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HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ENGLISH REVOLUTION 
 
 OF IfS88. 
 
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 in 2018 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https ://arc h i ve. o rg/detai I s/h i sto ryofe n g I i s h 01 yo n g 
 
HISTORY 
 
 fr 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ENGLISH REVOLUTION 
 
 OF 1688 
 
 By Charles Duke Yonge 
 
 REGIUS FROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY, QUEEN’S COLLEGE, BELFAST 
 AND AUTHOR OF “THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH NAVY;’' “THE HISTORY OF FRANCE 
 UNDER THE BOURBONS,” ETC. 
 
 Henry S. King & Co., 
 
 65 CORNHILL and 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 
 
 1874 
 

 
 * 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 [All rights reserved.) 
 

 PREFACE. 
 
 The following small volume owes its origin to a want which 
 the Author has himself felt while engaged in preparing lectures 
 on English History. The most important transaction in our 
 annals is, unquestionably, the Revolution which established on 
 its present foundation the Constitution under which English¬ 
 men have ever since lived. Of that great event Macaulay’s 
 brilliant narrative is too long for ordinary students; the account 
 given in even the best School History is unavoidably far too 
 short, while the work of Hallam touches only the constitutional 
 points, the purely historical events not coming within his plan. 
 
 It seemed, therefore, that a narrative which should at once 
 be full enough to give an adequate knowledge of the Revolution 
 in its Historical and Constitutional aspects, and yet not so 
 minute or prolix as to dishearten or deter the ordinary reader 
 from approaching the subject, might be of use to both pupils 
 and teachers. And the Author, having compiled this little 
 volume on these principles for his own use, offers it to the 
 public in the hope that those who are engaged like himself 
 may find it convenient. 
 
VI 
 
 Preface. 
 
 The arrangement of the topics treated of, having been 
 originally adopted for a course of lectures on the subject, 
 differs from that usually found in regular histories. The 
 Revolution of 1688 is treated as if it were but a continuance 
 and completion of the movements begun in the reign of 
 Charles I. And the relation of the events which established 
 William and Mary as sovereigns, first in England, next in 
 Scotland, and lastly in Ireland, is followed by an enumeration 
 of the legislative measures which were required to complete the 
 Revolution. This again is followed by a description of the 
 circumstances which for some years seemed to threaten a counter¬ 
 revolution ; though several of the events of this last-named 
 character were, in point of time, prior to some of the enact¬ 
 ments described before them. And the circumstances to which 
 many looked for a counter-revolution are divided into two 
 classes; one kind of danger arising from foreign war; another, 
 of a more formidable kind, being that of domestic treachery 
 and conspiracies within the kingdom. 
 
 The Revolution is regarded as not having been finally com¬ 
 pleted and secured till the peace of Ryswick, and the volume 
 ends with a brief contemplation of the consequences and fruits 
 of the Revolution, among which the closing events of William’s 
 reign necessarily find a place. 
 
 March , 1874. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGF 
 
 General result of the Reformation in foreign countries—Character 
 of the Reformation in England—Character of the earliest events 
 in the reign of Charles I.—Arbitrary government of Charles— 
 Violence of the Parliament—The King attempts to arrest the 
 five Members—Commencement and general results of the Civil 
 War—Violence and artifice of Cromwell—Death of the King— 
 Instability of the Revolution thus effected—Character of Crom¬ 
 well's government—Death of Cromwell and restoration of 
 Charles II.—Character of the reign of Charles II.—Disgrace of 
 Clarendon and power of the Cabal—The Popish Plot—The 
 Exclusion Bill—The Test Act—The Rye House Plot—Death of 
 Charles II.i 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Popularity of James II. on his Accession — Easy suppression of Mon¬ 
 mouth's rebellion—James begins to violate the law—James 
 becomes a pensioner of Louis XIV. — Composition of the Minis¬ 
 try—He seeks to procure the repeal of the Test Act and Habeas 
 Corpus Act—He brings up the army to Hounslow Heath—He 
 quarrels with the Houses of Parliament—Dismisses Lord Hali¬ 
 fax—Revocation of the Edict of Nantes—The reassembling of 
 Parliament—The King's speech — Firmness of both Houses— 
 James prorogues the Parliament—The Pope and the High 
 Tories remonstrate—Lord Castlemaine is sent as ambassador to 
 Rome... 
 
Contents. 
 
 viii 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Violence of Lord Tyrconnel in Ireland—State of Ireland—The mas¬ 
 sacre of 1641—Tyrconnel succeeds Lord Clarendon as Lord 
 Lieutenant—The Protestants are gradually dismissed from em¬ 
 ployment—Conduct of the Government in Scotland—General 
 hatred of Popery in the Scotch nation—James quarrels with the 
 Privy Council and with the Estates—James dispenses with penal 
 statutes in England—The case of Sir Edward Hales—Prefer¬ 
 ments in the Church are conferred on Roman Catholics— 
 Establishment of a Court of High Commission—The case of 
 Dr. Sharpe and Bishop Compton—Roman Catholic convents, 
 &c., are established in London—Position and character of the 
 Prince of Orange. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 James tries to gain the Prince of Orange’s consent to a general tolera¬ 
 tion-—He issues a Declaration of Indulgence—The Nonconform¬ 
 ists declare against the dispensing power—The correspondence 
 between Stewart and Fagel—James dissolves the Parliament— 
 James executes some soldiers for desertion—He attacks the 
 University of Cambridge—Farmer is nominated President of 
 Magdalen College, Oxford—James visits Oxford—The fellows 
 of Magdalen are expelled—James proposes to bequeath Ireland 
 to Louis—Expectation of an heir to the Throne—A Board of 
 regulators is appointed—James issues a second Declaration of 
 Indulgence—Six Bishops present a petition to the King 
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 The Bishops are committed to the Tower—Birth of the Prince of 
 Wales—General disbelief in his genuineness—Trial of the 
 Bishops—Argument of Somers—The Bishops are acquitted— 
 An invitation is sent to the Prince of Orange—Cautious conduct 
 of William—The great difficulties of an invasion—Condition 
 and constitution of the Dutch Republic—The state of affairs in 
 other continental countries—James becomes more violent—Pre¬ 
 pares to proceed against the Clergy—Impolicy of Louis in offend¬ 
 ing the Pope and the Emperor—William cultivates the English 
 nobles, and conciliates the Roman Catholic Princes—The 
 States of Holland approve of the invasion of England—James 
 receives intelligence of William’s design—He tries conciliatory 
 measures. 
 
Contents. 
 
 IX 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 William sets sail for England — Circulates a manifesto giving his 
 reasons for the expedition—William lands in Devonshire— 
 Embarrassment and agitation of the King—Men of influence 
 gradually join the Prince —Lord Cornbury joins William— 
 Risings in favour of the Prince take place in many parts of the 
 Kingdom—James leaves London for Salisbury, and William 
 advances from Exeter — Lord Churchill deserts him — Flight of 
 the Princess Anne—James returns to London—Debate’in the 
 Council—Lord Dartmouth refuses to convey the Prince of 
 Wales to France—Writs are issued for a new Parliament . 97 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Commissioners' from the King reach William's camp—Divisions 
 among William’s adherents—William declares his willingness to 
 trust the decision of all disputes to a free Parliament—Lauzun 
 conducts the Queen and Prince of Wales to France—James 
 flies from London —He is stopped on the coast—Resolution 
 adopted by the Council of Peers—Lord Feversham disbands 
 the army—Great riots in London—The Prince advances to 
 Windsor—James returns to London—The Peers request James 
 to withdraw from London—James flies to France . . . 124 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 William reaches London—Invites the Peers and chief Commoners 
 to a conference—The Peers request the Prince to take the 
 government on himself for the present, and to summon a con¬ 
 vention—Differences of opinion in the nation—The convention 
 meets January 22, 1689—An Association for self-defence is formed 
 in Ulster by the Protestants—Discussion in the House of Com¬ 
 mons—A resolution is agreed to by the House of Commons— 
 Keen debate on every clause of the resolution in the House of 
 Peers—A conference between the two Houses is held—James 
 sends a letter to the convention—Feelings of the Prince and 
 Princess of Orange—The Prince and Princess are invited to 
 accept the crown—The Declaration of Right is framed by the 
 Commons-The Princess reaches England -The two Houses 
 present the crown to the Prince and Princess, February 13, 
 1689. 
 
 140 
 
X 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 State of feeling in Scotland during the latter part of the Year 1688—A 
 meeting of the leading Scotchmen takes place in London, January 
 7, 1689—They request him to convoke the Estates of Scotland 
 —Great riots in Scotland—William’s language on the subject of 
 religion—The Estates are opened by a letter from William—He 
 recommends an Union with England—Time-serving policy of the 
 chief Scotch nobles—The Estates declare William and Mary 
 King and Queen of Scotland—They prefer a Claim of Right 
 which abolishes Episcopacy— Conduct of those w r ho continue to 
 adhere to James—Character and views of Lord Dundee—He 
 takes arms in the cause of James—The Battle of Killiecrankie, 
 and death of Dundee—Great importance of his death . . 169 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 James lands in Ireland in March, 1689—The disturbed state of Ire¬ 
 land—Illegal and violent Government of Lord Tyrconnel —The 
 Protestants refuse Lord Antrim admission into Derry—Tyrcon¬ 
 nel disarms the Protestants, and enlists the Roman Catholics— 
 James lays siege to Derry—Sufferings and fortitude of the in- 
 ' habitants—The siege is raised—The Battle of Newton Butler 
 
 —Violent proceedings of the Irish Parliament—The general act 
 of attainder—Adulteration of the coinage—Schombergs cam¬ 
 paign in the autumn of 1689—In 1690 William takes the com¬ 
 mand—The Battle of the Boyne.192 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 James returns to France—Wijliam arrives in Dublin—He is repulsed 
 from Limerick by Sarsfield—He returns to England—The Earl 
 of Marlborough reduces Cork and Kinsale—The French regi¬ 
 ments are withdrawn—The Rapparees—General St. Ruth takes 
 the command—William goes with Marlborough to Flanders— 
 General Ginkell commands in Ireland—Ginkell takes Athlone — 
 The Battle of Aghrim—Galway surrenders—Sarsfield throws 
 himself into Limerick—The two treaties of Limerick—Many of 
 Sarsfield’s soldiers emigrate with him to France .... 
 
 221 
 
Contents. 
 
 xi 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 . PAGE 
 
 Much remains to be done in England after the settlement of the Go¬ 
 vernment—Real character of the Revolution—Many legislative 
 measures are still necessary—Composition of the ministry—The 
 Toleration Bill—The Comprehension Bill—The case of the Non¬ 
 jurors—William issues an Act of Grace—The Bill of Rights— 
 Question of the succession after the death of the Princess Anne 
 —Birth of the Duke of Gloucester—The subsequent Act of Set¬ 
 tlement-Gradual change in the mode of administration and 
 character of a Ministry—Disqualification of placemen for seats 
 in the House of Commons—The Triennial Bill, altered at a later 
 period to a Septennial Bill—Purification of the coinage—Expira¬ 
 tion of restrictions on the Press—Establishment of Newspapers. 240 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Dangers of the Revolution from foreign wars—Success of the French 
 in Piedmont and Spain — The war in Flanders —Battles of Wal- 
 court and Fleurus—In 1691 William crosses over to take the 
 command—Luxemburg takes Mons—In 1692 Luxemburg takes 
 Namur—The battle of Steinkirk — Campaign of 1693—Cowardice 
 of Louis XIV. — The battle of Neerwinden—Subsequent cam¬ 
 paigns — Recapture of Namur—The battle of La Hogue— 
 Declaration issued by James .. . 271 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Intrigues and plots against William—Hopes of James and his 
 courtiers—Doubtful fidelity of the English nobles — Personal un¬ 
 popularity of William—State of the Highlands—The Massacre 
 of Glencoe —Lord Preston's conspiracy — Treachery of Fuller 
 and Crone—Plot of the Earl of Marlborough— Grandval's con¬ 
 spiracy—Death of Queen Mary — Compounders and Non-com¬ 
 pounders—Lord Middleton is invited to St. Germains—James 
 publishes a new Declaration— Charnock's conspiracy — Detection 
 of the plot—A Bond of Association is signed—Recent alterations 
 in the law of trials for High Treason—Case of Sir John Fen¬ 
 wick—His Execution by Act of Attainder—Objections to which 
 Acts of Attainder are liable . 
 
 292 
 
Contents. 
 
 xii 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PACE 
 
 General weariness of the war—Louis proposes Peace—The treaty of 
 Ryswick—Subsequent occurrences of William's reign—William 
 desires to keep on foot a large army, and to retain his Dutch 
 regiments—The Houses annul the grants of the Irish forfeited 
 lands—The Commons resort to a tack—The Partition Treaties— 
 Charles bequeaths his dominions to the Duke d'Anjou—Impeach¬ 
 ment and acquittal of Lord Somers—The succession to the 
 crown is settled on the Electress Sophia—Death of James II.— 
 
 Louis proclaims the Pretender King of England—Death of 
 William—General view of the Revolution—Character of the 
 King and of the English statesmen of his reign—William — 
 Halifax—Nottingham and Caermarthen—Somers and Montague 
 —The great legislative measures of William's reign—The 
 Legislative Union with Scotland—Failure of the Rebellions of 
 1715 and 1745 to overthrow the principles of the Revolution— 
 Necessity of the Revolution .333 
 
 
THE 
 
 ENGLISH REVOLUTION 
 
 OF 1688. 
 
 —♦—■ 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 General Result of the Reformation in Foreign Countries—Character of the 
 Reformation in England—Character of the Earliest Events in the 
 Reign of Charles I.—Arbitrary Government of Charles—Violence of 
 the Parliament—The King attempts to Arrest the Five Members — 
 Commencement and General Results of the Civil War—Violence and 
 Artifice of Cromwell — Death of the King—Instability of the Revolu¬ 
 tion thus effected—Character of Cromwell's Government—Death of 
 Cromwell and Restoration of Charles II.—Character of the Reign of 
 Charles II.—Disgrace of Clarendon and Power of the Cabal—The 
 Popish Plot—The Exclusion Bill—The Test Act—The Rye House 
 Plot—Death of Charles II. 
 
 Before the end of the sixteenth century the Reformation 
 had obtained a more general hold over, and a firmer footing 
 in England and Scotland than among any of the continental 
 nations, and its establishment in England had been almost 
 wholly free from the convulsions by which it had been 
 attended in other countries. In France it had led to a 
 series of civil wars disfigured by unprecedented atrocities, 
 culminating in the assassination of the King himself. In 
 Germany it had already caused one fierce and sanguinary 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 war, and was about to kindle another, whose very name, 
 “ The Thirty Years’ War,” indicates a long continuance 
 of misery such as has been endured by few nations. It 
 had torn asunder, with an everlasting separation, the 
 provinces of the Netherlands, and had reft from Spain the 
 most valuable portion of her European dominions. But 
 in England, as the principles and dispositions of the chief 
 leaders of the movement had been of a more sober-minded 
 and moderate character than had prevailed elsewhere, it 
 had been carried out more peaceably. The demonstra¬ 
 tions of hostility which it had provoked had been limited 
 to one or two outbreaks too insignificant to be dignified by 
 the name of insurrection, and fewer victims had'perished 
 in the entire period of the Marian persecution than Alva 
 had often put to death in a single week. 
 
 Perhaps no more honourable testimony can be borne to 
 the general humanity of the English character than is 
 furnished by the abhorrence with which Mary’s name has 
 ever since been regarded in these kingdoms on account 
 of a bloodshed which fell so infinitely short of what was 
 practised in the same age in other lands, and of what was 
 incessantly urged upon the Queen by her advisers. 
 
 But though the English Reformation was thus compara¬ 
 tively unmarked by violence, it was indirectly paving the 
 way for fierce political commotions. For, as among the 
 continental nations there had been two schools of re¬ 
 formers, the disciples of Luther and those of Calvin, so 
 among ourselves there was a large party which was discon¬ 
 tented with the moderation of those who had borne the 
 chief sway in the direction of the recent changes; which, 
 desiring a more explicit protest of enmity to the Papal 
 domination, was impatient at the toleration of many ancient 
 
Feelings of the Early Reformers. 3 
 
 customs and practices, not because they were in themselves 
 objectionable, but because they prevailed at Rome; and 
 which longed to sweep away every observance which 
 seemed to bear the least connection with the discarded 
 superstitions. 
 
 In Scotland this feeling had been universal, and the 
 Presbyterian form, as it was called, which was established 
 there, found no small number of adherents in England ; 
 while it so happened that the zeal to promote the spread 
 of their theological opinions coincided, in many men 
 of the greatest influence in that party, with a resolution 
 to reassert and maintain those civil liberties which, under 
 the arbitrary rule of the Tudor princes, had been greatly 
 violated, and had seemed, at one time, in no slight danger 
 of entire extinction. 
 
 Matters were in this state when Charles I. came to 
 the throne, and many of the earlier transactions of his 
 reign were most perversely and unhappily calculated to 
 intensify at once the feelings of religious irritation and of 
 political uneasiness. Though he himself cherished a sin¬ 
 cere and enlightened attachment to the reformed Church of 
 England, his Queen was a bigoted Papist; and he, in his 
 uxorious fondness, permitted her for some time to indulge 
 in practices which almost seemed as if they had been 
 adopted with the express design of showing her contempt 
 for Protestantism. He even gave rise to a suspicion that he 
 himself shared her opinions by selling to Roman Catholics 
 dispensations from the penal laws which had been enacted 
 against all professors of their religion in the kingdom, and 
 which the Houses of Parliament had formally besought him 
 to enforce; and still more by openly countenancing the 
 pompous ceremonies which Laud, Bishop of London, and 
 
 B 2 
 
4 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 afterwards Primate, took constant occasion to introduce, 
 and which, from their likeness to Popish observances, 
 offended many even of those who were far from belong¬ 
 ing to the Puritan party; and, while thus raising a jealousy 
 of his fidelity to the national religion, he excited still 
 deeper and better-founded apprehensions of his inclination 
 to trample on the civil liberties of his subjects. 
 
 He raised taxes by his own authority; he imprisoned, 
 prosecuted, and procured the comiction of members of 
 Parliament for opposing this violation of the Constitution 
 in the House of Commons, thus striking a blow at the 
 independence of Parliament, with which the freedom of the 
 whole nation was inseparably linked; and, finally, he dis¬ 
 pensed with the Parliament altogether, and for eleven years 
 governed the kingdom by his sole authority, as if he 
 were an absolute sovereign, untrammelled by a single con¬ 
 stitutional restraint. 
 
 Englishmen were not of a temper to acquiesce long in 
 such a suppression of the freedom which their ancestors 
 had won by their exertions above 400 years before; and, 
 when at last the misguided monarch was compelled once 
 more to summon a Parliament, its leaders showed a resolu¬ 
 tion to extinguish for ever the abuses which threatened to 
 enslave them. The reluctance which Charles had shown 
 to reassemble them, his manifest inability to dispense with 
 their aid any longer, were sufficient proofs that the power 
 was in their own hands if they asserted it with courage and 
 steadiness. But, unhappily, they were not contented with 
 mere security. The King’s encroachments on their rights 
 had begotten a spirit of retaliation, and they in their turn 
 began to encroach on his prerogatives in a manner and 
 degree as fatal to the maintenance of the proper constitu- 
 
The Independents. 5 
 
 tional balance of power in the Government as the most 
 despotic of his measures had been. 
 
 They were not satisfied with extorting his assent to Bills 
 which should bind him to a constant reassembling of the 
 Parliament at fixed periods, to a renunciation of the power 
 of arbitrary imprisonment, and of the claim to levy taxes 
 by his own authority; they impeached his chief adviser, 
 the Earl of Strafford, and wrung from him a consent to that 
 statesman’s execution, though the very mode of proceeding 
 which they adopted, a Bill of Attainder, proved their inability 
 to convict him of any legal offence. They even reduced 
 Charles to renounce his right to dissolve them without their 
 own consent; an act which, at one stroke, transferred the 
 whole power of the State from him to themselves; and to 
 consent to the exclusion of the Bishops from the House of 
 Lords, a measure to which, intended, as it manifestly was, 
 as a blow to the Church, he probably felt a still deeper 
 repugnance. 
 
 Their progress was not even arrested by what might have 
 been expected to prove fatal to it, the disunion in their 
 own ranks, which the success that they had hitherto met 
 with brought to light; for one section of the Opposition, to 
 use a modern term, was composed of men who belonged 
 neither to the Established Church nor to the Presbyterian 
 body, but who called themselves Independents, as being 
 opposed to any kind of ecclesiastical government, and who 
 extended their principle, if it could be called one, to an 
 equal hostility to civil government. 
 
 Cromwell was a member of this sect, which gradually 
 became as hostile to the Presbyterians as to the Churchmen ; 
 for the Presbyterians, under the guidance of Hampden and 
 Pym, limited their views to the imposition of sufficient 
 
6 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 restrictions on the sovereign power, but the Independents 
 desired to sweep it away altogether, and some of them 
 probably already meditated the destruction of the King 
 himself. 1 
 
 But this difference of aim, vital as it was, did not at first 
 prevent the two parties from acting together, Charles him¬ 
 self, by a strange act of illegal violence, even contributing 
 to unite them more closely. In the autumn of 1641 the 
 leaders of the Opposition induced the House of Commons 
 to publish an elaborate document on the state of the nation, 
 to which they gave the name of a Remonstrance, but which 
 was so manifestly a seditious attempt to rekindle and keep 
 alive the discontent which the King’s recent concessions 
 had in a great measure allayed, that it has found but few 
 defenders among subsequent students of history. Charles 
 was deeply offended, as was natural; 2 and a few weeks 
 afterwards not only impeached the chief authors of the 
 memorial of high treason, but went down in person to the 
 House of Commons to arrest those whom he had accused, 
 the majority of whom, if not all, belonged to the Presby¬ 
 terian party. He failed, since those whom he sought had 
 been forewarned, and had withdrawn from the House before 
 his arrival; but it could hardly be wondered at that an act 
 
 1 Walker, in his “History of Independency,” part II., p.208, admits 
 that they intended front the first to pull down monarchy and set up anarchy, 
 notwithstanding several declarations to the contrary, “which were from 
 time to time extorted front them by the Presbyterians;” but Hallam ap¬ 
 pears to think that this was true only' of a section of the party, saying 
 (II. 270, note, Ed. 1832) that “ Xeal seems to have proved the Indepen¬ 
 dents, as a body, were not systematically adverse to monarchy." 
 
 2 Hallam even thinks that to offend him was a part of their design. 
 His words are, “ The promoters of it might also hope from Charles's proud 
 and hasty temper, that he would reply in such a tone as would more 
 exasperate the Commons." 
 
Commencement of Civil War. 
 
 7 
 
 which struck thus not only at the independence of the 
 Parliament, but at their own individual safety, should have 
 exasperated them : and accordingly we find that Hampden, 
 the man of the highest personal character and influence, 
 and Pym, the most eloquent orator among the Presbyterians, 
 both of whom were among the objects of the King’s attempt, 
 were by it embittered to a greater degree of personal hos¬ 
 tility to him than they had previously shown. They joined 
 the Independents in carrying a vote to wrest from him the 
 supreme authority over the militia, one of the most essential 
 and inalienable parts of the Royal Prerogative; and, on his 
 refusal to consent to such an encroachment on his unques¬ 
 tionable rights, they led the Parliament by rapid steps to 
 armed resistance and to a formal raising of the standard 
 of civil war. 
 
 We need not here recapitulate the melancholy events of 
 the next seven years. The course of the war, which at first 
 was not unfavourable to Charles, gradually turned against 
 him, and that in the most unfortunate manner ; the disasters 
 of the Parliamentary army being mostly incurred under the 
 command of Presbyterian officers, while the most important 
 advantages which were gained were attributed to Cromwell 
 and the Independents. The division between the two 
 parties became day by day more clearly pronounced, the 
 Independents constantly bearing down their adversaries, 
 sometimes by chicanery, sometimes by open violence; 
 and the Presbyterians displaying an obstinate incapacity 
 to discern either the signs of the times or the true 
 character of the struggle and of their own position. 
 Cromwell outwitted them by the Self-denying Ordinance: 
 presently he drove their leaders from the House by im¬ 
 peachment ; and at last he actually with his soldiers 
 
s 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 cleared the House of all who were opposed to his designs, 
 many of whom he threw into prison, reducing that once 
 august body to a miserable remnant of scarcely more than 
 fifty members. 1 
 
 Meanwhile he had possessed himself of the King's person, 
 and he now brought him to London to murder him with a 
 burlesque of all the forms of law and justice. The House 
 of Peers unanimously refused to concur in his measures, so 
 he proceeded on the vote of the Commons alone; those 
 few members whom he allowed to continue to sit being 
 men on whose fanaticism and unscrupulousness he could 
 safely rely. They first passed a vote that the whole sove¬ 
 reign power of the State belonged to themselves alone: and 
 then appointed a High Court of Justice to try the King on 
 charges of a general course of tyranny and enmity to the 
 Commonwealth, and especially of having levied war against 
 the Parliament. And though scarcely more than half the 
 judges whom they had nominated could be induced to sit, 
 the remainder pronounced him guilty. Cromwell and his 
 troops secured the execution of their sentence, and to the 
 astonishment and indignation of all foreign nations, and 
 to the grief and horror of the vast majority of his own 
 subjects, the unhappy Sovereign was beheaded in front of 
 his own palace. 
 
 The next week the House of Commons formally abolished 
 monarchy, and a revolution, the most complete that could 
 possibly have been conceived, was accomplished, the very 
 form and character of the Government being changed. 
 But it had no element of permanence in it. 
 
 > On the 6th and 7th of December, he sent Colonel Pride, with his 
 troopers, to “ purge " the House, and after those days the greatest number 
 that ever met, till after the King's murder, was fifty-three. 
 
Tyranny of Cromwell. 
 
 9 
 
 Those who had hitherto been so zealous in aiding Crom¬ 
 well, soon found that they had misunderstood his designs 
 and character; and that they had only given themselves a 
 new master, abler no doubt, but far more arbitrary in his dis¬ 
 position, more severe in his temper, and more unscrupulous 
 in his dealings than his worst enemies had ever accused 
 Charles of showing himself. He did not venture, indeed, to 
 assume the title of king : he longed to do so, but feared the 
 discontent of the army, with whose support he could not 
 afford to dispense; for, in fact, during the whole remainder 
 of his life he kept the nation under martial law. He 
 divided the kingdom into districts, with one of his general 
 officers as his lieutenant in each, and all civil law he 
 set wholly at defiance, trampling on those very articles 
 of Magna Charta the disregard of which had raised the 
 first opposition to the late King. He imposed taxes by 
 his single authority; he imprisoned, executed with a mere 
 mockery of trial, and even sold for slaves those who for 
 one cause or another fell under his displeasure. He 
 remodelled the House of Commons; dictated the acts of 
 the different Parliaments which he convoked while he 
 allowed them to sit; and dissolved them as capriciously 
 and wantonly as ever Charles had dissolved his, on one 
 occasion clearing the House with his troops at the point of 
 the bayonet. 
 
 For two years he ruled without even the pretence of a 
 Parliament. In the emphatic but most accurate words of 
 Hallam, “ The civil wars had ended in a despotism com- 
 “ pared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all 
 “ that had cost Charles his life and his crown, appeared as 
 “ dust in the balance;” and “ a sense of present evils not only 
 “ excited a burning desire to live again under the ancient 
 
io The English Revolution. 
 
 “ monarchy, but obliterated, especially in the new genera- 
 
 tion, that had no distinct remembrance of them, theappre- 
 “ hension of its former abuses.” 
 
 Cromwell died in rather less than ten years after the 
 murder of the King : and his death at once undid the whole 
 of the Revolution. Had his life been protracted, many, even 
 of his own supporters, doubted whether he would have been 
 able to maintain his power much longer; and his son, to 
 whom he had hoped to secure a peaceful succession to 
 his Protectorate, resembled him in no point whatever, 
 but was equally destitute of ability and ambition; and it 
 was probably with no great reluctance that he found him¬ 
 self, in the course of the next summer, compelled to resign 
 his post. 
 
 In fact, from the moment that his father died, every one 
 perceived that the restoration of the royal family was in¬ 
 evitable; and in May, 1660, Charles II. was replaced on 
 the throne of his ancestors amid the acclamations of a vast 
 majority of the nation. So general was the reaction, that the 
 first Parliament which met after the Restoration was rather 
 inclined to abandon some of the securities for the rights of 
 the subject which had been extorted from Charles I.; and 
 though they did indeed pass Bills for the confirmation of 
 the Petition of Rights, they repealed the Act for Triennial 
 Parliaments, which had been one of the most laudable 
 measures of the Long Parliament in its first session, and 
 which at the time of its enactment had been regarded by 
 its promoters as the surest of all the bulwarks of the Con¬ 
 stitution. 
 
 Other laws of recent enactment which they also abrogated 
 were no doubt of a mischievous character, such as that for 
 the exclusion of the Bishops from the House of Peers. 
 
Character of Charles II. 11 
 
 But the repeal of this provision for the constant re-election 
 and reassembling of Parliament did once more virtually lay 
 the liberties of the people at the King’s mercy. Great 
 virtue and sound judgment would have been needed to 
 enable a prince, restored to his throne under such circum¬ 
 stances as Charles, to withstand the temptation to misuse 
 the power thus imprudently placed in his hands. 
 
 Unhappily, Charles had no such qualities. He was, in¬ 
 deed, far from being deficient in ability; but the wandering, 
 uncertain life which he had led since his removal to the Con¬ 
 tinent in his boyhood, the constant disappointment of his 
 hopes and plans for the recovery of his crown, had under¬ 
 mined his principles, and had implanted in him a reckless¬ 
 ness and indifference to every object but that of the grati¬ 
 fication of the moment. And he was not long in finding 
 councillors who sought their own ends in encouraging him 
 in designs and conduct not more ruinous to his own character 
 than fatal to the honour and even the independence of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 His first Minister, indeed, was the Earl of Clarendon, who 
 in the first session of the Long Parliament had been a leader 
 of the Opposition, till a conviction that Charles had made 
 sufficient concessions to secure real freedom, and that many 
 of those with whom he had at first connected himself were 
 encroaching unduly and dangerously on the royal authority, 
 led him to espouse the side of the King, and to take office 
 as one of his ministers. As the course of the war grew 
 more and more unfavourable, Charles entrusted him with the 
 especial care of the Prince of Wales ; he managed his escape 
 from the kingdom, acted in some degree as his tutor and 
 guardian at Paris; and when the young Prince had become 
 titular King by his father’s death, he accompanied him from 
 
12 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 place to place as his principal adv iser throughout the remain¬ 
 ing period of his exile. 
 
 His administration cannot be pronounced perfect in point 
 of liberality or prudence ; indeed, it was impossible that so 
 long an absence from his native land should have failed to 
 deprive him of that insight into the feelings of the nation 
 which is indispensable to one who would successfully govern 
 it. while the events which had happened during that time, 
 and the state of affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, after 
 the Restoration, made his position one of unusual difficulty. 
 Still, his government was generally able, and always up¬ 
 right and patriotic; and though he could not prevent the 
 supplies which should have been appropriated to the 
 defence of the kingdom from being diverted to glut the 
 rapacity of the King’s courtiers and mistresses, nor, in 
 consequence, save the country from the disgrace of seeing 
 an enemy bum its finest ships in the waters of the Thames 
 itself, he kept the King in the paths of the law, and 
 during his tenure of power no inroad was attempted on 
 the Constitutional Tights of the people. 
 
 But when, seven years after the Restoration, the un¬ 
 grateful King, weary of his minister's very virtues, which 
 he felt as in some degree a reproach to himself, abandoned 
 him to his enemies, the advisers by whom he replaced him 
 eagerly co-operated with Charles in discarding all restraints 
 of law, prudence, and even decency; and the rest of the 
 reign presented a systematic violation not only of even’ 
 principle of Constitutional government, but of all the 
 ordinary obligations of private honour. The national 
 creditors were defrauded by the shutting of the Ex¬ 
 chequer; Charles himself became a pensioner of Louis 
 of France ; the money which he received being partly 
 
The Test Act. 
 
 13 
 
 a bribe to induce him to acquiesce in the French 
 monarch’s aggressions upon his neighbours, and partly a 
 resource to enable him himself to bribe his Parliament; 
 or, if it should not prove sufficiently compliant, to dispense 
 with convoking it. 
 
 It was no wonder that such practices produced deep and 
 general discontent. The formal agreement which the Royal 
 cousins had made was, indeed, not known; but the manifest 
 servility of the English Government to that of France excited 
 suspicions; and presently those suspicions took a direction 
 which has at all times been more powerful than any other 
 to kindle the fiercest passions in the nation. It began to 
 be suspected that Charles’s object was not so much to 
 establish his own absolute power as to favour the Roman 
 Catholic religion. His brother and next heir, the Duke 
 of York, had publicly avowed himself a Roman Catholic 
 some years before ; and it was feared that his influence 
 over the King, which was known to be great, might lead 
 him to adopt the same belief. Such a suspicion made 
 even the most venal members of Parliament unmanageable. 
 
 Charles, in imitation of his father, who had suspended the 
 penal laws against the Roman Catholics, had by his own 
 authority issued what he called a Declaration of Indulgence, 
 suspending the penal laws against Nonconformists of any 
 kind, whether Popish or Protestant; the two Houses com¬ 
 pelled him to cancel his proclamation; and even passed a 
 Test Act, which bound all holders of office to profess an 
 adherence to the Church of England. Though one of its 
 effects was to deprive the Duke of York himself of the post 
 of Lord High Admiral, and Lord Clifford, the most respect¬ 
 able of the ministers, of the Lord Treasurer’s staff, Charles 
 could not venture to refuse his assent to the Bill. But he 
 
H 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 could not thus allay the suspicions which his former conduct 
 had awakened, and which, aided by the general contempt 
 into which the Government had fallen, were about to pro¬ 
 duce bitter fruit of a character to which the history of no 
 country in the world presents a parallel. 
 
 The whole nation went suddenly mad on the subject 
 of the dangers to be apprehended from Popery ; a gang 
 of infamous informers invented a strange story of a plot 
 which had been organized by the Pope and the Jesuits to 
 bring back the kingdom under the dominion of Rome; 
 they supported their statements by the most hardened 
 perjuries ;. and inconsistent and absurd and monstrous as 
 was their tale in even,- particular, nothing which they could 
 invent was so preposterous as to shock the credulity of 
 their hearers. 
 
 The plot, according to their testimony, embraced plans 
 for burning London, and for murdering the King; mem¬ 
 bers of Parliament, ministers of state, and nobles were 
 accused of being privy to the conspiracy, at which the 
 Queen herself was accused of conniving. Numbers of 
 innocent men were brought to trial on these wicked and 
 ridiculous charges ; the judges, never more corrupt than in 
 this shameless reign, pressed their conviction; the juries, 
 whom mingled credulity and terror seemed to have deprived 
 of their senses, thought the mere indictment a sufficient 
 evidence of guilt ; the King, with a baseness which exceeds 
 all his other infamies, did not scruple to sign the death- 
 warrants of men whom he knew to be honest and loyal, on 
 accusations which in private he denied and ridiculed ; the 
 leaders of the country party, as those were called who in 
 general opposed his government, for once agreeing with him 
 in this iniquity; hounding on the informers, lending their 
 
The Exclusion Bill. 
 
 15 
 
 voices to intimidate the tribunals, and even seeking to 
 deny the King the power of mitigating sentences, which, 
 callous as he was, he sometimes recoiled from inflicting in 
 all their pitiless severity. 
 
 But on other points the Opposition grew less and less 
 accommodating. They impeached his minister, the Earl of 
 Danby; and Charles did not conceal from his French ally 
 his apprehensions that the kingdom was again on the verge 
 of rebellion. To save his minister, whose trial might have 
 brought to light the secret conditions of the treaty with 
 Louis, he dissolved the Parliament, which, in defiance of all 
 propriety, he had maintained in existence for seventeen years. 
 But the new Parliament, which he could not avoid summon¬ 
 ing, from its very first meeting displayed a temper and pur¬ 
 pose which he regarded as more dangerous than the worst 
 acts of the last. They had the same dread of Popery as 
 their predecessors ; but they showed their fears in a manner 
 which, whatever may be thought of its Constitutional charac¬ 
 ter, had in it, at all events, more of statesmanlike foresight. 
 They brought in a Bill to deprive the Duke of York of his 
 right of succession to the throne, on account of his religion. 
 Such a measure would of itself have been a revolution, and 
 Charles was greatly alarmed. He prorogued the Parliament; 
 he ruled without it for more than a year; and, when at 
 last he found himself compelled to reassemble it, the Oppo¬ 
 sition instantly revived the Bill. 
 
 Charles was attached to his brother, and even more, in 
 all probability, to the rights of his family and to the 
 principle of hereditary succession. He exerted himself 
 greatly ; he condescended personally to canvass members 
 of both Houses against the threatened measure. He 
 offered to consent to a Bill which should limit the Duke’s 
 
16 The English Revolution. 
 
 authority after he should have become King (an enactment 
 which, when the time came, could hardly have been car¬ 
 ried out), and which should fence round the Protestant 
 Church with fresh securities. But, though he by these 
 means procured the rejection of the obnoxious Bill in one 
 session, it was revived in the next, and he had no resource 
 but to dissolve that Parliament also. 
 
 He never summoned another; but for the remainder of 
 his reign dispensed with them altogether, and sought to 
 chastise those who had thwarted him, and to throw an 
 additional protection around his brother by encouraging 
 prosecutions of the leaders of the Opposition, or Whig 
 party, as it had recently been called. Some were alarmed 
 and fled ; others stood their ground and sought to defend 
 themselves by conspiracies and plans for insurrection, one 
 of which at least involved a plot for the assassination of 
 the Duke and the King himself. They were betrayed, as 
 such treasons almost always are betrayed. Stern vengeance 
 was executed on the leading conspirators. Many even of 
 the great towns which were believed to have sympathized 
 with them, were condemned to forfeit their charters; and 
 Charles, thinking that he had sufficiently crushed his own 
 and his brother’s enemies, and passing from his former fears 
 to an excess of confidence, ventured even to dispense, 
 in the Duke’s favour, with the Test Act, to which he had 
 recently consented, and to replace him in his office of 
 Lord High Admiral, without requiring him to comply with 
 its provisions. 
 
 So open a violation of the law did not strengthen the 
 Government. The ministers themselves began to quarrel 
 with one another, and Charles was more alarmed and more 
 perplexed than ever. Each councillor gave him different 
 
Death of Charles II. 
 
 U 
 
 advice, and, as he listened to each, he agreed, or seemed to 
 them and to himself to agree, with each; being steady to 
 nothing but to his subservience to Louis, who, puzzled and 
 irritated by his irresolution, treated him with daily-increasing 
 disregard, and, while still bribing him, began at the same 
 moment to bribe his chief advisers to counteract and con¬ 
 strain him. It was becoming daily more and more doubtful 
 whether his affability and graciousness of demeanour would 
 be able to avert a renewal of rebellion, when, at the begin¬ 
 ning of 1685, he died of apoplexy, his last act being an 
 avowal on his death-bed of his adherence to the Roman 
 Catholic Church, to which he had for many years secretly 
 belonged. 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Popularity of James II. on his Accession—Easy Suppression of Monmouth's 
 Rebellion—James begins to violate the Law — James becomes a 
 Pensioner of Louis XIV.—Composition of the Ministry—He seeks 
 to procure the Repeal of the Test Act and Habeas Corpus Act—He 
 brings up the Army to Hounslow Heath—He quarrels with the Houses 
 of Parliament—Dismisses Lord Halifax- -Revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes—The Reassembling of Parliament — The King's Speech— 
 Firmness of both Houses—James Prorogues the Parliament—The 
 Pope and the High Tories remonstrate—Lord Castlemaine is sent as 
 Ambassador to Rome. 
 
 Since Charles had left no legitimate children, the Duke of 
 York, as a matter of course, succeeded to the throne as 
 James II. And for a moment the whole aspect of affairs, 
 and the feelings of the different parties in the State, seemed 
 to have undergone a complete alteration; and that of the 
 strangest character. While Charles was alive, a suspicion 
 that James cherished a secret inclination to the Roman 
 Catholic religion had been sufficient to provoke more than 
 one conspiracy, and to encourage an open attempt in Parlia¬ 
 ment to effect such a revolution as would have been involved 
 in a change of the order of succession to the throne. But, 
 as if dangers when present were less to be feared than when 
 only in prospect, with the accession of a Popish king all 
 dread of Popery seemed for a moment to be extinguished. 
 All memory that an Exclusion Bill had nearly been carried 
 appeared to have passed away, and James not only ascended 
 
First Measures of Janies. 19 
 
 the throne with the acquiescence of all, but for a brief time 
 was even popular. 
 
 Aware of the suspicions which had been entertained 
 of his disposition to assert an arbitrary authority, and to 
 exalt the Roman Catholic religion above and at'the ex¬ 
 pense of Protestantism, he had the judgment, in his first 
 speech to the Privy Council, to endeavour to remove both 
 those causes of apprehension ; and in clear emphatic lan¬ 
 guage declared his resolution to maintain the established 
 government in both Church and State ; his firm reliance on 
 the loyalty of Churchmen, which he promised to requite 
 with steady support and protection ; and his entire content¬ 
 ment with the degree of authority which the law of England 
 secured to the Sovereign, so that he should never desire 
 any power beyond it. 
 
 The speech was his only attempt at conciliation during 
 his whole reign, perhaps it might be said during his whole 
 life, but it succeeded perfectly. The Council received it 
 with acclamation, and when it was published it was 
 applauded with equal fervour by the nation at large. 
 His general roughness of manner had obtained for him 
 a reputation for sincerity; and the boast of both parties, 
 of the assertors of the civil rights of the people, and of the 
 resolute champions of Protestant doctrine, was that they had 
 for their security the promise of a King who never broke his 
 word. 
 
 So complete was the reaction in his favour that an 
 attempt to dethrone him, which was made in the course of 
 the summer, only added to his strength. The Duke of 
 Monmouth, wljo made it, a few years before had been the 
 most popular man in the kingdom; he was an illegitimate 
 son of the late King, and had been distinguished at Court 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 by marks of his father’s favour, which were not bestowed on 
 any of his brothers. He had commanded a British division 
 in the short war against Holland, where he had gained the 
 hearts of the soldiers, and had earned some reputation as a 
 brave and skilful officer. He had equally ingratiated himself 
 with Churchmen as a faithful adherent of the Church, so 
 that many of them asserted his legitimacy in spite of the 
 King’s denial. And no small number of those who had 
 supported the Exclusion Bill had done so with the express 
 object of securing his succession to the throne. 
 
 But when, four months after his father’s death, he 
 crossed over to the Dorsetshire coast in the hope of 
 deposing James by force of arms, scarcely one of those 
 who had formerly favoured his pretensions joined him. 
 Both Houses of Parliament, with an unanimity which they 
 had hardly shown since the first year of the restored 
 monarchy, concurred in attainting him, setting a price 
 on his head, and in passing Votes of extraordinary Supply 
 to enable the King to crush his enterprise in the bud. At 
 the end of a month the whole force which he had been 
 able to collect did not exceed 6,000 men, nearly all of whom 
 belonged to the poorer classes, and who proved wholly 
 unable to make a stand against the King’s troops, though 
 greatly inferior in number. In the one brief conflict which 
 took place, and in which Monmouth himself failed to show 
 the daring courage which becomes one who depends on 
 victory for a crown, he was utterly defeated, was taken 
 prisoner; and, in accordance with the Bill of Attainder 
 already passed, was executed without any further form of 
 trial. 
 
 Such an enterprise, made ridiculous by the ease with 
 which it was crushed, was manifestly calculated to strengthen 
 
Suppression of Monmouth's Rebellion. 21 
 
 the victorious King. Nor could it have failed to do so 
 materially had not the ferocious cruelty, not unmixed with 
 sordid baseness with which he chastised it, spread a wide 
 alarm, and, among people of sense, humanity, and modera¬ 
 tion, a disgust deeper and more mischievous to himself than 
 the terror which it was meant to excite. Hundreds, 
 including many innocent persons, were executed; James 
 refusing every petition for mercy, and showing that, as Lord 
 Churchill said, “ Marble itself was not harder than he,” 
 while the fate of many of those who were spared cast even 
 deeper personal disgrace on the Court, since the Queen her¬ 
 self did not scruple to make a profit of them, but received 
 a large portion of the price for which they were sold to 
 work as slaves in the West Indies. 
 
 In one point of view, indeed, the ease and speed with 
 which his enemy had been overthrown had a most per¬ 
 nicious influence on James’s subsequent fortunes. His was 
 a head easily turned by the slightest appearance of suc¬ 
 cess. Before he had been a fortnight on the throne, he had 
 drawn an argument from the absence of all opposition to his 
 accession, to encourage him in violations both of the common 
 and Constitutional law. 1 He had issued a proclamation, 
 ordering the continuance of the collection of the customs 
 
 1 “ Le Roy d'Angleterre a ajout^ a cela.que j’avais 
 
 vu avec quelle facility il avait dte reconnu et proclamd Roy; que le reste 
 arrivera de la meme manure en se conduisant avec fermete et sagesse," 
 the “ rest ’’ being to levy the customs and other branches of the revenue 
 enjoyed by the late King for the next three months by his own authority, 
 
 which would be “ un coup ddcisif..Car dans la suite 
 
 il me sera (said hel bien plus facile ou d'dloigner le Parlement, ou de me 
 maintenir par des autres yoyes que me paraitraient bien plus convenables." 
 Barillon, to Louis XIV., relating a conversation which he had had with 
 James, Feb. 18th, Charles having died on the 6th.— Dalrymple, Vol. Il I., 
 part I., pp. ioo, ioi. 
 
22 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 and other taxes by his own authority, without waiting for 
 Parliament to grant them to him. He had gone to mass 
 with all possible publicity and pomp, as if in express defiance 
 of those penal laws which his brother had been forced to 
 abandon the attempt to relax. And when, in the middle of 
 May, the Parliament met, in his opening speech he had ad¬ 
 dressed them in language which was hardly to be distinguished 
 from a threat, and which clearly indicated his expectation 
 that his compliance with the laws, and with the Constitu¬ 
 tional limitations of his authority, was to be acknowledged 
 to flow from his own condescension, and not from any 
 right which the people could possess to enforce it. 
 
 In fact, he had already resolved to trample on both. 
 Almost his earliest act as King had been to renew the 
 dependence on the French King which had been so dis¬ 
 graceful to his brother; soliciting, with the most abject 
 humiliation, a continuance of the yearly subsidy which had 
 been paid to Charles ; and assuring Barillon, the French 
 Ambassador, that the object for which, above all others, 
 he desired this aid, was the establishment of the Roman 
 Catholic religion in every part of his dominions on a secure 
 and permanent footing; and next to that, if, indeed, the two 
 objects were not parts of one and the same plan, to render 
 his authority absolute, 1 so that he might be able to coerce 
 the Houses of Parliament, or, if he found them too re¬ 
 fractory, to dispense with convoking them altogether. 
 
 And he had already organized a Council, fully prepared 
 to co-operate with him in one part of his design. The Earl 
 
 1 “ Qu'il savait assez que jamais il ne serait en une entiere surete que la 
 religion catholique ne fut etablie en Angleterre de faijon a ne pouvoir 
 etre ruinee ni d^truite." — Barillon in Dalrymple, p. 141, date 
 March 26th. 
 
Designs of James. 
 
 23 
 
 of Rochester, his brother-in-law, was Lord Treasurer; the 
 Earl of Sunderland was Secretary of State; the Earl of 
 Godolphin was the Queen’s Chamberlain ; and these 
 men came together to Barillon to announce to him the 
 King’s resolution to make himself independent of his Par¬ 
 liament, and to assure him that, with that view, he would 
 refuse to accept a revenue which should only be granted 
 from year to year ; an arrangement which “ would lay him 
 under the necessity of continually convoking Parliament, 
 and thus,” as he regarded the matter, “change the form 
 of government.” 
 
 Rather than submit to such a necessity, he was pre¬ 
 pared “to maintain himself by open force in the enjoyment 
 of the same revenues which had been granted to his 
 brother during his life.” And they urged on the French¬ 
 man that his own Sovereign’s interests were so closely con¬ 
 cerned in James’s success, that it was well worth his while 
 to support him by an increased contribution. While, not 
 contented with thus prostrating himself at the French 
 King’s feet, James wrote at the same time to the Prince of 
 Orange, the husband of his daughter, who, as yet, was the 
 heiress of his crown, to insist on his renouncing his hostility 
 to Louis, a demand to which William, while acceding to 
 others of his requests, abstained from replying. 
 
 The French King gave the money, and James proceeded 
 to prosecute his designs with energy, every day laying 
 aside more and more the mask of moderation which he 
 had at first assumed. Even if he should not be able to 
 induce the Parliament to grant him his revenues for life, he 
 did not propose as yet to dismiss it, because its consent 
 was indispensable to two measures which he had greatly at 
 heart. Two laws, which had been passed in the late reign, 
 
24 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 were the objects of his especial detestation, the Test Act 
 and the Habeas Corpus Act. According to the view which 
 he took of them, “ one was the destruction of the Catholic 
 religion, and the other of the Royal authority.” 1 And it 
 was absolutely necessary to his views to procure the repeal 
 of them both. The Houses must continue to sit for a 
 while, till he had bent them to his purpose by a combina¬ 
 tion of intimidation and persuasion. Persuasion he could 
 indeed try with but few, the leaders of the two Houses, 
 whom he might summon to personal interviews; but in- 
 titnidation could be applied on a larger scale, to the whole 
 Parliament, and even to the people out of Parliament, and 
 especially to the citizens of London, a population rarely of 
 late favourable to the Crown. 
 
 Full of this design, he regarded the invasion of Mon¬ 
 mouth with complacency, as supplying him with a pretext for 
 raising an army, and thus making himself master of the 
 country. 2 And, after the crisis was past, instead of disband¬ 
 ing the troops, he brought them up to the neighbourhood of 
 the capital, and encamped them on Hounslow' Heath, 
 announcing to Barillon his resolution to keep them under 
 arms, w’hether the Parliament granted him Supplies for the 
 purpose, or refused them. And the determination which 
 he thus expressed he acted up to. Parliament, w T hich had 
 
 1 Charles II. had taken the same view of the Habeas CorpusAct. “ Le 
 fou Roy d'Angleterre et celui-cy m'ont souvent dit qn'un gouvemement ne 
 peut subsistre avec une telle loy."— Barillon in Dalrvmple, p. 171. 
 
 2 “ I) me parait que le Roy d'Angleterre a ete fort aise d'avoir une pre- 
 texte de lever des troupes, et qu'il croit que l'entreprise de M. le Due de 
 Monmouth ne servira qua le rendre plus maitre de son pal's."— Barillon 
 in Dalrvmple, p. 169. 
 
 This was written in June. August 6th he writes, “Le R. d'A. m’a dit 
 que, quoiqu il arrived conservera les troupes sur pied, quand meme le parle- 
 ment ne lui donnerait rien pour les entretenir. — lb. p. 170. 
 
Meeting of Parliament. 
 
 25 
 
 necessarily been adjourned on Monmouth’s invasion, met 
 again in the second week of November. In its previous 
 session, both Houses, and especially the House of Com¬ 
 mons, had shown themselves singularly complaisant. They 
 had conferred on him for life all the revenue which had 
 been enjoyed by Charles; they had even exhibited a 
 willingness to grant him a further Supply; and the only 
 vote which seemed dictated by any feeling but a desire to 
 give him entire satisfaction was one by which the Com¬ 
 mons, while sitting in Committee, had requested him to 
 enforce the penal laws against Nonconformists; even this 
 vote having been subsequently reversed in the whole House, 
 which resolved instead that, “ they relied on his gracious 
 promise to protect that Protestant religion which was dearer 
 to them than life itself.” 
 
 Such a concession on their part made it evident that 
 nothing but the grossest provocation, or the strongest convic¬ 
 tion of absolute necessity, would induce them to put them¬ 
 selves in steady opposition to his wishes ; and equally evident 
 that nothing but the most entire want, not only of political 
 sagacity, but of common sense, could ever lead him to give 
 them such provocation. Yet, in less than a fortnight after 
 they had .assembled for the second session, he quarrelled 
 with both Houses so irreconcilably that he would never 
 allow them to meet again : as if he were resolved to tread in 
 his father’s steps on the most dangerous road which that 
 unfortunate Prince had ever taken. 
 
 The two Houses were not, indeed, quite so much disposed 
 to be unsuspicious and complaisant as they had been at their 
 first meeting. They had lately had a warning not only of 
 the King’s designs, but of the inflexible resolution with 
 which he was prepared to carry them out, in his ungrateful 
 
2 6 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 treatment of one of his most faithful and upright servants. 
 In the last reign, the rejection of the Exclusion Bill by the 
 House of Lords had been chiefly owing to the eloquence 
 of the Marquis of Halifax, and James, on his accession, 
 had expressed to the Marquis himself the warmest gratitude 
 for the service which he had done him on that occasion. 
 Halifax was President of the Council, and James, believing 
 him to be attached to office, and certainly not unfriendly to 
 himself, in more than one private conference tried to win 
 him over to his own views respecting the two obnoxious 
 laws. But Halifax could not be brought to abandon either 
 the Test Act or the Habeas Corpus Act, and James, in high 
 displeasure, struck his name out of the roll of the Privy 
 Council, against the advice of the shrewdest of his courtiers, 
 who warned him of the danger of driving a man so able 
 and so popular into the ranks of the Opposition, and to the 
 great discontent of the nation in general, who believed the 
 expelled minister to be in some degree the victim of the 
 enmity of Louis, because he had always opposed the influ¬ 
 ence of France, which a recent act of the French King in his 
 own country caused most men now to regard with deeper 
 distrust and abhorrence than ever. 
 
 Almost at the same time that the dismissal of Lord 
 Halifax was made public, intelligence arrived that Louis had 
 revoked the Edict of Nantes, by which Henry IV. had 
 granted security for their religion to the French Huguenots; 1 
 and one of the French prelates, in a speech which had 
 been just published, had proclaimed the closeness of the 
 alliance which subsisted between the two monarchs, affirming 
 that James looked to Louis for support against his heretical 
 
 i The Edict of Nantes was revoked Oct. 2nd, 1685. Halifax was dis¬ 
 missed from the Council Oct. 21st. 
 
The King’s Speech. 
 
 27 
 
 people. The deeds and the language alike filled all 
 England , with indignation and alarm ; men could hardly 
 doubt that nothing but a want of equal power restrained 
 James from acting with the same bad faith and cruelty as 
 Louis. And, while they were in this temper, the 9th of 
 November arrived, the day that had been fixed for the re¬ 
 assembling of the Parliament, which had been adjourned 
 on the news of Monmouth’s invasion. 
 
 James opened it in person with a speech which he had 
 himself composed. No Parliament had ever met under 
 circumstances which rendered conciliatory language and 
 conduct more needful; while their conduct in the previous 
 session proved that the members were not inclined to mis¬ 
 construe the King’s words, nor to show any uncalled-for 
 distrust of his designs. Yet no speech was ever delivered 
 more full of provocation, and even of insult. He disparaged 
 the value of the militia; he demanded an additional Supply 
 for the maintenance of an army of regular troops, larger 
 than any former Sovereign had had at his command except 
 in times of actual war; and he ended his harangue by 
 announcing that many of the officers to whom he had given 
 commissions were legally disqualified for them, as being 
 Roman Catholics, and consequently not having taken the 
 necessary tests ; but that they were all men known to himself, 
 “ who had proved the loyalty of their principles by their prac¬ 
 tices, and,” he added in conclusion, “ I will deal plainly with 
 you, that after having had the benefit of their service in such 
 time of need and danger, I will neither expose them to 
 disgrace, nor myself to the want of them in case any new 
 rebellion should make them necessary for me.” His dis¬ 
 paragement of the militia seemed almost like a studied 
 affront to the country gentlemen, from whom the officers 
 
28 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 were drawn, and by whom, as by all their dependents, it w r as 
 regarded as pre-eminently the national force of the kingdom. 
 
 The display of a desire to keep up an unprecedentedly 
 large standing army bore the appearance of a menace to 
 the whole nation, which had not yet forgotten the miseries 
 w'hich their fathers had suffered from the crimes and tyranny 
 of the army forty' years before. To speak of the probability 
 of a new' rebellion w r as to intimate an insulting distrust of 
 the whole nation, whose loyalty at the recent crisis show'ed 
 it to be undeserved. And to follow up these unpleasing 
 topics by an open announcement that he had broken, and 
 that he intended to continue to break the law, w'hich nearly 
 every Protestant in the kingdom regarded as the chief safe¬ 
 guard of his religion, was a challenge to the Parliament to 
 try their strength at upholding that law from which it w T as 
 not likely to shrink. 
 
 Accordingly, the Royal speech did not receive even the 
 customary thanks of the two Houses without severe criti¬ 
 cism and contention. The Lords, indeed, did, after some 
 debate, consent to pass the usual vote of thanks ; though 
 the comment of the Earl of Devonshire, that “ he w'as 
 walling to thank his Majesty for having spoken out so 
 plainly as to w'arn them what they had to expect,” 1 more 
 than neutralized their formal acceptance of his declaration. 
 But the Commons refused to express any opinion on the 
 
 i Lord Macaulay attributes this sarcasm to Halifax, and speaks of it as 
 uttered in the debate which took place four days afterwards. The account 
 followed in the text is that of Burnet and Dalrymple. It is a matter of 
 little consequence; but, besides that Burnet seems the best authority, it is 
 evidently more probable that a pointed saying made by some one else 
 should be attributed to a man so eminent for his keen wit as Halifax, than 
 that a sarcasm, really uttered by Halifax, should be assigned by any one to 
 a less conspicuous speaker, such as the Earl of Devonshire. 
 
Debate on the Kings Speech. 29 
 
 spur of the moment, and adjourned for three days, which 
 were spent by both parties in organizing their forces and 
 their plans. 
 
 When the day of debate came, the leaders of the 
 country party, as the Opposition was still called, carried 
 their point of examining the speech sentence by sentence, 
 and topic by topic; and, in the choice which subject should 
 come first, obtained a victory over the Government on a 
 point which, however the Government might represent it as 
 one of mere form, and, as such, trivial, was, in truth, one 
 of vital importance, in regard both of the general principle 
 and of the degree in which, throughout the whole of the 
 Parliamentary history, the adoption of the order now 
 contended for had contributed to the gradual establish¬ 
 ment of the national liberty. Whenever questions of 
 grievance and of Supply were both to be discussed, the 
 wholesome practice had been to discuss the abuses com¬ 
 plained of first, so that the grant of Supply might be 
 subsequent to, and practically conditional on, the redress 
 or removal of the subject of complaint. 
 
 There were a grievance and a Supply to be discussed 
 now; but the King’s speech had inverted the old order of 
 discussion, and had put forward his need of a Supply 
 before mentioning his disregard of the Test Act. The 
 country party moved to return to the old practice, and 
 to consider first the paragraph which avowed the employ¬ 
 ment of unqualified officers; and, in spite of all the 
 exertions of the Court and the ministers, who left no 
 artifice of cajolery or intimidation untried, they defeated 
 the Government by a majority of 1. And after this victory 
 they had little difficulty in carrying an Address to the King 
 on the subject of the Test Act, in which, while they under- 
 
30 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 took to pass a Bill to indemnify the officers who had 
 hitherto served him without the legal qualification, they at 
 the same time pointed out to him that “ the continuing 
 them in their employments might be taken to a dispensing 
 with the law without an Act of Parliament, the consequence 
 of which was of the greatest concern to the rights of all his 
 Majesty’s subjects, and to all the laws made for the security 
 of their religion;” and therefore they requested him to “give 
 such directions therein that no apprehensions or jealousies 
 might remain in the hearts of his most loyal subjects.” 
 
 They then proceeded to consider the amount of Supply 
 to be granted. That some Supply should be given they had 
 already resolved ; that resolution they had followed by a 
 second, that a Bill should be brought in to render the 
 militia more efficient; and this latter vote had been under¬ 
 stood to imply a determination only to grant a sufficient 
 sum to keep up the existing force of regular troops till the 
 militia could be remodelled. 
 
 The ministers, who took the same view of it, hoped, 
 nevertheless, to elude it by the amount and application 
 of the Supply, but their method of proceeding only gave 
 the country party a second victory. They demanded 
 £ i,200,000, and would have had the vote express that 
 the money was granted for the maintenance of the troops. 
 The opposition, by a majority of more than 40, reduced 
 the amount by ^500,000, and made no mention of the 
 service to which the money was to be applied, avoiding, 
 by this silence, all appearance of giving a parliamentary 
 sanction to the retention of so large a force. James 
 was greatly displeased, nor, when the Commons waited 
 on him with their Address, could he bridle his anger. 
 Though the Address was couched in the most studiously 
 
Debate on the King's Speech. 
 
 3i 
 
 respectful terms, he replied with what he intended for a 
 severe reprimand, complaining of their want of confidence 
 in him and in his word, though, he added, their behaviour 
 to him should not provoke him to forget his promises to 
 them. 
 
 It was an ill-judged display of bad temper, and it pro¬ 
 duced a fruit which he had been far from expecting. On 
 the day of the opening of Parliament, the Upper House 
 had shown an inclination to be more complaisant than their 
 brother legislators of the Lower House, but the King’s 
 reply to the dutiful and moderate expostulation of the 
 Commons now filled them also with apprehension, and 
 some of the most eloquent and influential of the Peers, not 
 all of them members of the Whig party, brought forward a 
 motion to fix a day for taking the King’s opening speech 
 into consideration, nor would they be moved from their 
 purpose by the argument of the ministers that they had 
 already voted his Majesty thanks for it. It was evident 
 that the King’s answer to the Address of the Commons, 
 abstaining as it did from expressing the slightest intention 
 of yielding to their remonstrance on the employment of the 
 officers who refused the Test, had made a most unfavourable 
 impression. 
 
 It was, indeed, openly avowed that this was the case 
 by Compton, Bishop of London, who had formerly been 
 preceptor of the King’s daughters, the Princesses Mary 
 and Anne, and who now energetically supported the pro¬ 
 posal to discuss the speech, declaring that, in what he said, 
 he was the authorized mouthpiece of his brethren on the 
 Episcopal bench, and that they were all of one opinion that 
 the Test was the best security for their religion ; that if the 
 King could dispense with that, he could dispense with any 
 
32 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 other law, or with every law; and that the people would 
 thus be living under an absolute and despotic Government. 
 
 Once more the ministers were beaten; a day was fixed 
 for debating the speech, but the debate never took place. 
 Though James could not prorogue the Parliament before 
 the Bill for the grant (which the Commons had already 
 agreed to) had gone through the usual steps without aban¬ 
 doning the promised Supply, he preferred the loss of that 
 great sum to the risk of being compelled by the unanimity 
 of both Houses on the subject to renounce his claim to 
 dispense with the Test Act. He at once deprived the 
 Bishop of London of the Deanery of the Chapel Royal, 
 and the very next morning he came down to the House of 
 Lords, and, to quote the description of the French Ambas¬ 
 sador, “ with marks of haughtiness and anger on his coun¬ 
 tenance which gave sufficient indication of his sentiments,” 
 prorogued the Parliament till the spring. It had sat but 
 eleven days, and he never allowed it to meet again, but 
 governed without one for the rest of his reign. He pro¬ 
 fessed, indeed, to take warnings from his father’s example 
 and fate, but misunderstood and misapplied them with a 
 strange blindness, often repeating that his father had been 
 ruined because he had made concessions, while the obvious 
 truth w'as that his destruction had been owing, not to his 
 making concessions at all, but to his making them, or 
 rather abandoning his illegal pretensions, too late. 
 
 From this time forth, therefore, James’s reign was an un¬ 
 alloyed and undisguised despotism; and one which w r as not 
 made more tolerable by the character of the objects aimed 
 at, or by the manner in which they were prosecuted. 
 
 Before the prorogation, he had in some degree conde¬ 
 scended to conceal his sentiments, at least from the main body 
 
Treatment of the French Huguenots. 33 
 
 of the people; though to Barillon himself he had declared 
 the joy with which he had heard of the revocation of the 
 Edict of Nantes, and of the success of Louis’ efforts, “ for 
 the extirpation of heresy in France,” 1 which he described as 
 having no parallel in any age nor in any country, he had 
 declared in public that he disapproved of the severities 
 practised on the French Huguenots; had granted some of 
 the exiles relief from his privy purse; and had even authorized 
 a national subscription being set on foot for them. But now 
 that he had cast aside all fear of Parliament, which he was 
 resolved to summon no more, he retraced his steps; recalled 
 his proclamation in favour of the refugees; caused some of 
 their works, though published in France and written in 
 French, to be burnt by the common hangman ; used his 
 utmost endeavours to stifle the subscription which he had 
 sanctioned; and, with strange inconsistency, when, in spite 
 of, or perhaps in consequence of, his disapproval, it had 
 reached the magnificent sum of ,£40,000, he prohibited the 
 slightest aid from the fund being granted to any one of them 
 who should not first take the Sacrament according to the 
 form of the Church of England. Much as he hated that 
 Church, he preferred to pay it a compliment, which it did not 
 desire, rather than allow the French Huguenots, whom being 
 Calvinists he regarded with even greater bitterness, to 
 be relieved in their destitution by English sympathy and 
 liberality. 
 
 We shall fail to form an adequate estimate of the impolicy 
 and headlong folly of the course which James now adopted, 
 if we overlook the fact that it was disapproved by all the 
 
 1 See two despatches of Barillon, quoted in Dalrymple, Vol. III., 
 App., pp. 177, 178, one being dated in the summer of 1686, but the other 
 as early as Oct. 5th, 1685, five weeks before the meeting of the Parliament. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 ablest and most respectable members of the Roman Catholic 
 body. The Pope himself, Innocent XI., a prelate of high 
 character for personal virtue and for ability, urged him to 
 moderate his zeal, being probably guided in no slight degree 
 by the opinions of Count Adda, whom, at James’s special 
 request, he had sent over to England as Nuncio, and of the 
 Vicar Apostolic, John Leybum, who was himself an English¬ 
 man. They agreed in reporting to Rome that by a mode¬ 
 rate policy, and an adherence to the Constitution, James 
 might probably succeed in obtaining great relaxations of the 
 existing laws for their co-religionists ; and the most eminent 
 of the Roman Catholic lay nobles did not scruple to urge 
 the same opinion. They were seconded by the leaders of 
 that party among the Protestants whose principles led them 
 to show the greatest deference to the Crown. The high 
 Tories, whose leading representatives at this time were the 
 Duke of Ormond and the Earls of Clarendon and Rochester; 
 the Duke the faithful and illustrious servant of his father; 
 the Earls his own brothers-in-law, bound, therefore, by every 
 family tie and every consideration of personal interest to 
 uphold his authority, and further his plans even to the 
 length of putting some force on their consciences. 
 
 But these men were thrown into great difficulties and per¬ 
 plexities by the line of conduct which the King was resolved 
 to adopt, and still more by the motives which led him to 
 adopt it. As Constitutional statesmen, they were all eager 
 champions of the monarchy; and the two Earls were espe¬ 
 cially bound, by their respect for their father’s memory, to 
 look on the ancient laws and charters of the kingdom as 
 inseparable ingredients in the Constitutional monarchy of 
 England. The maintenance of the Church of England was 
 in their eyes equally a part of the Constitution : equally in- 
 
Servility of Lord Sunderland. 
 
 35 
 
 dispensable to the real freedom of the people. It was even 
 to his fidelity to the principle of the strict union of Church 
 and State that, in their eyes, the King’s father had principally 
 owed his death. But the whole policy of James was to place 
 Church and State, not in union, but in direct antagonism to 
 each other; to make the State the destroyer of the Church, 
 thus rendering one part of their duty irreconcilable with 
 the other. 
 
 Their perplexity was increased by their possession of lucra¬ 
 tive and honourable offices : Rochester was Lord Treasurer, 
 Clarendon was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; and it was 
 easy to foresee that a refusal to comply with the royal de¬ 
 mands on all points might cost them their places. They 
 implored their royal kinsman not to place them in the cruel 
 dilemma of having either to withstand the royal authority or 
 to desert their religion. Their remonstrances were addressed 
 to ears deafened by the hearer’s ideas of the sacred character 
 of his authority. Complain as they might, threaten as they 
 might, he had persuaded himself that the very soundness of 
 their Churchmanship would keep them on his side, that no 
 violence to their religion would lead into actual disobedience 
 men who knew and owned that religion enjoined them to 
 honour the King as one of the first of duties. And under 
 the influence of this conviction he went on blindly and un¬ 
 flinchingly in the course that he had marked out for himself, 
 though only one of his ministers, the Earl of Sunderland, 
 gave him the least encouragement. 
 
 Sunderland, who had been Secretary of State under 
 Charles II., and who had held the same office ever since 
 James’s accession, had pursued the policy adopted by more 
 than one of the ministers in the late reign, of ingratiating 
 himself with Louis as well as with his own master. For 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 a large annual pension from France, he had undertaken to 
 dissuade James from ever again meeting a Parliament; and 
 in a very few months he had so won on the King’s confidence 
 that, on the dismissal of Halifax, he had been allowed to 
 add the dignity of President of the Council to the office 
 which he already enjoyed. He was ready even to renounce 
 his religion and to turn Roman Catholic ; and such a step 
 was soon found to be indispensable to any one who sought 
 an enduring influence with James; who neither in politics 
 nor in religion could tolerate any scruples which opposed 
 themselves to his will. Sunderland was a man of considerable 
 talents; but the other advisers of the King were as incapable 
 as they were profligate. 
 
 One was Lord Castlemaine, known only as the husband 
 of one of the late King’s mistresses, the Duchess of 
 Cleveland, whose dishonour had procured for him an 
 Irish earldom. Another was Lord Tyrconnel, whom James 
 himself had raised to the peerage, though among his deeds 
 of infamy was one which the King, as a man of common 
 honour, ought to have regarded with everlasting resentment; 
 since, by a series of the foulest lies, he had endeavoured to 
 stain the reputation of his first Duchess, the mother of his 
 daughters. For both, James had employment in store. 
 Tyrconnel was employed as Commander-in-Chief in Ireland. 
 Castlemaine was sent as ambassador to Rome, where the 
 Pope received him with a studied coldness that was, no 
 doubt, meant as an indication of his disapproval of his 
 master’s policy. Nor was it strange that his Holiness should 
 regard James’s system with such feelings, for Innocent XI. 
 was inclined to depart from the attitude which his prede¬ 
 cessors had assumed in France towards the Jansenists, and 
 consequently to discourage the Jesuits, who were notoriously 
 
Failure of Castlemaine's Negotiations. 37 
 
 the chief prompters of the recent measures of the English 
 Court. 
 
 One of the favours which Castlemaine was most espe¬ 
 cially instructed to solicit, was the grant of a Cardinal’s hat 
 for Father Petre, the Vice-Provincial of the Jesuit Order 
 in England, and James’s chief counsellor in all ecclesiastical 
 matters. But with this request Innocent steadily refused 
 compliance; and after a residence at Rome of about a 
 twelvemonth, the ambassador returned to England, having 
 brought nothing but ridicule on his master and on himself 
 by the notorious failure of his mission, and the arrogant ill- 
 temper with which he bore it. 
 
38 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Violence of. Lord Tyrconnel in Ireland—State of Ireland—The massacre 
 of 1641—Tyrconnel succeeds Lord Clarendon as Lord Lieutenant — 
 The Protestants are gradually dismissed from employment—Conduct 
 of the Government in Scotland—General hatred of Popery in the 
 Scotch nation—James quarrels with the Privy Council and with the 
 Estates—James dispenses with penal statutes in England—The case 
 of Sir Edward Hales—Preferments in the Church are conferred on 
 Roman Catholics—Establishment of a Court of High Commission— 
 The case of Dr. Sharp and Bishop Compton—Roman Catholic 
 convents, &c., are established in London—Position and character of 
 the Prince of Orange. 
 
 Unhappily, the work entrusted to Tyrconnel was not 
 equally barren of results. To him, as an Irishman, the 
 whole conduct of affairs in Ireland was gradually committed ; 
 and it was the peculiar misfortune of that country that the 
 King could not there prosecute his designs of setting 
 Church against Church, without, at the same time, bringing 
 on it the still greater evil of setting race against race; for 
 in Ireland, if those who professed the Roman Catholic 
 religion could complain of injustice, it was injustice which 
 fell upon them, not as Roman Catholics, but as Irishmen. 
 Those immigrants, whether of Norman, or, more rarely, of 
 British blood, who had settled in Ireland under the Planta- 
 genets, had, in a few generations, amalgamated so completely 
 with the natives that, in the quaint language of an old 
 statute, they had become more Irish than the Irish them¬ 
 selves . 1 
 
 Ipsis Hibemis Hiberniores. 
 
Affairs of Ireland. 
 
 39 
 
 The two races had become one, calling themselves, and 
 being called, emphatically the Irish, to distinguish them 
 from the settlers of English or Scotch blood who, since the 
 accession of Elizabeth, had been induced to establish them¬ 
 selves in the country. Between these new-comers and the 
 old inhabitants there was but little goodwill. The English 
 and Scotch despised the Irish as little better than savages. 
 The Irish hated them as intruders. Strafford, while he held 
 the reins of Government as Lord Deputy, awed both into 
 quiet; but, when he was removed, the international enmity 
 broke out fiercely, and in 1641 the Irish, under Sir Phelim 
 O’Neill, rose in insurrection with the deliberate design of 
 massacring all the English and Protestants in the land. 
 
 To a great extent they carried out their horrible purpose ; 
 they failed, indeed, in their attack on Dublin Castle, and were 
 similarly baffled in one or two other places where vigilant 
 leaders were warned in time, either by pitying friends, or by 
 their own suspicions. But those who were thus saved were 
 'few; the great bulk of the new settlers were taken unawares, 
 and all who fell into the hands of their enemies were 
 slaughtered without mercy. The number of those who 
 perished, greatly magnified at first, as was natural, by the 
 exaggerations of fear, could only be reckoned by tens of 
 thousands; 1 and, if their fate bred in those who survived, and 
 
 1 The first estimates reached the incredible amount of 200,000. The 
 latest and lowest, that of Sir W. Petty, reduced the number to 37,000. 
 But the long struggle which ensued between the two parties was far more 
 fatal than the first assault. “It is almost enough to say that the blood 
 spilt in the winter of 1641-2, was not washed out till, according to the 
 elaborate compulation of Sir W. Petty, out of an entire population of 
 1,500,000, more than 500,000 had, by sword, famine, and pestilence, been 
 miserably destroyed."— Froudf. : The English in Ireland , p. 113. 
 
 Twenty pages further on, Mr. Froude says, " The surviving population 
 was estimated by Dr. Petty at about 850,000, of whom 150,000 were English 
 
40 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 in those who afterwards came over, a detestation of the race 
 whom they knew to have contrived the massacre, the ferocity 
 with which Cromwell afterwards avenged it kept alive the 
 feelings which had prompted it among the Irish themselves. 
 
 The hatred, therefore, which subsisted between the two 
 races was now bitterer than ever; being, perhaps, aggravated 
 on both sides by the feeling that their strength was less 
 unequal than at any former period. 1 In religion they dif¬ 
 fered wholly. Among the Irish there were few Protestants; 
 among the English and Scotch there was probably not one 
 Roman Catholic; so that to raise the Roman Catholic 
 religion over Protestantism in Ireland was to raise the old 
 Irish above the new settlers ; and not only to intensify the 
 feud existing between the two, which a wiser ruler would have 
 made it his most anxious care to mitigate, but to give the 
 preponderance to that race which was known to be hostile 
 to English rule. 
 
 It has been truly pointed out that James had peculiar 
 qualifications for allaying the animosities which existed, since' 
 the old Irish looked on him as a brother Catholic, the 
 English and Scotch as a sovereign of their own blood ; so 
 that both parties might reasonably regard him as one dis¬ 
 and Scots."— 16 . 133. It is remarkable that O'Neill did not at first intend 
 to include the Scotch in the slaughter. “ The Scots, of whom there were 
 several thousand families in Ulster, were to be left, if possible, unmolested. 
 To divide the interests of Scots from English would make the work more 
 easy.”— 16 . 98. 
 
 1 Lord Macaulay, Vol. II. 127, estimates the population of the whole 
 island, in 1686, at nearly 2,200,000, of whom about 200,000 were 11 colonists 
 proud of their Saxon blood and of their Protestant faith." But Mr. 
 Froude, speaking of a time a few years earlier (1665), says, "The propor¬ 
 tion of Protestants to Catholics had increased very considerably since the 
 [Cromwellian] settlement. Of the latter, there were now 800,000 ; of the 
 former 300,000 ."—The English in Ireland, p. 134. It is certain that the 
 Protestants must have increased during the next twenty years. 
 
Administration of Lord Tyrconnel. 
 
 4i 
 
 posed to look favourably on their claims, and therefore might 
 be expected willingly to receive him as a mediator. But 
 mediation requires impartiality, while both religious bigotry, 
 and his belief in his right to absolute power, prevented James 
 from putting on even the semblance of impartiality. They 
 even restricted his choice of an agent to Irishmen; for, 
 as he said, “there was work to be done in Ireland which no 
 Englishman would doand, so far as an utter absence of 
 scruples or shame was needful in the servant he was to trust, 
 it could not be denied that Tyrconnel was a fitting instru¬ 
 ment. At first he was only appointed Commander-in-Chief, 
 Clarendon being still allowed to remain as Lord-Lieutenant; 
 but at the beginning of 1687 the English governor was 
 removed, and Tyrconnel was suffered to combine both 
 offices. From the first moment, however, of his landing in 
 Ireland, all the real power was in his hands, and the nominal 
 Viceroy found himself compelled to submit to his dictation. 
 As early as Monmouth’s rebellion, Tyrconnel had begun to 
 disarm the Protestant gentry on the plea that they favoured 
 the invader; and even after that danger was past, Clarendon 
 was compelled to prosecute the disarmament more strin¬ 
 gently, and thus to leave the Protestants wholly at the mercy 
 of their enemies. 
 
