Chapter X: Reign of James II (4)

Still more daring and atrocious schemes were agitated by James and his Popish cabal. Soon after his accession it had been proposed to set aside the claims of the Princess of Orange, and make Anne heir-apparent, on condition that she embraced Popery. Anne refused. It was then proposed to make over Ireland to Louis of France in case Mary of Orange could not be prevented from succeeding to England; and Louis expressed his assent to the proposal. Tyrconnel was to make all necessary preparations for this traitorous transfer. But at this moment a new light broke on James, which quashed these unnatural and unnational projects: the queen was declared pregnant. The news of this prospect was received by the public with equal incredulity and suspicion. The queen had had several children, who had died in their infancy; and there was nothing improbable in the expectation of another child, although five years had elapsed since her last confinement. The prospect of an heir, however, true or false, drove James on further and more desperate projects. Should a son be born, and live, which none of the queen's children had done hitherto, the Popish heir would be exposed to the danger of a long minority. James might die before the son had been firmly rooted in the Catholic faith, and the Protestant bishops and nobles would surround him with Protestant instructors, and most likely ruin all James's plans of perpetuating Popery. To obviate this, he determined to have an Act of Parliament, settling the form of the child's guardianship and education, and vesting all the necessary powers in Catholic hands. Any prudent man would at least have waited to see the birth and probable life of the child before rushing on so desperate a scheme; for, to have an Act, he must call a Parliament; and to call a Parliament in the present feeling of the nation was to bring together one of the most determinedly Protestant assemblies of men that had ever been seen. But James was of that mole-eyed, bigot character which rushed headlong on the most perilous issues. He determined to pack a Parliament by means which none but a madman would have attempted. Whether from county or borough, he could expect nothing but a most obstinate and universal demonstration in favour of the Church and Constitution. His brother Charles, for his own purposes, had deprived the towns of their charters, because they were Whig and often Nonconformist, and had given them others, which put them into the hands of the Tories and Churchmen, and these were the very men who now would resist James's plans to the death. The country was equally Church and Tory, but all this did not daunt James. He determined to remodel the corporations, and to change every magistrate in the counties that was not ready to carry out his views. He appointed a Board of Regulators at Whitehall to examine into the state of the corporations and introduce new rules and new men as they thought fit. These regulators were seven in number, and all Catholics and Jesuits, except the king's incarnate devil, Jeffreys. These men appointed deputations of chosen tools to visit the different corporations, and report to them; and James issued a proclamation announcing his intention to revise the commissions of the peace, and of the lieutenancy of counties. In fact, James proceeded like a man who was satisfied that he could do just as he pleased with the Constitution of a country which, through all ages, had shown itself more jealous of its Constitution than any other in the world.

He sent for the lords-lieutenants, and delivered to them a paper of instructions, with which they were each to proceed to their several counties. They were to summon all the magistrates, and tell them what his Majesty expected from them on the ensuing election of Parliament, and to send him up their individual answers, along with the list of all the Catholic and Dissenting gentlemen who might take the place of those who should dare to object to the king's plans on the bench or in the militia. The proposal was so audacious, that the greater proportion of the lords-lieutenants peremptorily refused to undertake any such commission; these included the noblest names in the peerage, and they were at once dismissed. The sweeping measure of turning out the Duke of Somerset, the Viscounts Newport and Falconberg, the Earls of Derby, Dorset, Shrewsbury, Oxford, Pembroke, Rutland, Bridgewater, Thanet, Abingdon, Northampton, Scarsdale, Gainsborough, and many others, showed how far James was gone in his madness. As the king could not get any noblemen to take the places of the dismissed, he filled them up as he could, and even made his butcher, Jeffreys, lord-lieutenant of two counties. But all was in vain; he soon received answers from every quarter that the whole nation, town and country, absolutely refused to obey the king's injunctions. Even those who had gone most zealously to work were obliged to return with most disconsolate reports, and to assure the king that, if he turned out every magistrate and militia officer, the next would still vote against Popery. Catholics and Nonconformists, though glad of indulgence, would not consent to attempt measures which could only end in defeat and confusion. The Nonconformists would not move a finger to endanger Protestantism. It was the same in the corporations. Some of these James could deprive of their charters, for the new ones frequently contained a power of revocation; but when he had done this he found himself no forwarder, for the new ministers upon the points that he had at heart were as sturdy as the old. Other towns from which he demanded the surrender of their charters refused. Wherever James could eject the Church members of corporations he did so, from London to the remotest borough, and put in Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. It was perfectly useless; they were as Protestant as the Church. Even where he obtained a few truckling officials, they found it impossible to make the people vote as they wished; and in the counties the Catholic or Dissenting sheriffs were equally indisposed to press the Government views, or unable to obtain them if they did. He changed the borough magistrates in some cases two or three times, but in vain. Some of the people in the towns did not content themselves with mere passive resistance; they loudly declared their indignation, and the tyrant marched soldiers in upon them; but only to hear them exclaim that James was imitating his dear brother of France, and dragonading the Protestants.

