Chapter XIV: The Reign of James II (3)

[87] It is well known that the House of Commons, in 1685, would not pass the bill for reversing Lord Stafford's attainder, against which a few peers had entered a very spirited protest. _Parl. Hist._ 1361. Barillon says, this was "parce que dans le préambule il y a des mots insérés qui semblent favoriser la religion catholique; cela seul a retardé la rehabilitation du Comte de Stafford dont tous sont d'accord à l'égard du fond." Fox, App. p. 110. But there was another reason which might have weight. Stafford had been convicted on the evidence, not only of Oates, who had been lately found guilty of perjury, but of several other witnesses, especially Dugdale and Turberville. And these men had been brought forward by the government against Lord Shaftesbury and College, the latter of whom had been hanged on their testimony. The reversal of Lord Stafford's attainder, just as we now think it, would have been a disgrace to these Crown prosecutions; and a conscientious tory would be loth to vote for it.

[88] "In all the disputes relating to that mystery before the civil wars, the church of England protestant writers owned the real presence, and only abstracted from the _modus_ or manner of Christ's body being present in the eucharist, and therefore durst not say but it might be there by transubstantiation as well as by any other way.... It was only of late years that such principles have crept into the church of England; which, having been blown into the parliament house, had raised continual tumults about religion ever since. Those unlearned and fanatical notions were never heard of till Doctor Stillingfleet's late invention of them, by which he exposed himself to the lash, not only of the Roman catholics, but to that of many of the church of England controvertists too." _Life of James_, ii. 146.

[89] See _London Gazettes_, 1685, _passim_: the most remarkable are inserted by Ralph and Kennet. I am sure the addresses which we have witnessed in this age among a neighbouring people are not on the whole more fulsome and disgraceful. Addresses, however, of all descriptions, as we well know, are generally the composition of some zealous individual, whose expressions are not to be taken as entirely those of the subscribers. Still these are sufficient to manifest the general spirit of the times.

The king's popularity at his accession, which all contemporary writers attest, is strongly expressed by Lord Lonsdale. "The great interest he had in his brother, so that all applications to the king seemed to succeed only as he favoured them, and the general opinion of him to be a prince steady above all others to his word, made him at that time the most popular prince that had been known in England for a long time. And from men's attempting to exclude him, they, at this juncture of time, made him their darling; no more was his religion terrible; his magnanimous courage, and the hardships he had undergone, were the discourse of all men. And some reports of a misunderstanding betwixt the French king and him, occasioned originally by the marriage of the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange, industriously spread abroad to amuse the ignorant, put men in hopes of what they had long wished; that, by a conjunction of Holland and Spain, etc., we might have been able to reduce France to the terms of the Pyrenean treaty, which was now become the terror of Christendom, we never having had a prince for many ages that had so great a reputation for experience and a martial spirit."--P. 3. This last sentence is a truly amusing contrast to the real truth; James having been, in his brother's reign, the most obsequious and unhesitating servant of the French king.

[90] "On voit qu'insensiblement les Catholiques auront les armes à la main; c'est un état bien différent de l'oppression où ils étoient, et dont les protestans zélés recoivent une grande mortification; ils voyent bien que le roy d'Angleterre fera le reste quand il le pourra. La levée des troupes, qui seront bientot complettes, fait juger que le roy d'Angleterre veut être en état de se faire obéir, et de n'être pas gêné par les loix qui se trouveront contraires à ce qu'il veut établir." Barillon in Fox's Appendix, 111. "Il me paroit (he says, June 25), que le roy d'Angleterre a été fort aisé d'avoir une prétexte de lever des troupes, et qu'il croit que l'entreprise de M. le duc de Monmouth ne servira qu'à le rendre plus maître de sons pays." And on July 30: "le projet du roy d'Angleterre est d'abolir entièrement les milices, dont il a reconnu l'inutilité et le danger en cette dernière occasion; et de faire, s'il est possible, que le parlement établisse le fond destiné pour les milices à l'entretien des troupes réglées. Tout cela change entièrement l'état de ce pays ici, et met les Anglois dans une condition bien différente de celle où ils ont été jusques à present. Ils le connoissent, et voyent bien qu'un roy de différente religion que celle du pays, et qui se trouve armé, ne renoncera pas aisément aux avantages que lui donne la défaite des rebelles, et les troupes qu'il a sur pied." And afterwards: "Le roi d'Angleterre m'a dit que quoiqu'il arrive, il conservera les troupes sur pied, quand même le parlement ne lui donneroit pour les entretenir. Il connoit bien que le parlement verra mal volontiers cet établissement; mais il veut être assuré du dedans de son pays, et il croit ne le pouvoir être sans cela." Dalrymple, 169, 170.