 Presently, fresh orders were sent over to fill the municipal 
 corporations and the Privy Council with Roman Catholics, 
 often of a rank from which Privy Councillors had never 
 been taken before, so that the Protestant nobles refused 
 to sit at the same Board with them, and the very men who 
 were thus promoted were ashamed of their dignities, as con¬ 
 ferred on them in open violation of all law and precedent. 
 The Protestant bishoprics which fell in were kept vacant, 
 that their revenues might be given to Roman Catholic pre- 
 
42 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 lates, while, to prevent the possibility of resistance, the army 
 also was carefully weeded. In a few months, above 4,000 
 Protestants were cashiered, though the officers had, gene¬ 
 rally, bought their commissions. And, as the common 
 soldiers were stripped of their uniforms, the naked and 
 destitute condition in which they were turned adrift caused 
 an almost universal consternation. The more respectable 
 Roman Catholics themselves disapproved of the violence 
 of these acts, which at first they were inclined to impute 
 rather to the folly of Tyrconnel himself than to James; 
 Lord Bellasis, whom the King had made Lord Treasurer on 
 Rochester’s dismissal, openly saying that “ that fellow was 
 madman enough to ruin ten kingdoms.” But it proved that 
 James’s own instructions were so violent that no rashness of 
 any subordinate officer could outrun them, and that Tyrconnel 
 might probably have pleaded, as did Jefferies after his 
 western campaign, that his obedience would have been more 
 faithful and precise if he had been even more intemperate. 
 
 In Scotland, James was in some degree aided in his pro¬ 
 jects by the state of the law as it existed in that country, 
 since the Scottish Act of Supremacy gave him a more 
 absolute power in ecclesiastical affairs than he enjoyed in 
 his other kingdoms. And it was also in his favour that 
 some of the ablest and most influential of the Scotch 
 leaders had mixed themselves up in Monmouth’s rebellion, 
 and had thus greatly discredited any resistance they might 
 hereafter make to his authority; the most powerful of all 
 the nobles, the Earl of Argyll, having even ventured to 
 rise in arms against the Government, and having expiated 
 his treason on the scaffold. 
 
 On the other hand, those from whom he could expect 
 any zealous co-operation in his exertions on behalf of his 
 
Affairs of Scotland. 
 
 43 
 
 religion were very small in number, since, from the time of 
 Knox, all exercise of the Romish religion had been pro¬ 
 hibited by statutes of such ferocious intolerance that few 
 cared to expose themselves to their penalties. He had, 
 indeed, succeeded, on his accession to the throne, in 
 inducing some of the nobles to profess his faith. The Earl 
 of Perth, the Chancellor, with his brother, Lord Melfort, 
 the Secretary of State, were eager to supplant the Duke 
 of Queensberry, the head of the ancient house of Douglas, 
 in his office of Lord Treasurer; and knowing well that 
 no road to the King’s favour was equally sure, declared 
 themselves convinced of the truth of the Popish doctrines 
 by some papers which Charles II. had drawn up on 
 the subject of the controversy between the Church of 
 England and the Romanists; and which, since his death, 
 James had published with great exultation, because in them 
 his brother had declared his belief in the superior validity 
 of the arguments of the Roman Catholic champions. 
 
 Though the personal characters of the two brothers were 
 far from standing high in general estimation, and though 
 their abilities were utterly contemptible, their conversion was 
 a sufficient title to James’s entire confidence. Queensberry 
 was dismissed from one office after another, and edict after 
 edict was issued, showing the Roman Catholics all the favour 
 which the King could show them, without the aid of the 
 Estates of the kingdom. One enjoined the Protestant clergy 
 to forbear from preaching against Popery; another granted 
 Roman Catholic officials a dispensation from taking the legal 
 tests. Restrictions were imposed on the press, and book¬ 
 sellers were forbidden to publish any book without the license 
 of the Chancellor. The citizens of Edinburgh, a population 
 probably more hostile to anything that bore the semblance 
 
44 The English Revolution. 
 
 of Popery than any other in Europe, became violently 
 discontented, and presently, when they learnt that Lord 
 Perth had opened a Roman Catholic chapel in his house, 
 they broke out in a formidable riot, forced their way into 
 the chapel, and defaced all the ornaments, not sparing 
 Lady Perth herself from insult. Quiet was not restored till 
 the troops were called out, and more than one person was 
 killed by their fire. Some of the ringleaders were appre¬ 
 hended, and James, with unkingly cruelty, sent down orders 
 to put the prisoners to the torture. 
 
 This illegal severity was no doubt meant to deter men 
 from further opposition to his will, and James proceeded 
 with great energy in his object of extorting from the Privy 
 Council and the Estates their co-operation in the enactment 
 of laws which his own authority was insufficient to pass. 
 His proposals argued a strange ignorance of the feelings 
 and of all the previous history of the nation, for the great 
 bulk of the people was inflexibly attached to the Presby¬ 
 terian form of worship, the exercise of which had lately 
 been prohibited by enactments equally stringent and bar¬ 
 barous with those which had been framed against Popery. 
 To hear the mass three times, and to attend a Presbyterian 
 conventicle were equally made capital offences; but James 
 now desired to repeal the statutes which imposed penalties 
 on the Papists, while leaving untouched those which 
 denounced the gallows against Presbyterians. 
 
 The Privy Council was willing to do more than might 
 have been expected; the members offered to agree to relax 
 the laws against both sects, but coupled their consent with a 
 demand that the King should bind himself by a solemn 
 promise to protect the Protestant religion. James replied 
 that the Protestant religion was false, and that he would not 
 
Conduct of the Scottish Estates. 
 
 45 
 
 engage to protect it, and in high indignation turned to the 
 Estates to obtain from them the aid which the Council 
 refused him. 
 
 In April, 1686, the Estates were opened with a letter from 
 the King, in which he required them to repeal the laws 
 against the Roman Catholics, offering, as inducements to 
 win their compliance, to open to their commerce a free trade 
 with England, and to pardon some political offenders, but 
 abstaining from holding out the slightest hope of similar 
 indulgence to the Presbyterians. The leaders of the 
 debates in the Estates proved more impracticable than the 
 Privy Councillors. Their language, as reported by Barillon, 
 was that “ they must, by refusing to sell their God, wipe off 
 the reproach of having once sold their King;” and even the 
 Lords of Articles, as a body of Commissioners was called, 
 whose task it was to draw the Bills which were to be laid 
 before the Estates for discussion, though virtually nominated 
 by the Crown, refused to put into form the proposals which 
 he desired, declaring that they were contrary to the funda¬ 
 mental laws of Scotland. In high wrath, James tried in¬ 
 timidation ; he tried punishment. Some of those who had 
 taken the lead in the discussions he dismissed from their 
 offices; others he deprived of pensions; but his violence only 
 sharpened the spirit of resistance, and after a session of a 
 few weeks, he adjourned the Estates, as he had already 
 adjourned the English Parliament; and, telling Barillon that 
 “by the authority which the law gave him he could establish 
 in Scotland that liberty in favour of the Catholics which 
 the Parliament refused to grant,” he proceeded to act in the 
 spirit of that announcement. 
 
 He deprived Bishops of their sees ; he forbade the judges 
 to put in execution any of the laws against Papists; he 
 
46 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 prohibited all municipal elections, and took upon himself to 
 fill up all the magistracies and different offices in every 
 borough town in the kingdom. At the beginning of the 
 next year, he even issued a proclamation which abolished 
 nearly all the restrictions that had hitherto been imposed 
 on the Roman Catholics, and which, while it allowed 
 them to build chapels, still refused equal liberty to the 
 Presbyterians ; and he especially announced a resolution to 
 enforce the law which inflicted death as the punishment for 
 the offence of attending a Presbyterian conventicle in the 
 open air. 
 
 But, however monstrous these acts might be, and however 
 great the degree in which, in both the sister kingdoms, they 
 alienated men’s minds from the Crown, and prepared them 
 for insurrection, it was in England that James himself felt 
 that the decisive blows must be struck; and it was by the 
 reception which his measures might meet in England that 
 the eventual results of his policy must be determined. If, 
 either by force or by address, he could carry his point in 
 the country which was the seat of government, he was con¬ 
 vinced that he need not apprehend any permanent resist¬ 
 ance in the other parts of the kingdom. He resolved, first, 
 to try address, or, in other words, to endeavour to cover his 
 proceedings with a form of law, by means of the exercise 
 of that power of dispensing with penal statutes, for which 
 one or two acts of former sovereigns, and especially of his 
 own father, seemed to afford precedents. The limits of this 
 power had never been defined by the law; but it was 
 notorious that every King had claimed and exercised, as a 
 part of his royal prerogative, the right of pardoning persons 
 convicted of crimes, or of inflicting punishments slighter 
 than those to which the criminal had been sentenced by 
 
Trial of Sir Edward Hales. 
 
 47 
 
 the judge. And James now determined to employ this 
 expedient to nullify all the statutes which imposed disabili¬ 
 ties or penalties on Roman Catholics. It was not easy to 
 find a mode of doing so ; for judge after judge warned the 
 King that, if his power to grant such dispensations as he 
 proposed to grant were contested in a court of law, they 
 should be unable to give a decision in his favour, while both 
 the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General positively 
 refused to draw the warrants which they were ordered to 
 prepare for conferring offices and ecclesiastical benefices on 
 Roman Catholics ; the Attorney-General, a barrister named 
 Sawyer, of high reputation for professional ability, telling the 
 King that such an act would be not merely a violation of a 
 single statute* but an abrogation of the whole statute law as 
 it had existed from the time of Elizabeth. 
 
 Nearly all who thus declared their disapproval were 
 turned out of office, and replaced by men of inferior ability, 
 but of more pliant and accommodating or more timorous 
 disposition. And when James had thus got advocates to 
 his mind and packed the bench of judges, he, without delay, 
 invoked the aid of the machinery of the law for the ac¬ 
 complishment of his grand design. Sir Edward Hales, who 
 had recently become a Roman Catholic, had been rewarded 
 with the colonelcy of a regiment, and was performing the 
 military duties of his rank without having taken the test 
 prescribed by the Act passed in the late reign. A collusive 
 information was laid against him, and, when he had pleaded 
 that his Majesty had granted him a dispensation authorizing 
 him to hold his commission without complying with the pro¬ 
 visions of the Test Act, the judges pronounced his plea 
 good, and directed his acquittal, resting their decision on 
 grounds which were more formidable than the decision itself, 
 
48 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 that the laws of England were the King’s laws, and that, 
 consequently, it was an inseparable part of his prerogative 
 to dispense with penal laws in particular cases, for reasons of 
 which he was the sole judge. 
 
 The whole affair was treated in Court as if it were abso¬ 
 lutely devoid of importance; even the counsel for the pro¬ 
 secution argued their case as if they desired to be defeated. 1 
 But it was not regarded as trivial by the nation at large, 
 through which it spread a general indignation and alarm; 
 men felt that every principle of Constitutional government 
 was undermined by the judges’ decision, and the King 
 speedily showed that he meant to carry the rule thus 
 laid down by them into every department of the State. 
 Roman Catholics were sworn in as members of the 
 Privy Council. By an inconceivable mockery not only of 
 law but of religion, livings in the Church of England were 
 conferred on Popish priests; and Obadiah Walker, the master 
 of the most ancient college in Oxford, was induced to pro¬ 
 fess himself a Roman Catholic; and retaining his headship, 
 established an oratory in the College, introduced a Jesuit as 
 chaplain, and celebrated mass, to the disgust of the students, 
 whom he tried to coerce into following his example, but 
 who turned him and his new worship into ridicule, regaling 
 his ears, as he crossed the quadrangle, with doggrel rhyme, 
 
 “ Old Obadiah 
 Sings Ave Maria.” 
 
 Another Papist, Dr. Massey, was made Dean of Christ¬ 
 church, though that office added to the presidency over 
 
 • 11 After the cause had been argued with a most indecent coldness 
 by those who were made use of on design to expose and betray it.”— 
 Burnet, p. 669. But Hallam, vol. III. p. 85, says, “ This hardly appears 
 by Northey's argument"; Northey being the leading counsel for the 
 prosecution. 
 
The Court of High Commission. 
 
 49 
 
 the chief college in the University the highest post under 
 the Bishop in the cathedral chapter; and he received at the 
 same time a secret dispensation from the Act of Uniformity 
 and from all ecclesiastical statutes which had any reference 
 to his office, couched in terms so ample as evidently to be 
 intended for a precedent. Bishoprics were conferred on men 
 of neither learning, nor virtue, nor any other qualification 
 but an understood willingness to renounce their Protestant 
 profession. And the King long kept the Archbishopric 
 of York vacant, with the intention of raising the Jesuit 
 Petre to that high dignity as soon as he could obtain 
 a dispensation from the Pope, without which no Jesuit 
 could accept a mitre; but which Innocent marked his 
 disapproval of the King’s ardent policy by steadily re¬ 
 fusing. 
 
 But there were many things which, as the King imagined, 
 he could do without any assistance from Rome, and one of 
 which seemed capable of such wide application as to 
 include every part of his principal design. In April, 1686, 
 he created a Court of High Commission, with a complete 
 visitatorial and governing power over the whole Church of 
 England. A court with the same name had existed in his 
 father’s time, and, having been converted by Laud into an 
 engine of almost universal oppression, had been abolished 
 by the Long Parliament; while, so bitter had been the re¬ 
 collection which it had left behind it, that the Parliament 
 of Charles II., which restored many others of the Eccle¬ 
 siastical Courts, refused to revive that tribunal; and even 
 inserted expressions in the Bill for the re-establishment of 
 the rest, which were designed to operate as a distinct bar to 
 the renewal of its powers in any form. 1 If it was not con- 
 1 “They had taken marked precautions in passing an Act for the 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 trary to any express statute, it was clearly inconsistent with 
 every principle of the Constitution for the King to create 
 anew, by his single authority, a Court which in the very last 
 reign, the whole Parliament, King, Lords, and Commons, 
 had agreed in condemning. 
 
 And if the re-establishment of this court was in itself a 
 grievance, the use for which it was instantly employed ren¬ 
 dered it still more odious ; for the first person cited before 
 it was Compton, Bishop of London. Even before he had 
 issued the proclamation creating the tribunal, James had 
 taken upon himself to exert some of its powers, and had 
 issued directions to all the Protestant clergy to abstain 
 from controversial sermons. Roman Catholic preachers 
 were left at liberty to advocate their doctrines; but the 
 preachers of the Church of England were prohibited from 
 replying to them. Many manfully disregarded so illegal 
 and unjust an edict, and among them, Dr. Sharpe, one of 
 the royal chaplains, and rector of a London parish. At 
 the special request of one of his parishioners, he preached 
 an eloquent refutation of some of the chief doctrines of 
 Popery, and the King instantly sent orders to Compton to 
 suspend him. Compton’s lawyers warned him that he could 
 not legally obey the mandate without giving Sharpe an 
 opportunity of being heard in his own defence. The 
 Bishop reported their opinion to the King, requesting to 
 be excused from complying with a command which was 
 illegal, and James instantly caused his new Court of High 
 Commission to summon him before it to answ r er for his 
 disobedience. 
 
 “ restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction that it should not be construed 
 “ to restore the High Commission Court.”— Hallam, vol. II., c. XI., 
 p. 451. Ed. 1832. Cf. Burnet, p. 675. 
 
The Case of Bishop Compton. 51 
 
 Jefferies, now Lord Chancellor, was chief of the Commis¬ 
 sion; a man, whose servility and barbarity, as shown on the 
 trials of Monmouth’s adherents, had made him infamous 
 in the eyes of every man of virtue and honour throughout 
 Europe. The other members were the Earl of Rochester, 
 the Earl of Sunderland, Herbert, who had been made Chief 
 Justice for the express purpose of giving judgment for the 
 Crown in Hales’s case ; and three prelates, Archbishop San- 
 croft, who declined attending; Crewe, Bishop of Durham, 
 who seemed proud of his courtier-like sycophancy; and 
 Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, who was bound to the King by 
 his hope of obtaining the Archbishopric of York, if Inno¬ 
 cent should still prove obstinate on the question of a dis¬ 
 pensation for Petre. Jefferies now browbeat the Bishop 
 with such insolence that even his colleagues were ashamed 
 of his conduct. But, with all his violence, he was unable 
 at first to procure the sentence he desired. So irrefragable 
 were the arguments with which Compton’s counsel defended 
 him, that Rochester, Herbert, and Bishop Sprat declared 
 their opinions in his favour. James was furious. It was to 
 no purpose that his eldest daughter, the Princess Mary, 
 wrote to him from Holland in favour of her old tutor. The 
 clearer the Bishop’s case, the more influential his friends, 
 the more resolute was James to make an example of him. 
 Though the Earl of Rochester was his own brother-in-law, 
 he threatened to deprive him of his post if he did not retract 
 his sentence, and condemn the Bishop ; and the Earl, with 
 a baseness as unprecedented as it was unprofitable, for, in 
 spite of it, James did dismiss him a few months afterwards, 
 complied with the tyrannical order. His voice gave the 
 Bishop’s enemies a majority; and they pronounced a 
 sentence by which Compton was suspended from all 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 spiritual functions. They were unable to touch his emolu¬ 
 ments, since such a step would have enabled him to appeal 
 to the Civil Courts for protection; in which case the Chief 
 Justice himself warned the King that he must inevitably 
 succeed. 
 
 It was the only instance in which James condescended to 
 take warning. He now openly encouraged Friars of all 
 orders, Benedictines, Franciscans, Carmelites, and, above 
 all, Jesuits, though, from the time of the Gunpowder Plot, 
 special statutes of unusual severity had been enacted against 
 that order, to establish chapels, convents, and schools in the 
 heart of London; while, to check any disposition of the 
 citizens to resist, he assembled a fresh army, consisting of 
 above 13,000 men, cavalry and infantry, with a heavy train 
 of artillery; and encamped it on Hounslow Heath, within 
 12 miles of the capital. But the feeling which he thus 
 hoped to repress on the part of the citizens, being, in truth, 
 the feeling of nearly every Englishman worthy of the name, 
 was largely shared by the soldiers. To use a modern expres¬ 
 sion, the two bodies began to fraternize together, and the 
 unarmed population of the city soon learnt that, if things 
 went further, they might reckon on the sympathy, if not on 
 the active co-operation of the soldiers. And as demonstra¬ 
 tion of the King’s inflexible obstinacy followed demonstra¬ 
 tion, it became daily more and more probable that the 
 discontent which pervaded the kingdom would eventually 
 kindle into open resistance. 
 
 Before the end of the year, in spite of all his servility in 
 the Court of High Commission, the Earl of Rochester was 
 dismissed from his office because he refused to renounce his 
 religion; his brother, the Earl of Clarendon, was recalled from 
 Ireland, that Tyrconnel might unite the supreme civil with 
 
Position of the Prince of Orange. 
 
 53 
 
 the supreme military authority; and their disgrace produced 
 the deeper impression, since it made it evident that even 
 the bonds arising from the closest family ties would be made 
 by James to give way to the one absorbing motive of re¬ 
 establishing the Papal religion and the Papal authority in the 
 kingdom. 
 
 So general and so deep did the indignation and the 
 alarm become, that, by the beginning of 1687, the minds 
 of many began to turn towards William Prince of Orange, 
 who, as a grandson of Charles I., was himself a Prince of the 
 blood royal of England. William had married the King’s 
 eldest daughter, the presumptive heiress to the throne; he 
 was known as a Prince of great statesmanlike capacity, and 
 of energetic courage and resolution; and it was reasonable 
 to think that the probability that these kingdoms might 
 eventually become the inheritance of his wife might incline 
 him to take a lively interest in their affairs. It might even 
 be construed as already giving him some right to interfere 
 actively in any case of conspicuous misgovernment, while 
 his principles and opinions, so far as they were known, were 
 in complete harmony with those of the great majority of 
 the nation. As Stadtholder of a republic he could not fail 
 to disapprove of the establishment or exercise of despotic 
 authority; while it was notorious that he was firmly attached 
 to Protestantism, and was averse to all persecution for 
 religious differences. Every circumstance therefore com¬ 
 bined to point him out to those who were discontented with 
 the Government as their most suitable ally. And more 
 than one urgent application for his advice or assistance 
 reached the Hague in the first months of the year; some of 
 those who sought it even entreating him at once to cross 
 over to England with an army, and to endeavour by the 
 
54 The English Revolution. 
 
 display of force to bring back James to more constitutional 
 courses. 
 
 But William wisely decided that the pear was not yet ripe, 
 though he began to open communications with some of the 
 leading nobles and statesmen of both parties; watching the 
 train of events, and giving them as much encouragement in 
 their resolution to uphold the Protestant constitution as 
 could be afforded by their assurance of his sympathy with 
 their objects, and his probable willingness to afford them 
 more material aid should such become indispensable. 
 
 He even sent over to England a confidential agent of 
 great sagacity, named Dykvelt, whose ostensible duties 
 were those of envoy from the States of Holland to the 
 British Government, but the real object of whose mission 
 was to gather for the Prince information as to the state 
 of public feeling in England, on which he could place 
 greater reliance than on the representations of members 
 of either party, however zealous, honest, or able. Being a 
 man of great diplomatic address, Dykvelt held frequent 
 intercourse with men of influence of all parties and all sects, 
 whether in or out of Parliament: many even of the Roman 
 Catholics not scrupling to enter into communication with 
 him; and he gradually learnt that William’s informants had 
 not exaggerated either the extent or the degree of the 
 prevailing discontent; that even those whose especial 
 champion and protector James seemed to be, disapproved 
 of his mode of showing them favour, and that the dissatis¬ 
 faction was increasing. 
 
55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 James tries to gain the Prince of Orange's consent to a general toleration 
 •—He issues a Declaration of Indulgence—The Nonconformists declare 
 against the dispensing power—The correspondence between Stewart 
 and Fagel—James dissolves the Parliament—James executes some 
 soldiers for desertion—He attacks the University of Cambridge— 
 Farmer is nominated President of Magdalen College, Oxford—James 
 visits Oxford—The fellows of Magdalen are expelled—James pro¬ 
 poses to bequeath Ireland to Louis—Expectation of an heir to the 
 Throne—A Board of regulators is appointed—James issues a second 
 Declaration of Indulgence—Six bishops present a petition to the 
 King. 
 
 In the spring of 1687, it seemed as if James had changed 
 his tactics; and, having failed to carry his point by threats 
 and prosecutions, had resolved once more to try what address 
 might effect for him. He knew that the Protestants of the 
 Church of England regarded the Protestant Nonconformists 
 with an antipathy little less determined than that which they 
 felt towards the Roman Catholics, and which seemed the 
 more ineradicable since it was combined with something of 
 disdain. He might well believe that the Nonconformists 
 repaid their dislike with interest; but the zeal which, since 
 his accession, he had shown for elevating his own Church 
 above them both, had had some effect in uniting them. He 
 now conceived that, by a comparatively slight change of 
 policy, he might be able to divide them. When he had 
 first endeavoured to procure the assent of Parliament to 
 
56 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 a relaxation of the laws against the Roman Catholics, 
 he had treated with scorn the idea that the Protestant 
 Dissenters had any claim to a similar indulgence; and 
 many, probably the majority, of the Churchmen were 
 equally disinclined to see the laws relaxed in favour of 
 either body. 
 
 He now, therefore, adopted the idea that, if he granted 
 relief to both, such an act would secure the gratitude of 
 the Protestant Nonconformists, and widen the breach 
 between them and the Church of England. He even 
 sent the Marquis Albeville over to Holland to endeavour 
 to obtain the sanction of the Prince of Orange to 
 his design; and also wrote to the Prince with his own 
 nand on the subject. But William looked at the interests 
 of Protestantism in general rather than at those of any one 
 sect in particular; and, though he undoubtedly inclined to 
 the doctrines of the Nonconformists rather than to those of 
 the Church of England, he nevertheless had so deep a con¬ 
 viction that the Test Act was the surest bulwark against 
 Popery, that he absolutely refused to concur in the King’s 
 project. 1 But opposition never made James flinch; and 
 though the precedent of his brother’s reign, when Charles 
 had been compelled to revoke the Declaration of Indulgence 
 which he had issued, could not fail to be fresh in his recol¬ 
 lection, he now took upon himself to issue a somewhat simi¬ 
 lar Declaration; annulling by his own authority the whole 
 
 i He writes to the King, June 17, 1687, that he had already assured 
 him “qu'il n'y avait personne au monde qui pouvait avoir plus d'aversion 
 “ que j’avais pour toutesorte depersecution au fait dereligion, etqu’assure- 
 “ ment je ne voudrais de ma vie y donner les mains; mais aussi je ne 
 ‘' pourrais jamais me resoudre a faire quelque chose contraire au bien et a 
 11 l'interet dela religion que jeprofesse ; etqu'ainsijenepuisconcourirence 
 “ que votre Majeste desire de moi.”— Dalrymple, vol. III. Pt. 2, p. 184. 
 
Feelings of the Nonconformists. 57 
 
 series of statutes, whether imposing tests or penalties, which 
 a succession of Parliaments had enacted for the security of 
 Protestantism. 
 
 He could not pretend to fancy that the present Par¬ 
 liament was more disposed to acquiesce in such an 
 encroachment on its powers than its predecessor; for he 
 had personally canvassed many leading members of both 
 Houses, and, if there had been the slightest hope of obtain¬ 
 ing a favourable vote, he would have allowed the Houses to 
 meet again. But the more the Churchmen opposed it, the 
 greater he expected would be the gratitude of the Noncon¬ 
 formists. To his surprise, he found that they were as little 
 inclined to believe in his friendship for themselves, or in the 
 sincerity of his denunciations of religious intolerance, as 
 ever. They remembered the peculiar bitterness with which 
 he had persecuted them both in England and Scotland; 
 and they distrusted his present parade of moderation. 
 Even in this very Declaration of Indulgence, he avowed 
 his wish to bring back the whole nation to Popery ; and 
 among the professors of Popery he lost no opportunity of 
 showing that his personal preference, if it might not be 
 said his exclusive favour, was reserved for the Jesuits, the 
 most insincere, the most intolerant, and the most un¬ 
 scrupulous of all the Romish brotherhoods. 
 
 Accordingly, the great majority of the Nonconformists 
 believed the Indulgence to be but a snare, a cloak to cover 
 his schemes for the advancement of his own religion, which 
 he would himself discard as soon as he had established the 
 Papists in security and ascendancy. Greatly as they valued 
 the permission to build meeting-houses, and to assemble 
 openly in them in broad daylight, their hatred and dread 
 of Popery overpowered even that feeling ; and finally, at a 
 
58 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 meeting of the leading Nonconformist ministers, where the 
 whole transaction was elaborately discussed, the majority 
 passed a formal resolution in condemnation of the exercise 
 of the dispensing power. 
 
 Nor were the Roman Catholics themselves, who did not 
 belong to the Jesuit order, pleased at what had been done. 
 They were well aware of its illegality. They could have little 
 doubt that, at the King’s death, when, to all appearance, 
 the Princess of Orange must succeed to the throne, the In¬ 
 dulgence would be cancelled. They learned from Dykvelt 
 that the Prince himself, in that event, though he would not 
 consent to their admission to offices of State, would not be 
 averse to their obtaining a fair degree of liberty for their 
 exercise of the rites of their religion, and they preferred the 
 prospect of such a toleration to be permanently secured by 
 Parliamentary enactment, to a temporary ascendancy depen¬ 
 dent on the life of one elderly man. It is remarkable that 
 among the letters which, on his return to Holland, Dykvelt 
 conveyed to the Prince, was one from Colonel Bellasis, 
 the brother of the Roman Catholic peer to whom, on 
 Rochester’s disgrace, James had given the white staff of 
 the Lord Treasurer, and in it the colonel professes as 
 absolute a devotion to the Prince and Princess, which he 
 puts upon the fact of their being members of the royal 
 family, as was avowed by the most zealous Protestant. 
 
 Indeed, the Roman Catholics were not long left without 
 something more formal to trust to than the diplomatic 
 language of Dykvelt, necessarily vague, however far it might 
 be authorized, or however unlikely to be disavowed. James 
 had been highly displeased at the Prince’s refusal to express 
 any approval of his Declaration of Indulgence ; and was dis¬ 
 posed to catch at any expedient which might bring William 
 
Letter of Fagel to Stewart. 
 
 59 
 
 to a more compliant temper. Fagel, the Grand Pensionary 
 of the States, stood high in the Prince’s confidence ; and a 
 Scotchman named Stewart, who had for some years resided 
 in Holland, and had become intimate with the Grand 
 Pensionary, held out a hope to the King that he might 
 induce that statesman to work on the Prince and Princess. 
 James gladly sanctioned his writing Fagel an elaborate 
 letter, full of arguments and entreaties, to persuade them to 
 support him in the policy which he had adopted; and Fagel 
 replied in another, which was evidently intended as a mani¬ 
 festo of their views on the state of affairs in England. It 
 was most carefully and skilfully worded so as to conciliate 
 all sects by its denunciation of the idea of punishing any 
 subject whatever for his religious opinions; nor, though it 
 proceeded to draw a distinction between penalties and dis¬ 
 abilities or exclusion from office, which had no validity or 
 foundation in common sense, did that part of it .alienate 
 even those who were likely to be affected by it, since the 
 spirit of the age fully recognized the existence of such a 
 difference. 
 
 The letter was translated into English and more than 
 one Continental language, and was widely circulated; 
 50,000 copies are said to have been sold in England alone, 
 and it had the unusual effect of pleasing all religious 
 parties except the Jesuits, who surrounded and governed 
 James himself; all the more moderate Roman Catholics 
 being abundantly satisfied by the assurance that, whenever, 
 or as far as ever William should have an influence in the 
 Government, they would be allowed the free exercise of 
 their religion, and every other indulgence which did not 
 include official or political power. 
 
 Yet so strange was James’s blindness, that every fresh 
 
6o 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 demonstration of the strength and universality of the feeling 
 which animated his subjects on the question of Popery only 
 seemed to make him more resolute to defy it. On one 
 occasion he held a Court for the express purpose of 
 receiving the Pope’s Nuncio with unusual state, organizing 
 a magnificent procession for his escort, and dismissing from 
 their employments some of the first nobles in the State, who, 
 pleading their fear of breaking the law of the land, refused 
 to bear a part in it. He would show them, he said, that 
 he was above the law. At another time he publicly 
 prostrated himself before the Nuncio, and on his knees 
 besought his blessing. And finally, in July, 1687, he 
 dissolved the Parliament, which hitherto had only been 
 prorogued from time to time; thus, as the dissolution was 
 not followed by any announcement of an intention to call 
 another, indicating not obscurely, as was generally thought, 
 a determination for the future to dispense with Parliaments 
 altogether. 
 
 And this belief grew the stronger when it was found that 
 the King was preparing for a fresh violation of the law, in a 
 matter in which religion was in no degree concerned; but 
 which showed a resolution to render himself absolutely 
 despotic, to make himself really above the law, as he 
 had boasted to the Duke of Somerset. As yet there was 
 no Mutiny Act; indeed, it was only very lately that there 
 had been anything like a standing army. But James still 
 clung to the idea of overawing London by the troops 
 encamped at Hounslow; and, to do this, it was indis¬ 
 pensable that he should first be able to overawe the 
 troops themselves. The nearness of the camp to London 
 tempted many to desert, and the common law made no 
 difference between a soldier who quitted his standard 
 
Execution of Soldiers. 
 
 61 
 
 and any other hired servant who left his employment with¬ 
 out notice. James resolved to treat desertion as a capital 
 crime, and to procure the condemnation of deserters by 
 the ordinary tribunals. Several of the judges, and even 
 Chief Justice Herbert, who had sufficiently shown his 
 willingness to strain the law to the utmost to do the King 
 a pleasure, refused to be made tools of for such a purpose. 
 They were dismissed; lawyers of the lowest professional 
 reputation and worst private character, one of whom at 
 least was a Roman Catholic, were raised to the bench; and 
 before this packed and profligate Court several soldiers 
 were prosecuted for desertion, convicted, condemned, and 
 hung in front of their regiments. 
 
 At the same time the King made a fresh attack upon the 
 Universities ; in their case, no longer scrupling, as he had 
 scrupled in the case of the Bishop of London, to trample on 
 the law which protected every individual in the enjoyment 
 of his freehold. At Cambridge, no preferment was as yet 
 vacant, so there he was compelled for a time to content him¬ 
 self with ordering the Senate to confer degrees, to which no 
 one could be admitted without taking the oath of supremacy, 
 on Roman Catholics who were certain to refuse it; and, 
 when his mandate was disobeyed, he summoned the Vice- 
 Chancellor of the University before his High Commission 
 Court, and deprived him of his office. 1 But at Oxford, 
 circumstances were more favourable to his designs. There, 
 in March, 1687, the President of Magdalen College, re¬ 
 puted to be the richest foundation in the two Universities, 
 
 1 Macaulay, vol. II., p. 280, says he was also deprived of his mastership, 
 but Burnet says expressly that he was not: “ 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.”—p. 698. 
 
62 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 died, and James at once sent down an order to the Fellows 
 to elect Antony Farmer in his stead, a man of the most 
 infamous character, and one who had not even the formal 
 but indispensable qualification of having ever been a Fellow. 
 But his vices and his want of legal qualification, were 
 alike effaced in the eyes of the King by his recent con¬ 
 version to Popery. 
 
 The Fellows could not obey the royal mandate to 
 elect such a man without a flagrant violation of their 
 oaths ; and, though some proposed to postpone the elec¬ 
 tion, the majority more manfully resolved to obey their 
 statutes, and, having elected one of the most eminent 
 members of their body, John Hough, at once installed him 
 in his post. James was furious. He summoned the Fellows 
 before the High Commission Court, when Jefferies, after 
 his wont, heaped insult as well as threats upon them; but 
 they brought such evidence of the infamy of Farmer’s 
 character, that even that Court had not the boldness to 
 sustain his nomination. James issued a new mandate, 
 enjoining them to elect a clergyman named Parker, whom 
 he had recently created Bishop of Oxford, and who was 
 known to be so inclined to Popery, or rather, so indifferent 
 to all religion, that he would willingly have professed himself 
 a Papist, had he been unmarried. But Parker’s election was 
 impossible, because the Presidency was no longer vacant. 
 Hough had been legally inducted, and could not legally be 
 deprived. But the King was resolved to carry his point in 
 spite of all obstacles. In September he came himself to 
 Oxford, summoned the Fellows before him, threatened them, 
 reviled them, employed agents to bribe or cajole them; and 
 when all these methods failed, he sent down a Special Com¬ 
 mission, with Wright, whom he had made Chief Justice in 
 
James at Oxford. 
 
 63 
 
 the place of Herbert, at its head, to hold a visitation of the 
 college. The Commissioners were supported by a body of 
 cavalry, and after giving Hough and the fellows a brief 
 hearing, in which again threats and personal insult were 
 not spared, they deposed Hough from his Presidency, broke 
 open the doors of his house with iron bars, and gave Parker 
 admission. 
 
 A few weeks afterwards, the whole body of Fellows 
 and scholars was expelled; the High Commission Court, 
 by a decree as illegal as any that they had ever issued, 
 declared them for ever incapable of receiving any Church 
 preferment; and, when, a few weeks later, Bishop Parker 
 died, he was replaced by a Roman Catholic prelate, the 
 vacant Fellowships were given to a number of friars, and 
 the great college was turned into a Papist seminary. 
 And, if these acts were hard to be borne, the language used 
 by those who were known to be in the King’s confidence 
 aggravated the rising discontent; for, when it was urged 
 that such open attacks on the Church of England were in¬ 
 consistent with the King’s promises, Albeville replied that 
 kings had a right to forget their promises, and that the 
 Church of England itself should have no existence at all in 
 two years’ time. 
 
 James was indeed plotting against something more than 
 the Church. He was meditating a blow at the integrity of 
 the Empire itself. Some of his advisers had proposed to 
 him to disinherit his eldest daughter, the Princess of Orange, 
 and to bequeath the Crown to the younger, Princess Anne, 
 if she would change her religion; or, if she should prove 
 unmanageable, to leave the appointment of his successor 
 to Louis XIV., in case that sovereign should survive him. 
 It is doubtful how far he had listened to such counsels, 
 
6 4 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 though the French Ambassador thought his adoption of some 
 plan to secure a Roman Catholic successor by no means 
 improbable; but it is quite certain that he was preparing to 
 undo the recent settlement of the forfeited lands of Ireland 
 on Protestants, and, after re-establishing the old Irish in 
 their former possessions, to detach the island altogether from 
 England after his own death, and place it under the pro¬ 
 tection of the King of France, when all such ideas were 
 suddenly interrupted by the Queen’s announcement that she 
 was again likely to become a mother. 
 
 Queen Mary had had four children, a son and three 
 daughters, who had all died in their infancy; but as five 
 years had elapsed since the birth of the last, people had, 
 not very reasonably, concluded that all prospect of her 
 ever giving an heir to the throne had gone by; and now 
 the declaration that there was ground for such a hope 
 was received with general incredulity. The Jesuits were 
 known to be fertile in expedients, and unscrupulous ; nor 
 could any one acquainted with the past history of the 
 order think it inconsistent with their avowed principles to 
 treat any fraud as pardonable that might assist in the bringing 
 back of such a kingdom as that of Britain under the Pope’s 
 authority. The exulting language held by the more zealous 
 Roman Catholics was calculated to strengthen the suspicion. 
 They spoke of the Queen’s pregnancy as the result of the 
 miraculous interposition of the Virgin. They predicted with 
 absolute certainty that the expected infant would prove a son 
 (obviously because the birth of a daughter would not have 
 affected the Princess Mary’s right of succession), and the 
 case was compared to the promise of Isaac to Sarah, and of 
 Samuel to Hannah, till they gave the multitude no slight 
 grounds for a belief that there was a design to foist a sup- 
 
Pregnancy of the Queen. 
 
 65 
 
 posititious child on the nation as its future King; that, in all 
 probability, the whole story of an expected birth was false, 
 but that if it should be true, and if the infant should prove 
 a daughter, an exchange would be contrived. 
 
 James’s elation at the hope thus held out to him was not, 
 however, without alloy. The birth of a son would render 
 it indispensable for him to summon a new Parliament, 
 because the appointment of a Regent would become 
 instantly necessary, and that could only be made by the 
 formal act of the whole Legislature. Yet such a House 
 of Commons as the people was likely to elect in the 
 existing state of feeling was sure to place the Regency in 
 Protestant hands, probably iq those of the Prince of 
 Orange. It was equally certain that the House of Lords 
 would show the same disposition. With them, however, the 
 King could deal by his own authority. It was indisputable 
 not that he had an unlimited right to create peers, but it was 
 equally easy to pack a House of Commons. A large pro¬ 
 portion of the representatives were returned by municipal 
 corporations, the members of which were all Churchmen, 
 and notoriously hostile to all the recent measures of the 
 Court. In the county elections, the magistrates and officers 
 of militia had great influence, and they were well known to 
 be animated, for the most part, by similar feelings. 
 
 Before a compliant House .of Commons could be 
 reckoned on, it was necessary to remodel corporations, 
 bench of justices, and militia; and James made public 
 proclamation of his intention in the Gazette, hoping pro¬ 
 bably that the openness and distinctness of the announce¬ 
 ment might in some instances have the effect of intimi¬ 
 dating resistance. No one was to be retained in any 
 post or office who would not bind himself to support the 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 King’s policy. A Board of Regulators, as it was called, 
 was appointed, of whom, with the exception of the infamous 
 Lord Chancellor, every one was a Papist, to remodel the 
 corporations. The Lords-Lieutenant were ordered to 
 address a set of queries to all the civil or military officers 
 of the different counties, inquiring whether, if returned to 
 Parliament, they would support the policy of the Court for 
 the removal of all religious disabilities, or whether they 
 would support candidates pledged to such a course. 1 Nor 
 was this all. They were also commanded to report “ what 
 “ Catholics and what Dissenters were fit to be added either 
 “ to the list of the Deputy-Lieutenants or to the Commission 
 “ of the Peace,” though it was notorious that, till the Test 
 Act should be repealed, not one such person could legally 
 receive either commission. 
 
 But these inquisitorial devices of tyranny completely and 
 equally failed. The greater part of the Lords-Lieutenant 
 refused to carry out the King’s order; and, when they were 
 in consequence dismissed, and those by whom they were 
 replaced, being mostly Roman Catholics, obeyed and circu¬ 
 lated the questions which they had been enjoined to ask, 
 they found the spirit of disapproval of the King’s policy 
 almost universal. The Protestants declared that they would 
 do their utmost to obey and gratify the King in everything 
 which did not touch their .religion, but they would go no 
 further; while even the Roman Catholic gentry in the different 
 counties were jealous of the Jesuits, and still more jealous 
 of the French and Irish aid on which James was understood 
 to place his chief reliance; and though many of them did 
 consent to take the posts offered to them, and to be made 
 sheriffs or magistrates, they declared that they would do 
 1 The questions are given in Dalrymple, III. 223. 
 
The Discontent increases. 
 
 67 
 
 their duty as honest Englishmen, and steadily refused to 
 make themselves parties to any plans for tampering with 
 purity of election. 
 
 Nor were the regulators of the corporations more suc¬ 
 cessful. Towards the end of the last reign, when the dis¬ 
 covery of the Mealtub and Rye House Plots had strengthened 
 the Government, the ministers had taken proceedings 
 against many of the most important corporations, and had 
 found no difficulty in obtaining from the servile judges 
 sentences that they had forfeited their charters. New 
 charters had been granted, in which the old Whig magis¬ 
 trates had been superseded by Tories, and which had also 
 reserved to the Crown a power of dismissing all future muni¬ 
 cipal officers at pleasure. The existing magistrates were 
 now found as resolute as Whigs could have been in resisting 
 every new indulgence to Popery. They were turned out and 
 replaced by Nonconformists; but though the abolition of the 
 penal laws, which was avowed to be James’s princi; al object, 
 would have been as great a boon to them as to the Papists, 
 they were as unwilling as before to purchase it at the price of 
 sharing it with those whom they regarded as enemies, both 
 of the Reformation and of the independence of the whole 
 kingdom; and the regulators were forced to report to the 
 King that, until the existing charters were annulled, there 
 was no prospect of bringing the citizens of one single con¬ 
 siderable town in the whole kingdom to compliance with 
 his Majesty’s views; while, to procure a fresh forfeiture of 
 all the municipal charters in the kingdom, must evidently 
 require more time than the present exigency would allow. 
 
 The King resolved to try another expedient. Though 
 the reception of his former Declaration of Indulgence had 
 not been very encouraging, at the end of April, 1688, he 
 
 f 2 
 
68 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 issued a second, in which the dispensation from all penal 
 statutes on account of religious differences was accompanied 
 by warnings, threats, and exhortations to obedience. He 
 proclaimed to all his subjects that he was not a man to 
 depart from his resolutions; he reminded them that he had 
 already dismissed from their employments those who had 
 refused to support and obey him; he threatened that he 
 would constantly pursue the same system, and employ no 
 one who was not unreserved in his submission to his will; 
 and, finally, giving notice that a Parliament would certainly 
 be summoned before the end of the year, he required all 
 electors to be careful to return no representatives but those 
 who should be agreeable to him, and who should have pro¬ 
 mised to conform to his wishes. And, that no one might 
 plead ignorance of his intentions, he, a few days afterwards, 
 issued an Order in Council enjoining the officiating ministers 
 of every parish in the 'kingdom to read the Declaration in 
 the course of divine service on two successive Sundays. 
 
 The whole body of the clergy was violently agitated by 
 the receipt of such an order. To disobey their Sovereign 
 was against the principles which they were in the habit of 
 most zealously inculcating from their pulpits, and, even had 
 it not been so, the restored Court of High Commission was 
 a formidable engine of terror to restrain them from any 
 inclination to disobedience. On the other hand, they could 
 not doubt that the Declaration, which they were enjoined 
 to read, was contrary to the law. They looked anxiously for 
 a word of guidance from their Bishops, but the period be¬ 
 tween the promulgation of the Order in Council and the first 
 Sunday fixed for the reading of the Declaration was under 
 a fortnight, and in those days communication between the 
 different parts of the kingdom was slow and uncertain. The 
 
The Declaration of Indulgence. 
 
 69 
 
 Primate, Archbishop Sancroft, invited the Bishops of his 
 province to meet him at Lambeth and take counsel on the 
 emergency; but it was not till Friday, the 18th of May, that 
 even a few of them were able to meet, and the King’s com¬ 
 mand had named the 20th as the first of the Sundays on 
 which the Declaration was to be read in the metropolitan 
 parishes. 
 
 Some of the most eminent of the London parochial clergy 
 were also invited to aid their deliberations, and eventually 
 it was decided that the Prelates who were present, they 
 were but seven, should at once draw up a petition to the 
 King, which, while it should express the firmest loyalty 
 and fidelity to the throne, disown every notion of in¬ 
 tolerance and persecution, and even avow a willingness to 
 exert their legislative power as members of the House of 
 Peers to relax those laws which pressed too heavily on 
 freedom of conscience, should at the same time affirm, 
 though in the most respectful language, that the Parliament 
 in the late King’s reign had pronounced the illegality of 
 such a Declaration of Indulgence as had now been promul¬ 
 gated, and that therefore they, as Bishops of the Church, 
 could not conscientiously instruct their clergy to publish 
 such an instrument in the house of God and during divine 
 service. 1 The petition was drawn out, signed, and the 
 same evening, Sancroft himself being too unwell to leave his 
 palace, the six suffragans placed it in Tames’s hands at 
 Whitehall. 
 
 1 The Prelates who signed this petition were Sancroft, the Primate, and 
 Bishops Lloyd, of St. Asaph; Turner, of Ely; Lake, of Chichester; Ken, 
 of Bath and Wells; White, of Peterborough; and Trelawney, of Bristol. 
 Compton, Bishop of London, attended the Conference, but, as he had 
 been suspended by the High Commission Court, it was thought better that 
 he should not add his signature. 
 
;o 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 The King’s surprise was equal to his indignation. He 
 had been aware of the Bishops’ meeting, but he had been 
 led by Cartwright, whom he had lately made Bishop of 
 Chester, and who was not without hopes of succeeding to 
 York, in preference to Bishop Sprat, if he could only retain 
 his favour, to believe that they were disposed to obey if 
 they could only obtain from him some slight modification 
 of the Declaration; and this respectful but uncompro¬ 
 mising remonstrance came upon him like a thunderclap. 
 He instantly began to reproach and threaten them in the 
 fiercest terms; their memorial was “ a standard of rebel¬ 
 lion;” they were “trumpeters of sedition.” He “would 
 keep the paper and remember that they had signed it;” 
 “ God had given him the dispensing power, and he would 
 maintain it.” And he drove them from his presence with 
 reproaches for their ingratitude after “ he had been such 
 a friend to their Church,” and with reiterated commands 
 to return at once to their dioceses, and there to take care 
 that his orders were carried out. 
 
 The result showed him that he had reckoned too con¬ 
 fidently on the principle of passive obedience, which he 
 rightly believed that many of the Episcopal clergy professed, 
 but which even they would not weigh against their higher 
 duty to the Protestant religion, which they regarded as at 
 stake. On the 20th of May, not more than three or four 
 clergymen in all the metropolitan parishes read the Declara¬ 
 tion ; some went still further, and openly 1 preached against 
 it. The next Sunday it was equally passed over; while the 
 
 1 One curate, afterwards conspicuous from the celebrity of his sons John 
 and Charles, Samuel Wesley, took for his text, “ Be it known unto thee, O 
 “ King, that we will not serve the gods, nor worship the golden image 
 “ which thou hast set up." 
 
The Clergy refuse to read it. 71 
 
 Nonconformist ministers, to whom the King’s mandate had 
 of course not been addressed, made the cause of their 
 brethren of the Established Church their own; the most 
 celebrated and influential of the whole body, Richard 
 Baxter, even introducing the subject in a sermon, and pro¬ 
 nouncing a warm panegyric on the petitioning Bishops from 
 the pulpit. The King was full of anger and perplexity; he 
 took counsel with his chief advisers, and the variety of the 
 suggestions which he received showed how serious was the 
 dilemma into which his contempt for all authority but his 
 own had brought him. 
 
 It was evidently impossible to proceed against the whole 
 body of the clergy, while there was no doubt that on the 
 next two Sundays the example of those in London would 
 be followed in the rural parishes. But the Bishops, who by 
 their petition might be said to have put themselves forward 
 as the leaders of the movement, were few in number, and 
 it might be easier for him to weak his vengeance on them. 
 Some advised him to cite them before the High Commission 
 Court, which might suspend them or even deprive them of 
 their Sees. But it was almost certain that the House of 
 Lords would refuse to acknowledge the power of that Court 
 to deprive a Bishop of his peerage; others, including the 
 Lord Treasurer, the Roman Catholic Lord Bellasis, and 
 even Lord Sunderland, who was preparing to give the last 
 proof of his baseness by renouncing his religion and pro¬ 
 fessing himself a Roman Catholic, advised moderation, 
 recommending the King to issue a proclamation reproach¬ 
 ing the Bishops with disloyalty and narrow-mindedness, but 
 announcing that from recollection of the former dutifulness 
 of the Church, and from respect for freedom of conscience, 
 he would forbear to punish them. 
 
7 2 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 But the counsellor on whom James most relied was 
 Jefferies. His voice was sure to be given for whatever 
 was most violent and bitter, and he easily persuaded the 
 King to regard the Bishops’ petition as a seditious libel, 
 and to prosecute the Primate and his six suffragans before 
 the Court of King’s Bench for having published it. He 
 had no doubt that a conviction might be ensured, and that 
 the judges, who now scarcely ever made even a pretence of 
 independence, would pass heavy sentences of fine and 
 imprisonment on them. 
 
73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Bishops are committed to the Tower—Birth of the Prince of Wales— 
 General disbelief in his genuineness—Trial of the Bishops—Argument 
 of Somers — The Bishops are acquitted—An invitation is sent to the 
 Prince of Orange—Cautious conduct of William — The great difficul¬ 
 ties of an invasion—Condition and constitution of the Dutch Re¬ 
 public— The state of affairs in other continental countries—James 
 becomes more violent—Prepares to*proceed against the Clergy— 
 Impolicy of Louis in offending the Pope and the Emperor—William 
 cultivates the English nobles, and conciliates the Roman Catholic 
 Princes—The States of Holland approve of the invasion of England— 
 James receives intelligence of William's design—He tries concilia¬ 
 tory measures. 
 
 On the 8th of June, Sancroft and his colleagues were 
 summoned before the Privy Council, where, while Jefferies 
 interrogated and threatened them with his usual insolence, 
 they properly declined to answer; but, when the King him¬ 
 self laid his commands on them to reply to the questions 
 put to them, then, not to be wanting in personal respect to 
 his Majesty, they owned their signatures to the petition, 
 and the fact that they had themselves presented it to the 
 King. Jefferies at once announced to them that they should 
 be prosecuted in the Court of King’s Bench, and when, 
 standing on their privilege as peers, they refused to give bail, 
 signed a warrant committing them to the Tower. 
 
 The impolicy of such a step became apparent the moment 
 after it had been taken. The excitement in London had 
 been very great ever since it had been known that the 
 
74 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Bishops were before the Council, but, when the intelligence 
 got abroad that they were to be imprisoned, it became 
 unrestrainable and universal. The Thames was still the 
 highway from Westminster to the Tower, and the citizens 
 in thousands flocked to the banks, thronged the streets 
 which led to the river, mounted even to the roofs of the 
 houses to obtain a view of them as they passed, or, taking 
 boats, escorted them down the stream, invoking blessings 
 on their heads; their feelings being shared by the very 
 soldiers on guard at the old fortress; even the rude troopers 
 threw themselves on their knees before the Prelates as 
 they passed through the gates, reverently asked their bless¬ 
 ing, and, in spite of the menaces of the Lieutenant of the 
 Tower, the same Sir Edward Hales whose mock trial had 
 been one of the King’s earliest blunders, drank their 
 healths in military fashion through the night. 
 
 So universal a demonstration of the popular feeling might 
 well have induced the most headstrong despot to pause. 
 It did make the King’s councillors waver; and two days 
 afterwards an event occurred which, in the eyes even of 
 those who had been most forward in counselling violent 
 measures, afforded James an opportunity of retracing his 
 steps with dignity and grace. 
 
 On the morning of the ioth, the Queen was safely 
 delivered of a son, and it was represented to James that 
 so joyful an occurrence might well be made a pretext 
 for a political amnesty: that it would be a good omen 
 for the infant Prince himself that his birth should be the 
 occasion of releasing such illustrious prisoners. But the 
 heart of James was as callous as his understanding, and, as 
 the one was incapable of taking warning from indications 
 which were plain enough to every one else, so the other was 
 
Birth of the Prince of Wales. 
 
 7 5 
 
 too hard to be softened by prosperity, even by the fulfilment 
 of his most cherished and anxious desire. He could only 
 answer that his purpose to go on was inflexibly fixed; that 
 his father had been ruined by his concessions, and that he 
 himself had hitherto been too indulgent; and on the 15th 
 the Bishops were brought into Court at Westminster before 
 the judges. An information was exhibited against them by 
 the Attorney-General, and, when they had pleaded “ Not 
 Guilty,” they received notice that their trial was fixed for 
 the 29th. 
 
 Even had James been able to bring his mind to pardon 
 his prisoners, he would have required to be prompt in his 
 decision, for in a day or two all opportunity of doing so 
 gracefully had passed away. As has been already mentioned, 
 when the Queen’s pregnancy was first announced, it was 
 received with a very general incredulity; and now, the ill-will 
 of the nation being perhaps sharpened by the severity with 
 which the Bishops were treated, the belief in an imposture 
 having been committed gained ground hourly. The birth 
 had been attended by suspicious circumstances. On former 
 occasions the Queen had proved incorrect in her calcula¬ 
 tions ; 1 and so it happened in this instance that she was 
 confined two or three weeks before she had expected. And 
 with singular wrongheadedness, when her time came, James 
 abstained from summoning as witnesses any of those nobles 
 on whose testimony the people would have been inclined to 
 place confidence, so that at the critical moment scarcely any 
 were present but Roman Catholics; men and women whose 
 evidence to the genuineness of the child was worse than no 
 
 > See Miss Strickland's “ Life of Mary of Modena,” p. 149. The Queen 
 had miscalculated a fortnight when her fourth child was born; ' ‘ before the 
 witnesses whose presence was deemed necessary could be summoned." 
 
;6 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 evidence at all, since they were the very people who were 
 believed to have planned an imposture, and to have the 
 greatest interest in carrying it out. The King wrote with his 
 own hand to the Prince of Orange to announce the birth to 
 him : and William at once despatched an envoy to England 
 with his formal congratulations ; but the envoy on reaching 
 London sent back word that scarcely any one believed that 
 the Queen had had a child at all; and a day or two 
 later 1 the Princess Anne, who a short time before had 
 gone to Bath intending to be back in time, wrote a long 
 letter to the Princess Mary, her sister, in which she 
 gave full expression to her own doubts on the subject, 
 adding that, where one person did not share them a 
 thousand did. 
 
 After the Bishops had pleaded, they had been set at liberty 
 on their own recognizances, but the excitement had not 
 been allayed by their temporary release. On the contrary, 
 it spread to the most distant parts of the kingdom, to 
 Cornwall, in the extreme South-west, for Trelawney, Bishop of 
 Bristol, and one of the seven, was of the oldest and purest 
 blood in that Royal Duchy; in the North, it was felt even 
 beyond the borders, the Presbyterians of Scotland displaying 
 as warm an interest as the Episcopalians in the fate of 
 those whom they now regarded as the champions of their 
 common Protestantism, and of every principle of British 
 freedom. 
 
 Meanwhile, both sides prepared for the trial. The min¬ 
 isters were sufficiently confident of the result, for, of the 
 judges who were to try the case, two, Chief Justice Wright, 
 and Judge Holloway, were notorious for their servility, to 
 
 1 The date of the Princess's letter is the 18th of June.—See Dalrym- 
 ple, vol. III., p. 303. 
 
Trial of the Bishops. 
 
 77 
 
 which indeed they owed their seats on the bench ; a third, 
 Allybone, was a Roman Catholic, and was bound, as it were, 
 to uphold by his judgment the legality of the dispensation 
 to which the Bishops had objected ; while the fourth, Powell, 
 the only one who had the slightest reputation for ability or 
 honesty, had shown on the trial of Sir Edward Hales that 
 he feared to incur the displeasure of the Crown. But, not 
 contented with these chances in their favour, the ministers 
 also took especial pains to pack a jury. And James even 
 condescended to summon before himself and Jefferies the 
 Clerk of the Crown, whose duty it was to frame the panel, 
 and to give him instructions how to perform his duty. 
 The Bishops’ reliance was on the justice of their cause 
 and the ability of their counsel, far superior to that of the 
 Crown lawyers; for of those who had been Attorney or 
 Solicitor-General all the ablest had been dismissed, one after 
 another, for their refusal to be made instruments for the 
 violation of the law instead of its execution; and some of 
 them were now the leaders for the defence. 
 
 On the appointed day, the memorable 29th of June, the 
 trial took place, the most momentous, with but one exception, 
 that Westminster had ever beheld; and exceeding even 
 that in the dense number and the dignity of the spectators 
 who crowded every corner of, and avenue to, the Court; 
 listening with anxiety, as breathless as if their own fate had 
 depended on the issue, to every argument, and question and 
 answer, and often displaying, with very irregular manifesta¬ 
 tions of feeling, their opinions of some of the Crown wit¬ 
 nesses. For a time, there seemed a probability that the 
 charge against the Bishops might break down on a technical 
 point. It was not at first easy to prove their handwriting. 
 When that had been established it was even more difficult to 
 
73 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 find a witness to prove that, as it was laid in the indictment, 
 they had published it in Middlesex. But at last one of the 
 Clerks of the Privy Council swore that he had been present 
 when, at the King’s command, they acknowledged their 
 handwriting; and Lord Sunderland proved that they had 
 delivered the petition to the King at Whitehall, which, 
 according to the argument of the Crown lawyers, was, in 
 the eye of the law, a publication. 
 
 And thus the case was at last put into a position to 
 be argued on its merits; and those merits were little less 
 than the whole Constitution of England. For the ques¬ 
 tion, as even James would have put it, was, whether 
 the King’s prerogative were absolutely unlimited; whether 
 he could dispense at his sole pleasure with laws deli¬ 
 berately enacted by Parliament; and whether it were a 
 crime, even in Peers of Parliament, to petition him to re¬ 
 consider and withdraw an edict which he had once issued. 
 These were, in truth, momentous questions, on the answer 
 to be given to which the whole system of English law and 
 English liberty was at stake. The cause of the Bishops was 
 the cause of the whole nation • and it was maintained by 
 their counsel with an ability and courage which did honour 
 to the whole profession. Most of them were men of well- 
 established celebrity ; Pemberton had been Chief Justice in 
 the reign of Charles II., and had been dismissed by that 
 shameless monarch on account of his refusal to be made a 
 tool for the oppression of innocent men. Sawyer and Finch 
 had been recently dismissed from the offices of Attorney 
 and Solicitor-General for the same fault, the most unpar¬ 
 donable of all in the eyes of a tyrant, a want of servility; 
 another, Sir G. Treby, had been Recorder of London; 
 a fifth, Pollexfen, had long been leader of the Western 
 
Trial of the Bishops. 79 
 
 Circuit. All did their duty to their clients manfully and 
 ably. 
 
 But the brightest laurels were won by the youngest of the 
 whole body, a barrister named Somers, whose Whig opinions 
 had hitherto kept him from all preferment, but who was 
 known to all his professional brethren as one of the soundest 
 lawyers in Westminster Hall, and especially trustworthy on 
 all constitutional questions. He took the indictment to 
 pieces, word by word, subjecting it with merciless logic to 
 every test of truth and of law. The Bishops were indicted 
 for having published a false, malicious, seditious libel tending 
 to the defaming of the King’s Government, and the Crown 
 lawyers had contended that, even if the fhatter of the peti¬ 
 tion were true in fact, it might nevertheless be a libel; and 
 that, though the two Houses of Parliament had a right to 
 petition the King, they had no such right when they were 
 not sitting; much less had any individual members of 
 either House such a right; and that the votes of the two 
 Houses in the late reign, since they had never been embodied 
 in any formal bill, were not of any validity to restrain the 
 King in the exercise of the dispensing power. But Somers 
 scattered these arguments to the winds by reference to the 
 journals of the Parliament, and to the record which they 
 contained, that Charles II. had, in deference to the vote 
 of the Houses, cancelled the Indulgence of which they had 
 complained. He proved, in a similar way, that Peers had a 
 right of access and petition to the King at any time ; that the 
 paper presented to the King was no libel, but a legitimate 
 petition founded on the established and recognized laws 
 of the realm; and that the placing of it privately in the 
 King’s hands was neither a seditious nor a malicious act, but 
 the most loyal method of proceeding which could be taken, 
 
8 o 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 at once to avoid scandal, or any defamation of the King’s 
 Government, and at the same time to maintain the law. 
 
 The case was so clear, and the arguments so irresistible, 
 that even the judges, on whom the Court had reckoned 
 with the greatest confidence, dared not wholly to fulfil 
 its expectations. All the leading Peers were among the 
 audience; their House was the supreme court for the trial 
 of impeachment; to quote the expression of a bystander, 
 the Chief Justice looked as if he thought they all had 
 halters in their pockets; and, in his charge to the jury, 
 he wavered like a man trying to show his impartiality by 
 opinions partly favourable to each side. He agreed with 
 the counsel for the prisoners that they had a right to peti¬ 
 tion \ but, with the counsel for the Crown, affirmed the 
 petition in question to be seditious and libellous. One of 
 his colleagues, Allybone, wholly followed his lead; a 
 third, Holloway, declined to discuss the point how far 
 the King did possess a dispensing power, but pronounced 
 the petition respectful and legal. But the fourth, Judge 
 Powell, boldly denied the existence of a power to dispense 
 with law; pronounced the late Declaration of Indulgence 
 illegal and void, and, as a matter of course, sustained the 
 right of every subject to petition against it. 
 
 The trial had not lasted long; the witnesses had been 
 few, and their examination brief; advocates had not yet 
 learned to consider prolixity a merit. Though ten barristers 
 had spoken, and four judges had delivered separate charges, 
 before evening the jury retired to consider their verdict, for 
 which the crowd out-of-doors waited with intense and un¬ 
 paralleled anxiety. Numbers walked about the precincts 
 of the Hall and the adjacent streets the whole night; 
 messengers came across from the Palace every hour to 
 
The Trial of the Bishops. 
 
 81 
 
 pick up any intelligence, or rumour of intelligence, that 
 might get abroad, and the Court was full of hope; for, 
 though the Bishops’ counsel had challenged all the most sus¬ 
 picious names on the panel, they had not been able wholly 
 to purify it; some of the jurymen were Nonconformists, and, 
 as such, suspected of being unfriendly to Bishops in general, 
 and two or three were known to depend on the Govern¬ 
 ment or on the Palace for lucrative employment. The Royal 
 brewer, a man named Michael Arnold, was one of these, 
 and he was said, before the trial, to have complained of 
 his position with comical bitterness. Whatever verdict he 
 might pronounce, he was sure, he said, to be half ruined ; if 
 he said “Not Guilty,” he should brew no more for the King; 
 and if he said “Guilty,” he should brew no more for any one 
 else. It was afterwards known that, after all his colleagues 
 had agreed to acquit the Bishops, he had held out for a con¬ 
 viction ; but at last he too yielded to the general feeling 
 of his brother jurors, and to the manifest justice of the case; 
 and long before the Court met in the morning the requisite 
 unanimity was obtained. 
 
 The fact that a verdict was agreed upon had oozed out, 
 but no certain knowledge had been obtained what that 
 verdict was; and the vast audience which crowded into the 
 Court the moment that the doors were opened waited with 
 anxiety too great for words till the judges took their seats, 
 and the jurors came down from the room in which they had 
 been consulting. It was amid profound and breathless 
 silence that the clerk asked them for their verdict. But the 
 moment that the foreman declared the prisoners not guilty 
 that silence was broken by one universal uproar. Tire great 
 statesman and orator of the Peers, Lord Halifax, forgot 
 for a moment his habitual calmness; springing from his 
 
82 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 seat, he waved his hat, and, as if they took his gesture for 
 a signal, the whole body of spectators raised a cheer so 
 universal and so loud, that, as one of them has recorded in 
 a diary, it seemed to make the very roof crack. The shouts 
 were re-echoed by those outside in the hall; and, as the 
 tidings reached the crowd beyond, the acclamations con¬ 
 veyed them to the most distant parts of the city more 
 rapidly than any formal messengers; while horsemen rode 
 off eagerly into the country, every one seeking to be the 
 first to spread the joyful intelligence. 
 
 The King himself had gone down that morning to 
 the camp at Hounslow, where an express from Lord 
 Sunderland found him. He soon learnt that the very 
 soldiers on whom he had depended sympathized with 
 the citizens. Burning with rage, he was preparing to 
 return to London, when the whole heath resounded with 
 a sudden shouting. He asked what was the tumult: 
 “Nothing,” replied his attendant, “but that the soldiers 
 are rejoicing at the acquittal of the Bishops.” “ Do you 
 call that nothing?” said he; “but so much the worse for 
 them.” “ So much the worse for them,” he kept repeat¬ 
 ing to himself, and, on his return, vented his rage in acts 
 which he meant to give effect to his words. He dismissed 
 Judges Holloway and Powell from the bench. He issued 
 a proclamation forbidding the citizens to assemble in the 
 streets, or to make any demonstration; but, as if the 
 very display of his wrath had strengthened their convic¬ 
 tion of the greatness and substantial value of their triumph, 
 the whole population thronged the thoroughfares; the 
 whole city was lighted up with bonfires and illuminations; 
 rockets were sent up; and, as if to mark more emphatically 
 that the verdict of the morning had been a triumph of 
 
General Joy at the Verdict. 
 
 83 
 
 Protestantism over Popery, effigies of the Pope himself, 
 dressed in pontifical robes and crowned with the tiara, were 
 paraded about the city, and solemnly committed to the 
 flames. 
 
 As the news reached the provinces, similar exultation was 
 displayed in all the principal cities and towns. James 
 could not for a moment deceive himself as to the univer¬ 
 sality of the resistance which he had provoked. But the 
 same day which brought the acquittal of the Bishops was 
 signalized by another act of which he was not at first aware, 
 but which was for him of all others the most fatal expression 
 of the feeling of the nation that forbearance and patience 
 had reached their limits. A letter signed in cipher by 
 seven men of great influence, who might be taken as repre¬ 
 sentatives of the most important parties and classes in the 
 State, was transmitted to the Prince of Orange. Those who 
 drew up and signed it were not only leading Whigs, whose 
 disapproval of the King’s policy might have been reckoned 
 on, or whose political enmity was sharpened by a sense of 
 personal injury; some were sturdy Tories and Church¬ 
 men, with whom non-resistance had long been a favourite 
 article of their political creed, and who had given repeated 
 proofs of personal loyalty and attachment to James and his 
 family. 1 
 
 The letter assured the Prince that “ the dissatisfaction 
 “ of the people with the present conduct of the Govern- 
 “ ment in relation to their religion, liberties, and proper- 
 “ ties, and their fear for the future, was such that nineteen 
 
 1 Those who signed the letter were the Earls of Shrewsbury, Devon¬ 
 shire, and Danby; Bishop Compton; Lord Lumley, who during Mon¬ 
 mouth’s rebellion had been one of James's most energetic generals; 
 Admiral Russell, and Mr. Henry Sidney, who indeed was not free from 
 suspicion of republicanism. 
 
 G 2 
 
8 4 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 “ parts out of twenty throughout the kingdom were desirous 
 “ of a change, and would willingly contribute to it, if 
 “ they had a sufficient protection to countenance their 
 “ rising; that the greater part of the nobility were equally 
 “ dissatisfied; that they made no question that they could 
 “ soon collect a force double that of the army, even if the 
 “ army should remain firm to the Court, though they did 
 “ on very good grounds believe that the army was divided, 
 
 “ for that very many of the common soldiers showed such 
 “ an aversion to the Popish religion that numbers might 
 “ be expected to desert; while of the seamen, not one in 
 “ ten would stand by the Court. That they feared lest, 
 
 “ if immediate steps were not taken, before another year 
 “ the Government would have taken such courses, by 
 “ remodelling the army, and tampering with the electoral 
 “ body, as would prevent all possible means of relief.” They 
 ventured even gently to complain of his having sent con¬ 
 gratulations on the birth of the Prince of Wales; assuring 
 him “ that not one person in a thousand believed the child 
 “ lately born to be the Queen’s; and that this attempt 
 “ falsely to impose a supposititious child upon the Princess 
 “ and the nation would be a sufficient reason to justify the 
 “ Prince’s entering the kingdom in a hostile manner. For - 
 “ these and other reasons, they begged the Prince to come 
 “ to England before the end of the year with whatever 
 “ force, arms, ammunition, and artillery he might judge 
 “ necessary ; and promised that they who signed this would 
 “ not fail to attend upon His Highness at his landing, and 
 “ to do all in their power to prepare others.” 
 
 The Revolution was begun. 
 
 The invitation which was thus sent had not taken the 
 Prince by surprise. It had been in some degree concerted 
 
Invitation to the Prince of Orange. 85 
 
 with him. Ever since he Jiad rejected the previous sugges¬ 
 tions which had recommended such a line of action, he had 
 been carefully watching the course of affairs and the state of 
 feeling in England. His friends there had kept him con¬ 
 stantly supplied with intelligence : and, on the promulgation 
 of the late Declaration, Admiral Russell had crossed over 
 to the Hague to renew the proposal that he should delay 
 no longer, but should at once interpose in the affairs of the 
 kingdom in the only manner in which interposition could 
 be effectual, by crossing over with an army. 
 
 Such advice now coincided with the opinion of William 
 himself; he too judged that the time had come for him to 
 assert his right to interfere, but he was a man whom the 
 desire to effect an object never blinded to the dangers and 
 difficulties of an undertaking. He felt that, in spite of his 
 connection with the royal family, such an enterprise as that 
 proposed to him could never succeed unless it were exten¬ 
 sively supported by men of credit and influence in the 
 kingdom; while his knowledge of human nature taught him 
 that flattering expressions of general goodwill, and loose 
 verbal promises, might prove, when the hour of trial should 
 come, far too feeble bonds to bind their utterers. Nor had 
 Russell himself, though a bold and able man, such a charac¬ 
 ter for prudence and steadiness as to command implicit 
 confidence from one who had inherited, in the fullest degree, 
 the sobriety of judgment and far-sighted caution which, for 
 many generations, had been among the most marked 
 characteristics of his family. 
 
 We have unusual means of knowing William’s real 
 sentiments at this and other critical moments during the 
 remainder of his life, from a history of the period left 
 to us by the celebrated Bishop Burnet, a man who was 
 
86 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 more deeply in the Prince’s confidence than probably 
 any other Englishman, and who was at this time at the 
 Hague, and in daily communication with him. And 
 Burnet relates that, on Russell’s arrival, William laid open 
 his views to him more explicitly than he had ever done 
 before; pointing out to him that the ruin which failure in 
 such an attempt must bring on both England and Holland 
 imposed on him, in honour and conscience, the duty of 
 making every step sure ; and therefore that he should not 
 feel justified in moving till he had received a formal and 
 direct, or, in other words, a written invitation. Russell 
 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. And 
 with this answer the Admiral returned to England. The 
 invitation was drawn up and signed. Another Admiral, 
 Herbert, brother of the Chief Justice, who had been 
 member for Dover in the last Parliament, and who in the 
 preceding year had been dismissed from all his posts 
 because he declined to support the proposal for the 
 abolition of the Test Act, undertook the hazardous employ¬ 
 ment of conveying the letter to Holland : and, few as the 
 signatures were, the position and influence of the writers were 
 sufficient to satisfy the Prince’s requirements. He decided 
 on accepting the invitation, and began to make preparations 
 for the expedition, of which he did not disguise from himself 
 the great and various difficulties. 
 
 In truth, the enterprise was full of difficulties on every 
 side, difficulties with respect to England, difficulties exist¬ 
 ing in Holland, difficulties which might be expected to arise 
 from foreign countries. He was well aware that his 
 
Views of the Clergy. 
 
 8 / 
 
 friends in England were not limited to the small number 
 that had signed the invitation ; that his project was known 
 to, and was not unfavourably regarded by, statesmen of high 
 rank and reputation, such as the Earl of Nottingham; that, 
 when he should reach England, he could count on the 
 approval and sanction of more than one Bishop, on the 
 more active co-operation of many military officers; and 
 among them, and most especially, on that of Lord Churchill, 
 whose pre-eminent abilities were already widely known in the 
 army. But he also knew, with equal certainty, that his at¬ 
 tempt was regarded as hopeless by some of the ablest men 
 in the kingdom, such as the Marquis of Halifax, and as 
 impious by some of the most virtuous and conscientious, 
 especially among the clergy. 
 
 The most learned divines and most eloquent preachers 
 of the Church of England, since the first breaking-out of 
 the rebellion in the reign of Charles I., had constantly and 
 most unreservedly affirmed the doctrine that no amount of 
 misgovernment in a sovereign could absolve the subject 
 from his allegiance, much less justify armed resistance to 
 his authority ; while, if he were to be accompanied by a 
 Dutch army, as even those who had invited him over con¬ 
 sidered indispensable, it was to be feared that many who 
 had no conscientious scruples on the score of passive obe¬ 
 dience would be roused, by national and patriotic pride, to 
 resist the pretensions of foreign soldiers to expel their native 
 King, and replace him by a foreigner. For, however he 
 might seek to veil his purpose under plausible pretexts and 
 an affected moderation, there can be no question that 
 William, from the first, aimed at the crown, and foresaw that 
 his enterprise, if successful, could only end by placing it on 
 his head. 
 
88 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 In his own country the difficulties were even greater, 
 arising partly from the peculiarities of the Dutch Constitu¬ 
 tion, and partly from the religious divisions which had 
 prevailed in the Dutch provinces ever since the Reforma¬ 
 tion. Even on the day 1 when the peace of Antwerp 
 secured their civil and religious liberties, the Dutch were not 
 all united on the subject of religion ; the great city of 
 Amsterdam, which had been almost the latest convert to 
 Protestantism, having espoused the Arminian doctrines, 
 while Calvinism was the prevailing creed of most of the 
 other cities. Political differences were not long in following. 
 There was an Orange party and a French party, of which, 
 again, Amsterdam was the chief support; the rival Protes¬ 
 tant sects hating one another with almost as much bitterness 
 as they hated Papists; and each political party usually 
 regarding the ascendency of the other as an evil scarcely 
 less to be dreaded than the domination of a foreigner. Yet 
 in the councils of a State thus, to all appearance, irrecon¬ 
 cilably divided, absolute unanimity was necessary in every 
 single measure. Not only was the consent of each separate 
 province necessary to every act of the States-General, but 
 the consent of every municipality in each province was 
 indispensable to enable that province to signify its decision. 
 A single town, therefore, however unimportant, had the 
 power to neutralize the vote and counteract the will of all 
 the rest of the nation. Absolute unanimity was indispens¬ 
 able, and, in an undertaking of so novel a character as the 
 invasion of England, absolute unanimity might well have 
 seemed unattainable. 
 
 The difficulties which William might anticipate from 
 
 1 The peace with Spain, which was nominally only a truce for twelve 
 years, was signed at Antwerp, January nth, 1609. 
 
The Feelings of Foreign Sovereigns. 89 
 
 foreign countries were hardly less serious. The most power¬ 
 ful of the neighbours of the United States, the Emperor 
 and the King of France, were Roman Catholics, and it 
 was obvious that the first result of William’s success must 
 be the extinction of all the hopes of the Roman Catholics 
 in England ; while the ulterior object which he secretly 
 cherished, and which indeed was the temptation which more 
 than any other induced him to desire the throne of England, 
 was the prospect of being thus enabled to form a league 
 against France which might overthrow the ascendency which 
 Louis XIV. had established over the whole Continent. For, 
 apart from his statesmanlike zeal for the independence of 
 the different European kingdoms, William had a personal 
 quarrel with the rapacious and insolent tyrant who at that 
 time occupied the French throne. One of Louis’s first acts, 
 after he was old enough to take upon himself the direction 
 of the Government, had been to overrun and annex to 
 France the little principality of Orange, from which 
 William derived his title. Not one of his aggressions was 
 more unprovoked and wanton, the sole motive for it, 
 apparently, being that Orange was a Protestant state, 
 and, as such, offered a convenient asylum to those 
 Huguenots who, as they found the privileges granted to 
 them by Henry IV. gradually abridged, were often glad to 
 emigrate to a more secure home. William himself was but 
 ten years old, but was old enough to feel deep indignation 
 at being thus stripped of his inheritance, and throughout 
 his life his views of public policy, wise in themselves, were 
 sharpened by his desire to avenge his private wrongs. 
 
 Nor was it only that he was thus beset on all sides by the 
 most perplexing difficulties, but they were also of a kind 
 which no efforts of his could overcome without assistance. 
 
