Chapter X: Reign of James II (3)

This was a direct and daring declaration of war on the Church. The Act of Supremacy was thus turned against it, and every clergyman, professor, and schoolmaster, from the Primate to the simple curate and tutor, was laid at the mercy of this insane tyrant. The alarm of the whole Court and country when this outstanding fact was made known, was indescribable. The staunchest courtiers trembled at the temerity of the monarch: the French ministers and the Jesuits alone applauded. The new and terrible power of the tribunal was quickly brought into play. The Commission was made known about the middle of July, and seven commissioners were named. At their head stood Jeffreys, who was now to display his truculent spirit in the character of a Grand Inquisitor. The six other commissioners were Archbishop Sancroft, Bishops Crewe of Durham and Sprat of Rochester, Lords Rochester, Sunderland, and the Chief Justice Herbert. Sancroft excused himself from acting on the plea of ill-health, and James in anger immediately ordered him to be omitted in the summons to the Privy Council, saying, if his health were too bad to attend the Commission, it was equally so to attend the Council, and Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, was put on the Commission in his stead. These pliant Churchmen and courtiers were quickly shown what work they had to do. Amongst the clergymen who had ventured to preach against the Roman Church, and to reply to the attacks which the Romish preachers were now emboldened to make on the Anglican Church, beginning at Whitehall itself, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, and one of the royal chaplains, had been honest enough to defend his own faith, and expose the errors of Rome, in a sermon at his own Church of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. Compton, the Bishop of London, was immediately called upon by Sunderland to suspend him. But Compton, though he had lately fallen under the royal displeasure for opposing James's designs in the House of Lords, and had been dismissed from the Privy Council, and from his post of Dean of the Royal Chapel, replied that he could not suspend Sharp without hearing him in his defence. Thereupon Compton was at once summoned before the new Commissioners. He demurred, declared the Court illegal, that he was a prelate, and amenable only to his peers in the Church, or, as lord of Parliament, to his peers in Parliament. Consenting, however, at length to appear, he was abruptly asked by Jeffreys why he had not suspended Sharp. Compton demanded a copy of the Commission, to see by what right they summoned him. This roused the base blood of Jeffreys, who began to insult the prelate, as he had done many a good man before, declaring that he would take another course with him; but the rest of the Commissioners recalled the brutal bully to a sense of the respect due to the bishop. After the hearing of the case, Rochester, Herbert, and Sprat declared for his acquittal; but James, enraged at his Treasurer, vowed if he did not give his vote against Compton, he would dismiss him from his office. The place-loving minister gave way. Compton was suspended from his spiritual functions, but dared the Court to touch his revenues; and the Chief Justice warned James that did he attempt to seize them, he would be defeated at common law. For awhile, therefore, James was obliged to restrain his proceedings till, as he resolved, he had put the laws more completely under his feet.

But enough had already been done to produce a change such as never had been seen in England since the days of Queen Mary. Encouraged by the king's countenance and proceedings, the Catholics now openly set at nought all the severe laws against them, their chapels, and priests. Though it was still death by the law for any Romish clergyman to appear in England, and all meetings of Catholics for worship were forbidden under the severest penalties, the streets now swarmed with the clergy in full canonicals, and Popish chapels were opened in every part of the kingdom. The Protestant public gazed in astonishment at sights which neither they nor their fathers had beheld in England. The frieze cowls, and girdles of rope, crosses, and rosaries, passed before them as apparitions of an almost fabulous time. James threw open the old chapel at St. James's, where a throng of Benedictine monks located themselves. He built for himself a public chapel at Whitehall, and induced Sandford, an Englishman, but the envoy of the Prince Palatine, to open a third in the City. A brotherhood of Franciscans established themselves in Lincoln's Inn Fields; another of Carmelites appeared in the City; a convent was founded in Clerkenwell, on the site of the ancient cloister of St. John, and a Jesuit church and school were opened in the Savoy, under a rector named Palmer.

The same ominous change appeared all over the country, especially in those districts where Catholics were numerous. But neither in town nor country were the common people disposed to see the whole empire of Popery thus restored. They assembled and attacked the Catholics going into their chapels, insulted them, knocked down their crosses and images, and turned them into the streets. Hence riots ran high and fiercely in London, Worcester, Coventry, and other places. The Lord Mayor ordered the chapel of the Prince Palatine in Lime Street to be closed, but he was severely threatened by the king and Jeffreys. The mob then took the matter into their hands; they attacked the chapel at high Mass, drove out the people and priests, and set the cross on the parish pump. It was in vain that the train bands were ordered out to quell the riot; they refused to fight for Popery.

