Chapter XXVI: Section I

_A sketch of the Revolution_, _or brief observations on that memorable and interesting event_.

The English Hierarchy, or national priesthood, is that body, of all others, which it most behoves a tyrant king to secure its attachment and cooperation. Nor will he find this attended with much difficulty, provided he take care not to encroach on the ecclesiastical department, and let the ecclesiastics tyrannize as much as they please in their own province. _Charles_ II understood this subject well, and by that means could act the tyrant with perfect safety throughout his whole reign. The alliance between church and state was by him preserved inviolate; and consequently none of the enormities of his vile government were able to shake, or endanger his throne. But _James_, by violating that alliance, deprived himself of his chief support and bulwark, and lost every thing. Had he kept fair with the church, or the ecclesiastics, he might venture to play the despot, persecute the nonconformists, and other descriptions of his subjects, as much, and as cruelly as he pleased: they would once have remonstrated against that sort of conduct. But being himself a non-conformist, and assuming a _dispensing power_, and issuing a Declaration for _liberty of conscience_, and withal, interfering with the _dignities_ and _revenues_ of the _church_ and _universities_, they were alarmed beyond measure, and all at once forgot, even their favourite doctrines of passive obedience and nonresistance, for which they had so long contended, and the disbelievers of which they had so often represented as vile miscreants, unentitled to the common comforts of society, or the natural rights of men. While the nonconformists and the laity were the only sufferers from the oppressions of government, they blamed them for complaining, and preached up passive obedience and nonresistance, and the divine right of kingship; {851a} but when those oppressions began to affect them, they immediately changed their tone, and appeared among the foremost to complain, and even to disobey and resist.—Such was the character of the English clergy, before and at the Revolution; and it deserves to be noted and remembered.

In imprisoning the bishops, James filled up the measure of his folly and infatuation. It converted a large majority of his subjects into enemies, and hastened that crisis which blasted all his prospects, and transferred his kingdom to another family.

“The imprisonment and trial of the seven bishops, (says an excellent
historian, {851b}) were the last measures of infatuation that
remained. When a second indulgence was issued, and ordained to be
read in the church, the bishops petitioned against an order
calculated to reduce the clergy, on their compliance, to the contempt
and reproach of becoming accessary to their own destruction; or to
subject the disobedient to the penalties recently inflicted by the
high commission. The whole nation was agitated at the imprisonment
of the fathers of the church. The same violent agitation was excited
by their trial; but their acquittal resounded through the capital,
and was received with tumultuous joy by the whole kingdom, as a
religious and even a national triumph over the sovereign. From the
public ferment, which was not likely to subside, that dangerous
crisis had at length arrived, to which despotism and bigotry
conducted James.

“The eyes and expectations of men had been long fixed on his nephew,
the prince of Orange, whose marriage with his eldest daughter had
opened a near prospect of obtaining the crown. Religion, as well as
interest, had connected William with the popular party, as alike
adverse to the ambition of France, and impatient for a protestant
successor to the English throne. The discontented found a secure
asylum in Holland, and an honourable or secret reception at his
court; and his connexion with every party was preserved and enlarged
by their correspondence with their friends.

“While the chance of a protestant succession remained, the prince was
averse to a premature rupture, and the nation was desirous to await
the natural course of events. But the birth of a son, during the
ferment excited by the imprisonment of the bishops, consoled James
with the prospect of a catholic heir, and accelerated every
preparation for his ruin. The most injurious surmises had been
entertained of the queen’s conception; and from some mysterious
circumstances, the report of a supposititious child, however
improbable at present, was eagerly propagated and implicitly
believed. From the prospect of an hereditary religious despotism the
invitation of the prince of Orange was no longer deferred. The
whigs, who had urged the exclusion, were indifferent to the
hereditary line of succession, from which the tories, who had no view
beyond a parliament, were unwilling to deviate. But as every
political and religious party deposited their animosities during the
common danger, a secret conspiracy was formed by their coalition, the
most extensive perhaps, and the best concerted which history has
preserved.

“The secret, although entrusted to many thousands, transpired only
from the preparations of the prince of Orange. Although his
declaration announced that he was invited over by divers of the
temporal and spiritual lords, the king was unable to discover the
lines of conspiracy with which he was surrounded at home. The
declaration issued on the embarkation of the prince, enumerated the
grievances of the three kingdoms, the suspicious birth of the prince
of Wales, and the necessity of interposing to establish the religion
and liberties of the people on a secure foundation. Terrified at the
approaching danger from abroad, and at the contempt and hatred which
he had incurred at home, the king endeavoured, when too late, to
retract his former illegal measures; but when the Dutch fleet was
dispersed, and driven back by a storm to Holland, his confidence in
the protection of heaven revived. But the expedition was renewed in
a few days. While the English fleet was confined to its station off
Harwich, the prince, with six hundred transports and ships of war,
passed with an east wind through the Straits of Dover, in the
presence of wondering multitudes, who gazed at the sublime spectacle
from either coast; and disembarking at Torbay, afforded a signal
proof to the nation, that its navy will not always prevent an
invasion, nor a standing army ensure stability to the throne.

