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Title: The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3

Author: Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay

Release date: June 26, 2008 [eBook #2612]
Most recently updated: August 13, 2025

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Martin Adamson and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY
OF ENGLAND, FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II — VOLUME 3
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THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE ACCESSION OF
JAMES II,
VOLUME 3 (of 5)

(Chapters XI-XVI)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Philadelphia
Porter & Coates

Contents

CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER
XII
CHAPTER
XIII.
CHAPTER
XIV
CHAPTER
XV
CHAPTER
XVI

DETAILED CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI
William and Mary proclaimed in London
Rejoicings throughout England; Rejoicings in Holland
Discontent of the Clergy and of the Army
Reaction of Public Feeling
Temper of the Tories
Temper of the Whigs
Ministerial Arrangements
William his own Minister for Foreign Affairs
Danby
Halifax
Nottingham Shrewsbury The Board of Admiralty; the Board of Treasury
The Great Seal
The Judges
The Household
Subordinate Appointments
The Convention turned into a Parliament
The Members of the two Houses required to take the Oaths Questions
relating to the Revenue
Abolition of the Hearth Money
Repayment of the Expenses of the United Provinces
Mutiny at Ipswich
The first Mutiny Bill
Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act
Unpopularity of William
Popularity of Mary
The Court removed from Whitehall to Hampton Court
The Court at Kensington; William's foreign Favourites
General Maladministration
Dissensions among Men in Office
Department of Foreign Affairs
Religious Disputes
The High Church Party

The Low Church Party
William's Views concerning Ecclesiastical Polity
Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury
Nottingham's Views concerning Ecclesiastical Polity
The Toleration Bill
The Comprehension Bill
The Bill for settling the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy
The Bill for settling the Coronation Oath
The Coronation
Promotions
The Coalition against France; the Devastation of the Palatinate
War declared against France

CHAPTER XII
State of Ireland at the Time of the Revolution; the Civil Power in
the Hands of the Roman Catholics
The Military Power in the Hands of the Roman Catholics
Mutual Enmity between the Englishry and Irishry
Panic among the Englishry
History of the Town of Kenmare
Enniskillen
Londonderry
Closing of the Gates of Londonderry
Mountjoy sent to pacify Ulster
William opens a Negotiation with Tyrconnel
The Temples consulted
Richard Hamilton sent to Ireland on his Parole
Tyrconnel sends Mountjoy and Rice to France
Tyrconnel calls the Irish People to Arms
Devastation of the Country
The Protestants in the South unable to resist
Enniskillen and Londonderry hold out; Richard Hamilton marches into
Ulster with an Army
James determines to go to Ireland
Assistance furnished by Lewis to James
Choice of a French Ambassador to accompany James
The Count of Avaux
James lands at Kinsale
James enters Cork
Journey of James from Cork to Dublin
Discontent in England
Factions at Dublin Castle
James determines to go to Ulster
Journey of James to Ulster
The Fall of Londonderry expected
Succours arrive from England

Treachery of Lundy; the Inhabitants of Londonderry resolve to defend
themselves
Their Character
Londonderry besieged
The Siege turned into a Blockade
Naval Skirmish in Bantry Bay
A Parliament summoned by James sits at Dublin
A Toleration Act passed; Acts passed for the Confiscation of the
Property of Protestants
Issue of base Money
The great Act of Attainder
James prorogues his Parliament; Persecution of the Protestants in Ireland
Effect produced in England by the News from Ireland
Actions of the Enniskilleners
Distress of Londonderry
Expedition under Kirke arrives in Loch Foyle
Cruelty of Rosen
The Famine in Londonderry extreme
Attack on the Boom
The Siege of Londonderry raised
Operations against the Enniskilleners
Battle of Newton Butler
Consternation of the Irish

CHAPTER XIII.
The Revolution more violent in Scotland than in England
Elections for the Convention; Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy
State of Edinburgh
Question of an Union between England and Scotland raised
Wish of the English Low Churchmen to preserve Episcopacy in Scotland
Opinions of William about Church Government in Scotland
Comparative Strength of Religious Parties in Scotland
Letter from William to the Scotch Convention
William's Instructions to his Agents in Scotland; the Dalrymples
Melville
James's Agents in Scotland: Dundee; Balcarras
Meeting of the Convention
Hamilton elected President
Committee of Elections; Edinburgh Castle summoned
Dundee threatened by the Covenanters
Letter from James to the Convention
Effect of James's Letter
Flight of Dundee
Tumultuous Sitting of the Convention
A Committee appointed to frame a Plan of Government
Resolutions proposed by the Committee
William and Mary proclaimed; the Claim of Right; Abolition of
Episcopacy
Torture
William and Mary accept the Crown of Scotland
Discontent of the Covenanters
Ministerial Arrangements in Scotland
Hamilton; Crawford
The Dalrymples; Lockhart; Montgomery
Melville; Carstairs
The Club formed: Annandale; Ross
Hume; Fletcher of Saltoun

War breaks out in the Highlands; State of the Highlands
Peculiar Nature of Jacobitism in the Highlands
Jealousy of the Ascendency of the Campbells
The Stewarts and Macnaghtens
The Macleans; the Camerons: Lochiel
The Macdonalds; Feud between the Macdonalds and Mackintoshes;
Inverness
Inverness threatened by Macdonald of Keppoch
Dundee appears in Keppoch's Camp
Insurrection of the Clans hostile to the Campbells
Tarbet's Advice to the Government
Indecisive Campaign in the Highlands
Military Character of the Highlanders
Quarrels in the Highland Army
Dundee applies to James for Assistance; the War in the Highlands
suspended
Scruples of the Covenanters about taking Arms for King William
The Cameronian Regiment raised
Edinburgh Castle surrenders
Session of Parliament at Edinburgh
Ascendancy of the Club
Troubles in Athol
The War breaks out again in the Highlands
Death of Dundee
Retreat of Mackay
Effect of the Battle of Killiecrankie; the Scottish Parliament adjourned
The Highland Army reinforced
Skirmish at Saint Johnston's
Disorders in the Highland Army
Mackay's Advice disregarded by the Scotch Ministers
The Cameronians stationed at Dunkeld
The Highlanders attack the Cameronians and are repulsed
Dissolution of the Highland Army; Intrigues of the Club; State of the
Lowlands

CHAPTER XIV
Disputes in the English Parliament
The Attainder of Russell reversed
Other Attainders reversed; Case of Samuel Johnson
Case of Devonshire
Case of Oates
Bill of Rights
Disputes about a Bill of Indemnity
Last Days of Jeffreys
The Whigs dissatisfied with the King
Intemperance of Howe
Attack on Caermarthen
Attack on Halifax
Preparations for a Campaign in Ireland
Schomberg
Recess of the Parliament
State of Ireland; Advice of Avaux
Dismission of Melfort; Schomberg lands in Ulster
Carrickfergus taken
Schomberg advances into Leinster; the English and Irish Armies
encamp near each other
Schomberg declines a Battle
Frauds of the English Commissariat
Conspiracy among the French Troops in the English Service
Pestilence in the English Army
The English and Irish Armies go into Winter Quarters
Various Opinions about Schomberg's Conduct
Maritime Affairs
Maladministration of Torrington
Continental Affairs
Skirmish at Walcourt
Imputations thrown on Marlborough
Pope Innocent XI. succeeded by Alexander VIII.

The High Church Clergy divided on the Subject of the Oaths
Arguments for taking the Oaths
Arguments against taking the Oaths
A great Majority of the Clergy take the Oaths
The Nonjurors; Ken
Leslie
Sherlock
Hickes
Collier
Dodwell
Kettlewell; Fitzwilliam
General Character of the Nonjuring Clergy
The Plan of Comprehension; Tillotson
An Ecclesiastical Commission issued.
Proceedings of the Commission
The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury summoned; Temper of the
Clergy
The Clergy ill affected towards the King
The Clergy exasperated against the Dissenters by the Proceedings of the
Scotch Presbyterians
Constitution of the Convocation
Election of Members of Convocation; Ecclesiastical Preferments bestowed,
Compton discontented
The Convocation meets
The High Churchmen a Majority of the Lower House of Convocation
Difference between the two Houses of Convocation
The Lower House of Convocation proves unmanageable.
The Convocation prorogued

CHAPTER XV
The Parliament meets; Retirement of Halifax
Supplies voted
The Bill of Rights passed
Inquiry into Naval Abuses
Inquiry into the Conduct of the Irish War
Reception of Walker in England
Edmund Ludlow
Violence of the Whigs
Impeachments
Committee of Murder
Malevolence of John Hampden
The Corporation Bill
Debates on the Indemnity Bill
Case of Sir Robert Sawyer
The King purposes to retire to Holland
He is induced to change his Intention; the Whigs oppose his going to
Ireland
He prorogues the Parliament
Joy of the Tories
Dissolution and General Election
Changes in the Executive Departments
Caermarthen Chief Minister
Sir John Lowther
Rise and Progress of Parliamentary Corruption in England
Sir John Trevor
Godolphin retires; Changes at the Admiralty
Changes in the Commissions of Lieutenancy
Temper of the Whigs; Dealings of some Whigs with Saint Germains;
Shrewsbury; Ferguson
Hopes of the Jacobites
Meeting of the new Parliament; Settlement of the Revenue
Provision for the Princess of Denmark

Bill declaring the Acts of the preceding Parliament valid
Debate on the Changes in the Lieutenancy of London
Abjuration Bill
Act of Grace
The Parliament prorogued; Preparations for the first War
Administration of James at Dublin
An auxiliary Force sent from France to Ireland
Plan of the English Jacobites; Clarendon, Aylesbury, Dartmouth
Penn
Preston
The Jacobites betrayed by Fuller
Crone arrested
Difficulties of William
Conduct of Shrewsbury
The Council of Nine
Conduct of Clarendon
Penn held to Bail
Interview between William and Burnet; William sets out for Ireland
Trial of Crone
Danger of Invasion and Insurrection; Tourville's Fleet in the
Channel
Arrests of suspected Persons
Torrington ordered to give Battle to Tourville
Battle of Beachy Head
Alarm in London; Battle of Fleurus
Spirit of the Nation
Conduct of Shrewsbury

CHAPTER XVI
William lands at Carrickfergus, and proceeds to Belfast
State of Dublin; William's military Arrangements
William marches southward
The Irish Army retreats
The Irish make a Stand at the Boyne
The Army of James
The Army of William
Walker, now Bishop of Derry, accompanies the Army
William reconnoitres the Irish Position; William is wounded
Battle of the Boyne
Flight of James
Loss of the two Armies
Fall of Drogheda; State of Dublin
James flies to France; Dublin evacuated by the French and Irish Troops
Entry of William into Dublin
Effect produced in France by the News from Ireland
Effect produced at Rome by the News from Ireland
Effect produced in London by the News from Ireland
James arrives in France; his Reception there
Tourville attempts a Descent on England
Teignmouth destroyed
Excitement of the English Nation against the French
The Jacobite Press
The Jacobite Form of Prayer and Humiliation
Clamour against the nonjuring Bishops
Military Operations in Ireland; Waterford taken
The Irish Army collected at Limerick; Lauzun pronounces that the
Place cannot be defended
The Irish insist on defending Limerick
Tyrconnel is against defending Limerick; Limerick defended by the Irish
alone
Sarsfield surprises the English Artillery

Arrival of Baldearg O'Donnel at Limerick
The Besiegers suffer from the Rains
Unsuccessful Assault on Limerick; The Siege raised
Tyrconnel and Lauzun go to France; William returns to England;
Reception of William in England
Expedition to the South of Ireland
Marlborough takes Cork
Marlborough takes Kinsale
Affairs of Scotland; Intrigues of Montgomery with the Jacobites
War in the Highlands
Fort William built; Meeting of the Scottish Parliament
Melville Lord High Commissioner; the Government obtains a Majority
Ecclesiastical Legislation
The Coalition between the Club and the Jacobites dissolved
The Chiefs of the Club betray each other
General Acquiescence in the new Ecclesiastical Polity
Complaints of the Episcopalians
The Presbyterian Conjurors
William dissatisfied with the Ecclesiastical Arrangements in Scotland
Meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
State of Affairs on the Continent
The Duke of Savoy joins the Coalition
Supplies voted; Ways and Means
Proceedings against Torrington
Torrington's Trial and Acquittal
Animosity of the Whigs against Caermarthen
Jacobite Plot
Meeting of the leading Conspirators
The Conspirators determine to send Preston to Saint Germains
Papers entrusted to Preston
Information of the Plot given to Caermarthen
Arrest of Preston and his Companions

CHAPTER XI
William and Mary proclaimed in London—Rejoicings throughout
England; Rejoicings in Holland—Discontent of the Clergy and of the
Army—Reaction of Public Feeling—Temper of the Tories—Temper of the
Whigs—Ministerial Arrangements—William his own Minister for Foreign
Affairs—Danby—Halifax—Nottingham Shrewsbury The Board of
Admiralty; the Board of Treasury—The Great Seal—The Judges—The
Household—Subordinate Appointments—The Convention turned into a
Parliament—The Members of the two Houses required to take the
Oaths Questions relating to the Revenue—Abolition of the Hearth
Money—Repayment of the Expenses of the United Provinces—Mutiny
at Ipswich—The first Mutiny Bill—Suspension of the Habeas Corpus
Act—Unpopularity of William—Popularity of Mary—The Court removed from
Whitehall to Hampton Court—The Court at Kensington; William's foreign
Favourites—General Maladministration—Dissensions among Men in
Office—Department of Foreign Affairs—Religious Disputes—The
High Church Party—The Low Church Party—William's Views concerning
Ecclesiastical Polity—Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury—Nottingham's Views
concerning Ecclesiastical Polity—The Toleration Bill—The Comprehension
Bill—The Bill for settling the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy—The
Bill for settling the Coronation Oath—The Coronation—Promotions—The
Coalition against France; the Devastation of the Palatinate—War
declared against France

THE Revolution had been accomplished. The decrees of the Convention
were everywhere received with submission. London, true during fifty
eventful years to the cause of civil freedom and of the reformed religion,
was foremost in professing loyalty to the new Sovereigns. Garter King at
arms, after making proclamation under the windows of Whitehall, rode in
state along the Strand to Temple Bar. He was followed by the maces of the
two Houses, by the two Speakers, Halifax and Powle, and by a long train of
coaches filled with noblemen and gentlemen. The magistrates of the City
threw open their gates and joined the procession. Four regiments of militia
lined the way up Ludgate Hill, round Saint Paul's Cathedral, and along
Cheapside. The streets, the balconies, and the very housetops were crowded
with gazers. All the steeples from the Abbey to the Tower sent forth a
joyous din. The proclamation was repeated, with sound of trumpet, in front
of the Royal Exchange, amidst the shouts of the citizens.
In the evening every window from Whitechapel to Piccadilly was lighted
up. The state rooms of the palace were thrown open, and were filled by a
gorgeous company of courtiers desirous to kiss the hands of the King and
Queen. The Whigs assembled there, flushed with victory and prosperity.

There were among them some who might be pardoned if a vindictive
feeling mingled with their joy. The most deeply injured of all who had
survived the evil times was absent. Lady Russell, while her friends were
crowding the galleries of Whitehall, remained in her retreat, thinking of one
who, if he had been still living, would have held no undistinguished place in
the ceremonies of that great day. But her daughter, who had a few months
before become the wife of Lord Cavendish, was presented to the royal pair
by his mother the Countess of Devonshire. A letter is still extant in which
the young lady described with great vivacity the roar of the populace, the
blaze in the streets, the throng in the presence chamber, the beauty of Mary,
and the expression which ennobled and softened the harsh features of
William. But the most interesting passage is that in which the orphan girl
avowed the stern delight with which she had witnessed the tardy
punishment of her father's murderer. 1
The example of London was followed by the provincial towns. During
three weeks the Gazettes were filled with accounts of the solemnities by
which the public joy manifested itself, cavalcades of gentlemen and
yeomen, processions of Sheriffs and Bailiffs in scarlet gowns, musters of
zealous Protestants with orange flags and ribands, salutes, bonfires,
illuminations, music, balls, dinners, gutters running with ale and conduits
spouting claret. 2
Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch, when they learned
that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been raised to a throne.
On the very day of his accession he had written to assure the States General
that the change in his situation had made no change in the affection which
he bore to his native land, and that his new dignity would, he hoped, enable
him to discharge his old duties more efficiently than ever. That oligarchical
party, which had always been hostile to the doctrines of Calvin and to the
House of Orange, muttered faintly that His Majesty ought to resign the
Stadtholdership. But all such mutterings were drowned by the acclamations
of a people proud of the genius and success of their great countryman. A
day of thanksgiving was appointed. In all the cities of the Seven Provinces
the public joy manifested itself by festivities of which the expense was
chiefly defrayed by voluntary gifts. Every class assisted. The poorest
labourer could help to set up an arch of triumph, or to bring sedge to a
bonfire. Even the ruined Huguenots of France could contribute the aid of
their ingenuity. One art which they had carried with them into banishment

was the art of making fireworks; and they now, in honour of the victorious
champion of their faith, lighted up the canals of Amsterdam with showers of
splendid constellations. 3
To superficial observers it might well seem that William was, at this time,
one of the most enviable of human beings. He was in truth one of the most
anxious and unhappy. He well knew that the difficulties of his task were
only beginning. Already that dawn which had lately been so bright was
overcast; and many signs portended a dark and stormy day.
It was observed that two important classes took little or no part in the
festivities by which, all over England, the inauguration of the new
government was celebrated. Very seldom could either a priest or a soldier
be seen in the assemblages which gathered round the market crosses where
the King and Queen were proclaimed. The professional pride both of the
clergy and of the army had been deeply wounded. The doctrine of
nonresistance had been dear to the Anglican divines. It was their
distinguishing badge. It was their favourite theme. If we are to judge by that
portion of their oratory which has come down to us, they had preached
about the duty of passive obedience at least as often and as zealously as
about the Trinity or the Atonement. 4 Their attachment to their political
creed had indeed been severely tried, and had, during a short time, wavered.
But with the tyranny of James the bitter feeling which that tyranny had
excited among them had passed away. The parson of a parish was naturally
unwilling to join in what was really a triumph over those principles which,
during twenty-eight years, his flock had heard him proclaim on every
anniversary of the Martyrdom and on every anniversary of the Restoration.
The soldiers, too, were discontented. They hated Popery indeed; and they
had not loved the banished King. But they keenly felt that, in the short
campaign which had decided the fate of their country, theirs had been an
inglorious part. Forty fine regiments, a regular army such as had never
before marched to battle under the royal standard of England, had retreated
precipitately before an invader, and had then, without a struggle, submitted
to him. That great force had been absolutely of no account in the late
change, had done nothing towards keeping William out, and had done
nothing towards bringing him in. The clowns, who, armed with pitchforks
and mounted on carthorses, had straggled in the train of Lovelace or
Delamere, had borne a greater part in the Revolution than those splendid

household troops, whose plumed hats, embroidered coats, and curvetting
chargers the Londoners had so often seen with admiration in Hyde Park.
The mortification of the army was increased by the taunts of the foreigners,
taunts which neither orders nor punishments could entirely restrain. 5 At
several places the anger which a brave and highspirited body of men might,
in such circumstances, be expected to feel, showed itself in an alarming
manner. A battalion which lay at Cirencester put out the bonfires, huzzaed
for King James, and drank confusion to his daughter and his nephew. The
garrison of Plymouth disturbed the rejoicings of the County of Cornwall:
blows were exchanged, and a man was killed in the fray. 6
The ill humour of the clergy and of the army could not but be noticed by
the most heedless; for the clergy and the army were distinguished from
other classes by obvious peculiarities of garb. "Black coats and red coats,"
said a vehement Whig in the House of Commons, "are the curses of the
nation." 7 But the discontent was not confined to the black coats and the red
coats. The enthusiasm with which men of all classes had welcomed William
to London at Christmas had greatly abated before the close of February. The
new king had, at the very moment at which his fame and fortune reached
the highest point, predicted the coming reaction. That reaction might,
indeed, have been predicted by a less sagacious observer of human affairs.
For it is to be chiefly ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate
the succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the
nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to
long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This
propensity, as it appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by
laughing and by weeping philosophers. It was a favourite theme of Horace
and of Pascal, of Voltaire and of Johnson. To its influence on the fate of
great communities may be ascribed most of the revolutions and
counterrevolutions recorded in history. A hundred generations have elapsed
since the first great national emancipation, of which an account has come
down to us. We read in the most ancient of books that a people bowed to the
dust under a cruel yoke, scourged to toil by hard taskmasters, not supplied
with straw, yet compelled to furnish the daily tale of bricks, became sick of
life, and raised such a cry of misery as pierced the heavens. The slaves were
wonderfully set free: at the moment of their liberation they raised a song of
gratitude and triumph: but, in a few hours, they began to regret their
slavery, and to murmur against the leader who had decoyed them away

from the savoury fare of the house of bondage to the dreary waste which
still separated them from the land flowing with milk and honey. Since that
time the history of every great deliverer has been the history of Moses
retold. Down to the present hour rejoicings like those on the shore of the
Red Sea have ever been speedily followed by murmurings like those at the
Waters of Strife. 8 The most just and salutary revolution must produce much
suffering. The most just and salutary revolution cannot produce all the good
that had been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds and sanguine
tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still recent, weigh quite fairly
the evils which it has caused against the evils which it has removed. For the
evils which it has caused are felt; and the evils which it has removed are felt
no longer.
Thus it was now in England. The public was, as it always is during the
cold fits which follow its hot fits, sullen, hard to please, dissatisfied with
itself, dissatisfied with those who had lately been its favourites. The truce
between the two great parties was at an end. Separated by the memory of all
that had been done and suffered during a conflict of half a century, they had
been, during a few months, united by a common danger. But the danger was
over: the union was dissolved; and the old animosity broke forth again in all
its strength.
James had during the last year of his reign, been even more hated by the
Tories than by the Whigs; and not without cause for the Whigs he was only
an enemy; and to the Tories he had been a faithless and thankless friend.
But the old royalist feeling, which had seemed to be extinct in the time of
his lawless domination, had been partially revived by his misfortunes.
Many lords and gentlemen, who had, in December, taken arms for the
Prince of Orange and a Free Parliament, muttered, two months later, that
they had been drawn in; that they had trusted too much to His Highness's
Declaration; that they had given him credit for a disinterestedness which, it
now appeared, was not in his nature. They had meant to put on King James,
for his own good, some gentle force, to punish the Jesuits and renegades
who had misled him, to obtain from him some guarantee for the safety of
the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the realm, but not to uncrown and
banish him. For his maladministration, gross as it had been, excuses were
found. Was it strange that, driven from his native land, while still a boy, by
rebels who were a disgrace to the Protestant name, and forced to pass his
youth in countries where the Roman Catholic religion was established, he

should have been captivated by that most attractive of all superstitions? Was
it strange that, persecuted and calumniated as he had been by an implacable
faction, his disposition should have become sterner and more severe than it
had once been thought, and that, when those who had tried to blast his
honour and to rob him of his birthright were at length in his power, he
should not have sufficiently tempered justice with mercy? As to the worst
charge which had been brought against him, the charge of trying to cheat
his daughters out of their inheritance by fathering a supposititious child, on
what grounds did it rest? Merely on slight circumstances, such as might
well be imputed to accident, or to that imprudence which was but too much
in harmony with his character. Did ever the most stupid country justice put
a boy in the stocks without requiring stronger evidence than that on which
the English people had pronounced their King guilty of the basest and most
odious of all frauds? Some great faults he had doubtless committed, nothing
could be more just or constitutional than that for those faults his advisers
and tools should be called to a severe reckoning; nor did any of those
advisers and tools more richly deserve punishment than the Roundhead
sectaries whose adulation had encouraged him to persist in the fatal exercise
of the dispensing power. It was a fundamental law of the land that the King
could do no wrong, and that, if wrong were done by his authority, his
counsellors and agents were responsible. That great rule, essential to our
polity, was now inverted. The sycophants, who were legally punishable,
enjoyed impunity: the King, who was not legally punishable, was punished
with merciless severity. Was it possible for the Cavaliers of England, the
sons of the warriors who had fought under Rupert, not to feel bitter sorrow
and indignation when they reflected on the fate of their rightful liege lord,
the heir of a long line of princes, lately enthroned in splendour at Whitehall,
now an exile, a suppliant, a mendicant? His calamities had been greater
than even those of the Blessed Martyr from whom he sprang. The father had
been slain by avowed and mortal foes: the ruin of the son had been the work
of his own children. Surely the punishment, even if deserved, should have
been inflicted by other hands. And was it altogether deserved? Had not the
unhappy man been rather weak and rash than wicked? Had he not some of
the qualities of an excellent prince? His abilities were certainly not of a high
order: but he was diligent: he was thrifty: he had fought bravely: he had
been his own minister for maritime affairs, and had, in that capacity,
acquitted himself respectably: he had, till his spiritual guides obtained a

fatal ascendency over his mind, been regarded as a man of strict justice;
and, to the last, when he was not misled by them, he generally spoke truth
and dealt fairly. With so many virtues he might, if he had been a Protestant,
nay, if he had been a moderate Roman Catholic, have had a prosperous and
glorious reign. Perhaps it might not be too late for him to retrieve his errors.
It was difficult to believe that he could be so dull and perverse as not to
have profited by the terrible discipline which he had recently undergone;
and, if that discipline had produced the effects which might reasonably be
expected from it, England might still enjoy, under her legitimate ruler, a
larger measure of happiness and tranquillity than she could expect from the
administration of the best and ablest usurper.
We should do great injustice to those who held this language, if we
supposed that they had, as a body, ceased to regard Popery and despotism
with abhorrence. Some zealots might indeed be found who could not bear
the thought of imposing conditions on their King, and who were ready to
recall him without the smallest assurance that the Declaration of Indulgence
should not be instantly republished, that the High Commission should not
be instantly revived, that Petre should not be again seated at the Council
Board, and that the fellows of Magdalene should not again be ejected. But
the number of these men was small. On the other hand, the number of those
Royalists, who, if James would have acknowledged his mistakes and
promised to observe the laws, were ready to rally round him, was very
large. It is a remarkable fact that two able and experienced statesmen, who
had borne a chief part in the Revolution, frankly acknowledged, a few days
after the Revolution had been accomplished, their apprehension that a
Restoration was close at hand. "If King James were a Protestant," said
Halifax to Reresby, "we could not keep him out four months." "If King
James," said Danby to the same person about the same time, "would but
give the country some satisfaction about religion, which he might easily do,
it would be very hard to make head against him." 9 Happily for England,
James was, as usual, his own worst enemy. No word indicating that he took
blame to himself on account of the past, or that he intended to govern
constitutionally for the future, could be extracted from him. Every letter,
every rumour, that found its way from Saint Germains to England made
men of sense fear that, if, in his present temper, he should be restored to
power, the second tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the Tories, as
a body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there was, at that

moment, no choice but between William and public ruin. They therefore,
without altogether relinquishing the hope that he who was King by right
might at some future time be disposed to listen to reason, and without
feeling any thing like loyalty towards him who was King in possession,
discontentedly endured the new government.
It may be doubted whether that government was not, during the first
months of its existence, in more danger from the affection of the Whigs
than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can hardly be more
annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting fondness; and such was the
fondness which the Whigs felt for the Sovereign of their choice. They were
loud in his praise. They were ready to support him with purse and sword
against foreign and domestic foes. But their attachment to him was of a
peculiar kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant gentlemen who
fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued Charles the Second
from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by twenty years of
maladministration, was not a sentiment to which the doctrines of Milton
and Sidney were favourable; nor was it a sentiment which a prince, just
raised to power by a rebellion, could hope to inspire. The Whig theory of
government is that kings exist for the people, and not the people for the
kings; that the right of a king is divine in no other sense than that in which
the right of a member of parliament, of a judge, of a juryman, of a mayor, of
a headborough, is divine; that, while the chief magistrate governs according
to law, he ought to be obeyed and reverenced; that, when he violates the
law, he ought to be withstood; and that, when he violates the law grossly,
systematically and pertinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the truth of
these principles depended the justice of William's title to the throne. It is
obvious that the relation between subjects who held these principles, and a
ruler whose accession had been the triumph of these principles, must have
been altogether different from the relation which had subsisted between the
Stuarts and the Cavaliers. The Whigs loved William indeed: but they loved
him not as a King, but as a party leader; and it was not difficult to foresee
that their enthusiasm would cool fast if he should refuse to be the mere
leader of their party, and should attempt to be King of the whole nation.
What they expected from him in return for their devotion to his cause was
that he should be one of themselves, a stanch and ardent Whig; that he
should show favour to none but Whigs; that he should make all the old
grudges of the Whigs his own; and there was but too much reason to

apprehend that, if he disappointed this expectation, the only section of the
community which was zealous in his cause would be estranged from him. 10
Such were the difficulties by which, at the moment of his elevation, he
found himself beset. Where there was a good path he had seldom failed to
choose it. But now he had only a choice among paths every one of which
seemed likely to lead to destruction. From one faction he could hope for no
cordial support. The cordial support of the other faction he could retain only
by becoming himself the most factious man in his kingdom, a Shaftesbury
on the throne. If he persecuted the Tories, their sulkiness would infallibly be
turned into fury. If he showed favour to the Tories, it was by no means
certain that he would gain their goodwill; and it was but too probable that
he might lose his hold on the hearts of the Whigs. Something however he
must do: something he must risk: a Privy Council must be sworn in: all the
great offices, political and judicial, must be filled. It was impossible to
make an arrangement that would please every body, and difficult to make
an arrangement that would please any body; but an arrangement must be
made.
What is now called a ministry he did not think of forming. Indeed what is
now called a ministry was never known in England till he had been some
years on the throne. Under the Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts,
there had been ministers; but there had been no ministry. The servants of the
Crown were not, as now, bound in frankpledge for each other. They were
not expected to be of the same opinion even on questions of the gravest
importance. Often they were politically and personally hostile to each other,
and made no secret of their hostility. It was not yet felt to be inconvenient
or unseemly that they should accuse each other of high crimes, and demand
each other's heads. No man had been more active in the impeachment of the
Lord Chancellor Clarendon than Coventry, who was a Commissioner of the
Treasury. No man had been more active in the impeachment of the Lord
Treasurer Danby than Winnington, who was Solicitor General. Among the
members of the Government there was only one point of union, their
common head, the Sovereign. The nation considered him as the proper chief
of the administration, and blamed him severely if he delegated his high
functions to any subject. Clarendon has told us that nothing was so hateful
to the Englishmen of his time as a Prime Minister. They would rather, he
said, be subject to an usurper like Oliver, who was first magistrate in fact as
well as in name, than to a legitimate King who referred them to a Grand

Vizier. One of the chief accusations which the country party had brought
against Charles the Second was that he was too indolent and too fond of
pleasure to examine with care the balance sheets of public accountants and
the inventories of military stores. James, when he came to the crown, had
determined to appoint no Lord High Admiral or Board of Admiralty, and to
keep the entire direction of maritime affairs in his own hands; and this
arrangement, which would now be thought by men of all parties
unconstitutional and pernicious in the highest degree, was then generally
applauded even by people who were not inclined to see his conduct in a
favourable light. How completely the relation in which the King stood to
his Parliament and to his ministers had been altered by the Revolution was
not at first understood even by the most enlightened statesmen. It was
universally supposed that the government would, as in time past, be
conducted by functionaries independent of each other, and that William
would exercise a general superintendence over them all. It was also fully
expected that a prince of William's capacity and experience would transact
much important business without having recourse to any adviser.
There were therefore no complaints when it was understood that he had
reserved to himself the direction of foreign affairs. This was indeed scarcely
matter of choice: for, with the single exception of Sir William Temple,
whom nothing would induce to quit his retreat for public life, there was no
Englishman who had proved himself capable of conducting an important
negotiation with foreign powers to a successful and honourable issue. Many
years had elapsed since England had interfered with weight and dignity in
the affairs of the great commonwealth of nations. The attention of the ablest
English politicians had long been almost exclusively occupied by disputes
concerning the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of their own country.
The contests about the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Bill, the Habeas
Corpus Act and the Test Act, had produced an abundance, it might almost
be said a glut, of those talents which raise men to eminence in societies torn
by internal factions. All the Continent could not show such skilful and wary
leaders of parties, such dexterous parliamentary tacticians, such ready and
eloquent debaters, as were assembled at Westminister. But a very different
training was necessary to form a great minister for foreign affairs; and the
Revolution had on a sudden placed England in a situation in which the
services of a great minister for foreign affairs were indispensable to her.

William was admirably qualified to supply that in which the most
accomplished statesmen of his kingdom were deficient. He had long been
preeminently distinguished as a negotiator. He was the author and the soul
of the European coalition against the French ascendency. The clue, without
which it was perilous to enter the vast and intricate maze of Continental
politics, was in his hands. His English counsellors, therefore, however able
and active, seldom, during his reign, ventured to meddle with that part of
the public business which he had taken as his peculiar province. 11
The internal government of England could be carried on only by the
advice and agency of English ministers. Those ministers William selected in
such a manner as showed that he was determined not to proscribe any set of
men who were willing to support his throne. On the day after the crown had
been presented to him in the Banqueting House, the Privy Council was
sworn in. Most of the Councillors were Whigs; but the names of several
eminent Tories appeared in the list. 12 The four highest offices in the state
were assigned to four noblemen, the representatives of four classes of
politicians.
In practical ability and official experience Danby had no superior among
his contemporaries. To the gratitude of the new Sovereigns he had a strong
claim; for it was by his dexterity that their marriage had been brought about
in spite of difficulties which had seemed insuperable. The enmity which he
had always borne to France was a scarcely less powerful recommendation.
He had signed the invitation of the thirtieth of June, had excited and
directed the northern insurrection, and had, in the Convention, exerted all
his influence and eloquence in opposition to the scheme of Regency. Yet the
Whigs regarded him with unconquerable distrust and aversion. They could
not forget that he had, in evil days, been the first minister of the state, the
head of the Cavaliers, the champion of prerogative, the persecutor of
dissenters. Even in becoming a rebel, he had not ceased to be a Tory. If he
had drawn the sword against the Crown, he had drawn it only in defence of
the Church. If he had, in the Convention, done good by opposing the
scheme of Regency, he had done harm by obstinately maintaining that the
throne was not vacant, and that the Estates had no right to determine who
should fill it. The Whigs were therefore of opinion that he ought to think
himself amply rewarded for his recent merits by being suffered to escape
the punishment of those offences for which he had been impeached ten
years before. He, on the other hand, estimated his own abilities and

services, which were doubtless considerable, at their full value, and thought
himself entitled to the great place of Lord High Treasurer, which he had
formerly held. But he was disappointed. William, on principle, thought it
desirable to divide the power and patronage of the Treasury among several
Commissioners. He was the first English King who never, from the
beginning to the end of his reign, trusted the white staff in the hands of a
single subject. Danby was offered his choice between the Presidency of the
Council and a Secretaryship of State. He sullenly accepted the Presidency,
and, while the Whigs murmured at seeing him placed so high, hardly
attempted to conceal his anger at not having been placed higher. 13
Halifax, the most illustrious man of that small party which boasted that it
kept the balance even between Whigs and Tories, took charge of the Privy
Seal, and continued to be Speaker of the House of Lords. 14 He had been
foremost in strictly legal opposition to the late Government, and had spoken
and written with great ability against the dispensing power: but he had
refused to know any thing about the design of invasion: he had laboured,
even when the Dutch were in full march towards London, to effect a
reconciliation; and he had never deserted James till James had deserted the
throne. But, from the moment of that shameful flight, the sagacious
Trimmer, convinced that compromise was thenceforth impossible, had
taken a decided part. He had distinguished himself preeminently in the
Convention: nor was it without a peculiar propriety that he had been
appointed to the honourable office of tendering the crown, in the name of
all the Estates of England, to the Prince and Princess of Orange; for our
Revolution, as far as it can be said to bear the character of any single mind,
assuredly bears the character of the large yet cautious mind of Halifax. The
Whigs, however, were not in a temper to accept a recent service as an
atonement for an old offence; and the offence of Halifax had been grave
indeed. He had long before been conspicuous in their front rank during a
hard fight for liberty. When they were at length victorious, when it seemed
that Whitehall was at their mercy, when they had a near prospect of
dominion and revenge, he had changed sides; and fortune had changed
sides with him. In the great debate on the Exclusion Bill, his eloquence had
struck them dumb, and had put new life into the inert and desponding party
of the Court. It was true that, though he had left them in the day of their
insolent prosperity, he had returned to them in the day of their distress. But,

now that their distress was over, they forgot that he had returned to them,
and remembered only that he had left them. 15
The vexation with which they saw Danby presiding in the Council, and
Halifax bearing the Privy Seal, was not diminished by the news that
Nottingham was appointed Secretary of State. Some of those zealous
churchmen who had never ceased to profess the doctrine of nonresistance,
who thought the Revolution unjustifiable, who had voted for a Regency,
and who had to the last maintained that the English throne could never be
one moment vacant, yet conceived it to be their duty to submit to the
decision of the Convention. They had not, they said, rebelled against James.
They had not selected William. But, now that they saw on the throne a
Sovereign whom they never would have placed there, they were of opinion
that no law, divine or human, bound them to carry the contest further. They
thought that they found, both in the Bible and in the Statute Book,
directions which could not be misunderstood. The Bible enjoins obedience
to the powers that be. The Statute Book contains an act providing that no
subject shall be deemed a wrongdoer for adhering to the King in possession.
On these grounds many, who had not concurred in setting up the new
government, believed that they might give it their support without offence
to God or man. One of the most eminent politicians of this school was
Nottingham. At his instance the Convention had, before the throne was
filled, made such changes in the oath of allegiance as enabled him and those
who agreed with him to take that oath without scruple. "My principles," he
said, "do not permit me to bear any part in making a King. But when a King
has been made, my principles bind me to pay him an obedience more strict
than he can expect from those who have made him." He now, to the surprise
of some of those who most esteemed him, consented to sit in the council,
and to accept the seals of Secretary. William doubtless hoped that this
appointment would be considered by the clergy and the Tory country
gentlemen as a sufficient guarantee that no evil was meditated against the
Church. Even Burnet, who at a later period felt a strong antipathy to
Nottingham, owned, in some memoirs written soon after the Revolution,
that the King had judged well, and that the influence of the Tory Secretary,
honestly exerted in support of the new Sovereigns, had saved England from
great calamities. 16
The other Secretary was Shrewsbury. 17 No man so young had within
living memory occupied so high a post in the government. He had but just

completed his twenty-eighth year. Nobody, however, except the solemn
formalists at the Spanish embassy, thought his youth an objection to his
promotion. 18 He had already secured for himself a place in history by the
conspicuous part which he had taken in the deliverance of his country. His
talents, his accomplishments, his graceful manners, his bland temper, made
him generally popular. By the Whigs especially he was almost adored.
None suspected that, with many great and many amiable qualities, he had
such faults both of head and of heart as would make the rest of a life which
had opened under the fairest auspices burdensome to himself and almost
useless to his country.
The naval administration and the financial administration were confided
to Boards. Herbert was First Commissioner of the Admiralty. He had in the
late reign given up wealth and dignities when he found that he could not
retain them with honour and with a good conscience. He had carried the
memorable invitation to the Hague. He had commanded the Dutch fleet
during the voyage from Helvoetsluys to Torbay. His character for courage
and professional skill stood high. That he had had his follies and vices was
well known. But his recent conduct in the time of severe trial had atoned for
all, and seemed to warrant the hope that his future career would be glorious.
Among the commissioners who sate with him at the Admiralty were two
distinguished members of the House of Commons, William Sacheverell, a
veteran Whig, who had great authority in his party, and Sir John Lowther,
an honest and very moderate Tory, who in fortune and parliamentary
interest was among the first of the English gentry. 19
Mordaunt, one of the most vehement of the Whigs, was placed at the
head of the Treasury; why, it is difficult to say. His romantic courage, his
flighty wit, his eccentric invention, his love of desperate risks and startling
effects, were not qualities likely to be of much use to him in financial
calculations and negotiations. Delamere, a more vehement Whig, if
possible, than Mordaunt, sate second at the board, and was Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Two Whig members of the House of Commons were in the
Commission, Sir Henry Capel, brother of that Earl of Essex who died by his
own hand in the Tower, and Richard Hampden, son of the great leader of
the Long Parliament. But the Commissioner on whom the chief weight of
business lay was Godolphin. This man, taciturn, clearminded, laborious,
inoffensive, zealous for no government and useful to every government, had
gradually become an almost indispensable part of the machinery of the

state. Though a churchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by
Jesuits. Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head of a
treasury filled with Whigs. His abilities and knowledge, which had in the
late reign supplied the deficiencies of Bellasyse and Dover, were now
needed to supply the deficiencies of Mordaunt and Delamere. 20
There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The King at
first wished to confide it to Nottingham, whose father had borne it during
several years with high reputation. 21 Nottingham, however, declined the
trust; and it was offered to Halifax, but was again declined. Both these
Lords doubtless felt that it was a trust which they could not discharge with
honour to themselves or with advantage to the public. In old times, indeed,
the Seal had been generally held by persons who were not lawyers. Even in
the seventeenth century it had been confided to two eminent men, who had
never studied at any Inn of Court. Dean Williams had been Lord Keeper to
James the First. Shaftesbury had been Lord Chancellor to Charles the
Second. But such appointments could no longer be made without serious
inconvenience. Equity had been gradually shaping itself into a refined
science, which no human faculties could master without long and intense
application. Even Shaftesbury, vigorous as was his intellect, had painfully
felt his want of technical knowledge; 22 and, during the fifteen years which
had elapsed since Shaftesbury had resigned the Seal, technical knowledge
had constantly been becoming more and more necessary to his successors.
Neither Nottingham therefore, though he had a stock of legal learning such
as is rarely found in any person who has not received a legal education, nor
Halifax, though, in the judicial sittings of the House of Lords, the quickness
of his apprehension and the subtlety of his reasoning had often astonished
the bar, ventured to accept the highest office which an English layman can
fill. After some delay the Seal was confided to a commission of eminent
lawyers, with Maynard at their head. 23
The choice of judges did honour to the new government. Every Privy
Councillor was directed to bring a list. The lists were compared; and twelve
men of conspicuous merit were selected. 24 The professional attainments
and Whig principles of Pollexfen gave him pretensions to the highest place.
But it was remembered that he had held briefs for the Crown, in the Western
counties, at the assizes which followed the battle of Sedgemoor. It seems
indeed from the reports of the trials that he did as little as he could do if he
held the briefs at all, and that he left to the Judges the business of

browbeating witnesses and prisoners. Nevertheless his name was
inseparably associated in the public mind with the Bloody Circuit. He,
therefore, could not with propriety be put at the head of the first criminal
court in the realm. 25 After acting during a few weeks as Attorney General,
he was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. Sir John Holt, a young
man, but distinguished by learning, integrity, and courage, became Chief
Justice of the King's Bench. Sir Robert Atkyns, an eminent lawyer, who had
passed some years in rural retirement, but whose reputation was still great
in Westminster Hall, was appointed Chief Baron. Powell, who had been
disgraced on account of his honest declaration in favour of the Bishops,
again took his seat among the judges. Treby succeeded Pollexfen as
Attorney General; and Somers was made Solicitor. 26
Two of the chief places in the Royal household were filled by two
English noblemen eminently qualified to adorn a court. The high spirited
and accomplished Devonshire was named Lord Steward. No man had done
more or risked more for England during the crisis of her fate. In retrieving
her liberties he had retrieved also the fortunes of his own house. His bond
for thirty thousand pounds was found among the papers which James had
left at Whitehall, and was cancelled by William. 27
Dorset became Lord Chamberlain, and employed the influence and
patronage annexed to his functions, as he had long employed his private
means, in encouraging genius and in alleviating misfortune. One of the first
acts which he was under the necessity of performing must have been
painful to a man of so generous a nature, and of so keen a relish for
whatever was excellent in arts and letters. Dryden could no longer remain
Poet Laureate. The public would not have borne to see any Papist among
the servants of their Majesties; and Dryden was not only a Papist, but an
apostate. He had moreover aggravated the guilt of his apostasy by
calumniating and ridiculing the Church which he had deserted. He had, it
was facetiously said, treated her as the Pagan persecutors of old treated her
children. He had dressed her up in the skin of a wild beast, and then baited
her for the public amusement. 28 He was removed; but he received from the
private bounty of the magnificent Chamberlain a pension equal to the salary
which had been withdrawn. The deposed Laureate, however, as poor of
spirit as rich in intellectual gifts, continued to complain piteously, year after
year, of the losses which he had not suffered, till at length his wailings drew
forth expressions of well merited contempt from brave and honest

Jacobites, who had sacrificed every thing to their principles without
deigning to utter one word of deprecation or lamentation. 29
In the Royal household were placed some of those Dutch nobles who
stood highest in the favour of the King. Bentinck had the great office of
Groom of the Stole, with a salary of five thousand pounds a year. Zulestein
took charge of the robes. The Master of the Horse was Auverquerque, a
gallant soldier, who united the blood of Nassau to the blood of Horn, and
who wore with just pride a costly sword presented to him by the States
General in acknowledgment of the courage with which he had, on the
bloody day of Saint Dennis, saved the life of William.
The place of Vice Chamberlain to the Queen was given to a man who had
just become conspicuous in public life, and whose name will frequently
recur in the history of this reign. John Howe, or, as he was more commonly
called, Jack Howe, had been sent up to the Convention by the borough of
Cirencester. His appearance was that of a man whose body was worn by the
constant workings of a restless and acrid mind. He was tall, lean, pale, with
a haggard eager look, expressive at once of flightiness and of shrewdness.
He had been known, during several years, as a small poet; and some of the
most savage lampoons which were handed about the coffeehouses were
imputed to him. But it was in the House of Commons that both his parts and
his illnature were most signally displayed. Before he had been a member
three weeks, his volubility, his asperity, and his pertinacity had made him
conspicuous. Quickness, energy, and audacity, united, soon raised him to
the rank of a privileged man. His enemies, and he had many enemies, said
that he consulted his personal safety even in his most petulant moods, and
that he treated soldiers with a civility which he never showed to ladies or to
Bishops. But no man had in larger measure that evil courage which braves
and even courts disgust and hatred. No decencies restrained him: his spite
was implacable: his skill in finding out the vulnerable parts of strong minds
was consummate. All his great contemporaries felt his sting in their turns.
Once it inflicted a wound which deranged even the stern composure of
William, and constrained him to utter a wish that he were a private
gentleman, and could invite Mr. Howe to a short interview behind
Montague House. As yet, however, Howe was reckoned among the most
strenuous supporters of the new government, and directed all his sarcasms
and invectives against the malcontents. 30

The subordinate places in every public office were divided between the
two parties: but the Whigs had the larger share. Some persons, indeed, who
did little honour to the Whig name, were largely recompensed for services
which no good man would have performed. Wildman was made Postmaster
General. A lucrative sinecure in the Excise was bestowed on Ferguson. The
duties of the Solicitor of the Treasury were both very important and very
invidious. It was the business of that officer to conduct political
prosecutions, to collect the evidence, to instruct the counsel for the Crown,
to see that the prisoners were not liberated on insufficient bail, to see that
the juries were not composed of persons hostile to the government. In the
days of Charles and James, the Solicitors of the Treasury had been with too
much reason accused of employing all the vilest artifices of chicanery
against men obnoxious to the Court. The new government ought to have
made a choice which was above all suspicion. Unfortunately Mordaunt and
Delamere pitched upon Aaron Smith, an acrimonious and unprincipled
politician, who had been the legal adviser of Titus Oates in the days of the
Popish Plot, and who had been deeply implicated in the Rye House Plot.
Richard Hampden, a man of decided opinions but of moderate temper,
objected to this appointment. His objections however were overruled. The
Jacobites, who hated Smith and had reason to hate him, affirmed that he had
obtained his place by bullying the Lords of the Treasury, and particularly by
threatening that, if his just claims were disregarded, he would be the death
of Hampden. 31
Some weeks elapsed before all the arrangements which have been
mentioned were publicly announced: and meanwhile many important
events had taken place. As soon as the new Privy Councillors had been
sworn in, it was necessary to submit to them a grave and pressing question.
Could the Convention now assembled be turned into a Parliament? The
Whigs, who had a decided majority in the Lower House, were all for the
affirmative. The Tories, who knew that, within the last month, the public
feeling had undergone a considerable change, and who hoped that a general
election would add to their strength, were for the negative. They maintained
that to the existence of a Parliament royal writs were indispensably
necessary. The Convention had not been summoned by such writs: the
original defect could not now be supplied: the Houses were therefore mere
clubs of private men, and ought instantly to disperse.

