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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mortification doubled the
triumph of his enemies: very slight provocations sufficed to
kindle his anger; and when he was angry he said bitter things
which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which others
remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have
made him a consummate man of business but for his selfsufficiency
and impatience. His writings proved that he had many of the
qualities of an orator: but his irritability prevented him from
doing himself justice in debate; for nothing was easier than to
goad him into a passion; and, from the moment when he went into a
passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far inferior to him in
capacity.
Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation he was
a consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the
old school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church,
and a hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had
consequently a great body of personal adherents. The clergy
especially looked on him as their own man, and extended to his
foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in
some need: for he drank deep; and when he was in a rage,-and he
very often was in a rage,-he swore like a porter.
He now succeeded Essex at the treasury. It is to be observed that
the place of First Lord of the Treasury had not then the
importance and dignity which now belong to it. When there was a
Lord Treasurer, that great officer was generally prime minister:
but, when the white staff was in commission, the chief
commissioner hardly ranked so high as a Secretary of State. It
was not till the time of Walpole that the First Lord of the
Treasury became, under a humbler name, all that the Lord High
Treasurer had been.
Godolphin had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early
acquired all the flexibility and the selfpossession of a veteran
courtier. He was laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in
the details of finance. Every government, therefore, found him an
useful servant; and there was nothing in his opinions or in his
character which could prevent him from serving any government.
"Sidney Godolphin," said Charles, "is never in the way, and never
out of the way." This pointed remark goes far to explain
Godolphin's extraordinary success in life.
He acted at different times with both the great political
parties: but he never shared in the passions of either. Like most
men of cautious tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong
disposition to support whatever existed. He disliked revolutions;
and, for the same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he
disliked counter-revolutions. His deportment was remarkably grave
and reserved: but his personal tastes were low and frivolous; and
most of the time which he could save from public business was
spent in racing, cardplaying, and cockfighting. He now sate below
Rochester at the Board of Treasury, and distinguished himself
there by assiduity and intelligence.
Before the new Parliament was suffered to meet for the despatch
of business a whole year elapsed, an eventful year, which has
left lasting traces in our manners and language. Never before had
political controversy been carried on with so much freedom. Never
before had political clubs existed with so elaborate an
organisation or so formidable an influence. The one question of
the Exclusion occupied the public mind. All the presses and
pulpits of the realm took part in the conflict. On one side it
was maintained that the constitution and religion of the state
could never be secure under a Popish King; on the other, that the
right of James to wear the crown in his turn was derived from
God, and could not be annulled, even by the consent of all the
branches of the legislature. Every county, every town, every
family, was in agitation. The civilities and hospitalities of
neighbourhood were interrupted. The dearest ties of friendship
and of blood were sundered. Even schoolboys were divided into
angry parties; and the Duke of York and the Earl of Shaftesbury
had zealous adherents on all the forms of Westminster and Eton.
The theatres shook with the roar of the contending factions. Pope
Joan was brought on the stage by the zealous Protestants.
Pensioned poets filled their prologues and epilogues with
eulogies on the King and the Duke. The malecontents besieged the
throne with petitions, demanding that Parliament might be
forthwith convened. The royalists sent up addresses, expressing
the utmost abhorrence of all who presumed to dictate to the
sovereign. The citizens of London assembled by tens of thousands
to burn the Pope in effigy. The government posted cavalry at
Temple Bar, and placed ordnance round Whitehall. In that year our
tongue was enriched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable
memorials of a season of tumult and imposture.21 Opponents of the
court were called Birminghams, Petitioners, and Exclusionists.
Those who took the King's side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers,
and Tantivies. These appellations soon become obsolete: but at
this time were first heard two nicknames which, though originally
given in insult, were soon assumed with pride, which are still in
daily use, which have spread as widely as the English race, and
which will last as long as the English literature. It is a
curious circumstance that one of these nicknames was of Scotch,
and the other of Irish, origin. Both in Scotland and in Ireland,
misgovernment had called into existence bands of desperate men
whose ferocity was heightened by religions enthusiasm. In
Scotland some of the persecuted Covenanters, driven mad by
oppression, had lately murdered the Primate, had taken arms
against the government, had obtained some advantages against the
King's forces, and had not been put down till Monmouth, at the
head of some troops from England, had routed them at Bothwell
Bridge. These zealots were most numerous among the rustics of the
western lowlands, who were vulgarly called Whigs. Thus the
appellation of Whig was fastened on the Presbyterian zealots of
Scotland, and was transferred to those English politicians who
showed a disposition to oppose the court, and to treat Protestant
Nonconformists with indulgence. The bogs of Ireland, at the same
time, afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, much resembling those
who were afterwards known as Whiteboys. These men were then
called Tories. The name of Tory was therefore given to Englishmen
who refused to concur in excluding a Roman Catholic prince from
the throne.
