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Title: A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second

Author: Charles James Fox

Release Date: July, 2003  [Etext #4245]
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[This file was first posted on December 18, 2001]

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by Charles James Fox
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A HISTORY OF THE EARLY PART OF THE REIGN OF JAMES THE SECOND




INTRODUCTION.



Fox's "History of the Reign of James II.," which begins with his
view of the reign of Charles II. and breaks off at the execution of
Monmouth, was the beginning of a History of England from the
Revolution, upon which he worked in the last years of his life, for
which he collected materials in Paris after the Peace of Amiens, in
1802--he died in September, 1806--and which was first published in
1808.

The grandfather of Charles James Fox was Stephen, son of William
Fox, of Farley, in Wiltshire.  Stephen Fox was a young royalist
under Charles I.  He was twenty-two at the time of the king's
execution, went into exile during the Commonwealth, came back at the
Restoration, was appointed paymaster of the first two regiments of
guards that were raised, and afterwards Paymaster of all the Forces.
In that office he made much money, but rebuilt the church at Farley,
and earned lasting honour as the actual founder of Chelsea Hospital,
which was opened in 1682 for wounded and superannuated soldiers.
The ground and buildings had been appointed by James I., in 1609, as
Chelsea College, for the training of disputants against the Roman
Catholics.  Sir Stephen Fox himself contributed thirteen thousand
pounds to the carrying out of this design.  Fox's History dealt,
therefore, with times in which his grandfather had played a part.

In 1703, when his age was seventy-six, Stephen Fox took a second
wife, by whom he had two sons, who became founders of two families;
Stephen, the elder, became first Earl of Ilchester; Henry, the
younger, who married Georgina, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, and
was himself created, in 1763, Baron Holland of Farley.  Of the
children of that marriage Charles James Fox was the third son, born
on the 24th of January, 1749.  The second son had died in infancy.

Henry Fox inherited Tory opinions.  He was regarded by George II. as
a good man of business, and was made Secretary of War in 1754, when
Charles James, whose cleverness made him a favoured child, was five
years old.  In the next year Henry Fox was Secretary of State for
the Southern Department.  The outbreak of the Seven Years' War bred
discontent and change of Ministry.  The elder Fox had then to give
place to the elder Pitt.  But Henry Fox was compensated by the
office of Paymaster of the Forces, from which he knew even better
than his father had known how to extract profit.  He rapidly
acquired the wealth which he joined to his title as Lord Holland of
Farley, and for which he was attacked vigorously, until two hundred
thousand pounds--some part of the money that stayed by him--had been
refunded.

Henry Fox, Lord Holland, found his boy, Charles James, brilliant and
lively, made him a companion, and indulged him to the utmost.  Once
he expressed a strong desire to break a watch that his father was
winding up:  his father gave it him to dash upon the floor.  Once
his father had promised that when an old garden wall at Holland
House was blown down with gunpowder before replacing it with iron
railings, he should see the explosion.  The workmen blew it down in
the boy's absence:  his father had the wall rebuilt in its old form
that it might be blown down again in his presence, and his promise
kept.  He was sent first to Westminster School, and then to Eton.
At home he was his father's companion, joined in the talk of men at
his father's dinner-parties, travelled at fourteen with his father
to the Continent, and is said to have been allowed five guineas a
night for gambling-money.  He grew up reckless of the worth of
money, and for many years the excitement of gambling was to him as
one of the necessaries of life.  His immense energy at school and
college made him work as hard as the most diligent man who did
nothing else, and devote himself to gambling, horse-racing, and
convivial pleasures as vigorously as if he were the weak man capable
of nothing else.  The Eton boys all prophesied his future fame.  At
Oxford, where he entered Hertford College, he was one of the best
men of his time, and one of the wildest.  A clergyman, strong in
Greek, was arguing with young Fox against the genuineness of a verse
of the Iliad because its measure was unusual.  Fox at once quoted
from memory some twenty parallels.

From college he went on the usual tour of Europe, spending lavishly,
incurring heavy debts, and sending home large bills for his father
to pay.  One bill alone, paid by his father to a creditor at Naples,
was for sixteen thousand pounds.  He came back in raiment of the
highest fashion, and was put into Parliament in 1768, not yet twenty
years old, as member for Midhurst.  He began his political life with
the family opinions, defended the Ministry against John Wilkes, and
was provided promptly with a place as Paymaster of the Pensions to
the Widows of Land Officers, and then, when he had reached the age
of twenty-one, there was a seat found for him at the Board of
Admiralty.

At once Fox made his mark in the House as a brilliant debater with
an intellectual power and an industry that made him master of the
subjects he discussed.  Still also he was scattering money, and
incurring debt, training race-horses, and staking heavily at
gambling tables.  When a noble friend, who was not a gambler,
offered to bet fifty pounds upon a throw, Fox declined, saying, "I
never play for pence."

After a few years of impatient submission to Lord North, Fox broke
from him, and it was not long before he had broken from Lord North's
opinions and taken the side of the people in all leading questions.
He became the friend of Burke; and joined in the attack upon the
policy of Coercion that destroyed the union between England and her
American colonies.  In 1774, at the age of twenty-five, Fox lost by
death his father, his mother, and his elder brother, who had
succeeded to the title, and who had left a little son to be his
heir.  In February of that year Lord North had finally broken with
Fox by causing a letter to be handed to him in the House of Commons
while he was sitting by his side on the Treasury Bench.


"His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the
Treasury to be made out, in which I do not perceive your name.
NORTH."


By the end of the year he was member for Malmesbury, and one of the
chiefs in opposition.  When Lord North opened the session of 1775
with a speech arguing the need of coercion, Fox compared what ought
to have been done with what was done, and said that Lord Chatham,
the King of Prussia, nay, even Alexander the Great, never gained
more in one campaign than Lord North had lost.  He had lost a whole
continent.  When Lord North's ministry fell in 1782, Fox became a
Secretary of State, resigning on the death of Rockingham.  In
coalition with Lord North, Fox brought in an India Bill, which was
rejected by the Lords, and caused a resignation of the Ministry.
Pitt then came into office, and there was rivalry between a Pitt and
a Fox of the second generation, with some reversal in each son of
the political bias of his father.

In opposing the policy that caused the American Revolution Fox and
Burke were of one mind.  He opposed the slave trade.  After the
outbreak of the French Revolution he differed from Burke, and
resolutely opposed Pitt's policy of interference by armed force.

William Pitt died on the 23rd January, 1806.  Charles James Fox
became again a Secretary of State, and had set on foot negotiations
for a peace with France before his own death, eight months later, at
the age of fifty-seven.

During the last ten or twelve years of his life Fox had withdrawn
from the dissipations of his earlier years.  His interest in horse-
racing flagged after the death, in 1793, of his friend Lord Foley, a
kindly, honourable man, upon whose judgment in such matters Fox had
greatly relied.  Lord Foley began his sporting life with a clear
estate of 1,800 pounds a year, and 100,000 pounds in ready money.
He ended his sporting and his earthly life with an estate heavily
encumbered and an empty pocket.

H. M.




A HISTORY OF THE EARLY PART OF THE REIGN OF JAMES II.




INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.



Introductory observations--First period, from Henry VII. to the year
1588--Second period, from 1588 to 1640--Meeting of Parliament--
Redress of grievances--Strafford's attainder--The commencement of
the Civil War--Treaty from the Isle of Wight--The king's execution--
Cromwell's power; his character--Indifference of the nation
respecting forms of government--The Restoration--Ministry of
Clarendon sod Southampton--Cabal--Dutch War--De Witt--The Prince of
Orange--The Popish plot--The Habeas Corpus Act--The Exclusion Bill--
Dissolution of Charles the Second's last Parliament--His power; his
tyranny in Scotland; in England--Exorbitant fines--Executions--
Forfeitures of charters--Despotism established--Despondency of good
men--Charles's death; his character--Reflections upon the probable
consequences of his reign and death.

In reading the history of every country there are certain periods at
which the mind naturally pauses to meditate upon, and consider them,
with reference, not only to their immediate effects, but to their
more remote consequences.  After the wars of Marius and Sylla, and
the incorporation, as it were, of all Italy with the city of Rome,
we cannot but stop to consider the consequences likely to result
from these important events; and in this instance we find them to be
just such as might have been expected.

The reign of our Henry VII. affords a field of more doubtful
speculation.  Every one who takes a retrospective view of the wars
of York and Lancaster, and attends to the regulations effected by
the policy of that prince, must see they would necessarily lead to
great and important changes in the government; but what the tendency
of such changes would be, and much more, in what manner they would
be produced, might be a question of great difficulty.  It is now the
generally received opinion, and I think a probable opinion, that to
the provisions of that reign we are to refer the origin, both of the
unlimited power of the Tudors and of the liberties wrested by our
ancestors from the Stuarts; that tyranny was their immediate, and
liberty their remote, consequence; but he must have great confidence
in his own sagacity who can satisfy himself that, unaided by the
knowledge of subsequent events, he could, from a consideration of
the causes, have foreseen the succession of effects so different.

Another period that affords ample scope for speculation of this kind
is that which is comprised between the years 1588 and 1640, a period
of almost uninterrupted tranquillity and peace.  The general
improvement in all arts of civil life, and, above all, the
astonishing progress of literature, are the most striking among the
general features of that period, and are in themselves causes
sufficient to produce effects of the utmost importance.  A country
whose language was enriched by the works of Hooker, Raleigh, and
Bacon, could not but experience a sensible change in its manners and
in its style of thinking; and even to speak the same language in
which Spenser and Shakespeare had written seemed a sufficient plea
to rescue the commons of England from the appellation of brutes,
with which Henry VIII. had addressed them.  Among the more
particular effects of this general improvement the most material and
worthy to be considered appear to me to have been the frequency of
debate in the House of Commons, and the additional value that came
to be set on a seat in that assembly.

From these circumstances a sagacious observer may be led to expect
the most important revolutions; and from the latter he may be
enabled to foresee that the House of Commons will be the principal
instrument in bringing them to pass.  But in what manner will that
house conduct itself?  Will it content itself with its regular share
of legislative power, and with the influence which it cannot fail to
possess whenever it exerts itself upon the other branches of the
legislative, and on the executive power; or will it boldly (perhaps
rashly) pretend to a power commensurate with the natural rights of
the representative of the people?  If it should, will it not be
obliged to support its claims by military force?  And how long will
such a force be under its control?  How long before it follows the
usual course of all armies, and ranges itself under a single master?
If such a master should arise, will he establish an hereditary or an
elective government?  If the first, what will be gained but a change
of dynasty?  If the second, will not the military force, as it chose
the first king or protector (the name is of no importance), choose
in effect all his successors?  Or will he fail, and shall we have a
restoration, usually the most dangerous and worst of all
revolutions?  To some of these questions the answers may, from the
experience of past ages, be easy, but to many of them far otherwise.
And he will read history with most profit who the most canvasses
questions of this nature, especially if he can divest his mind for
the time of the recollection of the event as it in fact succeeded.

The next period, as it is that which immediately precedes the
commencement of this history, requires a more detailed examination;
nor is there any more fertile of matter, whether for reflection or
speculation.  Between the year 1640 and the death of Charles II. we
have the opportunity of contemplating the state in almost every
variety of circumstance.  Religious dispute, political contest in
all its forms and degrees, from the honest exertions of party and
the corrupt intrigues of faction to violence and civil war;
despotism, first, in the person of a usurper, and afterwards in that
of an hereditary king; the most memorable and salutary improvements
in the laws, the most abandoned administration of them; in fine,
whatever can happen to a nation, whether of glorious of calamitous,
makes a part of this astonishing and instructive picture.

The commencement of this period is marked by exertions of the
people, through their representatives in the House of Commons, not
only justifiable in their principle, but directed to the properest
objects, and in a manner the most judicious.  Many of their leaders
were greatly versed in ancient as well as modern learning, and were
even enthusiastically attached to the great names of antiquity; but
they never conceived the wild project of assimilating the government
of England to that of Athens, of Sparta, or of Rome.  They were
content with applying to the English constitution, and to the
English laws, the spirit of liberty which had animated and rendered
illustrious the ancient republics.  Their first object was to obtain
redress of past grievances, with a proper regard to the individuals
who had suffered; the next, to prevent the recurrence of such
grievances by the abolition of tyrannical tribunals acting upon
arbitrary maxims in criminal proceedings, and most improperly
denominated courts of justice.  They then proceeded to establish
that fundamental principle of all free government, the preserving of
the purse to the people and their representatives.  And though there
may be more difference of opinion upon their proposed regulations in
regard to the militia, yet surely, when a contest was to be
foreseen, they could not, consistently with prudence, leave the
power of the sword altogether in the hands of an adverse party.

The prosecution of Lord Strafford, or rather, the manner in which it
was carried on, is less justifiable.  He was, doubtless, a great
delinquent, and well deserved the severest punishment; but nothing
short of a clearly proved case of self-defence can justify, or even
excuse, a departure from the sacred rules of criminal justice.  For
it can rarely indeed happen that the mischief to be apprehended from
suffering any criminal, however guilty, to escape, can be equal to
that resulting from the violation of those rules to which the
innocent owe the security of all that is dear to them.  If such
cases have existed they must have been in instances where trial has
been wholly out of the question, as in that of Caesar and other
tyrants; but when a man is once in a situation to be tried, and his
person in the power of his accusers and his judges, he can no longer
be formidable in that degree which alone can justify (if anything
can) the violation of the substantial rules of criminal proceedings.

At the breaking out of the Civil War, so intemperately denominated a
rebellion by Lord Clarendon and other Tory writers, the material
question appears to me to be, whether or not sufficient attempts
were made by the Parliament and their leaders to avoid bringing
affairs to such a decision?  That, according to the general
principles of morality, they had justice on their side cannot fairly
be doubted; but did they sufficiently attend to that great dictum of
Tully in questions of civil dissension, wherein he declares his
preference of even an unfair peace to the most just war?  Did they
sufficiently weigh the dangers that might ensue even from victory;
dangers, in such cases, little less formidable to the cause of
liberty than those which might follow a defeat?  Did they consider
that it is not peculiar to the followers of Pompey, and the civil
wars of Rome, that the event to be looked for is, as the same Tully
describes it, in case of defeat--proscription; in that of victory--
servitude?  Is the failure of the negotiation when the king was in
the Isle of Wight to be imputed to the suspicions justly entertained
of his sincerity, or to the ambition of the parliamentary leaders?
If the insincerity of the king was the real cause, ought not the
mischief to be apprehended from his insincerity rather to have been
guarded against by treaty than alleged as a pretence for breaking
off the negotiation?  Sad, indeed, will be the condition of the
world if we are never to make peace with an adverse party whose
sincerity we have reason to suspect.  Even just grounds for such
suspicions will but too often occur, and when such fail, the
proneness of man to impute evil qualities, as well as evil designs,
to his enemies, will suggest false ones.  In the present case the
suspicion of insincerity was, it is true, so just, as to amount to a
moral certainty.  The example of the petition of right was a
satisfactory proof that the king made no point of adhering to
concessions which he considered as extorted from him; and a
philosophical historian, writing above a century after the time, can
deem the pretended hard usage Charles met with as a sufficient
excuse for his breaking his faith in the first instance, much more
must that prince himself, with all his prejudices and notions of his
divine right, have thought it justifiable to retract concessions,
which to him, no doubt, appeared far more unreasonable than the
petition of right, and which, with much more colour, he might
consider as extorted.  These considerations were probably the cause
why the Parliament so long delayed their determination of accepting
the king's offer as a basis for treaty; but, unfortunately, they had
delayed so long that when at last they adopted it they found
themselves without power to carry it into execution.  The army
having now ceased to be the servants, had become the masters of the
Parliament, and, being entirely influenced by Cromwell, gave a
commencement to what may, properly speaking, be called a new reign.
The subsequent measures, therefore, the execution of the king, as
well as others, are not to be considered as acts of the Parliament,
but of Cromwell; and great and respectable as are the names of some
who sat in the high court, they must be regarded, in this instance,
rather as ministers of that usurper than as acting from themselves.

The execution of the king, though a far less violent measure than
that of Lord Strafford, is an event of so singular a nature that we
cannot wonder that it should have excited more sensation than any
other in the annals of England.  This exemplary act of substantial
justice, as it has been called by some, of enormous wickedness by
others, must be considered in two points of view.  First, was it not
in itself just and necessary?  Secondly, was the example of it
likely to be salutary or pernicious?  In regard to the first of
these questions, Mr. Hume, not perhaps intentionally, makes the best
justification of it by saying that while Charles lived the projected
republic could never be secure.  But to justify taking away the life
of an individual upon the principle of self-defence, the danger must
be not problematical and remote, but evident and immediate.  The
danger in this instance was not of such a nature, and the
imprisonment or even banishment of Charles might have given to the
republic such a degree of security as any government ought to be
content with.  It must be confessed, however, on the other aide,
that if the republican government had suffered the king to escape,
it would have been an act of justice and generosity wholly
unexampled; and to have granted him even his life would have been
one among the more rare efforts of virtue.  The short interval
between the deposal and death of princes is become proverbial, and
though there may be some few examples on the other side as far as
life is concerned, I doubt whether a single instance can be found
where liberty has been granted to a deposed monarch.  Among the
modes of destroying persons in such a situation, there can be little
doubt but that that adopted by Cromwell and his adherents is the
least dishonourable.  Edward II., Richard II., Henry VI., Edward V.,
had none of them long survived their deposal, but this was the first
instance, in our history at least, where, of such an act, it could
be truly said that it was not done in a corner.

As to the second question, whether the advantage to be derived from
the example was such as to justify an act of such violence, it
appears to me to be a complete solution of it to observe that, with
respect to England (and I know not upon what ground we are to set
examples for other nations; or, in other words, to take the criminal
justice of the world into our hands) it was wholly needless, and
therefore unjustifiable, to set one for kings at a time when it was
intended the office of king should be abolished, and consequently
that no person should be in the situation to make it the rule of his
conduct.  Besides, the miseries attendant upon a deposed monarch
seem to be sufficient to deter any prince, who thinks of
consequences, from running the risk of being placed in such a
situation; or, if death be the only evil that can deter him, the
fate of former tyrants deposed by their subjects would by no means
encourage him to hope he could avoid even that catastrophe.  As far
as we can judge from the event, the example was certainly not very
effectual, since both the sons of Charles, though having their
father's fate before their eyes, yet feared not to violate the
liberties of the people even more than he had attempted to do.

If we consider this question of example in a more extended view, and
look to the general effect produced upon the minds of men, it cannot
be doubted but the opportunity thus given to Charles to display his
firmness and piety has created more respect for his memory than it
could otherwise have obtained.  Respect and pity for the sufferer on
the one hand, and hatred to his enemies on the other, soon produce
favour and aversion to their respective causes; and thus, even
though it should be admitted (which is doubtful) that some advantage
may have been gained to the cause of liberty by the terror of the
example operating upon the minds of princes, such advantage is far
outweighed by the zeal which admiration for virtue, and pity for
sufferings, the best passions of the human heart, have excited in
favour of the royal cause.  It has been thought dangerous to the
morals of mankind, even in fiction and romance, to make us
sympathise with characters whose general conduct is blameable; but
how much greater must the effect be when in real history our
feelings are interested in favour of a monarch with whom, to say the
least, his subjects were obliged to contend in arms for their
liberty?  After all, however, notwithstanding what the more
reasonable part of mankind may think upon this question, it is much
to be doubted whether this singular proceeding has not as much as
any other circumstance, served to raise the character of the English
nation in the opinion of Europe in general.  He who has read, and
still more, he who has heard in conversation discussions upon this
subject by foreigners, must have perceived that, even in the minds
of those who condemn the act, the impression made by it has been far
more that of respect and admiration than that of disgust and horror.
The truth is that the guilt of the action--that is to say, the
taking away of the life of the king, is what most men in the place
of Cromwell and his associates would have incurred; what there is of
splendour and of magnanimity in it, I mean the publicity and
solemnity of the act, is what few would be capable of displaying.
It is a degrading fact to human nature, that even the sending away
of the Duke of Gloucester was an instance of generosity almost
unexampled in the history of transactions of this nature.

From the execution of the king to the death of Cromwell, the
government was, with some variation of forms, in substance
monarchical and absolute, as a government established by a military
force will almost invariably be, especially when the exertions of
such a force are continued for any length of time.  If to this
general rule our own age, and a people whom their origin and near
relation to us would almost warrant us to call our own nation, have
afforded a splendid and perhaps a solitary exception, we must
reflect not only that a character of virtues so happily tempered by
one another, and so wholly unalloyed with any vices, as that of
Washington, is hardly to be found in the pages of history, but that
even Washington himself might not have been able to act his most
glorious of all parts without the existence of circumstances
uncommonly favourable, and almost peculiar to the country which was
to be the theatre of it.  Virtue like his depends not indeed upon
time or place; but although in no country or time would he have
degraded himself into a Pisistratus, or a Caesar, or a Cromwell, he
might have shared the fate of a Cato, or a De Witt; or, like Ludlow
and Sidney, have mourned in exile the lost liberties of his country.

With the life of the protector almost immediately ended the
government which he had established.  The great talents of this
extraordinary person had supported during his life a system
condemned equally by reason and by prejudice:  by reason, as wanting
freedom; by prejudice, as a usurpation; and it must be confessed to
be no mean testimony to his genius, that notwithstanding the radical
defects of such a system, the splendour of his character and
exploits render the era of the protectorship one of the most
brilliant in English history.  It is true his conduct in foreign
concerns is set off to advantage by a comparison of it with that of
those who preceded and who followed him.  If he made a mistake in
espousing the French interest instead of the Spanish, we should
recollect that in examining this question we must divest our minds
entirely of all the considerations which the subsequent relative
state of those two empires suggest to us before we can become
impartial judges in it; and at any rate we must allow his reign, in
regard to European concerns, to have been most glorious when
contrasted with the pusillanimity of James I., with the levity of
Charles I., and the mercenary meanness of the two last princes of
the house of Stuart.  Upon the whole, the character of Cromwell must
ever stand high in the list of those who raised themselves to
supreme power by the force of their genius; and among such, even in
respect of moral virtue, it would be found to be one of the least
exceptionable if it had not been tainted with that most odious and
degrading of all human vices, hypocrisy.

The short interval between Cromwell's death and the restoration
exhibits the picture of a nation either so wearied with changes as
not to feel, or so subdued by military power as not to dare to show,
any care or even preference with regard to the form of their
government.  All was in the army; and that army, by such a
concurrence of fortuitous circumstances as history teaches us not to
be surprised at, had fallen into the hands of a man than whom a
baser could not be found in its lowest ranks.  Personal courage
appears to have been Monk's only virtue; reserve and dissimulation
made up the whole stock of his wisdom.  But to this man did the
nation look up, ready to receive from his orders the form of
government he should choose to prescribe.  There is reason to
believe that, from the general bias of the Presbyterians, as well as
of the Cavaliers, monarchy was the prevalent wish; but it is
observable that although the Parliament was, contrary to the
principle upon which it was pretended to be called, composed of many
avowed royalists, yet none dared to hint at the restoration of the
king till they had Monk's permission, or rather command to receive
and consider his letters.  It is impossible, in reviewing the whole
of this transaction, not to remark that a general who had gained his
rank, reputation, and station in the service of a republic, and of
what he, as well as others, called, however falsely, the cause of
liberty, made no scruple to lay the nation prostrate at the feet of
a monarch, without a single provision in favour of that cause; and
if the promise of indemnity may seem to argue that there was some
attention, at least, paid to the safety of his associates in arms,
his subsequent conduct gives reason to suppose that even this
provision was owing to any other cause rather than to a generous
feeling of his breast.  For he afterwards not only acquiesced in the
insults so meanly put upon the illustrious corpse of Blake, under
whose auspices and command he had performed the most creditable
services of his life, but in the trial of Argyle produced letters of
friendship and confidence to take away the life of a nobleman, the
zeal and cordiality of whose co-operation with him, proved by such
documents, was the chief ground of his execution; thus gratuitously
surpassing in infamy those miserable wretches who, to save their own
lives, are sometimes persuaded to impeach and swear away the lives
of their accomplices.

The reign of Charles II. forms one of the most singular as well as
of the most important periods of history.  It is the era of good
laws and bad government.  The abolition of the court of wards, the
repeal of the writ De Heretico Comburendo, the Triennial Parliament
Bill, the establishment of the rights of the House of Commons in
regard to impeachment, the expiration of the Licence Act, and, above
all, the glorious statute of Habeas Corpus, have therefore induced a
modern writer of great eminence to fix the year 1679 as the period
at which our constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical
perfection; but he owns, in a short note upon the passage alluded
to, that the times immediately following were times of great
practical oppression.  What a field for meditation does this short
observation from such a man furnish!  What reflections does it not
suggest to a thinking mind upon the inefficacy of human laws and the
imperfection of human constitutions!  We are called from the
contemplation of the progress of our constitution, and our attention
fixed with the most minute accuracy to a particular point, when it
is said to have risen to its utmost perfection.  Here we are, then,
at the best moment of the best constitution that ever human wisdom
framed.  What follows?  A tide of oppression and misery, not arising
from external or accidental causes, such as war, pestilence, or
famine, nor even from any such alteration of the laws as might be
supposed to impair this boasted perfection, but from a corrupt and
wicked administration, which all the so much admired checks of the
constitution were not able to prevent.  How vain, then, how idle,
how presumptuous is the opinion that laws can do everything! and how
weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, not
men, are to be attended to.

The first years of this reign, under the administration of
Southampton and Clarendon, form by far the least exceptionable part
of it; and even in this period the executions of Argyle and Vane and
the whole conduct of the Government with respect to church matters,
both in England and in Scotland, were gross instances of tyranny.
With respect to the execution of those who were accused of having
been more immediately concerned in the king's death, that of Scrope,
who had come in upon the proclamation, and of the military officers
who had attended the trial, was a violation of every principle of
law and justice.  But the fate of the others, though highly
dishonourable to Monk, whose whole power had arisen from his zeal in
their service, and the favour and confidence with which they had
rewarded him, and not, perhaps, very creditable to the nation, of
which many had applauded, more had supported, and almost all had
acquiesced in the act, is not certainly to be imputed as a crime to
the king, or to those of his advisers who were of the Cavalier
party.  The passion of revenge, though properly condemned both by
philosophy and religion, yet when it is excited by injurious
treatment of persons justly dear to us, is among the most excusable
of human frailties; and if Charles, in his general conduct, had
shown stronger feelings of gratitude for services performed to his
father, his character, in the eyes of many, would be rather raised
than lowered by this example of severity against the regicides.
Clarendon is said to have been privy to the king's receiving money
from Louis XIV.; but what proofs exist of this charge (for a heavy
charge it is) I know not.  Southampton was one of the very few of
the Royalist party who preserved any just regard for the liberties
of the people; and the disgust which a person possessed of such
sentiments must unavoidably feel is said to have determined him to
quit the king's service, and to retire altogether from public
affairs.  Whether he would have acted upon this determination, his
death, which happened in the year 1667, prevents us now from
ascertaining.

After the fall of Clarendon, which soon followed, the king entered
into that career of misgovernment which, that he was able to pursue
it to its end, is a disgrace to the history of our country.  If
anything can add to our disgust at the meanness with which he
solicited a dependence upon Louis XIV., it is, the hypocritical
pretence upon which he was continually pressing that monarch.  After
having passed a law, making it penal to affirm (what was true) that
he was a papist, he pretended (which was certainly not true) to be a
zealous and bigoted papist; and the uneasiness of his conscience at
so long delaying a public avowal of his conversion, was more than
once urged by him as an argument to increase the pension, and to
accelerate the assistance, he was to receive from France.  In a
later period of his reign, when his interest, as he thought, lay the
other way, that he might at once continue to earn his wages, and yet
put off a public conversion, he stated some scruples, contracted, no
doubt, by his affection to the Protestant churches, in relation to
the popish mode of giving the sacrament, and pretended a wish that
the pope might be induced by Louis to consider of some alterations
in that respect, to enable him to reconcile himself to the Roman
church with a clear and pure conscience.

The ministry known by the name of the Cabal seems to have consisted
of characters so unprincipled, as justly to deserve the severity
with which they have been treated by all writers who have mentioned
them; but if it is probable that they were ready to betray their
king, as well as their country, it is certain that the king betrayed
them, keeping from them the real state of his connexion with France,
and from some of them, at least, the secret of what he was pleased
to call his religion.  Whether this concealment on his part arose
from his habitual treachery, and from the incapacity which men of
that character feel of being open and honest, even when they know it
is their interest to be so, or from an apprehension that they might
demand for themselves some share of the French money, which he was
unwilling to give them, cannot now be determined.  But to the want
of genuine and reciprocal confidence between him and those ministers
is to be attributed, in a great measure, the escape which the nation
at that time experienced--an escape, however, which proved to be
only a reprieve from that servitude to which they were afterwards
reduced in the latter years of the reign.

The first Dutch war had been undertaken against all maxims of policy
as well as of justice; but the superior infamy of the second,
aggravated by the disappointment of all the hopes entertained by
good men from the triple alliance, and by the treacherous attempt at
piracy with which it was commenced, seems to have effaced the
impression of it, not only from the minds of men living at the time,
but from most of the writers who have treated of this reign.  The
principle, however, of both was the same, and arbitrary power at
home was the object of both.  The second Dutch war rendered the
king's system and views so apparent to all who were not determined
to shut their eyes against conviction, that it is difficult to
conceive how persons who had any real care or regard either for the
liberty or honour of the country, could trust him afterwards.  And
yet even Sir William Temple, who appears to have been one of the
most honest, as well as of the most enlightened, statesmen of his
time, could not believe his treachery to be quite so deep as it was
in fact, and seems occasionally to have hoped that he was in earnest
in his professed intentions of following the wise and just system
that was recommended to him.  Great instances of credulity and
blindness in wise men are often liable to the suspicion of being
pretended, for the purpose of justifying the continuing in
situations of power and employment longer than strict honour would
allow.  But to Temple's sincerity his subsequent conduct gives
abundant testimony.  When he had reason to think that his services
could no longer be useful to his country he withdrew wholly from
public business, and resolutely adhered to the preference of
philosophical retirement, which, in his circumstances, was just, in
spite of every temptation which occurred to bring him back to the
more active scene.  The remainder of his life he seems to have
employed in the most noble contemplations and the most elegant
amusements; every enjoyment heightened, no doubt, by reflecting on
the honourable part he had acted in public affairs, and without any
regret on his own account (whatever he might feel for his country)
at having been driven from them.

Besides the important consequences produced by this second Dutch war
in England, it gave birth to two great events in Holland; the one as
favourable as the other was disastrous to the cause of general
liberty.  The catastrophe of De Witt, the wisest, best, and most
truly patriotic minister that ever appeared upon the public stage,
as it was an act of the most crying injustice and ingratitude, so,
likewise, is it the most completely discouraging example that
history affords to the lovers of liberty.  If Aristides was
banished, he was also recalled; if Dion was repaid for his services
to the Syracusans by ingratitude, that ingratitude was more than
once repented of; if Sidney and Russell died upon the scaffold, they
had not the cruel mortification of falling by the hands of the
people; ample justice was done to their memory, and the very sound
of their names is still animating to every Englishman attached to
their glorious cause.  But with De Witt fell also his cause and his
party; and although a name so respected by all who revere virtue and
wisdom, when employed in their noblest sphere, the political service
of the public, must undoubtedly be doubly dear to his countrymen,
yet I do not know that, even to this day, any public honours have
been paid by them to his memory.

On the other hand, the circumstances attending the first appearance
of the Prince of Orange in public affairs, were, in every respect,
most fortunate for himself, for England, for Europe.  Of an age to
receive the strongest impressions, and of a character to render such
impressions durable, he entered the world in a moment when the
calamitous situation of the United Provinces could not but excite in
every Dutchman the strongest detestation of the insolent ambition of
Louis XIV., and the greatest contempt of an English government,
which could so far mistake or betray the interests of the country as
to lend itself to his projects.  Accordingly, the circumstances
attending his outset seem to have given a lasting bias to his
character; and through the whole course of his life the prevailing
sentiments of his mind seem to have been those which he imbibed at
this early period.  These sentiments were most peculiarly adapted to
the positions in which this great man was destined to be placed.
The light in which he viewed Louis rendered him the fittest champion
of the independence of Europe; and in England, French influence and
arbitrary power were in those times so intimately connected, that he
who had not only seen with disapprobation, but had so sensibly felt
the baneful effects of Charles's connection with France, seemed
educated, as it were, to be the defender of English liberty.  This
prince's struggles in defence of his country, his success in
rescuing it from a situation to all appearance so desperate, and the
consequent failure and mortification of Louis XIV., form a scene in
history upon which the mind dwells with unceasing delight.  One
never can read Louis's famous declaration against the Hollanders,
knowing the event which is to follow, without feeling the heart
dilate with exultation, and a kind of triumphant contempt, which,
though not quite consonant to the principles of pure philosophy,
never fails to give the mind inexpressible satisfaction.  Did the
relation of such events form the sole, or even any considerable part
of the historian's task, pleasant indeed would be his labours; but,
though far less agreeable, it is not a less useful or necessary part
of his business, to relate the triumphs of successful wickedness,
and the oppression of truth, justice, and liberty.

The interval from the separate peace between England and the United
Provinces, to the peace of Nymwegen, was chiefly employed by Charles
in attempts to obtain money from France and other foreign powers, in
which he was sometimes more, sometimes less successful; and in
various false professions, promises, and other devices to deceive
his parliament and his people, in which he uniformly failed.  Though
neither the nature and extent of his connection with France, nor his
design of introducing popery into England, were known at that time
as they now are, yet there were not wanting many indications of the
king's disposition, and of the general tendency of his designs.
Reasonable persons apprehended that the supplies asked were intended
to be used, not for the specious purpose of maintaining the balance
of Europe, but for that of subduing the parliament and people who
should give them; and the great antipathy of the bulk of the nation
to popery caused many to be both more clear-sighted in discovering,
and more resolute in resisting the designs of the court, than they
would probably have shown themselves, if civil liberty alone had
been concerned.