90 The English Revolution. 
 
 Fortunately for himself and for England, that assistance was 
 afforded him by those who alone could give it effectually, 
 by the very objects of his hostility, James and Louis them¬ 
 selves. The King of England, the moment that he had 
 recovered from the shock of the Bishops’ acquittal, took 
 step after step to show that his feelings towards the Church 
 of England were but embittered by the event. He now 
 issued an order to the chief officials in each diocese to 
 make a formal report to the High Commission of every 
 clergyman who had omitted to read the Declaration of 
 Indulgence, and, though the report, if made, wrnuld have 
 included the names of nineteen-twentieths of the clergy 
 throughout the kingdom, it was understood that he 
 designed to proceed in that most unpopular and illegal 
 Court against every one of them, with the probable result 
 of procuring against them all sentences of deprivation. 
 He invited the Pope to be godfather to the infant 
 Prince of Wales; he renewed his attempts to tamper with 
 the electors, and also with the army; even venturing to 
 adopt measures of manifestly illegal constraint towards 
 the soldiers. Selecting a single regiment for experiment, 
 he instructed the officers to require the men to sign an 
 engagement to aid him in procuring the repeal of the 
 Test Act; the alternative being offered them of quitting 
 the service. With the exception of a very small number, 
 who were all Roman Catholics, the whole regiment at once 
 laid down its arms, and James, unwilling to provoke a 
 similar display in other corps, brought over from Ire¬ 
 land some of the regiments which Lord Tyrconnel had 
 been raising there from among the Roman Catholic 
 peasantry. 
 
 No force which could possibly have been collected 
 
James receives Warnings. 
 
 91 
 
 would have been sufficient to intimidate ; a single brigade 
 of such troops was sufficient to provoke, and to spread 
 universal indignation ; for the remembrance of the atrocities 
 of O’Neill and his followers was still fresh, and contempt 
 for the Irish nation was largely mingled with resentful 
 detestation. So strong was the feeling that, in the different 
 English regiments, the men refused to admit recruits from 
 Ireland, even the commanding officers protesting against 
 the order to enlist Irishmen as an insult to the army and 
 the nation. 
 
 James was thus alienating at the same time the Church¬ 
 men, the very body whose abstract principles most bound 
 them to uphold his prerogative, and the soldiery, whose 
 support, in the event of any appeal to force, was even more 
 important; and he had more than one warning that he 
 might soon have need of all the strength which he could 
 command; he could not be ignorant of the discontent in 
 his own country, which, as it increased, rapidly became 
 more and more undisguised in its expression. But he 
 received also repeated notices from foreign countries, from 
 France and from Holland, where the preparations of the 
 Prince of Orange, in spite of all the caution and secrecy of 
 his movements, could not fail to excite suspicion. Before 
 the end of July the French envoy at the Hague reported to 
 his Government that the steps which were being taken in 
 Holland could hardly have any object but the invasion of 
 England ; and Louis, displaying even more than his usual 
 vigilance and energy in the cause of a kinsman whose safety 
 was so essential to his own designs, not only tried to in¬ 
 timidate the states of Holland from sanctioning the conduct 
 and designs of their Stadtholder, by formal announcement 
 of the closeness of the alliance which subsisted between 
 
92 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 James and himself, but he sent over a confidential minister 
 to England to convey to James the clearest information of 
 all that he had to apprehend, and offers of substantial 
 assistance both by land and sea. Luckily James was at 
 this moment so blinded by his anger, and by his confidence 
 in his ultimate success through the means which he con- - 
 ceived to be in his own hands, that he was rather inclined 
 to take umbrage at Louis’s advice than to profit by it. 
 He saw in it a spirit of dictation, to submit to which 
 was inconsistent with his dignity. He publicly denied the 
 existence of the close alliance with France which Louis had 
 proclaimed; he declared that vanity and flattery had turned 
 his cousin’s head; and that a King of England was not so 
 insignificant a sovereign as to stand in need of protection, 
 so ostentatious an offer of which was little short of an insult. 
 
 And at the same time Louis, in spite of the good advice 
 which he was giving to the King of England, proved him¬ 
 self to be almost equally in need of counsels of prudence 
 and sobriety for his own conduct; and, with singular perver¬ 
 sity, selected the very moment when such danger threatened 
 the maintenance of the connection between France and 
 England, which, for his ulterior designs, was as important 
 to himself as to James, to embroil himself with some of the 
 most influential powers of the Continent, and among them 
 with the Estates of Holland, the nation in which, of all 
 others, it would have been easiest to maintain his influence, 
 and in which, at the present crisis, it must be most mis¬ 
 chievous to lose it. 
 
 His revocation of the Edict of Nantes, three years before, 
 had excited peculiar indignation among the Dutch, because 
 the vicinity of the two countries had tempted many of 
 their fellow-citizens across the frontier to settle in France; 
 
Louis quarrels with the Pope. 93 
 
 and they had been treated since the revocation with peculiar 
 severity, not even being allowed to return to their native 
 land, if they had obtained letters of naturalization in France. 
 Still more recently, he had imposed increased duties on 
 many articles in which Holland had previously had a 
 profitable trade with France, and had altogether prohibited 
 the importation of others. He picked one quarrel with the 
 Pope, insisting on privileges for his ambassador at Rome 
 which were incompatible with the government and tran¬ 
 quillity of the city, and which every other sovereign had 
 renounced; and he defied and insulted at once the Pope, 
 the Emperor, and the Germanic body, on the subject of 
 the great Archbishopric of Cologne, which happened to 
 be vacant, and into which he endeavoured to force a 
 candidate of his own choice, and one who should be sub¬ 
 servient to his will, though the Archbishop was an Elector 
 of the Empire, and though no prince, except those of Ger¬ 
 man blood, could have the very slightest right to interfere in 
 the election. And, finally, in the September of this year, he 
 invaded Germany on the most ridiculous pretexts, of which 
 the rejection of the pretensions of his creature, the Cardinal 
 of Furstenburg, to the Archbishopric was among the most 
 prominent; and by express orders, signed with his own 
 hand, enjoined his marshals to wage the war thus wantonly 
 begun with a ferocity of which, since the dark ages, and 
 the irruptions of the Goths and Huns into Italy, Europe 
 had seen no example. 
 
 By all this conduct, of which it is hard to say whether 
 the irritating insolence was more inconsistent with states¬ 
 manship, or the vindictive ferocity with humanity, he had 
 just at this moment completely alienated his commercial 
 friends in the United States, and his brother Romanists in 
 
94 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Germany and Italy; so that the merchants of Amsterdam, 
 long and fierce as had been their hostility to the House 
 of Orange, now learnt to look with favour on the designs 
 of the Prince whose constant object was to pull down the 
 French ascendency; and that even the Emperor and the 
 Pope were forced to regard William’s Protestantism as 
 fraught with less personal danger and insult to themselves 
 than the Popery of Louis; and were more inclined to co¬ 
 operate in than to thwart his enterprise, even though directed 
 to the overthrow of a Roman Catholic sovereign. 
 
 Amid such a combination of favourable circumstances, 
 William was not wanting to himself. Of those in England 
 who had invited him to the country, he was already sure; 
 but in the course of the next few weeks he contrived so 
 completely to inspire others also with confidence that, before 
 the end of August, he had received assurances of assistance 
 from many of the servants in whom James himself placed 
 the most implicit trust, and who were, perhaps, beyond any 
 other men in the kingdom, the most able to further or to 
 frustrate his designs. Especially could he reckon on Lord 
 Sunderland, the holder of two great ministerial offices; and 
 on Lord Churchill, the most skilful of English generals, 
 whose adhesion was also important in another point of 
 view, from the entire influence which he and his wife had 
 over the councils of the Princess Anne. To the Roman 
 Catholic princes on the Continent he was of course unable 
 to make any precise revelation of his schemes; but he 
 secured their general goodwill by the full assurances 
 which he gave them of his desire and resolution, in all 
 the reforms which he hoped to see established in England, 
 that the most complete toleration for every exercise of 
 their religion should be secured to the Roman Catholics 
 
Conduct of the Dutch Estates. 
 
 95 
 
 in every part of the United Kingdom; while his known 
 hostility to Louis, which needed no declaration on his 
 part, was in fact a still greater recommendation to princes 
 who had good reason to look on that sovereign as the com¬ 
 mon enemy of all. 
 
 And during the summer of 1688 this feeling extended so 
 rapidly over the whole Continent, that, when at last William 
 opened his plan in detail to the Dutch Estates, and 
 requested their sanction to his contemplated enterprise, 
 even the Council of Amsterdam, which, from the very 
 establishment of the national independence, had been the 
 resolute antagonist of his family, was ashamed to oppose 
 him. An armed expedition to England was unanimously 
 approved. The raising of a large loan to provide him with 
 funds was voted with equal cordiality; the consent of 
 the States being so ratified by the enthusiasm of the 
 people that the money required was contributed in four 
 days. 
 
 Meantime James had been conducting himself with a 
 strange mixture of arrogance and supineness; receiving all 
 warnings of the proceedings in Holland with contemptuous 
 indifference, and showing similar disdain for the cautions 
 which some even of his previously obsequious tools in 
 England ventured to address to him on the subject of his 
 open disregard for the laws and feelings of the nation. At 
 last, about the beginning of October, a sudden change 
 came over him. He received from Albeville, his Envoy at 
 the Hague, intelligence, which he could no longer doubt, that 
 an invasion of England was not only decided on, but was 
 ready to sail; and, in a moment passing from the height of 
 confidence to the extremity of fear, he tried to avert the 
 danger by concessions, conciliating measures, and speeches 
 
9 6 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 which he hoped would in an instant efface all recollection of 
 three years’ violence and lawlessness. 
 
 He did not, indeed, renounce the dispensing power, but 
 he issued a proclamation promising to protect the Church 
 of England. He abandoned the demand for the repeal of 
 the Test Act; he removed the suspension which had been 
 pronounced against the Bishop of London, and replaced 
 the magistrates and other officers who had been dismissed; 
 he restored the charters of the different corporations; he 
 abolished the Court of High Commission, and even con¬ 
 descended to lay before an extraordinary council, consisting 
 of all the most eminent men in the kingdom who were 
 within reach of London, proofs of the birth of his son, 
 which all present admitted to.be conclusive and irresistible. 
 But this conduct, which, if adopted earlier, might have 
 prevented any idea of such an enterprise as William’s from 
 being ever entertained, was of no avail now, either to change 
 the Prince’s determination, or to appease the irritation and 
 distrust of those who had invited him, while, by a peculiar 
 ill-fortune which at this moment seemed to attend all his 
 measures, one or two accidental circumstances which hap¬ 
 pened just as intelligence arrived that the Dutch fleet had 
 been driven back to its native shores in a storm, created a 
 general belief that the news of its disaster had prompted 
 James to change the policy which he had just announced, 
 and to resume his former line of bigotry and severity. 
 
97 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 William sets sail for England—Circulates a manifesto giving his reasons 
 for the expedition—William lands in Devonshire—Embarrassment 
 and agitation of the King—Men of influence gradually join the 
 Prince—Lord Cornbury joins William—Risings in favour of the 
 Prince take place in many parts of the kingdom—James leaves 
 London for Salisbury, and William advances from Exeter—Lord 
 Churchill deserts James—Flight of the Princess Anne—James returns 
 to London—Debate in the Council—Lord Dartmouth refuses to convey 
 the Prince of Wales to France—Writs are issued for a new Parlia¬ 
 ment. 
 
 William had set sail from Helvoet-Sluys on the 19th of 
 October; but, after being a few hours at sea, had been 
 driven back by a violent storm, in which the whole fleet 
 was scattered ; one ship was driven with her crew on the 
 English coast, and many others were severely damaged. 
 But the injuries were soon repaired ; and by the end of the 
 month, the armament was re-equipped. November opened 
 eventfully. On All Saint’s Day, 1 a favourite divine, Father 
 Gaillard, was preaching before Louis at Versailles, when 
 the great War Minister, Louvois, suddenly interrupted the 
 service, by bringing to the King a despatch, announcing 
 the capture of the important fortress of Philipsbourg by 
 the Dauphin. The King stopped the sermon, announced 
 
 1 See Madame de Sevignes Letter to Madame de Grignon, dated 
 November 3rd, 1688. See the Author’s "History of France under the 
 Bourbons," II. p. 294. 
 
 H 
 
98 The English Revolution. 
 
 the triumph aloud to the congregation, and offered up 
 an extemporaneous prayer of thanksgiving; and then the 
 preacher, being allowed to resume his discourse, so im¬ 
 proved the occasion with a description of the visible favour 
 shown by the Almighty to the King and all his enterprises, 
 that the whole congregation was dissolved in tears. 
 
 The success, such as it was, was abundantly counter¬ 
 balanced. The wind, which throughout nearly the whole of 
 October had blown from the south-west, had suddenly shifted 
 to the east, the Protestant wind, as for the last fortnight the 
 citizens of London had been calling it in their prayers, 
 and before sunset on the same 1st of November, his per¬ 
 severing enemy, the Prince of Orange, again put to sea, at 
 the head of probably the most numerous fleet which had 
 ever been seen in the British Channel. More than fifty 
 men-of-war escorted above 500 transports, conveying 5,000 
 cavalry, 11,000 infantry, about half of which were English 
 regiments, which had for some time been in the service 
 of the States; and with them many English and Scotch 
 nobles, who had joined the Prince within the last few 
 weeks, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Macclesfield, 
 the Earl of Argyll, the Earl of Winchester, and others, 
 some of whom had brought money, which they had raised 
 by mortgages on their estates, to aid the enterprise. So 
 eagerly did the Dutch enter into the attempt, that they 
 even dismantled their fortresses to supply the army with 
 artillery, and retained but twelve men-of-war for the defence 
 of their coasts. 
 
 There had been a great discussion in William’s Council, 
 what should be the point of destination. Lord Danby had 
 recommended some Yorkshire port, because his influence 
 was greatest in that district; but Herbert had objected to 
 
William sails for England. 
 
 99 
 
 keep the fleet off that coast during the winter, and eventually 
 William resolved to» endeavour to land in Yorkshire, and 
 then to send the fleet round to the Channel. 1 William 
 himself led the way in the “ Brill ” frigate, at the topmast 
 of which his flag bore the arms of England and Nassau, 
 with his hereditary motto, “ I will Maintain,” lengthened 
 by the addition of the words, “ The Liberties of England 
 and the Protestant Religion.” But the fleet was under the 
 command of the English Admiral Herbert, the same officer 
 who, in June, had undertaken the dangerous enterprise of 
 conveying him the invitation. 
 
 The Dutch sailors had not consented without some 
 reluctance to serve under a foreign commander, who also 
 belonged to the nation with which, in the course of the 
 last thirty years, they had been engaged in such frequent 
 and fierce struggles; but William, whose policy was by 
 all means to avoid a battle if possible, conceived that, if 
 he should meet the English fleet, Herbert’s influence with 
 the British sailors might very probably avert an engage¬ 
 ment; while, if a battle should prove inevitable, his 
 success, if he should succeed, would be less mortifying 
 to English pride for being achieved by their own country¬ 
 man. Of the army, William himself was Commander-in- 
 
 1 Macaulay represents the northward course taken by the fleet on first 
 leaving harbour to have been only a feint to deceive the English light 
 vessels which Lord Dartmouth had sent to watch it; but I have preferred 
 to follow Burnet, who was in the fleet, and can hardly have been mistaken 
 as to William's design, fie reports the discussion which took place in the 
 Prince's Council on the subject, and then proceeds to say : ' ‘ 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 ” (p. 778); 
 and (p. 787) affirms that it was only the impossibility, on the 1st of 
 November, of making head against the wind so as to get to the north, that 
 ultimately led to the landing in Devonshire. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Chief; the second in command was the French Marshal 
 Schomberg, who, being a Protestant, had been driven from 
 the service of Louis by the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes ; and who was expected to be almost as acceptable 
 in England as a native, being recommended to the English 
 partly by the sacrifices which he had made for the sake 
 of religion, and partly by an intimate acquaintance with 
 their language ; and also by his friendship with many of the 
 leading men of the kingdom, to whom he had become 
 known in more than one long visit which he had paid to this 
 country. 1 A Scotch officer of reputation, General Mackay, 
 had the English regiments under his special command. 
 
 On that same day also, a manifesto, or Declaration as it 
 was called, reached London, and began to be secretly circu- 
 
 i The Count Schomberg was a sufficiently remarkable man to deserve 
 a more extended notice than could be taken of him in the text. When 
 Louis first began to take the government of his kingdom into his own hands, 
 Turenne had recommended Schomberg to the King as one of the ablest 
 officers in the army. Many successful campaigns in Portugal, Spain, and 
 Flanders had fully borne out the great Marshal's panegyric. In one 
 memorable instance, Schomberg had foiled William himself, and had 
 compelled him to raise the siege of Maestrecht, though the Prince, as 
 was not unusual with him, conducted his retreat with such skilful hardi¬ 
 hood that he rather gained than lost credit by his failure. And so 
 thoroughly did the Count impress Louis with a sense of his value that, 
 though he refused to purchase a marshal's truncheon by the desertion 
 of his religion, Louis gave it to him without insisting on the sacrifice, 
 and he was the last Huguenot who ever obtained that much-coveted pro¬ 
 motion. In spite, however, of religious differences, Louis had no more 
 faithful servant till the fatal bigotry of Madame de Maintenon and the 
 Jesuits overcame his principles of toleration or indifference. No excep¬ 
 tion was made, even in favour of such a man as the Count, in the rigour 
 with which the revocation of the Edict of Nantes was carried out; and 
 Schomberg, deprived of rank and employment, withdrew to Holland, 
 where his former antagonist, the Prince, received him with open arms. 
 Schomberg, too, had national injuries to avenge besides his own, for he 
 was a native of the Palatinate which Louis had so cruelly ravaged. 
 
William's Manifesto. 
 
 IOI 
 
 lated by William’s partisans. It had been drawn up by the 
 Dutch minister, Fagel, with the aid of Burnet, and specified 
 the principal causes which had moved the Prince to under¬ 
 take the enterprise : “ The grievances of the English people 
 “ flowing from the King’s open and notorious violation of 
 “ the established laws of the kingdom; through too great a 
 “ compliance with the advice of evil counsellorsfor the 
 whole paper carefully preserved the constitutional distinction 
 between the King and his ministers. “ The exercise of the 
 “ dispensing power, which laid all the laws at the foot of the 
 “ throne, and which had been used for the purpose of break- 
 “ ing down the barriers contrived for the security of the Pro- 
 “ testant religion. The Court of High Commission had been 
 “ illegally erected, and an avowed Papist had been placed 
 “ upon it for the express purpose of oppressing the Church 
 “ of England ; the charters of many boroughs and cities had 
 “ been illegally forfeited; magistrates had been removed in 
 “ great numbers for no offence but a refusal to break, or to 
 “ connive at breaking the law; and it had been charged as 
 “ a crime, even against prelates and peers of the realm, that 
 “ they had petitioned against such conduct. Finally, there 
 “ were grave reasons for believing that an attempt had been 
 “ made to rob the Princess of her lawful inheritance, by in- 
 “ troducinga supposititious child into the royal family. To 
 “ put an end to these evils, the Prince had been solicited by 
 “ many of the peers, both spiritual and temporal, to cross 
 “ over to England to procure the meeting of a free Parliament, 
 “ legally convened and elected ; which was the only constitu- 
 “ tional and effectual remedy for them. He had no other 
 “ object. To such a Parliament he would leave the regula- 
 “ tion of all the matters in question, acquiescing in and sup- 
 “ porting their decisions in every point; and especially all 
 
102 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 “ their measures for the preservation of the Church and the 
 “ established religion ; and for the security to all men of due 
 “ freedom of conscience.” 
 
 At first the fleet bore up towards the north, trying to 
 reach Hull, but the wind was too dead foul to allow them 
 to make any way in that direction. Herbert had always 
 been unfavourable to such a course, and at noon on the 
 2nd it was given up ; the fleet was put about, and the reso¬ 
 lution was taken to make for Torbay. The voyage now 
 proceeded so rapidly that by breakfast-time on the 3rd, the 
 Straits of Dover had been reached. The preceding night 
 had been one of great anxiety, for a powerful fleet of up¬ 
 wards of thirty sail of the line lay on the Essex coast just 
 outside the mouth of the Thames, under the command of 
 the Earl of Dartmouth, an officer of unshaken loyalty, and 
 one to whom the seamen were greatly attached ; and an 
 encounter with such a force, unencumbered by any convoy, 
 might have been fatal to the whole enterprise ; but Dart¬ 
 mouth had no information where to look for the enemy. 
 William had taken the greatest precautions to prevent any 
 knowledge of his intended movements from getting abroad; 
 he had laid an embargo on all vessels in the Dutch ports, 
 and, even had Dartmouth known his intended course, the 
 same wind which prevented William from going northward, 
 hindered him also from lea\ing his anchorage. The Protes¬ 
 tant wind had served a double object, it had hastened 
 William on his way, and baffled all attempts to intercept him. 
 
 Even when, in the night of the 3rd, a messenger from 
 Dover reached London with the news that the invading 
 force had passed the Straits, and was steering for the 
 west, Dartmouth was still unable to move, and it was some 
 hours later before a change of wind allowed him to reach 
 
William lands in Torbay. 103 
 
 the open sea, and to bend his course also in the direction 
 which Herbert had taken ; and the very change of wind 
 which at last had allowed him to do this had also been 
 favourable to William, for, on the 4th, when he was off 
 Torbay, the weather was so hazy that the pilot could 
 not see the landmarks. He overshot the entrance, and 
 passed on, even beyond Dartmouth ; and it was only a 
 sudden veering round of the wind from east to south, in 
 the afternoon of the 5th, that enabled the invading fleet 
 to turn back and anchor in the wished-for haven. 
 
 William had hoped to effect his landing on the 4th, because 
 that day was the anniversary both of his birth and of his 
 wedding ; but, in the eyes of the superstitious, and even of 
 those who, though free from superstition themselves, knew 
 its influence on the minds of the multitude, the 5th was a 
 day of still better omen, since that day had already been 
 signalized by one great deliverance of the nation from 
 Popish machinations, in the detection of the Gunpowder 
 Plot, and therefore, to sanguine enthusiasts, seemed more 
 likely than another to bring with it a second interposition 
 of Providence for the protection of Protestantism. 
 
 The night of the 5th and the morning of the 6th were calm, 
 and in a few hours the whole army was successfully dis¬ 
 embarked. A short time was devoted to a public thanks¬ 
 giving to God for the favour which, hitherto, he had so 
 visibly shown to the enterprise, and in the afternoon the 
 army began its march towards Exeter, the artillery and 
 baggage being sent back by sea to the mouth of the Exe ; 
 the wind once more favouring them, for on the 4th Dart¬ 
 mouth had by great exertions worked his way to the 
 Downs, and was pressing westward in pursuit, when his 
 advance was arrested by the same change which enabled 
 
104 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Herbert to turnback to Torbay; and now, while the heavily- 
 laden artillery and baggage vessels were laboriously and 
 slowly making their way back to Topsham, the royal fleet, 
 which by this time was at no great distance, was met by a 
 violent storm, which drove it back in great disorder to 
 Portsmouth. 
 
 Still, though so far everything had gone in his favour, 
 William was as yet relieved from no other anxiety. In 
 one sense, his difficulties might be said only to have begun 
 with his landing, for the army in James’s service was even 
 more powerful than the fleet. The brigade which had 
 been encamped on Hounslow Heath was at least equal 
 to the whole of the invading force, and, from the moment 
 that the King first received intelligence of William’s 
 designs, he had displayed both energy and judgment in 
 augmenting it. He had summoned to the south all the 
 regular troops which had been in Scotland, leaving the 
 defence of that kingdom to the militia. He had brought 
 over regiments from Ireland, and the recruiting had been 
 carried on with such vigour and success that he had at 
 least 30,000 men under arms in the neighbourhood of 
 London. William was well aware of his strength, and that 
 his own prospects of success depended on the extent to 
 which, now that he was in England, he himself might be 
 reinforced by those who had invited him over, and by the 
 still greater number of those who had been represented as 
 secretly desirous of his arrival; and for some days the pros¬ 
 pect of any such addition to his force seemed small. 
 
 The weather and the roads were so bad, that though 
 Exeter was less than thirty miles from the place at which 
 he had landed, he did not reach that important city till the 
 fourth day, and he did not meet the reception which he 
 
Agitation in London. 
 
 105 
 
 had looked for. The lower orders of the citizens, indeed, 
 received him with acclamations, as the peasants in the 
 rural villages had greeted him all along his line of march, 
 but the magistrates and chief gentlemen kept aloof. The 
 Bishop and the Dean fled, and when, on the day after his 
 arrival, a solemn service of thanksgiving was performed, 
 the Canons refused to attend the Cathedral. William him¬ 
 self took possession of the Bishop’s throne, and Burnet 
 preached a sermon, which was listened to in silence, but 
 when, at the conclusion of the service, he proceeded to 
 read the Prince’s manifesto, the greater part of those citi¬ 
 zens who had ventured to attend hurried out in a panic, 
 lest their presence at such an announcement should be 
 accounted treason ; and when the zealous chaplain wound 
 up the whole with a loud cry of “ God bless the Prince of 
 Orange,” the voices which answered “Amen” came but from 
 the humbler classes. And though, after a few days, one or 
 two nobles and gentlemen of property reached Exeter from 
 the more central counties, a week elapsed before they were 
 joined by any of the Devonshire squires. 
 
 Meanwhile the agitation had been great in London, and, 
 as was natural, greatest of all in the palace and Council of 
 the King. Of all the sentences in the Prince’s manifesto 
 none had affected James so deeply as the allegation that he 
 had been invited over by some of the Lords Spiritual and 
 Temporal ; for he knew well how sincerely loyalty to the 
 Crown was regarded by the Churchmen as a religious prin¬ 
 ciple ; and, if a single Bishop had renounced it, he could not 
 conceal from himself that his act would be the signal for a 
 wide defection. As soon as the paper reached him, he sum¬ 
 moned some of the Peers to his presence, and demanded of 
 them whether they were among those alluded to. Compton, 
 
io6 The English Revolution. 
 
 Bishop of London, who had signed the invitation, evaded 
 the question ; but Halifax, Clarendon, and Nottingham, as 
 they had not done so, had no difficulty in denying it; though 
 Halifax wholly denied any right to put such a question to 
 him, and affirmed that, if he had invited the Prince over, 
 he should, as a defendant on trial, feel justified in pleading 
 Not Guilty. 
 
 The next day James summoned a larger number. Though 
 he refused to let them see the manifesto, he demanded that 
 they should denounce it, and draw up a paper signifying 
 their abhorrence of the Prince's enterprise; and he pub¬ 
 lished a proclamation in the Gazette denouncing the circu¬ 
 lation, or even the perusal of the manifesto, as a crime liable 
 to the heaviest penalties. On the day after William landed, 
 the King once more summoned the Primate, the Bishop of 
 London, and some of the other prelates, to his presence, 
 produced the Prince’s declaration, bade them read it, and 
 once more demanded of them a written disavowal of the 
 Prince and his manifesto, which they declined to give. 
 Sancroft said truly that he had known nothing of the invita¬ 
 tion ; but that to meddle with the matter at all did not come 
 within the sphere of episcopal duties. It belonged to the 
 civil power, and with a submission that had in it as much 
 sarcasm as might become a Bishop, he reminded the King 
 that when once before he and some of his brethren had 
 affixed their signatures to a political document of the most 
 harmless kind, being but a humble petition to his Majesty, 
 their act had been treated as a grave offence, the Attorney 
 and Solicitor-Generals agreeing in the argument that out of 
 Parliament they had no right to interfere in politics at all. 
 James was by turns querulous, indignant, and peremptory. 
 He expostulated, he reproached, he commanded, declaring 
 
The King collects his Forces. 107 
 
 that he had a right to compel their assistance in whatever 
 way he chose. They were equally steady in their refusal to 
 sign such a declaration as he required. As Peers of Parlia¬ 
 ment their best advice, they said, was at his service ; as 
 Prelates of the Church he might command their most earnest 
 prayers, but beyond this their duties did not extend. He, 
 however, wanted neither the advice of Parliament, nor the 
 prayers of Protestants ; and at last, after a long altercation, 
 dismissed them with something like contumely. He would 
 dispense with their aid, and rely on himself and on his own 
 arms. 
 
 Those arms were sufficiently formidable had they been 
 really trustworthy. Lord Feversham, still, as in the days 
 of Monmouth’s rebellion, Commander-in-Chief, was rapidly 
 moving his troops westward, and had already collected at 
 Salisbury a force much superior in numbers to that which 
 was at Exeter, and many of the most powerful nobles were 
 making great exertions in the Royal cause. Some, indeed, 
 of whom James had thought himself sure, turned against him ; 
 the Earl of Abingdon, who three years before had shown a 
 most loyal zeal in his behalf, now yielded to the conviction 
 that his religion was in danger, and before the middle of 
 the month repaired to William’s head-quarters ; but a still 
 more powerful peer, the Duke of Beaufort, who was Lord 
 Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, and who had great influence 
 over all the eastern parts of South Wales, was exerting all 
 his authority in support of the Crown. At the head of the 
 militia of his county he attacked and defeated Lord Love¬ 
 lace, who, with a well-equipped body of his retainers, was 
 hastening to Exeter, defeated him and took him prisoner, 
 and thus gave a severe blow to all William’s hopes of fresh 
 adhesions from that part of the country. 
 
108 The English Revolution. 
 
 Lord Lovelace’s defeat, however, was counterbalanced by 
 advantages gained by the Prince’s friends in other quarters. 
 In those days events proceeded rapidly, and when they 
 found that William had been able to maintain himself for a 
 week at Exeter without any force marching against him, the 
 Devonshire gentlemen began to flock to his standard. Sir 
 Edward Seymour, one of the most eminent leaders of 
 the Tory party in the whole kingdom, who in the reign of 
 Charles II. had been Speaker of the House of Commons, 
 was at their head. He brought not only eloquence, but 
 also resolution and great practical ability to the Prince’s aid; 
 and seeing that, as he expressed it, the assemblage at Exeter 
 “was as yet but a rope of sand,” he suggested to Burnet the 
 drawing up what he called “ an Association,” a declaration 
 that those who signed it would aid the Prince in the attain¬ 
 ment of the objects for which he had himself come to their 
 aid to the utmost of their power; and that, if any successful 
 attempt should be made on his personal safety they would 
 avenge him on all who perpetrated or had prompted such 
 a crime. 
 
 So many attempts at the Prince’s assassination were made 
 in the course of the next few years, that this clause seemed 
 to be dictated by an accurate foresight; though, in other re¬ 
 spects, so far were those who signed the paper from foreseeing 
 or desiring the course which events subsequently took, that 
 many of them afterwards, when William was seated on the 
 throne, refused to swear allegiance to him. At present no 
 one refused his signature ; and William had hardly become 
 thus assured of the steady adherence of the civilians who 
 had joined him, before Churchill’s efforts on his behalf began 
 to produce their effect on the army. And the very first 
 officer to desert the royal cause was a nephew of the King’s 
 
Lord Cornbury joins the Prince. 109 
 
 first wife, Lord Cornbury, the eldest son of the Earl of 
 Clarendon. He was at Salisbury in command of a regiment 
 of dragoons, and, being greatly under Churchill’s influence, 
 had made up his mind to desert, when the accidental 
 absence of all his superior officers suggested to him the 
 idea of taking over not only his own regiment but all the 
 rest of the cavalry to join the Prince. As he had not taken 
 the precaution, or perhaps had not had any opportunity of 
 preparing the men beforehand for such a step, many of them, 
 as soon as they began to suspect his intention, turned back; 
 but his own regiment adhered to him, and with them, and a 
 troop or two from some of the others, he made his way to 
 William; and his arrival in that camp greatly encouraged 
 the Dutch counsellors of the Prince, who, from the slowness 
 with which the country gentlemen joined them, had begun 
 to despond, but who were now led, by the accession of so 
 important a force, to place confidence in the assurances 
 which had been given them of the favourable disposition 
 of the army in general. 
 
 To James, on the contrary, the event, as was equally 
 natural, caused the deepest dismay ; since, if he was thus 
 deserted by one whom he might look upon as his own 
 nephew, and whose father was still by his side, it became 
 impossible to know in whom he could put his trust. At 
 all events, he could not doubt that Cornbury’s treason 
 was but the forerunner of others. And, in fact, the news 
 of this defection, though but that of a single regiment, 
 did prove a signal to numbers of those who had hitherto 
 been hanging back, to declare themselves. 1 Many of the 
 
 1 There is some uncertainty in the exact order of these events. Burnet, 
 p. 790, says James was at Salisbury when Cornbury deserted, Cornbury, 
 with the rest of the troops, having been sent “ twenty miles further appa- 
 
IIO 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 chief gentry from Dorsetshire and Somersetshire hastened 
 to Exeter, others took up anns in Cheshire and the Mid¬ 
 land Counties; the Earl of Devonshire seized Nottingham 
 and Derby. Lord Danby, at the head of a powerful body 
 of horse, made himself master of York, raising the cry of 
 “No Popery! a free Parliament;” and in most of these 
 counties the leaders justified their insurrection by a declara¬ 
 tion of their provocation and their object. The one was the 
 contempt shown by the Government for the law and the 
 Protestant religion; the other was the election of a free 
 and independent Parliament; and a combination for these 
 ends they denied to be rebellion, since the defence and 
 maintenance of the law was manifestly self-defence. 
 
 James was greatly disturbed, and showed the agitation of 
 his mind by the inconsistency of his conduct. At one 
 moment he behaved with calmness and dignity, seeking to 
 tranquillize Lord Clarendon, who professed himself incon¬ 
 solable for his son’s treason, by the assurance that he should 
 not think the worse of the family in general for the crime 
 of a single member of it; and he summoned the principal 
 military officers then in London, and offered to release any 
 from their oaths who might have conscientious scruples at 
 fighting in his cause ; but he entreated them not to forfeit 
 their honour as gentlemen and soldiers by treachery. But 
 when^ a few hours afterwards, a body of Peers, headed by 
 the Primate, his brothers-in-law the Earls of Clarendon and 
 Rochester, and the Duke of Grafton, the most distinguished 
 of the natural sons of the late King, came to him with a 
 
 rently to Blandford. Macaulay places James's departure from London 
 some days later. I conceive that Burnet is of course more to be trusted for 
 a precise knowledge of what took place in William’s camp than in James’s, 
 but not for dates. 
 
The King joins his Army. hi 
 
 petition that he would summon a Parliament, and open a 
 communication with the Prince of Orange, he lost all temper. 
 
 A free Parliament, he declared, was impossible while an 
 enemy was in the kingdom. The Primate, and Sprat, the 
 Bishop of Rochester, who, having formerly been a member 
 of the High Commission Court, seemed now anxious to 
 efface the recollection of his servility by a show of inde¬ 
 pendence, and had added his signature to the petition, he 
 reproached with special bitterness : “ A few days ago they 
 “ had refused to condemn the Prince’s invasion on the plea 
 “ that they would not interfere in politics; but now they con- 
 “ demned him, their King, and were ready to excite their 
 “ flocks to disloyalty. And he declared that so far would 
 “ he be from opening any communications with the invader, 
 “ that, if the Prince should send him a message even under 
 “ a flag of truce, the first messenger should be dismissed 
 “ without an answer; a second should be hanged.” And 
 then, as if to show how unchanged was his determination 
 to set himself above the law, having resolved to leave Lon¬ 
 don to put himself at the head of his army, he appointed 
 a Council to carry on the departmental duties of the 
 Government during his absence, two of whom were Roman 
 Catholics, while a third was the hated Judge Jefferies; 
 and he despatched the infant Prince of Wales to Ports¬ 
 mouth, with the intention that Lord Dartmouth should 
 convey him to France. 
 
 On the 19th he reached Salisbury. Two days later the 
 Prince also quitted Exeter, marching eastward as far as 
 Axminster, and from thence, turning slightly to the north 
 because the Dorsetshire downs would be favourable to the 
 King, whose chief superiority was in cavalry, he advanced 
 to Crewkeme, in Somersetshire. He was, above all things, 
 
11 2 The English Revolution. 
 
 desirous to avoid a battle with his father-in-law, which, 
 whatever might be the result, would have a somewhat un¬ 
 natural appearance, and would be unpopular with many 
 even of his own friends; and the adoption of this line of 
 march would enable him to pass by the King’s position, and 
 also to secure the important cities of Bristol and Oxford. 
 From the great University he received unexpected encour¬ 
 agement. James’s open attacks on its privileges and religion 
 had produced its fruit; and, before William left Crewkerne, 
 a deputation from the heads of colleges came to meet him, 
 promising him their cordial adherence, inviting him to visit 
 the City, and offering to place the college plate at his dis¬ 
 posal, as they had before devoted it to the service of his 
 grandfather, Charles I., if he should require it. 
 
 With all his care and Schomberg’s skill it was imprac¬ 
 ticable wholly to avoid a collision between the Wo armies ; 
 though prudence on one side, and accident on the other, 
 gave to the skirmish which occurred such a character that 
 even those of the country people who wished best to 
 James’s cause, yet at the same time rejoiced in the success 
 of William’s soldiers. As he was marching in an array 
 which could not but have a hostile appearance through 
 England, William judiciously placed his English regiments 
 in the van. James’s advanced guard was composed of 
 Irish troops under the command of the single Irishman 
 who made himself an honourable name in his service, the 
 chivalrous Sarsfield, but his virtues were as yet unknown 
 in England. And it so happened that a detachment of 
 each force met near Wincanton. Though the Irish were 
 by far the more numerous, the English were the more 
 skilfully commanded ; the peasants sided with them, and 
 perplexed Sarsfield’s officer with false intelligence. He 
 
Wavering of some of the Tories. 113 
 
 was repulsed, and the affair, which, though but a brief and 
 casual skirmish, was magnified by the sympathies of the 
 country people into a glorious victory gained by their own 
 countrymen over Connaught barbarians, greatly increased 
 the general enthusiasm for the Prince’s cause. 
 
 But it was not actions between handfuls of men, or even 
 victory in a pitched battle, which could ensure the Prince’s 
 success. James was strong enough to bear a heavy loss in 
 the field, if he could only have trusted those who within 
 the last week had pledged their fidelity to his service. But 
 his very last acts had shown that his purpose to establish 
 Popery and despotic authority was unchanged, and com¬ 
 pleted the alienation of those who, perhaps, might still have 
 hesitated to take so decided a step as that of deserting 
 their colours, had it been possible for them to reconcile 
 their loyalty with their regard for their religion. To many 
 it was a cruel alternative that presented itself ; nor was 
 their final choice made without great reluctance, and scruples 
 so sincere that at a subsequent period some of them par¬ 
 tially retraced their steps. Others, however, wanted no 
 additional provocation to Jead them to act on the resolution 
 which they had already formed, and the desertion of some 
 was coloured with a studied and peculiar treachery, which 
 has, unhappily, tarnished one of the most brilliant reputa¬ 
 tions in our annals. 
 
 Lord Churchill, as we have seen, had been for some 
 time in communication with the Prince. Though in his 
 extreme youth 1 he is said not altogether to have escaped 
 
 1 Archdeacon Coxe, “ Life of Marlborough,” c. i., has shown that the 
 story of his connection with the Duchess of Cleveland, and of her liberality 
 to him, is derived from the “New Atalantis ” of Mrs. Mauley, whose 
 character is sufficiently notorious to excuse one from dilating on it; and 
 
The English Revolution. 
 
 114 
 
 the contagious dissipation of the age, he was nevertheless 
 imbued with a firm attachment to his own religion; 
 and, as soon as he became convinced that James was 
 determined to crush the Church of England, he gave in 
 his adhesion to the party which was formed to withstand 
 his proceedings. Had he, as soon as he made up his mind, 
 thrown up his command and crossed over to Holland, like 
 Lord Devonshire; or joined him at Exeter, like Sir Edward 
 Seymour, the stoutest Tory could not have reproached him. 
 But he postponed his desertion till it would not only 
 strengthen the invader, but also disable those whom he de¬ 
 serted. James even believed that the advice which he gave 
 him a day or two before his flight, to cross Salisbury 7 Plain 
 for the purpose of reviewing the troops at Warminster, was 
 dictated by a consideration of the facilities which would 
 have been found there for betraying him into the hands of 
 the enemy at a small town close to their outposts ; though in 
 that suspicion he was probably mistaken, as Churchill was 
 too shrewd not to be aware that no event could possibly 
 have been so embarrassing to the Prince as one which 
 would have brought him into personal contact with the 
 King. It was, in all probability, rather his object to fill 
 James’s mind with false confidence by an exhibition of his 
 strength in different quarters, and so to keep him deceived 
 till the last moment. 
 
 But events led him to precipitate his flight. In a 
 Council of War, which was held in James’s presence on 
 the 24th of November, Churchill’s opinion as to the 
 operations which should be adopted was overruled, and 
 he fancied that such a disregard of his judgment argued 
 
 also that the Duchess was his cousin, a fact which might account for both 
 the intimacy and the bounty. 
 
Lord Churchill joins the Prince . 115 
 
 suspicion. He may have learnt that James had been 
 warned against him, and had been recommended to place 
 him under arrest. And his movements being quickened 
 by personal irritation, that very_ evening he wrote a letter to 
 the King, excusing himself for deserting his service, in spite 
 of all the favours which he received and which he warmly 
 acknowledged. “ Nothing,” he declared, “ but his deep 
 conviction of his religious duty could have separated him 
 from his Majesty’s side ; and though he could not recon¬ 
 cile it to his conscience to fight against the Prince, he was 
 still as ready as ever to draw his sword in defence of the 
 lawful rights and prerogatives of the Crown.” And then 
 he took horse and rode off to the Prince’s camp, having 
 persuaded the Duke of Grafton to accompany him. Graf¬ 
 ton’s defection was of especial consequence, because, in 
 addition to his military command, he was known to have 
 great influence with the naval officers; and the next day 
 James learnt that Captain Churchill, Lord Churchill’s 
 brother, who commanded a frigate in Lord Dartmouth’s 
 fleet, had also gone over to Admiral Herbert; and that 
 Lord Dartmouth was assured that many others of his officers, 
 though they shrank as yet from an act of open desertion, 
 would refuse to fight against the Prince. 
 
 James was panic-stricken. A day or two before he had 
 resisted the urgent advice of his Council of War to seek 
 out the Prince and give him battle, though it had been 
 strongly pressed upon him, not only by Churchill, but by a 
 great soldier whose fidelity was certainly open to no sus¬ 
 picion, Lord Dundee. And these defections, with new ones 
 of which every hour brought fresh intelligence, deprived him 
 of all resolution. He returned to London, drawing back all 
 his army to the line of the Thames, and sending orders to 
 
11 6 The English Revolution. 
 
 Lord Dartmouth by Lord Dover, a Roman Catholic whom 
 he had lately raised to the peerage, to provide for the 
 instant conveyance of the infant Prince of Wales to 
 France. 
 
 Heavier news attended his journey towards his capital. 
 The Irish Duke of Ormond, as the heir of his father’s 
 faithful and unwearied servant, might be looked on as the 
 representative of the most unflinching loyalty of his country. 
 The Earl of Drumlanrig, the eldest son of the Scotch Duke 
 of Queensberry, might have been supposed to be one on 
 whom it was equally safe to rely; for the Duke was the 
 bitter enemy of the Presbyterians in his own country, and 
 the Earl himself was Lieutenant-Colonel of Lord Dundee’s 
 regiment. The very day that James left Salisbury they 
 supped with him at Andover; but, when he retired to rest, 
 they too fled back to join the Prince; and they were 
 accompanied by Prince George of Denmark, the husband 
 of the King’s second daughter, the Princess Anne. Prince 
 George was a dull, stupid man, utterly incapable of form¬ 
 ing any resolution for himself, or even of appreciating 
 the importance of one formed for him by others. And 
 there can be no doubt that the course now taken by him 
 had been shaped out for him by Churchill, whose wife was in 
 constant attendance on the Princess Anne. Prince George 
 himself was of no consequence beyond that which his 
 rank conferred on him. He had earned the nickname of 
 Est-il-possible : a brief sentence which was his only comment 
 on the most important events. And when James heard of 
 his departure the only remark which he condescended to 
 make on it was “ Is Est-il-possible gone too ? a good trooper 
 would have been a greater loss.” But it was hardly possible 
 to suppose that his movements had not been concerted with 
 
The Princess Anne leaves London. ny 
 
 his wife ; and James might well fear that his flight was a fore¬ 
 runner of hers. 
 
 So, indeed, it proved. The news of Lord Churchill’s 
 desertion reached London in the afternoon; that it had 
 been followed by that of Prince George was known soon 
 afterwards. Comments, which might easily be construed as 
 threats, were freely made on their conduct by the Queen and 
 those around her; and the sentries were doubled around 
 that portion of Whitehall Palace which was occupied by 
 Anne. It was known also that the King himself was on 
 his return ; and Anne was greatly alarmed. She had good 
 reason to dread her father’s indignation; and in anticipation 
 of his reproaches on her husband’s account, declared that 
 she would leap out of window rather than venture to 
 encounter him. Lady Churchill might well share her fears, 
 and might fear for herself too, for some of her own acts 
 might probably be regarded, without any great strain, as high 
 treason; and James was not a Prince likely to show mercy. 
 She persuaded her mistress to instant flight, and she herself 
 contrived the means. 
 
 She hastened secretly to the Bishop of London, and, 
 having made her arrangements with him, at midnight she 
 conducted Anne to his house, which was in Suffolk Street. 
 Speed and secrecy were of such consequence that they did 
 not venture to take with them a single article of clothes; 
 but the Bishop conducted them to the Earl of Dorset’s. 
 Lady Dorset furnished them with the requisites for a 
 journey, and, at daybreak, escorted by the Earl and the 
 Bishop, they rode off to another house of Lord Dorset’s in 
 Epping Forest, from which they presently proceeded to 
 Northampton. Not, perhaps, since the Archbishop of York 
 had commanded Queen Philippa’s right wing at Neville’s 
 
118 The English Revolution. 
 
 Cross had an English prelate been seen in military equip¬ 
 ment ; but, on this emergency, Compton, who had been an 
 officer in the Life Guards before he took orders, revived the 
 ancient usage, donned his old uniform, and rode before the 
 Princess’s carriage fully anned with sword and pistol. When 
 on the afternoon of the 26th the King arrived in London, 
 Anne’s flight was the first thing announced to him; it filled 
 his cup of bitterness to the brim, and wrung from him a 
 cry of anguish which no previous event had extorted. 
 “ God help me,” said he, in the extremity of his despair; 
 “ my own children have forsaken me!” 
 
 The next day he held a Council, consisting of all the 
 Peers, both Temporal and Spiritual, who were in London, 
 and asked their advice; referring pointedly to the petition 
 which had been presented to him just before he quitted 
 London for Salisbury, and which then he had treated with 
 so much contempt. Many unexpected events, he said, had 
 taken place, and he had found everywhere that all classes 
 seemed anxious for a Parliament. What was to be done ? 
 Lord Rochester, who had borne the principal part in 
 drawing up that petition, could only repeat his adherence 
 to its requests and recommendations, though he confessed 
 a fear that compliance with them might now prove too late. 
 Still the instant issue of writs for a Parliament, and a nego¬ 
 tiation with the Prince of Orange seemed to him to be the 
 only measures which could offer the least prospect of the 
 extrication of the kingdom from its present evils. And he 
 was seconded m his advice by others who had not signed 
 the petition, even by Jefferies. 
 
 There could be no doubt that Rochester was still honestly 
 anxious to support and save the throne; but his brother, the 
 Earl of Clarendon, seemed, from his language, as if he could 
 
Advice of Lord Halifax. 
 
 119 
 
 no longer be safely reckoned on. Even Burnet describes 
 his language as “ indecent, insolent,” and “ generally con¬ 
 demned.” He inveighed against tyranny and Popery; 
 affirmed that even now a regiment was being raised into 
 which no Protestant was admitted, and accused James him¬ 
 self of a want of hardihood in retreating from Salisbury 
 without trying his fortune in a battle. But among the 
 Peers were men less ungenerous than Clarendon, and more 
 able than Rochester. The Marquis of Halifax, whose 
 eloquence in the last reign had averted the Exclusion Bill, 
 put aside the recollection of the ingratitude with which 
 James had requited that great service, and with statesman¬ 
 like wisdom and fearless candour, tempered with all possi¬ 
 ble delicacy and consideration for the King’s distress, gave 
 the only advice which could have saved the Crown. 
 
 The part of a mediator between hostile parties was 
 indeed one peculiarly suited to his disposition, for he was 
 always an enemy to extremes. He now pointed out that 
 the occurrences of the last fortnight had greatly changed 
 the whole aspect of affairs; that an adoption of the 
 counsels contained in the petition referred to, a consent 
 to summon a Parliament, and to negotiate with the Prince 
 of Orange, would no longer suffice. And he enumerated, 
 as other measures necessary to be at once declared, an 
 universal amnesty, the dismissal of all Roman Catholics 
 from office, and an open repudiation of French counsels 
 and the French connection. Lord Nottingham, whose 
 Tory and monarchical principles could not be doubted, 
 gave the same advice; but to James such counsels were as 
 unpalatable as if they had come from the Whig camp. He 
 consented indeed to summon a Parliament, and at once 
 ordered the writs to be prepared, but at the same time 
 
120 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 he denounced William’s conduct with great vehemence, 
 saying that Lord Churchill had designed to put him into 
 the hands of the Prince as a prisoner; and that, whatever 
 might be the Prince’s professions, he aimed at nothing but 
 the Crown. But, he added, he himself could penetrate his 
 designs; he had read the history of Richard II., and he 
 would not submit to be deposed in such a manner. At the 
 same time he consented to treat with the Prince, and 
 Halifax and Nottingham were themselves appointed as 
 Commissioners on his side with Lord Godolphin, still the 
 Queen’s Chamberlain and a Lord of the Treasury. 
 
 But his real reliance was still on France. His favour 
 for the Roman Catholics was as exclusive as ever; 
 his desire to chastise those who had deserted him, and 
 especially Lord Churchill, to whose treason and treachery 
 he imputed the flight of his own daughter, was unquench¬ 
 able. On these points he would that night make no con¬ 
 cessions. The next day, he announced his willingness to 
 concede them all; but his conduct in making this announce¬ 
 ment, as also in promising a Parliament and in appointing the 
 Commission to treat with the Prince, was, in truth, as base a 
 perfidy as any of which he complained. He dismissed some 
 Roman Catholic officers, especially Sir Edward Hales, who, 
 as has been already mentioned, after his prosecution had 
 been made Lieutenant of the Tower, and had availed him¬ 
 self of his position to insult the seven Bishops while in his 
 custody. He proclaimed a free pardon to all who were with 
 the Prince ; and at that very moment he was in reality 
 studying to bind himself to France more closely than 
 ever; he was more than ever resolved to trust none but 
 Roman Catholics ; and above all things he was bent on 
 revenging himself on those whom he was professing to have 
 
James relies on French Aid. 121 
 
 pardoned. He desired Barillon to explain to Louis that all 
 these measures were but devices to gain time : that his first 
 object was to place his wife and child in security; and that 
 when they had escaped, then he was determined to quit 
 England himself, taking his stand in Scotland or Ireland, or 
 perhaps crossing over to France. A Parliament would be 
 unmanageable. He could not trust one English regiment. 
 The Irish troops were not numerous enough by themselves 
 to withstand the Prince of Orange. His only reliance was 
 on French aid. 
 
 But he had hardly given utterance to these designs when 
 he found that one portion of them at least was impracticable. 
 From some delay which it is not easy to explain, it was not 
 till the 2nd of December that Lord Dover reached the fleet 
 at Spithead, carrying the King's orders for the instant depar¬ 
 ture of the Prince of Wales to France. Those orders Lord 
 Dartmouth positively refused to obey. In a most respect¬ 
 ful letter he explained to the King the reasons which 
 influenced him. To place the infant Prince in the hands of a 
 foreign Sovereign would be “ treason to his Majesty, and to 
 “ the known laws of the kingdom; it would give the King’s 
 “ enemies an advantage, though never so falsely grounded, 
 “ to distrust' his son’s just right. The people would (too 
 “ probably) grow so much concerned, at this, his great 
 “ mistrust, as to throw off their bounden allegiance. The 
 “ Prince of Wales being sent to France could have no other 
 “ purport than the entailing a perpetual war upon his nation 
 “ and posterity, and giving France always a temptation to 
 “ molest, invade, nay, hazard the conquest of England. 
 “ He hoped, therefore, to be pardoned, if, on his bended 
 “ knees, he begged of his Majesty to apply himself to 
 “ other counsels. The most he could apprehend his Ma- 
 
122 
 
 The English Revolution, 
 
 “ jesty might be jealous of, was the young Prince’s being 
 “ brought up in the religion of the Church of England, 
 “ and that ought (for his royal Highness’s sake especially) 
 “ to be the prayer of every honest loyal subject. He there- 
 “ fore most earnestly implored the King not to make him 
 “ the unhappy instrument of so apparent a ruin to his 
 “ Majesty himself and the country, and not to suffer it to be 
 “ done by any other; for he could foresee nothing less from 
 “ it than the putting in hazard both his Majesty and the 
 “ Queen, and making England the most miserable nation in 
 “ the world.” 
 
 Even Lord Dover himself, though a Roman Catholic, con¬ 
 curred in Dartmouth’s decision. And once more James 
 had to alter his plans. The infant and his nurse were 
 brought back to London, and, in order to lull suspicion, the 
 writs for the promised Parliament were actually issued. 
 
 But it was becoming harder and harder to keep the 
 nation, and especially the Londoners, quiet. The citizens 
 had been vehemently agitated ever since the first news of 
 William’s landing had reached them ; and the suspense in 
 which they had since been kept had increased the excite¬ 
 ment, while each favourable event fomented their hatred of 
 Popery. They began to show signs of an inclination to 
 attack all the Roman Catholics. They broke intothehouses of 
 some of the most eminent Roman Catholic merchants. A 
 proclamation, professing to have been issued by the Prince 
 of Orange, but whose style at once proved it to be a forgery 
 in the judgment of every one possessed of sufficient calm¬ 
 ness to exercise a critical judgment, was eagerly circulated, 
 merely because it denounced all Papists, and especially 
 those who adhered to the King, as barbarians and robbers, 
 and invited all honest Protestants to attack them. And 
 
Agitation in London. 123 
 
 even the Lord Mayor of London so far yielded to, or 
 encouraged the general feeling, that without a shadow of 
 pretext to justify such an act, he issued warrants to search 
 the houses of Roman Catholics for arms. The storm was 
 already brewing, which, a few days later, was to burst so 
 heavily. 
 
124 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Commissioners from the King reach William's camp—Divisions among 
 William's adherents—William declares his willingness to trust the 
 decision of all disputes to a free Parliament—Lauzun conducts the 
 Queen and Prince of Wales to France—James flies from London— 
 He is stopped on the coast—Resolution adopted by the Council of 
 Peers—Lord Feversham disbands the army—Great riots in London 
 —The Prince advances to Windsor—James returns to London—The 
 Peers request James to withdraw from London—James flies to France. 
 
 Meanwhile, from the most distant counties, intelligence 
 was hourly arriving of fresh accessions of strength to the 
 party of the invading Prince. The King’s statue was 
 thrown down at Newcastle ; the garrison of Hull made 
 prisoner of their governor, the Roman Catholic Lord Lang- 
 dale ; one peer in the Prince’s interest seized Norwich, 
 another roused Worcestershire. In Bristol, in Gloucester, 
 in Oxford, the Protestant cause was equally triumphant; 
 and meanwhile William himself was advancing with 
 leisurely pace towards Salisbury, and from Salisbury to the 
 metropolis. At Salisbury he received a most significant 
 omen of his eventual and complete triumph, in the arrival 
 at his quarters of Lord Clarendon himself, who, but a week 
 or two before, had been horror-stricken at his son’s deser¬ 
 tion of the King, but who had thus soon learnt to follow 
 his example. From Salisbury he bore up in a northerly 
 direction to Hungerford, and at that small town, on the 8th 
 of December, he met Halifax and his brother Commis- 
 
The Conference at Hungerford. 125 
 
 sioners. Their first meeting was a singular one. They had 
 desired a private interview, but he would only receive them 
 at a public audience, and, when they had announced the 
 proposals which they had been instructed to make, he 
 declined giving any answer, but referred them to the 
 English nobles and gentlemen by whom he was accom¬ 
 panied. 
 
 He even quitted the town and withdrew to Littlecote 
 Hall, a country house in the neighbourhood, in order that 
 he might leave the deliberations of his councillors the 
 appearance of being unbiassed by his presence, though he 
 reserved to himself the right of ultimate decision on the 
 different matters that might be mentioned. He was acting 
 with deep subtlety • his object was undoubtedly the attain¬ 
 ment of the throne, but he was well aware that there were 
 already two distinct parties among his followers, one of 
 which, though as firm as the other in the resolution to with¬ 
 stand the King's violation of the laws and endeavours to 
 exalt Popery, yet limited their views of opposition to putting 
 such a constraint on him as should compel him to discard 
 the evil counsellors to whose pernicious influence they 
 attributed his errors, and would as yet have regarded, as 
 to the last many of them did regard, his deposition as a 
 sin against Heaven. The other party had no such scruples, 
 if it may not even be said that they were inclined to wel¬ 
 come an opportunity of showing their disapproval of the 
 doctrine of divine indefeasible right, which had been so 
 constantly inculcated by the courtiers ever since the acces¬ 
 sion of the first Stuart ; and William thought it far better 
 for his own interest that the two parties should ventilate, 
 and perhaps thus compose their differences in a discussion 
 which should not be restrained by his presence, and the 
 
126 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 result was that he was enabled to place himself in a favour¬ 
 able light as more inclined to amicable and moderate views 
 than his advisers. 
 
 The proposals which the King’s Commissioners had been 
 instructed to make were, that all the matters in dispute, all 
 the acts of which the malcontents complained, should be 
 referred to the Parliament about to be assembled, and that in 
 the meantime William should not advance his army within 
 forty miles of London. The propositions seemed sufficiently 
 reasonable, yet in William’s Council those who sought the 
 King’s deposition were so superior in number to those 
 who entertained a different view, that a majority resolved 
 in rejecting them, and reported to the Prince their earnest 
 advice that he should not consent to trust affairs to the 
 decision of the new Parliament. It was a selfish feeling 
 that prompted this resolution, for its chief advocates were 
 some of the Commoners who had been for some time ab¬ 
 sent from their homes while attending the Prince, and who 
 consequently despaired of securing seats in the House of 
 Commons if an election were at once to take place; and 
 the Prince, when their opinion was reported to him, declined 
 to be bound by it. He saw that his own object could not 
 be attained unless he established a character for modera¬ 
 tion, and it was still more plain that persons who were 
 complaining of infractions of the Constitution, could, in 
 consistency, seek for no other than a constitutional remedy. 
 
 He therefore overruled his friends, though they pressed 
 their views with great pertinacity, and determined that the 
 answer to be given to the King’s Commissioners should 
 express a willingness to agree to their proposals, with a few 
 additions ; of which the most important were, that, as he 
 was to be bound to keep his troops at a distance from 
 
Proposals of William. 
 
 127 
 
 London lest they should seem to overawe the Parliament, 
 James, for the same reason, should consent to withdraw his 
 Irish regiments to an equal distance ; and that, if the King 
 and he himself should desire to be present in London 
 at the meeting of Parliament, they should each have an 
 equal body-guard. It might not have been unreasonable 
 for James’s envoys to object to this provision as offensive 
 and inadmissible; since it certainly implied an equality 
 between the King and the Prince; while another stipula¬ 
 tion, that the King should not seek to introduce any 
 French troops into the kingdom, was probably more really 
 at variance with the King’s feelings and schemes, though it 
 was one to which he would have found it impossible to raise 
 even a plausible objection. William also varied the form of 
 the answer, which, according to the draft of his councillors, 
 would have seemed to proceed’from himself alone; but he 
 chose that it should appear to be their work as well as his; 
 to be, as it were, the joint answer of himself and the Council, 
 since, as he laid it down, he had come to relieve the people 
 of England according to their own desires and on their own 
 principles. 
 
 But James never waited to receive the answer. His 
 fears led him to take the exact course which those in the 
 Prince’s confidence and interest most desired. Lord 
 Halifax had, by the express command of the Prince, who 
 had good reason not to trust too much to his chaplain’s 
 discretion, been refused a private interview with Burnet; 
 but at one of the public receptions he had found oppor¬ 
 tunity for a hurried conversation with him. “ What,” he 
 asked the busy Churchman, “ did the Prince’s partisans 
 “ really seek ? Did they wish to have the King in their 
 “ power ? ” “ By no means; they should not know what to 
 
128 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 “ do with him, and no one washed to harm him.” “ What,” 
 asked Halifax, “if he were to go aw'ay?” “Nothing,” 
 replied Burnet, “ could be so desirable.” And this very 
 course, which his enemies most washed, but to which none of 
 them could have driven him, James now took of his owm 
 accord. On the 6th of December, the very day on which 
 his Commissioners reached Hungerford to w r ait for Wil¬ 
 liam, the little Prince of Wales was brought secretly back 
 to London. While William was discussing w r ith his Council 
 the reply to be given to them, a distinguished French 
 noble, by marriage nearly allied to Louis himself, but to 
 whom that alliance had as yet brought nothing but loss of 
 Court favour, w r as conducting the Queen and her infant son 
 to France; and the moment that James received intelligence 
 of their embarkation having been safely effected, he began 
 to prepare for his owoi flight. 
 
 Nothing could change his purpose. It had no w r eight 
 wath him that, at the same time, he received letters from 
 Halifax and his brother Commissioners, announcing that the 
 answer to his proposals would be favourable. A panic, 
 equally unkingly and impolitic, had taken entire possession 
 of his mind; and, as if his duplicity and preference for 
 falsehood were ineradicable, he was as resolved to signalize 
 his flight with needless bad faith as to fly. Once more 
 he summoned a Council, in which the Lord Mayor and 
 Sheriffs of the City w r ere included; he exhorted them to dis¬ 
 charge their duties as faithful councillors of the Crown, and 
 vigilant guardians of the public peace; and assured them 
 that though he had thought it best, while an armed enemy 
 w'as in the country, to place his wife and heir in security, he 
 himself would stay among them, and trust his own honour 
 and safety to their loyalty. 
 
James leaves London. 
 
 129 
 
 He even imposed on his most confidential ministers ; told 
 the Lord Chamberlain that he had good news from Hun- 
 gerford; bade the Lord Chancellor attend him at an early 
 hour on the morrow; and, soon after midnight, quitted 
 the palace by a secret passage ; crossed the Thames in a 
 small boat; with a childish hope of embarrassing those 
 whom he left behind, he threw into the river the Great Seal, 
 which he had ordered Jefferies to leave in his chamber, for 
 the express purpose of making away with it; found a carriage 
 ready equipped ort the Surrey side; and drove with all 
 speed to Sheerness, where a vessel was waiting for him, in 
 which he hoped, before night, to reach the French coast. 
 
 Fortunately for him, if his pertinacity in folly had not 
 baffled all the endeavours of Fortune to save him, that hope 
 was for the moment disappointed. Fie succeeded, indeed, 
 in getting on board the ship; but the wind was so fresh 
 that the captain hesitated to put to sea: and, before he 
 consented to weigh anchor, the command was taken out of 
 his hands. Garbled and imperfect intelligence of what 
 was taking place in London had reached the district; it 
 was understood that the Roman Catholics, and especially 
 the priests, were fleeing from London ; and when it was 
 also learnt that some well-dressed strangers had recently 
 gone on board the craft which was seen to be preparing to 
 get under way, a body of fishermen from the neighbouring 
 villages, at all times a rough and unmanageable body, 
 boarded her, and compelled the King, whom they mistook 
 for the Jesuit Father Petre, with his attendants, to go on 
 shore. There he was presently recognized. Some of the 
 Kentish gentlemen gathered round him to protect him and 
 set him at liberty. But at first he seemed utterly broken in 
 spirit; while he was believed to be Petre, he had been 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 somewhat rudely handled; had been robbed of his purse 
 and watch; and he burst out from time to time into child¬ 
 ish lamentations ; sometimes muttering to himself a saying 
 of his father, that “ the distance was short between the 
 prison of a King and his graveat others, loudly declar¬ 
 ing that the Prince of Orange was thirsting for his life, and 
 begging for a boat to regain the ship, and resume his flight. 
 
 But after a while he grew calmer. When he was first 
 brought on shore, he had found time and means to write a 
 brief note to acquaint any one to whom it might be de¬ 
 livered, that he was in “ the hands of an insolent rabble.” 
 And the letter was brought to London to the Council of 
 Peers, who, on the first intelligence of his flight, had taken the 
 government upon themselves. They instantly despatched 
 Lord Feversham with a detachment of Life Guards to ensure 
 his safety'; and the sight of the gallant troops restored him to 
 a sense of what was due to his dignity, revived his courage, 
 and disposed him to entertain wiser counsels. He sent 
 Lord Feversham back with a letter to the Prince, in which 
 he announced that he should instantly return to Whitehall, 
 and invited William to a personal conference ; placing St. 
 James’s Palace at his disposal as a temporary residence ; and 
 after resting a night at Rochester, drove back to London, 
 from which he had been absent five days. 
 
 But, short as the period of his absence had been, it had 
 been long enough to inflict almost irretrievable injury to his 
 cause, and certainly to show him the extreme impolicy of 
 his flight, and to warn him never to repeat it. It had alien¬ 
 ated almost all those who had hitherto been his staunchest 
 friends. His brother-in-law, Lord Rochester, advised the 
 Duke of Northumberland, who commanded a troop of Life 
 Guards, to call his soldiers together, and at once to declare 
 
A Council of Peers is summoned. 131 
 
 for the Prince ; Halifax, who, to contempt for the King’s 
 pusillanimous folly united a keen indignation at having 
 been mocked by being sent on an idle commission to Hun- 
 gerford, henceforth directed all his efforts to place William 
 on the throne. Many even of those, with whom loyalty was 
 a principle of religion, were of opinion that, by departing or 
 intending to depart from the kingdom without making any 
 provision for a regency during his absence, James had re¬ 
 signed his office, and released them from their allegiance. 
 And Sancroft, who, as Primate, was at the head of the 
 Peerage, summoned a Council of Peers, who speedily drew 
 up and published a declaration, that all hope of a peace¬ 
 ful redress of grievances and of a restoration of the public 
 tranquillity by the authority of Parliament had been extin¬ 
 guished by the King’s flight. That, therefore, they had all 
 determined to join the Prince of Orange for the security 
 of the liberties and religion of the nation. And, promising 
 liberty of conscience to all Protestants of every denomina¬ 
 tion, they announced that, till the Prince should arrive, they 
 took on themselves the responsibility of the Government. 
 And they sent a copy of the declaration to William, with an 
 entreaty that he would hasten with all speed to London. 
 
 The line of conduct thus announced by them cannot be 
 denied to have been not only wise and constitutional, but 
 indispensably necessary’. Plow necessary, a very few hours 
 gave fearful proof. They proceeded to regulate those 
 matters which they regarded as most pressing, to displace 
 some of the Roman Catholics who were in high office, 
 and to send down orders to Lord Dartmouth to abstain 
 from acting against William’s fleet. But there was a nearer 
 danger which, as they did not foresee it, they did not pro¬ 
 vide against. When the King quitted Whitehall he left a 
 
i 3 2 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 letter for Lord Feversham, which that nobleman understood, 
 no doubt correctly, as an order to disband the army, and 
 on which he instantly acted. The order was dictated by 
 the same impotent spite which had prompted James to make 
 away with the great seal, a malicious desire to throw every¬ 
 thing into confusion. And it was more practically mis¬ 
 chievous, for the disappearance of the soldiers, of the sen¬ 
 tries who kept guard over the most conspicuous objects of 
 public importance, the palaces, the Treasury, the Tower, 
 seemed as if it had been intended to take off all restraint 
 from the lawless mob, with which every great city abounds, 
 and even to add to its strength by recruiting them with the 
 disbanded soldiers, thus suddenly deprived of employment. 
 
 Nor were agents wanting to stimulate them by false intelli¬ 
 gence and cunningly devised incentives to outrage. Letters 
 were circulated announcing that Irishmen and Papists were 
 preparing to massacre all the Protestant citizens ; and, though 
 no one knew the writers, the contents were alone sufficient 
 to ensure them a wide belief. The memory of the Irish 
 massacre in 1641 had not yet wholly died away. A similar 
 rising of the Papists in London was, in spite of all pro¬ 
 bability, or even possibility, expected or pretended to be 
 expected. The cry of “ No Popery” was raised, as it was 
 raised with equal groundlessness nearly a century afterwards ; 
 and, under cover of religious zeal,'all the rabble of the city 
 rose at once, committing all sorts of outrages. They pulled 
 down Roman Catholic chapels, monasteries, and convents; 
 burnt the furniture and libraries; and carried the holy 
 vessels, the pictures and images, in derisive triumph through 
 the streets. They paid no respect to the privileges of the 
 foreign ambassadors: one or two, the French ambassador 
 and the Venetian envoy, had obtained a guard of soldiers, 
 
Seizure of Jefferies. 
 
 133 
 
 who set the mob at defiance; but the houses of the Spanish 
 ambassador, and of the other envoys of Catholic States 
 who had not taken that precaution, were stormed, sacked, 
 and burnt. 
 
 In one instance the fury of the populace found a victim, 
 in avenging themselves on whom they had the sympathy 
 of better men. Jefferies had fled the moment that his 
 master’s protection was withdrawn; and, having disguised 
 himself as a collier, was lurking in a low ale-house at 
 Wapping, when he was recognized by a man who had once 
 been brought before him, and who had then declared that 
 he could never forget the savage ferocity with which he had 
 been treated. He now gladly pointed him out to the ruffians 
 who were straggling in every direction in search of plunder, 
 but who left even the pursuit of booty to revenge them¬ 
 selves on one whom they regarded as a common enemy of 
 all, and whose seizure might perhaps atone for other offences 
 against the law. They dragged him into the street, where 
 the rage and violence of the populace, who spared neither 
 abuse, missiles, nor blows, was such that he could hardly 
 be saved from their hands. 
 
 But at last the train bands delivered him, and he was 
 brought before the Lord Mayor, who paid a most extra¬ 
 ordinary tribute to his prisoner’s former power. His worship’s 
 nerves were not good ; and seeing a man before whom all, 
 whether guilty or innocent, had so lately trembled, now 
 brought before him as a criminal, he was seized with a fit 
 which presently proved mortal. But his death was no benefit 
 to the wicked judge. The Lords of the Council committed 
 him to the Tower, to which a vast mob accompanied him 
 with execrations and threats ; and there, in the spring of the 
 next year, he died ; partly of disease, and partly, it would 
 
134 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 seem, of terror and misery, from the universal detestation of 
 which he received almost daily proofs ; though to the last he 
 declared that the reproaches which were heaped upon him 
 for his cruelty were undeserved, since he had but obeyed 
 the most peremptory orders from the Court, and had even 
 incurred the displeasure of James for too great an inclination 
 to show mercy. 
 
 The despatch from Sancroft and the other peers found 
 the Prince still at Hungerford. He instantly prepared to 
 hasten to London; and, expressing the greatest indignation 
 at Lord Feversham for his disbandment of the army, en¬ 
 trusted Lord Churchill and the Duke of Grafton with the 
 task of calling all the English soldiers back to their standards. 
 The Irish he refused to re-enlist; but promised them good 
 treatment if they gave up their arms. He himself could 
 march but slowly, and had only reached Windsor when he 
 learnt that James was still in England ; and presently Lord 
 Feversham arrived with the King’s letter. He was greatly 
 disconcerted; for his hopes of attaining the throne de¬ 
 pended on the King’s flight. It was plain that the difficulties 
 of his own position were greatly complicated by the King’s 
 return to London. He at once ordered the arrest of Fever¬ 
 sham, on the plea, which was not very sustainable, that, as 
 the general of a hostile army, he required a safe-conduct, 
 and sent an envoy of his own with an answer to the 
 letter, in which he declined the conference to which James 
 invited him, and desired that his Majesty would remain at 
 Rochester. He was already assuming the attitude of a 
 conqueror ; and his object evidently was that James should 
 be terrified into resuming his flight. But James was already 
 in London, where the changeable and impulsive populace 
 had greeted him on his return with seemingly sincere accla- 
 
James summons a Privy Council. 135 
 
 mations. The women prayed for him, and wept with joy as 
 he passed ; the men followed his coach with cheers, and in 
 the evening the whole city was brilliant with bonfires . 1 
 
 Like other weak men, James was as easily elated as he 
 was easily depressed; and elation but increased his natural 
 obstinacy. The greetings of the mob, though not one 
 citizen of respectability was seen in it, convinced him that 
 he had still the hearts of the people; and, full of this confi¬ 
 dence, he at once summoned a Privy Council; where, in spite 
 of the ominous scantiness of the attendance, he held as 
 high language as ever, justifying all his acts, with the excep¬ 
 tion of his treatment of Magdalen College, which he seemed 
 to admit had been over-hasty; and even censuring severely 
 Sancroft and his brother peers for daring to assume the 
 government in his absence without his authority. But pre¬ 
 sently, when the Prince’s envoy, Baron Zulestein, arrived 
 with his answer, and the refusal of a personal interview, he 
 relapsed into the extremity of irresolution, alternating with 
 despair. At one minute he proposed to take refuge in the 
 City; the next he complained that nothing was left for him 
 but a renewal of flight; though, as he said at the same time, 
 he knew that to drive him to that was the chief aim of his 
 enemies. 
 
 William, on his part, also held a Council of those who 
 had joined him ; inviting them to consult on the conduct to 
 be observed towards the King now that he had returned ; 
 and, as at Hungerford, abstaining from being present at 
 their deliberations, from a politic desire to represent himself 
 still as only their instrument for securing the public interests. 
 It was soon seen that, on one most material point, their 
 
 1 Macaulay questions the sincerity of the joy, but Burnet and Lord 
 Clarendon are very positive and clear on the point. 
 
136 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 judgment coincided with his wishes. Zulestein had declared 
 to the King that the Prince would not come to St. James’s 
 while any troops remained in London which were not under 
 his own orders. And the Council at Windsor, having made 
 Lord Halifax their chairman, decided, as the first point, 
 that it would be wholly incompatible with the public tran¬ 
 quillity and safety, that two who could hardly be regarded in 
 any other light than that of hostile, or, at least, rival princes, 
 should be established with their separate guards and parti¬ 
 sans in two neighbouring palaces. 
 
 They were equally convinced that it was desirable for 
 William to accept the invitation which had been sent to him, 
 and to repair to the capital; and they therefore determined 
 to request the King to withdraw to Ham, near Richmond, 
 where the Duke of Lauderdale had a fine house which could 
 be placed at his disposal. Some proposed a far harsher 
 treatment of him ; and it is remarkable that among them were 
 some whose Tory principles were most opposed to any 
 resistance to royal authority, and who even, in the end, re¬ 
 fused to take the oath of allegiance to William while James 
 was alive. Yet they now did not hesitate privately to 
 represent to William that it would be dangerous to leave 
 him at liberty; that the only way to secure the Protestants in 
 Ireland would be to make him, as it were, a hostage for their 
 safety; and that, though it would not be easy nor prudent 
 to keep him as a prisoner in England, he might be sent to 
 Holland and detained at Breda without difficulty, till all 
 affairs in these kingdoms had been put on a stable footing. 
 
 To this advice, however, William, though owning the 
 solidity of the reasons on which it was founded, altogether 
 declined to listen. He was certain that his wife, the 
 Princess, would never endure that such a restraint should 
 
James retires to Rochester. 
 
 *37 
 
 be put upon her father by her husband, nor could he think 
 it a becoming part for himself, while it Was by no means 
 certain that it would be acceptable to the nation or to the 
 Parliament. He replied, therefore, that he could consent 
 to nothing but the request to be made to his Majesty 
 to withdraw from London ; and said that he should even 
 order a guard to attend him, with a charge to protect 
 him from insult, but to put no constraint whatever on his 
 movements. In truth, it was for his interest to leave the King 
 free, since his one desire was that James should renew his 
 flight, but that all men should see that it was his own 
 voluntary and deliberate act; and James, with incredible 
 fatuity, was already resolved to gratify him. 
 
 On the morning of the 18th, Halifax, with two other 
 nobles, arrived from Windsor, with the request that the King 
 would fix his abode at Ham; and his answer was that he 
 should prefer returning to Rochester. William’s consent was 
 gladly given to such an arrangement. But the report of it 
 struck terror into the minds of all James’s friends. That his 
 preference for Rochester over Ham was dictated solely by 
 the consideration of the facilities which it would afford for 
 crossing over to France, was evident to all; and several of 
 the nobles, among whom were some of the Bishops whom he 
 had so shamefully prosecuted in the summer, entreated him to 
 change his purpose, urging that to quit the country would be 
 ruinous, not only to his own cause, but to the tranquillity of 
 the kingdom; and that it would also be very contrary to 
 the feelings and wishes of the great majority of the nation. 
 One peer even urged him to call around him the soldiers 
 whom Feversham had disbanded, and who had not been 
 re-enlisted, and with them to fall on the Dutch troops, 
 who were so widely dispersed in their different quarters 
 
138 The English Revolution. 
 
 as to make it probable that they might be easily over¬ 
 powered. 
 