But this spirit, which would have caused a wiser monarch to pause, only incensed James, and he assembled an army of thirteen thousand men on Hounslow Heath to overawe the City, and conveyed thither twenty-six pieces of artillery, and ample supplies of ammunition from the Tower. But it boded little prospect of support from his army that the people of London immediately fraternised with it, and the camp became the great holiday resort of all classes, resembling, in the strange concourse of strange characters who appeared there, Schiller's description of the camp of Wallenstein. James, however, was proud of his army, and flattered himself that from his having formerly been a general in the French service, he could command it to some purpose. But there were as clever tacticians as himself at work. He allowed Mass to be publicly celebrated in the tent of Lord Dumbarton, the second in command, and this, with the known fact that many officers were Catholics, and the sight of priests and friars strolling about amongst the tents, roused the zeal of Protestant patriots. Foremost amongst these was Dr. Samuel Johnson, who had been chaplain to Lord William Russell, and was a man of liberal ideas of government, and a sturdy champion of Protestantism. In the last reign he had written a severe satire on James, under the title of "Julian the Apostate," in which he drew a vigorous parallel between the Roman apostate and the English one. Julian, according to him, an idolater even when he pretended not to be, was a persecutor when he pretended freedom of conscience, and robbed cities of their municipal charters, which were zealous for the true faith. For this daring philippic he was prosecuted and imprisoned in the King's Bench, but this did not prevent him from still making war on the Popish prince. "Julian" Johnson, as he was called, had found, while imprisoned in the King's Bench, congenial society in the companionship of a fellow-prisoner, whose name was Hugh Speke. This man, Speke, being of a gloomy, seditious temperament, furnished "Julian" Johnson with money to print, and encouraged him by every kind of argument in endeavouring to excite in the Hounslow camp an active spirit of hostility to the Romish schemers. Thereupon Johnson wrote and published a stirring address to the soldiers, which was distributed in thousands amongst the army. There could be no mistake concerning the style of this document, even if the writer and his friend had kept their counsel, as they did not. The publication was speedily traced to Johnson, who was thereupon brought up to the bar of the King's Bench, and, after a long examination, condemned to stand three times in the pillory, to be whipped from Newgate to Tyburn, and to pay a fine of five hundred marks.

Johnson was one of those sturdy, uncompromising reformers--always found, like the petrel, just before the occurrence of a storm--who are regarded with almost more terror and aversion by men of more moderate views or weaker nerves, than by the national offenders whom they attack. When assured by the judge that he might be thankful to the Attorney-General that he had not arraigned him of high treason, he indignantly replied that he thanked him not; that he did not consider himself favoured by being degraded and whipped like a hound, when Popish writers disseminated with impunity what they pleased. This was denied by the Attorney-General and the bench; but Johnson was prepared for them, and pulling a whole mass of such publications from his pocket, which were issued by permission of the royal censor, he read their titles aloud, saying, "There, let Mr. Attorney-General now show whether he will do his duty by them." To spare the priesthood degradation in the person of Johnson, he was cited, at the command of the High Commission, before Crewe and Sprat, the royal Commissioners, accompanied by the Bishops of Rochester and Peterborough, to the chapter-house of St. Paul's, and personally degraded from his order. In having the Bible taken from him in the ceremony, Johnson shed some tears, but said, "You cannot deprive me of its blessed promises." He received two hundred and seventeen lashes in enforcing his punishment, but bore it stoutly, and declared that he could have sung a psalm had he not deemed that it might appear like bravado.

Though the clergy blamed Johnson, and stood aloof from him as a firebrand, because he preached resistance to Popery, which they were soon to do themselves, they were now loud in their pulpits in replying to its attacks, and exposing its lying legends, and its mummery of relics, its tricks of priestcraft, its denial of the Scriptures and the Cup to the laity, the celibacy of the clergy, the abuse of the confessional, and the idolatry of image worship, and prayers to saints. Distinguished amongst these declaimers were Tillotson, Tenison, Stillingfleet, Sherlock, Prideaux, Wake, Atterbury, and many lesser lights in the pulpit. But this zeal was not confined to preachers, for the printing presses of the Universities were kept constantly going. The Catholics, under royal patronage, replied as actively, and the war of pamphlets and pulpits foreshadowed a war of actual arms. James, as blind to all signs of the times as his father had been, went insanely on his way, now eagerly endeavouring to convert his daughter Anne, and now as resolutely scheming to deprive his daughter Mary of the succession. In Scotland and Ireland his crusade against the constitution of the realm and the Protestant religion was equally fierce and reckless.

To Scotland James sent down orders to the Government to dispense with the test and admit Catholics to all offices, and nothing was to be published without the Chancellor's licence, so that no reflections might be made on the Catholic religion or the king's order. The Duke of Queensberry--who was Lord Treasurer, and therefore regarded as Prime Minister--though a Tory, declared that he would not undertake to do anything against the Protestant religion, but there were not wanting sycophants who were ready to attempt just what the king pleased, in the hope of supplanting Queensberry. These were Lord Perth, the Chancellor, and his brother Lord Melfort, Secretary of State. They went over to Romanism as a means of preferment, and were imitated by the Earl of Murray, a descendant of the Regent, and a member of the Privy Council. Perth opened a Catholic chapel in his house, and soon received a cargo of priests' dresses, images, crosses, and rosaries. The incensed mob attacked the house during Mass, tore down the iron bars from the windows, chased the worshippers from their shrine, and pelted Lady Perth with mud. The soldiers were called out, and considerable bloodshed followed. James, irritated instead of being warned, sent down orders to punish the rioters severely, to screen the Catholics from penalties, and to renew the persecution of the Covenanters with all rigour. Alarmed at these insensate commands, three members of the Privy Council--the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George Lockhart, and General Drummond--hastened up to London to explain to James the impossibility of enforcing them, but made no impression.

