be given over. A competent measure of the knowledge of the law is a good
foundation for distinguishing a gentleman ; but I am in doubt whether his being for some
time in the inns of court will contribute much to this, if he is not a studious person. Those
who think they are there only to pass away so many of their years, commonly run tocether,
and live both idly and viciously. I should imagine it a much better way, though it is not
much practised, to get a learned young lawyer, who has not got into much business, to come
and pass away a long vacation or two with a gentleman, to carry him through such an intro
duction to the study of the law, as may give him a full view of it, and good directions how to
prosecute his study in it. A competent skill in this, makes a man very useful in his country,
both in conducting his own affairs, and in giving good advice to those about him : it will
enable him to be a good justice of peace, and to settle matters by arbitration, so as to prevent
lawsuits ; and, which ought to be the top of an English gentleman's ambition, to be an able
parliament man : to which no gentleman ought to pretend, unless he has a true zeal for his
country, with an inflexible integrity and resolution to pursue what appears to him just and
right, and for the good of the public. The parliament is the fountain of law and the fence
of liberty ; and no sort of instruction is so necessary for a gentleman as that which may
qualify him to appear there with figure and reputation.
Gentlemen in their marriages ought to consider a great many things more than fortune,
though, generally speaking, that is the only tiling sought for. A good understanding, good
principles, and a good temper, with a liberal education, and acceptable person, are the first
things to be considered ; and certainly fortune ought to come after all these. Those bargains
now in fashion make often unhallowed marriages, in which (besides the greater evils) more
fortune is often wasted than is brought with a vain, a foolish, an indiscreet, and a hated
wife. The first thought in choosing a wife ought to be, to find a help meet for the man.
In a married state, the mutual study of both ought to be to help and please one another:

THE CONCLUSION. 916
this is the foundation of all domestic happiness; as to stay at home, and to love home, is
the greatest help to industry, order, and the good government of a family. I have dwelt
the longer on this article, because on the forming the gentry well, the good government of the
nation, both in and out of parliament, does so much depend.
As for the men of trade and business, they are, generally speaking, the best body in the
nation, generous, sober, and charitable. So that, while the people in the country are so
immersed in their affairs that the sense of religion cannot reach them, there is a better spirit
stirring in our cities ; more knowledge, more zeal, and more charity, with a great deal more
of devotion. There may be too much vanity, with too pompous an exterior, mixed with
these in the capital city ; but, upon the whole, they are the best we have. Want of exer
cise is a great prejudice to their health and a corruptor of their minds, by raising vapours
and melancholy, that fills many with dark thoughts, rendering religion, which affords the
truest joy, a burden to them, and making them even a burden to themselves ; this furnishes
prejudices against religion to those who are but too much disposed to seek for them. The
too constant intercourse of visits in town is a vast consumption of time, and gives much
occasion to talk, which is at best idle, if not worse. This certainly wants regulation, and is
the effect of idleness and vanity.
The stage is the great corrupter of the town, and the bad people of the town have been
the chief corrupters of the stage, who run most after those plays that defile the stage and the
audience. Poets will seek to please, as actors will look for such pieces as draw the most
spectators. They pretend their design is to discourage vice ; but they do really recommend
it in the most effectual manner. It is a shame to our nation and religion to see the stage
so reformed in France and so polluted still in England. Moliere for comedy, and Racine
for tragedy, are great patterns ; few can, and as few will, study to copy after them. But,
till another scene appears, certainly our plays are the greatest debauchers of the nation.
Gaming is a waste of time that rises out of idleness, and is kept up by covetousness ; those
who can think, read, or write, to any purpose, and those who understand what conversation
and friendship are, will not want such a help to wear out the day. So that, upon the whole
matter, sloth and ignorance, bad education and ill company, are the chief sources of all our
vice and disorders.
The ill methods of schools and colleges give the chief rise to the irregularities of the
gentry ; as the breeding young women to vanity, dressing, and a false appearance of wit
and behaviour, without proper work, or a due measure of knowledge, and a serious sense of
religion, is the source of the corruption of that sex. Something like monasteries without
vows, would be a glorious design, and might be so set on foot as to be the honour of a queen
on the throne. But I will pursue this no further.
My next address is to the nobility. Most of what I have proposed to our gentry does
in a more eminent manner belong to them ; the higher their condition is raised above
other gentlemen, so much the more eminent ought they to be in knowledge and virtue ;
the share they have in judicature in the house of lords should oblige them to acquaint
themselves with the rules and principles of law ; though an unbiassed integrity, neither
moved by friendship nor party, with a true understanding, will for the most part direct
tnem in their judgment, since few cases occur where the point of law is dark or doubtful.
Every person of. high rank, whose estate can bear it, ought to have two persons to manage
his education ; the one a governor to form his mind, to give him true notions, to represent
religion and virtue in a proper light to him, to give him a view of geography, not barely
describing the maps, but adding to it the natural history of every country, its productions,
arts, and trade, with the religion and government of the country, and a general idea of the
history of the world, and of the various revolutions that have happened in it. Such a view
will opeu a young person's mind ; it must be often gone over to fix it well. The ancient
government in Greece, but much more that of Rome, must be minutely delivered, that the
"difference between a just and a vicious government may be well apprehended. The fall of
the Roman greatness, under the emperors, by reason of the absolute power that let vice in
Upon them, which corrupted not only their courts, but their armies, ought to be fully opened.
Then the Gothic government and the feudal law should be clearly explained, to open the
5 3 n 2

91C THE CONCLUSION.
original of our own constitution. In all this, the chief care of a wise and good former of
youth ought to be, to possess a young mind with noble principles of justice, liberty, and
virtue, as the true basis of government ; and with an aversion to violence and arbitrary
power, servile flattery, faction, and luxury, from which the corruption and ruin of all govern
ments have arisen.
To this governor (qualified for all this, to be sought out and hired at any rate) I would
join a master for languages and other things, in which this young lord is to be instructed,
who ought to be put under the direction and eye of the governor, that his time may not be
lost in trifles ; that nothing of pedantry, or of affectation, may be infused into a young
mind, which is to be prepared for great things. A simplicity of style, with a true and grave
pronunciation, ought to be well looked to ; and this young nobleman ought to be accustomed
as he grows up, to speak his thoughts on the sudden, with a due force and weight both of
words and voice. I have often wondered to see parents, who are to leave vast estates and
who stick at no expense in other things, yet be so frugal and narrow in the education of their
children. They owe to their country a greater care in preparing the eldest to make that
figure in it to which he is born ; and they owe to their younger children, who are not to be
so plentifully provided, such a libsral education as may fit them to answer the dignity of
their birth, and prepare them for employments, by which they may in time give a further
strength and addition to their family. I have been amazed to see how profuse some are in
procuring good dancing, fencing, and riding masters for their children, and setting them out
in fine clothes ; and how sparing they are in that which is the chief and most important
thing, and which in time may become the most useful, both to themselves and to their
country. I look on the education of the youth, as the foundation of all that can be proposed
for bettering the next age : it ought to be one of the chief cares of all governments, though
there is nothing more universally neglected. How do some of our peers shine, merely by
their virtue and knowledge ; and what a contemptible figure do others make, with all their
high titles and great estates !
Noblemen begin to neglect the having chaplains in their houses, and I do not much
wonder at it, when I reflect on the behaviour of too many of these ; light and idle, vain and
insolent, impertinent and pedantic ; by this want, however, the worship of God and the
instruction of servants is quite neglected. But if a little more care were taken to choose
well, a lord might make a good use of a chaplain, not only for those ends which I have
mentioned, but for the reading such books as the lord desires to be well informed about but
has not leisure to peruse himself. These he may read by his chaplain, and receive an
account of them from him, and see what are the principal things to be learnt from them for
which he may find leisure, though not for the whole book. By this means he may keep
his chaplain well employed, and may increase his own stock of knowledge, and be well
furnished with relation to all new books and new questions that are started. The family
of a nobleman, well chosen and well ordered, might look like a little court in his country ;
for though it is a happiness to the nation that the great number of idle and useless retainers
that were about noblemen anciently is much reduced, yet still they must entertain many
servants, to be either nuisances where they live, or to set a pattern to others. The greater
men are, they ought to be the more modest and affable, and the more easy of access, that so
they may by the best sort of popularity render themselves acceptable to their country ; they
ought more particularly to protect the oppressed, to mortify insolence and injustice, and to
enter into the true grievances of their country, that they may represent these where it may
be proper, and show at least a tender care of thpse who ought to be protected by them, if
they cannot effectually procure a redress of their grievances. A continued pursuit of such
methods, with an exemplary deportment, would soon restore the nobility to their ancient
lustre, from which they seem very sensible how much they are fallen, though they do not
take the proper methods to recover it. Have we not seen in our time four or five lords, by
their knowledge, good judgment, and integrity, raise the house of peers to a pitch of repu
tation and credit, that seemed once beyond the expectation or belief of those who now see
it ? A progress in this method will give them such authority in the nation, that they will
be able not only to support their own dignity, but even to support the throne and the church.

THE CONCLUSION. 917
If so small a number has raised the peerage to such a regard, that the people, contrary to all
fonner precedents, have considered them more than their own representatives, what might
not be expected from a greater number pursuing the same methods ? These would become
again that which their title imports, the peers of the crown as well as of the kingdom, of
which that noble right of putting on their coronets at the coronation is a clear proof.
Great titles, separated from the great estates and the interest their ancestors had in their
countries, must sink, if not supported with somewhat of more value, great merit, and a
sublime virtue.
After I have offered what I think of the greatest importance to the several ranks of men in
the nation, I go next to consider that august body in which they are all united, I mean the
parliament. As long as elections are set to sale, so long we are under a disease in our vitals,
that, if it be not remedied in time, must ruin us at last, and end in a change of government ;
and what that may be, God only knows.
All laws that can be made will prove ineffectual to cure so great an evil, till there comes
to be a change and reformation of morals in the nation. We see former laws are evaded, and
so will all the laws that can be made, till the candidates and electors both become men of
another temper and other principles than appear now among them. The expense of elec
tions ruins families ; and these families will come in time to expect a full reparation from
the crown; or they will take their revenges on it, if that hope fails them. The commons
will grow insolent upon it, and look on the gentry as in their dependence : during the war,
and while the heat of parties ferments so much, it is not easy to find a proper remedy for
this. When the war is over, one expedient in the power of the crown is to declare that
elections to parliament shall be annual ; but if the same heat and rivalry of parties should
still continue, that would ruin families but so much the sooner.
The most promising expedient, next to a general reformation, wliich may seem too remote
and too hopeless a prospect, is to try how this great division of the nation into whig and
tory may be lessened, if not quite removed. Great numbers on both sides are drawn to
take up many groundless jealousies one of another, with which men of honest minds are

There are many of the tories that, without doubt, look towards St. Germains and France ;
but this is not true of the bulk of their party. Many infidels, who hate all religion and all
churches alike (being only against the church of England because it is in possession), do
join with the whigs and the dissenters, and appear for them ; from thence the ill-disposed
tories possess many of those who are better minded, with an opinion that the whigs favour
the dissenters only to ruin and destroy religion : and great multitudes of unthinking and
ignorant men are drawn into this snare. The principles of the whigs lead them to be for
the revolution, and for every thing that has been done to support and establish that ; and
therefore those who in their hearts hate the revolution, fortify and promote their designs, by
keeping up a jealousy of all that body, which alone can and must support it. The whigs
are indeed favoured by the dissenters, because they see their principles are for toleration, in
which it is visible that the dissenters acquiesce, without pursuing any design contrary to the
established church, into which the far greater number of them might be brought, if but a
very few concessions were made them. On the other hand, the whigs, seeing the leaders of
the tories drive on ill designs so visibly (endeavouring to weaken the government, to disjoint
the alliance, and to put an untimely end to the war, thereby serving the interests of France
and of the Pretender), and that they are followed in this by the body of the tories, who
promote their elections, and adhere to them in all divisions in the two houses of parliament,
and are united in one party with them, from thence conclude, that they are all equally con
cerned, and alike guilty : and thus they are jealous of them all. This aversion is daily
growino-, and will certainly continue as long as the war lasts; when that is ended, it may
possibly abate : but so great a disease will not be cured until a prince of spirit and authority,
managed with temper and discretion, undertakes the cure. We see oaths and subscriptions
make no discrimination, since the abjuration, though penned as fully as words can go, has
been taken by some who seem resolved to swallow down everything in order to the throwing

918 THE CONCLUSION.
up all at once, if thev should come to have a clear majority in parliament, and durst lay-
aside the mask.
In the parliament of 1701, called the Impeaching Parliament, and in the first parliament
called by the queen, there was a majority of tories ; yet it appeared the men of ill designs
durst not venture to discover themselves to their party and to the nation, so they proceeded
with caution. Thev designed in 1701 to have had the duke of Anjou acknowledged, in
order to have discTaced the late king and his most faithful ministers, that so the princes
abroad, who could do nothing without assistance from England, despairing of that, might
be forced to submit to the offers France made them. In the first year of the queen's reign
they durst make no visible steps that way neither ; but they tried to raise the heat against
the dissenters, to make a breach on the toleration, and to give that body of men such a
jealousy of the government- as should quite dishearten them, who were always the readiest
to lend money to the public, without which the war could not be carried on vigorously. By
this it may appear that manv of the tories have not those views and designs that perhaps
some of their leaders may be justly charged with. Now a wise and an active prince may
find methods to undeceive those who are thus fatally imposed on and led blindfold into the
serving the ill designs of others ; especially if he will propose it, as a sure way to his favour
for all whom he employs, to procure a better understanding and frequent meetings among
the men of good lives and soft tempers in both parties, who by a mutual conversation will
so open themselves to one another, that jealousies may by this means be easily removed.
I can carry this no further at present ; men of good intentions will easily find ont proper
metho-ds to bring about this worthy design of healing a breach that has rent the nation from
top to bottom. The partios are now so stated and kept up, not only by the elections of
parliament men that rotum every third year, but even by the yearly elections of mayors and
corporation men, that they know their strength ; and in every corner of the nation the two
parties stand, as it were, listed against one another. This may come in some critical time
or other, at the death of a prince, or on an invasion, to have terrible effects ; as at present
it creates, among the best of each side, a coldness and a jealousy, and a great deal of hatred
and virulence, among the much greater part.
There are two things of a very public nature that deserve the care of a parliament : the
one must begin in the house of lords, and the other in the house of commons. The law of
England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and dilatory : there is no
end of suits, especially when they are brought into ehancery. It is a matter of deep study
to be exact in the law ; great advantages are taken upon inconsiderable errors ; and there
are loud complaints ot that which seems to be the chief security of property. I mean juries,
which are said to be much practised upon. H a happy peace gives us qtuet to look to our
own affairs, there cannot be a worthier design undertaken than to reduce the law into
method, to digest it into a body, and to regulate the chancery. =0 as to cut off the tedious-
ness of suits, and, in a word, to compile one entire system of our laws. The work cannot
be undertaken, much less finished, but by so great an authority a; at least an address from
the house of lords to the queen. Nothing, after the war is happily ended, can raise the
glory of her reign more than to see so noble a design set en foot in her time : this would
make her name sacred to posterity, which would sensibly feel all the taxes thev have
raised fully repaid them, if the law were made shorter, clearer, more certain, and of less
expense. The other matter, that must take its rise in the house of commons, is about the poor, and
should be much laid to heart. It may be thought a strange motion from a bishop, to wish
that the act- for charging every parish to maintain their own poor, were -well reviewed, if
not quite taken away. This seems to encourage idle and lazy people in their sloth, when
they know they must be maintained. I know no other place in the world where such a
law was ever made. Scotland is much the poorest part of the island, vet the poor there are
maintained by the voluntary charities of the people. Holland is the most perfect pattern
for putting charity in a good method ; the poor work as much as thev can ; they are humble
and industrious ; they never ask any charity, and yet they are well relieved. When the
poor see that their supply must in a great measure depend on their behaviour and on their

THE CONCLUSION. - 919
industry, as far as it can go, it will both make them better in themselves, and move others
to supply them more liberally ; and when men's offerings are free (and yet are called for
every time they go to cliurch or to sacrament), this will oblige those who distribute them to
be exact and impartial in it ; since their ill conduct might make the givers trust them with
their charity no more, but distribute it themselves. If a spirit of true piety and charity
should ever prevail in this nation, those whose condition raises them above the drudgery of
servile labour, might employ some years of their life in this labour of love, and relieve one
another in their turn, and so distribute among them this noble part of government. All this
must begin in the house of commons ; and I leave it to the consideration of tho wise and
worthy members of that body, to turn their thoughts to this, as soon as by a happy peace
we are delivered from the cares of the war, and are at leisure to think of our own affairs
at home.
One thing more I presume to suggest, which is, that we may have fewer and shorter
sessions of parliament ; the staying long in town both wastes estates, and corrupts the morals
of members ; their beginning so late in the day to enter upon business is one great occasion
of long sessions ; they are seldom met until about twelve o'clock ; and except on a day in
which some great points are to be discussed, upon which the parties divide, they grow dis
posed to rise after two or three hours' sitting. The authority of the prince must be inter
posed to make them return to the old hours of eight and nine; and if from that time, they
sat till two, a great deal of business might be despatched in a short session *. It is also to
be hoped that, when the war is ended, parliaments will not give the necessary supplies from
year to year, as in the time of war, but will settle methods for paying the public debt, and
for the support of the government, for two, if not for three years. The ill effects of an
annual meeting of parliament are so visible and so great, that I hope nothing but invincible
necessity will ever keep us under the continuance of so great an inconvenience. I speak of
this with the more concern, because this is not only a great charge on bishops, heavy on the
richer, and intolerable to the poorer bishoprics ; but chiefly because it calls them away from
their diocesses, and from minding their proper work, and fills their heads too much with
secular thoughts, and obliges them to mix too much with secular company ; from which the
more abstracted they are, as their minds will be purer and freer, so they will be able to
follow their own business with less distraction, in a more constant attendance on the ministry
of the word and prayer, to which, in imitation of the apostles, they ought to give them
selves continually.
I have now gone over what seemed to me most practicable, as well as most important, for
all ranks of men severally in the nation, as well as for that great union of them all, in the
representative of the whole in parliament. I have not gone into wild notions of an imagi
nary reformation, more to be wished than hoped for ; but have only touched on such ill
practices, and bad dispositions, as with a little care and good government may be in some
measure redressed and corrected. And now, having by all these, as by so many steps, risen
up to the throne, I will end this address to the nation, with an humble representation to
those who are to sit on it.
I have had the honour to be admitted to much free conversation with five of our sove
reigns ; king Charles the Second, king James the Second, king William the Third, queen
Mary, and queen Anne. King Charles;s behaviour was a thing never enough to be com
mended ; he was a perfectly well-bred man, easy of access, free in his discourse, and sweet
in his whole deportment ; this was managed with great art, and it covered bad designs ;
it was of such use to him, that it may teach all succeeding princes of what advantage
an easiness of access and an obliging behaviour may be : this preserved him ; it often
disarmed those resentments, which hie ill conduct in every thing, both public and private,
possessed all thinking people with very early, and all sorts of people at last ; and yet none
could go to him but they were in a great measure softened before they left him : it looked
like a charm, that could hardly be resisted ; yet there was no good nature under that, nor
was there any truth in him. King James had great application to business, though without
* The bishop could never foresee that in our age the business of parliament, and tho number of small-talkers,
would so increase, that the houses must sit daily for months together, from noon until long past midnight.— to.

920 THE CONCLUSION.
a right understanding ; that application gave him a reputation till he took care to throw it
off: if he had not come after king Charles, he would have passed for a prince of a sweet
temper, and easy of access. King William was the reverse of all this ; he was scarcely
accessible, and was always cold and silent ; he minded affairs abroad so much, and was so
set on the war, that he scarcely thought of his government at home : this raised a general
disgust, which was improved by men of ill designs, so that it perplexed all his affairs,
and he could hardly support himself at home, whilst he was the admiration of all abroad.
Queen Mary was affable, cheerful, and lively, spoke much, and yet under great reserves,
minded business, and came to understand it well ; she kept close to rules, chiefly to those
set her by the king ; and she charmed all that came near her. Queen Anne is easy of
access, and hears every thing very gently ; but opens herself to so few, and is so cold and
general in her answers, that people soon find that the chief application is to be made to
her ministers and favourites, who in their turns have an entire credit and full power with
her : she has laid down the splendour of a court too much, and eats privately ; so that except
on Sundays, and a few hours, twice or thrice a week, at night in the drawing-room, she
appears so little, that her court is, as it were, abandoned. Out of all these princes' con
duct, and from their successes in their affairs, it is evident what ought to be the measures of
a wise and good prince, who would govern the nation happily and gloriously.
The first, the most essential, and most indispensable rule for a king is, to study the inte
rest of the nation, to be ever in it, and to be always pursuing it : this will lay in for him
such a degree of confidence, that he will be ever safe with bis people, when they feel they
are safe in him. No part of our story shows this more visibly than queen Elizabeth's reign,
in which the true interest of the nation was constantly pursued ; and this was so well under
stood by all, that every thing else was forgiven her and her ministers both. Sir Simon
Dewe's journal shows a treatment of parliaments, that could not have been borne at any
other time, or under any other administration : this was the constant support of king
William's reign, and continues to support the present reign, as it will support all who adhere
steadily to it.
A prince that would command the affections and purses of this nation, must not study to
stretch his prerogative, or be uneasy under the restraints of law ; as soon as this humour
shows itself, he must expect that a jealousy of him, and an uneasy opposition to him, will
follow through the whole course of his reign ; whereas if he governs well, parliaments will
trust him as much as a wise prince would desire to be trusted ; and will supply him in
every war that is necessary, either for their own preservation, or the preservation of those
allies with whom mutual interests and leagues unite him : but though, soon after the resto
ration, a slavish parliament supported king Charles in the Dutch war, yet the nation must
be strangely changed before any thing of that sort can happen again.
One of the most detestable and the most foolish maxims, with relation to our government,
is to keep up parties and a rivalry among them ; to shift and change ministers, and to go
from one party to another, as they can be brought in their turns to offer the prince more
money, or to give him more authority : this will in conclusion render him odious and con
temptible to all parties, who growing accustomed to his fickleness, will never trust him, but
rather study to secure themselves by depressing him ; of which the reign of Henry the
Third of France is a signal instance. We saw what effects this had on king Charles's reign ;
and king William felt what an ill step he had made, near the end of his reign, in pursuing
this maxim. Nothing creates to a prince such a confidence as a constant and clear firmness
and steadiness of government, with an unblemished integrity in all his professions ; and
nothing will create a more universal dependence on him than, when it is visible, he studies
to allay the heats of parties, and to reconcile them to one another : this will demonstrate
that he loves his people, and that he has no ill designs of his own.
A prince who would be well served, ought to seek out among his subjects the best and
most capable of the youth, and see to their good education at home and abroad ; he should
send them to travel, and order his ministers abroad to keep such for some time about them,
and to send them from court to court, to learn their language, and observe their tempers :
if but twelve such were constantly kept, on an allowance of 2501. a-year, the whole

THE CONCLUSION. 921
expense of this would rise but to 30007. a-year : by this inconsiderable charge, a prince
might have a constant nursery for a wise and able ministry. But those ought to be well
chosen, none ought to pretend to the nomination ; it ought to rise from the motion of the
most honest and most disinterested of all his ministers to the prince, in secret. As great a care
ought to be had in the nomination of the chaplains of his ministers abroad, that there may
be a breed of worthy clergymen, who have large thoughts and great notions, from a more
enlarged view of mankind and of the world. If a prince would have all that serve him
grateful and true to him, he must study to find out who are the most proper and worthiest
men, capable of employments, and prevent their applications, and surprise them with bestow
ing good posts unsought, and raising them higher, as they serve well. When it is known that
a prince has made it his maxim to follow this method in distributing his favours, he will cut
off applications for them ; which will otherwise create a great uneasiness to him, and have
this certain ill effect, that, where there are many pretenders, one must have the preference to
all the rest ; so that many are mortified for being rejected, and are full of envy at him who
has obtained the favour, and therefore will detract from him as much as possible. This has
nowhere worse effects than among the clergy, in the disposal of the dignities of the church :
and therefore queen Mary resolved to break those aspirings ; which resolution she carried on
effectually for some years : a constant pursuing that maxim would have a great effect on
the nation.
Frequent progresses round the nation, so divided, that once in seven, eight, or ten years,
the chief places of it might be gone through, would recommend a prince wonderfully to the
people; especially if he were gentle and affable, and would so manage his progress that it
should not be a charge to any, by refusing to accept of entertainments from any person
whatsoever : for the accepting these only from such as could easily bear the charge of it
would be an affronting of others, who being of equal rank, though not of equal estates,
would likewise desire to treat the prince. So to make a progress every where acceptable,
and nowhere chargeable, the sure method would be, according to the established rule of the
household, for the prince to carry the travelling wardrobe with him, and to take such houses
in the way as are most convenient for him ; but to entertain himself and his court there,
and have a variety of tables for such as may come to attend on him. On this queen Mary
had set her heart, if she had lived to see peace in her days : by this means a prince may see
and be seen by his people ; he may know some men that deserve to be distinguished, of
whom otherwise he would never have heard ; and he may learn and redress the grievances
of his people, preventing all parliamentary complaints, except for such matters as cannot be
cured but by a remedy in parliament : methods like these would make a prince become the
idol of his people.
It is certain that their affections must follow a prince, who would consider government
and the royal dignity as his calling, and would be daily employed in it, studying the good
and happiness of his people, pursuing the properest ways for promoting it, without either
delivering himself up to the sloth of luxury and vain magnificence, or affecting the barbarity
of war and conquest ; which render those who make the world a scene of blood and rapine,
indeed the butchers of mankind. If these words seem not decent enough, I will make no
other apology, but that I use them, because I cannot find worse : for as they are the worst
of men, so they deserve the worst of language. Can it be thought that princes are raised
to the highest pitch of glory and wealth, on design to corrupt their minds with pride and
contempt of the rest of mankind, as if they were made only to be the instruments of then
extravagancies, or the subjects of their passions and humours ? No ! they are exalted for the
good of their fellow-creatures, in order to raise them to the truest sublimity, to become as
like Divinity as a mortal creature is capable of being. None will grudge them their great
treasures and authority, when they see it is all employed to make their people happy, in one
will envy their greatness, when they see it accompanied with a suitable greatness ot soul ;
whereas a magnified and flattered pageant will soon fall under universal contempt and hatred.
There is not any one thing more certain and more evident, than that princes are made for the
.eople, and not the people for them ; and perhaps there is no nation under heaven that is
acre entirely possessed with this notion of princes than the English nation is in this age ;

