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

ancient constitutional traditions of the state. The only question was, in what sense those traditions were to be understood. The assertors of liberty said not a word about the natural equality of men and the inalienable sovereignty of the people, about Harmodius or Timoleon, Brutus the elder or Brutus the younger. When they were told that, by the English law, the crown, at the moment of a demise, must descend to the next heir, they answered that, by the English law, a living man could have no heir. When they were told that there was no precedent for declaring the throne vacant, they produced from among the records in the Tower a roll of parchment, near three hundred years old, on which, in quaint characters and barbarous Latin, it was recorded that the Estates of the Realm had declared vacant the throne of a perfidious and tyrannical Plantagenet. When at length the dispute had been accommodated, the new sovereigns were proclaimed with the old pageantry. All the fantastic pomp of heraldry was there, Clarencieux and Norroy, Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, the trumpets, the banners, the grotesque coats embroidered with lions and lilies. The title of King of France, assumed by the conqueror of Cressy, was not omitted in the royal style. To us, who have lived in the year 1848, it may seem almost an abuse of terms to call a proceeding, conducted with so much deliberation, with so much sobriety, and with such minute attention to prescriptive etiquette, by the terrible name of Revolution.

And yet this revolution, of all revolutions the least violent, has been of all revolutions the most beneficent. It finally decided the great question whether the popular element which had, ever since the age of Fitzwalter and De Montfort, been found in the English polity, should be destroyed by the monarchical element, or should be suffered to develope itself freely, and to become dominant. The strife between the two principles had been long, fierce, and doubtful. It had lasted through four reigns. It had produced seditions, impeachments, rebellions, battles, sieges, proscriptions, judicial massacres. Sometimes liberty, sometimes royalty, had seemed to be on the point of perishing. During many years one half of the energy of England had been employed in counteracting the other half. The executive power and the legislative power had so effectually impeded each other that the state had been of no account in Europe. The King at Arms, who proclaimed William and Mary before Whitehall Gate, did in truth announce that this great struggle was over; that there was entire union between the throne and the Parliament; that England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power of the first rank; that the ancient laws by which the prerogative was bounded would henceforth be held as sacred as the prerogative itself, and would be followed out to all their consequences; that the executive administration would be conducted in conformity with the sense of the representatives of the nation; and that no reform, which the two Houses should, after mature deliberation, propose, would be obstinately withstood by the sovereign. The Declaration of Right, though it made nothing law which had not been law before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to the Dissenter, of the law which secured the independence of the judges, of the law which limited the duration of Parliaments, of the law which placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries, of the law which prohibited the slave trade, of the law which abolished the sacramental test, of the law which relieved the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities, of the law which reformed the representative system, of every good law which has been passed during a hundred and sixty years, of every good law which may hereafter, in the course of ages, be found necessary to promote the public weal, and to satisfy the demands of public opinion.

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last revolution. Several generations have now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has meditated resistance to the established government. In all honest and reflecting minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the means of effecting every improvement which the constitution requires may be found within the constitution itself.

Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proudest capitals of Western Europe have streamed with civil blood. All evil passions, the thirst of gain and the thirst of vengeance, the antipathy of class to class, the antipathy of race to race, have broken loose from the control of divine and human laws. Fear and anxiety have clouded the faces and depressed the hearts of millions. Trade has been suspended, and industry paralysed. The rich have become poor; and the poor have become poorer. Doctrines hostile to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry, to all domestic charities, doctrines which, if carried into effect, would, in thirty years, undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind, and would make the fairest provinces of France and Germany as savage as Congo or Patagonia, have been avowed from the tribune and defended by the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjugation by barbarians, compared with whom the barbarians who marched under Attila and Alboin were enlightened and humane. The truest friends of the people have with deep sorrow owned that interests more precious than any political privileges were in jeopardy, and that it might be necessary to sacrifice even liberty in order to save civilisation. Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And, if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our houses, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.

FN 1 Avaux Neg., Aug. 6/16 1685; Despatch of Citters and his colleagues, enclosing the treaty, Aug. Lewis to Barillon, Aug. 14/24.

FN 2 Instructions headed, "For my son the Prince of Wales, 1692," in the Stuart Papers.

FN 3 "The Habeas Corpus," said Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories, to Boswell, "is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries;" and T. B. Macaulay is the most bigoted of Whigs in his own country, but left his whiggism at home when he went to India.

FN 4 See the Historical Records of Regiments, published under the supervision of the Adjutant General.