On the 29th of April the time arrived for the meeting of the Scottish Parliament, when a letter from James was read calling on the Estates to pass a Bill freeing the Catholics from all penalties; but so far from the Parliament accepting such a proposition, the Lords of the Articles, whose business it was to introduce the propositions for new measures, and who had been chosen by James himself, declined to comply with the proposal. In vain they were urged by Perth, Melfort, and Murray; they remained refractory for three weeks, and then only dared to recommend that the Catholics should be permitted to worship in their own houses. But even this the Parliament would not consent to, and, after a week's debate, threw out even this very much modified scheme. James, who had during this discussion seen the intense anxiety in England to learn the news of the progress of the debate, perpetrated one of the most audacious acts of arbitrary power that modern times have witnessed. He sent for the mail bags from the North regularly, and detained all correspondence thence till the matter was ended. No single Scottish letter was issued in London for a whole week.

When at last the news, in spite of him, burst forth amid loud rejoicings, he was enraged, but, like his father, he declared that he would do by his own royal authority what he wanted; that he had been only foolish in asking for what the Act of Supremacy gave him in Scotland as perfectly as in England. He therefore launched the bolts of his vengeance at those who had disputed his will. Queensberry was dismissed from all his offices, the Bishop of Dunkeld ejected from his see, and crowds of Papists were appointed to the posts of those who had refused to obey the royal mandate. Without the ceremony of an Act of Parliament, James proceeded to usurp the rights of boroughs, and to appoint provosts and town councillors at his will; he ordered the judges to declare all the laws against Catholics void, and announced his intention of fitting up a Roman Catholic chapel in Holyrood. These measures struck a momentary terror and deep silence into the Scottish people, but it was only the silence preceding the storm.

In Ireland James had a preponderating body of Catholics eager to receive justice and the restoration of their estates at his hands. But only a wise and cautious monarch could succeed in making decent recompense to the native Irish for their many sufferings and spoliations. Their lands, by the Act of Settlement, were for the most part in the hands of a sturdy race of Englishmen, both Episcopalians and Presbyterians, who had been placed there at successive periods, and extensively by the Commonwealth. To announce that he would repeal this Act, and reinvest the natives with their ancient demesnes, was at once to rouse to arms a body of such pluck and nerve as the Celtic race had no chance with, notwithstanding their numbers. At the news that the Act was to be revoked, and the Church and Government of Ireland to be put into the hands of Catholics, the timid English gentry fled, the trade of the island received a paralysing blow, and the sturdy Saxon population prepared not only to defend their possessions, but to exterminate, if necessary, the aboriginal tribes.

Clarendon, the Lord-Lieutenant, the brother of Rochester, the Prime Minister of England, in great alarm wrote to James, detailing the immediate effects of this announcement; but James persisted in his obstinate course. He declared that the Protestants were his enemies, and that it was necessary to fortify himself with his friends; that his father had lost his head by conceding--he should have said by conceding too late,--and that he would concede nothing. He went on putting Catholics into the Privy Council, into the corporations and the army, dismissing Protestants to make room for them. He then sent out Tyrconnel, as his unscrupulous instrument, to occupy the post already his, of head of the army; he was at the same time furnished with instructions to take virtually all the functions of government into his hands, and reduce Clarendon to a cipher. Clarendon, like all the Hydes, was meanly attached to office and its emoluments, or he would at once have resigned rather than suffer the indignity of beholding his office usurped by a bullying ruffian like Tyrconnel. This desperate gambler, duellist, and debauchee, soon began to talk of the Act of Settlement as a damned and villainous thing; set about remodelling the army so as to exclude all Protestants, and replace them by Catholics; officers and men of the Protestant faith were dismissed by wholesale; he was in league with the priests to drill the entire Papist population, so as to confer the whole power of the island on them, and place every Protestant throat at their mercy. In a very few weeks he had introduced two thousand Popish soldiers into the army, and gave out that by Christmas the whole of the troops would be native Catholic. In the Church and the State he pushed on rudely the same measures, and with a violence of conduct and of language which appeared more like drunken madness than anything else. Taking the cue from him, and instructed by the priests, everybody treated Clarendon with marked insult and contempt. Still clinging meanly to office, he appealed to his brother in London to obtain for him more honourable treatment, but was thunderstruck by the news that Rochester himself had been dismissed.

Rochester, the champion to whom the Protestants of the Anglican Church looked up for aid, had, as miserably as his brother, disgraced himself by suffering his honour to be compromised by the love of office and income. He saw the career which James was running, and which no remonstrance or popular menace could arrest, and instead of resigning with dignity when his counsels became useless, he had even flattered James with the hope of his conversion. But he did not deceive the Jesuit Cabal which surrounded and governed James. They assured the king that nothing would ever make Rochester a genuine supporter of Catholic views, and the sooner he cut himself loose from the connection the better. Accordingly, on the 19th of December, the king, with many professions of regard, took from his brother-in-law Rochester the Treasurer's staff, but softened his fall by granting him out of Lord Grey's estate lands to the yearly value of seventeen hundred pounds, and an annuity of four thousand pounds for his own life and that of his son. He was spared also the mortification of seeing his rival Sunderland invested with his office; the Treasurership was put in commission; Lord Arundel received the Privy Seal, and Bellasis was made First Lord of the Treasury, whilst Dover, a ruined gambler, and Godolphin received places at the board.

