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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for both reasons he wished to maintain a good
understanding with the court of Versailles.
Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics,
and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither
the sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue
any object with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded
to the importunity of the other; and their jarring inclinations
and mutual concessions gave to the whole administration a
strangely capricious character. Charles sometimes, from levity
and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which Lewis resented
as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather than
relinquish his great place, sometimes stooped to compliances
which caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to
consent to a marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and
presumptive heiress of the Duke of York. and William of Orange,
the deadly enemy of France and the hereditary champion of the
Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of Ossory, son of Ormond, was
sent to assist the Dutch with some British troops, who, on the
most bloody day of the whole war, signally vindicated the
national reputation for stubborn courage. The Treasurer, on the
other hand, was induced not only to connive at some scandalous
pecuniary transactions which took place between his master and
the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and
ungraciously, an agent in those transactions.
Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings in
two opposite directions. The popular leaders were afraid of the
greatness of Lewis, who was not only making head against the
whole strength of the continental alliance, but was even gaining
ground. Yet they were afraid to entrust their own King with the
means of curbing France, lest those means should he used to
destroy the liberties of England. The conflict between these
apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate, made the
policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that of
the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the
King, pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed
to yield, and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw
that the recruiting had commenced, their dread of Lewis gave
place to a nearer dread. They began to fear that the new levies
might be employed on a service in which Charles took much more
interest than in the defence of Flanders. They therefore refused
supplies, and clamoured for disbanding as loudly as they had just
before clamoured for arming. Those historians who have severely
reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made
sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects
who have reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a
foreign and hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him
military resources is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give
him military resources may be only to arm him against the state.
In such circumstances vacillation cannot be considered as a proof
of dishonesty or even of weakness.
These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He
had long kept England passive by promising to support the throne
against the Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the
patriotic counsels of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the
closet, began to inflame the Parliament against the throne.
Between Lewis and the Country Party there was one thing, and one
only in common, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country
Party have been certain that their sovereign meant only to make
war on France, they would have been eager to support him. Could
Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to
make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no
attempt to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of
Charles were such that the French Government and the English
opposition, agreeing in nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his
protestations, and were equally desirous to keep him poor and
without an army. Communications were opened between Barillon, the
Ambassador of Lewis, and those English politicians who had always
professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the greatest dread and
dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of the Country
Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not
scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for
embarrassing his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of
Russell's offence. His principles and his fortune alike raised
him above all temptations of a sordid kind: but there is too much
reason to believe that some of his associates were less
scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the extreme
wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the
contrary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny
that they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince
pay them for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of
this degrading charge was one man who is popularly considered as
the personification of public spirit, and who, in spite of some
great moral and intellectual faults, has a just claim to be
called a hero, a philosopher, and a patriot. It is impossible to
see without pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of
France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in our time,
a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of
shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered
the virtue and the pride of Algernon Sydney.
The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she
occasionally took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the
continental war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated
by the treaty of Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672
had seemed to be on the verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable
and advantageous terms. This narrow escape was generally ascribed
to the ability and courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame was
great throughout Europe, and especially among the English, who
regarded him as one of their own princes, and rejoiced to see him
the husband of their future Queen. France retained many important
towns in the Low Countries and the great province of Franche
Comte. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy
of Spain.
A few months after the termination of hostilities on the
Continent came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a
crisis things had been tending during eighteen years. The whole
stock of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had
commenced his administration, had long been expended. To loyal
enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind
had now measured back again the space over which it had passed
between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the state in which it
had been when the Long Parliament met.
The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of
these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen
England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France,
victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the
terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her
resources had not diminished; and it might have been expected
that she would have been at least as highly considered in Europe
under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing
obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose
utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous
people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and
meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any German or Italian
principality which brought five thousand men into the field was a
more important member of the commonwealth of nations.
With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for
civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more
alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court
a deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of
Englishmen. It had even been whispered that this design was to be
carried into effect by the intervention of foreign arms. The
thought of Such intervention made the blood, even of the
Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always professed the
doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent were now heard to
mutter that there was one limitation to that doctrine. If a
foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would
not answer for their own patience.
But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so
great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman
Catholic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling
passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and
profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction. The
cruelties of Mary's reign, cruelties which even in the most
accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which
were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular
martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all
the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep
and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations,
prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those
classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the
throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons
for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy
trembled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys
and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was
still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to
hatred of Puritanism; but, during the eighteen years which had
elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had
abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. The stipulations
of the treaty of Dover were accurately known to very few; but
some hints had got abroad. The general impression was that a
great blow was about to be aimed at the Protestant religion. The
King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother
and heir presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic.
The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had
then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons,
taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman
Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was
reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that
a long succession of princes, hostile to the established faith,
might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently
been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics
from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had,
during many years, been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman
Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under such
circumstances it is not strange that the common
understanding with the court of Versailles.
Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics,
and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither
the sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue
any object with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded
to the importunity of the other; and their jarring inclinations
and mutual concessions gave to the whole administration a
strangely capricious character. Charles sometimes, from levity
and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which Lewis resented
as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather than
relinquish his great place, sometimes stooped to compliances
which caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to
consent to a marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and
presumptive heiress of the Duke of York. and William of Orange,
the deadly enemy of France and the hereditary champion of the
Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of Ossory, son of Ormond, was
sent to assist the Dutch with some British troops, who, on the
most bloody day of the whole war, signally vindicated the
national reputation for stubborn courage. The Treasurer, on the
other hand, was induced not only to connive at some scandalous
pecuniary transactions which took place between his master and
the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and
ungraciously, an agent in those transactions.
Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings in
two opposite directions. The popular leaders were afraid of the
greatness of Lewis, who was not only making head against the
whole strength of the continental alliance, but was even gaining
ground. Yet they were afraid to entrust their own King with the
means of curbing France, lest those means should he used to
destroy the liberties of England. The conflict between these
apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate, made the
policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that of
the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the
King, pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed
to yield, and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw
that the recruiting had commenced, their dread of Lewis gave
place to a nearer dread. They began to fear that the new levies
might be employed on a service in which Charles took much more
interest than in the defence of Flanders. They therefore refused
supplies, and clamoured for disbanding as loudly as they had just
before clamoured for arming. Those historians who have severely
reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made
sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects
who have reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a
foreign and hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him
military resources is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give
him military resources may be only to arm him against the state.
In such circumstances vacillation cannot be considered as a proof
of dishonesty or even of weakness.
These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He
had long kept England passive by promising to support the throne
against the Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the
patriotic counsels of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the
closet, began to inflame the Parliament against the throne.
Between Lewis and the Country Party there was one thing, and one
only in common, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country
Party have been certain that their sovereign meant only to make
war on France, they would have been eager to support him. Could
Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to
make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no
attempt to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of
Charles were such that the French Government and the English
opposition, agreeing in nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his
protestations, and were equally desirous to keep him poor and
without an army. Communications were opened between Barillon, the
Ambassador of Lewis, and those English politicians who had always
professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the greatest dread and
dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of the Country
Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not
scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for
embarrassing his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of
Russell's offence. His principles and his fortune alike raised
him above all temptations of a sordid kind: but there is too much
reason to believe that some of his associates were less
scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the extreme
wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the
contrary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny
that they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince
pay them for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of
this degrading charge was one man who is popularly considered as
the personification of public spirit, and who, in spite of some
great moral and intellectual faults, has a just claim to be
called a hero, a philosopher, and a patriot. It is impossible to
see without pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of
France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in our time,
a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of
shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered
the virtue and the pride of Algernon Sydney.
The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she
occasionally took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the
continental war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated
by the treaty of Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672
had seemed to be on the verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable
and advantageous terms. This narrow escape was generally ascribed
to the ability and courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame was
great throughout Europe, and especially among the English, who
regarded him as one of their own princes, and rejoiced to see him
the husband of their future Queen. France retained many important
towns in the Low Countries and the great province of Franche
Comte. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy
of Spain.
A few months after the termination of hostilities on the
Continent came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a
crisis things had been tending during eighteen years. The whole
stock of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had
commenced his administration, had long been expended. To loyal
enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind
had now measured back again the space over which it had passed
between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the state in which it
had been when the Long Parliament met.
The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of
these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen
England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France,
victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the
terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her
resources had not diminished; and it might have been expected
that she would have been at least as highly considered in Europe
under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing
obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose
utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous
people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and
meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any German or Italian
principality which brought five thousand men into the field was a
more important member of the commonwealth of nations.
With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for
civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more
alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court
a deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of
Englishmen. It had even been whispered that this design was to be
carried into effect by the intervention of foreign arms. The
thought of Such intervention made the blood, even of the
Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always professed the
doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent were now heard to
mutter that there was one limitation to that doctrine. If a
foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would
not answer for their own patience.
But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so
great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman
Catholic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling
passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and
profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction. The
cruelties of Mary's reign, cruelties which even in the most
accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which
were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular
martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all
the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep
and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations,
prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those
classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the
throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons
for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy
trembled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys
and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was
still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to
hatred of Puritanism; but, during the eighteen years which had
elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had
abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. The stipulations
of the treaty of Dover were accurately known to very few; but
some hints had got abroad. The general impression was that a
great blow was about to be aimed at the Protestant religion. The
King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother
and heir presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic.
The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had
then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons,
taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman
Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was
reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that
a long succession of princes, hostile to the established faith,
might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently
been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics
from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had,
during many years, been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman
Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under such
circumstances it is not strange that the common
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