The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
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would probably have been fatal to our country,
and that we owe more to his weakness and meanness than to the
wisdom and courage of much better sovereigns. He came to the
throne at a critical moment. The time was fast approaching when
either the King must become absolute, or the parliament must
control the whole executive administration. Had James been, like
Henry the Fourth, like Maurice of Nassau, or like Gustavus
Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic ruler, had he put
himself at the head of the Protestants of Europe, had he gained
great victories over Tilly and Spinola, had he adorned
Westminster with the spoils of Bavarian monasteries and Flemish
cathedrals, had he hung Austrian and Castilian banners in Saint
Paul's, and had he found himself, after great achievements, at
the head of fifty thousand troops, brave, well disciplined, and
devotedly attached to his person, the English Parliament would
soon have been nothing more than a name. Happily he was not a man
to play such a part. He began his administration by putting an
end to the war which had raged during many years between England
and Spain; and from that time he shunned hostilities with a
caution which was proof against the insults of his neighbours and
the clamours of his subjects. Not till the last year of his life
could the influence of his son, his favourite, his Parliament,
and his people combined, induce him to strike one feeble blow in
defence of his family and of his religion. It was well for those
whom he governed that he in this matter disregarded their wishes.
The effect of his pacific policy was that, in his time, no
regular troops were needed, and that, while France, Spain, Italy,
Belgium, and Germany swarmed with mercenary soldiers, the defence
of our island was still confided to the militia.
As the King had no standing army, and did not even attempt to
form one, it would have been wise in him to avoid any conflict
with his people. But such was his indiscretion that, while he
altogether neglected the means which alone could make him really
absolute, he constantly put forward, in the most offensive form,
claims of which none of his predecessors had ever dreamed. It was
at this time that those strange theories which Filmer afterwards
formed into a system and which became the badge of the most
violent class of Tories and high churchmen, first emerged into
notice. It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded
hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government,
with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of
primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior to the
Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no human
power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of
adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could
deprive a legitimate prince of his rights, that the authority of
such a prince was necessarily always despotic; that the laws, by
which, in England and in other countries, the prerogative was
limited, were to be regarded merely as concessions which the
sovereign had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; and
that any treaty which a king might conclude with his people was
merely a declaration of his present intentions, and not a
contract of which the performance could be demanded. It is
evident that this theory, though intended to strengthen the
foundations of government, altogether unsettles them. Does the
divine and immutable law of primogeniture admit females, or
exclude them? On either supposition half the sovereigns of Europe
must be usurpers, reigning in defiance of the law of God, and
liable to be dispossessed by the rightful heirs. The doctrine
that kingly government is peculiarly favoured by Heaven receives
no countenance from the Old Testament; for in the Old Testament
we read that the chosen people were blamed and punished for
desiring a king, and that they were afterwards commanded to
withdraw their allegiance from him. Their whole history, far from
countenancing the notion that succession in order of
primogeniture is of divine institution, would rather seem to
indicate that younger brothers are under the especial protection
of heaven. Isaac was not the eldest son of Abraham, nor Jacob of
Isaac, nor Judah of Jacob, nor David of Jesse nor Solomon of
David Nor does the system of Filmer receive any countenance from
those passages of the New Testament which describe government as
an ordinance of God: for the government under which the writers
of the New Testament lived was not a hereditary monarchy. The
Roman Emperors were republican magistrates, named by the senate.
None of them pretended to rule by right of birth; and, in fact,
both Tiberius, to whom Christ commanded that tribute should be
given, and Nero, whom Paul directed the Romans to obey, were,
according to the patriarchal theory of government, usurpers. In
the middle ages the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right
would have been regarded as heretical: for it was altogether
incompatible with the high pretensions of the Church of Rome. It
was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the Church of England.
