The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) π
Excerpt from the book:
Read free book Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
Download in Format:
- Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Read book online Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ». Author - Thomas Babington Macaulay
age and infirmities, came to Westminster Hall to make this
request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage. "Not a minute," he
cried, "to save his life. I can deal with saints as well as with
sinners. There stands Oates on one side of the pillory; and, if
Baxter stood on the other, the two greatest rogues in the kingdom
would stand together."
When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who loved
and honoured Baxter filled the court. At his side stood Doctor
William Bates, one of the most eminent of the Nonconformist
divines. Two Whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop,
appeared for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarcely begun his
address to the jury, when the Chief Justice broke forth:
"Pollexfen, I know you well. I will set a mark on you. You are
the patron of the faction. This is an old rogue, a schismatical
knave, a hypocritical villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would
have nothing but longwinded cant without book;" and then his
Lordship turned up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing
through his nose, in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's
style of praying "Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar people,
thy dear people." Pollexfen gently reminded the court that his
late Majesty had thought Baxter deserving of a bishopric. "And
what ailed the old blockhead then," cried Jeffreys, "that he did
not take it?" His fury now rose almost to madness. He called
Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be no more than justice to
whip such a villain through the whole City.
Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader. "You are
in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop," said the Judge.
"Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to assist such
factious knaves." The advocate made another attempt to obtain a
hearing, but to no purpose. "If you do not know your duty," said
Jeffreys, "I will teach it you."
Wallop sate down; and Baxter himself attempted to put in a word.
But the Chief Justice drowned all expostulation in a torrent of
ribaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of Hudibras. "My
Lord," said the old man, "I have been much blamed by Dissenters
for speaking respectfully of Bishops." "Baxter for Bishops!"
cried the Judge, "that's a merry conceit indeed. I know what you
mean by Bishops, rascals like yourself, Kidderminster Bishops,
factious snivelling Presbyterians!" Again Baxter essayed to
speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed "Richard, Richard, dost thou
think we will let thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old
knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a cart, and every
book as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace
of God, I'll look after thee. I see a great many of your
brotherhood waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don.
And there," he continued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, "there
is a Doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of God
Almighty, I will crush you all."
Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for the
defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that the words
of which complaint was made would not bear the construction put
on them by the information. With this view he began to read the
context. In a moment he was roared down. "You sha'n't turn the
court into a conventicle." The noise of weeping was heard from
some of those who surrounded Baxter. "Snivelling calves!" said
the Judge.
Witnesses to character were in attendance, and among them were
several clergymen of the Established Church. But the Chief
Justice would hear nothing. "Does your Lordship think," said
Baxter, "that any jury will convict a man on such a trial as
this?" "I warrant you, Mr. Baxter," said Jeffreys: "don't trouble
yourself about that." Jeffreys was right. The Sheriffs were the
tools of the government. The jurymen, selected by the Sheriffs
from among the fiercest zealots of the Tory party, conferred for
a moment, and returned a verdict of Guilty. "My Lord," said
Baxter, as he left the court, "there was once a Chief Justice who
would have treated me very differently." He alluded to his
learned and virtuous friend Sir Matthew Hale. "There is not an
honest man in England," answered Jeffreys, "but looks on thee as
a knave."280
The sentence was, for those times. a lenient one. What passed in
conference among the judges cannot be certainly known. It was
believed among the Nonconformists, and is highly probable, that
the Chief Justice was overruled by his three brethren. He
proposed, it is said, that Baxter should be whipped through
London at the cart's tail. The majority thought that an eminent
divine, who, a quarter of a century before, had been offered a
mitre, and who was now in his seventieth year, would be
sufficiently punished for a few sharp words by fine and
imprisonment.281
The manner in which Baxter was treated by a judge, who was a
member of the cabinet and a favourite of the Sovereign,
indicated, in a manner not to be mistaken, the feeling with which
the government at this time regarded the Protestant
Nonconformists. But already that feeling had been indicated by
still stronger and more terrible signs. The Parliament of
Scotland had met. James had purposely hastened the session of
this body, and had postponed the session of the English Houses,
in the hope that the example set at Edinburgh would produce a
good effect at Westminster. For the legislature of his northern
kingdom was as obsequious as those provincial Estates which Lewis
the Fourteenth still suffered to play at some of their ancient
functions in Britanny and Burgundy. None but an Episcopalian
could sit in the Scottish Parliament, or could even vote for a
member, and in Scotland an Episcopalian was always a Tory or a
timeserver. From an assembly thus constituted, little opposition
to the royal wishes was to he apprehended; and even the assembly
thus constituted could pass no law which had not been previously
approved by a committee of courtiers.