[91] Fox's App. 69; Dalrymple, 153.

[92] It had been the intention of Sunderland and the others to dissolve parliament, as soon as the revenue for life should be settled, and to rely in future on the assistance of France. Fox's App. 59, 60; Mazure, i. 432. But this was prevented, partly by the sudden invasion of Monmouth, which made a new session necessary, and gave hopes of a large supply for the army; and partly by the unwillingness of the King of France to advance as much money as the English government wanted. In fact, the plan of continual prorogations answered as well.

[93] Journals, Nov. 14. Barillon says that the king answered this humble address, "avec des marques de fierté et de colère sur le visage, qui faisoit assez connôitre ses sentimens." Dalrymple, 172. See too his letter in Fox, 139.

A motion was made to ask the Lords' concurrence in this address, which, according to the journals, was lost by 212 to 138. In the _Life of James_, ii. 55, it is said that it was carried against the motion by only four voices; and this I find confirmed by a manuscript account of the debates (Sloane MSS. 1470), which gives the numbers 212 to 208. The journal probably is mis-printed, as the court and country parties were very equal. It is said in this manuscript, that those who opposed the address, opposed also the motion for requesting the Lords' concurrence in it; but James represents it otherwise, as a device of the court to quash the proceeding.

[94] Coke, 12 Rep. 18.

[95] Vaughan's Reports; Thomas _v._ Sorrell, 333.

[96] Burnet and others. This hardly appears by Northey's argument.

[97] _State Trials_, xi. 1165-1280; 2 Shower's _Reports_, 475.

[98] The dissentient judge was Street; and Powell doubted. The king had privately secured this opinion of the bench in his favour before the action was brought. _Life of James_, ii. 79.

[99] _State Trials_, xi. 1132 _et seq._ The members of the commission were the primate Sancroft (who never sat), Crew and Sprat, Bishops of Durham and Rochester the chancellor Jefferies, the Earls of Rochester and Sunderland, and Chief-Justice Herbert. Three were to form a quorum, but the chancellor necessarily to be one. Ralph, 929. The Earl of Mulgrave was introduced afterwards.

[100] Mazure, ii. 130.

[101] Henry Earl of Clarendon's papers, ii. 278. In Gutch's _Collectanea Curiosa_, vol. i. p. 287, we find not only this license to Massey, but one to Obadiah Walker, master of University College, and to two fellows of the same, and one of Brazen-nose College, to absent themselves from church, and not to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, or do any other thing to which, by the laws and statutes of the realm, or those of the college, they are obliged. There is also, in the same book, a dispensation for one Sclater, curate of Putney, and rector of Esher, from using the common prayer, etc., etc. _Id._ p. 290. These are in May 1686, and subscribed by Powis, the solicitor-general. The attorney-general, Sawyer, had refused; as we learn from Reresby, p. 133, the only contemporary writer, perhaps, who mentions this very remarkable aggression on the established church.

[102] The catholic lords, according to Barillon, had represented to the king, that nothing could be done with parliament so long as the treasurer caballed against the designs of his majesty. James promised to dismiss him if he did not change his religion. Mazure, ii. 170. The queen had previously been rendered his enemy by the arts of Sunderland, who persuaded her that Lord and Lady Rochester had favoured the king's intimacy with the Countess of Dorchester in order to thwart the popish intrigue. _Id._ 149. "On voit," says Barillon, on the treasurer's dismissal, "que la cabale catholique a entièrement prevalu. On s'attendoit depuis quelque temps à ce qui est arrivé au comte de Rochester; mais l'exécution fait encore une nouvelle impression sur les esprits."--P. 181.

