 HISTORY OF INGLAND, CHAPTER 8, PART 1. The marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irritated the meekest of princes, but the only effect which it produced on James was to make him more lavish of caresses and compliments. While Castlemane, his whole soul festered with angry passions, was on his road back to England, the nuncio was loaded with honors which his own judgment would have led him to reject. He had, by a fiction often used in the Church of Rome, been lately raised to the Episcopal dignity without having the charge of any sea. He was called Archbishop of Amacia, a city of Pontus, the birthplace of Strabo and Mithridates. James insisted that the ceremony of consecration should be performed in the Chapel of St. James's Palace, the vicar apostolic Leighburn, and two Irish prelates officiated. The doors were thrown open to the public, and it was remarked that some of those Puritans who had recently turned courtiers were among the spectators. In the evening, Ada, wearing the robes of his new office, joined the circle in the Queen's apartments. James fell on his knees in the presence of the whole court and implored a blessing. In spite of the restraint imposed by etiquette, the astonishment and disgust of the bystanders could not be concealed. It was long indeed since an English sovereign had knelt to mortal man, and those who saw the strange sight could not but think of that day of shame when John did homage for his crown between the hands of Pandolf. In a short time a still more ostentatious pageant was performed in honor of the Holy See. It was determined that the nuncio should go to court in solemn procession. Some persons on whose obedience the king had counted showed on this occasion for the first time signs of a mutinous spirit. Among these the most conspicuous was the second temporal peer of the realm, Charles Seymour, commonly called the proud Duke of Somerset. He was in truth a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease. The fortune which he had inherited was not adequate to the high place which he held among the English aristocracy, but he had become possessed of the greatest estate in England by his marriage with the daughter and heiress of the last Percy who wore the ancient coronet of Northumberland. Somerset was only in his twenty-fifth year and was very little known to the public. He was the lord of the king's bedchamber and colonel of one of the regiments which had been raised at the time of the Western insurrection. He had not scrupled to carry the sword of state into the royal chapel on days of festival, but he now resolutely refused to swell the pomp of the nuncio. Some members of his family implored him not to draw on himself the royal displeasure, but therein treaties produced no effect. The king himself expostulated. I thought, my lord, said he, that I was doing you a great honour in appointing you to escort the minister of the first of all crowned heads. Sir, said the Duke, I am advised that I cannot obey your majesty without breaking the law. I will make you fear me as well as the law, answered the king insolently. Do you not know that I am above the law? Your majesty may be above the law, replied Somerset, but I am not, and while I obey the law I fear nothing. The king turned away in high displeasure, and Somerset was instantly dismissed from his posts in the household and in the army. On one point, however, James showed some prudence. He did not venture to parade the papal envoy in state before the vast population of the capital. The ceremony was performed on the 3rd of July, 1687, at Windsor. Great multitudes flocked to the little town. The visitors were so numerous that there was neither food nor lodging for them, and many persons of quality sate the whole day in their carriages waiting for the exhibition. At length, late in the afternoon, the night Marshall's men appeared on horseback. Then came a long train of running footmen, and then in a royal coach appeared Atta, robed in purple, with a brilliant cross on his breast. He was followed by the equipages of the principal courtiers and ministers of state. In his train the crowd recognized with disgust the arms and liveries of crew, bishop of Durham, and of cartwright, bishop of Chester. On the following day appeared in the gazette a proclamation dissolving that parliament, which of all the 15 parliaments held by the stewards had been the most obsequious. Meanwhile, new difficulties had arisen in Westminster Hall. Only a few months had elapsed since some judges had been turned out and others put in for the purpose of obtaining a decision favorable to the crown in the case of Sir Edward Hales, and already fresh changes were necessary. The king had scarcely formed that army on which he chiefly depended for the accomplishing of his designs when he found that he could not himself control it. When war was actually raging in the kingdom, a mutineer or a deserter might be tried by a military tribunal and executed by the provost marshal. But there was now profound peace. The common law of England, having sprung up in an age when all men bore arms occasionally and none constantly, recognized no distinction in time of peace between a soldier and any other subject. Nor was there any act resembling that by which the authority necessary for the government of regular troops is now annually confided to the sovereign. Some old statutes indeed made desertion felony in certain specified cases. But those statutes were applicable only to soldiers serving the king in actual war and could not without the grossest disingenuousness be so strained as to include the case of a man who in a time of profound tranquility at home and abroad should become tired of the camp at Hounslow and should go back to his native village. The government appears to have had no hold on such a man except the hold which master bakers and master tailors have on their journeymen. He and his officers were in the eye of the law on a level. If he swore at them he might be fined for an oath. If he struck them he might be prosecuted for assault and battery. In truth the regular army was under less restraint than the militia. For the militia was a body established by an act of parliament and it had been provided by that act that slight punishments might be summarily inflicted for breaches of discipline. It does not appear that during the reign of Charles II the practical inconvenience arising from this state of the law had been much felt. The explanation may perhaps be that till the last year of his reign the force which he maintained in England consisted chiefly of household troops whose pay was so high that dismission from the service would have been felt by most of them as a great calamity. The stipend of a private in the lifeguards was a provision for the younger son of a gentleman. Even the footguards were paid about as high as manufacturers in a prosperous season and were therefore in a situation which the great body of the laboring population might regard with envy. The return of the garrison of Tangier and the raising of the new regiments had made a great change. There were now in England many thousands of soldiers each of whom received only eight pence a day. The dread of dismission was not sufficient to keep them to their duty and corporal punishment their officers could not legally inflict. James had therefore one plain choice before him to let his army dissolve itself or to induce the judges to pronounce that the law was what every barrister in the temple knew that it was not. It was particularly important to secure the cooperation of two courts the court of King's Bench which was the first criminal tribunal in the realm and the court of jail delivery which say to the old Bailey and which had jurisdiction over offenses committed in the capital. In both these courts there were great difficulties. Herbert, chief justice of the King's Bench, servile as he had hitherto been would go no further. Resistance still more sturdy was to be expected from Sir John Holt who as recorder of the city of London occupied the Bench at the old Bailey. Holt was an eminently learned and clear-headed lawyer. He was an upright and courageous man and though he had never been factious his political opinions had a tinge of wiggism. All obstacles however disappeared before the royal will. Holt was turned out of the recordership. Herbert and another judge were removed from the King's Bench and the vacant places were filled by persons in whom the government could confide. It was indeed necessary to go very low down in the legal profession before men could be found willing to render such services as were now required. The new chief justice Sir Robert Wright was ignorant to a proverb yet ignorance was not his worst fault his vices had ruined him. He had resorted to infamous ways of raising money and had on one occasion made a false affidavit in order to obtain possession of five hundred pounds. Poor, dissolute, and shameless he had become one of the parasites of Jeffries who promoted him and insulted him. Such was the man who was now selected by James to be Lord Chief Justice of England. One Richard Alibone who was even more ignorant of the law than Wright and who as a Roman Catholic was incapable of holding office was appointed a puny judge of the King's Bench. Sir Bartholomew Shower equally notorious as a servile Tory and a tedious orator became recorder of London. When these changes had been made several deserters were brought to trial. They were convicted in the face of the letter and of the spirit of the law. Some received sentence of death at the bar of the King's Bench some at the old Bailey. They were hanged in sight of the regiments to which they had belonged and care was taken that the execution should be announced in the London Gazette which very seldom noticed such events. End of 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 Bavington Macaulay Chapter 8 Part 2. It may well be believed that the law so grossly insulted by courts which derived from it all their authority and which were in the habit of looking to it as their guide would be little respected by a tribunal which had originated in tyrannical caprice. The new High Commission had, during the first months of its existence, merely inhibited clergymen from exercising spiritual functions. The rights of property had remained untouched. But early in the year 1687 it was determined to strike at freehold interests, and to impress on every Anglican priest and prelate the conviction that, if he refused to lend his aid for the purpose of destroying the church of which he was a minister, he would in an hour be reduced to beggary. It would have been prudent to try the first experiment and some obscure individual, but the government was under an infatuation such as in a more simple age would have been called judicial. War was therefore at once declared against the two most venerable corporations of the realm, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The power of these bodies has, during many ages, been great, but it was at the height, during the latter part of the seventeenth century. None of the neighbouring countries could boast of such splendid and opulent seats of learning. The schools of Edinburgh and Glasgow, Leiden and Utrecht, Louvain and Leipzig, of Padua and Bologna seemed mean to scholars who had been educated in the magnificent foundations of Wickham and Woolsey, of Henry VI and Henry VIII. Literature and science were in the academical system of England surrounded with pomp, armed with magistracy, and closely allied