The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 2 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (free reads txt) 📕

The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

Volume II

(Chapters VI-X)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay


CHAPTER VI

The Power of James at the Height-His Foreign Policy-His Plans of Domestic Government; the Habeas Corpus Act-The Standing Army- -Designs in favour of the Roman Catholic Religion-Violation of the Test Act-Disgrace of Halifax; general Discontent- Persecution of the French Huguenots-Effect of that Persecution in England-Meeting of Parliament; Speech of the King; an Opposition formed in the House of Commons-Sentiments of Foreign Governments-Committee of the Commons on the King's Speech- Defeat of the Government-Second Defeat of the Government; the King reprimands the Commons-Coke committed by the Commons for Disrespect to the King-Opposition to the Government in the Lords; the Earl of Devonshire-The Bishop of London-Viscount Mordaunt-Prorogation-Trials of Lord Gerard and of Hampden- Trial of Delamere-Effect of his Acquittal-Parties in the Court; Feeling of the Protestant Tories-Publication of Papers found in the Strong Box of Charles II.-Feeling of the respectable Roman Catholics-Cabal of violent Roman Catholics; Castlemaine-Jermyn; White; Tyrconnel-Feeling of the Ministers of Foreign Governments-The Pope and the Order of Jesus opposed to each other-The Order of Jesus-Father Petre-The King's Temper and Opinions-The King encouraged in his Errors by Sunderland- Perfidy of Jeffreys-Godolphin; the Queen; Amours of the King- Catharine Sedley-Intrigues of Rochester in favour of Catharine Sedley-Decline of Rochester's Influence-Castelmaine sent to Rome; the Huguenots illtreated by James-The Dispensing Power- Dismission of Refractory Judges-Case of Sir Edward Hales-Roman Catholics authorised to hold Ecclesiastical Benefices;-Sclater; Walker-The Deanery of Christchurch given to a Roman Catholic- Disposal of Bishoprics-Resolution of James to use his Ecclesiastical Supremacy against the Church-His Difficulties-He creates a new Court of High Commission-Proceedings against the Bishop of London-Discontent excited by the Public Display of Roman Catholic-Rites and Vestments-Riots-A Camp formed at Hounslow-Samuel Johnson-Hugh Speke-Proceedings against Johnson-Zeal of the Anglican Clergy against Popery-The Roman Catholic Divines overmatched-State of Scotland-Queensberry- Perth and Melfort-Favour shown to the Roman Catholic Religion in Scotland-Riots at Edinburgh-Anger of the King; his Plans concerning Scotland-Deputation of Scotch Privy Councillors sent to London-Their Negotiations with the King -Meeting of the Scotch Estates; they prove refractory-They are adjourned; arbitrary System of Government in Scotland-Ireland-State of the Law on the Subject of Religion-Hostility of Races-Aboriginal Peasantry; aboriginal Aristocracy-State of the English Colony- Course which James ought to have followed-His Errors-Clarendon arrives in Ireland as Lord Lieutenant-His Mortifications; Panic among the Colonists-Arrival of Tyrconnel at Dublin as General; his Partiality and Violence-He is bent on the Repeal of the Act of Settlement; he returns to England-The King displeased with Clarendon-Rochester attacked by the Jesuitical Cabal-Attempts of James to convert Rochester-Dismission of Rochester- Dismission of Clarendon; Tyrconnel Lord Deputy-Dismay of the English Colonists in Ireland-Effect of the Fall of the Hydes


JAMES was now at the height of power and prosperity. Both in England and in Scotland he had vanquished his enemies, and had punished them with a severity which had indeed excited their bitterest hatred, but had, at the same time, effectually quelled their courage. The Whig party seemed extinct. The name of Whig was never used except as a term of reproach. The Parliament was devoted to the King; and it was in his power to keep that Parliament to the end of his reign. The Church was louder than ever in professions of attachment to him, and had, during the late insurrection, acted up to those professions. The Judges were his tools; and if they ceased to be so, it was in his power to remove them. The corporations were filled with his creatures. His revenues far exceeded those of his predecessors. His pride rose high. He was not the same man who, a few months before, in doubt whether his throne might not be overturned in a hour, had implored foreign help with unkingly supplications, and had accepted it with tears of gratitude. Visions of dominion and glory rose before him. He already saw himself, in imagination, the umpire of Europe, the champion of many states oppressed by one too powerful monarchy. So early as the month of June he had assured the United Provinces that, as soon as the affairs of England were settled, he would show the world how little he feared France. In conformity with these assurances, he, within a month after the battle of Sedgemoor, concluded with the States General a defensive treaty, framed in the very spirit of the Triple League. It was regarded, both at the Hague and at Versailles, as a most significant circumstance that Halifax, who was the constant and mortal enemy of French ascendency, and who had scarcely ever before been consulted on any grave affair since the beginning of the reign, took the lead on this occasion, and seemed to have the royal ear. It was a circumstance not less significant that no previous communication was made to Barillon. Both he and his master were taken by surprise. Lewis was much troubled, and expressed great, and not unreasonable, anxiety as to the ulterior designs of the prince who had lately been his pensioner and vassal. There were strong rumours that William of Orange was busied in organizing a great confederacy, which was to include both branches of the House of Austria, the United Provinces, the kingdom of Sweden, and the electorate of Brandenburg. It now seemed that this confederacy would have at its head the King and Parliament of England.

