The Project Gutenberg Etext of History of England from James II
#10 in our series by Thomas Babington Macaulay   [Volume 3]

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Sep 1998 History of England, James II>
Vol. 1, Macaulay[#2][1hoejxxx.xxx]1468

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Dec 2000 History of England, James II>
Vol. 2, Macaulay[#9][2hoejxxx.xxx]2439


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Title:  The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 3

Author:  Thomas Babington Macaulay

May, 2001  [Etext #2612]


The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 3
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The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

Volume III

(Chapters XI-XVI)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay




CHAPTER XI

William and Mary proclaimed in London--Rejoicings throughout
England; Rejoicings in Holland--Discontent of the Clergy and of
the Army--Reaction of Public Feeling--Temper of the Tories--
Temper of the Whigs--Ministerial Arrangements--William his own
Minister for Foreign Affairs--Danby--Halifax--Nottingham
Shrewsbury The Board of Admiralty; the Board of Treasury--The
Great Seal--The Judges--The Household--Subordinate Appointments--
The Convention turned into a Parliament--The Members of the two
Houses required to take the Oaths Questions relating to the
Revenue--Abolition of the Hearth Money--Repayment of the Expenses
of the United Provinces--Mutiny at Ipswich--The first Mutiny
Bill--Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act--Unpopularity of
William--Popularity of Mary--The Court removed from Whitehall to
Hampton Court--The Court at Kensington; William's foreign
Favourites--General Maladministration--Dissensions among Men in
Office--Department of Foreign Affairs--Religious Disputes--The
High Church Party--The Low Church Party--William's Views
concerning Ecclesiastical Polity--Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury--
Nottingham's Views concerning Ecclesiastical Polity--The
Toleration Bill--The Comprehension Bill--The Bill for settling
the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy--The Bill for settling the
Coronation Oath--The Coronation--Promotions--The Coalition
against France; the Devastation of the Palatinate--War declared
against France

THE Revolution had been accomplished. The decrees of the
Convention were everywhere received with submission. London, true
during fifty eventful years to the cause of civil freedom and of
the reformed religion, was foremost in professing loyalty to the
new Sovereigns. Garter King at arms, after making proclamation
under the windows of Whitehall, rode in state along the Strand to
Temple Bar. He was followed by the maces of the two Houses, by
the two Speakers, Halifax and Powle, and by a long train of
coaches filled with noblemen and gentlemen. The magistrates of
the City threw open their gates and joined the procession. Four
regiments of militia lined the way up Ludgate Hill, round Saint
Paul's Cathedral, and along Cheapside. The streets, the
balconies, and the very housetops were crowded with gazers. All
the steeples from the Abbey to the Tower sent forth a joyous din.
The proclamation was repeated, with sound of trumpet, in front of
the Royal Exchange, amidst the shouts of the citizens.

In the evening every window from Whitechapel to Piccadilly was
lighted up. The state rooms of the palace were thrown open, and
were filled by a gorgeous company of courtiers desirous to kiss
the hands of the King and Queen. The Whigs assembled there,
flushed with victory and prosperity. There were among them some
who might be pardoned if a vindictive feeling mingled with their
joy. The most deeply injured of all who had survived the evil
times was absent. Lady Russell, while her friends were crowding
the galleries of Whitehall, remained in her retreat, thinking of
one who, if he had been still living, would have held no
undistinguished place in the ceremonies of that great day. But
her daughter, who had a few months before become the wife of Lord
Cavendish, was presented to the royal pair by his mother the
Countess of Devonshire. A letter is still extant in which the
young lady described with great vivacity the roar of the
populace, the blaze in the streets, the throng in the presence
chamber, the beauty of Mary, and the expression which ennobled
and softened the harsh features of William. But the most
interesting passage is that in which the orphan girl avowed the
stern delight with which she had witnessed the tardy punishment
of her father's murderer.1

The example of London was followed by the provincial towns.
During three weeks the Gazettes were filled with accounts of the
solemnities by which the public joy manifested itself, cavalcades
of gentlemen and yeomen, processions of Sheriffs and Bailiffs in
scarlet gowns, musters of zealous Protestants with orange flags
and ribands, salutes, bonfires, illuminations, music, balls,
dinners, gutters running with ale and conduits spouting claret.2

Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch, when they
learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been
raised to a throne. On the very day of his accession he had
written to assure the States General that the change in his
situation had made no change in the affection which he bore to
his native land, and that his new dignity would, he hoped, enable
him to discharge his old duties more efficiently than ever. That
oligarchical party, which had always been hostile to the
doctrines of Calvin and to the House of Orange, muttered faintly
that His Majesty ought to resign the Stadtholdership. But all
such mutterings were drowned by the acclamations of a people
proud of the genius and success of their great countryman. A day
of thanksgiving was appointed. In all the cities of the Seven
Provinces the public joy manifested itself by festivities of
which the expense was chiefly defrayed by voluntary gifts. Every
class assisted. The poorest labourer could help to set up an arch
of triumph, or to bring sedge to a bonfire. Even the ruined
Huguenots of France could contribute the aid of their ingenuity.
One art which they had carried with them into banishment was the
art of making fireworks; and they now, in honour of the
victorious champion of their faith, lighted up the canals of
Amsterdam with showers of splendid constellations.3

To superficial observers it might well seem that William was, at
this time, one of the most enviable of human beings. He was in
truth one of the most anxious and unhappy. He well knew that the
difficulties of his task were only beginning. Already that dawn
which had lately been so bright was overcast; and many signs
portended a dark and stormy day.

It was observed that two important classes took little or no part
in the festivities by which, all over England, the inauguration
of the new government was celebrated. Very seldom could either a
priest or a soldier be seen in the assemblages which gathered
round the market crosses where the King and Queen were
proclaimed. The professional pride both of the clergy and of the
army had been deeply wounded. The doctrine of nonresistance had
been dear to the Anglican divines. It was their distinguishing
badge. It was their favourite theme. If we are to judge by that
portion of their oratory which has come down to us, they had
preached about the duty of passive obedience at least as often
and as zealously as about the Trinity or the Atonement.4 Their
attachment to their political creed had indeed been severely
tried, and had, during a short time, wavered. But with the
tyranny of James the bitter feeling which that tyranny had
excited among them had passed away. The parson of a parish was
naturally unwilling to join in what was really a triumph over
those principles which, during twenty-eight years, his flock had
heard him proclaim on every anniversary of the Martyrdom and on
every anniversary of the Restoration.

The soldiers, too, were discontented. They hated Popery indeed;
and they had not loved the banished King. But they keenly felt
that, in the short campaign which had decided the fate of their
country, theirs had been an inglorious part. Forty fine
regiments, a regular army such as had never before marched to
battle under the royal standard of England, had retreated
precipitately before an invader, and had then, without a
struggle, submitted to him. That great force had been absolutely
of no account in the late change, had done nothing towards
keeping William out, and had done nothing towards bringing him
in. The clowns, who, armed with pitchforks and mounted on
carthorses, had straggled in the train of Lovelace or Delamere,
had borne a greater part in the Revolution than those splendid
household troops, whose plumed hats, embroidered coats, and
curvetting chargers the Londoners had so often seen with
admiration in Hyde Park. The mortification of the army was
increased by the taunts of the foreigners, taunts which neither
orders nor punishments could entirely restrain.5 At several
places the anger which a brave and highspirited body of men
might, in such circumstances, be expected to feel, showed itself
in an alarming manner. A battalion which lay at Cirencester put
out the bonfires, huzzaed for King James, and drank confusion to
his daughter and his nephew. The garrison of Plymouth disturbed
the rejoicings of the County of Cornwall: blows were exchanged,
and a man was killed in the fray.6

The ill humour of the clergy and of the army could not but be
noticed by the most heedless; for the clergy and the army were
distinguished from other classes by obvious peculiarities of
garb. "Black coats and red coats," said a vehement Whig in the
House of Commons, "are the curses of the nation." 7 But the
discontent was not confined to the black coats and the red coats.
The enthusiasm with which men of all classes had welcomed William
to London at Christmas had greatly abated before the close of
February. The new king had, at the very moment at which his fame
and fortune reached the highest point, predicted the coming
reaction. That reaction might, indeed, have been predicted by a
less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly
ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the
succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It
is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate
present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied
with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals,
has often been noticed both by laughing and by weeping
philosophers. It was a favourite theme of Horace and of Pascal,
of Voltaire and of Johnson. To its influence on the fate of great
communities may be ascribed most of the revolutions and
counterrevolutions recorded in history. A hundred generations
have elapsed since the first great national emancipation, of
which an account has come down to us. We read in the most ancient
of books that a people bowed to the dust under a cruel yoke,
scourged to toil by hard taskmasters, not supplied with straw,
yet compelled to furnish the daily tale of bricks, became sick of
life, and raised such a cry of misery as pierced the heavens. The
slaves were wonderfully set free: at the moment of their
liberation they raised a song of gratitude and triumph: but, in a
few hours, they began to regret their slavery, and to murmur
against the leader who had decoyed them away from the savoury
fare of the house of bondage to the dreary waste which still
separated them from the land flowing with milk and honey. Since
that time the history of every great deliverer has been the
history of Moses retold. Down to the present hour rejoicings like
those on the shore of the Red Sea have ever been speedily
followed by murmurings like those at the Waters of Strife.8 The
most just and salutary revolution must produce much suffering.
The most just and salutary revolution cannot produce all the good
that had been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds and
sanguine tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still
recent, weigh quite fairly the evils which it has caused against
the evils which it has removed. For the evils which it has caused
are felt; and the evils which it has removed are felt no longer.

Thus it was now in England. The public was, as it always is
during the cold fits which follow its hot fits, sullen, hard to
please, dissatisfied with itself, dissatisfied with those who had
lately been its favourites. The truce between the two great
parties was at an end. Separated by the memory of all that had
been done and suffered during a conflict of half a century, they
had been, during a few months, united by a common danger. But the
danger was over: the union was dissolved; and the old animosity
broke forth again in all its strength.

James had during the last year of his reign, been even more
hated by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not without cause for
the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories he had been
a faithless and thankless friend. But the old royalist feeling,
which had seemed to be extinct in the time of his lawless
domination, had been partially revived by his misfortunes. Many
lords and gentlemen, who had, in December, taken arms for the
Prince of Orange and a Free Parliament, muttered, two months
later, that they had been drawn in; that they had trusted too
much to His Highness's Declaration; that they had given him
credit for a disinterestedness which, it now appeared, was not in
his nature. They had meant to put on King James, for his own
good, some gentle force, to punish the Jesuits and renegades who
had misled him, to obtain from him some guarantee for the safety
of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the realm, but
not to uncrown and banish him. For his maladministration, gross
as it had been, excuses were found. Was it strange that, driven
from his native land, while still a boy, by rebels who were a
disgrace to the Protestant name, and forced to pass his youth in
countries where the Roman Catholic religion was established, he
should have been captivated by that most attractive of all
superstitions? Was it strange that, persecuted and calumniated as
he had been by an implacable faction, his disposition should have
become sterner and more severe than it had once been thought, and
that, when those who had tried to blast his honour and to rob him
of his birthright were at length in his power, he should not have
sufficiently tempered justice with mercy? As to the worst charge
which had been brought against him, the charge of trying to cheat
his daughters out of their inheritance by fathering a
supposititious child, on what grounds did it rest? Merely on
slight circumstances, such as might well be imputed to accident,
or to that imprudence which was but too much in harmony with his
character. Did ever the most stupid country justice put a boy in
the stocks without requiring stronger evidence than that on which
the English people had pronounced their King guilty of the basest
and most odious of all frauds? Some great faults he had doubtless
committed, nothing could be more just or constitutional than that
for those faults his advisers and tools should be called to a
severe reckoning; nor did any of those advisers and tools more
richly deserve punishment than the Roundhead sectaries whose
adulation had encouraged him to persist in the fatal exercise of
the dispensing power. It was a fundamental law of the land that
the King could do no wrong, and that, if wrong were done by his
authority, his counsellors and agents were responsible. That
great rule, essential to our polity, was now inverted. The
sycophants, who were legally punishable, enjoyed impunity: the
King, who was not legally punishable, was punished with merciless
severity. Was it possible for the Cavaliers of England, the sons
of the warriors who had fought under Rupert, not to feel bitter
sorrow and indignation when they reflected on the fate of their
rightful liege lord, the heir of a long line of princes, lately
enthroned in splendour at Whitehall, now an exile, a suppliant, a
mendicant? His calamities had been greater than even those of the
Blessed Martyr from whom he sprang. The father had been slain by
avowed and mortal foes: the ruin of the son had been the work of
his own children. Surely the punishment, even if deserved, should
have been inflicted by other hands. And was it altogether
deserved? Had not the unhappy man been rather weak and rash than
wicked? Had he not some of the qualities of an excellent prince?
His abilities were certainly not of a high order: but he was
diligent: he was thrifty: he had fought bravely: he had been his
own minister for maritime affairs, and had, in that capacity,
acquitted himself respectably: he had, till his spiritual guides
obtained a fatal ascendency over his mind, been regarded as a man
of strict justice; and, to the last, when he was not misled by
them, he generally spoke truth and dealt fairly. With so many
virtues he might, if he had been a Protestant, nay, if he had
been a moderate Roman Catholic, have had a prosperous and
glorious reign. Perhaps it might not be too late for him to
retrieve his errors. It was difficult to believe that he could be
so dull and perverse as not to have profited by the terrible
discipline which he had recently undergone; and, if that
discipline had produced the effects which might reasonably be
expected from it, England might still enjoy, under her legitimate
ruler, a larger measure of happiness and tranquillity than she
could expect from the administration of the best and ablest
usurper.

We should do great injustice to those who held this language, if
we supposed that they had, as a body, ceased to regard Popery and
despotism with abhorrence. Some zealots might indeed be found who
could not bear the thought of imposing conditions on their King,
and who were ready to recall him without the smallest assurance
that the Declaration of Indulgence should not be instantly
republished, that the High Commission should not be instantly
revived, that Petre should not be again seated at the Council
Board, and that the fellows of Magdalene should not again be
ejected. But the number of these men was small. On the other
hand, the number of those Royalists, who, if James would have
acknowledged his mistakes and promised to observe the laws, were
ready to rally round him, was very large. It is a remarkable fact
that two able and experienced statesmen, who had borne a chief
part in the Revolution, frankly acknowledged, a few days after
the Revolution had been accomplished, their apprehension that a
Restoration was close at hand. "If King James were a Protestant,"
said Halifax to Reresby, "we could not keep him out four months."
"If King James," said Danby to the same person about the same
time, "would but give the country some satisfaction about
religion, which he might easily do, it would be very hard to make
head against him."9 Happily for England, James was, as usual, his
own worst enemy. No word indicating that he took blame to himself
on account of the past, or that he intended to govern
constitutionally for the future, could be extracted from him.
Every letter, every rumour, that found its way from Saint
Germains to England made men of sense fear that, if, in his
present temper, he should be restored to power, the second
tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the Tories, as a
body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there was, at
that moment, no choice but between William and public ruin. They
therefore, without altogether relinquishing the hope that he who
was King by right might at some future time be disposed to listen
to reason, and without feeling any thing like loyalty towards him
who was King in possession, discontentedly endured the new
government.

It may be doubted whether that government was not, during the
first months of its existence, in more danger from the affection
of the Whigs than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can
hardly be more annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting
fondness; and such was the fondness which the Whigs felt for the
Sovereign of their choice. They were loud in his praise. They
were ready to support him with purse and sword against foreign
and domestic foes. But their attachment to him was of a peculiar
kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant gentlemen who
fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued Charles
the Second from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by
twenty years of maladministration, was not a sentiment to which
the doctrines of Milton and Sidney were favourable; nor was it a
sentiment which a prince, just raised to power by a rebellion,
could hope to inspire. The Whig theory of government is that
kings exist for the people, and not the people for the kings;
that the right of a king is divine in no other sense than that in
which the right of a member of parliament, of a judge, of a
juryman, of a mayor, of a headborough, is divine; that, while the
chief magistrate governs according to law, he ought to be obeyed
and reverenced; that, when he violates the law, he ought to be
withstood; and that, when he violates the law grossly,
systematically and pertinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the
truth of these principles depended the justice of William's title
to the throne. It is obvious that the relation between subjects
who held these principles, and a ruler whose accession had been
the triumph of these principles, must have been altogether
different from the relation which had subsisted between the
Stuarts and the Cavaliers. The Whigs loved William indeed: but
they loved him not as a King, but as a party leader; and it was
not difficult to foresee that their enthusiasm would cool fast if
he should refuse to be the mere leader of their party, and should
attempt to be King of the whole nation. What they expected from
him in return for their devotion to his cause was that he should
be one of themselves, a stanch and ardent Whig; that he should
show favour to none but Whigs; that he should make all the old
grudges of the Whigs his own; and there was but too much reason
to apprehend that, if he disappointed this expectation, the only
section of the community which was zealous in his cause would be
estranged from him.10

Such were the difficulties by which, at the moment of his
elevation, he found himself beset. Where there was a good path he
had seldom failed to choose it. But now he had only a choice
among paths every one of which seemed likely to lead to
destruction. From one faction he could hope for no cordial
support. The cordial support of the other faction he could retain
only by becoming himself the most factious man in his kingdom, a
Shaftesbury on the throne. If he persecuted the Tories, their
sulkiness would infallibly be turned into fury. If he showed
favour to the Tories, it was by no means certain that he would
gain their goodwill; and it was but too probable that he might
lose his hold on the hearts of the Whigs. Something however he
must do: something he must risk: a Privy Council must be sworn
in: all the great offices, political and judicial, must be
filled. It was impossible to make an arrangement that would
please every body, and difficult to make an arrangement that
would please any body; but an arrangement must be made.

What is now called a ministry he did not think of forming. Indeed
what is now called a ministry was never known in England till he
had been some years on the throne. Under the Plantagenets, the
Tudors, and the Stuarts, there had been ministers; but there had
been no ministry. The servants of the Crown were not, as now,
bound in frankpledge for each other. They were not expected to be
of the same opinion even on questions of the gravest importance.
Often they were politically and personally hostile to each other,
and made no secret of their hostility. It was not yet felt to be
inconvenient or unseemly that they should accuse each other of
high crimes, and demand each other's heads. No man had been more
active in the impeachment of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon than
Coventry, who was a Commissioner of the Treasury. No man had been
more active in the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer Danby than
Winnington, who was Solicitor General. Among the members of the
Government there was only one point of union, their common head,
the Sovereign. The nation considered him as the proper chief of
the administration, and blamed him severely if he delegated his
high functions to any subject. Clarendon has told us that nothing
was so hateful to the Englishmen of his time as a Prime Minister.
They would rather, he said, be subject to an usurper like Oliver,
who was first magistrate in fact as well as in name, than to a
legitimate King who referred them to a Grand Vizier. One of the
chief accusations which the country party had brought against
Charles the Second was that he was too indolent and too fond of
pleasure to examine with care the balance sheets of public
accountants and the inventories of military stores. James, when
he came to the crown, had determined to appoint no Lord High
Admiral or Board of Admiralty, and to keep the entire direction
of maritime affairs in his own hands; and this arrangement, which
would now be thought by men of all parties unconstitutional and
pernicious in the highest degree, was then generally applauded
even by people who were not inclined to see his conduct in a
favourable light. How completely the relation in which the King
stood to his Parliament and to his ministers had been altered by
the Revolution was not at first understood even by the most
enlightened statesmen. It was universally supposed that the
government would, as in time past, be conducted by functionaries
independent of each other, and that William would exercise a
general superintendence over them all. It was also fully expected
that a prince of William's capacity and experience would transact
much important business without having recourse to any adviser.

There were therefore no complaints when it was understood that he
had reserved to himself the direction of foreign affairs. This
was indeed scarcely matter of choice: for, with the single
exception of Sir William Temple, whom nothing would induce to
quit his retreat for public life, there was no Englishman who had
proved himself capable of conducting an important negotiation
with foreign powers to a successful and honourable issue. Many
years had elapsed since England had interfered with weight and
dignity in the affairs of the great commonwealth of nations. The
attention of the ablest English politicians had long been almost
exclusively occupied by disputes concerning the civil and
ecclesiastical constitution of their own country. The contests
about the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, the Habeas Corpus
Act and the Test Act, had produced an abundance, it might almost
be said a glut, of those talents which raise men to eminence in
societies torn by internal factions. All the Continent could not
show such skilful and wary leaders of parties, such dexterous
parliamentary tacticians, such ready and eloquent debaters, as
were assembled at Westminister. But a very different training was
necessary to form a great minister for foreign affairs; and the
Revolution had on a sudden placed England in a situation in which
the services of a great minister for foreign affairs were
indispensable to her.

William was admirably qualified to supply that in which the most
accomplished statesmen of his kingdom were deficient. He had long
been preeminently distinguished as a negotiator. He was the
author and the soul of the European coalition against the French
ascendency. The clue, without which it was perilous to enter the
vast and intricate maze of Continental politics, was in his
hands. His English counsellors, therefore, however able and
active, seldom, during his reign, ventured to meddle with that
part of the public business which he had taken as his peculiar
province.11

The internal government of England could be carried on only by
the advice and agency of English ministers. Those ministers
William selected in such a manner as showed that he was
determined not to proscribe any set of men who were willing to
support his throne. On the day after the crown had been presented
to him in the Banqueting House, the Privy Council was sworn in.
Most of the Councillors were Whigs; but the names of several
eminent Tories appeared in the list.12 The four highest offices
in the state were assigned to four noblemen, the representatives
of four classes of politicians.

In practical ability and official experience Danby had no
superior among his contemporaries. To the gratitude of the new
Sovereigns he had a strong claim; for it was by his dexterity
that their marriage had been brought about in spite of
difficulties which had seemed insuperable. The enmity which he
had always borne to France was a scarcely less powerful
recommendation. He had signed the invitation of the thirtieth of
June, had excited and directed the northern insurrection, and
had, in the Convention, exerted all his influence and eloquence
in opposition to the scheme of Regency. Yet the Whigs regarded
him with unconquerable distrust and aversion. They could not
forget that he had, in evil days, been the first minister of the
state, the head of the Cavaliers, the champion of prerogative,
the persecutor of dissenters. Even in becoming a rebel, he had
not ceased to be a Tory. If he had drawn the sword against the
Crown, he had drawn it only in defence of the Church. If he had,
in the Convention, done good by opposing the scheme of Regency,
he had done harm by obstinately maintaining that the throne was
not vacant, and that the Estates had no right to determine who
should fill it. The Whigs were therefore of opinion that he ought
to think himself amply rewarded for his recent merits by being
suffered to escape the punishment of those offences for which he
had been impeached ten years before. He, on the other hand,
estimated his own abilities and services, which were doubtless
considerable, at their full value, and thought himself entitled
to the great place of Lord High Treasurer, which he had formerly
held. But he was disappointed. William, on principle, thought it
desirable to divide the power and patronage of the Treasury among
several Commissioners. He was the first English King who never,
from the beginning to the end of his reign, trusted the white
staff in the hands of a single subject. Danby was offered his
choice between the Presidency of the Council and a Secretaryship
of State. He sullenly accepted the Presidency, and, while the
Whigs murmured at seeing him placed so high, hardly attempted to
conceal his anger at not having been placed higher.13

Halifax, the most illustrious man of that small party which
boasted that it kept the balance even between Whigs and Tories,
took charge of the Privy Seal, and continued to be Speaker of the
House of Lords.14 He had been foremost in strictly legal
opposition to the late Government, and had spoken and written
with great ability against the dispensing power: but he had
refused to know any thing about the design of invasion: he had
laboured, even when the Dutch were in full march towards London,
to effect a reconciliation; and he had never deserted James till
James had deserted the throne. But, from the moment of that
shameful flight, the sagacious Trimmer, convinced that compromise
was thenceforth impossible, had taken a decided part. He had
distinguished himself preeminently in the Convention: nor was it
without a peculiar propriety that he had been appointed to the
honourable office of tendering the crown, in the name of all the
Estates of England, to the Prince and Princess of Orange; for our
Revolution, as far as it can be said to bear the character of any
single mind, assuredly bears the character of the large yet
cautious mind of Halifax. The Whigs, however, were not in a
temper to accept a recent service as an atonement for an old
offence; and the offence of Halifax had been grave indeed. He had
long before been conspicuous in their front rank during a hard
fight for liberty. When they were at length victorious, when it
seemed that Whitehall was at their mercy, when they had a near
prospect of dominion and revenge, he had changed sides; and
fortune had changed sides with him. In the great debate on the
Exclusion Bill, his eloquence had struck them dumb, and had put
new life into the inert and desponding party of the Court. It was
true that, though he had left them in the day of their insolent
prosperity, he had returned to them in the day of their distress.
But, now that their distress was over, they forgot that he had
returned to them, and remembered only that he had left them.15

The vexation with which they saw Danby presiding in the Council,
and Halifax bearing the Privy Seal, was not diminished by the
news that Nottingham was appointed Secretary of State. Some of
those zealous churchmen who had never ceased to profess the
doctrine of nonresistance, who thought the Revolution
unjustifiable, who had voted for a Regency, and who had to the
last maintained that the English throne could never be one moment
vacant, yet conceived it to be their duty to submit to the
decision of the Convention. They had not, they said, rebelled
against James. They had not selected William. But, now that they
saw on the throne a Sovereign whom they never would have placed
there, they were of opinion that no law, divine or human, bound
them to carry the contest further. They thought that they found,
both in the Bible and in the Statute Book, directions which could
not be misunderstood. The Bible enjoins obedience to the powers
that be. The Statute Book contains an act providing that no
subject shall be deemed a wrongdoer for adhering to the King in
possession. On these grounds many, who had not concurred in
setting up the new government, believed that they might give it
their support without offence to God or man. One of the most
eminent politicians of this school was Nottingham. At his
instance the Convention had, before the throne was filled, made
such changes in the oath of allegiance as enabled him and those
who agreed with him to take that oath without scruple. "My
principles," he said, "do not permit me to bear any part in
making a King. But when a King has been made, my principles bind
me to pay him an obedience more strict than he can expect from
those who have made him." He now, to the surprise of some of
those who most esteemed him, consented to sit in the council, and
to accept the seals of Secretary. William doubtless hoped that
this appointment would be considered by the clergy and the Tory
country gentlemen as a sufficient guarantee that no evil was
meditated against the Church. Even Burnet, who at a later period
felt a strong antipathy to Nottingham, owned, in some memoirs
written soon after the Revolution, that the King had judged well,
and that the influence of the Tory Secretary, honestly exerted in
support of the new Sovereigns, had saved England from great
calamities.16

The other Secretary was Shrewsbury.17 No man so young had within
living memory occupied so high a post in the government. He had
but just completed his twenty-eighth year. Nobody, however,
except the solemn formalists at the Spanish embassy, thought his
youth an objection to his promotion.18 He had already secured for
himself a place in history by the conspicuous part which he had
taken in the deliverance of his country. His talents, his
accomplishments, his graceful manners, his bland temper, made him
generally popular. By the Whigs especially he was almost adored.
None suspected that, with many great and many amiable qualities,
he had such faults both of head and of heart as would make the
rest of a life which had opened under the fairest auspices
burdensome to himself and almost useless to his country.

The naval administration and the financial administration were
confided to Boards. Herbert was First Commissioner of the
Admiralty. He had in the late reign given up wealth and dignities
when he found that he could not retain them with honour and with
a good conscience. He had carried the memorable invitation to the
Hague. He had commanded the Dutch fleet during the voyage from
Helvoetsluys to Torbay. His character for courage and
professional skill stood high. That he had had his follies and
vices was well known. But his recent conduct in the time of
severe trial had atoned for all, and seemed to warrant the hope
that his future career would be glorious. Among the commissioners
who sate with him at the Admiralty were two distinguished members
of the House of Commons, William Sacheverell, a veteran Whig, who
had great authority in his party, and Sir John Lowther, an honest
and very moderate Tory, who in fortune and parliamentary interest
was among the first of the English gentry.19

Mordaunt, one of the most vehement of the Whigs, was placed at
the head of the Treasury; why, it is difficult to say. His
romantic courage, his flighty wit, his eccentric invention, his
love of desperate risks and startling effects, were not qualities
likely to be of much use to him in financial calculations and
negotiations. Delamere, a more vehement Whig, if possible, than
Mordaunt, sate second at the board, and was Chancellor of the
Exchequer. Two Whig members of the House of Commons were in the
Commission, Sir Henry Capel, brother of that Earl of Essex who
died by his own hand in the Tower, and Richard Hampden, son of
the great leader of the Long Parliament. But the Commissioner on
whom the chief weight of business lay was Godolphin. This man,
taciturn, clearminded, laborious, inoffensive, zealous for no
government and useful to every government, had gradually become
an almost indispensable part of the machinery of the state.
Though a churchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by
Jesuits. Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head
of a treasury filled with Whigs. His abilities and knowledge,
which had in the late reign supplied the deficiencies of
Bellasyse and Dover, were now needed to supply the deficiencies
of Mordaunt and Delamere.20

There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The
King at first wished to confide it to Nottingham, whose father
had borne it during several years with high reputation.21
Nottingham, however, declined the trust; and it was offered to
Halifax, but was again declined. Both these Lords doubtless felt
that it was a trust which they could not discharge with honour to
themselves or with advantage to the public. In old times, indeed,
the Seal had been generally held by persons who were not lawyers.
Even in the seventeenth century it had been confided to two
eminent men, who had never studied at any Inn of Court. Dean
Williams had been Lord Keeper to James the First. Shaftesbury had
been Lord Chancellor to Charles the Second. But such appointments
could no longer be made without serious inconvenience. Equity had
been gradually shaping itself into a refined science, which no
human faculties could master without long and intense
application. Even Shaftesbury, vigorous as was his intellect, had
painfully felt his want of technical knowledge;22 and, during the
fifteen years which had elapsed since Shaftesbury had resigned
the Seal, technical knowledge had constantly been becoming more
and more necessary to his successors. Neither Nottingham
therefore, though he had a stock of legal learning such as is
rarely found in any person who has not received a legal
education, nor Halifax, though, in the judicial sittings of the
House of Lords, the quickness of his apprehension and the
subtlety of his reasoning had often astonished the bar, ventured
to accept the highest office which an English layman can fill.
After some delay the Seal was confided to a commission of eminent
lawyers, with Maynard at their head.23

The choice of judges did honour to the new government. Every
Privy Councillor was directed to bring a list. The lists were
compared; and twelve men of conspicuous merit were selected.24
The professional attainments and Whig principles of Pollexfen
gave him pretensions to the highest place. But it was remembered
that he had held briefs for the Crown, in the Western counties,
at the assizes which followed the battle of Sedgemoor. It seems
indeed from the reports of the trials that he did as little as he
could do if he held the briefs at all, and that he left to the
Judges the business of browbeating witnesses and prisoners.
Nevertheless his name was inseparably associated in the public
mind with the Bloody Circuit. He, therefore, could not with
propriety be put at the head of the first criminal court in the
realm.25 After acting during a few weeks as Attorney General, he
was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir John Holt, a
young man, but distinguished by learning, integrity, and courage,
became Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Sir Robert Atkyns, an
eminent lawyer, who had passed some years in rural retirement,
but whose reputation was still great in Westminster Hall, was
appointed Chief Baron. Powell, who had been disgraced on account
of his honest declaration in favour of the Bishops, again took
his seat among the judges. Treby succeeded Pollexfen as Attorney
General; and Somers was made Solicitor.26

Two of the chief places in the Royal household were filled by two
English noblemen eminently qualified to adorn a court. The high
spirited and accomplished Devonshire was named Lord Steward. No
man had done more or risked more for England during the crisis of
her fate. In retrieving her liberties he had retrieved also the
fortunes of his own house. His bond for thirty thousand pounds
was found among the papers which James had left at Whitehall, and
was cancelled by William.27

Dorset became Lord Chamberlain, and employed the influence and
patronage annexed to his functions, as he had long employed his
private means, in encouraging genius and in alleviating
misfortune. One of the first acts which he was under the
necessity of performing must have been painful to a man of so
generous a nature, and of so keen a relish for whatever was
excellent in arts and letters. Dryden could no longer remain Poet
Laureate. The public would not have borne to see any Papist among
the servants of their Majesties; and Dryden was not only a
Papist, but an apostate. He had moreover aggravated the guilt of
his apostasy by calumniating and ridiculing the Church which he
had deserted. He had, it was facetiously said, treated her as the
Pagan persecutors of old treated her children. He had dressed her
up in the skin of a wild beast, and then baited her for the
public amusement.28 He was removed; but he received from the
private bounty of the magnificent Chamberlain a pension equal to
the salary which had been withdrawn. The deposed Laureate,
however, as poor of spirit as rich in intellectual gifts,
continued to complain piteously, year after year, of the losses
which he had not suffered, till at length his wailings drew forth
expressions of well merited contempt from brave and honest
Jacobites, who had sacrificed every thing to their principles
without deigning to utter one word of deprecation or
lamentation.29

In the Royal household were placed some of those Dutch nobles who
stood highest in the favour of the King. Bentinck had the great
office of Groom of the Stole, with a salary of five thousand
pounds a year. Zulestein took charge of the robes. The Master of
the Horse was Auverquerque, a gallant soldier, who united the
blood of Nassau to the blood of Horn, and who wore with just
pride a costly sword presented to him by the States General in
acknowledgment of the courage with which he had, on the bloody
day of Saint Dennis, saved the life of William.

The place of Vice Chamberlain to the Queen was given to a man who
had just become conspicuous in public life, and whose name will
frequently recur in the history of this reign. John Howe, or, as
he was more commonly called, Jack Howe, had been sent up to the
Convention by the borough of Cirencester. His appearance was that
of a man whose body was worn by the constant workings of a
restless and acrid mind. He was tall, lean, pale, with a haggard
eager look, expressive at once of flightiness and of shrewdness.
He had been known, during several years, as a small poet; and
some of the most savage lampoons which were handed about the
coffeehouses were imputed to him. But it was in the House of
Commons that both his parts and his illnature were most signally
displayed. Before he had been a member three weeks, his
volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him
conspicuous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised
him to the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, and he had many
enemies, said that he consulted his personal safety even in his
most petulant moods, and that he treated soldiers with a civility
which he never showed to ladies or to Bishops. But no man had in
larger measure that evil courage which braves and even courts
disgust and hatred. No decencies restrained him: his spite was
implacable: his skill in finding out the vulnerable parts of
strong minds was consummate. All his great contemporaries felt
his sting in their turns. Once it inflicted a wound which
deranged even the stern composure of William, and constrained him
to utter a wish that he were a private gentleman, and could
invite Mr. Howe to a short interview behind Montague House. As
yet, however, Howe was reckoned among the most strenuous
supporters of the new government, and directed all his sarcasms
and invectives against the malcontents.30

The subordinate places in every public office were divided
between the two parties: but the Whigs had the larger share. Some
persons, indeed, who did little honour to the Whig name, were
largely recompensed for services which no good man would have
performed. Wildman was made Postmaster General. A lucrative
sinecure in the Excise was bestowed on Ferguson. The duties of
the Solicitor of the Treasury were both very important and very
invidious. It was the business of that officer to conduct
political prosecutions, to collect the evidence, to instruct the
counsel for the Crown, to see that the prisoners were not
liberated on insufficient bail, to see that the juries were not
composed of persons hostile to the government. In the days of
Charles and James, the Solicitors of the Treasury had been with
too much reason accused of employing all the vilest artifices of
chicanery against men obnoxious to the Court. The new government
ought to have made a choice which was above all suspicion.
Unfortunately Mordaunt and Delamere pitched upon Aaron Smith, an
acrimonious and unprincipled politician, who had been the legal
adviser of Titus Oates in the days of the Popish Plot, and who
had been deeply implicated in the Rye House Plot. Richard
Hampden, a man of decided opinions but of moderate temper,
objected to this appointment. His objections however were
overruled. The Jacobites, who hated Smith and had reason to hate
him, affirmed that he had obtained his place by bullying the
Lords of the Treasury, and particularly by threatening that, if
his just claims were disregarded, he would be the death of
Hampden.31

Some weeks elapsed before all the arrangements which have been
mentioned were publicly announced: and meanwhile many important
events had taken place. As soon as the new Privy Councillors had
been sworn in, it was necessary to submit to them a grave and
pressing question. Could the Convention now assembled be turned
into a Parliament? The Whigs, who had a decided majority in the
Lower House, were all for the affirmative. The Tories, who knew
that, within the last month, the public feeling had undergone a
considerable change, and who hoped that a general election would
add to their strength, were for the negative. They maintained
that to the existence of a Parliament royal writs were
indispensably necessary. The Convention had not been summoned by
such writs: the original defect could not now be supplied: the
Houses were therefore mere clubs of private men, and ought
instantly to disperse.

It was answered that the royal writ was mere matter of form, and
that to expose the substance of our laws and liberties to serious
hazard for the sake of a form would be the most senseless
superstition. Wherever the Sovereign, the Peers spiritual and
temporal, and the Representatives freely chosen by the
constituent bodies of the realm were met together, there was the
essence of a Parliament. Such a Parliament was now in being; and
what could be more absurd than to dissolve it at a conjuncture
when every hour was precious, when numerous important subjects
required immediate legislation, and when dangers, only to be
averted by the combined efforts of King, Lords, and Commons,
menaced the State? A Jacobite indeed might consistently refuse to
recognise the Convention as a Parliament. For he held that it had
from the beginning been an unlawful assembly, that all its
resolutions were nullities, and that the Sovereigns whom it had
set up were usurpers. But with what consistency could any man,
who maintained that a new Parliament ought to be immediately
called by writs under the great seal of William and Mary,
question the authority which had placed William and Mary on the
throne? Those who held that William was rightful King must
necessarily hold that the body from which he derived his right
was itself a rightful Great Council of the Realm. Those who,
though not holding him to be rightful King, conceived that they
might lawfully swear allegiance to him as King in fact, might
surely, on the same principle, acknowledge the Convention as a
Parliament in fact. It was plain that the Convention was the
fountainhead from which the authority of all future Parliaments
must be derived, and that on the validity of the votes of the
Convention must depend the validity of every future statute. And
how could the stream rise higher than the source? Was it not
absurd to say that the Convention was supreme in the state, and
yet a nullity; a legislature for the highest of all purposes, and
yet no legislature for the humblest purposes; competent to
declare the throne vacant, to change the succession, to fix the
landmarks of the constitution, and yet not competent to pass the
most trivial Act for the repairing of a pier or the building of a
parish church?

These arguments would have had considerable weight, even if every
precedent had been on the other side. But in truth our history
afforded only one precedent which was at all in point; and that
precedent was decisive in favour of the doctrine that royal writs
are not indispensably necessary to the existence of a Parliament.
No royal writ had summoned the Convention which recalled Charles
the Second. Yet that Convention had, after his Restoration,
continued to sit and to legislate, had settled the revenue, had
passed an Act of amnesty, had abolished the feudal tenures. These
proceedings had been sanctioned by authority of which no party in
the state could speak without reverence. Hale had borne a
considerable share in them, and had always maintained that they
were strictly legal. Clarendon, little as he was inclined to
favour any doctrine derogatory to the rights of the Crown, or to
the dignity of that seal of which he was keeper, had declared
that, since God had, at a most critical conjuncture, given the
nation a good Parliament, it would be the height of folly to look
for technical flaws in the instrument by which that Parliament
was called together. Would it be pretended by any Tory that the
Convention of 1660 had a more respectable origin than the
Convention of 1689? Was not a letter written by the first Prince
of the Blood, at the request of the whole peerage, and of
hundreds of gentlemen who had represented counties and towns, at
least as good a warrant as a vote of the Rump?

Weaker reasons than these would have satisfied the Whigs who
formed the majority of the Privy Council. The King therefore, on
the fifth day after he had been proclaimed, went with royal state
to the House of Lords, and took his seat on the throne. The
Commons were called in; and he, with many gracious expressions,
reminded his hearers of the perilous situation of the country,
and exhorted them to take such steps as might prevent unnecessary
delay in the transaction of public business. His speech was
received by the gentlemen who crowded the bar with the deep hum
by which our ancestors were wont to indicate approbation, and
which was often heard in places more sacred than the Chamber of
the Peers.32 As soon as he had retired, a Bill declaring the
Convention a Parliament was laid on the table of the Lords, and
rapidly passed by them. In the Commons the debates were warm. The
House resolved itself into a Committee; and so great was the
excitement that, when the authority of the Speaker was withdrawn,
it was hardly possible to preserve order. Sharp personalities
were exchanged. The phrase, "hear him," a phrase which had
originally been used only to silence irregular noises, and to
remind members of the duty of attending to the discussion, had,
during some years, been gradually becoming what it now is; that
is to say, a cry indicative, according to the tone, of
admiration, acquiescence, indignation, or derision. On this
occasion, the Whigs vociferated "Hear, hear," so tumultuously
that the Tories complained of unfair usage. Seymour, the leader
of the minority, declared that there could be no freedom of
debate while such clamour was tolerated. Some old Whig members
were provoked into reminding him that the same clamour had
occasionally been heard when he presided, and had not then been
repressed. Yet, eager and angry as both sides were, the speeches
on both sides indicated that profound reverence for law and
prescription which has long been characteristic of Englishmen,
and which, though it runs sometimes into pedantry and sometimes
into superstition, is not without its advantages. Even at that
momentous crisis, when the nation was still in the ferment of a
revolution, our public men talked long and seriously about all
the circumstances of the deposition of Edward the Second and of
the deposition of Richard the Second, and anxiously inquired
whether the assembly which, with Archbishop Lanfranc at its head,
set aside Robert of Normandy, and put William Rufus on the
throne, did or did not afterwards continue to act as the
legislature of the realm. Much was said about the history of
writs; much about the etymology of the word Parliament. It is
remarkable, that the orator who took the most statesmanlike view
of the subject was old Maynard. In the civil conflicts of fifty
eventful years he had learned that questions affecting the
highest interests of the commonwealth were not to be decided by
verbal cavils and by scraps of Law French and Law Latin; and,
being by universal acknowledgment the most subtle and the most
learned of English jurists, he could express what he felt without
the risk of being accused of ignorance and presumption. He
scornfully thrust aside as frivolous and out of place all that
blackletter learning, which some men, far less versed in such
matters than himself, had introduced into the discussion. "We
are," he said, "at this moment out of the beaten path. If
therefore we are determined to move only in that path, we cannot
move at all. A man in a revolution resolving to do nothing which
is not strictly according to established form resembles a man who
has lost himself in the wilderness, and who stands crying 'Where
is the king's highway? I will walk nowhere but on the king's
highway.' In a wilderness a man should take the track which will
carry him home. In a revolution we must have recourse to the
highest law, the safety of the state." Another veteran Roundhead,
Colonel Birch, took the same side, and argued with great force
and keenness from the precedent of 1660. Seymour and his
supporters were beaten in the Committee, and did not venture to
divide the House on the Report. The Bill passed rapidly, and
received the royal assent on the tenth day after the accession of
William and Mary.33

The law which turned the Convention into a Parliament contained a
clause providing that no person should, after the first of March,
sit or vote in either House without taking the oaths to the new
King and Queen. This enactment produced great agitation
throughout society. The adherents of the exiled dynasty hoped and
confidently predicted that the recusants would be numerous. The
minority in both Houses, it was said, would be true to the cause
of hereditary monarchy. There might be here and there a traitor;
but the great body of those who had voted for a Regency would be
firm. Only two Bishops at most would recognise the usurpers.
Seymour would retire from public life rather than abjure his
principles. Grafton had determined to fly to France and to throw
himself at the feet of his uncle. With such rumours as these all
the coffeehouses of London were filled during the latter part of
February. So intense was the public anxiety that, if any man of
rank was missed, two days running, at his usual haunts, it was
immediately whispered that he had stolen away to Saint
Germains.34

The second of March arrived; and the event quieted the fears of
one party, and confounded the hopes of the other. The Primate
indeed and several of his suffragans stood obstinately aloof: but
three Bishops and seventy-three temporal peers took the oaths. At
the next meeting of the Upper House several more prelates came
in. Within a week about a hundred Lords had qualified themselves
to sit. Others, who were prevented by illness from appearing,
sent excuses and professions of attachment to their Majesties.
Grafton refuted all the stories which had been circulated about
him by coming to be sworn on the first day. Two members of the
Ecclesiastical Commission, Mulgrave and Sprat, hastened to make
atonement for their fault by plighting their faith to William.
Beaufort, who had long been considered as the type of a royalist
of the old school, submitted after a very short hesitation.
Aylesbury and Dartmouth, though vehement Jacobites, had as little
scruple about taking the oath of allegiance as they afterwards
had about breaking it.35 The Hydes took different paths.
Rochester complied with the law; but Clarendon proved refractory.
Many thought it strange that the brother who had adhered to James
till James absconded should be less sturdy than the brother who
had been in the Dutch camp. The explanation perhaps is that
Rochester would have sacrificed much more than Clarendon by
refusing to take the oaths. Clarendon's income did not depend on
the pleasure of the Government
but Rochester had a pension of four thousand a year, which he
could not hope to retain if he refused to acknowledge the new
Sovereigns. Indeed, he had so many enemies that, during some
months, it seemed doubtful whether he would, on any terms, be
suffered to retain the splendid reward which he had earned by
persecuting the Whigs and by sitting in the High Commission. He
was saved from what would have been a fatal blow to his fortunes
by the intercession of Burnet, who had been deeply injured by
him, and who revenged himself as became a Christian divine.36

In the Lower House four hundred members were sworn in on the
second of March; and among them was Seymour. The spirit of the
Jacobites was broken by his defection; and the minority with very
few exceptions followed his example.37

Before the day fixed for the taking of the oaths, the Commons had
begun to discuss a momentous question which admitted of no delay.
During the interregnum, William had, as provisional chief of the
administration, collected the taxes and applied them to the
public service; nor could the propriety of this course be
questioned by any person who approved of the Revolution. But the
Revolution was now over: the vacancy of the throne had been
supplied: the Houses were sitting: the law was in full force; and
it became necessary immediately to decide to what revenue the
Government was entitled.

Nobody denied that all the lands and hereditaments of the Crown
had passed with the Crown to the new Sovereigns. Nobody denied
that all duties which had been granted to the Crown for a fixed
term of years might be constitutionally exacted till that term
should expire. But large revenues had been settled by Parliament
on James for life; and whether what had been settled on James for
life could, while he lived, be claimed by William and Mary, was a
question about which opinions were divided.

Holt, Treby, Pollexfen, indeed all the eminent Whig lawyers,
Somers excepted, held that these revenues had been granted to the
late King, in his political capacity, but for his natural life,
and ought therefore, as long as he continued to drag on his
existence in a strange land, to be paid to William and Mary. It
appears from a very concise and unconnected report of the debate
that Somers dissented from this doctrine. His opinion was that,
if the Act of Parliament which had imposed the duties in question
was to be construed according to the spirit, the word life must
be understood to mean reign, and that therefore the term for
which the grant had been made had expired. This was surely the
sound opinion: for it was plainly irrational to treat the
interest of James in this grant as at once a thing annexed to his
person and a thing annexed to his office; to say in one breath
that the merchants of London and Bristol must pay money because
he was naturally alive, and that his successors must receive
that money because he was politically defunct. The House was
decidedly with Somers. The members generally were bent on
effecting a great reform, without which it was felt that the
Declaration of Rights would be but an imperfect guarantee for
public liberty. During the conflict which fifteen successive
Parliaments had maintained against four successive Kings, the
chief weapon of the Commons had been the power of the purse; and
never had the representatives of the people been induced to
surrender that weapon without having speedy cause to repent of
their too credulous loyalty. In that season of tumultuous joy
which followed the Restoration, a large revenue for life had been
almost by acclamation granted to Charles the Second. A few months
later there was scarcely a respectable Cavalier in the kingdom
who did not own that the stewards of the nation would have acted
more wisely if they had kept in their hands the means of checking
the abuses which disgraced every department of the government.
James the Second had obtained from his submissive Parliament,
without a dissentient voice, an income sufficient to defray the
ordinary expenses of the state during his life; and, before he
had enjoyed that income half a year, the great majority of those
who had dealt thus liberally with him blamed themselves severely
for their liberality. If experience was to be trusted, a long and
painful experience, there could be no effectual security against
maladministration, unless the Sovereign were under the necessity
of recurring frequently to his Great Council for pecuniary aid.
Almost all honest and enlightened men were therefore agreed in
thinking that a part at least of the supplies ought to be granted
only for short terms. And what time could be fitter for the
introduction of this new practice than the year 1689, the
commencement of a new reign, of a new dynasty, of a new era of
constitutional government? The feeling on this subject was so
strong and general that the dissentient minority gave way. No
formal resolution was passed; but the House proceeded to act on
the supposition that the grants which had been made to James for
life had been annulled by his abdication.38

It was impossible to make a new settlement of the revenue without
inquiry and deliberation. The Exchequer was ordered to furnish
such returns as might enable the House to form estimates of the
public expenditure and income. In the meantime, liberal provision
was made for the immediate exigencies of the state. An
extraordinary aid, to be raised by direct monthly assessment, was
voted to the King. An Act was passed indemnifying all who had,
since his landing, collected by his authority the duties settled
on James; and those duties which had expired were continued for
some months.

Along William's whole line of march, from Torbay to London, he
had been importuned by the common people to relieve them from the
intolerable burden of the hearth money. In truth, that tax seems
to have united all the worst evils which can be imputed to any
tax. It was unequal, and unequal in the most pernicious way: for
it pressed heavily on the poor, and lightly on the rich. A
peasant, all whose property was not worth twenty pounds, was
charged ten shillings. The Duke of Ormond, or the Duke of
Newcastle, whose estates were worth half a million, paid only
four or five pounds. The collectors were empowered to examine the
interior of every house in the realm, to disturb families at
meals, to force the doors of bedrooms, and, if the sum demanded
were not punctually paid, to sell the trencher on which the
barley loaf was divided among the poor children, and the pillow
from under the head of the lying-in woman. Nor could the Treasury
effectually restrain the chimneyman from using his powers with
harshness: for the tax was farmed; and the government was
consequently forced to connive at outrages and exactions such as
have, in every age made the name of publican a proverb for all
that is most hateful.

William had been so much moved by what he had heard of these
grievances that, at one of the earliest sittings of the Privy
Council, he introduced the subject. He sent a message requesting
the House of Commons to consider whether better regulations would
effectually prevent the abuses which had excited so much
discontent. He added that he would willingly consent to the
entire abolition of the tax if it should appear that the tax and
the abuses were inseparable.39 This communication was received
with loud applause. There were indeed some financiers of the old
school who muttered that tenderness for the poor was a fine
thing; but that no part of the revenue of the state came in so
exactly to the day as the hearth money; that the goldsmiths of
the City could not always be induced to lend on the security of
the next quarter's customs or excise, but that on an assignment
of hearth money there was no difficulty in obtaining advances. In
the House of Commons, those who thought thus did not venture to
raise their voices in opposition to the general feeling. But in
the Lords there was a conflict of which the event for a time
seemed doubtful. At length the influence of the Court,
strenuously exerted, carried an Act by which the chimney tax was
declared a badge of slavery, and was, with many expressions of
gratitude to the King, abolished for ever.40

The Commons granted, with little dispute, and without a division,
six hundred thousand pounds for the purpose of repaying to the
United Provinces the charges of the expedition which had
delivered England. The facility with which this large sum was
voted to a shrewd, diligent and thrifty people, our allies,
indeed, politically, but commercially our most formidable rivals,
excited some murmurs out of doors, and was, during many years, a
favourite subject of sarcasm with Tory pamphleteers.41  The
liberality of the House admits however of an easy explanation. On
the very day on which the subject was under consideration,
alarming news arrived at Westminster, and convinced many, who
would at another time have been disposed to scrutinise severely
any account sent in by the Dutch, that our country could not yet
dispense with the services of the foreign troops.

France had declared war against the States General; and the
States General had consequently demanded from the King of England
those succours which he was bound by the treaty of Nimeguen to
furnish.42 He had ordered some battalions to march to Harwich,
that they might be in readiness to cross to the Continent. The
old soldiers of James were generally in a very bad temper; and
this order did not produce a soothing effect. The discontent was
greatest in the regiment which now ranks as first of the line.
Though borne on the English establishment, that regiment, from
the time when it first fought under the great Gustavus, had been
almost exclusively composed of Scotchmen; and Scotchmen have
never, in any region to which their adventurous and aspiring
temper has led them, failed to note and to resent every slight
offered to Scotland. Officers and men muttered that a vote of a
foreign assembly was nothing to them. If they could be absolved
from their allegiance to King James the Seventh, it must be by
the Estates at Edinburgh, and not by the Convention at
Westminster. Their ill humour increased when they heard that
Schomberg had been appointed their colonel. They ought perhaps to
have thought it an honour to be called by the name of the
greatest soldier in Europe. But, brave and skilful as he was, he
was not their countryman: and their regiment, during the fifty-
six years which had elapsed since it gained its first honourable
distinctions in Germany, had never been commanded but by a
Hepburn or a Douglas. While they were in this angry and
punctilious mood, they were ordered to join the forces which were
assembling at Harwich. There was much murmuring; but there was no
outbreak till the regiment arrived at Ipswich. There the signal of revolt was
given by two
captains who were zealous for the exiled King. The market place
was soon filled with pikemen and musketeers running to and fro.
Gunshots were wildly fired in all directions. Those officers who
attempted to restrain the rioters were overpowered and disarmed.
At length the chiefs of the insurrection established some order,
and marched out of Ipswich at the head of their adherents. The
little army consisted of about eight hundred men. They had seized
four pieces of cannon, and had taken possession of the military
chest, which contained a considerable sum of money. At the
distance of half a mile from the town a halt was called: a
general consultation was held; and the mutineers resolved that
they would hasten back to their native country, and would live
and die with their rightful King. They instantly proceeded
northward by forced marches.43

When the news reached London the dismay was great. It was
rumoured that alarming symptoms had appeared in other regiments,
and particularly that a body of fusileers which lay at Harwich
was likely to imitate the example set at Ipswich. "If these
Scots," said Halifax to Reresby, "are unsupported, they are lost.
But if they have acted in concert with others, the danger is
serious indeed."44 The truth seems to be that there was a
conspiracy which had ramifications in many parts of the army, but
that the conspirators were awed by the firmness of the government
and of the Parliament. A committee of the Privy Council was
sitting when the tidings of the mutiny arrived in London. William
Harbord, who represented the borough of Launceston, was at the
board. His colleagues entreated him to go down instantly to the
House of Commons, and to relate what had happened. He went, rose
in his place, and told his story. The spirit of the assembly rose
to the occasion. Howe was the first to call for vigorous action.
"Address the King," he said, "to send his Dutch troops after
these men. I know not who else can be trusted." "This is no
jesting matter," said old Birch, who had been a colonel in the
service of the Parliament, and had seen the most powerful and
renowned House of Commons that ever sate twice purged and twice
expelled by its own soldiers; "if you let this evil spread, you
will have an army upon you in a few days. Address the King to
send horse and foot instantly, his own men, men whom he can
trust, and to put these people down at once." The men of the long
robe caught the flame. "It is not the learning of my profession
that is needed here," said Treby. "What is now to be done is to
meet force with force, and to maintain in the field what we have
done in the senate." "Write to the Sheriffs," said Colonel
Mildmay, member for Essex. "Raise the militia. There are a
hundred and fifty thousand of them: they are good Englishmen:
they will not fail you." It was resolved that all members of the
House who held commissions in the army should be dispensed from
parliamentary attendance, in order that they might repair
instantly to their military posts. An address was unanimously
voted requesting the King to take effectual steps for the
suppression of the rebellion, and to put forth a proclamation
denouncing public vengeance on the rebels. One gentleman hinted
that it might be well to advise his Majesty to offer a pardon to
those who should peaceably submit: but the House wisely rejected
the suggestion. "This is no time," it was well said, "for any
thing that looks like fear." The address was instantly sent up to
the Lords. The Lords concurred in it. Two peers, two knights of
shires, and two burgesses were sent with it to Court. William
received them graciously, and informed them that he had already
given the necessary orders. In fact, several regiments of horse
and dragoons had been sent northward under the command of
Ginkell, one of the bravest and ablest officers of the Dutch
army.45

Meanwhile the mutineers were hastening across the country which
lies between Cambridge and the Wash. Their road lay through a
vast and desolate fen, saturated with all the moisture of
thirteen counties, and overhung during the greater part of the
year by a low grey mist, high above which rose, visible many
miles, the magnificent tower of Ely. In that dreary region,
covered by vast flights of wild fowl, a half savage population,
known by the name of the Breedlings, then led an amphibious life,
sometimes wading, and sometimes rowing, from one islet of firm
ground to another.46 The roads were amongst the worst in the
island, and, as soon as rumour announced the approach of the
rebels, were studiously made worse by the country people. Bridges
were broken down. Trees were laid across the highways to obstruct
the progress of the cannon. Nevertheless the Scotch veterans not
only pushed forward with great speed, but succeeded in carrying
their artillery with them. They entered Lincolnshire, and were
not far from Sleaford, when they learned that Ginkell with an
irresistible force was close on their track. Victory and escape
were equally out of the question. The bravest warriors could not
contend against fourfold odds. The most active infantry could not
outrun horsemen. Yet the leaders, probably despairing of pardon,
urged the men to try the chance of battle. In that region, a spot
almost surrounded by swamps and pools was without difficulty
found. Here the insurgents were drawn up; and the cannon were
planted at the only point which was thought not to be
sufficiently protected by natural defences. Ginkell ordered the
attack to be made at a place which was out of the range of the
guns; and his dragoons dashed gallantly into the water, though it
was so deep that their horses were forced to swim. Then the
mutineers lost heart. They beat a parley, surrendered at
discretion, and were brought up to London under a strong guard.
Their lives were forfeit: for they had been guilty, not merely of
mutiny, which was then not a legal crime, but of levying war
against the King. William, however, with politic clemency,
abstained from shedding the blood even of the most culpable. A
few of the ringleaders were brought to trial at the next Bury
assizes, and were convicted of high treason; but their lives were
spared. The rest were merely ordered to return to their duty. The
regiment, lately so refractory, went submissively to the
Continent, and there, through many hard campaigns, distinguished
itself by fidelity, by discipline, and by valour.47

This event facilitated an important change in our polity, a
change which, it is true, could not have been long delayed, but
which would not have been easily accomplished except at a moment
of extreme danger. The time had at length arrived at which it was
necessary to make a legal distinction between the soldier and the
citizen. Under the Plantagenets and the Tudors there had been no
standing army. The standing army which had existed under the last
kings of the House of Stuart had been regarded by every party in
the state with strong and not unreasonable aversion. The common
law gave the Sovereign no power to control his troops. The
Parliament, regarding them as mere tools of tyranny, had not been
disposed to give such power by statute. James indeed had induced
his corrupt and servile judges to put on some obsolete laws a
construction which enabled him to punish desertion capitally. But
this construction was considered by all respectable jurists as
unsound, and, had it been sound, would have been far from
effecting all that was necessary for the purpose of maintaining
military discipline. Even James did not venture to inflict death
by sentence of a court martial. The deserter was treated as an
ordinary felon, was tried at the assizes by a petty jury on a
bill found by a grand jury, and was at liberty to avail himself
of any technical flaw which might be discovered in the
indictment.

The Revolution, by altering the relative position of the prince
and the parliament, had altered also the relative position of the
army and the nation. The King and the Commons were now at unity;
and both were alike menaced by the greatest military power which
had existed in Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. In
a few weeks thirty thousand veterans, accustomed to conquer, and
led by able and experienced captains, might cross from the ports
of Normandy and Brittany to our shores. That such a force would
with little difficulty scatter three times that number of
militia, no man well acquainted with war could doubt. There must
then be regular soldiers; and, if there were to be regular
soldiers, it must be indispensable, both to their efficiency, and
to the security of every other class, that they should be kept
under a strict discipline. An ill disciplined army has ever been
a more costly and a more licentious militia, impotent against a
foreign enemy, and formidable only to the country which it is
paid to defend. A strong line of demarcation must therefore be
drawn between the soldiers and the rest of the community. For the
sake of public freedom, they must, in the midst of freedom, be
placed under a despotic rule. They must be subject to a sharper
penal code, and to a more stringent code of procedure, than are
administered by the ordinary tribunals. Some acts which in the
citizen are innocent must in the soldier be crimes. Some acts
which in the citizen are punished with fine or imprisonment must
in the soldier be punished with death. The machinery by which
courts of law ascertain the guilt or innocence of an accused
citizen is too slow and too intricate to be applied to an accused
soldier. For, of all the maladies incident to the body politic,
military insubordination is that which requires the most prompt
and drastic remedies. If the evil be not stopped as soon as it
appears, it is certain to spread; and it cannot spread far
without danger to the very vitals of the commonwealth. For the
general safety, therefore, a summary jurisdiction of terrible
extent must, in camps, be entrusted to rude tribunals composed of
men of the sword.

But, though it was certain that the country could not at that
moment be secure without professional soldiers, and equally
certain that professional soldiers must be worse than useless
unless they were placed under a rule more arbitrary and severe
than that to which other men were subject, it was not without
great misgivings that a House of Commons could venture to
recognise the existence and to make provision for the government
of a standing army. There was scarcely a public man of note who
had not often avowed his conviction that our polity and a
standing army could not exist together. The Whigs had been in the
constant habit of repeating that standing armies had destroyed
the free institutions of the neighbouring nations. The Tories had
repeated as constantly that, in our own island, a standing army
had subverted the Church, oppressed the gentry, and murdered the
King. No leader of either party could, without laying himself
open to the charge of gross inconsistency, propose that such an
army should henceforth be one of the permanent establishments of
the realm. The mutiny at Ipswich, and the panic which that mutiny
produced, made it easy to effect what would otherwise have been
in the highest degree difficult. A short bill was brought in
which began by declaring, in explicit terms, that standing armies
and courts martial were unknown to the law of England. It was
then enacted that, on account of the extreme perils impending at
that moment over the state, no man mustered on pay in the service
of the crown should, on pain of death, or of such lighter
punishment as a court martial should deem sufficient, desert his
colours or mutiny against his commanding officers. This statute
was to be in force only six months; and many of those who voted
for it probably believed that it would, at the close of that
period, be suffered to expire. The bill passed rapidly and
easily. Not a single division was taken upon it in the House of
Commons. A mitigating clause indeed, which illustrates somewhat
curiously the manners of that age, was added by way of rider
after the third reading. This clause provided that no court
martial should pass sentence of death except between the hours of
six in the morning and one in the afternoon. The dinner hour was
then early; and it was but too probable that a gentleman who had
dined would be in a state in which he could not safely be trusted
with the lives of his fellow creatures. With this amendment, the
first and most concise of our many Mutiny Bills was sent up to
the Lords, and was, in a few hours, hurried by them through all
its stages and passed by the King.48

Thus was made, without one dissentient voice in Parliament,
without one murmur in the nation, the first step towards a change
which had become necessary to the safety of the state, yet which
every party in the state then regarded with extreme dread and
aversion. Six months passed; and still the public danger
continued. The power necessary to the maintenance of military
discipline was a second time entrusted to the crown for a short
term. The trust again expired, and was again renewed. By slow
degrees familiarity reconciled the public mind to the names, once
so odious, of standing army and court martial. It was proved by
experience that, in a well constituted society, professional
soldiers may be terrible to a foreign enemy, and yet submissive
to the civil power. What had been at first tolerated as the
exception began to be considered as the rule. Not a session
passed without a Mutiny Bill. When at length it became evident
that a political change of the highest importance was taking
place in such a manner as almost to escape notice, a clamour was
raised by some factious men desirous to weaken the hands of the
government, and by some respectable men who felt an honest but
injudicious reverence for every old constitutional tradition, and
who were unable to understand that what at one stage in the
progress of society is pernicious may at another stage be
indispensable. This clamour however, as years rolled on, became
fainter and fainter. The debate which recurred every spring on
the Mutiny Bill came to be regarded merely as an occasion on
which hopeful young orators fresh from Christchurch were to
deliver maiden speeches, setting forth how the guards of
Pisistratus seized the citadel of Athens, and how the Praetorian
cohorts sold the Roman empire to Didius. At length these
declamations became too ridiculous to be repeated. The most
oldfashioned, the most eccentric, politician could hardly, in the
reign of George the Third, contend that there ought to be no
regular soldiers, or that the ordinary law, administered by the
ordinary courts, would effectually maintain discipline among such
soldiers. All parties being agreed as to the general principle, a
long succession of Mutiny Bills passed without any discussion,
except when some particular article of the military code appeared
to require amendment. It is perhaps because the army became thus
gradually, and almost imperceptibly, one of the institutions of
England, that it has acted in such perfect harmony with all her
other institutions, has never once, during a hundred and sixty
years, been untrue to the throne or disobedient to the law, has
never once defied the tribunals or overawed the constituent
bodies. To this day, however, the Estates of the Realm continue
to set up periodically, with laudable jealousy, a landmark on the
frontier which was traced at the time of the Revolution. They
solemnly reassert every year the doctrine laid down in the
Declaration of Rights; and they then grant to the Sovereign an
extraordinary power to govern a certain number of soldiers
according to certain rules during twelve months more.

In the same week in which the first Mutiny Bill was laid on the
table of the Commons, another temporary law, made necessary by
the unsettled state of the kingdom, was passed. Since the flight
of James many persons who were believed to have been deeply
implicated in his unlawful acts, or to be engaged in plots for
his restoration, had been arrested and confined. During the
vacancy of the throne, these men could derive no benefit from the
Habeas Corpus Act. For the machinery by which alone that Act
could be carried into execution had ceased to exist; and, through
the whole of Hilary term, all the courts in Westminster Hall had
remained closed. Now that the ordinary tribunals were about to
resume their functions, it was apprehended that all those
prisoners whom it was not convenient to bring instantly to trial
would demand and obtain their liberty. A bill was therefore
brought in which empowered the King to detain in custody during a
few weeks such persons as he should suspect of evil designs
against his government. This bill passed the two Houses with
little or no opposition.49 But the malecontents out of doors did
not fail to remark that, in the late reign, the Habeas Corpus Act
had not been one day suspended. It was the fashion to call James
a tyrant, and William a deliverer. Yet, before the deliverer had
been a month on the throne, he had deprived Englishmen of a
precious right which the tyrant had respected.50 This is a kind
of reproach which a government sprung from a popular revolution
almost inevitably incurs. From such a government men naturally
think themselves entitled to demand a more gentle and liberal
administration than is expected from old and deeply rooted power.
Yet such a government, having, as it always has, many active
enemies, and not having the strength derived from legitimacy and
prescription, can at first maintain itself only by a vigilance
and a severity of which old and deeply rooted power stands in no
need. Extraordinary and irregular vindications of public liberty
are sometimes necessary: yet, however necessary, they are almost
always followed by some temporary abridgments of that very
liberty; and every such abridgment is a fertile and plausible
theme for sarcasm and invective.

Unhappily sarcasm and invective directed against William were but
too likely to find favourable audience. Each of the two great
parties had its own reasons for being dissatisfied with him; and
there were some complaints in which both parties joined. His
manners gave almost universal offence. He was in truth far better
qualified to save a nation than to adorn a court. In the highest
parts of statesmanship, he had no equal among his contemporaries.
He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to
those of Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact
and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil
liberty and of the Reformed Faith, had been preserved by his
wisdom and courage from extreme perils. Holland he had delivered
from foreign, and England from domestic foes. Obstacles
apparently insurmountable had been interposed between him and the
ends on which he was intent; and those obstacles his genius had
turned into stepping stones. Under his dexterous management the
hereditary enemies of his house had helped him to mount a throne;
and the persecutors of his religion had helped him to rescue his
religion from persecution. Fleets and armies, collected to
withstand him, had, without a struggle, submitted to his orders.
Factions and sects, divided by mortal antipathies, had recognised
him as their common head. Without carnage, without devastation, he
had won a victory compared with which all the victories of
Gustavus and Turenne were insignificant. In a few weeks he had
changed the relative position of all the states in Europe, and
had restored the equilibrium which the preponderance of one power
had destroyed. Foreign nations did ample justice to his great
qualities. In every Continental country where Protestant
congregations met, fervent thanks were offered to God, who, from
among the progeny of His servants, Maurice, the deliverer of
Germany, and William, the deliverer of Holland, had raised up a
third deliverer, the wisest and mightiest of all. At Vienna, at
Madrid, nay, at Rome, the valiant and sagacious heretic was held
in honour as the chief of the great confederacy against the House
of Bourbon; and even at Versailles the hatred which he inspired
was largely mingled with admiration.

Here he was less favourably judged. In truth, our ancestors saw
him in the worst of all lights. By the French, the Germans, and
the Italians, he was contemplated at such a distance that only
what was great could be discerned, and that small blemishes were
invisible. To the Dutch he was brought close: but he was himself
a Dutchman. In his intercourse with them he was seen to the best
advantage, he was perfectly at his ease with them; and from among them he had
chosen his earliest and dearest friends. But to the English he appeared in a
most unfortunate point of view. He was at once too near to them and too far from
them. He lived among them, so
that the smallest peculiarity of temper or manner could not
escape their notice. Yet he lived apart from them, and was to the
last a foreigner in speech, tastes, and habits.

One of the chief functions of our Sovereigns had long been to
preside over the society of the capital. That function Charles
the Second had performed with immense success. His easy bow, his
good stories, his style of dancing and playing tennis, the sound
of his cordial laugh, were familiar to all London. One day he was
seen among the elms of Saint James's Park chatting with Dryden
about poetry.51 Another day his arm was on Tom Durfey's shoulder;
and his Majesty was taking a second, while his companion sang
"Phillida, Phillida," or "To horse, brave boys, to Newmarket, to
horse."52 James, with much less vivacity and good nature, was
accessible, and, to people who did not cross him, civil. But of
this sociableness William was entirely destitute. He seldom came
forth from his closet; and, when he appeared in the public rooms,
he stood among the crowd of courtiers and ladies, stern and
abstracted, making no jest and smiling at none. His freezing
look, his silence, the dry and concise answers which he uttered
when he could keep silence no longer, disgusted noblemen and
gentlemen who had been accustomed to be slapped on the back by
their royal masters, called Jack or Harry, congratulated about
race cups or rallied about actresses. The women missed the homage
due to their sex. They observed that the King spoke in a somewhat
imperious tone even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom
he sincerely loved and esteemed.53 They were amused and shocked
to see him, when the Princess Anne dined with him, and when the
first green peas of the year were put on the table, devour the
whole dish without offering a spoonful to her Royal Highness; and
they pronounced that this great soldier and politician was no
better than a Low Dutch bear.54

One misfortune, which was imputed to him as a crime, was his bad
English. He spoke our language, but not well. His accent was
foreign: his diction was inelegant; and his vocabulary seems to
have been no larger than was necessary for the transaction of
business. To the difficulty which he felt in expressing himself,
and to his consciousness that his pronunciation was bad, must be
partly ascribed the taciturnity and the short answers which gave
so much offence. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or
of understanding. He never once, during his whole reign, showed
himself at the theatre.55 The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in
his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond
his comprehension.56 Those who are acquainted with the
panegyrical odes of that age will perhaps be of opinion that he
did not lose much by his ignorance.

It is true that his wife did her best to supply what was wanting,
and that she was excellently qualified to be the head of the
Court. She was English by birth, and English also in her tastes
and feelings. Her face was handsome, her port majestic, her
temper sweet and lively, her manners affable and graceful. Her
understanding, though very imperfectly cultivated, was quick.
There was no want of feminine wit and shrewdness in her
conversation; and her letters were so well expressed that they
deserved to be well spelt. She took much pleasure in the lighter
kinds of literature, and did something towards bringing books
into fashion among ladies of quality. The stainless purity of her
private life and the strict attention which she paid to her
religious duties were the more respectable, because she was
singularly free from censoriousness, and discouraged scandal as
much as vice. In dislike of backbiting indeed she and her husband
cordially agreed; but they showed their dislike in different and
in very characteristic ways. William preserved profound silence,
and gave the talebearer a look which, as was said by a person who
had once encountered it, and who took good care never to
encounter it again, made your story go back down your throat.57
Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels,
and playdebts by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet
significantly, whether they had ever read her favourite sermon,
Doctor Tillotson's on Evil Speaking. Her charities were
munificent and judicious; and, though she made no ostentatious
display of them, it was known that she retrenched from her own
state in order to relieve Protestants whom persecution had driven
from France and Ireland, and who were starving in the garrets of
London. So amiable was her conduct, that she was generally spoken
of with esteem and tenderness by the most respectable of those
who disapproved of the manner in which she had been raised to the
throne, and even of those who refused to acknowledge her as
Queen. In the Jacobite lampoons of that time, lampoons which, in
virulence and malignity, far exceed any thing that our age has
produced, she was not often mentioned with severity. Indeed she
sometimes expressed her surprise at finding that libellers who
respected nothing else respected her name. God, she said, knew
where her weakness lay. She was too sensitive to abuse and
calumny; He had mercifully spared her a trial which was beyond
her strength; and the best return which she could make to Him was
to discountenance all malicious reflections on the characters of
others. Assured that she possessed her husband's entire
confidence and affection, she turned the edge of his sharp
speeches sometimes by soft and sometimes by playful answers, and
employed all the influence which she derived from her many
pleasing qualities to gain the hearts of the people for him.58

If she had long continued to assemble round her the best society
of London, it is probable that her kindness and courtesy would
have done much to efface the unfavourable impression made by his
stern and frigid demeanour. Unhappily his physical infirmities
made it impossible for him to reside at Whitehall. The air of
Westminster, mingled with tile fog of the river which in spring
tides overflowed the courts of his palace, with the smoke of
seacoal from two hundred thousand chimneys, and with the fumes of
all the filth which was then suffered to accumulate in the
streets, was insupportable to him; for his lungs were weak, and
his sense of smell exquisitely keen. His constitutional asthma
made rapid progress. His physicians pronounced it impossible that
he could live to the end of the year. His face was so ghastly
that he could hardly be recognised. Those who had to transact
business with him were shocked to hear him gasping for breath,
and coughing till the tears ran down his cheeks.59 His mind,
strong as it was, sympathized with his body. His judgment was
indeed as clear as ever. But there was, during some months, a
perceptible relaxation of that energy by which he had been
distinguished. Even his Dutch friends whispered that he was not
the man that he had been at the Hague.60 It was absolutely
necessary that he should quit London. He accordingly took up his
residence in the purer air of Hampton Court. That mansion, begun
by the magnificent Wolsey, was a fine specimen of the
architecture which flourished in England under the first Tudors;
but the apartments were not, according to the notions of the
seventeenth century, well fitted for purposes of state. Our
princes therefore had, since the Restoration, repaired thither
seldom, and only when they wished to live for a time in
retirement. As William purposed to make the deserted edifice his
chief palace, it was necessary for him to build and to plant; nor
was the necessity disagreeable to him. For he had, like most of
his countrymen, a pleasure in decorating a country house; and
next to hunting, though at a great interval, his favourite
amusements were architecture and gardening. He had already
created on a sandy heath in Guelders a paradise, which attracted
multitudes of the curious from Holland and Westphalia. Mary had
laid the first stone of the house. Bentinck had superintended the
digging of the fishponds. There were cascades and grottoes, a
spacious orangery, and an aviary which furnished Hondekoeter with
numerous specimens of manycoloured plumage.61 The King, in his
splendid banishment, pined for this favourite seat, and found
some consolation in creating another Loo on the banks of the
Thames. Soon a wide extent of ground was laid out in formal walks
and parterres. Much idle ingenuity was employed in forming that
intricate labyrinth of verdure which has puzzled and amused five
generations of holiday visitors from London. Limes thirty years
old were transplanted from neighbouring woods to shade the
alleys. Artificial fountains spouted among the flower beds. A new
court, not designed with the purest taste, but stately, spacious,
and commodious, rose under the direction of Wren. The wainscots
were adorned with the rich and delicate carvings of Gibbons. The
staircases were in a blaze with the glaring frescoes of Verrio.
In every corner of the mansion appeared a profusion of gewgaws,
not yet familiar to English eyes. Mary had acquired at the Hague
a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused herself by forming
at Hampton a vast collection of hideous images, and of vases on
which houses, trees, bridges, and mandarins were depicted in
outrageous defiance of all the laws of perspective. The fashion,
a frivolous and inelegant fashion it must be owned, which was
thus set by the amiable Queen, spread fast and wide. In a few
years almost every great house in the kingdom contained a museum
of these grotesque baubles. Even statesmen and generals were not
ashamed to be renowned as judges of teapots and dragons; and
satirists long continued to repeat that a fine lady valued her
mottled green pottery quite as much as she valued her monkey, and
much more than she valued her husband.62 But the new palace was
embellished with works of art of a very different kind. A gallery
was erected for the cartoons of Raphael. Those great pictures,
then and still the finest on our side of the Alps, had been
preserved by Cromwell from the fate which befell most of the
other masterpieces in the collection of Charles the First, but
had been suffered to lie during many years nailed up in deal
boxes. They were now brought forth from obscurity to be
contemplated by artists with admiration and despair. The expense
of the works at Hampton was a subject of bitter complaint to many
Tories, who had very gently blamed the boundless profusion with
which Charles the Second had built and rebuilt, furnished and
refurnished, the dwelling of the Duchess of Portsmouth.63 The
expense, however, was not the chief cause of the discontent which
William's change of residence excited. There was no longer a
Court at Westminster. Whitehall, once the daily resort of the
noble and the powerful, the beautiful and the gay, the place to
which fops came to show their new peruques, men of gallantry to
exchange glances with fine ladies, politicians to push their
fortunes, loungers to hear the news, country gentlemen to see the
royal family, was now, in the busiest season of the year, when
London was full, when Parliament was sitting, left desolate. A
solitary sentinel paced the grassgrown pavement before that door
which had once been too narrow for the opposite streams of
entering and departing courtiers. The services which the
metropolis had rendered to the King were great and recent; and it
was thought that he might have requited those services better
than by treating it as Lewis had treated Paris. Halifax ventured
to hint this, but was silenced by a few words which admitted of
no reply. "Do you wish," said William peevishly, "to see me
dead?"64

In a short time it was found that Hampton Court was too far from
the Houses of Lords and Commons, and from the public offices, to
be the ordinary abode of the Sovereign. Instead, however, of
returning to Whitehall, William determined to have another
dwelling, near enough to his capital for the transaction of
business, but not near enough to be within that atmosphere in
which he could not pass a night without risk of suffocation. At
one time he thought of Holland House, the villa of the noble
family of Rich; and he actually resided there some weeks.65 But
he at length fixed his choice on Kensington House, the suburban
residence of the Earl of Nottingham. The purchase was made for
eighteen thousand guineas, and was followed by more building,
more planting, more expense, and more discontent.66 At present
Kensington House is considered as a part of London. It was then a
rural mansion, and could not, in those days of highwaymen and
scourers, of roads deep in mire and nights without lamps, be the
rallying point of fashionable society.

It was well known that the King, who treated the English nobility
and gentry so ungraciously, could, in a small circle of his own
countrymen, be easy, friendly, even jovial, could pour out his
feelings garrulously, could fill his glass, perhaps too often;
and this was, in the view of our forefathers, an aggravation of
his offences. Yet our forefathers should have had the sense and
the justice to acknowledge that the patriotism which they
considered as a virtue in themselves, could not be a fault in
him. It was unjust to blame him for not at once transferring to
our island the love which he bore to the country of his birth.
If, in essentials, he did his duty towards England, he might well
be suffered to feel at heart an affectionate preference for
Holland. Nor is it a reproach to him that he did not, in this
season of his greatness, discard companions who had played with
him in his childhood, who had stood by him firmly through all the
vicissitudes of his youth and manhood, who had, in defiance of
the most loathsome and deadly forms of infection, kept watch by
his sick-bed, who had, in the thickest of the battle, thrust
themselves between him and the French swords, and whose
attachment was, not to the Stadtholder or to the King, but to
plain William of Nassau. It may be added that his old friends
could not but rise in his estimation by comparison with his new
courtiers. To the end of his life all his Dutch comrades, without
exception, continued to deserve his confidence. They could be out
of humour with him, it is true; and, when out of humour, they
could be sullen and rude; but never did they, even when most
angry and unreasonable, fail to keep his secrets and to watch
over his interests with gentlemanlike and soldierlike fidelity.
Among his English councillors such fidelity was rare.67 It is
painful, but it is no more than just, to acknowledge that he had
but too good reason for thinking meanly of our national
character. That character was indeed, in essentials, what it has
always been. Veracity, uprightness, and manly boldness were then,
as now, qualities eminently English. But those qualities, though
widely diffused among the great body of the people, were seldom
to be found in the class with which William was best acquainted.
The standard of honour and virtue among our public men was,
during his reign, at the very lowest point. His predecessors had
bequeathed to him a court foul with all the vices of the
Restoration, a court swarming with sycophants, who were ready, on
the first turn of fortune, to abandon him as they had abandoned
his uncle. Here and there, lost in that ignoble crowd, was to be
found a man of true integrity and public spirit. Yet even such a
man could not long live in such society without much risk that
the strictness of his principles would be relaxed, and the
delicacy of his sense of right and wrong impaired. It was unjust
to blame a prince surrounded by flatterers and traitors for
wishing to keep near him four or five servants whom he knew by
proof to be faithful even to death.

Nor was this the only instance in which our ancestors were unjust
to him. They had expected that, as soon as so distinguished a
soldier and statesman was placed at the head of affairs, he would
give some signal proof, they scarcely knew what, of genius and
vigour. Unhappily, during the first months of his reign, almost
every thing went wrong. His subjects, bitterly disappointed,
threw the blame on him, and began to doubt whether he merited
that reputation which he had won at his first entrance into
public life, and which the splendid success of his last great
enterprise had raised to the highest point. Had they been in a
temper to judge fairly, they would have perceived that for the
maladministration of which they with good reason complained he
was not responsible. He could as yet work only with the machinery
which he had found; and the machinery which he had found was all
rust and rottenness. From the time of the Restoration to the time
of the Revolution, neglect and fraud had been almost constantly
impairing the efficiency of every department of the government.
Honours and public trusts, peerages, baronetcies, regiments,
frigates, embassies, governments, commissionerships, leases of
crown lands, contracts for clothing, for provisions, for
ammunition, pardons for murder, for robbery, for arson, were sold
at Whitehall scarcely less openly than asparagus at Covent Garden
or herrings at Billingsgate. Brokers had been incessantly plying
for custom in the purlieus of the court; and of these brokers the
most successful had been, in the days of Charles, the harlots,
and in the days of James, the priests. From the palace which was
the chief seat of this pestilence the taint had diffused itself
through every office and through every rank in every office, and
had every where produced feebleness and disorganization. So rapid
was the progress of the decay that, within eight years after the
time when Oliver had been the umpire of Europe, the roar of the
guns of De Ruyter was heard in the Tower of London. The vices
which had brought that great humiliation on the country had ever
since been rooting themselves deeper and spreading themselves
wider. James had, to do him justice, corrected a few of the gross
abuses which disgraced the naval administration. Yet the naval
administration, in spite of his attempts to reform it, moved the
contempt of men who were acquainted with the dockyards of France
and Holland. The military administration was still worse. The
courtiers took bribes from the colonels; the colonels cheated the
soldiers: the commissaries sent in long bills for what had never
been furnished: the keepers of the arsenals sold the public
stores and pocketed the price. But these evils, though they had
sprung into existence and grown to maturity under the government
of Charles and James, first made themselves severely felt under
the government of William. For Charles and James were content to
be the vassals and pensioners of a powerful and ambitious
neighbour: they submitted to his ascendency: they shunned with
pusillanimous caution whatever could give him offence; and thus,
at the cost of the independence and dignity of that ancient and
glorious crown which they unworthily wore, they avoided a
conflict which would instantly have shown how helpless, under
their misrule, their once formidable kingdom had become. Their
ignominious policy it was neither in William's power nor in his
nature to follow. It was only by arms that the liberty and
religion of England could be protected against the most
formidable enemy that had threatened our island since the
Hebrides were strown with the wrecks of the Armada. The body
politic, which, while it remained in repose, had presented a
superficial appearance of health and vigour, was now under the
necessity of straining every nerve in a wrestle for life or
death, and was immediately found to be unequal to the exertion.
The first efforts showed an utter relaxation of fibre, an utter
want of training. Those efforts were, with scarcely an exception,
failures; and every failure was popularly imputed, not to the
rulers whose mismanagement had produced the infirmities of the
state, but to the ruler in whose time the infirmities of the
state became visible.

William might indeed, if he had been as absolute as Lewis, have
used such sharp remedies as would speedily have restored to the
English administration that firm tone which had been wanting
since the death of Oliver. But the instantaneous reform of
inveterate abuses was a task far beyond the powers of a prince
strictly restrained by law, and restrained still more strictly by
the difficulties of his situation.68

Some of the most serious difficulties of his situation were
caused by the conduct of the ministers on whom, new as he was to
the details of English affairs, he was forced to rely for
information about men and things. There was indeed no want of
ability among his chief counsellors: but one half of their
ability was employed in counteracting the other half. Between the
Lord President and the Lord Privy Seal there was an inveterate
enmity.69 It had begun twelve years before when Danby was Lord
High Treasurer, a persecutor of nonconformists, an uncompromising
defender of prerogative, and when Halifax was rising to
distinction as one of the most eloquent leaders of the country
party. In the reign of James, the two statesmen had found
themselves in opposition together; and their common hostility to
France and to Rome, to the High Commission and to the dispensing
power, had produced an apparent reconciliation; but as soon as
they were in office together the old antipathy revived. The
hatred which the Whig party felt towards them both ought, it
should seem, to have produced a close alliance between them: but
in fact each of them saw with complacency the danger which
threatened the other. Danby exerted himself to rally round him a
strong phalanx of Tories. Under the plea of ill health, he
withdrew from court, seldom came to the Council over which it was
his duty to preside, passed much time in the country, and took
scarcely any part in public affairs except by grumbling and
sneering at all the acts of the government, and by doing jobs and
getting places for his personal retainers.70 In consequence of
this defection, Halifax became prime minister, as far any
minister could, in that reign, be called prime minister. An
immense load of business fell on him; and that load he was unable
to sustain. In wit and eloquence, in amplitude of comprehension
and subtlety of disquisition, he had no equal among the statesmen
of his time. But that very fertility, that very acuteness, which
gave a singular charm to his conversation, to his oratory and to
his writings, unfitted him for the work of promptly deciding
practical questions. He was slow from very quickness. For he saw
so many arguments for and against every possible course that he
was longer in making up his mind than a dull man would have been.
Instead of acquiescing in his first thoughts, he replied on
himself, rejoined on himself, and surrejoined on himself. Those
who heard him talk owned that he talked like an angel: but too
often, when he had exhausted all that could be said, and came to
act, the time for action was over.

Meanwhile the two Secretaries of State were constantly labouring
to draw their master in diametrically opposite directions. Every
scheme, every person, recommended by one of them was reprobated
by the other. Nottingham was never weary of repeating that the
old Roundhead party, the party which had taken the life of
Charles the First and had plotted against the life of Charles the
Second, was in principle republican, and that the Tories were the
only true friends of monarchy. Shrewsbury replied that the Tories
might be friends of monarchy, but that they regarded James as
their monarch. Nottingham was always bringing to the closet
intelligence of the wild daydreams in which a few old eaters of
calf's head, the remains of the once formidable party of Bradshaw
and Ireton, still indulged at taverns in the city. Shrewsbury
produced ferocious lampoons which the Jacobites dropped every day
in the coffeehouses. "Every Whig," said the Tory Secretary, "is
an enemy of your Majesty's prerogative." "Every Tory," said the
Whig Secretary, "is an enemy of your Majesty's title."71

At the treasury there was a complication of jealousies and
quarrels.72 Both the First Commissioner, Mordaunt, and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Delamere, were zealous Whigs but,
though they held the same political creed, their tempers differed
widely. Mordaunt was volatile, dissipated, and generous. The wits
of that time laughed at the way in which he flew about from
Hampton Court to the Royal Exchange, and from the Royal Exchange
back to Hampton Court. How he found time for dress, politics,
lovemaking and balladmaking was a wonder.73 Delamere was gloomy
and acrimonious, austere in his private morals, and punctual in
his devotions, but greedy of ignoble gain. The two principal
ministers of finance, therefore, became enemies, and agreed only
in hating their colleague Godolphin. What business had he at
Whitehall in these days of Protestant ascendency, he who had sate
at the same board with Papists, he who had never scrupled to
attend Mary of Modena to the idolatrous worship of the Mass? The
most provoking circumstance was that Godolphin, though his name
stood only third in the commission, was really first Lord. For in
financial knowledge and in habits of business Mordaunt and
Delamere were mere children when compared with him; and this
William soon discovered.74

Similar feuds raged at the other great boards and through all the
subordinate ranks of public functionaries. In every customhouse,
in every arsenal, were a Shrewsbury and a Nottingham, a Delamere
and a Godolphin. The Whigs complained that there was no
department in which creatures of the fallen tyranny were not to
be found. It was idle to allege that these men were versed in the
details of business, that they were the depositaries of official
traditions, and that the friends of liberty, having been, during
many years, excluded from public employment, must necessarily be
incompetent to take on themselves at once the whole management of
affairs. Experience doubtless had its value: but surely the first
of all the qualifications of a servant was fidelity; and no Tory
could be a really faithful servant of the new government. If King
William were wise, he would rather trust novices zealous for his
interest and honour than veterans who might indeed possess
ability and knowledge, but who would use that ability and that
knowledge to effect his ruin.

The Tories, on the other hand, complained that their share of
power bore no proportion to their number and their weight in the
country, and that every where old and useful public servants
were, for the crime of being friends to monarchy and to the
Church, turned out of their posts to make way for Rye House
plotters and haunters of conventicles. These upstarts, adepts in
the art of factious agitation, but ignorant of all that belonged
to their new calling, would be just beginning to learn their
business when they had undone the nation by their blunders. To be
a rebel and a schismatic was surely not all that ought to be
required of a man in high employment. What would become of the
finances, what of the marine, if Whigs who could not understand
the plainest balance sheet were to manage the revenue, and Whigs
who had never walked over a dockyard to fit out the fleet.75

The truth is that the charges which the two parties brought
against each other were, to a great extent, well founded, but
that the blame which both threw on William was unjust. Official
experience was to be found almost exclusively among the Tories,
hearty attachment to the new settlement almost exclusively among
the Whigs. It was not the fault of the King that the knowledge
and the zeal, which, combined, make a valuable servant of the
state must at that time be had separately or not at all. If he
employed men of one party, there was great risk of mistakes. If
he employed men of the other party, there was great risk of
treachery. If he employed men of both parties, there was still
some risk of mistakes; there was still some risk of treachery;
and to these risks was added the certainty of dissension. He
might join Whigs and Tories; but it was beyond his power to mix
them. In the same office, at the same desk, they were still
enemies, and agreed only in murmuring at the Prince who tried to
mediate between them. It was inevitable that, in such
circumstances, the administration, fiscal, military, naval,
should be feeble and unsteady; that nothing should be done in
quite the right way or at quite the right time; that the
distractions from which scarcely any public office was exempt
should produce disasters, and that every disaster should increase
the distractions from which it had sprung.

There was indeed one department of which the business was well
conducted; and that was the department of Foreign Affairs. There
William directed every thing, and, on important occasions,
neither asked the advice nor employed the agency of any English
politician. One invaluable assistant he had, Anthony Heinsius,
who, a few weeks after the Revolution had been accomplished,
became Pensionary of Holland. Heinsius had entered public life as
a member of that party which was jealous of the power of the
House of Orange, and desirous to be on friendly terms with
France. But he had been sent in 1681 on a diplomatic mission to
Versailles; and a short residence there had produced a complete
change in his views. On a near acquaintance, he was alarmed by
the power and provoked by the insolence of that Court of which,
while he contemplated it only at a distance, he had formed a
favourable opinion. He found that his country was despised. He
saw his religion persecuted. His official character did not save
him from some personal affronts which, to the latest day of his
long career, he never forgot. He went home a devoted adherent of
William and a mortal enemy of Lewis.76

The office of Pensionary, always important, was peculiarly
important when the Stadtholder was absent from the Hague. Had the
politics of Heinsius been still what they once were, all the
great designs of William might have been frustrated. But happily
there was between these two eminent men a perfect friendship
which, till death dissolved it, appears never to have been
interrupted for one moment by suspicion or ill humour. On all
large questions of European policy they cordially agreed. They
corresponded assiduously and most unreservedly. For though
William was slow to give his confidence, yet, when he gave it,
he gave it entire. The correspondence is still extant, and is
most honourable to both. The King's letters would alone suffice
to prove that he was one of the greatest statesmen whom Europe
has produced. While he lived, the Pensionary was content to be
the most obedient, the most trusty, and the most discreet of
servants. But, after the death of the master, the servant proved
himself capable of supplying with eminent ability the master's
place, and was renowned throughout Europe as one of the great
Triumvirate which humbled the pride of Lewis the Fourteenth.77

The foreign policy of England, directed immediately by William in
close concert with Heinsius, was, at this time, eminently skilful
and successful. But in every other part of the administration the
evils arising from the mutual animosity of factions were but too
plainly discernible. Nor was this all. To the evils arising from
the mutual animosity of factions were added other evils arising
from the mutual animosity of sects.

The year 1689 is a not less important epoch in the ecclesiastical
than in the civil history of England. In that year was granted
the first legal indulgence to Dissenters. In that year was made
the last serious attempt to bring the Presbyterians within the
pale of the Church of England. From that year dates a new schism,
made, in defiance of ancient precedents, by men who had always
professed to regard schism with peculiar abhorrence, and ancient
precedents with peculiar veneration. In that year began the long
struggle between two great parties of conformists. Those parties
indeed had, under various forms, existed within the Anglican
communion ever since the Reformation; but till after the
Revolution they did not appear marshalled in regular and
permanent order of battle against each other, and were therefore
not known by established names. Some time after the accession of
William they began to be called the High Church party and the Low
Church party; and, long before the end of his reign, these
appellations were in common use.78

In the summer of 1688 the breaches which had long divided the
great body of English Protestants had seemed to be almost closed.
Disputes about Bishops and Synods, written prayers and
extemporaneous prayers, white gowns and black gowns, sprinkling
and dipping, kneeling and sitting, had been for a short space
intermitted. The serried array which was then drawn up against
Popery measured the whole of the vast interval which separated
Sancroft from Bunyan. Prelates recently conspicuous as
persecutors now declared themselves friends of religious liberty,
and exhorted their clergy to live in a constant interchange of
hospitality and of kind offices with the separatists.
Separatists, on the other hand, who had recently considered
mitres and lawn sleeves as the livery of Antichrist, were putting
candles in windows and throwing faggots on bonfires in honour of
the prelates.

These feelings continued to grow till they attained their
greatest height on the memorable day on which the common
oppressor finally quitted Whitehall, and on which an innumerable
multitude, tricked out in orange ribands, welcomed the common
deliverer to Saint James's. When the clergy of London came,
headed by Compton, to express their gratitude to him by whose
instrumentality God had wrought salvation for the Church and the
State, the procession was swollen by some eminent nonconformist
divines. It was delightful to many good men to learn that pious
and learned Presbyterian ministers had walked in the train of a
Bishop, had been greeted by him with fraternal kindness, and had
been announced by him in the presence chamber as his dear and
respected friends, separated from him indeed by some differences
of opinion on minor points, but united to him by Christian
charity and by common zeal for the essentials of the reformed
faith. There had never before been such a day in England; and
there has never since been such a day. The tide of feeling was
already on the turn; and the ebb was even more rapid than the
flow had been. In a very few hours the High Churchman began to
feel tenderness for the enemy whose tyranny was now no longer
feared, and dislike of the allies whose services were now no
longer needed. It was easy to gratify both feelings by imputing
to the dissenters the misgovernment of the exiled King. His
Majesty-such was now the language of too many Anglican divines-
would have been an excellent sovereign had he not been too
confiding, too forgiving. He had put his trust in a class of men
who hated his office, his family, his person, with implacable
hatred. He had ruined himself in the vain attempt to conciliate
them. He had relieved them, in defiance of law and of the
unanimous sense of the old royalist party, from the pressure of
the penal code; had allowed them to worship God publicly after
their own mean and tasteless fashion; had admitted them to the
bench of justice and to the Privy Council; had gratified them
with fur robes, gold chains, salaries, and pensions. In return
for his liberality, these people, once so uncouth in demeanour,
once so savage in opposition even to legitimate authority, had
become the most abject of flatterers. They had continued to
applaud and encourage him when the most devoted friends of his
family had retired in shame and sorrow from his palace. Who had
more foully sold the religion and liberty of his country than
Titus? Who had been more zealous for the dispensing power than
Alsop? Who had urged on the persecution of the seven Bishops more
fiercely than Lobb? What chaplain impatient for a deanery had
ever, even when preaching in the royal presence on the thirtieth
of January or the twenty-ninth of May, uttered adulation more
gross than might easily be found in those addresses by which
dissenting congregations had testified their gratitude for the
illegal Declaration of Indulgence? Was it strange that a prince
who had never studied law books should have believed that he was
only exercising his rightful prerogative, when he was thus
encouraged by a faction which had always ostentatiously professed
hatred of arbitrary power? Misled by such guidance, he had gone
further and further in the wrong path: he had at length estranged
from him hearts which would once have poured forth their best
blood in his defence: he had left himself no supporters except
his old foes; and, when the day of peril came, he had found that
the feeling of his old foes towards him was still what it had
been when they had attempted to rob him of his inheritance, and
when they had plotted against his life. Every man of sense had
long known that the sectaries bore no love to monarchy. It had
now been found that they bore as little love to freedom. To trust
them with power would be an error not less fatal to the nation
than to the throne. If, in order to redeem pledges somewhat
rashly given, it should be thought necessary to grant them
relief, every concession ought to be accompanied by limitations
and precautions. Above all, no man who was an enemy to the
ecclesiastical constitution of the realm ought to be permitted to
bear any part in the civil government.

Between the nonconformists and the rigid conformists stood the
Low Church party. That party contained, as it still contains, two
very different elements, a Puritan element and a Latitudinarian
element. On almost every question, however, relating either to
ecclesiastical polity or to the ceremonial of public worship, the
Puritan Low Churchman and the Latitudinarian Low Churchman were
perfectly agreed. They saw in the existing polity and in the
existing ceremonial no defect, no blemish, which could make it
their duty to become dissenters. Nevertheless they held that both
the polity and the ceremonial were means and not ends, and that
the essential spirit of Christianity might exist without
episcopal orders and without a Book of Common Prayer. They had,
while James was on the throne, been mainly instrumental in
forming the great Protestant coalition against Popery and
tyranny; and they continued in 1689 to hold the same conciliatory
language which they had held in 1688. They gently blamed the
scruples of the nonconformists. It was undoubtedly a great
weakness to imagine that there could be any sin in wearing a
white robe, in tracing a cross, in kneeling at the rails of an
altar. But the highest authority had given the plainest
directions as to the manner in which such weakness was to be
treated. The weak brother was not to be judged: he was not to be
despised: believers who had stronger minds were commanded to
soothe him by large compliances, and carefully to remove out of
his path every stumbling block which could cause him to offend.
An apostle had declared that, though he had himself no misgivings
about the use of animal food or of wine, he would eat herbs and
drink water rather than give scandal to the feeblest of his
flock. What would he have thought of ecclesiastical rulers who,
for the sake of a vestment, a gesture, a posture, had not only
torn the Church asunder, but had filled all the gaols of England
with men of orthodox faith and saintly life? The reflections
thrown by the High Churchmen on the recent conduct of the
dissenting body the Low Churchmen pronounced to be grossly
unjust. The wonder was, not that a few nonconformists should have
accepted with thanks an indulgence which, illegal as it was, had
opened the doors of their prisons and given security to their
hearths, but that the nonconformists generally should have been
true to the cause of a constitution from the benefits of which
they had been long excluded. It was most unfair to impute to a
great party the faults of a few individuals. Even among the
Bishops of the Established Church James had found tools and
sycophants. The conduct of Cartwright and Parker had been much
more inexcusable than that of Alsop and Lobb. Yet those who held
the dissenters answerable for the errors of Alsop and Lobb would
doubtless think it most unreasonable to hold the Church
answerable for the far deeper guilt of Cartwright and Parker.

The Low Church clergymen were a minority, and not a large
minority, of their profession: but their weight was much more
than proportioned to their numbers: for they mustered strong in
the capital: they had great influence there; and the average of
intellect and knowledge was higher among them than among their
order generally. We should probably overrate their numerical
strength, if we were to estimate them at a tenth part of the
priesthood. Yet it will scarcely be denied that there were among
them as many men of distinguished eloquence and learning as could
be found in the other nine tenths. Among the laity who conformed
to the established religion the parties were not unevenly
balanced. Indeed the line which separated them deviated very
little from the line which separated the Whigs and the Tories. In
the House of Commons, which had been elected when the Whigs were
triumphant, the Low Church party greatly preponderated. In the
Lords there was an almost exact equipoise; and very slight
circumstances sufficed to turn the scale.

The head of the Low Church party was the King. He had been bred a
Presbyterian: he was, from rational conviction, a Latitudinarian;
and personal ambition, as well as higher motives, prompted him to
act as mediator among Protestant sects. He was bent on effecting
three great reforms in the laws touching ecclesiastical matters.
His first object was to obtain for dissenters permission to
celebrate their worship in freedom and security. His second
object was to make such changes in the Anglican ritual and polity
as, without offending those to whom that ritual and polity were
dear, might conciliate the moderate nonconformists. His third
object was to throw open civil offices to Protestants without
distinction of sect. All his three objects were good; but the
first only was at that time attainable. He came too late for the
second, and too early for the third.

A few days after his accession, he took a step which indicated,
in a manner not to be mistaken, his sentiments touching
ecclesiastical polity and public worship. He found only one see
unprovided with a Bishop. Seth Ward, who had during many years
had charge of the diocese of Salisbury, and who had been
honourably distinguished as one of the founders of the Royal
Society, having long survived his faculties, died while the
country was agitated by the elections for the Convention, without
knowing that great events, of which not the least important had
passed under his own roof, had saved his Church and his country
from ruin. The choice of a successor was no light matter. That
choice would inevitably be considered by the country as a
prognostic of the highest import. The King too might well be
perplexed by the number of divines whose erudition, eloquence,
courage, and uprightness had been conspicuously displayed during
the contentions of the last three years. The preference was given
to Burnet. His claims were doubtless great. Yet William might
have had a more tranquil reign if he had postponed for a time the
well earned promotion of his chaplain, and had bestowed the first
great spiritual preferment, which, after the Revolution, fell to
the disposal of the Crown, on some eminent theologian, attached
to the new settlement, yet not generally hated by the clergy.
Unhappily the name of Burnet was odious to the great majority of
the Anglican priesthood. Though, as respected doctrine, he by no
means belonged to the extreme section of the Latitudinarian
party, he was popularly regarded as the personification of the
Latitudinarian spirit. This distinction he owed to the prominent
place which he held in literature and politics, to the readiness
of his tongue and of his pert, and above all to the frankness and
boldness of his nature, frankness which could keep no secret, and
boldness which flinched from no danger. He had formed but a low
estimate of the character of his clerical brethren considered as
a body; and, with his usual indiscretion, he frequently suffered
his opinion to escape him. They hated him in return with a hatred
which has descended to their successors, and which, after the
lapse of a century and a half, does not appear to languish.

As soon as the King's decision was known, the question was every
where asked, What will the Archbishop do? Sancroft had absented
himself from the Convention: he had refused to sit in the Privy
Council: he had ceased to confirm, to ordain, and to institute;
and he was seldom seen out of the walls of his palace at Lambeth.
He, on all occasions, professed to think himself still bound by
his old oath of allegiance. Burnet he regarded as a scandal to
the priesthood, a Presbyterian in a surplice. The prelate who
should lay hands on that unworthy head would commit more than one
great sin. He would, in a sacred place, and before a great
congregation of the faithful, at once acknowledge an usurper as a
King, and confer on a schismatic the character of a Bishop.
During some time Sancroft positively declared that he would not
obey the precept of William. Lloyd of Saint Asaph, who was the
common friend of the Archbishop and of the Bishop elect,
intreated and expostulated in vain. Nottingham, who, of all the
laymen connected with the new government, stood best with the
clergy, tried his influence, but to no better purpose. The
Jacobites said every where that they were sure of the good old
Primate; that he had the spirit of a martyr; that he was
determined to brave, in the cause of the Monarchy and of the
Church, the utmost rigour of those laws with which the obsequious
parliaments of the sixteenth century had fenced the Royal
Supremacy. He did in truth hold out long. But at the last moment
his heart failed him, and he looked round him for some mode of
escape. Fortunately, as childish scruples often disturbed his
conscience, childish expedients often quieted it. A more childish
expedient than that to which he now resorted is not to be found
in all the tones of the casuists. He would not himself bear a
part in the service. He would not publicly pray for the Prince
and Princess as King and Queen. He would not call for their
mandate, order it to be read, and then proceed to obey it. But he
issued a commission empowering any three of his suffragans to
commit, in his name, and as his delegates, the sins which he did
not choose to commit in person. The reproaches of all parties
soon made him ashamed of himself. He then tried to suppress the
evidence of his fault by means more discreditable than the fault
itself. He abstracted from among the public records of which he
was the guardian the instrument by which he had authorised his
brethren to act for him, and was with difficulty induced to give
it up.79

Burnet however had, under the authority of this instrument, been
consecrated. When he next waited on Mary, she reminded him of the
conversations which they had held at the Hague about the high
duties and grave responsibility of Bishops. "I hope," she said,
"that you will put your notions in practice." Her hope was not
disappointed. Whatever may be thought of Burnet's opinions
touching civil and ecclesiastical polity, or of the temper and
judgment which he showed in defending those opinions, the utmost
malevolence of faction could not venture to deny that he tended
his flock with a zeal, diligence, and disinterestedness worthy of
the purest ages of the Church. His jurisdiction extended over
Wiltshire and Berkshire. These counties he divided into districts
which he sedulously visited. About two months of every summer he
passed in preaching, catechizing, and confirming daily from
church to church. When he died there was no corner of his diocese
in which the people had not had seven or eight opportunities of
receiving his instructions and of asking his advice. The worst
weather, the worst roads, did not prevent him from discharging
these duties. On one occasion, when the floods were out, he
exposed his life to imminent risk rather than disappoint a rural
congregation which was in expectation of a discourse from the
Bishop. The poverty of the inferior clergy was a constant cause
of uneasiness to his kind and generous heart. He was
indefatigable and at length successful in his attempts to obtain
for them from the Crown that grant which is known by the name of
Queen Anne's Bounty.80 He was especially careful, when he travelled through
his diocese, to lay no burden on them. Instead of requiring them
to entertain him, he entertained them. He always fixed his
headquarters at a market town, kept a table there, and, by his
decent hospitality and munificent charities, tried to conciliate
those who were prejudiced against his doctrines. When he bestowed
a poor benefice, and he had many such to bestow, his practice was
to add out of his own purse twenty pounds a year to the income.
Ten promising young men, to each of whom he allowed thirty pounds
a year, studied divinity under his own eye in the close of
Salisbury. He had several children but he did not think himself
justified in hoarding for them. Their mother had brought him a
good fortune. With that fortune, he always said, they must be
content: He would not, for their sakes, be guilty of the crime of
raising an estate out of revenues sacred to piety and charity.
Such merits as these will, in the judgment of wise and candid
men, appear fully to atone for every offence which can be justly
imputed to him.81

When he took his seat in the House of Lords, he found that
assembly busied in ecclesiastical legislation. A statesman who
was well known to be devoted to the Church had undertaken to
plead the cause of the Dissenters. No subject in the realm
occupied so important and commanding a position with reference to
religious parties as Nottingham. To the influence derived from
rank, from wealth, and from office, he added the higher influence
which belongs to knowledge, to eloquence, and to integrity. The
orthodoxy of his creed, the regularity of his devotions, and the
purity of his morals gave a peculiar weight to his opinions on
questions in which the interests of Christianity were concerned.
Of all the ministers of the new Sovereigns, he had the largest
share of the confidence of the clergy. Shrewsbury was certainly a
Whig, and probably a freethinker: he had lost one religion; and
it did not very clearly appear that he had found another. Halifax
had been during many years accused of scepticism, deism, atheism.
Danby's attachment to episcopacy and the liturgy was rather
political than religious. But Nottingham was such a son as the
Church was proud to own. Propositions, therefore, which, if made
by his colleagues, would infallibly produce a violent panic among
the clergy, might, if made by him, find a favourable reception
even in universities and chapter houses. The friends of religious
liberty were with good reason desirous to obtain his cooperation;
and, up to a certain point, he was not unwilling to cooperate
with them. He was decidedly for a toleration. He was even for
what was then called a comprehension: that is to say, he was
desirous to make some alterations in the Anglican discipline and
ritual for the purpose of removing the scruples of the moderate
Presbyterians. But he was not prepared to give up the Test Act.
The only fault which he found with that Act was that it was not
sufficiently stringent, and that it left loopholes through which
schismatics sometimes crept into civil employments. In truth it
was because he was not disposed to part with the Test that he was
willing to consent to some changes in the Liturgy. He conceived
that, if the entrance of the Church were but a very little
widened, great numbers who had hitherto lingered near the
threshold would press in. Those who still remained without would
then not be sufficiently numerous or powerful to extort any
further concession, and would be glad to compound for a bare
toleration.82

The opinion of the Low Churchmen concerning the Test Act differed
widely from his. But many of them thought that it was of the
highest importance to have his support on the great questions of
Toleration and Comprehension. From the scattered fragments of
information which have come down to us, it appears that a
compromise was made. It is quite certain that Nottingham
undertook to bring in a Toleration Bill and a Comprehension Bill,
and to use his best endeavours to carry both bills through the
House of Lords. It is highly probable that, in return for this
great service, some of the leading Whigs consented to let the
Test Act remain for the present unaltered.

There was no difficulty in framing either the Toleration Bill or
the Comprehension Bill. The situation of the dissenters had been
much discussed nine or ten years before, when the kingdom was
distracted by the fear of a Popish plot, and when there was among
Protestants a general disposition to unite against the common
enemy. The government had then been willing to make large
concessions to the Whig party, on condition that the crown should
be suffered to descend according to the regular course. A draught
of a law authorising the public worship of the nonconformists,
and a draught of a law making some alterations in the public
worship of the Established Church, had been prepared, and would
probably have been passed by both Houses without difficulty, had
not Shaftesbury and his coadjutors refused to listen to any
terms, and, by grasping at what was beyond their reach, missed
advantages which might easily have been secured. In the framing
of these draughts, Nottingham, then an active member of the House
of Commons, had borne a considerable part. He now brought them
forth from the obscurity in which they had remained since the
dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and laid them, with some
slight alterations, on the table of the Lords.83

The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. This
celebrated statute, long considered as the Great Charter of
religious liberty, has since been extensively modified, and is
hardly known to the present generation except by name. The name,
however, is still pronounced with respect by many who will
perhaps learn with surprise and disappointment the real nature of
the law which they have been accustomed to hold in honour.

Several statutes which had been passed between the accession of
Queen Elizabeth and the Revolution required all people under
severe penalties to attend the services of the Church of England,
and to abstain from attending conventicles. The Toleration Act
did not repeal any of these statutes, but merely provided that
they should not be construed to extend to any person who should
testify his loyalty by taking the Oaths of Allegiance and
Supremacy, and his Protestantism by subscribing the Declaration
against Transubstantiation.

The relief thus granted was common between the dissenting laity
and the dissenting clergy. But the dissenting clergy had some
peculiar grievances. The Act of Uniformity had laid a mulct of a
hundred pounds on every person who, not having received episcopal
ordination, should presume to administer the Eucharist. The Five
Mile Act had driven many pious and learned ministers from their
houses and their friends, to live among rustics in obscure
villages of which the name was not to be seen on the map. The
Conventicle Act had imposed heavy fines on divines who should
preach in any meeting of separatists; and, in direct opposition
to the humane spirit of our common law, the Courts were enjoined
to construe this Act largely and beneficially for the suppressing
of dissent and for the encouraging of informers. These severe
statutes were not repealed, but were, with many conditions and
precautions, relaxed. It was provided that every dissenting
minister should, before he exercised his function, profess under
his hand his belief in the articles of the Church of England,
with a few exceptions. The propositions to which he was not
required to assent were these; that the Church has power to
regulate ceremonies; that the doctrines set forth in the Book of
Homilies are sound; and that there is nothing superstitious and
idolatrous in the ordination service. If he declared himself a
Baptist, he was also excused from affirming that the baptism of
infants is a laudable practice. But, unless his conscience
suffered him to subscribe thirty-four of the thirty-nine
articles, and the greater part of two other articles, he could
not preach without incurring all the punishments which the
Cavaliers, in the day of their power and their vengeance, had
devised for the tormenting and ruining of schismatical teachers.

The situation of the Quaker differed from that of other
dissenters, and differed for the worse. The Presbyterian, the
Independent, and the Baptist had no scruple about the Oath of
Supremacy. But the Quaker refused to take it, not because he
objected to the proposition that foreign sovereigns and prelates
have no jurisdiction in England, but because his conscience would
not suffer him to swear to any proposition whatever. He was
therefore exposed to the severity of part of that penal code
which, long before Quakerism existed, had been enacted against
Roman Catholics by the Parliaments of Elizabeth. Soon after the
Restoration, a severe law, distinct from the general law which
applied to all conventicles, had been passed against meetings of
Quakers. The Toleration Act permitted the members of this
harmless sect to hold their assemblies in peace, on condition of
signing three documents, a declaration against
Transubstantiation, a promise of fidelity to the government, and
a confession of Christian belief. The objections which the Quaker
had to the Athanasian phraseology had brought on him the
imputation of Socinianism; and the strong language in which he
sometimes asserted that he derived his knowledge of spiritual
things directly from above had raised a suspicion that he thought
lightly of the authority of Scripture. He was therefore required
to profess his faith in the divinity of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost, and in the inspiration of the Old and New Testaments.

Such were the terms on which the Protestant dissenters of England
were, for the first time, permitted by law to worship God
according to their own conscience. They were very properly
forbidden to assemble with barred doors, but were protected
against hostile intrusion by a clause which made it penal to
enter a meeting house for the purpose of molesting the
congregation.

As if the numerous limitations and precautions which have been
mentioned were insufficient, it was emphatically declared that
the legislature did not intend to grant the smallest indulgence
to any Papist, or to any person who denied the doctrine of the
Trinity as that doctrine is set forth in the formularies of the
Church of England.

Of all the Acts that have ever been passed by Parliament, the
Toleration Act is perhaps that which most strikingly illustrates
the peculiar vices and the peculiar excellences of English
legislation. The science of Politics bears in one respect a close
analogy to the science of Mechanics. The mathematician can easily
demonstrate that a certain power, applied by means of a certain
lever or of a certain system of pulleys, will suffice to raise a
certain weight. But his demonstration proceeds on the supposition
that the machinery is such as no load will bend or break. If the
engineer, who has to lift a great mass of real granite by the
instrumentality of real timber and real hemp, should absolutely
rely on the propositions which he finds in treatises on Dynamics,
and should make no allowance for the imperfection of his
materials, his whole apparatus of beams, wheels, and ropes would
soon come down in ruin, and, with all his geometrical skill, he
would be found a far inferior builder to those painted barbarians
who, though they never heard of the parallelogram of forces,
managed to pile up Stonehenge. What the engineer is to the
mathematician, the active statesman is to the contemplative
statesman. It is indeed most important that legislators and
administrators should be versed in the philosophy of government,
as it is most important that the architect, who has to fix an
obelisk on its pedestal, or to hang a tubular bridge over an
estuary, should be versed in the philosophy of equilibrium and
motion. But, as he who has actually to build must bear in mind
many things never noticed by D'Alembert and Euler, so must he who
has actually to govern be perpetually guided by considerations to
which no allusion can be found in the writings of Adam Smith or
Jeremy Bentham. The perfect lawgiver is a just temper between the
mere man of theory, who can see nothing but general principles,
and the mere man of business, who can see nothing but particular
circumstances. Of lawgivers in whom the speculative element has
prevailed to the exclusion of the practical, the world has during
the last eighty years been singularly fruitful. To their wisdom
Europe and America have owed scores of abortive constitutions,
scores of constitutions which have lived just long enough to make
a miserable noise, and have then gone off in convulsions. But in
the English legislature the practical element has always
predominated, and not seldom unduly predominated, over the
speculative. To think nothing of symmetry and much of
convenience; never to remove an anomaly merely because it is an
anomaly; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt;
never to innovate except so far as to get rid of the grievance;
never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the
particular case for which it is necessary to provide; these are
the rules which have, from the age of John to the age of
Victoria, generally guided the deliberations of our two hundred
and fifty Parliaments. Our national distaste for whatever is
abstract in political science amounts undoubtedly to a fault. But
it is, perhaps, a fault on the right side. That we have been far
too slow to improve our laws must be admitted. But, though in
other countries there may have occasionally been more rapid
progress, it would not be easy to name any other country in which
there has been so little retrogression.

The Toleration Act approaches very near to the idea of a great
English law. To a jurist, versed in the theory of legislation,
but not intimately acquainted with the temper of the sects and
parties into which the nation was divided at the time of the
Revolution, that Act would seem to be a mere chaos of absurdities
and contradictions. It will not bear to be tried by sound general
principles. Nay, it will not bear to be tried by any principle,
sound or unsound. The sound principle undoubtedly is, that mere
theological error ought not to be punished by the civil
magistrate. This principle the Toleration Act not only does not
recognise, but positively disclaims. Not a single one of the
cruel laws enacted against nonconformists by the Tudors or the
Stuarts is repealed. Persecution continues to be the general
rule. Toleration is the exception. Nor is this all. The freedom
which is given to conscience is given in the most capricious
manner. A Quaker, by making a declaration of faith in general
terms, obtains the full benefit of the Act without signing one of
the thirty-nine Articles. An Independent minister, who is
perfectly willing to make the declaration required from the
Quaker, but who has doubts about six or seven of the Articles,
remains still subject to the penal laws. Howe is liable to
punishment if he preaches before he has solemnly declared his
assent to the Anglican doctrine touching the Eucharist. Penn, who
altogether rejects the Eucharist, is at perfect liberty to preach
without making any declaration whatever on the subject.

These are some of the obvious faults which must strike every
person who examines the Toleration Act by that standard of just
reason which is the same in all countries and in all ages. But
these very faults may perhaps appear to be merits, when we take
into consideration the passions and prejudices of those for whom
the Toleration Act was framed. This law, abounding with
contradictions which every smatterer in political philosophy can
detect, did what a law framed by the utmost skill of the greatest
masters of political philosophy might have failed to do. That the
provisions which have been recapitulated are cumbrous, puerile,
inconsistent with each other, inconsistent with the true theory
of religious liberty, must be acknowledged. All that can be said
in their defence is this; that they removed a vast mass of evil
without shocking a vast mass of prejudice; that they put an end,
at once and for ever, without one division in either House of
Parliament, without one riot in the streets, with scarcely one
audible murmur even from the classes most deeply tainted with
bigotry, to a persecution which had raged during four
generations, which had broken innumerable hearts, which had made
innumerable firesides desolate, which had filled the prisons with
men of whom the world was not worthy, which had driven thousands
of those honest, diligent and godfearing yeomen and artisans, who
are the true strength of a nation, to seek a refuge beyond the
ocean among the wigwams of red Indians and the lairs of panthers.
Such a defence, however weak it may appear to some shallow
speculators, will probably be thought complete by statesmen.

The English, in 1689, were by no means disposed to admit the
doctrine that religious error ought to be left unpunished. That
doctrine was just then more unpopular than it had ever been. For
it had, only a few months before, been hypocritically put forward
as a pretext for persecuting the Established Church, for
trampling on the fundamental laws of the realm, for confiscating
freeholds, for treating as a crime the modest exercise of the
right of petition. If a bill had then been drawn up granting
entire freedom of conscience to all Protestants, it may be
confidently affirmed that Nottingham would never have introduced
such a bill; that all the bishops, Burnet included, would have
voted against it; that it would have been denounced, Sunday after
Sunday, from ten thousand pulpits, as an insult to God and to all
Christian men, and as a license to the worst heretics and
blasphemers; that it would have been condemned almost as
vehemently by Bates and Baxter as by Ken and Sherlock; that it
would have been burned by the mob in half the market places of
England; that it would never have become the law of the land, and
that it would have made the very name of toleration odious during
many years to the majority of the people. And yet, if such a bill
had been passed, what would it have effected beyond what was
effected by the Toleration Act?

It is true that the Toleration Act recognised persecution as the
rule, and granted liberty of conscience only as the exception.
But it is equally true that the rule remained in force only
against a few hundreds of Protestant dissenters, and that the
benefit of the exceptions extended to hundreds of thousands.

It is true that it was in theory absurd to make Howe sign thirty-
four or thirty-five of the Anglican articles before he could
preach, and to let Penn preach without signing one of those
articles. But it is equally true that, under this arrangement,
both Howe and Penn got as entire liberty to preach as they could
have had under the most philosophical code that Beccaria or
Jefferson could have framed.

The progress of the bill was easy. Only one amendment of grave
importance was proposed. Some zealous churchmen in the Commons
suggested that it might be desirable to grant the toleration only
for a term of seven years, and thus to bind over the
nonconformists to good behaviour. But this suggestion was so
unfavourably received that those who made it did not venture to
divide the House.84

The King gave his consent with hearty satisfaction: the bill
became law; and the Puritan divines thronged to the Quarter
Sessions of every county to swear and sign. Many of them probably
professed their assent to the Articles with some tacit
reservations. But the tender conscience of Baxter would not
suffer him to qualify, till he had put on record an explanation
of the sense in which he understood every proposition which
seemed to him to admit of misconstruction. The instrument
delivered by him to the Court before which he took the oaths is
still extant, and contains two passages of peculiar interest. He
declared that his approbation of the Athanasian Creed was
confined to that part which was properly a Creed, and that he did
not mean to express any assent to the damnatory clauses. He also
declared that he did not, by signing the article which
anathematizes all who maintain that there is any other salvation
than through Christ, mean to condemn those who entertain a hope
that sincere and virtuous unbelievers may be admitted to partake
in the benefits of Redemption. Many of the dissenting clergy of
London expressed their concurrence in these charitable
sentiments.85

The history of the Comprehension Bill presents a remarkable
contrast to the history of the Toleration Bill. The two bills had
a common origin, and, to a great extent, a common object. They
were framed at the same time, and laid aside at the same time:
they sank together into oblivion; and they were, after the lapse
of several years, again brought together before the world. Both
were laid by the same peer on the table of the Upper House; and
both were referred to the same select committee. But it soon
began to appear that they would have widely different fates. The
Comprehension Bill was indeed a neater specimen of legislative
workmanship than the Toleration Bill, but was not, like the
Toleration Bill, adapted to the wants, the feelings, and the
prejudices of the existing generation. Accordingly, while the
Toleration Bill found support in all quarters, the Comprehension
Bill was attacked from all quarters, and was at last coldly and
languidly defended even by those who had introduced it. About the
same time at which the Toleration bill became law with the
general concurrence of public men, the Comprehension Bill was,
with a concurrence not less general, suffered to drop. The
Toleration Bill still ranks among those great statutes which are
epochs in our constitutional history. The Comprehension Bill is
forgotten. No collector of antiquities has thought it worth
preserving. A single copy, the same which Nottingham presented to
the peers, is still among our parliamentary records, but has been
seen by only two or three persons now living. It is a fortunate
circumstance that, in this copy, almost the whole history of the
Bill can be read. In spite of cancellations and interlineations,
the original words can easily be distinguished from those which
were inserted in the committee or on the report.86

The first clause, as it stood when the bill was introduced,
dispensed all the ministers of the Established Church from the
necessity of subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles. For the
Articles was substituted a Declaration which ran thus; "I do
approve of the doctrine and worship and government of the Church
of England by law established, as containing all things necessary
to salvation; and I promise, in the exercise of my ministry, to
preach and practice according thereunto." Another clause granted
similar indulgence to the members of the two universities.

Then it was provided that any minister who had been ordained
after the Presbyterian fashion might, without reordination,
acquire all the privileges of a priest of the Established Church.
He must, however, be admitted to his new functions by the
imposition of the hands of a bishop, who was to pronounce the
following form of words; "Take thou authority to preach the word
of God, and administer the sacraments, and to perform all other
ministerial offices in the Church of England." The person thus
admitted was to be capable of holding any rectory or vicarage in
the kingdom.

Then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might, except in
a few churches of peculiar dignity, wear the surplice or not as
he thought fit, that the sign of the cross might be omitted in
baptism, that children might be christened, if such were the wish
of their parents, without godfathers or godmothers, and that
persons who had a scruple about receiving the Eucharist kneeling
might receive it sitting.

The concluding clause was drawn in the form of a petition. It was
proposed that the two Houses should request the King and Queen to
issue a commission empowering thirty divines of the Established
Church to revise the liturgy, the canons, and the constitution of
the ecclesiastical courts, and to recommend such alterations as
might on inquiry appear to be desirable.

The bill went smoothly through the first stages. Compton, who,
since Sancroft had shut himself up at Lambeth, was virtually
Primate, supported Nottingham with ardour.87 In the committee,
however, it appeared that there was a strong body of churchmen,
who were determined not to give up a single word or form; to whom
it seemed that the prayers were no prayers without the surplice,
the babe no Christian if not marked with the cross, the bread and
wine no memorials of redemption or vehicles of grace if not
received on bended knee. Why, these persons asked, was the docile
and affectionate son of the Church to be disgusted by seeing the
irreverent practices of a conventicle introduced into her
majestic choirs? Why should his feelings, his prejudices, if
prejudices they were, be less considered than the whims of
schismatics? If, as Burnet and men like Burnet were never weary
of repeating, indulgence was due to a weak brother, was it less
due to the brother whose weakness consisted in the excess of his
love for an ancient, a decent, a beautiful ritual, associated in
his imagination from childhood with all that is most sublime and
endearing, than to him whose morose and litigious mind was always
devising frivolous objections to innocent and salutary usages?
But, in truth, the scrupulosity of the Puritan was not that sort
of scrupulosity which the Apostle had commanded believers to
respect. It sprang, not from morbid tenderness of conscience, but
from censoriousness and spiritual pride; and none who had studied
the New Testament could have failed to observe that, while we are
charged carefully to avoid whatever may give scandal to the
feeble, we are taught by divine precept and example to make no
concession to the supercilious and uncharitable Pharisee. Was
every thing which was not of the essence of religion to be given
up as soon as it became unpleasing to a knot of zealots whose
heads had been turned by conceit and the love of novelty? Painted
glass, music, holidays, fast days, were not of the essence of
religion. Were the windows of King's College Chapel to be broken
at the demand of one set of fanatics? Was the organ of Exeter to
be silenced to please another? Were all the village bells to be
mute because Tribulation Wholesome and Deacon Ananias thought
them profane? Was Christmas no longer to be a day of rejoicing?
Was Passion week no longer to be a season of humiliation? These
changes, it is true, were not yet proposed. Put if,--so the High
Churchmen reasoned,--we once admit that what is harmless and
edifying is to be given up because it offends some narrow
understandings and some gloomy tempers, where are we to stop? And
is it not probable that, by thus attempting to heal one schism,
we may cause another? All those things which the Puritans regard
as the blemishes of the Church are by a large part of the
population reckoned among her attractions. May she not, in
ceasing to give scandal to a few sour precisians, cease also to
influence the hearts of many who now delight in her ordinances?
Is it not to be apprehended that, for every proselyte whom she
allures from the meeting house, ten of her old disciples may turn
away from her maimed rites and dismantled temples, and that these
new separatists may either form themselves into a sect far more
formidable than the sect which we are now seeking to conciliate,
or may, in the violence of their disgust at a cold and ignoble
worship, be tempted to join in the solemn and gorgeous idolatry
of Rome?

It is remarkable that those who held this language were by no
means disposed to contend for the doctrinal Articles of the
Church. The truth is that, from the time of James the First, that
great party which has been peculiarly zealous for the Anglican
polity and the Anglican ritual has always leaned strongly towards
Arminianism, and has therefore never been much attached to a
confession of faith framed by reformers who, on questions of
metaphysical divinity, generally agreed with Calvin. One of the
characteristic marks of that party is the disposition which it
has always shown to appeal, on points of dogmatic theology,
rather to the Liturgy, which was derived from Rome, than to the
Articles and Homilies, which were derived from Geneva. The
Calvinistic members of the Church, on the other hand, have always
maintained that her deliberate judgment on such points is much
more likely to be found in an Article or a Homily than in an
ejaculation of penitence or a hymn of thanksgiving. It does not
appear that, in the debates on the Comprehension Bill, a single
High Churchman raised his voice against the clause which relieved
the clergy from the necessity of subscribing the Articles, and of
declaring the doctrine contained in the Homilies to be sound.
Nay, the Declaration which, in the original draught, was
substituted for the Articles, was much softened down on the
report. As the clause finally stood, the ministers of the Church
were required to declare, not that they approved of her
constitution, but merely that they submitted to it. Had the bill
become law, the only people in the kingdom who would have been
under the necessity of signing the Articles would have been the
dissenting preachers.88

The easy manner in which the zealous friends of the Church gave
up her confession of faith presents a striking contrast to the
spirit with which they struggled for her polity and her ritual.
The clause which admitted Presbyterian ministers to hold
benefices without episcopal ordination was rejected. The clause
which permitted scrupulous persons to communicate sitting very
narrowly escaped the same fate. In the Committee it was struck
out, and, on the report, was with great difficulty restored. The
majority of peers in the House was against the proposed
indulgence, and the scale was but just turned by the proxies.

But by this time it began to appear that the bill which the High
Churchmen were so keenly assailing was menaced by dangers from a
very different quarter. The same considerations which had induced
Nottingham to support a comprehension made comprehension an
object of dread and aversion to a large body of dissenters. The
truth is that the time for such a scheme had gone by. If, a
hundred years earlier, when the division in the Protestant body
was recent, Elizabeth had been so wise as to abstain from
requiring the observance of a few forms which a large part of her
subjects considered as Popish, she might perhaps have averted
those fearful calamities which, forty years after her death,
afflicted the Church. But the general tendency of schism is to
widen. Had Leo the Tenth, when the exactions and impostures of
the Pardoners first roused the indignation of Saxony, corrected
those evil practices with a vigorous hand, it is not improbable
that Luther would have died in the bosom of the Church of Rome.
But the opportunity was suffered to escape; and, when, a few
years later, the Vatican would gladly have purchased peace by
yielding the original subject of quarrel, the original subject of
quarrel was almost forgotten. The inquiring spirit which had been
roused by a single abuse had discovered or imagined a thousand:
controversies engendered controversies: every attempt that was
made to accommodate one dispute ended by producing another; and
at length a General Council, which, during the earlier stages of
the distemper, had been supposed to be an infallible remedy, made
the case utterly hopeless. In this respect, as in many others,
the history of Puritanism in England bears a close analogy to the
history of Protestantism in Europe. The Parliament of 1689 could
no more put an end to nonconformity by tolerating a garb or a
posture than the Doctors of Trent could have reconciled the
Teutonic nations to the Papacy by regulating the sale of
indulgences. In the sixteenth century Quakerism was unknown; and
there was not in the whole realm a single congregation of
Independents or Baptists. At the time of the Revolution, the
Independents, Baptists, and Quakers were a majority of the
dissenting body; and these sects could not be gained over on any
terms which the lowest of Low Churchmen would have been willing
to offer. The Independent held that a national Church, governed
by any central authority whatever, Pope, Patriarch, King, Bishop,
or Synod, was an unscriptural institution, and that every
congregation of believers was, under Christ, a sovereign society.
The Baptist was even more irreclaimable than the Independent, and
the Quaker even more irreclaimable than the Baptist. Concessions,
therefore, which would once have extinguished nonconformity would
not now satisfy even one half of the nonconformists; and it was
the obvious interest of every nonconformist whom no concession
would satisfy that none of his brethren should be satisfied. The
more liberal the terms of comprehension, the greater was the
alarm of every separatist who knew that he could, in no case, be
comprehended. There was but slender hope that the dissenters,
unbroken and acting as one man, would be able to obtain from the
legislature full admission to civil privileges; and all hope of
obtaining such admission must be relinquished if Nottingham
should, by the help of some wellmeaning but shortsighted friends
of religious liberty, be enabled to accomplish his design. If his
bill passed, there would doubtless be a considerable defection
from the dissenting body; and every defection must be severely
felt by a class already outnumbered, depressed, and struggling
against powerful enemies. Every proselyte too must be reckoned
twice over, as a loss to the party which was even now too weak,
and as a gain to the party which was even now too strong. The
Church was but too well able to hold her own against all the
sects in the kingdom; and, if those sects were to be thinned by a
large desertion, and the Church strengthened by a large
reinforcement, it was plain that all chance of obtaining any
relaxation of the Test Act would be at an end; and it was but too
probable that the Toleration Act might not long remain
unrepealed.

Even those Presbyterian ministers whose scruples the
Comprehension Bill was expressly intended to remove were by no
means unanimous in wishing it to pass. The ablest and most
eloquent preachers among them had, since the Declaration of
Indulgence had appeared, been very agreeably settled in the
capital and in other large towns, and were now about to enjoy,
under the sure guarantee of an Act of Parliament, that toleration
which, under the Declaration of Indulgence, had been illicit and
precarious. The situation of these men was such as the great
majority of the divines of the Established Church might well
envy. Few indeed of the parochial clergy were so abundantly
supplied with comforts as the favourite orator of a great
assembly of nonconformists in the City. The voluntary
contributions of his wealthy hearers, Aldermen and Deputies, West
India merchants and Turkey merchants, Wardens of the Company of
Fishmongers and Wardens of the Company of Goldsmiths, enabled him
to become a landowner or a mortgagee. The best broadcloth from
Blackwell Hall, and the best poultry from Leadenhall Market, were
frequently left at his door. His influence over his flock was
immense. Scarcely any member of a congregation of separatists
entered into a partnership, married a daughter, put a son out as
apprentice, or gave his vote at an election, without consulting
his spiritual guide. On all political and literary questions the
minister was the oracle of his own circle. It was popularly
remarked, during many years, that an eminent dissenting minister
had only to make his son an attorney or a physician; that the
attorney was sure to have clients, and the physician to have
patients. While a waiting woman was generally considered as a
help meet for a chaplain in holy orders of the Established
Church, the widows and daughters of opulent citizens were
supposed to belong in a peculiar manner to nonconformist pastors.
One of the great Presbyterian Rabbies, therefore, might well
doubt whether, in a worldly view, he should be benefited by a
comprehension. He might indeed hold a rectory or a vicarage, when
he could get one. But in the meantime he would be destitute: his
meeting house would be closed: his congregation would be
dispersed among the parish churches: if a benefice were bestowed
on him, it would probably be a very slender compensation for the
income which he had lost. Nor could he hope to have, as a
minister of the Anglican Church, the authority and dignity which
he had hitherto enjoyed. He would always, by a large portion of
the members of that Church, be regarded as a deserter. He might
therefore, on the whole, very naturally wish to be left where he
was.89

There was consequently a division in the Whig party. One section
of that party was for relieving the dissenters from the Test Act,
and giving up the Comprehension Bill. Another section was for
pushing forward the Comprehension Bill, and postponing to a more
convenient time the consideration of the Test Act. The effect of
this division among the friends of religious liberty was that the
High Churchmen, though a minority in the House of Commons, and
not a majority in the House of Lords, were able to oppose with
success both the reforms which they dreaded. The Comprehension
Bill was not passed; and the Test Act was not repealed.

Just at the moment when the question of the Test and the question
of the Comprehension became complicated together in a manner
which might well perplex an enlightened and honest politician,
both questions became complicated with a third question of grave
importance.

The ancient oaths of allegiance and supremacy contained some
expressions which had always been disliked by the Whigs, and
other expressions which Tories, honestly attached to the new
settlement, thought inapplicable to princes who had not the
hereditary right. The Convention had therefore, while the throne
was still vacant, framed those oaths of allegiance and supremacy
by which we still testify our loyalty to our Sovereign. By the
Act which turned the Convention into a Parliament, the members of
both Houses were required to take the new oaths. As to other
persons in public trust, it was hard to say how the law stood.
One form of words was enjoined by statutes, regularly passed, and
not yet regularly abrogated. A different form was enjoined by the
Declaration of Right, an instrument which was indeed
revolutionary and irregular, but which might well be thought
equal in authority to any statute. The practice was in as much
confusion as the law. It was therefore felt to be necessary that
the legislature should, without delay, pass an Act abolishing the
old oaths, and determining when and by whom the new oaths should
be taken.

The bill which settled this important question originated in the
Upper House. As to most of the provisions there was little room
for dispute. It was unanimously agreed that no person should, at
any future time, be admitted to any office, civil, military,
ecclesiastical, or academical, without taking the oaths to
William and Mary. It was also unanimously agreed that every
person who already held any civil or military office should be
ejected from it, unless he took the oaths on or before the first
of August 1689. But the strongest passions of both parties were
excited by the question whether persons who already possessed
ecclesiastical or academical offices should be required to swear
fealty to the King and Queen on pain of deprivation. None could
say what might be the effect of a law enjoining all the members
of a great, a powerful, a sacred profession to make, under the
most solemn sanction of religion, a declaration which might be
plausibly represented as a formal recantation of all that they
had been writing and preaching during many years. The Primate and
some of the most eminent Bishops had already absented themselves
from Parliament, and would doubtless relinquish their palaces and
revenues, rather than acknowledge the new Sovereigns. The example
of these great prelates might perhaps be followed by a multitude
of divines of humbler rank, by hundreds of canons, prebendaries,
and fellows of colleges, by thousands of parish priests. To such
an event no Tory, however clear his own conviction that he might
lawfully swear allegiance to the King who was in possession,
could look forward without the most painful emotions of
compassion for the sufferers and of anxiety for the Church.

There were some persons who went so far as to deny that the
Parliament was competent to pass a law requiring a Bishop to
swear on pain of deprivation. No earthly power, they said, could
break the tie which bound the successor of the apostles to his
diocese. What God had joined no man could sunder. Dings and
senates might scrawl words on parchment or impress figures on
wax; but those words and figures could no more change the course
of the spiritual than the course of the physical world. As the
Author of the universe had appointed a certain order, according
to which it was His pleasure to send winter and summer, seedtime
and harvest, so He had appointed a certain order, according to
which He communicated His grace to His Catholic Church; and the
latter order was, like the former, independent of the powers and
principalities of the world. A legislature might alter the flames
of the months, might call June December, and December June; but,
in spite of the legislature, the snow would fall when the sun was
in Capricorn, and the flowers would bloom when he was in Cancer.
And so the legislature might enact that Ferguson or Muggleton
should live in the palace at Lambeth, should sit on the throne of
Augustin, should be called Your Grace, and should walk in
processions before the Premier Duke; but, in spite of the
legislature, Sancroft would, while Sancroft lived, be the only
true Archbishop of Canterbury; and the person who should presume
to usurp the archiepiscopal functions would be a schismatic. This
doctrine was proved by reasons drawn from the budding of Aaron's
rod, and from a certain plate which Saint James the Less,
according to a legend of the fourth century, used to wear on his
forehead. A Greek manuscript, relating to the deprivation of
bishops, was discovered, about this time, in the Bodleian
Library, and became the subject of a furious controversy. One
party held that God had wonderfully brought this precious volume
to light, for the guidance of His Church at a most critical
moment. The other party wondered that any importance could be
attached to the nonsense of a nameless scribbler of the
thirteenth century. Much was written about the deprivations of
Chrysostom and Photius, of Nicolaus Mysticus and Cosmas Atticus.
But the case of Abiathar, whom Solomon put out of the sacerdotal
office for treason, was discussed with peculiar eagerness. No
small quantity of learning and ingenuity was expended in the
attempt to prove that Abiathar, though he wore the ephod and
answered by Urim, was not really High Priest, that he ministered
only when his superior Zadoc was incapacitated by sickness or by
some ceremonial pollution, and that therefore the act of Solomon
was not a precedent which would warrant King William in deposing
a real Bishop.90

But such reasoning as this, though backed by copious citations
from the Misna and Maimonides, was not generally satisfactory
even to zealous churchmen. For it admitted of one answer, short,
but perfectly intelligible to a plain man who knew nothing about
Greek fathers or Levitical genealogies. There might be some doubt
whether King Solomon had ejected a high priest; but there could
be no doubt at all that Queen Elizabeth had ejected the Bishops
of more than half the sees in England. It was notorious that
fourteen prelates had, without any proceeding in any spiritual
court, been deprived by Act of Parliament for refusing to
acknowledge her supremacy. Had that deprivation been null? Had
Bonner continued to be, to the end of his life, the only true
Bishop of London? Had his successor been an usurper? Had Parker
and Jewel been schismatics? Had the Convocation of 1562, that
Convocation which had finally settled the doctrine of the Church
of England, been itself out of the pale of the Church of Christ?
Nothing could be more ludicrous than the distress of those
controversialists who had to invent a plea for Elizabeth which
should not be also a plea for William. Some zealots, indeed, gave
up the vain attempt to distingush between two cases which every
man of common sense perceived to be undistinguishable, and
frankly owned that the deprivations of 1559 could not be
justified. But no person, it was said, ought to be troubled in
mind on that account; for, though the Church of England might
once have been schismatical, she had become Catholic when the
Bishops deprived by Elizabeth had ceased to live.91 The Tories,
however, were not generally disposed to admit that the religious
society to which they were fondly attached had originated in an
unlawful breach of unity. They therefore took ground lower and
more tenable. They argued the question as a question of humanity
and of expediency. They spoke much of the debt of gratitude which
the nation owed to the priesthood; of the courage and fidelity
with which the order, from the primate down to the youngest
deacon, had recently defended the civil and ecclesiastical
constitution of the realm; of the memorable Sunday when, in all
the hundred churches of the capital, scarcely one slave could be
found to read the Declaration of Indulgence; of the Black Friday
when, amidst the blessings and the loud weeping of a mighty
population, the barge of the seven prelates passed through the
watergate of the Tower. The firmness with which the clergy had
lately, in defiance of menace and of seduction, done what they
conscientiously believed to be right, had saved the liberty and
religion of England. Was no indulgence to be granted to them if
they now refused to do what they conscientiously apprehended to
be wrong? And where, it was said, is the danger of treating them
with tenderness? Nobody is so absurd as to propose that they
shall be permitted to plot against the Government, or to stir up
the multitude to insurrection. They are amenable to the law, like
other men. If they are guilty of treason, let them be hanged. If
they are guilty of sedition, let them be fined and imprisoned. If
they omit, in their public ministrations, to pray for King
William, for Queen Mary, and for the Parliament assembled under
those most religious sovereigns, let the penal clauses of the Act
of Uniformity be put in force. If this be not enough, let his
Majesty be empowered to tender the oaths to any clergyman; and,
if the oaths so tendered are refused, let deprivation follow. In
this way any nonjuring bishop or rector who may be suspected,
though he cannot be legally convicted, of intriguing, of writing,
of talking, against the present settlement, may be at once
removed from his office. But why insist on ejecting a pious and
laborious minister of religion, who never lifts a finger or
utters a word against the government, and who, as often as he
performs morning and evening service, prays from his heart for a
blessing on the rulers set over him by Providence, but who will
not take an oath which seems to him to imply a right in the
people to depose a sovereign? Surely we do all that is necessary
if we leave men of this sort to the mercy of the very prince to
whom they refuse to swear fidelity. If he is willing to bear with
their scrupulosity, if he considers them, notwithstanding their
prejudices, as innocent and useful members of society, who else
can be entitled to complain?

The Whigs were vehement on the other side. They scrutinised, with
ingenuity sharpened by hatred, the claims of the clergy to the
public gratitude, and sometimes went so far as altogether to deny
that the order had in the preceding year deserved well of the
nation. It was true that bishops and priests had stood up against
the tyranny of the late King: but it was equally true that, but
for the obstinacy with which they had opposed the Exclusion Bill,
he never would have been King, and that, but for their adulation
and their doctrine of passive obedience, he would never have
ventured to be guilty of such tyranny. Their chief business,
during a quarter of a century, had been to teach the people to
cringe and the prince to domineer. They were guilty of the blood
of Russell, of Sidney, of every brave and honest Englishman who
had been put to death for attempting to save the realm from
Popery and despotism. Never had they breathed a whisper against
arbitrary power till arbitrary power began to menace their own
property and dignity. Then, no doubt, forgetting all their old
commonplaces about submitting to Nero, they had made haste to
save themselves. Grant,--such was the cry of these eager
disputants,--grant that, in saving themselves, they saved the
constitution. Are we therefore to forget that they had previously
endangered it? And are we to reward them by now permitting them
to destroy it? Here is a class of men closely connected with the
state. A large part of the produce of the soil has been assigned
to them for their maintenance. Their chiefs have seats in the
legislature, wide domains, stately palaces. By this privileged
body the great mass of the population is lectured every week from
the chair of authority. To this privileged body has been
committed the supreme direction of liberal education. Oxford and
Cambridge, Westminster, Winchester, and Eton, are under priestly
government. By the priesthood will to a great extent be formed
the character of the nobility and gentry of the next generation.
Of the higher clergy some have in their gift numerous and
valuable benefices; others have the privilege of appointing
judges who decide grave questions affecting the liberty, the
property, the reputation of their Majesties' subjects. And is an
order thus favoured by the state to give no guarantee to the
state? On what principle can it be contended that it is
unnecessary to ask from an Archbishop of Canterbury or from a
Bishop of Durham that promise of fidelity to the government which
all allow that it is necessary to demand from every layman who
serves the Crown in the humblest office. Every exciseman, every
collector of the customs, who refuses to swear, is to be deprived
of his bread. For these humble martyrs of passive obedience and
hereditary right nobody has a word to say. Yet an ecclesiastical
magnate who refuses to swear is to be suffered to retain
emoluments, patronage, power, equal to those of a great minister
of state. It is said that it is superfluous to impose the oaths
on a clergyman, because he may be punished if he breaks the laws.
Why is not the same argument urged in favour of the layman? And
why, if the clergyman really means to observe the laws, does he
scruple to take the oaths? The law commands him to designate
William and Mary as King and Queen, to do this in the most sacred
place, to do this in the administration of the most solemn of all
the rites of religion. The law commands him to pray that the
illustrious pair may be defended by a special providence, that
they may be victorious over every enemy, and that their
Parliament may by divine guidance be led to take such a course as
may promote their safety, honour, and welfare. Can we believe
that his conscience will suffer him to do all this, and yet will
not suffer him to promise that he will be a faithful subject to
them?