It was answered that the royal writ was mere matter of form, and that to
expose the substance of our laws and liberties to serious hazard for the sake
of a form would be the most senseless superstition. Wherever the
Sovereign, the Peers spiritual and temporal, and the Representatives freely
chosen by the constituent bodies of the realm were met together, there was
the essence of a Parliament. Such a Parliament was now in being; and what
could be more absurd than to dissolve it at a conjuncture when every hour
was precious, when numerous important subjects required immediate
legislation, and when dangers, only to be averted by the combined efforts of
King, Lords, and Commons, menaced the State? A Jacobite indeed might
consistently refuse to recognise the Convention as a Parliament. For he held
that it had from the beginning been an unlawful assembly, that all its
resolutions were nullities, and that the Sovereigns whom it had set up were
usurpers. But with what consistency could any man, who maintained that a
new Parliament ought to be immediately called by writs under the great seal
of William and Mary, question the authority which had placed William and
Mary on the throne? Those who held that William was rightful King must
necessarily hold that the body from which he derived his right was itself a
rightful Great Council of the Realm. Those who, though not holding him to
be rightful King, conceived that they might lawfully swear allegiance to
him as King in fact, might surely, on the same principle, acknowledge the
Convention as a Parliament in fact. It was plain that the Convention was the
fountainhead from which the authority of all future Parliaments must be
derived, and that on the validity of the votes of the Convention must depend
the validity of every future statute. And how could the stream rise higher
than the source? Was it not absurd to say that the Convention was supreme
in the state, and yet a nullity; a legislature for the highest of all purposes,
and yet no legislature for the humblest purposes; competent to declare the
throne vacant, to change the succession, to fix the landmarks of the
constitution, and yet not competent to pass the most trivial Act for the
repairing of a pier or the building of a parish church?
These arguments would have had considerable weight, even if every
precedent had been on the other side. But in truth our history afforded only
one precedent which was at all in point; and that precedent was decisive in
favour of the doctrine that royal writs are not indispensably necessary to the
existence of a Parliament. No royal writ had summoned the Convention
which recalled Charles the Second. Yet that Convention had, after his

Restoration, continued to sit and to legislate, had settled the revenue, had
passed an Act of amnesty, had abolished the feudal tenures. These
proceedings had been sanctioned by authority of which no party in the state
could speak without reverence. Hale had borne a considerable share in
them, and had always maintained that they were strictly legal. Clarendon,
little as he was inclined to favour any doctrine derogatory to the rights of
the Crown, or to the dignity of that seal of which he was keeper, had
declared that, since God had, at a most critical conjuncture, given the nation
a good Parliament, it would be the height of folly to look for technical flaws
in the instrument by which that Parliament was called together. Would it be
pretended by any Tory that the Convention of 1660 had a more respectable
origin than the Convention of 1689? Was not a letter written by the first
Prince of the Blood, at the request of the whole peerage, and of hundreds of
gentlemen who had represented counties and towns, at least as good a
warrant as a vote of the Rump?
Weaker reasons than these would have satisfied the Whigs who formed
the majority of the Privy Council. The King therefore, on the fifth day after
he had been proclaimed, went with royal state to the House of Lords, and
took his seat on the throne. The Commons were called in; and he, with
many gracious expressions, reminded his hearers of the perilous situation of
the country, and exhorted them to take such steps as might prevent
unnecessary delay in the transaction of public business. His speech was
received by the gentlemen who crowded the bar with the deep hum by
which our ancestors were wont to indicate approbation, and which was
often heard in places more sacred than the Chamber of the Peers. 32 As soon
as he had retired, a Bill declaring the Convention a Parliament was laid on
the table of the Lords, and rapidly passed by them. In the Commons the
debates were warm. The House resolved itself into a Committee; and so
great was the excitement that, when the authority of the Speaker was
withdrawn, it was hardly possible to preserve order. Sharp personalities
were exchanged. The phrase, "hear him," a phrase which had originally
been used only to silence irregular noises, and to remind members of the
duty of attending to the discussion, had, during some years, been gradually
becoming what it now is; that is to say, a cry indicative, according to the
tone, of admiration, acquiescence, indignation, or derision. On this
occasion, the Whigs vociferated "Hear, hear," so tumultuously that the
Tories complained of unfair usage. Seymour, the leader of the minority,

declared that there could be no freedom of debate while such clamour was
tolerated. Some old Whig members were provoked into reminding him that
the same clamour had occasionally been heard when he presided, and had
not then been repressed. Yet, eager and angry as both sides were, the
speeches on both sides indicated that profound reverence for law and
prescription which has long been characteristic of Englishmen, and which,
though it runs sometimes into pedantry and sometimes into superstition, is
not without its advantages. Even at that momentous crisis, when the nation
was still in the ferment of a revolution, our public men talked long and
seriously about all the circumstances of the deposition of Edward the
Second and of the deposition of Richard the Second, and anxiously inquired
whether the assembly which, with Archbishop Lanfranc at its head, set
aside Robert of Normandy, and put William Rufus on the throne, did or did
not afterwards continue to act as the legislature of the realm. Much was said
about the history of writs; much about the etymology of the word
Parliament. It is remarkable, that the orator who took the most
statesmanlike view of the subject was old Maynard. In the civil conflicts of
fifty eventful years he had learned that questions affecting the highest
interests of the commonwealth were not to be decided by verbal cavils and
by scraps of Law French and Law Latin; and, being by universal
acknowledgment the most subtle and the most learned of English jurists, he
could express what he felt without the risk of being accused of ignorance
and presumption. He scornfully thrust aside as frivolous and out of place all
that blackletter learning, which some men, far less versed in such matters
than himself, had introduced into the discussion. "We are," he said, "at this
moment out of the beaten path. If therefore we are determined to move only
in that path, we cannot move at all. A man in a revolution resolving to do
nothing which is not strictly according to established form resembles a man
who has lost himself in the wilderness, and who stands crying 'Where is the
king's highway? I will walk nowhere but on the king's highway.' In a
wilderness a man should take the track which will carry him home. In a
revolution we must have recourse to the highest law, the safety of the state."
Another veteran Roundhead, Colonel Birch, took the same side, and argued
with great force and keenness from the precedent of 1660. Seymour and his
supporters were beaten in the Committee, and did not venture to divide the
House on the Report. The Bill passed rapidly, and received the royal assent
on the tenth day after the accession of William and Mary. 33

The law which turned the Convention into a Parliament contained a
clause providing that no person should, after the first of March, sit or vote
in either House without taking the oaths to the new King and Queen. This
enactment produced great agitation throughout society. The adherents of the
exiled dynasty hoped and confidently predicted that the recusants would be
numerous. The minority in both Houses, it was said, would be true to the
cause of hereditary monarchy. There might be here and there a traitor; but
the great body of those who had voted for a Regency would be firm. Only
two Bishops at most would recognise the usurpers. Seymour would retire
from public life rather than abjure his principles. Grafton had determined to
fly to France and to throw himself at the feet of his uncle. With such
rumours as these all the coffeehouses of London were filled during the latter
part of February. So intense was the public anxiety that, if any man of rank
was missed, two days running, at his usual haunts, it was immediately
whispered that he had stolen away to Saint Germains. 34
The second of March arrived; and the event quieted the fears of one
party, and confounded the hopes of the other. The Primate indeed and
several of his suffragans stood obstinately aloof: but three Bishops and
seventy-three temporal peers took the oaths. At the next meeting of the
Upper House several more prelates came in. Within a week about a hundred
Lords had qualified themselves to sit. Others, who were prevented by
illness from appearing, sent excuses and professions of attachment to their
Majesties. Grafton refuted all the stories which had been circulated about
him by coming to be sworn on the first day. Two members of the
Ecclesiastical Commission, Mulgrave and Sprat, hastened to make
atonement for their fault by plighting their faith to William. Beaufort, who
had long been considered as the type of a royalist of the old school,
submitted after a very short hesitation. Aylesbury and Dartmouth, though
vehement Jacobites, had as little scruple about taking the oath of allegiance
as they afterwards had about breaking it. 35 The Hydes took different paths.
Rochester complied with the law; but Clarendon proved refractory. Many
thought it strange that the brother who had adhered to James till James
absconded should be less sturdy than the brother who had been in the Dutch
camp. The explanation perhaps is that Rochester would have sacrificed
much more than Clarendon by refusing to take the oaths. Clarendon's
income did not depend on the pleasure of the Government but Rochester
had a pension of four thousand a year, which he could not hope to retain if

he refused to acknowledge the new Sovereigns. Indeed, he had so many
enemies that, during some months, it seemed doubtful whether he would,
on any terms, be suffered to retain the splendid reward which he had earned
by persecuting the Whigs and by sitting in the High Commission. He was
saved from what would have been a fatal blow to his fortunes by the
intercession of Burnet, who had been deeply injured by him, and who
revenged himself as became a Christian divine. 36
In the Lower House four hundred members were sworn in on the second
of March; and among them was Seymour. The spirit of the Jacobites was
broken by his defection; and the minority with very few exceptions
followed his example. 37
Before the day fixed for the taking of the oaths, the Commons had begun
to discuss a momentous question which admitted of no delay. During the
interregnum, William had, as provisional chief of the administration,
collected the taxes and applied them to the public service; nor could the
propriety of this course be questioned by any person who approved of the
Revolution. But the Revolution was now over: the vacancy of the throne
had been supplied: the Houses were sitting: the law was in full force; and it
became necessary immediately to decide to what revenue the Government
was entitled.
Nobody denied that all the lands and hereditaments of the Crown had
passed with the Crown to the new Sovereigns. Nobody denied that all duties
which had been granted to the Crown for a fixed term of years might be
constitutionally exacted till that term should expire. But large revenues had
been settled by Parliament on James for life; and whether what had been
settled on James for life could, while he lived, be claimed by William and
Mary, was a question about which opinions were divided.
Holt, Treby, Pollexfen, indeed all the eminent Whig lawyers, Somers
excepted, held that these revenues had been granted to the late King, in his
political capacity, but for his natural life, and ought therefore, as long as he
continued to drag on his existence in a strange land, to be paid to William
and Mary. It appears from a very concise and unconnected report of the
debate that Somers dissented from this doctrine. His opinion was that, if the
Act of Parliament which had imposed the duties in question was to be
construed according to the spirit, the word life must be understood to mean
reign, and that therefore the term for which the grant had been made had

expired. This was surely the sound opinion: for it was plainly irrational to
treat the interest of James in this grant as at once a thing annexed to his
person and a thing annexed to his office; to say in one breath that the
merchants of London and Bristol must pay money because he was naturally
alive, and that his successors must receive that money because he was
politically defunct. The House was decidedly with Somers. The members
generally were bent on effecting a great reform, without which it was felt
that the Declaration of Rights would be but an imperfect guarantee for
public liberty. During the conflict which fifteen successive Parliaments had
maintained against four successive Kings, the chief weapon of the
Commons had been the power of the purse; and never had the
representatives of the people been induced to surrender that weapon without
having speedy cause to repent of their too credulous loyalty. In that season
of tumultuous joy which followed the Restoration, a large revenue for life
had been almost by acclamation granted to Charles the Second. A few
months later there was scarcely a respectable Cavalier in the kingdom who
did not own that the stewards of the nation would have acted more wisely if
they had kept in their hands the means of checking the abuses which
disgraced every department of the government. James the Second had
obtained from his submissive Parliament, without a dissentient voice, an
income sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of the state during his life;
and, before he had enjoyed that income half a year, the great majority of
those who had dealt thus liberally with him blamed themselves severely for
their liberality. If experience was to be trusted, a long and painful
experience, there could be no effectual security against maladministration,
unless the Sovereign were under the necessity of recurring frequently to his
Great Council for pecuniary aid. Almost all honest and enlightened men
were therefore agreed in thinking that a part at least of the supplies ought to
be granted only for short terms. And what time could be fitter for the
introduction of this new practice than the year 1689, the commencement of
a new reign, of a new dynasty, of a new era of constitutional government?
The feeling on this subject was so strong and general that the dissentient
minority gave way. No formal resolution was passed; but the House
proceeded to act on the supposition that the grants which had been made to
James for life had been annulled by his abdication. 38
It was impossible to make a new settlement of the revenue without
inquiry and deliberation. The Exchequer was ordered to furnish such returns

as might enable the House to form estimates of the public expenditure and
income. In the meantime, liberal provision was made for the immediate
exigencies of the state. An extraordinary aid, to be raised by direct monthly
assessment, was voted to the King. An Act was passed indemnifying all
who had, since his landing, collected by his authority the duties settled on
James; and those duties which had expired were continued for some
months.
Along William's whole line of march, from Torbay to London, he had
been importuned by the common people to relieve them from the
intolerable burden of the hearth money. In truth, that tax seems to have
united all the worst evils which can be imputed to any tax. It was unequal,
and unequal in the most pernicious way: for it pressed heavily on the poor,
and lightly on the rich. A peasant, all whose property was not worth twenty
pounds, was charged ten shillings. The Duke of Ormond, or the Duke of
Newcastle, whose estates were worth half a million, paid only four or five
pounds. The collectors were empowered to examine the interior of every
house in the realm, to disturb families at meals, to force the doors of
bedrooms, and, if the sum demanded were not punctually paid, to sell the
trencher on which the barley loaf was divided among the poor children, and
the pillow from under the head of the lying-in woman. Nor could the
Treasury effectually restrain the chimneyman from using his powers with
harshness: for the tax was farmed; and the government was consequently
forced to connive at outrages and exactions such as have, in every age made
the name of publican a proverb for all that is most hateful.
William had been so much moved by what he had heard of these
grievances that, at one of the earliest sittings of the Privy Council, he
introduced the subject. He sent a message requesting the House of
Commons to consider whether better regulations would effectually prevent
the abuses which had excited so much discontent. He added that he would
willingly consent to the entire abolition of the tax if it should appear that the
tax and the abuses were inseparable. 39 This communication was received
with loud applause. There were indeed some financiers of the old school
who muttered that tenderness for the poor was a fine thing; but that no part
of the revenue of the state came in so exactly to the day as the hearth
money; that the goldsmiths of the City could not always be induced to lend
on the security of the next quarter's customs or excise, but that on an
assignment of hearth money there was no difficulty in obtaining advances.

In the House of Commons, those who thought thus did not venture to raise
their voices in opposition to the general feeling. But in the Lords there was
a conflict of which the event for a time seemed doubtful. At length the
influence of the Court, strenuously exerted, carried an Act by which the
chimney tax was declared a badge of slavery, and was, with many
expressions of gratitude to the King, abolished for ever. 40
The Commons granted, with little dispute, and without a division, six
hundred thousand pounds for the purpose of repaying to the United
Provinces the charges of the expedition which had delivered England. The
facility with which this large sum was voted to a shrewd, diligent and thrifty
people, our allies, indeed, politically, but commercially our most formidable
rivals, excited some murmurs out of doors, and was, during many years, a
favourite subject of sarcasm with Tory pamphleteers. 41 The liberality of the
House admits however of an easy explanation. On the very day on which
the subject was under consideration, alarming news arrived at Westminster,
and convinced many, who would at another time have been disposed to
scrutinise severely any account sent in by the Dutch, that our country could
not yet dispense with the services of the foreign troops.
France had declared war against the States General; and the States
General had consequently demanded from the King of England those
succours which he was bound by the treaty of Nimeguen to furnish. 42 He
had ordered some battalions to march to Harwich, that they might be in
readiness to cross to the Continent. The old soldiers of James were
generally in a very bad temper; and this order did not produce a soothing
effect. The discontent was greatest in the regiment which now ranks as first
of the line. Though borne on the English establishment, that regiment, from
the time when it first fought under the great Gustavus, had been almost
exclusively composed of Scotchmen; and Scotchmen have never, in any
region to which their adventurous and aspiring temper has led them, failed
to note and to resent every slight offered to Scotland. Officers and men
muttered that a vote of a foreign assembly was nothing to them. If they
could be absolved from their allegiance to King James the Seventh, it must
be by the Estates at Edinburgh, and not by the Convention at Westminster.
Their ill humour increased when they heard that Schomberg had been
appointed their colonel. They ought perhaps to have thought it an honour to
be called by the name of the greatest soldier in Europe. But, brave and
skilful as he was, he was not their countryman: and their regiment, during

the fifty-six years which had elapsed since it gained its first honourable
distinctions in Germany, had never been commanded but by a Hepburn or a
Douglas. While they were in this angry and punctilious mood, they were
ordered to join the forces which were assembling at Harwich. There was
much murmuring; but there was no outbreak till the regiment arrived at
Ipswich. There the signal of revolt was given by two captains who were
zealous for the exiled King. The market place was soon filled with pikemen
and musketeers running to and fro. Gunshots were wildly fired in all
directions. Those officers who attempted to restrain the rioters were
overpowered and disarmed. At length the chiefs of the insurrection
established some order, and marched out of Ipswich at the head of their
adherents. The little army consisted of about eight hundred men. They had
seized four pieces of cannon, and had taken possession of the military chest,
which contained a considerable sum of money. At the distance of half a
mile from the town a halt was called: a general consultation was held; and
the mutineers resolved that they would hasten back to their native country,
and would live and die with their rightful King. They instantly proceeded
northward by forced marches. 43
When the news reached London the dismay was great. It was rumoured
that alarming symptoms had appeared in other regiments, and particularly
that a body of fusileers which lay at Harwich was likely to imitate the
example set at Ipswich. "If these Scots," said Halifax to Reresby, "are
unsupported, they are lost. But if they have acted in concert with others, the
danger is serious indeed." 44 The truth seems to be that there was a
conspiracy which had ramifications in many parts of the army, but that the
conspirators were awed by the firmness of the government and of the
Parliament. A committee of the Privy Council was sitting when the tidings
of the mutiny arrived in London. William Harbord, who represented the
borough of Launceston, was at the board. His colleagues entreated him to
go down instantly to the House of Commons, and to relate what had
happened. He went, rose in his place, and told his story. The spirit of the
assembly rose to the occasion. Howe was the first to call for vigorous
action. "Address the King," he said, "to send his Dutch troops after these
men. I know not who else can be trusted." "This is no jesting matter," said
old Birch, who had been a colonel in the service of the Parliament, and had
seen the most powerful and renowned House of Commons that ever sate
twice purged and twice expelled by its own soldiers; "if you let this evil

spread, you will have an army upon you in a few days. Address the King to
send horse and foot instantly, his own men, men whom he can trust, and to
put these people down at once." The men of the long robe caught the flame.
"It is not the learning of my profession that is needed here," said Treby.
"What is now to be done is to meet force with force, and to maintain in the
field what we have done in the senate." "Write to the Sheriffs," said Colonel
Mildmay, member for Essex. "Raise the militia. There are a hundred and
fifty thousand of them: they are good Englishmen: they will not fail you." It
was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions in the
army should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance, in order that they
might repair instantly to their military posts. An address was unanimously
voted requesting the King to take effectual steps for the suppression of the
rebellion, and to put forth a proclamation denouncing public vengeance on
the rebels. One gentleman hinted that it might be well to advise his Majesty
to offer a pardon to those who should peaceably submit: but the House
wisely rejected the suggestion. "This is no time," it was well said, "for any
thing that looks like fear." The address was instantly sent up to the Lords.
The Lords concurred in it. Two peers, two knights of shires, and two
burgesses were sent with it to Court. William received them graciously, and
informed them that he had already given the necessary orders. In fact,
several regiments of horse and dragoons had been sent northward under the
command of Ginkell, one of the bravest and ablest officers of the Dutch
army. 45
Meanwhile the mutineers were hastening across the country which lies
between Cambridge and the Wash. Their road lay through a vast and
desolate fen, saturated with all the moisture of thirteen counties, and
overhung during the greater part of the year by a low grey mist, high above
which rose, visible many miles, the magnificent tower of Ely. In that dreary
region, covered by vast flights of wild fowl, a half savage population,
known by the name of the Breedlings, then led an amphibious life,
sometimes wading, and sometimes rowing, from one islet of firm ground to
another. 46 The roads were amongst the worst in the island, and, as soon as
rumour announced the approach of the rebels, were studiously made worse
by the country people. Bridges were broken down. Trees were laid across
the highways to obstruct the progress of the cannon. Nevertheless the
Scotch veterans not only pushed forward with great speed, but succeeded in
carrying their artillery with them. They entered Lincolnshire, and were not

far from Sleaford, when they learned that Ginkell with an irresistible force
was close on their track. Victory and escape were equally out of the
question. The bravest warriors could not contend against fourfold odds. The
most active infantry could not outrun horsemen. Yet the leaders, probably
despairing of pardon, urged the men to try the chance of battle. In that
region, a spot almost surrounded by swamps and pools was without
difficulty found. Here the insurgents were drawn up; and the cannon were
planted at the only point which was thought not to be sufficiently protected
by natural defences. Ginkell ordered the attack to be made at a place which
was out of the range of the guns; and his dragoons dashed gallantly into the
water, though it was so deep that their horses were forced to swim. Then the
mutineers lost heart. They beat a parley, surrendered at discretion, and were
brought up to London under a strong guard. Their lives were forfeit: for
they had been guilty, not merely of mutiny, which was then not a legal
crime, but of levying war against the King. William, however, with politic
clemency, abstained from shedding the blood even of the most culpable. A
few of the ringleaders were brought to trial at the next Bury assizes, and
were convicted of high treason; but their lives were spared. The rest were
merely ordered to return to their duty. The regiment, lately so refractory,
went submissively to the Continent, and there, through many hard
campaigns, distinguished itself by fidelity, by discipline, and by valour. 47
This event facilitated an important change in our polity, a change which,
it is true, could not have been long delayed, but which would not have been
easily accomplished except at a moment of extreme danger. The time had at
length arrived at which it was necessary to make a legal distinction between
the soldier and the citizen. Under the Plantagenets and the Tudors there had
been no standing army. The standing army which had existed under the last
kings of the House of Stuart had been regarded by every party in the state
with strong and not unreasonable aversion. The common law gave the
Sovereign no power to control his troops. The Parliament, regarding them
as mere tools of tyranny, had not been disposed to give such power by
statute. James indeed had induced his corrupt and servile judges to put on
some obsolete laws a construction which enabled him to punish desertion
capitally. But this construction was considered by all respectable jurists as
unsound, and, had it been sound, would have been far from effecting all that
was necessary for the purpose of maintaining military discipline. Even
James did not venture to inflict death by sentence of a court martial. The

deserter was treated as an ordinary felon, was tried at the assizes by a petty
jury on a bill found by a grand jury, and was at liberty to avail himself of
any technical flaw which might be discovered in the indictment.
The Revolution, by altering the relative position of the prince and the
parliament, had altered also the relative position of the army and the nation.
The King and the Commons were now at unity; and both were alike
menaced by the greatest military power which had existed in Europe since
the downfall of the Roman empire. In a few weeks thirty thousand veterans,
accustomed to conquer, and led by able and experienced captains, might
cross from the ports of Normandy and Brittany to our shores. That such a
force would with little difficulty scatter three times that number of militia,
no man well acquainted with war could doubt. There must then be regular
soldiers; and, if there were to be regular soldiers, it must be indispensable,
both to their efficiency, and to the security of every other class, that they
should be kept under a strict discipline. An ill disciplined army has ever
been a more costly and a more licentious militia, impotent against a foreign
enemy, and formidable only to the country which it is paid to defend. A
strong line of demarcation must therefore be drawn between the soldiers
and the rest of the community. For the sake of public freedom, they must, in
the midst of freedom, be placed under a despotic rule. They must be subject
to a sharper penal code, and to a more stringent code of procedure, than are
administered by the ordinary tribunals. Some acts which in the citizen are
innocent must in the soldier be crimes. Some acts which in the citizen are
punished with fine or imprisonment must in the soldier be punished with
death. The machinery by which courts of law ascertain the guilt or
innocence of an accused citizen is too slow and too intricate to be applied to
an accused soldier. For, of all the maladies incident to the body politic,
military insubordination is that which requires the most prompt and drastic
remedies. If the evil be not stopped as soon as it appears, it is certain to
spread; and it cannot spread far without danger to the very vitals of the
commonwealth. For the general safety, therefore, a summary jurisdiction of
terrible extent must, in camps, be entrusted to rude tribunals composed of
men of the sword.
But, though it was certain that the country could not at that moment be
secure without professional soldiers, and equally certain that professional
soldiers must be worse than useless unless they were placed under a rule
more arbitrary and severe than that to which other men were subject, it was

not without great misgivings that a House of Commons could venture to
recognise the existence and to make provision for the government of a
standing army. There was scarcely a public man of note who had not often
avowed his conviction that our polity and a standing army could not exist
together. The Whigs had been in the constant habit of repeating that
standing armies had destroyed the free institutions of the neighbouring
nations. The Tories had repeated as constantly that, in our own island, a
standing army had subverted the Church, oppressed the gentry, and
murdered the King. No leader of either party could, without laying himself
open to the charge of gross inconsistency, propose that such an army should
henceforth be one of the permanent establishments of the realm. The mutiny
at Ipswich, and the panic which that mutiny produced, made it easy to effect
what would otherwise have been in the highest degree difficult. A short bill
was brought in which began by declaring, in explicit terms, that standing
armies and courts martial were unknown to the law of England. It was then
enacted that, on account of the extreme perils impending at that moment
over the state, no man mustered on pay in the service of the crown should,
on pain of death, or of such lighter punishment as a court martial should
deem sufficient, desert his colours or mutiny against his commanding
officers. This statute was to be in force only six months; and many of those
who voted for it probably believed that it would, at the close of that period,
be suffered to expire. The bill passed rapidly and easily. Not a single
division was taken upon it in the House of Commons. A mitigating clause
indeed, which illustrates somewhat curiously the manners of that age, was
added by way of rider after the third reading. This clause provided that no
court martial should pass sentence of death except between the hours of six
in the morning and one in the afternoon. The dinner hour was then early;
and it was but too probable that a gentleman who had dined would be in a
state in which he could not safely be trusted with the lives of his fellow
creatures. With this amendment, the first and most concise of our many
Mutiny Bills was sent up to the Lords, and was, in a few hours, hurried by
them through all its stages and passed by the King. 48
Thus was made, without one dissentient voice in Parliament, without one
murmur in the nation, the first step towards a change which had become
necessary to the safety of the state, yet which every party in the state then
regarded with extreme dread and aversion. Six months passed; and still the
public danger continued. The power necessary to the maintenance of

military discipline was a second time entrusted to the crown for a short
term. The trust again expired, and was again renewed. By slow degrees
familiarity reconciled the public mind to the names, once so odious, of
standing army and court martial. It was proved by experience that, in a well
constituted society, professional soldiers may be terrible to a foreign enemy,
and yet submissive to the civil power. What had been at first tolerated as the
exception began to be considered as the rule. Not a session passed without a
Mutiny Bill. When at length it became evident that a political change of the
highest importance was taking place in such a manner as almost to escape
notice, a clamour was raised by some factious men desirous to weaken the
hands of the government, and by some respectable men who felt an honest
but injudicious reverence for every old constitutional tradition, and who
were unable to understand that what at one stage in the progress of society
is pernicious may at another stage be indispensable. This clamour however,
as years rolled on, became fainter and fainter. The debate which recurred
every spring on the Mutiny Bill came to be regarded merely as an occasion
on which hopeful young orators fresh from Christchurch were to deliver
maiden speeches, setting forth how the guards of Pisistratus seized the
citadel of Athens, and how the Praetorian cohorts sold the Roman empire to
Didius. At length these declamations became too ridiculous to be repeated.
The most oldfashioned, the most eccentric, politician could hardly, in the
reign of George the Third, contend that there ought to be no regular
soldiers, or that the ordinary law, administered by the ordinary courts,
would effectually maintain discipline among such soldiers. All parties being
agreed as to the general principle, a long succession of Mutiny Bills passed
without any discussion, except when some particular article of the military
code appeared to require amendment. It is perhaps because the army
became thus gradually, and almost imperceptibly, one of the institutions of
England, that it has acted in such perfect harmony with all her other
institutions, has never once, during a hundred and sixty years, been untrue
to the throne or disobedient to the law, has never once defied the tribunals
or overawed the constituent bodies. To this day, however, the Estates of the
Realm continue to set up periodically, with laudable jealousy, a landmark
on the frontier which was traced at the time of the Revolution. They
solemnly reassert every year the doctrine laid down in the Declaration of
Rights; and they then grant to the Sovereign an extraordinary power to

govern a certain number of soldiers according to certain rules during twelve
months more.
In the same week in which the first Mutiny Bill was laid on the table of
the Commons, another temporary law, made necessary by the unsettled
state of the kingdom, was passed. Since the flight of James many persons
who were believed to have been deeply implicated in his unlawful acts, or
to be engaged in plots for his restoration, had been arrested and confined.
During the vacancy of the throne, these men could derive no benefit from
the Habeas Corpus Act. For the machinery by which alone that Act could be
carried into execution had ceased to exist; and, through the whole of Hilary
term, all the courts in Westminster Hall had remained closed. Now that the
ordinary tribunals were about to resume their functions, it was apprehended
that all those prisoners whom it was not convenient to bring instantly to trial
would demand and obtain their liberty. A bill was therefore brought in
which empowered the King to detain in custody during a few weeks such
persons as he should suspect of evil designs against his government. This
bill passed the two Houses with little or no opposition. 49 But the
malecontents out of doors did not fail to remark that, in the late reign, the
Habeas Corpus Act had not been one day suspended. It was the fashion to
call James a tyrant, and William a deliverer. Yet, before the deliverer had
been a month on the throne, he had deprived Englishmen of a precious right
which the tyrant had respected. 50 This is a kind of reproach which a
government sprung from a popular revolution almost inevitably incurs.
From such a government men naturally think themselves entitled to demand
a more gentle and liberal administration than is expected from old and
deeply rooted power. Yet such a government, having, as it always has, many
active enemies, and not having the strength derived from legitimacy and
prescription, can at first maintain itself only by a vigilance and a severity of
which old and deeply rooted power stands in no need. Extraordinary and
irregular vindications of public liberty are sometimes necessary: yet,
however necessary, they are almost always followed by some temporary
abridgments of that very liberty; and every such abridgment is a fertile and
plausible theme for sarcasm and invective.
Unhappily sarcasm and invective directed against William were but too
likely to find favourable audience. Each of the two great parties had its own
reasons for being dissatisfied with him; and there were some complaints in
which both parties joined. His manners gave almost universal offence. He

was in truth far better qualified to save a nation than to adorn a court. In the
highest parts of statesmanship, he had no equal among his contemporaries.
He had formed plans not inferior in grandeur and boldness to those of
Richelieu, and had carried them into effect with a tact and wariness worthy
of Mazarin. Two countries, the seats of civil liberty and of the Reformed
Faith, had been preserved by his wisdom and courage from extreme perils.
Holland he had delivered from foreign, and England from domestic foes.
Obstacles apparently insurmountable had been interposed between him and
the ends on which he was intent; and those obstacles his genius had turned
into stepping stones. Under his dexterous management the hereditary
enemies of his house had helped him to mount a throne; and the persecutors
of his religion had helped him to rescue his religion from persecution.
Fleets and armies, collected to withstand him, had, without a struggle,
submitted to his orders. Factions and sects, divided by mortal antipathies,
had recognised him as their common head. Without carnage, without
devastation, he had won a victory compared with which all the victories of
Gustavus and Turenne were insignificant. In a few weeks he had changed
the relative position of all the states in Europe, and had restored the
equilibrium which the preponderance of one power had destroyed. Foreign
nations did ample justice to his great qualities. In every Continental country
where Protestant congregations met, fervent thanks were offered to God,
who, from among the progeny of His servants, Maurice, the deliverer of
Germany, and William, the deliverer of Holland, had raised up a third
deliverer, the wisest and mightiest of all. At Vienna, at Madrid, nay, at
Rome, the valiant and sagacious heretic was held in honour as the chief of
the great confederacy against the House of Bourbon; and even at Versailles
the hatred which he inspired was largely mingled with admiration.
Here he was less favourably judged. In truth, our ancestors saw him in
the worst of all lights. By the French, the Germans, and the Italians, he was
contemplated at such a distance that only what was great could be
discerned, and that small blemishes were invisible. To the Dutch he was
brought close: but he was himself a Dutchman. In his intercourse with them
he was seen to the best advantage, he was perfectly at his ease with them;
and from among them he had chosen his earliest and dearest friends. But to
the English he appeared in a most unfortunate point of view. He was at once
too near to them and too far from them. He lived among them, so that the
smallest peculiarity of temper or manner could not escape their notice. Yet

he lived apart from them, and was to the last a foreigner in speech, tastes,
and habits.
One of the chief functions of our Sovereigns had long been to preside
over the society of the capital. That function Charles the Second had
performed with immense success. His easy bow, his good stories, his style
of dancing and playing tennis, the sound of his cordial laugh, were familiar
to all London. One day he was seen among the elms of Saint James's Park
chatting with Dryden about poetry. 51 Another day his arm was on Tom
Durfey's shoulder; and his Majesty was taking a second, while his
companion sang "Phillida, Phillida," or "To horse, brave boys, to
Newmarket, to horse." 52 James, with much less vivacity and good nature,
was accessible, and, to people who did not cross him, civil. But of this
sociableness William was entirely destitute. He seldom came forth from his
closet; and, when he appeared in the public rooms, he stood among the
crowd of courtiers and ladies, stern and abstracted, making no jest and
smiling at none. His freezing look, his silence, the dry and concise answers
which he uttered when he could keep silence no longer, disgusted noblemen
and gentlemen who had been accustomed to be slapped on the back by their
royal masters, called Jack or Harry, congratulated about race cups or rallied
about actresses. The women missed the homage due to their sex. They
observed that the King spoke in a somewhat imperious tone even to the
wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely loved and
esteemed. 53 They were amused and shocked to see him, when the Princess
Anne dined with him, and when the first green peas of the year were put on
the table, devour the whole dish without offering a spoonful to her Royal
Highness; and they pronounced that this great soldier and politician was no
better than a Low Dutch bear. 54
One misfortune, which was imputed to him as a crime, was his bad
English. He spoke our language, but not well. His accent was foreign: his
diction was inelegant; and his vocabulary seems to have been no larger than
was necessary for the transaction of business. To the difficulty which he felt
in expressing himself, and to his consciousness that his pronunciation was
bad, must be partly ascribed the taciturnity and the short answers which
gave so much offence. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or of
understanding. He never once, during his whole reign, showed himself at
the theatre. 55 The poets who wrote Pindaric verses in his praise complained
that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension. 56 Those

who are acquainted with the panegyrical odes of that age will perhaps be of
opinion that he did not lose much by his ignorance.
It is true that his wife did her best to supply what was wanting, and that
she was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English
by birth, and English also in her tastes and feelings. Her face was
handsome, her port majestic, her temper sweet and lively, her manners
affable and graceful. Her understanding, though very imperfectly cultivated,
was quick. There was no want of feminine wit and shrewdness in her
conversation; and her letters were so well expressed that they deserved to
be well spelt. She took much pleasure in the lighter kinds of literature, and
did something towards bringing books into fashion among ladies of quality.
The stainless purity of her private life and the strict attention which she paid
to her religious duties were the more respectable, because she was
singularly free from censoriousness, and discouraged scandal as much as
vice. In dislike of backbiting indeed she and her husband cordially agreed;
but they showed their dislike in different and in very characteristic ways.
William preserved profound silence, and gave the talebearer a look which,
as was said by a person who had once encountered it, and who took good
care never to encounter it again, made your story go back down your throat.
57 Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels, and
playdebts by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet significantly, whether they
had ever read her favourite sermon, Doctor Tillotson's on Evil Speaking.
Her charities were munificent and judicious; and, though she made no
ostentatious display of them, it was known that she retrenched from her
own state in order to relieve Protestants whom persecution had driven from
France and Ireland, and who were starving in the garrets of London. So
amiable was her conduct, that she was generally spoken of with esteem and
tenderness by the most respectable of those who disapproved of the manner
in which she had been raised to the throne, and even of those who refused
to acknowledge her as Queen. In the Jacobite lampoons of that time,
lampoons which, in virulence and malignity, far exceed any thing that our
age has produced, she was not often mentioned with severity. Indeed she
sometimes expressed her surprise at finding that libellers who respected
nothing else respected her name. God, she said, knew where her weakness
lay. She was too sensitive to abuse and calumny; He had mercifully spared
her a trial which was beyond her strength; and the best return which she
could make to Him was to discountenance all malicious reflections on the

characters of others. Assured that she possessed her husband's entire
confidence and affection, she turned the edge of his sharp speeches
sometimes by soft and sometimes by playful answers, and employed all the
influence which she derived from her many pleasing qualities to gain the
hearts of the people for him. 58
If she had long continued to assemble round her the best society of
London, it is probable that her kindness and courtesy would have done
much to efface the unfavourable impression made by his stern and frigid
demeanour. Unhappily his physical infirmities made it impossible for him
to reside at Whitehall. The air of Westminster, mingled with the fog of the
river which in spring tides overflowed the courts of his palace, with the
smoke of seacoal from two hundred thousand chimneys, and with the fumes
of all the filth which was then suffered to accumulate in the streets, was
insupportable to him; for his lungs were weak, and his sense of smell
exquisitely keen. His constitutional asthma made rapid progress. His
physicians pronounced it impossible that he could live to the end of the
year. His face was so ghastly that he could hardly be recognised. Those who
had to transact business with him were shocked to hear him gasping for
breath, and coughing till the tears ran down his cheeks. 59 His mind, strong
as it was, sympathized with his body. His judgment was indeed as clear as
ever. But there was, during some months, a perceptible relaxation of that
energy by which he had been distinguished. Even his Dutch friends
whispered that he was not the man that he had been at the Hague. 60 It was
absolutely necessary that he should quit London. He accordingly took up
his residence in the purer air of Hampton Court. That mansion, begun by
the magnificent Wolsey, was a fine specimen of the architecture which
flourished in England under the first Tudors; but the apartments were not,
according to the notions of the seventeenth century, well fitted for purposes
of state. Our princes therefore had, since the Restoration, repaired thither
seldom, and only when they wished to live for a time in retirement. As
William purposed to make the deserted edifice his chief palace, it was
necessary for him to build and to plant; nor was the necessity disagreeable
to him. For he had, like most of his countrymen, a pleasure in decorating a
country house; and next to hunting, though at a great interval, his favourite
amusements were architecture and gardening. He had already created on a
sandy heath in Guelders a paradise, which attracted multitudes of the
curious from Holland and Westphalia. Mary had laid the first stone of the

house. Bentinck had superintended the digging of the fishponds. There were
cascades and grottoes, a spacious orangery, and an aviary which furnished
Hondekoeter with numerous specimens of manycoloured plumage. 61 The
King, in his splendid banishment, pined for this favourite seat, and found
some consolation in creating another Loo on the banks of the Thames. Soon
a wide extent of ground was laid out in formal walks and parterres. Much
idle ingenuity was employed in forming that intricate labyrinth of verdure
which has puzzled and amused five generations of holiday visitors from
London. Limes thirty years old were transplanted from neighbouring woods
to shade the alleys. Artificial fountains spouted among the flower beds. A
new court, not designed with the purest taste, but stately, spacious, and
commodious, rose under the direction of Wren. The wainscots were adorned
with the rich and delicate carvings of Gibbons. The staircases were in a
blaze with the glaring frescoes of Verrio. In every corner of the mansion
appeared a profusion of gewgaws, not yet familiar to English eyes. Mary
had acquired at the Hague a taste for the porcelain of China, and amused
herself by forming at Hampton a vast collection of hideous images, and of
vases on which houses, trees, bridges, and mandarins were depicted in
outrageous defiance of all the laws of perspective. The fashion, a frivolous
and inelegant fashion it must be owned, which was thus set by the amiable
Queen, spread fast and wide. In a few years almost every great house in the
kingdom contained a museum of these grotesque baubles. Even statesmen
and generals were not ashamed to be renowned as judges of teapots and
dragons; and satirists long continued to repeat that a fine lady valued her
mottled green pottery quite as much as she valued her monkey, and much
more than she valued her husband. 62 But the new palace was embellished
with works of art of a very different kind. A gallery was erected for the
cartoons of Raphael. Those great pictures, then and still the finest on our
side of the Alps, had been preserved by Cromwell from the fate which
befell most of the other masterpieces in the collection of Charles the First,
but had been suffered to lie during many years nailed up in deal boxes.
They were now brought forth from obscurity to be contemplated by artists
with admiration and despair. The expense of the works at Hampton was a
subject of bitter complaint to many Tories, who had very gently blamed the
boundless profusion with which Charles the Second had built and rebuilt,
furnished and refurnished, the dwelling of the Duchess of Portsmouth. 63
The expense, however, was not the chief cause of the discontent which

William's change of residence excited. There was no longer a Court at
Westminster. Whitehall, once the daily resort of the noble and the powerful,
the beautiful and the gay, the place to which fops came to show their new
peruques, men of gallantry to exchange glances with fine ladies, politicians
to push their fortunes, loungers to hear the news, country gentlemen to see
the royal family, was now, in the busiest season of the year, when London
was full, when Parliament was sitting, left desolate. A solitary sentinel
paced the grassgrown pavement before that door which had once been too
narrow for the opposite streams of entering and departing courtiers. The
services which the metropolis had rendered to the King were great and
recent; and it was thought that he might have requited those services better
than by treating it as Lewis had treated Paris. Halifax ventured to hint this,
but was silenced by a few words which admitted of no reply. "Do you
wish," said William peevishly, "to see me dead?" 64
In a short time it was found that Hampton Court was too far from the
Houses of Lords and Commons, and from the public offices, to be the
ordinary abode of the Sovereign. Instead, however, of returning to
Whitehall, William determined to have another dwelling, near enough to his
capital for the transaction of business, but not near enough to be within that
atmosphere in which he could not pass a night without risk of suffocation.
At one time he thought of Holland House, the villa of the noble family of
Rich; and he actually resided there some weeks. 65 But he at length fixed
his choice on Kensington House, the suburban residence of the Earl of
Nottingham. The purchase was made for eighteen thousand guineas, and
was followed by more building, more planting, more expense, and more
discontent. 66 At present Kensington House is considered as a part of
London. It was then a rural mansion, and could not, in those days of
highwaymen and scourers, of roads deep in mire and nights without lamps,
be the rallying point of fashionable society.
It was well known that the King, who treated the English nobility and
gentry so ungraciously, could, in a small circle of his own countrymen, be
easy, friendly, even jovial, could pour out his feelings garrulously, could fill
his glass, perhaps too often; and this was, in the view of our forefathers, an
aggravation of his offences. Yet our forefathers should have had the sense
and the justice to acknowledge that the patriotism which they considered as
a virtue in themselves, could not be a fault in him. It was unjust to blame
him for not at once transferring to our island the love which he bore to the

country of his birth. If, in essentials, he did his duty towards England, he
might well be suffered to feel at heart an affectionate preference for
Holland. Nor is it a reproach to him that he did not, in this season of his
greatness, discard companions who had played with him in his childhood,
who had stood by him firmly through all the vicissitudes of his youth and
manhood, who had, in defiance of the most loathsome and deadly forms of
infection, kept watch by his sick-bed, who had, in the thickest of the battle,
thrust themselves between him and the French swords, and whose
attachment was, not to the Stadtholder or to the King, but to plain William
of Nassau. It may be added that his old friends could not but rise in his
estimation by comparison with his new courtiers. To the end of his life all
his Dutch comrades, without exception, continued to deserve his
confidence. They could be out of humour with him, it is true; and, when out
of humour, they could be sullen and rude; but never did they, even when
most angry and unreasonable, fail to keep his secrets and to watch over his
interests with gentlemanlike and soldierlike fidelity. Among his English
councillors such fidelity was rare. 67 It is painful, but it is no more than just,
to acknowledge that he had but too good reason for thinking meanly of our
national character. That character was indeed, in essentials, what it has
always been. Veracity, uprightness, and manly boldness were then, as now,
qualities eminently English. But those qualities, though widely diffused
among the great body of the people, were seldom to be found in the class
with which William was best acquainted. The standard of honour and virtue
among our public men was, during his reign, at the very lowest point. His
predecessors had bequeathed to him a court foul with all the vices of the
Restoration, a court swarming with sycophants, who were ready, on the first
turn of fortune, to abandon him as they had abandoned his uncle. Here and
there, lost in that ignoble crowd, was to be found a man of true integrity and
public spirit. Yet even such a man could not long live in such society
without much risk that the strictness of his principles would be relaxed, and
the delicacy of his sense of right and wrong impaired. It was unjust to
blame a prince surrounded by flatterers and traitors for wishing to keep near
him four or five servants whom he knew by proof to be faithful even to
death.
Nor was this the only instance in which our ancestors were unjust to him.
They had expected that, as soon as so distinguished a soldier and statesman
was placed at the head of affairs, he would give some signal proof, they

scarcely knew what, of genius and vigour. Unhappily, during the first
months of his reign, almost every thing went wrong. His subjects, bitterly
disappointed, threw the blame on him, and began to doubt whether he
merited that reputation which he had won at his first entrance into public
life, and which the splendid success of his last great enterprise had raised to
the highest point. Had they been in a temper to judge fairly, they would
have perceived that for the maladministration of which they with good
reason complained he was not responsible. He could as yet work only with
the machinery which he had found; and the machinery which he had found
was all rust and rottenness. From the time of the Restoration to the time of
the Revolution, neglect and fraud had been almost constantly impairing the
efficiency of every department of the government. Honours and public
trusts, peerages, baronetcies, regiments, frigates, embassies, governments,
commissionerships, leases of crown lands, contracts for clothing, for
provisions, for ammunition, pardons for murder, for robbery, for arson,
were sold at Whitehall scarcely less openly than asparagus at Covent
Garden or herrings at Billingsgate. Brokers had been incessantly plying for
custom in the purlieus of the court; and of these brokers the most successful
had been, in the days of Charles, the harlots, and in the days of James, the
priests. From the palace which was the chief seat of this pestilence the taint
had diffused itself through every office and through every rank in every
office, and had every where produced feebleness and disorganization. So
rapid was the progress of the decay that, within eight years after the time
when Oliver had been the umpire of Europe, the roar of the guns of De
Ruyter was heard in the Tower of London. The vices which had brought
that great humiliation on the country had ever since been rooting
themselves deeper and spreading themselves wider. James had, to do him
justice, corrected a few of the gross abuses which disgraced the naval
administration. Yet the naval administration, in spite of his attempts to
reform it, moved the contempt of men who were acquainted with the
dockyards of France and Holland. The military administration was still
worse. The courtiers took bribes from the colonels; the colonels cheated the
soldiers: the commissaries sent in long bills for what had never been
furnished: the keepers of the arsenals sold the public stores and pocketed
the price. But these evils, though they had sprung into existence and grown
to maturity under the government of Charles and James, first made
themselves severely felt under the government of William. For Charles and

James were content to be the vassals and pensioners of a powerful and
ambitious neighbour: they submitted to his ascendency: they shunned with
pusillanimous caution whatever could give him offence; and thus, at the
cost of the independence and dignity of that ancient and glorious crown
which they unworthily wore, they avoided a conflict which would instantly
have shown how helpless, under their misrule, their once formidable
kingdom had become. Their ignominious policy it was neither in William's
power nor in his nature to follow. It was only by arms that the liberty and
religion of England could be protected against the most formidable enemy
that had threatened our island since the Hebrides were strown with the
wrecks of the Armada. The body politic, which, while it remained in repose,
had presented a superficial appearance of health and vigour, was now under
the necessity of straining every nerve in a wrestle for life or death, and was
immediately found to be unequal to the exertion. The first efforts showed an
utter relaxation of fibre, an utter want of training. Those efforts were, with
scarcely an exception, failures; and every failure was popularly imputed,
not to the rulers whose mismanagement had produced the infirmities of the
state, but to the ruler in whose time the infirmities of the state became
visible.
William might indeed, if he had been as absolute as Lewis, have used
such sharp remedies as would speedily have restored to the English
administration that firm tone which had been wanting since the death of
Oliver. But the instantaneous reform of inveterate abuses was a task far
beyond the powers of a prince strictly restrained by law, and restrained still
more strictly by the difficulties of his situation. 68
Some of the most serious difficulties of his situation were caused by the
conduct of the ministers on whom, new as he was to the details of English
affairs, he was forced to rely for information about men and things. There
was indeed no want of ability among his chief counsellors: but one half of
their ability was employed in counteracting the other half. Between the
Lord President and the Lord Privy Seal there was an inveterate enmity. 69 It
had begun twelve years before when Danby was Lord High Treasurer, a
persecutor of nonconformists, an uncompromising defender of prerogative,
and when Halifax was rising to distinction as one of the most eloquent
leaders of the country party. In the reign of James, the two statesmen had
found themselves in opposition together; and their common hostility to
France and to Rome, to the High Commission and to the dispensing power,

had produced an apparent reconciliation; but as soon as they were in office
together the old antipathy revived. The hatred which the Whig party felt
towards them both ought, it should seem, to have produced a close alliance
between them: but in fact each of them saw with complacency the danger
which threatened the other. Danby exerted himself to rally round him a
strong phalanx of Tories. Under the plea of ill health, he withdrew from
court, seldom came to the Council over which it was his duty to preside,
passed much time in the country, and took scarcely any part in public affairs
except by grumbling and sneering at all the acts of the government, and by
doing jobs and getting places for his personal retainers. 70 In consequence
of this defection, Halifax became prime minister, as far any minister could,
in that reign, be called prime minister. An immense load of business fell on
him; and that load he was unable to sustain. In wit and eloquence, in
amplitude of comprehension and subtlety of disquisition, he had no equal
among the statesmen of his time. But that very fertility, that very acuteness,
which gave a singular charm to his conversation, to his oratory and to his
writings, unfitted him for the work of promptly deciding practical
questions. He was slow from very quickness. For he saw so many
arguments for and against every possible course that he was longer in
making up his mind than a dull man would have been. Instead of
acquiescing in his first thoughts, he replied on himself, rejoined on himself,
and surrejoined on himself. Those who heard him talk owned that he talked
like an angel: but too often, when he had exhausted all that could be said,
and came to act, the time for action was over.
Meanwhile the two Secretaries of State were constantly labouring to
draw their master in diametrically opposite directions. Every scheme, every
person, recommended by one of them was reprobated by the other.
Nottingham was never weary of repeating that the old Roundhead party, the
party which had taken the life of Charles the First and had plotted against
the life of Charles the Second, was in principle republican, and that the
Tories were the only true friends of monarchy. Shrewsbury replied that the
Tories might be friends of monarchy, but that they regarded James as their
monarch. Nottingham was always bringing to the closet intelligence of the
wild daydreams in which a few old eaters of calf's head, the remains of the
once formidable party of Bradshaw and Ireton, still indulged at taverns in
the city. Shrewsbury produced ferocious lampoons which the Jacobites
dropped every day in the coffeehouses. "Every Whig," said the Tory

Secretary, "is an enemy of your Majesty's prerogative." "Every Tory," said
the Whig Secretary, "is an enemy of your Majesty's title." 71
At the treasury there was a complication of jealousies and quarrels. 72
Both the First Commissioner, Mordaunt, and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Delamere, were zealous Whigs but, though they held the same
political creed, their tempers differed widely. Mordaunt was volatile,
dissipated, and generous. The wits of that time laughed at the way in which
he flew about from Hampton Court to the Royal Exchange, and from the
Royal Exchange back to Hampton Court. How he found time for dress,
politics, lovemaking and balladmaking was a wonder. 73 Delamere was
gloomy and acrimonious, austere in his private morals, and punctual in his
devotions, but greedy of ignoble gain. The two principal ministers of
finance, therefore, became enemies, and agreed only in hating their
colleague Godolphin. What business had he at Whitehall in these days of
Protestant ascendency, he who had sate at the same board with Papists, he
who had never scrupled to attend Mary of Modena to the idolatrous worship
of the Mass? The most provoking circumstance was that Godolphin, though
his name stood only third in the commission, was really first Lord. For in
financial knowledge and in habits of business Mordaunt and Delamere were
mere children when compared with him; and this William soon discovered.
74
Similar feuds raged at the other great boards and through all the
subordinate ranks of public functionaries. In every customhouse, in every
arsenal, were a Shrewsbury and a Nottingham, a Delamere and a
Godolphin. The Whigs complained that there was no department in which
creatures of the fallen tyranny were not to be found. It was idle to allege
that these men were versed in the details of business, that they were the
depositaries of official traditions, and that the friends of liberty, having
been, during many years, excluded from public employment, must
necessarily be incompetent to take on themselves at once the whole
management of affairs. Experience doubtless had its value: but surely the
first of all the qualifications of a servant was fidelity; and no Tory could be
a really faithful servant of the new government. If King William were wise,
he would rather trust novices zealous for his interest and honour than
veterans who might indeed possess ability and knowledge, but who would
use that ability and that knowledge to effect his ruin.

