 History of England, Chapter 10, Part 8. It was not over England alone that William's guardianship now extended. Scotland had risen on her tyrants. All the regular soldiers by whom she had long been held down had been summoned by James to his help against the Dutch invaders, with the exception of a very small force, which under the command of the Duke of Gordon, a great Roman Catholic lord, garrisoned the castle of Edinburgh. Every mail which had gone northward during the eventful month of November had carried news which stirred the passions of the oppressed Scots. While the event of the military operations was still doubtful, there were at Edinburgh riots and clamours which became more menacing after James had retreated from Salisbury. Great crowds assembled, at first by night, and then by broad daylight. Popes were publicly burned. Loud shouts were raised for a free parliament. Placards were stuck up, setting prices on the heads of the ministers of the Crown. Among those ministers, Perth, as filling the great place of Chancellor, as standing high in the royal favour, as an apostate from the Reformed Faith, and as the man who had first introduced the thumbscrew into the jurisprudence of his country, was the most detested. His nerves were weak, his spirit abject, and the only courage which he possessed was that evil courage which braves infamy and which looks steadily on the torments of others. His post at such a time was at the head of the council board, but his heart failed him, and he determined to take refuge at his country's seat from the danger which, as he judged by the looks and cries of the fierce and resolute populace of Edinburgh, was not remote. A strong guard escorted him safe to Castle Drummond, but scarcely had he departed when the city rose up. A few troops tried to suppress the insurrection, but were overpowered. The palace of Holyrood, which had been turned into a Roman Catholic seminary and printing house, was stormed and sacked. Huge heaps of popish books, beads, crucifixes, and pictures were burned in the high street. In the midst of the agitation came down the tidings of the king's flight. The members of the government gave up all thought of contending with the popular fury, and changed sides with the promptitude then common among Scottish politicians. The privy council, by one proclamation, ordered that all papists should be disarmed, and by another invited Protestants to muster for the defence of pure religion. The nation had not waited for the call. Town and country were already up in arms for the Prince of Orange. Nithsdale and Clydesdale were the only regions in which there was the least chance that the Roman Catholics would make head, and both Nithsdale and Clydesdale were soon occupied by bands of armoured Presbyterians. Among the insurgents were some fierce and moody men, who had formerly disowned Argyle, and who are now equally eager to disown William. His highness, they said, was plainly malignant. There was not a word about the covenant in his declaration. The Dutch were a people with whom no true servant of the Lord would unite. They consorted with Lutherans, and the Lutheran was as much a child of perdition as a Jesuit. The general voice of the kingdom, however, effectually drowned the growl of this hateful faction. The commotion soon reached the neighbourhood of Castle Drummond. Perth found that he was no longer safe among his own servants and tenants. He gave himself up to an agony as bitter as that into which his merciless tyranny had often thrown better men. He wildly tried to find consolation in the rites of his new church. He impertuned his priests for comfort, prayed, confessed, and communicated, but his faith was weak, and he owned that in spite of all his devotions the strong terrors of death were upon him. At this time he learned that he had a chance of escaping on board of a ship which lay off Brentisland. He disguised himself as well as he could, and after a long and difficult journey by unfrequented paths over the Ocule Mountains, which were then deep in snow, he succeeded in embarking. But in spite of all his precautions he had been recognised, and the alarm had been given. As soon as it was known that the cruel renegade was on the waters, and that he had gold with him, pursuers, inflamed at once by hatred and by avarice, were on his track. A skiff commanded by an old buccaneer overtook the flying vessel and boarded her. Perth was dragged out of the hold on deck in women's clothes, stripped, hustled, and plundered. Bayonets were held to his breast. Begging for life with unmanly cries, he was hurried to the shore and flung into the common jail of Kirkudde. Thus by order of the council over which he had lately presided, and which was filled with men who had been partakers in his guilt, he was removed to Stirling Castle. It was on a Sunday during the time of public worship that he was conveyed under a guard to his place of confinement, but even rigid puritans forgot the sanctity of the day and of the work. The churches poured forth their congregations as the torturer passed by, and the noise of threats, execrations, and screams of hatred accompanied him to the gate of his prison. Several eminent Scotsmen were in London when the Prince arrived there, and many others now hastened thither to pay their court to him. On the 7th of January he requested them to attend him at White Hall. The assemblage was large and respectable. The Duke of Hamilton and his eldest son, the Earl of Arran, the chiefs of a house of almost regal dignity, appeared at the head of the procession. They were accompanied by thirty lords and about eighty gentlemen of note. William desired them to consult together and to let him know in what way he could best promote the welfare of their country. He then withdrew and left them to deliberate unrestrained by his presence. They repaired to the council chamber and put Hamilton into the chair. Though there seems to have been little difference of opinion, their debates lasted three days, a fact which is sufficiently explained by the circumstance that Sir Patrick Hume was one of the debaters. Arran ventured to recommend a negotiation with the King, but this motion was ill-received by the mover's father and by the whole assembly, and did not even find a seconder. At length resolutions were carried closely resembling the resolutions which the English lords and commoners had presented to the Prince a few days before. He was requested to call together a convention of the Estates of Scotland, to fix the 14th of March for the day of meeting, and, till that day, to take on himself the civil and military administration. To this request he acceded, and thenceforth the government of the whole island was in his hands. The decisive moment approached, and the agitation of the public mind rose to the height. Nots of politicians were everywhere whispering and consulting. The coffee houses were an affirmant, the presses of the capital never rested. Of the pamphlets which appeared at that time, enough may still be collected to form several volumes, and from those pamphlets it is not difficult to gather a correct notion of the State of Parties. There was a very small faction which wished to recall James without stipulations. There was also a very small faction which wished to set up a commonwealth, and to entrust the administration to a council of state under the presidency of the Prince of Orange. These extreme opinions were generally held in abhorrence. Nineteen-twentieths of the nation consisted of persons in whom love of hereditary monarchy and love of constitutional freedom were combined, though in different proportions, and who were equally opposed to the total abolition of the kingly office and to the unconditional restoration of the king. But in the wide interval which separated the bigots who still clung to the doctrines of filmer from the enthusiasts who still dreamed of the dreams of Harrington, there was room for many shades of opinion. If we neglect Minute subdivisions, we shall find that the great majority of the nation and of the convention was divided into four bodies. Three of these bodies consisted of Tories. The Whig Party formed of the Fourth. The amity of the Whigs and Tories had not survived the peril which had produced it. On several occasions during the Prince's march from the West, dissension had appeared among his followers. While the event of his enterprise was doubtful, that dissension had, by his skilful management, been easily quieted. But from the day on which he entered St. James's palace in triumph, such management could no longer be practiced. His victory, by relieving the nation from the strong dread of popish tyranny, had deprived him of half his influence. Old antipathies which had slept when bishops were in the tower, when Jesuits were at the council board, when loyal clergymen were deprived of their bread by scores, when loyal gentlemen were put out of the commission of the peace by hundreds, were again strong and active. The royalist shuddered at the thought that he was allied with all that from his youth up he had most hated, with old parliamentary captains who had stormed his country house, with old parliamentary commissioners who had sequestrated his estate, with men who had plotted the right house butchery and headed the Western rebellion. That beloved church too, for whose sake he had, after a painful struggle, broken through his allegiance to the throne, was she really in safety? Or had he rescued her from one enemy, only that she might be exposed to another? The popish priests indeed were in exile, in hiding, or in prison. No Jesuit or Benedictine who valued his life now dared show himself in the habit of his order. But the Presbyterian and independent teachers went in long procession to salute the chief of the government, and were, as graciously received, as the true successors of the apostles. Some schismatics avowed the hope that every fence which excluded them from ecclesiastical preferment would soon be leveled, that the articles would be softened down, that the liturgy would be garbled, that Christmas would cease to be a feast, that Good Friday would cease to be a fast, that cannons on whom no bishop had ever laid his hand would, without the sacred vestment of white linen, distribute in the choirs of cathedrals the Eucharistic bread and wine to communicants lolling on benches. The prince indeed was not a fanatical Presbyterian, but he was, at best, a latitudinarian. He had no scruple about communicating in the Anglican form, but he cared not in what form other people communicated. His wife, it was to be feared, had imbibed too much of his spirit. Her conscience was under the direction of Burnett. She heard preachers of different Protestant sects. She had recently said that she saw no essential difference between the Church of England and the other Reformed churches. It was necessary, therefore, that the Cavaliers should, at this conjuncture, follow the examples set by their fathers in 1641, should draw off from round heads and