with all the most august institutions of the state. To be the Chancellor of a university was a distinction eagerly sought by the magnates of the realm. To represent a university in Parliament was a favourite object of the ambition of statesmen. Nobles and even princes were proud to receive from a university the privilege of wearing the doctoral scarlet. The curious were attracted to the universities by ancient buildings rich with the tracery of the middle ages, by modern buildings which exhibited the highest skill of Jones and Wren, by noble halls and chapels, by museums, by botanical gardens, and by the only great public libraries which the kingdom then contained. The state which Oxford especially displayed on solemn occasions rivaled that of sovereign princes. When her Chancellor, the venerable Duke of Ormond, sat in his embroidered mantle on his throne under the painted ceiling of the Sheldonian theatre, surrounded by hundreds of graduates robed according to their rank, while the noblest youths of England were solemnly presented to him as candidates for academic honours, he made an appearance scarcely less regal than that which his master made in the banqueting house of Whitehall. At the universities had been formed the minds of almost all the eminent clergymen, lawyers, physicians, wits, poets, and orators of the land, and of a large proportion of the nobility and of the opulent gentry. It is also to be observed that the connection between the scholar and the school did not terminate with his residence. He often continued to be through life a member of the academic body, and to vote as such at all important elections. He therefore regarded his old haunts by the Cam and the Isis with even more than the affection which educated men ordinarily feel for the place of their education. There was no corner of England in which both universities had not grateful and zealous sons. Any attack on the honour or interests of either Cambridge or Oxford was certain to excite the resentment of a powerful, active, and intelligent class scattered over every county from Northumberland to Cornwall. The resident graduates as a body were perhaps not superior positively to the resident graduates of our time, but they occupied a far higher position as compared with the rest of the community. For Cambridge and Oxford were then the only two provincial towns in the kingdom in which could be found a large number of men whose understandings had been highly cultivated. Even the capital felt great respect for the authority of the universities, not only on questions of divinity, of natural philosophy, and of classical antiquity, but also on points on which capitals generally claim the right of deciding in the last resort. From Will's coffee-house, and from the pit of the theatre-royal in Drury Lane, an appeal lay to the two great national seats of taste and learning. Plays which have been enthusiastically applauded in London were not thought out of danger till they had undergone the more severe judgment of audiences familiar with Sophocles and Terence. The great moral and intellectual influence of the English universities had been strenuously exerted on the side of the crime. The headquarters of Charles I had been at Oxford, and the silver tankards and salvers of all the colleges had been melted down to supply his military chest. Cambridge was not less loyally disposed. She had sent a large part of her plate to the royal camp, and the rest would have followed had not the time been seized by the troops of the parliament. Both universities have been treated with extreme severity by the victorious Puritans. Both had hailed the restoration with delight. Both had steadily opposed the exclusion bill. Both had expressed the deepest horror at the Rye House plot. Cambridge had not only deposed her Chancellor Munmouth, but had marked her abhorrence of his treason in a manner unworthy of a seat of learning by committing to the flames the canvas on which his pleasing face and figure had been portrayed by the utmost skill of Nella. Oxford, which lay nearer to the Western insurgents, had given still stronger proofs of loyalty. The students, under the sanction of their preceptors, had taken arms by hundreds in defence of hereditary right. Such were the bodies which James now determined to insult and plunder in direct defiance of the laws and of his plighted faith. Several acts of Parliament, as clear as any that were to be found in the Statute Book, had provided that no person should be admitted to any degree in either university without taking the oath of supremacy, and another oath of similar character called the oath of obedience. Nevertheless, in February 1687 a royal letter was sent to Cambridge directing that a benedictine monk named Albon Francis should be admitted a master of arts. The Academical Functionaries, divided between reverence for the king and reverence for the law, were in great distress. Messengers were dispatched in all haste to the Duke of Albemarle, who had succeeded Monmouth as Chancellor of the university. He was requested to represent the matter properly to the king. Meanwhile the registrar and Beatles waited on Francis and informed him that if he would take the oaths according to law he should be instantly admitted. He refused to be sworn, remonstrated with the offices of the university on their disregard of the royal mandate, and finding them resolute took course and hastened to relate his grievances at Whitehall. The heads of the colleges now assembled in council. The best legal opinions were taken and were decidedly in favour of the course which had been pursued. But a second letter from Sunderland in high and menacing terms was already on the road. Albemarle informed the university with many expressions of concern that he had done his best, but that he had been coldly and ungraciously received by the king. The accademical body, alarmed by the royal displeasure, and conscientiously desirous to meet the royal wishes, but determined not to violate the clear law of the land, submitted the humblest and most respectful explanations, but to no purpose. In a short time came down a summons citing the vice chancellor and the senate to appear before the new High Commission at Westminster on the 21st of April. The vice chancellor was to attend in person. The senate, which consists of all the doctors and masters of the university, was to send deputies. When the appointed day arrived, a great concourse filled the council chamber. Geoffrey sat at the head of the board. Rochester, since the white staff had been taken from him, was no longer a member. In his stead appeared the Lord Chamberlain, John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave. The fate of this nobleman has, in one respect, resembled the fate of his colleague Spratt. Mulgrave wrote verses which scarcely ever rose above absolute mediocrity. But, as he was a man of high note in the political and fashionable world, these verses found admirers. Time dissolved the charm, but unfortunately for him, not until his lines had acquired a prescriptive right to a place in all collections of the works of English poets. To this day, accordingly, his insipid essays in rhyme and his paltry songs to Amoreta and Gloriana are reprinted in company with Comus and Alexander's Feast. The consequence is that our generation knows Mulgrave chiefly as a poet-aster and despises him as such. In truth, however, he was, by the acknowledgement of those who neither loved nor esteemed him, a man distinguished by fine parts, and, in parliamentary eloquence, inferior to scarcely any orator of his time. His moral character was entitled to no respect. He was a Libertine without that openness of heart and hand which sometimes makes Libertinism amiable, and a haughty aristocrat without that elevation of sentiment which sometimes makes aristocratical haughtiness respectable. The satirists of the age nicknamed him Lord All Pride. Yet was his pride compatible with all ignoble vices. Many wondered that a man who had so exalted a sense of his dignity could be so hard and niggedly in all pecuniary dealings. He had given deep offence to the royal family by venturing to entertain the hope that he might win the heart and hand of the Princess Anne. Disappointed in this attempt, he had exerted himself to regain by meanness the favour which he had forfeited by presumption. His epitaph, written by himself, still informs all who pass through Westminster Abbey that he lived and died a skeptic in religion. And we learn from the memoirs which he wrote that one of his favourite subjects of mirth was the Romish superstition. Yet he began as soon as James was on the throne to express a strong inclination towards popery and at length in private affected to be a convert. This abject hypocrisy had been rewarded by a place in the ecclesiastical commission. Before that formidable tribunal now appeared the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Dr John Pechel. He was a man of no great ability or vigour, but he was accompanied by eight distinguished academicians elected by the Senate. One of these was Isaac Newton, Fellow of Trinity College and Professor of Mathematics. His genius was then in the fullest vigour. The great work which entitles him to the highest place among the geometricians and natural philosophers of all ages and of all nations had been some time printing under the sanction of the royal society and was almost ready for publication. He was the steady friend of civil liberty and of the Protestant religion, but his habits by no means fitted him for the conflicts of active life. He therefore stood modestly silent among the delegates and left to men more versed in practical business the task of pleading the cause of his beloved university. Never was there a clearer case. The law was expressed. The practice had been almost invariably in conformity with the law. It might perhaps have happened that on a day of great solemnity, when many honorary degrees were confirmed, a person who had not taken the oaths might have passed in the crowd. But such an irregularity, the effect of mere haste and inadvertence could not be cited as a precedent. Foreign ambassadors of various religions and in particular one Muslim had been admitted without the oaths. But it might well be doubted whether such cases fell within the reason and spirit of the acts of parliament. It was not even pretended that any person to whom the oaths had been tendered and who had refused them had ever taken a degree, and this was the situation in which Francis stood. The delegates offered to prove that in the late reign several royal mandates had been treated as nullities because the persons recommended had not chosen to qualify according to law, and that on such occasions the government had always acquiesced in the propriety of the course taken by the university. But Jeffries would hear nothing. He soon found out that the vice-chancellor was weak, ignorant and timid, and therefore gave a loose to all that insolence which had long been the terror of the Old Bailey. The unfortunate doctor, unaccustomed to such a presence and to such treatment, was soon harassed and scared into helpless agitation. When other academicians who were more capable of defending their cause attempted to speak, they were rudely silenced. You are not vice-chancellor. When you are, you may talk, till then it will become you to hold your peace. The defendants were thrust out of the court without a hearing. In short time they were called in, again, and informed that the commissioners had determined to