23rd January, 1711 :-"I happened to dip in page 46, where I cast my eye on the Sortes Virgiliane of Charles the First.

At bello audacis populi vexatus, &c.

This gave me some melancholy for an hour or two, and made me call to mind the story of Bernini and his bust,* burnt in Whitehall. It made me also call to mind the omens that happened at the coronation of his son, James the Second, which I saw, viz.-the tottering of his crown upon his head, the broken canopy over it, and the rent flag hanging upon the white tower over against my door, when I came home from the coronation. It was torn by the wind at the same time that the signal was given to the Tower that he was crowned. I put no great stress upon omens, but I cannot despise them: most of them I believe come by chance, but some from inferior intlelectual agents, especially those which regard the fate of Kings and nations."+ The same day, according to Echard, a part of a window in one of the London churches, on which the royal arms were beautifully painted, suddenly fell down in a very unaccountable

manner.

James, it may be mentioned, was the first English monarch who inhabited the palace which bears his name; a measure rendered compulsory in consequence of the destruction of a great part of Whitehall by fire. St. James's, as is well known, was built by Henry the Eighth, who also enclosed the Park. It had formerly been a hospital for leprous persons, a foundation coeval with the Conquest.

* See vol. i. p. 363, note.

+ Aubrey, Letters of Eminent Persons, vol. i. p. 213.

CHAPTER III.

Cruelties permitted by James-Jeffreys' Barbarities after the Suppression of Monmouth's Rebellion-Brutality of Colonel Kirke-The Queen delivered of a Son-Merits of the Warming-pan StoryRemarkable Weather-cock at Whitehall-The Prince of Orange embarks to oppose King James-Lands at Torbay-James is deserted by his Officers-Defection in his own Family-His Grief and Consternation-Anecdotes-The King's Flight from Whitehall He is seized by the Populace, and Returns to London-His second Flight-His gratifying Reception by the French King His Bigotry and Imprudence - Lands with an army in Ireland-State of his affairs in that Country-The King's Courage forsakes him-Battle of the Boyne-Return of James to France.

THE barbarities which were practised after the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion,-inasmuch as they were not only tolerated by James, but were gratefully and liberally rewarded by him,-have imprinted a deep stain upon his memory. In addition to the judicial slaughters of the drunken and atrocious Jeffreys,—a man with the spirit of a Caligula and the morals of an alehouse, there were others whose share in the bloody work was scarcely less inhuman than disgusting. One Colonel Kirke, who had formerly served at Tangier, figures among the most prominent. This person on one occasion actually ordered a number of his victims to be led forth and put to death, while he himself drank the King's health, in brutal joviality, with his friends. Observing that the poor creatures trembled excessively through fear, he gave directions for the trumpets to sound, telling them, in the same inhuman strain of

jocularity, that they should not want music for their dancing. His regiment from their ferocity were styled ironically Kirke's Lambs. James subsequently endeavoured to convert Kirke to the Roman Catholic faith. "When I was quartered at Tangier," was the reply of the rough soldier, "I promised the King of Morocco that should I ever change my religion, I would become a Mahommedan." After the return of Jeffreys from his circuit of blood and horror, the King showed how fully he approved of his proceedings by creating him a Peer, and, shortly afterwards, raising him to the chancellorship.*

After Monmouth's rebellion, no fewer than two hundred and fifty persons were executed, and eight hundred and fifty transported. According to Burnet, the King was not only acquainted with the barbarities which were practised in his dominions, but had an account of the executions sent to him every day. These accounts he is said to have taken a pleasure in reading to the foreign ambassadors at his levees; and, among his own circle, is reported to have spoken jestingly of the work of horror, as "Jeffreys' campaign." It may be remarked that, when Jeffreys was dying in the Tower, he was attended by Dr. Scot, an excellent divine, who especially exhorted him to repent of the barbarities of which he had been guilty in his days of insolence and power. "Whatever I did then," said Jeffreys, "I did by express orders; and I have this farther to say for myself, that I was not half bloody enough for him that sent me thither."—

* Such was the general horror conceived of the barbarities of Jeffreys, and with such vividness were the heart-rending accounts of his cruelty transmitted from father to child, that many years afterwards, when his grand-daughter, the Countess of Pomfret, was travelling in the West of England, she was attacked by an infuriated mob, merely on account of her relationship.

"This," says Onslow, "I had from Sir J. Jekyll, who told me that my Lord Somers told it him, and that he (Lord Somers) had it from Scot himself." Nearly the same story is repeated in the Life of Archbishop Sharp. When that prelate, who had formerly received some kindness from Jeffreys, went to visit him in the Tower, he was assured by the wretched prisoner that whatever atrocities he might have been guilty of, had been committed with the connivance and approval of the Court. It must be admitted on the other hand, that the apologists of James have brought forward some favourable evidence on his behalf. Sheffield Duke of Buckingham even affirms, that such was James's commiseration for his suffering subjects, that he never forgave Jeffreys for his wholesale inhumanities. It is elsewhere stated, that when Bishop Ken and Sir Thomas Cutler interceded in favour of some of the condemned criminals, James not only readily extended his mercy to them, but afterwards expressed his thanks to Cutler for his humane interference; regretting that his example had not been followed by others.*

In the worst spirit of tyranny was the revival of the Court of High Commission by the infatuated James. His obstinate contest with Magdalen College, and his committal of the bishops to the Tower, were acts equally arbitrary, oppressive, and unconstitutional. It was in the midst of the universal revilings and discontent, consequent on these measures, that the Queen, on the 10th of June, 1688, was delivered at St. James's of a son.† The event was, of course, as gratifying to the King, as it was displeasing to his Protestant subjects. The one beheld in

* See Burnet, vol. ii. p. 26, note.

The celebrated Philibert Count de Grammont was despatched by the French King to England, to congratulate James and his Queen on the occasion.-Ellis's Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 5.

his infant the supporter of orthodoxy and the champion of popery in England; while the Protestants, who had long rested their hopes on the succession of the Princess of Orange, anticipated her probable exclusion with the deepest alarm and regret.

So general was the conviction that the King's insane bigotry would carry him to any lengths, that by the Protestant portion of his subjects it was almost universally believed that he imposed on them a surreptitious offspring. The celebrated "warming-pan story," although it has been often and satisfactorily disproved, is, nevertheless, still replete with an interest of a peculiar order.

The arguments, in favour of the parturition having been a fictitious one, were as follows:-It was affirmed, that the King was become constitutionally incapable of having children; that the Queen had continued seven years without bearing a child; that her delivery was mysteriously sudden, and had taken place immediately after changing her apartments; that it occurred on a Sunday, when all the Protestant ladies of the Court were attending Divine service; that neither the Princess of Denmark, the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor the Dutch Ambassador, (the three persons whose attendance was of the most importance,) attended at the birth; that during the labour the bed was not left so open as it ought to have been; that, previous to her delivery, the Queen neither permitted the Princess Anne, nor any one of the Protestant ladies, to satisfy themselves of her pregnancy; that, during her labour, though the weather was hot, and the room heated by the crowd of persons who were present, a warming-pan was introduced into the bed; and lastly, though an imposture had been previously suspected by the nation, that the Court had taken no

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