When the minds of men were in the disposition which such a state of
things was naturally calculated to produce, it is not to be wondered
at that a ready, and, perhaps, a too facile belief should have been
accorded to the rumour of a popish plot.  But with the largest
possible allowance for the just apprehensions which were
entertained, and the consequent irritation of the country, it is
wholly inconceivable how such a plot as that brought forward by
Tongue and Oates could obtain any general belief.  Nor can any
stretch of candour make us admit it to be probable, that all who
pretended a belief of it did seriously entertain it.  On the other
hand, it seems an absurdity, equal almost in degree to the belief of
the plot itself, to suppose that it was a story fabricated by the
Earl of Shaftesbury and the other leaders of the Whig party; and it
would be highly unjust, as well as uncharitable, not to admit that
the generality of those who were engaged in the prosecution of it
were probably sincere in their belief of it, since it is
unquestionable that at the time very many persons, whose political
prejudices were of a quite different complexion, were under the same
delusion.  The unanimous votes of the two houses of parliament, and
the names, as well as the number of those who pronounced Lord
Strafford to be guilty, seem to put this beyond a doubt.  Dryden,
writing soon after the time, says, in his "Absalom and Achitophel,"
that the plot was


"Bad in itself, but represented wore:"


that


"Some truth there was, but dash'd and brew'd with lies:"


and that


"Succeeding times did equal folly call,
Believing nothing, or believing all."


and Dryden will not, by those who are conversant in the history and
works of that immortal writer, be suspected either of party
prejudice in favour of Shaftesbury and the Whigs, or of any view to
prejudice the country against the Duke of York's succession to the
crown.  The king repeatedly declared his belief of it.  These
declarations, if sincere, would have some weight; but if insincere,
as may be reasonably suspected, they afford a still stronger
testimony to prove that such belief was not exclusively a party
opinion, since it cannot be supposed that even the crooked politics
of Charles could have led him to countenance fictions of his
enemies, which were not adopted by his own party.  Wherefore, if
this question were to be decided upon the ground of authority, the
reality of the plot would be admitted; and it must be confessed,
that, with regard to facts remote, in respect either of time or
place, wise men generally diffide in their own judgment, and defer
to that of those who have had a nearer view of them.  But there are
cases where reason speaks so plainly as to make all argument drawn
from authority of no avail, and this is surely one of them.  Not to
mention correspondence by post on the subject of regicide, detailed
commissions from the pope, silver bullets, &c. &c., and other
circumstances equally ridiculous, we need only advert to the part
attributed to the Spanish government in this conspiracy, and to the
alleged intention of murdering the king, to satisfy ourselves that
it was a forgery.

Rapin, who argues the whole of this affair with a degree of weakness
as well as disingenuity very unusual to him, seems at last to offer
us a kind of compromise, and to be satisfied if we will admit that
there was a design or project to introduce popery and an arbitrary
power, at the head of which were the king and his brother.  Of this
I am as much convinced as he can be; but how does this justify the
prosecution and execution of those who suffered, since few if any of
them, were in a situation to be trusted by the royal conspirators
with their designs?  When he says, therefore, that that is precisely
what was understood by the conspiracy, he by no means justifies
those who were the principal prosecutors of the plot.  The design to
murder the king he calls the appendage of the plot:  a strange
expression this, to describe the projected murder of a king; though
not more strange than the notion itself when applied to a plot, the
object of which was to render that very king absolute, and to
introduce the religion which he most favoured.  But it is to be
observed, that though in considering the bill of exclusion, the
militia bill, and other legislative proceedings, the plot, as he
defines it--that is to say, the design of introducing popery and
arbitrary power--was the important point to be looked to; yet in
courts of justice, and for juries and judges, that which he calls
the appendage was, generally speaking, the sole consideration.

Although, therefore, upon a review of this truly shocking
transaction, we may be fairly justified in adopting the milder
alternative, and in imputing to the greater part of those concerned
in it rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity than the
deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the perpetration
of legal murders, yet the proceedings on the popish plot must always
be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in
which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have
all their respective, though certainly not equal, shares.
Witnesses, of such a character as not to deserve credit in the most
trifling cause, upon the most immaterial facts, gave evidence so
incredible, or, to speak more properly, so impossible to be true,
that it ought not to have been believed if it had come from the
mouth of Cato; and upon such evidence, from such witnesses, were
innocent men condemned to death and executed.  Prosecutors, whether
attorneys and solicitors-general, or managers of impeachment, acted
with the fury which in such circumstances might be expected; juries
partook naturally enough of the national ferment; and judges, whose
duty it was to guard them against such impressions, were
scandalously active in confirming them in their prejudices and
inflaming their passions.  The king, who is supposed to have
disbelieved the whole of the plot, never once exercised his glorious
prerogative of mercy.  It is said he dared not.  His throne, perhaps
his life, was at stake; and history does not furnish us with the
example of any monarch with whom the lives of innocent or even
meritorious subjects ever appeared to be of much weight, when put in
balance against such considerations.

The measures of the prevailing party in the House of Commons, in
these times, appear (with the exception of their dreadful
proceedings in the business of the pretended plot, and of their
violence towards those who petitioned and addressed against
parliament) to have been, in general, highly laudable and
meritorious; and yet I am afraid it may be justly suspected that it
was precisely to that part of their conduct which related to the
plot, and which is most reprehensible, that they were indebted for
their power to make the noble, and, in some instances, successful
struggles for liberty, which do so much honour to their memory.  The
danger to be apprehended from military force being always, in the
view of wise men, the most urgent, they first voted the disbanding
of the army, and the two houses passed a bill for that purpose, to
which the king found himself obliged to consent.  But to the bill
which followed, for establishing the regular assembling of the
militia, and for providing for their being in arms six weeks in the
year, he opposed his royal negative; thus making his stand upon the
same point on which his father had done; a circumstance which, if
events had taken a turn against him, would not have failed of being
much noticed by historians.  Civil securities for freedom came to be
afterwards considered; and it is to be remarked, that to these times
of heat and passion, and to one of those parliaments which so
disgraced themselves and the nation by the countenance given to
Oates and Bedloe, and by the persecution of so many innocent
victims, we are indebted for the Habeas Corpus act, the most
important barrier against tyranny, and best framed protection for
the liberty of individuals, that has ever existed in any ancient or
modern commonwealth.

But the inefficacy of mere laws in favour of the subjects, in the
case of the administration of them falling into the hands of persons
hostile to the spirit in which they had been provided, had been so
fatally evinced by the general history of England, ever since the
grant of the Great Charter, and more especially by the transactions
of the preceding reign, that the parliament justly deemed their work
incomplete unless the Duke of York were excluded from the succession
to the crown.  A bill, therefore, for the purpose of excluding that
prince was prepared, and passed the House of Commons; but being
vigorously resisted by the court, by the church, and by the Tories,
was lost in the House of Lords.  The restrictions offered by the
king to be put upon a popish successor are supposed to have been
among the most powerful of those means to which he was indebted for
his success.

The dispute was no longer, whether or not the dangers resulting from
James's succession were real, and such as ought to be guarded
against by parliamentary provisions, but whether the exclusion or
restrictions furnished the most safe and eligible mode of compassing
the object which both sides pretended to have in view.  The argument
upon this state of the question is clearly, forcibly, and, I think,
convincingly, stated by Rapin, who exposes very ably the extreme
folly of trusting to measures, without consideration of the men who
are to execute them.  Even in Hume's statement of the question,
whatever may have been his intention, the arguments in favour of the
exclusion appear to me greatly to preponderate.  Indeed, it is not
easy to conceive upon what principles even the Tories could justify
their support of the restrictions.  Many among them, no doubt, saw
the provisions in the same light in which the Whigs represented
them, as an expedient, admirably, indeed, adapted to the real object
of upholding the present king's power, by the defeat of the
exclusion, but never likely to take effect for their pretended
purpose of controlling that of his successor, and supported them for
that very reason.  But such a principle of conduct was too
fraudulent to be avowed; nor ought it, perhaps, in candour to be
imputed to the majority of the party.  To those who acted with good
faith, and meant that the restrictions should really take place and
be effectual, surely it ought to have occurred (and to those who
most prized the prerogatives of the crown it ought most forcibly to
have occurred), that in consenting to curtail the powers of the
crown, rather than to alter the succession, they were adopting the
greater in order to avoid the lesser evil.  The question of what are
to be the powers of the crown, is surely of superior importance to
that of who shall wear it?  Those, at least, who consider the royal
prerogative as vested in the king, not for his sake but for that of
his subjects, must consider the one of these questions as much above
the other in dignity as the rights of the public are more valuable
than those of an individual.  In this view the prerogatives of the
crown are, in substance and effect, the rights of the people; and
these rights of the people were not to be sacrificed to the purpose
of preserving the succession to the most favoured prince much less
to one who, on account of his religious persuasion, was justly
feared and suspected.  In truth, the question between the exclusion
and restrictions seems peculiarly calculated to ascertain the
different views in which the different parties in this country have
seen, and perhaps ever will see, the prerogatives of the crown.  The
Whigs, who consider them as a trust for the people--a doctrine which
the Tories themselves, when pushed in argument, will sometimes
admit--naturally think it their duty rather to change the manager of
the trust than to impair the subject of it; while others, who
consider them as the right or property of the king, will as
naturally act as they would do in the case of any other property,
and consent to the loss or annihilation of any part of it, for the
purpose of preserving the remainder to him whom they style the
rightful owner.  If the people be the sovereign and the king the
delegate, it is better to change the bailiff than to injure the
farm; but if the king be the proprietor, it is better the farm
should be impaired--nay, part of it destroyed--than that the whole
should pass over to an usurper.  The royal prerogative ought,
according to the Whigs (not in the case of a popish successor only,
but in all cases), to be reduced to such powers as are in their
exercise beneficial to the people; and of the benefit of these they
will not rashly suffer the people to be deprived, whether the
executive power be in the hands of an hereditary or of an elected
king, of a regent, or of any other denomination of magistrate;
while, on the other hand, they who consider prerogative with
reference only to royalty, will, with equal readiness, consent
either to the extension or the suspension of its exercise, as the
occasional interests of the prince may seem to require.  The
senseless plea of a divine and indefeasible right in James, which
even the legislature was incompetent to set aside, though as
inconsistent with the declarations of parliament in the statute
book, and with the whole practice of the English constitution, as it
is repugnant to nature and common sense, was yet warmly insisted
upon by the high church party.  Such an argument, as might naturally
be expected, operated rather to provoke the Whigs to perseverance
than to dissuade them from their measure:  it was, in their eyes, an
additional merit belonging to the exclusion bill that it
strengthened, by one instance more, the authority of former statutes
in reprobating a doctrine which seems to imply that man can have a
property in his fellow-creatures.  By far the best argument in
favour of the restrictions, is the practical one that they could be
obtained, and that the exclusion could not; but the value of this
argument is chiefly proved by the event.  The exclusionists had a
fair prospect of success, and their plan being clearly the best,
they were justified in pursuing it.

The spirit of resistance which the king showed in the instance of
the militia and the exclusion bills, seems to have been
systematically confined to those cases where he supposed his power
to be more immediately concerned.  In the prosecution of the aged
and innocent Lord Stafford, he was so far from interfering in behalf
of that nobleman, that many of those most in his confidence, and, as
it is affirmed, the Duchess of Portsmouth herself, openly favoured
the prosecution.  Even after the dissolution of him last parliament,
when he had so far subdued his enemies as to be no longer under any
apprehensions from them, he did not think it worth while to save the
life of Plunket, the popish Archbishop of Armagh, of whose innocence
no doubt could be entertained.  But this is not to be wondered at,
since, in all transactions relative to the popish plot, minds of a
very different cast from Charles's became, as by some fatality,
divested of all their wonted sentiments of justice and humanity.
Who can read without horror, the account of that savage murmur of
applause, which broke out upon one of the villains at the bar,
swearing positively to Stafford's having proposed the murder of the
king?  And how is this horror deepened, when we reflect, that in
that odious cry were probably mingled the voices of men to whose
memory every lover of the English constitution is bound to pay the
tribute of gratitude and respect!  Even after condemnation, Lord
Russell himself, whose character is wholly (this instance excepted)
free from the stain of rancour or cruelty, stickled for the severer
mode of executing the sentence, in a manner which his fear of the
king's establishing a precedent of pardoning in cases of impeachment
(for this, no doubt, was his motive) cannot satisfactorily excuse.

In an early period of the king's difficulties, Sir William Temple,
whose life and character is a refutation of the vulgar notion that
philosophy and practical good sense in business are incompatible
attainments, recommended to him the plan of governing by a council,
which was to consist in great part of the most popular noblemen and
gentlemen in the kingdom.  Such persons being the natural, as well
as the safest, mediators between princes and discontented subjects,
this seems to have been the best possible expedient.  Hume says it
was found too feeble a remedy; but he does not take notice that it
was never in fact tried, inasmuch as not only the king's confidence
was withheld from the most considerable members of the council, but
even the most important determinations were taken without consulting
the council itself.  Nor can there be a doubt but the king's views,
in adopting Temple's advice, were totally different from those of
the adviser, whose only error in this transaction seems to have
consisted in recommending a plan, wherein confidence and fair
dealing were of necessity to be principal ingredients, to a prince
whom he well knew to be incapable of either.  Accordingly, having
appointed the council in April, with a promise of being governed in
important matters by their advice, he in July dissolved one
parliament without their concurrence, and in October forbade them
even to give their opinions upon the propriety of a resolution which
he had taken of proroguing another.  From that time he probably
considered the council to be, as it was, virtually dissolved; and it
was not long before means presented themselves to him, better
adapted, in his estimation, even to his immediate objects, and
certainly more suitable to his general designs.  The union between
the court and the church party, which had been so closely cemented
by their successful resistance to the Exclusion Bill, and its
authors, had at length acquired such a degree of strength and
consistency, that the king ventured first to appoint Oxford, instead
of London, for the meeting of parliament; and then, having secured
to himself a good pension from France, to dissolve the parliament
there met, with a full resolution never to call another; to which
resolution, indeed, Louis had bound him, as one of the conditions on
which he was to receive a stipend.  No measure was ever attended
with more complete success.  The most flattering addresses poured in
from all parts of the kingdom; divine right, and indiscriminate
obedience, were everywhere the favourite doctrines; and men seemed
to vie with each other who should have the honour of the greatest
share in the glorious work of slavery, by securing to the king, for
the present, and after him to the duke, absolute and uncontrollable
power.  They who, either because Charles had been called a forgiving
prince by his flatterers (upon what ground I could never discover),
or from some supposed connection between indolence and good nature,
had deceived themselves into a hope that his tyranny would be of the
milder sort, found themselves much disappointed in their
expectations.

The whole history of the remaining part of his reign exhibits an
uninterrupted series of attacks upon the liberty, property, and
lives of his subjects.  The character of the government appeared
first, and with the most marked and prominent features, in Scotland.
The condemnation of Argyle and Weir, the one for having subjoined an
explanation when he took the test oath, the other for having kept
company with a rebel, whom it was not proved he knew to be such, and
who had never been proclaimed, resemble more the acts of Tiberius
and Domitian, than those of even the most arbitrary modern
governments.  It is true, the sentences were not executed; Weir was
reprieved; and whether or not Argyle, if he had not deemed it more
prudent to escape by flight, would have experienced the same
clemency, cannot now be ascertained.  The terror of these examples
would have been, in the judgment of most men, abundantly sufficient
to teach the people of Scotland their duty, and to satisfy them that
their lives, as well as everything else they had been used to call
their own, were now completely in the power of their masters.  But
the government did not stop here, and having outlawed thousands,
upon the same pretence upon which Weir had been condemned, inflicted
capital punishment upon such criminals of both sexes as refused to
answer, or answered otherwise than was prescribed to them to the
most ensnaring questions.

In England, the city of London seemed to hold out for a certain
time, like a strong fortress in a conquered country; and, by means
of this citadel, Shaftesbury and others were saved from the
vengeance of the court.  But this resistance, however honourable to
the corporation who made it, could not be of long duration.  The
weapons of law and justice were found feeble, when opposed to the
power of a monarch who was at the head of a numerous and bigoted
party of the nation, and who, which was most material of all, had
enabled himself to govern without a parliament.  Civil resistance in
this country, even to the most illegal attacks of royal tyranny, has
never, I believe, been successful, unless when supported by
parliament, or at least by a great party in one or other of the two
houses.  The court having wrested from the livery of London, partly
by corruption, and partly by violence, the free election of their
mayor and sheriffs, did not wait the accomplishment of their plan
for the destruction of the whole corporation, which, from their
first success, they justly deemed certain, but immediately proceeded
to put in execution their system of oppression.  Pilkington, Colt,
and Oates, were fined a hundred thousand pounds each for having
spoken disrespectfully of the Duke of York; Barnardiston, ten
thousand, for having in a private letter expressed sentiments deemed
improper; and Sidney, Russell, and Armstrong, found that the just
and mild principles which characterise the criminal law of England
could no longer protect their lives, when the sacrifice was called
for by the policy or vengeance of the king.  To give an account of
all the oppression of this period would be to enumerate every
arrest, every trial, every sentence, that took place in questions
between the crown and the subjects.

Of the Rye House plot it may be said, much more truly than of the
popish, that there was in it some truth, mixed with much falsehood;
and though many of the circumstances in Kealing's account are nearly
as absurd and ridiculous as those in Oates's, it seems probable that
there was among some of those accused a notion of assassinating the
king; but whether this notion was over ripened into what may be
called a design, and, much more, whether it were ever evinced by
such an overt act as the law requires for conviction, is very
doubtful.  In regard to the conspirators of higher ranks, from whom
all suspicion of participation in the intended assassination has
been long since done away, there is unquestionably reason to believe
that they had often met and consulted, as well for the purpose of
ascertaining the means they actually possessed as for that of
devising others for delivering their country from the dreadful
servitude into which it had fallen; and thus far their conduct
appears clearly to have been laudable.  If they went further, and
did anything which could be fairly construed into an actual
conspiracy to levy war against the king, they acted, considering the
disposition of the nation at that period, very indiscreetly.  But
whether their proceedings had ever gone this length, is far from
certain.  Monmouth's communications with the king, when we reflect
upon all the circumstances of those communications, deserve not the
smallest attention; nor indeed, if they did, does the letter which
he afterwards withdrew prove anything upon this point.  And it is an
outrage to common-sense to call Lord Grey's narrative written, as he
himself states in his letter to James II., while the question of his
pardon was pending, an authentic account.  That which is most
certain in this affair is, that they had committed no overt act,
indicating the imagining of the king's death, even according to the
most strained construction of the statute of Edward III.; much less
was any such act legally proved against them.  And the conspiring to
levy war was not treason, except by a recent statute of Charles II.,
the prosecutions upon which were expressly limited to a certain
time, which in these cases had elapsed so that it is impossible not
to assent to the opinion of those who have ever stigmatised the
condemnation and execution of Russell as a most flagrant violation
of law and justice.

The proceedings in Sidney's case were still more detestable.  The
production of papers, containing speculative opinions upon
government and liberty, written long before, and perhaps never even
intended to be published, together with the use made of those
papers, in considering them as a substitute for the second witness
to the overt act, exhibited such a compound of wickedness and
nonsense as is hardly to be paralleled in the history of juridical
tyranny.  But the validity of pretences was little attended to at
that time, in the case of a person whom the court had devoted to
destruction, and upon evidence such as has been stated was this
great and excellent man condemned to die.  Pardon was not to be
expected.  Mr. Hume says, that such an interference on the part of
the king, though it might have been an act of heroic generosity,
could not be regarded as an indispensable duty.  He might have said
with more propriety, that it was idle to expect that the government,
after having incurred so much guilt in order to obtain the sentence,
should, by remitting it, relinquish the object just when it was
within its grasp.  The same historian considers the jury as highly
blamable, and so do I; but what was their guilt in comparison of
that of the court who tried, and of the government who prosecuted,
in this infamous cause?  Yet the jury, being the only party that can
with any colour be stated as acting independently of the government,
is the only one mentioned by him as blamable.  The prosecutor is
wholly omitted in his censure, and so is the court; this last, not
from any tenderness for the judge (who, to do this author justice,
is no favourite with him), but lest the odious connection between
that branch of the judicature and the government should strike the
reader too forcibly; for Jeffreys, in this instance, ought to be
regarded as the mere tool and instrument (a fit one, no doubt), of
the prince who had appointed him for the purpose of this and similar
services.  Lastly, the king is gravely introduced on the question of
pardon, as if he had had no prior concern in the cause, and were now
to decide upon the propriety of extending mercy to a criminal
condemned by a court of judicature; nor are we once reminded what
that judicature was, by whom appointed, by whom influenced, by whom
called upon, to receive that detestable evidence, the very
recollection of which, even at this distance of time, fires every
honest heart with indignation.  As well might we palliate the
murders of Tiberius, who seldom put to death his victims without a
previous decree of his senate.  The moral of all this seems to be,
that whenever a prince can, by intimidation, corruption, illegal
evidence, or other such means, obtain a verdict against a subject
whom he dislikes, he may cause him to be executed without any breach
of indispensable duty; nay, that it is an act of heroic generosity
if he spares him.  I never reflect on Mr. Hume's statement of this
matter but with the deepest regret.  Widely as I differ from him
upon many other occasions, this appears to me to be the most
reprehensible passage of his whole work.  A spirit of adulation
towards deceased princes, though in a good measure free from the
imputation of interested meanness, which is justly attached to
flattery when applied to living monarchs, yet, as it is less
intelligible with respect to its motives than the other, so is it in
its consequences still more pernicious to the general interests of
mankind.  Fear of censure from contemporaries will seldom have much
effect upon men in situations of unlimited authority:  they will too
often flatter themselves that the same power which enables them to
commit the crime will secure them from reproach.  The dread of
posthumous infamy, therefore, being the only restraint, their
consciences excepted, upon the passions of such persons, it is
lamentable that this last defence (feeble enough at best) should in
any degree be impaired; and impaired it must be, if not totally
destroyed, when tyrants can hope to find in a man like Hume, no less
eminent for the integrity and benevolence of his heart than for the
depth and soundness of his understanding, an apologist for even
their foulest murders.

Thus fell Russell and Sidney, two names that will, it is hoped, be
for ever dear to every English heart.  When their memory shall cease
to be an object of respect and veneration, it requires no spirit of
prophecy to foretell that English liberty will be fast approaching
to its final consummation.  Their department was such as might be
expected from men who knew themselves to be suffering, not for their
crimes, but for their virtues.  In courage they were equal, but the
fortitude of Russell, who was connected with the world by private
and domestic ties, which Sidney had not, was put to the severer
trial; and the story of the last days of this excellent man's life
fills the mind with such a mixture of tenderness and admiration,
that I know not any scene in history that more powerfully excites
our sympathy, or goes more directly to the heart.

The very day on which Russell was executed, the University of Oxford
passed their famous decree, condemning formally, as impious and
heretical propositions, every principle upon which the constitution
of this or any other free country can maintain itself.  Nor was this
learned body satisfied with stigmatising such principles as contrary
to the Holy Scriptures, to the decrees of councils, to the writings
of the fathers, to the faith and profession of the primitive church,
as destructive of the kingly government, the safety of his majesty's
person, the public peace, the laws of nature, and bounds of human
society; but after enumerating the several obnoxious propositions,
among which was one declaring all civil authority derived from the
people; another, asserting a mutual contract, tacit or express,
between the king and his subjects; a third, maintaining the
lawfulness of changing the succession to the crown; with many others
of a like nature, they solemnly decreed all and every of those
propositions to be not only false and seditious, but impious, and
that the books which contained them were fitted to lead to
rebellion, murder of princes, and atheism itself.  Such are the
absurdities which men are not ashamed to utter in order to cast
odious imputations upon their adversaries; and such the manner in
which churchmen will abuse, when it suits their policy, the holy
name of that religion whose first precept is to love one another,
for the purpose of teaching us to hate our neighbours with more than
ordinary rancour.  If Much Ado about Nothing had been published in
those days, the town-clerk's declaration, that receiving a thousand
ducats for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully, was flat burglary,
might be supposed to be a satire upon this decree; yet Shakespeare,
well as he knew human nature, not only as to its general course, but
in all its eccentric deviations, could never dream that, in the
persons of Dogberry, Verges, and their followers, he was
representing the vice-chancellors and doctors of our learned
university.

Among the oppressions of this period, most of which were attended
with consequences so much more important to the several objects of
persecution, it may seem scarcely worth while to notice the
expulsion of John Locke from Christ Church College, Oxford.  But
besides the interest which every incident in the life of a person so
deservedly eminent naturally excites, there appears to have been
something in the transaction itself characteristic of the spirit of
the times, as well as of the general nature of absolute power.  Mr.
Locke was known to have been intimately connected with Lord
Shaftesbury, and had very prudently judged it advisable for him to
prolong for some time his residence upon the Continent, to which he
had resorted originally on account of his health.  A suspicion, as
it has been since proved unfounded, that he was the author of a
pamphlet which gave offence to the government, induced the king to
insist upon his removal from his studentship at Christ Church.
Sunderland writes, by the king's command, to Dr. Fell, bishop of
Oxford and dean of Christ Church.  The reverend prelate answers that
he has long had an eye upon Mr. Locke's behaviour; but though
frequent attempts had been made (attempts of which the bishop
expresses no disapprobation), to draw him into imprudent
conversation, by attacking, in his company, the reputation, and
insulting the memory of his late patron and friend, and thus to make
his gratitude and all the best feelings of his heart instrumental to
his ruin, these attempts all proved unsuccessful.  Hence the bishop
infers, not the innocence of Mr. Locke, but that he was a great
master of concealment both as to words and looks; for looks, it is
to be supposed, would have furnished a pretext for his expulsion,
more decent than any which had yet been discovered.  An expedient is
then suggested to drive Mr. Locke to a dilemma, by summoning him to
attend the college on the first of January ensuing.  If he do not
appear, he shall be expelled for contumacy; if he come, matter of
charge may be found against him for what he shall have said at
London or elsewhere, where he will have been less upon his guard
than at Oxford.  Some have ascribed Fell's hesitation, if it can be
so called, in executing the king's order, to his unwillingness to
injure Locke, who was his friend; others, with more reason, to the
doubt of the legality of the order.  However this may have been,
neither his scruple nor his reluctance was regarded by a court who
knew its own power.  A peremptory order was accordingly sent, and
immediate obedience ensued.  Thus, while without the shadow of a
crime, Mr. Locke lost a situation attended with some emolument and
great convenience, was the university deprived of, or rather thus,
from the base principles of servility, did she cast away the man,
the having produced whom is now her chiefest glory; and thus, to
those who are not determined to be blind, did the true nature of
absolute power discover itself, against which the middling station
is not more secure than the most exalted.  Tyranny, when glutted
with the blood of the great, and the plunder of the rich, will
condescend to bent humbler game, and make a peaceable and innocent
fellow of a college the object of its persecution.  In this instance
one would almost imagine there was some instinctive sagacity in the
government of that time, which pointed out to them, even before he
had made himself known to the world, the man who was destined to be
the most successful adversary of superstition and tyranny.

The king, during the remainder of his reign, seems, with the
exception of Armstrong's execution, which must be added to the
catalogue of his murders, to have directed his attacks more against
the civil rights, properties, and liberties, than against the lives
of his subjects.  Convictions against evidence, sentences against
law, enormous fines, cruel imprisonments, were the principal engines
employed for the purpose of breaking the spirit of individuals, and
fitting their necks for the yoke.  But it was not thought fit to
trust wholly to the effect which such examples would produce upon
the public.  That the subjugation of the people might be complete,
and despotism be established upon the most solid foundation,
measures of a more general nature and effect were adopted; and
first, the charter of London, and then those of almost all the other
corporations in England, were either forfeited or forced to a
surrender.  By this act of violence two important points were
thought to be gained; one, that in every regular assemblage of the
people in any part of the kingdom the crown would have a commanding
influence; the other, that in case the king should find himself
compelled to break his engagement to France, and to call a
parliament, a great majority of members would be returned by
electors of his nomination, and subject to his control.  In the
affair of the charter of London, it was seen, as in the case of
ship-money, how idle it is to look to the integrity of judges for a
barrier against royal encroachments, when the courts of justice are
not under the constant and vigilant control of parliament.  And it
is not to be wondered at, that, after such a warning, and with no
hope of seeing a parliament assemble, even they who still retained
their attachment to the true constitution of their country, should
rather give way to the torrent than make a fruitless and dangerous
resistance.

Charles being thus completely master, was determined that the
relative situation of him and his subjects should be clearly
understood, for which purpose he ordered a declaration to be framed,
wherein, after having stated that he considered the degree of
confidence they had reposed in him as an honour particular to his
reign, which not one of his predecessors had ever dared even to hope
for, he assured them he would use it with all possible moderation,
and convince even the most violent republicans, that as the crown
was the origin of the rights and liberties of the people, so was it
their most certain and secure support.  This gracious declaration
was ready for the press at the time of the king's death, and if he
had lived to issue it, there can be little doubt how it would have
been received at a time when


   "nunquam libertas gratior extat
Quam sub rege pio,"


was the theme of every song, and, by the help of some perversion of
Scripture, the text of every sermon.  But whatever might be the
language of flatterers, and how loud soever the cry of a triumphant,
but deluded party, there were not wanting men of nobler sentiments
and of more rational views.  Minds once thoroughly imbued with the
love of what Sidney, in his last moments, so emphatically called the
good old cause, will not easily relinquish their principles:  nor
was the manner in which absolute power was exercised, such as to
reconcile to it, in practice, those who had always been averse to it
in speculation.  The hatred of tyranny must, in such persons, have
been exasperated by the experience of its effects, and their
attachment to liberty proportionably confirmed.  To them the state
of their country must have been intolerable:  to reflect upon the
efforts of their fathers, once their pride and glory, and whom they
themselves had followed with no unequal steps, and to see the result
of all in the scenes that now presented themselves, must have filled
their minds with sensations of the deepest regret, and feelings
bordering at least on despondency.  To us, who have the opportunity
of combining in our view of this period, not only the preceding but
subsequent transactions, the consideration of it may suggest
reflections far different and speculations more consolatory.
Indeed, I know not that history can furnish a more forcible lesson
against despondency, than by recording that within a short time from
those dismal days in which men of the greatest constancy despaired,
and had reason to do so, within five years from the death of Sidney
arose the brightest era of freedom known to the annals of our
country.

It is said that the king, when at the summit of his power, was far
from happy; and a notion has been generally entertained that not
long before his death he had resolved upon the recall of Monmouth,
and a correspondent change of system.  That some such change was
apprehended seems extremely probable, from the earnest desire which
the court of France, as well as the Duke of York's party in England,
entertained, in the last years of Charles's life, to remove the
Marquis of Halifax, who was supposed to have friendly dispositions
to Monmouth.  Among the various objections to that nobleman's
political principles, we find the charge most relied upon, for the
purpose of injuring him in the mind of the king, was founded on the
opinion he had delivered in council, in favour of modelling the
charters of the British colonies in North America upon the
principles of the rights and privileges of Englishmen.  There was no
room to doubt (he was accused of saying) that the same laws under
which we live in England, should be established in a country
composed of Englishmen.  He even dilated upon this, and omitted none
of the reasons by which it can be proved that an absolute government
is neither so happy nor so safe as that which is tempered by laws,
and which limits the authority of the prince.  He exaggerated, it
was said, the mischiefs of a sovereign power, and declared plainly
that he could not make up his mind to live under a king who should
have it in his power to take, when he pleased, the money he might
have in his pocket.  All the other ministers had combated, as might
be expected, sentiments so extraordinary; and without entering into
the general question of the comparative value of different forms of
government, maintained that his majesty could and ought to govern
countries so distant in the manner that should appear to him most
suitable for preserving or augmenting the strength and riches of the
mother country.  It had been, therefore, resolved that the
government and council of the provinces under the new charter should
not be obliged to call assemblies of the colonists for the purpose
of imposing taxes, or making other important regulations, but should
do what they thought fit, without rendering any account of their
actions except to his Britannic Majesty.  The affair having been so
decided with a concurrence only short of unanimity, was no longer
considered as a matter of importance, nor would it be worth
recording, if the Duke of York and the French court had not fastened
upon it, as affording the best evidence of the danger to be
apprehended from having a man of Halifax's principles in any
situation of trust or power.  There is something curious in
discovering that even at this early period a question relative to
North American liberty, and even to North American taxation, was
considered as the test of principles friendly or adverse to
arbitrary power at home.  But the truth is, that among the several
controversies which have arisen there is no other wherein the
natural rights of man on the one hand, and the authority of
artificial institution on the other, as applied respectively by the
Whigs and Tories to the English constitution, are so fairly put in
issue, nor by which the line of separation between the two parties
is so strongly and distinctly marked.

There is some reason for believing that the court of Versailles had
either wholly discontinued, or, at least, had become very remiss in,
the payments of Charles's pension; and it is not unlikely that this
consideration induced him either really to think of calling a
parliament, or at least to threaten Louis with such a measure, in
order to make that prince more punctual in performing his part of
their secret treaty.  But whether or not any secret change was
really intended, or if it were to what extent, and to what objects
directed, are points which cannot now be ascertained, no public
steps having ever been taken in this affair, and his majesty's
intentions, if in truth he had any such, becoming abortive by the
sudden illness which seized him on the 1st of February, 1685, and
which, in a few days afterwards, put an end to his reign and life.
His death was by many supposed to have been the effect of poison;
but although there is reason to believe that this suspicion was
harboured by persons very near to him, and, among others, as I have
heard, by the Duchess of Portsmouth, it appears, upon the whole, to
rest upon very slender foundations.

With respect to the character of this prince, upon the delineation
of which so much pains have been employed, by the various writers
who treat of the history of his time, it must be confessed that the
facts which have been noticed in the foregoing pages furnish but too
many illustrations of the more unfavourable parts of it.  From these
we may collect that his ambition was directed solely against his
subjects, while he was completely indifferent concerning the figure
which he or they might make in the general affairs of Europe; and
that his desire of power was more unmixed with love of glory than
that of any other man whom history has recorded; that he was
unprincipled, ungrateful, mean, and treacherous, to which may be
added, vindictive and remorseless.  For Burnet, in refusing to him
the praise of clemency and forgiveness, seems to be perfectly
justifiable, nor is it conceivable upon what pretence his partisans
have taken this ground of panegyric.  I doubt whether a single
instance can be produced of his having spared the life of any one
whom motives either of policy, or of revenge, prompted him to
destroy.  To allege that of Monmouth as it would be an affront to
human nature, so would it likewise imply the most severe of all
satires against the monarch himself, and we may add, too, an
undeserved one; for, in order to consider it as an act of
meritorious forbearance on his part, that he did not follow the
example of Constantine and Philip II., by imbruing his hands in the
blood of his son, we must first suppose him to have been wholly void
of every natural affection, which does not appear to have been the
case.  His declaration that he would have pardoned Essex, being made
when that nobleman was dead, and not followed by any act evincing
its sincerity, can surely obtain no credit from men of sense.  If he
had really had the intention, he ought not to have made such a
declaration, unless he accompanied it with some mark of kindness to
the relations, or with some act of mercy to the friends of the
deceased.  Considering it as a mere piece of hypocrisy, we cannot
help looking upon it as one of the most odious passages of his life.
This ill-timed boast of his intended mercy, and the brutal taunt
with which he accompanied his mitigation (if so it may be called) of
Russell's sentence, show his insensibility and hardness to have been
such, that in questions where right feelings were concerned, his
good sense, and even the good taste for which he has been so much
extolled, seemed wholly to desert him.

