to the spirit of its own mild laws, were solemnly affirmed. All these things the Convention claimed, in the name of the whole nation, as the undoubted inheritance of Englishmen. Having thus vindicated the principles of the constitution, the Lords and Commons, in the entire confidence that the deliverer would hold sacred the laws and liberties which he had saved, resolved that William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, should be declared King and Queen of England for their joint and separate lives, and that, during their joint lives, the administration of the government should be in the Prince alone. After them the crown was settled on the posterity of Mary, then on Anne and her posterity, and then on the posterity of William.
By this time the wind had ceased to blow from the west. The ship in which the Princess of Orange had embarked lay off Margate on the eleventh of February, and, on the following morning, anchored at Greenwich.672 She was received with many signs of joy and affection: but her demeanour shocked the Tories, and was not thought faultless even by the Whigs. A young woman, placed, by a destiny as mournful and awful as that which brooded over the fabled houses of Labdacus and Pelops, in such a situation that she could not, without violating her duty to her God, her husband, and her country, refuse to take her seat on the throne from which her father had just been hurled, should have been sad, or at least serious. Mary was not merely in high, but in extravagant, spirits. She entered Whitehall, it was asserted, with a girlish delight at being mistress of so fine a house, ran about the rooms, peeped into the closets, and examined the quilt of the state bed, without seeming to remember by whom those magnificent apartments had last been occupied. Burnet, who had, till then, thought her an angel in human form, could not, on this occasion, refrain from blaming her. He was the more astonished because, when he took leave of her at the Hague, she had, though fully convinced that she was in the path of duty, been deeply dejected. To him, as to her spiritual guide, she afterwards explained her conduct. William had written to inform her that some of those who had tried to separate her interest from his still continued their machinations: they gave it out that she thought herself wronged; and, if she wore a gloomy countenance, the report would be confirmed. He therefore intreated her to make her first appearance with an air of cheerfulness. Her heart, she said, was far indeed from cheerful; but she had done her best; and, as she was afraid of not sustaining well a part which was uncongenial to her feelings, she had overacted it. Her deportment was the subject of reams of scurrility in prose and verse: it lowered her in the opinion of some whose esteem she valued; nor did the world know, till she was beyond the reach of praise and censure, that the conduct which had brought on her the reproach of levity and insensibility was really a signal instance of that perfect disinterestedness and selfdevotion of which man seems to be incapable, but which is sometimes found in woman.673
On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of February, the court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets were filled with gazers. The magnificent Banqueting House, the masterpiece of Inigo, embellished by masterpieces of Rubens, had been prepared for a great ceremony. The walls were lined by the yeomen of the guard. Near the northern door, on the right hand, a large number of Peers had assembled. On the left were the Commons with their Speaker, attended by the mace. The southern door opened: and the Prince and Princess of Orange, side by side, entered, and took their place under the canopy of state.
Both Houses approached bowing low. William and Mary advanced a few steps. Halifax on the right, and Powle on the left, stood forth; and Halifax spoke. The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution which he prayed Their Highnesses to hear. They signified their assent; and the clerk of the House of Lords read, in a loud voice, the Declaration of Right. When he had concluded, Halifax, in the name of all the Estates of the Realm, requested the Prince and Princess to accept the crown.
William, in his own name and in that of his wife, answered that the crown was, in their estimation, the more valuable because it was presented to them as a token of the confidence of the nation. “We thankfully accept,” he said, “what you have offered us.” Then, for himself, he assured them that the laws of England, which he had once already vindicated, should be the rules of his conduct, that it should be his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom, and that, as to the means of doing so, he should constantly recur to the advice of the Houses, and should be disposed to trust their judgment rather than his own.674 These words were received with a shout of joy which was heard in the streets below, and was instantly answered by huzzas from many thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired from the Banqueting House and went in procession to the great gate of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads. The kettle drums struck up; the trumpets pealed: and Garter King at arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen of England, charged all Englishmen to pay, from that moment, faith and true allegiance to the new sovereigns, and besought God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our Church and nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign.675
Thus was consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with those revolutions which have, during the last sixty years, overthrown so many ancient governments, we cannot but be struck by its peculiar character. Why that character was so peculiar is sufficiently obvious, and yet seems not to have been always understood either by eulogists or by censors.
The continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took place in countries where all trace of the limited monarchy of the middle ages had long been effaced. The right of the prince to make laws and to levy money had, during many generations, been undisputed. His throne was guarded by a great regular army. His administration could not, without extreme peril, be blamed even in the mildest terms. His subjects held their personal liberty by no other tenure than his pleasure. Not a single institution was left which had, within the memory of the oldest man, afforded efficient protection to the subject against the utmost excess of tyranny. Those great councils which had once curbed the regal power had sunk into oblivion. Their composition and their privileges were known only to antiquaries. We cannot wonder, therefore, that, when men who had been thus ruled succeeded in wresting supreme power from a government which they had long in secret hated, they should have been impatient to demolish and unable to construct, that they should have been fascinated by every specious novelty, that they should have proscribed every title, ceremony, and phrase associated with the old system, and that, turning away with disgust from their own national precedents and traditions, they should have sought for principles of government in the writings of theorists, or aped, with ignorant and ungraceful affectation, the patriots of Athens and Rome. As little can we wonder that the violent action of the revolutionary spirit should have been followed by reaction equally violent, and that confusion should speedily have engendered despotism sterner than that from which it had sprung.
Had we been in the same situation; had Strafford succeeded in his favourite scheme of Thorough; had he formed an army as numerous and as well disciplined as that which, a few years later, was formed by Cromwell; had a series of judicial decisions, similar to that which was pronounced by the Exchequer Chamber in the case of shipmoney, transferred to the crown the right of taxing the people; had the Star Chamber and the High Commission continued to fine, mutilate, and imprison every man who dared to raise his voice against the government; had the press been as completely enslaved here as at Vienna or at Naples; had our Kings gradually drawn to themselves the whole legislative power; had six generations of Englishmen passed away without a single session of parliament; and had we then at length risen up in some moment of wild excitement against our masters, what an outbreak would that have been! With what a crash, heard and felt to the farthest ends of the world, would the whole vast fabric of society have fallen! How many thousands of exiles, once the most prosperous and the most refined members of this great community, would have begged their bread in continental cities, or have sheltered their heads under huts of bark in the uncleared forests of America! How often should we have seen the pavement of London piled up in barricades, the houses dinted with bullets, the gutters foaming with blood! How many times should we have rushed wildly from extreme to extreme, sought refuge from anarchy in despotism, and been again driven by despotism into anarchy! How many years of blood and confusion would it have cost us to learn the very rudiments of political science! How many childish theories would have duped us! How many rude and ill poised constitutions should we have set up, only to see them tumble down! Happy would it have been for us if a sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate us into a capacity of enjoying true freedom.
