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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scruple about paying tithe.
They were, therefore, far removed from the scene of political
strife. They also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on principle
all political conversation. For such conversation was, in their
opinion, unfavourable to their spirituality of mind, and tended
to disturb the austere composure of their deportment. The yearly
meetings of that age repeatedly admonished the brethren not to
hold discourse touching affairs of state.295 Even within the
memory of persons now living those grave elders who retained the
habits of an earlier generation systematically discouraged such
worldly talk.296 It was natural that James should make a wide
distinction between these harmless people and those fierce and
reckless sects which considered resistance to tyranny as a
Christian duty which had, in Germany, France, and Holland, made
war on legitimate princes, and which had, during four
generations, borne peculiar enmity to the House of Stuart.
It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant large relief
to the Roman Catholic and to the Quaker without mitigating the
sufferings of the Puritan sects. A law was in force which imposed
severe penalties on every person who refused to take the oath of
supremacy when required to do so. This law did not affect
Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists; for they were all ready
to call God to witness that they renounced all spiritual
connection with foreign prelates and potentates. But the Roman
Catholic would not swear that the Pope had no jurisdiction in
England, and the Quaker would not swear to anything. On the other
hand, neither the Roman Catholic nor the Quaker was touched by
the Five Mile Act, which, of all the laws in the Statute Book,
was perhaps the most annoying to the Puritan Nonconformists.297
The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though,
as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned
politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one
of them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and
fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had constant access to
the royal ear. This was the celebrated William Penn. His father
had held great naval commands, had been a Commissioner of the
Admiralty, had sate in Parliament, had received the honour of
knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The son
had been liberally educated, and had been designed for the
profession of arms, but had, while still young, injured his
prospects and disgusted his friends by joining what was then
generally considered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been
sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had
been tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the
law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled to his family,
and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful protection that,
while all the gaols of England were filled with his brethren, he
was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions without
molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had obtained,
in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from the crown, the
grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then
peopled only by Indian hunters, he had invited his persecuted
friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when James
mounted the throne.
Between James and Penn there had long been a familiar
acquaintance. The Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a
favourite. He was every day summoned from the gallery into the
closet, and sometimes had long audiences while peers were kept
waiting in the antechambers. It was noised abroad that he had
more real power to help and hurt than many nobles who filled high
offices. He was soon surrounded by flatterers and suppliants. His
house at Kensington was sometimes thronged, at his hour of
rising, by more than two hundred suitors.298 He paid dear,
however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked
coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy. He was
loudly accused of being a Papist, nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed
that he had been educated at St. Omers, and others that he had
been ordained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find credit
only with the undiscerning multitude; but with these calumnies
were mingled accusations much better founded.
To speak the whole truth concerning Penn is a task which requires
some courage; for he is rather a mythical than a historical
person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising
him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond
the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which
the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The
respectable society of which he was a member honours him as an
apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally
regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile
admirers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. The
French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they
regarded as his superstitious fancies in consideration of his
contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence,
impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has
thus become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for
probity and philanthropy.
Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was
without doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of
religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of
mankind. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions
more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of
enlarged minds: and as the proprietor and legislator of a
province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his
possession, afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had
the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into
practice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to
existing institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour as
a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a savage
people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, and as a
lawgiver who, in an age of persecution, made religious liberty
the cornerstone of a polity. But his writings and his life
furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. He
had no skill in reading the characters of others. His confidence
in persons less virtuous than himself led him into great errors
and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great principle sometimes
impelled him to violate other great principles which he ought to
have held sacred. Nor was his rectitude altogether proof against
the temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and
polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which he now mingled.
The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and
intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, places, and
pardons was incessant. It was natural that a man who was daily
seen at the palace, and who was known to have free access to
majesty, should be frequently importuned to use his influence for
purposes which a rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of
Penn had stood firm against obloquy and persecution. But now,
attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the
insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran
diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution began to give way.