In fact, negotiations tending to such a result were actually opened. Spain proposed to form a close alliance with James; and he listened to the proposition with favour, though it was evident that such an alliance would be little less than a declaration of war against France. But he postponed his final decision till after the Parliament should have reassembled. The fate of Christendom depended on the temper in which he might then find the Commons. If they were disposed to acquiesce in his plans of domestic government, there would be nothing to prevent him from interfering with vigour and authority in the great dispute which must soon be brought to an issue on the Continent. If they were refractory, he must relinquish all thought of arbitrating between contending nations, must again implore French assistance, must again submit to French dictation, must sink into a potentate of the third or fourth class, and must indemnify himself for the contempt with which he would be regarded abroad by triumphs over law and public opinion at home.1

It seemed, indeed, that it would not be easy for him to demand more than the Commons were disposed to give. Already they had abundantly proved that they were desirous to maintain his prerogatives unimpaired, and that they were by no means extreme to mark his encroachments on the rights of the people. Indeed, eleven twelfths of the members were either dependents of the court, or zealous Cavaliers from the country. There were few things which such an assembly could pertinaciously refuse to the Sovereign; and, happily for the nation, those few things were the very things on which James had set his heart.

One of his objects was to obtain a repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act, which he hated, as it was natural that a tyrant should hate the most stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny. This feeling remained deeply fixed in his mind to the last, and appears in the instructions which he drew up, in exile, for the guidance of his son.2 But the Habeas Corpus Act, though passed during the ascendency of the Whigs, was not more dear to the Whigs than to the Tories. It is indeed not wonderful that this great law should be highly prized by all Englishmen without distinction of party: for it is a law which, not by circuitous, but by direct operation, adds to the security and happiness of every inhabitant of the realm.3

James had yet another design, odious to the party which had set him on the throne and which had upheld him there. He wished to form a great standing army. He had taken advantage of the late insurrection to make large additions to the military force which his brother had left. The bodies now designated as the first six regiments of dragoon guards, the third and fourth regiments of dragoons, and the nine regiments of infantry of the line, from the seventh to the fifteenth inclusive, had just been raised.4 The effect of these augmentations, and of the recall of the garrison of Tangier, was that the number of regular troops in England had, in a few months, been increased from six thousand to near twenty thousand. No English King had ever, in time of peace, had such a force at his command. Yet even with this force James was not content. He often repeated that no confidence could be placed in the fidelity of the train-bands, that they sympathized with all the passions of the class to which they belonged, that, at Sedgemoor, there had been more militia men in the rebel army than in the royal encampment, and that, if the throne had been defended only by the array of the counties, Monmouth would have marched in triumph from Lyme to London.

The revenue, large as it was when compared with that of former Kings, barely sufficed to meet this new charge. A great part of the produce of the new taxes was absorbed by the naval expenditure. At the close of the late reign the whole cost of the army, the Tangier regiments included, had been under three hundred thousand pounds a year. Six hundred thousand pounds a year would not now suffice.5 If any further augmentation were made, it would be necessary to demand a supply from Parliament; and it was not likely that Parliament would be in a complying mood. The very name of standing army was hateful to the whole nation, and to no part of the nation more hateful than to the Cavalier gentlemen who filled the Lower House. In their minds a standing army was inseparably associated with the Rump, with the Protector, with the spoliation of the Church, with the purgation of the Universities, with the abolition of the peerage, with the murder of the King, with the sullen reign of the Saints, with cant and asceticism, with fines and sequestrations, with the insults which Major Generals, sprung from the dregs of the people, had offered to the oldest and most honourable families of the kingdom. There was, moreover, scarcely a baronet or a squire in the Parliament who did not owe part of his importance in his own county to his rank in the militia. If that national force were set aside, the gentry of England must lose much of their dignity and influence. It was therefore probable that the King would find it more difficult to obtain funds for the support of his army than even to obtain the repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act.

But both the designs which have been mentioned were subordinate to one great design on which the King's whole soul was bent, but which was abhorred by those Tory gentlemen who were ready to shed their blood for his rights, abhorred by that Church which had never, during three generations of civil discord, wavered in fidelity to his house, abhorred even by that army on which, in the last extremity, he must rely.

His religion was still under proscription. Many rigorous laws against Roman Catholics appeared on the Statute Book, and had, within no long time, been rigorously executed. The Test Act excluded from civil and military office all who dissented from the Church of England; and, by a subsequent Act, passed when the fictions of Oates had driven the nation wild,