Chapter XV: On the Reign of William III (4)

But, if the chief ministers of the Crown are indispensably to be present in one or other house of parliament, it by no means follows that the doors should be thrown open to all those subaltern retainers, who, too low to have had any participation in the measures of government, come merely to earn their salaries by a sure and silent vote. Unless some limitation could be put on the number of such officers, they might become the majority of every parliament, especially if its duration were indefinite or very long. It was always the popular endeavour of the opposition, or, as it was usually denominated, the country party, to reduce the number of these dependants; and as constantly the whole strength of the court was exerted to keep them up. William, in truth, from his own errors, and from the disadvantage of the times, would not venture to confide in an unbiassed parliament. On the formation, however, of a new board of revenue, in 1694, for managing the stamp-duties, its members were incapacitated from sitting in the House of Commons.[283] This, I believe, is the first instance of exclusion on account of employment; and a similar act was obtained in 1699, extending this disability to the commissioners and some other officers of excise.[284] But when the absolute exclusion of all civil and military officers by the act of settlement was found, on cool reflection, too impracticable to be maintained, and a revision of that article took place in the year 1706, the House of Commons were still determined to preserve at least the principle of limitation, as to the number of placemen within their walls. They gave way indeed to the other house in a considerable degree, receding, with some unwillingness, from a clause specifying expressly the description of offices which should not create a disqualification, and consenting to an entire repeal of the original article.[285] But they established two provisions of great importance, which still continue the great securities against an overwhelming influence: first, that every member of the House of Commons accepting an office under the Crown, except a higher commission in the army, shall vacate his seat, and a new writ shall issue; secondly, that no person holding an office created since the 25th of October 1705, shall be capable of being elected or re-elected at all. They excluded at the same time all such as held pensions during the pleasure of the Crown; and, to check the multiplication of placemen, enacted, that no greater number of commissioners should be appointed to execute any office than had been employed in its execution at some time before that parliament.[286] These restrictions ought to be rigorously and jealously maintained, and to receive a construction, in doubtful cases, according to their constitutional spirit; not as if they were of a penal nature towards individuals, an absurdity in which the careless and indulgent temper of modern times might sometimes acquiesce.

_Independence of judges._--It had been the practice of the Stuarts, especially in the last years of their dynasty, to dismiss judges, without seeking any other pretence, who showed any disposition to thwart government in political prosecutions. The general behaviour of the bench had covered it with infamy. Though the real security for an honest court of justice must be found in their responsibility to parliament and to public opinion, it was evident that their tenure in office must, in the first place, cease to be precarious, and their integrity rescued from the severe trial of forfeiting the emoluments upon which they subsisted. In the debates previous to the declaration of rights, we find that several speakers insisted on making the judges' commissions _quamdiu se bene gesserint_, that is, during life or good behaviour, instead of _durante placito_, at the discretion of the Crown. The former, indeed, is said to have been the ancient course till the reign of James I. But this was omitted in the hasty and imperfect bill of rights. The commissions however of William's judges ran _quamdiu se bene gesserint_. But the king gave an unfortunate instance of his very injudicious tenacity of bad prerogatives, in refusing his assent, in 1692, to a bill that had passed both houses, for establishing this independence of the judges by law and confirming their salaries.[287] We owe this important provision to the act of settlement; not as ignorance and adulation have perpetually asserted, to his late majesty George III. No judge can be dismissed from office, except in consequence of a conviction for some offence, or the address of both houses of parliament, which is tantamount to an act of the legislature.[288] It is always to be kept in mind that they are still accessible to the hope of further promotion, to the zeal of political attachment, to the flattery of princes and ministers; that the bias of their prejudices, as elderly and peaceable men, will, in a plurality of cases, be on the side of power; that they have very frequently been trained, as advocates, to vindicate every proceeding of the Crown; from all which we should look on them with some little vigilance, and not come hastily to a conclusion that, because their commissions cannot be vacated by the Crown's authority, they are wholly out of the reach of its influence. I would by no means be misinterpreted, as if the general conduct of our courts of justice since the revolution, and especially in later times, which in most respects have been the best times, were not deserving of that credit it has usually gained; but possibly it may have been more guided and kept straight than some are willing to acknowledge by the spirit of observation and censure which modifies and controls our whole government.

The last clause in the act of settlement, that a pardon under the great seal shall not be pleadable in bar of an impeachment, requires no particular notice beyond what has been said on the subject in a former chapter.[289]