To the proposition that the nonjuring clergy should be left to
the mercy of the King, the Whigs, with some justice, replied that
no scheme could be devised more unjust to his Majesty. The
matter, they said, is one of public concern, one in which every
Englishman who is unwilling to be the slave of France and of Rome
has a deep interest. In such a case it would be unworthy of the
Estates of the Realm to shrink from the responsibility of
providing for the common safety, to try to obtain for themselves
the praise of tenderness and liberality, and to leave to the
Sovereign the odious task of proscription. A law requiring all
public functionaries, civil, military, ecclesiastical, without
distinction of persons, to take the oaths is at least equal. It
excludes all suspicion of partiality, of personal malignity, of
secret shying and talebearing. But, if an arbitrary discretion is
left to the Government, if one nonjuring priest is suffered to
keep a lucrative benefice while another is turned with his wife
and children into the street, every ejection will be considered
as an act of cruelty, and will be imputed as a crime to the
sovereign and his ministers.92

Thus the Parliament had to decide, at the same moment, what
quantity of relief should be granted to the consciences of
dissenters, and what quantity of pressure should be applied to
the consciences of the clergy of the Established Church. The King
conceived a hope that it might be in his power to effect a
compromise agreeable to all parties. He flattered himself that
the Tories might be induced to make some concession to the
dissenters, on condition that the Whigs would be lenient to the
Jacobites. He determined to try what his personal intervention
would effect. It chanced that, a few hours after the Lords had
read the Comprehension Bill a second time and the Bill touching
the Oaths a first time, he had occasion to go down to Parliament
for the purpose of giving his assent to a law. From the throne he
addressed both Houses, and expressed an earnest wish that they
would consent to modify the existing laws in such a manner that
all Protestants might be admitted to public employment.93 It was
well understood that he was willing, if the legislature would
comply with his request, to let clergymen who were already
beneficed continue to hold their benefices without swearing
allegiance to him. His conduct on this occasion deserves
undoubtedly the praise of disinterestedness. It is honourable to
him that he attempted to purchase liberty of conscience for his
subjects by giving up a safeguard of his own crown. But it must
be acknowledged that he showed less wisdom than virtue. The only
Englishman in his Privy Council whom he had consulted, if Burnet
was correctly informed, was Richard Hampden;94 and Richard
Hampden, though a highly respectable man, was so far from being
able to answer for the Whig party that he could not answer even
for his own son John, whose temper, naturally vindictive, had
been exasperated into ferocity by the stings of remorse and
shame. The King soon found that there was in the hatred of the
two great factions an energy which was wanting to their love. The
Whigs, though they were almost unanimous in thinking that the
Sacramental Test ought to be abolished, were by no means
unanimous in thinking that moment well chosen for the abolition;
and even those Whigs who were most desirous to see the
nonconformists relieved without delay from civil disabilities
were fully determined not to forego the opportunity of humbling
and punishing the class to whose instrumentality chiefly was to
be ascribed that tremendous reflux of public feeling which had
followed the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. To put the
Janes, the Souths, the Sherlocks into such a situation that they
must either starve, or recant, publicly, and with the Gospel at
their lips, all the ostentatious professions of many years, was a
revenge too delicious to be relinquished. The Tory, on the other
hand, sincerely respected and pitied those clergymen who felt
scruples about the oaths. But the Test was, in his view,
essential to the safety of the established religion, and must not
be surrendered for the purpose of saving any man however eminent
from any hardship however serious. It would be a sad day
doubtless for the Church when the episcopal bench, the chapter
houses of cathedrals, the halls of colleges, would miss some men
renowned for piety and learning. But it would be a still sadder
day for the Church when an Independent should bear the white
staff or a Baptist sit on the woolsack. Each party tried to serve
those for whom it was interested: but neither party would consent
to grant favourable terms to its enemies. The result was that the
nonconformists remained excluded from office in the State, and
the nonjurors were ejected from office in the Church.

In the House of Commons, no member thought it expedient to
propose the repeal of the Test Act. But leave was given to bring
in a bill repealing the Corporation Act, which had been passed by
the Cavalier Parliament soon after the Restoration, and which
contained a clause requiring all municipal magistrates to receive
the sacrament according to the forms of the Church of England.
When this bill was about to be committed, it was moved by the
Tories that the committee should be instructed to make no
alteration in the law touching the sacrament. Those Whigs who
were zealous for the Comprehension must have been placed by this
motion in an embarrassing position. To vote for the instruction
would have been inconsistent with their principles. To vote
against it would have been to break with Nottingham. A middle
course was found. The adjournment of the debate was moved and
carried by a hundred and sixteen votes to a hundred and fourteen;
and the subject was not revived.95 In the House of Lords a motion
was made for the abolition of the sacramental test, but was
rejected by a large majority. Many of those who thought the
motion right in principle thought it ill timed. A protest was
entered; but it was signed only by a few peers of no great
authority. It is a remarkable fact that two great chiefs of the
Whig party, who were in general very attentive to their
parliamentary duty, Devonshire and Shrewsbury, absented
themselves on this occasion.96

The debate on the Test in the Upper House was speedily followed
by a debate on the last clause of the Comprehension Bill. By that
clause it was provided that thirty Bishops and priests should be
commissioned to revise the liturgy and canons, and to suggest
amendments. On this subject the Whig peers were almost all of one
mind. They mustered strong, and spoke warmly. Why, they asked,
were none but members of the sacerdotal order to be intrusted
with this duty? Were the laity no part of the Church of England?
When the Commission should have made its report, laymen would
have to decide on the recommendations contained in that report.
Not a line of the Book of Common Prayer could be altered but by
the authority of King, Lords, and Commons. The King was a layman.
Five sixths of the Lords were laymen. All the members of the
House of Commons were laymen. Was it not absurd to say that
laymen were incompetent to examine into a matter which it was
acknowledged that laymen must in the last resort determine? And
could any thing be more opposite to the whole spirit of
Protestantism than the notion that a certain preternatural power
of judging in spiritual cases was vouchsafed to a particular
caste, and to that caste alone; that such men as Selden, as Hale,
as Boyle, were less competent to give an opinion on a collect or
a creed than the youngest and silliest chaplain who, in a remote
manor house, passed his life in drinking ale and playing at
shovelboard? What God had instituted no earthly power, lay or
clerical, could alter: and of things instituted by human beings a
layman was surely as competent as a clergyman to judge. That the
Anglican liturgy and canons were of purely human institution the
Parliament acknowledged by referring them to a Commission for
revision and correction. How could it then be maintained that in
such a Commission the laity, so vast a majority of the
population, the laity, whose edification was the main end of all
ecclesiastical regulations, and whose innocent tastes ought to be
carefully consulted in the framing of the public services of
religion, ought not to have a single representative? Precedent
was directly opposed to this odious distinction. Repeatedly since
the light of reformation had dawned on England Commissioners had
been empowered by law to revise the canons; and on every one of
those occasions some of the Commissioners had been laymen. In the
present case the proposed arrangement was peculiarly
objectionable. For the object of issuing the commission was the
conciliating of dissenters; and it was therefore most desirable
that the Commissioners should be men in whose fairness and
moderation dissenters could confide. Would thirty such men be
easily found in the higher ranks of the clerical profession? The
duty of the legislature was to arbitrate between two contending
parties, the Nonconformist divines and the Anglican divines, and
it would be the grossest injustice to commit to one of those
parties the office of umpire.

On these grounds the Whigs proposed an amendment to the effect
that laymen should be joined with clergymen in the Commission.
The contest was sharp. Burnet, who had just taken his seat among
the peers, and who seems to have been bent on winning at almost
any price the good will of his brethren, argued with all his
constitutional warmth for the clause as it stood. The numbers on
the division proved to be exactly equal. The consequence was
that, according to the rules of the House, the amendment was
lost.97

At length the Comprehension Bill was sent down to the Commons.
There it would easily have been carried by two to one, if it had
been supported by all the friends of religious liberty. But on
this subject the High Churchmen could count on the support of a
large body of Low Churchmen. Those members who wished well to
Nottingham's plan saw that they were outnumbered, and, despairing
of a victory, began to meditate a retreat. Just at this time a
suggestion was thrown out which united all suffrages. The ancient
usage was that a Convocation should be summoned together with a
Parliament; and it might well be argued that, if ever the advice
of a Convocation could be needed, it must be when changes in the
ritual and discipline of the Church were under consideration.
But, in consequence of the irregular manner in which the Estates
of the Realm had been brought together during the vacancy of the
throne, there was no Convocation. It was proposed that the House
should advise the King to take measures for supplying this
defect, and that the fate of the Comprehension Bill should not be
decided till the clergy had had an opportunity of declaring their
opinion through the ancient and legitimate organ.

This proposition was received with general acclamation. The
Tories were well pleased to see such honour done to the
priesthood. Those Whigs who were against the Comprehension Bill
were well pleased to see it laid aside, certainly for a year,
probably for ever. Those Whigs who were for the Comprehension
Bill were well pleased to escape without a defeat. Many of them
indeed were not without hopes that mild and liberal counsels
might prevail in the ecclesiastical senate. An address requesting
William to summon the Convocation was voted without a division:
the concurrence of the Lords was asked: the Lords concurred, the
address was carried up to the throne by both Houses: the King
promised that he would, at a convenient season, do what his
Parliament desired; and Nottingham's Bill was not again
mentioned.

Many writers, imperfectly acquainted with the history of that
age, have inferred from these proceedings that the House of
Commons was an assembly of High Churchmen: but nothing is more
certain than that two thirds of the members were either Low
Churchmen or not Churchmen at all. A very few days before this
time an occurrence had taken place, unimportant in itself, but
highly significant as an indication of the temper of the
majority. It had been suggested that the House ought, in
conformity with ancient usage, to adjourn over the Easter
holidays. The Puritans and Latitudinarians objected: there was a
sharp debate: the High Churchmen did not venture to divide; and,
to the great scandal of many grave persons, the Speaker took the
chair at nine o'clock on Easter Monday; and there was a long and
busy sitting.98

This however was by no means the strongest proof which the
Commons gave that they were far indeed from feeling extreme
reverence or tenderness for the Anglican hierarchy. The bill for
settling the oaths had just come down from the Lords framed in a
manner favourable to the clergy. All lay functionaries were
required to swear fealty to the King and Queen on pain of
expulsion from office. But it was provided that every divine who
already held a benefice might continue to hold it without
swearing, unless the Government should see reason to call on him
specially for an assurance of his loyalty. Burnett had, partly,
no doubt, from the goodnature and generosity which belonged to
his character, and partly from a desire to conciliate his
brethren, supported this arrangement in the Upper House with
great energy. But in the Lower House the feeling against the
Jacobite priests was irresistibly strong. On the very day on
which that House voted, without a division, the address
requesting the King to summon the Convocation, a clause was
proposed and carried which required every person who held any
ecclesiastical or academical preferment to take the oaths by the
first of August 1689, on pain of suspension. Six months, to be
reckoned from that day, were allowed to the nonjuror for
reconsideration. If, on the first of February 1690, he still
continued obstinate, he was to be finally deprived.

The bill, thus amended, was sent back to the Lords. The Lords
adhered to their original resolution. Conference after conference
was held. Compromise after compromise was suggested. From the
imperfect reports which have come down to us it appears that
every argument in favour of lenity was forcibly urged by Burnet.
But the Commons were firm: time pressed: the unsettled state of
the law caused inconvenience in every department of the public
service; and the peers very reluctantly gave way. They at the
same time added a clause empowering the King to bestow pecuniary
allowances out of the forfeited benefices on a few nonjuring
clergymen. The number of clergymen thus favoured was not to
exceed twelve. The allowance was not to exceed one third of the
income forfeited. Some zealous Whigs were unwilling to grant even
this indulgence: but the Commons were content with the victory
which they had won, and justly thought that it would be
ungracious to refuse so slight a concession.99

These debates were interrupted, during a short time, by the
festivities and solemnities of the Coronation. When the day fixed
for that great ceremony drew near, the House of Commons resolved
itself into a committee for the purpose of settling the form of
words in which our Sovereigns were thenceforward to enter into
covenant with the nation. All parties were agreed as to the
propriety of requiring the King to swear that, in temporal
matters, he would govern according to law, and would execute
justice in mercy. But about the terms of the oath which related
to the spiritual institutions of the realm there was much debate.
Should the chief magistrate promise simply to maintain the
Protestant religion established by law, or should he promise to
maintain that religion as it should be hereafter established by
law? The majority preferred the former phrase. The latter phrase
was preferred by those Whigs who were for a Comprehension. But it
was universally admitted that the two phrases really meant the
same thing, and that the oath, however it might be worded, would
bind the Sovereign in his executive capacity only. This was
indeed evident from the very nature of the transaction. Any
compact may be annulled by the free consent of the party who
alone is entitled to claim the performance. It was never doubted
by the most rigid casuist that a debtor, who has bound himself
under the most awful imprecations to pay a debt, may lawfully
withhold payment if the creditor is willing to cancel the
obligation. And it is equally clear that no assurance, exacted
from a King by the Estates of his kingdom, can bind him to refuse
compliance with what may at a future time be the wish of those
Estates.

A bill was drawn up in conformity with the resolutions of the
Committee, and was rapidly passed through every stage. After the
third reading, a foolish man stood up to propose a rider,
declaring that the oath was not meant to restrain the Sovereign
from consenting to any change in the ceremonial of the Church,
provided always that episcopacy and a written form of prayer were
retained. The gross absurdity of this motion was exposed by
several eminent members. Such a clause, they justly remarked,
would bind the King under pretence of setting him free. The
coronation oath, they said, was never intended to trammel him in
his legislative capacity. Leave that oath as it is now drawn, and
no prince can misunderstand it. No prince can seriously imagine
that the two Houses mean to exact from him a promise that he will
put a Veto on laws which they may hereafter think necessary to
the wellbeing of the country. Or if any prince should so
strangely misapprehend the nature of the contract between him and
his subjects, any divine, any lawyer, to whose advice he may have
recourse, will set his mind at ease. But if this rider should
pass, it will be impossible to deny that the coronation oath is
meant to prevent the King from giving his assent to bills which
may be presented to him by the Lords and Commons; and the most
serious inconvenience may follow. These arguments were felt to be
unanswerable, and the proviso was rejected without a division.100

Every person who has read these debates must be fully convinced
that the statesmen who framed the coronation oath did not mean to
bind the King in his legislative capacity.101 Unhappily, more
than a hundred years later, a scruple, which those statesmen
thought too absurd to be seriously entertained by any human
being, found its way into a mind, honest, indeed, and religious,
but narrow and obstinate by nature, and at once debilitated and
excited by disease. Seldom, indeed, have the ambition and perfidy
of tyrants produced evils greater than those which were brought
on our country by that fatal conscientiousness. A conjuncture
singularly auspicious, a conjuncture at which wisdom and justice
might perhaps have reconciled races and sects long hostile, and
might have made the British islands one truly United Kingdom, was
suffered to pass away. The opportunity, once lost, returned no
more. Two generations of public men have since laboured with
imperfect success to repair the error which was then committed;
nor is it improbable that some of the penalties of that error
may continue to afflict a remote posterity.

The Bill by which the oath was settled passed the Upper House
without amendment. All the preparations were complete; and, on
the eleventh of April, the coronation took place. In some things
it differed from ordinary coronations. The representatives of the
people attended the ceremony in a body, and were sumptuously
feasted in the Exchequer Chamber. Mary, being not merely Queen
Consort, but also Queen Regnant, was inaugurated in all things
like a King, was girt with the sword, lifted up into the throne,
and presented with the Bible, the spurs, and the orb. Of the
temporal grandees of the realm, and of their wives and daughters,
the muster was great and splendid. None could be surprised that
the Whig aristocracy should swell the triumph of Whig principles.
But the Jacobites saw, with concern, that many Lords who had
voted for a Regency bore a conspicuous part in the ceremonial.
The King's crown was carried by Grafton, the Queen's by Somerset.
The pointed sword, emblematical of temporal justice, was borne by
Pembroke. Ormond was Lord High Constable for the day, and rode up
the Hall on the right hand of the hereditary champion, who thrice
flung down his glove on the pavement, and thrice defied to mortal
combat the false traitor who should gainsay the title of William
and Mary. Among the noble damsels who supported the gorgeous
train of the Queen was her beautiful and gentle cousin, the Lady
Henrietta Hyde, whose father, Rochester, had to the last
contended against the resolution which declared the throne
vacant.102 The show of Bishops, indeed, was scanty. The Primate
did not make his appearance; and his place was supplied by
Compton. On one side of Compton, the paten was carried by Lloyd,
Bishop of Saint Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the
preceding year. On the other side, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester,
lately a member of the High Commission, had charge of the
chalice. Burnet, the junior prelate, preached with all his wonted
ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment. His grave
and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by adulation nor by
malignity. He is said to have been greatly applauded; and it may
well be believed that the animated peroration in which he
implored heaven to bless the royal pair with long life and mutual
love, with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, and faithful
allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with victory, with peace,
and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than those
which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the
loudest hums of the Commons.103

On the whole the ceremony went off well, and produced something
like a revival, faint, indeed, and transient, of the enthusiasm
of the preceding December. The day was, in London and in many
other places, a day of general rejoicing. The churches were
filled in the morning: the afternoon was spent in sport and
carousing; and at night bonfires were lighted, rockets
discharged, and windows lighted up. The Jacobites however
contrived to discover or to invent abundant matter for scurrility
and sarcasm. They complained bitterly, that the way from the hall
to the western door of the Abbey had been lined by Dutch
soldiers. Was it seemly that an English king should enter into
the most solemn of engagements with the English nation behind a
triple hedge of foreign swords and bayonets? Little affrays, such
as, at every great pageant, almost inevitably take place between
those who are eager to see the show and those whose business it
is to keep the communications clear, were exaggerated with all
the artifices of rhetoric. One of the alien mercenaries had
backed his horse against an honest citizen who pressed forward to
catch a glimpse of the royal canopy. Another had rudely pushed
back a woman with the but end of his musket. On such grounds as
these the strangers were compared to those Lord Danes whose
insolence, in the old time, had provoked the Anglo-saxon
population to insurrection and massacre. But there was no more
fertile theme for censure than the coronation medal, which really
was absurd in design and mean in execution. A chariot appeared
conspicuous on the reverse; and plain people were at a loss to
understand what this emblem had to do with William and Mary. The
disaffected wits solved the difficulty by suggesting that the
artist meant to allude to that chariot which a Roman princess,
lost to all filial affection, and blindly devoted to the
interests of an ambitious husband, drove over the still warm
remains of her father.104

Honours were, as usual, liberally bestowed at this festive
season. Three garters which happened to be at the disposal of the
Crown were given to Devonshire, Ormond, and Schomberg. Prince
George was created Duke of Cumberland. Several eminent men took
new appellations by which they must henceforth be designated.
Danby became Marquess of Caermarthen, Churchill Earl of
Marlborough, and Bentinck Earl of Portland. Mordaunt was made
Earl of Monmouth, not without some murmuring on the part of old
Exclusionists, who still remembered with fondness their
Protestant Duke, and who had hoped that his attainder would be
reversed, and that his title would be borne by his descendants.
It was remarked that the name of Halifax did not appear in the
list of promotions. None could doubt that he might easily have
obtained either a blue riband or a ducal coronet; and, though he
was honourably distinguished from most of his contemporaries by
his scorn of illicit gain, it was well known that he desired
honorary distinctions with a greediness of which he was himself
ashamed, and which was unworthy of his fine understanding. The
truth is that his ambition was at this time chilled by his fears.
To those whom he trusted he hinted his apprehensions that evil
times were at hand. The King's life was not worth a year's
purchase: the government was disjointed, the clergy and the army
disaffected, the parliament torn by factions: civil war was
already raging in one part of the empire: foreign war was
impending. At such a moment a minister, whether Whig or Tory,
might well be uneasy; but neither Whig nor Tory had so much to
fear as the Trimmer, who might not improbably find himself the
common mark at which both parties would take aim. For these
reasons Halifax determined to avoid all ostentation of power and
influence, to disarm envy by a studied show of moderation, and to
attach to himself by civilities and benefits persons whose
gratitude might be useful in the event of a counterrevolution.
The next three months, he said, would be the time of trial. If
the government got safe through the summer it would probably
stand.105

Meanwhile questions of external policy were every day becoming
more and more important. The work at which William had toiled
indefatigably during many gloomy and anxious years was at length
accomplished. The great coalition was formed. It was plain that a
desperate conflict was at hand. The oppressor of Europe would
have to defend himself against England allied with Charles the
Second King of Spain, with the Emperor Leopold, and with the
Germanic and Batavian federations, and was likely to have no ally
except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of
Austria on the Danube.

Lewis had, towards the close of the preceding year, taken his
enemies at a disadvantage, and had struck the first blow before
they were prepared to parry it. But that blow, though heavy, was
not aimed at the part where it might have been mortal. Had
hostilities been commenced on the Batavian frontier, William and
his army would probably have been detained on the continent, and
James might have continued to govern England. Happily, Lewis,
under an infatuation which many pious Protestants confidently
ascribed to the righteous judgment of God, had neglected the
point on which the fate of the whole civilised world depended,
and had made a great display of power, promptitude, and energy,
in a quarter where the most splendid achievements could produce
nothing more than an illumination and a Te Deum. A French army
under the command of Marshal Duras had invaded the Palatinate and
some of the neighbouring principalities. But this expedition,
though it had been completely successful, and though the skill
and vigour with which it had been conducted had excited general
admiration, could not perceptibly affect the event of the
tremendous struggle which was approaching. France would soon be
attacked on every side. It would be impossible for Duras long to
retain possession of the provinces which he had surprised and
overrun. An atrocious thought rose in the mind of Louvois, who,
in military affairs, had the chief sway at Versailles. He was a
man distinguished by zeal for what he thought the public
interests, by capacity, and by knowledge of all that related to
the administration of war, but of a savage and obdurate nature.
If the cities of the Palatinate could not be retained, they might
be destroyed. If the soil of the Palatinate was not to furnish
supplies to the French, it might be so wasted that it would at
least furnish no supplies to the Germans. The ironhearted
statesman submitted his plan, probably with much management and
with some disguise, to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour for his
fame, assented. Duras received orders to turn one of the fairest
regions of Europe into a wilderness. Fifteen years earlier
Turenne had ravaged part of that fine country. But the ravages
committed by Turenne, though they have left a deep stain on his
glory, were mere sport in comparison with the horrors of this
second devastation. The French commander announced to near half a
million of human beings that he granted them three days of grace,
and that, within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon
the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened
by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from
their homes. Many died of cold and hunger: but enough survived to
fill the streets of all the cities of Europe with lean and
squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers and
shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction began. The flames
went up from every marketplace, every hamlet, every parish
church, every country seat, within the devoted provinces. The
fields where the corn had been sown were ploughed up. The
orchards were hewn down. No promise of a harvest was left on the
fertile plains near what had once been Frankenthal. Not a vine,
not an almond tree, was to be seen on the slopes of the sunny
hills round what had once been Heidelberg. No respect was shown
to palaces, to temples, to monasteries, to infirmaries, to
beautiful works of art, to monuments of the illustrious dead. The
farfamed castle of the Elector Palatine was turned into a heap of
ruins. The adjoining hospital was sacked. The provisions, the
medicines, the pallets on which the sick lay were destroyed. The
very stones of which Mannheim had been built were flung into the
Rhine. The magnificent Cathedral of Spires perished, and with it
the marble sepulchres of eight Caesars. The coffins were broken
open. The ashes were scattered to the winds.106 Treves, with its
fair bridge, its Roman amphitheatre, its venerable churches,
convents, and colleges, was doomed to the same fate. But, before
this last crime had been perpetrated, Lewis was recalled to a
better mind by the execrations of all the neighbouring nations,
by the silence and confusion of his flatterers, and by the
expostulations of his wife. He had been more than two years
secretly married to Frances de Maintenon, the governess of his
natural children. It would be hard to name any woman who, with so
little romance in her temper, has had so much in her life. Her
early years had been passed in poverty and obscurity. Her first
husband had supported himself by writing burlesque farces and
poems. When she attracted the notice of her sovereign, she could
no longer boast of youth or beauty: but she possessed in an
extraordinary degree those more lasting charms, which men of
sense, whose passions age has tamed, and whose life is a life of
business and care, prize most highly in a female companion. Her
character was such as has been well compared to that soft green
on which the eye, wearied by warm tints and glaring lights,
reposes with pleasure. A just understanding; an inexhaustible yet
never redundant flow of rational, gentle, and sprightly
conversation; a temper of which the serenity was never for a
moment ruffled, a tact which surpassed the tact of her sex as
much as the tact of her sex surpasses the tact of ours; such were
the qualities which made the widow of a buffoon first the
confidential friend, and then the spouse, of the proudest and
most powerful of European kings. It was said that Lewis had been
with difficulty prevented by the arguments and vehement
entreaties of Louvois from declaring her Queen of France. It is
certain that she regarded Louvois as her enemy. Her hatred of
him, cooperating perhaps with better feelings, induced her to
plead the cause of the unhappy people of the Rhine. She appealed
to those sentiments of compassion which, though weakened by many
corrupting influences, were not altogether extinct in her
husband's mind, and to those sentiments of religion which had too
often impelled him to cruelty, but which, on the present
occasion, were on the side of humanity. He relented: and Treves
was spared.107 In truth he could hardly fail to perceive that he
had committed a great error. The devastation of the Palatinate,
while it had not in any sensible degree lessened the power of his
enemies, had inflamed their animosity, and had furnished them
with inexhaustible matter for invective. The cry of vengeance
rose on every side. Whatever scruple either branch of the House
of Austria might have felt about coalescing with Protestants was
completely removed. Lewis accused the Emperor and the Catholic
King of having betrayed the cause of the Church; of having allied
themselves with an usurper who was the avowed champion of the
great schism; of having been accessary to the foul wrong done to
a lawful sovereign who was guilty of no crime but zeal for the
true religion. James sent to Vienna and Madrid piteous letters,
in which he recounted his misfortunes, and implored the
assistance of his brother kings, his brothers also in the faith,
against the unnatural children and the rebellious subjects who
had driven him into exile. But there was little difficulty in
framing a plausible answer both to the reproaches of Lewis and to
the supplications of James. Leopold and Charles declared that
they had not, even for purposes of just selfdefence, leagued
themselves with heretics, till their enemy had, for purposes of
unjust aggression, leagued himself with Mahometans. Nor was this
the worst. The French King, not content with assisting the Moslem
against the Christians, was himself treating Christians with a
barbarity which would have shocked the very Moslem. His infidel
allies, to do them justice, had not perpetrated on the Danube
such outrages against the edifices and the members of the Holy
Catholic Church as he who called himself the eldest son of that
Church was perpetrating on the Rhine. On these grounds, the
princes to whom James had appealed replied by appealing, with
many professions of good will and compassion, to himself. He was
surely too just to blame them for thinking that it was their
first duty to defend their own people against such outrages as
had turned the Palatinate into a desert, or for calling in the
aid of Protestants against an enemy who had not scrupled to call
in the aid of the Turks.108

During the winter and the earlier part of the spring, the powers
hostile to France were gathering their strength for a great
effort, and were in constant communication with one another. As
the season for military operations approached, the solemn appeals
of injured nations to the God of battles came forth in rapid
succession. The manifesto of the Germanic body appeared in
February; that of the States General in March; that of the House
of Brandenburg in April; and that of Spain in May.109

Here, as soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over, the
House of Commons determined to take into consideration the late
proceedings of the French king.110 In the debate, that hatred of
the powerful, unscrupulous and imperious Lewis, which had, during
twenty years of vassalage, festered in the hearts of Englishmen,
broke violently forth. He was called the most Christian Turk, the
most Christian ravager of Christendom, the most Christian
barbarian who had perpetrated on Christians outrages of which his
infidel allies would have been ashamed.111 A committee,
consisting chiefly of ardent Whigs, was appointed to prepare an
address. John Hampden, the most ardent Whig among them, was put
into the chair; and he produced a composition too long, too
rhetorical, and too vituperative to suit the lips of the Speaker
or the ears of the King. Invectives against Lewis might perhaps,
in the temper in which the House then was, have passed without
censure, if they had not been accompanied by severe reflections
on the character and administration of Charles the Second, whose
memory, in spite of all his faults, was affectionately cherished
by the Tories. There were some very intelligible allusions to
Charles's dealings with the Court of Versailles, and to the
foreign woman whom that Court had sent to lie like a snake in his
bosom. The House was with good reason dissatisfied. The address
was recommitted, and, having been made more concise, and less
declamatory and acrimonious, was approved and presented.112
William's attention was called to the wrongs which France had
done to him and to his kingdom; and he was assured that, whenever
he should resort to arms for the redress of those wrongs, he
should be heartily supported by his people. He thanked the
Commons warmly. Ambition, he said, should never induce him to
draw the sword: but he had no choice: France had already attacked
England; and it was necessary to exercise the right of
selfdefence. A few days later war was proclaimed.113

Of the grounds of quarrel alleged by the Commons in their
address, and by the King in his manifesto, the most serious was
the interference of Lewis in the affairs of Ireland. In that
country great events had, during several months, followed one
another in rapid succession. Of those events it is now time to
relate the history, a history dark with crime and sorrow, yet
full of interest and instruction.

CHAPTER XII

State of Ireland at the Time of the Revolution; the Civil Power
in the Hands of the Roman Catholics--The Military Power in the
Hands of the Roman Catholics--Mutual Enmity between the Englishry
and Irishry--Panic among the Englishry--History of the Town of
Kenmare--Enniskillen--Londonderry--Closing of the Gates of
Londonderry--Mountjoy sent to pacify Ulster--William opens a
Negotiation with Tyrconnel--The Temples consulted--Richard
Hamilton sent to Ireland on his Parole--Tyrconnel sends Mountjoy
and Rice to France--Tyrconnel calls the Irish People to Arms--
Devastation of the Country--The Protestants in the South unable
to resist--Enniskillen and Londonderry hold out; Richard Hamilton
marches into Ulster with an Army--James determines to go to
Ireland--Assistance furnished by Lewis to James--Choice of a
French Ambassador to accompany James--The Count of Avaux--James
lands at Kinsale--James enters Cork--Journey of James from Cork
to Dublin--Discontent in England--Factions at Dublin Castle--
James determines to go to Ulster--Journey of James to Ulster--The
Fall of Londonderry expected--Succours arrive from England--
Treachery of Lundy; the Inhabitants of Londonderry resolve to
defend themselves--Their Character--Londonderry besieged--The
Siege turned into a Blockade--Naval Skirmish in Bantry Bay--A
Parliament summoned by James sits at Dublin--A Toleration Act
passed; Acts passed for the Confiscation of the Property of
Protestants--Issue of base Money--The great Act of Attainder--
James prorogues his Parliament; Persecution of the Protestants in
Ireland--Effect produced in England by the News from Ireland--
Actions of the Enniskilleners--Distress of Londonderry--
Expedition under Kirke arrives in Loch Foyle--Cruelty of Rosen--
The Famine in Londonderry extreme--Attack on the Boom--The Siege
of Londonderry raised--Operations against the Enniskilleners--
Battle of Newton Butler--Consternation of the Irish

WILLIAM had assumed, together with the title of King of England,
the title of King of Ireland. For all our jurists then regarded
Ireland as a mere colony, more important indeed than
Massachusetts, Virginia, or Jamaica, but, like Massachusetts,
Virginia, and Jamaica, dependent on the mother country, and bound
to pay allegiance to the Sovereign whom the mother country had
called to the throne.114

In fact, however, the Revolution found Ireland emancipated from
the dominion of the English colony. As early as the year 1686,
James had determined to make that island a place of arms which
might overawe Great Britain, and a place of refuge where, if any
disaster happened in Great Britain, the members of his Church
might find refuge. With this view he had exerted all his power
for the purpose of inverting the relation between the conquerors
and the aboriginal population. The execution of his design he had
intrusted, in spite of the remonstrances of his English
counsellors, to the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel. In the autumn of 1688,
the process was complete. The highest offices in the state, in
the army, and in the Courts of justice, were, with scarcely an
exception, filled by Papists. A pettifogger named Alexander
Fitton, who had been detected in forgery, who had been fined for
misconduct by the House of Lords at Westminster, who had been
many years in prison, and who was equally deficient in legal
knowledge and in the natural good sense and acuteness by which
the want of legal knowledge has sometimes been supplied, was Lord
Chancellor. His single merit was that he had apostatized from the
Protestant religion; and this merit was thought sufficient to
wash out even the stain of his Saxon extraction. He soon proved
himself worthy of the confidence of his patrons. On the bench of
justice he declared that there was not one heretic in forty
thousand who was not a villain. He often, after hearing a cause
in which the interests of his Church were concerned, postponed
his decision, for the purpose, as he avowed, of consulting his
spiritual director, a Spanish priest, well read doubtless in
Escobar.115 Thomas Nugent, a Roman Catholic who had never
distinguished himself at the bar except by his brogue and his
blunders, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench.116 Stephen Rice,
a Roman Catholic, whose abilities and learning were not disputed
even by the enemies of his nation and religion, but whose known
hostility to the Act of Settlement excited the most painful
apprehensions in the minds of all who held property under that
Act, was Chief Baron of the Exchequer.117 Richard Nagle, an acute
and well read lawyer, who had been educated in a Jesuit college,
and whose prejudices were such as might have been expected from
his education, was Attorney General.118

Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still Chief Justice
of the Common Pleas: but two Roman Catholic judges sate with him.
It ought to be added that one of those judges, Daly, was a man of
sense, moderation and integrity. The matters however which came
before the Court of Common Pleas were not of great moment. Even
the King's Bench was at this time almost deserted. The Court of
Exchequer overflowed with business; for it was the only court at
Dublin from which no writ of error lay to England, and
consequently the only court in which the English could be
oppressed and pillaged without hope of redress. Rice, it was
said, had declared that they should have from him exactly what
the law, construed with the utmost strictness, gave them, and
nothing more. What, in his opinion, the law, strictly construed,
gave them, they could easily infer from a saying which, before he
became a judge, was often in his mouth. "I will drive," he used
to say, "a coach and six through the Act of Settlement." He now
carried his threat daily into execution. The cry of all
Protestants was that it mattered not what evidence they produced
before him; that, when their titles were to be set aside, the
rankest forgeries, the most infamous witnesses, were sure to have
his countenance. To his court his countrymen came in multitudes
with writs of ejectment and writs of trespass. In his court the
government attacked at once the charters of all the cities and
boroughs in Ireland; and he easily found pretexts for pronouncing
all those charters forfeited. The municipal corporations, about a
hundred in number, had been instituted to be the strongholds of
the reformed religion and of the English interest, and had
consequently been regarded by the Irish Roman Catholics with an
aversion which cannot be thought unnatural or unreasonable. Had
those bodies been remodelled in a judicious and impartial manner,
the irregularity of the proceedings by which so desirable a
result had been attained might have been pardoned. But it soon
appeared that one exclusive system had been swept away only to
make room for another. The boroughs were subjected to the
absolute authority of the Crown. Towns in which almost every
householder was an English Protestant were placed under the
government of Irish Roman Catholics. Many of the new Aldermen had
never even seen the places over which they were appointed to bear
rule. At the same time the Sheriffs, to whom belonged the
execution of writs and the nomination of juries, were selected in
almost every instance from the caste which had till very recently
been excluded from all public trust. It was affirmed that some of
these important functionaries had been burned in the hand for
theft. Others had been servants to Protestants; and the
Protestants added, with bitter scorn, that it was fortunate for
the country when this was the case; for that a menial who had
cleaned the plate and rubbed down the horse of an English
gentleman might pass for a civilised being, when compared with
many of the native aristocracy whose lives had been spent in
coshering or marauding. To such Sheriffs no colonist, even if he
had been so strangely fortunate as to obtain a judgment, dared to
intrust an execution.119

Thus the civil power had, in the space of a few months, been
transferred from the Saxon to the Celtic population. The transfer
of the military power had been not less complete. The army,
which, under the command of Ormond, had been the chief safeguard
of the English ascendency, had ceased to exist. Whole regiments
had been dissolved and reconstructed. Six thousand Protestant
veterans, deprived of their bread, were brooding in retirement
over their wrongs, or had crossed the sea and joined the standard
of William. Their place was supplied by men who had long suffered
oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed from
slaves into masters, were impatient to pay back, with accumulated
usury, the heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers,
it was said, never passed an Englishman without cursing him and
calling him by some foul name. They were the terror of every
Protestant innkeeper; for, from the moment when they came under
his roof, they ate and drank every thing: they paid for nothing;
and by their rude swaggering they scared more respectable guests
from his door.120

Such was the state of Ireland when the Prince of Orange landed at
Torbay. From that time every packet which arrived at Dublin
brought tidings, such as could not but increase the mutual fear
and loathing of the hostile races. The colonist, who, after long
enjoying and abusing power, had now tasted for a moment the
bitterness of servitude, the native, who, having drunk to the
dregs all the bitterness of servitude, had at length for a moment
enjoyed and abused power, were alike sensible that a great
crisis, a crisis like that of 1641, was at hand. The majority
impatiently expected Phelim O'Neil to revive in Tyrconnel. The
minority saw in William a second Over.

On which side the first blow was struck was a question which
Williamites and Jacobites afterwards debated with much asperity.
But no question could be more idle. History must do to both
parties the justice which neither has ever done to the other, and
must admit that both had fair pleas and cruel provocations. Both
had been placed, by a fate for which neither was answerable, in
such a situation that, human nature being what it is, they could
not but regard each other with enmity. During three years the
government which might have reconciled them had systematically
employed its whole power for the purpose of inflaming their
enmity to madness. It was now impossible to establish in Ireland
a just and beneficent government, a government which should know
no distinction of race or of sect, a government which, while
strictly respecting the rights guaranteed by law to the new
landowners, should alleviate by a judicious liberality the
misfortunes of the ancient gentry. Such a government James might
have established in the day of his power. But the opportunity had
passed away: compromise had become impossible: the two infuriated
castes were alike convinced that it was necessary to oppress or
to be oppressed, and that there could be no safety but in
victory, vengeance, and dominion. They agreed only in spurning
out of the way every mediator who sought to reconcile them.

During some weeks there were outrages, insults, evil reports,
violent panics, the natural preludes of the terrible conflict
which was at hand. A rumour spread over the whole island that, on
the ninth of December, there would be a general massacre of the
Englishry. Tyrconnel sent for the chief Protestants of Dublin to
the Castle, and, with his usual energy of diction, invoked on
himself all the vengeance of heaven if the report was not a
cursed, a blasted, a confounded lie. It was said that, in his
rage at finding his oaths ineffectual, he pulled off his hat and
wig, and flung them into the fire.121 But lying Dick Talbot was
so well known that his imprecations and gesticulations only
strengthened the apprehension which they were meant to allay.
Ever since the recall of Clarendon there had been a large
emigration of timid and quiet people from the Irish ports to
England. That emigration now went on faster than ever. It was not
easy to obtain a passage on board of a well built or commodious
vessel. But many persons, made bold by the excess of fear, and
choosing rather to trust the winds and waves than the exasperated
Irishry, ventured to encounter all the dangers of Saint George's
Channel and of the Welsh coast in open boats and in the depth of
winter. The English who remained began, in almost every county,
to draw close together. Every large country house became a
fortress. Every visitor who arrived after nightfall was
challenged from a loophole or from a barricaded window; and, if
he attempted to enter without pass words and explanations, a
blunderbuss was presented to him. On the dreaded night of the
ninth of December, there was scarcely one Protestant mansion from
the Giant's Causeway to Bantry Bay in which armed men were not
watching and lights burning from the early sunset to the late
sunrise.122

A minute account of what passed in one district at this time has
come down to us, and well illustrates the general state of the
kingdom. The south-western part of Kerry is now well known as the
most beautiful tract in the British isles. The mountains, the
glens, the capes stretching far into the Atlantic, the crags on
which the eagles build, the rivulets brawling down rocky passes,
the lakes overhung by groves in which the wild deer find covert,
attract every summer crowds of wanderers sated with the business
and the pleasures of great cities. The beauties of that country
are indeed too often hidden in the mist and rain which the west
wind brings up from a boundless ocean. But, on the rare days when
the sun shines out in all his glory, the landscape has a
freshness and a warmth of colouring seldom found in our latitude.
The myrtle loves the soil. The arbutus thrives better than even
on the sunny shore of Calabria.123 The turf is of livelier hue
than elsewhere: the hills glow with a richer purple: the varnish
of the holly and ivy is more glossy; and berries of a brighter
red peep through foliage of a brighter green. But during the
greater part of the seventeenth century, this paradise was as
little known to the civilised world as Spitzbergen or Greenland.
If ever it was mentioned, it was mentioned as a horrible desert,
a chaos of bogs, thickets, and precipices, where the she wolf
still littered, and where some half naked savages, who could not
speak a word of English, made themselves burrows in the mud, and
lived on roots and sour milk.124

At length, in the year 1670, the benevolent and enlightened Sir
William Petty determined to form an English settlement in this
wild district. He possessed a large domain there, which has
descended to a posterity worthy of such an ancestor. On the
improvement of that domain he expended, it was said, not less
than ten thousand pounds. The little town which he founded, named
from the bay of Kenmare, stood at the head of that bay, under a
mountain ridge, on the summit of which travellers now stop to
gaze upon the loveliest of the three lakes of Killarney. Scarcely
any village, built by an enterprising band of New Englanders, far
from the dwellings of their countrymen, in the midst of the
hunting grounds of the Red Indians, was more completely out of
the pale of civilisation than Kenmare. Between Petty's settlement
and the nearest English habitation the journey by land was of two
days through a wild and dangerous country. Yet the place
prospered. Forty-two houses were erected. The population amounted
to a hundred and eighty. The land round the town was well
cultivated. The cattle were numerous. Two small barks were
employed in fishing and trading along the coast. The supply of
herrings, pilchards, mackerel, and salmon was plentiful, and
would have been still more plentiful, had not the beach been, in
the finest part of the year, covered by multitudes of seals,
which preyed on the fish of the bay. Yet the seal was not an
unwelcome visitor: his fur was valuable,; and his oil supplied
light through the long nights of winter. An attempt was made with
great success to set up iron works. It was not yet the practice
to employ coal for the purpose of smelting; and the manufacturers
of Kent and Sussex had much difficulty in procuring timber at a
reasonable price. The neighbourhood of Kenmare was then richly
wooded; and Petty found it a gainful speculation to send ore
thither. The lovers of the picturesque still regret the woods of
oak and arbutus which were cut down to feed his furnaces. Another
scheme had occurred to his active and intelligent mind. Some of
the neighbouring islands abounded with variegated marble, red and
white, purple and green. Petty well knew at what cost the ancient
Romans had decorated their baths and temples with many coloured
columns hewn from Laconian and African quarries; and he seems to
have indulged the hope that the rocks of his wild domain in Kerry
might furnish embellishments to the mansions of Saint James's
Square, and to the choir of Saint Paul's Cathedral.125

From the first, the settlers had found that they must be prepared
to exercise the right of selfdefence to an extent which would
have been unnecessary and unjustifiable in a well governed
country. The law was altogether without force in the highlands
which lie on the south of the vale of Tralee. No officer of
justice willingly ventured into those parts. One pursuivant who
in 1680 attempted to execute a warrant there was murdered. The
people of Kenmare seem however to have been sufficiently secured
by their union, their intelligence and their spirit, till the
close of the year 1688. Then at length the effects of the policy
of Tyrconnel began to be felt ever, in that remote corner of
Ireland. In the eyes of the peasantry of Munster the colonists
were aliens and heretics. The buildings, the boats, the machines,
the granaries, the dairies, the furnaces, were doubtless
contemplated by the native race with that mingled envy and
contempt with which the ignorant naturally regard the triumphs of
knowledge. Nor is it at all improbable that the emigrants had
been guilty of those faults from which civilised men who settle
among an uncivilised people are rarely free. The power derived
from superior intelligence had, we may easily believe, been
sometimes displayed with insolence, and sometimes exerted with
injustice. Now therefore, when the news spread from altar to
altar, and from cabin to cabin, that the strangers were to be
driven out, and that their houses and lands were to be given as a
booty to the children of the soil, a predatory war commenced.
Plunderers, thirty, forty, seventy in a troop, prowled round the
town, some with firearms, some with pikes. The barns were robbed.
The horses were stolen. In one foray a hundred and forty cattle
were swept away and driven off through the ravines of Glengariff.
In one night six dwellings were broken open and pillaged. At last
the colonists, driven to extremity, resolved to die like men
rather than be murdered in their beds. The house built by Petty
for his agent was the largest in the place. It stood on a rocky
peninsula round which the waves of the bay broke. Here the whole
population assembled, seventy-five fighting men, with about a
hundred women and children. They had among them sixty firelocks,
and as many pikes and swords. Round the agent's house they threw
up with great speed a wall of turf fourteen feet in height and
twelve in thickness. The space enclosed was about half an acre.
Within this rampart all the arms, the ammunition and the
provisions of the settlement were collected, and several huts of
thin plank were built. When these preparations were completed,
the men of Kenmare began to make vigorous reprisals on their
Irish neighbours, seized robbers, recovered stolen property, and
continued during some weeks to act in all things as an
independent commonwealth. The government was carried on by
elective officers, to whom every member of the society swore
fidelity on the Holy Gospels.126

While the people of the small town of Kenmare were thus
bestirring themselves, similar preparations for defence were made
by larger communities on a larger scale. Great numbers of
gentlemen and yeomen quitted the open country, and repaired to
those towns which had been founded and incorporated for the
purpose of bridling the native population, and which, though
recently placed under the government of Roman Catholic
magistrates, were still inhabited chiefly by Protestants. A
considerable body of armed colonists mustered at Sligo, another
at Charleville, a third at Marlow, a fourth still more formidable
at Bandon.127 But the principal strongholds of the Englishry
during this evil time were Enniskillen and Londonderry.

Enniskillen, though the capital of the county of Fermanagh, was
then merely a village. It was built on an island surrounded by
the river which joins the two beautiful sheets of water known by
the common name of Lough Erne. The stream and both the lakes were
overhung on every side by natural forests. Enniskillen consisted
of about eighty dwellings clustering round an ancient castle. The
inhabitants were, with scarcely an exception, Protestants, and
boasted that their town had been true to the Protestant cause
through the terrible rebellion which broke out in 1641. Early in
December they received from Dublin an intimation that two
companies of Popish infantry were to be immediately quartered on
them. The alarm of the little community was great, and the
greater because it was known that a preaching friar had been
exerting himself to inflame the Irish population of the
neighbourhood against the heretics. A daring resolution was
taken. Come what might, the troops should not be admitted. Yet
the means of defence were slender. Not ten pounds of powder, not
twenty firelocks fit for use, could be collected within the
walls. Messengers were sent with pressing letters to summon the
Protestant gentry of the vicinage to the rescue; and the summons
was gallantly obeyed. In a few hours two hundred foot and a
hundred and fifty horse had assembled. Tyrconnel's soldiers were
already at hand. They brought with them a considerable supply of
arms to be distributed among the peasantry. The peasantry greeted
the royal standard with delight, and accompanied the march in
great numbers. The townsmen and their allies, instead of waiting
to be attacked, came boldly forth to encounter the intruders. The
officers of James had expected no resistance. They were
confounded when they saw confronting them a column of foot,
flanked by a large body of mounted gentlemen and yeomen. The
crowd of camp followers ran away in terror. The soldiers made a
retreat so precipitate that it might be called a flight, and
scarcely halted till they were thirty miles off at Cavan.128

The Protestants, elated by this easy victory, proceeded to make
arrangements for the government and defence of Enniskillen and of
the surrounding country. Gustavus Hamilton, a gentleman who had
served in the army, but who had recently been deprived of his
commission by Tyrconnel, and had since been living on an estate
in Fermanagh, was appointed Governor, and took up his residence
in the castle. Trusty men were enlisted, and armed with great
expedition. As there was a scarcity of swords and pikes, smiths
were employed to make weapons by fastening scythes on poles. All
the country houses round Lough Erne were turned into garrisons.
No Papist was suffered to be at large in the town; and the friar
who was accused of exerting his eloquence against the Englishry
was thrown into prison.129

The other great fastness of Protestantism was a place of more
importance. Eighty years before, during the troubles caused by
the last struggle of the houses of O'Neil and O'Donnel against
the authority of James the First, the ancient city of Derry had
been surprised by one of the native chiefs: the inhabitants had
been slaughtered, and the houses reduced to ashes. The insurgents
were speedily put down and punished: the government resolved to
restore the ruined town: the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common
Council of London were invited to assist in the work; and King
James the First made over to them in their corporate capacity the
ground covered by the ruins of the old Derry, and about six
thousand English acres in the neighbourhood.130

This country, then uncultivated and uninhabited, is now enriched
by industry, embellished by taste, and pleasing even to eyes
accustomed to the well tilled fields and stately manor houses of
England. A new city soon arose which, on account of its
connection with the capital of the empire, was called
Londonderry. The buildings covered the summit and slope of a hill
which overlooked the broad stream of the Foyle, then whitened by
vast flocks of wild swans.131 On the highest ground stood the
Cathedral, a church which, though erected when the secret of
Gothic architecture was lost, and though ill qualified to sustain
a comparison with the awful temples of the middle ages, is not
without grace and dignity. Near the Cathedral rose the palace of
the Bishop, whose see was one of the most valuable in Ireland.
The city was in form nearly an ellipse; and the principal streets
formed a cross, the arms of which met in a square called the
Diamond. The original houses have been either rebuilt or so much
repaired that their ancient character can no longer be traced;
but many of them were standing within living memory. They were in
general two stories in height; and some of them had stone
staircases on the outside. The dwellings were encompassed by a
wall of which the whole circumference was little less than a
mile. On the bastions were planted culverins and sakers presented
by the wealthy guilds of London to the colony. On some of these
ancient guns, which have done memorable service to a great cause,
the devices of the Fishmongers' Company, of the Vintners'
Company, and of the Merchant Tailors' Company are still
discernible.132

The inhabitants were Protestants of Anglosaxon blood. They were
indeed not all of one country or of one church but Englishmen and
Scotchmen, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, seem to have
generally lived together in friendship, a friendship which is
sufficiently explained by their common antipathy to the Irish
race and to the Popish religion. During the rebellion of 1641,
Londonderry had resolutely held out against the native
chieftains, and had been repeatedly besieged in vain.133 Since
the Restoration the city had prospered. The Foyle, when the tide
was high, brought up ships of large burden to the quay. The
fisheries throve greatly. The nets, it was said, were sometimes
so full that it was necessary to fling back multitudes of fish
into the waves. The quantity of salmon caught annually was
estimated at eleven hundred thousand pounds' weight.134

The people of Londonderry shared in the alarm which, towards the
close of the year 1688, was general among the Protestants settled
in Ireland. It was known that the aboriginal peasantry of the
neighbourhood were laying in pikes and knives. Priests had been
haranguing in a style of which, it must be owned, the Puritan
part of the Anglosaxon colony had little right to complain, about
the slaughter of the Amalekites, and the judgments which Saul had
brought on himself by sparing one of the proscribed race. Rumours
from various quarters and anonymous letters in various hands
agreed in naming the ninth of December as the day fixed for the
extirpation of the strangers. While the minds of the citizens
were agitated by these reports, news came that a regiment of
twelve hundred Papists, commanded by a Papist, Alexander
Macdonnell, Earl of Antrim, had received orders from the Lord
Deputy to occupy Londonderry, and was already on the march from
Coleraine. The consternation was extreme. Some were for closing
the gates and resisting; some for submitting; some for
temporising. The corporation had, like the other corporations of
Ireland, been remodelled. The magistrates were men of low station
and character. Among them was only one person of Anglosaxon
extraction; and he had turned Papist. In such rulers the
inhabitants could place no confidence.135 The Bishop, Ezekiel
Hopkins, resolutely adhered to the doctrine of nonresistance,
which he had preached during many years, and exhorted his flock
to go patiently to the slaughter rather than incur the guilt of
disobeying the Lord's Anointed.136 Antrim was meanwhile drawing
nearer and nearer. At length the citizens saw from the walls his
troops arrayed on the opposite shore of the Foyle. There was then
no bridge: but there was a ferry which kept up a constant
communication between the two banks of the river; and by this
ferry a detachment from Antrim's regiment crossed. The officers
presented themselves at the gate, produced a warrant directed to
the Mayor and Sheriffs, and demanded admittance and quarters for
his Majesty's soldiers.

Just at this moment thirteen young apprentices, most of whom
appear, from their names, to have been of Scottish birth or
descent, flew to the guard room, armed themselves, seized the
keys of the city, rushed to the Ferry Gate, closed it in the face
of the King's officers, and let down the portcullis. James
Morison, a citizen more advanced in years, addressed the
intruders from the top of the wall and advised them to be gone.
They stood in consultation before the gate till they heard him
cry, "Bring a great gun this way." They then thought it time to
get beyond the range of shot. They retreated, reembarked, and
rejoined their comrades on the other side of the river. The flame
had already spread. The whole city was up. The other gates were
secured. Sentinels paced the ramparts everywhere. The magazines
were opened. Muskets and gunpowder were distributed. Messengers
were sent, under cover of the following night, to the Protestant
gentlemen of the neighbouring counties. The bishop expostulated
in vain. It is indeed probable that the vehement and daring young
Scotchmen who had taken the lead on this occasion had little
respect for his office. One of them broke in on a discourse with
which he interrupted the military preparations by exclaiming, "A
good sermon, my lord; a very good sermon; but we have not time to
hear it just now."137

The Protestants of the neighbourhood promptly obeyed the summons
of Londonderry. Within forty-eight hours hundreds of horse and
foot came by various roads to the city. Antrim, not thinking
himself strong enough to risk an attack, or not disposed to take
on himself the responsibility of commencing a civil war without
further orders, retired with his troops to Coleraine.

It might have been expected that the resistance of Enniskillen
and Londonderry would have irritated Tyrconnel into taking some
desperate step. And in truth his savage and imperious temper was
at first inflamed by the news almost to madness. But, after
wreaking his rage, as usual, on his wig, he became somewhat
calmer. Tidings of a very sobering nature had just reached him.
The Prince of Orange was marching unopposed to London. Almost
every county and every great town in England had declared for
him. James, deserted by his ablest captains and by his nearest
relatives, had sent commissioners to treat with the invaders, and
had issued writs convoking a Parliament. While the result of the
negotiations which were pending in England was uncertain, the
Viceroy could not venture to take a bloody revenge on the
refractory Protestants of Ireland. He therefore thought it
expedient to affect for a time a clemency and moderation which
were by no means congenial to his disposition. The task of
quieting the Englishry of Ulster was intrusted to William
Stewart, Viscount Mountjoy. Mountjoy, a brave soldier, an
accomplished scholar, a zealous Protestant, and yet a zealous
Tory, was one of the very few members of the Established Church
who still held office in Ireland. He was Master of the Ordnance
in that kingdom, and was colonel of a regiment in which an
uncommonly large proportion of the Englishry had been suffered to
remain. At Dublin he was the centre of a small circle of learned
and ingenious men who had, under his presidency, formed
themselves into a Royal Society, the image, on a small scale, of
the Royal Society of London. In Ulster, with which he was
peculiarly connected, his name was held in high honour by the
colonists.138 He hastened with his regiment to Londonderry, and
was well received there. For it was known that, though he was
firmly attached to hereditary monarchy, he was not less firmly
attached to the reformed religion. The citizens readily permitted
him to leave within their walls a small garrison exclusively
composed of Protestants, under the command of his lieutenant
colonel, Robert Lundy, who took the title of Governor.139

The news of Mountjoy's visit to Ulster was highly gratifying to
the defenders of Enniskillen. Some gentlemen deputed by that town
waited on him to request his good offices, but were disappointed
by the reception which they found. "lily advice to you is," he
said, "to submit to the King's authority." "What, my Lord?" said
one of the deputies; "Are we to sit still and let ourselves be
butchered?" "The King," said Mountjoy, "will protect you." "If
all that we hear be true," said the deputy, "his Majesty will
find it hard enough to protect himself." The conference ended in
this unsatisfactory manner. Enniskillen still kept its attitude
of defiance; and Mountjoy returned to Dublin.140

By this time it had indeed become evident that James could not
protect himself. It was known in Ireland that he had fled; that
he had been stopped; that he had fled again; that the Prince of
Orange had arrived at Westminster in triumph, had taken on
himself the administration of the realm, and had issued letters
summoning a Convention.

Those lords and gentlemen at whose request the Prince had assumed
the government, had earnestly intreated him to take the state of
Ireland into his immediate consideration; and he had in reply
assured them that he would do his best to maintain the Protestant
religion and the English interest in that kingdom. His enemies
afterwards accused him of utterly disregarding this promise: nay,
they alleged that he purposely suffered Ireland to sink deeper
and deeper in calamity. Halifax, they said, had, with cruel and
perfidious ingenuity, devised this mode of placing the Convention
under a species of duress; and the trick had succeeded but too
well. The vote which called William to the throne would not have
passed so easily but for the extreme dangers which threatened the
state; and it was in consequence of his own dishonest inactivity
that those dangers had become extreme.141 As this accusation
rests on no proof, those who repeat it are at least bound to show
that some course clearly better than the course which William
took was open to him; and this they will find a difficult task.
If indeed he could, within a few weeks after his arrival in
London, have sent a great expedition to Ireland, that kingdom
might perhaps, after a short struggle, or without a struggle,
have submitted to his authority; and a long series of crimes and
calamities might have been averted. But the factious orators and
pamphleteers, who, much at their ease, reproached him for not
sending such an expedition, would have been perplexed if they had
been required to find the men, the ships, and the funds. The
English army had lately been arrayed against him: part of it was
still ill disposed towards him; and the whole was utterly
disorganized. Of the army which he had brought from Holland not a
regiment could be spared. He had found the treasury empty and the
pay of the navy in arrear. He had no power to hypothecate any
part of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on
no security but his bare word. It was only by the patriotic
liberality of the merchants of London that he was enabled to
defray the ordinary charges of government till the meeting of the
Convention. It is surely unjust to blame him for not instantly
fitting out, in such circumstances, an armament sufficient to
conquer a kingdom.

Perceiving that, till the government of England was settled, it
would not be in his power to interfere effectually by arms in the
affairs of Ireland, he determined to try what effect negotiation
would produce. Those who judged after the event pronounced that
he had not, on this occasion, shown his usual sagacity. He ought,
they said, to have known that it was absurd to expect submission
from Tyrconnel. Such however was not at the time the opinion of
men who had the best means of information, and whose interest was
a sufficient pledge for their sincerity. A great meeting of
noblemen and gentlemen who had property in Ireland was held,
during the interregnum, at the house of the Duke of Ormond in
Saint James's Square. They advised the Prince to try whether the
Lord Deputy might not be induced to capitulate on honourable and
advantageous terms.142 In truth there is strong reason to believe
that Tyrconnel really wavered. For, fierce as were his passions,
they never made him forgetful of his interest; and he might well
doubt whether it were not for his interest, in declining years
and health, to retire from business with full indemnity for all
past offences, with high rank and with an ample fortune, rather
than to stake his life and property on the event of a war against
the whole power of England. It is certain that he professed
himself willing to yield. He opened a communication with the
Prince of Orange, and affected to take counsel with Mountjoy, and
with others who, though they had not thrown off their allegiance
to James, were yet firmly attached to the Established Church and
to the English connection.

In one quarter, a quarter from which William was justified in
expecting the most judicious counsel, there was a strong
conviction that the professions of Tyrconnel were sincere. No
British statesman had then so high a reputation throughout Europe
as Sir William Temple. His diplomatic skill had, twenty years
before, arrested the progress of the French power. He had been a
steady and an useful friend to the United Provinces and to the
House of Nassau. He had long been on terms of friendly confidence
with the Prince of Orange, and had negotiated that marriage to
which England owed her recent deliverance. With the affairs of
Ireland Temple was supposed to be peculiarly well acquainted. His
family had considerable property there: he had himself resided
there during several years: he had represented the county of
Carlow in parliament; and a large part of his income was derived
from a lucrative Irish office. There was no height of power, of
rank, or of opulence, to which he might not have risen, if he
would have consented to quit his retreat, and to lend his
assistance and the weight of his name to the new government. But
power, rank, and opulence had less attraction for his Epicurean
temper than ease and security. He rejected the most tempting
invitations, and continued to amuse himself with his books, his
tulips, and his pineapples, in rural seclusion. With some
hesitation, however, he consented to let his eldest son John
enter into the service of William. During the vacancy of the
throne, John Temple was employed in business of high importance;
and, on subjects connected with Ireland, his opinion, which might
reasonably be supposed to agree with his father's, had great
weight. The young politician flattered himself that he had
secured the services of an agent eminently qualified to bring the
negotiation with Tyrconnel to a prosperous issue.

This agent was one of a remarkable family which had sprung from a
noble Scottish stock, but which had long been settled in Ireland,
and which professed the Roman Catholic religion. In the gay crowd
which thronged Whitehall, during those scandalous years of
jubilee which immediately followed the Restoration, the Hamiltons
were preeminently conspicuous. The long fair ringlets, the
radiant bloom, and the languishing blue eyes of the lovely
Elizabeth still charm us on the canvass of Lely. She had the
glory of achieving no vulgar conquest. It was reserved for her
voluptuous beauty and for her flippant wit to overcome the
aversion which the coldhearted and scoffing Grammont felt for the
indissoluble tie. One of her brothers, Anthony, became the
chronicler of that brilliant and dissolute society of which he
had been one of the most brilliant and most dissolute members. He
deserves the high praise of having, though not a Frenchman,
written the book which is, of all books, the most exquisitely
French, both in spirit and in manner. Another brother, named
Richard, had, in foreign service, gained some military
experience. His wit and politeness had distinguished him even in
the splendid circle of Versailles. It was whispered that he had
dared to lift his eyes to an exalted lady, the natural daughter
of the Great King, the wife of a legitimate prince of the House
of Bourbon, and that she had not seemed to be displeased by the
attentions of her presumptuous admirer.143 The adventurer had
subsequently returned to his native country, had been appointed
Brigadier General in the Irish army, and had been sworn of the
Irish Privy Council. When the Dutch invasion was expected, he
came across Saint George's Channel with the troops which
Tyrconnel sent to reinforce the royal army. After the flight of
James, those troops submitted to the Prince of Orange. Richard
Hamilton not only made his own peace with what was now the ruling
power, but declared himself confident that, if he were sent to
Dublin, he could conduct the negotiation which had been opened
there to a happy close. If he failed, he pledged his word to
return to London in three weeks. His influence in Ireland was
known to be great: his honour had never been questioned; and he
was highly esteemed by the Temple family. John Temple declared
that he would answer for Richard Hamilton as for himself. This
guarantee was thought sufficient; and Hamilton set out for
Ireland, assuring his English friends that he should soon bring
Tyrconnel to reason. The offers which he was authorised to make
to the Roman Catholics and to the Lord Deputy personally were
most liberal.144

It is not impossible that Hamilton may have really meant to
perform his promise. But when he arrived at Dublin he found that
he had undertaken a task which was beyond his power. The
hesitation of Tyrconnel, whether genuine or feigned, was at an
end. He had found that he had no longer a choice. He had with
little difficulty stimulated the ignorant and susceptible Irish
to fury. To calm them was beyond his skill. Rumours were abroad
that the Viceroy was corresponding with the English; and these
rumours had set the nation on fire. The cry of the common people
was that, if he dared to sell them for wealth and honours, they
would burn the Castle and him in it, and would put themselves
under the protection of France.145 It was necessary for him to
protest, truly or falsely, that he had never harboured any
thought of submission, and that he had pretended to negotiate
only for the purpose of gaining time. Yet, before he openly
declared against the English settlers, and against England
herself, what must be a war to the death, he wished to rid
himself of Mountjoy, who had hitherto been true to the cause of
James, but who, it was well known, would never consent to be a
party to the spoliation and oppression of the colonists.
Hypocritical professions of friendship and of pacific intentions
were not spared. It was a sacred duty, Tyrconnel said, to avert
the calamities which seemed to be impending. King James himself,
if he understood the whole case, would not wish his Irish friends
to engage at that moment in an enterprise which must be fatal to
them and useless to him. He would permit them, he would command
them, to submit to necessity, and to reserve themselves for
better times. If any man of weight, loyal, able, and well
informed, would repair to Saint Germains and explain the state of
things, his Majesty would easily be convinced. Would Mountjoy
undertake this most honourable and important mission? Mountjoy
hesitated, and suggested that some person more likely to be
acceptable to the King should be the messenger. Tyrconnel swore,
ranted, declared that, unless King James were well advised,
Ireland would sink to the pit of hell, and insisted that Mountjoy
should go as the representative of the loyal members of the
Established Church, and should be accompanied by Chief Baron
Rice, a Roman Catholic high in the royal favour. Mountjoy
yielded. The two ambassadors departed together, but with very
different commissions. Rice was charged to tell James that
Mountjoy was a traitor at heart, and had been sent to France only
that the Protestants of Ireland might be deprived of a favourite
leader. The King was to be assured that he was impatiently
expected in Ireland, and that, if he would show himself there
with a French force, he might speedily retrieve his fallen
fortunes.146 The Chief Baron carried with him other instructions
which were probably kept secret even from the Court of Saint
Germains. If James should be unwilling to put himself at the head
of the native population of Ireland, Rice was directed to request
a private audience of Lewis, and to offer to make the island a
province of France.147

As soon as the two envoys had departed, Tyrconnel set himself to
prepare for the conflict which had become inevitable; and he was
strenuously assisted by the faithless Hamilton. The Irish nation
was called to arms; and the call was obeyed with strange
promptitude and enthusiasm. The flag on the Castle of Dublin was
embroidered with the words, "Now or never: now and for ever:" and
those words resounded through the whole island.148 Never in
modern Europe has there been such a rising up of a whole people.
The habits of the Celtic peasant were such that he made no
sacrifice in quitting his potatoe ground for the camp. He loved
excitement and adventure. He feared work far more than danger.
His national and religious feelings had, during three years, been
exasperated by the constant application of stimulants. At every
fair and market he had heard that a good time was at hand, that
the tyrants who spoke Saxon and lived in slated houses were about
to be swept away, and that the land would again belong to its own
children. By the peat fires of a hundred thousand cabins had
nightly been sung rude ballads which predicted the deliverance of
the oppressed race. The priests, most of whom belonged to those
old families which the Act of Settlement had ruined, but which
were still revered by the native population, had, from a thousand
altars, charged every Catholic to show his zeal for the true
Church by providing weapons against the day when it might be
necessary to try the chances of battle in her cause. The army,
which, under Ormond, had consisted of only eight regiments, was
now increased to forty-eight: and the ranks were soon full to
overflowing. It was impossible to find at short notice one tenth
of the number of good officers which was required. Commissions
were scattered profusely among idle cosherers who claimed to be
descended from good Irish families. Yet even thus the supply of
captains and lieutenants fell short of the demand; and many
companies were commanded by cobblers, tailors and footmen.149

The pay of the soldiers was very small. The private had only
threepence a day. One half only of this pittance was ever given
him in money; and that half was often in arrear. But a far more
seductive bait than his miserable stipend was the prospect of
boundless license. If the government allowed him less than
sufficed for his wants, it was not extreme to mark the means by
which he supplied the deficiency. Though four fifths of the
population of Ireland were Celtic and Roman Catholic, more than
four fifths of the property of Ireland belonged to the Protestant
Englishry. The garners, the cellars, above all the flocks and
herds of the minority, were abandoned to the majority. Whatever
the regular troops spared was devoured by bands of marauders who
overran almost every barony in the island. For the arming was now
universal. No man dared to present himself at mass without some
weapon, a pike, a long knife called a skean, or, at the very
least, a strong ashen stake, pointed and hardened in the fire.
The very women were exhorted by their spiritual directors to
carry skeans. Every smith, every carpenter, every cutler, was at
constant work on guns and blades. It was scarcely possible to get
a horse shod. If any Protestant artisan refused to assist in the
manufacture of implements which were to be used against his
nation and his religion, he was flung into prison. It seems
probable that, at the end of February, at least a hundred
thousand Irishmen were in arms. Near fifty thousand of them were
soldiers. The rest were banditti, whose violence and
licentiousness the Government affected to disapprove, but did not
really exert itself to suppress. The Protestants not only were
not protected, but were not suffered to protect themselves. It
was determined that they should be left unarmed in the midst of
an armed and hostile population. A day was fixed on which they
were to bring all their swords and firelocks to the parish
churches; and it was notified that every Protestant house in
which, after that day, a weapon should be found should be given
up to be sacked by the soldiers. Bitter complaints were made that
any knave might, by hiding a spear head or an old gun barrel in a
corner of a mansion, bring utter ruin on the owner.150

Chief Justice Keating, himself a Protestant, and almost the only
Protestant who still held a great place in Ireland, struggled
courageously in the cause of justice and order against the united
strength of the government and the populace. At the Wicklow
assizes of that spring, he, from the seat of judgment, set forth
with great strength of language the miserable state of the
country. Whole counties, he said, were devastated by a rabble
resembling the vultures and ravens which follow the march of an
army. Most of these wretches were not soldiers. They acted under
no authority known to the law. Yet it was, he owned, but too
evident that they were encouraged and screened by some who were
in high command. How else could it be that a market overt for
plunder should be held within a short distance of the capital?
The stories which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near
the Cape of Good Hope were realised in Leinster. Nothing was more
common than for an honest man to lie down rich in flocks and
herds acquired by the industry of a long life, and to wake a
beggar. It was however to small purpose that Keating attempted,
in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to uphold the supremacy of
the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the bench for
the purpose of overawing the judge and countenancing the robbers.
One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear.
Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the
orders of his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons
of higher station than himself, whom he saw at that moment in
Court. Two only of the Merry Boys, as they were called, were
convicted: the worst criminals escaped; and the Chief justice
indignantly told the jurymen that the guilt of the public ruin
lay at their door.151

When such disorder prevailed in Wicklow, it is easy to imagine
what must have been the state of districts more barbarous and
more remote from the seat of government. Keating appears to have
been the only magistrate who strenuously exerted himself to put
the law in force. Indeed Nugent, the Chief justice of the highest
criminal court of the realm, declared on the bench at Cork that,
without violence and spoliation, the intentions of the Government
could not be carried into effect, and that robbery must at that
conjuncture be tolerated as a necessary evil.152

The destruction of property which took place within a few weeks
would be incredible, if it were not attested by witnesses
unconnected with each other and attached to very different
interests. There is a close, and sometimes almost a verbal,
agreement between the description given by Protestants, who,
during that reign of terror, escaped, at the hazard of their
lives, to England, and the descriptions given by the envoys,
commissaries, and captains of Lewis. All agreed in declaring that
it would take many years to repair the waste which had been
wrought in a few weeks by the armed peasantry.153 Some of the
Saxon aristocracy had mansions richly furnished, and sideboards
gorgeous with silver bowls and chargers. All this wealth
disappeared. One house, in which there had been three thousand
pounds' worth of plate, was left without a spoon.154 But the
chief riches of Ireland consisted in cattle. Innumerable flocks
and herds covered that vast expanse of emerald meadow, saturated
with the moisture of the Atlantic. More than one gentleman
possessed twenty thousand sheep and four thousand oxen. The
freebooters who now overspread the country belonged to a class
which was accustomed to live on potatoes and sour whey, and which
had always regarded meat as a luxury reserved for the rich. These
men at first revelled in beef and mutton, as the savage invaders,
who of old poured down from the forests of the north on Italy,
revelled in Massic and Falernian wines. The Protestants described
with contemptuous disgust the strange gluttony of their newly
liberated slaves. The carcasses, half raw and half burned to
cinders, sometimes still bleeding, sometimes in a state of
loathsome decay, were torn to pieces and swallowed without salt,
bread, or herbs. Those marauders who preferred boiled meat, being
often in want of kettles, contrived to boil the steer in his own
skin. An absurd tragicomedy is still extant, which was acted in
this and the following year at some low theatre for the amusement
of the English populace. A crowd of half naked savages appeared
on the stage, howling a Celtic song and dancing round an ox. They
then proceeded to cut steaks out of the animal while still alive
and to fling the bleeding flesh on the coals. In truth the
barbarity and filthiness of the banquets of the Rapparees was
such as the dramatists of Grub Street could scarcely caricature.
When Lent began, the plunderers generally ceased to devour, but
continued to destroy. A peasant would kill a cow merely in order
to get a pair of brogues. Often a whole flock of sheep, often a
herd of fifty or sixty kine, was slaughtered: the beasts were
flayed; the fleeces and hides were carried away; and the bodies
were left to poison the air. The French ambassador reported to
his master that, in six weeks, fifty thousand horned cattle had
been slain in this manner, and were rotting on the ground all
over the country. The number of sheep that were butchered during
the same time was popularly said to have been three or four
hundred thousand.155

Any estimate which can now be framed of the value of the property
destroyed during this fearful conflict of races must necessarily
be very inexact. We are not however absolutely without materials
for such an estimate. The Quakers were neither a very numerous
nor a very opulent class. We can hardly suppose that they were
more than a fiftieth part of the Protestant population of
Ireland, or that they possessed more than a fiftieth part of the
Protestant wealth of Ireland. They were undoubtedly better
treated than any other Protestant sect. James had always been
partial to them: they own that Tyrconnel did his best to protect
them; and they seem to have found favour even in the sight of the
Rapparees.156 Yet the Quakers computed their pecuniary losses at
a hundred thousand pounds.157

In Leinster, Munster and Connaught, it was utterly impossible for
the English settlers, few as they were and dispersed, to offer
any effectual resistance to this terrible outbreak of the
aboriginal population. Charleville, Mallow, Sligo, fell into the
hands of the natives. Bandon, where the Protestants had mustered
in considerable force, was reduced by Lieutenant General
Macarthy, an Irish officer who was descended from one of the most
illustrious Celtic houses, and who had long served, under a
feigned name, in the French Army.158 The people of Kenmare held
out in their little fastness till they were attacked by three
thousand regular soldiers, and till it was known that several
pieces of ordnance were coming to batter down the turf wall which
surrounded the agent's house. Then at length a capitulation was
concluded. The colonists were suffered to embark in a small
vessel scantily supplied with food and water. They had no
experienced navigator on board: but after a voyage of a
fortnight, during which they were crowded together like slaves in
a Guinea ship, and suffered the extremity of thirst and hunger,
they reached Bristol in safety.159 When such was the fate of the
towns, it was evident that the country seats which the Protestant
landowners had recently fortified in the three southern provinces
could no longer be defended. Many families submitted, delivered
up their arms, and thought themselves happy in escaping with
life. But many resolute and highspirited gentlemen and yeomen
were determined to perish rather than yield. They packed up such
valuable property as could easily be carried away, burned
whatever they could not remove, and, well armed and mounted, set
out for those spots in Ulster which were the strongholds of their
race and of their faith. The flower of the Protestant population
of Munster and Connaught found shelter at Enniskillen. Whatever
was bravest and most truehearted in Leinster took the road to
Londonderry.160

The spirit of Enniskillen and Londonderry rose higher and higher
to meet the danger. At both places the tidings of what had been
done by the Convention at Westminster were received with
transports of joy. William and Mary were proclaimed at
Enniskillen with unanimous enthusiasm, and with such pomp as the
little town could furnish.161 Lundy, who commanded at
Londonderry, could not venture to oppose himself to the general
sentiment of the citizens and of his own soldiers. He therefore
gave in his adhesion to the new government, and signed a
declaration by which he bound himself to stand by that
government, on pain of being considered a coward and a traitor. A
vessel from England soon brought a commission from William and
Mary which confirmed him in his office.162

To reduce the Protestants of Ulster to submission before aid
could arrive from England was now the chief object of Tyrconnel.
A great force was ordered to move northward, under the command of
Richard Hamilton. This man had violated all the obligations which
are held most sacred by gentlemen and soldiers, had broken faith
with his friends the Temples, had forfeited his military parole,
and was now not ashamed to take the field as a general against
the government to which he was bound to render himself up as a
prisoner. His march left on the face of the country traces which
the most careless eye could not during many years fail to
discern. His army was accompanied by a rabble, such as Keating
had well compared to the unclean birds of prey which swarm
wherever the scent of carrion is strong. The general professed
himself anxious to save from ruin and outrage all Protestants who
remained quietly at their homes; and he most readily gave them
protections tinder his hand. But these protections proved of no
avail; and he was forced to own that, whatever power he might be
able to exercise over his soldiers, he could not keep order among
the mob of campfollowers. The country behind him was a
wilderness; and soon the country before him became equally
desolate. For at the fame of his approach the colonists burned
their furniture, pulled down their houses, and retreated
northward. Some of them attempted to make a stand at Dromore, but
were broken and scattered. Then the flight became wild and
tumultuous. The fugitives broke down the bridges and burned the
ferryboats. Whole towns, the seats of the Protestant population,
were left in ruins without one inhabitant. The people of Omagh
destroyed their own dwellings so utterly that no roof was left to
shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of Cavan
migrated in one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy.
The road was deep in mire. It was a piteous sight to see, mingled
with the armed men, the women and children weeping, famished, and
toiling through the mud up to their knees. All Lisburn fled to
Antrim; and, as the foes drew nearer, all Lisburn and Antrim
together came pouring into Londonderry. Thirty thousand
Protestants, of both sexes and of every age, were crowded behind
the bulwarks of the City of Refuge. There, at length, on the
verge of the ocean, hunted to the last asylum, and baited into a
mood in which men may be destroyed, but will not easily be
subjugated, the imperial race turned desperately to bay.163

Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice had arrived in France. Mountjoy was
instantly put under arrest and thrown into the Bastile. James
determined to comply with the invitation which Rice had brought,
and applied to Lewis for the help of a French army. But Lewis,
though he showed, as to all things which concerned the personal
dignity and comfort of his royal guests, a delicacy even
romantic, and a liberality approaching to profusion, was
unwilling to send a large body of troops to Ireland. He saw that
France would have to maintain a long war on the Continent against
a formidable coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and,
great as were her resources, he felt it to be important that
nothing should be wasted. He doubtless regarded with sincere
commiseration and good will the unfortunate exiles to whom he had
given so princely a welcome. Yet neither commiseration nor good
will could prevent him from speedily discovering that his brother
of England was the dullest and most perverse of human beings. The
folly of James, his incapacity to read the characters of men and
the signs of the times, his obstinacy, always most offensively
displayed when wisdom enjoined concession, his vacillation,
always exhibited most pitiably in emergencies which required
firmness, had made him an outcast from England, and might, if his
counsels were blindly followed, bring great calamities on France.
As a legitimate sovereign expelled by rebels, as a confessor of
the true faith persecuted by heretics, as a near kinsman of the
House of Bourbon, who had seated himself on the hearth of that
House, he was entitled to hospitality, to tenderness, to respect.
It was fit that he should have a stately palace and a spacious
forest, that the household troops should salute him with the
highest military honours, that he should have at his command all
the hounds of the Grand Huntsman and all the hawks of the Grand
Falconer. But, when a prince, who, at the head of a great fleet
and army, had lost an empire without striking a blow, undertook
to furnish plans for naval and military expeditions; when a
prince, who had been undone by his profound ignorance of the
temper of his own countrymen, of his own soldiers, of his own
domestics, of his own children, undertook to answer for the zeal
and fidelity of the Irish people, whose language he could not
speak, and on whose land he had never set his foot; it was
necessary to receive his suggestions with caution. Such were the
sentiments of Lewis; and in these sentiments he was confirmed by
his Minister of War Louvois, who, on private as well as on public
grounds, was unwilling that James should be accompanied by a
large military force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was favourite
at Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honour which
has very seldom been conferred on aliens who were not sovereign
princes. It was believed indeed at the French Court that, in
order to distinguish him from the other knights of the most
illustrious of European orders, he had been decorated with that
very George which Charles the First had, on the scaffold, put
into the hands of Juxon.164 Lauzun had been encouraged to hope
that, if French forces were sent to Ireland, he should command
them; and this ambitious hope Louvois was bent on
disappointing.165

An army was therefore for the present refused; but every thing
else was granted. The Brest fleet was ordered to be in readiness
to sail. Arms for ten thousand men and great quantities of
ammunition were put on board. About four hundred captains,
lieutenants, cadets and gunners were selected for the important
service of organizing and disciplining the Irish levies. The
chief command was held by a veteran warrior, the Count of Rosen.
Under him were Maumont, who held the rank of lieutenant general,
and a brigadier named Pusignan. Five hundred thousand crowns in
gold, equivalent to about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds
sterling, were sent to Brest.166 For James's personal comforts
provision was made with anxiety resembling that of a tender
mother equipping her son for a first campaign. The cabin
furniture, the camp furniture, the tents, the bedding, the plate,
were luxurious and superb. Nothing, which could be agreeable or
useful to the exile was too costly for the munificence, or too
trifling for the attention, of his gracious and splendid host. On
the fifteenth of February, James paid a farewell visit to
Versailles. He was conducted round the buildings and plantations
with every mark of respect and kindness. The fountains played in
his honour. It was the season of the Carnival; and never had the
vast palace and the sumptuous gardens presented a gayer aspect.
In the evening the two kings, after a long and earnest conference
in private, made their appearance before a splendid circle of
lords and ladies. "I hope," said Lewis, in his noblest and most
winning manner, "that we are about to part, never to meet again
in this world. That is the best wish that I can form for you.
But, if any evil chance should force you to return, be assured
that you will find me to the last such as you have found me
hitherto." On the seventeenth Lewis paid in return a farewell
visit to Saint Germains. At the moment of the parting embrace he
said, with his most amiable smile: "We have forgotten one thing,
a cuirass for yourself. You shall have mine." The cuirass was
brought, and suggested to the wits of the Court ingenious
allusions to the Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his
feebler friend. James set out for Brest; and his wife, overcome
with sickness and sorrow, shut herself up with her child to weep
and pray.167

James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own
subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick,
Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis, Dover, and Melfort. Of all
the retinue, none was so odious to the people of Great Britain as
Melfort. He was an apostate: he was believed by many to be an
insincere apostate; and the insolent, arbitrary and menacing
language of his state papers disgusted even the Jacobites. He was
therefore a favourite with his master: for to James unpopularity,
obstinacy, and implacability were the greatest recommendations
that a statesman could have.

What Frenchman should attend the King of England in the character
of ambassador had been the subject of grave deliberation at
Versailles. Barillon could not be passed over without a marked
slight. But his selfindulgent habits, his want of energy, and,
above all, the credulity with which he had listened to the
professions of Sunderland, had made an unfavourable impression on
the mind of Lewis. What was to be done in Ireland was not work
for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in that kingdom must
be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of an envoy. It
would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching every
part of the political and military administration of the country
in which he would represent the most powerful and the most
beneficent of allies. Barillon was therefore passed over. He
affected to bear his disgrace with composure. His political
career, though it had brought great calamities both on the House
of Stuart and on the House of Bourbon, had been by no means
unprofitable to himself. He was old, he said: he was fat: he did
not envy younger men the honour of living on potatoes and whiskey
among the Irish bogs; he would try to console himself with
partridges, with champagne, and with the society of the wittiest
men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumoured, however that
he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to
conceal: his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find
consolation in religious duties. Some people were much edified by
the piety of the old voluptuary: but others attributed his death,
which took place not long after his retreat from public life, to
shame and vexation.168

The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of
William, and who had vainly recommended a policy which would
probably have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of
Lewis fell. In abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous
able diplomatists whom his country then possessed. His demeanour
was singularly pleasing, his person handsome, his temper bland.
His manners and conversation were those of a gentleman who had
been bred in the most polite and magnificent of all Courts, who
had represented that Court both in Roman Catholic and Protestant
countries, and who had acquired in his wanderings the art of
catching the tone of any society into which chance might throw
him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in resources,
and skilful in discovering the weak parts of a character. His own
character, however, was not without its weak parts. The
consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was the torment of
his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable
and ludicrous. Able, experienced and accomplished as he was, he
sometimes, under the influence of this mental disease, descended
to the level of Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious
observers with scenes almost as laughable as that in which the
honest draper was made a Mamamouchi.169 It would have been well
if this had been the worst. But it is not too much to say that of
the difference between right and wrong Avaux had no more notion
than a brute. One sentiment was to him in the place of religion
and morality, a superstitious and intolerant devotion to the
Crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his
despatches, and gives a colour to all his thoughts and words.
Nothing that tended to promote the interest of the French
monarchy seemed to him a crime. Indeed he appears to have taken
it for granted that not only Frenchmen, but all human beings,
owed a natural allegiance to the House of Bourbon, and that
whoever hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of his
own native country to the glory of that House was a traitor.
While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those
Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as the well
intentioned party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland,
the same feeling appears still more strongly. He would have been
a more sagacious politician if he had sympathized more with those
feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation which prevail
among the vulgar. For his own indifference to all considerations
of justice and mercy was such that, in his schemes, he made no
allowance for the consciences and sensibilities of his
neighbours. More than once he deliberately recommended wickedness
so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with indignation.
But they could not succeed even in making their scruples
intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a
cynical sneer, wondering within himself whether those who
lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were
only shamming.

Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the companion and
monitor of James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a
communication with the malecontents in the English Parliament;
and he was authorised to expend, if necessary, a hundred thousand
crowns among them.

James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on
board of a man of war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within
forty-eight hours. He had ample time, however, before his
departure, to exhibit some of the faults by which he had lost
England and Scotland, and by which he was about to lose Ireland.
Avaux wrote from the harbour of Brest that it would not be easy
to conduct any important business in concert with the King of
England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from any body. The
very foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him say
things which ought to have been reserved for the ears of his
confidential advisers.170

The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the
afternoon of the twelfth of March, James landed in the harbour of
Kinsale. By the Roman Catholic population he was received with
shouts of unfeigned transport. The few Protestants who remained
in that part of the country joined in greeting him, and perhaps
not insincerely. For, though an enemy of their religion, he was
not an enemy of their nation; and they might reasonably hope that
the worst king would show somewhat more respect for law and
property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and Rapparees. The
Vicar of Kinsale was among those who went to pay their duty: he
was presented by the Bishop of Chester, and was not ungraciously
received.171

James learned that his cause was prospering. In the three
southern provinces of Ireland the Protestants were disarmed, and
were so effectually bowed down by terror that he had nothing to
apprehend from them. In the North there was some show of
resistance: but Hamilton was marching against the malecontents;
and there was little doubt that they would easily be crushed. A
day was spent at Kinsale in putting the arms and ammunition out
of reach of danger. Horses sufficient to carry a few travellers
were with some difficulty procured; and, on the fourteenth of
March, James proceeded to Cork.172

We should greatly err if we imagined that the road by which he
entered that city bore any resemblance to the stately approach
which strikes the traveller of the nineteenth century with
admiration. At present Cork, though deformed by many miserable
relics of a former age, holds no mean place among the ports of
the empire. The shipping is more than half what the shipping of
London was at the time of the Revolution. The customs exceed the
whole revenue which the whole kingdom of Ireland, in the most
peaceful and prosperous times, yielded to the Stuarts. The town
is adorned by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a
Corinthian portico which would do honour to Palladio, and by a
Gothic college worthy to stand in the High Street of Oxford. In
1689, the city extended over about one tenth part of the space
which it now covers, and was intersected by muddy streams, which
have long been concealed by arches and buildings. A desolate
marsh, in which the sportsman who pursued the waterfowl sank deep
in water and mire at every step, covered the area now occupied by
stately buildings, the palaces of great commercial societies.
There was only a single street in which two wheeled carriages
could pass each other. From this street diverged to right and
left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the belief of those who
have formed their notions of misery from the most miserable parts
of Saint Giles's and Whitechapel. One of these alleys, called,
and, by comparison, justly called, Broad Lane, is about ten feet
wide. From such places, now seats of hunger and pestilence,
abandoned to the most wretched of mankind, the citizens poured
forth to welcome James. He was received with military honours by
Macarthy, who held the chief command in Munster.

It was impossible for the King to proceed immediately to Dublin;
for the southern counties had been so completely laid waste by
the banditti whom the priests had called to arms, that the means
of locomotion were not easily to be procured. Horses had become
rarities: in a large district there were only two carts; and
those Avaux pronounced good for nothing. Some days elapsed before
the money which had been brought from France, though no very
formidable mass, could be dragged over the few miles which
separated Cork from Kinsale.173

While the King and his Council were employed in trying to procure
carriages and beasts, Tyrconnel arrived from Dublin. He held
encouraging language. The opposition of Enniskillen he seems to
have thought deserving of little consideration. Londonderry, he
said, was the only important post held by the Protestants; and
even Londonderry would not, in his judgment, hold out many days.

At length James was able to leave Cork for the capital. On the
road, the shrewd and observant Avaux made many remarks. The first
part of the journey was through wild highlands, where it was not
strange that there should be few traces of art and industry. But,
from Kilkenny to the gates of Dublin, the path of the travellers
lay over gently undulating ground rich with natural verdure. That
fertile district should have been covered with flocks and herds,
orchards and cornfields: but it was an unfilled and unpeopled
desert. Even in the towns the artisans were very few.
Manufactured articles were hardly to be found, and if found could
be procured only at immense prices.174 The truth was that most of
the English inhabitants had fled, and that art, industry, and
capital had fled with them.

James received on his progress numerous marks of the goodwill of
the peasantry; but marks such as, to men bred in the courts of
France and England, had an uncouth and ominous appearance. Though
very few labourers were seen at work in the fields, the road was
lined by Rapparees armed with skeans, stakes, and half pikes, who
crowded to look upon the deliverer of their race. The highway
along which he travelled presented the aspect of a street in
which a fair is held. Pipers came forth to play before him in a
style which was not exactly that of the French opera; and the
villagers danced wildly to the music. Long frieze mantles,
resembling those which Spenser had, a century before, described
as meet beds for rebels, and apt cloaks for thieves, were spread
along the path which the cavalcade was to tread; and garlands, in
which cabbage stalks supplied the place of laurels, were offered
to the royal hand. The women insisted on kissing his Majesty; but
it should seem that they bore little resemblance to their
posterity; for this compliment was so distasteful to him that he
ordered his retinue to keep them at a distance.175

On the twenty-fourth of March he entered Dublin. That city was
then, in extent and population, the second in the British isles.
It contained between six and seven thousand houses, and probably
above thirty thousand inhabitants.176 In wealth and beauty,
however, Dublin was inferior to many English towns. Of the
graceful and stately public buildings which now adorn both sides
of the Liffey scarcely one had been even projected. The College,
a very different edifice from that which now stands on the same
site, lay quite out of the city.177 The ground which is at
present occupied by Leinster House and Charlemont House, by
Sackville Street and Merrion Square, was open meadow. Most of the
dwellings were built of timber, and have long given place to more
substantial edifices. The Castle had in 1686 been almost
uninhabitable. Clarendon had complained that he knew of no
gentleman in Pall Mall who was not more conveniently and
handsomely lodged than the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. No public
ceremony could be performed in a becoming manner under the
Viceregal roof. Nay, in spite of constant glazing and tiling, the
rain perpetually drenched the apartments.178 Tyrconnel, since he
became Lord Deputy, had erected a new building somewhat more
commodious. To this building the King was conducted in state
through the southern part of the city. Every exertion had been
made to give an air of festivity and splendour to the district
which he was to traverse. The streets, which were generally deep
in mud, were strewn with gravel. Boughs and flowers were
scattered over the path.

Tapestry and arras hung from the windows of those who could
afford to exhibit such finery. The poor supplied the place of
rich stuffs with blankets and coverlids. In one place was
stationed a troop of friars with a cross; in another a company of
forty girls dressed in white and carrying nosegays. Pipers and
harpers played "The King shall enjoy his own again." The Lord
Deputy carried the sword of state before his master. The Judges,
the Heralds, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, appeared in all the
pomp of office. Soldiers were drawn up on the right and left to
keep the passages clear. A procession of twenty coaches belonging
to public functionaries was mustered. Before the Castle gate, the
King was met by the host under a canopy borne by four bishops of
his church. At the sight he fell on his knees, and passed some
time in devotion. He then rose and was conducted to the chapel of
his palace, once--such are the vicissitudes of human things--the
riding house of Henry Cromwell. A Te Deum was performed in honour
of his Majesty's arrival. The next morning he held a Privy
Council, discharged Chief Justice Keating from any further
attendance at the board, ordered Avaux and Bishop Cartwright to
be sworn in, and issued a proclamation convoking a Parliament to
meet at Dublin on the seventh of May.179

When the news that James had arrived in Ireland reached London,
the sorrow and alarm were general, and were mingled with serious
discontent. The multitude, not making sufficient allowance for
the difficulties by which William was encompassed on every side,
loudly blamed his neglect. To all the invectives of the ignorant
and malicious he opposed, as was his wont, nothing but immutable
gravity and the silence of profound disdain. But few minds had
received from nature a temper so firm as his; and still fewer had
undergone so long and so rigorous a discipline. The reproaches
which had no power to shake his fortitude, tried from childhood
upwards by both extremes of fortune, inflicted a deadly wound on
a less resolute heart.

While all the coffeehouses were unanimously resolving that a
fleet and army ought to have been long before sent to Dublin, and
wondering how so renowned a politician as his Majesty could have
been duped by Hamilton and Tyrconnel, a gentleman went down to
the Temple Stairs, called a boat, and desired to be pulled to
Greenwich. He took the cover of a letter from his pocket,
scratched a few lines with a pencil, and laid the paper on the
seat with some silver for his fare. As the boat passed under the
dark central arch of London Bridge, he sprang into the water and
disappeared. It was found that he had written these words: "My
folly in undertaking what I could not execute hath done the King
great prejudice which cannot be stopped--No easier way for me
than this--May his undertakings prosper--May he have a blessing."
There was no signature; but the body was soon found, and proved
to be that of John Temple. He was young and highly accomplished:
he was heir to an honourable name; he was united to an amiable
woman: he was possessed of an ample fortune; and he had in
prospect the greatest honours of the state. It does not appear
that the public had been at all aware to what an extent he was
answerable for the policy which had brought so much obloquy on
the government. The King, stern as he was, had far too great a
heart to treat an error as a crime. He had just appointed the
unfortunate young man Secretary at War; and the commission was
actually preparing. It is not improbable that the cold
magnanimity of the master was the very thing which made the
remorse of the servant insupportable.180

But, great as were the vexations which William had to undergo,
those by which the temper of his father-in-law was at this time
tried were greater still. No court in Europe was distracted by
more quarrels and intrigues than were to be found within the
walls of Dublin Castle. The numerous petty cabals which sprang
from the cupidity, the jealousy, and the malevolence of
individuals scarcely deserve mention. But there was one cause of
discord which has been too little noticed, and which is the key
to much that has been thought mysterious in the history of those
times.

Between English Jacobitism and Irish Jacobitism there was nothing
in common. The English  Jacobite was animated by a strong
enthusiasm for the family of Stuart; and in his zeal for the
interests of that family he too often forgot the interests of the
state. Victory, peace, prosperity, seemed evils to the stanch
nonjuror of our island if they tended to make usurpation popular
and permanent. Defeat, bankruptcy, famine, invasion, were, in his
view, public blessings, if they increased the chance of a
restoration. He would rather have seen his country the last of
the nations under James the Second or James the Third, than the
mistress of the sea, the umpire between contending potentates,
the seat of arts, the hive of industry, under a prince of the
House of Nassau or of Brunswick.

The sentiments of the Irish Jacobite were very different, and, it
must in candour be acknowledged, were of a nobler character. The
fallen dynasty was nothing to him. He had not, like a Cheshire or
Shropshire cavalier, been taught from his cradle to consider
loyalty to that dynasty as the first duty of a Christian and a
gentleman. All his family traditions, all the lessons taught him
by his foster mother and by his priests, had been of a very
different tendency. He had been brought up to regard the foreign
sovereigns of his native land with the feeling with which the Jew
regarded Caesar, with which the Scot regarded Edward the First,
with which the Castilian regarded Joseph Buonaparte, with which
the Pole regards the Autocrat of the Russias. It was the boast of
the highborn Milesian that, from the twelfth century to the
seventeenth, every generation of his family had been in arms
against the English crown. His remote ancestors had contended
with Fitzstephen and De Burgh. His greatgrandfather had cloven
down the soldiers of Elizabeth in the battle of the Blackwater.
His grandfather had conspired with O'Donnel against James the
First. His father had fought under Sir Phelim O'Neill against
Charles the First. The confiscation of the family estate had been
ratified by an Act of Charles the Second. No Puritan, who had
been cited before the High Commission by Laud, who had charged
under Cromwell at Naseby, who had been prosecuted under the
Conventicle Act, and who had been in hiding on account of the Rye
House Plot, bore less affection to the House of Stuart than the
O'Haras and Macmahons, on whose support the fortunes of that
House now seemed to depend.

The fixed purpose of these men was to break the foreign yoke, to
exterminate the Saxon colony, to sweep away the Protestant
Church, and to restore the soil to its ancient proprietors. To
obtain these ends they would without the smallest scruple have
risen up against James; and to obtain these ends they rose up for
him. The Irish Jacobites, therefore, were not at all desirous
that he should again reign at Whitehall: for they could not but
be aware that a Sovereign of Ireland, who was also Sovereign of
England, would not, and, even if he would, could not, long
administer the government of the smaller and poorer kingdom in
direct opposition to the feeling of the larger and richer. Their
real wish was that the Crowns might be completely separated, and
that their island might, whether under James or without James
they cared little, form a distinct state under the powerful
protection of France.

While one party in the Council at Dublin regarded James merely as
a tool to be employed for achieving the deliverance of Ireland,
another party regarded Ireland merely as a tool to be employed
for effecting the restoration of James. To the English and Scotch
lords and gentlemen who had accompanied him from Brest, the
island in which they sojourned was merely a stepping stone by
which they were to reach Great Britain. They were still as much
exiles as when they were at Saint Germains; and indeed they
thought Saint Germains a far more pleasant place of exile than
Dublin Castle. They had no sympathy with the native population of
the remote and half barbarous region to which a strange chance
had led them. Nay, they were bound by common extraction and by
common language to that colony which it was the chief object of
the native population to root out. They had indeed, like the
great body of their countrymen, always regarded the aboriginal
Irish with very unjust contempt, as inferior to other European
nations, not only in acquired knowledge, but in natural
intelligence and courage; as born Gibeonites who had been
liberally treated, in being permitted to hew wood and to draw
water for a wiser and mightier people. These politicians also
thought,--and here they were undoubtedly in the right,--that, if
their master's object was to recover the throne of England, it
would be madness in him to give himself up to the guidance of the
O's and the Macs who regarded England with mortal enmity. A law
declaring the crown of Ireland independent, a law transferring
mitres, glebes, and tithes from the Protestant to the Roman
Catholic Church, a law transferring ten millions of acres from
Saxons to Celts, would doubtless be loudly applauded in Clare and
Tipperary. But what would be the effect of such laws at
Westminster? What at Oxford? It would be poor policy to alienate
such men as Clarendon and Beaufort, Ken and Sherlock, in order to
obtain the applause of the Rapparees of the Bog of Allen.181

Thus the English and Irish factions in the Council at Dublin were
engaged in a dispute which admitted of no compromise. Avaux
meanwhile looked on that dispute from a point of view entirely
his own. His object was neither the emancipation of Ireland nor
the restoration of James, but the greatness of the French
monarchy. In what way that object might be best attained was a
very complicated problem. Undoubtedly a French statesman could
not but wish for a counterrevolution in England. The effect of
such a counterrevolution would be that the power which was the
most formidable enemy of France would become her firmest ally,
that William would sink into insignificance, and that the
European coalition of which he was the chief would be dissolved.
But what chance was there of such a counterrevolution? The
English exiles indeed, after the fashion of exiles, confidently
anticipated a speedy return to their country. James himself
loudly boasted that his subjects on the other side of the water,
though they had been misled for a moment by the specious names of
religion, liberty, and property, were warmly attached to him, and
would rally round him as soon as he appeared among them. But the
wary envoy tried in vain to discover any foundation for these
hopes. He was certain that they were not warranted by any
intelligence which had arrived from any part of Great Britain;
and he considered them as the mere daydreams of a feeble mind. He
thought it unlikely that the usurper, whose ability and
resolution he had, during an unintermitted conflict of ten years,
learned to appreciate, would easily part with the great prize
which had been won by such strenuous exertions and profound
combinations. It was therefore necessary to consider what
arrangements would be most beneficial to France, on the
supposition that it proved impossible to dislodge William from
England. And it was evident that, if William could not be
dislodged from England, the arrangement most beneficial to France
would be that which had been contemplated eighteen months before
when James had no prospect of a male heir. Ireland must be
severed from the English crown, purged of the English colonists,
reunited to the Church of Rome, placed under the protection of
the House of Bourbon, and made, in every thing but name, a French
province. In war, her resources would be absolutely at the
command of her Lord Paramount. She would furnish his army with
recruits. She would furnish his navy with fine harbours
commanding all the great western outlets of the English trade.
The strong national and religious antipathy with which her
aboriginal population regarded the inhabitants of the
neighbouring island would be a sufficient guarantee for their
fidelity to that government which could alone protect her against
the Saxon.

On the whole, therefore, it appeared to Avaux that, of the two
parties into which the Council at Dublin was divided, the Irish
party was that which it was for the interest of France to
support. He accordingly connected himself closely with the chiefs
of that party, obtained from them the fullest avowals of all that
they designed, and was soon able to report to his government that
neither the gentry nor the common people were at all unwilling to
become French.182

The views of Louvois, incomparably the greatest statesman that
France had produced since Richelieu, seem to have entirely agreed
with those of Avaux. The best thing, Louvois wrote, that King
James could do would be to forget that he had reigned in Great
Britain, and to think only of putting Ireland into a good
condition, and of establishing himself firmly there. Whether this
were the true interest of the House of Stuart may be doubted. But
it was undoubtedly the true interest of the House of Bourbon.183

About the Scotch and English exiles, and especially about
Melfort, Avaux constantly expressed himself with an asperity
hardly to have been expected from a man of so much sense and
experience. Melfort was in a singularly unfortunate position. He
was a renegade: he was a mortal enemy of the liberties of his
country: he was of a bad and tyrannical nature; and yet he was,
in some sense, a patriot. The consequence was that he was more
universally detested than any man of his time. For, while his
apostasy and his arbitrary maxims of government made him the
abhorrence of England and Scotland, his anxiety for the dignity
and integrity of the empire made him the abhorrence of the Irish
and of the French.

The first question to be decided was whether James should remain
at Dublin, or should put himself at the head of his army in
Ulster. On this question the Irish and British factions joined
battle. Reasons of no great weight were adduced on both sides;
for neither party ventured to speak out. The point really in
issue was whether the King should be in Irish or in British
hands. If he remained at Dublin, it would be scarcely possible
for him to withhold his assent from any bill presented to him by
the Parliament which he had summoned to meet there. He would be
forced to plunder, perhaps to attaint, innocent Protestant
gentlemen and clergymen by hundreds; and he would thus do
irreparable mischief to his cause on the other side of Saint
George's Channel. If he repaired to Ulster, he would be within a
few hours' sail of Great Britain. As soon as Londonderry had
fallen, and it was universally supposed that the fall of
Londonderry could not be long delayed, he might cross the sea
with part of his forces, and land in Scotland, where his friends
were supposed to be numerous. When he was once on British ground,
and in the midst of British adherents, it would no longer be in
the power of the Irish to extort his consent to their schemes of
spoliation and revenge.

The discussions in the Council were long and warm. Tyrconnel, who
had just been created a Duke, advised his master to stay in
Dublin. Melfort exhorted his Majesty to set out for Ulster. Avaux
exerted all his influence in support of Tyrconnel; but James,
whose personal inclinations were naturally on the British side of
the question, determined to follow the advice of Melfort.184
Avaux was deeply mortified. In his official letters he expressed
with great acrimony his contempt for the King's character and
understanding. On Tyrconnel, who had said that he despaired of
the fortunes of James, and that the real question was between the
King of France and the Prince of Orange, the ambassador
pronounced what was meant to be a warm eulogy, but may perhaps be
more properly called an invective. "If he were a born Frenchman
he could not be more zealous for the interests of France."185 The
conduct of Melfort, on the other hand, was the subject of an
invective which much resembles eulogy: "He is neither a good
Irishman nor a good Frenchman. All his affections are set on his
own country."186

Since the King was determined to go northward, Avaux did not
choose to be left behind. The royal party set out, leaving
Tyrconnel in charge at Dublin, and arrived at Charlemont on the
thirteenth of April. The journey was a strange one. The country
all along the road had been completely deserted by the
industrious population, and laid waste by bands of robbers.
"This," said one of the French officers, "is like travelling
through the deserts of Arabia."187 Whatever effects the colonists
had been able to remove were at Londonderry or Enniskillen. The
rest had been stolen or destroyed. Avaux informed his court that
he had not been able to get one truss of hay for his horses
without sending five or six miles. No labourer dared bring any
thing for sale lest some marauder should lay hands on it by the
way. The ambassador was put one night into a miserable taproom
full of soldiers smoking, another night into a dismantled house
without windows or shutters to keep out the rain. At Charlemont a
bag of oatmeal was with great difficulty, and as a matter of
favour, procured for the French legation. There was no wheaten
bread, except at the table of the King, who had brought a little
flour from Dublin, and to whom Avaux had lent a servant who knew
how to bake. Those who were honoured with an invitation to the
royal table had their bread and wine measured out to them. Every
body else, however high in rank, ate horsecorn, and drank water
or detestable beer, made with oats instead of barley, and
flavoured with some nameless herb as a substitute for hops.188
Yet report said that the country between Charlemont and Strabane
was even more desolate than the country between Dublin and
Charlemont. It was impossible to carry a large stock of
provisions. The roads were so bad and the horses so weak, that
the baggage waggons had all been left far behind. The chief
officers of the army were consequently in want of necessaries;
and the ill-humour which was the natural effect of these
privations was increased by the insensibility of James, who
seemed not to be aware that every body about him was not
perfectly comfortable.189

On the fourteenth of April the King and his train proceeded to
Omagh. The rain fell: the wind blew: the horses could scarcely
make their way through the mud, and in the face of the storm; and
the road was frequently intersected by torrents which might
almost be called rivers. The travellers had to pass several fords
where the water was breast high. Some of the party fainted from
fatigue and hunger. All around lay a frightful wilderness. In a
journey of forty miles Avaux counted only three miserable cabins.
Every thing else was rock, bog, and moor. When at length the
travellers reached Omagh, they found it in ruins. The
Protestants, who were the majority of the inhabitants, had
abandoned it, leaving not a wisp of straw nor a cask of liquor.
The windows had been broken: the chimneys had been beaten in: the
very locks and bolts of the doors had been carried away.190

Avaux had never ceased to press the King to return to Dublin; but
these expostulations had hitherto produced no effect. The
obstinacy of James, however, was an obstinacy which had nothing
in common with manly resolution, and which, though proof to
argument, was easily shaken by caprice. He received at Omagh,
early on the sixteenth of April, letters which alarmed him. He
learned that a strong body of Protestants was in arms at
Strabane, and that English ships of war had been seen near the
mouth of Lough Foyle. In one minute three messages were sent to
summon Avaux to the ruinous chamber in which the royal bed had
been prepared. There James, half dressed, and with the air of a
man bewildered by some great shock, announced his resolution to
hasten back instantly to Dublin. Avaux listened, wondered, and
approved. Melfort seemed prostrated by despair. The travellers
retraced their steps, and, late in the evening, reached
Charlemont. There the King received despatches very different
from those which had terrified him a few hours before. The
Protestants who had assembled near Strabane had been attacked by
Hamilton. Under a truehearted leader they would doubtless have
stood their ground. But Lundy, who commanded them, had told them
that all was lost, had ordered them to shift for themselves, and
had set them the example of flight.191 They had accordingly
retired in confusion to Londonderry. The King's correspondents
pronounced it to be impossible that Londonderry should hold out.
His Majesty had only to appear before the gates; and they would
instantly fly open. James now changed his mind again, blamed
himself for having been persuaded to turn his face southward,
and, though it was late in the evening, called for his horses.
The horses were in a miserable plight; but, weary and half
starved as they were, they were saddled. Melfort, completely
victorious, carried off his master to the camp. Avaux, after
remonstrating to no purpose, declared that he was resolved to
return to Dublin. It may be suspected that the extreme discomfort
which he had undergone had something to do with this resolution.
For complaints of that discomfort make up a large part of his
letters; and, in truth, a life passed in the palaces of Italy, in
the neat parlours and gardens of Holland, and in the luxurious
pavilions which adorned the suburbs of Paris, was a bad
preparation for the ruined hovels of Ulster. He gave, however, to
his master a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed
northward. The journey of James had been undertaken in opposition
to the unanimous sense of the Irish, and had excited great alarm
among them. They apprehended that he meant to quit them, and to
make a descent on Scotland. They knew that, once landed in Great
Britain, he would have neither the will nor the power to do those
things which they most desired. Avaux, by refusing to proceed
further, gave them an assurance that, whoever might betray them,
France would be their constant friend.192

While Avaux was on his way to Dublin, James hastened towards
Londonderry. He found his army concentrated a few miles south of
the city. The French generals who had sailed with him from Brest
were in his train; and two of them, Rosen and Maumont, were
placed over the head of Richard Hamilton.193 Rosen was a native
of Livonia, who had in early youth become a soldier of fortune,
who had fought his way to distinction, and who, though utterly
destitute of the graces and accomplishments characteristic of the
Court of Versailles, was nevertheless high in favour there. His
temper was savage: his manners were coarse: his language was a
strange jargon compounded of various dialects of French and
German. Even those who thought best of him, and who maintained
that his rough exterior covered some good qualities, owned that
his looks were against him, and that it would be unpleasant to
meet such a figure in the dusk at the corner of a wood.194 The
little that is known of Maumont is to his honour.

In the camp it was generally expected that Londonderry would fall
without a blow. Rosen confidently predicted that the mere sight
of the Irish army would terrify the garrison into submission. But
Richard Hamilton, who knew the temper of the colonists better,
had misgivings. The assailants were sure of one important ally
within the walls. Lundy, the Governor, professed the Protestant
religion, and had joined in proclaiming William and Mary; but he
was in secret communication with the enemies of his Church and of
the Sovereigns to whom he had sworn lealty. Some have suspected
that he was a concealed Jacobite, and that he had affected to
acquiesce in the Revolution only in order that he might be better
able to assist in bringing about a Restoration: but it is
probable that his conduct is rather to be attributed to
faintheartedness and poverty of spirit than to zeal for any
public cause. He seems to have thought resistance hopeless; and
in truth, to a military eye, the defences of Londonderry appeared
contemptible. The fortifications consisted of a simple wall
overgrown with grass and weeds: there was no ditch even before
the gates: the drawbridges had long been neglected: the chains
were rusty and could scarcely be used: the parapets and towers
were built after a fashion which might well move disciples of
Vauban to laughter; and these feeble defences were on almost
every side commanded by heights. Indeed those who laid out the
city had never meant that it should be able to stand a regular
siege, and had contented themselves with throwing up works
sufficient to protect the inhabitants against a tumultuary attack
of the Celtic peasantry. Avaux assured Louvois that a single
French battalion would easily storm such defences. Even if the
place should, notwithstanding all disadvantages, be able to repel
a large army directed by the science and experience of generals
who had served under Conde and Turenne, hunger must soon bring
the contest to an end. The stock of provisions was small; and the
population had been swollen to seven or eight times the ordinary
number by a multitude of colonists flying from the rage of the
natives.195

Lundy, therefore, from the time when the Irish army entered
Ulster, seems to have given up all thought of serious resistance,
He talked so despondingly that the citizens and his own soldiers
murmured against him. He seemed, they said, to be bent on
discouraging them. Meanwhile the enemy drew daily nearer and
nearer; and it was known that James himself was coming to take
the command of his forces.

Just at this moment a glimpse of hope appeared. On the fourteenth
of April ships from England anchored in the bay. They had on
board two regiments which had been sent, under the command of a
Colonel named Cunningham, to reinforce the garrison. Cunningham
and several of his officers went on shore and conferred with
Lundy. Lundy dissuaded them from landing their men. The place, he
said, could not hold out. To throw more troops into it would
therefore be worse than useless: for the more numerous the
garrison, the more prisoners would fall into the hands of the
enemy. The best thing that the two regiments could do would be to
sail back to England. He meant, he said, to withdraw himself
privately: and the inhabitants must then try to make good terms
for themselves.

He went through the form of holding a council of war; but from
this council he excluded all those officers of the garrison whose
sentiments he knew to be different from his own. Some, who had
ordinarily been summoned on such occasions, and who now came
uninvited, were thrust out of the room. Whatever the Governor
said was echoed by his creatures. Cunningham and Cunningham's
companions could scarcely venture to oppose their opinion to that
of a person whose local knowledge was necessarily far superior to
theirs, and whom they were by their instructions directed to
obey. One brave soldier murmured. "Understand this," he said, "to
give up Londonderry is to give up Ireland." But his objections
were contemptuously overruled.196 The meeting broke up.
Cunningham and his officers returned to the ships, and made
preparations for departing. Meanwhile Lundy privately sent a
messenger to the head quarters of the enemy, with assurances that
the city should be peaceably surrendered on the first summons.

But as soon as what had passed in the council of war was
whispered about the streets, the spirit of the soldiers and
citizens swelled up high and fierce against the dastardly and
perfidious chief who had betrayed them. Many of his own officers
declared that they no longer thought themselves bound to obey
him. Voices were heard threatening, some that his brains should
be blown out, some that he should be hanged on the walls. A
deputation was sent to Cunningham imploring him to assume the
command. He excused himself on the plausible ground that his
orders were to take directions in all things from the
Governor.197 Meanwhile it was rumoured that the persons most in
Lundy's confidence were stealing out of the town one by one. Long
after dusk on the evening of the seventeenth it was found that
the gates were open and that the keys had disappeared. The
officers who made the discovery took on themselves to change the
passwords and to double the guards. The night, however, passed
over without any assault.198

After some anxious hours the day broke. The Irish, with James at
their head, were now within four miles of the city. A tumultuous
council of the chief inhabitants was called. Some of them
vehemently reproached the Governor to his face with his
treachery. He had sold them, they cried, to their deadliest
enemy: he had refused admission to the force which good King
William had sent to defend them. While the altercation was at the
height, the sentinels who paced the ramparts announced that the
vanguard of the hostile army was in sight. Lundy had given orders
that there should be no firing; but his authority was at an end.
Two gallant soldiers, Major Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray,
called the people to arms. They were assisted by the eloquence of
an aged clergyman, George Walker, rector of the parish of
Donaghmore, who had, with many of his neighbours, taken refuge in
Londonderry. The whole of the crowded city was moved by one
impulse. Soldiers, gentlemen, yeomen, artisans, rushed to the
walls and manned the guns. James, who, confident of success, had
approached within a hundred yards of the southern gate, was
received with a shout of "No surrender," and with a fire from the
nearest bastion. An officer of his staff fell dead by his side.
The King and his attendants made all haste to get out of reach of
the cannon balls. Lundy, who was now in imminent danger of being
torn limb from limb by those whom he had betrayed, hid himself in
an inner chamber. There he lay during the day, and at night, with
the generous and politic connivance of Murray and Walker, made
his escape in the disguise of a porter.199 The part of the wall
from which he let himself down is still pointed out; and people
still living talk of having tasted the fruit of a pear tree which
assisted him in his descent. His name is, to this day, held in
execration by the Protestants of the North of Ireland; and his
effigy was long, and perhaps still is, annually hung and burned
by them with marks of abhorrence similar to those which in
England are appropriated to Guy Faux.

And now Londonderry was left destitute of all military and of all
civil government. No man in the town had a right to command any
other: the defences were weak: the provisions were scanty: an
incensed tyrant and a great army were at the gates. But within
was that which has often, in desperate extremities, retrieved the
fallen fortunes of nations. Betrayed, deserted, disorganized,
unprovided with resources, begirt with enemies, the noble city
was still no easy conquest. Whatever an engineer might think of
the strength of the ramparts, all that was most intelligent, most
courageous, most highspirited among the Englishry of Leinster and
of Northern Ulster was crowded behind them. The number of men
capable of bearing arms within the walls was seven thousand; and
the whole world could not have furnished seven thousand men
better qualified to meet a terrible emergency with clear
judgment, dauntless valour, and stubborn patience. They were all
zealous Protestants; and the Protestantism of the majority was
tinged with Puritanism. They had much in common with that sober,
resolute, and Godfearing class out of which Cromwell had formed
his unconquerable army. But the peculiar situation in which they
had been placed had developed in them some qualities which, in
the mother country, might possibly have remained latent. The
English inhabitants of Ireland were an aristocratic caste, which
had been enabled, by superior civilisation, by close union, by
sleepless vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a
numerous and hostile population. Almost every one of them had
been in some measure trained both to military and to political
functions. Almost every one was familiar with the use of arms,
and was accustomed to bear a part in the administration of
justice. It was remarked by contemporary writers that the
colonists had something of the Castilian haughtiness of manner,
though none of the Castilian indolence, that they spoke English
with remarkable purity and correctness, and that they were, both
as militiamen and as jurymen, superior to their kindred in the
mother country.200 In all ages, men situated as the Anglosaxons
in Ireland were situated have had peculiar vices and peculiar
virtues, the vices and virtues of masters, as opposed to the
vices and virtues of slaves. The member of a dominant race is, in
his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent,--
for fraud is the resource of the weak,--but imperious, insolent,
and cruel. Towards his brethren, on the other hand, his conduct
is generally just, kind, and even noble. His selfrespect leads
him to respect all who belong to his own order. His interest
impels him to cultivate a good understanding with those whose
prompt, strenuous, and courageous assistance may at any moment be
necessary to preserve his property and life. It is a truth ever
present to his mind that his own wellbeing depends on the
ascendency of the class to which he belongs. His very selfishness
therefore is sublimed into public spirit: and this public spirit
is stimulated to fierce enthusiasm by sympathy, by the desire of
applause, and by the dread of infamy. For the only opinion which
he values is the opinion of his fellows; and in their opinion
devotion to the common cause is the most sacred of duties. The
character, thus formed, has two aspects. Seen on one side, it
must be regarded by every well constituted mind with
disapprobation. Seen on the other, it irresistibly extorts
applause. The Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot,
moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his
hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what he well knows to be
his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be
contemplated without admiration. To a superficial observer it may
seem strange that so much evil and so much good should be found
together. But in truth the good and the evil, which at first
sight appear almost incompatible, are closely connected, and have
a common origin. It was because the Spartan had been taught to
revere himself as one of a race of sovereigns, and to look down
on all that was not Spartan as of an inferior species, that he
had no fellow feeling for the miserable serfs who crouched before
him, and that the thought of submitting to a foreign master, or of
turning his back before an enemy, never, even in the last
extremity, crossed his mind. Something of the same character,
compounded of tyrant and hero, has been found in all nations
which have domineered over more numerous nations. But it has
nowhere in modern Europe shown itself so conspicuously as in
Ireland. With what contempt, with what antipathy, the ruling
minority in that country long regarded the subject majority may
be best learned from the hateful laws which, within the memory of
men still living, disgraced the Irish statute book. Those laws
were at length annulled: but the spirit which had dictated them
survived them, and even at this day sometimes breaks out in
excesses pernicious to the commonwealth and dishonourable to the
Protestant religion. Nevertheless it is impossible to deny that
the English colonists have had, with too many of the faults, all
the noblest virtues of a sovereign caste. The faults have, as was
natural, been most offensively exhibited in times of prosperity
and security: the virtues have been most resplendent in times of
distress and peril; and never were those virtues more signally
displayed than by the defenders of Londonderry, when their
Governor had abandoned them, and when the camp of their mortal
enemy was pitched before their walls.

No sooner had the first burst of the rage excited by the perfidy
of Lundy spent itself than those whom he had betrayed proceeded,
with a gravity and prudence worthy of the most renowned senates,
to provide for the order and defence of the city. Two governors
were elected, Baker and Walker. Baker took the chief military
command. Walker's especial business was to preserve internal
tranquillity, and to dole out supplies from the magazines.201 The
inhabitants capable of bearing arms were distributed into eight
regiments. Colonels, captains, and subordinate officers were
appointed. In a few hours every man knew his post, and was ready
to repair to it as soon as the beat of the drum was heard. That
machinery, by which Oliver had, in the preceding generation, kept
up among his soldiers so stern and so pertinacious an enthusiasm,
was again employed with not less complete success. Preaching and
praying occupied a large part of every day. Eighteen clergymen of
the Established Church and seven or eight nonconformist ministers
were within the walls. They all exerted themselves indefatigably
to rouse and sustain the spirit of the people. Among themselves
there was for the time entire harmony. All disputes about church
government, postures, ceremonies, were forgotten. The Bishop,
having found that his lectures on passive obedience were derided
even by the Episcopalians, had withdrawn himself, first to
Raphoe, and then to England, and was preaching in a chapel in
London.202 On the other hand, a Scotch fanatic named Hewson, who
had exhorted the Presbyterians not to ally themselves with such
as refused to subscribe the Covenant, had sunk under the well
merited disgust and scorn of the whole Protestant community.203
The aspect of the Cathedral was remarkable. Cannon were planted
on the summit of the broad tower which has since given place to a
tower of different proportions. Ammunition was stored in the
vaults. In the choir the liturgy of the Anglican Church was read
every morning. Every afternoon the Dissenters crowded to a
simpler worship.204

James had waited twenty-four hours, expecting, as it should seem,
the performance of Lundy's promises; and in twenty-four hours the
arrangements for the defence of Londonderry were complete. On the
evening of the nineteenth of April, a trumpeter came to the
southern gate, and asked whether the engagements into which the
Governor had entered would be fulfilled. The answer was that the
men who guarded these walls had nothing to do with the Governor's
engagements, and were determined to resist to the last.

On the following day a messenger of higher rank was sent, Claude
Hamilton, Lord Strabane, one of the few Roman Catholic peers of
Ireland. Murray, who had been appointed to the command of one of
the eight regiments into which the garrison was distributed,
advanced from the gate to meet the flag of truce; and a short
conference was held. Strabane had been authorised to make large
promises. The citizens should have a free pardon for all that was
past if they would submit to their lawful Sovereign. Murray
himself should have a colonel's commission, and a thousand pounds
in money. "The men of Londonderry," answered Murray, "have done
nothing that requires a pardon, and own no Sovereign but King
William and Queen Mary. It will not be safe for your Lordship to
stay longer, or to return on the same errand. Let me have the
honour of seeing you through the lines."205

James had been assured, and had fully expected, that the city
would yield as soon as it was known that he was before the walls.
Finding himself mistaken, he broke loose from the control of
Melfort, and determined to return instantly to Dublin. Rosen
accompanied the King. The direction of the siege was intrusted to
Maumont. Richard Hamilton was second, and Pusignan third, in
command.

The operations now commenced in earnest. The besiegers began by
battering the town. It was soon on fire in several places. Roofs
and upper stories of houses fell in, and crushed the inmates.
During a short time the garrison, many of whom had never before
seen the effect of a cannonade, seemed to be discomposed by the
crash of chimneys, and by the heaps of ruin mingled with
disfigured corpses. But familiarity with danger and horror
produced in a few hours the natural effect. The spirit of the
people rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on
the offensive. On the twenty-first of April a sally was made
under the command of Murray. The Irish stood their ground
resolutely; and a furious and bloody contest took place. Maumont,
at the head of a body of cavalry, flew to the place where the
fight was raging. He was struck in the head by a musket ball, and
fell a corpse. The besiegers lost several other officers, and
about two hundred men, before the colonists could be driven in.
Murray escaped with difficulty. His horse was killed under him;
and he was beset by enemies: but be was able to defend himself
till some of his friends made a rush from the gate to his rescue,
with old Walker at their head.206

In consequence of the death of Maumont, Hamilton was once more
commander of the Irish army. His exploits in that post did not
raise his reputation. He was a fine gentleman and a brave
soldier; but he had no pretensions to the character of a great
general, and had never, in his life, seen a siege.207 Pusignan
had more science and energy. But Pusignan survived Maumont little
more than a fortnight. At four in the morning of the sixth of
May, the garrison made another sally, took several flags, and
killed many of the besiegers. Pusignan, fighting gallantly, was
shot through the body. The wound was one which a skilful surgeon
might have cured: but there was no such surgeon in the Irish
camp; and the communication with Dublin was slow and irregular.
The poor Frenchman died, complaining bitterly of the barbarous
ignorance and negligence which had shortened his days. A medical
man, who had been sent down express from the capital, arrived
after the funeral. James, in consequence, as it should seem, of
this disaster, established a daily post between Dublin Castle and
Hamilton's head quarters. Even by this conveyance letters did not
travel very expeditiously: for the couriers went on foot; and,
from fear probably of the Enniskilleners, took a circuitous route
from military post to military post.208

May passed away: June arrived; and still Londonderry held out.
There had been many sallies and skirmishes with various success:
but, on the whole, the advantage had been with the garrison.
Several officers of note had been carried prisoners into the
city; and two French banners, torn after hard fighting from the
besiegers, had been hung as trophies in the chancel of the
Cathedral. It seemed that the siege must be turned into a
blockade. But before the hope of reducing the town by main force
was relinquished, it was determined to make a great effort. The
point selected for assault was an outwork called Windmill Hill,
which was not far from the southern gate. Religious stimulants
were employed to animate the courage of the forlorn hope. Many
volunteers bound themselves by oath to make their way into the
works or to perish in the attempt. Captain Butler, son of the
Lord Mountgarret, undertook to lead the sworn men to the attack.
On the walls the colonists were drawn up in three ranks. The
office of those who were behind was to load the muskets of those
who were in front. The Irish came on boldly and with a fearful
uproar, but after long and hard fighting were driven back. The
women of Londonderry were seen amidst the thickest fire serving
out water and ammunition to their husbands and brothers. In one
place, where the wall was only seven feet high, Butler and some
of his sworn men succeeded in reaching the top; but they were all
killed or made prisoners. At length, after four hundred of the
Irish had fallen, their chiefs ordered a retreat to be
sounded.209

Nothing was left but to try the effect of hunger. It was known
that the stock of food in the city was but slender. Indeed it was
thought strange that the supplies should have held out so long.
Every precaution was now taken against the introduction of
provisions. All the avenues leading to the city by land were
closely guarded. On the south were encamped, along the left bank
of the Foyle, the horsemen who had followed Lord Galmoy from the
valley of the Barrow. Their chief was of all the Irish captains
the most dreaded and the most abhorred by the Protestants. For he
had disciplined his men with rare skill and care; and many
frightful stories were told of his barbarity and perfidy. Long
lines of tents, occupied by the infantry of Butler and O'Neil, of
Lord Slane and Lord Gormanstown, by Nugent's Westmeath men, by
Eustace's Kildare men, and by Cavanagh's Kerry men, extended
northward till they again approached the water side.210 The river
was fringed with forts and batteries which no vessel could pass
without great peril. After some time it was determined to make
the security still more complete by throwing a barricade across
the stream, about a mile and a half below the city. Several boats
full of stones were sunk. A row of stakes was driven into the
bottom of the river. Large pieces of fir wood, strongly bound
together, formed a boom which was more than a quarter of a mile
in length, and which was firmly fastened to both shores, by
cables a foot thick.211 A huge stone, to which the cable on the
left bank was attached, was removed many years later, for the
purpose of being polished and shaped into a column. But the
intention was abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies, not many
yards from its original site, amidst the shades which surround a
pleasant country house named Boom Hall. Hard by is the well from
which the besiegers drank. A little further off is the burial
ground where they laid their slain, and where even in our own
time the spade of the gardener has struck upon many sculls and
thighbones at a short distance beneath the turf and flowers.

While these things were passing in the North, James was holding
his court at Dublin. On his return thither from Londonderry he
received intelligence that the French fleet, commanded by the
Count of Chateau Renaud, had anchored in Bantry Bay, and had put
on shore a large quantity of military stores and a supply of
money. Herbert, who had just been sent to those seas with an
English squadron for the purpose of intercepting the
communications between Britanny and Ireland, learned where the
enemy lay, and sailed into the bay with the intention of giving
battle. But the wind was unfavourable to him: his force was
greatly inferior to that which was opposed to him; and after some
firing, which caused no serious loss to either side, he thought
it prudent to stand out to sea, while the French retired into the
recesses of the harbour. He steered for Scilly, where he expected
to find reinforcements; and Chateau Renaud, content with the
credit which he had acquired, and afraid of losing it if he
staid, hastened back to Brest, though earnestly intreated by
James to come round to Dublin.

Both sides claimed the victory. The Commons at Westminster
absurdly passed a vote of thanks to Herbert. James, not less
absurdly, ordered bonfires to be lighted, and a Te Deum to be
sung. But these marks of joy by no means satisfied Avaux, whose
national vanity was too strong even for his characteristic
prudence and politeness. He complained that James was so unjust
and ungrateful as to attribute the result of the late action to
the reluctance with which the English seamen fought against their
rightful King and their old commander, and that his Majesty did
not seem to be well pleased by being told that they were flying
over the ocean pursued by the triumphant French. Dover, too, was
a bad Frenchman. He seemed to take no pleasure in the defeat of
his countrymen, and had been heard to say that the affair in
Bantry Bay did not deserve to be called a battle.212

On the day after the Te Deum had been sung at Dublin for this
indecisive skirmish, the Parliament convoked by James assembled.
The number of temporal peers of Ireland, when he arrived in that
kingdom, was about a hundred. Of these only fourteen obeyed his
summons. Of the fourteen, ten were Roman Catholics. By the
reversing of old attainders, and by new creations, seventeen more
Lords, all Roman Catholics, were introduced into the Upper House.
The Protestant Bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and Limerick,
whether from a sincere conviction that they could not lawfully
withhold their obedience even from a tyrant, or from a vain hope
that the heart even of a tyrant might be softened by their
patience, made their appearance in the midst of their mortal
enemies.

The House of Commons consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen and
Papists. With the writs the returning officers had received from
Tyrconnel letters naming the persons whom he wished to see
elected. The largest constituent bodies in the kingdom were at
this time very small. For scarcely any but Roman Catholics dared
to show their faces; and the Roman Catholic freeholders were then
very few, not more, it is said, in some counties, than ten or
twelve. Even in cities so considerable as Cork, Limerick, and
Galway, the number of persons who, under the new Charters, were
entitled to vote did not exceed twenty-four. About two hundred
and fifty members took their seats. Of these only six were
Protestants.213 The list of the names sufficiently indicates the
religious and political temper of the assembly. Alone among the
Irish parliaments of that age, this parliament was filled with
Dermots and Geohagans, O'Neils and O'Donovans, Macmahons,
Macnamaras, and Macgillicuddies. The lead was taken by a few men
whose abilities had been improved by the study of the law, or by
experience acquired in foreign countries. The Attorney General,
Sir Richard Nagle, who represented the county of Cork, was
allowed, even by Protestants, to be an acute and learned jurist.
Francis Plowden, the Commissioner of Revenue, who sate for
Bannow, and acted as chief minister of finance, was an
Englishman, and, as he had been a principal agent of the Order of
Jesuits in money matters, must be supposed to have been an
excellent man of business.214 Colonel Henry Luttrell, member for
the county of Carlow, had served long in France, and had brought
back to his native Ireland a sharpened intellect and polished
manners, a flattering tongue, some skill in war, and much more
skill in intrigue. His elder brother, Colonel Simon Luttrell, who
was member for the county of Dublin, and military governor of the
capital, had also resided in France, and, though inferior to
Henry in parts and activity, made a highly distinguished figure
among the adherents of James. The other member for the county of
Dublin was Colonel Patrick Sarsfield. This gallant officer was
regarded by the natives as one of themselves: for his ancestors
on the paternal side, though originally English, were among those
early colonists who were proverbially said to have become more
Irish than Irishmen. His mother was of noble Celtic blood; and he
was firmly attached to the old religion. He had inherited an
estate of about two thousand a year, and was therefore one of the
wealthiest Roman Catholics in the kingdom. His knowledge of
courts and camps was such as few of his countrymen possessed. He
had long borne a commission in the English Life Guards, had lived
much about Whitehall, and had fought bravely under Monmouth on
the Continent, and against Monmouth at Sedgemoor. He had, Avaux
wrote, more personal influence than any man in Ireland, and was
indeed a gentleman of eminent merit, brave, upright, honourable,
careful of his men in quarters, and certain to be always found at
their head in the day of battle. His intrepidity, his frankness,
his boundless good nature, his stature, which far exceeded that
of ordinary men, and the strength which he exerted in personal
conflict, gained for him the affectionate admiration of the
populace. It is remarkable that the Englishry generally respected
him as a valiant, skilful, and generous enemy, and that, even in
the most ribald farces which were performed by mountebanks in
Smithfield, he was always excepted from the disgraceful
imputations which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish
nation.215

But men like these were rare in the House of Commons which had
met at Dublin. It is no reproach to the Irish nation, a nation
which has since furnished its full proportion of eloquent and
accomplished senators, to say that, of all the parliaments which
have met in the British islands, Barebone's parliament not
excepted, the assembly convoked by James was the most deficient
in all the qualities which a legislature should possess. The
stern domination of a hostile caste had blighted the faculties of
the Irish gentleman. If he was so fortunate as to have lands, he
had generally passed his life on them, shooting, fishing,
carousing, and making love among his vassals. If his estate had
been confiscated, he had wandered about from bawn to bawn and
from cabin to cabin, levying small contributions, and living at
the expense of other men. He had never sate in the House of
Commons: he had never even taken an active part at an election:
he had never been a magistrate: scarcely ever had he been on a
grand jury. He had therefore absolutely no experience of public
affairs. The English squire of that age, though assuredly not a
very profound or enlightened politician, was a statesman and a
philosopher when compared with the Roman Catholic squire of
Munster or Connaught.

The Parliaments of Ireland had then no fixed place of assembling.
Indeed they met so seldom and broke up so speedily that it would
hardly have been worth while to build and furnish a palace for
their special use. It was not till the Hanoverian dynasty had
been long on the throne, that a senate house which sustains a
comparison with the finest compositions of Inigo Jones arose in
College Green. On the spot where the portico and dome of the Four
Courts now overlook the Liffey, stood, in the seventeenth
century, an ancient building which had once been a convent of
Dominican friars, but had since the Reformation been appropriated
to the use of the legal profession, and bore the name of the
King's Inns. There accommodation had been provided for the
parliament. On the seventh of May, James, dressed in royal robes
and wearing a crown, took his seat on the throne in the House of
Lords, and ordered the Commons to be summoned to the bar.216

He then expressed his gratitude to the natives of Ireland for
having adhered to his cause when the people of his other kingdoms
had deserted him. His resolution to abolish all religious
disabilities in all his dominions he declared to be unalterable.
He invited the houses to take the Act of Settlement into
consideration, and to redress the injuries of which the old
proprietors of the soil had reason to complain. He concluded by
acknowledging in warm terms his obligations to the King of
France.217

When the royal speech had been pronounced, the Chancellor
directed the Commons to repair to their chamber and to elect a
Speaker. They chose the Attorney General Nagle; and the choice
was approved by the King.218

The Commons next passed resolutions expressing warm gratitude
both to James and to Lewis. Indeed it was proposed to send a
deputation with an address to Avaux; but the Speaker pointed out
the gross impropriety of such a step; and, on this occasion, his
interference was successful.219 It was seldom however that the
House was disposed to listen to reason. The debates were all rant
and tumult. Judge Daly, a Roman Catholic, but an honest and able
man, could not refrain from lamenting the indecency and folly
with which the members of his Church carried on the work of
legislation. Those gentlemen, he said, were not a Parliament:
they were a mere rabble: they resembled nothing so much as the
mob of fishermen and market gardeners, who, at Naples, yelled and
threw up their caps in honour of Massaniello. It was painful to
hear member after member talking wild nonsense about his own
losses, and clamouring for an estate, when the lives of all and
the independence of their common country were in peril. These
words were spoken in private; but some talebearer repeated them
to the Commons. A violent storm broke forth. Daly was ordered to
attend at the bar; and there was little doubt that he would be
severely dealt with. But, just when he was at the door, one of
the members rushed in, shouting, "Good news: Londonderry is
taken." The whole House rose. All the hats were flung into the
air. Three loud huzzas were raised. Every heart was softened by
the happy tidings. Nobody would hear of punishment at such a
moment. The order for Daly's attendance was discharged amidst
cries of "No submission; no submission; we pardon him." In a few
hours it was known that Londonderry held out as obstinately as
ever. This transaction, in itself unimportant, deserves to be
recorded, as showing how destitute that House of Commons was of
the qualities which ought to be found in the great council of a
kingdom. And this assembly, without experience, without gravity,
and without temper, was now to legislate on questions which would have tasked to
the utmost the capacity of the greatest statesmen.220

One Act James induced them to pass which would have been most
honourable to him and to them, if there were not abundant proofs
that it was meant to be a dead letter. It was an Act purporting
to grant entire liberty of conscience to all Christian sects. On
this occasion a proclamation was put forth announcing in boastful
language to the English people that their rightful King had now
signally refuted those slanderers who had accused him of
affecting zeal for religious liberty merely in order to serve a
turn. If he were at heart inclined to persecution, would he not
have persecuted the Irish Protestants? He did not want power. He
did not want provocation. Yet at Dublin, where the members of his
Church were the majority, as at Westminister, where they were a
minority, he had firmly adhered to the principles laid down in
his much maligned Declaration of Indulgence.221 Unfortunately for
him, the same wind which carried his fair professions to England
carried thither also evidence that his professions were
insincere. A single law, worthy of Turgot or of Franklin, seemed
ludicrously out of place in the midst of a crowd of laws which
would have disgraced Gardiner or Alva.

A necessary preliminary to the vast work of spoliation and
slaughter on which the legislators of Dublin were bent, was an
Act annulling the authority which the English Parliament, both as
the supreme legislature and as the supreme Court of Appeal, had
hitherto exercised over Ireland.222 This Act was rapidly passed;
and then followed, in quick succession, confiscations and
proscriptions on a gigantic scale. The personal estates of
absentees above the age of seventeen years were transferred to
the King. When lay property was thus invaded, it was not likely
that the endowments which had been, in contravention of every
sound principle, lavished on the Church of the minority would be
spared. To reduce those endowments, without prejudice to existing
interests, would have been a reform worthy of a good prince and
of a good parliament. But no such reform would satisfy the
vindictive bigots who sate at the King's Inns. By one sweeping
Act, the greater part of the tithe was transferred from the
Protestant to the Roman Catholic clergy; and the existing
incumbents were left, without one farthing of compensation, to
die of hunger.223 A Bill repealing the Act of Settlement and
transferring many thousands of square miles from Saxon to Celtic
landlords was brought in and carried by acclamation.224

Of legislation such as this it is impossible to speak too
severely: but for the legislators there are excuses which it is
the duty of the historian to notice. They acted unmercifully,
unjustly, unwisely. But it would be absurd to expect mercy,
justice, or wisdom from a class of men first abased by many years
of oppression, and then maddened by the joy of a sudden
deliverance, and armed with irresistible power. The
representatives of the Irish nation were, with few exceptions,
rude and ignorant. They had lived in a state of constant
irritation. With aristocratical sentiments they had been in a
servile position. With the highest pride of blood, they had been
exposed to daily affronts, such as might well have roused the
choler of the humblest plebeian. In sight of the fields and
castles which they regarded as their own, they had been glad to
be invited by a peasant to partake of his whey and his potatoes.
Those violent emotions of hatred and cupidity which the situation
of the native gentleman could scarcely fail to call forth
appeared to him under the specious guise of patriotism and piety.
For his enemies were the enemies of his nation; and the same
tyranny which had robbed him of his patrimony had robbed his
Church of vast wealth bestowed on her by the devotion of an
earlier age. How was power likely to be used by an uneducated and
inexperienced man, agitated by strong desires and resentments
which he mistook for sacred duties? And, when two or three
hundred such men were brought together in one assembly, what was
to be expected but that the passions which each had long nursed
in silence would be at once matured into fearful vigour by the
influence of sympathy?

Between James and his parliament there was little in common,
except hatred of the Protestant religion. He was an Englishman.
Superstition had not utterly extinguished all national feeling in
his mind; and he could not but be displeased by the malevolence
with which his Celtic supporters regarded the race from which he
sprang. The range of his intellectual vision was small. Yet it
was impossible that, having reigned in England, and looking
constantly forward to the day when he should reign in England
once more, he should not take a wider view of politics than was
taken by men who had no objects out of Ireland. The few Irish
Protestants who still adhered to him, and the British nobles,
both Protestant and Roman Catholic, who had followed him into
exile, implored him to restrain the violence of the rapacious and
vindictive senate which he had convoked. They with peculiar
earnestness implored him not to consent to the repeal of the Act
of Settlement. On what security, they asked, could any man invest
his money or give a portion to his children, if he could not rely
on positive laws and on the uninterrupted possession of many
years? The military adventurers among whom Cromwell portioned out
the soil might perhaps be regarded as wrongdoers. But how large a
part of their estates had passed, by fair purchase, into other
hands! How much money had proprietors borrowed on mortgage, on
statute merchant, on statute staple! How many capitalists had,
trusting to legislative acts and to royal promises, come over
from England, and bought land in Ulster and Leinster, without the
least misgiving as to the title! What a sum had those capitalists
expended, during a quarter of a century, in building; draining,
inclosing, planting! The terms of the compromise which Charles
the Second had sanctioned might not be in all respects just. But
was one injustice to be redressed by committing another injustice
more monstrous still? And what effect was likely to be produced
in England by the cry of thousands of innocent English families
whom an English king had doomed to ruin? The complaints of such a
body of sufferers might delay, might prevent, the Restoration to
which all loyal subjects were eagerly looking forward; and, even
if his Majesty should, in spite of those complaints, be happily
restored, he would to the end of his life feel the pernicious
effects of the injustice which evil advisers were now urging him
to commit. He would find that, in trying to quiet one set of
malecontents, he had created another. As surely as he yielded to
the clamour raised at Dublin for a repeal of the Act of
Settlement, he would, from the day on which he returned to
Westminster, be assailed by as loud and pertinacious a clamour
for a repeal of that repeal. He could not but be aware that no
English Parliament, however loyal, would permit such laws as were
now passing through the Irish Parliament to stand. Had he made up
his mind to take the part of Ireland against the universal sense
of England? If so, to what could he look forward but another
banishment and another deposition? Or would he, when he had
recovered the greater kingdom, revoke the boors by which, in his
distress, he had purchased the help of the smaller? It might seem
an insult to him even to suggest that he could harbour the
thought of such unprincely, of such unmanly, perfidy. Yet what
other course would be left to him? And was it not better for him
to refuse unreasonable concessions now than to retract those
concessions hereafter in a manner which must bring on him
reproaches insupportable to a noble mind? His situation was
doubtless embarrassing. Yet in this case, as in other cases, it
would be found that the path of justice was the path of
wisdom.225

Though James had, in his speech at the opening of the session,
declared against the Act of Settlement, he felt that these
arguments were unanswerable. He held several conferences with the
leading members of the House of Commons, and earnestly
recommended moderation. But his exhortations irritated the
passions which he wished to allay. Many of the native gentry held
high and violent language. It was impudent, they said, to talk
about the rights of purchasers. How could right spring out of
wrong? People who chose to buy property acquired by injustice
must take the consequences of their folly and cupidity. It was
clear that the Lower House was altogether impracticable. James
had, four years before, refused to make the smallest concession
to the most obsequious parliament that has ever sat in England;
and it might have been expected that the obstinacy, which he had
never wanted when it was a vice, would not have failed him now
when it would have been a virtue. During a short time he seemed
determined to act justly. He even talked of dissolving the
parliament. The chiefs of the old Celtic families, on the other
hand, said publicly that, if he did not give them back their
inheritance, they would not fight for his. His very soldiers
railed on him in the streets of Dublin. At length he determined
to go down himself to the House of Peers, not in his robes and
crown, but in the garb in which he had been used to attend
debates at Westminster, and personally to solicit the Lords to
put some check on the violence of the Commons. But just as he was
getting into his coach for this purpose he was stopped by Avaux.
Avaux was as zealous as any Irishman for the bills which the
Commons were urging forward. It was enough for him that those
bills seemed likely to make the enmity between England and
Ireland irreconcileable. His remonstrances induced James to
abstain from openly opposing the repeal of the Act of Settlement.
Still the unfortunate prince continued to cherish some faint hope
that the law for which the Commons were so zealous would be
rejected, or at least modified, by the Peers. Lord Granard, one
of the few Protestant noblemen who sate in that parliament,
exerted himself strenuously on the side of public faith and sound
policy. The King sent him a message of thanks. "We Protestants,"
said Granard to Powis who brought the message, "are few in
number. We can do little. His Majesty should try his influence
with the Roman Catholics." "His Majesty," answered Powis with an
oath, "dares not say what he thinks." A few days later James met
Granard riding towards the parliament house. "Where are you
going, my Lord?" said the King. "To enter my protest, Sir,"
answered Granard, "against the repeal of the Act of Settlement."
"You are right," said the King: "but I am fallen into the hands
of people who will ram that and much more down my throat."226

James yielded to the will of the Commons; but the unfavourable
impression which his short and feeble resistance had made upon
them was not to be removed by his submission. They regarded him
with profound distrust; they considered him as at heart an
Englishman; and not a day passed without some indication of this
feeling. They were in no haste to grant him a supply. One party
among them planned an address urging him to dismiss Melfort as an
enemy of their nation. Another party drew up a bill for deposing
all the Protestant Bishops, even the four who were then actually
sitting in Parliament. It was not without difficulty that Avaux
and Tyrconnel, whose influence in the Lower House far exceeded
the King's, could restrain the zeal of the majority.227

It is remarkable that, while the King was losing the confidence
and good will of the Irish Commons by faintly defending against
them, in one quarter, the institution of property, he was
himself, in another quarter, attacking that institution with a
violence, if possible, more reckless than theirs. He soon found
that no money came into his Exchequer. The cause was sufficiently
obvious. Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn
in great masses from the island. Of the fixed capital much had
been destroyed, and the rest was lying idle. Thousands of those
Protestants who were the most industrious and intelligent part of
the population had emigrated to England. Thousands had taken
refuge in the places which still held out for William and Mary.
Of the Roman Catholic peasantry who were in the vigour of life
the majority had enlisted in the army or had joined gangs of
plunderers. The poverty of the treasury was the necessary effect
of the poverty of the country: public prosperity could be
restored only by the restoration of private prosperity; and
private prosperity could be restored only by years of peace and
security. James was absurd enough to imagine that there was a
more speedy and efficacious remedy. He could, he conceived, at
once extricate himself from his financial difficulties by the
simple process of calling a farthing a shilling. The right of
coining was undoubtedly a flower of the prerogative; and, in his
view, the right of coining included the right of debasing the
coin. Pots, pans, knockers of doors, pieces of ordnance which had
long been past use, were carried to the mint. In a short time
lumps of base metal, nominally worth near a million sterling,
intrinsically worth about a sixtieth part of that sum, were in
circulation. A royal edict declared these pieces to be legal
tender in all cases whatever. A mortgage for a thousand pounds
was cleared off by a bag of counters made out of old kettles. The
creditors who complained to the Court of Chancery were told by
Fitton to take their money and be gone. But of all classes the
tradesmen of Dublin, who were generally Protestants, were the
greatest losers. At first, of course, they raised their demands:
but the magistrates of the city took on themselves to meet this
heretical machination by putting forth a tariff regulating
prices. Any man who belonged to the caste now dominant might walk
into a shop, lay on the counter a bit of brass worth threepence,
and carry off goods to the value of half a guinea. Legal redress
was out of the question. Indeed the sufferers thought themselves
happy if, by the sacrifice of their stock in trade, they could
redeem their limbs and their lives. There was not a baker's shop
in the city round which twenty or thirty soldiers were not
constantly prowling. Some persons who refused the base money were
arrested by troopers and carried before the Provost Marshal, who
cursed them, swore at them, locked them up in dark cells, and, by
threatening to hang them at their own doors, soon overcame their
resistance. Of all the plagues of that time none made a deeper or
a more lasting impression on the minds of the Protestants of
Dublin than the plague of the brass money.228 To the recollection
of the confusion and misery which had been produced by James's
coin must be in part ascribed the strenuous opposition which,
thirty-five years later, large classes, firmly attached to the
House of Hanover, offered to the government of George the First
in the affair of Wood's patent.