On the other hand, it would be want of candour to maintain that
Charles was entirely destitute of good qualities; nor was the
propriety of Burnet's comparison between him and Tiberius ever felt,
I imagine, by any one but its author.  He was gay and affable, and,
if incapable of the sentiments belonging to pride of a laudable
sort, he was at least free from haughtiness and insolence.  The
praise of politeness, which the stoics are not perhaps wrong in
classing among the moral virtues, provided they admit it to be one
of the lowest order, has never been denied him, and he had in an
eminent degree that facility of temper which, though considered by
some moralists as nearly allied to vice, yet, inasmuch as it
contributes greatly to the happiness of those around us, is in
itself not only an engaging but an estimable quality.  His support
of the queen during the heats raised by the popish plot ought to be
taken rather as a proof that he was not a monster than to be
ascribed to him as a merit; but his steadiness to his brother,
though it may and ought, in a great measure, to be accounted for
upon selfish principles, had at least a strong resemblance to
virtue.

The best part of this prince's character seems to have been his
kindness towards his mistresses, and his affection for his children,
and others nearly connected to him by the ties of blood.  His
recommendation of the Duchess of Portsmouth and Mrs. Gwyn, upon his
death-bed, to his successor is much to his honour; and they who
censure it seem, in their zeal to show themselves strict moralists,
to have suffered their notions of vice and virtue to have fallen
into strange confusion.  Charles's connection with those ladies
might be vicious, but at a moment when that connection was upon the
point of being finally and irrevocably dissolved, to concern himself
about their future welfare and to recommend them to his brother with
earnest tenderness was virtue.  It is not for the interest of
morality that the good and evil actions, even of bad men, should be
confounded.  His affection for the Duke of Gloucester and for the
Duchess of Orleans seems to have been sincere and cordial.  To
attribute, as some have done, his grief for the loss of the first to
political considerations, founded upon an intended balance of power
between his two brothers, would be an absurd refinement, whatever
were his general disposition; but when we reflect upon that
carelessness which, especially in his youth, was a conspicuous
feature of his character, the absurdity becomes still more striking.
And though Burnet more covertly, and Ludlow more openly, insinuate
that his fondness for his sister was of a criminal nature, I never
could find that there was any ground whatever for such a suspicion;
nor does the little that remains of their epistolary correspondence
give it the smallest countenance.  Upon the whole, Charles II. was a
bad man and a bad king; let us not palliate his crimes, but neither
let us adopt false or doubtful imputations for the purpose of making
him a monster.

Whoever reviews the interesting period which we have been
discussing, upon the principle recommended in the outset of this
chapter, will find that, from the consideration of the past, to
prognosticate the future would at the moment of Charles's demise be
no easy task.  Between two persons, one of whom should expect that
the country would remain sunk in slavery, the other, that the cause
of freedom would revive and triumph, it would be difficult to decide
whose reasons were better supported, whose speculations the more
probable.  I should guess that he who desponded had looked more at
the state of the public, while he who was sanguine had fixed his
eyes more attentively upon the person who was about to mount the
throne.  Upon reviewing the two great parties of the nation, one
observation occurs very forcibly, and that is, that the great
strength of the Whigs consisted in their being able to brand their
adversaries as favourers of popery; that of the Tories (as far as
their strength depended upon opinion, and not merely upon the power
of the crown), in their finding colour to represent the Whigs as
republicans.  From this observation we may draw a further inference,
that, in proportion to the rashness of the crown in avowing and
pressing forward the cause of popery, and to the moderation and
steadiness of the Whigs in adhering to the form of monarchy, would
be the chance of the people of England for changing an ignominious
despotism for glory, liberty, and happiness.



CHAPTER II.



Accession of James II.--His declaration in council; acceptable to
the nation--Arbitrary designs of his reign--Former ministers
continued--Money transactions with France--Revenue levied without
authority of Parliament--Persecution of Dissenters--Character of
Jeffreys--The King's affectation of independence--Advances to the
Prince of Orange--The primary object of this reign--Transactions in
Scotland--Severe persecutions there--Scottish Parliament--Cruelties
of government--English Parliament; its proceedings--Revenue--Votes
concerning religion--Bill for preservation of the King's person--
Solicitude for the Church of England--Reversal of Stafford's
attainder rejected--Parliament adjourned--Character of the Tories--
Situation of the Whigs.

Charles II. expired on the 6th of February, 1684-85, and on the same
day his successor was proclaimed king in London, with the usual
formalities, by the title of James the Second.  The great influence
which this prince was supposed to have possessed in the government
during the latter years of his brother's reign, and the expectation
which was entertained in consequence, that his measures, when
monarch, would be of the same character and complexion with those
which he was known to have highly approved, and of which he was
thought by many to have been the principal author, when a subject
left little room for that spirit of speculation which generally
attends a demise of the crown.  And thus an event, which when
apprehended a few years before had, according to a strong expression
of Sir William Temple, been looked upon as the end of the world, was
now deemed to be of small comparative importance.

Its tendency, indeed, was rather to ensure perseverance than to
effect any change in the system which had been of late years
pursued.  As there are, however, some steps indispensably necessary
on the accession of a new prince to the throne, to these the public
attention was directed, and though the character of James had been
long so generally understood as to leave little doubt respecting the
political maxims and principles by which his reign would be
governed, there was probably much curiosity, as upon such occasions
there always is, with regard to the conduct he would pursue in
matters of less importance, and to the general language and
behaviour which he would adopt in his new situation.  His first step
was, of course, to assemble the privy council, to whom he spoke as
follows:-

"Before I enter upon any other business, I think fit to say
something to you.  Since it hath pleated Almighty God to place me in
this station, and I am now to succeed so good and gracious a king,
as well as so very kind a brother, I think it fit to declare to you
that I will endeavour to follow his example, and most especially in
that of his great clemency and tenderness to his people.  I have
been reported to be a man for arbitrary power; but that is not the
only story that has been made of me; and I shall make it my
endeavour to preserve this government, both in Church and State, as
it is now by law established.  I know the principles of the Church
of England are for monarchy, and the members of it have shown
themselves good and loyal subjects; therefore I shall always take
care to defend and support it.  I know, too, that the laws of
England are sufficient to make the king as great a monarch as I can
wish; and as I shall never depart from the just rights and
prerogatives of the crown, so I shall never invade any man's
property.  I have often heretofore ventured my life in defence of
this nation and I shall go as far as any man in preserving it in all
its just rights and liberties."

With this declaration the council were so highly satisfied, that
they supplicated his majesty to make it public, which was
accordingly done; and it is reported to have been received with
unbounded applause by the greater part of the nation.  Some,
perhaps, there were, who did not think the boast of having ventured
his life very manly, and who, considering the transactions of the
last years of Charles's reign, were not much encouraged by the
promise of imitating that monarch in clemency and tenderness to his
subjects.  To these it might appear, that whatever there was of
consolatory in the king's disclaimer of arbitrary power and
professed attachment to the laws, was totally done away, as well by
the consideration of what his majesty's notions of power and law
were, as by his declaration that he would follow the example of a
predecessor, whose government had not only been marked with the
violation, in particular cases, of all the most sacred laws of the
realm, but had latterly, by the disuse of parliaments, in defiance
of the statute of the sixteenth year of his reign, stood upon a
foundation radically and fundamentally illegal.  To others it might
occur that even the promise to the Church of England, though express
with respect to the condition of it, which was no other than perfect
acquiescence in what the king deemed to be the true principles of
monarchy, was rather vague with regard to the nature or degree of
support to which the royal speaker might conceive himself engaged.
The words, although in any interpretation of them they conveyed more
than he possibly ever intended to perform, did by no means express
the sense which at that time, by his friends, and afterwards by his
enemies, was endeavoured to be fixed on them.  There was, indeed, a
promise to support the establishment of the Church, and consequently
the laws upon which that establishment immediately rested; but by no
means an engagement to maintain all the collateral provisions which
some of its more zealous members might judge necessary for its
security.

But whatever doubts or difficulties might be felt, few or none were
expressed.  The Whigs, as a vanquished party, were either silent or
not listened to, and the Tories were in a temper of mind which does
not easily admit suspicion.  They were not more delighted with the
victory they had obtained over their adversaries, than with the
additional stability which, as they vainly imagined, the accession
of the new monarch was likely to give to their system.  The truth is
that, his religion excepted (and that objection they were sanguine
enough to consider as done away by a few gracious words in favour of
the Church), James was every way better suited to their purpose than
his brother.  They had entertained continual apprehensions, not
perhaps wholly unfounded, of the late king's returning kindness to
Monmouth, the consequences of which could not easily be calculated;
whereas, every occurrence that had happened, as well as every
circumstance in James's situation, seemed to make him utterly
irreconcilable with the Whigs.  Besides, after the reproach, as well
as alarm, which the notoriety of Charles's treacherous character
must so often have caused them, the very circumstance of having at
their head a prince, of whom they could with any colour hold out to
their adherents that his word was to be depended upon, was in itself
a matter of triumph and exultation.  Accordingly, the watchword of
the party was everywhere--"We have the word of a king, and a word
never yet broken;" and to such a length was the spirit of adulation,
or perhaps the delusion, carried, that this royal declaration was
said to be a better security for the liberty and religion of the
nation than any which the law could devise.

The king, though much pleased, no doubt, with the popularity which
seemed to attend the commencement of his reign, as a powerful medium
for establishing the system of absolute power, did not suffer
himself, by any show of affection from his people, to be diverted
from his design of rendering his government independent of them.  To
this design we must look as the mainspring of all his actions at
this period; for with regard to the Roman Catholic religion, it is
by no means certain that he yet thought of obtaining for it anything
more than a complete toleration.  With this view, therefore, he
could not take a more judicious resolution than that which he had
declared in his speech to the privy council, and to which he seems,
at this time, to have steadfastly adhered, of making the government
of his predecessor the model for his own.  He therefore continued in
their offices, notwithstanding the personal objections he might have
to some of them, those servants of the late king, during whose
administration that prince had been so successful in subduing his
subjects, and eradicating almost from the minds of Englishmen every
sentiment of liberty.

Even the Marquis of Halifax, who was supposed to have remonstrated
against many of the late measures, and to have been busy in
recommending a change of system to Charles, was continued in high
employment by James, who told him that, of all his past conduct, he
should remember only his behaviour upon the exclusion bill, to which
that nobleman had made a zealous and distinguished opposition; a
handsome expression, which has been the more noticed, as well
because it is almost the single instance of this prince's showing
any disposition to forget injuries, as on account of a delicacy and
propriety in the wording of it, by no means familiar to him.

Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, whom he appointed lord treasurer,
was in all respects calculated to be a fit instrument for the
purposes then in view.  Besides being upon the worst terms with
Halifax, in whom alone, of all his ministers, James was likely to
find any bias in favour of popular principles, he was, both from
prejudice of education, and from interest, inasmuch as he had
aspired to be the head of the Tories, a great favourer of those
servile principles of the Church of England which had been lately so
highly extolled from the throne.  His near relation to the Duchess
of York might also be some recommendation, but his privity to the
late pecuniary transactions between the courts of Versailles and
London, and the cordiality with which he concurred in them, were by
far more powerful titles to his new master's confidence.  For it
must be observed of this minister, as well as of many others of his
party, that his HIGH notions, as they are frequently styled, of
power, regarded only the relation between the king and his subjects,
and not that in which he might stand with respect to foreign
princes; so that, provided he could, by a dependence, however
servile, upon Louis XIV., be placed above the control of his
parliament and people at home, he considered the honour of the crown
unsullied.

Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, who was continued as secretary
of state, had been at one period a supporter of the exclusion bill,
and had been suspected of having offered the Duchess of Portsmouth
to obtain the succession to the crown for her son, the Duke of
Richmond.  Nay more, King James, in his "Memoirs," charges him with
having intended, just at the time of Charles's death, to send him
into a second banishment; but with regard to this last point, it
appears evident to me, that many things in those "Memoirs," relative
to this earl, were written after James's abdication, and in the
greatest bitterness of spirit, when he was probably in a frame of
mind to believe anything against a person by whom he conceived
himself to have been basely deserted.  The reappointment, therefore,
of this nobleman to so important an office, is to be accounted for
partly upon the general principle above-mentioned, of making the new
reign a mere continuation of the former, and partly upon
Sunderland's extraordinary talents for ingratiating himself with
persons in power, and persuading them that he was the fittest
instrument for their purposes; a talent in which he seems to have
surpassed all the intriguing statesmen of his time, or perhaps of
any other.

An intimate connection with the court of Versailles being the
principal engine by which the favourite project of absolute monarchy
was to be effected, James, for the purpose of fixing and cementing
that connection, sent for M. de Barillon, the French ambassador, the
very day after his accession, and entered into the most confidential
discourse with him.  He explained to him his motives for intending
to call a parliament, as well as his resolution to levy by authority
the revenue which his predecessor had enjoyed in virtue of a grant
of parliament which determined with his life.  He made general
professions of attachment to Louis, declared that in all affairs of
importance it was his intention to consult that monarch, and
apologised, upon the ground of the urgency of the case, for acting
in the instance mentioned without his advice.  Money was not
directly mentioned, owing, perhaps, to some sense of shame upon that
subject, which his brother had never experienced; but lest there
should be a doubt whether that object were implied in the desire of
support and protection, Rochester was directed to explain the matter
more fully, and to give a more distinct interpretation of these
general terms.  Accordingly, that minister waited the next morning
upon Barillon, and after having repeated and enlarged upon the
reasons for calling a parliament, stated, as an additional argument
in defence of the measure, that without it his master would become
too chargeable to the French king; adding, however, that the
assistance which might be expected from a parliament, did not exempt
him altogether from the necessity of resorting to that prince for
pecuniary aids; for that without such, he would be at the mercy of
his subjects, and that upon this beginning would depend the whole
fortune of the reign.  If Rochester actually expressed himself as
Barillon relates, the use intended to be made of parliament cannot
but cause the most lively indignation, while it furnishes a complete
answer to the historians who accuse the parliaments of those days of
unseasonable parsimony in their grants to the Stuart kings; for the
grants of the people of England were not destined, it seems, to
enable their kings to oppose the power of France, or even to be
independent of her, but to render the influence which Louis was
resolved to preserve in this country less chargeable to him, by
furnishing their quota to the support of his royal dependant.

The French ambassador sent immediately a detailed account of these
conversations to his court, where, probably, they were not received
with the less satisfaction on account of the request contained in
them having been anticipated.  Within a very few days from that in
which the latter of them had passed, he was empowered to accompany
the delivery of a letter from his master, with the agreeable news of
having received from him bills of exchange to the amount of five
hundred thousand livres, to be used in whatever manner might be
convenient to the king of England's service.  The account which
Barillon gives, of the manner in which this sum was received, is
altogether ridiculous:  the king's eyes were full of tears, and
three of his ministers, Rochester, Sunderland, and Godolphin, came
severally to the French ambassador, to express the sense their
master had of the obligation, in terms the most lavish.  Indeed,
demonstrations of gratitude from the king directly, as well as
through his ministers, for this supply were such, as if they had
been used by some unfortunate individual, who, with his whole
family, had been saved, by the timely succour of some kind and
powerful protector, from a gaol and all its horrors, would be deemed
rather too strong than too weak.  Barillon himself seems surprised
when he relates them; but imputes them to what was probably their
real cause, to the apprehensions that had been entertained (very
unreasonable ones!) that the king of France might no longer choose
to interfere in the affairs of England, and consequently that his
support could not be relied on for the grand object of assimilating
this government to his own.

If such apprehensions did exist, it is probable that they were
chiefly owing to the very careless manner, to say the least, in
which Louis had of late fulfilled his pecuniary engagements to
Charles, so as to amount, in the opinion of the English ministers,
to an actual breach of promise.  But the circumstances were in some
respects altered.  The French king had been convinced that Charles
would never call a parliament; nay, further perhaps, that if he did,
he would not be trusted by one; and considering him therefore
entirely in his power, acted from that principle in insolent minds
which makes them fond of ill-treating and insulting those whom they
have degraded to a dependence on them.  But James would probably be
obliged at the commencement of a new reign to call a parliament, and
if well used by such a body, and abandoned by France, might give up
his project of arbitrary power, and consent to govern according to
the law and constitution.  In such an event, Louis easily foresaw,
that, instead of a useful dependent, he might find upon the throne
of England a formidable enemy.  Indeed, this prince and his
ministers seem all along, with a sagacity that does them credit, to
have foreseen, and to have justly estimated, the dangers to which
they would be liable, if a cordial union should ever take place
between a king of England and his parliament, and the British
councils be directed by men enlightened and warmed by the genuine
principles of liberty.  It was therefore an object of great moment
to bind the new king, as early as possible, to the system of
dependency upon France; and matter of less triumph to the court of
Versailles to have retained him by so moderate a fee, than to that
of London to receive a sum which, though small, was thought
valuable, no as an earnest of better wages and future protection.

It had for some time been Louis's favourite object to annex to his
dominion what remained of the Spanish Netherlands, as well on
account of their own intrinsic value, as to enable him to destroy
the United Provinces and the Prince of Orange; and this object
Charles had bound himself, by treaty with Spain, to oppose.  In the
joy, therefore, occasioned by this noble manner of proceeding (for
such it was called by all the parties concerned), the first step was
to agree, without hesitation, that Charles's treaty with Spain
determined with his life, a decision which, if the disregard that
had been shown to it did not render the question concerning it
nugatory, it would be difficult to support upon any principles of
national law or justice.  The manner in which the late king had
conducted himself upon the subject of this treaty, that is to say,
the violation of it, without formally renouncing it, was gravely
commended, and stated to be no more than what might justly be
expected from him; but the present king was declared to be still
more free, and in no way bound by a treaty, from the execution of
which his brother had judged himself to be sufficiently dispensed.
This appears to be a nice distinction, and what that degree of
obligation was, from which James was exempt, but which had lain upon
Charles, who neither thought himself bound, nor was expected by
others to execute the treaty, it is difficult to conceive.

This preliminary being adjusted, the meaning of which, through all
this contemptible shuffling, was, that James, by giving up all
concern for the Spanish Netherlands, should be at liberty to
acquiesce in, or to second, whatever might be the ambitious projects
of the court of Versailles, it was determined that Lord Churchill
should be sent to Paris to obtain further pecuniary aids.  But such
was the impression made by the frankness and generosity of Louis,
that there was no question of discussing or capitulating, but
everything was remitted to that prince, and to the information his
ministers might give him, respecting the exigency of affairs in
England.  He who had so handsomely been beforehand, in granting the
assistance of five hundred thousand livres, was only to be thanked
for past, not importuned for future, munificence.  Thus ended, for
the present, this disgusting scene of iniquity and nonsense, in
which all the actors seemed to vie with each other in prostituting
the sacred names of friendship, generosity, and gratitude, in one of
the meanest and most criminal transactions which history records.

The principal parties in the business, besides the king himself, to
whose capacity, at least, if not to his situation it was more
suitable, and Lord Churchill, who acted as an inferior agent, were
Sunderland, Rochester, and Godolphin, all men of high rank and
considerable abilities, but whose understandings, as well as their
principles, seem to have been corrupted by the pernicious schemes in
which they were engaged.  With respect to the last-mentioned
nobleman in particular, it is impossible, without pain, to see him
engaged in such transactions.  With what self-humiliation must he
not have reflected upon them in subsequent periods of his life!  How
little could Barillon guess that he was negotiating with one who was
destined to be at the head of an administration which, in a few
years, would send the same Lord Churchill not to Paris, to implore
Louis for succours towards enslaving England, or to thank him for
pensions to her monarch, but to combine all Europe against him in
the cause of liberty, to rout his armies, to take his towns, to
humble his pride, and to shake to the foundation that fabric of
power which it had been the business of a long life to raise, at the
expense of every sentiment of tenderness to his subjects, and of
justice and good faith to foreign nations.  It is with difficulty
the reader can persuade himself that the Godolphin and Churchill
here mentioned are the same persons who were afterwards one in the
cabinet, one in the field, the great conductors of the war of the
succession.  How little do they appear in one instance! how great in
the other!  And the investigation of the cause to which this
excessive difference is principally owing, will produce a most
useful lesson.  Is the difference to be attributed to any
superiority of genius in the prince whom they served in the latter
period of their lives?  Queen Anne's capacity appears to have been
inferior even to her father's.  Did they enjoy in a greater degree
her favour and confidence?  The very reverse is the fact.  But in
one case they were the tools of a king plotting against his people;
in the other, the ministers of a free government acting upon
enlarged principles, and with energies which no state that is not in
some degree republican can supply.  How forcibly must the
contemplation of these men, in such opposite situations, teach
persons engaged in political life that a free and popular government
is desirable, not only for the public good, but for their own
greatness and consideration, for every object of generous ambition!

The king having, as has been related, first privately communicated
his intentions to the French ambassador, issued proclamations for
the meeting of parliament, and for levying, upon his sole authority,
the customs and other duties which had constituted part of the late
king's revenue, but to which, the acts granting them having expired
with the prince, James was not legally entitled.  He was advised by
Lord Guildford, whom he had continued in the office of keeper of the
great seal, and who upon such a subject, therefore, was a person
likely to have the greatest weight, to satisfy himself with
directing the money to be kept in the exchequer for the disposal of
parliament, which was shortly to meet; and by others, to take bonds
from the merchants for the duties, to be paid when parliament should
legalise them.  But these expedients were not suited to the king's
views, who, as well on account of his engagement with France, as
from his own disposition, was determined to take no step that might
indicate an intention of governing by parliaments, or a
consciousness of his being dependent upon them for his revenue, he
adopted, therefore, the advice of Jeffreys, advice not resulting so
much, probably, either from ignorance or violence of disposition, as
from his knowledge that it would be most agreeable to his master,
and directed the duties to be paid as in the former reign.  It was
pretended, that an interruption in levying some of the duties might
be hurtful to trade; but as every difficulty of that kind was
obviated by the expedients proposed, this arbitrary and violent
measure can with no colour be ascribed to a regard to public
convenience, nor to any other motive than to a desire of reviving
Charles I.'s claims to the power of taxation, and of furnishing a
most intelligible comment upon his speech to the council on the day
of his accession.  It became evident what the king's notions were,
with respect to that regal prerogative from which he professed
himself determined never to depart, and to that property which he
would never invade.  What were the remaining rights and liberties of
the nation, which he was to preserve, might be more difficult to
discover; but that the laws of England, in the royal interpretation
of them, were sufficient to make the king as great a monarch as he,
or, indeed, any prince could desire, was a point that could not be
disputed.  This violation of law was in itself most flagrant; it was
applied to a point well understood, and thought to have been so
completely settled by repeated and most explicit declarations of the
legislature, that it must have been doubtful whether even the most
corrupt judges, if the question had been tried, would have had the
audacity to decide it against the subject.  But no resistance was
made; nor did the example of Hampden, which a half century before
had been so successful, and rendered that patriot's name so
illustrious, tempt any one to emulate his fame, so completely had
the crafty and sanguinary measures of the late reign attained the
object to which they were directed, and rendered all men either
afraid or unwilling to exert themselves in the cause of liberty.

On the other hand, addresses the most servile were daily sent to the
throne.  That of the University of Oxford stated that the religion
which they professed bound them to unconditional obedience to their
sovereign without restrictions or limitations; and the Society of
Barristers and Students of the Middle Temple thanked his majesty for
the attention he had shown to the trade of the kingdom, concerning
which, and its balance (and upon this last article they laid
particular stress), they seemed to think themselves peculiarly
called upon to deliver their opinion.  But whatever might be their
knowledge in matters of trade, it was at least equal to that which
these addressers showed in the laws and constitution of their
country, since they boldly affirmed the king's right to levy the
duties, and declared that it had never been disputed but by persons
engaged, in what they were pleased to call rebellion against his
royal father.  The address concluded with a sort of prayer that all
his majesty's subjects might be as good lawyers as themselves, and
disposed to acknowledge the royal prerogative in all its extent.

If these addresses are remarkable for their servility, that of the
gentlemen and freeholders of the county of Suffolk was no less so
for the spirit of party violence that was displayed in it.  They
would take care, they said, to choose representatives who should no
more endure those who had been for the Exclusion Bill, than the last
parliament had the abhorrers of the association; and thus not only
endeavoured to keep up his majesty's resentment against a part of
their fellow-subjects, but engaged themselves to imitate, for the
purpose of retaliation, that part of the conduct of their
adversaries which they considered as most illegal and oppressive.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that among all the adulatory
addresses of this time, there is not to be found, in any one of
them, any declaration of disbelief in the popish plot, or any charge
upon the late parliament for having prosecuted it, though it could
not but be well known that such topics would, of all others, be most
agreeable to the court.  Hence we may collect that the delusion on
this subject was by no means at an end, and that they who, out of a
desire to render history conformable to the principles of poetical
justice, attribute the unpopularity and downfall of the Whigs to the
indignation excited by their furious and sanguinary prosecution of
the plot, are egregiously mistaken.  If this had been in any degree
the prevailing sentiment, it is utterly unaccountable that, so far
from its appearing in any of the addresses of these times, this most
just ground of reproach upon the Whig party, and the parliament in
which they had had the superiority, was the only one omitted in
them.  The fact appears to have been the very reverse of what such
historians suppose, and that the activity of the late parliamentary
leaders, in prosecuting the popish plot, was the principal
circumstance which reconciled the nation, for a time, to their other
proceedings; that their conduct in that business (now so justly
condemned) was the grand engine of their power, and that when that
failed, they were soon overpowered by the united forces of bigotry
and corruption.  They were hated by a great part of the nation, not
for their crimes, but for their virtues.  To be above corruption is
always odious to the corrupt, and to entertain more enlarged and
juster notions of philosophy and government, is often a cause of
alarm to the narrow-minded and superstitious.  In those days
particularly it was obvious to refer to the confusion, greatly
exaggerated of the times of the commonwealth; and it was an
excellent watchword of alarm, to accuse every lover of law and
liberty of designs to revive the tragical scene which had closed the
life of the first Charles.  In this spirit, therefore, the Exclusion
Bill, and the alleged conspiracies of Sidney and Russell, were, as
might naturally be expected, the chief charges urged against the
Whigs; but their conduct on the subject of the popish plot was so
far from being the cause of the hatred born to them, that it was not
even used as a topic of accusation against them.

In order to keep up that spirit in the nation, which was thought to
be manifested in the addresses, his majesty ordered the declaration,
to which allusion was made in the last chapter, to be published,
interwoven with a history of the Rye House Plot, which is said to
have been drawn by Dr. Spratt, Bishop of Rochester.  The principal
drift of this publication was, to load the memory of Sidney and
Russell, and to blacken the character of the Duke of Monmouth, by
wickedly confounding the consultations holden by them with the plot
for assassinating the late king, and in this object it seems in a
great measure to have succeeded.  He also caused to be published an
attestation of his brother's having died a Roman Catholic, together
with two papers, drawn up by him, in favour of that persuasion.
This is generally considered to have been a very ill-advised
instance of zeal; but probably James thought, that at a time when
people seemed to be so in love with his power, he might safely
venture to indulge himself in a display of his attachment to his
religion; and perhaps, too, it might be thought good policy to show
that a prince, who had been so highly complimented as Charles had
been, for the restoration and protection of the Church, had, in
truth, been a Catholic, and thus to inculcate an opinion that the
Church of England might not only be safe, but highly favoured, under
the reign of a popish prince.

Partly from similar motives, and partly to gratify the natural
vindictiveness of his temper, he persevered in a most cruel
persecution of the Protestant dissenters, upon the most frivolous
pretences.  The courts of justice, as in Charles's days, were
instruments equally ready, either for seconding the policy or for
gratifying the bad passions of the monarch; and Jeffreys, whom the
late king had appointed chief justice of England a little before
Sidney's trial, was a man entirely agreeable to the temper, and
suitable to the purposes, of the present government.  He was thought
not to be very learned in his profession; but what might be wanting
in knowledge he made up in positiveness; and, indeed, whatever might
be the difficulties in questions between one subject and another,
the fashionable doctrine, which prevailed at that time, of
supporting the king's prerogative in its full extent, and without
restriction or limitation, rendered, to such as espoused it, all
that branch of law which is called constitutional extremely easy and
simple.  He was as submissive and mean to those above him as he was
haughty and insolent to those who were in any degree in his power;
and if in his own conduct he did not exhibit a very nice regard for
morality, or even for decency, he never failed to animadvert upon,
and to punish, the most slight deviation in others with the utmost
severity, especially if they were persons whom he suspected to be no
favourites of the court.

Before this magistrate was brought for trial, by a jury sufficiently
prepossessed in favour of Tory politics, the Rev. Richard Baxter, a
dissenting minister, a pious and learned man, of exemplary
character, always remarkable for his attachment to monarchy, and for
leaning to moderate measures in the differences between the Church
and those of his persuasion.  The pretence for this prosecution was
a supposed reference of some passages in one of his works to the
bishops of the Church of England; a reference which was certainly
not intended by him, and which could not have been made out to any
jury that had been less prejudiced, or under any other direction
than that of Jeffreys.  The real motive was, the desire of punishing
an eminent dissenting teacher, whose reputation was high among his
sect, and who was supposed to favour the political opinions of the
Whigs.  He was found guilty, and Jeffreys, in passing sentence upon
him, loaded him with the coarsest reproaches and bitterest taunts.
He called him sometimes, by way of derision, a saint, sometimes, in
plainer terms, an old rogue; and classed this respectable divine, to
whom the only crime imputed was the having spoken disrespectfully of
the bishops of a communion to which he did not belong, with the
infamous Oates, who had been lately convicted of perjury.  He
finished with declaring, that it was a matter of public notoriety
that there was a formed design to ruin the king and the nation, in
which this old man was the principal incendiary.  Nor is it
improbable that this declaration, absurd as it was, might gain
belief at a time when the credulity of the triumphant party was at
its height.

Of this credulity it seems to be no inconsiderable testimony, that
some affected nicety which James had shown with regard to the
ceremonies to be used towards the French ambassador, was highly
magnified, and represented to be an indication of the different tone
that was to be taken by the present king, in regard to foreign
powers, and particularly to the court of Versailles.  The king was
represented as a prince eminently jealous of the national honour,
and determined to preserve the balance of power in Europe, by
opposing the ambitious projects of France at the very time when he
was supplicating Louis to be his pensioner, and expressing the most
extravagant gratitude for having been accepted as such.  From the
information which we now have, it appears that his applications to
Louis for money were incessant, and that the difficulties were all
on the side of the French court.  Of the historians who wrote prior
to the inspection of the papers in the foreign office in France,
Burnet is the only one who seems to have known that James's
pretensions of independency with respect to the French king were (as
he terms them) only a show; but there can now be no reason to doubt
the truth of the anecdote which he relates, that Louis soon after
told the Duke of Villeroy, that if James showed any apparent
uneasiness concerning the balance of power (and there is some reason
to suppose he did) in his conversations with the Spanish and other
foreign ambassadors, his intention was, probably, to alarm the court
of Versailles, and thereby to extort pecuniary assistance to a
greater extent; while, on the other hand, Louis, secure in the
knowledge that his views of absolute power must continue him in
dependence upon France, seems to have refused further supplies, and
even in some measure to have withdrawn those which had been
stipulated, as a mark of his displeasure with his dependant, for
assuming a higher tone than he thought becoming.

Whether with a view of giving some countenance to those who were
praising him upon the above mentioned topic, or from what other
motive it is now not easy to conjecture, James seems to have wished
to be upon apparent good terms, at least, with the Prince of Orange;
and after some correspondence with that prince concerning the
protection afforded by him and the states-general to Monmouth, and
other obnoxious persons, it appears that he declared himself, in
consequence of certain explanations and concessions, perfectly
satisfied.  It is to be remarked, however, that he thought it
necessary to give the French ambassador an account of this
transaction, and in a manner to apologise to him for entering into
any sort of terms with a son-in-law, who was supposed to be hostile
in disposition to the French king.  He assured Barillon that a
change of system on the part of the Prince of Orange in regard to
Louis, should be a condition of his reconciliation:  he afterwards
informed him that the Prince of Orange had answered him
satisfactorily in all other respects, but had not taken notice of
his wish that he should connect himself with France; but never told
him that he had, notwithstanding the prince's silence on that
material point, expressed himself completely satisfied with him.
That a proposition to the Prince of Orange, to connect himself in
politics with Louis would, if made, have been rejected, in the
manner in which the king's account to Barillon implies that it was,
there can be no doubt; but whether James ever had the assurance to
make it is more questionable; for as he evidently acted
disingenuously with the ambassador, in concealing from him the
complete satisfaction he had expressed of the Prince of Orange's
present conduct, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he deceived
him still further, and pretended to have made an application, which
he had never hazarded.

However, the ascertaining of this fact is by no means necessary for
the illustration, either of the general history or of James's
particular character, since it appears that the proposition, if
made, was rejected; and James is, in any case, equally convicted of
insincerity, the only point in question being, whether he deceived
the French ambassador, in regard to the fact of his having made the
proposition, or to the sentiments he expressed upon its being
refused.  Nothing serves more to show the dependence in which he
considered himself to be upon Louis than these contemptible shifts
to which he condescended, for the purposes of explaining and
apologising for such parts of his conduct as might be supposed to be
less agreeable to that monarch than the rest.  An English parliament
acting upon constitutional principles, and the Prince of Orange,
were the two enemies whom Louis most dreaded; and, accordingly,
whenever James found it necessary to make approaches to either of
them, an apology was immediately to be offered to the French
ambassador, to which truth sometimes and honour was always
sacrificed.

Mr. Hume says the king found himself, by degrees, under the
necessity of falling into an union with the French monarch, who
could alone assist him in promoting the Catholic religion in
England.  But when that historian wrote, those documents had not
been made public, from which the account of the communications with
Barillon has been taken, and by which it appears that a connection
with France was, as well in point of time as in importance, the
first object of his reign, and that the immediate specific motive to
that connection was the same as that of his brother; the desire of
rendering himself independent of parliament, and absolute, not that
of establishing popery in England, which was considered as a more
remote contingency.  That this was the case is evident from all the
circumstances of the transaction, and especially from the zeal with
which he was served in it by ministers who were never suspected of
any leaning towards popery, and not one of whom (Sunderland
excepted) could be brought to the measures that were afterwards
taken in favour of that religion.  It is the more material to attend
to this distinction, because the Tory historians, especially such of
them as are not Jacobites, have taken much pains to induce us to
attribute the violences and illegalities of this reign to James's
religion, which was peculiar to him, rather than to that desire of
absolute power which so many other princes have had, have, and
always will have, in common with him.  The policy of such
misrepresentation is obvious.  If this reign is to be considered as
a period insulated, as it were, and unconnected with the general
course of history, and if the events of it are to be attributed
exclusively to the particular character and particular attachments
of the monarch, the sole inference will be that we must not have a
Catholic for our king; whereas, if we consider it, which history
well warrants us to do, as a part of that system which had been
pursued by all the Stuart kings, as well prior as subsequent to the
restoration, the lesson which it affords is very different, as well
as far more instructive.  We are taught, generally, the dangers
Englishmen will always be liable to, if, from favour to a prince
upon the throne, or from a confidence, however grounded, that his
views are agreeable to our own notions of the constitution, we in
any considerable degree abate of that vigilant and unremitting
jealousy of the power of the crown, which can alone secure to us the
effect of those wise laws that have been provided for the benefit of
the subject:  and still more particularly, that it is in vain to
think of making a compromise with power, and by yielding to it in
other points, preserving some favourite object, such, for instance,
as the Church in James's case, from its grasp.

