The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 4 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (well read books txt) 📕

long cavalcade of the principal gentlemen, from a circle of many miles, escorted the mayor to the market cross. Nor was one holiday enough for the expression of so much joy. On the fourth of November, the anniversary of the King's birth, and on the fifth, the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the bellringing, the shouting, and the illuminations were renewed both in London and all over the country.822 On the day on which he returned to his capital no work was done, no shop was opened, in the two thousand streets of that immense mart. For that day the chiefs streets had, mile after mile, been covered with gravel; all the Companies had provided new banners; all the magistrates new robes. Twelve thousand pounds had been expended in preparing fireworks. Great multitudes of people from all the neighbouring shires had come up to see the show. Never had the City been in a more loyal or more joyous mood. The evil days were past. The guinea had fallen to twenty-one shillings and sixpence. The bank note had risen to par. The new crowns and halfcrowns, broad, heavy and sharply milled, were ringing on all the counters. After some days of impatient expectation it was known, on the fourteenth of November, that His Majesty had landed at Margate. Late on the fifteenth he reached Greenwich, and rested in the stately building which, under his auspices, was turning from a palace into a hospital. On the next morning, a bright and soft morning, eighty coaches and six, filled with nobles, prelates, privy councillors and judges, came to swell his train. In Southwark he was met by the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen in all the pomp of office. The way through the Borough to the bridge was lined by the Surrey militia; the way from the bridge to Walbrook by three regiments of the militia of the City. All along Cheapside, on the right hand and on the left, the livery were marshalled under the standards of their trades. At the east end of Saint Paul's churchyard stood the boys of the school of Edward the Sixth, wearing, as they still wear, the garb of the sixteenth century. Round the Cathedral, down Ludgate Hill and along Fleet Street, were drawn up three more regiments of Londoners. From Temple Bar to Whitehall gate the trainbands of Middlesex and the Foot Guards were under arms. The windows along the whole route were gay with tapestry, ribands and flags. But the finest part of the show was the innumerable crowd of spectators, all in their Sunday clothing, and such clothing as only the upper classes of other countries could afford to wear. "I never," William wrote that evening to Heinsius, "I never saw such a multitude of welldressed people." Nor was the King less struck by the indications of joy and affection with which he was greeted from the beginning to the end of his triumph. His coach, from the moment when he entered it at Greenwich till he alighted from it in the court of Whitehall, was accompanied by one long huzza. Scarcely had he reached his palace when addresses of congratulation, from all the great corporations of his kingdom, were presented to him. It was remarked that the very foremost among those corporations was the University of Oxford. The eloquent composition in which that learned body extolled the wisdom, the courage and the virtue of His Majesty, was read with cruel vexation by the nonjurors, and with exultation by the Whigs.823

The rejoicings were not yet over. At a council which was held a few hours after the King's public entry, the second of December was appointed to be the day of thanksgiving for the peace. The Chapter of Saint Paul's resolved that, on that day, their noble Cathedral, which had been long slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship. William announced his intention of being one of the congregation. But it was represented to him that, if he persisted in that intention, three hundred thousand people would assemble to see him pass, and all the parish churches of London would be left empty. He therefore attended the service in his own chapel at Whitehall, and heard Burnet preach a sermon, somewhat too eulogistic for the place.824 At Saint Paul's the magistrates of the City appeared in all their state. Compton ascended, for the first time, a throne rich with the sculpture of Gibbons, and thence exhorted a numerous and splendid assembly. His discourse has not been preserved; but its purport may be easily guessed; for he preached on that noble Psalm: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." He doubtless reminded his hearers that, in addition to the debt which was common to them with all Englishmen, they owed as Londoners a peculiar debt of gratitude to the divine goodness, which had permitted them to efface the last trace of the ravages of the great fire, and to assemble once more, for prayer and praise, after so many years, on that spot consecrated by the devotions of thirty generations. Throughout London, and in every part of the realm, even to the remotest parishes of Cumberland and Cornwall, the churches were filled on the morning of that day; and the evening was an evening of festivity.825