922 THE CONCLUSION.
so that they will soon be uneasy to a prince who does not govern himself by this maxinr
and in time grow very unkind to him.
Great care ought to be taken in the nomination of judges and bishops. I join these
together ; for law and religion, justice and piety, are the support of nations, and give strength
and security to governments : judges must be recommended by those in the high posts of the
law ; but a prince may, by his own taste and upon knowledge, choose his bishops. They
ought to be men eminent for piety, learning, discretion, and zeal ; not broken with age,
wliich will quickly render them incapable of serving the church to any good purpose : a
person fit to be a bishop at sixty, was fit at forty ; and had then spirit and activity, with a
strength both of body and mind. The vast expense they are at in entering on their bishop
rics ought to be regulated : no bishoprics can be, in any good degree, served under 1000?.
a-year, at least. The judges ought to be plentifully provided for, that they may be under
no temptation to supply themselves by indirect ways. One part of a prince's care, to be
recommended to judges in their circuits, is to know what persons are, as it were, hid in the
nation, that are fit for employments, and deserve to be encouraged ; of such they ought to
give an account to the lord chancellor, who ought to lay it before the throne. No crime
ought to be pardoned, till the judge who gave sentence is heard, to give an account of the
evidence, with the circumstances of the fact, as it appeared on the trial : no regard ought to
be had to stories that are told to move compassion ; for in these, little regard is had to truth :
and an easiness in pardoning is, in some sort, an encouraging of crimes, and a giving
license to commit them.
But to run out no longer into particulars, the great and comprehensive rule of all is, that
a king should consider himself as exalted by Almighty God into that high dignity, as into a
capacity of doing much good, and of being a great blessing to mankind, and in some sort a
God on earth ; and therefore, as he expects, that his ministers should study to advance his
service, his interests, and his glory; and that, so much the more, as he raises them to higher
posts of favour and honour, so he, whom God has raised to the greatest exaltation this
world is capable of, should apply himself wholly to cares becoming his rank and station, to
be in himself a pattern of virtue and true religion, to promote justice, to relieve and revenge
the oppressed, and to seek out men of virtue and piety, and bring them into such degrees of
confidence as they may be capable of ; to encourage a due and a generous freedom in their
advices, to be ready to see his own errors, that he may correct them, and to entertain every
thing that is suggested to him, for the good of his people, and for the benefit of mankind ;
and to make a difference between those who court his favour for their own ends, who study
to flatter and by that to please him, often to his own ruin, and those who have great views
and noble aims, who set him on to pursue designs worthy of him, without mean or partial
regards to any ends or interests of their own. It is not enough for a prince not to encourage
vice or impiety by his own ill practices ; it ought to appear that these are odious to him,
and that they give him horror : a declaration of this kind, solemnly made and steadily pur
sued, would soon bring on at least an exterior reformation, which would have a great effect
on the body of the nation, and on the rising generation, though it were but hypocritically
put on at first. Such a prince would be perhaps too great a blessing to a wicked world :
queen Mary seemed to have the seeds of all this in her ; but the world was not worthy of
her ; and so God took her from it.
I will conclude this whole address to posterity with that which is the most important of
all other things, and which alone will carry every thing else along with it ; which is to
recommend, in the most solemn and serious manner, the study and practice of religion to all
sorts of men, as that which is both the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Nothing
does so open our faculties, and compose and direct the whole man, as an inward sense of God,
of his authority over us, of the laws he has set us, of his eye ever upon us, of his hearing
our prayers, assisting our endeavours, watching over our concerns, and of his being to judge,
and to reward, or punish us in another state, according to what we do in this. Nothing will
give a man such a detestation of sin, and such a sense of the goodness of God, and of our
obligations to holiness, as a right understanding and a firm belief of the Christian religion :
nothing can give a man so calm a peace within, and such a firm security against all fears

THE CONCLUSION. 923
and dangers without, as the belief of a kind and wise Providence, and of a future state. An
integrity of heart gives a man a courage and a confidence that cannot be shaken : a man is
sure that, by living according to the rules of religion, he becomes the wisest, the best and
happiest creature that he is capable of being : honest industry, the employing his time well
jtnd a constant sobriety, an undefiled purity and chastity, with a quiet serenity, are the best
preservers of life and health ; so that, take a man as a single individual, religion is his guard,
his perfection, his beauty, and his glory : this will make him the light of the world, shining
brightly, and enlightening many round about him.
Then take a man as a piece of mankind, as a citizen of the world, or of any particular
state, religion is indeed then the salt of the earth ; for it makes every man to be to all the
rest of the world, whatsoever any one can with reason wish or desire him to be. He is
true, just, honest, and faithful, in the whole commerce of life, doing to all others that wliich
he would have others do to him : he is a lover of mankind, and of his country ; he may
and ought to love some more than others ; but he has an extent of love to all, of pity and
compassion, not only to the poorest, but to the worst ; for the worse any are, they are the
more to be pitied. He has a complacency and delight in all that are truly though but defec
tively good, and a respect and veneration for all that are eminently so : he mourns for the
sins and rejoices in the virtues of all that are round about him : in every relation of life,
religion makes him answer all his obligations : it will make princes just and. good, faithful to
their promises, and lovers of their people : it will inspire subjects with respect, submission,
obedience, and zeal, for their prince : it will sanctify wedlock to be a state of Christian
friendship, and mutual assistance : it will give parents the truest love to their children, with
a proper care of their education : it will command the returns of gratitude and obedience
from children : it will teach masters to be gentle and careful of their servants, and servants
to be faithful, zealous, and diligent, in their masters' concerns : it will make friends tender
and true to one another ; it will make them generous, faithful, and disinterested ; it will
make men live in their neighbourhood, as members of one common body, promoting first the
general good of the whole, and then the good of every particular, as far as a man's sphere
can go : it will make judges and magistrates just and patient, hating covetousness, and
maintaining peace and order, without respect of persons : it will make people live in so
inoffensive a manner, that it will be easy to maintain justice, whilst men are not disposed to
give disturbance to those about them. This will make bishops and pastors faithful to their
trust, tender to their people, and watchful over them ; and it will beget in the people an
esteem for their persons, and their functions.
Thus religion, if truly received and sincerely adhered to, would prove the greatest of all
blessings to a nation ; but by religion, I understand somewhat more than the receiving some
doctrines, though ever so true, or the professing them, and engaging to support them, not
without zeal and eagerness. What signify the best doctrines, if men do not live suitably to
them ; if they have not a due influence upon their thoughts, their principles, and their lives ?
Men of bad lives, with sound opinions, are self-condemned, and lie under a highly aggra
vated guilt ; nor will the heat of a party, arising out of interest, and managed with fury
and violence, compensate for the ill lives of such false pretenders to zeal ; while they are a
disgrace to that which they profess and seem so hot for. By religion, I do not mean an
outward compliance with form and customs, in going to church, to prayers, to sermons, and
to sacraments, with an external show of devotion, or, which is more, with some inward
forced good thoughts, in which many may satisfy themselves, while this has no visible effect
on their lives, nor any inward force to subdue and rectify their appetites, passions, and secret
designs. Those customary performances, how good and useful soever, when wellunderstood
and rightly directed, are of little value, when men rest on them, and think that, because they
do them, they have therefore acquitted themselves of their duty, though they continue still
proud, covetous, full of deceit, envy, and malice : even secret prayer, the most effectual of
all other means, is designed for a higher end, which is to possess our minds with such a con
stant and present sense of divine truths, as may make these live in us, and govern us ; and
may draw down such assistances as may exalt and sanctify our natures.
So that by religion I mean, such a sense of divine truth as enters into a man, and becomes

924 THE CONCLUSION.
a spring of a new nature within him ; reforming his thoughts and designs, purifying his
heart, and sanctifying him, and goverrung his whole deportment, his words as well as his
actions ; convincing him that it is not enough, not to be scandalously vicious, or to be inno
cent in his conversation, but that he must be entirely, uniformly, and constantly, pure and
virtuous, animating him with a zeal to be still better and better, more eminently good and
exemplary, using prayers and all outward devotions, as solemn acts testifying what he is
inwardly and at heart, and as methods instituted by God, to be still advancing in the use of
them further and further into a more refined and spiritual sense of divine matters. This is
true religion, which is the perfection of human nature, and the joy and delight of every one
that feels it active and strong within him : it is true, this is not arrived at all at once ; and it
will have an unhappy alloy, hanging long even about a good man ; but, as those ill mixtures
are the perpetual grief of his soul, so it is his chief care to watch over and to mortify them ;
he will be in a continual progress, still gaining ground upon himself ; and as he attains to a
good degree of purity, he will find a noble flame of life and joy growing upon him. Of
this I write with the more concern and emotion, because I have felt this the true, and indeed
the only joy wliich runs through a man's heart and life : it is that which has been for many
years my greatest support ; I rejoice daily in it : I feel from it the earnest of that supreme
joy which I pant and long for ; I am sure there is nothing else can afford any true or com
plete happiness. 1 have, considering my sphere, seen a great deal of all that is most shining
and tempting in this world : the pleasures of sense I did soon nauseate ; intrigues of state,
and the conduct of affairs, have something in them that is more specious ; and I was for
some years, deeply immersed in these, but still with hopes of reforming the world, and of
making mankind wiser and better : but I have found that which is crooked cannot be made
straight. I acquainted myself with knowledge and learning, and that in a great variety,
and with more compass than depth : but though wisdom excelleth folly as much as light
docs darkness, yet as it is a sore travail, so it is so very defective, that what is wanting to
complete it cannot be numbered. I have seen that two were better than one, and that a
threefold cord is not easily loosed ; and have therefore cultivated friendship with much zeal
and a disinterested tenderness ; but I have found this was also vanity and vexation of spirit,
though it be of the best and noblest sort. So that, upon great and long experience, I could
enlarge on the preacher's text, "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity;" but I must also
conclude with him ; Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the all of man, the
whole, both of his duty and of his happiness. I do therefore end all in the words of David,
of the truth of which, upon great experience and a long observation, I am so fully assured,
that I leave these as my last words to posterity : " Come, ye children, hearken unto me : I
will teach you the fear of the Lord. What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many
days, that he may see good ? Keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from speaking guile.
Depart from evil, and do good ; seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are upon the
righteous, and his ears are open to their cry ; but the face of the Lord is against them that
do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry, and the
Lord heareth and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them
that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit *."
* Written in June, 1708, when the author thought more, for each of its dictates is founded on virtue, and
himself near the end of the history — This admirable consequently is dictated by wisdom. It is a legacy to the
" conclusion," admirable whether its sentiments or it world, for there is no one so exalted or so humble in sta-
eomposition are more particularly considered, has been tion or in talent, but will find himself the wealthier in
published in a little volume by itself. It may be pon- the best sense of that term, if he determines to benefit by
dered advantageonsly in every age until time shall be no the bishop's advice. — Ed.

INDEX.

The references to the N'otes are distinguished by asterisks.

ABERCORN, Earl of, 22
Aberdeen, Earl 6f, 345; breaks
with Queensbury, 377; loses the
Chancellor's place, 378
Abingdon, Earl of^ goes to the Prince
of Orange, 501,706
Act of Uniformity, 125, 126, 131
 Fining in Scotland, 145
Admiralty, their conduct censured,
592, 599, 639, 734, 735, 736, 766
See Sea Affairs
Aghrem, battle of, 571
Ailesbury, Earl of, sent to King
James in 1695, 612 ; in a plot
of invasion, 626
Ailesbury, town of, the right of
electing members is tried at com
mon law, 742 ; disputed in the
Queen's Bench, if triable, 743;
judged not, and writ of error
brought in the House of Lords,
ib. ; they reverse the judgment,
ib. 744 ; other actions brought on
the same cause, 768 ; the Com
mons imprison the plaintiffs, ib. ;
Prisoners brought up by Habeas
Corpus to Queen's Bench and
remanded, ib. ; Writ of error
thcreupon,ib. ; Commons address
the Queen not to grant it, 769 ;
Lords counter-address, ib.
Ailoffe, 405, 405 ; executed, 407
Aird, 196
Albano chosen Pope Clement XI.
672. See Pope.
Albano, his nephew, 844
Albemarle, Earl of, in favour with
King William, 656, 666, 701 ;
his loss at Denain, 703, 708
Albert, Duke, 5
Alberville, Marquis de, his charac
ter, 450 ; King James's envoy to
the States, ib. 451 ; his memo
rial about Bantam, 461 ; he dis
covers King James's designs too
soon, 464, 488
Aldrich, Dr., 430
Almanara, battle of, 857
Almanza, battle of, 809
Almirante of Castile, 730
Ambrun, siege of, 583
Amsterdam, errors of, 220; their love
for the Duke of Marlborough,276

Ancram, Earl of, 10, 238
Anglesey, Earl of, manages the
English interest in Ireland, 120 ;
his character, 120*, 152 ; votes
against Lord Stafford, 325, 372 ;
opposes Monmouth's attainder,
410
Anjou, Duke of, offered to Spain,
598 ; declared King of Spain in
1700—672, 675; crowned by
the States, ib. ; and by King Wil
liam, 682. See Phiup, King of
Spain
Annandale, Earl of, in a plot, 560 ;
discovers it to Queen Mary, 561,
738; opposes the Union, 800 ; is
zealous for the Protestant succes
sion, 780,835
Anne, Queen. See Queen Anne
Annesley, Mr., 56; madeEarlof An
glesey, 64. See Anglesey, Earl of
Anspach, Princess of, 811
Antrim, Earl of, 22, 24, 25
Arco, 753
Argyle, Earl of, 14, 15 ; heads the
Whiggamoro insurrection, 26 ;
refuses King Charles the First's
offers, 38 ; submits to Monk, ib. ;
one of the Scotch commissioners,
40 ; charged as accessory to the
king's murder, and sent to the
Tower, 73; his trial, 82, 83;
tries to escape, 83; his attainder,
84 ; his execution and speech
there, ib. ; his character, 84 *
Argyle, Earl of, his son, (see Loud
Loiin) against violent proceed
ings, 143 ; raises 1500 men, 159,
165,200,278; the Duke of York
tries to gain him,338 ; his answer,
offers to explain the test-act,
340,342; is imprisoned, ib. ; con
demned, 343 ; but escapes, ib. ;
cabals with Monmouth, 354,355,
379 ; and invades Scotland, 404,
405 ; is defeated, taken, and ex
ecuted, 406
Argile, Earl of, sent to tender the
crown of Scotland in 1 689, 538,
560 ; made a duke
Argyle, Duke of, his son, commis
sioner of parliament, 738, 766,
780; his instructions debated,

780, 827 ; is sent to command in
Spain
Arlington, Earl of, 68, 167, 180,
203 ; Knight of the Garter, 206,
216 ; in the interests of France,
218, 224, 229, 231 ; loses the
Duke of York, 233, 239 ; at
tacked by the Commons, 242 ;
Lord Chamberlain, 243, 244;
sent to Holland to the Prince of
Orange, 251, 252, 384
Armagh, Primate of, 419
Armstrong, Sir Thomas, with the
Dnke of Monmouth, 352, 358 ;
seized at Leyden, sent over and
executed, 375, 376, and note
Army, Scotch, defeated by Crom
well, 36 ; attempts to raise a new
army in Scotland, ib. ; a body of
Highlanders stand for the king,
38; their chief officers, 38,39;
send over messages to the king,
39 ; are dispersed, 40 ; the En
glish army how managed at the
Restoration, 57 ; disbanded, 105 ;
army on free quarters in tho west
of Scotland, 278 ; the army at
Hounslow Heath, 447 ; King
James's desert to the Prince of
Orange, 501 ; parties engage in
Dorsetshire and at Reading, 506
Army, standing, odious to English
ears, 574, 645, 654 ; reasons for
and against one, 645, 646; re
duced to 7000 men, and how
modelled, 654, 678
Arnot, Rachel, 9
Arragon, kingdom of, declares for
King Charles III., 793 ; reduced
by the Duke of Orleans, 809,
857, 858
Arran, Lord, 319, 334, 400, 477
Arundel, Lord, 263, 285, 325
Asgill, 670
Ashby, 310, 579
Ashley Cowper, 5fi. See Shaftes
bury, Earl of
Ashton, seized with Lord Preston,
564 ; executed, 565 ; his paper
to the Sheriff, ib.
Aston, Sir Roger, employed by King
James I. as his messenger to
Queen Elizabeth, 3 *

926
Astrologers, consulted by many men
of celebrity, 1 7 *
Athlone, the siege of, 571
Athlone, Earl of (see Ginkle), 654,
664, 700, 712 ; his conduct in
Flanders extolled, 713, 714
Athol, Marquis of, 165, 200, 224,
226, 267 ; sends Highlanders in
the West to live on free quarter,
277,278,237
Athol, Marquis of, 737 ; made a
duke, 746, 762; opposes the
Union, 800
Atterbury, Dr., 430, 671, and note,
689, 866, 868, 886; is made
Bishop of Rochester, 902
Aubigny, Lord, in the secret of King
Charles II. 's religion, 48; marries
him to Queen Catherine, 118;
seconds the motion for a general
toleration, 133,135,396
Augustus, King of Poland, 640, 641
(See Elector of Saxony) ; his
conduct in Poland, 655 ; his alli
ances against Sweden, 660 ; his
designs on Poland, ib. ; the war
there, 667, 668,675,711, 716;
he is deposed, 734 ; Stanislaus
chosen and crowned in his room,
760, 778 : resigns the throne,
807 ; the war continues, 832 ;
he resumes the crown on the
King of Sweden's defeat, 844
Aumont, Duke de, ambassador from
France, 892
Austria, Charles Archduke of, 661 ;
a treaty with Portugal in his
favour. See Charles III. King
of Spain
Auverquerque, General, his emi
nent service in Flanders, 570,701
Azuph taken by the Muscovites, 629

B.
Baden, Lewis Prince of, heats the
Turks, 573 ; comes to England,
600, 601 ; besieges Landau, 712;
and takes it, 714 ; repulses Villars
atStolhoffen,728,729,753 ; takes
Landau a second time, 755 ; dis
appoints the Duke of Marlbo
rough after measures concerted,
772 j his death, 807
Baillie, Mr., cited before the council
in Scotland and fined, 267, 287 ;
confers with Monmouth's party
at London, 354 ; seized and ex
amined before the king, 358 ; im
prisoned and cruelly used, 359,
370 ; further proceedings against
him,379,380; his execution, 380
Baillie, Principal of Glasgow Col
lege, 21, and note
Balmerinoch, Lord, his trial, 12, 13 ;
condemned, but pardoned, 14
Bamfield, Colonel, 398
Bank of England, when erected,
599 ; its good consequences, ib. ;
enlarged in 1709, 838; against a
change of ministry in 1710, 856,
857

INDEX.
Bank, Land, 625, and note ; failed
totally, 628
Bantry Bay, sea fight there, 536
Bara, 822
Barbesieux, son to Louvois, 580
Barcelona besieged by the French,
601 ; siege raised by the English
fleet, ib. ; taken by the French,
638 ; taken by King Charles in
1705, 777; besieged by the
French, 790; King Charles de
fends it in person, 792 ; the
English fleet raises the siege, 793
Bareith, Marquis of, 582, 807
Bargeny, Lord, 339
Barillon, 273, 390
Barlow, Bishop, 289, and note
Barnevelt, 6 ; executed, 211
Bates, Dr., 175 and note, 61 1
Bath, Earl of, 392 ; his practices on
Cornish elections, 402 ; offers to
join the Prince of Orange, 499 ;
makes Plymouth declare for him,
503
Bavaria, Elector of, 6 ; Spanish
Flanders put into his hand, 574 ;
his son proposed as successor to
the Spanish monarchy, 656, 679 ;
he is gained by France, 694, 711,
712, 714 ; distresses the Empire,
714, 727, 728, 729, 733, 752 ;
his troops routed at Schellem-
berg, 753 ; he is beaten at Hoc-
sted, 754 ; loses all his territo
ries, 755 ; his conduct in Flan
ders, 772 ; his share at the battle
of Ramillies, 794, 796; com
mands on the Rhine, 829 ; his
attempt on Brussels, 830 ; is re
stored to his dominions, 894
Baxter, Mr., manager at the Savoy
conference, 123; his character,
123 * ; he refuseB the Bishoprick
of Hereford, 126 ; at a treaty for
comprehension, 175; returns the
pension sent him from the court,
206
Bayly, 21
Beachy in Sussex, a sea-fight near
it, 555
Beaufort, Duke of, 84, 892
Beaumont, Colonel* refuses Irish
recruits, 487
Beddingfield, 282
Bedlow, his evidence in the Popish
plot, 286 and note, 295 , 296,297,
298,309,310,311,323
Belcarras, Earl of, 38, 39
Belhaven, Lord, 11
Bellarmine, Cardinal, 3
Bellasis, Lord, 285, 236
Bellasis, Lady, her contract with the
Duke of York, 233
Bellefonds, Mareschal, 203; his cha
racter, 367
Bennet, Secretary of State, 68. See
Arlington, Earl of
Bentinck, Envoy from the States to
Brandenburgh, 481; his secrecy
in his expedition to England, 495,
506; made earl of Portland, 527,
and note
Berkley, Charles, made earl of Fal

mouth, 68 ; his character, 63,
69, and note
Berkley, Lord Lieutenant of Ire
land, 181 and note, 230, 398
Berkly, Lord, 856
Berkley, Sir George, 622 ; has King
Jameses commission to attack the
Prince of Orange in his winter
quarters, 622, 623 ; escapes, 624
Berkshire, earl of, 98
Berry, Duke of, 885
Berry, executed, 295, 296
Berwick, Duke of, his character,
476, 622, 747, 749, 757, 791,
793,809, 842
Bethel, Sheriff, 818
Beveridge, Dr. , 709; is made Bishop
of St. Asaph, 767 and note, 802
Beuning, Van, 818
Bezons, Mareschal, 842, 844
Bierly, 742
Bill of Rights, 533, 534, and note
Binks, Dr., 708
Birch, Colonel, his character, 253,
293
Bishops, English, their conduct at
the Revolution,528,529and note;
they engage in a correspondence
with St. Germains, 564, 565 ;
their sees are filled up, 568 ; the
character of the new Bishops, 569,
570, 596, 600 ; divided as to the
point of the Duke of Norfolk's
divorce, 601, 689, 690, 69] ,
692
Bishops, Scotch, their errors, 4, 14 ;"
men sought out to be bishops, 88,
89 ; are consecrated, 92 ; come
to Scotland, 94 ; are introduced
to the Parliament, 95 ; prejudices
against them, 103, 147; their
severity to prisoners, 160, 161 ;
are against a comprehension, 185 ;
are offended at the act of su
premacy, 192 ; their conduct at
the Revolution, 53 8; is the cause
of abolishing episcopacy, ib.
Blacklow, 133
Blackhall, Dr., Bishop of Exeter,
816 and note
Blair, Mr., his character, 2 1
Blair, of Virginia, 596
Blake, Admiral, 52
Blakewood, his trial, 345, 346
Blandford, Bishop, attends the
Duchess of York in her last
sickness, 207
Blareignies, battle of, 843
Blenheim, or Hocksted, battle of,
754, 755
Bohemia, affairs there, 7
Bolingbroke, Viscount, sent to
France 892, 898 ; receives the
seals, 856 and note
Bolton, Duke of, 544; attacks the
Marquis of Halifax in Parliament,
ib. ; his death and character, 657
Bonantine, Bishop, 14
Booth, Sir George, 43
Boots, a torture used in Scotland,
160
Borel, his answer to King Charles
II., 53, 216

Borghese, Prince, 423
Boucher, in a plot, 747, 748, 749
Boucour, Mr., 481
Bouflers, Mareschal, 614 ; his de
fence of Namur, 614, 615; his
negotiation -with Lord Portland
concerning King James, 642;
commands in Flanders, 712, 713,
and note ; his conduct in 1703
censured, 728, 729 ; his de
fence of Lille, 830, 831 ; his
retreat after the battle of Mons,
843
Bourdaloue, Father, his character,
368, 369
Bowles, Sir John, 683
Box, refuses to be Sheriff, 347
Boyle, Earl of Cork, 209; his ac
count how the Spanish Armada
was delayed, 209, 210
Boyle, Mr. Robert, of the Royal
Society, 1 32, and note
Boyle, Mr., Secretary of State, 822
and note ; is dismissed, 856
Boyne, the battle of, 553, 55 t
Bredalbane, Earl of, sends 1700
Highlanders into the west of Scot
land to live on free quarter, 277 ;
his conduct in the affair of Glen
coe, 576, 617
Braddon, fined for talking of Lord
Essex's murder, 371
Bradshaw, the regicide, 28
Brandenburgh, Elector of, 7, 221,
227, 244 ; his death and charac
ter, 474, 475
Brandenburgh, Elector of, takes
Keiserwaert and Bonn, 541 ;
joins the Dutch in Flanders, 615,
640, 660, 667 ; is King of Prussia.
See Prussia.
Brandon, Lord, 415
Brayer, Father, 368
Brereton, Lord, chairman of the
committee at Brook-House, 18 1
Brett, Dr., 887, and note
Bridgman, Lord Keeper, 153, 170,
171, and note ; for a compre
hension, 175 ; and union with
Scotland, 189 ; refuses to seal a
declaration for toleration, and is
dismissed, 206
Brihuega, the loss there, 858
Bristol, Earl of, his character, 69,
and note j consults with the Pa
pists for a general toleration, 133,
134 ; a prediction of his, 135 ;
he attacks the Earl of Clarendon,
135, and note, 326, 396
Broderick, Sir Allen, 49, 133
Broghill, Lord, his scheme for
uniting the families of Stuart and
Cromwell, 47 *
Bromley, Mr., stands for Speaker,
and loses it, 781, and note; is
chosen Speaker in 1710, 859, and
note
Brounker, Lord, of the Royal So-
ciety, 131
Brounker, 148, and note
Brown, Lady, 263
Bruce, his secret management for
King James I., 3

INDEX.
Bruce, Bishop of Dunkeld, turned
out for speaking against tho repeal
of the penal laws, 433
Bruce, a puritan, 9
Bruce, Sir Alexander, 711
Brunswick, 667. See Hanoveb.
Brussols bombarded, 615
Brydges, Mr. John, 865 ; after
wards Lord Chandos, ib. and
note
Buckingham, Duke of, 8, and note,
10, 1 1, 29 ; letter of his to King
James, 9 • ; courts the Anti-cpis-
copalians, 10 •
Buckingham, Duke of, in favour
with King Charles II., 33 ; his
character, 33 and note, 69 ; pro
motes Wilkins to the see of
Chester, 171 ; presses the King
to own a marriage with Mon
mouth's mother, 176 ; proposes
to steal away the Queen, 178 ;
brings Davies and Gwyn to the
King, ib. ; his friends, 180 ;
moves for dissolving the Parlia
ment, 188 ; is for an union with
Scotland, 189 ; and an alliance
with France, 201, 203,216,218 ;
hinders Ossory's design on Hel-
voetsluys, 222 ; sends over a
French mistress to the King, 224,
228, 229 ; offers to take out of
both Houses those that opposed
the King's declaration, 230,238 ;
is attacked by the Commons, 242 ;
loses the King's favour, ib. ; op
poses the Test Act, 256, 258 ;
questions the legality of proroga
tions, 267 ; sent to the Tower,
268 and note
Buckingham, (Sheffield) Duke of,
(see Normanby), 706 ; is made
Privy Seal to Queen Anne, 706,
819; and Lord Steward of the
Household, 856, 861
Bull, Dr., made Bishop of St.
David's, 767, and note
Burgundy, Duke of, 629 ; marries
the Duke of Savoy's daughter,
ib. 673 ; heads the French army
in Flanders, 712 ; takes Brisack,
729 ; commands in Flanders in
1708, 826, 829 ; quarrels with
the Duke of Vendome, 842 ; is
Dauphin bv his father's death,
866. See DiupmN.
Burnet, made Archbishop of Glas
gow, 143; his character, ib. ;
severe to prisoners, 159, 160;
proposes a special council at Glas
gow, 162, 164, 166, 188 ; against
the indulgence, 190 ; resigns his
Archbishoprick, 193 ; is restored
to it, 248 ; his death, 382
Burnet, Gilbert (the author) lays
some grievances of the clergy
before the bishops, 1 47 ; his trea
tises on divorce and polygamy,
177"; gets some moderate Pres
byterians into the vacant churches,
189 ; chosen divinity- professor at
Glasgow, 193; is at a conference
with the Presbyterians, 198, 199 ;