_Oath of abjuration._--In the following session a new parliament having been assembled, in which the tory faction had less influence than in the last, and Louis XIV. having, in the meantime, acknowledged the son of James as King of England, the natural resentment of this insult and breach of faith was shown in a more decided assertion of revolution principles than had hitherto been made. The pretended king was attainted of high treason; a measure absurd as a law, but politic as a denunciation of perpetual enmity.[290] It was made high treason to correspond with him, or remit money for his service. And a still more vigorous measure was adopted, an oath to be taken, not only by all civil officers, but by all ecclesiastics, members of the universities, and schoolmasters, acknowledging William as lawful and rightful king, and denying any right or title in the pretended Prince of Wales.[291] The tories, and especially Lord Nottingham, had earnestly contended, in the beginning of the king's reign, against those words on the act of recognition, which asserted William and Mary to be rightfully and lawfully king and queen. They opposed the association at the time of the assassination plot, on account of the same epithets, taking a distinction which satisfied the narrow understanding of Nottingham, and served as a subterfuge for more cunning men, between a king whom they were bound in all cases to obey and one whom they could style rightful and lawful. These expressions were in fact slightly modified on that occasion; yet fifteen peers and ninety-two commoners declined, at least for a time, to sign it. The present oath of abjuration therefore was a signal victory of the whigs who boasted of the revolution over the tories who excused it.[292] The renunciation of the hereditary right, for at this time few of the latter party believed in the young man's spuriousness, was complete and unequivocal. The dominant faction might enjoy perhaps a charitable pleasure in exposing many of their adversaries, and especially the high church clergy, to the disgrace and remorse of perjury. Few or none however who had taken the oath of allegiance, refused this additional cup of bitterness, though so much less defensible, according to the principles they had employed to vindicate their compliance in the former instance; so true it is that, in matters of conscience, the first scruple is the only one which it costs much to overcome. But the imposition of this test, as was evident in a few years, did not check the boldness, or diminish the numbers, of the Jacobites; and I must confess, that of all sophistry that weakens moral obligation, that is the most pardonable, which men employ to escape from this species of tyranny. The state may reasonably make an entire and heartfelt attachment to its authority the condition of civil trust; but nothing more than a promise of peaceable obedience can justly be exacted from those who ask only to obey in peace. There was a bad spirit abroad in the church, ambitious, factious, intolerant, calumnious; but this was not necessarily partaken by all its members, and many excellent men might deem themselves hardly dealt with in requiring their denial of an abstract proposition, which did not appear so totally false according to their notions of the English constitution and the church's doctrine.[293]

FOOTNOTES:

[152] _Parl. Hist._ v. 54.

[153] _Parl. Hist._ v. 108.

[154] Journals, 11 and 12 Feb. 1688-9.

[155] _Parl. Hist._ 345.

[156] Lords' Journals, 22 Nov. 1689.

[157] The guards retained out of the old army disbanded at the king's return, have been already mentioned to have amounted to about 5000 men; though some assert their number at first to have been considerably less. No objection seems to have been made at the time to the continuance of these regiments. But in 1667, on the insult offered to the coasts by the Dutch fleet, a great panic arising, 12,000 fresh troops were hastily levied. The Commons, on July 25, came to an unanimous resolution, that his majesty be humbly desired by such members as are his privy council, that when a peace is concluded, the new-raised forces be disbanded. The king, four days after, in a speech to both houses, said, "he wondered what one thing he had done since his coming into England, to persuade any sober person that he did intend to govern by a standing army; he said he was more an Englishman than to do so. He desired, for as much as concerned him, to preserve the laws," etc. _Parl. Hist._ iv. 363. Next session the two houses thanked him for having disbanded the late raised forces. _Id._ 369. But in 1673, during the second Dutch war, a considerable force having been levied, the House of Commons, after a warm debate, resolved (Nov. 3) that a standing army was a grievance. _Id._ 604. And on February following, that the continuing of any standing forces in this nation, other than the militia, is a great grievance and vexation to the people; and that this house do humbly petition his majesty to cause immediately to be disbanded that part of them that were raised since Jan. 1, 1663. _Id._ 665. This was done not long afterwards; but early in 1678, on the pretext of entering into a war with France, he suddenly raised an army of 20,000 men or more, according to some accounts, which gave so much alarm to the parliament, that they would only vote supplies on condition that these troops should be immediately disbanded. _Id._ 985. The king, however, employed the money without doing so; and maintained, in the next session, that it had been necessary to keep them on foot; intimating at the same time, that he was now willing to comply, if the house thought it expedient to disband the troops; which they accordingly voted, with unanimity, to be necessary for the safety of his majesty's person, and preservation of the peace of the government. Nov. 25. _Id._ 1049. James showed, in his speech to parliament (Nov. 9, 1685) that he intended to keep on foot a standing army. _Id._ 1371. But, though that House of Commons was very differently composed from those in his brother's reign, and voted as large a supply as the king required, they resolved that a bill be brought in to render the militia more useful; an oblique and timid hint of their disapprobation of a regular force, against which several members had spoken.

I do not find that any one, even in debate, goes the length of denying that the king might, by his prerogative, maintain a regular army; none at least of the resolutions in the Commons can be said to have that effect.

[158] It is expressly against the petition of right, to quarter troops on the citizens, or to inflict any punishment by martial law. No court martial, in fact, can have any coercive jurisdiction except by statute; unless we should resort to the old tribunal of the constable and marshal. And that this was admitted, even in bad times, we may learn by an odd case in Sir Thomas Jones's _Reports_, 147 (Pasch. 33 Car. 2, 1681). An action was brought for assault and false imprisonment. The defendant pleaded that he was lieutenant-governor of the isle of Scilly, and that the plaintiff was a soldier belonging to the garrison, and that it was the ancient custom of the castle, that if any soldier refused to render obedience, the governor might punish him by imprisonment for a reasonable time; which he had therefore done. The plaintiff demurred, and had judgment in his favour. By demurring, he put it to the court to determine, whether this plea, which is obviously fabricated in order to cover the want of any general right to maintain discipline in this manner, were valid in point of law; which they decided, as it appears, in the negative.