These calamities our Revolution averted. It was a revolution strictly defensive, and had prescription and legitimacy on its side. Here, and here only, a limited monarchy of the thirteenth century had come down unimpaired to the seventeenth century. Our parliamentary institutions were in full vigour. The main principles of our government were excellent. They were not, indeed, formally and exactly set forth in a single written instrument; but they were to be found scattered over our ancient and noble statutes; and, what was of far greater moment, they had been engraven on the hearts of Englishmen during four hundred years. That, without the consent of the representatives of the nation, no legislative act could be passed, no tax imposed, no regular soldiery kept up, that no man could be imprisoned, even for a day, by the arbitrary will of the sovereign, that no tool of power could plead the royal command as a justification for violating any right of the humblest subject, were held, both by Whigs and Tories, to be fundamental laws of the realm. A realm of which these were the fundamental laws stood in no need of a new constitution.
But, though a new constitution was not needed, it was plain that changes were required. The misgovernment of the Stuarts, and the troubles which that misgovernment had produced, sufficiently proved that there was somewhere a defect in our polity; and that defect it was the duty of the Convention to discover and to supply.
Some questions of great moment were still open to dispute. Our constitution had begun to exist in times when statesmen were not much accustomed to frame exact definitions. Anomalies, therefore, inconsistent with its principles and dangerous to its very existence, had sprung up almost imperceptibly, and, not having, during many years, caused any serious inconvenience, had gradually acquired the force of prescription. The remedy for these evils was to assert the rights of the people in such language as should terminate all controversy, and to declare that no precedent could justify any violation of those rights.
When this had been done it would be impossible for our rulers to misunderstand the law: but, unless something more were done, it was by no means improbable that they might violate it. Unhappily the Church had long taught the nation that hereditary monarchy, alone among our institutions, was divine and inviolable; that the right of the House of Commons to a share in the legislative power was a right merely human, but that the right of the King to the obedience of his people was from above; that the Great Charter was a statute which might be repealed by those who had made it, but that the rule which called the princes of the blood royal to the throne in order of succession was of celestial origin, and that any Act of Parliament inconsistent with that rule was a nullity. It is evident that, in a society in which such superstitions prevail, constitutional freedom must ever be insecure. A power which is regarded merely as the ordinance of man cannot be an efficient check on a power which is regarded as the ordinance of God. It is vain to hope that laws, however excellent, will permanently restrain a King who, in his own opinion, and in that of a great part of his people, has an authority infinitely higher in kind than the authority which belongs to those laws. To deprive royalty of these mysterious attributes, and to establish the principle that Kings reigned by a right in no respect differing from the right by which freeholders chose knights of the shire, or from the right by which judges granted writs of Habeas Corpus, was absolutely necessary to the security of our liberties.
Thus the Convention had two great duties to perform. The first was to clear the fundamental laws of the realm from ambiguity. The second was to eradicate from the minds, both of the governors and of the governed, the false and pernicious notion that the royal prerogative was something more sublime and holy than those fundamental laws. The former object was attained by the solemn recital and claim with which the Declaration of Right commences; the latter by the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it.
The change seems small. Not a single flower of the crown was touched. Not a single new right was given to the people. The whole English law, substantive and adjective, was, in the judgment of all the greatest lawyers, of Holt and Treby, of Maynard and Somers, exactly the same after the Revolution as before it. Some controverted points had been decided according to the sense of the best jurists; and there had been a slight deviation from the ordinary course of succession. This was all; and this was enough.
As our Revolution was a vindication of ancient rights, so it was conducted with strict attention to ancient formalities. In almost every word and act may be discerned a profound reverence for the past. The Estates of the Realm deliberated in the old halls and according to the old rules. Powle was conducted to his chair between his mover and his seconder with the accustomed forms. The Serjeant with his mace brought up the messengers of the Lords to the table of the Commons; and the three obeisances were duly made. The conference was held with all the antique ceremonial. On one side of the table, in the Painted Chamber, the managers of the Lords sate covered and robed in ermine and gold. The managers of the Commons stood bareheaded on the other side. The speeches present an almost ludicrous contrast to the revolutionary oratory of every other country. Both the English parties agreed in treating with solemn respect the ancient constitutional traditions of the state. The only question was, in what sense those traditions were to be understood. The assertors of liberty said not a word about the natural equality of men and the inalienable sovereignty of the people, about Harmodius or Timoleon, Brutus the elder or Brutus the younger. When they were told that, by the English law, the crown, at the moment of a demise, must descend to the next heir, they answered that, by the English law, a living man could have no heir. When they were told that there was no precedent for declaring the throne vacant, they produced from among the records in the Tower a roll of parchment, near three hundred years old, on which, in quaint characters and barbarous Latin, it was recorded that the Estates of the Realm had declared vacant the throne of a perfidious and tyrannical Plantagenet. When at length the dispute had been accommodated, the new sovereigns were proclaimed with the old pageantry. All the fantastic pomp of heraldry was there, Clarencieux and Norroy, Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, the trumpets, the banners, the grotesque coats embroidered with lions and lilies. The title of King of France, assumed by the conqueror of Cressy, was not omitted in the royal style. To us, who have lived in the year 1848, it may seem almost an abuse of terms to call a proceeding, conducted with so much deliberation, with so much sobriety, and with such minute attention to prescriptive etiquette, by the terrible name of Revolution.