deprive Pachel of the vice-chancellorship and to suspend him from all the emoluments to which he was entitled as master of a college, emoluments which were strictly of the nature of free-hold property. As for you, said Jeffries to the delegates, most of you are divines. I will therefore send you home with a text of scripture. Go your way and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you. These proceedings might seem sufficiently unjust and violent, but the king had already begun to treat Oxford with such rigor that the rigor shown towards Cambridge might by comparison be called Lennarty. Already University College had been turned by Oberdier Walker into a Roman Catholic seminary. Already Christchurch was governed by a Roman Catholic Dean. Mass was already said daily in both those colleges. The tranquil and majestic city so long the stronghold of monarchical principles was agitated by passions which it had never before known. The undergraduates, with the connivance of those who were in authority over them, hooted the members of Walker's congregation and chanted satirical ditties under his windows. Some fragments of the serenades which then disturbed the high street have been preserved. The burden of one ballad was this. Old Oberdier sings Ave Maria. When the actors came down to Oxford, the public feeling was expressed still more strongly. Howard's committee was performed. This play, written soon after the restoration, exhibited the puritans in an odious and contemptible light and had therefore been, during a quarter of a century, a favourite with Oxonian audiences. It was now a greater favourite than ever for, by a lucky coincidence, one of the most conspicuous characters was an old hypocrite named Oberdier. The audience shouted with delight when in the last scene Oberdier was dragged in with a halt around his neck and the acclamations redoubled when one of the players departing from the written text of the comedy proclaimed that Oberdier should be hanged because he had changed his religion. The king was much provoked by this insult. So mutinous indeed was the temper of the university that one of the newly raised regiments, the same which is now called the Second Dragoon Guards, was quartered at Oxford for the purpose of preventing an outbreak. These events ought to have convinced James that he had entered upon a course which must lead him to his ruin. To the clamours of London he had long been accustomed. They had been raised against him sometimes unjustly and sometimes vainly. He had repeatedly braved them and might brave them still. But that Oxford, the seat of loyalty, the headquarters of the Cavalier Army, the place where his father and brother had held their court when they thought themselves insecure in their stormy capital, the place where the writings of the great Republican teachers had recently been committed to the flames should now be in a ferment of discontent, that those high-spirited youths who a few months before had eagerly volunteered to march against the Western insurgents should now be with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full of evil omen to the House of Stewart. The warning, however, was lost on the dull, stubborn, self-willed tyrant. He was resolved to transfer to his own church all the wealthiest and most splendid foundations of England. It was to no purpose that the best and wisest of his Roman Catholic council has demonstrated. They represented to him that he had it in his power to render a great service to the cause of his religion without violating the rights of property. A grant of £2,000 a year from his privy purse would support a Jesuit college at Oxford. Such a sum he might easily spare. Such a college provided with Abel, Leonid and Zellas teachers would be a formidable rival to the old academic institutions which exhibited but too many symptoms of the langur almost inseparable from opulence and security. King James's college would soon be, by the confession even of Protestants, the first place of education in the island, as respected both science and moral discipline. This would be the most effectual and the least invidious method by which the Church of England could be humbled and the Church of Rome exalted. The Earl of Aylesbury, one of the most devoted servants of the royal family, declared that, though a Protestant and by no means rich, he would himself contribute £1,000 towards this design rather than that his master should violate the rights of property and break faith with the established Church. This scheme, however, found no favour in the sight of the King. It was indeed ill-suited in more ways than one to his un-gentle nature, for to bend and break the spirits of men gave him pleasure. And, apart with his money, gave him pain. What he had not the generosity to do at his own expense, he determined not to do at the expense of others. When once he was engaged, pride and obstinacy prevented him from receding. And he was, at length led, step by step, to acts of Turkish tyranny, to acts which impressed the nation with a conviction that the estate of a Protestant English freeholder under a Roman Catholic King must be as insecure as that of a Greek under Muslim domination. End of 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 Babington Macaulay Chapter 8 Part 3 Maudlin College at Oxford, founded in the 15th century by William of Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester and Lord High Chancellor, was one of the most remarkable of our academic institutions. A graceful tower, on the summit of which a Latin hymn was annually chanted by choristers at the dawn of Mayday, caught far off the eye of the traveller who came from London. As he approached, he found that this tower rose from an embattled pile, low and irregular, yet singularly venerable, which, emboured in verger, overhung the sluggish waters of the Charwell. He passed through a gateway, overhung by a noble orial, and found himself in a spacious cloister adorned with emblems of virtues and vices, rudely carved in grey stone by the masons of the 15th century. The table of the society was plentifully spread in a stately refectory hung with paintings and rich with fantastic carving. The service of the church was performed morning and evening in a chapel which had suffered much violence from the reformers and much from the Puritans, but which was, under every disadvantage, a building of eminent beauty, and which has, in our own time, been restored with rare taste and skill. The spacious gardens along the riverside were remarkable for the size of the trees, among which towered conspicuous one of the vegetable wonders of the island, a gigantic oak, older by a century, men said, than the oldest college in the university. The statutes of the society ordained that the kings of England and princes of Wales should be lodged in Mordland. Edward IV had inhabited the building while it was still unfinished. Richard III had held his court there, had heard disputations in the hall, had feasted there royally, and had mended the cheer of his hosts by a present of fat bucks from his forests. Two heirs apparent of the crown, who had been prematurely snatched away, after the elder brother of Henry VIII and Henry the elder brother of Charles I, had been members of the college. Another prince of the blood, the last and best of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, the gentle Reginald Poole had studied there. In the time of the Civil War, Mordland had been true to the cause of the crown. There Rupert had fixed his quarters, and before some of his most daring enterprises his trumpets had been heard sounding to horse through those quiet cloisters. Most of the fellows were divines and could aid the king only by their prayers and their pecuniary contributions. But one member of the body, a doctor of civil law, raised a troop of undergraduates and fell fighting bravely at their head against the soldiers of Essex. When hostilities had terminated and the round heads were masters of England, six sevenths of the members of the foundation refused to make any submission to usurped authority. They were consequently ejected from their dwellings and deprived of their revenues. After the restoration the survivors returned to their pleasant abode. They had now been succeeded by a new generation which inherited their opinions and their spirit. During the Western rebellion such maudlin men as were not disqualified by their age or profession for the use of arms had eagerly volunteered to fight for the crown. It would be difficult to name any corporation in the kingdom which had higher claims to the gratitude of the House of Stuart. The society consisted of a president of forty fellows of thirty scholars called demies and of a train of chaplains, clerks and choristers. At the time of the general visitation in the reign of Henry VIII the revenues were far greater than those of any similar institution in the realm, greater by nearly one-half than those of the magnificent foundation of Henry VI at Cambridge and considerably more that double than those which William of Wickham had settled on his college at Oxford. In the days of James II the riches of maudlin were immense and were exaggerated by report. The college was popularly said to be wealthier than the wealthiest abbeys of the continent. When the leases fell in so ran the vulgar rumour the rents would be raised to the prodigious sum of forty thousand pounds a year. The fellows were, by their statutes which their founder had drawn up, empowered to select their own president from among persons who were or had been fellows either of their society or of new college. This power had generally been exercised with freedom but in some instances royal letters had been received recommending to the choice of the corporation qualified persons who were in favour at court and on such occasions it had been the practice to show respect to the wishes of the sovereign. In March 1687 the president of the college died. One of the fellows, Dr. Thomas Smith popularly nicknamed Rabbi Smith a distinguished traveller book collector, antiquary and orientalist who had been chaplain to the embassy at Constantinople and had been employed to collate the Alexandrian manuscript aspired to the vacant post. He conceived that he had some claims on the favour of the government as a man of learning and as a zealous Tory. His loyalty was in truth as fervent and as steadfast as was to be found in the whole Church of England. He had long been intimately acquainted with Parker, Bishop of Oxford and hoped to obtain by the interest of that prelate a royal letter to the college. Parker promised to do his best but soon reported that he had found difficulties. The King, he said, will recommend no person who is not a friend to his Majesty's religion. What can you do to pleasure him as to that matter? Smith answered that if he became president he would exert himself to promote learning, true Christianity and loyalty. That will not do, said the Bishop. If so, said Smith manfully, let who will be president, I can promise nothing more. The election had been fixed for the thirteenth of April and the fellows were summoned to attend. It was rumoured that a royal letter would come down recommending one Anthony Farmer to the vacant place. This man's life had been a series of shameful acts. He had been a member of the University of Cambridge and had escaped expulsion only by a timely retreat. He had then joined the dissenters. Then he had gone to Oxford, had entered himself at Maudlin and had soon become notorious there for every