In the next reign, however, an attempt was made to punish deserters capitally, not by a court martial, but on the authority of an ancient act of parliament. Chief-Justice Herbert is said to have resigned his place in the King's Bench rather than come into this. Wright succeeded him; and two deserters, having been convicted, were executed in London. Ralph, 961. I cannot discover that there was anything illegal in the proceeding; and therefore question a little Herbert's motive. See 3 Inst. 96.

[159] See several in the _Somers Tracts_, vol. x. One of these, a "Letter to a Member of the Convention," by Dr. Sherlock, is very ably written: and puts all the consequences of a change of government, as to popular dissatisfaction, etc., much as they turned out, though, of course, failing to show that a treaty with the king would be less open to objection. Sherlock declined for a time to take the oaths; but, complying afterwards, and writing in vindication, or at least excuse, of the revolution, incurred the hostility of the Jacobites, and impaired his own reputation by so interested a want of consistency; for he had been the most eminent champion of passive obedience. Even the distinction he found out, of the lawfulness of allegiance to a king _de facto_, was contrary to his former doctrine.

[160] 1 W. & M. c. 8.

[161] The necessity of excluding men so conscientious, and several of whom had very recently sustained so conspicuously the brunt of the battle against King James, was very painful; and motives of policy, as well as generosity, were not wanting in favour of some indulgence towards them. On the other hand, it was dangerous to admit such a reflection on the new settlement, as would be cast by its enemies, if the clergy, especially the bishops, should be excused from the oath of allegiance. The House of Lords made an amendment in the act requiring this oath, dispensing with it in the case of ecclesiastical persons, unless they should be called upon by the privy-council. This, it was thought, would furnish a security for their peaceable demeanour, without shocking the people and occasioning a dangerous schism. But the Commons resolutely opposed this amendment, as an unfair distinction, and derogatory to the king's title. _Parl. Hist._ 218; Lords' Journals, 17 April 1689. The clergy, however, had six months more time allowed them, in order to take the oath, than the possessors of lay offices.

Upon the whole, I think the reasons for deprivation greatly preponderated. Public prayers for the king by name form part of our liturgy; and it was surely impossible to dispense with the clergy's reading them, which was as obnoxious as the oath of allegiance. Thus the beneficed priests must have been excluded; and it was hardly required to make an exception for the sake of a few bishops, even if difficulties of the same kind would not have occurred in the exercise of their jurisdiction, which hangs upon, and has a perpetual reference to, the supremacy of the Crown.

The king was empowered to reserve a third part of the value of their benefices to any twelve of the recusant clergy. 1 W. & M. c. 8, s. 16. But this could only be done at the expense of their successors; and the behaviour of the nonjurors, who strained every nerve in favour of the dethroned king, did not recommend them to the government. The deprived bishops, though many of them through their late behaviour were deservedly esteemed, cannot be reckoned among the eminent characters of our church for learning or capacity. Sancroft, the most distinguished of them, had not made any remarkable figure; and none of the rest had any pretensions to literary credit. Those who filled their places were incomparably superior. Among the non-juring clergy a certain number were considerable men; but, upon the whole, the well-affected part of the church, not only at the revolution, but for fifty years afterwards, contained by far its most useful and able members. Yet the effect of this expulsion was highly unfavourable to the new government; and it required all the influence of a latitudinarian school of divinity, led by Locke, which was very strong among the laity under William, to counteract it.

[162] Burnet; Ralph, 174, 179.

[163] The parliamentary debates are full of complaints as to the mismanagement of all things in Ireland. These might be thought hasty or factious; but Marshal Schomberg's letters to the king yield them strong confirmation. Dalrymple, Appendix, 26, etc. William's resolution to take the Irish war on himself saved not only that country but England. Our own constitution was won on the Boyne. The star of the house of Stuart grew pale for ever on that illustrious day, when James displayed again the pusillanimity which had cost him his English crown. Yet the best friends of William dissuaded him from going into Ireland, so imminent did the peril appear at home. Dalrymple, _Id._ 97. "Things," says Burnet, "were in a very ill disposition towards a fatal turn."

[164] See the debates on this subject in the _Parliamentary History_, which is a transcript from Anchitel Grey. The whigs, or at least some hot-headed men among them, were certainly too much actuated by a vindictive spirit, and consumed too much time on this necessary bill.

[165] The prominent instance of Sawyer's delinquency, which caused his expulsion, was his refusal of a writ of error to Sir Thomas Armstrong. _Parl. Hist._ 516. It was notorious that Armstrong suffered by a legal murder; and an attorney-general in such a case could not be reckoned as free from personal responsibility as an ordinary advocate who maintains a cause for his fee. The first resolution had been to give reparation out of the estates of the judges and prosecutors to Armstrong's family; which was, perhaps rightly, abandoned.

