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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Orange not to attempt anything against the government of
England, and having been supplied by them with money to meet
immediate demands.331
The prospect which lay before Monmouth was not a bright one.
There was now no probability that he would be recalled from
banishment. On the Continent his life could no longer be passed
amidst the splendour and festivity of a court. His cousins at the
Hague seem to have really regarded him with kindness; but they
could no longer countenance him openly without serious risk of
producing a rupture between England and Holland. William offered
a kind and judicious suggestion. The war which was then raging in
Hungary, between the Emperor and the Turks, was watched by all
Europe with interest almost as great as that which the Crusades
had excited five hundred years earlier. Many gallant gentlemen,
both Protestant and Catholic, were fighting as volunteers in the
common cause of Christendom. The Prince advised Monmouth to
repair to the Imperial camp, and assured him that, if he would do
so, he should not want the means of making an appearance
befitting an English nobleman.332 This counsel was excellent: but
the Duke could not make up his mind. He retired to Brussels
accompanied by Henrietta Wentworth, Baroness Wentworth of
Nettlestede, a damsel of high rank and ample fortune, who loved
him passionately, who had sacrificed for his sake her maiden
honour and the hope of a splendid alliance, who had followed him
into exile, and whom he believed to be his wife in the sight of
heaven. Under the soothing influence of female friendship, his
lacerated mind healed fast. He seemed to have found happiness in
obscurity and repose, and to have forgotten that he had been the
ornament of a splendid court and the head of a great party, that
he had commanded armies, and that he had aspired to a throne.
But he was not suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson employed all
his powers of temptation. Grey, who knew not where to turn for a
pistole, and was ready for any undertaking, however desperate,
lent his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from
retreat. To the first invitations which he received from his old
associates he returned unfavourable answers. He pronounced the
difficulties of a descent on England insuperable, protested that
he was sick of public life, and begged to be left in the
enjoyment of his newly found happiness. But he was little in the
habit of resisting skilful and urgent importunity. It is said,
too, that he was induced to quit his retirement by the same
powerful influence which had made that retirement delightful.
Lady Wentworth wished to see him a King. Her rents, her diamonds,
her credit were put at his disposal. Monmouth's judgment was not
convinced; but he had not the firmness to resist such
solicitations.333
By the English exiles he was joyfully welcomed, and unanimously
acknowledged as their head. But there was another class of
emigrants who were not disposed to recognise his supremacy.
Misgovernment, such as had never been known in the southern part
of our island, had driven from Scotland to the Continent many
fugitives, the intemperance of whose political and religious zeal
was proportioned to the oppression which they had undergone.
These men were not willing to follow an English leader. Even in
destitution and exile they retained their punctilious national
pride, and would not consent that their country should be, in
their persons, degraded into a province. They had a captain of
their own, Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, who, as chief of the
great tribe of Campbell, was known among the population of the
Highlands by the proud name of Mac Callum More. His father, the
Marquess of Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Covenanters,
had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles the First, and was
not thought by the Royalists to have atoned for this offence by
consenting to bestow the empty title of King, and a state prison
in a palace, on Charles the Second. After the return of the royal
family the Marquess was put to death. His marquisate became
extinct; but his son was permitted to inherit the ancient
earldom, and was still among the greatest if not the greatest, of
the nobles of Scotland. The Earl's conduct during the twenty
years which followed the Restoration had been, as he afterwards
thought, criminally moderate. He had, on some occasions, opposed
the administration which afflicted his country: but his
opposition had been languid and cautious. His compliances in
ecclesiastical matters had given scandal to rigid Presbyterians:
and so far had he been from showing any inclination to resistance
that, when the Covenanters had been persecuted into insurrection,
he had brought into the field a large body of his dependents to
support the government.