The Tories, on the other hand, complained that their share of power bore
no proportion to their number and their weight in the country, and that
every where old and useful public servants were, for the crime of being
friends to monarchy and to the Church, turned out of their posts to make
way for Rye House plotters and haunters of conventicles. These upstarts,
adepts in the art of factious agitation, but ignorant of all that belonged to
their new calling, would be just beginning to learn their business when they
had undone the nation by their blunders. To be a rebel and a schismatic was
surely not all that ought to be required of a man in high employment. What
would become of the finances, what of the marine, if Whigs who could not
understand the plainest balance sheet were to manage the revenue, and
Whigs who had never walked over a dockyard to fit out the fleet. 75
The truth is that the charges which the two parties brought against each
other were, to a great extent, well founded, but that the blame which both
threw on William was unjust. Official experience was to be found almost
exclusively among the Tories, hearty attachment to the new settlement
almost exclusively among the Whigs. It was not the fault of the King that
the knowledge and the zeal, which, combined, make a valuable servant of
the state must at that time be had separately or not at all. If he employed
men of one party, there was great risk of mistakes. If he employed men of
the other party, there was great risk of treachery. If he employed men of
both parties, there was still some risk of mistakes; there was still some risk
of treachery; and to these risks was added the certainty of dissension. He
might join Whigs and Tories; but it was beyond his power to mix them. In
the same office, at the same desk, they were still enemies, and agreed only
in murmuring at the Prince who tried to mediate between them. It was
inevitable that, in such circumstances, the administration, fiscal, military,
naval, should be feeble and unsteady; that nothing should be done in quite
the right way or at quite the right time; that the distractions from which
scarcely any public office was exempt should produce disasters, and that
every disaster should increase the distractions from which it had sprung.
There was indeed one department of which the business was well
conducted; and that was the department of Foreign Affairs. There William
directed every thing, and, on important occasions, neither asked the advice
nor employed the agency of any English politician. One invaluable assistant
he had, Anthony Heinsius, who, a few weeks after the Revolution had been
accomplished, became Pensionary of Holland. Heinsius had entered public

life as a member of that party which was jealous of the power of the House
of Orange, and desirous to be on friendly terms with France. But he had
been sent in 1681 on a diplomatic mission to Versailles; and a short
residence there had produced a complete change in his views. On a near
acquaintance, he was alarmed by the power and provoked by the insolence
of that Court of which, while he contemplated it only at a distance, he had
formed a favourable opinion. He found that his country was despised. He
saw his religion persecuted. His official character did not save him from
some personal affronts which, to the latest day of his long career, he never
forgot. He went home a devoted adherent of William and a mortal enemy of
Lewis. 76
The office of Pensionary, always important, was peculiarly important
when the Stadtholder was absent from the Hague. Had the politics of
Heinsius been still what they once were, all the great designs of William
might have been frustrated. But happily there was between these two
eminent men a perfect friendship which, till death dissolved it, appears
never to have been interrupted for one moment by suspicion or ill humour.
On all large questions of European policy they cordially agreed. They
corresponded assiduously and most unreservedly. For though William was
slow to give his confidence, yet, when he gave it, he gave it entire. The
correspondence is still extant, and is most honourable to both. The King's
letters would alone suffice to prove that he was one of the greatest
statesmen whom Europe has produced. While he lived, the Pensionary was
content to be the most obedient, the most trusty, and the most discreet of
servants. But, after the death of the master, the servant proved himself
capable of supplying with eminent ability the master's place, and was
renowned throughout Europe as one of the great Triumvirate which
humbled the pride of Lewis the Fourteenth. 77
The foreign policy of England, directed immediately by William in close
concert with Heinsius, was, at this time, eminently skilful and successful.
But in every other part of the administration the evils arising from the
mutual animosity of factions were but too plainly discernible. Nor was this
all. To the evils arising from the mutual animosity of factions were added
other evils arising from the mutual animosity of sects.
The year 1689 is a not less important epoch in the ecclesiastical than in
the civil history of England. In that year was granted the first legal

indulgence to Dissenters. In that year was made the last serious attempt to
bring the Presbyterians within the pale of the Church of England. From that
year dates a new schism, made, in defiance of ancient precedents, by men
who had always professed to regard schism with peculiar abhorrence, and
ancient precedents with peculiar veneration. In that year began the long
struggle between two great parties of conformists. Those parties indeed had,
under various forms, existed within the Anglican communion ever since the
Reformation; but till after the Revolution they did not appear marshalled in
regular and permanent order of battle against each other, and were therefore
not known by established names. Some time after the accession of William
they began to be called the High Church party and the Low Church party;
and, long before the end of his reign, these appellations were in common
use. 78
In the summer of 1688 the breaches which had long divided the great
body of English Protestants had seemed to be almost closed. Disputes about
Bishops and Synods, written prayers and extemporaneous prayers, white
gowns and black gowns, sprinkling and dipping, kneeling and sitting, had
been for a short space intermitted. The serried array which was then drawn
up against Popery measured the whole of the vast interval which separated
Sancroft from Bunyan. Prelates recently conspicuous as persecutors now
declared themselves friends of religious liberty, and exhorted their clergy to
live in a constant interchange of hospitality and of kind offices with the
separatists. Separatists, on the other hand, who had recently considered
mitres and lawn sleeves as the livery of Antichrist, were putting candles in
windows and throwing faggots on bonfires in honour of the prelates.
These feelings continued to grow till they attained their greatest height on
the memorable day on which the common oppressor finally quitted
Whitehall, and on which an innumerable multitude, tricked out in orange
ribands, welcomed the common deliverer to Saint James's. When the clergy
of London came, headed by Compton, to express their gratitude to him by
whose instrumentality God had wrought salvation for the Church and the
State, the procession was swollen by some eminent nonconformist divines.
It was delightful to many good men to learn that pious and learned
Presbyterian ministers had walked in the train of a Bishop, had been greeted
by him with fraternal kindness, and had been announced by him in the
presence chamber as his dear and respected friends, separated from him
indeed by some differences of opinion on minor points, but united to him by

Christian charity and by common zeal for the essentials of the reformed
faith. There had never before been such a day in England; and there has
never since been such a day. The tide of feeling was already on the turn; and
the ebb was even more rapid than the flow had been. In a very few hours
the High Churchman began to feel tenderness for the enemy whose tyranny
was now no longer feared, and dislike of the allies whose services were
now no longer needed. It was easy to gratify both feelings by imputing to
the dissenters the misgovernment of the exiled King. His Majesty-such was
now the language of too many Anglican divines-would have been an
excellent sovereign had he not been too confiding, too forgiving. He had put
his trust in a class of men who hated his office, his family, his person, with
implacable hatred. He had ruined himself in the vain attempt to conciliate
them. He had relieved them, in defiance of law and of the unanimous sense
of the old royalist party, from the pressure of the penal code; had allowed
them to worship God publicly after their own mean and tasteless fashion;
had admitted them to the bench of justice and to the Privy Council; had
gratified them with fur robes, gold chains, salaries, and pensions. In return
for his liberality, these people, once so uncouth in demeanour, once so
savage in opposition even to legitimate authority, had become the most
abject of flatterers. They had continued to applaud and encourage him when
the most devoted friends of his family had retired in shame and sorrow from
his palace. Who had more foully sold the religion and liberty of his country
than Titus? Who had been more zealous for the dispensing power than
Alsop? Who had urged on the persecution of the seven Bishops more
fiercely than Lobb? What chaplain impatient for a deanery had ever, even
when preaching in the royal presence on the thirtieth of January or the
twenty-ninth of May, uttered adulation more gross than might easily be
found in those addresses by which dissenting congregations had testified
their gratitude for the illegal Declaration of Indulgence? Was it strange that
a prince who had never studied law books should have believed that he was
only exercising his rightful prerogative, when he was thus encouraged by a
faction which had always ostentatiously professed hatred of arbitrary
power? Misled by such guidance, he had gone further and further in the
wrong path: he had at length estranged from him hearts which would once
have poured forth their best blood in his defence: he had left himself no
supporters except his old foes; and, when the day of peril came, he had
found that the feeling of his old foes towards him was still what it had been

when they had attempted to rob him of his inheritance, and when they had
plotted against his life. Every man of sense had long known that the
sectaries bore no love to monarchy. It had now been found that they bore as
little love to freedom. To trust them with power would be an error not less
fatal to the nation than to the throne. If, in order to redeem pledges
somewhat rashly given, it should be thought necessary to grant them relief,
every concession ought to be accompanied by limitations and precautions.
Above all, no man who was an enemy to the ecclesiastical constitution of
the realm ought to be permitted to bear any part in the civil government.
Between the nonconformists and the rigid conformists stood the Low
Church party. That party contained, as it still contains, two very different
elements, a Puritan element and a Latitudinarian element. On almost every
question, however, relating either to ecclesiastical polity or to the
ceremonial of public worship, the Puritan Low Churchman and the
Latitudinarian Low Churchman were perfectly agreed. They saw in the
existing polity and in the existing ceremonial no defect, no blemish, which
could make it their duty to become dissenters. Nevertheless they held that
both the polity and the ceremonial were means and not ends, and that the
essential spirit of Christianity might exist without episcopal orders and
without a Book of Common Prayer. They had, while James was on the
throne, been mainly instrumental in forming the great Protestant coalition
against Popery and tyranny; and they continued in 1689 to hold the same
conciliatory language which they had held in 1688. They gently blamed the
scruples of the nonconformists. It was undoubtedly a great weakness to
imagine that there could be any sin in wearing a white robe, in tracing a
cross, in kneeling at the rails of an altar. But the highest authority had given
the plainest directions as to the manner in which such weakness was to be
treated. The weak brother was not to be judged: he was not to be despised:
believers who had stronger minds were commanded to soothe him by large
compliances, and carefully to remove out of his path every stumbling block
which could cause him to offend. An apostle had declared that, though he
had himself no misgivings about the use of animal food or of wine, he
would eat herbs and drink water rather than give scandal to the feeblest of
his flock. What would he have thought of ecclesiastical rulers who, for the
sake of a vestment, a gesture, a posture, had not only torn the Church
asunder, but had filled all the gaols of England with men of orthodox faith
and saintly life? The reflections thrown by the High Churchmen on the

recent conduct of the dissenting body the Low Churchmen pronounced to
be grossly unjust. The wonder was, not that a few nonconformists should
have accepted with thanks an indulgence which, illegal as it was, had
opened the doors of their prisons and given security to their hearths, but that
the nonconformists generally should have been true to the cause of a
constitution from the benefits of which they had been long excluded. It was
most unfair to impute to a great party the faults of a few individuals. Even
among the Bishops of the Established Church James had found tools and
sycophants. The conduct of Cartwright and Parker had been much more
inexcusable than that of Alsop and Lobb. Yet those who held the dissenters
answerable for the errors of Alsop and Lobb would doubtless think it most
unreasonable to hold the Church answerable for the far deeper guilt of
Cartwright and Parker.
The Low Church clergymen were a minority, and not a large minority, of
their profession: but their weight was much more than proportioned to their
numbers: for they mustered strong in the capital: they had great influence
there; and the average of intellect and knowledge was higher among them
than among their order generally. We should probably overrate their
numerical strength, if we were to estimate them at a tenth part of the
priesthood. Yet it will scarcely be denied that there were among them as
many men of distinguished eloquence and learning as could be found in the
other nine tenths. Among the laity who conformed to the established
religion the parties were not unevenly balanced. Indeed the line which
separated them deviated very little from the line which separated the Whigs
and the Tories. In the House of Commons, which had been elected when the
Whigs were triumphant, the Low Church party greatly preponderated. In
the Lords there was an almost exact equipoise; and very slight
circumstances sufficed to turn the scale.
The head of the Low Church party was the King. He had been bred a
Presbyterian: he was, from rational conviction, a Latitudinarian; and
personal ambition, as well as higher motives, prompted him to act as
mediator among Protestant sects. He was bent on effecting three great
reforms in the laws touching ecclesiastical matters. His first object was to
obtain for dissenters permission to celebrate their worship in freedom and
security. His second object was to make such changes in the Anglican ritual
and polity as, without offending those to whom that ritual and polity were
dear, might conciliate the moderate nonconformists. His third object was to

throw open civil offices to Protestants without distinction of sect. All his
three objects were good; but the first only was at that time attainable. He
came too late for the second, and too early for the third.
A few days after his accession, he took a step which indicated, in a
manner not to be mistaken, his sentiments touching ecclesiastical polity and
public worship. He found only one see unprovided with a Bishop. Seth
Ward, who had during many years had charge of the diocese of Salisbury,
and who had been honourably distinguished as one of the founders of the
Royal Society, having long survived his faculties, died while the country
was agitated by the elections for the Convention, without knowing that
great events, of which not the least important had passed under his own
roof, had saved his Church and his country from ruin. The choice of a
successor was no light matter. That choice would inevitably be considered
by the country as a prognostic of the highest import. The King too might
well be perplexed by the number of divines whose erudition, eloquence,
courage, and uprightness had been conspicuously displayed during the
contentions of the last three years. The preference was given to Burnet. His
claims were doubtless great. Yet William might have had a more tranquil
reign if he had postponed for a time the well earned promotion of his
chaplain, and had bestowed the first great spiritual preferment, which, after
the Revolution, fell to the disposal of the Crown, on some eminent
theologian, attached to the new settlement, yet not generally hated by the
clergy. Unhappily the name of Burnet was odious to the great majority of
the Anglican priesthood. Though, as respected doctrine, he by no means
belonged to the extreme section of the Latitudinarian party, he was
popularly regarded as the personification of the Latitudinarian spirit. This
distinction he owed to the prominent place which he held in literature and
politics, to the readiness of his tongue and of his pert, and above all to the
frankness and boldness of his nature, frankness which could keep no secret,
and boldness which flinched from no danger. He had formed but a low
estimate of the character of his clerical brethren considered as a body; and,
with his usual indiscretion, he frequently suffered his opinion to escape
him. They hated him in return with a hatred which has descended to their
successors, and which, after the lapse of a century and a half, does not
appear to languish.
As soon as the King's decision was known, the question was every where
asked, What will the Archbishop do? Sancroft had absented himself from

the Convention: he had refused to sit in the Privy Council: he had ceased to
confirm, to ordain, and to institute; and he was seldom seen out of the walls
of his palace at Lambeth. He, on all occasions, professed to think himself
still bound by his old oath of allegiance. Burnet he regarded as a scandal to
the priesthood, a Presbyterian in a surplice. The prelate who should lay
hands on that unworthy head would commit more than one great sin. He
would, in a sacred place, and before a great congregation of the faithful, at
once acknowledge an usurper as a King, and confer on a schismatic the
character of a Bishop. During some time Sancroft positively declared that
he would not obey the precept of William. Lloyd of Saint Asaph, who was
the common friend of the Archbishop and of the Bishop elect, intreated and
expostulated in vain. Nottingham, who, of all the laymen connected with
the new government, stood best with the clergy, tried his influence, but to
no better purpose. The Jacobites said every where that they were sure of the
good old Primate; that he had the spirit of a martyr; that he was determined
to brave, in the cause of the Monarchy and of the Church, the utmost rigour
of those laws with which the obsequious parliaments of the sixteenth
century had fenced the Royal Supremacy. He did in truth hold out long. But
at the last moment his heart failed him, and he looked round him for some
mode of escape. Fortunately, as childish scruples often disturbed his
conscience, childish expedients often quieted it. A more childish expedient
than that to which he now resorted is not to be found in all the tones of the
casuists. He would not himself bear a part in the service. He would not
publicly pray for the Prince and Princess as King and Queen. He would not
call for their mandate, order it to be read, and then proceed to obey it. But
he issued a commission empowering any three of his suffragans to commit,
in his name, and as his delegates, the sins which he did not choose to
commit in person. The reproaches of all parties soon made him ashamed of
himself. He then tried to suppress the evidence of his fault by means more
discreditable than the fault itself. He abstracted from among the public
records of which he was the guardian the instrument by which he had
authorised his brethren to act for him, and was with difficulty induced to
give it up. 79
Burnet however had, under the authority of this instrument, been
consecrated. When he next waited on Mary, she reminded him of the
conversations which they had held at the Hague about the high duties and
grave responsibility of Bishops. "I hope," she said, "that you will put your

notions in practice." Her hope was not disappointed. Whatever may be
thought of Burnet's opinions touching civil and ecclesiastical polity, or of
the temper and judgment which he showed in defending those opinions, the
utmost malevolence of faction could not venture to deny that he tended his
flock with a zeal, diligence, and disinterestedness worthy of the purest ages
of the Church. His jurisdiction extended over Wiltshire and Berkshire.
These counties he divided into districts which he sedulously visited. About
two months of every summer he passed in preaching, catechizing, and
confirming daily from church to church. When he died there was no corner
of his diocese in which the people had not had seven or eight opportunities
of receiving his instructions and of asking his advice. The worst weather,
the worst roads, did not prevent him from discharging these duties. On one
occasion, when the floods were out, he exposed his life to imminent risk
rather than disappoint a rural congregation which was in expectation of a
discourse from the Bishop. The poverty of the inferior clergy was a constant
cause of uneasiness to his kind and generous heart. He was indefatigable
and at length successful in his attempts to obtain for them from the Crown
that grant which is known by the name of Queen Anne's Bounty. 80 He was
especially careful, when he travelled through his diocese, to lay no burden
on them. Instead of requiring them to entertain him, he entertained them. He
always fixed his headquarters at a market town, kept a table there, and, by
his decent hospitality and munificent charities, tried to conciliate those who
were prejudiced against his doctrines. When he bestowed a poor benefice,
and he had many such to bestow, his practice was to add out of his own
purse twenty pounds a year to the income. Ten promising young men, to
each of whom he allowed thirty pounds a year, studied divinity under his
own eye in the close of Salisbury. He had several children but he did not
think himself justified in hoarding for them. Their mother had brought him
a good fortune. With that fortune, he always said, they must be content: He
would not, for their sakes, be guilty of the crime of raising an estate out of
revenues sacred to piety and charity. Such merits as these will, in the
judgment of wise and candid men, appear fully to atone for every offence
which can be justly imputed to him. 81
When he took his seat in the House of Lords, he found that assembly
busied in ecclesiastical legislation. A statesman who was well known to be
devoted to the Church had undertaken to plead the cause of the Dissenters.
No subject in the realm occupied so important and commanding a position

with reference to religious parties as Nottingham. To the influence derived
from rank, from wealth, and from office, he added the higher influence
which belongs to knowledge, to eloquence, and to integrity. The orthodoxy
of his creed, the regularity of his devotions, and the purity of his morals
gave a peculiar weight to his opinions on questions in which the interests of
Christianity were concerned. Of all the ministers of the new Sovereigns, he
had the largest share of the confidence of the clergy. Shrewsbury was
certainly a Whig, and probably a freethinker: he had lost one religion; and it
did not very clearly appear that he had found another. Halifax had been
during many years accused of scepticism, deism, atheism. Danby's
attachment to episcopacy and the liturgy was rather political than religious.
But Nottingham was such a son as the Church was proud to own.
Propositions, therefore, which, if made by his colleagues, would infallibly
produce a violent panic among the clergy, might, if made by him, find a
favourable reception even in universities and chapter houses. The friends of
religious liberty were with good reason desirous to obtain his cooperation;
and, up to a certain point, he was not unwilling to cooperate with them. He
was decidedly for a toleration. He was even for what was then called a
comprehension: that is to say, he was desirous to make some alterations in
the Anglican discipline and ritual for the purpose of removing the scruples
of the moderate Presbyterians. But he was not prepared to give up the Test
Act. The only fault which he found with that Act was that it was not
sufficiently stringent, and that it left loopholes through which schismatics
sometimes crept into civil employments. In truth it was because he was not
disposed to part with the Test that he was willing to consent to some
changes in the Liturgy. He conceived that, if the entrance of the Church
were but a very little widened, great numbers who had hitherto lingered
near the threshold would press in. Those who still remained without would
then not be sufficiently numerous or powerful to extort any further
concession, and would be glad to compound for a bare toleration. 82
The opinion of the Low Churchmen concerning the Test Act differed
widely from his. But many of them thought that it was of the highest
importance to have his support on the great questions of Toleration and
Comprehension. From the scattered fragments of information which have
come down to us, it appears that a compromise was made. It is quite certain
that Nottingham undertook to bring in a Toleration Bill and a
Comprehension Bill, and to use his best endeavours to carry both bills

through the House of Lords. It is highly probable that, in return for this
great service, some of the leading Whigs consented to let the Test Act
remain for the present unaltered.
There was no difficulty in framing either the Toleration Bill or the
Comprehension Bill. The situation of the dissenters had been much
discussed nine or ten years before, when the kingdom was distracted by the
fear of a Popish plot, and when there was among Protestants a general
disposition to unite against the common enemy. The government had then
been willing to make large concessions to the Whig party, on condition that
the crown should be suffered to descend according to the regular course. A
draught of a law authorising the public worship of the nonconformists, and
a draught of a law making some alterations in the public worship of the
Established Church, had been prepared, and would probably have been
passed by both Houses without difficulty, had not Shaftesbury and his
coadjutors refused to listen to any terms, and, by grasping at what was
beyond their reach, missed advantages which might easily have been
secured. In the framing of these draughts, Nottingham, then an active
member of the House of Commons, had borne a considerable part. He now
brought them forth from the obscurity in which they had remained since the
dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and laid them, with some slight
alterations, on the table of the Lords. 83
The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. This celebrated
statute, long considered as the Great Charter of religious liberty, has since
been extensively modified, and is hardly known to the present generation
except by name. The name, however, is still pronounced with respect by
many who will perhaps learn with surprise and disappointment the real
nature of the law which they have been accustomed to hold in honour.
Several statutes which had been passed between the accession of Queen
Elizabeth and the Revolution required all people under severe penalties to
attend the services of the Church of England, and to abstain from attending
conventicles. The Toleration Act did not repeal any of these statutes, but
merely provided that they should not be construed to extend to any person
who should testify his loyalty by taking the Oaths of Allegiance and
Supremacy, and his Protestantism by subscribing the Declaration against
Transubstantiation.

The relief thus granted was common between the dissenting laity and the
dissenting clergy. But the dissenting clergy had some peculiar grievances.
The Act of Uniformity had laid a mulct of a hundred pounds on every
person who, not having received episcopal ordination, should presume to
administer the Eucharist. The Five Mile Act had driven many pious and
learned ministers from their houses and their friends, to live among rustics
in obscure villages of which the name was not to be seen on the map. The
Conventicle Act had imposed heavy fines on divines who should preach in
any meeting of separatists; and, in direct opposition to the humane spirit of
our common law, the Courts were enjoined to construe this Act largely and
beneficially for the suppressing of dissent and for the encouraging of
informers. These severe statutes were not repealed, but were, with many
conditions and precautions, relaxed. It was provided that every dissenting
minister should, before he exercised his function, profess under his hand his
belief in the articles of the Church of England, with a few exceptions. The
propositions to which he was not required to assent were these; that the
Church has power to regulate ceremonies; that the doctrines set forth in the
Book of Homilies are sound; and that there is nothing superstitious and
idolatrous in the ordination service. If he declared himself a Baptist, he was
also excused from affirming that the baptism of infants is a laudable
practice. But, unless his conscience suffered him to subscribe thirty-four of
the thirty-nine articles, and the greater part of two other articles, he could
not preach without incurring all the punishments which the Cavaliers, in the
day of their power and their vengeance, had devised for the tormenting and
ruining of schismatical teachers.
The situation of the Quaker differed from that of other dissenters, and
differed for the worse. The Presbyterian, the Independent, and the Baptist
had no scruple about the Oath of Supremacy. But the Quaker refused to take
it, not because he objected to the proposition that foreign sovereigns and
prelates have no jurisdiction in England, but because his conscience would
not suffer him to swear to any proposition whatever. He was therefore
exposed to the severity of part of that penal code which, long before
Quakerism existed, had been enacted against Roman Catholics by the
Parliaments of Elizabeth. Soon after the Restoration, a severe law, distinct
from the general law which applied to all conventicles, had been passed
against meetings of Quakers. The Toleration Act permitted the members of
this harmless sect to hold their assemblies in peace, on condition of signing

three documents, a declaration against Transubstantiation, a promise of
fidelity to the government, and a confession of Christian belief. The
objections which the Quaker had to the Athanasian phraseology had
brought on him the imputation of Socinianism; and the strong language in
which he sometimes asserted that he derived his knowledge of spiritual
things directly from above had raised a suspicion that he thought lightly of
the authority of Scripture. He was therefore required to profess his faith in
the divinity of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and in the inspiration of the
Old and New Testaments.
Such were the terms on which the Protestant dissenters of England were,
for the first time, permitted by law to worship God according to their own
conscience. They were very properly forbidden to assemble with barred
doors, but were protected against hostile intrusion by a clause which made
it penal to enter a meeting house for the purpose of molesting the
congregation.
As if the numerous limitations and precautions which have been
mentioned were insufficient, it was emphatically declared that the
legislature did not intend to grant the smallest indulgence to any Papist, or
to any person who denied the doctrine of the Trinity as that doctrine is set
forth in the formularies of the Church of England.
Of all the Acts that have ever been passed by Parliament, the Toleration
Act is perhaps that which most strikingly illustrates the peculiar vices and
the peculiar excellences of English legislation. The science of Politics bears
in one respect a close analogy to the science of Mechanics. The
mathematician can easily demonstrate that a certain power, applied by
means of a certain lever or of a certain system of pulleys, will suffice to
raise a certain weight. But his demonstration proceeds on the supposition
that the machinery is such as no load will bend or break. If the engineer,
who has to lift a great mass of real granite by the instrumentality of real
timber and real hemp, should absolutely rely on the propositions which he
finds in treatises on Dynamics, and should make no allowance for the
imperfection of his materials, his whole apparatus of beams, wheels, and
ropes would soon come down in ruin, and, with all his geometrical skill, he
would be found a far inferior builder to those painted barbarians who,
though they never heard of the parallelogram of forces, managed to pile up
Stonehenge. What the engineer is to the mathematician, the active

statesman is to the contemplative statesman. It is indeed most important that
legislators and administrators should be versed in the philosophy of
government, as it is most important that the architect, who has to fix an
obelisk on its pedestal, or to hang a tubular bridge over an estuary, should
be versed in the philosophy of equilibrium and motion. But, as he who has
actually to build must bear in mind many things never noticed by
D'Alembert and Euler, so must he who has actually to govern be perpetually
guided by considerations to which no allusion can be found in the writings
of Adam Smith or Jeremy Bentham. The perfect lawgiver is a just temper
between the mere man of theory, who can see nothing but general
principles, and the mere man of business, who can see nothing but
particular circumstances. Of lawgivers in whom the speculative element has
prevailed to the exclusion of the practical, the world has during the last
eighty years been singularly fruitful. To their wisdom Europe and America
have owed scores of abortive constitutions, scores of constitutions which
have lived just long enough to make a miserable noise, and have then gone
off in convulsions. But in the English legislature the practical element has
always predominated, and not seldom unduly predominated, over the
speculative. To think nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never
to remove an anomaly merely because it is an anomaly; never to innovate
except when some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get
rid of the grievance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than
the particular case for which it is necessary to provide; these are the rules
which have, from the age of John to the age of Victoria, generally guided
the deliberations of our two hundred and fifty Parliaments. Our national
distaste for whatever is abstract in political science amounts undoubtedly to
a fault. But it is, perhaps, a fault on the right side. That we have been far too
slow to improve our laws must be admitted. But, though in other countries
there may have occasionally been more rapid progress, it would not be easy
to name any other country in which there has been so little retrogression.
The Toleration Act approaches very near to the idea of a great English
law. To a jurist, versed in the theory of legislation, but not intimately
acquainted with the temper of the sects and parties into which the nation
was divided at the time of the Revolution, that Act would seem to be a mere
chaos of absurdities and contradictions. It will not bear to be tried by sound
general principles. Nay, it will not bear to be tried by any principle, sound
or unsound. The sound principle undoubtedly is, that mere theological error

ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate. This principle the
Toleration Act not only does not recognise, but positively disclaims. Not a
single one of the cruel laws enacted against nonconformists by the Tudors
or the Stuarts is repealed. Persecution continues to be the general rule.
Toleration is the exception. Nor is this all. The freedom which is given to
conscience is given in the most capricious manner. A Quaker, by making a
declaration of faith in general terms, obtains the full benefit of the Act
without signing one of the thirty-nine Articles. An Independent minister,
who is perfectly willing to make the declaration required from the Quaker,
but who has doubts about six or seven of the Articles, remains still subject
to the penal laws. Howe is liable to punishment if he preaches before he has
solemnly declared his assent to the Anglican doctrine touching the
Eucharist. Penn, who altogether rejects the Eucharist, is at perfect liberty to
preach without making any declaration whatever on the subject.
These are some of the obvious faults which must strike every person who
examines the Toleration Act by that standard of just reason which is the
same in all countries and in all ages. But these very faults may perhaps
appear to be merits, when we take into consideration the passions and
prejudices of those for whom the Toleration Act was framed. This law,
abounding with contradictions which every smatterer in political
philosophy can detect, did what a law framed by the utmost skill of the
greatest masters of political philosophy might have failed to do. That the
provisions which have been recapitulated are cumbrous, puerile,
inconsistent with each other, inconsistent with the true theory of religious
liberty, must be acknowledged. All that can be said in their defence is this;
that they removed a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of
prejudice; that they put an end, at once and for ever, without one division in
either House of Parliament, without one riot in the streets, with scarcely one
audible murmur even from the classes most deeply tainted with bigotry, to a
persecution which had raged during four generations, which had broken
innumerable hearts, which had made innumerable firesides desolate, which
had filled the prisons with men of whom the world was not worthy, which
had driven thousands of those honest, diligent and godfearing yeomen and
artisans, who are the true strength of a nation, to seek a refuge beyond the
ocean among the wigwams of red Indians and the lairs of panthers. Such a
defence, however weak it may appear to some shallow speculators, will
probably be thought complete by statesmen.

The English, in 1689, were by no means disposed to admit the doctrine
that religious error ought to be left unpunished. That doctrine was just then
more unpopular than it had ever been. For it had, only a few months before,
been hypocritically put forward as a pretext for persecuting the Established
Church, for trampling on the fundamental laws of the realm, for
confiscating freeholds, for treating as a crime the modest exercise of the
right of petition. If a bill had then been drawn up granting entire freedom of
conscience to all Protestants, it may be confidently affirmed that
Nottingham would never have introduced such a bill; that all the bishops,
Burnet included, would have voted against it; that it would have been
denounced, Sunday after Sunday, from ten thousand pulpits, as an insult to
God and to all Christian men, and as a license to the worst heretics and
blasphemers; that it would have been condemned almost as vehemently by
Bates and Baxter as by Ken and Sherlock; that it would have been burned
by the mob in half the market places of England; that it would never have
become the law of the land, and that it would have made the very name of
toleration odious during many years to the majority of the people. And yet,
if such a bill had been passed, what would it have effected beyond what was
effected by the Toleration Act?
It is true that the Toleration Act recognised persecution as the rule, and
granted liberty of conscience only as the exception. But it is equally true
that the rule remained in force only against a few hundreds of Protestant
dissenters, and that the benefit of the exceptions extended to hundreds of
thousands.
It is true that it was in theory absurd to make Howe sign thirty-four or
thirty-five of the Anglican articles before he could preach, and to let Penn
preach without signing one of those articles. But it is equally true that,
under this arrangement, both Howe and Penn got as entire liberty to preach
as they could have had under the most philosophical code that Beccaria or
Jefferson could have framed.
The progress of the bill was easy. Only one amendment of grave
importance was proposed. Some zealous churchmen in the Commons
suggested that it might be desirable to grant the toleration only for a term of
seven years, and thus to bind over the nonconformists to good behaviour.
But this suggestion was so unfavourably received that those who made it
did not venture to divide the House. 84

The King gave his consent with hearty satisfaction: the bill became law;
and the Puritan divines thronged to the Quarter Sessions of every county to
swear and sign. Many of them probably professed their assent to the
Articles with some tacit reservations. But the tender conscience of Baxter
would not suffer him to qualify, till he had put on record an explanation of
the sense in which he understood every proposition which seemed to him to
admit of misconstruction. The instrument delivered by him to the Court
before which he took the oaths is still extant, and contains two passages of
peculiar interest. He declared that his approbation of the Athanasian Creed
was confined to that part which was properly a Creed, and that he did not
mean to express any assent to the damnatory clauses. He also declared that
he did not, by signing the article which anathematizes all who maintain that
there is any other salvation than through Christ, mean to condemn those
who entertain a hope that sincere and virtuous unbelievers may be admitted
to partake in the benefits of Redemption. Many of the dissenting clergy of
London expressed their concurrence in these charitable sentiments. 85
The history of the Comprehension Bill presents a remarkable contrast to
the history of the Toleration Bill. The two bills had a common origin, and,
to a great extent, a common object. They were framed at the same time, and
laid aside at the same time: they sank together into oblivion; and they were,
after the lapse of several years, again brought together before the world.
Both were laid by the same peer on the table of the Upper House; and both
were referred to the same select committee. But it soon began to appear that
they would have widely different fates. The Comprehension Bill was indeed
a neater specimen of legislative workmanship than the Toleration Bill, but
was not, like the Toleration Bill, adapted to the wants, the feelings, and the
prejudices of the existing generation. Accordingly, while the Toleration Bill
found support in all quarters, the Comprehension Bill was attacked from all
quarters, and was at last coldly and languidly defended even by those who
had introduced it. About the same time at which the Toleration bill became
law with the general concurrence of public men, the Comprehension Bill
was, with a concurrence not less general, suffered to drop. The Toleration
Bill still ranks among those great statutes which are epochs in our
constitutional history. The Comprehension Bill is forgotten. No collector of
antiquities has thought it worth preserving. A single copy, the same which
Nottingham presented to the peers, is still among our parliamentary records,
but has been seen by only two or three persons now living. It is a fortunate

circumstance that, in this copy, almost the whole history of the Bill can be
read. In spite of cancellations and interlineations, the original words can
easily be distinguished from those which were inserted in the committee or
on the report. 86
The first clause, as it stood when the bill was introduced, dispensed all
the ministers of the Established Church from the necessity of subscribing
the Thirty-nine Articles. For the Articles was substituted a Declaration
which ran thus; "I do approve of the doctrine and worship and government
of the Church of England by law established, as containing all things
necessary to salvation; and I promise, in the exercise of my ministry, to
preach and practice according thereunto." Another clause granted similar
indulgence to the members of the two universities.
Then it was provided that any minister who had been ordained after the
Presbyterian fashion might, without reordination, acquire all the privileges
of a priest of the Established Church. He must, however, be admitted to his
new functions by the imposition of the hands of a bishop, who was to
pronounce the following form of words; "Take thou authority to preach the
word of God, and administer the sacraments, and to perform all other
ministerial offices in the Church of England." The person thus admitted was
to be capable of holding any rectory or vicarage in the kingdom.
Then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might, except in a few
churches of peculiar dignity, wear the surplice or not as he thought fit, that
the sign of the cross might be omitted in baptism, that children might be
christened, if such were the wish of their parents, without godfathers or
godmothers, and that persons who had a scruple about receiving the
Eucharist kneeling might receive it sitting.
The concluding clause was drawn in the form of a petition. It was
proposed that the two Houses should request the King and Queen to issue a
commission empowering thirty divines of the Established Church to revise
the liturgy, the canons, and the constitution of the ecclesiastical courts, and
to recommend such alterations as might on inquiry appear to be desirable.
The bill went smoothly through the first stages. Compton, who, since
Sancroft had shut himself up at Lambeth, was virtually Primate, supported
Nottingham with ardour. 87 In the committee, however, it appeared that
there was a strong body of churchmen, who were determined not to give up
a single word or form; to whom it seemed that the prayers were no prayers

without the surplice, the babe no Christian if not marked with the cross, the
bread and wine no memorials of redemption or vehicles of grace if not
received on bended knee. Why, these persons asked, was the docile and
affectionate son of the Church to be disgusted by seeing the irreverent
practices of a conventicle introduced into her majestic choirs? Why should
his feelings, his prejudices, if prejudices they were, be less considered than
the whims of schismatics? If, as Burnet and men like Burnet were never
weary of repeating, indulgence was due to a weak brother, was it less due to
the brother whose weakness consisted in the excess of his love for an
ancient, a decent, a beautiful ritual, associated in his imagination from
childhood with all that is most sublime and endearing, than to him whose
morose and litigious mind was always devising frivolous objections to
innocent and salutary usages? But, in truth, the scrupulosity of the Puritan
was not that sort of scrupulosity which the Apostle had commanded
believers to respect. It sprang, not from morbid tenderness of conscience,
but from censoriousness and spiritual pride; and none who had studied the
New Testament could have failed to observe that, while we are charged
carefully to avoid whatever may give scandal to the feeble, we are taught by
divine precept and example to make no concession to the supercilious and
uncharitable Pharisee. Was every thing which was not of the essence of
religion to be given up as soon as it became unpleasing to a knot of zealots
whose heads had been turned by conceit and the love of novelty? Painted
glass, music, holidays, fast days, were not of the essence of religion. Were
the windows of King's College Chapel to be broken at the demand of one
set of fanatics? Was the organ of Exeter to be silenced to please another?
Were all the village bells to be mute because Tribulation Wholesome and
Deacon Ananias thought them profane? Was Christmas no longer to be a
day of rejoicing? Was Passion week no longer to be a season of
humiliation? These changes, it is true, were not yet proposed. Put if,—so
the High Churchmen reasoned,—we once admit that what is harmless and
edifying is to be given up because it offends some narrow understandings
and some gloomy tempers, where are we to stop? And is it not probable
that, by thus attempting to heal one schism, we may cause another? All
those things which the Puritans regard as the blemishes of the Church are
by a large part of the population reckoned among her attractions. May she
not, in ceasing to give scandal to a few sour precisians, cease also to
influence the hearts of many who now delight in her ordinances? Is it not to

be apprehended that, for every proselyte whom she allures from the meeting
house, ten of her old disciples may turn away from her maimed rites and
dismantled temples, and that these new separatists may either form
themselves into a sect far more formidable than the sect which we are now
seeking to conciliate, or may, in the violence of their disgust at a cold and
ignoble worship, be tempted to join in the solemn and gorgeous idolatry of
Rome?
It is remarkable that those who held this language were by no means
disposed to contend for the doctrinal Articles of the Church. The truth is
that, from the time of James the First, that great party which has been
peculiarly zealous for the Anglican polity and the Anglican ritual has
always leaned strongly towards Arminianism, and has therefore never been
much attached to a confession of faith framed by reformers who, on
questions of metaphysical divinity, generally agreed with Calvin. One of the
characteristic marks of that party is the disposition which it has always
shown to appeal, on points of dogmatic theology, rather to the Liturgy,
which was derived from Rome, than to the Articles and Homilies, which
were derived from Geneva. The Calvinistic members of the Church, on the
other hand, have always maintained that her deliberate judgment on such
points is much more likely to be found in an Article or a Homily than in an
ejaculation of penitence or a hymn of thanksgiving. It does not appear that,
in the debates on the Comprehension Bill, a single High Churchman raised
his voice against the clause which relieved the clergy from the necessity of
subscribing the Articles, and of declaring the doctrine contained in the
Homilies to be sound. Nay, the Declaration which, in the original draught,
was substituted for the Articles, was much softened down on the report. As
the clause finally stood, the ministers of the Church were required to
declare, not that they approved of her constitution, but merely that they
submitted to it. Had the bill become law, the only people in the kingdom
who would have been under the necessity of signing the Articles would
have been the dissenting preachers. 88
The easy manner in which the zealous friends of the Church gave up her
confession of faith presents a striking contrast to the spirit with which they
struggled for her polity and her ritual. The clause which admitted
Presbyterian ministers to hold benefices without episcopal ordination was
rejected. The clause which permitted scrupulous persons to communicate
sitting very narrowly escaped the same fate. In the Committee it was struck

out, and, on the report, was with great difficulty restored. The majority of
peers in the House was against the proposed indulgence, and the scale was
but just turned by the proxies.
But by this time it began to appear that the bill which the High
Churchmen were so keenly assailing was menaced by dangers from a very
different quarter. The same considerations which had induced Nottingham
to support a comprehension made comprehension an object of dread and
aversion to a large body of dissenters. The truth is that the time for such a
scheme had gone by. If, a hundred years earlier, when the division in the
Protestant body was recent, Elizabeth had been so wise as to abstain from
requiring the observance of a few forms which a large part of her subjects
considered as Popish, she might perhaps have averted those fearful
calamities which, forty years after her death, afflicted the Church. But the
general tendency of schism is to widen. Had Leo the Tenth, when the
exactions and impostures of the Pardoners first roused the indignation of
Saxony, corrected those evil practices with a vigorous hand, it is not
improbable that Luther would have died in the bosom of the Church of
Rome. But the opportunity was suffered to escape; and, when, a few years
later, the Vatican would gladly have purchased peace by yielding the
original subject of quarrel, the original subject of quarrel was almost
forgotten. The inquiring spirit which had been roused by a single abuse had
discovered or imagined a thousand: controversies engendered controversies:
every attempt that was made to accommodate one dispute ended by
producing another; and at length a General Council, which, during the
earlier stages of the distemper, had been supposed to be an infallible
remedy, made the case utterly hopeless. In this respect, as in many others,
the history of Puritanism in England bears a close analogy to the history of
Protestantism in Europe. The Parliament of 1689 could no more put an end
to nonconformity by tolerating a garb or a posture than the Doctors of Trent
could have reconciled the Teutonic nations to the Papacy by regulating the
sale of indulgences. In the sixteenth century Quakerism was unknown; and
there was not in the whole realm a single congregation of Independents or
Baptists. At the time of the Revolution, the Independents, Baptists, and
Quakers were a majority of the dissenting body; and these sects could not
be gained over on any terms which the lowest of Low Churchmen would
have been willing to offer. The Independent held that a national Church,
governed by any central authority whatever, Pope, Patriarch, King, Bishop,

or Synod, was an unscriptural institution, and that every congregation of
believers was, under Christ, a sovereign society. The Baptist was even more
irreclaimable than the Independent, and the Quaker even more irreclaimable
than the Baptist. Concessions, therefore, which would once have
extinguished nonconformity would not now satisfy even one half of the
nonconformists; and it was the obvious interest of every nonconformist
whom no concession would satisfy that none of his brethren should be
satisfied. The more liberal the terms of comprehension, the greater was the
alarm of every separatist who knew that he could, in no case, be
comprehended. There was but slender hope that the dissenters, unbroken
and acting as one man, would be able to obtain from the legislature full
admission to civil privileges; and all hope of obtaining such admission must
be relinquished if Nottingham should, by the help of some wellmeaning but
shortsighted friends of religious liberty, be enabled to accomplish his
design. If his bill passed, there would doubtless be a considerable defection
from the dissenting body; and every defection must be severely felt by a
class already outnumbered, depressed, and struggling against powerful
enemies. Every proselyte too must be reckoned twice over, as a loss to the
party which was even now too weak, and as a gain to the party which was
even now too strong. The Church was but too well able to hold her own
against all the sects in the kingdom; and, if those sects were to be thinned
by a large desertion, and the Church strengthened by a large reinforcement,
it was plain that all chance of obtaining any relaxation of the Test Act would
be at an end; and it was but too probable that the Toleration Act might not
long remain unrepealed.
Even those Presbyterian ministers whose scruples the Comprehension
Bill was expressly intended to remove were by no means unanimous in
wishing it to pass. The ablest and most eloquent preachers among them had,
since the Declaration of Indulgence had appeared, been very agreeably
settled in the capital and in other large towns, and were now about to enjoy,
under the sure guarantee of an Act of Parliament, that toleration which,
under the Declaration of Indulgence, had been illicit and precarious. The
situation of these men was such as the great majority of the divines of the
Established Church might well envy. Few indeed of the parochial clergy
were so abundantly supplied with comforts as the favourite orator of a great
assembly of nonconformists in the City. The voluntary contributions of his
wealthy hearers, Aldermen and Deputies, West India merchants and Turkey

merchants, Wardens of the Company of Fishmongers and Wardens of the
Company of Goldsmiths, enabled him to become a landowner or a
mortgagee. The best broadcloth from Blackwell Hall, and the best poultry
from Leadenhall Market, were frequently left at his door. His influence over
his flock was immense. Scarcely any member of a congregation of
separatists entered into a partnership, married a daughter, put a son out as
apprentice, or gave his vote at an election, without consulting his spiritual
guide. On all political and literary questions the minister was the oracle of
his own circle. It was popularly remarked, during many years, that an
eminent dissenting minister had only to make his son an attorney or a
physician; that the attorney was sure to have clients, and the physician to
have patients. While a waiting woman was generally considered as a help
meet for a chaplain in holy orders of the Established Church, the widows
and daughters of opulent citizens were supposed to belong in a peculiar
manner to nonconformist pastors. One of the great Presbyterian Rabbies,
therefore, might well doubt whether, in a worldly view, he should be
benefited by a comprehension. He might indeed hold a rectory or a
vicarage, when he could get one. But in the meantime he would be
destitute: his meeting house would be closed: his congregation would be
dispersed among the parish churches: if a benefice were bestowed on him, it
would probably be a very slender compensation for the income which he
had lost. Nor could he hope to have, as a minister of the Anglican Church,
the authority and dignity which he had hitherto enjoyed. He would always,
by a large portion of the members of that Church, be regarded as a deserter.
He might therefore, on the whole, very naturally wish to be left where he
was. 89
There was consequently a division in the Whig party. One section of that
party was for relieving the dissenters from the Test Act, and giving up the
Comprehension Bill. Another section was for pushing forward the
Comprehension Bill, and postponing to a more convenient time the
consideration of the Test Act. The effect of this division among the friends
of religious liberty was that the High Churchmen, though a minority in the
House of Commons, and not a majority in the House of Lords, were able to
oppose with success both the reforms which they dreaded. The
Comprehension Bill was not passed; and the Test Act was not repealed.
Just at the moment when the question of the Test and the question of the
Comprehension became complicated together in a manner which might well

perplex an enlightened and honest politician, both questions became
complicated with a third question of grave importance.
The ancient oaths of allegiance and supremacy contained some
expressions which had always been disliked by the Whigs, and other
expressions which Tories, honestly attached to the new settlement, thought
inapplicable to princes who had not the hereditary right. The Convention
had therefore, while the throne was still vacant, framed those oaths of
allegiance and supremacy by which we still testify our loyalty to our
Sovereign. By the Act which turned the Convention into a Parliament, the
members of both Houses were required to take the new oaths. As to other
persons in public trust, it was hard to say how the law stood. One form of
words was enjoined by statutes, regularly passed, and not yet regularly
abrogated. A different form was enjoined by the Declaration of Right, an
instrument which was indeed revolutionary and irregular, but which might
well be thought equal in authority to any statute. The practice was in as
much confusion as the law. It was therefore felt to be necessary that the
legislature should, without delay, pass an Act abolishing the old oaths, and
determining when and by whom the new oaths should be taken.
The bill which settled this important question originated in the Upper
House. As to most of the provisions there was little room for dispute. It was
unanimously agreed that no person should, at any future time, be admitted
to any office, civil, military, ecclesiastical, or academical, without taking
the oaths to William and Mary. It was also unanimously agreed that every
person who already held any civil or military office should be ejected from
it, unless he took the oaths on or before the first of August 1689. But the
strongest passions of both parties were excited by the question whether
persons who already possessed ecclesiastical or academical offices should
be required to swear fealty to the King and Queen on pain of deprivation.
None could say what might be the effect of a law enjoining all the members
of a great, a powerful, a sacred profession to make, under the most solemn
sanction of religion, a declaration which might be plausibly represented as a
formal recantation of all that they had been writing and preaching during
many years. The Primate and some of the most eminent Bishops had
already absented themselves from Parliament, and would doubtless
relinquish their palaces and revenues, rather than acknowledge the new
Sovereigns. The example of these great prelates might perhaps be followed
by a multitude of divines of humbler rank, by hundreds of canons,

prebendaries, and fellows of colleges, by thousands of parish priests. To
such an event no Tory, however clear his own conviction that he might
lawfully swear allegiance to the King who was in possession, could look
forward without the most painful emotions of compassion for the sufferers
and of anxiety for the Church.
There were some persons who went so far as to deny that the Parliament
was competent to pass a law requiring a Bishop to swear on pain of
deprivation. No earthly power, they said, could break the tie which bound
the successor of the apostles to his diocese. What God had joined no man
could sunder. Dings and senates might scrawl words on parchment or
impress figures on wax; but those words and figures could no more change
the course of the spiritual than the course of the physical world. As the
Author of the universe had appointed a certain order, according to which it
was His pleasure to send winter and summer, seedtime and harvest, so He
had appointed a certain order, according to which He communicated His
grace to His Catholic Church; and the latter order was, like the former,
independent of the powers and principalities of the world. A legislature
might alter the flames of the months, might call June December, and
December June; but, in spite of the legislature, the snow would fall when
the sun was in Capricorn, and the flowers would bloom when he was in
Cancer. And so the legislature might enact that Ferguson or Muggleton
should live in the palace at Lambeth, should sit on the throne of Augustin,
should be called Your Grace, and should walk in processions before the
Premier Duke; but, in spite of the legislature, Sancroft would, while
Sancroft lived, be the only true Archbishop of Canterbury; and the person
who should presume to usurp the archiepiscopal functions would be a
schismatic. This doctrine was proved by reasons drawn from the budding of
Aaron's rod, and from a certain plate which Saint James the Less, according
to a legend of the fourth century, used to wear on his forehead. A Greek
manuscript, relating to the deprivation of bishops, was discovered, about
this time, in the Bodleian Library, and became the subject of a furious
controversy. One party held that God had wonderfully brought this precious
volume to light, for the guidance of His Church at a most critical moment.
The other party wondered that any importance could be attached to the
nonsense of a nameless scribbler of the thirteenth century. Much was
written about the deprivations of Chrysostom and Photius, of Nicolaus
Mysticus and Cosmas Atticus. But the case of Abiathar, whom Solomon put

out of the sacerdotal office for treason, was discussed with peculiar
eagerness. No small quantity of learning and ingenuity was expended in the
attempt to prove that Abiathar, though he wore the ephod and answered by
Urim, was not really High Priest, that he ministered only when his superior
Zadoc was incapacitated by sickness or by some ceremonial pollution, and
that therefore the act of Solomon was not a precedent which would warrant
King William in deposing a real Bishop. 90