The House of Lords, who, having a power to examine upon oath, are supposed to sift the truth in such enquiries better than the Commons, were not remiss in endeavouring to bring the instruments of Stuart tyranny to justice. Besides the committee appointed on the very second day of the convention, 23 Jan. 1689, to investigate the supposed circumstances of suspicion as to the death of Lord Essex (a committee renewed afterwards, and formed of persons by no means likely to have abandoned any path that might lead to the detection of guilt in the late king), another was appointed in the second session of the same parliament (Lords' Journals, 2nd Nov. 1689) "to consider who were the advisers and prosecutors of the _murders_ of Lord Russell, Col. Sidney, Armstrong, Cornish, etc., and who were the advisers of issuing out writs of _quo warrantos_ against corporations, and who were their regulators, and also who were the public assertors of the dispensing power." The examinations taken before this committee are printed in the Lords' Journals, 20th Dec. 1699; and there certainly does not appear any want of zeal to convict the guilty. But neither the law nor the proofs would serve them. They could establish nothing against Dudley North, the tory sheriff of 1683, except that he had named Lord Russell's panel himself; which, though irregular and doubtless ill-designed, had unluckily a precedent in the conduct of the famous whig sheriff, Slingsby Bethell; a man who, like North, though on the opposite side, cared more for his party than for decency and justice. Lord Halifax was a good deal hurt in character by this report; and never made a considerable figure afterwards. Burnet, 34. His mortification led him to engage in an intrigue with the late king, which was discovered; yet, I suspect that, with his usual versatility, he again abandoned that cause before his death. Ralph, 467. The act of grace (2 W. & M. c. 10) contained a small number of exceptions, too many indeed for its name; but probably there would have been difficulty in prevailing on the houses to pass it generally; and no one was ever molested afterwards on account of his conduct before the revolution.

[166] _Parl. Hist._ 508 _et post_; Journals, 2nd and 10th Jan. 1689, 1690. Burnet's account is confused and inaccurate, as is very commonly the case: he trusted, I believe, almost entirely to his memory. Ralph and Somerville are scarce ever candid towards the whigs in this reign.

[167] _Parl. Hist._ 150.

[168] Burnet, 13; Ralph, 138, 194. Some of the lawyers endeavoured to persuade the house that the revenue having been granted to James for his life, devolved to William during the natural life of the former; a technical subtlety against the spirit of the grant. Somers seems not to have come into this; but it is hard to collect the sense of speeches from Grey's memoranda. _Parl. Hist._ 139. It is not to be understood that the tories universally were in favour of a grant for life, and the whigs against it. But as the latter were the majority, it was in their power, speaking of them as a party, to have carried the measure.

[169] _Parl. Hist._ 187.

[170] _Parl. Hist._ 193.

[171] _Parl. Hist._ iv. 1359.

[172] Hatsell's _Precedents_, iii. 80 _et alibi_; Hargrave's _Juridical Arguments_, i. 394.

[173] 1 W. & M. sess. 2, c. 2. This was intended as a provisional act "for the preventing all disputes and questions, concerning the collecting, levying, and assuring the public revenue due and payable in the reigns of the late kings Charles II. and James II., whilst the better settling the same is under the consideration of the present parliament."

[174] 2 W. & M. c. 3. As a mark of respect, no doubt, to the king and queen, it was provided that, if both should die, the successor should only enjoy this revenue of excise till December 1683. In the debate on this subject in the new parliament, the tories, except Seymour, were for settling the revenue during the king's life; but many whigs spoke on the other side. _Parl. Hist._ 552. The latter justly urged that the amount of the revenue ought to be well known before they proceed to settle it for an indefinite time. The tories, at that time, had great hopes of the king's favour, and took this method of securing it.

[175] Burnet, 35.

[176] See the _Somers Tracts_, but still more the collection of _State Tracts_ in the time of William III., in three volumes folio. These are almost entirely on the whig side; and many of them, as I have intimated in the text, lean so far toward republicanism as to assert the original sovereignty of the people in very strong terms, and to propose various changes in the constitution, such as a greater equality in the representation. But I have not observed any one which recommends, even covertly, the abolition of hereditary monarchy.

[177] The sudden dissolution of this parliament cost him the hearts of those who had made him king. Besides several temporary writings, especially the "Impartial Inquiry" of the Earl of Warrington, an honest and intrepid whig (Ralph, ii. 188), we have a letter from Mr. Wharton (afterwards Marquis of Wharton) to the king, in Dalrymple, Appendix, p. 80, on the change in his councils at this time, written in a strain of bold and bitter expostulation, especially on the score of his employing those who had been the servants of the late family, alluding probably to Godolphin, who was indeed open to much exception. "I wish," says Lord Shrewsbury in the same year, "you could have established your party upon the moderate and honest-principled men of both factions; but, as there be a necessity of declaring, I shall make no difficulty to own my sense that your majesty and the government are much more safe depending upon the whigs, whose designs, if any against, are improbable, and remoter, than with the tories, who many of them, questionless, would bring in King James; and the very best of them, I doubt, have a regency still in their heads; for, though I agree them to be the properest instruments to carry the prerogative high, yet I fear they have so unreasonable a veneration for monarchy, as not altogether to approve the foundation yours is built upon." Shrewsbury _Correspond._ 15.