Previous to meeting his English parliament, James directed a
parliament which had been summoned in the preceding reign, to
assemble at Edinburgh, and appointed the Duke of Queensbury his
commissioner.  This appointment is, in itself, a strong indication
that the king's views, with regard to Scotland at least, were
similar to those which I have ascribed to him in England; and that
they did not at that time extend to the introduction of popery, but
were altogether directed to the establishment of absolute power as
the END, and to the support of an episcopal church, upon the model
of the Church of England, as the MEANS.  For Queensbury had
explained himself to his majesty in the fullest manner upon the
subject of religion; and while he professed himself to be ready (as,
indeed, his conduct in the late reign had sufficiently proved) to go
any length in supporting royal power and in persecuting the
Presbyterians, had made it a condition of his services, that he
might understand from his majesty that there was no intention of
changing the established religion; for if such was the object, he
could not make any one step with him in that matter.  James received
this declaration most kindly, assured him he had no such intention,
and that he would have a parliament, to which he, Queensbury, should
go as commissioner, and giving all possible assurances in the matter
of religion, get the revenue to be settled, and such other laws to
be passed as might be necessary for the public safety.  With these
promises the duke was not only satisfied at the time, but declared,
at a subsequent period, that they had been made in so frank and
hearty a manner, as made him conclude that it was impossible the
king should be acting a part.  And this nobleman was considered, and
is handed down to us by contemporary writers, as a man of a
penetrating genius, nor has it ever been the national character of
the country to which he belonged to be more liable to be imposed
upon than the rest of mankind.

The Scottish parliament met on the 23rd of April, and was opened by
the commissioner, with the following letter from the king:-


"My Lords and Gentlemen,--The many experiences we have had of the
loyalty and exemplary forwardness of that our ancient kingdom, by
their representatives in parliament assembled, in the reign of our
deceased and most entirely beloved brother of ever blessed memory,
made us desirous to call you at this time, in the beginning of our
reign, to give you an opportunity, not only of showing your duty to
us in the same manner, but likewise of being exemplary to others in
your demonstrations of affection to our person and compliance with
our desires, as you have most eminently been in times past, to a
degree never to be forgotten by us, nor (we hope) to be contradicted
by your future practices.  That which we are at this time to propose
unto you is what is as necessary for your safety as our service, and
what has a tendency more to secure your own privileges and
properties than the aggrandising our power and authority (though in
it consists the greatest security of your rights and interests,
these never having been in danger, except when the royal power was
brought too low to protect them), which now we are resolved to
maintain, in its greatest lustre, to the end we may be the more
enabled to defend and protect your religion as established by law,
and your rights and properties (which was our design in calling this
parliament) against fanatical contrivances, murderers, and
assassins, who having no fear of God, more than honour for us, have
brought you into such difficulties as only the blessing of God upon
the steady resolutions and actings of our said dearest royal
brother, and those employed by him (in prosecution of the good and
wholesome laws, by you heretofore offered), could have saved you
from the most horrid confusions and inevitable ruin.  Nothing has
been left unattempted by those wild and inhuman traitors for
endeavouring to overturn your peace; and therefore we have good
reason to hope that nothing will be wanting in you to secure
yourselves and us from their outrages and violence in time coming,
and to take care that such conspirators meet with their just
deservings, so as others may thereby be deterred from courses so
little agreeable to religion, or their duty and allegiance to us.
These things we considered to be of so great importance to our
royal, as well as the universal, interest of that our kingdom, that
we were fully resolved, in person, to have proposed the needful
remedies to you.  But things having so fallen out as render this
impossible for us, we have now thought fit to send our right trusty
and right entirely beloved cousin and councillor, William, Duke of
Queensbury, to be our commissioner amongst you, of whose abilities
and qualifications we have reason to be fully satisfied, and of
whose faithfulness to us, and zeal for our interest, we have had
signal proofs in the times of our greatest difficulties.  Him we
have fully intrusted in all things relating to our service and your
own prosperity and happiness, and therefore you are to give him
entire trust and credit, as you now see we have done, from whose
prudence and your most dutiful affection to us, we have full
confidence of your entire compliance and assistance in all those
matters, wherein he is instructed as aforesaid.  We do, therefore,
not only recommend unto you that such things be done as are
necessary in this juncture for your own peace, and the support of
our royal interest, of which we had so much experience when amongst
you, that we cannot doubt of your full and ample expressing the same
on this occasion, by which the great concern we have in you, our
ancient and kindly people, may still increase, and you may transmit
your loyal actions (as examples of duty) to your posterity.  In full
confidence whereof we do assure you of your royal favour and
protection in all your concerns, and so we bid you heartily
farewell."


This letter deserves the more attention because, as the proceedings
of the Scotch parliament, according to a remarkable expression in
the letter itself, were intended to be an example to others, there
is the greatest reason to suppose the matter of it must have been
maturely weighed and considered.  His majesty first compliments the
Scotch parliament upon their peculiar loyalty and dutiful behaviour
in past times, meaning, no doubt, to contrast their conduct with
that of those English parliaments who had passed the Exclusion Bill,
the Disbanding Act, the Habeas Corpus Act, and other measures
hostile to his favourite principles of government.  He states the
granting of an independent revenue, and the supporting the
prerogative in its greatest lustre, if not the aggrandising of it,
to be necessary for the preservation of their religion, established
by law (that is, the Protestant episcopacy), as well as for the
security of their properties against fanatical assassins and
murderers; thus emphatically announcing a complete union of
interests between the crown and the Church.  He then bestows a
complete and unqualified approbation of the persecuting measures of
the last reign, in which he had borne so great a share; and to those
measures, and to the steadiness with which they had been persevered
in, he ascribes the escape of both Church and State from the
fanatics, and expresses his regret that he could not be present, to
propose in person the other remedies of a similar nature, which he
recommended as needful in the present conjuncture.

Now it is proper in this place to inquire into the nature of the
measures thus extolled, as well for the purpose of elucidating the
characters of the king and his Scottish minsters, as for that of
rendering more intelligible the subsequent proceedings of the
parliament, and the other events which soon after took place in that
kingdom.  Some general notions may be formed of that course of
proceedings which, according to his majesty's opinion, had been so
laudably and resolutely pursued during the late reign, from the
circumstances alluded to in the preceding chapter, when it is
understood that the sentences of Argyle and Laurie of Blackwood were
not detached instances of oppression, but rather a sample of the
general system of administration.  The covenant, which had been so
solemnly taken by the whole kingdom, and, among the rest, by the
king himself, had been declared to be unlawful, and a refusal to
abjure it had been made subject to the severest penalties.
Episcopacy, which was detested by a great majority of the nation,
had been established, and all public exercise of religion, in the
forms to which the people were most attached, had been prohibited.
The attendance upon field conventicles had been made highly penal,
and the preaching at them capital, by which means, according to the
computation of a late writer, no less remarkable for the accuracy of
his facts than for the force and justness of his reasonings, at
least seventeen thousand persons in one district were involved in
criminality, and became the objects of persecution.  After this
letters had been issued by government, forbidding the intercommuning
with persons who had neglected or refused to appear before the Privy
Council, when cited for the above crimes, a proceeding by which not
only all succour or assistance to such persons, but, according to
the strict sense of the word made use of, all intercourse with them,
was rendered criminal, and subjected him who disobeyed the
prohibition to the same penalties, whether capital or others, which
were affixed to the alleged crimes of the party with whom he had
intercommuned.

These measures not proving effectual for the purpose for which they
were intended, or, as some say, the object of Charles II.'s
government being to provoke an insurrection, a demand was made upon
the landholders in the district supposed to be most disaffected of
bonds, whereby they were to become responsible for their wives,
families, tenants, and servants, and likewise for the wives,
families, and servants of their tenants, and, finally, for all
persons living upon their estates, that they should not withdraw
from the Church, frequent or preach at conventicles, nor give any
succour, or have any intercourse with persons with whom it was
forbidden to intercommune; and the penalties attached to the breach
of this engagement, the keeping of which was obviously out of the
power of him who was required to make it, were to be the same as
those, whether capital or other, to which the several persons for
whom he engaged might be liable.  The landholders, not being willing
to subscribe to their own destruction, refused to execute the bonds,
and this was thought sufficient grounds for considering the district
to which they belonged as in a state of rebellion.  English and
Irish armies were ordered to the frontiers; a train of artillery and
the militia were sent into the district itself; and six thousand
Highlanders, who were let loose upon its inhabitants, to exercise
every species of pillage and plunder were connived at, or rather
encouraged, in excesses of a still more atrocious nature.

The bonds being still refused, the government had recourse to an
expedient of a most extraordinary nature, and issued what the Scotch
called a writ of Lawburrows against the whole district.  This writ
of Lawburrows is somewhat analogous to what we call "swearing the
peace" against any one, and had hitherto been supposed, as the other
is with us, to be applicable to the disputes of private individuals,
and to the apprehensions which, in consequence of such disputes,
they may mutually entertain of each other.  A government swearing
the peace against its subjects was a new spectacle; but if a private
subject, under fear of another, hath a right to such a security, how
much more the government itself? was thought an unanswerable
argument.  Such are the sophistries which tyrants deem satisfactory.
Thus are they willing even to descend from their loftiness into the
situation of subjects or private men, when it is for the purpose of
acquiring additional powers of persecution; and thus truly
formidable and terrific are they, when they pretend alarm and fear.
By these writs the persons against whom they were directed were
bound, as in case of the former bonds, to conditions which were not
in their power to fulfil, such as the preventing of conventicles and
the like, under such penalties as the Privy Council might inflict,
and a disobedience to them was followed by outlawry and
confiscation.

The conduct of the Duke of Lauderdale, who was the chief actor in
these scenes of violence and iniquity, was completely approved and
justified at court; but in consequence probably of the state of
politics in England at a time when the Whigs were strongest in the
House of Commons, some of these grievances were in part redressed,
and the Highlanders, and writs of Lawburrows were recalled.  But the
country was still treated like a conquered country.  The Highlanders
were replaced by an army of five thousand regulars, and garrisons
were placed in private houses.  The persecution of conventicles
continued, and ample indemnity was granted for every species of
violence that might be exercised by those employed to suppress them.
In this state of things the assassination and murder of Sharp,
Archbishop of St. Andrews, by a troop of fanatics, who had been
driven to madness by the oppression of Carmichael, one of that
prelate's instruments, while it gave an additional spur to the
vindictive temper of the government, was considered by it as a
justification for every mode and degree of cruelty and persecution.
The outrage committed by a few individuals was imputed to the whole
fanatic sect, as the government termed them, or, in other words, to
a description of people which composed a great majority of the
population in the Lowlands of Scotland; and those who attended field
or armed conventicles were ordered to be indiscriminately massacred.

By such means an insurrection was at last produced, which, from the
weakness, or, as some suppose, from the wicked policy of an
administration eager for confiscations, and desirous of such a state
of the country as might, in some measure, justify their course of
government, made such a progress that the insurgents became masters
of Glasgow and the country adjacent.  To quell these insurgents,
who, undisciplined as they were, had defeated Graham, afterwards
Viscount Dundee, the Duke of Monmouth was sent with an army from
England; but, lest the generous mildness of his nature should
prevail, he had sealed orders which he was not to open till in sight
of the rebels, enjoining him not to treat with them, but to fall
upon them without any previous negotiation.  In pursuance of these
orders the insurgents were attacked at Bothwell Bridge, where,
though they were entirely routed and dispersed, yet because those
who surrendered at discretion were not put to death, and the army,
by the strict enforcing of discipline, were prevented from plunder
and other outrages, it was represented by James, and in some degree
even by the king, that Monmouth had acted as if he had meant rather
to put himself at the head of the fanatics than to repel them, and
were inclined rather to court their friendship than to punish their
rebellion.  All complaints against Lauderdale were dismissed, his
power confirmed, and an act of indemnity, which had been procured at
Monmouth's intercession, was so clogged with exceptions as to be of
little use to any but to the agents of tyranny.  Several persons,
who were neither directly nor indirectly concerned in the murder of
the archbishop, were executed as an expiation for that offence; but
many more were obliged to compound for their lives by submitting to
the most rapacious extortion, which at this particular period seems
to have been the engine of oppression most in fashion, and which was
extended not only to those who had been in any way concerned in the
insurrection, but to those who had neglected to attend the standard
of the king, when displayed against what was styled, in the usual
insulting language of tyrants, a most unnatural rebellion.

The quiet produced by such means was, as might be expected, of no
long duration.  Enthusiasm was increased by persecution, and the
fanatic preachers found no difficulty in persuading their flocks to
throw off all allegiance to a government which afforded them no
protection.  The king was declared to be an apostate from the
government, a tyrant, and an usurper; and Cargill, one of the most
enthusiastic among the preachers, pronounced a formal sentence of
excommunication against him, his brother the Duke of York, and
others, their ministers and abettors.  This outrage upon majesty
together with an insurrection contemptible in point of numbers and
strength, in which Cameron, another field-preacher, had been killed,
furnished a pretence which was by no means neglected for new
cruelties and executions; but neither death nor torture were
sufficient to subdue the minds of Cargill and his intrepid
followers.  They all gloried in their sufferings; nor could the
meanest of them be brought to purchase their lives by a retractation
of their principles, or even by any expression that might be
construed into an approbation of their persecutors.  The effect of
this heroic constancy upon the minds of their oppressors was to
persuade them not to lessen the numbers of executions, but to render
them more private, whereby they exposed the true character of their
government, which was not severity, but violence; not justice, but
vengeance:  for example being the only legitimate end of punishment,
where that is likely to encourage rather than to deter (as the
government in these instances seems to have apprehended), and
consequently to prove more pernicious than salutary, every
punishment inflicted by the magistrate is cruelty, every execution
murder.  The rage of punishment did not stop even here, but
questions were put to persons, and in many instances to persons
under torture, who had not been proved to have been in any of the
insurrections, whether they considered the archbishop's
assassination as murder, the rising at Bothwell Bridge rebellion,
and Charles a lawful king.  The refusal to answer these questions,
or the answering of them in an unsatisfactory manner, was deemed a
proof of guilt, and immediate execution ensued.

These last proceedings had taken place while James himself had the
government in his hands, and under his immediate directions.  Not
long after, and when the exclusionists in England were supposed to
be entirely defeated, was passed (James being the king's
commissioner), the famous bill of succession, declaring that no
difference of religion, nor any statute or law grounded upon such,
or any other pretence, could defeat the hereditary right of the heir
to the crown, and that to propose any limitation upon the future
administration of such heir was high treason.  But the Protestant
religion was to be secured; for those who were most obsequious to
the court, and the most willing and forward instruments of its
tyranny, were, nevertheless, zealous Protestants.  A test was
therefore framed for this purpose, which was imposed upon all
persons exercising any civil or military functions whatever, the
royal family alone excepted; but to the declaration of adherence to
the Protestant religion was added a recognition of the king's
supremacy in ecclesiastical matters, and a complete renunciation in
civil concerns of every right belonging to a free subject.  An
adherence to the Protestant religion, according to the confession of
it referred to in the test, seemed to some inconsistent with the
acknowledgment of the king's supremacy and that clause of the oath
which related to civil matters, inasmuch as it declared against
endeavouring at any alteration in the Church or State, seemed
incompatible with the duties of a counsellor or a member of
parliament.  Upon these grounds the Earl of Argyle, in taking the
oath, thought fit to declare as follows:-

"I have considered the test, and I am very desirous to give
obedience as far as I can.  I am confident the parliament never
intended to impose contradictory oaths; therefore I think no man can
explain it but for himself.  Accordingly I take it, as far as it is
consistent with itself and the Protestant religion.  And I do
declare that I mean not to bind up myself in my station, and in a
lawful way, to wish and endeavour any alteration I think to the
advantage of the Church or State, not repugnant to the Protestant
religion and my loyalty.  And this I understand as a part of the
oath."  And for this declaration, though unnoticed at the time, he
was in a few days afterwards committed, and shortly after sentenced
to die.  Nor was the test applied only to those for whom it had been
originally instituted, but by being offered to those numerous
classes of people who were within the reach of the late severe
criminal laws, as an alternative for death or confiscation, it might
fairly be said to be imposed upon the greater part of the country.

Not long after these transactions James took his final leave of the
government, and in his parting speech recommended, in the strongest
terms, the support of the Church.  This gracious expression, the
sincerity of which seemed to be evinced by his conduct to the
conventiclers and the severity with which he had enforced the test,
obtained him a testimonial from the bishops of his affection to
their Protestant Church, a testimonial to which, upon the principle
that they are the best friends to the Church who are most willing to
persecute such as dissent from it, he was, notwithstanding his own
nonconformity, most amply entitled.

Queensbury's administration ensued, in which the maxims that had
guided his predecessors were so far from being relinquished, that
they were pursued, if possible, with greater steadiness and
activity.  Lawrie of Blackwood was condemned for having holden
intercourse with a rebel, whose name was not to be found in any of
the lists of the intercommuned or proscribed; and a proclamation was
issued, threatening all who were in like circumstances with a
similar fate.  The intercourse with rebels having been in great
parts of the kingdom promiscuous and universal, more than twenty
thousand persons were objects of this menace.  Fines and extortions
of all kinds were employed to enrich the public treasury, to which,
therefore, the multiplication of crimes became a fruitful source of
revenue; and lest it should not be sufficiently so, husbands were
made answerable (and that too with a retrospect) for the absence of
their wives from church; a circumstance which the Presbyterian
women's aversion to the episcopal form of worship had rendered very
general.

This system of government, and especially the rigour with which
those concerned in the late insurrections, the excommunication of
the king, or the other outrages complained of, were pursued and
hunted sometimes by bloodhounds, sometimes by soldiers almost
equally savage, and afterwards shot like wild beasts, drove some of
those sectaries who were styled Cameronians, and other proscribed
persons, to measures of absolute desperation.  They made a
declaration, which they caused to be affixed to different churches,
importing, that they would use the law of retaliation, and "we
will," said they, "punish as enemies to God, and to the covenant,
such persons as shall make it their work to imbrue their hands in
our blood; and chiefly, if they shall continue obstinately and with
habitual malice to proceed against us," with more to the like
effect.  Upon such an occasion the interference of government became
necessary.  The government did indeed interfere, and by a vote of
council ordered, that whoever owned, or refused to disown, the
declaration on oath, should be put to death in the presence of two
witnesses, though unarmed when taken.  The execution of this
massacre in the welvet counties which were principally concerned,
was committed to the military, and exceeded, if possible, the order
itself.  The disowning the declaration was required to be in a
particular form prescribed.  Women, obstinate in their fanaticism,
lest female blood should be a stain upon the swords of soldiers
engaged in this honourable employment, were drowned.  The
habitations, as well of those who had fled to save themselves, as of
those who suffered, were burnt and destroyed.  Such members of the
families of the delinquents as were above twelve years old were
imprisoned for the purpose of being afterwards transported.  The
brutality of the soldiers was such as might be expected from an army
let loose from all restraint, and employed to execute the royal
justice, as it was called, upon wretches.  Graham who has been
mentioned before, and who, under the title of Lord Dundee, a title
which was probably conferred upon him by James for these or similar
services, was afterwards esteemed such a hero among the Jacobite
party, particularly distinguished himself.  Of six unarmed fugitives
whom he seized, he caused four to be shot in his presence, nor did
the remaining two experience any other mercy from him than a delay
of their doom; and at another time, having intercepted the flight of
one of these victims, he had him shown to his family, and then
murdered in the arms of his wife.  The example of persons of such
high rank, and who must be presumed to have had an education in some
degree correspondent to their station, could not fail of operating
upon men of a lower order in society.  The carnage became every day
more general and more indiscriminate, and the murder of peasants in
their houses, or while employed at their usual work in the fields,
by the soldiers, was not only not reproved or punished, but deemed a
meritorious service by their superiors.  The demise of King Charles,
which happened about this time, caused no suspension or relaxation
in these proceedings, which seemed to have been the crowning
measure, as it were, or finishing stroke of that system, for the
steady perseverance in which James so much admired the resolution of
his brother.

It has been judged necessary to detail these transactions in a
manner which may, to some readers, appear an impertinent digression
from the narrative in which this history is at present engaged, in
order to set in a clearer light some points of the greatest
importance.  In the first place, from the summary review of the
affairs of Scotland, and from the complacency with which James looks
back to his own share of them, joined to the general approbation he
expressed of the conduct of government in that kingdom, we may form
a pretty just notion, as well of his maxims of policy, as of his
temper and disposition in matters where his bigotry to the Roman
Catholic religion had no share.  For it is to be observed and
carefully kept in mind, that the Church, of which he not only
recommends the support, but which be showed himself ready to
maintain by the most violent means, is the Episcopalian Church of
the Protestants; that the test which he enforced at the point of the
bayonet was a Protestant test, so much so indeed, that he himself
could not take it; and that the more marked character of the
conventicles, the objects of his persecution, was not so much that
of heretics excommunicated by the Pope, as of dissenters from the
Church of England, and irreconcilable enemies to the Protestant
liturgy and the Protestant episcopacy.  But he judged the Church of
England to be a most fit instrument for rendering the monarchy
absolute.  On the other hand, the Presbyterians were thought
naturally hostile to the principles of passive obedience, and to one
or other, or with more probability to both of these considerations,
joined to the natural violence of his temper, is to be referred the
whole of his conduct in this part of his life, which in this view is
rational enough; but on the supposition of his having conceived thus
early the intention of introducing popery upon the ruins of the
Church of England, is wholly unaccountable, and no less absurd, than
if a general were to put himself to great cost and pains to furnish
with ammunition and to strengthen with fortifications a place of
which he was actually meditating the attack.

The next important observation that occurs, and to which even they
who are most determined to believe that this prince had always
popery in view, and held every other consideration as subordinate to
that primary object, must nevertheless subscribe, is that the most
confidential advisors, as well as the most furious supporters of the
measures we have related, were not Roman Catholics.  Lauderdale and
Queensbury were both Protestants.  There is no reason, therefore, to
impute any of James's violence afterwards to the suggestions of his
Catholic advisers, since he who had been engaged in the series of
measures above related with Protestant counsellors and coadjutors,
had surely nothing to learn from papists (whether priests, jesuits,
or others) in the science of tyranny.  Lastly, from this account we
are enabled to form some notion of the state of Scotland at a time
when the parliament of that kingdom was called to set an example for
this, and we find it to have been a state of more absolute slavery
than at that time subsisted in any part of Christendom.

The affairs of Scotland being in the state which we have described,
it is no wonder that the king's letter was received with
acclamations of applause, and that the parliament opened, not only
with approbation of the government, but even with an enthusiastic
zeal to signalise their loyalty, as well by a perfect acquiescence
to the king's demands, as by the most fulsome expressions of
adulation.  "What prince in Europe, or in the whole world," said the
chancellor Perth, "was ever like the late king, except his present
majesty, who had undergone every trial of prosperity and adversity,
and whose unwearied clemency was not among the least conspicuous of
his virtues?  To advance his honour and greatness was the duty of
all his subjects, and ought to be the endeavour of their lives
without reserve."  The parliament voted an address, scarcely less
adulatory than the chancellor's speech.


"May it please your sacred majesty--Your majesty's gracious and kind
remembrance of the services done by this, your ancient kingdom, to
the late king your brother, of ever glorious memory, shall rather
raise in us ardent desires to exceed whatever we have done formerly,
than make us consider them as deserving the esteem your majesty is
pleased to express of them in your letter to us dated the twenty-
eighth of March.  The death of that our excellent monarch is
lamented by us to all the degrees of grief that are consistent with
our great joy for the succession of your sacred majesty, who has not
only continued, but secured the happiness which his wisdom, his
justice, and clemency procured to us:  and having the honour to be
the first parliament which meets by your royal authority, of which
we are very sensible, your majesty may be confident that we will
offer such laws as may best secure your majesty's sacred person, the
royal family and government, and be so exemplary loyal, as to raise
your honour and greatness to the utmost of our power, which we shall
ever esteem both our duty and interest.  Nor shall we leave anything
undone for extirpating all fanaticism, but especially those
fanatical murderers and assassins, and for detecting and punishing
the late conspirators, whose pernicious and execrable designs did so
much tend to subvert your majesty's government, and ruin us and all
your majesty's faithful subjects.  We can assure your majesty, that
the subjects of this your majesty's ancient kingdom are so desirous
to exceed all their predecessors in extraordinary marks of affection
and obedience to your majesty, that (God be praised) the only way to
be popular with us is to be eminently loyal.  Your majesty's care of
us, when you took us to be your special charge, your wisdom in
extinguishing the seeds of rebellion and faction amongst us, your
justice, which was so great as to be for ever exemplary, but above
all, your majesty's free and cheerful securing to us our religion,
when your were the late king's, your royal brother's commissioner,
now again renewed, when you are our sovereign, are what your
subjects here can never forget, and therefore your majesty may
expect that we will think your commands sacred as your person, and
that your inclination will prevent our debates; nor did ever any who
represented our monarchs as their commissioners (except your royal
self) meet with greater respect, or more exact observance from a
parliament, than the Duke of Queensbury (whom your majesty has so
wisely chosen to represent you in this, and of whose eminent loyalty
and great abilities in all his former employments this nation hath
seen so many proofs) shall find from

"May it please your sacred majesty, your majesty's most humble, most
faithful, and most obedient subjects and servants, "PERTH, Cancell."


Nor was this spirit of loyalty (as it was then called) of abject
slavery, and unmanly subservience to the will of a despot, as it has
been justly denominated by the more impartial judgment of posterity,
confined to words only.  Acts were passed to ratify all the late
judgments, however illegal or iniquitous, to indemnify the privy
council, judges, and all officers of the crown, civil or military,
for all the violences they had committed; to authorise the privy
council to impose the test upon all ranks of people under such
penalties as that board might think fit to impose; to extend the
punishment of death which had formerly attached upon the preachers
at field conventicles only, to all their auditors, and likewise to
the preachers at house conventicles; to subject to the penalties of
treason all persons who should give or take the covenant, or write
in defence thereof, or in any other way own it to be obligatory; and
lastly, in a strain of tyranny, for which there was, it is believed,
no precedent, and which certainly has never been surpassed, to enact
that all such persons as being cited in cases of high treason, field
or house conventicles, or church irregularities, should refuse to
give testimony, should be liable to the punishment due by law to the
criminals against whom they refused to be witnesses.  It is true
that an act was also passed for confirming all former statutes in
favour of the Protestant religion as then established, in their
whole strength and tenour, as if they were particularly set down and
expressed in the said act; but when we recollect the notions which
Queensbury at that time entertained of the king's views, this
proceeding forms no exception to the general system of servility
which characterised both ministers and parliament.  All matters in
relation to revenue were of course settled in the manner most
agreeable to his majesty's wishes and the recommendation of his
commissioner.

While the legislature was doing its part, the executive government
was not behindhand in pursuing the system which had been so much
commended.  A refusal to abjure the declaration in the terms
prescribed, was everywhere considered as sufficient cause for
immediate execution.  In one part of the country information having
been received that a corpse had been clandestinely buried, an
inquiry took place; it was dug up, and found to be that of a person
proscribed.  Those who had interred him were suspected, not of
having murdered, but of having harboured him.  For this crime their
house was destroyed, and the women and children of the family being
driven out to wander as vagabonds, a young man belonging to it was
executed by the order of Johnston of Westerraw.  Against this murder
even Graham himself is said to have remonstrated, but was content
with protesting that the blood was not upon his head; and not being
able to persuade a Highland officer to execute the order of
Johnston, ordered his own men to shoot the unhappy victim.  In
another county three females, one of sixty-three years of age, one
of eighteen, and one of twelve, were charged with rebellion; and
refusing to abjure the declaration, were sentenced to be drowned.
The last was let off upon condition of her father's giving a bond
for a hundred pounds.  The elderly woman, who is represented as a
person of eminent piety, bore her fate with the greatest constancy,
nor does it appear that her death excited any strong sensations in
the minds of her savage executioners.  The girl of eighteen was more
pitied, and after many entreaties, and having been once under water,
was prevailed upon to utter some words which might be fairly
construed into blessing the king, a mode of obtaining pardon not
unfrequent in cases where the persecutors were inclined to relent.
Upon this it was thought she was safe, but the merciless barbarian
who superintended this dreadful business was not satisfied; and upon
her refusing the abjuration, she was again plunged into the water,
where she expired.  It is to be remarked that being at Bothwell
Bridge and Air's Moss were among the crimes stated in the indictment
of all the three, though, when the last of these affairs happened,
one of the girls was only thirteen, and the other not eight years of
age.  At the time of the Bothwell Bridge business, they were still
younger.  To recite all the instances of cruelty which occurred
would be endless; but it may be necessary to remark that no
historical facts are better ascertained than the accounts of them
which are to be found in Woodrow.  In every instance where there has
been an opportunity of comparing these accounts with records, and
other authentic monuments, they appear to be quite correct.

The Scottish parliament having thus set, as they had been required
to do, an eminent example of what was then thought duty to the
crown, the king met his English parliament on the 19th of May, 1685,
and opened it with the following speech:-


"My lords and gentlemen,--After it pleased Almighty God to take to
his mercy the late king, my dearest brother, and to bring me to the
peaceable possession of the throne of my ancestors, I immediately
resolved to call a parliament, as the best means to settle
everything upon these foundations as may make my reign both easy and
happy to you; towards which I am disposed to contribute all that is
fit for me to do.

"What I said to my privy council at my first coming there I am
desirous to renew to you, wherein I fully declare my opinion
concerning the principles of the Church of England, whose members
have showed themselves so eminently loyal in the worst of times in
defence of my father and support of my brother (of blessed memory),
that I will always take care to defend and support it.  I will make
it my endeavour to preserve this government, both in Church and
State, as it is by law established:  and as I will never depart from
the just rights and prerogatives of the crown, so I will never
invade any man's property; and you may be sure that having
heretofore ventured my life in the defence of this nation, I will
still go as far as any man in preserving it in all its just rights
and liberties.

"And having given this assurance concerning the care I will have of
your religion and property, which I have chose to do in the same
words which I used at my first coming to the crown, the better to
evidence to you that I spoke them not by chance, and consequently
that you may firmly rely upon a promise so solemnly made, I cannot
doubt that I shall fail of suitable returns from you, with all
imaginable duty and kindness on your part, and particularly to what
relates to the settling of my revenue, and continuing it during my
life, as it was in the lifetime of my brother.  I might use many
arguments to enforce this demand for the benefit of trade, the
support of the navy, the necessity of the crown, and the well-being
of the government itself, which I must not suffer to be precarious;
but I am confident your own consideration of what is just and
reasonable will suggest to you whatsoever might be enlarged upon
this occasion.

"There is one popular argument which I foresee may be used against
what I ask of you, from the inclination men have for frequent
parliaments, which some may think would be the best security, by
feeding me from time to time by such proportions as they shall think
convenient.  And this argument, it being the first time I speak to
you from the throne, I will answer, once for all, that this would be
a very improper method to take with me; and that the best way to
engage me to meet you often is always to use me well.

"I expect, therefore, that you will comply with me in what I have
desired, and that you will do it speedily, that this may be a short
session, and that we may meet again to all our satisfactions.

"My lords and gentlemen,--I must acquaint you that I have had news
this morning from Scotland that Argyle is landed in the West
Highlands, with the men he brought with him from Holland:  that
there are two declarations published, one in the name of all those
in arms, the other in his own.  It would be too long for me to
repeat the substance of them; it is sufficient to tell you I am
charged with usurpation and tyranny.  The shorter of them I have
directed to be forthwith communicated to you.

"I will take the best care I can that this declaration of their own
faction and rebellion may meet with the reward it deserves; and I
will not doubt but you will be the more zealous to support the
government, and give me my revenue, as I have desired it, without
delay."


The repetition of the words made use of in his first speech to the
privy council shows that, in the opinion of the court, at least,
they had been well chosen, and had answered their purpose; and even
the haughty language which was added, and was little less than a
menace to parliament if it should not comply with his wishes, was
not, as it appears, unpleasing to the party which at that time
prevailed, since the revenue enjoyed by his predecessor was
unanimously, and almost immediately, voted to him for life.  It was
not remarked, in public at least, that the king's threat of
governing without parliament was an unequivocal manifestation of his
contempt of the law of the country, so distinctly established,
though so ineffectually secured, by the statute of the sixteenth of
Charles II., for holding triennial parliaments.  It is said Lord-
keeper Guildford had prepared a different speech for his majesty,
but that this was preferred, as being the king's own words; and,
indeed, that part of it in which he says that he must answer once
for all that the Commons giving such proportions as they might think
convenient would be a very improper way with him, bears, as well as
some others, the most evident marks of its royal origin.  It is to
be observed, however, that in arguing for his demand, as he styles
it, of revenue, he says, not that the parliament ought not, but that
he must not, suffer the well-being of the government depending upon
such revenue to be precarious; whence it is evident that he intended
to have it understood that if the parliament did not grant, he
purposed to levy a revenue without their consent.  It is impossible
that any degree of party spirit should so have blinded men as to
prevent them from perceiving in this speech a determination on the
part of the king to conduct his government upon the principles of
absolute monarchy, and to those who were not so possessed with the
love of royalty, which creates a kind of passionate affection for
whoever happens to be the wearer of the crown, the vindictive manner
in which he speaks of Argyle's invasion might afford sufficient
evidence of the temper in which his power would be administered.  In
that part of his speech he first betrays his personal feelings
towards the unfortunate nobleman, whom, in his brother's reign, he
had so cruelly and treacherously oppressed, by dwelling upon his
being charged by Argyle with tyranny and usurpation, and then
declares that he will take the best care, not according to the usual
phrases to protect the loyal and well disposed, and to restore
tranquillity, but that the declaration of the factious and
rebellions may meet with the reward it deserves, thus marking out
revenge and punishment as the consequences of victory, upon which he
was most intent.

