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
be necessary to augment the fleet. The Commons fell into the
snare, and voted a grant of eight hundred thousand pounds. The
Parliament was instantly prorogued; and the court, thus
emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution of the great
design.
The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with
Holland could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary
revenue was not more than sufficient to support the government in
time of peace. The eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the
Commons had just been tricked would not defray the naval and
military charge of a single year of hostilities. After the
terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament, even the Cabal did
not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney. In this
perplexity Ashley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of
public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers
in the precious metals, but also bankers, and were in the habit
of advancing large sums of money to the government. In return for
these advances they received assignments on the revenue, and were
repaid with interest as the taxes came in. About thirteen hundred
thousand pounds had been in this way intrusted to the honour of
the state. On a sudden it was announced that it was not
convenient to pay the principal, and that the lenders must
content themselves with interest. They were consequently unable
to meet their own engagements. The Exchange was in an uproar:
several great mercantile houses broke; and dismay and distress
spread through all society. Meanwhile rapid strides were made
towards despotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts of
Parliament, or enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully
enjoin, appeared in rapid succession. Of these edicts the most
important was the Declaration of Indulgence. By this instrument
the penal laws against Roman Catholics were set aside; and, that
the real object of the measure might not be perceived, the laws
against Protestant Nonconformists were also suspended.
A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence,
war was proclaimed against the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch
maintained the struggle with honour; but on land they were at
first borne down by irresistible force. A great French army
passed the Rhine. Fortress after fortress opened its gates. Three
of the seven provinces of the federation were occupied by the
invaders. The fires of the hostile camp were seen from the top of
the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. The Republic, thus fiercely assailed
from without, was torn at the same time by internal dissensions.
The government was in the hands of a close oligarchy of powerful
burghers. There were numerous selfelected Town Councils, each of
which exercised within its own sphere, many of the rights of
sovereignty. These councils sent delegates to the Provincial
States, and the Provincial States again sent delegates to the
States General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essential
part of this polity. Nevertheless one family, singularly fertile
of great men, had gradually obtained a large and somewhat
indefinite authority. William, first of the name, Prince of
Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder of Holland, had headed the
memorable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had been
Captain General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent
abilities and public services, and by some treacherous and cruel
actions, raised himself to almost kingly power, and had
bequeathed a great part of that power to his family. The
influence of the Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy
to the municipal oligarchy. But the army, and that great body of
citizens which was excluded from all share in the government,
looked on the Burgomasters and Deputies with a dislike resembling
the dislike with which the legions and the common people of Rome
regarded the Senate, and were as zealous for the House of Orange
as the legions and the common people of Rome for the House of
Caesar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of the commonwealth,
disposed of all military commands, had a large share of the civil
patronage, and was surrounded by pomp almost regal.
Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the
oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1650,
amidst great civil troubles. He died childless: the adherents of
his house were left for a short time without a head; and the
powers which he had exercised were divided among the Town
Councils, the Provincial States, and the States General.
But, a few days after William's death, his widow, Mary, daughter
of Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son,
destined to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau
to the highest point, to save the United Provinces from slavery,
to curb the power of France, and to establish the English
constitution on a lasting foundation.
This Prince, named William Henry, was from his birth an object of
serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of
loyal attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high
consideration as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the
chief of one of the most illustrious houses in Europe, as a
Magnate of the German empire, as a prince of the blood royal of
England, and, above all, as the descendant of the founders of
Batavian liberty. But the high office which had once been
considered as hereditary in his family remained in abeyance; and
the intention of the aristocratical party was that there should
never be another Stadtholder. The want of a first magistrate was,
to a great extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the
Province of Holland, John De Witt, whose abilities, firmness, and
integrity had raised him to unrivalled authority in the councils
of the municipal oligarchy.
The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and
terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their
madness they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest
statesmen of the distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted
by the rabble. De Witt was torn in pieces before the gate of the
palace of the States General at the Hague. The Prince of Orange,
who had no share in the guilt of the murder, but who, on this
occasion, as on another lamentable occasion twenty years later,
extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which
has left a stain on his glory, became chief of the government
without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent and unconquerable
spirit, though disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon roused
the courage of his dismayed countrymen. It was in vain that both
his uncle and the French King attempted by splendid offers to
seduce him from the cause of the Republic. To the States General
he spoke a high and inspiriting language. He even ventured to
suggest a scheme which has an aspect of antique heroism, and
which, if it had been accomplished, would have been the noblest
subject for epic song that is to be found in the whole compass of
modern history. He told the deputies that, even if their natal
soil and the marvels with which human industry had covered it
were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders
might survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by
tyrants and bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest
isles of Asia. The shipping in the ports of the republic would
suffice to carry two hundred thousand emigrants to the Indian
Archipelago. There the Dutch commonwealth might commence a new
and more glorious existence, and might rear, under the Southern
Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees, the Exchange of a
wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more learned Leyden.