Titles and phrases against which he had often borne his testimony
dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It would be well
if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances with
the fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be concealed that
he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not merely
by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by the
general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly protested
that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he had never
received any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though he
might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have made a
hundred and twenty thousand pounds.299 To this assertion full
credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well as to
cupidity; and it is impossible to deny that Penn was cajoled into
bearing a part in some unjustifiable transactions of which others
enjoyed the profits.
The first use which he made of his credit was highly commendable.
He strongly represented the sufferings of his brethren to the new
King, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant
indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics,
without showing similar favour to other classes which were then
under persecution. A list was framed of prisoners against whom
proceedings had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for
not going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been
produced to the government. These persons were discharged, and
orders were given that no similar proceeding should be instituted
till the royal pleasure should be further signified. In this way
about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of
Roman Catholics, regained their liberty.300
And now the time had arrived when the English Parliament was to
meet. The members of the House of Commons who had repaired to the
capital were so numerous that there was much doubt whether their
chamber, as it was then fitted up, would afford sufficient
accommodation for them. They employed the days which immediately
preceded the opening of the session in talking over public
affairs with each other and with the agents of the government. A
great meeting of the loyal party was held at the Fountain Tavern
in the Strand; and Roger Lestrange, who had recently been
knighted by the King, and returned to Parliament by the city of
Winchester, took a leading part in their consultations.301
It soon appeared that a large portion of the Commons had views
which did not altogether agree with those of the Court. The Tory
country gentlemen were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to
maintain the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act; and some among
them talked of voting the revenue only for a term of years. But
they were perfectly ready to enact severe laws against the Whigs,
and would gladly have seen all the supporters of the Exclusion
Bill made incapable of holding office. The King, on the other
hand, desired to obtain from the Parliament a revenue for life,
the admission of Roman Catholics to office, and the repeal of the
Habeas Corpus Act. On these three objects his heart was set; and
he was by no means disposed to accept as a substitute for them a
penal law against Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have
been positively unpleasing to him; for one class of Exclusionists
stood high in his favour, that class of which Sunderland was the
representative, that class which had joined
They were, therefore, far removed from the scene of political
strife. They also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on principle
all political conversation. For such conversation was, in their
opinion, unfavourable to their spirituality of mind, and tended
to disturb the austere composure of their deportment. The yearly
meetings of that age repeatedly admonished the brethren not to
hold discourse touching affairs of state.295 Even within the
memory of persons now living those grave elders who retained the
habits of an earlier generation systematically discouraged such
worldly talk.296 It was natural that James should make a wide
distinction between these harmless people and those fierce and
reckless sects which considered resistance to tyranny as a
Christian duty which had, in Germany, France, and Holland, made
war on legitimate princes, and which had, during four
generations, borne peculiar enmity to the House of Stuart.
It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant large relief
to the Roman Catholic and to the Quaker without mitigating the
sufferings of the Puritan sects. A law was in force which imposed
severe penalties on every person who refused to take the oath of
supremacy when required to do so. This law did not affect
Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists; for they were all ready
to call God to witness that they renounced all spiritual
connection with foreign prelates and potentates. But the Roman
Catholic would not swear that the Pope had no jurisdiction in
England, and the Quaker would not swear to anything. On the other
hand, neither the Roman Catholic nor the Quaker was touched by
the Five Mile Act, which, of all the laws in the Statute Book,
was perhaps the most annoying to the Puritan Nonconformists.297
The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though,
as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned
politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one
of them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and
fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had constant access to
the royal ear. This was the celebrated William Penn. His father
had held great naval commands, had been a Commissioner of the
Admiralty, had sate in Parliament, had received the honour of
knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The son
had been liberally educated, and had been designed for the
profession of arms, but had, while still young, injured his
prospects and disgusted his friends by joining what was then
generally considered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been
sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had
been tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the
law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled to his family,
and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful protection that,
while all the gaols of England were filled with his brethren, he
was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions without
molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had obtained,
in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from the crown, the
grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then
peopled only by Indian hunters, he had invited his persecuted
friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when James
mounted the throne.
