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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an unmerited stain from a name long
illustrious in our annals. A bill for reversing the attainder of
Stafford was passed by the Upper House, in spite of the murmurs
of a few peers who were unwilling to admit that they had shed
innocent blood. The Commons read the bill twice without a
division, and ordered it to be committed. But, on the day
appointed for the committee, arrived news that a formidable
rebellion had broken out in the West of England. It was
consequently necessary to postpone much important business. The
amends due to the memory of Stafford were deferred, as was
supposed, only for a short time. But the misgovernment of James
in a few months completely turned the tide of public feeling.
During several generations the Roman Catholics were in no
condition to demand reparation for injustice, and accounted
themselves happy if they were permitted to live unmolested in
obscurity and silence. At length, in the reign of King George the
Fourth, more than a hundred and forty years after the day on
which the blood of Stafford was shed on Tower Hill, the tardy
expiation was accomplished. A law annulling the attainder and
restoring the injured family to its ancient dignities was
presented to Parliament by the ministers of the crown, was
eagerly welcomed by public men of all parties, and was passed
without one dissentient voice.318
It is now necessary that I should trace the origin and progress
of that rebellion by which the deliberations of the Houses were
suddenly interrupted.
CHAPTER V.
TOWARDS the close of the reign of Charles the Second, some Whigs
who had been deeply implicated in the plot so fatal to their
party, and who knew themselves to be marked out for destruction,
had sought an asylum in the Low Countries.
These refugees were in general men of fiery temper and weak
judgment. They were also under the influence of that peculiar
illusion which seems to belong to their situation. A politician
driven into banishment by a hostile faction generally sees the
society which he has quitted through a false medium. Every object
is distorted and discoloured by his regrets, his longings, and
his resentments. Every little discontent appears to him to
portend a revolution. Every riot is a rebellion. He cannot be
convinced that his country does not pine for him as much as he
pines for his country. He imagines that all his old associates,
who still dwell at their homes and enjoy their estates, are
tormented by the same feelings which make life a burden to
himself. The longer his expatriation, the greater does this
hallucination become. The lapse of time, which cools the ardour
of the friends whom he has left behind, inflames his. Every month
his impatience to revisit his native land increases; and every
month his native land remembers and misses him less. This
delusion becomes almost a madness when many exiles who suffer in
the same cause herd together in a foreign country. Their chief
employment is to talk of what they once were, and of what they
may yet be, to goad each other into animosity against the common
enemy, to feed each other with extravagant hopes of victory and
revenge. Thus they become ripe for enterprises which would at
once be pronounced hopeless by any man whose passions had not
deprived him of the power of calculating chances.
In this mood were many of the outlaws who had assembled on the
Continent. The correspondence which they kept up with England
was, for the most part, such as tended to excite their feelings
and to mislead their judgment. Their information concerning the
temper of the public mind was chiefly derived from the worst
members of the Whig party, from men who were plotters and
libellers by profession, who were pursued by the officers of
justice, who were forced to skulk in disguise through back
streets, and who sometimes lay hid for weeks together in
cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen who had formerly been the
ornaments of the Country Party, the statesmen who afterwards
guided the councils of the Convention, would have given advice
very different from that which was given by such men as John
Wildman and Henry Danvers.
Wildman had served forty years before in the parliamentary army,
but had been more distinguished there as an agitator than as a
soldier, and had early quitted the profession of arms for
pursuits better suited to his temper. His hatred of monarchy had
induced him to engage in a long series of conspiracies, first
against the Protector, and then against the Stuarts. But with
Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender care for his own safety.
He had a wonderful skill in grazing the edge of treason. No man
understood better how to instigate others to desperate
enterprises by words which, when repeated to a jury, might seem
innocent, or, at worst, ambiguous. Such was his cunning that,
though always plotting, though always known to be plotting, and
though long malignantly watched by a vindictive government, he
eluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having seen two
generations of his accomplices die on the gallows.319 Danvers was
a man of the same class, hotheaded, but fainthearted, constantly
urged to the brink of danger by enthusiasm, and constantly
stopped on that brink by cowardice. He had considerable influence
among a portion of the Baptists, had written largely in defence
of their peculiar opinions, and had drawn down on himself the
severe censure of the most respectable Puritans by attempting to
palliate the crimes of Matthias and John of Leyden. It is
probable that, had he possessed a little courage, he would have
trodden in the footsteps of the wretches whom he defended. He
was, at this time, concealing himself from the officers of
justice; for warrants were out against him on account of a
grossly calumnious paper of which the government had discovered
him to be the author.320
It is easy to imagine what kind of intelligence and counsel men,
such as have been described, were likely to send to the outlaws
in the Netherlands. Of the general character of those outlaws an
estimate may be formed from a few samples.