kind of vice. He generally reeled into his college at night speechless with liquor. He was celebrated for having headed a disgraceful riot at Abingdon. He had been a constant frequenter of noted haunts of Libertines. At length he had turned panda, had exceeded even the ordinary vileness of his vile calling and had received money from dissolute young gentlemen commoners for services such as it is not good that history should record. This wretch, however, had pretended to turn papist. His apostasy atoned for all his vices and though still a youth he was selected to rule a grave and religious society in which the scandal given by his depravity was still fresh. As a Roman Catholic he was disqualified for academic office by the general law of the land. Never having been a fellow of Maudlin College or of New College he was disqualified for the vacant presidency by a special ordinance of William of Wainfleet. William of Wainfleet had also enjoined those who partook of his bounty to have a particular regard to moral character in choosing their head. Even if he had left no such injunction a body chiefly composed of divines could not with decency entrust such a man as farmer with the government of a place of education. The fellows respectfully represented to the king the difficulty in which they should be placed if, as was rumoured, farmer would be recommended to them and begged that if it were his Majesty's pleasure to interfere in the election some person for whom they could legally and conscientiously vote might be proposed. Of this dutiful request no notice was taken. The royal letter arrived. It was brought down by one of the fellows who had lately turned papist, Robert Charnock, a man of parts and spirit but of a violent and restless temper which impelled him a few years later to an atrocious crime and to a terrible fate. On the thirteenth of April the society met in the chapel. Some hope was still entertained that the king might be moved by the remonstrance which had been addressed to him. The assembly therefore adjourned till the fifteenth which was the last day on which, by the constitution of the college, the election could take place. The fifteenth of April came. Again the fellows repaired to their chapel. No answer had arrived from Whitehall. Two or three of the seniors among whom was Smith were inclined to postpone the election once more rather than take a step which might give offence to the king. But the language of the statutes was clear. Those statutes the members of the foundation had sworn to observe. The general opinion was that there ought to be no further delay. A hot debate followed. The electors were too much excited to take their seats and the whole choir was in a tumult. Those who were for proceeding appealed to their oaths and to the rules laid down by the founder whose bread they had eaten. The king, they truly said, had no right to force on them even a qualified candidate. Some expressions unpleasing to Tory ears were dropped in the course of the dispute and Smith was provoked into exclaiming that the spirit of Ferguson had possessed his brethren. It was at length resolved by a great majority that it was necessary to proceed immediately to the election. Chanuk left the chapel. The other fellows having first received the sacrament proceeded to give their voices. The choice fell on John Huff, a man of eminent virtue and prudence who, having born persecution with fortitude and prosperity with meekness, having risen to high honours and having modestly declined on as high as still, died in extreme old age yet in full vigor of mind more than 56 years after this eventful day. The society hastened to acquaint the king with the circumstances which had made it necessary to elect a president without further delay and requested that the Duke of Ormond, as patron of the whole university and the Bishop of Winchester as visitor of Maudlin College, to undertake the office of intercessors. That the king was far too angry and too dull to listen to explanations. Early in June the fellows were cited to appear before the High Commission at Whitehall. Five of them, deputed by the rest, obeyed the summons. Geoffrey's treated them after his usual fashion. When one of them, a grave doctor named Fairfax, hinted some doubt as to the validity of the commission, the Chancellor began to roar like a wild beast. Who is this man? What commission has he to be impudent here? Seize him. Put him into a dark room. What does he do without a keeper? He is under my care as a lunatic. I wonder that nobody has applied to me for the custody of him. But when this storm had spent its force and the depositions concerning the moral character of the king's nominee had been read, none of the commissioners had the front to pronounce that such a man could properly be made the head of a great college. Oberdier Walker and the other Oxonian papists who were in attendance to support their proselytite were utterly confounded. The commission pronounced Huff's election void and suspended Fairfax from his fellowship. But about Farmer no more was said, and in the month of August arrived a royal letter recommending Parker, Bishop of Oxford, to the Fellows. Parker was not an avowed papist. Still, there was an objection to him, which even if the presidency had been vacant would have been decisive, for he had never been a fellow of either New College or Maudlin. But the presidency was not vacant. Huff had been duly elected, and all the members of the college were bound by oath to support him in his office. They therefore, with many expressions of loyalty and concern, excused themselves from complying with the king's mandate. End of 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. A History of England from the Accession of James II by Thomas Bavington Macaulay. Chapter 8 Part 4 While Oxford was thus opposing a firm resistance to tyranny, the stand not less resolute was made in another quarter. James had, sometime before, commanded the trustees of the Charter House, men of the first rank and consideration in the kingdom, to admit a Roman Catholic named Popham into the hospital, which was under their care. The master of the house, Thomas Burnett, a clergyman of distinguished genius, learning and virtue, had the courage to represent to them, though the ferocious Jefferies sat at the board, that what was required of them was contrary both to the will of the founder and to an act of parliament. What is that to the purpose? said Cortier, who was one of the governors. It is very much to the purpose, I think, answered a voice feeble with age and sorrow, yet not to be heard without respect by any assembly, the voice of the venerable Ormond. An act of parliament, continued the patriarch of the Cavalier Party, is in my judgment no light thing. The question was put whether Popham should be admitted, and it was determined to reject him. The Chancellor, who could not well case himself by cursing and swearing at Ormond, flung away in a rage and was followed by some of the minority. The consequence was that there was not a quorum left, and that no formal reply could be made to the moral mandate. The next meeting took place only two days after the High Commission had pronounced sentence of deprivation against Huff and of suspension against Fairfax. A second mandate under the Great Seal was laid before the trustees. But the tyrannical manner in which modelling college had been treated had roused instead of subduing their spirit. They drew up a letter to Sunderland in which they requested him to inform the King that they could not, in this matter, obey his majesty without breaking the law and betraying their trust. There can be little doubt that, had ordinary signatures been appended to this document, the King would have taken some violent course. But even he was daunted by the great names of Ormond, Halifax, Danby and Nottingham, the chiefs of all the sections of that great party to which he owed his crown. He therefore contented himself with directing Jeffries to consider what course ought to be taken. It was announced at one time that a proceeding would be instituted in the King's bench, at another that the ecclesiastical commission would take up the case, but these threats gradually died away. The summer was now far advanced, and the King set out on a progress, the longest and the most splendid that has been known for many years. From Windsor he went on the 16th of August to Portsmouth, walked round the fortifications, touched some scruffillous people, then proceeded in one of his yachts to Southampton. From Southampton he travelled to Bath, where he remained a few days, and where he left the Queen. When he departed he was attended by the High Sheriff of Somersetcher, and by a large body of gentlemen to the frontier of the county, where the High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, with a not less splendid retinue, was in attendance. The Duke of Beaufort soon met the royal coaches and conducted them to Badminton, where a banquet worthy of the fame which his splendid housekeeping had won for him was prepared. In the afternoon the cavalcade proceeded to Gloucester. It was greeted two miles from the city by the bishop and clergy. At the south gate the mayor waited with the keys. The bells rang, and the conduits flowed with wine as the King passed through the streets to the close which encircles the venerable cathedral. He lay that night at the denary, and on the following morning set out for Worcester. From Worcester he went to Ludlow, Shresbury and Chester, and was everywhere received with outward signs of joy and respect, which he was weak enough to consider as proofs that the discontent excited by his measures had subsided and that an easy victory was before him. Barion, more sagacious, informed Louis that the King of England was under a delusion that the progress had done no real good, and that those very gentlemen of Worcestershire and Shropshire who had thought it their duty to receive the sovereign and their guests with every mark of honour would be found as refractory as ever when the question of the test should come on. On the road the royal train was joined by two courtiers who in temper and opinions differed widely from each other. Penn was at Chester on a pastoral tour. His popularity and authority among his brethren had greatly declined since he had become a tool of the King and his Jesuits. He was, however, most graciously received by James and, on the Sunday, was permitted to harangue in the tennis court, while Cartwright preached in the cathedral, and while the King heard mass at an altar which had been decked in the Shire Hall. It is said indeed that his Majesty deigned to look into the tennis court and to listen with decency to his friend's melodious eloquence. The furious tear-canal had crossed the sea from Dublin to give an account of his administration. All the most respectable English Catholics looked coldly on him as an enemy of their race and a scandal to their religion, but he was cordially welcomed by his master and dismissed with assurances of undiminished confidence and steady support. James expressed his delight at learning that in a short time the whole government of Ireland would be in Roman Catholic hands. The English colonists had already been stripped of all political power. Nothing remained but to strip them of their property, and this last outrage was deferred only till the cooperation of an Irish parliament should have been secured. From Cheshire the king turned southward, and, in the full belief that the fellows of Maudland College, however