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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/> public sympathy. Even Lutherans and Calvinists, who had always
detested the Pope, could not refrain from wishing him success
against a tyrant who aimed at universal monarchy. It was thus
that, in the present century, many who regarded Pius the Seventh
as Antichrist were well pleased to see Antichrist confront the
gigantic power of Napoleon.
The resentment which Innocent felt towards France disposed him to
take a mild and liberal view of the affairs of England. The
return of the English people to the fold of which he was the
shepherd would undoubtedly have rejoiced his soul. But he was too
wise a man to believe that a nation so bold and stubborn, could
be brought back to the Church of Rome by the violent and
unconstitutional exercise of royal authority. It was not
difficult to foresee that, if James attempted to promote the
interests of his religion by illegal and unpopular means, the
attempt would fail; the hatred with which the heretical islanders
regarded the true faith would become fiercer and stronger than
ever; and an indissoluble association would be created in their
minds between Protestantism and civil freedom, between Popery and
arbitrary power. In the meantime the King would be an object of
aversion and suspicion to his people. England would still be, as
she had been under James the First, under Charles the First, and
under Charles the Second, a power of the third rank; and France
would domineer unchecked beyond the Alps and the Rhine. On the
other hand, it was probable that James, by acting with prudence
and moderation, by strictly observing the laws and by exerting
himself to win the confidence of his Parliament, might be able to
obtain, for the professors of his religion, a large measure of
relief. Penal statutes would go first. Statutes imposing civil
incapacities would soon follow. In the meantime, the English King
and the English nation united might head the European coalition,
and might oppose an insuperable barrier to the cupidity of Lewis.
Innocent was confirmed in his judgment by the principal
Englishmen who resided at his court. Of these the most
illustrious was Philip Howard, sprung from the noblest houses of
Britain, grandson, on one side, of an Earl of Arundel, on the
other, of a Duke of Lennox. Philip had long been a member of the
sacred college: he was commonly designated as the Cardinal of
England; and he was the chief counsellor of the Holy See in
matters relating to his country. He had been driven into exile by
the outcry of Protestant bigots; and a member of his family, the
unfortunate Stafford, had fallen a victim to their rage. But
neither the Cardinal's own wrongs, nor those of his house, had so
heated his mind as to make him a rash adviser. Every letter,
therefore, which went from the Vatican to Whitehall, recommended
patience, moderation, and respect for the prejudices of the
English people.248
In the mind of James there was a great conflict. We should do him
injustice if we supposed that a state of vassalage was agreeable
to his temper. He loved authority and business. He had a high
sense of his own personal dignity. Nay, he was not altogether
destitute of a sentiment which bore some affinity to patriotism.
It galled his soul to think that the kingdom which he ruled was
of far less account in the world than many states which possessed
smaller natural advantages; and he listened eagerly to foreign
ministers when they urged him to assert the dignity of his rank,
to place himself at the head of a great confederacy, to become
the protector of injured nations, and to tame the pride of that
power which held the Continent in awe. Such exhortations made his
heart swell with emotions unknown to his careless and effeminate
brother. But those emotions were soon subdued by a stronger
feeling. A vigorous foreign policy necessarily implied a
conciliatory domestic policy. It was impossible at once to
confront the might of France and to trample on the liberties of
England. The executive government could undertake nothing great
without the support of the Commons, and could obtain their
support only by acting in conformity with their opinion. Thus
James found that the two things which he most desired could not
be enjoyed together. His second wish was to be feared and
respected abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at
home. Between the incompatible objects on which his heart was set
he, for a time, went irresolutely to and fro. The conflict in his
own breast gave to his public acts a strange appearance of
indecision and insincerity. Those who, without the clue,
attempted to explore the maze of his politics were unable to
understand how the same man could be, in the same week, so
haughty and so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the vagaries of
an ally who passed, in a few hours, from homage to defiance, and
from defiance to homage. Yet, now that the whole conduct of James
is before us, this inconsistency seems to admit of a simple
explanation.
At the moment of his accession he was in doubt whether the
kingdom would peaceably submit to his authority. The
Exclusionists, lately so powerful, might rise in arms against
him. He might be in great need of French money and French troops.
