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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from obscurity. Our ancient Kings had
undoubtedly claimed and exercised the right of suspending the
operation of penal laws. The tribunals had recognised that right.
Parliaments had suffered it to pass unchallenged. That some such
right was inherent in the crown, few even of the Country Party
ventured, in the face of precedent and authority, to deny. Yet it
was clear that, if this prerogative were without limit, the
English government could scarcely be distinguished from a pure
despotism. That there was a limit was fully admitted by the King
and his ministers. Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay
within or without the limit was the question; and neither party
could succeed in tracing any line which would bear examination.
Some opponents of the government complained that the Declaration
suspended not less than forty statutes. But why not forty as well
as one? There was an orator who gave it as his opinion that the
King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but not with
good laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless to
expose. The doctrine which seems to have been generally received
in the House of Commons was, that the dispensing power was
confined to secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted
for the security of the established religion. Yet, as the King
was supreme head of the Church, it should seem that, if he
possessed the dispensing power at all, he might well possess that
power where the Church was concerned. When the courtiers on the
other side attempted to point out the bounds of this prerogative,
they were not more successful than the opposition had been.
The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in
politics. It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the
principles of mixed government: but it had grown up in times when
people troubled themselves little about theories.19 It had not
been very grossly abused in practice. It had therefore been
tolerated, and had gradually acquired a kind of prescription. At
length it was employed, after a long interval, in an enlightened
age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent never before
known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was instantly
subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first,
venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they
began to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit
of the constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the
English government from a limited into an absolute monarchy.
Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the
King's right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but
with penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him
plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that right, they
would grant no supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed
some inclination to put everything to hazard; but he was strongly
advised by Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better
times, when the French armies, now employed in an arduous
struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose of
suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs
of disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his
proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and
that all things were tending towards a crisis resembling that of
1640. He was determined that such a crisis should not find him in
the situation of Strafford. He therefore turned suddenly round,
and acknowledged, in the House of Lords, that the Declaration was
illegal. The King, thus deserted by his ally and by his
Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly
promised that it should never be drawn into precedent.
Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content
with having forced their sovereign to annul the Indulgence, next
extorted his unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which
continued in force down to the reign of George the Fourth. This
law, known as the Test Act, provided that all persons holding any
office, civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy,
should subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, and
should publicly receive the sacrament according to the rites of
the Church of England. The preamble expressed hostility only to
the Papists: but the enacting clauses were scarcely more
unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The
Puritans, however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court
towards Popery, and encouraged by some churchmen to hope that, as
soon as the Roman Catholics should have been effectually
disarmed, relief would be extended to Protestant Nonconformists,
made little opposition; nor could the King, who was in extreme
want of money, venture to withhold his sanction. The act was
passed; and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity
of resigning the great place of Lord High Admiral.
Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. But,
when the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out,
relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell
impetuously on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss
Buckingham and Lauderdale from his councils forever, and
appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeaching
Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford, who,
alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man,
refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and
retired to his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of
Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employment in the
Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their peace with
the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy
of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued to be minister
for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament could not
interfere.
And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Holland,
and expressly declared that no more supplies should be granted
for the war, unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately
refused to consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it
necessary to postpone to a more convenient season all thought of
executing the treaty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by
pretending to return to the policy of the Triple Alliance.
Temple, who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived in
seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from
his hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was
concluded with the United Provinces; and he again became
ambassador at the Hague, where his presence was regarded as a
sure pledge for the sincerity of his court.
The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas
Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons,
shown eminent talents for business and debate. Osborne became
Lord Treasurer, and was soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a
man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality,
would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and
honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal
had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art
still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to
which it was brought in the following century. He improved
greatly on the plan of the first inventors. They had merely
purchased orators: but every man who had a vote, might sell
himself to Danby. Yet the new minister must not be confounded
with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelings of
an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did he, in his solicitude for
his own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his
country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, to exalt
the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt it
were widely different from those which had been contemplated by
Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establishing arbitrary
power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the
kingdom to the rank of a dependent principality, never entered
into his mind. His plan was to rally round the monarchy those
classes which had been the firm allies of the monarchy during the
troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been
disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the
help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country
gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might, he
conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute
sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth
had been.
Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing
to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political
power both executive and legislative. In the year 1675,
accordingly, a bill was offered to the Lords which provided that
no person should hold any office, or should sit in either House
of Parliament, without first declaring on oath that he considered
resistance to the kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that
he would never endeavour to alter the government either in Church
or State. During several weeks the debates, divisions, and
protests caused by this proposition kept the country in a state
of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by
two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace
with the nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all
precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved
successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, but was retarded,
mutilated, and at length suffered to drop.
So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of domestic
policy. His opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour.
They were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and
differed little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly
lamented the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and
declared, with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish
was to cudgel the French into a proper respect for her. So little
did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet where the
most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church were
assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the
confusion of all who were against a war with France. He would
indeed most gladly have seen his country united with the powers
which were then combined against Lewis, and was for that end bent
on placing Temple, the author of the Triple Alliance, at the head
of the department which directed foreign affairs. But the power
of the prime minister was limited. In his most confidential
letters he complained that the infatuation of his master
prevented England from taking her proper place among European
nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he had by
no means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future day,
be able to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the French
arms; and
undoubtedly claimed and exercised the right of suspending the
operation of penal laws. The tribunals had recognised that right.