Whilst these things were going on all over the country, James was putting on the same insane pressure in every public department of Government. The heads of departments were called on to pledge themselves to support the wishes of the king, and to demand from their subordinates the same obedience. The refractory were dismissed, even to the highest law officers of the Crown; and James demanded from the judges a declaration that even the Petition of Right could not bar the exercise of his prerogative; but the bench consulted in secret, and the result was never known. He even contemplated granting no licences to inns, beer-houses, or coffee-houses, without an engagement to support the king, in spite of Church or magistrate; but another of his measures now brought things to a crisis.

James determined to make his intentions known for fully restoring Popery by a new Declaration of Indulgence, in which he reminded his subjects of his determined character, and of the numbers of public servants that he had already dismissed for opposing his will. This Declaration he published on the 27th of April, 1688, and he ordered the clergy to read it from all pulpits in London on the 20th and 27th of May, and in the country on the 3rd and 10th of June. This was calling on the bishops and clergy to practise their doctrine of Non-resistance to some purpose; it was tantamount to demanding from them to co-operate in the overthrow of their own Church. They were, as may be supposed, in an awful dilemma; and now was the time for the Dissenters--whom they had so sharply persecuted and so soundly lectured on the duty of entire submission--to enjoy their embarrassment. But the Dissenters were too generous, and had too much in common at stake. They met and sent deputations to the clergy, and exhorted them to stand manfully for their faith, declaring that they would stand firmly by them. A meeting of the metropolitan clergy was called, at which were present Tillotson, Sherlock, Stillingfleet--great names--and others high in the Church. They determined not to read the Declaration on the 20th, and sent round a copy of this resolution through the City, where eighty-five incumbents immediately signed it.

The bishops meanwhile met at Lambeth, and discussed the same question. Cartwright of Chester, one of the king's most servile tools, and a member of the High Commission, took care to be there, to inform the king of what passed; but during his stay nothing but a disposition to compliance appeared to prevail, and he hurried away to Whitehall with the news. No sooner, however, was he gone than letters were secretly despatched, summoning the bishops of the province of Canterbury; and another meeting took place on the 18th, or two days prior to the Sunday fixed for the further reading of the Declaration. The bishops concluded not to read it, and six of them waited on the king with the written resolution. James was confounded, having assured himself that they meant to comply. He used the most menacing language, and declared that they had set up the standard of rebellion; and ordered them from his presence to go at once and see that he was obeyed. To prevent the publication of the resolution, he detained it; but that very evening it was printed and hawked through the streets, where it was received with acclamations by the people. Any but a mad bigot, seeing the feelings of the public, would have instantly revoked the declaration; but James was not that man. Sunday arrived, and out of all the hundred churches, the Declaration was only read in four, and with the effect of instantly clearing them, amid murmurs of indignation. Still it was not too late to recall the Order in Council; and even James himself, with all his folly and infatuation, was now staggered. It was strongly recommended in the Council to abandon the Declaration; but James listened to his evil genius, the brutal Jeffreys, and determined to bring the seven signing bishops to trial before the Court of King's Bench, on a charge of seditious libel. The fatal counsel was adopted, and they were summoned to appear before the Privy Council on the 8th of June.

In the interval the bishops and clergy in all parts of England, with few exceptions, showed the same resolute spirit. The Bishops of Gloucester, Norwich, Salisbury, Winchester, Exeter, and London, signed copies of the same petition. The Bishop of Carlisle regretted that, not belonging to the province of Canterbury, he could not do the same. The Bishop of Worcester refused to distribute the Declaration amongst his clergy; and the same spirit showed itself amongst the parochial clergy, who almost to a man refused to read it.

On the evening of the day appointed, the seven prelates--namely, Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol--attended the Privy Council. Jeffreys took up the petition, and, showing it to Sancroft, asked him if that was not the paper which he had written, and the six bishops present had signed. Sancroft and his colleagues had been instructed by the ablest lawyers in England as to the course they should pursue, and the dangers to be avoided. The Primate, therefore, instead of acknowledging the paper, turned to the king and said--"Sir, I am called hither as a criminal, which I never was before; and, since I have that unhappiness, I trust your Majesty will not be offended if I decline answering questions which may tend to criminate me." "This is mere chicanery," said James. "I hope you will not disown your own handwriting." Lloyd of St. Asaph said that it was agreed by all divines that no man in their situation was obliged to answer any such question; but, as James still pressed for an answer, Sancroft observed that, though he were not bound to accuse himself, yet, if the king commanded it, he would answer, taking it for granted that his Majesty would not take advantage to bring his admission there in evidence against him. James said he would not command him; but Jeffreys told them to withdraw for awhile, and when they were called back, James commanded the Primate, and he acknowledged the writing. They were then again sent out, and, on coming back, were told by Jeffreys that they would be proceeded against, not before the High Commission, but, "with all fairness," before the King's Bench.

They were then called upon to enter into recognisances, but they refused, on the plea that they were peers of Parliament, and that no peer of Parliament could be required to enter into recognisances in case of libel. This greatly disconcerted James, for it compelled him to send them to prison, and he justly feared the effect of it on the public. But there was no alternative; a warrant was signed for their commitment to the Tower, and they were sent thither in a barge.