mutinous they might be, would not dare to disobey a command uttered by his own lips, directed his course towards Oxford. By the way, he made some little excursions to places which peculiarly interested him as a king, a brother, and a son. He visited the hospitable roof of Boscobell and the remains of the oak so conspicuous in the history of his house. He rode over the field of Edge Hill, where the Cavaliers first crossed swords with the soldiers of the parliament. On the 3rd of September he dined in great state at the Palace of Woodstock, an ancient and renowned mansion of which not a stone is now to be seen, but of which the site is still marked on the turf of Blenheim Park by two sycamores which grow near the stately bridge. In the evening he reached Oxford, he was received there with the won'ted honours. The students in their academical garb were arranged to welcome him on the right hand and on the left from the entrance of the city to the great gate of Christchurch. He lodged at the denary, where, among other accommodations, he found a chapel fitted up for the celebration of the Mass. On the day after his arrival the Fellows of Maudland College were ordered to attend him. When they appeared before him he treated them with an insolence such as had never been shown to their predecessors by the Puritan visitors. You have not dealt with me like gentlemen, he exclaimed. You have been unmanally as well as undutiful. They fell on their knees and tended a petition. He would not look at it. Is this your Church of England loyalty? I could not have believed that so many clergymen of the Church of England would have been concerned in such a business. Go home, get you gone. I am king, I will be obeyed. Go to your chapel this instant and admit the Bishop of Oxford. Let those who refuse look to it. They shall feel the whole weight of my hand. They shall know what it is to incur the displeasure of their sovereign. The Fellows, still kneeling before him again, offered him their petition. He angrily flung it down. Get you gone, I tell you. I will receive nothing from you till you have admitted the Bishop. They retired and instantly assembled in their chapel. The question was propounded whether they would comply with His Majesty's command. Smith was absent. Chanuk alone answered in the affirmative. The other Fellows, who were at the meeting, declared that in all things lawful they were ready to obey their king, but that they would not violate their statutes and their oaths. The king, greatly incensed and mortified by his defeat, quitted Oxford and rejoined the queen at Bath. His obstinacy and violence had brought him into an embarrassing position. He had trusted too much to the effect of his frowns and angry tones, and had rashly staked not merely the credit of his administration, but his personal dignity on the issue of the contest. Could he yield to subjects whom he had menaced with raised voice and furious gestures? Yet could he venture to eject in one day a crowd of respectable clergymen from their homes because they had discharged what the whole nation regarded as a sacred duty? Perhaps there might be an escape from this dilemma. Perhaps the college might still be terrified, caressed or bribed into submission. The agency of Penn was employed. He had too much good feeling to approve of the violent and unjust proceedings of the government, and even ventured to express part of what he thought. James was, as usual, obstinate in the wrong. The courtly Quaker, therefore, did his best to seduce the college from the path of right. He first tried intimidation. Ruin, he said, impended over the society. The king was highly incensed. The case might be a hard one. Many people thought it so. But every child knew that his majesty loved to have his own way and could not bear to be thwarted. Penn, therefore, exhorted the fellows not to rely on the goodness of their cause but to submit, or at least to temporise. Such counsel came strangely from one who had himself been expelled from the university for raising a riot about the surplus, who had run the risk of being disinherited rather than take off his hat to the princes of blood, and who had been more than once sent to prison for haranguing inconventicals. He did not succeed in frightening the mortal in men. In answer to his alarming hints, he was reminded that in the last generation thirty-four out of the forty fellows had cheerfully left their beloved cloisters and gardens, their hall and their chapel, and had gone forth not knowing where they should find a meal or a bed rather than violate the oath of allegiance. The king now wished them to violate another oath. He should find that the old spirit was not extinct. Then Penn tried a gentler tone. He had an interview with Huff and with some of the fellows, and after many professions of sympathy and friendship began to hint at a compromise. The king could not bear to be crossed. The college must give way. Parker must be admitted. But he was in very bad health. All his preferments would soon be vacant. Dr. Hoff, said Penn, may then be Bishop of Oxford. How should you like that, gentlemen? Penn had passed his life. In declaiming against a hireling ministry, he held that he was bound to refuse the payment of tithes, and this even when he had bought land chargeable with tithes, and hallowed the value of the tithes in the purchase money. According to his own principles he would have committed a great sin if he had interfered for the purpose of obtaining a benefit on the most honorable terms, for the most pious divine. Yet to such a degree had his manners been corrupted by evil communications, and his understanding obscured by inordinate zeal for a single object that he did not scruple to become a broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind, and to use a bishopric as bait to tempt a divine to perjury. Huff replied with civil contempt that he wanted nothing from the crown but common justice. We stand, he said, on our statutes and our oaths, but, even setting aside our statutes and oaths, we feel that we have our religion to defend. The papists have robbed us of university college. They have robbed us of Christchurch. The fight is now for Maudlin. They will soon have all the rest. Penn was foolish enough to answer that he really believed that the papists would now be content. University, he said, is a pleasant college. Christchurch is a noble place. Maudlin is a fine building. The situation is convenient. The walks by the river are delightful. If the Roman Catholics are reasonable, they will be satisfied with these. This absurd avowal would alone have made it impossible for Huff and his brethren to yield. The negotiation was broken off, and the king hastened to make the disobedient know, as he had threatened, what it was to incur his displeasure. A special commission was directed to Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, to write Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and to Sir Thomas Jenner, a Baron of the Exchequer, appointing them to exercise visitorial jurisdiction over the college. On the 20th of October, they arrived at Oxford, escorted by three troops of cavalry, with drawn swords. On the following morning, the commissioners took their seats in the Hall of Maudlin. Cartwright pronounced a loyal aeration which, a few years before, would have called forth the acclimations of an oxenian audience, but which was now heard with sullen indignation. A long dispute followed. The President defended his rights with skill, temper, and resolution. He professed great respect for the royal authority, but he steadily maintained that he had, by the laws of England, a freehold interest in the house and revenues annexed to the presidency. Of that interest, he could not be deprived by an arbitrary mandate of the sovereign. Will you submit, said the Bishop, to our visitation? I submit to it, said Huff, with great dexterity, so far as it is consistent with the laws and no further. Will you deliver up the key of your lodgings? said Cartwright. Huff remained silent. The question was repeated, and Huff returned a mild but resolute refusal. The commissioners pronounced him an intruder, and charged the fellows no longer to recognise his authority, and to assist at the admission of the Bishop of Oxford. Charnock eagerly promised obedience. Smith returned an evasive answer, but the great body of the members of the college firmly declared that they still regarded Huff as their rightful head. And now Huff himself craved permission to address a few words to the commissioners. They consented with much civility, perhaps expecting from the calmness and suavity of his manner that he would make some concession. My lords, said he, you have this day deprived me of my freehold. I hereby protest against all your proceedings as illegal, unjust, and null, and I appeal from you to our sovereign Lord the King in his courts of justice. A loud murmur of applause arose from the gunsmen who filled the hall. The commissioners were furious. Search was made for the offenders, but in vain. Then the rage of the whole board was turned against Huff. Do not think to Huff us, sir, cried Jenner, punning on the President's name. I will uphold his Majesty's authority, said Wright, while I have breath in my body. All this comes of your popular protest. You have broken the peace. You shall answer it in the King's bench. I bind you over in one thousand pounds to appear there next term. I will see whether the civil power cannot manage you. If that is not enough, you shall have the military too. In truth, Oxford was in a state which made the commissioners not a little uneasy. The soldiers were ordered to have their carbines loaded. It was said that an express was sent to London for the purpose of hastening the arrival of more troops. No disturbance, however, took place. The Bishop of Oxford was quietly installed by proxy, but only two members of Maudling College attended the ceremony. Many signs showed that the spirit of resistance had spread to the common people. The porter of the college threw down his keys. The butler refused to scratch Huff's name out of the buttery book and was instantly dismissed. No blacksmith could be found in the whole city who would force the lock of the President's lodgings. It was necessary for the commissioners to employ their own servants, who broke open the door with iron bars. The sermons which, on the following Sunday, were preached in the University Church were full of reflections such as stung cart right to the quick, though such as he could not discreetly resent. And here, if James had not been infatuated, the matter might have stopped. The fellows in general were not inclined to carry their resistance further. They were of the opinion that, by refusing to assist in the admission of the intruder, they had sufficiently proved their respect for their statutes and oaths, and that, since he was now in actual possession, they might justifiably submit to him as their head, till he should be removed by sentence for competent court. Only one fellow, Dr. Fairfax, refused to yield even to this extent. The commissioners would gladly have compromised the dispute on these terms, and during a few hours there was a truce, which many thought likely to end in an amicable arrangement, but soon all was again in confusion. The fellows found that the popular voice loudly accused them of pusillanimity. The timesmen already talked ironically of a maudlin conscience, and explained that the brave, half and the honest Fairfax have been betrayed and abandoned. Still