The national spirit swelled and rose high. The terms offered by
the allies were firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole
country was turned into one great lake from which the cities,
with their ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders
were forced to save themselves from destruction by a precipitate
retreat. Lewis, who, though he sometimes thought it necessary to
appear at the head of his troops, greatly preferred a palace to a
camp, had already returned to enjoy the adulation of poets and
the smiles of ladies in the newly planted alleys of Versailles.
And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had
been doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a
respite; and a respite, though short, was of infinite importance.
Alarmed by the vast designs of Lewis, both the branches of the
great House of Austria sprang to arms. Spain and Holland, divided
by the memory of ancient wrongs and humiliations, were reconciled
by the nearness of the common danger. From every part of Germany
troops poured towards the Rhine. The English government had
already expended all the funds which had been obtained by
pillaging the public creditor. No loan could be expected from the
City. An attempt to raise taxes by the royal authority would have
at once produced a rebellion; and Lewis, who had now to maintain
a contest against half Europe, was in no condition to furnish the
means of coercing the people of England. It was necessary to
convoke the Parliament.
In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a
recess of near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord
Treasurer, and Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord
Chancellor, were the persons on whom the King principally relied
as Parliamentary managers. The Country Party instantly began to
attack the policy of the Cabal. The attack was made, not in the
way of storm. but by slow and scientific approaches. The Commons
at first held out hopes that they would give support to the
king's foreign policy, but insisted that he should purchase that
support by abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. Their
chief object was to obtain the revocation of the Declaration of
Indulgence. Of all the many unpopular steps taken by the
government the most unpopular was the publishing of this
Declaration. The most opposite sentiments had been shocked by an
act so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. All the enemies of
religious freedom, and all the friends of civil freedom, found
themselves on the same side; and these two classes made up
nineteen twentieths of the nation. The zealous churchman
exclaimed against the favour which had been shown both to the
Papist and to the Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice
in the suspension of the persecution by which he had been
harassed, felt little gratitude for a toleration which he was to
share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who valued liberty and
law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which the prerogative
had made into the province of the legislature.
It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question
was then not quite free
be necessary to augment the fleet. The Commons fell into the
snare, and voted a grant of eight hundred thousand pounds. The
Parliament was instantly prorogued; and the court, thus
emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution of the great
design.
The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with
Holland could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary
revenue was not more than sufficient to support the government in
time of peace. The eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the
Commons had just been tricked would not defray the naval and
military charge of a single year of hostilities. After the
terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament, even the Cabal did
not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney. In this
perplexity Ashley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of
public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers
in the precious metals, but also bankers, and were in the habit
of advancing large sums of money to the government. In return for
these advances they received assignments on the revenue, and were
repaid with interest as the taxes came in. About thirteen hundred
thousand pounds had been in this way intrusted to the honour of
the state. On a sudden it was announced that it was not
convenient to pay the principal, and that the lenders must
content themselves with interest. They were consequently unable
to meet their own engagements. The Exchange was in an uproar:
several great mercantile houses broke; and dismay and distress
spread through all society. Meanwhile rapid strides were made
towards despotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts of
Parliament, or enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully
enjoin, appeared in rapid succession. Of these edicts the most
important was the Declaration of Indulgence. By this instrument
the penal laws against Roman Catholics were set aside; and, that
the real object of the measure might not be perceived, the laws
against Protestant Nonconformists were also suspended.
A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence,
war was proclaimed against the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch
maintained the struggle with honour; but on land they were at
first borne down by irresistible force. A great French army
passed the Rhine. Fortress after fortress opened its gates. Three
of the seven provinces of the federation were occupied by the
invaders. The fires of the hostile camp were seen from the top of
the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. The Republic, thus fiercely assailed
from without, was torn at the same time by internal dissensions.
The government was in the hands of a close oligarchy of powerful
burghers. There were numerous selfelected Town Councils, each of
which exercised within its own sphere, many of the rights of
sovereignty. These councils sent delegates to the Provincial
States, and the Provincial States again sent delegates to the
States General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essential
part of this polity. Nevertheless one family, singularly fertile
of great men, had gradually obtained a large and somewhat
indefinite authority. William, first of the name, Prince of
Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder of Holland, had headed the
memorable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had been
Captain General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent
abilities and public services, and by some treacherous and cruel
actions, raised himself to almost kingly power, and had
bequeathed a great part of that power to his family. The
influence of the Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy
to the municipal oligarchy. But the army, and that great body of
citizens which was excluded from all share in the government,
looked on the Burgomasters and Deputies with a dislike resembling
the dislike with which the legions and the common people of Rome
regarded the Senate, and were as zealous for the House of Orange
as the legions and the common people of Rome for the House of
Caesar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of the commonwealth,
disposed of all military commands, had a large share of the civil
patronage, and was surrounded by pomp almost regal.
Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the
oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1650,
amidst great civil troubles. He died childless: the adherents of
his house were left for a short time without a head; and the
powers which he had exercised were divided among the Town
Councils, the Provincial States, and the States General.
But, a few days after William's death, his widow, Mary, daughter
of Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son,
destined to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau
to the highest point, to save the United Provinces from slavery,
to curb the power of France, and to establish the English
constitution on a lasting foundation.
This Prince, named William Henry, was from his birth an object of
serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of
loyal attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high
consideration as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the
chief of one of the most illustrious houses in Europe, as a
Magnate of the German empire, as a prince of the blood royal of
England, and, above all, as the descendant of the founders of
Batavian liberty. But the high office which had once been
considered as hereditary in his family remained in abeyance; and
the intention of the aristocratical party was that there should
never be another Stadtholder. The want of a first magistrate was,
to a great extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the
Province of Holland, John De Witt, whose abilities, firmness, and
integrity had raised him to unrivalled authority in the councils
of the municipal oligarchy.
The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and
terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their
madness they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest
statesmen of the distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted
by the rabble. De Witt was torn in pieces before the gate of the
palace of the States General at the Hague. The Prince of Orange,
who had no share in the guilt of the murder, but who, on this
occasion, as on another lamentable occasion twenty years later,
extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which
has left a stain on his glory, became chief of the government
without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent and unconquerable
spirit, though disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon roused
the courage of his dismayed countrymen. It was in vain that both
his uncle and the French King attempted by splendid offers to
seduce him from the cause of the Republic. To the States General
he spoke a high and inspiriting language. He even ventured to
suggest a scheme which has an aspect of antique heroism, and
which, if it had been accomplished, would have been the noblest
subject for epic song that is to be found in the whole compass of
modern history. He told the deputies that, even if their natal
soil and the marvels with which human industry had covered it
were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders
might survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by
tyrants and bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest
isles of Asia. The shipping in the ports of the republic would
suffice to carry two hundred thousand emigrants to the Indian
Archipelago. There the Dutch commonwealth might commence a new
and more glorious existence, and might rear, under the Southern
Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees, the Exchange of a
wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more learned Leyden.
The national spirit swelled and rose high. The terms offered by
the allies were firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole
country was turned into one great lake from which the cities,
with their ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders
were forced to save themselves from destruction by a precipitate
retreat. Lewis, who, though he sometimes thought it necessary to
appear at the head of his troops, greatly preferred a palace to a
camp, had already returned to enjoy the adulation of poets and
the smiles of ladies in the newly planted alleys of Versailles.
And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had
been doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a
respite; and a respite, though short, was of infinite importance.
Alarmed by the vast designs of Lewis, both the branches of the
great House of Austria sprang to arms. Spain and Holland, divided
by the memory of ancient wrongs and humiliations, were reconciled
by the nearness of the common danger. From every part of Germany
troops poured towards the Rhine. The English government had
already expended all the funds which had been obtained by
pillaging the public creditor. No loan could be expected from the
City. An attempt to raise taxes by the royal authority would have
at once produced a rebellion; and Lewis, who had now to maintain
a contest against half Europe, was in no condition to furnish the
means of coercing the people of England. It was necessary to
convoke the Parliament.
In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a
recess of near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord
Treasurer, and Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord
Chancellor, were the persons on whom the King principally relied
as Parliamentary managers. The Country Party instantly began to
attack the policy of the Cabal. The attack was made, not in the
way of storm. but by slow and scientific approaches. The Commons
at first held out hopes that they would give support to the
king's foreign policy, but insisted that he should purchase that
support by abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. Their
chief object was to obtain the revocation of the Declaration of
Indulgence. Of all the many unpopular steps taken by the
government the most unpopular was the publishing of this
Declaration. The most opposite sentiments had been shocked by an
act so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. All the enemies of
religious freedom, and all the friends of civil freedom, found
themselves on the same side; and these two classes made up
nineteen twentieths of the nation. The zealous churchman
exclaimed against the favour which had been shown both to the
Papist and to the Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice
in the suspension of the persecution by which he had been
harassed, felt little gratitude for a toleration which he was to
share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who valued liberty and
law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which the prerogative
had made into the province of the legislature.
It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question
was then not quite free
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