Such had been his political course until the Duke of York came
down to Edinburgh armed with the whole regal authority The
despotic viceroy soon found that he could not expect entire
support from Argyle. Since the most powerful chief in the kingdom
could not be gained, it was thought necessary that he should be
destroyed. On grounds so frivolous that even the spirit of party
and the spirit of chicane were ashamed of them, he was brought to
trial for treason, convicted, and sentenced to death. The
partisans of the Stuarts afterwards asserted that it was never
meant to carry this sentence into effect, and that the only
object of the prosecution was to frighten him into ceding his
extensive jurisdiction in the Highlands. Whether James designed,
as his enemies suspected, to commit murder, or only, as his
friends affirmed, to commit extortion by threatening to commit
murder, cannot now be ascertained. "I know nothing of the Scotch
law," said Halifax to King Charles; "but this I know, that we
should not hang a dog here on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle
has been sentenced."334
Argyle escaped in disguise to England, and thence passed over to
Friesland. In that secluded province his father had bought a
small estate, as a place of refuge for the family in civil
troubles. It was said, among the Scots that this purchase had
been made in consequence of the predictions of a Celtic seer, to
whom it had been revealed that Mac Callum More would one day be
driven forth from the ancient mansion of his race at Inverary.335
But it is probable that the politic Marquess had been warned
rather by the signs of the times than by the visions of any
prophet. In Friesland Earl Archibald resided during some time so
quietly that it was not generally known whither he had fled. From
his retreat he carried on a correspondence with his friends in
Great Britain, was a party to the Whig conspiracy, and concerted
with the chiefs of that conspiracy a plan for invading
Scotland.336 This plan had been dropped upon the detection of the
Rye House plot, but became again the Subject of his thoughts
after the demise of the crown.
He had, during his residence on the Continent, reflected much
more deeply on religious questions than in the preceding years of
his life. In one respect the effect of these reflections on his
mind had been pernicious. His partiality for the synodical form
of church government now amounted to bigotry. When he remembered
how long he had conformed to the established worship, he was
overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and showed too many signs of
a disposition to atone for his defection by violence and
intolerance. He had however, in no long time, an opportunity of
proving that the fear and love of a higher Power had nerved him
for the most formidable conflicts by which human nature can be
tried.
To his companions in adversity his assistance was of the highest
moment. Though proscribed and a fugitive. he was still, in some
sense, the most powerful subject in the British dominions. In
wealth, even before his attainder, he was probably inferior, not
only to the great English nobles, but to some of the opulent
esquires of Kent and Norfolk. But his patriarchal authority, an
authority which no wealth could give and which no attainder could
take away, made him, as a leader of an insurrection, truly
formidable. No southern lord could feel any confidence that, if
he ventured to resist the government, even his own gamekeepers
and huntsmen would stand by him. An Earl of Bedford, an Earl of
Devonshire, could not engage to bring ten men into the field. Mac
Callum More, penniless and deprived of his earldom, might at any
moment, raise a serious civil war. He bad only to show himself on
the coast of Lorn; and an army would, in a few days, gather round
him. The force which, in favourable circumstances, he could bring
into the field, amounted to five thousand fighting, men, devoted
to his service accustomed to the use of target and broadsword,
not afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open plain,
and perhaps superior to regular troops in the qualifications
requisite for the defence of wild mountain passes, hidden in
mist, and torn by headlong torrents. What such a force, well
directed, could effect, even against veteran regiments and
skilful commanders, was proved, a few years later, at
Killiecrankie.
But, strong as was the claim of Argyle to the confidence of the
exiled Scots, there was a faction among them which regarded him
with no friendly feeling, and which wished to make use of his
name and influence, without entrusting to him any real power. The
chief of this faction was a lowland gentleman, who had been
implicated in the Whig plot, and had with difficulty eluded the
vengeance of the court, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in
Berwickshire. Great doubt has been thrown on his integrity, but
without sufficient reason. It must, however, be admitted that he
injured his cause by perverseness as much as he could have done
by treachery. He was a man incapable alike of leading and of
following, conceited, captious, and wrongheaded, an endless
talker, a sluggard in action against the enemy and active only
against his own allies. With Hume was closely connected another
Scottish exile of great note, who had many, of the same faults,
Sir John Cochrane, second son of the Earl of Dundonald.
A far higher character belonged to Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a
man distinguished by learning and eloquence, distinguished also
by courage, disinterestedness, and public spirit but of an
irritable and impracticable temper. Like many of his most
illustrious contemporaries, Milton for example, Harrington,
Marvel, and Sidney, Fletcher had, from the misgovernment of
several successive princes, conceived a strong aversion to
hereditary monarchy. Yet he was no democrat. He was the head of
an ancient Norman house, and was proud of his descent. He was
England, and having been supplied by them with money to meet
immediate demands.331
The prospect which lay before Monmouth was not a bright one.