All that the government asked was readily granted. In a financial
point of view, indeed, the liberality of the Scottish Estates was
of little consequence. They gave, however, what their scanty
means permitted. They annexed in perpetuity to the crown the
duties which had been granted to the late King, and which in his
time had been estimated at forty thousand pounds sterling a year.
They also settled on James for life an additional annual income
of two hundred and sixteen thousand pounds Scots, equivalent to
eighteen thousand pounds sterling. The whole Sum which they were
able to bestow was about sixty thousand a year, little more than
what was poured into the English Exchequer every fortnight.282
Having little money to give, the Estates supplied the defect by
loyal professions and barbarous statutes. The King, in a letter
which was read to them at the opening of their session, called on
them in vehement language to provide new penal laws against the
refractory Presbyterians, and expressed his regret that business
made it impossible for him to propose such laws in person from
the throne. His commands were obeyed. A statute framed by his
ministers was promptly passed, a statute which stands forth even
among the statutes of that unhappy country at that unhappy
period, preeminent in atrocity. It was enacted, in few but
emphatic words, that whoever should preach in a conventicle under
a roof, or should attend, either as preacher or as hearer, a
conventicle in the open air, should be punished with death and
confiscation of property.283
This law, passed at the King's instance by an assembly devoted to
his will, deserves especial notice. For he has been frequently
represented by ignorant writers as a prince rash, indeed, and
injudicious in his choice of means, but intent on one of the
noblest ends which a ruler can pursue, the establishment of
entire religious liberty. Nor can it be denied that some portions
of his life, when detached from the rest and superficially
considered, seem to warrant this favourable view of his
character.
While a subject he had been, during many years, a persecuted man;
and persecution had produced its usual effect on him. His mind,
dull and narrow as it was, had profited under that sharp
discipline. While he was excluded from the Court, from the
Admiralty, and from the Council, and was in danger of being also
excluded from the throne, only because he could not help
believing in transubstantiation and in the authority of the see
of Rome, he made such rapid progress in the doctrines of
toleration that he left Milton and Locke behind. What, he often
said, could be more unjust, than to visit speculations with
penalties which ought to be reserved for acts? What more
impolitic than to reject the services of good soldiers, seamen,
lawyers, diplomatists, financiers, because they hold unsound
opinions about the number of the sacraments or the pluripresence
of saints? He learned by rote those commonplaces which all sects
repeat so fluently when they are enduring oppression, and forget
so easily when they are able to retaliate it. Indeed he rehearsed
his lesson so well, that those who chanced to hear him on this
subject gave him credit for much more sense and much readier
elocution than he really possessed. His professions imposed on
some charitable persons, and perhaps imposed on himself. But his
zeal for the rights of conscience ended with the predominance of
the Whig party. When fortune changed, when he was no longer
afraid that others would persecute him, when he had it in his
power to persecute others, his real propensities began to show
themselves. He hated the Puritan sects with a manifold hatred,
theological and political, hereditary and personal. He regarded
them as the foes of Heaven, as the foes of all legitimate
authority in Church and State, as his great-grandmother's foes
and his grandfather's, his father's and his mother's, his
brother's and his own. He, who had complained so fondly of the
laws against Papists, now declared himself unable to conceive how
men could have the impudence to propose the repeal of the laws
against Puritans.284 He, whose favourite theme had been the
injustice of requiring civil functionaries to take religious
tests, established in Scotland, when he resided there as Viceroy,
the most rigorous religious test that has ever been known in the
empire.285 He, who had expressed just indignation when the
priests of his own faith were hanged and quartered, amused
himself with hearing Covenanters shriek and seeing them writhe
while their knees were beaten flat in the boots.286 In this mood
he became King; and he immediately demanded and obtained from the
obsequious Estates of
request. Jeffreys burst into a storm of rage. "Not a minute," he
cried, "to save his life. I can deal with saints as well as with
sinners. There stands Oates on one side of the pillory; and, if
Baxter stood on the other, the two greatest rogues in the kingdom
would stand together."