There can be no question that James, in thus altering, by his own
authority, the terms of all the contracts in the kingdom, assumed
a power which belonged only to the whole legislature. Yet the
Commons did not remonstrate. There was no power, however
unconstitutional, which they were not willing to concede to him,
as long as he used it to crush and plunder the English
population. On the other hand, they respected no prerogative,
however ancient, however legitimate, however salutary, if they
apprehended that he might use it to protect the race which they
abhorred. They were not satisfied till they had extorted his
reluctant consent to a portentous law, a law without a parallel
in the history of civilised countries, the great Act of
Attainder.

A list was framed containing between two and three thousand
names. At the top was half the peerage of Ireland. Then came
baronets, knights, clergymen, squires, merchants, yeomen,
artisans, women, children. No investigation was made. Any member
who wished to rid himself of a creditor, a rival, a private
enemy, gave in the name to the clerk at the table, and it was
generally inserted without discussion. The only debate of which
any account has come down to us related to the Earl of Strafford.
He had friends in the House who ventured to offer something in
his favour. But a few words from Simon Luttrell settled the
question. "I have," he said, "heard the King say some hard things
of that lord." This was thought sufficient, and the name of
Strafford stands fifth in the long table of the proscribed.229

Days were fixed before which those whose names were on the list
were required to surrender themselves to such justice as was then
administered to English Protestants in Dublin. If a proscribed
person was in Ireland, he must surrender himself by the tenth of
August. If he had left Ireland since the fifth of November 1688,
he must surrender himself by the first of September. If he had
left Ireland before the fifth of November 1688, he must surrender
himself by the first of October. If he failed to appear by the
appointed day, he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered without
a trial, and his property was to be confiscated. It might be
physically impossible for him to deliver himself up within the
time fixed by the Act. He might be bedridden. He might be in the
West Indies. He might be in prison. Indeed there notoriously were
such cases. Among the attainted Lords was Mountjoy. He had been
induced by the villany of Tyrconnel to trust himself at Saint
Germains: he had been thrown into the Bastile: he was still lying
there; and the Irish parliament was not ashamed to enact that,
unless he could, within a few weeks, make his escape from his
cell, and present himself at Dublin, he should be put to
death.230

As it was not even pretended that there had been any inquiry into
the guilt of those who were thus proscribed, as not a single one
among them had been heard in his own defence, and as it was
certain that it would be physically impossible for many of them
to surrender themselves in time, it was clear that nothing but a
large exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy could prevent
the perpetration of iniquities so horrible that no precedent
could be found for them even in the lamentable history of the
troubles of Ireland. The Commons therefore determined that the
royal prerogative of mercy should be limited. Several regulations
were devised for the purpose of making the passing of pardons
difficult and costly: and finally it was enacted that every
pardon granted by his Majesty, after the end of November 1689, to
any of the many hundreds of persons who had been sentenced to
death without a trial, should be absolutely void and of none
effect. Sir Richard Nagle came in state to the bar of the Lords
and presented the bill with a speech worthy of the occasion.
"Many of the persons here attainted," said he, "have been proved
traitors by such evidence as satisfies us. As to the rest we have
followed common fame."231

With such reckless barbarity was the list framed that fanatical
royalists, who were, at that very time, hazarding their property,
their liberty, their lives, in the cause of James, were not
secure from proscription. The most learned man of whom the
Jacobite party could boast was Henry Dodwell, Camdenian Professor
in the University of Oxford. In the cause of hereditary monarchy
he shrank from no sacrifice and from no danger. It was about him
that William uttered those memorable words: "He has set his heart
on being a martyr; and I have set my mind on disappointing him."
But James was more cruel to friends than William to foes. Dodwell
was a Protestant: he had some property in Connaught: these crimes
were sufficient; and he was set down in the long roll of those
who were doomed to the gallows and the quartering block.232

That James would give his assent to a bill which took from him
the power of pardoning, seemed to many persons impossible. He
had, four years before, quarrelled with the most loyal of
parliaments rather than cede a prerogative which did not belong
to him. It might, therefore, well be expected that he would now
have struggled hard to retain a precious prerogative which had
been enjoyed by his predecessors ever since the origin of the
monarchy, and which had never been questioned by the Whigs. The
stern look and raised voice with which he had reprimanded the
Tory gentlemen, who, in the language of profound reverence and
fervent affection, implored him not to dispense with the laws,
would now have been in place. He might also have seen that the
right course was the wise course. Had he, on this great occasion,
had the spirit to declare that he would not shed the blood of the
innocent, and that, even as respected the guilty, he would not
divest himself of the power of tempering judgment with mercy, he
would have regained more hearts in England than he would have
lost in Ireland. But it was ever his fate to resist where he
should have yielded, and to yield where he should have resisted.
The most wicked of all laws received his sanction; and it is but
a very small extenuation of his guilt that his sanction was
somewhat reluctantly given.

That nothing might be wanting to the completeness of this great
crime, extreme care was taken to prevent the persons who were
attainted from knowing that they were attainted, till the day of
grace fixed in the Act was passed. The roll of names was not
published, but kept carefully locked up in Fitton's closet. Some
Protestants, who still adhered to the cause of James, but who
were anxious to know whether any of their friends or relations
had been proscribed, tried hard to obtain a sight of the list;
but solicitation, remonstrance, even bribery, proved vain. Not a
single copy got abroad till it was too late for any of the
thousands who had been condemned without a trial to obtain a
pardon.233

Towards the close of July James prorogued the Houses. They had
sate more than ten weeks; and in that space of time they had
proved most fully that, great as have been the evils which
Protestant ascendency has produced in Ireland, the evils produced
by Popish ascendancy would have been greater still. That the
colonists, when they had won the victory, grossly abused it, that
their legislation was, during many years, unjust and tyrannical,
is most true. But it is not less true that they never quite came
up to the atrocious example set by their vanquished enemy during
his short tenure of power.

Indeed, while James was loudly boasting that he had passed an Act
granting entire liberty of conscience to all sects, a persecution
as cruel as that of Languedoc was raging through all the
provinces which owned his authority. It was said by those who
wished to find an excuse for him that almost all the Protestants
who still remained in Munster, Connaught, and Leinster were his
enemies, and that it was not as schismatics, but as rebels in
heart, who wanted only opportunity to become rebels in act, that
he gave them up to be oppressed and despoiled; and to this excuse
some weight might have been allowed if he had strenuously exerted
himself to protect those few colonists, who, though firmly
attached to the reformed religion, were still true to the
doctrines of nonresistance and of indefeasible hereditary right.
But even these devoted royalists found that their heresy was in
his view a crime for which no services or sacrifices would atone.
Three or four noblemen, members of the Anglican Church, who had
welcomed him to Ireland, and had sate in his Parliament,
represented to him that, if the rule which forbade any Protestant
to possess any weapon were strictly enforced, their country
houses would be at the mercy of the Rapparees, and obtained from
him permission to keep arms sufficient for a few servants. But
Avaux remonstrated. The indulgence, he said, was grossly abused:
these Protestant lords were not to be trusted: they were turning
their houses into fortresses: his Majesty would soon have reason
to repent his goodness. These representations prevailed; and
Roman Catholic troops were quartered in the suspected
dwellings.234

Still harder was the lot of those Protestant clergymen who
continued to cling, with desperate fidelity, to the cause of the
Lord's Anointed. Of all the Anglican divines the one who had the
largest share of James's good graces seems to have been
Cartwright. Whether Cartwright could long have continued to be a
favourite without being an apostate may be doubted. He died a few
weeks after his arrival in Ireland; and thenceforward his church
had no one to plead her cause. Nevertheless a few of her prelates
and priests continued for a time to teach what they had taught in
the days of the Exclusion Bill. But it was at the peril of life
or limb that they exercised their functions. Every wearer of a
cassock was a mark for the insults and outrages of soldiers and
Rapparees. In the country his house was robbed, and he was
fortunate if it was not burned over his head. He was hunted
through the streets of Dublin with cries of "There goes the devil
of a heretic." Sometimes he was knocked down: sometimes he was
cudgelled.235 The rulers of the University of Dublin, trained in
the Anglican doctrine of passive obedience, had greeted James on
his first arrival at the Castle, and had been assured by him that
he would protect them in the enjoyment of their property and
their privileges. They were now, without any trial, without any
accusation, thrust out of their house. The communion plate of the
chapel, the books in the library, the very chairs and beds of the
collegians were seized. Part of the building was turned into a
magazine, part into a barrack, part into a prison. Simon
Luttrell, who was Governor of the capital, was, with great
difficulty and by powerful intercession, induced to let the
ejected fellows and scholars depart in safety. He at length
permitted them to remain at large, with this condition, that, on
pain of death, no three of them should meet together.236 No
Protestant divine suffered more hardships than Doctor William
King, Dean of Saint Patrick's. He had been long distinguished by
the fervour with which he had inculcated the duty of passively
obeying even the worst rulers. At a later period, when he had
published a defence of the Revolution, and had accepted a mitre
from the new government, he was reminded that he had invoked the
divine vengeance on the usurpers, and had declared himself
willing to die a hundred deaths rather than desert the cause of
hereditary right. He had said that the true religion had often
been strengthened by persecution, but could never be strengthened
by rebellion; that it would be a glorious day for the Church of
England when a whole cartload of her ministers should go to the
gallows for the doctrine of nonresistance; and that his highest
ambition was to be one of such a company.237 It is not improbable
that, when he spoke thus, he felt as he spoke. But his
principles, though they might perhaps have held out against the
severities and the promises of William, were not proof against
the ingratitude of James. Human nature at last asserted its
rights. After King had been repeatedly imprisoned by the
government to which he was devotedly attached, after he had been
insulted and threatened in his own choir by the soldiers, after
he had been interdicted from burying in his own churchyard, and
from preaching in his own pulpit, after he had narrowly escaped
with life from a musketshot fired at him in the street, he began
to think the Whig theory of government less unreasonable and
unchristian than it had once appeared to him, and persuaded
himself that the oppressed Church might lawfully accept
deliverance, if God should be pleased, by whatever means, to send
it to her.

In no long time it appeared that James would have done well to
hearken to those counsellors who had told him that the acts by
which he was trying to make himself popular in one of his three
kingdoms, would make him odious in the others. It was in some
sense fortunate for England that, after he had ceased to reign
here, he continued during more than a year to reign in Ireland.
The Revolution had been followed by a reaction of public feeling
in his favour. That reaction, if it had been suffered to proceed
uninterrupted, might perhaps not have ceased till he was again
King: but it was violently interrupted by himself. He would not
suffer his people to forget: he would not suffer them to hope:
while they were trying to find excuses for his past errors, and
to persuade themselves that he would not repeat these errors, he
forced upon them, in their own despite, the conviction that he
was incorrigible, that the sharpest discipline of adversity had
taught him nothing, and that, if they were weak enough to recall
him, they would soon have to depose him again. It was in vain
that the Jacobites put forth pamphlets about the cruelty with
which he had been treated by those who were nearest to him in
blood, about the imperious temper and uncourteous manners of
William, about the favour shown to the Dutch, about the heavy
taxes, about the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, about the
dangers which threatened the Church from the enmity of Puritans
and Latitudinarians. James refuted these pamphlets far more
effectually than all the ablest and most eloquent Whig writers
united could have done. Every week came the news that he had
passed some new Act for robbing or murdering Protestants. Every
colonist who succeeded in stealing across the sea from Leinster
to Holyhead or Bristol, brought fearful reports of the tyranny
under which his brethren groaned. What impression these reports
made on the Protestants of our island may be easily inferred from
the fact that they moved the indignation of Ronquillo, a Spaniard
and a bigoted member of the Church of Rome. He informed his Court
that, though the English laws against Popery might seem severe,
they were so much mitigated by the prudence and humanity of the
Government, that they caused no annoyance to quiet people; and he
took upon himself to assure the Holy See that what a Roman
Catholic suffered in London was nothing when compared with what a
Protestant suffered in Ireland.238

The fugitive Englishry found in England warm sympathy and
munificent relief. Many were received into the houses of friends
and kinsmen. Many were indebted for the means of subsistence to
the liberality of strangers. Among those who bore a part in this
work of mercy, none contributed more largely or less
ostentatiously than the Queen. The House of Commons placed at the
King's disposal fifteen thousand pounds for the relief of those
refugees whose wants were most pressing, and requested him to
give commissions in the army to those who were qualified for
military employment.239 An Act was also passed enabling beneficed
clergymen who had fled from Ireland to hold preferment in
England.240 Yet the interest which the nation felt in these
unfortunate guests was languid when compared with the interest
excited by that portion of the Saxon colony which still
maintained in Ulster a desperate conflict against overwhelming
odds. On this subject scarcely one dissentient voice was to be
heard in our island. Whigs, Tories, nay even those Jacobites in
whom Jacobitism had not extinguished every patriotic sentiment,
gloried in the glory of Enniskillen and Londonderry. The House of
Commons was all of one mind. "This is no time to be counting
cost," said honest Birch, who well remembered the way in which
Oliver had made war on the Irish. "Are those brave fellows in
Londonderry to be deserted? If we lose them will not all the
world cry shame upon us? A boom across the river! Why have we not
cut the boom in pieces? Are our brethren to perish almost in
sight of England, within a few hours' voyage of our shores?"241
Howe, the most vehement man of one party, declared that the
hearts of the people were set on Ireland. Seymour, the leader of
the other party, declared that, though he had not taken part in
setting up the new government, he should cordially support it in
all that might be necessary for the preservation of Ireland.242
The Commons appointed a committee to enquire into the cause of
the delays and miscarriages which had been all but fatal to the
Englishry of Ulster. The officers to whose treachery or cowardice
the public ascribed the calamities of Londonderry were put under
arrest. Lundy was sent to the Tower, Cunningham to the Gate
House. The agitation of the public mind was in some degree calmed
by the announcement that, before the end of the summer, an army
powerful enough to reestablish the English ascendency in Ireland
would be sent across Saint George's Channel, and that Schomberg
would be the General. In the meantime an expedition which was
thought to be sufficient for the relief of Londonderry was
despatched from Liverpool under the command of Kirke. The dogged
obstinacy with which this man had, in spite of royal
solicitations, adhered to his religion, and the part which he had
taken in the Revolution, had perhaps entitled him to an amnesty
for past crimes. But it is difficult to understand why the
Government should have selected for a post of the highest
importance an officer who was generally and justly hated, who had
never shown eminent talents for war, and who, both in Africa and
in England, had notoriously tolerated among his soldiers a
licentiousness, not only shocking to humanity, but also
incompatible with discipline.

On the sixteenth of May, Kirke's troops embarked: on the twenty-
second they sailed: but contrary winds made the passage slow, and
forced the armament to stop long at the Isle of Man. Meanwhile
the Protestants of Ulster were defending themselves with
stubborn courage against a great superiority of force. The
Enniskilleners had never ceased to wage a vigorous partisan war
against the native population. Early in May they marched to
encounter a large body of troops from Connaught, who had made an
inroad into Donegal. The Irish were speedily routed, and fled to
Sligo with the loss of a hundred and twenty men killed and sixty
taken. Two small pieces of artillery and several horses fell into
the hands of the conquerors. Elated by this success, the
Enniskilleners soon invaded the county of Cavan, drove before
them fifteen hundred of James's troops, took and destroyed the
castle of Ballincarrig, reputed the strongest in that part of the
kingdom, and carried off the pikes and muskets of the garrison.
The next incursion was into Meath. Three thousand oxen and two
thousand sheep were swept away and brought safe to the little
island in Lough Erne. These daring exploits spread terror even to
the gates of Dublin. Colonel Hugh Sutherland was ordered to march
against Enniskillen with a regiment of dragoons and two regiments
of foot. He carried with him arms for the native peasantry; and
many repaired to his standard. The Enniskilleners did not wait
till he came into their neighbourhood, but advanced to encounter
him. He declined an action, and retreated, leaving his stores at
Belturbet under the care of a detachment of three hundred
soldiers. The Protestants attacked Belturbet with vigour, made
their way into a lofty house which overlooked the town, and
thence opened such a fire that in two hours the garrison
surrendered. Seven hundred muskets, a great quantity of powder,
many horses, many sacks of biscuits, many barrels of meal, were
taken, and were sent to Enniskillen. The boats which brought
these precious spoils were joyfully welcomed. The fear of hunger
was removed. While the aboriginal population had, in many
counties, altogether neglected the cultivation of the earth, in
the expectation, it should seem, that marauding would prove an
inexhaustible resource, the colonists, true to the provident and
industrious character of their race, had, in the midst of war,
not omitted carefully to till the soil in the neighbourhood of
their strongholds. The harvest was now not far remote; and, till
the harvest, the food taken from the enemy would be amply
sufficient.243

Yet, in the midst of success and plenty, the Enniskilleners were
tortured by a cruel anxiety for Londonderry. They were bound to
the defenders of that city, not only by religious and national
sympathy, but by common interest. For there could be no doubt
that, if Londonderry fell, the whole Irish army would instantly
march in irresistible force upon Lough Erne. Yet what could be
done? Some brave men were for making a desperate attempt to
relieve the besieged city; but the odds were too great.
Detachments however were sent which infested the rear of the
blockading army, cut off supplies, and, on one occasion, carried
away the horses of three entire troops of cavalry.244 Still the
line of posts which surrounded Londonderry by land remained
unbroken. The river was still strictly closed and guarded. Within
the walls the distress had become extreme. So early as the eighth
of June horseflesh was almost the only meat which could be
purchased; and of horseflesh the supply was scanty. It was
necessary to make up the deficiency with tallow; and even tallow
was doled out with a parsimonious hand.

On the fifteenth of June a gleam of hope appeared. The sentinels
on the top of the Cathedral saw sails nine miles off in the bay
of Lough Foyle. Thirty vessels of different sizes were counted.
Signals were made from the steeples and returned from the mast
heads, but were imperfectly understood on both sides. At last a
messenger from the fleet eluded the Irish sentinels, dived under
the boom, and informed the garrison that Kirke had arrived from
England with troops, arms, ammunition, and provisions, to relieve
the city.245

In Londonderry expectation was at the height: but a few hours of
feverish joy were followed by weeks of misery. Kirke thought it
unsafe to make any attempt, either by land or by water, on the
lines of the besiegers, and retired to the entrance of Lough
Foyle, where, during several weeks, he lay inactive.

And now the pressure of famine became every day more severe. A
strict search was made in all the recesses of all the houses of
the city; and some provisions, which had been concealed in
cellars by people who had since died or made their escape, were
discovered and carried to the magazines. The stock of cannon
balls was almost exhausted; and their place was supplied by
brickbats coated with lead. Pestilence began, as usual, to make
its appearance in the train of hunger. Fifteen officers died of
fever in one day. The Governor Baker was among those who sank
under the disease. His place was supplied by Colonel John
Mitchelburne.246

Meanwhile it was known at Dublin that Kirke and his squadron were
on the coast of Ulster. The alarm was great at the Castle. Even
before this news arrived, Avaux had given it as his opinion that
Richard Hamilton was unequal to the difficulties of the
situation. It had therefore been resolved that Rosen should take
the chief command. He was now sent down with all speed.247

On the nineteenth of June he arrived at the head quarter of the
besieging army. At first he attempted to undermine the walls; but
his plan was discovered; and he was compelled to abandon it after
a sharp fight, in which more than a hundred of his men were
slain. Then his fury rose to a strange pitch. He, an old soldier,
a Marshal of France in expectancy, trained in the school of the
greatest generals, accustomed, during many years, to scientific
war, to be baffled by a mob of country gentlemen, farmers,
shopkeepers, who were protected only by a wall which any good
engineer would at once have pronounced untenable! He raved, he
blasphemed, in a language of his own, made up of all the dialects
spoken from the Baltic to the Atlantic. He would raze the city to
the ground: he would spare no living thing; no, not the young
girls; not the babies at the breast. As to the leaders, death was
too light a punishment for them: he would rack them: he would
roast them alive. In his rage he ordered a shell to be flung into
the town with a letter containing a horrible menace. He would,
he said, gather into one body all the Protestants who had
remained at their homes between Charlemont and the sea, old men,
women, children, many of them near in blood and affection to the
defenders of Londonderry. No protection, whatever might be the
authority by which it had been given, should be respected. The
multitude thus brought together should be driven under the walls
of Londonderry, and should there be starved to death in the sight
of their countrymen, their friends, their kinsmen. This was no
idle threat. Parties were instantly sent out in all directions to
collect victims. At dawn, on the morning of the second of July,
hundreds of Protestants, who were charged with no crime, who were
incapable of bearing arms, and many of whom had protections
granted by James, were dragged to the gates of the city. It was
imagined that the piteous sight would quell the spirit of the
colonists. But the only effect was to rouse that spirit to still
greater energy. An order was immediately put forth that no man
should utter the word Surrender on pain of death; and no man
uttered that word. Several prisoners of high rank were in the
town. Hitherto they had been well treated, and had received as
good rations as were measured out to the garrison. They were now,
closely confined. A gallows was erected on one of the bastion;
and a message was conveyed to Rosen, requesting him to send a
confessor instantly to prepare his friends for death. The
prisoners in great dismay wrote to the savage Livonian, but
received no answer. They then addressed themselves to their
countryman, Richard Hamilton. They were willing, they said, to
shed their blood for their King; but they thought it hard to die
the ignominious death of thieves in consequence of the barbarity
of their own companions in arms. Hamilton, though a man of lax
principles, was not cruel. He had been disgusted by the
inhumanity of Rosen, but, being only second in command, could not
venture to express publicly all that he thought. He however
remonstrated strongly. Some Irish officers felt on this occasion
as it was natural that brave men should feel, and declared,
weeping with pity and indignation, that they should never cease
to have in their ears the cries of the poor women and children
who had been driven at the point of the pike to die of famine
between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted during forty-eight
hours. In that time many unhappy creatures perished: but
Londonderry held out as resolutely as ever; and he saw that his
crime was likely to produce nothing but hatred and obloquy. He at
length gave way, and suffered the survivors to withdraw. The
garrison then took down the gallows which had been erected on the
bastion.248

When the tidings of these events reached Dublin, James, though by
no means prone to compassion, was startled by an atrocity of
which the civil wars of England had furnished no example, and was
displeased by learning that protections, given by his authority,
and guaranteed by his honour, had been publicly declared to be
nullities. He complained to the French ambassador, and said, with
a warmth which the occasion fully justified, that Rosen was a
barbarous Muscovite. Melfort could not refrain from adding that,
if Rosen had been an Englishman, he would have been hanged. Avaux
was utterly unable to understand this effeminate sensibility. In
his opinion, nothing had been done that was at all reprehensible;
and he had some difficulty in commanding himself when he heard
the King and the secretary blame, in strong language, an act of
wholesome severity.249 In truth the French ambassador and the
French general were well paired. There was a great difference
doubtless, in appearance and manner, between the handsome,
graceful, and refined diplomatist, whose dexterity and suavity
had been renowned at the most polite courts of Europe, and the
military adventurer, whose look and voice reminded all who came
near him that he had been born in a half savage country, that he
had risen from the ranks, and that he had once been sentenced to
death for marauding. But the heart of the courtier was really
even more callous than that of the soldier.

Rosen was recalled to Dublin; and Richard Hamilton was again left
in the chief command. He tried gentler means than those which had
brought so much reproach on his predecessor. No trick, no lie,
which was thought likely to discourage the starving garrison was
spared. One day a great shout was raised by the whole Irish camp.
The defenders of Londonderry were soon informed that the army of
James was rejoicing on account of the fall of Enniskillen. They
were told that they had now no chance of being relieved, and were
exhorted to save their lives by capitulating. They consented to
negotiate. But what they asked was, that they should be permitted
to depart armed and in military array, by land or by water at
their choice. They demanded hostages for the exact fulfilment of
these conditions, and insisted that the hostages should be sent
on board of the fleet which lay in Lough Foyle. Such terms
Hamilton durst not grant: the Governors would abate nothing: the
treaty was broken off; and the conflict recommenced.250

By this time July was far advanced; and the state of the city
was, hour by hour, becoming more frightful. The number of the
inhabitants had been thinned more by famine and disease than by
the fire of the enemy. Yet that fire was sharper and more
constant than ever. One of the gates was beaten in: one of the
bastions was laid in ruins; but the breaches made by day were
repaired by night with indefatigable activity. Every attack was
still repelled. But the fighting men of the garrison were so much
exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs. Several of
them, in the act of striking at the enemy, fell down from mere
weakness. A very small quantity of grain remained, and was doled
out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted hides was considerable, and
by gnawing them the garrison appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs,
fattened on the blood of the slain who lay unburied round the
town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price
of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses
were still alive, and but barely alive. They were so lean that
little meat was likely to be found upon them. It was, however,
determined to slaughter them for food. The people perished so
fast that it was impossible for the survivors to perform the
rites of sepulture. There was scarcely a cellar in which some
corpse was not decaying. Such was the extremity of distress, that
the rats who came to feast in those hideous dens were eagerly
hunted and greedily devoured. A small fish, caught in the river,
was not to be purchased with money. The only price for which such
a treasure could be obtained was some handfuls of oatmeal.
Leprosies, such as strange and unwholesome diet engenders, made
existence a constant torment. The whole city was poisoned by the
stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half dead.
That there should be fits of discontent and insubordination among
men enduring such misery was inevitable. At one moment it was
suspected that Walker had laid up somewhere a secret store of
food, and was revelling in private, while he exhorted others to
suffer resolutely for the good cause. His house was strictly
examined: his innocence was fully proved: he regained his
popularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect,
thronged to the cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his
earnest eloquence with delight, and went forth from the house of
God with haggard faces and tottering steps, but with spirit still
unsubdued. There were, indeed, some secret plottings. A very few
obscure traitors opened communications with the enemy. But it was
necessary that all such dealings should be carefully concealed.
None dared to utter publicly any words save words of defiance and
stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the general cry was
"No surrender." And there were not wanting voices which, in low
tones, added, "First the horses and hides; and then the
prisoners; and then each other." It was afterwards related, half
in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of earnest, that a
corpulent citizen, whose bulk presented a strange contrast to the
skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal
himself from the numerous eyes which followed him with cannibal
looks whenever he appeared in the streets.251

It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison
that all this tune the English ships were seen far off in Lough
Foyle. Communication between the fleet and the city was almost
impossible. One diver who had attempted to pass the boom was
drowned. Another was hanged. The language of signals was hardly
intelligible. On the thirteenth of July, however, a piece of
paper sewed up in a cloth button came to Walker's hands. It was a
letter from Kirke, and contained assurances of speedy relief. But
more than a fortnight of intense misery had since elapsed; and
the hearts of the most sanguine were sick with deferred hope. By
no art could the provisions which were left be made to hold out
two days more.252

Just at this time Kirke received a despatch from England, which
contained positive orders that Londonderry should be relieved. He
accordingly determined to make an attempt which, as far as
appears, he might have made, with at least an equally fair
prospect of success, six weeks earlier.253

Among the merchant ships which had come to Lough Foyle under his
convoy was one called the Mountjoy. The master, Micaiah Browning,
a native of Londonderry, had brought from England a large cargo
of provisions. He had, it is said, repeatedly remonstrated
against the inaction of the armament. He now eagerly volunteered
to take the first risk of succouring his fellow citizens; and his
offer was accepted. Andrew Douglas, master of the Phoenix, who
had on board a great quantity of meal from Scotland, was willing
to share the danger and the honour. The two merchantmen were to
be escorted by the Dartmouth frigate of thirty-six guns,
commanded by Captain John Leake, afterwards an admiral of great
fame.

It was the thirtieth of July. The sun had just set: the evening
sermon in the cathedral was over; and the heartbroken
congregation had separated, when the sentinels on the tower saw
the sails of three vessels coming up the Foyle. Soon there was a
stir in the Irish camp. The besiegers were on the alert for miles
along both shores. The ships were in extreme peril: for the river
was low; and the only navigable channel Tan very near to the left
bank, where the head quarters of the enemy had been fixed, and
where the batteries were most numerous. Leake performed his duty
with a skill and spirit worthy of his noble profession, exposed
his frigate to cover the merchantmen, and used his guns with
great effect. At length the little squadron came to the place of
peril. Then the Mountjoy took the lead, and went right at the
bottom. The huge barricade cracked and gave way: but the shock
was such that the Mountjoy rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A
yell of triumph rose from the banks: the Irish rushed to their
boats, and were preparing to board; but the Dartmouth poured on
them a well directed broadside, which threw them into disorder.
Just then the Phoenix dashed at the breach which the Mountjoy had
made, and was in a moment within the fence. Meantime the tide was
rising fast. The Mountjoy began to move, and soon passed safe
through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave
master was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck
him; and he died by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight of
the city which was his birthplace, which was his home, and which
had just been saved by his courage and self-devotion from the
most frightful form of destruction. The night had closed in
before the conflict at the boom began; but the flash of the guns
was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean and ghastly multitude
which covered the walls of the city. When the Mountjoy grounded,
and when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides
of the river, the hearts of the besieged died within them. One
who endured the unutterable anguish of that moment has told
that they looked fearfully livid in each other's eyes. Even after
the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible half hour of
suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the
quay. The whole population was there to welcome them. A screen
made of casks filled with earth was hastily thrown up to protect
the landing place from the batteries on the other side of the
river; and then the work of unloading began. First were rolled on
shore barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal. Then came
great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter,
sacks of Pease and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours
before, half a pound of tallow and three quarters of a pound of
salted hide had been weighed out with niggardly care to every
fighting man. The ration which each now received was three pounds
of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint of Pease. It is easy to
imagine with what tears grace was said over the suppers of that
evening. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The
bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts.
The Irish guns continued to roar all night; and all night the
bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a
peal of joyous defiance. Through the whole of the thirty-first of
July the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But, soon
after the sun had again gone down, flames were seen arising from
the camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking
ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the
besiegers; and the citizens saw far off the long column of pikes
and standards retreating up the left bank of the Foyle towards
Strabane.254

So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of
the British isles. It had lasted a hundred and five days. The
garrison had been reduced from about seven thousand effective men
to about three thousand. The loss of the besiegers cannot be
precisely ascertained. Walker estimated it at eight thousand men.
It is certain from the despatches of Avaux that the regiments
which returned from the blockade had been so much thinned that
many of them were not more than two hundred strong. Of thirty-six
French gunners who had superintended the cannonading, thirty-one
had been killed or disabled.255 The means both of attack and of
defence had undoubtedly been such as would have moved the great
warriors of the Continent to laughter; and this is the very
circumstance which gives so peculiar an interest to the history
of the contest. It was a contest, not between engineers, but
between nations; and the victory remained with the nation which,
though inferior in number, was superior in civilisation, in
capacity for selfgovernment, and in stubbornness of
resolution.256

As soon as it was known that the Irish army had retired, a
deputation from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and invited
Kirk to take the command. He came accompanied by a long train of
officers, and was received in state by the two Governors, who
delivered up to him the authority which, under the pressure of
necessity, they had assumed. He remained only a few days; but he
had time to show enough of the incurable vices of his character
to disgust a population distinguished by austere morals and
ardent public spirit. There was, however, no outbreak. The city
was in the highest good humour. Such quantities of provisions had
been landed from the fleet, that there was in every house a
plenty never before known. A few days earlier a man had been glad
to obtain for twenty pence a mouthful of carrion scraped from the
bones of a starved horse. A pound of good beef was now sold for
three halfpence. Meanwhile all hands were busied in removing
corpses which had been thinly covered with earth, in filling up
the holes which the shells had ploughed in the ground, and in
repairing the battered roofs of the houses. The recollection of
past dangers and privations, and the consciousness of having
deserved well of the English nation and of all Protestant
Churches, swelled the hearts of the townspeople with honest
pride. That pride grew stronger when they received from William a
letter acknowledging, in the most affectionate language, the debt
which he owed to the brave and trusty citizens of his good city.
The whole population crowded to the Diamond to hear the royal
epistle read. At the close all the guns on the ramparts sent
forth a voice of joy: all the ships in the river made answer:
barrels of ale were broken up; and the health of their Majesties
was drunk with shouts and volleys of musketry.

Five generations have since passed away; and still the wall of
Londonderry is to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of
Marathon was to the Athenians. A lofty pillar, rising from a
bastion which bore during many weeks the heaviest fire of the
enemy, is seen far up and far down the Foyle. On the summit is
the statue of Walker, such as when, in the last and most terrible
emergency, his eloquence roused the fainting courage of his
brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible. The other, pointing down
the river, seems to direct the eyes of his famished audience to
the English topmasts in the distant bay. Such a monument was well
deserved: yet it was scarcely needed: for in truth the whole city
is to this day a monument of the great deliverance. The wall is
carefully preserved; nor would any plea of health or convenience
be held by the inhabitants sufficient to justify the demolition
of that sacred enclosure which, in the evil time, gave shelter to
their race and their religion.257 The summit of the ramparts
forms a pleasant walk. The bastions have been turned into little
gardens. Here and there, among the shrubs and flowers, may be
seen the old culverins which scattered bricks, cased with lead,
among the Irish ranks. One antique gun, the gift of the
Fishmongers of London, was distinguished, during the hundred and
five memorable days, by the loudness of its report, and still
bears the name of Roaring Meg. The cathedral is filled with
relics and trophies. In the vestibule is a huge shell, one of
many hundreds of shells which were thrown into the city. Over the
altar are still seen the French flagstaves, taken by the garrison
in a desperate sally. The white ensigns of the House of Bourbon
have long been dust: but their place has been supplied by new
banners, the work of the fairest hands of Ulster. The anniversary
of the day on which the gates were closed, and the anniversary of
the day on which the siege was raised, have been down to our own
time celebrated by salutes, processions, banquets, and sermons:
Lundy has been executed in effigy; and the sword, said by
tradition to be that of Maumont, has, on great occasions, been
carried in triumph. There is still a Walker Club and a Murray
Club. The humble tombs of the Protestant captains have been
carefully sought out, repaired, and embellished. It is
impossible not to respect the sentiment which indicates itself by
these tokens. It is a sentiment which belongs to the higher and
purer part of human nature, and which adds not a little to the
strength of states. A people which takes no pride in the noble
achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve any thing
worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants. Yet it
is impossible for the moralist or the statesman to look with
unmixed complacency on the solemnities with which Londonderry
commemorates her deliverance, and on the honours which she pays
to those who saved her. Unhappily the animosities of her brave
champions have descended with their glory. The faults which are
ordinarily found in dominant castes and dominant sects have not
seldom shown themselves without disguise at her festivities; and
even with the expressions of pious gratitude which have resounded
from her pulpits have too often been mingled words of wrath and
defiance.

The Irish army which had retreated to Strabane remained there but
a very short time. The spirit of the troops had been depressed by
their recent failure, and was soon completely cowed by the news
of a great disaster in another quarter.

Three weeks before this time the Duke of Berwick had gained an
advantage over a detachment of the Enniskilleners, and had, by
their own confession, killed or taken more than fifty of them.
They were in hopes of obtaining some assistance from Kirke, to
whom they had sent a deputation; and they still persisted in
rejecting all terms offered by the enemy. It was therefore
determined at Dublin that an attack should be made upon them from
several quarters at once. Macarthy, who had been rewarded for his
services in Munster with the title of Viscount Mountcashel,
marched towards Lough Erne from the east with three regiments of
foot, two regiments of dragoons, and some troops of cavalry. A
considerable force, which lay encamped near the mouth of the
river Drowes, was at the same time to advance from the west. The
Duke of Berwick was to come from the north, with such horse and
dragoons as could be spared from the army which was besieging
Londonderry. The Enniskilleners were not fully apprised of the
whole plan which had been laid for their destruction; but they
knew that Macarthy was on the road with a force exceeding any
which they could bring into the field. Their anxiety was in some
degree relieved by the return of the deputation which they had
sent to Kirke. Kirke could spare no soldiers; but he had sent
some arms, some ammunition, and some experienced officers, of
whom the chief were Colonel Wolseley and Lieutenant Colonel
Berry. These officers had come by sea round the coast of Donegal,
and had run up the Line. On Sunday, the twenty-ninth of July, it
was known that their boat was approaching the island of
Enniskillen. The whole population, male and female, came to the
shore to greet them. It was with difficulty, that they made their
way to the Castle through the crowds which hung on them, blessing
God that dear old England had not quite forgotten the Englishmen
who upheld her cause against great odds in the heart of Ireland.

Wolseley seems to have been in every respect well qualified for
his post. He was a stanch Protestant, had distinguished himself
among the Yorkshiremen who rose up for the Prince of Orange and a
free Parliament, and had, if he is not belied, proved his zeal
for liberty and pure religion, by causing the Mayor of
Scarborough, who had made a speech in favour of King James, to be
brought into the market place and well tossed there in a
blanket.258 This vehement hatred of Popery was, in the estimation
of the men of Enniskillen, the first of all qualifications for
command: and Wolseley had other and more important
qualifications. Though himself regularly bred to war, he seems to
have had a peculiar aptitude for the management of irregular
troops. He had scarcely taken on himself the chief command when
he received notice that Mountcashel had laid siege to the Castle
of Crum. Crum was the frontier garrison of the Protestants of
Fermanagh. The ruins of the old fortifications are now among the
attractions of a beautiful pleasureground, situated on a woody
promontory which overlooks Lough Erne. Wolseley determined to
raise the siege. He sent Berry forward with such troops as could
be instantly put in motion, and promised to follow speedily with
a larger force.

Berry, after marching some miles, encountered thirteen companies
of Macarthy's dragoons commanded by Anthony, the most brilliant
and accomplished of all who bore the name of Hamilton, but much
less successful as a soldier than as a courtier, a lover, and a
writer. Hamilton's dragoons ran at the first fire: he was
severely wounded; and his second in command was shot dead.
Macarthy soon came up to support Hamilton; and at the same time
Wolseley came up to support Berry. The hostile armies were now in
presence of each other. Macarthy had above five thousand men and
several pieces of artillery. The Enniskilleners were under three
thousand; and they had marched in such haste that they had
brought only one day's provisions. It was therefore absolutely
necessary for them either to fight instantly or to retreat.
Wolseley determined to consult the men; and this determination,
which, in ordinary circumstances, would have been most unworthy
of a general, was fully justified by the peculiar composition and
temper of the little army, an army made up of gentlemen and
yeomen fighting, not for pay, but for their lands, their wives,
their children, and their God. The ranks were drawn up under
arms; and the question was put, "Advance or Retreat?" The
answer was an universal shout of "Advance." Wolseley gave out the
word, "No Popery." It was received with loud applause. He
instantly made his dispositions for an attack. As he approached,
the enemy, to his great surprise, began to retire. The
Enniskilleners were eager to pursue with all speed: but their
commander, suspecting a snare, restrained their ardour, and
positively forbade them to break their ranks. Thus one army
retreated and the other followed, in good order, through the
little town of Newton Butler. About a mile from that town the
Irish faced about, and made a stand. Their position was well
chosen. They were drawn up on a hill at the foot of which lay a
deep bog. A narrow paved causeway which ran across the bog was
the only road by which the cavalry of the Enniskilleners could
advance; for on the right and left were pools, turf pits, and
quagmires, which afforded no footing to horses. Macarthy placed
his cannon in such a manner as to sweep this causeway.

Wolseley ordered his infantry to the attack. They struggled
through the bog, made their way to firm ground, and rushed on the
guns. There was then a short and desperate fight. The Irish
cannoneers stood gallantly to their pieces till they were cut
down to a man. The Enniskillen horse, no longer in danger of
being mowed down by the fire of the artillery, came fast up the
causeway. The Irish dragoons who had run away in the morning were
smitten with another panic, and, without striking a blow,
galloped from the field. The horse followed the example. Such was
the terror of the fugitives that many of them spurred hard till
their beasts fell down, and then continued to fly on foot,
throwing away carbines, swords, and even coats as incumbrances.
The infantry, seeing themselves deserted, flung down their pikes
and muskets and ran for their lives. The conquerors now gave
loose to that ferocity which has seldom failed to disgrace the
civil wars of Ireland. The butchery was terrible. Near fifteen
hundred of the vanquished were put to the sword. About five
hundred more, in ignorance of the country, took a road which led
to Lough Erne. The lake was before them: the enemy behind: they
plunged into the waters and perished there. Macarthy, abandoned
by his troops, rushed into the midst of the pursuers and very
nearly found the death which he sought. He was wounded in several
places: he was struck to the ground; and in another moment his
brains would have been knocked out with the butt end of a musket,
when he was recognised and saved. The colonists lost only twenty
men killed and fifty wounded. They took four hundred prisoners,
seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels of powder, all the drums
and all the colours of the vanquished enemy.259

The battle of Newton Butler was won on the same afternoon on
which the boom thrown over the Foyle was broken. At Strabane the
news met the Celtic army which was retreating from Londonderry.
All was terror and confusion: the tents were struck: the military
stores were flung by waggon loads into the waters of the Mourne;
and the dismayed Irish, leaving many sick and wounded to the
mercy of the victorious Protestants, fled to Omagh, and thence to
Charlemont. Sarsfield, who commanded at Sligo, found it necessary
to abandon that town, which was instantly occupied by a
detachment of Kirke's troops.260 Dublin was in consternation.
James dropped words which indicated an intention of flying to the
Continent. Evil tidings indeed came fast upon him. Almost at the
same time at which he learned that one of his armies had raised
the siege of Londonderry, and that another had been routed at
Newton Butler, he received intelligence scarcely less
disheartening from Scotland.

It is now necessary to trace the progress of those events to
which Scotland owes her political and her religious liberty, her
prosperity and her civilisation.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Revolution more violent in Scotland than in England--
Elections for the Convention; Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy--
State of Edinburgh--Question of an Union between England and
Scotland raised--Wish of the English Low Churchmen to preserve
Episcopacy in Scotland--Opinions of William about Church
Government in Scotland--Comparative Strength of Religious Parties
in Scotland--Letter from William to the Scotch Convention--
William's Instructions to his Agents in Scotland; the Dalrymples-
-Melville--James's Agents in Scotland: Dundee; Balcarras--Meeting
of the Convention--Hamilton elected President--Committee of
Elections; Edinburgh Castle summoned--Dundee threatened by the
Covenanters--Letter from James to the Convention--Effect of
James's Letter--Flight of Dundee--Tumultuous Sitting of the
Convention--A Committee appointed to frame a Plan of Government--
Resolutions proposed by the Committee--William and Mary
proclaimed; the Claim of Right; Abolition of Episcopacy--Torture-
-William and Mary accept the Crown of Scotland--Discontent of the
Covenanters--Ministerial Arrangements in Scotland--Hamilton;
Crawford--The Dalrymples; Lockhart; Montgomery --Melville;
Carstairs--The Club formed: Annandale; Ross--Hume; Fletcher of
Saltoun--War breaks out in the Highlands; State of the Highlands-
-Peculiar Nature of Jacobitism in the Highlands--Jealousy of the
Ascendency of the Campbells--The Stewarts and Macnaghtens--The
Macleans; the Camerons: Lochiel--The Macdonalds; Feud between the
Macdonalds and Mackintoshes; Inverness--Inverness threatened by
Macdonald of Keppoch--Dundee appears in Keppoch's Camp--
Insurrection of the Clans hostile to the Campbells--Tarbet's
Advice to the Government--Indecisive Campaign in the Highlands--
Military Character of the Highlanders--Quarrels in the Highland
Army--Dundee applies to James for Assistance; the War in the
Highlands suspended--Scruples of the Covenanters about taking
Arms for King William--The Cameronian Regiment raised--Edinburgh
Castle surrenders--Session of Parliament at Edinburgh--Ascendancy
of the Club--Troubles in Athol--The War breaks out again in the
Highlands--Death of Dundee--Retreat of Mackay--Effect of the
Battle of Killiecrankie; the Scottish Parliament adjourned--The
Highland Army reinforced--Skirmish at Saint Johnston's--Disorders
in the Highland Army--Mackay's Advice disregarded by the Scotch
Ministers--The Cameronians stationed at Dunkeld--The Highlanders
attack the Cameronians and are repulsed--Dissolution of the
Highland Army; Intrigues of the Club; State of the Lowlands

THE violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the
degree of the maladministration which has produced them. It is
therefore not strange that the government of Scotland, having
been during many years far more oppressive and corrupt than the
government of England, should have fallen with a far heavier
ruin. The movement against the last king of the House of Stuart
was in England conservative, in Scotland destructive. The English
complained, not of the law, but of the violation of the law. They
rose up against the first magistrate merely in order to assert
the supremacy of the law. They were for the most part strongly
attached to the Church established by law. Even in applying that
extraordinary remedy to which an extraordinary emergency
compelled them to have recourse, they deviated as little as
possible from the ordinary methods prescribed by the law. The
Convention which met at Westminster, though summoned by irregular
writs, was constituted on the exact model of a regular
Parliament. No man was invited to the Upper House whose right to
sit there was not clear. The knights and burgesses were chosen by
those electors who would have been entitled to choose the members
of a House of Commons called under the great seal. The franchises
of the forty shilling freeholder, of the householder paying scot
and lot, of the burgage tenant, of the liveryman of London, of
the Master of Arts of Oxford, were respected. The sense of the
constituent bodies was taken with as little violence on the part
of mobs, with as little trickery on the part of returning
officers, as at any general election of that age. When at length
the Estates met, their deliberations were carried on with perfect
freedom and in strict accordance with ancient forms. There was
indeed, after the first flight of James, an alarming anarchy in
London and in some parts of the country. But that anarchy nowhere
lasted longer than forty-eight hours. From the day on which
William reached Saint James's, not even the most unpopular agents
of the fallen government, not even the ministers of the Roman
Catholic Church, had any thing to fear from the fury of the
populace.

In Scotland the course of events was very different. There the
law itself was a grievance; and James had perhaps incurred more
unpopularity by enforcing it than by violating it. The Church
established by law was the most odious institution in the realm.
The tribunals had pronounced some sentences so flagitious, the
Parliament had passed some acts so oppressive, that, unless those
sentences and those Acts were treated as nullities, it would be
impossible to bring together a Convention commanding the public
respect and expressing the public opinion. It was hardly to be
expected, for example, that the Whigs, in this day of their
power, would endure to see their hereditary leader, the son of a
martyr, the grandson of a martyr, excluded from the Parliament
House in which nine of his ancestors had sate as Earls of Argyle,
and excluded by a judgment on which the whole kingdom cried
shame. Still less was it to be expected that they would suffer
the election of members for counties and towns to be conducted
according to the provisions of the existing law. For under the
existing law no elector could vote without swearing that he
renounced the Covenant, and that he acknowledged the Royal
supremacy in matters ecclesiastical.261 Such an oath no rigid
Presbyterian could take. If such an oath had been exacted, the
constituent bodies would have been merely small knots of
prelatists: the business of devising securities against
oppression would have been left to the oppressors; and the great
party which had been most active in effecting the Revolution
would, in an assembly sprung from the Revolution, have had not a
single representative.262

William saw that he must not think of paying to the laws of
Scotland that scrupulous respect which he had wisely and
righteously paid to the laws of England. It was absolutely
necessary that he should determine by his own authority how that
Convention which was to meet at Edinburgh should be chosen, and
that he should assume the power of annulling some judgments and
some statutes. He accordingly summoned to the parliament house
several Lords who had been deprived of their honours by sentences
which the general voice loudly condemned as unjust; and he took
on himself to dispense with the Act which deprived Presbyterians
of the elective franchise.

The consequence was that the choice of almost all the shires and
burghs fell on Whig candidates. The defeated party complained
loudly of foul play, of the rudeness of the populace, and of the
partiality of the presiding magistrates; and these complaints
were in many cases well founded. It is not under such rulers as
Lauderdale and Dundee that nations learn justice and
moderation.263

Nor was it only at the elections that the popular feeling, so
long and so severely compressed, exploded with violence. The
heads and the hands of the martyred Whigs were taken down from
the gates of Edinburgh, carried in procession by great multitudes
to the cemeteries, and laid in the earth with solemn respect.264
It would have been well if the public enthusiasm had manifested
itself in no less praiseworthy form. Unhappily throughout a large
part of Scotland the clergy of the Established Church were, to
use the phrase then common, rabbled. The morning of Christmas day
was fixed for the commencement of these outrages. For nothing
disgusted the rigid Covenanter more than the reverence paid by
the prelatist to the ancient holidays of the Church. That such
reverence may be carried to an absurd extreme is true. But a
philosopher may perhaps be inclined to think the opposite extreme
not less absurd, and may ask why religion should reject the aid
of associations which exist in every nation sufficiently
civilised to have a calendar, and which are found by experience
to have a powerful and often a salutary effect. The Puritan, who
was, in general, but too ready to follow precedents and analogies
drawn from the history and jurisprudence of the Jews, might have
found in the Old Testament quite as clear warrant for keeping
festivals in honour of great events as for assassinating bishops
and refusing quarter to captives. He certainly did not learn from
his master, Calvin, to hold such festivals in abhorrence; for it
was in consequence of the strenuous exertions of Calvin that
Christmas was, after an interval of some years, again observed by
the citizens of Geneva.265 But there had arisen in Scotland
Calvinists who were to Calvin what Calvin was to Laud. To these
austere fanatics a holiday was an object of positive disgust and
hatred. They long continued in their solemn manifestoes to reckon
it among the sins which would one day bring down some fearful
judgment on the land that the Court of Session took a vacation in
the last week of December.266

On Christmas day, therefore, the Covenanters held armed musters
by concert in many parts of the western shires. Each band marched
to the nearest manse, and sacked the cellar and larder of the
minister, which at that season were probably better stocked than
usual. The priest of Baal was reviled and insulted, sometimes
beaten, sometimes ducked. His furniture was thrown out of the
windows; his wife and children turned out of doors in the snow.
He was then carried to the market place, and exposed during some
time as a malefactor. His gown was torn to shreds over his head:
if he had a prayer book in his pocket it was burned; and he was
dismissed with a charge, never, as he valued his life, to
officiate in the parish again. The work of reformation having
been thus completed, the reformers locked up the church and
departed with the keys. In justice to these men it must be owned
that they had suffered such oppression as may excuse, though it
cannot justify, their violence; and that, though they were rude
even to brutality, they do not appear to have been guilty of any
intentional injury to life or limb.267

The disorder spread fast. In Ayrshire, Clydesdale, Nithisdale,
Annandale, every parish was visited by these turbulent zealots.
About two hundred curates--so the episcopal parish priests were
called--were expelled. The graver Covenanters, while they
applauded the fervour of their riotous brethren, were
apprehensive that proceedings so irregular might give scandal,
and learned, with especial concern, that here and there an Achan
had disgraced the good cause by stooping to plunder the
Canaanites whom he ought only to have smitten. A general meeting
of ministers and elders was called for the purpose of preventing
such discreditable excesses. In this meeting it was determined
that, for the future, the ejection of the established clergy
should be performed in a more ceremonious manner. A form of
notice was drawn up and served on every curate in the Western
Lowlands who had not yet been rabbled. This notice was simply a
threatening letter, commanding him to quit his parish peaceably,
on pain of being turned out by force.268

The Scottish Bishops, in great dismay, sent the Dean of Glasgow
to plead the cause of their persecuted Church at Westminster. The
outrages committed by the Covenanters were in the highest degree
offensive to William, who had, in the south of the island,
protected even Benedictines and Franciscans from insult and
spoliation. But, though he had, at the request of a large number
of the noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland, taken on himself
provisionally the executive administration of that kingdom, the
means of maintaining order there were not at his command. He had
not a single regiment north of the Tweed, or indeed within many
miles of that river. It was vain to hope that mere words would
quiet a nation which had not, in any age, been very amenable to
control, and which was now agitated by hopes and resentments,
such as great revolutions, following great oppressions, naturally
engender. A proclamation was however put forth, directing that
all people should lay down their arms, and that, till the
Convention should have settled the government, the clergy of the
Established Church should be suffered to reside on their cures
without molestation. But this proclamation, not being supported
by troops, was very little regarded. On the very day after it was
published at Glasgow, the venerable Cathedral of that city,
almost the only fine church of the middle ages which stands
uninjured in Scotland, was attacked by a crowd of Presbyterians
from the meeting houses, with whom were mingled many of their
fiercer brethren from the hills. It was a Sunday; but to rabble a
congregation of prelatists was held to be a work of necessity and
mercy. The worshippers were dispersed, beaten, and pelted with
snowballs. It was indeed asserted that some wounds were inflicted
with much more formidable weapons.269

Edinburgh, the seat of government, was in a state of anarchy. The
Castle, which commanded the whole city, was still held for James
by the Duke of Gordon. The common people were generally Whigs.
The College of justice, a great forensic society composed of
judges, advocates, writers to the signet, and solicitors, was the
stronghold of Toryism: for a rigid test had during some years
excluded Presbyterians from all the departments of the legal
profession. The lawyers, some hundreds in number, formed
themselves into a battalion of infantry, and for a time
effectually kept down the multitude. They paid, however, so much
respect to William's authority as to disband themselves when his
proclamation was published. But the example of obedience which
they had set was not imitated. Scarcely had they laid down their
weapons, when Covenanters from the west, who had done all that
was to be done in the way of pelting and hustling the curates of
their own neighbourhood, came dropping into Edinburgh, by tens
and twenties, for the purpose of protecting, or, if need should
be, of overawing the Convention. Glasgow alone sent four hundred
of these men. It could hardly be doubted that they were directed
by some leader of great weight. They showed themselves little in
any public place: but it was known that every cellar was filled
with them; and it might well be apprehended that, at the first
signal, they would pour forth from their caverns, and appear
armed round the Parliament house.270

It might have been expected that every patriotic and enlightened
Scotchman would have earnestly desired to see the agitation
appeased, and some government established which might be able to
protect property and to enforce the law. An imperfect settlement
which could be speedily made might well appear to such a man
preferable to a perfect settlement which must be the work of
time. Just at this moment, however, a party, strong both in
numbers and in abilities, raised a new and most important
question, which seemed not unlikely to prolong the interregnum
till the autumn. This party maintained that the Estates ought not
immediately to declare William and Mary King and Queen, but to
propose to England a treaty of union, and to keep the throne
vacant till such a treaty should be concluded on terms
advantageous to Scotland.271

It may seem strange that a large portion of a people, whose
patriotism, exhibited, often in a heroic, and sometimes in a
comic form, has long been proverbial, should have been willing,
nay impatient, to surrender an independence which had been,
through many ages, dearly prized and manfully defended. The truth
is that the stubborn spirit which the arms of the Plantagenets
and Tudors had been unable to subdue had begun to yield to a very
different kind of force. Customhouses and tariffs were rapidly
doing what the carnage of Falkirk and Halidon, of Flodden and of
Pinkie, had failed to do. Scotland had some experience of the
effects of an union. She had, near forty years before, been
united to England on such terms as England, flushed with
conquest, chose to dictate. That union was inseparably associated
in the minds of the vanquished people with defeat and
humiliation. And yet even that union, cruelly as it had wounded
the pride of the Scots, had promoted their prosperity. Cromwell,
with wisdom and liberality rare in his age, had established the
most complete freedom of trade between the dominant and the
subject country. While he governed, no prohibition, no duty,
impeded the transit of commodities from any part of the island to
any other. His navigation laws imposed no restraint on the trade
of Scotland. A Scotch vessel was at liberty to carry a Scotch
cargo to Barbadoes, and to bring the sugars of Barbadoes into the
port of London.272 The rule of the Protector therefore had been
propitious to the industry and to the physical wellbeing of the
Scottish people. Hating him and cursing him, they could not help
thriving under him, and often, during the administration of their
legitimate princes, looked back with regret to the golden days of
the usurper.273

The Restoration came, and changed every thing. The Scots regained
their independence, and soon began to find that independence had
its discomfort as well as its dignity. The English parliament
treated them as aliens and as rivals. A new Navigation Act put
them on almost the same footing with the Dutch. High duties, and
in some cases prohibitory duties, were imposed on the products of
Scottish industry. It is not wonderful that a nation eminently
industrious, shrewd, and enterprising, a nation which, having
been long kept back by a sterile soil and a severe climate, was
just beginning to prosper in spite of these disadvantages, and
which found its progress suddenly stopped, should think itself
cruelly treated. Yet there was no help. Complaint was vain.
Retaliation was impossible. The Sovereign, even if he had the
wish, had not the power, to bear himself evenly between his large
and his small kingdom, between the kingdom from which he drew an
annual revenue of a million and a half and the kingdom from which
he drew an annual revenue of little more than sixty thousand
pounds. He dared neither to refuse his assent to any English law
injurious to the trade of Scotland, nor to give his assent to any
Scotch law injurious to the trade of England.

The complaints of the Scotch, however, were so loud that Charles,
in 1667, appointed Commissioners to arrange the terms of a
commercial treaty between the two British kingdoms. The
conferences were soon broken off; and all that passed while they
continued proved that there was only one way in which Scotland
could obtain a share of the commercial prosperity which England
at that time enjoyed.274 The Scotch must become one people with
the English. The Parliament which had hitherto sate at Edinburgh
must be incorporated with the Parliament which sate at
Westminster. The sacrifice could not but be painfully felt by a
brave and haughty people, who had, during twelve generations,
regarded the southern domination with deadly aversion, and whose
hearts still swelled at the thought of the death of Wallace and
of the triumphs of Bruce. There were doubtless many punctilious
patriots who would have strenuously opposed an union even if they
could have foreseen that the effect of an union would be to make
Glasgow a greater city than Amsterdam, and to cover the dreary
Lothians with harvests and woods, neat farmhouses and stately
mansions. But there was also a large class which was not disposed
to throw away great and substantial advantages in order to
preserve mere names and ceremonies; and the influence of this
class was such that, in the year 1670, the Scotch Parliament made
direct overtures to England.275 The King undertook the office of
mediator; and negotiators were named on both sides; but nothing
was concluded.

The question, having slept during eighteen years, was suddenly
revived by the Revolution. Different classes, impelled by
different motives, concurred on this point. With merchants, eager
to share in the advantages of the West Indian Trade, were joined
active and aspiring politicians who wished to exhibit their
abilities in a more conspicuous theatre than the Scottish
Parliament House, and to collect riches from a more copious
source than the Scottish treasury. The cry for union was swelled
by the voices of some artful Jacobites, who merely wished to
cause discord and delay, and who hoped to attain this end by
mixing up with the difficult question which it was the especial
business of the Convention to settle another question more
difficult still. It is probable that some who disliked the
ascetic habits and rigid discipline of the Presbyterians wished
for an union as the only mode of maintaining prelacy in the
northern part of the island. In an united Parliament the English
members must greatly preponderate; and in England the bishops
were held in high honour by the great majority of the population.
The Episcopal Church of Scotland, it was plain, rested on a
narrow basis, and would fall before the first attack. The
Episcopal Church of Great Britain might have a foundation broad
and solid enough to withstand all assaults.

Whether, in 1689, it would have been possible to effect a civil
union without a religious union may well be doubted. But there
can be no doubt that a religious union would have been one of the
greatest calamities that could have befallen either kingdom. The
union accomplished in 1707 has indeed been a great blessing both
to England and to Scotland. But it has been a blessing because,
in constituting one State, it left two Churches. The political
interest of the contracting parties was the same: but the
ecclesiastical dispute between them was one which admitted of no
compromise. They could therefore preserve harmony only by
agreeing to differ. Had there been an amalgamation of the
hierarchies, there never would have been an amalgamation of the
nations. Successive Mitchells would have fired at successive
Sharpes. Five generations of Claverhouses would have butchered
five generations of Camerons. Those marvellous improvements which
have changed the face of Scotland would never have been effected.
Plains now rich with harvests would have remained barren moors.
Waterfalls which now turn the wheels of immense factories would
have resounded in a wilderness. New Lanark would still have been
a sheepwalk, and Greenock a fishing hamlet. What little strength
Scotland could under such a system have possessed must, in an
estimate of the resources of Great Britain, have been, not added,
but deducted. So encumbered, our country never could have held,
either in peace or in war, a place in the first rank of nations.
We are unfortunately not without the means of judging of the
effect which may be produced on the moral and physical state of a
people by establishing, in the exclusive enjoyment of riches and
dignity a Church loved and reverenced only by the few, and
regarded by the many with religious and national aversion. One
such Church is quite burden enough for the energies of one
empire.

But these things, which to us, who have been taught by a bitter
experience, seem clear, were by no means clear in 1689, even to
very tolerant and enlightened politicians. In truth the English
Low Churchmen were, if possible, more anxious than the English
High Churchmen to preserve Episcopacy in Scotland. It is a
remarkable fact that Burnet, who was always accused of wishing to
establish the Calvinistic discipline in the south of the island,
incurred great unpopularity among his own countrymen by his
efforts to uphold prelacy in the north. He was doubtless in
error: but his error is to be attributed to a cause which does
him no discredit. His favourite object, an object unattainable
indeed, yet such as might well fascinate a large intellect and a
benevolent heart, had long been an honourable treaty between the
Anglican Church and the Nonconformists. He thought it most
unfortunate that one opportunity of concluding such a treaty
should have been lost at the time of the Restoration. It seemed
to him that another opportunity was afforded by the Revolution.
He and his friends were eagerly pushing forward Nottingham's
Comprehension Bill, and were flattering themselves with vain
hopes of success. But they felt that there could hardly be a
Comprehension in one of the two British kingdoms, unless there
were also a Comprehension in the other. Concession must be
purchased by concession. If the Presbyterian pertinaciously
refused to listen to any terms of compromise where he was strong,
it would be almost impossible to obtain for him liberal terms of
compromise where he was weak. Bishops must therefore be allowed
to keep their sees in Scotland, in order that divines not
ordained by Bishops might be allowed to hold rectories and
canonries in England.

Thus the cause of the Episcopalians in the north and the cause of
the Presbyterians in the south were bound up together in a manner
which might well perplex even a skilful statesman. It was happy
for our country that the momentous question which excited so many
strong passions, and which presented itself in so many different
points of view, was to be decided by such a man as William. He
listened to Episcopalians, to Latitudinarians, to Presbyterians,
to the Dean of Glasgow who pleaded for the apostolical
succession, to Burnet who represented the danger of alienating
the Anglican clergy, to Carstairs who hated prelacy with the
hatred of a man whose thumbs were deeply marked by the screws of
prelatists. Surrounded by these eager advocates, William remained
calm and impartial. He was indeed eminently qualified by his
situation as well as by his personal qualities to be the umpire
in that great contention. He was the King of a prelatical
kingdom. He was the Prime Minister of a presbyterian republic.
His unwillingness to offend the Anglican Church of which he was
the head, and his unwillingness to offend the reformed Churches
of the Continent which regarded him as a champion divinely sent
to protect them against the French tyranny, balanced each other,
and kept him from leaning unduly to either side. His conscience
was perfectly neutral. For it was his deliberate opinion that no
form of ecclesiastical polity was of divine institution. He
dissented equally from the school of Laud and from the school of
Cameron, from the men who held that there could not be a
Christian Church without Bishops, and from the men who held that
there could not be a Christian Church without synods. Which form
of government should be adopted was in his judgment a question of
mere expediency. He would probably have preferred a temper
between the two rival systems, a hierarchy in which the chief
spiritual functionaries should have been something more than
moderators and something less than prelates. But he was far too
wise a man to think of settling such a matter according to his
own personal tastes. He determined therefore that, if there was
on both sides a disposition to compromise, he would act as
mediator. But, if it should prove that the public mind of England
and the public mind of Scotland had taken the ply strongly in
opposite directions, he would not attempt to force either nation
into conformity with the opinion of the other. He would suffer
each to have its own church, and would content himself with
restraining both churches from persecuting nonconformists, and
from encroaching on the functions of the civil magistrate.

The language which he held to those Scottish Episcopalians who
complained to him of their sufferings and implored his protection
was well weighed and well guarded, but clear and ingenuous. He
wished, he said, to preserve, if possible, the institution to
which they were so much attached, and to grant at the same time
entire liberty of conscience to that party which could not be
reconciled to any deviation from the Presbyterian model. But the
Bishops must take care that they did not, by their own rashness
and obstinacy, put it out of his power to be of any use to them.
They must also distinctly understand that he was resolved not to
force on Scotland by the sword a form of ecclesiastical
government which she detested. If, therefore; it should be found
that prelacy could be maintained only by arms, he should yield to
the general sentiment, and should merely do his best to obtain
for the Episcopalian minority permission to worship God in
freedom and safety.276

It is not likely that, even if the Scottish Bishops had, as
William recommended, done all that meekness and prudence could do
to conciliate their countrymen, episcopacy could, under any
modification, have been maintained. It was indeed asserted by
writers of that generation, and has been repeated by writers of
our generation, that the Presbyterians were not, before the
Revolution, the majority of the people of Scotland.277 But in
this assertion there is an obvious fallacy. The effective
strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting
heads. An established church, a dominant church, a church which
has the exclusive possession of civil honours and emoluments,
will always rank among its nominal members multitudes who have no
religion at all; multitudes who, though not destitute of
religion, attend little to theological disputes, and have no
scruple about conforming to the mode of worship which happens to
be established; and multitudes who have scruples about
conforming, but whose scruples have yielded to worldly motives.
On the other hand, every member of an oppressed church is a man
who has a very decided preference for that church. A person who,
in the time of Diocletian, joined in celebrating the Christian
mysteries might reasonably be supposed to be a firm believer in
Christ. But it would be a very great mistake to imagine that one
single Pontiff or Augur in the Roman Senate was a firm believer
in Jupiter. In Mary's reign, every body who attended the secret
meetings of the Protestants was a real Protestant: but hundreds
of thousands went to mass who, as appeared before she had been
dead a month, were not real Roman Catholics. If, under the Kings
of the House of Stuart, when a Presbyterian was excluded from
political power and from the learned professions, was daily
annoyed by informers, by tyrannical magistrates, by licentious
dragoons, and was in danger of being hanged if he heard a sermon
in the open air, the population of Scotland was not very
unequally divided between Episcopalians and Presbyterians, the
rational inference is that more than nineteen twentieths of those
Scotchmen whose conscience was interested in the matter were
Presbyterians, and that not one Scotchman in twenty was decidedly
and on conviction an Episcopalian. Against such odds the Bishops
had but little chance; and whatever chance they had they made
haste to throw away; some of them because they sincerely believed
that their allegiance was still due to James; others probably
because they apprehended that William would not have the power,
even if he had the will, to serve them, and that nothing but a
counterrevolution in the State could avert a revolution in the
Church.

As the new King of England could not be at Edinburgh during the
sitting of the Scottish Convention, a letter from him to the
Estates was prepared with great skill. In this document he
professed warm attachment to the Protestant religion, but gave no
opinion touching those questions about which Protestants were
divided. He had observed, he said, with great satisfaction that
many of the Scottish nobility and gentry with whom he had
conferred in London were inclined to an union of the two British
kingdoms. He was sensible how much such an union would conduce to
the happiness of both; and he would do all in his power towards
the accomplishing of so good a work.

It was necessary that he should allow a large discretion to his
confidential agents at Edinburgh. The private instructions with
which he furnished those persons could not be minute, but were
highly judicious. He charged them to ascertain to the best of
their power the real sense of the Convention, and to be guided by
it. They must remember that the first object was to settle the
government. To that object every other object, even the union,
must be postponed. A treaty between two independent legislatures,
distant from each other several days' journey, must necessarily
be a work of time; and the throne could not safely remain vacant
while the negotiations were pending. It was therefore important
that His Majesty's agents should be on their guard against the
arts of persons who, under pretence of promoting the union, might
really be contriving only to prolong the interregnum. If the
Convention should be bent on establishing the Presbyterian form
of church government, William desired that his friends would do
all in their power to prevent the triumphant sect from
retaliating what it had suffered.278

The person by whose advice William appears to have been at this
time chiefly guided as to Scotch politics was a Scotchman of
great abilities and attainments, Sir James Dalrymple of Stair,
the founder of a family eminently distinguished at the bar, on
the bench, in the senate, in diplomacy, in arms, and in letters,
but distinguished also by misfortunes and misdeeds which have
furnished poets and novelists with materials for the darkest and
most heartrending tales. Already Sir James had been in mourning
for more than one strange and terrible death. One of his sons had
died by poison. One of his daughters had poniarded her bridegroom
on the wedding night. One of his grandsons had in boyish sport
been slain by another. Savage libellers asserted, and some of the
superstitious vulgar believed, that calamities so portentous were
the consequences of some connection between the unhappy race and
the powers of darkness. Sir James had a wry neck; and he was
reproached with this misfortune as if it had been a crime, and
was told that it marked him out as a man doomed to the gallows.
His wife, a woman of great ability, art, and spirit, was
popularly nicknamed the Witch of Endor. It was gravely said that
she had cast fearful spells on those whom she hated, and that she
had been seen in the likeness of a cat seated on the cloth of
state by the side of the Lord High Commissioner. The man,
however, over whose roof so many curses appeared to hang did not,
as far as we can now judge, fall short of that very low standard
of morality which was generally attained by politicians of his
age and nation. In force of mind and extent of knowledge he was
superior to them all. In his youth he had borne arms: he had then
been a professor of philosophy: he had then studied law, and had
become, by general acknowledgment, the greatest jurist that his
country had produced. In the days of the Protectorate, he had
been a judge. After the Restoration, he had made his peace with
the royal family, had sate in the Privy Council, and had presided
with unrivalled ability in the Court of Session. He had doubtless
borne a share in many unjustifiable acts; but there were limits
which he never passed. He had a wonderful power of giving to any
proposition which it suited him to maintain a plausible aspect of
legality and even of justice; and this power he frequently
abused. But he was not, like many of those among whom be lived,
impudently and unscrupulously servile. Shame or conscience
generally restrained him from committing any bad action for which
his rare ingenuity could not frame a specious defence; and he was
seldom in his place at the council board when any thing
outrageously unjust or cruel was to be done. His moderation at
length gave offence to the Court. He was deprived of his high
office, and found himself in so disagreeable a situation that he
retired to Holland. There he employed himself in correcting the
great work on jurisprudence which has preserved his memory fresh
down to our own time. In his banishment he tried to gain the
favour of his fellow exiles, who naturally regarded him with
suspicion. He protested, and perhaps with truth, that his hands
were pure from the blood of the persecuted Covenanters. He made a
high profession of religion, prayed much, and observed weekly
days of fasting and humiliation. He even consented, after much
hesitation, to assist with his advice and his credit the
unfortunate enterprise of Argyle. When that enterprise had
failed, a prosecution was instituted at Edinburgh against
Dalrymple; and his estates would doubtless have been confiscated
had they not been saved by an artifice which subsequently became
common among the politicians of Scotland. His eldest son and heir
apparent, John, took the side of the government, supported the
dispensing power, declared against the Test, and accepted the
place of Lord Advocate, when Sir George Mackenzie, after holding
out through ten years of foul drudgery, at length showed signs of
flagging. The services of the younger Dalrymple were rewarded by
a remission of the forfeiture which the offences of the elder had
incurred. Those services indeed were not to be despised. For Sir
John, though inferior to his father in depth and extent of legal
learning, was no common man. His knowledge was great and various:
his parts were quick; and his eloquence was singularly ready and
graceful. To sanctity he made no pretensions. Indeed
Episcopalians and Presbyterians agreed in regarding him as little
better than an atheist. During some months Sir John at Edinburgh
affected to condemn the disloyalty of his unhappy parent Sir
James; and Sir James at Leyden told his Puritan friends how
deeply he lamented the wicked compliances of his unhappy child
Sir John.

The Revolution came, and brought a large increase of wealth and
honours to the House of Stair. The son promptly changed sides,
and cooperated ably and zealously with the father. Sir James
established himself in London for the purpose of giving advice to
William on Scotch affairs. Sir John's post was in the Parliament
House at Edinburgh. He was not likely to find any equal among the
debaters there, and was prepared to exert all his powers against
the dynasty which he had lately served.279

By the large party which was zealous for the Calvinistic church
government John Dalrymple was regarded with incurable distrust
and dislike. It was therefore necessary that another agent should
be employed to manage that party. Such an agent was George
Melville, Lord Melville, a nobleman connected by affinity with
the unfortunate Monmouth, and with that Leslie who had
unsuccessfully commanded the Scotch army against Cromwell at
Dunbar. Melville had always been accounted a Whig and a
Presbyterian. Those who speak of him most favourably have not
ventured to ascribe to him eminent intellectual endowments or
exalted public spirit. But he appears from his letters to have
been by no means deficient in that homely prudence the want of
which has often been fatal to men of brighter genius and of purer
virtue. That prudence had restrained him from going very far in
opposition to the tyranny of the Stuarts: but he had listened
while his friends talked about resistance, and therefore, when
the Rye House plot was discovered, thought it expedient to retire
to the Continent. In his absence he was accused of treason, and
was convicted on evidence which would not have satisfied any
impartial tribunal. He was condemned to death: his honours and
lands were declared forfeit: his arms were torn with contumely
out of the Heralds' book; and his domains swelled the estate of
the cruel and rapacious Perth. The fugitive meanwhile, with
characteristic wariness, lived quietly on the Continent, and
discountenanced the unhappy projects of his kinsman Monmouth, but
cordially approved of the enterprise of the Prince of Orange.

Illness had prevented Melville from sailing with the Dutch
expedition: but he arrived in London a few hours after the new
Sovereigns had been proclaimed there. William instantly sent him
down to Edinburgh, in the hope, as it should seem, that the
Presbyterians would be disposed to listen to moderate counsels
proceeding from a man who was attached to their cause, and who
had suffered for it. Melville's second son, David, who had
inherited, through his mother, the title of Earl of Leven, and
who had acquired some military experience in the service of the
Elector of Brandenburg, had the honour of being the bearer of a
letter from the new King of England to the Scottish
Convention.280

James had intrusted the conduct of his affairs in Scotland to
John Graham, Viscount Dundee, and Colin Lindsay, Earl of
Balcarras. Dundee had commanded a body of Scottish troops which
had marched into England to oppose the Dutch: but he had found,
in the inglorious campaign which had been fatal to the dynasty of
Stuart, no opportunity of displaying the courage and military
skill which those who most detest his merciless nature allow him
to have possessed. He lay with his forces not far from Watford,
when he was informed that James had fled from Whitehall, and that
Feversham had ordered all the royal army to disband. The Scottish
regiments were thus left, without pay or provisions, in the midst
of a foreign and indeed a hostile nation. Dundee, it is said,
wept with grief and rage. Soon, however, more cheering
intelligence arrived from various quarters. William wrote a few
lines to say that, if the Scots would remain quiet, he would
pledge his honour for their safety; and, some hours later, it was
known that James had returned to his capital. Dundee repaired
instantly to London.281 There he met his friend Balcarras, who
had just arrived from Edinburgh. Balcarras, a man distinguished
by his handsome person and by his accomplishments, had, in his
youth, affected the character of a patriot, but had deserted the
popular cause, had accepted a seat in the Privy Council, had
become a tool of Perth and Melfort, and bad been one of the
Commissioners who were appointed to execute the office of
Treasurer when Queensberry was disgraced for refusing to betray
the interests of the Protestant religion.282

Dundee and Balcarras went together to Whitehall, and had the
honour of accompanying James in his last walk, up and down the
Mall. He told them that he intended to put his affairs in
Scotland under their management. "You, my Lord Balcarras, must
undertake the civil business: and you, my Lord Dundee, shall have
a commission from me to command the troops." The two noblemen
vowed that they would prove themselves deserving of his
confidence, and disclaimed all thought of making their peace with
the Prince of Orange.283

On the following day James left Whitehall for ever; and the
Prince of Orange arrived at Saint James's. Both Dundee and
Balcarras swelled the crowd which thronged to greet the
deliverer, and were not ungraciously received. Both were well
known to him. Dundee had served under him on the Continent284;
and the first wife of Balcarras had been a lady of the House of
Orange, and had worn, on her wedding day, a superb pair of
emerald earrings, the gift of her cousin the Prince.285

The Scottish Whigs, then assembled in great numbers at
Westminster, earnestly pressed William to proscribe by name four
or five men who had, during the evil times, borne a conspicuous
part in the proceedings of the Privy Council at Edinburgh. Dundee
and Balcarras were particularly mentioned. But the Prince had
determined that, as far as his power extended, all the past
should be covered with a general amnesty, and absolutely refused
to make any declaration which could drive to despair even the
most guilty of his uncle's servants.

Balcarras went repeatedly to Saint James's, had several audiences
of William, professed deep respect for his Highness, and owned
that King James had committed great errors, but would not promise
to concur in a vote of deposition. William gave no sign of
displeasure, but said at parting: "Take care, my Lord, that you
keep within the law; for, if you break it, you must expect to be
left to it."286

Dundee seems to have been less ingenuous. He employed the
mediation of Burnet, opened a negotiation with Saint James's,
declared himself willing to acquiesce in the new order of things,
obtained from William a promise of protection, and promised in
return to live peaceably. Such credit was given to his
professions that he was suffered to travel down to Scotland under
the escort of a troop of cavalry. Without such an escort the man
of blood, whose name was never mentioned but with a shudder at
the hearth of any Presbyterian family, would, at that
conjuncture, have had but a perilous journey through Berwickshire
and the Lothians.287

February was drawing to a close when Dundee and Balcarras reached
Edinburgh. They had some hope that they might be at the head of a
majority in the Convention. They therefore exerted themselves
vigorously to consolidate and animate their party. They assured
the rigid royalists, who had a scruple about sitting in an
assembly convoked by an usurper, that the rightful King
particularly wished no friend of hereditary monarchy to be
absent. More than one waverer was kept steady by being assured in
confident terms that a speedy restoration was inevitable. Gordon
had determined to surrender the castle, and had begun to remove
his furniture: but Dundee and Balcarras prevailed on him to hold
out some time longer. They informed him that they had received
from Saint Germains full powers to adjourn the Convention to
Stirling, and that, if things went ill at Edinburgh, those powers
would be used.288

At length the fourteenth of March, the day fixed for the meeting
of the Estates, arrived, and the Parliament House was crowded.
Nine prelates were in their places. When Argyle presented
himself, a single lord protested against the admission of a
person whom a legal sentence, passed in due form, and still
unreversed, had deprived of the honours of the peerage. But this
objection was overruled by the general sense of the assembly.
When Melville appeared, no voice was raised against his
admission. The Bishop of Edinburgh officiated as chaplain, and
made it one of his petitions that God would help and restore King
James.289 It soon appeared that the general feeling of the
Convention was by no means in harmony with this prayer. The first
matter to be decided was the choice of a President. The Duke of
Hamilton was supported by the Whigs, the Marquess of Athol by the
Jacobites. Neither candidate possessed, and neither deserved, the
entire confidence of his supporters. Hamilton had been a Privy
Councillor of James, had borne a part in many unjustifiable acts,
and had offered but a very cautious and languid opposition to the
most daring attacks on the laws and religion of Scotland. Not
till the Dutch guards were at Whitehall had he ventured to speak
out. Then he had joined the victorious party, and had assured the
Whigs that he had pretended to be their enemy, only in order that
he might, without incurring suspicion, act as their friend. Athol
was still less to be trusted. His abilities were mean, his temper
false, pusillanimous, and cruel. In the late reign he had gained
a dishonourable notoriety by the barbarous actions of which he
had been guilty in Argyleshire. He had turned with the turn of
fortune, and had paid servile court to the Prince of Orange, but
had been coldly received, and had now, from mere mortification,
come back to the party which he had deserted.290 Neither of the
rival noblemen had chosen to stake the dignities and lands of his
house on the issue of the contention between the rival Kings. The
eldest son of Hamilton had declared for James, and the eldest son
of Athol for William, so that, in any event, both coronets and
both estates were safe.

But in Scotland the fashionable notions touching political
morality were lax; and the aristocratical sentiment was strong.
The Whigs were therefore willing to forget that Hamilton had
lately sate in the council of James. The Jacobites were equally
willing to forget that Athol had lately fawned on William. In
political inconsistency those two great lords were far indeed
from standing by themselves; but in dignity and power they had
scarcely an equal in the assembly. Their descent was eminently
illustrious: their influence was immense: one of them could raise
the Western Lowlands: the other could bring into the field an
army of northern mountaineers. Round these chiefs therefore the
hostile factions gathered.

The votes were counted; and it appeared that Hamilton had a
majority of forty. The consequence was that about twenty of the
defeated party instantly passed over to the victors.291 At
Westminster such a defection would have been thought strange; but
it seems to have caused little surprise at Edinburgh. It is a
remarkable circumstance that the same country should have
produced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of both
extremes of human nature. No class of men mentioned in history
has ever adhered to a principle with more inflexible pertinacity
than was found among the Scotch Puritans. Fine and imprisonment,
the sheers and the branding iron, the boot, the thumbscrew, and
the gallows could not extort from the stubborn Covenanter one
evasive word on which it was possible to put a sense inconsistent
with his theological system. Even in things indifferent he would
hear of no compromise; and he was but too ready to consider all
who recommended prudence and charity as traitors to the cause of
truth. On the other hand, the Scotchmen of that generation who
made a figure in the Parliament House and in the Council Chamber
were the most dishonest and unblushing timeservers that the world
has ever seen. The English marvelled alike at both classes. There
were indeed many stouthearted nonconformists in the South; but
scarcely any who in obstinacy, pugnacity, and hardihood could
bear a comparison with the men of the school of Cameron. There
were many knavish politicians in the South; but few so utterly
destitute of morality, and still fewer so utterly destitute of
shame, as the men of the school of Lauderdale. Perhaps it is
natural that the most callous and impudent vice should be found
in the near neighbourhood of unreasonable and impracticable
virtue. Where enthusiasts are ready to destroy or to be destroyed
for trifles magnified into importance by a squeamish conscience,
it is not strange that the very name of conscience should become
a byword of contempt to cool and shrewd men of business.

The majority, reinforced by the crowd of deserters from the
minority, proceeded to name a Committee of Elections. Fifteen
persons were chosen, and it soon appeared that twelve of these
were not disposed to examine severely into the regularity of any
proceeding of which the result had been to send up a Whig to the
Parliament House. The Duke of Hamilton is said to have been
disgusted by the gross partiality of his own followers, and to
have exerted himself, with but little success, to restrain their
violence.292

Before the Estates proceeded to deliberate on the business for
which they had met, they thought it necessary to provide for
their own security. They could not be perfectly at ease while the
roof under which they sate was commanded by the batteries of the
Castle. A deputation was therefore sent to inform Gordon that the
Convention required him to evacuate the fortress within twenty-
four hours, and that, if he complied, his past conduct should not
be remembered against him. He asked a night for consideration.
During that night his wavering mind was confirmed by the
exhortations of Dundee and Balcarras. On the morrow he sent an
answer drawn in respectful but evasive terms. He was very far, he
declared, from meditating harm to the City of Edinburgh. Least of
all could he harbour any thought of molesting an august assembly
which he regarded with profound reverence. He would willingly
give bond for his good behaviour to the amount of twenty thousand
pounds sterling. But he was in communication with the government
now established in England. He was in hourly expectation of
important despatches from that government; and, till they
arrived, he should not feel himself justified in resigning his
command. These excuses were not admitted. Heralds and trumpeters
were sent to summon the Castle in form, and to denounce the
penalties of high treason against those who should continue to
occupy that fortress in defiance of the authority of the Estates.
Guards were at the same time posted to intercept all
communication between the garrison and the city.293

Two days had been spent in these preludes; and it was expected
that on the third morning the great contest would begin.
Meanwhile the population of Edinburgh was in an excited state. It
had been discovered that Dundee had paid visits to the Castle;
and it was believed that his exhortations had induced the
garrison to hold out. His old soldiers were known to be gathering
round him; and it might well be apprehended that he would make
some desperate attempt. He, on the other hand, had been informed
that the Western Covenanters who filled the cellars of the city
had vowed vengeance on him: and, in truth, when we consider that
their temper was singularly savage and implacable; that they had
been taught to regard the slaying of a persecutor as a duty; that
no examples furnished by Holy Writ had been more frequently held
up to their admiration than Ehud stabbing Eglon, and Samuel
hewing Agag limb from limb; that they had never heard any
achievement in the history of their own country more warmly
praised by their favourite teachers than the butchery of Cardinal
Beatoun and of Archbishop Sharpe; we may well wonder that a man
who had shed the blood of the saints like water should have been
able to walk the High Street in safety during a single day. The
enemy whom Dundee had most reason to fear was a youth of
distinguished courage and abilities named William Cleland.
Cleland had, when little more than sixteen years old, borne arms
in that insurrection which had been put down at Bothwell Bridge.
He had since disgusted some virulent fanatics by his humanity and
moderation. But with the great body of Presbyterians his name
stood high. For with the strict morality and ardent zeal of a
Puritan he united some accomplishments of which few Puritans
could boast. His manners were polished, and his literary and
scientific attainments respectable. He was a linguist,
mathematician, and a poet. It is true that his hymns, odes,
ballads, and Hudibrastic satires are of very little intrinsic
value; but, when it is considered that he was a mere boy when
most of them were written, it must be admitted that they show
considerable vigour of mind. He was now at Edinburgh: his
influence among the West Country Whigs assembled there was great:
he hated Dundee with deadly hatred, and was believed to be
meditating some act of violence.294

On the fifteenth of March Dundee received information that some
of the Covenanters had bound themselves together to slay him and
Sir George Mackenzie, whose eloquence and learning, long
prostituted to the service of tyranny, had made him more odious
to the Presbyterians than any other man of the gown. Dundee
applied to Hamilton for protection,: and Hamilton advised him to
bring the matter under the consideration of the Convention at the
next sitting.295

Before that sitting, a person named Crane arrived from France,
with a letter addressed by the fugitive King to the Estates. The
letter was sealed: the bearer, strange to say, was not furnished
with a copy for the information of the heads of the Jacobite
party; nor did he bring any message, written or verbal, to either
of James's agents. Balcarras and Dundee were mortified by finding
that so little confidence was reposed in them, and were harassed
by painful doubts touching the contents of the document on which
so much depended. They were willing, however, to hope for the
best. King James could not, situated as he was, be so ill advised
as to act in direct opposition to the counsel and entreaties of
his friends. His letter, when opened, must be found to contain
such gracious assurances as would animate the royalists and
conciliate the moderate Whigs. His adherents, therefore,
determined that it should be produced.

When the Convention reassembled on the morning of Saturday the
sixteenth of March, it was proposed that measures should be taken
for the personal security of the members. It was alleged that the
life of Dundee had been threatened; that two men of sinister
appearance had been watching the house where he lodged, and had
been heard to say that they would use the dog as he had used
them. Mackenzie complained that he too was in danger, and, with
his usual copiousness and force of language, demanded the
protection of the Estates. But the matter was lightly treated by
the majority: and the Convention passed on to other business.296

It was then announced that Crane was at the door of the
Parliament House. He was admitted. The paper of which he was in
charge was laid on the table. Hamilton remarked that there was,
in the hands of the Earl of Leven, a communication from the
Prince by whose authority the Estates had been convoked. That
communication seemed to be entitled to precedence. The Convention
was of the same opinion; and the well weighed and prudent letter
of William was read.

It was then moved that the letter of James should be opened. The
Whigs objected that it might possibly contain a mandate
dissolving the Convention. They therefore proposed that, before
the seal was broken, the Estates should resolve to continue
sitting, notwithstanding any such mandate. The Jacobites, who
knew no more than the Whigs what was in the letter, and were
impatient to have it read, eagerly assented. A vote was passed by
which the members bound themselves to consider any order which
should command them to separate as a nullity, and to remain
assembled till they should have accomplished the work of securing
the liberty and religion of Scotland. This vote was signed by
almost all the lords and gentlemen who were present. Seven out of
nine bishops subscribed it. The names of Dundee and Balcarras,
written by their own hands, may still be seen on the original
roll. Balcarras afterwards excused what, on his principles, was,
beyond all dispute, a flagrant act of treason, by saying that he
and his friends had, from zeal for their master's interest,
concurred in a declaration of rebellion against their master's
authority; that they had anticipated the most salutary effects
from the letter; and that, if they had not made some concession
to the majority, the letter would not have been opened.

In a few minutes the hopes of Balcarras were grievously
disappointed. The letter from which so much had been hoped and
feared was read with all the honours which Scottish Parliaments
were in the habit of paying to royal communications: but every
word carried despair to the hearts of the Jacobites. It was plain
that adversity had taught James neither wisdom nor mercy. All was
obstinacy, cruelty, insolence. A pardon was promised to those
traitors who should return to their allegiance within a
fortnight. Against all others unsparing vengeance was denounced.
Not only was no sorrow expressed for past offences: but the
letter was itself a new offence: for it was written and
countersigned by the apostate Melfort, who was, by the statutes
of the realm, incapable of holding the office of Secretary, and
who was not less abhorred by the Protestant Tories than by the
Whigs. The hall was in a tumult. The enemies of James were loud
and vehement. His friends, angry with him, and ashamed of him,
saw that it was vain to think of continuing the struggle in the
Convention. Every vote which had been doubtful when his letter
was unsealed was now irrecoverably lost. The sitting closed in
great agitation.297

It was Saturday afternoon. There was to be no other meeting till
Monday morning. The Jacobite leaders held a consultation, and
came to the conclusion. that it was necessary to take a decided
step. Dundee and Balcarras must use the powers with which they
had been intrusted. The minority must forthwith leave Edinburgh
and assemble at Stirling. Athol assented, and undertook to bring
a great body of his clansmen from the Highlands to protect the
deliberations of the Royalist Convention. Every thing was
arranged for the secession; but, in a few hours, the tardiness of
one man and the haste of another ruined the whole plan.

The Monday came. The Jacobite lords and gentlemen were actually
taking horse for Stirling, when Athol asked for a delay of
twenty-four hours. He had no personal reason to be in haste. By
staying he ran no risk of being assassinated. By going he
incurred the risks inseparable from civil war. The members of his
party, unwilling to separate from him, consented to the
postponement which he requested, and repaired once more to the
Parliament House. Dundee alone refused to stay a moment longer.
His life was in danger. The Convention had refused to protect
him. He would not remain to be a mark for the pistols and daggers
of murderers. Balcarras expostulated to no purpose. "By departing
alone," he said, "you will give the alarm and break up the whole
scheme." But Dundee was obstinate. Brave as he undoubtedly was,
he seems, like many other brave men, to have been less proof
against the danger of assassination than against any other form
of danger. He knew what the hatred of the Covenanters was: he
knew how well he had earned their hatred; and he was haunted by
that consciousness of inexpiable guilt, and by that dread of a
terrible retribution, which the ancient polytheists personified
under the awful name of the Furies. His old troopers, the Satans
and Beelzebubs who had shared his crimes, and who now shared his
perils, were ready to be the companions of his flight.

Meanwhile the Convention had assembled. Mackenzie was on his
legs, and was pathetically lamenting the hard condition of the
Estates, at once commanded by the guns of a fortress and menaced
by a fanatical rabble, when he was interrupted by some sentinels
who came running from the posts near the Castle. They had seen
Dundee at the head of fifty horse on the Stirling road. That road
ran close under the huge rock on which the citadel is built.
Gordon had appeared on the ramparts, and had made a sign that he
had something to say. Dundee had climbed high enough to hear and
to be heard, and was then actually conferring with the Duke. Up
to that moment the hatred with which the Presbyterian members of
the assembly regarded the merciless persecutor of their brethren
in the faith had been restrained by the decorous forms of
parliamentary deliberation. But now the explosion was terrible.
Hamilton himself, who, by the acknowledgment of his opponents,
had hitherto performed the duties of President with gravity and
impartiality, was the loudest and fiercest man in the hall. "It
	is high time," he cried, "that we should look to ourselves. The
enemies of our religion and of our civil freedom are mustering
all around us; and we may well suspect that they have accomplices
even here. Lock the doors. Lay the keys on the table. Let nobody
go out but those lords and gentlemen whom we shall appoint to
call the citizens to arms. There are some good men from the West
in Edinburgh, men for whom I can answer." The assembly raised a
general cry of assent. Several members of the majority boasted
that they too had brought with them trusty retainers who would
turn out at a moment's notice against Claverhouse and his
dragoons. All that Hamilton proposed was instantly done. The
Jacobites, silent and unresisting, became prisoners. Leven went
forth and ordered the drums to beat. The Covenanters of
Lanarkshire and Ayrshire promptly obeyed the signal. The force
thus assembled had indeed no very military appearance, but was
amply sufficient to overawe the adherents of the House of Stuart.
From Dundee nothing was to be hoped or feared. He had already
scrambled down the Castle hill, rejoined his troopers, and
galloped westward. Hamilton now ordered the doors to be opened.
The suspected members were at liberty to depart. Humbled and
brokenspirited, yet glad that they had come off so well, they
stole forth through the crowd of stern fanatics which filled the
High Street. All thought of secession was at an end.298

On the following day it was resolved that the kingdom should be
put into a posture of defence. The preamble of this resolution
contained a severe reflection on the perfidy of the traitor who,
within a few hours after he had, by an engagement subscribed with
his own hand, bound himself not to quit his post in the
Convention, had set the example of desertion, and given the
signal of civil war. All Protestants, from sixteen to sixty, were
ordered to hold themselves in readiness to assemble in arms at
the first summons; and, that none might pretend ignorance, it was
directed that the edict should be proclaimed at all the market
crosses throughout the realm.299

The Estates then proceeded to send a letter of thanks to William.
To this letter were attached the signatures of many noblemen and
gentlemen who were in the interest of the banished King. The
Bishops however unanimously refused to subscribe their names.

It had long been the custom of the Parliaments of Scotland to
entrust the preparation of Acts to a select number of members who
were designated as the Lords of the Articles. In conformity with
this usage, the business of framing a plan for the settling of
the government was now confided to a Committee of twenty-four. Of
the twenty-four eight were peers, eight representatives of
counties, and eight representatives of towns. The majority of the
Committee were Whigs; and not a single prelate had a seat.

The spirit of the Jacobites, broken by a succession of disasters,
was, about this time, for a moment revived by the arrival of the
Duke of Queensberry from London. His rank was high and
his influence was great: his character, by comparison with the
characters of those who surrounded him, was fair. When Popery was
in the ascendent, he had been true to the cause of the Protestant
Church; and, since Whiggism had been in the ascendent, he had
been true to the cause of hereditary monarchy. Some thought that,
if he had been earlier in his place, he might have been able to
render important service to the House of Stuart.300 Even now the
stimulants which he applied to his torpid and feeble party
produced some faint symptoms of returning animation. Means were
found of communicating with Gordon; and he was earnestly
solicited to fire on the city. The Jacobites hoped that, as soon
as the cannon balls had beaten down a few chimneys, the Estates
would adjourn to Glasgow. Time would thus be gained; and the
royalists might be able to execute their old project of meeting
in a separate convention. Gordon however positively refused to
take on himself so grave a responsibility on no better warrant
than the request of a small cabal.301

By this time the Estates had a guard on which they could rely
more firmly than on the undisciplined and turbulent Covenanters
of the West. A squadron of English men of war from the Thames had
arrived in the Frith of Forth. On board were the three Scottish
regiments which had accompanied William from Holland. He had,
with great judgment, selected them to protect the assembly which
was to settle the government of their country; and, that no cause
of jealousy might be given to a people exquisitely sensitive on
points of national honour, he had purged the ranks of all Dutch
soldiers, and had thus reduced the number of men to about eleven
hundred. This little force was commanded by Andrew Mackay, a
Highlander of noble descent, who had served long on the
Continent, and who was distinguished by courage of the truest
temper, and by a piety such as is seldom found in soldiers of
fortune. The Convention passed a resolution appointing Mackay
general of their forces. When the question was put on this
resolution, the Archbishop of Glasgow, unwilling doubtless to be
a party to such an usurpation of powers which belonged to the
King alone, begged that the prelates might be excused from
voting. Divines, he said, had nothing to do with military
arrangements. "The Fathers of the Church," answered a member very
keenly, "have been lately favoured with a new light. I have
myself seen military orders signed by the Most Reverend person
who has suddenly become so scrupulous. There was indeed one
difference: those orders were for dragooning Protestants, and the
resolution before us is meant to protect us from Papists."302

The arrival of Mackay's troops, and the determination of Gordon
to remain inactive, quelled the spirit of the Jacobites. They had
indeed one chance left. They might possibly, by joining with
those Whigs who were bent on an union with England, have
postponed during a considerable time the settlement of the
government. A negotiation was actually opened with this view, but
was speedily broken off. For it soon appeared that the party
which was for James was really hostile to the union, and that the
party which was for the union was really hostile to James. As
these two parties had no object in common, the only effect of a
coalition between them must have been that one of them would have
become the tool of the other. The question of the union therefore
was not raised.303 Some Jacobites retired to their country seats:
others, though they remained at Edinburgh, ceased to show
themselves in the Parliament House: many passed over to the
winning side; and, when at length the resolutions prepared by the
Twenty Four were submitted to the Convention, it appeared that
the party which on the first day of the session had rallied round
Athol had dwindled away to nothing.

The resolutions had been framed, as far as possible, in
conformity with the example recently set at Westminster. In one
important point, however, it was absolutely necessary that the
copy should deviate from the original. The Estates of England had
brought two charges against James, his misgovernment and his
flight, and had, by using the soft word "Abdication," evaded,
with some sacrifice of verbal precision, the question whether
subjects may lawfully depose a bad prince. That question the
Estates of Scotland could not evade. They could not pretend that
James had deserted his post. For he had never, since he came to
the throne, resided in Scotland. During many years that kingdom
had been ruled by sovereigns who dwelt in another land. The whole
machinery of the administration had been constructed on the
supposition that the King would be absent, and was therefore not
necessarily deranged by that flight which had, in the south of
the island, dissolved all government, and suspended the ordinary
course of justice. It was only by letter that the King could,
when he was at Whitehall, communicate with the Council and the
Parliament at Edinburgh; and by letter he could communicate with
them when he was at Saint Germains or at Dublin. The Twenty Four
were therefore forced to propose to the Estates a resolution
distinctly declaring that James the Seventh had by his misconduct
forfeited the crown. Many writers have inferred from the language
of this resolution that sound political principles had made a
greater progress in Scotland than in England. But the whole
history of the two countries from the Restoration to the Union
proves this inference to be erroneous. The Scottish Estates used
plain language, simply because it was impossible for them,
situated as they were, to use evasive language.

The person who bore the chief part in framing the resolution, and
in defending it, was Sir John Dalrymple, who had recently held
the high office of Lord Advocate, and had been an accomplice in
some of the misdeeds which he now arraigned with great force of
reasoning and eloquence. He was strenuously supported by Sir
James Montgomery, member for Ayrshire, a man of considerable
abilities, but of loose principles, turbulent temper, insatiable
cupidity, and implacable malevolence. The Archbishop of Glasgow
and Sir George Mackenzie spoke on the other side: but the only
effect of their oratory was to deprive their party of the
advantage of being able to allege that the Estates were under
duress, and that liberty of speech had been denied to the
defenders of hereditary monarchy.

When the question was put, Athol, Queensberry, and some of their
friends withdrew. Only five members voted against the resolution
which pronounced that James had forfeited his right to the
allegiance of his subjects. When it was moved that the Crown of
Scotland should be settled as the Crown of England had been
settled, Athol and Queensberry reappeared in the hall. They had
doubted, they said, whether they could justifiably declare the
throne vacant. But, since it had been declared vacant, they felt
no doubt that William and Mary were the persons who ought to fill
it.

The Convention then went forth in procession to the High Street.
Several great nobles, attended by the Lord Provost of the capital
and by the heralds, ascended the octagon tower from which rose
the city cross surmounted by the unicorn of Scotland.304 Hamilton
read the vote of the Convention; and a King at Arms proclaimed
the new Sovereigns with sound of trumpet. On the same day the
Estates issued an order that the parochial clergy should, on pain
of deprivation, publish from their pulpits the proclamation which
had just been read at the city cross, and should pray for King
William and Queen Mary.

Still the interregnum was not at an end. Though the new
Sovereigns had been proclaimed, they had not yet been put into
possession of the royal authority by a formal tender and a formal
acceptance. At Edinburgh, as at Westminster, it was thought
necessary that the instrument which settled the government should
clearly define and solemnly assert those privileges of the people
which the Stuarts had illegally infringed. A Claim of Right was
therefore drawn up by the Twenty Four, and adopted by the
Convention. To this Claim, which purported to be merely
declaratory of the law as it stood, was added a supplementary
paper containing a list of grievances which could be remedied
only by new laws. One most important article which we should
naturally expect to find at the head of such a list, the
Convention, with great practical prudence, but in defiance of
notorious facts and of unanswerable arguments, placed in the
Claim of Right. Nobody could deny that prelacy was established by
Act of Parliament. The power exercised by the Bishops might be
pernicious, unscriptural, antichristian but illegal it certainly
was not; and to pronounce it illegal was to outrage common sense.
The Whig leaders however were much more desirous to get rid of
episcopacy than to prove themselves consummate publicists and
logicians. If they made the abolition of episcopacy an article of
the contract by which William was to hold the crown, they
attained their end, though doubtless in a manner open to much
criticism. If, on the other hand, they contented themselves with
resolving that episcopacy was a noxious institution which at some
future time the legislature would do well to abolish, they might
find that their resolution, though unobjectionable in form, was
barren of consequences. They knew that William by no means
sympathized with their dislike of Bishops, and that, even had he
been much more zealous for the Calvinistic model than he was, the
relation in which he stood to the Anglican Church would make it
difficult and dangerous for him to declare himself hostile to a
fundamental part of the constitution of that Church. If he should
become King of Scotland without being fettered by any pledge on
this subject, it might well be apprehended that he would hesitate
about passing an Act which would be regarded with abhorrence by a
large body of his subjects in the south of the island. It was
therefore most desirable that the question should be settled
while the throne was still vacant. In this opinion many
politicians concurred, who had no dislike to rochets and mitres,
but who wished that William might have a quiet and prosperous
reign. The Scottish people,--so these men reasoned,--hated
episcopacy. The English loved it. To leave William any voice in
the matter was to put him under the necessity of deeply wounding
the strongest feelings of one of the nations which he governed.
It was therefore plainly for his own interest that the question,
which he could not settle in any manner without incurring a
fearful amount of obloquy, should be settled for him by others
who were exposed to no such danger. He was not yet Sovereign of
Scotland. While the interregnum lasted, the supreme power
belonged to the Estates; and for what the Estates might do the
prelatists of his southern kingdom could not hold him
responsible. The elder Dalrymple wrote strongly from London to
this effect, and there can be little doubt that he expressed the
sentiments of his master. William would have sincerely rejoiced
if the Scots could have been reconciled to a modified episcopacy.
But, since that could not be, it was manifestly desirable that
they should themselves, while there was yet no King over them,
pronounce the irrevocable doom of the institution which they
abhorred.305

The Convention, therefore, with little debate as it should seem,
inserted in the Claim of Right a clause declaring that prelacy
was an insupportable burden to the kingdom, that it had been long
odious to the body of the people, and that it ought to be
abolished.

Nothing in the proceedings at Edinburgh astonishes an Englishman
more than the manner in which the Estates dealt with the practice
of torture. In England torture had always been illegal. In the
most servile times the judges had unanimously pronounced it so.
Those rulers who had occasionally resorted to it had, as far as
was possible, used it in secret, had never pretended that they
had acted in conformity with either statute law or common law,
and had excused themselves by saying that the extraordinary peril
to which the state was exposed had forced them to take on
themselves the responsibility of employing extraordinarily means
of defence. It had therefore never been thought necessary by any
English Parliament to pass any Act or resolution touching this
matter. The torture was not mentioned in the Petition of Right,
or in any of the statutes framed by the Long Parliament. No
member of the Convention of 1689 dreamed of proposing that the
instrument which called the Prince and Princess of Orange to the
throne should contain a declaration against the using of racks
and thumbscrews for the purpose of forcing prisoners to accuse
themselves. Such a declaration would have been justly regarded as
weakening rather than strengthening a rule which, as far back as
the days of the Plantagenets, had been proudly declared by the
most illustrious sages of Westminster Hall to be a distinguishing
feature of the English jurisprudence.306 In the Scottish Claim of
Right, the use of torture, without evidence, or in ordinary
cases, was declared to be contrary to law. The use of torture,
therefore, where there was strong evidence, and where the crime
was extraordinary, was, by the plainest implication, declared to
be according to law; nor did the Estates mention the use of
torture among the grievances which required a legislative remedy.
In truth, they could not condemn the use of torture without
condemning themselves. It had chanced that, while they were
employed in settling the government, the eloquent and learned
Lord President Lockhart had been foully murdered in a public
street through which he was returning from church on a Sunday.
The murderer was seized, and proved to be a wretch who, having
treated his wife barbarously and turned her out of doors, had
been compelled by a decree of the Court of Session to provide for
her. A savage hatred of the judges by whom she had been protected
had taken possession of his mind, and had goaded him to a
horrible crime and a horrible fate. It was natural that an
assassination attended by so many circumstances of aggravation
should move the indignation of the members of the Convention. Yet
they should have considered the gravity of the conjuncture and
the importance of their own mission. They unfortunately, in the
heat of passion, directed the magistrates of Edinburgh to strike
the prisoner in the boots, and named a Committee to superintend
the operation. But for this unhappy event, it is probable that
the law of Scotland concerning torture would have been
immediately assimilated to the law of England.307

Having settled the Claim of Right, the Convention proceeded to
revise the Coronation oath. When this had been done, three
members were appointed to carry the Instrument of Government to
London. Argyle, though not, in strictness of law, a Peer, was
chosen to represent the Peers: Sir James Montgomery represented
the Commissioners of Shires, and Sir John Dalrymple the
Commissioners of Towns.

The Estates then adjourned for a few weeks, having first passed a
vote which empowered Hamilton to take such measures as might be
necessary for the preservation of the public peace till the end
of the interregnum.

The ceremony of the inauguration was distinguished from ordinary
pageants by some highly interesting circumstances. On the
eleventh of May the three Commissioners came to the Council
Chamber at Whitehall, and thence, attended by almost all the
Scotchmen of note who were then in London, proceeded to the
Banqueting House. There William and Mary appeared seated under a
canopy. A splendid circle of English nobles, and statesmen stood
round the throne: but the sword of state as committed to a Scotch
lord; and the oath of office was administered after the Scotch
fashion. Argyle recited the words slowly. The royal pair, holding
up their hands towards heaven, repeated after him till they came
to the last clause. There William paused. That clause contained a promise that
he would root out all heretics and all enemies of
the true worship of God; and it was notorious that, in the
opinion of many Scotchmen, not only all Roman Catholics, but all
Protestant Episcopalians, all Independents, Baptists and Quakers,
all Lutherans, nay all British Presbyterians who did not hold
themselves bound by the Solemn League and Covenant, were enemies
of the true worship of God.308 The King had apprised the
Commissioners that he could not take this part of the oath
without a distinct and public explanation; and they had been
authorised by the Convention to give such an explanation as would
satisfy him. "I will not," he now said, "lay myself under any
obligation to be a persecutor." "Neither the words of this oath,"
said one of the Commissioners, "nor the laws of Scotland, lay any
such obligation on your Majesty." "In that sense, then, I swear,"
said William; "and I desire you all, my lords and gentlemen, to
witness that I do so." Even his detractors have generally
admitted that on this great occasion he acted with uprightness,
dignity, and wisdom.309

As King of Scotland, he soon found himself embarrassed at every
step by all the difficulties which had embarrassed him as King of
England, and by other difficulties which in England were happily
unknown. In the north of the island, no class was more
dissatisfied with the Revolution than the class which owed most
to the Revolution. The manner in which the Convention had decided
the question of ecclesiastical polity had not been more offensive
to the Bishops themselves than to those fiery Covenanters who had
long, in defiance of sword and carbine, boot and gibbet,
worshipped their Maker after their own fashion in caverns and on
mountain tops. Was there ever, these zealots exclaimed, such a
halting between two opinions, such a compromise between the Lord
and Baal? The Estates ought to have said that episcopacy was an
abomination in God's sight, and that, in obedience to his word,
and from fear of his righteous judgment, they were determined to
deal with this great national sin and scandal after the fashion
of those saintly rulers who of old cut down the groves and
demolished the altars of Chemosh and Astarte. Unhappily, Scotland
was ruled, not by pious Josiahs, but by careless Gallios. The
antichristian hierarchy was to be abolished, not because it was
an insult to heaven, but because it was felt as a burden on
earth; not because it was hateful to the great Head of the
Church, but because it was hateful to the people. Was public
opinion, then, the test of right and wrong in religion? Was not
the order which Christ had established in his own house to be
held equally sacred in all countries and through all ages? And
was there no reason for following that order in Scotland except a
reason which might be urged with equal force for maintaining
Prelacy in England, Popery in Spain, and Mahometanism in Turkey?
Why, too, was nothing said of those Covenants which the nation
had so generally subscribed and so generally violated? Why was it
not distinctly affirmed that the promises set down in those rolls
were still binding, and would to the end of time be binding, on
the kingdom? Were these truths to be suppressed from regard for
the feelings and interests of a prince who was all things to all
men, an ally of the idolatrous Spaniard and of the Lutheran bane,
a presbyterian at the Hague and a prelatist at Whiteball? He,
like Jelin in ancient times, had doubtless so far done well that
he had been the scourge of the idolatrous House of Ahab. But he,
like Jelin, had not taken heed to walk in the divine law with his
whole heart, but had tolerated and practised impieties differing
only in degree from those of which he had declared himself the
enemy. It would have better become godly senators to remonstrate
with him on the sin which he was committing by conforming to the
Anglican ritual, and by maintaining the Anglican Church
government, than to flatter him by using a phraseology which
seemed to indicate that they were as deeply tainted with
Erastianism as himself. Many of those who held this language
refused to do any act which could be construed into a recognition
of the new Sovereigns, and would rather have been fired upon by
files of musketeers or tied to stakes within low water mark than
have uttered a prayer that God would bless William and Mary.

Yet the King had less to fear from the pertinacious adherence of
these men to their absurd principles, than from the ambition and
avarice of another set of men who had no principles at all. It
was necessary that he should immediately name ministers to
conduct the government of Scotland: and, name whom he might, he
could not fail to disappoint and irritate a multitude of
expectants. Scotland was one of the least wealthy countries in
Europe: yet no country in Europe contained a greater number of
clever and selfish politicians. The places in the gift of the
Crown were not enough to satisfy one twentieth part of the
placehunters, every one of whom thought that his own services had
been preeminent, and that, whoever might be passed by, he ought
to be remembered. William did his best to satisfy these
innumerable and insatiable claimants by putting many offices into
commission. There were however a few great posts which it was
impossible to divide. Hamilton was declared Lord High
Commissioner, in the hope that immense pecuniary allowances, a
residence in Holyrood Palace, and a pomp and dignity little less
than regal, would content him. The Earl of Crawford was appointed
President of the Parliament; and it was supposed that this
appointment would conciliate the rigid Presbyterians,
for Crawford was what they called a professor. His letters and
speeches are, to use his own phraseology, exceeding savoury.
Alone, or almost alone, among the prominent politicians of that
time, he retained the style which had been fashionable in the
preceding generation. He had a text of the Old Testament ready
for every occasion. He filled his despatches with allusions to
Ishmael and Hagar, Hannah and Eli, Elijah, Nehemiah, and
Zerubbabel, and adorned his oratory with quotations from Ezra and
Haggai. It is a circumstance strikingly characteristic of the
man, and of the school in which he had been trained, that, in all
the mass of his writing which has come down to us, there is not a
single word indicating that he had ever in his life heard of the
New Testament. Even in our own time some persons of a peculiar
taste have been so much delighted by the rich unction of his
eloquence, that they have confidently pronounced him a saint. To
those whose habit it is to judge of a man rather by his actions
than by his words, Crawford will appear to have been a selfish,
cruel politician, who was not at all the dupe of his own cant,
and whose zeal against episcopal government was not a little
whetted by his desire to obtain a grant of episcopal domains. In
excuse for his greediness, it ought to be said that he was the
poorest noble of a poor nobility, and that before the Revolution
he was sometimes at a loss for a meal and a suit of clothes.310

The ablest of Scottish politicians and debaters, Sir John
Dalrymple, was appointed Lord Advocate. His father, Sir James,
the greatest of Scottish jurists, was placed at the head of the
Court of Session. Sir William Lockhart, a man whose letters prove
him to have possessed considerable ability, became Solicitor
General.

Sir James Montgomery had flattered himself that he should be the
chief minister. He had distinguished himself highly in the
Convention. He had been one of the Commissioners who had tendered
the Crown and administered the oath to the new Sovereigns. In
parliamentary ability and eloquence he had no superior among his
countrymen, except the new Lord Advocate. The Secretaryship was,
not indeed in dignity, but in real power, the highest office in
the Scottish government; and this office was the reward to which
Montgomery thought himself entitled. But the Episcopalians and
the moderate Presbyterians dreaded him as a man of extreme
opinions and of bitter spirit. He had been a chief of the
Covenanters: he had been prosecuted at one time for holding
conventicles, and at another time for harbouring rebels: he had
been fined: he had been imprisoned: he had been almost driven to
take refuge from his enemies beyond the Atlantic in the infant
settlement of New Jersey. It was apprehended that, if he were now
armed with the whole power of the Crown, he would exact a
terrible retribution for what he had suffered.311 William
therefore preferred Melville, who, though not a man of eminent
talents, was regarded by the Presbyterians as a thoroughgoing
friend, and yet not regarded by the Episcopalians as an
implacable enemy. Melville fixed his residence at the English
Court, and became the regular organ of communication between
Kensington and the authorities at Edinburgh.

William had, however, one Scottish adviser who deserved and
possessed more influence than any of the ostensible ministers.
This was Carstairs, one of the most remarkable men of that age.
He united great scholastic attainments with great aptitude for
civil business, and the firm faith and ardent zeal of a martyr
with the shrewdness and suppleness of a consummate politician. In
courage and fidelity he resembled Burnet; but he had, what Burnet
wanted, judgment, selfcommand, and a singular power of keeping
secrets. There was no post to which he might not have aspired if
he had been a layman, or a priest of the Church of England. But a
Presbyterian clergyman could not hope to attain any high dignity
either in the north or in the south of the island. Carstairs was
forced to content himself with the substance of power, and to
leave the semblance to others. He was named Chaplain to their
Majesties for Scotland, but wherever the King was, in England,
in Ireland, in the Netherlands, there was this most trusty and
most prudent of courtiers. He obtained from the royal bounty a
modest competence; and he desired no more. But it was well known
that he could be as useful a friend and as formidable an enemy as
any member of the cabinet; and he was designated at the public
offices and in the antechambers of the palace by the significant
nickname of the Cardinal.312

To Montgomery was offered the place of Lord Justice Clerk. But
that place, though high and honourable, he thought below his
merits and his capacity; and he returned from London to Scotland
with a heart ulcerated by hatred of his ungrateful master and of
his successful rivals. At Edinburgh a knot of Whigs, as severely
disappointed as himself by the new arrangements, readily
submitted to the guidance of so bold and able a leader. Under his
direction these men, among whom the Earl of Annandale and Lord
Ross were the most conspicuous, formed themselves into a society
called the Club, appointed a clerk, and met daily at a tavern to
concert plans of opposition. Round this nucleus soon gathered a
great body of greedy and angry politicians.313 With these
dishonest malecontents, whose object was merely to annoy the
government and to get places, were leagued other malecontents,
who, in the course of a long resistance to tyranny, had become so
perverse and irritable that they were unable to live contentedly
even under the mildest and most constitutional government. Such a
man was Sir Patrick Hume. He had returned from exile, as
litigious, as impracticable; as morbidly jealous of all superior
authority, and as fond of haranguing, as he had been four years
before, and was as much bent on making a merely nominal sovereign
of William as he had formerly been bent on making a merely
nominal general of Argyle.314 A man far superior morally and
intellectually to Hume, Fletcher of Saltoun, belonged to the same
party. Though not a member of the Convention, he was a most
active member of the Club.315 He hated monarchy: he hated
democracy: his favourite project was to make Scotland an
oligarchical republic. The King, if there must be a King, was to
be a mere pageant. The lowest class of the people were to be
bondsmen. The whole power, legislative and executive, was to be
in the hands of the Parliament. In other words, the country was
to be absolutely governed by a hereditary aristocracy, the most
needy, the most haughty, and the most quarrelsome in Europe.
Under such a polity there could have been neither freedom nor
tranquillity. Trade, industry, science, would have languished;
and Scotland would have been a smaller Poland, with a puppet
sovereign, a turbulent diet, and an enslaved people. With
unsuccessful candidates for office, and with honest but
wrongheaded republicans, were mingled politicians whose course
was determined merely by fear. Many sycophants, who were
conscious that they had, in the evil time, done what deserved
punishment, were desirous to make their peace with the powerful
and vindictive Club, and were glad to be permitted to atone for
their servility to James by their opposition to William."316 The
great body of Jacobites meanwhile stood aloof, saw with delight
the enemies of the House of Stuart divided against one another,
and indulged the hope that the confusion would end in the
restoration of the banished king.317

While Montgomery was labouring to form out of various materials a
party which might, when the Convention should reassemble, be
powerful enough to dictate to the throne, an enemy still more
formidable than Montgomery had set up the standard of civil war
in a region about which the politicians of Westminster, and
indeed most of the politicians of Edinburgh, knew no more than
about Abyssinia or Japan.

It is not easy for a modern Englishman, who can pass in a day
from his club in St. James's Street to his shooting box among the
Grampians, and who finds in his shooting box all the comforts and
luxuries of his club, to believe that, in the time of his
greatgrandfathers, St. James's Street had as little connection
with the Grampians as with the Andes. Yet so it was. In the south
of our island scarcely any thing was known about the Celtic part
of Scotland; and what was known excited no feeling but contempt
and loathing. The crags and the glens, the woods and the waters,
were indeed the same that now swarm every autumn with admiring
gazers and stretchers. The Trosachs wound as now between gigantic
walls of rock tapestried with broom and wild roses: Foyers came
headlong down through the birchwood with the same leap and the
same roar with which he still rushes to Loch Ness; and, in
defiance of the sun of June, the snowy scalp of Ben Cruachan
rose, as it still rises, over the willowy islets of Loch Awe. Yet
none of these sights had power, till a recent period, to attract
a single poet or painter from more opulent and more tranquil
regions. Indeed, law and police, trade and industry, have done
far more than people of romantic dispositions will readily admit,
to develope in our minds a sense of the wilder beauties of
nature. A traveller must be freed from all apprehension of being
murdered or starved before he can be charmed by the bold outlines
and rich tints of the hills. He is not likely to be thrown into
ecstasies by the abruptness of a precipice from which he is in
imminent danger of falling two thousand feet perpendicular; by
the boiling waves of a torrent which suddenly whirls away his
baggage and forces him to run for his life; by the gloomy
grandeur of a pass where he finds a corpse which marauders have
just stripped and mangled; or by the screams of those eagles
whose next meal may probably be on his own eyes. About the year
1730, Captain Burt, one of the first Englishmen who caught a
glimpse of the spots which now allure tourists from every part of
the civilised world, wrote an account of his wanderings. He was
evidently a man of a quick, an observant, and a cultivated mind,
and would doubtless, had he lived in our age, have looked with
mingled awe and delight on the mountains of Invernessshire. But,
writing with the feeling which was universal in his own age, he
pronounced those mountains monstrous excrescences. Their
deformity, he said, was such that the most sterile plains seemed
lovely by comparison. Fine weather, he complained, only made bad
worse; for, the clearer the day, the more disagreeably did those
misshapen masses of gloomy brown and dirty purple affect the eye.
What a contrast, he exclaimed, between these horrible prospects
and the beauties of Richmond Hill!318 Some persons may think that
Burt was a man of vulgar and prosaical mind: but they will
scarcely venture to pass a similar judgment on Oliver Goldsmith.
Goldsmith was one of the very few Saxons who, more than a century
ago, ventured to explore the Highlands. He was disgusted by the
hideous wilderness, and declared that he greatly preferred the
charming country round Leyden, the vast expanse of verdant
meadow, and the villas with their statues and grottoes, trim
flower beds, and rectilinear avenues. Yet it is difficult to
believe that the author of the Traveller and of the Deserted
Village was naturally inferior in taste and sensibility to the
thousands of clerks and milliners who are now thrown into
raptures by the sight of Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond.319 His
feelings may easily be explained. It was not till roads had been
cut out of the rocks, till bridges had been flung over the
courses of the rivulets, till inns had succeeded to dens of
robbers, till there was as little danger of being slain or
plundered in the wildest defile of Badenoch or Lochaber as in
Cornhill, that strangers could be enchanted by the blue dimples
of the lakes and by the rainbows which overhung the waterfalls,
and could derive a solemn pleasure even from the clouds and
tempests which lowered on the mountain tops.

The change in the feeling with which the Lowlanders regarded the
highland scenery was closely connected with a change not less
remarkable in the feeling with which they regarded the Highland
race. It is not strange that the Wild Scotch, as they were
sometimes called, should, in the seventeenth century, have been
considered by the Saxons as mere savages. But it is surely
strange that, considered as savages, they should not have been
objects of interest and curiosity. The English were then
abundantly inquisitive about the manners of rude nations
separated from our island by great continents and oceans.
Numerous books were printed describing the laws, the
superstitions, the cabins, the repasts, the dresses, the
marriages, the funerals of Laplanders and Hottentots, Mohawks and
Malays. The plays and poems of that age are full of allusions to
the usages of the black men of Africa and of the red men of
America. The only barbarian about whom there was no wish to have
any information was the Highlander. Five or six years after the
Revolution, an indefatigable angler published an account of
Scotland. He boasted that, in the course of his rambles from lake
to lake, and from brook to brook, he had left scarcely a nook of
the kingdom unexplored. But, when we examine his narrative, we
find that he had never ventured beyond the extreme skirts of the
Celtic region. He tells us that even from the people who lived
close to the passes he could learn little or nothing about the
Gaelic population. Few Englishmen, he says, had ever seen
Inverary. All beyond Inverary was chaos.320 In the reign of
George the First, a work was published which professed to give a
most exact account of Scotland; and in this work, consisting of
more than three hundred pages, two contemptuous paragraphs were
thought sufficient for the Highlands and the Highlanders.321 We
may well doubt whether, in 1689, one in twenty of the well read
gentlemen who assembled at Will's coffeehouse knew that, within
the four seas, and at the distance of less than five hundred
miles from London, were many miniature courts, in each of which a
petty prince, attended by guards, by armour bearers, by
musicians, by a hereditary orator, by a hereditary poet laureate,
kept a rude state, dispensed a rude justice, waged wars, and
concluded treaties. While the old Gaelic institutions were in
full vigour, no account of them was given by any observer,
qualified to judge of them fairly. Had such an observer studied
the character of the Highlanders, he would doubtless have found
in it closely intermingled the good and the bad qualities of an
uncivilised nation. He would have found that the people had no
love for their country or for their king; that they had no
attachment to any commonwealth larger than the clan, or to any
magistrate superior to the chief. He would have found that life
was governed by a code of morality and honour widely different
from that which is established in peaceful and prosperous
societies. He would have learned that a stab in the back, or a
shot from behind a fragment of rock, were approved modes of
taking satisfaction for insults. He would have heard men relate
boastfully how they or their fathers had wreaked on hereditary
enemies in a neighbouring valley such vengeance as would have
made old soldiers of the Thirty Years' War shudder. He would have
found that robbery was held to be a calling, not merely innocent,
but honourable. He would have seen, wherever he turned, that
dislike of steady industry, and that disposition to throw on the
weaker sex the heaviest part of manual labour, which are
characteristic of savages. He would have been struck by the
spectacle of athletic men basking in the sun, angling for salmon,
or taking aim at grouse, while their aged mothers, their pregnant
wives, their tender daughters, were reaping the scanty harvest of
oats. Nor did the women repine at their hard lot. In their view
it was quite fit that a man, especially if he assumed the
aristocratic title of Duinhe Wassel and adorned his bonnet with
the eagle's feather, should take his ease, except when he was
fighting, hunting, or marauding. To mention the name of such a
man in connection with commerce or with any mechanical art was an
insult. Agriculture was indeed less despised. Yet a highborn
warrior was much more becomingly employed in plundering the land
of others than in tilling his own. The religion of the greater
part of the Highlands was a rude mixture of Popery and Paganism.
The symbol of redemption was associated with heathen sacrifices
and incantations. Baptized men poured libations of ale to one
Daemon, and set out drink offerings of milk for another. Seers
wrapped themselves up in bulls' hides, and awaited, in that
vesture, the inspiration which was to reveal the future. Even
among those minstrels and genealogists whose hereditary vocation
was to preserve the memory of past events, an enquirer would have
found very few who could read. In truth, he might easily have
journeyed from sea to sea without discovering a page of Gaelic
printed or written. The price which he would have had to pay for
his knowledge of the country would have been heavy. He would have
had to endure hardships as great as if he had sojourned among the
Esquimaux or the Samoyeds. Here and there, indeed, at the castle
of some great lord who had a seat in the Parliament and Privy
Council, and who was accustomed to pass a large part of his life
in the cities of the South, might have been found wigs and
embroidered coats, plate and fine linen, lace and jewels, French
dishes and French wines. But, in general, the traveller would
have been forced to content himself with very different quarters.
In many dwellings the furniture, the food, the clothing, nay the
very hair and skin of his hosts, would have put his philosophy to
the proof. His lodging would sometimes have been in a but of
which every nook would have swarmed with vermin. He would have
inhaled an atmosphere thick with peat smoke, and foul with a
hundred noisome exhalations. At supper grain fit only for horses
would have been set before him, accompanied by a cake of blood
drawn from living cows. Some of the company with which he would
have feasted would have been covered with cutaneous eruptions,
and others would have been smeared with tar like sheep. His couch
would have been the bare earth, dry or wet as the weather might
be; and from that couch he would have risen half poisoned with
stench, half blind with the reek of turf, and half mad with the
itch.322

This is not an attractive picture. And yet an enlightened and
dispassionate observer would have found in the character and
manners of this rude people something which might well excite
admiration and a good hope. Their courage was what great exploits
achieved in all the four quarters of the globe have since proved
it to be. Their intense attachment to their own tribe and to
their own patriarch, though politically a great evil, partook of
the nature of virtue. The sentiment was misdirected and ill
regulated; but still it was heroic. There must be some elevation
of soul in a man who loves the society of which he is a member
and the leader whom he follows with a love stronger than the love
of life. It was true that the Highlander had few scruples about
shedding the blood of an enemy: but it was not less true that he
had high notions of the duty of observing faith to allies and
hospitality to guests. It was true that his predatory habits were
most pernicious to the commonwealth. Yet those erred greatly who
imagined that he bore any resemblance to villains who, in rich
and well governed communities, live by stealing. When he drove
before him the herds of Lowland farmers up the pass which led to
his native glen, he no more considered himself as a thief than
the Raleighs and Drakes considered themselves as thieves when
they divided the cargoes of Spanish galleons. He was a warrior
seizing lawful prize of war, of war never once intermitted during
the thirty-five generations which had passed away since the
Teutonic invaders had driven the children of the soil to the
mountains. That, if he was caught robbing on such principles, he
should, for the protection of peaceful industry, be punished with
the utmost rigour of the law was perfectly just. But it was not
just to class him morally with the pickpockets who infested Drury
Lane Theatre, or the highwaymen who stopped coaches on
Blackheath. His inordinate pride of birth and his contempt for
labour and trade were indeed great weaknesses, and had done far
more than the inclemency of the air and the sterility of the soil
to keep his country poor and rude. Yet even here there was some
compensation. It must in fairness be acknowledged that the
patrician virtues were not less widely diffused among the
population of the Highlands than the patrician vices. As there
was no other part of the island where men, sordidly clothed,
lodged, and fed, indulged themselves to such a degree in the idle
sauntering habits of an aristocracy, so there was no other part
of the island where such men had in such a degree the better
qualities of an aristocracy, grace and dignity of manner,
selfrespect, and that noble sensibility which makes dishonour
more terrible than death. A gentleman of this sort, whose clothes
were begrimed with the accumulated filth of years, and whose
hovel smelt worse than an English hogstye, would often do the
honours of that hovel with a lofty courtesy worthy of the
splendid circle of Versailles. Though he had as little
booklearning as the most stupid ploughboys of England, it would
have been a great error to put him in the same intellectual rank
with such ploughboys. It is indeed only by reading that men can
become profoundly acquainted with any science. But the arts of
poetry and rhetoric may be carried near to absolute perfection,
and may exercise a mighty influence on the public mind, in an age
in which books are wholly or almost wholly unknown. The first
great painter of life and manners has described, with a vivacity
which makes it impossible to doubt that he was copying from
nature, the effect produced by eloquence and song on audiences
ignorant of the alphabet. It is probable that, in the Highland
councils, men who would not have been qualified for the duty of
parish clerks sometimes argued questions of peace and war, of
tribute and homage, with ability worthy of Halifax and
Caermarthen, and that, at the Highland banquets, minstrels who
did not know their letters sometimes poured forth rhapsodies in
which a discerning critic might have found passages which would
have reminded him of the tenderness of Otway or of the vigour of
Dryden.

There was therefore even then evidence sufficient to justify the
belief that no natural inferiority had kept the Celt far behind
the Saxon. It might safely have been predicted that, if ever an
efficient police should make it impossible for the Highlander to
avenge his wrongs by violence and to supply his wants by rapine,
if ever his faculties should be developed by the civilising
influence of the Protestant religion and of the English language,
if ever he should transfer to his country and to her lawful
magistrates the affection and respect with which he had been
taught to regard his own petty community and his own petty
prince, the kingdom would obtain an immense accession of strength
for all the purposes both of peace and of war.

Such would doubtless have been the decision of a well informed
and impartial judge. But no such judge was then to be found. The
Saxons who dwelt far from the Gaelic provinces could not be well
informed. The Saxons who dwelt near those provinces could not be
impartial. National enmities have always been fiercest among
borderers; and the enmity between the Highland borderer and the
Lowland borderer along the whole frontier was the growth of ages,
and was kept fresh by constant injuries. One day many square
miles of pasture land were swept bare by armed plunderers from
the hills. Another day a score of plaids dangled in a row on the
gallows of Crieff or Stirling. Fairs were indeed held on the
debatable land for the necessary interchange of commodities. But
to those fairs both parties came prepared for battle; and the day
often ended in bloodshed. Thus the Highlander was an object of
hatred to his Saxon neighbours; and from his Saxon neighbours
those Saxons who dwelt far from him learned the very little that
they cared to know about his habits. When the English
condescended to think of him at all,--and it was seldom that they
did so,--they considered him as a filthy abject savage, a slave,
a Papist, a cutthroat, and a thief.323

This contemptuous loathing lasted till the year 1745, and was
then for a moment succeeded by intense fear and rage. England,
thoroughly alarmed, put forth her whole strength. The Highlands
were subjugated rapidly, completely, and for ever. During a short
time the English nation, still heated by the recent conflict,
breathed nothing but vengeance. The slaughter on the field of
battle and on the scaffold was not sufficient to slake the public
thirst for blood. The sight of the tartan inflamed the populace
of London with hatred, which showed itself by unmanly outrages to
defenceless captives. A political and social revolution took
place through the whole Celtic region. The power of the chiefs
was destroyed: the people were disarmed: the use of the old
national garb was interdicted: the old predatory habits were
effectually broken; and scarcely had this change been
accomplished when a strange reflux of public feeling began. Pity
succeeded to aversion. The nation execrated the cruelties which
had been committed on the Highlanders, and forgot that for those
cruelties it was itself answerable. Those very Londoners, who,
while the memory of the march to Derby was still fresh, had
thronged to hoot and pelt the rebel prisoners, now fastened on
the prince who had put down the rebellion the nickname of
Butcher. Those barbarous institutions and usages, which, while
they were in full force, no Saxon had thought worthy of serious
examination, or had mentioned except with contempt, had no sooner
ceased to exist than they became objects of curiosity, of
interest, even of admiration. Scarcely had the chiefs been turned
into mere landlords, when it became the fashion to draw invidious
comparisons between the rapacity of the landlord and the
indulgence of the chief. Men seemed to have forgotten that the
ancient Gaelic polity had been found to be incompatible with the
authority of law, had obstructed the progress of civilisation,
had more than once brought on the empire the curse of civil war.
As they had formerly seen only the odious side of that polity,
they could now see only the pleasing side. The old tie, they
said, had been parental: the new tie was purely commercial. What
could be more lamentable than that the head of a tribe should
eject, for a paltry arrear of rent, tenants who were his own
flesh and blood, tenants whose forefathers had often with their
bodies covered his forefathers on the field of battle? As long as
there were Gaelic marauders, they had been regarded by the Saxon
population as hateful vermin who ought to be exterminated without
mercy. As soon as the extermination had been accomplished, as
soon as cattle were as safe in the Perthshire passes as in
Smithfield market, the freebooter was exalted into a hero of
romance. As long as the Gaelic dress was worn, the Saxons had
pronounced it hideous, ridiculous, nay, grossly indecent. Soon
after it had been prohibited, they discovered that it was the
most graceful drapery in Europe. The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelic
usages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, disdainfully
neglected during many ages, began to attract the attention of the
learned from the moment at which the peculiarities of the Gaelic
race began to disappear. So strong was this impulse that, where
the Highlands were concerned, men of sense gave ready credence to
stories without evidence, and men of taste gave rapturous
applause to compositions without merit. Epic poems, which any
skilful and dispassionate critic would at a glance have
perceived to be almost entirely modern, and which, if they had
been published as modern, would have instantly found their proper
place in company with Blackmore's Alfred and Wilkie's Epigoniad,
were pronounced to be fifteen hundred years old, and were gravely
classed with the Iliad. Writers of a very different order from
the impostor who fabricated these forgeries saw how striking an
effect might be produced by skilful pictures of the old Highland
life. Whatever was repulsive was softened down: whatever was
graceful and noble was brought prominently forward. Some of these
works were executed with such admirable art that, like the
historical plays of Shakspeare, they superseded history. The
visions of the poet were realities to his readers. The places
which he described became holy ground, and were visited by
thousands of pilgrims. Soon the vulgar imagination was so
completely occupied by plaids, targets, and claymores, that, by
most Englishmen, Scotchman and Highlander were regarded as
synonymous words. Few people seemed to be aware that, at no
remote period, a Macdonald or a Macgregor in his tartan was to a
citizen of Edinburgh or Glasgow what an Indian hunter in his war
paint is to an inhabitant of Philadelphia or Boston. Artists and
actors represented Bruce and Douglas in striped petticoats. They
might as well have represented Washington brandishing a tomahawk,
and girt with a string of scalps. At length this fashion reached
a point beyond which it was not easy to proceed. The last British
King who held a court in Holyrood thought that he could not give
a more striking proof of his respect for the usages which had
prevailed in Scotland before the Union, than by disguising
himself in what, before the Union, was considered by nine
Scotchmen out of ten as the dress of a thief.

Thus it has chanced that the old Gaelic institutions and manners
have never been exhibited in the simple light of truth. Up to the
middle of the last century, they were seen through one false
medium: they have since been seen through another. Once they
loomed dimly through an obscuring and distorting haze of
prejudice; and no sooner had that fog dispersed than they
appeared bright with all the richest tints of poetry. The time
when a perfectly fair picture could have been painted has now
passed away. The original has long disappeared: no authentic
effigy exists; and all that is possible is to produce an
imperfect likeness by the help of two portraits, of which one is
a coarse caricature and the other a masterpiece of flattery.

Among the erroneous notions which have been commonly received
concerning the history and character of the Highlanders is one
which it is especially necessary to correct. During the century
which commenced with the campaign of Montrose, and terminated
with the campaign of the young Pretender, every great military
exploit which was achieved on British ground in the cause of the
House of Stuart was achieved by the valour of Gaelic tribes. The
English have therefore very naturally ascribed to those tribes
the feelings of English cavaliers, profound reverence for the
royal office, and enthusiastic attachment to the royal family. A
close inquiry however will show that the strength of these
feelings among the Celtic clans has been greatly exaggerated.

In studying the history of our civil contentions, we must never
forget that the same names, badges, and warcries had very
different meanings in different parts of the British isles. We
have already seen how little there was in common between the
Jacobitism of Ireland and the Jacobitism of England. The
Jacobitism of the Scotch Highlander was, at least in the
seventeenth century, a third variety, quite distinct from the
other two. The Gaelic population was far indeed from holding the
doctrines of passive obedience and nonresistance. In fact
disobedience and resistance made up the ordinary life of that
population. Some of those very clans which it has been the
fashion to describe as so enthusiastically loyal that they were
prepared to stand by James to the death, even when he was in the
wrong, had never, while he was on the throne, paid the smallest
respect to his authority, even when he was clearly in the right.
Their practice, their calling, had been to disobey and to defy
him. Some of them had actually been proscribed by sound of horn
for the crime of withstanding his lawful commands, and would have
torn to pieces without scruple any of his officers who had dared
to venture beyond the passes for the purpose of executing his
warrant. The English Whigs were accused by their opponents of
holding doctrines dangerously lax touching the obedience due to
the chief magistrate. Yet no respectable English Whig ever
defended rebellion, except as a rare and extreme remedy for rare
and extreme evils. But among those Celtic chiefs whose loyalty
has been the theme of so much warm eulogy were some whose whole
existence from boyhood upwards had been one long rebellion. Such
men, it is evident, were not likely to see the Revolution in the
light in which it appeared to an Oxonian nonjuror. On the other
hand they were not, like the aboriginal Irish, urged to take arms
by impatience of Saxon domination. To such domination the
Scottish Celt had never been subjected. He occupied his own wild
and sterile region, and followed his own national usages. In his
dealings with the Saxons, he was rather the oppressor than the
oppressed. He exacted black mail from them: he drove away their
flocks and herds; and they seldom dared to pursue him to his
native wilderness. They had never portioned out among themselves
his dreary region of moor and shingle. He had never seen the
tower of his hereditary chieftains occupied by an usurper who
could not speak Gaelic, and who looked on all who spoke it as
brutes and slaves; nor had his national and religious feelings
ever been outraged by the power and splendour of a church which
he regarded as at once foreign and heretical.

The real explanation of the readiness with which a large part of
the population of the Highlands, twice in the seventeenth
century, drew the sword for the Stuarts is to be found in the
internal quarrels which divided the commonwealth of clans. For
there was a commonwealth of clans, the image, on a reduced scale,
of the great commonwealth of European nations. In the smaller of
these two commonwealths, as in the larger, there were wars,
treaties, alliances, disputes about territory and precedence, a
system of public law, a balance of power. There was one
inexhaustible source of discontents and disputes. The feudal
system had, some centuries before, been introduced into the hill
country, but had neither destroyed the patriarchal system nor
amalgamated completely with it. In general he who was lord in the
Norman polity was also chief in the Celtic polity; and, when this
was the case, there was no conflict. But, when the two characters
were separated, all the willing and loyal obedience was reserved
for the chief. The lord had only what he could get and hold by
force. If he was able, by the help of his own tribe, to keep in
subjection tenants who were not of his own tribe, there was a
tyranny of clan over clan, the most galling, perhaps, of all
forms of tyranny. At different times different races had risen to
an authority which had produced general fear and envy. The
Macdonalds had once possessed, in the Hebrides and throughout the
mountain country of Argyleshire and Invernessshire, an ascendancy
similar to that which the House of Austria had once possessed in
Christendom. But the ascendancy of the Macdonalds had, like the
ascendancy of the House of Austria, passed away; and the
Campbells, the children of Diarmid, had become in the Highlands
what the Bourbons had become in Europe. The parallel might be
carried far. Imputations similar to those which it was the
fashion to throw on the French government were thrown on the
Campbells. A peculiar dexterity, a peculiar plausibility of
address, a peculiar contempt for all the obligations of good
faith, were ascribed, with or without reason, to the dreaded
race. "Fair and false like a Campbell" became a proverb. It was
said that Mac Callum More after Mac Callum More had, with
unwearied, unscrupulous, and unrelenting ambition, annexed
mountain after mountain and island after island to the original
domains of his House. Some tribes had been expelled from their
territory, some compelled to pay tribute, some incorporated with
the conquerors. At length the number of fighting men who bore the
name of Campbell was sufficient to meet in the field of battle
the combined forces of all the other western clans.324 It was
during those civil troubles which commenced in 1638 that the
power of this aspiring family reached the zenith. The Marquess of
Argyle was the head of a party as well as the head of a tribe.
Possessed of two different kinds of authority, he used each of
them in such a way as to extend and fortify the other. The
knowledge that he could bring into the field the claymores of
five thousand half heathen mountaineers added to his influence
among the austere Presbyterians who filled the Privy Council and
the General Assembly at Edinburgh. His influence at Edinburgh
added to the terror which he inspired among the mountains. Of all
the Highland princes whose history is well known to us he was the
greatest and most dreaded. It was while his neighbours were
watching the increase of his power with hatred which fear could
scarcely keep down that Montrose called them to arms. The call
was promptly obeyed. A powerful coalition of clans waged war,
nominally for King Charles, but really against Mac Callum More.
It is not easy for any person who has studied the history of that
contest to doubt that, if Argyle had supported the cause of
monarchy, his neighbours would have declared against it. Grave
writers tell of the victory gained at Inverlochy by the royalists
over the rebels. But the peasants who dwell near the spot speak
more accurately. They talk of the great battle won there by the
Macdonalds over the Campbells.

The feelings which had produced the coalition against the
Marquess of Argyle retained their force long after his death. His
son, Earl Archibald, though a man of many eminent virtues,
inherited, with the ascendancy of his ancestors, the unpopularity
which such ascendancy could scarcely fail to produce. In 1675,
several warlike tribes formed a confederacy against him, but were
compelled to submit to the superior force which was at his
command. There was therefore great joy from sea to sea when, in
1681, he was arraigned on a futile charge, condemned to death,
driven into exile, and deprived of his dignities. There was great
alarm when, in 1685, he returned from banishment, and sent forth
the fiery cross to summon his kinsmen to his standard; and there
was again great joy when his enterprise had failed, when his army
had melted away, when his head had been fixed on the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh, and when those chiefs who had regarded him as an
oppressor had obtained from the Crown, on easy terms, remissions
of old debts and grants of new titles. While England and Scotland
generally were execrating the tyranny of James, he was honoured
as a deliverer in Appin and Lochaber, in Glenroy and Glenmore.325
The hatred excited by the power and ambition of the House of
Argyle was not satisfied even when the head of that House had
perished, when his children were fugitives, when strangers
garrisoned the Castle of Inverary, and when the whole shore of
Loch Fyne was laid waste by fire and sword. It was said that the
terrible precedent which had been set in the case of the
Macgregors ought to be followed, and that it ought to be made a
crime to bear the odious name of Campbell.

On a sudden all was changed. The Revolution came. The heir of
Argyle returned in triumph. He was, as his predecessors had been,
the head, not only of a tribe, but of a party. The sentence which
had deprived him of his estate and of his honours was treated by
the majority of the Convention as a nullity. The doors of the
Parliament House were thrown open to him: he was selected from
the whole body of Scottish nobles to administer the oath of
office to the new Sovereigns; and he was authorised to raise an
army on his domains for the service of the Crown. He would now,
doubtless, be as powerful as the most powerful of his ancestors.
Backed by the strength of the Government, he would demand all the
long and heavy arrears of rent and tribute which were due to him
from his neighbours, and would exact revenge for all the injuries
and insults which his family had suffered. There was terror and
agitation in the castles of twenty petty kings. The uneasiness
was great among the Stewarts of Appin, whose territory was close
pressed by the sea on one side, and by the race of Diarmid on the
other. The Macnaghtens were still more alarmed. Once they had
been the masters of those beautiful valleys through which the Ara
and the Shira flow into Loch Fyne. But the Campbells had
prevailed. The Macnaghtens had been reduced to subjection, and
had, generation after generation, looked up with awe and
detestation to the neighbouring Castle of Inverary. They had
recently been promised a complete emancipation. A grant, by
virtue of which their chief would have held his estate
immediately from the Crown, had been prepared, and was about to
pass the seals, when the Revolution suddenly extinguished a hope
which amounted almost to certainty.326

The Macleans remembered that, only fourteen years before, their
lands had been invaded and the seat of their chief taken and
garrisoned by the Campbells.327 Even before William and Mary had
been proclaimed at Edinburgh, a Maclean, deputed doubtless by the
head of his tribe, had crossed the sea to Dublin, and had assured
James that, if two or three battalions from Ireland were landed
in Argyleshire, they would be immediately joined by four thousand
four hundred claymores.328

A similar spirit animated the Camerons. Their ruler, Sir Ewan
Cameron, of Lochiel, surnamed the Black, was in personal
qualities unrivalled among the Celtic princes. He was a gracious
master, a trusty ally, a terrible enemy. His countenance and
bearing were singularly noble. Some persons who had been at
Versailles, and among them the shrewd and observant Simon Lord
Lovat, said that there was, in person and manner, a most striking
resemblance between Lewis the Fourteenth and Lochiel; and whoever
compares the portraits of the two will perceive that there really
was some likeness. In stature the difference was great. Lewis, in
spite of highheeled shoes and a towering wig, hardly reached the
middle size. Lochiel was tall and strongly built. In agility and
skill at his weapons he had few equals among the inhabitants of
the hills. He had repeatedly been victorious in single combat. He
was a hunter of great fame. He made vigorous war on the wolves
which, down to his time, preyed on the red deer of the Grampians;
and by his hand perished the last of the ferocious breed which is
known to have wandered at large in our island. Nor was Lochiel
less distinguished by intellectual than by bodily vigour. He
might indeed have seemed ignorant to educated and travelled
Englishmen, who had studied the classics under Busby at
Westminster and under Aldrich at Oxford, who had learned
something about the sciences among Fellows of the Royal Society,
and something about the fine arts in the galleries of Florence
and Rome. But though Lochiel had very little knowledge of books,
he was eminently wise in council, eloquent in debate, ready in
devising expedients, and skilful in managing the minds of men.
His understanding preserved him from those follies into which
pride and anger frequently hurried his brother chieftains. Many,
therefore, who regarded his brother chieftains as mere
barbarians, mentioned him with respect. Even at the Dutch Embassy
in St. James's Square he was spoken of as a man of such capacity
and courage that it would not be easy to find his equal. As a
patron of literature he ranks with the magnificent Dorset. If
Dorset out of his own purse allowed Dryden a pension equal to the
profits of the Laureateship, Lochiel is said to have bestowed on
a celebrated bard, who had been plundered by marauders, and who
implored alms in a pathetic Gaelic ode, three cows and the almost
incredible sum of fifteen pounds sterling. In truth, the
character of this great chief was depicted two thousand five
hundred years before his birth, and depicted,--such is the power
of genius,--in colours which will be fresh as many years after
his death. He was the Ulysses of the Highlands.329

He held a large territory peopled by a race which reverenced no
lord, no king but himself. For that territory, however, he owed
homage to the House of Argyle. He was bound to assist his feudal
superiors in war, and was deeply in debt to them for rent. This
vassalage he had doubtless been early taught to consider as
degrading and unjust. In his minority he had been the ward in
chivalry of the politic Marquess, and had been educated at the
Castle of Inverary. But at eighteen the boy broke loose from the
authority of his guardian, and fought bravely both for Charles
the First and for Charles the Second. He was therefore considered
by the English as a Cavalier, was well received at Whitehall
after the Restoration, and was knighted by the hand of James. The
compliment, however, which was paid to him, on one of his
appearances at the English Court, would not have seemed very
flattering to a Saxon. "Take care of your pockets, my lords,"
cried his Majesty; "here comes the king of the thieves." The
loyalty of Lochiel is almost proverbial: but it was very unlike
what was called loyalty in England. In the Records of the
Scottish Parliament he was, in the days of Charles the Second,
described as a lawless and rebellious man, who held lands
masterfully and in high contempt of the royal authority.330 On
one occasion the Sheriff of Invernessshire was directed by King
James to hold a court in Lochaber. Lochiel, jealous of this
interference with his own patriarchal despotism, came to the
tribunal at the head of four hundred armed Camerons. He affected
great reverence for the royal commission, but he dropped three or
four words which were perfectly understood by the pages and
armourbearers, who watched every turn of his eye. "Is none of my
lads so clever as to send this judge packing? I have seen them
get up a quarrel when there was less need of one." In a moment a
brawl began in the crowd, none could say how or where. Hundreds
of dirks were out: cries of "Help" and "Murder" were raised on
all sides: many wounds were inflicted: two men were killed: the
sitting broke up in tumult; and the terrified Sheriff was forced
to put himself under the protection of the chief, who, with a
plausible bow of respect and concern, escorted him safe home. It
is amusing to think that the man who performed this feat is
constantly extolled as the most faithful and dutiful of subjects
by writers who blame Somers and Burnet as contemners of the
legitimate authority of Sovereigns. Lochiel would undoubtedly
have laughed the doctrine of nonresistance to scorn. But scarcely
any chief in Invernessshire had gained more than he by the
downfall of the House of Argyle, or had more reason than he to
dread the restoration of that House. Scarcely any chief in
Invernessshire, therefore, was more alarmed and disgusted by the
proceedings of the Convention.

