abolished, as we have seen, by act of parliament, in the reign of his father Charles I., but issued a declaration of general indulgence, or liberty of conscience, "by his sovereign authority, and absolute power," to his subjects of all religions.(1) Such an indulgence, though illegal, might have been considered as liberal, if the king's private purpose, the more ready introduction of popery, had not been generally known. Yet so great was the satisfaction arising from present ease, and so violent the animosity of the Protestant sectaries against the established church, that they every where received the royal proclamation with expressions of joy and exultation.(2) If the dissenters were ever deceived in regard to James's views, he took care soon to open their eyes, and to display his bigotry and imprudence to all Europe. He publicly despatched the earl of Castlemain ambassador extraordinary to Rome, in order to express his obeisance to the pope, and to reconcile his kingdoms, in form, to the holy see; and although Innocent XI. very justly concluded that a scheme conducted with so much indiscretion could not possibly be successful, he sent a nuncio to England, in return for the embassy. All communication with the pope had been made treason by act of parliament; but so little regard did James pay to the laws, that he gave the nuncio a public audience at Windsor; and the duke of Somerset, being then in waiting, as one of the lords of the bed-chamber, was deprived of all his employments, because he refused to assist at the illegal ceremony.(3) The nuncio afterward resided openly in London. Four Catholic bishops were publicly consecrated at the king's chapel, and sent out under the title of vicars apostolical to exercise the episcopal function in their respective diocesses. The jesuits were permitted to erect a chapel and form a college in the Savoy; the Recollects built a chapel in Lincoln's Inn Fields; the Carmelites formed a seminary in the city; fourteen monks were even settled at St. James's; in different parts of the country, places of public worship were erected by the papists; and the religious of the Romish communion appeared at court in the habits of their respective orders. (4) Nothing now remained for James, who had already transferred almost every great office, civil and military, in the three kingdoms, from the Protestants to their spiritual enemies, but to throw open the doors of the church and universities to the Catholics: and this attempt was soon made. The king sent a letter to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, commanding the university to admit one Francis, a monk of the order of St. Benedict, to the degree of master of arts, without exacting the usual oaths. The university refused; and the king, after suspending the vice-chancellor, desisted from any farther attack upon that seminary.(5) But the compliant temper of the university of Oxford, which had, in a formal decree, made profession of passive obedience, gave James hopes of better success there, though he carried still higher his pretensions. and The presidentship of Magdalen college, one of the richest foundations in Europe, having become vacant, a day was appointed for a new election; one Farmer, a recent convert to popery, was recommended by a royal mandate, accompanied with a dispensation from the usual oaths. The fellows of the college entreated the king to recall his mandate, or recommend some person of a less exceptionable character than Farmer; but the day of election arriving before they received any answer, they chose as their president Dr. Hough, a man of learning, virtue, and spirit, who braved the threatening danger. A citation was issued for the members of the college to appear before the court of High Commisson, in order to answer for their disobedience. The matter came to a regular hearing; and such articles of folly and vice were proved against Farmer, as justified the fellows in rejecting him, without having recourse to the legal disqualifications under which he laboured. The commissioners, however, proceeded to the deprivation of Dr. Hough, and a new mandate was issued in favour of Parker, lately created bishop of Oxford; (1) Burnet, book iv. James II. 1686 and 1687. (2) Id. ibid. (3) Kennet. Ralph. Hume. (5) Kennet. Ralph. 248 a man of dissolute morals, but who, like Farmer, had atoned for all his vices [PART II. by his willingness to embrace the Romish religion. The college replied, that no new election could be made till the former should be legally annulled. A new ecclesiastical commission was issued for that purpose; and the commissioners, attended by three troops of horse, repaired to Oxford; expelled the refractory president and all the fellows, except two, who had uniformly adhered to the king's mandate, and installed Parker in the presidency of Magdalen college.