[178] _Parl. Hist_. 575; Ralph, 194; Burnet, 41. Two remarkable protests were entered on the journals of the Lords on occasion of this bill; one by the whigs, who were outnumbered on a particular division, and another by the tories on the passing of the bill. They are both vehemently expressed, and are among the not very numerous instances wherein the original whig and tory principles have been opposed to each other. The tory protest was expunged by order of the house. It is signed by eleven peers and six bishops, among whom were Stillingfleet and Lloyd. The whig protest has but ten signatures. The convention had already passed an act for preventing doubts concerning their own authority (1 W. & M. stat. 1, c. 1), which could of course have no more validity than they were able to give it. This bill had been much opposed by the tories. _Parl. Hist._ v. 122.

In order to make this clearer, it should be observed that the convention which restored Charles II. not having been summoned by his writ, was not reckoned by some royalist lawyers capable of passing valid acts; and consequently all the statutes enacted by it were confirmed by the authority of the next. Clarendon lays it down as undeniable that such confirmation was necessary. Nevertheless, this objection having been made in the court of King's Bench to one of their acts, the judges would not admit it to be disputed; and said, that the act being made by King, Lords, and Commons, they ought not now to pry into any defects of the circumstances of calling them together, neither would they suffer a point to be stirred, wherein the estates of so many were concerned. Heath _v._ Pryn, 1 Ventris, 15.

[179] Great indulgence was shown to the assertors of indefeasible right. The Lords resolved, that there should be no penalty in the bill to disable any person from sitting and voting in either house of parliament. Journals, May 5, 1690. The bill was rejected in the Commons by 192 to 178. Journals, April 26; _Parl. Hist._ 594; Burnet, 41, _ibid._

[180] Some English subjects took James's commission, and fitted out privateers which attacked our ships. They were taken, and it was resolved to try them as pirates; when Dr. Oldys, the king's advocate, had the assurance to object that this could not be done, as if James had still the prerogatives of a sovereign prince by the law of nations. He was of course turned out, and the men hanged; but this is one instance among many of the difficulty under which the government laboured through the unfortunate distinction of _facto_ and _jure_. Ralph, 423. The boards of customs and excise were filled by Godolphin with Jacobites. _Shrewsb. Corresp._ 51.

[181] The name of Carmarthen is perpetually mentioned among those whom the late king reckoned his friends. Macpherson's _Papers_, i. 457, etc. Yet this conduct was so evidently against his interest that we may perhaps believe him insincere. William was certainly well aware that an extensive conspiracy had been formed against his throne. It was of great importance to learn the persons involved in it and their schemes. May we not presume that Lord Carmarthen's return to his ancient allegiance was feigned, in order to get an insight into the secrets of that party? This has already been conjectured by Somerville (p. 395) of Lord Sunderland, who is also implicated by Macpherson's publication, and doubtless with higher probability; for Sunderland, always a favourite of William, could not without insanity have plotted the restoration of a prince he was supposed to have betrayed. It is evident that William was perfectly master of the cabals of St. Germain's. That little court knew it was betrayed; and the suspicion fell on Lord Godolphin. Dalrymple, 189. But I think Sunderland and Carmarthen more likely.

I should be inclined to suspect that by some of this double treachery the secret of Princess Anne's repentant letter to her father reached William's ears. She had come readily, or at least without opposition, into that part of the settlement which postponed her succession after the death of Mary, for the remainder of the king's life. It would indeed have been absurd to expect that William was to descend from his throne in her favour; and her opposition could not have been of much avail. But, when the civil list and revenue came to be settled, the tories made a violent effort to secure an income of £70,000 a year to her and her husband. _Parl. Hist._ 492. As this on one hand seemed beyond all fair proportion to the income of the Crown, so the whigs were hardly less unreasonable in contending that she should depend altogether on the king's generosity; especially as by letters patent in the late reign, which they affected to call in question, she had a revenue of about £30,000. In the end, the house resolved to address the king, that he would make the princess's income £50,000 in the whole. This, however, left an irreconcilable enmity, which the artifices of Marlborough and his wife were employed to aggravate. They were accustomed, in the younger sister's little court, to speak of the queen with severity, and of the king with rude and odious epithets. Marlborough, however, went much farther. He brought that narrow and foolish woman into his own dark intrigues with St. Germain's. She wrote to her father, whom she had grossly, and almost openly, charged with imposing a spurious child as Prince of Wales, supplicating his forgiveness, and professing repentance for the part she had taken. _Life of James_, 476; Macpherson's _Papers_, i. 241.

If this letter, as cannot seem improbable, became known to William, we shall have a more satisfactory explanation of the queen's invincible resentment toward her sister than can be found in any other part of their history. Mary refused to see the princess on her death-bed; which shows more bitterness than suited her mild and religious temper, if we look only to the public squabbles about the Churchills as its motive. Burnet, 90; _Conduct of Duchess of Marlborough_, 41. But the queen must have deeply felt the unhappy, though necessary, state of enmity in which she was placed towards her father. She had borne a part in a great and glorious enterprise, obedient to a woman's highest duty; and had admirably performed those of the station to which she was called; but still with some violation of natural sentiments, and some liability to the reproach of those who do not fairly estimate the circumstances of her situation:

Infelix! utcunque ferant ea facta minores.