sectaries, and should, in spite of all the faults of the hereditary monarch, uphold the cause of hereditary monarchy. The body which was animated by these sentiments was large and respectable. It included about one-half of the House of Lords, about one-third of the House of Commons, a majority of the country gentlemen, and at least nine-tenths of the clergy, but it was torn by dissensions and be set on every side by difficulties. One section of this great party, a section which was especially strong among divines, and of which Sherlock was the chief organ, wished that a negotiation should be opened with James, and that he should be invited to return to Whitehall on such conditions as might fully secure the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm. It is evident that this plan, though strenuously supported by the clergy, was altogether inconsistent with the doctrines which the clergy had been teaching during many years. It was, in truth, an attempt to make a middle way where there was no room for a middle way, to effect a compromise between two things which do not admit a compromise, resistance and non-resistance. The Tories had formally taken their stand on the principle of non-resistance, but that ground most of them had now abandoned, and were not disposed again to occupy. The Cavaliers of England had, as a class, been so deeply concerned, directly or indirectly, in the late rising against the King, that they could not for very shame talk at that moment about the sacred duty of obeying Nero. Nor indeed were they disposed to recall the Prince under whose misgovernment they had suffered so much, without exacting from him terms which might make it impossible for him again to abuse his power. They were therefore in a false position. Their old theory, sound or unsound, was at least complete and coherent. If that theory were sound, the King ought to be immediately invited back, and permitted, if such were his pleasure, to put Seymour and Danby, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Bristol, to death for high treason, to re-establish the ecclesiastical commission, to fill the church with popish dignitaries, and to place the army under the command of popish officers. But if, as the Tories themselves now seemed to confess, that theory was unsound, why treat with the King? If it was admitted that he might lawfully be excluded till he gave satisfactory guarantees for the security of the Constitution in church and state, it was not easy to deny that he might lawfully be excluded forever. For what satisfactory guarantee could he give? How was it possible to draw up an act of parliament in language clearer than the language of the acts of parliament which required that the Dean of Christ Church should be a Protestant? How was it possible to put any promise into words stronger than those in which James had repeatedly declared that he would strictly respect the legal rights of the Anglican clergy? If law or honour could have bound him, he would never have been forced to fly from his kingdom. If neither law nor honour could bind him, could he safely be permitted to return? It is probable, however, that in spite of these arguments a motion for opening a negotiation with James would have been made in the convention and would have been supported by the great body of Tories had he not been on this, as on every other occasion, his own worst enemy. Every post which arrived from Saint-Germain brought intelligence which damped the ardour of his adherents. He did not think it worth his while to feign regret for his past errors or to promise amendment. He put forth a manifesto telling his people that it had been his constant care to govern them with justice and moderation, and that they had been cheated into ruin by imaginary grievances. The effect of his folly and obstinacy was that those who were most desirous to see him restored to his throne on fair conditions felt that, by proposing at that moment to treat with him, they should injure the cause which they wished to serve. They therefore determined to call us with another body of Tories, of whom Sankroth was the chief. Sankroth fancied that he had found out a device by which provision might be made for the government of the country without recalling James, and yet without despoiling him of his crown. This device was a regency. The most uncompromising of those divines who had inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience had never maintained that such obedience was due to a babe or to a madman. It was universally acknowledged that when the rightful sovereign was intellectually incapable of performing his office, a deputy might be appointed to act in his stead, and that any person who should resist the deputy, and should plead as an excuse for doing so the command of a prince who was in the cradle or who was raving, would justly incur the penalties of rebellion. Stupidity, perverseness, and superstition such was the reasoning of the primate, had made James as unfit to rule his dominions as any child in swaddling clothes or as any maniac who was grinning and chattering in the straw of bedlam. That course must therefore be taken which had been taken when Henry VI was an infant, and again when he became lethargic. James could not be king in effect, but he must still continue to be king in semblance. Ritz must still run in his name. His image and superscription must still appear on the coin and on the great seal. Acts of parliament must still be called from the years of his reign, but the administration must be taken from him, and confided to a regent named by the estates of the realm. In this way, Sancroft gravely maintained, the people would remain true to their allegiance, the oaths of fealty which they had sworn to their king would be strictly fulfilled, and the most orthodox churchmen might, without any scruple of conscience, take office under the regent. End of Part 8. History of England, Chapter 10, 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. Reading by John Leader Bloomington, Illinois. History of England, from the accession of James II, by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Chapter 10, Part 9. The opinion of Sancroft had great weight with the whole Tory party, and especially with the clergy. A week before the day for which the convention had been summoned, a grave party assembled at Lambeth Palace, heard prayers in the chapel, dined with the primate, and then consulted on the state of public affairs. Five suffragens of the archbishop, who had shared his perils and his glory in the preceding summer, were present. The earls of Clarendon and Aylesbury represented the Tory laity. The unanimous sense of the meeting appeared to be that those who had taken the oath of allegiance to James might justifiably withdraw their obedience from him, but could not, with a safe conscience, call any other by the name of King. Thus two sections of the Tory party, a section which looked forward to an accommodation with James, and a section which was opposed to any such accommodation, agreed in supporting the plan of regency. But a third section, which, though not very numerous, had great weight and influence, recommended a very different plan. The leaders of this small band were Danby and the Bishop of London in the House of Lords, and Sir Robert Sawyer in the House of Commons. They conceived that they had found out a way of affecting a complete revolution under strictly legal forms. It was contrary to all principle, they said, that the King should be deposed by his subjects. Nor was it necessary to depose him. He had himself, by his flight, abdicated his power and dignity. A demise had actually taken place. All constitutional lawyers held that the throne of England could not be one moment vacant. The next heir had therefore succeeded. Who then was the next heir? As to the infant who had been carried into France, his entrance into the world had been attended by many suspicious circumstances. It was due to the other members of the royal family and to the nation that all doubts should be cleared up. An investigation had been solemnly demanded in the name of the Princess of Orange by her husband, and would have been instituted if the parties who were accused of fraud had not taken a course which, in any ordinary case, would have been considered as a decisive proof of guilt. They had not chosen to await the issue of a solemn parliamentary proceeding. They had stolen away into a foreign country. They had carried with them the child. They had carried with them all those French and Italian women of the bed-chamber who, if there had been foul play, must have been privy to it, and to ought therefore to have been subjected to a rigorous cross-examination. To admit the boy's claim without inquiry was impossible, and those who called themselves his parents had made inquiry impossible. Judgment must therefore go against him by default. If he was wronged, he was wronged not by the nation, but by those whose strange conduct at the time of his birth had justified the nation in demanding investigation, and who had then avoided investigation by flight. He might therefore, with perfect equity, be considered as a pretender. And thus the crown had legally devolved on the Princess of Orange. She was actually Queen Regnant. The houses had nothing to do but to proclaim her. She might, if such were her pleasure, make her husband her First Minister, and might even, with the consent of Parliament, bestow on him the title of King. The persons who preferred this scheme to any other were few, and it was certain to be opposed both by all who still bore any good will to James, and by all the adherents of William. Yet Danby, a confidant in his own knowledge of parliamentary tactics, and well aware how much, when great parties are nearly balanced, a small flying squadron can effect, was not without hopes of being able to keep the event of the contest in suspense till both Whigs and Tories, despairing of complete victory and afraid of the consequences of delay, should suffer him to act as umpire. Nor is it impossible that they might have succeeded if his efforts had been seconded, nay, if they had not been counteracted, by her whom he wished to raise to the height of human greatness. As excited as he was and versed in affairs he was altogether ignorant of the character of Mary, and of the feeling with which she regarded her husband. Nor was her old preceptor Compton better informed. William's manners were dry and cold, his constitution was infirm and his temper by no means bland. He was not a man who would commonly be thought likely to inspire a fine young woman of twenty-six with a violent passion. It was known that he had not always been strictly constant to his wife, and tale-bearers had reported that she did not live happily with him. The most acute politicians therefore never suspected that, with all his faults, he had obtained such an empire over her heart as princes the most renowned for their success in gallantry, Francis I and Henry IV, Louis XIV and Charles