But such reasoning as this, though backed by copious citations from the
Misna and Maimonides, was not generally satisfactory even to zealous
churchmen. For it admitted of one answer, short, but perfectly intelligible to
a plain man who knew nothing about Greek fathers or Levitical
genealogies. There might be some doubt whether King Solomon had
ejected a high priest; but there could be no doubt at all that Queen Elizabeth
had ejected the Bishops of more than half the sees in England. It was
notorious that fourteen prelates had, without any proceeding in any spiritual
court, been deprived by Act of Parliament for refusing to acknowledge her
supremacy. Had that deprivation been null? Had Bonner continued to be, to
the end of his life, the only true Bishop of London? Had his successor been
an usurper? Had Parker and Jewel been schismatics? Had the Convocation
of 1562, that Convocation which had finally settled the doctrine of the
Church of England, been itself out of the pale of the Church of Christ?
Nothing could be more ludicrous than the distress of those controversialists
who had to invent a plea for Elizabeth which should not be also a plea for
William. Some zealots, indeed, gave up the vain attempt to distingush
between two cases which every man of common sense perceived to be
undistinguishable, and frankly owned that the deprivations of 1559 could
not be justified. But no person, it was said, ought to be troubled in mind on
that account; for, though the Church of England might once have been
schismatical, she had become Catholic when the Bishops deprived by
Elizabeth had ceased to live. 91 The Tories, however, were not generally
disposed to admit that the religious society to which they were fondly
attached had originated in an unlawful breach of unity. They therefore took
ground lower and more tenable. They argued the question as a question of
humanity and of expediency. They spoke much of the debt of gratitude
which the nation owed to the priesthood; of the courage and fidelity with
which the order, from the primate down to the youngest deacon, had
recently defended the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm; of
the memorable Sunday when, in all the hundred churches of the capital,
scarcely one slave could be found to read the Declaration of Indulgence; of
the Black Friday when, amidst the blessings and the loud weeping of a
mighty population, the barge of the seven prelates passed through the
watergate of the Tower. The firmness with which the clergy had lately, in
defiance of menace and of seduction, done what they conscientiously
believed to be right, had saved the liberty and religion of England. Was no

indulgence to be granted to them if they now refused to do what they
conscientiously apprehended to be wrong? And where, it was said, is the
danger of treating them with tenderness? Nobody is so absurd as to propose
that they shall be permitted to plot against the Government, or to stir up the
multitude to insurrection. They are amenable to the law, like other men. If
they are guilty of treason, let them be hanged. If they are guilty of sedition,
let them be fined and imprisoned. If they omit, in their public ministrations,
to pray for King William, for Queen Mary, and for the Parliament
assembled under those most religious sovereigns, let the penal clauses of
the Act of Uniformity be put in force. If this be not enough, let his Majesty
be empowered to tender the oaths to any clergyman; and, if the oaths so
tendered are refused, let deprivation follow. In this way any nonjuring
bishop or rector who may be suspected, though he cannot be legally
convicted, of intriguing, of writing, of talking, against the present
settlement, may be at once removed from his office. But why insist on
ejecting a pious and laborious minister of religion, who never lifts a finger
or utters a word against the government, and who, as often as he performs
morning and evening service, prays from his heart for a blessing on the
rulers set over him by Providence, but who will not take an oath which
seems to him to imply a right in the people to depose a sovereign? Surely
we do all that is necessary if we leave men of this sort to the mercy of the
very prince to whom they refuse to swear fidelity. If he is willing to bear
with their scrupulosity, if he considers them, notwithstanding their
prejudices, as innocent and useful members of society, who else can be
entitled to complain?
The Whigs were vehement on the other side. They scrutinised, with
ingenuity sharpened by hatred, the claims of the clergy to the public
gratitude, and sometimes went so far as altogether to deny that the order
had in the preceding year deserved well of the nation. It was true that
bishops and priests had stood up against the tyranny of the late King: but it
was equally true that, but for the obstinacy with which they had opposed the
Exclusion Bill, he never would have been King, and that, but for their
adulation and their doctrine of passive obedience, he would never have
ventured to be guilty of such tyranny. Their chief business, during a quarter
of a century, had been to teach the people to cringe and the prince to
domineer. They were guilty of the blood of Russell, of Sidney, of every
brave and honest Englishman who had been put to death for attempting to

save the realm from Popery and despotism. Never had they breathed a
whisper against arbitrary power till arbitrary power began to menace their
own property and dignity. Then, no doubt, forgetting all their old
commonplaces about submitting to Nero, they had made haste to save
themselves. Grant,—such was the cry of these eager disputants,—grant that,
in saving themselves, they saved the constitution. Are we therefore to forget
that they had previously endangered it? And are we to reward them by now
permitting them to destroy it? Here is a class of men closely connected with
the state. A large part of the produce of the soil has been assigned to them
for their maintenance. Their chiefs have seats in the legislature, wide
domains, stately palaces. By this privileged body the great mass of the
population is lectured every week from the chair of authority. To this
privileged body has been committed the supreme direction of liberal
education. Oxford and Cambridge, Westminster, Winchester, and Eton, are
under priestly government. By the priesthood will to a great extent be
formed the character of the nobility and gentry of the next generation. Of
the higher clergy some have in their gift numerous and valuable benefices;
others have the privilege of appointing judges who decide grave questions
affecting the liberty, the property, the reputation of their Majesties' subjects.
And is an order thus favoured by the state to give no guarantee to the state?
On what principle can it be contended that it is unnecessary to ask from an
Archbishop of Canterbury or from a Bishop of Durham that promise of
fidelity to the government which all allow that it is necessary to demand
from every layman who serves the Crown in the humblest office. Every
exciseman, every collector of the customs, who refuses to swear, is to be
deprived of his bread. For these humble martyrs of passive obedience and
hereditary right nobody has a word to say. Yet an ecclesiastical magnate
who refuses to swear is to be suffered to retain emoluments, patronage,
power, equal to those of a great minister of state. It is said that it is
superfluous to impose the oaths on a clergyman, because he may be
punished if he breaks the laws. Why is not the same argument urged in
favour of the layman? And why, if the clergyman really means to observe
the laws, does he scruple to take the oaths? The law commands him to
designate William and Mary as King and Queen, to do this in the most
sacred place, to do this in the administration of the most solemn of all the
rites of religion. The law commands him to pray that the illustrious pair
may be defended by a special providence, that they may be victorious over

every enemy, and that their Parliament may by divine guidance be led to
take such a course as may promote their safety, honour, and welfare. Can
we believe that his conscience will suffer him to do all this, and yet will not
suffer him to promise that he will be a faithful subject to them?
To the proposition that the nonjuring clergy should be left to the mercy of
the King, the Whigs, with some justice, replied that no scheme could be
devised more unjust to his Majesty. The matter, they said, is one of public
concern, one in which every Englishman who is unwilling to be the slave of
France and of Rome has a deep interest. In such a case it would be
unworthy of the Estates of the Realm to shrink from the responsibility of
providing for the common safety, to try to obtain for themselves the praise
of tenderness and liberality, and to leave to the Sovereign the odious task of
proscription. A law requiring all public functionaries, civil, military,
ecclesiastical, without distinction of persons, to take the oaths is at least
equal. It excludes all suspicion of partiality, of personal malignity, of secret
shying and talebearing. But, if an arbitrary discretion is left to the
Government, if one nonjuring priest is suffered to keep a lucrative benefice
while another is turned with his wife and children into the street, every
ejection will be considered as an act of cruelty, and will be imputed as a
crime to the sovereign and his ministers. 92
Thus the Parliament had to decide, at the same moment, what quantity of
relief should be granted to the consciences of dissenters, and what quantity
of pressure should be applied to the consciences of the clergy of the
Established Church. The King conceived a hope that it might be in his
power to effect a compromise agreeable to all parties. He flattered himself
that the Tories might be induced to make some concession to the dissenters,
on condition that the Whigs would be lenient to the Jacobites. He
determined to try what his personal intervention would effect. It chanced
that, a few hours after the Lords had read the Comprehension Bill a second
time and the Bill touching the Oaths a first time, he had occasion to go
down to Parliament for the purpose of giving his assent to a law. From the
throne he addressed both Houses, and expressed an earnest wish that they
would consent to modify the existing laws in such a manner that all
Protestants might be admitted to public employment. 93 It was well
understood that he was willing, if the legislature would comply with his
request, to let clergymen who were already beneficed continue to hold their
benefices without swearing allegiance to him. His conduct on this occasion

deserves undoubtedly the praise of disinterestedness. It is honourable to him
that he attempted to purchase liberty of conscience for his subjects by
giving up a safeguard of his own crown. But it must be acknowledged that
he showed less wisdom than virtue. The only Englishman in his Privy
Council whom he had consulted, if Burnet was correctly informed, was
Richard Hampden; 94 and Richard Hampden, though a highly respectable
man, was so far from being able to answer for the Whig party that he could
not answer even for his own son John, whose temper, naturally vindictive,
had been exasperated into ferocity by the stings of remorse and shame. The
King soon found that there was in the hatred of the two great factions an
energy which was wanting to their love. The Whigs, though they were
almost unanimous in thinking that the Sacramental Test ought to be
abolished, were by no means unanimous in thinking that moment well
chosen for the abolition; and even those Whigs who were most desirous to
see the nonconformists relieved without delay from civil disabilities were
fully determined not to forego the opportunity of humbling and punishing
the class to whose instrumentality chiefly was to be ascribed that
tremendous reflux of public feeling which had followed the dissolution of
the Oxford Parliament. To put the Janes, the Souths, the Sherlocks into such
a situation that they must either starve, or recant, publicly, and with the
Gospel at their lips, all the ostentatious professions of many years, was a
revenge too delicious to be relinquished. The Tory, on the other hand,
sincerely respected and pitied those clergymen who felt scruples about the
oaths. But the Test was, in his view, essential to the safety of the established
religion, and must not be surrendered for the purpose of saving any man
however eminent from any hardship however serious. It would be a sad day
doubtless for the Church when the episcopal bench, the chapter houses of
cathedrals, the halls of colleges, would miss some men renowned for piety
and learning. But it would be a still sadder day for the Church when an
Independent should bear the white staff or a Baptist sit on the woolsack.
Each party tried to serve those for whom it was interested: but neither party
would consent to grant favourable terms to its enemies. The result was that
the nonconformists remained excluded from office in the State, and the
nonjurors were ejected from office in the Church.
In the House of Commons, no member thought it expedient to propose
the repeal of the Test Act. But leave was given to bring in a bill repealing
the Corporation Act, which had been passed by the Cavalier Parliament

soon after the Restoration, and which contained a clause requiring all
municipal magistrates to receive the sacrament according to the forms of
the Church of England. When this bill was about to be committed, it was
moved by the Tories that the committee should be instructed to make no
alteration in the law touching the sacrament. Those Whigs who were
zealous for the Comprehension must have been placed by this motion in an
embarrassing position. To vote for the instruction would have been
inconsistent with their principles. To vote against it would have been to
break with Nottingham. A middle course was found. The adjournment of
the debate was moved and carried by a hundred and sixteen votes to a
hundred and fourteen; and the subject was not revived. 95 In the House of
Lords a motion was made for the abolition of the sacramental test, but was
rejected by a large majority. Many of those who thought the motion right in
principle thought it ill timed. A protest was entered; but it was signed only
by a few peers of no great authority. It is a remarkable fact that two great
chiefs of the Whig party, who were in general very attentive to their
parliamentary duty, Devonshire and Shrewsbury, absented themselves on
this occasion. 96
The debate on the Test in the Upper House was speedily followed by a
debate on the last clause of the Comprehension Bill. By that clause it was
provided that thirty Bishops and priests should be commissioned to revise
the liturgy and canons, and to suggest amendments. On this subject the
Whig peers were almost all of one mind. They mustered strong, and spoke
warmly. Why, they asked, were none but members of the sacerdotal order to
be intrusted with this duty? Were the laity no part of the Church of
England? When the Commission should have made its report, laymen
would have to decide on the recommendations contained in that report. Not
a line of the Book of Common Prayer could be altered but by the authority
of King, Lords, and Commons. The King was a layman. Five sixths of the
Lords were laymen. All the members of the House of Commons were
laymen. Was it not absurd to say that laymen were incompetent to examine
into a matter which it was acknowledged that laymen must in the last resort
determine? And could any thing be more opposite to the whole spirit of
Protestantism than the notion that a certain preternatural power of judging
in spiritual cases was vouchsafed to a particular caste, and to that caste
alone; that such men as Selden, as Hale, as Boyle, were less competent to
give an opinion on a collect or a creed than the youngest and silliest

chaplain who, in a remote manor house, passed his life in drinking ale and
playing at shovelboard? What God had instituted no earthly power, lay or
clerical, could alter: and of things instituted by human beings a layman was
surely as competent as a clergyman to judge. That the Anglican liturgy and
canons were of purely human institution the Parliament acknowledged by
referring them to a Commission for revision and correction. How could it
then be maintained that in such a Commission the laity, so vast a majority
of the population, the laity, whose edification was the main end of all
ecclesiastical regulations, and whose innocent tastes ought to be carefully
consulted in the framing of the public services of religion, ought not to have
a single representative? Precedent was directly opposed to this odious
distinction. Repeatedly since the light of reformation had dawned on
England Commissioners had been empowered by law to revise the canons;
and on every one of those occasions some of the Commissioners had been
laymen. In the present case the proposed arrangement was peculiarly
objectionable. For the object of issuing the commission was the conciliating
of dissenters; and it was therefore most desirable that the Commissioners
should be men in whose fairness and moderation dissenters could confide.
Would thirty such men be easily found in the higher ranks of the clerical
profession? The duty of the legislature was to arbitrate between two
contending parties, the Nonconformist divines and the Anglican divines,
and it would be the grossest injustice to commit to one of those parties the
office of umpire.
On these grounds the Whigs proposed an amendment to the effect that
laymen should be joined with clergymen in the Commission. The contest
was sharp. Burnet, who had just taken his seat among the peers, and who
seems to have been bent on winning at almost any price the good will of his
brethren, argued with all his constitutional warmth for the clause as it stood.
The numbers on the division proved to be exactly equal. The consequence
was that, according to the rules of the House, the amendment was lost. 97
At length the Comprehension Bill was sent down to the Commons. There
it would easily have been carried by two to one, if it had been supported by
all the friends of religious liberty. But on this subject the High Churchmen
could count on the support of a large body of Low Churchmen. Those
members who wished well to Nottingham's plan saw that they were
outnumbered, and, despairing of a victory, began to meditate a retreat. Just
at this time a suggestion was thrown out which united all suffrages. The

ancient usage was that a Convocation should be summoned together with a
Parliament; and it might well be argued that, if ever the advice of a
Convocation could be needed, it must be when changes in the ritual and
discipline of the Church were under consideration. But, in consequence of
the irregular manner in which the Estates of the Realm had been brought
together during the vacancy of the throne, there was no Convocation. It was
proposed that the House should advise the King to take measures for
supplying this defect, and that the fate of the Comprehension Bill should
not be decided till the clergy had had an opportunity of declaring their
opinion through the ancient and legitimate organ.
This proposition was received with general acclamation. The Tories were
well pleased to see such honour done to the priesthood. Those Whigs who
were against the Comprehension Bill were well pleased to see it laid aside,
certainly for a year, probably for ever. Those Whigs who were for the
Comprehension Bill were well pleased to escape without a defeat. Many of
them indeed were not without hopes that mild and liberal counsels might
prevail in the ecclesiastical senate. An address requesting William to
summon the Convocation was voted without a division: the concurrence of
the Lords was asked: the Lords concurred, the address was carried up to the
throne by both Houses: the King promised that he would, at a convenient
season, do what his Parliament desired; and Nottingham's Bill was not
again mentioned.
Many writers, imperfectly acquainted with the history of that age, have
inferred from these proceedings that the House of Commons was an
assembly of High Churchmen: but nothing is more certain than that two
thirds of the members were either Low Churchmen or not Churchmen at all.
A very few days before this time an occurrence had taken place,
unimportant in itself, but highly significant as an indication of the temper of
the majority. It had been suggested that the House ought, in conformity with
ancient usage, to adjourn over the Easter holidays. The Puritans and
Latitudinarians objected: there was a sharp debate: the High Churchmen did
not venture to divide; and, to the great scandal of many grave persons, the
Speaker took the chair at nine o'clock on Easter Monday; and there was a
long and busy sitting. 98
This however was by no means the strongest proof which the Commons
gave that they were far indeed from feeling extreme reverence or tenderness

for the Anglican hierarchy. The bill for settling the oaths had just come
down from the Lords framed in a manner favourable to the clergy. All lay
functionaries were required to swear fealty to the King and Queen on pain
of expulsion from office. But it was provided that every divine who already
held a benefice might continue to hold it without swearing, unless the
Government should see reason to call on him specially for an assurance of
his loyalty. Burnett had, partly, no doubt, from the goodnature and
generosity which belonged to his character, and partly from a desire to
conciliate his brethren, supported this arrangement in the Upper House with
great energy. But in the Lower House the feeling against the Jacobite priests
was irresistibly strong. On the very day on which that House voted, without
a division, the address requesting the King to summon the Convocation, a
clause was proposed and carried which required every person who held any
ecclesiastical or academical preferment to take the oaths by the first of
August 1689, on pain of suspension. Six months, to be reckoned from that
day, were allowed to the nonjuror for reconsideration. If, on the first of
February 1690, he still continued obstinate, he was to be finally deprived.
The bill, thus amended, was sent back to the Lords. The Lords adhered to
their original resolution. Conference after conference was held.
Compromise after compromise was suggested. From the imperfect reports
which have come down to us it appears that every argument in favour of
lenity was forcibly urged by Burnet. But the Commons were firm: time
pressed: the unsettled state of the law caused inconvenience in every
department of the public service; and the peers very reluctantly gave way.
They at the same time added a clause empowering the King to bestow
pecuniary allowances out of the forfeited benefices on a few nonjuring
clergymen. The number of clergymen thus favoured was not to exceed
twelve. The allowance was not to exceed one third of the income forfeited.
Some zealous Whigs were unwilling to grant even this indulgence: but the
Commons were content with the victory which they had won, and justly
thought that it would be ungracious to refuse so slight a concession. 99
These debates were interrupted, during a short time, by the festivities and
solemnities of the Coronation. When the day fixed for that great ceremony
drew near, the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee for the
purpose of settling the form of words in which our Sovereigns were
thenceforward to enter into covenant with the nation. All parties were
agreed as to the propriety of requiring the King to swear that, in temporal

matters, he would govern according to law, and would execute justice in
mercy. But about the terms of the oath which related to the spiritual
institutions of the realm there was much debate. Should the chief magistrate
promise simply to maintain the Protestant religion established by law, or
should he promise to maintain that religion as it should be hereafter
established by law? The majority preferred the former phrase. The latter
phrase was preferred by those Whigs who were for a Comprehension. But it
was universally admitted that the two phrases really meant the same thing,
and that the oath, however it might be worded, would bind the Sovereign in
his executive capacity only. This was indeed evident from the very nature of
the transaction. Any compact may be annulled by the free consent of the
party who alone is entitled to claim the performance. It was never doubted
by the most rigid casuist that a debtor, who has bound himself under the
most awful imprecations to pay a debt, may lawfully withhold payment if
the creditor is willing to cancel the obligation. And it is equally clear that no
assurance, exacted from a King by the Estates of his kingdom, can bind him
to refuse compliance with what may at a future time be the wish of those
Estates.
A bill was drawn up in conformity with the resolutions of the Committee,
and was rapidly passed through every stage. After the third reading, a
foolish man stood up to propose a rider, declaring that the oath was not
meant to restrain the Sovereign from consenting to any change in the
ceremonial of the Church, provided always that episcopacy and a written
form of prayer were retained. The gross absurdity of this motion was
exposed by several eminent members. Such a clause, they justly remarked,
would bind the King under pretence of setting him free. The coronation
oath, they said, was never intended to trammel him in his legislative
capacity. Leave that oath as it is now drawn, and no prince can
misunderstand it. No prince can seriously imagine that the two Houses
mean to exact from him a promise that he will put a Veto on laws which
they may hereafter think necessary to the wellbeing of the country. Or if any
prince should so strangely misapprehend the nature of the contract between
him and his subjects, any divine, any lawyer, to whose advice he may have
recourse, will set his mind at ease. But if this rider should pass, it will be
impossible to deny that the coronation oath is meant to prevent the King
from giving his assent to bills which may be presented to him by the Lords
and Commons; and the most serious inconvenience may follow. These

arguments were felt to be unanswerable, and the proviso was rejected
without a division, 100
Every person who has read these debates must be fully convinced that the
statesmen who framed the coronation oath did not mean to bind the King in
his legislative capacity, 101 Unhappily, more than a hundred years later, a
scruple, which those statesmen thought too absurd to be seriously
entertained by any human being, found its way into a mind, honest, indeed,
and religious, but narrow and obstinate by nature, and at once debilitated
and excited by disease. Seldom, indeed, have the ambition and perfidy of
tyrants produced evils greater than those which were brought on our
country by that fatal conscientiousness. A conjuncture singularly
auspicious, a conjuncture at which wisdom and justice might perhaps have
reconciled races and sects long hostile, and might have made the British
islands one truly United Kingdom, was suffered to pass away. The
opportunity, once lost, returned no more. Two generations of public men
have since laboured with imperfect success to repair the error which was
then committed; nor is it improbable that some of the penalties of that error
may continue to afflict a remote posterity.
The Bill by which the oath was settled passed the Upper House without
amendment. All the preparations were complete; and, on the eleventh of
April, the coronation took place. In some things it differed from ordinary
coronations. The representatives of the people attended the ceremony in a
body, and were sumptuously feasted in the Exchequer Chamber. Mary,
being not merely Queen Consort, but also Queen Regnant, was inaugurated
in all things like a King, was girt with the sword, lifted up into the throne,
and presented with the Bible, the spurs, and the orb. Of the temporal
grandees of the realm, and of their wives and daughters, the muster was
great and splendid. None could be surprised that the Whig aristocracy
should swell the triumph of Whig principles. But the Jacobites saw, with
concern, that many Lords who had voted for a Regency bore a conspicuous
part in the ceremonial. The King's crown was carried by Grafton, the
Queen's by Somerset. The pointed sword, emblematical of temporal justice,
was borne by Pembroke. Ormond was Lord High Constable for the day, and
rode up the Hall on the right hand of the hereditary champion, who thrice
flung down his glove on the pavement, and thrice defied to mortal combat
the false traitor who should gainsay the title of William and Mary. Among
the noble damsels who supported the gorgeous train of the Queen was her

beautiful and gentle cousin, the Lady Henrietta Hyde, whose father,
Rochester, had to the last contended against the resolution which declared
the throne vacant, 102 The show of Bishops, indeed, was scanty. The
Primate did not make his appearance; and his place was supplied by
Compton. On one side of Compton, the paten was carried by Lloyd, Bishop
of Saint Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the preceding year.
On the other side, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, lately a member of the High
Commission, had charge of the chalice. Burnet, the junior prelate, preached
with all his wonted ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment.
His grave and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by adulation nor by
malignity. He is said to have been greatly applauded; and it may well be
believed that the animated peroration in which he implored heaven to bless
the royal pair with long life and mutual love, with obedient subjects, wise
counsellors, and faithful allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with victory,
with peace, and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than
those which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the loudest
hums of the Commons, 103
On the whole the ceremony went off well, and produced something like a
revival, faint, indeed, and transient, of the enthusiasm of the preceding
December. The day was, in London and in many other places, a day of
general rejoicing. The churches were filled in the morning: the afternoon
was spent in sport and carousing; and at night bonfires were lighted, rockets
discharged, and windows lighted up. The Jacobites however contrived to
discover or to invent abundant matter for scurrility and sarcasm. They
complained bitterly, that the way from the hall to the western door of the
Abbey had been lined by Dutch soldiers. Was it seemly that an English king
should enter into the most solemn of engagements with the English nation
behind a triple hedge of foreign swords and bayonets? Little affrays, such
as, at every great pageant, almost inevitably take place between those who
are eager to see the show and those whose business it is to keep the
communications clear, were exaggerated with all the artifices of rhetoric.
One of the alien mercenaries had backed his horse against an honest citizen
who pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the royal canopy. Another had
rudely pushed back a woman with the but end of his musket. On such
grounds as these the strangers were compared to those Lord Danes whose
insolence, in the old time, had provoked the Anglo-saxon population to
insurrection and massacre. But there was no more fertile theme for censure

than the coronation medal, which really was absurd in design and mean in
execution. A chariot appeared conspicuous on the reverse; and plain people
were at a loss to understand what this emblem had to do with William and
Mary. The disaffected wits solved the difficulty by suggesting that the artist
meant to allude to that chariot which a Roman princess, lost to all filial
affection, and blindly devoted to the interests of an ambitious husband,
drove over the still warm remains of her father, 104
Honours were, as usual, liberally bestowed at this festive season. Three
garters which happened to be at the disposal of the Crown were given to
Devonshire, Ormond, and Schomberg. Prince George was created Duke of
Cumberland. Several eminent men took new appellations by which they
must henceforth be designated. Danby became Marquess of Caermarthen,
Churchill Earl of Marlborough, and Bentinck Earl of Portland. Mordaunt
was made Earl of Monmouth, not without some murmuring on the part of
old Exclusionists, who still remembered with fondness their Protestant
Duke, and who had hoped that his attainder would be reversed, and that his
title would be borne by his descendants. It was remarked that the name of
Halifax did not appear in the list of promotions. None could doubt that he
might easily have obtained either a blue riband or a ducal coronet; and,
though he was honourably distinguished from most of his contemporaries
by his scorn of illicit gain, it was well known that he desired honorary
distinctions with a greediness of which he was himself ashamed, and which
was unworthy of his fine understanding. The truth is that his ambition was
at this time chilled by his fears. To those whom he trusted he hinted his
apprehensions that evil times were at hand. The King's life was not worth a
year's purchase: the government was disjointed, the clergy and the army
disaffected, the parliament torn by factions: civil war was already raging in
one part of the empire: foreign war was impending. At such a moment a
minister, whether Whig or Tory, might well be uneasy; but neither Whig nor
Tory had so much to fear as the Trimmer, who might not improbably find
himself the common mark at which both parties would take aim. For these
reasons Halifax determined to avoid all ostentation of power and influence,
to disarm envy by a studied show of moderation, and to attach to himself by
civilities and benefits persons whose gratitude might be useful in the event
of a counterrevolution. The next three months, he said, would be the time of
trial. If the government got safe through the summer it would probably
stand, 105

Meanwhile questions of external policy were every day becoming more
and more important. The work at which William had toiled indefatigably
during many gloomy and anxious years was at length accomplished. The
great coalition was formed. It was plain that a desperate conflict was at
hand. The oppressor of Europe would have to defend himself against
England allied with Charles the Second King of Spain, with the Emperor
Leopold, and with the Germanic and Batavian federations, and was likely to
have no ally except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of
Austria on the Danube.
Lewis had, towards the close of the preceding year, taken his enemies at a
disadvantage, and had struck the first blow before they were prepared to
parry it. But that blow, though heavy, was not aimed at the part where it
might have been mortal. Had hostilities been commenced on the Batavian
frontier, William and his army would probably have been detained on the
continent, and James might have continued to govern England. Happily,
Lewis, under an infatuation which many pious Protestants confidently
ascribed to the righteous judgment of God, had neglected the point on
which the fate of the whole civilised world depended, and had made a great
display of power, promptitude, and energy, in a quarter where the most
splendid achievements could produce nothing more than an illumination
and a Te Deum. A French army under the command of Marshal Duras had
invaded the Palatinate and some of the neighbouring principalities. But this
expedition, though it had been completely successful, and though the skill
and vigour with which it had been conducted had excited general
admiration, could not perceptibly affect the event of the tremendous
struggle which was approaching. France would soon be attacked on every
side. It would be impossible for Duras long to retain possession of the
provinces which he had surprised and overrun. An atrocious thought rose in
the mind of Louvois, who, in military affairs, had the chief sway at
Versailles. He was a man distinguished by zeal for what he thought the
public interests, by capacity, and by knowledge of all that related to the
administration of war, but of a savage and obdurate nature. If the cities of
the Palatinate could not be retained, they might be destroyed. If the soil of
the Palatinate was not to furnish supplies to the French, it might be so
wasted that it would at least furnish no supplies to the Germans. The
ironhearted statesman submitted his plan, probably with much management
and with some disguise, to Lewis; and Lewis, in an evil hour for his fame,

assented. Duras received orders to turn one of the fairest regions of Europe
into a wilderness. Fifteen years earlier Turenne had ravaged part of that fine
country. But the ravages committed by Turenne, though they have left a
deep stain on his glory, were mere sport in comparison with the horrors of
this second devastation. The French commander announced to near half a
million of human beings that he granted them three days of grace, and that,
within that time, they must shift for themselves. Soon the roads and fields,
which then lay deep in snow, were blackened by innumerable multitudes of
men, women, and children flying from their homes. Many died of cold and
hunger: but enough survived to fill the streets of all the cities of Europe
with lean and squalid beggars, who had once been thriving farmers and
shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction began. The flames went up
from every marketplace, every hamlet, every parish church, every country
seat, within the devoted provinces. The fields where the corn had been sown
were ploughed up. The orchards were hewn down. No promise of a harvest
was left on the fertile plains near what had once been Frankenthal. Not a
vine, not an almond tree, was to be seen on the slopes of the sunny hills
round what had once been Heidelberg. No respect was shown to palaces, to
temples, to monasteries, to infirmaries, to beautiful works of art, to
monuments of the illustrious dead. The farfamed castle of the Elector
Palatine was turned into a heap of ruins. The adjoining hospital was sacked.
The provisions, the medicines, the pallets on which the sick lay were
destroyed. The very stones of which Mannheim had been built were flung
into the Rhine. The magnificent Cathedral of Spires perished, and with it
the marble sepulchres of eight Caesars. The coffins were broken open. The
ashes were scattered to the winds, 106 Treves, with its fair bridge, its Roman
amphitheatre, its venerable churches, convents, and colleges, was doomed
to the same fate. But, before this last crime had been perpetrated, Lewis was
recalled to a better mind by the execrations of all the neighbouring nations,
by the silence and confusion of his flatterers, and by the expostulations of
his wife. He had been more than two years secretly married to Frances de
Maintenon, the governess of his natural children. It would be hard to name
any woman who, with so little romance in her temper, has had so much in
her life. Her early years had been passed in poverty and obscurity. Her first
husband had supported himself by writing burlesque farces and poems.
When she attracted the notice of her sovereign, she could no longer boast of
youth or beauty: but she possessed in an extraordinary degree those more

lasting charms, which men of sense, whose passions age has tamed, and
whose life is a life of business and care, prize most highly in a female
companion. Her character was such as has been well compared to that soft
green on which the eye, wearied by warm tints and glaring lights, reposes
with pleasure. A just understanding; an inexhaustible yet never redundant
flow of rational, gentle, and sprightly conversation; a temper of which the
serenity was never for a moment ruffled, a tact which surpassed the tact of
her sex as much as the tact of her sex surpasses the tact of ours; such were
the qualities which made the widow of a buffoon first the confidential
friend, and then the spouse, of the proudest and most powerful of European
kings. It was said that Lewis had been with difficulty prevented by the
arguments and vehement entreaties of Louvois from declaring her Queen of
France. It is certain that she regarded Louvois as her enemy. Her hatred of
him, cooperating perhaps with better feelings, induced her to plead the
cause of the unhappy people of the Rhine. She appealed to those sentiments
of compassion which, though weakened by many corrupting influences,
were not altogether extinct in her husband's mind, and to those sentiments
of religion which had too often impelled him to cruelty, but which, on the
present occasion, were on the side of humanity. He relented: and Treves
was spared, 107 In truth he could hardly fail to perceive that he had
committed a great error. The devastation of the Palatinate, while it had not
in any sensible degree lessened the power of his enemies, had inflamed
their animosity, and had furnished them with inexhaustible matter for
invective. The cry of vengeance rose on every side. Whatever scruple either
branch of the House of Austria might have felt about coalescing with
Protestants was completely removed. Lewis accused the Emperor and the
Catholic King of having betrayed the cause of the Church; of having allied
themselves with an usurper who was the avowed champion of the great
schism; of having been accessary to the foul wrong done to a lawful
sovereign who was guilty of no crime but zeal for the true religion. James
sent to Vienna and Madrid piteous letters, in which he recounted his
misfortunes, and implored the assistance of his brother kings, his brothers
also in the faith, against the unnatural children and the rebellious subjects
who had driven him into exile. But there was little difficulty in framing a
plausible answer both to the reproaches of Lewis and to the supplications of
James. Leopold and Charles declared that they had not, even for purposes
of just selfdefence, leagued themselves with heretics, till their enemy had,

for purposes of unjust aggression, leagued himself with Mahometans. Nor
was this the worst. The French King, not content with assisting the Moslem
against the Christians, was himself treating Christians with a barbarity
which would have shocked the very Moslem. His infidel allies, to do them
justice, had not perpetrated on the Danube such outrages against the
edifices and the members of the Holy Catholic Church as he who called
himself the eldest son of that Church was perpetrating on the Rhine. On
these grounds, the princes to whom James had appealed replied by
appealing, with many professions of good will and compassion, to himself.
He was surely too just to blame them for thinking that it was their first duty
to defend their own people against such outrages as had turned the
Palatinate into a desert, or for calling in the aid of Protestants against an
enemy who had not scrupled to call in the aid of the Turks, 108
During the winter and the earlier part of the spring, the powers hostile to
France were gathering their strength for a great effort, and were in constant
communication with one another. As the season for military operations
approached, the solemn appeals of injured nations to the God of battles
came forth in rapid succession. The manifesto of the Germanic body
appeared in February; that of the States General in March; that of the House
of Brandenburg in April; and that of Spain in May, 109
Here, as soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over, the House of
Commons determined to take into consideration the late proceedings of the
French king, 110 In the debate, that hatred of the powerful, unscrupulous and
imperious Lewis, which had, during twenty years of vassalage, festered in
the hearts of Englishmen, broke violently forth. He was called the most
Christian Turk, the most Christian ravager of Christendom, the most
Christian barbarian who had perpetrated on Christians outrages of which his
infidel allies would have been ashamed, 111 A committee, consisting chiefly
of ardent Whigs, was appointed to prepare an address. John Hampden, the
most ardent Whig among them, was put into the chair; and he produced a
composition too long, too rhetorical, and too vituperative to suit the lips of
the Speaker or the ears of the King. Invectives against Lewis might perhaps,
in the temper in which the House then was, have passed without censure, if
they had not been accompanied by severe reflections on the character and
administration of Charles the Second, whose memory, in spite of all his
faults, was affectionately cherished by the Tories. There were some very
intelligible allusions to Charles's dealings with the Court of Versailles, and

to the foreign woman whom that Court had sent to lie like a snake in his
bosom. The House was with good reason dissatisfied. The address was
recommitted, and, having been made more concise, and less declamatory
and acrimonious, was approved and presented, 112 William's attention was
called to the wrongs which France had done to him and to his kingdom; and
he was assured that, whenever he should resort to arms for the redress of
those wrongs, he should be heartily supported by his people. He thanked the
Commons warmly. Ambition, he said, should never induce him to draw the
sword: but he had no choice: France had already attacked England; and it
was necessary to exercise the right of selfdefence. A few days later war was
proclaimed, 113
Of the grounds of quarrel alleged by the Commons in their address, and
by the King in his manifesto, the most serious was the interference of Lewis
in the affairs of Ireland. In that country great events had, during several
months, followed one another in rapid succession. Of those events it is now
time to relate the history, a history dark with crime and sorrow, yet full of
interest and instruction.

CHAPTER XII
State of Ireland at the Time of the Revolution; the Civil Power in the
Hands of the Roman Catholics—The Military Power in the Hands of the
Roman Catholics—Mutual Enmity between the Englishry and
Irishry—Panic among the Englishry—History of the Town of
Kenmare—Enniskillen—Londonderry—Closing of the Gates of
Londonderry—Mountjoy sent to pacify Ulster—William opens a Negotiation
with Tyrconnel—The Temples consulted—Richard Hamilton sent to Ireland
on his Parole—Tyrconnel sends Mountjoy and Rice to France—Tyrconnel
calls the Irish People to Arms—Devastation of the Country—The
Protestants in the South unable to resist—Enniskillen and Londonderry
hold out; Richard Hamilton marches into Ulster with an Army—James
determines to go to Ireland—Assistance furnished by Lewis to
James—Choice of a French Ambassador to accompany James—The Count of
Avaux—James lands at Kinsale—James enters Cork—Journey of James from
Cork to Dublin—Discontent in England—Factions at Dublin Castle—James
determines to go to Ulster—Journey of James to Ulster—The Fall of
Londonderry expected—Succours arrive from England—Treachery of Lundy;
the Inhabitants of Londonderry resolve to defend themselves—Their
Character—Londonderry besieged—The Siege turned into a Blockade—Naval
Skirmish in Bantry Bay—A Parliament summoned by James sits at Dublin—A
Toleration Act passed; Acts passed for the Confiscation of the Property
of Protestants—Issue of base Money—The great Act of Attainder—James
prorogues his Parliament; Persecution of the Protestants in
Ireland—Effect produced in England by the News from Ireland—Actions
of the Enniskilleners—Distress of Londonderry—Expedition under Kirke
arrives in Loch Foyle—Cruelty of Rosen—The Famine in Londonderry
extreme—Attack on the Boom—The Siege of Londonderry raised—Operations
against the Enniskilleners—Battle of Newton Butler—Consternation of
the Irish

WILLIAM had assumed, together with the title of King of England, the
title of King of Ireland. For all our jurists then regarded Ireland as a mere
colony, more important indeed than Massachusetts, Virginia, or Jamaica,
but, like Massachusetts, Virginia, and Jamaica, dependent on the mother
country, and bound to pay allegiance to the Sovereign whom the mother
country had called to the throne, 114
In fact, however, the Revolution found Ireland emancipated from the
dominion of the English colony. As early as the year 1686, James had
determined to make that island a place of arms which might overawe Great
Britain, and a place of refuge where, if any disaster happened in Great
Britain, the members of his Church might find refuge. With this view he
had exerted all his power for the purpose of inverting the relation between
the conquerors and the aboriginal population. The execution of his design
he had intrusted, in spite of the remonstrances of his English counsellors, to

the Lord Deputy Tyrconnel. In the autumn of 1688, the process was
complete. The highest offices in the state, in the army, and in the Courts of
justice, were, with scarcely an exception, filled by Papists. A pettifogger
named Alexander Fitton, who had been detected in forgery, who had been
fined for misconduct by the House of Lords at Westminster, who had been
many years in prison, and who was equally deficient in legal knowledge
and in the natural good sense and acuteness by which the want of legal
knowledge has sometimes been supplied, was Lord Chancellor. His single
merit was that he had apostatized from the Protestant religion; and this
merit was thought sufficient to wash out even the stain of his Saxon
extraction. He soon proved himself worthy of the confidence of his patrons.
On the bench of justice he declared that there was not one heretic in forty
thousand who was not a villain. He often, after hearing a cause in which the
interests of his Church were concerned, postponed his decision, for the
purpose, as he avowed, of consulting his spiritual director, a Spanish priest,
well read doubtless in Escobar, 115 Thomas Nugent, a Roman Catholic who
had never distinguished himself at the bar except by his brogue and his
blunders, was Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 116 Stephen Rice, a Roman
Catholic, whose abilities and learning were not disputed even by the
enemies of his nation and religion, but whose known hostility to the Act of
Settlement excited the most painful apprehensions in the minds of all who
held property under that Act, was Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 117
Richard Nagle, an acute and well read lawyer, who had been educated in a
Jesuit college, and whose prejudices were such as might have been
expected from his education, was Attorney General, 118
Keating, a highly respectable Protestant, was still Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas: but two Roman Catholic judges sate with him. It ought to
be added that one of those judges, Daly, was a man of sense, moderation
and integrity. The matters however which came before the Court of
Common Pleas were not of great moment. Even the King's Bench was at
this time almost deserted. The Court of Exchequer overflowed with
business; for it was the only court at Dublin from which no writ of error lay
to England, and consequently the only court in which the English could be
oppressed and pillaged without hope of redress. Rice, it was said, had
declared that they should have from him exactly what the law, construed
with the utmost strictness, gave them, and nothing more. What, in his
opinion, the law, strictly construed, gave them, they could easily infer from

a saying which, before he became a judge, was often in his mouth. "I will
drive," he used to say, "a coach and six through the Act of Settlement." He
now carried his threat daily into execution. The cry of all Protestants was
that it mattered not what evidence they produced before him; that, when
their titles were to be set aside, the rankest forgeries, the most infamous
witnesses, were sure to have his countenance. To his court his countrymen
came in multitudes with writs of ejectment and writs of trespass. In his
court the government attacked at once the charters of all the cities and
boroughs in Ireland; and he easily found pretexts for pronouncing all those
charters forfeited. The municipal corporations, about a hundred in number,
had been instituted to be the strongholds of the reformed religion and of the
English interest, and had consequently been regarded by the Irish Roman
Catholics with an aversion which cannot be thought unnatural or
unreasonable. Had those bodies been remodelled in a judicious and
impartial manner, the irregularity of the proceedings by which so desirable
a result had been attained might have been pardoned. But it soon appeared
that one exclusive system had been swept away only to make room for
another. The boroughs were subjected to the absolute authority of the
Crown. Towns in which almost every householder was an English
Protestant were placed under the government of Irish Roman Catholics.
Many of the new Aldermen had never even seen the places over which they
were appointed to bear rule. At the same time the Sheriffs, to whom
belonged the execution of writs and the nomination of juries, were selected
in almost every instance from the caste which had till very recently been
excluded from all public trust. It was affirmed that some of these important
functionaries had been burned in the hand for theft. Others had been
servants to Protestants; and the Protestants added, with bitter scorn, that it
was fortunate for the country when this was the case; for that a menial who
had cleaned the plate and rubbed down the horse of an English gentleman
might pass for a civilised being, when compared with many of the native
aristocracy whose lives had been spent in coshering or marauding. To such
Sheriffs no colonist, even if he had been so strangely fortunate as to obtain
a judgment, dared to intrust an execution, 119
Thus the civil power had, in the space of a few months, been transferred
from the Saxon to the Celtic population. The transfer of the military power
had been not less complete. The army, which, under the command of
Ormond, had been the chief safeguard of the English ascendency, had

ceased to exist. Whole regiments had been dissolved and reconstructed. Six
thousand Protestant veterans, deprived of their bread, were brooding in
retirement over their wrongs, or had crossed the sea and joined the standard
of William. Their place was supplied by men who had long suffered
oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed from slaves
into masters, were impatient to pay back, with accumulated usury, the
heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers, it was said, never
passed an Englishman without cursing him and calling him by some foul
name. They were the terror of every Protestant innkeeper; for, from the
moment when they came under his roof, they ate and drank every thing:
they paid for nothing; and by their rude swaggering they scared more
respectable guests from his door, 120
Such was the state of Ireland when the Prince of Orange landed at
Torbay. From that time every packet which arrived at Dublin brought
tidings, such as could not but increase the mutual fear and loathing of the
hostile races. The colonist, who, after long enjoying and abusing power, had
now tasted for a moment the bitterness of servitude, the native, who, having
drunk to the dregs all the bitterness of servitude, had at length for a moment
enjoyed and abused power, were alike sensible that a great crisis, a crisis
like that of 1641, was at hand. The majority impatiently expected Phelim
O'Neil to revive in Tyrconnel. The minority saw in William a second Over.
On which side the first blow was struck was a question which
Williamites and Jacobites afterwards debated with much asperity. But no
question could be more idle. History must do to both parties the justice
which neither has ever done to the other, and must admit that both had fair
pleas and cruel provocations. Both had been placed, by a fate for which
neither was answerable, in such a situation that, human nature being what it
is, they could not but regard each other with enmity. During three years the
government which might have reconciled them had systematically
employed its whole power for the purpose of inflaming their enmity to
madness. It was now impossible to establish in Ireland a just and beneficent
government, a government which should know no distinction of race or of
sect, a government which, while strictly respecting the rights guaranteed by
law to the new landowners, should alleviate by a judicious liberality the
misfortunes of the ancient gentry. Such a government James might have
established in the day of his power. But the opportunity had passed away:
compromise had become impossible: the two infuriated castes were alike

convinced that it was necessary to oppress or to be oppressed, and that there
could be no safety but in victory, vengeance, and dominion. They agreed
only in spurning out of the way every mediator who sought to reconcile
them.
During some weeks there were outrages, insults, evil reports, violent
panics, the natural preludes of the terrible conflict which was at hand. A
rumour spread over the whole island that, on the ninth of December, there
would be a general massacre of the Englishry. Tyrconnel sent for the chief
Protestants of Dublin to the Castle, and, with his usual energy of diction,
invoked on himself all the vengeance of heaven if the report was not a
cursed, a blasted, a confounded lie. It was said that, in his rage at finding his
oaths ineffectual, he pulled off his hat and wig, and flung them into the fire,
121 But lying Dick Talbot was so well known that his imprecations and
gesticulations only strengthened the apprehension which they were meant to
allay. Ever since the recall of Clarendon there had been a large emigration
of timid and quiet people from the Irish ports to England. That emigration
now went on faster than ever. It was not easy to obtain a passage on board
of a well built or commodious vessel. But many persons, made bold by the
excess of fear, and choosing rather to trust the winds and waves than the
exasperated Irishry, ventured to encounter all the dangers of Saint George's
Channel and of the Welsh coast in open boats and in the depth of winter.
The English who remained began, in almost every county, to draw close
together. Every large country house became a fortress. Every visitor who
arrived after nightfall was challenged from a loophole or from a barricaded
window; and, if he attempted to enter without pass words and explanations,
a blunderbuss was presented to him. On the dreaded night of the ninth of
December, there was scarcely one Protestant mansion from the Giant's
Causeway to Bantry Bay in which armed men were not watching and lights
burning from the early sunset to the late sunrise, 122
A minute account of what passed in one district at this time has come
down to us, and well illustrates the general state of the kingdom. The south-
western part of Kerry is now well known as the most beautiful tract in the
British isles. The mountains, the glens, the capes stretching far into the
Atlantic, the crags on which the eagles build, the rivulets brawling down
rocky passes, the lakes overhung by groves in which the wild deer find
covert, attract every summer crowds of wanderers sated with the business
and the pleasures of great cities. The beauties of that country are indeed too

often hidden in the mist and rain which the west wind brings up from a
boundless ocean. But, on the rare days when the sun shines out in all his
glory, the landscape has a freshness and a warmth of colouring seldom
found in our latitude. The myrtle loves the soil. The arbutus thrives better
than even on the sunny shore of Calabria, 123 The turf is of livelier hue than
elsewhere: the hills glow with a richer purple: the varnish of the holly and
ivy is more glossy; and berries of a brighter red peep through foliage of a
brighter green. But during the greater part of the seventeenth century, this
paradise was as little known to the civilised world as Spitzbergen or
Greenland. If ever it was mentioned, it was mentioned as a horrible desert, a
chaos of bogs, thickets, and precipices, where the she wolf still littered, and
where some half naked savages, who could not speak a word of English,
made themselves burrows in the mud, and lived on roots and sour milk, 124
At length, in the year 1670, the benevolent and enlightened Sir William
Petty determined to form an English settlement in this wild district. He
possessed a large domain there, which has descended to a posterity worthy
of such an ancestor. On the improvement of that domain he expended, it
was said, not less than ten thousand pounds. The little town which he
founded, named from the bay of Kenmare, stood at the head of that bay,
under a mountain ridge, on the summit of which travellers now stop to gaze
upon the loveliest of the three lakes of Killarney. Scarcely any village, built
by an enterprising band of New Englanders, far from the dwellings of their
countrymen, in the midst of the hunting grounds of the Red Indians, was
more completely out of the pale of civilisation than Kenmare. Between
Petty's settlement and the nearest English habitation the journey by land
was of two days through a wild and dangerous country. Yet the place
prospered. Forty-two houses were erected. The population amounted to a
hundred and eighty. The land round the town was well cultivated. The cattle
were numerous. Two small barks were employed in fishing and trading
along the coast. The supply of herrings, pilchards, mackerel, and salmon
was plentiful, and would have been still more plentiful, had not the beach
been, in the finest part of the year, covered by multitudes of seals, which
preyed on the fish of the bay. Yet the seal was not an unwelcome visitor: his
fur was valuable,; and his oil supplied light through the long nights of
winter. An attempt was made with great success to set up iron works. It was
not yet the practice to employ coal for the purpose of smelting; and the
manufacturers of Kent and Sussex had much difficulty in procuring timber

at a reasonable price. The neighbourhood of Kenmare was then richly
wooded; and Petty found it a gainful speculation to send ore thither. The
lovers of the picturesque still regret the woods of oak and arbutus which
were cut down to feed his furnaces. Another scheme had occurred to his
active and intelligent mind. Some of the neighbouring islands abounded
with variegated marble, red and white, purple and green. Petty well knew at
what cost the ancient Romans had decorated their baths and temples with
many coloured columns hewn from Laconian and African quarries; and he
seems to have indulged the hope that the rocks of his wild domain in Kerry
might furnish embellishments to the mansions of Saint James's Square, and
to the choir of Saint Paul's Cathedral, 125
From the first, the settlers had found that they must be prepared to
exercise the right of selfdefence to an extent which would have been
unnecessary and unjustifiable in a well governed country. The law was
altogether without force in the highlands which lie on the south of the vale
of Tralee. No officer of justice willingly ventured into those parts. One
pursuivant who in 1680 attempted to execute a warrant there was murdered.
The people of Kenmare seem however to have been sufficiently secured by
their union, their intelligence and their spirit, till the close of the year 1688.
Then at length the effects of the policy of Tyrconnel began to be felt ever, in
that remote corner of Ireland. In the eyes of the peasantry of Munster the
colonists were aliens and heretics. The buildings, the boats, the machines,
the granaries, the dairies, the furnaces, were doubtless contemplated by the
native race with that mingled envy and contempt with which the ignorant
naturally regard the triumphs of knowledge. Nor is it at all improbable that
the emigrants had been guilty of those faults from which civilised men who
settle among an uncivilised people are rarely free. The power derived from
superior intelligence had, we may easily believe, been sometimes displayed
with insolence, and sometimes exerted with injustice. Now therefore, when
the news spread from altar to altar, and from cabin to cabin, that the
strangers were to be driven out, and that their houses and lands were to be
given as a booty to the children of the soil, a predatory war commenced.
Plunderers, thirty, forty, seventy in a troop, prowled round the town, some
with firearms, some with pikes. The barns were robbed. The horses were
stolen. In one foray a hundred and forty cattle were swept away and driven
off through the ravines of Glengariff. In one night six dwellings were
broken open and pillaged. At last the colonists, driven to extremity, resolved

to die like men rather than be murdered in their beds. The house built by
Petty for his agent was the largest in the place. It stood on a rocky peninsula
round which the waves of the bay broke. Here the whole population
assembled, seventy-five fighting men, with about a hundred women and
children. They had among them sixty firelocks, and as many pikes and
swords. Round the agent's house they threw up with great speed a wall of
turf fourteen feet in height and twelve in thickness. The space enclosed was
about half an acre. Within this rampart all the arms, the ammunition and the
provisions of the settlement were collected, and several huts of thin plank
were built. When these preparations were completed, the men of Kenmare
began to make vigorous reprisals on their Irish neighbours, seized robbers,
recovered stolen property, and continued during some weeks to act in all
things as an independent commonwealth. The government was carried on
by elective officers, to whom every member of the society swore fidelity on
the Holy Gospels, 126
While the people of the small town of Kenmare were thus bestirring
themselves, similar preparations for defence were made by larger
communities on a larger scale. Great numbers of gentlemen and yeomen
quitted the open country, and repaired to those towns which had been
founded and incorporated for the purpose of bridling the native population,
and which, though recently placed under the government of Roman
Catholic magistrates, were still inhabited chiefly by Protestants. A
considerable body of armed colonists mustered at Sligo, another at
Charleville, a third at Marlow, a fourth still more formidable at Bandon, 127
But the principal strongholds of the Englishry during this evil time were
Enniskillen and Londonderry.
Enniskillen, though the capital of the county of Fermanagh, was then
merely a village. It was built on an island surrounded by the river which
joins the two beautiful sheets of water known by the common name of
Lough Erne. The stream and both the lakes were overhung on every side by
natural forests. Enniskillen consisted of about eighty dwellings clustering
round an ancient castle. The inhabitants were, with scarcely an exception,
Protestants, and boasted that their town had been true to the Protestant
cause through the terrible rebellion which broke out in 1641. Early in
December they received from Dublin an intimation that two companies of
Popish infantry were to be immediately quartered on them. The alarm of the
little community was great, and the greater because it was known that a