Her sister, who had voluntarily trod the same path, who had misled her into belief of her brother's illegitimacy, had now, from no real sense of duty, but out of pique and weak compliance with cunning favourites, solicited in a clandestine manner the late king's pardon, while his malediction resounded in the ears of the queen. This feebleness and duplicity made a sisterly friendship impossible.

As for Lord Marlborough, he was among the first, if we except some Scots renegades, who abandoned the cause of the revolution. He had so signally broken the ties of personal gratitude in his desertion of the king on that occasion, that, according to the severe remark of Hume, his conduct required for ever afterwards the most upright, the most disinterested, and most public-spirited behaviour to render it justifiable. What then must we think of it, if we find in the whole of this great man's political life nothing but ambition and rapacity in his motives, nothing but treachery and intrigue in his means! He betrayed and abandoned James, because he could not rise in his favour without a sacrifice that he did not care to make; he abandoned William and betrayed England, because some obstacles stood yet in the way of his ambition. I do not mean only, when I say that he betrayed England, that he was ready to lay her independence and liberty at the feet of James II. and Louis XIV.; but that in one memorable instance he communicated to the court of St. Germain's, and through that to the court of Versailles, the secret of an expedition against Brest, which failed in consequence with the loss of the commander and eight hundred men. Dalrymple, iii. 13; _Life of James_, 522; Macpherson, i. 487. In short, his whole life was such a picture of meanness and treachery that one must rate military services very high indeed to preserve any esteem for his memory.

The private memoirs of James II. as well as the papers published by Macpherson show us how little treason, and especially a double treason, is thanked or trusted by those whom it pretends to serve. We see that neither Churchill nor Russell obtained any confidence from the banished king. Their motives were always suspected; and something more solid than professions of loyalty was demanded, though at the expense of their own credit. James could not forgive Russell for saying that, if the French fleet came out, he must fight. Macpherson, i. 242. If Providence in its wrath had visited this island once more with a Stuart restoration, we may be sure that these perfidious apostates would have been no gainers by the change.

[182] During William's absence in Ireland in 1690, some of the whigs conducted themselves in a manner to raise suspicions of their fidelity; as appears by those most interesting letters of Mary published by Dalrymple, which display her entire and devoted affection to a husband of cold and sometimes harsh manners, but capable of deep and powerful attachment, of which she was the chief object. I have heard that the late proprietor of these royal letters was offended, but not judiciously, with their publication; and that the black box of King William that contained them has disappeared from Kensington. The names of the Duke of Bolton, his son the Marquis of Winchester, the Earl of Monmouth, Lord Montagu, and Major Wildman, occur as objects of the queen's or her minister's suspicion. Dalrymple, Appendix, 107, etc. But Carmarthen was desirous to throw odium on the whigs; and none of these, except on one occasion Lord Winchester, appear to be mentioned in the Stuart Papers. Even Monmouth, whose want both of principle and sound sense might cause reasonable distrust, and who lay at different times of his life under this suspicion of a Jacobite intrigue, is never mentioned in Macpherson, or any other book of authority, within my recollection. Yet it is evident generally that there was a disaffected party among the whigs, or, as in the Stuart Papers they were called, republicans, who entertained the baseless project of restoring James upon terms. These were chiefly what were called compounders, to distinguish them from the thorough-paced royalists, or old tories. One person whom we should least suspect is occasionally spoken of as inclined to a king whom he had been ever conspicuous in opposing--the Earl of Devonshire; but the Stuart agents often wrote according to their wishes rather than their knowledge; and it seems hard to believe what is not rendered probable by any part of his public conduct.

[183] This fact apparently rests on good authority; it is repeatedly mentioned in the Stuart Papers, and in the _Life of James_. Yet Shrewsbury's letter to William, after Fenwick's accusation of him, seems hardly consistent with the king's knowledge of the truth of that charge in its full extent. I think that he served his master faithfully as secretary, at least after some time, though his warm recommendation of Marlborough "who has been with me since this news [the failure of the attack on Brest] to offer his services with all the expressions of duty and fidelity imaginable" (_Shrewsbury Correspondence_, 47), is somewhat suspicious, aware as he was of that traitor's connections.

[184] Commons' Journals, Nov. 28 _et post_; Dalrymple, iii. 11; Ralph, 346.

[185] _Id._ Jan. 11, 1692-3.

[186] Burnet says, "the elections of parliament (1690) went generally for men who would probably have declared for King James, if they could have known how to manage matters for him."--P. 41. This is quite an exaggeration; though the tories, some of whom were at this time in place, did certainly succeed in several divisions. But parties had now begun to be split; the Jacobite tories voting with the malcontent whigs. Upon the whole, this House of Commons, like the next which followed it, was well affected to the revolution settlement and to public liberty. Whig and tory were becoming little more than nicknames.

[187] Macpherson's _State Papers_, i. 459. These were all tories, except three or four. The great end James and his adherents had in view, was to persuade Louis into an invasion of England; their representations therefore are to be taken with much allowance, and in some cases we know them to be false; as when James assures his brother of Versailles that three parts at least in four of the English clergy had not taken the oaths to William. _Id._ 409.

