 History of England Chapter 9 Part 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of England from the Accession of James II by Thomas Bawington Macaulay Chapter 9 Part 1 The acquittal of the bishops was not the only event which makes the 30th of June 1688 a great epoch in history. On that day, while the bells of a hundred churches were ringing, while multitudes were busied from Hyde Park to Mile End, in piling faggots and dressing popes for the rejoicings of the night, was dispatched from London to the Hague, an instrument scarcely less important to the liberties of England than the Great Charter. The prosecution of the bishops and the birth of the Prince of Wales had produced a great revolution in the feelings of many Tories. At the very moment at which their church was suffering the last excess of injury and insult, they were compelled to renounce the hope of peaceful deliverance. Hitherto they had flattered themselves that the trial to which their loyalty was subjected would, though severe, be temporary, and that their wrongs would shortly be redressed without any violation of the ordinary rule of succession. A very different prospect was now before them. As far as they could look forward they saw only misgovernment, such as that of the last three years, extending through ages. The cradle of the heir apparent of the crown was surrounded by Jesuits. Deadly hatred of that church of which he would one day be the head would be studiously instilled into his infant mind, would be the guiding principle of his life, and would be bequeathed by him to his posterity. This vista of calamities had no end. It stretched beyond the life of the youngest man living, and beyond the eighteenth century. None could say how many generations of Protestant Englishmen might hive to bear oppression, such as, even when it had been believed to be short, had been found almost insupportable. Was there then no remedy? One remedy there was, quick, sharp, and decisive. A remedy which the wigs had been but too ready to employ, but which had always been regarded by the Tories as, in all cases, unlawful. The greatest Anglican doctors of that age had maintained that no breach of law or contract, no excess of cruelty, rapacity, or licentiousness on the part of a rightful king could justify his people in withstanding him by force. Some of them had delighted to exhibit the doctrine of non-resistance, in a form so exaggerated as to shock common sense and humanity. They frequently and emphatically remarked that Nero was at the head of the Roman government when St. Paul inculcated the duty of obeying magistrates. The inference which they drew was that, if an English king should without any law, but his own pleasure, persecute his subjects for not worshipping idols, should fling them to the lions in the tower, should wrap them in pitched cloth and set them on fire to light up St. James's Park, and should go on with these massacres till whole towns and shires were left without one inhabitant, the survivors would still be bound meekly to submit, and to be torn in pieces, or roasted alive without a struggle. The arguments in favour of this proposition were futile indeed, but the place of sound argument was amply supplied by the omnipotent sophistry of interest and of passion. Many writers have expressed wonder that the high-spirited cavaliers of England should have been zealous for the most slavish theory that has ever been known among men. The truth is that this theory at first presented itself to the cavalier as the very opposite of slavish. Its tendency was to make him not a slave but a free man and a master. It exalted him by exalted one whom he regarded as his protector, as his friend, as the head of his beloved party, and of his more beloved church. When republicans were dominant, the royalist had endured wrongs and insults, which the restoration of the legitimate government had enabled him to retaliate. Rebellion was therefore associated in his imagination with subjection and degradation, and monarchical authority with liberty and ascendancy. It had never crossed his imagination that a time might come when a king, a steward, would persecute the most loyal of the clergy and gentry with more than the animosity of the rump or the protector. That time had, however, arrived. It was now to be seen how the patience which churchmen professed to have learned from the writings of Paul, would stand the test of a persecution by no means so severe as that of Nero. The event was such as everybody who knew anything of human nature would have predicted. Oppression speedily did what philosophy and eloquence would have failed to do. The system of filmer might have survived the attacks of Locke, but it had never recovered from the death-blow given by James. That logic, which, while it was used to prove that the Presbyterians and independents ought to bear imprisonment and confiscation with meekness, had been pronounced unanswerable. Seemed to be a very little force when the question was whether Anglican bishops should be imprisoned, and the revenues of Anglican colleges confiscated, it has been often repeated from the pulpits of all the cathedrals in the land, that the apostolical injunction to obey the civil magistrate was absolute and universal, and that it was in pious presumption in man to limit a preset which had been promulgated without any limitation in the word of God. Now, however, divines whose sagacity had been sharpened by the imminent danger in which they stood have been turned out of their livings and pre-bends, to make room for papists, discovered flaws in the reasoning which had formally seemed so convincing. The ethical parts of Scripture, which were not to be construed like Acts of Parliament, or like the cusiwistical treaties of the schoolmen, what Christian really turned the left cheek to the ruffian who had smitten the right, what Christian really gave his clothes to the thieves who had taken his coat away. Both in the Old and New Testament general rules were perpetually laid down, unaccompanied by the exceptions. Thus there was a general command not to kill, unaccompanied by any reservation in favour of the warrior who kills in defence of his king and country. There was a general command not to swear unaccompanied by any reservation in favour of the witness who swears to speak the truth before a judge. Yet the lawfulness of defensive war and of judicial oaths was disputed only by a few obscure sectaries, and was positively affirmed in the articles of the Church of England. All the arguments which showed that the Quaker who refused to bear arms or to kiss the Gospels was unreasonable and perverse might be turned against those who denied to subjects the right of resisting extreme tyranny by force. If it was contended that the texts which prohibited homicide and the texts which prohibited swearing, though generally expressed, must be construed in subordination to the great commandment by which every man is enjoined to promote the welfare of his neighbours, and would, when so construed, be found not to apply to cases in which homicide or swearing might be absolutely necessary to protect the dearest interests of society. It was not easy to deny that the texts which prohibited resistance ought to be construed in the same manner. If the ancient people of God had been directed sometimes to destroy human life, and sometimes to bind themselves by oaths, they had also been directed sometimes to resist wicked princes. If early fathers of the Church had occasionally used language which seemed to imply that they disapproved of all resistance, they had also occasionally used language which seemed to imply that they disapproved of all war and of all oaths. In truth the doctrine of passive obedience as taught at Oxford in the reign of Charles II, can be deduced from the Bible only by a mode of interpretation which would irresistibly lead us to the conclusions of Barclay and Pen. End of Part 1. History of England, Chapter 9, Part 2. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of England, from the accession of James II, by Thomas Babbington Macaulay. Chapter 9, Part 2. It was not merely by arguments drawn from the letter of Scripture that the Anglican theologians had during the years which immediately followed the Restoration labored to prove their favorite tenet. They had attempted to show that even if revelation had been silent, reason would have taught wise men the folly and wickedness of all resistance to established government. It was universally admitted that such resistance was, except in extreme cases, unjustifiable. And who would undertake to draw the line between extreme cases and ordinary cases? Was there any government in the world under which there were not to be found some discontented and factious men who would say and perhaps think that their grievances constituted an extreme case? If indeed it were possible to lay down a clear and accurate rule which might forbid men to rebel against Trajan and yet leave them at liberty to rebel against Caligula, such a rule might be highly beneficial. But no such rule had been or ever would be framed. To say that rebellion was lawful under some circumstances without accurately defining those circumstances was to say that every man might rebel whenever he thought fit, and a society in which every man rebelled whenever he thought fit would be more miserable than a society governed by the most cruel and licentious despot. It was therefore necessary to maintain the great principle of non-resistance in all its integrity. Particular cases might doubtless be put in which resistance would benefit a community, but it was on the whole better that the people should patiently endure a bad government than that they should relieve themselves by violating a law in which the security of all government depended. Such reasoning easily convinced a dominant and prosperous party, but could ill-bear the scrutiny of minds strongly excited by royal injustice and ingratitude. It is true that to trace the exact boundary between rightful and wrongful resistance is impossible, but this impossibility arises from the nature of right and wrong, and is found in almost every part of ethical science. A good action is not distinguished from a bad action by Marx so plain as those which distinguish a hexagon from a square. There is a frontier where virtue and vice fade into each other. Who has ever been able to define the exact boundary between courage and rashness, between prudence and cowardice, between frugality and avarice, between liberality and prodigality? Who has ever been able to say how far mercy to offenders ought to be carried, and where it ceases to deserve the name of mercy and becomes a pernicious weakness? What kazooist, what lawyer, has ever been able nicely to mark the limits of the right of self-defense? All our jurists hold that a certain quantity of risk to life or limb justifies a man in shooting or stabbing an assailant, but they have long given up in despair the attempt to describe in precise words that quantity of risk. They only say that it must be not a slight risk, but a risk such as would cause serious apprehension to a man of firm mind, and who will undertake to say what is the precise amount of apprehension which deserves to be called serious, or what is the precise texture of mind which deserves to be called firm? It is doubtless to be regretted that the nature of words and the nature of things do not admit of more accurate legislation, nor can it be denied that wrong will often be done when men are judges in their own cause, and proceed instantly to execute their own judgment. Yet who would on that account interdict all self-defense? The right which a people has to resist a bad government bears a close analogy to the right which an individual, in the absence of legal protection, has to slay an assailant. In both cases the evil must be grave. In both cases all regular and peaceable modes of defense must be exhausted before the aggrieved party resorts to