preaching friar had been exerting himself to inflame the Irish population of
the neighbourhood against the heretics. A daring resolution was taken.
Come what might, the troops should not be admitted. Yet the means of
defence were slender. Not ten pounds of powder, not twenty firelocks fit for
use, could be collected within the walls. Messengers were sent with
pressing letters to summon the Protestant gentry of the vicinage to the
rescue; and the summons was gallantly obeyed. In a few hours two hundred
foot and a hundred and fifty horse had assembled. Tyrconnel's soldiers were
already at hand. They brought with them a considerable supply of arms to
be distributed among the peasantry. The peasantry greeted the royal
standard with delight, and accompanied the march in great numbers. The
townsmen and their allies, instead of waiting to be attacked, came boldly
forth to encounter the intruders. The officers of James had expected no
resistance. They were confounded when they saw confronting them a
column of foot, flanked by a large body of mounted gentlemen and yeomen.
The crowd of camp followers ran away in terror. The soldiers made a retreat
so precipitate that it might be called a flight, and scarcely halted till they
were thirty miles off at Cavan, 128
The Protestants, elated by this easy victory, proceeded to make
arrangements for the government and defence of Enniskillen and of the
surrounding country. Gustavus Hamilton, a gentleman who had served in
the army, but who had recently been deprived of his commission by
Tyrconnel, and had since been living on an estate in Fermanagh, was
appointed Governor, and took up his residence in the castle. Trusty men
were enlisted, and armed with great expedition. As there was a scarcity of
swords and pikes, smiths were employed to make weapons by fastening
scythes on poles. All the country houses round Lough Erne were turned into
garrisons. No Papist was suffered to be at large in the town; and the friar
who was accused of exerting his eloquence against the Englishry was
thrown into prison, 129
The other great fastness of Protestantism was a place of more
importance. Eighty years before, during the troubles caused by the last
struggle of the houses of O'Neil and O'Donnel against the authority of
James the First, the ancient city of Derry had been surprised by one of the
native chiefs: the inhabitants had been slaughtered, and the houses reduced
to ashes. The insurgents were speedily put down and punished: the
government resolved to restore the ruined town: the Lord Mayor, Aldermen,

and Common Council of London were invited to assist in the work; and
King James the First made over to them in their corporate capacity the
ground covered by the ruins of the old Derry, and about six thousand
English acres in the neighbourhood, 130
This country, then uncultivated and uninhabited, is now enriched by
industry, embellished by taste, and pleasing even to eyes accustomed to the
well tilled fields and stately manor houses of England. A new city soon
arose which, on account of its connection with the capital of the empire,
was called Londonderry. The buildings covered the summit and slope of a
hill which overlooked the broad stream of the Foyle, then whitened by vast
flocks of wild swans, 131 On the highest ground stood the Cathedral, a
church which, though erected when the secret of Gothic architecture was
lost, and though ill qualified to sustain a comparison with the awful temples
of the middle ages, is not without grace and dignity. Near the Cathedral rose
the palace of the Bishop, whose see was one of the most valuable in Ireland.
The city was in form nearly an ellipse; and the principal streets formed a
cross, the arms of which met in a square called the Diamond. The original
houses have been either rebuilt or so much repaired that their ancient
character can no longer be traced; but many of them were standing within
living memory. They were in general two stories in height; and some of
them had stone staircases on the outside. The dwellings were encompassed
by a wall of which the whole circumference was little less than a mile. On
the bastions were planted culverins and sakers presented by the wealthy
guilds of London to the colony. On some of these ancient guns, which have
done memorable service to a great cause, the devices of the Fishmongers'
Company, of the Vintners' Company, and of the Merchant Tailors' Company
are still discernible, 132
The inhabitants were Protestants of Anglosaxon blood. They were indeed
not all of one country or of one church but Englishmen and Scotchmen,
Episcopalians and Presbyterians, seem to have generally lived together in
friendship, a friendship which is sufficiently explained by their common
antipathy to the Irish race and to the Popish religion. During the rebellion of
1641, Londonderry had resolutely held out against the native chieftains, and
had been repeatedly besieged in vain, 133 Since the Restoration the city had
prospered. The Foyle, when the tide was high, brought up ships of large
burden to the quay. The fisheries throve greatly. The nets, it was said, were
sometimes so full that it was necessary to fling back multitudes of fish into

the waves. The quantity of salmon caught annually was estimated at eleven
hundred thousand pounds' weight, 134
The people of Londonderry shared in the alarm which, towards the close
of the year 1688, was general among the Protestants settled in Ireland. It
was known that the aboriginal peasantry of the neighbourhood were laying
in pikes and knives. Priests had been haranguing in a style of which, it must
be owned, the Puritan part of the Anglosaxon colony had little right to
complain, about the slaughter of the Amalekites, and the judgments which
Saul had brought on himself by sparing one of the proscribed race.
Rumours from various quarters and anonymous letters in various hands
agreed in naming the ninth of December as the day fixed for the extirpation
of the strangers. While the minds of the citizens were agitated by these
reports, news came that a regiment of twelve hundred Papists, commanded
by a Papist, Alexander Macdonnell, Earl of Antrim, had received orders
from the Lord Deputy to occupy Londonderry, and was already on the
march from Coleraine. The consternation was extreme. Some were for
closing the gates and resisting; some for submitting; some for temporising.
The corporation had, like the other corporations of Ireland, been
remodelled. The magistrates were men of low station and character. Among
them was only one person of Anglosaxon extraction; and he had turned
Papist. In such rulers the inhabitants could place no confidence, 135 The
Bishop, Ezekiel Hopkins, resolutely adhered to the doctrine of
nonresistance, which he had preached during many years, and exhorted his
flock to go patiently to the slaughter rather than incur the guilt of
disobeying the Lord's Anointed, 136 Antrim was meanwhile drawing nearer
and nearer. At length the citizens saw from the walls his troops arrayed on
the opposite shore of the Foyle. There was then no bridge: but there was a
ferry which kept up a constant communication between the two banks of
the river; and by this ferry a detachment from Antrim's regiment crossed.
The officers presented themselves at the gate, produced a warrant directed
to the Mayor and Sheriffs, and demanded admittance and quarters for his
Majesty's soldiers.
Just at this moment thirteen young apprentices, most of whom appear,
from their names, to have been of Scottish birth or descent, flew to the
guard room, armed themselves, seized the keys of the city, rushed to the
Ferry Gate, closed it in the face of the King's officers, and let down the
portcullis. James Morison, a citizen more advanced in years, addressed the

intruders from the top of the wall and advised them to be gone. They stood
in consultation before the gate till they heard him cry, "Bring a great gun
this way." They then thought it time to get beyond the range of shot. They
retreated, reembarked, and rejoined their comrades on the other side of the
river. The flame had already spread. The whole city was up. The other gates
were secured. Sentinels paced the ramparts everywhere. The magazines
were opened. Muskets and gunpowder were distributed. Messengers were
sent, under cover of the following night, to the Protestant gentlemen of the
neighbouring counties. The bishop expostulated in vain. It is indeed
probable that the vehement and daring young Scotchmen who had taken the
lead on this occasion had little respect for his office. One of them broke in
on a discourse with which he interrupted the military preparations by
exclaiming, "A good sermon, my lord; a very good sermon; but we have not
time to hear it just now." 137
The Protestants of the neighbourhood promptly obeyed the summons of
Londonderry. Within forty-eight hours hundreds of horse and foot came by
various roads to the city. Antrim, not thinking himself strong enough to risk
an attack, or not disposed to take on himself the responsibility of
commencing a civil war without further orders, retired with his troops to
Coleraine.
It might have been expected that the resistance of Enniskillen and
Londonderry would have irritated Tyrconnel into taking some desperate
step. And in truth his savage and imperious temper was at first inflamed by
the news almost to madness. But, after wreaking his rage, as usual, on his
wig, he became somewhat calmer. Tidings of a very sobering nature had
just reached him. The Prince of Orange was marching unopposed to
London. Almost every county and every great town in England had
declared for him. James, deserted by his ablest captains and by his nearest
relatives, had sent commissioners to treat with the invaders, and had issued
writs convoking a Parliament. While the result of the negotiations which
were pending in England was uncertain, the Viceroy could not venture to
take a bloody revenge on the refractory Protestants of Ireland. He therefore
thought it expedient to affect for a time a clemency and moderation which
were by no means congenial to his disposition. The task of quieting the
Englishry of Ulster was intrusted to William Stewart, Viscount Mountjoy.
Mountjoy, a brave soldier, an accomplished scholar, a zealous Protestant,
and yet a zealous Tory, was one of the very few members of the Established

Church who still held office in Ireland. He was Master of the Ordnance in
that kingdom, and was colonel of a regiment in which an uncommonly large
proportion of the Englishry had been suffered to remain. At Dublin he was
the centre of a small circle of learned and ingenious men who had, under his
presidency, formed themselves into a Royal Society, the image, on a small
scale, of the Royal Society of London. In Ulster, with which he was
peculiarly connected, his name was held in high honour by the colonists, 138
He hastened with his regiment to Londonderry, and was well received there.
For it was known that, though he was firmly attached to hereditary
monarchy, he was not less firmly attached to the reformed religion. The
citizens readily permitted him to leave within their walls a small garrison
exclusively composed of Protestants, under the command of his lieutenant
colonel, Robert Lundy, who took the title of Governor, 139
The news of Mountjoy's visit to Ulster was highly gratifying to the
defenders of Enniskillen. Some gentlemen deputed by that town waited on
him to request his good offices, but were disappointed by the reception
which they found. "My advice to you is," he said, "to submit to the King's
authority." "What, my Lord?" said one of the deputies; "Are we to sit still
and let ourselves be butchered?" "The King," said Mountjoy, "will protect
you." "If all that we hear be true," said the deputy, "his Majesty will find it
hard enough to protect himself." The conference ended in this
unsatisfactory manner. Enniskillen still kept its attitude of defiance; and
Mountjoy returned to Dublin, 140
By this time it had indeed become evident that James could not protect
himself. It was known in Ireland that he had fled; that he had been stopped;
that he had fled again; that the Prince of Orange had arrived at Westminster
in triumph, had taken on himself the administration of the realm, and had
issued letters summoning a Convention.
Those lords and gentlemen at whose request the Prince had assumed the
government, had earnestly intreated him to take the state of Ireland into his
immediate consideration; and he had in reply assured them that he would do
his best to maintain the Protestant religion and the English interest in that
kingdom. His enemies afterwards accused him of utterly disregarding this
promise: nay, they alleged that he purposely suffered Ireland to sink deeper
and deeper in calamity. Halifax, they said, had, with cruel and perfidious
ingenuity, devised this mode of placing the Convention under a species of

duress; and the trick had succeeded but too well. The vote which called
William to the throne would not have passed so easily but for the extreme
dangers which threatened the state; and it was in consequence of his own
dishonest inactivity that those dangers had become extreme, 141 As this
accusation rests on no proof, those who repeat it are at least bound to show
that some course clearly better than the course which William took was
open to him; and this they will find a difficult task. If indeed he could,
within a few weeks after his arrival in London, have sent a great expedition
to Ireland, that kingdom might perhaps, after a short struggle, or without a
struggle, have submitted to his authority; and a long series of crimes and
calamities might have been averted. But the factious orators and
pamphleteers, who, much at their ease, reproached him for not sending such
an expedition, would have been perplexed if they had been required to find
the men, the ships, and the funds. The English army had lately been arrayed
against him: part of it was still ill disposed towards him; and the whole was
utterly disorganized. Of the army which he had brought from Holland not a
regiment could be spared. He had found the treasury empty and the pay of
the navy in arrear. He had no power to hypothecate any part of the public
revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on no security but his bare word.
It was only by the patriotic liberality of the merchants of London that he
was enabled to defray the ordinary charges of government till the meeting
of the Convention. It is surely unjust to blame him for not instantly fitting
out, in such circumstances, an armament sufficient to conquer a kingdom.
Perceiving that, till the government of England was settled, it would not
be in his power to interfere effectually by arms in the affairs of Ireland, he
determined to try what effect negotiation would produce. Those who judged
after the event pronounced that he had not, on this occasion, shown his
usual sagacity. He ought, they said, to have known that it was absurd to
expect submission from Tyrconnel. Such however was not at the time the
opinion of men who had the best means of information, and whose interest
was a sufficient pledge for their sincerity. A great meeting of noblemen and
gentlemen who had property in Ireland was held, during the interregnum, at
the house of the Duke of Ormond in Saint James's Square. They advised the
Prince to try whether the Lord Deputy might not be induced to capitulate on
honourable and advantageous terms, 142 In truth there is strong reason to
believe that Tyrconnel really wavered. For, fierce as were his passions, they
never made him forgetful of his interest; and he might well doubt whether it

were not for his interest, in declining years and health, to retire from
business with full indemnity for all past offences, with high rank and with
an ample fortune, rather than to stake his life and property on the event of a
war against the whole power of England. It is certain that he professed
himself willing to yield. He opened a communication with the Prince of
Orange, and affected to take counsel with Mountjoy, and with others who,
though they had not thrown off their allegiance to James, were yet firmly
attached to the Established Church and to the English connection.
In one quarter, a quarter from which William was justified in expecting
the most judicious counsel, there was a strong conviction that the
professions of Tyrconnel were sincere. No British statesman had then so
high a reputation throughout Europe as Sir William Temple. His diplomatic
skill had, twenty years before, arrested the progress of the French power. He
had been a steady and an useful friend to the United Provinces and to the
House of Nassau. He had long been on terms of friendly confidence with
the Prince of Orange, and had negotiated that marriage to which England
owed her recent deliverance. With the affairs of Ireland Temple was
supposed to be peculiarly well acquainted. His family had considerable
property there: he had himself resided there during several years: he had
represented the county of Carlow in parliament; and a large part of his
income was derived from a lucrative Irish office. There was no height of
power, of rank, or of opulence, to which he might not have risen, if he
would have consented to quit his retreat, and to lend his assistance and the
weight of his name to the new government. But power, rank, and opulence
had less attraction for his Epicurean temper than ease and security. He
rejected the most tempting invitations, and continued to amuse himself with
his books, his tulips, and his pineapples, in rural seclusion. With some
hesitation, however, he consented to let his eldest son John enter into the
service of William. During the vacancy of the throne, John Temple was
employed in business of high importance; and, on subjects connected with
Ireland, his opinion, which might reasonably be supposed to agree with his
father's, had great weight. The young politician flattered himself that he had
secured the services of an agent eminently qualified to bring the negotiation
with Tyrconnel to a prosperous issue.
This agent was one of a remarkable family which had sprung from a
noble Scottish stock, but which had long been settled in Ireland, and which
professed the Roman Catholic religion. In the gay crowd which thronged

Whitehall, during those scandalous years of jubilee which immediately
followed the Restoration, the Hamiltons were preeminently conspicuous.
The long fair ringlets, the radiant bloom, and the languishing blue eyes of
the lovely Elizabeth still charm us on the canvass of Lely. She had the glory
of achieving no vulgar conquest. It was reserved for her voluptuous beauty
and for her flippant wit to overcome the aversion which the coldhearted and
scoffing Grammont felt for the indissoluble tie. One of her brothers,
Anthony, became the chronicler of that brilliant and dissolute society of
which he had been one of the most brilliant and most dissolute members.
He deserves the high praise of having, though not a Frenchman, written the
book which is, of all books, the most exquisitely French, both in spirit and
in manner. Another brother, named Richard, had, in foreign service, gained
some military experience. His wit and politeness had distinguished him
even in the splendid circle of Versailles. It was whispered that he had dared
to lift his eyes to an exalted lady, the natural daughter of the Great King, the
wife of a legitimate prince of the House of Bourbon, and that she had not
seemed to be displeased by the attentions of her presumptuous admirer, 143
The adventurer had subsequently returned to his native country, had been
appointed Brigadier General in the Irish army, and had been sworn of the
Irish Privy Council. When the Dutch invasion was expected, he came across
Saint George's Channel with the troops which Tyrconnel sent to reinforce
the royal army. After the flight of James, those troops submitted to the
Prince of Orange. Richard Hamilton not only made his own peace with
what was now the ruling power, but declared himself confident that, if he
were sent to Dublin, he could conduct the negotiation which had been
opened there to a happy close. If he failed, he pledged his word to return to
London in three weeks. His influence in Ireland was known to be great: his
honour had never been questioned; and he was highly esteemed by the
Temple family. John Temple declared that he would answer for Richard
Hamilton as for himself. This guarantee was thought sufficient; and
Hamilton set out for Ireland, assuring his English friends that he should
soon bring Tyrconnel to reason. The offers which he was authorised to
make to the Roman Catholics and to the Lord Deputy personally were most
liberal, 144
It is not impossible that Hamilton may have really meant to perform his
promise. But when he arrived at Dublin he found that he had undertaken a
task which was beyond his power. The hesitation of Tyrconnel, whether

genuine or feigned, was at an end. He had found that he had no longer a
choice. He had with little difficulty stimulated the ignorant and susceptible
Irish to fury. To calm them was beyond his skill. Rumours were abroad that
the Viceroy was corresponding with the English; and these rumours had set
the nation on fire. The cry of the common people was that, if he dared to
sell them for wealth and honours, they would burn the Castle and him in it,
and would put themselves under the protection of France, 145 It was
necessary for him to protest, truly or falsely, that he had never harboured
any thought of submission, and that he had pretended to negotiate only for
the purpose of gaining time. Yet, before he openly declared against the
English settlers, and against England herself, what must be a war to the
death, he wished to rid himself of Mountjoy, who had hitherto been true to
the cause of James, but who, it was well known, would never consent to be
a party to the spoliation and oppression of the colonists. Hypocritical
professions of friendship and of pacific intentions were not spared. It was a
sacred duty, Tyrconnel said, to avert the calamities which seemed to be
impending. King James himself, if he understood the whole case, would not
wish his Irish friends to engage at that moment in an enterprise which must
be fatal to them and useless to him. He would permit them, he would
command them, to submit to necessity, and to reserve themselves for better
times. If any man of weight, loyal, able, and well informed, would repair to
Saint Germains and explain the state of things, his Majesty would easily be
convinced. Would Mountjoy undertake this most honourable and important
mission? Mountjoy hesitated, and suggested that some person more likely
to be acceptable to the King should be the messenger. Tyrconnel swore,
ranted, declared that, unless King James were well advised, Ireland would
sink to the pit of hell, and insisted that Mountjoy should go as the
representative of the loyal members of the Established Church, and should
be accompanied by Chief Baron Rice, a Roman Catholic high in the royal
favour. Mountjoy yielded. The two ambassadors departed together, but with
very different commissions. Rice was charged to tell James that Mountjoy
was a traitor at heart, and had been sent to France only that the Protestants
of Ireland might be deprived of a favourite leader. The King was to be
assured that he was impatiently expected in Ireland, and that, if he would
show himself there with a French force, he might speedily retrieve his fallen
fortunes, 146 The Chief Baron carried with him other instructions which
were probably kept secret even from the Court of Saint Germains. If James

should be unwilling to put himself at the head of the native population of
Ireland, Rice was directed to request a private audience of Lewis, and to
offer to make the island a province of France, 147
As soon as the two envoys had departed, Tyrconnel set himself to prepare
for the conflict which had become inevitable; and he was strenuously
assisted by the faithless Hamilton. The Irish nation was called to arms; and
the call was obeyed with strange promptitude and enthusiasm. The flag on
the Castle of Dublin was embroidered with the words, "Now or never: now
and for ever:" and those words resounded through the whole island, 148
Never in modern Europe has there been such a rising up of a whole people.
The habits of the Celtic peasant were such that he made no sacrifice in
quitting his potatoe ground for the camp. He loved excitement and
adventure. He feared work far more than danger. His national and religious
feelings had, during three years, been exasperated by the constant
application of stimulants. At every fair and market he had heard that a good
time was at hand, that the tyrants who spoke Saxon and lived in slated
houses were about to be swept away, and that the land would again belong
to its own children. By the peat fires of a hundred thousand cabins had
nightly been sung rude ballads which predicted the deliverance of the
oppressed race. The priests, most of whom belonged to those old families
which the Act of Settlement had ruined, but which were still revered by the
native population, had, from a thousand altars, charged every Catholic to
show his zeal for the true Church by providing weapons against the day
when it might be necessary to try the chances of battle in her cause. The
army, which, under Ormond, had consisted of only eight regiments, was
now increased to forty-eight: and the ranks were soon full to overflowing. It
was impossible to find at short notice one tenth of the number of good
officers which was required. Commissions were scattered profusely among
idle cosherers who claimed to be descended from good Irish families. Yet
even thus the supply of captains and lieutenants fell short of the demand;
and many companies were commanded by cobblers, tailors and footmen,
149
The pay of the soldiers was very small. The private had only threepence a
day. One half only of this pittance was ever given him in money; and that
half was often in arrear. But a far more seductive bait than his miserable
stipend was the prospect of boundless license. If the government allowed
him less than sufficed for his wants, it was not extreme to mark the means

by which he supplied the deficiency. Though four fifths of the population of
Ireland were Celtic and Roman Catholic, more than four fifths of the
property of Ireland belonged to the Protestant Englishry. The garners, the
cellars, above all the flocks and herds of the minority, were abandoned to
the majority. Whatever the regular troops spared was devoured by bands of
marauders who overran almost every barony in the island. For the arming
was now universal. No man dared to present himself at mass without some
weapon, a pike, a long knife called a skean, or, at the very least, a strong
ashen stake, pointed and hardened in the fire. The very women were
exhorted by their spiritual directors to carry skeans. Every smith, every
carpenter, every cutler, was at constant work on guns and blades. It was
scarcely possible to get a horse shod. If any Protestant artisan refused to
assist in the manufacture of implements which were to be used against his
nation and his religion, he was flung into prison. It seems probable that, at
the end of February, at least a hundred thousand Irishmen were in arms.
Near fifty thousand of them were soldiers. The rest were banditti, whose
violence and licentiousness the Government affected to disapprove, but did
not really exert itself to suppress. The Protestants not only were not
protected, but were not suffered to protect themselves. It was determined
that they should be left unarmed in the midst of an armed and hostile
population. A day was fixed on which they were to bring all their swords
and firelocks to the parish churches; and it was notified that every
Protestant house in which, after that day, a weapon should be found should
be given up to be sacked by the soldiers. Bitter complaints were made that
any knave might, by hiding a spear head or an old gun barrel in a corner of
a mansion, bring utter ruin on the owner, 150
Chief Justice Keating, himself a Protestant, and almost the only
Protestant who still held a great place in Ireland, struggled courageously in
the cause of justice and order against the united strength of the government
and the populace. At the Wicklow assizes of that spring, he, from the seat of
judgment, set forth with great strength of language the miserable state of the
country. Whole counties, he said, were devastated by a rabble resembling
the vultures and ravens which follow the march of an army. Most of these
wretches were not soldiers. They acted under no authority known to the law.
Yet it was, he owned, but too evident that they were encouraged and
screened by some who were in high command. How else could it be that a
market overt for plunder should be held within a short distance of the

capital? The stories which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the
Cape of Good Hope were realised in Leinster. Nothing was more common
than for an honest man to lie down rich in flocks and herds acquired by the
industry of a long life, and to wake a beggar. It was however to small
purpose that Keating attempted, in the midst of that fearful anarchy, to
uphold the supremacy of the law. Priests and military chiefs appeared on the
bench for the purpose of overawing the judge and countenancing the
robbers. One ruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear.
Another declared that he had armed himself in conformity to the orders of
his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons of higher station
than himself, whom he saw at that moment in Court. Two only of the Merry
Boys, as they were called, were convicted: the worst criminals escaped; and
the Chief justice indignantly told the jurymen that the guilt of the public
ruin lay at their door, 151
When such disorder prevailed in Wicklow, it is easy to imagine what
must have been the state of districts more barbarous and more remote from
the seat of government. Keating appears to have been the only magistrate
who strenuously exerted himself to put the law in force. Indeed Nugent, the
Chief justice of the highest criminal court of the realm, declared on the
bench at Cork that, without violence and spoliation, the intentions of the
Government could not be carried into effect, and that robbery must at that
conjuncture be tolerated as a necessary evil, 152
The destruction of property which took place within a few weeks would
be incredible, if it were not attested by witnesses unconnected with each
other and attached to very different interests. There is a close, and
sometimes almost a verbal, agreement between the description given by
Protestants, who, during that reign of terror, escaped, at the hazard of their
lives, to England, and the descriptions given by the envoys, commissaries,
and captains of Lewis. All agreed in declaring that it would take many years
to repair the waste which had been wrought in a few weeks by the armed
peasantry, 153 Some of the Saxon aristocracy had mansions richly furnished,
and sideboards gorgeous with silver bowls and chargers. All this wealth
disappeared. One house, in which there had been three thousand pounds'
worth of plate, was left without a spoon, 154 But the chief riches of Ireland
consisted in cattle. Innumerable flocks and herds covered that vast expanse
of emerald meadow, saturated with the moisture of the Atlantic. More than
one gentleman possessed twenty thousand sheep and four thousand oxen.

The freebooters who now overspread the country belonged to a class which
was accustomed to live on potatoes and sour whey, and which had always
regarded meat as a luxury reserved for the rich. These men at first revelled
in beef and mutton, as the savage invaders, who of old poured down from
the forests of the north on Italy, revelled in Massic and Falernian wines. The
Protestants described with contemptuous disgust the strange gluttony of
their newly liberated slaves. The carcasses, half raw and half burned to
cinders, sometimes still bleeding, sometimes in a state of loathsome decay,
were torn to pieces and swallowed without salt, bread, or herbs. Those
marauders who preferred boiled meat, being often in want of kettles,
contrived to boil the steer in his own skin. An absurd tragicomedy is still
extant, which was acted in this and the following year at some low theatre
for the amusement of the English populace. A crowd of half naked savages
appeared on the stage, howling a Celtic song and dancing round an ox.
They then proceeded to cut steaks out of the animal while still alive and to
fling the bleeding flesh on the coals. In truth the barbarity and filthiness of
the banquets of the Rapparees was such as the dramatists of Grub Street
could scarcely caricature. When Lent began, the plunderers generally
ceased to devour, but continued to destroy. A peasant would kill a cow
merely in order to get a pair of brogues. Often a whole flock of sheep, often
a herd of fifty or sixty kine, was slaughtered: the beasts were flayed; the
fleeces and hides were carried away; and the bodies were left to poison the
air. The French ambassador reported to his master that, in six weeks, fifty
thousand horned cattle had been slain in this manner, and were rotting on
the ground all over the country. The number of sheep that were butchered
during the same time was popularly said to have been three or four hundred
thousand, 155
Any estimate which can now be framed of the value of the property
destroyed during this fearful conflict of races must necessarily be very
inexact. We are not however absolutely without materials for such an
estimate. The Quakers were neither a very numerous nor a very opulent
class. We can hardly suppose that they were more than a fiftieth part of the
Protestant population of Ireland, or that they possessed more than a fiftieth
part of the Protestant wealth of Ireland. They were undoubtedly better
treated than any other Protestant sect. James had always been partial to
them: they own that Tyrconnel did his best to protect them; and they seem

to have found favour even in the sight of the Rapparees, 156 Yet the Quakers
computed their pecuniary losses at a hundred thousand pounds, 157
In Leinster, Munster and Connaught, it was utterly impossible for the
English settlers, few as they were and dispersed, to offer any effectual
resistance to this terrible outbreak of the aboriginal population. Charleville,
Mallow, Sligo, fell into the hands of the natives. Bandon, where the
Protestants had mustered in considerable force, was reduced by Lieutenant
General Macarthy, an Irish officer who was descended from one of the most
illustrious Celtic houses, and who had long served, under a feigned name, in
the French Army, 158 The people of Kenmare held out in their little fastness
till they were attacked by three thousand regular soldiers, and till it was
known that several pieces of ordnance were coming to batter down the turf
wall which surrounded the agent's house. Then at length a capitulation was
concluded. The colonists were suffered to embark in a small vessel scantily
supplied with food and water. They had no experienced navigator on board:
but after a voyage of a fortnight, during which they were crowded together
like slaves in a Guinea ship, and suffered the extremity of thirst and hunger,
they reached Bristol in safety, 159 When such was the fate of the towns, it
was evident that the country seats which the Protestant landowners had
recently fortified in the three southern provinces could no longer be
defended. Many families submitted, delivered up their arms, and thought
themselves happy in escaping with life. But many resolute and highspirited
gentlemen and yeomen were determined to perish rather than yield. They
packed up such valuable property as could easily be carried away, burned
whatever they could not remove, and, well armed and mounted, set out for
those spots in Ulster which were the strongholds of their race and of their
faith. The flower of the Protestant population of Munster and Connaught
found shelter at Enniskillen. Whatever was bravest and most truehearted in
Leinster took the road to Londonderry, 160
The spirit of Enniskillen and Londonderry rose higher and higher to meet
the danger. At both places the tidings of what had been done by the
Convention at Westminster were received with transports of joy. William
and Mary were proclaimed at Enniskillen with unanimous enthusiasm, and
with such pomp as the little town could furnish, 161 Lundy, who
commanded at Londonderry, could not venture to oppose himself to the
general sentiment of the citizens and of his own soldiers. He therefore gave
in his adhesion to the new government, and signed a declaration by which

he bound himself to stand by that government, on pain of being considered
a coward and a traitor. A vessel from England soon brought a commission
from William and Mary which confirmed him in his office, 162
To reduce the Protestants of Ulster to submission before aid could arrive
from England was now the chief object of Tyrconnel. A great force was
ordered to move northward, under the command of Richard Hamilton. This
man had violated all the obligations which are held most sacred by
gentlemen and soldiers, had broken faith with his friends the Temples, had
forfeited his military parole, and was now not ashamed to take the field as a
general against the government to which he was bound to render himself up
as a prisoner. His march left on the face of the country traces which the
most careless eye could not during many years fail to discern. His army was
accompanied by a rabble, such as Keating had well compared to the unclean
birds of prey which swarm wherever the scent of carrion is strong. The
general professed himself anxious to save from ruin and outrage all
Protestants who remained quietly at their homes; and he most readily gave
them protections tinder his hand. But these protections proved of no avail;
and he was forced to own that, whatever power he might be able to exercise
over his soldiers, he could not keep order among the mob of campfollowers.
The country behind him was a wilderness; and soon the country before him
became equally desolate. For at the fame of his approach the colonists
burned their furniture, pulled down their houses, and retreated northward.
Some of them attempted to make a stand at Dromore, but were broken and
scattered. Then the flight became wild and tumultuous. The fugitives broke
down the bridges and burned the ferryboats. Whole towns, the seats of the
Protestant population, were left in ruins without one inhabitant. The people
of Omagh destroyed their own dwellings so utterly that no roof was left to
shelter the enemy from the rain and wind. The people of Cavan migrated in
one body to Enniskillen. The day was wet and stormy. The road was deep in
mire. It was a piteous sight to see, mingled with the armed men, the women
and children weeping, famished, and toiling through the mud up to their
knees. All Lisburn fled to Antrim; and, as the foes drew nearer, all Lisburn
and Antrim together came pouring into Londonderry. Thirty thousand
Protestants, of both sexes and of every age, were crowded behind the
bulwarks of the City of Refuge. There, at length, on the verge of the ocean,
hunted to the last asylum, and baited into a mood in which men may be

destroyed, but will not easily be subjugated, the imperial race turned
desperately to bay, 163
Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice had arrived in France. Mountjoy was
instantly put under arrest and thrown into the Bastile. James determined to
comply with the invitation which Rice had brought, and applied to Lewis
for the help of a French army. But Lewis, though he showed, as to all things
which concerned the personal dignity and comfort of his royal guests, a
delicacy even romantic, and a liberality approaching to profusion, was
unwilling to send a large body of troops to Ireland. He saw that France
would have to maintain a long war on the Continent against a formidable
coalition: her expenditure must be immense; and, great as were her
resources, he felt it to be important that nothing should be wasted. He
doubtless regarded with sincere commiseration and good will the
unfortunate exiles to whom he had given so princely a welcome. Yet neither
commiseration nor good will could prevent him from speedily discovering
that his brother of England was the dullest and most perverse of human
beings. The folly of James, his incapacity to read the characters of men and
the signs of the times, his obstinacy, always most offensively displayed
when wisdom enjoined concession, his vacillation, always exhibited most
pitiably in emergencies which required firmness, had made him an outcast
from England, and might, if his counsels were blindly followed, bring great
calamities on France. As a legitimate sovereign expelled by rebels, as a
confessor of the true faith persecuted by heretics, as a near kinsman of the
House of Bourbon, who had seated himself on the hearth of that House, he
was entitled to hospitality, to tenderness, to respect. It was fit that he should
have a stately palace and a spacious forest, that the household troops should
salute him with the highest military honours, that he should have at his
command all the hounds of the Grand Huntsman and all the hawks of the
Grand Falconer. But, when a prince, who, at the head of a great fleet and
army, had lost an empire without striking a blow, undertook to furnish plans
for naval and military expeditions; when a prince, who had been undone by
his profound ignorance of the temper of his own countrymen, of his own
soldiers, of his own domestics, of his own children, undertook to answer for
the zeal and fidelity of the Irish people, whose language he could not speak,
and on whose land he had never set his foot; it was necessary to receive his
suggestions with caution. Such were the sentiments of Lewis; and in these
sentiments he was confirmed by his Minister of War Louvois, who, on

private as well as on public grounds, was unwilling that James should be
accompanied by a large military force. Louvois hated Lauzun. Lauzun was
favourite at Saint Germains. He wore the garter, a badge of honour which
has very seldom been conferred on aliens who were not sovereign princes.
It was believed indeed at the French Court that, in order to distinguish him
from the other knights of the most illustrious of European orders, he had
been decorated with that very George which Charles the First had, on the
scaffold, put into the hands of Juxon, 164 Lauzun had been encouraged to
hope that, if French forces were sent to Ireland, he should command them;
and this ambitious hope Louvois was bent on disappointing, 165
An army was therefore for the present refused; but every thing else was
granted. The Brest fleet was ordered to be in readiness to sail. Arms for ten
thousand men and great quantities of ammunition were put on board. About
four hundred captains, lieutenants, cadets and gunners were selected for the
important service of organizing and disciplining the Irish levies. The chief
command was held by a veteran warrior, the Count of Rosen. Under him
were Maumont, who held the rank of lieutenant general, and a brigadier
named Pusignan. Five hundred thousand crowns in gold, equivalent to
about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds sterling, were sent to Brest,
166 For James's personal comforts provision was made with anxiety
resembling that of a tender mother equipping her son for a first campaign.
The cabin furniture, the camp furniture, the tents, the bedding, the plate,
were luxurious and superb. Nothing, which could be agreeable or useful to
the exile was too costly for the munificence, or too trifling for the attention,
of his gracious and splendid host. On the fifteenth of February, James paid a
farewell visit to Versailles. He was conducted round the buildings and
plantations with every mark of respect and kindness. The fountains played
in his honour. It was the season of the Carnival; and never had the vast
palace and the sumptuous gardens presented a gayer aspect. In the evening
the two kings, after a long and earnest conference in private, made their
appearance before a splendid circle of lords and ladies. "I hope," said
Lewis, in his noblest and most winning manner, "that we are about to part,
never to meet again in this world. That is the best wish that I can form for
you. But, if any evil chance should force you to return, be assured that you
will find me to the last such as you have found me hitherto." On the
seventeenth Lewis paid in return a farewell visit to Saint Germains. At the
moment of the parting embrace he said, with his most amiable smile: "We

have forgotten one thing, a cuirass for yourself. You shall have mine." The
cuirass was brought, and suggested to the wits of the Court ingenious
allusions to the Vulcanian panoply which Achilles lent to his feebler friend.
James set out for Brest; and his wife, overcome with sickness and sorrow,
shut herself up with her child to weep and pray, 167
James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own
subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick,
Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis, Dover, and Melfort. Of all the retinue,
none was so odious to the people of Great Britain as Melfort. He was an
apostate: he was believed by many to be an insincere apostate; and the
insolent, arbitrary and menacing language of his state papers disgusted even
the Jacobites. He was therefore a favourite with his master: for to James
unpopularity, obstinacy, and implacability were the greatest
recommendations that a statesman could have.
What Frenchman should attend the King of England in the character of
ambassador had been the subject of grave deliberation at Versailles.
Barillon could not be passed over without a marked slight. But his
selfindulgent habits, his want of energy, and, above all, the credulity with
which he had listened to the professions of Sunderland, had made an
unfavourable impression on the mind of Lewis. What was to be done in
Ireland was not work for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in that
kingdom must be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of an
envoy. It would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching every part
of the political and military administration of the country in which he would
represent the most powerful and the most beneficent of allies. Barillon was
therefore passed over. He affected to bear his disgrace with composure. His
political career, though it had brought great calamities both on the House of
Stuart and on the House of Bourbon, had been by no means unprofitable to
himself. He was old, he said: he was fat: he did not envy younger men the
honour of living on potatoes and whiskey among the Irish bogs; he would
try to console himself with partridges, with champagne, and with the
society of the wittiest men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumoured,
however that he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to
conceal: his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find consolation in
religious duties. Some people were much edified by the piety of the old
voluptuary: but others attributed his death, which took place not long after
his retreat from public life, to shame and vexation, 168

The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of
William, and who had vainly recommended a policy which would probably
have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Lewis fell. In
abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists
whom his country then possessed. His demeanour was singularly pleasing,
his person handsome, his temper bland. His manners and conversation were
those of a gentleman who had been bred in the most polite and magnificent
of all Courts, who had represented that Court both in Roman Catholic and
Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his wanderings the art of
catching the tone of any society into which chance might throw him. He
was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in resources, and skilful in
discovering the weak parts of a character. His own character, however, was
not without its weak parts. The consciousness that he was of plebeian origin
was the torment of his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once
pitiable and ludicrous. Able, experienced and accomplished as he was, he
sometimes, under the influence of this mental disease, descended to the
level of Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes
almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a
Mamamouchi, 169 It would have been well if this had been the worst. But it
is not too much to say that of the difference between right and wrong Avaux
had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him in the place of
religion and morality, a superstitious and intolerant devotion to the Crown
which he served. This sentiment pervades all his despatches, and gives a
colour to all his thoughts and words. Nothing that tended to promote the
interest of the French monarchy seemed to him a crime. Indeed he appears
to have taken it for granted that not only Frenchmen, but all human beings,
owed a natural allegiance to the House of Bourbon, and that whoever
hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of his own native country
to the glory of that House was a traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he
always designated those Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as
the well intentioned party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the
same feeling appears still more strongly. He would have been a more
sagacious politician if he had sympathized more with those feelings of
moral approbation and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For
his own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such
that, in his schemes, he made no allowance for the consciences and
sensibilities of his neighbours. More than once he deliberately

recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with
indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples
intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a cynical sneer,
wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such fools
as they professed to be, or were only shamming.
Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the companion and
monitor of James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a communication
with the malecontents in the English Parliament; and he was authorised to
expend, if necessary, a hundred thousand crowns among them.
James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on board of
a man of war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within forty-eight hours.
He had ample time, however, before his departure, to exhibit some of the
faults by which he had lost England and Scotland, and by which he was
about to lose Ireland. Avaux wrote from the harbour of Brest that it would
not be easy to conduct any important business in concert with the King of
England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from any body. The very
foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him say things which
ought to have been reserved for the ears of his confidential advisers, 170
The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the afternoon of
the twelfth of March, James landed in the harbour of Kinsale. By the
Roman Catholic population he was received with shouts of unfeigned
transport. The few Protestants who remained in that part of the country
joined in greeting him, and perhaps not insincerely. For, though an enemy
of their religion, he was not an enemy of their nation; and they might
reasonably hope that the worst king would show somewhat more respect for
law and property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and Rapparees.
The Vicar of Kinsale was among those who went to pay their duty: he was
presented by the Bishop of Chester, and was not ungraciously received, 171
James learned that his cause was prospering. In the three southern
provinces of Ireland the Protestants were disarmed, and were so effectually
bowed down by terror that he had nothing to apprehend from them. In the
North there was some show of resistance: but Hamilton was marching
against the malecontents; and there was little doubt that they would easily
be crushed. A day was spent at Kinsale in putting the arms and ammunition
out of reach of danger. Horses sufficient to carry a few travellers were with

some difficulty procured; and, on the fourteenth of March, James proceeded
to Cork, 172
We should greatly err if we imagined that the road by which he entered
that city bore any resemblance to the stately approach which strikes the
traveller of the nineteenth century with admiration. At present Cork, though
deformed by many miserable relics of a former age, holds no mean place
among the ports of the empire. The shipping is more than half what the
shipping of London was at the time of the Revolution. The customs exceed
the whole revenue which the whole kingdom of Ireland, in the most
peaceful and prosperous times, yielded to the Stuarts. The town is adorned
by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a Corinthian portico
which would do honour to Palladio, and by a Gothic college worthy to
stand in the High Street of Oxford. In 1689, the city extended over about
one tenth part of the space which it now covers, and was intersected by
muddy streams, which have long been concealed by arches and buildings. A
desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who pursued the waterfowl sank
deep in water and mire at every step, covered the area now occupied by
stately buildings, the palaces of great commercial societies. There was only
a single street in which two wheeled carriages could pass each other. From
this street diverged to right and left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the
belief of those who have formed their notions of misery from the most
miserable parts of Saint Giles's and Whitechapel. One of these alleys,
called, and, by comparison, justly called, Broad Lane, is about ten feet
wide. From such places, now seats of hunger and pestilence, abandoned to
the most wretched of mankind, the citizens poured forth to welcome James.
He was received with military honours by Macarthy, who held the chief
command in Munster.
It was impossible for the King to proceed immediately to Dublin; for the
southern counties had been so completely laid waste by the banditti whom
the priests had called to arms, that the means of locomotion were not easily
to be procured. Horses had become rarities: in a large district there were
only two carts; and those Avaux pronounced good for nothing. Some days
elapsed before the money which had been brought from France, though no
very formidable mass, could be dragged over the few miles which separated
Cork from Kinsale, 173

While the King and his Council were employed in trying to procure
carriages and beasts, Tyrconnel arrived from Dublin. He held encouraging
language. The opposition of Enniskillen he seems to have thought deserving
of little consideration. Londonderry, he said, was the only important post
held by the Protestants; and even Londonderry would not, in his judgment,
hold out many days.
At length James was able to leave Cork for the capital. On the road, the
shrewd and observant Avaux made many remarks. The first part of the
journey was through wild highlands, where it was not strange that there
should be few traces of art and industry. But, from Kilkenny to the gates of
Dublin, the path of the travellers lay over gently undulating ground rich
with natural verdure. That fertile district should have been covered with
flocks and herds, orchards and cornfields: but it was an unfilled and
unpeopled desert. Even in the towns the artisans were very few.
Manufactured articles were hardly to be found, and if found could be
procured only at immense prices, 174 The truth was that most of the English
inhabitants had fled, and that art, industry, and capital had fled with them.
James received on his progress numerous marks of the goodwill of the
peasantry; but marks such as, to men bred in the courts of France and
England, had an uncouth and ominous appearance. Though very few
labourers were seen at work in the fields, the road was lined by Rapparees
armed with skeans, stakes, and half pikes, who crowded to look upon the
deliverer of their race. The highway along which he travelled presented the
aspect of a street in which a fair is held. Pipers came forth to play before
him in a style which was not exactly that of the French opera; and the
villagers danced wildly to the music. Long frieze mantles, resembling those
which Spenser had, a century before, described as meet beds for rebels, and
apt cloaks for thieves, were spread along the path which the cavalcade was
to tread; and garlands, in which cabbage stalks supplied the place of laurels,
were offered to the royal hand. The women insisted on kissing his Majesty;
but it should seem that they bore little resemblance to their posterity; for
this compliment was so distasteful to him that he ordered his retinue to keep
them at a distance, 175
On the twenty-fourth of March he entered Dublin. That city was then, in
extent and population, the second in the British isles. It contained between
six and seven thousand houses, and probably above thirty thousand

inhabitants, 176 In wealth and beauty, however, Dublin was inferior to many
English towns. Of the graceful and stately public buildings which now
adorn both sides of the Liffey scarcely one had been even projected. The
College, a very different edifice from that which now stands on the same
site, lay quite out of the city, 177 The ground which is at present occupied by
Leinster House and Charlemont House, by Sackville Street and Merrion
Square, was open meadow. Most of the dwellings were built of timber, and
have long given place to more substantial edifices. The Castle had in 1686
been almost uninhabitable. Clarendon had complained that he knew of no
gentleman in Pall Mall who was not more conveniently and handsomely
lodged than the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. No public ceremony could be
performed in a becoming manner under the Viceregal roof. Nay, in spite of
constant glazing and tiling, the rain perpetually drenched the apartments, 178
Tyrconnel, since he became Lord Deputy, had erected a new building
somewhat more commodious. To this building the King was conducted in
state through the southern part of the city. Every exertion had been made to
give an air of festivity and splendour to the district which he was to
traverse. The streets, which were generally deep in mud, were strewn with
gravel. Boughs and flowers were scattered over the path.
Tapestry and arras hung from the windows of those who could afford to
exhibit such finery. The poor supplied the place of rich stuffs with blankets
and coverlids. In one place was stationed a troop of friars with a cross; in
another a company of forty girls dressed in white and carrying nosegays.
Pipers and harpers played "The King shall enjoy his own again." The Lord
Deputy carried the sword of state before his master. The Judges, the
Heralds, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, appeared in all the pomp of office.
Soldiers were drawn up on the right and left to keep the passages clear. A
procession of twenty coaches belonging to public functionaries was
mustered. Before the Castle gate, the King was met by the host under a
canopy borne by four bishops of his church. At the sight he fell on his
knees, and passed some time in devotion. He then rose and was conducted
to the chapel of his palace, once—such are the vicissitudes of human things
—the riding house of Henry Cromwell. A Te Deum was performed in
honour of his Majesty's arrival. The next morning he held a Privy Council,
discharged Chief Justice Keating from any further attendance at the board,
ordered Avaux and Bishop Cartwright to be sworn in, and issued a

proclamation convoking a Parliament to meet at Dublin on the seventh of
May, 179
When the news that James had arrived in Ireland reached London, the
sorrow and alarm were general, and were mingled with serious discontent.
The multitude, not making sufficient allowance for the difficulties by which
William was encompassed on every side, loudly blamed his neglect. To all
the invectives of the ignorant and malicious he opposed, as was his wont,
nothing but immutable gravity and the silence of profound disdain. But few
minds had received from nature a temper so firm as his; and still fewer had
undergone so long and so rigorous a discipline. The reproaches which had
no power to shake his fortitude, tried from childhood upwards by both
extremes of fortune, inflicted a deadly wound on a less resolute heart.
While all the coffeehouses were unanimously resolving that a fleet and
army ought to have been long before sent to Dublin, and wondering how so
renowned a politician as his Majesty could have been duped by Hamilton
and Tyrconnel, a gentleman went down to the Temple Stairs, called a boat,
and desired to be pulled to Greenwich. He took the cover of a letter from
his pocket, scratched a few lines with a pencil, and laid the paper on the seat
with some silver for his fare. As the boat passed under the dark central arch
of London Bridge, he sprang into the water and disappeared. It was found
that he had written these words: "My folly in undertaking what I could not
execute hath done the King great prejudice which cannot be stopped—No
easier way for me than this—May his undertakings prosper—May he have
a blessing." There was no signature; but the body was soon found, and
proved to be that of John Temple. He was young and highly accomplished:
he was heir to an honourable name; he was united to an amiable woman: he
was possessed of an ample fortune; and he had in prospect the greatest
honours of the state. It does not appear that the public had been at all aware
to what an extent he was answerable for the policy which had brought so
much obloquy on the government. The King, stern as he was, had far too
great a heart to treat an error as a crime. He had just appointed the
unfortunate young man Secretary at War; and the commission was actually
preparing. It is not improbable that the cold magnanimity of the master was
the very thing which made the remorse of the servant insupportable, 180
But, great as were the vexations which William had to undergo, those by
which the temper of his father-in-law was at this time tried were greater

still. No court in Europe was distracted by more quarrels and intrigues than
were to be found within the walls of Dublin Castle. The numerous petty
cabals which sprang from the cupidity, the jealousy, and the malevolence of
individuals scarcely deserve mention. But there was one cause of discord
which has been too little noticed, and which is the key to much that has
been thought mysterious in the history of those times.
Between English Jacobitism and Irish Jacobitism there was nothing in
common. The English Jacobite was animated by a strong enthusiasm for the
family of Stuart; and in his zeal for the interests of that family he too often
forgot the interests of the state. Victory, peace, prosperity, seemed evils to
the stanch nonjuror of our island if they tended to make usurpation popular
and permanent. Defeat, bankruptcy, famine, invasion, were, in his view,
public blessings, if they increased the chance of a restoration. He would
rather have seen his country the last of the nations under James the Second
or James the Third, than the mistress of the sea, the umpire between
contending potentates, the seat of arts, the hive of industry, under a prince
of the House of Nassau or of Brunswick.
The sentiments of the Irish Jacobite were very different, and, it must in
candour be acknowledged, were of a nobler character. The fallen dynasty
was nothing to him. He had not, like a Cheshire or Shropshire cavalier, been
taught from his cradle to consider loyalty to that dynasty as the first duty of
a Christian and a gentleman. All his family traditions, all the lessons taught
him by his foster mother and by his priests, had been of a very different
tendency. He had been brought up to regard the foreign sovereigns of his
native land with the feeling with which the Jew regarded Caesar, with
which the Scot regarded Edward the First, with which the Castilian
regarded Joseph Buonaparte, with which the Pole regards the Autocrat of
the Russias. It was the boast of the highborn Milesian that, from the twelfth
century to the seventeenth, every generation of his family had been in arms
against the English crown. His remote ancestors had contended with
Fitzstephen and De Burgh. His greatgrandfather had cloven down the
soldiers of Elizabeth in the battle of the Blackwater. His grandfather had
conspired with O'Donnel against James the First. His father had fought
under Sir Phelim O'Neill against Charles the First. The confiscation of the
family estate had been ratified by an Act of Charles the Second. No Puritan,
who had been cited before the High Commission by Laud, who had charged
under Cromwell at Naseby, who had been prosecuted under the Conventicle