The scene which immediately took place showed that James had at length a glimmering of the danger which he had raised. The whole river was crowded with wherries full of people, who crowded round the bishops to entreat their blessings, many rushing breast-high into the water to come near enough. James, in terror, ordered the garrison and guards of the Tower to be doubled; but the same spirit animated the soldiers, who knelt at the approach of the prelates, and also solicited their blessing. Presently the soldiers were found carousing to the health of their prisoners; and when Sir Edward Hales, who had been made Lieutenant of the Tower for his going over to Popery, desired the officers to put a stop to it, they returned and told him that it was impossible, for the soldiers would drink nobody's health but the bishops'. Every day the gates of the Tower were besieged by the equipages of the chief nobility. The very Nonconformists came in bodies to condole with their old persecutors; and Tower Hill was one constant throng of people manifesting their sympathy.

Two days only after the bishops were sent to the Tower--namely, the 10th of June--was announced what, under other circumstances, would have been a most auspicious event for James--the birth of an heir. But the nation was so full of suspicion, both of the monarch and the Jesuits that he had around him, that it would not credit the news that the healthy boy which was born was the actual child of James and his queen. It was certainly of the highest moment that James should have taken every precaution to have the birth verified beyond dispute; but in this respect he had been as singularly maladroit as in all his other affairs. As the Protestants were, of course, highly suspicious, he should have had the usual number of Protestant witnesses ready. But the queen, who sat playing cards at Whitehall till near midnight, was suddenly taken ill a month before the calculated time, and there was neither the Princess Anne present--she was away at Bath,--nor the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Dutch ambassador--whom it was so necessary to satisfy on behalf of the Prince and Princess of Orange,--nor any of the Hyde family, not even the Earl of Clarendon, the uncle of Mary and Anne. On the contrary, there were plenty of Jesuits, and the renegades Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland--who directly afterwards avowed himself a Catholic--Mulgrave, and others. The consequence was that the whole people declared the child spurious; that it had been introduced into the bed in a warming-pan; and when the public announcement was made, and a day of solemn thanksgiving was appointed, there was no rejoicing. Fireworks were let off by order of Government; but the night was black and tempestuous, and flashes of lurid lightning paled the artificial fires, and made the people only the more firm in the belief that heaven testified against the imposture. And yet there was no imposture. There were some Protestants present--sufficient to prevent any collusion, and particularly Dr. Chamberlain, the eminent accoucheur; but James, by his folly and tyranny, had deprived himself of the public confidence, and fixed on his innocent offspring a brand of disavowment, which clung to him and his fortunes, and has only been removed by the cooler judgment of recent times. William of Orange sent over Zulestein to congratulate James on the birth of an heir; but that minister brought back the account that not one person in ten believed the child to be the queen's.

On Friday, the 15th of June, the first day of term, the bishops were brought from the Tower to the King's Bench, and, pleading not guilty, they were admitted to bail till the 29th of June. During this fortnight the public excitement continued to augment, and from every quarter of the kingdom--even from the Presbyterians of Scotland, who had shown themselves such determined opponents of prelacy, and had been such sufferers from it--came messages of sympathy and encouragement to the bishops. On that day immense crowds assembled to receive their blessings, and to utter others on their way to Westminster Hall; and this homage was the warmer because the prelates had resisted the demand of Sir Edward Hales, the Lieutenant of the Tower, for his fees, this renegade having shown them little courtesy, and now plainly letting them know that, if they came again into his hands, they should lie on the bare stones.

Every means had been taken to pack a jury. Sir Samuel Astrey, the Clerk of the Crown, had been summoned to the palace, and been instructed by James and his great legal adviser, Jeffreys. The judges, too, were of the most base and complying character. They were such as had been raised from the very lowest ranks of the bar for their servile fitness, and because the more eminent lawyers would not stoop to such ignominy. They were Wright; Allibone, a Papist; Holloway and Powell; the Attorney-General, Sir Thomas Powis, an inferior lawyer; the Solicitor-General, Sir William Williams, a man of ability and vigour, but rash, imperious, and unpopular. Ranged against these were the most brilliant lawyers of the time--Sawyer and Finch, formerly Attorney- and Solicitor-General; Pemberton, formerly Chief Justice; Maynard; Sir George Treby, who had been Recorder of London, and others. Somers, afterwards Lord Chancellor in William's reign, was the bishops' junior counsel. The foreman of the jury was Sir Roger Langley. On the side of the prosecution, the judges, and even the blustering Jeffreys, betrayed a sense of terror.

The trial commenced at nine in the morning, and not till seven in the evening did the jury retire to consider their verdict. The lawyers for the prisoners raised great difficulties as to proving the handwriting of the libel, and next in proving its being published in Westminster. The Crown lawyers were obliged to bring into court Blathwayt, a clerk of the Privy Council, for this object; and then the counsel for the prisoners stopped him, and compelled him to state what had passed there between the bishops and the king--much to the chagrin of the Government party. Before the publication could be proved, even Sunderland was obliged to be brought into court in a sedan. He was pale, trembled violently from fright and shame of his late apostacy, and gave his evidence with his eyes fixed on the ground. But even then, when the judges came to consider the bishops' petition, they were divided in opinion. Wright and Allibone declared it a libel, and contended for the royal right of the dispensing power; but Holloway conceded that the petition appeared to him perfectly allowable from subjects to their sovereign; and Powell set himself right with the public and wrong with the Court--a significant sign--by boldly declaring both the Dispensing Power and the Declaration of Indulgence contrary to law.