It is impossible that in a House of Commons, however composed, there
should not have been many members who disapproved the principles of
government announced in the speech, and who were justly alarmed at
the temper in which it was conceived.  But these, overpowered by
numbers, and perhaps afraid of the imputation of being concerned in
plots and insurrections (an imputation which, if they had shown any
spirit of liberty, would most infallibly have been thrown on them),
declined expressing their sentiments; and in the short session which
followed there was an almost uninterrupted unanimity in granting
every demand, and acquiescing in every wish of the government.  The
revenue was granted without any notice being taken of the illegal
manner in which the king had levied it upon his own authority.
Argyle was stigmatised as a traitor; nor was any desire expressed to
examine his declarations, one of which seemed to be purposely
withheld from parliament.  Upon the communication of the Duke of
Monmouth's landing in the west that nobleman was immediately
attainted by bill.  The king's assurance was recognised as a
sufficient security for the national religion; and the liberty of
the press was destroyed by the revival of the statute of the 13th
and 14th of Charles II.  This last circumstance, important as it is,
does not seem to have excited much attention at the time, which,
considering the general principles then in fashion, is not
surprising.  That it should have been scarcely noticed by any
historian is more wonderful.  It is true, however, that the terror
inspired by the late prosecutions for libels, and the violent
conduct of the courts upon such occasions, rendered a formal
destruction of the liberty of the press a matter of less importance.
So little does the magistracy, when it is inclined to act
tyrannically, stand in need of tyrannical laws to effect its
purpose.  The bare silence and acquiescence of the legislature is in
such a case fully sufficient to annihilate, practically speaking,
every right and liberty of the subject.

As the grant of revenue was unanimous, so there does not appear to
have been anything which can justly be styled a debate upon it,
though Hume employs several pages in giving the arguments which, he
affirms, were actually made use of, and, as he gives us to
understand, in the House of Commons, for and against the question;
arguments which, on both sides, seem to imply a considerable love of
freedom and jealousy of royal power, and are not wholly unmixed even
with some sentiments disrespectful to the king.  Now I cannot find,
either from tradition, or from contemporary writers, any ground to
think that either the reasons which Hume has adduced, or indeed any
other, were urged in opposition to the grant.  The only speech made
upon the occasion seems to have been that of Mr. (afterwards Sir
Edward) Seymour, who, though of the Tory party, a strenuous opposer
of the Exclusion Bill, and in general supposed to have been an
approver, if not an adviser, of the tyrannical measures of the late
reign, has the merit of having stood forward singly, to remind the
House of what they owed to themselves and their constituents.  He
did not, however, directly oppose the grant, but stated, that the
elections had been carried on under so much court influence, and in
other respects so illegally, that it was the duty of the House first
to ascertain who were the legal members, before they proceeded to
other business of importance.  After having pressed this point, he
observed that if ever it were necessary to adopt such an order of
proceeding, it was more peculiarly so now, when the laws and
religion of the nation were in evident peril; that the aversion of
the English people to popery, and their attachment to the laws were
such, as to secure these blessings from destruction by any other
instrumentality than that of parliament itself, which, however,
might be easily accomplished, if there were once a parliament
entirely dependent upon the persons who might harbour such designs;
that it was already rumoured that the Test and Habeas Corpus Acts,
the two bulwarks of our religion and liberties, were to be repealed;
that what he stated was so notorious as to need no proof.  Having
descanted with force and ability upon these and other topics of a
similar tendency, he urged his conclusion, that the question of
royal revenue ought not to be the first business of the parliament.
Whether, as Burnet thinks, because he was too proud to make any
previous communication of his intentions, or that the strain of his
argument was judged to be too bold for the times, this speech,
whatever secret approbation it might excite, did not receive from
any quarter either applause or support.  Under these circumstances
it was not thought necessary to answer him, and the grant was voted
unanimously, without further discussion.

As Barillon, in the relation of parliamentary proceedings,
transmitted by him to his court, in which he appears at this time to
have been very exact, gives the same description of Seymour's speech
and its effects with Burnet, there can be little doubt but their
account is correct.  It will be found as well in this, as in many
other instances, that an unfortunate inattention on the part of the
reverend historian to forms has made his veracity unjustly called in
question.  He speaks of Seymour's speech as if it had been a motion
in the technical sense of the word, for inquiring into the
elections, which had no effect.  Now no traces remaining of such a
motion, and, on the other hand, the elections having been at a
subsequent period inquired into, Ralph almost pronounces the whole
account to be erroneous; whereas the only mistake consists in giving
the name of motion to a suggestion, upon the question of a grant.
It is whimsical enough, that it should be from the account of the
French ambassador that we are enabled to reconcile to the records
and to the forms of the English House of Commons, a relation made by
a distinguished member of the English House of Lords.  Sir John
Reresby does indeed say, that among the gentlemen of the House of
Commons whom he accidentally met, they in general seemed willing to
settle a handsome revenue upon the king, and to give him money; but
whether their grant should be permanent, or only temporary, and to
be renewed from time to time by parliament, that the nation might be
often consulted, was the question.  But besides the looseness of the
expression, which may only mean that the point was questionable, it
is to be observed, that he does not relate any of the arguments
which were brought forward even in the private conversations to
which he refers; and when he afterwards gives an account of what
passed in the House of Commons (where he was present), he does not
hint at any debate having taken place, but rather implies the
contrary.

This misrepresentation of Mr. Hume's is of no small importance,
inasmuch as, by intimating that such a question could be debated at
all, and much more, that it was debated with the enlightened views
and bold topics of argument with which his genius has supplied him,
he gives us a very false notion of the character of the parliament
and of the times which he is describing.  It is not improbable, that
if the arguments had been used, which this historian supposes, the
utterer of them would have been expelled, or sent to the Tower; and
it is certain that he would not have been heard with any degree of
attention or even patience.

The unanimous vote for trusting the safety of religion to the king's
declaration passed not without observation, the rights of the Church
of England being the only point upon which, at this time, the
parliament were in any degree jealous of the royal power.  The
committee of religion had voted unanimously, "That it is the opinion
of the committee, that this House will stand by his majesty with
their lives and fortunes, according to their bounden duty and
allegiance, in defence of the reformed Church of England, as it is
now by law established; and that an humble address be presented to
his majesty, to desire him to issue forth his royal proclamation, to
cause the penal laws to be put in execution against all dissenters
from the Church of England whatsoever."  But upon the report of the
House, the question of agreeing with the committee was evaded by a
previous question, and the House, with equal unanimity, resolved:
"That this House doth acquiesce, and entirely rely, and rest wholly
satisfied, on his majesty's gracious word, and repeated declaration
to support and defend the religion of the Church of England, as it
is now by law established, which is dearer to us than our lives."
Mr. Echard, and Bishop Kennet, two writers of different principles,
but both churchmen, assign, as the motive of this vote, the
unwillingness of the party then prevalent in parliament to adopt
severe measures against the Protestant dissenters; but in this
notion they are by no means supported by the account, imperfect as
it is, which Sir John Reresby gives of the debate, for he makes no
mention of tenderness towards dissenters, but states as the chief
argument against agreeing with the committee, that it might excite a
jealousy of the king; and Barillon expressly says, that the first
vote gave great offence to the king, still more to the queen, and
that orders were, in consequence, issued to the court members of the
House of Commons to devise some means to get rid of it.  Indeed, the
general circumstances of the times are decisive against the
hypothesis of the two reverend historians; nor is it, as far as I
know, adopted by any other historians.  The probability seems to be,
that the motion in the committee had been originally suggested by
some Whig member, who could not, with prudence, speak his real
sentiments openly, and who thought to embarrass the government, by
touching upon a matter where the union between the church party and
the king would be put to the severest test.  The zeal of the Tories
for persecution made them at first give into the snare; but when,
upon reflection, it occurred that the involving of the Catholics in
one common danger with the Protestant dissenters must be displeasing
to the king, they drew back without delay, and passed the most
comprehensive vote of confidence which James could desire.

Further to manifest their servility to the king, as well as their
hostility to every principle that could by implication be supposed
to be connected with Monmouth or his cause, the House of Commons
passed a bill for the preservation of his majesty's person, in
which, after enacting that a written or verbal declaration of a
treasonable intention should be tantamount to a treasonable act,
they inserted two remarkable clauses, by one of which to assert the
legitimacy of Monmouth's birth, by the other, to propose in
parliament any alteration in the succession of the crown, were made
likewise high treason.  We learn from Burnet, that the first part of
this bill was strenuously and warmly debated, and that it was
chiefly opposed by Serjeant Maynard, whose arguments made some
impression even at that time; but whether the serjeant was supported
in his opposition, as the word CHIEFLY would lead us to imagine, or
if supported, by whom, that historian does not mention; and,
unfortunately, neither of Maynard's speech itself, nor indeed of any
opposition whatever to the bill, is there any other trace to be
found.  The crying injustice of the clause which subjected a man to
the pains of treason merely for delivering his opinion upon a
controverted fact, though he should do no act in consequence of such
opinion, was not, as far as we are informed, objected to or at all
noticed, unless indeed the speech above alluded to, in which the
speaker is said to have descanted upon the general danger of making
words treasonable, be supposed to have been applied to this clause
as well as to the former part of the bill.  That the other clause
should have passed without opposition or even observation, must
appear still more extraordinary, when we advert, not only to the
nature of the clause itself, but to the circumstances of there being
actually in the House no inconsiderable number of members who had in
the former reign repeatedly voted for the Exclusion Bill.

It is worthy of notice, however, that while every principle of
criminal jurisprudence, and every regard to the fundamental rights
of the deliberative assemblies, which make part of the legislature
of the nation, were thus shamelessly sacrificed to the eagerness
which, at this disgraceful period, so generally prevailed of
manifesting loyalty, or rather abject servility to the sovereign,
there still remained no small degree of tenderness for the interests
and safety of the Church of England, and a sentiment approaching to
jealousy upon any matter which might endanger, even by the most
remote consequences, or put any restriction upon her ministers.
With this view, as one part of the bill did not relate to treasons
only, but imposed new penalties upon such as should, by writing,
printing, preaching, or other speaking, attempt to bring the king or
his government into hatred or contempt, there was a special proviso
added, "that the asserting and maintaining, by any writing,
printing, preaching, or any other speaking, the doctrine,
discipline, divine worship, or government of the Church of England
as it is now by law established, against popery or any other
different or dissenting opinions, is not intended, and shall not be
interpreted or construed to be any offence within the words or
meaning of this Act."  It cannot escape the reader, that only such
attacks upon popery as were made in favour of the doctrine and
discipline of the Church of England, and no other, were protected by
this proviso, and consequently that, if there were any real occasion
for such a guard, all Protestant dissenters who should write or
speak against the Roman superstition were wholly unprotected by it,
and remained exposed to the danger, whatever it might be, from which
the Church was so anxious to exempt her supporters.

This bill passed the House of Commons, and was sent up to the House
of Lords on the 30th of June.  It was read a first time on that day,
but the adjournment of both houses taking place on the 2nd of July,
it could not make any further progress at that time; and when the
parliament met afterwards in autumn, there was no longer that
passionate affection for the monarch, nor consequently that ardent
zeal for servitude which were necessary to make a law with such
clauses and provisoes palatable or even endurable.

It is not to be considered as an exception to the general
complaisance of parliament, that the Speaker, when he presented the
Revenue Bill, made use of some strong expressions, declaring the
attachment of the Commons to the national religion.  Such sentiments
could not be supposed to be displeasing to James, after the
assurances he had given of his regard for the Church of England.
Upon this occasion his majesty made the following speech:-


"My lords and gentlemen,--I thank you very heartily for the bill you
have presented me this day; and I assure you, the readiness and
cheerfulness that has attended the despatch of it is as acceptable
to me as the bill itself.

"After so happy a beginning, you may believe I would not call upon
you unnecessarily for an extraordinary supply; but when I tell you
that the stores of the navy and ordnance are extremely exhausted,
that the anticipations upon several branches of the revenue are
great and burthensome; that the debts of the king, my brother, to
his servants and family, are such as deserve compassion; that the
rebellion in Scotland, without putting more weight upon it than it
really deserves, must oblige me to a considerable expense
extraordinary:  I am sure, such considerations will move you to give
me an aid to provide for those things, wherein the security, the
ease, and the happiness of my government are so much concerned.  But
above all, I must recommend you to the care of the navy, the
strength and glory of this nation; that you will put it into such a
condition as may make us considered and respected abroad.  I cannot
express my concern upon this occasion more suitable to my own
thoughts of it than by assuring you I have a true English heart, as
jealous of the honour of the nation as you can be; and I please
myself with the hopes that by God's blessing and your assistance, I
may carry the reputation of it yet higher in the world than ever it
has been in the time of any of my ancestors; and as I will not call
upon you for supplies but when they are of public use and advantage,
so I promise you, that what you give me upon such occasions shall be
managed with good husbandry; and I will take care it shall be
employed to the uses for which I ask them."


Rapin, Hume, and Ralph observe upon this speech, that neither the
generosity of the Commons' grant, nor the confidence they expressed
upon religious matters, could extort a kind word in favour of their
religion.  But this observation, whether meant as a reproach to him
for his want of gracious feeling to a generous parliament, or as an
oblique compliment to his sincerity, has no force in it.  His
majesty's speech was spoken immediately upon, passing the bills
which the Speaker presented, and he could not therefore take notice
of the Speaker's words unless he had spoken extempore; for the
custom is not, nor I believe ever was, for the Speaker to give
beforehand copies of addresses of this nature.  James would not
certainly have scrupled to repeat the assurances which he had so
lately made in favour of the Protestant religion, as he did not
scruple to talk of his true English heart, honour of the nation,
&c., at a time when he was engaged with France; but the speech was
prepared for an answer to a money bill, not for a question of the
Protestant religion and church, and the false professions in it are
adapted to what was supposed to be the only subject of it.

The only matter in which the king's views were in any degree
thwarted was the reversal of Lord Stafford's attainder, which,
having passed the House of Lords, not without opposition, was lost
in the House of Commons; a strong proof that the popish plot was
still the subject upon which the opposers of the court had most
credit with the public.  Mr. Hume, notwithstanding his just
indignation at the condemnation of Stafford, and his general
inclination to approve of royal politics, most unaccountably
justifies the Commons in their rejection of this bill, upon the
principle of its being impolitic at that time to grant so full a
justification of the Catholics, and to throw so foul an imputation
upon the Protestants.  Surely if there be one moral duty that is
binding upon men in all times, places, and circumstances, and from
which no supposed views of policy can excuse them, it is that of
granting a full justification to the innocent; and such Mr. Hume
considers the Catholics, and especially Lord Stafford, to have been.
The only rational way of accounting for this solitary instance of
non-compliance on the part of the Commons is either to suppose that
they still believed in the reality of the popish plot, and
Stafford's guilt, or that the Church party, which was uppermost, had
such an antipathy to popery, as indeed to every sect whose tenets
differed from theirs, that they deemed everything lawful against its
professors.

On the 2nd of July parliament was adjourned for the purpose of
enabling the principal gentlemen to be present in their respective
counties at a time when their services and influence might be so
necessary to government.  It is said that the House of Commons
consisted of members so devoted to James, that he declared there
were not forty in it whom he would not himself have named.  But
although this may have been true, and though from the new modelling
of the corporations, and the interference of the court in elections,
this parliament, as far as regards the manner of its being chosen,
was by no means a fair representative of the legal electors of
England, yet there is reason to think that it afforded a tolerably
correct sample of the disposition of the nation, and especially of
the Church party, which was then uppermost.

The general character of the party at this time appears to have been
a high notion of the king's constitutional power, to which was
superadded a kind of religious abhorrence of all resistance to the
monarch, not only in cases where such resistance was directed
against the lawful prerogative, but even in opposition to
encroachments which the monarch might make beyond the extended
limits which they assigned to his prerogative.  But these tenets,
and still more the principle of conduct naturally resulting from
them, were confined to the civil, as contra-distinguished from the
ecclesiastical polity of the country.  In Church matters they
neither acknowledged any very high authority in the crown, nor were
they willing to submit to any royal encroachment on that side; and a
steady attachment to the Church of England, with a proportionable
aversion to all dissenters from it, whether Catholic or Protestant,
was almost universally prevalent among them.  A due consideration of
these distinct features in the character of a party so powerful in
Charles's and in James's time, and even when it was lowest (that is,
during the reigns of the two first princes of the House of
Brunswick), by no means inconsiderable, is exceedingly necessary to
the right understanding of English history.  It affords a clue to
many passages otherwise unintelligible.  For want of a proper
attention to this circumstance, some historians have considered the
conduct of the Tories in promoting the revolution as an instance of
great inconsistency.  Some have supposed, contrary to the clearest
evidence, that their notions of passive obedience, even in civil
matters, were limited, and that their support of the government of
Charles and James was founded upon a belief that those princes would
never abuse their prerogative for the purpose of introducing
arbitrary sway.  But this hypothesis is contrary to the evidence
both of their declarations and their conduct.  Obedience without
reserve, an abhorrence of all resistance, as contrary to the tenets
of their religion, are the principles which they professed in their
addresses, their sermons, and their decrees at Oxford; and surely
nothing short of such principles could make men esteem the latter
years of Charles II., and the opening of the reign of his successor,
an era of national happiness and exemplary government.  Yet this is
the representation of that period, which is usually made by
historians and other writers of the Church party.  "Never were
fairer promises on one side, nor greater generosity on the other,"
says Mr. Echard.  "The king had as yet, in no instance, invaded the
rights of his subjects," says the author of the Caveat against the
Whigs.  Thus, as long as James contented himself with absolute power
in civil matters, and did not make use of his authority against the
Church, everything went smooth and easy; nor is it necessary, in
order to account for the satisfaction of the parliament and people,
to have recourse to any implied compromise by which the nation was
willing to yield its civil liberties as the price of retaining its
religious constitution.  The truth seems to be, that the king, in
asserting his unlimited power, rather fell in with the humour of the
prevailing party than offered any violence to it.  Absolute power in
civil matters, under the specious names of monarchy and prerogative,
formed a most essential part of the Tory creed; but the order in
which Church and king are placed in the favourite device of the
party is not accidental, and is well calculated to show the genuine
principles of such among them as are not corrupted by influence.
Accordingly, as the sequel of this reign will abundantly show, when
they found themselves compelled to make an option, they preferred,
without any degree of inconsistency, their first idol to their
second, and when they could not preserve both Church and king,
declared for the former.

It gives certainly no very flattering picture of the country to
describe it as being in some sense fairly represented by this
servile parliament, and not only acquiescing in, but delighted with
the early measures of James's reign; the contempt of law exhibited
in the arbitrary mode of raising his revenue; his insulting menace
to the parliament, that if they did not use him well, he would
govern without them; his furious persecution of the Protestant
dissenters, and the spirit of despotism which appeared in all his
speeches and actions.  But it is to be remembered that these
measures were in nowise contrary to the principles or prejudices of
the Church party, but rather highly agreeable to them; and that the
Whigs, who alone were possessed of any just notions of liberty, were
so outnumbered and discomforted by persecution, that such of them as
did not think fit to engage in the rash schemes of Monmouth or
Argyle, held it to be their interest to interfere as little as
possible in public affairs, and by no means to obtrude upon
unwilling hearers opinions and sentiments which, ever since the
dissolution of the Oxford parliament, in 1681, had been generally
discountenanced, and of which the peaceable, or rather triumphant,
accession of James to the throne was supposed to seal the
condemnation.



CHAPTER III.



Attempts of Argyle and Monmouth--Account of their followers--
Argyle's expedition discovered--His descent in Argyleshire--
Dissensions among his followers--Loss of his shipping--His army
dispersed, and himself taken prisoner--His behaviour in prison--His
execution--The fate of his followers--Rumbold's last declaration
examined--Monmouth's invasion of England--His first success and
reception--His delays, disappointment, and despondency--Battle of
Sedgmoor--He is discovered and taken--His letter to the king--His
interview with James--His preparations for death--Circumstances
attending his execution--His character.

It is now necessary to give some account of those attempts in
Scotland by the Earl of Argyle, and in England by the Duke of
Monmouth, of which the king had informed his parliament in the
manner recited in the preceding chapter.  The Earl of Argyle was son
to the Marquis of Argyle, of whose unjust execution, and the
treacherous circumstances accompanying it, notice has already been
taken.  He had in his youth been strongly attached to the royal
cause, and had refused to lay down his arms till he had the exiled
king's positive orders for that purpose.  But the merit of his early
services could neither save the life of his father, nor even procure
for himself a complete restitution of his family honours and
estates; and not long after the restoration, upon an accusation of
leasing-making, an accusation founded, in this instance, upon a
private letter to a fellow-subject, in which he spoke with some
freedom of his majesty's Scottish ministry, he was condemned to
death.  The sentence was suspended and finally remitted, but not
till after an imprisonment of twelve months and upwards.  In this
affair he was much assisted by the friendship of the Duke of
Lauderdale, with whom he ever afterwards lived upon terms of
friendship, though his principles would not permit him to give
active assistance to that nobleman in his government of Scotland.
Accordingly, we do not, during that period, find Argyle's name among
those who held any of those great employments of State to which, by
his rank and consequence, he was naturally entitled.  When James,
then Duke of York, was appointed to the Scottish government, it
seems to have been the earl's intention to cultivate his royal
highness's favour, and he was a strenuous supporter of the bill
which condemned all attempts at exclusions or other alterations in
the succession of the crown.  But having highly offended that prince
by insisting, on the occasion of the test, that the royal family,
when in office, should not be exempted from taking that oath which
they imposed upon subjects in like situations, his royal highness
ordered a prosecution against him, for the explanation with which he
had taken the test oath at the council-board, and the earl was, as
we have seen, again condemned to death.  From the time of his escape
from prison he resided wholly in foreign countries, and was looked
to as a principal ally by such of the English patriots as had at any
time entertained thoughts, whether more or less ripened, of
delivering their country.

James, Duke of Monmouth, was the eldest of the late king's natural
children.  In the early parts of his life he held the first place in
his father's affections; and even in the height of Charles's
displeasure at his political conduct, attentive observers thought
they could discern that the traces of paternal tenderness were by no
means effaced.  Appearing at court in the bloom of youth, with a
beautiful figure and engaging manners, known to be the darling of
the monarch, it is no wonder that he was early assailed by the arts
of flattery; and it is rather a proof that he had not the strongest
of all minds, than of any extraordinary weakness of character, that
he was not proof against them.  He had appeared with some
distinction in the Flemish campaigns, and his conduct had been
noticed with the approbation of the commanders as well as Dutch as
French, under whom he had respectively served.  His courage was
allowed by all, his person admired, his generosity loved, his
sincerity confided in.  If his talents were not of the first rate,
they were by no means contemptible; and he possessed, in an eminent
degree, qualities which, in popular government, are far more
effective than the most splendid talents; qualities by which he
inspired those who followed him, not only with confidence and
esteem, but with affection, enthusiasm, and even fondness.  Thus
endowed, it is not surprising that his youthful mind was fired with
ambition, or that he should consider the putting himself at the head
of a party (a situation for which he seems to have been peculiarly
qualified by so many advantages) as the means by which he was most
likely to attain his object.

Many circumstances contributed to outweigh the scruples which must
have harassed a man of his excellent nature, when he considered the
obligations of filial duty and gratitude, and when he reflected that
the particular relation in which he stood to the king rendered a
conduct, which in any other subject would have been meritorious,
doubtful, if not extremely culpable in him.  Among these, not the
least was the declared enmity which subsisted between him and his
uncle, the Duke of York.  The Earl of Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of
Buckinghamshire, boasted in his "Memoirs," that this enmity was
originally owing to his contrivances; and while he is relating a
conduct, upon which the only doubt can be, whether the object or the
means were the most infamous, seems to applaud himself as if he had
achieved some notable exploit.  While, on the one hand, a prospect
of his uncle's succession to the crown was intolerable to him, as
involving in it a certain destruction of even the most reasonable
and limited views of ambition which he might entertain, he was
easily led to believe, on the other hand, that no harm, but the
reverse, was intended towards his royal father, whose reign and life
might become precarious if he obstinately persevered in supporting
his brother; whereas, on the contrary, if he could be persuaded, or
even forced, to yield to the wishes of his subjects, he might long
reign a powerful, happy, and popular prince.

It is also reasonable to believe, that with those personal and
private motives others might co-operate of a public nature and of a
more noble character.  The Protestant religion, to which he seems to
have been sincerely attached, would be persecuted, or perhaps
exterminated, if the king should be successful in his support of the
Duke of York and his faction.  At least, such was the opinion
generally prevalent, while, with respect to the civil liberties of
the country, no doubt could be entertained, that if the court party
prevailed in the struggle then depending they would be completely
extinguished.  Something may be attributed to his admiration of the
talents of some, to his personal friendship for others among the
leaders of the Whigs, more to the aptitude of a generous nature to
adopt, and, if I may so say, to become enamoured of those principles
of justice, benevolence, and equality, which form the true creed of
the party which he espoused.  I am not inclined to believe that it
was his connection with Shaftesbury that inspired him with ambitious
views, but rather to reverse cause and effect, and to suppose that
his ambitious views produced his connection with that nobleman; and
whoever reads with attention Lord Grey's account of one of the party
meetings at which he was present, will perceive that there was not
between them that perfect cordiality which has been generally
supposed; but that Russell, Grey, and Hampden, were upon a far more
confidential footing with him.  It is far easier to determine
generally, that he had high schemes of ambition, than to discover
what was his precise object; and those who boldly impute to him the
intention of succeeding to the crown, seem to pass by several
weighty arguments, which make strongly against their hypothesis;
such as his connection with the Duchess of Portsmouth, who, if the
succession were to go to the king's illegitimate children, must
naturally have been for her own son; his unqualified support of the
Exclusion Bill, which, without indeed mentioning her, most
unequivocally settled the crown, in case of a demise, upon the
Princess of Orange; and, above all, the circumstance of his having,
when driven from England, twice chosen Holland for his asylum.  By
his cousins he was received, not so much with the civility and
decorum of princes, as with the kind familiarity of near relations,
a reception to which he seemed to make every return of reciprocal
cordiality.  It is not rashly to be believed, that he, who has never
been accused of hardened wickedness, could have been upon such terms
with, and so have behaved to, persons whom he purposed to disappoint
in their dearest and best grounded hopes, and to defraud of their
inheritance.

Whatever his views might be, it is evident that they were of a
nature wholly adverse, not only to those of the Duke of York, but to
the schemes of power entertained by the king, with which the support
of his brother was intimately connected.  Monmouth was therefore, at
the suggestion of James, ordered by his father to leave the country,
and deprived of all his offices, civil and military.  The pretence
for this exile was a sort of principle of impartiality, which
obliged the king, at the same time that he ordered his brother to
retire to Flanders, to deal equal measure to his son.  Upon the Duke
of York's return (which was soon after), Monmouth thought he might
without blame return also; and persevering in his former measures
and old connections, became deeply involved in the cabals to which
Essex, Russell, and Sidney fell martyrs.  After the death of his
friends, he surrendered himself; and upon a promise that nothing
said by him should be used to the prejudice of any of his surviving
friends, wrote a penitentiary letter to his father, consenting, at
the same time, to ask pardon of his uncle.  A great parade was made
of this by the court, as if it was designed by all means to goad the
feelings of Monmouth:  his majesty was declared to have pardoned him
at the request of the Duke of York, and his consent was required to
the publication of what was called his confession.  This he
resolutely refused at all hazards, and was again obliged to seek
refuge abroad, where he had remained to the period of which we are
now treating.

A little time before Charles's death he had indulged hopes of being
recalled; and that his intelligence to that effect was not quite
unfounded, or if false, was at least mixed with truth, is clear from
the following circumstance: --From the notes found when he was
taken, in his memorandum book, it appears that part of the plan
concerted between the king and Monmouth's friend (probably Halifax),
was that the Duke of York should go to Scotland, between which, and
his being sent abroad again, Monmouth and his friends saw no
material difference.  Now in Barillon's letters to his court, dated
the 7th of December, 1684, it appears that the Duke of York had told
that ambassador of his intended voyage to Scotland though he
represented it in a very different point of view, and said that it
would not be attended with any diminution of his favour or credit.
This was the light in which Charles, to whom the expressions, "to
blind my brother, not to make the Duke of York fly out," and the
like, were familiar, would certainly have shown the affair to his
brother, and therefore of all the circumstances adduced, this
appears to me to be the strongest in favour of the supposition, that
there was in the king's mind a real intention of making an
important, if not a complete, change in his councils and measures.

Besides these two leaders, there were on the continent at that time
several other gentlemen of great consideration.  Sir Patrick Hume,
of Polworth, had early distinguished himself in the cause of
liberty.  When the privy council of Scotland passed an order,
compelling the counties to pay the expense of the garrisons
arbitrarily placed in them, he refused to pay his quota, and by a
mode of appeal to the court of session, which the Scotch lawyers
call a bill of suspension, endeavoured to procure redress.  The
council ordered him to be imprisoned, for no other crime, as it
should seem, than that of having thus attempted to procure, by a
legal process, a legal decision upon a point of law.  After having
remained in close confinement in Stirling Castle for near four
years, he was set at liberty through the favour and interest of
Monmouth.  Having afterwards engaged in schemes connected with those
imputed to Sidney and Russell, orders were issued for seizing him at
his house in Berwickshire; but having had timely notice of his
danger from his relation, Hume of Ninewells, a gentleman attached to
the royal cause, but whom party spirit had not rendered insensible
to the ties of kindred and private friendship, he found means to
conceal himself for a time, and shortly after to escape beyond sea.
His concealment is said to have been in the family burial-place,
where the means of sustaining life were brought to him by his
daughter, a girl of fifteen years of age, whose duty and affection
furnished her with courage to brave the terrors, as well
superstitious as real, to which she was necessarily exposed in an
intercourse of this nature.

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, a young man of great spirit, had
signalised himself in opposition to Lauderdale's administration of
Scotland, and had afterwards connected himself with Argyle and
Russell, and what was called the council of six.  He had, of course,
thought it prudent to leave Great Britain, and could not be supposed
unwilling to join in any enterprise which might bid fair to restore
him to his country, and his countrymen to their lost liberties,
though, upon the present occasion, which he seems to have judged to
be unfit for the purpose, he endeavoured to dissuade both Argyle and
Monmouth from their attempts.  He was a man of much thought and
reading, of an honourable mind, and a fiery spirit, and from his
enthusiastic admiration of the ancients, supposed to be warmly
attached, not only to republican principles, but to the form of a
commonwealth.  Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree had fled his country
on account of the transactions of 1683.  His property and
connections were considerable, and he was supposed to possess
extensive influence in Ayrshire and the adjacent counties.

Such were the persons of chief note among the Scottish emigrants.
Among the English, by far the most remarkable was Ford, Lord Grey of
Wark.  A scandalous love intrigue with his wife's sister had fixed a
very deep stain upon his private character; nor were the
circumstances attending this affair, which had all been brought to
light in a court of justice, by any means calculated to extenuate
his guilt.  His ancient family, however, the extensive influence
arising from his large possessions, his talents, which appear to
have been very considerable, and above all, his hitherto unshaken
fidelity in political attachments, and the general steadiness of his
conduct in public life, might in some degree countervail the odium
which he had incurred on account of his private vices.  Of Matthews,
Wade, and Ayloff, whose names are mentioned as having both joined
the preliminary councils, and done actual service in the invasions,
little is known by which curiosity could be either gratified or
excited.

Richard Rumbold, on every account, merits more particular notice.
He had formerly served in the republican armies; and adhering to the
principles of liberty which he had imbibed in his youth, though
nowise bigoted to the particular form of a commonwealth had been
deeply engaged in the politics of those who thought they saw an
opportunity of rescuing their country from the tyrannical government
of the late king.  He was one of the persons denounced in Keeling's
narrative, and was accused of having conspired to assassinate the
royal brothers in their road to Newmarket, an accusation belied by
the whole tenor of his life and conduct, and which, if it had been
true, would have proved him, who was never thought a weak or foolish
man, to be as destitute of common sense as of honour and probity.
It was pretended that the seizure of the princes was to take place
at a farm called Rye House, which he occupied in Essex, for the
purposes of his trade as maltster; and from this circumstance was
derived the name of the Rye House Plot.  Conscious of having done
some acts which the law, if even fairly interpreted and equitably
administered, might deem criminal, and certain that many which he
had not done would be both sworn and believed against him, he made
his escape, and passed the remainder of Charles's reign in exile and
obscurity; nor is his name, as far as I can learn, ever mentioned
from the time of the Rye House Plot to that of which we are now
treating.

It is not to be understood that there were no other names upon the
list of those who fled from the tyranny of the British government,
or thought themselves unsafe in their native country, on account of
its violence, besides those of the persons above mentioned, and of
such as joined in their bold and hazardous enterprise.  Another
class of emigrants, not less sensible probably to the wrongs of
their country, but less sanguine in their hopes of immediate
redress, is ennobled by the names of Burnet the historian and Mr.
Locke.  It is difficult to accede to the opinion which the first of
these seems to entertain, that though particular injustices had been
committed, the misgovernment had not been of such a nature as to
justify resistance by arms.  But the prudential reasons against
resistance at that time were exceedingly strong; and there is no
point in human concerns wherein the dictates of virtue and worldly
prudence are so identified as in this great question of resistance
by force to established government.  Success, it has been
invidiously remarked, constitutes in most instances the sole
difference between the traitor and the deliverer of his country.  A
rational probability of success, it may be truly said, distinguishes
the well-considered enterprise of the patriot, from the rash schemes
of the disturber of the public peace.  To command success is not in
the power of man; but to deserve success, by choosing a proper time,
as well as a proper object, by the prudence of his means, no less
than by the purity of his views, by a cause not only intrinsically
just, but likely to insure general support, is the indispensable
duty of him who engages in an insurrection against an existing
government.  Upon this subject the opinion of Ludlow, who, though
often misled, appears to have been an honest and enlightened man, is
striking and forcibly expressed.  "We ought," says he, "to be very
careful and circumspect in that particular, and at least be assured
of very probable grounds to believe the power under which we engage
to be sufficiently able to protect us in our undertaking; otherwise
I should account myself not only guilty of my own blood, but also,
in some measure, of the ruin and destruction of all those that I
should induce to engage with me, though no cause were never so
just."  Reasons of this nature, mixed more or less with
considerations of personal caution, and in some, perhaps, with
dislike and distrust of the leaders, induced many, who could not but
abhor the British government, to wait for better opportunities, and
to prefer either submission at home, or exile, to an undertaking
which, if not hopeless, must have been deemed by all hazardous in
the extreme.