 Bewildered as James was, and obstinately as he was wont 
 to adhere to a plan when he had once formed it, he can 
 hardly have failed to see the force of these arguments, or the 
 vast difference between the ease of retaining power which 
 he possessed, and recovering it after he had resigned, or 
 even seemed to resign it. But he persisted in returning to 
 Rochester; and, if the remonstrances and entreaties thus 
 pressed upon him, and repeated by frequent messengers and 
 letters during the next two or three days, induced him for 
 a moment to waver in his resolution to pass over to France, 
 his hesitation was but temporary. He had conceived the 
 most absurd and groundless fears that his life was in danger; 
 and the Queen, who had been imbued with his alarms, wrote 
 him “ an earnest if not imperious ” 1 letter, claiming his 
 flight as the fulfilment of a promise made to herself. The 
 letter was intercepted and brought to William, who at once 
 forwarded it to Rochester; but even this proof of William’s 
 anxiety that he should quit the kingdom failed to detain 
 him. That he was disarming his friends and playing into the 
 hands of his enemies he could not doubt; but fear prevailed 
 over every other consideration, and, on the evening of the 
 22nd of December, he resumed his attempt to fly, copying 
 his conduct of eleven days before with singular and dis¬ 
 creditable minuteness. 
 
 Once more he made his pusillanimous act still more 
 ignominious by wanton and needless deceit of his followers. 
 That very evening some gentlemen of sense and influence 
 had arrived from London bringing him fresh letters of 
 
 1 They are the expressions of Burnet, who, perhaps, had seen the letter. 
 
Janies flies to France. 
 
 139 
 
 entreaty that he would by no means quit the kingdom, 
 which they seconded by information and remonstrance 
 of their own. He read the letters ; listened to the advice ; 
 promised to take both into his consideration, and to discuss 
 the matter with them in the morning ; and, having thus 
 got rid of them, he pretended to go to bed. But as soon 
 as he had dismissed his personal attendants he dressed him¬ 
 self again; and accompanied by his natural son, the Duke ot 
 Benvick, a promising youth of eighteen, who had only that 
 evening joined him from Portsmouth, he stole down to the 
 shore and embarked in a vessel which was waiting for him. 
 Good care had been taken by William’s partisans that no 
 one should stop him again. The captain at once set sail 
 without the slightest hindrance, and reached Ambleteuse, on 
 the French coast, in a few hours. 
 
140 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 William reaches London—Invites the Peers and chief Commoners to a 
 conference—The Peers request the Prince to take the government on 
 himself for the present, and to summon a convention—Differences of 
 opinion in the nation—The convention meets January 22, 1689— 
 An Association for self-defence is formed in Ulster by the Protestants 
 —Discussion in the House of Commons—A resolution is agreed to 
 by the House of Commons—Keen debate on every clause of the 
 resolution in the House of Peers—A conference between the two 
 Houses is held—James sends a letter to the convention—Feelings of 
 the Prince and Princess of Orange—The Prince and Princess are 
 invited to accept the crown—The Declaration of Right is framed by 
 the Commons—The Princess reaches England—The two Houses 
 present the crown to the Prince and Princess February 13, 1689. 
 
 Meanwhile the Prince was in London, prosecuting his 
 objects with great energy and sagacity, and steering his way 
 with a judgment that never went astray between the conflicting 
 counsels of the different parties among his followers. James 
 had quitted London for the last time on the morning of the 
 18th. On the afternoon of the same day William arrived in 
 the capital, where, though the weather was wet and stormy, 
 he was met by as large a concourse of people, and 
 was greeted by cheers as loud, and illuminations and bon¬ 
 fires as general, as had hailed the return of the King the 
 week before. He drove at once to St. James’s Palace, 
 which he had selected for his residence ; and in the evening 
 he held a Court which was numerously attended by all the 
 
William reaches London. 
 
 141 
 
 principal nobles and men of influence who were at the time 
 in London. 
 
 The next day he received addresses from different bodies ; 
 from the Aldermen and Common Council of the City; 
 from the clergy, who were headed by nearly all the 
 Bishops; from the Nonconformist ministers of the capital; 
 from the lawyers, one of whom replied to one of his 
 observations in a sentence which has often been quoted, 
 and which in a few words contains the whole justifica¬ 
 tion of the Revolution. Almost half a century before, 
 Serjeant Maynard had aided, as one of the counsel for 
 the Commons, in conducting the impeachment of Strafford; 
 he had had the honour of incurring the marked displeasure 
 of Cromwell, who had twice sent him to the Tower; of 
 refusing a seat on the bench from Charles II.; and of send¬ 
 ing back in the past summer a brief which had been meant 
 to secure his services in the prosecution of the Bishops. He 
 was in his eighty-seventh year when he now headed the 
 deputation from the Inns of Court. The Prince, who was no 
 stranger to his character, received him with especial gracious¬ 
 ness : “ Mr. Serjeant,” said he, “ you must have outlived all 
 the lawyers of your time.” “ Yes, please your Highness,” 
 replied the old man; “ and, if your Highness had not come 
 over, I should have outlived the law itself.” 
 
 And indeed he would have outlived the law if William 
 had taken the course which some of his exulting partisans 
 recommended; for they advised him at once to seize on the 
 Crown, claiming it by right of conquest; and such a claim 
 so enforced would for the moment have abrogated all law. 
 But he was far too politic, and too careful of appearances, 
 to take such advice; it was not only that to have done so 
 would have been to falsify all the professions of the Declara- 
 
142 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 tion which he had issued, and, in all probability, to arm 
 against himself a large section of the nation whose acquies¬ 
 cence in his domination could only be won by the most 
 careful management, but whose pride would at once be 
 roused to resistance by a claim so offensive, and so devoid 
 of all foundation in fact. 
 
 He had declared that his sole object in invading England 
 was to preserve and uphold the laws and Constitution 
 of England, and, by his profession of a resolution to refer 
 the redress of all the evils complained of to Parliament, 
 he had clearly implied a conviction that Parliament was 
 fully able to remedy them without trenching on the legiti¬ 
 mate authority of the existing sovereign. Undoubtedly 
 he did hope, and from the first had hoped, that the 
 course of events would transfer the Crown from the 
 head of James to his own; but it was equally undoubted, 
 that, if it were to be peacefully worn, it must be because 
 the nation had given it to him, not because he had seized 
 on it. He therefore at once rejected all such intemperate 
 and unwise counsels, and determined that every measure 
 which was adopted should bear the appearance of having 
 been devised by the legitimate councillors of the Crown, and 
 not by himself. 
 
 One important difficulty stood in the way of all proceed¬ 
 ings, that, except the King, there was no one who had 
 authority to summon a Parliament. But so careful was 
 William to avoid the slightest appearance of usurpation, 
 that he would not take upon himself to supply even that 
 deficiency. He did, indeed, invite all the Peers in London 
 to meet him at St. James’s on the morning of the 21st, but, 
 when they had assembled, he pursued the same course which 
 he had adopted before at Hungerford, and left them to 
 
Proceedings of the Peers. 
 
 143 
 
 deliberate together without the restraint of his presence. 
 They determined that they would meet the next day in the 
 House of Lords to take into consideration the state of the 
 nation ; and, by their advice, the Prince issued also a notice, 
 inviting all those Commoners who had sat as representatives 
 of the people in any Parliament of Charles II. to attend 
 him on the 26th. 1 
 
 On the Saturday the Peers adjourned till Monday, and, 
 when on that day they came together, they had to con¬ 
 sider matters under a new aspect, for the news of the 
 King’s second flight had reached London on the preceding 
 evening. There was therefore now no recognized Govern¬ 
 ment in the island ; and, instead of arranging a negotiation 
 with the King, while still in the neighbourhood of his capital, 
 they had to take instant steps to supply the want caused by 
 his departure, without any appointment of a deputy or 
 Regent. 
 
 He had, indeed, left a letter with Lord Middleton, the 
 Secretary of State, but even his friends did not press for its 
 production; one Peer did move that it should be sent for 
 and read, but when Lord Godolphin, who had seen it, con¬ 
 fessed that it was of an unsatisfactory character, the proposal 
 was dropped. Lord Clarendon, too, brought forward a motion 
 that the meeting should inquire into the birth of the Prince 
 of Wales, which was rejected with something like contempt; 
 and another Peer, who had not hitherto taken any active 
 part in politics, Lord Paget, advanced an opinion which was 
 countenanced by some lawyers, and was w'armly supported 
 
 1 Hallam (chap. III. p. 125) says that to the old members of the Parlia¬ 
 ments of Charles II. were added 50 members of the Common Council, 
 with the Lord Mayor. But he gives no authority for this statement, which 
 is not corroborated by either Burnet's History or Clarendon's Diary . 
 
144 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 in the subsequent debates, that the King’s “withdrawing 
 from the country was a demise in law,” 1 and therefore he 
 moved that the Princess Mary should at once be proclaimed 
 Queen. 
 
 This, however, though he was supported by Bishop 
 Compton, was also rejected; and, in the end, it was decided 
 that the meeting should request the Prince to take upon 
 himself the administration of the Government for the 
 present, and to address a circular letter to all the counties, 
 cities, and other places which had a right to return members 
 to the House of Commons, requesting them to send repre¬ 
 sentatives to a Convention, to be held at Westminster before 
 the end of the next month. The name Convention was the 
 same that had been given to the two Houses which restored 
 Charles II., which, like the assembly no\v to be convened, 
 had been summoned without the royal authority; but the 
 same precedent showed that the acts of such a body so 
 assembled would have all the validity of the enactments of 
 a regular Parliament. It has been remarked that the Peers 
 presented their address to the Prince without waiting for the 
 concurrence of the Commons, who did not meet till two 
 days later. But William abstained from giving any formal 
 reply till the Commons also had agreed to a similiar resolu- 
 
 1 This opinion was maintained by Pollexfen, the same lawyer who had 
 been one of the Bishops' counsel, as early as December 15th, while the 
 King was still in England. On that day he told Lord Clarendon, "he 
 wondered the Prince had done no more. That the King by withdrawing 
 himself had left the Government; that he had made a cession, and for¬ 
 feited his right; that his being now at Feversham, though he should come 
 back to London, signified not a rush; that the Prince of Orange had 
 nothing to do but at the head of his army to declare himself King, and 
 presently to issue writs for the calling a Parliament according fo Cromwell's 
 model.'' It was a curious precedent to recommend, but Macaulay says 
 Pollexfen was “ at heart a Whig, if not a Republican.” 
 
Measures taken by William. 145 
 
 tion; then he at once declared his compliance with their 
 request; issued writs summoning a Convention of both 
 Houses, and in the meantime assumed the executive 
 authority. 
 
 It was an arduous task that he took upon himself, for the 
 events of the last few weeks had thrown every department 
 of the Government into confusion. The army, which had 
 been disbanded, was straggling in want and disorder over 
 the country; the fleet was discontented partly at the recent 
 changes, and still more, perhaps, at their pay being in 
 arrear. The Exchequer was almost empty. From the finan¬ 
 cial difficulty the City of London relieved him by advancing 
 ^200,000 for the public service ; and his own moderation, 
 which was seen to proceed not from weakness or timidity, 
 but from firmness and resolution, found a remedy for other 
 pressing evils. 
 
 Arrangements were made for transferring the Irish soldiers 
 to the service of the Emperor, while the recruiting of the army 
 in the English counties was pushed on with energy. Lord 
 Dartmouth v r as removed from the command of the fleet, and 
 the sailors were pacified by promises of immediate payment. 
 The Roman Catholics received assurances that they should 
 be protected from all annoyance; and Burnet was sent to 
 some of their priests, who had been thrown into prison, with 
 instructions to promise them indulgent treatment and an 
 early liberation. But many were still greatly discontented, 
 whose dissatisfaction was likely to prove more embarrassing 
 than the murmurs of the seamen, or the complaints of the 
 Papists. Many even of those who had joined the Prince 
 were displeased at the treatment which the King had 
 received since his return from Rochester. His second 
 flight had evidently not been as spontaneous as his first. It 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 was undeniable that he had been driven from his own 
 palace at Whitehall, 1 and equally clear that there had been 
 an intention to terrify him into tearing the kingdom; and 
 many saw, in these things, a design on the part of William 
 to advance himself, or, at least, to leave the nation no alter¬ 
 native but that of advancing him. 
 
 The existence of this feeling was no secret to the Prince’s 
 friends, nor to the Prince himself. Burnet, knowing that he 
 was believed to stand high in William’s confidence, endea¬ 
 voured to allay it by asserting his knowledge that “ the 
 “ Prince was so far from ambition that he would not take the 
 “ title of King though it should be offered to him.” But he 
 himself was too cautious to discourage his friends by any 
 such disclaimer, though at the same time he clearly saw the 
 precarious character of his popularity, and he warned some 
 of his own countrymen, who were dwelling with exultation 
 on the fervour with which the Londoners had received him, 
 that the very same people who cried “ Hosannah ” to-day, 
 might, perhaps, be equally loud in crying “ Crucify him ” to¬ 
 morrow. 
 
 The 22nd January, 1689, was the day appointed for the 
 meeting of the Convention, and during the earlier days of 
 the month the nation was fully occupied with the election of 
 representatives. William, with a moderation which was not 
 more vise than singular in one who was aspiring to win a 
 Crown, it may, perhaps, also be said with a well-informed 
 confidence in the sentiments of the great majority of the 
 
 i “ Sir E. Seymour then talked very freely to me upon the state of public 
 “ affairs : he said all honest men were startled at the manner of the King’s 
 
 " being sent from Whitehall.That men now began to think 
 
 " that the Prince aimed at something else ; if he did not find him upon the 
 “ bottom of his Declaration it would be impossible for honest men to serve 
 " him.”—Lord Clarendon’s Diary, January i, 1869. 
 
147 
 
 Election of the Convention. 
 
 electors, carefully abstained from allowing any of the 
 Government officials to endeavour to influence the electors. 
 To the validity of the authority which he hoped to obtain, it 
 was, above all things, essential that no one should be able to 
 deny that the representatives who were sent to the House of 
 Commons spoke the unbiassed sense of the nation. Long, 
 however, before the elections had terminated, it was known 
 that a great majority of those who had been returned were 
 Whigs, such as he himself would have desired; resolved to 
 vindicate for ever the supremacy of the old Constitutional 
 laws over the will of any one individual, even if he were the 
 sovereign ; and convinced that the establishment of that 
 supremacy was impossible if James remained on the throne. 
 
 There were other parties also, no one of which, how¬ 
 ever, was very formidable in numbers, though they con¬ 
 tained many of known integrity and conspicuous ability. 
 Some believed in the practicability of imposing condi¬ 
 tions on James so stringent as to be beyond his power 
 to break through ; others doubted the right of the people 
 to impose any limitation whatever on the exercise of his 
 prerogative, and thought that the only legitimate course was 
 to request him to return and resume his authority, trusting 
 that the lessons as to the feelings of the nation which 
 recent events had taught him, would lead him to abandon 
 those pretensions which had been resisted, and, he might 
 be sure, would be resisted again. A fourth endeavoured 
 at once to avoid deposing him, and yet to escape any longer 
 submitting to his arbitrary will, and proposed that the title of 
 King should be preserved to him, but that a Regency should 
 be appointed to govern in his behalf as if he were a lunatic. 
 
 And with these political differences, religious differences 
 also were largely mixed up, with, in some instances, a 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 counteracting effect. The Presbyterians and other Non¬ 
 conformists were almost unanimous in their zeal for the 
 elevation of William. But, of the Churchmen who held the 
 same views, many were very little inclined to work with such 
 associates. They still remembered the wrongs and miseries 
 of the rebellion, and, attributing them almost wholly to the 
 Presbyterians, refused to believe that they were capable of 
 loyalty to any sovereign. They were jealous, too, of the 
 favour with which the Prince had received addresses from 
 some of the Nonconformist bodies, and doubted whether 
 the Church of England would be entirely safe in his hands; 
 and each party laboured diligently during the interval before 
 the meeting of the Convention to gain converts to their views, 
 by daily discussions, and by pamphlets, which had of late 
 come to be recognized as powerful instruments of political 
 warfare, but which had never before been employed in such 
 abundance or distinguished by more powerful ability. 
 
 How close the contest was likely to be in the House of 
 Peers may be judged from the circumstance that during the 
 first three or four days after the Convention met, the Pre¬ 
 lates who officiated read or omitted the prayer for King 
 James, according to their own bias, till at last Lord 
 Halifax, who desired its omission, was driven to the 
 strange and unseemly expedient of causing the House to 
 be opened without prayer at all as the only means of pre¬ 
 venting some of the Bishops from reading the prayer in 
 spite of him. The division between the parties would have 
 been closer still, if James himself had not, with an obstinate 
 fatuity which is almost incredible, contrived to exasperate 
 his enemies still more, and to disarm his friends almost at 
 the very moment of the first meeting of the Convention. 
 He sent over a letter addressed to the Privy Council, and 
 
Meeting of the Convention. 
 
 149 
 
 countersigned by Lord Melfort, as if on purpose to show 
 that that nobleman, who had originally earned his goodwill 
 and the hatred of all his subjects by exchanging Pro¬ 
 testantism for Popery, was now his confidential minister. 
 The letter itself was understood to be even more offensive 
 than the signature, so that Lord Preston himself, to whom 
 it had been forwarded for delivery, and who was still faithful 
 to the interests of his old master, thought it best to suppress 
 it; but the knowledge that such a letter had been sent 
 could not fail to do James harm, and to weaken his sup¬ 
 porters. 
 
 The eventful day, the 22nd of January, arrived; both 
 sides mustered in strength, though all the efforts of those 
 who were conscientiously averse to the nomination or 
 recognition of any other King during the lifetime of James, 
 failed to induce the Primate to attend. Lord Halifax was 
 appointed Speaker of the House of Peers. Mr. Powle, 
 member for Cirencester, who in the reign of Charles II. had 
 distinguished himself as one of the most strenuous advocates 
 of the Exclusion Bill, and had been Chairman of the meeting 
 in December, became Speaker of the Commons; a choice 
 very significant of the views of the majority of that House, 
 as the order of the proceedings which should be adopted 
 was understood to be of the inclinations of both Houses. 
 
 Some Tory members in the Commons contrived that the 
 28th should be fixed by them as the day on which they 
 would take into consideration the state of the nation, 
 hoping, as was supposed, that before that day the Lords 
 would have passed some resolution which should be not 
 incompatible with the preservation of James’s authority, and 
 which should also, in some degree, hamper the Commons 
 and prevent them from adopting a vote of a different 
 
The English Revolution. 
 
 150 
 
 tenor; but Halifax, who had abandoned all idea of 
 saving James, ever since his efforts as a mediator and 
 peace-maker had been nullified by his treacherous flight, 
 carried out even while the Marquis was executing his 
 commission, saw through this manoeuvre ; and determined 
 that the Commons, as more immediately the representatives 
 of the people, should be the first to declare their opinion. 
 Being Speaker of the House of Lords, he could not, with 
 propriety, himself make a motion to that effect, but he 
 instigated the Earl of Devonshire to do so. The Earl, who 
 had more straightforwardness than tact, provoked some 
 needless hostility to his proposal, by alleging as his reason 
 for the postponement of the consideration of the state of 
 the nation by the Peers till the 29th, that “ they might, by 
 “ that time, be able to gather some lights from below, which 
 “ would be of use to them.” But the motion was carried, 
 and both sides waited irtipatiently till the opening of the 
 next week. 
 
 The agitation increased. Those who hoped to place 
 William on the throne were encouraged by an address 
 which, on the 25 th, was brought to the Prince from the 
 leading noblemen of several counties in Ulster, who had 
 formed an association for their defence against the Irish (as 
 they expressed it), and who represented in warm terms how 
 imminent was the danger to which they were exposed. On 
 the other hand, those who were unfavourable to the Prince, 
 with the Earl of Clarendon at their head, endeavoured 
 to place obstacles in his way, by exciting against him the 
 jealousy of the Princess Anne ; whose right to the throne 
 in the event of her sister’s death, was undeniable; and who 
 would clearly be most unjustly treated if William were 
 preferred to her without her consent. But though, while 
 
Conduct of the Commons. 151 
 
 Clarendon was urging his arguments on her and her hus¬ 
 band, they declared that they would never agree to be set 
 aside, Lord and Lady Churchill had an influence over them 
 greatly superior to his, and had little difficulty in obtaining 
 from the Princess that consent which she had declared to 
 her uncle that she would never give. 
 
 On Monday the 28th, the Commons, in pursuance of 
 their vote of the preceding week, resolved themselves into 
 a Committee of the whole House, to take the state of 
 affairs into consideration. The first, and most important 
 question manifestly was, whether the royal authority should 
 or should not be preserved to James. It can hardly be 
 said that this point was debated; so evident was the feeling 
 of an overwhelming majority that he should no longer be 
 King. The idea of a Regency was mentioned, only to be 
 summarily discarded. A proposal for an adjournment, 
 which seemed as if intended to give time for some nego¬ 
 tiation, met a similiar fate. The real question was, what 
 grounds should be alleged for refusing any longer to ac¬ 
 knowledge James as King ; and this was debated with great 
 historical learning, deep knowledge of Constitutional law, 
 and the keenest subtlety of argument. 
 
 One party seemed to have such a feeling of the desirable¬ 
 ness of a revolution, as to wish to found the step which they 
 were about to take on principles which should lay a founda¬ 
 tion for future revolutions. Another party desired to make 
 as little revolution as could be consistent with a change of 
 the Sovereign, and therefore to base their proceedings on 
 acts and reasonings not likely to be drawn into a precedent- 
 The first, therefore, wished to establish the principle that 
 James had forfeited the throne by misgovernment. The 
 other argued, that he had voluntarily ceded the throne by 
 
152 The English Revolution. 
 
 his flight from the kingdom. And the real debate was raised 
 on the point whether misgovernment could forfeit the 
 Crown ; whether a King on his accession had entered into 
 such a contract with his people to govern according to law, 
 that a violation of that contract absolved his subjects from 
 their allegiance. The lawyers had little difficulty in proving 
 this point. They showed from the old records that William 
 the Conqueror, before he was received as King, promised to 
 keep the laws of Edward the Confessor. That promise had 
 been renewed by more than one of his successors; so, too, 
 had the Great Charter been granted by John, and been 
 confirmed by kings subsequent to J ohn. 
 
 What was even more to the purpose was, that later records, 
 such as the rolls of Parliament, showed that, for violations 
 of these laws and this Charter, Edward II. and Richard II. 
 had been formally deposed. Nor had the legality of these 
 depositions been ever questioned. The arguments to prove 
 that James’s violations of the law had been sufficient to justify 
 them in applying these precedents to his case were hardly 
 so strong; they rested this part of the case on his having 
 made a treaty with Rome ; on his having unsettled the whole 
 system of government and property in Ireland, so as to put 
 the English settlers and the Protestant religion in that king¬ 
 dom in the power of the Irish and the Papists ; on his exercise 
 of the dispensing power, which he had so stretched as to 
 take away not only the laws to which it was applied, but 
 all other laws whatever, by the precedent which it estab¬ 
 lished ; on his having invaded the liberty of the Church 
 by his ecclesiastical commission; and, finally, on his having 
 deserted his people and fled to a foreign land. But some 
 of these acts were clearly not illegal, and could hardly be 
 branded with any harsher term than impolicy; others were 
 
Resolution of the Commons. 153 
 
 rather strainings of prerogatives admitted to exist, but never 
 before so extensively applied, nor wrested to objects so un¬ 
 palatable, 1 11 than distinct and tangible violations of the letter 
 of the law; while undoubtedly no law of any country so 
 fettered the Sovereign’s movements as to make an occasional 
 and temporary quitting of it a crime. 
 
 The truth was, that the King’s criminality was made up 
 of a number of small offences against the spirit of the Con¬ 
 stitution, from which, when taken together, a resolution to 
 render his power absolute, and to trample on the chartered 
 rights of his people, was legitimately inferred. The eager¬ 
 ness for despotic authority was, moreover, rendered the more 
 intolerable by the object for which it was manifestly sought, 
 the re-establishment of Popery; and it was felt, even 
 more strongly than it was argued, that there could be no 
 safety for either the civil or religious rights of the subject 
 under a King whose notions of his lawful power were such 
 as had been asserted by James, and who was unalterably 
 resolved to exercise it as he had exercised it. Still those 
 who admitted the conclusion were far from being agreed 
 upon the premises ; and the resolution which was eventually 
 moved and adopted showed in a curious manner the neces¬ 
 sity which its framers felt of uniting all parties. It affirmed 
 “ That King James II., having endeavoured to subvert the 
 “ Constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original con- 
 “ tract between King and people, and by the advice of Jesuits 
 “ and other wicked persons having violated the fundamental 
 “ laws, and having withdrawn himself out of his kingdom, 
 
 1 “The judgment in favour of his (James II.) prerogative to dispense 
 “ with the test was far more according to received notions of law, far less 
 “ imperious and unconstitutional, than that which gave a sanction to ship- 
 
 11 money.”—H allam, vol. III. p. 114, Ed. 1832. 
 
154 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 “ has abdicated the government, and that the throne is 
 “ thereby vacant.” 
 
 This resolution the Commons passed without a division. 
 The next morning it was sent to the Lords, who followed the 
 example of the Commons in resolving themselves into a 
 Committee of the whole House, but who were by no means 
 inclined to pass the resolution as a whole, by a single vote. 
 They determined to debate it clause by clause. But the 
 Earl of Danby was hardly put in the chair before another 
 resolution was brought up to them by which the Commons 
 had voted that it was inconsistent with the welfare and 
 safety of the nation to be governed by a Roman Catholic 
 King. This seemed to render much of the former resolu¬ 
 tion superfluous, since it led directly to the deposition of 
 J ames for a reason not included in that resolution. And to 
 the contract between King and people, the existence of 
 which was affirmed in it, it added a stipulation which had 
 certainly never been in it before. 
 
 It might, perhaps, be fairly argued that it was implied in 
 the Test Act, since, if it were dangerous to allow a Roman 
 Catholic to be an officer or a magistrate, it was still more 
 dangerous to allow one to be the head of all officers and 
 magistrates ; but it certainly had never been expressed, and 
 it was an adoption of the principle of that Exclusion Bill 
 which, in the preceding reign, the Peers had rejected. 
 However, this second vote was adopted by the Peers without 
 discussion or demur. And it apparently contributed to 
 another question also being taken into consideration before 
 they proceeded to dissect and decide on the great resolu¬ 
 tion ; for the Tory' Peers were willing to acquiesce in James 
 being deprived of the reality of power, provided the name 
 of King were left to him; and therefore insisted that the 
 
Debate in the House of Lords. 155 
 
 next matter to be determined was, whether it might not be 
 a sufficient security for freedom to appoint a Regent who, 
 during the King’s lifetime, should exercise the kingly power 
 in his name. 
 
 This plan, which, as we have seen, had been summarily 
 rejected by the Commons, had been devised by the Primate ; 
 but he still kept aloof from the House, and the task of 
 advocating it fell on others, on Lord Nottingham, who made 
 the formal motion that a Regency should be established; on 
 Lord Godolphin ; and, above all, on Lord Rochester, who 
 marshalled and enforced all the arguments which could be 
 adduced for it with great earnestness and eloquence. They 
 were, however, but few, and those weak. Its advocates 
 appealed to texts in St. Paul’s epistles, which, it was con¬ 
 tended, laid down the duty of non-resistance, and enjoined 
 the Romans to submit to Nero. They drew a distinction 
 between the authority of the Sovereign and his person. 
 They compared James, by reason of his perverseness, 
 superstition, and obstinacy, to a lunatic, who had become 
 incapable of managing his own affairs ; and to Henry VI., 
 who had fallen into a state of imbecility; and contended 
 that therefore a Regent might be appointed to govern for 
 him as the Duke of York had governed for Henry, and 
 as guardians in numberless instances for lunatics. And, 
 finally, they argued that such a course as was now recom¬ 
 mended would save the consciences of those who had 
 taken the oath of allegiance to James, and who could 
 not, without perjury, during his lifetime, transfer their 
 allegiance to another King, though no such guilt would be 
 incurred by acknowledging the authority of a Regent. The 
 last argument was, perhaps, the weakest of all; for how could 
 it be pretended that the allegiance promised was not equally 
 
156 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 violated by obeying a Regent in opposition to the King, as 
 by obeying another King ? To affirm this was to justify and 
 imitate the conduct of the leaders of the Rebellion of 1642, 
 who made out commissions in the King’s name to fight 
 against him. It was the sophism of a casuist rather than 
 the reasoning of a statesman. But the arguments of Lord 
 Halifax and Lord Danby, who were the most eloquent 
 advocates of the resolution of the Commons, were of a more 
 practical character. 
 
 Every instance in our history proved a Regency to be a 
 weak government, though in none had there been a divided 
 or rival authority; in the last case, the successive Regents 
 during the minority of Edward VI. had notoriously each in 
 his turn enjoyed the full favour and approval of the youthful 
 King. But a Regent who was to govern in the name of a 
 King who was of full age, who protested against his original 
 appointment and against every one of his acts, and who 
 would unquestionably have many partisans within the king¬ 
 dom to support his protests, would find himself in a situation 
 of helpless embarrassment. There would in effect be two 
 kings at the same time; one having the title without the 
 power, the other the power without the title ; and each, from 
 the very nature of his position, inevitably and unalterably 
 hostile to the other. Nor did there seem any probable end 
 to this embarrassment. It could not be expected that there 
 would be only one Regency. Both Houses had just agreed 
 that no Roman Catholic sovereign should ever govern the 
 kingdom. But the infant Prince of Wales, if his legitimacy 
 were once admitted, would eventually succeed to his father’s 
 title; and would certainly be educated in the Roman 
 Catholic faith; so that, until the whole male line of the 
 Stuarts became extinct, there would be a constant necessity 
 
Debate on the Title of King. 
 
 157 
 
 for a series of Regents ; each of whom must be appointed 
 by Parliament, an arrangement which would practically be 
 tantamount to an elective monarchy. 
 
 Another most cogent argument for the appointment of a 
 new King was found in the statute of Henry VII. which 
 secured from all punishment, and from all accusation of 
 treason, any one who should obey “ the King and Sovereign 
 Lord of this land for the time being.” So that those who 
 should submit to the Prince of Orange, as bearing the title 
 of King, would be protected, if the King should succeed 
 in recovering his authority ; but no such defence could be 
 pleaded to a charge of obeying a Regent in opposition to the 
 commands of the only King. The position of the Regent 
 himself would also be less safe, since a conspiracy against 
 such an officer would not involve the guilt of treason. Nor 
 was the appointment of a Regent in the least more con¬ 
 sistent with the oath of allegiance which had been taken to 
 James, than the appointment of a new King; for the oath 
 of allegiance certainly bound men to preserve to James not 
 only his title, but his prerogative and power; and to transfer 
 these to a Regent was as clearly a violation of that oath as 
 the transference of his title. The oath was conditional on 
 the King’s respecting his people’s rights and the established 
 laws, and the mutual obligation was compared to that sub¬ 
 sisting between husband and wife, where the violation of 
 the marriage vows on one side was held to justify the release 
 of the other. If the King broke the condition on his part, 
 the subjects were released from their obligation. But they 
 could not be released in part; they must be released wholly 
 or not at all. 
 
 The debate lasted the whole day, the division not being 
 taken till 8 in the evening, when it appeared that, though the 
 
158 The English Revolution. 
 
 preponderance of argument was great on the side of the 
 Whigs, yet so strong was the Tory party in the House, that 
 in a House of 100 Peers, the majority against the Regency 
 was only 2. Had the Primate attended, the decision would, 
 in all probability, have been different. The next day the 
 Lords proceeded to discuss the resolution which had been 
 sent up from the Commons. The clause which recognized 
 a contract betwen the Sovereign and the people as the 
 foundation of the Monarchy was stoutly contested, for it 
 was admitted that no law or charter contained an express 
 mention of it; but it was argued fairly that it was implied 
 in ever}- legal government, and that the whole series of our 
 annals proved that the nation had at all times given its 
 obedience in consideration of the laws being confirmed and 
 preserved ; and, finally, a majority of 7 carried the clause. 
 Against the assertion of James’s misgovernment, not one 
 Lord raised his voice. But the statement that, by quitting 
 the country, he had abdicated the Government met a 
 different fate. It was contended that the expression im¬ 
 plied an intention to resign, which notoriously had not been 
 entertained by James, and the Peers were almost unanimous 
 in preferring to allege that he had deserted the Govern¬ 
 ment. 
 
 This was but a verbal dispute, but the debate the next 
 day turned on a point of the greatest practical importance. 
 The votes already passed had decided that James was no 
 longer King. The question arose whether it followed from 
 this fact that the throne was vacant. On the decision of 
 this point it depended whether the two Houses had a right 
 to fill up the vacancy ; or whether, at the very moment that 
 James ceased to be Sovereign, by abdication, or by desertion, 
 or in consequence of the votes which had just been passed, 
 
Debate in the House of Lords. 159 
 
 his next heir succeeded to' the throne. And on this point 
 those who had carried the House with them in the previous 
 divisions, Lord Halifax and Lord Danby, differed; Lord 
 Danby affirmed that the fundamental maxim of our Mon¬ 
 archical law was, that the throne was never vacant; but that 
 the moment of the termination of one reign was also the 
 moment of the commencement of another. And, passing 
 over altogether the Prince of Wales, either as spurious or 
 as incapacitated by the vote which excluded all Roman 
 Catholics from the succession, he inferred that at the instant 
 when James had ceased to be King, the Princess Mary 
 had become Queen, by her own right of birth ; that this was 
 proved by the words of the oath of allegiance which bound 
 those who took it, not to the King alone, but to his heirs 
 and successors also. And that to say the throne was vacant 
 even for an instant was to make it elective like the 
 sovereignty of Poland. 
 
 Halifax, on the other hand, argued that, if the King’s con¬ 
 duct dissolved the tie between his subjects and himself, it 
 also dissolved it between them and his posterity. That an 
 heir was one who succeeded to a dead person. No man 
 while alive could have an heir. If the King’s misconduct 
 had released his people from their obligations to him, it 
 must have also put them in a state in which they had a 
 right to secure themselves for the future ; and the security 
 to which they were entitled must be a real, not an apparent 
 security. He therefore supported the clause which asserted 
 the vacancy of the throne, with the avowed intention of fol¬ 
 lowing it up by another resolution to place the Prince of 
 Orange on it; not concealing his opinion that the fact of 
 his not being the next heir was a positive recommendation 
 since it would for ever extinguish the idea of hereditary in- 
 
160 The English Revolution. 
 
 defeasible right, and those claims to absolute power which 
 depended on the existence of such a right. 
 
 The debate was long and vehement. Some of those who 
 favoured the opinions advanced by Halifax, but who 
 despaired of carrying them in the face of Dabby's opposi¬ 
 tion, suggested a middle way; the omission of the state¬ 
 ment that the throne was vacant, and the substitution of the 
 words “ that the Prince and Princess of Orange be declared 
 King and Queen.” To declare that they were so, was 
 clearly a very different thing from appointing them. But 
 this peace-making alternative was rejected, though by no 
 greater majority than 5 ; and then the vote was taken on 
 the original question, and the clause declaring the throne 
 vacant was rejected by 14. It was a vote which, as 
 even those who had carried it could not fail to perceive, 
 was full of embarrassment 3 for by it the two Houses were 
 placed in opposition to each other, and both, as well as the 
 people out of doors, were greatly agitated. 
 
 To the populace the expedient of declaring the Prince 
 and Princess joint sovereigns was the most acceptable, and 
 a large body of the lowest citizens signed a petition to both 
 Houses to do so; but no party in either House would 
 tolerate the dictation of the populace in so grave a matter, 
 the decision of which they rightly felt belonged to them¬ 
 selves alone. According to the rule in all cases of difference 
 between the two Houses, it had become necessary that a con¬ 
 ference should be held between them, unless one or the other 
 would give way. It was soon seen that neither would yield: 
 On the 2nd of February the Commons resolved to adhere to 
 their resolution, that the throne was vacant. On the 4th the 
 Peers resolved to insist on their amendments ; a renewal of 
 the discussion in the Commons led to the same conclusion, 
 
News of William. 
 
 161 
 
 but, before the conference could take place, such revelations 
 of the feelings and intentions of all the principal parties 
 concerned were made as greatly smoothed the way for a 
 peaceable and harmonious agreement; James, as if he had 
 been resolved to make it impossible for any one to take his 
 part any more, sent over another letter in the place of that 
 which Lord Preston had wisely suppressed; 1 and though 
 this also was put aside unread by both Houses, it was known 
 to be countersigned, like the former, by the obnoxious Lord 
 Melfort; and it was also known that, even while inviting 
 the Convention to return to its dutiful allegiance to him, it 
 breathed vengeance against the leaders of the Revolution. 
 
 But a knowledge of the feelings of the Prince and of the 
 Princess was still more important for the solution of the 
 present difficulty. William had given no indication of his, 
 and the Princess was still in Holland. One of the Prince’s 
 confidential friends, when pressed on the subject, did venture 
 to say that his own conjecture was that “ the Prince would 
 not like to be his wife’s gentleman usher,” or, in other words, 
 would not be willing that she should be declared sole sove¬ 
 reign, as Lord Danby was well known to be inclined to 
 propose. But still there was a formidable party desirous to 
 press her claims, till Burnet, who had formerly had an 
 opportunity of learning her feelings with respect to a contin¬ 
 gency that then seemed more probable, divulged to some 
 of the leaders that she had resolved, if ever she should 
 succeed to the throne, to resign the power, with the consent 
 of Parliament, into her husband’s hands. Such a course she 
 
 i Macaulay speaks of one letter—Lord Clarendon’s Diary, January 19th, 
 February 2nd, seems to prove that there were two—the second being pro¬ 
 bably a repetition of the former, which, as Clarendon says, January 19th, 
 Lord Preston, by the advice of friends, “ quashed.” 
 
 M 
 
162 The English Revolution. 
 
 conceived to be prescribed by a wife’s duty. And at the 
 same time she herself, on learning the view of her rights 
 which Danby was inclined to take, wrote a letter to that 
 nobleman to remonstrate against being set up as a com¬ 
 petitor to the Prince. 
 
 William also himself at last broke through the reserve 
 which he had hitherto maintained, and, though with studied 
 moderation, avowed the object at which he aimed. He 
 sent for some of the principal peers, to whom alone he 
 seems to have thought it becoming to unfold his views, 
 and told them that, though they were certainly at liberty to 
 establish a Regency, he would not consent to be the Regent; 
 that, if they should make the Princess Queen, he would not 
 occupy a subordinate post, nor take any share in the 
 Government; that if they should decide on offering him 
 the crown, he would accept it, but otherwise he would 
 return to Holland. The only limitation of the ordinary 
 rights of a King to which he would submit was, that if the 
 Princess, his wife, should die childless, the Princess Anne 
 should have a prior right of succession to any children 
 whom he might have by any other wife. 
 
 He had so far the game in his hands that, after this 
 declaration, it was plain that the Houses had no alternative 
 but that of naming him King. One question still remained, 
 whether he should be the sole Sovereign, in which case the 
 Princess would be only Queen Consort; or whether she 
 should enjoy equal rank as Queen Regnant. Halifax, feeling, 
 as a statesman, that a divided authority was full of danger, 
 recommended the former course, proposing to place the 
 Princess next in succession to him ; but he found the general 
 feeling oT the party so unfavourable to placing Mary in a 
 lower rank, when her right, so far as it depended on birth, 
 
Conference of the two Houses. 163 
 
 was incontestably superior to that of her husband, that, after 
 a long and angry discussion, he withdrew his proposal. 
 Accordingly it was settled that the arrangement which should 
 be recommended to the Commons was that the Prince and 
 Princess should be joint sovereigns, of equal rank and 
 dignity; though the administration, as the Princess herself 
 preferred, should be entrusted to William alone. And while 
 these discussions were going on, Lord and Lady Churchill 
 so worked on the Princess Anne that she consented to waive 
 her pretensions during William’s life, on condition that, if 
 her sister should leave no heirs, the succession, after his 
 death, should be secured to herself and her children. 
 
 All difficulties being now thus smoothed away, on the 
 6th of February the important conference between the 
 two Houses took place on the two amendments of the 
 Lords which had substituted the word “ deserted ” for 
 “abdicated,” and which had rejected the clause declaring 
 the throne to be vacant. The first question turned on a 
 difference so purely verbal, and so devoid of practical im¬ 
 portance, that it was argued very briefly. Mr. Somers, who 
 conducted the legal argument on behalf of the Commons, 
 contenting himself with one or two quotations from foreign 
 writers on Constitutional law to justify the use of the 
 term “ abdicate ” in the sense in which it was employed in 
 the resolution. The second opened considerations of far 
 greater moment. Whether it were in accordance with our 
 national law and Constitution to affirm that the throne could 
 be vacant, if only for a single moment, was a question which 
 affected the very character of the Sovereignty. It affected 
 our past history ; it must affect our future history. The 
 Commons produced one precedent which, if admitted, was 
 decisive. The Parliament roll of the year 1399 expressly 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 stated that the throne was vacant during the interval between 
 the resignation of Richard II. and the acceptance of the 
 Duke of Lancaster as King; and recorded the act of the 
 Estates of the Realm, when they admitted the validity of 
 the claim preferred by the Duke, and “ consented that the 
 said Duke should reign over them.” 1 The Lords, in reply, 
 produced a later roll, that of the first year of the reign of 
 Edward IV., which showed that the record of 1399 had 
 been annulled. But that act of Edward’s Parliament had 
 in its turn been abrogated in the first year of the reign of 
 Henry VII., so that the roll of 1399 was restored to, and 
 remained in, its original force. 
 
 The Conference being over, the Lords once more took 
 the two questions into consideration. A few peers, who 
 could not reconcile it to their consciences to join in the 
 resolution which they were now aware would be carried, nor 
 yet to their conviction of what the safety of the nation required 
 to oppose it, absented themselves, but still the number that 
 attended was greater than on any previous occasion. The 
 expression “ abdicated ” was replaced in the resolution with 
 scarcely a dissentient voice. By sixty-two votes to forty- 
 
 1 Hume's comment on these transactions, c. 17, is, “The unanimous 
 voice of Lords and Commons placed Henry on the throne; he became 
 
 King, nobody could tell how or wherefore.And as a 
 
 concern for the liberties of the people seems to have had no hand in this 
 revolution, their right to dispose of the Government, as well as all their 
 other privileges, was left precisely on the same footing as before.” But 
 Hallam (Middle Ages, c. viii. p. 3) points out that, “in this revolution of 
 1399, there was as remarkable an attention shown to the formalities of the 
 Constitution, allowance made for the men and the times, as in 1688." And 
 he proceeds to call the two Houses in reference to their votes by which 
 Henry was accepted as King “ the Estates of the Realm “ (which, indeed, 
 was the name they gave themselves), and afterward a ‘ ‘ Convention," because 
 ' ‘ upon the cession of the King, as upon his death, the Parliament was no 
 more." 
 
Alteration in the Oath of Allegiance. 
 
 165 
 
 seven it was voted that the throne was vacant. But against 
 the proposal to declare the Prince and Princess King and 
 Queen of England, no one called for a division, and it 
 was carried with apparent unanimity ; many, no doubt, 
 not liking the measure in their hearts, but acting on the 
 principle by which the Earl of Thanet justified his vote to 
 Lord Clarendon: “ He thought they had done ill in admit¬ 
 ting the monarchy to be elective ; for so this vote had made 
 it; but he thought there was an absolute necessity of having 
 a government, and he did not see it likely to be any other 
 way than this.” One concession was made to those who 
 shared his feelings, in the adoption of a motion made by 
 Lord Nottingham for such an alteration in the wording of 
 the oaths of allegiance and supremacy as might enable that 
 party to take them without scruple. 1 
 
 The first resolutions had been first passed by the Com¬ 
 mons, and then sent up to the Lords. The last, declaring 
 the Prince and Princess King and Queen, reversed this order, 
 and, having been carried by the Lords, required the accept¬ 
 ance of the Commons. The Commons never doubted the 
 propriety of accepting it; but, as an unconditional vote to 
 that effect might have seemed to confer absolute authority 
 on the new Sovereigns, or at least to leave the extent of 
 their prerogatives, and consequently the degree of liberty 
 belonging to the people, unsettled, they, with a sagacity 
 which, on this occasion, the Peers had failed to exhibit, re- 
 
 > The alteration consisted in expunging the words "rightful and lawful," 
 as a description of the Sovereigns, because in them "a previous title 
 seemed to be asserted." “ 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."— Burnet, p. 825. 
 
166 The English Revolution. 
 
 solved to precede their acceptance of it by some measure 
 which should extinguish for ever all doubts on these all- 
 important subjects. A very little consideration showed that 
 to pass such a number of separate acts as would be required 
 to prevent a recurrence of the grievances which'had been 
 complained of, would require a far longer time than could 
 be allowed; for every circumstance of both domestic and 
 foreign policy imperatively required that the inauguration of 
 . the new Government should be immediate. 
 
 But it was justly thought possible so to embody all the 
 chief requirements of the nation in one large resolution that 
 the rights of the new Sovereigns and of all their successors 
 might be inseparably connected with, and made dependent 
 on, the preservation of the rights and privileges of their 
 subjects. With this view, a Committee was appointed by 
 the Commons, which, under the presidency of Mr. Somers, 
 speedily framed a “ Declaration of Right,” which should 
 serve as a basis for future formal legislation, jjt recited 
 the grievances of the late reign; the arbitrary 7 acts of the 
 late King; his contempt for and violations of the ancient 
 laws of the kingdom; his consequent abdication. It 
 enumerated those fundamental principles of the Constitu¬ 
 tion, as laid down in the ancient charters, that no king 
 could dispense with the established laws without the con¬ 
 sent of Parliament; that no sovereign could levy 7 money 
 which had not been granted by Parliament, nor maintain a 
 standing army by his own authority; and that Parliaments 
 should be held frequently. Other clauses asserted the right 
 of the subject to petition the King for the redress of griev¬ 
 ances, the right of members of Parliament to freedom of 
 speech, with other privileges of minor importance ; and 
 the last clause of all embodied the resolution of the Peers 
 
The Crown is conferred on William and Mary. 167 
 
 that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be declared 
 King and Queen of England for their joint and separate 
 lives, and settled the succession first on the posterity of 
 Mary, next on the Princess Anne and her children, and, 
 after them, on the posterity of William by any other wife. 
 
 It is remarkable that in this great Declaration no mention 
 was made of the resolution to which both Houses had lately 
 come, that the profession of the Roman Catholic religion 
 should disqualify any one from succeeding to the throne. 
 Nor did the Lords take notice of the omission, but, on 
 Monday, the nth, passed the Declaration with a few verbal 
 amendments. 
 
 The same evening the Princess, who had been detained 
 for some days in Holland by foul winds, reached the English 
 coast. Her vessel sailed up the Thames, and the next 
 morning anchored at Greenwich. On the morning of the 
 13th, she with her husband held a grand Court in the 
 noble banqueting-house of Whitehall Palace. A large body 
 of Peers, headed by the Marquis of Halifax, and a still 
 larger number of the House of Commons, headed by the 
 Speaker Powle, came forward; and Lord Halifax, speaking 
 for the whole Convention, prayed their Highnesses to hear 
 the Declaration of Right, which had been agreed to by both 
 the Houses. It was read by the Clerk of the House of 
 Lords; and then Halifax preferred a second request, that 
 their Highnesses would accept the Crown in accordance with 
 the concluding terms of that Declaration. William in a brief 
 speech “ thankfully accepted,” for himself and the Princess, 
 what the Estates of the Realm offered them; promised to 
 guide his conduct by the laws, to study in all matters to 
 promote the welfare of the kingdom, and constantly to seek 
 the advice of both Houses of Parliament. The' members 
 
i68 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 of both Houses retired, descended into the Court-yard of 
 the Palace, where the heralds were awaiting them, and then, 
 amid the beating of drums and the flourishes of trumpets, 
 the Chief Herald, Garter King at Arms, proclaimed William 
 and Mary King and Queen of England ; the surrounding 
 populace ratified the proclamation and promised their loyal 
 allegiance by enthusiastic cheers, and the English Revolution 
 was completed. 
 
169 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 State of feeling in Scotland during the last part of the Year 1688—A 
 meeting of the leading Scotchmen takes place in London, Jan. 7th, 
 1689—They request him to convoke the Estates of Scotland — Great 
 riots in Scotland — William's language on the subject of religion— 
 The Estates are opened by a letter from William — He recommends an 
 Union with England—Time-serving policy of the chief Scotch nobles 
 -— The Estates declare William and Mary King and Queen of Scotland 
 — They prefer a claim of right which abolishes episcopacy — Conduct 
 of those who continue to adhere to James — Character and views of 
 Lord Dundee — He takes arms in the cause of James — The Battle of 
 Killiecrankie and death of Dundee—Great importance of his loss. 
 
 t 
 
 But the decisions of an English Parliament had as yet no 
 authority in Scotland or Ireland. Those two kingdoms 
 were alike in this respect, though widely different in the 
 view which they took of the recent events. In Scotland, 
 where the vast majority of the people were Protestants, 
 though of various denominations, James’s policy and objects 
 had long caused great discontent, though the presence of 
 several English regiments in the country stifled its expres¬ 
 sion. But when they were withdrawn to make head against 
 William in the south of England, the feelings of the people, 
 the curb being removed, could no longer be restrained. 
 They broke out in fierce riots, if it may not be said in open 
 insurrection. Lord Perth, the Chancellor, was seized and 
 thrown into prison. The Pope was burnt in effigy. Holy- 
 rood Palace, because the Royal Chapel had lately been 
 
I/O The English Revolution. 
 
 used for Roman Catholic worship, was broken into and 
 plundered. The lords of the Privy Council, sharing the 
 general enthusiasm, issued an order for disarming all Roman 
 Catholics, and inviting all Protestants to come forward and 
 defend the true religion. And, when it became known that 
 James had fled from England, and that the administration 
 was for the time in the hands of the Prince, a large party of 
 Peers and gentlemen of influence went up to London to 
 watch the course which events might take. 
 
 They reached London on the first day of the new year ; 
 and, on the 7 th of January, William invited them to consult 
 together, as he had formerly invited the leading Englishmen. 
 They met under the presidency of the Duke of Hamilton, 
 and after a long debate passed resolutions similar to those 
 which the English Councillors had adopted a fortnight before; 
 requesting the Prince to take upon himself the temporary 
 administration of the Government, and to call together 
 the Estates of Scotland, as he had already summoned the 
 two Houses of the English Parliament. He willingly ex¬ 
 pressed his compliance with a request the expectation of 
 which had been his chief reason for inviting their delibera¬ 
 tions. The 14th of March was fixed for the meeting of the 
 Estates ; and Hamilton and his colleagues returned to their 
 own country to prepare for it. 
 
 In one important respect William departed in Scotland 
 from the line of conduct which he had observed in England. 
 He took upon himself by his own authority to annul various 
 sentences of forfeiture and deprivation which, within the 
 last few years, had been passed against the Earl of Argyll 
 and other Peers, and sent them or their representatives 
 summonses to take their places in the Estates. And in the 
 same manner he also repealed the law which required every 
 
Riots in Scotland. 
 
 m 
 
 elector for a county or borough to renounce the Covenant, 
 and which thereby deprived tire Presbyterians of the 
 elective franchise; .but both the acts were so completely 
 in harmony with the national feeling that no complaint was 
 made of such an exercise of his power, though no more 
 arbitrary act had ever been committed by James, and 
 though it was obviously intended to secure the presence of 
 such Peers and such representatives of the people as should 
 be favourable to the Prince’s views. 
 
 Not, indeed, that these new regulations at first produced 
 tranquillity. The Scotch elections were not conducted with 
 the order and quiet that had distinguished those in England. 
 In the northern kingdom, the Protestants were, perhaps, 
 pretty equally divided between Episcopalians and Presby¬ 
 terians ; but the latter, who were drawn principally from the 
 lower classes, regarded the former with a bitter enmity : and, 
 even before the intelligence of the King’s second flight had 
 crossed the border, had begun to attack the established clergy 
 with all the ferocity of fanaticism. In the blindness of their 
 bigotry and rejection of all ancient ceremonies and obser¬ 
 vances, they had denounced the practice of keeping holy 
 even those anniversaries which were connected with the 
 name and life of the Redeemer himself; and now, to mark 
 their hatred of those who regarded Christmas Day as a 
 solemn and glorious festival, they selected it, especially in 
 the western counties, for a general onslaught on all who did 
 not share their prejudices. They broke into the vicarages 
 of the clergy, tore their robes, beat them, carried them about 
 their parishes in insulting processions; turned their wives 
 and families out of doors, though the snow was on the 
 ground; destroyed their furniture and property, locked or 
 barred up the church doors; and threatened the priests 
 
172 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 with instant death if they ever entered it or performed 
 divine service there again. 
 
 As the country was wholly denuded of troops, there were 
 no means of repressing these outrages : impunity encouraged 
 further lawlessness, till the Presbyterian ministers proceeded 
 to more organized insolence. Professing to be horrified at 
 the conduct of some individuals in the different mobs, who 
 had not only insulted and beaten the Episcopalian clergy, 
 but had also robbed them, they convened a meeting of their 
 own body, at which, under pretence of saving them from 
 further outrage, they drew up a formal notice to the different 
 clergymen whom these mobs had not yet expelled, requir¬ 
 ing them to offer no resistance, but to quit their parishes 
 peaceably, lest a worse thing should happen to them. It 
 was to no purpose that William issued a proclamation 
 denouncing and forbidding such acts. The rioters grew 
 more bold week by week. At first their violence had been 
 confined to the rural districts, but the very day after the 
 proclamation reached Glasgow, they rose in that, already 
 the second city in Scotland ; stormed the Cathedral, and, 
 with murderous assaults, drove out the congregation, which 
 was assembled for divine sendee, and was naturally unpro¬ 
 vided with any means of defence ; and presently pene¬ 
 trated into Edinburgh itself, where their threats and numbers 
 caused general terror. 
 
 The Scotch Bishops appealed in vain to William for some 
 protection more effectual than a proclamation which was 
 disregarded. At such a distance he had no means of 
 affording it, and was not even inclined to give any which 
 should have the appearance of a pledge to preserve the 
 existing arrangements. Though not an irreligious man, he 
 was indifferent to forms of religion. Calvinism was the 
 
Meeting of the Scotch Estates. 1 73 
 
 doctrine in which he had been brought up, and, though he 
 apparently would have preferred to see the episcopal system 
 established throughout these kingdoms as more in harmony 
 with a monarchy, he was too indifferent on the subject to 
 be inclined to force it on any population that was reluctant 
 to receive it. His answer, therefore, to the Scotch prelates 
 was that the Estates themselves must settle the ecclesiastical 
 arrangements; that, if the Bishops supported his Government, 
 he on his part would do his best to preserve them, while 
 granting ample toleration to the Presbyterians; but that, if 
 they opposed the new settlement of the Government, and 
 if a great majority in their Parliament should condemn 
 Episcopacy, he could not make a war for them, and should 
 at most only be able to secure for them the same indulgence 
 which under other circumstances he promised the Presby¬ 
 terians. But the Bishops placed their hopes on another, 
 and paid no regard to the conditions on which William’s 
 inclination to maintain them not unnaturally depended. 
 
 On the 14th of March the Scottish Estates met. William 
 could not leave London to open them in person, but he sent 
 down a letter to point out to them the different matters to 
 which he desired to direct thhir attention; he professed a 
 general attachment to Protestantism, without indicating any 
 preference for either Episcopacy or Presbytery; but added 
 to the recommendations which he had addressed to the 
 English Convention, the expression of his warm approval 
 of a measure for which many of their body who had waited 
 on him in England had declared their anxiety, an union 
 between the two kingdoms. Such a measure had been 
 among the earliest projects of James I. The idea had 
 been again revived under Charles II., and by the winter of 
 1670 some progress had even been made in a treaty by 
 
174 The English Revolution. 
 
 which it was to be carried out, when circumstances which 
 are not clearly explained, but which probably had their 
 origin in religious difficulties, caused it to be abandoned. 
 It was, as we all know, accomplished not many years after 
 William’s death, and has produced to both countries all the 
 advantages that could have been anticipated by its warmest 
 advocate; yet it was hardly judicious to bring it forward at 
 this moment, or to mix it up with other matters which more 
 required instant determination. 
 
 As in the English Convention, there were two parties. 
 
 - And the very opening ceremony showed how strong the 
 opposers of the new Government believed themselves to 
 be, since the Bishop of Edinburgh introduced into the 
 prayer with which the meeting was opened a petition for the 
 restoration of King James; but the first vote of the Estates 
 proved to them that they deceived themselves. It was felt 
 by both sides that the election of a President would be a 
 test of their strength, and the choice of a large majority fell 
 upon the Duke of Hamilton, who had given in his adhesion 
 to William, in preference to the Duke of Athol, who fancied 
 himself slighted by him, and, full of mortified pride, now 
 proclaimed himself a supporter of James. It was a curious 
 instance of the time-serving meanness of the generality of 
 politicians of that day, as well as of their uncertainty as to 
 which party would eventually get the upperhand, that the 
 heirs of both these great Dukes took different sides from 
 their fathers. Lord Arran adhered to the King; the Marquis 
 of Tullibardine declared for the Prince ; with a view of, in 
 any event, preserving the family title and estates from 
 forfeiture. 
 
 And this continued to be the policy of many of the most 
 influential Scotchmen for the next two generations; so that 
 
Vote of the Scotch Estates. 
 
 175 
 
 in the rebellion of 1745 the father and his eldest son 
 were often found in the opposite camps. This want of 
 principle was, however, now of great advantage to William. 
 The moment that the bias of the Estates was thus decisively 
 shown by the election of the Duke of Hamilton, a large 
 section of the Jacobite minority went over to the majority, 
 and their conversion rendered the settlement of affairs 
 easy, as far as the Estates were concerned. One party did 
 indeed avail itself of William’s recommendation of an union 
 to urge that the arrangement of that measure should be 
 treated as an inseparable part of the proposed settlement of 
 the whole Government, and that therefore the existing inter¬ 
 regnum should be prolonged till the necessary treaty with 
 the English Parliament should be concluded. And those 
 who advocated this course were supported by the whole body 
 of the Jacobites, 1 who saw that it must cause a great delay, 
 and rightly conceived that any delay was favourable to the 
 prospects of James. 
 
 But the same reason prompted all who desired the 
 establishment of William and Mary to exert themselves the 
 more to accomplish an immediate settlement; and they 
 were so successful that, on the nth of April, the same day 
 on which the new King and Queen of England were 
 crowned at Westminster, the Estates passed a vote in 
 very nearly the words of the English resolution, 2 which 
 
 1 The name Jacobites was not yet adopted as the badge of the party, but 
 it is convenient to use it from the beginning. 
 
 2 There were a few alterations which were necessitated by the difference 
 between the circumstances of England and Scotland. It could not be said 
 in Scotland that James had abdicated the throne by quitting the kingdom, 
 because he had never been in Scotland since he had been King. The 
 Estates had therefore, in declaring that he was no longer King, no alterna¬ 
 tive but that of declaring that he had “forfeited" the throne by his mis- 
 government. 
 
176 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 declared that James had forfeited the throne, and acknow¬ 
 ledged the English Sovereigns as King and Queen of 
 Scotland also. And they further imitated the English 
 Convention in their precautions for the future, and on the 
 part of the whole Scotch people framed “a claim of rights,” 
 the chief article of which was an assertion that “ the Refor¬ 
 mation in Scotland having been begun by a party among 
 the clergy, all prelacy in that Church was a great and insup¬ 
 portable grievance.” The conclusion certainly did not 
 follow from the premiss, and it was equally certain that what 
 they claimed had not only never been enacted by Scotch 
 law, but that it was directly contrary to laws which were 
 established and notorious. But their object was to make the 
 establishment of Presbyterianism a condition on which the 
 crown was to be held in future; and the insertion of the 
 clause was acquiesced in even by some of those who pre¬ 
 ferred Episcopacy to any other form of government, but 
 who saw danger to the new settlement in leaving the 
 question open, and who thought the securing a tranquil 
 commencement of their reign to the new Sovereigns an 
 object of paramount importance above every other. 
 
 The pressure of business in London prevented the new 
 King and Queen from coming to Scotland to be crowned; 
 nor, indeed, had any of the descendants of James I. gone 
 through that ceremony. It had been thought sufficient for 
 them to take the Scotch coronation oath; and, in accord¬ 
 ance with these precedents, at the beginning of May three 
 members of the Estates, representing the Peers, the county 
 members, and the borough members, were despatched to 
 London to administer the oath to them. The ceremony 
 was as nearly as possible the same as that which had been 
 observed when, in February, Lord Halifax had requested 
 
William and Mary accept the Scottish Crown. 177 
 
 their acceptance of the English Crown. William and 
 Mary received the Commissioners at Whitehall seated under 
 a canopy of state, and attended by all the chief officers of 
 the Court, and a splendid retinue of English nobles. The 
 Earl of Argyll, as the Chief Commissioner, read the oath 
 clause by clause; and both King and Queen repeated the 
 words after him till they came to the last clause, to which 
 they declined to swear without qualification. It bound 
 them to root out all heretics and enemies of the true wor¬ 
 ship of God ; and it was notorious that by the fierce narrow¬ 
 minded bigotry of a large party in Scotland, Episcopalians, 
 Lutherans, Baptists, Quakers, nay, even those of the Pres¬ 
 byterians who had not subscribed to the “ Solemn League 
 and Covenant,” were classed as “ malignants and sectaries,” 
 enemies of the true worship. 
 
 William was not inclined to bind himself to persecute 
 nine-tenths of his new subjects, and had previously given 
 the Commissioners notice of the course which he designed 
 to take. When, therefore, Argyll had recited that article ot 
 the oath, the Sovereigns paused. “ I will not,” said William, 
 “bind myself to become a persecutor.” “Neither the 
 words of this oath nor the laws of Scotland impose any 
 such obligation on your Majesties,” was Argyll’s reply. 
 William called on all present to witness that he swore to 
 this last clause only with this reservation; then he repeated 
 that clause also ; and in Scotland as in England the revolu¬ 
 tion was completed. 
 
 The rapidity with which these transactions had been 
 settled in the Scotch Estates had been in no small degree 
 owing to the fear which the Whig leaders entertained of the 
 military resources of those who had not yet renounced their 
 allegiance to James. His post of Governor of Edinburgh 
 
 N 
 
i 7 8 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Castle gave great importance to the conduct of the Duke 
 of Gordon, one of the few Scotch nobles who belonged to 
 the Romish Church; but the most important man of the 
 party was Viscount Dundee, an officer of the most enter¬ 
 prising courage, and of high professional skill. Though 
 nearly two centuries have passed since that brilliant soldier 
 fell on the field of victory, his history is even now rarely 
 written without a strong tincture of party feeling, and it is 
 consequently easier to ascertain the leading facts of his 
 career during these, the last few months of his life, than the 
 motives which led him to resolve on the course which he 
 finally adopted. 
 
 During the later years of the reign of Charles II., Dun¬ 
 dee, then Colonel Graham of Claverhouse, had been sent 
 at the head of a small body of troops into the western 
 lowlands to act against some bodies of Covenanters, who, 
 after murdering Sharpe, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, 
 had risen in open insurrection against the Government. As 
 a zealous servant of both King and Church, he seems to 
 have regarded the most rigorous chastisement of those who 
 were both rebels and Nonconformists as imposed upon him 
 by every principle of both civil and military duty; accord¬ 
 ingly he treated not only those whom he took with arms in 
 their hands, but sometimes even the preachers and the 
 peaceful members of their congregations, with merciless 
 severity.' Such severity he, indeed, affirmed to be the truest 
 mercy to the whole country, by its effect in repressing or 
 its promptitude in extinguishing disorders. But those who 
 felt the weight of his hand could hardly be expected to 
 coincide in that view; and he was in his turn regarded by 
 every Presbyterian in Scotland with a deep feeling of per¬ 
 sonal hatred, which, because of his pre-eminence in ability, 
 
Conduct of Loud Dundee. 
 
 179 
 
 visited on his head not only his own fierce deeds, but the 
 cruel persecutions of others of higher authority and far more 
 pitiless temper than himself. 
 
 He had been one of the officers who, on the first in¬ 
 telligence of William’s invasion, had been summoned in 
 haste with his regiment to the King’s aid. At Salisbury he 
 had warmly, but with far better faith, supported Churchill’s 
 advice to attack the Prince’s army on its advance ; and 
 when his counsel was rejected he had, in obedience to the 
 King’s orders, fallen back with the whole Scotch division 
 under his orders, to the neighbourhood of London. But he 
 was preparing to make his peace with the Prince, to whom 
 he was favourably known, and under whom he had served at 
 Senef, when James returned to Whitehall. Resolved never 
 to desert his old master while he was true to himself, Dundee 
 also repaired to Whitehall, and undertook the commission of 
 at once returning with the Earl of Balcarras to Scotland, to 
 act as the King’s Commander-in-Chief in that kingdom, while 
 the Earl should conduct the civil government. But before 
 they could leave London, James once more fled; and on 
 this Dundee and Balcarras both apparently thought them¬ 
 selves released from their allegiance, so far as to be at liberty 
 to make terms for themselves with the Prince. They were 
 not ignorant that some of the opposite party in their own 
 country had already urged him to proscribe them; but they 
 were also, in all probability, aware that he had refused to 
 do so. Balcarras, who was connected with the House of 
 Orange by marriage, addressed himself directly to William; 
 Dundee employed the mediation of Burnet. They would 
 not assist in overturning the throne of him whom they still 
 regarded as their King ; but they would submit and live 
 quietly under William’s Government if it should be estab- 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o The English Revolution. 
 
 lished; and he on his part promised them protection if they 
 lived peaceably at home, and kept within the law. 1 They 
 returned to Scotland. But before the day fixed for the 
 meeting of the Estates, J ames had again opened communica¬ 
 tions with them, and they began to waver. They learnt 
 that he was preparing to return to his kingdoms to strike 
 a blow for his throne, and that Louis had promised him 
 ample supplies of arms and money. 
 
 It was evidently doubtful what shape events might take, 
 and they were both unwilling to take any step which might 
 lessen his chances of success. They resolved to temporize, 
 and to attend the meeting of the Estates ; and Dundee 
 persuaded the Duke of Gordon to temporize also, and at 
 least to delay evacuating the Castle. But still they so far 
 kept faith with William that they abstained from all active 
 resistance, and both signed the resolution which was agreed 
 to by the great majority of the Convention, to disregard 
 any order for their dissolution which might be sent, even by 
 James himself, and to continue their sittings till they should 
 have placed the civil and religious liberties of the kingdom 
 on a secure footing. 
 
 The two friends, however, were not entirely in the same 
 position. Balcarras had never provoked any personal 
 
 1 Lord Macaulay, who never mentions Dundee without a strange and 
 almost personal bitterness, second only to that in which he speaks of 
 Marlborough, says, “ Dundee seems to have been less ingenuous” than 
 Balcarras (vol. III., p. 270), but Burnet, who was the mediator employed 
 by Dundee, shows that both the Lords behaved with equal candour; they 
 were willing to promise submission, not adherence. Burnet's words are, 
 “ 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 was 
 forced to it, he would live quietly."—Vol. II., p. 22. 
 
Conduct of Lord Dundee. 181 
 
 enmities; but it was well known that a large party among 
 the extreme Presbyterians. regarded Dundee with deadly 
 animosity; and he received information, which he fully 
 believed, that a number of them had conspired to assassi¬ 
 nate him. He applied to the Duke of Hamilton, as Presi¬ 
 dent of'the Convention, for a guard. Hamilton, who was 
 probably jealous of him, and who certainly bore him no 
 goodwill, referred him to the Convention. But, when at the 
 next meeting of that body, his complaint was brought be¬ 
 fore it, the Estates disregarded his application, and passed 
 on to the consideration of other matters. Dundee col¬ 
 lected a small body of cavalry as his escort, and fled to 
 his castle at the foot of the Grampian Hills, where he gave 
 sufficient proof of the sincerity with which he had ex¬ 
 pressed to William his willingness to submit to his Govern¬ 
 ment by living in perfect quiet. He was even so reluctant 
 to afford any pretext for misconstruction of the motives 
 of his retirement, that he offered to return and resume his 
 place in the Estates if they would ensure him protection; 
 and to give bail, or, what with such a man was a far more 
 powerful bond, to pledge his honour to do nothing to dis¬ 
 turb the new settlement. 
 
 For what followed, the Duke of Hamilton is more 
 responsible than he. Hamilton seems to have feared and 
 hated him with all the jealousy of an inferior and treacherous 
 spirit, 1 and to have been on the watch for any pretext to 
 
 i Macaulay's description of Hamilton is—“Not till the Dutch troops 
 were at Whitehall had he ventured to speak out. Then he had joined the 
 victorious party, and had assured the Whigs that he had pretended to be 
 their enemy only in order that he might, without incurring suspicion, act 
 as their friend."—Vol. III., p. 272. One can hardly do injustice to a man 
 who gives this description of his own conduct, except by suspecting him of 
 any honourable action. 
 
182 The English Revolution. 
 
 attack him; and that men in power can usually find when 
 they seek it. 
 
 James, as has been already mentioned, had crossed over 
 to Ireland just at the time when the Estates met at Edin¬ 
 burgh, in the hope of, at all events, retaining his hold on 
 that kingdom. And it was evident that his enterprise 
 would be greatly assisted if his adherents could at the 
 same time find William occupation in Scotland also. With 
 this object he proposed to reopen communications with 
 Dundee and Balcarras; and Lord Melfort, whom he still 
 regarded with pertinacious favour, was ordered to write to 
 them. The messenger who bore the letters was intercepted, 
 and his packet was brought to the Duke of Hamilton. 
 The letters professed to express the intentions of James 
 after his restoration, of which the writer seemed to enter¬ 
 tain no doubt, should be accomplished; and, as usual, they 
 breathed nothing but vengeance against all the adherents 
 of the new Government. It was as foolish as it was unjust 
 to visit such impotent ravings upon those to whom they 
 were addressed, but whom they had never reached. But 
 Hamilton caught at the mere fact of their having been sent 
 as a plea to gratify his own malice, and at once issued 
 warrants for the arrest of the two nobles. Balcarras, who 
 was still in Edinburgh, was at once apprehended and 
 thrown into prison. But the news of his seizure, and of 
 what was designed against himself, reached Dundee before 
 the officers of the Convention could arrive to execute the 
 warrants; which, as he had kept around him a small band 
 of his old soldiers for his protection, they were probably 
 in no great hurry to attempt. He felt almost compelled 
 to become a rebel in his own defence. He fled from his 
 house, resolved, as his only means of safety, to take arms 
 
State of the Highlands. 
 
 183 
 
 in the cause of his former sovereign; and the peculiar 
 circumstances of the country enabled him to carry out his 
 resolution with formidable effect. 
 
 The inhabitants of the Scottish Highlands differed 
 widely from those of every other part of the three king¬ 
 doms. They knew little about the Royal authority or the 
 ordinary laws; but they paid a blind obedience to the 
 chiefs of their respective clans ; and the chieftains, in the 
 part which from time to time they took in the strife of 
 parties, and the factions and divisions of the Empire, were 
 influenced far more by their mutual attachments or jea¬ 
 lousies than by any views of general policy. The predomi¬ 
 nant feeling of many of them was a fear and hatred of the 
 Earl of Argyll, the chief of the Campbells, with whom the 
 Grahams, to whom Dundee belonged, had been at deadly 
 feud ever since they had taken different sides in the great 
 rebellion, and the great Montrose, the head of the Grahams, 
 had been sacrificed to the successful enmity of his less 
 chivalrous, but more crafty rival. Argyll himself had been 
 put to death at the restoration; his son, as has been men¬ 
 tioned, had met a similar fate in the first year of James’s 
 reign; and his grandson, adhering to the politics of his 
 family, was now recognized through Scotland as the leader 
 of the party which sought the final overthrow of the Stuart 
 dynasty. 
 
 It followed that all the Highland chieftains who were 
 unfriendly to the Campbells were unfriendly also to the 
 new sovereigns, whom Argyll supported. And of this 
 feeling Dundee now took skilful advantage. With states¬ 
 manlike diplomacy, or, if that be too strong an expression, 
 with a thorough insight into the character of his country¬ 
 men, and a masterly skill in working on the passions and 
 
184 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 prejudices of the various chiefs, conciliating, mediating, 
 sparing neither his own labour nor his own purse, he won to 
 his side several gallant and influential leaders. By the i8th 
 of May, Cameron of Lochiel, all the chiefs of the different 
 branches of the Macdonalds, Sleat, Glengarry, Clanronald, 
 and Keppoch, with Stewart of Appin, had joined him, each 
 at the head of several hundred men. 1 And during the next 
 two months the fiery cross was sent through the different 
 glens, and unwearied preparation was made for battle. For, 
 at the first meeting of the Estates, William had sent from 
 England General Mackay, a soldier of high reputation, 
 with the Scotch regiments which he had brought over from 
 Holland, to protect the Convention ; and, from the mo¬ 
 ment that the Duke of Gordon had refused to surrender 
 Edinburgh Castle, and that Dundee had fled from the 
 capital, the Convention had exerted itself to strengthen 
 his force. 
 
 Mackay would have preferred an early trial of strength, 
 but Dundee’s plan was different. He saw how important it 
 was for James’s cause that the victory on which he reckoned 
 should be decisive. And he earnestly besought the King, 
 who had 40,000 men in Ireland, to send him over a divi¬ 
 sion of trained troops to form, as it were, the backbone of 
 his army; for, being himself a soldier experienced in war, 
 and knowing the value of discipline, he was unwilling, if he 
 
 1 Macaulay rates the whole Highland force at Killiecrankie as scarcely 
 above 3,000 (p. 355), but it must have been greater. He himself, as early 
 as May, enumerates 600 under Lochiel ; 400 under Glengarry; 700 under 
 Sleat ; 500 Macleans under Sir John; in all, 2,200; besides the followers 
 of Clanronald of Keppoch, of another Maclean of Lochbuy, of Mac- 
 naghten, of Stewart of Appin ; the least numerous of whom he seems 
 (p. 358) to estimate at about 120, besides several who joined afterwards. 
 Of whom the Murrays alone, according to Dalrymple (vol. I., p. 343), 
 amounted to 1,000. 
 
Dundee takes Arms. 
 
 185 
 
 could avoid it, to trust wholly to Highlanders, who, though 
 of unsurpassed vigour and bravery, had no notion of 
 military order. The King promised the desired reinforce¬ 
 ment; and, meanwhile, Dundee showed himself as skilful in 
 irregular as he had previously been known to be in regu¬ 
 lar warfare; marching and countermarching; baffling all 
 Mackay’s endeavours to bring him to action; and thus gaining 
 two objects at once, acquiring the confidence of his own 
 followers, to whom he was previously almost a stranger, 
 and wearing out the troops of the enemy. Mackay himself, 
 indeed, was so wearied and disgusted by his fruitless pursuit 
 of him, that he proposed to the Government to occupy the 
 different passes by a chain of fortresses, as a measure indis¬ 
 pensable to a successful campaign against foes so active, 
 and so superior to himself in knowledge of the country. 
 
 But at the end of two months Dundee’s tactics changed. 
 He had been greatly disappointed at the reinforcement sent 
 to him from Ireland, which, in spite of the King’s promises, 
 did not exceed 300 men, in very indifferent condition as to 
 either their equipment or their discipline. But he had 
 obtained the aid of several officers of rank and experience 
 from the Lowlands. The clansmen had eagerly obeyed the 
 summons of their chiefs. By the middle of July he had 
 nearly 4,000 men around his standard, and he felt that he 
 could not reckon on any great addition to his numbers, 
 while every day might bring fresh reinforcements to Mackay, 
 whose force already at least doubled his own. He deter¬ 
 mined, therefore, no longer to shun an engagement; and, 
 learning that the General was marching to make himself 
 master of Blair Castle, which was the chief stronghold of 
 the important Athol district, he marched with all speed to 
 anticipate him. He reached it first, and secured it for the 
 
186 The English Revolution. 
 
 moment; but he learnt at the same time that he should not 
 be permitted to retain it without a struggle, for that Mackay, 
 with his whole army, was pressing onward through the Pass 
 of Killiecrankie, and was not five miles off. 
 
 Dundee had no doubt in his own mind of the propriety, 
 under the circumstances, of encountering still greater odds, 
 but he judged it needful to convince others also. Those of 
 his officers who were accustomed to more disciplined armies 
 were recommending a retreat; and, to pacify them, he took 
 a step which no man, as determined as he was not to be 
 overruled, would have taken, had he felt the least uncer¬ 
 tainty as to the advice he should receive from the majority. 
 He called a council of war. The professional officers gave 
 their opinions, as he had expected, against fighting regular 
 troops with less than half their number of men, and those 
 little better than undisciplined barbarians. But Dundee 
 remembered the brilliant exploits which his great relative, 
 Montrose, had achieved with a similar force, and listened 
 rather to the counsels of the chieftains, who better knew the 
 character of their followers. Their advice was, as he 
 expected, of a directly opposite character, and far more 
 positive. “If the enemy were three to one,” said Lochiel, 
 “ he still would fight them at once. Highlanders were irre¬ 
 sistible in .attacking, but lost heart in a retreat, or even in a 
 defensive position. They must either fight at once, or 
 disband the army. There was no third course open.” 
 