With such sentiments developing themselves on the bench, there could be little doubt what the verdict would be; yet the jury sat all night, from seven o'clock till six the next morning, before they were fully agreed, there being, however, only three dissentients at first. When the court met at ten o'clock, the crowd, both within and without, was crushing and immense; and when the foreman pronounced the words "Not guilty," Halifax was the first to start up and wave his hat; and such a shout was sent up as was heard as far as Temple Bar. The news flew far and wide; the shouting and rejoicing broke out in every quarter of the town. The whole population, nobility, clergy, people, all seemed gone mad. There were more than sixty lords who had stood out the trial, and now threw money amongst the throngs as they drove away. The people formed a line down to the water's edge, and knelt as the bishops passed through, asking their blessing. The Attorney-General, Williams, was pursued in his coach with curses and groans; and Cartwright, the Bishop of Chester, and James's tool of the High Commission, being descried, was hooted at as "That wolf in sheep's clothing!" and, as he was a very fat man, one cried, "Room for the man with the Pope in his belly!"

The whole town was in an intoxication of delight. Bonfires were lit, guns fired, bells rung all night, and the Pope in effigy was burnt in several places--one before the door of Whitehall itself; another was kindled before the door of the Earl of Salisbury, who had lately gone over to Popery; and his servants, in their ill-timed zeal, rushing out to extinguish it, were attacked, and, firing on the people, killed the parish beadle, who was come to attempt what they themselves were attempting--to put out the fire. That morning James had gone to review his troops on Hounslow Heath. He received the news of the acquittal by a special messenger while in Lord Feversham's tent. He was greatly enraged, and set out at once for London. Before, however, he was clear of the camp the news had flown amongst the soldiers, and a tremendous cheering startled him. "What noise is that?" demanded James. "Oh!" said the general, "it is nothing but the soldiers shouting because the bishops are acquitted." "And call you that nothing?" asked James; and added angrily, "but so much the worse for them."

The very day which pronounced the acquittal of the bishops saw signed and despatched an invitation from the leading Whigs to William of Orange to come over and drive the tyrant from the throne. The Whigs had long been contemplating and preparing for this end; they now saw that the crisis was come. The brutal and besotted king had effectually alienated all hearts from him. From him nothing but destruction of every liberty and sentiment that Englishmen held dear was to be expected; and in the heir which was now, as was generally believed, foisted on the nation by the king and the Jesuits, there was only the pledge of the reign of Popery and proscription, and of the extermination of all those high hopes and privileges which were entwined with Protestant freedom. The Whig leaders had sent repeatedly to William to stimulate him to the enterprise; but, apart from his habitual caution and the salutary fear that Monmouth's reception had inspired, the Prince of Orange had many difficulties to contend with from the peculiar constitution of the Dutch Republic, and the peculiar views and interests of his allies. Though at the head of the Dutch confederation, he had always experienced much opposition from individual states and cities, especially Amsterdam, which his great enemy, Louis of France, managed to influence. This invitation called him to expel from his throne a Catholic king, and replace his Government by a Protestant one, though the Pope and Spain, the most Catholic of countries, were his close allies, and must not be offended. He had, therefore, stipulated that he should receive such an invitation under the hands and seals of the Whig leaders as should leave little doubt of his reception, and that he should be regarded as the saviour from an intolerable ruler, and not forced to attempt a conquest which must in its very success bring ruin by wounding the national pride of England.

He now received a paper, signed by the Earls of Shrewsbury, Devonshire, and Danby, Lord Lumley, Bishop Compton, Edward Russell, the Admiral of England, and Henry Sidney, the brother of the late Algernon Sidney, and afterwards Earl of Romney. This paper, which had been furnished at William's request, was but the result of negotiations between himself and the Whig leaders for some time. He now called into council with the English envoy his confidential friends, Bentinck and Dykvelt, and it was resolved that the time for action was come, and that the invitation should be accepted. In the meantime, whilst William began in earnest, but as secretly as circumstances would allow, his preparations, James at home did everything which a foolish and obstinate ruler could do to complete the alienation of the affections of his subjects. He returned from his camp to his capital only to find it in transports of delight over his own defeat, and resounding with the explosions of guns and crackers, with drinkings of the health of the bishops in the streets, and with the effigy of the Pope blazing before his own gate. So far from making him pause at the contemplation of the avowed and universal spirit of his people, he was only the more exasperated, and continued muttering, "So much the worse for them." He determined to take summary vengeance on the clergy, on the lawyers who had opposed or deserted him, on the army, and on the people. He at once promoted Mr. Solicitor-General Williams, for his unscrupulous conduct on the trial of the bishops, to a baronetcy, and would have placed so convenient a man on the bench could he have spared him at the bar. He dismissed Powell and Holloway; he determined to visit with his vengeance all the clergy throughout the kingdom who had refused to read the Declaration; and an order was issued to all the chancellors of the dioceses and the archdeacons to make a return of them. No matter that they approached ten thousand in number; if necessary, he would drive them all from their benefices. The judges on the circuits were ordered to denounce these refractory clergy, and to speak in the most derogatory terms of the bishops. He broke up his camp, the soldiers of which had been intended to overawe the capital, and stand by whilst he destroyed the national Constitution and the national religion; but had now terrified and disgusted him by drinking the healths of the liberated bishops.