extremities. In both cases an awful responsibility is incurred. In both cases the burden of the proof lies on him who has ventured on so desperate and expedient, and if he fails to vindicate himself he is justly liable to the severest penalties. But in neither case can we absolutely deny the existence of the right. A man beset by assassins is not bound to let himself be tortured and butchered without using his weapons, because nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of danger which justifies homicide. Nor is a society bound to endure passively all the tyranny can inflict, because nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of misgovernment which justifies rebellion. But could the resistance of Englishmen to such a prince as James be properly called rebellion? The thorough paced disciples of Filmer indeed maintained that there was no difference between the polity of our country and that of Turkey, and that if the king did not confiscate the contents of all the tills in Lombard Street and send mutes with bow strings to Sandcroft and Halifax, this was only because his majesty was too gracious to use the whole power which he derived from heaven. But the great body of Tories, though in the heat of conflict they might occasionally use language which seemed to indicate that they approved of these extravagant doctrines, heartily abhor despotism. The English government was in their view a limited monarchy. Yet how can a monarchy be said to be limited if force is never to be employed even in the last resort for the purpose of maintaining the limitations? In Muscovy, where the sovereign was by the constitution of the state absolute, it might perhaps be with some color of truth contended that whatever excesses he might commit, he was still entitled to demand on Christian principles the obedience of his subjects. But here, prince and people were alike bound by the laws. It was therefore James who incurred the woe denounced against those who insult the powers that be. It was James who was resisting the ordinance of God, who was mutinying against that legitimate authority to which he ought to have been subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience's sake, and who was in the true sense of the words of Jesus withholding from Caesar the things which were Caesars. Moved by such considerations as these, the ablest and most enlightened Tories began to admit that they had overstrained the doctrine of passive obedience. The difference between these men and the Whigs as to the reciprocal obligations of kings and subjects was now no longer a difference of principle. There still remained it is true many historical controversies between the party which had always maintained the lawfulness of resistance and the new converts. The memory of the Blessed Martyr was still as much revered as ever by those old Cavaliers who were ready to take arms against his degenerate son. They still spoke with abhorrence of the long Parliament, of the Ryehouse plot and of the Western insurrection. But whatever they might think about the past, the view which they took of the present was altogether wiggish, for they now held that extreme oppression might justify resistance, and they held that the oppression which the nation suffered was extreme. It must not, however, be supposed that all the Tories renounced, even at that conjuncture, a tenet which they had from childhood been taught to regard as an essential part of Christianity, which they had professed during many years with ostentatious vehemence in which they had attempted to propagate by persecution. Many were kept steady to their old creed by conscience, and many by shame. But the greater part, even of those who still continued to pronounce all resistance to the sovereign unlawful, were disposed in the event of a civil conflict to remain neutral. No provocation should drive them to rebel, but if rebellion broke forth, it did not appear that they were bound to fight for James II as they would have fought for Charles I. The Christians of Rome had been forbidden by St. Paul to resist the government of Nero. But there was no reason to believe that the apostle, if he had been alive when the legions and the senate rose up against that wicked emperor, would have commanded the brethren to fly to arms in support of tyranny. The duty of the persecuted church was clear. She must suffer patiently and commit her cause to God. But if God, whose providence perpetually adduces good out of evil, should be pleased, as oftentimes he had been pleased, to redress her wrongs by the instrumentality of men whose angry passions her lessons had not been able to tame, she might gratefully accept from him a deliverance which her principles did not permit her to achieve for herself. Most of those Tories, therefore, who still sincerely disclaimed all thought of attacking the government, were yet by no means inclined to defend it, and perhaps, while glorying in their own scruples, secretly rejoiced that everybody was not so scrupulous as themselves. Chapter 9, Part 3. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. History of England from the accession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay. Chapter 9, Part 3. The Whigs saw that their time was come. Whether they should draw the sword against the government had, during six or seven years, been, in their view, merely a question of prudence, and prudence itself now urged them to take a bold course. In May, before the birth of the Prince of Wales, and while it was still uncertain whether the declaration would or would not be read in the churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the Hague. He had strongly represented to the Prince of Orange the state of the public mind, and had advised his Highness to appear in England at the head of a strong body of troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen at a glance the whole importance of the crisis. Now or never, he exclaimed in Latin to Dijkfeldt. To Russell, he held more guarded language, admitted that the distimpers of the state were such as required an extraordinary remedy, but spoke with earnestness of the chance of failure, and of the calamities which failure might bring on Britain and on Europe. He knew well that many who talked in high order about sacrificing their lives and fortunes for their country would hesitate when the prospect of another bloody circuit was brought close to them. He wanted therefore to have not vague professions of goodwill, but distinct invitations and promises of support subscribed by powerful and imminent men. Russell remarked that it would be dangerous to entrust the design to a great number of persons. William assented, and said that a few signatures would be sufficient if they were the signatures of statesmen who represented great interests. With this answer, Russell returned to London, where he found the excitement greatly increased and daily increasing. The imprisonment of the bishops and the delivery of the Queen made his task easier than he could have anticipated. He lost no time in collecting the voices of the Chiefs of the Opposition. His principal co-agitor in this work was Henry Sydney, brother of Algernon. It is remarkable that both Edward Russell and Henry Sydney had been in the household of James, that both had partly on public and partly on private grounds become his enemies, and that both had to avenge the blood of near kinsmen who had, in the same year, fallen victims to his implacable severity. Here the resemblance ends. Russell, with considerable abilities, was proud, acrimonious, restless, and violent. Sydney, with a sweet temper and winning manners, seemed to be unknowledge, and to be sunk in voluptuousness and indolence. His face and form were eminently handsome. In his youth he had been the terror of husbands, and even now, at near fifty, he was the favorite of women and the envy of younger men. He had formerly resided at The Hague in a public character, and had then succeeded in obtaining a large share of William's confidence. Many wondered at this, for it seemed that between the most austere of statesmen and the most disillute would be nothing in common. Swift, many years later, could not be convinced that one whom he had known only as an illiterate and frivolous old rake, could really have played a great part in a great revolution. Yet a less acute observer than Swift might have been aware that there is a certain tact, resembling an instinct, which is often wanting to great orators and philosophers, and which is often found in persons who, if judged by their conversation or by their writings, would be pronounced wrong. Indeed, when a man possesses this tact, it is in some sense an advantage to him that he is destitute of those more showy talents which would make him an object of admiration of envy and of fear. Sydney was a remarkable instance of this truth. Incapable, ignorant, and dissipated as he seemed to be, he understood, or rather felt, with whom it was necessary to be reserved, and with whom he might safely venture to be communicative. The consequence was that he did what mordant with all his vivacity and invention, or burn it with all his multifarious knowledge and fluent elocution never could have done. With the old wigs, there could be no difficulty. In their opinion, there had been scarcely a moment during many years at which the public wrongs would not have justified resistance. Devonshire, who might be regarded as their chief, had private as well as public wrongs to revenge. He went into the scheme with his whole heart and answered for his party. Russell opened the design to Shrewsbury. Sydney sounded Halifax. Shrewsbury took his part with the courage and decision which, at a later period, seemed to be wanting to his character. He at once agreed to set his estate, his honors, and his life on the stake. But Halifax received the first hint of the project in a way which showed that it would be useless and perhaps hazardous to be explicit. He was indeed not the man for such an enterprise. His intellect was inexhaustibly fertile of distinctions and objections. His temper calm and unadventurous. He was ready to oppose the court to the utmost in the House of Lords and by means of anonymous writings. But he was little disposed to exchange his lordly repose for the insecure and agitated life of a conspirator, to be in the power of accomplices, to live in constant dread of warrants and king's messengers, nay, perhaps to end his days on a scaffold or to live on alms in some back hage. He therefore let fall some words which plainly indicated that he did not wish to be privy to the intentions of his more daring and impetuous friends. Sydney understood him and said no more. The next application was made to Danby and had far better success. Indeed, for his bold and active spirit, the danger and the excitement which were insupportable to the more delicately organized mind of Halifax had a strong fascination. The different characters the two statesmen were legible in their faces. The brow, the eye and the mouth of Halifax indicated a powerful intellect and an exquisite sense of the ludicrous. But the expression was that of a skeptic, of a voluptuary, of a man not likely to venture his all on a single hazard or to be a martyr in any cause. To those who are acquainted with his countenance, it will not seem wonderful that the writer in whom he most delighted was Montaigne. Danby was a skeleton and his meager and wrinkled though handsome and noble face strongly expressed both the keenness of his parts and the restlessness of his ambition. Already he had once risen from obscurity to the height of power. He had then fallen headlong from his elevation. His life had been in danger. He had passed years in a prison. He was now free, but this did not content him. He wished to be again great. Attached as he was to the Anglican church, hostile as he was to the French ascendancy, he could not hope to be great in a court swarming with Jesuits and obsequious to the House of