[188] Macpherson, 433. _Somers Tracts_, xi. 94. This is a pamphlet of the time, exposing the St. Germain faction, and James's unwillingness to make concessions. It is confirmed by the most authentic documents.

[189] Ralph, 350; _Somers Tracts_, x. 211.

[190] Many of these Jacobite tracts are printed in the Somers Collection, vol. x. The more we read of them, the more cause appears for thankfulness that the nation escaped from such a furious party. They confess, in general, very little error or misgovernment in James, but abound with malignant calumnies on his successor. The name of Tullia is repeatedly given to the mild and pious Mary. The best of these libels is styled "Great Britain's just complaint" (p. 429), by Sir James Montgomery, the false and fickle proto-apostate of whiggism. It is written with singular vigour, and even elegance; and rather extenuates than denies the faults of the late reign.

[191] Ralph, 418. See the _Life of James_, 501. It contains chiefly an absolute promise of pardon, a declaration that he would protect and defend the church of England as established by law, and secure to its members all the churches, universities, schools, and colleges, together with its immunities, rights, and privileges, a promise not to dispense with the test, and to leave the dispensing power in other matters to be explained and limited by parliament, to give the royal assent to bills for frequent parliaments, free elections, and impartial trials, and to confirm such laws made under the present usurpation as should be tendered to him by parliament. "The king," he says himself, "was sensible he should be blamed by several of his friends for submitting to such hard terms; nor was it to be wondered at, if those who knew not the true condition of his affairs were scandalised at it; but after all he had nothing else to do."--P. 505. He was so little satisfied with the articles in this declaration respecting the church of England, that he consulted several French and English divines, all of whom, including Bossuet, after some difference, came to an opinion that he could not in conscience undertake to protect and defend an erroneous church. Their objection, however, seems to have been rather to the expression than the plain sense; for they agreed that he might promise to leave the protestant church in possession of its endowments and privileges. Many too of the English Jacobites, especially the non-juring bishops, were displeased with the declaration, as limiting the prerogative; though it contained nothing which they were not clamorous to obtain from William. P. 514. A decisive proof how little that party cared for civil liberty, and how little would have satisfied them at the revolution, if James had put the church out of danger! The next paragraph is remarkable enough to be extracted for the better confirmation of what I have just said. "By this the king saw he had out-shot himself more ways than one in this declaration; and therefore what expedient he would have found in case he had been restored, not to put a force either upon his conscience or honour, does not appear, because it never came to a trial; but this is certain, his church of England friends absolved him beforehand, and sent him word, that if he considered the preamble, and the very terms of the declaration, he was not bound to stand by it, or to put it out verbatim as it was worded; that the changing some expressions and ambiguous terms, so long as what was principally aimed at had been kept to, could not be called a receding from his declaration, no more than a new edition of a book can be counted a different work, though corrected and amended. And indeed the preamble showed his promise was conditional, which they not performing, the king could not be tied; for my Lord Middleton had writ, that, if the king signed the declaration, those who took it engaged to restore him in three or four months after; the king did his part, but their failure must needs take off the king's future obligation."

In a Latin letter, the original of which is written in James's own hand, to Innocent XII., dated from Dublin, Nov. 26, 1689, he declares himself "Catholicam fidem reducere in tria regna statuisse." _Somers Tracts_, x. 552. Though this may have been drawn up by a priest, I suppose the king understood what he said. It appears also by Lord Balcarras's _Memoir_, that Lord Melfort had drawn up the declaration as to indemnity and indulgence in such a manner, that the king might break it whenever he pleased. _Somers Tracts_, xi. 517.

[192] The protestants were treated with neglect and jealousy, whatever might have been their loyalty, at the court of James, as they were afterwards as that of his son. The incorrigibility of this Stuart family is very remarkable. Kennet, pp. 638 and 738, enumerates many instances. Sir James Montgomery, the Earl of Middleton, and others, were shunned at the court of St. Germain as guilty of this sole crime of heresy, unless we add that of wishing for legal securities.

[193] James himself explicitly denies, in the extracts from his _Life_, published by Macpherson, all participation in the scheme of killing William, and says that he had twice rejected proposals for bringing him off alive; though it is not true that he speaks of the design with indignation, as some have pretended. It was very natural, and very conformable to the principles of kings, and others besides kings, in former times, that he should have lent an ear to this project; and as to James's moral and religious character it was not better than that of Clarendon, whom we know to have countenanced similar designs for the assassination of Cromwell. In fact, the received code of ethics has been improved in this respect. We may be sure at least, that those who ran such a risk for James's sake expected to be thanked and rewarded in the event of success. I cannot therefore agree with Dalrymple, who says that nothing but the fury of party could have exposed James to this suspicion. Though the proof seems very short of conviction, there are some facts worthy of notice. 1. Burnet positively charges the late king with privity to the conspiracy of Grandval, executed in Flanders for a design on William's life, 1692 (p. 95); and this he does with so much particularity, and so little hesitation, that he seems to have drawn his information from high authority. The sentence of the court-martial on Grandval also alludes to James's knowledge of the crime (_Somers Tracts_, x. 580), and mentions expressions of his, which, though not conclusive, would raise a strong presumption in any ordinary case. 2. William himself, in a memorial intended to have been delivered to the ministers of all the allied powers at Ryswick, in answer to that of James (_Id._ xi. 103; Ralph, 730), positively imputes to the latter repeated conspiracies against his life; and he was incapable of saying what he did not believe. In the same memorial he shows too much magnanimity to assert that the birth of the Prince of Wales was an imposture. 3. A paper by Charnock, undeniably one of the conspirators, addressed to James, contains a marked allusion to William's possible death in a short time; which even Macpherson calls a delicate mode of hinting the assassination-plot to him. Macpherson, _State Papers_, i. 519. Compare also _State Trials_, xii. 1323, 1327, 1329. 4. Somerville, though a disbeliever in James's participation, has a very curious quotation from Lamberti, tending to implicate Louis XIV. (p. 428); and we can hardly suppose that he kept the other out of the secret. Indeed, the crime is greater and less credible in Louis than in James. But devout kings have odd notions of morality; and their confessors, I suppose, much the same. I admit, as before, that the evidence falls short of conviction; and that the verdict, in the language of Scots law, should be Not Proven; but it is too much for our Stuart apologists to treat the question as one absolutely determined. Documents may yet appear that will change its aspect.