Act, and who had been in hiding on account of the Rye House Plot, bore
less affection to the House of Stuart than the O'Haras and Macmahons, on
whose support the fortunes of that House now seemed to depend.
The fixed purpose of these men was to break the foreign yoke, to
exterminate the Saxon colony, to sweep away the Protestant Church, and to
restore the soil to its ancient proprietors. To obtain these ends they would
without the smallest scruple have risen up against James; and to obtain
these ends they rose up for him. The Irish Jacobites, therefore, were not at
all desirous that he should again reign at Whitehall: for they could not but
be aware that a Sovereign of Ireland, who was also Sovereign of England,
would not, and, even if he would, could not, long administer the
government of the smaller and poorer kingdom in direct opposition to the
feeling of the larger and richer. Their real wish was that the Crowns might
be completely separated, and that their island might, whether under James
or without James they cared little, form a distinct state under the powerful
protection of France.
While one party in the Council at Dublin regarded James merely as a tool
to be employed for achieving the deliverance of Ireland, another party
regarded Ireland merely as a tool to be employed for effecting the
restoration of James. To the English and Scotch lords and gentlemen who
had accompanied him from Brest, the island in which they sojourned was
merely a stepping stone by which they were to reach Great Britain. They
were still as much exiles as when they were at Saint Germains; and indeed
they thought Saint Germains a far more pleasant place of exile than Dublin
Castle. They had no sympathy with the native population of the remote and
half barbarous region to which a strange chance had led them. Nay, they
were bound by common extraction and by common language to that colony
which it was the chief object of the native population to root out. They had
indeed, like the great body of their countrymen, always regarded the
aboriginal Irish with very unjust contempt, as inferior to other European
nations, not only in acquired knowledge, but in natural intelligence and
courage; as born Gibeonites who had been liberally treated, in being
permitted to hew wood and to draw water for a wiser and mightier people.
These politicians also thought,—and here they were undoubtedly in the
right,—that, if their master's object was to recover the throne of England, it
would be madness in him to give himself up to the guidance of the O's and
the Macs who regarded England with mortal enmity. A law declaring the

crown of Ireland independent, a law transferring mitres, glebes, and tithes
from the Protestant to the Roman Catholic Church, a law transferring ten
millions of acres from Saxons to Celts, would doubtless be loudly
applauded in Clare and Tipperary. But what would be the effect of such
laws at Westminster? What at Oxford? It would be poor policy to alienate
such men as Clarendon and Beaufort, Ken and Sherlock, in order to obtain
the applause of the Rapparees of the Bog of Allen, 181
Thus the English and Irish factions in the Council at Dublin were
engaged in a dispute which admitted of no compromise. Avaux meanwhile
looked on that dispute from a point of view entirely his own. His object was
neither the emancipation of Ireland nor the restoration of James, but the
greatness of the French monarchy. In what way that object might be best
attained was a very complicated problem. Undoubtedly a French statesman
could not but wish for a counterrevolution in England. The effect of such a
counterrevolution would be that the power which was the most formidable
enemy of France would become her firmest ally, that William would sink
into insignificance, and that the European coalition of which he was the
chief would be dissolved. But what chance was there of such a
counterrevolution? The English exiles indeed, after the fashion of exiles,
confidently anticipated a speedy return to their country. James himself
loudly boasted that his subjects on the other side of the water, though they
had been misled for a moment by the specious names of religion, liberty,
and property, were warmly attached to him, and would rally round him as
soon as he appeared among them. But the wary envoy tried in vain to
discover any foundation for these hopes. He was certain that they were not
warranted by any intelligence which had arrived from any part of Great
Britain; and he considered them as the mere daydreams of a feeble mind.
He thought it unlikely that the usurper, whose ability and resolution he had,
during an unintermitted conflict of ten years, learned to appreciate, would
easily part with the great prize which had been won by such strenuous
exertions and profound combinations. It was therefore necessary to consider
what arrangements would be most beneficial to France, on the supposition
that it proved impossible to dislodge William from England. And it was
evident that, if William could not be dislodged from England, the
arrangement most beneficial to France would be that which had been
contemplated eighteen months before when James had no prospect of a
male heir. Ireland must be severed from the English crown, purged of the

English colonists, reunited to the Church of Rome, placed under the
protection of the House of Bourbon, and made, in every thing but name, a
French province. In war, her resources would be absolutely at the command
of her Lord Paramount. She would furnish his army with recruits. She
would furnish his navy with fine harbours commanding all the great
western outlets of the English trade. The strong national and religious
antipathy with which her aboriginal population regarded the inhabitants of
the neighbouring island would be a sufficient guarantee for their fidelity to
that government which could alone protect her against the Saxon.
On the whole, therefore, it appeared to Avaux that, of the two parties into
which the Council at Dublin was divided, the Irish party was that which it
was for the interest of France to support. He accordingly connected himself
closely with the chiefs of that party, obtained from them the fullest avowals
of all that they designed, and was soon able to report to his government that
neither the gentry nor the common people were at all unwilling to become
French, 182
The views of Louvois, incomparably the greatest statesman that France
had produced since Richelieu, seem to have entirely agreed with those of
Avaux. The best thing, Louvois wrote, that King James could do would be
to forget that he had reigned in Great Britain, and to think only of putting
Ireland into a good condition, and of establishing himself firmly there.
Whether this were the true interest of the House of Stuart may be doubted.
But it was undoubtedly the true interest of the House of Bourbon, 183
About the Scotch and English exiles, and especially about Melfort, Avaux
constantly expressed himself with an asperity hardly to have been expected
from a man of so much sense and experience. Melfort was in a singularly
unfortunate position. He was a renegade: he was a mortal enemy of the
liberties of his country: he was of a bad and tyrannical nature; and yet he
was, in some sense, a patriot. The consequence was that he was more
universally detested than any man of his time. For, while his apostasy and
his arbitrary maxims of government made him the abhorrence of England
and Scotland, his anxiety for the dignity and integrity of the empire made
him the abhorrence of the Irish and of the French.
The first question to be decided was whether James should remain at
Dublin, or should put himself at the head of his army in Ulster. On this
question the Irish and British factions joined battle. Reasons of no great

weight were adduced on both sides; for neither party ventured to speak out.
The point really in issue was whether the King should be in Irish or in
British hands. If he remained at Dublin, it would be scarcely possible for
him to withhold his assent from any bill presented to him by the Parliament
which he had summoned to meet there. He would be forced to plunder,
perhaps to attaint, innocent Protestant gentlemen and clergymen by
hundreds; and he would thus do irreparable mischief to his cause on the
other side of Saint George's Channel. If he repaired to Ulster, he would be
within a few hours' sail of Great Britain. As soon as Londonderry had
fallen, and it was universally supposed that the fall of Londonderry could
not be long delayed, he might cross the sea with part of his forces, and land
in Scotland, where his friends were supposed to be numerous. When he was
once on British ground, and in the midst of British adherents, it would no
longer be in the power of the Irish to extort his consent to their schemes of
spoliation and revenge.
The discussions in the Council were long and warm. Tyrconnel, who had
just been created a Duke, advised his master to stay in Dublin. Melfort
exhorted his Majesty to set out for Ulster. Avaux exerted all his influence in
support of Tyrconnel; but James, whose personal inclinations were naturally
on the British side of the question, determined to follow the advice of
Melfort, 184 Avaux was deeply mortified. In his official letters he expressed
with great acrimony his contempt for the King's character and
understanding. On Tyrconnel, who had said that he despaired of the
fortunes of James, and that the real question was between the King of
France and the Prince of Orange, the ambassador pronounced what was
meant to be a warm eulogy, but may perhaps be more properly called an
invective. "If he were a born Frenchman he could not be more zealous for
the interests of France." 185 The conduct of Melfort, on the other hand, was
the subject of an invective which much resembles eulogy: "He is neither a
good Irishman nor a good Frenchman. All his affections are set on his own
country." 186
Since the King was determined to go northward, Avaux did not choose to
be left behind. The royal party set out, leaving Tyrconnel in charge at
Dublin, and arrived at Charlemont on the thirteenth of April. The journey
was a strange one. The country all along the road had been completely
deserted by the industrious population, and laid waste by bands of robbers.
"This," said one of the French officers, "is like travelling through the deserts

of Arabia." 187 Whatever effects the colonists had been able to remove were
at Londonderry or Enniskillen. The rest had been stolen or destroyed.
Avaux informed his court that he had not been able to get one truss of hay
for his horses without sending five or six miles. No labourer dared bring
any thing for sale lest some marauder should lay hands on it by the way.
The ambassador was put one night into a miserable taproom full of soldiers
smoking, another night into a dismantled house without windows or
shutters to keep out the rain. At Charlemont a bag of oatmeal was with great
difficulty, and as a matter of favour, procured for the French legation. There
was no wheaten bread, except at the table of the King, who had brought a
little flour from Dublin, and to whom Avaux had lent a servant who knew
how to bake. Those who were honoured with an invitation to the royal table
had their bread and wine measured out to them. Every body else, however
high in rank, ate horsecorn, and drank water or detestable beer, made with
oats instead of barley, and flavoured with some nameless herb as a
substitute for hops, 188 Yet report said that the country between Charlemont
and Strabane was even more desolate than the country between Dublin and
Charlemont. It was impossible to carry a large stock of provisions. The
roads were so bad and the horses so weak, that the baggage waggons had all
been left far behind. The chief officers of the army were consequently in
want of necessaries; and the ill-humour which was the natural effect of
these privations was increased by the insensibility of James, who seemed
not to be aware that every body about him was not perfectly comfortable,
189
On the fourteenth of April the King and his train proceeded to Omagh.
The rain fell: the wind blew: the horses could scarcely make their way
through the mud, and in the face of the storm; and the road was frequently
intersected by torrents which might almost be called rivers. The travellers
had to pass several fords where the water was breast high. Some of the
party fainted from fatigue and hunger. All around lay a frightful wilderness.
In a journey of forty miles Avaux counted only three miserable cabins.
Every thing else was rock, bog, and moor. When at length the travellers
reached Omagh, they found it in ruins. The Protestants, who were the
majority of the inhabitants, had abandoned it, leaving not a wisp of straw
nor a cask of liquor. The windows had been broken: the chimneys had been
beaten in: the very locks and bolts of the doors had been carried away, 190

Avaux had never ceased to press the King to return to Dublin; but these
expostulations had hitherto produced no effect. The obstinacy of James,
however, was an obstinacy which had nothing in common with manly
resolution, and which, though proof to argument, was easily shaken by
caprice. He received at Omagh, early on the sixteenth of April, letters which
alarmed him. He learned that a strong body of Protestants was in arms at
Strabane, and that English ships of war had been seen near the mouth of
Lough Foyle. In one minute three messages were sent to summon Avaux to
the ruinous chamber in which the royal bed had been prepared. There
James, half dressed, and with the air of a man bewildered by some great
shock, announced his resolution to hasten back instantly to Dublin. Avaux
listened, wondered, and approved. Melfort seemed prostrated by despair.
The travellers retraced their steps, and, late in the evening, reached
Charlemont. There the King received despatches very different from those
which had terrified him a few hours before. The Protestants who had
assembled near Strabane had been attacked by Hamilton. Under a
truehearted leader they would doubtless have stood their ground. But
Lundy, who commanded them, had told them that all was lost, had ordered
them to shift for themselves, and had set them the example of flight, 191
They had accordingly retired in confusion to Londonderry. The King's
correspondents pronounced it to be impossible that Londonderry should
hold out. His Majesty had only to appear before the gates; and they would
instantly fly open. James now changed his mind again, blamed himself for
having been persuaded to turn his face southward, and, though it was late in
the evening, called for his horses. The horses were in a miserable plight;
but, weary and half starved as they were, they were saddled. Melfort,
completely victorious, carried off his master to the camp. Avaux, after
remonstrating to no purpose, declared that he was resolved to return to
Dublin. It may be suspected that the extreme discomfort which he had
undergone had something to do with this resolution. For complaints of that
discomfort make up a large part of his letters; and, in truth, a life passed in
the palaces of Italy, in the neat parlours and gardens of Holland, and in the
luxurious pavilions which adorned the suburbs of Paris, was a bad
preparation for the ruined hovels of Ulster. He gave, however, to his master
a more weighty reason for refusing to proceed northward. The journey of
James had been undertaken in opposition to the unanimous sense of the
Irish, and had excited great alarm among them. They apprehended that he

meant to quit them, and to make a descent on Scotland. They knew that,
once landed in Great Britain, he would have neither the will nor the power
to do those things which they most desired. Avaux, by refusing to proceed
further, gave them an assurance that, whoever might betray them, France
would be their constant friend, 192
While Avaux was on his way to Dublin, James hastened towards
Londonderry. He found his army concentrated a few miles south of the city.
The French generals who had sailed with him from Brest were in his train;
and two of them, Rosen and Maumont, were placed over the head of
Richard Hamilton, 193 Rosen was a native of Livonia, who had in early
youth become a soldier of fortune, who had fought his way to distinction,
and who, though utterly destitute of the graces and accomplishments
characteristic of the Court of Versailles, was nevertheless high in favour
there. His temper was savage: his manners were coarse: his language was a
strange jargon compounded of various dialects of French and German. Even
those who thought best of him, and who maintained that his rough exterior
covered some good qualities, owned that his looks were against him, and
that it would be unpleasant to meet such a figure in the dusk at the corner of
a wood, 194 The little that is known of Maumont is to his honour.
In the camp it was generally expected that Londonderry would fall
without a blow. Rosen confidently predicted that the mere sight of the Irish
army would terrify the garrison into submission. But Richard Hamilton,
who knew the temper of the colonists better, had misgivings. The assailants
were sure of one important ally within the walls. Lundy, the Governor,
professed the Protestant religion, and had joined in proclaiming William
and Mary; but he was in secret communication with the enemies of his
Church and of the Sovereigns to whom he had sworn lealty. Some have
suspected that he was a concealed Jacobite, and that he had affected to
acquiesce in the Revolution only in order that he might be better able to
assist in bringing about a Restoration: but it is probable that his conduct is
rather to be attributed to faintheartedness and poverty of spirit than to zeal
for any public cause. He seems to have thought resistance hopeless; and in
truth, to a military eye, the defences of Londonderry appeared contemptible.
The fortifications consisted of a simple wall overgrown with grass and
weeds: there was no ditch even before the gates: the drawbridges had long
been neglected: the chains were rusty and could scarcely be used: the
parapets and towers were built after a fashion which might well move

disciples of Vauban to laughter; and these feeble defences were on almost
every side commanded by heights. Indeed those who laid out the city had
never meant that it should be able to stand a regular siege, and had
contented themselves with throwing up works sufficient to protect the
inhabitants against a tumultuary attack of the Celtic peasantry. Avaux
assured Louvois that a single French battalion would easily storm such
defences. Even if the place should, notwithstanding all disadvantages, be
able to repel a large army directed by the science and experience of generals
who had served under Conde and Turenne, hunger must soon bring the
contest to an end. The stock of provisions was small; and the population had
been swollen to seven or eight times the ordinary number by a multitude of
colonists flying from the rage of the natives, 195
Lundy, therefore, from the time when the Irish army entered Ulster,
seems to have given up all thought of serious resistance, He talked so
despondingly that the citizens and his own soldiers murmured against him.
He seemed, they said, to be bent on discouraging them. Meanwhile the
enemy drew daily nearer and nearer; and it was known that James himself
was coming to take the command of his forces.
Just at this moment a glimpse of hope appeared. On the fourteenth of
April ships from England anchored in the bay. They had on board two
regiments which had been sent, under the command of a Colonel named
Cunningham, to reinforce the garrison. Cunningham and several of his
officers went on shore and conferred with Lundy. Lundy dissuaded them
from landing their men. The place, he said, could not hold out. To throw
more troops into it would therefore be worse than useless: for the more
numerous the garrison, the more prisoners would fall into the hands of the
enemy. The best thing that the two regiments could do would be to sail back
to England. He meant, he said, to withdraw himself privately: and the
inhabitants must then try to make good terms for themselves.
He went through the form of holding a council of war; but from this
council he excluded all those officers of the garrison whose sentiments he
knew to be different from his own. Some, who had ordinarily been
summoned on such occasions, and who now came uninvited, were thrust
out of the room. Whatever the Governor said was echoed by his creatures.
Cunningham and Cunningham's companions could scarcely venture to
oppose their opinion to that of a person whose local knowledge was

necessarily far superior to theirs, and whom they were by their instructions
directed to obey. One brave soldier murmured. "Understand this," he said,
"to give up Londonderry is to give up Ireland." But his objections were
contemptuously overruled, 196 The meeting broke up. Cunningham and his
officers returned to the ships, and made preparations for departing.
Meanwhile Lundy privately sent a messenger to the head quarters of the
enemy, with assurances that the city should be peaceably surrendered on the
first summons.
But as soon as what had passed in the council of war was whispered
about the streets, the spirit of the soldiers and citizens swelled up high and
fierce against the dastardly and perfidious chief who had betrayed them.
Many of his own officers declared that they no longer thought themselves
bound to obey him. Voices were heard threatening, some that his brains
should be blown out, some that he should be hanged on the walls. A
deputation was sent to Cunningham imploring him to assume the command.
He excused himself on the plausible ground that his orders were to take
directions in all things from the Governor, 197 Meanwhile it was rumoured
that the persons most in Lundy's confidence were stealing out of the town
one by one. Long after dusk on the evening of the seventeenth it was found
that the gates were open and that the keys had disappeared. The officers
who made the discovery took on themselves to change the passwords and to
double the guards. The night, however, passed over without any assault, 198
After some anxious hours the day broke. The Irish, with James at their
head, were now within four miles of the city. A tumultuous council of the
chief inhabitants was called. Some of them vehemently reproached the
Governor to his face with his treachery. He had sold them, they cried, to
their deadliest enemy: he had refused admission to the force which good
King William had sent to defend them. While the altercation was at the
height, the sentinels who paced the ramparts announced that the vanguard
of the hostile army was in sight. Lundy had given orders that there should
be no firing; but his authority was at an end. Two gallant soldiers, Major
Henry Baker and Captain Adam Murray, called the people to arms. They
were assisted by the eloquence of an aged clergyman, George Walker, rector
of the parish of Donaghmore, who had, with many of his neighbours, taken
refuge in Londonderry. The whole of the crowded city was moved by one
impulse. Soldiers, gentlemen, yeomen, artisans, rushed to the walls and
manned the guns. James, who, confident of success, had approached within

a hundred yards of the southern gate, was received with a shout of "No
surrender," and with a fire from the nearest bastion. An officer of his staff
fell dead by his side. The King and his attendants made all haste to get out
of reach of the cannon balls. Lundy, who was now in imminent danger of
being torn limb from limb by those whom he had betrayed, hid himself in
an inner chamber. There he lay during the day, and at night, with the
generous and politic connivance of Murray and Walker, made his escape in
the disguise of a porter, 199 The part of the wall from which he let himself
down is still pointed out; and people still living talk of having tasted the
fruit of a pear tree which assisted him in his descent. His name is, to this
day, held in execration by the Protestants of the North of Ireland; and his
effigy was long, and perhaps still is, annually hung and burned by them
with marks of abhorrence similar to those which in England are
appropriated to Guy Faux.
And now Londonderry was left destitute of all military and of all civil
government. No man in the town had a right to command any other: the
defences were weak: the provisions were scanty: an incensed tyrant and a
great army were at the gates. But within was that which has often, in
desperate extremities, retrieved the fallen fortunes of nations. Betrayed,
deserted, disorganized, unprovided with resources, begirt with enemies, the
noble city was still no easy conquest. Whatever an engineer might think of
the strength of the ramparts, all that was most intelligent, most courageous,
most highspirited among the Englishry of Leinster and of Northern Ulster
was crowded behind them. The number of men capable of bearing arms
within the walls was seven thousand; and the whole world could not have
furnished seven thousand men better qualified to meet a terrible emergency
with clear judgment, dauntless valour, and stubborn patience. They were all
zealous Protestants; and the Protestantism of the majority was tinged with
Puritanism. They had much in common with that sober, resolute, and
Godfearing class out of which Cromwell had formed his unconquerable
army. But the peculiar situation in which they had been placed had
developed in them some qualities which, in the mother country, might
possibly have remained latent. The English inhabitants of Ireland were an
aristocratic caste, which had been enabled, by superior civilisation, by close
union, by sleepless vigilance, by cool intrepidity, to keep in subjection a
numerous and hostile population. Almost every one of them had been in
some measure trained both to military and to political functions. Almost

every one was familiar with the use of arms, and was accustomed to bear a
part in the administration of justice. It was remarked by contemporary
writers that the colonists had something of the Castilian haughtiness of
manner, though none of the Castilian indolence, that they spoke English
with remarkable purity and correctness, and that they were, both as
militiamen and as jurymen, superior to their kindred in the mother country,
200 In all ages, men situated as the Anglosaxons in Ireland were situated
have had peculiar vices and peculiar virtues, the vices and virtues of
masters, as opposed to the vices and virtues of slaves. The member of a
dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed
fraudulent,—for fraud is the resource of the weak,—but imperious, insolent,
and cruel. Towards his brethren, on the other hand, his conduct is generally
just, kind, and even noble. His selfrespect leads him to respect all who
belong to his own order. His interest impels him to cultivate a good
understanding with those whose prompt, strenuous, and courageous
assistance may at any moment be necessary to preserve his property and
life. It is a truth ever present to his mind that his own wellbeing depends on
the ascendency of the class to which he belongs. His very selfishness
therefore is sublimed into public spirit: and this public spirit is stimulated to
fierce enthusiasm by sympathy, by the desire of applause, and by the dread
of infamy. For the only opinion which he values is the opinion of his
fellows; and in their opinion devotion to the common cause is the most
sacred of duties. The character, thus formed, has two aspects. Seen on one
side, it must be regarded by every well constituted mind with
disapprobation. Seen on the other, it irresistibly extorts applause. The
Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But
the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on
what he well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to
be contemplated without admiration. To a superficial observer it may seem
strange that so much evil and so much good should be found together. But
in truth the good and the evil, which at first sight appear almost
incompatible, are closely connected, and have a common origin. It was
because the Spartan had been taught to revere himself as one of a race of
sovereigns, and to look down on all that was not Spartan as of an inferior
species, that he had no fellow feeling for the miserable serfs who crouched
before him, and that the thought of submitting to a foreign master, or of
turning his back before an enemy, never, even in the last extremity, crossed

his mind. Something of the same character, compounded of tyrant and hero,
has been found in all nations which have domineered over more numerous
nations. But it has nowhere in modern Europe shown itself so
conspicuously as in Ireland. With what contempt, with what antipathy, the
ruling minority in that country long regarded the subject majority may be
best learned from the hateful laws which, within the memory of men still
living, disgraced the Irish statute book. Those laws were at length annulled:
but the spirit which had dictated them survived them, and even at this day
sometimes breaks out in excesses pernicious to the commonwealth and
dishonourable to the Protestant religion. Nevertheless it is impossible to
deny that the English colonists have had, with too many of the faults, all the
noblest virtues of a sovereign caste. The faults have, as was natural, been
most offensively exhibited in times of prosperity and security: the virtues
have been most resplendent in times of distress and peril; and never were
those virtues more signally displayed than by the defenders of Londonderry,
when their Governor had abandoned them, and when the camp of their
mortal enemy was pitched before their walls.
No sooner had the first burst of the rage excited by the perfidy of Lundy
spent itself than those whom he had betrayed proceeded, with a gravity and
prudence worthy of the most renowned senates, to provide for the order and
defence of the city. Two governors were elected, Baker and Walker. Baker
took the chief military command. Walker's especial business was to
preserve internal tranquillity, and to dole out supplies from the magazines,
201 The inhabitants capable of bearing arms were distributed into eight
regiments. Colonels, captains, and subordinate officers were appointed. In a
few hours every man knew his post, and was ready to repair to it as soon as
the beat of the drum was heard. That machinery, by which Oliver had, in the
preceding generation, kept up among his soldiers so stern and so
pertinacious an enthusiasm, was again employed with not less complete
success. Preaching and praying occupied a large part of every day. Eighteen
clergymen of the Established Church and seven or eight nonconformist
ministers were within the walls. They all exerted themselves indefatigably
to rouse and sustain the spirit of the people. Among themselves there was
for the time entire harmony. All disputes about church government,
postures, ceremonies, were forgotten. The Bishop, having found that his
lectures on passive obedience were derided even by the Episcopalians, had
withdrawn himself, first to Raphoe, and then to England, and was preaching

in a chapel in London, 202 On the other hand, a Scotch fanatic named
Hewson, who had exhorted the Presbyterians not to ally themselves with
such as refused to subscribe the Covenant, had sunk under the well merited
disgust and scorn of the whole Protestant community, 203 The aspect of the
Cathedral was remarkable. Cannon were planted on the summit of the broad
tower which has since given place to a tower of different proportions.
Ammunition was stored in the vaults. In the choir the liturgy of the
Anglican Church was read every morning. Every afternoon the Dissenters
crowded to a simpler worship, 204
James had waited twenty-four hours, expecting, as it should seem, the
performance of Lundy's promises; and in twenty-four hours the
arrangements for the defence of Londonderry were complete. On the
evening of the nineteenth of April, a trumpeter came to the southern gate,
and asked whether the engagements into which the Governor had entered
would be fulfilled. The answer was that the men who guarded these walls
had nothing to do with the Governor's engagements, and were determined
to resist to the last.
On the following day a messenger of higher rank was sent, Claude
Hamilton, Lord Strabane, one of the few Roman Catholic peers of Ireland.
Murray, who had been appointed to the command of one of the eight
regiments into which the garrison was distributed, advanced from the gate
to meet the flag of truce; and a short conference was held. Strabane had
been authorised to make large promises. The citizens should have a free
pardon for all that was past if they would submit to their lawful Sovereign.
Murray himself should have a colonel's commission, and a thousand pounds
in money. "The men of Londonderry," answered Murray, "have done
nothing that requires a pardon, and own no Sovereign but King William and
Queen Mary. It will not be safe for your Lordship to stay longer, or to return
on the same errand. Let me have the honour of seeing you through the
lines." 205
James had been assured, and had fully expected, that the city would yield
as soon as it was known that he was before the walls. Finding himself
mistaken, he broke loose from the control of Melfort, and determined to
return instantly to Dublin. Rosen accompanied the King. The direction of
the siege was intrusted to Maumont. Richard Hamilton was second, and
Pusignan third, in command.

The operations now commenced in earnest. The besiegers began by
battering the town. It was soon on fire in several places. Roofs and upper
stories of houses fell in, and crushed the inmates. During a short time the
garrison, many of whom had never before seen the effect of a cannonade,
seemed to be discomposed by the crash of chimneys, and by the heaps of
ruin mingled with disfigured corpses. But familiarity with danger and
horror produced in a few hours the natural effect. The spirit of the people
rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on the offensive. On the
twenty-first of April a sally was made under the command of Murray. The
Irish stood their ground resolutely; and a furious and bloody contest took
place. Maumont, at the head of a body of cavalry, flew to the place where
the fight was raging. He was struck in the head by a musket ball, and fell a
corpse. The besiegers lost several other officers, and about two hundred
men, before the colonists could be driven in. Murray escaped with
difficulty. His horse was killed under him; and he was beset by enemies: but
he was able to defend himself till some of his friends made a rush from the
gate to his rescue, with old Walker at their head, 206
In consequence of the death of Maumont, Hamilton was once more
commander of the Irish army. His exploits in that post did not raise his
reputation. He was a fine gentleman and a brave soldier; but he had no
pretensions to the character of a great general, and had never, in his life,
seen a siege, 207 Pusignan had more science and energy. But Pusignan
survived Maumont little more than a fortnight. At four in the morning of the
sixth of May, the garrison made another sally, took several flags, and killed
many of the besiegers. Pusignan, fighting gallantly, was shot through the
body. The wound was one which a skilful surgeon might have cured: but
there was no such surgeon in the Irish camp; and the communication with
Dublin was slow and irregular. The poor Frenchman died, complaining
bitterly of the barbarous ignorance and negligence which had shortened his
days. A medical man, who had been sent down express from the capital,
arrived after the funeral. James, in consequence, as it should seem, of this
disaster, established a daily post between Dublin Castle and Hamilton's
head quarters. Even by this conveyance letters did not travel very
expeditiously: for the couriers went on foot; and, from fear probably of the
Enniskilleners, took a circuitous route from military post to military post,
208

May passed away: June arrived; and still Londonderry held out. There
had been many sallies and skirmishes with various success: but, on the
whole, the advantage had been with the garrison. Several officers of note
had been carried prisoners into the city; and two French banners, torn after
hard fighting from the besiegers, had been hung as trophies in the chancel
of the Cathedral. It seemed that the siege must be turned into a blockade.
But before the hope of reducing the town by main force was relinquished, it
was determined to make a great effort. The point selected for assault was an
outwork called Windmill Hill, which was not far from the southern gate.
Religious stimulants were employed to animate the courage of the forlorn
hope. Many volunteers bound themselves by oath to make their way into
the works or to perish in the attempt. Captain Butler, son of the Lord
Mountgarret, undertook to lead the sworn men to the attack. On the walls
the colonists were drawn up in three ranks. The office of those who were
behind was to load the muskets of those who were in front. The Irish came
on boldly and with a fearful uproar, but after long and hard fighting were
driven back. The women of Londonderry were seen amidst the thickest fire
serving out water and ammunition to their husbands and brothers. In one
place, where the wall was only seven feet high, Butler and some of his
sworn men succeeded in reaching the top; but they were all killed or made
prisoners. At length, after four hundred of the Irish had fallen, their chiefs
ordered a retreat to be sounded, 209
Nothing was left but to try the effect of hunger. It was known that the
stock of food in the city was but slender. Indeed it was thought strange that
the supplies should have held out so long. Every precaution was now taken
against the introduction of provisions. All the avenues leading to the city by
land were closely guarded. On the south were encamped, along the left
bank of the Foyle, the horsemen who had followed Lord Galmoy from the
valley of the Barrow. Their chief was of all the Irish captains the most
dreaded and the most abhorred by the Protestants. For he had disciplined his
men with rare skill and care; and many frightful stories were told of his
barbarity and perfidy. Long lines of tents, occupied by the infantry of Butler
and O'Neil, of Lord Slane and Lord Gormanstown, by Nugent's Westmeath
men, by Eustace's Kildare men, and by Cavanagh's Kerry men, extended
northward till they again approached the water side, 210 The river was
fringed with forts and batteries which no vessel could pass without great
peril. After some time it was determined to make the security still more

complete by throwing a barricade across the stream, about a mile and a half
below the city. Several boats full of stones were sunk. A row of stakes was
driven into the bottom of the river. Large pieces of fir wood, strongly bound
together, formed a boom which was more than a quarter of a mile in length,
and which was firmly fastened to both shores, by cables a foot thick, 211 A
huge stone, to which the cable on the left bank was attached, was removed
many years later, for the purpose of being polished and shaped into a
column. But the intention was abandoned, and the rugged mass still lies, not
many yards from its original site, amidst the shades which surround a
pleasant country house named Boom Hall. Hard by is the well from which
the besiegers drank. A little further off is the burial ground where they laid
their slain, and where even in our own time the spade of the gardener has
struck upon many sculls and thighbones at a short distance beneath the turf
and flowers.
While these things were passing in the North, James was holding his
court at Dublin. On his return thither from Londonderry he received
intelligence that the French fleet, commanded by the Count of Chateau
Renaud, had anchored in Bantry Bay, and had put on shore a large quantity
of military stores and a supply of money. Herbert, who had just been sent to
those seas with an English squadron for the purpose of intercepting the
communications between Britanny and Ireland, learned where the enemy
lay, and sailed into the bay with the intention of giving battle. But the wind
was unfavourable to him: his force was greatly inferior to that which was
opposed to him; and after some firing, which caused no serious loss to
either side, he thought it prudent to stand out to sea, while the French
retired into the recesses of the harbour. He steered for Scilly, where he
expected to find reinforcements; and Chateau Renaud, content with the
credit which he had acquired, and afraid of losing it if he staid, hastened
back to Brest, though earnestly intreated by James to come round to Dublin.
Both sides claimed the victory. The Commons at Westminster absurdly
passed a vote of thanks to Herbert. James, not less absurdly, ordered
bonfires to be lighted, and a Te Deum to be sung. But these marks of joy by
no means satisfied Avaux, whose national vanity was too strong even for his
characteristic prudence and politeness. He complained that James was so
unjust and ungrateful as to attribute the result of the late action to the
reluctance with which the English seamen fought against their rightful King
and their old commander, and that his Majesty did not seem to be well

pleased by being told that they were flying over the ocean pursued by the
triumphant French. Dover, too, was a bad Frenchman. He seemed to take no
pleasure in the defeat of his countrymen, and had been heard to say that the
affair in Bantry Bay did not deserve to be called a battle, 212
On the day after the Te Deum had been sung at Dublin for this indecisive
skirmish, the Parliament convoked by James assembled. The number of
temporal peers of Ireland, when he arrived in that kingdom, was about a
hundred. Of these only fourteen obeyed his summons. Of the fourteen, ten
were Roman Catholics. By the reversing of old attainders, and by new
creations, seventeen more Lords, all Roman Catholics, were introduced into
the Upper House. The Protestant Bishops of Meath, Ossory, Cork, and
Limerick, whether from a sincere conviction that they could not lawfully
withhold their obedience even from a tyrant, or from a vain hope that the
heart even of a tyrant might be softened by their patience, made their
appearance in the midst of their mortal enemies.
The House of Commons consisted almost exclusively of Irishmen and
Papists. With the writs the returning officers had received from Tyrconnel
letters naming the persons whom he wished to see elected. The largest
constituent bodies in the kingdom were at this time very small. For scarcely
any but Roman Catholics dared to show their faces; and the Roman
Catholic freeholders were then very few, not more, it is said, in some
counties, than ten or twelve. Even in cities so considerable as Cork,
Limerick, and Galway, the number of persons who, under the new Charters,
were entitled to vote did not exceed twenty-four. About two hundred and
fifty members took their seats. Of these only six were Protestants, 213 The
list of the names sufficiently indicates the religious and political temper of
the assembly. Alone among the Irish parliaments of that age, this parliament
was filled with Dermots and Geohagans, O'Neils and O'Donovans,
Macmahons, Macnamaras, and Macgillicuddies. The lead was taken by a
few men whose abilities had been improved by the study of the law, or by
experience acquired in foreign countries. The Attorney General, Sir Richard
Nagle, who represented the county of Cork, was allowed, even by
Protestants, to be an acute and learned jurist. Francis Plowden, the
Commissioner of Revenue, who sate for Bannow, and acted as chief
minister of finance, was an Englishman, and, as he had been a principal
agent of the Order of Jesuits in money matters, must be supposed to have
been an excellent man of business, 214 Colonel Henry Luttrell, member for

the county of Carlow, had served long in France, and had brought back to
his native Ireland a sharpened intellect and polished manners, a flattering
tongue, some skill in war, and much more skill in intrigue. His elder
brother, Colonel Simon Luttrell, who was member for the county of Dublin,
and military governor of the capital, had also resided in France, and, though
inferior to Henry in parts and activity, made a highly distinguished figure
among the adherents of James. The other member for the county of Dublin
was Colonel Patrick Sarsfield. This gallant officer was regarded by the
natives as one of themselves: for his ancestors on the paternal side, though
originally English, were among those early colonists who were proverbially
said to have become more Irish than Irishmen. His mother was of noble
Celtic blood; and he was firmly attached to the old religion. He had
inherited an estate of about two thousand a year, and was therefore one of
the wealthiest Roman Catholics in the kingdom. His knowledge of courts
and camps was such as few of his countrymen possessed. He had long
borne a commission in the English Life Guards, had lived much about
Whitehall, and had fought bravely under Monmouth on the Continent, and
against Monmouth at Sedgemoor. He had, Avaux wrote, more personal
influence than any man in Ireland, and was indeed a gentleman of eminent
merit, brave, upright, honourable, careful of his men in quarters, and certain
to be always found at their head in the day of battle. His intrepidity, his
frankness, his boundless good nature, his stature, which far exceeded that of
ordinary men, and the strength which he exerted in personal conflict, gained
for him the affectionate admiration of the populace. It is remarkable that the
Englishry generally respected him as a valiant, skilful, and generous enemy,
and that, even in the most ribald farces which were performed by
mountebanks in Smithfield, he was always excepted from the disgraceful
imputations which it was then the fashion to throw on the Irish nation, 215
But men like these were rare in the House of Commons which had met at
Dublin. It is no reproach to the Irish nation, a nation which has since
furnished its full proportion of eloquent and accomplished senators, to say
that, of all the parliaments which have met in the British islands, Barebone's
parliament not excepted, the assembly convoked by James was the most
deficient in all the qualities which a legislature should possess. The stern
domination of a hostile caste had blighted the faculties of the Irish
gentleman. If he was so fortunate as to have lands, he had generally passed
his life on them, shooting, fishing, carousing, and making love among his

vassals. If his estate had been confiscated, he had wandered about from
bawn to bawn and from cabin to cabin, levying small contributions, and
living at the expense of other men. He had never sate in the House of
Commons: he had never even taken an active part at an election: he had
never been a magistrate: scarcely ever had he been on a grand jury. He had
therefore absolutely no experience of public affairs. The English squire of
that age, though assuredly not a very profound or enlightened politician,
was a statesman and a philosopher when compared with the Roman
Catholic squire of Munster or Connaught.
The Parliaments of Ireland had then no fixed place of assembling. Indeed
they met so seldom and broke up so speedily that it would hardly have been
worth while to build and furnish a palace for their special use. It was not till
the Hanoverian dynasty had been long on the throne, that a senate house
which sustains a comparison with the finest compositions of Inigo Jones
arose in College Green. On the spot where the portico and dome of the Four
Courts now overlook the Liffey, stood, in the seventeenth century, an
ancient building which had once been a convent of Dominican friars, but
had since the Reformation been appropriated to the use of the legal
profession, and bore the name of the King's Inns. There accommodation had
been provided for the parliament. On the seventh of May, James, dressed in
royal robes and wearing a crown, took his seat on the throne in the House of
Lords, and ordered the Commons to be summoned to the bar, 216
He then expressed his gratitude to the natives of Ireland for having
adhered to his cause when the people of his other kingdoms had deserted
him. His resolution to abolish all religious disabilities in all his dominions
he declared to be unalterable. He invited the houses to take the Act of
Settlement into consideration, and to redress the injuries of which the old
proprietors of the soil had reason to complain. He concluded by
acknowledging in warm terms his obligations to the King of France, 217
When the royal speech had been pronounced, the Chancellor directed the
Commons to repair to their chamber and to elect a Speaker. They chose the
Attorney General Nagle; and the choice was approved by the King, 218
The Commons next passed resolutions expressing warm gratitude both to
James and to Lewis. Indeed it was proposed to send a deputation with an
address to Avaux; but the Speaker pointed out the gross impropriety of such
a step; and, on this occasion, his interference was successful, 219 It was

seldom however that the House was disposed to listen to reason. The
debates were all rant and tumult. Judge Daly, a Roman Catholic, but an
honest and able man, could not refrain from lamenting the indecency and
folly with which the members of his Church carried on the work of
legislation. Those gentlemen, he said, were not a Parliament: they were a
mere rabble: they resembled nothing so much as the mob of fishermen and
market gardeners, who, at Naples, yelled and threw up their caps in honour
of Massaniello. It was painful to hear member after member talking wild
nonsense about his own losses, and clamouring for an estate, when the lives
of all and the independence of their common country were in peril. These
words were spoken in private; but some talebearer repeated them to the
Commons. A violent storm broke forth. Daly was ordered to attend at the
bar; and there was little doubt that he would be severely dealt with. But, just
when he was at the door, one of the members rushed in, shouting, "Good
news: Londonderry is taken." The whole House rose. All the hats were
flung into the air. Three loud huzzas were raised. Every heart was softened
by the happy tidings. Nobody would hear of punishment at such a moment.
The order for Daly's attendance was discharged amidst cries of "No
submission; no submission; we pardon him." In a few hours it was known
that Londonderry held out as obstinately as ever. This transaction, in itself
unimportant, deserves to be recorded, as showing how destitute that House
of Commons was of the qualities which ought to be found in the great
council of a kingdom. And this assembly, without experience, without
gravity, and without temper, was now to legislate on questions which would
have tasked to the utmost the capacity of the greatest statesmen, 220
One Act James induced them to pass which would have been most
honourable to him and to them, if there were not abundant proofs that it was
meant to be a dead letter. It was an Act purporting to grant entire liberty of
conscience to all Christian sects. On this occasion a proclamation was put
forth announcing in boastful language to the English people that their
rightful King had now signally refuted those slanderers who had accused
him of affecting zeal for religious liberty merely in order to serve a turn. If
he were at heart inclined to persecution, would he not have persecuted the
Irish Protestants? He did not want power. He did not want provocation. Yet
at Dublin, where the members of his Church were the majority, as at
Westminister, where they were a minority, he had firmly adhered to the
principles laid down in his much maligned Declaration of Indulgence, 221

Unfortunately for him, the same wind which carried his fair professions to
England carried thither also evidence that his professions were insincere. A
single law, worthy of Turgot or of Franklin, seemed ludicrously out of place
in the midst of a crowd of laws which would have disgraced Gardiner or
Alva.
A necessary preliminary to the vast work of spoliation and slaughter on
which the legislators of Dublin were bent, was an Act annulling the
authority which the English Parliament, both as the supreme legislature and
as the supreme Court of Appeal, had hitherto exercised over Ireland, 222
This Act was rapidly passed; and then followed, in quick succession,
confiscations and proscriptions on a gigantic scale. The personal estates of
absentees above the age of seventeen years were transferred to the King.
When lay property was thus invaded, it was not likely that the endowments
which had been, in contravention of every sound principle, lavished on the
Church of the minority would be spared. To reduce those endowments,
without prejudice to existing interests, would have been a reform worthy of
a good prince and of a good parliament. But no such reform would satisfy
the vindictive bigots who sate at the King's Inns. By one sweeping Act, the
greater part of the tithe was transferred from the Protestant to the Roman
Catholic clergy; and the existing incumbents were left, without one farthing
of compensation, to die of hunger, 223 A Bill repealing the Act of Settlement
and transferring many thousands of square miles from Saxon to Celtic
landlords was brought in and carried by acclamation, 224
Of legislation such as this it is impossible to speak too severely: but for
the legislators there are excuses which it is the duty of the historian to
notice. They acted unmercifully, unjustly, unwisely. But it would be absurd
to expect mercy, justice, or wisdom from a class of men first abased by
many years of oppression, and then maddened by the joy of a sudden
deliverance, and armed with irresistible power. The representatives of the
Irish nation were, with few exceptions, rude and ignorant. They had lived in
a state of constant irritation. With aristocratical sentiments they had been in
a servile position. With the highest pride of blood, they had been exposed to
daily affronts, such as might well have roused the choler of the humblest
plebeian. In sight of the fields and castles which they regarded as their own,
they had been glad to be invited by a peasant to partake of his whey and his
potatoes. Those violent emotions of hatred and cupidity which the situation
of the native gentleman could scarcely fail to call forth appeared to him

under the specious guise of patriotism and piety. For his enemies were the
enemies of his nation; and the same tyranny which had robbed him of his
patrimony had robbed his Church of vast wealth bestowed on her by the
devotion of an earlier age. How was power likely to be used by an
uneducated and inexperienced man, agitated by strong desires and
resentments which he mistook for sacred duties? And, when two or three
hundred such men were brought together in one assembly, what was to be
expected but that the passions which each had long nursed in silence would
be at once matured into fearful vigour by the influence of sympathy?
Between James and his parliament there was little in common, except
hatred of the Protestant religion. He was an Englishman. Superstition had
not utterly extinguished all national feeling in his mind; and he could not
but be displeased by the malevolence with which his Celtic supporters
regarded the race from which he sprang. The range of his intellectual vision
was small. Yet it was impossible that, having reigned in England, and
looking constantly forward to the day when he should reign in England
once more, he should not take a wider view of politics than was taken by
men who had no objects out of Ireland. The few Irish Protestants who still
adhered to him, and the British nobles, both Protestant and Roman Catholic,
who had followed him into exile, implored him to restrain the violence of
the rapacious and vindictive senate which he had convoked. They with
peculiar earnestness implored him not to consent to the repeal of the Act of
Settlement. On what security, they asked, could any man invest his money
or give a portion to his children, if he could not rely on positive laws and on
the uninterrupted possession of many years? The military adventurers
among whom Cromwell portioned out the soil might perhaps be regarded as
wrongdoers. But how large a part of their estates had passed, by fair
purchase, into other hands! How much money had proprietors borrowed on
mortgage, on statute merchant, on statute staple! How many capitalists had,
trusting to legislative acts and to royal promises, come over from England,
and bought land in Ulster and Leinster, without the least misgiving as to the
title! What a sum had those capitalists expended, during a quarter of a
century, in building; draining, inclosing, planting! The terms of the
compromise which Charles the Second had sanctioned might not be in all
respects just. But was one injustice to be redressed by committing another
injustice more monstrous still? And what effect was likely to be produced in
England by the cry of thousands of innocent English families whom an

English king had doomed to ruin? The complaints of such a body of
sufferers might delay, might prevent, the Restoration to which all loyal
subjects were eagerly looking forward; and, even if his Majesty should, in
spite of those complaints, be happily restored, he would to the end of his
life feel the pernicious effects of the injustice which evil advisers were now
urging him to commit. He would find that, in trying to quiet one set of
malecontents, he had created another. As surely as he yielded to the clamour
raised at Dublin for a repeal of the Act of Settlement, he would, from the
day on which he returned to Westminster, be assailed by as loud and
pertinacious a clamour for a repeal of that repeal. He could not but be aware
that no English Parliament, however loyal, would permit such laws as were
now passing through the Irish Parliament to stand. Had he made up his
mind to take the part of Ireland against the universal sense of England? If
so, to what could he look forward but another banishment and another
deposition? Or would he, when he had recovered the greater kingdom,
revoke the boors by which, in his distress, he had purchased the help of the
smaller? It might seem an insult to him even to suggest that he could
harbour the thought of such unprincely, of such unmanly, perfidy. Yet what
other course would be left to him? And was it not better for him to refuse
unreasonable concessions now than to retract those concessions hereafter in
a manner which must bring on him reproaches insupportable to a noble
mind? His situation was doubtless embarrassing. Yet in this case, as in other
cases, it would be found that the path of justice was the path of wisdom, 225
Though James had, in his speech at the opening of the session, declared
against the Act of Settlement, he felt that these arguments were
unanswerable. He held several conferences with the leading members of the
House of Commons, and earnestly recommended moderation. But his
exhortations irritated the passions which he wished to allay. Many of the
native gentry held high and violent language. It was impudent, they said, to
talk about the rights of purchasers. How could right spring out of wrong?
People who chose to buy property acquired by injustice must take the
consequences of their folly and cupidity. It was clear that the Lower House
was altogether impracticable. James had, four years before, refused to make
the smallest concession to the most obsequious parliament that has ever sat
in England; and it might have been expected that the obstinacy, which he
had never wanted when it was a vice, would not have failed him now when
it would have been a virtue. During a short time he seemed determined to

act justly. He even talked of dissolving the parliament. The chiefs of the old
Celtic families, on the other hand, said publicly that, if he did not give them
back their inheritance, they would not fight for his. His very soldiers railed
on him in the streets of Dublin. At length he determined to go down himself
to the House of Peers, not in his robes and crown, but in the garb in which
he had been used to attend debates at Westminster, and personally to solicit
the Lords to put some check on the violence of the Commons. But just as he
was getting into his coach for this purpose he was stopped by Avaux. Avaux
was as zealous as any Irishman for the bills which the Commons were
urging forward. It was enough for him that those bills seemed likely to
make the enmity between England and Ireland irreconcileable. His
remonstrances induced James to abstain from openly opposing the repeal of
the Act of Settlement. Still the unfortunate prince continued to cherish some
faint hope that the law for which the Commons were so zealous would be
rejected, or at least modified, by the Peers. Lord Granard, one of the few
Protestant noblemen who sate in that parliament, exerted himself
strenuously on the side of public faith and sound policy. The King sent him
a message of thanks. "We Protestants," said Granard to Powis who brought
the message, "are few in number. We can do little. His Majesty should try
his influence with the Roman Catholics." "His Majesty," answered Powis
with an oath, "dares not say what he thinks." A few days later James met
Granard riding towards the parliament house. "Where are you going, my
Lord?" said the King. "To enter my protest, Sir," answered Granard,
"against the repeal of the Act of Settlement." "You are right," said the King:
"but I am fallen into the hands of people who will ram that and much more
down my throat." 226
James yielded to the will of the Commons; but the unfavourable
impression which his short and feeble resistance had made upon them was
not to be removed by his submission. They regarded him with profound
distrust; they considered him as at heart an Englishman; and not a day
passed without some indication of this feeling. They were in no haste to
grant him a supply. One party among them planned an address urging him
to dismiss Melfort as an enemy of their nation. Another party drew up a bill
for deposing all the Protestant Bishops, even the four who were then
actually sitting in Parliament. It was not without difficulty that Avaux and
Tyrconnel, whose influence in the Lower House far exceeded the King's,
could restrain the zeal of the majority, 227

It is remarkable that, while the King was losing the confidence and good
will of the Irish Commons by faintly defending against them, in one quarter,
the institution of property, he was himself, in another quarter, attacking that
institution with a violence, if possible, more reckless than theirs. He soon
found that no money came into his Exchequer. The cause was sufficiently
obvious. Trade was at an end. Floating capital had been withdrawn in great
masses from the island. Of the fixed capital much had been destroyed, and
the rest was lying idle. Thousands of those Protestants who were the most
industrious and intelligent part of the population had emigrated to England.
Thousands had taken refuge in the places which still held out for William
and Mary. Of the Roman Catholic peasantry who were in the vigour of life
the majority had enlisted in the army or had joined gangs of plunderers. The
poverty of the treasury was the necessary effect of the poverty of the
country: public prosperity could be restored only by the restoration of
private prosperity; and private prosperity could be restored only by years of
peace and security. James was absurd enough to imagine that there was a
more speedy and efficacious remedy. He could, he conceived, at once
extricate himself from his financial difficulties by the simple process of
calling a farthing a shilling. The right of coining was undoubtedly a flower
of the prerogative; and, in his view, the right of coining included the right of
debasing the coin. Pots, pans, knockers of doors, pieces of ordnance which
had long been past use, were carried to the mint. In a short time lumps of
base metal, nominally worth near a million sterling, intrinsically worth
about a sixtieth part of that sum, were in circulation. A royal edict declared
these pieces to be legal tender in all cases whatever. A mortgage for a
thousand pounds was cleared off by a bag of counters made out of old
kettles. The creditors who complained to the Court of Chancery were told
by Fitton to take their money and be gone. But of all classes the tradesmen
of Dublin, who were generally Protestants, were the greatest losers. At first,
of course, they raised their demands: but the magistrates of the city took on
themselves to meet this heretical machination by putting forth a tariff
regulating prices. Any man who belonged to the caste now dominant might
walk into a shop, lay on the counter a bit of brass worth threepence, and
carry off goods to the value of half a guinea. Legal redress was out of the
question. Indeed the sufferers thought themselves happy if, by the sacrifice
of their stock in trade, they could redeem their limbs and their lives. There
was not a baker's shop in the city round which twenty or thirty soldiers were

not constantly prowling. Some persons who refused the base money were
arrested by troopers and carried before the Provost Marshal, who cursed
them, swore at them, locked them up in dark cells, and, by threatening to
hang them at their own doors, soon overcame their resistance. Of all the
plagues of that time none made a deeper or a more lasting impression on the
minds of the Protestants of Dublin than the plague of the brass money, 228
To the recollection of the confusion and misery which had been produced
by James's coin must be in part ascribed the strenuous opposition which,
thirty-five years later, large classes, firmly attached to the House of
Hanover, offered to the government of George the First in the affair of
Wood's patent.