But all his angry attempts only recoiled on himself, and showed more clearly than ever that the reins of power were irrecoverably slipping from his fingers. The spell of royalty--a people's respect--was utterly broken. The chancellors and archdeacons paid no attention to the order for reporting their independent brethren; the High Commission met, and, so far from finding any returns, received a letter from one of the most truckling of their own body, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, resigning his place in the High Commission. If such a man saw the handwriting on the wall, the warning, they felt, must be imminent, and they departed in confusion. The judges, on their part, found themselves deserted on their circuits; nobody but the sheriff and his javelin men came to meet them, and then went through their duties amid every sign of indifference to their dignity. They were treated, not as the high-minded judges of England, but as the base and venal tools of a most lawless and mischievous monarch. The soldiers were as bold in their separate quarters as they had been in camp. James thought he could deal with them separately, and tried the experiment by ordering a regiment of infantry, which had been raised in the Catholic district of Staffordshire, to sign an engagement to support him in dispersing all the rest, or to quit the army. Almost to a man they piled their arms, and the confounded king was obliged to withdraw the order. But James had a remedy even for the defection of the army. In Ireland the brutal and debauched Tyrconnel had been busily engaged in drilling Irish Celts, and preparing an army so strongly Catholic that he might by this means carry out the royal design of repealing the Act of Settlement, and driving the Protestant colonists from their lands. These troops James sent for, regiment after regiment, and the people of England saw, with equal indignation and alarm, that their liberties, their religion, their laws, were to be trodden down, and the kingdom reduced to a miserable abode of slaves by the wild tribes of the sister island, vengeful with centuries of unrequited oppressions. This put the climax to the national resentment, and still more pressing messages were sent over to William to hasten his approach, and leaders of party in large numbers contemplated a speedy transit to his standard. It was at this juncture that the wild genius of Wharton gave vent to the pent-up feelings of Protestant wrath, by the adaptation of the old Irish tune of "Lillibullero" to English words.

William, meanwhile, was making strenuous preparations for his enterprise. He formed a camp at Nimeguen, collecting troops and artillery from the different fortresses. Twenty-four additional ships of war were fitted out for service, and arms and accoutrements were in busy preparation in every manufactory in Holland. He had saved up unusual funds for him, and had money also pouring in from England and from the refugee Huguenots, who hoped much from his enterprise in favour of Protestantism. It was impossible that all this preparation could escape the attention of other nations, and especially of the quick-sighted Louis XIV. of France. But William had a ready answer--that he wanted an extra squadron to go in pursuit of a number of Algerine corsairs which had made their appearance off the Dutch coasts. The military preparations were not so easily explained; but though Louis was satisfied that they were intended against England, James, blind to his danger, as strongly suspected that they were meant to operate against France. The only enemies which William had to really dread were Louis and the Council of Amsterdam, which Louis had so long influenced to hostility to William, and without whose consent no expedition could be permitted. But the ambition and the persecuting bigotry of Louis removed this only difficulty out of William's way in a manner which looked like the actual work of Providence. The two points on which Amsterdam was pre-eminently sensitive were trade and Protestantism. Louis contrived to incense them on both these heads. His unrelenting persecution of the Huguenots, including also Dutch Protestants who had settled in France, raised an intense feeling in Amsterdam, stimulated by the outcries and representations of their relatives there. To all appeals for tolerance and mercy Louis was utterly deaf; and whilst this feeling was at its height, he imposed a heavy duty on the importation of herrings from Holland into France. Sixty thousand persons in Holland depended on this trade, and the effect was, therefore, disastrous. In vain did the French envoy, Avaux, represent these things; Louis continued haughty and inexorable.

These circumstances, in which the pride and bigotry of Louis got the better of his worldly policy, completed the triumph of William of Orange. He seized on them to effect a removal of the long-continued jealousies of the Council of Amsterdam against him. He entered into negotiations with the leading members of the Council through his trusty friends Bentinck and Dykvelt, and as they were in the worst of humours with Louis, the old animosities against William were suffered to sleep, and he obtained the sanction of the States-General to his proposed expedition for the release of England from the French and Catholic influences, and its reception into the confederation of Protestant nations. Another circumstance just at this crisis occurred to strengthen all these feelings in Holland and Germany, and to account for any amount of troops collected at Nimeguen. The aggressions of Louis had roused and combined all Europe against him. Powers both Catholic and Protestant had felt themselves compelled to unite in order to repress his attempts at universal dominion. The King of Spain, the Emperor of Germany, the King of Sweden had entered into the League of Augsburg to defend the empire; and to these were added various Italian princes, with the Pope Innocent XI. himself at their head. Louis had not hesitated to insult the Pope on various occasions, and now he saw the pontiff in close coalition with heretic princes to repel his schemes.