And yet this revolution, of all revolutions the least violent, has been of all revolutions the most beneficent. It finally decided the great question whether the popular element which had, ever since the age of Fitzwalter and De Montfort, been found in the English polity, should be destroyed by the monarchical element, or should be suffered to develope itself freely, and to become dominant. The strife between the two principles had been long, fierce, and doubtful. It had lasted through four reigns. It had produced seditions, impeachments, rebellions, battles, sieges, proscriptions, judicial massacres. Sometimes liberty, sometimes royalty, had seemed to be on the point of perishing. During many years one half of the energy of England had been employed in counteracting the other half. The executive power and the legislative power had so effectually impeded each other that the state had been of no account in Europe. The King at Arms, who proclaimed William and Mary before Whitehall Gate, did in truth announce that this great struggle was over; that there was entire union between the throne and the Parliament; that England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power of the first rank; that the ancient laws by which the prerogative was bounded would henceforth be held as sacred as the prerogative itself, and would be followed out to all their consequences; that the executive administration would be conducted in conformity with the sense of the representatives of the nation; and that no reform, which the two Houses should, after mature deliberation, propose, would be obstinately withstood by the sovereign. The Declaration of Right, though it made nothing law which had not been law before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to the Dissenter, of the law which secured the independence of the judges, of the law which limited the duration of Parliaments, of the law which placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries, of the law which prohibited the slave trade, of the law which abolished the sacramental test, of the law which relieved the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities, of the law which reformed the representative system, of every good law which has been passed during a hundred and sixty years, of every good law which may hereafter, in the course of ages, be found necessary to promote the public weal, and to satisfy the demands of public opinion.
The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last revolution. Several generations have now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has meditated resistance to the established government. In all honest and reflecting minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the means of effecting every improvement which the constitution requires may be found within the constitution itself.
Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proudest capitals of Western Europe have streamed with civil blood. All evil passions, the thirst of gain and the thirst of vengeance, the antipathy of class to class, the antipathy of race to race, have broken loose from the control of divine and human laws. Fear and anxiety have clouded the faces and depressed the hearts of millions. Trade has been suspended, and industry paralysed. The rich have become poor; and the poor have become poorer. Doctrines hostile to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry, to all domestic charities, doctrines which, if carried into effect, would, in thirty years, undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind, and would make the fairest provinces of France and Germany as savage as Congo or Patagonia, have been avowed from the tribune and defended by the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjugation by barbarians, compared with whom the barbarians who marched under Attila and Alboin were enlightened and humane. The truest friends of the people have with deep sorrow owned that interests more precious than any political privileges were in jeopardy, and that it might be necessary to sacrifice even liberty in order to save civilisation. Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And, if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our houses, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.
FN 1 Avaux Neg., Aug. 6/16 1685; Despatch of Citters and his colleagues, enclosing the treaty, Aug. Lewis to Barillon, Aug. 14/24.
FN 2 Instructions headed, “For my son the Prince of Wales, 1692,” in the Stuart Papers.
FN 3 “The Habeas Corpus,” said Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories, to Boswell, “is the single advantage which our government has over that of other countries;” and T. B. Macaulay is the most bigoted of Whigs in his own country, but left his whiggism at home when he went to India.
FN 4 See the Historical Records of Regiments, published under the supervision of the Adjutant General.
FN 5 Barillon, Dec. 3/13 1685. He had studied the subject much. “C’est un detail,” he says, “dont j’ai connoissance.” it appears from the Treasury Warrant Book that the charge of the army for the year 1687 was first of January at 623,104l. 9s. 11d.
FN 6 Burnet, i. 447.
FN 7 Tillotson’s Sermon, preached before the House of Commons, Nov. 5. 1678.
FN 8 Locke, First Letter on Toleration.
FN 9 Council Book. The erasure is dated Oct. 21. 1685. Halifax to Chesterfield; Barillon, Oct. 19/29.
FN 10 Barillon, Oct. 26/Nov. 5. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, Oct. 27 / Nov. 6. Nov. 6/16.
FN 11 There is a remarkable account of the first appearance of the symptoms of discontent among the Tories in a letter of Halifax to Chesterfield, written in October, 1685. Burnet, i. 684.
FN 12 The contemporary tracts in various languages on the subject of this persecution are innumerable. An eminently clear, terse, and spirited summary will be found in Voltaire’s Siecle de Louis XIV.
FN 13 “Misionarios embotados,” says Ronquillo. “Apostoli armati,” says Innocent. There is, in the Mackintosh Collection, a remarkable letter on this subject from Ronquillo, dated March 26./April 5. 1686 See Venier, Relatione di Francia, 1689, quoted by Professor Ranke in his Romische Papste, book viii.
FN 14 “Mi dicono che tutti questi parlamentarii no hanno voluto copia, il che assolutamente avra causate pessime impressioni.”– Adda, Nov. 9/13. 1685. See Evelyn’s Diary, Nov. 3.
FN 15 Lords’ Journals, Nov. 9. 1685. “Vengo assicurato,” says Adda, “che S. M. stessa abbia composto il discorso.”–Despatch of Nov. 16/26 1685.
FN 16 Commons’ Journals; Bramston’s Memoirs; James von Leeuwen to the States General, Nov. 10/20 1685. Leeuwen was secretary of the Dutch embassy, and conducted the correspondence in the absence of Citters. As to Clarges, see Burnet, i. 98.
FN 17 Barillon, Nov. 16/26. 1685.
FN 18 Dodd’s Church History, Leeuwen, Nov. 17/27 1685; Barillon, Dec. 24. 1685. Barillon says of Adda, “On l’avoit fait prevenir que la surete et l’avantage des Catholiques consistoient dans une reunion entiere de sa Majeste Britannique et de son parlement.” Letters of Innocent to James, dated July 27/Aug. 8 and Sept. 23 / Oct. 3. 1685; Despatches of Adda, Nov. 9/19. and Nov. 1685. The very interesting correspondence of Adda, copied from the Papal archives, is in the British Museum; Additional MSS. No. 15395.
FN 19 The most remarkable despatch bears date the 9/19th of November 1685, and will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox’s History.
FN 20 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 12. 1685; Leeuwen, Nov.; Barillon, Nov. 16/26.; Sir John Bramston’s Memoirs. The best report of the debates of the Commons in November, 1685, is one of which the history is somewhat curious. There are two manuscript copies of it in the British Museum, Harl. 7187.; Lans. 253. In these copies the names of the speakers are given at length. The author of the Life of James published in 1702 transcribed this report, but gave only the initials, of the speakers. The editors of Chandler’s Debates and of the Parliamentary History guessed from these initials at the names, and sometimes guessed wrong. They ascribe to Wailer a very remarkable speech, which will hereafter be mentioned, and which was really made by Windham, member for Salisbury. It was with some concern that I found myself forced to give up the belief that the last words uttered in public by Waller were so honourable to him.
FN 21 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 13. 1685; Bramston’s Memoirs; Reresby’s Memoirs; Barillon, Nov. 16/26.; Leeuwen, Nov. 13/23.; Memoirs of Sir Stephen Fox, 1717; The Case of the Church of England fairly stated; Burnet, i. 666. and Speaker Onslow’s note.