There can be no question that James, in thus altering, by his own
authority, the terms of all the contracts in the kingdom, assumed a power
which belonged only to the whole legislature. Yet the Commons did not
remonstrate. There was no power, however unconstitutional, which they
were not willing to concede to him, as long as he used it to crush and
plunder the English population. On the other hand, they respected no
prerogative, however ancient, however legitimate, however salutary, if they
apprehended that he might use it to protect the race which they abhorred.
They were not satisfied till they had extorted his reluctant consent to a
portentous law, a law without a parallel in the history of civilised countries,
the great Act of Attainder.
A list was framed containing between two and three thousand names. At
the top was half the peerage of Ireland. Then came baronets, knights,
clergymen, squires, merchants, yeomen, artisans, women, children. No
investigation was made. Any member who wished to rid himself of a
creditor, a rival, a private enemy, gave in the name to the clerk at the table,
and it was generally inserted without discussion. The only debate of which
any account has come down to us related to the Earl of Strafford. He had
friends in the House who ventured to offer something in his favour. But a
few words from Simon Luttrell settled the question. "I have," he said,
"heard the King say some hard things of that lord." This was thought
sufficient, and the name of Strafford stands fifth in the long table of the
proscribed, 229
Days were fixed before which those whose names were on the list were
required to surrender themselves to such justice as was then administered to
English Protestants in Dublin. If a proscribed person was in Ireland, he
must surrender himself by the tenth of August. If he had left Ireland since
the fifth of November 1688, he must surrender himself by the first of
September. If he had left Ireland before the fifth of November 1688, he
must surrender himself by the first of October. If he failed to appear by the
appointed day, he was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered without a trial,
and his property was to be confiscated. It might be physically impossible
for him to deliver himself up within the time fixed by the Act. He might be
bedridden. He might be in the West Indies. He might be in prison. Indeed
there notoriously were such cases. Among the attainted Lords was
Mountjoy. He had been induced by the villany of Tyrconnel to trust himself

at Saint Germains: he had been thrown into the Bastile: he was still lying
there; and the Irish parliament was not ashamed to enact that, unless he
could, within a few weeks, make his escape from his cell, and present
himself at Dublin, he should be put to death, 230
As it was not even pretended that there had been any inquiry into the
guilt of those who were thus proscribed, as not a single one among them
had been heard in his own defence, and as it was certain that it would be
physically impossible for many of them to surrender themselves in time, it
was clear that nothing but a large exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy
could prevent the perpetration of iniquities so horrible that no precedent
could be found for them even in the lamentable history of the troubles of
Ireland. The Commons therefore determined that the royal prerogative of
mercy should be limited. Several regulations were devised for the purpose
of making the passing of pardons difficult and costly: and finally it was
enacted that every pardon granted by his Majesty, after the end of
November 1689, to any of the many hundreds of persons who had been
sentenced to death without a trial, should be absolutely void and of none
effect. Sir Richard Nagle came in state to the bar of the Lords and presented
the bill with a speech worthy of the occasion. "Many of the persons here
attainted," said he, "have been proved traitors by such evidence as satisfies
us. As to the rest we have followed common fame." 231
With such reckless barbarity was the list framed that fanatical royalists,
who were, at that very time, hazarding their property, their liberty, their
lives, in the cause of James, were not secure from proscription. The most
learned man of whom the Jacobite party could boast was Henry Dodwell,
Camdenian Professor in the University of Oxford. In the cause of hereditary
monarchy he shrank from no sacrifice and from no danger. It was about him
that William uttered those memorable words: "He has set his heart on being
a martyr; and I have set my mind on disappointing him." But James was
more cruel to friends than William to foes. Dodwell was a Protestant: he
had some property in Connaught: these crimes were sufficient; and he was
set down in the long roll of those who were doomed to the gallows and the
quartering block, 232
That James would give his assent to a bill which took from him the
power of pardoning, seemed to many persons impossible. He had, four
years before, quarrelled with the most loyal of parliaments rather than cede

a prerogative which did not belong to him. It might, therefore, well be
expected that he would now have struggled hard to retain a precious
prerogative which had been enjoyed by his predecessors ever since the
origin of the monarchy, and which had never been questioned by the Whigs.
The stern look and raised voice with which he had reprimanded the Tory
gentlemen, who, in the language of profound reverence and fervent
affection, implored him not to dispense with the laws, would now have been
in place. He might also have seen that the right course was the wise course.
Had he, on this great occasion, had the spirit to declare that he would not
shed the blood of the innocent, and that, even as respected the guilty, he
would not divest himself of the power of tempering judgment with mercy,
he would have regained more hearts in England than he would have lost in
Ireland. But it was ever his fate to resist where he should have yielded, and
to yield where he should have resisted. The most wicked of all laws
received his sanction; and it is but a very small extenuation of his guilt that
his sanction was somewhat reluctantly given.
That nothing might be wanting to the completeness of this great crime,
extreme care was taken to prevent the persons who were attainted from
knowing that they were attainted, till the day of grace fixed in the Act was
passed. The roll of names was not published, but kept carefully locked up in
Fitton's closet. Some Protestants, who still adhered to the cause of James,
but who were anxious to know whether any of their friends or relations had
been proscribed, tried hard to obtain a sight of the list; but solicitation,
remonstrance, even bribery, proved vain. Not a single copy got abroad till it
was too late for any of the thousands who had been condemned without a
trial to obtain a pardon, 233
Towards the close of July James prorogued the Houses. They had sate
more than ten weeks; and in that space of time they had proved most fully
that, great as have been the evils which Protestant ascendency has produced
in Ireland, the evils produced by Popish ascendancy would have been
greater still. That the colonists, when they had won the victory, grossly
abused it, that their legislation was, during many years, unjust and
tyrannical, is most true. But it is not less true that they never quite came up
to the atrocious example set by their vanquished enemy during his short
tenure of power.

Indeed, while James was loudly boasting that he had passed an Act
granting entire liberty of conscience to all sects, a persecution as cruel as
that of Languedoc was raging through all the provinces which owned his
authority. It was said by those who wished to find an excuse for him that
almost all the Protestants who still remained in Munster, Connaught, and
Leinster were his enemies, and that it was not as schismatics, but as rebels
in heart, who wanted only opportunity to become rebels in act, that he gave
them up to be oppressed and despoiled; and to this excuse some weight
might have been allowed if he had strenuously exerted himself to protect
those few colonists, who, though firmly attached to the reformed religion,
were still true to the doctrines of nonresistance and of indefeasible
hereditary right. But even these devoted royalists found that their heresy
was in his view a crime for which no services or sacrifices would atone.
Three or four noblemen, members of the Anglican Church, who had
welcomed him to Ireland, and had sate in his Parliament, represented to him
that, if the rule which forbade any Protestant to possess any weapon were
strictly enforced, their country houses would be at the mercy of the
Rapparees, and obtained from him permission to keep arms sufficient for a
few servants. But Avaux remonstrated. The indulgence, he said, was grossly
abused: these Protestant lords were not to be trusted: they were turning their
houses into fortresses: his Majesty would soon have reason to repent his
goodness. These representations prevailed; and Roman Catholic troops
were quartered in the suspected dwellings, 234
Still harder was the lot of those Protestant clergymen who continued to
cling, with desperate fidelity, to the cause of the Lord's Anointed. Of all the
Anglican divines the one who had the largest share of James's good graces
seems to have been Cartwright. Whether Cartwright could long have
continued to be a favourite without being an apostate may be doubted. He
died a few weeks after his arrival in Ireland; and thenceforward his church
had no one to plead her cause. Nevertheless a few of her prelates and priests
continued for a time to teach what they had taught in the days of the
Exclusion Bill. But it was at the peril of life or limb that they exercised their
functions. Every wearer of a cassock was a mark for the insults and
outrages of soldiers and Rapparees. In the country his house was robbed,
and he was fortunate if it was not burned over his head. He was hunted
through the streets of Dublin with cries of "There goes the devil of a
heretic." Sometimes he was knocked down: sometimes he was cudgelled,

235 The rulers of the University of Dublin, trained in the Anglican doctrine
of passive obedience, had greeted James on his first arrival at the Castle,
and had been assured by him that he would protect them in the enjoyment
of their property and their privileges. They were now, without any trial,
without any accusation, thrust out of their house. The communion plate of
the chapel, the books in the library, the very chairs and beds of the
collegians were seized. Part of the building was turned into a magazine, part
into a barrack, part into a prison. Simon Luttrell, who was Governor of the
capital, was, with great difficulty and by powerful intercession, induced to
let the ejected fellows and scholars depart in safety. He at length permitted
them to remain at large, with this condition, that, on pain of death, no three
of them should meet together, 236 No Protestant divine suffered more
hardships than Doctor William King, Dean of Saint Patrick's. He had been
long distinguished by the fervour with which he had inculcated the duty of
passively obeying even the worst rulers. At a later period, when he had
published a defence of the Revolution, and had accepted a mitre from the
new government, he was reminded that he had invoked the divine
vengeance on the usurpers, and had declared himself willing to die a
hundred deaths rather than desert the cause of hereditary right. He had said
that the true religion had often been strengthened by persecution, but could
never be strengthened by rebellion; that it would be a glorious day for the
Church of England when a whole cartload of her ministers should go to the
gallows for the doctrine of nonresistance; and that his highest ambition was
to be one of such a company, 237 It is not improbable that, when he spoke
thus, he felt as he spoke. But his principles, though they might perhaps have
held out against the severities and the promises of William, were not proof
against the ingratitude of James. Human nature at last asserted its rights.
After King had been repeatedly imprisoned by the government to which he
was devotedly attached, after he had been insulted and threatened in his
own choir by the soldiers, after he had been interdicted from burying in his
own churchyard, and from preaching in his own pulpit, after he had
narrowly escaped with life from a musketshot fired at him in the street, he
began to think the Whig theory of government less unreasonable and
unchristian than it had once appeared to him, and persuaded himself that the
oppressed Church might lawfully accept deliverance, if God should be
pleased, by whatever means, to send it to her.

In no long time it appeared that James would have done well to hearken
to those counsellors who had told him that the acts by which he was trying
to make himself popular in one of his three kingdoms, would make him
odious in the others. It was in some sense fortunate for England that, after
he had ceased to reign here, he continued during more than a year to reign
in Ireland. The Revolution had been followed by a reaction of public feeling
in his favour. That reaction, if it had been suffered to proceed uninterrupted,
might perhaps not have ceased till he was again King: but it was violently
interrupted by himself. He would not suffer his people to forget: he would
not suffer them to hope: while they were trying to find excuses for his past
errors, and to persuade themselves that he would not repeat these errors, he
forced upon them, in their own despite, the conviction that he was
incorrigible, that the sharpest discipline of adversity had taught him
nothing, and that, if they were weak enough to recall him, they would soon
have to depose him again. It was in vain that the Jacobites put forth
pamphlets about the cruelty with which he had been treated by those who
were nearest to him in blood, about the imperious temper and uncourteous
manners of William, about the favour shown to the Dutch, about the heavy
taxes, about the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, about the dangers
which threatened the Church from the enmity of Puritans and
Latitudinarians. James refuted these pamphlets far more effectually than all
the ablest and most eloquent Whig writers united could have done. Every
week came the news that he had passed some new Act for robbing or
murdering Protestants. Every colonist who succeeded in stealing across the
sea from Leinster to Holyhead or Bristol, brought fearful reports of the
tyranny under which his brethren groaned. What impression these reports
made on the Protestants of our island may be easily inferred from the fact
that they moved the indignation of Ronquillo, a Spaniard and a bigoted
member of the Church of Rome. He informed his Court that, though the
English laws against Popery might seem severe, they were so much
mitigated by the prudence and humanity of the Government, that they
caused no annoyance to quiet people; and he took upon himself to assure
the Holy See that what a Roman Catholic suffered in London was nothing
when compared with what a Protestant suffered in Ireland, 238
The fugitive Englishry found in England warm sympathy and munificent
relief. Many were received into the houses of friends and kinsmen. Many
were indebted for the means of subsistence to the liberality of strangers.

Among those who bore a part in this work of mercy, none contributed more
largely or less ostentatiously than the Queen. The House of Commons
placed at the King's disposal fifteen thousand pounds for the relief of those
refugees whose wants were most pressing, and requested him to give
commissions in the army to those who were qualified for military
employment, 239 An Act was also passed enabling beneficed clergymen who
had fled from Ireland to hold preferment in England, 240 Yet the interest
which the nation felt in these unfortunate guests was languid when
compared with the interest excited by that portion of the Saxon colony
which still maintained in Ulster a desperate conflict against overwhelming
odds. On this subject scarcely one dissentient voice was to be heard in our
island. Whigs, Tories, nay even those Jacobites in whom Jacobitism had not
extinguished every patriotic sentiment, gloried in the glory of Enniskillen
and Londonderry. The House of Commons was all of one mind. "This is no
time to be counting cost," said honest Birch, who well remembered the way
in which Oliver had made war on the Irish. "Are those brave fellows in
Londonderry to be deserted? If we lose them will not all the world cry
shame upon us? A boom across the river! Why have we not cut the boom in
pieces? Are our brethren to perish almost in sight of England, within a few
hours' voyage of our shores?" 241 Howe, the most vehement man of one
party, declared that the hearts of the people were set on Ireland. Seymour,
the leader of the other party, declared that, though he had not taken part in
setting up the new government, he should cordially support it in all that
might be necessary for the preservation of Ireland, 242 The Commons
appointed a committee to enquire into the cause of the delays and
miscarriages which had been all but fatal to the Englishry of Ulster. The
officers to whose treachery or cowardice the public ascribed the calamities
of Londonderry were put under arrest. Lundy was sent to the Tower,
Cunningham to the Gate House. The agitation of the public mind was in
some degree calmed by the announcement that, before the end of the
summer, an army powerful enough to reestablish the English ascendency in
Ireland would be sent across Saint George's Channel, and that Schomberg
would be the General. In the meantime an expedition which was thought to
be sufficient for the relief of Londonderry was despatched from Liverpool
under the command of Kirke. The dogged obstinacy with which this man
had, in spite of royal solicitations, adhered to his religion, and the part
which he had taken in the Revolution, had perhaps entitled him to an

amnesty for past crimes. But it is difficult to understand why the
Government should have selected for a post of the highest importance an
officer who was generally and justly hated, who had never shown eminent
talents for war, and who, both in Africa and in England, had notoriously
tolerated among his soldiers a licentiousness, not only shocking to
humanity, but also incompatible with discipline.
On the sixteenth of May, Kirke's troops embarked: on the twenty-second
they sailed: but contrary winds made the passage slow, and forced the
armament to stop long at the Isle of Man. Meanwhile the Protestants of
Ulster were defending themselves with stubborn courage against a great
superiority of force. The Enniskilleners had never ceased to wage a
vigorous partisan war against the native population. Early in May they
marched to encounter a large body of troops from Connaught, who had
made an inroad into Donegal. The Irish were speedily routed, and fled to
Sligo with the loss of a hundred and twenty men killed and sixty taken. Two
small pieces of artillery and several horses fell into the hands of the
conquerors. Elated by this success, the Enniskilleners soon invaded the
county of Cavan, drove before them fifteen hundred of James's troops, took
and destroyed the castle of Ballincarrig, reputed the strongest in that part of
the kingdom, and carried off the pikes and muskets of the garrison. The
next incursion was into Meath. Three thousand oxen and two thousand
sheep were swept away and brought safe to the little island in Lough Erne.
These daring exploits spread terror even to the gates of Dublin. Colonel
Hugh Sutherland was ordered to march against Enniskillen with a regiment
of dragoons and two regiments of foot. He carried with him arms for the
native peasantry; and many repaired to his standard. The Enniskilleners did
not wait till he came into their neighbourhood, but advanced to encounter
him. He declined an action, and retreated, leaving his stores at Belturbet
under the care of a detachment of three hundred soldiers. The Protestants
attacked Belturbet with vigour, made their way into a lofty house which
overlooked the town, and thence opened such a fire that in two hours the
garrison surrendered. Seven hundred muskets, a great quantity of powder,
many horses, many sacks of biscuits, many barrels of meal, were taken, and
were sent to Enniskillen. The boats which brought these precious spoils
were joyfully welcomed. The fear of hunger was removed. While the
aboriginal population had, in many counties, altogether neglected the
cultivation of the earth, in the expectation, it should seem, that marauding

would prove an inexhaustible resource, the colonists, true to the provident
and industrious character of their race, had, in the midst of war, not omitted
carefully to till the soil in the neighbourhood of their strongholds. The
harvest was now not far remote; and, till the harvest, the food taken from
the enemy would be amply sufficient, 243
Yet, in the midst of success and plenty, the Enniskilleners were tortured
by a cruel anxiety for Londonderry. They were bound to the defenders of
that city, not only by religious and national sympathy, but by common
interest. For there could be no doubt that, if Londonderry fell, the whole
Irish army would instantly march in irresistible force upon Lough Erne. Yet
what could be done? Some brave men were for making a desperate attempt
to relieve the besieged city; but the odds were too great. Detachments
however were sent which infested the rear of the blockading army, cut off
supplies, and, on one occasion, carried away the horses of three entire
troops of cavalry, 244 Still the line of posts which surrounded Londonderry
by land remained unbroken. The river was still strictly closed and guarded.
Within the walls the distress had become extreme. So early as the eighth of
June horseflesh was almost the only meat which could be purchased; and of
horseflesh the supply was scanty. It was necessary to make up the
deficiency with tallow; and even tallow was doled out with a parsimonious
hand.
On the fifteenth of June a gleam of hope appeared. The sentinels on the
top of the Cathedral saw sails nine miles off in the bay of Lough Foyle.
Thirty vessels of different sizes were counted. Signals were made from the
steeples and returned from the mast heads, but were imperfectly understood
on both sides. At last a messenger from the fleet eluded the Irish sentinels,
dived under the boom, and informed the garrison that Kirke had arrived
from England with troops, arms, ammunition, and provisions, to relieve the
city, 245
In Londonderry expectation was at the height: but a few hours of feverish
joy were followed by weeks of misery. Kirke thought it unsafe to make any
attempt, either by land or by water, on the lines of the besiegers, and retired
to the entrance of Lough Foyle, where, during several weeks, he lay
inactive.
And now the pressure of famine became every day more severe. A strict
search was made in all the recesses of all the houses of the city; and some

provisions, which had been concealed in cellars by people who had since
died or made their escape, were discovered and carried to the magazines.
The stock of cannon balls was almost exhausted; and their place was
supplied by brickbats coated with lead. Pestilence began, as usual, to make
its appearance in the train of hunger. Fifteen officers died of fever in one
day. The Governor Baker was among those who sank under the disease. His
place was supplied by Colonel John Mitchelburne, 246
Meanwhile it was known at Dublin that Kirke and his squadron were on
the coast of Ulster. The alarm was great at the Castle. Even before this news
arrived, Avaux had given it as his opinion that Richard Hamilton was
unequal to the difficulties of the situation. It had therefore been resolved
that Rosen should take the chief command. He was now sent down with all
speed, 247
On the nineteenth of June he arrived at the head quarter of the besieging
army. At first he attempted to undermine the walls; but his plan was
discovered; and he was compelled to abandon it after a sharp fight, in which
more than a hundred of his men were slain. Then his fury rose to a strange
pitch. He, an old soldier, a Marshal of France in expectancy, trained in the
school of the greatest generals, accustomed, during many years, to scientific
war, to be baffled by a mob of country gentlemen, farmers, shopkeepers,
who were protected only by a wall which any good engineer would at once
have pronounced untenable! He raved, he blasphemed, in a language of his
own, made up of all the dialects spoken from the Baltic to the Atlantic. He
would raze the city to the ground: he would spare no living thing; no, not
the young girls; not the babies at the breast. As to the leaders, death was too
light a punishment for them: he would rack them: he would roast them
alive. In his rage he ordered a shell to be flung into the town with a letter
containing a horrible menace. He would, he said, gather into one body all
the Protestants who had remained at their homes between Charlemont and
the sea, old men, women, children, many of them near in blood and
affection to the defenders of Londonderry. No protection, whatever might
be the authority by which it had been given, should be respected. The
multitude thus brought together should be driven under the walls of
Londonderry, and should there be starved to death in the sight of their
countrymen, their friends, their kinsmen. This was no idle threat. Parties
were instantly sent out in all directions to collect victims. At dawn, on the
morning of the second of July, hundreds of Protestants, who were charged

with no crime, who were incapable of bearing arms, and many of whom had
protections granted by James, were dragged to the gates of the city. It was
imagined that the piteous sight would quell the spirit of the colonists. But
the only effect was to rouse that spirit to still greater energy. An order was
immediately put forth that no man should utter the word Surrender on pain
of death; and no man uttered that word. Several prisoners of high rank were
in the town. Hitherto they had been well treated, and had received as good
rations as were measured out to the garrison. They were now, closely
confined. A gallows was erected on one of the bastion; and a message was
conveyed to Rosen, requesting him to send a confessor instantly to prepare
his friends for death. The prisoners in great dismay wrote to the savage
Livonian, but received no answer. They then addressed themselves to their
countryman, Richard Hamilton. They were willing, they said, to shed their
blood for their King; but they thought it hard to die the ignominious death
of thieves in consequence of the barbarity of their own companions in arms.
Hamilton, though a man of lax principles, was not cruel. He had been
disgusted by the inhumanity of Rosen, but, being only second in command,
could not venture to express publicly all that he thought. He however
remonstrated strongly. Some Irish officers felt on this occasion as it was
natural that brave men should feel, and declared, weeping with pity and
indignation, that they should never cease to have in their ears the cries of
the poor women and children who had been driven at the point of the pike
to die of famine between the camp and the city. Rosen persisted during
forty-eight hours. In that time many unhappy creatures perished: but
Londonderry held out as resolutely as ever; and he saw that his crime was
likely to produce nothing but hatred and obloquy. He at length gave way,
and suffered the survivors to withdraw. The garrison then took down the
gallows which had been erected on the bastion, 248
When the tidings of these events reached Dublin, James, though by no
means prone to compassion, was startled by an atrocity of which the civil
wars of England had furnished no example, and was displeased by learning
that protections, given by his authority, and guaranteed by his honour, had
been publicly declared to be nullities. He complained to the French
ambassador, and said, with a warmth which the occasion fully justified, that
Rosen was a barbarous Muscovite. Melfort could not refrain from adding
that, if Rosen had been an Englishman, he would have been hanged. Avaux
was utterly unable to understand this effeminate sensibility. In his opinion,

nothing had been done that was at all reprehensible; and he had some
difficulty in commanding himself when he heard the King and the secretary
blame, in strong language, an act of wholesome severity, 249 In truth the
French ambassador and the French general were well paired. There was a
great difference doubtless, in appearance and manner, between the
handsome, graceful, and refined diplomatist, whose dexterity and suavity
had been renowned at the most polite courts of Europe, and the military
adventurer, whose look and voice reminded all who came near him that he
had been born in a half savage country, that he had risen from the ranks, and
that he had once been sentenced to death for marauding. But the heart of the
courtier was really even more callous than that of the soldier.
Rosen was recalled to Dublin; and Richard Hamilton was again left in the
chief command. He tried gentler means than those which had brought so
much reproach on his predecessor. No trick, no lie, which was thought
likely to discourage the starving garrison was spared. One day a great shout
was raised by the whole Irish camp. The defenders of Londonderry were
soon informed that the army of James was rejoicing on account of the fall
of Enniskillen. They were told that they had now no chance of being
relieved, and were exhorted to save their lives by capitulating. They
consented to negotiate. But what they asked was, that they should be
permitted to depart armed and in military array, by land or by water at their
choice. They demanded hostages for the exact fulfilment of these
conditions, and insisted that the hostages should be sent on board of the
fleet which lay in Lough Foyle. Such terms Hamilton durst not grant: the
Governors would abate nothing: the treaty was broken off; and the conflict
recommenced, 250
By this time July was far advanced; and the state of the city was, hour by
hour, becoming more frightful. The number of the inhabitants had been
thinned more by famine and disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet that
fire was sharper and more constant than ever. One of the gates was beaten
in: one of the bastions was laid in ruins; but the breaches made by day were
repaired by night with indefatigable activity. Every attack was still repelled.
But the fighting men of the garrison were so much exhausted that they
could scarcely keep their legs. Several of them, in the act of striking at the
enemy, fell down from mere weakness. A very small quantity of grain
remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted hides was
considerable, and by gnawing them the garrison appeased the rage of

hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain who lay unburied round the
town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price of a
whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were still alive,
and but barely alive. They were so lean that little meat was likely to be
found upon them. It was, however, determined to slaughter them for food.
The people perished so fast that it was impossible for the survivors to
perform the rites of sepulture. There was scarcely a cellar in which some
corpse was not decaying. Such was the extremity of distress, that the rats
who came to feast in those hideous dens were eagerly hunted and greedily
devoured. A small fish, caught in the river, was not to be purchased with
money. The only price for which such a treasure could be obtained was
some handfuls of oatmeal. Leprosies, such as strange and unwholesome diet
engenders, made existence a constant torment. The whole city was poisoned
by the stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half dead. That
there should be fits of discontent and insubordination among men enduring
such misery was inevitable. At one moment it was suspected that Walker
had laid up somewhere a secret store of food, and was revelling in private,
while he exhorted others to suffer resolutely for the good cause. His house
was strictly examined: his innocence was fully proved: he regained his
popularity; and the garrison, with death in near prospect, thronged to the
cathedral to hear him preach, drank in his earnest eloquence with delight,
and went forth from the house of God with haggard faces and tottering
steps, but with spirit still unsubdued. There were, indeed, some secret
plottings. A very few obscure traitors opened communications with the
enemy. But it was necessary that all such dealings should be carefully
concealed. None dared to utter publicly any words save words of defiance
and stubborn resolution. Even in that extremity the general cry was "No
surrender." And there were not wanting voices which, in low tones, added,
"First the horses and hides; and then the prisoners; and then each other." It
was afterwards related, half in jest, yet not without a horrible mixture of
earnest, that a corpulent citizen, whose bulk presented a strange contrast to
the skeletons which surrounded him, thought it expedient to conceal himself
from the numerous eyes which followed him with cannibal looks whenever
he appeared in the streets, 251
It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that all this
time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle. Communication
between the fleet and the city was almost impossible. One diver who had

attempted to pass the boom was drowned. Another was hanged. The
language of signals was hardly intelligible. On the thirteenth of July,
however, a piece of paper sewed up in a cloth button came to Walker's
hands. It was a letter from Kirke, and contained assurances of speedy relief.
But more than a fortnight of intense misery had since elapsed; and the
hearts of the most sanguine were sick with deferred hope. By no art could
the provisions which were left be made to hold out two days more, 252
Just at this time Kirke received a despatch from England, which
contained positive orders that Londonderry should be relieved. He
accordingly determined to make an attempt which, as far as appears, he
might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of success, six
weeks earlier, 253
Among the merchant ships which had come to Lough Foyle under his
convoy was one called the Mountjoy. The master, Micaiah Browning, a
native of Londonderry, had brought from England a large cargo of
provisions. He had, it is said, repeatedly remonstrated against the inaction
of the armament. He now eagerly volunteered to take the first risk of
succouring his fellow citizens; and his offer was accepted. Andrew Douglas,
master of the Phoenix, who had on board a great quantity of meal from
Scotland, was willing to share the danger and the honour. The two
merchantmen were to be escorted by the Dartmouth frigate of thirty-six
guns, commanded by Captain John Leake, afterwards an admiral of great
fame.
It was the thirtieth of July. The sun had just set: the evening sermon in the
cathedral was over; and the heartbroken congregation had separated, when
the sentinels on the tower saw the sails of three vessels coming up the
Foyle. Soon there was a stir in the Irish camp. The besiegers were on the
alert for miles along both shores. The ships were in extreme peril: for the
river was low; and the only navigable channel Tan very near to the left
bank, where the head quarters of the enemy had been fixed, and where the
batteries were most numerous. Leake performed his duty with a skill and
spirit worthy of his noble profession, exposed his frigate to cover the
merchantmen, and used his guns with great effect. At length the little
squadron came to the place of peril. Then the Mountjoy took the lead, and
went right at the bottom. The huge barricade cracked and gave way: but the
shock was such that the Mountjoy rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell

of triumph rose from the banks: the Irish rushed to their boats, and were
preparing to board; but the Dartmouth poured on them a well directed
broadside, which threw them into disorder. Just then the Phoenix dashed at
the breach which the Mountjoy had made, and was in a moment within the
fence. Meantime the tide was rising fast. The Mountjoy began to move, and
soon passed safe through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave
master was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck him; and he
died by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight of the city which was his
birthplace, which was his home, and which had just been saved by his
courage and self-devotion from the most frightful form of destruction. The
night had closed in before the conflict at the boom began; but the flash of
the guns was seen, and the noise heard, by the lean and ghastly multitude
which covered the walls of the city. When the Mountjoy grounded, and
when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides of the river, the
hearts of the besieged died within them. One who endured the unutterable
anguish of that moment has told that they looked fearfully livid in each
other's eyes. Even after the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible
half hour of suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the quay.
The whole population was there to welcome them. A screen made of casks
filled with earth was hastily thrown up to protect the landing place from the
batteries on the other side of the river; and then the work of unloading
began. First were rolled on shore barrels containing six thousand bushels of
meal. Then came great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of
butter, sacks of Pease and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before,
half a pound of tallow and three quarters of a pound of salted hide had been
weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man. The ration which
each now received was three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint
of Pease. It is easy to imagine with what tears grace was said over the
suppers of that evening. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The
bonfires shone bright along the whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns
continued to roar all night; and all night the bells of the rescued city made
answer to the Irish guns with a peal of joyous defiance. Through the whole
of the thirty-first of July the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But,
soon after the sun had again gone down, flames were seen arising from the
camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins
marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers; and the citizens

saw far off the long column of pikes and standards retreating up the left
bank of the Foyle towards Strabane, 254
So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of the British
isles. It had lasted a hundred and five days. The garrison had been reduced
from about seven thousand effective men to about three thousand. The loss
of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained. Walker estimated it at eight
thousand men. It is certain from the despatches of Avaux that the regiments
which returned from the blockade had been so much thinned that many of
them were not more than two hundred strong. Of thirty-six French gunners
who had superintended the cannonading, thirty-one had been killed or
disabled, 255 The means both of attack and of defence had undoubtedly been
such as would have moved the great warriors of the Continent to laughter;
and this is the very circumstance which gives so peculiar an interest to the
history of the contest. It was a contest, not between engineers, but between
nations; and the victory remained with the nation which, though inferior in
number, was superior in civilisation, in capacity for selfgovernment, and in
stubbornness of resolution, 256
As soon as it was known that the Irish army had retired, a deputation
from the city hastened to Lough Foyle, and invited Kirk to take the
command. He came accompanied by a long train of officers, and was
received in state by the two Governors, who delivered up to him the
authority which, under the pressure of necessity, they had assumed. He
remained only a few days; but he had time to show enough of the incurable
vices of his character to disgust a population distinguished by austere
morals and ardent public spirit. There was, however, no outbreak. The city
was in the highest good humour. Such quantities of provisions had been
landed from the fleet, that there was in every house a plenty never before
known. A few days earlier a man had been glad to obtain for twenty pence a
mouthful of carrion scraped from the bones of a starved horse. A pound of
good beef was now sold for three halfpence. Meanwhile all hands were
busied in removing corpses which had been thinly covered with earth, in
filling up the holes which the shells had ploughed in the ground, and in
repairing the battered roofs of the houses. The recollection of past dangers
and privations, and the consciousness of having deserved well of the
English nation and of all Protestant Churches, swelled the hearts of the
townspeople with honest pride. That pride grew stronger when they
received from William a letter acknowledging, in the most affectionate

language, the debt which he owed to the brave and trusty citizens of his
good city. The whole population crowded to the Diamond to hear the royal
epistle read. At the close all the guns on the ramparts sent forth a voice of
joy: all the ships in the river made answer: barrels of ale were broken up;
and the health of their Majesties was drunk with shouts and volleys of
musketry.
Five generations have since passed away; and still the wall of
Londonderry is to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of Marathon
was to the Athenians. A lofty pillar, rising from a bastion which bore during
many weeks the heaviest fire of the enemy, is seen far up and far down the
Foyle. On the summit is the statue of Walker, such as when, in the last and
most terrible emergency, his eloquence roused the fainting courage of his
brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible. The other, pointing down the river,
seems to direct the eyes of his famished audience to the English topmasts in
the distant bay. Such a monument was well deserved: yet it was scarcely
needed: for in truth the whole city is to this day a monument of the great
deliverance. The wall is carefully preserved; nor would any plea of health
or convenience be held by the inhabitants sufficient to justify the demolition
of that sacred enclosure which, in the evil time, gave shelter to their race
and their religion, 257 The summit of the ramparts forms a pleasant walk.
The bastions have been turned into little gardens. Here and there, among the
shrubs and flowers, may be seen the old culverins which scattered bricks,
cased with lead, among the Irish ranks. One antique gun, the gift of the
Fishmongers of London, was distinguished, during the hundred and five
memorable days, by the loudness of its report, and still bears the name of
Roaring Meg. The cathedral is filled with relics and trophies. In the
vestibule is a huge shell, one of many hundreds of shells which were
thrown into the city. Over the altar are still seen the French flagstaves, taken
by the garrison in a desperate sally. The white ensigns of the House of
Bourbon have long been dust: but their place has been supplied by new
banners, the work of the fairest hands of Ulster. The anniversary of the day
on which the gates were closed, and the anniversary of the day on which the
siege was raised, have been down to our own time celebrated by salutes,
processions, banquets, and sermons: Lundy has been executed in effigy; and
the sword, said by tradition to be that of Maumont, has, on great occasions,
been carried in triumph. There is still a Walker Club and a Murray Club.
The humble tombs of the Protestant captains have been carefully sought

out, repaired, and embellished. It is impossible not to respect the sentiment
which indicates itself by these tokens. It is a sentiment which belongs to the
higher and purer part of human nature, and which adds not a little to the
strength of states. A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements
of remote ancestors will never achieve any thing worthy to be remembered
with pride by remote descendants. Yet it is impossible for the moralist or the
statesman to look with unmixed complacency on the solemnities with
which Londonderry commemorates her deliverance, and on the honours
which she pays to those who saved her. Unhappily the animosities of her
brave champions have descended with their glory. The faults which are
ordinarily found in dominant castes and dominant sects have not seldom
shown themselves without disguise at her festivities; and even with the
expressions of pious gratitude which have resounded from her pulpits have
too often been mingled words of wrath and defiance.
The Irish army which had retreated to Strabane remained there but a very
short time. The spirit of the troops had been depressed by their recent
failure, and was soon completely cowed by the news of a great disaster in
another quarter.
Three weeks before this time the Duke of Berwick had gained an
advantage over a detachment of the Enniskilleners, and had, by their own
confession, killed or taken more than fifty of them. They were in hopes of
obtaining some assistance from Kirke, to whom they had sent a deputation;
and they still persisted in rejecting all terms offered by the enemy. It was
therefore determined at Dublin that an attack should be made upon them
from several quarters at once. Macarthy, who had been rewarded for his
services in Munster with the title of Viscount Mountcashel, marched
towards Lough Erne from the east with three regiments of foot, two
regiments of dragoons, and some troops of cavalry. A considerable force,
which lay encamped near the mouth of the river Drowes, was at the same
time to advance from the west. The Duke of Berwick was to come from the
north, with such horse and dragoons as could be spared from the army
which was besieging Londonderry. The Enniskilleners were not fully
apprised of the whole plan which had been laid for their destruction; but
they knew that Macarthy was on the road with a force exceeding any which
they could bring into the field. Their anxiety was in some degree relieved
by the return of the deputation which they had sent to Kirke. Kirke could
spare no soldiers; but he had sent some arms, some ammunition, and some

experienced officers, of whom the chief were Colonel Wolseley and
Lieutenant Colonel Berry. These officers had come by sea round the coast
of Donegal, and had run up the Line. On Sunday, the twenty-ninth of July, it
was known that their boat was approaching the island of Enniskillen. The
whole population, male and female, came to the shore to greet them. It was
with difficulty, that they made their way to the Castle through the crowds
which hung on them, blessing God that dear old England had not quite
forgotten the Englishmen who upheld her cause against great odds in the
heart of Ireland.
Wolseley seems to have been in every respect well qualified for his post.
He was a stanch Protestant, had distinguished himself among the
Yorkshiremen who rose up for the Prince of Orange and a free Parliament,
and had, if he is not belied, proved his zeal for liberty and pure religion, by
causing the Mayor of Scarborough, who had made a speech in favour of
King James, to be brought into the market place and well tossed there in a
blanket, 258 This vehement hatred of Popery was, in the estimation of the
men of Enniskillen, the first of all qualifications for command: and
Wolseley had other and more important qualifications. Though himself
regularly bred to war, he seems to have had a peculiar aptitude for the
management of irregular troops. He had scarcely taken on himself the chief
command when he received notice that Mountcashel had laid siege to the
Castle of Crum. Crum was the frontier garrison of the Protestants of
Fermanagh. The ruins of the old fortifications are now among the
attractions of a beautiful pleasureground, situated on a woody promontory
which overlooks Lough Erne. Wolseley determined to raise the siege. He
sent Berry forward with such troops as could be instantly put in motion, and
promised to follow speedily with a larger force.
Berry, after marching some miles, encountered thirteen companies of
Macarthy's dragoons commanded by Anthony, the most brilliant and
accomplished of all who bore the name of Hamilton, but much less
successful as a soldier than as a courtier, a lover, and a writer. Hamilton's
dragoons ran at the first fire: he was severely wounded; and his second in
command was shot dead. Macarthy soon came up to support Hamilton; and
at the same time Wolseley came up to support Berry. The hostile armies
were now in presence of each other. Macarthy had above five thousand men
and several pieces of artillery. The Enniskilleners were under three
thousand; and they had marched in such haste that they had brought only

one day's provisions. It was therefore absolutely necessary for them either
to fight instantly or to retreat. Wolseley determined to consult the men; and
this determination, which, in ordinary circumstances, would have been most
unworthy of a general, was fully justified by the peculiar composition and
temper of the little army, an army made up of gentlemen and yeomen
fighting, not for pay, but for their lands, their wives, their children, and their
God. The ranks were drawn up under arms; and the question was put,
"Advance or Retreat?" The answer was an universal shout of "Advance."
Wolseley gave out the word, "No Popery." It was received with loud
applause. He instantly made his dispositions for an attack. As he
approached, the enemy, to his great surprise, began to retire. The
Enniskilleners were eager to pursue with all speed: but their commander,
suspecting a snare, restrained their ardour, and positively forbade them to
break their ranks. Thus one army retreated and the other followed, in good
order, through the little town of Newton Butler. About a mile from that
town the Irish faced about, and made a stand. Their position was well
chosen. They were drawn up on a hill at the foot of which lay a deep bog. A
narrow paved causeway which ran across the bog was the only road by
which the cavalry of the Enniskilleners could advance; for on the right and
left were pools, turf pits, and quagmires, which afforded no footing to
horses. Macarthy placed his cannon in such a manner as to sweep this
causeway.
Wolseley ordered his infantry to the attack. They struggled through the
bog, made their way to firm ground, and rushed on the guns. There was
then a short and desperate fight. The Irish cannoneers stood gallantly to
their pieces till they were cut down to a man. The Enniskillen horse, no
longer in danger of being mowed down by the fire of the artillery, came fast
up the causeway. The Irish dragoons who had run away in the morning were
smitten with another panic, and, without striking a blow, galloped from the
field. The horse followed the example. Such was the terror of the fugitives
that many of them spurred hard till their beasts fell down, and then
continued to fly on foot, throwing away carbines, swords, and even coats as
incumbrances. The infantry, seeing themselves deserted, flung down their
pikes and muskets and ran for their lives. The conquerors now gave loose to
that ferocity which has seldom failed to disgrace the civil wars of Ireland.
The butchery was terrible. Near fifteen hundred of the vanquished were put
to the sword. About five hundred more, in ignorance of the country, took a

road which led to Lough Erne. The lake was before them: the enemy
behind: they plunged into the waters and perished there. Macarthy,
abandoned by his troops, rushed into the midst of the pursuers and very
nearly found the death which he sought. He was wounded in several places:
he was struck to the ground; and in another moment his brains would have
been knocked out with the butt end of a musket, when he was recognised
and saved. The colonists lost only twenty men killed and fifty wounded.
They took four hundred prisoners, seven pieces of cannon, fourteen barrels
of powder, all the drums and all the colours of the vanquished enemy, 259
The battle of Newton Butler was won on the same afternoon on which
the boom thrown over the Foyle was broken. At Strabane the news met the
Celtic army which was retreating from Londonderry. All was terror and
confusion: the tents were struck: the military stores were flung by waggon
loads into the waters of the Mourne; and the dismayed Irish, leaving many
sick and wounded to the mercy of the victorious Protestants, fled to Omagh,
and thence to Charlemont. Sarsfield, who commanded at Sligo, found it
necessary to abandon that town, which was instantly occupied by a
detachment of Kirke's troops, 260 Dublin was in consternation. James
dropped words which indicated an intention of flying to the Continent. Evil
tidings indeed came fast upon him. Almost at the same time at which he
learned that one of his armies had raised the siege of Londonderry, and that
another had been routed at Newton Butler, he received intelligence scarcely
less disheartening from Scotland.
It is now necessary to trace the progress of those events to which
Scotland owes her political and her religious liberty, her prosperity and her
civilisation.

CHAPTER XIII.
The Revolution more violent in Scotland than in England—Elections
for the Convention; Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy—State of
Edinburgh—Question of an Union between England and Scotland
raised—Wish of the English Low Churchmen to preserve Episcopacy
in Scotland—Opinions of William about Church Government in
Scotland—Comparative Strength of Religious Parties in Scotland—Letter
from William to the Scotch Convention—William's Instructions to
his Agents in Scotland; the Dalrymples—Melville—James's Agents in
Scotland: Dundee; Balcarras—Meeting of the Convention—Hamilton elected
President—Committee of Elections; Edinburgh Castle summoned—Dundee
threatened by the Covenanters—Letter from James to the
Convention—Effect of James's Letter—Flight of Dundee—Tumultuous
Sitting of the Convention—A Committee appointed to frame a Plan of
Government—Resolutions proposed by the Committee—William and
Mary proclaimed; the Claim of Right; Abolition of
Episcopacy—Torture—William and Mary accept the Crown of
Scotland—Discontent of the Covenanters—Ministerial Arrangements
in Scotland—Hamilton; Crawford—The Dalrymples; Lockhart;
Montgomery—Melville; Carstairs—The Club formed: Annandale; Ross—Hume;
Fletcher of Saltoun—War breaks out in the Highlands; State of the
Highlands—Peculiar Nature of Jacobitism in the Highlands—Jealousy
of the Ascendency of the Campbells—The Stewarts and Macnaghtens—The
Macleans; the Camerons: Lochiel—The Macdonalds; Feud between the
Macdonalds and Mackintoshes; Inverness—Inverness threatened by
Macdonald of Keppoch—Dundee appears in Keppoch's Camp—Insurrection
of the Clans hostile to the Campbells—Tarbet's Advice to the
Government—Indecisive Campaign in the Highlands—Military Character of
the Highlanders—Quarrels in the Highland Army—Dundee applies to James
for Assistance; the War in the Highlands suspended—Scruples of the
Covenanters about taking Arms for King William—The Cameronian
Regiment raised—Edinburgh Castle surrenders—Session of Parliament at
Edinburgh—Ascendancy of the Club—Troubles in Athol—The War breaks out
again in the Highlands—Death of Dundee—Retreat of Mackay—Effect of
the Battle of Killiecrankie; the Scottish Parliament adjourned—The
Highland Army reinforced—Skirmish at Saint Johnston's—Disorders in the
Highland Army—Mackay's Advice disregarded by the Scotch Ministers—The
Cameronians stationed at Dunkeld—The Highlanders attack the Cameronians
and are repulsed—Dissolution of the Highland Army; Intrigues of the
Club; State of the Lowlands

THE violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree of
the maladministration which has produced them. It is therefore not strange
that the government of Scotland, having been during many years far more
oppressive and corrupt than the government of England, should have fallen
with a far heavier ruin. The movement against the last king of the House of
Stuart was in England conservative, in Scotland destructive. The English
complained, not of the law, but of the violation of the law. They rose up
against the first magistrate merely in order to assert the supremacy of the

law. They were for the most part strongly attached to the Church established
by law. Even in applying that extraordinary remedy to which an
extraordinary emergency compelled them to have recourse, they deviated as
little as possible from the ordinary methods prescribed by the law. The
Convention which met at Westminster, though summoned by irregular
writs, was constituted on the exact model of a regular Parliament. No man
was invited to the Upper House whose right to sit there was not clear. The
knights and burgesses were chosen by those electors who would have been
entitled to choose the members of a House of Commons called under the
great seal. The franchises of the forty shilling freeholder, of the householder
paying scot and lot, of the burgage tenant, of the liveryman of London, of
the Master of Arts of Oxford, were respected. The sense of the constituent
bodies was taken with as little violence on the part of mobs, with as little
trickery on the part of returning officers, as at any general election of that
age. When at length the Estates met, their deliberations were carried on with
perfect freedom and in strict accordance with ancient forms. There was
indeed, after the first flight of James, an alarming anarchy in London and in
some parts of the country. But that anarchy nowhere lasted longer than
forty-eight hours. From the day on which William reached Saint James's,
not even the most unpopular agents of the fallen government, not even the
ministers of the Roman Catholic Church, had any thing to fear from the
fury of the populace.
In Scotland the course of events was very different. There the law itself
was a grievance; and James had perhaps incurred more unpopularity by
enforcing it than by violating it. The Church established by law was the
most odious institution in the realm. The tribunals had pronounced some
sentences so flagitious, the Parliament had passed some acts so oppressive,
that, unless those sentences and those Acts were treated as nullities, it
would be impossible to bring together a Convention commanding the public
respect and expressing the public opinion. It was hardly to be expected, for
example, that the Whigs, in this day of their power, would endure to see
their hereditary leader, the son of a martyr, the grandson of a martyr,
excluded from the Parliament House in which nine of his ancestors had sate
as Earls of Argyle, and excluded by a judgment on which the whole
kingdom cried shame. Still less was it to be expected that they would suffer
the election of members for counties and towns to be conducted according
to the provisions of the existing law. For under the existing law no elector

could vote without swearing that he renounced the Covenant, and that he
acknowledged the Royal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical, 261 Such an
oath no rigid Presbyterian could take. If such an oath had been exacted, the
constituent bodies would have been merely small knots of prelatists: the
business of devising securities against oppression would have been left to
the oppressors; and the great party which had been most active in effecting
the Revolution would, in an assembly sprung from the Revolution, have had
not a single representative, 262
William saw that he must not think of paying to the laws of Scotland that
scrupulous respect which he had wisely and righteously paid to the laws of
England. It was absolutely necessary that he should determine by his own
authority how that Convention which was to meet at Edinburgh should be
chosen, and that he should assume the power of annulling some judgments
and some statutes. He accordingly summoned to the parliament house
several Lords who had been deprived of their honours by sentences which
the general voice loudly condemned as unjust; and he took on himself to
dispense with the Act which deprived Presbyterians of the elective
franchise.
The consequence was that the choice of almost all the shires and burghs
fell on Whig candidates. The defeated party complained loudly of foul play,
of the rudeness of the populace, and of the partiality of the presiding
magistrates; and these complaints were in many cases well founded. It is
not under such rulers as Lauderdale and Dundee that nations learn justice
and moderation, 263
Nor was it only at the elections that the popular feeling, so long and so
severely compressed, exploded with violence. The heads and the hands of
the martyred Whigs were taken down from the gates of Edinburgh, carried
in procession by great multitudes to the cemeteries, and laid in the earth
with solemn respect, 264 It would have been well if the public enthusiasm
had manifested itself in no less praiseworthy form. Unhappily throughout a
large part of Scotland the clergy of the Established Church were, to use the
phrase then common, rabbled. The morning of Christmas day was fixed for
the commencement of these outrages. For nothing disgusted the rigid
Covenanter more than the reverence paid by the prelatist to the ancient
holidays of the Church. That such reverence may be carried to an absurd
extreme is true. But a philosopher may perhaps be inclined to think the

opposite extreme not less absurd, and may ask why religion should reject
the aid of associations which exist in every nation sufficiently civilised to
have a calendar, and which are found by experience to have a powerful and
often a salutary effect. The Puritan, who was, in general, but too ready to
follow precedents and analogies drawn from the history and jurisprudence
of the Jews, might have found in the Old Testament quite as clear warrant
for keeping festivals in honour of great events as for assassinating bishops
and refusing quarter to captives. He certainly did not learn from his master,
Calvin, to hold such festivals in abhorrence; for it was in consequence of
the strenuous exertions of Calvin that Christmas was, after an interval of
some years, again observed by the citizens of Geneva, 265 But there had
arisen in Scotland Calvinists who were to Calvin what Calvin was to Laud.
To these austere fanatics a holiday was an object of positive disgust and
hatred. They long continued in their solemn manifestoes to reckon it among
the sins which would one day bring down some fearful judgment on the
land that the Court of Session took a vacation in the last week of December,
266
On Christmas day, therefore, the Covenanters held armed musters by
concert in many parts of the western shires. Each band marched to the
nearest manse, and sacked the cellar and larder of the minister, which at that
season were probably better stocked than usual. The priest of Baal was
reviled and insulted, sometimes beaten, sometimes ducked. His furniture
was thrown out of the windows; his wife and children turned out of doors in
the snow. He was then carried to the market place, and exposed during
some time as a malefactor. His gown was torn to shreds over his head: if he
had a prayer book in his pocket it was burned; and he was dismissed with a
charge, never, as he valued his life, to officiate in the parish again. The
work of reformation having been thus completed, the reformers locked up
the church and departed with the keys. In justice to these men it must be
owned that they had suffered such oppression as may excuse, though it
cannot justify, their violence; and that, though they were rude even to
brutality, they do not appear to have been guilty of any intentional injury to
life or limb, 267
The disorder spread fast. In Ayrshire, Clydesdale, Nithisdale, Annandale,
every parish was visited by these turbulent zealots. About two hundred
curates—so the episcopal parish priests were called—were expelled. The
graver Covenanters, while they applauded the fervour of their riotous

brethren, were apprehensive that proceedings so irregular might give
scandal, and learned, with especial concern, that here and there an Achan
had disgraced the good cause by stooping to plunder the Canaanites whom
he ought only to have smitten. A general meeting of ministers and elders
was called for the purpose of preventing such discreditable excesses. In this
meeting it was determined that, for the future, the ejection of the established
clergy should be performed in a more ceremonious manner. A form of
notice was drawn up and served on every curate in the Western Lowlands
who had not yet been rabbled. This notice was simply a threatening letter,
commanding him to quit his parish peaceably, on pain of being turned out
by force, 268
The Scottish Bishops, in great dismay, sent the Dean of Glasgow to plead
the cause of their persecuted Church at Westminster. The outrages
committed by the Covenanters were in the highest degree offensive to
William, who had, in the south of the island, protected even Benedictines
and Franciscans from insult and spoliation. But, though he had, at the
request of a large number of the noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland,
taken on himself provisionally the executive administration of that
kingdom, the means of maintaining order there were not at his command.
He had not a single regiment north of the Tweed, or indeed within many
miles of that river. It was vain to hope that mere words would quiet a nation
which had not, in any age, been very amenable to control, and which was
now agitated by hopes and resentments, such as great revolutions, following
great oppressions, naturally engender. A proclamation was however put
forth, directing that all people should lay down their arms, and that, till the
Convention should have settled the government, the clergy of the
Established Church should be suffered to reside on their cures without
molestation. But this proclamation, not being supported by troops, was very
little regarded. On the very day after it was published at Glasgow, the
venerable Cathedral of that city, almost the only fine church of the middle
ages which stands uninjured in Scotland, was attacked by a crowd of
Presbyterians from the meeting houses, with whom were mingled many of
their fiercer brethren from the hills. It was a Sunday; but to rabble a
congregation of prelatists was held to be a work of necessity and mercy.
The worshippers were dispersed, beaten, and pelted with snowballs. It was
indeed asserted that some wounds were inflicted with much more
formidable weapons, 269