[103] _Life of James_, 74. Barillon frequently mentions this cabal, as having in effect the whole conduct of affairs in their hands. Sunderland belonged to them; but Jefferies, being reckoned on the protestant side, had, I believe, very little influence for at least the two latter years of the king's reign. "Les affaires de ce pays-ci," says Bonrepos, in 1686, "ne roulent à présent que sur la religion. Le roi est absolument gouverné par les catholiques. My Lord Sunderland ne se maintient que par ceux-ci, et par son dévouement à faire tout ce qu'il croit être agréable sur ce point. Il a le secret des affaires de Rome." Mazure, ii. 124. "On feroit ici," says Barillon, the same year, "ce que on fait en France" [that is, I suppose, dragonner et fusilier les hérétiques] "si l'on pouvoit espérer de réussir."--P. 127.

[104] Rochester makes so very bad a figure in all Barillon's correspondence, that there really seems no want of candour in this supposition. He was evidently the most active co-operator in the connection of both the brothers with France, and seems to have had as few compunctious visitings, where the church of England was not concerned, as Sunderland himself. Godolphin was too much implicated, at least by acquiescence, in the counsels of this reign; yet we find him suspected of not wishing "se passer entièrement de parlement, et à rompre nettement avec le prince d'Orange." Fox, Append, p. 60.

If Rochester had gone over to the Romanists, many, probably, would have followed: on the other hand, his steadiness retained the wavering. It was one of the first great disappointments with which the king met. But his dismissal from the treasury created a sensible alarm. Dalrymple, 179.

[105] Lord Dartmouth wrote to say that Fletcher told him there were good grounds to suspect that the prince, underhand, encouraged the expedition, with design to ruin the Duke of Monmouth; and this Dalrymple believes. P. 136. It is needless to observe, that such subtle and hazardous policy was totally out of William's character; nor is there much more reason to believe what is insinuated by James himself (Macpherson's _Extracts_, p. 144; _Life of James_, ii. 34), that Sunderland had been in secret correspondence with Monmouth; unless indeed it were, as seems hinted in the latter work, with the king's knowledge.

[106] The number of persons who suffered the sentence of the law, in the famous western assize of Jefferies, has been differently stated; but according to a list in the Harleian Collection, n. 4689, it appears to be as follows: at Winchester, one (Mrs. Lisle) executed; at Salisbury, none; at Dorchester, 74 executed, 171 transported; at Exeter, 14 executed, 7 transported; at Taunton, 144 executed, 284 transported; at Wells, 97 executed, 393 transported. In all, 330 executed, 855 transported; besides many that were left in custody for want of evidence. It may be observed, that the prisoners sentenced to transportation appear to have been made over to some gentlemen of interest at court; among others, to Sir Christopher Musgrave, who did not blush to beg the grant of their unfortunate countrymen, to be sold as slaves in the colonies.

The apologists of James II. have endeavoured to lay the entire blame of these cruelties on Jefferies, and to represent the king as ignorant of them. Roger North tells a story of his brother's interference, which is plainly contradicted by known dates, and the falsehood of which throws just suspicion on his numerous anecdotes. See _State Trials_, xi. 303. But the king speaks with apparent approbation of what he calls Jefferies's campaign, in writing to the Prince of Orange (Dalrymple, 165); and I have heard that there are extant additional proofs of his perfect acquaintance with the details of those assizes; nor, indeed, can he be supposed ignorant of them. Jefferies himself, before his death, declared that he had not been half bloody enough for him by whom he was employed. Burnet, 651 (note to Oxford edition, vol. iii.). The king, or his biographer in his behalf, makes a very awkward apology for the execution of Major Holmes, which is shown by himself to have been a gross breach of faith. _Life of James_, ii. 43.

It is unnecessary to dwell on what may be found in every history: the trials of Mrs. Lisle, Mrs. Gaunt, and Alderman Cornish; the former before Jefferies, the two latter before Jones, his successor as chief justice of K. B., a judge nearly as infamous as the former, though not altogether so brutal. Both Mrs. Lisle's and Cornish's convictions were without evidence, and consequently were reversed after the revolution. _State Trials_, vol. xi.