more annoying were the sneers of Ovidar Walker and his brother Renegades. This, then, said those apostates, was the end of all the big words in which the society had declared itself resolved to stand by its lawful president and by its protestant faith. While the fellows, bitterly annoyed by the public censure, were regretting the modified submission which they had consented to make, they learned that this submission was by no means satisfactory to the king. It was not enough, he said, that they suffered to obey the Bishop of Oxford as president in fact. They must distinctly admit the commission and all that had been done under it to be legal. They must acknowledge that they had acted undutifully. They must declare themselves penitent. They must promise to behave better in future, must implore His Majesty's pardon and lay themselves at his feet. Two fellows of whom the king had no complaint to make, Jharnak and Smith, were excused from the obligation of making these degrading apologies. Even James never committed a grosser error. The fellows already angry with themselves having conceded so much and galled by the censure of the world, eagerly caught at the opportunity which was now offered them of regaining the public esteem. With one voice they declared that they would never ask pardon for being in the right or admit that the visitation of their college and the deprivation of their president had been legal. Then the king as he had threatened laid on them the whole weight of his hand. They were by one sweeping edict condemned to expulsion. Yet this punishment was not deemed sufficient. It was known that many noblemen and gentlemen who possessed church patronage would be disposed to provide for men who had suffered so much for the laws of England or men and for the protestant religion. The High Commission therefore pronounced the ejected fellows incapable of ever holding any church preferment. Such of them as were not yet in holy orders were pronounced incapable of receiving the clerical character. James might enjoy the thought that he had reduced many of them from a situation in which they were surrounded by comforts. And had before them the fairest professional prospects to hopeless indigence. But all these severities produced an effect directly the opposite of that which he had anticipated. The spirit of Englishman that sturdy spirit which no king of the House of Stuart could ever be taught by experience to understand swelled up high and strong against injustice. Oxford, the quiet seat of learning and loyalty was in a state resembling that of the City of London on the morning after the attempt of Charles I to seize the five members. The Vice-Chancellor had been asked to dine with the commissioners on the day of the expulsion. He refused. My taste, he said, differs from that of Colonel Kirk. I cannot eat my meals with appetite under a gallows. The scholars refused to pull off their caps to the new rulers of Magdalen College. Smith was nicknamed Dr. Rogary and was publicly insulted in a coffee-house. When Charnock summoned the Demes to perform their academic exercises before him, they answered that they were deprived of their lawful governors and would submit to no usurped authority. They assembled apart, both for study and for divine service. Attempts were made to corrupt them by offers of the lucrative fellowships which had just been declared vacant, but one undergraduate after another manfully answered that his conscience would not suffer him to profit by injustice. One lad who was induced to take a fellowship was turned out of the hall by the rest. Youths were invited from other colleges but with small success. The richest foundation in the kingdom seemed to have lost all attractions for needy students. Meanwhile, in London and all over the country, money was collected for the support of the ejected fellows. The Princess of Orange to the great joy of all Protestants subscribed two hundred pounds. Still, however, the king held on his course. The expulsion of the fellows was soon followed by the expulsion of a crowd of demies. All this time, the new President was fast sinking under bodily and mental disease. He had made a last feeble effort to serve the government by publishing, at the very time when the college was in a state of open rebellion against his authority, a defence of the declaration of indulgence or rather, a defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. This piece called forth many answers and particularly one from Burnett, written with extraordinary vigor and acrimony. A few weeks after the expulsion of the demies, Parker died in the house of which he had violently taken possession. Men said that his heart was broken by remorse and shame. He lies in the beautiful anti-chapel of the college, but no monument marks his grave. Then the King's whole plan was carried into full effect. The college was turned into a Popish seminary. Bonaventure Gifford, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Madura, was appointed President. The Roman Catholic service was performed in the chapel. In one day twelve Roman Catholics were admitted fellows. Some servile Protestants applied for fellowships but met with refusals. Smith, an enthusiast in loyalty, but still a sincere member of the Anglican church, could not bear to see the altered aspect of the house. He absented himself. He was ordered to return into residence. He disobeyed. He was expelled. And the work of spoliation was complete. End of part four. 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 Bavington Macaulay Chapter 8 Part 5 The nature of the Academical System of England is such that no event which seriously affects the interests and honor of either university can fail to excite a strong feeling throughout the country. Every successive blow therefore which fell on Maudling College was felt to the extremities of the kingdom. In the coffee-houses of London, in the Inns of Court, in the closes of all the Cathedral towns, in personages and manner-houses scattered over the remotest shires, pity for the sufferers and indignation against the government went on growing. The protest of Huff was everywhere applauded. The forcing of his door was everywhere mentioned with abhorrence and, at length, the sentence of deprivation fulminated against the fellows dissolved those ties once so close and dear which had bound the Church of England to the House of Stuart. Bitter resentment and cruel apprehension took the place of love and confidence. There was no prebendery, no rector, no vicar, whose mind was not haunted by the thought that however quiet his temper, however obscure his situation, he might, in a few months, be driven from his dwelling by an arbitrary edict to beg in a ragged cassock with his wife and children, while his freehold, secured to him by laws of immemorial antiquity and, by the royal word, was occupied by some apostate. This, then, was the reward of that heroic loyalty never once found wanting through the vicissitudes of fifty tempestuous years. It was for this that the clergy had endured spoliation and persecution in the cause of Charles I. It was for this that they had supported Charles II in his hard contest with the Whig opposition. It was for this that they had stood in the front of the battle against those who sought to despoil James of his birthright. To their fidelity alone their oppressor owed the power which he was now employing to their ruin. They had long been in the habit of recounting in acrimonious language all that they had suffered at the hand of the Puritan in the day of his power. Yet, for the Puritan there was some excuse. He was an avowed enemy. He had wrongs to avenge and even he, while remodeling the ecclesiastical constitution of the country and ejecting all those who would not subscribe his covenant, had not been altogether without compassion. He had at least granted those whose benefits he seized a pittance sufficient to support life. But the hatred felt by the king towards that church which had saved him from exile and placed him on a throne was not to be so easily satiated. Nothing but the utter ruin of his victims would contend him. It was not enough that they were expelled from their homes and stripped of their revenues. They found every walk of life towards which men of their habits could look for a subsistence closed against them with malignant care and nothing left to them but the precarious and degrading resource of arms. The Anglican clergy therefore and that portion of the laity which was strongly attached to Protestant Episcopsy now regarded the king with those feelings which injustice aggravated by ingratitude naturally excites. Yet had the churchmen still many scruples of conscience an honor to some amount before he could bring himself to oppose the government by force? He had been taught that passive obedience was enjoined without restriction or exception by the divine law. He had professed this opinion ostentatiously. He had treated with contempt the suggestion that an extreme case might possibly arise which would justify people in drawing the sword against regal tyranny. Both principal and shame therefore restrained him from imitating the example of the rebellious round heads while any hope of a peaceful and legal deliverance remained. And such a hope might reasonably be cherished as long as the princess of orange stood next in succession to the crown. If he would but endure with patience this trial of his faith the laws of nature would soon do for him what he could not without sin and dishonor do for himself. The wrongs of the church would be redressed. Her property and dignity would be fenced by new guarantees and those wicked ministers who had injured and insulted her in the day of her adversity would be signally punished. End of part 5 History of England Chapter 8, Part 6 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 Kristen Hughes History of England from the Assession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay Chapter 8, Part 6 The event to which the Church of England looked forward as to an honourable and peaceful termination of her troubles was one of which even the most reckless members of the Jesuitical cabal could not think without painful apprehensions. If their master should die leaving them no better security against the penal laws than a declaration which the general voice of the nation pronounced to be a nullity if a Parliament animated by the same spirit which had prevailed in the Parliament of Charles II should assemble round the throne of a Protestant sovereign was it not probable that a terrible retribution should be exacted that the old laws against Popory would be rigidly enforced and that new laws still more severe would be added to the statute book? The evil councillors had long been tormented by these gloomy apprehensions and some of them had contemplated strange and desperate remedies. James had scarcely mounted the throne when it began to be whispered about Whitehall that if the Lady Anne would turn Roman Catholic it might not be impossible with the help of Lewis to transfer her the birthright of her elder sister. At the French Embassy this scheme was warmly approved and Bon Rapas gave it as his opinion that the ascent of James would easily be obtained. Soon however it became manifest that Anne was unalterably attached to the established Church. All thought of making her Queen was therefore relinquished. Nevertheless a small knot of fanatics still continued to cherish a wild hope that they might be able to change the order of succession. The plan formed by