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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my Lord." A judicious observer might easily
have predicted that the blood then shed would shortly have blood.
The King determined to try once more the experiment of a
dissolution. A new Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford, in
March, 1681. Since the days of the Plantagenets the Houses had
constantly sat at Westminster, except when the plague was raging
in the capital: but so extraordinary a conjuncture seemed to
require extraordinary precautions. If the Parliament were held in
its usual place of assembling, the House of Commons might declare
itself permanent, and might call for aid on the magistrates and
citizens of London. The trainbands might rise to defend
Shaftesbury as they had risen forty years before to defend Pym
and Hampden. The Guards might be overpowered, the palace forced,
the King a prisoner in the hands of his mutinous subjects. At
Oxford there was no such danger. The University was devoted to
the crown; and the gentry of the neighbourhood were generally
Tories. Here, therefore, the opposition had more reason than the
King to apprehend violence.
The elections were sharply contested. The Whigs still composed a
majority of the House of Commons: but it was plain that the Tory
spirit was fast rising throughout the country. It should seem
that the sagacious and versatile Shaftesbury ought to have
foreseen the coming change, and to have consented to the
compromise which the court offered: but he appears to have
forgotten his old tactics. Instead of making dispositions which,
in the worst event, would have secured his retreat, he took up a
position in which it was necessary that he should either conquer
or perish. Perhaps his head, strong as it was, had been turned by
popularity, by success, and by the excitement of conflict.
Perhaps he had spurred his party till he could no longer curb it,
and was really hurried on headlong by those whom he seemed to
guide.
The eventful day arrived. The meeting at Oxford resembled rather
that of a Polish Diet than that of an English Parliament. The
Whig members were escorted by great numbers of their armed and
mounted tenants and serving men, who exchanged looks of defiance
with the royal Guards. The slightest provocation might, under
such circumstances, have produced a civil war; but neither side
dared to strike the first blow. The King again offered to consent
to anything but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons were determined
to accept nothing but the Exclusion Bill. In a few days the
Parliament was again dissolved.
The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had begun some months
before the meeting of the House at Oxford, now went rapidly on.
The nation, indeed, was still hostile to Popery: but, when men
reviewed the whole history of the plot, they felt that their
Protestant zeal had hurried them into folly and crime, and could
scarcely believe that they had been induced by nursery tales to
clamour for the blood of fellow subjects and fellow Christians.
The most loyal, indeed, could not deny that the administration of
Charles had often been highly blamable. But men who had not the
full information which we possess touching his dealings with
France, and who were disgusted by the violence of the Whigs,
enumerated the large concessions which, during the last few years
he had made to his Parliaments, and the still larger concessions
which he had declared himself willing to make. He had consented
to the laws which excluded Roman Catholics from the House of
Lords, from the Privy Council, and from all civil and military
offices. He had passed the Habeas Corpus Act. If securities yet
stronger had not been provided against the dangers to which the
constitution and the Church might be exposed under a Roman
Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, not with Charles who had
invited the Parliament to propose such securities, but with those
Whigs who had refused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion
Bill. One thing only had the King denied to his people. He had
refused to take away his brother's birthright. And was there not
good reason to believe that this refusal was prompted by laudable
feelings? What selfish motive could faction itself impute to the
royal mind? The Exclusion Bill did not curtail the reigning
King's prerogatives, or diminish his income. Indeed, by passing
it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition to his own
revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him? Nay, if he
had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in
favour of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most
natural explanation of the King's conduct seemed to be that,
careless as was his temper and loose as were his morals, he had,
on this occasion, acted from a sense of duty and honour. And, if
so, would the nation compel him to do what he thought criminal
and disgraceful? To apply, even by strictly constitutional means,
a violent pressure to his conscience, seemed to zealous royalists
ungenerous and undutiful. But strictly constitutional means were
not the only means which the Whigs were disposed to employ. Signs
were already discernible which portended the approach of great
troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and of the
Commonwealth, had acquired an odious notoriety, had emerged from
the obscurity in which, after the Restoration, they had hidden
themselves from the general hatred. showed their confident and
busy faces everywhere, and appeared to anticipate a second reign
of the Saints. Another Naseby, another High Court of Justice,
another usurper on the throne, the Lords again ejected from their
hall by violence, the Universities again purged, the Church again
robbed and persecuted, the Puritans again dominant, to such
results did the desperate policy of the opposition seem to tend.
Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority of the upper
and middle classes hastened to rally round the throne. The
situation of the King bore, at this time, a great resemblance to
that in which his father stood just after the Remonstrance had
been voted. But the reaction of 1641 had not been suffered to run
its course. Charles the First, at the very moment when his
people, long estranged, were returning to him with hearts
disposed to reconciliation, had, by a perfidious violation of the
fundamental laws of the realm, forfeited their confidence for
ever. Had Charles the Second taken a similar course, had he
arrested the Whig leaders in an irregular manner, had he
impeached them of high treason before a tribunal which had no
legal jurisdiction over them, it is highly probable that they
would speedily have regained the ascendancy which they had lost.
Fortunately for himself, he was induced, at this crisis, to adopt
a policy singularly judicious. He determined to conform to the
law, but at the same time to make vigorous and unsparing use of
the law against his adversaries. He was not bound to convoke a
Parliament till three years should have elapsed. He was not much
distressed for money. The produce of the taxes which had been
settled on him for life exceeded the estimate. He was at peace
with all the world. He could retrench his expenses by giving up
the costly and useless settlement of Tangier; and he might hope
for pecuniary aid from France. He had, therefore, ample time and
means for a systematic attack on the opposition under the forms
of the constitution. The Judges were removable at his pleasure:
the juries were nominated by the Sheriffs; and, in almost all the
counties of England, the Sheriffs were nominated by himself.
Witnesses, of the same class with those who had recently sworn
away the lives of Papists, were ready to swear away the lives of
Whigs.
The first victim was College, a noisy and violent demagogue of
mean birth and education. He was by trade a joiner, and was
celebrated as the inventor of the Protestant flail.23 He had been
at Oxford when the Parliament sate there, and was accused of
having planned a rising and an attack on the King's guards.
Evidence was given against him by Dugdale and Turberville, the
same infamous men who had, a few months earlier, borne false
witness against Stafford. In the sight of a jury of country
squires no Exclusionist was likely to find favour. College was
convicted. The crowd which filled the court house of Oxford
received the verdict with a roar of exultation, as barbarous as
that which he and his friends had been in the habit of raising
when innocent Papists were doomed to the gallows. His execution
was the beginning of a new judicial massacre not less atrocious
than that in which he had himself borne a share.
The government, emboldened by this first victory, now aimed a
blow at an enemy of a very different class. It was resolved that
Shaftesbury should be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was
collected which, it was thought, would support a charge of
treason. But the facts which it was necessary to prove were
alleged to have been committed in London. The Sheriffs of London,
chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. They named a Whig
grand jury, which threw out the bill. This defeat, far from
discouraging those who advised the King, suggested to them a new
and daring scheme. Since the charter of the capital was in their
way, that charter must be annulled. It was pretended, therefore,
that the City had by some irregularities forfeited its municipal
privileges; and proceedings were instituted against the
corporation in the Court of King's Bench. At the same time those
laws which had, soon after the Restoration, been enacted against
Nonconformists, and which had remained dormant during the
ascendency of the Whigs, were enforced all over the kingdom with
extreme rigour.
Yet the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued. Though in evil
plight, they were still a numerous and powerful party; and. as
they mustered strong in the large towns, and especially in the
capital, they made a noise and a show more than proportioned to
their real force. Animated by the recollection of past triumphs,
and by the sense of present oppression, they overrated both their
strength and their wrongs. It was not in their power to make out
that clear and overwhelming case which can alone justify so
violent a remedy as resistance to an established government.
Whatever they might suspect, they could not prove that their
sovereign had entered into a treaty with France against the
religion and liberties of England. What was apparent was not
sufficient to warrant an appeal to the sword. If the Lords had
thrown out the Exclusion Bill, they had thrown it out in the
exercise of a right coeval with the constitution. If the King had
dissolved the Oxford Parliament, he had done so by virtue of
have predicted that the blood then shed would shortly have blood.