 Dundee had all he wanted, good ground for overruling 
 the more prudent counsels of the scientific soldiers. The 
 council had been held early in the morning of Saturday, 
 July 27, and the moment it broke up he marched towards 
 the Pass. Mackay, on his part, had been ever since day¬ 
 break forcing his way through it by paths, often hardly 
 
Dundee prepares for Battle. 187 
 
 discernible, and in their easiest parts narrow, steep, and 
 rugged. By mid-day he had reached the open ground on 
 the Blair Athol side, and his men, almost exhausted with 
 the toilsome ascent, were lying on the grass to rest and 
 refresh themselves, when they suddenly learnt that Dundee 
 was close at hand. Presently the Highlanders came in 
 sight, but it took some time to array them in such an order 
 of battle as suited their clannish habits, each clan by itself, 
 whether its numbers were large or small, so that each chief 
 might see how his men were bearing themselves, and each 
 clan be stimulated to its utmost efforts by the sight of the 
 prowess of its neighbours and rivals. And in the meantime 
 the front lines of each army kept up a dropping but not 
 very effectual fire on the opposite ranks. 
 
 At last, when sunset was scarcely more than an hour 
 distant, all was ready. Dundee gave the word to advance, 
 and his whole army raised an enthusiastic cheer when he 
 placed himself at its head to lead them on in person. 
 There were among them some who would gladly have 
 seen him less conspicuous. Lochiel, “ the Ulysses of the 
 Highlands,” 1 as if he had such a foreknowledge of the 
 events of the day as second sight was believed to afford to 
 many of his countrymen, had earnestly recommended him 
 to keep out of danger. Victory would be no victory if any 
 harm should befall him. No one but he could conciliate 
 the rivalries and jealousies of the different clans, and keep 
 them in willing co-operation. He prayed him, therefore, 
 to content himself with the duties of a Commander-in- 
 Chief; to make his arrangements, to issue his orders, but 
 
 • It is the expression of Lord Macaulay (vol. III., p. 321), to whose 
 brilliant descriptions I have been indebted throughout this sketch, and 
 whose very words I have more than once ventured to borrow. 
 
188 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 to leave those whose lives were of less value to execute 
 them. Dundee did not deny the soundness of his friend’s 
 reasoning; but felt, too, and urged in reply, that, since he 
 was as yet almost a stranger to the Highlanders, he must 
 this day win their confidence by showing himself foremost 
 in danger. They expected to see their leaders in the 
 thickest of the battle, and there they should this day see 
 him. But, at the same time, he promised Lochiel that 
 when he had thus proved to them that they could trust 
 him, in subsequent battles he would take more care of 
 himself. 
 
 Rejoicing in the adoption of their favourite tactics of 
 attack, the Highlanders were full of confidence. In answer 
 to their cheer, Mackay’s men, too, had raised a shout, but it 
 was faint and broken. “ It was not,” said Lochiel, “ the cry 
 of men who were going to win.” Dundee himself was at 
 the head of the whole line, with a small body of horse, not 
 above 40, but the entire cavalry of the army, and each 
 chief was at the head of his clan. To put himself on 
 perfect equality with his meanest follower, Lochiel himself, 
 though now past middle age, threw away his shoes, and, 
 barefooted, dashed forward. The whole line rushed on 
 rather than marched, firing as they advanced; then, as they 
 came to close quarters, they threw away their muskets, 
 drew their broadswords, and with fresh cheers hurled them¬ 
 selves upon the opposing ranks. Mackay’s infantry had no 
 swords. Their dependence was on their bayonets, which, 
 when they had done firing, they screwed into the muzzles 
 of their guns. They used no bayonets this day. Before 
 they could fix them, the Highlanders were upon them ; they 
 could neither fire nor thrust, but were routed as unresistingly 
 as if they had no weapons at all. Scarcely one regiment 
 
The Battle of Killiecrankie. 
 
 189 
 
 held its ground for a moment. In vain did Mackay, who 
 never lost his presence of mind, try to change the fortune 
 of the day by bringing up some troops of cavalry, a force 
 which the Highlanders were unused to encounter, and of 
 which they entertained a superstitious dread. The troopers 
 were dismayed at the rout of the infantry, and fled in equal 
 disorder, and in a few minutes the battle was over. Mackay, 
 though he exerted himself to the utmost, could not col¬ 
 lect more than a handful of men in orderly retreat; the 
 rest were flying in promiscuous confusion. And, had not 
 one chance shot realized the worst fears of Lochiel, the 
 whole army must have been destroyed. 
 
 But that one shot had struck down Dundee. Before the 
 two armies closed, he turned round in his saddle, waving his 
 hat, to encourage his handful of horse to a more rapid 
 advance, and as he raised his arm a musket ball struck his 
 uncovered side. He fell mortally wounded, but the conflict 
 was brief enough for him to receive the assurance of his 
 victory before his consciousness passed away. A soldier 
 named Johnstone caught him as he fell. After a minute 
 or two he desired him to raise his head that he might see the 
 progress of the fight, but his eyes were already dim. “ How 
 goes the day ?” said he. “ Well for the King,” replied John¬ 
 stone ; “ but I am grieved for you.” “ If it is well with him, 
 it is well with me,” were t-he last words of the dying hero. 
 For though, when some of his friends gathered round him 
 half an hour afterwards, life seemed to them not to be 
 wholly extinct, he never spoke again. 
 
 Not knowing whom to obey, though presently Cannon, 
 the general of the Irish division, took the command, the 
 Highlanders, after plundering the baggage of the defeated 
 enemy, retired to Blair Castle. Mackay, toiling all night, 
 collecting stragglers, making his way through an unknown 
 
190 The English Revolution. 
 
 country, and marvelling that he was not pursued, on the 
 second day after the battle reached Stirling. The battle 
 had been lost through no fault of his, and his exertions to 
 retrieve it did him the highest honour. In the course of 
 the next day or two he gathered round him a few companies 
 which had not been at Killiecrankie, and so far restored 
 heart and steadiness to his men that they attacked and 
 routed a detachment which Cannon had sent to Perth for 
 supplies. Divisions arose in the Highland camp, which, 
 indeed, could never be kept in harmony on any condition 
 but that of continual success. The most powerful of the 
 chieftains refused to obey the orders of Cannon, and re¬ 
 turned home. On the 21st of August, Cannon, with the 
 forces that remained to him, was repulsed in an attack on 
 Dunkeld by the Cameronians, as a regiment was called 
 which had just been raised for William’s service by the Earl 
 of Angus, and which was composed almost wholly of men 
 who held the Cameronian tenets, the most extreme fanatics 
 of all the supporters of the Covenant. 
 
 The defeat completed the disunion. The clans dis¬ 
 persed, after signing a bond, which probably no one ever 
 expected to be acted upon, to renew their exertions for 
 King James whenever he should again summon them, and 
 Cannon returned with his own division to Ireland. Mackay 
 took the most effectual steps to render any future rising 
 abortive, by organizing a well-designed chain of military 
 posts through the districts which had been the theatre of 
 the late operations. And, profiting further by his recent 
 experience, he introduced an improvement in his men’s 
 weapons, which has since been adopted by every army in 
 Europe. He invented a new mode of fixing the bayonet, 
 so that it should no longer close the muzzle of the gun; 
 but that, being fastened to the side of the barrel, it should 
 
Death of Dundee. igi 
 
 render the weapon available at any moment for either pur¬ 
 pose of firing or thrusting. 
 
 The war in Scotland was over, so vast was the impor¬ 
 tance of the life of one great man. The dead hero was borne 
 to Blair Castle, and buried in the humble village church which 
 has long ceased to exist. As he met his fate while warring 
 on what eventually proved the losing side, no memorial 
 marks the place of his rest, but a stone on the field of 
 battle still covers the spot where he was struck down, as the 
 plate in the deck of the Victory preserves the memory of 
 that where the still greater Nelson received his death- 
 wound. Both men perished in the hour of victory, but 
 Nelson’s death produced no such results as that of Dundee ; 
 for that terminated a war at a most critical moment, and 
 thus enabled William to direct his whole attention to the 
 contest in Ireland, which, as we shall presently see, was 
 every moment assuming larger proportions. Though, the very 
 day after Killiecrankie, Londonderry was saved, and though 
 before the end of the next week Lord Mountcashel was 
 routed by Wolseley at Newton Butler, yet the winter cam¬ 
 paign in Ireland, on the whole, proved decidedly unfavour¬ 
 able to William. And, though we may well believe that, in a 
 contest between Princes so unequally matched as James 
 and William, the final issue of the contest could not have 
 been doubtful, yet it is hard to say how long it might not 
 have been protracted, had William been compelled to 
 divide his forces and to carry on operations at the same 
 moment on both sides of the Channel; and a protraction 
 of it must have been attended not only by great personal 
 distress and suffering, but also by great political dangers, 
 if not by serious political mischiefs, to each of the three 
 kingdoms. 
 
192 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 James lands in Ireland in March, 1689—The disturbed state of Ireland— 
 Illegal and violent Government of Lord Tyreonnel- The Protestants 
 refuse Lord Antrim admission into Derry—Tyreonnel disarms the 
 Protestants, and enlists the Roman Catholics—James lays siege to 
 Derry—Sufferings and fortitude of the Inhabitants—The siege is 
 raised—The Battle of Newtown Butler—Violent proceedings of the 
 Irish Parliament—The general act of attainder—Adulteration of the 
 coinage—Schomberg's campaign in the autumn of 1689—In 1690 
 William takes the command—The Battle of the Boyne. 
 
 It has been already mentioned that at the end of Feb¬ 
 ruary James quitted St. Germains, and a fortnight later 
 landed at Kinsale, in the county Cork, with the hope of 
 making victories in Ireland the means of recovering his 
 authority in England. Louis, whose idea of the kingly dig¬ 
 nity was that it was most becomingly shown by acting 
 as master of ceremonies on a most imposing scale of 
 magnificence, had never had a more splendid oppor¬ 
 tunity of displaying his genius as such, than when his 
 cousins w r ere driven from their English throne and threw 
 themselves on his protection and hospitality; and it 
 cannot be denied that his conduct to them was marked 
 not only with a truly royal liberality, but with a delicacy 
 of good taste and kind feeling w r hich did not commonly 
 seem to belong to his character. 
 
 The moment that the news reached Versailles that the 
 
James and his Queen reach France. 193 
 
 Queen had landed in France, labourers were set to work 
 to repair the road by which she was to travel. Royal 
 carriages were sent to Calais for her conveyance; the royal 
 guard furnished her escort. As she approached the capital, 
 Louis himself went to meet her with a gorgeous train of a 
 hundred carriages-and-six. He descended from his coach to 
 salute her, and led the way to the Palace of St. Germains, 
 which had been already furnished for her use. When 
 James himself arrived he was received with equal pomp. 
 Louis requested him to consider the palace as his own, so 
 long as he might need it, and in addition to 16,000 louis, 
 which had been placed in his and the Queen’s apartments 
 for a present supply, allotted them also a pension of £ 2,000 
 a month. 1 
 
 He had expressed a courteous hope that they would not 
 long require a French home; and when, after a two months 
 sojourn at St. Germains, James’s deliberations resulted in a 
 resolution to raise his standard in Ireland, Louis equipped 
 him for his enterprise with unstinted prodigality of re¬ 
 sources. There was policy in the lavishness of his aid, for, 
 in truth, it was of no little importance to himself that 
 William should not be able to throw the weight of England 
 into the scale against him in the war which he was now 
 waging. He did not, indeed, furnish James with any 
 French regiments, since it would clearly have been fatal to 
 every hope of success for him to seem to depend for his 
 restoration on foreign bayonets. Nor was there any de¬ 
 ficiency of men in Ireland. But he lent him a large body of 
 
 1 Lord Macaulay, without mentioning his authority, calls the pension 
 £45,000 a year. But Madame de S^vigne, who exalts the munificence to 
 the very utmost, as the very "image of the Almighty," says expressly that 
 the sum was " cinquante rnille francs parmois" (Letter of January 17), 
 and St. Simon fixes it at the same sum. 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 skilful officers to discipline the recruits whom he might 
 tempt to his service, and an officer whom he held in high 
 esteem to act as Commander-in-Chief. The Count de 
 Rosen belonged by birth to one of the noblest families of 
 Livonia, and was connected by marriage with the cele¬ 
 brated Bernard, Duke of Weimar. Louis, who was gene¬ 
 rally eager to engage foreign talent in his service, had gladly 
 employed and promoted him, and eventually raised him to 
 the rank of Marshal. But, according to St. Simon, whose 
 account of him probably embodies the estimate formed of 
 him by his brother officers, his talents did not rise above 
 those of a dashing cavalry officer, or a general of division 
 under the orders of others; and, if they had been greater, 
 they would have been neutralized by his coarseness of 
 manners and extreme ferocity of disposition. 
 
 Besides these officers, Louis gave anns for 10,000 men, 
 great quantities of ammunition, and above £ 100,000 of 
 money. That James might from the first be surrounded 
 with some of the dignity of a Court, the Count d’Avaux, 
 than whom France had no abler diplomatist, also accom¬ 
 panied him as accredited ambassador, being further autho¬ 
 rized by his master to expend large sums, if opportunity 
 should arise, in gaining over members of the English Par¬ 
 liament. A splendid fleet was equipped at Brest, and on 
 the 12 th of March disembarked James and his retinue in 
 safety at Kinsale. 
 
 He came to men who were expecting him, and who had 
 been urgent in their entreaties that he should not delay 
 his arrival. Ireland had been for some time in a state of 
 great agitation. In some parts of the country civil war 
 was already raging. Tyrconnel had been carrying out his 
 instructions with a fierce and blind zeal, and trampling on 
 
James returns to Ireland. 
 
 195 
 
 laws and precedents with a perfect disregard of every will 
 but his own, which James himself could not have surpassed. 
 He had filled the judicial bench with Papists, and had even 
 given the seals to Alexander Fitton, a man notoriously 
 guilty of forgery, but who, in his and his master’s eyes, had 
 atoned for his guilt by renouncing Protestantism. Another 
 Roman Catholic, Stephen Rice, 1 had been made Chief 
 Baron, for the express purpose of undoing the Act of 
 Settlement; and he, by a series of illegal decisions, had 
 stripped Protestant after Protestant of his estate, and con¬ 
 fiscated charter after charter of the chief boroughs and 
 cities of the kingdom. 
 
 In like manner the army had been purged of Churchmen 
 and Presbyterians; and the intelligence of William’s arrival 
 in Torbay had hardly crossed the Channel when a rumour 
 was spread abroad that Tyrconnel was meditating a re¬ 
 newal of the atrocities of Sir Phelim O’Neill, in a fresh 
 massacre of every Englishman or Protestant in the island. 
 It was not the less believed because he denied it. But 
 those who conceived themselves thus threatened with 
 extermination were not inclined to submit tamely to such 
 a fate. At Bandon and Mallow in the south, and at Sligo 
 in the west, they took arms and formed themselves into 
 bands for self-defence. At Enniskillen, on Lough Erne, they 
 even sallied out to encounter some companies of infantry 
 which Tyrconnel had sent to take up their quarters among 
 them, routed them, and drove them back to Cavan ; and 
 at Londonderry the citizens, with equal resolution, prepared 
 for what proved a more protracted and arduous struggle. 
 
 1 He seems to have been the author of a saying, since attributed, on 
 other occasions, to more honest men, that “he would drive a coach-and- 
 six through the Act of Parliament.'' 
 
 O 2 
 
196 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 The 9th of December was believed to have been fixed 
 for the intended massacre; and, a day or two before that 
 date, the Earl of Antrim, at the head of 1,200 men, 
 crossed Lough Foyle at the ferry which gave access to the 
 town from the Coleraine road, and demanded admittance 
 and quarters in the name of King James. The civic 
 authorities had no inclination to refuse him admittance. 
 Chief Baron Rice had quelled the spirit of the Corporation. 
 The Bishop held, and at all times consistently preached, 
 the most extreme doctrines of non-resistance. The magis¬ 
 trates were on the point of submitting to the Earl’s demand, 
 a submission which might have affected" the whole subse¬ 
 quent history of the country, and which would certainly 
 have deprived it of its most brilliant episode, when a few 
 young Protestant apprentices were suddenly seized with a 
 generous fear for their liberty and their religion, which 
 overbore all other fear. Hearing what was passing, they 
 rushed to the gates, closed them in the face of the 
 soldiers; let fall the portcullis; manned the guns on the 
 lines; and sent out messengers in every direction to 
 implore instant aid from the inhabitants of the surrounding 
 district. 
 
 No call was ever more promptly answered. Men of all 
 classes, gentry, farmers, and peasants, poured in to the 
 threatened city with such rapidity and in such numbers 
 that Lord Antrim did not dare to attempt to force an 
 entrance ; and Tyrconnel himself, whom the news of what 
 was taking place in England had rendered doubtful of the 
 issue of the contest there, for a moment thought it best 
 to temporize, and to seek rather to tranquillize than to 
 subdue. He sent Lord Mountjoy, the Master of the 
 Ordnance, who, being a Protestant himself, was more likely 
 
Violence of Lord Tyrconnel. 197 
 
 to be listened to by Protestants, to try and persuade the 
 men of Ulster to lay aside their fears. With the people of 
 Enniskillen Mountjoy wholly failed, and the citizens of 
 Londonderry only listened to him so far as to allow him to 
 leave them a few of his Protestant soldiers as a garrison. 
 But even before that was done Tyrconnel changed his mind. 
 The Roman Catholics, whom he had found it easy to excite 
 against the Protestants, it was not so easy to call off their 
 prey. They became furious and menacing when they learnt 
 that he had shown a willingness to parley with those whom 
 they hated and believed at their mercy. And he, resuming 
 his former policy, but seeing that he needed aid to carry it 
 out, set himself to work, with greater violence than ever, to 
 rouse the native Irish and Roman Catholic population ; and 
 sent Mountjoy and Chief Baron Rice to France to implore 
 James at once to cross over and put himself at their head. 
 It seems certain that Rice was further instructed, if James 
 should hesitate to comply with the invitation, to address 
 himself to Louis, and to offer him Tyrconnel’s assistance to 
 make Ireland a province of France. 
 
 James, however, as we have seen, at once resolved to 
 undertake the enterprise. But in the few weeks which 
 elapsed between the departure of the embassy and his 
 arrival, the whole country presented a strange scene of 
 horror, such as no part of these kingdoms had witnessed 
 since the days of the Danes. Tyrconnel, at the same time 
 that he roused the native Irish, disarmed the Protestants. 
 Of the native Irish, nearly 50,000 obeyed his summons to 
 enlist. 1 An equal number, preferring the license of war to 
 the discipline of an army, roamed the country in large 
 
 1 "Now or never, now and for ever," was the motto which he em¬ 
 blazoned on the flag which waved over Dublin Castle. 
 
193 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 bodies, plundering, burning, and destroying the cattle which 
 were the chief riches of the people, and murdering the 
 owners whenever they fell into their hands. Their human 
 victims, however, were comparatively few; the greater part 
 saved themselves by timely flight, seeking refuge in the 
 North, the only district where the Viceroy’s authority was 
 not implicitly obeyed. And thus South and West gradually 
 contributed to swell the force which was gathering within 
 the walls of Londonderry, and the fugitives prepared to 
 requite the protection which the brave city afforded by 
 pouring out their blood in its defence. 
 
 In ordinary times the population of the city did not 
 exceed 6,000 or 7,000 souls ; but now it was computed that 
 30,000 were collected within its walls; such an accession 
 of numbers making the resistance at first more formid¬ 
 able, but in the end aggravating the horrors of the siege, 
 from the difficulty of providing supplies for so unaccustomed 
 a multitude. For, even before James landed at Kinsale, 
 Tyrconnel had sent a force to besiege Londonderry', under 
 the command of General Richard Hamilton. And the 
 importance of its reduction was so obvious that James re¬ 
 solved to hasten thither himself as soon as possible, think¬ 
 ing, perhaps, that those who made no scruple at resisting his 
 generals, would hesitate to oppose himself, when he was 
 known to be with the army. 
 
 So terrible, however, had been the devastation to which the 
 whole country had been subjected during the winter, that it 
 was difficult for him to procure horses to travel with, and it 
 was nearly a fortnight before he reached Dublin. There he 
 was detained for some weeks by the deliberations forced 
 upon him by the discordant views of different parties among 
 his followers. The native Irish, with Tyrconnel at their 
 
Siege of Derry. 
 
 199 
 
 head, shaped all their counsels by their desire to effect 
 a permanent separation between their own country and 
 England. D’Avaux and De Rosen, looking not at James’s 
 interests, but at those of their own Sovereign, aimed at the 
 same end, though for a different object. But those of 
 English and Scotch blood who had followed James to 
 St. Germains, and who still accompanied him, desired the 
 establishment of his authority in Ireland as a means 
 towards the recovery of England. 
 
 Their views were those which he himself shared, and to 
 carry them out, having made all necessary arrangements in 
 Dublin, and having ordered the issue of writs for a Parlia¬ 
 ment which was to meet on the 7th of May, at the end of 
 the second week in April he marched northward, and on 
 the morning of the 18th came in sight of Londonderry. 
 De Rosen, who now superseded Hamilton, promised him an 
 easy conquest: to a military eye, the fortifications of the city 
 seemed untenable. And the citizens had even a worse foe 
 to contend with than the weakness of their defences; for 
 Colonel Lundy, whom Lord Mountjoy had left as Governor 
 of the garrison, agreed with De Rosen in thinking all 
 resistance hopeless, and with a treachery which probably 
 owed its origin chiefly to timidity, put himself in communi¬ 
 cation with the enemy, and promised to surrender instantly. 
 He even sent back two regiments which had arrived from 
 England a few days before; and, as soon as the first 
 companies of De Rosen’s army came in sight, he issued 
 peremptory orders that no one should fire upon them. 
 
 His very pusillanimity, by the indignation which it in¬ 
 spired, gave new strength to the citizens, and was fatal to 
 none but himself. The citizens rose as one man to disown 
 his authority. Two officers of lower rank, Major Baker 
 
200 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 and Captain Murray, guided their earnest vigour, and were 
 admirably assisted by a coadjutor whose profession might 
 have seemed inconsistent with such a task, but in whom 
 zeal for his religion overruled all other considerations, 
 George Walker, rector of a rural parish in the neighbour¬ 
 hood, who, like so many others, had sought shelter within the 
 walls from the fury of the Popish soldiery and ravagers. They 
 had some difficulty in saving Lundy from the rage of those 
 whom he had designed to betray : however, he escaped by 
 night in disguise; and the citizens, dividing the authority of 
 Governor between a soldier and a civilian, entrusted Baker 
 with the military command, and Walker with the super¬ 
 intendence of all civil affairs, in which they included the 
 commissariat, a charge of as great difficulty as importance 
 when the mouths to be fed were out of all proportion to 
 the supplies to be obtained. Walker, too, brought religious 
 enthusiasm to add its fire and stubbornness to the zeal for 
 civil liberty. At his bidding the clergy of every denomina¬ 
 tion, Presbyterians as well as Churchmen, invited soldiers 
 and citizens to daily service in all the churches. And thus, 
 even before the hostile army was in a position to attack, a 
 spirit of unconquerable resistance was kindled in every 
 breast. 
 
 The summons to surrender to which Lundy had engaged 
 to yield, now that he was gone, was rejected with disdain; 
 a weak attempt to bribe Captain Murray met with no better 
 reception; and when he had thus learned that the reduction 
 of the rebellious city would not be the brief and easy busi¬ 
 ness which he had at first expected, James returned to 
 Dublin, taking De Rosen with him, and entrusting the 
 conduct of the siege to M. Maumont, a French Lieutenant- 
 General, with another French officer, Brigadier Pusignan, 
 
Siege of Derry. 
 
 201 
 
 and Hamilton, as second and third in command. The 
 Frenchmen were both soon killed, and Hamilton was left 
 in sole command. How fruitless were his exertions, with 
 what indomitable and successful courage the heroic garrison 
 and equally intrepid citizens baffled the utmost efforts of his 
 skill, and of that of De Rosen, who at the end of two 
 months was sent back to resume the command, has been 
 related at length, in words that burn, by the brilliant his¬ 
 torian of these events. 
 
 The besiegers soon turned the siege into a blockade, 
 throwing a strong boom across the river below the city, 
 and thus barring the only channel by which supplies or 
 reinforcements could be looked for. The very coarsest 
 food soon became scarce, the scarcity soon became famine. 
 One flotilla, abundantly loaded with men and provisions, 
 which had been sent from England for the supply of the 
 city, did, indeed, make its appearance in Lough Foyle in 
 the middle of June, but the hopes which the sight of its 
 sails raised were cruelly disappointed. For some inexplic¬ 
 able reason William had entrusted the command of it to 
 the infamous Colonel Kirke, and he, who was not likely to 
 be moved by the consideration or even the sight of human 
 suffering, showed how little such indifference is a sign of 
 courage. He pronounced the boom, guarded as it was by 
 land batteries at each end, too strong to be attacked, and, 
 without making a single attempt to succour the famishing 
 multitude whom he had been sent to deliver, retired in 
 infamous inactivity to the entrance of the Lough. His 
 retreat might well have struck the citizens with despair. 
 Already famine was thinning their ranks; Baker himself 
 had succumbed to it. The survivors were stinted to di¬ 
 minishing rations of loathsome food. De Rosen, with a 
 
202 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 barbarity of which even war presents but few examples, had 
 sought to aggravate their misery by driving under the walls 
 the few peasants and farmers who had remained to till the 
 adjacent districts, and hemming them in to die of starva¬ 
 tion before the eyes of their friends and kinsmen in the 
 city. Many perished, till the indignation even of his own 
 officers compelled the inhuman foreigner to withdraw his 
 order, and to release those who survived. 
 
 But the intelligence of Kirke’s cowardly and treacherous 
 supineness had awakened one general feeling of indigna¬ 
 tion in England. It reached Schomberg, whom William 
 had just named Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, and who, 
 while preparing to cross over, exercised his authority by 
 sending a peremptory order to Kirke to relieve the town 
 at all risks. It reached him when, even of such wretched 
 rations as they had been long confined to, the garrison 
 had scarcely enough to last two days more. He knew 
 that Schomberg was not a commander to be trifled with. 
 He dared not disobey; and then it was seen how easily the 
 work might have been accomplished six weeks before. 
 Yet, even then, he did not himself venture on any bold 
 deed to save the city; he only allowed others to do so. 
 
 The masters of two merchantmen, laden with provisions, 
 Micaiah Browning, of the “Mountjoy,” and Andrew Douglas, 
 of the “ Phoenix,” who had long been grumbling at the inac¬ 
 tion in which he had kept them, offered to risk their ships 
 in the endeavour to effect an entrance; Captain Leake, of 
 the “ Dartmouth ” frigate, volunteered to escort them and to 
 protect them from the batteries on shore, and Kirke per¬ 
 mitted the attempt to be made, but took no part in it. On 
 the afternoon of the 28th of July, as the tide began to 
 rise, the three vessels moved steadily up the stream: the 
 
Relief of Derry. 
 
 203 
 
 wind, too, was fair. The enemy, who saw their advance long 
 before they came in sight of the citizens, mustered fiercely 
 to oppose them, for the only navigable channel was on the 
 left side of the stream, close under their camp ; but the 
 guns of the “ Dartmouth ” were far more powerful than theirs, 
 and Leake was one of the most skilful and boldest men in 
 the service. Under cover of his fire, the “ Mountjoy” dashed 
 against the boom. She broke it, but recoiled from the 
 shock, and for a brief time seemed stranded in the mud. 
 The “ Phoenix,” however, which was close behind, passed 
 swiftly through the opening which she had made; the 
 rising tide soon floated the “Mountjoy,” and she, too, sailed 
 through. By ten at night the vessels had reached the quay; 
 they were quickly unloaded, for the whole body of citizens 
 hastened down to aid in the work ; before midnight plenty 
 had taken the place of starvation. The town was saved; 
 and, though for a day or two longer the besiegers kept up 
 an ineffectual fire, it was hardly regarded. On the last night 
 of the month they set fire to the camp, and at daybreak 
 on the 1 st of August the sentries on the walls saw them in 
 full retreat. 
 
 The day before James’s arms had met with another 
 disaster in Fermanagh. The only other place of importance 
 in the North was Enniskillen, in which the Protestants from 
 the West had taken refuge ; and, as the garrison there, 
 though equally resolute, was far weaker than that of London¬ 
 derry, it seemed that it must be easy to reduce it by a 
 single vigorous effort. Accordingly Lord Mountcashel was 
 sent with 5,000 men to carry the place by assault. As a 
 preliminary operation he laid siege to the small fort of 
 Crum, on the borders of the county. But Colonel Wolseley, 
 who commanded at Enniskillen, was an officer of rare 
 
204 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 capacity and enterprise. He was not content with 
 defending his own town; but determined to save Crum 
 also. And, though he could not muster much above half 
 Mountcashel’s numbers, he marched out to bring him to 
 battle. He knew well how much better half-disciplined 
 troops, such as his, fight in attack than in defence. 
 
 Mountcashel, on the contrary, though far the stronger, 
 fought as if he were the weaker. He retreated before the 
 advancing Enniskilleners, never halting till, after passing 
 through the petty town of Newton Butler, from which the 
 action that ensued has taken its name, he reached a hill with 
 a morass in its front, which cavalry could only cross by one 
 narrow causeway. On the lower slopes of the hill he drew up 
 his men, and planted his guns so as to sweep the causeway. 
 But neither can bogs stop nor batteries daunt resolute men, 
 especially when, as happened in this instance, religious 
 enthusiasm stimulated their natural courage. Wolseley had 
 given “ No Popery” as the word of the day; and his men 
 fought as if they considered themselves the champions of 
 Protestantism, and knew the cause of their religion to depend 
 on their swords. They struggled through the bog and 
 stormed the batter) 7 . As soon as it was silenced, the cavalry 
 charged fiercely up the causeway. The whole of Mount- 
 cashel’s men seemed as if they were panic-stricken. 
 Dragoons, 1 cavalry, and infantry, vied with one another in 
 headlong and confused flight. Four hundred were taken 
 prisoners, among whom was Mountcashel himself; nearly 
 2,000 were slain, their guns, their ammunition, and their 
 colours all becoming the prize of the conquerors, who would 
 have covered themselves with glory if they had not in some 
 
 ' The dragoon was, as yet, rather a mounted infantry soldier than a 
 cavalry trooper. 
 
James holds an Irish Parliament. 205 
 
 degree tarnished it by the ferocity with which they slaughtered 
 the unresisting fugitives. 
 
 But, serious to James as were these disasters, both in 
 themselves and as indications of the probable result of his 
 endeavours to re-establish his authority over the whole island, 
 they were yet far less injurious to his prospects of ultimate 
 success, if the feelings of England and Scotland were also 
 to be taken into consideration, than the conduct of his own 
 partisans, or of those who called themselves such, when they 
 met with no resistance, or could overpower all opposition. 
 
 The Parliament had met in Dublin in the second week of 
 May. It was composed almost wholly of Roman Catholics. 
 Not one lay Protestant Peer attended, though four Bishops 
 took their seats, probably from a religious scruple as to the 
 propriety of disobeying a Royal summons. In the House 
 of Commons the recent remodelling of the municipal 
 charters, and the general terror that had prevailed during 
 the elections, had so commonly prevented Protestants from 
 offering themselves as candidates, that out of 250 members 
 only six belonged to the Established Church. It was there¬ 
 fore, to all intents and purposes, a purely Roman Catholic 
 Parliament, and it lost no time in showing the Protestants 
 how little mercy, or even how little justice, they could expect 
 at its hands. 
 
 James opened the session himself in state, with a short 
 speech which almost wore the appearance of a design to 
 make the breach between himself and his English subjects 
 irreconcilable. For he invited a reconsideration of the 
 Acts of Settlement, and there could be no doubt that recon¬ 
 sideration was understood to mean repeal. He made osten¬ 
 tatious profession of his obligations to Louis; and even the 
 third topic on which he dwelt, his resolution to abolish 
 
206 The English Revolution. 
 
 religious disabilities, however commendable it might have 
 been if fairly carried out, was notoriously one which a large 
 section of English statesmen regarded with any feeling 
 rather than favour. 
 
 The Houses sat only ten weeks, but in that short time 
 they passed acts overturning all the existing laws relating to 
 religion; abrogating the most important laws respecting 
 property; and threatening the lives of all the most respect¬ 
 able men in the kingdom. They did indeed pass one 
 humane and wise law granting liberty of conscience in 
 matters of religion to all Christians. But they soon showed 
 that they meant it to be. a dead letter to all but Roman 
 Catholics. By one of their subsequent enactments they 
 transferred the tithes from the Protestant to the Roman 
 Catholic clergy. By another, which was received with a 
 loud cheer when it was brought in, and was carried by 
 acclamation, they repealed the Act of Settlement; the 
 effect of this measure being to strip the Protestants of their 
 estates, the possession of which previous laws had secured 
 to them, and to hand the property over to Roman Catholics. 
 And this measure was so clearly pernicious as well as 
 iniquitous, that James himself, though he had recommended 
 it in his opening speech, was brought by the arguments of 
 its opponents to deprecate it; though he could not prevent 
 the Houses from voting it, and did not dare to refuse his 
 assent to it. Indeed, his most earnest supporters openly 
 made their support of his authority conditional on his 
 consent. 
 
 Another enactment confiscated all the estates of ab¬ 
 sentees ; and, as it vested them in the King himself, was 
 manifestly intended to have the same effect of enriching 
 Roman Catholics at their expense, since James could 
 
The Irish Act of Attainder. 
 
 20 7 
 
 not venture, nor was he likely to be inclined, to confer 
 them on any new owners blit those of his own religion. 
 Another, which, indeed, preceded those which have been 
 mentioned as a necessary preliminary to them, was so open 
 a defiance of England, that it was plain that, if James 
 should recover his authority there, it could not be main¬ 
 tained without a civil war. It annulled the authority of the 
 English Parliament in Ireland both as a legislative body 
 find as a Court of Appeal. Violent and lawless as these 
 measures were, they were far outdone by one which followed; 
 which was not exceeded in atrocity by any act of the 
 French revolutionists in the next century; and to which no 
 previous measure of persecution in any country afforded a 
 parallel. 
 
 The two Houses passed an Act of Attainder against nearly 
 3,000 persons as rebels, though it did not charge against them 
 a single overt act; but, in the case of the majority, inferred 
 their disaffection from their absence from the kingdom; and, 
 in the case of many, had not even that argument to ad¬ 
 duce against them. 1 No class, no sex, no age was exempted. 
 Prelates, lay Peers, women, and minors, were equally in¬ 
 cluded, in some instances even common tradesmen, who had 
 the misfortune of having members of Parliament in their 
 debt, to whom the proscription of their creditor seemed the 
 easiest way of discharging his account. Those who were 
 named might, indeed, save themselves by surrendering 
 before a certain fixed day; but this provision was but a 
 cruel mockery, since the list of attainted persons was not 
 
 1 In 1696, Montague justified the attainder of Sir John Fenwick by 
 the necessity of taking care that James should never be in a position to 
 pass such a wholesale Act of Attainder as he had proclaimed in Ireland.— 
 Macaulay, vol. IV., p. 754. 
 
208 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 published, but was kept secret in the Chancellor’s desk till 
 after the day had past; while one clause in the Bill even 
 limited the King's prerogative of mercy, and enacted that 
 if he should grant a pardon to any one mentioned in the 
 act after the end of November, it should be void and of 
 no effect. And this horrible and unprecedented enactment 
 James also ratified by his Royal Assent, though his friends 
 afterwards pleaded in his excuse that it had been given 
 with reluctance. 
 
 It was hardly strange that while all these bills for the 
 destruction of Protestantism were being passed almost with¬ 
 out discussion, the mob anticipated their effect, and in every 
 part of the country began to commit the most cruel outrages 
 on every Protestant within their reach. The municipal 
 authorities of Dublin took upon themselves, without waiting 
 for any new Statute, to treat Trinity College worse than 
 even Magdalen University had been treated at Oxford. 
 They seized the books in the library, the communion 
 plate in the Chapel, expelled the scholars and fellows, and 
 turned some of the rooms into barracks, and the rest into 
 cells for prisoners ; the Governor even making a favour 
 of allowing those who were thus ejected to depart in 
 freedom. 
 
 And while all these iniquities were being perpetrated by 
 his adherents in his name, James himself, by an act of his 
 own, contrived to inflict a still more general injustice on 
 the whole people. His Exchequer was empty. Revenue 
 depends on trade and prosperity ; and the universal panic 
 which now existed had put an end to both. He exercised 
 his prerogative of coining money to issue a base coinage. 
 Gold and silver were unattainable, so brass was substituted, 
 which was procured by the pillage of the ironmongers’ shops, 
 
James adulterates the Coinage. 209 
 
 and even of the citizens’ kitchens; and of this base and 
 worn-out metal coins were issued with the name of shillings 
 and guineas, but of less than the value of farthings. And all 
 dealers were compelled to take them ; while, to keep up their 
 value, a royal proclamation denounced the penalty of death 
 against any one who presumed to give more than thirty- 
 eight of these brass shillings for a golden guinea; and the 
 governor forbade the shopkeepers to raise their prices, or to 
 refuse to sell their g^uds, and constables and soldiers were 
 entrusted with the duty of seeing that his order was obeyed. 
 Every dealer in every kind of article was thus compelled to 
 sell his wares for less than a hundredth part of their value. 
 The distress was universal; the indignation was as wide and 
 as deep as the distress. And the great historian of these 
 times traces, in all probability with perfect truth, the strange 
 outcry which in the reign of George I. was raised against 
 Wood’s halfpence, and of which the memory has been pre¬ 
 served to our day by the Drapier’s letters, to the recollection 
 of the wrong done and the suffering caused by James’s brass 
 money. 
 
 The Parliament was prorogued in the latter part of July, 
 just before De Rosen’s retreat from Londonderry, and Mount- 
 cashel’s rout at Newton Butler showed that the war must be 
 a protracted one ; and just before William, who in the ear¬ 
 liest part of the year had been too fully occupied in England 
 to give Irish affairs the attention they required, began to 
 show his appreciation of the important character of the 
 struggle in that part of the kingdom, and his resolution to 
 make more vigorous exertions to bring it to an early ter¬ 
 mination. One of the motives which had led De Rosen 
 to abandon the siege of Londonderry was the conviction 
 that his army would do James better service by opposing 
 
 p 
 
210 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Schomberg, 1 who, as he had just learnt, was on the point of 
 crossing over to Ireland ; and who, in fact, did land at 
 the mouth of the Belfast Lough in the middle of August. 
 It was a motley army which he brought with him; for the 
 diplomatic abilities of William had been rewarded some 
 months before by a general coalition against Louis, of 
 Germany, Spain, the States of Holland, and Prussia, not yet 
 a kingdom, but already giving indications of the ambition 
 and power which, even before the end of William’s reign, 
 enabled her ruler to extort the acknowledgment of his 
 kingly rank from the other monarchs of Europe. 
 
 As William himself was the founder and soul of the coali¬ 
 tion, his new kingdom could not be backward in the cause. 
 Both Houses of the English Parliament had warmly entered 
 into his views ; war had been declared against France in the 
 second week in May ; and the flower of the English army 
 had been placed under Marlborough’s command and sent 
 to Flanders. What English soldiers, therefore, could be given 
 to the old Marshal for service in Ireland were but raw 
 recruits. The flower of his army was composed of some 
 regiments of French refugees who had been driven from 
 the service of their native country by the same persecution 
 which had made an exile of Schomberg himself; and of a 
 division of Dutch troops under Count Solines, an officer of 
 their own nation, whom William regarded with a high degree 
 of that favour which he reserved exclusively for his own 
 countrymen, but which he was forced to modify, or at least 
 to conceal, after the indignation of all England had been 
 roused by the jealous treachery with which Solrnes betrayed 
 the British regiments under Mackay, sacrificed that gallant 
 
 1 Memoires de Marechal de Berwick, ecrits par lui-meme.—Yol. I., 
 p. 60. 
 
Schomberg lands in Ireland. 211 
 
 officer, and endangered the life of William himself on the 
 bloody field of Steinkirk. 
 
 The whole force which Schomberg brought with him did 
 not exceed 10,000 men ; but it was reckoned that Ulster, 
 and the English regiments already in Ulster, would furnish an 
 equal number. And William had good reasons to trust to 
 the old Marshal’s experience and capacity to supply all 
 deficiencies, and to make him fully a match for the greater 
 numbers which were*at the disposal of De Rosen and James. 
 And the veteran did him service such as few other men 
 then alive could have done; which William himself could 
 appreciate ; but which was not that which the impatience ot 
 the coffee-house politicians in England were looking for. 
 They calculated on an early battle and a decisive victory. 
 Schomberg soon ascertained that his army was in no con¬ 
 dition to fight. The larger half had to learn the very rudi¬ 
 ments of discipline. And, under the irregular, careless and 
 corrupt system which had prevailed in every department of 
 the Administration during the last two reigns, the commis¬ 
 sariat had fallen into such disorder that the equipments of 
 every kind were in a worse condition than the men them¬ 
 selves. The clothing was scanty and bad in quality; the 
 provisions were mouldy; the very weapons were rotten. All 
 that he could attempt was to keep the enemy in check and 
 prevent them from doing harm, and to discipline and 
 prepare his own army for battle on a future day. And 
 this he did. 
 
 He advanced to the southern frontier of Ulster, and 
 took up an entrenched position near Dundalk, from which 
 De Rosen did not dare to tiy to dislodge him. For De 
 Rosen, who was encamped to the south of the same town, 
 was equally dissatisfied with the state of his troops; and, not 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 suspecting that Schomberg’s were in equally bad condition, 
 had resolved to retreat further if the old Marshal advanced 
 further. But the autumn only rendered Schomberg’s army 
 more ineffective than ever; for Dundalk lies low; the season 
 was unusually wet even for Ireland ; the ground on which he 
 was encamped became a marsh, and bred fever and pesti¬ 
 lence among the men, till disease gradually reduced his effec¬ 
 tive army to little more than half its original numbers. But 
 still he held his ground, till, in November, De Rosen with¬ 
 drew into winter quarters 3 and then he also did the same, 
 falling back to the neighbourhood of Belfast, the port by 
 which alone he communicated with England, and fixed his 
 own head-quarters at Lisburn. 
 
 Throughout the winter, great and successful exertions 
 were made to place his army on a better footing. Schom- 
 berg continued busily to train his own men, and a steady 
 stream of reinforcements came over from England, till by 
 the spring of the next year 30,000 men were ranged under 
 his banner. And, what was of equal importance, supplies 
 of all sorts, food, tents, arms, and means of transport were 
 sent over in abundance. By the end of May the best ap¬ 
 pointed army that had ever been seen in Ireland was ready 
 to take the field, and it was understood that William 
 himself was coming to place himself at its head. * The 
 intelligence was correct. On the 14th of June he landed at 
 Carrickfergus, took the command of the army, and at once 
 prepared for active operations. 
 
 It was a critical moment for him to leave England, for 
 he was aware that a numerous body of malcontents were 
 holding treasonable communications with France; and that 
 Louis was projecting an invasion of the island, and had 
 already a fleet in the Channel far superior to any which 
 
James procures Troops from France. 213 
 
 the utmost efforts of our Admiralty could provide to en¬ 
 counter it. But he felt that, even in the event of a naval 
 disaster, he could trust to the innate spirit of Englishmen 
 to make an invasion impossible, or, if a landing were 
 effected, to make England the grave or the prison of every 
 foreign soldier who should set foot in it. And he rightly 
 judged that Irish affairs would admit of no delay in deal¬ 
 ing with them, while a decisive success gained in that 
 country would be the best security of all against an attempt 
 at an invasion of England, since it would deprive it of an 
 object. As he said himself, he had not come to Ireland 
 to let the grass grow under his feet. He was therefore 
 desirous to bring matters to an immediate issue by a battle ; 
 and as soon as possible after his landing he began his march 
 towards the south. 
 
 James, on his part, was equally anxious to decide the 
 quarrel by an appeal to arms; and, as soon as the news of 
 his son-in-law’s presence in Ireland reached him at Dublin, 
 he quitted the capital, and marched northward along the 
 coast to meet him. He, too, was full of confidence. He 
 had not, like Schomberg, spent the winter in disciplining 
 the troops whose military qualities De Rosen had held so 
 lightly in the preceding autumn; but he had made an 
 exchange which he rated at a very high value. He had 
 sent Louis some thousands of his Irishmen to serve in the 
 French armies, and he had received in their stead several 
 of those gallant French regiments which had carried terror 
 into every country of the continent, and were generally 
 accounted the best infantry in Europe. On the other 
 hand, had he been able to appreciate the difference between 
 the two commanders, he had sustained a loss which was 
 likely more than to counterbalance the superiority of the 
 
214 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 French to the Irish battalion. The Count Lauzun had 
 not unnaturally established for himself a solid footing in 
 the favour of James and his Queen by the gallantry and 
 address with which he had accomplished her escape to 
 France. He was now desirous to add to the credit he had 
 thus gained the glory of a successful general. He solicited 
 the command of the regiments to be sent to Ireland, and 
 easily persuaded both James and Mary of Modena to add 
 their solicitations to his. Louis, against his better judgment, 
 or rather against the judgment of his great war minister, 
 Louvois, yielded to their importunities, though the em¬ 
 ployment of Lauzun rendered it necessary to recall De 
 Rosen. 
 
 It was a most ill-advised change for James, for De 
 Rosen, in spite of his pitiless ferocity, was a skilful general, 
 and Lauzun had only the dashing gallantry of a knight- 
 errant, no genius for war, and none even of that experience 
 which often, in commanders not too severely tried, not in¬ 
 adequately supplies the place of genius. Lauzun soon found 
 out that it was unfortunate for himself also, for the beggarly 
 condition of the country, the savage ignorance of the lower 
 classes, the corruption of the higher ranks, and the quarrel¬ 
 some and unmanageable character of all, after a very short 
 residence among them, filled him -with disgust, not un¬ 
 mingled with despair. However, like a brave man as he 
 was, he resolved to do his best with the materials he had, 
 of which, to say the truth, he soon began to think James 
 himself among the worst. 
 
 On the 17th or 18th of June, he, with the King and tire 
 French regiments which he had brought over, marched 
 northwards to De Rosen’s camp of the preceding year, at 
 Ardee, a small town in Louth, a few miles to the south of 
 
William marches towards Dublin. 215 
 
 Dundalk; his entire force, when united, being something 
 under 30,000 men. 1 William collected his forces at Lough- 
 brickland, in the south of the county Down, and they at 
 a review were found to be 36,000. He had therefore a 
 decided superiority in number, and James determined to 
 retreat, though he was resolved not to abandon Dublin with¬ 
 out a battle. He fell back, and William pursued, at the 
 distance of a day’s march behind him, till at last, when 
 he reached the northern bank of the Boyne, opposite 
 a small suburb of Drogheda called Oldbridge, he saw 
 the Royal Standard side by side with the Lilies of 
 France on the walls of the town, and the southern bank 
 of the river lined with the army which he was chasing. 
 
 That was the ground which Lauzun had chosen for his 
 field of battle; and it was not ill-chosen, though when, 
 early in the morning of the 30th of June 2 William came 
 in sight of it, and saw the men and guns in position, his 
 language was that of undoubting exultation, “ I am glad 
 to see you gentlemen,” said he; “ if you escape me now, 
 the fault will be mine.” Yet he could not but acknow- 
 
 1 It is not possible to fix the number of James’s army precisely. Mac¬ 
 aulay, vol. III., p. 623, without giving his authority, calls it “probably 
 30,000 men." Burnet states it at 26,000 (vol. II., p. 477). The Duke of 
 Berwick, who was a man of scrupulous veracity, says William had 45,000, 
 and James only 23,000 (vol. I., p. 69). His estimate of William's force 
 must have been guess-work; but he must have had the best opportunity of 
 knowing the strength of the army in which he himself served. King 
 James himself in his Memoirs (quoted in Berwick, vol. I., p. 432), says he 
 had no more than 20,000, and the Prince of Orange from 40,000 to 50,000, 
 No reliance, however, can be placed on his calculations. Neither Dalrym- 
 ple nor Macpherson give any numbers. Smollett speaks of the two armies 
 as nearly equal. It seems probable that something between Berwick's and 
 Burnet's statements was nearest the truth. 
 
 2 The Duke of Berwick says William came in sight on the evening of 
 the 29th, but he is clearly wrong; he fixes the battle on the 30th. 
 
2 16 The English Revolution. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 ledge to himself that they could only be attacked at a 
 disadvantage which it would require all his superiority of 
 numbers to counterbalance. The river was not very wide, 
 but it was deep ; there was no bridge nearer than Slane, 
 nearly five miles higher up; and there were only two fords, 
 one at Oldbridge, the other a little lower down the stream, 
 nearer Drogheda itself. James’s whole army was stationed 
 as if to guard the ford at Oldbridge. He had had time 
 to strengthen his position with entrenchments and batteries, 
 and the banks were naturally steep. So great, indeed, was 
 the difficulty of forcing a passage, that Schomberg gave 
 his voice against making the attempt. But William, taking 
 a statesman’s view of his situation as well as a soldier’s, felt 
 that nothing could be so mischievous as the appearance of 
 hesitation, and issued orders that his whole army should be 
 prepared to cross the river the next morning at daybreak. 
 
 Yet there had nearly been no battle at all. In his eager¬ 
 ness to examine the enemy's position thoroughly, William 
 had kept close to'the bank of the river, and, as their front 
 lines were also close to the brink, he was so near to them 
 as to be distinctly recognized, when, in the course of the 
 morning, he sat down on the grass with his Staff, to take 
 some refreshment. The French artillerymen quickly 
 brought some guns to bear on the party, the first shot from 
 which killed the horse of Prince George of Hesse, and the 
 second struck William himself on the shoulder. A variation 
 of a few inches would have changed the whole subsequent 
 history of England, if not of Europe ; and for a moment, as 
 the King sank down under the shock, both armies believed 
 that he was killed. It was, however, soon ascertained that 
 he had received nothing worse than a slight flesh wound. 
 It was dressed, and he speedily reassured his anxious troops 
 
The Battle of the Boyne. 217 
 
 by showing himself again on horseback, and riding in review 
 through their lines. 
 
 The 1 st of July is a day which will never be forgotten in 
 Ireland. The morning was clear. Soon after four o’clock, 
 William was again on horseback, and began to put his 
 troops in motion. One brigade he sent up to cross Slane 
 Bridge and turn the enemy’s left flank, a movement which 
 had a most decisive influence on the ultimate fortune of 
 the day ; for Lauzun, seeing that a single regiment of 
 dragoons, which James had sent to hold the brigade in 
 check, was repulsed and routed, led his French troops and 
 a cavalry regiment, commanded by the celebrated Sars- 
 field, to encounter it; and thus the best soldiers in 
 James’s army were removed from Oldbridge, where the real 
 struggle was to take place, and the defence of that all- 
 important ford was left to the Irish regiments, which, under 
 the best generals, were but little to be depended on, and 
 which were now under no better guidance than that of James 
 himself, with Lord Tyrconnel and Hamilton, who had been 
 beaten at Newton Butler. 
 
 Hamilton did, indeed, behave with most conspicuous 
 courage. At first it seemed as if Schomberg’s division, 
 which comprised the whole main body of William’s army, 
 would be suffered to cross the river without opposition, for, 
 the moment that it reached the centre of the stream, all the 
 Irish infantry regiments fled, without venturing to cross 
 swords with the enemy, or even to fire a single shot, but 
 throwing away their colours, and even their arms, that no 
 such encumbrances might delay their flight. 1 But the cavalry 
 
 1 The Duke of Berwick (vol. I., p. 75), says, “ Nous ne perdions qu'en- 
 viron mille hommes, et il n'y eut que les troupes de M. Hamilt on et les 
 miennes qui combattirent.” 
 
218 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 was composed of better materials, and Hamilton, putting 
 himself at their head, plunged into the river, and for some 
 time maintained a desperate fight with the regiments of 
 French refugees, in whom Schomberg, not unnaturally, 
 placed great reliance. Had Lauzun been at hand to 
 support Hamilton as he deserved, his valour might have 
 had an important influence on the result of the battle. 
 The commander of the Frenchmen, a noble countryman 
 of their own, M. la Caillemotte, was struck down, and 
 Schomberg thought the moment so critical as to require 
 his personal exertions. Without waiting to put on his 
 cuirass, he plunged into the river, to supply la Caillemotte’s 
 place. “ Come on,” he cried to his men, who had wavered 
 on seeing their leader’s fall; “ come on, gentlemen, there 
 are your persecutors !” and he plunged into the fight. 
 
 William had lately made him a Knight of the Garter, 
 and he wore his blue ribbon on this day. Whether, as some 
 accounts state, 1 Hamilton’s men mistook him for William 
 himself, and singled him out as the special mark for their 
 utmost exertions, or whether, as others report, in the 
 confusion some of his own soldiers shot him from' behind, 
 is uncertain, but he fell dead. Luckily, William himself 
 came up at the moment on the southern side of the river. 
 He had had a second narrow escape, for the tide was 
 flowing when he crossed, and was running with such strength 
 as to carry his horse off his legs. But at last he landed 
 safely, and galloped at once to the scene of action. His 
 dangers were not yet over. Hamilton’s troopers, though now 
 attacked on both sides, still fought stoutly; friend and foe 
 
 1 The Duke of Berwick, ib. — “Schomberg fut tu£ par un exempt et 
 quelques gardes-du-corps, lesquels le prirent, a cause de son cordon bleu, 
 pour le Prince d'Orange." - 
 
The Battle of the Boyne. 
 
 219 
 
 were mingled together, and in the height of the struggle 
 an Enniskillen dragoon put a pistol to William’s head. 
 The King calmly put it aside with his hand. “ What,” said 
 he, “ do you not know your friends ?” He was recognized, 
 and with a loud cheer the dragoons closed round him to 
 protect him for the future, and pressed on the enemy with 
 a resolution that became men who had such a leader. At 
 last, after performing prodigies of valour, Hamilton himself 
 was severely wounded, and taken prisoner, and with his 
 capture the battle was over. James himself had taken no 
 part in the battle, contenting himself with watching it from a 
 hill in the rear during its earlier conflicts ; but, when the 
 French regiments began to make their way through the 
 stream, and William came up on his side of the river, he 
 was seized with alarm lest his retreat should be cut off, and 
 fled with precipitation to Dublin. 
 
 The loss on both sides was very slight. The defeated 
 army did not lose above 1,000 men, for indeed the greater 
 part of it ran away without even coming to blows. Those 
 who fell on William’s side did not exceed half that number; 
 but the deaths of M. la Caillemotte and of Schomberg 
 might fairly have been reckoned to make the loss of the 
 two armies equal. Another man who had lately made him¬ 
 self a great reputation had also fallen, but without being 
 so much regretted by the conqueror. Walker, whose ex¬ 
 hortations and example had roused the citizens of Derry 
 to their noble resistance, had lately been rewarded with the 
 Bishopric. Certainly his place was no longer with an 
 army; but he had acquired a taste for fighting, and had 
 marched, uninvited and unwished for, to the Boyne. He 
 had plunged into the river with Schomberg, and had fallen 
 by a chance shot. But, when his death was reported, it 
 
220 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 produced no comment from William, who had no fancy 
 for seeing civilians, and much less parsons, interfering in 
 soldiers' work, but a half-indignant inquiry, “ What took 
 him to the ford?” which, had he survived, would have been 
 felt as more than half a reproof. 
 
22 I 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 James returns to France—William arrives in Dublin—He is repulsed from 
 Limerick by Sarsfield-He returns to England—The Earl of Marl¬ 
 borough reduces Cork and Kinsale—The French regiments are with¬ 
 drawn—The Rapparees—General St. Ruth takes the command — 
 William goes with Marlborough to Flanders —General Ginkell com¬ 
 mands in Ireland—Ginkell takes Athlone—The Battle of Aghrim — 
 Galway surrenders—Sarsfield throws himself into Limerick—The 
 two treaties of Limerick—Many of Sarsfield's soldiers emigrate 
 with him to France. 
 
 James fled with such speed, that he reached Dublin that 
 very evening. The next morning he summoned the Lord 
 Mayor, and some of the principal citizens who adhered to 
 him, and announced to them his intention to return to 
 France without delay. The loss of the battle he attributed 
 to the cowardice of the Irish troops, and declared that he 
 would never command an Irish army again; but they, when 
 they heard his denunciation of them, threw the blame 
 with quite as much justice on himself. “ Complaints of 
 cowardice,” they said, “ came ill from him who had been 
 the first to fly,” and “ if the English would only change 
 Kings with them, they would fight the battle over again.” 
 
 It is certain, however, that James himself had not 
 originally been a coward. In the battle of the Downs, he 
 had led a brigade of Irish royalists against the English 
 division with a gallantry which had earned the praise of 
 
222 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 the intrepid Conde. He had been Commander-in-Chief 
 in the great victory which, in the summer of 1665, his 
 brother’s fleet had gained over the Dutch; but ever since 
 William had landed in Torbay, he had seemed unmanned ; 
 his every act was weak, wavering, and timorous; and he 
 was never resolute except when some shameful piece of 
 pusillanimous folly was to be committed; as when he 
 twice fled from England in the preceding year, and fled 
 from Ireland now. 
 
 On dismissing the Lord Mayor he once more mounted 
 his horse and continued his flight. Riding all day and all 
 night, with only two brief halts to take refreshment, he 
 reached Waterford the next morning; there he found a 
 small vessel in which he coasted to Kinsale ; a French 
 frigate conveyed him to Brest, and from Brest he proceeded 
 to St.'Germains, which he scarcely ever quitted again during 
 his life. He seemed not the least cast down by his re¬ 
 verses, but told the whole story of his late campaign, his 
 defeat, and his escape from the field of battle, to every one 
 who would listen to him, with as great indifference as if 
 his own fortunes had not been involved in it. But the 
 French nobles, whose feelings of loyal respect were more 
 than once severely tried in this reign by the care with which 
 their own Sovereign kept himself out of danger, felt nowise 
 bound to conceal their sentiments on the pusillanimity of a 
 foreign Prince; and remarked to one another that they 
 only required to hear the King of England tell his own 
 story to understand why he was at St. Germains and his 
 son-in-law at St. James’s. 
 
 Not that the Irish war was over with his flight. Lauzun 
 had collected the relics of his army, and had followed him 
 to Dublin, reaching that city at daybreak on the 2nd; but, 
 
William besieges Limerick. 
 
 223 
 
 not venturing to remain there, he marched westward with 
 Tyrconnel, traversing the whole island till he reached 
 Limerick. William also had hastened to Dublin, where, 
 on the Sunday after the battle, he went in state, with the 
 royal crown on his head, to St. Patrick’s Cathedral to 
 return thanks to God for his victory; and he had intended, 
 after making himself master of Waterford, that he might 
 secure a safe harbour for the reception of reinforcements 
 and supplies, to return to England. But intelligence which 
 he presently received from the Queen, determined him to 
 remain a little longer; and early in August he marched 
 against Limerick, hoping to finish the war by the reduction 
 of that city, which now contained all that was left of James’s 
 army. From the reports of its condition which had reached 
 him, he believed that it could not resist his attack for a 
 single day; and Lauzun agreed with him; pronouncing-with 
 a contempt that exceeded his, that “ the ramparts might be 
 battered down with roasted apples.” 
 
 But Sarsfield, whose value the praises of the French 
 officers had with difficulty led James to appreciate, thought 
 otherwise. He had naturally a better opinion of his own 
 countrymen than was entertained by the gay and rash 
 Frenchman ; was confident that they would fight resolutely 
 enough if resolutely led; and felt proudly conscious that 
 he could both raise and restrain their courage. There was 
 no doubt that to hold Limerick was an object of the 
 greatest importance, if, after the Boyne, there was any 
 possibility of eventual success; so Lauzun gladly con¬ 
 sented to his making the attempt. He himself, with Tyr¬ 
 connel, retired with his French infantry to Galway, and left 
 Sarsfield with the Irish divisions, whose numbers had been 
 very little diminished, and which still amounted to 20,000 
 
224 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 men, to defend the city, with the aid of a French general 
 named Boisseleau, who, as Sarsfield was but a brigadier, was 
 nominally Commander-in-Chief; and who was not unfit for 
 the post, since he shared Sarsfield’s opinion of Irish courage 
 when bravely commanded. The French cavalry, too, 
 3,500 strong, was left behind to watch for any opportunity 
 of aiding the garrison, or of impeding the King’s opera¬ 
 tions, under the command of the young Duke of Berwick, 
 who already began to give indications of that military 
 talent, which eventually won him a high reputation among 
 the great captains of his adopted country. 
 
 On the 8th, William reconnoitred the defences in person, 
 and his examination so entirely confirmed the description 
 which he had received of their inability to stand a 
 cannonade, that he at once summoned the Governor to 
 surrender; but Boisseleau replied that “he wished to gain 
 the Prince of Orange’s good opinions, and that he could 
 not expect it if he did not defend his post well.” Not 
 that he, or even Sarsfield himself, believed that the walls 
 could resist the fire of a heavy battering train. But Sars¬ 
 field had already conceived the possibility of preventing 
 such an attack from being brought against them. 
 
 William had outmarched his guns, which, with a long 
 train of ammunition and provision-waggons, was follow¬ 
 ing him slowly; but, as the body of his army was of 
 course with the King, Sarsfield conjectured that the train 
 could be but slenderly guarded, and resolved to intercept it. 
 Stealing out of the city by night with a strong body of 
 cavalry, he crossed the Shannon at Killaloe, and moving 
 onwards through the wild mountain district which lies 
 beyond that great river, he learnt the next day that the 
 train was at hand. Fie kept his men back till night once 
 
Defence of Limerick. 
 
 225 
 
 more brought darkness to aid his plans, and then, when 
 the artillerymen and escort, secure that their army was 
 between them and any possible enemy, were all asleep, he 
 fell upon them. The surprise was complete; every man 
 but one was killed, and he was taken prisoner. Guns, 
 ammunition, and provisions all were captured; Sarsfield 
 destroyed the whole, and returned triumphantly to Limerick, 
 where his brilliant success, the very first which his side had 
 achieved since the beginning of the war, raised the spirits of 
 the whole garrison. 
 
 They now fought gallantly, and they fought every day ; for 
 William was not of a temper to abandon his purpose for a 
 single disaster. He constructed a battery of his field-pieces, 
 and even they were powerful enough to breach such walls 
 as those before him. The garrison, on their part, daily replied 
 by a vigorous fire, which more than once endangered William 
 himself, whose disregard of his personal safety frequently 
 excited the apprehensions, and even provoked the expostula¬ 
 tions, of his friends. But still the besiegers made way, though 
 slowly; and by the end of the month sufficient impression 
 had been made to warrant William in resolving on an 
 assault. In truth, he could wait no longer, for he had 
 nearly expended his ammunition. The weather, too, which in 
 that part of Ireland is rarely dry in the autumn, began to 
 give tokens of an impending change; and the losses which 
 Schomberg’s army had sustained in the preceding years 
 afforded a grave warning not to expose the troops again to 
 Irish rains. 
 
 Accordingly, early in the afternoon of the 27 th of 
 August, a picked body of stormers marched to the 
 breach. The garrison was taken by surprise, for such 
 attacks were usually made under cover of the night, and 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 the stormers easily forced their way into the town. But 
 Sarsfield and his officers soon rallied their troops; the 
 narrowness of the streets was eminently in favour of the 
 less disciplined soldiers, and a terrible conflict took place. 
 The citizens and even the women took part in the struggle 
 with stones and missies of all kinds. Boisseleau sprang a 
 mine, which caused great slaughter and greater confusion. 
 One Irish officer, Brigadier Talbot, quitting the city by the 
 gate with 500 men, passed under the walls, and re-entered 
 again by the breach so as to take the storming party in the 
 rear. After a fight of some hours, the trumpets sounded a 
 retreat. The besiegers had lost, in killed and wounded, 
 above 1,500 men. 1 William confessed a defeat by asking 
 for a truce to bury his dead, which the Irish, in their exulta¬ 
 tion, refused. He had no means of renewing the contest, 
 for his powder was completely exhausted, and three days 
 afterwards he raised the siege, and crossing from Waterford 
 to Bristol, arrived in England on the 6th of September. 2 
 
 1 Macaulay says the storming party consisted of 500 Grenadiers. The 
 Duke of Berwick says, " Le Prince d' Orange fit donner l'assaut gdndral 
 par dix mille hommes.”—Vol. I., p. 77. 
 
 2 There has been some dispute as to the weather which prevailed during 
 the siege. Lord Macaulay, of course, adopts William's own statement that 
 his decision to raise the siege was in great measure caused by the heavy 
 rains, and quotes two other accounts, which assert that the rains had begun 
 to set in. On the other hand, the Duke of Berwick, who was in the imme¬ 
 diate neighbourhood, affirms, with express reference to William's excuse, 
 not only that there had not been a drop of rain for more than a month, but 
 “ qu'il ne plut pas de trois semaines apres ” (vol. I., p. 79). Neither Mac- 
 pherson nor Dalrymple mention the weather at all. But Burnet states one 
 fact which is irreconcilable with the belief that there had been much rain, 
 if any. His words are, “ They (the Irish) 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." It certainly would have been the 
 reverse of low if there had been the weather which Macaulay so graphi¬ 
 cally describes. And another remark of the Bishop, that " in that season 
 
The Earl of Marlborough's Expedition. 227 
 
 He left his army in Ireland, for so far was his own depar¬ 
 ture from implying any abandonment of the war, that strong 
 reinforcements were at the same time on the point of setting 
 sail from Portsmouth. 
 
 England, at this time, had in the Earl of Marlborough an 
 officer who, though as yet he had had but little opportunity 
 of displaying it, was endowed with an innate and instinc¬ 
 tive genius for war, of which Europe had hitherto seen no 
 equal example. And he, as a member of Mary’s Council 
 during the King’s absence, had pointed out some weeks 
 before that the French had evidently abandoned all idea of 
 invading England that year, and he consequently recom¬ 
 mended the despatch of a strong division to the south of 
 Ireland to reduce Cork and Kinsale, the two ports by which 
 the communication with France was chiefly maintained. 
 His suggestion was reported to the King, who approved the 
 plan, entrusting its execution to Marlborough himself. 
 
 The expedition was already waiting at Portsmouth for a 
 fair wind; and, a fortnight after William reached England, 
 Marlborough landed at Cork with 5,000 men. He was 
 joined by a division of about equal strength from the army 
 which had been withdrawn from Limerick, and he lost no 
 time. Cork was well fortified, and the garrison was abun¬ 
 dantly sufficient to man the works ; yet the siege only lasted 
 four days. A well-armed fort defended the harbour; the 
 task of silencing that Marlborough entrusted to the Admiral; 
 the ramparts he breached himself at a point where his keen 
 eye had detected a comparative weakness; and he was 
 
 it used to rain long, and by that means the Shannon would swell and the 
 ground would be apt to become deep,” seems to prove that it was the 
 apprehension of coming bad weather, rather than the experience of rain 
 which had already fallen, which chiefly determined William to retreat. 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 preparing to storm the breach when the garrison hung out 
 the white flag, and surrendered at discretion. 
 
 He did not lose a moment, but that very evening he sent 
 forward a brigade of cavalry to summon Kinsale. The 
 Irish were as resolute there as at Limerick ; but before such 
 a commander as Marlborough they were not more successful 
 than their comrades at Cork. The town was untenable, so 
 they set fire to it, and threw themselves into two forts which 
 had been constructed for its protection. He stormed one, 
 named the Old Fort, killing or capturing the whole of the 
 garrison. The other, the New Fort, was by far larger and 
 stronger, but he drove mines under the outworks, battered 
 the main walls, and in ten days had carried the counter¬ 
 scarp, and made a practicable breach in the ramparts. He 
 was preparing to storm .it when the governor capitulated on 
 condition of being allowed to withdraw his troops, a con¬ 
 cession well earned by the gallantry of his defence. But 
 all the stores of every kind, which were most abundant, as in 
 a place which had been the chief receptacle of supplies from 
 France, fell into the hands of the conqueror, who, before 
 the end of October, returned to England, having in five 
 weeks accomplished all that he had recommended to be 
 attempted, and having established the reputation, which no 
 one admitted more cheerfully than William himself, of 
 being as skilful in the execution as he was sagacious in 
 the conception of great enterprises. 
 
 And at the same time, though not in consequence of his 
 success, Lauzun returned to France. When he retired from 
 Limerick he reported the state of affairs in Ireland to his 
 government as wholly desperate; and recommended the 
 instant withdrawal of the French regiments. His advice 
 was taken, and transports were sent to the western coast to 
 
Outrages of the Rapparees. 
 
 229 
 
 bring off the men and himself. Yet even now France did 
 not wholly abandon the contest. Lauzun was accompanied 
 on his return to Paris by Tyrconnel; who, having no hope 
 but in the re-establishment of his old master, was urgent in 
 his entreaties for more assistance, though not exactly of the 
 kind that had been given before. He laid the blame of 
 most of the failures which had been experienced on the 
 jealousies that had arisen between the Irish and French 
 soldiers, but promised that if Louis would only supply them 
 with arms and ammunition, and some experienced officers 
 to guide their exertions, the Irish would be able to defend 
 themselves, and still to preserve the country for James. 
 
 His advice was taken. During the winter, the southern and 
 western counties of Ireland, wherever the English troops did 
 not keep the natives in awe, were in a state of anarchy and a 
 prey to the most miserable disorders. Gangs, under the new 
 name of Rapparees, traversed the country, burning, plunder¬ 
 ing, and often destroying what they could not carry away, 
 without hindrance from James’s troops, who connived at, if 
 they did not share in their outrages. But, with the spring, one 
 last attempt was made to continue the war. General St. Ruth, 
 who had made himself conspicuous in his own country by the 
 zeal with which he had persecuted the Huguenots, was sent 
 over with Tyrconnel from Paris to take the chief command; 
 he brought with him also General d’Usson and 200 officers 
 to discipline any new levies which might be raised, and 
 ample supplies of all kinds. Tyrconnel, too, brought a 
 patent of peerage by which James created Sarsfield Earl 
 of Lucan, though history has not acknowledged the title. 
 But the heroic Irishman did not need this tardy recognition 
 of his merits to stimulate him to further exploits, and during 
 the brief campaign that followed, co-operated with a perfect 
 
230 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 absence of national or professional jealousy with St. Ruth, 
 and was still the soul of the Irish army. 
 
 William had gone to Flanders to conduct the war in that 
 country, taking Marlborough with him ; and had appointed 
 a Dutch officer, General Ginkell, to the chief command in 
 Ireland. Fortunately General Mackay, who, though defeated 
 at Killiecrankie, had even in that day of disaster approved 
 himself a stout officer, and General Talmash, who, in the 
 campaign of the previous year in Flanders, had established 
 a high reputation for skill and courage, were now sent to 
 serve under him. For St. Ruth, in spite of his cruelty, was 
 a thorough soldier, energetic not only on the day of battle, 
 but in preparing for it, and skilful in establishing discipline 
 and order, and in rousing the spirit of his troops. The 
 whole French army could probably have furnished no 
 officer more suited to the work which had to be done, had 
 it not been that a constant jealousy existed between him 
 and Tyrconnel, and that he also regarded Sarsfield with 
 similar feelings. 
 
 In the latter part of June, Ginkell opened the campaign 
 by the siege of Athlone, a town lying almost exactly in the 
 centre of Ireland, and of great importance from its position 
 on both sides of the Shannon. The river at that point, and 
 for some distance on either side, forms the boundary of the 
 two provinces Leinster and Connaught; and the part of 
 the town which lies on the left bank, or in Leinster, was 
 called the English, that which lay on the right, or in Con¬ 
 naught, the Irish quarter. The two sections were united by a 
 narrow stone bridge, which was protected by a castle on 
 the right bank, built, as tradition reported, by King John. 
 The river was deep, but there was one narrow ford a short 
 distance lower down. To master the English quarter of 
 
The Siege of Athlone. 
 
 231 
 
 the town was easy; for, indeed, the greater part of it 
 had been burnt down in the preceding winter by the Irish 
 themselves. But on the Connaught side the Irish fought 
 valiantly, and the river opposed an almost impassable barrier 
 to the English troops. The bridge was so narrow that 
 superiority of numbers was of little avail; and, in the daily 
 conflicts which took place on it, fortune was nearly balanced. 
 
 After two or three days of heavy cannonade, Ginkell did 
 indeed beat in one side of the castle, and burnt one of two 
 mills which stood on the bridge, and which the garrison had 
 manned as outworks ; but at the same time his cannon-balls 
 injured the bridge itself, and rendered it unsafe to cross, 
 even if he could have forced it. He tried to repair it, but 
 the garrison destroyed his works with grenades. He began 
 to despair; while St. Ruth, who was encamped with his 
 whole army in the immediate neighbourhood, was so confi¬ 
 dent of eventual success, that he relieved the garrison with 
 a fresh detachment of inferior troops whom he thought now 
 sufficient to hold the town till the besiegers should withdraw. 
 Ginkell himself was nearly of his opinion. His provisions 
 were failing, while the injury done to the bridge made the 
 Connaught side of the town stronger than ever. He called 
 a council of war, a step rarely taken by men who are equal 
 to responsibility, and who see their way to victory, but 
 luckily the other generals were more hopeful than he. The 
 ford was undoubtedly deep and narrow, and the landing on 
 the other side was bad; but Talmash recommended that it 
 should be tried; if but a few could effect a safe passage, it 
 would then become practicable to throw pontoons across, 
 and, if the further bank were once won, victory would be 
 certain. 
 
 He was supported in his advice by the Marquis de 
 
232 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Ruvigny, the elder brother of La Caillemotte, who had 
 fallen at the Boyne, and by the Duke of Wurtemberg, who 
 had recently joined the army with a division of Danish 
 troops ; and Ginkell, though not without grave misgivings, 
 yielded, and gave orders that the attempt should be made. 
 It fell to Mackay’s brigade to make it; and the old Scotch¬ 
 man, though he had confessed to sharing the doubts of the 
 Commander-in-Chief, conducted the enterprise as cheerfully 
 and vigorously as if he himself had planned it ; Talmash, 
 the Duke, with many other officers of rank accompanying 
 him as volunteers. The passage was difficult and dangerous, 
 but it was almost unresisted. St. Ruth was at his own 
 quarters. General d’Usson, who commanded the garrison, 
 was at dinner. Only a weak guard was watching the ford; 
 and they, being taken by surprise, fled in dismay after firing 
 a few ineffectual shots at the leading men. With very trifling 
 loss the English reached the firm ground on the right bank. 
 To lay down pontoons and to repair the broken bridge for 
 the rest of their comrades was the work of a very short 
 time ; and by the time that a messenger reached St. Ruth 
 with the news that the English were crossing, a whole 
 division was established in strength in the Irish quarter, and 
 the town was won. It was the 30th of June, the anniversary 
 of the day on which, in the preceding year, William had 
 come in sight of the Boyne. 
 
 Deeply mortified, St. Ruth retreated towards Galway. 
 Sarsfield recommended him to avoid a battle; since his 
 troops, though superior in number to those of Ginkell, and 
 tolerably steady behind -walls, were too inferior in discipline 
 to be safely trusted in a battle in the open field. Galway 
 and Limerick, he said, might be defended as Limerick 
 had been defended in 1690; and, if Ginkell advanced 
 
The Battle of Aghrim. 
 
 233 
 
 too far into Connaught, Sarsfteld thought it even possible 
 that he himself, with his cavalry, might make a success¬ 
 ful dash upon Dublin, which was almost unprotected. But 
 St. Ruth judged it necessary to his own credit to make 
 amends for the loss of Athlone by an immediate victory; and 
 having fallen back to Aghrim, where an old castle, a hill, 
 and a morass afforded a strong position, he resolved there to 
 try the fortune of a pitched battle. As Ginkell remained 
 for some days in Athlone looking to the repair of the forti¬ 
 fications, St. Ruth skilfully availed himself of the respite 
 thus afforded him to strengthen his position with breast¬ 
 works ; and at the same time he stimulated the courage of 
 his soldiers by working on their feelings of religious en¬ 
 thusiasm. By his directions the priests were daily busy in 
 the ranks, reminding them that their religion was at stake, 
 and making them swear on the sacrament never to desert 
 their colours ; and thus the whole army was wrought up to 
 a keen desire for battle, and to a resolution to efface the 
 disgrace of the loss of Athlone, as eager as that which had 
 prompted his own decision. 
 
 It was the nth of July when Ginkell quitted Athlone, 
 and after a march of ten miles came in sight of his enemy. 
 He determined on attacking him at daybreak the next day, 
 but a fog and other circumstances prevented all operations 
 in the early morning, and by the afternoon he began to feel 
 something of his habitual irresolution. Again he called a 
 council of war. Talmash recommended an instant attack ; 
 this time Mackay also agreed with him; their advice pre¬ 
 vailed ; and, though by this time it was five o’clock, the 
 whole army advanced to the attack. 
 
 No fiercer battle had ever been fought in Ireland. The 
 King’s troops were 20,000 men, St. Ruth’s were 5,000 more, 
 
234 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 and had the advantage of the ground. On the other hand 
 he had fewer guns, and his men were less accustomed to war, 
 so that on the whole the conditions of the fight were not un¬ 
 equal. Every step was stoutly contested. The English, in 
 spite of the difficulties of the morass, pressed on with fearless 
 heroism, but the Irish fought from behind their breastworks 
 with equal vigour, and more than once dashed forward and 
 drove them back. Mackay, who commanded the right 
 wing, was forced to send to Talmash, whose task was to 
 attack the castle, for aid. Talmash flew to support him. 
 They laid hurdles over part of the bog, and thus made a 
 narrow path ; but an advance so won was necessarily slow. 
 Many of their men fell, and Ginkell began to meditate a 
 retreat. St. Ruth, on the other hand, thought the time 
 was arrived for him to become the assailant in his turn. 
 Waving his hat, he cheered on his men, shouting out that 
 he would drive the Saxons back to Dublin. They were 
 almost his last words : a few minutes afterwards a cannon¬ 
 ball struck him on the head, and the battle, which had 
 been doubtful till that moment, was doubtful no longer. 
 His staff concealed his fall from his followers ; but there 
 was no longer a head to guide their efforts. Sarsfield was 
 in the rear with the reserve, and no one brought him word 
 how greatly his presence was required in front. Presently 
 Mackay got a sufficient force of cavalry through the bog at 
 the extreme right of the line to attack the Irish in flank j 
 Talmash still pressed on bravely in front, and at last their 
 steadiness beat back the ardent but less sustained valour of 
 their foes, now without a leader. After three hours of in¬ 
 cessant fighting the Irish were broken and fled. 
 