When the trial came on at Guildhall, a crowd of those who loved
and honoured Baxter filled the court. At his side stood Doctor
William Bates, one of the most eminent of the Nonconformist
divines. Two Whig barristers of great note, Pollexfen and Wallop,
appeared for the defendant. Pollexfen had scarcely begun his
address to the jury, when the Chief Justice broke forth:
"Pollexfen, I know you well. I will set a mark on you. You are
the patron of the faction. This is an old rogue, a schismatical
knave, a hypocritical villain. He hates the Liturgy. He would
have nothing but longwinded cant without book;" and then his
Lordship turned up his eyes, clasped his hands, and began to sing
through his nose, in imitation of what he supposed to be Baxter's
style of praying "Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar people,
thy dear people." Pollexfen gently reminded the court that his
late Majesty had thought Baxter deserving of a bishopric. "And
what ailed the old blockhead then," cried Jeffreys, "that he did
not take it?" His fury now rose almost to madness. He called
Baxter a dog, and swore that it would be no more than justice to
whip such a villain through the whole City.
Wallop interposed, but fared no better than his leader. "You are
in all these dirty causes, Mr. Wallop," said the Judge.
"Gentlemen of the long robe ought to be ashamed to assist such
factious knaves." The advocate made another attempt to obtain a
hearing, but to no purpose. "If you do not know your duty," said
Jeffreys, "I will teach it you."
Wallop sate down; and Baxter himself attempted to put in a word.
But the Chief Justice drowned all expostulation in a torrent of
ribaldry and invective, mingled with scraps of Hudibras. "My
Lord," said the old man, "I have been much blamed by Dissenters
for speaking respectfully of Bishops." "Baxter for Bishops!"
cried the Judge, "that's a merry conceit indeed. I know what you
mean by Bishops, rascals like yourself, Kidderminster Bishops,
factious snivelling Presbyterians!" Again Baxter essayed to
speak, and again Jeffreys bellowed "Richard, Richard, dost thou
think we will let thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old
knave. Thou hast written books enough to load a cart, and every
book as full of sedition as an egg is full of meat. By the grace
of God, I'll look after thee. I see a great many of your
brotherhood waiting to know what will befall their mighty Don.
And there," he continued, fixing his savage eye on Bates, "there
is a Doctor of the party at your elbow. But, by the grace of God
Almighty, I will crush you all."
Baxter held his peace. But one of the junior counsel for the
defence made a last effort, and undertook to show that the words
of which complaint was made would not bear the construction put
on them by the information. With this view he began to read the
context. In a moment he was roared down. "You sha'n't turn the
court into a conventicle." The noise of weeping was heard from
some of those who surrounded Baxter. "Snivelling calves!" said
the Judge.
Witnesses to character were in attendance, and among them were
several clergymen of the Established Church. But the Chief
Justice would hear nothing. "Does your Lordship think," said
Baxter, "that any jury will convict a man on such a trial as
this?" "I warrant you, Mr. Baxter," said Jeffreys: "don't trouble
yourself about that." Jeffreys was right. The Sheriffs were the
tools of the government. The jurymen, selected by the Sheriffs
from among the fiercest zealots of the Tory party, conferred for
a moment, and returned a verdict of Guilty. "My Lord," said
Baxter, as he left the court, "there was once a Chief Justice who
would have treated me very differently." He alluded to his
learned and virtuous friend Sir Matthew Hale. "There is not an
honest man in England," answered Jeffreys, "but looks on thee as
a knave."280
The sentence was, for those times. a lenient one. What passed in
conference among the judges cannot be certainly known. It was
believed among the Nonconformists, and is highly probable, that
the Chief Justice was overruled by his three brethren. He
proposed, it is said, that Baxter should be whipped through
London at the cart's tail. The majority thought that an eminent
divine, who, a quarter of a century before, had been offered a
mitre, and who was now in his seventieth year, would be
sufficiently punished for a few sharp words by fine and
imprisonment.281
The manner in which Baxter was treated by a judge, who was a
member of the cabinet and a favourite of the Sovereign,
indicated, in a manner not to be mistaken, the feeling with which
the government at this time regarded the Protestant
Nonconformists. But already that feeling had been indicated by
still stronger and more terrible signs. The Parliament of
Scotland had met. James had purposely hastened the session of
this body, and had postponed the session of the English Houses,
in the hope that the example set at Edinburgh would produce a
good effect at Westminster. For the legislature of his northern
kingdom was as obsequious as those provincial Estates which Lewis
the Fourteenth still suffered to play at some of their ancient
functions in Britanny and Burgundy. None but an Episcopalian
could sit in the Scottish Parliament, or could even vote for a
member, and in Scotland an Episcopalian was always a Tory or a
timeserver. From an assembly thus constituted, little opposition
to the royal wishes was to he apprehended; and even the assembly
thus constituted could pass no law which had not been previously
approved by a committee of courtiers.