In the situation in which these two noblemen, Argyle and Monmouth,
were placed, it is not to be wondered at if they were naturally
willing to enter into any plan by which they might restore
themselves to their country; nor can it be doubted but they honestly
conceived their success to be intimately connected with the welfare,
and especially with the liberty of the several kingdoms to which
they respectively belonged.  Monmouth, whether because he had begun
at this time, as he himself said, to wean his mind from ambition, or
from the observations he had made upon the apparently rapid turn
which had taken place in the minds of the English people, seems to
have been very averse to rash counsels, and to have thought that all
attempts against James ought at least to be deferred till some more
favourable opportunity should present itself.  So far from esteeming
his chance of success the better, on account of there being in
James's parliament many members who had voted for the Exclusion
Bill, he considered that circumstance as unfavourable.  These men,
of whom, however, he seems to have over-rated the number, would, in
his opinion, be more eager than others to recover the ground they
had lost, by an extraordinary show of zeal and attachment to the
crown.  But if Monmouth was inclined to dilatory counsels, far
different were the views and designs of other exiles, who had been
obliged to leave their country on account of their having engaged,
if not with him personally, at least in the same cause with him, and
who were naturally enough his advisers.  Among these were Lord Grey
of Wark, and Ferguson; though the latter afterwards denied his
having had much intercourse with the duke, and the former, in his
"Narrative," insinuates that he rather dissuaded than pressed the
invasion.

But if Monmouth was inclined to delay, Argyle seems, on the other
hand, to have been impatient in the extreme to bring matters to a
crisis, and was of course anxious that the attempt upon England
should be made in cooperation with his upon Scotland.  Ralph, an
historian of great acuteness as well as diligence, but who falls
sometimes into the common error of judging too much from the event,
seems to think this impatience wholly unaccountable; but Argyle may
have had many motives which are now unknown to us.  He may not
improbably have foreseen that the friendly terms upon which James
and the Prince of Orange affected at least to be, one with the
other, might make his stay in the United Provinces impracticable,
and that, if obliged to seek another asylum, not only he might have
been deprived, in some measure, of the resources which he derived
from his connections at Amsterdam, but that the very circumstance of
his having been publicly discountenanced by the Prince of Orange and
the states-general, might discredit his enterprise.  His eagerness
for action may possibly have proceeded from the most laudable
motives, his sensibility to the horrors which his countrymen were
daily and hourly suffering, and his ardour to relieve them.  The
dreadful state of Scotland, while it affords so honourable an
explanation of his impatience, seems to account also, in a great
measure, for his acting against the common notions of prudence, in
making his attack without any previous concert with those whom he
expected to join him there.  That this was his view of the matter is
plain, as we are informed by Burnet that he depended not only on an
army of his own clan and vassals, but that he took it for granted
that the western and southern counties would all at once come about
him, when he had gathered a good force together in his own country;
and surely such an expectation, when we reflect upon the situation
of those counties, was by no means unreasonable.

Argyle's counsel, backed by Lord Grey and the rest of Monmouth's
advisers, and opposed by none except Fletcher of Saltoun, to whom
some add Captain Matthews, prevailed, and it was agreed to invade
immediately, and at one time, the two kingdoms.  Monmouth had raised
some money from his jewels, and Argyle had a loan of ten thousand
pounds from a rich widow in Amsterdam.  With these resources, such
as they were, ships and arms were provided, and Argyle sailed from
Vly on the 2nd of May with three small vessels, accompanied by Sir
Patrick Hume, Sir John Cochrane, a few more Scotch gentlemen, and by
two Englishmen, Ayloff, a nephew by marriage to Lord Chancellor
Clarendon, and Rumbold, the maltster, who had been accused of being
principally concerned in that conspiracy which, from his farm in
Essex, where it was pretended Charles II. was to have been
intercepted in his way from Newmarket, and assassinated, had been
called the Rye House Plot.  Sir Patrick Hume is said to have advised
the shortest passage, in order to come more unexpectedly upon the
enemy; but Argyle, who is represented as remarkably tenacious of his
own opinions, persisted in his plan of sailing round the north of
Scotland, as well for the purpose of landing at once among his own
vassals, as for that of being nearer to the western counties, which
had been most severely oppressed, and from which, of course, he
expected most assistance.  Each of these plans had, no doubt, its
peculiar advantages; but, as far as we can judge at this distance of
time, those belonging to the earl's scheme seemed to preponderate;
for the force he carried with him was certainly not sufficient to
enable him, by striking any decisive stroke, to avail himself even
of the most unprepared state in which he could hope to find the
king's government.  As he must, therefore, depend entirely upon
reinforcements from the country, it seemed reasonable to make for
that part where succour was most likely to be obtained, even at the
hazard of incurring the disadvantage which must evidently result
from the enemy's having early notice of his attack, and,
consequently, proportionable time for defence.

Unfortunately this hazard was converted into a certainty by his
sending some men on shore in the Orkneys.  Two of these, Spence and
Blackadder, were seized at Kirkwall by the bishop of the diocese,
and sent up prisoners to Edinburgh, by which means the government
was not only satisfied of the reality of the intended invasion, of
which, however, they had before had some intimation, but could guess
with a reasonable certainty the part of the coast where the descent
was to take place, for Argyle could not possibly have sailed so far
to the north with any other view than that of making his landing
either on his own estate, or in some of the western counties.  Among
the numberless charges of imprudence against the unfortunate Argyle,
charges too often inconsiderately urged against him who fails in any
enterprise of moment, that which is founded upon the circumstance
just mentioned appears to me to be the most weighty, though it is
that which is the least mentioned, and by no author, as far as I
recollect, much enforced.  If the landing in the north was merely
for the purpose of gaining intelligence respecting the disposition
of the country, or for the more frivolous object of making some few
prisoners, it was indeed imprudent in the highest degree.  That
prisoners, such as were likely to be taken on this occasion, should
have been a consideration with any man of common sense is
impossible.  The desire of gaining intelligence concerning the
disposition of the people was indeed a natural curiosity, but it
would be a strong instance of that impatience which has been often
alleged though in no other case proved to have been part of the
earl's character, if, for the sake of gratifying such a desire, he
gave the enemy any important advantage.  Of the intelligence which
he sought thus eagerly, it was evident that he could not in that
place and at that time make any immediate use; whereas, of that
which he afforded his enemies, they could and did avail themselves
against him.  The most favourable account of this proceeding, and
which seems to deserve most credit, is, that having missed the
proper passage through the Orkney Islands, he thought proper to send
on shore for pilots, and that Spence very imprudently took the
opportunity of going to confer with a relation at Kirkwall; but it
is to be remarked that it was not necessary for the purpose of
getting pilots, to employ men of note, such as Blackadder and
Spence, the latter of whom was the earl's secretary; and that it was
an unpardonable neglect not to give the strictest injunctions to
those who were employed against going a step further into the
country than was absolutely necessary.

Argyle, with his wonted generosity of spirit, was at first
determined to lay siege to Kirkwall, in order to recover his
friends; but, partly by the dissuasions of his followers, and still
more by the objections made by the masters of the ships to a delay
which might make them lose the favourable winds for their intended
voyage, he was induced to prosecute his course.  In the meantime the
government made the use that it was obvious they would make of the
information they had obtained, and when the earl arrived at his
destination, he learned that considerable forces were got together
to repel any attack that he might meditate.  Being prevented by
contrary winds from reaching the Isle of Islay, where he had
purposed to make his first landing, he sailed back to Dunstafnage in
Lorn, and there sent ashore his son, Mr. Charles Campbell, to engage
his tenants and other friends and dependants of his family to rise
in his behalf; but even there he found less encouragement and
assistance than he had expected, and the laird of Lochniel, who gave
him the best assurances, treacherously betrayed him, sent his letter
to the government, and joined the royal forces under the Marquis of
Athol.  He then proceeded southwards, and landed at Campbelltown in
Kintyre, where his first step was to publish his declaration, which
appears to have produced little or no effect.

This bad beginning served, as is usual in such adventures, rather to
widen than to reconcile the differences which had early begun to
manifest themselves between the leader and his followers.  Hume and
Cochrane, partly construing, perhaps too sanguinely, the
intelligence which was received from Ayrshire, Galloway, and the
other Lowland districts in that quarter, partly from an expectation
that where the oppression had been most grievous, the revolt would
be proportionably the more general, were against any stay, or, as
they termed it, loss of time in the Highlands, but were for
proceeding at once, weak as they were in point of numbers, to a
country where every man endowed with the common feelings of human
nature must be their well-wisher, every man of spirit their
coadjutor.  Argyle, on the contrary, who probably considered the
discouraging accounts from the Lowlands as positive and distinct,
while those which were deemed more favourable appeared to him to be
at least uncertain and provisional, thought the most prudent plan
was to strengthen himself in his own country before he attempted the
invasion of provinces where the enemy was so well prepared to
receive him.  He had hopes of gaining time, not only to increase his
own army, but to avail himself of the Duke of Monmouth's intended
invasion of England, an event which must obviously have great
influence upon his affairs, and which, if he could but maintain
himself in a situation to profit by it, might be productive of
advantages of an importance and extent of which no man could presume
to calculate the limits.  Of these two contrary opinions it may be
difficult at this time of day to appreciate the value, seeing that
so much depends upon the degree of credit due to the different
accounts from the Lowland counties, of which our imperfect
information does not enable us to form any accurate judgment.  But
even though we should not decide absolutely in favour of the cogency
of these reasonings which influenced the chief, it must surely be
admitted that there was, at least, sufficient probability in them to
account for his not immediately giving way to those of his
followers, and to rescue his memory from the reproach of any
uncommon obstinacy, or of carrying things, as Burnet phrases it,
with an air of authority that was not easy to men who were setting
up for liberty.  On the other hand, it may be more difficult to
exculpate the gentlemen engaged with Argyle for not acquiescing more
cheerfully, and not entering more cordially into the views of a man
whom they had chosen for their leader and general; of whose honour
they had no doubt, and whose opinion even those who dissented from
him must confess to be formed upon no light or trivial grounds.

The differences upon the general scheme of attack led, of course, to
others upon points of detail.  Upon every projected expedition there
appeared a contrariety of sentiment, which on some occasions
produced the most violent disputes.  The earl was often thwarted in
his plans, and in one instance actually over-ruled by the vote of a
council of war.  Nor were these divisions, which might of themselves
be deemed sufficient to mar an enterprise of this nature, the only
adverse circumstances which Argyle had to encounter.  By the forward
state of preparation on the part of the government, its friends were
emboldened; its enemies, whose spirit had been already broken by a
long series of sufferings, were completely intimidated, and men of
fickle and time-serving dispositions were fixed in its interests.
Add to all this, that where spirit was not wanting, it was
accompanied with a degree and species of perversity wholly
inexplicable, and which can hardly gain belief from any one whose
experience has not made him acquainted with the extreme difficulty
of persuading men who pride themselves upon an extravagant love of
liberty, rather to compromise upon some points with those who have
in the main the same views with themselves, than to give power (a
power which will infallibly be used for their own destruction) to an
adversary of principles diametrically opposite; in other words,
rather to concede something to a friend, than everything to an
enemy.  Hence, those even whose situation was the most desperate,
who were either wandering about the fields, or seeking refuge in
rocks and caverns, from the authorised assassins who were on every
side pursuing them, did not all join in Argyle's cause with that
frankness and cordiality which was to be expected.  The various
schisms which had existed among different classes of Presbyterians
were still fresh in their memory.  Not even the persecution to which
they had been in common, and almost indiscriminately subjected, had
reunited them.  According to a most expressive phrase of an eminent
minister of their church, who sincerely lamented their disunion, the
furnace had not yet healed the rents and breaches among them.  Some
doubted whether, short of establishing all the doctrines preached by
Cargill and Cameron, there was anything worth contending for; while
others, still further gone in enthusiasm, set no value upon liberty,
or even life itself, if they were to be preserved by the means of a
nobleman who had, as well by his serviced to Charles the Second as
by other instances, been guilty in the former parts of his conduct
of what they termed unlawful compliances.

Perplexed, no doubt, but not dismayed, by these difficulties, the
earl proceeded to Tarbet, which he had fixed as the place of
rendezvous, and there issued a second declaration (that which has
been mentioned as having been laid before the House of Commons),
with as little effect as the first.  He was joined by Sir Duncan
Campbell, who alone, of all his kinsmen, seems to have afforded him
any material assistance, and who brought with him nearly a thousand
men; but even with this important reinforcement, his whole army does
not appear to have exceeded two thousand.  It was here that he was
over-ruled by a council of war, when he proposed marching to
Inverary; and after much debate, so far was he from being so self-
willed as he is represented, that he consented to go over with his
army to that part of Argyleshire called Cowal, and that Sir John
Cochrane should make an attempt upon the Lowlands; and he sent with
him Major Fullarton, one of the offices in whom he most trusted, and
who appears to have best deserved his confidence.  This expedition
could not land in Ayrshire, where it had at first been intended,
owing to the appearance of two king's frigates, which had been sent
into those seas; and when it did land near Greenock, no other
advantage was derived from it than the procuring from the town a
very small supply of provisions.

When Cochrane, with his detachment, returned to Cowal, all hopes of
success in the Lowlands seemed, for the present at least, to be at
an end, and Argyle's original plan was now necessarily adopted,
though under circumstances greatly disadvantageous.  Among these,
the most important was the approach of the frigates, which obliged
the earl to place his ships under the protection of the castle of
Ellengreg, which he fortified and garrisoned as well as his
contracted means would permit.  Yet even in this situation, deprived
of the co-operation of his little fleet, as well as of that part of
his force which he left to defend it, being well seconded by the
spirit and activity of Rumbold, who had seized the castle of
Ardkinglass, near the head of Loch Fin, he was not without hopes of
success in his main enterprise against Inverary, when he was called
back to Ellengreg, by intelligence of fresh discontents having
broken out there, upon the nearer approach of the frigates.  Some of
the most dissatisfied had even threatened to leave both castle and
ships to their fate; nor did the appearance of the earl himself by
any means bring with it that degree of authority which was requisite
in such a juncture.  His first motion was to disregard the superior
force of the men of war, and to engage them with his small fleet;
but he soon discovered that he was far indeed from being furnished
with the materials necessary to put in execution so bold, or, as it
may possibly be thought, so romantic a resolution.  His associates
remonstrated, and a mutiny in his ships was predicted as a certain
consequence of the attempt.  Leaving, therefore, once more,
Ellengreg with a garrison under the command of the laird of
Lochness, and strict orders to destroy both ships and fortification,
rather than suffer them to fall into the hands of the enemy, he
marched towards Gareloch.  But whether from the inadequacy of the
provisions with which he was to supply it, or from cowardice,
misconduct, or treachery, it does not appear, the castle was soon
evacuated without any proper measures being taken to execute the
earl's orders, and the military stores in it to a considerable
amount, as well as the ships which had no other defence, were
abandoned to the king's forces.

This was a severe blow; and all hopes of acting according to the
earl's plan of establishing himself strongly in Argyleshire were now
extinguished.  He therefore consented to pass the Leven, a little
above Dumbarton, and to march eastwards.  In this march he was
overtaken, at a place called Killerne, by Lord Dumbarton, at the
head of a large body of the king's troops; but he posted himself
with so much skill and judgment, that Dumbarton thought it prudent
to wait, at least, till the ensuing morning, before he made his
attack.  Here, again Argyle was for risking an engagement, and in
his nearly desperate situation, it was probably his best chance, but
his advice (for his repeated misfortunes had scarcely left him the
shadow of command) was rejected.  On the other hand, a proposal was
made to him, the most absurd, as it should seem, that was ever
suggested in similar circumstances, to pass the enemy in the night,
and thus exposing his rear, to subject himself to the danger of
being surrounded, for the sake of advancing he knew not whither, or
for what purpose.  To this he could not consent; and it was at last
agreed to deceive the enemies by lighting fires, and to decamp in
the night towards Glasgow.  The first part of this plan was executed
with success, and the army went off unperceived by the enemy; but in
their night march they were misled by the ignorance or the treachery
of their guides and fell into difficulties which would have caused
some disorder among the most regular and best-disciplined troops.
In this case such disorder was fatal, and produced, as among men
circumstanced as Argyle's were, it necessarily must, an almost
general dispersion.  Wandering among bogs and morasses, disheartened
by fatigue, terrified by rumours of an approaching enemy, the
darkness of the night aggravating at once every real distress, and
adding terror to every vain alarm; in this situation, when even the
bravest and the best (for according to one account Rumbold himself
was missing for a time) were not able to find their leaders, nor the
corps to which they respectively belonged; it is no wonder that many
took this opportunity to abandon a cause now become desperate, and
to effect individually that escape which, as a body, they had no
longer any hopes to accomplish.

When the small remains of this ill-fated army got together, in the
morning, at Kilpatrick, a place far distant from their destination,
its number was reduced to less than five hundred.  Argyle had lost
all authority; nor, indeed, had he retained any, does it appear that
he could now have used it to any salutary purpose.  The same bias
which had influenced the two parties in the time of better hopes,
and with regard to their early operations, still prevailed now that
they were driven to their last extremity.  Sir Patrick Hume and Sir
John Cochrane would not stay even to reason the matter with him
whom, at the onset of their expedition, they had engaged to obey,
but crossed the Clyde, with such as would follow them to the number
of about two hundred, into Renfrewshire.

Argyle, thus deserted, and almost alone, still looked to his own
country as the sole remaining hope, and sent off Sir Duncan
Campbell, with the two Duncansons, father and son--persons, all
three, by whom he seemed to have been served with the most exemplary
zeal and fidelity--to attempt new levies there.  Having done this,
and settled such means of correspondence as the state of affairs
would permit, he repaired to the house of an old servant, upon whose
attachment he had relied for an asylum, but was peremptorily denied
entrance.  Concealment in this part of the country seemed now
impracticable, and he was forced at last to pass the Clyde,
accompanied by the brave and faithful Fullarton.  Upon coming to a
ford of the Inchanon they were stopped by some militia-men.
Fullarton used in vain all the best means which his presence of mind
suggested to him to save his general.  He attempted one while by
gentle, and then by harsher language, to detain the commander of the
party till the earl, who was habited as a common countryman, and
whom he passed for his guide, should have made his escape.  At last,
when he saw them determined to go after his pretended guide, he
offered to surrender himself without a blow, upon condition of their
desisting from their pursuit.  This agreement was accepted, but not
adhered to, and two horsemen were detached to seize Argyle.  The
earl, who was also on horseback, grappled with them till one of them
and himself came to the ground.  He then presented his pocket
pistols, on which the two retired, but soon after five more came up,
who fired without effect, and he thought himself like to get rid of
them, but they knocked him down with their swords and seized him.
When they knew whom they had taken they seemed much troubled, but
dared not let him go.  Fullarton, perceiving that the stipulation on
which he had surrendered himself was violated, and determined to
defend himself to the last, or at least to wreak, before he fell,
his just vengeance upon his perfidious opponents, grasped at the
sword of one of them, but in vain; he was overpowered, and made
prisoner.

Argyle was immediately carried to Renfrew, thence to Glasgow, and on
the 20th of June was led in triumph into Edinburgh.  The order of
the council was particular:  that he should be led bareheaded in the
midst of Graham's guards, with their matches cocked, his hands tied
behind his back, and preceded by the common hangman, in which
situation, that he might be more exposed to the insults and taunts
of the vulgar, it was directed that he should be carried to the
castle by a circuitous route.  To the equanimity with which he bore
these indignities, as indeed to the manly spirit exhibited by him
throughout, in these last scenes of his life, ample testimony is
borne by all the historians who have treated of them, even those who
are the least partial to him.  He had frequent opportunities of
conversing, and some of writing, during his imprisonment, and it is
from such parts of these conversations and writings as have been
preserved to us, that we can best form to ourselves a just notion of
his deportment during that trying period; at the same time a true
representation of the temper of his mind in such circumstances will
serve, in no small degree, to illustrate his general character and
disposition.

We have already seen how he expresses himself with regard to the men
who, by taking him, became the immediate cause of his calamity.  He
seems to feel a sort of gratitude to them for the sorrow he saw, or
fancied he saw in them, when they knew who he was, and immediately
suggests an excuse for them, by saying that they did not dare to
follow the impulse of their hearts.  Speaking of the supineness of
his countrymen, and of the little assistance he had received from
them, he declares with his accustomed piety his resignation to the
will of God, which was that Scotland should not be delivered at this
time, nor especially by his hand; and then exclaims, with the regret
of a patriot, but with no bitterness of disappointment, "But alas!
who is there to be delivered!  There may," says he, "be hidden ones,
but there appears no great party in the country who desire to be
relieved."  Justice, in some degree, but still more that warm
affection for his own kindred and vassals, which seems to have
formed a marked feature in this nobleman's character, then induces
him to make an exception in favour of his poor friends in
Argyleshire, in treating for whom, though in what particular way
does not appear, he was employing, and with some hope of success,
the few remaining hours of his life.  In recounting the failure of
his expedition it is impossible for him not to touch upon what he
deemed the misconduct of his friends; and this is the subject upon
which of all others, his temper must have been most irritable.  A
certain description of friends (the words describing them are
omitted) were all of them without exception, his greatest enemies,
both to betray and destroy him; and . . . and . . . (the names again
omitted) were the greatest cause of his rout, and his being taken,
though not designedly, he acknowledges, but by ignorance, cowardice,
and faction.  This sentence had scarce escaped him when,
notwithstanding the qualifying words with which his candour had
acquitted the last-mentioned persons of intentional treachery, it
appeared too harsh to his gentle nature, and declaring himself
displeased with the hard epithets he had used, he desires they may
be put out of any account that is to be given of these transactions.
The manner in which this request is worded shows that the paper he
was writing was intended for a letter, and as it is supposed, to a
Mrs. Smith, who seems to have assisted him with money; but whether
or not this lady was the rich widow of Amsterdam, before alluded to,
I have not been able to learn.

When he is told that he is to be put to the torture, he neither
breaks out into any high-sounding bravado, any premature vaunts of
the resolution with which he will endure it, nor, on the other hand,
into passionate exclamations on the cruelty of his enemies, or
unmanly lamentations of his fate.  After stating that orders were
arrived that he must be tortured, unless he answers all questions
upon oath, he simply adds that he hopes God will support him; and
then leaves off writing, not from any want of spirits to proceed,
but to enjoy the consolation which was yet left him, in the society
of his wife, the countess being just then admitted.

Of his interview with Queensbury, who examined him in private,
little is known, except that he denied his design having been
concerted with any persons in Scotland; that he gave no information
with respect to his associates in England; and that he boldly and
frankly averred his hopes to have been founded on the cruelty of the
administration, and such a disposition in the people to revolt as he
conceived to be the natural consequence of oppression.  He owned, at
the same time, that he had trusted too much to this principle.  The
precise date of this conversation, whether it took place before the
threat of the torture, whilst that threat was impending, or when
there was no longer any intention of putting it into execution, I
have not been able to ascertain; but the probability seems to be
that it was during the first or second of these periods.

Notwithstanding the ill success that had attended his enterprise, he
never expresses, or even hints, the smallest degree of contrition
for having undertaken it:  on the contrary, when Mr. Charteris, an
eminent divine, is permitted to wait on him, his first caution to
that minister is, not to try to convince him of the unlawfulness of
his attempt, concerning which his opinion was settled, and his mind
made up.  Of some parts of his past conduct he does indeed confess
that he repents, but these are the compliances of which he had been
guilty in support of the king, or his predecessors.  Possibly in
this he may allude to his having in his youth borne arms against the
covenant, but with more likelihood to his concurrence, in the late
reign, with some of the measures of Lauderdale's administration, for
whom it is certain that he entertained a great regard, and to whom
he conceived himself to be principally indebted for his escape from
his first sentence.  Friendship and gratitude might have carried him
to lengths which patriotism and justice must condemn.

Religious concerns, in which he seems to have been very serious and
sincere, engaged much of his thoughts; but his religion was of that
genuine kind which, by representing the performance of our duties to
our neighbour as the most acceptable service to God, strengthens all
the charities of social life.  While he anticipates, with a hope
approaching to certainty, a happy futurity, he does not forget those
who have been justly dear to him in this world.  He writes, on the
day of his execution, to his wife, and to some other relations, for
whom he seems to have entertained a sort of parental tenderness,
short, but the most affectionate letters, wherein he gives them the
greatest satisfaction then in his power, by assuring them of his
composure and tranquillity of mind, and refers them for further
consolation to those sources from which he derived his own.  In his
letter to Mrs. Smith, written on the same day, he says, "While
anything was a burden to me, your concern was; which is a cross
greater than I can express" (alluding probably to the pecuniary loss
she had incurred); "but I have, I thank God, overcome all."  Her
name, he adds, could not be concealed, and that he knows not what
may have been discovered from any paper which may have been taken;
otherwise he has named none to their disadvantage.  He states that
those in whose hands he is, had at first used him hardly, but that
God had melted their hearts, and that he was now treated with
civility.  As an instance of this, he mentions the liberty he had
obtained of sending this letter to her; a liberty which he takes as
a kindness on their part, and which he had sought that she might not
think he had forgotten her.

Never, perhaps, did a few sentences present so striking a picture of
a mind truly virtuous and honourable.  Heroic courage is the least
part of his praise, and vanishes as it were from our sight, when we
contemplate the sensibility with which he acknowledges the kindness,
such as it is, of the very men who are leading him to the scaffold;
the generous satisfaction which he feels on reflecting that no
confession of his has endangered his associates; and above all, his
anxiety, in such moments, to perform all the duties of friendship
and gratitude, not only with the most scrupulous exactness, but with
the most considerate attention to the feelings as well as to the
interests of the person who was the object of them.  Indeed, it
seems throughout to have been the peculiar felicity of this man's
mind, that everything was present to it that ought to be so; nothing
that ought not.  Of his country he could not be unmindful; and it
was one among other consequences of his happy temper, that on this
subject he did not entertain those gloomy ideas which the then state
of Scotland was but too well fitted to inspire.  In a conversation
with an intimate friend, he says that, though he does not take upon
him to be a prophet, he doubts not but that deliverance will come,
and suddenly, of which his failings had rendered him unworthy to be
the instrument.  In some verses which he composed on the night
preceding his execution, and which he intended for his epitaph, he
thus expresses this hope still more distinctly


"On my attempt though Providence did frown,
His oppressed people God at length shall own;
Another hand, by more successful speed,
Shall raise the remnant, bruise the serpent's head."


With respect to the epitaph itself, of which these lines form a
part, it is probable that he composed it chiefly with a view to
amuse and relieve his mind, fatigued with exertion, and partly,
perhaps, in imitation of the famous Marquis of Montrose, who, in
similar circumstances, had written some verses which have been much
celebrated.  The poetical merit of the pieces appears to be nearly
equal, and is not in either instance considerable, and they are only
in so far valuable as they may serve to convey to us some image of
the minds by which they were produced.  He who reads them with this
view will, perhaps, be of opinion that the spirit manifested in the
two compositions is rather equal in degree than like in character;
that the courage of Montrose was more turbulent, that of Argyle more
calm and sedate.  If, on the one hand, it is to be regretted that we
have not more memorials left of passages so interesting, and that
even of those which we do possess, a great part is obscured by time,
it must be confessed, on the other, that we have quite enough to
enable us to pronounce that for constancy and equanimity under the
severest trials, few men have equalled, none ever surpassed, the
Earl of Argyle.  The most powerful of all tempters, hope, was not
held out to him, so that he had not, it is true, in addition to his
other hard tasks, that of resisting her seductive influence; but the
passions of a different class had the fullest scope for their
attacks.  These, however, could make no impression on his well-
disciplined mind.  Anger could not exasperate, fear could not appal
him; and if disappointment and indignation at the misbehaviour of
his followers, and the supineness of the country, did occasionally,
as surely they must, cause uneasy sensations, they had not the power
to extort from him one unbecoming or even querulous expression.  Let
him be weighed never so scrupulously, and in the nicest scales, he
will not be found, in a single instance, wanting in the charity of a
Christian, the firmness and benevolence of a patriot, the integrity
and fidelity of a man of honour.

The Scotch parliament had, on the 11th of June, sent an address to
the king wherein, after praising his majesty, as usual, for his
extraordinary prudence, courage, and conduct, and loading Argyle,
whom they styled an hereditary traitor, with every reproach they can
devise--among others, that of ingratitude for the favours which he
had received, as well from his majesty as from his predecessor--they
implore his majesty that the earl may find no favour and that the
earl's family, the heritors, ringleaders, and preachers who joined
him, should be for ever declared incapable of mercy, or bearing any
honour or estate in the kingdom, and all subjects discharged under
the highest pains to intercede for them in any manner of way.  Never
was address more graciously received, or more readily complied with;
and, accordingly, the following letter, with the royal signature,
and countersigned by Lord Melford, Secretary of State for Scotland,
was despatched to the council at Edinburgh, and by them entered and
registered on the 29th of June.


"Whereas, the late Earl of Argyle is, by the providence of God,
fallen into our power, it is our will and pleasure that you take all
ways to know from him those things which concern our government
most, as his assisters with men, arms, and money, his associates and
correspondents, his designs, etc.  But this must be done so as no
time may be lost in bringing him to condign punishment, by causing
him to be demeaned as a traitor, within the space of three days
after this shall come to your hands, an account of which, with what
he shall confess, you shall send immediately to us or our
secretaries, for doing which this shall be your warrant."


When it is recollected that torture had been in common use in
Scotland, and that the persons to whom the letter was addressed had
often caused it to be inflicted, the words, "it is our will and
pleasure that you take all ways," seem to convey a positive command
for applying of it in this instance; yet it is certain that Argyle
was not tortured.  What was the cause of this seeming disregard of
the royal injunctions does not appear.  One would hope, for the
honour of human nature, that James, struck with some compunction for
the injuries he had already heaped upon the head of this unfortunate
nobleman, sent some private orders contradictory to this public
letter; but there is no trace to be discovered of such a
circumstance.  The managers themselves might feel a sympathy for a
man of their own rank, which had no influence in the cases where
only persons of an inferior station were to be the sufferers; and in
those words of the king's letter which enjoin a speedy punishment as
the primary object to which all others must give way, they might
find a pretext for overlooking the most odious part of the order,
and of indulging their humanity, such as it was, by appointing the
earliest day possible for the execution.  In order that the triumph
of injustice might be complete, it was determined that, without any
new trial, the earl should suffer upon the iniquitous sentence of
1682.  Accordingly, the very next day ensuing was appointed, and on
the 13th of June he was brought from the castle, first to the Laigh
Council-house, and thence to the place of execution.

Before he left the castle, he had his dinner at the usual hour, at
which he discoursed, not only calmly, but even cheerfully, with Mr.
Charteris and others.  After dinner he retired, as was his custom,
to his bed-chamber, where it is recorded that he slept quietly for
about a quarter of an hour.  While he was in his bed, one of the
members of the council came and intimated to the attendants a desire
to speak with him:  upon being told that the earl was asleep, and
had left orders not to be disturbed, the manager disbelieved the
account, which he considered as a device to avoid further
questionings.  To satisfy him, the door of the bed-chamber was half
opened, and he then beheld, enjoying a sweet and tranquil slumber,
the man who, by the doom of him and his fellows, was to die within
the space of two short hours!  Struck with this sight, he hurried
out of the room, quitted the castle with the utmost precipitation,
and hid himself in the lodgings of an acquaintance who lived near,
where he flung himself upon the first bed that presented itself, and
had every appearance of a man suffering the most excruciating
torture.  His friend, who had been apprised by the servant of the
state he was in, and who naturally concluded that he was ill,
offered him some wine.  He refused, saying, "No, no, that will not
help me:  I have been in at Argyle, and saw him sleeping as
pleasantly as ever man did, within an hour of eternity.  But as for
me--."  The name of the person to whom this anecdote relates is not
mentioned, and the truth of it may therefore be fairly considered as
liable to that degree of doubt with which men of judgment receive
every species of traditional history.  Woodrow, however, whose
veracity is above suspicion, says he had it from the most
unquestionable authority.  It is not in itself unlikely; and who is
there that would not wish it true?  What a satisfactory spectacle to
a philosophical mind, to see the oppressor, in the zenith of his
power, envying his victim!  What an acknowledgment of the
superiority of virtue!  What an affecting and forcible testimony to
the value of that peace of mind which innocence alone can confer!
We know not who this man was; but when we reflect that the guilt
which agonised him was probably incurred for the sake of some vain
title, or, at least, of some increase of wealth, which he did not
want, and possibly knew not how to enjoy, our disgust is turned into
something like compassion for that very foolish class of men whom
the world calls wise in their generation.


Soon after his short repose Argyle was brought, according to order,
to the Laigh Council-house, from which place is dated the letter to
his wife, and thence to the place of execution.  On the scaffold he
had some discourse, as well with Mr. Annand, a minister appointed by
government to attend him, as with Mr. Charteris.  He desired both of
them to pray for him, and prayed himself with much fervency and
devotion.  The speech which he made to the people was such as might
be expected from the passages already related.  The same mixture of
firmness and mildness is conspicuous in every part of it.  "We ought
not," says he, "to despise our afflictions, nor to faint under them.
We must not suffer ourselves to be exasperated against the
instruments of our troubles, nor by fraudulent, nor pusillanimous
compliances, bring guilt upon ourselves; faint hearts are ordinarily
false hearts, choosing sin rather than suffering."  He offers his
prayers to God for the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and
Ireland, and that an end may be put to their present trials.  Having
then asked pardon for his own failings, both of God and man, he
would have concluded; but being reminded that he had said nothing of
the royal family, he adds that he refers, in this matter, to what he
had said at his trial concerning the test; that he prayed there
never might be wanting one of the royal family to support the
Protestant religion; and if any of them had swerved from the true
faith, he prayed God to turn their hearts, but, at any rate, to save
His people from their machinations.  When he had ended, he turned to
the south side of the scaffold, and said, "Gentlemen, I pray you do
not misconstruct my behaviour this day; I freely forgive all men
their wrongs and injuries done against me, as I desire to be
forgiven of God."  Mr. Annand repeated these words louder to the
people.  The earl then went to the north side of the scaffold, and
used the same or the like expressions.  Mr. Annand repeated them
again, and said, "This nobleman dies a Protestant."  The earl
stepped forward again, and said, "I die not only a Protestant, but
with a heart-hatred of popery, prelacy, and all superstition
whatsoever."  It would perhaps have been better if these last
expressions had never been uttered, as there appears certainly
something of violence in them unsuitable to the general tenor of his
language; but it must be remembered, first, that the opinion that
the pope is Antichrist was at that time general among almost all the
zealous Protestants in these kingdoms; secondly, that Annand being
employed by government, and probably an Episcopalian, the earl might
apprehend that the declaration of such a minister might not convey
the precise idea which he, Argyle, affixed to the word Protestant.

He then embraced his friends, gave some tokens of remembrance to his
son-in-law, Lord Maitland, for his daughter and grandchildren,
stripped himself of part of his apparel, of which he likewise made
presents, and laid his head upon the block.  Having uttered a short
prayer, he gave the signal to the executioner, which was instantly
obeyed, and his head severed from his body.  Such were the last
hours, and such the final close, of this great man's life.  May the
like happy serenity in such dreadful circumstances, and a death
equally glorious, be the lot of all whom tyranny, of whatever
denomination or description, shall in any age, or in any country,
call to expiate their virtues on the scaffold!