[107] Several proofs of this appear in the correspondence of Barillon. Fox, 135; Mazure, ii. 22. The nuncio, M. d'Adda, was a moderate man, and united with the moderate catholic peers, Bellasis, Arundel, and Powis. _Id._ 127. This party urged the king to keep on good terms with the Prince of Orange, and to give way about the test. _Id._ 184, 255. They were disgusted at Father Petre's introduction into the privy council; 308, 353. But it has ever been the misfortune of that respectable body to suffer unjustly for the follies of a few. Barillon admits, very early in James's reign, that many of them disliked the arbitrary proceedings of the court; "ils prétendent être bons Anglois, c'est-à-dire, ne pas désirer que le roi d'Angleterre ôte à la nation ses privilèges et ses libertés." Mazure, i. 404.

William openly declared his willingness to concur in taking off the penal laws, provided the test might remain. Burnet, 694; Dalrymple, 184; Mazure, ii. 216, 250, 346. James replied that he must have all or nothing. _Id._ 353.

[108] I do not know that this intrigue has been brought to light before the recent valuable publication of M. Mazure, certainly not with such full evidence. See i. 417; ii. 128, 160, 165, 167, 182, 188, 192. Barillon says to his master in one place: "C'est une matière fort délicate à traiter. Je sais pourtant qu'on en parle au roi d'Angleterre; et qu'avec le temps on ne désespère pas de trouver des moyens pour faire passer la couronne sur la tête d'un heritier catholique. Il faut pour cela venir à bout de beaucoup des choses qui ne sont encore que commencées."

[109] Burnet, Dalrymple, Mazure.

[110] The correspondence began by an affectedly obscure letter of Lady Sunderland to the Prince of Orange, dated March 7, 1687. Dalrymple, 187. The meaning, however, cannot be misunderstood. Sunderland himself sent a short letter of compliment by Dykvelt, May 28, referring to what that envoy had to communicate. Churchill, Nottingham, Rochester, Devonshire, and others, wrote also by Dykvelt. Halifax was in correspondence at the end of 1686.

[111] Sunderland does not appear, by the extracts from Barillon's letters published by M. Mazure, to have been the adviser of the king's most injudicious measures. He was united with the queen, who had more moderation than her husband. It is said by Barillon that both he and Petre were against the prosecution of the bishops, ii. 448. The king himself ascribes this step to Jefferies, and seems to glance also at Sunderland as its adviser. _Life of James_, ii. 156. He speaks more explicitly as to Jefferies in Macpherson's _Extracts_, 151. Yet Lord Clarendon's _Diary_, ii. 49, tends to acquit Jefferies. Probably the king had nobody to blame but himself. One cause of Sunderland's continuance in the apparent support of a policy which he knew to be destructive was his poverty. He was in the pay of France, and even importunate for its money. Mazure, 372; Dalrymple, 270 _et post_. Louis only gave him half what he demanded. Without the blindest submission to the king, he was every moment falling; and this drove him in to a step as injudicious as it was unprincipled, his pretended change of religion, which was not publicly made till June 1688, though he had been privately reconciled, it is said (Mazure, ii. 463) more than a year before by Father Petre.

[112] "This defection of those his majesty had hitherto put the greatest confidence in [Clarendon and Rochester], and the sullen disposition of the church of England party in general, made him think it necessary to reconcile another; and yet he hoped to do it in such a manner as not to disgust quite the church-man neither." _Life of James_, ii. 102.

[113] _London Gazette_, March 18, 1687; Ralph, 945.

[114] Ralph, 943; Mazure, ii. 207.

[115] _London Gazette_, June 9, 1687. Shower had been knighted a little before, on presenting, as recorder of London, an address from the grand jury of Middlesex, thanking the king for his declaration. _Id._ May 12.

[116] _London Gazette_ of 1687 and 1688, _passim_; Ralph, 946, 368. These addresses grew more ardent after the queen's pregnancy became known. They were renewed of course, after the birth of the Prince of Wales. But scarce any appear after the expected invasion was announced. The Tories (to whom add the dissenters) seem to have thrown off the mask at once, and deserted the king whom they had so grossly flattered, as instantaneously as parasites on the stage desert their patron on the first tidings of his ruin.

The dissenters have been a little ashamed of their compliance with the declaration, and of their silence in the popish controversy during this reign. Neal, 755, 768; and see _Biogr. Brit._ art. Alsop. The best excuses are, that they had been so harassed that it was not in human nature to refuse a mitigation of suffering on almost any terms; that they were by no means unanimous in their transitory support of the court; and that they gladly embraced the first offers of an equal indulgence held out to them by the church.