II, had never obtained over the heart of any woman, and that the three kingdoms of her forefathers were valuable in her estimation chiefly because, by bestowing them on him, she could prove to him the intensity and disinterestedness of her affection. Danby, in profound ignorance of her sentiments, assured her that he would defend her rights and that, if she would support him, he hoped to place her alone on the throne. The course of the wigs, meanwhile, was simple and consistent. Our doctrine was that the foundation of our government was a contract expressed on one side by the oath of allegiance, and on the other by the coronation oath, and that the duties imposed by this contract were mutual. They held that a sovereign who grossly abused his power might lawfully be withstood and dethroned by his people. That James had grossly abused his power was not disputed, and the whole wig-party was ready to pronounce that he had forfeited it. Whether the Prince of Wales was deposititious was a point not worth discussing. There were now far stronger reasons than any which could be drawn from the circumstances of his birth for excluding him from the throne. A child, brought to the royal couch in a warming pan, might possibly prove a good king of England, but there could be no such hope for a child educated by a father who was the most stupid and obstinate of pyrants in a foreign country, the seat of despotism and superstition, in a country where the last traces of liberty had disappeared, where the state's general had ceased to meet, where parliaments had long registered without one remonstrance the most oppressive edicts of the sovereign, where valor, genius, learning seemed to exist only for the purpose of aggrandizing a single man, where adulation was the main business of the press, the pulpit, and the stage, and where one chief subject of adulation was the barbarous persecution of the Reformed Church. Was the boy likely to learn under such tuition and in such a situation respect for the institutions of his native land? Could it be doubted that he would be brought up to be the slave of the Jesuits and the Bourbons, and that he would be, if possible, more bitterly prejudiced than any preceding steward against the laws of England? Or did the Whigs think that, situated as the country then was, a departure from the ordinary rule of succession was in itself an evil? They were of the opinion that, till the rule had been broken, the doctrines of indefeasible hereditary right and passive obedience would be pleasing to the court, would be inculcated by the clergy, and would retain a strong hold on the public mind. The notion would still prevail that the kingly office is the ordinance of God in a sense different from that in which all government is his ordinance. It was plain that, till this superstition was extinct, the constitution could never be secure. For a really limited monarchy cannot long exist in a society which regards monarchy as something divine and the limitations as mere human inventions. Royalty, in order that it might exist in perfect harmony with our liberties, must be unable to show any higher or more venerable title than that by which we hold our liberties. The king must be henceforth regarded as a magistrate. A great magistrate indeed, and highly to be honored, but subjects like all other magistrates to the law, and deriving his power from heaven in no other sense than that in which the lords and the commons may be said to derive their power from heaven. The best way of affecting this salutary change would be to interrupt the course of dissent. Under sovereigns who would consider it as little short of high treason to preach non-resistance and the patriarchal theory of government, under sovereigns whose authority, springing from resolutions of the two houses, could never rise higher than its source, there would be little risk of oppression such as had compelled two generations of Englishmen to rise in arms against two generations of stewards. On these grounds the wigs were prepared to declare the throne vacant, to fill it by election, and to impose on the prince of their choice such conditions as might secure the country against misgovernment. The time for the decision of these great questions had now arrived. At break of day, on the twenty-second of January, the house of commons was crowded with knights and burgesses. On the benches appeared many faces which had been well known in that place during the reign of Charles II, but had not been seen there under his successor. Most of those Tory squires and of those needy retainers of the court who had been returned in multitudes to the parliament of 1685 had given place to the men of the old country party, the men who had driven the cabal from power, who had carried the habeas corpus act and who had sent up the exclusion bill to the lords. Among them was Powell, deeply read in the history and law of parliament, and distinguished by the species of eloquence which is required when grave questions are to be solemnly brought under the notice of senates. And so Thomas Littleton, versed in European politics, and gifted with a vehement and piercing logic which had often, when, after a long sitting, the candles had been lighted, roused the languishing house, and decided the event of the debate. There, too, was William Cheseveral, an orator whose great parliamentary abilities were, many years later, a favourite theme of old men who lived to see the conflicts of Walpole and Poultony. With these eminent persons was joined Sir Robert Clayton, the wealthiest merchant of London, whose palace and the old jury surpassed in splendor the aristocratical mansions of Lincoln's infields and Covent Garden, whose villa among the Surrey Hills was described as a Garden of Eden, whose banquets vied with those of King's and whose judicious magnificence, still attested by numerous public monuments, had obtained for him in the annals of the city, a place second only to that of Gresham. In the parliament which met at Oxford in 1681 Clayton had, as member for the capital, and at the request of his constituents, moved for leave to bring in the bill of exclusion, and had been seconded by Lord Russell. In 1685 the city, deprived of its franchises, and governed by the creatures of the court, had returned for Tory representatives. But the old charter had now been restored, and Clayton had been again chosen by acclamation. Nor must John Birch be passed over. He had begun life as a Carter, but had, in the Civil Wars, left his team, had turned soldier, had risen to the rank of colonel in the army of the Commonwealth, had, in high fiscal offices, shown great talents for business, had sate many years in parliament, and, though retaining to the last the rough manners and plebian dialect of his youth, had, by strong sense and mother-wit, gained the ear of the commons, and was regarded as a formidable opponent by the most accomplished debaters of his time. These were the most conspicuous among the veterans who now, after a long seclusion, returned to public life. But they were all speedily thrown into the shade by two younger wigs who, on this great day, took their seats for the first time, who soon rose to the highest honors of the state, who weathered together the fiercest storms of faction, and who, having been long and widely renowned as statesmen, isorators, and as munificent patrons of genius and learning, died within a few months of each other, soon after the accession of the House of Brunswick. These were Charles Montague and John Summers. One other name must be mentioned, a name then known only to a small circle of philosophers, but now pronounced beyond the Ganges in the Mississippi, with reverence exceeding that, which is paid to the memory of the greatest warriors and rulers. Among the crowd of silent members appeared the majestic forehead in pensive face of Isaac Newton. The renowned university on which his genius had already begun to impress a peculiar character, still plainly discernible after the lapse of a hundred and sixty years, had sent him to the convention, and he sate there, in his modest greatness, the unobtrusive but unflinching friend of civil and religious freedom. The first act of the commons was to choose a speaker, and the choice which they made indicated in a manner not to be mistaken their opinion touching the great questions which they were about to decide. Down to the very eve of the meeting it had been understood that Seymour would be placed in the chair. He had formally sate there during several years. He had great and various titles to consideration—descent, fortune, knowledge, experience, eloquence. He had long been at the head of a powerful band of members of the western counties. Though a Tory, he had in the last parliament headed with conspicuous ability and courage the opposition to popery and arbitrary power. He had been among the first gentlemen who had repaired to the Dutch headquarters at Exeter, and had been the author of that association by which the prince's adherents had bound themselves to stand or fall together. But a few hours before the houses met, a rumour was spread that Seymour was against declaring the throne vacant. As soon, therefore, as the benches had filled, the Earl of Wiltshire, who represented Hampshire, stood up and proposed that Powell should be speaker. Sir Vier Fein, member for Kent, seconded the motion. A plausible objection might have been raised, for it was known that a petition was about to be presented against Powell's return. But the general cry of the house called him to the chair, and the Tories thought it prudent to acquiesce. The mace was then laid on the table, the list of numbers was called over, and the names of the defaultors were noted. Meanwhile, the peers, about a hundred in number, had met, had chosen Halifax to be their speaker, and had appointed several eminent lawyers to perform the functions which, in regular parliaments, belonged to the judges. There was, in the course of that day, frequent communication between the houses. They joined in requesting that the Prince would continue to administer the government till he should hear further from them, in expressing to him their gratitude for the deliverance which he, under God, had wrought for the nation, and in directing that the 31st of January should be observed as a day of thanksgiving for that deliverance. Thus far no difference of opinion had appeared, but both sides were preparing for the conflict. The Tories were strong in the upper house and weak in the lower, and they knew that, at such a conjecture, the house which should be the first to come to a resolution would have a great advantage over the other. There was not the least chance that the commons would send up to the lords a vote in favor of the plan of regency, but, if such a vote were set down from the lords to the commons, it was not absolutely impossible that many even of the weak representatives of the people might be disposed to acquiesce rather than take the grave responsibility of causing discord and