The fall of Clarendon followed rapidly on that of Rochester. On the 8th of January, 1687, he received the order to resign his post to Tyrconnel. Such was the panic at this news, that no less than fifteen hundred families of gentlemen, merchants, and tradesmen, are said to have fled from Dublin to England in a week, and a reign of terror commenced all over Ireland. The known intentions of the king, and the character of his Lord-Lieutenant, were the signals for proscription to all Protestants, and they were turned out of the army, the offices of State, from the bench, and the magistracy, with an indecency which astonished the moderate Catholics themselves. Law and justice appeared to be at an end. The worst passions of a population long loaded with every species of injustice were let loose, and the once dominant race now saw themselves the objects of unconcealed hatred and recrimination. The wild population drove off their cattle, set fire to their houses, and the newly-raised soldiery devoted themselves with the gusto of vengeance to pillaging, murdering, and outraging the Protestant settlers with a frightful exultation.

Such were the ominous circumstances under which the year 1687 opened. By driving from him his relatives, the Hydes, James had severed the last ties between him and Protestantism; had demolished the last guarantees of Protestant security. The whole Protestant public, and many of the more clear-sighted Catholics, looked forward with an awful sense of impending mischief, and they were only too correct in their apprehensions.

James was determined to push forward his schemes for the restoration of Romanism in defiance of every long-cherished prejudice of the people, and of every constitutional principle. Besides the conversions which interest had made amongst the courtiers, there were a few other persons of more or less distinction who for royal favour had apostatised, but the number was most insignificant. The Earl of Peterborough, and the Earl of Salisbury--the descendant of Cecil, Elizabeth's minister,--had embraced Catholicism, and amongst literary men some half dozen. There were Wycherley, the obscene dramatist, Haines, a low comedian, and Tindal, who afterwards became a professed deist; but the most remarkable and deplorable instance was that of the poet Dryden. Dryden had sufficiently degraded his fine talents by plays and other compositions which could not be read now without a blush; but his compliance with the impure taste of the age had not enriched him. He enjoyed a pension of one hundred pounds a year from Charles, but that expired with Charles, and James, on renewing it, withdrew the usual butt of sack which accompanied it. After that no further notice was taken of the poet who had rendered such services to the royal cause, and, pressed by his needs, Dryden declared himself a Papist, and was speedily rewarded by royal notice and emolument. Henceforward his pen was employed to defend the royal religion, and the most remarkable result of his labours remains in his celebrated poem of "The Hind and Panther."

Slight as were these triumphs over the steadfast minds of Englishmen, James began now to be aware that he must win over bodies which he really hated, and had hitherto persecuted with all his might, if he meant to succeed. We have had occasion to relate the horrible cruelties and sanguinary ferocity with which he had pursued the Covenanters in Scotland and the Puritans in England, but he now deemed it necessary to pretend himself their friend. The Church had so uniformly and vehemently proclaimed the doctrine of Non-resistance, that he imagined he was pretty sure of it; but in Scotland and England the Nonconformists were a numerous and sturdy race, and danger from them might be apprehended in case Romanism was too exclusively reinstated. He therefore concluded to make his approaches to this object by feigning a love of religious liberty. He commenced first in Scotland by issuing a Declaration of Indulgence, on the 12th of February, 1687, but with an avowal of absolutism and a niggardly concession of religious liberty, which were not likely to be very gratefully received by the Scots. "We, by our sovereign authority, prerogative royal and absolute power, do hereby give and grant our royal toleration. We allow and tolerate the modern Presbyterians to meet in their private houses, and to hear such ministers as have been or are willing to accept of our indulgence; but they are not to build meeting-houses, but to exercise in houses. We tolerate Quakers to meet in their form in any place or places appointed for their worship; and we, by our sovereign authority, suspend, stop, and disable all laws and Acts of Parliament made and executed against any of our Roman Catholic subjects, so that they shall be free to exercise their religion and to enjoy all; but they are to exercise in houses or chapels; and we cass, disannul, and discharge all oaths by which our subjects are disabled from holding offices."

Thus James had declared himself absolute, above all laws, and at liberty to discharge any Act of Parliament. The same breath which gave a decree of religious liberty, annihilated every other liberty, and made the whole nation dependent on the will of one man. But whilst thus sweeping away all the labours of all past Parliaments at his pleasure, he with an inconsistency which betrayed a secret feeling that the power of Parliament was not so easily set aside, even then contemplated calling Parliament together if he could have but a prospect that it would confirm what he had done in Scotland, and proposed immediately to do in England. He therefore commenced a system of what has been called "closetings." He sent for the Tory members of Parliament, who were in town, one by one, and taking them into his closet at Whitehall, tried by personal persuasions and by bribes--for though dreadfully penurious, he now all at once became liberal of promises, and tolerably liberal of money--and entreated the members to oblige him by voting for the abolition of the laws against Catholics, which he told them had been, in truth, directed against himself; and whilst he promised, he threatened, too, in case his wishes were not complied with. Whilst he made this experiment in town, the judges now on circuit were ordered to send for the members in the country to the different county towns, and use the same persuasions. The result was by no means satisfactory. If there was one feeling stronger than another which had taken possession of the public mind, it was, then and long after, that the Catholics were not to be trusted with power, and that to grant them opportunity would be to restore the horrors of Queen Mary's days. James himself met with some signal rebuffs, and in every instance he dismissed the refusers from any office that they held; amongst them Herbert, Master of the Robes, and Rear-Admiral of England.