In May of this year died Ferdinand of Bavaria, the Elector of Cologne. Besides Cologne, the elector possessed the bishoprics of Liége, Münster, and Hildesheim. In 1672 Louis had endeavoured to secure a successor to the Elector in the French interest. He therefore proposed as his coadjutor the Cardinal Furstemberg, Bishop of Strasburg; and he would have succeeded, but it was necessary, in order to his choice, that Furstemberg should first resign his bishopric; to this the Pope, in his hostility to Louis, would not consent; he refused his dispensation. But now, the Elector having died, the contest was renewed. Louis again proposed the cardinal; the allies of the League of Augsburg nominated the Prince Clement of Bavaria, who was elected and confirmed by the Pope, though a youth of only seventeen years of age. The allies were equally successful in the bishoprics of Liége, Münster, and Hildesheim; but the principal fortresses, Bonn, Neutz, Kaiserswerth, and Rheinberg, were held by the troops of Furstemberg, and therefore were at the service of France. Louis was, however, exasperated at the partial defeat of his plans, and complained loudly of the partiality of the Pope, and began to march troops to the support of Furstemberg.

But whilst Louis was actually planning a sweeping descent on the German Empire, in which William of Orange lay pre-eminently in his way, he was at the same time in danger of a more momentous occurrence--that of William leaving the way open by sailing for England. If William should succeed in placing himself on the throne of England, he would be able to raise a far more formidable opposition to his plans of aggrandisement than he had ever yet done. Even with his small resources he had proved a terrible enemy, and had arrayed all Europe against him; what would he do if he could bring all the powers of England by land and sea to co-operate with Holland, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands? The stupidity of James and the offended pride of Louis saved William in this dilemma, and led Louis to commit on this occasion the cardinal blunder of his reign.

It was impossible that Louis could be ignorant of what William was doing. The preparations of ships and troops were indications of a contemplated attack somewhere. It might be directed to resist the French on the side of Germany; but other facts equally noticeable demonstrated that the object was England. Avaux, the French envoy at the Hague, in the absence of Abbeville, who was on a visit to England, noticed, in the months of April and May, a swift sailing boat, which made rapid and frequent passages between England and Rotterdam; and he noticed that, after every arrival from England, there were closetings of William and the English Whig leaders at the Hague, especially Russell. After the birth of the heir-apparent of England, William despatched Zulestein to London with his professedly warm, though they could not be very sincere, congratulations on the event; but soon after, on the escape to the Hague of Rear-Admiral Herbert, who was supposed to carry the invitation of the leading Whigs to William, the prince omitted the child's name in the prayers for the royal family of England, and openly expressed his doubts of his being the real child of the queen.

These circumstances, the continued activity of the military preparations, the constant sailings of this mysterious boat, and the subsequent closetings, with the continual growth of the number of distinguished English refugees at the Hague, satisfied the French envoy that a descent on England was certain and nigh at hand. Avaux not only warned Louis of the imminent danger, but he warned James by every successive mail from the Hague, through Barillon. Louis took the alarm. He despatched Bonrepaux to London to arouse James to a due sense of his peril, and offered to join his fleet with an English one to prevent the passage of the Dutch armament. He held a powerful body of troops ready to march to the frontiers of Holland, and ordered Avaux to announce to the States-General that his master was fully cognisant of the warlike preparations of the Stadtholder; that he was quite aware of their destination, and that, as the King of England was his ally, he should consider the first act of hostility against James as a declaration of war against himself. He at the same time declared the Cardinal Furstemberg and the Chapter of Cologne under his protection. Simultaneously the same message was delivered to the Spanish Governor of Flanders, and Marshal d'Humières was despatched to take the command of the French army in that quarter.

This plain declaration fell like a thunderbolt into the midst of the States-General. There was the utmost evident confusion. A poor and embarrassed excuse was made, and a courtier sent post haste to fetch William from Minden, where he was in secret negotiation with the Elector of Brandenburg. If James took the alarm, and Louis, as was his intent, went heartily into the coalition to defeat the enterprise, it must become a most hazardous undertaking, even if it were at all feasible. But the folly of that most wrong-headed of the Stuarts again saved the Prince of Orange, and removed the last difficulty out of the way of his enterprise. James would not believe a word of the warning. He would not believe that his own daughter would sanction an attempt at his dethronement. He would not believe that William's armament had any other object than the King of France himself. He highly resented the declaration of Louis that there was an alliance between them, as calculated to alarm his own subjects, especially his Protestant ones. He received Bonrepaux with cold hauteur in return for his offers of assistance; and Van Citters, the Dutch ambassador, with proportionate cordiality, who hastened on the part of the States to assure him that the French communications were sheer inventions. He gave orders that all the foreign ministers should be informed that there was no such league between France and England as Louis had pretended for his own purposes.