delay at a crisis which required union and expedition. The commons had determined that, on Monday, the 28th of January, they would take into consideration the state of the nation. The Tory lords therefore proposed, on Friday the 25th, to enter instantly on the great business for which they had been called together. But their motives were clearly discerned, and their tactics frustrated by Halifax, who, ever since his return from Hungerford, had seen that the settlement of the government could be effected on Whig principles only, and who had therefore, for the time, alight himself closely with the Whigs. Devonshire moved that Tuesday the 29th should be the day. By that time, he said with more truth than discretion, we may have some lights from below which may be useful for our guidance. His motion was carried, but his language was severely censured by some of his brother's peers as derogatory to their order. End of Part 9. History of England, Chapter 10, Part 10. This is a Libra Vox recording. All Libra Vox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you can volunteer, please visit Libra Vox.org. Recording by Gemma Blythe. History of England, from the accession of James II, by Thomas Babington MacAulee. Chapter 10, Part 10. On the 28th, the commons resolved themselves into a committee of the whole house. A member who had more than 30 years before been one of the Cromwell's lords, Richard Amden, son of the illustrious leader of the Roundeds, and father of the unhappy man who had, by large bribes and degrading submissions, narrowly escaped with life from the vengeance of James, was placed in the chair, and the great debate began. It was soon evident that an overwhelming majority considered James as no longer king. Gilbert Dolbin, son of the late Archbishop of York, was the first who declared himself to be of that opinion. He was supported by many members, particularly by the bold enviarment warden, by Sawyer, whose steady opposition to the dispensing power had, in some measure, atoned for old defences, by Maynard, whose voice, though so feeble with age, that it could not be heard on distant benches, still commanded the respect of all bodies, and by Summers, whose luminous eloquence in varied stores of knowledge were on that day exhibited for the first time within the walls of Parliament. The unblushing fire and voluble dawn of Sir William Williams were found on the same side. Already he had been deeply concerned in the excesses both of the worst of oppositions and the worst of governments. He had persecuted innocent papers and innocent protestants. He had been the patron of oaths and the tool of Petrie. His name was associated with seditious violence which was remembered with regret and shame by all respectable wigs, and with freaks of despotism or bored by all respectable Tories. How men live under such infamy it is not easy to understand. But even such infamy was not enough for Williams. He was not ashamed to attack the fallen master, to whom he had hired himself out for work, which no honest man in the inns of court would undertake, and from whom he had, within six months, accepted a baronetcy as the reward of civility. Only three members ventured to oppose themselves to what was evidently the general sense of the assembly. Sir Christopher Musgrave, a Tory gentleman of great weight and ability, hinted some doubts. Any age finch let fall some expressions which were understood to mean that he wished a negotiation to be opened with the King. His suggestion was so ill-received that he made haste to explain it away. He protested that he had been misapprehended. He was convinced that under such a prince there could be no security for religion, liberty, or property. To recall King James or to treat with him would be a fatal course. But many who would never consent that he should exercise the regal power had gargantious grouples about depriving him of the royal title. There was one expedient which would remove all difficulties, a regency. This proposition found so little favour that finched an adventure to demand a division. Richard Fanshawe, Viscount Fanshawe of the Kingdom of Ireland, said a few words on behalf of James and recommended an adjournment. But the recommendation was met by a general outcry. Member after member stood up to represent the importance of dispatch. Every moment it was said was precious the public anxiety was intense, trade was suspended. The minority sullenly submitted and suffered the predominant party to take its own course. What that course would be was not perfectly clear, for the majority was made up of two classes. One class consisted of eager and vehement wigs who, if they had been able to take their own course, would have given to the proceedings of the convention a decidedly revolutionary character. The other class admitted that a revolution was necessary but regarded it as a necessary evil and wished to disguise it as much as possible under the show of legitimacy. The former class demanded a distinct recognition of the right of subjects to dethrone bad princes. The latter class desired to rid the country of one bad prince without promulgating any doctrine which might be abused for the purpose of weakening the just and salvitory authority of future monarchs. The former class dwelt chiefly on the king's misgovernment, the latter, on his flight. The former class considered him as having forfeited his crown, the latter as having resigned it. It was not easy to draw up any form of words which would please all whose assent it was important to obtain. But, at length, out of many suggestions offered from different quarters, a resolution was framed which gave general satisfaction. It would move that King James II, having endeavored to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the government and that the throne had thereby become vacant. This resolution has been many times objected to criticism, as minute and severe as was ever applied to any sentence written by man, and perhaps there never was a sentence written by man which would bear such criticism less, that a king, by grossly abusing his power, may forfeit it is true, that a king who obsconds without making any provision for the administration and leaves his people in a state of anarchy, may, without any violent straining of language, he is said to have abdicated his functions is also true, but no accurate writer would affirm that long-continued misgovernment and desertion added together make up an act of abdication. It is evident, too, that the mention of the Jesuits and other evil advisers of James weakens, instead of strengthening the case against him, for surely more indulgence is due to a man misled by pernicious counsel than to a man who goes wrong from the mere impulse of his own mind. It is idle, however, to examine these memorable words, as we should examine a chapter of Aristotle or of Hobbes. Such words ought to be considered not as words, but as deeds. If they affect that which they are intended to affect, they are rational, though they may be contradictory. If they fail at ending their end, they are absurd, though they carry demonstration with them. Logic admits of no compromise, the essence of politics is compromise. It is therefore not strange that some of the most important and most useful political instruments in the world should be among the most illogical compositions that ever would end. The object of summers of manate and of the other eminent man who shaped the celebrated notion was not to leave to posterity a model of definition and partition, but to make the restoration of a tyrant impossible, and to place on the throne a sovereign under whom law and liberty might be secure. This object, they attained by using language which, in a philosophical treatise, would justly be reprehended as inexact and confused, they could add little whether their major agreed with their conclusion, if the major secured two hundred votes and a conclusion, two hundred more. In fact, the one beauty of the resolution is its inconsistency. There was a phrase for every subdivision of the majority. The mention of the original contract gratified the disciples of Sydney. The word abdication conciliated politicians of a more timid school. There were doubtless many fervent Protestants who were pleased with the censure cast on the Jesuits. To the real statesmen the single important clause was that which declared the throne vacant, and if that clause could be carried it cared little by what preamble it might be introduced. The force which was thus united made all resistance hopeless. The motion was adopted by the committee without a division. It was ordered that the report should be instantly made. I'll return to the chair. The mace was laid on the table. Hampton brought up the resolution. I was instantly agreed to it and ordered him to carry it to the lords. On the following morning the lords assembled early. The benches both of the spiritual and of the temporal beers were crowded. Hampton appeared at the bar and put the resolution of the commons into the hands of Alifax. The upper house then resolved itself into a committee and Danby took the chair. The discussion was soon interrupted by the reappearance of Hampton with another message. The house resumed and was informed that the commons had just voted it inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant nation to be governed by a Popesh king. To this resolution irreconcilable as it obviously was with the doctrine of indifusible hereditary right, the beers gave an immediate and unanimous assent. The principle which was thus affirmed has always downed to our own dime been held sacred by all Protestant statesmen and has never been considered by any reasonable Roman Catholic as objectionable. If indeed our sovereigns were like the presidents of the United States, mere civil functionaries, it would not be easy to vindicate such a restriction. But the headship of the English Church is annexed to the English crown. And there is no intolerance in saying that a church ought not to be subjected to a head who regards her eschismatical and heretical. After the short interlude, the lords again went into committee. The dories insisted that their plan should be discussed before the vote of the commons which declared that their own vacant was considered. This was conceded to them and the question was put whether a regency exercising kingly power during the life of James in his name would be the best expedient for preserving the laws and liberties of the nation. The contest was long and animated. The chief speakers in favor of a regency were Rochester and Nottingham. Halifax and Danby led the other side. The primate, strange to say, did not make his appearance, though earnestly and cartooned by the Tory peers to place himself at their head. His absence drew on in many contramelial censures, nor have even his eulogists been able to find any explanation of it which raises his character. The plan of regency was his own. He had a few days before, in a paper written with his own hand, pronounced