927
writes Memoirs of the two Dukes
of Hamilton, 1 99 ; reconciles tlie
Dukes of Hamilton and Lauder
dale, 200 ; proposes a further
indulgence,ib. ; refuses a bishop
ric, ib. ; refuses it with tho
prothise of the first vacant arch
bishoprick, 225 ; obtains a farther
indulgence, 226 ; his remon
strances to Duke Lauderdale, 236 ;
has many marks of the king's
favour, ib. ; attacks the Duke of
York about his religion, 237 ;
introduces Dr. Stillingfleet to
him, 237, 238, 239 ; the Duke's
private discourse, 239 ; Lauder
dale persecutes him, 240 ; he is
disgraced at court, 247, 248 ; ex
amined by the House of Com
mons, 252 ; is made Chaplain at
the Rolls, 253; his conference
with Coleman, 264 ; undertakes
to write the History of the Refor.
mation, ib. and note ; what passed
between him and Tonge and Oates,
284; his opinion of the witnesses,
287 ; his private interviews with
the King, 288, 290, 291 ; his
thoughts on the exclusion, 305 ;
his expedient of a Prince Regent,
327; he lives retired, 329 ; his
letter to the King about his course
of life, 333, 334, and note ; his
reception afterwards, 335 ; his
good offices to the Earl of Argyle,
342, 343 ; examined in Council
concerning Lord Russel's speech,
365, 366 ; goes over to France,
367, and note ; his character of
some eminent men there, 367,
368, 369 ; deposes against Lord
Howard's credit, 372 ; turned
out of all his preferments, 386 ;
goes out of England, 404 ; resides
at Paris, 419 ; his account of the
persecution iu France, 420,421,
422 ; well received at Rome, 422 ;
Cardinal Howard's freedom with
him, 423 ; the cruelty he saw in
Orange, 424 ; his observation on
the reformed churches, 437 ; is
invited by the Prince and Prin
cess of Orange, 438 ; discovers a
conspiracy against the Prince, ib. ;
his character of the Prince and
Princess, 438, 439 ; much em
ployed and trusted by them, 439,
440 ; puts the Princess on de
claring what share the Prince may
expect in the government, 440 ;
forbid their Court in appearance
at King James's instance, 450 ;
is more trusted ; ib. ; draws
Dyckvelt's private instructions
when sent Ambassador to Eng
land, ib. ; is prosecuted in Scot
land for high treason, 460 ; natu
ralized at the Hague, ib. Albe
ville demands him to be delivered
up or banished, 461, 462 ; the
States answer, 462; other de
signs on his life, 463 ; acquaints
the house of Hanover with the

928 Prince of Orange's design, and
intimates the probability of an
entail on that family, 481; goes
with the Prince of Orange as his
Chaplain, 492; what passed be
tween the Prince and him at
landing, 500 ; draws up an asso
ciation at Exeter, 502 ; his con
ference with the Marquis of Hali
fax concerning King James, 503,
506 ; protects the Papists aud
Jacobites at London from insults,
508 ; opposes Bentinck in behalf
of the Princess of Orange, 517 ;
declares her sentiments, 519 ; is
made Bishop of Salisbury, 529 ;
opposes the imposing the oaths on
the clergy, 530 ; for the tolera
tion, ib. ; for leaving the com
prehension to the Convocation
531 ; by King William's order
moves the naming the Duchess of
Hanover in the succession, 533 ;
enters into a correspondence with
her, 534 ; endeavours to preserve
episcopacy in Scotland, 538,539 ;
Lord Melville excludes him from
meddling in Scotch affairs, 539 ;
his share in the scheme for a com
prehension, 542. 543 ; King Wil
liam's free discourse to him about
the civil list, 544 ; Montgomery's
plot discovered to him, 546 ; his
reply to King William when the
civil list was granted for only
five years, 549; dissuades the
Duke of Shrewsbury from resign
ing, 551 ; King William's dis
course to him before he went to
Ireland, ib. ; he is reflected upon
by both parties, 596 ; is for erect
ing the Bank of England, 599 ;
his friendship with Archbishop
Tillotson, 605; attends Queen
Mary in her last sickness, 606,
607; speaks for the bill of at
tainder against Sir John Fenwick,
637 ; does him private services,
ib. ; is made Preceptor to the
Duke of Gloucester against his
will, 648 ; his character of the
Czar of Muscovy and conversa
tion with him, 655 ; he publishes
an Exposition of the thirty-nine
articles, 658 ; a motion to remove
him from the Duke of Glouces
ter rejected in the House of Com
mons by a great majority, 663 ;
his conduct in that Prince's edu
cation, 668, 669 ; the lower
Houso of Convocation censure
his Exposition, 691 ; but refuse
to point out their objections, ib. ;
he attends King William in his
last sickness, 701 ; his character
of that Prince, 702, 703; he
opposes a clause in the bill for
Prince George of Denmark, 722 ;
his zeal against the occasional bill,
721, 741; his scheme for aug
menting the poor livings in Eng
land takes effect, 745, 746 ; he
argues for the union, 802 ; his

INDEX.
reflections on it, 804, 805 ; he
proposes that forfeitures in trea
son shall not affect the posterity,
837 ; argues against Sacheverel,
851 ; speaks freely to the Queen,
853 ; reasons for continuing his
history beyond its first intended
period, 853, 854 ; his justifica
tion of the old Ministry, 869 ; he
speaks freely to the Queen against
the peace, 874 ; his sentiments as
to censuring Whiston's tenets in
Convocation, 887; a speech pre
pared by him in case the Ministry
had moved for an approbation of
the peace, 899, 900, 901, 902,
903
Burton, 175,333
Buys, plenipotentiary at Gertruy-
demberg, 855, 889
Byng, Sir George, sent after Four-
bin to Scotland, 824, 825 ; pre
vents the Pretender's landing
tliere, chases the French fleet,
and takes their Vice-admiral, 825

Cadiz, the expedition thither, 716,
717
Calatny, Edmund, refuses a bishop
ric, 126,307
Calemburgh, Admiral, saves the
Dutch fleet near Beachy by ^
stratagem, 555
Calonitz, Cardinal, 729
Callieres, 630
Camaret, a design upon it miscarries,
602
Cambray, Archbishop of, 651, 657
Campbell, father and sonimprisoned,
408
Canada, an expedition thither un
successful, 871
Cant, 21
Capel, Sir Henry, 317; votes for
the exclusion, 319
Capel, Lord, sent one of the Lords
Justices to Ireland, 596 ; is made
Lord Lieutenant, 618; his dis
pute with Porter the Lord Chan
cellor there, 619
Caprara, 574
Caraffa, 574
Cardenas, Don Alonsode,cndeavour-s
to engage Cromwell in the Span
ish interest, 47
Cargill, executed, 338 ; obstinacy of
his followers, ib.
Carlisle, Earl of, 42, 247, 637, 708
Carlton, Sir Dudley, his advice
to King James I. to beware of
Priests, 5
Carmarthen, Marquis of, (see Dan
by) made president of the council,
526 ; sets the whigs upon attack
ing the Marquis of Halifax, 527 ;
ishimsclf attacked, 564 ; discovers
a negotiation with king James, ib. ;
is attacked for a present said to
have been made him by the East
India Company, 611; impeached

for it, 612; he is made Duke of
Leeds, 616. See Leeds
Carmarthen, Marquis of, his son,
commands a squadron, 616
Caron, 133
Carril, a divine, with Richard Crom
well, 54
Carstairs, his letters taken, 225; a
persecutor of conventicles, 266,
267; his practices against Lauder
dale and Staley, 287, 291 ; dies
in horror, 291
Carstairs, Mr. William, tortured,
379, and note
Cartwright, made bishop of Chester,
442
Casal surrendered to be demolished,
616
Cassilis, Earl of, 12; sent to the
Hague to treat with king Charles
II., 33 ; desires to explain the
oath of supremacy, 95; quits his
employments, ib. ; moves in par
liament against the King's mar
rying a papist, 118, 153
Cassilis, Earl of, his son, against the
act to punish conventicles, 196
Castile, Almirante of, 775
Catalonia, a rising there, 775
Catinat, Mareschal, 190, 692, 712
Cavendish, Lord, 232; his charac
ter, 259 and note ; desists from
going to council, 317; offers to
manage Lord Russel's escape, 364.
See Devonshire
Cecil, Secretary, his private corre
spondence with king James, 3
Cellier, Mrs., gets Dangerfield out
of prison, hi 5
Century XVIII. how opened, 673,
674, 675
Ccvenues, the insurrection there,
716, 733 ; is quieted at last, 759
Chaise, Father la, his character, 369
Chamberlain, Dr., 478
Chamillard, 829; he is dismissed,
842
Charity Schools, there rise here,
651, 709
Charles of Gratz, a patron of the
Jesuits, 5
Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, his
motives of choosing a religion, 6 ¦
Charles V., Emperor, subdues the
Smalcaldick league, 208
Charles VI. , (see Charles III. King
of Spain) chosen Emperor, and
crowned at Frankfort, 870, 874 ;
sends Prince Eugene to England,
879 ; resolves to carry on tbe war
with France, 891. 893, 894;
will not come into the treaty of
Utrecht, 896
Charles II., King of Spain, 598;
hearty against France, ibid. ; is
attacked in Catalonia, and relieved
by the English fleet, 601 , 602 ;
his sickness, 629, 645, 648, 656;
a treaty for the partition of his
succession, 656 ; his death, ar.d
pretended will, 672; the Duke of
Anjou declared his successor, ib.
Charles III., King of Spain, owned

by England, 730 ; comes over
hither, 731, 732; goes to Lisbon,
732; thence to Catalonia, 775 ; is
for besieging Barcelona, ib. ; his
letters to Queen Anne and Lord
Godolphin, 777; Valentia and
Catalonia declare for him, 790;
stavs at Barcelona when besieged
by "the French, 790, 792 ; delays
going to Madrid, 793 ; Arra
gon declares for him, ib. ; and
Carthagena, 794; takes Alicant,
ib. ; Earl Rivers sent with forces
to him, 796 ; his affairs take an
unhappy turn, 808, 809, 811;
seven thousand Imperialists sent
him from Italy, 811 ; he marries
the Princess of Wolfenbuttle,
811, 812 ; complains of the Earl
of Peterborough, 820; his con
duct in Spain censured, ib. ; sup
plies sent from Italy to Spain by
Sir John Leak, 826 ; the campaign
in 1709, 842 ; the battle of Al-
manara, 857 ; he goes to Madrid,
858 ; the battle of Villa Viciosa,
ib. ; he is neglected by his Allies,
and his affairs go amiss, ib. ; he
succeeds to the Austrian do
minions, 866 ; quiets the troubles
in Hungary, ib. ; leaves his Queen
in Spain, and goes to Italy, 870 ;
thence into Germany, ib- ; is
chosen Emperor, ib. See Charles
VI. Emperor.
Charles I. of England, at first a
friend to Puritans, 10 ; dislikes
his father'sfamiliar behaviour, ib.;
crowned in Scotland, 11; erects
a new bishoprick at Edinburgh,
12; feebleness of the government,
15; complaints of Popery, ibid. ;
ill state of the King's affairs, 17 ;
goodadvicegiven,butnot followed,
23, 24, and note ; his slowness
ruins the treatv in the Isle of
Wight, 27 ; his character, 28, 29 ;
his conduct towards the Queen,
29, and note ; the secret of the
design of erecting the Netherlands
into a republic ill kept -by him,
30 ; who were chiefly concerned
in his death, 28 ; bis death turned
the nation, 30 ; his statue at
Charing Cross, 248, and note.
Charles II., his son, proclaimed
King by the Scots, 32 ; they send
commissioners to him at the
Hague, 35 ; he goes to Scotland,
aud is ill used, 35, 37 ; his decla
ration condemning himself and his
father, 37 ; attempts to escape,
but prevented, ib. ; is crowned
and takes the covenant, 38; comes
into England, and is pursued by
. Cromwell, ib. ; a body in the
Highlands stand firm, 38, 39;
their little army routed, 40 ,- the
king and his brother dismissed
from France, 48 ; he changes his
religion there, ib. ; goes to the
congress at tho Pyrenees, 56;
.matters in England tending to.his

INDEX.
restoration, he goes to Breda, 56 ;
he is called home without terms,
58, 59 ; the nation runs into vice,
60 ; the King's character, 61, and
note; the state of his court, 61,
62,63, 64,65, 66, 67, 68,69;
the chief of the Scots, 70, 71,
72 ; a general pardon in Scotland
advised, 73 ; and to demolish
Cromwell's forts, ib. ; and for
settling the church, 74 ; the King
confirms Presbytery, 75 ; a coun
cil for Scotch affairs at Whitehall,
76 ; the committee of estates
meet, 77 ; a parliament called, ib. ;
the king disapproves of the recis-
sory act, 80; is indifferent as to
restoring episcopacy, 87 ; angry
at the Incapacitating act, 100 ;
gives himself up to pleasure, 108 ;
account of his mistresses and ille
gitimate children, 109*, 110*,
111*; maintains the indemnity,
111 ; his marriage, 112; sells
Dunkirk, 117 ; the ceremony of
his marriage, 118; Ireland settled,
119;hisdeclaration for toleratioD,
133; discontinues the ecclesias
tical commission in Scotland, 1 45 ;
augments the forces there, ib. ;
resolves on the Dutch war, 147;
the victory over them not followed,
148 ; the English fleet saved by
Prince Rupert, 154 ; a rebellion
in the West of Scotland, 158 ; is
defeated, and the prisoners se
verely used, 159, 160, 161 ; the
Scotch council changed and mo
deration shown, 161 ; the Scotch
army disbanded, 163; the King
tries to regain the affections of his
people, 167 ; rides through the
city while the Dutch were in the
river, 168; grows weary of Lord
Clarendon, 169 ; seems to favour
a comprehension, 171; enters
into the triple alliance, ib. ; of
fended at many of the Bishops,
175; will not own a marriage
with the Duke of Monmouth's
mother, 176; sets on Lord Roos's
divorce, 177 ; will not send the
Queen away by surprise, 178;
goes to the House of Lords and
solicits votes, 184 ; orders an in
dulgence in Scotland, 189; dis
likes the act against conventicles,
196; shuts up the Exchequer,
204 : suspends the penal laws by
his declaration, 205, 206 ; an at
tempt on the Dutch Smyrna fleet,
205 ; complains to Sheldon of the
sermons against Popery, 207 ;
creates his mistress Duchess of
Portsmouth, 224 ; jealousies of
him, 228; divisions at court, 229;
and in council, 230, 231 ; can
cels his own declaration suspend
ing the penal laws, 232 ; sends
Plenipotentiaries to Cologne, 234;
calls a parliament in Scotland,
240 ; mediates a peace between
France aud Holland, 244 ; he

929
prorogues the Parliament in Eng
land, 245; and in Scotland, ib.;
deals roughly with the Scotch
lawyers in appeals, 246 ; marries
his niece, Lady Mary, to the
Prince of Orange, 272 ; his easi
ness in signing papers, 277 ; re
fuses to see the Scotch Lords who
come up with complaints of Lau
derdale, 278; suffers the Duke
of Monmouth to intercede for
them, ib. ; his going to Newmar
ket when the Popish plot broke
out is censured, 283 ; refuses his
assent to the militia act, 290 ;
his sense of the Plot, ib. ; his
message to the Commons against
Mountague, 291 ; the Parliament
prorogued, 294 ; a reward offered
for farther discoveries of the Plot,
298 ; a new parliament called,
300 ; he refuses Seymour for
Speaker, ib. ; disowns his mar
riage with the Duke of Mon
mouth's mother, ib. ; changes his
council, 302; debates in council
about dissolving the Parliament,
311; sends Monmouth to suppress
the rebellion iu Scotland, 313;
when ill, sends for the Duke of
York, 315; jealousies of him,
315, 316; sends the Duke of
York to Scotland, 318 ; asks a
supply for Tangier, 320 ; sum
mons a parliament at Oxford,
327 ; likes the scheme of a-Prince
Regent in lieu of the exclusion,
ib. ; by his declaration complains
of the three last parliaments, 329;
charters of corporations surren
dered to, 346 ; changes in the min
istry and divisions, 348, 349 ; the
Rye-house plot, 356 ; a procla
mation thereupon, 357 ; his con
cern for the Duke of Monmouth,
358 ; sends to the Common Coun
cil of London to deliver up their
charter, 370; calling a parliament
proposed, but rejected, ib. ; he
pardons the Duke of Monmouth,
373 ; forbids him the court. 374;
a passage between him and the
Prince of Orange, ib. ; he deter
mines that husbands in Scotland
shall he fined for their wives
going to conventicles, 377 ; aban
dons Tangier, 384 ; a strange
practice in a trial of blood, 388 ;
and in the marriage of the Earl
of Clancarty" s son, 388, 389;
employs Papists in Ireland, and
tries to model the army there,
389 ; suspicions of his declaring
himself a Papist, 390 ; a new
scheme of government concerted
at Lady Portsmouth's, ib ; the
King's fondness of her, 391 ; his
sickness, ib. ; takes the sacrament
in the Popish way, 392 ; his death,
393; a remarkable story relating to
it, 393, 394, and note ; his charac
ter, 394 — 397, and note ; attempt
to resume his grants, 654, 865
3o

030

INDEX.

Charlton, 402
Charnoek is sent over to King
James,612; engagesintheAssassi-
nation-plot, 622,625 ; is executed,
and does not acquit King James
of it, 625, 626
Charter of London, arguments in
the King's Bench concerning its
forfeiture, 350; the judgment
given, 351
Charteris, Mr., his character, 146,
166, 192, 196 ; refuses a bishop-
rick, 200, 342 ; attends on the
Earl of Argyle at his execution,
406
Child, Sir Josiah, his death and
character, 657, and note
Chimney Money discharged in Eng
land at the revolution, 532, and
note ; is established in Scotland
soon after, 562
Cholmley, Sir Henry, moves the
abolition of the court of wards, 8*
Church, the, a party watch-word,
779, 849
Churchill, Lord, sent Ambassador
to France, 401; his character,
486, and note ; goes to the Prince
of Orange at Axminster, 501.
See Marlborough, Earl of
Churchill, Lady, her character, 486;
accompanies the Princess of Den
mark to Northampton, 501. See
Marlborough, Countess of
Civil List granted but for a year,
532; 546 ; for five years, for life,
647 ; a debt upon it paid by a
mortgage of part of the revenue,
901
Claget, Dr., 307
Clancarty, Countess of, recommends
her son's education to Dr. Fell,
388 ; he is taken from thence,
• 389
Clarendon, Earl of, for rejecting
Lord Antrim's petition, 25 ; his
character, 62, and note ; disgusts
the Cavaliers, 66 ; persuades the
King to observe the indemnity,
72 ; is for keeping garrisons in the
Scotch forts, 74 ; proposes a Scotch
council at Whitehall, 76 ; pre
vents an attack on Duke Lauder
dale, 82 ; zealous for restoring
episcopacy in Scotland, 88, 98,
99 ; against the incapacitating act,
100 ; tries to support Middleton,
ib.; his moderation, 104; his
good advice in disbanding the old
army, 105 ; and in maintaining
the indemnity, 112; refuses a
present of 10,000/., 113; visits
none of the King's mistresses,
119; makes good judges, ib. ;
advises the declaration as to eccle
siastical affairs, 121, 122, 126,
127, 131; tries to divide the
the Papists, 133, 134, 135 not
consulted as to the Dutch war,
137; disgraced, 169, 170, and
note; his integrity, 171; im
peached by the Commons, 172 ;
goes beyond soa at the King's de

sire, 172; banished by act of par
liament, 173, and note
Clarendon, Earl of, his son, his cha
racter, 173; theCommoneaddress
against him as favouring Papists,
320, 333 ; made Lieutenant of
Ireland, 4 19. 434; recalled, 434;
reflects on King James, and joins
the Prince of Orange, 503, and
note ; sent to treat with the
Lords sent by King James, 504;
reconciles himself to the Jacobites,
511 ; for a Prince Regent, 513 ;
he opposes the government, 541 ;
corresponds with King James,
564 ; is pardoned, but confined
to his house in the country, 565
Clarendon, Countess of, 156, 477,
478
Clarges, his character, 55, 67, and
note
Claypole, married Cromwell's daugh
ter, 54
Clayton, 328
Clement, Prince, chosen coadjutor
to Cologne, 482, 489, 490
Clergy, English, a great beat against
them, 307 ; their controversy
with the church of Rome, 429 ;
by whom managed, 430 ; invite
the Prince of Orange to defend
them ,446; welcome him here, i b.;
an ill humour spreads amongst
them at the revolution, 531 ; they
take the oaths with too many
reservations, 541 ; instrumental
to corrupt the people, ib. ; act
contrary to their oaths, 584 ; op
pose Archbishop Tillotson, 595 ;
divisions among them, 651, 669,
670 ; irreconcilable to Dissenters,
ib. ; raise a crv of the Church in
danger, 709, 741, 745,751, 785;
their ill humour increases, 840 ;
they espouse the cause of Sache
verel, 848 ; many incline to Po
pery, 887, 888
Clergy, Scotch, pleased with Dal-
ziel's cruelty in the West, 161 ;
their behaviour blamed, 166;
are ill used by the Presbyterians,
ib. ; move for a national Synod,
246 ; insulted by the Presby
terians at the revolution, 510;
are in the interests of King James,
538 ; which occasions the abolish
ing episcopacy in Scotland, 618
Cleveland, Duchess of, 62, 109*,
178
Clifford, his character, 152, and
note, 169, 180 ; made Lord
Treasurer, 307 ; one of the Cabal,
ib., 228 ; his zeal for Popery, ib.
229 ; in the House of Lords and
Cabinet Council, 230, aud note,
231*; is disgraced, 231, 236,
396
Cochran, 358, 404, 406, 407
Cohojn, a great engineer, 615, 712,
728
Coin, its ill state, 608 ; consultations
to prevent clipping, 6 12 ; Lord
Somers's expedient, ib, ; the coin

rectified, 620 ; cost the nation two
millions, 628
Colchester, Lord, 501
Coleman, his character, 245; in
trigues, 262, 263; conference with
Dr. Burnet and others, 264 ; ac
cused by Oates, 283 ; his letters
confirm the Popish plot, 283,
285; his trial, 289; and execu
tion, 290
Colledge, his trial and condemnation,
332, and note
Cologne, Elector of, puts his country
into the hands of the French,
214; his death and character,
481 ; the state of Cologne at his
death, 482 ; his successor's con
duct, 694, 894
Colt, Sir William, 581
Colvil, 1 03, and note
Committee of council sent round
the West of Scotland, 193
Comprehension attempted at the
restoration without success, 125;
attempted in vain at the revolu
tion, 542, 543 ; happy it did not
succeed, 543, 544
Compton, Dr., made Bishop of
London, 261, 262, and note; at
tends King Charles in bis last
sickness, 392 ; is against repealing
the test, 425 ; refuses to suspend
Dr. Sharp, 430 ; brought before
theecclesiasticalcommission,431;
suspended by them, ib. ; meets at
the Lord Shrewsbury's, 452 ; for
the Prince of Orange, 485 ; con
veys the Princess of Denmark to
Northampton, 501 ; gives in alist
of Tories for the lieutenancy of
London, 548,691,692, and note;
his death, 902
Con, 291
Conde, Prince of, makes the Span
iards court Cromwell, 47 ; his
character of the French King and
Ministry, 221, 222 ; admires the
Prince of Orange, 250, 270 ; his
character, 368
" Conduct of the Allies," a noted
pamphlet, 873
Coniers, 281, 283
Conspirators meet at West's cham
bers, 355 ; rendezvous on Turn-
ham Green, 623; some escape, the
rest are seized, 624
Conti, Prince of, 270, 639 ; a can
didate for the crown of Poland,
640 ; his descent there, ib.
Convention of estates turned into a
parliament, 58, 122, 528
Convocation alter the Common
Prayer, 125, 126 ; give the King
four subsidies, 135 ; reject the
scheme for a comprehension, 544 ;
prorogued for ten years, 544,650,
670; meet in 1700, 688, 689,
690 ; their proceedings, 690 ; dis
putes between the two Houses,
691; the lower House censures
books, 691, 692; dissolved by
King William's death; 708, 726
the two Houses renew their dis-

putes, 726, 727; the Ministry
interpose in vain, 727 ; the lower
House vote episcopacy of divine
right, ib. ; meet in 1704, 751 ;
and in 1705, 771 ; farther dis
putes between the two Houses,
789 ; the Queen's letter to them,
ib. ; are prorogued, 790 ; insist
that they cannot he prorogued,
sitting the parliament, 805, 806,
807 ; tho Prolocutor's contumacy
and submission, 807 ; prorogued;
839; meet in 1710, 866; their
licence excepted against, 867 ; a
new licence, ib. ; the representa
tion of the lower House, ib, ;
another of the upper House, ib. ;
the opinion of the Judges as to.
their jurisdiction, 868 ; the upper
House censures Whiston's doc
trine, ib. ; lower House concurs,
ib. ; carried to the Queen, ib. ;
their proceedings in 1712, 886,
887 ; their censure on Whiston
not confirmed by the Queen, 868,
886; the Bishops condemn the
re-baptizing Dissenters, 888 ; the
lower House do not concur in
this, ib.
Cook, Sir William, 4
Cook, the regicide, 28
Cook, a Presbyterian minister, 196
Cook's opinion of treason in Lord
Russel's case, 361
Cook sent to the Tower, 426
Cook, Sir Thomas, Governor of the
India Company, 611 ; examined
as to 170,000/. said to be given
for secret service, ib. ; sent to
the Tower, ib.
Cook, tried for being in the plot of
invasion in 1696, 627 ; con
demned and banished, ib.
Copenhagen besieged, 667 ; a plague
•there, 872
Cornbury, 170; his character, 174,
and note ; his regiment joins the
Prince of Orange, 501, and note
Cornish, chosen Sheriff, his charac
ter, 318, 320; executed, 417
Corruption, how universal, 669
Cosens, Bishop, 177, and note
Cotton, Sir John, 264, 798
Covenanters, their leader's charac
ters, 16; disputes among them,
40, 41, 42
Coventry, Mr. H".nry, 204, 247 and
note, 274
Coventry, Sir V/lL-iam, the Duke
of York's Secretary, 115; his
character, 1P0. and note ; made
Secretary of State, 2J4, 247, 258,
273 ; against a land army, an
odd expression of his, 274 ; ano
ther explained, 293
Coventry, Sir John, reflects on the
King's amours, 183, and note;
has his nose slit, ib. ; those who
did it banished, 184
Court of Session in Scotland, 246
Cowper, Mr., made Lord Keeper,
779, and note ; refuses the usual
New Year's gifts, 788 ;.is made a