There was now no probability that he would be recalled from
banishment. On the Continent his life could no longer be passed
amidst the splendour and festivity of a court. His cousins at the
Hague seem to have really regarded him with kindness; but they
could no longer countenance him openly without serious risk of
producing a rupture between England and Holland. William offered
a kind and judicious suggestion. The war which was then raging in
Hungary, between the Emperor and the Turks, was watched by all
Europe with interest almost as great as that which the Crusades
had excited five hundred years earlier. Many gallant gentlemen,
both Protestant and Catholic, were fighting as volunteers in the
common cause of Christendom. The Prince advised Monmouth to
repair to the Imperial camp, and assured him that, if he would do
so, he should not want the means of making an appearance
befitting an English nobleman.332 This counsel was excellent: but
the Duke could not make up his mind. He retired to Brussels
accompanied by Henrietta Wentworth, Baroness Wentworth of
Nettlestede, a damsel of high rank and ample fortune, who loved
him passionately, who had sacrificed for his sake her maiden
honour and the hope of a splendid alliance, who had followed him
into exile, and whom he believed to be his wife in the sight of
heaven. Under the soothing influence of female friendship, his
lacerated mind healed fast. He seemed to have found happiness in
obscurity and repose, and to have forgotten that he had been the
ornament of a splendid court and the head of a great party, that
he had commanded armies, and that he had aspired to a throne.
But he was not suffered to remain quiet. Ferguson employed all
his powers of temptation. Grey, who knew not where to turn for a
pistole, and was ready for any undertaking, however desperate,
lent his aid. No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from
retreat. To the first invitations which he received from his old
associates he returned unfavourable answers. He pronounced the
difficulties of a descent on England insuperable, protested that
he was sick of public life, and begged to be left in the
enjoyment of his newly found happiness. But he was little in the
habit of resisting skilful and urgent importunity. It is said,
too, that he was induced to quit his retirement by the same
powerful influence which had made that retirement delightful.
Lady Wentworth wished to see him a King. Her rents, her diamonds,
her credit were put at his disposal. Monmouth's judgment was not
convinced; but he had not the firmness to resist such
solicitations.333
By the English exiles he was joyfully welcomed, and unanimously
acknowledged as their head. But there was another class of
emigrants who were not disposed to recognise his supremacy.
Misgovernment, such as had never been known in the southern part
of our island, had driven from Scotland to the Continent many
fugitives, the intemperance of whose political and religious zeal
was proportioned to the oppression which they had undergone.
These men were not willing to follow an English leader. Even in
destitution and exile they retained their punctilious national
pride, and would not consent that their country should be, in
their persons, degraded into a province. They had a captain of
their own, Archibald, ninth Earl of Argyle, who, as chief of the
great tribe of Campbell, was known among the population of the
Highlands by the proud name of Mac Callum More. His father, the
Marquess of Argyle, had been the head of the Scotch Covenanters,
had greatly contributed to the ruin of Charles the First, and was
not thought by the Royalists to have atoned for this offence by
consenting to bestow the empty title of King, and a state prison
in a palace, on Charles the Second. After the return of the royal
family the Marquess was put to death. His marquisate became
extinct; but his son was permitted to inherit the ancient
earldom, and was still among the greatest if not the greatest, of
the nobles of Scotland. The Earl's conduct during the twenty
years which followed the Restoration had been, as he afterwards
thought, criminally moderate. He had, on some occasions, opposed
the administration which afflicted his country: but his
opposition had been languid and cautious. His compliances in
ecclesiastical matters had given scandal to rigid Presbyterians:
and so far had he been from showing any inclination to resistance
that, when the Covenanters had been persecuted into insurrection,
he had brought into the field a large body of his dependents to
support the government.