(1) Of all the acts of violence committed during the tyrannical reign of James II., this may perhaps be considered as the most illegal and arbitrary. It accordingly occasioned universal discontent, and gave a general alarm to the elergy. The church, the chief pillar of the throne, and which, during the last two reigns, had supported it with such unshaken firmness; the church, which had carried the prerogative so high, and which, if protected in her rights, would have carried it still higher; the church, now seeing those rights invaded, and her very fountains in danger of being poisoned, took refuge in the generous principles of liberty, and resolved to preserve that constitution which her complacency had almost ruined. The king, however, was determined to adhere to his arbitrary measures; and as a balance to this reverend body, whose opposition he had wantonly roused, he endeavoured to gain the Protestant dissenters, and to form an unnatural coalition between them and the Roman Catholics. view, he took occasion frequently to extol the benefits of toleration, and to With that exclaim against the severities of the church of England. He commanded an inquiry to be made into all the oppressive prosecutions which the dissenters had suffered, as a prelude to yielding them security or redress; and by means of that ascendency which the crown had acquired over the corporations, he every where thrust them into the magistracy, under various pretences, in hopes of being able to procure a parliament that would give its sanction to the repeal of the test act and the penal laws against non-conformity.(2) He affected to place them on the same footing with the Catholics; and, in order to widen the breach between them and the church, whose favour he despaired of recovering, but whose loyalty he never suspected, he issued anew his declaration of indulgence, and ordered it to be read in the pulpit by all the established clergy.(3) This order was considered, by the whole ecclesiastical body, as an insult on the hierarchy, and an insidious attempt to drag them to disgrace; for as the penal laws against non-conformists had, in a great measure, been procured by the church, the clergy were sensible, that any countenance which they might give to the dispensing power would be regarded as a deserting of their fundamental principles. They determined, therefore, almost universally, rather to hazard the vengeance of the crown, by disobedience, than to fulfil a command they could not approve, and expose themselves, at the same time, to the certain hatred and contempt of the people. Conformable to this resolution, and with a view to encourage every one to persevere in it, six bishops, namely, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Ken of Bath and Wells, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol, met privately with Sancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, in his palace at Lambeth, and concerted the form of a petition to the king; beseeching him not to insist upon their reading the declaration of indulgence, as being founded on a prerogative repeatedly declared illegal by parliament.(4) Enraged at this unexpected opposition to his favourite measure, James not only refused their request, but ordered them to be committed to the tower, on their refusing to give bail for their appearance before the court of King's Bench, to answer for what was denominated a high misdemeanour, and afterward prosecuted as a LIBEL. James was not insensible of the danger of pursuing this tyrannical prose (1) Burnet, book iv. MS, account by Dr. Smith, ap. Macpherson, Hist. Brit. vol. i. Hume, yol viil cution, though his pride would not allow him to desist. But the circumstances attending the commitment of the bishops ought still farther to have opened his eyes, and made him perceive the dreadful precipice upon which he was rushing. Though they were carried by water to the tower, multitudes of anxious spectators crowded the banks of the river, and at once implored the blessing of those venerable prelates, and offered their petitions to Heaven for the safety of the persecuted guardians of their religion. Even the soldiers, seized with the contagion of the same spirit, are said to have flung themselves on their knees, and craved the benediction of the holy prisoners, whom they were appointed to guard.(1) A like scene was exhibited, when the bishops were conducted to trial. Persons of all conditions were affected with the awful crisis to which affairs were reduced, and considered the decision of the cause pending, as of the last importance to both king and people. Twenty-nine temporal peers attended the prisoners to Westminster-hall; and such crowds of gentry joined in the procession, that little room was left for the populace to enter. The trial, which lasted near ten hours, was managed with ability by the counsel on both sides, and listened to with the most eager attention. Though the judges held their seats only during pleasure, two of them had the courage to declare against a dispensing power in the crown, as inconsistent with all law: and if the dispensing power was not legal, it followed, of course, that the bishops could not be criminal in refusing obedience to an illegal command. The jury at length withdrew; and when they brought in their verdict "Not Guilty," the populace, who filled Westminster-hall and all Palace-yard, shouted thrice with such vehemence, that the sound reached the city.(2) The loudest acclamations were immediately echoed from street to street; bonfires were lighted, and every other demonstration given of public joy.(3) Nor were the rejoicings on account of this legal victory confined to the capital: they rapidly spread over the whole kingdom, and found their way even into the camp ;(4) where the triumph of the church was announced to the king in the shouts of his mercenary army.