INDEX.
Peer and Lord Chancellor, 801 ;
resigns the seals, 856
Craig, Dr., 8
Cranbourn, executed for the Assas
sination plot, 627
Crawford, Earl of, 24 ; his charac
ter, 70—75 ; opposes tho recis-
sory act, 80 ; declares against
episcopacy, 88, 96, 99; at the
head of the Presbyterians, 541
Credit, public, very great, 787 ;
sinks upon the change of the
ministry, 857
Crew, Dr. Nathaniel, Bishop of
Duresme, 431, and note
Croft, Dr. Herbert, made Dean of
the Chapel, 174 ; his character,
ib.*
Cromarty, Earl of, 762, 853 ; see
Tarbet
Cromwell, Oliver, argues with the
Scotch for the king's death, 25 ;
enters Scotland, 27 ; dissembles
when charged with putting force
upon the parliament, 27, 28 ; in
suspense as to the king's death,
28 ; marches into Scotland, 35 ;
defeats the Scots at Dunbar, ib. ;
his letter on that occasion, 36 * ;
Edinburgh capitulates, 36 ; he
displaces the Governor of Aber
deen, 38 ; builds three forts in
Scotland, 40 ; deputies sent to
him from the general assembly,
42 ; his maxims, ib. ; his arts
in gaining parties, 43, 44 ; de
bates for making him king, 45 ;
he refuses the crown, ib., and
note ; seizes money from the
Spaniards, 47 ; inquires into the
state of the protestants in France,
48 ; espouses the French inte
rest in opposition to Spain, ib. ;
his designs in the West Indies,
49 ; his zeal for the protestants
abroad, 50, 51 ; some curious
passages in hiB life, 51, 52 ; his
public spirit, 52 ; the whole world
stood in awe of him, 53 ; his
death, 54
Cromwell, Richard, his son, de
clared protector, 54 ; resigns, ib.
Crook, Sir Geo., 253, and note
Cudworth, Dr., his character, 127
and note, 307
Culpepper, Lord, 506, 518
Cumberland, Dr., made Bishop of
Peterborough, 569, and note
Cunningham, Sir John, 161, 312
Cutts, Lord, 624
Czar, see Muscovv

D.
Djda, Nuncio to King James, 448
Dalrymple, President of the session
. iu Scotland, 245 and note, 340 ;
much trusted by King William,
538 ; made Lord Stair, 540
Dalrymple, Sir John, his son, a
commissioner to tender the crown
[ to King William and Queen

931
Mary, 538 ; made conjunct se
cretary of state witli Lord Melvil,
567; is dismissed, 577, 617,
708, 801, and note. See Stair
Dalziel, General, 145; defeats the
rebels at Pcntland Hill, 159 ;
his cruelties in the west of Scot
land, 160, 161, and note
Danby, Earl of, patron of the church
party, 248, and note ; is attacked
in the House of Commons, 254 ;
his discourse with Mons. Cour
tin, 261, 262, 268 ; tries to
bring the king off from the
French interest, 271 ; proposes
the Lady Mary's marriage with
the Prince of Oi-swige, ib. ; sup
ports Lauderdale, 279 ; gets the
king to aslc an additional revenue
of 300,000/. for life, ib. ; is uni
versally hated, ib., 280, 281,
291 ; his letters to Montague
concerning a pension to King
Charles from France, 291 ; im
peached, 292 ; the Lords will not
commit him, ib. ; treats with the
country party for a new parlia
ment, 294 ; quits the treasury,
300 ; prevails on the king to
send away the Duke of York,
ib. ; is prosecuted by the Com
mons notwithstanding the king's
pardon, 301 ; a hill of attainder
against him, 302, 303 ; is sent
to the Tower, 306 ; is bailed
with the Popish Lords, 383;
joins for inviting over the Prince
of Orange, 452, 485, 487, 501,
517, 518 ; made Marquis of
Carmarthen, 526. See Carmar
then
Dangerfield, his meal-tub plot, 315,
316; convicted of perjury and
whipped, 408 ; his death, ib. and
note
Dantzick, a plague there, 844
Darien, the Scots settle there, 651 ;
pursue it at a vast expense, 652 ;
driven away by the Spaniards,
661, 662; voted in parliament a
national affair, 662 ; great dis
orders on it, ib. ; it is a great
inducement to the union, 804
Dartmouth, Lord, sent to demolish
Tangier, 385 ; commands the
fleet against the Prince of Orange,
487 ; is forced into Portsmouth,
500
Dartmouth, Lord, made Secretary
of State, 856
D'Avaux, 465, 487
Dauphin of France, commands in
Germany in 1693, 590 ; in Flan
ders in 1S94, 601, 661 ; for
accepting tho King of Spain's
will, 672 ; for owning the Pre
tender King of England, 696 ;
his death, 866
Dauphin, his son, 885 ; his dcatli
and character, ib. See Bur
gundy
Dauphiny, campaigns there, 583,
590,616,842 :
3 o2

032

IXOEX.

Davis, Mrs., one of King Charles
the Second's mistresses. 111 *
Daws, Sir William, made Bishop
of Chester, 816, 817, and note
D'Este, Mary, married to the Duke
of York, 234, and note
De Guiche, Count, his intrigues.
202
De Groot, 204
Delamere, Lord, tried and acquit
ted, 426 ; raises a regiment for
the Prince of Orange, 50 1 ,
507 ; made Earl of Warrington,
527, and note. Sec Warring-
TON
Delaval, in the admiralty, 579,
585
Denbigh, Earl of, 17
Denmark, Kins: of, 203 ; his death,
659
Denmark, King of, his son, his
alliauce against Sweden, 659 ;
makes peace by King William's
mediation, 667, 668; his troops
join the confederates at Ramil-
lies, 794; goes to Italy, 845;
attacks tlie Swedes, and is de
feated in Sehonen, 845, 846 ;
besieges Stralsund and Wismar
without success, 872 ; the Danes
are heat by Steinbock, 893
Denmaik, George Prince of , he mar
ries the Princess Anne, 366, 4*6,
486, 501 ; a settlement on him
of 100,000/. a-year if he survive
the Queen, 722 ; he is made lord
high admiral, with a council, and
generalissimo of all the forces,
706, 732 ; he sends a fleet into
the Mediterranean^ 734 ; jealous
of having too little power, S16;
answers the complaints of the
Admiralty, 819; his death and
character, 833, and note
Denmark, Anne, Princess of, sent
to Bath, 477, 486; retires to
Northampton at the revolution,
502, 518, 519 ; her revenue set
tled by parliament, 578 ; creates
a misunderstanding with king
and queen, ib. ; made up at the
death of Queen Mary, 613; her
sou's education, (148 ; her beha
viour at his death, 669 ; she suc
ceeds to the crown, 704. Sec
Queen* Anne
Derby, Earl of, 856
De Ruvter, surprises our fleet at
Solbay, 215
Desborough, 45
D'Estrees, Cardinal, 423
D'Estrees, Mareschal, 579
Des Yardes, his disgrace, 202
Devonshire, Earl of, (see Caven
dish), is at Lord Shrewsbury's
486 ; joins in inviting the Prince
of Orange, 486, 487. 501 ; made
lord steward of the household,
528; is a duke, 627, 708, 750,
817 ; is turned out, 856 ; moves
for a lull of pteccdcncc for the
Duke of Cambridge, 877, 879
De Witt, John, his character, 148,

149; Amsterdam weary of him,
150; worsts the English at sea.
154,155; h;s errors, 213, 216;
his tragical death, 217, and note
Dc Witt, Cornelius, tortured, 217,
and note
Dieksou. 21, and note
Digby. Sir Everard, his letters, 5
Digbv. George Lord. See Bristol,
Earl of
Dissenters, courted by King James,
446 ; their debates and resolu
tions, 446, 447 ; divisions among
them, 650, 651,667
Divorce, the bishops divided about
it, 600, 601
Dodd, one of S.icheverers counsel,
848
Dodwell, broaches strange noiious,
887 and note
Dolben, Archbishop of York, 382,
and tote, 431
Dorset, Earl of . his character, 179,
and note, 203 ; made lord cham
berlain, 528 ¦- gives Prior au
education, 872
Dorset, Lady, 502
Dough tv, Dr., 518
Douglas", Earl of Angus, 9
Douglas, a minister, 20
Douglas, Marquis of, 346
Downing, Ambassador to Holland,
137 and note
Drumlanrig, Lord, joins the Prince
of Orange, 501
Drummond invites King Charles II.
to Scotland, 39, 145, 162; is
imprisoned, 249
Drvden, a character of his plavs,
183
Dublin declares for King William,
554
Duffus, Lord, 98
Dugdale, his evidence in the popish
plot, 294, 295, 296, -299, 309,
323, 324, 332
Dumfries, Earl of, 13, 145
Du Mont, engaged to assassinate
King William, 580
Dunbarton, Earl of, 2S8
Duncomb, 180, 590, and note
Duudee, Earl of, heads tho epis
copal party iu Scotland, 510;
goes to Scotland to raise rebel
lion, 537 ; raises the Highlands,
540 ; routs the king's forces, ib. ;
is killed in the action, ib., and
note
Dunfermline, Earl of, 15
Dunkirk, sold to the French, 117;
delivered to the English to be
demolished, 891, 894, S06
Dunmoor, discovers Balmeriuoch's
petition, 12
Dutch, the, worsted at sea by tlie
duke of York, 147, 148 ; engage
the English with advantage, 1 54 ;
burn the ships at Chatham, 168,
and note ; their Smyrna fleet
attempted, 205 ; surpriso the
English iu Solbay, 215 ; reduced
to great extremities, 216, 217,
222, 223; are hated by tho

Englkh, 575. 621, 653; love
King AYilliam, 575, 653 ; their
good conduct in their quarters,
575 ; they own the Duke of
Anjou King of Spain, 675 ; de
mand assistance from England
and obtain it, 678. 682 ; love
the Duke of Marlborough, 704 ;
prohibit trade with France, 720,
728. 842 ; divisions amongst
them. 728. 855 ; consent to the
congress at Utrecht, 874 : their
firs:" barrier treaty. 882. 883 ;
condemned by parliament, 883,
884 ; reflected on in the Com
mons' address, 884 ; their me
morial thereupon, ib. ; the queen
disengages herself from the alli
ances with them, 889 : their plan
of peace, 892; they sign the
treaty at Utrecht, 894, S95 ;
their second barrier treat v, 892,
893, 894
Dyckvelt, ambassador to England,
216 ; his character, 218, 224,
416; sent again with instructions
to manage all sorts of people in
England". 450, 451. 452, 495
Dvsart, Countess of, 165, 188, 194

Eakl, Bishop of Salisbury, 152,
aud note
Earthquake, in England in 1692,
583
East India Company, their secret
presents. 611 ; a new company
erected, 64 7, 654 ; the two com
panies join, 698
Eekeren, battle of, 728
Elliot, taken with Lord Preston,
64, 65
Elphinston, 3. See Balmkiunocr
Ely, Bishop of, his letters to Sl
Germains, 564
Episcopacy, prejudices against it,
103 ; abolished in Scotland, 538,
561 ; voted by tho lower house
of convocation to be of divine
right, 727 ; an act securing it at
the union, 801 ; is tolerated in
Scotland, 881
Equivalent, to Scotland, 799 ; how
bestowed, 803
Essex, Earl of, 24, 25, 169 ; his
character, 265 ; ambassador in
Denmark, ib. ; made lieutenant
of Ireland, 265, "^6 ; at the
head of the treasury, 302 ; pro
poses limitations on the Dnke of
York, 303 ; against the exclu
sion, ib. ; and the bishops1 right
of voting, 306, 311, 314, 315;
quits the treasury, 315, 316;
for the exclusion, 320, 322, 325,
331, 335, 352, 354, 360; sent
to the Tower, 360; his death
there, £61 ; tho suspicions about
il, 371, and note
Essex, Countess of, 8, 360
Esterhazy, Cardinal, 729

Evers, 294
Everard, 327
Eugene, Prince of Savoy, his rise,
644 ; beats the Turks near Bel
grade, ih. ; commands in Italy,
679 ; his conduct sucecssful,692;
his attempt on Cremona, 6.93,
715; heats the French at Lu-
iara, 715, 728 ; president of the
council of war at Yienna, 729 ;
joius the duke of Marlborough
in Bavaria, 753 ; bis share in
the battle of Blenheim, 754,
755 ; beats the Duke of Ven
dome in Italy, 774, 791 ; his
march to relieve Turin, 796,
797 ; beats the French and raises
tlie siege, 797 ; his share in the
victory at Oudenarde, 827; takes
Lille, 828, 830, 831 ; his share
in the battle of Mons, 843, 844 ;
secures the peace of the empire
m 1711, 870; comes to Eng
land, 879, and note ; his cha
racter, ib., 881 ; commands in
Flanders, 886, 889 ; takes Ques
noy, 891 ; besieges Landrecy,
but forced to raise the siege by a
loss at Denain, ib.
Eyre, Solicitor-general, his opinion
as to prosecuting Dr. Sacheverel,
846 ; is a manager at the trial,
848

F&gkl, Pensioner, his character,
218, 438 ; his letter to Steward,
463, 494 ; bis friendship with
Dalrymple, 533
Fagel, General, 774
Fairfax, Sir Thomas, 16, 28, 33
Fairfax, Dr., 55
Fairfoul, Bishop of Glasgow, 89,
93
Falcoubridgc, Earl of, 54, 247
Falmouth, Earl of, 148
Farmer, refused to be chosen pre
sident of Magdalen College, 444
Fatio, 438
Faur, of the Sorbonne, 368
Fell, Bishop of Oxford, 388, 442
Fenwick, the Jesuit, tried, 294,
298, 308
Fenwick, Sir John, his account of
an assassination designed in 1695,
612; is in a plot of invasion,
626, 627 ; taken, ib. ; his pre
tended discoveries, 631, 632, ib. ;
prevails on Goodman to go be
yond sea, ib. ; is attainted by
bill, 632—636; practices as to
his discoveries, 636, 637 ; his
execution, 637
Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, 6
Ferguson, at West's chambers, 355,
371 ; cabals in Holland with the
Duke of Monmouth, 404, 405,
410, 411 ; in a plot against King
William, 545, 561 ; and against
Queen Anne, 747, 749
Feversham, Earl of, 392; com-

INDEX,
man ds against Monmouth, 412,
and note ; sent with a message
from him to the Prince of Orange,
506, 507
Feuillade, Duke de, besieges Turin,
796, 697
Filmer's Patriarchal Bcheme, 372,
847
Finch, attorney-general, 241, 242,
and note ; made a peer, 526 and
note, 699, 726
Fire of London, 155, 156, 157, and
note
Firmin, Thomas, 6.48, 649, 650
Fisher discovers the Assassination-
plot, 622
Fitton, chancellor of Ireland, 431,
and note
Fitsharril, 327, 328 ; his trial, 330,
331,332
Flanders, see Netherlands
Fleetwood, 45
Fletcher, attorney-general, 72, 77
Fletcher, Andrew, 405, 411
Fleurus, battle of, saves England,
554
Foley, Mr., opposes the court, 589 ;
chosen speaker, 61 1 ; chosen a
second time, 619 ; for a land-
bank, 625
Forbes, Bishop of Edinburgh, 12
Fountain, for making Cromwell
kiDg, 44
Fountainhall, Lord, his Diary, 379
Fouquet, 113
Fourbin, Cardinal, 366
Fourhin, Admiral, sent to Scotland,
824
Fowler, Dr., 307 ; made Bishop of
Gloucester, 569, and note
Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester,
deprived, 528
Francis, Father, refused his degrees
at Cambridge, 444
Fi-azier, sent from St. Germains to
Scotland, 737 ; his discovery to
the Duke of Queensbury, ib.,
746, 748
Frederick, Elector Palatine, mar
ries King James the First's
daughter, 5 ; chosen King of
Bohemia, ib. ; is defeated and
flies to Holland, 5, 6
Frederick II. declares for the Hol-
vetian confession, 6, 7
Freeman, Mr., a leading tory, 81 7
French, the, their king's preten
sions to Flanders, 171 ; his suc
cess in Holland,214, 215 ; loves
flattery, 222 ; takes Maestricht
and Valenciennes, 235 ; and Bou
chain, 269, 270 ; declines a bat
tle, 270 ; is angry at the Prince
of Orange's marriage, 272 ; takes
Ghent and Ypres, 274 ; seizes on
Luxemburgh, 367 ; his disputes
with the pope, 385, 432 ; warns
King James of the Prince of
Orange's designs, 487 ; offers
him troops, ib. ; and threatens
the States in case of an invasion,
488; prohibits Dutch manufac
tures, 489; his manifesto of war

933
against the emperor, 489, 490 ,
and against the pope, 490 ; Eng
land proclaims war against him,
532 ; the joy in Fiance upon
report King William was killed
at the Boyne, 553 ; the French
gain the battle of Fleurus, 554
beat the confederates at sea, 555
alaim the English coast, ib.
gain the battle of Steinkirk and
Namur, 581, 583 ; gain the bat
tle of Landen, 591 ; take Char-
leroi, ib. ; take some of the
English and Dutch Smyrna fleet,
593; offer the Duke of Anjou
to Spain, 598, 603 ; they try to
get a peace, 591, 604 ; break
their cartel, but forced to ob
serve it, 614, 621, 622, 623;
new attempts by them for a
peace, 630, 638, 641, 642 ; they
conclude a treaty at Ryswick,
642, 643 ; they treat for a par
tition of the Spanish monarchy,
656, 660, 661 ; break their
treaty upon the King of Spain's
death, 672, 673 ; corrupt a party
in parliament, 675, 676 ; nego
tiate with the States, 677, 682 ;
own the Pretender King of Eng
land, 696 ; join the Elector of
Bavaria, 728 ; beat the Germans
and take Augsburg and Landau,
729, 730 ; discover the Duke of
Savoy's desigus, 733 ; seize on
his troops in their service, ib. ;
are beat at Blenheim, 754 ; their
credit low, 771, 805, 826 ; their
preparation in 1706, 792 ; forced
to raise the siege of Barcelona,
ib. ; beat at Ramillies, 794; lose
many towns, 795 ; evacuate Italy,
807 ; try for peace, 808 ; their
success at Stolhoveu, 809 ; sink
many capital ships at Toulon,
810; their descent in Scotland
unsuccessful, 824, 825 ; surprise
Ghent and Bruges, 827 ; beat
at Oudenarde, ib. ; and at Lef-
finghen, 828, 829; lose Lille,
830 ; negotiate for peace, 840 ;
their king will not ratify tho
preliminaries agreed on, 841,
842; further negotiations, 854,
855 ; send ministers to Gertruy-
denberg, 855 ; nothing concluded,
855, 858 ; their preliminaries in
1711, 872, 873 ; their proposals
at Utrecht, 884 ; they heat the
Earl of Albemarle at Denain,
891 ; take Marchiennes aud
Quesnoy and Doua)', ib. ; their
princes of the blood renounce all
right to the crown of Spain, and
King Philip to the crown of
France, 892 ; they deliver up
Dunkirk to be demolished, 891,
894 ; their treaty with England
and the States, 895, 896 ; their
treaty of commerce with England,
8.96, 897 ; they send the Pre
tender away to Lorrain, 895
Friend, in the plot of invasion.

934 626 ; receives absolution at Ty
burn, 627
Frost, sent by Saville with a forgery
to Scotland, 15
Frost, a hard one, 831
Furstemburg, Prince of, Dean of
Cologne, seized, 235 ; made Car
dinal, 432 ; pretends to be coad
jutor of Cologne, ib. ; the French
king espouses his cause, 489

G.
Gage, informs Cromwell about the
West Indies, 49
Gallas, Count, the emperor's am
bassador, 873
Galway, Earl of, (see Rouvigny,)
sent to Savoy, 628 ; general in
Portugal, 757 ; loses his arm at
Badajos, 777 ; takes Alcantara,
791 ; marches into Spain, ib. ;
takes Ciudad-Roderigo, 793 ;
loses the battle of Almanza, 809,
811; returns to Portugal, 820;
his conduct censured by the
House of Lords, 859, 860, 861
Garrard, Sir Samuel, 846, 848
Garroway, 232
Gauden, Bishop, author of "Eikon
Basilike " 31 ; summary of the
evidence forand against his claim
to the authorship, 31*, 32*, 33*
Gaultier, Abbot, 873
Gaunt, Mrs., h'er execution, 416
Gee, 430
Genoa, bombarded, 384; its sub
mission to France, 385, 603
George, Prince ; see Denmark
Germany, campaigns there, 541,
581, 590, 601, 615, 616, 712,
714, 728, 753, 754, 755, 772,
774, 794, 795, 809, 812, 829,
830, 843, 858, 870
Gertruydenberg, conferences there,
855, 889
Gibraltar, taken by Sir George
Rook, 757 ; besieged by the
French, 758 ; the siege raised by
Leak, 771
Gibson, Colonel, deputy-governor
of Exeter, 502
Gilmore, 79; is president of the
session, 83
Ginkle, General, 563, and note,
567 ; takes Athlone, 57.1 ; gains
the battle of Aughrim, and re
duces Ireland, ib., 572 ; made
Earl of Athlone, see Athlone
Girald, 295
Glasgow, Dean of, sent to King
William from the episcopal party
in Scotland, 538
Glencairn, Earl of, 38, 39, 60, 72;
made chancellor of Scotland, 75,
77, 102-; opposes Sharp's vio
lence, 140
Glencoe, massacre there, 576, 577,
and note ; enquired into by the
parliament, 617, 620
Gloucester, Duke of, his character.
116, and note

INDEX.
Gloucester, Duke of, put in a
method of education, 648, and
note ; his death and character,
668, 669
Glyn for making Cromwell king,
44
Godden, 295, 296
Godfrey, Sir Edmondbury, his cha
racter, 284 ; is murdered and
his body found, 284, 285, 291 ;
his murderers discovered, 295
Godolphin, Sir William, 285
Godolphin, Mr., in the treasury,
302 ; his character, 317, and
note; for the exclusion, 322;
secretary of state, 384 ; is in the
scheme laid at the Duchess of
Portsmouth's, 390 ; one of the
queen's household, 400; sent by
King James to the Prince of
Orange, 503 ; again in the trea
sury, 527 ; made lord treasurer
by Queen Anne, 706, 731, 745,
763, 764 ; declares for tho whigs,
779, 816, 835; raises the pub
lic credit, 787 ; his zeal for the
union, 804 ; prevails to have Mr.
Harley dismissed, 821, 852; is
himself turned out, 856 ; and at
tacked by the new ministry, 865,
869 ; his death, 893
Goodenough, 355, 356, 374, 417,
and note
Goodman, evidence as to the plot
of invasion, 627, 632
Goodwin, John, a fifth-monarchy
roan, 43, 107, and note
Goodwin, Thomas, an expression
of his in prayer, 54
Gordon, 10, 13
Gordon, Duke of, governor of
Edinburgh Castle, 509 ; main
tains it for King James, 537
Gould, Judge, 743
Govan executed, 85 ; a Jesuit, his
trial, 294, 308
Gower, Luc,on, Mr., 706 ; made a
peei, 726
Gowrie's Conspiracy, a circumstance
omitted by all the historians, 0
Grafton, Duke of, joins the Prince
of Orange, 501 ; killed at the
siege of Cork, 559, and note
Graham, 333, 564,565
Grandval, undertakes to kill King
William, 580, 581; confesses it,
and is executed, 706
Granvill, Mr., made a peer, 726
Green, 295, 296
Greenvill made earl of Bath, 67 ;
his character, 67 *. See Bath
Gregg, his correspondence with
France, 821 ; is condemned and
executed, 821, 822, 823, and
note
Grey, Lord, his trick in passing the
Habeas Corpus Act, 321; meets
Monmouth at Shepherd's, 352 ;
escapes out of the Tower, 359 ;
meets Monmouth in Holland,
405 ; his ill conduct, 41 1 ; is
pardoned, 414, and note
Greydon, Admiral, commands ;¦¦

squadron in the West Indies
735; attempts Placentia unsuc
cesafully,735, 741
Grimstone, Sir Harbottle, presses
the treaty in the Isle of Wight,
27 ; charges Cromwell with force
on the Parliament, 27, 56; is
chosen speaker, 104; made mas
ter of tho rolls, 253 ; his cha
racter, 253, 254, and note; his
wife's, 254 ; his death, 386
Grotius, 204, 211
Grove, Dr., made Bishop of Chi
chester, 569, and note
Gueldermalsen, 714
Guilford, Lord, 683
Guise, House of, try to embroil
England, 1, 2
Guiscard, his attempt on ?.Ir. Har
ley, 864 ; is wounded in council,
ib. ; dies of his wounds, ib.
Gunning, Bishop, a manager at the
Savoy conference, 124, 289, 382,
383, and note ; his character,
124 •
Gunpowder Plot, 5
Gustavus Adolphus, 210
Guthry's remonstrance to King
Charles I., 77, 84; his speech
and execution, 85
Guthry, an incendiarv, 158, 160,
111 •
Gwynn, Mrs., 393

IJ.
Habeas Corpus act carried by a
trick, 32] ; the ministry indem
nified for breaking it in time of
danger, 562, 585
Hackston, his execution, 337, 338
Hadintoun, Earl of, a promoter of
the union, 800
Hague, 12, 13; a congress of
princes there, 566 ; negotiations
there for peace, 840, 841, 842
Haies, a banker, his trial, 388
Hale, Sir Matthew, moves for limi
tations on restoring the king, 58;
for a comprehension, 175 ; his
opinion as to treason in Lord
Russel's case, 362
Hales, Sir Edward, his trial on the
test act, 427 ; follows King
James beyond sea, 504
Halewyn, 30, 211 ; his character,
219,224,249
Hall, Dr., made Bishop of Oxford,
468
Hall, Dr., made Bishop of Bristol
569, and note
Hallifax, Marquis of, hia character,
181, 182 ; opposes the test, 256 ;
dismissed from council, 266,268,
281, 287 ; is again in council,
302 ; against the exclusion, but
for limitations, 303, 312, 315,
319 ; commons* address against
him, 320 ; his expedient, 321 ;
is for Lord Stafford, 325, 327;
his saying about addresses, 330,
333, 335, 342; opposes Lord