But of all those Highlanders who looked on the recent turn of
fortune with painful apprehension the fiercest and the most
powerful were the Macdonalds. More than one of the magnates who
bore that widespread name laid claim to the honour of being the
rightful successor of those Lords of the Isles, who, as late as
the fifteenth century, disputed the preeminence of the Kings of
Scotland. This genealogical controversy, which has lasted down to
our own time, caused much bickering among the competitors. But
they all agreed in regretting the past splendour of their
dynasty, and in detesting the upstart race of Campbell. The old
feud had never slumbered. It was still constantly repeated, in
verse and prose, that the finest part of the domain belonging to
the ancient heads of the Gaelic nation, Islay, where they had
lived with the pomp of royalty, Iona, where they had been
interred with the pomp of religion, the paps of Jura, the rich
peninsula of Kintyre, had been transferred from the legitimate
possessors to the insatiable Mac Callum More. Since the downfall
of the House of Argyle, the Macdonalds, if they had not regained
their ancient superiority, might at least boast that they had now
no superior. Relieved from the fear of their mighty enemy in the
West, they had turned their arms against weaker enemies in the
East, against the clan of Mackintosh and against the town of
Inverness.

The clan of Mackintosh, a branch of an ancient and renowned tribe
which took its name and badge from the wild cat of the forests,
had a dispute with the Macdonalds, which originated, if tradition
may be believed, in those dark times when the Danish pirates
wasted the coasts of Scotland. Inverness was a Saxon colony among
the Celts, a hive of traders and artisans in the midst of a
population of loungers and plunderers, a solitary outpost of
civilisation in a region of barbarians. Though the buildings
covered but a small part of the space over which they now extend;
though the arrival of a brig in the port was a rare event; though
the Exchange was the middle of a miry street, in which stood a
market cross much resembling a broken milestone; though the
sittings of the municipal council were held in a filthy den with
a roughcast wall; though the best houses were such as would now
be called hovels; though the best roofs were of thatch; though
the best ceilings were of bare rafters; though the best windows
were, in bad weather, closed with shutters for want of glass;
though the humbler dwellings were mere heaps of turf, in which
barrels with the bottoms knocked out served the purpose of
chimneys; yet to the mountaineer of the Grampians this city was
as Babylon or as Tyre. Nowhere else had he seen four or five
hundred houses, two churches, twelve maltkilns, crowded close
together. Nowhere else had he been dazzled by the splendour of
rows of booths, where knives, horn spoons, tin kettles, and gaudy
ribands were exposed to sale. Nowhere else had he been on board
of one of those huge ships which brought sugar and wine over the
sea from countries far beyond the limits of his geography.331 It
is not strange that the haughty and warlike Macdonalds, despising
peaceful industry, yet envying the fruits of that industry,
should have fastened a succession of quarrels on the people of
Inverness. In the reign of Charles the Second, it had been
apprehended that the town would be stormed and plundered by those
rude neighbours. The terms of peace which they offered showed how
little they regarded the authority of the prince and of the law.
Their demand was that a heavy tribute should be paid to them,
that the municipal magistrates should bind themselves by an oath
to deliver tip to the vengeance of the clan every burgher who
should shed the blood of a Macdonald, and that every burgher who
should anywhere meet a person wearing the Macdonald tartan should
ground arms in token of submission. Never did Lewis the
Fourteenth, not even when he was encamped between Utrecht and
Amsterdam, treat the States General with such despotic
insolence.332 By the intervention of the Privy Council of
Scotland a compromise was effected: but the old animosity was
undiminished.

Common enmities and common apprehensions produced a good
understanding between the town and the clan of Mackintosh. The
foe most hated and dreaded by both was Colin Macdonald of
Keppoch, an excellent specimen of the genuine Highland Jacobite.
Keppoch's whole life had been passed in insulting and resisting
the authority of the Crown. He had been repeatedly charged on his
allegiance to desist from his lawless practices, but had treated
every admonition with contempt. The government, however, was not
willing to resort to extremities against him; and he long
continued to rule undisturbed the stormy peaks of Coryarrick, and
the gigantic terraces which still mark the limits of what was
once the Lake of Glenroy. He was famed for his knowledge of all
the ravines and caverns of that dreary region; and such was the
skill with which he could track a herd of cattle to the most
secret hidingplace that he was known by the nickname of Coll of
the Cows.333 At length his outrageous violations of all law
compelled the Privy Council to take decided steps. He was
proclaimed a rebel: letters of fire and sword were issued against
him under the seal of James; and, a few weeks before the
Revolution, a body of royal troops, supported by the whole
strength of the Mackintoshes, marched into Keppoch's territories.
He gave battle to the invaders, and was victorious. The King's
forces were put to flight; the King's captain was slain; and this
by a hero whose loyalty to the King many writers have very
complacently contrasted with the factious turbulence of the
Whigs.334

If Keppoch had ever stood in any awe of the government, he was
completely relieved from that feeling by the general anarchy
which followed the Revolution. He wasted the lands of the
Mackintoshes, advanced to Inverness, and threatened the town with
destruction. The danger was extreme. The houses were surrounded
only by a wall which time and weather had so loosened that it
shook in every storm. Yet the inhabitants showed a bold front;
and their courage was stimulated by their preachers. Sunday the
twenty-eighth of April was a day of alarm and confusion. The
savages went round and round the small colony of Saxons like a
troop of famished wolves round a sheepfold. Keppoch threatened
and blustered. He would come in with all his men. He would sack
the place. The burghers meanwhile mustered in arms round the
market cross to listen to the oratory of their ministers. The day
closed without an assault; the Monday and the Tuesday passed away
in intense anxiety; and then an unexpected mediator made his
appearance.

Dundee, after his flight from Edinburgh, had retired to his
country seat in that valley through which the Glamis descends to
the ancient castle of Macbeth. Here he remained quiet during some
time. He protested that he had no intention of opposing the new
government. He declared himself ready to return to Edinburgh, if
only he could be assured that he should be protected against
lawless violence; and he offered to give his word of honour, or,
if that were not sufficient, to give bail, that he would keep the
peace. Some of his old soldiers had accompanied him, and formed a
garrison sufficient to protect his house against the
Presbyterians of the neighbourhood. Here he might possibly have
remained unharmed and harmless, had not an event for which he was
not answerable made his enemies implacable, and made him
desperate.335

An emissary of James had crossed from Ireland to Scotland with
letters addressed to Dundee and Balcarras. Suspicion was excited.
The messenger was arrested, interrogated, and searched; and the
letters were found. Some of them proved to be from Melfort, and
were worthy of him. Every line indicated those qualities which
had made him the abhorrence of his country and the favourite of
his master. He announced with delight the near approach of the
day of vengeance and rapine, of the day when the estates of the
seditious would be divided among the loyal, and when many who had
been great and prosperous would be exiles and beggars. The King,
Melfort said, was determined to be severe. Experience had at
length convinced his Majesty that mercy would be weakness. Even
the Jacobites were disgusted by learning that a Restoration would
be immediately followed by a confiscation and a proscription.
Some of them did not hesitate to say that Melfort was a villain,
that he hated Dundee and Balcarras, that he wished to ruin them,
and that, for that end, he had written these odious despatches,
and had employed a messenger who had very dexterously managed to
be caught. It is however quite certain that Melfort, after the
publication of these papers, continued to stand as high as ever
in the favour of James. It can therefore hardly be doubted that,
in those passages which shocked even the zealous supporters of
hereditary right, the Secretary merely expressed with fidelity
the feelings and intentions of his master.336 Hamilton, by virtue
of the powers which the Estates had, before their adjournment,
confided to him, ordered Balcarras and Dundee to be arrested.
Balcarras was taken and confined, first in his own house, and
then in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh. But to seize Dundee was not so
easy an enterprise. As soon as he heard that warrants were out
against him, he crossed the Dee with his followers, and remained
a short time in the wild domains of the House of Gordon. There he
held some communications with the Macdonalds and Camerons about a
rising. But he seems at this time to have known little and cared
little about the Highlanders. For their national character he
probably felt the dislike of a Saxon, for their military
character the contempt of a professional soldier. He soon
returned to the Lowlands, and stayed there till he learned that a
considerable body of troops had been sent to apprehend him.337 He
then betook himself to the hill country as his last refuge,
pushed northward through Strathdon and Strathbogie, crossed the
Spey, and, on the morning of the first of May, arrived with a
small band of horsemen at the camp of Keppoch before Inverness.

The new situation in which Dundee was now placed, the new view of
society which was presented to him, naturally suggested new
projects to his inventive and enterprising spirit. The hundreds
of athletic Celts whom he saw in their national order of battle
were evidently not allies to be despised. If he could form a
great coalition of clans, if he could muster under one banner ten
or twelve thousand of those hardy warriors, if he could induce
them to submit to the restraints of discipline, what a career
might be before him!

A commission from King James, even when King James was securely
seated on the throne, had never been regarded with much respect
by Coll of the Cows. That chief, however, hated the Campbells
with all the hatred of a Macdonald, and promptly gave in his
adhesion to the cause of the House of Stuart. Dundee undertook to
settle the dispute between Keppoch and Inverness. The town agreed
to pay two thousand dollars, a sum which, small as it might be in
the estimation of the goldsmiths of Lombard Street, probably
exceeded any treasure that had ever been carried into the wilds
of Coryarrick. Half the sum was raised, not without difficulty,
by the inhabitants; and Dundee is said to have passed his word
for the remainder.338

He next tried to reconcile the Macdonalds with the Mackintoshes,
and flattered himself that the two warlike tribes, lately arrayed
against each other, might be willing to fight side by side under
his command. But he soon found that it was no light matter to
take up a Highland feud. About the rights of the contending Kings
neither clan knew any thing or cared any thing. The conduct of
both is to be ascribed to local passions and interests. What
Argyle was to Keppoch, Keppoch was to the Mackintoshes. The
Mackintoshes therefore remained neutral; and their example was
followed by the Macphersons, another branch of the race of the
wild cat. This was not Dundee's only disappointment. The
Mackenzies, the Frasers, the Grants, the Munros, the Mackays, the
Macleods, dwelt at a great distance from the territory of Mac
Callum More. They had no dispute with him; they owed no debt to
him: and they had no reason to dread the increase of his power.
They therefore did not sympathize with his alarmed and
exasperated neighbours, and could not be induced to join the
confederacy against him.339 Those chiefs, on the other hand, who
lived nearer to Inverary, and to whom the name of Campbell had
long been terrible and hateful, greeted Dundee eagerly, and
promised to meet him at the head of their followers on the
eighteenth of May. During the fortnight which preceded that day,
he traversed Badenoch and Athol, and exhorted the inhabitants of
those districts to rise in arms. He dashed into the Lowlands with
his horsemen, surprised Perth, and carried off some Whig
gentlemen prisoners to the mountains. Meanwhile the fiery crosses
had been wandering from hamlet to hamlet over all the heaths and
mountains thirty miles round Ben Nevis; and when he reached the
trysting place in Lochaber he found that the gathering had begun.
The head quarters were fixed close to Lochiel's house, a large
pile built entirely of fir wood, and considered in the Highlands
as a superb palace. Lochiel, surrounded by more than six hundred
broadswords, was there to receive his guests. Macnaghten of
Macnaghten and Stewart of Appin were at the muster with their
little clans. Macdonald of Keppoch led the warriors who had, a
few months before, under his command, put to flight the
musketeers of King James. Macdonald of Clanronald was of tender
years: but he was brought to the camp by his uncle, who acted at
Regent during the minority. The youth was attended by a picked
body guard composed of his own cousins, all comely in appearance,
and good men of their hands. Macdonald of Glengarry, conspicuous
by his dark brow and his lofty stature, came from that great
valley where a chain of lakes, then unknown to fame, and scarcely
set down in maps, is now the daily highway of steam vessels
passing and reprising between the Atlantic and the German Ocean.
None of the rulers of the mountains had a higher sense of his
personal dignity, or was more frequently engaged in disputes with
other chiefs. He generally affected in his manners and in his
housekeeping a rudeness beyond that of his rude neighbours, and
professed to regard the very few luxuries which had then found
their way from the civilised parts of the world into the
Highlands as signs of the effeminacy and degeneracy of the Gaelic
race. But on this occasion he chose to imitate the splendour of
Saxon warriors, and rode on horseback before his four hundred
plaided clansmen in a steel cuirass and a coat embroidered with
gold lace. Another Macdonald, destined to a lamentable and
horrible end, led a band of hardy freebooters from the dreary
pass of Glencoe. Somewhat later came the great Hebridean
potentates. Macdonald of Sleat, the most opulent and powerful of
all the grandees who laid claim to the lofty title of Lord of the
Isles, arrived at the head of seven hundred fighting men from
Sky. A fleet of long boats brought five hundred Macleans from
Mull under the command of their chief, Sir John of Duart. A far
more formidable array had in old times followed his forefathers
to battle. But the power, though not the spirit, of the clan had
been broken by the arts and arms of the Campbells. Another band
of Macleans arrived under a valiant leader, who took his title
from Lochbuy, which is, being interpreted, the Yellow Lake.340

It does not appear that a single chief who had not some special
cause to dread and detest the House of Argyle obeyed Dundee's
summons. There is indeed strong reason to believe that the chiefs
who came would have remained quietly at home if the government
had understood the politics of the Highlands. Those politics were
thoroughly understood by one able and experienced statesman,
sprung from the great Highland family of Mackenzie, the Viscount
Tarbet. He at this conjuncture pointed out to Melville by letter,
and to Mackay in conversation, both the cause and the remedy of
the distempers which seemed likely to bring on Scotland the
calamities of civil war. There was, Tarbet said, no general
disposition to insurrection among the Gael. Little was to be
apprehended even from those popish clans which were under no
apprehension of being subjected to the yoke of the Campbells. It
was notorious that the ablest and most active of the discontented
chiefs troubled themselves not at all about the questions which
were in dispute between the Whigs and the Tories. Lochiel in
particular, whose eminent personal qualities made him the most
important man among the mountaineers, cared no more for James
than for William. If the Camerons, the Macdonalds, and the
Macleans could be convinced that, under the new government, their
estates and their dignities would be safe, if Mac Callum More
would make some concessions, if their Majesties would take on
themselves the payment of some arrears of rent, Dundee might call
the clans to arms; but he would call to little purpose. Five
thousand pounds, Tarbet thought, would be sufficient to quiet all
the Celtic magnates; and in truth, though that sum might seem
ludicrously small to the politicians of Westminster, though it
was not larger than the annual gains of the Groom of the Stole or
of the Paymaster of the Forces, it might well be thought immense
by a barbarous potentate who, while he ruled hundreds of square
miles, and could bring hundreds of warriors into the field, had
perhaps never had fifty guineas at once in his coffers.341

Though Tarbet was considered by the Scottish ministers of the new
Sovereigns as a very doubtful friend, his advice was not
altogether neglected. It was resolved that overtures such as he
recommended should be made to the malecontents. Much depended on
the choice of an agent; and unfortunately the choice showed how
little the prejudices of the wild tribes of the hills were
understood at Edinburgh. A Campbell was selected for the office
of gaining over to the cause of King William men whose only
quarrel to King William was that he countenanced the Campbells.
Offers made through such a channel were naturally regarded as at
once snares and insults. After this it was to no purpose that
Tarbet wrote to Lochiel and Mackay to Glengarry. Lochiel returned
no answer to Tarbet; and Glengarry returned to Mackay a coldly
civil answer, in which the general was advised to imitate the
example of Monk.342

Mackay, meanwhile, wasted some weeks in marching, in
countermarching, and in indecisive skirmishing. He afterwards
honestly admitted that the knowledge which he had acquired,
during thirty years of military service on the Continent, was, in
the new situation in which he was placed, useless to him. It was
difficult in such a country to track the enemy. It was impossible
to drive him to bay. Food for an invading army was not to be
found in the wilderness of heath and shingle; nor could supplies
for many days be transported far over quaking bogs and up
precipitous ascents. The general found that he had tired his men
and their horses almost to death, and yet had effected nothing.
Highland auxiliaries might have been of the greatest use to him:
but he had few such auxiliaries. The chief of the Grants, indeed,
who had been persecuted by the late government, and had been
accused of conspiring with the unfortunate Earl of Argyle, was
zealous on the side of the Revolution. Two hundred Mackays,
animated probably by family feeling, came from the northern
extremity of our island, where at midsummer there is no night, to
fight under a commander of their own name: but in general the
clans which took no part in the insurrection awaited the event
with cold indifference, and pleased themselves with the hope that
they should easily make their peace with the conquerors, and be
permitted to assist in plundering the conquered.

An experience of little more than a month satisfied Mackay that
there was only one way in which the Highlands could be subdued.
It was idle to run after the mountaineers up and down their
mountains. A chain of fortresses must be built in the most
important situations, and must be well garrisoned. The place with
which the general proposed to begin was Inverlochy, where the
huge remains of an ancient castle stood and still stand. This
post was close to an arm of the sea, and was in the heart of the
country occupied by the discontented clans. A strong force
stationed there, and supported, if necessary, by ships of war,
would effectually overawe at once the Macdonalds, the Camerons,
and the Macleans.343

While Mackay was representing in his letters to the council at
Edinburgh the necessity of adopting this plan, Dundee was
contending with difficulties which all his energy and dexterity
could not completely overcome.

The Highlanders, while they continued to be a nation living under
a peculiar polity, were in one sense better and in another sense
worse fitted for military purposes than any other nation in
Europe. The individual Celt was morally and physically well
qualified for war, and especially for war in so wild and rugged a
country as his own. He was intrepid, strong, fleet, patient of
cold, of hunger, and of fatigue. Up steep crags, and over
treacherous morasses, he moved as easily as the French household
troops paced along the great road from Versailles to Marli. He
was accustomed to the use of weapons and to the sight of blood:
he was a fencer; he was a marksman; and, before he had ever stood
in the ranks, he was already more than half a soldier.

As the individual Celt was easily turned into a soldier, so a
tribe of Celts was easily turned into a battalion of soldiers.
All that was necessary was that the military organization should
be conformed to the patriarchal organization. The Chief must be
Colonel: his uncle or his brother must be Major: the tacksmen,
who formed what may be called the peerage of the little
community, must be the Captains: the company of each Captain must
consist of those peasants who lived on his land, and whose names,
faces, connections, and characters, were perfectly known to him:
the subaltern officers must be selected among the Duinhe Wassels,
proud of the eagle's feather: the henchman was an excellent
orderly: the hereditary piper and his sons formed the band: and
the clan became at once a regiment. In such a regiment was found
from the first moment that exact order and prompt obedience in
which the strength of regular armies consists. Every man, from
highest to lowest, was in his proper place, and knew that place
perfectly. It was not necessary to impress by threats or by
punishment on the newly enlisted troops the duty of regarding as
their head him whom they had regarded as their head ever since
they could remember any thing. Every private had, from infancy,
respected his corporal much and his Captain more, and had almost
adored his Colonel. There was therefore no danger of mutiny.
There was as little danger of desertion. Indeed the very feelings
which most powerfully impel other soldiers to desert kept the
Highlander to his standard. If he left it, whither was he to go?
All his kinsmen, all his friends, were arrayed round it. To separate himself
from it was to separate himself for ever from his family, and to
incur all the misery of that very homesickness which, in regular
armies, drives so many recruits to abscond at the risk of stripes
and of death. When these things are fairly considered, it will
not be thought strange that the Highland clans should have
occasionally achieved great martial exploits.

But those very institutions which made a tribe of highlanders,
all bearing the same name, and all subject to the same ruler, so
formidable in battle, disqualified the nation for war on a large
scale. Nothing was easier than to turn clans into efficient
regiments; but nothing was more difficult than to combine these
regiments in such a manner as to form an efficient army. From the
shepherds and herdsmen who fought in the ranks up to the chiefs,
all was harmony and order. Every man looked up to his immediate
superior, and all looked up to the common head. But with the
chief this chain of subordination ended. He knew only how to
govern, and had never learned to obey. Even to royal
proclamations, even to Acts of Parliament, he was accustomed to
yield obedience only when they were in perfect accordance with
his own inclinations. It was not to be expected that he would pay
to any delegated authority a respect which he was in the habit of
refusing to the supreme authority. He thought himself entitled to
judge of the propriety of every order which he received. Of his
brother chiefs, some were his enemies and some his rivals. It was
hardly possible to keep him from affronting them, or to convince
him that they were not affronting him. All his followers
sympathized with all his animosities, considered his honour as
their own, and were ready at his whistle to array themselves
round him in arms against the commander in chief. There was
therefore very little chance that by any contrivance any five
clans could be induced to cooperate heartily with one another
during a long campaign. The best chance, however, was when they
were led by a Saxon. It is remarkable that none of the great
actions performed by the Highlanders during our civil wars was
performed under the command of a Highlander. Some writers have
mentioned it as a proof of the extraordinary genius of Montrose
and Dundee that those captains, though not themselves of Gaelic
race or speech, should have been able to form and direct
confederacies of Gaelic tribes. But in truth it was precisely
because Montrose and Dundee were not Highlanders, that they were
able to lead armies composed of Highland clans. Had Montrose been
chief of the Camerons, the Macdonalds would never have submitted
to his authority. Had Dundee been chief of Clanronald, he would
never have been obeyed by Glengarry. Haughty and punctilious men,
who scarcely acknowledged the king to be their superior, would
not have endured the superiority of a neighbour, an equal, a
competitor. They could far more easily bear the preeminence of a
distinguished stranger, yet even to such a stranger they would
allow only a very limited and a very precarious authority. To
bring a chief before a court martial, to shoot him, to cashier
him, to degrade him, to reprimand him publicly, was impossible.
Macdonald of Keppoch or Maclean of Duart would have struck dead
any officer who had demanded his sword, and told him to consider
himself as under arrest; and hundreds of claymores would
instantly have been drawn to protect the murderer. All that was
left to the commander under whom these potentates condescended to
serve was to argue with them, to supplicate them, to flatter
them, to bribe them; and it was only during a short time that any
human skill could preserve harmony by these means. For every
chief thought himself entitled to peculiar observance; and it was
therefore impossible to pay marked court to any one without
disobliging the rest. The general found himself merely the
president of a congress of petty kings. He was perpetually called
upon to hear and to compose disputes about pedigrees, about
precedence, about the division of spoil. His decision, be it what
it might, must offend somebody. At any moment he might hear that
his right wing had fired on his centre in pursuance of some
quarrel two hundred years old, or that a whole battalion had
marched back to its native glen, because another battalion had
been put in the post of honour. A Highland bard might easily have
found in the history of the year 1689 subjects very similar to
those with which the war of Troy furnished the great poets of
antiquity. One day Achilles is sullen, keeps his tent, and
announces his intention to depart with all his men. The next day
Ajax is storming about the camp, and threatening to cut the
throat of Ulysses.

Hence it was that, though the Highlanders achieved some great
exploits in the civil wars of the seventeenth century, those
exploits left no trace which could be discerned after the lapse
of a few weeks. Victories of strange and almost portentous
splendour produced all the consequences of defeat. Veteran
soldiers and statesmen were bewildered by those sudden turns of
fortune. It was incredible that undisciplined men should have
performed such feats of arms. It was incredible that such feats
of arms, having been performed, should be immediately followed by
the triumph of the conquered and the submission of the
conquerors. Montrose, having passed rapidly from victory to
victory, was, in the full career of success, suddenly abandoned
by his followers. Local jealousies and local interests had
brought his army together. Local jealousies and local interests
dissolved it. The Gordons left him because they fancied that he
neglected them for the Macdonalds. The Macdonalds left him
because they wanted to plunder the Campbells. The force which had
once seemed sufficient to decide the fate of a kingdom melted
away in a few days; and the victories of Tippermuir and Kilsyth
were followed by the disaster of Philiphaugh. Dundee did not live
long enough to experience a similar reverse of fortune; but there
is every reason to believe that, had his life been prolonged one
fortnight, his history would have been the history of Montrose
retold.

Dundee made one attempt, soon after the gathering of the clans in
Lochaber, to induce them to submit to the discipline of a regular
army. He called a council of war to consider this question. His
opinion was supported by all the officers who had joined him from
the low country. Distinguished among them were James Seton, Earl
of Dunfermline, and James Galloway, Lord Dunkeld. The Celtic
chiefs took the other side. Lochiel, the ablest among them, was
their spokesman, and argued the point with much ingenuity and
natural eloquence. "Our system,"--such was the substance of his
reasoning, "may not be the best: but we were bred to it from
childhood: we understand it perfectly: it is suited to our
peculiar institutions, feelings, and manners. Making war after
our own fashion, we have the expertness and coolness of veterans.
Making war in any other way, we shall be raw and awkward
recruits. To turn us into soldiers like those of Cromwell and
Turenne would be the business of years: and we have not even
weeks to spare. We have time enough to unlearn our own
discipline, but not time enough to learn yours." Dundee, with
high compliments to Lochiel, declared himself convinced, and
perhaps was convinced: for the reasonings of the wise old chief
were by no means without weight.344

Yet some Celtic usages of war were such as Dundee could not
tolerate. Cruel as he was, his cruelty always had a method and a
purpose. He still hoped that he might be able to win some chiefs
who remained neutral; and he carefully avoided every act which
could goad them into open hostility. This was undoubtedly a
policy likely to promote the interest of James; but the interest
of James was nothing to the wild marauders who used his name and
rallied round his banner merely for the purpose of making
profitable forays and wreaking old grudges. Keppoch especially,
who hated the Mackintoshes much more than he loved the Stuarts,
not only plundered the territory of his enemies, but burned
whatever he could not carry away. Dundee was moved to great wrath
by the sight of the blazing dwellings. "I would rather," he said,
"carry a musket in a respectable regiment than be captain of such
a gang of thieves." Punishment was of course out of the question.
Indeed it may be considered as a remarkable proof of the
general's influence that Coll of the Cows deigned to apologize
for conduct for which in a well governed army he would have been
shot.345

As the Grants were in arms for King William, their property was
considered as fair prize. Their territory was invaded by a party
of Camerons: a skirmish took place: some blood was shed; and many
cattle were carried off to Dundee's camp, where provisions were
greatly needed. This raid produced a quarrel, the history of
which illustrates in the most striking manner the character of a
Highland army. Among those who were slain in resisting the
Camerons was a Macdonald of the Glengarry branch, who had long
resided among the Grants, had become in feelings and opinions a
Grant, and had absented himself from the muster of his tribe.
Though he had been guilty of a high offence against the Gaelic
code of honour and morality, his kinsmen remembered the sacred
tie which he had forgotten. Good or bad, he was bone of their
bone: he was flesh of their flesh; and he should have been
reserved for their justice. The name which he bore, the blood of
the Lords of the Isles, should have been his protection.
Glengarry in a rage went to Dundee and demanded vengeance on
Lochiel and the whole race of Cameron. Dundee replied that the
unfortunate gentleman who had fallen was a traitor to the clan as
well as to the King. Was it ever heard of in war that the person
of an enemy, a combatant in arms, was to be held inviolable on
account of his name and descent? And, even if wrong had been
done, how was it to be redressed? Half the army must slaughter
the other half before a finger could be laid on Lochiel.
Glengarry went away raging like a madman. Since his complaints
were disregarded by those who ought to right him, he would right
himself: he would draw out his men, and fall sword in hand on the
murderers of his cousin. During some time he would listen to no
expostulation. When he was reminded that Lochiel's followers were
in number nearly double of the Glengarry men, "No matter," he
cried, "one Macdonald is worth two Camerons." Had Lochiel been
equally irritable and boastful, it is probable that the Highland
insurrection would have given little more trouble to the
government, and that the rebels would have perished obscurely in
the wilderness by one another's claymores. But nature had
bestowed on him in large measure the qualities of a statesman,
though fortune had hidden those qualities in an obscure corner of
the world. He saw that this was not a time for brawling: his own
character for courage had long been established; and his temper
was under strict government. The fury of Glengarry, not being
inflamed by any fresh provocation, rapidly abated. Indeed there
were some who suspected that he had never been quite so
pugnacious as he had affected to be, and that his bluster was
meant only to keep up his own dignity in the eyes of his
retainers. However this might be, the quarrel was composed; and
the two chiefs met, with the outward show of civility, at the
general's table.346

What Dundee saw of his Celtic allies must have made him desirous
to have in his army some troops on whose obedience he could
depend, and who would not, at a signal from their colonel, turn
their arms against their general and their king. He accordingly,
during the months of May and June, sent to Dublin a succession of
letters earnestly imploring assistance. If six thousand, four
thousand, three thousand, regular soldiers were now sent to
Lochaber, he trusted that his Majesty would soon hold a court in
Holyrood. That such a force might be spared hardly admitted of a
doubt. The authority of James was at that time acknowledged in
every part of Ireland, except on the shores of Lough Erne and
behind the ramparts of Londonderry. He had in that kingdom an
army of forty thousand men. An eighth part of such an army would
scarcely be missed there, and might, united with the clans which
were in insurrection, effect great things in Scotland.

Dundee received such answers to his applications as encouraged
him to hope that a large and well appointed force would soon be
sent from Ulster to join him. He did not wish to try the chance
of battle before these succours arrived.347 Mackay, on the other
hand, was weary of marching to and fro in a desert. His men were
exhausted and out of heart. He thought it desirable that they
should withdraw from the hill country; and William was of the
same opinion.

In June therefore the civil war was, as if by concert between the
generals, completely suspended. Dundee remained in Lochaber,
impatiently awaiting the arrival of troops and supplies from
Ireland. It was impossible for him to keep his Highlanders
together in a state of inactivity. A vast extent of moor and
mountain was required to furnish food for so many mouths. The
clans therefore went back to their own glens, having promised to
reassemble on the first summons.

Meanwhile Mackay's soldiers, exhausted by severe exertions and
privations, were taking their ease in quarters scattered over the
low country from Aberdeen to Stirling. Mackay himself was at
Edinburgh, and was urging the ministers there to furnish him with
the means of constructing a chain of fortifications among the
Grampians. The ministers had, it should seem, miscalculated their
military resources. It had been expected that the Campbells would
take the field in such force as would balance the whole strength
of the clans which marched under Dundee. It had also been
expected that the Covenanters of the West would hasten to swell
the ranks of the army of King William. Both expectations were
disappointed. Argyle had found his principality devastated, and
his tribe disarmed and disorganized. A considerable time must
elapse before his standard would be surrounded by an array such
as his forefathers had led to battle. The Covenanters of the West
were in general unwilling to enlist. They were assuredly not
wanting in courage; and they hated Dundee with deadly hatred. In
their part of the country the memory of his cruelty was still
fresh. Every village had its own tale of blood. The greyheaded
father was missed in one dwelling, the hopeful stripling in
another. It was remembered but too well how the dragoons had
stalked into the peasant's cottage, cursing and damning him,
themselves, and each other at every second word, pushing from the
ingle nook his grandmother of eighty, and thrusting their hands
into the bosom of his daughter of sixteen; how the abjuration had
been tendered to him; how he had folded his arms and said "God's
will be done"; how the Colonel had called for a file with loaded
muskets; and how in three minutes the goodman of the house had
been wallowing in a pool of blood at his own door. The seat of
the martyr was still vacant at the fireside; and every child
could point out his grave still green amidst the heath. When the
people of this region called their oppressor a servant of the
devil, they were not speaking figuratively. They believed that
between the bad man and the bad angel there was a close alliance
on definite terms; that Dundee had bound himself to do the work
of hell on earth, and that, for high purposes, hell was permitted
to protect its slave till the measure of his guilt should be
full. But, intensely as these men abhorred Dundee, most of them
had a scruple about drawing the sword for William. A great
meeting was held in the parish church of Douglas; and the
question was propounded, whether, at a time when war was in the
land, and when an Irish invasion was expected, it were not a duty
to take arms. The debate was sharp and tumultuous. The orators on
one side adjured their brethren not to incur the curse denounced
against the inhabitants of Meroz, who came not to the help of the
Lord against the mighty. The orators on the other side thundered
against sinful associations. There were malignants in William's
Army: Mackay's own orthodoxy was problematical: to take military
service with such comrades, and under such a general, would be a
sinful association. At length, after much wrangling, and amidst
great confusion, a vote was taken; and the majority pronounced
that to take military service would be a sinful association.
There was however a large minority; and, from among the members
of this minority, the Earl of Angus was able to raise a body of
infantry, which is still, after the lapse of more than a hundred
and sixty years, known by the name of the Cameronian Regiment.
The first Lieutenant Colonel was Cleland, that implacable avenger
of blood who had driven Dundee from the Convention. There was no
small difficulty in filling the ranks: for many West country
Whigs, who did not think it absolutely sinful to enlist, stood
out for terms subversive of all military discipline. Some would
not serve under any colonel, major, captain, serjeant, or
corporal, who was not ready to sign the Covenant. Others insisted
that, if it should be found absolutely necessary to appoint any
officer who had taken the tests imposed in the late reign, he
should at least qualify himself for command by publicly
confessing his sin at the head of the regiment. Most of the
enthusiasts who had proposed these conditions were induced by
dexterous management to abate much of their demands. Yet the new
regiment had a very peculiar character. The soldiers were all
rigid Puritans. One of their first acts was to petition the
Parliament that all drunkenness, licentiousness, and profaneness
might be severely punished. Their own conduct must have been
exemplary: for the worst crime which the most extravagant bigotry
could impute to them was that of huzzaing on the King's birthday.
It was originally intended that with the military organization of
the corps should he interwoven the organization of a Presbyterian
congregation. Each company was to furnish an elder; and the
elders were, with the chaplain, to form an ecclesiastical court
for the suppression of immorality and heresy. Elders, however,
were not appointed: but a noted hill preacher, Alexander Shields,
was called to the office of chaplain. It is not easy to conceive
that fanaticism can be heated to a higher temperature than that
which is indicated by the writings of Shields. According to him,
it should seem to be the first duty of a Christian ruler to
persecute to the death every heterodox subject, and the first
duty of every Christian subject to poniard a heterodox ruler. Yet
there was then in Scotland an enthusiasm compared with which the
enthusiasm even of this man was lukewarm. The extreme
Covenanters protested against his defection as vehemently as he
had protested against the Black Indulgence and the oath of
supremacy, and pronounced every man who entered Angus's regiment
guilty of a wicked confederacy with malignants.348

Meanwhile Edinburgh Castle had fallen, after holding out more
than two months. Both the defence and the attack had been
languidly conducted. The Duke of Gordon, unwilling to incur the
mortal hatred of those at whose mercy his lands and life might
soon be, did not choose to batter the city. The assailants, on
the other hand, carried on their operations with so little energy
and so little vigilance that a constant communication was kept up
between the Jacobites within the citadel and the Jacobites
without. Strange stories were told of the polite and facetious
messages which passed between the besieged and the besiegers. On
one occasion Gordon sent to inform the magistrates that he was
going to fire a salute on account of some news which he had
received from Ireland, but that the good town need not be
alarmed, for that his guns would not be loaded with ball. On
another occasion, his drums beat a parley: the white flag was
hung out: a conference took place; and he gravely informed the
enemy that all his cards had been thumbed to pieces, and begged
them to let him have a few more packs. His friends established a
telegraph by means of which they conversed with him across the
lines of sentinels. From a window in the top story of one of the
loftiest of those gigantic houses, a few of which still darken
the High Street, a white cloth was hung out when all was well,
and a black cloth when things went ill. If it was necessary to
give more detailed information, a board was held up inscribed
with capital letters so large that they could, by the help of a
telescope, be read on the ramparts of the castle. Agents laden
with letters and fresh provisions managed, in various disguises
and by various shifts, to cross the sheet of water which then lay
on the north of the fortress and to clamber up the precipitous
ascent. The peal of a musket from a particular half moon was the
signal which announced to the friends of the House of Stuart that
another of their emissaries had got safe up the rock. But at
length the supplies were exhausted; and it was necessary to
capitulate. Favourable terms were readily granted: the garrison
marched out; and the keys were delivered up amidst the
acclamations of a great multitude of burghers.349

But the government had far more acrimonious and more pertinacious
enemies in the Parliament House than in the Castle. When the
Estates reassembled after their adjournment, the crown and
sceptre of Scotland were displayed with the wonted pomp in the
hall as types of the absent sovereign. Hamilton rode in state
from Holyrood up the High Street as Lord High Commissioner; and
Crawford took his seat as President. Two Acts, one turning the
Convention into a Parliament, the other recognising William and
Mary as King and Queen, were rapidly passed and touched with the
sceptre; and then the conflict of factions began.350

It speedily appeared that the opposition which Montgomery had
organized was irresistibly strong. Though made up of many
conflicting elements, Republicans, Whigs, Tories, zealous
Presbyterians, bigoted Prelatists, it acted for a time as one
man, and drew to itself a multitude of those mean and timid
politicians who naturally gravitate towards the stronger party.
The friends of the government were few and disunited. Hamilton
brought but half a heart to the discharge of his duties. He had
always been unstable; and he was now discontented. He held indeed
the highest place to which a subject could aspire. But he
imagined that he had only the show of power while others enjoyed
the substance, and was not
sorry to see those of whom he was jealous thwarted and annoyed.
He did not absolutely betray the prince whom he represented: but
he sometimes tampered with the chiefs of the Club, and sometimes
did sly in turns to those who were joined with him in the
service of the Crown.

His instructions directed him to give the royal assent to laws
for the mitigating or removing of numerous grievances, and
particularly to a law restricting the power and reforming the
constitution of the Committee of Articles, and to a law
establishing the Presbyterian Church Government.351 But it
mattered not what his instructions were. The chiefs of the Club
were bent on finding a cause of quarrel. The propositions of the
Government touching the Lords of the Articles were contemptuously
rejected. Hamilton wrote to London for fresh directions; and soon
a second plan, which left little more than the name of the once
despotic Committee, was sent back. But the second plan, though
such as would have contented judicious and temperate reformers,
shared the fate of the first. Meanwhile the chiefs of the Club
laid on the table a law which interdicted the King from ever
employing in any public office any person who had ever borne any
part in any proceeding inconsistent with the Claim of Right, or
who had ever obstructed or retarded any good design of the
Estates. This law, uniting, within a very short compass, almost
all the faults which a law can have, was well known to be aimed
at the new Lord President of the Court of Session, and at his son
the new Lord Advocate. Their prosperity and power made them
objects of envy to every disappointed candidate for office. That
they were new men, the first of their race who had risen to
distinction, and that nevertheless they had, by the mere force of
ability, become as important in the state as the Duke of Hamilton
or the Earl of Argyle, was a thought which galled the hearts of
many needy and haughty patricians. To the Whigs of Scotland the
Dalrymples were what Halifax and Caermarthen were to the Whigs of
England. Neither the exile of Sir James, nor the zeal with which
Sir John had promoted the Revolution, was received as an
atonement for old delinquency. They had both served the bloody
and idolatrous House. They had both oppressed the people of God.
Their late repentance might perhaps give them a fair claim to
pardon, but surely gave them no right to honours and rewards.

The friends of the government in vain attempted to divert the
attention of the Parliament from the business of persecuting the
Dalrymple family to the important and pressing question of Church
Government. They said that the old system had been abolished;
that no other system had been substituted; that it was impossible
to say what was the established religion of the kingdom; and that
the first duty of the legislature was to put an end to an anarchy
which was daily producing disasters and crimes. The leaders of
the Club were not to be so drawn away from their object. It was
moved and resolved that the consideration of ecclesiastical
affairs should be postponed till secular affairs had been
settled. The unjust and absurd Act of Incapacitation was carried
by seventy-four voices to twenty-four. Another vote still more
obviously aimed at the House of Stair speedily followed. The
Parliament laid claim to a Veto on the nomination of the judges,
and assumed the power of stopping the signet, in other words, of
suspending the whole administration of justice, till this claim
should be allowed. It was plain from what passed in debate that,
though the chiefs of the Club had begun with the Court of
Session, they did not mean to end there. The arguments used by
Sir Patrick Hume and others led directly to the conclusion that
the King ought not to have the appointment of any great public
functionary. Sir Patrick indeed avowed, both in speech and in
writing, his opinion that the whole patronage of the realm
ought to be transferred from the Crown to the Estates. When the
place of Treasurer, of Chancellor, of Secretary, was vacant, the
Parliament ought to submit two or three names to his Majesty; and
one of those names his Majesty ought to be bound to select.352

All this time the Estates obstinately refused to grant any supply
till their Acts should have been touched with the sceptre. The
Lord High Commissioner was at length so much provoked by their
perverseness that, after long temporising, he refused to touch
even Acts which were in themselves unobjectionable, and to which
his instructions empowered him to consent. This state of things
would have ended in some great convulsion, if the King of
Scotland had not been also King of a much greater and more
opulent kingdom. Charles the First had never found any parliament
at Westminster more unmanageable than William, during this
session, found the parliament at Edinburgh. But it was not in the
power of the parliament at Edinburgh to put on William such a
pressure as the parliament at Westminster had put on Charles. A
refusal of supplies at Westminster was a serious thing, and left
the Sovereign no choice except to yield, or to raise money by
unconstitutional means, But a refusal of supplies at Edinburgh
reduced him to no such dilemma. The largest sum that he could
hope to receive from Scotland in a year was less than what he
received from England every fortnight. He had therefore only to
entrench himself within the limits of his undoubted prerogative,
and there to remain on the defensive, till some favourable
conjuncture should arrive.353

While these things were passing in the Parliament House, the
civil war in the Highlands, having been during a few weeks
suspended, broke forth again more violently than before. Since
the splendour of the House of Argyle had been eclipsed, no Gaelic
chief could vie in power with the Marquess of Athol. The district
from which he took his title, and of which he might almost be
called the sovereign, was in extent larger than an ordinary
county, and was more fertile, more diligently cultivated, and
more thickly peopled than the greater part of the Highlands. The
men who followed his banner were supposed to be not less numerous
than all the Macdonalds and Macleans united, and were, in
strength and courage, inferior to no tribe in the mountains. But
the clan had been made insignificant by the insignificance of the
chief. The Marquess was the falsest, the most fickle, the most
pusillanimous, of mankind. Already, in the short space of six
months, be had been several times a Jacobite, and several times a
Williamite. Both Jacobites and Williamites regarded him with
contempt and distrust, which respect for his immense power
prevented them from fully expressing. After repeatedly vowing
fidelity to both parties, and repeatedly betraying both, he began
to think that he should best provide for his safety by abdicating
the functions both of a peer and of a chieftain, by absenting
himself both from the Parliament House at Edinburgh and from his
castle in the mountains, and by quitting the country to which he
was bound by every tie of duty and honour at the very crisis of
her fate. While all Scotland was waiting with impatience and
anxiety to see in which army his numerous retainers would be
arrayed, he stole away to England, settled himself at Bath, and
pretended to drink the waters.354 His principality, left without
a head, was divided against itself. The general leaning of the
Athol men was towards King James. For they had been employed by
him, only four years before, as the ministers of his vengeance
against the House of Argyle. They had garrisoned Inverary: they
had ravaged Lorn: they had demolished houses, cut down fruit
trees, burned fishing boats, broken millstones, hanged Campbells,
and were therefore not likely to be pleased by the prospect of
Mac Callum Mores restoration. One word from the Marquess would
have sent two thousand claymores to the Jacobite side. But that
word he would not speak; and the consequence was, that the
conduct of his followers was as irresolute and inconsistent as
his own.

While they were waiting for some indication of his wishes, they
were called to arms at once by two leaders, either of whom might,
with some show of reason, claim to be considered as the
representative of the absent chief. Lord Murray, the Marquess's
eldest son, who was married to a daughter of the Duke of
Hamilton, declared for King William. Stewart of Ballenach, the
Marquess's confidential agent, declared for King James. The
people knew not which summons to obey. He whose authority would
have been held in profound reverence, had plighted faith to both
sides, and had then run away for fear of being under the
necessity of joining either; nor was it very easy to say
whether the place which he had left vacant belonged to his
steward or to his heir apparent.

The most important military post in Athol was Blair Castle. The
house which now bears that name is not distinguished by any
striking peculiarity from other country seats of the aristocracy.
The old building was a lofty tower of rude architecture which
commanded a vale watered by the Garry. The walls would have
offered very little resistance to a battering train, but were
quite strong enough to keep the herdsmen of the Grampians in awe.
About five miles south of this stronghold, the valley of the
Garry contracts itself into the celebrated glen of Killiecrankie.
At present a highway as smooth as any road in Middlesex ascends
gently from the low country to the summit of the defile. White
villas peep from the birch forest; and, on a fine summer day,
there is scarcely a turn of the pass at which may not be seen
some angler casting his fly on the foam of the river, some artist
sketching a pinnacle of rock, or some party of pleasure
banqueting on the turf in the fretwork of shade and sunshine.
But, in the days of William the Third, Killiecrankie was
mentioned with horror by the peaceful and industrious inhabitants
of the Perthshire lowlands. It was deemed the most perilous of
all those dark ravines through which the marauders of the hills
were wont to sally forth. The sound, so musical to modern ears,
of the river brawling round the mossy rocks and among the smooth
pebbles, the dark masses of crag and verdure worthy of the pencil
of Wilson, the fantastic peaks bathed, at sunrise and sunset,
with light rich as that which glows on the canvass of Claude,
suggested to our ancestors thoughts of murderous ambuscades and
of bodies stripped, gashed, and abandoned to the birds of prey.
The only path was narrow and rugged: a horse could with
difficulty be led up: two men could hardly walk abreast; and, in
some places, the way ran so close by the precipice that the
traveller had great need of a steady eye and foot. Many years
later, the first Duke of Athol constructed a road up which it was
just possible to drag his coach. But even that road was so steep
and so strait that a handful of resolute men might have defended
it against an army;355 nor did any Saxon consider a visit to
Killiecrankie as a pleasure, till experience had taught the
English Government that the weapons by which the Highlanders
could be most effectually subdued were the pickaxe and the spade.

The country which lay just above this pass was now the theatre of
a war such as the Highlands had not often witnessed. Men wearing
the same tartan, and attached to the same lord, were arrayed
against each other. The name of the absent chief was used, with
some show of reason, on both sides. Ballenach, at the head of a
body of vassals who considered him as the representative of the
Marquess, occupied Blair Castle. Murray, with twelve hundred
followers, appeared before the walls and demanded to be admitted
into the mansion of his family, the mansion which would one day
be his own. The garrison refused to open the gates. Messages were
sent off by the besiegers to Edinburgh, and by the besieged to
Lochaber.356 In both places the tidings produced great agitation.
Mackay and Dundee agreed in thinking that the crisis required
prompt and strenuous exertion. On the fate of Blair Castle
probably depended the fate of all Athol. On the fate of Athol
might depend the fate of Scotland. Mackay hastened northward, and
ordered his troops to assemble in the low country of Perthshire.
Some of them were quartered at such a distance that they did not
arrive in time. He soon, however, had with him the three Scotch
regiments which had served in Holland, and which bore the names
of their Colonels, Mackay himself, Balfour, and Ramsay. There was
also a gallant regiment of infantry from England, then called
Hastings's, but now known as the thirteenth of the line. With
these old troops were joined two regiments newly levied in the
Lowlands. One of them was commanded by Lord Kenmore; the other,
which had been raised on the Border, and which is still styled
the King's own Borderers, by Lord Leven. Two troops of horse,
Lord Annandale's and Lord Belhaven's, probably made up the army
to the number of above three thousand men. Belhaven rode at the
head of his troop: but Annandale, the most factious of all
Montgomery's followers, preferred the Club and the Parliament
House to the field.357

Dundee, meanwhile, had summoned all the clans which acknowledged
his commission to assemble for an expedition into Athol. His
exertions were strenuously seconded by Lochiel. The fiery crosses
were sent again in all haste through Appin and Ardnamurchan, up
Glenmore, and along Loch Leven. But the call was so unexpected,
and the time allowed was so short, that the muster was not a very
full one. The whole number of broadswords seems to have been
under three thousand. With this force, such as it was, Dundee set
forth. On his march he was joined by succours which had just
arrived from Ulster. They consisted of little more than three
hundred Irish foot, ill armed, ill clothed, and ill disciplined.
Their commander was an officer named Cannon, who had seen service
in the Netherlands, and who might perhaps have acquitted himself
well in a subordinate post and in a regular army, but who was
altogether unequal to the part now assigned to him.358 He had
already loitered among the Hebrides so long that some ships which
had been sent with him, and which were laden with stores, had
been taken by English cruisers. He and his soldiers had with
difficulty escaped the same fate. Incompetent as he was, he bore
a commission which gave him military rank in Scotland next to
Dundee.

The disappointment was severe. In truth James would have done
better to withhold all assistance from the Highlanders than to
mock them by sending them, instead of the well appointed army
which they had asked and expected, a rabble contemptible in
numbers and appearance. It was now evident that whatever was done
for his cause in Scotland must be done by Scottish hands.359

While Mackay from one side, and Dundee from the other, were
advancing towards Blair Castle, important events had taken place
there. Murray's adherents soon began to waver in their fidelity
to him. They had an old antipathy to Whigs; for they considered
the name of Whig as synonymous with the name of Campbell. They
saw arrayed against them a large number of their kinsmen,
commanded by a gentleman who was supposed to possess the
confidence of the Marquess. The besieging army therefore melted
rapidly away. Many returned home on the plea that, as their
neighbourhood was about to be the seat of war, they must place
their families and cattle in security. Others more ingenuously
declared that they would not fight in such a quarrel. One large
body went to a brook, filled their bonnets with water, drank a
health to King James, and then dispersed.360 Their zeal for King
James, however, did not induce them to join the standard of his
general. They lurked among the rocks and thickets which overhang
the Garry, in the hope that there would soon be a battle, and
that, whatever might be the event, there would be fugitives and
corpses to plunder.

Murray was in a strait. His force had dwindled to three or four
hundred men: even in those men he could put little trust; and the
Macdonalds and Camerons were advancing fast. He therefore raised
the siege of Blair Castle, and retired with a few followers into
the defile of Killiecrankie. There he was soon joined by a
detachment of two hundred fusileers whom Mackay had sent forward
to secure the pass. The main body of the Lowland army speedily
followed.361

Early in the morning of Saturday the twenty-seventh of July,
Dundee arrived at Blair Castle. There he learned that Mackay's
troops were already in the ravine of Killiecrankie. It was
necessary to come to a prompt decision. A council of war was
held. The Saxon officers were generally against hazarding a
battle. The Celtic chiefs were o£ a different opinion. Glengarry
and Lochiel were now both of a mind. "Fight, my Lord" said
Lochiel with his usual energy; "fight immediately: fight, if you
have only one to three. Our men are in heart. Their only fear is
that the enemy should escape. Give them their way; and be assured
that they will either perish or gain a complete victory. But if
you restrain them, if you force them to remain on the defensive,
I answer for nothing. If we do not fight, we had better break up
and retire to our mountains."362

Dundee's countenance brightened. "You hear, gentlemen," he said
to his Lowland officers; "you hear the opinion of one who
understands Highland war better than any of us." No voice was
raised on the other side. It was determined to fight; and the
confederated clans in high spirits set forward to encounter the
enemy.

The enemy meanwhile had made his way up the pass. The ascent had
been long and toilsome: for even the foot had to climb by twos
and threes; and the baggage horses, twelve hundred in number,
could mount only one at a time. No wheeled carriage had ever been
tugged up that arduous path. The head of the column had emerged
and was on the table land, while the rearguard was still in the
plain below. At length the passage was effected; and the troops
found themselves in a valley of no great extent. Their right was
flanked by a rising ground, their left by the Garry. Wearied with
the morning's work, they threw themselves on the grass to take
some rest and refreshment.

Early in the afternoon, they were roused by an alarm that the
Highlanders were approaching. Regiment after regiment started up
and got into order. In a little while the summit of an ascent
which was about a musket shot before them was covered with
bonnets and plaids. Dundee rode forward for the purpose of
surveying the force with which he was to contend, and then drew
up his own men with as much skill as their peculiar character
permitted him to exert. It was desirable to keep the clans
distinct. Each tribe, large or small, formed a column separated
from the next column by a wide interval. One of these battalions
might contain seven hundred men, while another consisted of only
a hundred and twenty. Lochiel had represented that it was
impossible to mix men of different tribes without destroying all
that constituted the peculiar strength of a Highland army.363

On the right, close to the Garry, were the Macleans. Next to them
were Cannon and his Irish foot. Then came the Macdonalds of
Clanronald, commanded by the guardian of their young prince. On
the left were other bands of Macdonalds. At the head of one large
battalion towered the stately form of Glengarry, who bore in his
hand the royal standard of King James the Seventh.364 Still
further to the left were the cavalry, a small squadron consisting
of some Jacobite gentlemen who had fled from the Lowlands to the
mountains and of about forty of Dundee's old troopers. The horses
had been ill fed and ill tended among the Grampians, and looked
miserably lean and feeble. Beyond them was Lochiel with his
Camerons. On the extreme left, the men of Sky were marshalled by
Macdonald of Sleat.365

In the Highlands, as in all countries where war has not become a
science, men thought it the most important duty of a commander to
set an example of personal courage and of bodily exertion.
Lochiel was especially renowned for his physical prowess. His
clansmen looked big with pride when they related how he had
himself broken hostile ranks and hewn down tall warriors. He
probably owed quite as much of his influence to these
achievements as to the high qualities which, if fortune had
placed him in the English Parliament or at the French court,
would have made him one of the foremost men of his age. He had
the sense however to perceive how erroneous was the notion which
his countrymen had formed. He knew that to give and to take blows
was not the business of a general. He knew with how much
difficulty Dundee had been able to keep together, during a few
days, an army composed of several clans; and he knew that what
Dundee had effected with difficulty Cannon would not be able to
effect at all. The life on which so much depended must not be
sacrificed to a barbarous prejudice. Lochiel therefore adjured
Dundee not to run into any unnecessary danger. "Your Lordship's
business," he said, "is to overlook every thing, and to issue
your commands. Our business is to execute those commands bravely
and promptly." Dundee answered with calm magnanimity that there
was much weight in what his friend Sir Ewan had urged, but that
no general could effect any thing great without possessing the
confidence of his men. "I must establish my character for
courage. Your people expect to see their leaders in the thickest
of the battle; and to day they shall see me there. I promise you,
on my honour, that in future fights I will take more care of
myself."

Meanwhile a fire of musketry was kept up on both sides, but more
skilfully and more steadily by the regular soldiers than by the
mountaineers. The space between the armies was one cloud of
smoke. Not a few Highlanders dropped; and the clans grew
impatient. The sun however was low in the west before Dundee gave
the order to prepare for action. His men raised a great shout.
The enemy, probably exhausted by the toil of the day, returned a
feeble and wavering cheer. "We shall do it now," said Lochiel:
"that is not the cry of men who are going to win." He had walked
through all his ranks, had addressed a few words to every
Cameron, and had taken from every Cameron a promise to conquer or
die.366

It was past seven o'clock. Dundee gave the word. The Highlanders
dropped their plaids. The few who were so luxurious as to wear
rude socks of untanned hide spurned them away. It was long
remembered in Lochaber that Lochiel took off what probably was
the only pair of shoes in his clan, and charged barefoot at the
head of his men. The whole line advanced firing. The enemy
returned the fire and did much execution. When only a small space
was left between the armies, the Highlanders suddenly flung away
their firelocks, drew their broadswords, and rushed forward with
a fearful yell. The Lowlanders prepared to receive the shock; but
this was then a long and awkward process; and the soldiers were
still fumbling with the muzzles of their guns and the handles of
their bayonets when the whole flood of Macleans, Macdonalds, and
Camerons came down. In two minutes the battle was lost and won.
The ranks of Balfour's regiment broke. He was cloven down while
struggling in the press. Ramsay's men turned their backs and
dropped their arms. Mackay's own foot were swept away by the
furious onset of the Camerons. His brother and nephew exerted
themselves in vain to rally the men. The former was laid dead on
the ground by a stroke from a claymore. The latter, with eight
wounds on his body, made his way through the tumult and carnage
to his uncle's side. Even in that extremity Mackay retained all
his selfpossession. He had still one hope. A charge of horse
might recover the day; for of horse the bravest Highlanders were
supposed to stand in awe. But he called on the horse in vain.

Belhaven indeed behaved like a gallant gentleman: but his
troopers, appalled by the rout of the infantry, galloped off in
disorder: Annandale's men followed: all was over; and the mingled
torrent of redcoats and tartans went raving down the valley to
the gorge of Killiecrankie.

Mackay, accompanied by one trusty servant, spurred bravely
through the thickest of the claymores and targets, and reached a
point from which he had a view of the field. His whole army had
disappeared, with the exception of some Borderers whom Leven had
kept together, and of Hastings's regiment, which had poured a
murderous fire into the Celtic ranks, and which still kept
unbroken order. All the men that could be collected were only a
few hundreds. The general made haste to lead them across the
Carry, and, having put that river between them and the enemy,
paused for a moment to meditate on his situation.

He could hardly understand how the conquerors could be so unwise
as to allow him even that moment for deliberation. They might
with ease have killed or taken all who were with him before the
night closed in. But the energy of the Celtic warriors had spent
itself in one furious rush and one short struggle. The pass was
choked by the twelve hundred beasts of burden which carried the
provisions and baggage of the vanquished army. Such a booty was
irresistibly tempting to men who were impelled to war quite as
much by the desire of rapine as by the desire of glory. It is
probable that few even of the chiefs were disposed to leave so
rich a price for the sake of King James. Dundee himself might at
that moment have been unable to persuade his followers to quit
the heaps of spoil, and to complete the great work of the day;
and Dundee was no more.

At the beginning of the action he had taken his place in front of
his little band of cavalry. He bade them follow him, and rode
forward. But it seemed to be decreed that, on that day, the
Lowland Scotch should in both armies appear to disadvantage. The
horse hesitated. Dundee turned round, and stood up in his
stirrups, and, waving his hat, invited them to come on. As he
lifted his arm, his cuirass rose, and exposed the lower part of
his left side. A musket ball struck him; his horse sprang forward
and plunged into a cloud of smoke and dust, which hid from both
armies the fall of the victorious general. A person named
Johnstone was near him and caught him as he sank down from the
saddle. "How goes the day?" said Dundee. "Well for King James;"
answered Johnstone: "but I am sorry for Your Lordship." "If it is
well for him," answered the dying man, "it matters the less for
me." He never spoke again; but when, half an hour later, Lord
Dunfermline and some other friends came to the spot, they thought
that they could still discern some faint remains of life. The
body, wrapped in two plaids, was carried to the Castle of
Blair.367

Mackay, who was ignorant of Dundee's fate, and well acquainted
with Dundee's skill and activity, expected to be instantly and
hotly pursued, and had very little expectation of being able to
save even the scanty remains of the vanquished army. He could not
retreat by the pass: for the Highlanders were already there. He
therefore resolved to push across the mountains towards the
valley of the Tay. He soon overtook two or three hundred of his
runaways who had taken the same road. Most of them belonged to
Ramsay's regiment, and must have seen service. But they were
unarmed: they were utterly bewildered by the recent disaster; and
the general could find among them no remains either of martial
discipline or of martial spirit. His situation was one which must
have severely tried the firmest nerves. Night had set in: he was
in a desert: he had no guide: a victorious enemy was, in all
human probability, on his track; and he had to provide for the
safety of a crowd of men who had lost both head and heart. He had
just suffered a defeat of all defeats the most painful and
humiliating. His domestic feelings had been not less severely
wounded than his professional feelings. One dear kinsman had just
been struck dead before his eyes. Another, bleeding from many
wounds, moved feebly at his side. But the unfortunate general's
courage was sustained by a firm faith in God, and a high sense of
duty to the state. In the midst of misery and disgrace, he still
held his head nobly erect, and found fortitude, not only for
himself; but for all around him. His first care was to be sure of
his road. A solitary light which twinkled through the darkness
guided him to a small hovel. The inmates spoke no tongue but the
Gaelic, and were at first scared by the appearance of uniforms
and arms. But Mackay's gentle manner removed their apprehension:
their language had been familiar to him in childhood; and he
retained enough of it to communicate with them. By their
directions, and by the help of a pocket map, in which the routes
through that wild country were roughly laid down, he was able to
find his way. He marched all night. When day broke his task was
more difficult than ever. Light increased the terror of his
companions. Hastings's men and Leven's men indeed still behaved
themselves like soldiers. But the fugitives from Ramsay's were a
mere rabble. They had flung away their muskets. The broadswords
from which they had fled were ever in their eyes. Every fresh
object caused a fresh panic. A company of herdsmen in plaids
driving cattle was magnified by imagination into a host of Celtic
warriors. Some of the runaways left the main body and fled to the
hills, where their cowardice met with a proper punishment. They
were killed for their coats and shoes; and their naked carcasses
were left for a prey to the eagles of Ben Lawers. The desertion
would have been much greater, had not Mackay and his officers,
pistol in hand, threatened to blow out the brains of any man whom
they caught attempting to steal off.

At length the weary fugitives came in sight of Weems Castle. The
proprietor of the mansion was a friend to the new government, and
extended to them such hospitality as was in his power. His stores
of oatmeal were brought out, kine were slaughtered; and a rude and
hasty meal was set before the numerous guests. Thus refreshed,
they again set forth, and marched all day over bog, moor, and
mountain. Thinly inhabited as the country was, they could plainly
see that the report of their disaster had already spread far, and
that the population was every where in a state of great
excitement. Late at night they reached Castle Drummond, which was
held for King William by a small garrison; and, on the following
day, they proceeded with less difficulty to Stirling.368

The tidings of their defeat had outrun them. All Scotland was in
a ferment. The disaster had indeed been great: but it was
exaggerated by the wild hopes of one party and by the wild fears
of the other. It was at first believed that the whole army of
King William had perished; that Mackay himself had fallen; that
Dundee, at the head of a great host of barbarians, flushed with
victory and impatient for spoil, had already descended from the
hills; that he was master of the whole country beyond the Forth;
that Fife was up to join him; that in three days he would be at
Stirling; that in a week he would be at Holyrood. Messengers were
sent to urge a regiment which lay in Northumberland to hasten
across the border. Others carried to London earnest entreaties
that His Majesty would instantly send every soldier that could be
spared, nay, that he would come himself to save his northern
kingdom. The factions of the Parliament House, awestruck by the
common danger, forgot to wrangle. Courtiers and malecontents with
one voice implored the Lord High Commissioner to close the
session, and to dismiss them from a place where their
deliberations might soon be interrupted by the mountaineers. It
was seriously considered whether it might not be expedient to
abandon Edinburgh, to send the numerous state prisoners who were
in the Castle and the Tolbooth on board of a man of war which lay
off Leith, and to transfer the seat of government to Glasgow.

The news of Dundee's victory was every where speedily followed by
the news of his death; and it is a strong proof of the extent and
vigour of his faculties, that his death seems every where to have
been regarded as a complete set off against his victory.
Hamilton, before he adjourned the Estates, informed them that
he had good tidings for them; that Dundee was certainly dead; and
that therefore the rebels had on the whole sustained a defeat. In
several letters written at that conjuncture by able and
experienced politicians a similar opinion is expressed. The
messenger who rode with the news of the battle to the English
Court was fast followed by another who carried a despatch for the
King, and, not finding His Majesty at Saint James's, galloped to
Hampton Court. Nobody in the capital ventured to break the seal;
but fortunately, after the letter had been closed, some friendly
hand had hastily written on the outside a few words of comfort:
"Dundee is killed. Mackay has got to Stirling:" and these words
quieted the minds of the Londoners.369

From the pass of Killiecrankie the Highlanders had retired, proud
of their victory, and laden with spoil, to the Castle of Blair.
They boasted that the field of battle was covered with heaps of
the Saxon soldiers, and that the appearance of the corpses bore
ample testimony to the power of a good Gaelic broadsword in a
good Gaelic right hand. Heads were found cloven down to the
throat, and sculls struck clean off just above the ears. The
conquerors however had bought their victory dear. While they were
advancing, they had been much galled by the musketry of the
enemy; and, even after the decisive charge, Hastings's Englishmen
and some of Leven's borderers had continued to keep up a steady
fire. A hundred and twenty Camerons had been slain: the loss of
the Macdonalds had been still greater; and several gentlemen of
birth and note had fallen.370

Dundee was buried in the church of Blair Athol: but no monument
was erected over his grave; and the church itself has long
disappeared. A rude stone on the field of battle marks, if local
tradition can be trusted, the place where he fell.371 During the
last three months of his life he had approved himself a great
warrior and politician; and his name is therefore mentioned with
respect by that large class of persons who think that there is no
excess of wickedness for which courage and ability do not atone.

It is curious that the two most remarkable battles that perhaps
were ever gained by irregular over regular troops should have
been fought in the same week; the battle of Killiecrankie, and
the battle of Newton Butler. In both battles the success of the
irregular troops was singularly rapid and complete. In both
battles the panic of the regular troops, in spite of the
conspicuous example of courage set by their generals, was
singularly disgraceful. It ought also to be noted that, of these
extraordinary victories, one was gained by Celts over Saxons, and
the other by Saxons over Celts. The victory of Killiecrankie
indeed, though neither more splendid nor more important than the
victory of Newton Butler, is far more widely renowned; and the
reason is evident. The Anglosaxon and the Celt have been
reconciled in Scotland, and have never been reconciled in
Ireland. In Scotland all the great actions of both races are
thrown into a common stock, and are considered as making up the
glory which belongs to the whole country. So completely has the
old antipathy been extinguished that nothing is more usual than
to hear a Lowlander talk with complacency and even with pride of
the most humiliating defeat that his ancestors ever underwent. It
would be difficult to name any eminent man in whom national
feeling and clannish feeling were stronger than in Sir Walter
Scott. Yet when Sir Walter Scott mentioned Killiecrankie he
seemed utterly to forget that he was a Saxon, that he was of the
same blood and of the same speech with Ramsay's foot and
Annandale's horse. His heart swelled with triumph when he related
how his own kindred had fled like hares before a smaller number
of warriors of a different breed and of a different tongue.

In Ireland the feud remains unhealed. The name of Newton Butler,
insultingly repeated by a minority, is hateful to the great
majority of the population. If a monument were set up on the
field of battle, it would probably be defaced: if a festival were
held in Cork or Waterford on the anniversary of the battle, it
would probably be interrupted by violence. The most illustrious
Irish poet of our time would have thought it treason to his
country to sing the praises of the conquerors. One of the most
learned and diligent Irish archeologists of our time has
laboured, not indeed very successfully, to prove that the event
of the day was decided by a mere accident from which the
Englishry could derive no glory. We cannot wonder that the
victory of the Highlanders should be more celebrated than the
victory of the Enniskilleners, when we consider that the victory
of the Highlanders is matter of boast to all Scotland, and that
the victory of the Enniskilleners is matter of shame to three
fourths of Ireland.

As far as the great interests of the State were concerned, it
mattered not at all whether the battle of Killiecrankie were lost
or won. It is very improbable that even Dundee, if he had
survived the most glorious day of his life, could have surmounted
those difficulties which sprang from the peculiar nature of his
army, and which would have increased tenfold as soon as the war
was transferred to the Lowlands. It is certain that his successor
was altogether unequal to the task. During a day or two, indeed,
the new general might flatter himself that all would go well. His
army was rapidly swollen to near double the number of claymores
that Dundee had commanded. The Stewarts of Appin, who, though
full of zeal, had not been able to come up in time for the
battle, were among the first who arrived. Several clans, which
had hitherto waited to see which side was the stronger, were now
eager to descend on the Lowlands under the standard of King James
the Seventh. The Grants indeed continued to bear true allegiance
to William and Mary; and the Mackintoshes were kept neutral by
unconquerable aversion to Keppoch. But Macphersons, Farquharsons,
and Frasers came in crowds to the camp at Blair. The hesitation
of the Athol men was at an end. Many of them had lurked, during
the fight, among the crags and birch trees of Killiecrankie, and,
as soon as the event of the day was decided, had emerged from
those hiding places to strip and butcher the fugitives who tried
to escape by the pass. The Robertsons, a Gaelic race, though
bearing a Saxon name, gave in at this conjuncture their adhesion
to the cause of the exiled king. Their chief Alexander, who took
his appellation from his lordship of Struan, was a very young man
and a student at the University of Saint Andrew's. He had there
acquired a smattering of letters, and had been initiated much
more deeply into Tory politics. He now joined the Highland army,
and continued, through a long life to be constant to the Jacobite
cause. His part, however, in public affairs was so insignificant
that his name would not now be remembered, if he had not left a
volume of poems, always very stupid and often very profligate.
Had this book been manufactured in Grub Street, it would scarcely
have been honoured with a quarter of a line in the Dunciad. But
it attracted some notice on account of the situation of the
writer. For, a hundred and twenty years ago, an eclogue or a
lampoon written by a Highland chief was a literary portent.372

But, though the numerical strength of Cannon's forces was
increasing, their efficiency was diminishing. Every new tribe
which joined the camp brought with it some new cause of
dissension. In the hour of peril, the most arrogant and mutinous
spirits will often submit to the guidance of superior genius.
Yet, even in the hour of peril, and even to the genius of Dundee,
the Celtic chiefs had gelded but a precarious and imperfect
obedience. To restrain them, when intoxicated with success and
confident of their strength, would probably have been too hard a
task even for him, as it had been, in the preceding generation,
too hard a task for Montrose. The new general did nothing but
hesitate and blunder. One of his first acts was to send a large
body of men, chiefly Robertsons, down into the low country for
the purpose of collecting provisions. He seems to have supposed
that this detachment would without difficulty occupy Perth. But
Mackay had already restored order among the remains of his army:
he had assembled round him some troops which had not shared in
the disgrace of the late defeat; and he was again ready for
action. Cruel as his sufferings had been, he had wisely and
magnanimously resolved not to punish what was past. To
distinguish between degrees of guilt was not easy. To decimate
the guilty would have been to commit a frightful massacre. His
habitual piety too led him to consider the unexampled panic which
had seized his soldiers as a proof rather of the divine
displeasure than of their cowardice. He acknowledged with heroic
humility that the singular firmness which he had himself
displayed in the midst of the confusion and havoc was not his
own, and that he might well, but for the support of a higher
power, have behaved as pusillanimously as any of the wretched
runaways who had thrown away their weapons and implored quarter
in vain from the barbarous marauders of Athol. His dependence on
heaven did not, however, prevent him from applying himself
vigorously to the work of providing, as far as human prudence
could provide, against the recurrence of such a calamity as that
which he had just experienced. The immediate cause of his defeat
was the difficulty of fixing bayonets. The firelock of the
Highlander was quite distinct from the weapon which he used in
close fight. He discharged his shot, threw away his gun, and fell
on with his sword. This was the work of a moment. It took the
regular musketeer two or three minutes to alter his missile
weapon into a weapon with which he could encounter an enemy hand
to hand; and during these two or three minutes the event of the
battle of Killiecrankie had been decided. Mackay therefore
ordered all his bayonets to be so formed that they might be
screwed upon the barrel without stopping it up, and that his men
might be able to receive a charge the very instant after
firing.373

As soon as he learned that a detachment of the Gaelic army was
advancing towards Perth, he hastened to meet them at the head of
a body of dragoons who had not been in the battle, and whose
spirit was therefore unbroken. On Wednesday the thirty-first of
July, only four days after his defeat, he fell in with the
Robertsons near Saint Johnston's, attacked them, routed them,
killed a hundred and twenty of them, and took thirty prisoners,
with the loss of only a single soldier.374 This skirmish produced
an effect quite out of proportion to the number of the combatants
or of the slain. The reputation of the Celtic arms went down
almost as fast as it had risen. During two or three days it had
been every where imagined that those arms were invincible. There
was now a reaction. It was perceived that what had happened at
Killiecrankie was an exception to ordinary rules, and that the
Highlanders were not, except in very peculiar circumstances, a
match for good regular soldiers.

Meanwhile the disorders of Cannon's camp went on increasing. He
called a council of war to consider what course it would be
advisable to take. But as soon as the council had met, a
preliminary question was raised. Who were entitled to be
consulted? The army was almost exclusively a Highland army. The
recent victory had been won exclusively by Highland warriors.
Great chiefs, who had brought six or seven hundred fighting men
into the field, did not think it fair that they should be
outvoted by gentlemen from Ireland and from the low country, who
bore indeed King James's commission, and were called Colonels and
Captains, but who were Colonels without regiments and Captains
without companies. Lochiel spoke strongly in behalf of the class
to which he belonged: but Cannon decided that the votes of the
Saxon officers should be reckoned.375

It was next considered what was to be the plan of the campaign.
Lochiel was for advancing, for marching towards Mackay wherever
Mackay might be, and for giving battle again. It can hardly be
supposed that success had so turned the head of the wise chief of
the Camerons as to make him insensible of the danger of the
course which he recommended. But he probably conceived that
nothing but a choice between dangers was left to him. His notion
was that vigorous action was necessary to the very being of a
Highland army, and that the coalition of clans would last only
while they were impatiently pushing forward from battlefield to
battlefield. He was again overruled. All his hopes of success
were now at an end. His pride was severely wounded. He had
submitted to the ascendancy of a great captain: but he cared as
little as any Whig for a royal commission. He had been willing to
be the right hand of Dundee: but he would not be ordered about by
Cannon. He quitted the camp, and retired to Lochaber. He indeed
directed his clan to remain. But the clan, deprived of the leader
whom it adored, and aware that he had withdrawn himself in ill
humour, was no longer the same terrible column which had a few
days before kept so well the vow to perish or to conquer.
Macdonald of Sleat, whose forces exceeded in number those of any
other of the confederate chiefs, followed Lochiel's example and
returned to Sky.376

Mackay's arrangements were by this time complete; and he had
little doubt that, if the rebels came down to attack him, the
regular army would retrieve the honour which had been lost at
Killiecrankie. His chief difficulties arose from the unwise
interference of the ministers of the Crown at Edinburgh with
matters which ought to have been left to his direction. The truth
seems to be that they, after the ordinary fashion of men who,
having no military experience, sit in judgment on military
operations, considered success as the only test of the ability of
a commander. Whoever wins a battle is, in the estimation of such
persons, a great general: whoever is beaten is a lead general;
and no general had ever been more completely beaten than Mackay.
William, on the other hand, continued to place entire confidence
in his unfortunate lieutenant. To the disparaging remarks of
critics who had never seen a skirmish, Portland replied, by his
master's orders, that Mackay was perfectly trustworthy, that he
was brave, that he understood war better than any other officer
in Scotland, and that it was much to be regretted that any
prejudice should exist against so good a man and so good a
soldier.377

The unjust contempt with which the Scotch Privy Councillors
regarded Mackay led them into a great error which might well have
caused a great disaster. The Cameronian regiment was sent to
garrison Dunkeld. Of this arrangement Mackay altogether
disapproved. He knew that at Dunkeld these troops would be near
the enemy; that they would be far from all assistance; that they
would be in an open town; that they would be surrounded by a
hostile population; that they were very imperfectly disciplined,
though doubtless brave and zealous; that they were regarded by
the whole Jacobite party throughout Scotland with peculiar
malevolence; and that in all probability some great effort would
be made to disgrace and destroy them.378

The General's opinion was disregarded; and the Cameronians
occupied the post assigned to them. It soon appeared that his
forebodings were just. The inhabitants of the country round
Dunkeld furnished Cannon with intelligence, and
urged him to make a bold push. The peasantry of Athol, impatient
for spoil, came in great numbers to swell his army. The regiment
hourly expected to be attacked, and became discontented and
turbulent. The men, intrepid, indeed, both from constitution and
from enthusiasm, but not yet broken to habits of military
submission, expostulated with Cleland, who commanded them. They
had, they imagined, been recklessly, if not perfidiously, sent to
certain destruction. They were protected by no ramparts: they had
a very scanty stock of ammunition: they were hemmed in by
enemies. An officer might mount and gallop beyond reach of danger
in an hour; but the private soldier must stay and be butchered.
"Neither I," said Cleland, "nor any of my officers will, in any
extremity, abandon you. Bring out my horse, all our horses; they
shall be shot dead." These words produced a complete change of
feeling. The men answered that the horses should not be shot,
that they wanted no pledge from their brave Colonel except his
word, and that they would run the last hazard with him. They kept
their promise well. The Puritan blood was now thoroughly up; and
what that blood was when it was up had been proved on many fields
of battle.

That night the regiment passed under arms. On the morning of the
following day, the twenty-first of August, all the hills round
Dunkeld were alive with bonnets and plaids. Cannon's army was
much larger than that which Dundee had commanded. More than a
thousand horses laden with baggage accompanied his march. Both
the horses and baggage were probably part of the booty of
Killiecrankie. The whole number of Highlanders was estimated by
those who saw them at from four to five thousand men. They came
furiously on. The outposts of the Cameronians were speedily
driven in. The assailants came pouring on every side into the
streets. The church, however, held out obstinately. But the
greater part of the regiment made its stand behind a wall which
surrounded a house belonging to the Marquess of Athol. This wall,
which had two or three days before been hastily repaired with
timber and loose stones, the soldiers defended desperately with
musket, pike, and halbert. Their bullets were soon spent; but
some of the men were employed in cutting lead from the roof of
the Marquess's house and shaping it into slugs. Meanwhile all the
neighbouring houses were crowded from top to bottom with
Highlanders, who kept up a galling fire from the windows.
Cleland, while encouraging his men, was shot dead. The command
devolved on Major Henderson.

In another minute Henderson fell pierced with three mortal
wounds. His place was supplied by Captain Munro, and the contest
went on with undiminished fury. A party of the Cameronians
sallied forth, set fire to the houses from which the fatal shots
had come, and turned the keys in the doors. In one single
dwelling sixteen of the enemy were burnt alive. Those who were in
the fight described it as a terrible initiation for recruits.
Half the town was blazing; and with the incessant roar of the
guns were mingled the piercing shrieks of wretches perishing in
the flames. The struggle lasted four hours. By that time the
Cameronians were reduced nearly to their last flask of powder;
but their spirit never flagged. "The enemy will soon carry the
wall. Be it so. We will retreat into the house: we will defend it
to the last; and, if they force their way into it, we will burn
it over their heads and our own." But, while they were revolving
these desperate projects, they observed that the fury of the
assault slackened. Soon the highlanders began to fall back:
disorder visibly spread among them; and whole bands began to
march off to the hills. It was in vain that their general ordered
them to return to the attack. Perseverance was not one of their
military virtues. The Cameronians meanwhile, with shouts of
defiance, invited Amalek and Moab to come back and to try another
chance with the chosen people. But these exhortations had as
little effect as those of Cannon. In a short time the whole
Gaelic army was in full retreat towards Blair. Then the drums
struck up: the victorious Puritans threw their caps into the air,
raised, with one voice, a psalm of triumph and thanksgiving, and
waved their colours, colours which were on that day unfurled for
the first time in the face of an enemy, but which have since been
proudly borne in every quarter of the world, and which are now
embellished with the Sphinx and the Dragon, emblems of brave
actions achieved in Egypt and in China.379

The Cameronians had good reason to be joyful and thankful; for
they had finished the rear. In the rebel camp all was discord and
dejection. The Highlanders blamed Cannon: Cannon blamed the
Highlanders; and the host which had been the terror of Scotland
melted fast away. The confederate chiefs signed an association by
which they declared themselves faithful subjects of King James,
and bound themselves to meet again at a future time. Having gone
through this form,--for it was no more,--they departed, each to
his home. Cannon and his Irishmen retired to the Isle of Mull.
The Lowlanders who had followed Dundee to the mountains shifted
for themselves as they best could. On the twenty-fourth of
August, exactly four weeks after the Gaelic army had won the
battle of Killiecrankie, that army ceased to exist. It ceased to
exist, as the army of Montrose had, more than forty years
earlier, ceased to exist, not in consequence of any great blow
from without, but by a natural dissolution, the effect of
internal malformation. All the fruits of victory were gathered by
the vanquished. The Castle of Blair, which had been the immediate
object of the contest, opened its gates to Mackay; and a chain of
military posts, extending northward as far as Inverness,
protected the cultivators of the plains against the predatory
inroads of the mountaineers.

During the autumn the government was much more annoyed by the
Whigs of the low country, than by the Jacobites of the hills. The
Club, which had, in the late session of Parliament, attempted to
turn the kingdom into an oligarchical republic, and which had
induced the Estates to refuse supplies and to stop the
administration of justice, continued to sit during the recess,
and harassed the ministers of the Crown by systematic agitation.
The organization of this body, contemptible as it may appear to
the generation which has seen the Roman Catholic Association and
the League against the Corn Laws, was then thought marvellous and
formidable. The leaders of the confederacy boasted that they
would force the King to do them right. They got up petitions and
addresses, tried to inflame the populace by means of the press
and the pulpit, employed emissaries among the soldiers, and
talked of bringing up a large body of Covenanters from the west
to overawe the Privy Council. In spite of every artifice,
however, the ferment of the public mind gradually subsided. The
Government, after some hesitation, ventured to open the Courts of
justice which the Estates had closed. The Lords of Session
appointed by the King took their seats; and Sir James Dalrymple
presided. The Club attempted to induce the advocates to absent
themselves from the bar, and entertained some hope that the mob
would pull the judges from the bench. But it speedily became
clear that there was much more likely to be a scarcity of fees
than of lawyers to take them: the common people of Edinburgh were
well pleased to see again a tribunal associated in their
imagination with the dignity and prosperity of their city; and by
many signs it appeared that the false and greedy faction which
had commanded a majority of the legislature did not command a
majority of the nation.380

CHAPTER XIV

Disputes in the English Parliament--The Attainder of Russell
reversed--Other Attainders reversed; Case of Samuel Johnson--Case
of Devonshire--Case of Oates--Bill of Rights--Disputes about a
Bill of Indemnity--Last Days of Jeffreys--The Whigs dissatisfied
with the King--Intemperance of Howe--Attack on Caermarthen--
Attack on Halifax--Preparations for a Campaign in Ireland--
Schomberg--Recess of the Parliament--State of Ireland; Advice of
Avaux--Dismission of Melfort; Schomberg lands in Ulster--
Carrickfergus taken--Schomberg advances into Leinster; the
English and Irish Armies encamp near each other--Schomberg
declines a Battle--Frauds of the English Commissariat--Conspiracy
among the French Troops in the English Service--Pestilence in the
English Army--The English and Irish Armies go into Winter
Quarters--Various Opinions about Schomberg's Conduct--Maritime
Affairs--Maladministration of Torrington--Continental Affairs--
Skirmish at Walcourt--Imputations thrown on Marlborough--Pope
Innocent XI. succeeded by Alexander VIII.--The High Church Clergy
divided on the Subject of the Oaths--Arguments for taking the
Oaths--Arguments against taking the Oaths--A great Majority of
the Clergy take the Oaths--The Nonjurors; Ken--Leslie--Sherlock--
Hickes--Collier--Dodwell--Kettlewell; Fitzwilliam--General
Character of the Nonjuring Clergy--The Plan of Comprehension;
Tillotson--An Ecclesiastical Commission issued.--Proceedings of
the Commission--The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury
summoned; Temper of the Clergy--The Clergy ill affected towards
the King--The Clergy exasperated against the Dissenters by the
Proceedings of the Scotch Presbyterians--Constitution of the
Convocation--Election of Members of Convocation; Ecclesiastical
Preferments bestowed,--Compton discontented--The Convocation
meets--The High Churchmen a Majority of the Lower House of
Convocation--Difference between the two Houses of Convocation--
The Lower House of Convocation proves unmanageable.--The
Convocation prorogued

TWENTY-four hours before the war in Scotland was brought to a
close by the discomfiture of the Celtic army at Dunkeld, the
Parliament broke up at Westminster. The Houses had sate ever
since January without a recess. The Commons, who were cooped up
in a narrow space, had suffered severely from heat and
discomfort; and the health of many members had given way. The
fruit however had not been proportioned to the toil. The last
three months of the session had been almost entirely wasted in
disputes, which have left no trace in the Statute Book. The
progress of salutary laws had been impeded, sometimes by
bickerings between the Whigs and the Tories, and sometimes by
bickerings between the Lords and the Commons.

The Revolution had scarcely been accomplished when it appeared
that the supporters of the Exclusion Bill had not forgotten what
they had suffered during the ascendancy of their enemies, and
were bent on obtaining both reparation and revenge. Even before
the throne was filled, the Lords appointed a committee to examine
into the truth of the frightful stories which had been circulated
concerning the death of Essex. The committee, which consisted of
zealous Whigs, continued its inquiries till all reasonable men
were convinced that he had fallen by his own hand, and till his
wife, his brother, and his most intimate friends were desirous
that the investigation should be carried no further.381 Atonement
was made, without any opposition on the part of the Tories, to
the memory and the families of some other victims, who were
themselves beyond the reach of human power. Soon after the
Convention had been turned into a Parliament, a bill for
reversing the attainder of Lord Russell was presented to the
peers, was speedily passed by them, was sent down to the Lower
House, and was welcomed there with no common signs of emotion.
Many of the members had sate in that very chamber with Russell.
He had long exercised there an influence resembling the influence
which, within the memory of this generation, belonged to the
upright and benevolent Althorpe; an influence derived, not from
superior skill in debate or in declamation, but from spotless
integrity, from plain good sense, and from that frankness, that
simplicity, that good nature, which are singularly graceful and
winning in a man raised by birth and fortune high above his
fellows. By the Whigs Russell had been honoured as a chief; and
his political adversaries had admitted that, when he was not
misled by associates less respectable and more artful than
himself, he was as honest and kindhearted a gentleman as any in
England. The manly firmness and Christian meekness with which he
had met death, the desolation of his noble house, the misery of
the bereaved father, the blighted prospects of the orphan
children382, above all, the union of womanly tenderness and
angelic patience in her who had been dearest to the brave
sufferer, who had sate, with the pen in her hand, by his side at
the bar, who had cheered the gloom of his cell, and who, on his
last day, had shared with him the memorials of the great
sacrifice, had softened the hearts of many who were little in the
habit of pitying an opponent. That Russell had many good
qualities, that he had meant well, that he had been hardly used,
was now admitted even by courtly lawyers who had assisted in
shedding his blood, and by courtly divines who had done their
worst to blacken his reputation. When, therefore, the parchment
which annulled his sentence was laid on the table of that
assembly in which, eight years before, his face and his voice had
been so well known, the excitement was great. One old Whig member
tried to speak, but was overcome by his feelings. "I cannot," he
said, "name my Lord Russell without disorder. It is enough to
name him. I am not able to say more." Many eyes were directed
towards that part of the house where Finch sate. The highly
honourable manner in which he had quitted a lucrative office, as
soon as he had found that he could not keep it without supporting
the dispensing power, and the conspicuous part which he had borne
in the defence of the Bishops, had done much to atone for his
faults. Yet, on this day, it could not be forgotten that he had
strenuously exerted himself, as counsel for the Crown, to obtain
that judgment which was now to be solemnly revoked. He rose, and
attempted to defend his conduct: but neither his legal acuteness,
nor that fluent and sonorous elocution which was in his family a
hereditary gift, and of which none of his family had a larger
share than himself, availed him on this occasion. The House was
in no humour to hear him, and repeatedly interrupted him by cries
of "Order." He had been treated, he was told, with great
indulgence. No accusation had been brought against him. Why then
should he, under pretence of vindicating himself, attempt to
throw dishonourable imputations on an illustrious name, and to
apologise for a judicial murder? He was forced to sit dorm, after
declaring that he meant only to clear himself from the charge of
having exceeded the limits of his professional duty; that he
disclaimed all intention of attacking the memory of Lord Russell;
and that he should sincerely rejoice at the reversing of the
attainder. Before the House rose the bill was read a second time,
and would have been instantly read a third time and passed, had
not some additions and omissions been proposed, which would, it
was thought, make the reparation more complete. The amendments
were prepared with great expedition: the Lords agreed to them;
and the King gladly gave his assent.383

This bill was soon followed by three other bills which annulled
three wicked and infamous judgments, the judgment against Sidney,
the judgment against Cornish, and the judgment against Alice
Lisle.384

Some living Whigs obtained without difficulty redress for
injuries which they had suffered in the late reign. The sentence
of Samuel Johnson was taken into consideration by the House of
Commons. It was resolved that the scourging which he had
undergone was cruel, and that his degradation was of no legal
effect. The latter proposition admitted of no dispute: for he had
been degraded by the prelates who had been appointed to govern
the diocese of London during Compton's suspension. Compton had
been suspended by a decree of the High Commission, and the
decrees of the High Commission were universally acknowledged to
be nullities. Johnson had therefore been stripped of his robe by
persons who had no jurisdiction over him. The Commons requested
the king to compensate the sufferer by some ecclesiastical
preferment.385 William, however, found that he could not, without
great inconvenience, grant this request. For Johnson, though
brave, honest and religious, had always been rash, mutinous and
quarrelsome; and, since he had endured for his opinions a
martyrdom more terrible than death, the infirmities of his temper
and understanding had increased to such a degree that he was as
disagreeable to Low Churchmen as to High Churchmen. Like too many
other men, who are not to be turned from the path of right by
pleasure, by lucre or by danger, he mistook the impulses of his
pride and resentment for the monitions of conscience, and
deceived himself into a belief that, in treating friends and foes
with indiscriminate insolence and asperity, he was merely showing
his Christian faithfulness and courage. Burnet, by exhorting him
to patience and forgiveness of injuries, made him a mortal enemy.
"Tell His Lordship," said the inflexible priest, "to mind his own
business, and to let me look after mine."386 It soon began to be
whispered that Johnson was mad. He accused Burnet of being the
author of the report, and avenged himself by writing libels so
violent that they strongly confirmed the imputation which they
were meant to refute. The King, therefore, thought it better to
give out of his own revenue a liberal compensation for the wrongs
which the Commons had brought to his notice than to place an
eccentric and irritable man in a situation of dignity and public
trust. Johnson was gratified with a present of a thousand pounds,
and a pension of three hundred a year for two lives. His son was
also provided for in the public service.387

While the Commons were considering the case of Johnson, the Lords
were scrutinising with severity the proceedings which had, in the
late reign, been instituted against one of their own order, the
Earl of Devonshire. The judges who had passed sentence on him
were strictly interrogated; and a resolution was passed declaring
that in his case the privileges of the peerage had been
infringed, and that the Court of King's Bench, in punishing a
hasty blow by a fine of thirty thousand pounds, had violated
common justice and the Great Charter.388

In the cases which have been mentioned, all parties seem to have
agreed in thinking that some public reparation was due. But the
fiercest passions both of Whigs and Tories were soon roused by
the noisy claims of a wretch whose sufferings, great as they
might seem, had been trifling when compared with his crimes.
Gates had come back, like a ghost from the place of punishment,
to haunt the spots which had been polluted by his guilt. The
three years and a half which followed his scourging he had passed
in one of the cells of Newgate, except when on certain days, the
anniversaries of his perjuries, he had been brought forth and set
on the pillory. He was still, however, regarded by many fanatics
as a martyr; and it was said that they were able so far to
corrupt his keepers that, in spite of positive orders from the
government, his sufferings were mitigated by many indulgences.
While offenders, who, compared with him, were innocent, grew lean
on the prison allowance, his cheer was mended by turkeys and
chines, capons and sucking pigs, venison pasties and hampers of
claret, the offerings of zealous Protestants.389 When James had
fled from Whitehall, and when London was in confusion, it was
moved, in the council of Lords which had provisionally assumed
the direction of affairs, that Gates should be set at liberty.
The motion was rejected390: but the gaolers, not knowing whom to
obey in that time of anarchy, and desiring to conciliate a man
who had once been, and might perhaps again be, a terrible enemy,
allowed their prisoner to go freely about the town.391 His uneven
legs and his hideous face, made more hideous by the shearing
which his ears had undergone, were now again seen every day in
Westminster Hall and the Court of Requests.392 He fastened
himself on his old patrons, and, in that drawl which he affected
as a mark of gentility, gave them the history of his wrongs and
of his hopes. It was impossible, he said, that now, when the good
cause was triumphant, the discoverer of the plot could be
overlooked. "Charles gave me nine hundred pounds a year. Sure
William will give me more."393

In a few weeks he brought his sentence before the House of Lords
by a writ of error. This is a species of appeal which raises no
question of fact. The Lords, while sitting judicially on the writ
of error, were not competent to examine whether the verdict which
pronounced Gates guilty was or was not according to the evidence.
All that they had to consider was whether, the verdict being
supposed to be according to the evidence, the judgment was legal.
But it would have been difficult even for a tribunal composed of
veteran magistrates, and was almost impossible for an assembly of
noblemen who were all strongly biassed on one side or on the
other, and among whom there was at that time not a single person
whose mind had been disciplined by the study of jurisprudence, to
look steadily at the mere point of law, abstracted from the
special circumstances of the case. In the view of one party, a
party which even among the Whig peers was probably a minority,
the appellant was a man who had rendered inestimable services to
the cause of liberty and religion, and who had been requited by
long confinement, by degrading exposure, and by torture not to be
thought of without a shudder. The majority of the House more
justly regarded him as the falsest, the most malignant and the
most impudent being that had ever disgraced the human form. The
sight of that brazen forehead, the accents of that lying tongue,
deprived them of all mastery over themselves. Many of them
doubtless remembered with shame and remorse that they had been
his dupes, and that, on the very last occasion on which he had
stood before them, he had by perjury induced them to shed the
blood of one of their own illustrious order. It was not to be
expected that a crowd of gentlemen under the influence of
feelings like these would act with the cold impartiality of a
court of justice. Before they came to any decision on the legal
question which Titus had brought before them, they picked a
succession of quarrels with him. He had published a paper
magnifying his merits and his sufferings. The Lords found out
some pretence for calling this publication a breach of privilege,
and sent him to the Marshalsea. He petitioned to be released; but
an objection was raised to his petition. He had described himself
as a Doctor of Divinity; and their lordships refused to
acknowledge him as such. He was brought to their bar, and asked
where he had graduated. He answered, "At the university of
Salamanca." This was no new instance of his mendacity and
effrontery. His Salamanca degree had been, during many years, a
favourite theme of all the Tory satirists from Dryden downwards;
and even on the Continent the Salamanca Doctor was a nickname in
ordinary use.394 The Lords, in their hatred of Oates, so far
forgot their own dignity as to treat this ridiculous matter
seriously. They ordered him to efface from his petition the
words, "Doctor of Divinity." He replied that he could not in
conscience do it; and he was accordingly sent back to gaol.395

These preliminary proceedings indicated not obscurely what the
fate of the writ of error would be. The counsel for Oates had
been heard. No counsel appeared against him. The judges were
required to give their opinions. Nine of them were in attendance;
and among the nine were the Chiefs of the three Courts of Common
Law. The unanimous answer of these grave, learned and upright
magistrates was that the Court of King's Bench was not competent
to degrade a priest from his sacred office, or to pass a sentence
of perpetual imprisonment; and that therefore the judgment
against Oates was contrary to law, and ought to be reversed. The
Lords should undoubtedly have considered themselves as bound by
this opinion. That they knew Oates to be the worst of men was
nothing to the purpose. To them, sitting as a court of justice,
he ought to have been merely a John of Styles or a John of Nokes.
But their indignation was violently excited. Their habits were
not those which fit men for the discharge of judicial duties. The
debate turned almost entirely on matters to which no allusion
ought to have been made. Not a single peer ventured to affirm
that the judgment was legal: but much was said about the odious
character of the appellant, about the impudent accusation which
he had brought against Catherine of Braganza, and about the evil
consequences which might follow if so bad a man were capable of
being a witness. "There is only one way," said the Lord
President, "in which I can consent to reverse the fellow's
sentence. He has been whipped from Aldgate to Tyburn. He ought to
be whipped from Tyburn back to Aldgate." The question was put.
Twenty-three peers voted for reversing the judgment; thirty-five
for affirming it.396

This decision produced a great sensation, and not without reason.
A question was now raised which might justly excite the anxiety
of every man in the kingdom. That question was whether the
highest tribunal, the tribunal on which, in the last resort,
depended the most precious interests of every English subject,
was at liberty to decide judicial questions on other than
judicial grounds, and to withhold from a suitor what was admitted
to be his legal right, on account of the depravity of his moral
character. That the supreme Court of Appeal ought not to be
suffered to exercise arbitrary power, under the forms of ordinary
justice, was strongly felt by the ablest men in the House of
Commons, and by none more strongly than by Somers. With him, and
with those who reasoned like him, were, on this occasion, allied
many weak and hot-headed zealots who still regarded Oates as a
public benefactor, and who imagined that to question the
existence of the Popish plot was to question the truth of the
Protestant religion. On the very morning after the decision of
the Peers had been pronounced, keen reflections were thrown, in
the House of Commons, on the justice of their lordships. Three
days later, the subject was brought forward by a Whig Privy
Councillor, Sir Robert Howard, member for Castle Rising. He was
one of the Berkshire branch of his noble family, a branch which
enjoyed, in that age, the unenviable distinction of being
wonderfully fertile of bad rhymers. The poetry of the Berkshire
Howards was the jest of three generations of satirists. The mirth
began with the first representation of the Rehearsal, and
continued down to the last edition of the Dunciad.397 But Sir
Robert, in spite of his bad verses, and of some foibles and
vanities which had caused him to be brought on the stage under
the name of Sir Positive Atall, had in parliament the weight
which a stanch party man, of ample fortune, of illustrious name,
of ready utterance, and of resolute spirit, can scarcely fail to
possess.398 When he rose to call the attention of the Commons to
the case of Oates, some Tories, animated by the same passions
which had prevailed in the other House, received him with loud
hisses. In spite of this most unparliamentary insult, he
persevered; and it soon appeared that the majority was with him.
Some orators extolled the patriotism and courage of Oates: others
dwelt much on a prevailing rumour, that the solicitors who were
employed against him on behalf of the Crown had distributed large
sums of money among the jurymen. These were topics on which there
was much difference of opinion. But that the sentence was illegal
was a proposition which admitted of no dispute. The most eminent
lawyers in the House of Commons declared that, on this point,
they entirely concurred in the opinion given by the judges in the
House of Lords. Those who had hissed when the subject was
introduced, were so effectually cowed that they did not venture
to demand a division; and a bill annulling the sentence was
brought in, without any opposition.399

The Lords were in an embarrassing situation. To retract was not
pleasant. To engage in a contest with the Lower House, on a
question on which that House was clearly in the right, and was
backed at once by the opinions of the sages of the law, and by
the passions of the populace, might be dangerous. It was thought
expedient to take a middle course. An address was presented to
the King, requesting him to pardon Oates.400 But this concession
only made bad worse. Titus had, like every other human being, a
right to justice: but he was not a proper object of mercy. If the
judgment against him was illegal, it ought to have been reversed.
If it was legal, there was no ground for remitting any part of
it. The Commons, very properly, persisted, passed their bill, and
sent it up to the Peers. Of this bill the only objectionable part
was the preamble, which asserted, not only that the judgment was
illegal, a proposition which appeared on the face of the record
to be true, but also that the verdict was corrupt, a proposition
which, whether true or false, was not proved by any evidence at
all.

The Lords were in a great strait. They knew that they were in the
wrong. Yet they were determined not to proclaim, in their
legislative capacity, that they had, in their judicial capacity,
been guilty of injustice. They again tried a middle course. The
preamble was softened down: a clause was added which provided
that Oates should still remain incapable of being a witness; and
the bill thus altered was returned to the Commons.

The Commons were not satisfied. They rejected the amendments, and
demanded a free conference. Two eminent Tories, Rochester and
Nottingham, took their seats in the Painted Chamber as managers
for the Lords. With them was joined Burnet, whose well known
hatred of Popery was likely to give weight to what he might say
on such an occasion. Somers was the chief orator on the other
side; and to his pen we owe a singularly lucid and interesting
abstract of the debate.

The Lords frankly owned that the judgment of the Court of King's
Bench could not be defended. They knew it to be illegal, and had
known it to be so even when they affirmed it. But they had acted
for the best. They accused Oates of bringing an impudently false
accusation against Queen Catherine: they mentioned other
instances of his villany; and they asked whether such a man ought
still to be capable of giving testimony in a court of justice.
The only excuse which, in their opinion, could be made for him
was, that he was insane; and in truth, the incredible insolence
and absurdity of his behaviour when he was last before them
seemed to warrant the belief that his brain had been turned, and
that he was not to be trusted with the lives of other men. The
Lords could not therefore degrade themselves by expressly
rescinding what they had done; nor could they consent to
pronounce the verdict corrupt on no better evidence than common
report.

The reply was complete and triumphant. "Oates is now the smallest
part of the question. He has, Your Lordships say, falsely accused
the Queen Dowager and other innocent persons. Be it so. This bill
gives him no indemnity. We are quite willing that, if he is
guilty, he shall be punished. But for him, and for all
Englishmen, we demand that punishment shall be regulated by law,
and not by the arbitrary discretion of any tribunal. We demand
that, when a writ of error is before Your Lordships, you shall
give judgment on it according to the known customs and statutes
of the realm. We deny that you have any right, on such occasions,
to take into consideration the moral character of a plaintiff or
the political effect of a decision. It is acknowledged by
yourselves that you have, merely because you thought ill of this
man, affirmed a judgment which you knew to be illegal. Against
this assumption of arbitrary power the Commons protest; and they
hope that you will now redeem what you must feel to be an error.
Your Lordships intimate a suspicion that Oates is mad. That a man
is mad may be a very good reason for not punishing him at all.
But how it can be a reason for inflicting on him a punishment
which would be illegal even if he were sane, the Commons do not
comprehend. Your Lordships think that you should not be justified
in calling a verdict corrupt which has not been legally proved to
be so. Suffer us to remind you that you have two distinct
functions to perform. You are judges; and you are legislators.
When you judge, your duty is strictly to follow the law. When you
legislate, you may properly take facts from common fame. You
invert this rule. You are lax in the wrong place, and scrupulous
in the wrong place. As judges, you break through the law for the
sake of a supposed convenience. As legislators, you will not
admit any fact without such technical proof as it is rarely
possible for legislators to obtain."401

This reasoning was not and could not be answered. The Commons
were evidently flushed with their victory in the argument, and
proud of the appearance which Somers had made in the Painted
Chamber. They particularly charged him to see that the report
which he had made of the conference was accurately entered in the
journals. The Lords very wisely abstained from inserting in their
records an account of a debate in which they had been so signally
discomfited. But, though conscious of their fault and ashamed of
it, they could not be brought to do public penance by owning, in
the preamble of the Act, that they had been guilty of injustice.
The minority was, however, strong. The resolution to adhere was
carried by only twelve votes, of which ten were proxies.402

Twenty-one Peers protested. The bill dropped. Two Masters in
Chancery were sent to announce to the Commons the final
resolution of the Peers. The Commons thought this proceeding
unjustifiable in substance and uncourteous in form. They
determined to remonstrate; and Somers drew up an excellent
manifesto, in which the vile name of Oates was scarcely
mentioned, and in which the Upper House was with great
earnestness and gravity exhorted to treat judicial questions
judicially, and not, under pretence of administering law, to make
law.403 The wretched man, who had now a second time thrown the
political world into confusion, received a pardon, and was set at
liberty. His friends in the Lower House moved an address to the
Throne, requesting that a pension sufficient for his support
might be granted to him.404 He was consequently allowed about
three hundred a year, a sum which he thought unworthy of his
acceptance, and which he took with the savage snarl of
disappointed greediness.

From the dispute about Oates sprang another dispute, which might
have produced very serious consequences. The instrument which had
declared William and Mary King and Queen was a revolutionary
instrument. It had been drawn up by an assembly unknown to the
ordinary law, and had never received the royal sanction. It was
evidently desirable that this great contract between the
governors and the governed, this titledeed by which the King held
his throne and the people their liberties, should be put into a
strictly regular form. The Declaration of Rights was therefore
turned into a Bill of Rights; and the Bill of Rights speedily
passed the Commons; but in the Lords difficulties arose.

The Declaration had settled the crown, first on William and Mary
jointly, then on the survivor of the two, then on Mary's
posterity, then on Anne and her posterity, and, lastly, on the
posterity of William by any other wife than Mary. The Bill had
been drawn in exact conformity with the Declaration. Who was to
succeed if Mary, Anne, and William should all die without
posterity, was left in uncertainty. Yet the event for which no
provision was made was far from improbable. Indeed it really came
to pass. William had never had a child. Anne had repeatedly been
a mother, but had no child living. It would not be very strange
if, in a few months, disease, war, or treason should remove all
those who stood in the entail. In what state would the country
then be left? To whom would allegiance be due? The bill indeed
contained a clause which excluded Papists from the throne. But
would such a clause supply the place of a clause designating the
successor by name? What if the next heir should be a prince of
the House of Savoy not three months old? It would be absurd to
call such an infant a Papist. Was he then to be proclaimed King?
Or was the crown to be in abeyance till he came to an age at
which he might be capable of choosing a religion? Might not the
most honest and the most intelligent men be in doubt whether they
ought to regard him as their Sovereign? And to whom could they
look for a solution of this doubt? Parliament there would be
none: for the Parliament would expire with the prince who had
convoked it. There would be mere anarchy, anarchy which might end
in the destruction of the monarchy, or in the destruction of
public liberty. For these weighty reasons, Barnet, at William's
suggestion, proposed it the House of Lords that the crown
should, failing heirs of His Majesty's body, be entailed on an
undoubted Protestant, Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick Lunenburg,
granddaughter of James the First, and daughter of Elizabeth,
Queen of Bohemia.

The Lords unanimously assented to this amendment: but the Commons
unanimously rejected it. The cause of the rejection no
contemporary writer has satisfactorily explained. One Whig
historian talks of the machinations of the republicans, another
of the machinations of the Jacobites. But it is quite certain
that four fifths of the representatives of the people were
neither Jacobites nor republicans. Yet not a single voice was
raised in the Lower House in favour of the clause which in the
Upper House had been carried by acclamation.405 The most probable
explanation seems to be that the gross injustice which had been
committed in the case of Oates had irritated the Commons to such
a degree that they were glad of an opportunity to quarrel with
the Peers. A conference was held. Neither assembly would give
way. While the dispute was hottest, an event took place which, it
might have been thought, would have restored harmony. Anne gave
birth to a son. The child was baptized at Hampton Court with
great pomp, and with many signs of public joy. William was one of
the sponsors. The other was the accomplished Dorset, whose roof
had given shelter to the Princess in her distress. The King
bestowed his own name on his godson, and announced to the
splendid circle assembled around the font that the little William
was henceforth to be called Duke of Gloucester.406 The birth of
this child had greatly diminished the risk against which the
Lords had thought it necessary to guard. They might therefore
have retracted with a good grace. But their pride had been
wounded by the severity with which their decision on Oates's writ
of error had been censured in the Painted Chamber. They had been
plainly told across the table that they were unjust judges; and
the imputation was not the less irritating because they were
conscious that it was deserved. They refused to make any
concession; and the Bill of Rights was suffered to drop.407

But the most exciting question of this long and stormy session
was, what punishment should be inflicted on those men who had,
during the interval between the dissolution of the Oxford
Parliament and the Revolution, been the advisers or the tools of
Charles and James. It was happy for England that, at this crisis,
a prince who belonged to neither of her factions, who loved
neither, who hated neither, and who, for the accomplishment of a
great design, wished to make use of both, was the moderator
between them.

The two parties were now in a position closely resembling that in
which they had been twenty-eight years before. The party indeed
which had then been undermost was now uppermost: but the analogy
between the situations is one of the most perfect that can be
found in history. Both the Restoration and the Revolution was
accomplished by coalitions. At the Restoration, those politicians
who were peculiarly zealous for liberty assisted to reestablish
monarchy: at the Revolution those politicians who were peculiarly
zealous for monarchy assisted to vindicate liberty. The Cavalier
would, at the former conjuncture, have been able to effect
nothing without the help of Puritans who had fought for the
Covenant; nor would the Whig, at the latter conjuncture, have
offered a successful resistance to arbitrary power, had he not
been backed by men who had a very short time before condemned
resistance to arbitrary power as a deadly sin. Conspicuous among
those by whom, in 1660, the royal family was brought back, were
Hopis, who had in the days of the tyranny of Charles the First
held down the Speaker in the chair by main force, while Black Rod
knocked for admission in vain; Ingoldsby, whose name was
subscribed to the memorable death warrant; and Prynne, whose ears
Laud had cut off, and who, in return, had borne the chief part in
cutting off Laud's head. Among the seven who, in 1688, signed the
invitation to William, were Compton, who had long enforced the
duty of obeying Nero; Danby, who had been impeached for
endeavouring to establish military despotism; and Lumley, whose
bloodhounds had tracked Monmouth to that sad last hiding place
among the fern. Both in 1660 and in 1688, while the fate of the
nation still hung in the balance, forgiveness was exchanged
between the hostile factions. On both occasions the
reconciliation, which had seemed to be cordial in the hour of
danger, proved false and hollow in the hour of triumph. As soon
as Charles the Second was at Whitehall, the Cavalier forgot the
good service recently done by the Presbyterians, and remembered
only their old offences. As soon as William was King, too many of
the Whigs began to demand vengeance for all that they had, in the
days of the Rye House Plot, suffered at the hands of the Tories.
On both occasions the Sovereign found it difficult to save the
vanquished party from the fury of his triumphant supporters; and
on both occasions those whom he had disappointed of their revenge
murmured bitterly against the government which had been so weak
and ungrateful as to protect its foes against its friends.

So early as the twenty-fifth of March, William called the
attention of the Commons to the expediency of quieting the public
mind by an amnesty. He expressed his hope that a bill of general
pardon and oblivion would be as speedily as possible presented
for his sanction, and that no exceptions would be made, except
such as were absolutely necessary for the vindication of public
justice and for the safety of the state. The Commons unanimously
agreed to thank him for this instance of his paternal kindness:
but they suffered many weeks to pass without taking any step
towards the accomplishment of his wish. When at length the
subject was resumed, it was resumed in such a manner as plainly
showed that the majority had no real intention of putting an end
to the suspense which embittered the lives of all those Tories
who were conscious that, in their zeal for prerogative, they had
some times overstepped the exact line traced by law. Twelve
categories were framed, some of which were so extensive as to
include tens of thousands of delinquents; and the House resolved
that, under every one of these categories, some exceptions should
be made. Then came the examination into the cases of individuals.
Numerous culprits and witnesses were summoned to the bar. The
debates were long and sharp; and it soon became evident that the
work was interminable. The summer glided away: the autumn was
approaching: the session could not last much longer; and of the
twelve distinct inquisitions, which the Commons had resolved to
institute, only three had been brought to a close. It was
necessary to let the bill drop for that year.408

Among the many offenders whose names were mentioned in the course
of these inquiries, was one who stood alone and unapproached in
guilt and infamy, and whom Whigs and Tories were equally willing
to leave to the extreme rigour of the law. On that terrible day
which was succeeded by the Irish Night, the roar of a great city
disappointed of its revenge had followed Jeffreys to the
drawbridge of the Tower. His imprisonment was not strictly legal:
but he at first accepted with thanks and blessings the protection
which those dark walls, made famous by so many crimes and
sorrows, afforded him against the fury of the multitude.409 Soon,
however, he became sensible that his life was still in imminent
peril. For a time he flattered himself with the hope that a writ
of Habeas Corpus would liberate him from his confinement, and
that he should be able to steal away to some foreign country, and
to hide himself with part of his ill gotten wealth from the
detestation of mankind: but, till the government was settled,
there was no Court competent to grant a writ of Habeas Corpus;
and, as soon as the government had been settled, the Habeas
Corpus Act was suspended.410 Whether the legal guilt of murder
could be brought home to Jeffreys may be doubted. But he was
morally guilty of so many murders that, if there had been no
other way of reaching his life, a retrospective Act of Attainder
would have been clamorously demanded by the whole nation. A
disposition to triumph over the fallen has never been one of the
besetting sins of Englishmen: but the hatred of which Jeffreys
was the object was without a parallel in our history, and partook
but too largely of the savageness of his own nature. The people,
where he was concerned, were as cruel as himself, and exulted in
his misery as he had been accustomed to exult in the misery of
convicts listening to the sentence of death, and of families clad
in mourning. The rabble congregated before his deserted mansion
in Duke Street, and read on the door, with shouts of laughter,
the bills which announced the sale of his property. Even delicate
women, who had tears for highwaymen and housebreakers, breathed
nothing but vengeance against him. The lampoons on him which were
hawked about the town were distinguished by an atrocity rare even
in those days. Hanging would be too mild a death for him: a grave
under the gibbet too respectable a resting place: he ought to be
whipped to death at the cart's tail: he ought to be tortured like
an Indian: he ought to be devoured alive. The street poets
portioned out all his joints with cannibal ferocity, and computed
how many pounds of steaks might be cut from his well fattened
carcass. Nay, the rage of his enemies was such that, in language
seldom heard in England, they proclaimed their wish that he might
go to the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, to the worm
that never dies, to the fire that is never quenched. They
exhorted him to hang himself in his garters, and to cut his
throat with his razor. They put up horrible prayers that he might
not be able to repent, that he might die the same hardhearted,
wicked Jeffreys that he had lived.411 His spirit, as mean in
adversity as insolent and inhuman in prosperity, sank down under
the load of public abhorrence. His constitution, originally bad,
and much impaired by intemperance, was completely broken by
distress and anxiety. He was tormented by a cruel internal
disease, which the most skilful surgeons of that age were seldom
able to relieve. One solace was left to him, brandy. Even when he
had causes to try and councils to attend, he had seldom gone to
bed sober. Now, when he had nothing to occupy his mind save
terrible recollections and terrible forebodings, he abandoned
himself without reserve to his favourite vice. Many believed him
to be bent on shortening his life by excess. He thought it
better, they said, to go off in a drunken fit than to be hacked
by Ketch, or torn limb from limb by the populace.

Once he was roused from a state of abject despondency by an
agreeable sensation, speedily followed by a mortifying
disappointment. A parcel had been left for him at the Tower. It
appeared to be a barrel of Colchester oysters, his favourite
dainties. He was greatly moved: for there are moments when those
who least deserve affection are pleased to think that they
inspire it. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "I have still some friends
left." He opened the barrel; and from among a heap of shells out
tumbled a stout halter.412

It does not appear that one of the flatterers or buffoons whom he
had enriched out of the plunder of his victims came to comfort
him in the day of trouble. But he was not left in utter solitude.
John Tutchin, whom he had sentenced to be flogged every fortnight
for seven years, made his way into the Tower, and presented
himself before the fallen oppressor. Poor Jeffreys, humbled to
the dust, behaved with abject civility, and called for wine. "I
am glad, sir," he said, "to see you." "And I am glad," answered
the resentful Whig, "to see Your Lordship in this place." "I
served my master," said Jeffreys: "I was bound in conscience to
do so." "Where was your conscience," said Tutchin, "when you
passed that sentence on me at Dorchester?" "It was set down in my
instructions," answered Jeffreys, fawningly, "that I was to show
no mercy to men like you, men of parts and courage. When I went
back to court I was reprimanded for my lenity."413 Even Tutchin,
acrimonious as was his nature, and great as were his wrongs,
seems to have been a little mollified by the pitiable spectacle
which he had at first contemplated with vindictive pleasure. He
always denied the truth of the report that he was the person who
sent the Colchester barrel to the Tower.

A more benevolent man, John Sharp, the excellent Dean of Norwich,
forced himself to visit the prisoner. It was a painful task: but
Sharp had been treated by Jeffreys, in old times, as kindly as it
was in the nature of Jeffreys to treat any body, and had once or
twice been able, by patiently waiting till the storm of curses
and invectives had spent itself, and by dexterously seizing the
moment of good humour, to obtain for unhappy families some
mitigation of their sufferings. The prisoner was surprised and
pleased. "What," he said, "dare you own me now? "It was in vain,
however, that the amiable divine tried to give salutary pain to
that seared conscience. Jeffreys, instead of acknowledging his
guilt, exclaimed vehemently against the injustice of mankind.
"People call me a murderer for doing what at the time was
applauded by some who are now high in public favour. They call me
a drunkard because I take punch to relieve me in my agony." He
would not admit that, as President of the High Commission, he had
done any thing that deserved reproach. His colleagues, he said,
were the real criminals; and now they threw all the blame on him.
He spoke with peculiar asperity of Sprat, who had undoubtedly
been the most humane and moderate member of the board.

It soon became clear that the wicked judge was fast sinking under
the weight of bodily and mental suffering. Doctor John Scott,
prebendary of Saint Paul's, a clergyman of great sanctity, and
author of the Christian Life, a treatise once widely renowned,
was summoned, probably on the recommendation of his intimate
friend Sharp, to the bedside of the dying man. It was in vain,
however, that Scott spoke, as Sharp had already spoken, of the
hideous butcheries of Dorchester and Taunton. To the last
Jeffreys continued to repeat that those who thought him cruel did
not know what his orders were, that he deserved praise instead of
blame, and that his clemency had drawn on him the extreme
displeasure of his master.414

Disease, assisted by strong drink and by misery, did its work
fast. The patient's stomach rejected all nourishment. He dwindled
in a few weeks from a portly and even corpulent man to a
skeleton. On the eighteenth of April he died, in the forty-first
year of his age. He had been Chief Justice of the King's Bench at
thirty-five, and Lord Chancellor at thirty-seven. In the whole
history of the English bar there is no other instance of so rapid
an elevation, or of so terrible a fall. The emaciated corpse was
laid, with all privacy, next to the corpse of Monmouth in the
chapel of the Tower.415

The fall of this man, once so great and so much dreaded, the
horror with which he was regarded by all the respectable members
of his own party, the manner in which the least respectable
members of that party renounced fellowship with him in his
distress, and threw on him the whole blame of crimes which they
had encouraged him to commit, ought to have been a lesson to
those intemperate friends of liberty who were clamouring for a
new proscription. But it was a lesson which too many of them
disregarded. The King had, at the very commencement of his reign,
displeased them by appointing a few Tories and Trimmers to high
offices; and the discontent excited by these appointments had
been inflamed by his attempt to obtain a general amnesty for the
vanquished. He was in truth not a man to be popular with the
vindictive zealots of any faction. For among his peculiarities
was a certain ungracious humanity which rarely conciliated his
foes, which often provoked his adherents, but in which he doggedly
persisted, without troubling himself either about the
thanklessness of those whom he had saved from destruction, or
about the rage of those whom he had disappointed of their
revenge. Some of the Whigs now spoke of him as bitterly as they
had ever spoken of either of his uncles. He was a Stuart after
all, and was not a Stuart for nothing. Like the rest of the race,
he loved arbitrary power. In Holland, he had succeeded in making
himself, under the forms of a republican polity, scarcely less
absolute than the old hereditary Counts had been. In consequence
of a strange combination of circumstances, his interest had,
during a short time, coincided with the interest of the English
people: but though he had been a deliverer by accident, he was a
despot by nature. He had no sympathy with the just resentments of
the Whigs. He had objects in view which the Whigs would not
willingly suffer any Sovereign to attain. He knew that the Tories
were the only tools for his purpose. He had therefore, from the
moment at which he took his seat on the throne, favoured them
unduly. He was now trying to procure an indemnity for those very
delinquents whom he had, a few months before, described in his
Declaration as deserving of exemplary punishment. In November he
had told the world that the crimes in which these men had borne a
part had made it the duty of subjects to violate their oath of
allegiance, of soldiers to desert their standards, of children to
make war on their parents. With what consistency then could he
recommend that such crimes should be covered by a general
oblivion? And was there not too much reason to fear that he
wished to save the agents of tyranny from the fate which they
merited, in the hope that, at some future time, they might serve
him as unscrupulously as they had served his father in law?416

Of the members of the House of Commons who were animated by these
feelings, the fiercest and most audacious was Howe. He went so
far on one occasion as to move that an inquiry should be
instituted into the proceedings of the Parliament of 1685, and
that some note of infamy should be put on all who, in that
Parliament, had voted with the Court. This absurd and mischievous
motion was discountenanced by all the most respectable Whigs, and
strongly opposed by Birch and Maynard.417 Howe was forced to give
way: but he was a man whom no check could abash; and he was
encouraged by the applause of many hotheaded members of his
party, who were far from foreseeing that he would, after having
been the most rancorous and unprincipled of Whigs, become, at no
distant time, the most rancorous and unprincipled of Tories.

This quickwitted, restless and malignant politician, though
himself occupying a lucrative place in the royal household,
declaimed, day after day, against the manner in which the great
offices of state were filled; and his declamations were echoed,
in tones somewhat less sharp and vehement, by other orators. No
man, they said, who had been a minister of Charles or of James
ought to be a minister of William. The first attack was directed
against the Lord President Caermarthen. Howe moved that an
address should be presented to the King, requesting that all
persons who had ever been impeached by the Commons might be
dismissed from His Majesty's counsels and presence. The debate on
this motion was repeatedly adjourned. While the event was
doubtful, William sent Dykvelt to expostulate with Howe. Howe was
obdurate. He was what is vulgarly called a disinterested man;
that is to say, he valued money less than the pleasure of venting
his spleen and of making a sensation. "I am doing the King a
service," he said: "I am rescuing him from false friends: and, as
to my place, that shall never be a gag to prevent me from
speaking my mind." The motion was made, but completely failed. In
truth the proposition, that mere accusation, never prosecuted to
conviction, ought to be considered as a decisive proof of guilt,
was shocking to natural justice. The faults of Caermarthen had
doubtless been great; but they had been exaggerated by party
spirit, had been expiated by severe suffering, and had been
redeemed by recent and eminent services. At the time when he
raised the great county of York in arms against Popery and
tyranny, he had been assured by some of the most eminent Whigs
that all old quarrels were forgotten. Howe indeed maintained that
the civilities which had passed in the moment of peril signified
nothing. "When a viper is on my hand," he said, "I am very tender
of him; but, as soon as I have him on the ground, I set my foot
on him and crush him." The Lord President, however, was so
strongly supported that, after a discussion which lasted three
days, his enemies did not venture to take the sense of the House
on the motion against him. In the course of the debate a grave
constitutional question was incidentally raised. This question
was whether a pardon could be pleaded in bar of a parliamentary
impeachment. The Commons resolved, without a division, that a
pardon could not be so pleaded.418

The next attack was made on Halifax. He was in a much more
invidious position than Caermarthen, who had, under pretence of
ill health, withdrawn himself almost entirely from business.
Halifax was generally regarded as the chief adviser of the Crown,
and was in an especial manner held responsible for all the faults
which had been committed with respect to Ireland. The evils which
had brought that kingdom to ruin might, it was said, have been
averted by timely precaution, or remedied by vigorous exertion.
But the government had foreseen nothing: it had done little; and
that little had been done neither at the right time nor in the
right way. Negotiation had been employed instead of troops, when
a few troops might have sufficed. A few troops had been sent when
many were needed. The troops that had been sent had been ill
equipped and ill commanded. Such, the vehement Whigs exclaimed,
were the natural fruits of that great error which King William
had committed on the first day of his reign. He had placed in
Tories and Trimmers a confidence which they did not deserve. He
had, in a peculiar manner, entrusted the direction of Irish
affairs to the Trimmer of Trimmers, to a man whose ability nobody
disputed, but who was not firmly attached to the new government,
who, indeed, was incapable of being firmly attached to any
government, who had always halted between two opinions, and who,
till the moment of the flight of James, had not given up the hope
that the discontents of the nation might be quieted without a
change of dynasty. Howe, on twenty occasions, designated Halifax
as the cause of all the calamities of the country. Monmouth held
similar language in the House of Lords. Though First Lord of the
Treasury, he paid no attention to financial business, for which
he was altogether unfit, and of which he had very soon become
weary. His whole heart was in the work of persecuting the Tories.
He plainly told the King that nobody who was not a Whig ought to
be employed in the public service. William's answer was cool and
determined. "I have done as much for your friends as I can do
without danger to the state; and I will do no more,"419 The only
effect of this reprimand was to make Monmouth more factious than
ever. Against Halifax especially he intrigued and harangued with
indefatigable animosity. The other Whig Lords of the Treasury,
Delamere and Capel, were scarcely less eager to drive the Lord
Privy Seal from office; and personal jealousy and antipathy
impelled the Lord President to conspire with his own accusers
against his rival.

What foundation there may have been for the imputations thrown at
this time on Halifax cannot now be fully ascertained. His
enemies, though they interrogated numerous witnesses, and though
they obtained William's reluctant permission to inspect the
minutes of the Privy Council, could find no evidence which would
support a definite charge.420 But it was undeniable that the Lord
Privy Seal had acted as minister for Ireland, and that Ireland
was all but lost. It is unnecessary, and indeed absurd, to
suppose, as many Whigs supposed, that his administration was
unsuccessful because he did not wish it to be successful. The
truth seems to be that the difficulties of the situation were
great, and that he, with all his ingenuity and eloquence, was ill
qualified to cope with those difficulties. The whole machinery of
government was out of joint; and he was not the man to set it
right. What was wanted was not what he had in large measure, wit,
taste, amplitude of comprehension, subtlety in drawing
distinctions; but what he had not, prompt decision, indefatigable
energy, and stubborn resolution. His mind was at best of too soft
a temper for such work as he had now to do, and had been recently
made softer by severe affliction. He had lost two sons in less
than twelve months. A letter is still extant, in which he at this
time complained to his honoured friend Lady Russell of the
desolation of his hearth and of the cruel ingratitude of the
Whigs. We possess, also, the answer, in which she gently exhorted
him to seek for consolation where she had found it under trials
not less severe than his.421

The first attack on him was made in the Upper House. Some Whig
Lords, among whom the wayward and petulant First Lord of the
Treasury was conspicuous, proposed that the King should be
requested to appoint a new Speaker. The friends of Halifax moved
and carried the previous question.422 About three weeks later his
persecutors moved, in a Committee of the whole House of Commons,
a resolution which imputed to him no particular crime either of
omission or of commission, but simply declared it to be advisable
that he should be dismissed from the service of the Crown. The
debate was warm. Moderate politicians of both parties were
unwilling to put a stigma on a man, not indeed faultless, but
distinguished both by his abilities and by his amiable qualities.
His accusers saw that they could not carry their point, and tried
to escape from a decision which was certain to be adverse to
them, by proposing that the Chairman should report progress. But
their tactics were disconcerted by the judicious and spirited
conduct of Lord Eland, now the Marquess's only son. "My father
has not deserved," said the young nobleman, "to be thus trifled
with. If you think him culpable, say so. He will at once submit
to your verdict. Dismission from Court has no terrors for him. He
is raised, by the goodness of God, above the necessity of looking
to office for the means of supporting his rank." The Committee
divided, and Halifax was absolved by a majority of fourteen.423

Had the division been postponed a few hours, the majority would
probably have been much greater. The Commons voted under the
impression that Londonderry had fallen, and that all Ireland was
lost. Scarcely had the House risen when a courier arrived with
news that the boom on the Foyle had been broken. He was speedily
followed by a second, who announced the raising of the siege, and
by a third who brought the tidings of the battle of Newton
Butler. Hope and exultation succeeded to discontent and
dismay.424 Ulster was safe; and it was confidently expected that
Schomberg would speedily reconquer Leinster, Connaught, and
Munster. He was now ready to set out. The port of Chester was the
place from which he was to take his departure. The army which he
was to command had assembled there; and the Dee was crowded with
men of war and transports. Unfortunately almost all those English
soldiers who had seen war had been sent to Flanders. The bulk of
the force destined for Ireland consisted of men just taken from
the plough and the threshing floor. There was, however, an
excellent brigade of Dutch troops under the command of an
experienced officer, the Count of Solmes. Four regiments, one of
cavalry and three of infantry, had been formed out of the French
refugees, many of whom had borne arms with credit. No person did
more to promote the raising of these regiments than the Marquess
of Ruvigny. He had been during many years an eminently faithful
and useful servant of the French government. So highly was his
merit appreciated at Versailles that he had been solicited to
accept indulgences which scarcely any other heretic could by any
solicitation obtain. Had he chosen to remain in his native
country, he and his household would have been permitted to
worship God privately according to their own forms. But Ruvigny
rejected all offers, cast in his lot with his brethren, and, at
upwards of eighty years of age, quitted Versailles, where he
might still have been a favourite, for a modest dwelling at
Greenwich. That dwelling was, during the last months of his life,
the resort of all that was most distinguished among his fellow
exiles. His abilities, his experience and his munificent
kindness, made him the undisputed chief of the refugees. He was
at the same time half an Englishman: for his sister had been
Countess of Southampton, and he was uncle of Lady Russell. He was
long past the time of action. But his two sons, both men of
eminent courage, devoted their swords to the service of William.
The younger son, who bore the name of Caillemote, was appointed
colonel of one of the Huguenot regiments of foot. The two other
regiments of foot were commanded by La Melloniere and Cambon,
officers of high reputation. The regiment of horse was raised by
Schomberg himself, and bore his name. Ruvigny lived just long
enough to see these arrangements complete.425

The general to whom the direction of the expedition against
Ireland was confided had wonderfully succeeded in obtaining the
affection and esteem of the English nation. He had been made a
Duke, a Knight of the Garter, and Master of the Ordnance: he was
now placed at the head of an army: and yet his elevation excited
none of that jealousy which showed itself as often as any mark of
royal favour was bestowed on Bentinck, on Zulestein, or on
Auverquerque. Schomberg's military skill was universally
acknowledged. He was regarded by all Protestants as a confessor
who had endured every thing short of martyrdom for the truth. For
his religion he had resigned a splendid income, had laid down the
truncheon of a Marshal of France, and had, at near eighty years
of age, begun the world again as a needy soldier of fortune. As
he had no connection with the United Provinces, and had never
belonged to the little Court of the Hague, the preference given
to him over English captains was justly ascribed, not to national
or personal partiality, but to his virtues and his abilities.
His deportment differed widely from that of the other foreigners
who had just been created English peers. They, with many
respectable qualities, were, in tastes, manners, and
predilections, Dutchmen, and could not catch the tone of the
society to which they had been transferred. He was a citizen of
the world, had travelled over all Europe, had commanded armies on
the Meuse, on the Ebro, and on the Tagus, had shone in the
splendid circle of Versailles, and had been in high favour at the
court of Berlin. He had often been taken by French noblemen for a
French nobleman. He had passed some time in England, spoke
English remarkably well, accommodated himself easily to English
manners, and was often seen walking in the park with English
companions. In youth his habits had been temperate; and his
temperance had its proper reward, a singularly green and vigorous
old age. At fourscore he retained a strong relish for innocent
pleasures: he conversed with great courtesy and sprightliness:
nothing could be in better taste than his equipages and his
table; and every cornet of cavalry envied the grace and dignity
with which the veteran appeared in Hyde Park on his charger at
the head of his regiment.426 The House of Commons had, with
general approbation, compensated his losses and rewarded his
services by a grant of a hundred thousand pounds. Before he set
out for Ireland, he requested permission to express his gratitude
for this magnificent present. A chair was set for him within the
bar. He took his seat there with the mace at his right hand,
rose, and in a few graceful words returned his thanks and took
his leave. The Speaker replied that the Commons could never
forget the obligation under which they already lay to His Grace,
that they saw him with pleasure at the head of an English army,
that they felt entire confidence in his zeal and ability, and
that, at whatever distance he might be, he would always be in a
peculiar manner an object of their care. The precedent set on
this interesting occasion was followed with the utmost
minuteness, a hundred and twenty-five years later, on an occasion
more interesting still. Exactly on the same spot on which, in
July 1689, Schomberg had acknowledged the liberality of the
nation, a chair was set, in July 1814, for a still more
illustrious warrior, who came to return thanks for a still more
splendid mark of public gratitude. Few things illustrate more
strikingly the peculiar character of the English government and
people than the circumstance that the House of Commons, a popular
assembly, should, even in a moment of joyous enthusiasm, have
adhered to ancient forms with the punctilious accuracy of a
College of Heralds; that the sitting and rising, the covering
and the uncovering, should have been regulated by exactly the
same etiquette in the nineteenth century as in the seventeenth;
and that the same mace which had been held at the right hand of
Schomberg should have been held in the same position at the right
hand of Wellington.427

On the twentieth of August the Parliament, having been constantly
engaged in business during seven months, broke up, by the royal
command, for a short recess. The same Gazette which announced
that the Houses had ceased to sit announced that Schomberg had
landed in Ireland.428

During the three weeks which preceded his landing, the dismay and
confusion at Dublin Castle had been extreme. Disaster had
followed disaster so fast that the mind of James, never very
firm, had been completely prostrated. He had learned first that
Londonderry had been relieved; then that one of his armies had
been beaten by the Enniskilleners; then that another of his
armies was retreating, or rather flying, from Ulster, reduced in
numbers and broken in spirit; then that Sligo, the key of
Connaught, had been abandoned to the Englishry. He had found it
impossible to subdue the colonists, even when they were left
almost unaided. He might therefore well doubt whether it would be
possible for him to contend against them when they were backed by
an English army, under the command of the greatest general
living. The unhappy prince seemed, during some days, to be sunk
in despondency. On Avaux the danger produced a very different
effect. Now, he thought, was the time to turn the war between the
English and the Irish into a war of extirpation, and to make it
impossible that the two nations could ever be united under one
government. With this view, he coolly submitted to the King a
proposition of almost incredible atrocity. There must be a Saint
Bartholomew. A pretext would easily be found. No doubt, when
Schomberg was known to be in Ireland, there would be some
excitement in those southern towns of which the population was
chiefly English. Any disturbance, wherever it might take place,
would furnish an excuse for a general massacre of the Protestants
of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught.429 As the King did not at
first express any horror at this suggestion,430 the Envoy, a few
days later, renewed the subject, and pressed His Majesty to give
the necessary orders. Then James, with a warmth which did him
honour, declared that nothing should induce him to commit such a
crime. "These people are my subjects; and I cannot be so cruel as
to cut their throats while they live peaceably under my
government." "There is nothing cruel," answered the callous
diplomatist, "in what I recommend. Your Majesty ought to consider
that mercy to Protestants is cruelty to Catholics." James,
however, was not to be moved; and Avaux retired in very bad
humour. His belief was that the King's professions of humanity
were hypocritical, and that, if the orders for the butchery were
not given, they were not given only because His Majesty was
confident that the Catholics all over the country would fall on
the Protestants without waiting for orders.431 But Avaux was
entirely mistaken. That he should have supposed James to be as
profoundly immoral as himself is not strange. But it is strange
that so able a man should have forgotten that James and himself
had quite different objects in view. The object of the
Ambassador's politics was to make the separation between England
and Ireland eternal. The object of the King's politics was to
unite England and Ireland under his own sceptre; and he could not
but be aware that, if there should be a general massacre of the
Protestants of three provinces, and he should be suspected of
having authorised it or of having connived at it, there would in
a fortnight be not a Jacobite left even at Oxford.432

Just at this time the prospects of James, which had seemed
hopelessly dark, began to brighten. The danger which had unnerved
him had roused the Irish people. They had, six months before,
risen up as one man against the Saxons. The army which Tyrconnel
had formed was, in proportion to the population from which it was
taken, the largest that Europe had ever seen. But that army had
sustained a long succession of defeats and disgraces, unredeemed
by a single brilliant achievement. It was the fashion, both in
England and on the Continent, to ascribe those defeats and
disgraces to the pusillanimity of the Irish race.433 That this
was a great error is sufficiently proved by the history of every
war which has been carried on in any part of Christendom during
five generations. The raw material out of which a good army may
be formed existed in great abundance among the Irish. Avaux
informed his government that they were a remarkably handsome,
tall, and well made race; that they were personally brave; that
they were sincerely attached to the cause for which they were in
arms; that they were violently exasperated against the colonists.
After extolling their strength and spirit, he proceeded to
explain why it was that, with all their strength and spirit, they
were constantly beaten. It was vain, he said, to imagine that
bodily prowess, animal courage, or patriotic enthusiasm would, in
the day of battle, supply the place of discipline. The infantry
were ill armed and ill trained. They were suffered to pillage
wherever they went. They had contracted all the habits of
banditti. There was among them scarcely one officer capable of showing them
their
duty. Their colonels were generally men of good family, but men
who had never seen service. The captains were butchers, tailors,
shoemakers. Hardly one of them troubled himself about the
comforts, the accoutrements, or the drilling of those over whom
he was placed. The dragoons were little better than the infantry.
But the horse were, with some exceptions, excellent. Almost all
the Irish gentlemen who had any military experience held
commissions in the cavalry; and, by the exertions of these
officers, some regiments had been raised and disciplined which
Avaux pronounced equal to any that he had ever seen. It was
therefore evident that the inefficiency of the foot and of the
dragoons was to he ascribed to the vices, not of the Irish
character, but of the Irish administration.434

The events which took place in the autumn of 1689 sufficiently
proved that the ill fated race, which enemies and allies
generally agreed in regarding with unjust contempt, had, together
with the faults inseparable from poverty, ignorance, and
superstition, some fine qualities which have not always been
found in more prosperous and more enlightened communities. The
evil tidings which terrified and bewildered James stirred the
whole population of the southern provinces like the peal of a
trumpet sounding to battle. That Ulster was lost, that the
English were coming, that the death grapple between the two
hostile nations was at hand, was proclaimed from all the altars
of three and twenty counties. One last chance was left; and, if
that chance failed, nothing remained but the despotic, the
merciless, rule of the Saxon colony and of the heretical church.
The Roman Catholic priest who had just taken possession of the
glebe house and the chancel, the Roman Catholic squire who had
just been carried back on the shoulders of the shouting tenantry
into the hall of his fathers, would be driven forth to live on
such alms as peasants, themselves oppressed and miserable, could
spare. A new confiscation would complete the work of the Act of
Settlement; and the followers of William would seize whatever the
followers of Cromwell had spared. These apprehensions produced
such an outbreak of patriotic and religious enthusiasm as
deferred for a time the inevitable day of subjugation. Avaux was
amazed by the energy which, in circumstances so trying, the Irish
displayed. It was indeed the wild and unsteady energy of a half
barbarous people: it was transient: it was often misdirected:
but, though transient and misdirected, it did wonders. The French
Ambassador was forced to own that those officers of whose
incompetency and inactivity he had so often complained had
suddenly shaken off their lethargy. Recruits came in by
thousands. The ranks which had been thinned under the walls of
Londonderry were soon again full to overflowing. Great efforts
were made to arm and clothe the troops; and, in the short space
of a fortnight, every thing presented a new and cheering
aspect.435

The Irish required of the King, in return for their strenuous
exertions in his cause, one concession which was by no means
agreeable to him. The unpopularity of Melfort had become such,
that his person was scarcely safe. He had no friend to speak a
word in his favour. The French hated him. In every letter which
arrived at Dublin from England or from Scotland, he was described
as the evil genius of the House of Stuart. It was necessary for
his own sake to dismiss him. An honourable pretext was found. He
was ordered to repair to Versailles, to represent there the state
of affairs in Ireland, and to implore the French government to
send over without delay six or seven thousand veteran infantry.
He laid down the seals; and they were, to the great delight of
the Irish, put into the hands of an Irishman, Sir Richard Nagle,
who had made himself conspicuous as Attorney General and Speaker
of the House of Commons. Melfort took his departure under cover
of the night: for the rage of the populace against him was such
that he could not without danger show himself in the streets of
Dublin by day. On the following morning James left his capital in
the opposite direction to encounter Schomberg.436

Schomberg had landed in Antrim. The force which he had brought
with him did not exceed ten thousand men. But he expected to be
joined by the armed colonists and by the regiments which were
under Kirke's command. The coffeehouse politicians of London
fully expected that such a general with such an army would
speedily reconquer the island. Unhappily it soon appeared that
the means which had been furnished to him were altogether
inadequate to the work which he had to perform: of the greater
part of these means he was speedily deprived by a succession of
unforeseen calamities; and the whole campaign was merely a long
struggle maintained by his prudence and resolution against the
utmost spite of fortune.

He marched first to Carrickfergus. That town was held for James
by two regiments of infantry. Schomberg battered the walls; and
the Irish, after holding out a week, capitulated. He promised
that they should depart unharmed; but he found it no easy matter
to keep his word. The people of the town and neighbourhood were
generally Protestants of Scottish extraction. They had suffered
much during the short ascendency of the native race; and what
they had suffered they were now eager to retaliate. They
assembled in great multitudes, exclaiming that the capitulation
was nothing to them, and that they would be revenged. They soon
proceeded from words to blows. The Irish, disarmed, stripped, and
hustled, clung for protection to the English officers and
soldiers. Schomberg with difficulty prevented a massacre by
spurring, pistol in hand, through the throng of the enraged
colonists.437

From Carrickfergus Schomberg proceeded to Lisburn, and thence,
through towns left without an inhabitant, and over plains on
which not a cow, nor a sheep, nor a stack of corn was to be seen,
to Loughbrickland. Here he was joined by three regiments of
Enniskilleners, whose dress, horses, and arms locked strange to
eyes accustomed to the pomp of reviews, but who in natural
courage were inferior to no troops in the world, and who had,
during months of constant watching and skirmishing, acquired many
of the essential qualities of soldiers. 438

Schomberg continued to advance towards Dublin through a desert.
The few Irish troops which remained in the south of Ulster
retreated before him, destroying as they retreated. Newry, once a
well built and thriving Protestant borough, he found a heap of
smoking ashes. Carlingford too had perished. The spot where the
town had once stood was marked only by the massy remains of the
old Norman castle. Those who ventured to wander from the camp
reported that the country, as far as they could explore it, was a
wilderness. There were cabins, but no inmates: there was rich
pasture, but neither flock nor herd: there were cornfields; but
the harvest lay on the ground soaked with rain.439

While Schomberg was advancing through a vast solitude, the Irish
forces were rapidly assembling from every quarter. On the tenth
of September the royal standard of James was unfurled on the
tower of Drogheda; and beneath it were soon collected twenty
thousand fighting men, the infantry generally bad, the cavalry
generally good, but both infantry and cavalry full of zeal for
their country and their religion.440 The troops were attended as
usual by a great multitude of camp followers, armed with scythes,
half pikes, and skeans. By this time Schomberg had reached
Dundalk. The distance between the two armies was not more than a
long day's march. It was therefore generally expected that the
fate of the island would speedily be decided by a pitched battle.

In both camps, all who did not understand war were eager to
fight; and, in both camps; the few who head a high reputation for
military science were against fighting. Neither Rosen nor
Schomberg wished to put every thing on a cast. Each of them knew
intimately the defects of his own army, and neither of them was
fully aware of the defects of the other's army. Rosen was certain
that the Irish infantry were "worse equipped, worse officered,
and worse drilled, than any infantry that he had ever seen from
the Gulf of Bothnia to the Atlantic; and he supposed that the
English troops were well trained, and were, as they doubtless
ought to have been, amply provided with every thing necessary to
their efficiency. Numbers, he rightly judged, would avail little
against a great superiority of arms and discipline. He therefore
advised James to fall back, and even to abandon Dublin to the
enemy, rather than hazard a battle the loss of which would be the
loss of all. Athlone was the best place in the kingdom for a
determined stand. The passage of the Shannon might be defended
till the succours which Melfort had been charged to solicit came
from France; and those succours would change the whole character
of the war. But the Irish, with Tyrconnel at their head, were
unanimous against retreating. The blood of the whole nation was
up. James was pleased with the enthusiasm of his subjects, and
positively declared that he would not disgrace himself by leaving
his capital to the invaders without a blow.441

In a few days it became clear that Schomberg had determined not
to fight. His reasons were weighty. He had some good Dutch and
French troops. The Enniskilleners who had joined him had served
a military apprenticeship, though not in a very regular manner.
But the bulk of his army consisted of English peasants who had
just left their cottages. His musketeers had still to learn how
to load their pieces: his dragoons had still to learn how to
manage their horses; and these inexperienced recruits were for
the most part commanded by officers as inexperienced as
themselves. His troops were therefore not generally superior in
discipline to the Irish, and were in number far inferior. Nay, he
found that his men were almost as ill armed, as ill lodged, as
ill clad, as the Celts to whom they were opposed. The wealth of
the English nation and the liberal votes of the English
parliament had entitled him to expect that he should be
abundantly supplied with all the munitions of war. But he was
cruelly disappointed. The administration had, ever since the
death of Oliver, been constantly becoming more and more imbecile,
more and more corrupt; and now the Revolution reaped what the
Restoration had sown. A crowd of negligent or ravenous
functionaries, formed under Charles and James, plundered,
starved, and poisoned the armies and fleets of William. Of these
men the most important was Henry Shales, who, in the late reign,
had been Commissary General to the camp at Hounslow. It is
difficult to blame the new government for continuing to employ
him: for, in his own department, his experience far surpassed
that of any other Englishman. Unfortunately, in the same school
in which he had acquired his experience, he had learned the whole
art of peculation. The beef and brandy which he furnished were so
bad that the soldiers turned from them with loathing: the tents
were rotten: the clothing was scanty: the muskets broke in the
handling. Great numbers of shoes were set down to the account of
the government: but, two months after the Treasury had paid the
bill, the shoes had not arrived in Ireland. The means of
transporting baggage and artillery were almost entirely wanting.
An ample number of horses had been purchased in England with the
public money, and had been sent to the banks of the Dee. But
Shales had let them out for harvest work to the farmers of
Cheshire, had pocketed the hire, and had left the troops in
Ulster to get on as they best might.442 Schomberg thought that,
if he should, with an ill trained and ill appointed army, risk a
battle against a superior force, he might not improbably be
defeated; and he knew that a defeat might be followed by the loss
of one kingdom, perhaps by the loss of three kingdoms. He
therefore made up his mind to stand on the defensive till his men
had been disciplined, and till reinforcements and supplies should
arrive.