FN 22 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 1685; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS.
FN 23 The conflict of testimony on this subject is most extraordinary; and, after long consideration, I must own that the balance seems to me to be exactly poised. In the Life of James (1702), the motion is represented as a court motion. This account is confirmed by a remarkable passage in the Stuart Papers, which was corrected by the Pretender himself. (Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 55.) On the other hand, Reresby, who was present, and Barillon, who ought to have been well informed, represent the motion as an opposition motion. The Harleian and Lansdowne manuscripts differ in the single word on which the whole depends. Unfortunately Bramston was not at the House that day. James Van Leeuwen mentions the motion and the division, but does not add a word which can throw the smallest light on the state of parties. I must own myself unable to draw with confidence any inference from the names of the tellers, Sir Joseph Williamson and Sir Francis Russell for the majority, and Lord Ancram and Sir Henry Goodricke for the minority. I should have thought Lord Ancram likely to go with the court, and Sir Henry Goodricke likely to go with the opposition.
FN 24 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 16. 1685 Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS. 235.
FN 25 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 17, 18. 1685.
FN 26 Commons’ Journals, Nov. 18. 1685; Harl. MS. 7187.; Lans. MS. 253.; Burnet, i. 667.
FN 27 Lonsdale’s Memoirs. Burnet tells us (i. 667.) that a sharp debate about elections took place in the House of Commons after Coke’s committal. It must therefore have been on the 19th of November; for Coke was committed late on the 18th, and the Parliament was prorogued on the 20th. Burnet’s narrative is confirmed by the Journals, from which it appears that several elections were under discussion on the 19th.
FN 28 Burnet, i. 560.; Funeral Sermon of the Duke of Devonshire, preached by Kennet, 1708; Travels of Cosmo III. in England.
FN 29 Bramston’s Memoirs. Burnet is incorrect both as to the time when the remark was made and as to the person who made it. In Halifax’s Letter to a Dissenter will be found a remarkable allusion to this discussion.
FN 30 Wood, Ath. Ox.; Gooch’s Funeral Sermon on Bishop Compton.
FN 31 Teonge’s Diary.
FN 32 Barillon has given the best account of this debate. I will extract his report of Mordaunt’s speech. “Milord Mordaunt, quoique jeune, parla avec eloquence et force. Il dit que la question n’etoit pas reduite, comme la Chambre des Communes le pretendoit, a guerir des jalousies et defiances, qui avoient lieu dans les choses incertaines; mais que ce qui ce passoit ne l’etoit pas, qu’il y avoit une armee sur pied qui subsistoit, et qui etoit remplie d’officiers Catholiques, qui ne pouvoit etre conservee que pour le renversement des loix, et que la subsistance de l’armee, quand il n’y a aucune guerre ni au dedans ni au dehors, etoit l’etablissement du gouvernement arbitraire, pour lequel les Anglois ont une aversion si bien fondee.”
FN 33 He was very easily moved to tears. “He could not,” says the author of the Panegyric, “refrain from weeping on bold affronts.” And again “They talk of his hectoring and proud carriage; what could be more humble than for a man in his great post to cry and sob?” In the answer to the Panegyric it is said that “his having no command of his tears spoiled him for a hypocrite.”
FN 34 Lords’ Journals, Nov. 19. 1685; Barillon, Nov. 23 / Dec. 3. Dutch Despatch, Nov. 20/30.; Luttrell’s Diary, Nov. 19.; Burnet, i. 665. The closing speeds of Halifax is mentioned by the Nuncio in his despatch of Nov. 16/26. Adda, about a month later, hears strong testimony to Halifax’s powers,
“Da questo uomo che ha gran credito nel parlamento, e grande eloquenza, non si possono attendere che fiere contradizioni, e nel parlito Regio non vi e un uomo da contrapporsi.” Dec. 21/31.
FN 35 Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, Nov. 20. 1685.
FN 36 Lords’ Journals, Nov. 11. 17, 18. 1685.
FN 37 Burnet i, 646.
FN 38 Bramston’s Memoirs; Luttrell’s Diary.
FN 39 The trial in the Collection of State Trials; Bramston’s Memoirs Burnet, 1. 647.; Lords’ Journals, Dec. 20. 1689.
FN 40 Lords’ Journals, Nov. 9, to. 16. 1685.
FN 41 Speech on the Corruption of the Judges in Lord Delamere’s works, 1694.
FN 42 Fu una funzione piena di gravita, di ordine, e di gran speciosita. Adda, Jan. 15/25. 1686.
FN 43 The Trial is in the Collection of State Trials. Leeuwen, Jan. 15/25. 19/29. 1686.
FN 44 Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Jan. 15. 1686.
FN 45 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 10/20 1685/6.
FN 46 Evelyn’s Diary, Oct. 2. 1685.
FN 47 Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 9., Orig. Mem.
FN 48 Leeuwen, Jan. 1/11 and 12/22 1686. Her letter, though very long and very absurd, was thought worth sending to the States General as a sign of the times.
FN 49 See his trial in the Collection of State Trials, and his curious manifesto, printed in 1681.
FN 50 Memoires de Grammont; Pepys’s Diary, Aug. 19. 1662. Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Feb. 1/11 1686.
FN 51 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Feb. 1/11. 1686.
FN 52 Memoires de Grammont; Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon; Correspondence of Henry, Earl of Clarendon, passim, particularly the letter dated Dec. 29. 1685; Sheridan MS. among the Stuart Papers; Ellis Correspondence, Jan. 12. 1686.
FN 53 See his later correspondence, passim; St. Evremond, passim; Madame de Sevigne’s Letters in the beginning of 1689. See also the instructions to Tallard after the peace of Ryswick, in the French Archives.
FN 54 St. Simon, Memoires, 1697, 1719; St. Evremond; La Fontaine; Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Jan. 28/Feb. 6, Feb. 8/18. 1686.
FN 55 Adda, Nov. 16/26, Dec. 7/17. and Dec. 21/31. 1685. In these despatches Adda gives strong reasons for compromising matters by abolishing the penal laws and leaving the test. He calls the quarrel with the Parliament a “gran disgrazia.” He repeatedly hints that the King might, by a constitutional policy, have obtained much for the Roman Catholics, and that the attempt to relieve them illegally is likely to bring great calamities on them.
FN 56 Fra Paulo, tib. vii.; Pallavicino, lib. xviii. cap. 15.