One of the most conspicuous among them was John Ayloffe, a lawyer
connected by affinity with the Hydes, and through the Hydes, with
James. Ayloffe had early made himself remarkable by offering a
whimsical insult to the government. At a time when the ascendancy
of the court of Versailles had excited general uneasiness, he had
contrived to put a wooden shoe, the established type, among the
English, of French tyranny, into the chair of the House of
Commons. He had subsequently been concerned in the Whig plot; but
there is no reason to believe that he was a party to the design
of assassinating the royal brothers. He was a man of parts and
courage; but his moral character did not stand high. The Puritan
divines whispered that he was a careless Gallio or something
worse, and that, whatever zeal he might profess for civil
liberty, the Saints would do well to avoid all connection with
him.321
Nathaniel Wade was, like Ayloffe, a lawyer. He had long resided
at Bristol, and had been celebrated in his own neighbourhood as a
vehement republican. At one time he had formed a project of
emigrating to New Jersey, where he expected to find institutions
better suited to his taste than those of England. His activity in
electioneering had introduced him to the notice of some Whig
nobles. They had employed him professionally, and had, at length,
admitted him to their most secret counsels. He had been deeply
concerned in the scheme of insurrection, and had undertaken to
head a rising in his own city. He had also been privy to the more
odious plot against the lives of Charles and James. But he always
declared that, though privy to it, he had abhorred it, and had
attempted to dissuade his associates from carrying their design
into effect. For a man bred to civil pursuits, Wade seems to have
had, in an unusual degree, that sort of ability and that sort of
nerve which make a good soldier. Unhappily his principles and his
courage proved to be not of sufficient force to support him when
the fight was over, and when in a prison, he had to choose
between death and infamy.322
Another fugitive was Richard Goodenough, who had formerly been
Under Sheriff of London. On this man his party had long relied
for services of no honourable kind, and especially for the
selection of jurymen not likely to be troubled with scruples in
political cases. He had been deeply concerned in those dark and
atrocious parts of the Whig plot which had been carefully
concealed from the most respectable Whigs. Nor is it possible to
plead, in extenuation of his guilt, that he was misled by
inordinate zeal for the public good. For it will be seen that
after having disgraced a noble cause by his crimes, he betrayed
it in order to escape from his well merited punishment.323
Very different was the character of Richard Rumbold. He had held
a commission in Cromwell's own regiment, had guarded the scaffold
before the Banqueting House on the day of the great execution,
had fought at Dunbar and Worcester, and had always shown in the
highest degree the qualities which distinguished the invincible
army in which he served, courage of the truest temper, fiery
enthusiasm, both political and religious, and with that
enthusiasm, all the power of selfgovernment which is
characteristic of men trained in well disciplined camps to
command and to obey. When the Republican troops were disbanded,
Rumbold became a maltster, and carried on his trade near
Hoddesdon, in that building from which the Rye House plot derives
its name. It had been suggested, though not absolutely
determined, in the conferences of the most violent and
unscrupulous of the malecontents, that armed men should be
stationed in the Rye House to attack the Guards who were to
escort Charles and James from Newmarket to London. In these
conferences Rumbold had borne a part from which he would have
shrunk with horror, if his clear understanding had not been
overclouded, and his manly heart corrupted, by party spirit.324
A more important exile was Ford Grey, Lord Grey of Wark. He had
been a zealous Exclusionist, had concurred in the design of
insurrection, and had been committed to the Tower, but had
succeeded in making his keepers drunk, and in effecting his
escape to the Continent. His parliamentary abilities were great,
and his manners pleasing: but his life had been sullied by a
great domestic crime. His wife was a daughter of the noble house
of Berkeley. Her sister, the Lady Henrietta Berkeley, was allowed
to associate and correspond with
illustrious in our annals. A bill for reversing the attainder of
Stafford was passed by the Upper House, in spite of the murmurs
of a few peers who were unwilling to admit that they had shed
innocent blood. The Commons read the bill twice without a
division, and ordered it to be committed. But, on the day
appointed for the committee, arrived news that a formidable
rebellion had broken out in the West of England. It was
consequently necessary to postpone much important business. The
amends due to the memory of Stafford were deferred, as was
supposed, only for a short time. But the misgovernment of James
in a few months completely turned the tide of public feeling.