The King determined to try once more the experiment of a
dissolution. A new Parliament was summoned to meet at Oxford, in
March, 1681. Since the days of the Plantagenets the Houses had
constantly sat at Westminster, except when the plague was raging
in the capital: but so extraordinary a conjuncture seemed to
require extraordinary precautions. If the Parliament were held in
its usual place of assembling, the House of Commons might declare
itself permanent, and might call for aid on the magistrates and
citizens of London. The trainbands might rise to defend
Shaftesbury as they had risen forty years before to defend Pym
and Hampden. The Guards might be overpowered, the palace forced,
the King a prisoner in the hands of his mutinous subjects. At
Oxford there was no such danger. The University was devoted to
the crown; and the gentry of the neighbourhood were generally
Tories. Here, therefore, the opposition had more reason than the
King to apprehend violence.
The elections were sharply contested. The Whigs still composed a
majority of the House of Commons: but it was plain that the Tory
spirit was fast rising throughout the country. It should seem
that the sagacious and versatile Shaftesbury ought to have
foreseen the coming change, and to have consented to the
compromise which the court offered: but he appears to have
forgotten his old tactics. Instead of making dispositions which,
in the worst event, would have secured his retreat, he took up a
position in which it was necessary that he should either conquer
or perish. Perhaps his head, strong as it was, had been turned by
popularity, by success, and by the excitement of conflict.
Perhaps he had spurred his party till he could no longer curb it,
and was really hurried on headlong by those whom he seemed to
guide.
The eventful day arrived. The meeting at Oxford resembled rather
that of a Polish Diet than that of an English Parliament. The
Whig members were escorted by great numbers of their armed and
mounted tenants and serving men, who exchanged looks of defiance
with the royal Guards. The slightest provocation might, under
such circumstances, have produced a civil war; but neither side
dared to strike the first blow. The King again offered to consent
to anything but the Exclusion Bill. The Commons were determined
to accept nothing but the Exclusion Bill. In a few days the
Parliament was again dissolved.
The King had triumphed. The reaction, which had begun some months
before the meeting of the House at Oxford, now went rapidly on.
The nation, indeed, was still hostile to Popery: but, when men
reviewed the whole history of the plot, they felt that their
Protestant zeal had hurried them into folly and crime, and could
scarcely believe that they had been induced by nursery tales to
clamour for the blood of fellow subjects and fellow Christians.
The most loyal, indeed, could not deny that the administration of
Charles had often been highly blamable. But men who had not the
full information which we possess touching his dealings with
France, and who were disgusted by the violence of the Whigs,
enumerated the large concessions which, during the last few years
he had made to his Parliaments, and the still larger concessions
which he had declared himself willing to make. He had consented
to the laws which excluded Roman Catholics from the House of
Lords, from the Privy Council, and from all civil and military
offices. He had passed the Habeas Corpus Act. If securities yet
stronger had not been provided against the dangers to which the
constitution and the Church might be exposed under a Roman
Catholic sovereign, the fault lay, not with Charles who had
invited the Parliament to propose such securities, but with those
Whigs who had refused to hear of any substitute for the Exclusion
Bill. One thing only had the King denied to his people. He had
refused to take away his brother's birthright. And was there not
good reason to believe that this refusal was prompted by laudable
feelings? What selfish motive could faction itself impute to the
royal mind? The Exclusion Bill did not curtail the reigning
King's prerogatives, or diminish his income. Indeed, by passing
it, he might easily have obtained an ample addition to his own
revenue. And what was it to him who ruled after him? Nay, if he
had personal predilections, they were known to be rather in
favour of the Duke of Monmouth than of the Duke of York. The most
natural explanation of the King's conduct seemed to be that,
careless as was his temper and loose as were his morals, he had,
on this occasion, acted from a sense of duty and honour. And, if
so, would the nation compel him to do what he thought criminal
and disgraceful? To apply, even by strictly constitutional means,
a violent pressure to his conscience, seemed to zealous royalists
ungenerous and undutiful. But strictly constitutional means were
not the only means which the Whigs were disposed to employ. Signs
were already discernible which portended the approach of great
troubles. Men, who, in the time of the civil war and of the
Commonwealth, had acquired an odious notoriety, had emerged from
the obscurity in which, after the Restoration, they had hidden
themselves from the general hatred. showed their confident and
busy faces everywhere, and appeared to anticipate a second reign
of the Saints. Another Naseby, another High Court of Justice,
another usurper on the throne, the Lords again ejected from their
hall by violence, the Universities again purged, the Church again
robbed and persecuted, the Puritans again dominant, to such
results did the desperate policy of the opposition seem to tend.