FN 57 This was the practice of his daughter Anne; and Marlborough said that she had learned it from her father–Vindication of the Duchess of Marlborough.
FN 58 Down to the time of the trial of the Bishops, James went on telling Adda that all the calamities of Charles the First were “per la troppa indulgenza.”–Despatch of 1688.
FN 59 Barillon, Nov. 16/26. 1685; Lewis to Barillon, Nov. 28/Dec. 6. 26. In a highly curious paper which was written in 1687, almost certainly by Bonrepaux, and which is now in the French archives, Sunderland is described thus-“La passion qu’il a pour le jeu, et les pertes considerables quil y fait, incommodent fort ses affaires. Il n’aime pas le vin; et il hait les femmes.”
FN 60 It appears from the Council Book that he took his place as president on the 4th of December, 1685.
FN 61 Bonrepaux was not so easily deceived as James. “En son particulier il (Sunderland) n’en professe aucune (religion), et en parle fort librement. Ces sortes de discours seroient en execration en France. Ici ils sont ordinaires parmi un certain nombre de gens du pais.”–Bonrepaux to Seignelay, May 25/June 4 1687.
FN 62 Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii, 74. 77. Orig. Mem.; Sheridan MS.; Barillon, March 19/29 1686.
FN 63 Reresby’s Memoirs; Luttrell’s Diary, Feb. 2. 1685/6 Barillon, Feb. Jan. 25/Feb 4.
FN 64 Dartmouth’s note on Burnet, i. 621. In a contemporary satire it is remarked that Godolphin
“Beats time with politic head, and all approves, Pleased with the charge of the Queen’s muff and gloves.”
FN 65 Pepys, Oct. 4. 1664.
FN 66 Pepys, July 1. 1663.
FN 67 See Dorset’s satirical lines on her.
FN 68 The chief materials for the history of this intrigue are the despatches of Barillon and Bonrepaux at the beginning of the year 1686. See Barillon, Jan 25./Feb 4. Feb. 1/11. Feb. 8/18. Feb. 19/29. and Bonrepaux under the first four Dates; Evelyn’s Diary, Jan. 29.; Reresby’s Memoirs; Burnet, i. 682.; Sheridan MS.; Chaillot MS.; Adda’s Despatches, Jan 22/Feb 1. and Jan 29/Feb 8 1686. Adda writes like a pious, but weak and ignorant man. He appears to have known nothing of James’s past life.
FN 69 The meditation hears date 1685/6. Bonrepaux, in his despatch of the same day, says, “L’intrigue avoit ete conduite par Milord Rochester et sa femme. . . . Leur projet etoit de faire gouverner le Roy d’Angleterre par la nouvelle comtesse. Ils s’etoient assures d’elle.” While Bonrepaux was writing thus, Rochester was writing as follows: “Oh God, teach me so to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Teach me to number the days that I have spent in vanity and idleness, and teach me to number those that I have spent in sin and wickedness. Oh God, teach me to number the days of my affliction too, and to give thanks for all that is come to me from thy hand. Teach me likewise to number the days of this world’s greatness, of which I have so great a share; and teach me to look upon them as vanity and vexation of spirit.”
FN 70 “Je vis Milord Rochester comme il sortoit de conseil fort chagrin; et, sur la fin du souper, il lui en echappe quelque chose.” Bonrepaux, Feb. 18/28. 1656. See also Barillon, March 1/11, 4/14.
FN 71 Barillon March 22/April 1, April 12.22 1686.
FN 72 London Gazette, Feb. 11. 1685/6; Luttrell’s Diary, Feb. 8; Leeuwen, Feb. 9/19.; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 75. Orig. Mem.
FN 73 Leeuwen, Feb 23/Mar 5. 1686.
FN 74 Barillon, April 26/May 6. May 3/13. i686; Citters, May 7/17; Evelyn’s Diary, May 5.; Luttrell’s Diary of the same date; Privy Council Book, May 2.
FN 75 Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Jan. 22. 1686; Barillon, Feb 22/Mar 4 1686. “Ce prince temoigne,” says Barillon, “une grande aversion pour eux, et aurait bien voulu se dispenser de la collecte, qui est ordonnee en leur faveur: mais il n’a pas cru que cela fut possible.”
FN 76 Barillon, Feb 22/ Mar 4. 1686.
FN 77 Account of the commissioners, dated March 15. 1688.
FN 78 “Le Roi d’Angleterre connait bien que les gens mal intentionnes pour lui sont les plus prompts et les plus disposes a donner considerablement. . . . Sa Majeste Britannique connoit bien qu’il auroit a propos de ne point ordonner de collecte, et que les gens mal intentionnes contre la religion Catholique et contre lui se servent de cette occasion pour temoigner leur zele.”–Barillon, April 19/29 1686.
FN 79 Barillon, Feb 15/25 Feb 22/Mar 4. April 19/29, Lewis to Barillon Mar 5/15.
FN 80 Barillon, April 19/29. 1686; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, April 14. “He sent away many,” she says “with sad hearts.”
FN 81 London Gazette of May 13. 1686.
FN 82 Reresby’s Memoirs; Eachard, iii. 797.; Kennet, iii. 451.
FN 83 London Gazette, April 22. and 29. i686; Barillon, April 19/29.; Evelyn’s Diary, June 2.; Luttrell, June 8.; Dodd’s Church History.
FN 84 North’s Life of Guildford, 288.
FN 85 Reresby’s Memoirs.
FN 86 See the account of the case in the Collection of State Trials; Citters, May 4/14., June 22/July 2 1686; Evelyn’s Diary, June 27.; Luttrell’s Diary, June 25. As to Street, see Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 27. 1688.
FN 87 London Gazette, July 19. 1686.
FN 88 See the letters patent in Gutch’s Collectanca Curiosa. The date is the 3d of May, 1686. Sclater’s Consensus Veterum; Gee’s reply, entitled Veteres Vindicati; Dr. Anthony Horneck’s account of Mr. Sclater’s recantation of the errors of Popery on the 5th of May, 1689; Dodd’s Church History, part viii. book ii. art. 3.
FN 89 Gutch’s Collectanea Curiosa; Dodd, viii. ii. 3.; Wood, Ath. Ox.; Ellis Correspondence, Feb. 27. 1686; Commons’ Journals, Oct. 26. 1689.
FN 90 Gutch’s Collectanea Curiosa; Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses; Dialogue between a Churchman and a Dissenter, 1689.
FN 91 Adda, July 9/19 1686.
FN 92 Adda, July 30/Aug 9 1686.