Of the followers of Argyle, in the disastrous expedition above
recounted, the fortunes were various.  Among those who either
surrendered or were taken, some suffered the same fate with their
commander, others were pardoned; while, on the other hand, of those
who escaped to foreign parts, many after a short exile returned
triumphantly to their country at the period of the revolution, and
under a system congenial to their principles, some even attained the
highest honours of the State.  It is to be recollected that when,
after the disastrous night-march from Killerne, a separation took
place at Kilpatrick between Argyle and his confederates, Sir John
Cochrane, Sir Patrick Hume, and others, crossed the Clyde into
Renfrewshire, with about, it is supposed, two hundred men.  Upon
their landing they met with some opposition from a troop of militia
horse, which was, however, feeble and ineffectual; but fresh parties
of militia as well as regular troops drawing together, a sort of
scuffle ensued, near a place called Muirdyke; an offer of quarter
was made by the king's troops, but (probably on account of the
conditions annexed to it) was refused; and Cochrane and the rest,
now reduced to the number of seventy took shelter in a fold-dyke,
where they were able to resist and repel, though not without loss on
each side, the attack of the enemy.  Their situation was
nevertheless still desperate, and in the night they determined to
make their escape.  The king's troops having retired, this was
effected without difficulty; and this remnant of an army being
dispersed by common consent, every man sought his own safety in the
best manner he could.  Sir John Cochrane took refuge in the house of
an uncle, by whom, or by whose wife, it is said, he was betrayed.
He was, however, pardoned; and from this circumstance, coupled with
the constant and seemingly peevish opposition which he gave to
almost all Argyle's plans, a suspicion has arisen that he had been
treacherous throughout.  But the account given of his pardon by
Burnet, who says his father, Lord Dundonald, who was an opulent
nobleman, purchased it with a considerable sum of money, is more
credible, as well as more candid; and it must be remembered that in
Sir John's disputes with his general, he was almost always acting in
conjunction with Sir Patrick Hume, who is proved, by the subsequent
events, and indeed by the whole tenor of his life and conduct, to
have been uniformly sincere and zealous in the cause of his country.
Cochrane was sent to England, where he had an interview with the
king, and gave such answers to the questions put to him as were
deemed satisfactory by his majesty; and the information thus
obtained whatever might be the real and secret causes, furnished a
plausible pretence at least for the exercise of royal mercy.  Sir
Patrick Hume, after having concealed himself some time in the house,
and under the protection of Lady Eleanor Dunbar, sister to the Earl
of Eglington, found means to escape to Holland, whence he returned
in better times, and was created first Lord Hume of Polwarth, and
afterwards Earl of Marchmont.  Fullarton, and Campbell of
Auchinbreak, appear to have escaped, but by what means is not known.
Two sons of Argyle, John and Charles, and Archibald Campbell, his
nephew, were sentenced to death and forfeiture, but the capital part
of the sentence was remitted.  Thomas Archer, a clergyman, who had
been wounded at Muirdyke, was executed, notwithstanding many
applications in his favour, among which was one from Lord
Drumlanrig, Queensbury's eldest son.  Woodrow, who was himself a
Presbyterian minister, and though a most valuable and correct
historian, was not without a tincture of the prejudices belonging to
his order, attributes the unrelenting spirit of the government in
this instance to their malice against the clergy of his sect.  Some
of the holy ministry, he observes, as Guthrie at the restoration,
Kidd and Mackail after the insurrections at Pentland and Bothwell
Bridge, and now Archer, were upon every occasion to be sacrificed to
the fury of the persecutors.  But to him who is well acquainted with
the history of this period, the habitual cruelty of the government
will fully account for any particular act of severity; and it is
only in cases of lenity, such as that of Cochrane, for instance,
that he will look for some hidden or special motive.

Ayloff, having in vain attempted to kill himself, was, like
Cochrane, sent to London to be examined.  His relationship to the
king's first wife might perhaps be one inducement to this measure,
or it might be thought more expedient that he should be executed for
the Rye House Plot, the credit of which it was a favourite object of
the court to uphold, than for his recent acts of rebellion in
Scotland.  Upon his examination he refused to give any information,
and suffered death upon a sentence of outlawry, which had passed in
the former reign.  It is recorded that James interrogated him
personally, and finding him sullen, and unwilling to speak, said:
"Mr. Ayloff, you know it is in my power to pardon you, therefore say
that which may deserve it:" to which Ayloff replied:  "Though it is
in your power, it is not in your nature to pardon."  This, however,
is one of those anecdotes which are believed rather on account of
the air of nature that belongs to them, than upon any very good
traditional authority, and which ought, therefore when any very
material inference with respect either to fact or character, is to
be drawn from them, to be received with great caution.

Rumbold, covered with wounds, and defending himself with uncommon
exertions of strength and courage, was at last taken.  However
desirable it might have been thought to execute in England a man so
deeply implicated in the Rye House Plot, the state of Rumbold's
health made such a project impracticable.  Had it been attempted he
would probably, by a natural death, have disappointed the views of a
government who were eager to see brought to the block a man whom
they thought, or pretended to think, guilty of having projected the
assassination of the late and present king.  Weakened as he was in
body, his mind was firm, his constancy unshaken; and notwithstanding
some endeavours that were made by drums and other instruments, to
drown his voice when he was addressing the people from the scaffold,
enough has been preserved of what he then uttered to satisfy us that
his personal courage, the praise of which has not been denied him,
was not of the vulgar or constitutional kind, but was accompanied
with a proportionable vigour of mind.  Upon hearing his sentence,
whether in imitation of Montrose, or from that congeniality of
character which causes men in similar circumstances to conceive
similar sentiments, he expressed the same wish which that gallant
nobleman had done; he wished he had a limb for every town in
Christendom.  With respect to the intended assassination imputed to
him, he protested his innocence, and desired to be believed upon the
faith of a dying man; adding, in terms as natural as they are
forcibly descriptive of a conscious dignity of character, that he
was too well known for any to have had the imprudence to make such a
proposition to him.  He concluded with plain, and apparently
sincere, declarations of his undiminished attachment to the
principles of liberty, civil and religious; denied that he was an
enemy to monarchy, affirming, on the contrary, that he considered
it, when properly limited, as the most eligible form of government;
but that he never could believe that any man was born marked by God
above another, "for none comes into the world with a saddle on his
back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him."

Except by Ralph, who, with a warmth that does honour to his
feelings, expatiates at some length upon the subject, the
circumstances attending the death of this extraordinary man have
been little noticed.  Rapin, Echard, Kennet, Hume, make no mention
of them whatever; and yet, exclusively of the interest always
excited by any great display of spirit and magnanimity, his solemn
denial of the project of assassination imputed to him in the affair
of the Rye House Plot is in itself a fact of great importance, and
one which might have been expected to attract, in no small degree,
the attention of the historian.  That Hume, who has taken some pains
in canvassing the degree of credit due to the different parts of the
Rye House Plot, should pass it over in silence, is the more
extraordinary because, in the case of the popish plot, he lays, and
justly lays, the greatest stress upon the dying declarations of the
sufferers.  Burnet adverts as well to the peculiar language used by
Rumbold as to his denial of the assassination; but having before
given us to understand that he believed that no such crime had been
projected, it is the less to be wondered at that he does not much
dwell upon this further evidence in favour of his former opinion.
Sir John Dalrymple, upon the authority of a paper which he does not
produce, but from which he quotes enough to show that if produced it
would not answer his purpose, takes Rumbold's guilt for a decided
fact, and then states his dying protestations of his innocence, as
an instance of aggravated wickedness.  It is to be remarked, too,
that although Sir John is pleased roundly to assert that Rumbold
denied the share he had had in the Rye House Plot, yet the
particular words which he cites neither contain nor express, nor
imply any such denial.  He has not even selected those by which the
design of assassination was denied (the only denial that was
uttered), but refers to a general declaration made by Rumbold, that
he had done injustice to no man--a declaration which was by no means
inconsistent with his having been a party to a plot, which he, no
doubt, considered as justifiable, and even meritorious.  This is not
all:  the paper referred to is addressed to Walcot, by whom Rumbold
states himself to have been led on; and Walcot, with his last
breath, denied his own participation in any design to murder either
Charles or James.  Thus, therefore, whether the declaration of the
sufferer be interpreted in a general or in a particular sense, there
is no contradiction whatever between it and the paper adduced; but
thus it is that the character of a brave and, as far as appears, a
virtuous man, is most unjustly and cruelly traduced.  An incredible
confusion of head, and an uncommon want of reasoning powers, which
distinguish the author to whom I refer, are, I should charitably
hope, the true sources of his misrepresentation; while others may
probably impute it to his desire of blackening, upon any pretence, a
person whose name is more or less connected with those of Sidney and
Russell.  It ought not, perhaps, to pass without observation, that
this attack upon Rumbold is introduced only in an oblique manner:
the rigour of government destroyed, says the historian, the morals
it intended to correct, and made the unhappy sufferer add to his
former crimes the atrocity of declaring a falsehood in his last
moments.  Now, what particular instances of rigour are here alluded
to, it is difficult to guess:  for surely the execution of a man
whom he sets down as guilty of a design to murder the two royal
brothers, could not, even in the judgment of persons much less
accustomed than Sir John to palliate the crimes of princes, be
looked upon as an act of blameable severity; but it was thought,
perhaps, that for the purpose of conveying a calumny upon the
persons concerned, or accused of being concerned, in the Rye House
Plot, an affected censure upon the government would be the fittest
vehicle.

The fact itself, that Rumbold did, in his last hours, solemnly deny
the having been concerned in any project for assassinating the king
or duke, has not, I believe, been questioned.  It is not invalidated
by the silence of some historians:  it is confirmed by the
misrepresentation of others.  The first question that naturally
presents itself must be, was this declaration true?  The
asseverations of dying men have always had, and will always have,
great influence upon the minds of those who do not push their ill
opinion of mankind to the most outrageous and unwarrantable length;
but though the weight of such asseverations be in all cases great,
it will not be in all equal.  It is material therefore to consider,
first, what are the circumstances which may tend in particular cases
to diminish their credit; and next, how far such circumstances
appear to have existed in the case before us.  The case where this
species of evidence would be the least convincing, would be where
hope of pardon is entertained; for then the man is not a dying man
in the sense of the proposition, for he has not that certainty that
his falsehood will not avail him, which is the principal foundation
of the credit due to his assertions.  For the same reason, though in
a less degree, he who hopes for favour to his children, or to other
surviving connections, is to be listened to with some caution; for
the existence of one virtue does not necessarily prove that of
another, and he who loves his children and friends may yet be
profligate and unprincipled; or, deceiving himself, may think that
while his ends are laudable, he ought not to hesitate concerning the
means.  Besides these more obvious temptations to prevarication,
there is another which, though it may lie somewhat deeper, yet
experience teaches us to be rooted in human nature:  I mean that
sort of obstinacy, or false shame, which makes men so unwilling to
retract what they have once advanced, whether in matter of opinion
or of fact.  The general character of the man is also in this, as in
all other human testimony, a circumstance of the greatest moment.
Where none of the above-mentioned objections occur, and where
therefore the weight of evidence in question is confessedly
considerable, yet is it still liable to be balanced or outweighed by
evidence in the opposite scale.

Let Rumbold's declaration, then, be examined upon these principles,
and we shall find that it has every character of truth, without a
single circumstance to discredit it.  He was so far from
entertaining any hope of pardon, that he did not seem even to wish
it; and indeed if he had had any such chimerical object in view, he
must have known that to have supplied the government with a proof of
the Rye House assassination plot, would be a more likely road at
least, than a steady denial, to obtain it.  He left none behind him
for whom to entreat favour, or whose welfare or honour was at all
affected by any confession or declaration he might make.  If, in a
prospective view, he was without temptation, so neither, if he
looked back, was he fettered by any former declaration; so that he
could not be influenced by that erroneous notion of consistency to
which it may be feared that truth, even in the most awful moments,
has in some cases been sacrificed.  His timely escape in 1683 had
saved him from the necessity of making any protestation upon the
subject of his innocence at that time; and the words of the letter
to Walcot are so far from containing such a protestation, that they
are quoted (very absurdly, it is true) by Sir John Dalrymple as an
avowal of guilt.  If his testimony is free from these particular
objections, much less is it impeached by his general character,
which was that of a bold and daring man, who was very unlikely to
feel shame in avowing what he had not been ashamed to commit, and
who seems to have taken a delight in speaking bold truths, or at
least what appeared to him to be such, without regarding the manner
in which his hearers were likely to receive them.  With respect to
the last consideration, that of the opposite evidence, it all
depends upon the veracity of men who, according to their own
account, betrayed their comrades, and were actuated by the hope
either of pardon or reward.

It appears to be of the more consequence to clear up this matter,
because if we should be of opinion, as I think we all must be, that
the story of the intended assassination of the king, in his way from
Newmarket, is as fabulous as that of the silver bullets by which he
was to have been shot at Windsor, a most singular train of
reflections will force itself upon our minds, as well in regard to
the character of the times, as to the means by which the two causes
gained successively the advantage over each other.  The Royalists
had found it impossible to discredit the fiction, gross as it was,
of the popish plot; nor could they prevent it from being a powerful
engine in the hands of the Whigs, who, during the alarm raised by
it, gained an irresistible superiority in the House of Commons, in
the City of London, and in most parts of the kingdom.  But they who
could not quiet a false alarm raised by their adversaries, found
little or no difficulty in raising one equally false in their own
favour, by the supposed detection of the intended assassination.
With regard to the advantages derived to the respective parties from
those detestable fictions, if it be urged, on one hand, that the
panic spread by the Whigs was more universal and more violent in its
effects, it must be allowed, on the other, that the advantages
gained by the Tories were, on account of their alliance with the
crown, more durable and decisive.  There is a superior solidity ever
belonging to the power of the crown, as compared with that of any
body of men or party, or even with either of the other branches of
the legislature.  A party has influence, but, properly speaking, no
power.  The Houses of Parliament have abundance of power, but, as
bodies, little or no influence.  The crown has both power and
influence, which, when exerted with wisdom and steadiness, will
always be found too strong for any opposition whatever, till the
zeal and fidelity of party attachments shall be found to increase in
proportion to the increased influence of the executive power.

While these matters were transacting in Scotland, Monmouth,
conformably to his promise to Argyle, set sail from Holland, and
landed at Lyme in Dorsetshire, on the 11th of June.  He was attended
by Lord Grey of Wark, Fletcher of Saltoun, Colonel Matthews,
Ferguson, and a few other gentlemen.  His reception was, among the
lower ranks, cordial, and for some days at least, if not weeks,
there seemed to have been more foundation for the sanguine hopes of
Lord Grey and others, his followers, than the duke had supposed.
The first step taken by the invader was to issue a proclamation,
which he caused to be read in the market-place.  In this instrument
he touched upon what were, no doubt, thought to be the most popular
topics, and loaded James and his Catholic friends with every
imputation which had at any time been thrown against them.  This
declaration appears to have been well received, and the numbers that
came in to him were very considerable; but his means of arming them
were limited, nor had he much confidence, for the purpose of any
important military operation, in men unused to discipline, and
wholly unacquainted with the art of war.  Without examining the
question whether or not Monmouth, from his professional prejudices,
carried, as some have alleged he did, his diffidence of unpractised
soldiers and new levies too far, it seems clear that, in his
situation, the best, or rather the only chance of success, was to be
looked for in counsels of the boldest kind.  If he could not
immediately strike some important stroke, it was not likely that he
ever should; nor indeed was he in a condition to wait.  He could not
flatter himself, as Argyle had done, that he had a strong country,
full of relations and dependants, where he might secure himself till
the co-operation of his confederate or some other favourable
circumstance might put it in his power to act more efficaciously.
Of any brilliant success in Scotland he could not, at this time,
entertain any hope, nor, if he had, could he rationally expect that
any events in that quarter would make the sort of impression here
which, on the other hand, his success would produce in Scotland.
With money he was wholly unprovided; nor does it appear, whatever
may have been the inclination of some considerable men, such as
Lords Macclesfield, Brandon, Delamere, and others, that any persons
of that description were engaged to join in his enterprise.  His
reception had been above his hopes, and his recruits more numerous
than could be expected, or than he was able to furnish with arms;
while, on the other hand, the forces in arms against him consisted
chiefly in a militia, formidable neither from numbers nor
discipline, and moreover suspected of disaffection.  The present
moment, therefore, seemed to offer the most favourable opportunity
for enterprise of any that was likely to occur; but the unfortunate
Monmouth judged otherwise, and, as if he were to defend rather than
to attack, directed his chief policy to the avoiding of a general
action.

It being, however, absolutely necessary to dislodge some troops
which the Earl of Feversham had thrown into Bridport, a detachment
of three hundred men was made for that purpose, which had the most
complete success, notwithstanding the cowardice of Lord Grey, who
commanded them.  This nobleman, who had been so instrumental in
persuading his friend to the invasion, upon the first appearance of
danger is said to have left the troops whom he commanded, and to
have sought his own personal safety in flight.  The troops carried
Bridport, to the shame of the commander who had deserted them, and
returned to Lyme.

It is related by Ferguson that Monmouth said to Matthews, "What
shall I do with Lord Grey?"  To which the other answered, "That he
was the only general in Europe who would ask such a question;"
intending, no doubt, to reproach the duke with the excess to which
he pushed his characteristic virtues of mildness and forbearance.
That these virtues formed a part of his character is most true, and
the personal friendship in which he had lived with Grey would
incline him still more to the exercise of them upon this occasion;
but it is to be remembered also that the delinquent was, in respect
of rank, property, and perhaps too of talent, by far the most
considerable man he had with him; and, therefore, that prudential
motives might concur to deter a general from proceeding to violent
measures with such a person, especially in a civil war, where the
discipline of an armed party cannot be conducted upon the same
system as that of a regular army serving in a foreign war.
Monmouth's disappointment in Lord Grey was aggravated by the loss of
Fletcher of Saltoun, who, in a sort of scuffle that ensued upon his
being reproached for having seized a horse belonging to a man of the
country, had the misfortune to kill the owner.  Monmouth, however
unwilling, thought himself obliged to dismiss him; and thus, while a
fatal concurrence of circumstances forced him to part with the man
he esteemed, and to retain him whom he despised, he found himself at
once disappointed of the support of the two persons upon whom he had
most relied.

On the 15th of June, his army being now increased to near three
thousand men, the duke marched from Lyme.  He does not appear to
have taken this step with a view to any enterprise of importance,
but rather to avoid the danger which he apprehended from the motions
of the Devonshire and Somerset militias, whose object it seemed to
be to shut him up in Lyme.  In his first day's march he had
opportunities of engaging, or rather of pursuing, each of those
bodies, who severally retreated from his forces; but conceiving it
to be his business, as he said, not to fight, but to march on, he
went through Axminster, and encamped in a strong piece of ground
between that town and Chard in Somersetshire, to which place he
proceeded on the ensuing day.  According to Wade's narrative, which
appears to afford by far the most authentic account of these
transactions, here it was that the first proposition was made for
proclaiming Monmouth king.  Ferguson made the proposal, and was
supported by Lord Grey, but it was easily run down, as Wade
expresses it, by those who were against it, and whom, therefore, we
must suppose to have formed a very considerable majority of the
persons deemed of sufficient importance to be consulted on such an
occasion.  These circumstances are material, because if that credit
be given to them which they appear to deserve, Ferguson's want of
veracity becomes so notorious, that it is hardly worth while to
attend to any part of his narrative.  Where it only corroborates
accounts given by others, it is of little use; and where it differs
from them, it deserves no credit.  I have, therefore, wholly
disregarded it.

From Chard, Monmouth and his party proceeded to Taunton, a town
where, as well from the tenor of former occurrences as from the zeal
and number of the Protestant dissenters, who formed a great portion
of its inhabitants, he had every reason to expect the most
favourable reception.  His expectations were not disappointed.

The inhabitants of the upper, as well as the lower classes, vied
with each other in testifying their affection for his person, and
their zeal for his cause.  While the latter rent the air with
applauses and acclamations, the former opened their houses to him
and to his followers, and furnished his army with necessaries and
supplies of every kind.  His way was strewed with flowers; the
windows were thronged with spectators, all anxious to participate in
what the warm feelings of the moment made them deem a triumph.
Husbands pointed out to their wives, mothers to their children, the
brave and lovely hero who was destined to be the deliverer of his
country.  The beautiful lines which Dryden makes Achitophel, in his
highest strain of flattery, apply to this unfortunate nobleman, were
in this instance literally verified:


"Thee, saviour, thee, the nation's vows confess,
And, never satisfied with seeing, bless.
Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim,
And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name."


In the midst of these joyous scenes twenty-six young maids, of the
best families in the town, presented him in the name of their
townsmen with colours wrought by them for the purpose, and with a
Bible; upon receiving which he said that he had taken the field with
a design to defend the truth contained in that Book, and to seal it
with his blood if there was occasion.

In such circumstances it is no wonder that his army increased; and,
indeed, exclusive of individual recruits, he was here strengthened
by the arrival of Colonel Bassett with a considerable corps.  But in
the midst of these prosperous circumstances, some of them of such
apparent importance to the success of his enterprise, all of them
highly flattering to his feelings, he did not fail to observe that
one favourable symptom (and that too of the most decisive nature)
was still wanting.  None of the considerable families, not a single
nobleman, and scarcely any gentleman of rank and consequence in the
counties through which he had passed, had declared in his favour.
Popular applause is undoubtedly sweet; and not only so, it often
furnishes most powerful means to the genius that knows how to make
use of them.  But Monmouth well knew that without the countenance
and assistance of a proportion, at least, of the higher ranks in the
country, there was, for an undertaking like his, little prospect of
success.  He could not but have remarked that the habits and
prejudices of the English people are, in a great degree,
aristocratical; nor had he before him, nor indeed have we since his
time, had one single example of an insurrection that was successful,
unaided by the ancient families and great landed proprietors.  He
must have felt this the more, because in former parts of his
political life he had been accustomed to act with such coadjutors;
and it is highly probable that if Lord Russell had been alive, and
could have appeared at the head of one hundred only of his western
tenantry, such a reinforcement would have inspired him with more
real confidence than the thousands who individually flocked to his
standard.

But though Russell was no more, there were not wanting, either in
the provinces through which the duke passed, or in other parts of
the kingdom, many noble and wealthy families who were attached to
the principles of the Whigs.  To account for their neutrality, and,
if possible, to persuade them to a different conduct, was naturally
among his principal concerns.  Their present coldness might be
imputed to the indistinctness of his declarations with respect to
what was intended to be the future government.  Men zealous for
monarchy might not choose to embark without some certain pledge that
their favourite form should be preserved.  They would also expect to
be satisfied with respect to the person whom their arms, if
successful, were to place upon the throne.  To promise, therefore,
the continuance of a monarchical establishment, and to designate the
future monarch, seemed to be necessary for the purpose of acquiring
aristocratical support.  Whatever might be the intrinsic weight of
this argument, it easily made its way with Monmouth in his present
situation.  The aspiring temper of mind which is the natural
consequence of popular favour and success, produced in him a
disposition to listen to any suggestion which tended to his
elevation and aggrandisement; and when he could persuade himself,
upon reasons specious at least, that the measures which would most
gratify his aspiring desires would be, at the same time, a stroke of
the soundest policy, it is not to be wondered at that it was
immediately and impatiently adopted.  Urged, therefore, by these
mixed motives, he declared himself king, and issued divers
proclamations in the royal style; assigning to those whose
approbation he doubted the reasons above adverted to, and
proscribing and threatening with the punishment due to rebellion
such as should resist his mandates, and adhere to the usurping Duke
of York.

If this measure was in reality taken with views of policy, those
views were miserably disappointed; for it does not appear that one
proselyte was gained.  The threats in the proclamation were received
with derision by the king's army, and no other sentiments were
excited by the assumption of the royal title than those of contempt
and indignation.  The commonwealthsmen were dissatisfied, of course,
with the principle of the measure:  the favourers of hereditary
right held it in abhorrence, and considered it as a kind of
sacrilegious profanation; nor even among those who considered
monarchy in a more rational light, and as a magistracy instituted
for the good of the people, could it be at all agreeable that such a
magistrate should be elected by the army that had thronged to his
standard, or by the particular partiality of a provincial town.
Monmouth's strength, therefore, was by no means increased by his new
title, and seemed to be still limited to two descriptions of
persons; first, those who, from thoughtlessness or desperation, were
willing to join in any attempt at innovation; secondly, such as,
directing their views to a single point, considered the destruction
of James's tyranny as the object which, at all hazards, and without
regard to consequences, they were bound to pursue.  On the other
hand, his reputation both for moderation and good faith was
considerably impaired, inasmuch as his present conduct was in direct
contradiction to that part of his declaration wherein he had
promised to leave the future adjustment of government, and
especially the consideration of his own claims, to a free and
independent parliament.

The notion of improving his new levies by discipline seems to have
taken such possession of Monmouth's mind that he overlooked the
probable, or rather the certain, consequences of a delay, by which
the enemy would be enabled to bring into the field forces far better
disciplined and appointed than any which, even with the most
strenuous and successful exertions, he could hope to oppose to them.
Upon this principle, and especially as he had not yet fixed upon any
definite object of enterprise, he did not think a stay of a few days
at Taunton would be materially, if at all, prejudicial to his
affairs; and it was not till the 21st of June that he proceeded to
Bridgewater, where he was received in the most cordial manner.  In
his march, the following day, from that town to Glastonbury, he was
alarmed by a party of the Earl of Oxford's horse; but all
apprehensions of any material interruptions were removed by an
account of the militia having left Wells, and retreated to Bath and
Bristol.  From Glastonbury he went to Shipton-Mallet, where the
project of an attack upon Bristol was communicated by the duke to
his officers.  After some discussion, it was agreed that the attack
should be made on the Gloucestershire side of the city, and with
that view to pass the Avon at Keynsham Bridge, a few miles from
Bath.  In their march from Shipton-Mallet, the troops were again
harassed in their rear by a party of horse and dragoons, but lodged
quietly at night at a village called Pensford.  A detachment was
sent early the next morning to possess itself of Keynsham, and to
repair the bridge, which might probably be broken down to prevent a
passage.  Upon their approach, a troop of the Gloucestershire horse-
militia immediately abandoned the town in great precipitation,
leaving behind them two horses and one man.  By break of day, the
bridge, which had not been much injured, was repaired, and before
noon, Monmouth, having passed it with his whole army, was in full
march to Bristol, which he determined to attack the ensuing night.
But the weather proving rainy and bad, it was deemed expedient to
return to Keynsham, a measure from which he expected to reap a
double advantage; to procure dry and commodious quarters for the
soldiery, and to lull the enemy, by a movement, which bore the
semblance of a retreat, into a false and delusive security.  The
event, however, did not answer his expectation, for the troops had
scarcely taken up their quarters, when they were disturbed by two
parties of horse, who entered the town at two several places.  An
engagement ensued, in which Monmouth lost fourteen men, and a
captain of horse, though in the end the Royalists were obliged to
retire, leaving three prisoners.  From these the duke had
information that the king's army was near at hand, and, as they
said, about four thousand strong.

This new state of affairs seemed to demand new councils.  The
projected enterprise upon Bristol was laid aside, and the question
was, whether to make by forced marches for Gloucester, in order to
pass the Severn at that city, and so to gain the counties of Salop
and Chester, where he expected to be met by many friends, or to
march directly into Wiltshire, where, according to some intelligence
received ["from one Adlam"] the day before, there was a considerable
body of horse (under whose command does not appear) ready, by their
junction, to afford him a most important and seasonable support.  To
the first of these plans a decisive objection was stated.  The
distance by Gloucester was so great, that, considering the slow
marches to which he would be limited, by the daily attacks with
which the different small bodies of the enemy's cavalry would not
fail to harass his rear, he was in great danger of being overtaken
by the king's forces, and might thus be driven to risk all in an
engagement upon terms the most disadvantageous.  On the contrary, if
joined in Wiltshire by the expected aids, he might confidently offer
battle to the royal army; and, provided he could bring them to an
action before they were strengthened by new reinforcements, there
was no unreasonable prospect of success.  The latter plan was
therefore adopted, and no sooner adopted than put in execution.  The
army was in motion without delay, and being before Bath on the
morning of the 26th of June, summoned the place, rather (as it
should seem) in sport than in earnest, as there was no hope of its
surrender.  After this bravado they marched on southward to Philip's
Norton, where they rested; the horse in the town, and the foot in
the field.

While Monmouth was making these marches, there were not wanting, in
many parts of the adjacent country, strong symptoms of the
attachment of the lower orders of people to his cause, and more
especially in those manufacturing towns where the Protestant
dissenters were numerous.  In Froome there had been a considerable
rising, headed by the constable, who posted up the duke's
declaration in the market-place.  Many of the inhabitants of the
neighbouring towns of Westbury and Warminster came in throngs to the
town to join the insurgents; some armed with fire-arms, but more
with such rustic weapons as opportunity could supply.  Such a force,
if it had joined the main army, or could have been otherwise
directed by any leader of judgment and authority, might have proved
very serviceable; but in its present state it was a mere rabble, and
upon the first appearance of the Earl of Pembroke, who entered the
town with a hundred and sixty horse and forty musketeers, fell, as
might be expected, into total confusion.  The rout was complete; all
the arms of the insurgents were seized; and the constable, after
having been compelled to abjure his principles, and confess the
enormity of his offence, was committed to prison.

This transaction took place the 25th, the day before Monmouth's
arrival at Philip's Norton, and may have, in a considerable degree,
contributed to the disappointment, of which we learn from Wade, that
he at this time began bitterly to complain.  He was now upon the
confines of Wiltshire, and near enough for the bodies of horse, upon
whose favourable intentions so much reliance had been placed, to
have effected a junction, if they had been so disposed; but whether
that Adlam's intelligence had been originally bad, or that
Pembroke's proceedings at Froome had intimidated them, no symptom of
such an intention could be discovered.  A desertion took place in
his army, which the exaggerated accounts in the Gazette made to
amount to near two thousand men.  These dispiriting circumstances,
added to the complete disappointment of the hopes entertained from
the assumption of the royal title, produced in him a state of mind
but little short of despondency.  He complained that all people had
deserted him, and is said to have been so dejected, as hardly to
have the spirit requisite for giving the necessary orders.

From this state of torpor, however, he appears to have been
effectually roused by a brisk attack that was made upon him on the
27th, in the morning, by the Royalists, under the command of his
half-brother, the Duke of Grafton.  That spirited young nobleman
(whose intrepid courage, conspicuous upon every occasion, led him in
this, and many other instances, to risk a life, which he finally
lost in a better cause), heading an advanced detachment of Lord
Feversham's army, who had marched from Bath, with a view to fall on
the enemy's rear, marched boldly up a narrow lane leading to the
town, and attacked a barricade, which Monmouth had caused to be made
across the way, at the entrance of the town.  Monmouth was no sooner
apprised of this brisk attack, than he ordered a party to go out of
the town by a by-way, who coming on the rear of the Grenadiers while
others of his men were engaged with their front, had nearly
surrounded them, and taken their commander prisoner, but Grafton
forced his way through the enemy.  An engagement ensued between the
insurgents and the remainder of Feversham's detachment, who had
lined the hedges which flanked them.  The former were victorious,
and after driving the enemy from hedge to hedge, forced them at last
into the open field, where they joined the rest of the king's
forces, newly come up.  The killed and wounded in these encounters
amounted to about forty on Feversham's side, twenty on Monmouth's;
but among the latter there were several officers, and some of note,
while the loss of the former, with the exception of two volunteers,
Seymour and May, consisted entirely of common soldiers.

The Royalists now drew up on an eminence, about five hundred paces
from the hedges, while Monmouth, having placed, of his four field-
pieces, two at the mouth of the lane, and two upon a rising ground
near it on the right, formed his army along the hedge.  From these
stations a firing of artillery was begun on each side, and continued
near six hours, but with little or no effect.  Monmouth, according
to Wade, losing but one, and the Royalists, according to the
Gazette, not one man, by the whole cannonade.  In these
circumstances, notwithstanding the recent and convincing experience
he now had of the ability of his raw troops to face, in certain
situations at least, the more regular forces of his enemy, Monmouth
was advised by some to retreat; but upon a more general
consultation, this advice was over-ruled, and it was determined to
cut passages through the hedges and to offer battle.  But before
this could be effected the royal army, not willing again to engage
among the enclosures, annoyed in the open field by the rain which
continued to fall very heavily, and disappointed, no doubt, at the
little effect of their artillery, began their retreat.  The little
confidence which Monmouth had in his horse--perhaps the ill opinion
he now entertained of their leader--forbade him to think of pursuit,
and having stayed till a late hour in the field, and leaving large
fires burning, he set out on his march in the night, and on the
28th, in the morning, reached Froome, where he put his troops in
quarter and rested two days.

It was here he first heard certain news of Argyle's discomfiture.
It was in vain to seek for any circumstance in his affairs that
might mitigate the effect of the severe blow inflicted by this
intelligence, and he relapsed into the same low spirits as at
Philip's Norton.  No diversion, at least no successful diversion,
had been made in his favour:  there was no appearance of the horse,
which had been the principal motive to allure him into that part of
the country; and what was worst of all, no desertion from the king's
army.  It was manifest, said the duke's more timid advisers, that
the affair must terminate ill, and the only measure now to be taken
was, that the general with his officers should leave the army to
shift for itself, and make severally for the most convenient sea-
ports, whence they might possibly get a safe passage to the
Continent.  To account for Monmouth's entertaining, even for a
moment, a thought so unworthy of him, and so inconsistent with the
character for spirit he had ever maintained--a character unimpeached
even by his enemies--we must recollect the unwillingness with which
he undertook this fatal expedition; that his engagement to Argyle,
who was now past help, was perhaps his principal motive for
embarking at the time; that it was with great reluctance he had torn
himself from the arms of Lady Harriet Wentworth, with whom he had so
firmly persuaded himself that he could be happy in the most obscure
retirement, that he believed himself weaned from ambition, which had
hitherto been the only passion of his mind.  It is true, that when
he had once yielded to the solicitations of his friends so far as to
undertake a business of such magnitude, it was his duty (but a duty
that required a stronger mind than his to execute) to discard from
his thoughts all the arguments that had rendered his compliance
reluctant.  But it is one of the great distinctions between an
ordinary mind and a superior one, to be able to carry on without
relenting a plan we have not originally approved, and especially
when it appears to have turned out ill.  This proposal of disbanding
was a step so pusillanimous and dishonourable that it could not be
approved by any council, however composed.  It was condemned by all
except Colonel Venner, and was particularly inveighed against by
Lord Grey, who was perhaps desirous of retrieving, by bold words at
least, the reputation he had lost at Bridport.  It is possible, too,
that he might be really unconscious of his deficiency in point of
personal courage till the moment of danger arrived, and even
forgetful of it when it was passed.  Monmouth was easily persuaded
to give up a plan so uncongenial to his nature, resolved, though
with little hope of success, to remain with his army to take the
chance of events, and at the worst to stand or fall with men whose
attachment to him had laid him under indelible obligations.