Rochester, 348 ; his services for
gotten, 349, 366 ; brings Mon
mouth into favour, 373 ; his
jest on Rochester, 384, 389 ;
his jest on a Siam missionary,
390 ; complains of erasures in the
treasury hooks, 391 ; moves in
council to examine who have
taken the test, 418, 419; dis
missed, 420 ; argues for the test,
425; meets at Lord Shrewsbury's,
452, 485 ; sent by King James
to the Prince of Orange, 503,
507,511,517,518; made privy
6eal, 526 ; is attacked in the
House of Lords, and quits the
court, 544 ; heads the opposi
tion, 585; his death, 613
Hallifax, Lord (see Montague),
674, 677 ; is impeached by the
Commons, 680, 681, 685; his
answer, 685 ; acquitted by the
Lords, 688, 708 ; his project for
a public library, 745, 788, 789 ;
argues for the union, 802, 819,
839
Halloway's couspiracy, 355 : and
execution, 374
Halloway, Judge, 470
Halton, Lord, 200 ; charged with
perjury, 339
Hamburgh, Bedition there quelled,
814
Hamden, his character, 353, 354;
sent to the Tower, 360; his
trial, 374, 375, 404,415; ad
vises a clause in King William's
6peech, 529
Hamilton, Duke of, 16; his secret
powers, 22 ; in favour with
Charles II., 34
Hamilton, Duke of, his character,
71, and note, 80 ; against restor
ing episcopacy, 88, 101; presi
dent of the convention, 161, 165,
192, 199, 200, 224, 240, 241,
245, 247, 249, 267 ; complains
of the Highlanders quartered in
the West, 278,291, 312,338;
for the succession in the duke of
York, 338, 433 ; with others of
the Scotch nobility, addresses the
Prince of Orange, 510 ; is pre
sident of the convention in 1689,
537, 538 ; is commissioner of
parliament, 538, 539, 560 ; re
fuses it in 1690, 560, 597 ; is
commissioner in 1693, 597 ; his
death and character, 613
Hamilton, Duke of, his 6on, 711,
749, 762, 799, 800; opposes
the Duke of Queensbury, 836 ;
made Duke of Brandon, 876 ;
refused to be admitted by the
House of Lords, 877 ; appointed
ambassador to France, 892 ;
killed by Lord Mohurr in a
duel, ih.
Hamilton, Duchess of, 187, 197,
498, 799
Hamilton, heads the rebels at Both-
well- Bridge, 313
Hamilton, General, sent to .treat

INDEX.
with Tyrconnel, 511 ; King Wil
liam's humanity to him at the
Boyne, 559
Hamilton, Bishop of Galloway, 89
Hamilton, made Bishop of D u nkeld,
434
Hammond, Henry, his character,
121 and note
Hanmer, Sir Thomas, 817
Hanover, Duke of, 481 ; quits the
French interest, 573 ; made an
elector, ib. , 660
Hanover, (Duchess of,) Elcctress
of, proposed to be named in the
succession, 533; is named, 682;
a further security for their suc
cession, 723 ; designs to invite
her over, 768 ; debated in par
liament, 782 ; a regency in case
of absence, 783, 784 ; her suc
cession guaranteed, 882, 883,
892, 893
Hanover, Elector of, her son, has
the garter sent him, 684 ; sur
prises the Dukes of Wolfenbut-
tle and Saxe Gotha, 711; com
mands the army on the Rhine,
812, 830, 838, 843 ; his mini
ster's memorial against the treaty
with France, 874
Hanover, Electoral Prince of, mar
ries the Princess of Anspach,
811 ; has precedence in the
House of Lords by Act of Par
liament, 877, 879
Harbord, Sir Charles, his character,
257
Harbord, Mr., 582
Harcourt, Mareschal de, 842
Harcourt, 295 ; his trial, 308, 310
Harcourt, Sir Simon, 706 ; draws
the act of union very artfully,
802 and note ; adheres to Mr.
Harley, 817 ; lays down with
him, 822 ; counsel for Sache
verel, 848 ; made attorney-gene.
ral, 856 ; and lord-keeper, ib.
Hardy, Captain, 718
Hare, Dr., 885 and note
Harlay, president of the Parliament
of Paris, 368, 642
Harley, Mr., opposes the court,
589, 625 ; is chosen speaker,
674 and note, 683, 695 ; is
made secretary of state, 752,804;
sets up independent of Lord
Godolphin, 816, 817, 818, 819,
820, 821 ; lays down his em
ployment, 822 ; his spies ill
chosen, ib. ; contrives a change
of ministry, 852, 856 ; promotes
enquiries into abuses, 862 ; is
stabbed by Guiscard, 864, and
note ; is made Earl of Oxford and
Mortimer, 866. See Oxford
Haro, 56, 717
Harrington, 43 ; for choosing par
liaments by ballot, 55, and note
Harris, sent by King James to assist
in the assassination, 622
Harrison, the regicide, executed,
106 and note
Harvey, his answer to the king, 255

935
Kascard, Dr., 386
Haversham, Lord, his saying at a
conference, 687 ; it raises great
contests, 688, 691, 781, 819
Hawkins, 331
Hay, 12
Hedges, Sir Charles, 699 ; secre
tary of state, 706 and note
Heinsius, Pensioner, 842, 889
Hemmings, apothecary, his story of
tho Prince of Wales's death,
478
Henderson, Alexander, 20*
Henly, Mr., his story of King
Charles's death, 393 and note
Henry, Prince, believed to be poi
soned, 4 and note
Herbert, Sir Edward, Chief Justice,
427, and note ; goes the Western
circuit, 428 ; made an ecclesias
tical commissioner, 431 ; a judge
in the seven bishops' trial, 470
Herbert, Admiral, against repealing
the test, 428, and note ; goes
over to Holland, 483 ; is lieu
tenant-general of the Dutch fleet,
492, 493, 494, 495, 498 ; made
Earl of Torrington, 528. See
Torrington
Hervall, de, his account of the
Duke of Savoy, 732
Hervey, John, his reply to King
Charles, 255 ; his character, ib.*
Hervey, Mr. , made a baron, 726
Hesse, Landgrave of, 481, 582,
590, 660, 755
Hesse, a Piince of, 638, 667, 730 ;
governor of Gibraltar, 757 ; his
brave defence of it, 758 ; goes
with King Charles to Catalonia,
775 ; killed in attacking Fort
Montjui, 776
Hesse, a prince of, defeated by Count
Medavi, 798
Hewes, 337
Heylin, 31
Hicks, Dr., 277, 887 and note-
High Church, the distinction be
tween it and Low Church when
begun, 670, 671, 727
Hill, 295, 296
Hill, General, his expedition tc
Canada, 871
Hoadley, Mr., his character and
writings, 847
Hobbes, 69; his Leviathan, 128
and note
Holland, Sir John, 745
Holland, disorders there, 6. See
Dutch
Holies, Lord, his advice how to
save Lord Strafford, 19; and
end the Civil War, 23, 27 ; his
character, 65 and note ; and
conduct in France, 142 ; opposes
the test, 256, 267, 287 ; against
the bishops' votes in treason, 306
Holmes, attacks the Dutch Smyrna
fleet, 205, and note
Holmes, .-orresponds with Argyle,
379
Holstein Duke of, 660, 667,668,
716

936Holt, Sir John, made Chief Justice
of the King's Bench, 527, 666 ;
his behaviour in the affair of
Aylesbury, 743, 768, 807; his
death and character, 850 and
note
Home's trial, 345
Hone's execution, 364
Hooper, Dr., 430, 690, and note ;
is made a bishop and opposes the
union, 802
Hope, Sir Thomas, 12 and note
Horneck, Dr., 709
Hough, Dr., chose president of
Magdalen College, 445 ; turned
out by the ecclesiastical commis
sion, 445, 446 and note ; is
made Bishop of Oxford, 569
Howard of Escrick, Lord, 16
Howard, Lord, 249, 285, 331 ;
brings Monmouth and Sidney
acquainted, 353, 355,357, 359 ;
his confession and examination,
ib., 360 ; evidence against Lord
Russel, 360, 361, 362 ; agaiust
Sidney, 371, 372 ; and Hamden,
374
Howard, Cardinal, 423
Howe, John, Mr., 719 and note,
722, 724
Howel, 155
Hubert confesses setting fire to
London, ib.
Huddleston gives King Charles II.
the Sacrament, 392
Hume, Sir Patrick, corresponds with
Argyle, 404
Humieres, 3G7
Hungary, wars there with the Turks,
573, 582, 603, 617, 629, 644;
a peace, ib. ; the Hungarians re
volt, 694, 759, 729 ; an accom
modation treated without suc
cess, 760 ; campaigns there, 778,
791, 807, 832, 846; all matters
accommodated, 866
Huntingdon, Earl of, his bravery,
683,713
Huntley, Marquis of, kills the Earl
of Murray, 10,23
Hutchinson, 187, 190; refuses
Leightoun's terms for a compre
hension, 195, 197, 193
Hutton, Dr., Physician to King
William, gives two remarkable
instances of his equality of tem
per, 558
Huy taken by King William, 601
Hyde, Chancellor, 39, 48, 58, 59,
60. See Clarendon
Hyde, Sir Henry, Ambassador from
Charles II., in his exile, to the
Porte, 53 ; delivered up to Crom
well, and executed, ib., and note

James I., King, his minority, 1 ; in
clines secretly to France, 2; the
Kirk disgusted at his fickleness
in religion, 2, 3 ; his misconduct,
sets up episcopacy in Scotland, 3;

INDEX.
afraid of the Jesuits, 5 ; jealous
of Prince Henry, 4* ; will not
acknowledge the Elector Palatine
King of Bohemia, 6; parts with
the Dutch cautionary towns, 7 ;
diminishes the power of the
Crown, ib.; his death and charac
ter, 8
James II., King, (see York, )begins
his reign with great advantage,
398 ; his education, ib. ; learned
war under Turenne, 399 ; is pro
claimed, ib. ; addresses from Ox
ford and London, ib. ; customs
and excise levied without law,
400 ; goes openly to Mass, 401 ;
his course of life, ib. ; summons
a parliament, 402; his Coronation,
403 ; his success against Mon
mouth and Argyle, 415 ; cruelties
of soldiers and of Jefferies in the
West, 416; the nation turned by
them, 4i7; disputes about the
test, ib, ; the King's declaration
against the Test Act, 419; the
Commons address for observing
the Act, 425; some members
closetted, others disgraced for
their voting, 426 ; the Judges
consulted as to the King's dis
pensing power, 427 ; the Test
neglected, 428 ; an ecclesiastical
commission, 431 ; he sends the
Earl of Murray to hold a par
liament in Scotland, 433 ; the
Parliament will not take off the
Test there, 433 ; and is dissolved,
434 ; the King makes Mrs. Sidley
Countess of Dorchester, 434, 435 ;
attempts to bring Papists into the
two Universities, 443, 444 ; the
President and Fellows of Magda
len College turned out, 445, 446;
the King courts the Dissenters,
ib.; his army encamps on Houns-
low Heath, 447; sends an Am
bassador to Rome, ib. ; and Albe
ville Envoy to Holland, 450 ;
the King's designs disclosed by
the Jesuits at Liege, 452 ; by his
Proclamation in Scotland he
claims absolute power, 452, 453 ;
his declaration for Toleration in
England,ib.; addresses of the Dis
senters, 454; the Parliament dis
solved, ib.; the Pope's Nuncio
received, 455; the King's progress
ib. ; changes the Magistrates over
England, ib.; questions put about
elections, 456 ; his letter to the
Princess of Orange about religion ,
457, 458 ; her answer, 458, 459;
Steward in favour, 463; F. Petre
a Privy Councillor, 464 ; the
King demands hi3 regiments in
the States service, 465 ; a new
Declaration for toleration, 466 ;
the Clergy refuse to read it, 467;
the Bishops petition against it,
467, 468 ; are sent to the Tower,
469; are tried in Westminster
Hall, 469, 470; great joy at their
acquittal, 470 and note ; the

Clergy cited, 473; the' Queen
gives out she is with child, 476 ;
an account of the birth of that
child, 476, 477, 478, 479; a
fleet set out, 480; the Court
alarmed, ib., 481, 487; Lord
Dartmouth commands the fleet,
487 ; Irish recruits refused by
the officers of the army, ib.; the
French troops refused, 488 ;
the Earl of Sunderland prevents
the seizing suspected persons,
497 ; proofs of the birth of the
pretended Prince of Wales, 497,
498 ; the fleet is forced back
into Portsmouth, 500 ; the King
comes to Salisbury, 501 ; many
forsake him, ib.; the Princess of
Denmark does, ib. ; he returns
to London, 503 ; sends for the
Lords there, and by their advice
sends to treat with the Prince of
Orange, ib. ; strange counsel of
the Priests, 504; the King goes
away in disguise, ib. ; taken and
brought to Feversham, 505 ; ad
vices given as to his person, 506;
brought to Whitehall, ib. ; sent
under a Dutch guard to Roches
ter, 508 ; his Queen presses him
to come to France, 509 ; he fires
thither, ib. ; proceedings in Par
liament after his departure, 519*,
520*; 521* ; a party forming for
him in England, 532; his great seal
foundin theThames,534; hiscon-
duct at the French Court ruins Ijis
affairs, 535 ; goes to Ireland, ib. ;
cabals in Scotland in his favour,
ib. ; forced to raise the siege of
- Londonderry and Enniskillen,
536 ; some Whigs in his interest,
545 ; his conduct in Ireland, 552,
553 ; his behaviour at the Boyne,
554 ; leaves Ireland, ib.; slighted
in France, 557 ; his partisans in
Scotland dispersed, 560 ; plots
there in his favour discovered,
560, 561 ; he intends a descent
on England, 578 ; in a plot against
King William, 531; theabjuration
him not carried, 585; Middle-
toun's proposition to him, 593 ;
his Declaration, ib.; Charnoek
and the Earl of Ailesbury sent to
him, 612 ; he grants aCoinmission
to attack King William's person,
622 ; is ready to invade England,
622, 623; Berkeley, who had
his commission, escapes, 624, 643,
652 ; his death and character,
695, 696
Jane, Dr., 436
Jefferies, Sir George, 321, 362,
made Chief Justice, 369 and
note; 371, 372, 375, 376, 383,
387, 388; his cruelty in the
West, made a Baron, 415, and
note ; and Lord Chancellor, 425,
430, 444, 447, 497 : sent to the
Tower, 505
Jefferies, Lord, 683
Jekyll, Sir Joseph, 745 and note ;

a manager in SachevcrcU's trial,
848
Jenkins, Sir Lionel, Plenipotentiary
at Cologne, 234, and note ; and
at Nimeguen, 280, 291 ; made
Secretary of State, 319 ; his vio
lence as to the City of London,
347, 348 ; dismissed, 384
Jennison, his evidence in the Popish
plot, 297
Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, 25,
and note
Jersey, Earl of, 641, and note, 666,
678, 708, 752 ; employed iu
treating with France, 872; death,
ibid.
Ingoldsby, 56
Inniskillen, siege of, 636
Johnston, 415, 486, 575, 579, 761,
764
Johnston, Sir Patrick, 801
Jones, John, 8*, 264, 303, 319,
and note, 325, 327, 328, 329,
335, 869
Jones, Bishop of St. Asaph, 658
Joseph, King of the Romans, takes
Landau, 714, 755; succeeds
Leopold, his father, as Emperor,
773 ; his separate treaty for
evacuating Italy, 807 ; is the
cause of disappointing the design
upon Toulon, 808, 809, 810 ;
Naples reduced to his obedience,
812; his death, 866
Ireland, the war there after the
Revolution, 535, 536, 551,552,
553, 554 ; wasted by the rappa
rees and soldiers, 560, 562,563;
reduced by Ginkle, 570, 571,
572 ; a parliament there, 575 ;
another in 1695, 619 ; Trustees
of the forfeited estates there, 694,
695; Whig and Tory prevail
there, 738 ; the Papists' estates
split by Act of Parliament, 739 ;
the Protestants divided, 738,
739 ; and the Clergy there, 839
Ireland, his trial, 294, 297, 298
Ireton, the author of King Charles
the first's death, 28, 30
Irish massacre, 25
Ironside, Dr., made Bishop of Here
ford, 569, and note
Isabella, Archduchess, 6, 30
Italy, campaigns there, 574, 583,
590, 616, 628,729,774, 791;
evacuated by the French, 807
Judges, a bill to make their salaries
for life, 575
Justices, Lords, during King Wil
liam's absence, 613
Juxon, attends King Charles at his
execution, 28, and note ; made
Archbishop of Canterbury, 120

K.
Keeling, draws the Act of Unifor
mity. 125
Keeling, his depositions, 356, 364
Keiserwaert, siege of, 541, 712

INDEX.
Keith, George, leaven the Quakers,
670
Keith, in a plot, 746, 748
Ken, Bishop, his character, 382,
383* ; attends King Charles on his
death-bed, 392 ; and Duke of
Monmouth at his execution, 413
Kennet, Dr., 689
Kent, Earl of, made Lord Cham
berlain, 752; a Duke, 882 ; has
the Garter, 892
Keppel, made Earl of Albemarle,
656, and note
Ker, 169
Keys, in the Assassination-Plot, 625
Kid, sent against pirates in the East-
Indies, 663 ; turns pirate, ib. ;
taken and hanged, 680
Killigrew, in the Admiralty, 585
Killock, 22
Kincardine, Earl of, his character,
72 ; against Episcopacy, 88 ; and
Sharp's violence, 143, 165, 166,
1 86 , 1 95, 250 ; turned out of the
council, 267, 291, 339
King, a physician, 391
King, Dr., Archbishop of Dublin,
847
King, in the Assassination Plot,
625, 626
King, Sir Peter, a manager in Sach-
evercll's trial, 848
Kirk, 415 and note, 486, 536
Kirkton, a conventicle preacher, 267
Knightly, views the ground for
attacking King William, 622 ;
condemned and pardoned, 627

L.
Lake, Bishop of Chichester, absent
from Parliament, 528,is deprived,
569
Lambert, General, 55, 56 ; accused
by Oates, 286
Landau, taken by the Germans,
714; retaken by the French, 730 ;
taken by the Imperialists again,
754,755
Landen, battle of, 591
Langhatn, Sir James, 181
Langhorne, 155, 285 ; his trial and
death, 309
Langston, Colonel, 501
Lanier, 558
La Rue discovers the Assassination
Plot, 622
Lavardin, Count, enters Rome in a
hostile manner, 482
Lauderdale, Earl of, 13, 14, 17, 22,
23, 29, 34, 35 ; his character,
70, and note ; urges the King to
grant an indemnity, 73 ; proposes
to destroy Cromwell's forts, 73,
74; for Presbytery, 74; made
Secretary of State, 75 ; against a
Scotch council at Whitehall, 76,
80, 87, 88, 94, 96 ; is in the
incapacitating list, 99; accuses
Middletoun,137,138,139, 140;
gives way to Sharp, 141, 143,
144, 162, 164, 165, 166, 177,
I

937
180, 188, 191 ; his speech to
Parliament, 197 ; passes the act
of supremacy, 194, 195 ; screens
Papists, 196, 200; marries Lady
Dysart, 204 ; is made a Duke and
has the Garter, 206 ; his insoT
lence, 224 ; angry at the Presby
terians, 225, 226 ; his violent
counsel, 231, 235, 236 ; a party
against him, 240 ; puts off the
Session,241 ; an address to remove
him, 242 ; is reconciled to Ar
gyle, 245 ; made Earl of Guil
ford, 246, 248, 249, 250, 264,
266,271,274, 275, 276, 277;
his violent administration, 277,
278, 279, 287, 288, 291 ; chargo
against him, 312 ; heard in coun
cil, 312, 313 ; draws the indem
nity after the rebellion at Both-
well Bridge, 314; votes against
Lord Stafford, 325, 337, 338
Lauderdale, Duchess of, 225, 240
Lauzun commands the French troops
sent to Ireland, 535 ; his ill con
duct there, 558, 559
Leak, or Lake, Sir John, 758 ;
raises the siege of Gibraltar, 771,
791, 792 ; and of Barcelona, 794
Learmonth surprises Turner, 158
Lee, Sir Thomas, 232 ; his charac
ter, 266
Lee, 364
Leeds, Duke of, 616; acquitted of
his impeachment, 688
Leefdale disappoints an intended
assassination ofKing William, 581
Le Fevre, Dr., 393
Leg, 356
Leganes, Marquis of, 775
Leicester, Earl of, 211
Leightoun, Bishop, his character,
89, 90, 91, 92; his moderation,
92, 24, 96, 145 ; proposes a com
prehension, 166, 185, 186, 187,
189, 192; made Archbishop of
Glasgow, 194 ; his scheme of
accommodation with the Presby
terians, ib. ; his conferences with
them, 195; angry at the act
against conventicles, 196; his
further conferences with the Pres
byterians, 198, 199, 200, 225;
resigns his archbishoprick, 226 ;
his death, 381
Lenox, Duke of, 3 and note, 1 1
Leopold, the Emperor, loses Bel
grade, 562 ; beats the Turks, 573;
a great victory over them near
Belgrade, 644 ; makes the peace
of Carlowitz, ib.; secretly consents
to the Partition Treaty, 66 1, 677 ;
begins the war with France in
Italy, 679, 692, 693 ; refuses to
own the Pretender, 696; is in
great distress, 728, 729, 752; the
Duke of Marlborough saves the
empire, 762 ; the Emperor con
tinues the war in Hungary, 759;
his death and character, 773
Lesley, 36
Lesley, author of the Rehearsal,
847, and note

933

IXDEX.

L' Estrange, Sir Roger, 307 , and note
Levingston defeats the Highlanders,
500 ; his share in the massacre
at Glencoe, 577, 622
Lexington, Lord, sent Ambassador
to Spain, 892
Leybourn, a Bishop sent from Rome,
464
Lichtenstein, Prince of, a favourite
of King Charles of Spain, 777,
790, 793, 794
Liege, the factions there, 601
Limerick, siege of, raised, 558 ;
capitulates, 572
Lindsay sent from King James to
Scotland, 535, 747
Linlithgow, Earl of, 313
Lisle, Lord,4l6;his lady's character
and execution, 417, and note
Littleton, Sir Thomas, 156, 169,
180 ; his character, 156, 259,
281, 290, 302,327, 328
Liturgy in Scotland, how prepared, 1 5
Lloyd, Dr., his character, 130, and
note ; his account of the fire of
London, 156, 281, 285, 288,
296, 323, 443, 478, 523 ; is
Bishop of Worcester, 644
Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, absent
fromParliament,528; isdeprived,
569, 632
Lob advises sending the Bishops to
the Tower, 468
Locke, Mr., 404*
Lockhart, Sir George, stands it
against the King's order, 246 ;
counsel for Mitchell, 275; against
Lauderdale, 312, 338
Lockhart, Sir James, 101
Lockhart, Cromwell's Ambassador
in France, 50, 56, 57, 153; sent
to France by King Charles II. ,
203, 260, 261
London, the Lieutenancy in Tory
hands, 547, 857
Londonderry, siege of, raised, 535
Lonsdale, Viscount, 678
Lorn, Lord, 38, 73 ; solicits in
behalf of his father, 83; his letter
intercepted, 98 ; sketch of his pre
vious life,98*; it hastenshis father's
execution, 98, 99; made Earl of
Argyle, 141. See Argyle
Lorrain, Cardinal, 208
Lothian, Earl of, 10, 83
Lothian, Marquis of, 835
Louvois, dragoons the Protestants,
421, 438, 487; is secretly an
enemy to King James, 535, 580
Lowdun, Earl of, 15, 17, 26, 83
Lower, Dr., 333
Lowick is in the Assassination-plot,
627
Ludlow, 28
Lumley, Lord, 412, 485, 487, 501
Lunenburgh, Duke of, 481, 667
Lunt, 609 ; some tried on his evi
dence, ib.
Luxemburgh, Duke of, marches
marches into Holland, 223, 270 ;
gains the battle of Fleurus, 554,
581 ; of Steenkirk, 581 ; and of
Landen, 591 ; his death, 614

M.
Maccail dies in the torture, 160
Maccarty, Colonel, 389
Macclean, Sir John, his account of
a plot, 746, 747, 748, 749, 750
Macclesfield, Earl of, 495, 684
Macdonalds, from Ireland, 22, 23 ;
of Glencoe, 576
Mackay commands in Scotland, 540;
his services in Ireland, 571, 5/2 ;
killed at Steenkirk, 582
Mackenzie, 27, and note
Macom, 432
Macquair, 79
Magna Charta, an original in the
author's hands, 19 and note, 514
Maintenon, Madame de, 580, 590,
651, 672,797,842
Manchester, Lord, 56 ; made Lord
Chamberlain, 66 ; his character,
66*; is for moderation, 131, 178
Manchester, Earl of, Ambassador in
France, 672 -v leaves that court,
696
Mansel, Colonel, 315
.Mansel, Sir Thomas, 752, 822
Mansfield, Count, 715,729
Manton, Dr., 175, and note, 206*
Mantua, Duke of, 679, 692, 693
Man waring, Dr., 851
Marchmont, Earl of, promotes the
Union, 800
Marlborough, Earl of, (see Chur
chill) takes Cork and Kinsale,
559,574; isdismissed,577,578,
and note ; sent to the Tower on
a forged accusation, 584, 585;
Governor to the Duke of Glou
cester, 648, 678; sent to Hol
land on Queen Anne's accession,
704; made Captain-General, 706,
708, 713; takes Yenlo, Rure-
mond, Stevenswaert, and Liege,
713 ; escapes from a French
party, 714 ; beloved in Holland,
ib. ; made a duke ; ib. ; has
thanks from both Honses of Par
liament, ib. ; takes Bonne, Huy,
Limbourg, Guelder, and all the
Coudras, 72 7 ; his secrecy in con
ducting his designs, 728, 752 ;
routs the Bavarians at Schellem-
berg, 753 ; joins Prince Eugene,
ib. ; the victory at Blenheim,
754 ; is made a prince of the
Empire, 754, 755 ; his negotia
tions at several courts, 756, 764 ;
disappointed by the Prince of
Baden, 772 ; breaks through the
French lines, 773 ; goes to seve
ral courts, 774, 786 ; his victory
at Ramillies, 795; reduces all
Flanders aud Brabant, ib. ; takes
Ostend, Menin, Deudermond,
and Aeth, ib., 809, 814; re
moves Mr. Harley, 821, 826;
his victory at Oudenard, 827 ;
six thousand of his men heat
twenty thousand French, 828,
829 ; forces the French lines,
830; Lille taken, ib.; and Ghent

and Bruges, 831, 834; he is
Plenipotentiary for treating with
France, 840, 841, 843; takes
Tournay, ib. ; his victory at
Blareignies, ib. ; takes Mons,
852, 853 ; takes Doway, ib. ;
and Fort Escarp, 853 ; rejects
King Philip's offers, 854; takes
Bethune, Aire, and St. Venant,
858, 859; has not the usual
thanks of Parliament, 862 ; car
ries the Queen a.surrender of his
lady's places, ib. ; passes the
French lines, 870; and takes
Bouchain, 871 ; retires from
council, 874; turned out of all
his employments, 8/8; his pre
sent from the Jew voted illegal,
880 ; and the two and a half per
cent, from the foreign troops, ib. ;
Libels against him, 880, 881 ;
Prince Eugene's saying as to one
of these, ib. ; suits against him,
893 ; his innocence apparent,
880, 881 ; on Lord Godolphin's
death he goes abroad, 893
Marlborough, Countess of, and after
wards Duchess, (see Churchill)
is forbid the court, 578; is re
flected on for favouring the Whirrs,
781 ; her authority quoted, 782 ;
her interest at Court declines,
816 ; is again in favour, 822 ; she
leaves the Court, 852 ; and sends
a surrender of her places, 862,
and note
Marsin, Mareschal, 233, and note.
753, 754
Martin, Admiral, 106, 107*,795
Mary, Queen. See Queen Mart.
Masquerades at Court, 1 78
Masham, Mrs., made Privy Purse,
862, and note
Massey, Dean of Christchurch, 443
Mitthias resigns the Crown of Bo
hemia, 5
Maurice, Elector of Saxony, 208
Maximilian against persecution, 5
Maxwell an incendiarv, 158
May, Mr., 312,390
Mavnard, Serjeant, 44, 292,409;
his repartee to King William,
509 ; made one of the Commis
sioners of the Great Seal, 526
Mayne, Duke de, 614
Mazarin, Cardinal, 48, 50, 56, 112
Meaux, Bishop of, 420, 651
Medina Celi, Duke of,*693; sent
prisoner to Segovia, 85
Melfort, Earl of, 408, 418, 496,
747
Melvil, Lord, 404; Secretary of
State for Scotland, 539 ; zealous
for Presbytery, 539, 541, 545;
holds n. Parliament as Commis
sioner, 560 ; gives up the su
premacy and the rights of patro
nage, ib. ; advises an indemnity,
561 ; has Dalrymple joined to
him in the Secretary's post, 567;
is removed, 575
Merci, Count, 843
Meres, 300