He entrenched himself near Dundalk in such a manner that he could
not be forced to fight against his will. James, emboldened by the
caution of his adversary, and disregarding the advice of Rosen,
advanced to Ardee, appeared at the head of the whole Irish army
before the English lines, drew up horse, foot and artillery, in
order of battle, and displayed his banner. The English were
impatient to fall on. But their general had made up his mind, and
was not to be moved by the bravadoes of the enemy or by the
murmurs of his own soldiers. During some weeks he remained secure
within his defences, while the Irish lay a few miles off. He set
himself assiduously to drill those new levies which formed the
greater part of his army. He ordered the musketeers to be
constantly exercised in firing, sometimes at marks and sometimes
by platoons; and, from the way in which they at first acquitted
themselves, it plainly appeared that he had judged wisely in not
leading them out to battle. It was found that not one in four of
the English soldiers could manage his piece at all; and whoever
succeeded in discharging it, no matter in what direction,
thought that he had performed a great feat.

While the Duke was thus employed, the Irish eyed his camp without
daring to attack it. But within that camp soon appeared two evils
more terrible than the foe, treason and pestilence. Among the
best troops under his command were the French exiles. And now a
grave doubt arose touching their fidelity. The real Huguenot
refugee indeed might safely be trusted. The dislike with which
the most zealous English Protestant regarded the House of Bourbon
and the Church of Rome was a lukewarm feeling when compared with
that inextinguishable hatred which glowed in the bosom of the
persecuted, dragooned, expatriated Calvinist of Languedoc. The
Irish had already remarked that the French heretic neither gave
nor took quarter.443 Now, however, it was found that with those
emigrants who had sacrificed every thing for the reformed
religion were intermingled emigrants of a very different sort,
deserters who had run away from their standards in the Low
Countries, and had coloured their crime by pretending that they
were Protestants, and that their conscience would not suffer them
to fight for the persecutor of their Church. Some of these men,
hoping that by a second treason they might obtain both pardon and
reward, opened a correspondence with Avaux. The letters were
intercepted; and a formidable plot was brought to light. It
appeared that, if Schomberg had been weak enough to yield to the
importunity of those who wished him to give battle, several
French companies would, in the heat of the action, have fired on
the English, and gone over to the enemy. Such a defection might
well have produced a general panic in a better army than that
which was encamped under Dundalk. It was necessary to be severe.
Six of the conspirators were hanged. Two hundred of their
accomplices were sent in irons to England. Even after this
winnowing, the refugees were long regarded by the rest of the
army with unjust but not unnatural suspicion. During some days
indeed there was great reason to fear that the enemy would be
entertained with a bloody fight between the English soldiers and
their French allies.444

A few hours before the execution of the chief conspirators, a
general muster of the army was held; and it was observed that the
ranks of the English battalions looked thin. From the first day
of the campaign, there had been much sickness among the recruits:
but it was not till the time of the equinox that the mortality
became alarming. The autumnal rains of Ireland are usually heavy;
and this year they were heavier than usual. The whole country was
deluged; and the Duke's camp became a marsh. The Enniskillen men
were seasoned to the climate. The Dutch were accustomed to live
in a country which, as a wit of that age said, draws fifty feet
of water. They kept their huts dry and clean; and they had
experienced and careful officers who did not suffer them to omit
any precaution. But the peasants of Yorkshire and Derbyshire had
neither constitutions prepared to resist the pernicious
influence, nor skill to protect themselves against it. The bad
provisions furnished by the Commissariat aggravated the maladies
generated by the air. Remedies were almost entirely wanting. The
surgeons were few. The medicine chests contained little more than
lint and plaisters for wounds. The English sickened and died by
hundreds. Even those who were not smitten by the pestilence were
unnerved and dejected, and, instead of putting forth the energy
which is the heritage of our race, awaited their fate with the
helpless apathy of Asiatics. It was in vain that Schomberg tried
to teach them to improve their habitations, and to cover the wet
earth on which they lay with a thick carpet of fern. Exertion had
become more dreadful to them than death. It was not to be
expected that men who would not help themselves should help each
other. Nobody asked and nobody showed compassion. Familiarity
with ghastly spectacles produced a hardheartedness and a
desperate impiety, of which an example will not easily be found
even in the history of infectious diseases. The moans of the sick
were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their comrades.
Sometimes, seated on the body of a wretch who had died in the
morning, might be seen a wretch destined to die before night,
cursing, singing loose songs, and swallowing usquebaugh to the
health of the devil. When the corpses were taken away to be
buried the survivors grumbled. A dead man, they said, was a good
screen and a good stool. Why, when there was so abundant a supply
of such useful articles of furniture, were people to he exposed
to the cold air and forced to crouch on the moist ground?445

Many of the sick were sent by the English vessels which lay off
the coast to Belfast, where a great hospital had been prepared.
But scarce half of them lived to the end of the voyage. More than
one ship lay long in the bay of Carrickfergus heaped with
carcasses, and exhaling the stench of death, without a living man
on board.446

The Irish army suffered much less. The kerne of Munster or
Connaught was dune as well off in the camp as if he had been in
his own mud cabin inhaling the vapours of his own quagmire. He
naturally exulted in the distress of the Saxon heretics, and
flattered himself that they would be destroyed without a blow. He
heard with delight the guns pealing all day over the graves of
the English officers, till at length the funerals became too
numerous to be celebrated with military pomp, and the mournful
sounds were succeeded by a silence more mournful still.

The superiority of force was now so decidedly on the side of
James that he could safely venture to detach five regiments from
his army, and to send them into Connaught. Sarsfield commanded
them. He did not, indeed, stand so high as he deserved in the
royal estimation. The King, with an air of intellectual
superiority which must have made Avaux and Rosen bite their lips,
pronounced him a brave fellow, but very scantily supplied with
brains. It was not without great difficulty that the Ambassador
prevailed on His Majesty to raise the best officer in the Irish
army to the rank of Brigadier. Sarsfield now fully vindicated the
favourable opinion which his French patrons had formed of him. He
dislodged the English from Sligo; and he effectually secured
Galway, which had been in considerable danger.447

No attack, however, was made on the English entrenchments before
Dundalk. In the midst of difficulties and disasters hourly
multiplying, the great qualities of Schomberg appeared hourly
more and more conspicuous. Not in the full tide of success, not
on the field of Montes Claros, not under the walls of Maestricht,
had he so well deserved the admiration of mankind. His resolution
never gave way. His prudence never slept. His temper, in spite of
manifold vexations and provocations, was always cheerful and
serene. The effective men under his command, even if all were
reckoned as effective who were not stretched on the earth by
fever, did not now exceed five thousand. These were hardly equal
to their ordinary duty; and yet it was necessary to harass them
with double duty. Nevertheless so masterly were the old man's
dispositions that with this small force he faced during several
weeks twenty thousand troops who were accompanied by a multitude
of armed banditti. At length early in November the Irish
dispersed, and went to winter quarters. The Duke then broke up
his camp and retired into Ulster. Just as the remains of his army
were about to move, a rumour spread that the enemy was
approaching in great force. Had this rumour been true, the danger
would have been extreme. But the English regiments, though they
had been reduced to a third part of their complement, and though
the men who were in best health were hardly able to shoulder
arms, showed a strange joy and alacrity at the prospect of
battle, and swore that the Papists should pay for all the misery
of the last month. "We English," Schomberg said, identifying
himself good humouredly with the people of the country which had
adopted him, "we English have stomach enough for fighting. It is
a pity that we are not as fond of some other parts of a soldier's
business."

The alarm proved false: the Duke's army departed unmolested: but
the highway along which he retired presented a piteous and
hideous spectacle. A long train of waggons laden with the sick
jolted over the rugged pavement. At every jolt some wretched man
gave up the ghost. The corpse was flung out and left unburied to
the foxes and crows. The whole number of those who died, in the
camp at Dundalk, in the hospital at Belfast, on the road, and on
the sea, amounted to above six thousand. The survivors were
quartered for the winter in the towns and villages of Ulster. The
general fixed his head quarters at Lisburn.448

His conduct was variously judged. Wise and candid men said that
he had surpassed himself, and that there was no other captain in
Europe who, with raw troops, with ignorant officers, with scanty
stores, having to contend at once against a hostile army of
greatly superior force, against a villanous commissariat, against
a nest of traitors in his own camp, and against a disease more
murderous than the sword, would have brought the campaign to a
close without the loss of a flag or a gun. On the other hand,
many of those newly commissioned majors and captains, whose
helplessness had increased all his perplexities, and who had not
one qualification for their posts except personal courage,
grumbled at the skill and patience which had saved them from
destruction. Their complaints were echoed on the other side of
Saint George's Channel. Some of the murmuring, though unjust, was
excusable. The parents, who had sent a gallant lad, in his first
uniform, to fight his way to glory, might be pardoned if, when
they learned that he had died on a wisp of straw without medical
attendance, and had been buried in a swamp without any Christian
or military ceremony, their affliction made them hasty and
unreasonable. But with the cry of bereaved families was mingled
another cry much less respectable. All the hearers and tellers of
news abused the general who furnished them with so little news to
hear and to tell. For men of that sort are so greedy after
excitement that they far more readily forgive a commander who
loses a battle than a commander who declines one. The
politicians, who delivered their oracles from the thickest cloud
of tobacco smoke at Garroway's, confidently asked, without
knowing any thing, either of war in general, or of Irish war in
particular, why Schomberg did not fight. They could not venture
to say that he did not understand his calling. No doubt he had
been an excellent officer: but he was very old. He seemed to bear
his years well: but his faculties were not what they had been:
his memory was failing; and it was well known that he sometimes
forgot in the afternoon what he had done in the morning. It may
be doubted whether there ever existed a human being whose mind
was quite as firmly toned at eighty as at forty. But that
Schomberg's intellectual powers had been little impaired by years
is sufficiently proved by his despatches, which are still extant,
and which are models of official writing, terse, perspicuous,
full of important facts and weighty reasons, compressed into the
smallest possible number of words. In those despatches he
sometimes alluded, not angrily, but with calm disdain, to the
censures thrown upon his conduct by shallow babblers, who, never
having seen any military operation more important than the
relieving of the guard at Whitehall, imagined that the easiest
thing in the world was to gain great victories in any situation
and against any odds, and by sturdy patriots who were convinced
that one English tarter or thresher, who had not yet learned how
to load a gun or port a pike, was a match for any five musketeers
of King Lewis's household.449

Unsatisfactory as had been the results of the campaign in
Ireland, the results of the maritime operations of the year were
more unsatisfactory still. It had been confidently expected that,
on the sea, England, allied with Holland, would have been far
more than a match for the power of Lewis: but everything went
wrong. Herbert had, after the unimportant skirmish of Bantry Bay,
returned with his squadron to Portsmouth. There he found that he
had not lost the good opinion either of the public or of the
government. The House of Commons thanked him for his services;
and he received signal marks of the favour of the Crown. He had
not been at the coronation, and had therefore missed his share of
the rewards which, at the time of that solemnity, had been
distributed among the chief agents in the Revolution. The
omission was now repaired; and he was created Earl of Torrington.
The King went down to Portsmouth, dined on board of the
Admiral's flag ship, expressed the fullest confidence in the
valour and loyalty of the navy, knighted two gallant captains,
Cloudesley Shovel and John Ashby, and ordered a donative to be
divided among the seamen.450

We cannot justly blame William for having a high opinion of
Torrington. For Torrington was generally regarded as one of the
bravest and most skilful officers in the navy. He had been
promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral of England by James, who, if
he understood any thing, understood maritime affairs. That place
and other lucrative places Torrington had relinquished when he
found that he could retain them only by submitting to be a tool
of the Jesuitical cabal. No man had taken a more active, a more
hazardous, or a more useful part in effecting the Revolution. It
seemed, therefore, that no man had fairer pretensions to be put
at the head of the naval administration. Yet no man could be more
unfit for such a post. His morals had always been loose, so loose
indeed that the firmness with which in the late reign he had
adhered to his religion had excited much surprise. His glorious
disgrace indeed seemed to have produced a salutary effect on his
character. In poverty and exile he rose from a voluptuary into a
hero. But, as soon as prosperity returned, the hero sank again
into a voluptuary; and the lapse was deep and hopeless. The
nerves of his mind, which had been during a short time braced to
a firm tone, were now so much relaxed by vice that he was utterly
incapable of selfdenial or of strenuous exertion. The vulgar
courage of a foremast man he still retained. But both as Admiral
and as First Lord of the Admiralty he was utterly inefficient.
Month after month the fleet which should have been the terror of
the seas lay in harbour while he was diverting himself in London.
The sailors, punning upon his new title, gave him the name of
Lord Tarry-in-town. When he came on shipboard he was accompanied
by a bevy of courtesans. There was scarcely an hour of the day or
of the night when he was not under the influence of claret. Being
insatiable of pleasure, he necessarily became insatiable of
wealth. Yet he loved flattery almost as much as either wealth or
pleasure. He had long been in the habit of exacting the most
abject homage from those who were under his command. His flagship
was a little Versailles. He expected his captains to attend him
to his cabin when he went to bed, and to assemble every morning
at his levee. He even suffered them to dress him. One of them
combed his flowing wig; another stood ready with the embroidered
coat. Under such a chief there could be no discipline. His tars
passed their time in rioting among the rabble of Portsmouth.
Those officers who won his favour by servility and adulation
easily obtained leave of absence, and spent weeks in London,
revelling in taverns, scouring the streets, or making love to the
masked ladies in the pit of the theatre. The victuallers soon
found out with whom they had to deal, and sent down to the fleet
casks of meat which dogs would not touch, and barrels of beer
which smelt worse than bilge water. Meanwhile the British Channel
seemed to be abandoned to French rovers. Our merchantmen were
boarded in sight of the ramparts of Plymouth. The sugar fleet
from the West Indies lost seven ships. The whole value of the
prizes taken by the cruisers of the enemy in the immediate
neighbourhood of our island, while Torrington was engaged with
his bottle and his harem, was estimated at six hundred thousand
pounds. So difficult was it to obtain the convoy of a man of war,
except by giving immense bribes, that our traders were forced to
hire the services of Dutch privateers, and found these foreign
mercenaries much more useful and much less greedy than the
officers of our own royal navy.451

The only department with which no fault could be found was the
department of Foreign Affairs. There William was his own
minister; and, where he was his own minister, there were no
delays, no blunders, no jobs, no treasons. The difficulties with
which he had to contend were indeed great. Even at the Hague he
had to encounter an opposition which all his wisdom and firmness
could, with the strenuous support of Heinsius, scarcely overcome.
The English were not aware that, while they were murmuring at
their Sovereign's partiality for the land of his birth, a strong
party in Holland was murmuring at his partiality for the land of
his adoption. The Dutch ambassadors at Westminster complained
that the terms of alliance which he proposed were derogatory to
the dignity and prejudicial to the interests of the republic;
that wherever the honour of the English flag was concerned, he
was punctilious and obstinate; that he peremptorily insisted on
an article which interdicted all trade with France, and which
could not but be grievously felt on the Exchange of Amsterdam;
that, when they expressed a hope that the Navigation Act would be
repealed, he burst out a laughing, and told them that the thing
was not to be thought of. He carried all his points; and a solemn
contract was made by which England and the Batavian federation
bound themselves to stand firmly by each other against France,
and not to make peace except by mutual consent. But one of the
Dutch plenipotentiaries declared that he was afraid of being one
day held up to obloquy as a traitor for conceding so much; and
the signature of another plainly appeared to have been traced by
a hand shaking with emotion.452

Meanwhile under William's skilful management a treaty of alliance
had been concluded between the States General and the Emperor. To
that treaty Spain and England gave in their adhesion; and thus
the four great powers which had long been bound together by a
friendly understanding were bound together by a formal
contract.453

But before that formal contract had been signed and sealed, all
the contracting parties were in arms. Early in the year 1689 war
was raging all over the Continent from the Humus to the Pyrenees.
France, attacked at once on every side, made on every side a
vigorous defence; and her Turkish allies kept a great German
force fully employed in Servia and Bulgaria. On the whole, the
results of the military operations of the summer were not
unfavourable to the confederates. Beyond the Danube, the
Christians, under Prince Lewis of Baden, gained a succession of
victories over the Mussulmans. In the passes of Roussillon, the
French troops contended without any decisive advantage against
the martial peasantry of Catalonia. One German army, led by the
Elector of Bavaria, occupied the Archbishopric of Cologne.
Another was commanded by Charles, Duke of Lorraine, a sovereign
who, driven from his own dominions by the arms of France, had
turned soldier of fortune, and had, as such, obtained both
distinction and revenge. He marched against the devastators of
the Palatinate, forced them to retire behind the Rhine, and,
after a long siege, took the important and strongly fortified
city of Mentz.

Between the Sambre and the Meuse the French, commanded by Marshal
Humieres, were opposed to the Dutch, commanded by the Prince of
Waldeck, an officer who had long served the States General with
fidelity and ability, though not always with good fortune, and
who stood high in the estimation of William. Under Waldeck's
orders was Marlborough, to whom William had confided an English
brigade consisting of the best regiments of the old army of
James. Second to Marlborough in command, and second also in
professional skill, was Thomas Talmash, a brave soldier, destined
to a fate never to be mentioned without shame and indignation.
Between the army of Waldeck and the army of Humieres no general
action took place: but in a succession of combats the advantage
was on the side of the confederates. Of these combats the most
important took place at Walcourt on the fifth of August. The
French attacked an outpost defended by the English brigade, were
vigorously repulsed, and were forced to retreat in confusion,
abandoning a few field pieces to the conquerors and leaving more
than six hundred corpses on the ground. Marlborough, on this as
on every similar occasion, acquitted himself like a valiant and
skilful captain. The Coldstream Guards commanded by Talmash, and
the regiment which is now called the sixteenth of the line,
commanded by Colonel Robert Hodges, distinguished themselves
highly. The Royal regiment too, which had a few months before set
up the standard of rebellion at Ipswich, proved on this day that
William, in freely pardoning that great fault, had acted not less
wisely than generously. The testimony which Waldeck in his
despatch bore to the gallant conduct of the islanders was read
with delight by their countrymen. The fight indeed was no more
than a skirmish: but it was a sharp and bloody skirmish. There
had within living memory been no equally serious encounter
between the English and French; and our ancestors were naturally
elated by finding that many years of inaction and vassalage did
not appear to have enervated the courage of the nation.454

The Jacobites however discovered in the events of the campaign
abundant matter for invective. Marlborough was, not without
reason, the object of their bitterest hatred. In his behaviour on
a field of battle malice itself could find little to censure: but
there were other parts of his conduct which presented a fair mark
for obloquy. Avarice is rarely the vice of a young man: it is
rarely the vice of a great man: but Marlborough was one of the
few who have, in the bloom of youth, loved lucre more than wine or
women, and who have, at the height of greatness, loved lucre more
than power or fame. All the precious gifts which nature had
lavished on him he valued chiefly for what they would fetch. At
twenty he made money of his beauty and his vigour. At sixty he
made money of his genius and his glory. The applauses which were
justly due to his conduct at Walcourt could not altogether drown
the voices of those who muttered that, wherever a broad piece was
to be saved or got, this hero was a mere Euclio, a mere Harpagon;
that, though he drew a large allowance under pretence of keeping
a public table, he never asked an officer to dinner; that his
muster rolls were fraudulently made up; that he pocketed pay in
the names of men who had long been dead, of men who had been
killed in his own sight four years before at Sedgemoor; that
there were twenty such names in one troop; that there were
thirty-six in another. Nothing but the union of dauntless courage
and commanding powers of mind with a bland temper and winning
manners could have enabled him to gain and keep, in spite of
faults eminently unsoldierlike, the good will of his soldiers.455

About the time at which the contending armies in every part of
Europe were going into winter quarters, a new Pontiff ascended
the chair of Saint Peter. Innocent the Eleventh was no more. His
fate had been strange indeed. His conscientious and fervent
attachment to the Church of which he was the head had induced
him, at one of the most critical conjunctures in her history, to
ally herself with her mortal enemies. The news of his decease was
received with concern and alarm by Protestant princes and
commonwealths, and with joy and hope at Versailles and Dublin. An
extraordinary ambassador of high rank was instantly despatched by
Lewis to Rome. The French garrison which had been placed in
Avignon was withdrawn. When the votes of the Conclave had been
united in favour of Peter Ottobuoni, an ancient Cardinal who
assumed the appellation of Alexander the Eighth, the
representative of France assisted at the installation, bore up
the cope of the new Pontiff, and put into the hands of His
Holiness a letter in which the most Christian King declared that
he renounced the odious privilege of protecting robbers and
assassins. Alexander pressed the letter to his lips, embraced the
bearer, and talked with rapture of the near prospect of
reconciliation. Lewis began to entertain a hope that the
influence of the Vatican might be exerted to dissolve the
alliance between the House of Austria and the heretical usurper
of the English throne. James was even more sanguine. He was
foolish enough to expect that the new Pope would give him money,
and ordered Melfort, who had now acquitted himself of his mission
at Versailles, to hasten to Rome, and beg His Holiness to
contribute something towards the good work of upholding pure
religion in the British islands. But it soon appeared that
Alexander, though he might hold language different from that of
his predecessor, was determined to follow in essentials his
predecessor's policy. The original cause of the quarrel between
the Holy See and Lewis was not removed. The King continued to
appoint prelates: the Pope continued to refuse their institution:
and the consequence was that a fourth part of the dioceses of
France had bishops who were incapable of performing any episcopal
function.456

The Anglican Church was, at this time, not less distracted than
the Gallican Church. The first of August had been fixed by Act of
Parliament as the day before the close of which all beneficed
clergymen and all persons holding academical offices must, on
pain of suspension, swear allegiance to William and Mary. During
the earlier part of the summer, the Jacobites hoped that the
number of nonjurors would be so considerable as seriously to
alarm and embarrass the Government. But this hope was
disappointed. Few indeed of the clergy were Whigs. Few were
Tories of that moderate school which acknowledged, reluctantly
and with reserve, that extreme abuses might sometimes justify a
nation in resorting to extreme remedies. The great majority of
the profession still held the doctrine of passive obedience: but
that majority was now divided into two sections. A question,
which, before the Revolution, had been mere matter of
speculation, and had therefore, though sometimes incidentally
raised, been, by most persons, very superficially considered, had
now become practically most important. The doctrine of passive
obedience being taken for granted, to whom was that obedience
due? While the hereditary right and the possession were
conjoined, there was no room for doubt: but the hereditary right
and the possession were now separated. One prince, raised by the
Revolution, was reigning at Westminster, passing laws, appointing
magistrates and prelates, sending forth armies and fleets. His
judges decided causes. His Sheriffs arrested debtors and executed
criminals. Justice, order, property, would cease to exist, and
society would be resolved into chaos, but for his Great Seal.
Another prince, deposed by the Revolution, was living abroad. He
could exercise none of the powers and perform none of the duties
of a ruler, and could, as it seemed, be restored only by means as
violent as those by which he had been displaced, to which of
these two princes did Christian men owe allegiance?

To a large part of the clergy it appeared that the plain letter
of Scripture required them to submit to the Sovereign who was in
possession, without troubling themselves about his title. The
powers which the Apostle, in the text most familiar to the
Anglican divines of that age, pronounces to be ordained of God,
are not the powers that can be traced back to a legitimate
origin, but the powers that be. When Jesus was asked whether the
chosen people might lawfully give tribute to Caesar, he replied
by asking the questioners, not whether Caesar could make out a
pedigree derived from the old royal house of Judah, but whether
the coin which they scrupled to pay into Caesar's treasury came
from Caesar's mint, in other words, whether Caesar actually
possessed the authority and performed the functions of a ruler.

It is generally held, with much appearance of reason, that the
most trustworthy comment on the text of the Gospels and Epistles
is to be found in the practice of the primitive Christians, when
that practice can be satisfactorily ascertained; and it so
happened that the times during which the Church is universally
acknowledged to have been in the highest state of purity were
times of frequent and violent political change. One at least of
the Apostles appears to have lived to see four Emperors pulled
down in little more than a year. Of the martyrs of the third
century a great proportion must have been able to remember ten or
twelve revolutions. Those martyrs must have had occasion often to
consider what was their duty towards a prince just raised to
power by a successful insurrection. That they were, one and all,
deterred by the fear of punishment from doing what they thought
right, is an imputation which no candid infidel would throw on
them. Yet, if there be any proposition which can with perfect
confidence be affirmed touching the early Christians, it is this,
that they never once refused obedience to any actual ruler on
account of the illegitimacy of his title. At one time, indeed,
the supreme power was claimed by twenty or thirty competitors.
Every province from Britain to Egypt had its own Augustus. All
these pretenders could not be rightful Emperors. Yet it does not
appear that, in any place, the faithful had any scruple about
submitting to the person who, in that place, exercised the
imperial functions. While the Christian of Rome obeyed Aurelian,
the Christian of Lyons obeyed Tetricus, and the Christian of
Palmyra obeyed Zenobia. "Day and night," such were the words
which the great Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, addressed to the
representative of Valerian and Gallienus,--"day and night do we
Christians pray to the one true God for the safety of our
Emperors." Yet those Emperors had a few months before pulled down
their predecessor Aemilianus, who had pulled down his predecessor
Gallus, who had climbed to power on the ruins of the house of his
predecessor Decius, who had slain his predecessor Philip, who had
slain his predecessor Gordian. Was it possible to believe that a
saint, who had, in the short space of thirteen or fourteen years,
borne true allegiance to this series of rebels and regicides,
would have made a schism in the Christian body rather than
acknowledge King William and Queen Mary? A hundred times those
Anglican divines who had taken the oaths challenged their more
scrupulous brethren to cite a single instance in which the
primitive Church had refused obedience to a successful usurper;
and a hundred times the challenge was evaded. The nonjurors had
little to say on this head, except that precedents were of no
force when opposed to principles, a proposition which came with
but a bad grace from a school which had always professed an
almost superstitious reverence for the authority of the
Fathers.457

To precedents drawn from later and more corrupt times little
respect was due. But, even in the history of later and more
corrupt times, the nonjurors could not easily find any precedent
that would serve their purpose. In our own country many Kings,
who had not the hereditary right, had filled the throne but it
had never been thought inconsistent with the duty of a Christian
to be a true liegeman to such Kings. The usurpation of Henry the
Fourth, the more odious usurpation of Richard the Third, had
produced no schism in the Church. As soon as the usurper was firm
in his seat, Bishops had done homage to him for their domains:
Convocations had presented addresses to him, and granted him
supplies; nor had any casuist ever pronounced that such
submission to a prince in possession was deadly sin.458

With the practice of the whole Christian world the authoritative
teaching of the Church of England appeared to be in strict
harmony. The Homily on Wilful Rebellion, a discourse which
inculcates, in unmeasured terms, the duty of obeying rulers,
speaks of none but actual rulers. Nay, the people are distinctly
told in that Homily that they are bound to obey, not only their
legitimate prince, but any usurper whom God shall in anger set
over them for their sins. And surely it would be the height of
absurdity to say that we must accept submissively such usurpers
as God sends in anger, but must pertinaciously withhold our
obedience from usurpers whom He sends in mercy. Grant that it was
a crime to invite the Prince of Orange over, a crime to join him,
a crime to make him King; yet what was the whole history of the
Jewish nation and of the Christian Church but a record of cases
in which Providence had brought good out of evil? And what
theologian would assert that, in such cases, we ought, from
abhorrence of the evil, to reject the good?

On these grounds a large body of divines, still asserting the
doctrine that to resist the Sovereign must always be sinful,
conceived that William was now the Sovereign whom it would be
sinful to resist.

To these arguments the nonjurors replied that Saint Paul must
have meant by the powers that be the rightful powers that be; and
that to put any other interpretation on his words would be to
outrage common sense, to dishonour religion, to give scandal to
weak believers, to give an occasion of triumph to scoffers. The
feelings of all mankind must be shocked by the proposition that,
as soon as a King, however clear his title, however wise and good
his administration, is expelled by traitors, all his servants are
bound to abandon him, and to range themselves on the side of his
enemies. In all ages and nations, fidelity to a good cause in
adversity had been regarded as a virtue. In all ages and nations,
the politician whose practice was always to be on the side which
was uppermost had been despised. This new Toryism was worse than
Whiggism. To break through the ties of allegiance because the
Sovereign was a tyrant was doubtless a very great sin: but it was
a sin for which specious names and pretexts might be found, and
into which a brave and generous man, not instructed in divine
truth and guarded by divine grace, might easily fall. But to
break through the ties of allegiance, merely because the
Sovereign was unfortunate, was not only wicked, but dirty. Could
any unbeliever offer a greater insult to the Scriptures than by
asserting that the Scriptures had enjoined on Christians as a
sacred duty what the light of nature had taught heathens to
regard as the last excess of baseness? In the Scriptures was to
be found the history of a King of Israel, driven from his palace
by an unnatural son, and compelled to fly beyond Jordan. David,
like James, had the right: Absalom, like William, had the
possession. Would any student of the sacred writings dare to
affirm that the conduct of Shimei on that occasion was proposed
as a pattern to be imitated, and that Barzillai, who loyally
adhered to his fugitive master, was resisting the ordinance of
God, and receiving to himself damnation? Would any true son of
the Church of England seriously affirm that a man who was a
strenuous royalist till after the battle of Naseby, who then went
over to the Parliament, who, as soon as the Parliament had been
purged, became an obsequious servant of the Rump, and who, as
soon as the Rump had been ejected, professed himself a faithful
subject of the Protector, was more deserving of the respect of
Christian men than the stout old Cavalier who bore true fealty to
Charles the First in prison and to Charles the Second in exile,
and who was ready to put lands, liberty, life, in peril, rather
than acknowledge, by word or act, the authority of any of the
upstart governments which, during that evil time, obtained
possession of a power not legitimately theirs? And what
distinction was there between that case and the case which had
now arisen? That Cromwell had actually enjoyed as much power as
William, nay much more power than William, was quite certain.
That the power of William, as well as the power of Cromwell, had
an illegitimate origin, no divine who held the doctrine of
nonresistance would dispute. How then was it possible for such a
divine to deny that obedience had been due to Cromwell, and yet
to affirm that it was due to William? To suppose that there could
be such inconsistency without dishonesty would be not charity but
weakness. Those who were determined to comply with the Act of
Parliament would do better to speak out, and to say, what every
body knew, that they complied simply to save their benefices. The
motive was no doubt strong. That a clergyman who was a husband
and a father should look forward with dread to the first of
August and the first of February was natural. But he would do
well to remember that, however terrible might be the day of
suspension and the day of deprivation, there would assuredly come
two other days more terrible still, the day of death and the day
of judgment.459

The swearing clergy, as they were called, were not a little
perplexed by this reasoning. Nothing embarrassed them more than
the analogy which the nonjurors were never weary of pointing out
between the usurpation of Cromwell and the usurpation of William.
For there was in that age no High Churchman who would not have
thought himself reduced to an absurdity if he had been reduced to
the necessity of saying that the Church had commanded her sons to
obey Cromwell. And yet it was impossible to prove that William
was more fully in possession of supreme power than Cromwell had
been. The swearers therefore avoided coming to close quarters
with the nonjurors on this point as carefully as the nonjurors
avoided coming to close quarters with the swearers on the
question touching the practice of the primitive Church.

The truth is that the theory of government which had long been
taught by the clergy was so absurd that it could lead to nothing
but absurdity. Whether the priest who adhered to that theory
swore or refused to swear, he was alike unable to give a rational
explanation of his conduct. If he swore, he could vindicate his
swearing only by laying down propositions against which every
honest heart instinctively revolts, only by proclaiming that
Christ had commanded the Church to desert the righteous cause as
soon as that cause ceased to prosper, and to strengthen the hands
of successful villany against afflicted virtue. And yet, strong
as were the objections to this doctrine, the objections to the
doctrine of the nonjuror were, if possible, stronger still.
According to him, a Christian nation ought always to be in a
state of slavery or in a state of anarchy. Something is to be
said for the man who sacrifices liberty to preserve order.
Something is to be said for the man who sacrifices order to
preserve liberty. For liberty and order are two of the greatest
blessings which a society can enjoy: and, when unfortunately they
appear to be incompatible, much indulgence is due to those who
take either side. But the nonjuror sacrificed, not liberty to
order, not order to liberty, but both liberty and order to a
superstition as stupid and degrading as the Egyptian worship of
cats and onions. While a particular person, differing from other
persons by the mere accident of birth, was on the throne, though
he might be a Nero, there was to be no insubordination. When any
other person was on the throne, though he might be an Alfred,
there was to be no obedience. It mattered not how frantic and
wicked might be the administration of the dynasty which had the
hereditary title, or how wise and virtuous might be the
administration of a government sprung from a revolution. Nor
could any time of limitation be pleaded against the claim of the
expelled family. The lapse of years, the lapse of ages, made no
change. To the end of the world, Christians were to regulate
their political conduct simply according to the genealogy of
their ruler. The year 1800, the year 1900, might find princes who
derived their title from the votes of the Convention reigning in
peace and prosperity. No matter: they would still be usurpers;
and, if, in the twentieth or twenty-first century, any person who
could make out a better right by blood to the crown should call
on a late posterity to acknowledge him as King, the call must be
obeyed on peril of eternal perdition.

A Whig might well enjoy the thought that the controversies which
had arisen among his adversaries had established the soundness of
his own political creed. The disputants who had long agreed in
accusing him of an impious error had now effectually vindicated
him, and refuted one another. The High Churchman who took the
oaths had shown by irrefragable arguments from the Gospels and
the Epistles, from the uniform practice of the primitive Church,
and from the explicit declarations of the Anglican Church, that
Christians were not in all cases bound to pay obedience to the
prince who had the hereditary title. The High Churchman who would
not take the oaths had shown as satisfactorily that Christians
were not in all cases bound to pay obedience to the prince who
was actually reigning. It followed that, to entitle a government
to the allegiance of subjects, something was necessary different
from mere legitimacy, and different also from mere possession.
What that something was the Whigs had no difficulty in
pronouncing. In their view, the end for which all governments had
been instituted was the happiness of society. While the
magistrate was, on the whole, notwithstanding some faults, a
minister for good, Reason taught mankind to obey him; and
Religion, giving her solemn sanction to the teaching of Reason,
commanded mankind to revere him as divinely commissioned. But if
he proved to be a minister for evil, on what grounds was he to be
considered as divinely commissioned? The Tories who swore had
proved that he ought not to be so considered on account of the
origin of his power: the Tories who would not swear had proved as
clearly that he ought not to be so considered on account of the
existence of his power.

Some violent and acrimonious Whigs triumphed ostentatiously and
with merciless insolence over the perplexed and divided
priesthood. The nonjuror they generally affected to regard with
contemptuous pity as a dull and perverse, but sincere, bigot,
whose absurd practice was in harmony with his absurd theory, and
who might plead, in excuse for the infatuation which impelled him
to ruin his country, that the same infatuation had impelled him
to ruin himself. They reserved their sharpest taunts for those
divines who, having, in the days of the Exclusion Bill and the
Rye House Plot, been distinguished by zeal for the divine and
indefeasible right of the hereditary Sovereign, were now ready to
swear fealty to an usurper. Was this then the real sense of all
those sublime phrases which had resounded during twenty-nine
years from innumerable pulpits? Had the thousands of clergymen,
who had so loudly boasted of the unchangeable loyalty of their
order, really meant only that their loyalty would remain
unchangeable till the next change of fortune? It was idle, it was
impudent in them to pretend that their present conduct was
consistent with their former language. If any Reverend Doctor had
at length been convinced that he had been in the wrong, he surely
ought, by an open recantation, to make all the amends now
possible to the persecuted, the calumniated, the murdered
defenders of liberty. If he was still convinced that his old
opinions were sound, he ought manfully to cast in his lot with
the nonjurors. Respect, it was said, is due to him who
ingenuously confesses an error; respect is due to him who
courageously suffers for an error; but it is difficult to respect
a minister of religion who, while asserting that he still adheres
to the principles of the Tories, saves his benefice by taking an
oath which can be honestly taken only on the principles of the
Whigs.

These reproaches, though perhaps not altogether unjust, were
unseasonable. The wiser and more moderate Whigs, sensible that
the throne of William could not stand firm if it had not a wider
basis than their own party, abstained at this conjuncture from
sneers and invectives, and exerted themselves to remove the
scruples and to soothe the irritated feelings of the clergy. The
collective power of the rectors and vicars of England was
immense: and it was much better that they should swear for the
most flimsy reason that could be devised by a sophist than they
should not swear at all.

It soon became clear that the arguments for swearing, backed as
they were by some of the strongest motives which can influence
the human mind, had prevailed. Above twenty-nine thirtieths of
the profession submitted to the law. Most of the divines of the
capital, who then formed a separate class, and who were as much
distinguished from the rural clergy by liberality of sentiment as
by eloquence and learning, gave in their adhesion to the
government early, and with every sign of cordial attachment.
Eighty of them repaired together, in full term, to Westminster
Hall, and were there sworn. The ceremony occupied so long a time
that little else was done that day in the Courts of Chancery and
King's Bench.460 But in general the compliance was tardy, sad and
sullen. Many, no doubt, deliberately sacrificed principle to
interest. Conscience told them that they were committing a sin.
But they had not fortitude to resign the parsonage, the garden,
the glebe, and to go forth without knowing where to find a meal
or a roof for themselves and their little ones. Many swore with
doubts and misgivings.461 Some declared, at the moment of taking
the oath, that they did not mean to promise that they would not
submit to James, if he should ever be in a condition to demand
their allegiance.462 Some clergymen in the north were, on the
first of August, going in a company to swear, when they were met
on the road by the news of the battle which had been fought, four
days before, in the pass of Killiecrankie. They immediately
turned back, and did not again leave their homes on the same
errand till it was clear that Dundee's victory had made no change
in the state of public affairs.463 Even of those whose
understandings were fully convinced that obedience was due to the
existing government, very few kissed the book with the heartiness
with which they had formerly plighted their faith to Charles and
James. Still the thing was done. Ten thousand clergymen had
solemnly called heaven to attest their promise that they would be
true liegemen to William; and this promise, though it by no means
warranted him in expecting that they would strenuously support
him, had at least deprived them of a great part of their power to
injure him. They could not, without entirely forfeiting that
public respect on which their influence depended, attack, except
in an indirect and timidly cautious manner, the throne of one
whom they had, in the presence of God, vowed to obey as their
King. Some of them, it is true, affected to read the prayers for
the new Sovereigns in a peculiar tone which could not be
misunderstood.464 Others were guilty of still grosser indecency.
Thus, one wretch, just after praying for William and Mary in the
most solemn office of religion, took off a glass to their
damnation. Another, after performing divine service on a fast day
appointed by their authority, dined on a pigeon pie, and while he
cut it up, uttered a wish that it was the usurper's heart. But
such audacious wickedness was doubtless rare and was rather
injurious to the Church than to the government.465

Those clergymen and members of the Universities who incurred the
penalties of the law were about four hundred in number. Foremost
in rank stood the Primate and six of his suffragans, Turner of
Ely, Lloyd of Norwich, Frampton of Gloucester, Lake of
Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Ken of Bath and Wells.
Thomas of Worcester would have made a seventh: but he died three
weeks before the day of suspension. On his deathbed he adjured
his clergy to be true to the cause of hereditary right, and
declared that those divines who tried to make out that the oaths
might be taken without any departure from the loyal doctrines of
the Church of England seemed to him to reason more jesuitically
than the Jesuits themselves.466

Ken, who, both in intellectual and in moral qualities, ranked
highest among the nonjuring prelates, hesitated long. There were
few clergymen who could have submitted to the new government with
a better grace. For, in the times when nonresistance and passive
obedience were the favourite themes of his brethren, he had
scarcely ever alluded to politics in the pulpit. He owned that
the arguments in favour of swearing were very strong. He went
indeed so far as to say that his scruples would be completely
removed if he could be convinced that James had entered into
engagements for ceding Ireland to the French King. It is evident
therefore that the difference between Ken and the Whigs was not a
difference of principle. He thought, with them, that
misgovernment, carried to a certain point, justified a transfer
of allegiance, and doubted only whether the misgovernment of
James had been carried quite to that point. Nay, the good Bishop
actually began to prepare a pastoral letter explaining his
reasons for taking the oaths. But, before it was finished, he
received information which convinced him that Ireland had not
been made over to France: doubts came thick upon him: he threw
his unfinished letter into the fire, and implored his less
scrupulous friends not to urge him further. He was sure, he said,
that they had acted uprightly: he was glad that they could do
with a clear conscience what he shrank from doing: he felt the
force of their reasoning: he was all but persuaded; and he was
afraid to listen longer lest he should be quite persuaded: for,
if he should comply, and his misgivings should afterwards return,
he should be the most miserable of men. Not for wealth, not for a
palace, not for a peerage, would he run the smallest risk of ever
feeling the torments of remorse. It is a curious fact that, of
the seven nonjuring prelates, the only one whose name carries
with it much weight was on the point of swearing, and was
prevented from doing so, as he himself acknowledged, not by the
force of reason, but by a morbid scrupulosity which he did not
advise others to imitate.467

Among the priests who refused the oaths were some men eminent in
the learned world, as grammarians, chronologists, canonists, and
antiquaries, and a very few who were distinguished by wit and
eloquence: but scarcely one can be named who was qualified to
discuss any large question of morals or politics, scarcely one
whose writings do not indicate either extreme feebleness or
extreme flightiness of mind. Those who distrust the judgment of a
Whig on this point will probably allow some weight to the opinion
which was expressed, many years after the Revolution, by a
philosopher of whom the Tories are justly proud. Johnson, after
passing in review the celebrated divines who had thought it
sinful to swear allegiance to William the Third and George the
First, pronounced that, in the whole body of nonjurors, there was
one, and one only, who could reason.468

The nonjuror in whose favour Johnson made this exception was
Charles Leslie. Leslie had, before the Revolution, been
Chancellor of the diocese of Connor in Ireland. He had been
forward in opposition to Tyrconnel; had, as a justice of the
peace for Monaghan, refused to acknowledge a papist as Sheriff of
that county; and had been so courageous as to send some officers
of the Irish army to prison for marauding. But the doctrine of
nonresistance, such as it had been taught by Anglican divines in
the days of the Rye House Plot, was immovably fixed in his mind.
When the state of Ulster became such that a Protestant who
remained there could hardly avoid being either a rebel or a
martyr, Leslie fled to London. His abilities and his connections
were such that he might easily have obtained high preferment in
the Church of England. But he took his place in the front rank of
the Jacobite body, and remained there stedfastly, through all the
dangers and vicissitudes of three and thirty troubled years.
Though constantly engaged in theological controversy with Deists,
Jews, Socinians, Presbyterians, Papists, and Quakers, he found
time to be one of the most voluminous political writers of his
age. Of all the nonjuring clergy he was the best qualified to
discuss constitutional questions. For, before he had taken
orders, he had resided long in the Temple, and had been studying
English history and law, while most of the other chiefs of the
schism had been poring over the Acts of Chalcedon, or seeking for
wisdom in the Targurn of Onkelos.469 In 1689, however, Leslie was
almost unknown in England. Among the divines who incurred
suspension on the first of August in that year, the highest in
popular estimation was without dispute Doctor William Sherlock.
Perhaps no simple presbyter of the Church of England has ever
possessed a greater authority over his brethren than belonged to
Sherlock at the time of the Revolution. He was not of the first
rank among his contemporaries as a scholar, as a preacher, as a
writer on theology, or as a writer on politics: but in all the
four characters he had distinguished himself. The perspicuity and
liveliness of his style have been praised by Prior and Addison.
The facility and assiduity with which he wrote are sufficiently
proved by the bulk and the dates of his works. There were indeed
among the clergy men of brighter genius and men of wider
attainments: but during a long period there was none who more
completely represented the order, none who, on all subjects,
spoke more precisely the sense of the Anglican priesthood,
without any taint of Latitudinarianism, of Puritanism, or of
Popery. He had, in the days of the Exclusion Bill, when the power
of the dissenters was very great in Parliament and in the country, written
strongly against the sin
of nonconformity. When the Rye House Plot was detected, he had
zealously defended by tongue and pen the doctrine of
nonresistance. His services to the cause of episcopacy and
monarchy were so highly valued that he was made master of the
Temple. A pension was also bestowed on him by Charles: but that
pension James soon took away; for Sherlock, though he held
himself bound to pay passive obedience to the civil power, held
himself equally bound to combat religious errors, and was the
keenest and most laborious of that host of controversialists who,
in the day of peril, manfully defended the Protestant faith. In
little more than two years he published sixteen treatises, some
of them large books, against the high pretensions of Rome. Not
content with the easy victories which he gained over such feeble
antagonists as those who were quartered at Clerkenwell and the
Savoy, he had the courage to measure his strength with no less a
champion than Bossuet, and came out of the conflict without
discredit. Nevertheless Sherlock still continued to maintain that
no oppression could justify Christians in resisting the kingly
authority. When the Convention was about to meet, he strongly
recommended, in a tract which was considered as the manifesto of
a large part of the clergy, that James should be invited to
return on such conditions as might secure the laws and religion
of the nation.470 The vote which placed William and Mary on the
throne filled Sherlock with sorrow and anger. He is said to have
exclaimed that if the Convention was determined on a revolution,
the clergy would find forty thousand good Churchmen to effect a
restoration.471 Against the new oaths he gave his opinion plainly
and warmly. He declared himself at a loss to understand how any
honest man could doubt that, by the powers that be, Saint Paul
meant legitimate powers and no others. No name was in 1689 cited
by the Jacobites so proudly and fondly as that of Sherlock.
Before the end of 1690 that name excited very different feelings.

A few other nonjurors ought to be particularly noticed. High
among them in rank was George Hickes, Dean of Worcester. Of all
the Englishmen of his time he was the most versed in the old
Teutonic languages; and his knowledge of the early Christian
literature was extensive. As to his capacity for political
discussions, it may be sufficient to say that his favourite
argument for passive obedience was drawn from the story of the
Theban legion. He was the younger brother of that unfortunate
John Hickes who had been found hidden in the malthouse of Alice
Lisle. James had, in spite of all solicitation, put both John
Hickes and Alice Lisle to death. Persons who did not know the
strength of the Dean's principles thought that he might possibly
feel some resentment on this account: for he was of no gentle or
forgiving temper, and could retain during many years a bitter
remembrance of small injuries. But he was strong in his religious
and political faith: he reflected that the sufferers were
dissenters; and he submitted to the will of the Lord's Anointed
not only with patience but with complacency. He became indeed a
more loving subject than ever from the time when his brother was
hanged and his brother's benefactress beheaded. While almost all
other clergymen, appalled by the Declaration of Indulgence and by
the proceedings of the High Commission, were beginning to think
that they had pushed the doctrine of nonresistance a little too
far, he was writing a vindication of his darling legend, and
trying to convince the troops at Hounslow that, if James should
be pleased to massacre them all, as Maximian had massacred the
Theban legion, for refusing to commit idolatry, it would be their
duty to pile their arms, and meekly to receive the crown of
martyrdom. To do Hickes justice, his whole conduct after the
Revolution proved that his servility had sprung neither from fear
nor from cupidity, but from mere bigotry.472

Jeremy Collier, who was turned out of the preachership of the
Rolls, was a man of a much higher order. He is well entitled to
grateful and respectful mention: for to his eloquence and courage
is to be chiefly ascribed the purification of our lighter
literature from that foul taint which had been contracted during
the Antipuritan reaction. He was, in the full force of the words,
a good man. He was also a man of eminent abilities, a great
master of sarcasm, a great master of rhetoric.473 His reading,
too, though undigested, was of immense extent. But his mind was
narrow: his reasoning, even when he was so fortunate as to have a
good cause to defend, was singularly futile and inconclusive; and
his brain was almost turned by pride, not personal, but
professional. In his view, a priest was the highest of human
beings, except a bishop. Reverence and submission were due from
the best and greatest of the laity to the least respectable of
the clergy. However ridiculous a man in holy orders might make
himself, it was impiety to laugh at him. So nervously sensitive
indeed was Collier on this point that he thought it profane to
throw any reflection even on the ministers of false religions. He
laid it down as a rule that Muftis and Augurs ought always to be
mentioned with respect. He blamed Dryden for sneering at the
Hierophants of Apis. He praised Racine for giving dignity to the
character of a priest of Baal. He praised Corneille for not
bringing that learned and reverend divine Tiresias on the stage
in the tragedy of Oedipus. The omission, Collier owned, spoiled
the dramatic effect of the piece: but the holy function was much
too solemn to be played with. Nay, incredible as it may seem, he
thought it improper in the laity to sneer at Presbyterian
preachers. Indeed his Jacobitism was little more than one of the
forms in which his zeal for the dignity of his profession
manifested itself. He abhorred the Revolution less as a rising up
of subjects against their King than as a rising up of the laity
against the sacerdotal caste. The doctrines which had been
proclaimed from the pulpit during thirty years had been treated
with contempt by the Convention. A new government had been set up
in opposition to the wishes of the spiritual peers in the House
of Lords and of the priesthood throughout the country. A secular
assembly had taken upon itself to pass a law requiring
archbishops and bishops, rectors and vicars, to abjure; on pain
of deprivation, what they had been teaching all their lives.
Whatever meaner spirits might do, Collier was determined not to
be led in triumph by the victorious enemies of his order. To the
last he would confront, with the authoritative port of an
ambassador of heaven, the anger of the powers and principalities
of the earth.

In parts Collier was the first man among the nonjurors. In
erudition the first place must be assigned to Henry Dodwell, who,
for the unpardonable crime of having a small estate in Mayo, had
been attainted by the Popish Parliament at Dublin. He was
Camdenian Professor of Ancient History in the University of
Oxford, and had already acquired considerable celebrity by
chronological and geographical researches: but, though he never
could be persuaded to take orders, theology was his favourite
study. He was doubtless a pious and sincere man. He had perused
innumerable volumes in various languages, and had indeed acquired
more learning than his slender faculties were able to bear. The
small intellectual spark which he possessed was put out by the
fuel. Some of his books seem to have been written in a madhouse,
and, though filled with proofs of his immense reading, degrade
him to the level of James Naylor and Ludowick Muggleton. He began
a dissertation intended to prove that the law of nations was a
divine revelation made to the family which was preserved in the
ark. He published a treatise in which he maintained that a
marriage between a member of the Church of England and a
dissenter was a nullity, and that the couple were, in the sight
of heaven, guilty of adultery. He defended the use of
instrumental music in public worship on the ground that the notes
of the organ had a power to counteract the influence of devils on
the spinal marrow of human beings. In his treatise on this
subject, he remarked that there was high authority for the
opinion that the spinal marrow, when decomposed, became a
serpent. Whether this opinion were or were not correct, he
thought it unnecessary to decide. Perhaps, he said, the eminent
men in whose works it was found had meant only to express
figuratively the great truth, that the Old Serpent operates on us
chiefly through the spinal marrow.474 Dodwell's speculations on
the state of human beings after death are, if possible, more
extraordinary still. He tells us that our souls are naturally
mortal. Annihilation is the fate of the greater part of mankind,
of heathens, of Mahometans, of unchristened babes. The gift of
immortality is conveyed in the sacrament of baptism: but to the
efficacy of the sacrament it is absolutely necessary that the
water be poured and the words pronounced by a priest who has been
ordained by a bishop. In the natural course of things, therefore,
all Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Quakers would,
like the inferior animals, cease to exist. But Dodwell was far
too good a churchman to let off dissenters so easily. He informs
them that, as they have had an opportunity of hearing the gospel
preached, and might, but for their own perverseness, have
received episcopalian baptism, God will, by an extraordinary act
of power, bestow immortality on them in order that they may be
tormented for ever and ever.475

No man abhorred the growing latitudinarianism of those times more
than Dodwell. Yet no man had more reason to rejoice in it. For,
in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, a speculator who
had dared to affirm that the human soul is by its nature mortal,
and does, in the great majority of cases, actually die with the
body, would have been burned alive in Smithfield. Even in days
which Dodwell could well remember, such heretics as himself would
have been thought fortunate if they escaped with life, their
backs flayed, their ears clipped, their noses slit, their tongues
bored through with red hot iron, and their eyes knocked out with
brickbats. With the nonjurors, however, the author of this theory
was still the great Mr. Dodwell; and some, who thought it
culpable lenity to tolerate a Presbyterian meeting, thought it at
the same time gross illiberality to blame a learned and pious
Jacobite for denying a doctrine so utterly unimportant in a
religious point of view as that of the immortality of the
soul.476

Two other nonjurors deserve special mention, less on account of
their abilities and learning, than on account of their rare
integrity, and of their not less rare candour. These were John
Kettlewell, Rector of Coleshill, and John Fitzwilliam, Canon of
Windsor. It is remarkable that both these men had seen much of
Lord Russell, and that both, though differing from him in
political opinions, and strongly disapproving the part which he
had taken in the Whig plot, had thought highly of his character,
and had been sincere mourners for his death. He had sent to
Kettlewell an affectionate message from the scaffold in Lincoln's
Inn Fields. Lady Russell, to her latest day, loved, trusted, and
revered Fitzwilliam, who, when she was a girl, had been the
friend of her father, the virtuous Southampton. The two clergymen
agreed in refusing to swear: but they, from that moment, took
different paths. Kettlewell was one of the most active members of
his party: he declined no drudgery in the common cause, provided
only that it were such drudgery as did not misbecome an honest
man; and he defended his opinions in several tracts, which give a
much higher notion of his sincerity than of his judgment or
acuteness.477 Fitzwilliam thought that he had done enough in
quitting his pleasant dwelling and garden under the shadow of
Saint George's Chapel, and in betaking himself with his books to
a small lodging in an attic. He could not with a safe conscience
acknowledge William and Mary: but he did not conceive that he was
bound to be always stirring up sedition against them; and he
passed the last years of his life, under the powerful protection
of the House of Bedford, in innocent and studious repose.478

Among the less distinguished divines who forfeited their
benefices, were doubtless many good men: but it is certain that
the moral character of the nonjurors, as a class, did not stand
high. It seems hard to impute laxity of principle to persons who
undoubtedly made a great sacrifice to principle. And yet
experience abundantly proves that many who are capable of making
a great sacrifice, when their blood is heated by conflict, and
when the public eye is fixed upon them, are not capable of
persevering long in the daily practice of obscure virtues. It is
by no means improbable that zealots may have given their lives
for a religion which had never effectually restrained their
vindictive or their licentious passions. We learn indeed from
fathers of the highest authority that, even in the purest ages of
the Church, some confessors, who had manfully refused to save
themselves from torments and death by throwing frankincense on
the altar of Jupiter, afterwards brought scandal on the Christian
name by gross fraud and debauchery.479 For the nonjuring divines
great allowance must in fairness be made. They were doubtless in
a most trying situation. In general, a schism, which divides a
religious community, divides the laity as well as the clergy. The
seceding pastors therefore carry with them a large part of their
flocks, and are consequently assured of a maintenance. But the
schism of 1689 scarcely extended beyond the clergy. The law
required the rector to take the oaths, or to quit his living: but
no oath, no acknowledgment of the title of the new King and
Queen, was required from the parishioner as a qualification for
attending divine service, or for receiving the Eucharist. Not one
in fifty, therefore, of those laymen who disapproved of the
Revolution thought himself bound to quit his pew in the old
church, where the old liturgy was still read, and where the old
vestments were still worn, and to follow the ejected priest to a
conventicle, a conventicle, too, which was not protected by the
Toleration Act. Thus the new sect was a sect of preachers without
hearers; and such preachers could not make a livelihood by
preaching. In London, indeed, and in some other large towns,
those vehement Jacobites, whom nothing would satisfy but to hear
King James and the Prince of Wales prayed for by name, were
sufficiently numerous to make up a few small congregations, which
met secretly, and under constant fear of the constables, in rooms
so mean that the meeting houses of the Puritan dissenters might
by comparison be called palaces. Even Collier, who had all the
qualities which attract large audiences, was reduced to be the
minister of a little knot of malecontents, whose oratory was on a
second floor in the city. But the nonjuring clergymen who were
able to obtain even a pittance by officiating at such places were
very few. Of the rest some had independent means: some lived by
literature: one or two practised physic. Thomas Wagstaffe, for
example, who had been Chancellor of Lichfield, had many patients,
and made himself conspicuous by always visiting them in full
canonicals.480 But these were exceptions. Industrious poverty is
a state by no means unfavourable to virtue: but it is dangerous
to be at once poor and idle; and most of the clergymen who had
refused to swear found themselves thrown on the world with
nothing to eat and with nothing to do. They naturally became
beggars and loungers. Considering themselves as martyrs suffering
in a public cause, they were not ashamed to ask any good
churchman for a guinea. Most of them passed their lives in
running about from one Tory coffeehouse to another, abusing the
Dutch, hearing and spreading reports that within a month His
Majesty would certainly be on English ground, and wondering who
would have Salisbury when Burnet was hanged. During the session
of Parliament the lobbies and the Court of Requests were crowded
with deprived parsons, asking who was up, and what the numbers
were on the last division. Many of the ejected divines became
domesticated, as chaplains, tutors and spiritual directors, in
the houses of opulent Jacobites. In a situation of this kind, a
man of pure and exalted character, such a man as Ken was among
the nonjurors, and Watts among the nonconformists, may preserve
his dignity, and may much more than repay by his example and his
instructions the benefits which he receives. But to a person
whose virtue is not high toned this way of life is full of peril.
If he is of a quiet disposition, he is in danger of sinking into
a servile, sensual, drowsy parasite. If he is of an active and
aspiring nature, it may be feared that he will become expert in
those bad arts by which, more easily than by faithful service,
retainers make themselves agreeable or formidable. To discover
the weak side of every character, to flatter every passion and
prejudice, to sow discord and jealousy where love and confidence
ought to exist, to watch the moment of indiscreet openness for
the purpose of extracting secrets important to the prosperity and
honour of families, such are the practices by which keen and
restless spirits have too often avenged themselves for the
humiliation of dependence. The public voice loudly accused many
nonjurors of requiting the hospitality of their benefactors with
villany as black as that of the hypocrite depicted in the
masterpiece of Moliere. Indeed, when Cibber undertook to adapt
that noble comedy to the English stage, he made his Tartuffe a
nonjuror: and Johnson, who cannot be supposed to have been
prejudiced against the nonjurors, frankly owned that Cibber had
done them no wrong.481

There can be no doubt that the schism caused by the oaths would
have been far more formidable, if, at this crisis, any extensive
change had been made in the government or in the ceremonial of
the Established Church. It is a highly instructive fact that
those enlightened and tolerant divines who most ardently desired
such a change afterwards saw reason to be thankful that their
favourite project had failed.

Whigs and Tories had in the late Session combined to get rid of
Nottingham's Comprehension Bill by voting an address which
requested the King to refer the whole subject to the Convocation.
Burnet foresaw the effect of this vote. The whole scheme, he
said, was utterly ruined.482 Many of his friends, however,
thought differently; and among these was Tillotson. Of all the
members of the Low Church party Tillotson stood highest in
general estimation. As a preacher, he was thought by his
contemporaries to have surpassed all rivals living or dead.
Posterity has reversed this judgment. Yet Tillotson still keeps
his place as a legitimate English classic. His highest flights
were indeed far below those of Taylor, of Barrow, and of South;
but his oratory was more correct and equable than theirs. No
quaint conceits, no pedantic quotations from Talmudists and
scholiasts, no mean images, buffoon stories, scurrilous
invectives, ever marred the effect of his grave and temperate
discourses. His reasoning was just sufficiently profound and
sufficiently refined to be followed by a popular audience with
that slight degree of intellectual exertion which is a pleasure.
His style is not brilliant; but it is pure, transparently clear,
and equally free from the levity and from the stiffness which
disfigure the sermons of some eminent divines of the seventeenth
century. He is always serious: yet there is about his manner a
certain graceful ease which marks him as a man who knows the
world, who has lived in populous cities and in splendid courts,
and who has conversed, not only with books, but with lawyers and
merchants, wits and beauties, statesmen and princes. The greatest
charm of his compositions, however, is deriven from the benignity
and candour which appear in every line, and which shone forth not
less conspicuously in his life than in his writings.

As a theologian, Tillotson was certainly not less latitudinarian
than Burnet. Yet many of those clergymen to whom Burnet was an
object of implacable aversion spoke of Tillotson with tenderness
and respect. It is therefore not strange that the two friends
should have formed different estimates of the temper of the
priesthood, and should have expected different results from the
meeting of the Convocation. Tillotson was not displeased with the
vote of the Commons. He conceived that changes made in religious
institutions by mere secular authority might disgust many
churchmen, who would yet be perfectly willing to vote, in an
ecclesiastical synod, for changes more extensive still; and his
opinion had great weight with the King.483 It was resolved that
the Convocation should meet at the beginning of the next session
of Parliament, and that in the meantime a commission should issue
empowering some eminent divines to examine the Liturgy, the
canons, and the whole system of jurisprudence administered by the
Courts Christian, and to report on the alterations which it might
be desirable to make.484

Most of the Bishops who had taken the oaths were in this
commission; and with them were joined twenty priests of great
note. Of the twenty Tillotson was the most important: for he was
known to speak the sense both of the King and of the Queen. Among
those Commissioners who looked up to Tillotson as their chief
were Stillingfleet, Dean of Saint Paul's, Sharp, Dean of Norwich,
Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Tenison, Rector of Saint Martin's,
and Fowler, to whose judicious firmness was chiefly to be
ascribed the determination of the London clergy not to read the
Declaration of Indulgence.

With such men as those who have been named were mingled some
divines who belonged to the High Church party. Conspicuous among
these were two of the rulers of Oxford, Aldrich and Jane. Aldrich
had recently been appointed Dean of Christchurch, in the room of
the Papist Massey, whom James had, in direct violation of the
laws, placed at the head of that great college. The new Dean was
a polite, though not a profound, scholar, and a jovial,
hospitable gentleman. He was the author of some theological
tracts which have long been forgotten, and of a compendium of
logic which is still used: but the best works which he has
bequeathed to posterity are his catches. Jane, the King's
Professor of Divinity, was a graver but a less estimable man. He
had borne the chief part in framing that decree by which his
University ordered the works of Milton and Buchanan to be
publicly burned in the Schools. A few years later, irritated and
alarmed by the persecution of the Bishops and by the confiscation
of the revenues of Magdalene College, he had renounced the
doctrine of nonresistance, had repaired to the headquarters of
the Prince of Orange, and had assured His Highness that Oxford
would willingly coin her plate for the support of the war against
her oppressor. During a short time Jane was generally considered
as a Whig, and was sharply lampooned by some of his old allies.
He was so unfortunate as to have a name which was an excellent
mark for the learned punsters of his university. Several epigrams
were written on the doublefaced Janus, who, having got a
professorship by looking one way, now hoped to get a bishopric by
looking another. That he hoped to get a bishopric was perfectly
true. He demanded the see of Exeter as a reward due to his
services. He was refused. The refusal convinced him that the
Church had as much to apprehend from Latitudinarianism as from
Popery; and he speedily became a Tory again.485

Early in October the Commissioners assembled in the Jerusalem
Chamber. At their first meeting they determined to propose that,
in the public services of the Church, lessons taken from the
canonical books of Scripture should be substituted for the
lessons taken from the Apocrypha.486 At the second meeting a
strange question was raised by the very last person who ought to
have raised it. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, had, without any
scruple, sate, during two years, in the unconstitutional tribunal
which had, in the late reign, oppressed and pillaged the Church
of which he was a ruler. But he had now become scrupulous, and
expressed a doubt whether the commission were legal. To a plain
understanding his objections seem to be mere quibbles. The
commission gave power neither to make laws nor to administer
laws, but simply to inquire and to report. Even without a royal
commission Tillotson, Patrick, and Stillingfleet might, with
perfect propriety, have met to discuss the state and prospects of
the Church, and to consider whether it would or would not be
desirable to make some concession to the dissenters. And how
could it be a crime for subjects to do at the request of their
Sovereign that which it would have been innocent and laudable for
them to do without any such request? Sprat however was seconded
by Jane. There was a sharp altercation; and Lloyd, Bishop of
Saint Asaph, who, with many good qualities, had an irritable
temper, was provoked into saying something about spies. Sprat
withdrew and came no more. His example was soon followed by Jane
and Aldrich.487 The commissioners proceeded to take into
consideration the question of the posture at the Eucharist. It
was determined to recommend that a communicant, who, after
conference with his minister, should declare that he could not
conscientiously receive the bread and wine kneeling, might
receive them sitting. Mew, Bishop of Winchester, an honest man,
but illiterate, weak even in his best days, and now fast sinking
into dotage, protested against this concession, and withdrew from
the assembly. The other members continued to apply themselves
vigorously to their task: and no more secessions took place,
though there were great differences of opinion, and though the
debates were sometimes warm. The highest churchmen who still
remained were Doctor William Beveridge, Archdeacon of Colchester,
who many years later became Bishop of Saint Asaph, and Doctor
John Scott, the same who had prayed by the deathbed of Jeffreys.
The most active among the Latitudinarians appear to have been
Burnet, Fowler, and Tenison.

The baptismal service was repeatedly discussed. As to matter of
form the Commissioners were disposed to be indulgent. They were
generally willing to admit infants into the Church without
sponsors and without the sign of the cross. But the majority,
after much debate, steadily refused to soften down or explain
away those words which, to all minds not sophisticated, appear to
assert the regenerating virtue of the sacrament.488

As to the surplice, the Commissioners determined to recommend
that a large discretion should be left to the Bishops. Expedients
were devised by which a person who had received Presbyterian
ordination might, without admitting, either expressly or by
implication, the invalidity of that ordination, become a minister
of the Church of England.489

The ecclesiastical calendar was carefully revised. The great
festivals were retained. But it was not thought desirable that
Saint Valentine, Saint Chad, Saint Swithin, Saint Edward King of
the West Saxons, Saint Dunstan, and Saint Alphage, should share
the honours of Saint John and Saint Paul; or that the Church
should appear to class the ridiculous fable of the discovery of
the cross with facts so awfully important as the Nativity, the
Passion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of her Lord.490

The Athanasian Creed caused much perplexity. Most of the
Commissioners were equally unwilling to give up the doctrinal
clauses and to retain the damnatory clauses. Burnet, Fowler, and
Tillotson were desirous to strike this famous symbol out of the
liturgy altogether. Burnet brought forward one argument, which to
himself probably did not appear to have much weight, but which
was admirably calculated to perplex his opponents, Beveridge and
Scott. The Council of Ephesus had always been reverenced by
Anglican divines as a synod which had truly represented the whole
body of the faithful, and which had been divinely guided in the
way of truth. The voice of that Council was the voice of the Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church, not yet corrupted by superstition,
or rent asunder by schism. During more than twelve centuries the
world had not seen an ecclesiastical assembly which had an equal
claim to the respect of believers. The Council of Ephesus had, in
the plainest terms, and under the most terrible penalties,
forbidden Christians to frame or to impose on their brethren any
creed other than the creed settled by the Nicene Fathers. It
should seem therefore that, if the Council of Ephesus was really
under the direction of the Holy Spirit, whoever uses the
Athanasian Creed must, in the very act of uttering an anathema
against his neighbours, bring down an anathema on his own
head.491 In spite of the authority of the Ephesian Fathers, the
majority of the Commissioners determined to leave the Athanasian
Creed in the Prayer Book; but they proposed to add a rubric drawn
up by Stillingfleet, which declared that the damnatory clauses
were to be understood to apply only to such as obstinately denied
the substance of the Christian Faith. Orthodox believers were
therefore permitted to hope that the heretic who had honestly and
humbly sought for truth would not be everlastingly punished for
having failed to find it.492

Tenison was intrusted with the business of examining the Liturgy
and of collecting all those expressions to which objections had
been made, either by theological or by literary critics. It was
determined to remove some obvious blemishes. And it would have
been wise in the Commissioners to stop here. Unfortunately they
determined to rewrite a great part of the Prayer Book. It was a
bold undertaking; for in general the style of that volume is such
as cannot be improved. The English Liturgy indeed gains by being
compared even with those fine ancient Liturgies from which it is
to a great extent taken. The essential qualities of devotional
eloquence, conciseness, majestic simplicity, pathetic earnestness
of supplication, sobered by a profound reverence, are common
between the translations and the originals. But in the
subordinate graces of diction the originals must be allowed to be
far inferior to the translations. And the reason is obvious. The
technical phraseology of Christianity did not become a part of
the Latin language till that language had passed the age of
maturity and was sinking into barbarism. But the technical
phraseology of Christianity was found in the Anglosaxon and in the
Norman French, long before the union of those two dialects had,
produced a third dialect superior to either. The Latin of the
Roman Catholic services, therefore, is Latin in the last stage of
decay. The English of our services is English in all the vigour
and suppleness of early youth. To the great Latin writers, to
Terence and Lucretius, to Cicero and Caesar, to Tacitus and
Quintilian, the noblest compositions of Ambrose and Gregory would
have seemed to be, not merely bad writing, but senseless
gibberish.493 The diction of our Book of Common Prayer, on the
other hand, has directly or indirectly contributed to form the
diction of almost every great English writer, and has extorted
the admiration of the most accomplished infidels and of the most
accomplished nonconformists, of such men as David Hume and Robert
Hall.

The style of the Liturgy, however, did not satisfy the Doctors of
the Jerusalem Chamber. They voted the Collects too short and too
dry: and Patrick was intrusted with the duty of expanding and
ornamenting them. In one respect, at least, the choice seems to
have been unexceptionable; for, if we judge by the way in which
Patrick paraphrased the most sublime Hebrew poetry, we shall
probably be of opinion that, whether he was or was not qualified
to make the collects better, no man that ever lived was more
competent to make them longer.494

It mattered little, however, whether the recommendations of the
Commission were good or bad. They were all doomed before they
were known. The writs summoning the Convocation of the province
of Canterbury had been issued; and the clergy were every where in
a state of violent excitement. They had just taken the oaths, and
were smarting from the earnest reproofs of nonjurors, from the
insolent taunts of Whigs, and often undoubtedly from the stings
of remorse. The announcement that a Convocation was to sit for
the purpose of deliberating on a plan of comprehension roused
all the strongest passions of the priest who had just complied
with the law, and was ill satisfied or half satisfied with
himself for complying. He had an opportunity of contributing to
defeat a favourite scheme of that government which had exacted
from him, under severe penalties, a submission not easily to be
reconciled to his conscience or his pride. He had an opportunity
of signalising his zeal for that Church whose characteristic
doctrines he had been accused of deserting for lucre. She was
now, he conceived, threatened by a danger as great as that of the
preceding year. The Latitudinarians of 1689 were not less eager
to humble and to ruin her than the Jesuits of 1688. The
Toleration Act had done for the Dissenters quite as much as was
compatible with her dignity and security; and nothing more ought
to be conceded, not the hem of one of her vestments, not an
epithet from the beginning to the end of her Liturgy. All the
reproaches which had been thrown on the ecclesiastical commission
of James were transferred to the ecclesiastical commission of
William. The two commissions indeed had nothing but the name in
common. Put the name was associated with illegality and
oppression, with the violation of dwellings and the confiscation
of freeholds, and was therefore assiduously sounded with no
small effect by the tongues of the spiteful in the ears of the
ignorant.

The King too, it was said, was not sound. He conformed indeed to
the established worship; but his was a local and occasional
conformity. For some ceremonies to which High Churchmen were
attached he had a distaste which he was at no pains to conceal.
One of his first acts had been to give orders that in his private
chapel the service should be said instead of being sung; and this
arrangement, though warranted by the rubric, caused much
murmuring.495 It was known that he was so profane as to sneer at
a practice which had been sanctioned by high ecclesiastical
authority, the practice of touching for the scrofula. This
ceremony had come down almost unaltered from the darkest of the
dark ages to the time of Newton and Locke. The Stuarts frequently
dispensed the healing influences in the Banqueting House. The
days on which this miracle was to be wrought were fixed at
sittings of the Privy Council, and were solemnly notified by the
clergy in all the parish churches of the realm.496 When the
appointed time came, several divines in full canonicals stood
round the canopy of state. The surgeon of the royal household
introduced the sick. A passage from the sixteenth chapter of the
Gospel of Saint Mark was read. When the words, "They shall lay
their hands on the sick, and they shall recover," had been
pronounced, there was a pause, and one of the sick was brought up
to the King. His Majesty stroked the ulcers and swellings, and
hung round the patient's neck a white riband to which was
fastened a gold coin. The other sufferers were then led up in
succession; and, as each was touched, the chaplain repeated the
incantation, "they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they
shall recover." Then came the epistle, prayers, antiphonies and a
benediction. The service may still be found in the prayer books
of the reign of Anne. Indeed it was not till some time after the
accession of George the First that the University of Oxford
ceased to reprint the Office of Healing together with the
Liturgy. Theologians of eminent learning, ability, and virtue
gave the sanction of their authority to this mummery;497 and,
what is stranger still, medical men of high note believed, or
affected to believe, in the balsamic virtues of the royal hand.
We must suppose that every surgeon who attended Charles the
Second was a man of high repute for skill; and more than one of
the surgeons who attended Charles the Second has left us a solemn
profession of faith in the King's miraculous power. One of them
is not ashamed to tell us that the gift was communicated by the
unction administered at the coronation; that the cures were so
numerous and sometimes so rapid that they could not be attributed
to any natural cause; that the failures were to be ascribed to
want of faith on the part of the patients; that Charles once
handled a scrofulous Quaker and made him a healthy man and a
sound Churchman in a moment; that, if those who had been healed
lost or sold the piece of gold which had been hung round their
necks, the ulcers broke forth again, and could be removed only by
a second touch and a second talisman. We cannot wonder that, when
men of science gravely repeated such nonsense, the vulgar should
believe it. Still less can we wonder that wretches tortured by a
disease over which natural remedies had no power should eagerly
drink in tales of preternatural cures: for nothing is so
credulous as misery. The crowds which repaired to the palace on
the days of healing were immense. Charles the Second, in the
course of his reign, touched near a hundred thousand persons. The
number seems to have increased or diminished as the king's
popularity rose or fell. During that Tory reaction which followed
the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, the press to get near
him was terrific. In 1682, he performed the rite eight thousand
five hundred times. In 1684, the throng was such that six or
seven of the sick were trampled to death. James, in one of his
progresses, touched eight hundred persons in the choir of the
Cathedral of Chester. The expense of the ceremony was little less
than ten thousand pounds a year, and would have been much greater
but for the vigilance of the royal surgeons, whose business it
was to examine the applicants, and to distinguish those who came
for the cure from those who came for the gold.498

William had too much sense to be duped, and too much honesty to
bear a part in what he knew to be an imposture. "It is a silly
superstition," he exclaimed, when he heard that, at the close of
Lent, his palace was besieged by a crowd of the sick: "Give the
poor creatures some money, and send them away."499 On one single
occasion he was importuned into laying his hand on a patient.
"God give you better health," he said, "and more sense." The
parents of scrofulous children cried out against his cruelty:
bigots lifted up their hands and eyes in horror at his impiety:
Jacobites sarcastically praised him for not presuming to arrogate
to himself a power which belonged only to legitimate sovereigns;
and even some Whigs thought that he acted unwisely in treating
with such marked contempt a superstition which had a strong hold
on the vulgar mind: but William was not to be moved, and was
accordingly set down by many High Churchmen as either an infidel
or a puritan.500

The chief cause, however, which at this time made even the most
moderate plan of comprehension hateful to the priesthood still
remains to be mentioned. What Burnet had foreseen and foretold
had come to pass. There was throughout the clerical profession a
strong disposition to retaliate on the Presbyterians of England
the wrongs of the Episcopalians of Scotland. It could not be
denied that even the highest churchmen had, in the summer of
1688, generally declared themselves willing to give up many
things for the sake of union. But it was said, and not without
plausibility, that what was passing on the other side of the
Border proved union on any reasonable terms to be impossible.
With what face, it was asked, can those who will make no
concession to us where we are weak, blame us for refusing to make
any concession to them where we are strong? We cannot judge
correctly of the principles and feelings of a sect from the
professions which it makes in a time of feebleness and suffering.
If we would know what the Puritan spirit really is, we must
observe the Puritan when he is dominant. He was dominant here in
the last generation; and his little finger was thicker than the
loins of the prelates. He drove hundreds of quiet students from
their cloisters, and thousands of respectable divines from their
parsonages, for the crime of refusing to sign his Covenant. No
tenderness was shown to learning, to genius or to sanctity. Such
men as Hall and Sanderson, Chillingworth and Hammond, were not
only plundered, but flung into prisons, and exposed to all the
rudeness of brutal gaolers. It was made a crime to read fine
psalms and prayers bequeathed to the faithful by Ambrose and
Chrysostom. At length the nation became weary of the reign of the
saints. The fallen dynasty and the fallen hierarchy were
restored. The Puritan was in his turn subjected to disabilities
and penalties; and he immediately found out that it was barbarous
to punish men for entertaining conscientious scruples about a
garb, about a ceremony, about the functions of ecclesiastical
officers. His piteous complaints and his arguments in favour of
toleration had at length imposed on many well meaning persons.
Even zealous churchmen had begun to entertain a hope that the
severe discipline which he had undergone had made him candid,
moderate, charitable. Had this been really so, it would doubtless
have been our duty to treat his scruples with extreme tenderness.
But, while we were considering what we could do to meet his
wishes in England, he had obtained ascendency in Scotland; and,
in an instant, he was all himself again, bigoted, insolent, and
cruel. Manses had been sacked; churches shut up; prayer books
burned; sacred garments torn; congregations dispersed by
violence; priests hustled, pelted, pilloried, driven forth, with
their wives and babes, to beg or die of hunger. That these
outrages were to be imputed, not to a few lawless marauders, but
to the great body of the Presbyterians of Scotland, was evident
from the fact that the government had not dared either to inflict
punishment on the offenders or to grant relief to the sufferers.
Was it not fit then that the Church of England should take
warning? Was it reasonable to ask her to mutilate her apostolical
polity and her beautiful ritual for the purpose of conciliating
those who wanted nothing but power to rabble her as they had
rabbled her sister? Already these men had obtained a boon which
they ill deserved, and which they never would have granted. They
worshipped God in perfect security. Their meeting houses were as
effectually protected as the choirs of our cathedrals. While no
episcopal minister could, without putting his life in jeopardy,
officiate in Ayrshire or Renfrewshire, a hundred Presbyterian
ministers preached unmolested every Sunday in Middlesex. The
legislature had, with a generosity perhaps imprudent, granted
toleration to the most intolerant of men; and with toleration it
behoved them to be content.

Thus several causes conspired to inflame the parochial clergy
against the scheme of comprehension. Their temper was such that,
if the plan framed in the Jerusalem Chamber had been directly
submitted to them, it would have been rejected by a majority of
twenty to one. But in the Convocation their weight bore no
proportion to their number. The Convocation has, happily for our
country, been so long utterly insignificant that, till a recent
period, none but curious students cared to inquire how it was
constituted; and even now many persons, not generally ill
informed, imagine it to have been a council representing the
Church of England. In truth the Convocation so often mentioned in
our ecclesiastical history is merely the synod of the Province of
Canterbury, and never had a right to speak in the name of the
whole clerical body. The Province of York had also its
convocation: but, till the eighteenth century was far advanced,
the Province of York was generally so poor, so rude, and so
thinly peopled, that, in political importance, it could hardly be
considered as more than a tenth part of the kingdom. The sense of
the Southern clergy was therefore popularly considered as the
sense of the whole profession. When the formal concurrence of the
Northern clergy was required, it seems to have been given as a
matter of course. Indeed the canons passed by the Convocation of
Canterbury in 1604 were ratified by James the First, and were
ordered to be strictly observed in every part of the kingdom, two
years before the Convocation of York went through the form of
approving them. Since these ecclesiastical councils became mere
names, a great change has taken place in the relative position of
the two Archbishoprics. In all the elements of power, the region
beyond Trent is now at least a third part of England. When in our
own time the representative system was adjusted to the altered
state of the country, almost all the small boroughs which it was
necessary to disfranchise were in the south. Two thirds of the
new members given to great provincial towns were given to the
north. If therefore any English government should suffer the
Convocations, as now constituted, to meet for the despatch of
business, two independent synods would be legislating at the same
time for one Church. It is by no means impossible that one
assembly might adopt canons which the other might reject, that
one assembly might condemn as heretical propositions which the
other might hold to be orthodox.501 In the seventeenth century no
such danger was apprehended. So little indeed was the Convocation
of York then considered, that the two Houses of Parliament had,
in their address to William, spoken only of one Convocation,
which they called the Convocation of the Clergy of the Kingdom.

The body which they thus not very accurately designated is
divided into two Houses. The Upper House is composed of the
Bishops of the Province of Canterbury. The Lower House consisted,
in 1689, of a hundred and forty-four members. Twenty-two Deans
and fifty-four Archdeacons sate there in virtue of their offices.
Twenty-four divines sate as proctors for twenty-four chapters.
Only forty-four proctors were elected by the eight thousand
parish priests of the twenty-two dioceses. These forty-four
proctors, however, were almost all of one mind. The elections had
in former times been conducted in the most quiet and decorous
manner. But on this occasion the canvassing was eager: the
contests were sharp: Rochester, the leader of the party which in
the House of Lords had opposed the Comprehension-Bill, and his
brother Clarendon, who had refused to take the oaths, had gone to
Oxford, the head quarters of that party, for the purpose of
animating and organizing the opposition.502 The representatives
of the parochial clergy must have been men whose chief
distinction was their zeal: for in the whole list can be found
not a single illustrious name, and very few names which are now
known even to curious students.503 The official members of the
Lower House, among whom were many distinguished scholars and
preachers, seem to have been not very unequally divided.

During the summer of 1689 several high ecclesiastical dignities
became vacant, and were bestowed on divines who were sitting in
the Jerusalem Chamber. It has already been mentioned that Thomas,
Bishop of Worcester, died just before the day fixed for taking
the oaths. Lake, Bishop of Chichester, lived just long enough to
refuse them, and with his last breath declared that he would
maintain even at the stake the doctrine of indefeasible
hereditary right. The see of Chichester was filled by Patrick,
that of Worcester by Stillingfleet; and the deanery of Saint
Paul's which Stillingfleet quitted was given to Tillotson. That
Tillotson was not raised to the episcopal bench excited some
surprise. But in truth it was because the government held his
services in the highest estimation that he was suffered to remain
a little longer a simple presbyter. The most important office in
the Convocation was that of Prolocutor of the Lower House. The
Prolocutor was to be chosen by the members: and the only moderate
man who had a chance of being chosen was Tillotson. It had in
fact been already determined that he should be the next
Archbishop of Canterbury. When he went to kiss hands for his new
deanery he warmly thanked the King. "Your Majesty has now set me
at ease for the remainder of my life." "No such thing, Doctor, I
assure you," said William. He then plainly intimated that,
whenever Sancroft should cease to fill the highest ecclesiastical
station, Tillotson would succeed to it. Tillotson stood aghast;
for his nature was quiet and unambitious: he was beginning to
feel the infirmities of old age: he cared little for money: of
worldly advantages those which he most valued were an honest fame
and the general good will of mankind: those advantages he already
possessed; and he could not but be aware that, if he became
primate, he should incur the bitterest hatred of a powerful
party, and should become a mark for obloquy, from which his
gentle and sensitive nature shrank as from the rack or the wheel.
William was earnest and resolute. "It is necessary," he said,
"for my service; and I must lay on your conscience the
responsibility of refusing me your help." Here the conversation
ended. It was, indeed, not necessary that the point should be
immediately decided; for several months were still to elapse
before the Archbishopric would be vacant.

Tillotson bemoaned himself with unfeigned anxiety and sorrow to
Lady Russell, whom, of all human beings, he most honoured and
trusted.504 He hoped, he said, that he was not inclined to shrink
from the service of the Church; but he was convinced that his
present line of service was that in which he could be most
useful. If he should be forced to accept so high and so invidious
a post as the primacy, he should soon sink under the load of
duties and anxieties too heavy for his strength. His spirits, and
with his spirits his abilities, would fail him. He gently
complained of Burnet, who loved and admired him with a truly
generous heartiness, and who had laboured to persuade both the
King and Queen that there was in England only one man fit for the
highest ecclesiastical dignity. "The Bishop of Salisbury," said
Tillotson, "is one of the best and worst friends that I know."

Nothing that was not a secret to Burnet was likely to be long a
secret to any body. It soon began to be whispered about that the
King had fixed on Tillotson to fill the place of Sancroft. The
news caused cruel mortification to Compton, who, not unnaturally,
conceived that his own claims were unrivalled. He had educated
the Queen and her sister; and to the instruction which they had
received from him might fairly be ascribed, at least in part, the
firmness with which, in spite of the influence of their father,
they had adhered to the established religion. Compton was,
moreover, the only prelate who, during the late reign, had raised
his voice in Parliament against the dispensing power, the only
prelate who had been suspended by the High Commission, the only
prelate who had signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange,
the only prelate who had actually taken arms against Popery and
arbitrary power, the only prelate, save one, who had voted
against a Regency. Among the ecclesiastics of the Province of
Canterbury who had taken the oaths, he was highest in rank. He
had therefore held, during some months, a vicarious primacy: he
had crowned the new Sovereigns: he had consecrated the new
Bishops: he was about to preside in the Convocation. It may be
added, that he was the son of an Earl; and that no person of
equally high birth then sate, or had ever sate, since the
Reformation, on the episcopal bench. That the government should
put over his head a priest of his own diocese, who was the son of
a Yorkshire clothier, and who was distinguished only by abilities
and virtues, was provoking; and Compton, though by no means a
badhearted man, was much provoked. Perhaps his vexation was
increased by the reflection that he had, for the sake of those by
whom he was thus slighted, done some things which had strained
his conscience and sullied his reputation, that he had at one
time practised the disingenuous arts of a diplomatist, and at
another time given scandal to his brethren by wearing the buff
coat and jackboots of a trooper. He could not accuse Tillotson of
inordinate ambition. But, though Tillotson was most unwilling to
accept the Archbishopric himself, he did not use his influence in
favour of Compton, but earnestly recommended Stillingfleet as the
man fittest to preside over the Church of England. The
consequence was that, on the eve of the meeting of Convocation,
the Bishop who was to be at the head of the Upper House became
the personal enemy of the presbyter whom the government wished
to see at the head of the Lower House. This quarrel added new
difficulties to difficulties which little needed any addition.505

It was not till the twentieth of November that the Convocation
met for the despatch of business. The place of meeting had
generally been Saint Paul's Cathedral. But Saint Paul's Cathedral
was slowly rising from its ruins; and, though the dome already
towered high above the hundred steeples of the City, the choir
had not yet been opened for public worship. The assembly
therefore sate at Westminster.506 A table was placed in the
beautiful chapel of Henry the Seventh. Compton was in the chair.
On his right and left those suffragans of Canterbury who had
taken the oaths were ranged in gorgeous vestments of scarlet and
miniver. Below the table was assembled the crowd of presbyters.
Beveridge preached a Latin sermon, in which he warmly eulogized
the existing system, and yet declared himself favourable to a
moderate reform. Ecclesiastical laws were, he said, of two kinds.
Some laws were fundamental and eternal: they derived their
authority from God; nor could any religious community repeal them
without ceasing to form a part of the universal Church. Other
laws were local and temporary. They had been framed by human
wisdom, and might be altered by human wisdom. They ought not
indeed to be altered without grave reasons. But surely, at that
moment, such reasons were not wanting. To unite a scattered flock
in one fold under one shepherd, to remove stumbling blocks from
the path of the weak, to reconcile hearts long estranged, to
restore spiritual discipline to its primitive vigour, to place
the best and purest of Christian societies on a base broad enough
to stand against all the attacks of earth and hell, these were
objects which might well justify some modification, not of
Catholic institutions, but of national or provincial usages.507

The Lower House, having heard this discourse, proceeded to
appoint a Prolocutor. Sharp, who was probably put forward by the
members favourable to a comprehension as one of the highest
churchmen among them, proposed Tillotson. Jane, who had refused
to act under the Royal Commission, was proposed on the other
side. After some animated discussion, Jane was elected by fifty-
five votes to twenty-eight.508

The Prolocutor was formally presented to the Bishop of London,
and made, according to ancient usage, a Latin oration. In this
oration the Anglican Church was extolled as the most perfect of
all institutions. There was a very intelligible intimation that
no change whatever in her doctrine, her discipline, or her ritual
was required; and the discourse concluded with a most significant
sentence. Compton, when a few months before he exhibited himself
in the somewhat unclerical character of a colonel of horse, had
ordered the colours of his regiment to be embroidered with the
well known words "Nolumus leges Angliae mutari"; and with these
words Jane closed his peroration.509

Still the Low Churchmen did not relinquish all hope. They very
wisely determined to begin by proposing to substitute lessons
taken from the canonical books for the lessons taken from the
Apocrypha. It should seem that this was a suggestion which, even
if there had not been a single dissenter in the kingdom, might
well have been received with favour. For the Church had, in her
sixth Article, declared that the canonical books were, and that
the Apocryphal books were not, entitled to be called Holy
Scriptures, and to be regarded as the rule of faith. Even this
reform, however, the High Churchmen were determined to oppose.
They asked, in pamphlets which covered the counters of
Paternoster Row and Little Britain, why country congregations
should be deprived of the pleasure of hearing about the ball of
pitch with which Daniel choked the dragon, and about the fish
whose liver gave forth such a fume as sent the devil flying from
Ecbatana to Egypt. And were there not chapters of the Wisdom of
the Son of Sirach far more interesting and edifying than the
genealogies and muster rolls which made up a large part of the
Chronicles of the Jewish Kings and of the narrative of Nehemiah?
No grave divine however would have liked to maintain, in Henry
the Seventh's Chapel, that it was impossible to find, in many
hundreds of pages dictated by the Holy Spirit, fifty or sixty
chapters more edifying than any thing which could be extracted
from the works of the most respectable uninspired moralist or
historian. The leaders of the majority therefore determined to
shun a debate in which they must have been reduced to a
disagreeable dilemma. Their plan was, not to reject the
recommendations of the Commissioners, but to prevent those
recommendations from being discussed; and with this view a system
of tactics was adopted which proved successful.

The law, as it had been interpreted during a long course of
years, prohibited the Convocation from even deliberating on any
ecclesiastical ordinance without a previous warrant from the
Crown. Such a warrant, sealed with the great seal, was brought in
form to Henry the Seventh's Chapel by Nottingham. He at the same
time delivered a message from the King. His Majesty exhorted the
assembly to consider calmly and without prejudice the
recommendations of the Commission, and declared that he had
nothing in view but the honour and advantage of the Protestant
religion in general, and of the Church of England in
particular.510

The Bishops speedily agreed on an address of thanks for the royal
message, and requested the concurrence of the Lower House. Jane
and his adherents raised objection after objection. First they
claimed the privilege of presenting a separate address. When they
were forced to waive this claim, they refused to agree to any
expression which imported that the Church of England had any
fellowship with any other Protestant community. Amendments and
reasons were sent backward and forward. Conferences were held at
which Burnet on one side and Jane on the other were the chief
speakers. At last, with great difficulty, a compromise was made;
and an address, cold and ungracious compared with that which the
Bishops had framed, was presented to the King in the Banqueting
House. He dissembled his vexation, returned a kind answer, and
intimated a hope that the assembly would now at length proceed to
consider the great question of Comprehension.511

Such however was not the intention of the leaders of the Lower
House. As soon as they were again in Henry the Seventh's Chapel,
one of them raised a debate about the nonjuring bishops. In spite
of the unfortunate scruple which those prelates entertained, they
were learned and holy men. Their advice might, at this
conjuncture, be of the greatest service to the Church. The Upper
House was hardly an Upper House in the absence of the Primate and
of many of his most respectable suffragans. Could nothing be done
to remedy this evil?512 Another member complained of some
pamphlets which had lately appeared, and in which the Convocation
was not treated with proper deference. The assembly took fire.
Was it not monstrous that this heretical and schismatical trash
should be cried by the hawkers about the streets, and should be
exposed to sale in the booths of Westminster Hall, within a
hundred yards of the Prolocutor's chair? The work of mutilating
the Liturgy and of turning cathedrals into conventicles might
surely be postponed till the Synod had taken measures to protect
its own freedom and dignity. It was then debated how the printing
of such scandalous books should be prevented. Some were for
indictments, some for ecclesiastical censures.513 In such
deliberations as these week after week passed away. Not a single
proposition tending to a Comprehension had been even discussed.
Christmas was approaching. At Christmas there was to be a recess.
The Bishops were desirous that, during the recess, a committee
should sit to prepare business. The Lower House refused to
consent.514 That House, it was now evident, was fully determined
not even to enter on the consideration of any part of the plan
which had been framed by the Royal Commissioners. The proctors of
the dioceses were in a worse humour than when they first came up
to Westminster. Many of them had probably never before passed a
week in the capital, and had not been aware how great the
difference was between a town divine and a country divine. The
sight of the luxuries and comforts enjoyed by the popular
preachers of the city raised, not unnaturally, some sore feeling
in a Lincolnshire or Caernarvonshire vicar who was accustomed to
live as hardly as small farmer. The very circumstance that the
London clergy were generally for a comprehension made the
representatives of the rural clergy obstinate on the other
side.515 The prelates were, as a body, sincerely desirous that
some concession might be made to the nonconformists. But the
prelates were utterly unable to curb the mutinous democracy. They
were few in number. Some of them were objects of extreme dislike
to the parochial clergy. The President had not the full authority
of a primate; nor was he sorry to see those who had, as he
concerned, used him ill, thwarted and mortified. It was necessary
to yield. The Convocation was prorogued for six weeks. When those
six weeks had expired, it was prorogued again; and many years
elapsed before it was permitted to transact business.

So ended, and for ever, the hope that the Church of England might
be induced to make some concession to the scruples of the
nonconformists. A learned and respectable minority of the
clerical order relinquished that hope with deep regret. Yet in a
very short time even Barnet and Tillotson found reason to believe
that their defeat was really an escape, and that victory would
have been a disaster. A reform, such as, in the days of
Elizabeth, would have united the great body of English
Protestants, would, in the days of William, have alienated more
hearts than it would have conciliated. The schism which the oaths
had produced was, as yet, insignificant. Innovations such as
those proposed by the Royal Commissioners would have given it a
terrible importance. As yet a layman, though he might think the
proceedings of the Convention unjustifiable, and though he might
applaud the virtue of the nonjuring clergy, still continued to
sit under the accustomed pulpit, and to kneel at the accustomed
altar. But if, just at this conjuncture, while his mind was
irritated by what he thought the wrong done to his favourite
divines, and while he was perhaps doubting whether he ought not
to follow them, his ears and eyes had been shocked by changes in
the worship to which he was fondly attached, if the compositions
of the doctors of the Jerusalem Chamber had taken the place of
the old collects, if he had seen clergymen without surplices
carrying the chalice and the paten up and down the aisle to
seated communicants, the tie which bound him to the Established
Church would have been dissolved. He would have repaired to some
nonjuring assembly, where the service which he loved was
performed without mutilation. The new sect, which as yet
consisted almost exclusively of priests, would soon have been
swelled by numerous and large congregations; and in those
congregations would have been found a much greater proportion of
the opulent, of the highly descended, and of the highly educated,
than any other body of dissenters could show. The Episcopal
schismatics, thus reinforced, would probably have been as
formidable to the new King and his successors as ever the Puritan
schismatics had been to the princes of the House of Stuart. It is
an indisputable and a most instructive fact, that we are, in a
great measure, indebted for the civil and religious liberty which
we enjoy to the pertinacity with which the High Church party, in
the Convocation of 1689, refused even to deliberate on any plan
of Comprehension.516

CHAPTER XV

The Parliament meets; Retirement of Halifax--Supplies voted--The
Bill of Rights passed--Inquiry into Naval Abuses--Inquiry into
the Conduct of the Irish War--Reception of Walker in England--
Edmund Ludlow--Violence of the Whigs--Impeachments--Committee of
Murder--Malevolence of John Hampden--The Corporation Bill--
Debates on the Indemnity Bill--Case of Sir Robert Sawyer--The
King purposes to retire to Holland--He is induced to change his
Intention; the Whigs oppose his going to Ireland--He prorogues
the Parliament--Joy of the Tories--Dissolution and General
Election--Changes in the Executive Departments--Caermarthen Chief
Minister--Sir John Lowther--Rise and Progress of Parliamentary
Corruption in England--Sir John Trevor--Godolphin retires;
Changes at the Admiralty--Changes in the Commissions of
Lieutenancy--Temper of the Whigs; Dealings of some Whigs with
Saint Germains; Shrewsbury; Ferguson--Hopes of the Jacobites--
Meeting of the new Parliament; Settlement of the Revenue--
Provision for the Princess of Denmark--Bill declaring the Acts of
the preceding Parliament valid--Debate on the Changes in the
Lieutenancy of London--Abjuration Bill--Act of Grace--The
Parliament prorogued; Preparations for the first War--
Administration of James at Dublin--An auxiliary Force sent from
France to Ireland--Plan of the English Jacobites; Clarendon,
Aylesbury, Dartmouth--Penn--Preston--The Jacobites betrayed by
Fuller--Crone arrested--Difficulties of William--Conduct of
Shrewsbury--The Council of Nine--Conduct of Clarendon--Penn held
to Bail--Interview between William and Burnet; William sets out
for Ireland--Trial of Crone--Danger of Invasion and Insurrection;
Tourville's Fleet in the--Channel--Arrests of suspected Persons--
Torrington ordered to give Battle to Tourville--Battle of Beachy
Head--Alarm in London; Battle of Fleurus--Spirit of the Nation--
Conduct of Shrewsbury

WHILE the Convocation was wrangling on one side of Old Palace
Yard, the Parliament was wrangling even more fiercely on the
other. The Houses, which had separated on the twentieth of
August, had met again on the nineteenth of October. On the day of
meeting an important change struck every eye. Halifax was no
longer on the woolsack. He had reason to expect that the
persecution, from which in the preceding session he had narrowly
escaped, would be renewed. The events which had taken place
during the recess, and especially the disasters of the campaign
in Ireland, had furnished his persecutors with fresh means of
annoyance. His administration had not been successful; and,
though his failure was partly to be ascribed to causes against
which no human wisdom could have contended, it was also partly to
be ascribed to the peculiarities of his temper and of his
intellect. It was certain that a large party in the Commons would
attempt to remove him; and he could no longer depend on the
protection of his master. It was natural that a prince who was
emphatically a man of action should become weary of a minister
who was a man of speculation. Charles, who went to Council as he
went to the play, solely to be amused, was delighted with an
adviser who had a hundred pleasant and ingenious things to say on
both sides of every question. But William had no taste for
disquisitions and disputations, however lively and subtle, which
occupied much time and led to no conclusion. It was reported, and
is not improbable, that on one occasion he could not refrain from
expressing in sharp terms at the council board his impatience at
what seemed to him a morbid habit of indecision.517 Halifax,
mortified by his mischances in public life, dejected by domestic
calamities, disturbed by apprehensions of an impeachment, and no
longer supported by royal favour, became sick of public life, and
began to pine for the silence and solitude of his seat in
Nottinghamshire, an old Cistercian Abbey buried deep among woods.
Early in October it was known that he would no longer preside in
the Upper House. It was at the same time whispered as a great
secret that he meant to retire altogether from business, and that
he retained the Privy Seal only till a successor should he named.
Chief Baron Atkyns was appointed Speaker of the Lords.518

On some important points there appeared to be no difference of
opinion in the legislature. The Commons unanimously resolved that
they would stand by the King in the work of reconquering Ireland,
and that they would enable him to prosecute with vigour the war
against France.519 With equal unanimity they voted an
extraordinary supply of two millions.520 It was determined that
the greater part of this sum should he levied by an assessment on
real property. The rest was to be raised partly by a poll tax,
and partly by new duties on tea, coffee and chocolate. It was
proposed that a hundred thousand pounds should be exacted from
the Jews; and this proposition was at first favourably received
by the House: but difficulties arose. The Jews presented a petition in which
they declared that they could not afford to pay such a sum, and that they would
rather leave the kingdom than stay there to be
ruined. Enlightened politicians could not but perceive that
special taxation, laid on a small class which happens to be rich,
unpopular and defenceless, is really confiscation, and must
ultimately improverish rather than enrich the State. After some
discussion, the Jew tax was abandoned.521

The Bill of Rights, which, in the last Session, had, after
causing much altercation between the Houses, been suffered to
drop, was again introduced, and was speedily passed. The peers no
longer insisted that any person should be designated by name as
successor to the crown, if Mary, Anne and William should all die
without posterity. During eleven years nothing more was heard of
the claims of the House of Brunswick.

The Bill of Rights contained some provisions which deserve
special mention. The Convention had resolved that it was contrary
to the interest of the kingdom to be governed by a Papist, but
had prescribed no test which could ascertain whether a prince was
or was not a Papist. The defect was now supplied. It was enacted
that every English sovereign should, in full Parliament, and at
the coronation, repeat and subscribe the Declaration against
Transubstantiation.

It was also enacted that no person who should marry a Papist
should be capable of reigning in England, and that, if the
Sovereign should marry a Papist, the subject should be absolved
from allegiance. Burnet boasts that this part of the Bill of
Rights was his work. He had little reason to boast: for a more
wretched specimen of legislative workmanship will not easily be
found. In the first place, no test is prescribed. Whether the
consort of a Sovereign has taken the oath of supremacy, has
signed the declaration against transubstantiation, has
communicated according to the ritual of the Church of England,
are very simple issues of fact. But whether the consort of a
Sovereign is or is not a Papist is a question about which people
may argue for ever. What is a Papist? The word is not a word of
definite signification either in law or in theology. It is merely
a popular nickname, and means very different things in different
mouths. Is every person a Papist who is willing to concede to the
Bishop of Rome a primacy among Christian prelates? If so, James
the First, Charles the First, Laud, Heylyn, were Papists.522 Or
is the appellation to be confined to persons who hold the
ultramontane doctrines touching the authority of the Holy See? If
so, neither Bossuet nor Pascal was a Papist.

What again is the legal effect of the words which absolve the
subject from his allegiance? Is it meant that a person arraigned
for high treason may tender evidence to prove that the Sovereign
has married a Papist? Would Whistlewood, for example, have been
entitled to an acquittal, if he could have proved that King
George the Fourth had married Mrs. Fitzherbert, and that Mrs.
Fitzherbert was a Papist? It is not easy to believe that any
tribunal would have gone into such a question. Yet to what
purpose is it to enact that, in a certain case, the subject shall
be absolved from his allegiance, if the tribunal before which he
is tried for a violation of his allegiance is not to go into the
question whether that case has arisen?

The question of the dispensing power was treated in a very
different manner, was fully considered, and was finally settled
in the only way in which it could be settled. The Declaration of
Right had gone no further than to pronounce that the dispensing
power, as of late exercised, was illegal. That a certain
dispensing power belonged to the Crown was a proposition
sanctioned by authorities and precedents of which even Whig
lawyers could not speak without respect; but as to the precise
extent of this power hardly any two jurists were agreed; and
every attempt to frame a definition had failed. At length by the
Bill of Rights the anomalous prerogative which had caused so many
fierce disputes was absolutely and for ever taken away.523

In the House of Commons there was, as might have been expected, a
series of sharp debates on the misfortunes of the autumn. The
negligence or corruption of the Navy Board, the frauds of the
contractors, the rapacity of the captains of the King's ships,
the losses of the London merchants, were themes for many keen
speeches. There was indeed reason for anger. A severe inquiry,
conducted by William in person at the Treasury, had just elicited
the fact that much of the salt with which the meat furnished to
the fleet had been cured had been by accident mixed with galls
such as are used for the purpose of making ink. The victuallers
threw the blame on the rats, and maintained that the provisions
thus seasoned, though certainly disagreeable to the palate, were
not injurious to health.524 The Commons were in no temper to
listen to such excuses. Several persons who had been concerned in
cheating the government and poisoning the sailors were taken into
custody by the Serjeant.525 But no censure was passed on the
chief offender, Torrington, nor does it appear that a single voice
was raised against him. He had personal friends in both parties.
He had many popular qualities. Even his vices were not those
which excite public hatred. The people readily forgave a
courageous openhanded sailor for being too fond of his bottle,
his boon companions and his mistresses and did not sufficiently
consider how great must be the perils of a country of which the
safety depends on a man sunk in indolence, stupified by wine,
enervated by licentiousness, ruined by prodigality, and enslaved
by sycophants and harlots.

The sufferings of the army in Ireland called forth strong
expressions of sympathy and indignation. The Commons did justice
to the firmness and wisdom with which Schomberg had conducted the
most arduous of all campaigns. That he had not achieved more was
attributed chiefly to the villany of the Commissariat. The
pestilence itself it was said, would have been no serious
calamity if it had not been aggravated by the wickedness of man.
The disease had generally spared those who had warm garments and
bedding, and had swept away by thousands those who were thinly
clad and who slept on the wet ground. Immense sums had been drawn
out of the Treasury: yet the pay of the troops was in arrear.
Hundreds of horses, tens of thousands of shoes, had been paid for
by the public: yet the baggage was left behind for want of beasts
to draw it; and the soldiers were marching barefoot through the
mire. Seventeen hundred pounds had been charged to the government
for medicines: yet the common drugs with which every apothecary
in the smallest market town was provided were not to be found in
the plaguestricken camp. The cry against Shales was loud. An
address was carried to the throne, requesting that he might be
sent for to England, and that his accounts and papers might be
secured. With this request the King readily complied; but the
Whig majority was not satisfied. By whom had Shales been
recommended for so important a place as that of Commissary
General? He had been a favourite at Whitehall in the worst times.
He had been zealous for the Declaration of Indulgence. Why had
this creature of James been entrusted with the business of
catering for the army of William? It was proposed by some of
those who were bent on driving all Tories and Trimmers from
office to ask His Majesty by whose advice a man so undeserving of
the royal confidence had been employed. The most moderate and
judicious Whigs pointed out the indecency and impolicy of
interrogating the King, and of forcing him either to accuse his
ministers or to quarrel with the representatives of his people.
"Advise His Majesty, if you will," said Somers, "to withdraw his
confidence from the counsellors who recommended this unfortunate
appointment. Such advice, given, as we should probably give it,
unanimously, must have great weight with him. But do not put to
him a question such as no private gentleman would willingly
answer. Do not force him, in defence of his own personal dignity,
to protect the very men whom you wish him to discard." After a
hard fight of two days, and several divisions, the address was
carried by a hundred and ninety five votes to a hundred and forty
six.526 The King, as might have been foreseen, coldly refused to
turn informer; and the House did not press him further.527 To
another address, which requested that a Commission might be sent
to examine into the state of things in Ireland, William returned
a very gracious answer, and desired the Commons to name the
Commissioners. The Commons, not to be outdone in courtesy,
excused themselves, and left it to His Majesty's wisdom to select
the fittest persons.528

In the midst of the angry debates on the Irish war a pleasing
incident produced for a moment goodhumour and unanimity. Walker
had arrived in London, and had been received there with boundless
enthusiasm. His face was in every print shop. Newsletters
describing his person and his demeanour were sent to every corner
of the kingdom. Broadsides of prose and verse written in his
praise were cried in every street. The Companies of London
feasted him splendidly in their halls. The common people crowded
to gaze on him wherever he moved, and almost stifled him with
rough caresses. Both the Universities offered him the degree of
Doctor of Divinity. Some of his admirers advised him to present
himself at the palace in that military garb in which he had
repeatedly headed the sallies of his fellow townsmen. But, with a
better judgment than he sometimes showed, he made his appearance
at Hampton Court in the peaceful robe of his profession, was most
graciously received, and was presented with an order for five
thousand pounds. "And do not think, Doctor," William said, with
great benignity, "that I offer you this sum as payment for your
services. I assure you that I consider your claims on me as not
at all diminished."529

It is true that amidst the general applause the voice of
detraction made itself heard. The defenders of Londonderry were
men of two nations and of two religions. During the siege, hatred
of the Irishry had held together all Saxons; and hatred of Popery
had held together all Protestants. But, when the danger was over,
the Englishman and the Scotchman, the Episcopalian and the
Presbyterian, began to wrangle about the distribution of praises
and rewards. The dissenting preachers, who had zealously assisted
Walker in the hour of peril, complained that, in the account
which he published of the siege, he had, though acknowledging
that they had done good service, omitted to mention their names.
The complaint was just; and, had it been made in language
becoming Christians and gentlemen, would probably have produced
a considerable effect on the public mind. But Walker's accusers
in their resentment disregarded truth and decency, used
scurrilous language, brought calumnious accusations which were
triumphantly refuted, and thus threw away the advantage which
they had possessed. Walker defended himself with moderation and
candour. His friends fought his battle with vigour, and
retaliated keenly on his assailants. At Edinburgh perhaps the
public opinion might have been against him. But in London the
controversy seems only to have raised his character. He was
regarded as an Anglican divine of eminent merit, who, after
having heroically defended his religion against an army of Popish
Rapparees, was rabbled by a mob of Scotch Covenanters.530

He presented to the Commons a petition setting forth the
destitute condition to which the widows and orphans of some brave
men who had fallen during the siege were now reduced. The Commons
instantly passed a vote of thanks to him, and resolved to present
to the King an address requesting that ten thousand pounds might
be distributed among the families whose sufferings had been so
touchingly described. The next day it was rumoured about the
benches that Walker was in the lobby. He was called in. The
Speaker, with great dignity and grace, informed him that the
House had made haste to comply with his request, commended him in
high terms for having taken on himself to govern and defend a
city betrayed by its proper governors and defenders, and charged
him to tell those who had fought under him that their fidelity
and valour would always be held in grateful remembrance by the
Commons of England.531

About the same time the course of parliamentary business was
diversified by another curious and interesting episode, which,
like the former, sprang out of the events of the Irish war. In
the preceding spring, when every messenger from Ireland brought
evil tidings, and when the authority of James was acknowledged in
every part of that kingdom, except behind the ramparts of
Londonderry and on the banks of Lough Erne, it was natural that
Englishmen should remember with how terrible an energy the great
Puritan warriors of the preceding generation had crushed the
insurrection of the Celtic race. The names of Cromwell, of
Ireton, and of the other chiefs of the conquering army, were in
many mouths. One of those chiefs, Edmund Ludlow, was still
living. At twenty-two he had served as a volunteer in the
parliamentary army; at thirty he had risen to the rank of
Lieutenant General. He was now old; but the vigour of his mind
was unimpaired. His courage was of the truest temper; his
understanding strong, but narrow. What he saw he saw clearly: but
he saw not much at a glance. In an age of perfidy and levity, he
had, amidst manifold temptations and dangers, adhered firmly to
the principles of his youth. His enemies could not deny that his
life had been consistent, and that with the same spirit with
which he had stood up against the Stuarts he had stood up against
the Cromwells. There was but a single blemish on his fame: but
that blemish, in the opinion of the great majority of his
countrymen, was one for which no merit could compensate and which
no time could efface. His name and seal were on the death warrant
of Charles the First.

After the Restoration, Ludlow found a refuge on the shores of the
Lake of Geneva. He was accompanied thither by another member of
the High Court of Justice, John Lisle, the husband of that Alice
Lisle whose death has left a lasting stain on the memory of James
the Second. But even in Switzerland the regicides were not safe.
A large price was set on their heads; and a succession of Irish
adventurers, inflamed by national and religious animosity,
attempted to earn the bribe. Lisle fell by the hand of one of
these assassins. But Ludlow escaped unhurt from all the
machinations of his enemies. A small knot of vehement and
determined Whigs regarded him with a veneration, which increased
as years rolled away, and left him almost the only survivor,
certainly the most illustrious survivor, of a mighty race of men,
the conquerors in a terrible civil war, the judges of a king, the
founders of a republic. More than once he had been invited by the
enemies of the House of Stuart to leave his asylum, to become
their captain, and to give the signal for rebellion: but he had
wisely refused to take any part in the desperate enterprises
which the Wildmans and Fergusons were never weary of planning.532

The Revolution opened a new prospect to him. The right of the
people to resist oppression, a right which, during many years, no
man could assert without exposing himself to ecclesiastical
anathemas and to civil penalties, had been solemnly recognised by
the Estates of the realm, and had been proclaimed by Garter King
at Arms on the very spot where the memorable scaffold had been
set up forty years before. James had not, indeed, like Charles,
died the death of a traitor. Yet the punishment of the son might
seem to differ from the punishment of the father rather in degree
than in principle. Those who had recently waged war on a tyrant,
who had turned him out of his palace, who had frightened him out
of his country, who had deprived him of his crown, might perhaps
think that the crime of going one step further had been
sufficiently expiated by thirty years of banishment. Ludlow's
admirers, some of whom appear to have been in high public
situations, assured him that he might safely venture over, nay,
that he might expect to be sent in high command to Ireland, where
his name was still cherished by his old soldiers and by their
children.533 He came and early in September it was known that he
was in London.534 But it soon appeared that he and his friends
had misunderstood the temper of the English people. By all,
except a small extreme section of the Whig party, the act, in
which he had borne a part never to be forgotten, was regarded,
not merely with the disapprobation due to a great violation of
law and justice, but with horror such as even the Gunpowder Plot
had not excited. The absurd and almost impious service which is
still read in our churches on the thirtieth of January had
produced in the minds of the vulgar a strange association of
ideas. The sufferings of Charles were confounded with the
sufferings of the Redeemer of mankind; and every regicide was a
Judas, a Caiaphas or a Herod. It was true that, when Ludlow sate
on the tribunal in Westminster Hall, he was an ardent enthusiast
of twenty eight, and that he now returned from exile a greyheaded
and wrinkled man in his seventieth year. Perhaps, therefore, if
he had been content to live in close retirement, and to shun
places of public resort, even zealous Royalists might not have
grudged the old Republican a grave in his native soil. But he had
no thought of hiding himself. It was soon rumoured that one of
those murderers, who had brought on England guilt, for which she
annually, in sackcloth and ashes, implored God not to enter into
judgment with her, was strutting about the streets of her
capital, and boasting that he should ere long command her armies.
His lodgings, it was said, were the head quarters of the most
noted enemies of monarchy and episcopacy.535 The subject was
brought before the House of Commons. The Tory members called
loudly for justice on the traitor. None of the Whigs ventured to
say a word in his defence. One or two faintly expressed a doubt
whether the fact of his return had been proved by evidence such
as would warrant a parliamentary proceeding. The objection was
disregarded. It was resolved, without a division, that the King
should be requested to issue a proclamation for the apprehending
of Ludlow. Seymour presented the address; and the King promised
to do what was asked. Some days however elapsed before the
proclamation appeared.536 Ludlow had time to make his escape, and
again hid himself in his Alpine retreat, never again to emerge.
English travellers are still taken to see his house close to the
lake, and his tomb in a church among the vineyards which overlook
the little town of Vevay. On the house was formerly legible an
inscription purporting that to him to whom God is a father every
land is a fatherland537; and the epitaph on the tomb still
attests the feelings with which the stern old Puritan to the last
regarded the people of Ireland and the House of Stuart.

Tories and Whigs had concurred, or had affected to concur, in
paying honour to Walker and in putting a brand on Ludlow. But the
feud between the two parties was more bitter than ever. The King
had entertained a hope that, during the recess, the animosities
which had in the preceding session prevented an Act of Indemnity
from passing would have been mitigated. On the day on which the
Houses reassembled, he had pressed them earnestly to put an end
to the fear and discord which could never cease to exist, while
great numbers held their property and their liberty, and not a
few even their lives, by an uncertain tenure. His exhortation
proved of no effect. October, November, December passed away;
and nothing was done. An Indemnity Bill indeed had been brought
in, and read once; but it had ever since lain neglected on the
table of the House.538 Vindictive as had been the mood in which
the Whigs had left Westminster, the mood in which they returned
was more vindictive still. Smarting from old sufferings, drunk
with recent prosperity, burning with implacable resentment,
confident of irresistible strength, they were not less rash and
headstrong than in the days of the Exclusion Bill. Sixteen
hundred and eighty was come again. Again all compromise was
rejected. Again the voices of the wisest and most upright friends
of liberty were drowned by the clamour of hotheaded and designing
agitators. Again moderation was despised as cowardice, or
execrated as treachery. All the lessons taught by a cruel
experience were forgotten. The very same men who had expiated, by
years of humiliation, of imprisonment, of penury, of exile, the
folly with which they had misused the advantage given them by the
Popish plot, now misused with equal folly the advantage given
them by the Revolution. The second madness would, in all
probability, like the first, have ended in their proscription,
dispersion, decimation, but for the magnanimity and wisdom of
that great prince, who, bent on fulfilling his mission, and
insensible alike to flattery and to outrage, coldly and
inflexibly saved them in their own despite.

It seemed that nothing but blood would satisfy them. The aspect
and the temper of the House of Commons reminded men of the time
of the ascendency of Oates; and, that nothing might be wanting to
the resemblance, Oates himself was there. As a witness, indeed,
he could now render no service: but he had caught the scent of
carnage, and came to gloat on the butchery in which he could no
longer take an active part. His loathsome features were again
daily seen, and his well known "Ah Laard, ah Laard!" was again
daily heard in the lobbies and in the gallery.539 The House fell
first on the renegades of the late reign. Of those renegades the
Earls of Peterborough and Salisbury were the highest in rank, but
were also the lowest in intellect: for Salisbury had always been
an idiot; and Peterborough had long been a dotard. It was however
resolved by the Commons that both had, by joining the Church of
Rome, committed high treason, and that both should be
impeached.540 A message to that effect was sent to the Lords.
Poor old Peterborough was instantly taken into custody, and was
sent, tottering on a crutch, and wrapped up in woollen stuffs, to
the Tower. The next day Salisbury was brought to the bar of his
peers. He muttered something about his youth and his foreign
education, and was then sent to bear Peterborough company.541 The
Commons had meanwhile passed on to offenders of humbler station
and better understanding. Sir Edward Hales was brought before
them. He had doubtless, by holding office in defiance of the Test
Act, incurred heavy penalties. But these penalties fell far short
of what the revengeful spirit of the victorious party demanded;
and he was committed as a traitor.542 Then Obadiah Walker was led
in. He behaved with a pusillanimity and disingenuousness which
deprived him of all claim to respect or pity. He protested that
he had never changed his religion, that his opinions had always
been and still were those of some highly respectable divines of
the Church of England, and that there were points on which he
differed from the Papists. In spite of this quibbling, he was
pronounced guilty of high treason, and sent to prison.543
Castlemaine was put next to the bar, interrogated, and committed
under a warrant which charged him with the capital crime of
trying to reconcile the kingdom to the Church of Rome.544

In the meantime the Lords had appointed a Committee to Inquire
who were answerable for the deaths of Russell, of Sidney, and of
some other eminent Whigs. Of this Committee, which was popularly
called the Murder Committee, the Earl of Stamford, a Whig who had
been deeply concerned in the plots formed by his party against
the Stuarts, was chairman.545 The books of the Council were
inspected: the clerks of the Council were examined: some facts
disgraceful to the Judges, to the Solicitors of the Treasury, to
the witnesses for the Crown, and to the keepers of the state
prisons, were elicited: but about the packing of the juries no
evidence could be obtained. The Sheriffs kept their own counsel.
Sir Dudley North, in particular, underwent a most severe cross
examination with characteristic clearness of head and firmness of
temper, and steadily asserted that he had never troubled himself
about the political opinions of the persons whom he put on any
panel, but had merely inquired whether they were substantial
citizens. He was undoubtedly lying; and so some of the Whig peers
told him in very plain words and in very loud tones: but, though
they were morally certain of his guilt, they could find no proofs
which would support a criminal charge against him. The indelible
stain however remains on his memory, and is still a subject of
lamentation to those who, while loathing his dishonesty and
cruelty, cannot forget that he was one of the most original,
profound and accurate thinkers of his age.546

Halifax, more fortunate than Dudley North, was completely
cleared, not only from legal, but also from moral guilt. He was
the chief object of attack; and yet a severe examination brought
nothing to light that was not to his honour. Tillotson was called
as a witness. He swore that he had been the channel of
communication between Halifax and Russell when Russell was a
prisoner in the Tower. "My Lord Halifax," said the Doctor,
"showed a very compassionate concern for my Lord Russell; and my
Lord Russell charged me with his last thanks for my Lord
Halifax's humanity and kindness." It was proved that the
unfortunate Duke of Monmouth had borne similar testimony to
Halifax's good nature. One hostile witness indeed was produced,
John Hampden, whose mean supplications and enormous bribes had
saved his neck from the halter. He was now a powerful and
prosperous man: he was a leader of the dominant party in the
House of Commons; and yet he was one of the most unhappy beings
on the face of the earth. The recollection of the pitiable figure
which he had made at the bar of the Old Bailey embittered his
temper, and impelled him to avenge himself without mercy on those
who had directly or indirectly contributed to his humiliation. Of
all the Whigs he was the most intolerant and the most obstinately
hostile to all plans of amnesty. The consciousness that he had
disgraced himself made him jealous of his dignity and quick to
take offence. He constantly paraded his services and his
sufferings, as if he hoped that this ostentatious display would
hide from others the stain which nothing could hide from himself.
Having during many months harangued vehemently against Halifax in
the House of Commons, he now came to swear against Halifax before
the Lords. The scene was curious. The witness represented himself
as having saved his country, as having planned the Revolution, as
having placed their Majesties on the throne. He then gave
evidence intended to show that his life had been endangered by
the machinations of the Lord Privy Seal: but that evidence missed
the mark at which it was aimed, and recoiled on him from whom it
proceeded. Hampden was forced to acknowledge that he had sent his
wife to implore the intercession of the man whom he was now
persecuting. "Is it not strange," asked Halifax, "that you should
have requested the good offices of one whose arts had brought
your head into peril?" "Not at all," said Hampden; "to whom was I
to apply except to the men who were in power? I applied to Lord
Jeffreys: I applied to Father Petre; and I paid them six thousand
pounds for their services." "But did Lord Halifax take any
money?" "No, I cannot say that he did." "And, Mr. Hampden, did
not you afterwards send your wife to thank him for his kindness?"
"Yes, I believe I did," answered Hampden; "but I know of no solid
effects of that kindness. If there were any, I should be obliged
to my Lord to tell me what they were." Disgraceful as had been
the appearance which this degenerate heir of an illustrious name
had made at the Old Bailey, the appearance which he made before
the Committee of Murder was more disgraceful still.547 It is
pleasing to know that a person who had been far more cruelly
wronged than he, but whose nature differed widely from his, the
nobleminded Lady Russell, remonstrated against the injustice with
which the extreme Whigs treated Halifax.548

The malice of John Hampden, however, was unwearied and unabashed.
A few days later, in a committee of the whole House of Commons on
the state of the nation, he made a bitter speech, in which he
ascribed all the disasters of the year to the influence of the
men who had, in the days of the Exclusion Bill, been censured by
Parliaments, of the men who had attempted to mediate between
James and William. The King, he said, ought to dismiss from his
counsels and presence all the three noblemen who had been sent to
negotiate with him at Hungerford. He went on to speak of the
danger of employing men of republican principles. He doubtless
alluded to the chief object of his implacable malignity. For
Halifax, though from temper averse to violent changes, was well
known to be in speculation a republican, and often talked, with
much ingenuity and pleasantry, against hereditary monarchy. The
only effect, however, of the reflection now thrown on him was to
call forth a roar of derision. That a Hampden, that the grandson
of the great leader of the Long Parliament, that a man who
boasted of having conspired with Algernon Sidney against the
royal House, should use the word republican as a term of
reproach! When the storm of laughter had subsided, several
members stood up to vindicate the accused statesmen. Seymour
declared that, much as he disapproved of the manner in which the
administration had lately been conducted, he could not concur in
the vote which John Hampden had proposed. "Look where you will,"
he said, "to Ireland, to Scotland, to the navy, to the army, you
will find abundant proofs of mismanagement. If the war is still
to be conducted by the same hands, we can expect nothing but a
recurrence of the same disasters. But I am not prepared to
proscribe men for the best thing that they ever did in their
lives, to proscribe men for attempting to avert a revolution by
timely mediation." It was justly said by another speaker that
Halifax and Nottingham had been sent to the Dutch camp because
they possessed the confidence of the nation, because they were
universally known to be hostile to the dispensing power, to the
Popish religion, and to the French ascendency. It was at length
resolved that the King should be requested in general terms to
find out and to remove the authors of the late miscarriages.549 A
committee was appointed to prepare an Address. John Hampden was
chairman, and drew up a representation in terms so bitter that,
when it was reported to the House, his own father expressed
disapprobation, and one member exclaimed: "This an address! It is
a libel." After a sharp debate, the Address was recommitted, and
was not again mentioned.550

Indeed, the animosity which a large part of the House had felt
against Halifax was beginning to abate. It was known that, though
he had not yet formally delivered up the Privy Seal, he had
ceased to be a confidential adviser of the Crown. The power which
he had enjoyed during the first months of the reign of William
and Mary had passed to the more daring, more unscrupulous and
more practical Caermarthen, against whose influence Shrewsbury
contended in vain. Personally Shrewsbury stood high in the royal
favour: but he was a leader of the Whigs, and, like all leaders
of parties, was frequently pushed forward against his will by
those who seemed to follow him. He was himself inclined to a
mild and moderate policy: but he had not sufficient firmness to
withstand the clamorous importunity with which such politicians
as John Howe and John Hampden demanded vengeance on their
enemies. His advice had therefore, at this time, little weight
with his master, who neither loved the Tories nor trusted them,
but who was fully determined not to proscribe them.

Meanwhile the Whigs, conscious that they had lately sunk in the
opinion both of the King and of the nation, resolved on making a
bold and crafty attempt to become independent of both. A perfect
account of that attempt cannot be constructed out of the scanty
and widely dispersed materials which have come down to us. Yet
the story, as it has come down to us, is both interesting and
instructive.

A bill for restoring the rights of those corporations which had
surrendered their charters to the Crown during the last two
reigns had been brought into the House of Commons, had been
received with general applause by men of all parties, had been
read twice, and had been referred to a select committee, of which
Somers was chairman. On the second of January Somers brought up
the report. The attendance of Tories was scanty: for, as no
important discussion was expected, many country gentlemen had
left town, and were keeping a merry Christmas by the chimney
fires of their manor houses. The muster of zealous Whigs was
strong. As soon as the bill had been reported, Sacheverell,
renowned in the stormy parliaments of the reign of Charles the
Second as one of the ablest and keenest of the Exclusionists,
stood up and moved to add a clause providing that every municipal
functionary who had in any manner been a party to the
surrendering of the franchises of a borough should be incapable
for seven years of holding any office in that borough. The
constitution of almost every corporate town in England had been
remodelled during that hot fit of loyalty which followed the
detection of the Rye House Plot; and, in almost every corporate
town, the voice of the Tories had been for delivering up the
charter, and for trusting every thing to the paternal care of the
Sovereign. The effect of Sacheverell's clause, therefore, was to
make some thousands of the most opulent and highly considered men
in the kingdom incapable, during seven years, of bearing any part
in the government of the places in which they resided, and to
secure to the Whig party, during seven years, an overwhelming
influence in borough elections.

The minority exclaimed against the gross injustice of passing,
rapidly and by surprise, at a season when London was empty, a law
of the highest importance, a law which retrospectively inflicted
a severe penalty on many hundreds of respectable gentlemen, a law
which would call forth the strongest passions in every town from
Berwick to St. Ives, a law which must have a serious effect on
the composition of the House itself. Common decency required at
least an adjournment. An adjournment was moved: but the motion
was rejected by a hundred and twenty-seven votes to eighty-nine.
The question was then put that Sacheverell's clause should stand
part of the bill, and was carried by a hundred and thirty-three
to sixty-eight. Sir Robert Howard immediately moved that every
person who, being under Sacheverell's clause disqualified for
municipal office, should presume to take any such office, should
forfeit five hundred pounds, and should be for life incapable of
holding any public employment whatever. The Tories did not
venture to divide.551 The rules of the House put it in the power
of a minority to obstruct the progress of a bill; and this was
assuredly one of the very rare occasions on which that power
would have been with great propriety exerted. It does not appear,
however, that the parliamentary tacticians of that age were aware
of the extent to which a small number of members can, without
violating any form, retard the course of business.

It was immediately resolved that the bill, enlarged by
Sacheverell's and Howard's clauses, should be ingrossed. The most
vehement Whigs were bent on finally passing it within forty-eight
hours. The Lords, indeed, were not likely to regard it very
favourably. But it should seem that some desperate men were
prepared to withhold the supplies till it should pass, nay, even
to tack it to the bill of supply, and thus to place the Upper
House under the necessity of either consenting to a vast
proscription of the Tories or refusing to the government the
means of carrying on the war.552 There were Whigs, however,
honest enough to wish that fair play should be given to the
hostile party, and prudent enough to know that an advantage
obtained by violence and cunning could not be permanent. These
men insisted that at least a week should be suffered to elapse
before the third reading, and carried their point. Their less
scrupulous associates complained bitterly that the good cause was
betrayed. What new laws of war were these? Why was chivalrous
courtesy to be shown to foes who thought no stratagem immoral,
and who had never given quarter? And what had been done that was
not in strict accordance with the law of Parliament? That law
knew nothing of short notices and long notices, of thin houses
and full houses. It was the business of a representative of the
people to be in his place. If he chose to shoot and guzzle at his
country seat when important business was under consideration at
Westminster, what right had he to murmur because more upright and
laborious servants of the public passed, in his absence, a bill
which appeared to them necessary to the public safety? As however
a postponement of a few days appeared to be inevitable, those who
had intended to gain the victory by stealing a march now
disclaimed that intention. They solemnly assured the King, who
could not help showing some displeasure at their conduct, and who
felt much more displeasure than he showed, that they had owed
nothing to surprise, and that they were quite certain of a
majority in the fullest house. Sacheverell is said to have
declared with great warmth that he would stake his seat on the
issue, and that if he found himself mistaken he would never show
his face in Parliament again. Indeed, the general opinion at
first was that the Whigs would win the day. But it soon became
clear that the fight would be a hard one. The mails had carried
out along all the high roads the tidings that, on the second of
January, the Commons had agreed to a retrospective penal law
against the whole Tory party, and that, on the tenth, that law
would be considered for the last time. The whole kingdom was
moved from Northumberland to Cornwall. A hundred knights and
squires left their halls hung with mistletoe and holly, and their
boards groaning with brawn and plum porridge, and rode up post to
town, cursing the short days, the cold weather, the miry roads
and the villanous Whigs. The Whigs, too, brought up
reinforcements, but not to the same extent; for the clauses were
generally unpopular, and not without good cause. Assuredly no
reasonable man of any party will deny that the Tories, in
surrendering to the Crown all the municipal franchises of the
realm, and, with those franchises, the power of altering the
constitution of the House of Commons, committed a great fault.
But in that fault the nation itself had been an accomplice. If
the Mayors and Aldermen whom it was now proposed to punish had,
when the tide of loyal enthusiasm ran high, sturdily refused to
comply with the wish of their Sovereign, they would have been
pointed at in the street as Roundhead knaves, preached at by the
Rector, lampooned in ballads, and probably burned in effigy
before their own doors. That a community should be hurried into
errors alternately by fear of tyranny and by fear of anarchy is
doubtless a great evil. But the remedy for that evil is not to
punish for such errors some persons who have merely erred with
the rest, and who have since repented with the rest. Nor ought it
to have been forgotten that the offenders against whom
Sacheverell's clause was directed had, in 1688, made large
atonement for the misconduct of which they had been guilty in
1683. They had, as a class, stood up firmly against the
dispensing power; and most of them had actually been turned out
of their municipal offices by James for refusing to support his
policy. It is not strange therefore that the attempt to inflict
on all these men without exception a degrading punishment should
have raised such a storm of public indignation as many Whig
members of parliament were unwilling to face.

As the decisive conflict drew near, and as the muster of the
Tories became hourly stronger and stronger, the uneasiness of
Sacheverell and of his confederates increased. They found that
they could hardly hope for a complete victory. They must make
some concession. They must propose to recommit the bill. They
must declare themselves willing to consider whether any
distinction could be made between the chief offenders and the
multitudes who had been misled by evil example. But as the spirit
of one party fell the spirit of the other rose. The Tories,
glowing with resentment which was but too just, were resolved to
listen to no terms of compromise.

The tenth of January came; and, before the late daybreak of that
season, the House was crowded. More than a hundred and sixty
members had come up to town within a week. From dawn till the
candles had burned down to their sockets the ranks kept unbroken
order; and few members left their seats except for a minute to
take a crust of bread or a glass of claret. Messengers were in
waiting to carry the result to Kensington, where William, though
shaken by a violent cough, sate up till midnight, anxiously
expecting the news, and writing to Portland, whom he had sent on
an important mission to the Hague.

The only remaining account of the debate is defective and
confused. But from that account it appears that the excitement
was great. Sharp things were said. One young Whig member used
language so hot that he was in danger of being called to the bar.
Some reflections were thrown on the Speaker for allowing too much
licence to his own friends. But in truth it mattered little
whether he called transgressors to order or not. The House had
long been quite unmanageable; and veteran members bitterly
regretted the old gravity of debate and the old authority of the
chair.553 That Somers disapproved of the violence of the party to
which he belonged may be inferred, both from the whole course of
his public life, and from the very significant fact that, though
he had charge of the Corporation Bill, he did not move the penal
clauses, but left that ungracious office to men more impetuous
and less sagacious than himself. He did not however abandon his
allies in this emergency, but spoke for them, and tried to make
the best of a very bad case. The House divided several times. On
the first division a hundred and seventy-four voted with
Sacheverell, a hundred and seventy-nine against him. Still the
battle was stubbornly kept up; but the majority increased from
five to ten, from ten to twelve, and from twelve to eighteen.
Then at length, after a stormy sitting of fourteen hours, the
Whigs yielded. It was near midnight when, to the unspeakable joy
and triumph of the Tories, the clerk tore away from the parchment
on which the bill had been engrossed the odious clauses of
Sacheverell and Howard.554

Emboldened by this great victory, the Tories made an attempt to
push forward the Indemnity Bill which had lain many weeks
neglected on the table.555 But the Whigs, notwithstanding their
recent defeat, were still the majority of the House; and many
members, who had shrunk from the unpopularity which they would
have incurred by supporting the Sacheverell clause and the Howard
clause, were perfectly willing to assist in retarding the general
pardon. They still propounded their favourite dilemma. How, they
asked, was it possible to defend this project of amnesty without
condemning the Revolution? Could it be contended that crimes
which had been grave enough to justify resistance had not been
grave enough to deserve punishment? And, if those crimes were of
such magnitude that they could justly be visited on the Sovereign
whom the Constitution had exempted from responsibility, on what
principle was immunity to be granted to his advisers and tools,
who were beyond all doubt responsible? One facetious member put
this argument in a singular form. He contrived to place in the
Speaker's chair a paper which, when examined, appeared to be a
Bill of Indemnity for King James, with a sneering preamble about
the mercy which had, since the Revolution, been extended to more
heinous offenders, and about the indulgence due to a King, who,
in oppressing his people, had only acted after the fashion of all
Kings.556

On the same day on which this mock Bill of Indemnity disturbed
the gravity of the Commons, it was moved that the House should go
into Committee on the real Bill. The Whigs threw the motion out
by a hundred and ninety-three votes to a hundred and fifty-six.
They then proceeded to resolve that a bill of pains and penalties
against delinquents should be forthwith brought in, and engrafted
on the Bill of Indemnity.557

A few hours later a vote passed that showed more clearly than any
thing that had yet taken place how little chance there was that
the public mind would be speedily quieted by an amnesty. Few
persons stood higher in the estimation of the Tory party than Sir
Robert Sawyer. He was a man of ample fortune and aristocratical
connections, of orthodox opinions and regular life, an able and
experienced lawyer, a well read scholar, and, in spite of a
little pomposity, a good speaker. He had been Attorney General at
the time of the detection of the Rye House Plot; he had been
employed for the Crown in the prosecutions which followed; and he
had conducted those prosecutions with an eagerness which would,
in our time, be called cruelty by all parties, but which, in his
own time, and to his own party, seemed to be merely laudable
zeal. His friends indeed asserted that he was conscientious even
to scrupulosity in matters of life and death;558 but this is an
eulogy which persons who bring the feelings of the nineteenth
century to the study of the State Trials of the seventeenth
century will have some difficulty in understanding. The best
excuse which can be made for this part of his life is that the
stain of innocent blood was common to him with almost all the
eminent public men of those evil days. When we blame him for
prosecuting Russell, we must not forget that Russell had
prosecuted Stafford.

Great as Sawyer's offences were, he had made great atonement for
them. He had stood up manfully against Popery and despotism; he
had, in the very presence chamber, positively refused to draw
warrants in contravention of Acts of Parliament; he had resigned
his lucrative office rather than appear in Westminster Hall as
the champion of the dispensing power; he had been the leading
counsel for the seven Bishops; and he had, on the day of their
trial, done his duty ably, honestly, and fearlessly. He was
therefore a favourite with High Churchmen, and might be thought
to have fairly earned his pardon from the Whigs. But the Whigs
were not in a pardoning mood; and Sawyer was now called to
account for his conduct in the case of Sir Thomas Armstrong.

If Armstrong was not belied, he was deep in the worst secrets of
the Rye House Plot, and was one of those who undertook to slay
the two royal brothers. When the conspiracy was discovered, he
fled to the Continent and was outlawed. The magistrates of Leyden
were induced by a bribe to deliver him up. He was hurried on
board of an English ship, carried to London, and brought before
the King's Bench. Sawyer moved the Court to award execution on
the outlawry. Armstrong represented that a year had not yet
elapsed since he had been outlawed, and that, by an Act passed in
the reign of Edward the Sixth, an outlaw who yielded himself
within the year was entitled to plead Not Guilty, and to put
himself on his country. To this it was answered that Armstrong
had not yielded himself, that he had been dragged to the bar a
prisoner, and that he had no right to claim a privilege which was
evidently meant to be given only to persons who voluntarily
rendered themselves up to public justice. Jeffreys and the other
judges unanimously overruled Armstrong's objection, and granted
the award of execution. Then followed one of the most terrible of
the many terrible scenes which, in those times, disgraced our
Courts. The daughter of the unhappy man was at his side. "My
Lord," she cried out, "you will not murder my father. This is
murdering a man." "How now?" roared the Chief Justice. "Who is
this woman? Take her, Marshal. Take her away." She was forced
out, crying as she went, "God Almighty's judgments light on you!"
"God Almighty's judgment," said Jeffreys, "will light on
traitors. Thank God, I am clamour proof." When she was gone, her
father again insisted on what he conceived to be his right. "I
ask" he said, "only the benefit of the law." "And, by the grace
of God, you shall have it," said the judge. "Mr. Sheriff, see
that execution be done on Friday next. There is the benefit of
the law for you." On the following Friday, Armstrong was hanged,
drawn and quartered; and his head was placed over Westminster
Hall.559

The insolence and cruelty of Jeffreys excite, even at the
distance of so many years, an indignation which makes it
difficult to be just to him. Yet a perfectly dispassionate
inquirer may perhaps think it by no means clear that the award of
execution was illegal. There was no precedent; and the words of
the Act of Edward the Sixth may, without any straining, be
construed as the Court construed them. Indeed, had the penalty
been only fine or imprisonment, nobody would have seen any thing
reprehensible in the proceeding. But to send a man to the gallows
as a traitor, without confronting him with his accusers, without
hearing his defence, solely because a timidity which is perfectly
compatible with innocence has impelled him to hide himself, is
surely a violation, if not of any written law, yet of those great
principles to which all laws ought to conform. The case was
brought before the House of Commons. The orphan daughter of
Armstrong came to the bar to demand vengeance; and a warm debate
followed. Sawyer was fiercely attacked and strenuously defended.
The Tories declared that he appeared to them to have done only
what, as counsel for the Crown, he was bound to do, and to have
discharged his duty to God, to the King, and to the prisoner. If
the award was legal, nobody was to blame; and, if the award was
illegal, the blame lay, not with the Attorney General, but with
the Judges. There would be an end of all liberty of speech at the
bar, if an advocate was to be punished for making a strictly
regular application to a Court, and for arguing that certain
words in a statute were to be understood in a certain sense. The
Whigs called Sawyer murderer, bloodhound, hangman. If the liberty
of speech claimed by advocates meant the liberty of haranguing
men to death, it was high time that the nation should rise up and
exterminate the whole race of lawyers. "Things will never be well
done," said one orator, "till some of that profession be made
examples." "No crime to demand execution!" exclaimed John
Hampden. "We shall be told next that it was no crime in the Jews
to cry out 'Crucify him.'" A wise and just man would probably
have been of opinion that this was not a case for severity.
Sawyer's conduct might have been, to a certain extent, culpable:
but, if an Act of Indemnity was to be passed at all, it was to be
passed for the benefit of persons whose conduct had been
culpable. The question was not whether he was guiltless, but
whether his guilt was of so peculiarly black a dye that he ought,
notwithstanding all his sacrifices and services, to be excluded
by name from the mercy which was to be granted to many thousands
of offenders. This question calm and impartial judges would
probably have decided in his favour. It was, however, resolved
that he should be excepted from the Indemnity, and expelled from
the House.560

On the morrow the Bill of Indemnity, now transformed into a Bill
of Pains and Penalties, was again discussed. The Whigs consented
to refer it to a Committee of the whole House, but proposed to
instruct the Committee to begin its labours by making out a list
of the offenders who were to be proscribed. The Tories moved the
previous question. The House divided; and the Whigs carried their
point by a hundred and ninety votes to a hundred and seventy-
three.561

The King watched these events with painful anxiety. He was weary
of his crown. He had tried to do justice to both the contending
parties; but justice would satisfy neither. The Tories hated him
for protecting the Dissenters. The Whigs hated him for protecting
the Tories. The amnesty seemed to be more remote than when, ten
months before, he first recommended it from the throne. The last
campaign in Ireland had been disastrous. It might well be that
the next campaign would be more disastrous still. The
malpractices, which had done more than the exhalations of the
marshes of Dundalk to destroy the efficiency of the English
troops, were likely to be as monstrous as ever. Every part of the
administration was thoroughly disorganized; and the people were
surprised and angry because a foreigner, newly come among them,
imperfectly acquainted with them, and constantly thwarted by
them, had not, in a year, put the whole machine of government to
rights. Most of his ministers, instead of assisting him, were
trying to get up addresses and impeachments against each other.
Yet if he employed his own countrymen, on whose fidelity and
attachment he could rely, a general cry of rage was set up by all
the English factions. The knavery of the English Commissariat had
destroyed an army: yet a rumour that he intended to employ an
able, experienced, and trusty Commissary from Holland had excited
general discontent. The King felt that he could not, while thus
situated, render any service to that great cause to which his
whole soul was devoted. Already the glory which he had won by
conducting to a successful issue the most important enterprise of
that age was becoming dim. Even his friends had begun to doubt
whether he really possessed all that sagacity and energy which
had a few months before extorted the unwilling admiration of his
enemies. But he would endure his splendid slavery no longer. He
would return to his native country. He would content himself with
being the first citizen of a commonwealth to which the name of
Orange was dear. As such, he might still be foremost among those
who were banded together in defence of the liberties of Europe.
As for the turbulent and ungrateful islanders, who detested him
because he would not let them tear each other in pieces, Mary
must try what she could do with them. She was born on their soil.
She spoke their language. She did not dislike some parts of their
Liturgy, which they fancied to be essential, and which to him
seemed at best harmless. If she had little knowledge of politics
and war, she had what might be more useful, feminine grace and
tact, a sweet temper, a smile and a kind word for every body. She
might be able to compose the disputes which distracted the State
and the Church. Holland, under his government, and England under
hers, might act cordially together against the common enemy.

He secretly ordered preparations to be made for his voyage.
Having done this, he called together a few of his chief
counsellors, and told them his purpose. A squadron, he said, was
ready to convey him to his country. He had done with them. He
hoped that the Queen would be more successful. The ministers were
thunderstruck. For once all quarrels were suspended. The Tory
Caermarthen on one side, the Whig Shrewsbury on the other,
expostulated and implored with a pathetic vehemence rare in the
conferences of statesmen. Many tears were shed. At length the
King was induced to give up, at least for the present, his design
of abdicating the government. But he announced another design
which he was fully determined not to give up. Since he was still
to remain at the head of the English administration, he would go
himself to Ireland. He would try whether the whole royal
authority strenuously exerted on the spot where the fate of the
empire was to be decided, would suffice to prevent peculation and
to maintain discipline.562

That he had seriously meditated a retreat to Holland long
continued to be a secret, not only to the multitude, but even to
the Queen.563 That he had resolved to take the command of his
army in Ireland was soon rumoured all over London. It was known
that his camp furniture was making, and that Sir Christopher Wren
was busied in constructing a house of wood which was to travel
about, packed in two waggons, and to be set up wherever His
Majesty might fix his quarters.564 The Whigs raised a violent
outcry against the whole scheme. Not knowing, or affecting not to
know, that it had been formed by William and by William alone,
and that none of his ministers had dared to advise him to
encounter the Irish swords and the Irish atmosphere, the whole
party confidently affirmed that it had been suggested by some
traitor in the cabinet, by some Tory who hated the Revolution and
all that had sprung from the Revolution. Would any true friend
have advised His Majesty, infirm in health as he was, to expose
himself, not only to the dangers of war, but to the malignity of
a climate which had recently been fatal to thousands of men much
stronger than himself? In private the King sneered bitterly at
this anxiety for his safety. It was merely, in his judgment, the
anxiety which a hard master feels lest his slaves should become
unfit for their drudgery. The Whigs, he wrote to Portland, were
afraid to lose their tool before they had done their work. "As to
their friendship," he added, "you know what it is worth." His
resolution, he told his friend, was unalterably fixed. Every
thing was at stake; and go he must, even though the Parliament
should present an address imploring him to stay.565

He soon learned that such an address would be immediately moved
in both Houses and supported by the whole strength of the Whig
party. This intelligence satisfied him that it was time to take a
decisive step. He would not discard the Whigs but he would give
them a lesson of which they stood much in need. He would break
the chain in which they imagined that they had him fast. He would
not let them have the exclusive possession of power. He would not
let them persecute the vanquished party. In their despite, he
would grant an amnesty to his people. In their despite, he would
take the command of his army in Ireland. He arranged his plan
with characteristic prudence, firmness, and secrecy. A single
Englishman it was necessary to trust: for William was not
sufficiently master of our language to address the Houses from
the throne in his own words; and, on very important occasions,
his practice was to write his speech in French, and to employ a
translator. It is certain that to one person, and to one only,
the King confided the momentous resolution which he had taken;
and it can hardly be doubted that this person was Caermarthen.