Bourbon. But if he bore a chief part in a revolution which should confound all the schemes of the papists, which should put an end to the long vacillage of England and which should transfer the regal power to an illustrious pair whom he had united, he might emerge from his eclipse with New Splendor. The Whigs, whose animosity had nine years before driven him from office, would, on his auspicious appearance, join their acclamations to the acclamations of his old friends, the Cavaliers. Already there had been a complete reconciliation between him and one of the most distinguished of those who had formally been managers of his impeachment, the Earl of Devonshire. The two noblemen had met at a village in the peak and had exchanged assurances of goodwill. Devonshire had frankly owned that the Whigs had been guilty of a great injustice and had declared that they were now convinced of their error. Danby, on his side, had also recantations to make. He had once held or pretended to hold the doctrine of passive obedience in the largest sense. Under his administration and with his sanction, a law had been proposed which, if it had been passed, would have excluded from parliament and office all who refused to declare on oath that they thought resistance in every case unlawful. But his vigorous understanding, now thoroughly awakened by anxiety for the public interests and for his own, was no longer to be duped if indeed it had ever been duped by such childish fallacies. He at once gave in his own adhesion to the conspiracy. He then exerted himself to obtain the concurrence of Compton, the suspended bishop of London and succeeded without difficulty. No prelate had been so insolently and unjustly treated by the government as Compton, nor had any prelate so much to expect from a revolution. For he had directed the education of the Princess of Orange and was supposed to possess a large share of her confidence. He had, like his brethren, strongly maintained, as long as he was not oppressed, that it was a crime to resist oppression. But since he had stood before the High Commission, a new light had broken in upon his mind. Both Danby and Compton were desirous to secure the assistance of nodding him. The whole plan was open to him and he approved of it. But in a few days he began to be not sufficiently powerful to emancipate itself from the prejudices of education. He went about from divine to divine proposing in general terms hypothetical cases of tyranny and inquiring whether in such cases resistance would be lawful. The answers which he obtained increased his distress. He at length told his accomplices that he could go no further with them. If they thought him capable of betraying them, they might stab him and he should hardly blame them, for by drawing so far he had given them a kind of right over his life. They had, however, he assured them nothing to fear from him. He would keep their secret. He could not help wishing them success, but his conscience would not suffer him to take an active part in a rebellion. They heard his confession with suspicion and disdain. Sidney, whose notions of a conscientious scruple were extremely vague, informed the Prince that nodding him had taken fright. It is due to nodding him, however, to say that the general tenor of his life justifies us in believing his conduct on this occasion to have been perfectly honest, then most unwise in a resolute. The agents of the Prince had more complete success with Lord Lumley, who knew himself to be in spite of the imminent service which he had performed at the time of the western insurrection, aboard at Whitehall, not only as a heretic, but as a renegade, and who was therefore more eager than most of those who had been born Protestants to take arms in defense of the Prince. End of Part 3 During June the meetings of those who were in the secret were frequent. At length, on the last day of the month, the day on which the bishops were pronounced not guilty, the decisive step was taken. A formal invitation, transcribed by Sidney, but drawn up by some person more skilled than Sidney in the art of composition, was dispatched to the Hague. In this paper, William was assured that nineteen-twentieths of English people were desirous of a change and would willingly join to affect it, if only that they could obtain the help of such a force from abroad as might secure those who should rise in arms from the danger of being dispersed and slaughtered before they could form themselves into anything like military order. If his highness would appear in the island at the head of some troops tens of thousands would hasten to his standard. He would soon find himself at the head of a force superior to the whole regular army of England. Nor could that army be implicitly dependent on by the government. The officers were discontented, and the common soldiers shared that aversion to popery which was general in the class from which they were taken. In the navy, Protestant feeling was still stronger. It was important to take some decisive step while things were in this state. The enterprise would be far more arduous if it were deferred to the king by remodeling burrows and regiments had procured a parliament and an army on which he could rely. The conspirators, therefore, implored the prince to come among them with as little delay as possible. They pledged their honor that they would join him, and they undertook to secure the cooperation of as large a number of persons as could safely be trusted with so momentous and perilous a secret. On one point they thought it their duty to demonstrate with his highness. He had not taken advantage of the opinion which the great body of the English people had formed respecting the late birth. He had, on the contrary, sent congratulations to Whitehall, and had thus seen to acknowledge that the child who was called Prince of Wales was rightful heir of the throne. This was a grave heir, and had damped the zeal of many. Not one person in a thousand doubted that the boy was suspicious, and the prince would be wanting, to his own interests, if the suspicious circumstances which had attended the queen's confinement were not put prominently forward among his reasons for taking arms. This paper was signed in Cypher by the seven chiefs of the conspiracy. Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, Lumley, Compton, Russell, and Sydney. Herbert undertook to be their messenger. His errand was one of no ordinary peril. He assumed the garb of a common sailor and in this disguise reached the Dutch coast in safety on the Friday after the trial of the bishops. He instantly hastened to the prince. Bentink and Dijkveld were summoned, and several days were passed in deliberation. The first result of this deliberation was that the prayer for the Prince of Wales ceased to be read in Princess's chapel. From his wife William had no opposition to apprehend. Her understanding had been completely subjugated by his, and what is more extraordinary he had won her entire affection. He was to her in the place of the parents whom she had lost by death and by estrangement of the children who had been denied to her in prayers and of the country from which she was banished. His empire over her heart was divided only with her god. To her father she had probably never been attached. She had quitted him young, many years had elapsed since she had seen him, and no part of his conduct to her since her marriage had indicated tenderness on his part or had been calculated to call forth tenderness on hers. He had done all in his power to disturb her domestic happiness and had established a system of spying, eavesdropping and tail-bearing under her roof. He had a far greater revenue than any of his predecessors had ever possessed and regularly allowed to her younger sister forty thousand pounds a year. But the heiress presumptive of his throne had never received from him the smallest pecuniary assistance and was scarcely able to make that appearance which became her high rank among European princesses. She had ventured to intercede with him on behalf of her old friend Dr. Compton, who, for refusing to commit an act of logitious injustice, had been suspended from his episcopal functions. But she had been ungraciously repulsed. From the day on which it had become clear that she and her husband were determined not to be parties to the subversion of the English constitution, one chief object of the politics of James had been to injure them both. He had recalled the British regiments from Holland. He had conspired with Turk Honol and with France against Mary's rights and had made arrangements for depriving her of one at least of the three crowns to which at his death she would have been entitled. It is now believed by the great body of his people and by many persons high and rank and distinguished by abilities that he had introduced a supposititious Prince of Wales into the royal family in order to deprive her of pleasant inheritance and there was no reason to doubt that she partook of the prevailing suspicion that she should love such a father was impossible. Her religious principles, indeed, were so strict that she would probably have tried to perform what she considered as her duty even to a father whom she did not love. On the present occasion, however, she judged that the claim of James to her obedience ought to yield to a claim and indeed all divines and publicists agree in this that when the daughter of a Prince of one country is married to a Prince of another country she is bound to forget her own people and her father's house and in the event of a rupture between her husband and her parents to side with her husband. This is the undoubted rule even when the husband is in the wrong and to marry the enterprise which William meditated appeared not only just but wholly. But though she carefully abstained from doing or saying anything that could add to his difficulties those difficulties were serious indeed. They were in truth but imperfectly understood even by some of those who invited him over and have been but imperfectly described by some of those who have written the history of his expedition. The obstacles which he might expect to encounter on English ground though the least formidable the obstacles which stood in the way of his design were yet serious. He felt that it would be madness in him to imitate the example of Monmouth to cross the sea with a few British adventurers and to trust to a general rising of the population. It was necessary and it was pronounced necessary by all those who invited him over that he should carry an army with him. Yet who could answer for the effect which the appearance of such an army might produce? The government was indeed justly odious but would the English people altogether and accustomed to the interference of continental powers in English disputes be inclined to look with favour on a deliverer who was surrounded by foreign soldiers? If any part of the royal forces resolutely withstood the invaders would not that part soon have on its side the patriotic sympathy of millions? A defeat would be fatal to the whole undertaking A bloody victory gained in the heart of the island by the mercenaries of the state's general over the cold stream guards and the buffs would be almost as great a calamity as a defeat. Such a victory would be the most cruel wound ever inflicted on the national pride of one of the proudest of nations. The crown so won would never be worn in peace or security. The hatred with which the high commission and the Jesuits were regarded would give place to the more intense hatred which would be inspired by the incongruers. And many who had hitherto contemplated the power of France with dread and loathing would say that if a foreign yoke must be born there was less ignominy in submitting to France than in submitting to Holland. These considerations might well have made William uneasy even if all the military means of the United Provinces had been at his absolute disposal. But in truth it seemed