Mesnager Tilings preliminaries from
France, 872
Methuen, Lord, 9
Methuen, Mr., his negotiations in
Portugal, 694, 712, 718; con
cludes a treaty there, 730, 731,
756
Mews, or Meaux, Bishop of "Win
chester, 383, and note
Middlesex, Eirl of, 687
Middleton, 39
Middleton, Earl of, 72, 75 ; Com
missioner and General in Scot
land, 75, 77, 78 ; passes the res
cissory act, 80 ; inveterate against
Argyle, 83; and Guthry, 84, 85 ;
disputes with the Earl of Craw
ford, 86 ; for episcopacy, 87, 94 ;
for fines in the indemnity, 97 ;
passes the incapacitating act, 98,
99, 100, 101, 102 ; accused by
Lauderdale, 137 ; and turned
out, 138, 139
Midddleton, Earl of, his son, Secre
tary of State for Scotland, 384 ;
his advice to Paterson, 433, 435,
507 ; goes over to King James
with a wise proposal, 598, 696,
747
Militia, a bill to take it out of the
Crown, 532, 645. 646
Millington, Dr., 393,477
Milton, his famous poem, 107, and
note
Minas, Marquis das, 812
Minorca taken by the British fleet,
831
Mirandola, Princess of, 693
Mitchell, his trial for the attempt
on Sharp, 275
Modena, Duchess of, 476
Modena, Duke of, 693, 729
Mohun, Lord, killed in a duel with
Duke Hamilton, 892
Monk, General, left to reduce Scot
land, 38 ; desired to declare for
the Parliament, 55 ; breaks open
the gates of London, 57; declares
for the secluded members, ib, ;
moves to restore the king with
out terms, 58; made Duke of
Albemarle, and has the Garter,
66 ; his character, 66 * ; he sends
Argyle's letters to Scotland, 84,
112, 117 ; is Admiral against the
Dutch, 154
Monkton, Mr., a bold saying of his,
676
Monmouth, Duke of, 176, 235,
290, 302, 312 ; sent to suppress
the rebellion at Bothwell-Bridge,
313 ; his clemency, 314 ; sent
beyond sea, ib. ; returns and is
disgraced, 316: pushes on the
exclusion, 322 ; meets Lord Rus
sel at Shepherd's, 352, 353 ;
treats with the Scotch, 354, 357 ;
eBcapes, 358, 360, 364 ; is par
doned, 373 ; and again disgraced ;
374 ; meets the King at Lady
Portsmouth's, 390 ; dismissed
from Holland, 402, 403, 404;
forced to an unripe invasion, 404,

INDEX.
405; lands at Lyme, 410 ; at
tainted by Parliament, ib. ; de
feated and taken, 412, 413,
and notes; executed, 414; dies
calmly, ib.
Monmouth, Earl of (see Mor
daunt), made first Commissioner
of the Treasury, 527 ; turned
out, ib.
Mons taken by the French, 567 ;
taken by the English, 843
Montague, Admiral, comes in to
King Charles, 57 ; made Earl of
Sandwich, and has the Garter,
66 ; blows up his own ship at
Solbay, 215 and note
Montaguo, Lord, Ambassador at
Paris, 224, 261, 273, 280, 291,
293, 302, 319, 322 ; is an earl,
293, and note
Montague, Mr., Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 588,652; made Lord
Halifax, 674. See Halifax.
Montague, Sir James, Attorney-
General, 856
MontauBier, Duke of, 367
Monterey, 270
Montespan, Madame, sent to a nun
nery, 252
Montgomery, Colonel, 37
Montgomery, Sir James, his services
to King William, 538 ; sent with
the tender of the crown of Scot
land, ib. ; disgusted, ib. ; enters
into a plot, 545, 546 ; discovers
it, but will not name his accom
plices, 561
Montgomery, Lord, 626
Montjui, fort, taken, 776, 792
Montrevel, Mareschal, his cruelty
in the Cevennes, 733
Montrose, Earl of, his brave under
taking, 34; is routed and his
papers taken, 23, 24 ; his offers
to the King, 34 and note ; his
constancy at his execution, 37
Montrose, Marquis of, his son, 84
Montrose, Marquis of, his son, for
the Union, 805 ; made a Duke,
ib. ; opposes the Dnke of Queens
bury, 836
Moore, Sir John, Lord Mayor, ap
points North Sheriff, 347, 348
Moor, Arthur, 898
Mordaunt, Lord, 425, 495. See
Monmouth
More, Dr. Hen., 128 and note
More, Dr. , 307 ; Bishop of Norwich,
569; and of Ely, 817
Morel of Berne, his account of a
plot against King William, 581
Morland, 43, 50
Morley, made Bishop of Worcester,
and of Winchester, 121 ; his cha
racter, 121 * ; his account of the
Duchess of York's religion, 207 ;
his death and character, 382
Morrice, Secretary, his character, 67
and note
Moulin, du, 249, 252
Mulgrave, Earl of, 635, 584, 586.
See Normanby
Murray, Earl of, 10, 13, 433

039
Murray, Sir Robert, his character,
39, 88, 99; President of the
Royal Society, 131, 163, 165,
166, 175, 177, 189, 191, 192,
196, 200, 240
Murray, William, 39, 164
Muscovy, Czar of, dangerous to the
Turks, 629 ; his travels, 640 :
comes to England, ib. ; his cha
racter, 655 ; Plots in Muscovy
call him home, ib. ; his wars with
Sweden, 660, 675, 760, 807 ;
defeats them at Pultowa, 844 ;
makes peace with the Turks,
846 ; takes all Livonia, 859 ;
war breaks out between him and
the Turks, 858, 866 ; he is in
great straits, 871, 872; reduces
Finland, 895
Musgrave, Sir Christopher, 589,745

N.
Nairn, Mr., his character, 146,
192, 196; refuses a bishoprick,
200
Namur, taken by the French, 581 ;
re-taken by King William, 615
Naples, kingdom of, 809 ; reduced,
312
Nassau, a princeof, 712, 730
Needham, Dr., 393
Nelthorp, 416
Netherlands, Spanish, in a scheme
for a Republic, 30 ; put into the
Elector of Bavaria's hand, 574 :
the campaigns there, before the
peace of Ryswick, 541, 554, 556,
570, 590, 601, 614, 628, 638 ;
in the hands of France on the
King of Spain's death, 675 ; cam
paigns there before the treaty of
Utrecht, 712,713,728, 729,752,
753, 772, 794, 809, 814, 827,
828, 829, 830, 831, 843, 866
Neufchatel, its succession adjudged
to the King of Prussia, 813
Nevill, 43, 55
Newburgh, Earl of, 97
Newcastle, Duke of, Privy Seal,
his caution in passing public
accounts, 872
Nicholas, Secretary, his character,
68 and note
Nicholson, Sir Thomas, 37
Nisbitt, Sir John, 191 and note
Nithesdale, Earl of, 11
Noailles, Duke de, 858
Norfolk, Duke. of, his repartee to
King James, 435 ; the affair of
his divorce, 600, 601
Norfolk, Duchess of, 600, 637
Normanby, Marquis of (see Mul
grave), heads the Tories, 271 and
note, 706 ; made Duke of Buck
ingham, ib. See Buckingham
Norris, Lord, 321
North, Chief Justice, 323, 332;
made Lord Guildford, 349, 386-
his character, 424, 425
North, Sheriff of London, 347
Northampton, Marquis of, 600

940

INDEX.

Northey, Sir Edward, 691
Northumberland, Earl of, 24, 25,
114, 698
Nottingham, Earl of,270,300, 306 ;
High Steward at Lord Stafford's
trial, 324, 325, 327
Nottingham, Earl of, his son, attacks
Lord Guildford, 425 ; meets at
Lord Shrewsbury's, 452, 485 ;
sent by King James to treat with
the prince of Orange, 503, 509 ;
for a Prince Regent, 514; made
Secretary of State, 526 ; against
declaring the acts of the Conven.
tion valid, but for enacting them,
548 ; brings in many Tories, 575;
disputes with Admiral Russsel,
580,585; ib dismissed,598,610,
698, 701 ; made Secretary of
State by Queen Anne, 706, 726,
730, 747, 749, 750 ; resigns his
employment, 752 ; opposes the
Union, 802 ; is against Spain and
the West Indies remaining in the
house of Bourbon, 874, 875 ;
carries the Occasional Bill, 876 ;
for addressing the Queen to treat
in concert with her allies, 877 ;
opposes an enquiry into King Wil
liam's grants, 888

O.
Oates, Titus, his first discovery of
the Popish plot, 282 ; at the
Council, 282 and note, 283 ; his
new discovery to the House of
Commons, 285, 289, 290, 297,
298, 308, 309, 310, 311, 323,
324, 337, 359 ; imprisoned, con
victed of perjury, and cruelly
whipped, 383
Oaths, debates concerning them,
529, 530, 550, 584
Obrian, 183
Ogilby of Boyne, his commission to
Queen Anne, 853
Onslow, Sir Richard, Speaker of the
House of Commons, 834
Orauge, William I., Prince of, frees
the seven Provinces from Spain,
and forms them into a Republic,
210
Orange, Maurice, Prince of, em
broils Holland with the Armi-
nian controversy, 5, 6 ; his quarrel
with Barnevelt, 211
Orange, He my -Frederick, Pi ince of,
communicates a secret to Eng
land, 30 ; his wise government,
212
Orange, William-Henry, Prince of,
his birth, 212-; made General,
214; his character of De Witt,
ib. ; comes to England, 185 ;
made Stadtholder, 217 ; Ms an
swer to the Duke of Buckingham,
218, 219 ; animates the States to
a war, 220, 221, 227; made He
reditary Stadtholder, 243, 249;
his conduct at the battle of Seneff,

250 ; offers the French battle,
269, 270 ; comes to England,
and marries Lady Mary, 273, and
note ; against the peace at Nime
guen, 280 ; beats Luxemburgh,
ib. ; projects an alliance, 3175
319 ; his conferences with King
Charles, 374, 385 ; dismisses the
Duke of Monmouth, 401 ; keeps
fair with King James, 403 ; in
vites Dr. Burnet to the Hague,
438,439,440,441; his answer to
D' Albeville's propositions, 451 ;
his friends meet at the Earl of
Shrewsbury's to concert measures,
452 ; Fagel's answers to Steward's
Letters, 464, 465 ; his answer to
Russel, 474 ; congratulates on
the birth of the pretended Prince
of Wales, 479 ; communicates his
intended expedition to the Elec
tor of Brandenburgh, 481 ; Co
logne affords a pretence for arm
ing, 481, 482,483; the States
fit out a fleet, ib. ; what English
engaged, 484, 485, 486, 487 ;
affairs in Germany favour the
design, 490 ; the Dutch fleet at
sea, 492 ; the Prince's declara
tion, ib., 493, 494, 495; it is
amended, 495, 496 ; the fleet
forced back, ib. ; they return to
sea, 499 ; land at Torbay, ib, ;
the Prince's behaviour, 500 ; pro
ceeds to Exeter, ib, ; many de
sert to him, 501 ; an association,
502 ; he is invited to Oxford, ib.;
his answer to the Lords sent by
King James, 504 ; the Privy
Council invite him to London,
505 ; learns that King James was
fled, 506 ; at Windsor that he
was returned to Whitehall, 506,
507 ; sends him a message to
remove, ib. ; comes to London, j
508; calls a Convention of Es
tates, 509 ; the Scotch declare for
him, 510; Tyrconnel amuses
him, 510, 511, 512; the Con
vention meets, 512, 513 ; their
debates, 513, 514, 515; about
the word Abdicate, 516; a mo
tion for examining the birth of
the pretended Prince of Wales,
ib. ; rejected, 517; other mo
tions, ib. ; the Prince's behaviour
all this while, 518 ; it is carried
to put the Prince and Princess
jointly on the Throne, 51 9 ; pro
tests in the House of Lords, ib. ;
the oaths altered, 522 ; the no
tion of a king de facto, and a
King de jure, ib. See William
III.
Orange, Princeas of, her letters to
King James, 457, 458, 459 ;
arrives in England, 523. See
Queen Mary II.
Orford, Earl of (see Russel), 639,
652, 664, 680 ; is impeached by
the Commons, 680, 681, 684;
his answer, 684, 686 ; acquitted
by the Lords, 688 ; his accounts

justified, 741, 818, 819; is at
the head of the Admiralty, 846
Orkney, Earl of, 738, 754
Orleans, Duchess of, comes to Eng^
land, 20 1 , 202, 203 ; her death,
202, and note
Orleans, Puke of, 270, 273
Orleans, Dnke of, his son, com
mands in Italy, 795, 797 ; com
mands in Spain, reduces Arragon
and Valentia, 809; takes Lerida,
811 ; and Tortosa, 827 ; his
scheme to set aside King Philip,
885
Ormond, Duke of, 63, and note
Ormond, Duke of, his son, 701,
706 ; his expedition to Cadiz
and Vigo, 716,717, 718; made
lieutenant of Ireland, 723, 738,
739, 740 ; again made lieutenant
of Ireland, 856 ; and captain-
general, 881 ; has the same ap
pointments that were voted crimi
nal in the Duke of Marlborough,
886 ; concerts the campaign, 889,
891 ; proclaims a cessation and
leaves the confederates, 890,
891; possesses Ghent and Bruges,
ib.
Orrery, Earl of, 120, and note
Osborn, 169, 180,232
Ossory, Lord, 222, 252
Ostervald, 813
Ottoboni, Pope Alexander VIII.,
his death, 566
Overall, Bishop, his book, 649
Overbury, Sir Thomas, 8
Owen, Dr., 54
Oxford and Mortimer, Earl of (see
Harley), 866 ; has the garter,
892
Oxford, University of, invite the
Prince of Orange, 502 ; sign the
association, 506, 751

P.
Paget, Lord, ambassador at Con
stantinople, 582
Painevine, quits his post, 223 ; his
execution, ib.
Palatine, Elector, 642, 643, 712,
760
Palatines, ten thousand come to
England, 843 ; the inviting them
over voted a crime, 863
Palmer, Earl of Castlemain, sent to
Rome, 447
Papists, some of their books cen
sured, 129 ; gently treated at the
revolution, 533 ; divisions among
them, 651, 659 ; an act giving
away their estates, ib. ; anothei
act against them dropt, 788
Parker, Dr., Bishop of Oxford,
176, and note ; is made president
of Magdalen College, 445 ; his
death, 468
Parker, Sir Thomas, shines at
Sacheverell's trial, 848 ; made
chief justice in Holt's room 850

Parker, in a design to assassinate
King William, 581, 626
Parliament, Englisli, their treaty
with Charles I., 27 ; dispute
with the army, 51, 55; the se
cluded member-s return, 57 ; a
convention called, 58 ; recall the
king, ib. ; the indemnity, 108;
the act of uniformity, 125, 135 ;
two millions and a half granted
to the Dutch war, 147, 148;
meet at Oxford, 151 ; the act
called the Fve-mile Act, 152,
and note ; the act for rebuilding
London, 176 ; the committee at
Brook House, 181 ; some mem
bers corrupted, 182 ; the Coven
try Act, 183; anew Test Act, 229,
230 ; tho king's declaration for
toleration debated in the House
of Lords, 230 ; the Commons
oppose the Duke of York's mar
riage, 239; prorogued, ib. ; re
solve to force a peace with Hol
land, 243 ; examine Dr. Burnet,
252,253; attack Danby, 254;
debates about the test, 255 ; and
between the two houses, 257 ;
a new session, ib. ; characters of
some leading men, 258, 259 ;
a long interval of parliament,
260 ; a dissolution projected,
262 ; a prorogation disputed,
267; the movers of that sent to
the Tower, 268 ; a large sum
for building ships, 269 ; they
press a war with France, 271 ;
a new session, 274 ; the com
mons1 address against the mini
sters, 279; a test against poperv,
289 ; a militia bill, 290 ; Danby
impeached of high treason, 292 ;
tlie lords will not commit him,
ib. ; the parliament dissolved,
294; a new parliament, 300;
prosecutes Danby, notwithstand
ing the king's pardon, 301 ; de
bates concerning the exclusion,
302. 303, 304, 305 ; the par
liament dissolved, 306 ; the ques
tion of bishops voriug in trials for
treason, 307 ; a new parliament,
31S ; the bill of Exclusion passed
bv the commons rejected bv tlie
lords, SI, 82, 319, 320; Votes
of association to revenge the
king's death, 321 ; limitations on
the Duke of York rejected. 322 ;
the Lord Strafford's trial, 323,
324; he is condemned, 325;
and executed, 326 ; motions in
favour of nonconformists, ib. ;
a new parliament at Oxford, 327,
328 ; £o upon the exclusion, and
dissolved, 328, 370 ; Kins James
n., his parliament. 402, 409 :
grant the civil list for life, ib. ;
a bill to make words treason, ib. ;
act of attainder of the Duke of
Monmouth, 410; a new session,
•J 24 ; the commons address for
observing the test, 425 ; the par
liament prorogued, 426 ; aud

INDEX.
dissolved, 454 ; a convention
called, 509, 512 ; debates there,
5 1 2 — 5 1 8 ; declare the prince
aud Princess of Orange king and
queen, and pass a claim of rights,
51S — 522, and notes, 520 and
521 ; offer them, tho crown, 523 ;
the convention turned into a par
liament, 528 ; an act for taking
tho oaths, 530 ; act for tolera
tion, ib. ; supplies given against
France, 531 ; civil list for a
year, 532 ; chimney money is
discharged, ib. ; 600,000/. given
to the Slates, 533 ; an indemnity
dropped, ib. ; tho bill of rights,
33, 533, 534; 100,000/. given
to Duke Schomberg, 536 ; sup
plies for reducing Ireland, 546 ;
civil list again for a year, ib. ; a
Corporation Act passed both
houses, refused the royal assent,
547; a new parliament, 548;
an act declaring and making the
acts of the convention valid, ib. ;
members corrupted, 549; civil
list for five years, ib. ; debates
about an abjuration of King
James dropped by the king's
desire, 550 ; supplies on remote
funds, 549 ; a new session, 562 ;
grant four millions, ib. ; name
commissioners of public accounts,
562 ; act of attainder of the
rebels in Ireland, 563 ; an act
vesting lord high admiral's power
in commissi ouers of Admiralty,
564 ; the Princess of Denmark's
reveuue made 50,000/. a year,
578; the ministry indemnified
for breaking the Habeas Corpus
Aet, 562, 585 ; abjuration of
King James rejected, 585; sup
plies on remote funds, ib. ; a
committee of both houses during
the recess proposed, 586 ; a self-
denying bill passed the House of
Commons, rejected by the Lords,
586 ; the Triennial Act, passed
both houses, refused the royal
assent. 586, 567 ; a new session
grant the supplies, 599 ; examine
the conduct of the Admiralty,
599, 600 ; a new session, 604 ;
urant five millions, and pass the
act for triennial parliaments, ib. ;
both houses address on Queen
Mary's death, 608 ; and attend
her funeral, ib. ; a bill for trials
of treasons passed the Commons
lost in the House of Lords, 608,
609 ; attempts against the bank,
610 ; Trevor expelled, ib. ; en
quiries iuto bribes given by the
East India Company, 611 ; an
act against Sir Thomas Cook and
others, ib. ; a new parliament,
619; rectify the coin by recoin-
invr all in milled money, 619,
62 t ; the act for trials of trea
sons, 620 ; and for regulating
elections, ib. ; complain of the
Scotch act for an Indian trade,

941
ib. ; a motion to appoint a coun
cil of trade in parliament, 62 1 ;
the Assassination and Invasion
Plot laid before both houses,
624 ; their association signed all
over England, ib. ; a land-bank
erected, but failed, 62S; a new
session, 630 ; provide for ten
million deficiencies, and grant
five millions for the year, 631 ;
a bill of attainder against Sir
John Fenwick, 632, 633, 634,
635, 636 ; practices as to his
discoveries examined, 636, 637 ;
a new session, 640 ; reduce the
army to ten thousand men, 646;
grant the Civil List for life, ib. ;
establish a new East India Com
pany, 647; a new parliament,
652 ; reduce the army to seven
thousand men, all natives, 653
and note ; enquire into grants of
forfeited estates in Ireland, 654 ;
appoint commissioners to enquire,
ib. ; a severe act against Papists,
659 ; Lord Somers attacked in
tlie House of Commons, 665 ;
acquitted by a great majority,
666 ; a motion to remove Dr.
Burnet from the Duke of Glou
cester lost by a great majority,
663 ; report of the commissioners
of enquiry iuto the grants in Ire
land, 664 ; the grants are set
aside, and trustees appointed for
selling the estates and determin
ing claims, 664, 665 ; debates
concerning the Bishop of St.
David's, 671 ; a new parliament,
673 ; a French party there, 675,
676 ; the Commons address, ib. ;
partiality in judging elections,
ib. ; provide for thirty thousand
seamen, ib. ; debates in the
House of Lords about the Parti
tion Treaty, 677 ; the Lords'
address, t>78; a second address,
ib. ; the Commons addresses,
ib. ; vote ten thousand men, and
twenty men of war to assist the
Dutch, ib. ; debates in the House
of Commons about the Partition
Treat). 679, 6S0 ; they impeach
some Lords concerned in it, 683,
684 ; contrary addresses of the
two houses. 681 ; the aet of suc
cession passed, 683, 684 ; an act
limiting the privilege of parlia
ment, ib. ; proceedings in the
impeachments, 684, 6S5 ; the
Kentish Petition, 6S6 ; the peti-
tiouers imprisoned, 6S6 and note;
disputes between the two houses
about the impeachments, 686,
687 ; the Commons not appear-
in!:, tlie impeached Lords are
acquitted, 688; a newparliamen:,
697 ; for a war, 698 ; attaint the
pretended Prince of Wales. 698,
699 ; an act for abjuring him,
698, 699, 700; addresses of both
houses to Queen Anne, 704 ;
commissioners forpublic accounts,

942

INDEX.