[117] "The king now finding that nothing which had the least appearance of novelty, though never so well warranted by the prerogative, would go down with the people, unless it had the parliamentary stamp on it, resolved to try if he could get the penal laws and test taken off by that authority." _Life of James_, ii. 134. But it seems by M. Mazure's authorities, that neither the king nor Lord Sunderland wished to convoke a parliament, which was pressed forward by the eager catholics, ii. 399.

[118] _Life of James_, p. 139.

[119] Ralph, 965, 966. The object was to let in the dissenters. This was evidently a desperate game: James had ever mortally hated the sectaries as enemies to monarchy; and they were irreconcilably adverse to all his schemes.

[120] Burnet; _Life of James_, 169; D'Oyly's _Life of Sancroft_, i. 326. Lord Halifax, as is supposed, published a letter of advice to the dissenters, warning them against a coalition with the court, and promising all indulgence from the church. Ralph, 950; _Somers Tracts_, viii. 50.

[121] Ralph, 967; Lonsdale, p. 15. "It is to be observed," says the author of this memoir, "that most part of the offices in the nation, as justices of the peace, deputy-lieutenants, mayors, aldermen, and freemen of towns, are filled with Roman catholics and dissenters, after having suffered as many regulations as were necessary for that purpose. And thus stands the state of this nation in this month of September 1688."--P. 34. Notice is given in the _London Gazette_ for December 11, 1687, that the lists of justices and deputy-lieutenants would be revised.

[122] _Life of James_, 183.

[123] Mazure, ii. 302.

[124] The reader will find almost everything relative to the subject in that incomparable repertory, the _State Trials_, xii. 1; also some notes in the Oxford edition of Burnet.

[125] Parker's _Reasons for Abrogating the Test_ are written in such a tone as to make his readiness to abandon the protestant side very manifest, even if the common anecdotes of him should be exaggerated.

[126] It seems, however, confirmed by Mazure, ii. 390, with the addition, that Petre, like a second Wolsey, aspired also to be chancellor. The pope, however, would not make him a bishop, against the rules of the order of jesuits to which he belonged. _Id._ 241. James then tried, through Lord Castlemain, to get him a cardinal's hat, but with as little success.

[127] "Above twenty years together," says Sir Roger L'Estrange, perhaps himself a disguised catholic, in his reply to the reasons of the clergy of the diocese of Oxford against petitioning (_Somers Tracts_, viii. 45), "without any regard to the nobility, gentry, and commonalty, our clergy have been publishing to the world that the king can do greater things than are done in his declaration; but now the scene is altered, and they are become more concerned to maintain their reputation even with the commonalty than with the king." See also in the same volume, p. 19. "A remonstrance from the church of England to both houses of parliament," 1685; and p. 145, "A new test of the church of England's loyalty;" both, especially the latter, bitterly reproaching her members for their apostacy from former professions.

[128] Ralph, 982.

[129] See _State Trials_, xii. 183; D'Oyly's _Life of Sancroft_, i. 250.

[130] Fox, App. 29; Dalrymple, 107; Mazure, i. 396, 433.

[131] Several proofs of this occur in the course of M. Mazure's work. When the Dutch ambassador, Van Citers, showed him a paper, probably forged to exasperate him, but purporting to be written by some catholics, wherein it was said that it would be better for the people to be vassals of France than slaves of the devil, he burst out into rage. "Jamais! non, jamais! je ne ferai rien qui me puisse mettre au dessous des rois de France et d'Espagne. Vassal, vassal de la France!" s'écria-t-il avec emportement. "Monsieur! si le parlement avoit voulu, s'il vouloit encore, j'aurois porté, je porterois encore la monarchie a un de considération qu'elle n'a jamais eu sous aucune des rois mes prédécesseurs, et votre état y trouveroit peut-être sa propre sécurité.'" Vol. ii. 165. Sunderland said to Barillon, "Le roi d'Angleterre se reproche de ne pas être en Europe tout ce qu'il devoit être; et souvent il se plaint que le roi votre maître n'a pas pour lui assez de considération." _Id._ 313. On the other hand, Louis was much mortified that James made so few applications for his aid. His hope seems to have been that by means of French troops, or troops at least in his pay, he should get a footing in England; and this was what the other was too proud and jealous to permit. "Comme le roi," he said, in 1687, "ne doute pas de mon affection et du désir que j'ai de voir la religion catholique bien établie en Angleterre, il faut croire qu'il se trouve assez de force et d'autorité pour exécuter ses desseins, puis-qu'il n'a pas recours à moi."--P. 258; also 174, 225, 320.