During several generations the Roman Catholics were in no
condition to demand reparation for injustice, and accounted
themselves happy if they were permitted to live unmolested in
obscurity and silence. At length, in the reign of King George the
Fourth, more than a hundred and forty years after the day on
which the blood of Stafford was shed on Tower Hill, the tardy
expiation was accomplished. A law annulling the attainder and
restoring the injured family to its ancient dignities was
presented to Parliament by the ministers of the crown, was
eagerly welcomed by public men of all parties, and was passed
without one dissentient voice.318
It is now necessary that I should trace the origin and progress
of that rebellion by which the deliberations of the Houses were
suddenly interrupted.
CHAPTER V.
TOWARDS the close of the reign of Charles the Second, some Whigs
who had been deeply implicated in the plot so fatal to their
party, and who knew themselves to be marked out for destruction,
had sought an asylum in the Low Countries.
These refugees were in general men of fiery temper and weak
judgment. They were also under the influence of that peculiar
illusion which seems to belong to their situation. A politician
driven into banishment by a hostile faction generally sees the
society which he has quitted through a false medium. Every object
is distorted and discoloured by his regrets, his longings, and
his resentments. Every little discontent appears to him to
portend a revolution. Every riot is a rebellion. He cannot be
convinced that his country does not pine for him as much as he
pines for his country. He imagines that all his old associates,
who still dwell at their homes and enjoy their estates, are
tormented by the same feelings which make life a burden to
himself. The longer his expatriation, the greater does this
hallucination become. The lapse of time, which cools the ardour
of the friends whom he has left behind, inflames his. Every month
his impatience to revisit his native land increases; and every
month his native land remembers and misses him less. This
delusion becomes almost a madness when many exiles who suffer in
the same cause herd together in a foreign country. Their chief
employment is to talk of what they once were, and of what they
may yet be, to goad each other into animosity against the common
enemy, to feed each other with extravagant hopes of victory and
revenge. Thus they become ripe for enterprises which would at
once be pronounced hopeless by any man whose passions had not
deprived him of the power of calculating chances.
In this mood were many of the outlaws who had assembled on the
Continent. The correspondence which they kept up with England
was, for the most part, such as tended to excite their feelings
and to mislead their judgment. Their information concerning the
temper of the public mind was chiefly derived from the worst
members of the Whig party, from men who were plotters and
libellers by profession, who were pursued by the officers of
justice, who were forced to skulk in disguise through back
streets, and who sometimes lay hid for weeks together in
cocklofts and cellars. The statesmen who had formerly been the
ornaments of the Country Party, the statesmen who afterwards
guided the councils of the Convention, would have given advice
very different from that which was given by such men as John
Wildman and Henry Danvers.
Wildman had served forty years before in the parliamentary army,
but had been more distinguished there as an agitator than as a
soldier, and had early quitted the profession of arms for
pursuits better suited to his temper. His hatred of monarchy had
induced him to engage in a long series of conspiracies, first
against the Protector, and then against the Stuarts. But with
Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender care for his own safety.
He had a wonderful skill in grazing the edge of treason. No man
understood better how to instigate others to desperate
enterprises by words which, when repeated to a jury, might seem
innocent, or, at worst, ambiguous. Such was his cunning that,
though always plotting, though always known to be plotting, and
though long malignantly watched by a vindictive government, he
eluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having seen two
generations of his accomplices die on the gallows.319 Danvers was
a man of the same class, hotheaded, but fainthearted, constantly
urged to the brink of danger by enthusiasm, and constantly
stopped on that brink by cowardice. He had considerable influence
among a portion of the Baptists, had written largely in defence
of their peculiar opinions, and had drawn down on himself the
severe censure of the most respectable Puritans by attempting to
palliate the crimes of Matthias and John of Leyden. It is
probable that, had he possessed a little courage, he would have
trodden in the footsteps of the wretches whom he defended. He
was, at this time, concealing himself from the officers of
justice; for warrants were out against him on account of a
grossly calumnious paper of which the government had discovered
him to be the author.320
It is easy to imagine what kind of intelligence and counsel men,
such as have been described, were likely to send to the outlaws
in the Netherlands. Of the general character of those outlaws an
estimate may be formed from a few samples.