“For a few days the prince of Orange was joined by none; but when the
first example was given, the extent of the confederacy was announced
by a rapid and universal defection from the king. The gentlemen of
Somerset and Devon hastened to the prince, who had advanced to
Exeter, and entered eagerly into an _association_ for his support.
The earl of Bath admitted his fleet into Plymouth. The earl of
Devonshire and the gentlemen of Derby and Nottingham declared for the
prince and a free parliament. Lord Delamer took arms in Cheshire;
and in the northern counties lord Danby and his associates surprised
Newcastle, York, and Hull. Cornbury, the earl of Clarendon’s son,
was among the first to desert; but when a petition for a free
parliament, signed by nineteen peers and prelates, was evaded, he was
followed by Churchill, Kirk, Trelauny, Drumlanrig, the dukes of
Ormond and Grafton, prince George of Denmark, the king’s Son in law,
while a greater number of inferior officers refused to fight against
the prince of Orange.

“The king, who had arrived at Salisbury to give battle to the prince,
was overwhelmed with misfortunes. All England appeared in commotion.
The capital was full of discontent; the very fleet declared for a
free parliament; and surrounded, as he believed, by a disaffected
army, he knew not in whom to confide. He withdrew his army, and
retired to London; but when informed of his daughter the princess
Anne’s escape, “God help me,” cried he, with tears of anguish, “my
own children have deserted me.” Every new disaster increased his
perturbation. He summoned a council of peers; issued writs for new
parliament; dispatched commissioners to propose a treaty: but as the
prince, amidst the acclamations of all ranks, continued to advance,
he was bereft of all fortitude and strength of mind. His conduct was
irresolute, pusillanimous, absurd; and unable to submit to necessity,
yet incapable of a single effort of generous despair, he sunk,
without dignity, beneath his misfortunes. His father’s execution was
still present to his desponding thoughts; and he listened credulously
to every suggestion of personal danger, without reflecting either on
the difference of the characters or of the times. His terrors were
flattered as the result of political wisdom, and he was easily
persuaded that his departure would produce a scene of anarchy to
accelerate the recovery of absolute power. His hopes were absurdly
placed on the public confusion, to increase which he recalled and
burnt the writs for a new parliament; directed Feversham to disband
the army; threw the great seal into the Thames; and with a single
attendant, embarked in a small vessel at midnight for France, whither
the queen and his son had before been secretly conveyed. When he was
intercepted at Feversham and brought back to Whitehall, the returning
affections of the city might have convinced him that the nation was
not yet lost. In this delicate extremity he attempted to resume his
authority by an indiscreet proclamation against the late excesses;
{856} but was required at midnight to remove from the palace, and
permitted to retire to Rochester, with an obvious design to connive
at his escape. He was convinced himself that his departure would
prove acceptable to the prince; and the few friends who adhered in
adversity to his fortunes, urged him to remain. But the despair of
life returned. An expression of his father’s was remembered—that
‘short is the distance between the prison and the grave of kings:’
and by the desertion of his kingdom, which he was destined never to
revisit, he left his rival an unbloody victory, and a vacant
throne.—The revolution was accomplished in Scotland with the same
ease and success.”

A convention was assembled in each kingdom, to manage their respective concerns, and settle their future government. In England the revolution was accomplished by a coalition of whig and tory; but in Scotland, where the same distinctions prevailed under different names, the parties kept separate and opposed to each other; the episcopalians siding with James, and the presbyterians with William. The latter, however, in the end prevailed, and the convention adopted a plan, prepared by a committee, for the settlement of the crown.

The deliberations had degenerated in the English convention into verbal disputes between the two houses, whether the late king had deserted or abdicated the vacant throne. In Scotland there was neither the same necessity to gratify the tories, nor the same propriety in declaring that the king had abdicated the government, by the desertion of a country wherein he did not reside. But the opposite genius of the two nations was never more conspicuous than in the result of their deliberations on that important event. The _English_ convention declared that James II. having endeavoured to subvert the constitution, by breaking the original contract between the king and people, and having violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn from the kingdom, had _abdicated_ {857} the government, and that the throne was thereby vacant. The _Scots_, on the other hand, instead of attempting by an ambiguous fiction to reconcile hereditary right with a change in the succession, placed the vacancy of the throne on its true basis, the religion and mal-administration of James. The same oppression which the English apprehended while yet distant, they had long endured. Their loyal attachment to the Stewarts, which survived the civil wars, had been effaced by their sufferings since the restoration. From the same national ardour which rendered the reformation so complete, or destructive in Scotland, they proposed and passed a bold and decisive vote, that James had forfaulted [_forfeited_] the crown by his misconduct and crimes.

When the throne was declared vacant, the convention, of both nations, resolved that the crown should be tendered to William and Mary, as joint sovereigns. The prince in an agreeable and obliging manner accepted of the crown in the name of them both; and the same day, (Feb. 13. 1689,) they were proclaimed king and queen by the named of William and Mary, at which a general joy appeared among the people. On the 11th. of April the new sovereigns were crowned in London, and proclaimed in Scotland on the same day. From the latter Argyle and others were deputed by the three temporal estates to present the crown, and administer the oath to the king and queen. The instrument of government and the grievances were first read; to which an Address to turn the convention into a parliament, was subjoined. When the coronation Oath was administered to William, at the obligation to _root __out heretics_, he paused, and declared that he did _not mean to become a persecutor_; and on the assurance of the commissioners that such was not its import, protested that in that sense only he took the Oath. This must be extremely honourable to William’s memory, and is a rare instance of princely virtue, wisdom, and patriotism. If all kings were of his sort the objections to monarchical government would lose most of their strength. With this sketch of the British Revolution, so much talked of, and so ill understood by most, the reader, it is hoped, will not be displeased. {859}