very doubtful to gain the assistance of a single battalion. Of all the difficulties with which he had to struggle, the greatest, though little noticed by English historians, arose from the constitution of the Batavian Republic. No great society has ever existed during a long course of years under a polity so inconvenient. The state's general could not make war or peace, could not conclude any alliance or levy any tax without the consent of states of every province. The states of a province could not give such consent without the consent of every municipality which had a share in the representation. Every municipality was in some sense a sovereign state and as such claimed the right of communicating directly with foreign ambassadors and of concerting with them the means of defeating schemes on which other municipalities were intent. In some town councils the party which had during several generations regarded the influence of the start-holders with jealousy had great power. At the head of this party were the magistrates of the noble city of Amsterdam which was then at the height of prosperity. They had ever since the peace of Nijmegen kept up a friendly correspondence with Lewis through the instrumentality of his able and active envoy the Count of Auvo. Propositions brought forward by the start-holder as indispensable to the security of the Commonwealth sanctioned by all the provinces except Holland and sanctioned by 17 of the 18 town councils of Holland had repeatedly been negative by the single voice of Amsterdam. The only constitutional remedy in such cases was that deputies from the cities which were agreed should pay a visit to the city for the purpose of expostulation. The number of deputies was unlimited, they might continue to expostulate as long as they thought fit, and meanwhile all their expenses were defrayed by the obstinate community which refused to yield to their arguments. This absurd mode of coercion had once been tried with success on the little town of Gorkum but was not likely to produce much effect on the mighty and opulent Amsterdam renowned throughout the world for its bristling with innumerable masts, its canals bordered by stately mansions, its gorgeous Hall of State, walled, roofed and floored with polished marble, its warehouses filled with the most costly productions of Ceylon and Suriname, and its exchange resounding with the endless hubbub of all the languages spoken by civilized men. End of Part 4 History of England Chapter 9 Part 5 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by John Leader Bloomington, Illinois History of England from the accession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay Chapter 9 Part 5 The disputes between the majority which supported the Schottholder and the minority headed by the magistrates of Amsterdam had repeatedly run so high that bloodshed had seemed to be inevitable. On one occasion the Prince had attempted to bring the refractory deputies to punishment as traitors. On another occasion the gates of Amsterdam had been barred against him and troops had been raised to defend the privileges of the municipal council. That the rulers of this great city had an expedition offensive in the highest degree to Lewis whom they courted and likely to aggrandize the House of Orange which they abhorred was not likely. Yet without their consent such an expedition could not legally be undertaken. To quell their opposition by main force was a course from which in different circumstances the resolute and daring Schottholder would not have shrunk. But at that moment it was most important carefully avoid every act which could be represented as tyrannical. He could not venture to violate the fundamental laws of Holland at the very moment at which he was drawing the sword against his father-in-law for violating the fundamental laws of England. The violent subversion of one free constitution would have been a strange prelude to the violent restoration of another. There was yet another difficulty which has been too little noticed by English writers which was never for a moment absent from William's mind. In the expedition which he meditated he could succeed only by appealing to the Protestant feeling of England and by stimulating that feeling till it became for a time the dominant and almost the exclusive sentiment of the nation. This would indeed have been a very simple course at the end of Holland's politics been to effect a revolution in Ireland and to reign there. But he had in view an ulterior end which could be attained only by the help of princes sincerely attached to the Church of Rome. He was desirous to unite the Empire, the Catholic King, and the Holy See with England and Holland in a league against the French ascendancy. It was therefore necessary that, while striking the greatest blow ever struck in defensive Protestantism, he should yet contrive not to lose the good will of governments which regarded Protestantism as a deadly heresy. Such were the complicated difficulties of this great undertaking. Continental statesmen saw a part of those difficulties, British statesmen another part. One capacious and powerful mind alone took them all in at one view and determined to surmount them all. It was no easy thing to subvert the English government by means of a foreign army without galling Polishmen. It was no easy thing to obtain from that Metavian faction which regarded France with partiality and the House of Orange with a version a decision in favor of an expedition which would confound all the schemes of France and raise the House of Orange to the height of greatness. It was no easy thing to lead enthusiastic Protestants on a crusade against Popery with the good wishes of almost all Popish governments and of the Pope and all these things William affected. All his objects even those which appeared most incompatible with each other he attained completely and at once. The whole history of ancient and of modern times records no other such triumph of statesmanship. The task would indeed have been too arduous even for such a statesman as the Prince of Orange had not his chief adversaries been at this time smitten with an infatuation such as by many men not prone to superstition was ascribed to the special judgment of God. Not only was the King of England as he had ever been stupid and perverse but even the council of the politic King of France was turned into foolishness. Whatever wisdom and energy could do William did. Those obstacles which no wisdom or energy could have overcome his enemies themselves studiously removed. On the great day on which the bishops were acquitted and on which the invitation was dispatched to the Hague James returned from Honslow to Westminster in a gloomy and agitated mood. He made an effort that afternoon to appear cheerful but the bonfires the rockets and above all the waxen popes who were blazing in every quarter of London were not likely to soothe him. Those who saw him on the morrow would usually read in his face and demeanor the violent emotions which agitated his mind. During some days he appeared so unwilling to talk about the trial that even Baryon could not venture to introduce the subject. Soon it began to be clear that defeat and mortification had only hardened the King's heart. The first words which he uttered when he learned that the object of his revenge had escaped him were gifts for them. In a few days these words which he according to his fashion repeated many times were fully explained. He blamed himself not for having prosecuted the bishops but for having prosecuted them before a tribunal where questions of fact were decided by juries and where established principles of law could not be utterly disregarded even by the most servile judges. This air he determined to repair. Not only the seven prelates who had signed the petition but the whole Anglican clergy should have reason to curse the day on which they had triumphed over their sovereign. Within a fortnight after the trial an order was made in joining all chancellors of diocese and all archdeacons to make a strict inquisition throughout their respective jurisdictions and to report to the High Commission within five weeks the names of all such rectors vickers and curates as had omitted to read the declaration. The king anticipated with delight the tear with which the offenders would learn that they were to be cited before a court which would give them no quarter. The number of culprits was little if at all short of ten thousand and after what had passed at Magdalen College every one of them might reasonably expect to be interdicted from all his spiritual functions ejected from his benefits declared incapable of holding any other preferment and charged with the cost of the proceedings which had reduced him to beggary. Such was the persecution with which James, smarting from his great defeat in Westminster Hall resolved to harass the clergy. Meanwhile he tried to show the lawyers by a prompt and large distribution of rewards and punishments that strenuous and unblushing servility even when least successful was a sure title to his favour and that whoever after years of obsequiousness ventured to deviate but for one moment into courage and honesty was guilty of an unpardonable offence. The violence and audacity which the Apostate Williams had exhibited throughout the trial of the bishops had made him hateful to the whole nation. He was recompensed with a baronetcy. Holloway and Powell had raised their character by declaring that in their judgment the petition was no libel. They were dismissed from their situations. The fate of right seems to have been during some time in suspense. He had indeed summed up against the bishops but he had suffered their counsel to question the dispensing power. He had pronounced the petition a libel but he had carefully abstained from pronouncing the declaration legal and through the whole proceeding his tone had been that of a man who remembered that a day of reckoning might come. He had indeed strong claims to indulgence for it was hardly to be expected that any human impudence would hold out without flagging through such a task in the presence of such a bar and of such an auditory. The members of the Jesuitical Cabal however blamed his want of spirit. The Chancellor pronounced him a beast and it was generally believed that a new Chief Justice would be appointed but no change was made. It would indeed have been no easy matter to supply right's place. The many lawyers who were far superior to him in parts and learning were with scarcely an exception hostile to the designs of the government and the very few lawyers who surpassed him in turpitude and effrontery were with scarcely an exception to be found only in the lowest ranks of the profession and would have been competent to conduct the ordinary business of the court of king's bench. Williams it is true united all the qualities which James regarded in a magistrate but the services of Williams were needed at the bar and had he been moved fence the crown would have been left without the help of any advocate even of the third rate. Nothing had amazed or mortified the king more than the enthusiasm which the dissenters had shown in the cause of the bishops Pen who though he had himself sacrificed wealth and honors to his conscientious scruples seems to have imagined that nobody but himself had a conscience imputed the discontent of the Puritans to envy and dissatisfied ambition. They had not had their share of the benefits promised by the declaration of indulgence. None of them had been admitted to any high and honorable post and therefore it was not strange that they were jealous accordingly within a week after the great verdict had been pronounced in Westminster Hall Silas Titus a noted presbyterian a vehement exclusionist and a manager of Stafford's impeachment was invited to occupy a seat in the privy council. He was one of the persons on whom the opposition had most confidently reckoned but the honor now offered to him and the