As no good was to be obtained from Parliament, he at once prorogued it again till November, asserting that he would grant toleration on his own authority; and on the 8th of April he issued his "Declaration of Indulgence for England." This Declaration, though in not quite positive and reiterated terms, set forth the same principle of absolutism, and independence of Parliament. "We have thought fit, by virtue of our royal prerogative, to issue forth this our declaration of indulgence, making no doubt of the concurrence of our two Houses of Parliament when we shall think it convenient for them to meet." He made no secret in it of wishing to see Catholicism the religion of the land; but, as the people did not seem willing to accept it, he had resolved to give to all professions of religion the same freedom. He talked like a philosopher about the virtues and justice of entire toleration, and the impolicy as well as injustice of persecution--conveniently ignoring that his practice, whenever he had had the power, had been in direct opposition to these smooth maxims. He not only then proceeded to abolish all the penal acts which had ever been passed, giving free right of worship, public or private, to all denominations, but denounced the utmost vengeance of the laws against any one who should disturb any congregation or person in the exercise of their religion.

The substance of the Declaration was admirable; it was so because it was the Christian truth; but the deed had two defects, and they were fatal ones. It was granted at the expense of the whole Constitution; and to admit that it was valid was to abandon Magna Charta and the Petition of Right, and accept instead the arbitrary will of the monarch. The second and equally fatal objection was that every one knew, from James's practice, and his proved deceitfulness, and his obstinate persistency, that the whole was but a snare to introduce Romanism, and then tread down every other form of religion. James boasted to the Pope's nuncio that the Declaration would be a great blow, and that in a general liberty of conscience the Anglican Church would go down, for persecution of the Dissenters would then be revenged upon her, and, unsupported by the Crown, she would meet with deserved contempt. And, had the toleration been legitimately obtained and guaranteed, after the servile conduct of the Church at that time, this might have been the case. The Dissenters had every reason to be thankful for toleration. They had been trodden down by the Anglican hierarchy; they had been dragged before the arbitrary High Commission, and plundered and imprisoned at pleasure. The bishops had supported every unrighteous act against them--the Conventicle Acts, the Test Act, the Five-Mile Act, the Act of Uniformity; and now they could enjoy their property, the peace of their firesides, their liberty, and their worship in the open sight of God and man. These were great boons, and, therefore, a great number of Nonconformists expressed their gratitude for them. The Quakers in particular sent up a grateful address, which was presented by Penn with an equally warm speech; but both they and the other Dissenters restricted themselves to thanking James for the ease they enjoyed, without going into the question of his right to grant it. Some few individuals, in their enthusiasm, or worked upon by the Court, went beyond this; but the general body of the Nonconformists were on their guard, and some of the most eminent leaders refused even to address the king in acknowledgment of the boon. Amongst these were Baxter, who had been so ignominiously treated by Jeffreys; Howe, who had had to flee abroad; and Bunyan, who had suffered twelve years' imprisonment for his faith; they boldly reminded their followers of the unconstitutional and, therefore, insecure basis on which the relief rested; that a Protestant successor might come--even if before that Popery, grown strong, had not crushed them--and again subject them to the harsh dominance of the Anglican hierarchy.

No exertions were omitted to induce the Dissenters to send up addresses; and they were actively canvassed by members of their different bodies, as Carr, Alsop, Lobb, and Rosewell, the last of whom was liberated from prison for the purpose. James took care to throw all the blame of the past persecutions on the Church, which, he said, had been at the bottom of all those councils. The Church, on the other hand, deserted by the Crown, retorted the accusation, and attributed every act of persecution to the Government, to which it professed unwillingly to have submitted. Thus was seen the edifying sight of the two arch-oppressors quarrelling, and in their bitter recriminations letting out the confession that they both knew very well how base and un-Christian their conduct had been.