Parliaments had suffered it to pass unchallenged. That some such
right was inherent in the crown, few even of the Country Party
ventured, in the face of precedent and authority, to deny. Yet it
was clear that, if this prerogative were without limit, the
English government could scarcely be distinguished from a pure
despotism. That there was a limit was fully admitted by the King
and his ministers. Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay
within or without the limit was the question; and neither party
could succeed in tracing any line which would bear examination.
Some opponents of the government complained that the Declaration
suspended not less than forty statutes. But why not forty as well
as one? There was an orator who gave it as his opinion that the
King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but not with
good laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless to
expose. The doctrine which seems to have been generally received
in the House of Commons was, that the dispensing power was
confined to secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted
for the security of the established religion. Yet, as the King
was supreme head of the Church, it should seem that, if he
possessed the dispensing power at all, he might well possess that
power where the Church was concerned. When the courtiers on the
other side attempted to point out the bounds of this prerogative,
they were not more successful than the opposition had been.
The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in
politics. It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the
principles of mixed government: but it had grown up in times when
people troubled themselves little about theories.19 It had not
been very grossly abused in practice. It had therefore been
tolerated, and had gradually acquired a kind of prescription. At
length it was employed, after a long interval, in an enlightened
age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent never before
known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was instantly
subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first,
venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they
began to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit
of the constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the
English government from a limited into an absolute monarchy.
Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the
King's right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but
with penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him
plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that right, they
would grant no supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed
some inclination to put everything to hazard; but he was strongly
advised by Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better
times, when the French armies, now employed in an arduous
struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose of
suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs
of disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his
proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and
that all things were tending towards a crisis resembling that of
1640. He was determined that such a crisis should not find him in
the situation of Strafford. He therefore turned suddenly round,
and acknowledged, in the House of Lords, that the Declaration was
illegal. The King, thus deserted by his ally and by his
Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly
promised that it should never be drawn into precedent.
Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content
with having forced their sovereign to annul the Indulgence, next
extorted his unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which
continued in force down to the reign of George the Fourth. This
law, known as the Test Act, provided that all persons holding any
office, civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy,
should subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, and
should publicly receive the sacrament according to the rites of
the Church of England. The preamble expressed hostility only to
the Papists: but the enacting clauses were scarcely more
unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The
Puritans, however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court
towards Popery, and encouraged by some churchmen to hope that, as
soon as the Roman Catholics should have been effectually
disarmed, relief would be extended to Protestant Nonconformists,
made little opposition; nor could the King, who was in extreme
want of money, venture to withhold his sanction. The act was
passed; and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity
of resigning the great place of Lord High Admiral.
Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. But,
when the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out,
relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell
impetuously on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss
Buckingham and Lauderdale from his councils forever, and
appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeaching
Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford, who,
alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man,
refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and
retired to his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of
Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employment in the
Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their peace with
the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy
of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued to be minister
for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament could not
interfere.
And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Holland,
and expressly declared that no more supplies should be granted
for the war, unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately
refused to consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it
necessary to postpone to a more convenient season all thought of
executing the treaty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by
pretending to return to the policy of the Triple Alliance.
Temple, who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived in
seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from
his hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was
concluded with the United Provinces; and he again became
ambassador at the Hague, where his presence was regarded as a
sure pledge for the sincerity of his court.
The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas
Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons,
shown eminent talents for business and debate. Osborne became
Lord Treasurer, and was soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a
man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality,
would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and
honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal
had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art
still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to
which it was brought in the following century. He improved
greatly on the plan of the first inventors. They had merely
purchased orators: but every man who had a vote, might sell
himself to Danby. Yet the new minister must not be confounded
with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelings of
an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did he, in his solicitude for
his own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his
country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, to exalt
the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt it
were widely different from those which had been contemplated by
Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establishing arbitrary
power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the
kingdom to the rank of a dependent principality, never entered
into his mind. His plan was to rally round the monarchy those
classes which had been the firm allies of the monarchy during the
troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been
disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the
help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country
gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might, he
conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute
sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth
had been.
Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing
to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political
power both executive and legislative. In the year 1675,
accordingly, a bill was offered to the Lords which provided that
no person should hold any office, or should sit in either House
of Parliament, without first declaring on oath that he considered
resistance to the kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that
he would never endeavour to alter the government either in Church
or State. During several weeks the debates, divisions, and
protests caused by this proposition kept the country in a state
of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by
two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace
with the nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all
precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved
successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, but was retarded,
mutilated, and at length suffered to drop.
So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of domestic
policy. His opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour.
They were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and
differed little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly
lamented the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and
declared, with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish
was to cudgel the French into a proper respect for her. So little
did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet where the
most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church were
assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the
confusion of all who were against a war with France. He would
indeed most gladly have seen his country united with the powers
which were then combined against Lewis, and was for that end bent
on placing Temple, the author of the Triple Alliance, at the head
of the department which directed foreign affairs. But the power
of the prime minister was limited. In his most confidential
letters he complained that the infatuation of his master
prevented England from taking her proper place among European
nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he had by
no means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future day,
be able to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the French
arms; and
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