On the twenty-seventh of January, Black Rod knocked at the door
of the Commons. The Speaker and the members repaired to the House
of Lords. The King was on the throne. He gave his assent to the
Supply Bill, thanked the Houses for it, announced his intention
of going to Ireland, and prorogued the Parliament. None could
doubt that a dissolution would speedily follow. As the concluding
words, "I have thought it convenient now to put an end to this
session," were uttered, the Tories, both above and below the bar,
broke forth into a shout of joy. The King meanwhile surveyed his
audience from the throne with that bright eagle eye which nothing
escaped. He might be pardoned if he felt some little vindictive
pleasure in annoying those who had cruelly annoyed him. "I saw,"
he wrote to Portland the next day, "faces an ell long. I saw some
of those men change colour with vexation twenty times while I was
speaking."566

A few hours after the prorogation, a hundred and fifty Tory
members of Parliament had a parting dinner together at the Apollo
Tavern in Fleet Street, before they set out for their counties.
They were in better temper with William than they had been since
his father in law had been turned out of Whitehall. They had
scarcely recovered from the joyful surprise with which they had
heard it announced from the throne that the session was at an
end. The recollection of their danger and the sense of their
deliverance were still fresh. They talked of repairing to Court
in a body to testify their gratitude: but they were induced to
forego their intention; and not without cause: for a great crowd
of squires after a revel, at which doubtless neither October nor
claret had been spared, might have caused some inconvenience in
the presence chamber. Sir John Lowther, who in wealth and
influence was inferior to no country gentleman of that age, was
deputed to carry the thanks of the assembly to the palace. He
spoke, he told the King, the sense of a great body of honest
gentlemen. They begged His Majesty to be assured that they would
in their counties do their best to serve him; and they cordially
wished him a safe voyage to Ireland, a complete victory, a speedy
return, and a long and happy reign. During the following week,
many, who had never shown their faces in the circle at Saint
James's since the Revolution, went to kiss the King's hand. So
warmly indeed did those who had hitherto been regarded as half
Jacobites express their approbation of the policy of the
government that the thoroughgoing Jacobites were much disgusted,
and complained bitterly of the strange blindness which seemed to
have come on the sons of the Church of England.567

All the acts of William, at this time, indicated his
determination to restrain, steadily though gently, the violence
of the Whigs, and to conciliate, if possible, the good will of
the Tories. Several persons whom the Commons had thrown into
prison for treason were set at liberty on bail.568 The prelates
who held that their allegiance was still due to James were
treated with a tenderness rare in the history of revolutions. Within a week
after the prorogation, the first of February came, the day on
which those ecclesiastics who refused to take the oath were to be
finally deprived. Several of the suspended clergy, after holding
out till the last moment, swore just in time to save themselves
from beggary. But the Primate and five of his suffragans were
still inflexible. They consequently forfeited their bishoprics;
but Sancroft was informed that the King had not yet relinquished
the hope of being able to make some arrangement which might avert
the necessity of appointing successors, and that the nonjuring
prelates might continue for the present to reside in their
palaces. Their receivers were appointed receivers for the Crown,
and continued to collect the revenues of the vacant sees.569
Similar indulgence was shown to some divines of lower rank.
Sherlock, in particular, continued, after his deprivation, to
live unmolested in his official mansion close to the Temple
Church.

And now appeared a proclamation dissolving the Parliament. The
writs for a general election went out; and soon every part of the
kingdom was in a ferment. Van Citters, who had resided in England
during many eventful years, declared that he had never seen
London more violently agitated.570 The excitement was kept up by
compositions of all sorts, from sermons with sixteen heads down
to jingling street ballads. Lists of divisions were, for the
first time in our history, printed and dispersed for the
information of constituent bodies. Two of these lists may still
be seen in old libraries. One of the two, circulated by the
Whigs, contained the names of those Tories who had voted against
declaring the throne vacant. The other, circulated by the Tories,
contained the names of those Whigs who had supported the
Sacheverell clause.

It soon became clear that public feeling had undergone a great
change during the year which had elapsed since the Convention had
met; and it is impossible to deny that this change was, at least
in part, the natural consequence and the just punishment of the
intemperate and vindictive conduct of the Whigs. Of the city of
London they thought themselves sure. The Livery had in the
preceding year returned four zealous Whigs without a contest. But
all the four had voted for the Sacheverell clause; and by that
clause many of the merchant princes of Lombard Street and
Cornhill, men powerful in the twelve great companies, men whom
the goldsmiths followed humbly, hat in hand, up and down the
arcades of the Royal Exchange, would have been turned with all
indignity out of the Court of Aldermen and out of the Common
Council. The struggle was for life or death. No exertions, no
artifices, were spared. William wrote to Portland that the Whigs
of the City, in their despair, stuck at nothing, and that, as
they went on, they would soon stand as much in need of an Act of
Indemnity as the Tories. Four Tories however were returned, and
that by so decisive a majority, that the Tory who stood lowest
polled four hundred votes more than the Whig who stood
highest.571 The Sheriffs, desiring to defer as long as possible
the triumph of their enemies, granted a scrutiny. But, though the
majority was diminished, the result was not affected.572 At
Westminster, two opponents of the Sacheverell clause were elected
without a contest.573 But nothing indicated more strongly the
disgust excited by the proceedings of the late House of Commons
than what passed in the University of Cambridge. Newton retired
to his quiet observatory over the gate of Trinity College. Two
Tories were returned by an overwhelming majority. At the head of
the poll was Sawyer, who had, but a few days before, been
excepted from the Indemnity Bill and expelled from the House of
Commons. The records of the University contain curious proofs
that the unwise severity with which he had been treated had
raised an enthusiastic feeling in his favour. Newton voted for
Sawyer; and this remarkable fact justifies us in believing that
the great philosopher, in whose genius and virtue the Whig party
justly glories, had seen the headstrong and revengeful conduct of
that party with concern and disapprobation.574

It was soon plain that the Tories would have a majority in the
new House of Commons.575 All the leading Whigs however obtained
seats, with one exception. John Hampden was excluded, and was
regretted only by the most intolerant and unreasonable members of
his party.576

The King meanwhile was making, in almost every department of the
executive government, a change corresponding to the change which
the general election was making in the composition of the
legislature. Still, however, he did not think of forming what is
now called a ministry. He still reserved to himself more
especially the direction of foreign affairs; and he superintended
with minute attention all the preparations for the approaching
campaign in Ireland. In his confidential letters he complained
that he had to perform, with little or no assistance, the task of
organizing the disorganized military establishments of the
kingdom. The work, he said, was heavy; but it must be done; for
everything depended on it.577 In general, the government was
still a government by independent departments; and in almost
every department Whigs and Tories were still mingled, though not
exactly in the old proportions. The Whig element had decidedly
predominated, in 1689. The Tory element predominated, though not
very decidedly, in 1690.

Halifax had laid down the Privy Seal. It was offered to
Chesterfield, a Tory who had voted in the Convention for a
Regency. But Chesterfield refused to quit his country house and
gardens in Derbyshire for the Court and the Council Chamber; and
the Privy Seal was put into Commission.578 Caermarthen was now
the chief adviser of the Crown on all matters relating to the
internal administration and to the management of the two Houses
of Parliament. The white staff, and the immense power which
accompanied the white staff, William was still determined never
to entrust to any subject. Caermarthen therefore, continued to be
Lord President; but he took possession of a suite of apartments
in Saint James's Palace which was considered as peculiarly
belonging to the Prime Minister.579 He had, during the preceding
year, pleaded ill health as an excuse for seldom appearing at the
Council Board; and the plea was not without foundation, for his
digestive organs had some morbid peculiarities which puzzled the
whole College of Physicians; his complexion was livid; his frame
was meagre; and his face, handsome and intellectual as it was,
had a haggard look which indicated the restlessness of pain as
well as the restlessness of ambition.580 As soon, however, as he
was once more minister, he applied himself strenuously to
business, and toiled every day, and all day long, with an energy
which amazed every body who saw his ghastly countenance and
tottering gait.

Though he could not obtain for himself the office of Lord
Treasurer, his influence at the Treasury was great. Monmouth, the
First Commissioner, and Delamere, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, two of the most violent Whigs in England, quitted
their seats. On this, as on many other occasions, it appeared
that they had nothing but their Whiggism in common. The volatile
Monmouth, sensible that he had none of the qualities of a
financier, seems to have taken no personal offence at being
removed from a place which he never ought to have occupied. He
thankfully accepted a pension, which his profuse habits made
necessary to him, and still continued to attend councils, to
frequent the Court, and to discharge the duties of a Lord of the
Bedchamber.581 He also tried to make himself useful in military
business, which he understood, if not well, yet better than most
of his brother nobles; and he professed, during a few months, a
great regard for Caermarthen. Delamere was in a very different
mood. It was in vain that his services were overpaid with honours
and riches. He was created Earl of Warrington. He obtained a
grant of all the lands that could be discovered belonging to
Jesuits in five or six counties. A demand made by him on account
of expenses incurred at the time of the Revolution was allowed;
and he carried with him into retirement as the reward of his
patriotic exertions a large sum, which the State could ill spare.
But his anger was not to be so appeased; and to the end of his
life he continued to complain bitterly of the ingratitude with
which he and his party had been treated.582

Sir John Lowther became First Lord of the Treasury, and was the
person on whom Caermarthen chiefly relied for the conduct of the
ostensible business of the House of Commons. Lowther was a man of
ancient descent, ample estate, and great parliamentary interest.
Though not an old man, he was an old senator: for he had, before
he was of age, succeeded his father as knight of the shire for
Westmoreland. In truth the representation of Westmoreland was
almost as much one of the hereditaments of the Lowther family as
Lowther Hall. Sir John's abilities were respectable; his
manners, though sarcastically noticed in contemporary lampoons as
too formal, were eminently courteous; his personal courage he was
but too ready to prove; his morals were irreproachable; his time
was divided between respectable labours and respectable
pleasures; his chief business was to attend the House of Commons
and to preside on the Bench of justice; his favourite amusements
were reading and gardening. In opinions he was a very moderate
Tory. He was attached to hereditary monarchy and to the
Established Church; but he had concurred in the Revolution; he
had no misgivings touching the title of William and Mary; he had
sworn allegiance to them without any mental reservation; and he
appears to have strictly kept his oath. Between him and
Caermarthen there was a close connection. They had acted together
cordially in the Northern insurrection; and they agreed in their
political views, as nearly as a very cunning statesman and a very
honest country gentleman could be expected to agree.583 By
Caermarthen's influence Lowther was now raised to one of the most
important places in the kingdom. Unfortunately it was a place
requiring qualities very different from those which suffice to
make a valuable county member and chairman of quarter sessions.
The tongue of the new First Lord of the Treasury was not
sufficiently ready, nor was his temper sufficiently callous for
his post. He had neither adroitness to parry, nor fortitude to
endure, the gibes and reproaches to which, in his new character
of courtier and placeman, he was exposed. There was also
something to be done which he was too scrupulous to do; something
which had never been done by Wolsey or Burleigh; something which
has never been done by any English statesman of our generation;
but which, from the time of Charles the Second to the time of
George the Third, was one of the most important parts of the
business of a minister.

The history of the rise, progress, and decline of parliamentary
corruption in England still remains to be written. No subject has
called forth a greater quantity of eloquent vituperation and
stinging sarcasm. Three generations of serious and of sportive
writers wept and laughed over the venality of the senate. That
venality was denounced on the hustings, anathematized from the
pulpit, and burlesqued on the stage; was attacked by Pope in
brilliant verse, and by Bolingbroke in stately prose, by Swift
with savage hatred, and by Gay with festive malice. The voices of
Tories and Whigs, of Johnson and Akenside, of Smollett and
Fielding, contributed to swell the cry. But none of those who
railed or of those who jested took the trouble to verify the
phaenomena, or to trace them to the real causes.

Sometimes the evil was imputed to the depravity of a particular
minister: but, when he had been driven from power, and when those
who had most loudly accused him governed in his stead, it was
found that the change of men had produced no change of system.
Sometimes the evil was imputed to the degeneracy of the national
character. Luxury and cupidity, it was said, had produced in our
country the same effect which they had produced of old in the
Roman republic. The modern Englishman was to the Englishman of
the sixteenth century what Verres and Curio were to Dentatus and
Fabricius. Those who held this language were as ignorant and
shallow as people generally are who extol the past at the expense
of the present. A man of sense would have perceived that, if the
English of the time of George the Second had really been more
sordid and dishonest than their forefathers, the deterioration
would not have shown itself in one place alone. The progress of
judicial venality and of official venality would have kept pace
with the progress of parliamentary venality. But nothing is more
certain than that, while the legislature was becoming more and
more venal, the courts of law and the public offices were
becoming purer and purer. The representatives of the people were
undoubtedly more mercenary in the days of Hardwicke and Pelham
than in the days of the Tudors. But the Chancellors of the Tudors
took plate and jewels from suitors without scruple or shame; and
Hardwicke would have committed for contempt any suitor who had
dared to bring him a present. The Treasurers of the Tudors raised
princely fortunes by the sale of places, titles, and pardons; and
Pelham would have ordered his servants to turn out of his house
any man who had offered him money for a peerage or a
commissionership of customs. It is evident, therefore, that the
prevalence of corruption in the Parliament cannot be ascribed to
a general depravation of morals. The taint was local; we must
look for some local cause; and such a cause will without
difficulty be found.

Under our ancient sovereigns the House of Commons rarely
interfered with the executive administration. The Speaker was
charged not to let the members meddle with matters of State. If
any gentleman was very troublesome he was cited before the Privy
Council, interrogated, reprimanded, and sent to meditate on his
undutiful conduct in the Tower. The Commons did their best to
protect themselves by keeping their deliberations secret, by
excluding strangers, by making it a crime to repeat out of
doors what had passed within doors. But these precautions were of
small avail. In so large an assembly there were always
talebearers ready to carry the evil report of their brethren to
the palace. To oppose the Court was therefore a service of
serious danger. In those days of course, there was little or no
buying of votes. For an honest man was not to be bought; and it
was much cheaper to intimidate or to coerce a knave than to buy
him.

For a very different reason there has been no direct buying of
votes within the memory of the present generation. The House of
Commons is now supreme in the State, but is accountable to the
nation. Even those members who are not chosen by large
constituent bodies are kept in awe by public opinion. Every thing
is printed; every thing is discussed; every material word uttered
in debate is read by a million of people on the morrow. Within a
few hours after an important division, the lists of the majority
and the minority are scanned and analysed in every town from
Plymouth to Inverness. If a name be found where it ought not to
be, the apostate is certain to be reminded in sharp language of
the promises which he has broken and of the professions which he
has belied. At present, therefore, the best way in which a
government can secure the support of a majority of the
representative body is by gaining the confidence of the nation.

But between the time when our Parliaments ceased to be controlled
by royal prerogative and the time when they began to be
constantly and effectually controlled by public opinion there was
a long interval. After the Restoration, no government ventured to
return to those methods by which, before the civil war, the
freedom of deliberation has been restrained. A member could no
longer be called to account for his harangues or his votes. He
might obstruct the passing of bills of supply; he might arraign
the whole foreign policy of the country; he might lay on the
table articles of impeachment against all the chief ministers;
and he ran not the smallest risk of being treated as Morrice had
been treated by Elizabeth, or Eliot by Charles the First. The
senator now stood in no awe of the Court. Nevertheless all the
defences behind which the feeble Parliaments of the sixteenth
century had entrenched themselves against the attacks of
prerogative were not only still kept up, but were extended and
strengthened. No politician seems to have been aware that these
defences were no longer needed for their original purpose, and
had begun to serve a purpose very different. The rules which had
been originally designed to secure faithful representatives
against the displeasure of the Sovereign, now operated to secure
unfaithful representatives against the displeasure of the people,
and proved much more effectual for the latter end than they had
ever been for the former. It was natural, it was inevitable,
that, in a legislative body emancipated from the restraints of
the sixteenth century, and not yet subjected to the restraints of
the nineteenth century, in a legislative body which feared
neither the King nor the public, there should be corruption.

The plague spot began to be visible and palpable in the days of
the Cabal. Clifford, the boldest and fiercest of the wicked Five,
had the merit of discovering that a noisy patriot, whom it was no
longer possible to send to prison, might be turned into a
courtier by a goldsmith's note. Clifford's example was followed
by his successors. It soon became a proverb that a Parliament
resembled a pump. Often, the wits said, when a pump appears to be
dry, if a very small quantity of water is poured in, a great
quantity of water gushes out: and so, when a Parliament appears
to be niggardly, ten thousand pounds judiciously given in bribes
will often produce a million in supplies. The evil was not
diminished, nay, it was aggravated, by that Revolution which
freed our country from so many other evils. The House of Commons
was now more powerful than ever as against the Crown, and yet was
not more strictly responsible than formerly to the nation. The
government had a new motive for buying the members; and the
members had no new motive for refusing to sell themselves.
William, indeed, had an aversion to bribery; he resolved to
abstain from it; and, during the first year of his reign, he kept
his resolution. Unhappily the events of that year did not
encourage him to persevere in his good intentions. As soon as
Caermarthen was placed at the head of the internal administration
of the realm, a complete change took place. He was in truth no
novice in the art of purchasing votes. He had, sixteen years
before, succeeded Clifford at the Treasury, had inherited
Clifford's tactics, had improved upon them, and had employed them
to an extent which would have amazed the inventor. From the day
on which Caermarthen was called a second time to the chief
direction of affairs, parliamentary corruption continued to be
practised, with scarcely any intermission, by a long succession
of statesmen, till the close of the American war. Neither of the
great English parties can justly charge the other with any
peculiar guilt on this account. The Tories were the first who
introduced the system and the last who clung to it; but it
attained its greatest vigour in the time of Whig ascendency. The
extent to which parliamentary support was bartered for money
cannot be with any precision ascertained. But it seems probable
that the number of hirelings was greatly exaggerated by vulgar
report, and was never large, though often sufficient to turn the
scale on important divisions. An unprincipled minister eagerly
accepted the services of these mercenaries. An honest minister
reluctantly submitted, for the sake of the commonwealth, to what
he considered as a shameful and odious extortion. But during many
years every minister, whatever his personal character might be,
consented, willingly or unwillingly, to manage the Parliament in
the only way in which the Parliament could then be managed. It at
length became as notorious that there was a market for votes at
the Treasury as that there was a market for cattle in Smithfield.
Numerous demagogues out of power declaimed against this vile
traffic; but every one of those demagogues, as soon as he was in
power, found himself driven by a kind of fatality to engage in
that traffic, or at least to connive at it. Now and then perhaps
a man who had romantic notions of public virtue refused to be
himself the paymaster of the corrupt crew, and averted his eyes
while his less scrupulous colleagues did that which he knew to be
indispensable, and yet felt to be degrading. But the instances of
this prudery were rare indeed. The doctrine generally received,
even among upright and honourable politicians, was that it was
shameful to receive bribes, but that it was necessary to
distribute them. It is a remarkable fact that the evil reached
the greatest height during the administration of Henry Pelham, a
statesman of good intentions, of spotless morals in private life,
and of exemplary disinterestedness. It is not difficult to guess
by what arguments he and other well meaning men, who, like him,
followed the fashion of their age, quieted their consciences. No
casuist, however severe, has denied that it may be a duty to give
what it is a crime to take. It was infamous in Jeffreys to demand
money for the lives of the unhappy prisoners whom he tried at
Dorchester and Taunton. But it was not infamous, nay, it was
laudable, in the kinsmen and friends of a prisoner to contribute
of their substance in order to make up a purse for Jeffreys. The
Sallee rover, who threatened to bastinado a Christian captive to
death unless a ransom was forthcoming, was an odious ruffian. But
to ransom a Christian captive from a Sallee rover was, not merely
an innocent, but a highly meritorious act. It would be improper
in such cases to use the word corruption. Those who receive the
filthy lucre are corrupt already. He who bribes them does not
make them wicked: he finds them so; and he merely prevents their
evil propensities from producing evil effects. And might not the
same plea be urged in defence of a minister who, when no other
expedient would avail, paid greedy and lowminded men not to ruin
their country?

It was by some such reasoning as this that the scruples of
William were overcome. Honest Burnet, with the uncourtly courage
which distinguished him, ventured to remonstrate with the King.
"Nobody," William answered, "hates bribery more, than I. But I
have to do with a set of men who must be managed in this vile way
or not at all. I must strain a point or the country is lost."584

It was necessary for the Lord President to have in the House of
Commons an agent for the purchase of members; and Lowther was
both too awkward and too scrupulous to be such an agent. But a
man in whom craft and profligacy were united in a high degree was
without difficulty found. This was the Master of the Rolls, Sir
John Trevor, who had been Speaker in the single Parliament held
by James. High as Trevor had risen in the world, there were
people who could still remember him a strange looking lawyer's
clerk in the Inner Temple. Indeed, nobody who had ever seen him
was likely to forget him. For his grotesque features and his
hideous squint were far beyond the reach of caricature. His
parts, which were quick and vigorous, had enabled him early to
master the science of chicane. Gambling and betting were his
amusements; and out of these amusements he contrived to extract
much business in the way of his profession. For his opinion on a
question arising out of a wager or a game at chance had as much
authority as a judgment of any court in Westminster Hall. He soon
rose to be one of the boon companions whom Jeffreys hugged in
fits of maudlin friendship over the bottle at night, and cursed
and reviled in court on the morrow. Under such a teacher, Trevor
rapidly became a proficient in that peculiar kind of rhetoric
which had enlivened the trials of Baxter and of Alice Lisle.
Report indeed spoke of some scolding matches between the
Chancellor and his friend, in which the disciple had been not
less voluble and scurrilous than the master. These contests,
however, did not take place till the younger adventurer had
attained riches and dignities such that he no longer stood in
need of the patronage which had raised him.585 Among High
Churchmen Trevor, in spite of his notorious want of principle,
had at this time a certain popularity, which he seems to have
owed chiefly to their conviction that, however insincere he might
be in general, his hatred of the dissenters was genuine and
hearty. There was little doubt that, in a House of Commons in
which the Tories had a majority, he might easily, with the
support of the Court, be chosen Speaker. He was impatient to be
again in his old post, which he well knew how to make one of the
most lucrative in the kingdom; and he willingly undertook that
secret and shameful office for which Lowther was altogether
unqualified.

Richard Hampden was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. This
appointment was probably intended as a mark of royal gratitude
for the moderation of his conduct, and for the attempts which he
had made to curb the violence of his Whig friends, and especially
of his son.

Godolphin voluntarily left the Treasury; why, we are not
informed. We can scarcely doubt that the dissolution and the
result of the general election must have given him pleasure. For
his political opinions leaned towards Toryism; and he had, in the
late reign, done some things which, though not very heinous,
stood in need of an indemnity. It is probable that he did not
think it compatible with his personal dignity to sit at the board
below Lowther, who was in rank his inferior.586

A new Commission of Admiralty was issued. At the head of the
naval administration was placed Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke,
a high born and high bred man, who had ranked among the Tories,
who had voted for a Regency, and who had married the daughter of
Sawyer. That Pembroke's Toryism, however, was not of a narrow and
illiberal kind is sufficiently proved by the fact that,
immediately after the Revolution, the Essay on the Human
Understanding was dedicated to him by John Locke, in token of
gratitude for kind offices done in evil times.587

Nothing was omitted which could reconcile Torrington to this
change. For, though he had been found an incapable administrator,
he still stood so high in general estimation as a seaman that the
government was unwilling to lose his services. He was assured
that no slight was intended to him. He could not serve his
country at once on the ocean and at Westminster; and it had been
thought less difficult to supply his place in his office than on
the deck of his flagship. He was at first very angry, and
actually laid down his commission: but some concessions were made
to his pride: a pension of three thousand pounds a year and a
grant of ten thousand acres of crown land in the Peterborough
level were irresistible baits to his cupidity; and, in an evil
hour for England, he consented to remain at the head of the naval
force, on which the safety of her coasts depended.588

While these changes were making in the offices round Whitehall,
the Commissions of Lieutenancy all over the kingdom were revised.
The Tories had, during twelve months, been complaining that their
share in the government of the districts in which they lived bore
no proportion to their number, to their wealth, and to the
consideration which they enjoyed in society. They now regained
with great delight their former position in their shires. The
Whigs raised a cry that the King was foully betrayed, and that he
had been induced by evil counsellors to put the sword into the
hands of men who, as soon as a favourable opportunity offered,
would turn the edge against himself. In a dialogue which was
believed to have been written by the newly created Earl of
Warrington, and which had a wide circulation at the time, but has
long been forgotten, the Lord Lieutenant of a county was
introduced expressing his apprehensions that the majority of his
deputies were traitors at heart.589 But nowhere was the
excitement produced by the new distribution of power so great as
in the capital. By a Commission of Lieutenancy which had been
issued immediately after the Revolution, the train bands of the
City had been put under the command of staunch Whigs. Those
powerful and opulent citizens whose names were omitted complained
that the list was filled with elders of Puritan congregations,
with Shaftesbury's brisk boys, with Rye House plotters, and that
it was scarcely possible to find, mingled with that multitude of
fanatics and levellers, a single man sincerely attached to
monarchy and to the Church. A new Commission now appeared framed
by Caermarthen and Nottingham. They had taken counsel with
Compton, the Bishop of the diocese; and Compton was not a very
discreet adviser. He had originally been a High Churchman and a
Tory. The severity with which he had been treated in the late
reign had transformed him into a Latitudinarian and a rebel; and
he had now, from jealousy of Tillotson, turned High Churchman and
Tory again. The Whigs complained that they were ungratefully
proscribed by a government which owed its existence to them; that
some of the best friends of King William had been dismissed with
contumely to make room for some of his worst enemies, for men who
were as unworthy of trust as any Irish Rapparee, for men who had
delivered up to a tyrant the charter and the immemorial
privileges of the City, for men who had made themselves notorious
by the cruelty with which they had enforced the penal laws
against Protestant dissenters, nay, for men who had sate on those
juries which had found Russell and Cornish guilty.590 The
discontent was so great that it seemed, during a short time,
likely to cause pecuniary embarrassment to the State. The
supplies voted by the late Parliament came in slowly. The wants
of the public service were pressing. In such circumstances it was
to the citizens of London that the government always looked for
help; and the government of William had hitherto looked
especially to those citizens who professed Whig opinions. Things
were now changed. A few eminent Whigs, in their first anger,
sullenly refused to advance money. Nay, one or two unexpectedly
withdrew considerable sums from the Exchequer.591 The financial
difficulties might have been serious, had not some wealthy
Tories, who, if Sacheverell's clause had become law, would have
been excluded from all municipal honours, offered the Treasury a
hundred thousand pounds down, and promised to raise a still
larger sum.592

While the City was thus agitated, came a day appointed by royal
proclamation for a general fast. The reasons assigned for this
solemn act of devotion were the lamentable state of Ireland and
the approaching departure of the King. Prayers were offered up
for the safety of His Majesty's person and for the success of his
arms. The churches of London were crowded. The most eminent
preachers of the capital, who were, with scarcely an exception,
either moderate Tories or moderate Whigs, exerted themselves to
calm the public mind, and earnestly exhorted their flocks not to
withhold, at this great conjuncture, a hearty support from the
prince, with whose fate was bound up the fate of the whole
nation. Burnet told a large congregation from the pulpit how the
Greeks, when the Great Turk was preparing to besiege
Constantinople, could not be persuaded to contribute any part of
their wealth for the common defence, and how bitterly they
repented of their avarice when they were compelled to deliver up
to the victorious infidels the treasures which had been refused
to the supplications of the last Christian emperor.593

The Whigs, however, as a party, did not stand in need of such an
admonition. Grieved and angry as they were, they were perfectly
sensible that on the stability of the throne of William depended
all that they most highly prized. What some of them might, at
this conjuncture, have been tempted to do if they could have
found another leader, if, for example, their Protestant Duke,
their King Monmouth, had still been living, may be doubted. But
their only choice was between the Sovereign whom they had set up
and the Sovereign whom they had pulled down. It would have been
strange indeed if they had taken part with James in order to
punish William, when the worst fault which they imputed to
William was that he did not participate in the vindictive feeling
with which they remembered the tyranny of James. Much as they
disliked the Bill of Indemnity, they had not forgotten the Bloody
Circuit. They therefore, even in their ill humour, continued true
to their own King, and, while grumbling at him, were ready to
stand by him against his adversary with their lives and
fortunes.594

There were indeed exceptions; but they were very few; and they
were to be found almost exclusively in two classes, which, though
widely differing from each other in social position, closely
resembled each other in laxity of principle. All the Whigs who
are known to have trafficked with Saint Germains belonged, not to
the main body of the party, but either to the head or to the
tail. They were either patricians high in rank and office, or
caitiffs who had long been employed in the foulest drudgery of
faction. To the former class belonged
Shrewsbury. Of the latter class the most remarkable specimen was
Robert Ferguson. From the day on which the Convention Parliament
was dissolved, Shrewsbury began to waver in his allegiance: but
that he had ever wavered was not, till long after, suspected by
the public. That Ferguson had, a few months after the Revolution,
become a furious Jacobite, was no secret to any body, and ought
not to have been matter of surprise to any body. For his apostasy
he could not plead even the miserable excuse that he had been
neglected. The ignominious services which he had formerly
rendered to his party as a spy, a raiser of riots, a dispenser of
bribes, a writer of libels, a prompter of false witnesses, had
been rewarded only too prodigally for the honour of the new
government. That he should hold any high office was of course
impossible. But a sinecure place of five hundred a year had been
created for him in the department of the Excise. He now had what
to him was opulence: but opulence did not satisfy him. For money
indeed he had never scrupled to be guilty of fraud aggravated by
hypocrisy; yet the love of money was not his strongest passion.
Long habits had developed in him a moral disease from, which
people who make political agitation their calling are seldom
wholly free. He could not be quiet. Sedition, from being his
business, had become his pleasure. It was as impossible for him
to live without doing mischief as for an old dram drinker or an
old opium eater to live without the daily dose of poison. The
very discomforts and hazards of a lawless life had a strange
attraction for him. He could no more be turned into a peaceable
and loyal subject than the fox can be turned into a shepherd's
dog, or than the kite can be taught the habits of the barn door
fowl. The Red Indian prefers his hunting ground to cultivated
fields and stately cities: the gipsy, sheltered by a commodious
roof, and provided with meat in due season, still pines for the
ragged tent on the moor and the meal of carrion, and even so
Ferguson became weary of plenty and security, of his salary, his
house, his table and his coach, and longed to be again the
president of societies where none could enter without a password,
the director of secret presses, the distributor of inflammatory
pamphlets; to see the walls placarded with descriptions of his
Person and offers of reward for his apprehension; to have six or
seven names, with a different wig and cloak for each, and to
change his lodgings thrice a week at dead of night. His hostility
was not to Popery or to Protestantism, to monarchical government
or to republican government, to the House of Stuart or to the
House of Nassau, but to whatever was at the time established.

By the Jacobites this new ally was eagerly welcomed. They were at
that moment busied with schemes in which the help of a veteran
plotter was much needed. There had been a great stir among them
from the day on which it had been announced that William had
determined to take the command in Ireland; and they were all
looking forward with impatient hope to his departure.--He was
not a prince against whom men lightly venture to set up a
standard of rebellion. His courage, his sagacity, the secrecy of
his counsels, the success which had generally crowned his
enterprises, overawed the vulgar. Even his most acrimonious
enemies feared him at least as much as they hated him. While he
was at Kensington, ready to take horse at a moment's notice,
malecontents who prized their heads and their estates were
generally content to vent their hatred by drinking confusion to
his hooked nose, and by squeezing with significant energy the
orange which was his emblem. But their courage rose when they
reflected that the sea would soon roll between him and our
island. In the military and political calculations of that age,
thirty leagues of water were as important as three hundred
leagues now are. The winds and waves frequently interrupted all
communication between England and Ireland. It sometimes happened
that, during a fortnight or three weeks, not a word of
intelligence from London reached Dublin. Twenty English counties
might be up in arms long before any rumour that an insurrection
was even apprehended could reach Ulster. Early in the spring,
therefore, the leading malecontents assembled in London for the
purpose of concerting an extensive plan of action, and
corresponded assiduously both with France and with Ireland.

Such was the temper of the English factions when, on the
twentieth of March, the new Parliament met. The first duty which
the Commons had to perform was that of choosing a Speaker. Trevor
was proposed by Lowther, was elected without opposition, and was
presented and approved with the ordinary ceremonial. The King
then made a speech in which he especially recommended to the
consideration of the Houses two important subjects, the settling
of the revenue and the granting of an amnesty. He represented
strongly the necessity of despatch. Every day was precious, the
season for action was approaching. "Let not us," he said, "be
engaged in debates while our enemies are in the field."595

The first subject which the Commons took into consideration was
the state of the revenue. A great part of the taxes had, since
the accession of William and Mary, been collected under the
authority of Acts passed for short terms, and it was now time to
determine on a permanent arrangement. A list of the salaries and
pensions for which provision was to be made was laid before the
House; and the amount of the sums thus expended called forth very
just complaints from the independent members, among whom Sir
Charles Sedley distinguished himself by his sarcastic pleasantry.
A clever speech which he made against the placemen stole into
print and was widely circulated: it has since been often
republished; and it proves, what his poems and plays might make
us doubt, that his contemporaries were not mistaken in
considering him as a man of parts and vivacity. Unfortunately the
ill humour which the sight of the Civil List caused evaporated in
jests and invectives without producing any reform.

The ordinary revenue by which the government had been supported
before the Revolution had been partly hereditary, and had been
partly drawn from taxes granted to each sovereign for life. The
hereditary revenue had passed, with the crown, to William and
Mary. It was derived from the rents of the royal domains, from
fees, from fines, from wine licenses, from the first fruits and
tenths of benefices, from the receipts of the Post Office, and
from that part of the excise which had, immediately after the
Restoration, been granted to Charles the Second and to his
successors for ever in lieu of the feudal services due to our
ancient kings. The income from all these sources was estimated at
between four and five hundred thousand pounds.596

Those duties of excise and customs which had been granted to
James for life had, at the close of his reign, yielded about nine
hundred thousand pounds annually. William naturally wished to
have this income on the same terms on which his uncle had enjoyed
it; and his ministers did their best to gratify his wishes.
Lowther moved that the grant should be to the King and Queen for
their joint and separate lives, and spoke repeatedly and
earnestly in defence of this motion. He set forth William's
claims to public gratitude and confidence; the nation rescued
from Popery and arbitrary power; the Church delivered from
persecution; the constitution established on a firm basis. Would
the Commons deal grudgingly with a prince who had done more for
England than had ever been done for her by any of his
predecessors in so short a time, with a prince who was now about
to expose himself to hostile weapons and pestilential air in
order to preserve the English colony in Ireland, with a prince
who was prayed for in every corner of the world where a
congregation of Protestants could meet for the worship of God?597
But on this subject Lowther harangued in vain. Whigs and Tories
were equally fixed in the opinion that the liberality of
Parliaments had been the chief cause of the disasters of the last
thirty years; that to the liberality of the Parliament of 1660
was to be ascribed the misgovernment of the Cabal; that to the
liberality of the Parliament of 1685 was to be ascribed the
Declaration of Indulgence, and that the Parliament of 1690 would
be inexcusable if it did not profit by a long, a painful, an
unvarying experience. After much dispute a compromise was made.
That portion of the excise which had been settled for life on
James, and which was estimated at three hundred thousand pounds a
year, was settled on William and Mary for their joint and
separate lives. It was supposed that, with the hereditary
revenue, and with three hundred thousand a year more from the
excise, their Majesties would have, independent of parliamentary
control, between seven and eight hundred thousand a year. Out of
this income was to be defrayed the charge both of the royal
household and of those civil offices of which a list had been
laid before the House. This income was therefore called the Civil
List. The expenses of the royal household are now entirely
separated from the expenses of the civil government; but, by a
whimsical perversion, the name of Civil List has remained
attached to that portion of the revenue which is appropriated to
the expenses of the royal household. It is still more strange
that several neighbouring nations should have thought this most
unmeaning of all names worth borrowing. Those duties of customs
which had been settled for life on Charles and James
successively, and which, in the year before the Revolution, had
yielded six hundred thousand pounds, were granted to the Crown
for a term of only four years.598

William was by no means well pleased with this arrangement. He
thought it unjust and ungrateful in a people whose liberties he
had saved to bind him over to his good behaviour. "The gentlemen
of England," he said to Burnet, "trusted King James who was an
enemy of their religion and of their laws; and they will not
trust me by whom their religion and their laws have been
preserved." Burnet answered very properly that there was no mark
of personal confidence which His Majesty was not entitled to
demand, but that this question was not a question of personal
confidence. The Estates of the Realm wished to establish a
general principle. They wished to set a precedent which might
secure a remote posterity against evils such as the indiscreet
liberality of former Parliaments had produced. "From those evils
Your Majesty has delivered this generation. By accepting the gift
of the Commons on the terms on which it is offered Your Majesty
will be also a deliverer of future generations." William was not
convinced; but he had too much wisdom and selfcommand to give way
to his ill humour; and he accepted graciously what he could not
but consider as ungraciously given.599

The Civil List was charged with an annuity of twenty thousand
pounds to the Princess of Denmark, in addition to an annuity of
thirty thousand pounds which had been settled on her at the time
of her marriage. This arrangement was the result of a compromise
which had been effected with much difficulty and after many
irritating disputes. The King and Queen had never, since the
commencement of their reign, been on very good terms with their
sister. That William should have been disliked by a woman who had
just sense enough to perceive that his temper was sour and his
manners repulsive, and who was utterly incapable of appreciating
his higher qualities, is not extraordinary. But Mary was made to
be loved. So lively and intelligent a woman could not indeed
derive much pleasure from the society of Anne, who, when in good
humour, was meekly stupid, and, when in bad humour, was sulkily
stupid. Yet the Queen, whose kindness had endeared her to her
humblest attendants, would hardly have made an enemy of one whom
it was her duty and her interest to make a friend, had not an
influence strangely potent and strangely malignant been
incessantly at work to divide the Royal House against itself. The
fondness of the Princess for Lady Marlborough was such as, in a
superstitious age, would have been ascribed to some talisman or
potion. Not only had the friends, in their confidential
intercourse with each other, dropped all ceremony and all titles,
and become plain Mrs. Morley and plain Mrs. Freeman; but even
Prince George, who cared as much for the dignity of his birth as
he was capable of caring for any thing but claret and calvered
salmon, submitted to be Mr. Morley. The Countess boasted that she
had selected the name of Freeman because it was peculiarly suited
to the frankness and boldness of her character; and, to do her
justice, it was not by the ordinary arts of courtiers that she
established and long maintained her despotic empire over the
feeblest of minds, She had little of that tact which is the
characteristic talent of her sex; she was far too violent to
flatter or to dissemble: but, by a rare chance, she had fallen in
with a nature on which dictation and contradiction acted as
philtres. In this grotesque friendship all the loyalty, the
patience, the selfdevotion, was on the side of the mistress. The
whims, the haughty airs, the fits of ill temper, were on the side
of the waiting woman.

Nothing is more curious than the relation in which the two ladies
stood to Mr. Freeman, as they called Marlborough. In foreign
countries people knew in general that Anne was governed by the
Churchills. They knew also that the man who appeared to enjoy so
large a share of her favour was not only a great soldier and
politician, but also one of the finest gentlemen of his time,
that his face and figure were eminently  handsome, his temper at
once bland and resolute, his manners at once engaging and noble.
Nothing could be more natural than that graces and
accomplishments like his should win a female heart. On the
Continent therefore many persons imagined that he was Anne's
favoured lover; and he was so described in contemporary French
libels which have long been forgotten. In England this calumny
never found credit even with the vulgar, and is nowhere to be
found even in the most ribald doggrel that was sung about our
streets. In truth the Princess seems never to have been guilty of
a thought inconsistent with her conjugal vows. To her
Marlborough, with all his genius and his valour, his beauty and
his grace, was nothing but the husband of her friend. Direct
power over Her Royal Highness he had none. He could influence her
only by the instrumentality of his wife; and his wife was no
passive instrument. Though it is impossible to discover, in any
thing that she ever did, said or wrote, any indication of
superior understanding, her fierce passions and strong will
enabled her often to rule a husband who was born to rule grave
senates and mighty armies. His courage, that courage which the
most perilous emergencies of war only made cooler and more
steady, failed him when he had to encounter his Sarah's ready
tears and voluble reproaches, the poutings of her lip and the
tossings of her head. History exhibits to us few spectacles more
remarkable than that of a great and wise man, who, when he had
combined vast and profound schemes of policy, could carry them
into effect only by inducing one foolish woman, who was often
unmanageable, to manage another woman who was more foolish still.

In one point the Earl and the Countess were perfectly agreed.
They were equally bent on getting money; though, when it was got,
he loved to hoard it, and she was not unwilling to spend it.600
The favour of the Princess they both regarded as a valuable
estate. In her father's reign, they had begun to grow rich by
means of her bounty. She was naturally inclined to parsimony;
and, even when she was on the throne, her equipages and tables
were by no means sumptuous.601 It might have been thought,
therefore, that, while she was a subject, thirty thousand a year,
with a residence in the palace, would have been more than
sufficient for all her wants. There were probably not in the
kingdom two noblemen possessed of such an income. But no income
would satisfy the greediness of those who governed her. She
repeatedly contracted debts which James repeatedly discharged,
not without expressing much surprise and displeasure.

The Revolution opened to the Churchills a new and boundless
prospect of gain. The whole conduct of their mistress at the
great crisis had proved that she had no will, no judgment, no
conscience, but theirs. To them she had sacrificed affections,
prejudices, habits, interests. In obedience to them, she had
joined in the conspiracy against her father; she had fled from
Whitehall in the depth of winter, through ice and mire, to a
hackney coach; she had taken refuge in the rebel camp; she had
consented to yield her place in the order of succession to the
Prince of Orange. They saw with pleasure that she, over whom they
possessed such boundless influence, possessed no common influence
over others. Scarcely had the Revolution been accomplished when
many Tories, disliking both the King who had been driven out and
the King who had come in, and doubting whether their religion
had more to fear from Jesuits or from Latitudinarians, showed a
strong disposition to rally round Anne. Nature had made her a
bigot. Such was the constitution of her mind that to the religion
of her nursery she could not but adhere, without examination and
without doubt, till she was laid in her coffin. In the court of
her father she had been deaf to all that could be urged in favour
of transubstantiation and auricular confession. In the court of
her brother in law she was equally deaf to all that could be
urged in favour of a general union among Protestants. This
slowness and obstinacy made her important. It was a great thing
to be the only member of the Royal Family who regarded Papists
and Presbyterians with an impartial aversion. While a large party
was disposed to make her an idol, she was regarded by her two
artful servants merely as a puppet. They knew that she had it in
her power to give serious annoyance to the government; and they
determined to use this power in order to extort money, nominally
for her, but really for themselves. While Marlborough was
commanding the English forces in the Low Countries, the execution
of the plan was necessarily left to his wife; and she acted, not
as he would doubtless have acted, with prudence and temper, but,
as is plain even from her own narrative, with odious violence and
insolence. Indeed she had passions to gratify from which he was
altogether free. He, though one of the most covetous, was one of
the least acrimonious of mankind; but malignity was in her a
stronger passion than avarice. She hated easily; she hated
heartily; and she hated implacably. Among the objects of her
hatred were all who were related to her mistress either on the
paternal or on the maternal side. No person who had a natural
interest in the Princess could observe without uneasiness the
strange infatuation which made her the slave of an imperious and
reckless termagant. This the Countess well knew. In her view the
Royal Family and the family of Hyde, however they might differ as
to other matters, were leagued against her; and she detested them
all, James, William and Mary, Clarendon and Rochester. Now was
the time to wreak the accumulated spite of years. It was not
enough to obtain a great, a regal, revenue for Anne. That revenue
must be obtained by means which would wound and humble those whom
the favourite abhorred. It must not be asked, it must not be
accepted, as a mark of fraternal kindness, but demanded in
hostile tones, and wrung by force from reluctant hands. No
application was made to the King and Queen. But they learned with
astonishment that Lady Marlborough was indefatigable in
canvassing the Tory members of Parliament, that a Princess's
party was forming, that the House of Commons would be moved to
settle on Her Royal Highness a vast income independent of the
Crown. Mary asked her sister what these proceedings meant. "I
hear," said Anne, "that my friends have a mind to make me some
settlement." It is said that the Queen, greatly hurt by an
expression which seemed to imply that she and her husband were
not among her sister's friends, replied with unwonted sharpness,
"Of what friends do you speak? What friends have you except the
King and me?"602 The subject was never again mentioned between
the sisters. Mary was probably sensible that she had made a
mistake in addressing herself to one who was merely a passive
instrument in the hands of others. An attempt was made to open a
negotiation with the Countess. After some inferior agents had
expostulated with her in vain, Shrewsbury waited on her. It might
have been expected that his intervention would have been
successful; for, if the scandalous chronicle of those times could
be trusted, he had stood high, too high, in her favour.603 He was
authorised by the King to promise that, if the Princess would
desist from soliciting the members of the House of Commons to
support her cause, the income of Her Royal Highness should be
increased from thirty thousand pounds to fifty thousand. The
Countess flatly rejected this offer. The King's word, she had the
insolence to hint, was not a sufficient security. "I am
confident," said Shrewsbury, "that His Majesty will strictly
fulfil his engagements. If he breaks them I will not serve him an
hour longer." "That may be very honourable in you," answered the
pertinacious vixen, "but it will be very poor comfort to the
Princess." Shrewsbury, after vainly attempting to move the
servant, was at length admitted to an audience of the mistress.
Anne, in language doubtless dictated by her friend Sarah, told
him that the business had gone too far to be stopped, and must be
left to the decision of the Commons.604

The truth was that the Princess's prompters hoped to obtain from
Parliament a much larger sum than was offered by the King.
Nothing less than seventy thousand a year would content them. But
their cupidity overreached itself. The House of Commons showed a
great disposition to gratify Her Royal Highness. But, when at
length her too eager adherents ventured to name the sum which
they wished to grant, the murmurs were loud. Seventy thousand a
year at a time when the necessary expenses of the State were
daily increasing, when the receipt of the customs was daily
diminishing, when trade was low, when every gentleman, every
farmer, was retrenching something from the charge of his table
and his cellar! The general opinion was that the sum which the
King was understood to be willing to give would be amply
sufficient.605 At last something was conceded on both sides. The
Princess was forced to content herself with fifty thousand a
year; and William agreed that this sum should be settled on her
by Act of Parliament. She rewarded the services of Lady
Marlborough with a pension of a thousand a year606; but this was
in all probability a very small part of what the Churchills
gained by the arrangement.

After these transactions the two royal sisters continued during
many months to live on terms of civility and even of apparent
friendship. But Mary, though she seems to have borne no malice to
Anne, undoubtedly felt against Lady Marlborough as much
resentment as a very gentle heart is capable of feeling.
Marlborough had been out of England during a great part of the
time which his wife had spent in canvassing among the Tories,
and, though he had undoubtedly acted in concert with her, had
acted, as usual, with temper and decorum. He therefore continued
to receive from William many marks of favour which were
unaccompanied by any indication of displeasure.

In the debates on the settling of the revenue, the distinction
between Whigs and Tories does not appear to have been very
clearly marked. In truth, if there was any thing about which the
two parties were agreed, it was the expediency of granting the
customs to the Crown for a time not exceeding four years. But
there were other questions which called forth the old animosity
in all its strength. The Whigs were now in a minority, but a
minority formidable in numbers, and more formidable in ability.
They carried on the parliamentary war, not less acrimoniously
than when they were a majority, but somewhat more artfully. They
brought forward several motions, such as no High Churchman could
well support, yet such as no servant of William and Mary could
well oppose. The Tory who voted for these motions would run a
great risk of being pointed at as a turncoat by the sturdy
Cavaliers of his county. The Tory who voted against those motions
would run a great risk of being frowned upon at Kensington.

It was apparently in pursuance of this policy that the Whigs laid
on the table of the House of Lords a bill declaring all the laws
passed by the late Parliament to be valid laws. No sooner had
this bill been read than the controversy of the preceeding spring
was renewed. The Whigs were joined on this occasion by almost all
those noblemen who were connected with the government. The rigid
Tories, with Nottingham at their head, professed themselves
willing to enact that every statute passed in 1689 should have
the same force that it would have had if it had been passed by a
parliament convoked in a regular manner; but nothing would induce
them to acknowledge that an assembly of lords and gentlemen, who
had come together without authority from the Great Seal, was
constitutionally a Parliament. Few questions seem to have excited
stronger passions than the question, practically altogether
unimportant, whether the bill should or should not be
declaratory. Nottingham, always upright and honourable, but a
bigot and a formalist, was on this subject singularly obstinate
and unreasonable. In one debate he lost his temper, forgot the
decorum which in general he strictly observed, and narrowly
escaped being committed to the custody of the Black Rod.607 After
much wrangling, the Whigs carried their point by a majority of
seven.608 Many peers signed a strong protest written by
Nottingham. In this protest the bill, which was indeed open to
verbal criticism, was impolitely described as being neither good
English nor good sense. The majority passed a resolution that the
protest should be expunged; and against this resolution
Nottingham and his followers again protested.609 The King was
displeased by the pertinacity of his Secretary of State; so much
displeased indeed that Nottingham declared his intention of
resigning the Seals; but the dispute was soon accommodated.
William was too wise not to know the value of an honest man in a
dishonest age. The very scrupulosity which made Nottingham a
mutineer was a security that he would never be a traitor.610

The bill went down to the Lower House; and it was full expected
that the contest there would be long and fierce; but a single
speech settled the question. Somers, with a force and eloquence
which surprised even an audience accustomed to hear him with
pleasure, exposed the absurdity of the doctrine held by the high
Tories. "If the Convention,"--it was thus that he argued,--"was
not a Parliament, how can we be a Parliament? An Act of Elizabeth
provides that no person shall sit or vote in this House till he
has taken the old oath of supremacy. Not one of us has taken that
oath. Instead of it, we have all taken the new oath of supremacy
which the late Parliament substituted for the old oath. It is
therefore a contradiction to say that the Acts of the late
Parliament are not now valid, and yet to ask us to enact that
they shall henceforth be valid. For either they already are so,
or we never can make them so." This reasoning, which was in truth
as unanswerable as that of Euclid, brought the debate to a speedy
close. The bill passed the Commons within forty-eight hours after
it had been read the first time.611

This was the only victory won by the Whigs during the whole
session. They complained loudly in the Lower House of the change
which had been made in the military government of the city of
London. The Tories, conscious of their strength, and heated by
resentment, not only refused to censure what had been done, but
determined to express publicly and formally their gratitude to
the King for having brought in so many churchmen and turned out
so many schismatics. An address of thanks was moved by Clarges,
member for Westminster, who was known to be attached to
Caermarthen. "The alterations which have been made in the City,"
said Clarges, "show that His Majesty has a tender care of us. I
hope that he will make similar alterations in every county of the
realm." The minority struggled hard. "Will you thank the King,"
they said, "for putting the sword into the hands of his most
dangerous enemies? Some of those whom he has been advised to
entrust with military command have not yet been able to bring
themselves to take the oath of allegiance to him. Others were
well known, in the evil days, as stanch jurymen, who were sure to
find an Exclusionist guilty on any evidence or no evidence." Nor
did the Whig orators refrain from using those topics on which all
factions are eloquent in the hour of distress, and which all
factions are but too ready to treat lightly in the hour of
prosperity. "Let us not," they said, "pass a vote which conveys a
reflection on a large body of our countrymen, good subjects, good
Protestants. The King ought to be the head of his whole people.
Let us not make him the head of a party." This was excellent
doctrine; but it scarcely became the lips of men who, a few weeks
before, had opposed the Indemnity Bill and voted for the
Sacheverell Clause. The address was carried by a hundred and
eighty-five votes to a hundred and thirty-six.612

As soon as the numbers had been announced, the minority, smarting
from their defeat, brought forward a motion which caused no
little embarrassment to the Tory placemen. The oath of
allegiance, the Whigs said, was drawn in terms far too lax. It
might exclude from public employment a few honest Jacobites who
were generally too dull to be mischievous; but it was altogether
inefficient as a means of binding the supple and slippery
consciences of cunning priests, who, while affecting to hold the
Jesuits in abhorrence, were proficients in that immoral casuistry
which was the worst part of Jesuitism. Some grave divines had
openly said, others had even dared to write, that they had sworn
fealty to William in a sense altogether different from that in
which they had sworn fealty to James. To James they had plighted
the entire faith which a loyal subject owes to a rightful
sovereign; but, when they promised to bear true allegiance to
William, they meant only that they would not, whilst he was able
to hang them for rebelling or conspiring against him, run any
risk of being hanged. None could wonder that the precepts and
example of the malecontent clergy should have corrupted the
malecontent laity. When Prebendaries and Rectors were not ashamed
to avow that they had equivocated, in the very act of kissing the
New Testament, it was hardly to be expected that attorneys and
taxgatherers would be more scrupulous. The consequence was that
every department swarmed with traitors; that men who ate the
King's bread, men who were entrusted with the duty of collecting
and disbursing his revenues, of victualling his ships, of
clothing his soldiers, of making his artillery ready for the
field, were in the habit of calling him an usurper, and of
drinking to his speedy downfall. Could any government be safe
which was hated and betrayed by its own servants? And was not the
English government exposed to the dangers which, even if all its
servants were true, might well excite serious apprehensions? A
disputed succession, war with France, war in Scotland, war in
Ireland, was not all this enough without treachery in every
arsenal and in every custom house? There must be an oath drawn in
language too precise to be explained away, in language which no
Jacobite could repeat without the consciousness that he was
perjuring himself. Though the zealots of indefeasible hereditary
right had in general no objection to swear allegiance to William,
they would probably not choose to abjure James. On such grounds
as these, an Abjuration Bill of extreme severity was brought into
the House of Commons. It was proposed to enact that every person
who held any office, civil, military, or spiritual, should, on
pain of deprivation, solemnly abjure the exiled King; that the
oath of abjuration might be tendered by any justice of the peace
to any subject of their Majesties; and that, if it were refused,
the recusant should be sent to prison, and should lie there as
long as he continued obstinate.

The severity of this last provision was generally and most justly
blamed. To turn every ignorant meddling magistrate into a state
inquisitor, to insist that a plain man, who lived peaceably, who
obeyed the laws, who paid his taxes, who had never held and who
did not expect ever to hold any office, and who had never
troubled his head about problems of political philosophy, should
declare, under the sanction of an oath, a decided opinion on a
point about which the most learned Doctors of the age had written
whole libraries of controversial books, and to send him to rot in
a gaol if he could not bring himself to swear, would surely have
been the height of tyranny. The clause which required public
functionaries to abjure the deposed King was not open to the same
objections. Yet even against this clause some weighty arguments
were urged. A man, it was said, who has an honest heart and a
sound understanding is sufficiently bound by the present oath.
Every such man, when he swears to be faithful and to bear true
allegiance to King William, does, by necessary implication,
abjure King James. There may doubtless be among the servants of
the State, and even among the ministers of the Church, some
persons who have no sense of honour or religion, and who are
ready to forswear themselves for lucre. There may be others who
have contracted the pernicious habit of quibbling away the most
sacred obligations of morality, and who have convinced themselves
that they can innocently make, with a mental reservation, a
promise which it would be sinful to make without such a
reservation. Against these two classes of Jacobites it is true
that the present test affords no security. But will the new test,
will any test, be more efficacious? Will a person who has no
conscience, or a person whose conscience can be set at rest by
immoral sophistry, hesitate to repeat any phrase that you can
dictate? The former will kiss the book without any scruple at
all. The scruples of the latter will be very easily removed. He
now swears allegiance to one King with a mental reservation. He
will then abjure the other King with a mental reservation. Do not
flatter yourselves that the ingenuity of lawgivers will ever
devise an oath which the ingenuity of casuists will not evade.
What indeed is the value of any oath in such a matter? Among the
many lessons which the troubles of the last generation have left
us none is more plain than this, that no form of words, however
precise, no imprecation, however awful, ever saved, or ever will
save, a government from destruction, Was not the Solemn League
and Covenant burned by the common hangman amidst the huzzas of
tens of thousands who had themselves subscribed it? Among the
statesmen and warriors who bore the chief part in restoring
Charles the Second, how many were there who had not repeatedly
abjured him? Nay, is it not well known that some of those persons
boastfully affirmed that, if they had not abjured him, they never
could have restored him?

The debates were sharp; and the issue during a short time seemed
doubtful; for some of the Tories who were in office were
unwilling to give a vote which might be thought to indicate that
they were lukewarm in the cause of the King whom they served.
William, however, took care to let it be understood that he had
no wish to impose a new test on his subjects. A few words from
him decided the event of the conflict. The bill was rejected
thirty-six hours after it had been brought in by a hundred and
ninety-two votes to a hundred and sixty-five.613

Even after this defeat the Whigs pertinaciously returned to the attack. Having
failed in one House they renewed the battle in
the other. Five days after the Abjuration Bill had been thrown
out in the Commons, another Abjuration Bill, somewhat milder, but
still very severe, was laid on the table of the Lords.614 What
was now proposed was that no person should sit in either House of
Parliament or hold any office, civil, military, or judicial,
without making a declaration that he would stand by William and
Mary against James and James's adherents. Every male in the
kingdom who had attained the age of sixteen was to make the same
declaration before a certain day. If he failed to do so he was to
pay double taxes and to be incapable of exercising the elective
franchise.

On the day fixed for the second reading, the King came down to
the House of Peers. He gave his assent in form to several laws,
unrobed, took his seat on a chair of state which had been placed
for him, and listened with much interest to the debate. To the
general surprise, two noblemen who had been eminently zealous for
the Revolution spoke against the proposed test. Lord Wharton, a
Puritan who had fought for the Long Parliament, said, with
amusing simplicity, that he was a very old man, that he had lived
through troubled times, that he had taken a great many oaths in
his day, and that he was afraid that he had not kept them all. He
prayed that the sin might not be laid to his charge; and he
declared that he could not consent to lay any more snares for his
own soul and for the souls of his neighbours. The Earl of
Macclesfield, the captain of the English volunteers who had
accompanied William from Helvoetsluys to Torbay, declared that he
was much in the same case with Lord Wharton. Marlborough
supported the bill. He wondered, he said, that it should be
opposed by Macclesfield, who had borne so preeminent a part in
the Revolution. Macclesfield, irritated by the charge of
inconsistency, retorted with terrible severity: "The noble Earl,"
he said, "exaggerates the share which I had in the deliverance of
our country. I was ready, indeed, and always shall be ready, to
venture my life in defence of her laws and liberties. But there
are lengths to which, even for the sake of her laws and
liberties, I could never go. I only rebelled against a bad King;
there were those who did much more."

Marlborough, though not easily discomposed, could not but feel
the edge of this sarcasm; William looked displeased; and the
aspect of the whole House was troubled and gloomy. It was
resolved by fifty-one votes to forty that the bill should be
committed; and it was committed, but never reported. After many
hard struggles between the Whigs headed by Shrewsbury and the
Tories headed by Caermarthen, it was so much mutilated that it
retained little more than its name, and did not seem to those who
had introduced it to be worth any further contest.615

The discomfiture of the Whigs was completed by a communication
from the King. Caermarthen appeared in the House of Lords bearing
in his hand a parchment signed by William. It was an Act of Grace
for political offences.

Between an Act of Grace originating with the Sovereign and an Act
of Indemnity originating with the Estates of the Realm there are
some remarkable distinctions. An Act of Indemnity passes through
all the stages through which other laws pass, and may, during its
progress, be amended by either House. An Act of Grace is received
with peculiar marks of respect, is read only once by the Lords
and once by the Commons, and must be either rejected altogether
or accepted as it stands.616 William had not ventured to submit
such an Act to the preceding Parliament. But in the new
Parliament he was certain of a majority. The minority gave no
trouble. The stubborn spirit which had, during two sessions,
obstructed the progress of the Bill of Indemnity had been at
length broken by defeats and humiliations. Both Houses stood up
uncovered while the Act of Grace was read, and gave their
sanction to it without one dissentient voice.

There would not have been this unanimity had not a few great
criminals been excluded from the benefits of the amnesty.
Foremost among them stood the surviving members of the High Court
of Justice which had sate on Charles the First. With these
ancient men were joined the two nameless executioners who had
done their office, with masked faces, on the scaffold before the
Banqueting House. None knew who they were, or of what rank. It
was probable that they had been long dead. Yet it was thought
necessary to declare that, if even now, after the lapse of forty-
one years, they should be discovered, they would still be liable
to the punishment of their great crime. Perhaps it would hardly
have been thought necessary to mention these men, if the
animosities of the preceding generation had not been rekindled by
the recent appearance of Ludlow in England. About thirty of the
agents of the tyranny of James were left to the law. With these
exceptions, all political offences, committed before the day on
which the royal signature was affixed to the Act, were covered
with a general oblivion.617 Even the criminals who were by name
excluded had little to fear. Many of them  were in  foreign
countries; and those who were in England were well assured that,
unless they committed some new fault, they would not be molested.

The Act of Grace the nation owed to William alone; and it is one
of his noblest and purest titles to renown. From the commencement
of the civil troubles of the seventeenth century down to the
Revolution, every victory gained by either party had been
followed by a sanguinary proscription. When the Roundheads
triumphed over the Cavaliers, when the Cavaliers triumphed over
the Roundheads, when the fable of the Popish plot gave the
ascendency to the Whigs, when the detection of the Rye House Plot
transferred the ascendency to the Tories, blood, and more blood,
and still more blood had flowed. Every great explosion and every
great recoil of public feeling had been accompanied by severities
which, at the time, the predominant faction loudly applauded, but
which, on a calm review, history and posterity have condemned. No
wise and humane man, whatever may be his political opinions, now
mentions without reprehension the death either of Laud or of
Vane, either of Stafford or of Russell. Of the alternate
butcheries the last and the worst is that which is inseparably
associated with the names of James and Jeffreys. But it assuredly
would not have been the last, perhaps it might not have been the
worst, if William had not had the virtue and the firmness
resolutely to withstand the importunity of his most zealous
adherents. These men were bent on exacting a terrible retribution
for all they had undergone during seven disastrous years. The
scaffold of Sidney, the gibbet of Cornish, the stake at which
Elizabeth Gaunt had perished in the flames for the crime of
harbouring a fugitive, the porches of the Somersetshire churches
surmounted by the skulls and quarters of murdered peasants, the
holds of those Jamaica ships from which every day the carcass of
some prisoner dead of thirst and foul air had been flung to the
sharks, all these things were fresh in the memory of the party
which the Revolution had made, for a time, dominant in the State.
Some chiefs of that party had redeemed their necks by paying
heavy ransom. Others had languished long in Newgate. Others had
starved and shivered, winter after winter, in the garrets of
Amsterdam. It was natural that in the day of their power and
prosperity they should wish to inflict some part of what they had
suffered. During a whole year they pursued their scheme of
revenge. They succeeded in defeating Indemnity Bill after
Indemnity Bill. Nothing stood between them and their victims, but
William's immutable resolution that the glory of the great
deliverance which he had wrought should not be sullied by
cruelty. His clemency was peculiar to himself. It was not the
clemency of an ostentatious man, or of a sentimental man, or of
an easy tempered man. It was cold, unconciliating, inflexible. It
produced no fine stage effects. It drew on him the savage
invectives of those whose malevolent passions he refused to
satisfy. It won for him no gratitude from those who owed to him
fortune, liberty and life. While the violent Whigs railed at his
lenity, the agents of the fallen government, as soon as they
found themselves safe, instead of acknowledging their obligations
to him, reproached him in insulting language with the mercy which
he had extended to them. His Act of Grace, they said, had
completely refuted his Declaration. Was it possible to believe
that, if there had been any truth in the charges which he had
brought against the late government, he would have granted
impunity to the guilty? It was now acknowledged by himself, under
his own hand, that the stories by which he and his friends had
deluded the nation and driven away the royal family were mere
calumnies devised to serve a turn. The turn had been served; and
the accusations by which he had inflamed the public mind to
madness were coolly withdrawn.618 But none of these things moved
him. He had done well. He had risked his popularity with men who
had been his warmest admirers, in order to give repose and
security to men by whom his name was never mentioned without a
curse. Nor had he conferred a less benefit on those whom he had
disappointed of their revenge than on those whom he had
protected. If he had saved one faction from a proscription, he
had saved the other from the reaction which such a proscription
would inevitably have produced. If his people did not justly
appreciate his policy, so much the worse for them. He had
discharged his duty by them. He feared no obloquy; and he wanted
no thanks.

On the twentieth of May the Act of Grace was passed. The King
then informed the Houses that his visit to Ireland could no
longer be delayed, that he had therefore determined to prorogue
them, and that, unless some unexpected emergency made their
advice and assistance necessary to him, he should not call them
again from their homes till the next winter. "Then," he said, "I
hope, by the blessing of God, we shall have a happy meeting."

The Parliament had passed an Act providing that, whenever he
should go out of England, it should be lawful for Mary to
administer the government of the kingdom in his name and her own.
It was added that he should nevertheless, during his absence,
retain all his authority. Some objections were made to this
arrangement. Here, it was said, were two supreme Powers in one
State. A public functionary might receive diametrically opposite
orders from the King and the Queen, and might not know which to
obey. The objection was, beyond all doubt, speculatively just;
but there was such perfect confidence and affection, between the
royal pair that no practical inconvenience was to be
apprehended.619

As far as Ireland was concerned, the prospects of William were
much more cheering than they had been a few months earlier. The
activity with which he had personally urged forward the
preparations for the next campaign had produced an extraordinary
effect. The nerves of the government were new strung. In every
department of the military administration the influence of a
vigorous mind was perceptible. Abundant supplies of food,
clothing and medicine, very different in quality from those which
Shales had furnished, were sent across Saint George's Channel. A
thousand baggage waggons had been made or collected with great
expedition; and, during some weeks, the road between London and
Chester was covered with them. Great numbers of recruits were
sent to fill the chasms which pestilence had made in the English
ranks. Fresh regiments from Scotland, Cheshire, Lancashire, and
Cumberland had landed in the Bay of Belfast. The uniforms and
arms of the new corners clearly indicated the potent influence of
the master's eye. With the British battalions were interspersed
several hardy bands of German and Scandinavian mercenaries.
Before the end of May. the English force in Ulster amounted to
thirty thousand fighting men. A few more troops and an immense
quantity of military stores were on board of a fleet which lay in
the estuary of the Dee, and which was ready to weigh anchor as
soon as the King was on board.620

James ought to have made an equally good use of the time during
which his army had been in winter quarters. Strict discipline and
regular drilling might, in the interval between November and May,
have turned the athletic and enthusiastic peasants who were
assembled under his standard into good soldiers. But the
opportunity was lost. The Court of Dublin was, during that season
of inaction, busied with dice and claret, love letters and
challenges. The aspect of the capital was indeed not very
brilliant. The whole number of coaches which could be mustered
there, those of the King and of the French Legation included, did
not amount to forty.621 But though there was little splendour
there was much dissoluteness. Grave Roman Catholics shook their
heads and said that the Castle did not look like the palace of a
King who gloried in being the champion of the Church.622 The
military administration was as deplorable as ever. The cavalry
indeed was, by the exertions of some gallant officers, kept in a
high state of efficiency. But a regiment of infantry differed in
nothing but name from a large gang of Rapparees. Indeed a gang of
Rapparees gave less annoyance to peaceable citizens, and more
annoyance to the enemy, than a regiment of infantry. Avaux
strongly represented, in a memorial which he delivered to James,
the abuses which made the Irish foot a curse and a scandal to
Ireland. Whole companies, said the ambassador, quit their colours
on the line of march and wander to right and left pillaging and
destroying; the soldier takes no care of his arms; the officer
never troubles himself to ascertain whether the arms are in good
order; the consequence is that one man in every three has lost
his musket, and that another man in every three has a musket that
will not go off. Avaux adjured the King to prohibit marauding, to
give orders that the troops should be regularly exercised, and to
punish every officer who suffered his men to neglect their
weapons and accoutrements. If these things were done, His Majesty
might hope to have, in the approaching spring, an army with which
the enemy would be unable to contend. This was good advice; but
James was so far from taking it that he would hardly listen to it
with patience. Before he had heard eight lines read he flew into
a passion and accused the ambassador of exaggeration. "This
paper, Sir," said Avaux, "is not written to be published. It is
meant solely for Your Majesty's information; and, in a paper
meant solely for Your Majesty's information, flattery and
disguise would be out of place; but I will not persist in reading
what is so disagreeable." "Go on," said James very angrily; "I
will hear the whole." He gradually became calmer, took the
memorial, and promised to adopt some of the suggestions which it
contained. But his promise was soon forgotten.623

His financial administration was of a piece with his military
administration. His one fiscal resource was robbery, direct or
indirect. Every Protestant who had remained in any part of the
three southern provinces of Ireland was robbed directly, by the
simple process of taking money out of his strong box, drink out
of his cellars, fuel from his turf stack, and clothes from his
wardrobe. He was robbed indirectly by a new issue of counters,
smaller in size and baser in material than any which had yet
borne the image and superscription of James. Even brass had begun
to be scarce at Dublin; and it was necessary to ask assistance
from Lewis, who charitably bestowed on his ally an old cracked
piece of cannon to be coined into crowns and shillings.624

But the French king had determined to send over succours of a
very different kind. He proposed to take into his own service,
and to form by the best discipline then known in the world, four
Irish regiments. They were to be commanded by Macarthy, who had
been severely wounded and taken prisoner at Newton Butler. His
wounds had been healed; and he had regained his liberty by
violating his parole. This disgraceful breach of faith he had
made more disgraceful by paltry tricks and sophistical excuses
which would have become a Jesuit better than a gentleman and a
soldier. Lewis was willing that the Irish regiments should be
sent to him in rags and unarmed, and insisted only that the men
should be stout, and that the officers should not be bankrupt
traders and discarded lacqueys, but, if possible, men of good
family who had seen service. In return for these troops, who were
in number not quite four thousand, he undertook to send to
Ireland between seven and eight thousand excellent French
infantry, who were likely in a day of battle to be of more use
than all the kernes of Leinster, Munster and Connaught
together.625

One great error he committed. The army which he was sending to
assist James, though small indeed when compared with the army of
Flanders or with the army of the Rhine, was destined for a
service on which the fate of Europe might depend, and ought
therefore to have been commanded by a general of eminent
abilities. There was no want of such generals in the French
service. But James and his Queen begged hard for Lauzun, and
carried this point against the strong representations of Avaux,
against the advice of Louvois, and against the judgment of Lewis
himself.

When Lauzun went to the cabinet of Louvois to receive
instructions, the wise minister held language which showed how
little confidence he felt in the vain and eccentric knight
errant. "Do not, for God's sake, suffer yourself to be hurried
away by your desire of fighting. Put all your glory in tiring the
English out; and, above all things, maintain strict
discipline."626

Not only was the appointment of Lauzun in itself a bad
appointment: but, in order that one man might fill a post for
which he was unfit, it was necessary to remove two men from posts
for which they were eminently fit. Immoral and hardhearted as
Rosen and Avaux were, Rosen was a skilful captain, and Avaux was
a skilful politician. Though it is not probable that they would
have been able to avert the doom of Ireland, it is probable that
they might have been able to protract the contest; and it was
evidently for the interest of France that the contest should be
protracted. But it would have been an affront to the old general
to put him under the orders of Lauzun; and between the ambassador
and Lauzun there was such an enmity that they could not be
expected to act cordially together. Both Rosen and Avaux,
therefore, were, with many soothing assurances of royal
approbation and favour, recalled to France. They sailed from Cork
early in the spring by the fleet which had conveyed Lauzun
thither.627 Lauzun had no sooner landed than he found that,
though he had been long expected, nothing had been prepared for
his reception. No lodgings had been provided for his men, no
place of security for his stores, no horses, no carriages.628 His
troops had to undergo the hardships of a long march through a desert before they
arrived at Dublin. At Dublin, indeed, they found
tolerable accommodation. They were billeted on Protestants, lived
at free quarter, had plenty of bread, and threepence a day.
Lauzun was appointed Commander in Chief of the Irish army, and
took up his residence in the Castle.629 His salary was the same
with that of the Lord Lieutenant, eight thousand Jacobuses,
equivalent to ten thousand pounds sterling, a year. This sum
James offered to pay, not in the brass which bore his own effigy,
but in French gold. But Lauzun, among whose faults avarice had no
place, refused to fill his own coffers from an almost empty
treasury.630

On him and on the Frenchmen who accompanied him the misery of
the Irish people and the imbecility of the Irish government
produced an effect which they found it difficult to describe.
Lauzun wrote to Louvois that the Court and the whole kingdom were
in a state not to be imagined by a person who had always lived in
well governed countries. It was, he said, a chaos, such as he had
read of in the book of Genesis. The whole business of all the
public functionaries was to quarrel with each other, and to
plunder the government and the people. After he had been about a
month at the Castle, he declared that he would not go through
such another month for all the world. His ablest officers
confirmed his testimony.631 One of them, indeed, was so unjust as
to represent the people of Ireland not merely as ignorant and
idle, which they were, but as hopelessly stupid and unfeeling,
which they assuredly were not. The English policy, he said, had
so completely brutalised them, that they could hardly be called
human beings. They were insensible to praise and blame, to
promises and threats. And yet it was pity of them; for they were
physically the finest race of men in the world.632

By this time Schomberg had opened the campaign auspiciously. He
had with little difficulty taken Charlemont, the last important
fastness which the Irish occupied in Ulster. But the great work
of reconquering the three southern provinces of the island he
deferred till William should arrive. William meanwhile was busied
in making arrangements for the government and defence of England
during his absence. He well knew that the Jacobites were on the
alert. They had not till very lately been an united and organized
faction. There had been, to use Melfort's phrase, numerous gangs,
which were all in communication with James at Dublin Castle, or
with Mary of Modena at Saint Germains, but which had no
connection with each other and were unwilling to trust each
other.633 But since it had been known that the usurper was about
to cross the sea, and that his sceptre would be left in a female
hand, these gangs had been drawing close together, and had begun
to form one extensive confederacy. Clarendon, who had refused the
oaths, and, Aylesbury, who had dishonestly taken them, were among
the chief traitors. Dartmouth, though he had sworn allegiance to
the sovereigns who were in possession, was one of their most
active enemies, and undertook what may be called the maritime
department of the plot. His mind was constantly occupied by
schemes, disgraceful to an English seaman, for the destruction of
the English fleets and arsenals. He was in close communication
with some naval officers, who, though they served the new
government, served it sullenly and with half a heart; and he
flattered himself that by promising these men ample rewards, and
by artfully inflaming the jealous animosity with which they
regarded the Dutch flag, he should prevail on them to desert and
to carry their ships into some French or Irish port.634

The conduct of Penn was scarcely less scandalous. He was a
zealous and busy Jacobite; and his new way of life was even more
unfavourable than his late way of life had been to moral purity.
It was hardly possible to be at once a consistent Quaker and a
courtier: but it was utterly impossible to be at once a
consistent Quaker and a conspirator. It is melancholy to relate
that Penn, while professing to consider even defensive war as
sinful, did every thing in his power to bring a foreign army into
the heart of his own country. He wrote to inform James that the
adherents of the Prince of Orange dreaded nothing so much as an
appeal to the sword, and that, if England were now invaded from
France or from Ireland, the number of Royalists would appear to
be greater than ever. Avaux thought this letter so important,
that he sent a translation of it to Lewis.635 A good effect, the
shrewd ambassador wrote, had been produced, by this and similar
communications, on the mind of King James. His Majesty was at
last convinced that he could recover his dominions only sword in
hand. It is a curious fact that it should have been reserved for
the great preacher of peace to produce this conviction in the
mind of the old tyrant.636 Penn's proceedings had not escaped the
observation of the government. Warrants had been out against him;
and he had been taken into custody; but the evidence against him
had not been such as would support a charge of high treason: he
had, as with all his faults he deserved to have, many friends
in every party; he therefore soon regained his liberty, and
returned to his plots.637

But the chief conspirator was Richard Graham, Viscount Preston,
who had, in the late reign, been Secretary of State. Though a
peer in Scotland, he was only a baronet in England. He had,
indeed, received from Saint Germains an English patent of
nobility; but the patent bore a date posterior to that flight
which the Convention had pronounced an abdication. The Lords had,
therefore, not only refused to admit him to a share of their
privileges, but had sent him to prison for presuming to call
himself one of their order. He had, however, by humbling himself,
and by withdrawing his claim, obtained his liberty.638 Though the
submissive language which he had condescended to use on this
occasion did not indicate a spirit prepared for martyrdom, he was
regarded by his party, and by the world in general, as a man of
courage and honour. He still retained the seals of his office,
and was still considered by the adherents of indefeasible
hereditary right as the real Secretary of State. He was in high
favour with Lewis, at whose court he had formerly resided, and
had, since the Revolution, been intrusted by the French
government with considerable sums of money for political
purposes.639

While Preston was consulting in the capital with the other heads
of the faction, the rustic Jacobites were laying in arms, holding
musters, and forming themselves into companies, troops, and
regiments. There were alarming symptoms in Worcestershire. In
Lancashire many gentlemen had received commissions signed by
James, called themselves colonels and captains, and made out long
lists of noncommissioned officers and privates. Letters from
Yorkshire brought news that large bodies of men, who seemed to
have met for no good purpose, had been seen on the moors near
Knaresborough. Letters from Newcastle gave an account of a great
match at football which had been played in Northumberland, and
was suspected to have been a pretext for a gathering of the
disaffected. In the crowd, it was said, were a hundred and fifty
horsemen well mounted and armed, of whom many were Papists.640

Meantime packets of letters full of treason were constantly
passing and repassing between Kent and Picardy, and between Wales
and Ireland. Some of the messengers were honest fanatics; but
others were mere mercenaries, and trafficked in the secrets of
which they were the bearers.

Of these double traitors the most remarkable was William Fuller.
This man has himself told us that, when he was very young, he
fell in with a pamphlet which contained an account of the
flagitious life and horrible death of Dangerfield. The boy's
imagination was set on fire; he devoured the book; he almost got
it by heart; and he was soon seized, and ever after haunted, by a
strange presentiment that his fate would resemble that of the
wretched adventurer whose history he had so eagerly read.641 It
might have been supposed that the prospect of dying in Newgate,
with a back flayed and an eye knocked out, would not have seemed
very attractive. But experience proves that there are some
distempered minds for which notoriety, even when accompanied with
pain and shame, has an irresistible fascination. Animated by this
loathsome ambition, Fuller equalled, and perhaps surpassed, his
model. He was bred a Roman Catholic, and was page to Lady
Melfort, when Lady Melfort shone at Whitehall as one of the
loveliest women in the train of Mary of Modena. After the
Revolution, he followed his mistress to France, was repeatedly
employed in delicate and perilous commissions, and was thought at
Saint Germains to be a devoted servant of the House of Stuart. In
truth, however, he had, in one of his journeys to London, sold
himself to the new government, and had abjured the faith in which
he had been brought up. The honour, if it is to be so called, of
turning him from a worthless Papist into a worthless Protestant
he ascribed, with characteristic impudence, to the lucid
reasoning and blameless life of Tillotson.

In the spring of 1690, Mary of Modena wished to send to her
correspondents in London some highly important despatches. As
these despatches were too bulky to be concealed in the clothes of
a single messenger, it was necessary to employ two confidential
persons. Fuller was one. The other was a zealous young Jacobite
called Crone. Before they set out, they received full
instructions from the Queen herself. Not a scrap of paper was to
be detected about them by an ordinary search: but their buttons
contained letters written in invisible ink.

The pair proceeded to Calais. The governor of that town furnished
them with a boat, which, under cover of the night, set them on
the low marshy coast of Kent, near the lighthouse of Dungeness.
They walked to a farmhouse, procured horses, and took different
roads to London. Fuller hastened to the palace at Kensington, and
delivered the documents with which he was charged into the King's
hand. The first letter which William unrolled seemed to contain
only florid compliments: but a pan of charcoal was lighted: a
liquor well known to the diplomatists of that age was applied to
the paper: an unsavoury steam filled the closet; and lines full
of grave meaning began to appear.

The first thing to be done was to secure Crone. He had
unfortunately had time to deliver his letters before he was
caught: but a snare was laid for him into which he easily fell.
In truth the sincere Jacobites were generally wretched plotters.
There was among them an unusually large proportion of sots,
braggarts, and babblers; and Crone was one of these. Had he been
wise, he would have shunned places of public resort, kept strict
guard over his lips, and stinted himself to one bottle at a meal.
He was found by the messengers of the government at a tavern
table in Gracechurch Street, swallowing bumpers to the health of
King James, and ranting about the coming restoration, the French
fleet, and the thousands of honest Englishmen who were awaiting
the signal to rise in arms for their rightful Sovereign. He was
carried to the Secretary's office at Whitehall. He at first
seemed to be confident and at his ease: but when Fuller appeared
among the bystanders at liberty, and in a fashionable garb, with
a sword, the prisoner's courage fell; and he was scarcely able to
articulate.642

The news that Fuller had turned king's evidence, that Crone had
been arrested, and that important letters from Saint Germains
were in the hands of William, flew fast through London, and
spread dismay among all who were conscious of guilt.643 It was
true that the testimony of one witness, even if that witness had
been more respectable than Fuller, was not legally sufficient to
convict any person of high treason. But Fuller had so managed
matters that several witnesses could be produced to corroborate
his evidence against Crone; and, if Crone, under the strong
terror of death, should imitate Fuller's example, the heads of
all the chiefs of the conspiracy would be at the mercy of the
government. The spirits of the Jacobites rose, however, when it
was known that Crone, though repeatedly interrogated by those
who had him in their power, and though assured that nothing but a
frank confession could save his life, had resolutely continued
silent. What effect a verdict of Guilty and the near prospect of
the gallows might produce on him remained to be seen. His
accomplices were by no means willing that his fortitude should be
tried by so severe a test. They therefore employed numerous
artifices, legal and illegal, to avert a conviction. A woman
named Clifford, with whom he had lodged, and who was one of the
most active and cunning agents of the Jacobite faction, was
entrusted with the duty of keeping him steady to the cause, and
of rendering to him services from which scrupulous or timid
agents might have shrunk. When the dreaded day came, Fuller was
too ill to appear in the witness box, and the trial was
consequently postponed. He asserted that his malady was not
natural, that a noxious drug had been administered to him in a
dish of porridge, that his nails were discoloured, that his hair
came off, and that able physicians pronounced him poisoned. But
such stories, even when they rest on authority much better than
that of Fuller, ought to be received with great distrust.

While Crone was awaiting his trial, another agent of the Court of
Saint Germains, named Tempest, was seized on the road between
Dover and London, and was found to be the bearer of numerous
letters addressed to malecontents in England.644

Every day it became more plain that the State was surrounded by
dangers: and yet it was absolutely necessary that, at this
conjuncture, the able and resolute Chief of the State should quit
his post.

William, with painful anxiety, such as he alone was able to
conceal under an appearance of stoical serenity, prepared to take
his departure. Mary was in agonies of grief; and her distress
affected him more than was imagined by those who judged of his
heart by his demeanour.645 He knew too that he was about to leave
her surrounded by difficulties with which her habits had not
qualified her to contend. She would be in constant need of wise
and upright counsel; and where was such counsel to be found?
There were indeed among his servants many able men and a few
virtuous men. But, even when he was present, their political and
personal animosities had too often made both their abilities and
their virtues useless to him. What chance was there that the
gentle Mary would be able to restrain that party spirit and that
emulation which had been but very imperfectly kept in order by
her resolute and politic lord? If the interior cabinet which was
to assist the Queen were composed exclusively either of Whigs or
of Tories, half the nation would be disgusted. Yet, if Whigs and
Tories were mixed, it was certain that there would be constant
dissension. Such was William's situation that he had only a
choice of evils.

All these difficulties were increased by the conduct of
Shrewsbury. The character of this man is a curious study. He
seemed to be the petted favourite both of nature and of fortune.
Illustrious birth, exalted rank, ample possessions, fine parts,
extensive acquirements, an agreeable person, manners singularly
graceful and engaging, combined to make him an object of
admiration and envy. But, with all these advantages, he had some
moral and intellectual peculiarities which made him a torment to
himself and to all connected with him. His conduct at the time of
the Revolution had given the world a high opinion, not merely of
his patriotism, but of his courage, energy and decision. It
should seem, however, that youthful enthusiasm and the
exhilaration produced by public sympathy and applause had, on
that occasion, raised him above himself. Scarcely any other part
of his life was of a piece with that splendid commencement. He
had hardly become Secretary of State when it appeared that his
nerves were too weak for such a post. The daily toil, the heavy
responsibility, the failures, the mortifications, the obloquy,
which are inseparable from power, broke his spirit, soured his
temper, and impaired his health. To such natures as his the
sustaining power of high religious principle seems to be
peculiarly necessary; and unfortunately Shrewsbury had, in the
act of shaking off the yoke of that superstition in which he had
been brought up, liberated himself also from more salutary bands
which might perhaps have braced his too delicately constituted
mind into stedfastness and uprightness. Destitute of such
support, he was, with great abilities, a weak man, and, though
endowed with many amiable and attractive qualities, could not be
called an honest man. For his own happiness, he should either
have been much better or much worse. As it was, he never knew
either that noble peace of mind which is the reward of rectitude,
or that abject peace of mind which springs from impudence and
insensibility. Few people who have had so little power to resist
temptation have suffered so cruelly from remorse and shame.

To a man of this temper the situation of a minister of state
during the year which followed the Revolution must have been
constant torture. The difficulties by which the government was
beset on all sides, the malignity of its enemies, the
unreasonableness of its friends, the virulence with which the
hostile factions fell on each other and on every mediator who
attempted to part them, might indeed have discouraged a more
resolute spirit. Before Shrewsbury had been six months in office,
he had completely lost heart and head. He began to address to
William letters which it is difficult to imagine that a prince so
strongminded can have read without mingled compassion and
contempt. "I am sensible,"--such was the constant burden of these
epistles,--"that I am unfit for my place. I cannot exert
myself. I am not the same man that I was half a year ago. My
health is giving way. My mind is on the rack. My memory is
failing. Nothing but quiet and retirement can restore me."
William returned friendly and soothing answers; and, for a time,
these answers calmed the troubled mind of his minister.646 But at
length the dissolution, the general election, the change in the
Commissions of Peace and Lieutenancy, and finally the debates on
the two Abjuration Bills, threw Shrewsbury into a state
bordering on distraction. He was angry with the Whigs for using
the King ill, and yet was still more angry with the King for
showing favour to the Tories. At what moment and by what
influence, the unhappy man was induced to commit a treason, the
consciousness of which threw a dark shade over all his remaining
years, is not accurately known. But it is highly probable that
his mother, who, though the most abandoned of women, had great
power over him, took a fatal advantage of some unguarded hour
when he was irritated by finding his advice slighted, and that of
Danby and Nottingham preferred. She was still a member of that
Church which her son had quitted, and may have thought that, by
reclaiming him from rebellion, she might make some atonement for
the violation of her marriage vow and the murder of her lord.647
What is certain is that, before the end of the spring of 1690,
Shrewsbury had offered his services to James, and that James had
accepted them. One proof of the sincerity of the convert was
demanded. He must resign the seals which he had taken from the
hand of the usurper.648 It is probable that Shrewsbury had
scarcely committed his fault when he began to repent of it. But
he had not strength of mind to stop short in the path of evil.
Loathing his own baseness, dreading a detection which must be
fatal to his honour, afraid to go forward, afraid to go back, he
underwent tortures of which it is impossible to think without
commiseration. The true cause of his distress was as yet a
profound secret; but his mental struggles and changes of purpose
were generally known, and furnished the town, during some weeks,
with topics of conversation. One night, when he was actually
setting out in a state of great excitement for the palace, with
the seals in his hand, he was induced by Burnet to defer his
resignation for a few hours. Some days later, the eloquence of
Tillotson was employed for the same purpose.649 Three or four
times the Earl laid the ensigns of his office on the table of the
royal closet, and was three or four times induced, by the kind
expostulations of the master whom he was conscious of having
wronged, to take them up and carry them away. Thus the
resignation was deferred till the eve of the King's departure. By
that time agitation had thrown Shrewsbury into a low fever.
Bentinck, who made a last effort to persuade him to retain
office, found him in bed and too ill for conversation.650 The
resignation so often tendered was at length accepted; and during
some months Nottingham was the only Secretary of State.

It was no small addition to William's troubles that, at such a
moment, his government should be weakened by this defection. He
tried, however, to do his best with the materials which remained
to him, and finally selected nine privy councillors, by whose
advice he enjoined Mary to be guided. Four of these, Devonshire,
Dorset, Monmouth, and Edward Russell, were Whigs. The other five,
Caermarthen, Pembroke, Nottingham, Marlborough, and Lowther, were
Tories.651

William ordered the Nine to attend him at the office of the
Secretary of State. When they were assembled, he came leading in
the Queen, desired them to be seated, and addressed to them a few
earnest and weighty words. "She wants experience," he said; "but
I hope that, by choosing you to be her counsellors, I have
supplied that defect. I put my kingdom into your hands. Nothing
foreign or domestic shall be kept secret from you. I implore you
to be diligent and to be united."652 In private he told his wife
what he thought of the characters of the Nine; and it should
seem, from her letters to him, that there were few of the number
for whom he expressed any high esteem. Marlborough was to be her
guide in military affairs, and was to command the troops in
England. Russell, who was Admiral of the Blue, and had been
rewarded for the service which he had done at the time of the
Revolution with the lucrative place of Treasurer of the Navy, was
well fitted to be her adviser on all questions relating to the
fleet. But Caermarthen was designated as the person on whom, in
case of any difference of opinion in the council, she ought
chiefly to rely. Caermarthen's sagacity and experience were
unquestionable; his principles, indeed, were lax; but, if there
was any person in existence to whom he was likely to be true,
that person was Mary. He had long been in a peculiar manner her
friend and servant: he had gained a high place in her favour by
bringing about her marriage; and he had, in the Convention,
carried his zeal for her interests to a length which she had
herself blamed as excessive. There was, therefore, every reason
to hope that he would serve her at this critical conjuncture with
sincere good will.653

One of her nearest kinsmen, on the other hand, was one of her
bitterest enemies. The evidence which was in the possession of
the government proved beyond dispute that Clarendon was deeply
concerned in the Jacobite schemes of insurrection. But the Queen
was most unwilling that her kindred should be harshly treated;
and William, remembering through what ties she had broken, and
what reproaches she had incurred, for his sake, readily gave her
uncle's life and liberty to her intercession. But, before the
King set out for Ireland, he spoke seriously to Rochester. "Your
brother has been plotting against me. I am sure of it. I have the
proofs under his own hand. I was urged to leave him out of the
Act of Grace; but I would not do what would have given so much
pain to the Queen. For her sake I forgive the past; but my Lord
Clarendon will do well to be cautious for the future. If not, he
will find that these are no jesting matters." Rochester
communicated the admonition to Clarendon. Clarendon, who was in
constant correspondence with Dublin and Saint Germains, protested
that his only wish was to be quiet, and that, though he had a
scruple about the oaths, the existing government had not a more
obedient subject than he purposed to be.654

Among the letters which the government had intercepted was one
from James to Penn. That letter, indeed, was not legal evidence
to prove that the person to whom it was addressed had been guilty
of high treason; but it raised suspicions which are now known to
have been well founded. Penn was brought before the Privy
Council, and interrogated. He said very truly that he could not
prevent people from writing to him, and that he was not
accountable for what they might write to him. He acknowledged
that he was bound to the late King by ties of gratitude and
affection which no change of fortune could dissolve. "I should be
glad to do him any service in his private affairs: but I owe a
sacred duty to my country; and therefore I was never so wicked as
even to think of endeavouring to bring him back." This was a
falsehood; and William was probably aware that it was so. He was
unwilling however to deal harshly with a man who had many titles
to respect, and who was not likely to be a very formidable
plotter. He therefore declared himself satisfied, and proposed to
discharge the prisoner. Some of the Privy Councillors, however,
remonstrated; and Penn was required to give bail.655

On the day before William's departure, he called Burnet into his
closet, and, in firm but mournful language, spoke of the dangers
which on every side menaced the realm, of the fury or the
contending factions, and of the evil spirit which seemed to
possess too many of the clergy. "But my trust is in God. I will
go through with my work or perish in it. Only I cannot help
feeling for the poor Queen;" and twice he repeated with unwonted
tenderness, "the poor Queen." "If you love me," he added, "wait
on her often, and give her what help you can. As for me, but for
one thing, I should enjoy the prospect of being on horseback and
under canvass again. For I am sure I am fitter to direct a
campaign than to manage your House of Lords and Commons. But,
though I know that I am in the path of duty, it is hard on my
wife that her father and I must be opposed to each other in the
field. God send that no harm may happen to him. Let me have your
prayers, Doctor." Burnet retired greatly moved, and doubtless put
up, with no common fervour, those prayers for which his master
had asked.656

On the following day, the fourth of June, the King set out for
Ireland. Prince George had offered his services, had equipped
himself at great charge, and fully expected to be complimented
with a seat in the royal coach. But William, who promised himself
little pleasure or advantage from His Royal Highness's
conversation, and who seldom stood on ceremony, took Portland for
a travelling companion, and never once, during the whole of that
eventful campaign, seemed to be aware of the Prince's
existence.657 George, if left to himself, would hardly have
noticed the affront. But, though he was too dull to feel, his
wife felt for him; and her resentment was studiously kept alive
by mischiefmakers of no common dexterity. On this, as on many
other occasions, the infirmities of William's temper proved
seriously detrimental to the great interests of which he was the
guardian. His reign would have been far more prosperous if, with
his own courage, capacity and elevation of mind, he had had a
little of the easy good humour and politeness of his uncle
Charles.

In four days the King arrived at Chester, where a fleet of
transports was awaiting the signal for sailing. He embarked on
the eleventh of June, and was convoyed across Saint George's
Channel by a squadron of men of war under the command of Sir
Cloudesley Shovel.658

The month which followed William's departure from London was one
of the most eventful and anxious months in the whole history of
England. A few hours after he had set out, Crone was brought to
the bar of the Old Bailey. A great array of judges was on the
Bench. Fuller had recovered sufficiently to make his appearance
in court; and the trial proceeded. The Jacobites had been
indefatigable in their efforts to ascertain the political
opinions of the persons whose names were on the jury list. So
many were challenged that there was some difficulty in making up
the number of twelve; and among the twelve was one on whom the
malecontents thought that they could depend. Nor were they
altogether mistaken; for this man held out against his eleven
companions all night and half the next day; and he would probably
have starved them into submission had not Mrs. Clifford, who was
in league with him, been caught throwing sweetmeats to him
through the window. His supplies having been cut off, he yielded;
and a verdict of Guilty, which, it was said, cost two of the
jurymen their lives, was returned. A motion in arrest of judgment
was instantly made, on the ground that a Latin word indorsed on
the back of the indictment was incorrectly spelt. The objection
was undoubtedly frivolous. Jeffreys would have at once overruled
it with a torrent of curses, and would have proceeded to the most
agreeable part of his duty, that of describing to the prisoner
the whole process of half hanging, disembowelling, mutilating,
and quartering. But Holt and his brethren remembered that they
were now for the first time since the Revolution trying a culprit
on a charge of high treason. It was therefore desirable to show,
in a manner not to be misunderstood, that a new era had
commenced, and that the tribunals would in future rather err on
the side of humanity than imitate the cruel haste and levity with
which Cornish had, when pleading for his life, been silenced by
servile judges. The passing of the sentence was therefore
deferred: a day was appointed for considering the point raised by
Crone; and counsel were assigned to argue in his behalf. "This
would not have been done, Mr. Crone," said the Lord Chief Justice
significantly, "in either of the last two reigns." After a full
hearing, the Bench unanimously pronounced the error to be
immaterial; and the prisoner was condemned to death. He owned
that his trial had been fair, thanked the judges for their
patience, and besought them to intercede for him with the
Queen.659

He was soon informed that his fate was in his own hands. The
government was willing to spare him if he would earn his pardon
by a full confession. The struggle in his mind was terrible and
doubtful. At one time Mrs. Clifford, who had access to his cell,
reported to the Jacobite chiefs that he was in a great agony. He
could not die, he said; he was too young to be a martyr.660 The
next morning she found him cheerful and resolute.661 He held out
till the eve of the day fixed for his execution. Then he sent to
ask for an interview with the Secretary of State. Nottingham went
to Newgate; but, before he arrived, Crone had changed his mind
and was determined to say nothing. "Then," said Nottingham, "I
shall see you no more--for tomorrow will assuredly be your last
day." But, after Nottingham had departed, Monmouth repaired to
the gaol, and flattered himself that he had shaken the prisoner's
resolution. At a very late hour that night came a respite for a
week.662 The week however passed away without any disclosure; the
gallows and quartering block were ready at Tyburn; the sledge and
axe were at the door of Newgate; the crowd was thick all up
Holborn Hill and along the Oxford Road; when a messenger brought
another respite, and Crone, instead of being dragged to the place
of execution, was conducted to the Council chamber at Whitehall.
His fortitude had been at last overcome by the near prospect of
death; and on this occasion he gave important information.663

Such information as he had it in his power to give was indeed at
that moment much needed. Both an invasion and an insurrection
were hourly expected.664 Scarcely had William set out from London
when a great French fleet commanded by the Count of Tourville
left the port of Brest and entered the British Channel. Tourville
was the ablest maritime commander that his country then
possessed. He had studied every part of his profession. It was
said of him that he was competent to fill any place on shipboard
from that of carpenter up to that of admiral. It was said of him,
also, that to the dauntless courage of a seaman he united the
suavity and urbanity of an accomplished gentleman.665 He now
stood over to the English shore, and approached it so near that
his ships could be plainly descried from the ramparts of
Plymouth. From Plymouth he proceeded slowly along the coast of
Devonshire and Dorsetshire. There was great reason to apprehend
that his movements had been concerted with the English
malecontents.666

The Queen and her Council hastened to take measures for the
defence of the country against both foreign and domestic enemies.
Torrington took the command of the English fleet which lay in the
Downs, and sailed to Saint Helen's. He was there joined by a
Dutch squadron under the command of Evertsen. It seemed that the
cliffs of the Isle of Wight would witness one of the greatest
naval conflicts recorded in history. A hundred and fifty ships of
the line could be counted at once from the watchtower of Saint
Catharine's. On the cast of the huge precipice of Black Gang
Chine, and in full view of the richly wooded rocks of Saint
Lawrence and Ventnor, were mustered the maritime forces of
England and Holland. On the west, stretching to that white cape
where the waves roar among the Needles, lay the armament of
France.

It was on the twenty-sixth of June, less than a fortnight after
William had sailed for Ireland, that the hostile fleets took up
these positions. A few hours earlier, there had been an important
and anxious sitting of the Privy Council at Whitehall. The
malecontents who were leagued with France were alert and full of
hope. Mary had remarked, while taking her airing, that Hyde Park
was swarming with them. The whole board was of opinion that it
was necessary to arrest some persons of whose guilt the
government had proofs. When Clarendon was named, something was
said in his behalf by his friend and relation, Sir Henry Capel.
The other councillors stared, but remained silent. It was no
pleasant task to accuse the Queen's kinsman in the Queen's
presence. Mary had scarcely ever opened her lips at Council; but
now, being possessed of clear proofs of her uncle's treason in
his own handwriting, and knowing that respect for her prevented
her advisers from proposing what the public safety required, she
broke silence. "Sir Henry," she said, "I know, and every body
here knows as well as I, that there is too much against my Lord
Clarendon to leave him out." The warrant was drawn up; and Capel
signed it with the rest. "I am more sorry for Lord Clarendon,"
Mary wrote to her husband, "than, may be, will be believed." That
evening Clarendon and several other noted Jacobites were lodged
in the Tower.667

When the Privy Council had risen, the Queen and the interior
Council of Nine had to consider a question of the gravest
importance. What orders were to be sent to Torrington? The safety
of the State might depend on his judgment and presence of mind;
and some of Mary's advisers apprehended that he would not be
found equal to the occasion. Their anxiety increased when news
came that he had abandoned the coast of the Isle of Wight to the
French, and was retreating before them towards the Straits of
Dover. The sagacious Caermarthen and the enterprising Monmouth
agreed in blaming these cautious tactics. It was true that
Torrington had not so many vessels as Tourville; but Caermarthen
thought that, at such a time, it was advisable to fight, although
against odds; and Monmouth was, through life, for fighting at all
times and against all odds. Russell, who was indisputably one of
the best seamen of the age, held that the disparity of numbers
was not such as ought to cause any uneasiness to an officer who
commanded English and Dutch sailors. He therefore proposed to
send to the Admiral a reprimand couched in terms so severe that
the Queen did not like to sign it. The language was much
softened; but, in the main, Russell's advice was followed.
Torrington was positively ordered to retreat no further, and to
give battle immediately. Devonshire, however, was still
unsatisfied. "It is my duty, Madam," he said, to tell Your
Majesty exactly what I think on a matter of this importance; and
I think that my Lord Torrington is not a man to be trusted with
the fate of three kingdoms." Devonshire was right; but his
colleagues were unanimously of opinion that to supersede a
commander in sight of the enemy, and on the eve of a general
action, would be a course full of danger, and it is difficult to
say that they were wrong. "You must either," said Russell, "leave
him where he is, or send for him as a prisoner." Several
expedients were suggested. Caermarthen proposed that Russell
should be sent to assist Torrington. Monmouth passionately
implored permission to join the fleet in any capacity, as a
captain, or as a volunteer. "Only let me be once on board; and I
pledge my life that there shall be a battle." After much
discussion and hesitation, it was resolved that both Russell and
Monmouth should go down to the coast.668 They set out, but too
late. The despatch which ordered Torrington to fight had preceded
them. It reached him when he was off Beachy Head. He read it, and
was in a great strait. Not to give battle was to be guilty of
direct disobedience. To give battle was, in his judgment, to
incur serious risk of defeat. He probably suspected,--for he was
of a captious and jealous temper,--that the instructions which
placed him in so painful a dilemma had been framed by enemies and
rivals with a design unfriendly to his fortune and his fame. He
was exasperated by the thought that he was ordered about and
overruled by Russell, who, though his inferior in professional
rank, exercised, as one of the Council of Nine, a supreme control
over all the departments of the public service. There seems to be
no ground for charging Torrington with disaffection. Still less
can it be suspected that an officer, whose whole life had been
passed in confronting danger, and who had always borne himself
bravely, wanted the personal courage which hundreds of sailors on
board of every ship under his command possessed. But there is a
higher courage of which Torrington was wholly destitute. He
shrank from all responsibility, from the responsibility of
fighting, and from the responsibility of not fighting; and he
succeeded in finding out a middle way which united all the
inconveniences which he wished to avoid. He would conform to the
letter of his instructions; yet he would not put every thing to
hazard. Some of his ships should skirmish with the enemy; but the
great body of his fleet should not be risked. It was evident
that the vessels which engaged the French would be placed in a
most dangerous situation, and would suffer much loss; and there
is but too good reason to believe that Torrington was base enough
to lay his plans in such a manner that the danger and loss might
fall almost exclusively to the share of the Dutch. He bore them
no love; and in England they were so unpopular that the
destruction of their whole squadron was likely to cause fewer
murmurs than the capture of one of our own frigates.

It was on the twenty-ninth of June that the Admiral received the
order to fight. The next day, at four in the morning, he bore
down on the French fleet, and formed his vessels in order of
battle. He had not sixty sail of the line, and the French had at
least eighty; but his ships were more strongly manned than those
of the enemy. He placed the Dutch in the van and gave them the
signal to engage. That signal was promptly obeyed. Evertsen and
his countrymen fought with a courage to which both their English
allies and their French enemies, in spite of national prejudices,
did full justice. In none of Van Tromp's or De Ruyter's battles
had the honour of the Batavian flag been more gallantly upheld.
During many hours the van maintained the unequal contest with
very little assistance from any other part of the fleet. At
length the Dutch Admiral drew off, leaving one shattered and
dismasted hull to the enemy. His second in command and several
officers of high rank had fallen. To keep the sea against the
French after this disastrous and ignominious action was
impossible. The Dutch ships which had come out of the fight were
in lamentable condition. Torrington ordered some of them to be
destroyed: the rest he took in tow: he then fled along the coast
of Kent, and sought a refuge in the Thames. As soon as he was in
the river, he ordered all the buoys to be pulled up, and thus
made the navigation so dangerous, that the pursuers could not
venture to follow him.669

It was, however, thought by many, and especially by the French
ministers, that, if Tourville had been more enterprising, the
allied fleet might have been destroyed. He seems to have borne,
in one respect, too much resemblance to his vanquished opponent.
Though a brave man, he was a timid commander. His life he exposed
with careless gaiety; but it was said that he was nervously
anxious and pusillanimously cautious when his professional
reputation was in danger. He was so much annoyed by these
censures that he soon became, unfortunately for his country, bold
even to temerity.670

There has scarcely ever been so sad a day in London as that on
which the news of the Battle of Beachy Head arrived. The shame
was insupportable; the peril was imminent. What if the victorious
enemy should do what De Ruyter had done? What if the dockyards of
Chatham should again be destroyed? What if the Tower itself
should be bombarded? What if the vast wood of masts and yardarms
below London Bridge should be in ablaze? Nor was this all. Evil
tidings had just arrived from the Low Countries. The allied
forces under Waldeck had, in the neighbourhood of Fleurus,
encountered the French commanded by the Duke of Luxemburg. The
day had been long and fiercely disputed. At length the skill of
the French general and the impetuous valour of the French cavalry
had prevailed.671 Thus at the same moment the army of Lewis was
victorious in Flanders, and his navy was in undisputed possession
of the Channel. Marshal Humieres with a considerable force lay
not far from the Straits of Dover. It had been given out that he
was about to join Luxemburg. But the information which the
English government received from able military men in the
Netherlands and from spies who mixed with the Jacobites, and
which to so great a master of the art of war as Marlborough
seemed to deserve serious attention, was, that the army of
Humieres would instantly march to Dunkirk and would there be
taken on board of the fleet of Tourville.672 Between the coast of
Artois and the Nore not a single ship bearing the red cross of
Saint George could venture to show herself. The embarkation would
be the business of a few hours. A few hours more might suffice
for the voyage. At any moment London might be appalled by the
news that thirty thousand French veterans were in Kent, and that
the Jacobites of half the counties of the kingdom were in arms.
All the regular troops who could be assembled for the defence of
the island did not amount to more than ten thousand men. It may
be doubted whether our country has ever passed through a more
alarming crisis than that of the first week of July 1690.

But the evil brought with it its own remedy. Those little knew
England who imagined that she could be in danger at once of
rebellion and invasion; for in truth the danger of invasion was
the best security against the danger of rebellion. The cause of
James was the cause of France; and, though to superficial
observers the French alliance seemed to be his chief support, it
really was the obstacle which made his restoration impossible. In
the patriotism, the too often unamiable and unsocial patriotism
of our forefathers, lay the secret at once of William's weakness
and of his strength. They were jealous of his love for Holland;
but they cordially sympathized with his hatred of Lewis. To their
strong sentiment of nationality are to be ascribed almost all
those petty annoyances which made the throne of the Deliverer,
from his accession to his death, so uneasy a seat. But to the
same sentiment it is to be ascribed that his throne, constantly
menaced and frequently shaken, was never subverted. For, much as
his people detested his foreign favourites, they detested his
foreign adversaries still more. The Dutch were Protestants; the
French were Papists. The Dutch were regarded as selfseeking,
grasping overreaching allies; the French were mortal enemies. The
worst that could be apprehended from the Dutch was that they
might obtain too large a share of the patronage of the Crown,
that they might throw on us too large a part of the burdens of
the war, that they might obtain commercial advantages at our
expense. But the French would conquer us; the French would
enslave us; the French would inflict on us calamities such as
those which had turned the fair fields and cities of the
Palatinate into a desert. The hopgrounds of Kent would be as the
vineyards of the Neckar. The High Street of Oxford and the close
of Salisbury would be piled with ruins such as those which
covered the spots where the palaces and churches of Heidelberg
and Mannheim had once stood. The parsonage overshadowed by the old
steeple, the farmhouse peeping from among beehives and
appleblossoms, the manorial hall embosomed in elms, would be
given up to a soldiery which knew not what it was to pity old men
or delicate women or sticking children. The words, "The French
are coming," like a spell, quelled at once all murmur about taxes
and abuses, about William's ungracious manners and Portland's
lucrative places, and raised a spirit as high and unconquerable
as had pervaded, a hundred years before, the ranks which
Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury. Had the army of Humieres landed,
it would assuredly have been withstood by almost every male
capable of bearing arms. Not only the muskets and pikes but the
scythes and pitchforks would have been too few for the hundreds
of thousands who, forgetting all distinction of sect or faction,
would have risen up like one man to defend the English soil.

The immediate effect therefore of the disasters in the Channel
and in Flanders was to unite for a moment the great body of the
people. The national antipathy to the Dutch seemed to be
suspended. Their gallant conduct in the fight off Beachy Head was
loudly applauded. The inaction of Torrington was loudly
condemned. London set the example of concert and of exertion.
The irritation produced by the late election at once subsided.
All distinctions of party disappeared. The Lord Mayor was
summoned to attend the Queen. She requested him to ascertain as
soon as possible what the capital would undertake to do if the
enemy should venture to make a descent. He called together the
representatives of the wards, conferred with them, and returned
to Whitehall to report that they had unanimously bound themselves to stand by
the government with life and fortune; that a
hundred thousand pounds were ready to be paid into the Exchequer;
that ten thousand Londoners, well armed and appointed, were
prepared to march at an hour's notice; and that an additional
force, consisting of six regiments of foot, a strong regiment of
horse, and a thousand dragoons, should be instantly raised
without costing the Crown a farthing. Of Her Majesty the City had
nothing to ask, but that she would be pleased to set over these
troops officers in whom she could confide. The same spirit was
shown in every part of the country. Though in the southern
counties the harvest was at hand, the rustics repaired with
unusual cheerfulness to the musters of the militia. The Jacobite
country gentlemen, who had, during several months, been making
preparations for the general rising which was to take place as
soon as William was gone and as help arrived from France, now
that William was gone, now that a French invasion was hourly
expected, burned their commissions signed by James, and hid their
arms behind wainscots or in haystacks. The Jacobites in the towns
were insulted wherever they appeared, and were forced to shut
themselves up in their houses from the exasperated populace.673

Nothing is more interesting to those who love to study the
intricacies of the human heart than the effect which the public
danger produced on Shrewsbury. For a moment he was again the
Shrewsbury of 1688. His nature, lamentably unstable, was not
ignoble; and the thought, that, by standing foremost in the
defence of his country at so perilous a crisis, he might repair
his great fault and regain his own esteem, gave new energy to his
body and his mind. He had retired to Epsom, in the hope that
quiet and pure air would produce a salutary effect on his
shattered frame and wounded spirit. But a few hours after the
news of the Battle of Beachy Head had arrived, he was at
Whitehall, and had offered his purse and sword to the Queen. It
had been in contemplation to put the fleet under the command of
some great nobleman with two experienced naval officers to advise
him. Shrewsbury begged that, if such an arrangement were made, he
might be appointed. It concerned, he said, the interest and the
honour of every man in the kingdom not to let the enemy ride
victorious in the Channel; and he would gladly risk his life to
retrieve the lost fame of the English flag.674

His offer was not accepted. Indeed, the plan of dividing the
naval command between a man of quality who did not know the
points of the compass, and two weatherbeaten old seamen who had
risen from being cabin boys to be Admirals, was very wisely laid
aside. Active exertions were made to prepare the allied squadrons
for service. Nothing was omitted which could assuage the natural
resentment of the Dutch. The Queen sent a Privy Councillor,
charged with a special mission to the States General. He was the
bearer of a letter to them in which she extolled the valour of
Evertsen's gallant squadron. She assured them that their ships
should be repaired in the English dockyards, and that the wounded
Dutchmen should be as carefully tended as wounded Englishmen. It
was announced that a strict inquiry would be instituted into the
causes of the late disaster; and Torrington, who indeed could not
at that moment have appeared in public without risk of being torn
in pieces, was sent to the Tower.675

During the three days which followed the arrival of the
disastrous tidings from Beachy Head the aspect of London was
gloomy and agitated. But on the fourth day all was changed. Bells
were pealing: flags were flying: candles were arranged in the
windows for an illumination; men were eagerly shaking hands with
each other in the streets. A courier had that morning arrived at
Whitehall with great news from Ireland.

CHAPTER XVI

William lands at Carrickfergus, and proceeds to Belfast--State of
Dublin; William's military Arrangements--William marches
southward--The Irish Army retreats--The Irish make a Stand at the
Boyne--The Army of James--The Army of William--Walker, now Bishop
of Derry, accompanies the Army--William reconnoitres the Irish
Position; William is wounded--Battle of the Boyne--Flight of
James--Loss of the two Armies--Fall of Drogheda; State of Dublin-
-James flies to France; Dublin evacuated by the French and Irish
Troops--Entry of William into Dublin--Effect produced in France
by the News from Ireland--Effect produced at Rome by the News
from Ireland--Effect produced in London by the News from Ireland-
-James arrives in France; his Reception there--Tourville attempts
a Descent on England--Teignmouth destroyed--Excitement of the
English Nation against the French--The Jacobite Press--The
Jacobite Form of Prayer and Humiliation--Clamour against the
nonjuring Bishops--Military Operations in Ireland; Waterford
taken--The Irish Army collected at Limerick; Lauzun pronounces
that the Place cannot be defended--The Irish insist on defending
Limerick--Tyrconnel is against defending Limerick; Limerick
defended by the Irish alone--Sarsfield surprises the English
Artillery--Arrival of Baldearg O'Donnel at Limerick--The
Besiegers suffer from the Rains--Unsuccessful Assault on
Limerick; The Siege raised--Tyrconnel and Lauzun go to France;
William returns to England; Reception of William in England--
Expedition to the South of Ireland--Marlborough takes Cork--
Marlborough takes Kinsale--Affairs of Scotland; Intrigues of
Montgomery with the Jacobites--War in the Highlands--Fort William
built; Meeting of the Scottish Parliament--Melville Lord High
Commissioner; the Government obtains a Majority--Ecclesiastical
Legislation--The Coalition between the Club and the Jacobites
dissolved--The Chiefs of the Club betray each other--General
Acquiescence in the new Ecclesiastical Polity--Complaints of the
Episcopalians--The Presbyterian Conjurors--William dissatisfied
with the Ecclesiastical Arrangements in Scotland--Meeting of the
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland--State of Affairs on
the Continent--The Duke of Savoy joins the Coalition--Supplies
voted; Ways and Means--Proceedings against Torrington--
Torrington's Trial and Acquittal--Animosity of the Whigs against
Caermarthen--Jacobite Plot--Meeting of the leading Conspirators--
The Conspirators determine to send Preston to Saint Germains--
Papers entrusted to Preston--Information of the Plot given to
Caermarthen--Arrest of Preston and his Companions

WILLIAM had been, during the whole spring, impatiently expected
in Ulster. The Protestant settlements along the coast of that
province had, in the course of the month of May, been repeatedly
agitated by false reports of his arrival. It was not, however,
till the afternoon of the fourteenth of June that he landed at
Carrickfergus. The inhabitants of the town crowded the main
street and greeted him with loud acclamations: but they caught
only a glimpse of him. As soon as he was on dry ground he mounted
and set off for Belfast. On the road he was met by Schomberg. The
meeting took place close to a white house, the only human
dwelling then visible, in the space of many miles, on the dreary
strand of the estuary of the Laggan. A village and a cotton mill
now rise where the white house then stood alone; and all the
shore is adorned by a gay succession of country houses,
shrubberies and flower beds. Belfast has become one of the
greatest and most flourishing seats of industry in the British
isles. A busy population of eighty thousand souls is collected
there. The duties annually paid at the Custom House exceed the
duties annually paid at the Custom House of London in the most
prosperous years of the reign of Charles the Second. Other Irish
towns may present more picturesque forms to the eye. But Belfast
is the only large Irish town in which the traveller is not
disgusted by the loathsome aspect and odour of long lines of
human dens far inferior in comfort and cleanliness to the
dwellings which, in happier countries, are provided for cattle.
No other large Irish town is so well cleaned, so well paved, so
brilliantly lighted. The place of domes and spires is supplied by
edifices, less pleasing to the taste, but not less indicative of
prosperity, huge factories, towering many stories above the
chimneys of the houses, and resounding with the roar of
machinery. The Belfast which William entered was a small English
settlement of about three hundred houses, commanded by a stately
castle which has long disappeared, the seat of the noble family
of Chichester. In this mansion, which is said to have borne some
resemblance to the palace of Whitehall, and which was celebrated
for its terraces and orchards stretching down to the river side,
preparations had been made for the King's reception. He was
welcomed at the Northern Gate by the magistrates and burgesses in
their robes of office. The multitude pressed on his carriage with
shouts of "God save the Protestant King." For the town was one of
the strongholds of the Reformed Faith, and, when, two generations
later, the inhabitants were, for the first time, numbered, it was
found that the Roman Catholics were not more than one in
fifteen.676

The night came; but the Protestant counties were awake and up. A
royal salute had been fired from the castle of Belfast. It had
been echoed and reechoed by guns which Schomberg had placed at
wide intervals for the purpose of conveying signals from post to
post. Wherever the peal was heard, it was known that King William
was come. Before midnight all the heights of Antrim and Down were
blazing with bonfires. The light was seen across the bays of
Carlingford and Dundalk, and gave notice to the outposts of the
enemy that the decisive hour was at hand. Within forty-eight
hours after William had landed, James set out from Dublin for the
Irish camp, which was pitched near the northern frontier of
Leinster.677

In Dublin the agitation was fearful. None could doubt that the
decisive crisis was approaching; and the agony of suspense
stimulated to the highest point the passions of both the hostile
castes. The majority could easily detect, in the looks and tones
of the oppressed minority, signs which indicated the hope of a
speedy deliverance and of a terrible revenge. Simon Luttrell, to
whom the care of the capital was entrusted, hastened to take such
precautions as fear and hatred dictated.  A proclamation
appeared, enjoining all Protestants to remain in their houses
from nightfall to dawn, and prohibiting them, on pain of death,
from assembling in any place or for any purpose to the number of
more than five. No indulgence was granted even to those divines
of the Established Church who had never ceased to teach the
doctrine of non resistance. Doctor William King, who had, after
long holding out, lately begun to waver in his political creed,
was committed to custody. There was no gaol large enough to hold
one half of those whom the governor suspected of evil designs.
The College and several parish churches were used as prisons; and
into those buildings men accused of no crime but their religion
were crowded in such numbers that they could hardly breathe.678

The two rival princes meanwhile were busied in collecting their
forces. Loughbrickland was the place appointed by William for the
rendezvous of the scattered divisions of his army. While his
troops were assembling, he exerted himself indefatigably to
improve their discipline and to provide for their subsistence. He
had brought from England two hundred thousand pounds in money and
a great quantity of ammunition and provisions. Pillaging was
prohibited under severe penalties. At the same time supplies were
liberally dispensed; and all the paymasters of regiments were
directed to send in their accounts without delay, in order that
there might be no arrears.679 Thomas Coningsby, Member of
Parliament for Leominster, a busy and unscrupulous Whig,
accompanied the King, and acted as Paymaster General. It deserves
to be mentioned that William, at this time, authorised the
Collector of Customs at Belfast to pay every year twelve hundred
pounds into the hands of some of the principal dissenting
ministers of Down and Antrim, who were to be trustees for their
brethren. The King declared that he bestowed this sum on the
nonconformist divines, partly as a reward for their eminent
loyalty to him, and partly as a compensation for their recent
losses. Such was the origin of that donation which is still
annually bestowed by the government on the Presbyterian clergy of
Ulster.680

William was all himself again. His spirits, depressed by eighteen
months passed in dull state, amidst factions and intrigues which
he but half understood, rose high as soon as he was surrounded by
tents and standards.681 It was strange to see how rapidly this
man, so unpopular at Westminster, obtained a complete mastery
over the hearts of his brethren in arms. They observed with
delight that, infirm as he was, he took his share of every
hardship which they underwent; that he thought more of their
comfort than of his own, that he sharply reprimanded some
officers, who were so anxious to procure luxuries for his table
as to forget the wants of the common soldiers; that he never
once, from the day on which he took the field, lodged in a house,
but, even in the neighbourhood of cities and palaces, slept in
his small moveable hut of wood; that no solicitations could
induce him, on a hot day and in a high wind, to move out of the
choking cloud of dust, which overhung the line of march, and
which severely tried lungs less delicate than his. Every man
under his command became familiar with his looks and with his
voice; for there was not a regiment which he did not inspect with
minute attention. His pleasant looks and sayings were long
remembered. One brave soldier has recorded in his journal the
kind and courteous manner in which a basket of the first cherries
of the year was accepted from him by the King, and the
sprightliness with which His Majesty conversed at supper with
those who stood round the table.682

On the twenty-fourth of June, the tenth day after William's
landing, he marched southward from Loughbrickland with all his
forces. He was fully determined to take the first opportunity of
fighting. Schomberg and some other officers recommended caution
and delay. But the King answered that he had not come to Ireland
to let the grass grow under his feet. The event seems to prove
that he judged rightly as a general. That he judged rightly as a
statesman cannot be doubted. He knew that the English nation was
discontented with the way in which the war had hitherto been
conducted; that nothing but rapid and splendid success could
revive the enthusiasm of his friends and quell the spirit of his
enemies; and that a defeat could scarcely be more injurious to
his fame and to his interests than a languid and indecisive
campaign.

The country through which he advanced had, during eighteen
months, been fearfully wasted both by soldiers and by Rapparees.
The cattle had been slaughtered: the plantations had been cut
down: the fences and houses were in ruins. Not a human being was
to be found near the road, except a few naked and meagre wretches
who had no food but the husks of oats, and who were seen picking
those husks, like chickens, from amidst dust and cinders.683 Yet,
even under such disadvantages, the natural fertility of the
country, the rich green of the earth, the bays and rivers so
admirably fitted for trade, could not but strike the King's
observant eye. Perhaps he thought how different an aspect that
unhappy region would have presented if it had been blessed with
such a government and such a religion as had made his native
Holland the wonder of the world; how endless a succession of
pleasure houses, tulip gardens and dairy farms would have lined
the road from Lisburn to Belfast; how many hundreds of barges
would have been constantly passing up and down the Laggan; what a
forest of masts would have bristled in the desolate port of
Newry; and what vast warehouses and stately mansions would have
covered the space occupied by the noisome alleys of Dundalk. "The
country," he was heard to say, "is worth fighting for."

The original intention of James seems to have been to try the
chances of a pitched field on the border between Leinster and
Ulster. But this design was abandoned, in consequence,
apparently, of the representations of Lauzun, who, though very
little disposed and very little qualified to conduct a campaign
on the Fabian system, had the admonitions of Louvois still in his
ears.684 James, though resolved not to give up Dublin without a
battle, consented to retreat till he should reach some spot where
he might have the vantage of ground. When therefore William's
advanced guard reached Dundalk, nothing was to be seen of the
Irish Army, except a great cloud of dust which was slowly rolling
southwards towards Ardee. The English halted one night near the
ground on which Schomberg's camp had been pitched in the
preceding year; and many sad recollections were awakened by the
sight of that dreary marsh, the sepulchre of thousands of brave
men.685

Still William continued to push forward, and still the Irish
receded before him, till, on the morning of Monday the thirtieth
of June, his army, marching in three columns, reached the summit
of a rising ground near the southern frontier of the county of
Louth. Beneath lay a valley, now so rich and so cheerful that the
Englishman who gazes on it may imagine himself to be in one of
the most highly favoured parts of his own highly favoured
country. Fields of wheat, woodlands, meadows bright with daisies
and clover, slope gently down to the edge of the Boyne. That
bright and tranquil stream, the boundary of Louth and Meath,
having flowed many miles between verdant banks crowned by modern
palaces, and by the ruined keeps of old Norman barons of the
pale, is here about to mingle with the sea. Five miles to the
west of the place from which William looked down on the river,
now stands, on a verdant bank, amidst noble woods, Slane Castle,
the mansion of the Marquess of Conyngham. Two miles to the east,
a cloud of smoke from factories and steam vessels overhangs the
busy town and port of Drogheda. On the Meath side of the Boyne,
the ground, still all corn, grass, flowers, and foliage, rises
with a gentle swell to an eminence surmounted by a conspicuous
tuft of ash trees which overshades the ruined church and desolate
graveyard of Donore.686

In the seventeenth century the landscape presented a very
different aspect. The traces of art and industry were few.
Scarcely a vessel was on the river except those rude coracles of
wickerwork covered with the skins of horses, in which the Celtic
peasantry fished for trout and salmon. Drogheda, now peopled by
twenty thousand industrious inhabitants, was a small knot of
narrow, crooked and filthy lanes, encircled by a ditch and a
mound. The houses were built of wood with high gables and
projecting upper stories. Without the walls of the town, scarcely
a dwelling was to be seen except at a place called Oldbridge. At
Oldbridge the river was fordable; and on the south of the ford
were a few mud cabins, and a single house built of more solid
materials.

When William caught sight of the valley of the Boyne, he could
not suppress an exclamation and a gesture of delight. He had been
apprehensive that the enemy would avoid a decisive action, and
would protract the war till the autumnal rains should return with
pestilence in their train. He was now at ease. It was plain that
the contest would be sharp and short. The pavilion of James was
pitched on the eminence of Donore. The flags of the House of
Stuart and of the House of Bourbon waved together in defiance on
the walls of Drogheda. All the southern bank of the river was
lined by the camp and batteries of the hostile army. Thousands of
armed men were moving about among the tents; and every one, horse
soldier or foot soldier, French or Irish, had a white badge in
his hat. That colour had been chosen in compliment to the House
of Bourbon. "I am glad to see you, gentlemen," said the King, as
his keen eye surveyed the Irish lines. "If you escape me now, the
fault will be mine."687

Each of the contending princes had some advantages over his
rival. James, standing on the defensive, behind entrenchments,
with a river before him, had the stronger position;688 but his
troops were inferior both in number and in quality to those which
were opposed to him. He probably had thirty thousand men. About a
third part of this force consisted of excellent French infantry
and excellent Irish cavalry. But the rest of his army was the
scoff of all Europe. The Irish dragoons were bad; the Irish
infantry worse. It was said that their ordinary way of fighting
was to discharge their pieces once, and then to run away bawling
"Quarter" and "Murder." Their inefficiency was, in that age,
commonly imputed, both by their enemies and by their allies, to
natural poltroonery. How little ground there was for such an
imputation has since been signally proved by many heroic
achievements in every part of the globe. It ought, indeed, even
in the seventeenth century, to have occurred to reasonable men,
that a race which furnished some of the best horse soldiers in
the world would certainly, with judicious training, furnish good
foot soldiers. But the Irish foot soldiers had not merely not
been well trained; they had been elaborately ill trained. The
greatest of our generals repeatedly and emphatically declared
that even the admirable army which fought its way, under his
command, from Torres Vedras to Toulouse, would, if he had
suffered it to contract habits of pillage, have become, in a few
weeks, unfit for all military purposes. What then was likely to
be the character of troops who, from the day on which they
enlisted, were not merely permitted, but invited, to supply the
deficiencies of pay by marauding? They were, as might have been
expected, a mere mob, furious indeed and clamorous in their zeal
for the cause which they had espoused, but incapable of opposing
a stedfast resistance to a well ordered force. In truth, all that
the discipline, if it is to be so called, of James's army had
done for the Celtic kerne had been to debase and enervate him.
After eighteen months of nominal soldiership, he was positively
farther from being a soldier than on the day on which he quilted
his hovel for the camp.

William had under his command near thirty-six thousand men, born
in many lands, and speaking many tongues. Scarcely one Protestant
Church, scarcely one Protestant nation, was unrepresented in the
army which a strange series of events had brought to fight for
the Protestant religion in the remotest island of the west. About
half the troops were natives of England. Ormond was there with
the Life Guards, and Oxford with the Blues. Sir John Lanier, an
officer who had acquired military experience on the Continent,
and whose prudence was held in high esteem, was at the head of
the Queen's regiment of horse, now the First Dragoon Guards.
There were Beaumont's foot, who had, in defiance of the mandate
of James, refused to admit Irish papists among them, and
Hastings's foot, who had, on the disastrous day of Killiecrankie,
maintained the military reputation of the Saxon race. There were
the two Tangier battalions, hitherto known only by deeds of
violence and rapine, but destined to begin on the following
morning a long career of glory. The Scotch Guards marched under
the command of their countryman James Douglas. Two fine British
regiments, which had been in the service of the States General,
and had often looked death in the face under William's leading,
followed him in this campaign, not only as their general, but as
their native King. They now rank as the fifth and sixth of the
line. The former was led by an officer who had no skill in the
higher parts of military science, but whom the whole army allowed
to be the bravest of all the brave, John Cutts. Conspicuous among
the Dutch troops were Portland's and Ginkell's Horse, and
Solmes's Blue regiment, consisting of two thousand of the finest
infantry in Europe. Germany had sent to the field some warriors,
sprung from her noblest houses. Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt,
a gallant youth who was serving his apprenticeship in the
military art, rode near the King. A strong brigade of Danish
mercenaries was commanded by Duke Charles Frederic of Wirtemberg,
a near kinsman of the head of his illustrious family. It was
reported that of all the soldiers of William these were most
dreaded by the Irish. For centuries of Saxon domination had not
effaced the recollection of the violence and cruelty of the
Scandinavian sea kings; and an ancient prophecy that the Danes
would one day destroy the children of the soil was still repeated
with superstitious horror.689 Among the foreign auxiliaries were
a Brandenburg regiment and a Finland regiment. But in that great
array, so variously composed, were two bodies of men animated by
a spirit peculiarly fierce and implacable, the Huguenots of
France thirsting for the blood of the French, and the Englishry
of Ireland impatient to trample down the Irish. The ranks of the
refugees had been effectually purged of spies and traitors, and
were made up of men such as had contended in the preceding
century against the power of the House of Valois and the genius
of the House of Lorraine. All the boldest spirits of the
unconquerable colony had repaired to William's camp. Mitchelburne
was there with the stubborn defenders of Londonderry, and
Wolseley with the warriors who had raised the unanimous shout of
"Advance" on the day of Newton Butler. Sir Albert Conyngham, the
ancestor of the noble family whose seat now overlooks the Boyne,
had brought from the neighbourhood of Lough Erne a gallant
regiment of dragoons which still glories in the name of
Enniskillen, and which has proved on the shores of the Euxine
that it has not degenerated since the day of the Boyne.690

Walker, notwithstanding his advanced age and his peaceful
profession, accompanied the men of Londonderry, and tried to
animate their zeal by exhortation and by example. He was now a
great prelate. Ezekiel Hopkins had taken refuge from Popish
persecutors and Presbyterian rebels in the city of London, had
brought himself to swear allegiance to the government, had
obtained a cure, and had died in the performance of the humble
duties of a parish priest.691 William, on his march through
Louth, learned that the rich see of Derry was at his disposal. He
instantly made choice of Walker to be the new Bishop. The brave
old man, during the few hours of life which remained to him, was
overwhelmed with salutations and congratulations. Unhappily he
had, during the siege in which he had so highly distinguished
himself, contracted a passion for war; and he easily persuaded
himself that, in indulging this passion, he was discharging a
duty to his country and his religion. He ought to have
remembered that the peculiar circumstances which had justified
him in becoming a combatant had ceased to exist, and that, in a
disciplined army led by generals of long experience and great
fame a fighting divine was likely to give less help than scandal.
The Bishop elect was determined to be wherever danger was; and
the way in which he exposed himself excited the extreme disgust
of his royal patron, who hated a meddler almost as much as a
coward. A soldier who ran away from a battle and a gownsman who
pushed himself into a battle were the two objects which most
strongly excited William's spleen.

It was still early in the day. The King rode slowly along the
northern bank of the river, and closely examined the position of
the Irish, from whom he was sometimes separated by an interval of
little more than two hundred feet. He was accompanied by
Schomberg, Ormond, Sidney, Solmes, Prince George of Hesse,
Coningsby, and others. "Their army is but small;" said one of the
Dutch officers. Indeed it did not appear to consist of more than
sixteen thousand men. But it was well known, from the reports
brought by deserters, that many regiments were concealed from
view by the undulations of the ground. "They may be stronger than
they look," said William; "but, weak or strong, I will soon know
all about them."692

At length he alighted at a spot nearly opposite to Oldbridge,
sate down on the turf to rest himself, and called for breakfast.
The sumpter horses were unloaded: the canteens were opened; and a
tablecloth was spread on the grass. The place is marked by an
obelisk, built while many veterans who could well remember the
events of that day were still living.

While William was at his repast, a group of horsemen appeared
close to the water on the opposite shore. Among them his
attendants could discern some who had once been conspicuous at
reviews in Hyde Park and at balls in the gallery of Whitehall,
the youthful Berwick, the small, fairhaired Lauzun, Tyrconnel,
once admired by maids of honour as the model of manly vigour and
beauty, but now bent down by years and crippled by gout, and,
overtopping all, the stately head of Sarsfield.

The chiefs of the Irish army soon discovered that the person who,
surrounded by a splendid circle, was breakfasting on the opposite
bank, was the Prince of Orange. They sent for artillery. Two
field pieces, screened from view by a troop of cavalry, were
brought down almost to the brink of the river, and placed behind
a hedge. William, who had just risen from his meal, and was again
in the saddle, was the mark of both guns. The first shot struck
one of the holsters of Prince George of Hesse, and brought his
horse to the ground. "Ah!" cried the King; "the poor Prince is
killed." As the words passed his lips, he was himself hit by a
second ball, a sixpounder. It merely tore his coat, grazed his
shoulder, and drew two or three ounces of blood. Both armies saw
that the shot had taken effect; for the King sank down for a
moment on his horse's neck. A yell of exultation rose from the
Irish camp. The English and their allies were in dismay. Solmes
flung himself prostrate on the earth, and burst into tears. But
William's deportment soon reassured his friends. "There is no
harm done," he said: "but the bullet came quite near enough."
Coningsby put his handkerchief to the wound: a surgeon was sent
for: a plaster was applied; and the King, as soon as the dressing
was finished, rode round all the posts of his army amidst loud
acclamations. Such was the energy of his spirit that, in spite of
his feeble health, in spite of his recent hurt, he was that day
nineteen hours on horseback.693

A cannonade was kept up on both sides till the evening. William
observed with especial attention the effect produced by the Irish
shots on the English regiments which had never been in action,
and declared himself satisfied with the result. "All is right,"
he said; "they stand fire well." Long after sunset he made a
final inspection of his forces by torchlight, and gave orders
that every thing should be ready for forcing a passage across the
river on the morrow. Every soldier was to put a green bough in
his hat. The baggage and great coats were to be left under a
guard. The word was Westminster.

The King's resolution to attack the Irish was not approved by all
his lieutenants. Schomberg, in particular, pronounced the
experiment too hazardous, and, when his opinion was overruled,
retired to his tent in no very good humour. When the order of
battle was delivered to him, he muttered that he had been more
used to give such orders than to receive them. For this little
fit of sullenness, very pardonable in a general who had won great
victories when his master was still a child, the brave veteran
made, on the following morning, a noble atonement.

The first of July dawned, a day which has never since returned
without exciting strong emotions of very different kinds in the
two populations which divide Ireland. The sun rose bright and
cloudless. Soon after four both armies were in motion. William
ordered his right wing, under the command of Meinhart Schomberg,
one of the Duke's sons, to march to the bridge of Slane, some
miles up the river, to cross there, and to turn the left flank of
the Irish army. Meinhart Schomberg was assisted by Portland and
Douglas. James, anticipating some such design, had already sent
to the bridge a regiment of dragoons, commanded by Sir Neil
O'Neil. O'Neil behaved himself like a brave gentleman: but he
soon received a mortal wound; his men fled; and the English right
wing passed the river.

This move made Lauzun uneasy. What if the English right wing
should get into the rear of the army of James? About four miles
south of the Boyne was a place called Duleek, where the road to
Dublin was so narrow, that two cars could not pass each other,
and where on both sides of the road lay a morass which afforded
no firm footing. If Meinhart Schomberg should occupy this spot,
it would be impossible for the Irish to retreat. They must either
conquer, or be cut off to a man. Disturbed by this apprehension,
the French general marched with his countrymen and with
Sarsfield's horse in the direction of Slane Bridge. Thus the
fords near Oldbridge were left to be defended by the Irish alone.

It was now near ten o'clock. William put himself at the head of
his left wing, which was composed exclusively of cavalry, and
prepared to pass the river not far above Drogheda. The centre of
his army, which consisted almost exclusively of foot, was
entrusted to the command of Schomberg, and was marshalled
opposite to Oldbridge. At Oldbridge the whole Irish infantry had
been collected. The Meath bank bristled with pikes and bayonets.
A fortification had been made by French engineers out of the
hedges and buildings; and a breastwork had been thrown up close
to the water side.694 Tyrconnel was there; and under him were
Richard Hamilton and Antrim.

Schomberg gave the word. Solmes's Blues were the first to move.
They marched gallantly, with drums beating, to the brink of the
Boyne. Then the drums stopped; and the men, ten abreast,
descended into the water. Next plunged Londonderry and
Enniskillen. A little to the left of Londonderry and Enniskillen,
Caillemot crossed, at the head of a long column of French
refugees. A little to the left of Caillemot and his refugees, the
main body of the English infantry struggled through the river, up
to their armpits in water. Still further down the stream the
Danes found another ford. In a few minutes the Boyne, for a
quarter of a mile, was alive with muskets and green boughs.

It was not till the assailants had reached the middle of the
channel that they became aware of the whole difficulty and danger
of the service in which they were engaged. They had as yet seen
little more than half the hostile army. Now whole regiments of
foot and horse seemed to start out of the earth. A wild shout of
defiance rose from the whole shore: during one moment the event
seemed doubtful: but the Protestants pressed resolutely forward;
and in another moment the whole Irish line gave way. Tyrconnel
looked on in helpless despair. He did not want personal courage;
but his military skill was so small that he hardly ever reviewed
his regiment in the Phoenix Park without committing some blunder;
and to rally the ranks which were breaking all round him was no
task for a general who had survived the energy of his body and of
his mind, and yet had still the rudiments of his profession to
learn. Several of his best officers fell while vainly
endeavouring to prevail on their soldiers to look the Dutch Blues
in the face. Richard Hamilton ordered a body of foot to fall on
the French refugees, who were still deep in water. He led the
way, and, accompanied by several courageous gentlemen, advanced,
sword in hand, into the river. But neither his commands nor his
example could infuse courage into that mob of cowstealers. He was
left almost alone, and retired from the bank in despair. Further
down the river Antrim's division ran like sheep at the approach
of the English column. Whole regiments flung away arms, colours
and cloaks, and scampered off to the hills without striking a
blow or firing a shot.695

It required many years and many heroic exploits to take away the
reproach which that ignominious rout left on the Irish name. Yet,
even before the day closed, it was abundantly proved that the
reproach was unjust. Richard Hamilton put himself at the head of
the cavalry, and, under his command, they made a gallant, though
an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve the day. They maintained a
desperate fight in the bed of the river with Sulmes's Blues. They
drove the Danish brigade back into the stream. They fell
impetuously on the Huguenot regiments, which, not being provided
with pikes, then ordinarily used by foot to repel horse, began to
give ground. Caillemot, while encouraging his fellow exiles,
received a mortal wound in the thigh. Four of his men carried him
back across the ford to his tent. As he passed, he continued to
urge forward the rear ranks which were still up to the breast in
the water. "On; on; my lads: to glory; to glory." Schomberg, who
had remained on the northern bank, and who had thence watched the
progress of his troops with the eye of a general, now thought
that the emergency required from him the personal exertion of a
soldier. Those who stood about him besought him in vain to put on
his cuirass. Without defensive armour he rode through the river,
and rallied the refugees whom the fall of Caillemot had dismayed.
"Come on," he cried in French, pointing to the Popish squadrons;
"come on, gentlemen; there are your persecutors." Those were his
last words. As he spoke, a band of Irish horsemen rushed upon him
and encircled him for a moment. When they retired, he was on the
ground. His friends raised him; but he was already a corpse. Two
sabre wounds were on his head; and a bullet from a carbine was
lodged in his neck. Almost at the same moment Walker, while
exhorting the colonists of Ulster to play the men, was shot dead.
During near half an hour the battle continued to rage along the
southern shore of the river. All was smoke, dust and din. Old
soldiers were heard to say that they had seldom seen sharper work
in the Low Countries. But, just at this conjuncture, William came
up with the left wing. He had found much difficulty in crossing.
The tide was running fast. His charger had been forced to swim,
and had been almost lost in the mud. As soon as the King was on
firm ground he took his sword in his left hand,--for his right
arm was stiff with his wound and his bandage,--and led his men to
the place where the fight was the hottest. His arrival decided
the fate of the day. Yet the Irish horse retired fighting
obstinately. It was long remembered among the Protestants of
Ulster that, in the midst of the tumult, William rode to the head
of the Enniskilleners. "What will you do for me?" he cried. He
was not immediately recognised; and one trooper, taking him for
an enemy, was about to fire. William gently put aside the
carbine. "What," said he, "do you not know your friends?" "It is
His Majesty;" said the Colonel. The ranks of sturdy Protestant
yeomen set up a shout of joy. "Gentlemen," said William, "you
shall be my guards to day. I have heard much of you. Let me see
something of you." One of the most remarkable peculiarities of
this man, ordinarily so saturnine and reserved, was that danger
acted on him like wine, opened his heart, loosened his tongue,
and took away all appearance of constraint from his manner. On
this memorable day he was seen wherever the peril was greatest.
One ball struck the cap of his pistol: another carried off the
heel of his jackboot: but his lieutenants in vain implored him to
retire to some station from which he could give his orders
without exposing a life so valuable to Europe. His troops,
animated by his example, gained ground fast. The Irish cavalry
made their last stand at a house called Plottin Castle, about a
mile and a half south of Oldbridge. There the Enniskilleners were
repelled with the loss of fifty men, and were hotly pursued, till
William rallied them and turned the chase back. In this encounter
Richard Hamilton, who had done all that could be done by valour
to retrieve a reputation forfeited by perfidy696, was severely
wounded, taken prisoner, and instantly brought, through the smoke
and over the carnage, before the prince whom he had foully
wronged. On no occasion did the character of William show itself
in a more striking manner. "Is this business over?" he said; "or
will your horse make more fight?" "On my honour, Sir," answered
Hamilton, "I believe that they will." "Your honour I" muttered
William; "your honour I" That half suppressed exclamation was the
only revenge which he condescended to take for an injury for
which many sovereigns, far more affable and gracious in their
ordinary deportment, would have exacted a terrible retribution.
Then, restraining himself, he ordered his own surgeon to look to
the hurts of the captive.697

And now the battle was over. Hamilton was mistaken in thinking
that his horse would continue to fight. Whole troops had been cut
to pieces. One fine regiment had only thirty unwounded men left.
It was enough that these gallant soldiers had disputed the field
till they were left without support, or hope, or guidance, till
their bravest leader was a captive, and till their King had fled.

Whether James had owed his early reputation for valour to
accident and flattery, or whether, as he advanced in life, his
character underwent a change, may be doubted. But it is certain
that, in his youth, he was generally believed to possess, not
merely that average measure of fortitude which qualifies a
soldier to go through a campaign without disgrace, but that high
and serene intrepidity which is the virtue of great
commanders.698 It is equally certain that, in his later years, he
repeatedly, at conjunctures such as have often inspired timorous
and delicate women with heroic courage, showed a pusillanimous
anxiety about his personal safety. Of the most powerful motives
which can induce human beings to encounter peril none was wanting
to him on the day of the Boyne. The eyes of his contemporaries
and of posterity, of friends devoted to his cause and of enemies
eager to witness his humiliation, were fixed upon him. He had, in
his own opinion, sacred rights to maintain and cruel wrongs to
revenge. He was a King come to fight for three kingdoms. He was a
father come to fight for the birthright of his child. He was a
zealous Roman Catholic, come to fight in the holiest of crusades.
If all this was not enough, he saw, from the secure position
which he occupied on the height of Donore, a sight which, it
might have been thought, would have roused the most torpid of
mankind to emulation. He saw his rival, weak, sickly, wounded,
swimming the river, struggling through the mud, leading the
charge, stopping the flight, grasping the sword with the left
hand, managing the bridle with a bandaged arm. But none of these
things moved that sluggish and ignoble nature. He watched, from a
safe distance, the beginning of the battle on which his fate and
the fate of his race depended. When it became clear that the day
was going against Ireland, he was seized with an apprehension
that his flight might be intercepted, and galloped towards
Dublin. He was escorted by a bodyguard under the command of
Sarsfield, who had, on that day, had no opportunity of displaying
the skill and courage which his enemies allowed that he
possessed.699 The French auxiliaries, who had been employed the
whole morning in keeping William's right wing in check, covered
the flight of the beaten army. They were indeed in some danger of
being broken and swept away by the torrent of runaways, all
pressing to get first to the pass of Duleek, and were forced to
fire repeatedly on these despicable allies.700 The retreat was,
however, effected with less loss than might have been expected.
For even the admirers of William owned that he did not show in
the pursuit the energy which even his detractors acknowledged
that he had shown in the battle. Perhaps his physical
infirmities, his hurt, and the fatigue which he had undergone,
had made him incapable of bodily or mental exertion. Of the last
forty hours he had passed thirty-five on horseback. Schomberg,
who might have supplied his place, was no more. It was said in
the camp that the King could not do every thing, and that what
was not done by him was not done at all.

The slaughter had been less than on any battle field of equal
importance and celebrity. Of the Irish only about fifteen hundred
had fallen; but they were almost all cavalry, the flower of the
army, brave and well disciplined men, whose place could not
easily be supplied. William gave strict orders that there should
be no unnecessary bloodshed, and enforced those orders by an act
of laudable severity. One of his soldiers, after the fight was
over, butchered three defenceless Irishmen who asked for quarter.
The King ordered the murderer to be hanged on the spot.701

The loss of the conquerors did not exceed five hundred men but
among them was the first captain in Europe. To his corpse every
honour was paid. The only cemetery in which so illustrious a
warrior, slain in arms for the liberties and religion of
England, could properly be laid was that venerable Abbey,
hallowed by the dust of many generations of princes, heroes and
poets. It was announced that the brave veteran should have a
public funeral at Westminster. In the mean time his corpse was
embalmed with such skill as could be found in the camp, and was
deposited in a leaden coffin.702

Walker was treated less respectfully. William thought him a
busybody who had been properly punished for running into danger
without any call of duty, and expressed that feeling, with
characteristic bluntness, on the field of battle. "Sir," said an
attendant, the Bishop of Derry has been killed by a shot at the
ford." "What took him there?" growled the King.