But there was a third party to which all alike looked with anxiety in this crisis, and this consisted of William of Orange and his wife. As Protestants, and the probable successors of James, if they approved of the Indulgence, they would greatly strengthen the king; if they disapproved of it altogether, it would give a shock to the Protestant interest in England. But William was too politic not to see all the bearings of the question, and he and the princess jointly avowed their entire approval of complete toleration of all phases of the Christian religion, but their disapproval of the illegal means by which James aimed to effect it, and of Catholics being admitted to place and power. These were precisely the views of the great majority of Englishmen; and accordingly James sank still deeper in public odium on this publication, and William and Mary rose in popularity. They seized the opportunity to organise a most powerful party in their favour, and thus pave the way to an accession to the throne, which their sagacity assured them would much sooner arrive than the natural demise of the king. Mary has been censured for so readily uniting in a plan to drive her father from the throne. So long as the policy of James promised a continuance of his power, no steps were taken by Mary to supersede him; so soon as it became evident that no earthly power, to say nothing of justice or right, could keep him on the throne, it became a mere act of prudence to take care that no alien interest usurped her own. That Mary contemplated or committed any act of personal cruelty or harshness towards her father beyond securing her succession against an intruder, remains to be shown. Her husband, with all his virtues, was not proof against allowing, if not perpetrating, questionable acts; and he had been so jealous of his dignity and power, that for years he brooded in gloomy discontent on the prospect of Mary's succession to the crown of England without his having any claim to share it, not even communicating his splenetic feeling to her. But this secret was penetrated by Burnet, explained to Mary and, through her generosity, at once the difficulty was dissipated by her engaging to admit him to a full share of her hereditary authority. From that moment William redoubled his zeal to secure the succession; but there is no question that Mary exerted her filial regard to secure her father against any personal injustice.

William now despatched to England orders to his ambassador, Dykvelt, to use his endeavours to knit up the different sections of the discontented into one paramount interest in his favour. The scattered elements of an overwhelming power lay around the throne, which James, by his blind folly and tyranny, had made hostile to himself, and prepared ready to the hand of a master to combine for his destruction. Danby, who had fallen in the late reign for his opposition to the French influence, and who had been the means of uniting Mary to William, had regained extensive influence amongst both Tories and Whigs, and was driven by James into determined opposition. Halifax, who had been the chief champion of James's accession by opposing the Exclusion Bill, and whose dangerous eloquence made him especially formidable, had been dismissed and neglected by him. Finch, Earl of Nottingham, a zealous Tory and Churchman, and one of the most powerful orators of the House of Lords, he made his enemy by his dismissal of his younger brother from the post of Solicitor-General for not acquiescing in the king's dispensing powers, and by his attacks on the Church and the Constitution. The Earl of Devonshire he had managed, by imprisonment and a monstrous fine, equally to disgust; and the Earl of Bedford he had completely alienated by the execution of his son, Lord William Russell. Compton, the Bishop of London; Herbert, lately Rear-Admiral of England; Clarendon, Rochester, Lumley, Shrewsbury, had all, by a most insensate folly, been offended by dismission and private injuries. There was not a man of any talent or influence whom this fatuous tyrant had not driven from him in his obstinate resolve to set Romanism and despotism along with him on the throne, except Lord Churchill, upon whom he continued to heap favours, but who was too worldly-wise not to see that his benefactor was running headlong to ruin, and who was by no means the man to share ruin out of gratitude. Dykvelt executed his mission so well, that in four months he returned to the Hague with a packet of letters in his possession from all those noblemen, bishops, and others, including Admiral Russell, the cousin of the decapitated Lord William Russell, promising William their most enthusiastic support. From the Princess Anne, who was bound up heart and soul with Churchill and his clever wife--afterwards the celebrated Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough--her sister Mary also received the most cordial assurances that nothing should induce her to abandon her religion, or her attachment to her sister's rights.

Dykvelt returned from England on the 9th of June; and, to continue the effect produced in that country, on the 8th of August another agent in the person of General Zulestein was despatched thither. His ostensible mission was to offer an address of condolence on the death of the queen's mother, the Duchess of Modena; but his real one was to strengthen the connection with the malcontents, which he could the more unsuspectedly do from his military character, and from his having taken no particular part in diplomacy. Zulestein was completely successful; but these proceedings could not entirely escape James or his envoy at the Hague, the Catholic Marquis of Abbeville, who succeeded in getting Burnet, the active adviser of William, removed from open intercourse with the Court. But Burnet was still not far off, and through his chief counsellors, Bentinck and Halweyn, William still consulted with him on every step of the plans regarding England. James also sought to reach William through Stewart, a Scottish lawyer, who had fled from his persecutions of the Covenanters to the Hague, but who, on the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence, most suddenly went to the king's side, in hopes of promotion. Stewart wrote a letter to Fagel, the Grand Pensionary, who had great influence with William, which he confessed was at the suggestion of the king, strongly urging him to use his power with William to persuade him to support James's act; but Fagel, with a dexterous policy, replied in another letter, stating that the prince and princess were advocates for the most ample toleration, but not for the abolition of the Test, or of any other Act having the inviolability of the Anglican Church for its object. This was calculated to satisfy the Catholics of every privilege which they could reasonably expect from the laws and the public opinion of England, whilst it fully assured the Church of its safety under William and Mary.

Every fresh movement thus contributed to strengthen the position of William, and to show to James, had he had sufficient mind to comprehend it, how completely his conduct had deprived him of the confidence of his subjects. Even the Pope took no pains to conceal how suicidal he deemed his policy. He would have sufficiently rejoiced in any rational prospect of the return of England to the Church of Rome, but he was not dull enough to imagine the sentiment of the king the sentiment of the nation; on the contrary, he was persuaded that the rash cabals of the Jesuits were inevitably hastening a crisis which must the more deeply root the Anglican antipathy to Popery. James had despatched Castlemaine as ambassador to Rome with a splendid retinue. It was not enough that this open affront was done to his country by sending a Catholic ambassador to the Pope, and in the person, too, of a man who had no distinction except the disgraceful one of having purchased his title by the prostitution of his wife; but Castlemaine was deputed to solicit a dispensation from Innocent for Father Petre to receive the Episcopal dignity, which was forbidden to a Jesuit. James contemplated nothing less than making Petre Archbishop of York, which see he kept vacant for the purpose; but the Pope was too much at enmity with the Jesuits, as well as with James for his impolitic conduct, and his alliance with the great French aggressor, to concede any such favour. Castlemaine, who was living in pomp at Rome, threatened to take his departure if this request was not granted, and Innocent only sarcastically replied by bidding him start in the cool of the morning, and take care of his health on the journey.