hope of obtaining a large sum due to him from the crown overcame his virtue after the great disgust of all classes of Protestants he was sworn in. The vindictive designs of the king against the church were not accomplished. Almost all the Archdeacons and diocesan chancellors refused to furnish the information which was required the day on which it had been intended that the whole body of the priesthood should be summoned to answer for the crime of the church. It appeared that scarcely one ecclesiastical officer had sent up a return. At the same time a paper of grave import was delivered to the board. It came from Spratt, Bishop of Rochester. During two years supported by the hope of an Archbishop Rick he had been content to bear the reproach of persecuting that church which he was bound by every obligation of conscience and honor to defend. But he was appointed. He saw that unless he abjured his religion he had no chance of sitting on the metropolitan throne of York. He was too good nature to find any pleasure in tyranny and to discerning not to see the signs of the coming retribution. He therefore determined to resign his odious functions and he communicated his determination to his colleagues in a letter written like all dignity of style. It was impossible, he said, that he could longer continue to be a member of the commission. He had himself in obedience to the royal command read the declaration. But he could not presume to condemn thousands of pious and loyal divines who had taken a different view of their duty and since it was resolved to punish them for acting according to their conscience he must declare that he would rather suffer with them than with others. The commissioners read and stood aghast. The very faults of their colleague, the known laxity of his principles, the known meanness of his spirit made his defection peculiarly alarming. A government must be indeed in danger when men like Spratt address it in the language of Hampton. The tribunal, lately so insolent, became on a sudden strangely tame. These eustical functionaries who had defied its authority were not even reprimanded. It was not thought safe to hint any suspicion that their disobedience had been intentional. They were merely enjoined to have their reports ready in four months. The commission then broke up in confusion. It had received a death blow. End of Part 5 History of England, Chapter 9, Part 6 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org History of England from the Assession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay Chapter 9, Part 6 While the High Commission shrank from a conflict with the church, the church, conscious of its strength, and animated by a new enthusiasm, invited by a series of defiances, the attack of the High Commission. Soon after the acquittal of the bishops, the venerable Ormond, the most illustrious of the cavaliers of the great Civil War, sank under his infirmities. The intelligence of his death was conveyed with speed to Oxford. Only the university, of which he had long been Chancellor, met to name a successor. One party was for the eloquent and accomplished Halifax, another for the grave and Orthodox Nottingham. Some mentioned the Earl of Abingdon, who resided near them and had recently been turned out of the left tenancy of the county for refusing to join with the king against the established religion. But the majority, consisting of eight and eighty graduates, voted for the young Duke of Ormond, grandson of their late head, and son of the gallant Osary. The speed with which they came to this resolution was caused by their apprehension that if there were a delay even of a day, the king would attempt to force on them some chief who would betray their rights. The apprehension was reasonable for only two hours after they had a mandate from Whitehall requiring them to choose Jeffries. Happily the election of young Ormond was already complete and irrevocable. A few weeks later the infamous Timothy Hall, who had distinguished himself among the clergy of London by reading the declaration, was rewarded with the bishopric of Oxford, which had been vacant since the death of the not less infamous Parker. Hall came down to his sea, but the cannons of his cathedral refused to attend his installation. The university refused to create him a doctor. Not a single one of the academic youth applied to him for holy orders. No cap was touched to him, and in his palace he found himself alone. Soon afterwards a living which was in the gift of Magdalen College, Oxford became vacant. Huff and his ejected brethren assembled and presented a clerk and the bishop of Gloucester in whose diocese the living lay instituted their presentee without hesitation. The gentry were not less refractory than the clergy. The ascites of that summer wore all over the country an aspect never before known. The judges, before they set out on their circuits, had been summoned into the king's presence and had been directed by him to impress on the grand jurors and magistrates throughout the kingdom the duty of electing such members of parliament as would support his policy. They obeyed his commands, harangued vehemently against the clergy, reviled the seven bishops, called the memorable petition a factious libel criticized with great asperity, Sankroth's style which was indeed open to criticism and pronounced that his grace ought to be whipped by Dr. Busby for writing bad English. But the only effect of these indecent declamations was to increase the public discontent. All the marks of public respect which had usually been shown to the judicial office and to the royal commission were withdrawn. The old custom was that men of good birth and estate should ride in the train of the sheriff when he escorted the judges to the county town. Such a procession could now with difficulty be formed in any part of the kingdom. The successors of Powell and Holloway in particular were treated with marked indignity. The Oxford circuit had been allotted to them and they had expected to be greeted in every shire by a cavalcade of the loyal gentry. But as they approached Wallingford where they were to open their commission for Berkshire the sheriff alone came forth as they approached Oxford the eminently loyal capital of an eminently loyal province they were again welcomed by the sheriff alone. The army was scarcely less disaffected than the clergy or the gentry. The garrison of the tower had drunk the health of the imprisoned bishops. The foot-guards stationed at Lambeth had with every mark of reverence welcomed the primate back to his palace. Nowhere had the news of the acquittal been received with more clamorous delight than at Hounslow Heath. In truth the great force which the king had assembled for the purpose of overawing his mutinous capital had become more mutinous than the capital itself and was more dreaded by the court than by the citizens. Early in August therefore the camp was broken up and the troops were sent to quarters in different parts of the country. The names flattered himself that it would be easier to deal with separate battalions than with many thousands of men collected in one mass. The first experiment was tried on Lord Litchfield's regiment of infantry now called the 12th of the line. That regiment was probably selected because it had been raised at the time of the western insurrection in Staffordshire a province where the Roman Catholics were more numerous and powerful than almost any other part of England. The men were drawn up in the king's presence. Their major informed them that his majesty wished them to subscribe an engagement, binding them to assist in carrying into effect his intentions concerning the test and that all who did not choose to comply must quit the service on the spot. To the king's great astonishment whole ranks instantly laid down two officers and a few privates all Roman Catholics obeyed his command. He remained silent for a short time. Then he bade the men take up their arms. Another time he said with a gloomy look I shall not do you the honour to consult you. It was plain that if he determined to persist in his designs he must remodel the army. Yet materials for that purpose he could not find in our island. The members of his church even in the districts where they were most numerous were a small minority of the people. Hatred of potpourri had spread through all classes of his protestant subjects and had become the ruling passion even of plowmen and artisans. But there was another part of his dominions where a very different spirit animated the great body of the population. There was no limit to the number of Roman Catholic soldiers whom the good pay and quarters of England would attract across St. George's Channel. Turconel had been during some time employed in forming out of the peasantry of his country a military force on which his master might depend. Already papists of Celtic blood and speech composed almost the whole army of Ireland. Berylain earnestly and repeatedly advised James to bring over that army for the purpose of coercing the English. End of Part 6 History of England Chapter 9 Part 7 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org History of England from the Assession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay Chapter 9 Part 7 James wavered. He wished to be surrounded by troops on whom he could rely, but he dreaded the explosion of national feeling which the appearance of the great Irish force on English ground must produce. At last as usually happens when a weak man tries to avoid opposite inconveniences he took a course which united them all. He brought over Irishmen not indeed enough to hold down the single city of London or the single county of York but more than enough to excite the alarm and rage of the whole kingdom from Northumberland to Cornwall. Battalion after battalion raised and trained by Turconel landed on the western coast and moved towards the capital and Irish recruits were imported in considerable numbers to fill up vacancies in the English regiments. Of the many errors which James committed none was more fatal than this. Already he had alienated the hearts of his people by violating their laws confiscating their estates and persecuting their religion. Of those who had once been most zealous for monarchy he had already made many rebels in heart. Yet he might still with some chance of success the patriotic spirit of his subjects against an invader for they were a race insular in temper as well as in geographical position. Their national antipathies were indeed in that age unreasonably and unamiably strong. Never had the English been accustomed to the control of interference of any stranger. The appearance of a foreign army on their soil might impel them to rally even round a king they had no reason to love. William might perhaps have been unable to overcome this difficulty but James removed it. Not even the arrival of a brigade of Louis's musketeers would have excited such resentment and shame as our ancestors felt when they saw armed columns of papists just arrived from Dublin moving in military pomp along the high roads. No man of English blood then regarded the Aboriginal Irish as his countrymen. They did not belong to our branch of the great human family they were distinguished from us by more than one moral and intellectual peculiarity which the difference of situation and of education great as that difference was did not seem altogether to explain. They had an aspect of their own a mother tongue of their own when they talked English their pronunciation was ludicrous as is always the phraseology of those who think in one language and express their thoughts in another. They were therefore foreigners and of all foreigners they were the most hated and despised the most hated for they had during five centuries always been our enemies the most despised for they were our vanquished enslaved and despoiled enemies The Englishman compared with pride his own fields with the desolate bogs went the