Strongly moved by these apprehensions, the majority of the upper
and middle classes hastened to rally round the throne. The
situation of the King bore, at this time, a great resemblance to
that in which his father stood just after the Remonstrance had
been voted. But the reaction of 1641 had not been suffered to run
its course. Charles the First, at the very moment when his
people, long estranged, were returning to him with hearts
disposed to reconciliation, had, by a perfidious violation of the
fundamental laws of the realm, forfeited their confidence for
ever. Had Charles the Second taken a similar course, had he
arrested the Whig leaders in an irregular manner, had he
impeached them of high treason before a tribunal which had no
legal jurisdiction over them, it is highly probable that they
would speedily have regained the ascendancy which they had lost.
Fortunately for himself, he was induced, at this crisis, to adopt
a policy singularly judicious. He determined to conform to the
law, but at the same time to make vigorous and unsparing use of
the law against his adversaries. He was not bound to convoke a
Parliament till three years should have elapsed. He was not much
distressed for money. The produce of the taxes which had been
settled on him for life exceeded the estimate. He was at peace
with all the world. He could retrench his expenses by giving up
the costly and useless settlement of Tangier; and he might hope
for pecuniary aid from France. He had, therefore, ample time and
means for a systematic attack on the opposition under the forms
of the constitution. The Judges were removable at his pleasure:
the juries were nominated by the Sheriffs; and, in almost all the
counties of England, the Sheriffs were nominated by himself.
Witnesses, of the same class with those who had recently sworn
away the lives of Papists, were ready to swear away the lives of
Whigs.
The first victim was College, a noisy and violent demagogue of
mean birth and education. He was by trade a joiner, and was
celebrated as the inventor of the Protestant flail.23 He had been
at Oxford when the Parliament sate there, and was accused of
having planned a rising and an attack on the King's guards.
Evidence was given against him by Dugdale and Turberville, the
same infamous men who had, a few months earlier, borne false
witness against Stafford. In the sight of a jury of country
squires no Exclusionist was likely to find favour. College was
convicted. The crowd which filled the court house of Oxford
received the verdict with a roar of exultation, as barbarous as
that which he and his friends had been in the habit of raising
when innocent Papists were doomed to the gallows. His execution
was the beginning of a new judicial massacre not less atrocious
than that in which he had himself borne a share.
The government, emboldened by this first victory, now aimed a
blow at an enemy of a very different class. It was resolved that
Shaftesbury should be brought to trial for his life. Evidence was
collected which, it was thought, would support a charge of
treason. But the facts which it was necessary to prove were
alleged to have been committed in London. The Sheriffs of London,
chosen by the citizens, were zealous Whigs. They named a Whig
grand jury, which threw out the bill. This defeat, far from
discouraging those who advised the King, suggested to them a new
and daring scheme. Since the charter of the capital was in their
way, that charter must be annulled. It was pretended, therefore,
that the City had by some irregularities forfeited its municipal
privileges; and proceedings were instituted against the
corporation in the Court of King's Bench. At the same time those
laws which had, soon after the Restoration, been enacted against
Nonconformists, and which had remained dormant during the
ascendency of the Whigs, were enforced all over the kingdom with
extreme rigour.
Yet the spirit of the Whigs was not subdued. Though in evil
plight, they were still a numerous and powerful party; and. as
they mustered strong in the large towns, and especially in the
capital, they made a noise and a show more than proportioned to
their real force. Animated by the recollection of past triumphs,
and by the sense of present oppression, they overrated both their
strength and their wrongs. It was not in their power to make out
that clear and overwhelming case which can alone justify so
violent a remedy as resistance to an established government.
Whatever they might suspect, they could not prove that their
sovereign had entered into a treaty with France against the
religion and liberties of England. What was apparent was not
sufficient to warrant an appeal to the sword. If the Lords had
thrown out the Exclusion Bill, they had thrown it out in the
exercise of a right coeval with the constitution. If the King had
dissolved the Oxford Parliament, he had done so by virtue of
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