The Homily on Wilful Rebellion had strongly, and indeed too
strongly, inculcated submission to constituted authority, but had
made no distinction between hereditary end elective monarchies,
or between monarchies and republics. Indeed most of the
predecessors of James would, from personal motives, have regarded
the patriarchal theory of government with aversion. William
Rufus, Henry the First, Stephen, John, Henry the Fourth, Henry
the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, and Henry the
Seventh, had all reigned in defiance of the strict rule of
descent. A grave doubt hung over the legitimacy both of Mary and
of Elizabeth. It was impossible that both Catharine of Aragon and
Anne Boleyn could have been lawfully married to Henry the Eighth;
and the highest authority in the realm had pronounced that
neither was so. The Tudors, far from considering the law of
succession as a divine and unchangeable institution, were
constantly tampering with it. Henry the Eighth obtained an act of
parliament, giving him power to leave the crown by will, and
actually made a will to the prejudice of the royal family of
Scotland. Edward the Sixth, unauthorised by Parliament, assumed a
similar power, with the full approbation of the most eminent
Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her own title was open to
grave objection, and unwilling to admit even a reversionary right
in her rival and enemy the Queen of Scots, induced the Parliament
to pass a law, enacting that whoever should deny the competency
of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the Estates of the
realm, to alter the succession, should suffer death as a traitor:
But the situation of James was widely different from that of
Elizabeth. Far inferior to her in abilities and in popularity,
regarded by the English as an alien, and excluded from the throne
by the testament of Henry the Eighth, the King of Scots was yet
the undoubted heir of William the Conqueror and of Egbert. He
had, therefore, an obvious interest in inculcating the
superstitions notion that birth confers rights anterior to law,
and unalterable by law. It was a notion, moreover, well suited to
his intellect and temper. It soon found many advocates among
those who aspired to his favour, and made rapid progress among
the clergy of the Established Church.
Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to
manifest itself strongly in the Parliament and in the country,
the claims of the monarch took a monstrous form which would have
disgusted the proudest and most arbitrary of those who had
preceded him on the throne.
James was always boasting of his skill in what he called
kingcraft; and yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a course
more directly opposed to all the rules of kingcraft, than that
which he followed. The policy of wise rulers has always been to
disguise strong acts under popular forms. It was thus that
Augustus and Napoleon established absolute monarchies, while the
public regarded them merely as eminent citizens invested with
temporary magistracies. The policy of James was the direct
reverse of theirs. He enraged and alarmed his Parliament by
constantly telling them that they held their privileges merely
during his pleasure and that they had no more business to inquire
what he might lawfully do than what the Deity might lawfully do.
Yet he quailed before them, abandoned minister after minister to
their vengeance, and suffered them to tease him into acts
directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus the
indignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his
concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for
worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their
tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His
cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person,
his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even in
his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently
unkingly. Throughout the whole course of his reign, all the
venerable associations by which the throng had long been fenced
were gradually losing their strength. During two hundred years
all the sovereigns who had ruled England, with the exception of
Henry the Sixth, had been strongminded, highspirited, courageous,
and of princely bearing. Almost all had possessed abilities above
the ordinary level. It was no light thing that on the very eve of
the decisive struggle between our Kings and their Parliaments,
royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering, slobbering,
shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking
in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue.
In the meantime the religious dissensions, by which, from the
days of Edward the Sixth, the Protestant body had been
distracted, had become more formidable than ever. The interval
which had separated the first generation of Puritans from Cranmer
and Jewel was small indeed when compared with the interval which
separated the third generation of Puritans from Laud and Hammond.