(5) If James had made use of that naturally sound, though narrow, understanding with which he was endowed, he would now have perceived, that the time was come for him to retract, unless he meant seriously to sacrifice his crown to his religious prejudices. But so blinded was he by bigotry, and so obstinate in his arbitrary measures, that although he knew they were execrated by all orders of men in the state, a handful of Roman Catholics excepted; yet was he, by a singular infatuation, incapable of so much as remitting his violence in the pursuit of them!-He immediately displaced the two judges who had given their opinion in favour of the bishops, and sup plied their seats with men of more accommodating principles. He issued orders to the ecclesiastical commissioners to prosecute all the clergy who had not read his declaration of indulgence; that is, the whole body of the church of England, except about two hundred; and even these obeyed his command but imperfectly. He sent a mandate to the new fellows, whom he had obtruded on Magdalen college after expelling the former, to elect for president, in the room of Parker, lately deceased, one Gifford, a doctor of (1) Burnet. Ralph. Hume. (2) Price to Beaufort, June 30, 1688, MS. ap. Macpherson, Hist. Brit. vol. i. (3) Burnet, book iv. (4) Id. ibid. (5) In order to convince the people that he was determined to support his authority by force of arms, if necessary, and to overawe them by a display of his power, the king had, for two summers past, encamped his army, to the number of fifteen thousand men, on Hounslow-heath. He spent much of his time in training and disciplining these troops; and a popish chapel was openly erected in the midst of the camp, with a view of bringing over the soldiers to that communion. But the few converts that the priests made were treated with such contempt and ignominy by their companions, as deterred others from following the example. The king had reviewed his army on the same morning that the jury gave in their verdict in favour of the prosecuted prelates; and having afterward retired into the tent of lord Feversham, the general, he was suddenly alarmed with a great uproar in the camp, attended with the most extravagant expressions of tumultuous joy. He anxiously inquired the cause, and was told by Feversham, "It was nothing but the rejoicing of the soldiers for the acquittal of the bishops."-" And do you call that nothing?" exclaimed James, ready to burst with rage and indignation. Hume, vol. viii. the Sorbonne; and he is said to have nominated the same person to the set of Oxford !(1) Such violent and repeated infringements of the constitution could not fail to alarm the whole nation. The most moderate-minded men could ascribe the king's measures to nothing less than a settled system to introduce his own religion and an unlimited power in the crown; and the only consolation to all men was the advanced age of the king, and the prospect of a Protestant successor, who would replace every thing on ancient foundations. This consideration, together with the great naval and military force of James, kept the more ardent spirits from having immediate recourse to arms; and the prince of Orange, who still maintained a secret correspondence with the English malecontents, and was ready on any emergency to obey the call of the nation, seemed to have laid aside all thoughts of an open rupture, and to wait patiently for an event that could not be very distant,—the death of the king. But these hopes, both at home and abroad, were suddenly blasted, by the unexpected birth of a prince of Wales. From a son, educated by such a father, nothing could be expected but a continuance of the same unconstitutional measures. People of all ranks took the alarm, as if a regular plan had been formed for entailing popery and arbitrary power on them and their descendants to the latest posterity. Calumny went even so far, though the queen's delivery was as public as the laws of decency would permit, as to ascribe to the king the design of imposing upon the nation a supposititious child, who might support, after the death of James, the Catholic religion in his dominions. And the prince of Orange did not fail to propagate the improbable tale; which, in the present state of men's minds, was greedily received by the populace both in England and Holland. Under these apprehensions, many of the English nobility and gentry, and some of the principal clergy, invited the prince to come over and assist them with his arms, in the recovery of their constitutional rights. In this invitation men of all parties, civil and ecclesiastical, concurred. The whigs, conformable to those patriotic principles which had led them to urge with so much violence the exclusion bill, were zealous to expel from the throne a prince, whose conduct had fully justified all that their fears had predicted of his succession: the tories, enraged at the preference shown to the Catholics, and the church, inflamed by recent injuries, resolved to pull down the idol that their own hands had made, and which they had blindly worshipped. Their eyes being now opened, they saw the necessity of restoring and securing the constitution. And the Protestant non-conformists, whom the king had gained by his indulgence, judged it more prudent to look forward for a general toleration, to be established by law, than to rely any longer on the insidious caresses of their theological adversaries. Thus, my dear Philip, by a wonderful coalition, was faction for a time silenced; all parties sacrificing, on this occasion, their former