The rage of the hostile factions would have been sufficiently
violent, if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously
exasperated by the common enemy of both. Lewis still continued to
bribe and flatter both the court and the opposition. He exhorted
Charles to be firm: he exhorted James to raise a civil war in
Scotland: he exhorted the Whigs not to flinch, and to rely with
confidence on the protection of France.
Through all this agitation a discerning eye might have perceived
that the public opinion was gradually changing. The persecution
of the Roman Catholics went on; but convictions were no longer
matters of course. A new brood of false witnesses, among whom a
villain named Dangerfield was the most conspicuous, infested the
courts: but the stories of these men, though better constructed
than that of Oates, found less credit. Juries were no longer so
easy of belief as during the panic which had followed the murder
of Godfrey; and Judges, who, while the popular frenzy was at the
height, had been its most obsequious instruments, now ventured to
express some part of what they had from the first thought.
At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had so
great a majority in the Commons that the Exclusion Bill went
through all its stages there without difficulty. The King
scarcely knew on what members of his own cabinet he could reckon.
Hyde had been true to his Tory opinions, and had steadily
supported the cause of hereditary monarchy. But Godolphin,
anxious for quiet, and believing that quiet could be restored
only by concession, wished the bill to pass. Sunderland, ever
false, and ever shortsighted, unable to discern the signs of
approaching reaction, and anxious to conciliate the party which
he believed to be irresistible, determined to vote against the
court. The Duchess of Portsmouth implored her royal lover not to
rush headlong to destruction. If there were any point on which he
had a scruple of conscience or of honour, it was the question of
the succession; but during some days it seemed that he would
submit. He wavered, asked what sum the Commons would give him if
he yielded, and suffered a negotiation to be opened with the
leading Whigs. But a deep mutual distrust which had been many
years growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of
France, made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place
confidence in the other. The whole nation now looked with
breathless anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of peers
was large. The King himself was present. The debate was long,
earnest, and occasionally furious. Some hands were laid on the
pommels of swords in a manner which revived the recollection of
the stormy Parliaments of Edward the Third and Richard the
Second. Shaftesbury and Essex were joined by the treacherous
Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax bore down all opposition.
Deserted by his most important colleagues, and opposed to a crowd
of able antagonists, he defended the cause of the Duke of York,
in a succession of speeches which, many years later, were
remembered as masterpieces of reasoning, of wit, and of
eloquence. It is seldom that oratory changes votes. Yet the
attestation of contemporaries leaves no doubt that, on this
occasion, votes were changed by the oratory of Halifax. The
Bishops, true to their doctrines, supported the principle of
hereditary right, and the bill was rejected by a great
majority.22
The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly
mortified by this defeat, found some consolation in shedding the
blood of Roman Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, one
of the unhappy men who had been accused of a share in the plot,
was impeached; and on the testimony of Oates and of two other
false witnesses, Dugdale and Turberville, was found guilty of
high treason, and suffered death. But the circumstances of his
trial and execution ought to have given an useful warning to the
Whig leaders. A large and respectable minority of the House of
Lords pronounced the prisoner not guilty. The multitude, which a
few months before had received the dying declarations of Oates's
victims with mockery and execrations, now loudly expressed a
belief that Stafford was a murdered man. When he with his last
breath protested his innocence, the cry was, "God bless you, my
Lord! We believe you,
triumph of his enemies: very slight provocations sufficed to
kindle his anger; and when he was angry he said bitter things
which he forgot as soon as he was pacified, but which others
remembered many years. His quickness and penetration would have
made him a consummate man of business but for his selfsufficiency
and impatience. His writings proved that he had many of the
qualities of an orator: but his irritability prevented him from
doing himself justice in debate; for nothing was easier than to
goad him into a passion; and, from the moment when he went into a
passion, he was at the mercy of opponents far inferior to him in
capacity.