This discourtesy shown him by the head of that religion for which he was putting everything to the hazard, had, however, only the effect of further raising the pugnacity of James. He determined only the more to honour and exalt Popery in England. The nuncio, Adda, had been made Archbishop of Amasia--a mere title of honour, in consequence of James's desire that he should be publicly acknowledged at his Court. Hitherto both he and the Vicar-Apostolic, Leyburn, had been instructed by the Papal Court to keep a careful incognito; but James would no longer consent to this; and, accordingly, on the 1st of May, 1686, Adda had been publicly consecrated at Whitehall, by the titular Archbishop of Ireland, assisted by Leyburn, the Vicar-Apostolic. In the evening of that day the nuncio was received into the royal circle, in the queen's apartments; and James shocked and disgusted his courtiers by falling on his knees before him and imploring his blessing. It was the first time that an English Court had seen their monarch, for a very long period, doing homage at the feet of a Papal nuncio, and the effect was humiliating. On the 3rd of July the nuncio was favoured with a public reception at Windsor. He went thither attended by a numerous procession of the ministers and of officials of the Court, and was conveyed in a royal coach, wearing a purple robe, and a brilliant cross upon his breast. In his train were seen with surprise and contempt the equipages of Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and Cartwright, Bishop of Chester. The Duke of Somerset, as First Lord of the Bedchamber, was expected to introduce him; but he declined, representing the penalties to which the act would expose him. This refusal was the less expected, because he had not objected to carry the sword of State before his Majesty when the king had gone to the royal Papal chapel. James was indignant. "I thought," he said, "that I was doing you a great honour by appointing you to escort the minister of the first of all crowned heads." Somerset, moved to a firmness of demeanour and language unusual even in him, declared that he dared not break the law. James replied, "I will make you fear me as well as the law. Do you not know that I am above the law?" "Your Majesty," replied Somerset, with commingled dignity and affected humility, "may be above the law, but I am not; and I am only safe while I obey the law." The king, not used to being thwarted, much less to language of so plain a sort, turned from him in a rage, and the next day issued a decree depriving him of his posts in the Household and of his command in the Guards.

This most impolitic conduct James followed, on the 1st of February, 1687, by a still more absurd and ludicrous, but equally mischievous, reception. It was that of Cocker, an English Benedictine monk, who, being more deeply implicated in treason than his friends cared to confess, had narrowly escaped with his life in the trials of the Popish plot. This man the Elector of Cologne had appointed his Resident at the English Court--probably at the suggestion of James, and in defiance of public opinion; and James now insisted that he should receive a public introduction to Court, in the habit of his order, and attended by six other monks in a like costume. Thus James took a pleasure in violating the laws and insulting public opinion at every turn, to show that he was independent of both; and he now prepared to commence in earnest the destruction of the Church.

Before advancing to this dangerous experiment, however, he deemed it necessary to tighten the discipline of the army, which had shown no little disgust at his proceedings.

Many of James's soldiers had deserted, and it was found that they were under no oath or obligation which rendered such desertion liable to serious punishment. But James determined to punish them, even condignly, in order to strike a sufficient terror into the whole army. He consulted the judges as to whether he did not possess this power; they said that he did not. Instead of accepting this answer, James dismissed Herbert, the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Sir John Holt, another judge of the same bench and Recorder of London, and put in their places Sir Robert Wright, a creature of Jeffreys', a man of ruined and base character, Richard Allibone, and Sir Bartholomew Shower as Recorder. With these infamous instruments he went to work; and, instead of trying the offenders by court-martial, he brought them before these men in the King's Bench and in the Old Bailey, and hanged them in sight of their regiments. By these outrages on every law and principle of constitutional safety James thought he had terrified the army into obedience; and he now attacked the very existence of the Universities, in order to give the education of the country into the hands of Popery.

James commenced his encroachments on the Universities by ordering one Alban Francis, a Benedictine monk, to be admitted a Master of Arts of Cambridge. That many persons not strictly admissible by the rules of the University had received honorary degrees, including foreigners of different forms of faith, and even a Turk, was indisputable; but the object of these favours was so clear that no mischief could arise from the practice. But now the Universities were but too well aware that James aimed at a thorough usurpation of these schools by the Catholics to lightly pass the matter by. The heads of colleges sent hastily to Albemarle, their Chancellor, begging him to explain to the king that the person named could not be admitted according to the statutes; at the same time they conceded so far as to offer to admit Francis on his taking the Oaths of Supremacy and Obedience.