He was therefore, during some days, content to be a sycophant and
a mendicant. He humbly apologised for daring to call his
Parliament together without the consent of the French government.
He begged hard for a French subsidy. He wept with joy over the
French bills of exchange. He sent to Versailles a special embassy
charged with assurances of his gratitude, attachment, and
submission. But scarcely had the embassy departed when his
feelings underwent a change. He had been everywhere proclaimed
without one riot, without one seditions outcry. From all corners
of the island he received intelligence that his subjects were
tranquil and obedient. His spirit rose. The degrading relation in
which he stood to a foreign power seemed intolerable. He became
proud, punctilious, boastful, quarrelsome. He held such high
language about the dignity of his crown and the balance of power
that his whole court fully expected a complete revolution in the
foreign politics of the realm. He commanded Churchill to send
home a minute report of the ceremonial of Versailles, in order
that the honours with which the English embassy was received
there might be repaid, and not more than repaid, to the
representative of France at Whitehall. The news of this change
was received with delight at Madrid, Vienna, and the Hague.249
Lewis was at first merely diverted. "My good ally talks big," he
said; "but he is as fond of my pistoles as ever his brother was."
Soon, however, the altered demeanour of James, and the hopes with
which that demeanour inspired both the branches of the House of
Austria, began to call for more serious notice. A remarkable
letter is still extant, in which the French King intimated a
strong suspicion that he had been duped, and that the very money
which he had sent to Westminster would be employed against
him.250
By this time England had recovered from the sadness and anxiety
caused by the death of the goodnatured Charles. The Tories were
loud in professions of attachment to their new master. The hatred
of the Whigs was kept down by fear. That great mass which is not
steadily Whig or Tory, but which inclines alternately to Whiggism
and to Toryism, was still on the Tory side. The reaction which
had followed the dissolution of the 0xford parliament had not yet
spent its force.
The King early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the
proof. While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of
hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been
fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown
open, in order that all who came to pay their duty to him might
see the ceremony. When the host was elevated there was a strange
confusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell on their
knees: the Protestants hurried out of the room. Soon a new pulpit
was erected in the palace; and, during Lent, a series of sermons
was preached there by Popish divines, to the great discomposure
of zealous churchmen.251
A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came; and the
King determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his
predecessors had been surrounded when they repaired to the
temples of the established religion. He announced his intention
to the three members of the interior cabinet, and requested them
to attend him. Sunderland, to whom all religions were the same,
readily consented. Godolphin, as Chamberlain of the Queen, had
already been in the habit of giving her his hand when she
repaired to her oratory, and felt no scruple about bowing himself
officially in the house of Rimmon. But Rochester was greatly
disturbed. His influence in the country arose chiefly from the
opinion entertained by the clergy and by the Tory gentry, that he
was a zealous and uncompromising friend of the Church. His
orthodoxy had been considered as fully atoning for faults which
would otherwise have made him the most unpopular man in the
kingdom, for boundless arrogance, for extreme violence of temper,
and for manners almost brutal.252 He feared that, by complying
with the royal wishes, he should greatly lower himself in the
estimation of his party. After some altercation he obtained
permission to pass the holidays out of town. All the other great
civil dignitaries were ordered to be at their posts on Easter
Sunday. The rites of the Church of Rome were once more, after an
interval of a hundred and twenty-seven years, performed at
Westminster with regal splendour. The Guards were drawn out. The
Knights of the Garter wore their collars. The Duke of Somerset,
second in rank among the temporal nobles of the realm, carried
the sword of state. A long train of great lords accompanied the
King to his seat. But it was remarked that Ormond and Halifax
remained in the antechamber. A few years before they had
gallantly defended the cause of James against some of those who
now pressed past them. Ormond had borne no share in the slaughter
of Roman Catholics. Halifax had courageously pronounced Stafford
not guilty. As the timeservers who had pretended to shudder at
the thought of a Popish king, and who had shed without pity the
innocent blood of a Popish peer, now elbowed each other to get
near a Popish altar, the accomplished Trimmer might, with some
justice, indulge his solitary pride in that unpopular
nickname.253
Within a week after this ceremony James made a far greater
sacrifice of his own
detested the Pope, could not refrain from wishing him success
against a tyrant who aimed at universal monarchy. It was thus
that, in the present century, many who regarded Pius the Seventh
as Antichrist were well pleased to see Antichrist confront the
gigantic power of Napoleon.