All that the government asked was readily granted. In a financial
point of view, indeed, the liberality of the Scottish Estates was
of little consequence. They gave, however, what their scanty
means permitted. They annexed in perpetuity to the crown the
duties which had been granted to the late King, and which in his
time had been estimated at forty thousand pounds sterling a year.
They also settled on James for life an additional annual income
of two hundred and sixteen thousand pounds Scots, equivalent to
eighteen thousand pounds sterling. The whole Sum which they were
able to bestow was about sixty thousand a year, little more than
what was poured into the English Exchequer every fortnight.282
Having little money to give, the Estates supplied the defect by
loyal professions and barbarous statutes. The King, in a letter
which was read to them at the opening of their session, called on
them in vehement language to provide new penal laws against the
refractory Presbyterians, and expressed his regret that business
made it impossible for him to propose such laws in person from
the throne. His commands were obeyed. A statute framed by his
ministers was promptly passed, a statute which stands forth even
among the statutes of that unhappy country at that unhappy
period, preeminent in atrocity. It was enacted, in few but
emphatic words, that whoever should preach in a conventicle under
a roof, or should attend, either as preacher or as hearer, a
conventicle in the open air, should be punished with death and
confiscation of property.283
This law, passed at the King's instance by an assembly devoted to
his will, deserves especial notice. For he has been frequently
represented by ignorant writers as a prince rash, indeed, and
injudicious in his choice of means, but intent on one of the
noblest ends which a ruler can pursue, the establishment of
entire religious liberty. Nor can it be denied that some portions
of his life, when detached from the rest and superficially
considered, seem to warrant this favourable view of his
character.
While a subject he had been, during many years, a persecuted man;
and persecution had produced its usual effect on him. His mind,
dull and narrow as it was, had profited under that sharp
discipline. While he was excluded from the Court, from the
Admiralty, and from the Council, and was in danger of being also
excluded from the throne, only because he could not help
believing in transubstantiation and in the authority of the see
of Rome, he made such rapid progress in the doctrines of
toleration that he left Milton and Locke behind. What, he often
said, could be more unjust, than to visit speculations with
penalties which ought to be reserved for acts? What more
impolitic than to reject the services of good soldiers, seamen,
lawyers, diplomatists, financiers, because they hold unsound
opinions about the number of the sacraments or the pluripresence
of saints? He learned by rote those commonplaces which all sects
repeat so fluently when they are enduring oppression, and forget
so easily when they are able to retaliate it. Indeed he rehearsed
his lesson so well, that those who chanced to hear him on this
subject gave him credit for much more sense and much readier
elocution than he really possessed. His professions imposed on
some charitable persons, and perhaps imposed on himself. But his
zeal for the rights of conscience ended with the predominance of
the Whig party. When fortune changed, when he was no longer
afraid that others would persecute him, when he had it in his
power to persecute others, his real propensities began to show
themselves. He hated the Puritan sects with a manifold hatred,
theological and political, hereditary and personal. He regarded
them as the foes of Heaven, as the foes of all legitimate
authority in Church and State, as his great-grandmother's foes
and his grandfather's, his father's and his mother's, his
brother's and his own. He, who had complained so fondly of the
laws against Papists, now declared himself unable to conceive how
men could have the impudence to propose the repeal of the laws
against Puritans.284 He, whose favourite theme had been the
injustice of requiring civil functionaries to take religious
tests, established in Scotland, when he resided there as Viceroy,
the most rigorous religious test that has ever been known in the
empire.285 He, who had expressed just indignation when the
priests of his own faith were hanged and quartered, amused
himself with hearing Covenanters shriek and seeing them writhe
while their knees were beaten flat in the boots.286 In this mood
he became King; and he immediately demanded and obtained from the
obsequious Estates of
Free e-book: Β«The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (diy ebook reader .txt) πΒ» - read online now on website american library books (americanlibrarybooks.com)
Similar e-books:
Comments (0)