that plan to be clearly the best that could be adopted. The deliberations of the lords who supported that plan had been carried on under his roof. His situation made it his clear duty to declare publicly what he thought. Nobody can suspect him of personal cowardice or of vulgar impunity. It was probably from a nervous fear of doing wrong that at this great conjuncture he did nothing, but he should have known that, situated as he was, to do nothing was to do wrong. A man who was too scrupulous to take on himself a grave responsibility at an important crisis ought to be too scrupulous to accept the place of first minister of the church and first peer of the realm. It is not strange, however, that Sarncraft's mind should have been ill at case, for he could hardly be blind to the obvious truth that the scheme which he had recommended to his friends was utterly inconsistent with all that he and his brethren had been teaching during many years. That the king had a divine and indefensible right to the regal power, and that the regal power, even when most grossly abused, could not without sin be resisted, was a doctrine in which the Anglican church had long gloried. Did this doctrine then really mean only that the king had a divine and indefensible right to have his effigy and name cut on a seal, which was to be daily employed in spite of him for the purpose of commissioning his enemies to levy war on him, and of sending his friends to the gallows for obeying him to the old duty of a good subject consistent in using the word king? If so, fair fact that Nesby and Bradshaw and the High Court of Justice had performed all the duty of good subjects, for Charles had been designated by the generals who commanded against him, and even by the judges who condemned him as king. Nothing in the conduct of the long parliament had been more severely blamed by the judge than the ingenious device of using the name of Charles against himself. Every one of her ministers had been required to sign a declaration condemning as traitorous the fiction by which the authority of the sovereign had been separated from his person. Yet this traitorous fiction was now considered by the primate and by many of his Africans as the only basis on which they could in strict conformity with Christian principles erect a government. The distinction which Sandcraft had borrowed from the roundheads of the preceding generation subverted from the foundation that system of politics which the judge and the universities pretended to have learned from St. Paul. The Holy Spirit, it has been a thousand times repeated, had commanded the Romans to be subject to neuro. The meaning of the precept now appeared to be only that the Romans were to be called neuro-Augustus. They were perfectly at liberty to chase him beyond the Euphrates, to leave him a pensioner on the bounty of the Bartheons, to withstand him by force if he attempted to return, to punish all who aided him or corresponded with him, and to transfer the tribunation power and the consular power, the presidency of the Senate and the command of the legions to Galba or Vespasian. The analogy which the archbishop imagined that he had discovered between the case of a wrong-headed king and the case of a lunatic king will not bear a moment's examination. It was plain that James was not in that state of mind in which if he had been a country gentleman or emergent any tribunal would have held him incapable of executing a contract or a will. He was of unsound mind only as all bad kings are of unsound mind. As Charles I had been of unsound mind when he went to seize the five members as Charles II had been of unsound mind when he concluded the Treaty of Dover, if this sort of mental unsoundness did not justify subjects in withdrawing their obedience from princes, the plan of a regency was evidently indefensible. If this sort of mental unsoundness did justify subjects in withdrawing their obedience from princes, the doctrine of non-resistance was completely given up and all that any moderate Whig had ever contended for was fully admitted. As to the oath of allegiance about which Sandcraft and his disciples were so anxious one thing at least was clear that whoever might be right they were wrong. The Whigs held that in the oath of allegiance certain conditions were implied that the king had violated these conditions and that the oath had therefore lost its force but if the Whig doctrine were false if the oath were still binding could men of sense really believe that they escaped the guilt of perjury by voting for a regency? Could they affirm that they bore true allegiance to James while they were in defiance of his protestations made before all Europe authorizing another person to receive the royal revenues, to summon in Baroque parliaments, to create Duke Sennels, to name bishops and judges, to pardon offenders, to command the forces of the state, and to conclude treaties with foreign powers had Pascal been able to find in all the folios of the Jesuitical casuits a sophism more contemptible than that which now as it seemed suffice to quiet the consciences of the fathers of the Anglican church nothing could be more evident than that the plan of Regency could be defended only on Whig principles between the rationals orders of that plan and the majority of the House of Commons there could be no dispute as to the question of right all that remained was a question of expediency and would any statesman seriously contend that it was expedient to constitute a government with two heads and to give to one of those heads regal power without regal dignity and to the other regal dignity without regal power it was notorious that such an arrangement even when made necessary by the infancy or insanity of a prince had serious disadvantages that times of Regency were times of weakness of trouble and of disaster was a truth proved by the whole history of England of France and of Scotland and it almost become a proverb yet in a case of infancy or of insanity the king was at least passive he could not actively counter work the Regent what was now proposed was that England should have two first magistrate of ripe age and sound mind waging with each other in irreconcilable war it was absurd to talk of leaving James merely the kingly name and depriving him of all the kingly power for the name was a part of the power the word king was a word of contrasion it was associated in the minds of many Englishmen with the idea of a mysterious character derived from above and in the minds of almost all Englishmen with the idea of legitimate and venerable authority surely if the title carried with it such power those who maintain that James ought to be deprived of all power could not deny that he ought to be deprived of the title and how long was the anomalous government planned by the genius of Sankroth to last every argument which could be urged for setting it up at all might be urged with equal force for retaining it to the end of time if the boy who had been carried into France was really born the queen he would hear after inherit the divine and indefensible right to be called king the same right would very probably be transmitted from papest to papest through the whole of the 18th and 19th centuries both the houses had unanimously resolved that England should not be governed by a papest it might well be therefore that from generation to generation regions would continue to administer the government in the name of vagrant and mendicant kings there was no doubt that the regents must be appointed by parliament the effect therefore of this contrivance a contrivance intended to preserve unimpaired the sacred principle of hereditary monarchy would be that the monarchy would become really elective another unanswerable reason was urged against Sankroth's plan there was in the statute book a law which had been passed soon after the close of the long and bloody contest between the houses of York and Lancaster and which had been framed for the purpose of averting calamities such as the alternate victories of those houses had brought on the nobility and gentry of the realm by this law it was provided that no person should by adhering to a king in possession engulf the penalties of treason when the regicides were brought to trial after the restoration some of them insisted that that case lay within the equity of this act they had obeyed they said the government which was in possession and were therefore not traitors the judges admitted that this would have been a good defense if the prisoners had acted under the authority of a usurper who like Henry IV and Richard III bore the regal title for declared that such a defense could not avail men who had indicted sentence and executed one who in the indictment in the sentence and in the death warrant was designated as king it followed therefore that whoever should support a regent in opposition to James would run great risk of being hanged drawn and quartered if ever James should recover supreme power but that no person could without such a violation of law as Jeffries himself would oddly venture to commit be punished for siding with a king who was reigning though wrongfully at white all against a rightful king who was in exile at San Germain it should seem that these arguments admit of no reply and that they would doubt this urge with force by Danby who had a wonderful power of making every subject which he treated clear to the dullest mind and by Halifax who in fertility of thought and brilliancy of diction had no rival among the orators of that age yet so numerous and powerful were the Tories in the other house that notwithstanding the weakness of their case the defection of their leader and the ability of their opponents they very nearly carried the day a hundred lords divided 49 voted for a regency 51 against it in the minority with the natural children of Charles the brothers in law of James the dukes of Somerset and Ormond the archbishop of York and 11 bishops no prolet voted in the majority except Compton and Trelawney it was near nine in the evening before the house rose the following day was the 30th of January the anniversary of the death of Charles the first the great body of the Anglican clergy had during many years thought it a sacred duty to inculcate on that day the doctrines of non-resistance and passive obedience their old sermons were now of little use and many divines were even in doubt whether they could venture to read the whole liturgy the lower house had declared that the throne was vacant the upper had not yet expressed any opinion it was therefore not easy to decide whether the prayers for the sovereign ought to be used every officiating minister took his own course in most of the churches of the capital the petitions for James were omitted but it's St Margaret's sharp dean of Norwich who had been requested to preach before the commons not only read to their faces the whole service as it stored in the book but before his sermon implored in his own words a blessing on the king and towards the close of his