wraparise issued forth to rob and murder and his own dwelling with the hovels where the peasants and the hogs of the Shannon wallowed in filth together. He was a member of a society far inferior indeed in wealth and civilization to the society in which we live but still one of the wealthiest and most highly civilized societies that the world had then seen The Irish were almost as rude as the savages of Labrador He was a free man The Irish were the hereditary serfs of his race He worshipped God after a pure and rational fashion The Irish were sunk in idolatry and superstition He knew that great numbers of Irish had repeatedly fled before a small English force and that the whole Irish population had been held down by a small tyranny and he very complacently inferred that he was naturally a being of a higher order than the Irishmen for it is thus that a dominant race always explains its ascendancy and excuses its tyranny that in vivacity humor and eloquence the Irish stand high among the nations of the world is now universally acknowledged that when well disciplined their excellent soldiers has been proved to have entered fields of battle yet it is certain that a century and a half ago they were generally despised in our island as both a stupid and a cowardly people and these were the men who were to hold England down by main force while her civil and ecclesiastical constitution was destroyed The blood of the whole nation boiled at the thought to be conquered by Frenchmen or by Spaniards would have seemed with Frenchmen and Spaniards we had been accustomed to treat unequal terms we had sometimes envied their prosperity sometimes dreaded their power sometimes congratulated ourselves on their friendship in spite of our unsocial pride we admitted that they were great nations and that they could boast of men eminent in the arts of war and peace but to be subjugated by an inferior caste was a degradation beyond all other degradation the English felt as the white inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans would feel if those towns were occupied by Negro garrisons the real facts would have been sufficient to excite uneasiness and indignation but the real facts were lost amidst a crowd of wild rumors which flew without ceasing from coffee house to coffee house and from ale bench to ale bench and became more wonderful and terrible at every stage of the progress the number of the Irish troops who had landed on our shores might justly excite serious apprehensions as to the king's ulterior designs but it was magnified tenfold by the public apprehensions it may well be supposed that the rude curn of cannot placed with arms in his hands among a foreign people whom he hated and by whom he was hated in turn was guilty of some excesses these excesses were exaggerated by report and in addition to the outrages which the stranger had really committed all the offenses of his English comrades were set down to his account from every corner of the kingdom a cry arose against the foreign barbarians who forced themselves into private houses seized horses and wagons extorted money and insulted women these men it was said were the sons of those who forty-seven years before had massacred Protestants by tens of thousands the history of the rebellion of sixteen forty-one a history which even when soberly related might well move pity and horror and which had been frightfully distorted by national and religious antipathies was now the favorite topic of conversation hideous stories of houses burned with all the inmates of near relations compelled by torture to be the murderers of each other of corpses outraged and mutilated were told and heard with full belief and intense interest then it was added that the dastardly savages who had by surprise committed all these cruelties on an unsuspecting and defenseless colony had as soon as Oliver came among them on his great mission of vengeance flung down their arms in panic terror and had sunk without trying the chances of a single pitched field into that slavery which was their fit portion many signs indicated that another great spoliation and slaughter of the sacks and settlers was meditated by the Lord Lieutenant already thousands of Protestant colonists flying from the injustice and insolence of Turkana had raised the indignation of the mother country by describing all that they had suffered and all that they had with too much reason feared how much the public mind had been excited by the complaints of these fugitives had recently been shown in a manner not to be mistaken Turkana had transmitted for the royal approbation the heads of a bill repealing the law by which half the soil of Ireland was held and he had sent to Westminster as his agents two of his Roman Catholic countrymen who had lately been raised in the High Judicial Office Nugent, Chief Justice of the Irish Court of King's Bench a personification of all the vices and weaknesses which the English then imagined to be characteristic of the Popish Kelt and Rice a Baron of the Irish Exchequer who in abilities and attainments was perhaps the foremost man of his race and religion. The object of the mission was well known and the two judges could not venture themselves in the streets if ever they were recognized the rabble shouted room for the Irish ambassadors and their coach was escorted with mock solemnity by a train of ushers and harbingers bearing sticks with potatoes stuck on the points. So strong and general indeed was at that time the aversion of the English to the Irish that the most distinguished Roman Catholics partook of it. The embellices expressed in course an acrimonious language even at the council board their antipathy to the aliens. Among English Protestants that antipathy was still stronger and perhaps it was strongest in the army. Neither officers nor soldiers were disposed to bear patiently the preference shown by their master to a foreign and subject race. The Duke of Burwick who was Colonel of the 8th Regiment then quartered at Portsmouth gave orders that 30 men just arrived from Ireland should be enlisted. The English soldiers declared that they would not serve with these intruders. John Beaumont, the Lieutenant Colonel in his own name and in the name of five of the captains protested to the Duke's face against this insult to the English army and nation. We raised the regiment, he said at our own charges to defend His Majesty's crown in a time of danger. We had then no difficulty in procuring hundreds of English recruits. We can easily keep every company up to its full complement without admitting Irishmen. We therefore do not think it consistent with our honour to have these strangers forced on us. And we beg that we may either be permitted to command men of our own nation or to lay down our commissions. Burwick sent to Windsor for directions. The King, greatly exasperated instantly dispatched a troop of horse to Portsmouth with orders to bring the six refractory officers before him. A council of war sat on them. They refused to make any submission and they were sentenced to be cashiered, the highest punishment which a court-martial was then competent to inflict. The whole nation applauded the disgraced officers whose sentiment was stimulated by an unfounded rumour that, while under arrest, they had been treated with cruelty. Public feeling did not then manifest itself by those signs with which we are familiar, by large meetings and by vehement harangues. Nevertheless it found event. Thomas Warden, who in the last Parliament had represented Buckinghamshire and who was already conspicuous both as a libertine and as a wig, had written in a satirical ballad on the administration of Turconnell. In this little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother Irishman in a barbarous jargon on the approaching triumph of Popory and of the Malaysian race. The Protestant heir will be excluded. The Protestant officers will be broken. The great charter and the praetors who appeal to it will be hanged in one rope. The little bit will shower commissions on his countrymen and will cut the throats of the English. These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing in no rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years after the revolution a great writer delineated with exquisite skill a veteran who had fought at the Boine and at Namur. One of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling Lila Bolero. Wharton afterwards boasted that he had sung a king out of three kingdoms but in truth the success of Lila Bolero was the effect and not the cause of that excited state of public feeling which produced the revolution. End of Part 7 History of England Chapter 9 Part 8 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org History of England from the Assession of James II by Thomas Bavington McCorley Chapter 9 Part 8 While James was thus raising against himself all those national feelings which, but for his own folly might have saved his throne Lewis was in another way exerting himself not less effectually to facilitate the enterprise which William meditated. The party in Holland which was favourable to France was a minority but a minority strong enough according to the constitution of the Batavian Federation to prevent the stat holder from striking any great blow to keep that minority steady was an object to which if the court of the sales had been wise every other object would at that conjuncture had been postponed. Lewis however had during some time laboured as if upset purpose to estrange his Dutch friends and he at length though not without difficulty succeeded in forcing them to become his enemies at the precise moment that their help would have been invaluable to him. There were two subjects on which the people of the United Provinces were peculiarly sensitive religion and trade and both their religion and their trade the French king assailed the persecution of the Huguenots and the revocation of the addict of Nantes had everywhere moved the grief but in Holland these feelings were stronger than in any other country for many persons of Dutch birth confiding in the repeated and solemn declarations of Lewis that the toleration granted by his grandfather should be maintained had for commercial purposes settled in France and a large proportion of the settlers had been naturalised there every post now brought to Holland the tidings that these persons were treated with extreme rigour on account of their religion Dragunes it was reported were quartered on one another had been held naked before a fire till he was half roasted all were forbidden under the severest penalties to celebrate the rights of their religion or to quit the country that under false pretenses been decoyed the partisans of the House of Orange exclaimed against the cruelty and perpity of the tyrant the opposition was avashed and dispirited even the town council of Amsterdam though strongly attached to the French interest and to the Arminian theology had though little inclined to find fault with Lewis or to sympathise with the Calvinists whom he persecuted could not venture to oppose itself to the general sentiment for in that great city there was scarcely one wealthy merchant who had not some kinsman or friend among the sufferers partisans numerously and respectably signed were presented to the burger masters to make strong representations to either there were even suppliants who made their way into the stadhouse flung themselves on their knees described with tears and sobs the lamentable condition of those who may most loved and besought the intercession of the magistrates the pulpits resounded with invectives and lamentations the press pulled forth heart-rending narratives and stirring exhortations avos saw the whole danger he reported to his court that even the well intentioned for so he always called the enemies of the house of orange either partook of the public feeling or were overroared by it and he suggested the policy of making some concession to their wishes the answers