animosities, to the apprehension of a common danger, or to the sense of a common interest. (2) The revolution, even in its beginning, was a national work; and patriotism, under the guidance of political wisdom, suggested the glorious plan. Not satisfied with a formal invitation, several English noblemen and gentlemen went over to Holland, and in person encouraged the prince of Orange to attempt their deliverance from popery and arbitrary power. The request was too flattering to be slighted. William, from the moment of his marriage with the lady Mary, had always kept his eye on the crown of England; though he had a complicated scheme of policy to conduct, and many interfering interests to reconcile on the continent. Happily, all these interests conspired to promote his proposed enterprise. The league of Augsburg, formed to break the power of France, could not accomplish its object without the accession of England. The house of Austria, therefore, in both its (1) Burnet. Ralph. Hume. (2) For a more full account of this coalition, see Bolingbroke's Dissertation on Parties, let. vii., and Hume, vol. viii. branches, and even Innocent XI., who then filled the papal chair, preferring their political views to their zeal for the Catholic faith, countenanced the projected expulsion of James, who had refused to take part in the league, as the only means of humbling Lewis XIV., their common enemy. All the German princes were in the same interest; and the prince of Orange held conferences, not only with Castanaga, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, but with the electors of Brandenburg and Saxony, with the landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and with the whole house of Lunenburg. It was agreed that these princes should protect the United Provinces during the absence of William.(1) Other circumstances contributed to facilitate the designs of the prince of Orange. The elector of Cologne, who was also bishop of Liege and Munster, and whose territories almost surrounded the United Provinces, having died about this time, a violent contest arose for that rich succession. The candidates were prince Clement of Bavaria, supported by the house of Austria, and the cardinal de Furstemburg, a prelate dependent on France. The former at length prevailed, through the partiality of the pope; but as Lewis threatened to recover by force what he had lost by intrigue, the prince of Orange formed a camp, between Grave and Nimeguen, of twenty thousand men, under pretence of guarding against danger on that side. Under other pretences, he forwarded his preparations by sea; and had equipped for service twenty ships of the line, without having recourse to the states.(2) But the states, though not formerly admitted into the secret councils of William, could not be ignorant of his real views; and the body of the people, being highly irritated against France, exhibited the utmost eagerness for every preparation for war. The commerce of the Dutch with that kingdom had lately been diminished one-fourth, by unusual restrictions: their religious rage was kindled by the cruelties inflicted on the Protestants by Lewis, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantz: the terrors raised by the bigotry of James in England had also spread to Holland; and the enthusiastic zeal of these two potent monarchs for the Catholic faith was represented, in both countries, as the certain ruin of the Protestant cause, unless restrained by the most vigorous exertions-by the united efforts of all the members of the reformed communion.(3) While one-half of Europe thus combined against the king of England, while many of his own subjects were determined to oppose his power, and more to divest him of his authority, James, as if blinded by destiny, reposed himself in the most supine security, and disregarded the repeated accounts of the preparations conveyed to his ears. In vain did Lewis XIV., who had early received certain information of the designs of the prince of Orange, attempt to rouse the infatuated monarch to a sense of his danger: in vain did he offer his aid. Deceived by his ambassador in Holland, and betrayed by his minister the earl of Sunderland, James had the weakness to believe, that the rumour of an invasion was only raised by his enemies, in order to frighten him into a closer connexion with France, and to complete, by that means, the defection of his subjects.(4) Nor was this jealousy, though carried to an imprudent height, utterly without foundation; for when Lewis took the liberty to remonstrate with the states, by his ambassador D'Avaux, against their preparations to invade England, not only the Dutch but the English took the alarm. Their apprehensions of a league between the two monarchs, for the destruction of the Protestant religion, seemed now to be confirmed, and the wildest stories were propagated to that purpose.(5) Had the defection occasioned by these fears been confined to the English populace, or merely to men in a civil capacity, James might still have bid defiance to the designs of his son-in-law. But, unhappily for that misguided monarch, both the fleet and army were infected with the same spirit of disloyalty. Of this he had received some mortifying proofs, when certain (1) Burnet, book iv. D'Avaux, tom. iv. Burnet. D'Avaux, ubi sup. (2) Id. ibid. (4) D'Avaux, tom. iv. James II., 1689 (5) D'Avaux, tom. iv. James II., 1688. See also Hume, vol. viii. |