Edinburgh, the seat of government, was in a state of anarchy. The Castle,
which commanded the whole city, was still held for James by the Duke of
Gordon. The common people were generally Whigs. The College of justice,
a great forensic society composed of judges, advocates, writers to the
signet, and solicitors, was the stronghold of Toryism: for a rigid test had
during some years excluded Presbyterians from all the departments of the
legal profession. The lawyers, some hundreds in number, formed
themselves into a battalion of infantry, and for a time effectually kept down
the multitude. They paid, however, so much respect to William's authority
as to disband themselves when his proclamation was published. But the
example of obedience which they had set was not imitated. Scarcely had
they laid down their weapons, when Covenanters from the west, who had
done all that was to be done in the way of pelting and hustling the curates of
their own neighbourhood, came dropping into Edinburgh, by tens and
twenties, for the purpose of protecting, or, if need should be, of overawing
the Convention. Glasgow alone sent four hundred of these men. It could
hardly be doubted that they were directed by some leader of great weight.
They showed themselves little in any public place: but it was known that
every cellar was filled with them; and it might well be apprehended that, at
the first signal, they would pour forth from their caverns, and appear armed
round the Parliament house, 270
It might have been expected that every patriotic and enlightened
Scotchman would have earnestly desired to see the agitation appeased, and
some government established which might be able to protect property and
to enforce the law. An imperfect settlement which could be speedily made
might well appear to such a man preferable to a perfect settlement which
must be the work of time. Just at this moment, however, a party, strong both
in numbers and in abilities, raised a new and most important question,
which seemed not unlikely to prolong the interregnum till the autumn. This
party maintained that the Estates ought not immediately to declare William
and Mary King and Queen, but to propose to England a treaty of union, and
to keep the throne vacant till such a treaty should be concluded on terms
advantageous to Scotland, 271
It may seem strange that a large portion of a people, whose patriotism,
exhibited, often in a heroic, and sometimes in a comic form, has long been
proverbial, should have been willing, nay impatient, to surrender an
independence which had been, through many ages, dearly prized and

manfully defended. The truth is that the stubborn spirit which the arms of
the Plantagenets and Tudors had been unable to subdue had begun to yield
to a very different kind of force. Customhouses and tariffs were rapidly
doing what the carnage of Falkirk and Halidon, of Flodden and of Pinkie,
had failed to do. Scotland had some experience of the effects of an union.
She had, near forty years before, been united to England on such terms as
England, flushed with conquest, chose to dictate. That union was
inseparably associated in the minds of the vanquished people with defeat
and humiliation. And yet even that union, cruelly as it had wounded the
pride of the Scots, had promoted their prosperity. Cromwell, with wisdom
and liberality rare in his age, had established the most complete freedom of
trade between the dominant and the subject country. While he governed, no
prohibition, no duty, impeded the transit of commodities from any part of
the island to any other. His navigation laws imposed no restraint on the
trade of Scotland. A Scotch vessel was at liberty to carry a Scotch cargo to
Barbadoes, and to bring the sugars of Barbadoes into the port of London,
272 The rule of the Protector therefore had been propitious to the industry
and to the physical wellbeing of the Scottish people. Hating him and
cursing him, they could not help thriving under him, and often, during the
administration of their legitimate princes, looked back with regret to the
golden days of the usurper, 273
The Restoration came, and changed every thing. The Scots regained their
independence, and soon began to find that independence had its discomfort
as well as its dignity. The English parliament treated them as aliens and as
rivals. A new Navigation Act put them on almost the same footing with the
Dutch. High duties, and in some cases prohibitory duties, were imposed on
the products of Scottish industry. It is not wonderful that a nation eminently
industrious, shrewd, and enterprising, a nation which, having been long
kept back by a sterile soil and a severe climate, was just beginning to
prosper in spite of these disadvantages, and which found its progress
suddenly stopped, should think itself cruelly treated. Yet there was no help.
Complaint was vain. Retaliation was impossible. The Sovereign, even if he
had the wish, had not the power, to bear himself evenly between his large
and his small kingdom, between the kingdom from which he drew an
annual revenue of a million and a half and the kingdom from which he drew
an annual revenue of little more than sixty thousand pounds. He dared
neither to refuse his assent to any English law injurious to the trade of

Scotland, nor to give his assent to any Scotch law injurious to the trade of
England.
The complaints of the Scotch, however, were so loud that Charles, in
1667, appointed Commissioners to arrange the terms of a commercial treaty
between the two British kingdoms. The conferences were soon broken off;
and all that passed while they continued proved that there was only one way
in which Scotland could obtain a share of the commercial prosperity which
England at that time enjoyed, 274 The Scotch must become one people with
the English. The Parliament which had hitherto sate at Edinburgh must be
incorporated with the Parliament which sate at Westminster. The sacrifice
could not but be painfully felt by a brave and haughty people, who had,
during twelve generations, regarded the southern domination with deadly
aversion, and whose hearts still swelled at the thought of the death of
Wallace and of the triumphs of Bruce. There were doubtless many
punctilious patriots who would have strenuously opposed an union even if
they could have foreseen that the effect of an union would be to make
Glasgow a greater city than Amsterdam, and to cover the dreary Lothians
with harvests and woods, neat farmhouses and stately mansions. But there
was also a large class which was not disposed to throw away great and
substantial advantages in order to preserve mere names and ceremonies;
and the influence of this class was such that, in the year 1670, the Scotch
Parliament made direct overtures to England, 275 The King undertook the
office of mediator; and negotiators were named on both sides; but nothing
was concluded.
The question, having slept during eighteen years, was suddenly revived
by the Revolution. Different classes, impelled by different motives,
concurred on this point. With merchants, eager to share in the advantages of
the West Indian Trade, were joined active and aspiring politicians who
wished to exhibit their abilities in a more conspicuous theatre than the
Scottish Parliament House, and to collect riches from a more copious
source than the Scottish treasury. The cry for union was swelled by the
voices of some artful Jacobites, who merely wished to cause discord and
delay, and who hoped to attain this end by mixing up with the difficult
question which it was the especial business of the Convention to settle
another question more difficult still. It is probable that some who disliked
the ascetic habits and rigid discipline of the Presbyterians wished for an
union as the only mode of maintaining prelacy in the northern part of the

island. In an united Parliament the English members must greatly
preponderate; and in England the bishops were held in high honour by the
great majority of the population. The Episcopal Church of Scotland, it was
plain, rested on a narrow basis, and would fall before the first attack. The
Episcopal Church of Great Britain might have a foundation broad and solid
enough to withstand all assaults.
Whether, in 1689, it would have been possible to effect a civil union
without a religious union may well be doubted. But there can be no doubt
that a religious union would have been one of the greatest calamities that
could have befallen either kingdom. The union accomplished in 1707 has
indeed been a great blessing both to England and to Scotland. But it has
been a blessing because, in constituting one State, it left two Churches. The
political interest of the contracting parties was the same: but the
ecclesiastical dispute between them was one which admitted of no
compromise. They could therefore preserve harmony only by agreeing to
differ. Had there been an amalgamation of the hierarchies, there never
would have been an amalgamation of the nations. Successive Mitchells
would have fired at successive Sharpes. Five generations of Claverhouses
would have butchered five generations of Camerons. Those marvellous
improvements which have changed the face of Scotland would never have
been effected. Plains now rich with harvests would have remained barren
moors. Waterfalls which now turn the wheels of immense factories would
have resounded in a wilderness. New Lanark would still have been a
sheepwalk, and Greenock a fishing hamlet. What little strength Scotland
could under such a system have possessed must, in an estimate of the
resources of Great Britain, have been, not added, but deducted. So
encumbered, our country never could have held, either in peace or in war, a
place in the first rank of nations. We are unfortunately not without the
means of judging of the effect which may be produced on the moral and
physical state of a people by establishing, in the exclusive enjoyment of
riches and dignity a Church loved and reverenced only by the few, and
regarded by the many with religious and national aversion. One such
Church is quite burden enough for the energies of one empire.
But these things, which to us, who have been taught by a bitter
experience, seem clear, were by no means clear in 1689, even to very
tolerant and enlightened politicians. In truth the English Low Churchmen
were, if possible, more anxious than the English High Churchmen to

preserve Episcopacy in Scotland. It is a remarkable fact that Burnet, who
was always accused of wishing to establish the Calvinistic discipline in the
south of the island, incurred great unpopularity among his own countrymen
by his efforts to uphold prelacy in the north. He was doubtless in error: but
his error is to be attributed to a cause which does him no discredit. His
favourite object, an object unattainable indeed, yet such as might well
fascinate a large intellect and a benevolent heart, had long been an
honourable treaty between the Anglican Church and the Nonconformists.
He thought it most unfortunate that one opportunity of concluding such a
treaty should have been lost at the time of the Restoration. It seemed to him
that another opportunity was afforded by the Revolution. He and his friends
were eagerly pushing forward Nottingham's Comprehension Bill, and were
flattering themselves with vain hopes of success. But they felt that there
could hardly be a Comprehension in one of the two British kingdoms,
unless there were also a Comprehension in the other. Concession must be
purchased by concession. If the Presbyterian pertinaciously refused to listen
to any terms of compromise where he was strong, it would be almost
impossible to obtain for him liberal terms of compromise where he was
weak. Bishops must therefore be allowed to keep their sees in Scotland, in
order that divines not ordained by Bishops might be allowed to hold
rectories and canonries in England.
Thus the cause of the Episcopalians in the north and the cause of the
Presbyterians in the south were bound up together in a manner which might
well perplex even a skilful statesman. It was happy for our country that the
momentous question which excited so many strong passions, and which
presented itself in so many different points of view, was to be decided by
such a man as William. He listened to Episcopalians, to Latitudinarians, to
Presbyterians, to the Dean of Glasgow who pleaded for the apostolical
succession, to Burnet who represented the danger of alienating the Anglican
clergy, to Carstairs who hated prelacy with the hatred of a man whose
thumbs were deeply marked by the screws of prelatists. Surrounded by
these eager advocates, William remained calm and impartial. He was indeed
eminently qualified by his situation as well as by his personal qualities to be
the umpire in that great contention. He was the King of a prelatical
kingdom. He was the Prime Minister of a presbyterian republic. His
unwillingness to offend the Anglican Church of which he was the head, and
his unwillingness to offend the reformed Churches of the Continent which

regarded him as a champion divinely sent to protect them against the
French tyranny, balanced each other, and kept him from leaning unduly to
either side. His conscience was perfectly neutral. For it was his deliberate
opinion that no form of ecclesiastical polity was of divine institution. He
dissented equally from the school of Laud and from the school of Cameron,
from the men who held that there could not be a Christian Church without
Bishops, and from the men who held that there could not be a Christian
Church without synods. Which form of government should be adopted was
in his judgment a question of mere expediency. He would probably have
preferred a temper between the two rival systems, a hierarchy in which the
chief spiritual functionaries should have been something more than
moderators and something less than prelates. But he was far too wise a man
to think of settling such a matter according to his own personal tastes. He
determined therefore that, if there was on both sides a disposition to
compromise, he would act as mediator. But, if it should prove that the
public mind of England and the public mind of Scotland had taken the ply
strongly in opposite directions, he would not attempt to force either nation
into conformity with the opinion of the other. He would suffer each to have
its own church, and would content himself with restraining both churches
from persecuting nonconformists, and from encroaching on the functions of
the civil magistrate.
The language which he held to those Scottish Episcopalians who
complained to him of their sufferings and implored his protection was well
weighed and well guarded, but clear and ingenuous. He wished, he said, to
preserve, if possible, the institution to which they were so much attached,
and to grant at the same time entire liberty of conscience to that party which
could not be reconciled to any deviation from the Presbyterian model. But
the Bishops must take care that they did not, by their own rashness and
obstinacy, put it out of his power to be of any use to them. They must also
distinctly understand that he was resolved not to force on Scotland by the
sword a form of ecclesiastical government which she detested. If, therefore;
it should be found that prelacy could be maintained only by arms, he should
yield to the general sentiment, and should merely do his best to obtain for
the Episcopalian minority permission to worship God in freedom and
safety, 276
It is not likely that, even if the Scottish Bishops had, as William
recommended, done all that meekness and prudence could do to conciliate

their countrymen, episcopacy could, under any modification, have been
maintained. It was indeed asserted by writers of that generation, and has
been repeated by writers of our generation, that the Presbyterians were not,
before the Revolution, the majority of the people of Scotland, 277 But in this
assertion there is an obvious fallacy. The effective strength of sects is not to
be ascertained merely by counting heads. An established church, a
dominant church, a church which has the exclusive possession of civil
honours and emoluments, will always rank among its nominal members
multitudes who have no religion at all; multitudes who, though not destitute
of religion, attend little to theological disputes, and have no scruple about
conforming to the mode of worship which happens to be established; and
multitudes who have scruples about conforming, but whose scruples have
yielded to worldly motives. On the other hand, every member of an
oppressed church is a man who has a very decided preference for that
church. A person who, in the time of Diocletian, joined in celebrating the
Christian mysteries might reasonably be supposed to be a firm believer in
Christ. But it would be a very great mistake to imagine that one single
Pontiff or Augur in the Roman Senate was a firm believer in Jupiter. In
Mary's reign, every body who attended the secret meetings of the
Protestants was a real Protestant: but hundreds of thousands went to mass
who, as appeared before she had been dead a month, were not real Roman
Catholics. If, under the Kings of the House of Stuart, when a Presbyterian
was excluded from political power and from the learned professions, was
daily annoyed by informers, by tyrannical magistrates, by licentious
dragoons, and was in danger of being hanged if he heard a sermon in the
open air, the population of Scotland was not very unequally divided
between Episcopalians and Presbyterians, the rational inference is that more
than nineteen twentieths of those Scotchmen whose conscience was
interested in the matter were Presbyterians, and that not one Scotchman in
twenty was decidedly and on conviction an Episcopalian. Against such odds
the Bishops had but little chance; and whatever chance they had they made
haste to throw away; some of them because they sincerely believed that
their allegiance was still due to James; others probably because they
apprehended that William would not have the power, even if he had the
will, to serve them, and that nothing but a counterrevolution in the State
could avert a revolution in the Church.

As the new King of England could not be at Edinburgh during the sitting
of the Scottish Convention, a letter from him to the Estates was prepared
with great skill. In this document he professed warm attachment to the
Protestant religion, but gave no opinion touching those questions about
which Protestants were divided. He had observed, he said, with great
satisfaction that many of the Scottish nobility and gentry with whom he had
conferred in London were inclined to an union of the two British kingdoms.
He was sensible how much such an union would conduce to the happiness
of both; and he would do all in his power towards the accomplishing of so
good a work.
It was necessary that he should allow a large discretion to his confidential
agents at Edinburgh. The private instructions with which he furnished those
persons could not be minute, but were highly judicious. He charged them to
ascertain to the best of their power the real sense of the Convention, and to
be guided by it. They must remember that the first object was to settle the
government. To that object every other object, even the union, must be
postponed. A treaty between two independent legislatures, distant from each
other several days' journey, must necessarily be a work of time; and the
throne could not safely remain vacant while the negotiations were pending.
It was therefore important that His Majesty's agents should be on their
guard against the arts of persons who, under pretence of promoting the
union, might really be contriving only to prolong the interregnum. If the
Convention should be bent on establishing the Presbyterian form of church
government, William desired that his friends would do all in their power to
prevent the triumphant sect from retaliating what it had suffered, 278
The person by whose advice William appears to have been at this time
chiefly guided as to Scotch politics was a Scotchman of great abilities and
attainments, Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, the founder of a family
eminently distinguished at the bar, on the bench, in the senate, in
diplomacy, in arms, and in letters, but distinguished also by misfortunes and
misdeeds which have furnished poets and novelists with materials for the
darkest and most heartrending tales. Already Sir James had been in
mourning for more than one strange and terrible death. One of his sons had
died by poison. One of his daughters had poniarded her bridegroom on the
wedding night. One of his grandsons had in boyish sport been slain by
another. Savage libellers asserted, and some of the superstitious vulgar
believed, that calamities so portentous were the consequences of some

connection between the unhappy race and the powers of darkness. Sir
James had a wry neck; and he was reproached with this misfortune as if it
had been a crime, and was told that it marked him out as a man doomed to
the gallows. His wife, a woman of great ability, art, and spirit, was
popularly nicknamed the Witch of Endor. It was gravely said that she had
cast fearful spells on those whom she hated, and that she had been seen in
the likeness of a cat seated on the cloth of state by the side of the Lord High
Commissioner. The man, however, over whose roof so many curses
appeared to hang did not, as far as we can now judge, fall short of that very
low standard of morality which was generally attained by politicians of his
age and nation. In force of mind and extent of knowledge he was superior to
them all. In his youth he had borne arms: he had then been a professor of
philosophy: he had then studied law, and had become, by general
acknowledgment, the greatest jurist that his country had produced. In the
days of the Protectorate, he had been a judge. After the Restoration, he had
made his peace with the royal family, had sate in the Privy Council, and had
presided with unrivalled ability in the Court of Session. He had doubtless
borne a share in many unjustifiable acts; but there were limits which he
never passed. He had a wonderful power of giving to any proposition which
it suited him to maintain a plausible aspect of legality and even of justice;
and this power he frequently abused. But he was not, like many of those
among whom he lived, impudently and unscrupulously servile. Shame or
conscience generally restrained him from committing any bad action for
which his rare ingenuity could not frame a specious defence; and he was
seldom in his place at the council board when any thing outrageously unjust
or cruel was to be done. His moderation at length gave offence to the Court.
He was deprived of his high office, and found himself in so disagreeable a
situation that he retired to Holland. There he employed himself in correcting
the great work on jurisprudence which has preserved his memory fresh
down to our own time. In his banishment he tried to gain the favour of his
fellow exiles, who naturally regarded him with suspicion. He protested, and
perhaps with truth, that his hands were pure from the blood of the
persecuted Covenanters. He made a high profession of religion, prayed
much, and observed weekly days of fasting and humiliation. He even
consented, after much hesitation, to assist with his advice and his credit the
unfortunate enterprise of Argyle. When that enterprise had failed, a
prosecution was instituted at Edinburgh against Dalrymple; and his estates

would doubtless have been confiscated had they not been saved by an
artifice which subsequently became common among the politicians of
Scotland. His eldest son and heir apparent, John, took the side of the
government, supported the dispensing power, declared against the Test, and
accepted the place of Lord Advocate, when Sir George Mackenzie, after
holding out through ten years of foul drudgery, at length showed signs of
flagging. The services of the younger Dalrymple were rewarded by a
remission of the forfeiture which the offences of the elder had incurred.
Those services indeed were not to be despised. For Sir John, though inferior
to his father in depth and extent of legal learning, was no common man. His
knowledge was great and various: his parts were quick; and his eloquence
was singularly ready and graceful. To sanctity he made no pretensions.
Indeed Episcopalians and Presbyterians agreed in regarding him as little
better than an atheist. During some months Sir John at Edinburgh affected
to condemn the disloyalty of his unhappy parent Sir James; and Sir James at
Leyden told his Puritan friends how deeply he lamented the wicked
compliances of his unhappy child Sir John.
The Revolution came, and brought a large increase of wealth and honours
to the House of Stair. The son promptly changed sides, and cooperated ably
and zealously with the father. Sir James established himself in London for
the purpose of giving advice to William on Scotch affairs. Sir John's post
was in the Parliament House at Edinburgh. He was not likely to find any
equal among the debaters there, and was prepared to exert all his powers
against the dynasty which he had lately served, 279
By the large party which was zealous for the Calvinistic church
government John Dalrymple was regarded with incurable distrust and
dislike. It was therefore necessary that another agent should be employed to
manage that party. Such an agent was George Melville, Lord Melville, a
nobleman connected by affinity with the unfortunate Monmouth, and with
that Leslie who had unsuccessfully commanded the Scotch army against
Cromwell at Dunbar. Melville had always been accounted a Whig and a
Presbyterian. Those who speak of him most favourably have not ventured to
ascribe to him eminent intellectual endowments or exalted public spirit. But
he appears from his letters to have been by no means deficient in that
homely prudence the want of which has often been fatal to men of brighter
genius and of purer virtue. That prudence had restrained him from going
very far in opposition to the tyranny of the Stuarts: but he had listened

while his friends talked about resistance, and therefore, when the Rye
House plot was discovered, thought it expedient to retire to the Continent.
In his absence he was accused of treason, and was convicted on evidence
which would not have satisfied any impartial tribunal. He was condemned
to death: his honours and lands were declared forfeit: his arms were torn
with contumely out of the Heralds' book; and his domains swelled the estate
of the cruel and rapacious Perth. The fugitive meanwhile, with
characteristic wariness, lived quietly on the Continent, and discountenanced
the unhappy projects of his kinsman Monmouth, but cordially approved of
the enterprise of the Prince of Orange.
Illness had prevented Melville from sailing with the Dutch expedition:
but he arrived in London a few hours after the new Sovereigns had been
proclaimed there. William instantly sent him down to Edinburgh, in the
hope, as it should seem, that the Presbyterians would be disposed to listen
to moderate counsels proceeding from a man who was attached to their
cause, and who had suffered for it. Melville's second son, David, who had
inherited, through his mother, the title of Earl of Leven, and who had
acquired some military experience in the service of the Elector of
Brandenburg, had the honour of being the bearer of a letter from the new
King of England to the Scottish Convention, 280
James had intrusted the conduct of his affairs in Scotland to John
Graham, Viscount Dundee, and Colin Lindsay, Earl of Balcarras. Dundee
had commanded a body of Scottish troops which had marched into England
to oppose the Dutch: but he had found, in the inglorious campaign which
had been fatal to the dynasty of Stuart, no opportunity of displaying the
courage and military skill which those who most detest his merciless nature
allow him to have possessed. He lay with his forces not far from Watford,
when he was informed that James had fled from Whitehall, and that
Feversham had ordered all the royal army to disband. The Scottish
regiments were thus left, without pay or provisions, in the midst of a foreign
and indeed a hostile nation. Dundee, it is said, wept with grief and rage.
Soon, however, more cheering intelligence arrived from various quarters.
William wrote a few lines to say that, if the Scots would remain quiet, he
would pledge his honour for their safety; and, some hours later, it was
known that James had returned to his capital. Dundee repaired instantly to
London, 281 There he met his friend Balcarras, who had just arrived from
Edinburgh. Balcarras, a man distinguished by his handsome person and by

his accomplishments, had, in his youth, affected the character of a patriot,
but had deserted the popular cause, had accepted a seat in the Privy
Council, had become a tool of Perth and Melfort, and bad been one of the
Commissioners who were appointed to execute the office of Treasurer when
Queensberry was disgraced for refusing to betray the interests of the
Protestant religion, 282
Dundee and Balcarras went together to Whitehall, and had the honour of
accompanying James in his last walk, up and down the Mall. He told them
that he intended to put his affairs in Scotland under their management.
"You, my Lord Balcarras, must undertake the civil business: and you, my
Lord Dundee, shall have a commission from me to command the troops."
The two noblemen vowed that they would prove themselves deserving of
his confidence, and disclaimed all thought of making their peace with the
Prince of Orange, 283
On the following day James left Whitehall for ever; and the Prince of
Orange arrived at Saint James's. Both Dundee and Balcarras swelled the
crowd which thronged to greet the deliverer, and were not ungraciously
received. Both were well known to him. Dundee had served under him on
the Continent; 284 and the first wife of Balcarras had been a lady of the
House of Orange, and had worn, on her wedding day, a superb pair of
emerald earrings, the gift of her cousin the Prince. 285
The Scottish Whigs, then assembled in great numbers at Westminster,
earnestly pressed William to proscribe by name four or five men who had,
during the evil times, borne a conspicuous part in the proceedings of the
Privy Council at Edinburgh. Dundee and Balcarras were particularly
mentioned. But the Prince had determined that, as far as his power
extended, all the past should be covered with a general amnesty, and
absolutely refused to make any declaration which could drive to despair
even the most guilty of his uncle's servants.
Balcarras went repeatedly to Saint James's, had several audiences of
William, professed deep respect for his Highness, and owned that King
James had committed great errors, but would not promise to concur in a
vote of deposition. William gave no sign of displeasure, but said at parting:
"Take care, my Lord, that you keep within the law; for, if you break it, you
must expect to be left to it." 286

Dundee seems to have been less ingenuous. He employed the mediation
of Burnet, opened a negotiation with Saint James's, declared himself willing
to acquiesce in the new order of things, obtained from William a promise of
protection, and promised in return to live peaceably. Such credit was given
to his professions that he was suffered to travel down to Scotland under the
escort of a troop of cavalry. Without such an escort the man of blood, whose
name was never mentioned but with a shudder at the hearth of any
Presbyterian family, would, at that conjuncture, have had but a perilous
journey through Berwickshire and the Lothians, 287
February was drawing to a close when Dundee and Balcarras reached
Edinburgh. They had some hope that they might be at the head of a majority
in the Convention. They therefore exerted themselves vigorously to
consolidate and animate their party. They assured the rigid royalists, who
had a scruple about sitting in an assembly convoked by an usurper, that the
rightful King particularly wished no friend of hereditary monarchy to be
absent. More than one waverer was kept steady by being assured in
confident terms that a speedy restoration was inevitable. Gordon had
determined to surrender the castle, and had begun to remove his furniture:
but Dundee and Balcarras prevailed on him to hold out some time longer.
They informed him that they had received from Saint Germains full powers
to adjourn the Convention to Stirling, and that, if things went ill at
Edinburgh, those powers would be used, 288
At length the fourteenth of March, the day fixed for the meeting of the
Estates, arrived, and the Parliament House was crowded. Nine prelates were
in their places. When Argyle presented himself, a single lord protested
against the admission of a person whom a legal sentence, passed in due
form, and still unreversed, had deprived of the honours of the peerage. But
this objection was overruled by the general sense of the assembly. When
Melville appeared, no voice was raised against his admission. The Bishop
of Edinburgh officiated as chaplain, and made it one of his petitions that
God would help and restore King James, 289 It soon appeared that the
general feeling of the Convention was by no means in harmony with this
prayer. The first matter to be decided was the choice of a President. The
Duke of Hamilton was supported by the Whigs, the Marquess of Athol by
the Jacobites. Neither candidate possessed, and neither deserved, the entire
confidence of his supporters. Hamilton had been a Privy Councillor of
James, had borne a part in many unjustifiable acts, and had offered but a

very cautious and languid opposition to the most daring attacks on the laws
and religion of Scotland. Not till the Dutch guards were at Whitehall had he
ventured to speak out. Then he had joined the victorious party, and had
assured the Whigs that he had pretended to be their enemy, only in order
that he might, without incurring suspicion, act as their friend. Athol was still
less to be trusted. His abilities were mean, his temper false, pusillanimous,
and cruel. In the late reign he had gained a dishonourable notoriety by the
barbarous actions of which he had been guilty in Argyleshire. He had turned
with the turn of fortune, and had paid servile court to the Prince of Orange,
but had been coldly received, and had now, from mere mortification, come
back to the party which he had deserted, 290 Neither of the rival noblemen
had chosen to stake the dignities and lands of his house on the issue of the
contention between the rival Kings. The eldest son of Hamilton had
declared for James, and the eldest son of Athol for William, so that, in any
event, both coronets and both estates were safe.
But in Scotland the fashionable notions touching political morality were
lax; and the aristocratical sentiment was strong. The Whigs were therefore
willing to forget that Hamilton had lately sate in the council of James. The
Jacobites were equally willing to forget that Athol had lately fawned on
William. In political inconsistency those two great lords were far indeed
from standing by themselves; but in dignity and power they had scarcely an
equal in the assembly. Their descent was eminently illustrious: their
influence was immense: one of them could raise the Western Lowlands: the
other could bring into the field an army of northern mountaineers. Round
these chiefs therefore the hostile factions gathered.
The votes were counted; and it appeared that Hamilton had a majority of
forty. The consequence was that about twenty of the defeated party instantly
passed over to the victors, 291 At Westminster such a defection would have
been thought strange; but it seems to have caused little surprise at
Edinburgh. It is a remarkable circumstance that the same country should
have produced in the same age the most wonderful specimens of both
extremes of human nature. No class of men mentioned in history has ever
adhered to a principle with more inflexible pertinacity than was found
among the Scotch Puritans. Fine and imprisonment, the sheers and the
branding iron, the boot, the thumbscrew, and the gallows could not extort
from the stubborn Covenanter one evasive word on which it was possible to
put a sense inconsistent with his theological system. Even in things

indifferent he would hear of no compromise; and he was but too ready to
consider all who recommended prudence and charity as traitors to the cause
of truth. On the other hand, the Scotchmen of that generation who made a
figure in the Parliament House and in the Council Chamber were the most
dishonest and unblushing timeservers that the world has ever seen. The
English marvelled alike at both classes. There were indeed many
stouthearted nonconformists in the South; but scarcely any who in
obstinacy, pugnacity, and hardihood could bear a comparison with the men
of the school of Cameron. There were many knavish politicians in the
South; but few so utterly destitute of morality, and still fewer so utterly
destitute of shame, as the men of the school of Lauderdale. Perhaps it is
natural that the most callous and impudent vice should be found in the near
neighbourhood of unreasonable and impracticable virtue. Where enthusiasts
are ready to destroy or to be destroyed for trifles magnified into importance
by a squeamish conscience, it is not strange that the very name of
conscience should become a byword of contempt to cool and shrewd men
of business.
The majority, reinforced by the crowd of deserters from the minority,
proceeded to name a Committee of Elections. Fifteen persons were chosen,
and it soon appeared that twelve of these were not disposed to examine
severely into the regularity of any proceeding of which the result had been
to send up a Whig to the Parliament House. The Duke of Hamilton is said to
have been disgusted by the gross partiality of his own followers, and to
have exerted himself, with but little success, to restrain their violence, 292
Before the Estates proceeded to deliberate on the business for which they
had met, they thought it necessary to provide for their own security. They
could not be perfectly at ease while the roof under which they sate was
commanded by the batteries of the Castle. A deputation was therefore sent
to inform Gordon that the Convention required him to evacuate the fortress
within twenty-four hours, and that, if he complied, his past conduct should
not be remembered against him. He asked a night for consideration. During
that night his wavering mind was confirmed by the exhortations of Dundee
and Balcarras. On the morrow he sent an answer drawn in respectful but
evasive terms. He was very far, he declared, from meditating harm to the
City of Edinburgh. Least of all could he harbour any thought of molesting
an august assembly which he regarded with profound reverence. He would
willingly give bond for his good behaviour to the amount of twenty

thousand pounds sterling. But he was in communication with the
government now established in England. He was in hourly expectation of
important despatches from that government; and, till they arrived, he should
not feel himself justified in resigning his command. These excuses were not
admitted. Heralds and trumpeters were sent to summon the Castle in form,
and to denounce the penalties of high treason against those who should
continue to occupy that fortress in defiance of the authority of the Estates.
Guards were at the same time posted to intercept all communication
between the garrison and the city, 293
Two days had been spent in these preludes; and it was expected that on
the third morning the great contest would begin. Meanwhile the population
of Edinburgh was in an excited state. It had been discovered that Dundee
had paid visits to the Castle; and it was believed that his exhortations had
induced the garrison to hold out. His old soldiers were known to be
gathering round him; and it might well be apprehended that he would make
some desperate attempt. He, on the other hand, had been informed that the
Western Covenanters who filled the cellars of the city had vowed
vengeance on him: and, in truth, when we consider that their temper was
singularly savage and implacable; that they had been taught to regard the
slaying of a persecutor as a duty; that no examples furnished by Holy Writ
had been more frequently held up to their admiration than Ehud stabbing
Eglon, and Samuel hewing Agag limb from limb; that they had never heard
any achievement in the history of their own country more warmly praised
by their favourite teachers than the butchery of Cardinal Beatoun and of
Archbishop Sharpe; we may well wonder that a man who had shed the
blood of the saints like water should have been able to walk the High Street
in safety during a single day. The enemy whom Dundee had most reason to
fear was a youth of distinguished courage and abilities named William
Cleland. Cleland had, when little more than sixteen years old, borne arms in
that insurrection which had been put down at Bothwell Bridge. He had
since disgusted some virulent fanatics by his humanity and moderation. But
with the great body of Presbyterians his name stood high. For with the strict
morality and ardent zeal of a Puritan he united some accomplishments of
which few Puritans could boast. His manners were polished, and his literary
and scientific attainments respectable. He was a linguist, mathematician,
and a poet. It is true that his hymns, odes, ballads, and Hudibrastic satires
are of very little intrinsic value; but, when it is considered that he was a

mere boy when most of them were written, it must be admitted that they
show considerable vigour of mind. He was now at Edinburgh: his influence
among the West Country Whigs assembled there was great: he hated
Dundee with deadly hatred, and was believed to be meditating some act of
violence, 294
On the fifteenth of March Dundee received information that some of the
Covenanters had bound themselves together to slay him and Sir George
Mackenzie, whose eloquence and learning, long prostituted to the service of
tyranny, had made him more odious to the Presbyterians than any other man
of the gown. Dundee applied to Hamilton for protection, and Hamilton
advised him to bring the matter under the consideration of the Convention
at the next sitting, 295
Before that sitting, a person named Crane arrived from France, with a
letter addressed by the fugitive King to the Estates. The letter was sealed:
the bearer, strange to say, was not furnished with a copy for the information
of the heads of the Jacobite party; nor did he bring any message, written or
verbal, to either of James's agents. Balcarras and Dundee were mortified by
finding that so little confidence was reposed in them, and were harassed by
painful doubts touching the contents of the document on which so much
depended. They were willing, however, to hope for the best. King James
could not, situated as he was, be so ill advised as to act in direct opposition
to the counsel and entreaties of his friends. His letter, when opened, must be
found to contain such gracious assurances as would animate the royalists
and conciliate the moderate Whigs. His adherents, therefore, determined
that it should be produced.
When the Convention reassembled on the morning of Saturday the
sixteenth of March, it was proposed that measures should be taken for the
personal security of the members. It was alleged that the life of Dundee had
been threatened; that two men of sinister appearance had been watching the
house where he lodged, and had been heard to say that they would use the
dog as he had used them. Mackenzie complained that he too was in danger,
and, with his usual copiousness and force of language, demanded the
protection of the Estates. But the matter was lightly treated by the majority:
and the Convention passed on to other business, 296
It was then announced that Crane was at the door of the Parliament
House. He was admitted. The paper of which he was in charge was laid on

the table. Hamilton remarked that there was, in the hands of the Earl of
Leven, a communication from the Prince by whose authority the Estates
had been convoked. That communication seemed to be entitled to
precedence. The Convention was of the same opinion; and the well weighed
and prudent letter of William was read.
It was then moved that the letter of James should be opened. The Whigs
objected that it might possibly contain a mandate dissolving the
Convention. They therefore proposed that, before the seal was broken, the
Estates should resolve to continue sitting, notwithstanding any such
mandate. The Jacobites, who knew no more than the Whigs what was in the
letter, and were impatient to have it read, eagerly assented. A vote was
passed by which the members bound themselves to consider any order
which should command them to separate as a nullity, and to remain
assembled till they should have accomplished the work of securing the
liberty and religion of Scotland. This vote was signed by almost all the lords
and gentlemen who were present. Seven out of nine bishops subscribed it.
The names of Dundee and Balcarras, written by their own hands, may still
be seen on the original roll. Balcarras afterwards excused what, on his
principles, was, beyond all dispute, a flagrant act of treason, by saying that
he and his friends had, from zeal for their master's interest, concurred in a
declaration of rebellion against their master's authority; that they had
anticipated the most salutary effects from the letter; and that, if they had not
made some concession to the majority, the letter would not have been
opened.
In a few minutes the hopes of Balcarras were grievously disappointed.
The letter from which so much had been hoped and feared was read with all
the honours which Scottish Parliaments were in the habit of paying to royal
communications: but every word carried despair to the hearts of the
Jacobites. It was plain that adversity had taught James neither wisdom nor
mercy. All was obstinacy, cruelty, insolence. A pardon was promised to
those traitors who should return to their allegiance within a fortnight.
Against all others unsparing vengeance was denounced. Not only was no
sorrow expressed for past offences: but the letter was itself a new offence:
for it was written and countersigned by the apostate Melfort, who was, by
the statutes of the realm, incapable of holding the office of Secretary, and
who was not less abhorred by the Protestant Tories than by the Whigs. The
hall was in a tumult. The enemies of James were loud and vehement. His

friends, angry with him, and ashamed of him, saw that it was vain to think
of continuing the struggle in the Convention. Every vote which had been
doubtful when his letter was unsealed was now irrecoverably lost. The
sitting closed in great agitation, 297
It was Saturday afternoon. There was to be no other meeting till Monday
morning. The Jacobite leaders held a consultation, and came to the
conclusion that it was necessary to take a decided step. Dundee and
Balcarras must use the powers with which they had been intrusted. The
minority must forthwith leave Edinburgh and assemble at Stirling. Athol
assented, and undertook to bring a great body of his clansmen from the
Highlands to protect the deliberations of the Royalist Convention. Every
thing was arranged for the secession; but, in a few hours, the tardiness of
one man and the haste of another ruined the whole plan.
The Monday came. The Jacobite lords and gentlemen were actually
taking horse for Stirling, when Athol asked for a delay of twenty-four
hours. He had no personal reason to be in haste. By staying he ran no risk of
being assassinated. By going he incurred the risks inseparable from civil
war. The members of his party, unwilling to separate from him, consented
to the postponement which he requested, and repaired once more to the
Parliament House. Dundee alone refused to stay a moment longer. His life
was in danger. The Convention had refused to protect him. He would not
remain to be a mark for the pistols and daggers of murderers. Balcarras
expostulated to no purpose. "By departing alone," he said, "you will give
the alarm and break up the whole scheme." But Dundee was obstinate.
Brave as he undoubtedly was, he seems, like many other brave men, to have
been less proof against the danger of assassination than against any other
form of danger. He knew what the hatred of the Covenanters was: he knew
how well he had earned their hatred; and he was haunted by that
consciousness of inexpiable guilt, and by that dread of a terrible retribution,
which the ancient polytheists personified under the awful name of the
Furies. His old troopers, the Satans and Beelzebubs who had shared his
crimes, and who now shared his perils, were ready to be the companions of
his flight.
Meanwhile the Convention had assembled. Mackenzie was on his legs,
and was pathetically lamenting the hard condition of the Estates, at once
commanded by the guns of a fortress and menaced by a fanatical rabble,

when he was interrupted by some sentinels who came running from the
posts near the Castle. They had seen Dundee at the head of fifty horse on
the Stirling road. That road ran close under the huge rock on which the
citadel is built. Gordon had appeared on the ramparts, and had made a sign
that he had something to say. Dundee had climbed high enough to hear and
to be heard, and was then actually conferring with the Duke. Up to that
moment the hatred with which the Presbyterian members of the assembly
regarded the merciless persecutor of their brethren in the faith had been
restrained by the decorous forms of parliamentary deliberation. But now the
explosion was terrible. Hamilton himself, who, by the acknowledgment of
his opponents, had hitherto performed the duties of President with gravity
and impartiality, was the loudest and fiercest man in the hall. "It is high
time," he cried, "that we [should find] the enemies of our religion and of our
civil freedom are mustering all around us; and we may well suspect that
they have accomplices even here. Lock the doors. Lay the keys on the table.
Let nobody go out but those lords and gentlemen whom we shall appoint to
call the citizens to arms. There are some good men from the West in
Edinburgh, men for whom I can answer." The assembly raised a general cry
of assent. Several members of the majority boasted that they too had
brought with them trusty retainers who would turn out at a moment's notice
against Claverhouse and his dragoons. All that Hamilton proposed was
instantly done. The Jacobites, silent and unresisting, became prisoners.
Leven went forth and ordered the drums to beat. The Covenanters of
Lanarkshire and Ayrshire promptly obeyed the signal. The force thus
assembled had indeed no very military appearance, but was amply
sufficient to overawe the adherents of the House of Stuart. From Dundee
nothing was to be hoped or feared. He had already scrambled down the
Castle hill, rejoined his troopers, and galloped westward. Hamilton now
ordered the doors to be opened. The suspected members were at liberty to
depart. Humbled and brokenspirited, yet glad that they had come off so
well, they stole forth through the crowd of stern fanatics which filled the
High Street. All thought of secession was at an end, 298
On the following day it was resolved that the kingdom should be put into
a posture of defence. The preamble of this resolution contained a severe
reflection on the perfidy of the traitor who, within a few hours after he had,
by an engagement subscribed with his own hand, bound himself not to quit
his post in the Convention, had set the example of desertion, and given the

signal of civil war. All Protestants, from sixteen to sixty, were ordered to
hold themselves in readiness to assemble in arms at the first summons; and,
that none might pretend ignorance, it was directed that the edict should be
proclaimed at all the market crosses throughout the realm, 299
The Estates then proceeded to send a letter of thanks to William. To this
letter were attached the signatures of many noblemen and gentlemen who
were in the interest of the banished King. The Bishops however
unanimously refused to subscribe their names.
It had long been the custom of the Parliaments of Scotland to entrust the
preparation of Acts to a select number of members who were designated as
the Lords of the Articles. In conformity with this usage, the business of
framing a plan for the settling of the government was now confided to a
Committee of twenty-four. Of the twenty-four eight were peers, eight
representatives of counties, and eight representatives of towns. The majority
of the Committee were Whigs; and not a single prelate had a seat.
The spirit of the Jacobites, broken by a succession of disasters, was,
about this time, for a moment revived by the arrival of the Duke of
Queensberry from London. His rank was high and his influence was great:
his character, by comparison with the characters of those who surrounded
him, was fair. When Popery was in the ascendent, he had been true to the
cause of the Protestant Church; and, since Whiggism had been in the
ascendent, he had been true to the cause of hereditary monarchy. Some
thought that, if he had been earlier in his place, he might have been able to
render important service to the House of Stuart, 300 Even now the stimulants
which he applied to his torpid and feeble party produced some faint
symptoms of returning animation. Means were found of communicating
with Gordon; and he was earnestly solicited to fire on the city. The
Jacobites hoped that, as soon as the cannon balls had beaten down a few
chimneys, the Estates would adjourn to Glasgow. Time would thus be
gained; and the royalists might be able to execute their old project of
meeting in a separate convention. Gordon however positively refused to
take on himself so grave a responsibility on no better warrant than the
request of a small cabal, 301
By this time the Estates had a guard on which they could rely more
firmly than on the undisciplined and turbulent Covenanters of the West. A
squadron of English men of war from the Thames had arrived in the Frith of

Forth. On board were the three Scottish regiments which had accompanied
William from Holland. He had, with great judgment, selected them to
protect the assembly which was to settle the government of their country;
and, that no cause of jealousy might be given to a people exquisitely
sensitive on points of national honour, he had purged the ranks of all Dutch
soldiers, and had thus reduced the number of men to about eleven hundred.
This little force was commanded by Andrew Mackay, a Highlander of noble
descent, who had served long on the Continent, and who was distinguished
by courage of the truest temper, and by a piety such as is seldom found in
soldiers of fortune. The Convention passed a resolution appointing Mackay
general of their forces. When the question was put on this resolution, the
Archbishop of Glasgow, unwilling doubtless to be a party to such an
usurpation of powers which belonged to the King alone, begged that the
prelates might be excused from voting. Divines, he said, had nothing to do
with military arrangements. "The Fathers of the Church," answered a
member very keenly, "have been lately favoured with a new light. I have
myself seen military orders signed by the Most Reverend person who has
suddenly become so scrupulous. There was indeed one difference: those
orders were for dragooning Protestants, and the resolution before us is
meant to protect us from Papists." 302
The arrival of Mackay's troops, and the determination of Gordon to
remain inactive, quelled the spirit of the Jacobites. They had indeed one
chance left. They might possibly, by joining with those Whigs who were
bent on an union with England, have postponed during a considerable time
the settlement of the government. A negotiation was actually opened with
this view, but was speedily broken off. For it soon appeared that the party
which was for James was really hostile to the union, and that the party
which was for the union was really hostile to James. As these two parties
had no object in common, the only effect of a coalition between them must
have been that one of them would have become the tool of the other. The
question of the union therefore was not raised, 303 Some Jacobites retired to
their country seats: others, though they remained at Edinburgh, ceased to
show themselves in the Parliament House: many passed over to the winning
side; and, when at length the resolutions prepared by the Twenty Four were
submitted to the Convention, it appeared that the party which on the first
day of the session had rallied round Athol had dwindled away to nothing.

The resolutions had been framed, as far as possible, in conformity with
the example recently set at Westminster. In one important point, however, it
was absolutely necessary that the copy should deviate from the original.
The Estates of England had brought two charges against James, his
misgovernment and his flight, and had, by using the soft word
"Abdication," evaded, with some sacrifice of verbal precision, the question
whether subjects may lawfully depose a bad prince. That question the
Estates of Scotland could not evade. They could not pretend that James had
deserted his post. For he had never, since he came to the throne, resided in
Scotland. During many years that kingdom had been ruled by sovereigns
who dwelt in another land. The whole machinery of the administration had
been constructed on the supposition that the King would be absent, and was
therefore not necessarily deranged by that flight which had, in the south of
the island, dissolved all government, and suspended the ordinary course of
justice. It was only by letter that the King could, when he was at Whitehall,
communicate with the Council and the Parliament at Edinburgh; and by
letter he could communicate with them when he was at Saint Germains or at
Dublin. The Twenty Four were therefore forced to propose to the Estates a
resolution distinctly declaring that James the Seventh had by his
misconduct forfeited the crown. Many writers have inferred from the
language of this resolution that sound political principles had made a
greater progress in Scotland than in England. But the whole history of the
two countries from the Restoration to the Union proves this inference to be
erroneous. The Scottish Estates used plain language, simply because it was
impossible for them, situated as they were, to use evasive language.
The person who bore the chief part in framing the resolution, and in
defending it, was Sir John Dalrymple, who had recently held the high office
of Lord Advocate, and had been an accomplice in some of the misdeeds
which he now arraigned with great force of reasoning and eloquence. He
was strenuously supported by Sir James Montgomery, member for Ayrshire,
a man of considerable abilities, but of loose principles, turbulent temper,
insatiable cupidity, and implacable malevolence. The Archbishop of
Glasgow and Sir George Mackenzie spoke on the other side: but the only
effect of their oratory was to deprive their party of the advantage of being
able to allege that the Estates were under duress, and that liberty of speech
had been denied to the defenders of hereditary monarchy.

When the question was put, Athol, Queensberry, and some of their
friends withdrew. Only five members voted against the resolution which
pronounced that James had forfeited his right to the allegiance of his
subjects. When it was moved that the Crown of Scotland should be settled
as the Crown of England had been settled, Athol and Queensberry
reappeared in the hall. They had doubted, they said, whether they could
justifiably declare the throne vacant. But, since it had been declared vacant,
they felt no doubt that William and Mary were the persons who ought to fill
it.
The Convention then went forth in procession to the High Street. Several
great nobles, attended by the Lord Provost of the capital and by the heralds,
ascended the octagon tower from which rose the city cross surmounted by
the unicorn of Scotland, 304 Hamilton read the vote of the Convention; and
a King at Arms proclaimed the new Sovereigns with sound of trumpet. On
the same day the Estates issued an order that the parochial clergy should, on
pain of deprivation, publish from their pulpits the proclamation which had
just been read at the city cross, and should pray for King William and
Queen Mary.
Still the interregnum was not at an end. Though the new Sovereigns had
been proclaimed, they had not yet been put into possession of the royal
authority by a formal tender and a formal acceptance. At Edinburgh, as at
Westminster, it was thought necessary that the instrument which settled the
government should clearly define and solemnly assert those privileges of
the people which the Stuarts had illegally infringed. A Claim of Right was
therefore drawn up by the Twenty Four, and adopted by the Convention. To
this Claim, which purported to be merely declaratory of the law as it stood,
was added a supplementary paper containing a list of grievances which
could be remedied only by new laws. One most important article which we
should naturally expect to find at the head of such a list, the Convention,
with great practical prudence, but in defiance of notorious facts and of
unanswerable arguments, placed in the Claim of Right. Nobody could deny
that prelacy was established by Act of Parliament. The power exercised by
the Bishops might be pernicious, unscriptural, antichristian but illegal it
certainly was not; and to pronounce it illegal was to outrage common sense.
The Whig leaders however were much more desirous to get rid of
episcopacy than to prove themselves consummate publicists and logicians.
If they made the abolition of episcopacy an article of the contract by which