The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 2 by Thomas Babington Macaulay (free reads txt) 📕

also a politician versed in the tactics of revolutions, was at no pains to conceal his disdain for so puerile an objection, taken at a moment when union and promptitude were of the highest importance. "We shall sit here very long," he said, "if we sit till Sir Robert can conceive how such a thing is possible;" and the assembly thought the answer as good as the cavil deserved.618

The resolutions of the meeting were communicated to the Prince. He forthwith announced his determination to comply with the joint request of the two Chambers which he had called together, to issue letters summoning a Convention of the Estates of the Realm, and, till the Convention should meet, to take on himself the executive administration.619

He had undertaken no light task. The whole machine of government was disordered. The Justices of the Peace had abandoned their functions. The officers of the revenue had ceased to collect the taxes. The army which Feversham had disbanded was still in confusion, and ready to break out into mutiny. The fleet was in a scarcely less alarming state. Large arrears of pay were due to the civil and military servants of the crown; and only forty thousand pounds remained in the Exchequer. The Prince addressed himself with vigour to the work of restoring order. He published a proclamation by which all magistrates were continued in office, and another containing orders for the collection of the revenue.620 The new modelling of the army went rapidly on. Many of the noblemen and gentlemen whom James had removed from the command of the English regiments were reappointed. A way was found of employing the thousands of Irish soldiers whom James had brought into England. They could not safely be suffered to remain in a country where they were objects of religious and national animosity. They could not safely be sent home to reinforce the army of Tryconnel. It was therefore determined that they should be sent to the Continent, where they might, under the banners of the House of Austria, render indirect but effectual service to the cause of the English constitution and of the Protestant religion. Dartmouth was removed from his command; and the navy was conciliated by assurances that every sailor should speedily receive his due. The City of London undertook to extricate the Prince from his financial difficulties. The Common Council, by an unanimous vote, engaged to find him two hundred thousand pounds. It was thought a great proof, both of the wealth and of the public spirit of the merchants of the capital, that, in forty- eight hours, the whole sum was raised on no security but the Prince's word. A few weeks before, James had been unable to procure a much smaller sum, though he had offered to pay higher interest, and to pledge valuable property.621

In a very few days the confusion which the invasion, the insurrection, the flight of James, and the suspension of all regular government had produced was at an end, and the kingdom wore again its accustomed aspect. There was a general sense of security. Even the classes which were most obnoxious to public hatred, and which had most reason to apprehend a persecution, were protected by the politic clemency of the conqueror. Persons deeply implicated in the illegal transactions of the late reign not only walked the streets in safety, but offered themselves as candidates for seats in the Convention. Mulgrave was received not ungraciously at St. James's. Feversham was released from arrest, and was permitted to resume the only office for which he was qualified, that of keeping the bank at the Queen Dowager's basset table. But no body of men had so much reason to feel grateful to William as the Roman Catholics. It would not have been safe to rescind formally the severe resolutions which the Peers had passed against the professors of a religion generally abhorred by the nation: but, by the prudence and humanity of the Prince, those resolutions were practically annulled. On his line of march from Torbay to London, he had given orders that no outrage should be committed on the persons or dwellings of Papists. He now renewed those orders, and directed Burnet to see that they were strictly obeyed. A better choice could not have been made; for Burnet was a man of such generosity and good nature, that his heart always warmed towards the unhappy; and at the same time his known hatred of Popery was a sufficient guarantee to the most zealous Protestants that the interests of their religion would be safe in his hands. He listened kindly to the complaints of the Roman Catholics, procured passports for those who wished to go beyond sea, and went himself to Newgate to visit the prelates who were imprisoned there. He ordered them to be removed to a more commodious apartment and supplied with every indulgence. He solemnly assured them that not a hair of their heads should be touched, and that, as soon as the Prince could venture to act as he wished, they should be set at liberty. The Spanish minister reported to his government, and, through his government, to the Pope, that no Catholic need feel any scruple of conscience on account of the late revolution in England, that for the danger to which the members of the true Church were exposed James alone was responsible, and that William alone had saved them from a sanguinary persecution.622

There was, therefore, little alloy to the satisfaction with which the princes of the House of Austria and the Sovereign Pontiff learned that the long vassalage of England was at an end. When it was known at Madrid that William was in the full career of success, a single voice in the Spanish Council of State faintly expressed regret that an event which, in a political point of view, was most auspicious, should be prejudicial to the interests of the true Church.623 But the tolerant policy of the Prince soon quieted all scruples, and his elevation was seen with scarcely less satisfaction by the bigoted Grandees of Castile than by the English Whigs.