Unlike most of the leading politicians of that generation he was
a consistent, dogged, and rancorous party man, a Cavalier of the
old school, a zealous champion of the Crown and of the Church,
and a hater of Republicans and Nonconformists. He had
consequently a great body of personal adherents. The clergy
especially looked on him as their own man, and extended to his
foibles an indulgence of which, to say the truth, he stood in
some need: for he drank deep; and when he was in a rage,-and he
very often was in a rage,-he swore like a porter.
He now succeeded Essex at the treasury. It is to be observed that
the place of First Lord of the Treasury had not then the
importance and dignity which now belong to it. When there was a
Lord Treasurer, that great officer was generally prime minister:
but, when the white staff was in commission, the chief
commissioner hardly ranked so high as a Secretary of State. It
was not till the time of Walpole that the First Lord of the
Treasury became, under a humbler name, all that the Lord High
Treasurer had been.
Godolphin had been bred a page at Whitehall, and had early
acquired all the flexibility and the selfpossession of a veteran
courtier. He was laborious, clearheaded, and profoundly versed in
the details of finance. Every government, therefore, found him an
useful servant; and there was nothing in his opinions or in his
character which could prevent him from serving any government.
"Sidney Godolphin," said Charles, "is never in the way, and never
out of the way." This pointed remark goes far to explain
Godolphin's extraordinary success in life.
He acted at different times with both the great political
parties: but he never shared in the passions of either. Like most
men of cautious tempers and prosperous fortunes, he had a strong
disposition to support whatever existed. He disliked revolutions;
and, for the same reason for which he disliked revolutions, he
disliked counter-revolutions. His deportment was remarkably grave
and reserved: but his personal tastes were low and frivolous; and
most of the time which he could save from public business was
spent in racing, cardplaying, and cockfighting. He now sate below
Rochester at the Board of Treasury, and distinguished himself
there by assiduity and intelligence.
Before the new Parliament was suffered to meet for the despatch
of business a whole year elapsed, an eventful year, which has
left lasting traces in our manners and language. Never before had
political controversy been carried on with so much freedom. Never
before had political clubs existed with so elaborate an
organisation or so formidable an influence. The one question of
the Exclusion occupied the public mind. All the presses and
pulpits of the realm took part in the conflict. On one side it
was maintained that the constitution and religion of the state
could never be secure under a Popish King; on the other, that the
right of James to wear the crown in his turn was derived from
God, and could not be annulled, even by the consent of all the
branches of the legislature. Every county, every town, every
family, was in agitation. The civilities and hospitalities of
neighbourhood were interrupted. The dearest ties of friendship
and of blood were sundered. Even schoolboys were divided into
angry parties; and the Duke of York and the Earl of Shaftesbury
had zealous adherents on all the forms of Westminster and Eton.
The theatres shook with the roar of the contending factions. Pope
Joan was brought on the stage by the zealous Protestants.
Pensioned poets filled their prologues and epilogues with
eulogies on the King and the Duke. The malecontents besieged the
throne with petitions, demanding that Parliament might be
forthwith convened. The royalists sent up addresses, expressing
the utmost abhorrence of all who presumed to dictate to the
sovereign. The citizens of London assembled by tens of thousands
to burn the Pope in effigy. The government posted cavalry at
Temple Bar, and placed ordnance round Whitehall. In that year our
tongue was enriched with two words, Mob and Sham, remarkable
memorials of a season of tumult and imposture.21 Opponents of the
court were called Birminghams, Petitioners, and Exclusionists.
Those who took the King's side were Antibirminghams, Abhorrers,
and Tantivies. These appellations soon become obsolete: but at
this time were first heard two nicknames which, though originally
given in insult, were soon assumed with pride, which are still in
daily use, which have spread as widely as the English race, and
which will last as long as the English literature. It is a
curious circumstance that one of these nicknames was of Scotch,
and the other of Irish, origin. Both in Scotland and in Ireland,
misgovernment had called into existence bands of desperate men
whose ferocity was heightened by religions enthusiasm. In
Scotland some of the persecuted Covenanters, driven mad by
oppression, had lately murdered the Primate, had taken arms
against the government, had obtained some advantages against the
King's forces, and had not been put down till Monmouth, at the
head of some troops from England, had routed them at Bothwell
Bridge. These zealots were most numerous among the rustics of the
western lowlands, who were vulgarly called Whigs. Thus the
appellation of Whig was fastened on the Presbyterian zealots of
Scotland, and was transferred to those English politicians who
showed a disposition to oppose the court, and to treat Protestant
Nonconformists with indulgence. The bogs of Ireland, at the same
time, afforded a refuge to Popish outlaws, much resembling those
who were afterwards known as Whiteboys. These men were then
called Tories. The name of Tory was therefore given to Englishmen
who refused to concur in excluding a Roman Catholic prince from
the throne.