Such had been his political course until the Duke of York came
down to Edinburgh armed with the whole regal authority The
despotic viceroy soon found that he could not expect entire
support from Argyle. Since the most powerful chief in the kingdom
could not be gained, it was thought necessary that he should be
destroyed. On grounds so frivolous that even the spirit of party
and the spirit of chicane were ashamed of them, he was brought to
trial for treason, convicted, and sentenced to death. The
partisans of the Stuarts afterwards asserted that it was never
meant to carry this sentence into effect, and that the only
object of the prosecution was to frighten him into ceding his
extensive jurisdiction in the Highlands. Whether James designed,
as his enemies suspected, to commit murder, or only, as his
friends affirmed, to commit extortion by threatening to commit
murder, cannot now be ascertained. "I know nothing of the Scotch
law," said Halifax to King Charles; "but this I know, that we
should not hang a dog here on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle
has been sentenced."334
Argyle escaped in disguise to England, and thence passed over to
Friesland. In that secluded province his father had bought a
small estate, as a place of refuge for the family in civil
troubles. It was said, among the Scots that this purchase had
been made in consequence of the predictions of a Celtic seer, to
whom it had been revealed that Mac Callum More would one day be
driven forth from the ancient mansion of his race at Inverary.335
But it is probable that the politic Marquess had been warned
rather by the signs of the times than by the visions of any
prophet. In Friesland Earl Archibald resided during some time so
quietly that it was not generally known whither he had fled. From
his retreat he carried on a correspondence with his friends in
Great Britain, was a party to the Whig conspiracy, and concerted
with the chiefs of that conspiracy a plan for invading
Scotland.336 This plan had been dropped upon the detection of the
Rye House plot, but became again the Subject of his thoughts
after the demise of the crown.
He had, during his residence on the Continent, reflected much
more deeply on religious questions than in the preceding years of
his life. In one respect the effect of these reflections on his
mind had been pernicious. His partiality for the synodical form
of church government now amounted to bigotry. When he remembered
how long he had conformed to the established worship, he was
overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and showed too many signs of
a disposition to atone for his defection by violence and
intolerance. He had however, in no long time, an opportunity of
proving that the fear and love of a higher Power had nerved him
for the most formidable conflicts by which human nature can be
tried.
To his companions in adversity his assistance was of the highest
moment. Though proscribed and a fugitive. he was still, in some
sense, the most powerful subject in the British dominions. In
wealth, even before his attainder, he was probably inferior, not
only to the great English nobles, but to some of the opulent
esquires of Kent and Norfolk. But his patriarchal authority, an
authority which no wealth could give and which no attainder could
take away, made him, as a leader of an insurrection, truly
formidable. No southern lord could feel any confidence that, if
he ventured to resist the government, even his own gamekeepers
and huntsmen would stand by him. An Earl of Bedford, an Earl of
Devonshire, could not engage to bring ten men into the field. Mac
Callum More, penniless and deprived of his earldom, might at any
moment, raise a serious civil war. He bad only to show himself on
the coast of Lorn; and an army would, in a few days, gather round
him. The force which, in favourable circumstances, he could bring
into the field, amounted to five thousand fighting, men, devoted
to his service accustomed to the use of target and broadsword,
not afraid to encounter regular troops even in the open plain,
and perhaps superior to regular troops in the qualifications
requisite for the defence of wild mountain passes, hidden in
mist, and torn by headlong torrents. What such a force, well
directed, could effect, even against veteran regiments and
skilful commanders, was proved, a few years later, at
Killiecrankie.
But, strong as was the claim of Argyle to the confidence of the
exiled Scots, there was a faction among them which regarded him
with no friendly feeling, and which wished to make use of his
name and influence, without entrusting to him any real power. The
chief of this faction was a lowland gentleman, who had been
implicated in the Whig plot, and had with difficulty eluded the
vengeance of the court, Sir Patrick Hume, of Polwarth, in
Berwickshire. Great doubt has been thrown on his integrity, but
without sufficient reason. It must, however, be admitted that he
injured his cause by perverseness as much as he could have done
by treachery. He was a man incapable alike of leading and of
following, conceited, captious, and wrongheaded, an endless
talker, a sluggard in action against the enemy and active only
against his own allies. With Hume was closely connected another
Scottish exile of great note, who had many, of the same faults,
Sir John Cochrane, second son of the Earl of Dundonald.
A far higher character belonged to Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a
man distinguished by learning and eloquence, distinguished also
by courage, disinterestedness, and public spirit but of an
irritable and impracticable temper. Like many of his most
illustrious contemporaries, Milton for example, Harrington,
Marvel, and Sidney, Fletcher had, from the misgovernment of
several successive princes, conceived a strong aversion to
hereditary monarchy. Yet he was no democrat. He was the head of
an ancient Norman house, and was proud of his descent. He was
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