FN 93 “Ce prince m’a dit que Dieu avoit permie que toutes les loix qui ont ete faites pour etablir la religion Protestante, et detruire la religion Catholique, servent presentement de fondement ce qu’il veut faire pour l’etablissement de la vraie religion, et le mettent en droit d’exercer un pouvoir encore plus grand que celui qu’ont les role Catholiques sur les affaires ecclesiastiques dans les autres pays.”–Barillon, July 12/22. 1686. To Adda His Majesty said, a few days later, “Che l’autorita concessale dal parlamento sopra l’Ecclesiastico senza alcun limite con fine contrario fosse adesso per servire al vantaggio de’ medesimi Cattolici.” July 23/Aug 2.
FN 94 The whole question is lucidly and unanswerably argued in a little contemporary tract, entitled “The King’s Power in Matters Ecclesiastical fairly stated.” See also a concise but forcible argument by Archbishop Sancroft. Doyly’s Life of Sancroft, i. 229.
FN 95 Letter from James to Clarendon, Feb. 18. 1685/6.
FN 96 The best account of these transactions is in the Life of Sharp, by his son. Citters, June 29/July 9 1686.
FN 97 Barillon, July 21/Aug 1 1686. Citters, July 16/26; Privy Council Book, July 17. ; Ellis Correspondence, July 17.; Evelyn’s Diary, July 14.; Luttrell’s Diary, Aug. 5, 6.
FN 98 The device was a rose and crown. Before the device was the initial letter of the Sovereign’s name; after it the letter R. Round the seal was this inscription, “Sigillum commissariorum regiae majestatis ad causas ecclesiasticas.”
FN 99 Appendix to Clarendon’s Diary; Citters, Oct. 8/18 1686; Barillon, Oct. 11/21; Doyly’s Life of Sancroft.
FN 100 Burnet, i. 676.
FN 101 Burnet, i. 675. ii. 629.; Sprat’s Letters to Dorset.
FN 102 Burnet, i. 677.; Barillon, Sept. 6/16. 1686. The public proceedings are in the Collection of State Trials.
FN 103 27 Eliz. c. 2.; 2 Jac. I. c. 4; 3 Jac. I. c. 5.
FN 104 Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 79, 80. Orig. Mem,
FN 105 De Augmentis i. vi. 4.
FN 106 Citters, May 14/24 1686.
FN 107 Citters. May 18/28 1686. Adda, May 19/29
FN 108 Ellis Correspondence, April 27. 1686; Barillon, April 19/29 Citters, April 20/30; Privy Council Book, March 26; Luttrell’s Diary; Adda Feb 26/Mar 8 March 26/April 5, April 2/12 April 23/May 3
FN 109 Burnet’s Travels.
FN 110 Barillon, May 27/June 6 1686.
FN 111 Citters, May 23/June 1 1686.
FN 112 Ellis Correspondence, June 26. 1686; Citters, July 2/12 Luttrell’s Diary, July 19.
FN 113 See the contemporary poems, entitled Hounslow Heath and Caesar’s Ghost; Evelyn’s Diary, June 2. 1686. A ballad in the Pepysian collection contains the following lines
“I liked the place beyond expressing, I ne’er saw a camp so fine,
Not a maid in a plain dressing,
But might taste a glass of wine.”
FN 114 Luttrell’s Diary, June 18. 1686.
FN 115 See the memoirs of Johnson, prefixed to the folio edition of his life, his Julian, and his answers to his opponents. See also Hickes’s Jovian.
FN 116 Life of Johnson, prefixed to his works; Secret History of the happy Revolution, by Hugh Speke; State Trials; Citters, Nov 23/Dec 3 1686. Citters gives the best account of the trial. I have seen a broadside which confirms his narrative.
FN 117 See the preface to Henry Wharton’s Posthumous Sermons.
FN 118 This I can attest from my own researches. There is an excellent collection in the British Museum. Birch tells us, in his Life of Tillotson, that Archbishop Wake had not been able to form even a perfect catalogue of all the tracts published in this controversy.
FN 119 Cardinal Howard spoke strongly to Burnet at Rome on this subject Burnet, i. 662. There is a curious passage to the same effect in a despatch of Barillon but I have mislaid the reference.
One of the Roman Catholic divines who engaged in this controversy, a Jesuit named Andrew Patton, whom Mr. Oliver, in his biography of the Order, pronounces to have been a man of distinguished ability, very frankly owns his deficiencies. “A. P. having been eighteen years out of his own country, pretends not yet to any perfection of the English expression or orthography.” His orthography is indeed deplorable. In one of his letters wright is put for write, woed for would. He challenged Tenison to dispute with him in Latin, that they might be on equal terms. In a contemporary satire, entitled The Advice, is the following couplet
“Send Pulton to be lashed at Bushy’s school, That he in print no longer play the fool.”
Another Roman Catholic, named William Clench, wrote a treatise on the Pope’s supremacy, and dedicated it to the Queen in Italian. The following specimen of his style may suffice. “O del sagro marito fortunata consorte! O dolce alleviamento d’ affari alti! O grato ristoro di pensieri noiosi, nel cui petto latteo, lucente specchio d’illibata matronal pudicizia, nel cui seno odorato, come in porto damor, si ritira il Giacomo! O beata regia coppia! O felice inserto tra l’invincibil leoni e le candide aquile!”
Clench’s English is of a piece with his Tuscan. For example, “Peter signifies an inexpugnable rock, able to evacuate all the plots of hell’s divan, and naufragate all the lurid designs of empoisoned heretics.”
Another Roman Catholic treatise, entitled “The Church of England truly represented,” begins by informing us that “the ignis fatuus of reformation, which had grown to a comet by many acts of spoil and rapine, had been ushered into England, purified of the filth which it had contracted among the lakes of the Alps.”
FN 120 Barillon, July 19/29 1686.
FN 121 Act Parl. Aug. 24. 1560; Dec. 15. 1567.
FN 122 Act Parl. May 8. 1685.
FN 123 Act Parl. Aug. 31 1681.
FN 124 Burnet, i. 584.
FN 125 Ibid. i. 652, 653.
FN 126 Ibid. i. 678.
FN 127 Burnet, i. 653.
FN 128 Fountainhall, Jan. 28. 1685/6.
FN 129 Ibid. Jan. 11 1685/6.