 It is painful to have to add, that the victorious soldiers 
 sullied their glory by their merciless ferocity to the con- 
 
Death of Tyrconnel. 
 
 235 
 
 quered, whose gallantry merited a better fate. A large pro¬ 
 portion of Ginkell’s army consisted of foreigners, Frenchmen, 
 Danes, and Germans, accustomed to bloodier deeds than 
 have usually accorded with the English temper. They pur¬ 
 sued the fugitives with unrelenting butchery, giving no quar¬ 
 ter. A dark and rainy night at last checked their pursuit, and 
 enabled Sarsfield to cover the retreat of those who escaped, 
 but not till 7,000 had been slain. The conquerors, on 
 their part, did not buy their triumph cheaply; they lost 
 600 slain and 1,000 wounded, but the victory was worth 
 even that loss, for it was decisive of the war. 
 
 Ginkell first marched westward to Galway, to which 
 d’Usson had retreated. He capitulated on being allowed 
 to retire with what regiments he had with him to Limerick. 
 And to Limerick Ginkell once more followed him ; hoping, 
 since that city contained all that now remained of the 
 Irish army, to put an end to the war by its reduction. 
 Sarsfield was already there. He had hastened to it from 
 the field of battle, and, finding Tyrconnel there also, with 
 the support of his authority, for James and James’s parti¬ 
 sans still regarded him as Lord Lieutenant, he had done 
 what could be done to strengthen the fortifications, and to 
 victual the city for a siege. But Tyrconnel died a few days 
 afterwards of apoplexy ; and Sarsfield soon learnt to de¬ 
 spair of making a successful resistance, or even of protract¬ 
 ing the defence till the autumnal rains should set in. 
 
 Ginkell, flushed with his double success at Athlone and 
 Antrim, carried on his operations with greater decision and 
 skill than he had previously displayed. By a well-conceived 
 attack on one of the bridges over the Shannon outside the 
 walls, he cut off the communication between the garrison 
 and a fine division of cavalry, the best troops remaining to 
 
236 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 the enemy, which was encamped on the borders of the 
 county Clare. An English fleet took its station at the 
 mouth of the river, and stopped the only means of com¬ 
 munication with France. And, seeing how weak he was 
 within the city, and how destitute of all hope or possibility 
 of aid from without, Sarsfield himself at last despaired, and 
 opened a negotiation with Ginkell. He considered himself, 
 and Ginkell regarded him, as authorized to treat on behalf of 
 all the Roman Catholic party in Ireland. A careful discus¬ 
 sion took place, in which Ginkell, who avowed his own ignor¬ 
 ance of the English constitution and the views of English 
 statesmen, was aided by Sir Charles Porter, who had been 
 Lord Chancellor of the kingdom under Charles II.; and 
 by Mr. Thomas Coningsby, an English Member of Parlia¬ 
 ment who had acted as Paymaster-General of the Army of 
 the Boyne; the two, with Lord Sidney, having been 
 appointed Lords Justices to govern the kingdom when 
 William returned to England in the preceding autumn. 
 
 And eventually two treaties were concluded, a military 
 treaty which was signed by Ginkell and Sarsfield, a civil 
 treaty which was signed by Sarsfield and the two Lords 
 Justices. The military treaty secured to all the Irish officers 
 and soldiers who might wish to do so, liberty to depart to 
 France, on giving up every town and fortress in their 
 possession to William’s generals. The civil treaty, which, 
 however, was carefully stated to be conditional on its 
 eventually obtaining Parliamentary sanction, granted an 
 amnesty to all who should take the oath of allegiance to 
 the new Sovereigns ; and secured the continuance to the 
 Roman Catholics, throughout the island, of all such privileges 
 in the exercise of their religion as were consistent with the 
 law, or as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II. 
 
The Treaties of Limerick. 
 
 23 7 
 
 Nor were they kept long in suspense or uncertainty, as 
 to the willingness of the English Parliament to ratify it. 
 The Parliament met in November; the Ministers pressed 
 its ratification earnestly, as that to which they were bound 
 to agree, by every principle of national good faith; and, 
 though the Commons did for a moment desire to add the 
 obligation of taking the oath of supremacy, and the decla¬ 
 ration against Transubstantiation, to the oath of allegiance, 
 they allowed themselves to be persuaded, and the Chief 
 Justice of England was ordered to prepare a bill to give 
 the treaty legal effect. 
 
 The military treaty was carried out with equal integrity, 
 though its execution was not unaccompanied with disappoint¬ 
 ment and mortification to the authorities in William’s interest. 
 Sarsfield, who had made up his mind to take service in the 
 French army, was naturally desirous to increase his own 
 importance in the eyes of his new master by carrying over 
 with him as large a force as he could persuade to accompany 
 him. He called in the co-operation of the Roman Catholic 
 clergy, who exerted on his side all that religious pressure 
 which their religion enables them to put upon their flocks. 
 In long and earnest sermons they declared that for any one 
 to remain and enter the service of a heretic Prince was to 
 imperil their sbuls ; they, at the same time, held out the 
 prospect that they would soon be led back, with a host of 
 French allies, to reconquer their native land, and to restore 
 it to its lawful Sovereign. It was believed that they added 
 the stimulus of brandy to their pious exhortations ; and 
 Sarsfield was even accused of employing force, and of 
 putting officers under arrest who hesitated to promise to 
 adhere to him. 
 
 Ginkell, on the other hand, was equally desirous to retain 
 
238 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 men who had shown how gallantly they could fight if well 
 commanded, and whom, if they should follow Sarsfield to 
 France, his King might soon have to encounter in Flanders. 
 And he issued a proclamation assuring safety and protection 
 to all who should choose to remain in Ireland, and honourable 
 employment to all who would enlist in his army. But with 
 the great majority Sarsfield and the priests prevailed. Many, 
 indeed, who at first promised to embark found their hearts 
 fail at the last moment, but still a very considerable force 
 followed their gallant general 1 They reached Brest in safety, 
 and in the spring were formed into separate regiments ; the 
 men of the better class being even honoured by being allowed 
 to compose two companies of body-guards, one of which 
 was commanded by the Duke of Berwick, the other by 
 Sarsfield himself. He died a soldier’s death on the hard- 
 fought field of Landen; and they established for them¬ 
 selves and for their country a reputation for gallantry both 
 brilliant and steady in every country in which the French 
 armies waged war during the remainder of Louis’s reign. 
 But the hope that had been held out to them of returning 
 to reconquer Ireland was never realized. James made no 
 further attempt to recover the throne which he had lost by 
 any enterprise of open honourable war. 
 
 William had been crowned King of Ireland in Dublin on 
 the 5th of November in the preceding year; but that event 
 
 1 Lord Macaulay, who says that one regiment, in which 1,400 men had 
 promised to go to France, when the day came furnished only 500, would 
 seem to imply that the whole number who eventually went did not exceed 
 5,000 or 6,000 men. The Duke of Berwick states them at “ about 20,000," 
 and cannot be very wrong, for he says Louis formed them into nine infantry 
 regiments of two battalions; two of dragoons on foot; two of cavalry ; and 
 two companies of Gardes-du-corps, one of which was given to him and the 
 other to Lord Lucan (Sarsfield).—Vol. I., p. 106. 
 
End of the Civil War. 
 
 239 
 
 was rather the assumption of the royal title than the 
 establishment of it, for his right to it was denied in the 
 southern and western counties, in half of the kingdom. 
 Now, on the other hand, .it was universally recognized. 
 With the departure of Sarsfield, all resistance to the new 
 Government was at an end. In order to assure the popula¬ 
 tion of those districts which had been the scene of the last 
 campaign, William issued a proclamation announcing that 
 the civil war was terminated j and in Ireland also the revolu¬ 
 tion was accomplished. 
 
240 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Much remains to be done in England after the settlement of the Govern¬ 
 ment—Real character of the Revolution—Many legislative measures 
 are still necessary—Composition of the ministry—The Toleration 
 Bill—The Comprehension Bill—The Case of the Nonjurors—William 
 issues an Act of Grace—The Bill of Rights—Question of the suc¬ 
 cession after the death of the Princess Anne—Birth of the Duke of 
 Gloucester—The subsequent Act of Settlement—Gradual change in the 
 mode of administration and character of a Ministry—Disqualification 
 of placemen for seats in the House of Commons—The Triennial Bill, 
 altered at a later period to a Septennial Bill—Purification of the 
 coinage—Expiration of restrictions on the Press—Establishment of 
 Newspapers. 
 
 When 'William and Mary accepted the crown which was 
 formally tendered to them by the Parliament of England, 
 and by the Estates of Scotland, and when, having been 
 already crowned in Dublin, William was able to proclaim 
 that civil war and all resistance to his authority was termi¬ 
 nated in Ireland also, the revolution was in one sense accom¬ 
 plished. A change in the reigning dynasty had been effected, 
 and the new Sovereigns acknowledged that they held their 
 authority by a different title from that which their predeces¬ 
 sors had claimed as belonging to them. But in another 
 point of view there was still much to be done. The change 
 which had been made, great and important as it was, was 
 not the whole of the revolution for which those who had 
 brought about that change were anxious, nor for which all 
 succeeding generations of Englishmen down to the present 
 
The Declaration of Right. 
 
 241 
 
 time have been and still are grateful. To them the Revo¬ 
 lution has been something more. It has been practically the 
 foundation of a new Constitution. 
 
 Up to this time the Constitution had too often been but 
 a name. There had existed indeed for centuries laws and 
 charters which had guaranteed to the English and Irish 
 people all those privileges which are essential parts of 
 real freedom, liberty of person, never to be violated except 
 as a punishment for offences ; and security for property, 
 so that no King should be able to take the money 
 of any subject unless by his own consent, duly signified 
 by himself or by his representatives in Parliament. And 
 when Scotland became subject to the same Sovereign 
 as England and Ireland, that country also obtained its 
 equal share of the freedom granted or confirmed to all 
 by the Great Charter. But these inestimable charters 
 and laws had been frequently violated by despotic sove¬ 
 reigns, so frequently, indeed, that in some notorious 
 instances, the judges had pronounced that the precedents 
 of such violation were so strong as to override the written 
 law; and the great men who took the lead in bringing 
 about the Revolution rightly felt that it would be a nullity 
 if they failed so to avail themselves of the opportunity which 
 it offered them, as to take securities that no such violations 
 of the people’s rights should be possible in future. That 
 they were aiming at no new thing, but that these rights did of 
 old belong to the people, was implied in the very title of 
 the memorial which was read to the new Sovereigns before 
 they were requested to accept the Crown, “ The Declara¬ 
 tion of Right.” But that declaration required the ratifica¬ 
 tion of a formal Parliamentary enactment to give it entire 
 permanent validity. And a necessity for some other laws 
 
 R 
 
242 The English Revolution. 
 
 which were more open to the charge of novelty had also 
 arisen out of the recent change. 
 
 And to those steps towards the completion and security 
 of the Revolution which depended on the action of Parlia¬ 
 ment, the two Houses at once began to apply themselves 
 without delay. The first thing to be done by them, as a 
 necessary preliminary to give validity to all their other acts, 
 was obviously the vindication of their right to be regarded 
 as a Parliament; for they had not been summoned by royal 
 writ, and till the acceptance of the Crown by the new 
 Sovereign, they had been contented to call themselves a 
 Convention. Many of the Tory members>were inclined to 
 deny that any power existed by which the Convention could 
 be turned into a Parliament, and recommended an instant 
 dissolution; but such a recommendation was embarrassed 
 by one insurmountable inconsistency, for it was plain that 
 a new Parliament could only be held under writs, issued by 
 William; and that those writs could have no validity if he 
 were not King, lawfully appointed by a Parliament or by a 
 body in all respects equal to, and possessing all the rights 
 and authority of, a Parliament; so that, in fact, the issue 
 of such writs, and the obedience to be paid to them by the 
 constituent bodies would be a recognition of the fact that 
 they were superfluous; and that a Parliament of full com¬ 
 petence and power already existed. 
 
 These irresistible arguments were strengthened, if they 
 required strengthening, by the fact that, within the memory 
 of the existing generation, a precedent had occurred which 
 was exactly in point. The Convention which had restored 
 Charles II. had had no royal writs to call it together, but the 
 validity of its acts had been upheld by lawyers of all parties. 
 William and his chief advisers accepted this precedent as 
 
Composition of the Ministry. 243 
 
 conclusive ; and, before the end of the week in which he 
 had been proclaimed, he went down to the House of Lords, 
 and, having summoned the Commons, addressed to both a 
 speech of the same character as those with which former 
 Kings had been accustomed to open former Parliaments. 
 When he had retired, the Earl of Nottingham, as Secretary 
 of State, brought in a bill for declaring the Convention 
 a Parliament; which, though it was fiercely debated in a 
 committee of the House of Commons, was speedily passed 
 and received the royal assent; and, lest anything should be 
 wanting to establish its authority in the eyes of future 
 generations, one of the first bills brought into the next 
 Parliament formally recognized the validity of every act 
 passed by this one, both while sitting with the title of a 
 Convention and after it had changed that title to that of a 
 Parliament. 
 
 On the propriety of this measure all the advisers of 
 William were agreed. Other measures were, in several 
 instances, a compromise between the different parties in the 
 ministry, though the word in the sense in which we now use 
 it was not applicable to the men on whom William at first 
 conferred ministerial offices, nor to those who had held such 
 appointments under any previous Sovereign. Such a body 
 of men as is now called to the councils of the Sovereign, 
 all agreeing in all measures of policy, both foreign and 
 domestic, and all being jointly responsible for every act of 
 the Government, was as yet unknown. The responsibility 
 of each official was limited to his own department. One 
 minister had thought himself at liberty to oppose bills brought 
 in by another minister; nay, in the reign of Charles II. 
 there had even been instances of one secretary of state 
 being forward in promoting the impeachment of another. 
 
 r 2 
 
244 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 And so, on first coming to the throne, William selected 
 his chief officers on the principle of balancing one party 
 against another, and conciliating all by allowing to all a 
 share of ministerial power. The Earl of Danby, who, as 
 minister of Charles II., had been with difficulty saved from 
 impeachment, and was accounted the especial champion 
 and leader of the Tories, was made President of the 
 Council. The Marquis of Halifax, by far the ablest and 
 most virtuous of the Whig nobles, became Lord Privy Seal. 
 Of the two Secretaries of State one, the Earl of Notting¬ 
 ham, held the same opinions as Danby, the other, the Earl 
 of Shrewsbury, agreed with Halifax. Lord Delamere, son 
 of the Earl of Warrington and a Whig, was Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer; the most important and most efficient of 
 the subordinate Lords of the Treasury was Lord Godolphin, 
 a Tory. The first Lord of the Treasury was a vehement 
 Whig, Lord Mordaunt, the same nobleman who, two years 
 before the revolution, had urged William to invade 
 England; but, though that office is the one of which the 
 possession now indicates the Prime Minister, in this in¬ 
 stance it was the least important of all; for it was 
 commonly understood that it did not become a King of 
 England to be a Roi faineant, but that it belonged to him, 
 even if he did not take under his care the especial manage¬ 
 ment of one department, to exercise a general superinten¬ 
 dence over all; and William was his own prime minister, 
 reserving to himself also the special and exclusive manage¬ 
 ment of the foreign affairs of the kingdom. 
 
 It was probably from his taking so prominent a part in 
 the administration, in a way which no subsequent King has 
 imitated, and which would now be thought altogether un¬ 
 constitutional, that the first measure submitted to the 
 
Condition of the Religions Sects. 245 
 
 Parliament was not the Bill of Rights, for which the leading 
 statesmen might have been supposed to be most anxious, 
 but one which he himself was personally desirous to carry, 
 a Toleration Bill. 
 
 After the Restoration, the Parliament of Charles II. had 
 retaliated on the tyranny with which the Puritan party had 
 trampled down the Church with a persecution which was 
 almost equally irrational and oppressive. All Noncon¬ 
 formists were classed together; attendance on any place of 
 worship, except those of the Established Church, was made 
 a crime, which, on repetition, might be punished with trans¬ 
 portation ; and the officiating ministers were exposed to even 
 heavier penalties than the congregations. The King could 
 not contemplate such a state of things without grave dis¬ 
 approval. He himself was a Calvinist, and, as such, more 
 disposed to agree in doctrine with the Presbyterians of 
 Scotland than with the English Churchmen; though as a 
 form of Church government he preferred Episcopacy; but 
 he did not attach great importance to any forms, and, as a 
 statesman and a King, was more anxious that all his 
 subjects should be contented with the justice and modera¬ 
 tion of his civil government than that they should be 
 drilled into a reluctant uniformity in religion, even had it 
 been possible to enforce such uniformity by laws. 
 
 In compliance with these feelings of his master, Notting¬ 
 ham, before the end of March, introduced two bills into the 
 House of Lords, one to establish a toleration of Protestant 
 sectaries ; the other, which was called a Comprehension Bill, 
 being designed to lessen the number of those who would be 
 benefited by the first, by introducing such alterations in 
 the Liturgy and discipline of the Church as should, it was 
 hoped, induce the more respectable of the Nonconformist 
 
246 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 sects to reunite with it. They were neither of them new 
 measures; for, as Lord Nottingham told Bumet, they 
 were the very same which he had drawn in the reign of 
 Charles II., with the intent that they should follow the 
 Exclusion Bill if the House of Lords had consented to 
 pass that measure. 
 
 The Comprehension Bill had a singular fate. Its most 
 important clauses were two, the first of which went to 
 relieve the clergy from the obligation of signing the Thirty- 
 nine Articles, and substituted for that subscription a 
 declaration of assent to the doctrine and government of 
 the Church of England ; the second enabled Presbyterian 
 ministers to hold benefices in the Church without reordina¬ 
 tion. A later clause provided for a revision, or at least a 
 reconsideration of the canons and ecclesiastical courts. It 
 was not strange that such a measure should be opposed by 
 the extreme High Churchmen, and even by some who be¬ 
 longed neither to that party nor to that of the extreme Low 
 Church, for, though the name be new, there has always 
 been a third or Broad Church party also. But it was 
 opposed by the Nonconformists themselves, by those sects 
 whom the proposed concessions would not have satisfied, 
 lest they should be weakened by the secession of those 
 other sects which would be led by them to join the Church ; 
 and even by many of those whom they would have satisfied, 
 and especially by many of the Presbyterian ministers, who, 
 had the Bill passed, would have been unable to find any 
 plea for remaining separate from the Church, but who felt 
 that an union with it would diminish their personal impor¬ 
 tance, their exclusive influence over their flocks, and 
 in many instances the emoluments derived from their 
 liberality. 
 
The Toleration Act. 
 
 247 
 
 Nottingham, therefore, naturally not anxious, and perhaps 
 not able, to carry a Bill which pleased no one, not even those 
 for whose benefit it had been framed, suffered the Compre¬ 
 hension Bill to drop. But the Toleration Act was passed. 
 And, though some of its clauses seemed contradictory of 
 one another, and though others still imposed certain restric¬ 
 tions on religious freedom which were hardly compatible 
 with its title, it practically removed all the grievances which 
 for the last twenty eight-years had pressed upon the 
 different dissenting bodies, and secured to all Protestant sects 
 liberty to worship God according to their conscience, so 
 long as they did not disturb or endanger the public peace. 
 The only obligation imposed upon them was that they 
 should prove their loyalty to the new settlement, by taking 
 the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and by signing a 
 declaration against the cardinal doctrine of the Romish 
 Church, transubstantiation. This last clause was obviously 
 intended to debar the Roman Catholics from profiting by 
 the Act. Indeed it was expressly mentioned in the Act 
 that it was not designed to afford the smallest indulgence 
 ' to the Papists. 
 
 But it was singular and lamentable that matters so turned 
 out that those who eventually suffered most from the new 
 legislation on these subjects were a small party among the 
 Churchmen themselves. Among the earliest laws passed 
 by the Parliament, one very naturally enacted that no per¬ 
 son should in future be admitted to any office, temporal or 
 spiritual, without taking an oath of allegiance to the reign¬ 
 ing Sovereign. The same obligation was with equal reason 
 imposed upon all existing holders of civil or military offices. 
 But a great effort was made to exempt the present holders 
 of ecclesiastical and academical preferments from the same 
 
248 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 obligation. They were not, like magistrates, concerned in 
 the administration of the laws ; they were not, like soldiers, 
 liable to be called on to defend the new Government in 
 arms. And it was well known that many of the most emi¬ 
 nent of the whole order of clergy for rank, virtue, and 
 ability, though perfectly willing to live peaceably and loyally 
 under the new Government, had scruples about taking a 
 new oath to a new Sovereign, while the old Sovereign, to 
 whom they had formerly sworn allegiance, was still living. 
 It was equally plain that the new Government would be 
 in no danger if the new oaths were not tendered to such 
 men. 
 
 And these considerations had such weight with the Peers, 
 that, in the Bill imposing the oaths on the laity and on all 
 clergy who should subsequently be appointed to any office, 
 they inserted a clause exempting all present holders of 
 ecclesiastical benefices, unless the Government should have 
 cause to call on any individual priest to give such proof of 
 hisjoyalty. But the Commons rejected it. William’s con¬ 
 duct was singular, and less in accordance with his usual 
 moderation and his statesmanlike equity than perhaps any 
 other of his acts. He saw no necessity for imposing the 
 oaths on those whom the Peers thus proposed to exempt. 
 Even had their disposition been different, the smallness of 
 their number prevented their being formidable. But he 
 hoped to make the concession, to which he saw no reason 
 in itself to object, the instrument to effect a compromise. 
 
 The Test Act was unrepealed, and therefore, as the law 
 stood, even after the passing of the Toleration Act, no 
 Nonconformist would be eligible for employment. He 
 desired to obtain a relaxation of this requirement. And he 
 was aware that the Tories, who were the chief sticklers for 
 
The Test Act. 
 
 249 
 
 its retention, were also those who were most anxious to pro¬ 
 cure indulgence for those clergymen who scrupled to take 
 the new oaths. On the other hand, the Whigs, who wished 
 to impose the new oaths on the clergy, were generally not 
 disinclined to remove the remaining disabilities from the 
 Protestant Dissenters. It occurred to him, therefore, to 
 induce both parties to give way on one point; to persuade 
 the Tories to consent to a modification of the Test Act, 
 and the Whigs to abstain from forcing the new oaths on 
 the beneficed clergy. But, on trying his own influence on 
 the leaders of these parties, he found that even the Whigs 
 were at the moment not specially eager for the repeal or 
 modification of the Test Act, while the Tories were 
 as firm or as obstinate as ever in their opinion of its 
 necessity. 
 
 And, being thus disappointed in his prospect of pro¬ 
 curing relief for the Dissenters, he resolved to let the 
 Whigs have their own way as to the imposition of the new 
 oaths on all the Protestant clergy. To impose them under 
 penalty of deprivation was, in fact, to punish those whose 
 consciences forbade them to take them, not for their own 
 fault, but for the unconciliatory stubbornness of their lay 
 champions in Parliament. And, as his willingness to dis¬ 
 pense with enforcing the oaths showed his entire conviction 
 that the enforcement of them was unnecessary, it is not 
 easy to justify his sanction of the conduct of the two 
 Houses in imposing them. For, after a long contest between 
 the Houses, and many conferences, the Peers finally gave 
 way; and the Act, as passed, required every holder of 
 ecclesiastical preferment to take the oaths by the 1st of 
 August, under penalty of suspension. But, as that date 
 gave those affected but brief time for consideration, they 
 
250 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 were allowed a respite of six months, during which those 
 who had at first refused the oaths might reconsider their 
 decision. If by the ist of February, 1690, they had not 
 taken them, they were then to be at once deprived of all 
 preferments and left to starve ; the severity of the measure 
 being, if possible, aggravated by the mocker)' of a clause 
 which was added to enable the King to grant a small pen¬ 
 sion, which should not exceed one-third of the income 
 taken from them, to twelve of those who had been 
 deprived. 
 
 It was not to theoretical objections alone that the enact¬ 
 ment was liable, beyond all question it was also practically 
 injurious to the Church and to the cause of religion in the 
 country. When the day came which had been fixed for the 
 deprivation of all who had abstained from taking the oaths, 
 it was found that those who had incurred the threatened 
 penalty amounted to about 400 ; and among them were some 
 of the highest in station, and the most eminent for virtue and 
 talent in the whole body. 1 The Primate himself was of the 
 number, and with him six Bishops, four of them being among 
 those whom James had prosecuted in the preceding year; 
 but who were too rigidly conscientious to be biassed in 
 their interpretation of their duty by any feeling of personal 
 injurjc 
 
 The transaction presents one of those unhappy cases in 
 which both parties were wrong. It is impossible to agree with 
 the nonjurors, as those who refused to take the oaths were 
 called, as to the reasonableness of their scruples, which 
 Dr. Johnson has well described as “the perverseness of 
 
 1 However, Sancroft and his brethren were not at once expelled from their 
 palaces, nor Sherlock from his house in the temple.— See Macaulay, 
 vol. III., p. 534. 
 
Deprivation of the Nonjurors. 
 
 251 
 
 integrity,” 1 since hardly one of the whole number doubted 
 the propriety of acquiescing in the existing Government, or 
 of continuing to perform the duties of his post in conformity 
 to its regulations. While, as such a course of action would 
 have been a direct disregard of James’s orders, it was practi¬ 
 cally as entire a transference of their allegiance to William 
 as could have been made by their taking of the oaths; and 
 it is not easy to see the consistency of refusing to swear 
 allegiance to a Prince to whom the person concerned is 
 willing to render it. Nay, the most eminent of the whole 
 body, Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, admitted that it was 
 quite possible to conceive a degree of misgovernment which 
 would have justified him in renouncing his obedience to 
 James, but only doubted whether, in the instance before 
 him, there was sufficient proof that that degree had been 
 reached. 
 
 We must therefore blame those who refused, since such 
 refusal could only be justified by solid and consistent 
 reasons; but we must at the same time blame William for 
 permitting them to be driven to the alternative, since he 
 himself judged it unnecessary, and only sanctioned it 
 because he was provoked by the impracticable temper of 
 the Houses of Parliament on another subject which had no 
 connection with the oaths in question. As he could not 
 pretend the slightest fear that the men thus deprived would 
 plot against his Government if they continued to hold their 
 preferments, it was impolitic to deprive the Church of their 
 ministrations. It was even more impolitic to throw such 
 
 1 “ Life of Fenton,” p. i. Fenton was not a clergyman, but an under¬ 
 graduate of Cambridge, who was prevented from obtaining a degree by 
 his refusal to take the oaths. He, however, seems to have had his scruples 
 terminated by the death of James, since a note in the passage (Ed. 1790, 
 vol. III., p. 311) states that he did take his degree in 1704. 
 
252 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 men into the arms of those lay Jacobites who were un¬ 
 friendly to his Government ; and he must have expected 
 such a result of their expulsion, as ensued ; that many of 
 them would be received into the houses of the wealthier 
 J acobites, as chaplains or tutors; by their mere presence 
 keeping alive and inflaming their patrons’ hostility to the 
 new dynasty; and that others would collect congregations 
 of malcontents, and be almost driven to inculcate a dis¬ 
 loyalty which would have been far from their own minds if 
 they had been left in peace. 
 
 We may see another proof that William, in his sober 
 judgment, disapproved of the exaction of these oaths, in 
 the anxiety which he showed for the speedy carrying out of 
 another measure which was also brought under the con¬ 
 sideration of Parliament before the Bill of Rights, a general 
 amnesty. He was a brave soldier; he was a sagacious 
 statesman ; he was a consummate diplomatist: but his 
 highest claim to our respect and admiration is, that he was, 
 in the fullest sense of the words, a magnanimous ruler, 
 utterly free from fear, and (except in one memorable in¬ 
 stance, in which he was resenting not injuries to himself, 
 but insults to her whom he had loved) from vindictiveness. 
 And his generosity combined with his policy in prompting 
 him to wish to give all parties confidence in his Government, 
 by showing that he regarded none with disfavour. With 
 these feelings, in the very first month after he had accepted 
 the Crown, he recommended the Houses to pass a general 
 act of pardon and oblivion, which should comprehend all 
 parties and all individuals, except such as, during the reigns 
 of Charles or James, had given the Crown such pernicious 
 advice as might justly render them liable to impeachment; 
 or those who, under the cloak of the royal authority, had 
 
The Act of Grace. 
 
 253 
 
 committed crimes of which the ordinary law might properly 
 take cognizance. For adhering to James during the period 
 between the landing of William and the presentation of 
 the Crown to the Queen and himself three months after¬ 
 wards, no one was to be called in question. 
 
 No act could possibly be more necessary to give stability 
 to the Revolution ; for so long as a large party was com¬ 
 pelled to be discontented by its fears, there could be no 
 security for the peace of the kingdom. Nevertheless, the 
 King’s recommendation had but little influence with the 
 Houses. Party feeling is never magnanimous ; the Whigs, 
 who in the time of Charles II. and James II. had hated 
 the Tories with an enmity which was often personal and 
 mortal, hated them still more now, when, from a belief that 
 the new Sovereign could not fail to regard them with 
 suspicion, they expected to have them at their mercy. 
 The Bill of Indemnity was evaded in one session. In 
 the next, the majority of the Commons refused even to go 
 into committee on it, but framed, as a rider to it, a Bill of 
 Pains and Penalties which would have included hundreds. 
 William prorogued the Parliament; and as he saw that it 
 was hopeless to expect such a measure from a body of 
 which both sections were animated by the bitterest party 
 spirit, he took the matter into his own hands, and in May, 
 1690, after a new Parliament had been elected, sent down 
 to the Houses what was called an Act of Grace. 
 
 The doctrine with respect to such an edict was, that Par¬ 
 liament could not alter a single clause or expression which 
 it contained, but on a single reading must accept or reject it. 
 And the mode of action thus chosen succeeded ; those who 
 had thrown difficulties in the way of the Act of Indemnity 
 were so impressed with the King’s evident resolution to gain 
 
254 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 his point, that they abandoned all thought of resistance to 
 it, and the Act of Grace was accepted by both Houses with¬ 
 out a single voice being raised in opposition to it. It was 
 an act worthy of a King, only rendered more worthy by 
 its contrast with, and opposition to, the long-remembering 
 malignity of those who claimed to be most emphatically 
 his supporters, and in whose despite it was done. A few 
 persons were excepted from its benefits; those who had 
 been the agents in the most lawless and tyrannical acts of 
 the late King; and those who, having been prominent in 
 the murder of Charles I., William’s grandfather, had at the 
 Restoration fled to foreign lands, and of whom one or two 
 were understood to be still alive. But with those excep¬ 
 tions the Act of Grace wiped away the memory of ever)’ 
 political offence committed by any member of any party, 
 and with it the guilt and liability to punishment of every 
 offender. 
 
 As this great boon to a section of the people was delayed 
 by the perverseness of the Parliament, so also was the pass¬ 
 ing of the Bill of Rights impeded, though that concerned 
 the liberties of the whole nation. It was framed in exact 
 accordance with the Declaration which had been read to 
 the Sovereigns when they accepted the Crown, with the 
 addition of a provision that no one who was either a 
 Roman Catholic, or who was married to a Roman Catholic, 
 should be capable of succeeding to the throne. And it 
 was indispensable to give validity to that Declaration, since 
 it could not be said in strict law that their assent to it was 
 of necessity implied in the mere fact of its having been re¬ 
 cited in their presence. But, in the course of the progress 
 of the Bill through the two Houses, William suggested the 
 insertion of one additional clause. The settlement of the 
 
Question of the Succession. 
 
 255 
 
 Crown had not gone beyond the Princess Anne and her 
 posterity, and any children whom William might have by a 
 second wife. But it was obviously not improbable that 
 neither William nor Anne might leave children, and, in 
 that event, the next heir of the old line of Kings would be 
 the Duchess of Savoy, daughter of the Duchess of Orleans, 
 and, as such, granddaughter of Charles I. ; and after her, the 
 elder branches of the Palatine family, descended from the 
 Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I. But all these 
 were Roman Catholics, and the only Protestant of the 
 House of Stuart was Sophia, a younger daughter of the 
 same Queen of Bohemia, and wife of the Duke of Bruns¬ 
 wick and Elector of Hanover. 
 
 William, therefore, in whose mind a desire to obtain the 
 accession of Hanover to the league against France com¬ 
 bined in this instance with his anxiety to secure the Pro¬ 
 testant succession in England, was anxious that, in failure 
 of his own issue and that of the Princess Anne, the Crown 
 should be settled on Sophia and her posterity. But he 
 took a singular way to effect his object, since he did not 
 trust the arrangement to any of his Ministers, but employed 
 Burnet, whom he had recently made Bishop of Salisbury, 
 to propose the addition of a clause to effect that object 
 when the Bill came before the House of Lords. Such a 
 provision was so manifestly desirable, that the Peers at once 
 agreed to it; but the Commons, though the Jacobites were 
 notoriously fewer in their House than in the other, rejected 
 it. Their conduct was so strange, that Lord Macaulay 1 
 
 1 Macaulay makes a strange mistake in condemning Burnet's account of 
 this vote of the House of Commons. He says (vol. III., p. 395, note), 
 " Though Burnet took a prominent part in the discussion of this question, 
 “'his account of what passed is grossly inaccurate. He says that the claus 
 
256 The English Revolution. 
 
 can only account for it by a suggestion that the leaders of 
 the Commons were glad of an opportunity to quarrel with 
 the Upper House, because the Lords, sitting as a Court 
 of Appeal on a Writ of Error, had refused to reverse a sen¬ 
 tence which, in James’s reign, had been passed upon Titus 
 Oates, though the judges, on being consulted, had unani¬ 
 mously pronounced the sentence illegal. 
 
 The Peers had been undoubtedly wrong; but, if the 
 Commons were really led by motives of resentment at their 
 error to reject a clause undeniably necessary for the peace 
 of the kingdom, their conduct was still more unbecoming. 
 They were probably influenced, in at least as great a degree, 
 by the circumstance that, while the discussions between the 
 two Houses were proceeding, a son was born to the 
 Princess Anne, who received the name of William from 
 the King, who was his godfather, and who at his christening 
 was created Duke of Gloucester. Still it cannot be denied 
 that during the first years of this reign the conduct of both 
 Houses was at least as much distinguished by a spirit of 
 faction as by a spirit of statesmanship, and that the aim 
 of the leaders on both sides was too often to secure the 
 triumph of their own party rather than the welfare of the 
 State. Conferences now took place between the two 
 Houses, but the Peers would not abandon the clause, nor 
 would the Commons insert it; and for the moment the Bill 
 
 “ was warmly debated in the Commons, and that Hampden spoke strongly 
 “ for it. But we learn from the journals (June 19th, 1689) that it was rejected 
 “ nemine contradicente." But there is no inconsistency in the two state¬ 
 ments. The record in the Parliamentary journals only proves that no 
 division was taken on the bill, which is often the case, even after the warm¬ 
 est debates, when the minority see the weakness of their numbers. And 
 Burnet's account is fully confirmed by Dalrymple (vol. I., p. 365, 2nd 
 edition, 1771). 
 
Death of the Duke of Gloucester. 257 
 
 of Rights was sacrificed to this unseemly squabble. But, 
 whatever had been the motive of the Commons, the birth 
 of the young Duke had such weight in the House of Lords 
 and with the King, that, when, in the next session, the Bill 
 was reintroduced, no one thought it worth while to mention 
 the possibility of the succession of any other dynasty, and 
 the Bill was passed unanimously. 
 
 But before the end of the reign it became necessary 
 once more to take the succession into consideration. The 
 young Duke, the “ fond hope of many kingdoms,” who, in 
 the judgment of his preceptor, Bishop Burnet, was giving 
 promise of a good understanding and an excellent disposi¬ 
 tion, died of scarlet fever in the last year of the century. 
 Anne had no other living child, so that his death rendered 
 it indispensable to make such provision as William had 
 desired eleven years before. Indeed the choice of Parlia¬ 
 ment was so limited by the necessity of the successor to be 
 selected being a Protestant, that Sophia had no competitor, 
 and in June, 1701, the Bill settling the crown on her and 
 her posterity received the Royal Assent. 
 
 This act may be regarded as the final legal completion 
 of the Revolution, a character which is further stamped 
 upon it by the circumstance that the opportunity was taken 
 to incorporate in it several provisions which, though new, 
 were of the greatest practical importance. 1 The Bill of 
 Rights had only barred the throne against Roman Catholics, 
 but the Act of Settlement of 1701 added the provision that 
 the Sovereign should always be a member of the Church of 
 England. It added a second to secure the independence 
 of the judges, by making their continuance in office depend 
 
 1 On all these additions, see Hallam’s "Constitutional History,” vol. 
 III., p. 247, seq., the last pages of Chapter XV., 3rd edition, 8vo, 1832. 
 
 S 
 
258 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 on their own good conduct, and not on the pleasure of the 
 Crown ; a third to prevent any prince who, being King of 
 England, should likewise be possessed of foreign dominions, 
 from involving this kingdom in war for their defence ; a 
 fourth, which was evidently suggested by occurrences of the 
 present reign, prohibited any one who was not born of an 
 English father from becoming a member of the Privy 
 Council, or of either House of Parliament, or from receiv¬ 
 ing any office or place of trust: and a fifth, which had 
 probably a secret reference to some of the circumstances 
 connected with the Partition Treaty, enjoined that all 
 matters relating to the government of the kingdom, the 
 consideration of which belonged to the Privy Council, 
 should be transacted at its meetings, and that all resolu¬ 
 tions taken on such matters should be signed by those 
 Councillors who had advised or consented to them. 
 
 This last clause may be called a silent recognition of a 
 most important though unmentioned change that, during 
 the present reign, had gradually taken place in the mode of 
 carrying on the government. We now speak familiarly of 
 the statesmen employed in the conduct of State affairs as 
 the Ministry, or the Cabinet, terms by which we understand 
 a small body of members of one House of Parliament or 
 the other, among whom the management of the most im¬ 
 portant departments of the State is divided ; who are all 
 mutually agreed in their views of general policy; and who 
 are jointly responsible for every measure adopted. Such a 
 body had been unknown in former times. The theory of 
 our Government had indeed always been that the King 
 carried it on after deliberation with, and therefore, generally 
 at least, in accordance with the opinions of, his Privy 
 Council. But arbitrary or indolent Sovereigns had often 
 
Arrangement of tJie Ministry. 259 
 
 dispensed with such consultation ; it was also self-evident 
 that so large a body could rarely be expected to be of 
 one mind; and still more plain that the minority could 
 never be held responsible for the adoption of the views 
 of the majority. Accordingly, in all former reigns this 
 independence of each Privy Councillor had not been sup¬ 
 posed to be affected by his acceptance of ministerial 
 office. Former Kings, and even William himself, on his 
 first accession, had selected the heads of the different 
 Departments without considering for a moment whether 
 their political opinions agreed or not with those of their 
 colleagues, and it had been in consequence not uncommon 
 for one Secretary of State to oppose in Parliament measures 
 urged by another. 
 
 But the greatly increased importance which the Parlia¬ 
 ment had derived from the Revolution, and the manner in 
 which that event had been brought about, had rendered 
 the continuance of such a system, or want of system, im¬ 
 practicable. It had made it impossible to carry on the 
 business of any Department peaceably and successfully 
 unless the Parliament approved of the manner in which 
 it was conducted; consequently, the management of the 
 different Departments came to be confined to Ministers 
 whom the Parliament did approve, and consequently also 
 to men of similar opinions. A Parliament in which the 
 Whigs formed the majority would support none but Whig 
 Ministers; a Tory Parliament would be equally decided in 
 its preference for Tories. And, out of this harmony of 
 opinion thus taken for granted, the idea of the mutual 
 responsibility of all the Ministers naturally arose. The 
 new practice was first exemplified about the middle of this 
 reign ; the Whigs, to whom William chiefly owed his posi- 
 
 s 2 
 
26 o 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 tion as King, sympathized with his views after he had 
 become so; on the other hand, the Tories, of whom very 
 few had acquiesced in his promotion without reluctance, 
 showed frequent opposition to his views, and especially to 
 his foreign policy. And, as even the occupation of some 
 important offices by different Tory nobles and members of 
 Parliament was found of no avail to soften the opposition 
 of the party as a whole, it was not strange that William 
 gradually began to perceive how greatly his comfort would 
 be increased if his chosen councillors were all taken from 
 the Whig party. 
 
 The chief representatives of the Tories in the Govern¬ 
 ment during the first years of the reign had been Lord 
 Carmarthen, Lord Nottingham, and Lord Godolphin; in 
 1693 Nottingham was allowed to resign because he, as War 
 Minister, was unwilling to co-operate with Admiral Russell, 
 whom the King had just placed at the head of the Admiralty. 
 A year and a half later, Carmarthen, having been with some 
 difficulty saved from impeachment on a charge of corrup¬ 
 tion, was recommended by William to abstain from attend¬ 
 ing the Council hereafter, though he would not proclaim 
 his Minister’s disgrace by formally dismissing him. The 
 next year Godolphin was induced to resign; and thus, in 
 1696, the Ministry became purely Whig; Mr. Charles 
 Montague, who had previously been Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, now uniting to that office the post of First Lord 
 of the Treasury, and thus becoming the first Prime Minister 
 of an united Cabinet. 
 
 One clause in the Act of Settlement was of brief dura¬ 
 tion. It prohibited the reigning Sovereign from ever quit¬ 
 ting the three kingdoms without the consent of Parliament. 
 It was manifestly a reflection on William himself, who, even 
 
Provisions of the Act of Settlement. 
 
 261 
 
 when not called to the Continent by the justifiable desire 
 of conducting the operations of war, or of diplomacy, 
 loved to spend large portions of his leisure in Holland, 
 and had given great offence to his new subjects by his 
 ostentatious preference of his native land. A year or two 
 before, while his health was better, he would probably have 
 refused to assent to such a clause. And it was not more 
 palatable to the two first Georges, in whose affections 
 Hanover occupied as large a place as he allowed to Holland. 
 It was accordingly repealed in the reign of George I., who, 
 with his son, made ample use of the liberty of movement 
 which he thus recovered to the Crown; an use which 
 their successors did not imitate; since of George III. 
 and his two sons but one ever crossed the Channel, and 
 George IV.’s visit to the Continent was of the briefest 
 duration; while, at the death of William IV., Hanover 
 ceased to belong to the British Sovereign, and no future 
 King, it may be hoped, will ever possess any continental 
 dominion. 
 
 Another clause has since been slightly modified. It was 
 provided that no pensioner of the Crown, and no one who 
 might be appointed to any office of profit under the Crown, 
 should be capable of serving as a member of the House of 
 Commons. This also had been suggested, in no slight degree, 
 by the conduct of William himself; since his Ministers 
 had availed themselves of the means at their disposal to 
 corrupt members of Parliament, and had distributed secret 
 bribes, and offices or pensions revocable at the pleasure 
 of the Crown, as unblushingly as any of their predecessors 
 in former reigns. But the clause was soon seen to have 
 too wide an operation. As it was at first passed, it would 
 have excluded even the Ministers from the House of Com- 
 
262 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 mons, whose presence is more indispensable there than 
 that of any other persons. And, as this was an objection 
 which was felt almost instantly, in 1706 the clause was 
 remodelled. To some offices the disqualification was still 
 continued, from some it was removed altogether; while 
 in the case of holders of the principal offices of state, and 
 a few others, it was provided that, though their acceptance 
 of such posts should still vacate their seats, they should be 
 capable of re-election.* 
 
 Another law, though not passed till four years after the 
 enactment of the Bill of Rights, and though subsequently 
 altered, must also be recorded as a measure necessary to 
 the completeness of the Revolution. No abuse had 
 caused more general indignation, or had been more pro¬ 
 ductive of practical mischief, than the license which the 
 Stuart kings had assumed of making the duration of Parlia¬ 
 ments, and the frequency of their meetings, depend on 
 nothing but their own arbitrary will. Even since the 
 Restoration, Charles II. had protracted the existence of 
 one Parliament for seventeen years; and both he and his 
 brother had shown the same notion of their right, or at 
 least of their power, to dispense with Parliaments altogether, 
 as had been carried out by their unfortunate father. By the 
 time that William had been three years on the throne, it 
 began to be seen that he was as much attached to what 
 he conceived to be the Royal prerogative as any of his pre¬ 
 decessors. 2 The number of placemen in the House of 
 Commons, who were of necessity greatly under the in- 
 
 1 In reference to this clause see also Macaulay’s dissection of the 
 Place Bill of 1692.—Vol. IV., c. 19, p. 339, Ed. 1863. 
 
 2 “ His spirit was quite as arbitrary and as impatient of control as that of 
 any of his predecessors, Stuart, Tudor, or Plantagenet," are the words of 
 his warmest panegyrist.— Lord Macaulay, vol. V., p. 153. 
 
The Triennial Act. 
 
 263 
 
 fluence of the Crown, was so large, indeed, as to give rise 
 to complaints that their votes overpowered those of the 
 more genuine representatives of the people. And appre¬ 
 hensions were felt that, the more this was the case the less 
 would the King be inclined to dissolve the Parliament, and 
 to give the people the opportunity of new elections. 
 
 The discontent grew so loud, that, in the beginning of 
 1693, Lord Shrewsbury, who had resigned his office of Sec¬ 
 retary of State some time before, brought in a bill known as 
 the Triennial Bill. It provided that the present Parliament 
 should cease to exist on the first day of the following year, 
 and that in future no Parliament should continue longer 
 than three years; but it made no further provision for the 
 issue of writs for a new Parliament after a dissolution than 
 was contained in the re-enactment of a clause in the Act of 
 Charles II. which forbade the intermission of Parliaments 
 for more than three years. The framers of the new Bill 
 evidently regarded the recent settlement of the revenue as 
 a sufficient security for annual sessions. The Bill passed 
 the House of Lords with very little opposition, and the 
 House of Commons by a decisive majority. But William 
 regarded it as an encroachment on his prerogative; bit¬ 
 terly reproached some of those who voted for it; among 
 whom was his President of the Council, Lord Carmarthen; 
 and finally, against the advice of all his ablest councillors, 
 refused to sanction it by the Royal Assent. 
 
 Hallam has characterized his refusal as an exercise of 
 prerogative which no ordinary circumstances can reconcile 
 either with prudence or with a constitutional administration 
 of Government. And it placed William himself in a false 
 position. The next session the Bill was brought in again. 
 Again the Lords passed it; but, in the Commons, Sir Edward 
 
264 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Seymour, who led the Tory opposition, by a skilful use of 
 the argument that a Bill to limit the duration of the House 
 of Commons ought not to have been first introduced in 
 the House of Lords, procured its rejection by a small 
 majority in a comparatively thin House. 1 However, the 
 statesmen who supported it were resolved to attain their 
 object. It was again brought forward in 1694. The jealousy 
 between the Commons and Lords no longer prevailed. It 
 was passed rapidly by both Houses, and William did not 
 venture to repeat his disapproval. Rather more than twenty 
 years afterwards, when from the continued intrigues of the 
 Jacobites, an immediate appeal to the people seemed danger¬ 
 ous to the stability of the Government, the period of three 
 years was altered to seven. And such a duration of Parlia¬ 
 ment has been found to work so well that no attempt 
 to disturb the arrangement has ever succeeded, nor, it may 
 be hoped, is any such attempt likely to succeed. 
 
 The reign also witnessed other changes, which had perhaps 
 as great an influence on the subsequent prosperity of the 
 people, and on the steady progress of improvement, as the 
 most warmly demanded legislative reforms. The coinage 
 of the kingdom had long been in a very bad state, and by 
 a gradual process of deterioration had latterly become worse 
 than ever. The method of coining, which had scarcely been 
 improved since the time of Edward I., secured uniformity 
 neither of weight, nor of size, nor of shape. Clipping and 
 paring the coins in circulation had consequently become 
 one of the most ordinary methods of fraud, and, though 
 such an act was a capital felony, and as such was punished 
 when detected with unrelenting severity, the practice pre- 
 
 ■ The numbers were 146 v. 136. In the previous session the Bill had 
 been carried by 200 v. 161. 
 
State of the Coinage. 
 
 265 
 
 vailed to the great injury of our trade and, what was even 
 worse, to the great demoralization of the people. But in 
 1694, the ablest financier that at that time Europe had ever 
 seen, Charles Montague, became Chancellor of the Exche¬ 
 quer. And he at once applied himself to remedy the evil. 
 
 Many different modes were proposed, for the notoriety of 
 the evil had awakened discussion ; and, among others, the 
 celebrated Locke had displayed all his powers of lucid 
 reasoning on the subject. That the old money should be 
 called in and good money substituted all were agreed. The 
 practical question which called forth the subtlest powers 
 of argument, and roused the angry passions of a vast mul¬ 
 titude, was on whom the loss caused by the depreciation of 
 the existing coinage was to fall. For, on an average of the 
 whole kingdom, the coins in circulation were not worth half 
 the sum that they represented.’ And many pamphleteers, 
 pronouncing that the national Treasury could not afford so 
 vast a loss, recommended that it should be borne by each 
 individual who was in possession of the clipped coins on the 
 day on which they were called in. But Montague saw not 
 only that it would be preposterously unfair to make indivi¬ 
 duals suffer for evils for which not they, but the supineness 
 of Ministers and Parliaments in times gone by was mainly 
 accountable, but also that such a rule would utterly paralyze 
 trade and commerce of all kinds till all the old money should 
 be withdrawn from circulation; since no one would sell his 
 goods for coins on every one of which he was to lose half 
 its nominal value in a few months. And, though the loss to 
 the Exchequer would be large (it was estimated that it could 
 not amount to less than fi, 200,000), he resolved that the 
 nation should bear it. 
 
 > See Macaulay, vol. IV., pp. 626-7. 
 
266 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 The new Bank of England, which owed its origin to his 
 financial sagacity, lent the Government the money required, 
 on the security of a new tax which he invented for the pur¬ 
 pose, and which, though the cause of much clamour, and 
 undoubtedly open to some grave objections, subsisted to 
 our own time. The hearth-tax was one of the oldest 
 sources of the national revenue, but it was bitterly and 
 universally hated, as one which pressed unduly on the 
 poor, and which gave the collectors pretexts for domiciliary 
 visits, which were almost always annoying, and not unfre- 
 quently were made the means of unfair extortion. Mon¬ 
 tague now proposed to abolish the hearth-tax, and to sub¬ 
 stitute for it a window-tax, and the House of Commons 
 unanimously approved of his design. In one point, his 
 ingenuity, uprightness, and boldness was aided by fortune. 
 Just at this time the office of Master of the Mint became 
 vacant, and he conferred it on Isaac Newton, already- 
 known as the greatest mathematician that the world had 
 seen, and who was now to prove that his practical skill 
 equalled his mastery of abstract science. By his energy 
 and ingenuity, mints were established in the chief pro¬ 
 vincial towns, as well as in London. The old coinage was 
 called in in May, 1696, and though, as the new coinage was 
 as yet ready in only small quantities, the scarcity of money 
 for a few months produced great embarrassment, and even 
 some hardship and suffering, by August the supply had 
 become nearly sufficient, and before the winter set in, 
 every trace of the old grievance, and of the recent difficulty 
 had passed away. 
 
 The reform of the coinage was a great triumph of the 
 administrative talents of the Government. Yet important as 
 was its effect on the commercial prosperity of the country, its 
 
Enfranchisement of the Press. 267 
 
 value as a cause and means of progress for the whole nation 
 was equalled if not exceeded by a reform with which the 
 Ministers themselves, and apparently the leaders of parties 
 in the House of Commons, had little to do, but which 
 seems rather to be ascribable to the general good sense of 
 the House, and to what Hallam calls the “ influence of the 
 popular principle in our Constitution.” 
 
 In the middle of the reign of Charles I. a decree 
 placing the Press under very severe restrictions had been 
 issued by the Star Chamber; but it is not to be regarded as 
 having been dictated so much by the despotic temper of 
 the members of that deservedly odious tribunal, as by the 
 spirit of the age ; since, six years later, the Long Parlia¬ 
 ment, after it had declared war against the King, issued a 
 similar order, 1 provoking Milton to remonstrate against 
 their tyranny in his celebrated pamphlet, “ Areopagitica: 
 An Address for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.” It 
 was equally in harmony with the notions of the Ministers 
 of Charles II., for, as the order had expired with the Par¬ 
 liament which promulgated it, one of their first acts was to 
 revive it with greater authority, and they procured the 
 enactment of a law framed with the same object, though so 
 far less objectionable that it had a temporary character, 
 being enacted only for a period of three years. It, how¬ 
 ever, was renewed from time to time. When towards the 
 end of the reign it had been suffered to expire, it was 
 presently re-enacted ; and it had been renewed once in 
 William’s reign. In 1695 11 was again about to expire, 
 when a Committee of the House of Commons, whose 
 
 1 The “Decree” and the "Order” are both given as a preface to the 
 edition of Milton's “Areopagitica,” contained in the series of English 
 reprints, edited by Mr. Arber. 
 
268 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 recommendations had evidently the approval of the Minis¬ 
 ters, reported that it was one of the statutes which ought to 
 be maintained. It does not appear that any one spoke in 
 opposition to the recommendation, but when the House 
 was called upon for its vote on the subject, that clause of 
 the report was rejected. The Ministers apparently did not 
 think it worth while to make a struggle for its renewal, 
 nor does it appear that any one at the time thought it a 
 matter of any particular importance. The House of Lords 
 did, indeed, when a Bill for the continuance of other tem¬ 
 porary statutes was sent up to them, reinstate what was 
 called the Licensing Act among those named, but after a 
 conference with the Commons they readily gave up the 
 point, and from that time English literature has been freed 
 from all Ministerial control. Milton’s poetical anticipations 
 have been realized, “ A noble and puissant nation roused 
 herself like a strong man after sleep, and shook her invin¬ 
 cible locks.” 
 
 The emancipation of the Press did even more than the 
 poet had foreshadowed. It did not so much awaken what 
 had slumbered, as create what had had no previous exist¬ 
 ence. Till this time no discussion of any political question 
 could be addressed to the nation at large. The people 
 could receive no light whatever on matters which might 
 affect their dearest interests ; for, even in the brief period 
 during which the Licensing Act did not exist, the judges 
 laid it down that by the common law of the kingdom no man 
 had any right to relate or discuss political events without 
 the consent of the Crown. There were no newspapers. 
 There had been one or two circulated among the opposite 
 parties during the rebellion and in the time of the Com¬ 
 monwealth, but they had all been suppressed at the Resto- 
 
First Appearance of Newspapers . 269 
 
 ration, and for the last thirty years the only publication 
 pretending to relate news was the “London Gazette,” which 
 was edited by a clerk in the office of the Secretary of 
 State, and was not allowed to mention any incident un¬ 
 favourable or unpleasing to the Government. 1 
 
 There had been a few political pamphlets, or rather ad¬ 
 dresses, for they were usually confined to a single sheet, but 
 they were written and published stealthily and anony¬ 
 mously, both author and publisher knowing that they were 
 in danger of the pillory if discovered. 2 Now, however, all 
 this was changed; not, indeed, that it was at all clear that 
 the expiry of the Licensing Act affected the interpretation of 
 the ordinary law on the subject as laid down by the judges 
 of Charles II., but there seemed a general agreement to 
 regard the removal of all restrictions upon pamphlets and 
 treatises as the abolition also of the monopoly previously 
 enjoyed by the “ Gazette.” And within a few weeks of the 
 vote of the House of Commons a number of newspapers 
 were set on foot, which, though meagre in size, poor in 
 quality, and, in but few instances, appearing oftener than 
 once a week, seemed of inestimable value to a generation 
 which till then had known nothing more than its rulers had 
 chosen to divulge, and which are scarcely of less impor¬ 
 tance to the present generation, as the forerunners of the 
 copious publications relating the most important occur¬ 
 rences in every country in the world, pointing out their 
 chief features, and examining them in all their bearings, 
 which daily brighten our breakfast-tables. 
 
 'The "Gazette” of July, 1688, made no mention of the trial of the 
 Bishops. 
 
 2 The Act which was thus suffered to expire covered every kind of poli¬ 
 tical writing. It was entitled "An Act of preventing abuses in printing 
 seditious, treasonable, and unlicensed pamphlets,” &c., &c. 
 
270 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 One kind of information alone the newspapers did not 
 venture to supply, the knowledge of how the members of 
 the two Houses had spoken and voted in their places 
 in Parliament. The old order, by which a century before 
 the speakers had sought to protect themselves from the 
 tyranny of Elizabeth, was still maintained in its original 
 force, but not for its original reasons. Members who had 
 taken bribes from Danby or from Barillon were as desirous 
 to keep their baseness a secret from their constituents as 
 the followers of Wentworth or of Hobby had been desirous 
 to keep their fidelity to their duties a secret from the 
 Queen. But gradually, though slowly, the spread of 
 political knowledge, arising from the extension of the 
 new system of intelligence, wrought the extinction of this 
 order, of which, as being dictated by selfish timidity, its 
 very proposers can hardly have failed to be ashamed, so 
 that the present generation owes this knowledge also to 
 the fortunate impatience of inquisitorial abuses, which, far 
 more than the appreciation of any large principles of free¬ 
 dom of speech or of thought, led William’s Parliament to 
 emancipate the Press. 
 
271 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Dangers of the Revolution from foreign wars—Success of the French in 
 Piedmont and Spain—The War in Flanders — Walcourt and Fleurus 
 — In 1691 William crosses over to take the command — Luxemburg 
 takes Mons — In 1692 Luxemburg takes Namur—The battle of 
 Steinkirk— Campaign of 1693 — Cowardice of Louis XIV. — The 
 battle of Neerwinden — Subsequent campaigns—Recapture of Namur 
 —The battle of La Hogue—Declaration issued by James. 
 
 The different measures which have been enumerated in the 
 last chapter may be regarded as the full establishment of 
 the personal and intellectual freedom of every subject of the 
 British Crown ; and consequently as, in another sense, the 
 completion of the Revolution, which had that freedom for 
 its object. Yet it could not itself be said to be fully estab¬ 
 lished so long as there was any danger of the new dynasty 
 being overthrown either by open foreign war, or by secret 
 domestic conspiracy. It was plunged into foreign war 
 from its very birth. We have seen that in the very month 
 in which William and Mary accepted the English Crown, 
 Louis furnished James with military aid to recover his 
 throne. And such an act was manifestly a declaration of 
 war on his part, though more than two months elapsed 
 before the English Parliament addressed William to make 
 formal reply to it by an official proclamation. William had, 
 however, from the first been making energetic preparations 
 for war by forming a coalition of allies ; and his diplomacy 
 
2J2 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 had been so successful, that a declaration of war against 
 France from the Empire, from Spain, from the States of 
 Holland, and from the Elector of Brandenburg appeared 
 even before his own. 
 
 For six years hostilities were carried on with great vigour 
 on both sides. And at first the genius of the great French 
 War Minister Louvois, and of the marshals whom he placed 
 at the head of the different armies, seemed likely to turn 
 the scale in favour of France. Catinat in Piedmont and 
 Savoy, and the Dukes of Noailles and Vendome in Spain, 
 proved far superior in skill to their antagonists, though 
 both, by the express orders of Louis himself, followed up 
 their victories by the most inhuman cruelty towards the 
 inhabitants of the districts in which they were carrying on 
 their operations. 
 
 But it was in Flanders that the principal efforts were 
 made on both sides; and it was there alone that English 
 soldiers were engaged, and that the events of the successive 
 campaigns could be expected to influence the state of affairs 
 in England; though even in that country, during the first 
 two years of the war, we did not attempt to play more than 
 a subordinate part. The civil war which, in 1689, raged in 
 both Scotland and Ireland necessarily detained the greater 
 part of our troops in those countries; and the only force 
 which William could furnish for the support of his allies in 
 the Netherlands was a brigade on which, as the regiments 
 composing it had formed part of James’s army, he could 
 not rely against their old master, and which he therefore 
 sent, under the command of the Earl of Marlborough, to 
 join the Dutch army under the Prince of Waldeck. 
 
 During that year Marshal d’Humieres was the French 
 Commander-in-Chief; and the scene of action was that 
 
Military Skill of Marlborough. 
 
 273 
 
 narrow district on the western frontier of Flanders which 
 lies between the Sambre and the Meuse, and which has 
 witnessed more bloodshed than probably any similar space 
 in the whole world. In one smart skirmish, which arose 
 out of an attack made by the French on an outpost occupied 
 by the English brigade at Walcourt, the English troops 
 maintained their old superiority; and Marlborough, on this, 
 the first occasion in which he was ever in command, showed 
 a degree of skill far beyond that of the French officers, 
 veterans though they were. When, the next year, Marl¬ 
 borough had returned to England, Luxemburg, who had 
 been sent from Paris to take thfe chief command, and who 
 was probably the greatest commander, with the exception of 
 Turenne, who up to that time had ever had the glory of 
 France committed to his skill and valour, had no difficulty 
 in giving the Prince de Waldeck a decisive defeat at 
 Fleurus, on nearly the same ground which witnessed one 
 of the earliest battles of the revolutionary war a century 
 later. But in that battle the English brigade was but little 
 concerned; and, by the confession of the French writers 
 themselves, the victory was of very slight political impor¬ 
 tance. 
 
 It was not till the next year, 1691, that the war assumed 
 a character which caused every event in it to be regarded 
 with the deepest interest by both parties in England. A 
 victory gained or a defeat sustained by our allies, in which 
 our own troops had little share, was not calculated to have 
 any effect on William’s reputation or position. But at the 
 beginning of 1691 he conceived that he could safely leave 
 the war in Ireland to be finished by his lieutenants, and 
 that it was in Flanders, where Waldeck was manifestly un¬ 
 equal to cope with the French marshals, that his presence 
 
 T 
 
274 The English Revolution. 
 
 was more required. Accordingly, in January he crossed 
 over to the Hague with some fresh regiments, which raised 
 the English contingent to 20,000 men, and, after holding 
 some meetings of the representatives of the different 
 members of the coalition, at the beginning of March he 
 took the field in person. His first operations were un¬ 
 successful. Brigades which are supplied by various nations 
 can rarely be brought together with the same promptitude as 
 an army belonging to a single prince, and, though the allies 
 had agreed to provide for the coming campaign a vast host 
 of 220,000 men, William could not at first muster above 
 50,000, while by the middle of March Luxemburg had 
 above 100,000 under his orders, and was able to reduce 
 the important fortress of Mons before William’s face with¬ 
 out the King of England being able to make a single effort 
 to save it. 
 
 Yet, if fairly estimated, the campaign, viewed as a whole, 
 was highly creditable to William’s skill. His policy was 
 evidently to avoid a battle. Such an army as his, com¬ 
 posed of Germans from many different States, of Dutch, 
 Flemish, and British regiments, required time to learn 
 to co-operate without jealousy, and to feel confidence in 
 himself, before they could be expected to encounter with 
 success a French army composed wholly of soldiers of one 
 nation, and led by a chief known to them all in thirty 
 campaigns, and by all admired and trusted as invincible. 
 For these same reasons Luxemburg was eager to force the 
 King to a battle. But so wary and skilful was William’s 
 strategy throughout the whole summer, that, with all his 
 genius, the Frenchman could find no opportunity of attack¬ 
 ing him with advantage; and after a bloodless campaign 
 both armies retired into winter quarters. 
 
Luxemburg takes Namur. 
 
 275 
 
 Yet, though it had certainly been honourable to William 
 in one point of view, it was nearly proving disastrous in 
 another. His allies were less patient than himself. They 
 were, or fancied themselves, less interested in curbing the 
 pride and power of the French monarch. They were 
 irresolute, fickle, and above all covetous and divided by 
 mutual jealousies. A less indomitable spirit than that of 
 William would have abandoned the coalition in despair, as 
 he was more than once tempted to do; and a less able 
 diplomatist would have failed to keep it united. By un¬ 
 wearied exertions, and great concessions, he did succeed in 
 maintaining it, and even in strengthening it by conciliating 
 Sweden and Denmark, whose attitude had previously been 
 far from friendly. 
 
 But when all political difficulties had been overcome, he 
 found it, in 1692, as impossible as he had found it in 1691, to 
 take the field with full effect as early as Louis. And Luxem¬ 
 burg with 120,000 men had laid siege to Namur before 
 William suspected his design, much more before he was in 
 any condition to succour it. Namur fell on the 1st of July. 
 William, though he had lost no honour by its fall, watched 
 vigilantly for some opportunity of retrieving the disaster, and 
 a month later flattered himself that he had found one. The 
 Elector of Bavaria commanded one division of the allied 
 army, and Luxemburg had succeeded in bribing his private 
 secretary, a musical professor appropriately named Millevoix, 
 to supply him with information of the movements and de¬ 
 signs of his enemies. The secretary’s treachery was dis¬ 
 covered, and he was compelled by threats of instant death 
 to send the Marshal Duke such false intelligence as might 
 lull him into security, and enable William to make an attack 
 upon his camp, in front of the little village of Steinkirk, 
 
 T 2 
 
2 76 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 which, as being unsuspected, he reasonably hoped could 
 hardly fail to be successful. 
 
 William’s design was skilfully laid. He did succeed 
 in taking his adversary by surprise so completely that he 
 utterly routed the brigade which had the outposts of the 
 camp committed to its care; and took all its guns. But 
 he was unable to pursue his advantage with the rapidity 
 on which he had reckoned. The ground which lay be¬ 
 tween the outpost and the main body of the French 
 army was broken, intersected with rough fences and deep 
 wide ditches. His meditated onset was Unavoidably im¬ 
 peded ; and to Luxemburg, who never under any diffi¬ 
 culties or dangers lost his presence of mind, a very brief 
 respite was sufficient. Though he had placed such confi¬ 
 dence in the strength of his lines, and in his superiority of 
 numbers, that he had expected nothing less than an attack 
 from an enemy whom he had not yet learned to appreciate, 
 a very short time sufficed him to collect his whole army in 
 array to receive it; and, when at last William forced his 
 way to his front, he found himself disappointed of all the 
 advantages which he had hoped to gain from the surprise 
 of his enemy, and reduced to fight a pitched battle on equal 
 terms. 
 
 No such armies had ever met in a modern field. Each 
 numbered near 100,000 men; and the stubbornness of the 
 conflict corresponded to their strength. In the French line 
 stood a force which had but lately joined it, the Irish brigade 
 which Sarsfield had brought over from Limerick. They 
 were animated by a threefold motive to exert themselves, 
 by the desire to make a worthy return for Louis’s protection 
 and liberality; to win for themselves, at the sword's point, 
 an honourable return to their native land; and to secure the 
 
The Battle of Steinkirk. 
 
 277 
 
 restoration of their exiled King to his throne. They fought 
 as gallant men under such incentives were sure to fight. But 
 the English were as fiery as they, and still more steady; and 
 on this day earned the character, which they have never since 
 lost, of being the best infantry in Europe. So indomitable 
 did their valour seem, that Luxemburg was forced to bring 
 into action the celebrated household brigade, “the gilded 
 troop,” 1 as the Duke of Berwick calls them, composed 
 wholly of gentlemen, and led by princes of the blood, by 
 the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Bourbon, the Prince of 
 Conti, and the Duke of Vendome. And even then the 
 English might have held their ground had not William’s 
 unworthy favourite, Solmes, basely betrayed them. He 
 commanded the division which, from its position, could 
 have given them the most effective support, and that 
 support he refused to give. “ He wished,” he said, with 
 malignant jealousy, “ to see what sport the English bull¬ 
 dogs could make.” Unsupported, they could but perish 
 where they stood. Mackay of Killiecrankie fell gallantly 
 fighting at the head of his regiment, and with him many 
 other officers who had recently, in the war in their own 
 country, given promise of future eminence. After a struggle 
 unequalled in its stubbornness, if the scantiness of their 
 numbers and the overpowering strength of their assailants 
 be considered, the remnant of the English division was 
 beaten back; and when they were beaten none of their 
 foreign allies made any stand. 2 But Luxemburg’s victory, 
 if, indeed, Steinkirk may not rather be called a drawn battle, 
 
 1 La troupe doree ; la maison du roi.—" Memoires du Due de Berwick," 
 vol. I., p. 115. 
 
 2 Et quand les Anglais furent vaincus il fallut que le reste cedat. 
 —Voltaire, “Sifccle de Louis XIV." c. 16. 
 
278 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 had been so dearly won that he was unable to derive any 
 further advantage from it; and, though it was boasted of at 
 court as a brilliant achievement, it in no degree reconciled 
 the French people to the continuance of the war, which 
 was beginning to cause great distress throughout the whole 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 But, if the French had had no real ground for exultation 
 in the war in 1692, in 1693 they had reason for deep 
 shame, though at no period were William and the Crown 
 which he had won, and the cause of European freedom for 
 which he so manfully struggled, in greater danger. In the 
 preceding year the baseness of Solmes had perhaps deprived 
 him of a triumph; in this year he was, in his own opinion, 
 as also in that of every Frenchman capable of forming a 
 judgment, saved from utter ruin by the disgraceful conduct 
 of another person, and that person was Louis himself. Louis 
 liked the parade of war ; he liked to come with all the pomp 
 of a gorgeous and voluptuous court to the head-quarters 
 of an army while it was besieging a town, and, in tents 
 glittering with silk and gold, to feast at a safe distance from 
 the trenches while his generals and engineers were battering 
 breaches in the walls; to receive the keys of the con¬ 
 quered fortress as spoils won by his own valour; and 
 then to return to Versailles to listen to fresh flatteries 
 from poets and preachers, who vied with one another 
 in their fulsome adulation. But he never trusted himself 
 with his armies when a battle was at hand in which some 
 dashing attack or chance bullet might expose his Royal 
 person to danger. 
 
 At the beginning of May he had come to Luxemburg’s 
 camp, expecting that the great Duke would enable him to 
 add the keys of Brussels or Liege to his trophies. But 
 
Cowardice of Louis XIV. 279 
 
 Luxemburg, who had 120,000 men, hoped rather, by 
 making demonstrations against those great cities, to draw 
 William, who was sure to make every possible effort to pro¬ 
 tect them, into a situation where he could force him to a 
 battle, which, as the allied army did not exceed 70,000, 
 could scarcely have any result but its entire destruction. 
 To his dismay and shame, he found that Louis, the 
 moment that he learnt that a fight in the open field was 
 contemplated, determined to return to Paris ; seeking to 
 disguise his cowardice by pretending a change in the plan 
 of the campaign, and by detaching the Dauphin, with 
 Marshal Boufflers and 40,000 men, to the Rhine. In vain 
 Luxemburg threw himself on his knees 1 before his Sove¬ 
 reign to entreat him to abandon so dishonourable a purpose. 
 Louis was sufficiently alarmed to be resolute; and the 
 Duke was left with an army thus reduced to little more than 
 an equality with his adversary, to endeavour to throw a veil 
 over his master’s dishonour by his own glory. He could 
 not screen it from those concerned. William himself, who 
 was too magnanimous to dissemble his errors, confessed that 
 he had brought himself into a situation in which nothing 
 but a miracle could have saved him from ruin. The French 
 soldiers, equally clear-sighted, and feeling that their King’s 
 flight had disgraced the whole nation, gave free license to 
 their tongues, and even the courtiers and fine ladies who 
 had accompanied the court to Flanders and back to 
 Versailles, in spite of the pleasure with which they returned 
 to the luxuries of the palace, spoke with unaccustomed 
 plainness of the cause of their return; and in the graphic 
 
 1 Luxemburg, au desespoir de se voir echapper une si glorieuse et si 
 facile campagne, se met a deux genoux devant le roi, et ne peut rien obtenir. 
 — St. Simon, vol. I., p. 96. 
 
280 The English Revolution. 
 
 language of St. Simon, made it a point of honour to be 
 ashamed of it. 1 
 
 Still, so far as the disgrace could be washed out by subse¬ 
 quent success, the national honour could be entrusted more 
 safely to no one than to Luxemburg. Even after Boufflers 
 had left him, he was stronger than William by 20,000 men. 
 But he was not satisfied with that superiority; he aspired to 
 finish the war at a single blow ; and, to render the victory 
 which he promised himself absolutely decisive, he made 
 such a demonstration of a design to attack Liege as induced 
 William to detach 20,000 men to protect that important city. 
 Then, when the allied army was reduced to 50,000 men, he 
 collected his whole force and marched against the King 
 with 8o,ooo. 2 It was late in the evening of the 18th of July 
 when William, who fancied him still bent on the reduction 
 of Liege, learnt that he was close at hand, and would 
 certainly fall upon him at daybreak with a force more than 
 half as strong again as his own. 
 
 He saw at once that he had been out-generalled. He 
 might still have retreated with safety; for a little beyond 
 his right was the Lesser Gheet, 3 a stream which, though 
 
 1 II faisaient honneur d'en etre honteux. —St. Simon, vol. I., p. 99. 
 
 a In the battles of this age it is generally difficult to make out the pre¬ 
 cise numbers engaged, because the reports do not describe the armies by the 
 number of the men, but by the number of battalions (of infantry) and 
 squadrons (of cavalry). For instance in this battle (which the French call 
 Neerwinden, and English historians in general Landen) Berwick says they 
 had 96 battalions, and 210 squadrons, and that the Prince of Orange had 
 "only 65 battalions, and 150 squadrons." A battalion may perhaps be 
 taken generally as consisting of about 500 men, a squadron of about 200. 
 This calculation would, according to Berwick's account, make the French 
 army 90,000, and the allies 62,500, which is certainly a number greater than 
 the truth in both cases. 
 
 3 There is some obscurity in the accounts of this battle, for Berwick 
 says William's camp was between the two Gheets (the Greater and Lesser 
 
The Battle of Neerwinden. 
 
 281 
 
 of no great width, was deep, with high steep banks, and 
 with several bridges, all of which were in his possession; and 
 the Elector of Bavaria, with most of his generals, earnestly 
 counselled such a step. But he probably looked at his posi¬ 
 tion as much with the eye of a statesman as with that of a 
 general; and feared the moral effect on both his troops and 
 his allies of a movement which must seem a confession of 
 inferiority, as well as the possibility that a retreat might lead 
 to the loss of either Brussels or Liege. Confiding, there¬ 
 fore, in his own indomitable courage, he resolved to hold 
 his ground; and at once applied himself so to strengthen 
 his position, as in some degree to make up for his in¬ 
 feriority of numbers. His troops were as energetic as him¬ 
 self. When day broke and Luxemburg rode to the front of 
 his army to give the signal for battle, he was astonished to 
 find that in a single night wide trenches four feet deep had 
 been cut, and palisades erected along the whole of the 
 allied line; that redoubts, half-moons, and other defences 
 in use with the engineers of that day, had been constructed, 
 and bristled with nearly 100 guns; in short, that he had to 
 attack a well-garrisoned fortification, instead of what he had 
 expected to find, an unprotected and helpless mass of 
 troops. 
 
 But he did not on that account hesitate a moment; but 
 at once poured his columns on the allied position both in 
 
 Gheet, as they are called in our maps), but afterwards he says William's 
 left rested on a stream (deep enough to form a defence, he calls it un don 
 ruisseau ), and his right on the village of Neerwinden. But Neerwinden 
 is not between the two Gheets, but to the south of the Lesser Gheet. There 
 is a small stream, the Landen, to the south of Neerwinden, which Berwick 
 probably mistakes for one of the Gheets. 1 call the battle that of Neer¬ 
 winden, because the conquerors have always a right to give the name to 
 their victories. 
 
282 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 front and flank; supporting them, till they closed with their 
 foes, with a heavy fire of artillery. William’s left rested on 
 a little stream called the Landen, his right on the village of 
 Neerwinden, which was the key of his position; and, as 
 both armies saw its importance, the struggle which both 
 made for its possession was one of extreme stubbornness. 
 Twice it was taken and retaken. In one conflict the Duke 
 of Berwick, who commanded the attacking division, was 
 taken prisoner; many other officers of high rank were 
 killed. At last "Luxemburg, as at Steinkirk, was forced to 
 bring up the Household Brigade ; and they, gallantly led by 
 the Duke of Bourbon, and the Duke of Chartres (afterwards 
 the Regent d'Orleans), who, though but a boy, showed on 
 this day the valour of a veteran soldier, came on with the 
 brilliant impetuosity habitual to them, which now for the 
 first time was found not to be irresistible. For a moment, 
 indeed, they made themselves masters of the disputed 
 village ; but William put himself at the head of some English 
 regiments, and other picked troops, and drove them out 
 again with prodigious slaughter. All that the most heroic 
 courage could do, William, by the confession even of his 
 admiring enemies, did ; but in the end Luxemburg’s numbers 
 and skill prevailed. The allied ranks, greatly inferior in 
 number from the very beginning, had been terribly thinned ; 
 and at last, after eight hours of hard fighting, those who re¬ 
 mained were beaten back at all points. Then as the French 
 pressed on with triumphant cheers, the disorder became 
 terrible. Whole regiments of the allies threw away their 
 arms and colours, and pressed in undisciplined flight towards 
 the bridges over the Gheet. The King himself and Gene¬ 
 ral Talmash, at the head of the British division, still fought 
 desperately to cover the retreat; till they, and especially the 
 
Death of Sarsfield . 
 