The resentment which Innocent felt towards France disposed him to
take a mild and liberal view of the affairs of England. The
return of the English people to the fold of which he was the
shepherd would undoubtedly have rejoiced his soul. But he was too
wise a man to believe that a nation so bold and stubborn, could
be brought back to the Church of Rome by the violent and
unconstitutional exercise of royal authority. It was not
difficult to foresee that, if James attempted to promote the
interests of his religion by illegal and unpopular means, the
attempt would fail; the hatred with which the heretical islanders
regarded the true faith would become fiercer and stronger than
ever; and an indissoluble association would be created in their
minds between Protestantism and civil freedom, between Popery and
arbitrary power. In the meantime the King would be an object of
aversion and suspicion to his people. England would still be, as
she had been under James the First, under Charles the First, and
under Charles the Second, a power of the third rank; and France
would domineer unchecked beyond the Alps and the Rhine. On the
other hand, it was probable that James, by acting with prudence
and moderation, by strictly observing the laws and by exerting
himself to win the confidence of his Parliament, might be able to
obtain, for the professors of his religion, a large measure of
relief. Penal statutes would go first. Statutes imposing civil
incapacities would soon follow. In the meantime, the English King
and the English nation united might head the European coalition,
and might oppose an insuperable barrier to the cupidity of Lewis.
Innocent was confirmed in his judgment by the principal
Englishmen who resided at his court. Of these the most
illustrious was Philip Howard, sprung from the noblest houses of
Britain, grandson, on one side, of an Earl of Arundel, on the
other, of a Duke of Lennox. Philip had long been a member of the
sacred college: he was commonly designated as the Cardinal of
England; and he was the chief counsellor of the Holy See in
matters relating to his country. He had been driven into exile by
the outcry of Protestant bigots; and a member of his family, the
unfortunate Stafford, had fallen a victim to their rage. But
neither the Cardinal's own wrongs, nor those of his house, had so
heated his mind as to make him a rash adviser. Every letter,
therefore, which went from the Vatican to Whitehall, recommended
patience, moderation, and respect for the prejudices of the
English people.248
In the mind of James there was a great conflict. We should do him
injustice if we supposed that a state of vassalage was agreeable
to his temper. He loved authority and business. He had a high
sense of his own personal dignity. Nay, he was not altogether
destitute of a sentiment which bore some affinity to patriotism.
It galled his soul to think that the kingdom which he ruled was
of far less account in the world than many states which possessed
smaller natural advantages; and he listened eagerly to foreign
ministers when they urged him to assert the dignity of his rank,
to place himself at the head of a great confederacy, to become
the protector of injured nations, and to tame the pride of that
power which held the Continent in awe. Such exhortations made his
heart swell with emotions unknown to his careless and effeminate
brother. But those emotions were soon subdued by a stronger
feeling. A vigorous foreign policy necessarily implied a
conciliatory domestic policy. It was impossible at once to
confront the might of France and to trample on the liberties of
England. The executive government could undertake nothing great
without the support of the Commons, and could obtain their
support only by acting in conformity with their opinion. Thus
James found that the two things which he most desired could not
be enjoyed together. His second wish was to be feared and
respected abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at
home. Between the incompatible objects on which his heart was set
he, for a time, went irresolutely to and fro. The conflict in his
own breast gave to his public acts a strange appearance of
indecision and insincerity. Those who, without the clue,
attempted to explore the maze of his politics were unable to
understand how the same man could be, in the same week, so
haughty and so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the vagaries of
an ally who passed, in a few hours, from homage to defiance, and
from defiance to homage. Yet, now that the whole conduct of James
is before us, this inconsistency seems to admit of a simple
explanation.
At the moment of his accession he was in doubt whether the
kingdom would peaceably submit to his authority. The
Exclusionists, lately so powerful, might rise in arms against
him. He might be in great need of French money and French troops.