these men was set forth in a minute of which a rude French translation has been preserved. It was to be hoped, they said, that the King might be able to establish the true faith without resorting to extremities but in the worst event he might leave his crown at the disposal of Lewis. It was better for Englishmen to be the vassals of France than the slaves of the devil. This extraordinary document was handed about from Jesuit to Jesuit and from courtier to courtier till some eminent Roman Catholics in whom bigotry had not extinguished patriotism furnished the Dutch ambassador with a copy. He put the paper into the hands of James. James, greatly agitated, pronounced it a vile forgery, contrived by some pamphleteer in Holland. The Dutch minister resolutely answered that he could prove the contrary by the testimony of several distinguished members of his majesty's own church. Nay, that there would be no difficulty in pointing out the writer who after all had written only what many priests and many busy politicians said every day in the galleries of the palace. The king did not think it expedient to ask who the writer was, but abandoning the charge of forgery protested with great vehemence and solemnity that no thought of disinheriting his eldest daughter had ever crossed his mind. Nobody, he said, ever dared to hint such a thing to me. I never would listen to it. God does not command us to propagate the true religion by injustice, and this would be the foulest, the most unnatural injustice. Notwithstanding all these professions, Barryon a few days later reported to his court that James had begun to listen to suggestions respecting a change in the order of succession, that the question was doubtless a delicate one, but that there was reason to hope that, with time in management, a way might be found to settle the crown on some Roman Catholic to the exclusion of the two princesses. During many months this subject continued to be discussed by the fiercest and most extravagant papists about the court, and candidates for the regal office were actually named. It is not probable, however, that James ever meant to take a course so insane. He must have known that England would never bear for a single day the yoke of a New Surper who was also a papist, and that any attempt to set aside the Lady Mary would have been withstood to the death, both by all those who had supported the exclusion bill, and by all those who had opposed it. There is, however, no doubt that the King was an accomplice in a plot less absurd, but not less unjustifiable against the rights of his children. Tirkinel had with his master's approbation made arrangements for separating Ireland from the Empire, and for placing her under the protection of Louis as soon as the crown should devolve on a protestant sovereign. Bonarpa had been consulted, had imparted the design to his court, and had been instructed to assure Tirkinel that France would lend effectual aid to the accomplishment of this great project. These transactions, which, though perhaps not in all parts accurately known at the hag, was strongly suspected there, must not be left out of the account if we would pass a just judgment on the course taken a few months later by the Princess of Orange. Those who pronounce her guilty of a breach of filial duty must admit that her fault was at least greatly extenuated by her wrongs. If, to serve the cause of her religion, she broke through the most sacred ties of consanguinity, she only followed her father's example. She did not assist to depose him till he had conspired to disinherit her. Scarcely had Bonarpa been informed that Louis had resolved to assist the Enterprise of Tirkinel when all thoughts of that Enterprise were abandoned. James had caught the first glimpse of a hope which delighted and elated him. The Queen was with child. Before the end of October 1687, the great news began to be whispered. It was observed that Her Majesty had absented herself from some public ceremonies on the plea of indisposition. It was said that many relics supposed to possess extraordinary virtue had been hung about her. Soon the story made its way from the palace to the coffee-houses of the capital and spread fast over the country. By a very small minority the rumour was welcomed with joy. The great body of the nation listened with mingled derision and fear. There was indeed nothing very extraordinary in what had happened. The King had but just completed his fifty-fourth year. The Queen was in the summer of life. She had already borne four children who had died young. And long afterwards she was delivered of another child whom nobody had any interest in treating as suppositious and who is therefore never said to be so. As, however, five years had elapsed since her last pregnancy, the people under the influence of that delusion which leads men to believe what they wish had ceased to entertain any apprehension that she would give an heir to the throne. On the other hand nothing seemed more natural and probable than that the Jesuits should have contrived a pious fraud. It was certain that they must consider the accession of the Princess of Orange as one of the greatest calamities which could befall their church. It was equally certain that they would not be very scrupulous about doing whatever might be necessary to save their church from a great calamity. In books written by eminent members of the society and licensed by its rulers it was distinctly laid down that means even more shocking to all notions of justice and humanity than the introduction of a spurious air into a family might lawfully be employed for ends less important than the conversion of a heretical kingdom. It had got abroad that some of the king's advisers and even the king himself had meditated schemes for defrauding the Lady Mary either wholly or in part of her rightful inheritance. A suspicion not indeed well founded but by no means so absurd as is commonly supposed took possession of the public mind. The folly of some Roman Catholics confirmed the vulgar prejudice they spoke of the auspicious event as strange as miraculous as an exertion of the same divine power which had made Sarah proud and happy in Isaac and had given Samuel to the prayers of Hannah. Mary's mother the Duchess of Medina had lately died. A short time before her death she had it was said implored the Virgin of Loretto with fervent vows and rich offerings to bestow a son on James. The king himself had in the preceding August turned aside from his progress to visit the holy well and had there besought St. Winifred to obtain for him that boon without which his great designs for the propagation of the true faith could be but imperfectly executed. The imprudent zealots who dwell on these tales foretold with confidence that the unborn infant would be a boy and offered to back their opinion by laying twenty guineys to one. Heaven they affirmed would not have interfered but for a great end. One fanatic announced that the queen would give birth to twins of whom the elder would be king of England and the younger Pope of Rome. Mary could not conceal the delight with which she heard this prophecy and her ladies found that they could not gratify her more than by talking of it. The Roman Catholics would have acted more wisely if they had spoken of the pregnancy as of a natural event and if they had born with moderation their unexpected good fortune. Their insolent triumph excited the popular indignation. Their predictions strengthened the popular suspicions. From the prince and the princess of Denmark down to porters and laundresses nobody alluded to the promised birth without a sneer. The wits of London described the new miracle in rhymes which, it may well be supposed, were not the most delicate. The rough country squires roared with laughter if they met with any persons simple enough to believe that the queen was really likely to be again a mother. A royal proclamation appeared commanding the clergy to read a form of prayer and thanksgiving which had been prepared for this joyful occasion by crew and Spratt. The clergy obeyed but it was observed that the congregations made no responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon, in all the coffee-houses was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly prelates whose pens the king had employed. Mother East also had her full share of abuse. Into that homely monosyllable our ancestors had degraded the name of the great house of Esther which reigned at Medina. End of Part 6 History of England from the accession of James II by Thomas Babington Macaulay Chapter 8 Part 7 The new hope which elated the king's spirits was mingled with many fears. Something more than the birth of the Prince of Wales was necessary to the success of the plans formed by the Jesuitical Party. It was not very likely that James would live till his son should be of an age to exercise the regal functions. The law had made no provision for the case of a minority. The reigning sovereign was not competent to make provision for such a case by will. The legislator only could supply the defect. If James should die before the defect had been supplied, leaving a successor of ten to years, the supreme power would undoubtedly devolve upon Protestants. Those Tories who held most firmly the doctrine that nothing could justify them in resisting their legal Lord would have no scruple about drawing their swords against a popish woman who should dare to usurp the guardianship of the realm and of the infant sovereign. The result of a contest could scarcely be a matter of doubt. The Prince of Orange or his wife would be regent. The young king would be placed in the hands of heretical instructors whose arts might speedily face from his mind the impressions which might have been made on it in the nursery. He might prove another Edward VI and the blessing granted to the intercession of the Virgin Mother and of St. Winifred might be turned into a curse. This was a danger against which nothing but an act of parliament could be a security and to obtain such an act was not easy. Everything seemed to indicate that if the Houses were convoked they would come up to Westminster animated by the spirit of 1640. The event of the county elections could hardly be doubted. The whole body of the freeholders high and low, clerical and lay, was strongly excited against the government. In the great majority of those towns where the right of voting depended on the payment of local taxis or on the occupation of a tenement no courtly candidate could dare to show his face. A very large part of the House of Commons was returned by members of municipal corporations. These corporations had recently been remodeled for the purpose of destroying the influence of the Whigs and the dissenters. More than a hundred constituent bodies had been deprived of their charters by tribunals devoted to the Crown, or had been induced to avert compulsory disenfranchisement by voluntary surrender. Every mayor, every alderman, every town-clark, from Barrick to Helston was a Tory and a Churchman. But Tories and Churchmen were no longer devoted to the Sovereign. The new municipalities were more unmanageable than the old municipalities had ever been, and would undoubtedly return representatives whose first act would be to impeach all the Popish Privy Councillors and all the members of the High Commission. In the Lords, the prospect was scarcely less gloomy than in the Commons. Among the temporal peers it was certain that an immense majority would be against the King's measures, and on that Episcopal bench, which