discourse to claim against the Jesuitical doctrine that princes might lawfully be deposed by their subjects the speaker that very afternoon complained to the house of the sefront you pass a vote one day said and on the next day it is contradicted from the pulpit in your own hearing sharp was strenuously defended by the Tories and had friends even among the wigs for it was not forgotten that he had incurred serious danger in the evil times but the courage with which and defiance of the royal injunction he had preached against Peppery said Christopher Musgrave very ingeniously remarked that the house had not ordered the resolution which declared the throne vacant to be published sharp therefore was not only not bound to know anything of that resolution but could not have taken notice of it without a breach of privilege for which he might have been called to the bar and reprimanded on his knees the majority felt that it was not wise at that conjuncture to quarrel with the clergy and the subject was suffered to drop while the commons were discussing sharp sermon the lords had again gone into a committee on the state of the nation and had ordered the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant to be read clause by clause the first expression on which a debate arose was that which recognized the original contract between king and people it was not to be expected that the Dory beers would suffer a phrase which contain the quintessence of wiggism to pass on challenge a division took place and it was determined by 53 votes to 46 that the words should stand the severe censure passed by the commons on the administration of James was next considered and was approved without one dissension to voice some verbal objections were made to the proposition that James had abdicated the government it was urged that he might more correctly be said to have deserted it this amendment was adopted it should seem with scarcely any debate and without a division by this time it was late and the lords again adjourned up to this moment the small body of beers which was under the guidance of Danby had acted in firm union with Halifax and the wigs the effect of this union had been that the plan of Regency had been rejected and the doctrine of the original contract affirmed the proposition that James had ceased to be king had been the rallying point of the two bodies which had made up the majority but from that point their path diverged the next question to be decided was whether the throne was vacant and this was a question not merely verbal but of grave practical importance if the throne was vacant the states of the realm might place will you minute if it was not vacant he could succeed to it only after his wife after on and after Alan's posterity and about then history of England chapter 10 part 11 this is 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 the second by Thomas Babington Macaulay chapter 10 part 11 it was according to the followers of Danby an established maxim that our country could not be even for a moment without a rightful prince the man might die but the magistrate was immortal the man might abdicate but the magistrate was irremovable if these politicians said we once admit that the throne is vacant we admit that it is elective the sovereign whom we may place on it will be a sovereign not after the English but after the Polish fashion even if we choose the very person who would reign by right of birth still that person will reign not by right of birth but in virtue of our choice and will take as a gift what ought to be regarded as an inheritance that salutary reverence with which the blood royal and the order of primogeniture have hitherto been regarded will be greatly diminished still more serious will the evil be if we not only fill the throne by election but fill it with a prince who has doubtless the qualities of a great and good ruler and who has wrought a wonderful deliverance for us but who is not first nor even second in the order of succession if we once say that merit however eminent shall be a title to the crown we disturb the very foundations of our polity and furnish a precedent of which every ambitious warrior or statesman who may have rendered any great service to the public will be tempted to avail himself this danger we avoid if we logically follow out the principles of the constitution to their consequences there has been a demise of the crown at the instant of the demise the next air becomes our lawful sovereign we consider the princess of orange as next air and we hold that she ought without any delay to be proclaimed what she already is our queen the wigs replied that it was idle to apply ordinary rules to a country in a state of revolution that the great question now depending was not to be decided by the sores of pedantic Templars and that if it were to be so decided such sores might be quoted on one side as well as the other if it were a legal maxim that the throne could never be vacant it was also a legal maxim that a living man could have no air James was still living how then could the princess of orange be his air the truth was that the laws of England had made full provision for the succession when the power of a sovereign and his natural life terminated together but had made no provision for the very rare cases in which his power terminated before the close of his natural life and with one of those very rare cases the convention had now to deal that James no longer filled the throne both houses had pronounced neither common law nor statute law designated any person as entitled to fill the throne between his demise and his disease it followed that the throne was vacant and that the houses might invite the prince of orange to fill it that he was not next in order of birth was true but this was no disadvantage on the contrary it was a positive recommendation hereditary monarchy was a good political institution but was by no means more sacred than other good political institutions unfortunately bigoted and servile theologians had turned it into a religious mystery almost as awful and as incomprehensible as transubstantiation itself to keep the institution and yet to get rid of the abject and noxious superstitions with which it had of late years been associated and which had made it a curse instead of a blessing to society ought to be the first object of English statesman and that object would be best attained by slightly deviating for a time from the general rule of descent and by then returning to it many attempts were made to prevent an open breach between the party of the prince and the party of the princess a great meeting was held at the Earl of Devonshire's house and the dispute was warm Halifax was the chief speaker for William Danby for Mary of the mind of Mary Danby knew nothing she had been some time expected in London but had been detained in Holland first by masses of ice which blocked out the rivers and when the thaw came by strong westerly winds had she arrived earlier the dispute would probably have been at once quieted Halifax on the other side had no authority to say anything in William's name the prince true to his promise that he would leave the settlement of the government to the convention had maintained an unpenetrable reserve and had not suffered any word look or gesture indicative either of satisfaction or of displeasure to escape him one of his countrymen who had a large share of his confidence had been invited to the meeting and was earnestly pressed by the peers to give them some information he long excused himself at last he so far yielded to their urgency as to say I can only guess at his highness's mind if you wish to know what I guess I guess that he would not like to be his wife's gentleman Usher but I know nothing I know something now however said Danby I know enough and too much he then departed and the assembly broke up on the 31st of January the debate which had terminated thus in private was publicly renewed in the heist of peers that day had been fixed for the national thanksgiving an office had been drawn up for the occasion by several bishops among whom were Ken and Spratt it is perfectly free both from the adulation and from the malignity by which such compositions were in that age too often deformed and sustains perhaps better than any occasional service which has been framed during two centuries a comparison with that great model of chaste lofty and pathetic eloquence the book of common prayer the lords went in the morning to Westminster Abbey the commons had desired Burnett to preach before them at St Margaret's he was not likely to fall into the same error which had been committed in the same place on the preceding day his vigorous and animated discourse doubtless called forth the loud hums of his auditors it was not only printed by command of the house but was translated into French for the edification of foreign Protestants the day closed with the festivities usual on such occasions the whole town shone brightly with fireworks and bonfires the roar of guns and the peeling of bells lasted till the night was fast meant but before the lights were extinct and the streets silent an event had taken place which threw a damp on the public joy the peers had repaired from the Abbey to their house and had resumed the discussion on the state of the nation the last words of the resolution of the commons were taken into consideration and it soon became clear that the majority were not disposed to assent to those words to near fifty lords who held that the regal title still belonged to James were now added seven or eight who held that it had already devolved on Mary the wigs finding themselves outnumbered tried to compromise the dispute they promised to omit the words which pronounced the throne vacant and simply to declare the prince and princess king and queen it was manifest that such a declaration implied though it did not expressly affirm all that the Tories were unwilling to concede for nobody could pretend that William had succeeded to the regal office by right of birth to pass a resolution acknowledging him as king was therefore an act of election and how could there be an election without a vacancy the proposition of the wig lords was rejected by 52 votes to 47 the question was then put whether the throne was vacant the contents were only 41 the non-contents 55 of the minority 36 protested during the two following days London was in an unquiet and anxious state the Tories began to hope that they might be able again to bring forward their favorite plan of regency with better success perhaps the prince himself when he found that he had no chance of wearing the crown might prefer Sankraft's scheme to Danby's it was better doubtless to be a king than to be a regent but it was better to be a regent than to be a gentleman usher on the other side the lower and fiercer class of wigs the old emissaries of Shaftesbury the old associates of college began to stir in the city crowds assembled in palace yard and held threatening language Lord Loveless who