This resolution being taken, the first plan was to proceed to
Warminster, but on the morning of his departure hearing, on the one
hand, that the king's troops were likely to cross his march, and on
the other, being informed by a quaker, before known to the duke,
that there was a great club army, amounting to ten thousand men,
ready to join his standard in the marshes to the westward, he
altered his intention, and returned to Shipton-Mallet, where he
rested that night, his army being in good quarters.  From Shipton-
Mallet he proceeded, on the 1st of July, to Wells, upon information
that there were in that city some carriages belonging to the king's
army, and ill-guarded.  These he found and took, and stayed that
night in the town.  The following day he marched towards Bridgewater
in search of the great succour he had been taught to expect; but
found, of the promised ten thousand men, only a hundred and sixty.
The army lay that night in the field, and once again entered
Bridgewater on the 3rd of July.  That the duke's men were not yet
completely dispirited or out of heart appears from the circumstance
of great numbers of them going from Bridgewater to see their friends
at Taunton, and other places in the neighbourhood, and almost all
returning the next day according to their promise.  On the 5th an
account was received of the king's army being considerably advanced,
and Monmouth's first thought was to retreat from it immediately, and
marching by Axbridge and Keynsham to Gloucester, to pursue the plan
formerly rejected, of penetrating into the counties of Chester and
Salop.

His preparations for this march were all made, when, on the
afternoon of the 5th, he learnt, more accurately than he had before
done, the true situation of the royal army, and from the information
now received, he thought it expedient to consult his principal
officers, whether it might not be advisable to attempt to surprise
the enemy by a night attack upon their quarters.  The prevailing
opinion was, that if the infantry were not entrenched the plan was
worth the trial; otherwise not.  Scouts were despatched to ascertain
this point, and their report being that there was no entrenchment,
an attack was resolved on.  In pursuance of this resolution, at
about eleven at night, the whole army was in march, Lord Grey
commanding the horse, and Colonel Wade the vanguard of the foot.
The duke's orders were, that the horse should first advance, and
pushing into the enemy's camp, endeavour to prevent their infantry
from coming together; that the cannon should follow the horse, and
the foot the cannon, and draw all up in one line, and so finish what
the cavalry should have begun, before the king's horse and artillery
could be got in order.  But it was now discovered that though there
were no entrenchments, there was a ditch which served as a drain to
the great moor adjacent, of which no mention had been made by the
scouts.  To this ditch the horse under Lord Grey advanced, and no
farther; and whether immediately, as according to some accounts, or
after having been considerably harassed by the enemy in their
attempts to find a place to pass, according to others, quitted the
field.  The cavalry being gone, and the principle upon which the
attack had been undertaken being that of a surprise, the duke judged
it necessary that the infantry should advance as speedily as
possible.  Wade, therefore, when he came within forty paces of the
ditch, was obliged to halt to put his battalion into that order,
which the extreme rapidity of the march had for the time
disconcerted.  His plan was to pass the ditch, reserving his fire;
but while he was arranging his men for that purpose, another
battalion, newly come up, began to fire, though at a considerable
distance; a bad example, which it was impossible to prevent the
vanguard from following, and it was now no longer in the power of
their commander to persuade them to advance.  The king's forces, as
well horse and artillery as foot, had now full time to assemble.
The duke had no longer cavalry in the field, and though his
artillery, which consisted only of three or four iron guns, was well
served under the directions of a Dutch gunner, it was by no means
equal to that of the royal army, which, as soon as it was light,
began to do great execution.  In these circumstances the unfortunate
Monmouth, fearful of being encompassed and made prisoner by the
king's cavalry, who were approaching upon his flank, and urged, as
it is reported, to flight by the same person who had stimulated him
to his fatal enterprise, quitted the field accompanied by Lord Grey
and some others.  The left wing, under the command of Colonel Holmes
and Matthews, next gave way; and Wade's men, after having continued
for an hour and a half a distant and ineffectual fire, seeing their
left discomfited, began a retreat, which soon afterwards became a
complete rout.

Thus ended the decisive battle of Sedgmoor; an attack which seems to
have been judiciously conceived, and in many parts spiritedly
executed.  The general was deficient neither in courage nor conduct;
and the troops, while they displayed the native bravery of
Englishmen, were under as good discipline as could be expected from
bodies newly raised.  Two circumstances seem to have principally
contributed to the loss of the day; first, the unforeseen difficulty
occasioned by the ditch, of which the assailants had had no
intelligence; and secondly, the cowardice of the commander of the
horse.  The discovery of the ditch was the more alarming, because it
threw a general doubt upon the information of the spies, and the
night being dark they could not ascertain that this was the only
impediment of the kind which they were to expect.  The dispersion of
the horse was still more fatal, inasmuch as it deranged the whole
order of the plan, by which it had been concerted that their
operations were to facilitate the attack to be made by the foot.  If
Lord Grey had possessed a spirit more suitable to his birth and
name, to the illustrious friendship with which he had been honoured,
and to the command with which he was entrusted, he would doubtless
have persevered till he found a passage into the enemy's camp, which
could have been effected at a ford not far distant:  the loss of
time occasioned by the ditch might not have been very material, and
the most important consequences might have ensued; but it would
surely be rashness to assert, as Hume does, that the army would
after all have gained the victory had not the misconduct of Monmouth
and the cowardice of Grey prevented it.  This rash judgment is the
more to be admired, as the historian has not pointed out the
instance of misconduct to which he refers.  The number of Monmouth's
men killed is computed by some at two thousand, by others at three
hundred--a disparity, however, which may be easily reconciled, by
supposing that the one account takes in those who were killed in
battle, while the other comprehends the wretched fugitives who were
massacred in ditches, corn-fields, and other hiding-places, the
following day.

In general, I have thought it right to follow Wade's narrative,
which appears to me by far the most authentic, if not the only
authentic account of this important transaction.  It is imperfect,
but its imperfection arises from the narrator's omitting all those
circumstances of which he was not an eye-witness, and the greater
credit is on that very account due to him for those which he
relates.  With respect to Monmouth's quitting the field, it is not
mentioned by him, nor is it possible to ascertain the precise point
of time at which it happened.  That he fled while his troops were
still fighting, and therefore too soon for his glory, can scarcely
be doubted; and the account given by Ferguson, whose veracity,
however, is always to be suspected, that Lord Grey urged him to the
measure, as well by persuasion as by example, seems not improbable.
This misbehaviour of the last-mentioned nobleman is more certain;
but as, according to Ferguson, who has been followed by others, he
actually conversed with Monmouth in the field, and as all accounts
make him the companion of his flight, it is not to be understood
that when he first gave way with his cavalry, he ran away in the
literal sense of the words, or if he did, he must have returned.
The exact truth, with regard to this and many other interesting
particulars, is difficult to be discovered; owing, not more to the
darkness of the night in which they were transacted, than to the
personal partialities and enmities by which they have been
disfigured, in the relations of the different contemporary writers.

Monmouth with his suite first directed his course towards the
Bristol Channel, and as is related by Oldmixon, was once inclined,
at the suggestion of Dr. Oliver, a faithful and honest adviser, to
embark for the coast of Wales, with a view of concealing himself
some time in that principality.  Lord Grey, who appears to have
been, in all instances, his evil genius, dissuaded him from this
plan, and the small party having separated, took each several ways.
Monmouth, Grey, and a gentleman of Brandenburg, went southward, with
a view to gain the New Forest in Hampshire, where, by means of
Grey's connections in that district, and thorough knowledge of the
country, it was hoped they might be in safety, till a vessel could
be procured to transport them to the Continent.  They left their
horses, and disguised themselves as peasants; but the pursuit,
stimulated as well by party zeal as by the great pecuniary rewards
offered for the capture of Monmouth and Grey, was too vigilant to be
eluded.  Grey was taken on the 7th in the evening; and the German,
who shared the same fate early on the next morning, confessed that
he had parted from Monmouth but a few hours since.  The neighbouring
country was immediately and thoroughly searched, and James had ere
night the satisfaction of learning that his nephew was in his power.
The unfortunate duke was discovered in a ditch, half concealed by
fern and nettles.  His stock of provision, which consisted of some
peas gathered in the fields through which he had fled, was nearly
exhausted, and there is reason to think that he had little, if any
other sustenance, since he left Bridgewater on the evening of the
5th.  To repose he had been equally a stranger; how his mind must
have been harassed, it is needless to discuss.  Yet that in such
circumstances he appeared dispirited and crestfallen, is, by the
unrelenting malignity of party writers, imputed to him as cowardice
and meanness of spirit.  That the failure of his enterprise,
together with the bitter reflection that he had suffered himself to
be engaged in it against his own better judgment, joined to the
other calamitous circumstances of his situation, had reduced him to
a state of despondency, is evident; and in this frame of mind, he
wrote, on the very day of his capture, the following letter to the
king:


"Sir,--Your majesty may think it the misfortune I now lie under
makes me make this application to you; but I do assure your majesty,
it is the remorse I now have in me of the wrong I have done you in
several things, and now in taking up arms against you.  For my
taking up arms, it was never in my thought since the king died:  the
Prince and Princess of Orange will be witness for me of the
assurance I gave them, that I would never stir against you.  But my
misfortune was such as to meet with some horrid people, that made me
believe things of your majesty, and gave me so many false arguments,
that I was fully led away to believe that it was a shame and a sin
before God not to do it.  But, sir, I will not trouble your majesty
at present with many things I could say for myself, that I am sure
would move your compassion; the chief end of this letter being only
to beg of you, that I may have that happiness as to speak to your
majesty; for I have that to say to you, sir, that I hope may give
you a long and happy reign.

"I am sure, sir, when you hear me, you will be convinced of the zeal
I have of your preservation, and how heartily I repent of what I
have done.  I can say no more to your majesty now, being this letter
must be seen by those that keep me.  Therefore, sir, I shall make an
end in begging of your majesty to believe so well of me, that I
would rather die a thousand deaths than excuse anything I have done,
if I did not really think myself the most in the wrong that ever a
man was, and had not from the bottom of my heart an abhorrence for
those that put me upon it, and for the action itself.  I hope, sir,
God Almighty will strike your heart with mercy and compassion for
me, as he has done mine with the abhorrence of what I have done:
wherefore, sir, I hope I may live to show you how zealous I shall
ever be for your service; and could I but say one word in this
letter, you would be convinced of it; but it is of that consequence,
that I dare not do it.  Therefore, sir, I do beg of you once more to
let me speak to you; for then you will be convinced how much I shall
ever be, your majesty's most humble and dutiful

"MONMOUTH."


The only certain conclusion to be drawn from this letter, which Mr.
Echard, in a manner perhaps not so seemly for a Churchman, terms
submissive, is, that Monmouth still wished anxiously for life, and
was willing to save it, even at the cruel price of begging and
receiving it as a boon from his enemy.  Ralph conjectures with great
probability that this unhappy man's feelings were all governed by
his excessive affection for his mistress and that a vain hope of
enjoying, with Lady Harriet Wentworth, that retirement which he had
so unwillingly abandoned, induced him to adopt a conduct, which he
might otherwise have considered as indecent.  At any rate it must be
admitted that to cling to life is a strong instinct in human nature,
and Monmouth might reasonably enough satisfy himself, that when his
death could not by any possibility benefit either the public or his
friends, to follow such instinct, even in a manner that might
tarnish the splendour of heroism, was no impeachment of the moral
virtue of a man.

With respect to the mysterious part of the letter, where he speaks
of one word which would be of such infinite importance, it is
difficult, if not rather utterly impossible, to explain it by any
rational conjecture.  Mr. Macpherson's favourite hypothesis, that
the Prince of Orange had been a party to the late attempt, and that
Monmouth's intention, when he wrote the letter, was to disclose this
important fact to the king, is totally destroyed by those
expressions, in which the unfortunate prisoner tells his majesty he
had assured the Prince and Princess of Orange that he would never
stir against him.  Did he assure the Prince of Orange that he would
never do that which he was engaged to the Prince of Orange to do?
Can it be said that this was a false fact, and that no such
assurances were in truth given?  To what purpose was the falsehood?
In order to conceal from motives, whether honourable or otherwise,
his connection with the prince?  What! a fiction in one paragraph of
the letter in order to conceal a fact, which in the next he declares
his intention of revealing?  The thing is impossible.

The intriguing character of the Secretary of State, the Earl of
Sunderland, whose duplicity in many instances cannot be doubted, and
the mystery in which almost everything relating to him is involved,
might lead us to suspect that the expressions point at some
discovery in which that nobleman was concerned, and that Monmouth
had it in his power to be of important service to James, by
revealing to him the treachery of his minister.  Such a conjecture
might be strengthened by an anecdote that has had some currency, and
to the truth of which, in part, King James's "Memoirs," if the
extracts from them can be relied on, bear testimony.  It is said
that the Duke of Monmouth told Mr. Ralph Sheldon, one of the king's
chamber, who came to meet him on his way to London, that he had had
reason to expect Sunderland's co-operation, and authorised Sheldon
to mention this to the king:  that while Sheldon was relating this
to his majesty, Sunderland entered; Sheldon hesitated, but was
ordered to go on.  "Sunderland seemed, at first, struck" (as well he
might, whether innocent or guilty), "but after a short time said,
with a laugh, 'If that be all he (Monmouth) can discover to save his
life, it will do him little good.'"  It is to be remarked, that in
Sheldon's conversation, as alluded to by King James, the Prince of
Orange's name is not even mentioned, either as connected with
Monmouth or with Sunderland.  But, on the other hand, the
difficulties that stand in the way of our interpreting Monmouth's
letter as alluding to Sunderland, or of supposing that the writer of
it had any well-founded accusation against that minister, are
insurmountable.  If he had such an accusation to make, why did he
not make it?  The king says expressly, both in a letter to the
Prince of Orange, and in the extract, from his "Memoirs," above
cited, that Monmouth made no discovery of consequence, and the
explanation suggested, that his silence was owing to Sunderland the
secretary's having assured him of his pardon, seems wholly
inadmissible.  Such assurances could have their influence no longer
than while the hope of pardon remained.  Why, then, did he continue
silent, when he found James inexorable?  If he was willing to accuse
the earl before he had received these assurances, it is
inconceivable that he should have any scruple about doing it when
they turned out to have been delusive, and when his mind must have
been exasperated by the reflection that Sunderland's perfidious
promises and self-interested suggestions had deterred him from the
only probable means of saving his life.

A third, and perhaps the most plausible, interpretation of the words
in question is, that they point to a discovery of Monmouth's friends
in England, when, in the dejected state of his mind at the time of
writing, unmanned as he was by misfortune, he might sincerely
promise what the return of better thoughts forbade him to perform.
This account, however, though free from the great absurdities
belonging to the two others, is by no means satisfactory.  The
phrase, "one word," seems to relate rather to some single person, or
some single fact, and can hardly apply to any list of associates
that might be intended to be sacrificed.  On the other hand, the
single denunciation of Lord Delamere, of Lord Brandon, or even of
the Earl of Devonshire, or of any other private individual, could
not be considered as of that extreme consequence which Monmouth
attaches to his promised disclosure.  I have mentioned Lord
Devonshire, who was certainly not implicated in the enterprise, and
who was not even suspected, because it appears, from Grey's
narrative, that one of Monmouth's agents had once given hopes of his
support; and therefore there is a bare possibility that Monmouth may
have reckoned upon his assistance.  Perhaps, after all, the letter
has been canvassed with too much nicety, and the words of it weighed
more scrupulously than, proper allowance being made for the
situation and state of mind of the writer, they ought to have been.
They may have been thrown out at hazard, merely as means to obtain
an interview, of which the unhappy prisoner thought he might, in
some way or other, make his advantage.  If any more precise meaning
existed in his mind, we must be content to pass it over as one of
those obscure points of history, upon which neither the sagacity of
historians, nor the many documents since made public, nor the great
discoverer, Time, has yet thrown any distinct light.

Monmouth and Grey were now to be conveyed to London, for which
purpose they set out on the 11th, and arrived in the vicinity of the
metropolis on the 13th of July.  In the meanwhile, the queen
dowager, who seems to have behaved with a uniformity of kindness
towards her husband's son that does her great honour, urgently
pressed the king to admit his nephew to an audience.  Importuned,
therefore, by entreaties, and instigated by the curiosity which
Monmouth's mysterious expressions, and Sheldon's story, had excited,
he consented, though with a fixed determination to show no mercy.
James was not of the number of those, in whom the want of an
extensive understanding is compensated by a delicacy of sentiment,
or by those right feelings, which are often found to be better
guides for the conduct than the most accurate reasoning.  His nature
did not revolt, his blood did not run cold, at the thoughts of
beholding the son of a brother whom he had loved embracing his
knees, petitioning, and petitioning in vain, for life; of
interchanging words and looks with a nephew, on whom he was
inexorably determined, within forty-eight short hours, to inflict an
ignominious death.

In Macpherson's extract from King James's "Memoirs," it is confessed
that the king ought not to have seen, if he was not disposed to
pardon the culprit; but whether the observation is made by the
exiled prince himself, or by him who gives the extract, is in this,
as in many other passages of those "Memoirs," difficult to
determine.  Surely if the king had made this reflection before
Monmouth's execution, it must have occurred to that monarch, that if
he had inadvertently done that which he ought not to have done,
without an intention to pardon, the only remedy was to correct that
part of his conduct which was still in his power, and since he could
not recall the interview, to grant the pardon.

Pursuant to this hard-hearted arrangement, Monmouth and Grey, on the
very day of their arrival, were brought to Whitehall, where they had
severally interviews with his majesty.  James, in a letter to the
Prince of Orange, dated the following day, gives a short account of
both these interviews.  Monmouth, he says, betrayed a weakness which
did not become one who had claimed the title of king; but made no
discovery of consequence.

Grey was more ingenuous (it is not certain in what sense his majesty
uses the term, since he does not refer to any discovery made by that
lord), and never once begged his life.  Short as this account is, it
seems the only authentic one of those interviews.  Bishop Kennet,
who has been followed by most of the modern historians, relates,
that "This unhappy captive, by the intercession of the queen
dowager, was brought to the king's presence, and fell presently at
his feet, and confessed he deserved to die; but conjured him, with
tears in his eyes, not to use him with the severity of justice, and
to grant him a life, which he would be ever ready to sacrifice for
his service.  He mentioned to him the example of several great
princes, who had yielded to the impressions of clemency on the like
occasions, and who had never afterwards repented of those acts of
generosity and mercy; concluding, in a most pathetical manner,
'Remember, sir, I am your brother's son, and if you take my life, it
is your own blood that you will shed.'  The king asked him several
questions, and made him sign a declaration that his father told him
he was never married to his mother:  and then said, he was sorry
indeed for his misfortunes; but his crime was of too great a
consequence to be left unpunished, and he must of necessity suffer
for it.  The queen is said to have insulted him in a very arrogant
and unmerciful manner.  So that when the duke saw there was nothing
designed by this interview but to satisfy the queen's revenge, he
rose up from his majesty's feet with a new air of bravery, and was
carried back to the Tower."

The topics used by Monmouth are such as he might naturally have
employed, and the demeanour attributed to him, upon finding the king
inexorable, is consistent enough with general probability, and his
particular character; but that the king took care to extract from
him a confession of Charles's declaration with respect to his
illegitimacy, before he announced his final refusal of mercy, and
that the queen was present for the purpose of reviling and insulting
him, are circumstances too atrocious to merit belief, without some
more certain evidence.  It must be remarked also, that Burnet, whose
general prejudices would not lead him to doubt any imputations
against the queen, does not mention her majesty's being present.
Monmouth's offer of changing religion is mentioned by him, but no
authority quoted; and no hint of the kind appears either in James's
Letters, or in the extract from his "Memoirs."

From Whitehall Monmouth was at night carried to the Tower, where, no
longer uncertain as to his fate, he seems to have collected his
mind, and to have resumed his wonted fortitude.  The bill of
attainder that had lately passed having superseded the necessity of
a legal trial, his execution was fixed for the next day but one
after his commitment.  This interval appeared too short even for the
worldly business which he wished to transact, and he wrote again to
the king on the 14th, desiring some short respite, which was
peremptorily refused.  The difficulty of obtaining any certainty
concerning facts, even in instances where there has not been any
apparent motive for disguising them, is nowhere more striking than
in the few remaining hours of this unfortunate man's life.
According to King James's statement in his "Memoirs," he refused to
see his wife, while other accounts assert positively that she
refused to see him, unless in presence of witnesses.  Burnet, who
was not likely to be mistaken in a fact of this kind, says they did
meet, and parted very coldly, a circumstance which, if true, gives
us no very favourable idea of the lady's character.  There is also
mention of a third letter written by him to the king, which being
entrusted to a perfidious officer of the name of Scott, never
reached its destination; but for this there is no foundation.  What
seems most certain is, that in the Tower, and not in the closet, he
signed a paper, renouncing his pretensions to the crown, the same
which he afterwards delivered on the scaffold; and that he was
inclined to make this declaration, not by any vain hope of life, but
by his affection for his children, whose situation he rightly judged
would be safer and better under the reigning monarch and his
successors, when it should be evident that they could no longer be
competitors for the throne.

Monmouth was very sincere in his religious professions, and it is
probable that a great portion of this sad day was passed in devotion
and religious discourse with the two prelates who had been sent by
his majesty to assist him in his spiritual concerns.  Turner, bishop
of Ely, had been with him early in the morning, and Kenn, bishop of
Bath and Wells, was sent, upon the refusal of a respite, to prepare
him for the stroke, which it was now irrevocably fixed he should
suffer the ensuing day.  They stayed with him all night, and in the
morning of the 15th were joined by Dr. Hooper, afterwards, in the
reign of Anne, made bishop of Bath and Wells, and by Dr. Tennison,
who succeeded Tillotson in the see of Canterbury.  This last divine
is stated by Burnet to have been most acceptable to the duke, and,
though he joined the others in some harsh expostulations, to have
done what the right reverend historian conceives to have been his
duty, in a softer and less peremptory manner.  Certain it is, that
none of these holy men seem to have erred on the side of compassion
or complaisance to their illustrious penitent.  Besides endeavouring
to convince him of the guilt of his connection with his beloved lady
Harriet, of which he could never be brought to a due sense, they
seem to have repeatedly teased him with controversy, and to have
been far more solicitous to make him profess what they deemed the
true creed of the Church of England, than to soften or console his
sorrows, or to help him to that composure of mind so necessary for
his situation.  He declared himself to be a member of their Church,
but, they denied that he could be so, unless he thoroughly believed
the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance.  He repented
generally of his sins, and especially of his late enterprise, but
they insisted that he must repent of it in the way they prescribed
to him, that he must own it to have been a wicked resistance to his
lawful king, and a detestable act of rebellion.  Some historians
have imputed this seemingly cruel conduct to the king's particular
instructions, who might be desirous of extracting, or rather
extorting, from the lips of his dying nephew such a confession as
would be matter of triumph to the royal cause.  But the character of
the two prelates principally concerned, both for general uprightness
and sincerity as Church of England men, makes it more candid to
suppose that they did not act from motives of servile compliance,
but rather from an intemperate party zeal for the honour of their
Church, which they judged would be signally promoted if such a man
as Monmouth, after having throughout his life acted in defiance of
their favourite doctrine, could be brought in his last moments to
acknowledge it as a divine truth.  It must never be forgotten, if we
would understand the history of this period, that the truly orthodox
members of our Church regarded monarchy not as a human, but as a
divine institution, and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as
political maxims, but as articles of religion.

At ten o'clock on the 15th Monmouth proceeded in a carriage of the
lieutenant of the Tower to Tower Hill, the place destined for his
execution.  The two bishops were in the carriage with him, and one
of them took that opportunity of informing him that their
controversial altercations were not yet at an end, and that upon the
scaffold he would again be pressed for more explicit and
satisfactory declarations of repentance.  When arrived at the bar
which had been put up for the purpose of keeping out the multitude,
Monmouth descended from the carriage, and mounted the scaffold, with
a firm step, attended by his spiritual assistants.  The sheriffs and
executioners were already there.  The concourse of spectators was
innumerable; and if we are to credit traditional accounts, never was
the general compassion more affectingly expressed.  The tears,
sighs, and groans, which the first sight of this heartrending
spectacle produced, were soon succeeded by a universal and awful
silence; a respectful attention and affectionate anxiety to hear
every syllable that should pass the lips of the sufferer.  The duke
began by saying he should speak little; he came to die, and he
should die a Protestant of the Church of England.  Here he was
interrupted by the assistants, and told, that if he was of the
Church of England, he must acknowledge the doctrine of non-
resistance to be true.  In vain did he reply that if he acknowledged
the doctrine of the Church in general it included all:  they
insisted he should own that doctrine, particularly with respect to
his case, and urged much more concerning their favourite point, upon
which, however, they obtained nothing but a repetition in substance
of former answers.  He was then proceeding to speak of Lady Harriet
Wentworth, of his high esteem for her, and of his confirmed opinion
that their connection was innocent in the sight of God, when Goslin,
the sheriff, asked him, with all the unfeeling bluntness of a vulgar
mind, whether he was ever married to her.  The duke refusing to
answer, the same magistrate, in the like strain, though changing his
subject, said he hoped to have heard of his repentance for the
treason and bloodshed which had been committed; to which the
prisoner replied, with great mildness, that he died very penitent.
Here the Churchmen again interposed, and renewing their demand of
particular penitence and public acknowledgment upon public affairs,
Monmouth referred them to the following paper, which he had signed
that morning:


"I declare that the title of king was forced upon me, and that it
was very much contrary to my opinion when I was proclaimed.  For the
satisfaction of the world, I do declare that the late king told me
he was never married to my mother.  Having declared this, I hope the
king who is now will not let my children suffer on this account.
And to this I put my hand this fifteenth day of July, 1685.

"MONMOUTH."


There was nothing, they said, in that paper about resistance; nor,
though Monmouth, quite worn-out with their importunities, said to
one of them, in the most affecting manner, "I am to die--pray my
lord--I refer to my paper," would those men think it consistent with
their duty to desist.  There were only a few words they desired on
one point.  The substance of these applications on the one hand, and
answers on the other, was repeated over and over again, in a manner
that could not be believed, if the facts were not attested by the
signatures of the persons principally concerned.  If the duke, in
declaring his sorrow for what had passed, used the word invasion,
"Give it the true name," said they, "and call it rebellion."  "What
name you please," replied the mild-tempered Monmouth.  He was sure
he was going to everlasting happiness, and considered the serenity
of his mind in his present circumstances as a certain earnest of the
favour of his Creator.  His repentance, he said, must be true, for
he had no fear of dying; he should die like a lamb.  "Much may come
from natural courage," was the unfeeling and stupid reply of one of
the assistants.  Monmouth, with that modesty inseparable from true
bravery, denied that he was in general less fearful than other men,
maintaining that his present courage was owing to his consciousness
that God had forgiven him his past transgressions, of all which
generally he repented with all his soul.

At last the reverend assistants consented to join with him in
prayer, but no sooner were they risen from their kneeling posture
than they returned to their charge.  Not satisfied with what had
passed, they exhorted him to a true and thorough repentance.  Would
he not pray for the king, and send a dutiful message to his majesty
to recommend the duchess and his children?  "As you please," was the
reply; "I pray for him and for all men."  He now spoke to the
executioner, desiring that he might have no cap over his eyes, and
began undressing.  One would have thought that in this last sad
ceremony, the poor prisoner might have been unmolested, and that the
divines would have been satisfied that prayer was the only part of
their function for which their duty now called upon them.  They
judged differently, and one of them had the fortitude to request the
duke, even in this stage of the business, that he would address
himself to the soldiers then present, to tell them he stood a sad
example of rebellion, and entreat the people to be loyal and
obedient to the king.  "I have said I will make no speeches,"
repeated Monmouth, in a tone more peremptory than he had before been
provoked to; "I will make no speeches.  I come to die."  "My lord,
ten words will be enough," said the persevering divine; to which the
duke made no answer, but turning to the executioner, expressed a
hope that he would do his work better now than in the case of Lord
Russell.  He then felt the axe, which he apprehended was not sharp
enough, but being assured that it was of proper sharpness and
weight, he laid down his head.  In the meantime many fervent
ejaculations were used by the reverend assistants, who, it must be
observed, even in these moments of horror, showed themselves not
unmindful of the points upon which they had been disputing, praying
God to accept his imperfect and general repentance.

The executioner now struck the blow, but so feebly or unskilfully,
that Monmouth, being but slightly wounded, lifted up his head, and
looked him in the face as if to upbraid him, but said nothing.  The
two following strokes were as ineffectual as the first, and the
headsman, in a fit of horror, declared he could not finish his work.
The sheriffs threatened him; he was forced again to make a further
trial, and in two more strokes separated the head from the body.

Thus fell, in the thirty-sixth year of his age, James, Duke of
Monmouth, a man against whom all that has been said by the most
inveterate enemies both to him and his party amounts to little more
than this, that he had not a mind equal to the situations in which
his ambition, at different times, engaged him to place himself.  But
to judge him with candour, we must make great allowances, not only
for the temptations into which he was led by the splendid prosperity
of the earlier parts of his life, but also for the adverse
prejudices with which he was regarded by almost all the contemporary
writers, from whom his actions and character are described.  The
Tories, of course, are unfavourable to him; and even among the
Whigs, there seems, in many, a strong inclination to disparage him;
some to excuse themselves for not having joined him, others to make
a display of their exclusive attachment to their more successful
leader, King William.  Burnet says of Monmouth, that he was gentle,
brave, and sincere:  to these praises, from the united testimony of
all who knew him, we may add that of generosity; and surely those
qualities go a great way in making up the catalogue of all that is
amiable and estimable in human nature.  One of the most conspicuous
features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as
some think, a culpable degree of flexibility.  That such a
disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme, will be admitted
by all who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied
to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency.  He who has attentively
considered the political, or, indeed, the general concerns of life,
may possibly go still further, and rank a willingness to be
convinced, or in some cases even without conviction, to concede our
own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in
the composition of practical wisdom.  Monmouth had suffered this
flexibility, so laudable in many cases, to degenerate into a habit
which made him often follow the advice, or yield to the entreaties,
of persons whose characters by no means entitled them to such
deference.  The sagacity of Shaftesbury, the honour of Russell, the
genius of Sydney, might, in the opinion of a modest man, be safe and
eligible guides.  The partiality of friendship, and the conviction
of his firm attachment, might be some excuse for his listening so
much to Grey; but he never could, at any period of his life, have
mistaken Ferguson for an honest man.  There is reason to believe
that the advice of the two last-mentioned persons had great weight
in persuading him to the unjustifiable step of declaring himself
king.  But far the most guilty act of this unfortunate man's life
was his lending his name to the declaration which was published at
Lyme, and in this instance Ferguson, who penned the paper, was both
the adviser and the instrument.  To accuse the king of having burnt
London, murdered Essex in the Tower, and, finally, poisoned his
brother, unsupported by evidence to substantiate such dreadful
charges, was calumny of the most atrocious kind; but the guilt is
still heightened, when we observe, that from no conversation of
Monmouth, nor, indeed, from any other circumstance whatever, do we
collect that he himself believed the horrid accusations to be true.
With regard to Essex's death in particular, the only one of the
three charges which was believed by any man of common sense, the
late king was as much implicated in the suspicion as James.  That
the latter should have dared to be concerned in such an act, without
the privacy of his brother, was too absurd an imputation to be
attempted, even in the days of the popish plot.  On the other hand,
it was certainly not the intention of the son to brand his father as
an assassin.  It is too plain that, in the instance of this
declaration, Monmouth, with a facility highly criminal, consented to
set his name to whatever Ferguson recommended as advantageous to the
cause.  Among the many dreadful circumstances attending civil wars,
perhaps there are few more revolting to a good mind than the wicked
calumnies with which, in the heat of contention, men, otherwise men
of honour, have in all ages and countries permitted themselves to
load their adversaries.  It is remarkable that there is no trace of
the divines who attended this unfortunate man having exhorted him to
a particular repentance of his manifesto, or having called for a
retraction or disavowal of the accusations contained in it.  They
were so intent upon points more immediately connected with orthodoxy
of faith, that they omitted pressing their penitent to the only
declaration by which he could make any satisfactory atonement to
those whom he had injured.



FRAGMENTS.



The following detached paragraphs were probably intended for the
fourth chapter.  They are here printed in the incomplete and
unfinished state in which they were found.

While the Whigs considered all religious opinions with a view to
politics, the Tories, on the other hand, referred all political
maxims to religion.  Thus the former, even in their hatred to
popery, did not so much regard the superstition, or imputed idolatry
of that unpopular sect, as its tendency to establish arbitrary power
in the State, while the latter revered absolute monarchy as a divine
institution, and cherished the doctrines of passive obedience and
non-resistance as articles of religious faith.

* * *

To mark the importance of the late events, his majesty caused two
medals to be struck; one of himself, with the usual inscription, and
the motto, Aras et sceptra tuemur; the other of Monmouth, without
any inscription.  On the reverse of the former were represented the
two headless trunks of his lately vanquished enemies, with other
circumstances in the same taste and spirit, the motto, Ambitio
malesuada ruit; on that of the latter appeared a young man falling
in the attempt to climb a rock with three crowns on it, under which
was the insulting motto, Superi risere.

* * *

With the lives of Monmouth and Argyle ended, or at least seemed to
end, all prospect of resistance to James's absolute power; and that
class of patriots who feel the pride of submission, and the dignity
of obedience, might be completely satisfied that the crown was in
its full lustre.

James was sufficiently conscious of the increased strength of his
situation, and it is probable that the security he now felt in his
power inspired him with the design of taking more decided steps in
favour of the popish religion and its professors than his connection
with the Church of England party had before allowed him to
entertain.  That he from this time attached less importance to the
support and affection of the Tories is evident from Lord Rochester's
observations, communicated afterwards to Burnet.  This nobleman's
abilities and experience in business, his hereditary merit, as son
of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, and his uniform opposition to the
Exclusion Bill, had raised him high in the esteem of the Church
party.  This circumstance, perhaps, as much, or more than the king's
personal kindness to a brother-in-law, had contributed to his
advancement to the first office in the State.  As long, therefore,
as James stood in need of the support of the party, as long as he
meant to make them the instruments of his power, and the channels of
his favour, Rochester was, in every respect, the fittest person in
whom to confide; and accordingly, as that nobleman related to
Burnet, his majesty honoured him with daily confidential
communications upon all his most secret schemes and projects.  But
upon the defeat of the rebellion, an immediate change took place,
and from the day of Monmouth's execution, the king confined his
conversations with the treasurer to the mere business of his office.




End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of History of James the Second
by Charles James Fox