In fact, James was living all this time in the midst of a set of traitors, who, even to his most confidential minister, Sunderland, had secretly gone over to William, and were putting him in possession of every daily thought, word, and intention of their master. Besides the seven that had signed, and of whom Admiral Russell was already with William, the Earl of Shrewsbury had fled to him, having mortgaged his estates and taken forty thousand pounds with him, and offered it to the prince. The two sons of the Marquis of Winchester, Lord Wiltshire, and a younger brother; Halifax's son, Lord Eland; Danby's son, Lord Dumblaine; Lord Lorne, the son of the unfortunate Earl of Argyll; Lord Mordaunt, Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield, and Admiral Herbert were already with him. Herbert had been appointed Admiral to the Dutch fleet, with a pension of six thousand pounds a year. Wildman, Carstairs, Ferguson, Hume, who had escaped from the Argyll and Monmouth expeditions, went there; and, whilst the sons of Halifax and Danby were with William, they themselves, though remaining in England with Devonshire, Lumley, and others, were sworn to rise in his favour the moment he landed. But the worst of the unsuspected traitors at his own Court were the Lords Churchill and Sunderland. James had made Churchill almost everything that he was; on Sunderland he had heaped benefits without stint or measure. He had scraped money together by all possible means; and James did not merely connive at it, he favoured it. This meanest of creeping things was in the pay of France to the amount of six thousand pounds per annum; he had a pension from Ireland of five thousand pounds more; as President of the Council he occupied the post of Prime Minister, and derived immense emoluments from fines, forfeitures, pardons, and the like. Rather than lose his place, he had openly professed Catholicism; but scarcely had he thus sold his soul for his beloved pelf and power, when he saw as plainly as any one else that the ground was sliding from under the feet of his foolish master, and was overwhelmed with consternation. He hastened again to sell himself to William, on condition that his honours and property should be secure; and thus had James his very Prime Minister, his most confidential and trusted servant, at every turn drawing out all his plans and thoughts, and sending them to his intended invader. Sunderland's wife was the mistress of Sidney, who was at the Hague; and, through her, this most contemptible of men sent constantly his traitorous communications to her paramour, and so to William.

With such snakes in the grass about him, James was completely blinded to his danger. Churchill and Sunderland persuaded him that there was no danger from Holland, and inflamed his resentment at what they called the presumption of Louis. They were completely successful; and Sunderland, after the establishment of William in England, made a boast of this detestable conduct. Louis was so much disgusted by the haughty rejection of his warning, that he himself committed a gross political error. Instead of preventing the descent on England, and the aggrandisement of his great opponent William--by far the most important measure for him--by directly attacking the frontiers of Holland, and keeping William engaged, in his vexation he abandoned the besotted James, and made an attack on the German Empire. Dividing his army, one portion of it, under the Marquis of Boufflers, seized Worms, Mainz, and Treves; a second, under Humières, made itself master of Bonn; and a third, under the Duke of Duras and Marshal Vauban, took Philippsburg by storm. The greater part of the Rhine was at once in Louis's hands, and great was the triumph in Paris. But not the less was the exultation of William of Orange; for now, the French army removed, and the mind of Louis incensed against James, the way was wide open for him to England.

No time was now lost in preparing to depart. A Memorial, professing to be addressed by the Protestants of England to the States, but supposed to have been drawn up by Burnet, was published, accompanied by two declarations in the name of William to the people of England and Scotland. These latter were the work of the Grand Pensionary Fagel, but condensed and adapted more to the English taste by Burnet. In the Memorial the people of England were made to complain of the wholesale violation of the Constitution and the liberties of his subjects by James, and of the attempt to fix a false and Popish heir on the nation. They called on William to come over and vindicate the rights of his wife, and at the same time to rescue the country of her birth and her rightful claims from Popery and arbitrary power.

The Declaration to England and Scotland in reply was drawn with consummate art. William admitted that he had seen with deep concern the fundamental and continual violations of the laws of the kingdom. The contempt of Acts of Parliament; the expulsion of just judges from the bench to make room for the servile instruments of oppression; the introduction of prohibited persons into both the State and Church, to the jeopardy of freedom and true religion; the arbitrary treatment of persons of dignity by the illegal High Commission Court; the forcible introduction of Papists into the colleges; the removal of lords-lieutenants, and the destruction of corporations which stood firmly for the rights and religion of the nation; the attempt to impose a spurious and Popish issue on the throne, and the equally atrocious attempt to tread down English liberties by an army of Irish Papists: for these reasons William declared himself ready to comply with the prayers of the English people, and to come over with a sufficient force for his own protection, but with no intention or desire of conquest, but simply to restore freedom by an independent Parliament, to inquire into the circumstances attending the birth of the pretended prince, and to leave everything else to the decision of Parliament and the nation. He declared that he should endeavour to re-establish the Church of England and the Church of Scotland, and at the same time to protect the just rights of other professors of religion willing to live as good subjects in obedience to the laws.