705 ; the union proposed, 707 ;
the report of designs to set aside
the queen voted false, ib. ; a new
parliament, 719 ; partiality in
judging elections, ib. ; supplies
for the war, 720 ; a hill against
occasional conformity passed by
the Commons, ib. ; lost by an
alteration of the fines in the
House of Lords, 721 ; an act
settling 100,000/. a year on
Prince George, 722 ; a further
act to establish the succession,
723 ; Rook's conduct examined
and justified, ib. ; enquiry into
Lord Ranelagh's accounts, ?24;
the Commons address charging
frauds, ib. ; answered by the
Lords, 725 ; a new session, 740 ;
the Occasional Bill passed the
Commons, rejected by the Lords,
740, 741 ; supplies for the war,
741 ; Lord Orford's accounts are
justified by the Lords, ib. ; com
missioners of public accounts not
continued, 742 ; the affair of
Aylesbury creates a dispute be
tween the two houses, 742, 743,
744 ; an act for augmentation of
¦ poor livings, 745, 746 ; the
Lords examine into Macclean's
Plot, 747, 748, 749, 750 ; the
Commons address, 747 ; the
Lords counter address, 748,
750 ; their opinion concerning
the Plot, ib. ; an act for raising
recruits, ib. ; the Lords address
about justices of peace, 751 ; a
new session. Supplies for the
war, 764 ; the tack of the Occa
sional-bill to a Money-bill lost,
ib. ; an act declaring the Scots
aliens, 765 ; the Occasional-bill
thrown out by the Lords, 766,
767; the Commons imprisoned
the Aylesbury men, 768 ; they
are remanded by the Queen's
Bench on their Habeas Corpus,
ib. ; sue a writ of error in the
House of Lords, 769 ; Com
mons address the queen not to
grant it, ib. ; counter address of
the Lords, ib, ; several bills not
passed, 769, 770; a new parlia
ment, 781 ; great partiality in
judging elections, ib. ; debates
about bringing over the next suc
cessor, 781, 782; a hill for a
regency, 782, 783, 784 ; some
offices excluded the House of
Commons, 784,785; both houses
address concerning the danger of
the church, 785, 786; repeal
the act declaring the Scots aliens,
ib. ; act for amendment of the
law, 787 ; a new session, agree
to the articles of union with Scot
land, 801 ; an act of union, 803,
804 ; supplies for the war, 805 ;
the parliament revived by pro
clamation, 805, 818 ; the Lords
enquire into the conduct of the
Admiralty, 818, 819; their ad

dress upon it, 819 ; they enquire
into the conduct in Spain, 820 ;
an act to encourage captors of
prizes, ib. ; the Lords enquire
into the correspondence with
France, 822 ; their address,
823 ; the privy council in Scot
land taken away, ib. ; the par
liament support the queen upon
the Scotch invasion, 825 ; a new
parliament, 834; great partiality
in judging elections, ib. ; a Scotch
peer made a British peer cannot
vote for the sixteen, 835 ; an
act making treasons and the trial
of them the same in Scotland as
here, 836, 837, 838 ; an act of
grace, 839 ; the bank fund en
larged, 838, 839 ; a new session.
Supplies for the war, 846 ; Dr.
Sacheverel impeached, 848, 849,
850 ; debates in the Lords,
850, 851, 852; found guilty,
but gently punished, 852 ; the
parliament dissolved, 857 ; a
new parliament, 859 ; supplies
for the war, ib. ; the Lords en
quire into the conduct in Spain,
859, 860 ; censure the old
ministry for it, 860, 861 ; the
Commons expel a member for
frauds, 862; vote the persons
who invited over the Palatines
public enemies, 863 ; their re
peal of the Naturalization Act
rejected by the Lords, ib. ; an
act for qualifying members, ib. ;
another for importing French
wine, 864 ; a design against King
William's grants miscarries, 865 ;
the Commons vote thirty-five
millions to be unaccounted for,
ih. ; an act for fifty new churches,
866 ; and for a South Sea com
pany, 889 ; the Commons' ad
dress, ib. ; a new session, 874 ;
the Lords' address against leaving
Spain and the West Indies to the
House of Bourbon, 875 ; the
Commons' address, ib. ; the
Occasional Bill passed without
opposition, 876 ; Duke Hamil
ton's patent as Duke of Brandon
determined to give him no seat
in the House of Lords, 877; an
act of precedence to all the
House of Hanover, 877, 87'9 ;
the Lords address to treat in con
cert with our allies, 877; twelve
new peers, 878; addresses on the
peace, 879 ; an expedient to quiet
the Scots, 880 ; Mr. Walpole's
case and censure, ib. ; the Dnke
of Marlborough attacked, and
some hard votes against him, ib. ;
episcopacy tolerated in Scotland,
the Presbyterians to take the
abjuration there, 881,882; an
act restoring patronages there,
882 ; the Commons vote the
advisers of the Barrier Treaty
public enemies, 883 ; and that
England had been over-charged

nineteen -millions in the war,
884 ; they punish the printer of
the States Memorial, ib. ; the
Self-denying bill lost in the
House of Lords, ib. ; an enquiry
into the conferences at Gertruy-
denberg dropped, 889 ; protests
of the Lords expunged, 889, 890 ;
seven prorogations, 894 ; a new
session, 895 ; addresses on the
peace, ib. ; supplies, the Malt-tax
extended to Scotland, 897; mo
tion to dissolve the union, ib. ; bill
to render the treaty of commerce
with France effectual, 898 ;
thrown out by a small majority,
ib. ; an act for mortgaging part
of the Civil List to pay a debt on
it of 500,000/., 901 ; both houses
address to remove the Pretender
from Lorrain, 902
Parliament, Scotch, declare the pre
rogative in 1633, 11 ; pass an
Indemnity, 36 ; meet after the
Restoration, 77 ; grant 40,000/.
additional revenue for life to
King Charles, 78 ; the Act re
scinding all Acts of Parliament
since 1633, 80 ; an Act for keep
ing the 29th of May, 81 ; a new
Session. Episcopacy restored,
94 ; the oath of Supremacy, 95,
96 ; the Covenant abjured, ib. ;
the unheard of severity against
Lord Lorn, 98; a committee for
setting Fines, ib. ; the Incapaci
tating Act, 99 ; Rights of Patro
nage restored, 100; Presbyterian
Ministers turned out, 100, 101 ;
a character of them, 102, 103 ;
and of the new ones, 103 ; a new
session. Warristoun executed,
139; an act against Conventicles,
140; and regulating a national
Synod, ib. ; Customs left to the
King, ib. ; an act offering an
Army to march where the King
should command, ib. ; the Par
liament dissolved, ib. ; a new one,
195 ; an act for the Supremacy,
another for the Militia, 192;
severe acts against Conventicles,
196 ; a new Session, 224; an
other Session, 240; complaints
of Lauderdale, 240, 241; the
Parliament prorogued, 245 ; a
Convention of Estates give money,
279, 312; the Duke of York
goes to Scotland, 316, 338; an
Act against Popery, ib. ; some
accusations of perjury suppressed,
339 ; a new test, 340 ; the Pro
testant religion how defined, 341;
the Parliament dissolved, ib. ;
many turned out for refusing the
test, ib. ; a new Parliament in
King James the Second's reign,
407 ; grant all that is asked, 408 ;
they will not take off the penal
Laws, 433 ; are dissolved, ib. ; a
Convention meet after the Revo
lution, 537; Duke Hamilton
chosen President, they passa sen-

tence of forfeiture on King James,
ib. ; declaro King William and
Queeu Mary King and Queen of
Scotland, 538 ; in their claim of
rights insert the abolishing Epis
copacy, ib. ; a petition of griev
ances to he tendered with the
Crown, ib. ; the Convention
turned into a Parliament, 539 ;
some high demands, they are pro
rogued, 540 ; an Act taking away
the Supremacy and the right of
Patronages, 560 ; Presbytery es
tablished, Chimney-money grant
ed, an oath renouncing King
James, 561, 562; a reconciling
Session held by Duke Hamilton,
597 ; they empower the King to
protect the Episcopal Clergy, 597i
618 ; the Marquis of Tweedale
Commissioner, 617 ; they exa
mine into the affair of Glencoe,
ib. ; an Act for a new company
trading to the East and West
Indies, 618; the project of Da
rien, ib. ; it is voted a national
concern, 662 ; the Duke of
Queensbury Commissioner, ib. ;
many augry votes about Darien,
662, 709, 710, 711; a new
Parliament in 1703, 736 ; the
Duke of Queensbury Commis
sioner, ib. ; made Treason to
attempt an alteration in the
Church Government, ib ; debates
about the Succession, ib.. ; an Act
for a Commerce with France,
734, 737 ; they give no Supply,
737 ; the Settlement in 1641,
offered them to enact the Suc
cession, 761 ; the Marquis of
Tweedale Commissioner, ib. ; re
fuse the Succession till after an
Union with England, 762 ; their
Successor to be different, ib. ;
the Act for that purpose tacked
to a Money bill, 762 ; passed by
the Queen, 763 ; the Duke of
Argyle Commissioner, 766, 780;
an Act for a Treaty of Union,
ib. ; the Articles debated in Par
liament, 799, 800 ; and agreed
to, 801
Parma, Prince of, 208
Parma, Duke of, 693
Paterson, Bishop, 195, 196, 340,
433, 434, 560
Paterson, Projector of the expedi
tion to Darien, 618,621
Patrick, Bishop, his character, 130
and note ; he is made Bishop of
Ely, 568 ; his death, 817
Payne, Nevil, agent for King James,
545 ; is engaged in a plot, ib. ;
. resists a double torture in Scot
land, 561 ; his examination in
Parliament is dropped, 597
Pearson, Bishop, his death and cha
racter, 442 and note
Pemherton, 330 and note
Pembroke, Earl of, 506 ; his cha
racter, 641 and note ; first Ple
nipotentiary at Ryswick, ib. 678 ;

INDEX.
made Lord High Admiral, 706,
733 ; Lord Lieutenant of Ire
land, and President of the Coun
cil, 834 ; again made Lord High
Admiral, ib. ; resigns that post,
but refuses a pension, 846
Pen, 148, 416, 417, 441, 463, 564,
565
Pendergrass. his discovery of the
Assassination plot, 622, 623, 624
Pepys, 396
Percy, Lord. 60
Perkins, Sir William, knows of the
Assassination plot, 626 ; is in
that of an Invasion, ib. ; receives
absolution at Tyburn, 627
Penh, Lord, 278, 343 ; made Chan
cellor of Scotland, 378 ; cruel in
torturing, 378, 379, 380, 408 ;
turns Papist, 418 ; has a Chapel
for Mass, 432 ; is imprisoned, 510
Peterborough, Lord, 384, 391
Peterborough, Earl of (see Mon
mouth and Mordaunt), com
mands in Spain, 775, 776, 777,
790, 792, 794, 820; sent Am-
bassador to Vienna, 859 ; his
conduct in Spain approved by the
House of Lords, 860, 861
Peters, Hugh, 107 and note
Petre made a Lieutenant-Gencral,
285
Petre, Father, 429 and note; a
Privy Counsellor, 464, 465, 468
Pettecum, 854
Philip II. King of Spain, 208
Philip V. King of Spain (see An
jou), settled on that throne, 672 ;
marries the Duke of Savoy's
daughter, 682, 693, 694, 696 ;
goes over to Italy, 715 ; cam
paign there, ib. ; his campaign
against Portugal, 757 ; he quits
Madrid, 793; returns thither,
794; reduces Valencia and Arra
gon, 809 ; his son acknowledged
by the Cortes, 841 ; the French
troops leave him, 854 ; he pro
tests against the treaty at the
Hague, ib. ; loses the battle of
Almanara, 857, 858 ; renounces
his right of succession to the
crown of France, 892
Phipps, Sir Constantine, counsel for
Sacheverel, 848
Piedmont, campaigns there, 583,
£90, 616, 759, 774, 791, 796,
797
Pierce, Mrs., 498
Pierpoint, 27, 181
Pignatelli, Pope InnorentXII.,566,
628
Pilkington severely fined, 351
Pique, his character, 368
Plague of London, 148
Plot, the Popish, 281 to 290 ; re
flections on it, 299
Plot, Montgomery's, 545, 546, 561
Plot, Assassination, 556, 557, 580,
613, 622 to 627
Plot, Protestant, 332
Plunket, an Irish Bishop, tried and
executed, 331 and note

94.1
Plymouth, garrison declare for the
Prince of Orange, 603
Plymouth, Earl of, 683
Pointy, French Admiral, 771
Poland. See Augustus, Sobieski,
Stanislaus
Polignac, Abb6, 855
Pollexfen, 306 and note ; Counsel
for the City Charter, 349»350
Pomponc, 204, 261
Pontchartrain, 672
Pool, Mat., 206, 207 •
Pope Innocent, his character, 448,
449 ; his disputes with France,
449 ; succeeded by Alexander
VIII. an enemy to France, 566 ;
succeeded by Innocent XII., ib.
628; and he by Clement XL,
'672 ; who is in the French inte
rest, ib. 679, 682, 692, 696, 712,
760 ; threatens the Emperor and
arms, 831 ; is forced to submit,
832 ; and own King Charles of
Spain, 844
Popoli, Duke de, 776
Porter, Chancellor of Ireland, 41 9,
619
Porter, in the Assassination Plot,
622, 624 ; many tried and con
victed on his evidence, 625, 626,
627 ; he discovers practices on
him, 632
Portland, Earl of (see Bentinck),
made Groom of the Stole, 527,
and note 545 ; the Assassination
Plot discovered to him, 622,637 ;
his private negotiation with Bouf
flers, 642; Ambassador in France,
656 ; resigns his place of Groom
of the Stole, 657, 662 ; nego
tiates the Partition Treaties, 677,
679 ; is impeached, but not pro
secuted, 680, 685, 688, 700,701,
703
Portocarrero, Cardinal, 672
Portsmouth, Duchess of, 224, 252,
261; for the exclusion, 289;
why, 322, 349, 362, 384 ; anew
scheme concerted at her lodgings,
390, 391 ; attends the King in
his last illuess, 392 ; her account
of his death, 394 and note
Portugal, Peter King of, enters into
the French Alliance, 694 ; is
neutral in the war, 712 ; enters
into the Grand Alliance, his treaty
with England, 730, 731 ; cam
paigns on his frontier, 757, 777,
791 ; his death, 889
Portugal, John V., King of, firm to
his father's treaties, ib. ; marries
the emperor's sister, 811; great
riches from America, 839, 897 ;
campaigns on his frontier, 827,
842, 85d ; agrees to the treaty
at Utrecht, 896
Powel, Judge, his opinion in the
trial of the seven Bishops, 470 ;
and in the affair of Aylesbury, 743
Powis, Lord, 285, 296
Powis, Countess of, 315, 477
Powis made Solicitor-General and
Attorney-General, 437, 4G9

944

INDEX.

Powle, 260, 281
Powlet, Earl of, 856, 892
Prance discovers Godfrey's murder,
295, 296
Presbyterians, English, against King
Charles's murder, 28 ; an Union
with them proposed at the Resto
ration, 121 , 207 ; and a compre
hension at the Revolution, 542,
543; does not succeed, 543, 544 ;
divisions among them, 669
Presbyterians, Scotch, discontented,
79, 81, 95; refuse the oath of
Supremacy, 96 ; silenced. 100 ;
their character, 102 ; their disci
pline, ib. ; an accommodation
with them treated, 1 85, 1 86,
188; rejected by them, 197;
Conferences thereon, 197, 198;
the fury of the Cargillites and
Cameronians, 337, 338 ; the
Presbyterians insolent to the epis
copal clergy, 510; their fury at
the Revolution, 541, 542, 561 ;
alienated from King William,
575 ; reconciled to him, 597 ; are
provoked again, 598 ; methods
taken in 1712 to incense them,
881, 882
Presbytery new-modelled in Scot
land, 20; their leaders, 20, 21 ;
their general assembly oppose the
Parliament, 26 ; they raise the
Whiggamore insurrection, ib. ;
Divisions among them, 36, 40,
41; Presbyteries prohibited, 93:
Presbytery established in Scot
land, 538, 561, 736 ; made un
alterable at the Union, 800
Preston, Dr., 10 and noto
Preston, Lord, 201, 409; made
Secretary of State, 497 ; seized
going over to France, 564 ; tried,
condemned and pardoned, 565
Pretender, the, owned by France,
696 ; by the Pope, Savoy and
Spain, ib. ; is attainted, 698 ; an
oath abjuring him, 698, 700; a
plot in Scotland for him, 748,
749, 750 ; his expedition from
Dunkirk thither, 824, 825 ; his
campaign in Flanders, 826; called
first the Pretender in the Queen's
speech, ib. ; his Sister's death
and character, 886 ; he removes
to Bar-le-duc, 902 ; Addresses
to remove him thence, ib.
Primrose, 11, 15, 75; Clerk-Re
gister, 75, 77 ; Draws the Prero
gative Acts, 79 ; and the rescis
sory Act, 80, 82, 275, 276
Princess-Royal, her death, 116 and
note
Princess Anne. See Denmark.
Prince George. See Denmark.
Prior, Matthew, 872 and note
Protestant religion, its first crisis,
208 ; second crisis, ib. ; third
crisis, ib. 210 ; fourth crisis, 21 4 ;
fifth crisis, 420
Prussia, King of, (see Branuln-
eurgh), 711, 712 ; judged Piince
of Neufchatel, 813; France own

his regal title, 841; his death
and character, 895
Puritans, 9
Pyrenees, treaty of the, how ob
served by France, 841, 842

Q.
Quakers* behaviour on prosecutions,
184; divisions among them, 670
Queen Anne, (6ee Denmark), pro
claimed, 704 ; her speech to the
Council, ib ; and to Parliament,
ib. ; pursues King William'B alli
ances, ib.; her Ministry, 705,706;
the Princess Sophia prayed for,
705, 707 ; proclaims war with
France, 707 ; false reports of de
signs to set her aside, 699, 707 ;
takes the Scotch coronation oath,
709 ; her arms successful, 718 ;
creates five new Peers, 726 ; her
reception ofKingCharlesof Spain,
732 ; a Plot against her disco
vered, 737 ; she revives the Or
der of the Thistle, 733 and note ;
Jealousies of her Ministry, 740 ;
she grants the First Fruits and
Tenths to the poor Clergy, 744,
745 and note, 746 ; Maclean's
discoveries of the Plot, 746, 747,
748, 749 ; she passes the Scotch
act for a different successor than
that of England, 763 ; her rea
sons, ib. ; comes to bear the De
bates in the House of Lords, 766;
chaDgcs the Scotch Ministry, 779;
public credit high, 787 ; assists
Savoy, 791 ; appoints Commis
sioners to treat of an Union with
Scotland, 805 ; her private favour
to Harley, 816 ; some promo
tions in the Church, 816, 817,
819, 820 ; turns Harley out un
willingly, 822 ; calls the Pre
tended Prince of Wales the Prc-r
tender, 826 ; her tender care of
Prince George, 833 ; she takes
in more Whigs, 834 ; appoints
Plenipotentiaries to treat of peace,
841, 842, 843; Books wrote
against her title, 847 ; secretly
favours Dr. Sacheverel, 850,851 ;
her speech at the end of that Ses
sion, 852 ; negotiations for peace,
854, 855 ; changes her Ministry,
856 ; dissolves the Parliament,
ib.; her speech, 859, 861 ;
sends Earl Rivers to Hanover,
873 ; her speech, 874 ; creates
Duke Hamilton Duke of Bran
don, 876 ; turns out the Duke of
Marlborough, 878 ; makes twelve
new Peers, ib. ; her message to
the Lords to adjourn, disputed,
but obeyed, ib. ; her message
about the peace, 879 ; orders the
Duke of Marlborough to be sued
for money received by her war
rant, 881 ; does not confirm the
Convocation's censure of Whis-
ton, 887 ; orders the Duke of

Ormond not to act offensively,
889 ; lays the plan of peace be
fore both houses, 890 ; Dunkirk
put into her hand to be demo
lished, 891 ; is possessed in a
precarious manner, 894 ; she rati
fies the treaties of Peace and
Commerce, 8S6 ; her answer to
the Commons' address, 898 ; a
Debt of 500.000/. on the Civil
List paid off, 901 ; her speech,
802 ; reflections upon it, 903
Queen Catherine of Charles II.,
177, 759
Queen (Christina) of Sweden, her
character of Popes, 449, 642
Queen Elizabeth, 8, 210
Queen Mary, wife of King James II.
went to Bath, 476 ; the myste
rious management of her sup
posed child-birth, 476, 477, 478 ;
went to France, 504 ; engaged
King James to follow her, 509 ;
her correspondence in England,
564 ; her bold repartee to the
King of France, 644 ; is attainted
by bill, 698
Queen Mary II. joint Sovereign
with King William III. (see
Orange), 525 ; made so of Scot
land, 538; the administration in
her during the King's absence,
549 ; her tenderness for King
James, 552 ; her government,
552, 553; her Council, 553; a
misunderstanding with the Prin
cess of Denmark, 578 ; her care
of the morals of the people, 584;
her management of church affairs,
595, 596 ; her illness, 606 ; her
death and character, 606, 607 ;
a reconciling message passed be
tween her and her sister, 613
Queen Mother of France, 18 and
note, 169
Queen of Poland's intrigues, 385,
640
Queen of Scots, 209
Queensbury, Earl of, 377 ; made a
Marquis and Duke, 407 ; his
scheme, ib. ; gets the better of
the Earl of Perth, 418 ; is dis
graced and in danger, ib. 432,
433; his death and character.613
Queensbuiy, Duke of, his son, has
the Garter, 6H4, 710, 737; he
discovers a plot, 7o6, 737, 738
aud note, 746 ; is dismissed, but
screened by an artifice, 761,763 ;
again employed, 780 ; fearful of
the Union, 801 ; made Duke of
Dover, 835, 876 ; is Secretary of
State, 835
Quota, settled between England
and Holland, 567

Radnor, Earl of, 384
Ragotzt, Prince, 729, 759, 807
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 8
RamUlies, battle of, 794, 795.

Ranelagh, Earl of, 180, 265, 724
and note, 742
Rapparees plunder Ireland, 560, and
note, 562
Ratcliff, 285
RatclifF, Dr., 606 and note
Reading, tries to disci-edit the evi
dences of the Popish Plot, 298
Rebellion, in the Wost of Scotland,
1 58 ; and at Bothwell Bridgo, 3 1 3
Reformation of manners, societies
for it, 709
Regicides, 105
Reinschild, 778
Reynolds, made Bishop of Norwich,
126
Retz, Cardinal de, 48, 133
Rheims, Archbishop of, his charac
ter, 367, 390
Rich, Sheriff, 348
Richelieu, Cardinal, 29
Richmond, Duke of, 97, 99, 169,
203
Ritondella taken by tho Duke of
Ormond, 718
Rivers, Earl of, sent to Spain, 796;
Ambassador to Hanover, 874 ;
made Master of the Ordnance,
881
Roberts, Mrs., one of King Charles's
mistresses, 178, 333
Robinson, Dr., Envoy in Sweden,
844, and note ; character of the
King, 845 ; made Bishop of Bris
tol, Privy Seal, and Plenipo
tentiary to Utrecht, 872 ; declares
the Queen disengaged from her
Alliances, 889 ; made Bishop of
London, 902
Rochelle, the siege of, 29
Rochester, Laurence Hyde, Earl of,
his character, 178, and note ; in
the Treasury, 302, 317, 320,
341 ; charged with bribery, 348,
349 ; is President of the Council,
384 ; and Lieutenant of Ireland,
389 ; made Lord Treasurer, 400 ;
and one of the Ecclesiastical Com
mission, 432 ; his conference
about religion, 435 ; loses the
white staff, 436; for a Prince
Regent, 513 ; reconciled to the
King and Queen by Dr. Burnet's
means, 593; opposes the Court,
600, 608, 625 ; made Lieutenant
of Ireland, 673, 674; loses ground
¦with the King, 689, 695 ; goes
over to Ireland, his conduct there,
ib. ; continued in that post by
Queen Anne, 706, 711 ; resigns
it, 723, 738, 741 ; proposes bring
ing over the Princess Sophia,
768 ; opposes the Regency Bill,
784; and the Union, 802, 819,
839 ; is made President of the
Council, 856
Rochester, Wilmot, Earl of, his
charaoter, 179 and note
Rodolph, Emperor, 5
Rohan, Duke de, 29
Rook, Sir George, his success at La
Hogue, 579 ; convoys the Smyrna
fleet, and escapes with ome of

INDEX.
them, 592, 593 ; commands a
squadron at Cadiz, 621 ; com
mands anothor sent to tho Baltic,
667 ; commands » squadron to
Cadiz, 716 ; takes and destroys
tho galleons at Vigo, 717, 718 ;
his conduct approved by Par
liament, 723, 734, 756; takes
Gibraltar, 757 ; fights tho Count
de Toulouse, 758
Rookwood executed for tho Assassi
nation-plot, 627
Roos, Lord, his divorce, 177, 600
Rosewell, his trial, 387
Ross, Dr. , Archbishop of Glasgow,
191, 382, 433
Rothes, Earl of, opposes the Pre
rogative Act, 11, 12, 13; is
gained by King Charles, 17 ; his
character, 71, and note ; Presi
dent of the Council in Scotland,
75, 81 ; dissolves the Synod at
Fife, 81, 82 ; is King's Commis
sioner, 139, 143 ; his conduct,
ib. ; severe to the prisoners, 159 ;
made Lord Chancellor, 163, 195,
275, 276
Rothes, Earl of, instrumental to the
Union, 800
Roucy, Marquis de, 49
Rouille, President, sent to negotiate
at the Hague, 840
Rouvigny, 243, 261, 281, 367, 396,
401, 420
Rouvigny, his son, made Earl of
Galway, 572. See Galway.
Rowse, his execution, 364
Roxburgh, Earl of, for the Union,
800 ; made a Duke, 805 ; opposes
_the Duke of Queensbury, 836
Royal Society, 1 32, 788, 789
Rumbold, 356, 374, 406
Rumney, Earl of (see Sydney),
528 ; is sent Lord Lieutenant to
Ireland, 596; is recalled, ib., 663
Rumsev, 352, 355, 356, 357, 358,
359," 361, 364, 371, 374,375,
417
Rupert, Prince, saves the English
fleet, 154, 233
Russel, Lord, his character, 259
and note ; moves the Exclusion,
319, 325, 335; meets the Duke
of Monmouth at Shephard's, 352,
324 ; imprisoned, 358 ; his beha
viour, 359 ; examined by a Com
mittee of Council, 360, 361 ; his
trial and condemnation, 362 ; his
preparation for death, 363 ; his
execution and dying speech, 364,
365 and note
Russell, Admiral, meets at Lord
Shrewsbury's, 452 ; goes to the
Hague, 474 ; his character, 485,
and note, 486, 495, 499 ; com
mands the fleet, 555 ; obtains a
great victory at La Hogue, 570,
578 ; is turned out, 585 ; again
at the head of tho fleet, 598 ;
sent into the Mediterranean, 602 ;
winters at Cadiz, ib. ; returns to
the Mediterranean, 616, 621 ;
disappoints the invasion in 1696,

04.5
is made Earl of Orford, 639.
See OnronD
Russell, Mr., Lord Russell's brother,
501
Rutherford, 21
Ryswick, treaty of, 641, 642, 643

S.
Sacheverell, Dr., his two famous
sermons, 846, 847 and note ; ho
is impeached for them, and grows
popular upon it, 848, 849 ; tried
in Westminster Hall, ib. ; his
defence, ib. ; his trial occasions
riots, ib. ; he is condemned by the
Lords, hut gently punished, 851;
his progress into Wales, 856
Saint Amour, his character, 368
St. Germain, 263
St. John, 44
St. John, 817; Secretary of war,
lays down with Harley, 822 ; made
Secretary of State, 856 and note,
875 ; and Viscount Bolingbroke,
892. See Bolingbhoke
St. Mary's plundered by the Eng
lish, 716
St. Ruth, Mareschal, commands for
King James in Ireland, 571; is
killed at the battle of Aghrem, ib.
Sancroft, Dr., 125; made Arch
bishop of Canterbury, 262 ; at
tends King Charles II. on his
death-bed, 392 ; is one of the Ec
clesiastical Commission, 431,443-
joins in the petition of the seven
Bishops,. 467 ; met with the Privy
Counsellors thatinvi ted thcPrinco
of Orange, 505, ,509 ; absents
from the Convention, 513 ; and
from Parliament, 528 ; his con
duct, 529 ; his death and charac
ter, 605
Sanders, 349 ; Chief Justice, 351
and note ; his judgment of the
City Charter, 637
Sands, 183
Sardinia taken by the English fleet,
831
Sarsfield cuts off a convoy to King
William, 558 ; memorable saying
of his in honour of the King, 572
Savil, Lord, his forgery, 16 and
note
Savoy, Duke of, in the alliance
against France, 562, 583 ; in a
secret treaty with France, 601,
616, 628 ; reasons that induced
him, ib., 733 ; joins to drive the
Germans out of Italy, 629, 642;
a scheme for giving him the Span
ish succession, 656 ; marries a
daughter to the Duke of Bur
gundy, 629 ; another to King
Philip of Spain, 693, 696, 715;
comes into the alliance against
France, 732, 733 ; his danger and
distress, 733, 754, 757; loses
almost all his country, 754, 759;
theQuccnassistshim, 791; he with
Prince Eugene raises tho siege of
p p