was suspected of having encouraged these assemblages informed the peers that he was charged with a petition requesting them instantly to declare the prince and princess of orange king and queen he was asked by whom the petition was signed there are no hands to it yet he answered but when I bring it here next there shall be hands enough this men is alarmed and disgusted his own party the leading wigs were in truth even more anxious than the Tories that the deliberations of the convention should be perfectly free and that it should not be in the power of any adherent of James to allege that either house had acted under force a petition similar to that which had been entrusted to Loveless was brought into the house of commons but was contemptuously rejected Maynard was foremost in protesting against the attempt of the rabble in the streets to overall the estates of the realm William sent for Loveless expostulated with him strongly and ordered the magistrates to act with vigor against all unlawful assemblies nothing in the history of our revolution is more deserving of admiration and of imitation than the manner in which the two parties in the convention at the very moment at which their disputes ran highest joined like one man to resist the dictation of the mob of the capital but though the wigs were fully determined to maintain order and to respect the freedom of debate they were equally determined to make no concession on saturday the second of february the commons without a division resolved to adhere to their resolution as it originally stood James as usual came to the help of his enemies a letter from him to the convention had just arrived in london it had been transmitted to Preston by the apostate melford who was now high in favor at san jamal the name of melford was an abomination to every churchman that he was still a confidential minister was alone sufficient to prove that his master's folly and perverseness were incurable no member of either house ventured to propose that a paper which came from such a quarter shall be read the contents however were well known to all the time his majesty exhorted the lords and commons not to despair of his clemency and graciously assured them that he would pardon those who had betrayed him some few accepted whom he did not name how was it possible to do anything for a prince who vanquished deserted damaged living on arms told those who were the arbiters of his fate that if they would set him on his throne again he would hang only a few of them end of part 11 history of england chapter 10 part 12 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 the second by thomas babbington mccawley chapter 10 part 12 the contest between the two branches of the legislature lasted some days longer on monday the fourth of february the peers resolved that they would insist on their amendments but a protest to which 39 names were subscribed was entered on the journals on the following day the Tories determined to try their strength in the lower house they mustered there in great force a motion was made to agree to the amendments of the lords those who were for the plan of sancroft and those who were for the plan of danby divided together but they were beaten by 282 votes to 151 the house then resolved to request a free conference with the lords at the same time strenuous efforts were making without the walls of parliament to bring the dispute between the two branches of the legislature to a close bernette thought that the importance of the crisis justified him in publishing the great secret which the princess had confided to him he knew he said from her own lips that it had long been her full determination even if she came to the throne in the regular course of dissent to surrender her power with the sanction of parliament into the hand of her husband danby received from her an earnest and almost angry reprimand she was she wrote the prince's wife she had no other wish than to be subject to him the most cruel injury that could be done to her would be to set her up as his competitor and she never could regard any person who took such a course as her true friend the tories had still one hope an might insist on her own rights and on those of her children no effort was spared to stimulate her ambition and to alarm her conscience her uncle clarondon was especially active a few weeks only had elapsed since the hope of wealth and greatness had impelled him to belie the boastful professions of his whole life to desert the royal cause to join with the wildmans and fergussons nay to propose that the king should be sent a prisoner to a foreign land and emurred in a fortress beguert by pestilential marshes the lure which had produced this strange transformation was the vice royalty of Ireland soon however it appeared that the prosletite had a little chance of obtaining the splendid prize on which his heart was set he found that others were consulted on Irish affairs his advice was never asked and when obtrusively and importanately offered was coldly received he repaired many times to st. James's palace but could scarcely obtain a word or a look one day the prince was writing another day he wanted fresh air and must ride in the park on a third he was closeted with the officers on military business and could see nobody clarondon saw that he was not likely to gain anything by the sacrifice of his principles and determined to take them back again in december ambition had converted him into a rebel in january disappointment reconverted him into a royalist the uneasy consciousness that he had not been a consistent Tory gave a peculiar acrimony to his tourism in the house of lords he had done all in his power to prevent a settlement he now exerted for the same end all his influence over the princess and but his influence over her was small indeed when compared with that of the churchills who wisely called to their help two powerful allies tillotson who was a spiritual director had at that time immense authority and lady russell whose noble and gentle virtues proved by the most cruel of all trials had gained for her the reputation of a saint the princess of danmark it was soon known was willing that william should reign for life and it was evident that to defend the cause of the daughters of james against themselves was a hopeless task and now william thought that the time had come when he ought to explain himself he accordingly sent for halifax danby shrewsbury and some other political leaders of great note and with that air of stoical apathy under which he had from a boy been in the habit of concealing his strongest emotions addressed to them a few deeply meditated and weighty words he had here the two he said remained silent he had used neither solicitation nor menace he had not even suffered a hint of his opinions or wishes to get abroad but a crisis had now arrived at which it was necessary for him to declare his intentions he had no right and no wish to dictate to the convention all that he claimed was the privilege of declining any office which he felt that he could not hold with honor to himself and with benefit to the public a strong party was for a regency it was for the houses to determine whether such an arrangement would be for the interest of the nation he had a decided opinion on that point and he thought it right to say distinctly that he would not be regent another party was for placing the princess on the throne and forgiving to him during her life the title of king and such a share in the administration as she might be pleased to allow him he could not stoop to such a post he esteemed the princess as much as it was possible for man to esteem woman but not even from her would he accept a subordinate and a precarious place in the government he was so made that he could not submit to be tied to the apron strings even of the best of wives he did not desire to take any part in English affairs but if he did consent to take a part there was one part only which he could usefully or honorably take if the estates offered him the crown for life he would accept it if not he should without repining return to his native country he concluded by saying that he thought it reasonable that the lady Ann and her posterity should be preferred in the succession to any children whom he might have by any other wife than the lady Mary the meeting broke up and what the prince had said was in a few hours known all over London that he must be king was now clear the any question was whether he should hold the regal dignity alone or conjointly with the princess Halifax and a few other politicians who saw in a strong light the danger of dividing the supreme executive authority thought it desirable that during Williams life Mary should be only queen consort and a subject but this arrangement though much might doubtless be said for it in an argument shocked the general feeling even of those Englishmen who were most attached to the prince his wife had given an unprecedented proof of conjugal submission and affection and the very least return that could be made to her would be to bestow on her the dignity of queen regnant William Herbert one of the most dishealous of the prince's adherents was so much exasperated that he sprang out of the bed to which he was confined by gout and vehemently declared that he would never have drawn a sword in his highness's cause if he had foreseen that so shameful an arrangement would be made no person took the matter up so eagerly as Burnett his blood boiled the wrong done to his kind patroness he expostulated vehemently with bending and begged to be permitted to resign the chaplain ship while i am his highness's servant said the brave and honest divine it would be unseemly in me to oppose any plan which may have his countenance i therefore desire to be set free that i may fight the princess's battle with every faculty that god has given me a bent ink prevailed on Burnett to defer an open declaration of hostilities till william's resolution should be distinctly known in a few hours the scheme which had excited so much resentment was entirely given up and all those who considered james as no longer king were agreed as to the way in which the throne must be filled William and Mary must be king and queen the heads of both must appear together on the coin writs must run in the names of both both must enjoy all the personal dignities and immunities of royalty but the administration which could not be safely divided must belong to william alone and now the time arrived for the free conference between the houses the banagers for the lords in their robes took their seats along one side of the table in the painted chamber but the crowd of members of the house of commons on the other side was so great that the gentlemen who were to argue the question in vain tried to get through it was not without much difficulty and long delay that the sergeant at arms was able to clear a passage at length the discussion began a full report of the speeches on both sides has come down to us there are few students of