The rage of the hostile factions would have been sufficiently
violent, if it had been left to itself. But it was studiously
exasperated by the common enemy of both. Lewis still continued to
bribe and flatter both the court and the opposition. He exhorted
Charles to be firm: he exhorted James to raise a civil war in
Scotland: he exhorted the Whigs not to flinch, and to rely with
confidence on the protection of France.
Through all this agitation a discerning eye might have perceived
that the public opinion was gradually changing. The persecution
of the Roman Catholics went on; but convictions were no longer
matters of course. A new brood of false witnesses, among whom a
villain named Dangerfield was the most conspicuous, infested the
courts: but the stories of these men, though better constructed
than that of Oates, found less credit. Juries were no longer so
easy of belief as during the panic which had followed the murder
of Godfrey; and Judges, who, while the popular frenzy was at the
height, had been its most obsequious instruments, now ventured to
express some part of what they had from the first thought.
At length, in October 1680, the Parliament met. The Whigs had so
great a majority in the Commons that the Exclusion Bill went
through all its stages there without difficulty. The King
scarcely knew on what members of his own cabinet he could reckon.
Hyde had been true to his Tory opinions, and had steadily
supported the cause of hereditary monarchy. But Godolphin,
anxious for quiet, and believing that quiet could be restored
only by concession, wished the bill to pass. Sunderland, ever
false, and ever shortsighted, unable to discern the signs of
approaching reaction, and anxious to conciliate the party which
he believed to be irresistible, determined to vote against the
court. The Duchess of Portsmouth implored her royal lover not to
rush headlong to destruction. If there were any point on which he
had a scruple of conscience or of honour, it was the question of
the succession; but during some days it seemed that he would
submit. He wavered, asked what sum the Commons would give him if
he yielded, and suffered a negotiation to be opened with the
leading Whigs. But a deep mutual distrust which had been many
years growing, and which had been carefully nursed by the arts of
France, made a treaty impossible. Neither side would place
confidence in the other. The whole nation now looked with
breathless anxiety to the House of Lords. The assemblage of peers
was large. The King himself was present. The debate was long,
earnest, and occasionally furious. Some hands were laid on the
pommels of swords in a manner which revived the recollection of
the stormy Parliaments of Edward the Third and Richard the
Second. Shaftesbury and Essex were joined by the treacherous
Sunderland. But the genius of Halifax bore down all opposition.
Deserted by his most important colleagues, and opposed to a crowd
of able antagonists, he defended the cause of the Duke of York,
in a succession of speeches which, many years later, were
remembered as masterpieces of reasoning, of wit, and of
eloquence. It is seldom that oratory changes votes. Yet the
attestation of contemporaries leaves no doubt that, on this
occasion, votes were changed by the oratory of Halifax. The
Bishops, true to their doctrines, supported the principle of
hereditary right, and the bill was rejected by a great
majority.22
The party which preponderated in the House of Commons, bitterly
mortified by this defeat, found some consolation in shedding the
blood of Roman Catholics. William Howard, Viscount Stafford, one
of the unhappy men who had been accused of a share in the plot,
was impeached; and on the testimony of Oates and of two other
false witnesses, Dugdale and Turberville, was found guilty of
high treason, and suffered death. But the circumstances of his
trial and execution ought to have given an useful warning to the
Whig leaders. A large and respectable minority of the House of
Lords pronounced the prisoner not guilty. The multitude, which a
few months before had received the dying declarations of Oates's
victims with mockery and execrations, now loudly expressed a
belief that Stafford was a murdered man. When he with his last
breath protested his innocence, the cry was, "God bless you, my
Lord! We believe you,
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