The victorious army advanced that day to Duleek, and passed the
warm summer night there under the open sky. The tents and the
baggage waggons were still on the north of the river. William's
coach had been brought over; and he slept in it surrounded by his
soldiers. On the following day, Drogheda surrendered without a
blow, and the garrison, thirteen hundred strong, marched out
unarmed.703

Meanwhile Dublin had been in violent commotion. On the thirtieth
of June it was known that the armies were face to face with the
Boyne between them, and that a battle was almost inevitable. The
news that William had been wounded came that evening. The first
report was that the wound was mortal. It was believed, and
confidently repeated, that the usurper was no more; and couriers
started bearing the glad tidings of his death to the French ships
which lay in the ports of Munster. From daybreak on the first of
July the streets of Dublin were filled with persons eagerly
asking and telling news. A thousand wild rumours wandered to and
fro among the crowd. A fleet of men of war under the white flag
had been seen from the hill of Howth. An army commanded by a
Marshal of France had landed in Kent. There had been hard
fighting at the Boyne; but the Irish had won the day; the English
right wing had been routed; the Prince of Orange was a prisoner.
While the Roman Catholics heard and repeated these stories in all
the places of public resort, the few Protestants who were still
out of prison, afraid of being torn to pieces, shut themselves up
in their inner chambers. But, towards five in the afternoon, a
few runaways on tired horses came straggling in with evil
tidings. By six it was known that all was lost. Soon after
sunset, James, escorted by two hundred cavalry, rode into the
Castle. At the threshold he was met by the wife of Tyrconnel,
once the gay and beautiful Fanny Jennings, the loveliest coquette
in the brilliant Whitehall of the Restoration. To her the
vanquished King had to announce the ruin of her fortunes and of
his own. And now the tide of fugitives came in fast. Till
midnight all the northern avenues of the capital were choked by
trains of cars and by bands of dragoons, spent with running and
riding, and begrimed with dust. Some had lost their fire arms,
and some their swords. Some were disfigured by recent wounds. At
two in the morning Dublin was still: but, before the early dawn
of midsummer, the sleepers were roused by the peal of trumpets;
and the horse, who had, on the preceding day, so well supported
the honour of their country, came pouring through the streets,
with ranks fearfully thinned, yet preserving, even in that
extremity, some show of military order. Two hours later Lauzun's
drums were heard; and the French regiments, in unbroken array,
marched into the city.704 Many thought that, with such a force, a
stand might still be made. But, before six o'clock, the Lord
Mayor and some of the principal Roman Catholic citizens were
summoned in haste to the Castle. James took leave of them with a
speech which did him little honour. He had often, he said, been
warned that Irishmen, however well they might look, would never
acquit themselves well on a field of battle; and he had now found
that the warning was but too true. He had been so unfortunate as
to see himself in less than two years abandoned by two armies.
His English troops had not wanted courage; but they had wanted
loyalty. His Irish troops were, no doubt, attached to his cause,
which was their own. But as soon as they were brought front to
front with an enemy, they ran away. The loss indeed had been
little. More shame for those who had fled with so little loss. "I
will never command an Irish army again. I must shift for myself;
and so must you." After thus reviling his soldiers for being the
rabble which his own mismanagement had made them, and for
following the example of cowardice which he had himself set them,
he uttered a few words more worthy of a King. He knew, he said,
that some of his adherents had declared that they would burn
Dublin down rather than suffer it to fall into the hands of the
English. Such an act would disgrace him in the eyes of all
mankind: for nobody would believe that his friends would venture
so far without his sanction. Such an act would also draw on those
who committed it severities which otherwise they had no cause to
apprehend: for inhumanity to vanquished enemies was not among the
faults of the Prince of Orange. For these reasons James charged
his hearers on their allegiance neither to sack nor to destroy
the city.705 He then took his departure, crossed the Wicklow
hills with all speed, and never stopped till he was fifty miles
from Dublin. Scarcely had he alighted to take some refreshment
when he was scared by an absurd report that the pursuers were
close upon him. He started again, rode hard all night, and gave
orders that the bridges should be pulled down behind him. At
sunrise on the third of July he reached the harbour of Waterford.
Thence he went by sea to Kinsale, where he embarked on board of a
French frigate, and sailed for Brest.706

After his departure the confusion in Dublin increased hourly.
During the whole of the day which followed the battle, flying
foot soldiers, weary and soiled with travel, were constantly
coming in. Roman Catholic citizens, with their wives, their
families and their household stuff, were constantly going out. In
some parts of the capital there was still an appearance of
martial order and preparedness. Guards were posted at the gates:
the Castle was occupied by a strong body of troops; and it was
generally supposed that the enemy would not be admitted without a
struggle. Indeed some swaggerers, who had, a few hours before,
run from the breastwork at Oldbridge without drawing a trigger,
now swore that they would lay the town in ashes rather than leave
it to the Prince of Orange. But towards the evening Tyrconnel and
Lauzun collected all their forces, and marched out of the city by
the road leading to that vast sheepwalk which extends over the
table land of Kildare. Instantly the face of things in Dublin was
changed. The Protestants every where came forth from their hiding
places. Some of them entered the houses of their persecutors and
demanded arms. The doors of the prisons were opened. The Bishops
of Meath and Limerick, Doctor King, and others, who had long held
the doctrine of passive obedience, but who had at length been
converted by oppression into moderate Whigs, formed themselves
into a provisional government, and sent a messenger to William's
camp, with the news that Dublin was prepared to welcome him. At
eight that evening a troop of English dragoons arrived. They were
met by the whole Protestant population on College Green, where
the statue of the deliverer now stands. Hundreds embraced the
soldiers, hung fondly about the necks of the horses, and ran
wildly about, shaking hands with each other. On the morrow a
large body of cavalry arrived; and soon from every side came news
of the effects which the victory of the Boyne had produced. James
had quitted the island. Wexford had declared for William. Within
twenty-five miles of the capital there was not a Papist in arms.
Almost all the baggage and stores of the defeated army had been
seized by the conquerors. The Enniskilleners had taken not less
than three hundred cars, and had found among the booty ten
thousand pounds in money, much plate, many valuable trinkets, and
all the rich camp equipage of Tyrconnel and Lauzun.707

William fixed his head quarters at Ferns, about two miles from
Dublin. Thence, on the morning of Sunday, the sixth of July, he
rode in great state to the cathedral, and there, with the crown
on his head, returned public thanks to God in the choir which is
now hung with the banners of the Knights of Saint Patrick. King
preached, with all the fervour of a neophyte, on the great
deliverance which God had wrought for the Church. The Protestant
magistrates of the city appeared again, after a long interval, in
the pomp of office. William could not be persuaded to repose
himself at the Castle, but in the evening returned to his camp,
and slept there in his wooden cabin.708

The fame of these great events flew fast, and excited strong
emotions all over Europe. The news of William's wound every where
preceded by a few hours the news of his victory. Paris was roused
at dead of night by the arrival of a courier who brought the
joyful intelligence that the heretic, the parricide, the mortal
enemy of the greatness of France, had been struck dead by a
cannon ball in the sight of the two armies. The commissaries of
police ran about the city, knocked at the doors, and called the
people up to illuminate. In an hour streets, quays and bridges
were in a blaze: drums were beating and trumpets sounding: the
bells of Notre Dame were ringing; peals of cannon were resounding
from the batteries of the Bastile. Tables were set out in the
streets; and wine was served to all who passed. A Prince of
Orange, made of straw, was trailed through the mud, and at last
committed to the flames. He was attended by a hideous effigy of
the devil, carrying a scroll, on which was written, "I have been
waiting for thee these two years." The shops of several
Huguenots who had been dragooned into calling themselves
Catholics, but were suspected of being still heretics at heart,
were sacked by the rabble. It was hardly safe to question the truth
of the report which had been so eagerly welcomed by the
multitude. Soon, however, some coolheaded people ventured to
remark that the fact of the tyrant's death was not quite so
certain as might be wished. Then arose a vehement controversy
about the effect of such wounds; for the vulgar notion was that
no person struck by a cannon ball on the shoulder could recover.
The disputants appealed to medical authority; and the doors of
the great surgeons and physicians were thronged, it was jocosely
said, as if there had been a pestilence in Paris. The question
was soon settled by a letter from James, which announced his
defeat and his arrival at Brest.709

At Rome the news from Ireland produced a sensation of a very
different kind. There too the report of William's death was,
during a short time, credited. At the French embassy all was joy
and triumph: but the Ambassadors of the House of Austria were in
despair; and the aspect of the Pontifical Court by no means
indicated exultation.710 Melfort, in a transport of joy, sate
down to write a letter of congratulation to Mary of Modena. That
letter is still extant, and would alone suffice to explain why he
was the favourite of James. Herod,--so William was designated,
was gone. There must be a restoration; and that restoration ought
to be followed by a terrible revenge and by the establishment of
despotism. The power of the purse must be taken away from the
Commons. Political offenders must be tried, not by juries, but by
judges on whom the Crown could depend. The Habeas Corpus Act must
be rescinded. The authors of the Revolution must be punished with
merciless severity. "If," the cruel apostate wrote, "if the King
is forced to pardon, let it be as few rogues as he can."711 After
the lapse of some anxious hours, a messenger bearing later and
more authentic intelligence alighted at the palace occupied by
the representative of the Catholic King. In a moment all was
changed. The enemies of France,--and all the population, except
Frenchmen and British Jacobites, were her enemies, eagerly
felicitated one another. All the clerks of the Spanish legation
were too few to make transcripts of the despatches for the
Cardinals and Bishops who were impatient to know the details of
the victory. The first copy was sent to the Pope, and was
doubtless welcome to him.712

The good news from Ireland reached London at a moment when good
news was needed. The English flag had been disgraced in the
English seas. A foreign enemy threatened the coast. Traitors were
at work within the realm. Mary had exerted herself beyond her
strength. Her gentle nature was unequal to the cruel anxieties of
her position; and she complained that she could scarcely snatch
a moment from business to calm herself by prayer. Her distress
rose to the highest point when she learned that the camps of her
father and her husband were pitched near to each other, and that
tidings of a battle might be hourly expected. She stole time for
a visit to Kensington, and had three hours of quiet in the
garden, then a rural solitude.713 But the recollection of days
passed there with him whom she might never see again overpowered
her. "The place," she wrote to him, "made me think how happy I
was there when I had your dear company. But now I will say no
more; for I shall hurt my own eyes, which I want now more than
ever. Adieu. Think of me, and love me as much as I shall you,
whom I love more than my life."714

Early on the morning after these tender lines had been
despatched, Whitehall was roused by the arrival of a post from
Ireland. Nottingham was called out of bed. The Queen, who was
just going to the chapel where she daily attended divine service,
was informed that William had been wounded. She had wept much;
but till that moment she had wept alone, and had constrained
herself to show a cheerful countenance to her Court and Council.
But when Nottingham put her husband's letter into her hands, she
burst into tears. She was still trembling with the violence of
her emotions, and had scarcely finished a letter to William in
which she poured out her love, her fears and her thankfulness,
with the sweet natural eloquence of her sex, when another
messenger arrived with the news that the English army had forced
a passage across the Boyne, that the Irish were flying in
confusion, and that the King was well. Yet she was visibly uneasy
till Nottingham had assured her that James was safe. The grave
Secretary, who seems to have really esteemed and loved her,
afterwards described with much feeling that struggle of filial
duty with conjugal affection. On the same day she wrote to adjure
her husband to see that no harm befell her father. "I know," she
said, "I need not beg you to let him be taken care of; for I am
confident you will for your own sake; yet add that to all your
kindness; and, for my sake, let people know you would have no
hurt happen to his person."715 This solicitude, though amiable,
was superfluous. Her father was perfectly competent to take care
of himself. He had never, during the battle, run the smallest
risk of hurt; and, while his daughter was shuddering at the
dangers to which she fancied that he was exposed in Ireland, he
was half way on his voyage to France.

It chanced that the glad tidings arrived at Whitehall on the day
to which the Parliament stood prorogued. The Speaker and several
members of the House of Commons who were in London met, according
to form, at ten in the morning, and were summoned by Black Rod to
the bar of the Peers. The Parliament was then again prorogued by
commission. As soon as this ceremony had been performed, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer put into the hands of the Clerk the
despatch which had just arrived from Ireland, and the Clerk read
it with a loud voice to the lords and gentlemen present.716 The
good news spread rapidly from Westminster Hall to all the
coffeehouses, and was received with transports of joy. For those
Englishmen who wished to see an English army beaten and an
English colony extirpated by the French and Irish were a minority
even of the Jacobite party.

On the ninth day after the battle of the Boyne James landed at
Brest, with an excellent appetite, in high spirits, and in a
talkative humour. He told the history of his defeat to everybody
who would listen to him. But French officers who understood war,
and who compared his story with other accounts, pronounced that,
though His Majesty had witnessed the battle, he knew nothing
about it, except that his army had been routed.717 From Brest he
proceeded to Saint Germains, where, a few hours after his
arrival, he was visited by Lewis. The French King had too much
delicacy and generosity to utter a word which could sound like
reproach. Nothing, he declared, that could conduce to the comfort
of the royal family of England should be wanting, as far as his
power extended. But he was by no means disposed to listen to the
political and military projects of his unlucky guest. James
recommended an immediate descent on England. That kingdom, he
said, had been drained of troops by the demands of Ireland. The
seven or eight thousand regular soldiers who were left would be
unable to withstand a great French army. The people were ashamed
of their error and impatient to repair it. As soon as their
rightful King showed himself, they would rally round him in
multitudes.718 Lewis was too polite and goodnatured to express
what he must have felt. He contented himself with answering
coldly that he could not decide upon any plan about the British
islands till he had heard from his generals in Ireland. James was
importunate, and seemed to think himself ill used, because, a
fortnight after he had run away from one army, he was not
entrusted with another. Lewis was not to be provoked into
uttering an unkind or uncourteous word: but he was resolute
and, in order to avoid solicitation which gave him pain, he
pretended to be unwell. During some time, whenever James came to
Versailles, he was respectfully informed that His Most Christian
Majesty was not equal to the transaction of business. The
highspirited and quickwitted nobles who daily crowded the
antechambers could not help sneering while they bowed low to the
royal visitor, whose poltroonery and stupidity had a second time
made him an exile and a mendicant. They even whispered their
sarcasms loud enough to call up the haughty blood of the Guelphs
in the cheeks of Mary of Modena. But the insensibility of James
was of no common kind. It had long been found proof against
reason and against pity. It now sustained a still harder trial,
and was found proof even against contempt.719

While he was enduring with ignominious fortitude the polite scorn
of the French aristocracy, and doing his best to weary out his
benefactor's patience and good breeding by repeating that this
was the very moment for an invasion of England, and that the
whole island was impatiently expecting its foreign deliverers,
events were passing which signally proved how little the banished
oppressor understood the character of his countrymen.

Tourville had, since the battle of Beachy Head, ranged the
Channel unopposed. On the twenty-first of July his masts were
seen from the rocks of Portland. On the twenty-second he anchored
in the harbour of Torbay, under the same heights which had, not
many months before, sheltered the armament of William. The French
fleet, which now had a considerable number of troops on board,
consisted of a hundred and eleven sail. The galleys, which formed
a large part of this force, resembled rather those ships with
which Alcibiades and Lysander disputed the sovereignty of the
Aegean than those which contended at the Nile and at Trafalgar.
The galley was very long and very narrow, the deck not more than
two feet from the water edge. Each galley was propelled by fifty
or sixty huge oars, and each oar was tugged by five or six
slaves. The full complement of slaves to a vessel was three
hundred and thirty-six; the full complement of officers and
soldiers a hundred and fifty. Of the unhappy rowers some were
criminals who had been justly condemned to a life of hardship and
danger; a few had been guilty only of adhering obstinately to the
Huguenot worship; the great majority were purchased  bondsmen,
generally Turks and Moors. They were of course always forming
plans for massacring their tyrants and escaping from servitude,
and could be kept in order only by constant stripes and by the
frequent infliction of death in horrible forms. An Englishman,
who happened to fall in with about twelve hundred of these most
miserable and most desperate of human beings on their road from
Marseilles to join Tourville's squadron, heard them vowing that,
if they came near a man of war bearing the cross of Saint George,
they would never again see a French dockyard.720

In the Mediterranean galleys were in ordinary use: but none had
ever before been seen on the stormy ocean which roars round our
island. The flatterers of Lewis said that the appearance of such
a squadron on the Atlantic was one of those wonders which were
reserved for his reign; and a medal was struck at Paris to
commemorate this bold experiment in maritime war.721 English
sailors, with more reason, predicted that the first gale would
send the whole of this fairweather armament to the bottom of the
Channel. Indeed the galley, like the ancient trireme, generally
kept close to the shore, and ventured out of sight of land only
when the water was unruffled and the sky serene. But the
qualities which made this sort of ship unfit to brave tempests
and billows made it peculiarly fit for the purpose of landing
soldiers. Tourville determined to try what effect would be
produced by a disembarkation. The English Jacobites who had taken
refuge in France were all confident that the whole population of
the island was ready to rally round an invading army; and he
probably gave them credit for understanding the temper of their
countrymen.

Never was there a greater error. Indeed the French admiral is
said by tradition to have received, while he was still out at
sea, a lesson which might have taught him not to rely on the
assurances of exiles. He picked up a fishing boat, and
interrogated the owner, a plain Sussex man, about the sentiments
of the nation. "Are you," he said, "for King James?" "I do not
know much about such matters," answered the fisherman. "I have
nothing to say against King James. He is a very worthy gentleman,
I believe. God bless him!" "A good fellow!" said Tourville: "then
I am sure you will have no objection to take service with us."
"What!" cried the prisoner; "I go with the French to fight
against the English! Your honour must excuse me; I could not do
it to save my life."722 This poor fisherman, whether he was a
real or an imaginary person, spoke the sense of the nation. The
beacon on the ridge overlooking Teignmouth was kindled; the High
Tor and Causland made answer; and soon all the hill tops of the
West were on re, Messengers were riding hard all night from
Deputy Lieutenant to Deputy Lieutenant. Early the next morning,
without chief, without summons, five hundred gentlemen and
yeomen, armed and mounted, had assembled on the summit of Haldon
Hill. In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up. Every road in
the county from sea to sea was covered by multitudes of fighting
men, all with their faces set towards Torbay. The lords of a
hundred manors, proud of their long pedigrees and old coats of
arms, took the field at the head of their tenantry, Drakes,
Prideauxes and Rolles, Fowell of Fowelscombe and Fulford of
Fulford, Sir Bourchier Wray of Tawstock Park and Sir William
Courtenay of Powderham Castle. Letters written by several of the
Deputy Lieutenants who were most active during this anxious week
are still preserved. All these letters agree in extolling the
courage and enthusiasm of the people. But all agree also in
expressing the most painful solicitude as to the result of an
encounter between a raw militia and veterans who had served under
Turenne and Luxemburg; and all call for the help of regular
troops, in language very unlike that which, when the pressure of
danger was not felt, country gentlemen were then in the habit of
using about standing armies.

Tourville, finding that the whole population was united as one
man against him, contented himself with sending his galleys to
ravage Teignmouth, now a gay watering place consisting of twelve
hundred houses, then an obscure village of about forty
cottages. The inhabitants had fled. Their dwellings were burned;
the venerable parish church was sacked, the pulpit and the
communion table demolished, the Bibles and Prayer Books torn and
scattered about the roads; the cattle and pigs were slaughtered;
and a few small vessels which were employed in fishing or in the
coasting trade, were destroyed. By this time sixteen or seventeen
thousand Devonshire men had encamped close to the shore; and all
the neighbouring counties had risen. The tin mines of Cornwall
had sent forth a great multitude of rude and hardy men mortally
hostile to Popery. Ten thousand of them had just signed an
address to the Queen, in which they had promised to stand by her
against every enemy; and they now kept their word.723 In truth,
the whole nation was stirred. Two and twenty troops of cavalry,
furnished by Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, were reviewed by
Mary at Hounslow, and were complimented by
Marlborough on their martial appearance. The militia of Kent and
Surrey encamped on Blackheath.724 Van Citters informed the States
General that all England was up in arms, on foot or on horseback,
that the disastrous event of the battle of Beachy Head had not
cowed, but exasperated the people, and that every company of
soldiers which he passed on the road was shouting with one voice,
"God bless King William and Queen Mary."725

Charles Granville, Lord Lansdowne, eldest son of the Earl of
Bath, came with some troops from the garrison of Plymouth to
take the command of the tumultuary army which had assembled round
the basin of Torbay. Lansdowne was no novice. He had served
several hard campaigns against the common enemy of Christendom,
and had been created a Count of the Roman Empire in reward of the
valour which he had displayed on that memorable day, sung by
Filicaja and by Waller, when the infidels retired from the walls
of Vienna. He made preparations for action; but the French did
not choose to attack him, and were indeed impatient to depart.
They found some difficulty in getting away. One day the wind was
adverse to the sailing vessels. Another day the water was too
rough for the galleys. At length the fleet stood out to sea. As
the line of ships turned the lofty cape which overlooks Torquay,
an incident happened which, though slight in itself, greatly
interested the thousands who lined the coast. Two wretched slaves
disengaged themselves from an oar, and sprang overboard. One of
them perished. The other, after struggling more than an hour in
the water, came safe to English ground, and was cordially
welcomed by a population to which the discipline of the galleys
was a thing strange and shocking. He proved to be a Turk, and was
humanely sent back to his own country.

A pompous description of the expedition appeared in the Paris
Gazette. But in truth Tourville's exploits had been inglorious,
and yet less inglorious than impolitic. The injury which he had
done bore no proportion to the resentment which he had roused.
Hitherto the Jacobites had tried to persuade the nation that the
French would come as friends and deliverers, would observe strict
discipline, would respect the temples and the ceremonies of the
established religion, and would depart as soon as the Dutch
oppressors had been expelled and the ancient constitution of the
realm restored. The short visit of Tourville to our coast had
shown how little reason there was to expect such moderation from
the soldiers of Lewis. They had been in our island only a few
hours, and had occupied only a few acres. But within a few hours
and a few acres had been exhibited in miniature the devastation
of the Palatinate. What had happened was communicated to the
whole kingdom far more rapidly than by gazettes or news letters.
A brief for the relief of the people of Teignmouth was read in
all the ten thousand parish churches of the land. No congregation
could hear without emotion that the Popish marauders had made
desolate the habitations of quiet and humble peasants, had
outraged the altars of God, had torn to pieces the Gospels and
the Communion service. A street, built out of the contributions
of the charitable, on the site of the dwellings which the
invaders had destroyed, still retains the name of French
Street.726

The outcry against those who were, with good reason, suspected of
having invited the enemy to make a descent on our shores was
vehement and general, and was swollen by many voices which had
recently been loud in clamour against the government of William.
The question had ceased to be a question between two dynasties,
and had become a question between England and France. So strong
was the national sentiment that nonjurors and Papists shared or
affected to share it. Dryden, not long after the burning of
Teignmouth, laid a play at the feet of Halifax, with a dedication
eminently ingenious, artful, and eloquent. The dramatist
congratulated his patron on having taken shelter in a calm haven
from the storms of public life, and, with great force and beauty
of diction, magnified the felicity of the statesman who exchanges
the bustle of office and the fame of oratory for philosophic
studies and domestic endearments. England could not complain that
she was defrauded of the service to which she had a right. Even
the severe discipline of ancient Rome permitted a soldier,
after many campaigns, to claim his dismission; and Halifax had
surely done enough for his country to be entitled to the same
privilege. But the poet added that there was one case in which
the Roman veteran, even after his discharge, was required to
resume his shield and his pilum; and that one case was an
invasion of the Gauls. That a writer who had purchased the smiles
of James by apostasy, who had been driven in disgrace from the
court of William, and who had a deeper interest in the
restoration of the exiled House than any man who made letters his
calling, should have used, whether sincerely or insincerely, such
language as this, is a fact which may convince us that the
determination never to be subjugated by foreigners was fixed in
the hearts of the people.727

There was indeed a Jacobite literature in which no trace of this
patriotic spirit can be detected, a literature the remains of
which prove that there were Englishmen perfectly willing to see
the English flag dishonoured, the English soil invaded, the
English capital sacked, the English crown worn by a vassal of
Lewis, if only they might avenge themselves on their enemies, and
especially on William, whom they hated with a hatred half
frightful half ludicrous. But this literature was altogether a
work of darkness. The law by which the Parliament of James had
subjected the press to the control of censors was still in force;
and, though the officers whose business it was to prevent the
infraction of that law were not extreme to mark every
irregularity committed by a bookseller who understood the art of
conveying a guinea in a squeeze of the hand, they could not wink
at the open vending of unlicensed pamphlets filled with ribald
insults to the Sovereign, and with direct instigations to
rebellion. But there had long lurked in the garrets of London a
class of printers who worked steadily at their calling with
precautions resembling those employed by coiners and forgers.
Women were on the watch to give the alarm by their screams if an
officer appeared near the workshop. The press was immediately
pushed into a closet behind the bed; the types were flung into
the coalhole, and covered with cinders: the compositor
disappeared through a trapdoor in the roof, and made off over
the tiles of the neighbouring houses. In these dens were
manufactured treasonable works of all classes and sizes, from
halfpenny broadsides of doggrel verse up to massy quartos filled
with Hebrew quotations. It was not safe to exhibit such
publications openly on a counter. They were sold only by trusty
agents, and in secret places. Some tracts which were thought
likely to produce a great effect were given away in immense
numbers at the expense of wealthy Jacobites. Sometimes a paper
was thrust under a door, sometimes dropped on the table of a
coffeehouse. One day a thousand copies of a scurrilous pamphlet
went out by the postbags. On another day, when the shopkeepers
rose early to take down their shutters, they found the whole of
Fleet Street and the Strand white with seditious handbills.728

Of the numerous performances which were ushered into the world by
such shifts as these, none produced a greater sensation than a
little book which purported to be a form of prayer and
humiliation for the use of the persecuted Church. It was
impossible to doubt that a considerable sum had been expended on
this work. Ten thousand copies were, by various means, scattered
over the kingdom. No more mendacious, more malignant or more
impious lampoon was ever penned. Though the government had as yet
treated its enemies with a lenity unprecedented in the history of
our country, though not a single person had, since the
Revolution, suffered death for any political offence, the authors
of this liturgy were not ashamed to pray that God would assuage
their enemy's insatiable thirst for blood, or would, if any more
of them were to be brought through the Red Sea to the Land of
Promise, prepare them for the passage.729 They complained that
the Church of England, once the perfection of beauty, had become
a scorn and derision, a heap of ruins, a vineyard of wild grapes;
that her services had ceased to deserve the name of public
worship; that the bread and wine which she dispensed had no
longer any sacramental virtue; that her priests, in the act of
swearing fealty to the usurper, had lost the sacred character
which had been conferred on them by their ordination.730 James
was profanely described as the stone which foolish builders had
rejected; and a fervent petition was put up that Providence would
again make him the head of the corner. The blessings which were
called down on our country were of a singular description. There
was something very like a prayer for another Bloody Circuit;
"Give the King the necks of his enemies;" there was something very
like a prayer for a French invasion; "Raise him up friends abroad;"
and there was a more mysterious prayer, the best comment on
which was afterwards furnished by the Assassination Plot; "Do
some great thing for him; which we in particular know not how to
pray for."731

This liturgy was composed, circulated, and read, it is said, in
some congregations of Jacobite schismatics, before William set
out for Ireland, but did not attract general notice till the
appearance of a foreign armament on our coast had roused the
national spirit. Then rose a roar of indignation against the
Englishmen who had dared, under the hypocritical pretence of
devotion, to imprecate curses on England. The deprived Prelates
were suspected, and not without some show of reason. For the
nonjurors were, to a man, zealous Episcopalians. Their doctrine
was that, in ecclesiastical matters of grave moment, nothing
could be well done without the sanction of the Bishop. And could
it be believed that any who held this doctrine would compose a
service, print it, circulate it, and actually use it in public
worship, without the approbation of Sancroft, whom the whole
party revered, not only as the true Primate of all England, but
also as a Saint and a Confessor? It was known that the Prelates
who had refused the oaths had lately held several consultations
at Lambeth. The subject of those consultations, it was now said,
might easily be guessed. The holy fathers had been engaged in
framing prayers for the destruction of the Protestant colony in
Ireland, for the defeat of the English fleet in the Channel, and
for the speedy arrival of a French army in Kent. The extreme
section of the Whig party pressed this accusation with vindictive
eagerness. This then, said those implacable politicians, was the
fruit of King William's merciful policy. Never had he committed a
greater error than when he had conceived the hope that the hearts
of the clergy were to be won by clemency and moderation. He had
not chosen to give credit to men who had learned by a long and
bitter experience that no kindness will tame the sullen ferocity
of a priesthood. He had stroked and pampered when he should have
tried the effect of chains and hunger. He had hazarded the good
will of his best friends by protecting his worst enemies. Those
Bishops who had publicly refused to acknowledge him as their
Sovereign, and who, by that refusal, had forfeited their
dignities and revenues, still continued to live unmolested in
palaces which ought to be occupied by better men: and for this
indulgence, an indulgence unexampled in the history of
revolutions, what return had been made to him? Even this, that
the men whom he had, with so much tenderness, screened from just
punishment, had the insolence to describe him in their prayers as
a persecutor defiled with the blood of the righteous; they asked
for grace to endure with fortitude his sanguinary tyranny; they
cried to heaven for a foreign fleet and army to deliver them from
his yoke; nay, they hinted at a wish so odious that even they had
not the front to speak it plainly. One writer, in a pamphlet
which produced a great sensation, expressed his wonder that the
people had not, when Tourville was riding victorious in the
Channel, bewitted the nonjuring Prelates. Excited as the public
mind then was, there was some danger that this suggestion might
bring a furious mob to Lambeth. At Norwich indeed the people
actually rose, attacked the palace which the Bishop was still
suffered to occupy, and would have pulled it down but for the
timely arrival of the trainbands.732 The government very properly
instituted criminal proceedings against the publisher of the work
which had produced this alarming breach of the peace.733 The
deprived Prelates meanwhile put forth a defence of their conduct.
In this document they declared, with all solemnity, and as in the
presence of God, that they had no hand in the new liturgy, that
they knew not who had framed it, that they had never used it,
that they had never held any correspondence directly or
indirectly with the French court, that they were engaged in no
plot against the existing government, and that they would
willingly shed their blood rather than see England subjugated by
a foreign prince, who had, in his own kingdom, cruelly persecuted
their Protestant brethren. As to the write who had marked them
out to the public vengeance by a fearful word, but too well
understood, they commended him to the Divine mercy, and heartily
prayed that his great sin might be forgiven him. Most of those
who signed this paper did so doubtless with perfect sincerity:
but it soon appeared that one at least of the subscribers had
added to the crime of betraying his country the crime of calling
God to witness a falsehood.734

The events which were passing in the Channel and on the Continent
compelled William to make repeated changes in his plans. During
the week which followed his triumphal entry into Dublin,
messengers charged with evil tidings arrived from England in
rapid succession. First came the account of Waldeck's defeat at
Fleurus. The King was much disturbed. All the pleasure, he said,
which his own victory had given him was at an end. Yet, with that
generosity which was hidden under his austere aspect, he sate
down, even in the moment of his first vexation, to write a kind
and encouraging letter to the unfortunate general.735 Three days
later came intelligence more alarming still. The allied fleet had
been ignominiously beaten. The sea from the Downs to the Land's
End was in possession of the enemy. The next post might bring
news that Kent was invaded. A French squadron might appear in
Saint George's Channel, and might without difficulty burn all the
transports which were anchored in the Bay of Dublin. William
determined to return to England; but he wished to obtain, before
he went, the command of a safe haven on the eastern coast of
Ireland. Waterford was the place best suited to his purpose; and
towards Waterford he immediately proceeded. Clonmel and Kilkenny
were abandoned by the Irish troops as soon as it was known that
he was approaching. At Kilkenny he was entertained, on the
nineteenth of July, by the Duke of Ormond in the ancient castle
of the Butlers, which had not long before been occupied by
Lauzun, and which therefore, in the midst of the general
devastation, still had tables and chairs, hangings on the walls,
and claret in the cellars. On the twenty-first two regiments
which garrisoned Waterford consented to march out after a faint
show of resistance; a few hours later, the fort of Duncannon,
which, towering on a rocky promontory,
commanded the entrance of the harbour, was surrendered; and
William was master of the whole of that secure and spacious basin
which is formed by the united waters of the Suir, the Nore and
the Barrow. He then announced his intention of instantly
returning to England, and, having declared Count Solmes Commander
in Chief of the army of Ireland, set out for Dublin.736

But good news met him on the road. Tourville had appeared on the
coast of Devonshire, had put some troops on shore, and had sacked
Teignmouth; but the only effect of this insult had been to raise
the whole population of the western counties in arms against the
invaders. The enemy had departed, after doing just mischief
enough to make the cause of James as odious for a time to Tories
as to Whigs. William therefore again changed his plans, and
hastened back to his army, which, during his absence, had moved
westward, and which he rejoined in the neighbourhood of
Cashel.737

About this time he received from Mary a letter requesting him to
decide an important question on which the Council of Nine was
divided. Marlborough was of opinion that all danger of invasion
was over for that year. The sea, he said, was open; for the
French ships had returned into port, and were refitting. Now was
the time to send an English fleet, with five thousand troops on
board, to the southern extremity of Ireland. Such a force might
easily reduce Cork and Kinsale, two of the most important
strongholds still occupied by the forces of James. Marlborough
was strenuously supported by Nottingham, and as strenuously
opposed by the other members of the interior council with
Caermarthen at their head. The Queen referred the matter to her
husband. He highly approved of the plan, and gave orders that it
should be executed by the General who had formed it. Caermarthen
submitted, though with a bad grace, and with some murmurs at the
extraordinary partiality of His Majesty for Marlborough.738

William meanwhile was advancing towards Limerick. In that city
the army which he had put to rout at the Boyne had taken refuge,
discomfited, indeed, and disgraced, but very little diminished.
He would not have had the trouble of besieging the place, if the
advice of Lauzun and of Lauzun's countrymen had been followed.
They laughed at the thought of defending such fortifications, and
indeed would not admit that the name of fortifications could
properly be given to heaps of dirt, which certainly bore little
resemblance to the works of Valenciennes and Philipsburg. "It is
unnecessary," said Lauzun, with an oath, "for the English to
bring cannon against such a place as this. What you call your
ramparts might be battered down with roasted apples." He
therefore gave his voice for evacuating Limerick, and declared
that, at all events, he was determined not to throw away in a
hopeless resistance the lives of the brave men who had been
entrusted to his care by his master.739 The truth is, that the
judgment of the brilliant and adventurous Frenchman was biassed
by his inclinations. He and his companions were sick of Ireland.
They were ready to face death with courage, nay, with gaiety, on
a field of battle. But the dull, squalid, barbarous life, which
they had now been leading during several months, was more than
they could bear. They were as much out of the pale of the
civilised world as if they had been banished to Dahomey or
Spitzbergen. The climate affected their health and spirits. In
that unhappy country, wasted by years of predatory war,
hospitality could offer little more than a couch of straw, a
trencher of meat half raw and half burned, and a draught of sour
milk. A crust of bread, a pint of wine, could hardly be purchased
for money. A year of such hardships seemed a century to men who
had always been accustomed to carry with them to the camp the
luxuries of Paris, soft bedding, rich tapestry, sideboards of
plate, hampers of Champagne, opera dancers, cooks and musicians.
Better to be a prisoner in the Bastille, better to be a recluse
at La Trappe, than to be generalissimo of the half naked savages
who burrowed in the dreary swamps of Munster. Any plea was
welcome which would serve as an excuse for returning from that
miserable exile to the land of cornfields and vineyards, of
gilded coaches and laced cravats, of ballrooms and theatres.740

Very different was the feeling of the children of the soil. The
island, which to French courtiers was a disconsolate place of
banishment, was the Irishman's home. There were collected all the
objects of his love and of his ambition; and there he hoped that
his dust would one day mingle with the dust of his fathers. To
him even the heaven dark with the vapours of the ocean, the
wildernesses of black rushes and stagnant water, the mud cabins
where the peasants and the swine shared their meal of roots, had
a charm which was wanting to the sunny skies, the cultured fields
and the stately mansions of the Seine. He could imagine no fairer
spot than his country, if only his country could be freed from
the tyranny of the Saxons; and all hope that his country would
be freed from the tyranny of the Saxons must be abandoned if
Limerick were surrendered.

The conduct of the Irish during the last two months had sunk
their military reputation to the lowest point. They had, with the
exception of some gallant regiments of cavalry, fled
disgracefully at the Boyne, and had thus incurred the bitter
contempt both of their enemies and of their allies. The English
who were at Saint Germains never spoke of the Irish but as a
people of dastards and traitors.741 The French were so much
exasperated against the unfortunate nation, that Irish merchants,
who had been many years settled at Paris, durst not walk the
streets for fear of being insulted by the populace.742 So strong
was the prejudice, that absurd stories were invented to explain
the intrepidity with which the horse had fought. It was said that
the troopers were not men of Celtic blood, but descendants of the
old English of the pale.743 It was also said that they had been
intoxicated with brandy just before the battle.744 Yet nothing
can be more certain than that they must have been generally of
Irish race; nor did the steady valour which they displayed in a
long and almost hopeless conflict against great odds bear any
resemblance to the fury of a coward maddened by strong drink into
momentary hardihood. Even in the infantry, undisciplined and
disorganized as it was, there was much spirit, though little
firmness. Fits of enthusiasm and fits of faintheartedness
succeeded each other. The same battalion, which at one time threw
away its arms in a panic and shrieked for quarter, would on
another occasion fight valiantly. On the day of the Boyne the
courage of the ill trained and ill commanded kernes had ebbed to
the lowest point. When they had rallied at Limerick, their blood
was up. Patriotism, fanaticism, shame, revenge, despair, had
raised them above themselves. With one voice officers and men
insisted that the city should be defended to the last. At the
head of those who were for resisting was the brave Sarsfield; and
his exhortations diffused through all ranks a spirit resembling
his own. To save his country was beyond his power. All that he
could do was to prolong her last agony through one bloody and
disastrous year.745

Tyrconnel was altogether incompetent to decide the question on
which the French and the Irish differed. The only military
qualities that he had ever possessed were personal bravery and
skill in the use of the sword. These qualities had once enabled
him to frighten away rivals from the doors of his mistresses, and
to play the Hector at cockpits and hazard tables. But more was
necessary to enable him to form an opinion as to the possibility
of defending Limerick. He would probably, had his temper been as
hot as in the days when he diced with Grammont and threatened to
cut the old Duke of Ormond's throat, have voted for running any
risk however desperate. But age, pain and sickness had left
little of the canting, bullying, fighting Dick Talbot of the
Restoration. He had sunk into deep despondency. He was incapable
of strenuous exertion. The French officers pronounced him utterly
ignorant of the art of war. They had observed that at the Boyne
he had seemed to be stupified, unable to give directions himself,
unable even to make up his mind about the suggestions which were
offered by others.746 The disasters which had since followed one
another in rapid succession were not likely to restore the tone
of a mind so pitiably unnerved. His wife was already in France
with the little which remained of his once ample fortune: his own
wish was to follow her thither: his voice was therefore given for
abandoning the city.

At last a compromise was made. Lauzun and Tyrconnel, with the
French troops, retired to Galway. The great body of the native
army, about twenty thousand strong, remained at Limerick. The
chief command there was entrusted to Boisseleau, who understood
the character of the Irish better, and consequently, judged them
more favourably, than any of his countrymen. In general, the
French captains spoke of their unfortunate allies with boundless
contempt and abhorrence, and thus made themselves as hateful as
the English.747

Lauzun and Tyrconnel had scarcely departed when the advanced
guard of William's army came in sight. Soon the King himself,
accompanied by Auverquerque and Ginkell, and escorted by three
hundred horse, rode forward to examine the fortifications. The
city, then the second in Ireland, though less altered since that
time than most large cities in the British isles, has undergone a
great change. The new town did not then exist. The ground now
covered by those smooth and broad pavements, those neat gardens,
those stately shops flaming with red brick, and gay with shawls
and china, was then an open meadow lying without the walls. The
city consisted of two parts, which had been designated during
several centuries as the English and the Irish town. The English
town stands on an island surrounded by the Shannon, and consists
of a knot of antique houses with gable ends, crowding thick round
a venerable cathedral. The aspect of the streets is such that a
traveller who wanders through them may easily fancy himself in
Normandy or Flanders. Not far from the cathedral, an ancient
castle overgrown with weeds and ivy looks down on the river. A
narrow and rapid stream, over which, in 1690, there was only a
single bridge, divides the English town from the quarter
anciently occupied by the hovels of the native population. The
view from the top of the cathedral now extends many miles over a
level expanse of rich mould, through which the greatest of Irish
rivers winds between artificial banks. But in the seventeenth
century those banks had not been constructed; and that wide
plain, of which the grass, verdant even beyond the verdure of
Munster, now feeds some of the finest cattle in Europe, was then
almost always a marsh and often a lake.748

When it was known that the French troops had quitted Limerick,
and that the Irish only remained, the general expectation in the
English camp was that the city would be an easy conquest.749 Nor
was that expectation unreasonable; for even Sarsfield desponded.
One chance, in his opinion, there still was. William had brought
with him none but small guns. Several large pieces of ordnance, a
great quantity of provisions and ammunition, and a bridge of tin
boats, which in the watery plain of the Shannon was frequently
needed, were slowly following from Cashel. If the guns and
gunpowder could be intercepted and destroyed, there might be some
hope. If not, all was lost; and the best thing that a brave and
high spirited Irish gentleman could do was to forget the country
which he had in vain tried to defend, and to seek in some foreign
land a home or a grave.

A few hours, therefore, after the English tents had been pitched
before Limerick, Sarsfield set forth, under cover of the night,
with a strong body of horse and dragoons. He took the road to
Killaloe, and crossed the Shannon there. During the day he lurked
with his band in a wild mountain tract named from the silver
mines which it contains. Those mines had many years before been
worked by English proprietors, with the help of engineers and
labourers imported from the Continent. But, in the rebellion of
1641, the aboriginal population had destroyed the works and
massacred the workmen; nor had the devastation then committed
been since repaired. In this desolate region Sarsfield found no
lack of scouts or of guides; for all the peasantry of Munster
were zealous on his side. He learned in the evening that the
detachment which guarded the English artillery had halted for the
night about seven miles from William's camp, on a pleasant carpet
of green turf under the ruined walls of an old castle that
officers and men seemed to think themselves perfectly secure;
that the beasts had been turned loose to graze, and that even the
sentinels were dozing. When it was dark the Irish horsemen
quitted their hiding place, and were conducted by the people of
the country to the place where the escort lay sleeping round the
guns. The surprise was complete. Some of the English sprang to
their arms and made an attempt to resist, but in vain. About
sixty fell. One only was taken alive. The rest fled. The
victorious Irish made a huge pile of waggons and pieces of
cannon. Every gun was stuffed with powder, and fixed with its
mouth in the ground; and the whole mass was blown up. The
solitary prisoner, a lieutenant, was treated with great civility
by Sarsfield. "If I had failed in this attempt," said the gallant
Irishman, "I should have been off to France."750

Intelligence had been carried to William's head quarters that
Sarsfield had stolen out of Limerick and was ranging the country.
The King guessed the design of his brave enemy, and sent five
hundred horse to protect the guns. Unhappily there was some
delay, which the English, always disposed to believe the worst of
the Dutch courtiers, attributed to the negligence or perverseness
of Portland. At one in the morning the detachment set out, but
had scarcely left the camp when a blaze like lightning and a
crash like thunder announced to the wide plain of the Shannon
that all was over.751

Sarsfield had long been the favourite of his countrymen; and this
most seasonable exploit, judiciously planned and vigorously
executed, raised him still higher in their estimation. Their
spirits rose; and the besiegers began to lose heart. William did
his best to repair his loss. Two of the guns which had been blown
up were found to be still serviceable. Two more were sent for
from Waterford. Batteries were constructed of small field pieces,
which, though they might have been useless against one of the
fortresses of Hainault or Brabant, made some impression on the
feeble defences of Limerick. Several outworks were carried by
storm; and a breach in the rampart of the city began to appear.

During these operations, the English army was astonished and
amused by an incident, which produced indeed no very important
consequences, but which illustrates in the most striking manner
the real nature of Irish Jacobitism. In the first rank of those
great Celtic houses, which, down to the close of the reign of
Elizabeth, bore rule in Ulster, were the O'Donnels. The head of
that house had yielded to the skill and energy of Mountjoy, had
kissed the hand of James the First, and had consented to exchange
the rude independence of a petty prince for an eminently
honourable place among British subjects. During a short time the
vanquished chief held the rank of an Earl, and was the landlord
of an immense domain of which he had once been the sovereign. But
soon he began to suspect the government of plotting against him,
and, in revenge or in selfdefence, plotted against the
government. His schemes failed; he fled to the continent; his
title and his estates were forfeited; and an Anglosaxon colony
was planted in the territory which he had governed. He meanwhile
took refuge at the court of Spain. Between that court and the
aboriginal Irish there had, during the long contest between
Philip and Elizabeth, been a close connection. The exiled
chieftain was welcomed at Madrid as a good Catholic flying from
heretical persecutors. His illustrious descent and princely
dignity, which to the English were subjects of ridicule, secured
to him the respect of the Castilian grandees. His honours were
inherited by a succession of banished men who lived and died far
from the land where the memory of their family was fondly
cherished by a rude peasantry, and was kept fresh by the songs of
minstrels and the tales of begging friars. At length, in the
eighty-third year of the exile of this ancient dynasty, it was
known over all Europe that the Irish were again in arms for their
independence. Baldearg O'Donnel, who called himself the O'Donnel,
a title far prouder, in the estimation of his race, than any
marquisate or dukedom, had been bred in Spain, and was in the
service of the Spanish government. He requested the permission of
that government to repair to Ireland. But the House of Austria
was now closely leagued with England; and the permission was
refused. The O'Donnel made his escape, and by a circuitous route,
in the course of which he visited Turkey, arrived at Kinsale a
few days after James had sailed thence for France. The effect
produced on the native population by the arrival of this solitary
wanderer was marvellous. Since Ulster had been reconquered by the
Englishry, great multitudes of the Irish inhabitants of that
province had migrated southward, and were now leading a vagrant
life in Connaught and Munster. These men, accustomed from their
infancy to hear of the good old times, when the O'Donnel,
solemnly inaugurated on the rock of Kilmacrenan by the successor
of Saint Columb, governed the mountains of Donegal in defiance of
the strangers of the pale, flocked to the standard of the
restored exile. He was soon at the head of seven or eight
thousand Rapparees, or, to use the name peculiar to Ulster,
Creaghts; and his followers adhered to him with a loyalty very
different from the languid sentiment which the Saxon James had
been able to inspire. Priests and even Bishops swelled the train
of the adventurer. He was so much elated by his reception that
he sent agents to France, who assured the ministers of Lewis
that the O'Donnel would, if furnished with arms and ammunition,
bring into the field thirty thousand Celts from Ulster, and that
the Celts of Ulster would be found far superior in every military
quality to those of Leinster, Munster and Connaught. No
expression used by Baldearg indicated that he considered himself
as a subject. His notion evidently was that the House of O'Donnel
was as truly and as indefeasibly royal as the House of Stuart;
and not a few of his countrymen were of the same mind. He made a
pompous entrance into Limerick; and his appearance there raised
the hopes of the garrison to a strange pitch. Numerous prophecies
were recollected or invented. An O'Donnel with a red mark was to
be the deliverer of his country; and Baldearg meant a red mark.
An O'Donnel was to gain a great battle over the English near
Limerick; and at Limerick the O'Donnel and the English were now
brought face to face.752

While these predictions were eagerly repeated by the defenders
of the city, evil presages, grounded not on barbarous oracles,
but on grave military reasons, began to disturb William and his
most experienced officers. The blow struck by Sarsfield had told;
the artillery had been long in doing its work; that work was even
now very imperfectly done; the stock of powder had begun to run
low; the autumnal rain had begun to fall. The soldiers in the
trenches were up to their knees in mire. No precaution was
neglected; but, though drains were dug to carry off the water,
and though pewter basins of usquebaugh and brandy blazed all
night in the tents, cases of fever had already occurred, and it
might well be apprehended that, if the army remained but a few
days longer on that swampy soil, there would be a pestilence more
terrible than that which had raged twelve months before under the
walls of Dundalk.753 A council of war was held. It was determined
to make one great effort, and, if that effort failed, to raise
the seige.

On the twenty-seventh of August, at three in the afternoon, the
signal was given. Five hundred grenadiers rushed from the English
trenches to the counterscarp, fired their pieces, and threw their
grenades. The Irish fled into the town, and were followed by the
assailants, who, in the excitement of victory, did not wait for
orders. Then began a terrible street fight. The Irish, as soon as
they had recovered from their surprise, stood resolutely to their
arms; and the English grenadiers, overwhelmed by numbers, were,
with great loss, driven back to the counterscarp. There the
struggle was long and desperate. When indeed was the Roman
Catholic Celt to fight if he did not fight on that day? The very
women of Limerick mingled, in the combat, stood firmly under the
hottest fire, and flung stones and broken bottles at the enemy.
In the moment when the conflict was fiercest a mine exploded, and
hurled a fine German battalion into the air. During four hours
the carnage and uproar continued. The thick cloud which rose from
the breach streamed out on the wind for many miles, and
disappeared behind the hills of Clare. Late in the evening the
besiegers retired slowly and sullenly to their camp. Their hope
was that a second attack would be made on the morrow; and the
soldiers vowed to have the town or die. But the powder was now
almost exhausted; the rain fell in torrents; the gloomy masses of
cloud which came up from the south west threatened a havoc more
terrible than that of the sword; and there was reason to fear
that the roads, which were already deep in mud, would soon be in
such a state that no wheeled carriage could be dragged through
them. The King determined to raise the siege, and to move his
troops to a healthier region. He had in truth staid long enough;
for it was with great difficulty that his guns and waggons were
tugged away by long teams of oxen.754

The history of the first siege of Limerick bears, in some
respects, a remarkable analogy to the history of the siege of
Londonderry. The southern city was, like the northern city, the
last asylum of a Church and of a nation. Both places were crowded
by fugitives from all parts of Ireland. Both places appeared to
men who had made a regular study of the art of war incapable of
resisting an enemy. Both were, in the moment of extreme danger,
abandoned by those commanders who should have defended them.
Lauzun and Tyrconnel deserted Limerick as Cunningham and Lundy
had deserted Londonderry. In both cases, religious and patriotic
enthusiasm struggled unassisted against great odds; and, in both
cases, religious and patriotic enthusiasm did what veteran
warriors had pronounced it absurd to attempt.

It was with no pleasurable emotions that Lauzun and Tyrconnel
learned at Galway the fortunate issue of the conflict in which
they had refused to take a part. They were weary of Ireland; they
were apprehensive that their conduct might be unfavourably
represented in France; they therefore determined to be beforehand
with their accusers, and took ship together for the Continent.

Tyrconnel, before he departed, delegated his civil authority to
one council, and his military authority to another. The young
Duke of Berwick was declared Commander in Chief; but this dignity
was merely nominal. Sarsfield, undoubtedly the first of Irish
soldiers, was placed last in the list of the councillors to whom
the conduct of the war was entrusted; and some believed that he
would not have been in the list at all, had not the Viceroy
feared that the omission of so popular a name might produce a
mutiny.

William meanwhile had reached Waterford, and had sailed thence
for England. Before he embarked, he entrusted the government of
Ireland to three Lords Justices. Henry Sydney, now Viscount
Sydney, stood first in the commission; and with him were joined
Coningsby and Sir Charles Porter. Porter had formerly held the
Great Seal of the kingdom, had, merely because he was a
Protestant, been deprived of it by James, and had now received it
again from the hand of William.

On the sixth of September the King, after a voyage of twenty-four
hours, landed at Bristol. Thence he travelled to London, stopping
by the road at the mansions of some great lords, and it was
remarked that all those who were thus honoured were Tories. He
was entertained one day at Badminton by the Duke of Beaufort, who
was supposed to have brought himself with great difficulty to
take the oaths, and on a subsequent day at a large house near
Marlborough which, in our own time, before the great revolution
produced by railways, was renowned as one of the best inns in
England, but which, in the seventeenth century, was a seat of the
Duke of Somerset. William was every where received with marks of
respect and joy. His campaign indeed had not ended quite so
prosperously as it had begun; but on the whole his success had
been great beyond expectation, and had fully vindicated the
wisdom of his resolution to command his army in person. The sack
of Teignmouth too was fresh in the minds of Englishmen, and had
for a time reconciled all but the most fanatical Jacobites to
each other and to the throne. The magistracy and clergy of the
capital repaired to Kensington with thanks and congratulations.
The people rang bells and kindled bonfires. For the Pope, whom
good Protestants had been accustomed to immolate, the French King
was on this occasion substituted, probably by way of retaliation
for the insults which had been offered to the effigy of William
by the Parisian populace. A waxen figure, which was doubtless a
hideous caricature of the most graceful and majestic of princes,
was dragged about Westminster in a chariot. Above was inscribed,
in large letters, "Lewis the greatest tyrant of fourteen." After
the procession, the image was committed to the flames, amidst
loud huzzas, in the middle of Covent Garden.755

When William arrived in London, the expedition destined for Cork,
was ready to sail from Portsmouth, and Marlborough had been some
time on board waiting for a fair wind. He was accompanied by
Grafton. This young man had been, immediately after the departure
of James, and while the throne was still vacant, named by William
Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot Guards. The Revolution had
scarcely been consummated, when signs of disaffection began to
appear in that regiment, the most important, both because of its
peculiar duties and because of its numerical strength, of all the
regiments in the army. It was thought that the Colonel had not
put this bad spirit down with a sufficiently firm hand. He was
known not to be perfectly satisfied with the new arrangement; he
had voted for a Regency; and it was rumoured, perhaps without
reason, that he had dealings with Saint Germains. The honourable
and lucrative command to which he had just been appointed was
taken from him.756 Though severely mortified, he behaved like a
man of sense and spirit. Bent on proving that he had been
wrongfully suspected, and animated by an honourable ambition to
distinguish himself in his profession, he obtained permission to
serve as a volunteer under Marlborough in Ireland.

At length, on the eighteenth of September, the wind changed. The
fleet stood out to sea, and on the twenty-first appeared before
the harbour of Cork. The troops landed, and were speedily joined
by the Duke of Wirtemberg, with several regiments, Dutch, Danish,
and French, detached from the army which had lately besieged
Limerick. The Duke immediately put forward a claim which, if the
English general had not been a man of excellent judgment and
temper, might have been fatal to the expedition. His Highness
contended that, as a prince of a sovereign house, he was entitled
to command in chief. Marlborough calmly and politely showed that
the pretence was unreasonable. A dispute followed, in which it is
said that the German behaved with rudeness, and the Englishman
with that gentle firmness to which, more perhaps than even to his
great abilities, he owed his success in life. At length a
Huguenot officer suggested a compromise. Marlborough consented to
waive part of his rights, and to allow precedence to the Duke on
the alternate days. The first morning on which Marlborough had
the command, he gave the word "Wirtemberg." The Duke's heart was
won by this compliment and on the next day he gave the word
"Marlborough."

But, whoever might give the word, genius asserted its
indefeasible superiority. Marlborough was on every day the real
general. Cork was vigorously attacked. Outwork after outwork was
rapidly carried. In forty-eight hours all was over. The traces of
the short struggle may still be seen. The old fort, where the
Irish made the hardest fight, lies in ruins. The Daria Cathedral,
so ungracefully joined to the ancient tower, stands on the site
of a Gothic edifice which was shattered by the English cannon. In
the neighbouring churchyard is still shown the spot where stood,
during many ages, one of those round towers which have perplexed
antiquaries. This venerable monument shared the fate of the
neighbouring church. On another spot, which is now called the
Mall, and is lined by the stately houses of banking companies,
railway companies, and insurance companies, but which was then a
bog known by the name of the Rape Marsh, four English regiments,
up to the shoulders in water, advanced gallantly to the assault.
Grafton, ever foremost in danger, while struggling through the
quagmire, was struck by a shot from the ramparts, and was carried
back dying. The place where he fell, then about a hundred yards
without the city, but now situated in the very centre of business
and population, is still called Grafton Street. The assailants
had made their way through the swamp, and the close fighting was
just about to begin, when a parley was beaten. Articles of
capitulation were speedily adjusted. The garrison, between four
and five thousand fighting men, became prisoners. Marlborough
promised to intercede with the King both for them and for the
inhabitants, and to prevent outrage and spoliation. His troops he
succeeded in restraining; but crowds of sailors and camp
followers came into the city through the breach; and the houses
of many Roman Catholics were sacked before order was restored.

No commander has ever understood better than Marlborough how to
improve a victory. A few hours after Cork had fallen, his cavalry
were on the road to Kinsale. A trumpeter was sent to summon the
place. The Irish threatened to hang him for bringing such a
message, set fire to the town, and retired into two forts called
the Old and the New. The English horse arrived just in time to
extinguish the flames. Marlborough speedily followed with his
infantry. The Old Fort was scaled; and four hundred and fifty men
who defended it were all killed or taken. The New Fort it was
necessary to attack in a more methodical way. Batteries were
planted; trenches were opened; mines were sprung; in a few days
the besiegers were masters of the counterscarp; and all was ready
for storming, when the governor offered to capitulate. The
garrison, twelve hundred strong, was suffered to retire to
Limerick; but the conquerors took possession of the stores, which
were of considerable value. Of all the Irish ports Kinsale was
the best situated for intercourse with France. Here, therefore,
was a plenty unknown in any other part of Munster. At Limerick
bread and wine were luxuries which generals and privy councillors
were not always able to procure. But in the New Fort of Kinsale
Marlborough found a thousand barrels of wheat and eighty pipes of
claret.

His success had been complete and rapid; and indeed, had it not
been rapid, it would not have been complete. His campaign, short
as it was, had been long enough to allow time for the deadly work
which, in that age, the moist earth and air of Ireland seldom
failed, in the autumnal season, to perform on English soldiers.
The malady which had thinned the ranks of Schomberg's army at
Dundalk, and which had compelled William to make a hasty retreat
from the estuary of the Shannon, had begun to appear at Kinsale.
Quick and vigorous as Marlborough's operations were, he lost a
much greater number of men by disease than by the fire of the
enemy. He presented himself at Kensington only five weeks after
he had sailed from Portsmouth, and was most graciously received.
"No officer living," said William, "who has seen so little
service as my Lord Marlborough, is so fit for great commands."757

In Scotland, as in Ireland, the aspect of things had, during this
memorable summer, changed greatly for the better. That club of
discontented Whigs which had, in the preceding year, ruled the
Parliament, browbeaten the ministers, refused the supplies and
stopped the signet, had sunk under general contempt, and had at
length ceased to exist. There was harmony between the Sovereign
and the Estates; and the long contest between two forms of
ecclesiastical government had been terminated in the only way
compatible with the peace and prosperity of the country.

This happy turn in affairs is to be chiefly ascribed to the
errors of the perfidious, turbulent and revengeful Montgomery.
Some weeks after the close of that session during which he had
exercised a boundless authority over the Scottish Parliament, he
went to London with his two principal confederates, the Earl of
Annandale and the Lord Ross. The three had an audience of
William, and presented to him a manifesto setting forth what they
demanded for the public. They would very soon have changed their
tone if he would have granted what they demanded for themselves.
But he resented their conduct deeply, and was determined not to
pay them for annoying him. The reception which be gave them
convinced them that they had no favour to expect. Montgomery's
passions were fierce; his wants were pressing; he was miserably
poor; and, if he could not speedily force himself into a
lucrative office, he would be in danger of rotting in a gaol.
Since his services were not likely to be bought by William, they
must be offered to James. A broker was easily found. Montgomery
was an old acquaintance of Ferguson. The two traitors soon understood each
other. They were kindred spirits, differing widely in
intellectual power, but equally vain, restless, false and
malevolent. Montgomery was introduced to Neville Payne, one of
the most adroit and resolute agents of the exiled family, Payne
had been long well known about town as a dabbler in poetry and
politics. He had been an intimate friend of the indiscreet and
unfortunate Coleman, and had been committed to Newgate as an
accomplice in the Popish plot. His moral character had not stood
high; but he soon had an opportunity of proving that he possessed
courage and fidelity worthy of a better cause than that of James
and of a better associate than Montgomery.

The negotiation speedily ended in a treaty of alliance, Payne
confidently promised Montgomery, not merely pardon, but riches,
power and dignity. Montgomery as confidently undertook to induce
the Parliament of Scotland to recall the rightful King. Ross and
Annandale readily agreed to whatever their able and active
colleague proposed. An adventurer, who was sometimes called
Simpson and sometimes Jones, who was perfectly willing to serve
or to betray any government for hire, and who received wages at
once from Portland and from Neville Payne, undertook to carry the
offers of the Club to James. Montgomery and his two noble
accomplices returned to Edinburgh, and there proceeded to form a
coalition with their old enemies, the defenders of prelacy and of
arbitrary power.758

The Scottish opposition, strangely made up of two factions, one
zealous for bishops, the other zealous for synods, one hostile to
all liberty, the other impatient of all government, flattered
itself during a short time with hopes that the civil war would
break out in the Highlands with redoubled fury. But those hopes
were disappointed. In the spring of 1690 an officer named Buchan
arrived in Lochaber from Ireland. He bore a commission which
appointed him general in chief of all the forces which were in
arms for King James throughout the kingdom of Scotland. Cannon,
who had, since the death of Dundee, held the first post and had
proved himself unfit for it, became second in command. Little
however was gained by the change. It was no easy matter to induce
the Gaelic princes to renew the war. Indeed, but for the
influence and eloquence of Lochiel, not a sword would have been
drawn for the House of Stuart. He, with some difficulty,
persuaded the chieftains, who had, in the preceding year, fought
at Killiecrankie, to come to a resolution that, before the end of
the summer, they would muster all their followers and march into
the Lowlands. In the mean time twelve hundred mountaineers of
different tribes were placed under the orders of Buchan, who
undertook, with this force, to keep the English garrisons in
constant alarm by feints and incursions, till the season for more
important operations should arrive. He accordingly marched into
Strathspey. But all his plans were speedily disconcerted by the
boldness and dexterity of Sir Thomas Livingstone, who held
Inverness for King William. Livingstone, guided and assisted by
the Grants, who were firmly attached to the new government, came,
with a strong body of cavalry and dragoons, by forced marches and
through arduous defiles, to the place where the Jacobites had
taken up their quarters. He reached the camp fires at dead of
night. The first alarm was given by the rush of the horses over
the terrified sentinels into the midst Of the crowd of Celts who
lay sleeping in their plaids. Buchan escaped bareheaded and
without his sword. Cannon ran away in his shirt. The conquerors
lost not a man. Four hundred Highlanders were killed or taken.
The rest fled to their hills and mists.759

This event put an end to all thoughts of civil war. The gathering
which had been planned for the summer never took place. Lochiel,
even if he had been willing, was not able to sustain any longer
the falling cause. He had been laid on his bed by a mishap which
would alone suffice to show how little could be effected by a
confederacy of the petty kings of the mountains. At a
consultation of the Jacobite leaders, a gentleman from the
Lowlands spoke with severity of those sycophants who had changed
their religion to curry favour with King James. Glengarry was one
of those people who think it dignified to suppose that every body
is always insulting them. He took it into his head that some
allusion to himself was meant. "I am as good a Protestant as
you." he cried, and added a word not to be patiently borne by a
man of spirit. In a moment both swords were out. Lochiel thrust
himself between the combatants, and, while forcing them asunder,
received a wound which was at first believed to be mortal.760

So effectually had the spirit of the disaffected clans been cowed
that Mackay marched unresisted from Perth into Lochaber, fixed
his head quarters at Inverlochy, and proceeded to execute his
favourite design of erecting at that place a fortress which might
overawe the mutinous Camerons and Macdonalds. In a few days the
walls were raised; the ditches were sunk; the pallisades were
fixed; demiculverins from a ship of war were ranged along the
parapets, and the general departed, leaving an officer named Hill
in command of a sufficient garrison. Within the defences there
was no want of oatmeal, red herrings, and beef; and there was
rather a superabundance of brandy. The new stronghold, which,
hastily and rudely as it had been constructed, seemed doubtless
to the people of the neighbourhood the most stupendous work that
power and science united had ever produced, was named Fort
William in honour of the King.761

By this time the Scottish Parliament had reassembled at
Edinburgh. William had found it no easy matter to decide what
course should be taken with that capricious and unruly body. The
English Commons had sometimes put him out of temper. Yet they had
granted him millions, and had never asked from him such
concessions as had been imperiously demanded by the Scottish
legislature, which could give him little and had given him
nothing. The English statesmen with whom he had to deal did not
generally stand or serve to stand high in his esteem. Yet few of
them were so utterly false and shameless as the leading
Scottish politicians. Hamilton was, in morality and honour,
rather above than below his fellows; and even Hamilton was
fickle, false and greedy. "I wish to heaven," William was once
provoked into exclaiming, "that Scotland were a thousand miles
off, and that the Duke of Hamilton were King of it. Then I should
be rid of them both."

After much deliberation William determined to send Melville down
to Edinburgh as Lord High Commissioner. Melville was not a great
statesman; he was not a great orator; he did not look or move
like the representative of royalty; his character was not of more
than standard purity; and the standard of purity among Scottish
senators was not high; but he was by no means deficient in
prudence or temper; and he succeeded, on the whole, better than a
man of much higher qualities might have done.

During the first days of the Session, the friends of the
government desponded, and the chiefs of the opposition were
sanguine. Montgomery's head, though by no means a weak one, had
been turned by the triumphs of the preceding year. He believed
that his intrigues and his rhetoric had completely subjugated the
Estates. It seemed to him impossible that, having exercised a
boundless empire in the Parliament House when the Jacobites were
absent, he should be defeated when they were present, and ready
to support whatever he proposed. He had not indeed found it easy
to prevail on them to attend: for they could not take their seats
without taking the oaths. A few of them had some slight scruple
of conscience about foreswearing themselves; and many, who did
not know what a scruple of conscience meant, were apprehensive
that they might offend the rightful King by vowing fealty to the
actual King. Some Lords, however, who were supposed to be in the
confidence of James, asserted that, to their knowledge, he wished
his friends to perjure themselves; and this assertion induced
most of the Jacobites, with Balcarras at their head, to be guilty
of perfidy aggravated by impiety.762

It soon appeared, however, that Montgomery's faction, even with
this reinforcement, was no longer a majority of the legislature.
For every supporter that he had gained he had lost two. He had
committed an error which has more than once, in British history,
been fatal to great parliamentary leaders. He had imagined that,
as soon as he chose to coalesce with those to whom he had
recently been opposed, all his followers would imitate his
example. He soon found that it was much easier to inflame
animosities than to appease them. The great body Of Whigs and
Presbyterians shrank from the fellowship of the Jacobites. Some
waverers were purchased by the government; nor was the purchase
expensive, for a sum which would hardly be missed in the English
Treasury was immense in the estimation of the needy barons of the
North.763 Thus the scale was turned; and, in the Scottish
Parliaments of that age, the turn of the scale was every thing;
the tendency of majorities was always to increase, the tendency
of minorities to diminish.

The first question on which a vote was taken related to the
election for a borough. The ministers carried their point by six
voices.764 In an instant every thing was changed; the spell was
broken; the Club, from being a bugbear, became a laughingstock;
the timid and the venal passed over in crowds from the weaker to
the stronger side. It was in vain that the opposition attempted
to revive the disputes of the preceding year. The King had wisely
authorised Melville to give up the Committee of Articles. The
Estates, on the other hand, showed no disposition to pass another
Act of Incapacitation, to censure the government for opening the
Courts of justice, or to question the right of the Sovereign to
name the judges. An extraordinary supply was voted, small,
according to the notions of English financiers, but large for the
means of Scotland. The sum granted was a hundred and sixty-two
thousand pounds sterling, to be raised in the course of four
years.765

The Jacobites, who found that they had forsworn themselves to no
purpose, sate, bowed down by shame and writhing with vexation,
while Montgomery, who had deceived himself and them, and who, in
his rage, had utterly lost, not indeed his parts and his fluency,
but all decorum and selfcommand, scolded like a waterman on the
Thames, and was answered with equal asperity and even more than
equal ability by Sir John Dalrymple.766

The most important acts of this Session were those which fixed
the ecclesiastical constitution of Scotland. By the Claim of
Right it had been declared that the authority of Bishops was an
insupportable grievance; and William, by accepting the Crown,
had bound himself not to uphold an institution condemned by the
very instrument on which his title to the Crown depended. But the
Claim of Right had not defined the form of Church government
which was to be substituted for episcopacy; and, during the
stormy Session held in the summer of 1689, the violence of the
Club had made legislation impossible. During many months
therefore every thing had been in confusion. One polity had been
pulled down; and no other polity had been set up. In the Western
Lowlands, the beneficed clergy had been so effectually rabbled,
that scarcely one of them had remained at his post. In
Berwickshire, the three Lothians and Stirlingshire, most of the
curates had been removed by the Privy Council for not obeying
that vote of the Convention which had directed all ministers of
parishes, on pain of deprivation, to proclaim William and Mary
King and Queen of Scotland. Thus, throughout a great part of the
realm, there was no public worship except what was performed by
Presbyterian divines, who sometimes officiated in tents, and
sometimes, without any legal right, took possession of the
churches. But there were large districts, especially on the north
of the Tay, where the people had no strong feeling against
episcopacy; and there were many priests who were not disposed to
lose their manses, and stipends for the sake of King James.
Hundreds of the old curates, therefore, having been neither
hunted by the populace nor deposed by the Council, still
performed their spiritual functions. Every minister was, during
this time of transition, free to conduct the service and to
administer the sacraments as he thought fit. There was no
controlling authority. The legislature had taken away the
jurisdiction of Bishops, and had not established the jurisdiction
of Synods.767

To put an end to this anarchy was one of the first duties of the
Parliament. Melville had, with the powerful assistance of
Carstairs, obtained, in spite of the remonstrances of English
Tories, authority to assent to such ecclesiastical arrangements
as might satisfy the Scottish nation. One of the first laws which
the Lord Commissioner touched with the sceptre repealed the Act
of Supremacy. He next gave the royal assent to a law enacting
that those Presbyterian divines who had been pastors of parishes
in the days of the Covenant, and had, after the Restoration, been
ejected for refusing to acknowledge episcopal authority, should
be restored. The number of those Pastors had originally been
about three hundred and fifty: but not more than sixty were still
living.768

The Estates then proceeded to fix the national creed. The
Confession of Faith drawn up by the Assembly of Divines at
Westminster, the Longer and Shorter Catechism, and the Directory,
were considered by every good Presbyterian as the standards of
orthodoxy; and it was hoped that the legislature would recognise
them as such.769 This hope, however, was in part disappointed.
The Confession was read at length, amidst much yawning, and
adopted without alteration. But, when it was proposed that the
Catechisms and the Directory should be taken into consideration,
the ill humour of the audience broke forth into murmurs. For that
love of long sermons which was strong in the Scottish commonalty
was not shared by the Scottish aristocracy. The Parliament had
already been listening during three hours to dry theology, and
was not inclined to hear any thing more about original sin and
election. The Duke of Hamilton said that the Estates had already
done all that was essential. They had given their sanction to a
digest of the great principles of Christianity. The rest might
well be left to the Church. The weary majority eagerly assented,
in spite of the muttering of some zealous Presbyterian ministers
who had been admitted to hear the debate, and who could sometimes
hardly restrain themselves from taking part in it.770

The memorable law which fixed the ecclesiastical constitution of
Scotland was brought in by the Earl of Sutherland. By this law
the synodical polity was reestablished. The rule of the Church
was entrusted to the sixty ejected ministers who had just been
restored, and to such other persons, whether ministers or elders,
as the Sixty should think fit to admit to a participation of
power. The Sixty and their nominees were authorised to visit all
the parishes in the kingdom, and to turn out all ministers who
were deficient in abilities, scandalous in morals, or unsound in
faith. Those parishes which had, during the interregnum, been
deserted by their pastors, or, in plain words, those parishes of
which the pastors had been rabbled, were declared vacant.771

To the clause which reestablished synodical government no serious
opposition appears to have been made. But three days were spent
in discussing the question whether the Sovereign should have
power to convoke and to dissolve ecclesiastical assemblies; and
the point was at last left in dangerous ambiguity. Some other
clauses were long and vehemently debated. It was said that the
immense power given to the Sixty was incompatible with the
fundamental principle of the polity which the Estates were about
to set up. That principle was that all presbyters were equal, and
that there ought to be no order of ministers of religion superior
to the order of presbyters. What did it matter whether the Sixty
were called prelates or not, if they were to lord it with more
than prelatical authority over God's heritage? To the argument
that the proposed arrangement was, in the very peculiar
circumstances of the Church, the most convenient that could be
made, the objectors replied that such reasoning might suit the
mouth of an Erastian, but that all orthodox Presbyterians held
the parity of ministers to be ordained by Christ, and that, where
Christ had spoken, Christians were not at liberty to consider
what was convenient.772

With much greater warmth and much stronger reason the minority
attacked the clause which sanctioned the lawless acts of the
Western fanatics. Surely, it was said, a rabbled curate might
well be left to the severe scrutiny of the sixty Inquisitors. If
he was deficient in parts or learning, if he was loose in life,
if he was heterodox in doctrine, those stern judges would not
fail to detect and to depose him. They would probably think a
game at bowls, a prayer borrowed from the English Liturgy, or a
sermon in which the slightest taint of Arminianism could be
discovered, a sufficient reason for pronouncing his benefice
vacant. Was it not monstrous, after constituting a tribunal from
which he could scarcely hope for bare justice, to condemn him
without allowing him to appear even before that tribunal, to
condemn him without a trial, to condemn him without an
accusation? Did ever any grave senate, since the beginning of the
world, treat a man as a criminal merely because he had been
robbed, pelted, hustled, dragged through snow and mire, and
threatened with death if he returned to the house which was his
by law? The Duke of Hamilton, glad to have so good an Opportunity
of attacking the new Lord Commissioner, spoke with great
vehemence against this odious clause. We are told that no attempt
was made to answer him; and, though those who tell us so were
zealous Episcopalians, we may easily believe their report; for
what answer was it possible to return? Melville, on whom the
chief responsibility lay, sate on the throne in profound silence
through the whole of this tempestuous debate. It is probable that
his conduct was determined by considerations which prudence and
shame prevented him from explaining. The state of the southwestern shires was
such that
it would have been impossible to put the rabbled minister in
possession of their dwellings and churches without employing a
military force, without garrisoning every manse, without placing
guards round every pulpit, and without handing over some
ferocious enthusiasts to the Provost Marshal; and it would be no
easy task for the government to keep down by the sword at once
the Jacobites of the Highlands and the Covenanters of the
Lowlands. The majority, having made up their minds for reasons
which could not well be produced, became clamorous for the
question. "No more debate," was the cry: "We have heard enough: a
vote! a vote!" The question was put according to the Scottish
form, "Approve or not approve the article?" Hamilton insisted
that the question, should be, "Approve or not approve the
rabbling?" After much altercation, he was overruled, and the
clause passed. Only fifteen or sixteen members voted with him. He
warmly and loudly exclaimed, amidst much angry interruption, that
he was sorry to see a Scottish Parliament disgrace itself by such
iniquity. He then left the house with several of his friends. It
is impossible not to sympathize with the indignation which he
expressed. Yet we ought to remember that it is the nature  of
injustice to generate injustice. There are wrongs which it is
almost impossible to repair without committing other wrongs; and
such a wrong had been done to the people of Scotland in the
preceding generation. It was because the Parliament of the
Restoration had legislated in insolent defiance of the sense of
the nation that the Parliament of the Revolution had to abase
itself before the mob.

When Hamilton and his adherents had retired, one of the preachers
who had been admitted to the hall called out to the members who
were near him; "Fie! Fie! Do not lose time. Make haste, and get
all over before he comes back." This advice was taken. Four or
five sturdy Prelatists staid to give a last vote against
Presbytery. Four or five equally sturdy Covenanters staid to mark
their dislike of what seemed to them a compromise between the
Lord and Baal. But the Act was passed by an overwhelming
majority.773

Two supplementary Acts speedily followed. One of them, now
happily repealed, required every officebearer in every University
of Scotland to sign the Confession of Faith and to give in his
adhesion to the new form of Church government.774 The other
settled the important and delicate question of patronage. Knox
had, in the First Book of Discipline, asserted the right of every
Christian congregation to choose its own pastor. Melville had
not, in the Second Book of Discipline, gone quite so far; but he
had declared that no pastor could lawfully be forced on an
unwilling congregation. Patronage had been abolished by a
Covenanted Parliament in 1649, and restored by a Royalist
Parliament in 1661. What ought to be done in 1690 it was no easy
matter to decide. Scarcely any question seems to have caused so
much anxiety to William. He had, in his private instructions,
given the Lord Commissioner authority to assent to the abolition
of patronage, if nothing else would satisfy the Estates. But this
authority was most unwillingly given; and the King hoped that it
would not be used. "It is," he said, "the taking of men's
property." Melville succeeded in effecting a compromise.
Patronage was abolished; but it was enacted that every patron
should receive six hundred marks Scots, equivalent to about
thirty-five pounds sterling, as a compensation for his rights.
The sum seems ludicrously small. Yet, when the nature of the
property and the poverty of the country are considered, it may be
doubted whether a patron would have made much more by going into
the market. The largest sum that any member ventured to propose
was nine hundred marks, little more than fifty pounds sterling.
The right of proposing a minister was given to a parochial
council consisting of the Protestant landowners and the elders.
The congregation might object to the person proposed; and the
Presbytery was to judge of the objections. This arrangement did
not give to the people all the power to which even the Second
Book of Discipline had declared that they were entitled. But the
odious name of patronage was taken away; it was probably thought
that the elders and landowners of a parish would seldom persist
in nominating a person to whom the majority of the congregation
had strong objections; and indeed it does not appear that, while
the Act of 1690 continued in force, the peace of the Church was
ever broken by disputes such as produced the schisms of 1732, of
1756, and of 1843.775

Montgomery had done all in his power to prevent the Estates from
settling the ecclesiastical polity of the realm. He had incited
the zealous Covenanters to demand what he knew that the
government would never grant. He had protested against all
Erastianism, against all compromise. Dutch Presbyterianism, he
said, would not do for Scotland. She must have again the system
of 1649. That system was deduced from the Word of God: it was the
most powerful check that had ever been devised on the tyranny of
wicked kings; and it ought to be restored without addition or
diminution. His Jacobite allies could not conceal their disgust
and mortification at hearing him hold such language, and were by
no means satisfied with the explanations which he gave them in
private. While they were wrangling with him on this subject, a
messenger arrived at Edinburgh with important despatches from
James and from Mary of Modena. These despatches had been written
in the confident expectation that the large promises of
Montgomery would be fulfilled, and that the Scottish Estates
would, under his dexterous management, declare for the rightful
Sovereign against the Usurper. James was so grateful for the
unexpected support of his old enemies, that he entirely forgot
the services and disregarded the feelings of his old friends. The
three chiefs of the Club, rebels and Puritans as they were, had
become his favourites. Annandale was to be a Marquess, Governor
of Edinburgh Castle, and Lord High Commissioner. Montgomery was
to be Earl of Ayr and Secretary of State. Ross was to be an Earl
and to command the guards. An unprincipled lawyer named James
Stewart, who had been deeply concerned in Argyle's insurrection,
who had changed sides and supported the dispensing power, who had
then changed sides a second time and concurred in the Revolution,
and who had now changed sides a third time and was scheming to
bring about a Restoration, was to be Lord Advocate. The Privy
Council, the Court of Session, the army, were to be filled with
Whigs. A Council of Five was appointed, which all loyal subjects
were to obey; and in this Council Annandale, Ross and Montgomery
formed the majority. Mary of Modena informed Montgomery that five
thousand pounds sterling had been remitted to his order, and that
five thousand more would soon follow. It was impossible that
Balcarras and those who had acted with him should not bitterly
resent the manner in which they were treated. Their names were
not even mentioned. All that they had done and suffered seemed to
have faded from their master's mind. He had now given them fair
notice that, if they should, at the hazard of their lands and
lives, succeed in restoring him, all that he had to give would be
given to those who had deposed him. They too, when they read his
letters, knew, what he did not know when the letters were
written, that he had been duped by the confident boasts and
promises of the apostate Whigs. He imagined that the Club was
omnipotent at Edinburgh; and, in truth, the Club had become a
mere byword of contempt. The Tory Jacobites easily found pretexts
for refusing to obey the Presbyterian Jacobites to whom the
banished King had delegated his authority. They complained that
Montgomery had not shown them all the despatches which he had
received. They affected to suspect that he had tampered with the
seals. He called God Almighty to witness that the suspicion was
unfounded. But oaths were very naturally regarded as insufficient
guarantees by men who had just been swearing allegiance to a King
against whom they were conspiring. There was a violent outbreak
of passion on both sides; the coalition was dissolved; the papers
were flung into the fire; and, in a few days, the infamous
triumvirs who had been, in the short space of a year, violent
Williamites and violent Jacobites, became Williamites again, and
attempted to make their peace with the government by accusing
each other.776

Ross was the first who turned informer. After the fashion of the
school in which he had been bred, he committed this base action
with all the forms of sanctity. He pretended to be greatly
troubled in mind, sent for a celebrated Presbyterian minister
named Dunlop, and bemoaned himself piteously: "There is a load on
my conscience; there is a secret which I know that I ought to
disclose; but I cannot bring myself to do it." Dunlop prayed long
and fervently; Ross groaned and wept; at last it seemed that
heaven had been stormed by the violence of supplication; the
truth came out, and many lies with it. The divine and the
penitent then returned thanks together. Dunlop went with the news
to Melville. Ross set off for England to make his peace at court,
and performed his journey in safety, though some of his
accomplices, who had heard of his repentance, but had been little
edified by it, had laid plans for cutting his throat by the way.
At London he protested, on his honour and on the word of a
gentleman, that he had been drawn in, that he had always disliked
the plot, and that Montgomery and Ferguson were the real
criminals.777

Dunlop was, in the mean time, magnifying, wherever he went, the
divine goodness which had, by so humble an instrument as himself,
brought a noble person back to the right path. Montgomery no
sooner heard of this wonderful work of grace than he too began to
experience compunction. He went to Melville, made a confession
not exactly coinciding with Ross's, and obtained a pass for
England. William was then in Ireland; and Mary was governing in
his stead. At her feet Montgomery threw himself. He tried to move
her pity by speaking of his broken fortunes, and to ingratiate
himself with her by praising her sweet and affable manners. He
gave up to her the names of his fellow plotters. He vowed to
dedicate his whole life to her service, if she would obtain for
him some place which might enable him to subsist with decency.
She was so much touched by his supplications and flatteries that
she recommended him to her husband's favour; but the just distrust
and abhorrence with which William regarded Montgomery were not to
be overcome.778

Before the traitor had been admitted to Mary's presence, he had
obtained a promise that he should be allowed to depart in safety.
The promise was kept. During some months, he lay hid in London,
and contrived to carry on a negotiation with the government. He
offered to be a witness against his accomplices on condition of
having a good place. William would bid no higher than a pardon.
At length the communications were broken off. Montgomery retired
for a time to France. He soon returned to London, and passed the
miserable remnant of his life in forming plots which came to
nothing, and in writing libels which are distinguished by the
grace and vigour of their style from most of the productions of
the Jacobite press.779

Annandale, when he learned that his two accomplices had turned
approvers, retired to Bath, and pretended to drink the waters.
Thence he was soon brought up to London by a warrant. He
acknowledged that he had been seduced into treason; but he
declared that he had only said Amen to the plans of others, and
that his childlike simplicity had been imposed on by Montgomery,
that worst, that falsest, that most unquiet of human beings. The
noble penitent then proceeded to make atonement for his own crime
by criminating other people, English and Scotch, Whig and Tory,
guilty and innocent. Some he accused on his own knowledge, and
some on mere hearsay. Among those whom he accused on his own
knowledge was Neville Payne, who had not, it should seem, been
mentioned either by Ross or by Montgomery.780

Payne, pursued by messengers and warrants, was so ill advised as
to take refuge in Scotland. Had he remained in England he would
have been safe; for, though the moral proofs of his guilt were
complete, there was not such legal evidence as would have
satisfied a jury that he had committed high treason; he could not
be subjected to torture in order to force him to furnish evidence
against himself; nor could he be long confined without being
brought to trial. But the moment that he passed the border he was
at the mercy of the government of which he was the deadly foe.
The Claim of Right had recognised torture as, in cases like his,
a legitimate mode of obtaining information; and no Habeas Corpus
Act secured him against a long detention. The unhappy man was
arrested, carried to Edinburgh, and brought before the Privy
Council. The general notion was that he was a knave and a coward,
and that the first sight of the boots and thumbscrews would bring
out all the guilty secrets with which he had been entrusted. But
Payne had a far braver spirit than those highborn plotters with
whom it was his misfortune to have been connected. Twice he was
subjected to frightful torments; but not a word inculpating
himself or any other person could be wrung out of him. Some
councillors left the board in horror. But the pious Crawford
presided. He was not much troubled with the weakness of
compassion where an Amalekite was concerned, and forced the
executioner to hammer in wedge after wedge between the knees of
the prisoner till the pain was as great as the human frame can
sustain without dissolution. Payne was then carried to the Castle
of Edinburgh, where he long remained, utterly forgotten, as he
touchingly complained, by those for whose sake he had endured
more than the bitterness of death. Yet no ingratitude could damp
the ardour of his fanatical loyalty; and he continued, year after
year, in his cell, to plan insurrections and invasions.781

Before Payne's arrest the Estates had been adjourned after a
Session as important as any that had ever been held in Scotland.
The nation generally acquiesced in the new ecclesiastical
constitution. The indifferent, a large portion of every society,
were glad that the anarchy was over, and conformed to the
Presbyterian Church as they had conformed to the Episcopal
Church. To the moderate Presbyterians the settlement which
had been made was on the whole satisfactory. Most of the strict
Presbyterians brought themselves to accept it under protest, as a
large instalment of what was due. They missed indeed what they
considered as the perfect beauty and symmetry of that Church
which had, forty years before, been the glory of Scotland. But,
though the second temple was not equal to the first, the chosen
people might well rejoice to think that they were, after a long
captivity in Babylon, suffered to rebuild, though imperfectly,
the House of God on the old foundations; nor could it misbecome
them to feel for the latitudinarian William a grateful affection
such as the restored Jews had felt for the heathen Cyrus.

There were however two parties which regarded the settlement of
1690 with implacable detestation. Those Scotchmen who were
Episcopalians on conviction and with fervour appear to have been
few; but among them were some persons superior, not perhaps in
natural parts, but in learning, in taste, and in the art of
composition, to the theologians of the sect which had now become
dominant. It might not have been safe for the ejected Curates and
Professors to give vent in their own country to the anger which
they felt. But the English press was open to them; and they were
sure of the approbation of a large part of the English people.
During several years they continued to torment their enemies and
to amuse the public with a succession of ingenious and spirited
pamphlets. In some of these works the hardships suffered by the
rabbled priests of the western shires are set forth with a skill
which irresistibly moves pity and indignation. In others, the
cruelty with which the Covenanters had been treated during the
reigns of the last two kings of the House of Stuart is extenuated
by every artifice of sophistry. There is much joking on the bad
Latin which some Presbyterian teachers had uttered while seated
in academic chairs lately occupied by great scholars. Much was
said about the ignorant contempt which the victorious barbarians
professed for science and literature. They were accused of
anathematizing the modern systems of natural philosophy as
damnable heresies, of condemning geometry as a souldestroying
pursuit, of discouraging even the study of those tongues in which
the sacred books were written. Learning, it was said, would soon
be extinct in Scotland. The Universities, under their new rulers,
were languishing and must soon perish. The booksellers had been
half ruined: they found that the whole profit of their business
would not pay the rent of their shops, and were preparing to
emigrate to some country where letters were held in esteem by
those whose office was to instruct the public. Among the
ministers of religion no purchaser of books was left. The
Episcopalian divine was glad to sell for a morsel of bread
whatever part of his library had not been torn to pieces or
burned by the Christmas mobs; and the only library of a
Presbyterian divine consisted of an explanation of the Apocalypse
and a commentary on the Song of Songs.782 The pulpit oratory of
the triumphant party was an inexhaustible subject of mirth. One
little volume, entitled The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence
Displayed, had an immense success in the South among both High
Churchmen and scoffers, and is not yet quite forgotten. It was
indeed a book well fitted to lie on the hall table of a Squire
whose religion consisted in hating extemporaneous prayer and
nasal psalmody. On a rainy day, when it was impossible to hunt or
shoot, neither the card table nor the backgammon board would have
been, in the intervals of the flagon and the pasty, so agreeable
a resource. Nowhere else, perhaps, can be found, in so small a
compass, so large a collection of ludicrous quotations and
anecdotes. Some grave men, however, who bore no love to the
Calvinistic doctrine or discipline, shook their heads over this
lively jest book, and hinted their opinion that the writer, while
holding up to derision the absurd rhetoric by which coarseminded
and ignorant men tried to illustrate dark questions of theology
and to excite devotional feeling among the populace, had
sometimes forgotten the reverence due to sacred things. The
effect which tracts of this sort produced on the public mind of
England could not be fully discerned, while England and Scotland
were independent of each other, but manifested itself, very soon
after the union of the kingdoms, in a way which we still have
reason, and which our posterity will probably long have reason to
lament.

The extreme Presbyterians were as much out of humour as the
extreme Prelatists, and were as little inclined as the extreme
Prelatists to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary.
Indeed, though the Jacobite nonjuror and the Cameronian nonjuror
were diametrically opposed to each other in opinion, though they
regarded each other with mortal aversion, though neither of them
would have had any scruple about persecuting the other, they had
much in common. They were perhaps the two most remarkable
specimens that the world could show of perverse absurdity. Each
of them considered his darling form of ecclesiastical polity, not
as a means but as an end, as the one thing needful, as the
quintessence of the Christian religion. Each of them childishly
fancied that he had found a theory of civil government in his
Bible. Neither shrank from the frightful consequences to which
his theory led. To all objections both had one answer,--Thus
saith the Lord. Both agreed in boasting that the arguments which
to atheistical politicians seemed unanswerable presented no
difficulty to the Saint. It might be perfectly true that, by
relaxing the rigour of his principles, he might save his country
from slavery, anarchy, universal ruin. But his business was not
to save his country, but to save his soul. He obeyed the commands
of God, and left the event to God. One of the two fanatical sects
held that, to the end of time, the nation would be bound to obey
the heir of the Stuarts; the other held that, to the end of time,
the nation would be bound by the Solemn League and Covenant; and
thus both agreed in regarding the new Sovereigns as usurpers.

The Presbyterian nonjurors have scarcely been heard of out of
Scotland; and perhaps it may not now be generally known, even in
Scotland, how long they continued to form a distinct class. They
held that their country was under a precontract to the Most High,
and could never, while the world lasted, enter into any
engagement inconsistent with that precontract. An Erastian, a
latitudinarian, a man who knelt to receive the bread and wine
from the hands of bishops, and who bore, though not very
patiently, to hear anthems chaunted by choristers in white
vestments, could not be King of a covenanted kingdom. William had
moreover forfeited all claim to the crown by committing that sin
for which, in the old time, a dynasty preternaturally appointed
had been preternaturally deposed. He had connived at the escape
of his father in law, that idolater, that murderer, that man of
Belial, who ought to have been hewn in pieces before the Lord,
like Agag. Nay, the crime of William had exceeded that of Saul.
Saul had spared only one Amalekite, and had smitten the rest.
What Amalekite had William smitten? The pure Church had been
twenty-eight years under persecution. Her children had been
imprisoned, transported, branded, shot, hanged, drowned,
tortured. And yet he who called himself her deliverer had not
suffered her to see her desire upon her enemies.783 The bloody
Claverhouse had been graciously received at Saint James's. The
bloody Mackenzie had found a secure and luxurious retreat among
the malignants of Oxford. The younger Dalrymple who had
prosecuted the Saints, the elder Dalrymple who had sate in
judgment on the Saints, were great and powerful. It was said by
careless Gallios, that there was no choice but between William
and James, and that it was wisdom to choose the less of two
evils. Such was indeed the wisdom of this world. But the wisdom
which was from above taught us that of two things, both of which
were evil in the sight of God, we should choose neither. As soon
as James was restored, it would be a duty to disown and withstand
him. The present duty was to disown and withstand his son in law.
Nothing must be said, nothing must be done that could be
construed into a recognition of the authority of the man from
Holland. The godly must pay no duties to him, must hold no
offices under him, must receive no wages from him, must sign no
instruments in which he was styled King. Anne succeeded William;
and Anne was designated, by those who called themselves the
remnant of the true Church, as the pretended Queen, the wicked
woman, the Jezebel. George the First succeeded Anne; and George
the First was the pretended King, the German Beast.784 George the
Second succeeded George the First; George the Second too was a
pretended King, and was accused of having outdone the wickedness
of his wicked predecessors by passing a law in defiance of that
divine law which ordains that no witch shall be suffered to
live.785 George the Third succeeded George the Second; and still
these men continued, with unabated stedfastness, though in
language less ferocious than before, to disclaim all allegiance
to an uncovenanted Sovereign.786 So late as the year 1806, they
were still bearing their public testimony against the sin of
owning his government by paying taxes, by taking out excise
licenses, by joining the volunteers, or by labouring on public
works.787 The number of these zealots went on diminishing till at
length they were so thinly scattered over Scotland that they were
nowhere numerous enough to have a meeting house, and were known
by the name of the Nonhearers. They, however, still assembled and
prayed in private dwellings, and still persisted in considering
themselves as the chosen generation, the royal priesthood, the
holy nation, the peculiar people, which, amidst the common
degeneracy, alone preserved the faith of a better age. It is by
no means improbable that this superstition, the most irrational
and the most unsocial into which Protestant Christianity has ever
been corrupted by human prejudices and passions, may still linger
in a few obscure farmhouses.

The King was but half satisfied with the manner in which the
ecclesiastical polity of Scotland had been settled. He thought
that the Episcopalians had been hardly used; and he apprehended
that they might be still more hardly used when the new system was
fully organized. He had been very desirous that the Act which
established the Presbyterian Church should be accompanied by an
Act allowing persons who were not members of that Church to hold
their own religious assemblies freely; and he had particularly
directed Melville to look to this.788 But some popular preachers
harangued so vehemently at Edinburgh against liberty of
conscience, which they called the mystery of iniquity, that
Melville did not venture to obey his master's instructions. A
draught of a Toleration Act was offered to the Parliament by a
private member, but was coldly received and suffered to drop.789

William, however, was fully determined to prevent the dominant
sect from indulging in the luxury of persecution; and he took an
early opportunity of announcing his determination. The first
General Assembly of the newly established Church met soon after
his return from Ireland. It was necessary that he should appoint
a Commissioner and send a letter. Some zealous Presbyterians
hoped that Crawford would be the Commissioner; and the ministers
of Edinburgh drew up a paper in which they very intelligibly
hinted that this was their wish. William, however, selected Lord
Carmichael, a nobleman distinguished by good sense, humanity and
moderation.790 The royal letter to the Assembly was eminently
wise in substance and impressive in language. "We expect," the
King wrote, "that your management shall be such that we may have
no reason to repent of what we have done. We never could be of
the mind that violence was suited to the advancing of true
religion; nor do we intend that our authority shall ever be a
tool to the irregular passions of any party. Moderation is what
religion enjoins, what neighbouring Churches expect from you, and
what we recommend to you." The Sixty and their associates would
probably have been glad to reply in language resembling that
which, as some of them could well remember, had been held by the
clergy to Charles the Second during his residence in Scotland.
But they had just been informed that there was in England a
strong feeling in favour of the rabbled curates, and that it
would, at such a conjuncture, be madness in the body which
represented the Presbyterian Church to quarrel with the King.791
The Assembly therefore returned a grateful and respectful answer
to the royal letter, and assured His Majesty that they had
suffered too much from oppression ever to be oppressors.792

Meanwhile the troops all over the Continent were going into
winter quarters. The campaign had everywhere been indecisive. The
victory gained by Luxemburg at Fleurus had produced no important
effect. On the Upper Rhine great armies had eyed each other,
month after month, without exchanging a blow. In Catalonia a few
small forts had been taken. In the cast of Europe the Turks had
been successful on some points, the Christians on other points;
and the termination of the contest seemed to be as remote as
ever. The coalition had in the course of the year lost one
valuable member and gained another. The Duke of Lorraine, the
ablest captain in the Imperial service, was no more. He had died,
as he had lived, an exile and a wanderer, and had bequeathed to
his children nothing but his name and his rights. It was
popularly said that the confederacy could better have spared
thirty thousand soldiers than such a general. But scarcely had
the allied Courts gone into mourning for him when they were
consoled by learning that another prince, superior to him in
power, and not inferior to him in capacity or courage, had joined
the league against France.

This was Victor Amadeus Duke of Savoy. He was a young man; but he
was already versed in those arts for which the statesmen of Italy
had, ever since the thirteenth century, been celebrated, those
arts by which Castruccio Castracani and Francis Sforza rose to
greatness, and which Machiavel reduced to a system. No sovereign
in modern Europe has, with so small a principality, exercised so
great an influence during so long a period. He had for a time
submitted, with a show of cheerfulness, but with secret
reluctance and resentment, to the French ascendency. When the war
broke out, he professed neutrality, but entered into private
negotiations with the House of Austria. He would probably have
continued to dissemble till he found some opportunity of striking
an unexpected blow, had not his crafty schemes been disconcerted
by the decision and vigour of Lewis. A French army commanded by
Catinat, an officer of great skill and valour, marched into
Piedmont. The Duke was informed that his conduct had excited
suspicions which he could remove only by admitting foreign
garrisons into Turin and Vercelli. He found that he must be
either the slave or the open enemy of his powerful and imperious
neighbour. His choice was soon made; and a war began which,
during seven years, found employment for some of the best
generals and best troops of Lewis. An Envoy Extraordinary from
Savoy went to the Hague, proceeded thence to London, presented
his credentials in the Banqueting House, and addressed to William
a speech which was speedily translated into many languages and
read in every part of Europe. The orator congratulated the King
on the success of that great enterprise which had restored
England to her ancient place among the nations, and had broken
the chains of Europe. "That my master," he said, "can now at
length venture to express feelings which have been long concealed
in the recesses of his heart, is part of the debt which he owes
to Your Majesty. You have inspired him with the hope of freedom
after so many years of bondage."793

It had been determined that, during the approaching winter a
Congress of all the powers hostile to France should be held at
the Hague. William was impatient to proceed thither. But it was
necessary that he should first hold a Session of Parliament.
Early in October the Houses reassembled at Westminster. The
members had generally come up in good humour. Those Tories whom
it was possible to conciliate had been conciliated by the Act of
Grace, and by the large share which they had obtained of the
favours of the Crown. Those Whigs who were capable of learning
had learned much from the lesson which William had given them,
and had ceased to expect that he would descend from the rank of a
King to that of a party leader. Both Whigs and Tories had, with
few exceptions, been alarmed by the prospect of a French invasion
and cheered by the news of the victory of the Boyne. The
Sovereign who had shed his blood for their nation and their
religion stood at this moment higher in public estimation than at
any time since his accession. His speech from the throne called
forth the loud acclamations of Lords and Commons.794 Thanks were
unanimously voted by both Houses to the King for his achievements
in Ireland, and to the Queen for the prudence with which she had,
during his absence, governed England.795 Thus commenced a Session
distinguished among the Sessions of that reign by harmony and
tranquillity. No report of the debates has been preserved, unless
a long forgotten lampoon, in which some of the speeches made on
the first day are burlesqued in doggrel rhymes, may be called a
report.796 The time of the Commons appears to have been chiefly
occupied in discussing questions arising out of the elections of
the preceding spring. The supplies necessary for the war, though
large, were granted with alacrity. The number of regular troops
for the next year was fixed at seventy thousand, of whom twelve
thousand were to be horse or dragoons. The charge of this army,
the greatest that England had ever maintained, amounted to about
two million three hundred thousand pounds; the charge of the navy
to about eighteen hundred thousand pounds. The charge of the
ordnance was included in these sums, and was roughly estimated at
one eighth of the naval and one fifth of the military
expenditure.797 The whole of the extraordinary aid granted to the
King exceeded four millions.

The Commons justly thought that the extraordinary liberality with
which they had provided for the public service entitled them to
demand extraordinary securities against waste and peculation. A
bill was brought in empowering nine Commissioners to examine and
state the public accounts. The nine were named in the bill, and
were all members of the Lower House. The Lords agreed to the bill
without amendments; and the King gave his assent.798

The debates on the Ways and Means occupied a considerable part of
the Session. It was resolved that sixteen hundred and fifty
thousand pounds should be raised by a direct monthly assessment
on land. The excise duties on ale and beer were doubled; and the
import duties on raw silk, linen, timber, glass, and some other
articles, were increased.799 Thus far there was little difference
of opinion. But soon the smooth course of business was disturbed
by a proposition which was much more popular than just or humane.
Taxes of unprecedented severity had been imposed; and yet it
might well be doubted whether these taxes would be sufficient.
Why, it was asked, should not the cost of the Irish war be borne
by the Irish insurgents? How those insurgents had acted in their
mock Parliament all the world knew; and nothing could be more
reasonable than to mete to them from their own measure. They
ought to be treated as they had treated the Saxon colony. Every
acre which the Act of Settlement had left them ought to be seized
by the state for the purpose of defraying that expense which
their turbulence and perverseness had made necessary. It is not
strange that a plan which at once gratified national animosity,
and held out the hope of pecuniary relief, should have been
welcomed with eager delight. A bill was brought in which bore but
too much resemblance to some of the laws passed by the Jacobite
legislators of Dublin. By this bill it was provided that the
property of every person who had been in rebellion against the
King and Queen since the day on which they were proclaimed should
be confiscated, and that the proceeds should be applied to the
support of the war. An exception was made in favour of such
Protestants as had merely submitted to superior force; but to
Papists no indulgence was shown. The royal prerogative of
clemency was limited. The King might indeed, if such were his
pleasure, spare the lives of his vanquished enemies; but he was
not to be permitted to save any part of their estates from the
general doom. He was not to have it in his power to grant a
capitulation which should secure to Irish Roman Catholics the
enjoyment of their hereditary lands. Nay, he was not to be
allowed to keep faith with persons whom he had already received
to mercy, who had kissed his hand, and had heard from his lips
the promise of protection. An attempt was made to insert a
proviso in favour of Lord Dover. Dover, who, with all his faults,
was not without some English feelings, had, by defending the
interests of his native country at Dublin, made himself odious to
both the Irish and the French. After the battle of the Boyne his
situation was deplorable. Neither at Limerick nor at Saint
Germains could he hope to be welcomed. In his despair, he threw
himself at William's feet, promised to live peaceably, and was
graciously assured that he had nothing to fear. Though the royal
word seemed to be pledged to this unfortunate man, the Commons
resolved, by a hundred and nineteen votes to a hundred and
twelve, that his property should not be exempted from the general
confiscation.

The bill went up to the Peers, but the Peers were not inclined
to pass it without considerable amendments; and such amendments
there was not time to make. Numerous heirs at law, reversioners,
and creditors implored the Upper House to introduce such
provisoes as might secure the innocent against all danger of
being involved in the punishment of the guilty. Some petitioners
asked to be heard by counsel. The King had made all his
arrangements for a voyage to the Hague; and the day beyond which
he could not postpone his departure drew near. The bill was
therefore, happily for the honour of English legislation,
consigned to that dark repository in which the abortive statutes
of many generations sleep a sleep rarely disturbed by the
historian or the antiquary.800

Another question, which slightly and but slightly discomposed the
tranquillity of this short session, arose out of the disastrous
and disgraceful battle of Beachy Head. Torrington had,
immediately after that battle, been sent to the Tower, and had
ever since remained there. A technical difficulty had arisen
about the mode of bringing him to trial. There was no Lord High
Admiral; and whether the Commissioners of the Admiralty were
competent to execute martial law was a point which to some
jurists appeared not perfectly clear. The majority of the judges
held that the Commissioners were competent; but, for the purpose
of removing all doubt, a bill was brought into the Upper House;
and to this bill several Lords offered an opposition which seems
to have been most unreasonable. The proposed law, they said,
was a retrospective penal law, and therefore objectionable. If
they used this argument in good faith, they were ignorant of the
very rudiments of the science of legislation. To make a law for
punishing that which, at the time when it was done, was not
punishable, is contrary to all sound principle. But a law which
merely alters the criminal procedure may with perfect propriety
be made applicable to past as well as to future offences. It
would have been the grossest injustice to give a retrospective
operation to the law which made slavetrading felony. But there
was not the smallest injustice in enacting that the Central
Criminal Court should try felonies committed long before that
Court was in being. In Torrington's case the substantive law
continued to be what it had always been. The definition of the
crime, the amount of the penalty, remained unaltered. The only
change was in the form of procedure; and that change the
legislature was perfectly justified in making retrospectively.

It is indeed hardly possible to believe that some of those who
opposed the bill were duped by the fallacy of which they
condescended to make use. The feeling of caste was strong among
the Lords. That one of themselves should be tried for his life by
a court composed of plebeians seemed to them a degradation of
their whole order. If their noble brother had offended, articles
of impeachment ought to be exhibited against him: Westminster
Hall ought to be fitted up: his peers ought to meet in their
robes, and to give in their verdict on their honour; a Lord High
Steward ought to pronounce the sentence and to break the staff.
There was an end of privilege if an Earl was to be doomed to
death by tarpaulins seated round a table in the cabin of a ship.
These feelings had so much influence that the bill passed the
Upper House by a majority of only two.801 In the Lower House,
where the dignities and immunities of the nobility were regarded
with no friendly feeling, there was little difference of opinion.
Torrington requested to be heard at the bar, and spoke there at
great length, but weakly and confusedly. He boasted of his
services, of his sacrifices, and of his wounds. He abused the
Dutch, the Board of Admiralty, and the Secretary of State. The
bill, however, went through all its stages without a division.802

Early in December Torrington was sent under a guard down the
river to Sheerness. There the Court Martial met on board of a
frigate named the Kent. The investigation lasted three days; and
during those days the ferment was great in London. Nothing was
heard of on the exchange, in the coffeehouses, nay even at the
church doors, but Torrington. Parties ran high; wagers to an
immense amount were depending; rumours were hourly arriving by
land and water, and every rumour was exaggerated and distorted by
the way. From the day on which the news of the ignominious battle
arrived, down to the very eve of the trial, public opinion had
been very unfavourable to the prisoner. His name, we are told by
contemporary pamphleteers, was hardly ever mentioned without a
curse. But, when the crisis of his fate drew nigh, there was, as
in our country there often is, a reaction. All his merits, his
courage, his good nature, his firm adherence to the Protestant
religion in the evil times, were remembered. It was impossible to
deny that he was sunk in sloth and luxury, that he neglected the
most important business for his pleasures, and that he could not
say No to a boon companion or to a mistress; but for these faults
excuses and soft names were found. His friends used without
scruple all the arts which could raise a national feeling in his
favour; and these arts were powerfully assisted by the
intelligence that the hatred which was felt towards him in
Holland bad vented itself in indignities to some of his
countrymen. The cry was that a bold, jolly, freehanded English
gentleman, of whom the worst that could be said was that he liked
wine and women, was to be shot in order to gratify the spite of
the Dutch. What passed at the trial tended to confirm the
populace in this notion. Most of the witnesses against the
prisoner were Dutch officers. The Dutch real admiral, who took on
himself the part of prosecutor, forgot himself so far as to
accuse the judges of partiality. When at length, on the evening
of the third day, Torrington was pronounced not guilty, many who
had recently clamoured for his blood seemed to be well pleased
with his acquittal. He returned to London free, and with his
sword by his side. As his yacht went up the Thames, every ship
which he passed saluted him. He took his seat in the House of
Lords, and even ventured to present himself at court. But most of
the peers looked coldly on him; William would not see him, and
ordered him to be dismissed from the service.803

There was another subject about which no vote was passed by
either of the Houses, but about which there is reason to believe
that some acrimonious discussion took place in both. The Whigs,
though much less violent than in the preceding year, could not
patiently see Caermarthen as nearly prime minister as any English
subject could be under a prince of William's character. Though no
man had taken a more prominent part in the Revolution than the
Lord President, though no man had more to fear from a
counterrevolution, his old enemies would not believe that he had
from his heart renounced those arbitrary doctrines for which he
had once been zealous, or that he could bear true allegiance to a
government sprung from resistance. Through the last six months of
1690 he was mercilessly lampooned. Sometimes he was King Thomas
and sometimes Tom the Tyrant.804 William was adjured not to go to
the Continent leaving his worst enemy close to the ear of the
Queen. Halifax, who had, in the preceding year, been ungenerously
and ungratefully persecuted by the Whigs, was now mentioned by
them with respect and regret; for he was the enemy of their
enemy.805 The face, the figure, the bodily infirmities of
Caermarthen, were ridiculed.806 Those dealings with the French
Court in which, twelve years before, he had, rather by his
misfortune than by his fault, been implicated, were represented
in the most odious colours. He was reproached with his
impeachment and his imprisonment. Once, it was said, he had
escaped; but vengeance might still overtake him, and London
might enjoy the long deferred pleasure of seeing the old traitor
flung off the ladder in the blue riband which he disgraced. All
the members of his family, wife, son, daughters, were assailed
with savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm.807 All who were
supposed to be closely connected with him by political ties came
in for a portion of this abuse; and none had so large a portion
as Lowther. The feeling indicated by these satires was strong
among the Whigs in Parliament. Several of them deliberated on a
plan of attack, and were in hopes that they should be able to
raise such a storm as would make it impossible for him to remain
at the head of affairs. It should seem that, at this time, his
influence in the royal closet was not quite what it had been.
Godolphin, whom he did not love, and could not control, but whose
financial skill had been greatly missed during the summer, was
brought back to the Treasury, and made First Commissioner.
Lowther, who was the Lord President's own man, still sate at the
board, but no longer presided there. It is true that there was
not then such a difference as there now is between the First Lord
and his colleagues. Still the change was important and
significant. Marlborough, whom Caermarthen disliked, was, in
military affairs, not less trusted than Godolphin in financial
affairs. The seals which Shrewsbury had resigned in the summer
had ever since been lying in William's secret drawer. The Lord
President probably expected that he should be consulted before
they were given away; but he was disappointed. Sidney was sent
for from Ireland; and the seals were delivered to him. The first
intimation which the Lord President received of this important
appointment was not made in a manner likely to soothe his
feelings. "Did you meet the new Secretary of State going out?" said William.
"No, Sir," answered the Lord President; "I met
nobody but my Lord Sidney." "He is the new Secretary," said
William. "He will do till I find a fit man; and he will be quite
willing to resign as soon as I find a fit man. Any other person
that I could put in would think himself ill used if I were to put
him out." If William had said all that was in his mind, he would
probably have added that Sidney, though not a great orator or
statesman, was one of the very few English politicians who could
be as entirely trusted as Bentinck or Zulestein. Caermarthen
listened with a bitter smile. It was new, he afterwards said, to
see a nobleman placed in the Secretary's office, as a footman was
placed in a box at the theatre, merely in order to keep a seat
till his betters came. But this jest was a cover for serious
mortification and alarm. The situation of the prime minister was
unpleasant and even perilous; and the duration of his power would
probably have been short, had not fortune, just at this moment,
put it in his power to confound his adversaries by rendering a
great service to the state.808

The Jacobites had seemed in August to be completely crushed. The
victory of the Boyne, and the irresistible explosion of patriotic
feeling produced by the appearance of Tourville's fleet on the
coast of Devonshire, had cowed the boldest champions of
hereditary right. Most of the chief plotters passed some weeks in
confinement or in concealment. But, widely as the ramifications
of the conspiracy had extended, only one traitor suffered the
punishment of his crime. This was a man named Godfrey Cross, who
kept an inn on the beach near Rye, and who, when the French fleet
was on the coast of Sussex, had given information to Tourville.
When it appeared that this solitary example was thought
sufficient, when the danger of invasion was over, when the
popular enthusiasm excited by that danger had subsided, when the
lenity of the government had permitted some conspirators to leave
their prisons and had encouraged others to venture out of their
hidingplaces, the faction which had been prostrated and stunned
began to give signs of returning animation. The old traitors
again mustered at the old haunts, exchanged significant looks and
eager whispers, and drew from their pockets libels on the Court
of Kensington, and letters in milk and lemon juice from the Court
of Saint Germains. Preston, Dartmouth, Clarendon, Penn, were
among the most busy. With them, was leagued the nonjuring Bishop
of Ely, who was still permitted by the government to reside in
the palace, now no longer his own, and who had, but a short time
before, called heaven to witness that he detested the thought of
inviting foreigners to invade England. One good opportunity had
been lost; but another was at hand, and must not be suffered to
escape. The usurper would soon be again out of England. The
administration would soon be again confided to a weak woman and a
divided council. The year which was closing had certainly been
unlucky; but that which was about to commence might be more
auspicious.

In December a meeting of the leading Jacobites was held.809 The
sense of the assembly, which consisted exclusively of
Protestants, was that something ought to be attempted, but that
the difficulties were great. None ventured to recommend that
James should come over unaccompanied by regular troops. Yet all,
taught by the experience of the preceding summer, dreaded the
effect which might be produced by the sight of French uniforms
and standards on English ground. A paper was drawn up which
would, it was hoped, convince both James and Lewis that a
restoration could not be effected without the cordial concurrence
of the nation. France,--such was the substance of this remarkable
document,--might possibly make the island a heap of ruins, but
never a subject province. It was hardly possible for any person,
who had not had an opportunity of observing the temper of the
public mind, to imagine the savage and dogged determination with
which men of all classes, sects and factions were prepared to
resist any foreign potentate who should attempt to conquer the
kingdom by force of arms. Nor could England be governed as a
Roman Catholic country. There were five millions of Protestants
in the realm: there were not a hundred thousand Papists: that
such a minority should keep down such a majority was physically
impossible; and to physical impossibility all other
considerations must give way. James would therefore do well to
take without delay such measures as might indicate his resolution
to protect the established religion. Unhappily every letter which
arrived from France contained something tending to irritate
feelings which it was most desirable to soothe. Stories were
every where current of slights offered at Saint Germains to
Protestants who had given the highest proof of loyalty by
following into banishment a master zealous for a faith which was
not their own. The edicts which had been issued against the
Huguenots might perhaps have been justified by the anarchical
opinions and practices of those sectaries; but it was the height
of injustice and of inhospitality to put those edicts in force
against men who had been driven from their country solely on
account of their attachment to a Roman Catholic King. Surely sons
of the Anglican Church, who had, in obedience to her teaching,
sacrificed all that they most prized on earth to the royal cause,
ought not to be any longer interdicted from assembling in some
modest edifice to celebrate her rites and to receive her
consolations. An announcement that Lewis had, at the request of
James, permitted the English exiles to worship God according to
their national forms would be the best prelude to the great
attempt. That attempt ought to be made early in the spring. A
French force must undoubtedly accompany His Majesty. But he must
declare that he brought that force only for the defence of his
person and for the protection of his loving subjects, and that,
as soon as the foreign oppressors had been expelled, the foreign
deliverers should be dismissed. He must also promise to govern
according to law, and must refer all the points which had been
in dispute between him and his people to the decision of a
Parliament.

It was determined that Preston should carry to Saint Germains the
resolutions and suggestions of the conspirators, John Ashton, a
person who had been clerk of the closet to Mary of Modena when
she was on the throne, and who was entirely devoted to the
interests of the exiled family, undertook to procure the means of
conveyance, and for this purpose engaged the cooperation of a
hotheaded young Jacobite named Elliot, who only knew in general
that a service of some hazard was to be rendered to the good
cause.

It was easy to find in the port of London a vessel the owner of
which was not scrupulous about the use for which it might be
wanted. Ashton and Elliot were introduced to the master of a
smack named the James and Elizabeth. The Jacobite agents
pretended to be smugglers, and talked of the thousands of pounds
which might be got by a single lucky trip to France and back
again. A bargain was struck: a sixpence was broken; and all the
arrangements were made for the voyage.

Preston was charged by his friends with a packet containing
several important papers. Among these was a list of the English
fleet furnished by Dartmouth, who was in communication with some
of his old companions in arms, a minute of the resolutions which
had been adopted at the meeting of the conspirators, and the
Heads of a Declaration which it was thought desirable that James
should publish at the moment of his landing. There were also six
or seven letters from persons of note in the Jacobite party. Most
of these letters were parables, but parables which it was not
difficult to unriddle. One plotter used the cant of the law.
There was hope that Mr. Jackson would soon recover his estate.
The new landlord was a hard man, and had set the freeholders
against him. A little matter would redeem the whole property. The
opinions of the best counsel were in Mr. Jackson's favour. All
that was necessary was that he should himself appear in
Westminster Hall. The final hearing ought to be before the close
of Easter Term. Other writers affected the style of the Royal
Exchange. There was a great demand for a cargo of the right sort.
There was reason to hope that the old firm would soon form
profitable connections with houses with which it had hitherto had
no dealings. This was evidently an allusion to the discontented
Whigs. But, it was added, the shipments must not be delayed.
Nothing was so dangerous as to overstay the market. If the
expected goods did not arrive by the tenth of March, the whole
profit of the year would be lost. As to details, entire reliance
might be placed on the excellent factor who was going over.
Clarendon assumed the character of a matchmaker. There was great
hope that the business which he had been negotiating would be
brought to bear, and that the marriage portion would be well
secured. "Your relations," he wrote, in allusion to his recent
confinement, "have been very hard on me this last summer. Yet, as
soon as I could go safely abroad, I pursued the business."
Catharine Sedley entrusted Preston with a letter in which,
without allegory or circumlocution, she complained that her lover
had left her a daughter to support, and begged very hard for
money. But the two most important despatches were from Bishop
Turner. They were directed to Mr. and Mrs. Redding: but the
language was such as it would be thought abject in any gentleman
to hold except to royalty. The Bishop assured their Majesties
that he was devoted to their cause, that he earnestly wished for
a great occasion to prove his zeal, and that he would no more
swerve from his duty to them than renounce his hope of heaven. He
added, in phraseology metaphorical indeed, but perfectly
intelligible, that he was the mouthpiece of several of the
nonjuring prelates, and especially of Sancroft. "Sir, I speak in
the plural,"--these are the words of the letter to James,--
"because I write my elder brother's sentiments as well as my own,
and the rest of our family." The letter to Mary of Modena is to
the same effect. "I say this in behalf of my elder brother, and
the rest of my nearest relations, as well as from myself."810

All the letters with which Preston was charged referred the Court
of Saint Germains to him for fuller information. He carried with
him minutes in his own handwriting of the subjects on which he
was to converse with his master and with the ministers of Lewis.
These minutes, though concise and desultory, can for the most
part be interpreted without difficulty. The vulnerable points of
the coast are mentioned. Gosport is defended only by palisades.
The garrison of Portsmouth is small. The French fleet ought to be
out in April, and to fight before the Dutch are in the Channel.
There are a few broken words clearly importing that some at least
of the nonjuring bishops, when they declared, before God, that
they abhorred the thought of inviting the French over, were
dissembling.811

Every thing was now ready for Preston's departure. But the owner
of the James and Elizabeth had conceived a suspicion that the
expedition for which his smack had been hired was rather of a
political than of a commercial nature. It occurred to him that
more might be made by informing against his passengers than by
conveying them safely. Intelligence of what was passing was
conveyed to the Lord President. No intelligence could be more
welcome to him. He was delighted to find that it was in his power
to give a signal proof of his attachment to the government which
his enemies had accused him of betraying. He took his measures
with his usual energy and dexterity. His eldest son, the Earl of
Danby, a bold, volatile, and somewhat eccentric young man, was
fond of the sea, lived much among sailors, and was the proprietor
of a small yacht of marvellous speed. This vessel, well manned,
was placed under the command of a trusty officer named Billop,
and was sent down the river, as if for the purpose of pressing
mariners.

At dead of night, the last night of the year 1690, Preston,
Ashton and Elliot went on board of their smack near the Tower.
They were in great dread lest they should be stopped and
searched, either by a frigate which lay off Woolwich, or by the
guard posted at the blockhouse of Gravesend. But, when they had
passed both frigate and blockhouse without being challenged,
their spirits rose: their appetite became keen; they unpacked a
hamper well stored with roast beef, mince pies, and bottles of
wine, and were just sitting down to their Christmas cheer, when
the alarm was given that a vessel from Tilbury was flying through
the water after them. They had scarcely time to hide themselves
in a dark hole among the gravel which was the ballast of their
smack, when the chase was over, and Billop, at the head of an
armed party, came on board. The hatches were taken up: the
conspirators were arrested; and their clothes were strictly
examined. Preston, in his agitation, had dropped on the gravel
his official seal and the packet of which he was the bearer. The
seal was discovered where it had fallen. Ashton, aware of the
importance of the papers, snatched them up and tried to conceal
them; but they were soon found in his bosom.

The prisoners then tried to cajole or to corrupt Billop. They
called for wine, pledged him, praised his gentlemanlike
demeanour, and assured him that, if he would accompany them, nay,
if he would only let that little roll of paper fall overboard
into the Thames, his fortune would be made. The tide of affairs,
they said, was on the turn, things could not go on for ever as
they had gone on of late and it was in the captain's power to be
as great and as rich as he could desire. Billop, though
courteous, was inflexible. The conspirators became sensible that
their necks were in imminent danger. The emergency brought out
strongly the true characters of all the three, characters which,
but for such an emergency, might have remained for ever unknown.
Preston had always been reputed a highspirited and gallant
gentleman; but the near prospect of a dungeon and a gallows
altogether unmanned him. Elliot stormed and blasphemed, vowed
that, if he ever got free, he would be revenged, and, with
horrible imprecations, called on the thunder to strike the yacht,
and on London Bridge to fall in and crush her. Ashton alone
behaved with manly firmness.

Late in the evening the yacht reached Whitehall Stairs; and the
prisoners, strongly guarded, were conducted to the Secretary's
office. The papers which had been found in Ashton's bosom were
inspected that night by Nottingham and Caermarthen, and were, on
the following morning, put by Caermarthen into the hands of the
King.

Soon it was known all over London that a plot had been detected,
that the messengers whom the adherents of James had sent to
solicit the help of an invading army from France had been
arrested by the agents of the vigilant and energetic
Lord President, and that documentary evidence, which might affect
the lives of some great men, was in the possession of the
government. The Jacobites were terrorstricken; the clamour of the
Whigs against Caermarthen was suddenly hushed; and the Session
ended in perfect harmony. On the fifth of January the King
thanked the Houses for their support, and assured them that he
would not grant away any forfeited property in Ireland till they
should reassemble. He alluded to the plot which had just been
discovered, and expressed a hope that the friends of England
would not, at such a moment, be less active or less firmly united
than her enemies. He then signified his pleasure that the
Parliament should adjourn. On the following day he set out,
attended by a splendid train of nobles, for the Congress at the
Hague.812


FN 1 Letter from Lady Cavendish to Sylvia. Lady Cavendish, like
most of the clever girls of that generation, had Scudery's
romances always in her head. She is Dorinda: her correspondent,
supposed to be her cousin Jane Allington, is Sylvia: William is
Ormanzor, and Mary Phenixana. London Gazette, Feb. 14 1688/9;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. Luttrell's Diary, which I shall very
often quote, is in the library of All Souls' College. I am
greatly obliged to the Warden for the kindness with which he
allowed me access to this valuable manuscript.

FN 2 See the London Gazettes of February and March 1688/9, and
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary,

FN 3 Wagenaar, lxi. He quotes the proceedings of the States of
the 2nd of March, 1689. London Gazette, April 11, 1689; Monthly
Mercury for April, 1689.

FN 4 "I may be positive," says a writer who had been educated at
Westminster School, "where I heard one sermon of repentance,
faith, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, I heard three of the
other; and 'tis hard to say whether Jesus Christ or King Charles
the First were oftener mentioned and magnified." Bisset's Modern
Fanatick, 1710.

FN 5 Paris Gazette, Jan 26/Feb 5 1689. Orange Gazette, London,
Jan. 10. 1688/9

FN 6 Grey's Debates; Howe's speech; Feb. 26. 1688/9; Boscawen's
speech, March 1; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Feb. 23-27.

FN 7 Grey's Debates; Feb. 26. 1688/9

FN 8 This illustration is repeated to satiety in sermons and
pamphlets of the time of William the Third. There is a poor
imitation of Absalom and Ahitophel entitled the Murmurers.
William is Moses; Corah, Dathan and Abiram, nonjuring Bishops;
Balaam, I think, Dryden; and Phinchas Shrewsbury,

FN 9 Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 10 Here, and in many other places, I abstain from citing
authorities, because my authorities are too numerous to cite. My
notions of the temper and relative position of political and
religious parties in the reign of William the Third, have been
derived, not from any single work, but from thousands of
forgotten tracts, sermons, and satires; in fact, from a whole
literature which is mouldering in old libraries.

FN 11 The following passage in a tract of that time expresses the
general opinion. "He has better knowledge of foreign affairs than
we have; but in English business it is no dishonour to him to be
told his relation to us, the nature of it, and what is fit for
him to do."--An Honest Commoner's Speech.

FN 12 London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9

FN 13 London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9; Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 14 London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9; Lords' Journals.

FN 15 Burnet, ii. 4.

FN 16 These memoirs will be found in a manuscript volume, which
is part of the Harleian Collection, and is numbered 6584. They
are in fact, the first outlines of a great part of Burnet's
History of His Own Times. The dates at which the different
portions of this most curious and interesting book were composed
are marked. Almost the whole was written before the death of
Mary. Burnet did not begin to prepare his History of William's
reign for the press till ten years later. By that time his
opinions both of men and of things, had undergone great changes.
The value of the rough draught is therefore very great: for it
contains some facts which he afterwards thought it advisable to
suppress, and some judgments which he afterwards saw cause to
alter. I must own that I generally like his first thoughts best.
Whenever his History is reprinted, it ought to be carefully
collated with this volume.

When I refer to the Burnet MS. Harl. 6584, I wish the reader to
understand that the MS. contains something which is not to be
found in the History.

As to Nottingham's appointment, see Burnet, ii. 8; the London
Gazette of March 7. 1688/9; and Clarendon's Diary of Feb. 15.

FN 17 London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688/9

FN 18 Don Pedro de Ronquillo makes this objection.

FN 19 London Gazette, March 11 1688/9.

FN 20 Ibid.

FN 21 I have followed what seems to me the most probable story.
But it has been doubted whether Nottingham was invited to be
Chancellor, or only to be First Commissioner of the Great Seal.
Compare Burnet ii. 3., and Boyer's History of William, 1702.
Narcissus Luttrell repeatedly, and even as late as the close of
1692, speaks of Nottingham as likely to be Chancellor.

FN 22 Roger North relates an amusing story about Shaftesbury's
embarrassments.

FN 23 London Gazette March 4. 1688/9

FN 24 Burnet ii. 5.

FN 25 The Protestant Mask taken off from the Jesuited Englishman,
1692.

FN 26 These appointments were not announced in the Gazette till
the 6th of May; but some of them were made earlier.

FN 27 Kennet's Funeral Sermon on the first Duke of Devonshire,
and Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish, 1708.

FN 28 See a poem entitled, A Votive Tablet to the King and Queen.

FN 29 See Prior's Dedication of his Poems to Dorset's son and
successor, and Dryden's Essay on Satire prefixed to the
Translations from Juvenal. There is a bitter sneer on Dryden's
effeminate querulousness in Collier's Short View of the Stage. In
Blackmore's Prince Arthur, a poem which, worthless as it is,
contains some curious allusions to contemporary men and events,
are the following lines
"The poets' nation did obsequious wait
For the kind dole divided at his gate.
Laurus among the meagre crowd appeared,
An old, revolted, unbelieving bard,
Who thronged, and shoved, and pressed, and would be heard.
Sakil's high roof, the Muses' palace, rung
With endless cries, and endless sons he sung.
To bless good Sakil Laurus would be first;
But Sakil's prince and Sakil's God he curst.
Sakil without distinction threw his bread,
Despised the flatterer, but the poet fed."
I need not say that Sakil is Sackville, or that Laurus is a
translation of the famous nickname Bayes.

FN 30 Scarcely any man of that age is more frequently mentioned
in pamphlets and satires than Howe. In the famous petition of
Legion, he is designated as "that impudent scandal of
Parliaments." Mackay's account of him is curious. In a poem
written in 1690, which I have never seen except in manuscript,
are the following lines
"First for Jack Howe with his terrible talent,
Happy the female that scopes his lampoon;
Against the ladies excessively valiant,
But very respectful to a Dragoon."

FN 31 Sprat's True Account; North's Examen; Letter to Chief
Justice Holt, 1694; Letter to Secretary Trenchard, 1694.

FN 32 Van Citters, Feb 19/March 1 1688/9

FN 33 Stat. I W.&M. sess. i. c. I. See the Journals of the two
Houses, and Grey's Debates. The argument in favour of the bill is
well stated in the Paris Gazettes of March 5. and 12. 1689.

FN 34 Both Van Citters and Ronquillo mention the anxiety which
was felt in London till the result was known.

FN 35 Lords' Journals, March 1688/9

FN 36 See the letters of Rochester and of Lady Ranelagh to Burnet
on this occasion.

FN 37 Journals of the Commons, March 2. 1688/9 Ronquillo wrote as
follows: "Es de gran consideracion que Seimor haya tomado el
juramento; porque es el arrengador y el director principal, en la
casa de los Comunes, de los Anglicanos." March 8/18 1688/9

FN 38 Grey's Debates, Feb. 25, 26, and 27. 1688/9

FN 39 Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 1. 1688/9

FN 40 I W. & M. sess. I c.10; Burnet, ii. 13.

FN 41 Commons' Journals, March 15. 1688/9 So late as 1713,
Arbuthnot, in the fifth part of John Bull, alluded to this
transaction with much pleasantry. "As to your Venire Facias,"
says John to Nick Frog, "I have paid you for one already."

FN 42 Wagenaar, lxi.

FN 43 Commons' Journals, March 15. 1688/9.

FN 44 Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 45 Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 15. 1688/9;
London Gazette, March 18.

FN 46 As to the state of this region in the latter part of the
seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, see
Pepys's Diary, Sept. 18. 1663, and the Tour through the whole
Island of Great Britain, 1724.

FN 47 London Gazette, March 25. 1689; Van Citters to the States
General, March 22/April 1 Letters of Nottingham in the State
Paper Office, dated July 23 and August 9. 1689; Historical Record
of the First Regiment of Foot, printed by authority. See also a
curious digression in the Compleat History of the Life and
Military Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 1689.

FN 48 Stat. I W.&M. sess. I. c. 5.; Commons' Journals, March 28.
1689.

FN 49 Stat. I W.& M. sess. I. c. 2.

FN 50 Ronquillo, March 8/18. 16S9.

FN 51 See the account given in Spence's Anecdotes of the Origin
of Dryden's Medal.

FN 52 Guardian, No. 67.

FN 53 There is abundant proof that William, though a very
affectionate, was not always a polite husband. But no credit is
due to the story contained in the letter which Dalrymple was
foolish enough to publish as Nottingham's in 1773, and wise
enough to omit in the edition of 1790. How any person who knew
any thing of the history of those times could be so strangely
deceived, it is not easy to understand particularly as the
handwriting bears no resemblance to Nottingham's, with which
Dalrymple was familiar. The letter is evidently a common
newsletter, written by a scribbler, who had never seen the King
and Queen except at some public place, and whose anecdotes of
their private life rested on no better authority than coffeehouse
gossip.

FN 54 Ronquillo; Burnet, ii. 2.; Duchess of Marlborough's
Vindication. In a pastoral dialogue between Philander and
Palaemon, published in 1691, the dislike with which women of
fashion regarded William is mentioned. Philander says

"But man methinks his reason should recall,
Nor let frail woman work his second fall."

FN 55 Tutchin's Observator of November 16. 1706.

FN 56 Prior, who was treated by William with much kindness, and
who was very grateful for it, informs us that the King did not
understand poetical eulogy. The passage is in a highly curious
manuscript, the property of Lord Lansdowne.

FN 57 Memoires originaux sur le regne et la cour de Frederic I,
Roi de Prusse, ecrits par Christophe Comte de Dohna. Berlin,
1833. It is strange that this interesting volume should be almost
unknown in England. The only copy that I have ever seen of it was
kindly given to me by Sir Robert Adair. "Le Roi," Dohna says,
"avoit une autre qualite tres estimable, qui est celle de n'aimer
point qu'on rendit de mauvais offices a personne par des
railleries." The Marquis de La Fork tried to entertain His
Majesty at the expense of an English nobleman. "Ce prince," says
Dohna "prit son air severe, et, le regardant sans mot dire, lui
fit rentrer les paroles dans le ventre. Le Marquis m'en fit ses
plaintes quelques heures apres. 'J'ai mal pris ma bisque,' dit-
il; 'j'ai cru faire l'agreable sur le chapitre de Milord . . mais
j'ai trouva a qui parler, et j'ai attrape un regard du roi qui
m'a fait passer l'envie de tire.'" Dohna supposed that William
might be less sensitive about the character of a Frenchman, and
tried the experiment. But, says he, "j'eus a pert pres le meme
sort que M. de la Foret."

FN 58 Compare the account of Mary by the Whig Burnet with the
mention of her by the Tory Evelyn in his Diary, March 8. 1694/5,
and with what is said of her by the Nonjuror who wrote the Letter
to Archbishop Tennison on her death in 1695. The impression which
the bluntness and reserve of William and the grace and gentleness
of Mary had made on the populace may be traced in the remains of
the street poetry of that time. The following conjugal dialogue
may still be seen on the original broadside.

"Then bespoke Mary, our most royal Queen,
'My gracious king William, where are you going?'
He answered her quickly, 'I count him no man
That telleth his secret unto a woman.'
The Queen with a modest behaviour replied,
'I wish that kind Providence may be thy guide,
To keep thee from danger, my sovereign Lord,
He which will the greatest of comfort afford.'"

These lines are in an excellent collection formed by Mr. Richard
Heber, and now the property of Mr. Broderip, by whom it was
kindly lent to me; in one of the most savage Jacobite pasquinades
of 1689, William is described as

"A churle to his wife, which she makes but a jest."

FN 59 Burnet, ii. 2.; Burnet, MS. Harl. 6484. But Ronquillo's
account is much more circumstantial. "Nada se ha visto mas
desfigurado; y, quantas veces he estado con el, le he visto toser
tanto que se le saltaban las lagrimas, y se ponia moxado y
arrancando; y confiesan los medicos que es una asma incurable,"
Mar. 8/18 1689. Avaux wrote to the same effect from Ireland. "La
sante de l'usurpateur est fort mauvaise. L'on ne croit pas qu'il
vive un an." April 8/18.

FN 60 "Hasta decir los mismos Hollandeses que lo desconozcan,"
says Ronquillo. "Il est absolument mal propre pour le role qu'il
a a jouer a l'heure qu'il est," says Avaux. "Slothful and
sickly," says Evelyn. March 29. 1689.

FN 61 See Harris's description of Loo, 1699.

FN 62 Every person who is well acquainted with Pope and Addison
will remember their sarcasms on this taste. Lady Mary Wortley
Montague took the other side. "Old China," she says, "is below
nobody's taste, since it has been the Duke of Argyle's, whose
understanding has never been doubted either by his friends or
enemies."

FN 63 As to the works at Hampton Court, see Evelyn's Diary, July
16. 1689; the Tour through Great Britain, 1724; the British
Apelles; Horace Walpole on Modern Gardening; Burnet, ii. 2, 3.

FN When Evelyn was at Hampton Court, in 1662, the cartoons were
not to be seen. The Triumphs of Andrea Mantegna were then
supposed to be the finest pictures in the palace.

FN 64 Burnet, ii. 2.; Reresby's Memoirs. Ronquillo wrote
repeatedly to the same effect. For example, "Bien quisiera que el
Rey fuese mas comunicable, y se acomodase un poco mas al humor
sociable de los Ingleses, y que estubiera en Londres: pero es
cierto que sus achaques no se lo permiten." July 8/18 1689.
Avaux, about the same time, wrote thus to Croissy from Ireland:
"Le Prince d'Orange est toujours a Hampton Court, et jamais a la
ville: et le peuple est fort mal satisfait de cette maniere
bizarre et retiree."

FN 65 Several of his letters to Heinsius are dated from Holland
House.

FN 66 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 25
1689/1690

FN 67 De Foe makes this excuse for William

"We blame the King that he relies too much
On strangers, Germans, Huguenots, and Dutch,
And seldom does his great affairs of state
To English counsellors communicate.
The fact might very well be answered thus,
He has too often been betrayed by us.
He must have been a madman to rely
On English gentlemen's fidelity.
The foreigners have faithfully obeyed him,
And none but Englishmen have e'er betrayed him."

The True Born Englishman, Part ii.

FN 68 Ronquillo had the good sense and justice to make allowances
which the English did not make. After describing, in a despatch
dated March 1/11. 1689, the lamentable state of the military and
naval establishments, he says, "De esto no tiene culpa el
Principe de Oranges; porque pensar que se han de poder volver en
dos meses tres Reynos de abaxo arriba es una extravagancia." Lord
President Stair, in a letter written from London about a month
later, says that the delays of the English administration had
lowered the King's reputation, "though without his fault."

FN 69 Burnet, ii. 4.; Reresby.

FN 70 Reresby's Memoirs; Burnet MS. Hart. 6584.

FN 71 Burnet, ii. 3, 4. 15.

FN 72 ibid. ii. 5.

FN 73 "How does he do to distribute his hours,
Some to the Court, and some to the City,
Some to the State, and some to Love's powers,
Some to be vain, and some to be witty?"

The Modern Lampooners, a poem of 1690

FN 74 Burnet ii. 4

FN 75 Ronquillo calls the Whig functionaries "Gente que no tienen
practica ni experiencia." He adds, "Y de esto procede el pasarse
un mes y un otro, sin executarse nada." June 24. 1689. In one of
the innumerable Dialogues which appeared at that time, the Tory
interlocutor puts the question, "Do you think the government
would be better served by strangers to business?" The Whig
answers, "Better ignorant friends than understanding enemies."

FN 76 Negotiations de M. Le Comte d'Avaux, 4 Mars 1683; Torcy's
Memoirs.

FN 77 The original correspondence of William and Heinsius is in
Dutch. A French translation of all William's letters, and an
English translation of a few of Heinsius's Letters, are among the
Mackintosh MSS. The Baron Sirtema de Grovestins, who has had
access to the originals, frequently quotes passages in his
"Histoire des luttes et rivalites entre les puissances maritimes
et la France." There is very little difference in substance,
though much in phraseology, between his version and that which I
have used.

FN 78 Though these very convenient names are not, as far as I
know, to be found in any book printed during the earlier years of
William's reign, I shall use them without scruple, as others have
done, in writing about the transactions of those years.

FN 79 Burnet, ii. 8.; Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of
Kettlewell, part iii. section 62.

FN 80 Swift, writing under the name of Gregory Misosarum, most
malignantly and dishonestly represents Burnet as grudging this
grant to the Church. Swift cannot have been ignorant that the
Church was indebted for the grant chiefly to Burnet's persevering
exertions.

FN 81 See the Life of Burnet at the end of the second volume of
his history, his manuscript memoirs, Harl. 6584, his memorials
touching the First Fruits and Tenths, and Somers's letter to him
on that subject. See also what Dr. King, Jacobite as he was, had
the justice to say in his Anecdotes. A most honourable testimony
to Burnet's virtues, given by another Jacobite who had attacked
him fiercely, and whom he had treated generously, the learned and
upright Thomas Baker, will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine
for August and September, 1791.

FN 82 Oldmixon would have us believe that Nottingham was not, at
this time, unwilling to give up the Test Act. But Oldmixon's
assertion, unsupported by evidence, is of no weight whatever; and
all the evidence which he produces makes against his assertion.

FN 83 Burnet, ii. 6.; Van Citters to the States General, March
1/11 1689; King William's Toleration, being an explanation of
that liberty of conscience which may be expected from His
Majesty's Declaration, with a Bill for Comprehension and
Indulgence, drawn up in order to an Act of Parliament, licensed
March 25. 1689.

FN 84 Commons' Journals, May 17. 1689.

FN 85 Sense of the subscribed articles by the Ministers of
London, 1690; Calamy's Historical Additions to Baxter's Life.

FN 86 The bill will be found among the Archives of the House of
Lords. It is strange that this vast collection of important
documents should have been altogether neglected, even by our most
exact and diligent historians. It was opened to me by one of the
most valued of my friends, Mr. John Lefevre; and my researches
were greatly assisted by the kindness of Mr. Thoms.

FN 87 Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library is a very
curious letter from Compton to Sancroft, about the Toleration
Bill and the Comprehension Bill, "These," says Compton, "are two
great works in which the being of our Church is concerned: and I
hope you will send to the House for copies. For, though we are
under a conquest, God has given us favour in the eyes of our
rulers; and they may keep our Church if we will." Sancroft seems
to have returned no answer.

FN 88 The distaste of the High Churchman for the Articles is the
subject of a curious pamphlet published in 1689, and entitled a
Dialogue between Timothy and Titus.

FN 89 Tom Brown says, in his scurrilous way, of the Presbyterian
divines of that time, that their preaching "brings in money, and
money buys land; and land is an amusement they all desire, in
spite of their hypocritical cant. If it were not for the
quarterly contributions, there would be no longer schism or
separation." He asks how it can be imagined that, while "they are
maintained like gentlemen by the breach they will ever preach up
healing doctrines?"--Brown's Amusements, Serious and Comical.
Some curious instances of the influence exercised by the chief
dissenting ministers may be found in Hawkins's Life of Johnson.
In the Journal of the retired citizen (Spectator, 317.) Addison
has indulged in some exquisite pleasantry on this subject. The
Mr. Nisby whose opinions about the peace, the Grand Vizier, and
laced coffee, are quoted with so much respect, and who is so well
regaled with marrow bones, ox cheek, and a bottle of Brooks and
Hellier, was John Nesbit, a highly popular preacher, who about
the time of the Revolution, became pastor of a dissenting
congregation in flare Court Aldersgate Street. In Wilson's
History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses
in London, Westminster, and Southwark, will be found several
instances of nonconformist preachers who, about this time, made
handsome fortunes, generally, it should seem, by marriage.

FN 90 See, among many other tracts, Dodwell's Cautionary
Discourse, his Vindication of the Deprived Bishops, his Defence
of the Vindication, and his Paraenesis; and Bisby's Unity of
Priesthood, printed in 1692. See also Hody's tracts on the other
side, the Baroccian MS., and Solomon and Abiathar, a Dialogue
between Eucheres and Dyscheres.

FN 91 Burnet, ii. 135. Of all attempts to distinguish between the
deprivations of 1559 and the deprivations of 1689, the most
absurd was made by Dodwell. See his Doctrine of the Church of
England concerning the independency of the Clergy on the lay
Power, 1697.

FN 92 As to this controversy, see Burnet, ii. 7, 8, 9.; Grey's
Debates, April 19. and 22. 1689; Commons' Journals of April 20.
and 22.; Lords' Journals, April 21.

FN 93 Lords' Journals, March 16. 1689.

FN 94 Burnet, ii. 7, 8.

FN 95 Burnet says (ii. 8.) that the proposition to abolish the
sacramental test was rejected by a great majority in both Houses.
But his memory deceived him; for the only division on the subject
in the House of Commons was that mentioned in the text. It is
remarkable that Gwyn and Rowe, who were tellers for the majority,
were two of the strongest Whigs in the House.

FN 96 Lords' Journals, March 21. 1689.

FN 97 Lords' Journals, April 5. 1689; Burnet, ii. 10.

FN 98 Commons' Journals, March 28. April 1. 1689; Paris Gazette,
April 23. Part of the passage in the Paris Gazette is worth
quoting. "Il y eut, ce jour le (March 28), une grande
contestation dans la Chambre Basse, sur la proposition qui fut
faite de remettre les séences apres les fetes de Pasques
observees toujours par l'Eglise Anglicane. Les Protestans
conformistes furent de cet avis; et les Presbyterians emporterent
a la pluralite des voix que les seances recommenceroient le
Lundy, seconde feste de Pasques." The Low Churchmen are
frequently designated as Presbyterians by the French and Dutch
writers of that age. There were not twenty Presbyterians,
properly so called, in the House of Commons. See A. Smith and
Cutler's plain Dialogue about Whig and Tory, 1690.

FN 99 Accounts of what passed at the Conferences will be found in
the Journals of the Houses, and deserve to be read.

FN 100 Journals, March 28. 1689; Grey's Debates.

FN 101 I will quote some expressions which have been preserved in
the concise reports of these debates. Those expressions are quite
decisive as to the sense in which the oath was understood by the
legislators who framed it. Musgrave said, "There is no occasion
for this proviso. It cannot be imagined that any bill from hence
will ever destroy the legislative power." Pinch said, "The words
established by law, hinder not the King from passing any bill for
the relief of Dissenters. The proviso makes the scruple, and
gives the occasion for it." Sawyer said, "This is the first
proviso of this nature that ever was in any bill. It seems to
strike at the legislative power." Sir Robert Cotton said, "Though
the proviso looks well and Healing, yet it seems to imply a
defect. Not able to alter laws as occasion requires! This,
instead of one scruple, raises more, as if you were so bound up
to the ecclesiastical government that you cannot make any new
laws without such a proviso." Sir Thomas Lee said, "It will, I
fear, creep in that other laws cannot be made without such a
proviso therefore I would lay it aside."

FN 102 Lady Henrietta whom her uncle Clarendon calls "pretty
little Lady Henrietta," and "the best child in the world" (Diary,
Jan. 168-I), was soon after married to the Earl of Dalkeith,
eldest son of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth.

FN 103 The sermon deserves to be read. See the London Gazette of
April 14. 1689; Evelyn's Diary; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; and
the despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors to the States General.

FN 104 A specimen of the prose which the Jacobites wrote on this
subject will be found in the Somers Tracts. The Jacobite verses
were generally too loathsome to be quoted. I select some of the
most decent lines from a very rare lampoon

"The eleventh of April has come about,
To Westminster went the rabble rout,
In order to crown a bundle of clouts,
a dainty fine King indeed.

"Descended he is from the Orange tree;
But, if I can read his destiny,
He'll once more descend from another tree,
a dainty fine King indeed.

"He has gotten part of the shape of a man,
But more of a monkey, deny it who can;
He has the head of a goose, but the legs of a crane,
A dainty fine King indeed."

A Frenchman named Le Noble, who had been banished from his own
country for his crimes, but, by the connivance of the police,
lurked in Paris, and earned a precarious livelihood as a
bookseller's hack published on this occasion two pasquinades, now
extremely scarce, "Le Couronnement de Guillemot et de
Guillemette, avec le Sermon du grand Docteur Burnet," and "Le
Festin de Guillemot." In wit, taste and good sense, Le Noble's
writings are not inferior to the English poem which I have
quoted. He tells us that the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of
London had a boxing match in the Abbey; that the champion rode up
the Hall on an ass, which turned restive and kicked over the
royal table with all the plate; and that the banquet ended in a
fight between the peers armed with stools and benches, and the
cooks armed with spits. This sort of pleasantry, strange to say,
found readers; and the writer's portrait was pompously engraved
with the motto "Latrantes ride: to tua fama manet."

FN 105 Reresby's Memoirs.