 283 
 
 King, were more than once nearly taken prisoners. William 
 was almost the last to cross the river ; and with his retire¬ 
 ment from the field the battle ended. 
 
 The French had full right to boast, as they did boast, of 
 a complete victory'. 1 2 But they were in no condition to 
 improve it. If on the side of the allies 12,000 or 14,000 
 men had fallen, Luxemburg’s loss had not been greatly less. 3 
 Many of his noblest and bravest officers lay dead on the 
 field; among them the gallant Sarsfield. And Luxemburg 
 himself, aged and infirm, had no longer the energy necessary 
 to cope in a protracted series of operations with so unwearied 
 and indomitable an antagonist as William, who never showed 
 greater vigour or greater military capacity than in the exer¬ 
 tions which he made to reorganize his army after so terrible 
 a defeat. 
 
 It had, indeed, been a critical day, not only for him but 
 for England. Had he been slain (and his physical weak¬ 
 ness had prevented him from wearing the cuirass which was 
 still the usual protection of officers of rank), or had he been 
 taken prisoner, all that had been done with such labour and 
 such judgment in the last five years would have been in 
 no small danger of being undone. The coalition against 
 France must have been dissolved at once. Louis would 
 have been at liberty to employ his whole strength for the 
 restoration of James; while the English people, however 
 disposed to rally round Mary’s throne, would, at first at all 
 events, have had no trustworthy leader to guide their 
 efforts. It is hardly conceivable that they could have 
 
 1 “ La victoire se peut dire complete.”— St. Simon, vol. I., p. hi. 
 
 2 Berwick says 8,000 ; St. Simon not much under 10,000; and the 
 
 French had already learnt to disguise their own losses, and to exaggerate 
 those of their enemies. 
 
284 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 averted the re-establishment of James except at the cost of 
 another civil war, during which the deaths of Mary and of 
 the young Duke of Gloucester would have been further 
 discouragements to those who were still standing forward in 
 defence of the principles of the Revolution such as they 
 could hardly have surmounted. Surely, without superstition 
 it may be said that Providence, which throughout this ter¬ 
 rible day watched over William’s safety, was at the same 
 time watching over England, that one model and bulwark of 
 civil and religious liberty might be preserved in the world. 
 
 It was, however, the last danger of the kind to which 
 William was exposed. The year 1694 passed by without 
 any warlike incident of importance to either army. And 
 the death of Luxemburg, which happened in the first week 
 of 1695, deprived the enemy of the only soldier to whom 
 William was decidedly unequal. Villeroy, the Marshal 
 whom Louis now matched against him, was more inferior to 
 him than he had been to Luxemburg. Though his force 
 was, as usual, superior to that of the allies, William 
 out-manoeuvred him ; re-took Namur in spite of him, though 
 it was defended by a resolute and skilful governor, Marshal 
 Boufflers; and the result of the whole campaign was to 
 establish at last a decided superiority of the allies to the 
 French annies in that quarter. It was plain to the most 
 sanguine of the French councillors that the only prospect 
 of overthrowing William’s throne was by assassination. 
 And to that accordingly they applied themselves. 
 
 For, though at first the operations of the fleets had also 
 been in some degree advantageous to the French, their 
 moment of success was as brief as the success itself had 
 been trivial. In the spring of 1689 Admiral Herbert, though 
 furnished with a fine fleet for the express purpose of 
 
Naval Battles. 
 
 285 
 
 intercepting the communications between France and 
 Ireland, had limited his exertions to an action in Bantry 
 Bay, which was wholly indecisive, and which he made no 
 effort to renew. And in the summer of 1690, having been 
 created Lord Torrington in the interval, he conducted his 
 operations with such irresolution and unskilfulness that he 
 was defeated off Beachy Head, though the loss had fallen 
 chiefly on the Dutch squadron, who engaged with great 
 gallantry in the conflict from which, so far as he could, he 
 kept the bulk of the English ships aloof. Of the English 
 squadron only one ship was captured, so that though dis¬ 
 graced it was but little weakened ; and the recollection of 
 this discomfiture was soon effaced by British triumphs, 
 which, if the preponderance of force on our side forbids us 
 to describe as glorious, were at all events unusually deci¬ 
 sive, and, in their bearing on the subsequent operations and 
 plans of the enemy, all-important. 
 
 In 1692, Count Tourville, the Admiral who had com¬ 
 manded at Beachy Head, was again sent with forty-five 
 sail of the line into the Channel, with orders to take 
 under his command another fleet of equal strength which 
 was to come round from Toulon, and to attack the 
 English Admiral wherever he might find him. Foul winds, 
 however, kept the Toulon fleet in the Mediterranean, 
 and Tourville had still only his own division with him 
 when, on the 19th of May, he fell in with Admiral Russell, 
 who had superseded Lord Torrington in the command of 
 the English fleet, and who was now at the head of a com¬ 
 bined force of English and Dutch ships which amounted to 
 more than double the Frenchman’s numbers. The moment 
 the two fleets came in sight of each other. Russell made 
 the signal for action; and Tourville, though completely 
 
286 The English Revolution. 
 
 surprised by his overpowering numbers, conceived that his 
 orders left him no discretion, but bound him to fight under 
 any circumstance. He fought with great gallantry and 
 great skill, but to a battle engaged in against such odds 
 there could be but one end. Many of his ships were taken 
 or destroyed ; and those which escaped to their own har¬ 
 bours found those harbours no protection. 
 
 Under Russell’s orders were Sir Ralph Delaval and Sir 
 George Rooke, two officers of the highest reputation in the 
 service. He at once sent Delaval to attack the ships that 
 had reached Cherbourg, and Rooke against a large divi¬ 
 sion which had got into the Bay of La Hogue. Delaval 
 destroyed those at Cherbourg, while Rooke forced his way 
 into the Bay of La Hogue. The contest there was one of 
 unusual interest, for it took place under the eyes of King 
 James himself. It had not been merely for the sake of gain¬ 
 ing a naval victory over an equal force, however glorious that 
 would have been, that the Toulon fleet had been ordered 
 to leave the Mediterranean undefended and to unite with 
 Tourville in the British Channel. The object aimed at had 
 been far larger : the same to which, above a hundred years 
 afterwards, Napoleon also looked as the means of humbling 
 England. The fleets when united were to cover the passage 
 of an invading army to our shores. All the Irish regiments 
 which Sarsfield had brought over, and 10,000 French 
 soldiers under Marshal Bellefonds, were encamped at La 
 Hogue ready to embark in their transports the moment 
 that the English fleet had been beaten back to its harbours. 
 And James himself was among them, impatiently waiting 
 for the moment when he might set sail to recover his old 
 kingdom. 
 
 The scattered ships which sought refuge in La Hogue 
 
Sir George Rooke at La Hogue. 287 
 
 Bay, had brought him the first intelligence of the downfall 
 of his hopes. But they had scarcely reached it when the 
 English ships were also seen crowding all sail after them. 
 It seemed an unequal contest, for the French vessels ran 
 on shore when ours could not approach them without the 
 certainty of also grounding, and where they were protected 
 by the guns of the different forts and of several batteries 
 which Bellefonds rapidly constructed at the very water’s 
 edge. But English sailors had long learnt to despise all 
 such obstacles. Finding that his ships could not get within 
 shot, Rooke sent in his boats. The very audacity of the 
 attack struck a panic into the French sailors. As the 
 English came on, many of the French deserted their ships, 
 escaping to the shore before their assailants could grapple 
 with them. Even some regiments which Bellefonds had 
 brought down to harass the boats with musketry, fell 
 back after firing a few volleys. In a very short time the 
 English sailors had mastered and set fire to the whole 
 French squadron, as well as to the transports and 
 storeships which had been collected for the use of the 
 army. Yet, bitter as must have been the feelings of James, 
 they were overpowered for a moment by the recollection 
 of former days, when he, too, had led a British fleet to 
 victory. And, as he saw Rooke’s sailors springing from 
 their boats up the lofty sides of the French three-deckers, 
 James exclaimed that “ None but his brave Englishmen 
 could have performed so brave an action.” 
 
 The news of the victory was received in England with 
 unbounded exultation, which was not confined to the Whigs. 
 Patriots in general rejoiced that the stigma thrown on the 
 English navy by the pusillanimity of Torrington, in the 
 previous year, was so splendidly effaced. Many even of 
 
I 
 
 288 The English Revolution. 
 
 the Tory party who had hitherto been inclined to favour 
 James’s restoration, acknowledged that it was well for the 
 country that the well-laid scheme of invasion had been thus 
 defeated. And this change of feeling arose from no fickle¬ 
 ness on their part, but from the ^fierce obstinacy and per¬ 
 verseness of James himself. In full confidence of the success 
 of the intended invasion, he had announced his approaching 
 return, in a printed declaration, in which he began by 
 exhorting the English people in general to join his standard ; 
 but immediately proceeded to render obedience to his 
 exhortation hopeless. He gave, indeed, fair promises of 
 his maintenance of the old Constitution in future ; but he 
 neutralized them by denying that he had ever violated it. 
 And, after denunciations of the -wickedness of those who 
 had calumniated him, and the weakness of those who had 
 believed their calumnies, and assurances of forgiveness to 
 the bulk of those who had deserted him, or had obeyed the 
 usurping Prince of Orange, he excepted from such forgive¬ 
 ness, as traitors to be consigned to instant execution, a 
 number of the most eminent and powerful men in the 
 kingdom; and a still greater number of persons of no 
 importance at all. 
 
 Thirteen lay Peers, including those of such influence as 
 Danby, Nottingham, Sunderland, Marlborough, and his first 
 wife’s nephew, Lord Cornbury; four prelates, including 
 Tillotson, whose sole offence was having accepted the Pri¬ 
 macy, with many members of the House of Commons, 
 headed the list, which was completed by a vast number of 
 persons of less note : The fisherman who in, perfect 
 ignorance had stopped and insulted him at Feversham ; the 
 magistrates who had committed for trial a man named Cross 
 for holding treasonable communications with Tourville before 
 
James's Declaration. 
 
 289 
 
 Beachy Head, with the Crown lawyers who had prosecuted 
 him, the jury which had convicted him, the judge who had 
 sentenced him, the gaolers and turnkeys who had been 
 concerned in keeping him in prison till his execution ; and, 
 above all, the executioner. Many others were inserted 
 in the black catalogue of those for whom there was no 
 mercy, though they were protected by an express statute; 
 for the only offence charged against them was that in 
 various official capacities they had obeyed the orders of 
 the existing Government; and a law as old as the time 
 of Henry VII. declared ‘'such obedience to a de facto 
 King innocent. 
 
 So malignant and revengeful was the spirit which the 
 Declaration displayed, that the Ministers, who, during 
 William’s absence in Flanders, acted as Mary’s Council for 
 the government of the kingdom, reprinted it and circulated 
 it over the kingdom; judging that nothing could more 
 strengthen the loyalty of the nation in general to their new 
 rulers than the proof of what was to be expected if the 
 old ruler should be restored. And they judged correctly. 
 James’s display of unrelenting vindictiveness not only con¬ 
 firmed the loyal, but offended the wavering. It alienated 
 Russell himself, who had previously been discontented with 
 the new Government, and had even held out hopes to 
 James’s agents of future co-operation with them; but who 
 had made the publication of an universal amnesty an in¬ 
 dispensable condition of his assistance. He now renounced 
 all connection with the Jacobite party. His fidelity to the 
 new dynasty was cemented by a letter which, at this junc¬ 
 ture, Nottingham, as Secretary of State, addressed to him 
 as Commander-in-Chief, purporting to be written by the 
 Queen’s express command, to declare the implicit confi- 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 dence which she herself and the King felt in the constant 
 loyalty of the fleet. He, and the whole fleet under his 
 command, were deeply flattered by so judicious and 
 noble an appeal to their good faith. They answered by a 
 loyal address, in which they pledged themselves to uphold 
 the Crown and the Protestant religion at the hazard of 
 their lives; and their behaviour in the Channel and in 
 the Bay of La Hogue was the faithful redemption of their 
 pledge. 
 
 Nor was La Hogue the only place on the French coast 
 that suffered from the enterprise of our sailors. Admiral 
 Benbow, with one squadron, destroyed the forts at St. 
 Malo ; Lord Berkeley burnt Dieppe and the greater part of 
 Havre; Sir Cloudesley Shovel destroyed the fortifications 
 of Calais. The only place where we failed on the northern 
 coast was Brest, where a combined attack made by a naval 
 and land force under Lord Berkeley and General Talmash 
 was repulsed with heavy loss, the brave Talmash himself 
 being among the slain ; 1 while our triumphant fleets pene- 
 
 1 This was the expedition, the failure of which Lord Macaulay imputes 
 wholly to the treachery of Marlborough in sending intelligence of the 
 proposed expedition to James at St. Germains. No excuse can be made 
 for Marlborough's baseness without dishonouring him who would plead 
 for it. But there seems but little doubt that the French had received 
 ample information of the object of the expedition before Marlborough’s 
 letter was written. Indeed, it seems almost certain that the letter was 
 designedly kept back by the writer till it was too late to be of use. The 
 very words of the letter are "Russell sails to-morrow." Marlborough's 
 object apparently being, not to defeat the expedition, but to take credit 
 with James for having tried to defeat it, in the event of his recovering his 
 throne, which, however improbable, he could not but look upon as impos¬ 
 sible. In fact, William's own announcement of an intention to attempt 
 a descent on the French coast, which he made to his Parliament in No¬ 
 vember, 1692, was quite enough to put Louis on his guard, and Vauban 
 had been sent down to put the defences of Brest in order some months 
 before the expedition sailed. 
 
Russell in the Mediterranean. 
 
 291 
 
 trated the Mediterranean also, Russell pursuing Tourville 
 into Toulon, blockading him there, and greatly lowering the 
 reputation of the French, and exalting our own among all 
 the nations, Christian or barbarian, which dwelt upon the 
 shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Intrigues and plots against William—Hopes of James and his courtiers— 
 Doubtful fidelity of the English nobles—Personal unpopularity of 
 William —State of the Highlands—The Massacre of Glencoe—Lord 
 Preston's conspiracy—Treachery of Fuller and Crone—Plot of the 
 Earl of Marlborough—Grandval's conspiracy—Death of Queen Mary 
 —Compounders and Non-compounders—Lord Middleton is invited to 
 St. Germains—James publishes a New Declaration—Charnock's con¬ 
 spiracy—Detection of the plot—A Bond of Association is signed— 
 Recent alterations in the law of trials for High Treason—Case of Sir 
 John Fenwick—His Execution by Act of Attainder—Objections to 
 which Acts of Attainder are liable. 
 
 The events which have been mentioned in the last chapter 
 were the last incidents in the war, which was nominally 
 protracted for two years longer, but which was marked by 
 no exploit of the slightest importance on either side after 
 the recapture of Namur. But the hopes of Louis and 
 James, as has been already said, were not confined to 
 honourable warfare. From the day on which James fled 
 back from the Boyne, to St. Germains, his Court was the 
 scene of constant intrigues with the English Jacobites, and 
 with all others whom it seemed possible to allure to join 
 that party, and of conspiracies for the restoration of James, 
 some of which avowedly included the assassination of 
 William, and ail of which assuredly contemplated it, since 
 it was not easy to conceive how the one object could be 
 attained without the accomplishment of the other. 
 
Intrigues of the English Nobles. 
 
 293 
 
 It was not strange that James should at first be easily 
 led to believe that the intrigues which those around him 
 were unweariedly carrying on in England would be success¬ 
 ful ; for, even among the highest in hereditary rank or official 
 dignity, there were very few who refused to listen to the 
 seductions of his agents. Marlborough, the greatest soldier 
 of the army, and one who, by his unrivalled persuasiveness 
 and address, had vast influence over people of all classes 
 and ranks, and especially over the Princess Anne, was in 
 frequent communication with them, though his views were 
 probably directed rather to secure pardon and favour in the 
 case of a new restoration, than to contribute to such an 
 event. Russell, the first officer in the navy, though the 
 near kinsman of the Lord Russell who had perished on the 
 scaffold in the reign of James’s brother, for some time 
 showed almost equal signs of discontent at the results of 
 the Revolution. It was still more encouraging that the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury, though Secretary of State, displayed 
 the same disposition, though his conduct seems to have 
 proceeded rather from constitutional irresolution than from 
 deliberate treachery; and that the Earl of Clarendon, 
 though Mary’s uncle, had refused the oath of allegiance, 
 and hardly concealed his unwillingness to aid in any plot 
 which might bring about a counter-revolution. 
 
 And the belief entertained not only by the Councillors of 
 J ames, but by the far abler Ministers of Louis, was, that 
 the frequent absences of William from London, while he 
 was conducting the war in Ireland, and afterwards in 
 Flanders, afforded especial facilities for the accomplishment 
 of the plotters’ designs. They were probably mistaken. 
 Whenever William quitted the kingdom, Mary took charge 
 of the Government, with the aid of a Privy Council selected 
 
294 The English Revolution. 
 
 with great care ; and, as she was far more popular than her 
 husband, while her advisers of the Council were infinitely 
 better acquainted with the inclinations and temper of the 
 people than he, it may well be questioned whether he would 
 have been as successful in keeping waverers faithful, and in 
 kindling a more zealous enthusiasm in the loyal and stead¬ 
 fast, as she proved on one memorable occasion. 
 
 It may, indeed, be even said that he himself encouraged 
 the formation of plots against his Government by many 
 parts of his own conduct. In spite of his many great 
 talents and virtues, in some points he contrasted unfavour¬ 
 ably with his predecessors, with Charles II. and even with 
 James II., while the qualities in which he was most de¬ 
 ficient were precisely those which make the greatest impres¬ 
 sion on the multitude, whose observation, from the 
 scantiness of opportunity, must necessarily be superficial. 
 Charles had been eminently courteous and affable; and 
 James, though without any tincture of his brother’s good¬ 
 nature, yet in his intercourse with those about him dis¬ 
 played much of that dignified courtliness which had been 
 so marked a characteristic of his father’s demeanour. But 
 William had not inherited with the Stuart blood any por¬ 
 tion of the Stuart graces. His disposition and manners 
 were, no doubt, affected in some degree by his bad health, for 
 he was an almost constant sufferer from that most distressing 
 of all complaints, asthma. But he was by nature reserved 
 and unsociable, if not morose, and rude and coarse in his 
 demeanour not only to men but to ladies, even to his own 
 wife and her sister, to whom he more than once behaved 
 with a boorishness which provoked the contemptuous or 
 unfriendly comments of those who witnessed it. It was 
 even more offensive that, when he did relax his habitual 
 
William's Favour to the Dutch. 295 
 
 coldness and asperity, it was in favour not of the English 
 nobles and statesmen and soldiers who had invited him to 
 the country, and had placed him on the throne, but of a 
 small set of foreigners whom he had brought over with 
 him. He not only suffered a few Dutch favourites to 
 monopolize his civility and friendship, but he lavished 
 on them titles, lucrative offices, and grants of such 
 enormous value that Parliament more than once inter¬ 
 fered and compelled him to recall them, and, in the Act 
 of Settlement, guarded against a similar bestowal of im¬ 
 portant posts on foreigners in future, by a provision that 
 no alien, even though he might have been naturalized, 
 should be admissible to the Privy Council nor to Parlia¬ 
 ment, or should be capable of being appointed to any 
 place of trust. It must be added that the English nobles, 
 who saw these men thus preferred before them, could not 
 fail to perceive at the same time that they were in no way 
 distinguished by any remarkable ability; in fact, that they 
 had no recommendation whatever but their foreign blood, 
 which might rather be considered a disqualification for 
 posts in an English court. 
 
 Equally conspicuous was the King’s preference for Hol¬ 
 land as a residence. It was to no purpose that the 
 English climate and the English scenery was far superior to 
 the misty atmosphere and low unvaried plains which Dutch 
 industry has, indeed, converted from barren, pestilential 
 swamps into fertile pastures, but which no ingenuity can 
 render attractive to the eye. William took no pains to 
 dissemble his preference for his native land. England he 
 regarded as a place of exile, Holland as his home, and this 
 preference, however intelligible and in some degree excus¬ 
 able, if the influence on the mind of early associations be 
 
296 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 remembered, was regarded with discontent, if not with in¬ 
 dignation, by his English subjects. They considered that 
 they had raised him from the rank of a petty prince to that 
 of a great king, and that such a service deserved a return 
 of gratitude and affection, which he was so far from show¬ 
 ing, that it rather seemed as if he desired to mark to all the 
 world, and especially to them, that, though King of Eng¬ 
 land, he had no portion of English manners, English tastes, 
 or English feelings. 
 
 Nor were the causes of complaint confined to such 
 matters as these; on more than one occasion he showed 
 that his disposition was quite as arbitrary and impatient 
 of control as that of the King whom he had displaced. 
 He reproved the Houses of Parliament in a tone as lordly 
 as Charles I. He repeatedly withheld the Royal assent 
 from measures which they had passed by large majorities ; 
 towards the end of his reign he nearly quarrelled with them 
 on a subject akin to that which had been one of their most 
 serious grounds of complaint against James. James, in 
 spite of the vote of Parliament, had persisted as long as he 
 could in keeping up an army on a footing which the sup¬ 
 pression of Monmouth’s rebellion had rendered unneces¬ 
 sary. And in like manner William, after the peace of 
 Ryswick, showed himself so obstinately resolved on retain¬ 
 ing a force which the Houses regarded as needless, and 
 on making a part of it consist of foreign regiments, that 
 he even threatened to abdicate the Government rather 
 than abandon his intention, and could with difficulty be 
 persuaded to renounce an idea so ruinous to his reputation. 
 
 One portion of his new kingdoms had a still deeper 
 ground of dissatisfaction. Though Scotland was as yet so 
 little considered that Scotch disquietudes and grievances had 
 
State of the Highlands. 
 
 29 7 
 
 no weight in influencing the calculations of James’s English 
 advisers or of his French allies, Scotland had given no trouble 
 to the new Government since Killiecrankie. Several, indeed, 
 of the Highland chieftains had abstained from taking the 
 oaths of allegiance; but, though their power over their 
 clansmen was absolute, they had made no further active 
 resistance. Some of them had carried on a kind of civil 
 war with their neighbours; but such disturbances had been 
 at all times common in the Highlands, and had no con¬ 
 nection with politics, nor with the interests of the rival 
 dynasties. But out of this normal state of affairs was con¬ 
 cocted by one of William’s Scotch councillors a pretext for 
 a deed of singular atrocity. The restless spirit of the 
 chieftains was in a great degree kept alive by their poverty; 
 they were not only destitute of money, but they were in 
 many instances encumbered by debt. One not unimportant 
 means of livelihood to the smaller chieftains was the pillage 
 of their richer neighbours, whose cattle they carried off 
 in periodical creaghs or forays ; and those who were 
 plundered were frequent and urgent in their demands of 
 payment in compensation. Men subject to such claims 
 had naturally ears open to the seductions of St. Germains ; 
 and when the Government, desirous to terminate such a 
 state of affairs, offered pardon to every one who, before the 
 last day of 1691, should make his submission, and take the 
 oath of allegiance, it also resolved to distribute among the 
 disaffected chiefs a sum of money, which, though amount¬ 
 ing to no more than a few thousand pounds, would be 
 sufficient to relieve them from those pecuniar)- embarrass¬ 
 ments which were one principal cause of their disaffection. 
 
 The plan was wise, but it was marred by a blunder in 
 the execution. The distribution of the money was entrusted 
 
298 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 to the Earl of Breadalbane, a man who combined the vilest 
 political profligacy with the most sordid covetousness ; who 
 in turn had taken the oaths both to James and to William; 
 who in turn had been equally false to both; and who was, 
 moreover, the chief of one of the branches of the great 
 family of the Campbells, while none of the great lords had 
 wider claims for compensation, and were in consequence 
 more dreaded by the lesser chieftains, than the great head 
 of the whole family of Campbell, the Marquis of Argyll, and 
 Lord Breadalbane himself. Among those pre-eminently 
 obnoxious to the Campbells, were the different branches 
 of the Macdonalds, and among the Macdonalds none were 
 so hated by them as the least numerous and least powerful 
 tribe of all, the Macdonalds of Glencoe, a valley on the 
 borders of Argyllshire. The entire clan, including women 
 and children, did not amount to 200 souls, a matter of 
 moment where the wealth and importance of the chief 
 depended on the number of his followers ; and the chiefs 
 poverty, in a country where the plunder of flocks and herds 
 was recognized as a legitimate mode of subsistence, was of 
 itself enough to make him a dangerous and therefore a 
 hated neighbour. As the Campbells were Whigs, the Mac¬ 
 donalds, as a natural consequence, were Jacobites ; but they 
 gradually became alarmed at the growing power of the 
 new Government, and learnt to suspect that James was but 
 little able, or perhaps but little disposed, to assist them. 
 
 In the course, therefore, of the last month of the year, 
 the greater part of the chiefs who had hitherto stood aloof 
 made their submission and took the oaths required of them ; 
 and finally, on the 31st of December, the very last day on 
 which, according to the proclamation, submission could be 
 made or accepted, Macdonald of Glencoe himself repaired 
 
Case of Macdonald of Glencoe. 299 
 
 to Fort William, the proper place for those in that district 
 to appear at, and applied to have the oaths administered 
 to him. By some extraordinary mismanagement of the 
 Government, there was no one at the Fort qualified to 
 administer them; the governor, a military officer, was not in 
 the commission of the peace, and there was no magistrate 
 within many miles. What the governor could do he did. He 
 gave the chief a letter to the sheriff of Argyllshire stating 
 what had occurred, and explaining that Macdonald had 
 offered to take the oaths within the prescribed time, and had 
 only been prevented from completing his submission with all 
 the legal formalities requisite by the absence of any magis¬ 
 trate empowered to receive it. And the sheriff, though Mac¬ 
 donald could not of course reach him till the new year had 
 begun, under the circumstances consented to administer 
 the oaths, and reported to the council at Edinburgh that 
 he had done so. Macdonald returned home exulting in 
 the confidence that, at whatever sacrifice of his political 
 principles, or of, what was dearer to him, his hereditary 
 enmity to the Campbells, he had secured the favour and 
 protection of the Government for his clan. With all his 
 experience, he failed to estimate the vindictiveness and 
 treachery of those who at that moment ruled the Campbell 
 tribes, and thehmscrupulousness of the statesmen who had 
 the chief authority at Edinburgh. 
 
 Of Breadalbane mention has already been made, and the 
 Earl of Argyll was a man of similar disposition ; while Sir 
 John Dalrymple, more commonly known as the Master of 
 Stair, who had recently become the Prime Minister in Scot¬ 
 land, regarded the whole body of Highlanders, and the 
 Macdonalds especially, with deadly hatred. Not that they 
 had ever injured him personally: his father’s property lay 
 
300 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 in the southern counties, far out of the reach of their widest 
 raids. But, having far larger views of statesmanship than 
 any of his contemporary countrymen, he desired to establish 
 the supremacy of legal authority, and to promote peaceful 
 industry throughout the whole country ; and he looked on 
 the whole Highland people as one vast band of incorrigible 
 robbers, whose very existence was an obstacle to the im¬ 
 provements which he desired to see effected, and who 
 could only be tamed into order by some terrible example. 
 With these views, he had reckoned with exultation on the 
 prolonged contumacy of one or two clans, as what should 
 give him a pretext for dealing them a blow which might 
 strike terror into the rest; and, in anticipation of it he had 
 issued the most ruthless orders to the Commander of the 
 Forces in Scotland, enjoining him, if the opportunity should 
 be afforded him, to lay waste the huge tracts of land 
 belonging to the Camerons, the Macleans, the Macdonalds, 
 and others, closing his letter with an injunction of atrocious 
 significance, that the Government was not to be troubled 
 with prisoners. 
 
 A Royal Commission, appointed some years afterwards 
 to investigate the transaction, reported that the Master had 
 designed a massacre of full 6,000 persons. Of this whole¬ 
 sale slaughter he was baulked by the timely submission of 
 all the clans except Glencoe; and to every candid magistrate 
 it was obvious that Glencoe’s adhesion had also been given 
 in in time. It was not the fault of the old chieftain that, 
 when he offered to take the required oath, no one at the 
 proper place was authorized to receive it. If, according to 
 the letter of the proclamation, he was too late, according to 
 its spirit he was as undoubtedly in time. But the Master of 
 Stair cared little for the spirit when the letter of the law 
 
The Massacre of Glencoe. 
 
 301 
 
 was sufficient for his bloodthirsty purpose. He even, on 
 some plea of irregularity, suppressed and cancelled the 
 certificate in which the sheriff of Argyllshire reported that 
 Glencoe had submitted, and then procured from William 
 an order for the extirpation of the whole tribe. The order 
 was signed and countersigned by the King’s own hand in 
 a manner only used when the promptest obedience was 
 required; but it is probable that William, who was never 
 bloodthirsty, had no very precise idea of what was in¬ 
 tended. 1 His advisers, however, knew only too well, and 
 had already prepared the means for carrying out the injunc¬ 
 tions contained in the warrant with such cruel perfidy, that 
 it may be questioned whether the whole history of crime 
 has preserved a single instance of an assassination so 
 treacherous and base. 
 
 The contrivers of the bloody deed lost no time. It had 
 been the 6th of January when Macdonald obtained from 
 the sheriff the certificate which both that magistrate and he 
 himself considered as a sufficient safeguard. By the 1st of 
 February the certificate had been discussed and suppressed, 
 the fatal warrant had been transmitted to London, signed, 
 and returned to Edinburgh, and the minister of blood had 
 arrived in Glencoe. As if to increase the infamy of the 
 transaction, the first steps to be taken in the execution of 
 the warrant were entrusted to a connection of the principal 
 victim. The animosities which separated clan from clan in 
 the case of individuals had occasionally been overborne by 
 
 1 Burnet, who, in spite of the report of the Commission in 1695, lays the 
 blame more on Breadalbane than on the Master of Stair, affirms that 
 Breadalbane (who, in the Bishop’s view, must therefore still have been a 
 Jacobite secretly) persuaded William to consent to the massacre, “ that he 
 might both gratify his own revenge, and render the King odious to all the 
 Highlanders.”—Vol. II., p. 89. 
 
302 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 softer feelings, and a- Captain Campbell of Glenlyon had 
 married a niece of Glencoe. 1 Those who had planned the 
 massacre which ensued had seen in this very tie a facility 
 for blinding their victims. 
 
 On the ist of February Glenlyon, with 120 soldiers, 
 marched into the valley, and solicited the chieftain’s 
 hospitality for himself and his men. He and his band 
 were distributed among the clansmen, and for twelve 
 days they abode in the glen on terms of apparent 
 friendship with their unsuspecting hosts, while they were 
 secretly making themselves acquainted with all the passes 
 through the mountains which might afford opportunities for 
 escape. By the 13th it had been calculated that the passes 
 might all be known and guarded ; and on that day it had 
 been arranged that Glenlyon’s superior officer, Colonel 
 Hamilton, should bring 400 soldiers more to make the 
 work sure. The night, however, proved stormy ; the roads 
 were blocked up with snow, delaying Hamilton’s march. 
 But Glenlyon would not wait for him, as if eager to 
 monopolize the favour which he expected the deed would 
 secure him in the eyes of the Government. He himself 
 had been lodged in the house of one of the chief clans¬ 
 men, named Inverrigen ; he began the slaughter by murder¬ 
 ing his host, with his whole family, even to the young 
 children who clung to their murderer’s knees, and begged 
 in vain for mercy. His lieutenant knocked at the door of 
 the chieftain himself, who was shot down while bringing 
 refreshments to his supposed friendly visitors ; the assas¬ 
 sins even proceeding to strip his rvife, and to tear the rings 
 from her dying fingers with their teeth. Almost every 
 
 1 Another account says that his niece was married to Glencoe’s second 
 son. At all events there was a close connection of some kind. 
 
Report of the Commission. 
 
 303 
 
 dwelling in the entire glen presented a similar scene. A 
 few, indeed, and among them a son of Glencoe himself, 
 succeeded in escaping. But when, about mid-day, the 
 colonel at last arrived, there was but one person left alive in 
 the whole glen. 1 He was an aged man, more than seventy 
 years old, and even the order for the destruction of the 
 rest had exempted any person who might have arrived at 
 that age. But, as if he were disappointed at having missed 
 his share in the carnage, Hamilton murdered him too, and 
 then vented his rage in burning the houses and carrying off 
 the cattle as trophies of his triumph. 
 
 News travelled slowly in those days, and, as a general 
 rule, Scotch affairs attracted but little attention in London. 
 Even when, after the lapse of more than a year, the enormity 
 of the crime began to force itself upon the attention of 
 those in authority, and came to the ears of Mary herself, 
 she could not at first induce William to pay much attention 
 to it. Nor was it till the beginning of 1695 that he 
 appointed a Royal Commission to examine into the 
 character and details of the transaction; and even the 
 conduct of the Commissioners, though their report was fair 
 and honest, gave grounds for a suspicion that the Govern¬ 
 ment would have concealed the whole truth, and would 
 have screened the guilty had it been possible. 
 
 The report was reluctantly produced and laid before the 
 Scotch Estates. And the behaviour of the Estates them¬ 
 selves was not such as gave a high idea of their indepen- 
 
 1 Lord Macaulay seems to intimate that a large proportion of the * 
 destined victims escaped, and speaks of “ about thirty corpses," as if they 
 were all who perished. But even by his own account there must have been 
 many more. For he expressly mentions Inverrigen and nine of his family; 
 Auchintriater, with seven more of his family; Glencoe, his wife and two 
 servants. These alone make twenty-two. 
 
304 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 dence, or as befitted a body bound to be the guardians and 
 protectors of those whom they represented. The report 
 affirmed that a barbarous massacre had been perpetrated, 
 but exonerated Argyll and Breadalbane from the guilt, 
 which they charged wholly on the Master of Stair. The 
 Estates, where the Master was justly respected as one of 
 their ablest statesmen and most eloquent orators, feared to 
 proceed against him, and contented themselves with passing 
 a series of resolutions which, while it censured him, left it 
 to the King’s wisdom to deal with him in such a manner as 
 might sufficiently vindicate the honour of his Government. 
 And William did worst of all. One of the resolutions of 
 the Estates had affirmed that, though William had signed 
 the warrant under which the massacre had been committed, 
 he had not intended that it should be executed as it had 
 been. His conduct almost seemed as if he designed to 
 prove that he had so intended it. He did indeed dismiss 
 the Master from his office, but he took many occasions to 
 show that he had in no degree lost his confidence, and he 
 thus gave the Jacobites but too plausible grounds for con¬ 
 tending that he had fully consented to the bloody deed 
 before, and that he did not in his heart condemn it after its 
 execution. 
 
 In whatever degree these errors of the King tended to 
 encourage the hopes and projects of his enemies, from 
 the very moment that he and Mary accepted the Crown 
 plots were continually set on foot to deprive them of it, 
 and, though it cannot be said that any one of them was ever 
 near succeeding, they derived additional importance from 
 the part taken by James himself, who so degraded his royal 
 blood as to countenance the worst of them in all its worst 
 details; and they were evidently so many dangers to the 
 
Lord Preston's Conspiracy. 
 
 305 
 
 Revolution. Nor can it be regarded as having been rendered 
 throughly secure till the last treason was laid bare to the 
 world, and till the last traitor had expiated his guilt upon 
 the scaffold. 
 
 The first conspiracy was formed, and in part detected, 
 even before William sailed for Ireland to open the campaign 
 of the Boyne. The conspirators were a miscellaneous 
 band, the chiefs of which were Lord Preston, Bishop 
 Turner, Lord Dartmouth, and Lord Clarendon. Lord 
 Preston was a Scotch peer, who had been Secretary of 
 State during the last months of James’s reign, and was 
 still considered by the Jacobites as possessed of that official 
 authority ; Bishop Turner had been one of the seven 
 bishops prosecuted by James, but had been too scrupulous 
 to take the oath of allegiance to William, and had conse¬ 
 quently, as a nonjuror, been deprived of the Bishopric of 
 Ely ; Lord Clarendon, after many waverings and shiftings 
 (in the course of which he had bewailed his son’s desertion 
 of James, then had himself joined William, and before the 
 end of the same year had tried to induce the Princess 
 Anne to set up her claims and those of her children in 
 opposition to him), had also at last refused the oath of 
 allegiance, and had kept up a correspondence with James; 
 and Lord Dartmouth, as if he had repented his refusal 
 to convey the young Prince of Wales to France, had 
 pursued the same line of conduct. 
 
 All these men had been in constant communication with 
 the exiled family from the very beginning of 1689 > and in 
 the spring of 1690, while James was still in Ireland, it 
 became known to the Government that some messengers 
 from Mary would shortly bring important despatches to 
 some of the chief Jacobites in England. If the Jacobites 
 
 x 
 
3 ° 6 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 had been capable of taking warning, or of learning common 
 prudence, the history of this conspiracy might have deterred 
 them from engaging in any other. Two messengers were 
 employed, and one betrayed the other; when that other had 
 been convicted and sentenced to death, he saved his life 
 by revealing as much of the plots and of the plotters as 
 he knew ; and, finally, when the chief conspirator himself 
 had been convicted, he, too, followed the example of the 
 lesser traitors, and earned a pardon by a full revelation, in 
 which he apparently did not limit his denunciations to 
 those who were really guilty. 
 
 The messengers, two men named Fuller and Crone, before 
 they quitted France for England, received their instructions 
 and despatches from Mary of Modena herself. Fuller, who 
 had pretended to embark in the conspiracy merely to betray 
 it, delivered to William the letters addressed to the conspi¬ 
 rators, and gave information which led to the discovery and 
 arrest of Crone. Before he could be brought to trial, Wil¬ 
 liam himself was compelled to cross over to Ireland. But the 
 Queen, with the aid of the Council whom he had appointed 
 to assist her, was equal to the crisis. Crone, when convicted, 
 implored an interview with the Secretary of State, and Lord 
 Nottingham’s unyielding firmness convinced him that his 
 only hope of safety lay in making a full confession. It 
 proved of great importance; for, all through the month in 
 which William sailed, the gallant French Admiral, the Count 
 Tourville, was cruising up and down the Channel. On the 
 last day of the month, as has been already mentioned, he 
 drove Torrington before him, and all along the southern 
 coast he found agents prepared to supply him with informa¬ 
 tion. One of them, however, a Sussex innkeeper named 
 Cross, was detected and hanged, and his fate made his 
 
Tourville lands in Devonshire. 307 
 
 accomplices cautious; while a day or two afterwards a still 
 greater dismay was spread among the whole Jacobite party 
 by the intelligence of the defeat of the Boyne and James’s 
 ignominious flight. And, in the end, Tourville returned to 
 his own harbours, having achieved nothing more than a 
 descent on the Devonshire coast, in which he had burnt 
 Teignmouth, and committed such outrages and cruelties as 
 aroused the whole population against the detachment of 
 troops which had landed, and which had great difficulty in 
 regaining the ships. 
 
 But in spite of this failure the plans which had been 
 formed seemed too promising to be readily given up. The 
 testimony of Fuller and Crone had not appeared to the 
 Council sufficient to warrant the arrest of the principal con¬ 
 spirators who were still at large. And before the end of 
 the year his adherents were more diligent than ever in their 
 invitations to James to invade the kingdom with the aid of a 
 French army in the ensuing spring. It is remarkable that 
 their zeal in the cause had not blinded them to the difficulties 
 of the undertaking ; neither to those which would proceed 
 from the national spirit which was sure to be roused by the 
 mere sight of foreign uniforms, nor to those which might be 
 expected to arise from the disposition and conduct of James 
 himself. And they did not shrink from giving him good 
 advice, however unpalatable it might prove. They told him 
 plainly that it would be indispensable for him to give the 
 English people sufficient assurance of his resolution to pro¬ 
 tect the Established Church, to govern in all points with 
 strict adherence to the established laws, and to guide him¬ 
 self in all matters by the counsels of his Parliament. And 
 they even urged him to induce his ally, Louis, to relax the 
 rigour of his edicts against Protestantism. For, so unyield- 
 
 x 2 
 
308 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 ing was Louis’s bigotry, that even the Protestant adherents 
 of James who had followed him into exile were prohibited 
 from practising the rites of their religion in their new country. 
 And this intelligence had produced, even among some of 
 the Jacobites themselves, an impression which it was most 
 desirable to remove. 
 
 A memorial embodying these suggestions was carefully 
 drawn • and, with numerous letters from Clarendon, Bishop 
 Turner, and others ; and with other documents giving 
 minute information as to the state of the fleet, of the 
 harbours, and the strength of the different garrisons, 
 was confided to Lord Preston, who with a Mr. Ashton, 
 who had been clerk of the closet to Mary of Modena, 
 and a young man named Elliot, undertook to convey 
 them to St. Germains. Under the pretence of smug¬ 
 gling, a vocation long popular on every 7 part of the coast, 
 they hired a vessel in which they proposed to cross from 
 London to Calais. But the captain divined the character of 
 his employers; and in the belief that to betray them would 
 be more profitable than to serve them, sent information of 
 the engagement into which he had entered to the President 
 of the Council. The ship was allowed to sail, but, when it 
 was near the mouth of the Thames, was overtaken and 
 boarded by Government officers. Preston, Ashton, and Elliot 
 were all seized, with the papers entrusted to their care; and 
 before the end of Januaiy (they had been seized on the last 
 day of December, 1690), Preston and Ashton were brought 
 to trial. Elliot was released with a contemptuous mercy, 
 which, however praiseworthy, would certainly not have been 
 shown in the last reign. There was no difficulty in estab¬ 
 lishing the guilt of the prisoners. Both were convicted, and 
 Ashton was immediately executed; but Lord Preston was 
 
Merciful Spirit of the Government. 309 
 
 allowed to save his life by revealing all the ramifications of 
 the conspiracy. William himself was never bloodthirsty. 
 And among his chief advisers and supporters many had 
 family connections with some of the Jacobite party, and sym¬ 
 pathy with their persons, if not with their designs. It was 
 therefore not unnaturally desired by all rather to prevent 
 future plots than to punish past conspiracies with more 
 severity than was actually indispensable. Even Lord 
 Clarendon and Lord Dartmouth, who were more deeply 
 implicated by Preston’s revelations than any other nobles, 
 received no further punishment that that of a short imprison¬ 
 ment, and the escape of Bishop Turner to France was pro¬ 
 bably connived at. 
 
 The Bishop’s treason, however, had an unfavourable 
 influence on the fortunes of some who had had no con¬ 
 nection with it. The other nonjuring Bishops, though 
 deprived of their sees, had hitherto been allowed to retain 
 their palaces and revenues. No successors had been 
 appointed; and, by the order of Mary herself, while William 
 was absent from England, proposals had been made to 
 them that the Government would be willing to procure the 
 passing of an Act of Parliament to excuse them from 
 taking the oaths, if they on their parts would resume their 
 functions, and take their proper share in the conduct of 
 public worship. Apparently from an unwillingness to pray 
 for the King and Queen, they refused to give a satisfactory 
 answer. But still the Government, with rare forbearance, 
 had abstained from ejecting them from their palaces, till 
 the discovery that one of the number had profited by the 
 indulgence thus shown to him to plot against those who 
 had been thus merciful, created doubts whether a continuance 
 of that forbearance could be justified. Their places were at 
 
3io 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 last filled up, and they were now compelled to cede their 
 dwellings and estates to successors, who, with equal learning 
 and piety, had no scruples as to the duty of conforming to 
 the existing Government. 
 
 Yet, in spite of the irresistible indications of the general 
 feeling of the English nation which had been supplied by 
 the fate of this conspiracy, the year did not pass away with¬ 
 out another plot being formed to overthrow the new' 
 Government: a plot v'hich was far more formidable than 
 the last, since it w r as devised by a man of rare and almost 
 universal ability in public affairs, who had actually been one 
 of the Queen’s Council during William’s absence in Ireland, 
 and who had suggested and executed some of the opera¬ 
 tions w'hich had contributed to the downfall of James’s 
 fortunes in that country. 
 
 The Earl of Marlborough had no reason to complain 
 that his talents or his services were not appreciated by his 
 new master; but he was discontented, it may be believed, at 
 seeing that others of far inferior talents stood yet higher in 
 William’s favour solely because they were Dutchmen. His 
 great capacity had in it the alloy of one meanness w'hich 
 is rarely found in combination with such bravery and saga¬ 
 city. He w r as insatiably covetous, and with even more 
 indignation than he saw r military command bestow'ed on the 
 unworthy Solmes, did he behold lucrative offices and vast 
 estates lavished on Bentinck, and Auverquerque, and Gin- 
 kell. A jealousy of the Dutch w'as a feeling in w'hich he 
 was sure of the sympathy of the great majority of the peo¬ 
 ple ; and he began to desire a Sovereign wffio, if devoid 
 of William’s courage and wisdom, should by those very 
 deficiencies be the more compelled to rely on and to 
 reward his own talents and exertions. With these view’s 
 
Plot of Marlborough. 311 
 
 he formed a plan of rare subtlety. He was far too shrewd 
 to believe that he should have a better chance of engross¬ 
 ing the favour of James than he had of becoming the 
 chief object of William’s confidence and liberality. But 
 his Countess had already established a paramount influence 
 over the Princess Anne. His scheme, therefore, was to use 
 the aid of those who desired the restoration of James, to 
 overthrow the Government of William, and then to avail 
 himself of the Protestant feeling of the whole kingdom to 
 replace him not by James but by Anne. 1 
 
 It is difficult to say how far a fresh revolution of this 
 character would have affected the maintenance of the prin¬ 
 ciples on which the late Revolution had been founded. It 
 would certainly have greatly changed the course of affairs 
 both here and on the Continent during the next few years. 
 And it might very possibly have led to a different arrange¬ 
 ment of the succession to the Crown. Marlborough was too 
 sagacious to embark in ordinary treasons, the execution of 
 which required the concurrence of accomplices who might 
 betray him. He would put himself in no man’s power. 
 But he thought to effect his object by means which should 
 be strictly within the law : by the agency of the Parliament, 
 and by the prejudices and irritation of William himself. 
 The King’s undisguised and exclusive preference for his 
 Dutch followers had already excited such general dissatis¬ 
 faction, that the Earl foresaw that it would be easy to carry 
 
 1 I have adopted Lord Macaulay's view of Marlborough's real object in 
 the communications which he now opened with St. Germains, because it 
 is inconceivable that the Jacobites could have had any other reason for 
 betraying him to William; because it is also supported by the manner in 
 which Anne herself was treated; and because it is strongly confirmed even 
 by that passage in James's autobiographical memoirs in which he condemns 
 those who betrayed the Earl to Bentinck for their indiscretion. 
 
312 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 through both Houses of Parliament addresses requesting 
 the dismissal of all foreigners from the service of the State. 
 That William would refuse to comply with such a request 
 he had no doubt, and as little that his refusal would cost 
 him his throne. He thought it not impossible that he 
 would at once abdicate the sovereignty; and in that case 
 he expected that Mary would refuse to separate her fortunes 
 from his and to remain in England as Queen, and that thus 
 the throne would again become vacant. He thought it 
 equally likely that William might reject the petition with 
 disdain, and defy the Houses. But he felt confident that 
 such a course in such a cause would irritate the whole 
 nation, and he reckoned that he himself should then have 
 a plausible ground for openly declaring his opposition to 
 the King’s policy, and for calling on the army to rally 
 round him in defence of the Parliament. If the regiments 
 in England answered his call, of which he had no doubt, 
 their union with the Houses would make William’s continu¬ 
 ance on the throne impossible. So that, whichever alterna¬ 
 tive William might adopt, the carrying of the proposed 
 addresses must lead to a fresh revolution; while that the 
 Houses would prefer Anne to James as William’s successor 
 was, in Marlborough’s opinion, even more certain. 
 
 The scheme was craftily laid, but it was nipped in the 
 bud. The Jacobites were naturally indisposed to place any 
 great confidence in the Earl, and som'e of the most wary 
 of the party made such a discovery, or conceived such 
 suspicions of his real design, that they revealed it to Lord 
 Portland. William was alarmed and incensed. He had 
 no means of punishing his enemy, since his machinations 
 were to be carried out by the constitutional agency of a 
 Parliamentary vote; nor, had they come under any legal 
 
Dismissal of Marlborough. 313 
 
 definition of treason, would it have been easy to obtain 
 legal evidence of their nature. But he at once dismissed 
 the Earl from all his commands and offices, and after a 
 short time Lady Marlborough, who held the chief post in 
 the establishment of the Princess Anne, was commanded 
 also to leave the Palace. It is a striking proof of the 
 absolute sway that she had already established over the mind 
 of the Princess, that though Mary detailed to her sister the 
 just reasons which she and the King had for being offended 
 with Marlborough, reasons in which it was the Princess’s 
 duty to sympathize, Anne still refused to part with the 
 Countess, and preferred giving up her own residence at 
 Whitehall, and living in hired or borrowed houses to 
 separating herself for a single day from her imperious 
 favourite. 
 
 James disapproved the act of his adherents in disclosing 
 Marlborough’s intrigues to William, as one of impolitic 
 indiscretion. 1 He would probably have hoped to be 
 able to turn Marlborough’s acts against himself, and after 
 William had been got rid of, would have relied on Anne’s 
 affection or weakness for his own restoration. But the 
 deed was past remedy. He now could only trust to 
 the success of Louis’s army in Flanders; and, when it was 
 found that none of the French triumphs were followed by 
 any political results, but that William after, and in spite of, 
 his disasters was as strong as ever both in the field and in 
 the affections of the great majority of the English nation, 
 he had once more recourse to conspiracies, and, becoming 
 
 1 “ Quelques fideles sujets indiscrets, croyant meservir, et s’imaginant que 
 ce que Milord Churchill faisait n'^tait pas pour moi mais pour la Princesse 
 de Danemarck, eurent l'imprudence de decouvrir le tout a Beutinck, et 
 detourntrent ainsi le coup."—James's own statement, quoted by Macau¬ 
 lay (vol. II., p. 166). 
 
3 14 The English Revolution. 
 
 more desperate, he now openly countenanced projects of 
 assassination. 
 
 Louvois, the great War Minister of Louis, a man as hard¬ 
 hearted and unscrupulous as he was able, had died in the 
 spring of 1692 ; but, shortly before his death, he had con¬ 
 trived a plot for the assassination of the King, who at the 
 French Court was still described only as the Prince of Orange. 
 And his son, the Marquis of Barbesieux, who succeeded him 
 in his office, inherited and adopted also his enmity to England 
 and to William. An officer named Grandval, of previously 
 fair character, but so blinded by bigotry that he thought any 
 crime excusable which might serve the interests of Popery, 
 undertook the deed with the aid of two accomplices whom 
 he believed that he could trust. But he himself was too 
 imprudent and talkative for a conspirator, and both his 
 accomplices betrayed him. He hoped to find an oppor¬ 
 tunity of striking the contemplated blow while William was 
 engaged in the attempt to relieve Namur; and he did 
 not want encouragement from people even higher in rank 
 than Barbesieux. Before he quitted Paris for the Nether¬ 
 lands he was presented to James himself and to his Queen ; 
 and James assured him of abundant recompense if he 
 succeeded in his enterprise. But before he reached the 
 frontier, full and precise information of his appearance and 
 design had been conveyed to William, and, as soon as Grandval 
 entered the Netherlands, he was arrested. He was brought 
 to trial before a court-martial ; but there was no need of a 
 protracted inquiry, for he confessed the whole charge. He 
 was executed with all the horrible additions to death which 
 the cruel ingenuity of former ages had devised for traitors; 
 and his confession was translated into several languages and 
 circulated over the whole Continent. No attempt was made 
 
Death of the Queen. 
 
 315 
 
 even by the French Ministers to deny the statements which 
 it contained ; and Louis even seemed to identify himself with 
 the crime that had been intended, since he in no respect 
 withdrew his favour from Barbesieux, whom Grandval had 
 declared to have been his tempter. 
 
 Yet his terrible fate did not deter others following in 
 his steps, though, as a single assassin had failed, the next 
 time that an assassination plot was set on foot, it was 
 thought safer to employ a band strong enough to execute 
 their purpose by main force if a secret attack should 
 prove impracticable. But no fresh plot of the kind was 
 formed immediately. The Jacobites had begun to doubt 
 whether the removal of William by himself would serve 
 their purpose. It was even highly probable, as Mary was 
 far more popular than he, that it might strengthen her hold 
 on the affections of the people; and that afterwards to 
 overthrow the new throne when she was its sole occupant, 
 might prove a harder task than while she shared it with 
 him. 
 
 But in the winter of 1694 the amiable and much-beloved 
 Queen died of the small-pox, and she was hardly in her 
 grave before the English Jacobites began to meet again, 
 to conspire and to concert with James and his advisers 
 fresh schemes for his restoration. For a while they were 
 weakened by internal divisions. One section of the party, 
 which a little before Mary’s death came to be distinguished 
 by the name of Compounders, coupling all their proposals 
 of new measures with conditions that James, if restored, 
 should grant a general amnesty, and give satisfactory 
 guarantees for the future security of the privileges and 
 liberties of the people, and of the civil and ecclesiastical 
 constitution as established by the Bill of Rights ; while the 
 
316 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 other section, known as Non-compounders, taking their 
 stand on James’s divine and indefeasible right to the throne, 
 denied the existence of any power to impose conditions on 
 his restoration, and affirmed that it belonged to him alone 
 to decide whom he would pardon, whom he would send to 
 the scaffold, and under what constitution or system he would 
 govern. 
 
 James himself agreed entirely with the Non-compounders. 
 In 1692, while waiting with his army at La Hogue for 
 Tourville’s victory to open the way for his invasion of the 
 kingdom, he had, as has been already mentioned, published 
 a declaration breathing nothing but vengeance against all 
 to whom he ascribed the least share in his original over¬ 
 throw, or in the continuance of his exile. And he made 
 no secret of his resolution, if he were restored, that a 
 majority of his Ministers, of his officers of the household, 
 and of the officers of the army should always be Roman 
 Catholics, in spite of any enactments which the Houses of 
 Parliament might pass. 
 
 But the remonstrances of the Compounders against 
 the line of conduct which he adopted were so incessant 
 and so plain-spoken, that, though they produced no 
 change in his own notions, they made a great impres¬ 
 sion on his French ally. Louis was not without means of 
 obtaining a tolerably correct knowledge of the feelings 
 of the English nation, and had reluctantly come to the 
 conclusion that, unless James should make the concessions 
 recommended by the Compounders, his restoration was im¬ 
 possible. He was also well aware how greatly the resources 
 of his own subjects were exhausted by the war ; and he had 
 no inclination to continue it for an unattainable object. 
 He therefore advised compliance with the recommendations 
 
Advice of the Compounders. 317 
 
 of the Compounders as the condition of his further co¬ 
 operation ; and James, unable to dispense with his support, 
 yielded, or pretended to yield ; invited over to St. Germains 
 the Earl of Middleton, one of the leaders of the compound¬ 
 ing party, who had been a Minister in England under 
 Charles II., and made him joint Secretary of State with 
 Lord Melfort. 
 
 It would have been a wise act had he given his new 
 Minister his confidence, for Middleton was able, energetic, 
 of fair character, and was not only possessed of considerable 
 influence over the avowed Jacobites of both sections, but 
 was also well acquainted with men like Marlborough, Russell, 
 and others, who gave him constant assurances of their 
 secret goodwill to his master. But in fact Middleton never 
 obtained his confidence for a single moment. One proposal 
 which he brought from the chiefs of the Compounders, that 
 James should abdicate the throne in favour of his son, and 
 allow the child to be bred up as a Protestant, was at once 
 rejected with indignation. And, though he did eventually 
 prevail upon James to adopt their advice in another matter, 
 and to issue a new Declaration, containing a promise of an 
 amnesty and of adherence to the established Constitution, 
 James’s signature to it was affixed in deliberate treachery. 
 Melfort was still the Minister whom he really trusted; and, 
 while Middleton was encouraging his friends in England with 
 the intelligence that he had at last brought him over to mode¬ 
 rate counsels, Melfort was writing to Rome that the Declara¬ 
 tion was but a blind, intended solely “to get James back 
 to England, as he should be able to settle the affairs of the 
 Catholics far better at Whitehall than at St. Germains.” 
 
 * Enfin, celle-ci (j'entends la Declaration) n’est que pour rentrer; et 
 l'on peut beaucoup mieux disputer des affaires des Catholiques a Whythall 
 
318 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 The Declaration, however, which was published in April, 
 1693, did James no service in England, if it did not even 
 do him injury. The Whigs, and even the waverers among 
 those who submitted to William, disbelieved his sincerity; 
 while many of his partisans were offended at a clause in the 
 Declaration which promised to maintain the settlement in 
 Ireland. But Middleton, who had no suspicion of the 
 disingenuousness with which he was treated, was unwearied 
 in his exertions in his cause, labouring chiefly to persuade 
 Louis at once to invade England with 30,000 men, or a 
 still larger army if possible, as a step which would serve his 
 own interests as well as the interests of James, by tending 
 to break up the coalition against France of which William 
 was the author. 1 His arguments were probably weakened 
 in the eyes of Louis and his advisers by statements of the 
 contempt in which William was held, which the French 
 Government knew to be unfounded; and they were com¬ 
 pletely overturned by the battle of Neerwinden, which 
 occurred only a fortnight after the memorial embodying the 
 scheme of invasion and the reasons for it was presented to 
 Louis; and which, in spite of the decisive character of 
 Luxemburg’s victory, left the victorious army in no condition 
 to follow up its advantage, and Neerwinden, as we have 
 already 'seen, was the last success that attended the French 
 armies in Flanders. 
 
 It was plain, therefore, that a fresh conspiracy was all that 
 James had to trust to, and the grave had hardly closed over 
 Queen Mary before the murderous plots were renewed. 
 
 qu'a St.-Germains."—Melfort's letter, in the Appendix to M. Mazure's 
 History, quoted by Macauiay, vol. IV., p. 395. 
 
 1 The date of the memorial in which Middleton urged this, and which is 
 printed by Macpherson (I.. p. 447), is July 14, 1693. Neerwinden was fought 
 July 29. 
 
Charnock's Plot. 
 
 319 
 
 The first was organized by Robert Charnock, who had 
 formerly been a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and 
 had since received a captain’s commission from James ; his 
 accomplices were Sir William Parkyns, a wealthy lawyer, 
 with some men of notoriously bad character, of whom the 
 most active were Porter, a man who had been convicted of 
 manslaughter, and was suspected of still worse actions ; and 
 Goodman, who had been a forger and a highwayman, and 
 had even been found guilty of an attempt at assassination 
 by means of poison; and Charnock hoped also to obtain the 
 co-operation of Sir John Fenwick, a man of high connec¬ 
 tions and great influence in the northern counties, and so 
 fanatical in his Jacobitism that he had formerly not scrupled 
 to insult Queen Mary herself. They professed not to con¬ 
 template the assassination of William, but to content them¬ 
 selves with seizing him and conveying him to France; 
 though it was so obvious that such an exploit was impossible, 
 and that the conspirators could intend nothing short of 
 William’s death, that Fenwick refused to be connected with 
 their plot, though his conscience did not forbid him to keep 
 their secret. They were unable, however, to carry out their 
 purpose as soon as they had intended; they laid it before 
 James, for his approval, which he at first forbore to express, 
 hoping apparently that they would act without it, and 
 flattering himself with Jesuitical casuistry that his silence 
 would exonerate him from guilt. But, while they were 
 waiting, William quitted England to resume the command 
 of the army in Flanders, and they had leisure to mature 
 and expand the plot before his return. 
 
 William returned in October, to find himself more popular 
 than he ever had been. The nation sympathized with him 
 in his deep sorrow for the loss of the Queen ; they exulted 
 
320 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 with him with at least equal fervour in the glory of the 
 splendid recapture of Namur. He made a progress through 
 the midland counties, visiting Cambridge and Oxford, and 
 many other chief towns and cities, and the houses of several 
 of the greatest nobles of the kingdom. Everywhere he was 
 received with an enthusiastic welcome, and London was 
 illuminated with unprecedented splendour on the day on 
 which he re-entered it. He dissolved the Parliament, and 
 the electors were almost everywhere favourable to the^,Whigs, 
 and to the resolute supporters of the new dynasty. 
 
 The Jacobites of rank could not blind themselves to the 
 general feeling. Those who had much to lose became very 
 cautious. But Charnock and his accomplices at once 
 revived their plots, and by this time they had secured the 
 full sanction of James, 1 who at the beginning of 1696 sent 
 the Duke of Berwick himself over to London to endeavour 
 to concert measures with his friends in England. There 
 were now two plots ; or rather the original plot was divided 
 into two parts; one part of it contemplated assassination 
 without disguise, the other part embraced an insurrection 
 of Jacobites in England, to be supported by an invasion from 
 France. The details of the latter, which, as a matter of 
 course, depended mainly on the success of the former, were 
 entrusted to Berwick, but he found an insurmountable 
 difficulty in completing the arrangements ; the Jacobites 
 absolutely refused to rise till a French army had effected a 
 landing in the kingdom; 2 while Louis, though willing enough 
 
 1 LeRoi Jacques avait sous main concerts un soulevement en Angle- 
 terre, ou il avait fait passer nombre d'officiers.— Berwick, vol. I., p. 142. 
 
 2 Le Roi tres Chretien consentait volontiers a le fournir [un corps de 
 
 troupes], mais il insistait qu'avant de faire l'embarquement les Anglais 
 prissent les armes.Us demeurtrent fermes a vouloir 
 
Barclay's Plot. 
 
 321 
 
 to furnish an army, required that before he embarked a single 
 soldier, the insurrection should have been begun in England. 
 Unable to induce either Louis or the Jacobites to recede 
 from their demand, Berwick returned to France, to tell his 
 father that the design of invasion must be laid aside, at 
 least till it should be seen what aspect affairs would assume 
 after William’s death, and of that he expected that a few 
 days would bring the intelligence. 
 
 That part of the plot which comprised the King’s assassin¬ 
 ation had been entrusted by James to a man of greater con¬ 
 sideration, and one more habituated to danger than Charnock 
 or Parkyns. Sir George Barclay was an old soldier who 
 had served under Dundee. He received instructions from 
 James himself, and, in the course of January, crossed over 
 to London, bearing tokens to enable Charnock and the rest 
 to recognize him, and he was followed at intervals by other 
 officers and soldiers who had been in James’s body-guard 
 since Killiecrankie and Aghrim, and who could be thoroughly 
 depended on. About twenty came in this way over from 
 France. Charnock and Parkyns undertook to provide 
 twenty more. 
 
 And after discussing several modes of proceeding it was 
 at last determined to attack William as he returned from 
 hunting. Every Saturday he went from Kensington to 
 Richmond for that purpose, crossing the Thames by a ferry 
 at Turnham Green ; and, as his military escort was usually 
 small, it was expected that Barclay and his band would find 
 it easy to overpower them. The day fixed was the 13th of 
 February. The plan was well laid ; so well, indeed, that had 
 the murderers been commonly cautious, and at the same 
 
 qu'avant de se soulever le Roi d'Angleterre (James) mit pied a terre ave 
 une armee.— Berwick, Mem. vol. I., pp. 143-4. 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 time true to one another, it could hardly have failed. But 
 they were neither cautious nor faithful. Porter invited the 
 co-operation of a gentleman named Pendergrass, whom he 
 conceived that he had laid under obligations; but Pender¬ 
 grass, though a Roman Catholic and a keen Jacobite, recoiled 
 from so base a crime, and at once gave warning to Lord 
 Portland. He was not the first to reveal what was in pre¬ 
 paration. One of those who, at first, had willingly engaged 
 in the plot, a man named Fisher, had found his heart fail 
 him as the day of action approached, and he had already 
 told Portland a similar story. His character was too bad 
 for his tale to obtain much attention, but Portland could not 
 disbelieve Pendergrass, and, though not without difficulty, 
 persuaded William to give up his stag-hunt for the day. His 
 change of purpose did not awaken the suspicion of the 
 conspirators, for the day was stormy ; they fearlessly post¬ 
 poned the attack till that day week, and, before that day 
 arrived, other informers confirmed the story, and the Govern¬ 
 ment was even put in possession of all the details of the 
 conspiracy, and of the names and abodes or hiding-places 
 of the chief conspirators. 
 
 The popularity of which William had received such tokens 
 in the autumn had not yet passed away; and it was increased 
 for the moment by the detestation of assassination which 
 has always been so marked a characteristic of the English 
 people. Barclay unluckily escaped, but in the course of a 
 few days all the rest of the conspirators were arrested. And 
 William went down in state to Parliament, to make a formal 
 announcement to both the Houses of the danger from which 
 Providence had preserved himself, and also of the risk of 
 foreign invasion to which the kingdom was still exposed. 
 Such a statement appealed to x the feelings of every English- 
 
An Association is formed. 
 
 323 
 
 man ; and united all hearts in his favour. The Houses 
 unanimously voted loyal addresses of congratulation, and 
 passed one bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and 
 another to provide for their own continuance in the event of 
 the King’s death ; since it was obvious that one of the objects 
 aimed at by his murder was to take advantage of the confu¬ 
 sion and anarchy which, without some precautionary measure 
 of this kind, such a sudden calamity might be expected to 
 create. And these measures were crowned by a vote for the 
 drawing up of an instrument by which the members of both 
 Houses should form themselves into an Association, owning 
 William for their rightful and lawful King ; binding them¬ 
 selves to adhere to him against King James and the pre¬ 
 tended Prince of Wales ; and engaging to maintain the Act 
 of Succession, and, in the event of his murder, to revenge his 
 death on all who should be concerned in it. 
 
 A warm debate arose : some members, professing an 
 extreme scrupulousness, objected to the unscriptural feeling 
 implied in the word revenge, till their scruples were pacified 
 by the production of a similar document framed and signed 
 in the reign of Elizabeth. But a keener discussion arose on 
 another point, which is worth recording as a specimen of 
 the strange cavils by which even those who had no scruples 
 about obeying William were accustomed to permit them¬ 
 selves to be deluded, and of the real and great difficulties 
 with which William was embarrassed throughout his whole 
 reign. Lord Nottingham had served William as Secretary 
 of State for four years; yet he now objected to a deed in 
 which he was described as the rightful and lawful King, 
 on the ground that those terms could only be applied to a 
 prince who had inherited the Crown by legal descent. He 
 had no difficulty in recognizing him as King, nor in promising 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 The English Revolution. 
 
 to obey him faithfully; but call him rightful and lawful King 
 he would not, though nothing could be plainer than that 
 to give allegiance and loyal obedience to one who was not 
 a lawful King was, on his own principles, a crime against 
 some one else who had the lawful right which he denied to 
 William ; for that, in a Monarchy, some one must be a lawful 
 King was undeniable. Yet, childish as such a cavil was, it 
 influenced so many that the Lords remodelled the phrase, 
 though the alteration which they adopted seems to an 
 ordinary apprehension stronger than the original expression. 
 
 The bond of Association, as finally settled, affirmed that 
 William had by law the right to the Crown, and that neither 
 King James nor the pretended Prince of Wales had any 
 right whatever. And in this form it was eagerly signed by 
 a vast majority of both Houses. Eighty obstinate Tories 
 in the Lower House, and fifteen in the Upper, were all who 
 could be induced to withhold their signatures, and the accept¬ 
 ance of the deed was not confined to the two Houses, it 
 was sent over the whole kingdom, and was signed with 
 enthusiastic unanimity by all classes, the exceptions being 
 so few as only to make the general assent more striking. It 
 was even transmitted to the colonies; and to foreign cities 
 wherever British subjects had settled in any considerable 
 number ; and it met with an equally warm reception from the 
 English merchants at Genoa, from the planters at Barbadoes, 
 and from the thriving community which dwelt on the eastern 
 shores of North America, and which was increasing with a 
 rapidity which already gave some indications of its future 
 greatness. 
 
 Among the classes on which the defence of the country 
 more especially depended, equal enthusiasm prevailed. The 
 militia hastened to take arms. The seamen thronged to 
 
Trials of the Conspirators. 325 
 
 enter the naval service in such numbers that, by the middle 
 of the week, Russell was able to put to sea at the head of 
 one large well-manned fleet, while a second was ready to 
 sail. And along all the main roads, and in every country 
 village, the utmost anxiety was shown to secure those of the 
 conspirators who had escaped from London, and who, it 
 was supposed, might be seeking hiding-places in the pro¬ 
 vincial districts. 
 
 As has been already mentioned, all except Barclay were 
 soon taken; and as punishment makes the greater impres¬ 
 sion the more immediately it is inflicted, they were brought 
 to trial without delay. They were prosecuted in batches, 
 and it is remarkable that they were not all tried according 
 to the same mode of procedure. In the preceding year, 
 a bill had been passed which introduced some merciful 
 alterations in the conduct of trials for high treason ; and 
 especially provided that those accused of such a crime might 
 have legal assistance, which had hitherto been denied to 
 persons in that condition. The Act was to come into opera¬ 
 tion on the 25th of March, in this year. But Charnock and 
 two others, King and Keyes, who were included with him in 
 the first indictment that was preferred, were put to the bar 
 on the nth. They earnestly demanded, either that the 
 Act should be anticipated, by allowing them the aid of 
 counsel a fortnight before the time ; or that the trial should 
 be postponed. The judges refused the application; and 
 it does not seem easy to justify the refusal. But no aid of 
 counsel could have availed the prisoners; some of their 
 accomplices, and among them Porter himself, one of the 
 first contrivers of the plot, had turned King’s evidence, and 
 the proof of everything charged against them was irresist¬ 
 ible. They were convicted and executed. Sir William 
 
326 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Parkyns and Sir John Friend came next; they met the 
 same fate. But the third batch, Lockwood, Cranbourne, 
 and Colonel Lowick, were not brought before the Court 
 till the 25th had passed. They therefore were defended by 
 a lawyer of eminent skill; but no exertions of his could 
 weaken, much less disprove, the charge ; they too were 
 convicted and hanged; and the Government, with rare 
 moderation, contented itself with these examples. Of the 
 rest, some were banished, some imprisoned for short 
 periods; some, confessing their guilt, were pardoned. 
 
 There was indeed one other victim, a man of far higher 
 position, whose fate caused far greater excitement; and is 
 memorable as being the last instance in our history of the 
 Parliament interfering to destroy one whom the ordinary 
 laws could not reach. Sir John Fenwick was a man of 
 considerable importance in the northern counties; he was 
 highly connected, being married to a sister of the Earl of 
 Carlisle, and he was a soldier of experience and reputation. 
 His return for the county of Northumberland, in James’s 
 Parliament of r685, had been celebrated by the Court party 
 as a triumph over the Whigs; since the establishment of 
 the new dynasty, he had ostentatiously identified himself 
 with the Jacobite party, had refused to take the oaths to 
 the new Sovereigns, and had even made himself con¬ 
 spicuous by personal insolence to Mary, refusing to take off 
 his hat as she passed, and coarsely staring in her face in 
 the Park in London. 
 
 It was therefore natural that the contrivers of the different 
 plots for the restoration of James should apply to him for 
 co-operation; and, accordingly, Chamock had opened to 
 him the details of his conspiracy. According to his own 
 statement, which was probably true, and which Burnet evi- 
 
Arrest of Sir John Fenwick. 327 
 
 dently believed, 1 though he cordially approved of James’s 
 projected invasion, he recoiled with horror from the design 
 of assassination; even threatening the conspirators to reveal 
 their plan to the Government, if they did not abandon that 
 portion of it. But, as the Bishop truly remarks, he was too 
 easy of belief that they had abandoned it, and kept their 
 communications secret; so that when those of the conspi¬ 
 rators who gave evidence for the Crown included him in 
 the number of those who had been privy to the plot, the 
 Government had no reason to suspect that his complicity 
 in it had been partial, and offered a large reward for his 
 apprehension. He was taken on the Kentish coast, when on 
 the point of escaping to France; but he had the address to 
 procure a postponement of his trial by an offer to make im¬ 
 portant revelations respecting the general views and designs 
 of his party; and his friends employed the interval in brib¬ 
 ing one of the only two witnesses Avhose testimony he had 
 reason to fear. Goodman, for a large annuity, consented to 
 quit the country; and there was but one witness left on 
 whom the Crown could rely ; while by the old law, which 
 in this respect had been confirmed by the recent Act, no one 
 accused of high treason could be convicted without his 
 guilt had been proved by the testimony of two. 
 
 Unluckily for Fenwick, the very means by which he had 
 hoped to save his life had roused against him the personal 
 enmity of powerful men in both Houses of Parliament. 
 In the confession with which, in order to gain time, he had 
 sought to amuse the Government, he had abstained from 
 saying a word to endanger any of his Jacobite friends, but 
 had sought to set the King against some of the Ministers 
 
 1 Hallam also, vol. III., p. 178, acquits Fenwick of being privy to the 
 assassination plot. 
 
328 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 themselves, and others of the Whig leaders, by affirming that 
 they were in constant communication with the Court of St. 
 Germains, and that it was on their support that James 
 placed no small part of his reliance. Marlborough, Godol- 
 phin, Shrewsbury, and Russell were among those whom he 
 thus accused ; and his revelations were so far true, that 
 undoubtedly every one of them had, in former years, 
 allowed the emissaries of James to tamper with them; 
 though it was also certain that they had all by this time 
 abandoned all idea of bringing James back, and were now 
 fast friends of the existing Government. 
 
 But the more ground they had given for the accusation, 
 the greater indignation some of them thought it necessary 
 to affect; in particular Russell, who was a member of the 
 House of Commons, rose in his place to demand that 
 Fenwick’s confession should be taken into consideration. 
 His demand was granted; and, after a brief though angry 
 discussion, and an examination of Fenwick himself, the 
 House voted that his statements had been false and scan¬ 
 dalous, and intended only to create jealousies between the 
 King and his servants, and to screen real traitors. Such a 
 vote, though it affirmed a manifest truth, was of no great 
 importance, and opened no way of inflicting on Fenwick 
 any further punishment than that of committal to the Tower; 
 but, in the somewhat tumultuous agitation which accompanied 
 its passing, some voices raised the cry of “attainder.” It 
 was taken up by the whole body of Whigs in the House ; 
 a motion for a bill to attaint Fenwick was at once made, 
 and after a fierce debate was carried by a large majority. 
 Two days afterwards the bill was brought in by the Crown 
 lawyers; it was read a first time ; the second reading was 
 stoutly contested. Fenwick was permitted to appear by 
 
A Bill of Attainder. 
 
 329 
 
 counsel against it; and the appearance of a trial was so far 
 given to the debate that Porter was examined; though, with 
 an irregularity which no court of justice would have tolerated 
 in the very worst times, the House also allowed evidence 
 to be given of what Goodman would have been able to 
 prove could the prosecutors have produced him, and of 
 what he actually had proved against some of the other 
 conspirators. 
 
 The Tory party in the House, of which nearly all the 
 members had Jacobite leanings, fought stoutly for their 
 friend; and many also who were not Tories resisted a bill 
 which seemed by implication to put every man’s life at 
 the mercy of a Parliamentary majority. But, though the 
 majority diminished in every division, the bill was finally 
 passed by the Commons, and sent up to the House of Lords. 
 There it was debated with ^ven greater vehemence. So 
 resolute were its promoters to carry it that officers were 
 sent about to bring up any Peer who was suspected of a 
 design to absent himself; and even the Bishops were com¬ 
 pelled to vote, in spite of one of the canons of the Church 
 which forbids divines to take any part in the infliction of 
 capital punishment. As in the House of Commons, the 
 majority for passing the bill diminished with every division, 
 and the third reading was only carried by a majority of 
 seven. 
 
 The smallness of the majority revived the hopes of his 
 friends; and, even after the bill was passed, great efforts 
 were made to procure the prisoner’s pardon. His wife, a 
 member of the great family of Howard, presented one 
 petition to the House of Lords, and threw herself at the 
 King’s feet with another, imploring that her husband’s 
 sentence might be commuted into one of perpetual banish- 
 
330 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 ment. But William remembered that Fenwick had insulted 
 the Queen, whom he still mourned, and was inexorable. In 
 consideration of the mode of procedure adopted against 
 him, and of his noble connections, Sir John was indeed 
 complimented with the axe on Tower Hill, instead of being 
 subjected to the indignity of the gallows at Tyburn. But 
 that was the only favour granted him; and on the 28th of 
 January, 1697, he was executed. 
 
 It is now universally admitted that bills of attainder are 
 indefensible on principle. During the fierce contests of the 
 16th and 17th centuries they had been employed by all 
 parties against their adversaries, sometimes to create a new 
 offence or to affix a definite character of guilt to deeds 
 against which the laws had made no provision; sometimes 
 to inflict a punishment beyond that which the law sanc¬ 
 tioned ; sometimes, as in the present case, to supply a de¬ 
 ficiency of legal evidence. Every one of these objects is 
 clearly unjustifiable. And such a measure is also open to a 
 still graver objection. To pass it the Houses of Parliament 
 erect themselves into a judicial tribunal, while the accused 
 person, on whose fate they assume to decide, is deprived of 
 all the safeguards to which every one in such a situation is 
 entitled. The Houses are at once prosecutors, jury, and 
 judges; and the history of every former measure of the 
 kind shows that as judges they were accustomed to decide 
 under no feeling of responsibility; that they did not even 
 make any pretence to impartiality; but permitted the intro¬ 
 duction of arguments wholly foreign to the real merits of the 
 case, and often diametrically opposed to admitted rules of 
 law; and, in fact, showed themselves almost wholly and 
 avowedly influenced by party considerations. 
 