I leave the above paragraph as it was written before the publication of M. Mazure's valuable _History of the Revolution_. He has therein brought to light a commission of James to Crosby, in 1693, authorising and requiring him "to seize and secure the person of the Prince of Orange, and to bring him before us, taking to your assistance such other of our faithful subjects in whom you may place confidence." _Hist. de la Révol._ iii. 443. It is justly observed by M. Mazure, that Crosby might think no renewal of his authority necessary in 1696 to do that which he had been required to do in 1693. If we look attentively at James's own language, in Macpherson's extracts, without much regarding the glosses of Innes, it will appear that he does not deny in express terms that he had consented to the attempt in 1696 to seize the Prince of Orange's person. In the commission to Crosby he is required not only to do this, but _to bring him before the king_. But is it possible to consider this language as anything else than an euphemism for assassination?

Upon the whole evidence, therefore, I now think that James was privy to the conspiracy, of which the natural and inevitable consequence must have been foreseen by himself; but I leave the text as it stood, in order to show that I have not been guided by any prejudice against his character.

[194] _Parl. Hist._ 991. Fifteen peers and ninety-two commoners refused. The names of the latter were circulated in a printed paper, which the house voted to be a breach of their privilege, and destruction of the freedom and liberties of parliament. Oct. 30, 1696. This, however, shows the unpopularity of their opposition.

[195] Burnet; see the notes on the Oxford edition. Ralph, 692. The motion for bringing in the bill, Nov. 6, 1696, was carried by 169 to 61; but this majority lessened at every stage: and the final division was only 189 to 156. In the Lords it passed by 68 to 61; several whigs, and even the Duke of Devonshire, then lord steward, voting in the minority. _Parl. Hist._ 996-1154. Marlborough probably made Prince George of Denmark support the measure. _Shrewsbury Correspondence_, 449. Many remarkable letters on the subject are to be found in this collection; but I warn the reader against trusting any part of the volume except the letters themselves. The editor has, in defiance of notorious facts, represented Sir John Fenwick's disclosures as false; and twice charges him with prevarication (p. 404), using the word without any knowledge of its sense, in declining to answer questions put to him by members of the House of Commons, which he could not have answered without inflaming the animosity that sought his life.

It is said in a note of Lord Hardwicke on Burnet, that "the king, before the session, had Sir John Fenwick brought to the cabinet council, where he was present himself. But Sir John would not explain his paper." See also _Shrewsbury Correspondence_, 419 _et post_. The truth was, that Fenwick, having had his information at second-hand, could not prove his assertions, and feared to make his case worse by repeating them.

[196] Godolphin, who was then first commissioner of the treasury, not much to the liking of the whigs, seems to have been tricked by Sunderland into retiring from office on this occasion. _Id._ 415. Shrewsbury, secretary of state, could hardly be restrained by the king and his own friends from resigning the seals as soon as he knew of Fenwick's accusation. His behaviour shows either a consciousness of guilt, or an inconceivable cowardice. Yet at first he wrote to the king, pretending to mention candidly all that had passed between him and the Earl of Middleton, which in fact amounted to nothing. P. 147. This letter, however, seems to show that a story which has been several times told, and is confirmed by the biographer of James II. and by Macpherson's _Papers_, that William compelled Shrewsbury to accept office in 1693, by letting him know that he was aware of his connection with St. Germains, is not founded in truth. He could hardly have written in such a style to the king with that fact in his way. Monmouth, however, had some suspicion of it; as appears by the hints he furnished to Sir J. Fenwick towards establishing the charges. P. 450. Lord Dartmouth, full of inveterate prejudices against the king, charges him with personal pique against Sir John Fenwick, and with instigating members to vote for the bill. Yet it rather seems that he was, at least for some time, by no means anxious for it. _Shrewsbury Correspondence_; and compare Coxe's _Life of Marlborough_, i. 63.

[197] _Life of James_, ii. 558.

[198] The debt at the king's death amounted to £16,394,702, of which above three millions were to expire in 1710. Sinclair's _Hist. of Revenue_, i. 425 (third edition).