which he received from the sales were cold and acrimonious some Dutch families indeed which had not been naturalized in France were permitted to return to their country but to those natives of Holland who had obtained letters of naturalization Lewis refused all indulgence no power on earth he said should interfere between him and his subjects these people had chosen to become his subjects and how he treated them was a matter with which no neighbouring state had anything to do the magistrates of Amsterdam naturally resented the scornful in gratitude of the potent whom they had strenuously and unscrupulously served against the general sense of their own countrymen soon followed another provocation which they felt even more keenly Lewis began to make war on their trade he first put forth an edict prohibiting the importation of herrings into his dominions a bay hastened to inform his court that this step had excited great alarm and indignation that 60,000 persons in the united provinces subsisted by the herring fishery and that some strong measure of retaliation would probably be adopted by the states the answer which he received was that the king was determined not only to persist but also to increase the duties on many of those articles in which Holland carried on a lucrative trade with France the consequence of these eras eras committed in defiance of repeated warnings and as it should seen in the mere wantonness of self-will was that now when the voice of a single powerful member of the Batavian Federation might have averted an event fatal to all the politics of Lewis no such voice was raised the envoy with all his skill vainly endeavoured to rally the party of which he had during several years held the state holder in check the arrogance and obstancy at the master counteracted all the efforts of the servant at length was compelled to send to the sails the alarming tidings that no reliance could be placed on Amsterdam so long devoted to the French cause that some of the well were alarmed for their religion and that the few whose inclinations were unchanged could not venture to utter what they thought the fervent eloquence of preachers who declined against the horrors of the French persecution and the lamentations of bankrupts who ascribed their ruin to the French decrees had wrought up the people to such a temper that no citizen could declare himself favourable to France without imminent risk of being flung into the nearest canal men remembered that only 15 years before the most illustrious chief of the party adverse to the house of orange had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob in the very precinct at the palace of the state's general a similar fate for all those who should at this crisis he accused of serving the purposes of France against their native land and against the reformed religion while Louis was thus forcing his friends in Holland to become or to pretend to become his enemies he was laboring with not less success to remove all the scruples which might have prevented the princess at the continent from counternasing Williams designs a new quarrel had arisen between the court of Versailles and the Vatican a quarrel in which the injustice and insolence of the French king were perhaps more offensively displayed than in any other transaction of his reign it had been the rule at Rome that no officer of justice or finance could enter the dwelling inhabited by the minister who represented a Catholic state in process of time not only the dwelling but a large precinct rounder was held inviolable it was a point of honour with every ambassador to extend as widely as possible the limits of the region which was under his protection at length half the city consisted of privileged districts within which the papal government had no more power than within the Louvre or the exquereal every asylum was thronged with contraband traders fraudulent bankrupts thieves and assassins in every asylum were collected magazines stolen or smuggled goods from every asylum ruffians settled fourth nightly to plunder and stab in no town of Christendom consequently was the law so impotent and wickedness so audacious as in the ancient capital of religion and civilisation on this subject innocent felt as become a priest and a prince he declared that he would receive no ambassador who insisted on a right so destructive of order and morality there was at first much murmuring that his resolution was so evidently just that all governments at one speedily adequacy the emperor highest in rank among Christian monarchs the Spanish court distinguished among all courts by sensitiveness and pertinency on points of etiquette and audacious privilege Louis alone was impracticable what other sovereigns might choose to do he said was nothing to him he therefore sent a mission to Rome escorted by a great force of Calvary and infantry the ambassador marched to his palace as the general marches in triumph through a conquered town the house was strongly guarded round the limits of the protected district sentinels paced the rounds day and night as on the walls of the fortress the pope was unmoved they trust he cried in chariots and in horses that we will remember the name of the lord our god he betook him vigorously to his spiritual weapons and laid the region garrison by the French under an interdict this dispute was at the height when another dispute arose in which the Germanic body was as deeply concerned as the pope Cologne and the surrounding district were governed by an archbishop who was an elector of the empire the right of choosing this great prelate belonged under certain limitations to the chapter of the cathedral the archbishop was also bishop of lage of munster and of hindalsham his dominions were extensive and included several strong fortresses which in event of a campaign on the Rhine would be of the highest importance in time of war he could bring 20,000 men into the field Lewis had spared no effort so valuable an ally and had succeeded so well that Cologne had been almost separated from Germany and had become an outwork of France many ecclesiastics devoted to the court of Versailles had been brought into the chapter and cardinal firstenberg a mere creature of that court had been appointed cogiter end of part 8 chapter 9 part 9 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org history of England from the accession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay chapter 9 part 9 in the summer of the year 1688 the archbishop became vacant firstenberg was the candidate of the house of bourbon the enemies of that house proposed the young prince Clement of Bavaria firstenberg was already a bishop and therefore could not be moved to another diocese except by a special dispensation from the pope or by a postulation in which it was necessary that two thirds of the chapter of Cologne should join the pope would grant no dispensation to a creature of France more than a third part of the chapter to vote for the Bavarian prince meanwhile in the chapters of Liège, Munster and Hildesheim the majority was adverse to France Louis saw with indignation and alarm that an extensive province which he had begun to regard as a thief of his crown was about to become not merely independent of him but hostile to him in a paper written with great acrimony he complained of the injustice was on all occasions treated by that sea which ought to extend a parental protection to every part of Christendom many signs indicated his fixed resolution to support the pretensions of his candidate by arms against the pope and the pope's confederates thus Louis by two opposite errors raised against himself at once the resentment of both the religious parties between which Western Europe was divided he alienated one great section of Christendom by persecuting the Huguenots he alienated another by insulting the Holy See these faults he committed at a conjuncture at which no fault could be committed with impunity and under the eye of an opponent second in vigilance sagacity and energy to no statesman whose memory history has preserved William saw with stern delight his adversaries toiling to clear away obstacle after obstacle from his path while they raised against themselves the enmity of all sects he labored to conciliate all the great design which he meditated he with exquisite skill presented to different governments in different lights and it must be added that though those lights were different none of them was false he called on the princes of northern Germany to rally round him in defense of the common cause of all reformed churches he set before the two heads of the house of Austria the danger with which they were threatened by French ambition and the necessity of rescuing England from vassalage and of uniting her to the European Confederacy he disclaimed and with truth all bigotry the real enemy he said of the British Roman Catholics was that short-sighted and headstrong monarch who when he might easily have obtained for them a legal toleration had trampled on law, liberty property in order to raise them odious and precarious ascendancy if the misgovernment of Jains were suffered to continue it must produce at no remote time a popular outbreak which might be followed by a barbarous persecution of the papists the prince declared that to avert the horrors of such a persecution was one of his chief objects if he succeeded in his design he would use the power which he must then possess as head of the Protestant interest to protect the members of the church of Rome the passions excited by the tyranny of James might make it impossible to efface the penal laws from the statute book but those laws should be mitigated by a lenient administration no class would really gain more by the proposed expedition than those peaceable and unambitious Roman Catholics who merely wished to follow their callings and to worship their maker without molestation the only losers would be the Tocconals the Dovers the Albavels and the adventurers who in return for flattery and evil counsel had obtained from their credulous master governments, regiments and embassies while William exerted himself to enlist on his side the sympathies both of Protestants and of Roman Catholics he exerted himself with not less vigor and prudence to provide the military means which is undertaking required he could not make a dissent on England without the sanction of the United Provinces for that sanction before his design was ripe for execution his intentions might possibly be thwarted by the faction hostile to his house and would certainly be divulged to the whole world he therefore determined to make his preparations with all speed and when they were complete to seize some favorable moment for requesting the consent of the Federation it was observed by the agents of France that he was more busy than they had ever known him not a day passed on which he was not seen spurring his villa to the Hague he was perpetually closeted with his most distinguished adherents 24 ships of war were fitted out for sea in addition to the ordinary force which the Commonwealth maintained there was as it chanced an excellent pretence for making this addition to the Marine for some Algerine corsairs had recently dared to show themselves in the German ocean a camp was formed near Nimbagan many thousands of troops were assembled there in order to strengthen this army the garrisons were withdrawn from the strongholds in Dutch Brabant even the renowned fortress of Burgabsum was left almost defenseless field pieces bombs and tumbles from all the magazines of the united provinces were collected at the headquarters all the bakers of Rotterdam toiled day and night to make biscuit all the gun makers of Utrecht were found too few to execute the orders for pistols and muskets all the saddlers of Amsterdam were hard at work on harness and bolsters six thousand sailors were added to the naval establishment seven thousand new soldiers were raised they could not indeed be formally enlisted