[132] James affected the same ceremonial as the King of France, and received the latter's ambassador sitting and covered. Louis only said, smiling, "Le roi mon frère est fier, mais il aime assez les pistoles de France." Mazure, i. 423. A more extraordinary trait of James's pride is mentioned by Dangeau, whom I quote from the _Quarterly Review_, xix. 470. After his retirement to St. Germains, he wore violets in court mourning; which, by etiquette, was confined to the kings of France. The courtiers were a little astonished to see _solem geminum_, though not at a loss where to worship. Louis, of course, had too much magnanimity to express resentment. But what a picture of littleness of spirit does this exhibit in a wretched pauper, who could only escape by the most contemptible insignificance the charge of most ungrateful insolence!

[133] Mazure, iii. 50. James was so much out of humour at D'Avaux's interference, that he asked his confidents, "if the King of France thought he could treat him like the cardinal of Furstenburg," a creature of Louis XIV. whom he had set up for the electorate of Cologne. _Id._ 69. He was in short so much displeased with his own ambassador at the Hague, Skelton, for giving into his declaration of D'Avaux, that he not only recalled but sent him to the Tower. Burnet is therefore mistaken (p. 768) in believing that there was actually an alliance, though it was very natural that he should give credit to what an ambassador asserted in a matter of such importance. In fact, a treaty was signed between James and Louis, Sept. 13, by which some French ships were to be under the former's orders. Mazure, iii. 67.

[134] Louis continued to find money, though despising James and disgusted with him, probably with a view to his own grand interests. He should, nevertheless, have declared war against Holland in October, which must have put a stop to the armament. But he had discovered that James with extreme meanness had privately offered, about the end of September, to join the alliance against him as the only resource. This wretched action is first brought to light by M. Mazure, iii. 104. He excused himself to the King of France by an assurance that he was not acting sincerely towards Holland. Louis, though he gave up his intention of declaring war, behaved with great magnanimity and compassion towards the falling bigot.

[135] Halifax all along discouraged the invasion, pointing out that the king made no progress in his schemes. Dalrymple, _passim_. Nottingham said he would keep the secret, but could not be a party to a treasonable undertaking. _Id._ 228; Burnet, 764; and wrote as late as July to advise delay and caution. Notwithstanding the splendid success of the opposite counsels, it would be judging too servilely by the event not to admit that they were tremendously hazardous.

[136] The invitation to William seems to have been in debate some time before the Prince of Wales's birth; but it does not follow that it would have been despatched if the queen had borne a daughter; nor do I think that it should have been.

[137] Ralph, 980; Mazure, ii. 367.

[138] Dalrymple, 216, 228. The prince was urged in the memorial of the seven to declare the fraud of the queen's pregnancy to be one of the grounds of his expedition. He did this: and it is the only part of his declaration that is false.

[139] _State Trials_, xii. 151. Mary put some very sensible questions to her sister, which show her desire of reaching the truth in so important a matter. They were answered in a style which shows that Anne did not mean to lessen her sister's suspicions. Dalrymple, 305. Her conversation with Lord Clarendon on this subject, after the depositions had been taken, is a proof that she had made up her mind not to be convinced. Henry Earl of Clarendon's _Diary_, 77, 79; _State Trials_, ubi supra.

[140] M. Mazure has collected all the passages in the letters of Barillon and Bonrepos to the court of France relative to the queen's pregnancy (ii. 366); and those relative to the birth of the Prince of Wales. P. 547. It is to be observed that this took place more than a month before the time expected.

[141] Montesquieu.