946 Turin, 797 ; besieges Toulon, 810,
raises the siege, 827 ; recovers all
Savoy, 827-; takeB Exiles and
Fenestrella, 832, 842, 870 ;
agrees to the treaty of Utrecht,
895
Savoy conference, 122, 123
Sawyer, Attorney General, 349 and
note
Saxe-Gotha, Duke of, 694, 711
Saxony, Duke of, 5
Saxony, Elector of, chosen King of
Poland, 98, 582. See Augustus
Scarborough, Dr., 476
Schomberg, Count, his discourse
with King Charles II., 117 ; sent
to command the English, 228
and note; weary of that post, 233 ;
made a Mareschal of France,
270, 368 ; quits the French and
Portuguese service, 491 ; is in
that of Prussia, 493, 498, 499 ;
made a Duke in England with a
present of 100,000/. from Par
liament, 536 ; goes to Ireland,ib. ;
iskilled in the battle of the Boyne,
554, 842
Schomberg, Duke, his son, com
mands in Savoy, 574 ; and in
Portugal, 757
Scio, island of, taken by the Vene
tians, but abandoned, 603
Scot, Dr., 307
Scotland, its state under Cromwell,
40; a rebellion designed there,
225 ; a rising in favour of King
James II., 538, 539, 540 ; ano
ther defeated by Levingston, 560 ;
changes in the Ministry there,
567, 597 ; the project of Darien,
620, 630, 652 ; miscarrying,
raises great discontents, 662 ; a
Plot there in favour of the pre
tended Prince of Wales, 736,
737, 746, 747 ; the Union how
treated there, 791, 792, 798,
799, 801 ; the Customs there
mismanaged, 803 ; a Privy Coun
cil kept up, 805, 815, 823; taken
away by Parliament, ib. ; an in
vasion from France miscarries, ib.,
824, 825 ; the Scotch members
are divided, 835; treason and
trials of it made the same there
as in England, 836, 837; the
Scotch Peers retire from the
House of Lords, 881 ; but are
prevailed with to return, ib. ;
move to dissolve the Union, 897
Scots, the, en ter England, 15 ; treat
with King Charles II., 33 ; settle
at Darien, and pursue it at a vast
expense, 651, 652; driven from
it by the Spaniards, 6G2
Scougal, Bishop of Aberdeen, his
character, 147
Scroggs, Chief Justice, 297 and note,
311, 320, 330
Seafield, Earl of, 738, 800
Seaton, Lord Balmerinoch, 3
Sea, squadrons at, 537. 541, 553,
554, 555, 570, 638, 639, 716,
717, 718, 734, 735, 750, 757,

INDEX.
758, 777, 794, 809, 810, 815,
817, 833, 846, 871
Sedley, Sir Charles, 179, 180 and
note
Sedley, Catherine, Mistress to James
II., 114, 435 and note
Seymour, 169, 244 ; his character,
255 and note; the King refuses
him for Speaker, 301 and note ;
is impeached, 320, 327, 409;
joins the Prince of Orange and
proposes an association, 502 ; is
Governor of Exeter, ib. ; comes
into the Ministry, 575 ; opposes
the Court, 589, 624, 676, 725 ;
mado Comptroller by Queen
Anne, 706 ; is dismissed, 752
Seymour, is made a Peer, 726
Seignelay, 535, 580
Semple, 158
Serjeant, 133, 310
Shaftesbury, Earl of, his character,
64 and note, 180, 203; advises
the shutting up the Exchequer,
204, 205*; made Lord Chan
cellor, 206, 229 ; opposes the
King's declaration, 230, 233,
239 ; for resistance, 241 and note,
256, 257, 258,262,267; sent
to the Tower, 268 ; discharged
upon submission, 286, 287, 290,
302, 303 ; made President of the
Council, against the Bishops'
votes in cases of treason, 306;
for tho Exclusion, 311,316, 320,
326 ; sent to the Tower, 333 ;
acquitted by the Grand Jury,
335, 337 ; leaves England, 348,
352, 355
Sharp, sent as agent by the reso
lutioners, 42 and note ; betrays
their interest, 60, 74, 79, 81, 87;
mado Archbishop of St. Andrews,
89; nominates all the Bishops
except Leightoun, ib., 91, 92;
by proclamation hinders the meet
ing of Presbyteries, 93, 101 ; his
behaviour to Lauderdale, 138 ;
his violence, 141, 142, 143 ;
accuses Lauderdale, 144 ; re
tracts it, ib. ; for excommuni
cating Burnet, 147; severe to
the prisoners, 159, 160; turned
out from being President of the
Convention, 161 ; returns to
Council, 163, 165, 166; an at
tempt to murder him, 187, 192,
195, 200, 225 ; he discovers who
it was, 274 ; is afterwards mur
dered, 312, 313 and note
Sharp, Dr. John, 307; preaches
against Popery, 430; made Arch
bishop of York, 568 and note
Sheldon, Dr., 88, 91 ; Archbishop
of Canterbury, 120 and noto ; at
the Savoy conference, 122, 12-5 ;
the strictness of the act of uni
formity imputed to him, 126,
1 31, 142 ; for the five mile act,
152, 164, 166, 170, 206 ; his
death, 262
Shening, General, 583
Shepherd, 352, 373

Shercdon, 321
Sheriffs of London, disputes about
their election, 318, 347
Sherlock, Dr., 307, 430 ; leaves
the Jacobites, and made Dean of
St. Paul's, 565, 649
Short, Dr., poisoned for talking of
King Charles's death, 393
Shovel, made commissioner of the
Admiralty, 585 ; is sent to the
Mediterranean, 735, 741, 756,
758 ; besieges Toulon by sea,
809 and note ; cast away upon
the rocks of Scilly, 815
Shrewsbury, Earl of, meetings at
his house in favour of the Prince
of Orange, 452 j his character,
484 ; goes over to Holland, 487,
495, 502, 504, 507, 518 ; is
made secretary of state, 525,
533; resigns, 551, 585; again
made secretary, 599 and note ;
practices against him, 636, 637 ;
made lord chamberlain to Queen
Anne, 852 ; sent ambassador to
France, 890
Sibbald, Sir Robert, 433 ; and
note
Sicily, an earthquake there, 583
Sidney, Mr., in high favour with
the Prince of Orange, 480 ; his
character, 485, 495 ; secretary
of state, lieutenant of Ireland,
and master of the ordnance, 528 ;
made Lord Sidney, and after
wards Earl of Rumney, ib. See
Rumney.
Sidserfe, Bishop of Galloway, trans
lated to Orkney, 89
Simpson, a spy, 545 ; in a plot, ib.
Skelton, envoy at the Hague, 401,
410 ; and at Paris, 450 ; is sent
to tho Tower, 488
Smith, Sir Jeremy, seizes Spanish
money in a Dutch ship, 47
Smith, a priest, 298, 324, 332
Smith, Aaron, sent to Scotland,
354, 360
Smith, a spy, his letters, 636, 637
Smith, Mr., his character, is chosen
speaker, 781
Smyrna fleet attacked by the French,
592, 593
Sobieski, King of Poland, raises the
siege of Vienna, 385 ; heats the
Turks, 603 ; his death, 639
Sobieski, his son, seized by a party
at Breslaw, 734
Socinianism, its great progress, 048,
649, 650
Soissons, Madame de, 202
Solmes, Count, 507, 582, 591
Somers, Mr., answers King Charles's
declaration, 329, 335 ; solicitor-
general, 548 ; made attorney.
general, and soon after lord-
keeper, 587 ; his expedient
against clipping, 612 ; his ac
count of Charnoek, ib. ; his ad
ministration applauded, 652 ;
attacked iu tho House of Com
mons on Kid's affair, and cleared
by a great majority, 663, 664 ;

is dismissed, and his character,
666 ; designs against him, 679,
680 ; is heard at the bar of the
House of Commons, 680 ; is
impeached, 681, 685, 686; and
acquitted by the House of Lords,
688, 750 ; his act for the amend
ment of tho law, 787, 788 ; a
principal manager in tho union,
799, 802, 819 ; made president
of the council, 834 ; is dis
missed, 856
Somerset, Earl of, 4, 8
Somerset, Duke of, 31
Somerset, Duke of, 708, 732, 750,
817, 821, 857
Somerset, Duchess of, groom of
the stole, 862
Sophia, Princess. See Hanover
South, Dr., -writes against Sherlock,
650
Southampton, Earl of, his account
of Eikon Basilike, 31 ; angry at
calling home the king without
conditions, 59 ; his character,
63 and note ; against a standing
army, 105; visits not the king's
mistresses, 121 ; moderate in
church matters, 121, 152 ; his
death, 168 and note
Southesk, Earl of, jealous of the
Duke of York, 154
South Sea Company erected, 869
Southwell, Sir Robert, his autho
rity quoted, 112, 556
Spanheim, Baron, his character,
369 ; his account of the French
councils on the King of Spain's
death, 672
Spanish Armada, how diverted for
a year, 210
Spanish Netherlands. See Nether
lands
Spain. See Charles II., Charles
III., Philip V.
Spence put to the torture, 378
Spotswood, his History censured, 2,
12, 15
Spragge, 205
Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, 131,
691, 692; his death, 902 and
note
Squadroni carry the union in Scot
land, 800, 803
Stafford, Lord, 295, 298 ; his trial,
323 ; condemned, 325 ; he sends
for Dr. Burnet, 326 and note ;
his execution, 326, 337
Stair, Earl of, a great manager for
the union, 798, 800, 801
Staley, his trial, 287
Stanhope, Envoy in Holland, 677
Stanhope, General , his son, at the
siege of Barcelona, 776; procures
relief to Spain, 790, 820;
manager at Dr. Sachevereil's
trial, 848 ; gains the battle of Al-
manara, 857 ; taken at Brihuega,
858, 859, 902
Stanislaus, chosen in the room of
Augustus, King of Poland, and
crowned, 760, 778 ; Augustus
reiigns in his favour, 808 ; but

INDEX.
obliges him to quit the kingdom,
844
Staremberg, Count, his march in
Italy, 733 ; joins the Duko of
Savoy, ib. ; commands in Spain,
820, 844 j defeats King Philip,
858 ; delays relieving Stanhope,
858, 869 ; routs tho Duke of
Vendome, 869
States Goneral. See Dutch
Sterne, Archbishop of York, 382
and note
Steonbock, a Swedish general, 393,
895
Steenkirk, battle of, 581
Steward, Dr., his notion about the
sacrament, 115
Steward, sent to Queen Elizaboth,
209
Steward, a lawyer, his letters to
Fagel, 463
Steward, Sir James, 836
Stillingfleet, Dr., 128 and note,
129, 206, 308, 430, 606
Stoupe, Brigadier, 42, 48, 49, 50,
51, 223, 422, 423
Strafford, Earl of, 16 ; given up
by the king, 19 ; his death raised
bis character, 30, 634
Strafford, Earl of, sent ambassador
to Holland, 874, 889, 893 ; has
the garter, 892, 893
Stralsund, the siege of, 872
Strickland, Admiral, 480
Stuart, Mrs., marries the Duke of
Richmond, 139 and note
Sunderland, Earl of, plenipoten
tiary at Cologne, 234, 235 * ;
ambassador in France, 280 ; se
cretary of state, 302 ; at first
opposes the exclusion, 303, 317 ;
in confidence with the Prince of
Orange, ib. ; declares for the
exclusion, 319 ; and against a
Prince Regent, 327 ; is again
secretary of state, 348, 389,390,
400 ; made president of the
council, 419; advises moderate
measures, 480 ; turns papist, ib. ;
advises the rejecting a French
army, 487 ; is turned out, 497 ;
in high credit with King William,
588, 599, 619; for a council of
trade named by parliament, 621 ;
and for a land bank, 625 ; for a
large standing force, 646 ; retires
from business, 745
Sunderland, Earl of, his son, for
tho union. 802
Sunderland, Countess of, 477, 498
Sweden, King of, 53; his death,
641, 642, and note
Sweden, King of, his son, mediator
at Ryswick, 642 ; his coronation,
655; a formidable alliance against
him, 660 ; the English fleet pro.
tects him, and forces Denmark
to » peace, 667, 668 ; he over
comes the Kings of Denmark and
Poland, and tho Czar, in one
campaign, 675 ; his war in
Poland, beats King Augustus,
and takes Cracow, 716, 734 ;

947
procures Stanislaus to be chosen
King of 'Poland, 760 ; drives
Augustus into Saxony, 760,761;
his successes in Poland, 778 ;
marches into Saxony, 798 ; forces
Augustus to resign his crown,
807 ; his character, 808 ; makes
the emperor restore tho churches
in Silesia, 813, 814 ; is defeated
at Pultowa, and'flies to Turkey,
844 ; his character by Bishop
Robinson, 844 and note ; his
troop3 beat the Danes, 846 ; a
plague in Sweden, 859 ; he pro
cures a war between the Turk
and Czar, 866 ; tries to break
tho peace made between them,
872, 893 ; defends himself at
Bender against an army, 895 ;
is at last forced to surrender, ib.
Swinton, 73, 85
Swiss Cantons, 813

T.
Taff, an evidence in trials of trea
son, 609
Talbot, Sir Gilbert, envoy in Den
mark, 150
Talbot, Richard, 120; opposes the
Duke of Ormond, 180 ; is made
Earl of Tirconnoll, 419. See
Tirconnell
Talbot, Dr. Bishop of Oxford,
802 ; speaks against Sacheverell,
851, and note
Talmash, General, 571, 572; killed
at Camaret, 602
Tallard, Mareschal, 712, 730, 754 ;
taken at Blenheim, 754
Tarbot, Lord Middleton's favourite,
97, 99, 100; is made Earl of
Cromarty, 733. See Cromarty
Tasborough, 299
Tekely, Count, 366
Temple, Sir William, 171 ; ambas
sador to Holland, 171 and note ;
his character, 251 and note;
plenipotentiaryat Nimeguen ,280,
511 ; proposes treating with Tir
connel, 512
Tennison, Dr., his character, 130,
307, 396, 414, 430; made
Archbishop of Canterbury, 606,
607
Terras, Earl of, 379
Terwhit, Sir Philip, 263
Tesse, Mareschal, 424, 758, 793,
807
Thomas, Bishop of Worcester, 528 ;
deprived, 568
Throgmorton and his Lady turn
papists, 263
Thurlo, 43, 51,52
Tiddiman beat by the Dutch at
Berghen, 151
Tillotson, Dr., 52 ; his character,
128 and note, 155, 207, 305,
364, 430 ; made Archbishop of
Canterbury, 568 ; his death and
character, 605, 649
Tirconnell, Earl of, made lieutenant

948 of Ireland, 434, 507, 510, 511,
534, 556, 560
Tirol, the Boors there repel the
Duke of Vendome, 729
Titus, Colonel, 4, 27
Toland, 690
Tonge, Dr., his account of the
Popish Plot, 281 and note, 284;
his death, 337
Torcy, Marquis de, 840, 841, 854,
855
Tories taken in bv King William,
547, 666, 673"; and by Queen
Anne, 706, 707, 856
Torrington, Earl of (see Herbert),
is first commissioner of the Ad
miralty, 528 ; fights the French
at Bantry Bay, 537, 553 ; and
near Beachy, 555 ; sent to the
Tower, ib. ; tried by a court
martial, and acquitted, 563, 564
Toulon, design on it, 807 ; miscar
ries, 809, 810, 860
Toulouse, Count de, engages Rook,
757
Tourville, a French Admiral, 579,
593
Townsend, Lord, 802 ; plenipoten
tiary at the Hague, his character,
841 ; recalled, 873 ; censured
by the House of Commons for
the Barrier Treaty, 883, 885
Traquair, Earl of, 13, 14, 15
Treaty, of Barrier with the Dutch,
the first, 882, 883 ; the second,
893, 894; of Commerce with
France, 896, 897, 893 ; of Com
prehension, 175, 185, 542, 543,
544 ; of union with Scotland,
792, 798, 879, 804,805 ; of Par
tition, the first, 626,660, 661,
668, 676, 677, 678, 679, 681
Treaty at Carlowitz, 644 ; at Co
logne, 233, 234; at Nimeguen,
280 ; at Ryswick, 641, 642, 643 ;
at Utrecht, 874, 884, 885, 886,
894, 895
Treby argues for the City charter,
328, 349 and note, 350
Trelawny, General, 486
Trenchard, 358, 360 ; secretary of
state, 587
Treville, Count de, 203, 368
Trevor, Sir John, Master of the
Rolls, First Commissioner of the
Great Seal, and Speaker, 549 ;
is expelled the House of Com
mons, 611
Trevor, Chief Justice, 743 ; made
a peer, 878
Trial, of Ashton, 564 ; of Berry,
Green, and Hill, 296 ; of Char
noek, 625 ; of Friend, 626 ; of
Hone, 345 ; of the Jesuits, 294,
308; of Keys, 625, 626; of
King, ib. ; in Lancashire, 609,
610
Trial of Perkins, 626, 627; of
Lord Preston, 565
Trimnell, Dr., mado Bishop of Nor
wich, 802, 851
Trumball, Sir William, 483, 583,
637

INDEX.
Turbervil deposes against Lord
Stafford, 323, 325 ; discovers a
plot at Oxford, 332 ; his death,
337
Turenne, Mareschal, 221 ; his cha
racter of the Duke of York,
399
Turin, siege of, 796; raised, 797,
798
Turks, their wars, 603, 617, 629,
644 ; make peace with the em
peror, 644, 645, 660 ; and with
the czar, 846, 866, 871, 872
Turner, the Jesuit, 308
Turner, Sir James, 144, 158, 165,
166
Turner, made Bishop of Ely, 382,
383 and note, 403, 404 ; attends
the Duke of Monmouth at exe
cution, 413; absents from par
liament, 528 ; corresponds to St.
Germains, 564, 565 ; is deprived,
568
Turner, Sir William, 181
Turnham Green, a lane near, de
signed for the assassination, 623
Tweedale, Earl of, his character,
71 ; against Guthry's execution,
85; imprisoned, 86, 143, 163;
made an English privy counsel
lor, 165, 166,187,189,194,195,
316, 338 ; made a marquis and
chancellor, 575 ; and king's
commissioner, 617; is dismissed,
620 ; made queen's commis
sioner, 761 ; promotes the union,
800
Tyrawley, Lord, 860

U.
Ulm, 714, 754
Usher, Archbishop, proposes to
unite the Episcopal and Presby
terian churches, 93*
Uxelles,Marquisde, Plenipotentiary
at Gertruydenberg, 855

V.
Valentia declares for King Charles,
790 ; reduced, 809
Valiere, Mademoiselle, her intrigue,
202
Valiere, Duchess of, 368
Valiere, a spy, 822
Vanbeunrng, his character, 220
Vanderdussen, plenipotentiary at
Gertruydenberg, 355
Vandyke, the painter, 9
Van Ghent, Dutch Admiral, sent
to the Frith, 163
Van Hulst, 495
Vane, Sir Henry, 27, 107 ; his cha
racter and execution, 108 and
note
Vauban, a great engineer, 615
Vaudemont, Prince of, covers the
siege of Namur, 614, 692
Vaughan, Chief Justice, 152 ; his
character, 260

Velasco, 776
Vendome, Duke de, 638, 693,
715, 729, 733, 759, 774, 791,
795, 809, 829, 858, 869
Venetians, the, own King William,
602 ; their wars with the Turks,
603, 628 ; neutral in the French
war, 679, 692, 712
Venner, hia fury, 105, 106, and
note
Vernon, secretary of state, 678,
679
ATeterani, General, killed by the
Turks, 617
Vienna besieged by tho Turks,
367
Vigo, the expedition there, 717,
718
Villa Hermosa, 270
Villa Viciosa, battle of, 858
Villars, Mareschal, 715, 727, 728;
772, 759, 772, 795, 809, 812,
813, 842, 843, 853, 870, 891
Villeroi, Mareschal, 614, 615, 692,
693, 728, 754, 755, 794
Virginia, a college founded there,
596, 597

W.
Wade, 404
Wake, Dr., 430 ; made Bishop of
Lincoln, 767 ; his character, 851
Wakeman, his trial, 285, 810
Walcot, 356 ; his trial and execu
tion, 364
Waldeck, Prince of, his character,
219 ; loses tho battle of Fleurus,
554, 555 ; saves Brussels, 570
Walgrave, 478
Walker, 430
Wallace, 158
Waller, 259 and note
Walpole, 877
Walsh, his character, 134 and note
Walsingham, his instructions to
Wigmore, 2 ; gets intelligence of
the Spanish Armada's design,
208
Ward, Sir Peter, 351
Ward, Dr. Seth, 131, 132 and note
Waristoun, 15, 36, 73, 85; his
execution, 139
Warner, Bishop, Magna Charta in
his hands, 19
Warrington, Earl of, Chancellor of
the Exchequer, 527 and note
Warwick, Sir Philip, 63
Watson, Bishop of St. David's,
deprived for simony, 657, 658,
671
Webb, General, his success at Wy-
nandal, 829
Wentworth, Lady, 404, 414 and
note, 498
West, 355, 356, 357, 359, 364,
374
Weston, 321
Weymouth, Viscount, 506, 706
Wharton, Lord, 15, 267, 515, &c.
Lieutenant, of Ireland, 769; dis
missed, 857

Wharton, Sir Miles, refuses a peer-
ago, 877
Whichcot, Dr., 127 and noto
Whiggarnore inroad, 26
Whigs turned out, 458, 550 ; taken
in, 587 ; loso their credit, 647,
719: turned out, 666,673; taken
in 779, 834; turned out, 855, 855
Whiston,Mr., 867,868
Whitby, Dr., 430
White, Bishop of Peterborough,
absents from Parliament, 528;
deprived, 569 ; attends Sir John
Fenwick, 638
Whitebread, his trial, 294, 809
Whitford, Bishop, 14
Whitford, his son, 433
Whitlock, 23
Wicquefort, 249 and note
Widdrington, Lord, 266
Wildman, 43, 357, 402, 494, 495,
498, 517
Wilkins, Dr., 127 and note ; his
character, 42 ; Bishop of Chester,
171, 175, 177, 184
Wilkinson, 833
William in., Joint Sovereign with
Queen Mary, (see Orange), 525;
his favour to Bentinck and Syd
ney, 527 ; his first Ministry, 527,
528 ; his speech, 529, 531 ; grows
jealous of the Whigs, 532 ; pro
poses naming the Duchess of Han
over in the succession, 533 ; joint
Sovereign of Scotland, 538 ; his
Ministry there, 538, 539 ; the
Whigs jealous of him, 544, 545 ;
refuses his assent to the Corpo
ration Act, 547 ; takes in Tories,
548, 550 ; the administration in
the Queen in his absence, 549,
550 ; his discourse to Dr. Burnet,
551, 557 ; wounded by a cannon-
ball, 553 ; gains the battle of the
Boyne, 554, 555, 556 ; a design
to assassinate him, 556, 557,
558 ; besieges Limerick, and
forced to raise the siege, 559;
his equal temper, ib. ; goes to a
congress of Princes at the Hague,
565, 566 ; changes his ministry
in Scotland, 567 ; fills the vacant
sees, 568, 569 ; Ireland reduced,
572 ; he supports Savoy, 566,
574 ; fond of the Dutch, 575 ;
careless in signing papers, 577 ;
his breach with the Princess of
Denmark, 578 ; loses Namur,
and the battle of Steenkirk, 581,
584 ; refuses his assent to the
triennial Bill, 587 ; takes in

INDEX.
Whigs, 587, 598 ; grows unpopu
lar, 589, 590 ; loses the battle of
Lahden, 591 ; leaves church-
affairs to tho Queen, 595 ; founds
the William and Mary Collego
in Virginia, 596, 597, 601 ;
sends a fleet to protect Spain,
602; another to bombard the
French coast, 603 ; his grief for
Queen Mary's death, 607 ; a de
sign to assassinate him, 613 ; re
conciled to the Princess of Den
mark, ib. ; appoints Lords Jus
tices, ib. ; takes Namur, 615,
616; a conspiracy to assassinate
him and invade England, 622;
the conspirators seized, 623 ; the
invasion broke, ib. 628, 637, 638 ;
sends a squadron to the West
Indies, 639; concludes a peace
at Ryswick, 641, 642, 643, 645 ;
keeps 3000 men more than were
provided for by Parliament, 648 ;
silences disputes about the Trinity,
650 ; is opposed with bitterness,
653, 654 ; the army reduced to
7000, how modelled, 655 ; his
partition treaty, 656, 660, 661 ;
loses the people's affections, 665,
669 ; takes in Tories, 665, 666,
673 ; makes a peace between
Denmark and Sweden, 667 ; his
conduct on the King of Spain's
death, 673, 674, 675 ; it is very
mysterious, 676, 677, 681 ; owns
the Duke of Anjou King of Spain,
682 ; is reserved to his Minis
ters, 688, 689 ; recalls his Am
bassador in France, 697; his
noble and wise speech, ib. ; his
fall from a horse, 700 ; his sick
ness, 700, 701 ; his death, 701,
702 ; passes the Abjuration Act
in the last hours of his life, 702 •,
his character, 702, 703 ; attempts
against his grants, 865, 888, 889
Williams, Bishop, 30
Williams, Dr., 307, 430
Williams, Sir William, 384, 469
Williamson, Sir Joseph, Plenipo
tentiary at Cologne, 234 and note,
249
Williamson seized going over to
King James, 541
Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, 241
Willis, Sir Richard, gives Crom
well intelligence, 43 and note
Willis, Dr., 154
Windebank, Dr., 478
Winnington, 292, 301, 302, 319
Wirtemberg, Duke of, 794

949
Wishart, Bishop of Edinburgh, 94
and note
Wismar, Biego of, raised, 872
Withorley, Dr., 477
Withins, 321 and note
Wolfenbuttle, Duke of, 667, 694,
711 ; his daughter marries King
Charles of Spain, 811
Worcester, Marquis of, 320
Worthington, Dr., his character,
128 and note
Wratislaw, Count, 752
Wright, Chief Justice, 470
Wright, Sir Nathan, Lord Keeper,
666, 751 ; dismissed, 778
Wyche, Sir Cyril, one of the Lords
Justices in Ireland, 596
Wyld, Judge, 298
Wynne, 535

York, Duke of, 48, 49 ; marries
Clarendon's daughter, 113 ; why
he turned Papist, 114 and note;
commands the fleet, 148 ; his
amours, 153, 154, 182, 203,222,
231 ; lays down all his commis
sions, 233 ; addresses Lady Bel
lasis, ib. ; marries the Princess
of Modena, ib. ; the Commons
vote against that marriage, 239,
252, 292 ; sent beyond sea, 300
and note ; his exclusion endea
voured, 305, 306 and note ; ho
is sent for home, 271, 272;
goes to Scotland, 316 ; with leave
to come to England, 318; his
behaviour in Scotland, 337, 338,
339, 344 and note, 345; he
governs all affairs, English and
Scotch, 377, 378; attends the
King in his last illness, and intro
duces Huddleston to his apart
ment, 391, 392. See James II.
York, Hyde, Duchess of, 115, 207
York, Modena, Duchess of (see
Queen Mary), 244

Z.
Zabor, Count, sent to the King of
Sweden, 813
Zeiher, 760
Zell, Duke of, 566, 652, 660, 667
711
Zouch, 250
Zulestein, 185,479 506

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