 In the case of Fenwick, their proceeding was in one 
 
Objections to Bills of Attainder. 331 
 
 point of view even more reprehensible than any former 
 measure of the same character, for the object of it was to 
 convict on the evidence of a single witness ; while in an 
 Act which had been passed in the very same year, the old 
 provision which made the evidence of two witnesses indis¬ 
 pensable had been deliberately retained. The advocates 
 for the bill contended that the requirement was absurd; 
 that there was no possible justification for requiring 
 stronger proof before a man could be convicted of trea¬ 
 son, than was sufficient to send him to the gallows for 
 murder; that the evidence of one man of good character 
 was in truth far more weighty and trustworthy than the 
 evidence of two, or of a score, of witnesses of bad charac¬ 
 ter (though they could not pretend that Porter’s character 
 was other than infamous); that there was no moral doubt of 
 Fenwick’s guilt; that it would be a great evil that he should 
 escape punishment; and that there was no other mode by 
 which he could be reached. 
 
 It was answered that no evil could be so great as that 
 of overbearing the securities which a law so recently 
 passed had preserved for those who might fall under the 
 displeasure of the Government; and that the fact of pro¬ 
 secutions for treason being necessarily Government prose¬ 
 cutions rendered it not unreasonable that more evidence 
 should be required in them than in actions between subject 
 and subject. The opponents of the bill dwelt, too, on the 
 extreme danger in which the liberties of the whole nation 
 would be placed if Parliament should acquire a habit of 
 erecting itself into a judicial tribunal; and further contended 
 that, even if it were granted that some acts of attainder 
 might possibly be justifiable, their justification must depend 
 on the power of the person attainted to render himself for- 
 
332 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 midable to the Constitution or to the Government, a con¬ 
 dition which no one could pretend to exist in the case of 
 Fenwick. They showed, too, that all recent acts of attainder 
 had been condemned by public opinion, since they had been 
 unanimously reversed by subsequent Parliaments. Party 
 spirit, as we have seen, overbore these arguments for the 
 time; but they have been endorsed by all succeeding 
 generations, and the blood of Fenwick is the last that has 
 been shed by any sentence save one passed by the 
 established courts of justice. 
 
333 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 General weariness of the war—Louis proposes Peace—The treaty of 
 Ryswick—Subsequent occurrences of William's reign—William de¬ 
 sires to keep on foot a large army, and to retain his Dutch regiments 
 —The Houses annul the grants of the Irish forfeited lands—The 
 Commons resort to a tack—The partition treaties—Charles bequeaths 
 his dominions to the Duke d'Anjou—Impeachment and acquittal of 
 Lord Somers — The succession to the Crown is settled on the Electress 
 Sophia — Death of James II. — Louis proclaims the Pretender King of 
 England—Death of William — General view of the Revolution— 
 Character of the King and of the English statesmen of his reign— 
 William — Halifax — Nottingham and Caermarthen — Somers and 
 Montague — The great legislative measures of William’s reign—The 
 legislative Union with Scotland — Failure of the rebellions of 1715 
 and 1745 to overthrow the principles of the Revolution-Necessity 
 of the. Revolution. 
 
 Detected and baffled as it had been, this conspiracy had 
 strengthened the King’s Government. The baseness of 
 the project of assassination had discredited plots and 
 plotters, and during the rest of William’s life he was never 
 threatened by any similar danger. 
 
 Meanwhile the war was drawing to a conclusion. The 
 combatants on both sides were nearly exhausted. The 
 English Parliament, indeed, still granted the King unprece¬ 
 dented sums of money to keep on foot so large a force as 
 had never been dreamt of in any former war. Nearly five 
 millions of money were voted to pay 87,000 soldiers, and 
 40,000 sailors; and the Bank of England, a corporation 
 
334 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 which the ingenuity of Montague had recently called into 
 existence, provided gold and silver in advance for exporta¬ 
 tion to Flanders. But our allies were less steadfast. In the 
 course of the winter the Duke of Savoy made peace with 
 France, and there was too much reason to fear that his 
 defection was but an omen of the course which other 
 members of the coalition were prepared to follow. 
 
 But no country was so exhausted by the war as France ; 
 and no Sovereign was so weary of it as Louis himself. He 
 knew that the state of destitution of his country was uni¬ 
 versal and intolerable; and, little as he regarded the suffer¬ 
 ings of his people, so long as they could contribute to his 
 glory, he could not conceal from himself the fact that the 
 last campaigns had brought him disaster and discredit 
 rather than honour. Nor could he doubt that all prospect 
 of a counter-revolution in England had passed away, or 
 that James was not an ally for whose sake it was worth 
 while to make further sacrifices. He could not, indeed, 
 make peace without some sacrifice of his pride ; for the 
 unconditional recognition of William as King of these 
 islands was an indispensable preliminary to any negotiation. 
 But the necessities of the case outweighed any such con¬ 
 sideration ; and, in the course of the winter he intimated 
 that for the re-establishment of peace he was prepared to 
 make that great concession. It was the first time in a 
 reign which had already been protracted to a duration 
 longer than that of any previous King of France, that 
 Louis had been reduced to propose peace instead of grant¬ 
 ing it as a conqueror. But, though in the first moment of 
 his exultation at the withdrawal of Savoy from the con¬ 
 federacy against him, he seemed inclined to recall his 
 offer, he soon renewed it, and in the spring of 1697, the 
 
Negotiations for Peace. 
 
 335 
 
 plenipotentiaries of all the belligerents met at a village 
 called Ryswick, in the neighbourhood of the Hague, to 
 compose their differences under the mediation of the King 
 of Sweden. 
 
 While the arrangements were entrusted to the profes¬ 
 sional diplomatists, the time was wasted in childish cere¬ 
 monies, and the discussion of points of punctilio and 
 etiquette. At last William grew weary of their indecision, 
 and resolved to employ Portland 1 to negotiate with one of 
 the French marshals, who might be expected to move by a 
 straighter path to the desired end. Boufflers was the one 
 whom he selected, as a straightforward soldier; and, as that 
 officer stood high in the confidence of his own master also, 
 when Portland wrote to him to request an interview, Louis 
 made no difficulty in consenting. A hundred years after¬ 
 wards, Nelson confessed that “seamen are but bad nego¬ 
 tiators, for they put to issue in five minutes what diplomatic 
 forms would be five months doing and soldiers (if, indeed, 
 Portland could fairly be called a soldier) now conducted 
 their transactions with similar unprofessional rapidity. 
 
 The matters in which our allies took the chief interest 
 were what portion of his recent conquests Louis should re¬ 
 tain, and what he should restore. With such questions we 
 had nothing to do. He had conquered nothing belonging 
 to Britain ; and our armies had never attempted to cross the 
 
 i It deserves, however, to be remarked that, according to Burnet (II., 
 200), it was Boufflers who proposed the interviews to Portland; not 
 Portland who proposed them to Boufflers. But in this instance I have pre¬ 
 ferred following Lord Macaulay, because a desire for a prompt unevasive 
 termination of the discussions is much more in accordance with the cha¬ 
 racter of the straightforward King of England, than with that of Louis, 
 who was always tricky and shuffling where he could not be insolent and 
 overbearing. The point is, however, of no practical consequence. 
 
336 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 French frontier. The points, therefore, which our nego¬ 
 tiators had to discuss referred to our internal politics. It 
 would have been derogatory to the right of Englishmen as a 
 free people to choose their own rulers, and to the position of 
 William himself as their chosen King, to stipulate that Louis 
 should acknowledge him as such. The mere fact of treating 
 with him was a sufficient recognition of his Sovereignty ; but 
 as the war, now about to be terminated, had been brought 
 on by Louis’s efforts to effect the restoration of James, it 
 was proper and reasonable that precautions should be taken 
 against any renewal, direct or indirect, of such endeavours ; 
 and on the character and extent of these precautions much 
 discussion necessarily arose. 
 
 Each potentate desired to obtain objects which the other 
 thought it improper or unbecoming to make matters of 
 stipulation, though willing to admit that they were such as 
 it was desirable to carry" out. It seemed to Louis unworthy 
 of his character for hospitality, and unseemly from his 
 relationship to James, to give a formal promise to remove 
 the exiled Royal family from St. Germains, or indeed to name 
 James at all in the treaty, though Boufflers was allowed to 
 express an informal hope that James might be induced in 
 future to hold his court at Avignon. It seemed to William 
 still more derogatory’ to his rights over his own subjects to 
 permit Louis to require him to grant an amnesty to the 
 Jacobites, though he had no objection that Portland should 
 assure Boufflers in the strongest terms that he should never 
 remember the past hostility of any one who should for the 
 future conduct himself peaceably’. But it was easy to waive 
 any mention of these conditions, which were in fact first pro¬ 
 posed for the sake of the dignity of the contracting Sovereigns 
 rather than for security. And thus, between two straight- 
 
The Peace of Ryswick. 
 
 337 
 
 forward men, who honestly desired to conclude the quarrel 
 on a fair footing, everything was soon arranged. 
 
 It was curious that the only real difficulties which were 
 made came from William’s allies, who had nothing to gain 
 and everything to lose by the continuance of the war, who 
 were utterly unable to maintain it without his assistance, 
 and who in fact were heavy losers by the delays which they 
 succeeded in interposing to the signature of peace. 
 
 Spain, though neither her armies nor her fleets had gained 
 a single advantage in the whole course of the war, demanded 
 large concessions from France, and thus gave time for a 
 French squadron to cross the Atlantic and sack Carthagena, 
 and for the Duke de Vendome to take Barcelona, in Spain 
 itself. The Emperor, by demands equally unreasonable, 
 delayed the signature beyond the appointed day, the 21st of 
 August, and thus provoked Louis into declaring that he would 
 no longer consent to restore Strasburg; and that, if any 
 further difficulties were raised, he would keep still more of his 
 conquests. James, also, not unnaturally desirous to impede 
 a treaty which he felt would be an insuperable bar to all his 
 prospects of recovering his throne, sought to embarrass the 
 negotiators by making a formal protest against the right of 
 William to conclude a treaty on behalf of the English nation 
 while he himself was King of England. But no one paid 
 the least attention to his remonstrances; and the German 
 and Spanish Ministers were presently given to understand 
 that if they hesitated any longer to become parties to the 
 contemplated peace, England and France would sign the 
 treaty without waiting for them. 
 
 This firmness prevailed. On the 10th of September the 
 treaty was signed by the plenipotentiaries of all the belli¬ 
 gerent powers except the Emperor, and by his Minister a few 
 
 z 
 
33 § 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 weeks afterwards. William was described in ' the treaty as 
 King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland; and Louis 
 engaged “ never to trouble nor disquiet in any way whatever 
 the King of Great Britain in the possession of the dominions 
 which his Britannic Majesty enjoyed at that time present, 
 giving his royal word not to assist, directly or indirectly, any 
 of the enemies of the King of Great Britain, nor to favour 
 in any manner any conspiracy, secret intrigue, or rebellion 
 which might arise in England j” 1 and, in return, William 
 promised to countenance no attempt to disturb the Govern¬ 
 ment of France. Louis greatly disliked this stipulation, since 
 his Government had no enemies ; but William insisted on 
 it, since his own dignity required that all such covenants 
 should be reciprocal, and on this as on most other points 
 Louis was forced to yield. William, on his part, consented 
 to the omission of any mention of the desired change of 
 James’s residence ; but as Louis had at one time demanded 
 a clause to secure to Mary of Modena the payment of her 
 jointure of fifty thousand pounds a year, which had formerly 
 been settled on her by the English Parliament, Portland was 
 allowed to promise the French negotiators that, if James 
 and his court withdrew from St. Germains to Avignon, or 
 to any place beyond the Alps, the annuity should be paid. 
 
 On the 14th of September, Prior, the poet, who had acted 
 as secretary to the English plenipotentiaries, arrived in 
 London with the British copy of the treaty duly executed. 
 The Jacobites were thrown into utter confusion, for to the 
 last moment they had persisted in asserting that no consider¬ 
 ations of policy would ever induce Louis to abandon the 
 
 1 The words of this clause are taken from Sismondi, who adds : “ This 
 recognition of William III., and this abandonment of James II., was the 
 sacrifice which cost most to the pride of Louis XIV.” , 
 
Completion of the Revolution. 339 
 
 cause of James, much less to recognize the usurpation of 
 the Prince of Orange. But by all the rest of the kingdom 
 his arrival was greeted with an enthusiastic joy which had 
 perhaps hardly been exceeded except at the Restoration ; 
 and, in truth, the Treaty of Ryswick was an event that jus¬ 
 tified the general exultation, since it had finally placed the 
 Revolution on a secure footing. The conviction of the 
 traitors and murderers in the preceding year had given the 
 death-blow to all internal conspiracies. The recognition of 
 William’s title by all the principal Roman Catholic powers of 
 Europe, put an end to every idea that any one of them would 
 ever again take arms to restore his predecessor. For though 
 four years afterwards Louis, with his inveterate perfidy, 
 proclaimed James’s son as King, and involved his kingdom 
 in a fresh war which brought it to the very extremity of dis¬ 
 aster and degradation, no serious mention was ever made 
 of the claims of the Stuarts from the hour on which the 
 herald made his insolent proclamation at St. Germains, till 
 that day on which, at Utrecht, Louis agreed to refuse the 
 Pretender leave to dwell any longer in any part of his 
 dominions. Nor was one single operation of the war dictated 
 by a regard for his interests. 
 
 The Revolution, therefore, was now fully completed, and 
 placed on a firm and immovable footing. The latter years 
 of William’s life were not indeed unmarked by events of 
 great importance, some of which caused him great dis¬ 
 quietude and annoyance, while others testified strongly to 
 the greatness of his and his kingdom’s reputation and 
 influence even in the eyes of his enemies. And those of 
 each class throw almost equal light on his character, since 
 it is not denied by his warmest admirers that the vexations 
 which he experienced he had brought on himself by con- 
 
 z 2 
 
340 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 duct which almost bore the appearance of a contemptuous 
 disregard of the feelings of his new subjects. 
 
 It has been already mentioned that, even while the war 
 lasted, the Houses of Parliament had interfered to check 
 the prodigality with which he persisted in enriching his 
 Dutch favourites; and, after the peace, the people had 
 greater leisure to investigate the details of his conduct in 
 this respect; while he, instead of seeking to propitiate the 
 Houses, irritated them still further by his desire to keep on 
 foot a large army of regular troops, and to retain among 
 them several Dutch regiments. The inclination of the 
 country, on the contrary, was to trust to the militia as its 
 army. In the general view, the navy and the militia were 
 defensive forces; an army of regular soldiers was an 
 aggressive force, and the unprecedented expense of the late 
 campaigns had given the whole nation a distaste for foreign 
 war. William’s views were widely different. As a states¬ 
 man he could still foresee the possibility of a renewal of the 
 struggle with France ; and as a soldier he was well aware 
 that a militia, with its necessarily imperfect training and 
 experience, could be no match for the veterans whom, in 
 such a case, the French marshals would once more bring 
 into the field. 
 
 He might, in all probablity, have been able to prevail with 
 the Houses to allow him a regular army, which, if not as 
 large as he could have desired, would still have been 
 respectable, and available as a nucleus for a larger force, 
 if an emergency should arise, if he had been contented that 
 it should consist of British soldiers only. But his unwise 
 persistence in endeavouring to retain his Dutch regiments 
 defeated all his views. The Houses reminded him of the 
 promise contained in his Declaration of 1688 to send back 
 
Grants of Irish Forfeitures. 
 
 341 
 
 all the foreign regiments which he had brought with him, as 
 soon as he should have effected the deliverance of the 
 country; and steadily refused to retain in the national 
 service any but native soldiers. And it was probably in 
 some degree to show their sense of the ungracious reluctance 
 with which he eventually yielded that they took the strong 
 step of annulling his grants of estates in Ireland to his 
 favourites. 
 
 The conclusion of the war in Ireland had left an 
 enormous quantity of land, at the lowest computation above 
 a million and a half of English acres, which had been for¬ 
 feited by the adherents of James, at the disposal of the 
 new Government ; and William, with his habitually lavish 
 prodigality to his own countrymen, had distributed nearly 
 the whole of it among them. Portland, and a new favourite, 
 Keppel, who had recently been raised to the English peer¬ 
 age as Earl of Albemarle, obtained the largest share; while 
 smaller estates were given to Ginkell, now Earl of Athlone, 
 and to Rouvigny, now Earl of Galway, who, indeed, was not 
 a Dutchman, but a French refugee. Another estate, which, 
 however, was not carved out of the forfeited lands, had been 
 granted to William’s mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, whose 
 husband had been created Earl of Orkney: a grant and a 
 promotion which bore but too much resemblance to acts 
 which many regarded as the chief disgrace of Charles II. 
 It was not, however, denied that by the ancient Constitution, 
 or at least the ancient custom of the kingdom, the Sovereign 
 had a right to dispose of the Crown domains according to 
 his pleasure. And, though in more than one instance the 
 Houses of Parliament had passed acts for the resumption 
 of improvident or mischievous grants, the last measure 
 of that kind had been prompted by the covetousness of 
 
342 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Henry VII., who took this mode, among others, of re¬ 
 venging himself on the adherents of the House of York; 
 and since his time no attempt had been made to set a 
 limit to the right of the Sovereign to give away what was 
 regarded as his own. 
 
 But the Irish forfeitures stood on a wholly different 
 ground. They were so far from being looked upon as 
 property belonging to the Crown, that, even before the end 
 of the Irish war, a bill for applying them to the public 
 service had been passed by the House of Commons; and 
 though William, in order to go to Holland, prorogued the 
 Parliament before it could go through the necessary stages 
 in the House of Lords, in the speech with which he dis¬ 
 missed the Houses he promised them not to deal with the 
 lands in question till they themselves had had an opportunity 
 of deciding on their disposal. But when they met again 
 other matters which seemed of more pressing necessity 
 absorbed their attention. And William, with something of 
 pettifogging casuistry, chose, or pretended to think, that their 
 subsequent silence on the subject released him from his 
 promise. The Commons refused to agree with him. He 
 was so unwise in his petulance as to defend his grants on 
 the pretext that he had thought himself bound to reward 
 those who had borne a principal part in the reduction of 
 Ireland; a plea which was manifestly untrue, for Portland 
 had only been in Ireland a few weeks, nor had he ever 
 held a command there; while Keppel had never been in 
 the country at all. And the Parliament was so irritated, 
 both by the acts and by the arguments thus put forth to 
 justify them, that the opposition had no difficulty in carrying 
 a resolution that whoever had advised the King to return 
 such an answer was an enemy to his Majesty and the king- 
 
The Practice of Tacking. 343 
 
 dom ; and in persuading the Houses to pass votes annulling 
 the grants. 
 
 These votes, though dictated by temporary irritation, 
 became of constitutional importance, as establishing a new 
 precedent; for they showed so clearly that royal grants 
 would henceforth depend for their permanence on the 
 pleasure of Parliament that from that day no Sovereign has 
 alienated any portion of the Crown lands by his single 
 authority. And in the very next reign, when the transcen¬ 
 dent services of Marlborough called for a reward, Anne was 
 advised not to give him the royal manor of Woodstock by 
 her own ordinance, but to invite the Parliament to settle it 
 on him and his heirs by a formal enactment. 
 
 The discussion of this subject was remarkable for another 
 reason also, since it afforded an example of a parliamentary 
 manoeuvre which the Commons had tried without success 
 once before, in which they succeeded now, but which, if they 
 had been able to establish it as a settled practice, would 
 have annihilated the rights of the House of Peers, and have 
 entirely subverted the Constitution. There were details in 
 the measure for investigating the disposal of the Irish forfei¬ 
 tures as proposed and carried in the Commons, of which 
 the Lords disapproved; after the investigation was con¬ 
 cluded, the Lords regarded some parts of the bill which 
 revoked the grants with still greater disfavour; and those 
 who had the chief influence in the Commons, where during 
 the years which immediately succeeded the Treaty of Ryswick 
 the King’s Ministers were almost powerless, believed that 
 the Lords would amend one or both of these measures, and 
 were determined to prevent them. 
 
 It was an admitted principle of the Constitution that the 
 Upper House could not amend a Money Bill : they could 
 
344 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 reject it, but they could not alter one clause or word in it. 
 Accordingly the Commons joined, or, to use the new word 
 invented for the occasion, they tacked the bills for appoint¬ 
 ing Commissioners to take account of the Irish forfeitures 
 to Money Bills, the passing of which was necessary for the 
 service of the State ; and thus left the Lords no alternative 
 but those of either passing bills which they considered 
 unjust, or rejecting others which were indispensable to pro¬ 
 vide for the payment of the national creditors and for the 
 defence of the nation. The Peers resisted to the uttermost, 
 as men who felt that the political independence of their 
 order, and, by consequence, the whole balance of the Con¬ 
 stitution, was at stake. They made amendments ; and though 
 some members of the Commons were so violent and shame¬ 
 less as to hint a threat of hereafter “ tacking ” Bills of 
 Attainder to Bills of Supply (a threat which Macaulay 
 deservedly brands as worthy of the worst days of the 
 French Convention), they adhered to their amendments. 
 But the wisest of those who were most indignant at the 
 factious conduct of the Commons, saw that the Lords 
 must give way. The country was not with them. The 
 people in general looked not at the mischievous principle 
 involved in “ tacking,” that is in combining two bills which 
 had no connection with one another, merely in order that the 
 bill which was admitted to be necessary might carry with 
 it another which was less approved; but, being almost 
 unanimous in the impropriety of the King's liberality to 
 his foreign friends, were eager for any measure which might 
 mark their opinion. 
 
 Somers and Montague, and William himself, deeply as 
 his personal feelings were interested, allowed that it was 
 safer for the State that both the bills should pass, than that 
 
The Partition Treaties. 
 
 345 
 
 both should be rejected ; and, influenced by the expres¬ 
 sion of their sentiments, a number of the Peers, who 
 had at first resisted, absented themselves from the final 
 division. The Commons prevailed. More than once in 
 the next reign they had recourse to the same expedient; 
 which indeed has never been declared, and which they 
 would perhaps not even now consent to declare illegal. 
 But even in the next reign it did not always succeed. It 
 was essentially an Opposition manoeuvre, and therefore 
 could not succeed against a strong Ministry. On one 
 memorable occasion, five years afterwards, the “ Tackers,” 
 as they were called, were beaten by a majority of above 
 ioo votes. And the people, gradually learning in more 
 tranquil times to appreciate the true character of the expe¬ 
 dient, came to regard it with such disfavour that after a few 
 years it was never again proposed, and is now almost for¬ 
 gotten. 
 
 Even the Partition Treaties, though a most striking evi¬ 
 dence of the weight attached to William’s opinion, and of 
 the accession of influence which the Revolution had 
 brought to the nation, were not unattended with circum¬ 
 stances of deep mortification to him. We need not here 
 enter into a minute examination of the treaties themselves. 
 Charles VI. of Spain, the Sovereign of the most exten¬ 
 sive dominions which had ever been subject to a single 
 Crown, was at the point of death ; and, as his sons had 
 died in their youth, his heirs could only be looked for 
 among his nephews and his cousins, the children of his 
 sisters or of his aunts. Of these, one was the eldest son of 
 the King of France, but his mother, Maria Teresa, on her 
 marriage with Louis, had formally renounced for herself and 
 her posterity all claim to the inheritance of the Spanish 
 
346 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 dominions; and Louis had sworn to hold the renunciation 
 sacred and valid. Another was the eldest son of the Em¬ 
 peror. A third was the son of the Elector of Bavaria, by 
 the Infanta Margaret, a younger sister of Maria Teresa, 
 who, like her sister, had renounced her inheritance. If the 
 renunciations were to be held valid, the Austrian Prince, 
 as his mother had made no such renunciation, could alone 
 .succeed to the expected vacancy. But the French, who for 
 three-quarters of a century had made the depression of the 
 House of Austria the chief aim of their policy, were re¬ 
 solved not to allow it to obtain such an increase of power 
 as would render it a match not only for France, but for all 
 Europe ; and the statesmen of Vienna were equally indis¬ 
 posed to see Spain annexed to France. 
 
 The Spanish possessions in Europe at this time comprised 
 Spain, the Netherlands, Lombardy, Naples, and Sicily; and 
 to these were added some of the richest of the West Indian 
 islands, and the still richer settlements of Mexico and Peru, 
 on the American continent. It was evident that so vast a 
 dominion would well bear division ; in fact, projects of divid¬ 
 ing it had been continually discussed for some years; and 
 in 1668 1 Louis had concluded a secret treaty with the Em¬ 
 peror Leopold, in which a division of it had been arranged. 
 While James was on the throne neither Sovereign thought 
 it necessary to take the opinion of England into account ; 
 but after the peace of Ryswick, under such a King as 
 William, she could no longer be passed over. 
 
 And, accordingly, when at the beginning of 1698 Lord 
 Portland was sent to Paris as Ambassador, the very first 
 subject which the French Ministers, M. de Torcy and 
 M. de Pomponne, were instructed to discuss with him was the 
 
 1 “ Memoires de M. de Torcy," vol. I., p. 23. 
 
Death of the Prince of Bavaria. 
 
 347 
 
 arrangement of a new partition treaty. A few weeks later, 
 Marshal Tallard, the French Ambassador in London, dis¬ 
 cussed the question with William himself, who presently 
 crossed over to the Hague with Tallard, to take Heinsius, 
 the Pensionary of Holland, into the arrangement. And 
 after a negotiation which, on the part of England, was 
 conducted by William himself, and which, perhaps in 
 consequence, seems to have been carried on with a 
 straightforwardness unusual in the diplomacy of that age, 
 the first Partition Treaty was concluded in accordance with 
 the views of William rather than with those of Louis. The 
 Prince of Bavaria was to have Spain, the Netherlands, and 
 the American settlements; Lombardy was to be assigned 
 to the Emperor’s second son, the Archduke Charles ; and 
 Naples, Sicily, with the small frontier province of Guipus- 
 coa, on the Pyrenees, was to belong to the Dauphin. 
 
 Had this treaty been carried out it would have saved 
 Europe many years of war; but unluckily it had not been 
 signed four months when the Prince of Bavaria died. The 
 negotiators had to begin their work over again ; and it was 
 rendered more difficult by the competitors being thus 
 reduced to two. Again Louis was the first to invite a fresh 
 negotiation; and, with a moderation of which he had never 
 before shown any signs, and which testifies strongly to his 
 sense of the power and influence of the King of England, 
 he still declared himself willing to waive his son’s claim to 
 the Spanish throne, and to allow it to be settled on the 
 Archduke Charles, to whom his father, the Emperor, and 
 his elder brother were willing to cede their pretensions, 
 on condition that Lombardy should be ceded to France. 
 England and Holland willingly agreed to this new arrange¬ 
 ment, the only objections to which, strange to say, came 
 
34 § 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 from the Emperor whose family was to be the chief gainer by 
 it; not that he intended to refuse it, but because, as William 
 said to Heinsius,*his “ Ministers were people who could 
 make up their minds to nothing.” 
 
 Eventually, however, the second partition was signed with¬ 
 out his concurrence. But, while the matter was still under 
 discussion, the affair came to the ears of Charles of Spain 
 himself, who, though fie had long been sunk in the lowest 
 imbecility, had sense and spirit enough left to feel indignant 
 at the proposal to settle the question of his succession and 
 to divide his dominions without his consent. His advisers 
 took the matter into their own hands. The Spaniards them¬ 
 selves had no inclination to be annexed to France; but it 
 seemed possible to preserve the succession to the posterity 
 of Maria Teresa without placing the two Crowns on one 
 head. The Dauphin had more sons than one; and the 
 King of Spain was therefore urged to declare the second of 
 these youths, Philip, Duke of Anjou, his heir, and thus to 
 prevent the dismemberment of the Monarchy. In the 
 summer of 1700 he signed a will to this effect, and 
 before the end of the year he died. The possibility of the 
 young Prince being forbidden by his grandfather to accept 
 the inheritance thus bequeathed to him was provided for by 
 a clause in the will which, in that event, left the kingdoms 
 to the Archduke. But those who framed the will could 
 hardly doubt what course would be taken at Versailles. 
 
 Louis, it was true, could not allow his grandson to 
 become King of Spain without a deliberate violation of 
 treaties which he himself had invited and concluded ; but 
 he had constantly shown himself faithless and perfidious 
 when far less was to be got by perfidy, and he was not 
 likely to hesitate now. He at once proclaimed Philip King 
 
The Act of Settlement. 
 
 349 
 
 of Spain, and showed a resolution to support him on his new 
 throne, even if a recourse to arms should become necessary. 
 The Emperor did threaten war, but William, though he 
 would gladly have joined him, found that the English nation 
 took too little interest in foreign politics to be inclined to 
 engage in a fresh war in such a cause. He complained 
 bitterly of their “ incredible blindness,” but felt that he had 
 no alternative but to recognize the new King. 
 
 Nor was this the only mortification which the transaction 
 brought upon him. The Whigs had fallen into disfavour; 
 and, as the Tories began to obtain a preponderance in Par¬ 
 liament, they resolved to show their power by impeaching 
 Lord Somers. When William crossed over to the Hague, 
 he had taken with him blank forms to which Somers, as 
 Chancellor, had already affixed the Great Seal; and among 
 the articles of the impeachment which they drew up, his 
 enemies, not unnaturally, selected this act. Such an use of 
 the Great Seal had undoubtedly been most unconstitutional, 
 and the Chancellor’s defence, that he had done what he had 
 done in obedience to the command of the King, was more 
 unconstitutional still. It made the whole executive Go¬ 
 vernment depend on the single will of the Sovereign. 
 Somers, indeed, was acquitted, but it was so plain that his 
 acquittal on this point was owing to the mismanagement of 
 the impeachment by those who conducted it, that the trial 
 also must have been a source of severe mortification to 
 William. 
 
 Yet not one of all these transactions excited in any quarter 
 the least inclination for a counter-revolution. Indeed, the 
 Act of Settlement, which was rendered indispensable by the 
 death of the young Duke of Gloucester, and which was 
 passed in the summer of 1701, may, in one point of view, 
 
350 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 be regarded as an assent to William’s general views of 
 foreign policy, since it settled the succession on the Elec- 
 tress Sophia in precisely the manner which he had recom¬ 
 mended twelve years before, though, at that time, he was 
 unable to gain a favourable reception for his recommenda¬ 
 tion. 
 
 But still more unmistakably was the feeling of the nation 
 shown when, in the autumn of the same year, Tames II. 
 died, and Louis, with even more than his usual effrontery of 
 perfidy, recognized his son as King of England. It was a 
 violation of the Treaty of Ryswick in its most important 
 article. The whole nation felt it as an insult to itself; and 
 when William recalled his ambassador from Paris, dismissed 
 the French ambassador and prepared for war, the entire 
 kingdom supported him with enthusiastic unanimity. At 
 the general election, which took place in the autumn, the 
 Tories, because they were supposed less staunch than the 
 Whigs in their adherence to the principles of the Revolu¬ 
 tion, were almost everywhere defeated ; and the new Parlia¬ 
 ment granted all the supplies for the maintenance of a force 
 sufficient to carry on the war by land and sea that the King 
 asked for. And on his death, which took place in the 
 first months of the ensuing year, his successor paid the best 
 tribute to his memory by adopting all his plans “ to reduce 
 the exhorbitant power of France,” as she described it in 
 her first speech. 
 
 The Revolution, therefore, was in every sense accom¬ 
 plished and completed at the peace of Ryswick. And 
 those who are proud of the power and renown, and thank¬ 
 ful for the tranquillity and ever-increasing prosperity which is 
 now enjoyed by the fortunate inhabitants of this kingdom, 
 may well regard with admiring gratitude the Revolution of 
 
Character of William. 
 
 35i 
 
 1688, and the great men to whose free and bold spirit it 
 owed its beginnings, and to whose statesmanlike moderation, 
 steadfastness, and practical sagacity it was indebted for its 
 final establishment and consummation. It may be true that 
 of the leaders of the different parties in the State scarcely 
 one can be praised unreservedly nor without considerable 
 deductions ; but it may at the same time be said that 
 nearly all of them in their several ways did good and 
 statesmanlike service, and contributed to the happy com¬ 
 pletion of the great work. 
 
 The first place in merit, as in rank, belongs to William 
 himself. In some respects it may be said that there are 
 few men whose character, both in its strong and its weak 
 points, lies more on the surface; as, indeed, he was a man 
 eminently above disguise. As a soldier, though neither as 
 a strategist nor as a tactician endowed by nature with any 
 high degree of abdity, he was yet so distinguished by 
 patience and indomitable fortitude that no man ever suffered 
 less from defeats; while, as he was ever observant and can¬ 
 did in his estimate both of others and of himself, he was able 
 to derive instruction from those to whom he was opposed, 
 and in his last campaign showed a far higher degree of 
 military skill than had marked his earlier encounters with 
 Luxemburg. He had not been pitted against the great 
 Marshal Duke for three years without profiting by his 
 lessons. 
 
 His political genius and career must be considered 
 in two aspects. As an European statesman it is hardly 
 possible to over-estimate his abilities or his services. 
 Even if it be granted that his animosity to Louis had its 
 root in some degree in personal resentment for personal 
 injury, and the annexation of his own little principality of 
 
352 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 Orange, we must still allow that it was beneficial to the 
 whole Commonwealth of Europe, which stood in need of a 
 champion to stimulate, maintain, and guide resistance to 
 the all-devouring ambition of the French monarch, and 
 which had, at the time, no other leader in any country to 
 whom it could look up. And it is equally impossible to 
 withhold our warmest admiration from the ability with 
 which that most necessary work was performed; from the 
 diplomatic skill with which the coalition against France 
 was formed, and kept together in harmonious working; 
 from the firmness with which obstacles were overcome, 
 disasters and disappointments were borne, till the war was 
 closed by a peace which for the first time humiliated Louis 
 by compelling him to abate his pretensions and restore his 
 conquests. 
 
 But we must also regard William as an English statesman, 
 and as the ruler of these kingdoms; and, in spite of the 
 great and permanent benefits which these nations have 
 derived from his achievements, yet it is in parts of his 
 conduct as King of England that he appears most deficient 
 in propriety of feeling, in sagacity, and even in plain good 
 sense. The benefits were not all on one side. If England 
 owed much to him, he also owed much to England ; if he 
 had transformed her from being a paid vassal of France into 
 a free and mighty nation, the victorious head of a mighty 
 coalition, and had laid the foundations on which she might 
 rise to a height of power and glory far beyond that which he 
 himself witnessed, she had in her turn raised him from the 
 rank of a petty Prince to that of a great King ; she had put 
 the arms into his hands by which he accomplished his darling 
 object, the humiliation of France. Yet not only did he never 
 regard her or her people with affection, but he never even 
 
Character of William. 
 
 353 
 
 took the slightest trouble to understand their feelings, much 
 less to allow them to influence his conduct. All his good¬ 
 will was monopolized by his Dutch favourites ; on them he 
 lavished English treasures to an amount unprecedented in 
 the annals of royal favouritism. And in his acts of a more 
 public character, though his enthronement was in principle 
 the supersession of absolute tyranny by constitutionally 
 limited authority, he nevertheless displayed, on more than 
 one instance, as arbitrary a temper as any of his prede¬ 
 cessors. More than once he withheld the Royal assent from 
 measures which the Houses of Parliament had passed, and 
 his order to Somers to furnish him with blank powers pre¬ 
 viously sealed, was the assertion of a principle which, if 
 the complaints made of it had not prevented its being 
 turned into a precedent, would have struck at the very root 
 of Parliamentary Government. His sanction of the Glen¬ 
 coe massacre, for his mercy towards the Master of Stair was 
 equivalent to a sanction of his bloody deed, is an offence of 
 a deeper dye. Yet, when all these defects in his character 
 and errors in his career are fairly contrasted with his good 
 qualities and good deeds, it must be allowed that the latter 
 far outweigh the former. His good qualities conferred 
 lasting benefits, not only on these kingdoms but on Europe 
 in general; his faults produced but temporary vexations, 
 and those confined to ourselves. And the verdict of pos¬ 
 terity, which rarely errs, looking at his virtues and actions as 
 a whole, has rightly placed him among her greatest kings. 
 
 In the chiefs of the two great English parties, who, 
 whether Whigs or Tories, bore a leading part in these 
 transactions, and contributed to the new settlement and to 
 its successful working, we see a similar mixture of strength 
 and weakness; but still, in striking the balance between 
 
 A A 
 
354 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 them, we are led by the results to pronounce a judgment 
 on the whole favourable to them. It was the exemplifica¬ 
 tion of a wholly different system from that which now pre¬ 
 vails, when William selected his first Ministry in almost 
 equal proportions from the two parties: but in the case of 
 a new dynasty like his it undoubtedly tended at first to 
 facilitate the work of Government. 
 
 We need not say much of Lord Mordaunt or the Duke 
 of Shrewsbury, however brilliant was the genius of the one, 
 or however attractive the disposition and manners of the 
 other. Neither was calculated to add much strength to any 
 party; but Lord Halifax was surpassed by no man in the 
 kingdom for clearness of intellect, for candour, or for fear¬ 
 less integrity. The position in which his brother Peers 
 placed him as their President was deserved by his constant 
 maintenance of the soundest Whig principles, and was at 
 the same time a pledge to all the party that while he 
 remained in office, those principles, the foundation of the 
 Revolution, would not be departed from. As a Minister he 
 was well placed in charge of the Privy Seal, an office of 
 honour rather than of work ; for his one weakness was an 
 indecision in action, arising apparently from an excess of 
 acuteness coupled with a tenderness of conscience which 
 made him fix his eyes rather on the objections to any fine 
 of conduct than on the countervailing recommendations. 
 
 The presence of the Ton' leaders, Lord Caermarthen and 
 Lord Nottingham, at the Council Board, was even more 
 important, since it was more necessary at the moment to 
 inspire the Tories than the Whigs with a feeling of confi¬ 
 dence that no change of the principles of the Constitution 
 was involved in the change of dynasty; that the Church 
 would be presen-ed with all her rights and privileges, and 
 
Lord Caermarthen and Lord Nottingham. 355 
 
 all her purity of worship and observance; and that the 
 present deviation from the rule of hereditary succession was 
 to be regarded as a single exception, in no degree impairing 
 tire general principle. And besides the pledge that the Re¬ 
 volution was thus but a firmer re-establishment of the ancient 
 Constitution which was implied in the acceptance of office 
 by these old statesmen of former reigns, Lord Nottingham 
 brought to the new Government a deservedly high reputa¬ 
 tion for unflinching honesty, great acquaintance with civil 
 and constitutional law, and considerable powers of oratory; 
 while Lord Caermarthen strengthened it with a practical 
 knowledge of the whole machinery of government, and an 
 experience in managing men out of, and still more in Parlia¬ 
 ment, in which he surpassed all his contemporaries and all 
 his predecessors. He had one great fault from which Not¬ 
 tingham was free, an unsatiable covetousness, which prompted 
 him to seek gain by corrupt and discreditable means, and 
 which eventually led to his disgrace. But it is remarkable 
 that these two Tory statesmen, who, by their original prin¬ 
 ciples were inclined to the old rather than to the new dynasty, 
 were almost the only men who never wavered in their alle¬ 
 giance to their new master, and who were never for a single 
 moment induced by either fear or hope to lend an ear to 
 the temptations of St. Germains. 
 
 The ablest of all the civil servants of the Government 
 during this reign were too young to be entitled to be ranked 
 among the first promoters of the Revolution ; indeed, the 
 first Parliament of which they were ever members was the 
 Convention-Parliament, which met by William’s invitation 
 after James had fled from the country. But it was to the sound 
 learning and unerring appreciation of constitutional princi¬ 
 ples, which were so conspicuous in Somers, that the Com- 
 
 a a 2 
 
356 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 inons chiefly trusted in framing the Declaration of Right; 
 it was his eloquence that won the assent of the Convention- 
 Parliament and the whole nation to the technical validity of 
 all its earlier acts ; it was his influence, more than that of 
 any other councillor, which restored and preserved harmony 
 between William and the Princess who was to succeed him ; 
 and it was he whose bold remonstrance apparently con¬ 
 tributed in no small degree to shame William out of his 
 petulant inclination to abdicate the throne rather than part 
 with his Dutch soldiers. While so all-important are finan¬ 
 cial considerations to every Government, and so pre-eminent 
 was their weight at a time when the expenses of an arduous 
 foreign war, to which the nation had long been unaccustomed, 
 were added to the ordinary requirements of the State, that 
 perhaps Montague, whose bold and original genius not only 
 furnished the means for meeting all existing difficulties, but 
 also laid the foundation and set the example of a system 
 under which the country might from time to time show 
 itself equal to any calls that might be made upon it, may 
 claim to have contributed more than any one of his col¬ 
 leagues or contemporaries to the permanent stability and 
 success of the new Government. 
 
 And in estimating the services of these statesmen it must 
 not be overlooked that, even before they passed away, the 
 Revolution had begun to bear its fruit in measures which 
 were indispensable to the national prosperity and progress, 
 yet which could never have been enacted under the Govern¬ 
 ment which had fallen. If, indeed, we look at the enact¬ 
 ments which, to use a modern form of expression, we may 
 call the chief Government measures of this reign, our first 
 feeling may perhaps be one of wonder at their small num¬ 
 ber. But that very paucity is one of the strongest proofs 
 
Chief Acts of the Reign. 
 
 357 
 
 of the practical wisdom of William and his Ministers. 
 They had none of that feverish restlessness of legisla¬ 
 tion which had been the bane of some of their succes¬ 
 sors. The laws with which they enriched our statute- 
 book were of lasting weight and service, though some of 
 them made no pretence to novelty. The first, the Bill of 
 Rights, the mere embodiment of a former “ Declaration,” 
 whose very title was a denial of innovation, placed the civil 
 and ecclesiastical rights and liberties of every class and 
 every individual on a solid and immovable foundation. 
 The emancipation of the Press secured freedom for thought 
 and speech. One law established the independence of the 
 judicial tribunals, without which experience had proved that 
 even rights recognized in the Great Charter itself were not 
 safe from attack ; another, by establishing periodical sessions 
 and a limited duration of Parliament for ever ensured to 
 the people a sufficient voice in all matters affecting their 
 welfare. 
 
 These were the great features of the domestic administra¬ 
 tion of William and his Ministers; and it is greatly to the 
 credit of the sterling good sense of the English people of 
 that age that, though living in a period of unusual excite¬ 
 ment, they yet were contented that their rulers should so 
 rigidly bound their views to measures of practical good, and 
 to the removal of abuses of which they had actually expe¬ 
 rienced the evil. Nor need we seek to enhance their merit 
 by the supposition that their acquiescence in this modera¬ 
 tion in law-making arose in any degree from a perception 
 that what was now done would facilitate or open the door 
 to further legislation. 
 
 The bulk of a nation is never far-sighted. Though the 
 next reign, short as it was, did not pass away without 
 
353 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 affording one striking proof of the extent to which these 
 measures had smoothed the way for fresh arrangements 
 beneficial to every part of the United Kingdom in the legis- 
 lative Union with Scotland. That great measure James I. 
 had desired to accomplish from the first moment that the 
 English sceptre passed into his hands, but his attempts had 
 been unsuccessful. Cromwell, in a high-handed and imper¬ 
 fect manner, had for a moment established something of the 
 kind when he summoned Scotch and Irish members to a 
 Parliament at Westminster, though in his next Parliament 
 he did not repeat the experiment. It had been one of 
 the last proposals of Clarendon’s administration under 
 Charles II., but had constantly been defeated by one 
 jealousy or another, till such unpatriotic feelings were 
 extinguished or shamed into silence by the Revolution, 
 though some remnants of them were still, for a time, 
 allowed to mar the completeness of the measure. 
 
 The Union, indeed, may be said to have been the seal of 
 the Revolution in Scotland; though, as we have spoken of 
 the attempts to effect a counter-revolution in England 
 during the first years of William’s reign, we must not for¬ 
 bear to mention that attempts on a larger scale to restore 
 the exiled family were twice made in Scotland during the 
 reigns of the first two Georges. Yet, if we would seek a 
 proof how firmly the principles of the Revolution, and a 
 deep sense of the solid benefits which it had conferred on all 
 classes, had taken hold of the very heart of both nations, 
 we could find no better evidence than that which is 
 afforded by the history of those enterprises, and especially 
 of the second, which, at the time, was believed to be full of 
 peril to the Brunswick dynasty. 
 
 A young Prince, specially acceptable to the Scotch as a 
 
Justification of the Revolution. 359 
 
 Prince of their own blood, taking advantage of the fact of 
 the strength of England being pre-occupied in a continental 
 war, landed in the Highlands to re-establish his father on 
 the throne. The entire force which the zeal of all his 
 adherents, greatly aided by the success which attended his 
 first operations, could furnish, never exceeded 9,000 men. 
 And though, through the incapacity of the commanders 
 opposed to him, he was able to force his way to the very 
 centre of England, not one Englishman of the slightest 
 reputation or influence joined him ; the middle and lower 
 classes kept equally aloof ; he was compelled to retreat 
 even when no hostile force confronted him; and his expe¬ 
 dition collapsed solely from the attachment of the whole 
 nation to the state of things established by the Revolution; 
 though the reigning monarch and all his sons were un¬ 
 popular; though the Ministry was weak beyond almost all 
 former example; and though party spirit and faction were 
 unusually predominant both in and out of Parliament. 
 
 To justify any Revolution two things are indispensable, 
 necessity and success. The Revolution of 1688 combines 
 both these requisites. There can be no doubt that it was 
 absolutely necessary. The prerogatives of the Crown on 
 the one hand, and the rights of the people on the other, 
 though clearly enough laid down in legal documents, in 
 charters granted and confirmed by many kings, and in 
 statutes passed by many Parliaments, had in practice come 
 to be ill-defined. There was hardly one of the more 
 important articles of the Great Charter that had not been 
 violated by the Tudors ; and, though the imperious despot¬ 
 ism of those Sovereigns aroused a gradually increasing 
 discontent, which, under the new dynasty of the Stuarts, when 
 religious differences had added their excitement to aggravate 
 
360 
 
 The English Revolution. 
 
 „ the slumbering disaffection, broke out into open resistance, 
 the rebellion which ensued defeated itself, as we have seen, 
 by the very completeness of its triumph. The excesses of 
 those who prevailed produced a reaction, which the 
 restored Princes mistook for such a recognition of the duty 
 of non-resistance that, in the twenty-eight years that fol¬ 
 lowed the Restoration, they trampled on the laws and on 
 ever)' principle of good and free government more shame¬ 
 lessly than the most headstrong of their predecessors. 
 
 And, if Charles II. was too indolent to organize a settled 
 system of tyranny, James II. did not scruple to found his 
 claim to dispense with the laws on the pernicious maxim 
 which he had inherited from his grandfather, of his divine 
 right to the throne. The assertion of such a right clearly 
 involved the denial of any right on the part of his subjects 
 to bind him by any conditions. But a constitutional Go¬ 
 vernment in its very essence is one of conditions ; and if it 
 was thus impossible to bind James, with his ideas, to the 
 observance of terms, it became indispensable to place a 
 Sovereign on the throne in his stead who could be so 
 bound. The Revolution, therefore, was indispensably 
 necessary. And it is the peculiar glory of the statesmen 
 who accomplished it that they went no farther than was 
 necessary; and sought nothing beyond security for the 
 maintenance of those liberties of which, by a hundred laws, 
 the people were clearly rightful possessors. As we have 
 already seen, it is to this moderation that the Revolution, in 
 a great degree, owes its other justification, that of success. 
 
 One further observation it seems important to make. 
 That, though it is often spoken of as a Protestant Revolu¬ 
 tion, to which we are indebted for the maintenance of the 
 reformed religion in the country', it was not originally a 
 
Character of James's Government. 361 
 
 religious movement. While Charles was on the throne the 
 attempt to exclude James from the succession on the ground 
 of his being a Roman Catholic failed; and, after James 
 became King, the whole nation, for a time, was not merely 
 acquiescent but even ardent in its loyalty. Not only was 
 the Privy Council warm in its expressions of attachment to 
 its new master, but the general election, which took place 
 three months after his accession, returned a House of Com¬ 
 mons so inclined to obedience that he admitted that he 
 himself could hardly have improved it. And when, in the 
 course of the summer, the Duke of Monmouth, who a year 
 or two before had been paraded as the champion of Pro¬ 
 testantism, took up arms to overturn his Government, he 
 only brought ruin on himself and additional strength to the 
 new Sovereign. 
 
 It was not till, in spite of the warnings of many Roman 
 Catholic statesmen, James, by his persecution of Protes¬ 
 tants, whether belonging to the Established Church or Non¬ 
 conformists, by his repeated violations of the ancient and 
 well-known laws of the kingdom, and by his pertinacious 
 invasions of the civil rights and privileges of his subjects, 
 had compelled them to identify Popery with tyranny that 
 they rose against him; and even when they did so rise, their 
 views did not at first go beyond compelling him to observe 
 those ancient laws which he had already sworn to maintain. 
 Nor did any party of the slightest influence in the State 
 contemplate stripping him of a single particle of his lawful 
 prerogatives till, with unprecedented pusillanimity, he fled 
 the kingdom and practically abdicated his authority. 
 
 The brilliant historian of these times, in the impassioned 
 eulogy with which he closes the first part of his narrative, 
 has wisely rested one of its chief claims on our admiration 
 
362 The English Revolution. 
 
 and gratitude in the circumstance that it has been our last 
 Revolution. That it has been such is high praise of the 
 people also, as well as of their rulers, since it testifies by 
 the irresistible evidence of facts to their possession of a 
 sobriety and steadiness of judgment which neither the spirit 
 of faction nor the arts of demagogues can permanently 
 disturb or mislead. These qualities, which are at once 
 moral and intellectual virtues, are, as we are wont to flatter 
 ourselves, among the especial characteristics of the national 
 mind, and the fruit which, in this instance, they have pro¬ 
 duced is, at the same time, their best reward. It is the 
 continued enjoyment of a Constitution which, beyond any 
 other ever known in the world, combines strength and 
 stability with a capacity for improvement, and the full 
 maintenance of all legitimate authority with the most com¬ 
 plete freedom to every individual. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A. 
 
 Abingdon, Earl of, joins William, 
 107. 
 
 Adda, Count, is Papal Nuncio in 
 England, 34. 
 
 Aghrim, battle of, 234. 
 
 Albeville, Marquis of, is sent by 
 James to Holland, 56 ; warns 
 James of William’s designs, 95. 
 
 Allybone, one of tile judges in the 
 Bishops' trial, 80. 
 
 Angus, Earl of, raises a regiment 
 for William, 190. 
 
 Anne, Princess, disbelieves the genu¬ 
 ineness of the Prince of Wales, 
 76; influenced by the Churchills, 
 94; flies from London, 117. 
 
 Antrim, Earl of, is repelled from 
 Derry, 196. 
 
 Argyll, Earl of, is executed, 43. 
 
 Argyll (son of the former) joins 
 William, 98 ; presents the Scotch 
 crown to William and Mary, 177. 
 
 Arnold, Michael, one of the jury in 
 the Bishops' trial, 81. 
 
 Arran, Lord, adheres to James, 174. 
 
 Ashton engaged in Preston's con¬ 
 spiracy, 308. 
 
 Athlone, capture of, 231. 
 
 Atholl, Duke of, adheres to James, 
 174 - 
 
 Auverquerque, a favourite of Wil¬ 
 liam, 310. 
 
 B. 
 
 Baker, Major, joint commander at 
 Derry, 199. 
 
 Balcarras, Earl of, is willing to sub¬ 
 mit to William, 179. 
 
 Barbesieux, Marquis de, sanctioned 
 plots against William, 314. 
 
 Barclay, Sir G., conspires against 
 William, 321. 
 
 Barillon, French ambassador in 
 England, 22; his conversations 
 with James II., 33. 
 
 Bavaria, Elector of, his claims to 
 the crown of Spain, 346, seq. 
 
 Beaufort, Duke of, adheres tojames, 
 
 • 107. 
 
 Bellasis, Lord, his character of 
 Tyrconnel, 42; advises James to 
 be moderate, 71. 
 
 Bellasis, Col., writes to William, 58. 
 
 Bellefonds, Marshal, encamps at La 
 Hogue, 286. 
 
 Benbow, Admiral, destroys St. Malo, 
 290. 
 
Index. 
 
 364 
 
 Bentinck, afterwards Earl of Port¬ 
 land, a favourite of William, 3T0; 
 negotiates the peace of Ryswick, 
 335 ; grants made to him are 
 annulled by Parliament, 34r. 
 
 Berkeley, Lord, burns Dieppe, 290. 
 
 Berwick, Duke of, accompanies 
 James to France, T39; at Limerick, 
 224 ; commands an Irish brigade 
 in the French service, 238 ; at 
 Steinkirk, 276; aids in Charnock's 
 conspiracy, 320, seq. 
 
 Boisseleau, Brigadier, in command 
 at Limerick, 224. 
 
 Boufflers, Marshal, in Flanders, 
 279; negotiates with Portland, 
 335 - 
 
 Boyne, battle of, 2rs. 
 
 Breadalbane, Earl, his dealings with 
 Glencoe, 298. 
 
 Browning, Captain, at Derry, 202. 
 
 Burnet, Bishop, his history of these 
 times, 85; aids in framing Wil¬ 
 liam's manifesto, 101; preaches at 
 Exeter, 105; is employed to pacify 
 the Roman Catholic priests, 145; 
 explains William’s views, 146; 
 and Mary’s, 161 ; proposes a 
 clause in the Act of Settlement, 
 2 55 - 
 
 C. 
 
 Calvin, head of one school of re¬ 
 formers, 2. 
 
 Campbell, Captain, at Glencoe, 302. 
 
 Cannon, General, commands the 
 Irish division at Killiecrankie, 190. 
 
 Castlemaine, Earl of, is one of 
 James's advisers, 36; goes as am¬ 
 bassador to Rome, 37. 
 
 Catinat, Marshal, in Piedmont, 272. 
 
 Charles I., state of England at his 
 accession, 3; his reluctance to 
 meet his Parliament, 4; enters the 
 
 House of Commons to arrest the 
 five members, 6; is put to death, 8. 
 
 Charles II. is restored, 10 ; his 
 character, 11; becomes a pensioner 
 of Louis XIV., 12 ; issues a De¬ 
 claration of Indulgence, but can¬ 
 cels it, 13; restores his brother to 
 office, 16 ; dies declaring himself 
 a Roman Catholic, 17. 
 
 Charles VI., of Spain, his heirs, 
 345 . scq. 
 
 Charles, Archduke, his claims to the 
 throne of Spain, 347, seq. 
 
 Charnock conspires against William, 
 319 , seq. 
 
 Chartres, Duke of, at Neerwinden, 
 
 282. 
 
 Churchill, Captain, joins William, 
 US- 
 
 Churchill, Lord, afterwards Earl of 
 Marlborough, his character of 
 James II., 21; favours William's 
 designs, 94; his influence with 
 Princess Anne, 94; joins William, 
 1x3; persuades Anne to allow 
 herself to be postponed to Will iam, 
 151, 163 ; commands in Flanders, 
 210; captures Cork and Kinsale, 
 227; plots against the Govern¬ 
 ment, 310; with his wife is dis¬ 
 missed from all employment, 313. 
 
 Clarendon, Earl of, is minister of 
 Charles II., 11; character of his 
 administration, 12. 
 
 Clarendon, Earl of (son of the for¬ 
 mer), a leader of the Tory party, 
 34 ; is Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, 
 35; is recalled, 41; advises James 
 to summon a Parliament, no; 
 further advice, 118 ; tries to make 
 Anne jealous of William, 150; is 
 inclined to a counter-revolution, 
 293; engaged in Preston's con¬ 
 spiracy, 305. 
 
Index. 
 
 365 
 
 Cleveland, Duchess of, mistress of 
 Charles II., 36. 
 
 Clifford, Lord, is removed from the 
 Ministry, 13. 
 
 Compounders, their views, 316. 
 
 Compton, Bishop of London, is the 
 spokesman of the Bishops, 31; is 
 deprived of the Deanery of the 
 Chapel Royal, 32; refuses to sus¬ 
 pend Sharpe, 50; is suspended, 
 51; escorts Princess Anne, 117; 
 supports Lord Paget, 144. 
 
 Coningsby, Thomas, a negotiator 
 at Limerick, 236. 
 
 Convention, the, is declared in Par¬ 
 liament, 243. 
 
 Cornbury, Lord, joins William, 109. 
 
 Crewe, Bishop, becomes a member of 
 the Court of High Commission, 51. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, a member of the 
 Independents, 5; he outwits the 
 Presbyterians, 7 ; expels the Par¬ 
 liament, 8 ; causes the execution 
 of Charles, 8 ; governs with great 
 tyranny, 9; dies, 10 ; his cruelty 
 in Ireland, 40. 
 
 Crone, an agent in Preston's con¬ 
 spiracy, 306. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dalrymple, Sir John, his conduct 
 respecting Glencoe, 298. 
 
 Danby, Earl of, afterwards Marquis 
 of Caermarthen, is impeached, 15; 
 seizes York for William, no; takes 
 a leading part in the debates, 156; 
 denies the throne can ever be 
 vacant, 159; is President of the 
 Council, 244 ; retires, 260. 
 
 Dartmouth, Earl of, commands the 
 English fleet, 102; refuses to con¬ 
 vey the Prince of Wales to France, 
 in, 121 ; is dismissed, 145 ; en¬ 
 gages in Preston's conspiracy, 305. 
 
 D'Avaux, Count, ambassador from 
 Louis in Ireland, 194. 
 
 De la Caillemotte, M., is killed at 
 the Boyne, 218. 
 
 Delamere, Lord, is Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, 244. 
 
 Delavai, Sir R., attacks Cherbourg, 
 286. 
 
 De Rosen, Count, Commander-in- 
 Chief for James in Ireland, 194; 
 arrives in front of Derry, 199; 
 opposed to Schomberg at Dun¬ 
 dalk, 211. 
 
 Devonshire, Earl of, comments 
 boldy on the King's speech, 28 ; 
 seizes Nottingham for William, 
 no; makes a motion in the House 
 of Lords, 150. 
 
 D'Humieres, Marshal, commands 
 in Flanders, 272. 
 
 Dorset, Earl of, aids Anne's flight, 
 117. 
 
 Douglas, Captain, at Derry, 202. 
 
 Dover, Lord, agrees with Lord 
 Dartmouth, 122. 
 
 Drumlanrig, Lord, joins William, 
 116. 
 
 Dundee, Lord, advises James to give 
 battle 113; his conduct in the time 
 of Charles II., 178 ; is willing to 
 submit to William, 179; fliestohis 
 own castle, 181; raises an army, 
 183; falls at Killiecrankie, 188. 
 
 D'Usson, General, commands in 
 Ireland, 229. 
 
 Dykvelt, is sent by Prince of Orange 
 to England, 54; conveys letters to 
 William, 38. 
 
 E. 
 
 Elliott, Mr., engaged in Preston's 
 conspiracy, 308. 
 
 Exclusion Bill is brought in, but 
 rejected, 16. 
 
366 
 
 Index. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fagel, Grand Pensionary of United 
 States, in William's confidence, 
 59; writes to Stewart, 59 ; draws 
 up William’s manifesto, ior. 
 
 Farmer, Antony, James nominates 
 him President of Magdalen, 62. 
 
 Fenwick, Sir J., privy to Charnock’s 
 conspiracy, 319; is attainted, 328 
 
 Feversham, Lord, James's Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, 107; is sent to 
 rescue James, 130. 
 
 Finch,oneof theBishops' counsel, 78. 
 
 Fisher, Mr., reveals Charnock’s con¬ 
 spiracy, 322. 
 
 Fitton, A., made Lord Chancellor 
 of Ireland, 195 . 
 
 Friend, Sir J., engages in Char- 
 nock's conspiracy, 319, seq. 
 
 Fuller, an agent in Preston’s con¬ 
 spiracy, 306. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gaillard, Father, preaches before 
 Louis XIV., 97. 
 
 George, Prince, of Denmark, joins 
 William, 116. 
 
 Ginkell, General, afterwards Earl of 
 Athlone, commands in Ireland, 
 230; lays siege to Athlone, 230; 
 defeats St. Ruth at Aghrim, 234; 
 moves to Limerick, 235; concludes 
 the Treaty of Limerick, 236 ; 
 grants made to him are annulled 
 by Parliament, 341. 
 
 Glencoe, massacre of, 299, seq. 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of, birth of, 256; 
 dies, 257. 
 
 Godolphin, Earl of, becomes the 
 Queen's Chamberlain, 23 ; is ap¬ 
 pointed a Commissioner to treat 
 with William, 120; takes a leading 
 part in the debates, 155; resigns, 
 260. 
 
 Goodman, a witness against Sir J. 
 Fenwick, 327. 
 
 Gordon, Duke of, Governor of 
 Edinburgh Castle, 180. 
 
 Grafton, Duke of, advises James to 
 summon a Parliament, no. 
 
 Grandval plots to assassinate Wil¬ 
 liam, and is hanged, 314. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hales, SirE., trial of, 47; is Lieu¬ 
 tenant of the Tower, 74. 
 
 Halifax, Marquis of, favours the re¬ 
 jection of the Exclusion Bill. 26; 
 refuses to give up the Test Act, 26; 
 is dismissed from office, 26 ; dis¬ 
 approves of William’s attempt, 
 87; adheres to James, 119; is 
 appointed a Commissioner to treat 
 with William, 120; is Chairman 
 of the Council, 136; Speaker of 
 the House of Peers, 149; argues 
 that the contract is dissolved, 159, 
 162; presents the crown to William 
 and Mary, 167. 
 
 Hallam, Henry, his description of 
 Cromwell’s government, 9. 
 
 Hamilton, Duke of, President of the 
 Scotch Council, 170 ; and of the 
 Estates, 174; refuses Dundee a 
 guard, 181. 
 
 Hamilton, General, lays siege to 
 Derry, 198. 
 
 Hamilton, Colonel, at Glencoe, 302. 
 
 Hampden, John, a member of the 
 Presbyterian sect, 5. 
 
 Heinsius, Pensionary of Holland, 
 347- 
 
 Herbert, C.J., member of the Court 
 of High Commission, 51 ; is dis¬ 
 missed, 61. 
 
 Herbert, Admiral (afterwards Lord 
 Torrington), conveys the letter of 
 
Index. 
 
 invitation to William, 86; com¬ 
 mands William's fleet, 98; at 
 Bantry Bay, 285 ; at Beachy 
 Head, 285. 
 
 Holloway, is a judge in the Bishops' 
 trial, 76. 
 
 Hough, is made President of Mag¬ 
 dalen, 62. 
 
 I. 
 
 Innocent XI., discourages the 
 Jesuits, 37. 
 
 James II., Duke of York (afterwards 
 King), avows himself a Roman 
 Catholic, 13; is replaced as Lord 
 High Admiral, 16; succeeds to 
 the throne, 18; is popular at first, 
 19; writes to Prince of Orange, 
 23; brings up an army to Houns¬ 
 low Heath, 24 ; opens Parliament, 
 27; prorogues Parliament, and 
 reigns with despotic power, 32 ; 
 his advantages for restoring tran¬ 
 quillity in Ireland, 40; is angry 
 with the Scotch, 45; erects a 
 Court of High Commission, 49; 
 issues a Declaration of Indul¬ 
 gence, 56; dissolves Parliament, 
 60 ; attacks the Universities, 61; 
 remodels corporations, &c., 65; 
 publishes a fresh Declaration of 
 Indulgence, 68 ; questions the 
 Peers on William’s manifesto, to6; 
 connects himself more closely with 
 France, 120; flies from London, 
 128; is stopped at Rochester, 
 129; returns to London, 134; 
 flies a second time, and reaches 
 France, 138; returns to Ireland, 
 and lands at Kinsale, 192; opens 
 the Irish Parliament, 206; returns 
 to France, 221; issues a fresh 
 Declaration, 288 ; dies, 350. 
 
 James, Prince of Wales, is bom, 74. 
 
 3<57 
 
 Jefferies, C.J., his violence in the 
 Court of High Commission, 51; 
 urges violent counsels on James, 
 72 ; is appointed one of the Coun¬ 
 cil, iii; is seized by the mob, 133. 
 
 K. 
 
 Ken, Bishop, refuses the oath of 
 allegiance, 251. 
 
 Keppel (Earl of Albemarle), grants 
 made to him are annulled, 342. 
 
 Kirke, Colonel, is sent to relieve 
 Derry, 201. 
 
 L. 
 
 Langdale, Lord, is taken prisoner 
 at Hull, 124. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, his fondness for 
 ceremonies, 3. 
 
 Lauderdale, Duke of, offers his 
 house at Ham to James, 137. 
 
 Lauzun, Count, is sent to command 
 in Ireland, 214; is defeated at the 
 Boyne, 220; crosses to Limerick, 
 222; returns to France, 228. 
 
 Leake, Captain, at Derry, 202. 
 
 Leyburn, John, is Vicar Apostolic 
 in England, 34. 
 
 Limerick, Treaty of, 236. 
 
 Lochiel fights for James at Killie- 
 crankie, 186. 
 
 Locke, John, on the adulteration of 
 the coinage, 265. 
 
 Lockwood, Mr., executed for Char- 
 nock's conspiracy, 326. 
 
 Louis XIV., bribes Charles II., 12 ; 
 repeals the Edict of Nantes, 26 ; 
 his ascendency over the whole 
 Continent, 87; he has annexed 
 Orange, 89; tries to intimidate 
 the United States, 91 ; warns 
 James of William's designs, 92 ; 
 quarrels with the Pope and the 
 Emperor, 93 ; hears of the cap- 
 
Index. 
 
 368 
 
 ture of Philipsbourg, 97; treats 
 James and Mary with great liber¬ 
 ality 193; joins Luxemburg, 278; 
 returns to Paris, 279. 
 
 Louvois, Secretary of State in France, 
 97 ; dies, 314. 
 
 Lovelace, Lord, is defeated by Duke 
 of Beaufort, 107. 
 
 Lowick, Colonel, executed for Char- 
 nock's conspiracy, 326. 
 
 Lundy, Colonel, offers to surrender 
 Derry, 199. 
 
 Luther, head of one school of re¬ 
 formers, 2. 
 
 Luxemburg, Duke of, defeats Wal- 
 deck at Fleurus, 273 ; takes 
 Namur, 275; defeats William at 
 Steinkirk, 276; and at Neer- 
 vvinden, 280. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macclesfield, Earl of, joins Wil¬ 
 liam, 98. 
 
 Macdonald of Glencoe, 298, seq. 
 Mackay, General, has a command 
 in William's army, 100; is sent 
 against Dundee, 184; is defeated 
 at Killiecrankie, 188; is sent to 
 Ireland, 230; at Aghrim, 234 ; is 
 killed at Steinkirk, 277. 
 
 Mary, Princess (afterwards Queen), 
 intercedes for Bishop Compton, 
 51 ; lands in England, 167; ac¬ 
 cepts the crown, 168 ; is Regent 
 during William's absences, 293; 
 dies, 315. 
 
 Mary, Queen of James II., has a son, 
 74- 
 
 Maumont, M. de, commands against 
 Derry, 200. 
 
 Maynard, Serjeant, presents an ad¬ 
 dress to William, 141. 
 
 Melfort, Lord, is Secretary of State 
 in Scotland, 43; brings a letter 
 
 from James, 149; writes to Lord 
 Dundee, 182; his letter, 317. 
 
 Middleton, Lord, Secretary of State, 
 143 ; and in France, 317. 
 
 Milton, John, his “ Areopagitica," 
 267. 
 
 Ministry, character and composition 
 of, 244. 
 
 Monmouth, Duke of, rebels, and is 
 executed, 20. 
 
 Montague, Charles, becomes Chan¬ 
 cellor of the Exchequer, 260. 
 
 Mordaunt, Lord, is First Lord of 
 the Treasury, 244. 
 
 Mountcashel, Earl of, is defeated at 
 Newton Butler, 191, 204. 
 
 Mountjov, Lord, is excluded from 
 Enniskillen, 197. 
 
 N. 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, is made Master 
 of the Mint, 266. 
 
 Noailles, Due de, commands in 
 Spain, 272. 
 
 Non-compounders, their views, 316. 
 
 Non-jurors, the, are deprived of all 
 preferments, 250. 
 
 Nottingham, Earl of, approves the 
 invitation to William, 87 ; his ad¬ 
 vice to James, 119; is appointed 
 a commissioner to meet with Wil¬ 
 liam, 120; moves to establish a 
 Regency, 155; to declare the Con¬ 
 vention a Parliament 243; is Sec¬ 
 retary of State, 244; resigns, 260; 
 objects to the wording of the 
 Association, 324. 
 
 O. 
 
 O'Neill, SirPhelim, massacres the 
 Irish Protestants, 39. 
 
 Orkney, Lady, grants made to her 
 are annulled, 341. 
 
Index. 
 
 Ormond, Duke of, one of the leaders 
 of the Tory party, 34,. 
 
 Ormond (son of the preceding) joins 
 William, 116. 
 
 P. 
 
 Paget, Lord, affirms the vacancy of 
 the throne, 144. 
 
 Parker, James appoints him Bishop- 
 of Oxford, and President of Mag¬ 
 dalen, 62. 
 
 Parkyns, Sir W„ engages in Char- 
 nock's conspiracy, 319, scq. 
 Parliament—Bill for Triennial Par¬ 
 liaments is repealed, 10. 
 
 Partition Treaties, 345, scq. 
 Pemberton, one of the Bishops’ 
 Counsel, 78. 
 
 Pendergrass, Mr., reveals Char- 
 nock’s conspiracy, 322. 
 
 Perth, Earl, is Chancellor of Scot¬ 
 land, 43 ; is imprisoned, 169. 
 Petre, Father, V.P. of the Jesuits 
 in England, 37. 
 
 Philip of Anjou, declared heir to the 
 Spanish Crown, 348. 
 
 Plot, the Popish, 14. 
 
 Pollexfen, one of the Bishops’ 
 counsel, 78. 
 
 Pomponne, M. de, French Secretary 
 of State, 346. 
 
 Porter, Mr., is engaged in Char- 
 nock’s conspiracy, 322. 
 
 Porter, Sir C., a negotiator at Lim¬ 
 erick, 236. 
 
 Powell, as one of the judges in the 
 Bishops trial, denies the dispens¬ 
 ing power, 80; is dismissed, 82. 
 Powle, Mr., is Speaker of the House 
 of Commons, 149. 
 
 Preston, Lord, conspires against 
 William, 303. 
 
 Prior, M., brings over the Treaty of 
 Ryswick, 338. 
 
 369 
 
 Pusignan, Brigadier, commands 
 against Derry, 200. 
 
 Pym, a Presbyterian,’5. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Queensberry, Duke of, Lord Trea¬ 
 surer in Scotland, 43 ; is dis¬ 
 missed, 43. 
 
 R. 
 
 Reformation, character and effect 
 of in different countries, 1. 
 Remonstrance, The Great, is pre¬ 
 sented to Charles I., 6. 
 
 Revolution, character of, 241, 350. 
 Rice, Stephen, made Chief Baron in 
 Ireland, 195. 
 
 Rochester, Earl of, becomes Lord 
 Treasurer, 23 ; is one of the 
 leaders of the Tory party, 34 ; 
 his servility in the Court of High 
 Commission, 51 ; is dismissed 
 from office, 52; his advice to 
 James, 118; takes a leading part 
 in the debates, 155. 
 
 Rooke, SirG., destroys the French 
 fleet at La Hogue, 286. 
 
 Russell, Admiral, has an interview 
 with William, 85; is made First 
 Lord of the Admiralty, 260; de¬ 
 feats Tourville at La Hogue, 285; 
 blockades him in Toulon, 291; is 
 tampered with byjames, 293. 
 Ruvigny, Marquis (afterwards Earl 
 of Galway), at the siege of Ath- 
 lone, 232 ; grants made to him 
 are annulled by Parliament, 341. 
 Ryswick, Treaty of, 337, scq. 
 
 S. 
 
 Sancroft, Archbishop, does not sit 
 in the Court of High Commission, 
 51; is* unwell, 69; is summoned 
 before the Privy Council, 73 ; is 
 B B 
 
370 
 
 Index. 
 
 questioned by James about 
 William’s manifesto, 106; sum¬ 
 mons a Council of Peers, 131. 
 
 Sarsfield has a regiment in James's 
 army, 112; at the Boyne, 218; 
 undertakes to defend Limerick, 
 223 ; is made Lord Lucan, 229 ! 
 retreats to' Limerick, 235 ; signs 
 the Treaty of Limerick, 236; re¬ 
 turns to France, 237; is killed at 
 Landen, 238. 
 
 Savoy, Duke of, makes peace with 
 France, 334. 
 
 Sawyer, one of the Bishops' coun¬ 
 sel, 78. 
 
 Schomberg, Marshal, second in com¬ 
 mand to William, 100; at Salis¬ 
 bury, 112; lands in Ireland, 202 ; 
 advances to Dundalk, 211; is 
 killed at the Boyne, 218. 
 
 Settlement, Act of, 257. 
 
 Seymour, Sir E., joins William at 
 Exeter, 108; opposes the Trien¬ 
 nial Act, 264. 
 
 Sharpe, Reverend, preaches against 
 Popery, 50. 
 
 Shovel, Sir C., destroys Calais, 290. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Earl of, joins William, 
 38 ; is accused by Sir J. Fenwick, 
 
 328. 
 
 Sidney, Lord, a negotiator at 
 Limerick, 236. 
 
 Solmes, Count, commands Dutch 
 troops in Flanders, 210; deserts 
 the English regiments at Stein- 
 kirk, 277. 
 
 Somers (afterwards Lord), one of the 
 Bishops' counsel, 79; conducts 
 the conference for the House of 
 Commons, 163 ; takes the lead in 
 framing the Declaration of Right, 
 166; is impeached, 349. 
 
 Sophia, the Electress, recommended 
 for the succession by William, 
 
 255; is included in the Act of 
 Settlement, 257. 
 
 Sprat, Bishop, his servility in the 
 Court of High Commission, 51. 
 
 Stewart, James persuades him to 
 write to Fagel, 59. 
 
 Strafford, Earl of, is impeached and 
 attainted, 5. 
 
 St. Ruth, General, is sent to Ireland, 
 229; is defeated and killed at 
 Aghrim, 234. 
 
 Sunderland, Earl of, becomes Secre¬ 
 tary of State, 23; encourages 
 James in his arbitrary acts, 35 ; 
 becomes President of the Council, 
 36; becomes a Roman Catholic, 
 71; provqs the presentation of the 
 Bishops' petition, 78. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tacking, unconstitutional, 344. 
 
 Talbot, Brigadier, distinguishes him¬ 
 self at Limerick, 2261 
 
 Tallard, Marshal, French Ambassa¬ 
 dor, 347. 
 
 Talmash, General, commands in 
 Ireland, 230; at Aghrim, 234 ; at 
 Neerwinden, 282; is killed at 
 Brest, 290. 
 
 Test Act, The, is passed, 13. 
 
 Thanet, Earl of, expresses his 
 views, 165. 
 
 Toleration Bill, 246. 
 
 Torcy, M. de, French Secretary of 
 State, 346. 
 
 Tourville, Count de, at Bantry Bay 
 and Beachy Head, 285; at La 
 Hogue, 286 ; cruises in the Chan¬ 
 nel, 300; bums Teignmouth, 307. 
 
 Treby, Sir G., one of the Bishops' 
 counsel, 78. 
 
 Trelawney, Bishop, is prosecuted, 
 76. 
 
 Triennial Act, 263. 
 
Index. 
 
 371 
 
 Tullibardine, Marquis of, declares 
 for William, 174. 
 
 Turner, Bishop, engages in Pres¬ 
 ton's conspiracy, 305. 
 
 Tyrconnel, Earl of, is Commander- 
 in-Chief in Ireland, 36 ; his vio¬ 
 lence, 38; becomes Lord-Lieute¬ 
 nant, 41; his violence in Ireland, 
 196, scq.\ crosses over to France to 
 try for aid, 229 ; dies, 235. 
 
 V. 
 
 VendAme, Due de, commands in 
 Spain, 272; takes Barcelona, 337. 
 
 Villeroy, Marshal, in Flanders, 284. 
 
 W. 
 
 Waldeck, Prince, commands in 
 Flanders, 272; is defeated at 
 Fleurus, 273. 
 
 Walker, G., joint-commander at 
 Derry, 200; is killed at the Boyne, 
 220. 
 
 Walker, Obadiah, turns Roman 
 Catholic, 48. 
 
 William, Prince of Orange, after¬ 
 wards King, refuses to be 
 reconciled to Louis XIV., 23 ; 
 communicates with malcontents 
 in England, 53, seq. ; congratulates 
 
 James on the birth of the Prince 
 of Wales, 76 ; is invited to 
 England, 83; sails for England, 
 97; lands in Devonshire, 103; 
 proceeds to Exeter, ro5; meets 
 James's Commissioners at Hun- 
 gerford, 125 ; invites the Peers to 
 meet him at St. James's, T42 ; 
 accepts the crown, 168 ; lands at 
 Carrickfergus, 212; is wounded at 
 theBoyne,2r6; retumstoEngland, 
 225; is crowned at Dublin, 238; 
 issues an Act of Grace, 253; 
 crosses to Flanders, 274 ; is un¬ 
 gracious and arbitrary, 294; dies, 
 350 ; his character, 351. 
 
 Winchester, Marquis of, joins Wil¬ 
 liam, 98. 
 
 Wolseley, Colonel, defeats Lord 
 Mountcashel at Newton Butler, 
 204. 
 
 Wright, N., is made Chief Justice, 
 62; sits in the trial of the Bishops, 
 76. 
 
 Wurtemberg, Duke of, at the siege 
 of Athlone, 232. 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zuxestein, Baron, an envoy of Wil¬ 
 liam, 135. 
 
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