FN 130 Fountainhall, Jan. 31. and Feb. 1. 1685/6.; Burnet, i. 678,; Trials of David Mowbray and Alexander Keith, in the Collection of State Trials; Bonrepaux, Feb. 11/21
FN 131 Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 18/28 1686.
FN 132 Fountainhall, Feb. 16.; Wodrow, book iii. chap. x. sec. 3. “We require,” His Majesty graciously wrote, “that you spare no legal trial by torture or otherwise.”
FN 133 Bonrepaux, Feb. 18/28 1686.
FN 134 Fountainhall, March 11. 1686; Adda, March 1/11
FN 135 This letter is dated March 4. 1686.
FN 136 Barillon, April 19/29 1686; Burnet, i. 370.
FN 137 The words are in a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun.
FN 138 Some words of Barillon deserve to be transcribed. They would alone suffice to decide a question which ignorance and party spirit have done much to perplex. “Cette liberte accordee aux nonconformistes a faite une grande difficulte, et a ete debattue pendant plusieurs jours. Le Roy d’Angleterre avoit fort envie que les Catholiques eussent seuls la liberte de l’exercice de leur religion.” April 19/29 1686.
FN 139 Barillon, April 19/29 1686 Citters, April 18/28 20/30 May 9/19
FN 140 Fountainhall, May 6. 1686.
FN 141 Ibid. June 15. 1686.
FN 142 Citters, May 11/21 1686. Citters informed the States that he had his intelligence from a sure hand. I will transcribe part of his narrative. It is an amusing specimen of the pyebald dialect in which the Dutch diplomatists of that age corresponded.
“Des konigs missive, boven en behalven den Hoog Commissaris aensprake, aen het parlement afgesonden, gelyck dat altoos gebruyckelyck is, waerby Syne Majesteyt ny in genere versocht hieft de mitigatie der rigoureuse ofte sanglante wetten von het Ryck jegens het Pausdom, in het Generale Comitee des Articles (soo men het daer naemt) na ordre gestelt en gelesen synde, in ‘t voteren, den Hertog van Hamilton onder anderen klaer uyt seyde dat hy daertoe niet soude verstaen, dat by anders genegen was den konig in allen voorval getrouw te dienen volgens het dictamen syner conscientie: ‘t gene reden gaf aen de Lord Cancelier de Grave Perts te seggen dat het woort conscientie niets en beduyde, en alleen een individuum vagum was, waerop der Chevalier Locqnard dan verder gingh; wil man niet verstaen de betyckenis van het woordt conscientie, soo sal ik in fortioribus seggen dat wy meynen volgens de fondamentale wetten van het ryck.”
There is, in the Hind Let Loose, a curious passage to which I should have given no credit, but for this despatch of Citters. “They cannot endure so much as to hear of the name of conscience. One that was well acquaint with the Council’s humour in this point told a gentleman that was going before them, `I beseech you, whatever you do, speak nothing of conscience before the Lords, for they cannot abide to hear that word.'”
FN 143 Fountainhall, May 17. 1686.
FN 144 Wodrow, III. x. 3.
FN 145 Citters, May 28/June 7, June 1/11 June 4/14 1686 Fountainhall June 15;
FN Luttrell’s Diary, June 2. 16
FN 146 Fountainhall, June 21 1686.
FN 147 Ibid. September 16. 1686.
FN 148 Fountainhall, Sept. 16; Wodrow, III. x. 3.
FN 149 The provisions of the Irish Act of Supremacy, 2 Eliz. chap. I., are substantially the same with those of the English Act of Supremacy, I Eliz. chap. I. hut the English act was soon found to he defective and the defect was supplied by a more stringent act, 5 Eliz. chap. I No such supplementary law was made in Ireland. That the construction mentioned in the text was put on the Irish Act of Supremacy, we are told by Archbishop King: State of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 9. He calls this construction Jesuitical but I cannot see it in that light.
FN 150 Political Anatomy of Ireland.
FN 151 Political Anatomy of Ireland, 1672; Irish Hudibras, 1689; John Dunton’s Account of Ireland, 1699.
FN 152 Clarendon to Rochester, May 4. 1686.
FN 153 Bishop Malony’s Letter to Bishop Tyrrel, March 5. 1689.
FN 154 Statute 10 & 11 Charles I. chap. 16; King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 8.
FN 155 King, chap. ii. sec. 8. Miss Edgeworth’s King Corny belongs to a later and much more civilised generation; but whoever has studied that admirable portrait can form some notion of what King Corny’s great grandfather must have been.
FN 156 King, chap. iii. sec. 2.
FN 157 Sheridan MS.; Preface to the first volume of the Hibernia Anglicana, 1690; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1689.
FN 158 “There was a free liberty of conscience by connivance, though not by the law.”–King, chap. iii. sec. i.
FN 159 In a letter to James found among Bishop Tyrrel’s papers, and dated Aug. 14. 1686, are some remarkable expressions. “There are few or none Protestants in that country but such as are joined with the Whigs against the common enemy.” And again: “Those that passed for Tories here (that is in England) “publicly espouse the Whig quarrel on the other side the water.” Swift said the same thing to King William a few years later “I remember when I was last in England, I told the King that the highest Tories we had with us would make tolerable Whigs there.”–Letters concerning the Sacramental Test.
FN 160 The wealth and negligence of the established clergy of Ireland are mentioned in the strongest terms by the Lord Lieutenant Clarendon, a most unexceptionable witness.
FN 161 Clarendon reminds the King of this in a letter dated March 14. “It certainly is,” Clarendon adds, “a most true notion.”
FN 162 Clarendon strongly recommended this course, and was of opinion that the Irish Parliament would do its part. See his letter to Ormond, Aug. 28. 1686.
FN 163 It was an O’Neill of great eminence who said that it did not become him to writhe his mouth to chatter English. Preface to the first volume of the Hibernia Anglicana.
FN 164 Sheridan MS. among the Stuart Papers. I ought to acknowledge the courtesy with which Mr. Glover assisted me in my search for this valuable manuscript. James appears, from the instructions which he drew up for his son in 1692, to have retained to the last the notion that Ireland could not without danger be entrusted to an Irish Lord Lieutenant.
FN 165 Sheridan MS.
FN 166 Clarendon to Rochester, Jan. 19. 1685/6; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.
FN 167 Clarendon to Rochester, Feb. 27. 1685/6.
FN 168 Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, March 2. 1685/6; and to Rochester, March 14.
FN 169 Clarendon to Sunderland, Feb. 26. 1685/6.
FN 170 Sunderland to Clarendon, March 11. 1685/6.