[142] Some short pamphlets, written at this juncture to excite sympathy for the king, and disapprobation of the course pursued with respect to him, are in the Somers Collection, vol. ix. But this force put upon their sovereign first wounded the consciences of Sancroft and the other bishops, who had hitherto done as much as in their station they well could to ruin the king's cause and paralyse his arms. Several modern writers have endeavoured to throw an interest about James at the moment of his fall, either from a lurking predilection for all legitimately crowned heads, or from a notion that it becomes a generous historian to excite compassion for the unfortunate. There can be no objection to pitying James, if this feeling is kept unmingled with any blame of those who were the instruments of this misfortune. It was highly expedient for the good of this country, because the revolution settlement could not otherwise be attained, to work on James's sense of his deserted state by intimidation; and for that purpose the order conveyed by three of his own subjects, perhaps with some rudeness of manner, to leave Whitehall was necessary. The drift of several accounts of the revolution that may be read is to hold forth Mulgrave, Craven, Arran, and Dundee to admiration, at the expense of William and of those who achieved the great consolidation of English liberty.

[143] _Parl. Hist._ v. 26. The former address on the king's first quitting London, signed by the peers and bishops, who met at Guildhall, Dec. 11, did not, in express terms, desire the Prince of Orange to assume the government, or to call a parliament, though it evidently tended to that result, censuring the king and extolling the prince's conduct. _Id._ 19. It was signed by the archbishop, his last public act. Burnet has exposed himself to the lash of Ralph by stating this address of Dec. 11 incorrectly.

[144] Commons' Journals; _Parl. Hist._

[145] Somerville and several other writers have not accurately stated the question; and suppose the Lords to have debated whether the throne, on the hypothesis of its vacancy, should be filled by a king or a regent. Such a mode of putting the question would have been absurd. I observe that M. Mazure has been deceived by these authorities.

[146] _Parl. Hist._ 61. The chief speakers on this side were old Sir Thomas Clarges, brother-in-law of General Monk, who had been distinguished as an opponent of administration under Charles and James, and Mr. Finch, brother of Lord Nottingham, who had been solicitor-general to Charles, but was removed in the late reign.

[147] James is called "the late king" in a resolution of the Lords on Feb. 2.

[148] 13 Car. II. c. i.; 17 Car. II. c. ii.

[149] This was carried by sixty-two to forty-seven, according to Lord Clarendon; several of the tories going over, and others who had been hitherto absent coming down to vote. Forty peers protested, including twelve bishops, out of seventeen present. Trelawney, who had voted against the regency, was one of them; but not Compton, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Crewe, Sprat, or Hall; the three former, I believe, being in the majority. Lloyd had been absent when the vote passed against a regency, out of unwillingness to disagree with the majority of his brethren; but he was entirely of Burnet's mind. The votes of the bishops are not accurately stated in most books; which has induced me to mention them here. Lords' Journals, Feb. 6.

[150] It had been resolved, Jan. 29, that before the committee proceed to fill the throne now vacant, they will proceed to secure our religion, laws, and liberties.

[151] See Burnet's remarkable conversation with Bentinck, wherein the former warmly opposed the settlement of the crown on the Prince of Orange alone, as Halifax had suggested. But nothing in it is more remarkable than that the bishop does not perceive that this was virtually done; for it would be difficult to prove that Mary's royalty differed at all from that of a queen consort, except in having her name in the style. She was exactly in the same predicament as Philip had been during his marriage with Mary I. Her admirable temper made her acquiesce in this exclusion from power, which the sterner character of her husband demanded; and with respect to the conduct of the convention, it must be observed that the nation owed her no particular debt of gratitude, nor had she any better claim than her sister to fill a throne by election, which had been declared vacant. In fact, there was no middle course between what was done, and following the precedent of Philip, as to which Bentinck said, he fancied the Prince would not like to be his wife's gentleman usher; for a divided sovereignty was a monstrous and impracticable expedient in theory, however the submissive disposition of the queen might have prevented its mischiefs. Burnet seems to have had a puzzled view of this; for he says afterwards, "it seemed to be a double-bottomed monarchy, where there were two joint sovereigns; but those who know the queen's temper and principles had no apprehensions of divided counsels, or of a distracted government." Vol. ii. 2. The convention had not trusted to the queen's temper and principles. It required a distinct act of parliament (2 W. and M. c. 6) to enable her to exercise the regal power during the king's absence from England.