without the sanction of the federation but they were well drilled and kept in such a state of discipline that they might without difficulty be distributed into regiments within 24 hours after that sanction should be obtained all the operations required ready money but William had by strict economy laid up against a great emergency a treasure amounting to about 250,000 pounds sterling what more was wanting was supplied by the zeal of his partisans great quantities of gold not less it was said than a hundred thousand guineas came to him from England the Huguenots who had carried with them into exile large quantities of the precious metals were eager to lend him to be possessed for they fondly hoped that if he succeeded they should be restored to the country of their birth and they feared that if he failed they should scarcely be safe even in the country of their adoption through the latter part of July and the whole of August the preparations went on rapidly yet too slowly for the vehement spirit of William meanwhile the intercourse between England and Holland was active the ordinary modes of conveying intelligence and passengers were no longer thought safe a light bark of marvelous speed constantly ran backward and forward between Chevening and the eastern coast of our island by this vessel William received a succession of letters from persons of high note in the church the state and the army two of the seven prelates who had signed the memorable petition Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asif and Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol had, during their residence in the tower reconsidered the doctrine of non-resistance and were ready to welcome an armed deliverer a brother of the Bishop of Bristol Colonel Charles Trelawney who commanded one of the Tangier regiments now known as the Fourth of the Line signified his readiness to draw his sword for the Protestant religion similar assurances arrived from the Savage Kirk Churchill in a letter written with a certain elevation of language which was the sure mark that he was going to commit a baseness declared that he was determined to perform his duty to heaven and to his country and that he put his honor absolutely into the hands of the Prince of Orange William doubtless read these words with one of those bitter and cynical smiles which gave his face its least pleasing expression it was not his business to take care of the honor of other men nor had the most rigid casualists pronounced it unlawful in a general to invite, to use and to reward the services of deserters whom he could not but despise Churchill's letter was brought by Sydney whose situation in England had become hazardous and who having taken many precautions to hide his track had passed over to Holland about the middle of August about the same time Shrewsbury and Edward Russell crossed the German ocean in a boat which they had hired with great secrecy and appeared at the Hague Shrewsbury brought with him two towns which he had raised by a mortgage on his estates and which he lodged in the bank of Amsterdam Devonshire, Danby and Lumley remained in England where they undertook to rise in arms as soon as the Prince should set foot on the island there is reason to believe that at this conjuncture William first received assurances of support from a very different quarter the history of Sunderland's intrigues is covered with an obscurity that is probable that any inquirer will ever succeed in penetrating but though it is impossible to discover the whole truth it is easy to detect some palpable fictions the Jacobites for obvious reasons affirmed that the revolution of 1688 was the result of a plot concerted long before Sunderland they represented as the chief conspirator he had, they averred in pursuance of his great design incited his two confiding master to dispense with statutes to create an illegal tribunal to confiscate freehold property and to send the fathers of the established church to a prison this romance rests on no evidence and though it has been repeated down to our own time seems hardly to deserve confutation no fact is more certain than that Sunderland opposed some of the most imprudent steps which James took and in particular the prosecution of the bishops which really brought on the decisive crisis but even if this fact were not established they would still remain one argument sufficient to decide the controversy what conceivable motive had Sunderland to wish for a revolution under the existing system he was at the height of dignity and prosperity as president of the council he took precedence of the whole temporal peerage as principal secretary of state the most active and powerful member of the cabinet he might look forward to a duke to he had obtained the garter lately worn by the brilliant and versatile Buckingham who having squandered away a princely fortune and a vigorous intellect had sunk into the grave, deserted contempt and broken hearted money which Sunderland valued more than honors poured in upon him in such abundance that with ordinary management for a few years one of the wealthiest subjects in Europe the direct emolument of his posts though considerable was a very small part of what he received from France alone he drew a regular stipend of near 6,000 pounds a year besides large occasional gratuities he had bargained with Turconel for 5,000 a year or 50,000 pounds down from Ireland what sums he made by selling places, titles and customs can only be conjectured but must have been enormous James seemed to take a pleasure in loading with wealth one whom he regarded as his own convert all fines, all forfeitures went to Sunderland on every grant Toll was paid to him if any suitor ventured to ask any favor directly from the king the answer was have you spoken to my lord president one bold man ventured to say the president got all the money of the court well replied his majesty he deserves it all we shall scarcely overrate the amount of the ministers gains if we put them at 30,000 pounds a year and it must be remembered that fortunes of 30,000 pounds a year were in his time rarer than fortunes of 100,000 pounds a year now are it is probable that there was then not one peer of the realm whose private income was not Sunderland's official income what chance was there that in a new order of things a man so deeply implicated in illegal and unpopular acts a member of the high commission a renegade whom the multitude in places of general resort pursued with the cry of popish dog would be greater and richer what chance that he would even be able to escape he had undoubtedly been long in the habit of looking forward to the time that Mary might be in the ordinary course of nature and law at the head of the English government and had probably attempted to make for himself an interest in their favor by promises and services which, if discovered would not have raised his credit at Whitehall but it may with confidence be affirmed that he had no wish to see them raised to power by a revolution and that he did not at all foresee such a revolution when towards the close of June 1688 he solemnly joined the Union of the Church of Rome scarcely, however, had he by that inexpeable crime made himself an object of hatred and contempt to the whole nation when he learned that the civil and ecclesiastical polity of England would shortly be vindicated by foreign and domestic arms from that moment all his plans seemed to have undergone a change fear bowed down his whole soul and was so written in his face that all who saw him could read it could hardly be doubted that if there were a revolution the evil counsellors who surrounded the throne would be called to a stripped account and among those counsellors he stood in the foremost rank the loss of his places his salaries, his pensions was the least that he had to dread his patrimonial mansion amid woods at Alphorpe might be confiscated he might lie many years in a prison he might end his days in a foreign land a pensioner on the bounty of France even this was not the worst visions of an innumerable crowd covering Tower Hill and shouting with savage joy at the sight of the apostate of a scaffold hung with black of Burnett reading the prayer for the departing and of Ketch leading on the axe with which Russell and Monmouth had been mangled in so butcherly a fashion began to haunt the unhappy statesman there was yet one way in which he might escape a way more terrible to a noble spirit than a prison or a scaffold he might still, by a well-timed and useful treason earn his pardon from the foes of the government it was in his power to render to them at this conjuncture services beyond all price for he had the royal ear he had great influence over the Jesuitical cabal and he was blindly trusted by the French ambassador a channel of communication was not wanting a channel worthy of the purpose which it was to serve the Countess of Sunderland was an artful woman who under a show of devotion which imposed on some grave men carried on with great activity both amorous and political intrigues the handsome and disloot Henry Sidney had long been her favorite lover her husband was well pleased to see her thus connected with the court of the Hague whenever he wished to transmit a secret message to Holland he spoke to his wife she wrote to Sidney and Sidney communicated her letter to William one of her communications was intercepted and carried to James she vehemently protested that it was a forgery her husband with characteristic ingenuity defended himself by representing that it was quite impossible for any man to be so base as to do what he was in the habit of doing even if this is Lady Sunderland's hand he said that is no affair of mine Your Majesty knows my domestic misfortunes the footing on which my wife and Mr. Sidney are is but too public who can believe that I would make a confident of the man who has injured my honor in the tenderest point of the man whom of all others I ought most to hate this defense was thought satisfactory and secret intelligence was still transmitted from the whittle to the adulteress from the adulteress to the gallant and from the gallant to the enemies of James it is highly probable that the first decisive assurances of Sunderland's support were conveyed orally by Sidney to William about the middle of August it is certain that from that time till the expedition was ready to sail a most significant correspondence was kept up between the Countess and her lover a few of her letters partly written in cipher are still extant they contain professions of good will and promises of service mingled with earnest entreaties for protection the writer intimates that her husband will do all that his friends at the Hague can wish she supposes that it will be necessary for him to go into temporary exile but she hopes that his banishment will not be perpetual and that his patrimonial estate will be spared and she earnestly begs to be informed in what place it will be best for him to take refuge till the first furrier of the storm the help of Sunderland was most welcome for as the time of striking the great blow drew near the anxiety of William became intense from common eyes his feelings were concealed by the icy tranquility of his demeanour but his whole heart was open to Bentech the preparations were not quite complete the design was already suspected and could not long be concealed the king of France or the city of Amsterdam might still frustrate the whole plan if Louis were to send a great force into Brabant if the faction which hated the Statholder were to raise its head all was over my sufferings might as quiet the prince wrote are dreadful I hardly see my way never in my life did I so much feel the need of God's guidance Bentech's wife was at this time dangerously ill and both the friends were painfully anxious about her to support you, William wrote and enable you to bear your part in a work on which as far as human beings can see the welfare of his church depends End of Part 9