FN 106 For the history of the devastation of the Palatinate, see
the Memoirs of La Fare, Dangeau, Madame de la Fayette, Villars,
and Saint Simon, and the Monthly Mercuries for March and April,
1689. The pamphlets and broadsides are too numerous to quote. One
broadside, entitled "A true Account of the barbarous Cruelties
committed by the French in the Palatinate in January and February
last," is perhaps the most remarkable.

FN 107 Memoirs of Saint Simon.

FN 108 I will quote a few lines from Leopold's letter to James:
"Nunc autem quo loco res nostrae sint, ut Serenitati vestrae
auxilium praestari possit a nobis, qui non Turcico tantum bello
impliciti, sed insuper etiam crudelissimo et iniquissimo a
Gallis, rerun suarum, ut putabant, in Anglia securis, contra
datam fidem impediti sumus, ipsimet Serenitati vestrae judicandum
relinquimus . . . . Galli non tantum in nostrum et totius
Christianae orbis perniciem foedifraga arma cum juratis Sanctae
Crucis hostibus sociare fas sibi ducunt; sed etiam in imperio,
perfidiam perfidia cumulando, urbes deditione occupatas contra
datam fidem immensis tributis exhaurire exhaustas diripere,
direptas funditus exscindere aut flammis delere Palatia Principum
ab omni antiquitate inter saevissima bellorum incendia intacta
servata exurere, templa spoliare, dedititios in servitutem more
apud barbaros usitato abducere, denique passim, imprimis vero
etiam in Catholicorum ditionibus, alia horrenda, et ipsam
Turcorum tyrannidem superantia immanitatis et saevitiae exempla
edere pro ludo habent."

FN 109 See the London Gazettes of Feb. 25. March 11. April 22.
May 2. and the Monthly Mercuries. Some of the Declarations will
be found in Dumont's Corps Universel Diplomatique.

FN 110 Commons Journals, April 15. 16. 1689.

FN 111 Oldmixon.

FN 112 Commons' Journals, April 19. 24. 26. 1689.

FN 113 The Declaration is dated on the 7th of May, but was not
published in the London Gazette till the 13th.

FN 114 The general opinion of the English on this subject is
clearly
expressed in a little tract entitled "Aphorisms relating to the
Kingdom
of Ireland," which appeared during the vacancy of the throne.

FN 115 King's State of the Protestants of Ireland, ii. 6. and
iii. 3.

FN 116 King, iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Rochester (June 1.
1686), calls Nugent "a very troublesome, impertinent creature."

FN 117 King, iii. 3.

FN 118 King, ii. 6., iii. 3. Clarendon, in a letter to Ormond
(Sep. 28.
1686), speaks highly of Nagle's knowledge and ability, but in the
Diary (Jan. 31. 1686/7) calls him "a covetous, ambitious man."

FN 119 King, ii. 5. 1, iii. 3. 5.; A Short View of the Methods
made use
of in Ireland for the Subversion and Destruction of the
Protestant
Religion and Interests, by a Clergyman lately escaped from
thence,
licensed Oct. 17. 1689.

FN 120 King, iii. 2. I cannot find that Charles Leslie, who was
zealous
on the other side, has, in his Answer to King, contradicted any
of
these facts. Indeed Leslie gives up Tyrconnel's administration.
"I
desire to obviate one objection which I know will be made, as if
I were
about wholly to vindicate all that the Lord Tyrconnel and other
of King
James's ministers have done in Ireland, especially before this
revolution began, and which most of any thing brought it on. No;
I am
far from it. I am sensible that their carriage in many
particulars gave
greater occasion to King James's enemies than all the other in
maladministrations which were charged upon his government."
Leslie's
Answer to King, 1692.

FN 121 A True and Impartial Account of the most material Passages
in
Ireland since December 1688, by a Gentleman who was an
Eyewitness;
licensed July 22. 1689.

FN 122 True and Impartial Account, 1689; Leslie's Answer to King,
1692.

FN 123 There have been in the neighbourhood of Killarney
specimens of
the arbutus thirty feet high and four feet and a half round. See
the
Philosophical Transactions, 227.

FN 124 In a very full account of the British isles published at
Nuremberg in 1690 Kerry is described as "an vielen Orten unwegsam
und
voller Wilder and Geburge." Wolves still infested Ireland. "Kein
schadlich Thier ist da, ausserhalb Wolff and Fuchse." So late as
the
year 1710 money was levied on presentments of the Grand Jury of
Kerry
for the destruction of wolves in that county. See Smith's Ancient
and
Modern State of the County of Kerry, 1756. I do not know that I
have
ever met with a better book of the kind and of the size. In a
poem
published as late as 1719, and entitled Macdermot, or the Irish
Fortune
Hunter, in six cantos, wolfhunting and wolfspearing are
represented as
common sports in Munster. In William's reign Ireland was
sometimes
called by the nickname of Wolfland. Thus in a poem on the battle
of La
Vogue, called Advice to a Painter, the terror of the Irish army
is thus
described

"A chilling damp
And Wolfland howl runs thro' the rising camp."

FN 125 Smith's Ancient and Modern State of Kerry.

FN 126 Exact Relation of the Persecutions, Robberies, and Losses,
sustained by the Protestants of Killmare in Ireland, 1689;
Smith's
Ancient and Modern State of Kerry, 1756.

FN 127 Ireland's Lamentation, licensed May 18. 1689.

FN 128 A True Relation of the Actions of the Inniskilling men, by
Andrew Hamilton, Rector of Kilskerrie, and one of the Prebends of
the
Diocese of Clogher, an Eyewitness thereof and Actor therein,
licensed
Jan. 15. 1689/90; A Further Impartial Account of the Actions of
the
Inniskilling men, by Captain William Mac Cormick, one of the
first that
took up Arms, 1691.

FN 129 Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Impartial
Account.

FN 130 Concise View of the Irish Society, 1822; Mr. Heath's
interesting
Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers, Appendix 17.

FN 131 The Interest of England in the preservation of Ireland,
licensed
July 17. 1689.

FN 132 These things I observed or learned on the spot.

FN 133 The best account that I have seen of what passed at
Londonderry
during the war which began in 1641 is in Dr. Reid's History of
the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

FN 134 The Interest of England in the Preservation of Ireland;
1689.

FN 135 My authority for this unfavourable account of the
corporation is
an epic poem entitled the Londeriad. This extraordinary work must
have
been written very soon after the events to which it relates; for
it is
dedicated to Robert Rochfort, Speaker of the House of Commons;
and
Rochfort was Speaker from 1695 to 1699. The poet had no
invention; he
had evidently a minute knowledge of the city which he celebrated;
and
his doggerel is consequently not without historical value. He
says

"For burgesses and freemen they had chose
Broguemakers, butchers, raps, and such as those
In all the corporation not a man
Of British parents, except Buchanan."

This Buchanan is afterwards described as

                        "A knave all o'er
For he had learned to tell his beads before."

FN 136 See a sermon preached by him at Dublin on Jan. 31. 1669.
The
text is "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the
Lord's
sake."

FN 137 Walker's Account of the Siege of Derry, 1689; Mackenzie's
Narrative of the Siege of Londonderry, 1689; An Apology for the
failures charged on the Reverend Mr. Walker's Account of the late
Siege
of Derry, 1689; A Light to the Blind. This last work, a
manuscript in
the possession of Lord Fingal, is the work of a zealous Roman
Catholic
and a mortal enemy of England. Large extracts from it are among
the
Mackintosh MSS. The date in the titlepage is 1711.

FN 138 As to Mountjoy's character and position, see Clarendon's
letters
from Ireland, particularly that to Lord Dartmouth of Feb. 8., and
that
to Evelyn of Feb. 14 1685/6. "Bon officier, et homme d'esprit,"
says
Avaux.

FN 139 Walker's Account; Light to the Blind.

FN 140 Mac Cormick's Further Impartial Account.

FN 141 Burnet, i. 807; and the notes by Swift and Dartmouth.
Tutchin,
in the Observator, repeats this idle calumny.

FN 142 The Orange Gazette, Jan. 10 1688/9.

FN 143 Memoires de Madame de la Fayette.

FN 144 Burnet, i. 808; Life of James, ii. 320.; Commons'
Journals, July
29. 1689.

FN 145 Avaux to Lewis, Mar 25/April 4 1659.

FN 146 Clarke's Life of James, ii. 321.; Mountjoy's Circular
Letter,
dated Jan. 10 1688/9;; King, iv. 8. In "Light to the Blind"
Tyrconnel's
"wise dissimulation" is commended.

FN 147 Avaux to Lewis April, 11. 1689.

FN 148 Printed Letter from Dublin, Feb. 25. 1689; Mephibosheth
and
Ziba, 1689.

FN 149 The connection of the priests with the old Irish families
is
mentioned in Petty's Political Anatomy of Ireland. See the Short
View
by a Clergyman lately escaped, 1689; Ireland's Lamentation, by an
English Protestant that lately narrowly escaped with life from
thence,
1689; A True Account of the State of Ireland, by a person who
with
great difficulty left Dublin, 1689; King, ii. 7. Avaux confirms
all
that these writers say about the Irish officers.

FN 150 At the French War Office is a report on the State of
Ireland in
February 1689. In that report it is said that the Irish who had
enlisted as soldiers were forty-five thousand, and that the
number
would have been a hundred thousand if all who volunteered had
been
admitted. See the Sad and Lamentable Condition of the Protestants
in
Ireland, 1689; Hamilton's True Relation, 1690; The State of
Papist and
Protestant Properties in the Kingdom of Ireland, 1689; A true
Representation to the King and People of England how Matters were
carried on all along in Ireland, licensed Aug. 16. 1689; Letter
from
Dublin, 1689; Ireland's Lamentation, 1689; Compleat History of
the Life
and Military Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, Generalissimo
of
all the Irish forces now in arms, 1689.

FN 151 See the proceedings in the State Trials.

FN 152 King, iii. 10.

FN 153 Ten years, says the French ambassador; twenty years, says
a
Protestant fugitive.

FN 154 Animadversions on the proposal for sending back the
nobility and
gentry of Ireland; 1689/90.

FN 155 King, iii. 10; The Sad Estate and Condition of Ireland, as
represented in a Letter from a Worthy Person who was in Dublin on
Friday last March. 1689; Short View by a Clergyman, 1689;
Lamentation
of Ireland 1689; Compleat History of the Life and Actions of
Richard,
Earl of Tyrconnel, 1689; The Royal Voyage, acted in 1689 and
1690. This
drama, which, I believe, was performed at Bartholomew Fair, is
one of
the most curious of a curious class of compositions, utterly
destitute
of literary merit, but valuable as showing what were then the
most
successful claptraps for an audience composed of the common
people.
"The end of this play," says the author in his preface, "is
chiefly to
expose the perfidious base, cowardly, and bloody nature of the
Irish."
The account which the fugitive Protestants give of the wanton
destruction of cattle is confirmed by Avaux in a letter to Lewis,
dated
April 13/23 1689, and by Desgrigny in a letter to Louvois, dated
May
17/27. 1690. Most of the despatches written by Avaux during his
mission
to Ireland are contained in a volume of which a very few copies
were
printed some years ago at the English Foreign Office. Of many I
have
also copies made at the French Foreign Office. The letters of
Desgrigny, who was employed in the Commissariat, I found in the
Library
of the French War Office. I cannot too strongly express my sense
of the
liberality and courtesy with which the immense and admirably
arranged
storehouses of curious information at Paris were thrown open to
me.

FN 156 "A remarkable thing never to be forgotten was that they
that
were in government then"--at the end of 1688--"seemed to favour
us and
endeavour to preserve Friends." history of the Rise and Progress
of the
People called Quakers in Ireland, by Wight and Rutty, Dublin,
1751.
King indeed (iii. 17) reproaches the Quakers as allies and tools
of the
Papists.

FN 157 Wight and Rutty.

FN 158 Life of James, ii. 327. Orig. Mem. Macarthy and his
feigned name
are repeatedly mentioned by Dangeau.

FN 159 Exact Relation of the Persecutions, Robberies and Losses
sustained by the Protestants of Killmare in Ireland, 1689.

FN 160 A true Representation to the King and People of England
how
Matters were carried on all along in Ireland by the late King
James,
licensed Aug. 16. 1689; A true Account of the Present State of
Ireland
by a Person that with Great Difficulty left Dublin, licensed June
8.
1689.

FN 161 Hamilton's Actions of the Inniskilling Men, 1689.

FN 162 Walker's Account, 1689.

FN 163 Mackenzie's Narrative; Mac Cormack's Further Impartial
Account;
Story's Impartial History of the Affairs of Ireland, 1691;
Apology for
the Protestants of Ireland; Letter from Dublin of Feb. 25. 1689;
Avaux
to Lewis, April 15/25. 1689.

FN 164 Memoires de Madame de la Fayette; Madame de Sevigne to
Madame de
Grignan, Feb. 28. 1689.

FN 165 Burnet, ii. 17; Clarke's Life of James II., 320, 321, 322,

FN 166 Maumont's Instructions.

FN 167 Dangeau, Feb. 15/25 17/27 1689; Madame de Sevigne, 18/28
Feb.
20/March; Memoires de Madame de la Fayette.

FN 168 Memoirs of La Fare and Saint Simon; Note of Renaudot on
English
affairs 1697, in the French Archives; Madame de Sevigne, Feb
20/March
2, March 11/21, 1689; Letter of Madame de Coulanges to M. de
Coulanges,
July 23. 1691.

FN 169 See Saint Simon's account of the trick by which Avaux
tried to
pass himself off at Stockholm as a Knight of the Order of the
Holy
Ghost.

FN 170 This letter, written to Lewis from the harbour of Brest,
is in
the Archives of the French Foreign Office, but is wanting in the
very
rare volume printed in Downing Street.

FN 171 A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of
the late
King James at Kinsale, in a letter from Bristol, licensed April
4.
1689; Leslie's Answer to King; Ireland's Lamentation; Avaux,
March
13/23

FN 172 Avaux, March. 13/23 1689; Life of James, ii. 327. Orig.
Mem.

FN 173 Avaux, March 15/25. 1689.

FN 174 Ibid. March 25/April 4 1689

FN 175 A full and true Account of the Landing and Reception of
the late
King James; Ireland's Lamentation; Light to the Blind.

FN 176 See the calculations of Petty, King, and Davenant. If the
average number of inhabitants to a house was the same in Dublin
as in
London, the population of Dublin would have been about thirty-
four
thousand.

FN 177 John Damon speaks of College Green near Dublin. I have
seen
letters of that age directed to the College, by Dublin. There are
some
interesting old maps of Dublin in the British Museum.

FN 178 Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 8. 1685/6, April 20. Aug. 12.
Nov.
30. 1686.

FN 179 Clarke's Life of James II, ii. 330.; Full and true Account
of
the Landing and Reception, &c.; Ireland's Lamentation.

FN 180 Clarendon's Diary; Reresby's Memoirs; Narcissus Luttrell's
Diary. I have followed Luttrell's version of Temple's last words.
It
agrees in substance with Clarendon's, but has more of the
abruptness
natural on such an occasion. If anything could make so tragical
an
event ridiculous, it would be the lamentation of the author of
the
Londeriad

"The wretched youth against his friend exclaims,
And in despair drowns himself in the Thames."

FN 181 Much light is thrown on the dispute between the English
and
Irish parties in James's Council, by a remarkable letter of
Bishop
Maloney to Bishop Tyrrel, which will be found in the Appendix to
Kings
State of the Protestants.

FN 182 Avaux, March 25/April 4 1689, April. But it is less from
any
single letter, than from the whole tendency and spirit of the
correspondence of Avaux, that I have formed my notion of his
objects.

FN 183 "Il faut donc, oubliant qu'il a este Roy d'Angleterre et
d'Escosse, ne penser qu'a ce qui peut bonifier l'Irlande, et luy
faciliter les moyens d'y subsister." Louvois to Avaux, June 3/13.
1689.

FN 184 See the despatches written by Avaux during April 1689;
Light to
the Blind.

FN 185 Avaux, April 6/16 1689.

FN 186 Avaux, May 8/18 1689.

FN 187 Pusignan to Avaux March 30/April 9 1689.

FN 188 This lamentable account of the Irish beer is taken from a
despatch which Desgrigny wrote from Cork to Louvois, and which is
in
the archives of the French War Office.

FN 189 Avaux, April 13/23. 1689; April 20/30,

FN 190 Avaux to Lewis, April 15/25 1689, and to Louvois, of the
same
date.

FN 191 Commons' Journals, August 12. 1689; Mackenzie's Narrative.

FN 192 Avaux, April 17/27. 1689. The story of these strange
changes of
purpose is told very disingenuously in the Life of James, ii.
330, 331,
332. Orig. Mem.

FN 193 Life of James, ii. 334, 335. Orig. Mem.

FN 194 Memoirs of Saint Simon. Some English writers ignorantly
speak of
Rosen as having been, at this time, a Marshal of France. He did
not
become so till 1703. He had long been a Marechal de Camp, which
is a
very different thing, and had been recently promoted to the rank
of
Lieutenant General.

FN 195 Avaux, April 4/14 1689, Among the MSS. in the British
Museum is
a curious report on the defences of Londonderry, drawn up in 1705
for
the Duke of Ormond by a French engineer named Thomas.

FN 196 Commons' Journals, August 12. 1689.

FN 197 The best history of these transactions will be found in
the
journals of the House of Commons, August 12. 1689. See also the
narratives of Walker and Mackenzie.

FN 198 Mackenzie's Narrative,

FN 199 Walker and Mackenzie.

FN 200 See the Character of the Protestants of Ireland 1689, and
the
Interest of England in the Preservation of Ireland, 1689. The
former
pamphlet is the work of an enemy, the latter of a zealous friend.

FN 201 There was afterwards some idle dispute about the question
whether Walker was properly Governor or not. To me it seems quite
clear
that he was so.

FN 202 Mackenzie's Narrative; Funeral Sermon on Bishop Hopkins,
1690.

FN 203 Walker's True Account, 1689. See also The Apology for the
True
Account, and the Vindication of the True Account, published in
the same
year. I have called this man by the name by which he was known in
Ireland. But his real name was Houstoun. He is frequently
mentioned in
the strange volume entitled Faithful Contendings Displayed.

FN 204 A View of the Danger and Folly of being publicspirited, by
William Hamill, 1721

FN 205 See Walker's True Account and Mackenzie's Narrative.

FN 206 Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux, April 26/May 6 1689. There is a
tradition among the Protestants of Ulster that Maumont fell by
the
sword of Murray: but on this point the report made by the French
ambassador to his master is decisive. The truth is that there are
almost as many mythical stories about the siege of Londonderry as
about
the siege of Troy. The legend about Murray and Maumont dates from
1689.
In the Royal Voyage which was acted in that year, the combat
between
the heroes is described in these sonorous lines

"They met; and Monsieur at the first encounter
Fell dead, blaspheming, on the dusty plain,
And dying, bit the ground."

FN 207 "Si c'est celuy qui est sorti de France le dernier, qui
s'appelloit Richard, il n'a jamais veu de siege, ayant toujours
servi
en Rousillon."--Louvois to Avaux, June 8/18. 1689.

FN 208 Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux to Louvois, May 2/12. 4/14 1689;
James
to Hamilton, May 28/June 8 in the library of the Royal Irish
Academy.
Louvois wrote to Avaux in great indignation. "La mauvaise
conduite que
l'on a tenue devant Londondery a couste la vie a M. de Maumont et
a M.
de Pusignan. Il ne faut pas que sa Majesté Britannique croye
qu'en
faisant tuer des officiers generaux comme des soldats, on puisse
ne
l'en point laisser manquer. Ces sortes de gens sont rates en tout
pays,
et doivent estre menagez."

FN 209 Walker; Mackenzie; Avaux, June 16/26 1689.

FN 210 As to the discipline of Galmoy's Horse, see the letter of
Avaux
to Louvois, dated Sept. 10/30. Horrible stories of the cruelty,
both of
the colonel and of his men, are told in the Short View, by a
Clergyman,
printed in 1689, and in several other pamphlets of that year. For
the
distribution of the Irish forces, see the contemporary maps of
the
siege. A catalogue of the regiments, meant, I suppose to rival
the
catalogue in the Second Book of the Iliad, will be found in the
Londeriad.

FN 211 Life of Admiral Sir John Leake, by Stephen M. Leake,
Clarencieux
King at Arms, 1750. Of this book only fifty copies were printed.

FN 212 Avaux, May 8/18 May 26/June 5 1689; London Gazette, May
9.; Life
of James, ii. 370.; Burchett's Naval Transactions; Commons'
Journals,
May 18, 21. From the Memoirs of Madame de la Fayette it appears
that
this paltry affair was correctly appreciated at Versailles.

FN 213 King, iii. 12; Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration,
1716.
Lists of both Houses will be found in King's Appendix.

FN 214 I found proof of Plowden's connection with the Jesuits in
a
Treasury Letterbook, June 12, 1689.

FN 215 "Sarsfield," Avaux wrote to Louvois, Oct. 11/21. 1689,
"n'est
pas un homme de la naissance de mylord Galloway" (Galmoy, I
suppose)
"ny de Makarty: mais c'est un gentilhomme distingue par son
merite, qui
a plus de credit dans ce royaume qu'aucun homme que je connoisse.
Il a
de la valeur, mais surtout de l'honneur et de la probite a toute
epreuve . . . homme qui sera toujours a la tete de ses troupes,
et qui
en aura grand soin." Leslie, in his Answer to King, says that the
Irish
Protestants did justice to Sarsfield's integrity and honour.
Indeed
justice is done to Sarsfield even in such scurrilous pieces as
the
Royal Flight.

FN 216 Journal of the Parliament in Ireland, 1689. The reader
must not
imagine that this journal has an official character. It is merely
a
compilation made by a Protestant pamphleteer and printed in
London.

FN 217 Life of James, ii. 355.

FN 218 Journal of the Parliament in Ireland.

FN 219 Avaux May 26/June 5 1689.

FN 220 A True Account of the Present State of Ireland, by a
Person that
with Great Difficulty left Dublin, 1689; Letter from Dublin,
dated June
12. 1689; Journal of the Parliament in Ireland.

FN 221 Life of James, ii. 361, 362, 363. In the Life it is said
that
the proclamation was put forth without the privity of James, but
that
he subsequently approved of it. See Welwood's Answer to the
Declaration, 1689.

FN 222 Light to the Blind; An Act declaring that the Parliament
of
England cannot bind Ireland against Writs of Error and Appeals,
printed
in London, 1690.

FN 223 An Act concerning Appropriate Tythes and other Duties
payable to
Ecclesiastical Dignitaries. London 1690.

FN 224 An Act for repealing the Acts of Settlement and
Explanation and
all Grants, Patents, and Certificates pursuant to them or any of
them.
London, 1690.

FN 225 See the paper delivered to James by Chief Justice Keating,
and
the speech of the Bishop of Meath. Both are in King's Appendix.
Life of
James, ii. 357-361.

FN 226 Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, May 26/June 5 1689; Life
of
James, ii. 358.

FN 227 Avaux May 28/June 7 1689, and June 20/July 1.  The author
of
Light to the Blind strongly condemns the indulgence shown to the
Protestant Bishops who adhered to James.

FN 228 King, iii. 11.; Brief Memoirs by Haynes, Assay Master of
the
Mint, among the Lansdowne MSS. at the British Museum, No. 801. I
have
seen several specimens of this coin. The execution is
surprisingly
good, all circumstances considered.

FN 229 King, iii. 12.

FN 230 An Act for the Attainder of divers Rebels and for
preserving the
Interest of loyal Subjects, London, 1690.

FN 231 King, iii. 13.

FN 232 His name is in the first column of page 30. in that
edition of
the List which was licensed March 26, 1690. I should have thought
that
the proscribed person must have been some other Henry Dodwell.
But
Bishop Kennet's second letter to the Bishop of Carlisle, 1716,
leaves
no doubt about the matter.

FN 233 A list of most of the Names of the Nobility, Gentry, and
Commonalty of England and Ireland (amongst whom are several Women
and
Children) who are all, by an Act of a Pretended parliament
assembled in
Dublin, attainted of High Treason, 1690; An Account of the
Transactions
of the late King James in Ireland, 1690; King, iii. 13.; Memoirs
of
Ireland, 1716.

FN 234 Avaux July 27/Aug 6. 1689.

FN 235 King's State of the Protestants in Ireland, iii. 19.

FN 236 Ibid. iii. 15.

FN 237 Leslie's Answer to King.

FN 238 "En comparazion de lo que se hace in Irlanda con los
Protestantes, es nada." April 29/May 6 1689; "Para que vea Su
Santitad
que aqui estan los  Catolicos mas benignamente tratados que los
Protestantes in Irlanda." June 19/29

FN 239 Commons' Journals, June 15. 1689.

FN 240 Stat. 1 W.&M. sess. 1. c. 29.

FN 241 Grey's Debates, June 19. 1689.

FN 242 Ibid. June 22. 1689.

FN 243 Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account.
Of the
island generally, Avaux says, "On n'attend rien de cette recolte
cy,
les paysans ayant presque tous pris les armes.--Letters to
Louvois,
March 19/29 1689.

FN 244 Hamilton's True Relation.

FN 245 Walker.

FN 246 Walker; Mackenzie.

FN 247 Avaux, June 16/26 1689.

FN 248 Walker; Mackenzie; Light to the Blind; King, iii. 13;
Leslie's
Answer to King; Life of James, ii, 364. I ought to say that on
this
occasion King is unjust to James.

FN 249 Leslie's Answer to King; Avaux, July 5/15. 1689. "Je
trouvay
l'expression bien forte: mais je ne voulois rien repondre, car le
Roy
s'estoit, desja fort emporte."

FN 250 Mackenzie.

FN 251 Walker's Account. "The fat man in Londonderry" became a
proverbial expression for a person whose prosperity excited the
envy
and cupidity of his less fortunate neighbours.

FN 252 This, according to Narcissus Luttrell was the report made
by
Captain Withers, afterwards a highly distinguished officer, on
whom
Pope wrote an epitaph.

FN 253 The despatch which positively commanded Kirke to attack
the
boom, was signed by Schomberg, who had already been appointed
commander
in chief of all the English forces in Ireland. A copy of it is
among
the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Library. Wodrow, on no better
authority
than the gossip of a country parish in Dumbartonshire, attributes
the
relief of Londonderry to the exhortations of a heroic Scotch
preacher
named Gordon. I am inclined to think that Kirke was more likely
to be
influenced by a peremptory order from Schomberg, than by the
united
eloquence of a whole synod of presbyterian divines.

FN 254 Walker; Mackenzie; Histoire de la Revolution d'Irlande,
Amsterdarn, 1691; London Gazette, Aug. 5/15; 1689; Letter of
Buchan
among the Nairne MSS.; Life of Sir John Leake; The Londeriad;
Observations on Mr. Walker's Account of the Siege of Londonderry,
licensed Oct, 4. 1689.

FN 255 Avaux to Seignelay, July 18/28 to Lewis, Aug. 9/19

FN 256 "You will see here, as you have all along, that the
tradesmen of
Londonderry had more skill in their defence than the great
officers of
the Irish army in their attacks." Light to the Blind. The author
of
this work is furious against the Irish gunners. The boom he
thinks,
would never have been broken if they had done their duty. Were
they
drunk? Were they traitors? He does not determine the point.
"Lord," he
exclaims, "who seest the hearts of people, we leave the judgment
of
this affair to thy mercy. In the interim those gunners lost
Ireland."

FN 257 In a collection entitled "Derriana," which was published
more
than sixty years ago, is a curious letter on this subject.

FN 258 Bernardi's Life of Himself, 1737.

FN 259 Hamilton's True Relation; Mac Cormick's Further Account;
London
Gazette, Aug. 22. 1689; Life of James, ii. 368, 369.; Avaux to
Lewis,
Aug. 30., and to Louvois of the same date. Story mentions a
report that
the panic among the Irish was caused by the mistake of an officer
who
called out "Right about face" instead of "Right face." Neither
Avaux
nor James had heard any thing about this mistake. Indeed the
dragoons
who set the example of flight were not in the habit of waiting
for
orders to turn their backs on an enemy. They had run away once
before
on that very day. Avaux gives a very simple account of the
defeat: "Ces
mesmes dragons qui avoient fuy le matin lascherent le pied avec
tout le
reste de la cavalerie, sans tirer un coup de pistolet; et ils
s'enfuidrent tous avec une telle epouvante qu'ils jetterent
mousquetons, pistolets, et espees; et la plupart d'eux, ayant
creve
leurs chevaux, se deshabillerent pour aller plus viste a pied."

FN 260 Hamilton's True Relation.

FN 261 Act. Parl. Scot., Aug. 31. 1681.

FN 262 Balcarras's Memoirs; Short History of the Revolution in
Scotland in a letter from a Scotch gentleman in Amsterdam to his
friend in London, 1712.

FN 263 Balcarras's Memoirs; Life of James ii. 341.

FN 264 A Memorial for His Highness the Prince of Orange in
relation to the Affairs of Scotland, by two Persons of Quality,
1689.

FN 265 See Calvin's letter to Haller, iv. Non. Jan. 155I:
"Priusquam urbem unquam ingrederer, nullae prorsus erant feriae
praeter diem Dominicum. Ex quo sum revocatus hoc temperamentum
quaesivi, ut Christi natalis celebraretur."

FN 266 In the Act Declaration, and Testimony of the Seceders,
dated in December, 1736 it is said that "countenance is given by
authority of Parliament to the observation of holidays in
Scotland, by the vacation of our most considerable Courts of
justice in the latter end of December." This is declared to be a
national sin, and a ground of the Lord's indignation. In March
1758, the Associate Synod addressed a Solemn Warning to the
Nation, in which the same complaint was repeated. A poor crazy
creature, whose nonsense has been thought worthy of being
reprinted even in our own time, says: "I leave my testimony
against the abominable Act of the pretended Queen Anne and her
pretended British, really Brutish Parliament, for enacting the
observance of that which is called the Yule Vacancy."--The Dying
Testimony of William Wilson sometime Schoolmaster in Park, in the
Parish of Douglas, aged 68, who died in 1757.

FN 267 An Account of the Present Persecution of the Church in
Scotland, in several Letters, 1690; The Case of the afflicted
Clergy in Scotland truly represented, 1690; Faithful Contendings
Displayed; Burnet, i. 805

FN 268 The form of notice will be found in the book entitled
Faithful Contendings Displayed.

FN 269 Account of the Present Persecution, 1690; Case of the
afflicted Clergy, 1690; A true Account of that Interruption that
was made of the Service of God on Sunday last, being the 17th of
February, 1689, signed by James Gibson, acting for the Lord
Provost of Glasgow.

FN 270 Balcarras's Memoirs; Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 271 Burnet, ii. 21.

FN 272 Scobell, 1654, cap. 9., and Oliver's Ordinance in Council
of the 12th of April in the same year.

FN 273 Burnet and Fletcher of Saltoun mention the prosperity of
Scotland under the Protector, but ascribe it to a cause quite
inadequate to the production of such an effect. "There was," says
Burnet, "a considerable force of about seven or eight thousand
men kept in Scotland. The pay of the army brought so much money
into the kingdom that it continued all that while in a very
flourishing state . . . . . . We always reckon those eight years
of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity." "During the
time of the usurper Cromwell," says Fletcher, "we imagined
ourselves to be in a tolerable condition with respect to the last
particular (trade and money) by reason of that expense which was
made in the realm by those forces that kept us in subjection."
The true explanation of the phenomenon about which Burnet and
Fletcher blundered so grossly will be found in a pamphlet
entitled "Some seasonable and modest Thoughts partly occasioned
by and partly concerning the Scotch East India Company,
Edinburgh, 1696. See the Proceedings of the Wednesday Club in
Friday Street, upon the subject of an Union with Scotland,
December 1705. See also the Seventh Chapter of Mr. Burton's
valuable History of Scotland.

FN 274 See the paper in which the demands of the Scotch
Commissioners are set forth. It will be found in the Appendix to
De Foe's History of the Union, No. 13.

FN 275 Act. Parl. Scot., July 30. 1670.

FN 276 Burnet, ii. 23.

FN 277 See, for example, a pamphlet entitled "Some questions
resolved concerning episcopal and presbyterian government in
Scotland, 1690." One of the questions is, whether Scottish
presbytery be agreeable to the general inclinations of that
people. The author answers the question in the negative, on the
ground that the upper and middle classes had generally conformed
to the episcopal Church before the Revolution.

FN 278 The instructions are in the Leven and Melville Papers.
They bear date March 7, 1688/9. On the first occasion on which I
quote this most valuable collection, I cannot refrain from
acknowledging the obligations under which I, and all who take an
interest in the history of our island, lie to the gentleman who
has performed so well the duty of an editor.

FN 279 As to the Dalrymples; see the Lord President's own
writings, and among them his Vindication of the Divine
Perfections; Wodrow's Analecta; Douglas's Peerage; Lockhart's
Memoirs; the Satyre on the Familie of Stairs; the Satyric Lines
upon the long wished for and timely Death of the Right Honourable
Lady Stairs; Law's Memorials; and the Hyndford Papers, written in
1704/5 and printed with the Letters of Carstairs. Lockhart,
though a mortal enemy of John Dalrymple, says, "There was none in
the parliament capable to take up the cudgels with him."

FN 280 As to Melville, see the Leven and Melville Papers, passim,
and the preface; the Act. Parl. Scot. June 16. 1685; and the
Appendix, June 13.; Burnet, ii. 24; and the Burnet MS. Had. 6584.

FN 281 Creichton's Memoirs.

FN 282 Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 283 Memoirs of the Lindsays.

FN 284 About the early relation between William and Dundee, some
Jacobite, many years after they were both dead, invented a story
which by successive embellishments was at last improved into a
romance which it seems strange that even a child should believe
to be true. The last edition runs thus. William's horse was
killed under him at Seneff, and his life was in imminent danger.
Dundee, then Captain Graham, mounted His Highness again. William
promised to reward this service with promotion but broke his word
and gave to another the commission which Graham had been led to
expect. The injured hero went to Loo. There he met his successful
competitor, and gave him a box on the ear. The punishment for
striking in the palace was the loss of the offending right hand;
but this punishment the Prince of Orange ungraciously remitted.
"You," he said, "saved my life; I spare your right hand: and now
we are quits."

Those who down to our own time, have repeated this nonsense seem
to have thought, first, that the Act of Henry the Eighth "for
punishment of murder and malicious bloodshed within the King's
Court" (Stat 33 Hen. VIII. c. 2.) was law in Guelders; and,
secondly, that, in 1674, William was a King, and his house a
King's Court. They were also not aware that he did not purchase
Loo till long after Dundee had left the Netherlands. See Harris's
Description of Loo, 1699.

This legend, of which I have not been able to discover the
slightest trace in the voluminous Jacobite literature of
William's reign, seems to have originated about a quarter of a
century after Dundee's death, and to have attained its full
absurdity in another quarter of a century.

FN 285 Memoirs of the Lindsays.

FN 286 Ibid.

FN 287 Burnet, ii. 22.; Memoirs of the Lindsays.

FN 288 Balcarras's Memoirs.

FN 289 Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 14. 1689; History of the late
Revolution in Scotland, 1690; An Account of the Proceedings of
the Estates of Scotland, fol. Lond. 1689.

FN 290 Balcarras's narrative exhibits both Hamilton and Athol in
a most unfavourable light. See also the Life of James, ii. 338,
339.

FN 291 Act. Parl. Scot., March 14. 1688/9; Balcarras's Memoirs;
History of the late Revolution in Scotland; Life of James, ii.
342.

FN 292 Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in
Scotland, 1690.

FN 293 Act. Parl. Scot., March 14. and 15. 1689; Balcarras's
Memoirs; London Gazette, March 25.; History of the late
Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the Proceedings of the
Estates of Scotland, 1689.

FN 294 See Cleland's Poems, and the commendatory poems contained
in the same volume, Edinburgh, 1697. It has been repeatedly
asserted that this William Cleland was the father of William
Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, who was well known twenty
year later in the literary society of London, who rendered some
not very reputable services to Pope, and whose son John was the
author of an infamous book but too widely celebrated. This is an
entire mistake. William Cleland, who fought at Bothwell Bridge,
was not twenty-eight when he was killed in August, 1689; and
William Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, died at sixty-seven
in September, 1741. The former therefore cannot have been the
father of the latter. See the Exact Narrative of the Battle of
Dunkeld; the Gentleman's Magazine for 1740; and Warburton's note
on the Letter to the Publisher of the Dunciad, a letter signed W.
Cleland, but really written by Pope. In a paper drawn up by Sir
Robert Hamilton, the oracle of the extreme Covenanters, and a
bloodthirsty ruffian, Cleland is mentioned as having been once
leagued with those fanatics, but afterwards a great opposer of
their testimony. Cleland probably did not agree with Hamilton in
thinking it a sacred duty to cut the throats of prisoners of war
who had been received to quarter. See Hamilton's Letter to the
Societies, Dec 7. 1685.

FN 295 Balcarras's Memoirs.

FN 296 Balcarras's Memoirs. But the fullest account of these
proceedings is furnished by some manuscript notes which are in
the library of the Faculty of Advocates. Balcarras's dates are
not quite exact. He probably trusted to his memory for them. I
have corrected them from the Parliamentary Records.

FN 297 Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 16. 1688/9; Balcarras's Memoirs;
History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the
Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, 1689; London Gaz., Mar.
25. 1689; Life of James, ii. 342. Burnet blunders strangely about
these transactions.

FN 298 Balcarras's Memoirs; MS. in the Library of the Faculty of
Advocates.

FN 299 Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 19. 1688/9; History of the late
Revolution in Scotland, 1690.

FN 300 Balcarras.

FN 301 Ibid.

FN 302 Act. Parl. Scot.; History of the late Revolution, 1690;
Memoirs of North Britain, 1715.

FN 303 Balcarras.

FN 304 Every reader will remember the malediction which Sir
Walter Scott, in the Fifth Canto of Marmion, pronounced on the
dunces who removed this interesting monument.

FN 305 "It will be neither secuir nor kynd to the King to expect
it be (by) Act of Parliament after the settlement, which will lay
it at his door."--Dalrymple to Melville, 5 April, 1689; Leven and
Melville Papers.

FN 306 There is a striking passage on this subject in Fortescue.

FN 307 Act. Parl. Scot., April 1 1689; Orders of Committee of
Estates, May 16. 1689; London Gazette, April 11

FN 308 As it has lately been denied that the extreme
Presbyterians entertained an unfavourable opinion of the
Lutherans, I will give two decisive proof of the truth of what I
have asserted in the text. In the book entitled Faithful
Contendings Displayed is a report of what passed at the General
Meeting of the United Societies of Covenanters on the 24th of
October 1688. The question was propounded whether there should be
an association with the Dutch. "It was concluded unanimously,"
says the Clerk of the Societies, "that we could not have an
association with the Dutch in one body, nor come formally under
their conduct, being such a promiscuous conjunction of reformed
Lutheran malignants and sectaries, to loin with whom were
repugnant to the testimony of the Church of Scotland." In the
Protestation and Testimony drawn up on the 2nd of October 1707,
the United Societies complain that the crown has been settled on
"the Prince of Hanover, who has been bred and brought up in the
Lutheran religion which is not only different from, but even in
many things contrary unto that purity in doctrine, reformation,
and religion, we in these nations had attained unto, as is very
well known." They add "The admitting such a person to reign over
us is not only contrary to our solemn League and Covenant, but to
the very word of God itself, Deut. xvii."

FN 309 History of the late Revolution in Scotland; London
Gazette, May 16, 1689. The official account of what passed was
evidently drawn up with great care. See also the Royal Diary,
1702. The writer of this work professes to have derived his
information from a divine who was present.

FN 310 See Crawford's Letters and Speeches, passim. His style of
begging for a place was peculiar. After owning, not without
reason, that his heart was deceitful and desperately wicked, he
proceeded thus: "The same Omnipotent Being who hath said, when
the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue
faileth for thirst, he will not forsake them; notwithstanding of
my present low condition, can build me a house if He think fit."-
-Letter to Melville, of May 28. 1689. As to Crawford's poverty
and his passion for Bishops' lands, see his letter to Melville of
the 4th of December 1690. As to his humanity, see his letter to
Melville, Dec 11 1690. All these letters are among the Leven and
Melville Papers, The author of An Account of the Late
Establishment of Presbyterian Government says of a person who had
taken a bribe of ten or twelve pounds, "Had he been as poor as my
Lord Crawford, perhaps he had been the more excusable." See also
the dedication of the celebrated tract entitled Scotch
Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed.

FN 311 Burnet, ii. 23. 24.; Fountainhall Papers, 73, Aug, 1684;
14. and 15. Oct. 1684; 3. May, 1685; Montgomery to Melville, June
22. 1689, in the Leven and Melville Papers; Pretences of the
French Invasion Examined; licensed May 25. 1692.

FN 312 See the Life and Correspondence of Carstairs, and the
interesting memorials of him in the Caldwell Papers, printed
1854. See also Mackay's character of him, and Swift's note.
Swift's word is not to be taken against a Scotchman and a
Presbyterian. I believe, however, that Carstairs, though an
honest and pious man in essentials, had his full share of the
wisdom of the serpent.

FN 313 Sir John Dalrymple to Lord Melville, June 18. 20 25. 1689;
Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 314 There is an amusing description of Sir Patrick in the
Hyndford MS., written about 1704, and printed among the Carstairs
Papers. "He is a lover of set speeches, and can hardly give
audience to private friends without them."

FN 315 "No man, though not a member, busier than Saltoun."--
Lockhart to Melville, July 11 1689; Leven and Melville Papers.
See Fletcher's own works, and the descriptions of him in
Lockhart's and Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 316 Dalrymple says, in a letter of the 5th of June, "All the
malignant, for fear, are come into the Club; and they all vote
alike."

FN 317 Balcarras.

FN 318 Captain Burt's Letters from Scotland.

FN 319 "Shall I tire yon with a description of this unfruitful
country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with
heath, or their valleys scarce able to feed a rabbit. . . , Every
part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove
or brook lend their music to cheer the stranger,"--Goldsmith to
Bryanton, Edinburgh, Sept. 26. 1753. In a letter written soon
after from Leyden to the Reverend Thomas Contarine, Goldsmith
says, "I was wholly taken up in observing the face of the
country, Nothing can equal its beauty. Wherever I turned my eye,
fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas presented
themselves, Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast:
there, hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is all a
continued plain." See Appendix C, to the First Volume of Mr.
Forster's Life of Goldsmith,

FN 320 Northern Memoirs, by R. Franck Philanthropus, 1690. The
author had caught a few glimpses of Highland scenery, and speaks
of it much as Burt spoke in the following generation: "It is a
part of the creation left undressed; rubbish thrown aside when
the magnificent fabric of the world was created; as void of form
as the natives are indigent of morals and good manners."

FN 321 Journey through Scotland, by the author of the Journey
through England, 1723.

FN 322 Almost all these circumstances are taken from Burt's
Letters. For the tar, I am indebted to Cleland's poetry. In his
verses on the "Highland Host" he says

"The reason is, they're smeared with tar,
Which doth defend their head and neck,
Just as it doth their sheep protect."

FN 323 A striking illustration of the opinion which was
entertained of the Highlander by his Lowland neighbours, and
which was by them communicated to the English, will be found in a
volume of Miscellanies published by Afra Behn in 1685. One of the
most curious pieces in the collection is a coarse and profane
Scotch poem entitled, "How the first Hielandman was made." How
and of what materials he was made I shall not venture to relate.
The dialogue which immediately follows his creation may be
quoted, I hope, without much offence.

"Says God to the Hielandman, 'Quhair wilt thou now?'
'I will down to the Lowlands, Lord, and there steal a cow.'
'Ffy,' quod St. Peter, 'thou wilt never do weel,
'An thou, but new made, so sane gaffs to steal.'
'Umff,' quod the Hielandman, and swore by yon kirk,
'So long as I may geir get to steal, will I nevir work."'

Another Lowland Scot, the brave Colonel Cleland, about the same
time, describes the Highlander in the same manner

"For a misobliging word
She'll dirk her neighbour o'er the board.
If any ask her of her drift,
Forsooth, her nainself lives by theft."

Much to the same effect are the very few words which Franck
Philanthropus (1694) spares to the Highlanders: "They live like
lauds and die like loons, hating to work and no credit to borrow:
they make depredations and rob their neighbours." In the History
of the Revolution in Scotland, printed at Edinburgh in 1690, is
the following passage: "The Highlanders of Scotland are a sort of
wretches that have no other consideration of honour, friendship,
obedience, or government, than as, by any alteration of affairs
or revolution in the government, they can improve to themselves
an opportunity of robbing or plundering their bordering
neighbours."

FN 324 Since this passage was written I was much pleased by
finding that Lord Fountainhall used, in July 1676, exactly the
same illustration which had occurred to me. He says that
"Argyle's ambitious grasping at the mastery of the Highlands and
Western Islands of Mull, Ila, &c. stirred up other clans to enter
into a combination for hearing him dowse, like the confederat
forces of Germanic, Spain, Holland, &c., against the growth of
the French."

FN 325 In the introduction to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron is
a very sensible remark: "It may appear paradoxical: but the
editor cannot help hazarding the conjecture that the motives
which prompted the Highlanders to support King James were
substantially the same as those by which the promoters of the
Revolution were actuated." The whole introduction, indeed, well
deserves to be read.

FN 326 Skene's Highlanders of Scotland; Douglas's Baronage of
Scotland.

FN 327 See the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Ewan Cameron, and the
Historical and Genealogical Account of the Clan Maclean, by a
Senachie. Though this last work was published so late as 1838,
the writer seems to have been inflamed by animosity as fierce as
that with which the Macleans of the seventeenth century regarded
the Campbells. In the short compass of one page the Marquess of
Argyle is designated as "the diabolical Scotch Cromwell," "the
vile vindictive persecutor," "the base traitor," and "the Argyle
impostor." In another page he is "the insidious Campbell, fertile
in villany," "the avaricious slave," "the coward of Argyle" and
"the Scotch traitor." In the next page he is "the base and
vindictive enemy of the House of Maclean" "the hypocritical
Covenanter," "the incorrigible traitor," "the cowardly and
malignant enemy." It is a happy thing that passions so violent
can now vent themselves only in scolding.

FN 328 Letter of Avaux to Louvois, April 6/16 1689, enclosing a
paper entitled Memoire du Chevalier Macklean.

FN 329 See the singularly interesting Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron
of Lochiel, printed at Edinburgh for the Abbotsford Club in 1842.
The MS. must have been at least a century older. See also in the
same volume the account of Sir Ewan's death, copied from the
Balhadie papers. I ought to say that the author of the Memoirs of
Sir Ewan, though evidently well informed about the affairs of the
Highlands and the characters of the most distinguished chiefs,
was grossly ignorant of English politics and history. I will
quote what Van Litters wrote to the States General about Lochiel,
Nov 26/Dec 6 1689: "Sir Evan Cameron, Lord Locheale, een man,--
soo ik hoor van die hem lange gekent en dagelyk hebben mede
omgegaan,--van so groot verstant, courage, en beleyt, als
weyniges syns gelycke syn."

FN 330 Act. Parl., July 5. 1661.

FN 331 See Burt's Third and Fourth Letters. In the early editions
is an engraving of the market cross of Inverness, and of that
part of the street where the merchants congregated. I ought here
to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Robert Carruthers, who
kindly furnished me with much curious information about Inverness
and with some extracts from the municipal records.

FN 332 I am indebted to Mr. Carruthers for a copy of the demands
of the Macdonalds and of the answer of the Town Council.

FN 333 Colt's Deposition, Appendix to the Act. Parl of July 14.
1690.

FN 334 See the Life of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 335 Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in
Scotland.

FN 336 There is among the Nairne Papers in the Bodleian Library a
curious MS. entitled "Journal de ce qui s'est passe en Irlande
depuis l'arrivee de sa Majeste." In this journal there are notes
and corrections in English and French; the English in the
handwriting of James, the French in the handwriting of Melfort.
The letters intercepted by Hamilton are mentioned, and mentioned
in a way which plainly shows that they were genuine; nor is there
the least sign that James disapproved of them.

FN 337 "Nor did ever," says Balcarras, addressing James, "the
Viscount of Dundee think of going to the Highlands without
further orders from you, till a party was sent to apprehend him."

FN 338 See the narrative sent to James in Ireland and received by
him July 7, 1689. It is among the Nairne Papers. See also the
Memoirs of Dundee, 1714; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Balcarras's
Memoirs; Mackay's Memoirs. These narratives do not perfectly
agree with each other or with the information which I obtained
from Inverness.

FN 339 Memoirs of Dundee; Tarbet to Melville, 1st June 7688, in
the Levers and Melville Papers.

FN 340 Narrative in the Nairne Papers; Depositions of Colt,
Osburne, Malcolm, and Stewart of Ballachan in the Appendix to the
Act. Parl. of July 14. 1690; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron. A few
touches I have taken from an English translation of some passages
in a lost epic poem written in Latin, and called the Grameis. The
writer was a zealous Jacobite named Phillipps. I have seldom made
use of the Memoirs of Dundee, printed in 1714, and never without
some misgiving. The writer was certainly not, as he pretends, one
of Dundee's officers, but a stupid and ignorant Grub Street
garreteer. He is utterly wrong both as to the place and as to the
time of the battle of Killiecrankie. He says that it was fought
on the banks of the Tummell, and on the 13th of June. It was
fought on the banks of the Garry, and on the 27th of July. After
giving such a specimen of inaccuracy as this, it would be idle to
point out minor blunders.

FN 341 From a letter of Archibald Karl of Argyle to Lauderdale,
which bears date the 25th of June, 1664, it appears that a
hundred thousand marks Scots, little more than five thousand
pounds sterling, would, at that time, have very nearly satisfied
all the claims of Mac Callum More on his neighbours.

FN 342 Mackay's Memoirs; Tarbet to Melville, June 1, 1689, in the
Leven and Melville Papers; Dundee to Melfort, June 27, in the
Nairne Papers,

FN 343 See Mackay's Memoirs, and his letter to Hamilton of the
14th of June, 1689.

FN 344 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 345 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 346 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 347 Dundee to Melfort, June 27. 1689.

FN 348 See Faithful Contendings Displayed, particularly the
proceedings of April 29. and 30. and of May 13. and 14., 1689;
the petition to Parliament drawn up by the regiment, on July 18.
1689; the protestation of Sir Robert Hamilton of November 6.
1689; and the admonitory Epistle to the Regiment, dated March 27.
1690. The Society people, as they called themselves, seem to have
been especially shocked by the way in which the King's birthday
had been kept. "We hope," they wrote, "ye are against observing
anniversary days as well as we, and that ye will mourn for what
ye have done." As to the opinions and temper of Alexander
Shields, see his Hind Let Loose.

FN 349 Siege of the Castle of Edinburgh, printed for the
Bannatyne Club; Lond. Gaz,, June 10/20. 1689.

FN 350 Act. Parl. Scot., June 5. June 17. 1689.

FN 351 The instructions will be found among the Somers Tracts.

FN 352 As to Sir Patrick's views, see his letter of the 7th of
June, and Lockhart's letter of the 11th of July, in the Leven and
Melville Papers.

FN 353 My chief materials for the history of this session have
been the Acts, the Minutes, and the Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 354 "Athol," says Dundee contemptuously, "is gone to England,
who did not know what to do."--Dundee to Melfort, June 27. 1689.
See Athol's letters to Melville of the 21st of May and the 8th of
June, in the Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 355 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 356 Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 357 Ibid.

FN 358 Van Odyck to the Greffier of the States General, Aug. 2/12
1689.

FN 359 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 360 Balcarras's Memoirs.

FN 361 Mackay's Short Relation, dated Aug. 17. 1689.

FN 362 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 363 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 364 Douglas's Baronage of Scotland.

FN 365 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 366 Memoirs of Sir Swan Cameron.

FN 367 As to the battle, see Mackay's Memoirs Letters, and Short
Relation the Memoirs of Dundee; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron;
Nisbet's and Osburne's depositions in the Appendix to the Act.
Parl. Of July 14. 1690. See also the account of the battle in one
of Burt's Letters. Macpherson printed a letter from Dundee to
James, dated the day after the battle. I need not say that it is
as impudent a forgery as Fingal. The author of the Memoirs of
Dundee says that Lord Leven was scared by the sight of the
highland weapons, and set the example of flight. This is a
spiteful falsehood. That Leven behaved remarkably well is proved
by Mackay's Letters, Memoirs, and Short Relation.

FN 368 Mackay's Memoirs. Life of General Hugh Mackay by J. Mackay
of Rockfield.

FN 369 Letter of the Extraordinary Ambassadors to the Greffier of
the States General, August 2/12. 1689; and a letter of the same
date from Van Odyck, who was at Hampton Court.

FN 370 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron; Memoirs of Dundee.

FN 371 The tradition is certainly much more than a hundred and
twenty years old. The stone was pointed out to Burt.

FN 372 See the History prefixed to the poems of Alexander
Robertson. In this history he is represented as having joined
before the battle of Killiecrankie. But it appears from the
evidence which is ín the Appendix to the Act. Parl. Scot. of July
14. 1690, that he came in on the following day.

FN 373 Mackay's Memoirs.

FN 374 Mackay's Memoirs; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 375 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 376 Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 377 See Portland's Letters to Melville of April 22 and May 15.
1690, in the Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 378 Mackay's Memoirs; Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron.

FN 379 Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld between the
Earl of Angus's Regiment and the Rebels, collected from several
Officers of that Regiment who were Actors in or Eyewitnesses of
all that's here narrated in Reference to those Actions; Letter of
Lieutenant Blackader to his brother, dated Dunkeld, Aug. 21.
1689; Faithful Contendings Displayed; Minute of the Scotch Privy
Council of Aug. 28., quoted by Mr. Burton.

FN 380 The history of Scotland during this autumn will be best
studied in the Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 381 See the Lords' Journals of Feb. 5. 1688 and of many
subsequent days; Braddon's pamphlet, entitled the Earl of Essex's
Memory and Honour Vindicated, 1690; and the London Gazettes of
July 31. and August 4. and 7. 1690, in which Lady Essex and
Burnet publicly contradicted Braddon.

FN 382 Whether the attainder of Lord Russell would, if
unreversed, have prevented his son from succeeding to the earldom
of Bedford is a difficult question. The old Earl collected the
opinions of the greatest lawyers of the age, which may still be
seen among the archives at Woburn. It is remarkable that one of
these opinions is signed by Pemberton, who had presided at the
trial. This circumstance seems to prove that the family did not
impute to him any injustice or cruelty; and in truth he had
behaved as well as any judge, before the Revolution, ever behaved
on a similar occasion.

FN 383 Grey's Debates, March 1688/9.

FN 384 The Acts which reversed the attainders of Russell Sidney,
Cornish, and Alice Lisle were private Acts. Only the titles
therefore are printed in the Statute Book; but the Acts will he
found in Howell's Collection of State Trials.

FN 385 Commons' Journals, June 24. 1689.

FN 386 Johnson tells this story himself in his strange pamphlet
entitled, Notes upon the Phoenix Edition of the Pastoral Letter,
1694.

FN 387 Some Memorials of the Reverend Samuel Johnson, prefixed to
the folio edition of his works, 1710.

FN 388 Lords' Journals, May 15. 1689.

FN 389 North's Examen, 224. North's evidence is confirmed by
several contemporary squibs in prose and verse. See also the
eikon Brotoloigon, 1697.

FN 390 Halifax MS. in the British Museum.

FN 391 Epistle Dedicatory to Oates's eikon Basiliki

FN 392 In a ballad of the time are the following lines

"Come listen, ye Whigs, to my pitiful moan,
All you that have ears, when the Doctor has none."

These lines must have been in Mason's head when he wrote the
couplet

"Witness, ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares;
Hark to my call: for some of you have ears."

FN 393 North's Examen, 224. 254. North says "six hundred a year."
But I have taken the larger sum from the impudent petition which
Gates addressed to the Commons, July 25. 1689. See the Journals.

FN 394 Van Citters, in his despatches to the States General, uses
this nickname quite gravely.

FN 395 Lords' Journals, May 30. 1689.

FN 396 Lords' Journals, May 31. 1689; Commons' Journals, Aug. 2.;
North's Examen, 224; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 397 Sir Robert was the original hero of the Rehearsal, and was
called Bilboa. In the remodelled Dunciad, Pope inserted the lines

"And highborn Howard, more majestic sire,
With Fool of Quality completes the quire."

Pope's highborn Howard was Edward Howard, the author of the
British Princes.

FN 398 Key to the Rehearsal; Shadwell's Sullen Lovers; Pepys, May
5. 8. 1668; Evelyn, Feb. 16. 1684/5.

FN 399 Grey's Debates and Commons' Journals, June 4. and 11 1689.

FN 400 Lords' Journals, June 6. 1689.

FN 401 Commons' Journals, Aug. 2. 1689; Dutch Ambassadors
Extraordinary to the States General, July 30/Aug 9

FN 402 Lords' Journals, July 30. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's
Diary; Clarendon's Diary, July 31. 1689.

FN 403 See the Commons' Journals of July 31. and August 13 1689.

FN 404 Commons' Journals, Aug. 20

FN 405 Oldmixon accuses the Jacobites, Barnet the republicans.
Though Barnet took a prominent part in the discussion of this
question, his account of what passed is grossly inaccurate. He
says that the clause was warmly debated in the Commons, and that
Hampden spoke strongly for it. But we learn from the journals
(June 19 1689) that it was rejected nemine contradicente. The
Dutch Ambassadors describe it as "een propositie 'twelck geen
ingressie schynt te sullen vinden."

FN 406 London Gazette, Aug. 1. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 407 The history of this Bill may be traced in the journals of
the two Houses, and in Grey's Debates.

FN 408 See Grey's Debates, and the Commons' Journals from March
to July. The twelve categories will be found in the journals of
the 23d and 29th of May and of the 8th of June.

FN 409 Halifax MS. in the British Museum.

FN 410 The Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys; Finch's speech
in Grey's Debates, March 1. 1688/9.

FN 411 See, among many other pieces, Jeffreys's Elegy, the Letter
to the Lord Chancellor exposing to him the sentiments of the
people, the Elegy on Dangerfield, Dangerfield's Ghost to
Jeffreys, The Humble Petition of Widows and fatherless Children
in the West, the Lord Chancellor's Discovery and Confession made
in the lime of his sickness in the Tower; Hickeringill's
Ceremonymonger; a broadside entitled "O rare show! O rare sight!
O strange monster! The like not in Europe! To be seen near Tower
Hill, a few doors beyond the Lion's den."

FN 412 Life and Death of George Lord Jeffreys,

FN 413 Tutchin himself gives this narrative in the Bloody
Assizes.

FN 414 See the Life of Archbishop Sharp by his son. What passed
between Scott and Jeffreys was related by Scott to Sir Joseph
Jekyl. See Tindal's History; Echard, iii. 932. Echard's
informant, who is not named, but who seems to have had good
opportunities of knowing the truth, said that Jeffreys died, not,
as the vulgar believed, of drink, but of the stone. The
distinction seems to be of little importance. It is certain that
Jeffreys was grossly intemperate; and his malady was one which
intemperance notoriously tends to aggravate.

FN 415 See a Full and True Account of the Death of George Lord
Jeffreys, licensed on the day of his death. The wretched Le Noble
was never weary of repeating that Jeffreys was poisoned by the
usurper. I will give a short passage as a specimen of the
calumnies of which William was the object. "Il envoya," says
Pasquin "ce fin ragout de champignons au Chancelier Jeffreys,
prisonnier dans la Tour, qui les trouva du meme goust, et du mmee
assaisonnement que furent les derniers dont Agrippine regala le
bon-homme Claudius son epoux, et que Neron appella depuis la
viande des Dieux." Marforio asks: "Le Chancelier est donc mort
dans la Tour?" Pasquin answers: "Il estoit trop fidele a son Roi
legitime, et trop habile dans les loix du royaume, pour echapper
a l'Usurpateur qu'il ne vouloit point reconnoistre. Guillemot
prit soin de faire publier que ce malheureux prisonnier estoit
attaque du'ne fievre maligne; mais, a parler franchement, i1
vivroit peutestre encore s'i1 n'avoit rien mange que de la main
de ses anciens cuisiniers."--Le Festin de Guillemot, 1689.
Dangeau (May q.) mentions a report that Jeffreys had poisoned
himself.

FN 416 Among the numerous pieces in which the malecontent Whigs
vented their anger, none is more curious than the poem entitled
the Ghost of Charles the Second. Charles addresses William thus:

"Hail my blest nephew, whom the fates ordain
To fill the measure of the Stuart's reign,
That all the ills by our whole race designed
In thee their full accomplishment might find
'Tis thou that art decreed this point to clear,
Which we have laboured for these fourscore year."

FN 417 Grey's Debates, June 12 1689.

FN 418 See Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, June 1. 3. and
4. 1689; Life of William, 1704.

FN 419 Barnet MS. Harl. 6584.; Avaux to De Croissy, June 16/26
1689.

FN 420 As to the minutes of the Privy Council, see the Commons'
Journals of June 22. and 28., and of July 3. 5. 13. and 16.

FN 421 The letter of Halifax to Lady Russell is dated on the 23d
of July 1689, about a fortnight after the attack on him in the
Lords, and about a week before the attack on him in the Commons.

FN 422 See the Lords' Journals of July 10. 1689, and a letter
from London dated July 11/21, and transmitted by Croissy to
Avaux. Don Pedro de Ronquillo mentions this attack of the Whig
Lords on Halifax in a despatch of which I cannot make out the
date.

FN 423 This was on Saturday the 3d of August. As the division was
in Committee, the numbers do not appear in the journals.
Clarendon, in his Diary, says that the majority was eleven. But
Narcissus Luttrell, Oldmixon, and Tindal agree in putting it at
fourteen. Most of the little information which I have been able
to find about the debate is contained in a despatch of Don Pedro
de Ronquillo. "Se resolvio" he says, "que el sabado, en comity de
toda la casa, se tratasse del estado de la nation para
representarle al Rey. Emperose por acusar al Marques de Olifax; y
reconociendo sus emulos que no tenian partido bastante, quisieron
remitir para otro dia esta motion: pero el Conde de Elan,
primogenito del Marques de Olifax, miembro de la casa, les dijo
que su padre no era hombre para andar peloteando con el, y que se
tubiesse culpa lo acabasen de castigar, que el no havia menester
estar en la corte para portarse conforme a su estado, pues Dios
le havia dado abundamente para poderlo hazer; conque por
pluralidad de votes vencio su partido." I suspect that Lord Eland
meant to sneer at the poverty of some of his father's
persecutors, and at the greediness of others.

FN 424 This change of feeling, immediately following the debate
on the motion for removing Halifax, is noticed by Ronquillo,

FN 425 As to Ruvigny, see Saint Simon's Memoirs of the year 1697:
Burnet, i. 366. There is some interesting information about
Ruvigny and about the Huguenot regiments in a narrative written
by a French refugee of the name of Dumont. This narrative, which
is in manuscript, and which I shall occasionally quote as the
Dumont MS., was kindly lent to me by the Dean of Ossory.

FN 426 See the Abrege de la Vie de Frederic Duc de Schomberg by
Lunancy, 1690, the Memoirs of Count Dohna, and the note of Saint
Simon on Dangeau's Journal, July 30, 1690.

FN 427 See the Commons' Journals of July 16. 1689, and of July 1.
1814.

FN 428 Journals of the Lords and Commons, Aug. 20. 1689; London
Gazette, Aug, 22.

FN 429 J'estois d'avis qu', apres que la descente seroit faite,
si on apprenoit que des Protestans se fassent soulevez en
quelques endroits du royaume, on fit main basse sur tous
generalement."-Avaux, July 31/Aug 10 1689.

FN 430 "Le Roy d'Angleterre m'avoit ecoute assez paisiblement la
première fois que je luy avois propose ce qu'il y avoit a faire
contre les Protestans."--Avaux, Aug. 4/14

FN 431 Avaux, Aug. 4/14. He says, "Je m'imagine qu'il est
persuade que, quoiqu'il ne donne point d'ordre sur cela, la
plupart des Catholiques de la campagne se jetteront sur les
Protestans."

FN 432 Lewis, Aug 27/Sept 6, reprimanded Avaux, though much too
gently, for proposing to butcher the whole Protestant population
of Leinster, Connaught, and Munster. "Je n'approuve pas cependant
la proposition que vous faites de faire main basse sur tous les
Protestans du royaume, du moment qu', en quelque endroit que ce
soit, ils se seront soulevez: et, outre que la punition du'ne
infinite d'innocens pour peu de coupables ne seroit pas juste,
d'ailleurs les represailles contre les Catholiques seroient
d'autant plus dangereuses, que les premiers se trouveront mieux
armez et soutenus de toutes les forces d'Angleterre."

FN 433 Ronquillo, Aug. 9/19 speaking of the siege of Londonderry,
expresses his astonishment "que una plaza sin fortification y sin
genies de guerra aya hecho una defensa tan gloriosa, y que los
sitiadores al contrario ayan sido tan poltrones."

FN 434 This account of the Irish army is compiled from numerous
letters written by Avaux to Lewis and to Lewis's ministers. I
will quote a few of the most remarkable passages. "Les plus beaux
hommes," Avaux says of the Irish, "qu'on peut voir. Il n'y en a
presque point au dessous de cinq pieds cinq a six pouces." It
will be remembered that the French foot is longer than ours. "Ils
sont tres bien faits: mais; il ne sont ny disciplinez ny armez,
et de surplus sont de grands voleurs." "La plupart de ces
regimens sont levez par des gentilshommes qui n'ont jamais este á
l'armee. Ce sont des tailleurs, des bouchers, des cordonniers,
qui ont forme les compagnies et qui en sont les Capitaines."
"Jamais troupes n'ont marche comme font celles-cy. Ils vent comme
des bandits, et pillent tout ce qu'ils trouvent en chemin."
"Quoiqu'il soit vrai que les soldats paroissent fort resolus a
bien faire, et qu'ils soient fort animez contre les rebelles,
neantmoins il ne suffit pas de cela pour combattre . . . . . Les
officiers subalternes sont mauvais, et, a la reserve d'un tres
peut nombre, il n'y en a point qui ayt soin des soldats, des
armes, et de la discipline." "On a beaucoup plus de confiance en
la cavalerie, dont la plus grande partie est assez bonne." Avaux
mentions several regiments of horse with particular praise. Of
two of these he says, "On ne peut voir de meilleur regiment." The
correctness of the opinion which he had formed both of the
infantry and of the cavalry was, after his departure from
Ireland, signally proved at the Boyne.

FN 435 I will quote a passage or two from the despatches written
at this time by Avaux. On September 7/17. he says: "De quelque
coste qu'on se tournat, on ne pouvoir rien prevoir que de
desagreable. Mais dans cette extremite chacun s'est evertue. Les
officiers ont fait leurs recrues avec beaucoup de diligence."
Three days later he says: "Il y a quinze jours que nous
n'esperions guare de pouvoir mettre les choses en si bon estat
mais my Lord Tyrconnel et tous les Irlandais ont travaille avec
tant d'empressement qu'on s'est mis en estat de deffense."

FN 436 Avaux, Aug 25/Sep 4 Aug 26/Sep 5; Life of James, ii. 373.;
Melfort's vindication of himself among the Nairne Papers. Avaux
says: "Il pourra partir ce soir a la nuit: car je vois bien qu'il
apprehende qu'il ne sera pas sur pour luy de partir en plein
jour."

FN 437 Story's Impartial History of the Wars of Ireland, 1693;
Life of James, ii. 374; Avaux, Sept. 7/17 1689; Nihell's journal,
printed in 1689, and reprinted by Macpherson.

FN 438 Story's Impartial History.

FN 439 Ibid.

FN 440 Avaux, Sep. 10/20. 1689; Story's Impartial History; Life
of James, ii. 377, 378 Orig. Mem. Story and James agree in
estimating the Irish army at about twenty thousand men. See also
Dangeau, Oct. 28. 1689.

FN 441 Life of James, ii. 377, 378. Orig. Mem.

FN 442 See Grey's Debates, Nov. 26, 27, 28. 1689, and the
Dialogue between a Lord Lieutenant and one of his deputies, 1692.

FN 443 Nihell's Journal. A French officer, in a letter to Avaux,
written soon after Schomberg's landing, says, "Les Huguenots font
plus de mal que les Anglois, et tuent force Catholiques pour
avoir fait resistance."

FN 444 Story; Narrative transmitted by Avaux to Seignelay, Nov
26/Dec 6 1689  London Gazette, Oct. 14. 1689. It is curious that,
though Dumont was in the camp before Dundalk, there is in his MS.
no mention of the conspiracy among the French.

FN 445 Story's Impartial History; Dumont MS. The profaneness and
dissoluteness of the camp during the sickness are mentioned in
many contemporary pamphlets both in verse and prose. See
particularly a Satire entitled Reformation of Manners, part ii.

FN 446 Story's Impartial History.

FN 447 Avaux, Oct. 11/21. Nov. 14/24 1689; Story's Impartial
History; Life of James, ii. 382, 383. Orig. Mem.; Nihell's
Journal.

FN 448 Story's Impartial History; Schomberg's Despatches;
Nihell's Journal, and James's Life; Burnet, ii. 20.; Dangeau's
journal during this autumn; the Narrative sent by Avaux to
Seignelay, and the Dumont MS. The lying of the London Gazette is
monstrous. Through the whole autumn the troops are constantly
said to be in good condition. In the absurd drama entitled the
Royal Voyage, which was acted for the amusement of the rabble of
London in 1689, the Irish are represented as attacking some of
the sick English. The English put the assailants to the rout, and
then drop down dead.

FN 449 See his despatches in the appendix to Dalrymple's Memoirs.

FN 450 London Gazette; May 20 1689.

FN 451 Commons' Journals, Nov. 13, 23. 1689; Grey's Debates, Nov.
13. 14. 18. 23. 1689. See, among numerous pasquinades, the
Parable of the Bearbaiting, Reformation of Manners, a Satire, the
Mock Mourners, a Satire. See also Pepys's Diary kept at Tangier,
Oct. 15. 1683.

FN 452 The best account of these negotiations will be found in
Wagenaar, lxi. He had access to Witsen's papers, and has quoted
largely from them. It was Witsen who signed in violent agitation,
"zo als" he says, "myne beevende hand getuigen kan." The treaties
will be found in Dumont's Corps Diplomatique. They were signed in
August 1689.

FN 453 The treaty between the Emperor and the States General is
dated May 12. 1689. It will be found in Dumont's Corps
Diplomatique.

FN 454 See the despatch of Waldeck in the London Gazette, Aug.
26, 1689; historical Records of the First Regiment of Foot;
Dangeau, Aug. 28.; Monthly Mercury, September 1689.

FN 455 See the Dear Bargain, a Jacobite pamphlet clandestinely
printed in 1690. "I have not patience," says the writer, "after
this wretch (Marlborough) to mention any other. All are innocent
comparatively, even Kirke himself."

FN 456 See the Mercuries for September 1689, and the four
following months. See also Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus of
Sept. 18. Sept. 25. and Oct. 8. 1689. Melfort's Instructions, and
his memorials to the Pope and the Cardinal of Este, are among the
Nairne Papers; and some extracts have been printed by Macpherson.

FN 457 See the Answer of a Nonjuror to the Bishop of Sarum's
challenge in the Appendix to the Life of Kettlewell. Among the
Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library is a paper which, as Sancroft
thought it worth preserving, I venture to quote. The writer, a
strong nonjuror, after trying to evade, by many pitiable shifts
the argument drawn by a more compliant divine from the practice
of the primitive Church, proceeds thus: "Suppose the primitive
Christians all along, from the time of the very Apostles, had
been as regardless of their oaths by former princes as he
suggests will he therefore say that their practice is to be a
rule? Ill things have been done, and very generally abetted, by
men of otherwise very orthodox principles." The argument from the
practice of the primitive Christians is remarkably well put in a
tract entitled The Doctrine of Nonresistance or Passive Obedience
No Way concerned in the Controversies now depending between the
Williamites and the Jacobites, by a Lay Gentleman, of the
Communion of the Church of England, as by Law establish'd, 1689.

FN 458 One of the most adulatory addresses ever voted by a
Convocation was to Richard the Third. It will be found in
Wilkins's Concilia. Dryden, in his fine rifacimento of one of the
finest passages in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,
represents the Good Parson as choosing to resign his benefice
rather than acknowledge the Duke of Lancaster to be King of
England. For this representation no warrant can be found in
Chaucer's Poem, or any where else. Dryden wished to write
something that would gall the clergy who had taken the oaths, and
therefore attributed to a Roman Catholic priest of the fourteenth
century a superstition which originated among the Anglican
priests of the seventeenth century.

FN 459 See the defence of the profession which the Right Reverend
Father in God John Lake, Lord Bishop of Chichester, made upon his
deathbed concerning passive obedience and the new oaths. 1690.

FN 460 London Gazette, June 30. 1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
"The eminentest men," says Luttrell.

FN 461 See in Kettlewell's Life, iii. 72., the retractation drawn
by him for a clergyman who had taken the oaths, and who
afterwards repented of having done so.

FN 462 See the account of Dr. Dove's conduct in Clarendon's
Diary, and the account of Dr. Marsh's conduct in the Life of
Kettlewell.

FN 463 The Anatomy of a Jacobite Tory, 1690.

FN 464 Dialogue between a Whig and a Tory.

FN 465 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Nov. 1697, Feb. 1692.

FN 466 Life of Kettlewell, iii. 4.

FN 467 See Turner's Letter to Sancroft, dated on Ascension Day,
1689. The original is among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian
Library. But the letter will be found with much other curious
matter in the Life of Ken by a Layman, lately published. See also
the Life of Kettlewell, iii. 95.; and Ken's letter to Burnet,
dated Oct. 5. 1689, in Hawkins's Life of Ken. "I am sure," Lady
Russell wrote to Dr. Fitzwilliam, "the Bishop of Bath and Wells
excited others to comply, when he could not bring himself to do
so, but rejoiced when others did." Ken declared that he had
advised nobody to take the oaths, and that his practice had been
to remit those who asked his advice to their own studies and
prayers. Lady Russell's assertion and Ken's denial will be found
to come nearly to the same thing, when we make those allowances
which ought to be made for situation and feeling, even in
weighing the testimony of the most veracious witnesses. Ken,
having at last determined to cast in his lot with the nonjurors,
naturally tried to vindicate his consistency as far as he
honestly could. Lady Russell, wishing to induce her friend to
take the oaths, naturally made as munch of Ken's disposition to
compliance as she honestly could. She went too far in using the
word "excited." On the other hand it is clear that Ken, by
remitting those who consulted him to their own studies and
prayers, gave them to understand that, in his opinion, the oath
was lawful to those who, after a serious inquiry, thought it
lawful. If people had asked him whether they might lawfully
commit perjury or adultery, he would assuredly have told them,
not to consider the point maturely and to implore the divine
direction, but to abstain on peril of their souls.

FN 468 See the conversation of June 9. 1784, in Boswell's Life of
Johnson, and the note. Boswell, with his usual absurdity, is sure
that Johnson could not have recollected "that the seven bishops,
so justly celebrated for their magnanimous resistance to
arbitrary power, were yet nonjurors." Only five of the seven were
nonjurors; and anybody but Boswell would have known that a man
may resist arbitrary power, and yet not be a good reasoner. Nay,
the resistance which Sancroft and the other nonjuring bishops
offered to arbitrary power, while they continued to hold the
doctrine of nonresistance, is the most decisive proof that they
were incapable of reasoning. It must be remembered that they were
prepared to take the whole kingly power from James and to bestow
it on William, with the title of Regent. Their scruple was merely
about the word King.

I am surprised that Johnson should have pronounced William Law no
reasoner. Law did indeed fall into great errors; but they were
errors against which logic affords no security. In mere
dialectical skill he had very few superiors. That he was more
than once victorious over Hoadley no candid Whig will deny. But
Law did not belong to the generation with which I have now to do.

FN 469 Ware's History of the Writers of Ireland, continued by
Harris.

FN 470 Letter to a member of the Convention, 1689

FN 471 Johnson's Notes on the Phoenix Edition of Burnet's
Pastoral Letter, 1692.

FN 472 The best notion of Hickes's character will be formed from
his numerous controversial writings, particularly his Jovian,
written in 1684, his Thebaean Legion no Fable, written in 1687,
though not published till 1714, and his discourses upon Dr.
Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, 1695. His literary fame rests on works
of a very different kind.

FN 473 Collier's Tracts on the Stage are, on the whole his best
pieces. But there is much that is striking in his political
pamphlets. His "Persuasive to Consider anon, tendered to the
Royalists, particularly those of the Church of England," seems to
me one of the best productions of the Jacobite press.

FN 474 See Brokesby's Life of Dodwell. The Discourse against
Marriages in different Communions is known to me, I ought to say,
only from Brokesby's copious abstract. That Discourse is very
rare. It was originally printed as a preface to a sermon preached
by Leslie. When Leslie collected his works he omitted the
discourse, probably because he was ashamed of it. The Treatise on
the Lawfulness of Instrumental Music I have read; and incredibly
absurd it is.

FN 475 Dodwell tells us that the title of the work in which he
first promulgated this theory was framed with great care and
precision. I will therefore transcribe the title-page. "An
Epistolary Discourse proving from Scripture and the First Fathers
that the Soul is naturally Mortal, but Immortalized actually by
the Pleasure of God to Punishment or to Reward, by its Union with
the Divine Baptismal Spirit, wherein is proved that none have the
Power of giving this Divine Immortalizing Spirit since the
Apostles but only the Bishops. By H. Dodwell." Dr. Clarke, in a
Letter to Dodwell (1706), says that this Epistolary Discourse is
"a book at which all good men are sorry, and all profane men
rejoice."

FN 476 See Leslie's Rehearsals, No. 286, 287.

FN 477 See his works, and the highly curious life of him which
was compiled from the papers of his friends Hickes and Nelson.

FN 478 See Fitzwilliam's correspondence with Lady Russell, and
his evidence on the trial of Ashton, in the State Trials. The
only work which Fitzwilliam, as far as I have been able to
discover, ever published was a sermon on the Rye House Plot,
preached a few weeks after Russell's execution. There are some
sentences in this sermon which I a little wonder that the widow
and the family forgave.

FN 479 Cyprian, in one of his Epistles, addresses the confessors
thus: "Quosdam audio inficere numerum vestrum, et laudem
praecipui nominis prava sua conversatione destruere. . . Cum
quanto nominis vestri pudore delinquitur quando alius aliquis
temulentus et lasciviens demoratur; alius in eam patriam unde
extorris est regreditur, ut deprehensus non eam quasi
Christianus, sed quasi nocens pereat." He uses still stronger
language in the book de Unitate Ecclesiae: "Neque enim confessio
immunem facet ab insidiis diaboli, aut contra tentationes et
pericula et incursus atque impetus saeculares adhuc in saeculo
positum perpetua securitate defendit; caeterum nunquam in
confessoribus fraudes et stupra et adulteria postmodum videremus,
quae nunc in quibusdam videntes ingemiscimus et dolemus."

FN 480 Much curious information about the nonjurors will be found
in the Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer, printer, which
forms the first volume of Nichols's Literary Anecdotes of the
eighteenth century. A specimen of Wagstaffe's prescriptions is in
the Bodleian Library.

FN 481 Cibber's play, as Cibber wrote it, ceased to he popular
when the Jacobites ceased to be formidable, and is now known only
to the curious. In 1768 Bickerstaffe altered it into the
Hypocrite, and substituted Dr. Cantwell, the Methodist, for Dr.
Wolfe, the Nonjuror. "I do not think," said Johnson, "the
character of the Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists;
but it was very applicable to the nonjurors." Boswell asked him
if it were true that the nonjuring clergymen intrigued with the
wives of their patrons. "I am afraid," said Johnson, "many of
them did." This conversation took place on the 27th of March
I775. It was not merely in careless tally that Johnson expressed
an unfavourable opinion of the nonjurors. In his Life of Fenton,
who was a nonjuror, are these remarkable words: "It must be
remembered that he kept his name unsullied, and never suffered
himself to be reduced, like too many of the same sect to mean
arts and dishonourable shifts." See the Character of a Jacobite,
1690. Even in Kettlewell's Life compiled from the papers of his
friends Hickes and Nelson, will be found admissions which show
that, very soon after the schism, some of the nonjuring clergy
fell into habits of idleness, dependence, and mendicancy, which
lowered the character of the whole party. "Several undeserving
persons, who are always the most confident, by their going up and
down, did much prejudice to the truly deserving, whose modesty
would not suffer them to solicit for themselves . . . . . . Mr.
Kettlewell was also very sensible that some of his brethren spent
too much of their time in places of concourse and news, by
depending for their subsistence upon those whom they there got
acquainted with."

FN 482 Reresby's Memoirs, 344

FN 483 Birch's Life of Tillotson.

FN 484 See the Discourse concerning the Ecclesiastical
Commission, 1689.

FN 485 Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Prideaux; Gentleman's
Magazine for June and July, 1745.

FN 486 Diary of the Proceedings of the Commissioners, taken by
Dr. Williams afterwards Bishop of Chichester, one of the
Commissioners, every night after he went home from the several
meetings. This most curious Diary was printed by order of the
House of Commons in 1854.

FN 487 Williams's Diary.

FN 488 Williams's Diary.

FN 489 Ibid.

FN 490 See the alterations in the Book of Common Prayer prepared
by the Royal Commissioners for the revision of the Liturgy in
1689, and printed by order of the House of Commons in 1854.

FN 491 It is difficult to conceive stronger or clearer language
than that used by the Council. Touton toinun anagnosthenton
orisan e agia sunodos, eteran pistin medeni ekseinai prospherein,
egoun suggraphein, e suntithenia, para ten oristheisan para ton
agion pateron ton en te Nikaeon sunegthonton sun agio pneumati
tous de tolmontas e suntithenai pistin eteran, egoun prokomizein,
e prospherein tois ethegousin epistrephein eis epignosin tes
agetheias e eks Ellinismou e eks Ioudaismon, i eks aireseos
oiasdepotoun, toutous, ei men eien episkopoi i klerikoi,
allotrious einai tous episkopon, tes episkopes, kai tous
klerikous ton kliron ei de laikoi eien, agathematizesthai--
Concil. Ephes. Actio VI.

FN 492 Williams's Diary; Alterations in the Book of Common
Prayer.

FN 493 It is curious to consider how those great masters of the
Latin tongue who used to sup with Maecenas and Pollio would have
been perplexed by "Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce
proclamant, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth;" or
by "Ideo cum angelis et archangelis, cum thronis et
dominationibus."

FN 494 I will give two specimens of Patrick's workmanship. "He
maketh me," says David, "to lie down in green pastures: he
leadeth me beside the still waters." Patrick's version is as
follows: "For as a good shepherd leads his sheep in the violent
heat to shady places, where they may lie down and feed (not in
parched but) in fresh and green pastures, and in the evening
leads them (not to muddy and troubled waters, but) to pure and
quiet streams; so hath he already made a fair and plentiful
provision for me, which I enjoy in peace without any
disturbance."

In the Song of Solomon is an exquisitely beautiful verse. "I
charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that
ye tell him that I am sick of love." Patrick's version runs thus:
"So I turned myself to those of my neighbours and familiar
acquaintance who were awakened by my cries to come and see what
the matter was; and conjured them, as they would answer it to
God, that, if they met with my beloved, they would let him know--
What shall I say?--What shall I desire you to tell him but that I
do not enjoy myself now that I want his company, nor can be well
till I recover his love again."

FN 495 William's dislike of the Cathedral service is
sarcastically noticed by Leslie in the Rehearsal, No. 7. See also
a Letter from a Member of the House of Commons to his Friend in
the Country, 1689, and Bisset's Modern Fanatic, 1710.

FN 496 See the Order in Council of Jan. 9. 1683.

FN 497 See Collier's Desertion discussed, 1689. Thomas Carte, who
was a disciple, and, at one time, an assistant of Collier,
inserted, so late as the year 1747, in a bulky History of
England, an exquisitely absurd note in which he assured the world
that, to his certain knowledge, the Pretender had cured the
scrofula, and very gravely inferred that the healing virtue was
transmitted by inheritance, and was quite independent of any
unction. See Carte's History of England, vol, i. page 297.

FN 498 See the Preface to a Treatise on Wounds, by Richard
Wiseman, Sergeant Chirurgeon to His Majesty, 1676. But the
fullest information on this curious subject will he found in the
Charisma Basilicon, by John Browne, Chirurgeon in ordinary to His
Majesty, 1684. See also The Ceremonies used in the Time of King
Henry VII. for the Healing of them that be Diseased with the
King's Evil, published by His Majesty's Command, 1686; Evelyn's
Diary, March 18. 1684; and Bishop Cartwright's Diary, August 28,
29, and 30. 1687. It is incredible that so large a proportion of
the population should have been really scrofulous. No doubt many
persons who had slight and transient maladies were brought to the
king, and the recovery of these persons kept up the vulgar belief
in the efficacy of his touch.

FN 499 Paris Gazette, April 23. 1689.

FN 500 See Whiston's Life of himself. Poor Whiston, who believed
in every thing but the Trinity, tells us gravely that the single
person whom William touched was cured, notwithstanding His
Majesty's want of faith. See also the Athenian Mercury of January
16. 1691.

FN 501 In several recent publications the apprehension that
differences might arise between the Convocation of York and the
Convocation of Canterbury has been contemptuously pronounced
chimerical. But it is not easy to understand why two independent
Convocations should be less likely to differ than two Houses of
the same Convocation; and it is matter of notoriety that, in the
reigns of William the Third and Anne, the two Houses of the
Convocation of Canterbury scarcely ever agreed.

FN 502 Birch's Life of Tillotson; Life of Prideaux. From
Clarendon's Diary, it appears that he and Rochester were at
Oxford on the 23rd of September.

FN 503 See the Roll in the Historical Account of the present
Convocation, appended to the second edition of Vox Cleri, 1690.
The most considerable name that I perceive in the list of
proctors chosen by the parochial clergy is that of Dr. John Mill,
the editor of the Greek Testament.

FN 504 Tillotson to Lady Russell, April 19. 1690.

FN 505 Birch's Life of Tillotson. The account there given of the
coldness between Compton and Tillotson was taken by Birch from
the MSS. of Henry Wharton, and is confirmed by many circumstances
which are known from other sources of intelligence.

FN 506 Chamberlayne's State of England, 18th edition.

FN 507 Condo ad Synodum per Gulielmum Beveregium, 1689.

FN 508 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Historical Account of the
Present Convocation.

FN 509 Kennet's History, iii. 552.

FN 510 Historical Account of the Present Convocation, 1689.

FN 511 Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Burnet, ii.
58.; Kennet's History of the Reign of William and Mary.

FN 512 Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Kennet's
History.

FN 513 Historical Account of the Present Convocation; Kennet.

FN 514 Historical Account of the Present Convocation.

FN 515 That there was such a jealousy as I have described is
admitted in the pamphlet entitled Vox Cleri. "Some country
ministers now of the Convocation, do now see in what great ease
and plenty the City ministers live, who have their readers and
lecturers, and frequent supplies, and sometimes tarry in the
vestry till prayers be ended, and have great dignities in the
Church, besides their rich parishes in the City." The author of
this tract, once widely celebrated, was Thomas Long, proctor for
the clergy of the diocese of Exeter. In another pamphlet,
published at this time, the rural clergymen are said to have seen
with an evil eye their London brethren refreshing themselves with
sack after preaching. Several satirical allusions to the fable of
the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse will be found in the
pamphlets of that winter.

FN 516 Barnet, ii, 33, 34. The best narratives of what passed in
this Convocation are the Historical Account appended to the
second edition of Vox Cleri, and the passage in Kennet's History
to which I have already referred the reader. The former narrative
is by a very high churchman, the latter by a very low churchman.
Those who are desirous of obtaining fuller information must
consult the contemporary pamphlets. Among them are Vox Populi;
Vox Laici; Vox Regis et Regni; the Healing Attempt; the Letter to
a Friend, by Dean Prideaux the Letter from a Minister in the
Country to a Member of the Convocation; the Answer to the Merry
Answer to Vox Cleri; the Remarks from the Country upon two
Letters relating to the Convocation; the Vindication of the
Letters in answer to Vox Cleri; the Answer to the Country
Minister's Letter. All these tracts appeared late in 1689 or
early in 1690.

FN 517 "Halifax a eu une reprimande severe publiquement dans le
conseil par le Prince d'Orange pour avoir trop balance."--Avaux
to De Croissy, Dublin, June 1689. "his mercurial Wit," says
Burnet, ii. 4., "was not well suited with the King's phlegm."

FN 518 Clarendon's Diary, Oct. 10 1689; Lords' Journals, Oct. 19.
1689.

FN 519 Commons' Journals, Oct. 24. 1689.

FN 520 Ibid., Nov. 2. 1689.

FN 521 Commons' Journals, Nov. 7. 19., Dec. 30 1689. The rule of
the House then was that no petition could be received against the
imposition of a tax. This rule was, after a very hard fight,
rescinded in 1842. The petition of the Jews was not received, and
is not mentioned in the Journals. But something may be learned
about it from Narcissus Luttrell's Diary and from Grey's Debates,
Nov. 19. 1689,

FN 522 James, in the very treatise in which he tried to prove the
Pope to be Antichrist, says "For myself, if that were yet the
question, I would with all my heart give my consent that the
Bishop of Rome should have the first seat." There is a remarkable
letter on this subject written by James to Charles and
Buckingham, when they were in Spain. Heylyn, speaking of Laud's
negotiation with Rome, says: "So that upon the point the Pope was
to content himself among us in England with a priority instead of
a superiority over other Bishops, and with a primacy instead of a
supremacy in those parts of Christendom, which I conceive no man
of learning and sobriety would have grudged to grant him,"

FN 523 Stat. 1 W & M. sess. 2. c 2.

FN 524 Treasury Minute Book, Nov. 3. 1689.

FN 525 Commons' Journals and Grey's Debates, Nov. 13, 14. 18. 19.
23. 28. 1689.

FN 526 Commons' Journals and Grey's Debates, November 26. and 27.
1689.

FN 527 Commons' Journals, November 28., December 2. 1689.

FN 528 Commons' Journals and Grey's Debates, November 30.,
December 2 1689.

FN 529 London Gazette, Septemher 2 1689; Observations upon Mr.
Walker's Account of the Siege of Londonderry, licensed October 4.
1689; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Mr. J. Mackenzie's Narrative a
False Libel, a Defence of Mr. G. Walker written by his Friend in
his Absence, 1690.

FN 530 Walker's True Account, 1689; An Apology for the Failures
charged on the True Account, 1689; Reflections on the Apology,
1689; A Vindication of the True Account by Walker, 1689;
Mackenzie's Narrative, 1690; Mr. Mackenzie's Narrative a False
Libel, 1690; Dr. Walker's Invisible Champion foyled by Mackenzie,
1690; Weiwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Dec. 4. and 11 1689. The
Oxford editor of Burnet's History expresses his surprise at the
silence which the Bishop observes about Walker. In the Burnet MS.
Harl. 6584. there is an animated panegyric on Walker. Why that
panegyric does not appear in the History, I am at a loss to
explain.

FN 531 Commons' Journals, November 18 and 19. 1689; and Grey's
Debates.

FN 532 Wade's Confession, Harl. MS. 6845.

FN 533 See the Preface to the First Edition of his Memoirs,
Vevay, 1698.

FN 534 "Colonel Ludlow, an old Oliverian, and one of King Charles
the First his Judges, is arrived lately in this kingdom from
Switzerland."-Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, September 1689.

FN 535 Third Caveat against the Whigs, 1712.

FN 536 Commons' Journals, November 6. and 8. 1689; Grey's
Debates; London Gazette, November 18.

FN 537 "Omme solum forti patria, quia patris." See Addison's
Travels. It is a remarkable circumstance that Addison, though a
Whig, speaks of Ludlow in language which would better have become
a Tory, and sneers at the inscription as cant.

FN 538 Commons' Journals, Nov. 1. 7. 1689.

FN 539 Roger North's Life of Dudley North.

FN 540 Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689.

FN 541 Lords' Journals, October 26. and 27. 1689.

FN 542 Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689.

FN 543 Commons' Journals, Oct. 26. 1689; Wood's Athenae
Oxonienses; Dod's Church History, VIII. ii. 3.

FN 544 Commons' Journals, October 28. 5689. The proceedings will
be found in the collection of State Trials.

FN 545 Lords' Journals, Nov. 2. and 6. 1689.

FN 546 Lords' Journals, Dec. 20. 1689; Life of Dudley North.

FN 547 The report is in the Lords' Journals, Dec. 20. 1689.
Hampden's examination was on the 18th of November.

FN 548 This, I think, is clear from a letter of Lady Montague to
Lady Russell, dated Dec. 23. 1689, three days after the Committee
of Murder had reported.

FN 549 Commons' Journals, Dec. 14. 1689; Grey's Debates; Boyer's
Life of William.

FN 550 Commons' Journals, Dec. 21.; Grey's Debates; Oldmixon.

FN 551 Commons' Journals, Jan. 2. 1689/90

FN 552 Thus, I think, must be understood some remarkable words in
a letter written by William to Portland, on the day after
Sacheverell's bold and unexpected move. William calculates the
amount of the supplies, and then says: "S'ils n'y mettent des
conditions que vous savez, c'est une bonne affaire: mais les
Wigges sont si glorieux d'avoir vaincu qu'ils entreprendront
tout."

FN 553 "The authority of the chair, the awe and reverence to
order, and the due method of debates being irrecoverably lost by
the disorder and tumultuousness of the House."--Sir J. Trevor to
the King, Appendix to Dalrymple's Memoirs, Part ii. Book 4.

FN 554 Commons' Journals, Jan. 10. 1689/90 I have done my best to
frame an account of this contest out of very defective materials.
Burnet's narrative contains more blunders than lines. He
evidently trusted to his memory, and was completely deceived by
it. My chief authorities are the Journals; Grey's Debates;
William's Letters to Portland; the Despatches of Van Citters; a
Letter concerning the Disabling Clauses, lately offered to the
House of Commons, for regulating Corporations, 1690; The True
Friends to Corporations vindicated, in an answer to a letter
concerning the Disabling Clauses, 1690; and Some Queries
concerning the Election of Members for the ensuing Parliament,
1690. To this last pamphlet is appended a list of those who voted
for the Sacheverell Clause. See also Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 10.
1689/90, and the Third Part of the Caveat against the Whigs,
1712. William's Letter of the 10th of January ends thus. The news
of the first division only had reached Kensington. "Il est a
present onze eures de nuit, et dix eures la Chambre Basse estoit
encore ensemble. Ainsi je ne vous puis escrire par cette
ordinaire l'issue de l'affaire. Les previos questions les Tories
l'ont emporte de cinq vois. Ainsi vous pouvez voir que la chose
est bien disputee. J'ay si grand somiel, et mon toux m'incomode
que je ne vous en saurez dire davantage. Josques a mourir a
vous."

On the same night Van Citters wrote to the States General. The
debate he said, had been very sharp. The design of the Whigs,
whom he calls the Presbyterians, had been nothing less than to
exclude their opponents from all offices, and to obtain for
themselves the exclusive possession of power.

FN 555 Commons' Journals, Jan. 11 1689/90.

FN 556 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Jan. 16. 1690; Van Citters to
the States General, Jan. 21/31

FN 557 Commons' Journals, Jan. 16. 1689/90

FN 558 Roger North's Life of Guildford.

FN 559 See the account of the proceedings in the collection of
State Trials.

FN 560 Commons' Journals, Jan. 20. 1689/90; Grey's Debates, Jan.
18. and 20.

FN 561 Commons' Journals, Jan. 21. 1689/90 On the same day
William wrote thus from Kensington to Portland: "C'est
aujourd'hui le grand jour l'eguard du Bill of Indemnite. Selon
tout ce que is puis aprendre, il y aura beaucoup de chaleur, et
rien determiner; et de la maniere que la chose est entourre, il
n'y a point d'aparence que cette affaire viene a aucune
conclusion. Et ainsi il se pouroit que la cession fust fort
courts; n'ayant plus dargent a esperer; et les esprits
s'aigrissent ton contre l'autre de plus en plus." Three days
later Van Citters informed the States General that the excitement
about the Bill of Indemnity was extreme.

FN 562 Burnet, ii. 39.; MS. Memoir written by the first Lord
Lonsdale in the Mackintosh Papers.

FN 563 Burnet, ii. 40.

FN 564 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, January and February.

FN 565 William to Portland, Jan. 10/20 1690. "Les Wiges ont peur
de me perdre trop tost, avant qu'ils n'ayent fait avec moy ce
qu'ils veulent: car, pour leur amitie, vous savez ce qu'il y a a
compter ladessus en ce pays icy." Jan. 14/24 "Me voila le plus
embarasse du monde, ne sachant quel parti prendre, estant
toujours persuade que, sans que j'aille en Irlande, l'on n'y
faira rien qui vaille. Pour avoir du conseil en cette affaire, je
n'en ay point a attendre, personne n'ausant dire ses sentimens.
Et l'on commence deja a dire ouvertement que ce sont des traitres
qui m'ont conseille de preudre cette resolution." Jan. 21/31 "Je
nay encore rien dit,"--he means to the Parliament,--"de mon
voyage pour l'Irlande. Et je ne suis point encore determine si
j'en parlerez: mais je crains que nonobstant j'aurez une adresse
pour n'y point aller ce qui m'embarassera beaucoup, puis que
c'est une necssite absolue que j'y aille."

FN 566 William to Portland, Jan 28/Feb 7 1690; Van Citters to the
States General, same date; Evelyn's Diary; Lords' Journals, Jan.
27. I will quote William's own words. "Vous voirez mon harangue
imprimee: ainsi je ne vous en direz rien. Et pour les raisone qui
m'y ont oblige, je les reserverez a vous les dire jusques a
vostre retour. Il semble que les Toris en sont bien aise, male
point les Wiggs. Ils estoient tous fort surpris quand je leur
parlois, n'ayant communique mon dessin qu'a une seule personne.
Je vie des visages long comme un aune, change de couleur vingt
fois pendant que je parlois. Tous ces particularites jusques a
vostre heureux retour."

FN 567 Evelyn's Diary; Clarendon's Diary, Feb. 9. 1690; Van
Citters to the States General, Jan 31/Feb 10.; Lonsdale MS.
quoted by Dalrymple.

FN 568 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary

FN 569 Clarendon's Diary, Feb. 11. 1690.

FN 570 Van Citters to the States General, February 14/24. 1690;
Evelyn's Diary.

FN 571 William to Portland, Feb 28/March 10 29.  1690; Van
Citters to the States General, March 4/14; Narcissus Luttrell's
Diary.

FN 572 Van Citters, March 11/21 1689/90; Narcissus Luttrell's
Diary.

FN 573 Van Citters to the States General, March 11/21 1690.

FN 574 The votes were for Sawyer 165, for Finch 141, for Bennet,
whom I suppose to have been a Whig, 87. At the University every
voter delivers his vote in writing. One of the votes given on
this occasion is in the following words, "Henricus Jenkes, ex
amore justitiae, eligit virum consultissimum Robertum Sawyer."

FN 575 Van Citters to the States General, March 18/28 1690.

FN 576 It is amusing to see how absurdly foreign pamphleteers,
ignorant of the real state of things in England, exaggerated the
importance of John Hampden, whose name they could not spell. In a
French Dialogue between William and the Ghost of Monmouth,
William says, "Entre ces membres de la Chambre Basse etoit un
certain homme hardy, opiniatre, et zele a l'exces pour sa
creance; on l'appelle Embden, egalement dangereux par son esprit
et par son credit. . . . je ne trouvay point de chemin plus court
pour me delivrer de cette traverse que de casser le parlement, en
convoquer un autre, et empescher que cet homme, qui me faisoit
tant d'ombrages, ne fust nomme pour un des deputez au nouvel
parlement." "Ainsi," says the Ghost, "cette cassation de
parlement qui a fait tant de bruit, et a produit tant de
raisonnemens et de speculations, n'estoit que pour exclure
Embden. Mais s'il estoit si adroit et si zele, comment as-tu pu
trouver le moyen de le faire exclure du nombre des deputez?" To
this very sensible question the King answers, "Il m'a fallu faire
d'etranges manoeuvres pour en venir a bout."--L'Ombre de
Monmouth, 1690.

FN 577 "A present tout dependra d'un bon succes en Irlande; et a
quoy il faut que je m'aplique entierement pour regler le mieux
que je puis toutte chose. . . . je vous asseure que je n'ay pas
peu sur les bras, estant aussi mal assiste que je suis."-William
to Portland, Jan 28/Feb 7 1690.

FN 578 Van Citters, Feb. 14/24 1689/90; Memoir of the Earl of
Chesterfield by himself; Halifax to Chesterfield, Feb. 6.;
Chesterfield to Halifax, Feb 8. The editor of the letters of the
second Earl of Chesterfield, not allowing for the change of
style, has misplaced this correspondence by a year.

FN 579 Van Citters to the States General, Feb. 11/21 1690.

FN 580 A strange peculiarity of his constitution is mentioned in
an account of him which was published a few months after his
death. See the volume entitled "Lives and Characters of the most
Illustrious Persons, British and Foreign, who died in the year
1712."

FN 581 Monmouth's pension and the good understanding between him
and the Court are mentioned in a letter from a Jacobite agent in
England, which is in the Archives of the French War Office. The
date is April 8/18 1690.

FN 582 The grants of land obtained by Delamere are mentioned by
Narcissus Luttrell. It appears from the Treasury Letter Book of
1690 that Delamere continued to dim the government for money
after his retirement. As to his general character it would not be
safe to trust the representations of satirists. But his own
writings, and the admissions of the divine who preached his
funeral sermon, show that his temper was not the most gentle.
Clarendon remarks (Dec. 17. 1688) that a little thing sufficed to
put Lord Delamere into a passion. In the poem entitled the King
of Hearts, Delamere is described as--

"A restless malecontent even when preferred."

His countenance furnished a subject for satire:

"His boding looks a mind distracted show;
And envy sits engraved upon his brow."

FN 583 My notion of Lowther's character has been chiefly formed
from two papers written by himself, one of which has been
printed, though I believe not published. A copy of the other is
among the Mackintosh MSS. Something I have taken from
contemporary satires. That Lowther was too ready to expose his
life in private encounters is sufficiently proved by the fact
that, when he was First Lord of the Treasury, he accepted a
challenge from a custom house officer whom he had dismissed.
There was a duel; and Lowther was severely wounded. This event is
mentioned in Luttrell's Diary, April 1690.

FN 584 Burnet, ii. 76

FN 585 Roger North's Life of Guildford.

FN 586 Till some years after this time the First Lord of the
Treasury was always the man of highest rank at the Board. Thus
Monmouth, Delamere and Godolphin took their places according to
the order of precedence in which they stood as peers.

FN 587 The dedication, however, was thought too laudatory. "The
only thing," Mr. Pope used to say, "he could never forgive his
philosophic master was the dedication to the Essay."--Ruffhead's
Life of Pope.

FN 588 Van Citters to the States General April 25/May 5, 1690.
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Treasury Letter Book, Feb. 4. 1689/90

FN 589 The Dialogue between a Lord Lieutenant and one of his
Deputies will not be found in the collection of Warrington's
writings which was published in 1694, under the sanction, as it
should seem, of his family.

FN 590 Van Citters, to the States General, March 18/28 April 4/14
1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 72.; The Triennial
Mayor, or the Rapparees, a Poem, 1691. The poet says of one of
the new civic functionaries:

"Soon his pretence to conscience we can rout,
And in a bloody jury find him out,
Where noble Publius worried was with rogues."

FN 591 Treasury Minute Book, Feb. 5. 1689/90

FN 592 Van Citters, Feb. 11/21 Mar. 14/24 Mar. 18/28 1690.

FN 593 Van Citters, March 14/24 1690. The sermon is extant. It
was preached at Bow Church before the Court of Aldermen.

FN 594 Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Feb. 12. 1690.

FN 595 Commons' Journals, March 20, 21, 22. 1689/89

FN 596 Commons Journals, March 28. 1690, and March 1. and March
20. 1688/9

FN 597 Grey's Debates, March 27. and 28 1690.

FN 598 Commons' Journals, Mar. 28. 1690. A very clear and exact
account of the way in which the revenue was settled was sent by
Van Citters to the States General, April 7/17 1690.

FN 599 Burnet, ii. 43.

FN 600 In a contemporary lampoon are these lines:

"Oh, happy couple! In their life
There does appear no sign of strife.
They do agree so in the main,
To sacrifice their souls for gain."

The Female Nine, 1690.

FN 601 Swift mentions the deficiency of hospitality and
magnificence in her household. Journal to Stella, August 8. 1711.

FN 602 Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. But the Duchess was
so abandoned a liar, that it is impossible to believe a word that
she says, except when she accuses herself.

FN 603 See the Female Nine.

FN 604 The Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication. With that
habitual inaccuracy, which, even when she has no motive for
lying, makes it necessary to read every word written by her with
suspicion, she creates Shrewsbury a Duke, and represents herself
as calling him "Your Grace." He was not made a Duke till 1694.

FN 605 Commons' Journals, December 17 and 18 1689.

FN 606 Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough.

FN 607 Van Citters, April 8/18 1690.

FN 608 Van Citters, April 8/18 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 609 Lords' Journals, April 8. and 10 1690; Burnet, ii. 41.

FN 610 Van Citters, April 25/May 5 1690.

FN 611 Commons' Journals, April 8. and 9. 1690; Grey's Debates;
Burnet, ii. 42. Van Citters, writing on the 8th, mentions that a
great struggle in the Lower House was expected.

FN 612 Commons' Journals, April 24. 1690; Grey's Debates.

FN 613 Commons' Journals, April 24, 25, and 26; Grey's Debates;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. Narcissus is unusually angry. He
calls the bill "a perfect trick of the fanatics to turn out the
Bishops and most of the Church of England Clergy." In a Whig
pasquinade entitled "A speech intended to have been spoken on the
Triennial Bill, on Jan. 28. 1692/3 the King is said to have
"browbeaten the Abjuration Bill."

FN 614 Lords' Journals, May 1. 1690. This bill is among the
Archives of the House of Lords. Burnet confounds it with the bill
which the Commons had rejected in the preceding week. Ralph, who
saw that Burnet had committed a blunder, but did not see what the
blunder was, has, in trying to correct it, added several blunders
of his own; and the Oxford editor of Burnet has been misled by
Ralph.

FN 615 Lords' Journals, May 2. and 3. 1690; Van Citters, May 2.;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 44.; and Lord Dartmouth's
note. The changes made by the Committee may be seen on the bill
in the Archives of the House of Lords.

FN 616 These distinctions were much discussed at the time. Van
Citters, May 20/30 1690.

FN 617 Stat. 2 W.&M. sess. 1. C. 10.

FN 618 Roger North was one of the many malecontents who were
never tired of harping on this string.

FN 619 Stat. 2 W.&M. sess. 1. c. 6.; Grey's Debates, April 29.,
May 1. 5, 6, 7. 1690.

FN 620 Story's Impartial History; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 621 Avaux, Jan. 15/25 1690.

FN 622 Macariae Excidium. This most curious work has been
recently edited with great care and diligence by Mr. O'Callaghan.
I owe so much to his learning and industry that I most readily
excuse the national partiality which sometimes, I cannot but
think, perverts his judgment. When I quote the Macariae Excidium,
I always quote the Latin text. The English version is, I am
convinced, merely a translation from the Latin, and a very
careless and imperfect translation.

FN 623 Avaux, Nov. 14/24 1689.

FN 624 Louvois writes to Avaux, Dec 26/Jan 5  1689/90. "Comme le
Roy a veu par vos lettres que le Roy d'Angleterre craignoit de
manquer de cuivre pour faire de la monnoye, Sa Majeste a donne
ordre, que l'on mist sur le bastiment qui portera cette lettre
une piece de canon du calibre de deux qui est eventee, de
laquelle ceux qui travaillent a la monnoye du Roy d'Angleterre
pourront se servir pour continuer a faire de la monnoye."

FN 625 Louvois to Avaux, Nov. 1/11. 1689. The force sent by Lewis
to Ireland appears by the lists at the French War Office to have
amounted to seven thousand two hundred and ninety-one men of all
ranks. At the French War Office is a letter from Marshal
d'Estrees who saw the four Irish regiments soon after they had
landed at Brest. He describes them as "mal chausses, mal vetus,
et n'ayant point d'uniforme dans leurs habits, si ce n'est qu'ils
sont tous fort mauvais." A very exact account of Macarthy's
breach of parole will be found in Mr. O'Callaghan's History of
the Irish Brigades. I am sorry that a writer to whom I owe so
much should try to vindicate conduct which, as described by
himself, was in the highest degree dishonourable.

FN 626 Lauzun to Louvois. May 28/June 7  and June 1 1690, at the
French War Office.

FN 627 See the later letters of Avaux.

FN 628 Avaux to Louvois, March 14/24 1690; Lauzun to Louvois
March 23/April 3

FN 629 Story's Impartial History; Lauzun to Louvois, May 20/30.
1690.

FN 630 Lauzun to Louvois, May 28/June 7 1690.

FN 631 Lauzun to Louvois, April 2/12 May 10/20. 1690. La
Hoguette, who held the rank of Marechal de Camp, wrote to Louvois
to the same effect about the same time.

FN 632 "La Politique des Anglois a ete de tenir ces peuples cy
comme des esclaves, et si bas qu'il ne leur estoit pas permis
d'apprendre a lire et a écrire. Cela les a rendu si bestes qu'ils
n'ont presque point d'humanite. Rien de les esmeut. Ils sont peu
sensibles a l'honneur; et les menaces ne les estonnent point.
L'interest meme ne les peut engager au travail. Ce sont pourtant
les gens du monde les mieux faits,"--Desgrigny to Louvois, May
27/June 6 1690.

FN 633 See Melfort's Letters to James, written in October 1689.
They are among the Nairne Papers, and were printed by Macpherson.

FN 634 Life of James, ii. 443. 450.;and Trials of Ashton and
Preston.

FN 635 Avaux wrote thus to Lewis on the 5th of June 1689: "Il
nous est venu des nouvelles assez considerables d'Angleterre et
d'Escosse. Je me donne l'honneur d'en envoyer des memoires a
vostre Majeste, tels que je les ay receus du Roy de la Grande
Bretagne. Le commencement des nouvelles dattees d'Angleterre est
la copie d'une lettre de M. Pen, que j'ay veue en original." The
Memoire des Nouvelles d'Angleterre et d'Escosse, which was sent
with this despatch, begins with the following sentences, which
must have been part of Penn's letter: "Le Prince d'Orange
commence d'estre fort dégoutte de l'humeur des Anglois et la face
des choses change bien viste, selon la nature des insulaires et
sa sante est fort mauvaise. Il y a un nuage qui commence a se
former au nord des deux royaumes, ou le Roy a beaucoup d'amis, ce
qui donne beaucoup d'inquietude aux principaux amis du Prince
d'Orange, qui, estant riches, commencent a estre persuadez que ce
sera l'espée qui decidera de leur sort, ce qu'ils ont tant taché
d'eviter. Ils apprehendent une invasion d'Irlande et de France;
et en ce cas le Roy aura plus d'amis que jamais."

FN 636 "Le bon effet, Sire, que ces lettres d'Escosse et
d'Angleterre ont produit, est qu'elles ont enfin persuade le Roy
d'Angleterre qu'il ne recouvrera ses estats que les armes a la
main; et ce n'est pas peu de l'en avoir convaincu."

FN 637 Van Citters to the States General, March 1/11 1689. Van
Citters calls Penn "den bekenden Archquaker."

FN 638 See his trial in the Collection of State Trials, and the
Lords' Journals of Nov. 11, 12. and 27. 1689.

FN 639 One remittance of two thousand pistoles is mentioned in a
letter of Croissy to Avaux, Feb. 16/26 1689. James, in a letter
dated Jan. 26. 1689, directs Preston to consider himself as still
Secretary, notwithstanding Melfort's appointment.

FN 640 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Commons' Journals, May 14. 15.
20. 1690; Kingston's True History, 1697.

FN 641 The Whole Life of Mr. William Fuller, being an Impartial
Account of his Birth, Education, Relations and Introduction into
the Service of the late King James and his Queen, together with a
True Discovery of the Intrigues for which he lies now confined;
as also of the Persons that employed and assisted him therein,
with his Hearty Repentance for the Misdemeanours he did in the
late Reign, and all others whom he hath injured; impartially writ
by Himself during his Confinement in the Queen's Bench, 1703. Of
course I shall use this narrative with caution.

FN 642 Fuller's Life of himself,

FN 643 Clarendon's Diary, March 6. 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's
Diary.

FN 644 Clarendon's Diary, May 10. 1690.

FN 645 He wrote to Portland, "Je plains la povre reine, qui est
en des terribles afflictions."

FN 646 See the Letters of Shrewsbury in Coxe's Correspondence,
Part I, chap. i,

FN 647 That Lady Shrewsbury was a Jacobite, and did her best to
make her son so, is certain from Lloyd's Paper of May 1694, which
is among the Nairne MSS., and was printed by Macpherson.

FN 648 This is proved by a few words in a paper which James, in
November 1692, laid before the French government. "Il y a" says
he, "le Comte de Shrusbery, qui, etant Secretaire d'Etat du
Prince d'Orange, s'est defait de sa charge par mon ordre." One
copy of this most valuable paper is in the Archives of the French
Foreign Office. Another is among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian
Library. A translation into English will be found in Macpherson's
collection.

FN 649 Burnet, ii. 45.

FN 650 Shrewsbury to Somers, Sept. 22. 1697.

FN 651 Among the State Poems (vol. ii. p. 211.) will be found a
piece which some ignorant editor has entitled, "A Satyr written
when the K- went to Flanders and left nine Lords justices." I
have a manuscript copy of this satire, evidently contemporary,
and bearing the date 1690. It is indeed evident at a glance that
the nine persons satirised are the nine members of the interior
council which William appointed to assist Mary when he went to
Ireland. Some of them never were Lords Justices.

FN 652 From a narrative written by Lowther, which is among the
Mackintosh MSS,

FN 653 See Mary's Letters to William, published by Dalrymple.

FN 654 Clarendon's Diary, May 30. 1690.

FN 655 Gerard Croese.

FN 656 Burnet, ii. 46.

FN 657 The Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication.

FN 658 London Gazettes, June 5. 12. 16. 1690; Hop to the States
General from Chester, June 9/19. Hop attended William to Ireland
as envoy from the States.

FN 659 Clarendon's Diary, June 7. and 12. 1690; Narcissus
Luttrell's Diary; Baden, the Dutch Secretary of Legation, to Van
Citters, June 10/20; Fuller's Life of himself; Welwood's
Mercurius Reformatus, June 11 1690.

FN 660 Clarendon's Diary, June 8. 1690.

FN 661 Ibid., June 10.

FN 662 Baden to Van Citters, June 20/30 1690.; Clarendon's Diary,
June 19. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 663 Clarendon's Diary, June 25.

FN 664 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 665 Memoirs of Saint Simon.

FN 666 London Gazette, June 26. 1690; Baden to Van Citters, June
24/July 4.

FN 667 Mary to William, June 26. 1690; Clarendon's Diary of the
same date; Narcissus Luttrell's. Diary.

FN 668 Mary to William, June 28. and July 2. 1690.

FN 669 Report of the Commissioners of the Admiralty to the Queen,
dated  Sheerness, July 18. 1690; Evidence of Captains Cornwall,
Jones, Martin and Hubbard, and of Vice Admiral Delaval; Burnet,
ii. 52., and Speaker Onslow's Note; Memoires du Marechal de
Tourville; Memoirs of Transactions at Sea by Josiah Burchett,
Esq., Secretary to the Admiralty, 1703; London Gazette, July 3.;
Historical and Political Mercury for July 1690; Mary to William,
July 2.; Torrington to Caermarthen, July I. The account of the
battle in the Paris Gazette of July 15. 1690 is not to be read
without shame: "On a sceu que les Hollandois s'estoient tres bien
battus, et qu'ils s'estoient comportez en cette occasion en
braves gens, mais que les Anglois n'en avoient pas agi de meme."
In the French official relation of le battle off Cape Bevezier,--
an odd corruption of Pevensey,--are some passages to the same
effect: "Les Hollandois combattirent avec beaucoup de courage et
de fermete; mais ils ne furent pas bien secondez par les
Anglois." "Les Anglois se distinguerent des vaisseax de Hollande
par le peu de valeur qu'ils montrerent dans le combat."

FN 670 Life of James, ii. 409.; Burnet, ii. 5.

FN 671 London Gazette, June 30. 1690; Historical and Political
Mercury for July 1690.

FN 672 Nottingham to William, July 15. 1690.

FN 673 Burnet, ii. 53, 54.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, July 7.
11. 1690 London Gazette, July 14. 1690.

FN 674 Mary to William, July 3. 10. 1690; Shrewsbury to
Caermarthen, July 15.

FN 675 Mary to the States General, July 12.; Burchett's Memoirs;
An important Account of some remarkable Passages in the Life of
Arthur, Earl of Torrington, 1691.

FN 676 London Gazette, June 19 1690; History of the Wars in
Ireland by an Officer in the Royal Army, 1690,; Villare
Hibernicum, 1690;. Story's Impartial History, 1691; Historical
Collections relating to the town of Belfast, 1817. This work
contains curious extracts from MSS. of the seventeenth century.
In the British Museum is a map of Belfast made in 1685 so exact
that the houses may be counted.

FN 677 Lauzun to Louvois, June 16/26. The messenger who brought
the news to Lauzun had heard the guns and seen the bonfires.
History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army,
1690; Lire of James, ii. 392., Orig. Mem.; Burnet, ii. 47. Burnet
is strangely mistaken when he says that William had been six days
in Ireland before his arrival was known to James.

FN 678 A True and Perfect Journal of the Affairs of Ireland by a
Person of Quality, 1690; King, iii. 18. Luttrell's proclamation
will be found in King's Appendix.

FN 679 Villare Hibernicum, 1690.

FN 680 The order addressed to the Collector of Customs will be
found in Dr. Reid's History of the Presbyterian Church in
Ireland.

FN 681 "La gayete peinte sur son visage," says Dumont, who saw
him at Belfast, "nous fit tout esperer pour les heureux succes de
la campagne."

FN 682 Story's Impartial Account; MS. Journal of Colonel
Bellingham; The Royal Diary.

FN 683 Story's Impartial Account.

FN 684 Lauzun to Louvois, June 23/July 3 1690; Life of James, ii.
393, Orig. Mem.

FN 685 Story's Impartial Account; Dumont MS.

FN 686 Much interesting information respecting the field of
battle and the surrounding country will be found in Mr. Wilde's
pleasing volume entitled "The Beauties of the Boyne and
Blackwater."

FN 687 Memorandum in the handwriting of Alexander, Earl of
Marchmont. He derived his information from Lord Selkirk, who was
in William's army.

FN 688 James says (Life, ii 393. Orig. Mem.) that the country
afforded no better position. King, in a thanksgiving sermon which
he preached at Dublin after the close of the campaign, told his
hearers that "the advantage of the post of the Irish was, by all
intelligent men, reckoned above three to one." See King's
Thanksgiving Sermon, preached on Nov 16. 1690, before Lords
Justices. This is, no doubt, an absurd exaggeration. But M. de la
Hoguette, one of the principal French officers who was present at
the battle of the Boyne, informed Louvois that the Irish army
occupied a good defensive position, Letter of La Hoguette from
Limerick, July 31/Aug 1690.

FN 689 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, March, 1690.

FN 690 See the Historical records of the Regiments of the British
army, and Story's list of the army of William as it passed in
review at Finglass, a week after the battle.

FN 691 See his Funeral Sermon preached at the church of Saint
Mary Aldermary on the 24th of June 1690.

FN 692 Story's Impartial History; History of the Wars in Ireland
by an Officer of the Royal Army; Hop to the States General, June
30/July 10. 1690.

FN 693 London Gazette, July 7. 1690; Story's Impartial History;
History of the Wars in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army;
Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Lord Marchmont's Memorandum; Burnet,
ii. 50. and Thanksgiving Sermon; Dumont MS.

FN 694 La Hoguette to Louvois, July 31/Aug 10 1690.

FN 695 That I have done no injustice to the Irish infantry will
appear from the accounts which the French officers who were at
the Boyne sent to their government and their families. La
Hoguette, writing hastily to Louvois on the 4/14th of July, says:
"je vous diray seulement, Monseigneur, que nous n'avons pas este
battus, mais que les ennemys ont chasses devant eux les trouppes
Irlandoises comme des moutons, sans avoir essaye un seul coup de
mousquet."

Writing some weeks later more fully from Limerick, he says, "J'en
meurs de honte." He admits that it would have been no easy matter
to win the battle, at best. "Mais il est vray aussi," he adds,
"que les Irlandois ne firent pas la moindre resistance, et
plierent sans tirer un seul coup." Zurlauben, Colonel of one of
the finest regiments in the French service, wrote to the same
effect, but did justice to the courage of the Irish horse, whom
La Hoguette does not mention.

There is at the French War Office a letter hastily scrawled by
Boisseleau, Lauzun's second in command, to his wife after the
battle. He wrote thus: "Je me porte bien, ma chere feme. Ne
t'inquieste pas de moy. Nos Irlandois n'ont rien fait qui vaille.
Ils ont tous lache le pie."

Desgrigny writing on the 10/20th of July, assigns several reasons
for the defeat. "La première et la plus forte est la fuite des
Irlandois qui sont en verite des gens sur lesquels il ne faut pas
compter du tout." In the same letter he says: "Il n'est pas
naturel de croire qu'une armee de vingt cinq mille hommes qui
paroissoit de la meilleure volonte du monde, et qui a la veue des
ennemis faisoit des cris de joye, dut etre entierement defaite
sans avoir tire l'epee et un seul coup de mousquet. Il y a en tel
regiment tout entier qui a laisse ses habits, ses armes, et ses
drapeaux sur le champ de bataille, et a gagne les montagnes avec
ses officiers."

I looked in vain for the despatch in which Lauzun must have given
Louvois a detailed account of the battle.

FN 696 Lauzun wrote to Seignelay, July 16/26 1690, "Richard
Amilton a ete fait prisonnier, faisant fort bien son devoir."

FN 697 My chief materials for the history of this battle are
Story's Impartial Account and Continuation; the History of the
War in Ireland by an Officer of the Royal Army; the despatches in
the French War Office; The Life of James, Orig. Mem. Burnet, ii.
50. 60; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; the London Gazette of July
10. 1690; the Despatches of Hop and Baden; a narrative probably
drawn up by Portland, which William sent to the States General;
Portland's private letter to Melville; Captain Richardson's
Narrative and map of the battle; the Dumont MS., and the
Bellingham MS. I have also seen an account of the battle in a
Diary kept in bad Latin and in an almost undecipherable hand by
one of the beaten army who seems to have been a hedge
schoolmaster turned Captain. This Diary was kindly lent to me by
Mr. Walker, to whom it belongs. The writer relates the
misfortunes of his country in a style of which a short specimen
may suffice: "1 July, 1690. O diem illum infandum, cum inimici
potiti sunt pass apud Oldbridge et nos circumdederunt et
fregerunt prope Plottin. Hinc omnes fugimus Dublin versus. Ego
mecum tuli Cap Moore et Georgium Ogle, et venimus hac nocte Dub."

FN 698 See Pepys's Diary, June 4. 1664. "He tells me above all of
the Duke of York, that he is more himself, and more of judgment
is at hand in him, in the middle of a desperate service than at
other times." Clarendon repeatedly says the same. Swift wrote on
the margin of his copy of Clarendon, in one place, "How old was
he (James) when he turned Papist and a coward?"--in another, "He
proved a cowardly Popish king."

FN 699 Pere Orleans mentions that Sarsfield accompanied James.
The battle of the Boyne had scarcely been fought when it was made
the subject of a drama, the Royal Flight, or the Conquest of
Ireland, a Farce, 1690. Nothing more execrable was ever written.
But it deserves to be remarked that, in this wretched piece,
though the Irish generally are represented as poltroons, an
exception is made in favour of Sarsfield. "This fellow," says
James, aside, "I will make me valiant, I think, in spite of my
teeth." "Curse of my stars!" says Sarsfield, after the battle.
"That I must be detached! I would have wrested victory out of
heretic Fortune's hands."

FN 700 Both La Hoguette and Zurlauben informed their government
that it had been necessary to fire on the Irish fugitives, who
would otherwise have thrown the French ranks into confusion.

FN 701 Baden to Van Citters, July 8. 1690.

FN 702 New and Perfect Journal, 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 703 Story; London Gazette, July 10. 1690.

FN 704 True and Perfect journal; Villare Hibernicum; Story's
Impartial History.

FN 705 Story; True and Perfect journal; London Gazette, July 10
1690 Burnet, ii. 51.; Leslie's Answer to King.

FN 706 Life of James, ii. 404., Orig. Mem.; Monthly Mercury for
August, 1690.

FN 707 True and Perfect journal. London Gazette, July 10 and 14.
1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. In the Life of James Bonnell,
Accountant General of Ireland, (1703) is a remarkable religious
meditation, from which I will quote a short passage. "How did we
see the Protestants on the great day of our Revolution, Thursday
the third of July, a day ever to be remembered by us with the
greatest thankfulness, congratulate and embrace one another as
they met, like persons alive from the dead, like brothers and
sisters meeting after a long absence, and going about from house
to house to give each other joy of God's great mercy, enquiring
of one another how they past the late days of distress and
terror, what apprehensions they had, what fears or dangers they
were under; those that were prisoners, how they got their
liberty, how they were treated, and what, from time to time, they
thought of things."

FN 708 London Gazette, July 14. 1690; Story; True and Perfect
Journal; Dumont MS. Dumont is the only person who mentions the
crown. As he was present, he could not be mistaken. It was
probably the crown which James had been in the habit of wearing
when he appeared on the throne at the King's Inns.

FN 709 Monthly Mercury for August 1690; Burnet, ii. 50; Dangeau,
Aug. 2. 1690, and Saint Simon's note; The Follies of France, or a
true Relation of the extravagant Rejoicings, &c., dated Paris,
Aug. 8. 1690.

FN 710 "Me tiene," the Marquis of Cogolludo, Spanish minister at
Rome, says of this report, "en sumo cuidado y desconsuelo, pues
esta seria la ultima ruina de la causa comun."--Cogolludo to
Ronquillo, Rome, Aug. 2. 1690,

FN 711 Original Letters, published by Sir Henry Ellis.

FN 712 "Del sucesso de Irlanda doy a v. Exca la enorabuena, y le
aseguro no ha bastado casi la gente que tengo en la Secretaria
para repartir copias dello, pues le he enbiado a todo el lugar, y
la primera al Papa."--Cogolludo to Ronquillo, postscript to the
letter of Aug. 2. Cogolludo, of course, uses the new style. The
tidings of the battle, therefore, had been three weeks in getting
to Rome.

FN 713 Evelyn (Feb. 25. 1689/90) calls it "a sweet villa."

FN 714 Mary to William, July 5. 1690.

FN 715 Mary to William, July 6. and 7. 1690; Burnet, ii. 55.

FN 716 Baden to Van Citters, July 8/18 1690.

FN 717 See two letters annexed to the Memoirs of the Intendant
Foucault, and printed in the work of M. de Sirtema des Grovestins
in the archives of the War Office at Paris is a letter written
from Brest by the Count of Bouridal on July 11/21 1690. The Count
says: "Par la relation du combat que j'ay entendu faire au Roy
d'Angleterre et a plusieurs de sa suite en particulier, il ne me
paroit pas qu'il soit bien informe de tout ce qui s'est passe
dans cette action, et qu'il ne scait que la deroute de ses
troupes."

FN 718 It was not only on this occasion that James held this
language. From one of the letters quoted in the last note it
appears that on his road front Brest to Paris he told every body
that the English were impatiently expecting him. "Ce pauvre
prince croit que ses sujets l'aiment encore."

FN 719 Life of James, ii. 411, 412.; Burnet, ii. 57; and
Dartmouth's note.

FN 720 See the articles Galere and Galerien, in the Encyclopedie,
with the plates; A True Relation of the Cruelties and Barbarities
of the French upon the English Prisoners of War, by R. Hutton,
licensed June 27. 1690.

FN 721 See the Collection of Medals of Lewis the Fourteenth.

FN 722 This anecdote, true or false, was current at the time, or
soon after. In 1745 it was mentioned as a story which old people
had heard in their youth. It is quoted in the Gentleman's
Magazine of that year from another periodical work.

FN 723 London Gazette, July 7. 1690.

FN 724 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 725 I give this interesting passage in Van Citters's own
words. "Door geheel het ryk alles te voet en te paarde in de
wapenen op was; en' t gene een seer groote gerustheyt gaf was dat
alle en een yder even seer tegen de Franse door de laatste
voorgevallen bataille verbittert en geanimeert waren. Gelyk door
de troupes, dewelke ik op de weg alomme gepasseert ben, niet
anders heb konnen hooren als een eenpaarig en gener al geluydt
van God bless King William en Queen Mary." July 25/Aug 4 1690.

FN 726 As to this expedition I have consulted the London Gazettes
of July 24. 28. 31. Aug. 4. 1690 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary;
Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, Sept. 5. the Gazette de Paris; a
letter from My. Duke, a Deputy Lieutenant of Devonshire, to
Hampden, dated July 25. a letter from Mr. Fulford of Fulford to
Lord Nottingham, dated July 26. a letter of the same date from
the Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire to the Earl of Bath; a
letter of the same date from Lord Lansdowne to the Earl of Bath.
These four letters are among the MSS. of the Royal Irish Academy.
Extracts from the brief are given in Lyson's Britannia. Dangeau
inserted in his journal, August 16., a series of extravagant
lies. Tourville had routed the militia, taken their cannon and
colours burned men of war, captured richly laden merchantships,
and was going to destroy Plymouth. This is a fair specimen of
Dangeau's English news. Indeed he complains that it was hardly
possible to get at true information about England.

FN 727 Dedication of Arthur.

FN 728 See the accounts of Anderton's Trial, 1693; the Postman of
March 12. 1695/6; the Flying Post of March 7. 1700; Some
Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, by Hickes, 1695.
The appendix to these Discourses contains a curious account of
the inquisition into printing offices tinder the Licensing Act.

FN 729 This was the ordinary cant of the Jacobites. A Whig writer
had justly said in the preceding year, "They scurrilously call
our David a man of blood, though, to this day, he has not
suffered a drop to be spilt."--Alephibosheth and Ziba, licensed
Aug. 30. 1689.

FN 730 "Restore unto us again the publick worship of thy name,
the reverent administration of thy sacraments. Raise up the
former government both in church and state, that we may be no
longer without King, without priest, without God in the world."

FN 731 A Form of Prayer and Humiliation for God's Blessing upon
His Majesty and his Dominions, and for Removing and Averting of
God's judgments from this Church and State, 1690.

FN 732 Letter of Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, to Sancroft, in the
Tanner MSS.

FN 733 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 734 A Modest Inquiry into the Causes of the present Disasters
in England, and who they are that brought the French into the
English Channel described, 1690; Reflections upon a Form of
Prayer lately set out for the Jacobites, 1690; A Midnight Touch
at an Unlicensed Pamphlet, 1690. The paper signed by the
nonjuring Bishops has often been reprinted.

FN 735 William to Heinsius, July 4/14. 1690.

FN 736 Story; London Gazette, Aug 4. 1690; Dumont MS.

FN 737 Story; William to Heinsius, July 31/Aug 10 1690; Lond.
Gaz., Aug, 11.

FN 738 Mary to William, Aug. 7/15 Aug 22/Sept, Aug. 26/Sept 5
1690

FN 739 Macariae Excidium; Mac Geoghegan; Life of James, ii. 420.;
London Gazette, Aug. 14. 1690.

FN 740 The impatience of Lauzun and his countrymen to get away
from Ireland is mentioned in a letter of Oct. 21. 1690, quoted in
the Memoirs of James, ii. 421. "Asimo," says Colonel Kelly, the
author of the Macariae Excidium, "diuturnam absentiam tam aegre
molesteque ferebat ut bellum in Cypro protrahi continuarique ipso
ei auditu acerbissimum esset. Nec incredibile est ducum in illius
exercitu nonnullos, potissimum qui patrii coeli dulcedinem
impatientius suspirabant, sibi persuasisse desperatas Cypri res
nulla humana ope defendi sustentarique posse." Asimo is Lauzun,
and Cyprus Ireland.

FN 741 "Pauci illi ex Cilicibus aulicis, qui cum regina in Syria
commorante remanserant, . . . . non cessabant universam nationem
foede traducere, et ingestis insuper convitiis lacerare, pavidos
et malefidos proditores ac Ortalium consceleratissimos publice
appellando."--Macariae Excidium. The Cilicians are the English.
Syria is France.

FN 742 "Tanta infamia tam operoso artificio et subtili commento
in vulgus sparsa, tam constantibus de Cypriorum perfidia atque
opprobrio rumoribus, totam, qua lata est, Syriam ita pervasit, ut
mercatores Cyprii, . . . . propter inustum genti dedecus, intra
domorum septa clausi nunquam prodire auderent; tanto eorum odio
populus in universum exarserat."--Macariae Excidium.

FN 743 I have seen this assertion in a contemporary pamphlet of
which I cannot recollect the title.

FN 744 Story; Dumont MS,

FN 745 Macariae Excidium. Boisseleau remarked the ebb and flow of
courage among the Irish. I have quoted one of his letters to his
wife. It is but just to quote another. "Nos Irlandois n'avoient
jamais vu le feu; et cela les a surpris. Presentement, ils sont
si faches de n'avoir pas fait leur devoir que je suis bien
persuadé qu'ils feront mieux pour l'avenir."

FN 746 La Hoguette, writing to Louvois from Limerick, July 31/Aug
10 1690, says of Tyrconnel: "Il a d'ailleurs trop peu de
connoissance e des choses de notre metier. Il a perdu absolument
la confiance des officiers du pays, surtout depuis le jour de
notre deroute; et, en effet, Monseigneur, je me crois oblige de
vous dire que des le moment ou les ennemis parurent sur le bord
de la riviere le premier jour, et dans toute la journee du
lendemain, il parut a tout le monde dans une si grande lethargie
qu'il etoit incapable de prendre aucun parti, quelque chose qu'on
lui proposat."

FN 747 Desgrigny says of the Irish: "Ils sont toujours prets de
nous egorger par l'antipathie qu'ils ont pour nous. C'est la
nation du monde la plus brutale, et qui a le moins d'humanite."
Aug. 1690.

FN 748 Story; Account of the Cities in Ireland that are still
possessed by the Forces of King James, 1690.  There are some
curious old maps of Limerick in the British Museum.

FN 749 Story; Dumont MS.

FN 750 Story; James, ii. 416.; Burnet, ii. 58.; Dumont MS.

FN 751 Story; Dumont MS.

FN 752 See the account of the O'Donnels in Sir William Betham's
Irish Antiquarian Researches. It is strange that he makes no
mention of Baldearg, whose appearance in Ireland is the most
extraordinary event in the whole history of the race. See also
Story's impartial History; Macariae Excidium, and Mr.
O'Callaghan's note; Life of James, ii. 434.; the Letter of
O'Donnel to Avaux, and the Memorial entitled, "Memoire donnee par
un homme du Comte O'Donnel a M. D'Avaux."

FN 753 The reader will remember Corporal Trim's explanation of
radical heat and radical moisture. Sterne is an authority not to
be despised on these subjects. His boyhood was passed in
barracks; he was constantly listening to the talk of old soldiers
who had served under King William used their stories like a man
of true genius.

FN 754 Story; William to Waldeck, Sept. 22. 1690; London Gazette,
Sept. 4, Berwick asserts that when the siege was raised not a
drop of rain had fallen during a month, that none fell during the
following three weeks, and that William pretended that the
weather was wet merely to hide the shame of his defeat.  Story,
who was on the spot say, "It was cloudy all about, and rained
very fast, so that every body began to dread the consequences of
it;" and again "The rain which had already falled had soften the
ways... This was one reason for raising the siege; for, if we had
not, granting the weather to continue bad, we must either have
taken the town, or of necessity have lost our cannon." Dumont,
another eyewitness, says that before the siege was raised the
rains had been most violent; that the Shannon was swollen; that
the earth was soaked; that the horses could not keep their feet.

FN 755 London Gazette, September 11 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's
Diary. I have seen a contemporary engraving of Covent Garden as
it appeared on this night.

FN 756 Van Citters to the States General, March 19/29. 1689.

FN 757 As to Marlborough's expedition, see Story's Impartial
History; the Life of James, ii. 419, 420.; London Gazette, Oct.
6. 13. 16. 27. 30. 1690; Monthly Mercury for Nov. 1690; History
of King, William, 1702; Burnet, ii. 60.; the Life of Joseph Pike,
a Quaker of Cork

FN 758 Balcarras; Annandale's Confession in the Leven and
Melville Papers; Burnet, ii. 35. As to Payne, see the Second
Modest Inquiry into the Cause of the present Disasters, 1690.

FN 759 Balcarras; Mackay's Memoirs; History of the late
Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Livingstone's Report, dated May 1;
London Gazette, May 12. 1690.

FN 760 History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690.

FN 761 Mackay's Memoirs and Letters to Hamilton of June 20. and
24. 1690 Colonel Hill to Melville, July 10 26.; London Gazette,
July 17. 21. As to Inverlochy, see among the Culloden papers, a
plan for preserving the peace of the Highlands, drawn up, at this
time, by the father of President Forbes.

FN 762 Balcarras.

FN 763 See the instructions to the Lord High Commissioner in the
Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 764 Balcarras.

FN 765 Act. Parl. June 7. 1690.

FN 766 Balcarras.

FN 767 Faithful Contendings Displayed; Case of the present
Afflicted Episcopal Clergy in Scotland, 1690.

FN 768 Act. Parl. April 25. 1690.

FN 769 See the Humble Address of the Presbyterian Ministers and
Professors of the Church of Scotland to His Grace His Majesty's
High Commissioner and to the Right Honourable the Estates of
Parliament.

FN 770 See the Account of the late Establishment of Presbyterian
Government by the Parliament of Scotland, Anno 1690. This is an
Episcopalian narrative. Act. Parl. May 26. 1690.

FN 771 Act. Parl. June 7. 1690.

FN 772 An Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General
Assembly in a Letter from a Person in Edinburgh to his Friend in
London licensed April 20. 1691.

FN 773 Account of the late Establishment of the Presbyterian
Government by the Parliament of Scotland, 1690.

FN 774 Act. Parl. July 4. 1690.

FN 775 Act. Parl. July 19 1690; Lockhart to Melville, April 29.
1690.

FN 776 Balcarras; Confession of Annandale in the Leven and
Melville Papers.

FN 777 Balcarras; Notes of Ross's Confession in the Leven and
Melville Papers.

FN 778 Balcarras; Mary's account of her interview with
Montgomery, printed among the Leven and Melville Papers.

FN 779 Compare Balcarras with Burnett, ii. 62. The pamphlet
entitled Great Britain's Just Complaint is a good specimen of
Montgomery's manner.

FN 780 Balcarras; Annandale's Confession.

FN 781 Burnett, ii. 62, Lockhart to Melville, Aug. 30. 1690 and
Crawford to Melville, Dec. 11. 1690 in the Leven and Melville
Papers; Neville Payne's letter of Dec 3 1692, printed in 1693.

FN 782 Historical Relation of the late Presbyterian General
Assembly, 1691; The Presbyterian Inquisition as it was lately
practised against the Professors of the College of Edinburgh,
1691.

FN 783 One of the most curious of the many curious papers written
by the Covenanters of that generation is entitled, "Nathaniel, or
the Dying Testimony of John Matthieson in Closeburn." Matthieson
did not die till 1709, but his Testimony was written some years
earlier, when he was in expectation of death. "And now," he says,
"I as a dying man, would in a few words tell you that are to live
behind my thoughts as to the times. When I saw, or rather heard,
the Prince and Princess of Orange being set up as they were, and
his pardoning all the murderers of the saints and receiving all
the bloody beasts, soldiers, and others, all these officers of
their state and army, and all the bloody counsellors, civil and
ecclesiastic; and his letting slip that son of Belial, his father
in law, who, both by all the laws of God and man, ought to have
died, I knew he would do no good to the cause and work of God."

FN 784 See the Dying Testimony of Mr. Robert Smith, Student of
Divinity, who lived in Douglas Town, in the Shire of Clydesdale,
who died about two o'clock in the Sabbath morning, Dec. 13. 1724,
aged 58 years; and the Dying Testimony of William Wilson,
sometime Schoolmaster of Park in the Parish of Douglas, aged 68,
who died May 7. 1757.

FN 785 See the Dying Testimony of William Wilson, mentioned in
the last note. It ought to be remarked that, on the subject of
witchcraft, the Divines of the Associate Presbytery were as
absurd as this poor crazy Dominie. See their Act, Declaration,
and Testimony, published in 1773 by Adam Gib.

FN 786 In the year 1791, Thomas Henderson of Paisley wrote, in
defence of some separatists who called themselves the Reformed
Presbytery, against a writer who had charged them with "disowning
the present excellent sovereign as the lawful King of Great
Britain." "The Reformed Presbytery and their connections," says
Mr. Henderson, "have not been much accustomed to give flattering
titles to princes." . . . . . "However, they entertain no
resentment against the person of the present occupant, nor any of
the good qualities which he possesses. They sincerely wish that
he were more excellent than external royalty can make him, that
he were adorned with the image of Christ," &c., &c., &c. "But
they can by no means acknowledge him, nor any of the episcopal
persuasion, to be a lawful king over these covenanted lands."

FN 787 An enthusiast, named George Calderwood, in his preface to
a Collection of Dying Testimonies, published in 1806, accuses
even the Reformed Presbytery of scandalous compliances. "As for
the Reformed Presbytery," he says, "though they profess to own
the martyr's testimony in hairs and hoofs, yet they have now
adopted so many new distinctions, and given up their old ones,
that they have made it so evident that it is neither the martyr's
testimony nor yet the one that that Presbytery adopted at first
that they are now maintaining. When the Reformed Presbytery was
in its infancy, and had some appearance of honesty and
faithfulness among them, they were blamed by all the other
parties for using of distinctions that no man could justify, i.e.
they would not admit into their communion those that paid the
land tax or subscribed tacks to do so; but now they can admit
into their communions both rulers and members who voluntarily pay
all taxes and subscribe tacks." . . . . "It shall be only
referred to government's books, since the commencement of the
French war, how many of their own members have accepted of places
of trust, to be at government's call, such as bearers of arms,
driving of cattle, stopping of ways, &c.; and what is all their
license for trading by sea or land but a serving under
government?"

FN 788 The King to Melville, May 22. 1690, in the Leven and
Melville Papers.

FN 789 Account of the Establishment of Presbyterian Government.

FN 790 Carmichael's good qualities are fully admitted by the
Episcopalians. See the Historical Relation of the late
Presbyterian General Assembly and the Presbyterian Inquisition.

FN 791 See, in the Leven and Melville Papers, Melville's Letters
written from London at this time to Crawford, Rule, Williamson,
and other vehement Presbyterians. He says: "The clergy that were
put out, and come up, make a great clamour: many here encourage
and rejoyce at it . . . . There is nothing now but the greatest
sobrietie and moderation imaginable to be used, unless we will
hazard the overturning of all; and take this as earnest, and not
as imaginations and fears only."

FN 792 Principal Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland held in and begun at Edinburgh the 16th day of October,
1690; Edinburgh, 1691.

FN 793 Monthly Mercuries; London Gazettes of November 3. and 6.
1690.

FN 794 Van Citters to the States General, Oct. 3/13 1690.

FN 795 Lords' Journals, Oct. 6. 1690; Commons' Journals, Oct. 8.

FN 796 I am not aware that this lampoon has ever been printed. I
have seen it only in two contemporary manuscripts. It is entitled
The Opening of the Session, 1690.

FN 797 Commons' Journals, Oct. 9, 10 13, 14. 1690.

FN 798 Commons' Journals of December, 1690, particularly of Dec.
26. Stat. 2 W. & M. sess 2. C. 11.

FN 799 Stat. 2 W. and M. sess. 2. c. I. 3, 4.

FN 800 Burnet, ii. 67. See the journals of both Houses,
particularly the Commons' Journals of the 10th of December and
the Lords' Journals of the 30th of December and the 1st of
January. The bill itself will be found in the archives of the
House of Lords.

FN 801 Lords' Journals, Oct. 30. 1690. The numbers are never
given in the Lords' Journals. That the majority was only two is
asserted by Ralph, who had, I suppose, some authority which I
have not been able to find.

FN 802 Van Citters to the States General, Nov. 14/24	1690. The
Earl of
Torrington's speech to the House of Commons, 1710.

FN 803 Burnet, ii. 67, 68.; Van Citters to the States General,
Nov. 22/Dec 1 1690; An impartial Account of some remarkable
Passages in the Life of Arthur, Earl of Torrington, together with
some modest Remarks on the Trial and Acquitment, 1691; Reasons
for the Trial of the Earl of Torrington by Impeachment, 1690; The
Parable of the Bearbaiting, 1690; The Earl of Torrington's Speech
to the House of Commons, 1710. That Torrington was coldly
received by the peers I learned from an article in the Noticias
Ordinarias of February 6 1691, Madrid.

FN 804 In one Whig lampoon of this year are these lines

"David, we thought, succeeded Saul,
When William rose on James's fall;
But now King Thomas governs all."

In another are these lines:

"When Charles did seem to fill the throne,
This tyrant Tom made England groan."

A third says:

"Yorkshire Tom was rais'd to honour,
For what cause no creature knew;
He was false to the royal donor
And will be the same to you."

FN 805 A Whig poet compares the two Marquesses, as they were
often called, and gives George the preference over Thomas.

"If a Marquess needs must steer us,
Take a better in his stead,
Who will in your absence cheer us,
And has far a wiser head."

FN 806 "A thin, illnatured ghost that haunts the King."

FN 807 "Let him with his blue riband be
Tied close up to the gallows tree
For my lady a cart; and I'd contrive it,
Her dancing son and heir should drive it."

FN 808 As to the designs of the Whigs against Caermarthen, see
Burnet, ii. 68, 69, and a very significant protest in the Lords'
journals, October 30. 1690. As to the relations between
Caermarthen and Godolphin, see Godolphin's letter to William,
dated March 20. 1691, in Dalrymple.

FN 809 My account of this conspiracy is chiefly taken from the
evidence, oral and documentary, which was produced on the trial
of the conspirators. See also Burnet, ii. 69, 70., and the Life
of James, ii. 441. Narcissus Luttrell remarks that no Roman
Catholic appeared to have been admitted to the consultations of
the conspirators.

FN 810 The genuineness of these letters was once contested on
very frivolous grounds. But the letter of Turner to Sancroft,
which is among the Tanner papers in the Bodleian Library, and
which will be found in the Life of Ken by a Layman, must convince
the most incredulous.

FN 811 The words are these: "The Modest inquiry--The Bishops'
Answer--Not the chilling of them--But the satisfying of friends."
The Modest Inquiry was the pamphlet which hinted at Dewitting.

FN 812 Lords' and Commons' Journals Jan 5 1690/1; London Gazette,
Jan 8





End of The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 3