He was therefore, during some days, content to be a sycophant and
a mendicant. He humbly apologised for daring to call his
Parliament together without the consent of the French government.
He begged hard for a French subsidy. He wept with joy over the
French bills of exchange. He sent to Versailles a special embassy
charged with assurances of his gratitude, attachment, and
submission. But scarcely had the embassy departed when his
feelings underwent a change. He had been everywhere proclaimed
without one riot, without one seditions outcry. From all corners
of the island he received intelligence that his subjects were
tranquil and obedient. His spirit rose. The degrading relation in
which he stood to a foreign power seemed intolerable. He became
proud, punctilious, boastful, quarrelsome. He held such high
language about the dignity of his crown and the balance of power
that his whole court fully expected a complete revolution in the
foreign politics of the realm. He commanded Churchill to send
home a minute report of the ceremonial of Versailles, in order
that the honours with which the English embassy was received
there might be repaid, and not more than repaid, to the
representative of France at Whitehall. The news of this change
was received with delight at Madrid, Vienna, and the Hague.249
Lewis was at first merely diverted. "My good ally talks big," he
said; "but he is as fond of my pistoles as ever his brother was."
Soon, however, the altered demeanour of James, and the hopes with
which that demeanour inspired both the branches of the House of
Austria, began to call for more serious notice. A remarkable
letter is still extant, in which the French King intimated a
strong suspicion that he had been duped, and that the very money
which he had sent to Westminster would be employed against
him.250
By this time England had recovered from the sadness and anxiety
caused by the death of the goodnatured Charles. The Tories were
loud in professions of attachment to their new master. The hatred
of the Whigs was kept down by fear. That great mass which is not
steadily Whig or Tory, but which inclines alternately to Whiggism
and to Toryism, was still on the Tory side. The reaction which
had followed the dissolution of the 0xford parliament had not yet
spent its force.
The King early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the
proof. While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of
hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been
fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown
open, in order that all who came to pay their duty to him might
see the ceremony. When the host was elevated there was a strange
confusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell on their
knees: the Protestants hurried out of the room. Soon a new pulpit
was erected in the palace; and, during Lent, a series of sermons
was preached there by Popish divines, to the great discomposure
of zealous churchmen.251
A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came; and the
King determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his
predecessors had been surrounded when they repaired to the
temples of the established religion. He announced his intention
to the three members of the interior cabinet, and requested them
to attend him. Sunderland, to whom all religions were the same,
readily consented. Godolphin, as Chamberlain of the Queen, had
already been in the habit of giving her his hand when she
repaired to her oratory, and felt no scruple about bowing himself
officially in the house of Rimmon. But Rochester was greatly
disturbed. His influence in the country arose chiefly from the
opinion entertained by the clergy and by the Tory gentry, that he
was a zealous and uncompromising friend of the Church. His
orthodoxy had been considered as fully atoning for faults which
would otherwise have made him the most unpopular man in the
kingdom, for boundless arrogance, for extreme violence of temper,
and for manners almost brutal.252 He feared that, by complying
with the royal wishes, he should greatly lower himself in the
estimation of his party. After some altercation he obtained
permission to pass the holidays out of town. All the other great
civil dignitaries were ordered to be at their posts on Easter
Sunday. The rites of the Church of Rome were once more, after an
interval of a hundred and twenty-seven years, performed at
Westminster with regal splendour. The Guards were drawn out. The
Knights of the Garter wore their collars. The Duke of Somerset,
second in rank among the temporal nobles of the realm, carried
the sword of state. A long train of great lords accompanied the
King to his seat. But it was remarked that Ormond and Halifax
remained in the antechamber. A few years before they had
gallantly defended the cause of James against some of those who
now pressed past them. Ormond had borne no share in the slaughter
of Roman Catholics. Halifax had courageously pronounced Stafford
not guilty. As the timeservers who had pretended to shudder at
the thought of a Popish king, and who had shed without pity the
innocent blood of a Popish peer, now elbowed each other to get
near a Popish altar, the accomplished Trimmer might, with some
justice, indulge his solitary pride in that unpopular
nickname.253
Within a week after this ceremony James made a far greater
sacrifice of his own
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