seven years before had unanimously supported him against those who had attempted to deprive him of his birthright, he could now look for support only to four or five sycophants despised by their profession and by their country. To all men not utterly blinded by passion, these difficulties appeared insuperable. The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness. Dryden muttered that the King would only make matters worse by trying to mend them, and sighed for the golden days of the careless and good-natured Charles. Even Jeffries wavered. As long as he was poor, he was perfectly ready to face obliquy and public hatred for Luca, but he had now, by corruption and extortion, accumulated great riches, and he was more anxious to secure them than to increase them. His slackness drew on him a sharp reprimand from the royal lips. In dread of being deprived of the great seal, he promised whatever was required of him, but Barion, in reporting this circumstance to Louis, remarked that the King of England could place little reliance on any man who had anything to lose. Nevertheless, James determined to persevere. The sanction of a Parliament was necessary to his system. The sanction of a free and lawful Parliament it was evidently impossible to obtain, but it might not be altogether impossible to bring together by corruption, by intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself Parliament, and might be willing to register any edict of the sovereign. Returning officers must be appointed who would avail themselves of the slightest pretense to declare the King's friends duly elected. Every placement from the highest to the lowest must be made to understand that, if he wished to retain his office, he must, at this conjuncture, support the throne by his vote and interest. The High Commission, meanwhile, would keep its eye on the clergy. The boroughs, which had just been remodeled to serve one turn, might be remodeled again to serve another. By such means the King hoped to obtain a majority in the House of Commons. The upper house would then be at his mercy. He had, undoubtedly by law, the power of creating peers without limit, and to this power he was fully determined to use. He did not wish—and indeed no sovereign can wish— to make the highest honour which is in the gift of the Crown worthless. He cherished the hope that, by calling up some heirs apparent to the assembly in which they must ultimately sit, and by conferring English titles on some scotch and Irish lords, he might be able to secure a majority without ennobling new men in such numbers as to bring ridicule on the coronet and the ermine. But there was no extremity to which he was not prepared to go, in case of necessity. When in a large company an opinion was expressed that the peers would prove intractable, Oh, silly! cried Sunderland, turning to Churchill. Your troop of guards shall be called up to the House of Lords. Having determined to pack himself a parliament, James set himself energetically and methodically to the work. A proclamation appeared in the Gazette, announcing that the King had determined to revise the Commissions of Peace and of Leftonancy, and to retain in public employment only such gentleman as shall be disposed to support his policy. A committee of seven privy councillors sat at Whitehall for the purpose of regulating, such was the phrase, the municipal corporations. In this committee, Jeffries alone represented the Protestant interest. Powys alone represented the moderate Roman Catholics. All the other members belonged to the Jesuitical faction. Among them was Peter, who had just been sworn of the council. Till he took his seat at the board, his elevation had been kept a profound secret from everybody but Sunderland. The public indignation at this new violation of the law was clamorously expressed, and it was remarked that Roman Catholics were even louder in censure than the Protestants. The vain and ambitious Jesuit was now charged with the business of destroying and reconstructing half the constituent bodies in the Kingdom. Under the committee of privy councillors, a subcommittee consisting of a bustling agents less eminent in rank was entrusted with the management of details. Local subcommittees of regulators all over the country corresponded with the central board at Westminster. The persons on whom James chiefly relied for assistance in his new and arduous enterprise were the Lord's lieutenants. Every Lord lieutenant required written orders directing him to go down immediately into his county. There he was to summon before him all his deputies and all the justices of the peace, and to put to them a series of interrogatories framed for the purpose of ascertaining how they would act at a general election. He was to take down the answers in writing, and to transmit them to the government. He was to furnish a list of such Roman Catholics and such Protestant dissenters as might be best qualified for the bench and for commands in the militia. He was also to examine into the state of all the boroughs in his county, and to make such reports as might be necessary to guide the operations of the Board of Regulators. It was intimated to him that he must himself perform these duties, and that he could not be permitted to delegate them to any other person. The first effect produced by these orders would have at once sobered a prince less infatuated than James. Half the Lord's lieutenant of England, peremptorily refused to stoop to the odious service which was required of them. They were immediately dismissed. All those who had incurred this glorious disgrace were peers of high consideration, and all had hitherto been regarded as firm supporters of monarchy. Some names in the list deserve a special notice. The noblest subject in England, and indeed as Englishmen love to say the noblest subject in Europe, was Aubrey Devere, 20th and last of the old earls of Oxford. He derived his title through an uninterrupted male descent from a time when the families of Howard and Seymour were still obscure, when the nevels and purses enjoyed only a provincial celebrity, and when even the great name of Plantagenet had not yet been heard in England. One chief of the house of Devere had held high command at Hastings. Another had marched with Godfrey and Tancred over heaps of slaughtered Muslim to the sepulchre of Christ. The first earl of Oxford had been minister of Henry Beauclark. The third earl had been conspicuous among the lords who extorted the great charter from John. The seventh earl had fought bravely at Cresce and Poitiers. The thirteenth earl had, through many vicissitudes of fortune, been the chief of the party of the red rose, and had led the van on the decisive day of Bosworth. The seventeenth earl had shone at the court of Elizabeth, and had won for himself an honourable place among the early masters of English poetry. The nineteenth earl had fallen in arms for the Protestant religion and for the liberties of Europe under the walls of Maastricht. His son, Aubrey, in whom closed the longest and most illustrious line of nobles that England has seen, a man of loose morals but of inoffensive temper and of courtly manners, was Lord Lieutenant of Essex and Colonel of the Blues. His nature was not factious, and his interest inclined him to avoid a rupture with the court, for his estate was encumbered and his military command lucrative. He was summoned to the royal closet, and an explicit declaration of his intentions was demanded from him. Sir, answered Oxford, I will stand by your majesty against all enemies, to the last drop of my blood, but this is a matter of conscience, and I cannot comply. He was instantly deprived of his left tendency, and of his regiment. Inferior in antiquity and splendour to the House of Devere, but to the House of Devere alone, was the House of Talbot. Ever since the reign of Edward III, the Talbots had sat among the peers of the realm. The earldom of Shrewsbury had been bestowed in the 15th century on John Talbot, the antagonist of the Maid of Orleans. He had long been remembered by his countrymen with tenderness and reverence, as one of the most illustrious of those warriors who had striven to erect a great British empire on the continent of Europe. The stubborn courage which he had shown in the midst of disasters had made him an object of interest greater than more fortunate captains had inspired, and his death had furnished a singularly touching scene to our early stage. His posterity had, during two centuries, flourished in great honour. The head of the family at the time of the restoration was Francis, the 11th Earl, a Roman Catholic. His death had been attended by circumstances such as, even in those licentious times which immediately followed the downfall of Puritan tyranny, had moved men to horror and pity. The Duke of Buckingham, in the course of his vagrant amorse, was for a moment attracted by the Countess of Shrewsbury. She was easily one. Her lord challenged the gallant and fell. Some said that the abandoned woman witnessed the combat in man's attire, and others that she clasped her victorious lover to her bosom while his shirt was still dripping with the blood of her husband. The honours of the murdered man descended to his infant son, Charles. As the orphan grew up to man's estate, it was generally acknowledged that of the young nability of England none had been so richly gifted by nature. His person was pleasing, his temper singularly sweet, his parts such as, if he had been born in a humble rank, might well have raised him to the height of civil greatness. All these advantages he had so improved that, before he was of age, he was allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time. His learning is proved by notes which are still extant in his handwriting on books in almost every department of literature. He spoke French like a gentleman of Louis' bed-chamber, and Italian like a citizen of Florence. It was impossible that a youth of such parts should not be anxious to understand the grounds on which his family had refused to conform to the religion of the State. He studied the disputed points closely, submitted his doubts to priests of his own faith, laid their answers before Tillotson, weighed the arguments on both sides long and attentively, and, after an investigation which occupied two years, declared himself a Protestant. The Church of England welcomed the illustrious convert with delight, his popularity was great, and became greater when it was known that royal solicitations and promises had been vainly employed to seduce him back to the superstition which he had abjured. The character of the young Earl did not, however, develop itself in a manner quite satisfactory to those who had borne the chief part in his conversion. His morals by no means escaped the contagion of fashionable libertinism. In truth, the shock which had overturned his early prejudices had, at the same time, unfixed all his opinions, and left him to the unchecked guidance of his feelings. But, though his principles were unsteady, his impulses were so generous, his temper so bland, his manners so gracious and easy, that it was impossible not to love him. He was early called the King of Hearts, and never, through a long, eventful, and checkered life, lost his right to that name. Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire, and Colonel of one of the Regiments of Horse which had been raised in consequence of the western insurrection. He now refused to act under the Board of Regulators, and was deprived of both his commissions.