He refused. James menaced the authorities, but in vain, and he summoned them before the High Commission Court. John Pechell, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, attended by eight fellows, including the illustrious Isaac Newton--afterwards Sir Isaac--appeared, and were received by Jeffreys with all his devilish bluster. Pechell was soon terrified at this most brutal monster, whose employment alone would have sufficiently stamped the character of James; and, when any of the other fellows attempted to speak, Jeffreys roared out, "You are not Vice-Chancellor; when you are, you may talk; till then, hold your tongue." Finding, however, that, though he could embarrass, he could not bend the Vice-Chancellor, Jeffreys, by order of James, declared Pechell dismissed from the office of Vice-Chancellor, and all his emoluments suspended. This was a gross violation of the rights of the University, and Jeffreys added to the outrage a piece of his usually blasphemous advice to the fellows--"Go your way and sin no more, lest a worse thing befall you."

The decease of the President of Magdalen College, Oxford, enabled James to follow up his plans without loss of time. Magdalen was one of the very richest of the English foundations, and consisted of a president, forty fellows, and thirty scholars, called Demies. It was the law of the foundation that the President could only be elected from those who were or had been members of that college, or of New College. The President died in March, 1687, and the 13th of April was fixed for the election of the new one. A Dr. Smith, a learned Orientalist, and an enthusiastically loyal man, applied for the royal consent, but was informed that the king was determined to give it only to one of his own religion; and, to the astonishment and disgust of the college, one Anthony Farmer was named as the royal nominee. The choice seemed made to insult the University in the highest degree possible, for not only was Farmer a Popish convert, but a man of the most drunken, debauched, and infamous character that could have been picked from the vilest haunts of unnamable wickedness. The astounded fellows humbly but earnestly remonstrated, but in vain. On the appointed day, despite the king's positive injunctions, and the presence of his agent, the choice fell on a distinguished and highly virtuous member of the college, John Hough.

The irate king summoned the fellows before the beastly Jeffreys and the High Commission, as he had summoned the heads of the University of Cambridge. There Jeffreys exhibited his wonted display of insufferable Billingsgate; and when Dr. Fairfax, one of the fellows, had the boldness to call in question the legality of the High Commission, he lost all patience. "Who is this man? What commission has he to be impudent here? Seize him; put him into a dark room. What does he do without a keeper? He is under my care as a lunatic. I wonder nobody has applied to me for the custody of him." But, after all, the character of Farmer was shown to be so vilely reprobate, that he was dropped, and the college ordered to receive Dr. Parker, Bishop of Oxford.

Parker was not an openly acknowledged Papist, but was understood to be really one; but he was neither a fellow of Magdalen nor of New College, and the fellows were firm enough to stand by their own election of Dr. Hough. James determined to go in person to Oxford and overawe these obstinate men; and he was the more bent upon it, having in the meantime suffered a similar defeat in endeavouring to force a Catholic into the hospital connected with the Charterhouse School. The trustees refused, and were called before Jeffreys. There he began browbeating the master, Thomas Burnet, but was unexpectedly opposed by the venerable Duke of Ormond. At this the bully swagger of this most hideous and contemptible judge that ever sat on a bench at once gave way, for he had no real courage. He stole from the court, and the scheme failed for the day. But the High Commission having sentenced Hough to be deposed from the presidentship of Magdalen, and Fairfax from his fellowship, again met, and summoned the trustees of the Charterhouse. Here again they were awed by a letter addressed to the king, signed by the trustees, including the names of Ormond, Halifax, Danby, and Nottingham, the chiefs of all the great parties who secured to James his crown, and still by their forbearance kept it on his head, so that they were compelled to pause before proceeding farther.

On the 16th of August James set out on a progress, with every display of royal state which could impress on the minds of his subjects an idea of his kingly position. He proceeded to Portsmouth, Southampton, Bath; thence by Gloucester and Worcester to Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Chester; whence he again turned south, and reached Oxford on the 3rd of September. Everywhere he had been attended by the High Sheriffs of the counties with splendid retinues; and the clergy in the towns had flocked around him in great numbers, though he continued on his progress to neglect their preaching for Mass. If outward circumstances could be relied on, it might have been supposed that the king had never been more popular; and, with all the _prestige_ of this tour, he summoned the refractory fellows of Magdalen before him, and rated them soundly on their disobedience. They knelt and offered him a petition, but he haughtily refused to look at it, bidding them go that instant and elect the Bishop of Oxford, or expect his high displeasure. But the fellows could not be thus brought to submission, and James quitted the town in high dudgeon.

On the 20th of October James sent down a special commission, consisting of Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, Wright, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and Jenner, a baron of the Exchequer, attended by three troops of cavalry, with drawn swords, to Oxford, to expel Hough and instal Parker. Parker was installed, but the fellows would not acknowledge him. James, therefore, ejected them altogether. In a few weeks Parker died, and then the king proceeded to put the whole college into the hands of Papists, appointing Gifford, one of the four vicars-apostolic, president; for now, in the regular progress of his system, James had admitted four vicars-apostolic instead of one, which had been the case before. It may be imagined what resentment this arbitrary proceeding occasioned, not only in the Universities themselves, but amongst the clergy in every quarter of the kingdom, who now saw that nothing would deter the king from uprooting the deepest foundations of the Church.