With very different feelings had the news of this great revolution been received in France. The politics of a long, eventful, and glorious reign had been confounded in a day. England was again the England of Elizabeth and of Cromwell; and all the relations of all the states of Christendom were completely changed by the sudden introduction of this new power into the system. The Parisians could talk of nothing but what was passing in London. National and religious feeling impelled them to take the part of James. They knew nothing of the English constitution. They abominated the English Church. Our revolution appeared to them, not as the triumph of public liberty over despotism, but as a frightful domestic tragedy in which a venerable and pious Servius was hurled from his throne by a Tarquin, and crushed under the chariot wheels of a Tullia. They cried shame on the traitorous captains, execrated the unnatural daughters, and regarded William with a mortal loathing, tempered, however, by the respect which valour, capacity, and success seldom fail to inspire.624 The Queen, exposed to the night wind and rain, with the infant heir of three crowns clasped to her breast, the King stopped, robbed, and outraged by ruffians, were objects of pity and of romantic interest to all France. But Lewis saw with peculiar emotion the calamities of the House of Stuart. All the selfish and all the generous parts of his nature were moved alike. After many years of prosperity he had at length met with a great check. He had reckoned on the support or neutrality of England. He had now nothing to expect from her but energetic and pertinacious hostility. A few weeks earlier he might not unreasonably have hoped to subjugate Flanders and to give law to Germany. At present he might think himself fortunate if he should be able to defend his own frontiers against a confederacy such as Europe had not seen during many ages. From this position, so new, so embarrassing, so alarming, nothing but a counterrevolution or a civil war in the British Islands could extricate him. He was therefore impelled by ambition and by fear to espouse the cause of the fallen dynasty. And it is but just to say that motives nobler than ambition or fear had a large share in determining his course. His heart was naturally compassionate; and this was an occasion which could not fail to call forth all his compassion. His situation had prevented his good feelings from fully developing themselves. Sympathy is rarely strong where there is a great inequality of condition; and he was raised so high above the mass of his fellow creatures that their distresses excited in him only a languid pity, such as that with which we regard the sufferings of the inferior animals, of a famished redbreast or of an overdriven posthorse. The devastation of the Palatinate and the persecution of the Huguenots had therefore given him no uneasiness which pride and bigotry could not effectually soothe. But all the tenderness of which he was capable was called forth by the misery of a great King who had a few weeks ago been served on the knee by Lords, and who was now a destitute exile. With that tenderness was mingled, in the soul of Lewis, a not ignoble vanity. He would exhibit to the world a pattern of munificence and courtesy. He would show mankind what ought to be the bearing of a perfect gentleman in the highest station and on the greatest occasion; and, in truth, his conduct was marked by a chivalrous generosity and urbanity, such as had not embellished the annals of Europe since the Black Prince had stood behind the chair of King John at the supper on the field Poitiers.

As soon as the news that the Queen of England was on the French coast had been brought to Versailles, a palace was prepared for her reception. Carriages and troops of guards were despatched to await her orders, workmen were employed to mend the Calais road that her journey might be easy. Lauzun was not only assured that his past offences were forgiven for her sake, but was honoured with a friendly letter in the handwriting of Lewis. Mary was on the road towards the French court when news came that her husband had, after a rough voyage, landed safe at the little village of Ambleteuse. Persons of high rank were instantly despatched from Versailles to greet and escort him. Meanwhile Lewis, attended by his family and his nobility, went forth in state to receive the exiled Queen. Before his gorgeous coach went the Swiss halberdiers. On each side of it and behind it rode the body guards with cymbals clashing and trumpets pealing. After the King, in a hundred carriages each drawn by six horses, came the most splendid aristocracy of Europe, all feathers, ribands, jewels, and embroidery. Before the procession had gone far it was announced that Mary was approaching. Lewis alighted and advanced on foot to meet her. She broke forth into passionate expressions of gratitude. "Madam," said her host, "it is but a melancholy service that I am rendering you to day. I hope that I may be able hereafter to render you services greater and more pleasing." He embraced the little Prince of Wales, and made the Queen seat herself in the royal state coach on the right hand. The cavalcade then turned towards Saint Germains.

At Saint Germains, on the verge of a forest swarming with beasts of chase, and on the brow of a hill which looks down on the windings of the Seine, Francis the First had built a castle, and Henry the Fourth had constructed a noble terrace. Of the residences of the French kings none stood