One of the most conspicuous among them was John Ayloffe, a lawyer
connected by affinity with the Hydes, and through the Hydes, with
James. Ayloffe had early made himself remarkable by offering a
whimsical insult to the government. At a time when the ascendancy
of the court of Versailles had excited general uneasiness, he had
contrived to put a wooden shoe, the established type, among the
English, of French tyranny, into the chair of the House of
Commons. He had subsequently been concerned in the Whig plot; but
there is no reason to believe that he was a party to the design
of assassinating the royal brothers. He was a man of parts and
courage; but his moral character did not stand high. The Puritan
divines whispered that he was a careless Gallio or something
worse, and that, whatever zeal he might profess for civil
liberty, the Saints would do well to avoid all connection with
him.321
Nathaniel Wade was, like Ayloffe, a lawyer. He had long resided
at Bristol, and had been celebrated in his own neighbourhood as a
vehement republican. At one time he had formed a project of
emigrating to New Jersey, where he expected to find institutions
better suited to his taste than those of England. His activity in
electioneering had introduced him to the notice of some Whig
nobles. They had employed him professionally, and had, at length,
admitted him to their most secret counsels. He had been deeply
concerned in the scheme of insurrection, and had undertaken to
head a rising in his own city. He had also been privy to the more
odious plot against the lives of Charles and James. But he always
declared that, though privy to it, he had abhorred it, and had
attempted to dissuade his associates from carrying their design
into effect. For a man bred to civil pursuits, Wade seems to have
had, in an unusual degree, that sort of ability and that sort of
nerve which make a good soldier. Unhappily his principles and his
courage proved to be not of sufficient force to support him when
the fight was over, and when in a prison, he had to choose
between death and infamy.322
Another fugitive was Richard Goodenough, who had formerly been
Under Sheriff of London. On this man his party had long relied
for services of no honourable kind, and especially for the
selection of jurymen not likely to be troubled with scruples in
political cases. He had been deeply concerned in those dark and
atrocious parts of the Whig plot which had been carefully
concealed from the most respectable Whigs. Nor is it possible to
plead, in extenuation of his guilt, that he was misled by
inordinate zeal for the public good. For it will be seen that
after having disgraced a noble cause by his crimes, he betrayed
it in order to escape from his well merited punishment.323
Very different was the character of Richard Rumbold. He had held
a commission in Cromwell's own regiment, had guarded the scaffold
before the Banqueting House on the day of the great execution,
had fought at Dunbar and Worcester, and had always shown in the
highest degree the qualities which distinguished the invincible
army in which he served, courage of the truest temper, fiery
enthusiasm, both political and religious, and with that
enthusiasm, all the power of selfgovernment which is
characteristic of men trained in well disciplined camps to
command and to obey. When the Republican troops were disbanded,
Rumbold became a maltster, and carried on his trade near
Hoddesdon, in that building from which the Rye House plot derives
its name. It had been suggested, though not absolutely
determined, in the conferences of the most violent and
unscrupulous of the malecontents, that armed men should be
stationed in the Rye House to attack the Guards who were to
escort Charles and James from Newmarket to London. In these
conferences Rumbold had borne a part from which he would have
shrunk with horror, if his clear understanding had not been
overclouded, and his manly heart corrupted, by party spirit.324
A more important exile was Ford Grey, Lord Grey of Wark. He had
been a zealous Exclusionist, had concurred in the design of
insurrection, and had been committed to the Tower, but had
succeeded in making his keepers drunk, and in effecting his
escape to the Continent. His parliamentary abilities were great,
and his manners pleasing: but his life had been sullied by a
great domestic crime. His wife was a daughter of the noble house
of Berkeley. Her sister, the Lady Henrietta Berkeley, was allowed
to associate and correspond with
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