FN 5 Barillon, Dec. 3/13 1685. He had studied the subject much. "C'est un detail," he says, "dont j'ai connoissance." it appears from the Treasury Warrant Book that the charge of the army for the year 1687 was first of January at 623,104l. 9s. 11d.

FN 6 Burnet, i. 447.

FN 7 Tillotson's Sermon, preached before the House of Commons, Nov. 5. 1678.

FN 8 Locke, First Letter on Toleration.

FN 9 Council Book. The erasure is dated Oct. 21. 1685. Halifax to Chesterfield; Barillon, Oct. 19/29.

FN 10 Barillon, Oct. 26/Nov. 5. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, Oct. 27 / Nov. 6. Nov. 6/16.

FN 11 There is a remarkable account of the first appearance of the symptoms of discontent among the Tories in a letter of Halifax to Chesterfield, written in October, 1685. Burnet, i. 684.

FN 12 The contemporary tracts in various languages on the subject of this persecution are innumerable. An eminently clear, terse, and spirited summary will be found in Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV.

FN 13 "Misionarios embotados," says Ronquillo. "Apostoli armati," says Innocent. There is, in the Mackintosh Collection, a remarkable letter on this subject from Ronquillo, dated March 26./April 5. 1686 See Venier, Relatione di Francia, 1689, quoted by Professor Ranke in his Romische Papste, book viii.

FN 14 "Mi dicono che tutti questi parlamentarii no hanno voluto copia, il che assolutamente avra causate pessime impressioni."- Adda, Nov. 9/13. 1685. See Evelyn's Diary, Nov. 3.

FN 15 Lords' Journals, Nov. 9. 1685. "Vengo assicurato," says Adda, "che S. M. stessa abbia composto il discorso."-Despatch of Nov. 16/26 1685.

FN 16 Commons' Journals; Bramston's Memoirs; James von Leeuwen to the States General, Nov. 10/20 1685. Leeuwen was secretary of the Dutch embassy, and conducted the correspondence in the absence of Citters. As to Clarges, see Burnet, i. 98.

FN 17 Barillon, Nov. 16/26. 1685.

FN 18 Dodd's Church History, Leeuwen, Nov. 17/27 1685; Barillon, Dec. 24. 1685. Barillon says of Adda, "On l'avoit fait prevenir que la surete et l'avantage des Catholiques consistoient dans une reunion entiere de sa Majeste Britannique et de son parlement." Letters of Innocent to James, dated July 27/Aug. 8 and Sept. 23 / Oct. 3. 1685; Despatches of Adda, Nov. 9/19. and Nov. 1685. The very interesting correspondence of Adda, copied from the Papal archives, is in the British Museum; Additional MSS. No. 15395.

FN 19 The most remarkable despatch bears date the 9/19th of November 1685, and will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's History.

FN 20 Commons' Journals, Nov. 12. 1685; Leeuwen, Nov.; Barillon, Nov. 16/26.; Sir John Bramston's Memoirs. The best report of the debates of the Commons in November, 1685, is one of which the history is somewhat curious. There are two manuscript copies of it in the British Museum, Harl. 7187.; Lans. 253. In these copies the names of the speakers are given at length. The author of the Life of James published in 1702 transcribed this report, but gave only the initials, of the speakers. The editors of Chandler's Debates and of the Parliamentary History guessed from these initials at the names, and sometimes guessed wrong. They ascribe to Wailer a very remarkable speech, which will hereafter be mentioned, and which was really made by Windham, member for Salisbury. It was with some concern that I found myself forced to give up the belief that the last words uttered in public by Waller were so honourable to him.

FN 21 Commons' Journals, Nov. 13. 1685; Bramston's Memoirs; Reresby's Memoirs; Barillon, Nov. 16/26.; Leeuwen, Nov. 13/23.; Memoirs of Sir Stephen Fox, 1717; The Case of the Church of England fairly stated; Burnet, i. 666. and Speaker Onslow's note.

FN 22 Commons' Journals, Nov. 1685; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS.

FN 23 The conflict of testimony on this subject is most extraordinary; and, after long consideration, I must own that the balance seems to me to be exactly poised. In the Life of James (1702), the motion is represented as a court motion. This account is confirmed by a remarkable passage in the Stuart Papers, which was corrected by the Pretender himself. (Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 55.) On the other hand, Reresby, who was present, and Barillon, who ought to have been well informed, represent