When copies of these papers were sent to James by his ambassador, Abbeville, from the Hague, the delusion of the affrighted monarch was suddenly and rudely dissipated. He gazed on the ominous documents--in which his subjects invited a foreign prince to take possession of his throne, and that prince, his son-in-law, accepted the proposal--with a face from which the colour fled, and with a violently trembling frame. Fear at once did that which no reason, no accumulation of the most visible signs of his vanishing popularity could ever effect. He at once hastened to make every concession. He summoned his Council, and forwarded a despatch to the Hague, declaring that he regarded the siege of Philippsburg by Louis as a breach of the Treaty of Nimeguen, and that he was ready to take the field against him in conjunction with the forces of Spain and Holland. Before an answer could be received, James hurried forward the work of retractation. When he looked around him there was not a power or party that he had not alienated--the Cavaliers and Tories who fought for his father, and supported his brother through a thousand arbitrary measures; the Church, the Dissenters, the army, the navy, the bench, the bar, the whole people, held in constant terror of being made the abject victims of Popish domination, he had, in his insane rage for his religion, offended, injured, and alarmed beyond measure. He now sought to win back the able Halifax; he issued a proclamation, protesting that he would protect the Church, and maintain the Act of Uniformity; that Catholics should no longer be admitted to Parliament or the Council. He sent for the bishops, and asked for their earnest advice in the restoration of public affairs. He ordered the restoration of the deposed magistrates and lords-lieutenants; he reinstated Compton, Bishop of London; he gave back the charter to the City, and, a few days after, the charters of the provincial corporations; he immediately abolished the Court of High Commission; and finally replaced Dr. Hough and the ejected fellows of Magdalen College in full possession of their house and privileges.

These sweeping concessions showed plainly that the tyrant knew very well how odious his encroachments had been, and that nothing but fear could force their abandonment from his ungenerous soul. They had, therefore, the less effect. There was public rejoicing, indeed, but it was for the victory over the mean despot, not for gratitude for concessions which it was felt would be resumed the moment danger should pass; and this feeling was deepened by an accident. The Bishop of Winchester was sent down to Oxford to formally reinstate the principal and fellows of Magdalen, but was as suddenly recalled; and this event, coupled with a rumour that the Dutch fleet had put to sea, but was dispersed by a storm and put back, made the people more firmly conclude that no faith could be reposed in the words of James. The bishop, it was contended, had been temporarily recalled on urgent affairs; but the effect remained the same. Still, the City of London celebrated the recovery of its charter with much rejoicing, and sent a deputation to express their gratitude to the king. The Dukes of Somerset, Ormond, and Newcastle, the Marquis of Winchester, the Earls of Derby, Nottingham, and Danby, and the Bishop of London, declared their fidelity, and the prelates issued a form of prayer for the safety and prosperity of the royal family.

Whilst James was exerting himself to conciliate his subjects, he was equally industrious in putting the kingdom into a posture of defence. He made Lord Dartmouth Commander of the Fleet, which consisted of thirty-seven men-of-war, and seven fire-ships--a naval force inferior to that of the prince, and, still worse, weak in the principles of loyalty, though Dartmouth himself might be relied on. His army, including about six thousand Irish and Scots, amounted to forty thousand men--more than enough to repel the force of the invaders, had the hearts of the men been in the cause.

William was compelled to delay his embarkation for more than a week by tempestuous weather. His fleet, under the command of Herbert, which was lying off Scheveningen, on the 28th of September, was compelled to seek shelter in Helvoetsluys. The wind raged furiously till the 15th of October, and public prayers were offered in the churches for more favourable weather. All attempts to invade England had, since William of Normandy's enterprise, been notoriously defeated by storms; and the people became so superstitious on this head that it was found necessary, under severe penalties, to forbid foreboding language. On the 16th, the wind abating, William took a solemn leave of the States-General. He thanked them for their long and devoted support of him in his endeavours for the independence of Europe, and committed his wife to their protection whilst he was absent for the same great object, and the security of the Protestant religion. He declared that if he died it would be as their servant; if he lived, it would be as their friend. The Pensionary Fagel, now old and failing, replied with great emotion; and, amid the tears of most present, William stood like a stoic, without any visible agitation. The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to the water side, and that evening he went on board his frigate the _Brill_. The next day a public fast was held in the Hague, with sermons and prayers for the success of the expedition, and Mary continued to retain her place in the church in public during the long service from half-past ten in the morning till half-past seven in the afternoon.

On the afternoon of the 19th the fleet sailed from Helvoetsluys, the men-of-war, in three divisions, forming a long line out at sea, and the transports driving before the breeze nearer land. The day was fine, the wind steady from the south-west; and as the eventful squadron passed the sandy downs of Scheveningen, the inhabitants of the Hague crowded them in thousands, and raised acclamations of anticipated success. But the scene rapidly changed. By ten o'clock at night a furious tempest was again raging, which dispersed the fleet, sank one ship, damaged many others, compelled them to throw overboard great quantities of stores, and destroyed a thousand horses through their being closed down under hatches. The fleet managed to regain Helvoetsluys, which William himself reached on the 21st. He refused to go on shore, but sent to the States for fresh supplies, and busied himself in pushing on his repairs.