While the recollection of Mary's cruelties was still fresh, while
the powers of the Roman Catholic party still inspired
apprehension, while Spain still retained ascendency and aspired
to universal dominion, all the reformed sects knew that they had
a strong common interest and a deadly common enemy. The animosity
which they felt towards each other was languid when compared with
the animosity which they all felt towards Rome. Conformists and
Nonconformists had heartily joined in enacting penal laws of
extreme severity against the Papists. But when more than half a
century of undisturbed possession had given confidence to the
Established Church, when nine tenths of the nation had become
heartily Protestant, when England was at peace with all the
world, when there was no danger that Popery would be forced by
foreign arms on the nation, when the last confessors
and that we owe more to his weakness and meanness than to the
wisdom and courage of much better sovereigns. He came to the
throne at a critical moment. The time was fast approaching when
either the King must become absolute, or the parliament must
control the whole executive administration. Had James been, like
Henry the Fourth, like Maurice of Nassau, or like Gustavus
Adolphus, a valiant, active, and politic ruler, had he put
himself at the head of the Protestants of Europe, had he gained
great victories over Tilly and Spinola, had he adorned
Westminster with the spoils of Bavarian monasteries and Flemish
cathedrals, had he hung Austrian and Castilian banners in Saint
Paul's, and had he found himself, after great achievements, at
the head of fifty thousand troops, brave, well disciplined, and
devotedly attached to his person, the English Parliament would
soon have been nothing more than a name. Happily he was not a man
to play such a part. He began his administration by putting an
end to the war which had raged during many years between England
and Spain; and from that time he shunned hostilities with a
caution which was proof against the insults of his neighbours and
the clamours of his subjects. Not till the last year of his life
could the influence of his son, his favourite, his Parliament,
and his people combined, induce him to strike one feeble blow in
defence of his family and of his religion. It was well for those
whom he governed that he in this matter disregarded their wishes.
The effect of his pacific policy was that, in his time, no
regular troops were needed, and that, while France, Spain, Italy,
Belgium, and Germany swarmed with mercenary soldiers, the defence
of our island was still confided to the militia.
As the King had no standing army, and did not even attempt to
form one, it would have been wise in him to avoid any conflict
with his people. But such was his indiscretion that, while he
altogether neglected the means which alone could make him really
absolute, he constantly put forward, in the most offensive form,
claims of which none of his predecessors had ever dreamed. It was
at this time that those strange theories which Filmer afterwards
formed into a system and which became the badge of the most
violent class of Tories and high churchmen, first emerged into
notice. It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded
hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government,
with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of
primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior to the
Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no human
power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of
adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could
deprive a legitimate prince of his rights, that the authority of
such a prince was necessarily always despotic; that the laws, by
which, in England and in other countries, the prerogative was
limited, were to be regarded merely as concessions which the
sovereign had freely made and might at his pleasure resume; and
that any treaty which a king might conclude with his people was
merely a declaration of his present intentions, and not a
contract of which the performance could be demanded. It is
evident that this theory, though intended to strengthen the
foundations of government, altogether unsettles them. Does the
divine and immutable law of primogeniture admit females, or
exclude them? On either supposition half the sovereigns of Europe
must be usurpers, reigning in defiance of the law of God, and
liable to be dispossessed by the rightful heirs. The doctrine
that kingly government is peculiarly favoured by Heaven receives
no countenance from the Old Testament; for in the Old Testament
we read that the chosen people were blamed and punished for
desiring a king, and that they were afterwards commanded to
withdraw their allegiance from him. Their whole history, far from
countenancing the notion that succession in order of
primogeniture is of divine institution, would rather seem to
indicate that younger brothers are under the especial protection
of heaven. Isaac was not the eldest son of Abraham, nor Jacob of
Isaac, nor Judah of Jacob, nor David of Jesse nor Solomon of
David Nor does the system of Filmer receive any countenance from
those passages of the New Testament which describe government as
an ordinance of God: for the government under which the writers
of the New Testament lived was not a hereditary monarchy. The
Roman Emperors were republican magistrates, named by the senate.
None of them pretended to rule by right of birth; and, in fact,
both Tiberius, to whom Christ commanded that tribute should be
given, and Nero, whom Paul directed the Romans to obey, were,
according to the patriarchal theory of government, usurpers. In
the middle ages the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right
would have been regarded as heretical: for it was altogether
incompatible with the high pretensions of the Church of Rome. It
was a doctrine unknown to the founders of the Church of England.