Between James and Penn there had long been a familiar
acquaintance. The Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a
favourite. He was every day summoned from the gallery into the
closet, and sometimes had long audiences while peers were kept
waiting in the antechambers. It was noised abroad that he had
more real power to help and hurt than many nobles who filled high
offices. He was soon surrounded by flatterers and suppliants. His
house at Kensington was sometimes thronged, at his hour of
rising, by more than two hundred suitors.298 He paid dear,
however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked
coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy. He was
loudly accused of being a Papist, nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed
that he had been educated at St. Omers, and others that he had
been ordained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find credit
only with the undiscerning multitude; but with these calumnies
were mingled accusations much better founded.
To speak the whole truth concerning Penn is a task which requires
some courage; for he is rather a mythical than a historical
person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising
him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond
the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which
the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The
respectable society of which he was a member honours him as an
apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally
regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile
admirers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. The
French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they
regarded as his superstitious fancies in consideration of his
contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence,
impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has
thus become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for
probity and philanthropy.
Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was
without doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of
religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of
mankind. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions
more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of
enlarged minds: and as the proprietor and legislator of a
province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his
possession, afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had
the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into
practice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to
existing institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour as
a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a savage
people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, and as a
lawgiver who, in an age of persecution, made religious liberty
the cornerstone of a polity. But his writings and his life
furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. He
had no skill in reading the characters of others. His confidence
in persons less virtuous than himself led him into great errors
and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great principle sometimes
impelled him to violate other great principles which he ought to
have held sacred. Nor was his rectitude altogether proof against
the temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and
polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which he now mingled.
The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and
intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, places, and
pardons was incessant. It was natural that a man who was daily
seen at the palace, and who was known to have free access to
majesty, should be frequently importuned to use his influence for
purposes which a rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of
Penn had stood firm against obloquy and persecution. But now,
attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the
insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran
diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution began to give way.
Titles and phrases against which he had often borne his testimony
dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It would be well
if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances with
the fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be concealed that
he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not merely
by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by the
general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly protested
that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he had never
received any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though he
might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have made a
hundred and twenty thousand pounds.299 To this assertion full
credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well as to
cupidity; and it is impossible to deny that Penn was cajoled into
bearing a part in some unjustifiable transactions of which others
enjoyed the profits.
The first use which he made of his credit was highly commendable.
He strongly represented the sufferings of his brethren to the new
King, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant
indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics,
without showing similar favour to other classes which were then
under persecution. A list was framed of prisoners against whom
proceedings had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for
not going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been
produced to the government. These persons were discharged, and
orders were given that no similar proceeding should be instituted
till the royal pleasure should be further signified. In this way
about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of
Roman Catholics, regained their liberty.300
And now the time had arrived when the English Parliament was to
meet. The members of the House of Commons who had repaired to the
capital were so numerous that there was much doubt whether their
chamber, as it was then fitted up, would afford sufficient
accommodation for them. They employed the days which immediately
preceded the opening of the session in talking over public
affairs with each other and with the agents of the government. A
great meeting of the loyal party was held at the Fountain Tavern
in the Strand; and Roger Lestrange, who had recently been
knighted by the King, and returned to Parliament by the city of
Winchester, took a leading part in their consultations.301
It soon appeared that a large portion of the Commons had views
which did not altogether agree with those of the Court. The Tory
country gentlemen were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to
maintain the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act; and some among
them talked of voting the revenue only for a term of years. But
they were perfectly ready to enact severe laws against the Whigs,
and would gladly have seen all the supporters of the Exclusion
Bill made incapable of holding office. The King, on the other
hand, desired to obtain from the Parliament a revenue for life,
the admission of Roman Catholics to office, and the repeal of the
Habeas Corpus Act. On these three objects his heart was set; and
he was by no means disposed to accept as a substitute for them a
penal law against Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have
been positively unpleasing to him; for one class of Exclusionists
stood high in his favour, that class of which Sunderland was the
representative, that class which had joined
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