These was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and vigour. Ten years before, it had seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less just and necessary war. She had successfully defended the order of things established by the Bill of Rights against the mighty monarchy of France, against the aboriginal population of Ireland, against the avowed hostility of the nonjurors, against the more dangerous hostility of traitors who were ready to take any oath, and whom no oath could bind. Her open enemies had been victorious on many fields of battle. Her secret enemies had commanded her fleets and armies, had been in charge of her arsenals, had ministered at her altars, had taught at her Universities, had swarmed in her public offices, had sate in her Parliament, had bowed and fawned in the bedchamber of her King. More than once it had seemed impossible that any thing could avert a restoration which would inevitably have been followed, first by proscriptions and confiscations, by the violation of fundamental laws, and the persecution of the established religion, and then by a third rising up of the nation against that House which two depositions and two banishments had only made more obstinate in evil. To the dangers of war and the dangers of treason had recently been added the dangers of a terrible financial and commercial crisis. But all those dangers were over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious vassalage, had resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. The ancient constitution was adapting itself, by a natural, a gradual, a peaceful development, to the wants of a modern society. Already freedom of conscience and freedom of discussion existed to an extent unknown in any preceding age. The currency had been restored. Public credit had been reestablished. Trade had revived. The Exchequer was overflowing. There was a sense of relief every where, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among the mountains of Wales and the fens of Lincolnshire. The ploughmen, the shepherds, the miners of the Northumbrian coalpits, the artisans who toiled at the looms of Norwich and the anvils of Birmingham, felt the change, without understanding it; and the cheerful bustle in every seaport and every market town indicated, not obscurely, the commencement of a happier age.

FN 1 Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande, enrichie de planches tres curieuses, 1692; Wagenaar; London Gazette, Jan. 29. 1693; Burnet, ii. 71

FN 2 The names of these two great scholars are associated in a very interesting letter of Bentley to Graevius, dated April 29. 1698. "Sciunt omnes qui me norunt, et si vitam mihi Deus O.M. prorogaverit, scient etiam posteri, ut te et ton panu Spanhemium, geminos hujus aevi Dioscuros, lucida literarum sidera, semper praedicaverim, semper veneratus sim."

FN 3 Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande 1692; London Gazette, Feb. 2. 1691,; Le Triomphe Royal ou l'on voit descrits les Arcs de Triomphe, Pyramides, Tableaux et Devises an Nombre de 65, erigez a la Haye a l'hounneur de Guillaume Trois, 1692; Le Carnaval de la Haye, 1691. This last work is a savage pasquinade on William.

FN 4 London Gazette, Feb. 5. 1693; His Majesty's Speech to the Assembly of the States General of the United Provinces at the Hague the 7th of February N.S., together with the Answer of their High and Mighty Lordships, as both are extracted out of the Register of the Resolutions of the States General, 1691.

FN 5 Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande; Burnet, ii. 72.; London Gazette, Feb. 12. 19. 23. 1690/1; Memoires du Comte de Dohna; William Fuller's Memoirs.

FN 6 Wagenaar, lxii.; Le Carnaval de la Haye, Mars 1691; Le Tabouret des Electeurs, April 1691; Ceremonial de ce qui s'est passe a la Haye entre le Roi Guillaume et les Electeurs de Baviere et de Brandebourg. This last tract is a MS. presented to the British Museum by George IV,

FN 7 London Gazette, Feb. 23. 1691.

FN 8 The secret article by which the Duke of Savoy bound himself to grant toleration to the Waldenses is in Dumont's collection. It was signed Feb. 8, 1691.

FN 9 London Gazette from March 26. to April 13. 1691; Monthly Mercuries of March and April; William's Letters to Heinsius of March 18. and 29., April 7. 9.; Dangeau's Memoirs; The Siege of Mons, a tragi-comedy, 1691. In this drama the clergy, who are in the interest of France, persuade the burghers to deliver up the town. This treason calls forth an indignant exclamation

"Oh priestcraft, shopcraft, how do ye effeminate
The minds of men!"

FN 10 Trial of Preston in the Collection of State Trials. A person who was present gives the following account of Somers's opening speech: "In the opening the evidence, there was no affected exaggeration of matters, nor ostentation of a putid eloquence, one after another, as in former trials, like so many geese cackling in a row. Here was nothing besides fair matter of fact, or natural and just reflections from thence arising." The pamphlet from which I quote these words is entitled, An Account of the late horrid Conspiracy by a Person who was present at the Trials, 1691.

FN 11 State Trials.

FN 12 Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton, at his execution, to Sir Francis Child, Sheriff of London; Answer to the Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton. The Answer was written by Dr. Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester. Burnet, ii. 70.; Letter from Bishop Lloyd to Dodwell, in the second volume of Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa.

FN 13 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.

FN 14 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 71.

FN 15 Letter of Collier and Cook to Sancroft among the Tanner MSS.

FN 16 Caermarthen to William, February 3. 1690/1; Life of James, ii. 443.

FN 17 That this account of what passed is true in substance is sufficiently proved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or two slight circumstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them