The Homily on Wilful Rebellion had strongly, and indeed too
strongly, inculcated submission to constituted authority, but had
made no distinction between hereditary end elective monarchies,
or between monarchies and republics. Indeed most of the
predecessors of James would, from personal motives, have regarded
the patriarchal theory of government with aversion. William
Rufus, Henry the First, Stephen, John, Henry the Fourth, Henry
the Fifth, Henry the Sixth, Richard the Third, and Henry the
Seventh, had all reigned in defiance of the strict rule of
descent. A grave doubt hung over the legitimacy both of Mary and
of Elizabeth. It was impossible that both Catharine of Aragon and
Anne Boleyn could have been lawfully married to Henry the Eighth;
and the highest authority in the realm had pronounced that
neither was so. The Tudors, far from considering the law of
succession as a divine and unchangeable institution, were
constantly tampering with it. Henry the Eighth obtained an act of
parliament, giving him power to leave the crown by will, and
actually made a will to the prejudice of the royal family of
Scotland. Edward the Sixth, unauthorised by Parliament, assumed a
similar power, with the full approbation of the most eminent
Reformers. Elizabeth, conscious that her own title was open to
grave objection, and unwilling to admit even a reversionary right
in her rival and enemy the Queen of Scots, induced the Parliament
to pass a law, enacting that whoever should deny the competency
of the reigning sovereign, with the assent of the Estates of the
realm, to alter the succession, should suffer death as a traitor:
But the situation of James was widely different from that of
Elizabeth. Far inferior to her in abilities and in popularity,
regarded by the English as an alien, and excluded from the throne
by the testament of Henry the Eighth, the King of Scots was yet
the undoubted heir of William the Conqueror and of Egbert. He
had, therefore, an obvious interest in inculcating the
superstitions notion that birth confers rights anterior to law,
and unalterable by law. It was a notion, moreover, well suited to
his intellect and temper. It soon found many advocates among
those who aspired to his favour, and made rapid progress among
the clergy of the Established Church.
Thus, at the very moment at which a republican spirit began to
manifest itself strongly in the Parliament and in the country,
the claims of the monarch took a monstrous form which would have
disgusted the proudest and most arbitrary of those who had
preceded him on the throne.
James was always boasting of his skill in what he called
kingcraft; and yet it is hardly possible even to imagine a course
more directly opposed to all the rules of kingcraft, than that
which he followed. The policy of wise rulers has always been to
disguise strong acts under popular forms. It was thus that
Augustus and Napoleon established absolute monarchies, while the
public regarded them merely as eminent citizens invested with
temporary magistracies. The policy of James was the direct
reverse of theirs. He enraged and alarmed his Parliament by
constantly telling them that they held their privileges merely
during his pleasure and that they had no more business to inquire
what he might lawfully do than what the Deity might lawfully do.
Yet he quailed before them, abandoned minister after minister to
their vengeance, and suffered them to tease him into acts
directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Thus the
indignation excited by his claims and the scorn excited by his
concessions went on growing together. By his fondness for
worthless minions, and by the sanction which he gave to their
tyranny and rapacity, he kept discontent constantly alive. His
cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person,
his provincial accent, made him an object of derision. Even in
his virtues and accomplishments there was something eminently
unkingly. Throughout the whole course of his reign, all the
venerable associations by which the throng had long been fenced
were gradually losing their strength. During two hundred years
all the sovereigns who had ruled England, with the exception of
Henry the Sixth, had been strongminded, highspirited, courageous,
and of princely bearing. Almost all had possessed abilities above
the ordinary level. It was no light thing that on the very eve of
the decisive struggle between our Kings and their Parliaments,
royalty should be exhibited to the world stammering, slobbering,
shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword, and talking
in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue.
In the meantime the religious dissensions, by which, from the
days of Edward the Sixth, the Protestant body had been
distracted, had become more formidable than ever. The interval
which had separated the first generation of Puritans from Cranmer
and Jewel was small indeed when compared with the interval which
separated the third generation of Puritans from Laud and Hammond.
While the recollection of Mary's cruelties was still fresh, while
the powers of the Roman Catholic party still inspired
apprehension, while Spain still retained ascendency and aspired
to universal dominion, all the reformed sects knew that they had
a strong common interest and a deadly common enemy. The animosity
which they felt towards each other was languid when compared with
the animosity which they all felt towards Rome. Conformists and
Nonconformists had heartily joined in enacting penal laws of
extreme severity against the Papists. But when more than half a
century of undisturbed possession had given confidence to the
Established Church, when nine tenths of the nation had become
heartily Protestant, when England was at peace with all the
world, when there was no danger that Popery would be forced by
foreign arms on the nation, when the last confessors
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