history who have not taken up that report with eager curiosity and laid it down with disappointment the question between the houses was argued on both sides as a question of law the objections which the lords made to the resolution of the commons were verbal and technical and were met by verbal and technical answers summers vindicated the use of the word abdication by quotations from grotius and brisonius spigalius and bartholus when he was challenged to show any authority for the proposition that england could be without a sovereign he produced the parliament role of the year 1399 in which it was expressly set for that the kingly office was vacant during the interval between the resignation of richard the second and the enthroning of henry the fourth the lords replied by reducing the parliament role of the first year of edward the fourth from which it appeared that the record of 1399 had been solemnly annulled they therefore maintained that the precedent on which summers relied was no longer valid drapey then came forth to summers' assistance and brought forth the parliament role of the first year of henry the seventh which repealed the act of edward the fourth and consequently restored the validity of the record of 1399 after a colloquial several hours the disputants separated the lords assembled in their own house it was well understood that they were about to yield and that the conference had been a mere form the friends of mary had found that by setting her up as her husband's rival they had deeply displeased her some of the peers who had formally voted for a regency had determined to have sent themselves or to support the resolution of the lower house their opinion they said was unchanged but any government was better than no government and the country could not bear a prolongation of this agony of suspense even nottingham who in the painted chamber had taken the lead against the commons declared that though his own conscience would not suffer him to give way he was glad that the consciences of other men were less squeamish several lords who had not yet voted in the convention have been induced to attend Lord Lexington who had just hurried over from the continent the Earl of Lincoln who was half mad the Earl of Carlisle who limped in on crutches and the Bishop of Durham who had been in hiding and had intended to fly beyond sea but had received an intimation that if he would vote for the settling of the government his conduct in the ecclesiastical commission should not be remembered against him Danby desirous to heal the schism which he had caused exhorted the house in a speech distinguished by even more than his usual ability not to persevere in a contest which might be fatal to the state he was strenuously supported by Halifax the spirit of the opposite party was quelled when the question was put whether King James had abdicated the government only three lords said not content on the question of whether the throne was vacant a division was demanded the contents for 62 the not contents 47 it was immediately proposed and carried without a division that the prince and princess of orange should be declared king and queen of england Nottingham then moved that the wording of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy should be altered in such a way that they might be conscientiously taken by persons who like himself disapproved of what the convention had done and yet fully purposed to be loyal and beautiful subjects of the new sovereigns to this proposition no objection was made indeed there can be little doubt that there was an understanding on the subject between the wig leaders and those Tory lords whose votes had turned to the scale on the last division the new oaths was sent down to the commons together with the resolution that the prince and princess should be declared king and queen it was now known to whom the crown would be given on what conditions it should be given still remain to be decided the commons had appointed a committee member to consider what steps it might be advisable to take in order to secure law and liberty against the aggressions of future sovereigns and the committee had made a report this report recommended first that those great principles of the constitution which had been violated by the dethroned king should be solemnly asserted and secondly that many new laws should be enacted for the purpose of curbing the prerogative and purifying the administration of justice most of the suggestions of the committee were excellent but it was utterly impossible that the houses could in a month or even in a year deal properly with matters so numerous so various and so important it was proposed among other things that the militia should be remodeled that the power which the sovereign possessed of proroguing and dissolving parliaments should be restricted that the duration of parliaments should be limited that the royal pardon should no longer be pleadable to a parliamentary impeachment that toleration should be granted to Protestant dissenters that the crime of high treason should be more precisely defined that trials for high treason should be conducted in a manner more favorable to innocence that the judges should hold their places for life that the mode of appointing sheriffs should be altered that juries should be nominated in such a way as might exclude partiality and corruption that the practice of filing criminal informations in the king's bench should be abolished that the court of chancellor should be reformed that the fees of public functionary should be regulated and that the law of quo waronto should be amended it was evident that cautious and deliberate legislation on these subjects must be the work of more than one laborious session and it was equally evident that hasty and crude legislation on subjects so grave could not but produce new grievances worse than those which it might remove if the committee meant to give a list of the reforms which ought to be accomplished before the throne was filled the list was absurdly long if on the other hand the committee meant to give a list of all the reforms which the legislature would do well to make in proper season the list was strangely imperfect in need as soon as the report had been read member after member rose to suggest some addition it was moved and carried that the selling of offices should be prohibited that the habeas corpus act should be made more efficient and that the law of mandamus should be revised one gentleman fell on the chimney men another on the excise men and the house resolved that the malpractices of both chimney men and excise men should be restrained it is a most remarkable circumstance that while the whole political military judicial and fiscal system of the kingdom was thus passed in review not a single representative of the people proposed the repeal of the statute which subjected the press to a censorship it was not yet understood even by the most enlightened men but the liberty of discussion is the chief safeguard of all other liberties the house was greatly perplexed some orators vehemently said that too much time had already been lost and that the government ought to be settled without the delay of a day society was unquiet trade was languishing the english colony in ireland was in imminent danger of perishing a foreign war was impending the exile king might in a few weeks be at dublin with the french army and from dublin he might soon cross to chester was it not insanity at such a crisis to leave the throne unfilled and while the very existence of parliaments was in jeopardy to waste the time in debating whether parliaments should be prorogued by the sovereign or by themselves on the other side it was asked whether the convention could think that it had fulfilled its mission by merely pulling down one prince and putting up another surely now or never was the time to secure public liberty by such fences as might effectively prevent the encroachments of prerogative there was doubtless great weight in what was urged on both sides the able chiefs of the wig party among whom summers was fast rising to ascendancy proposed a middle course the house had they said two objects in view which ought to be kept distinct one object was to secure the old polity of the realm against illegal attacks the other was to improve that polity by legal reforms the former object might be attained by solemnly putting on record in the resolution which called the new sovereigns to the throne the claim of the English nation to its ancient franchises so that the king might hold his crown and the people their privileges by one and the same title deed the latter object would require a whole volume of elaborate statutes the former object might be attained in a day the latter scarcely in five years as to the former object all parties were agreed as to the latter there were innumerable varieties of opinion no member of either house would hesitate for a moment to vote that the king could not levy taxes without the consent of parliament but it would be hardly possible to frame any new law of procedure in cases of high treason which would not give rise to long debate and be condemned by some persons as unjust to the prisoner and by others as unjust to the crown the business of an extraordinary convention of the estates of the realm was not to do the ordinary work of parliaments to regulate the fees of masters in chancery and to provide against the exactions of gougers but to put right the great machine of government when this had been done it would be time to inquire what improvement our institutions needed nor would anything be risked by delay for no sovereign who reigned merely by the choice of the nation could long refuse his assent to any improvement which the nation speaking through its representatives demanded on these grounds the commons wisely determined to postpone all reforms till the ancient constitution of the kingdom should have been restored in all its parts and forthwith to fill the throne without imposing on william and mary any other obligation than that of governing according to the existing laws of england in order that the questions which had been in dispute between the stewards and the nation might never again be stirred it was determined that the instrument by which the prince and princess of orange were called to the throne and by which the order of succession was settled should set forth in the most distinct and solemn manner the fundamental principles of the constitution the instrument known by the name of the declaration of right was prepared by a committee of which summers was chairman the fact that the low-born young barrister was appointed to so honorable and important a post in a parliament filled with able and experienced men only ten days after he had spoken in the house of commons for the first time sufficiently proves the superiority of his abilities in a few hours the declaration was framed and approved by the commons the lords assented to it with some amendments of no great importance end of part 12