FN 171 Clarendon to Rochester, March 14. 1685/6.
FN 172 Clarendon to James, March 4. 1685/6.
FN 173 James to Clarendon, April 6. 1686.
FN 174 Sunderland to Clarendon, May 22. 1686; Clarendon to Ormond, May 30.; Clarendon to Sunderland, July 6. 11.
FN 175 Clarendon to Rochester and Sunderland, June 1. 1686; to Rochester, June 12. King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. ii. sec. 6, 7. Apology for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.
FN 176 Clarendon to Rochester, May 15 1686.
FN 177 Ibid. May 11. 1686.
FN 178 Ibid. June 8. 1686.
FN 179 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland.
FN 180 Clarendon to Rochester, June 26. and July 4. 1686; Apology for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.
FN 181 Clarendon to Rochester, July 4. 22. 1686; to Sunderland, July 6; to the King, Aug. 14.
FN 182 Clarendon to Rochester, June 19. 1686.
FN 183 Ibid. June 22. 1686.
FN 184 Sheridan MS. King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, chap. iii. sec. 3. sec. 8. There is a most striking instance of Tyrconnel’s impudent mendacity in Clarendon’s letter to Rochester, July 22. 1686.
FN 185 Clarendon to Rochester, June 8. 1686.
FN 186 Clarendon to Rochester, Sept. 23. and Oct. 2. 1686 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.
FN 187 Clarendon to Rochester, Oct. 6. 1686.
FN 188 Clarendon to the King and to Rochester, Oct. 23. 1686.
FN 189 Clarendon to Rochester, Oct. 29, 30. 1686.
FN 190 Ibid. Nov. 27. 1686.
FN 191 Barillon, Sept. 13/23 1686; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 99.
FN 192 Sheridan MS.
FN 193 Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 100.
FN 194 Barillon, Sept. 13/23 i686; Bonrepaux, June 4. I687.
FN 195 Barillon, Dec. 2/12 1686; Burnet, i. 684.; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 100.; Dodd’s Church History. I have tried to frame a fair narrative out of these conflicting materials. It seems clear to me, from Rochester’s own papers that he was on this occasion by no means so stubborn as he has been represented by Burnet and by the biographer of James.
FN 196 From Rochester’s Minutes, dated Dec. 3. 1686.
FN 197 From Rochester’s Minutes, Dec. 4. 1686.
FN 198 Barillon, Dec. 20/30 1686.
FN 199 Burnet, i. 684.
FN 200 Bonrepaux, Mar 25/June 4 1687.
FN 201 Rochester’s Minutes, Dec. 19 1686; Barillon, Dec 30 / Jan 9 1686/7; Burnet, i. 685. Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 102.; Treasury Warrant Book, Dec. 29. 1686.
FN 202 Bishop Malony in a letter to Bishop Tyrrel says, “Never a Catholic or other English will ever think or make a step, nor suffer the King to make a step for your restauration, but leave you as you were hitherto, and leave your enemies over your heads: nor is there any Englishman, Catholic or other, of what quality or degree soever alive, that will stick to sacrifice all Ireland for to save the least interest of his own in England, and would as willingly see all Ireland over inhabited by English of whatsoever religion as by the Irish.”
FN 203 The best account of these transactions is in the Sheridan MS.
FN 204 Sheridan MS.; Oldmixon’s Memoirs of Ireland; King’s State of the Protestants of Ireland, particularly chapter iii.; Apology for the Protestants of Ireland, 1689.
FN 205 Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.
FN 206 London Gazette, Jan. 6. and March 14. 1686/7; Evelyn’s Diary, March 10 Etherege’s letter to Dover is in the British Museum.
FN 207 “Pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della voce che corre per il popolo, desser cacciato il detto ministro per non essere Cattolico, percio tirarsi al esterminio de’ Protestanti.”–Adda, 1687.
FN 208 The chief materials from which I have taken my description of the Prince of Orange will be found in Burnet’s History, in Temple’s and Gourville’s Memoirs, in the Negotiations of the Counts of Estrades and Avaux, in Sir George Downing’s Letters to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in Wagenaar’s voluminous History, in Van Kamper’s Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, and, above all, in William’s own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of Portland permitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a copy.
FN 209 William was earnestly intreated by his friends, after the peace of Ryswick, to speak seriously to the French ambassador about the schemes of assassination which the Jacobites of St. Germains were constantly contriving. The cold magnanimity with which these intimations of danger were received is singularly characteristic. To Bentinck, who had sent from Paris very alarming intelligence, William merely replied at the end of a long letter of business,–“Pour les assasins je ne luy en ay pas voulu parler, croiant que c’etoit au desous de moy.” May 2/12 1698. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called.
FN 210 From Windsor he wrote to Bentinck, then ambassador at Paris. “Jay pris avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec les chains du Pr. de Denm. et ay fait on assez jolie chasse, autant que ce vilain paiis le permest. March 20/April 1 1698. The spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon’s. William wrote in better humour from Loo. “Nous avons pris deux gros cerfs, le premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des plus gros que je sache avoir jamais pris. Il porte seize.” Oct 25/Nov 4 1697.
FN 211 March 3. 1679.
FN 212 “Voila en peu de mot le detail de nostre St. Hubert. Et j’ay eu soin que M. Woodstoc” (Bentinck’s eldest son) “n’a point este a la chasse, bien moin au soupe, quoyqu’il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtant croire que de n’avoir pas chasse l’a on peu mortifie, mais je ne l’ay pas ause prendre sur moy, puisque vous m’aviez dit que vous ne le souhaitiez pas.” From Loo, Nov. 4. 1697.
FN 213 On the 15th of June, 1688.
FN 214 Sept. 6. 1679.
FN 215 See Swift’s account of her in the Journal to Stella.
FN 216 Henry Sidney’s Journal of March 31. 1680, in Mr. Blencowe’s interesting collection.
FN 217 Speaker Onslow’s note on Burnet, i. 596.; Johnson’s Life of Sprat.
FN 218 No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently or with more asperity than Dartmouth. Yet Dartmouth wrote, “I do not think he designedly published anything he believed to he false.” At a later period Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on himself in the second volume of the Bishop’s history, retracted this praise but to such a retraction little importance can be attached. Even Swift has the justice to say, “After all, he was a man of generosity and good nature.”–Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet’s History.
It is usual to censure Burnet as a singularly inaccurate historian; hut I believe the charge to be altogether unjust. He appears to be singularly inaccurate only because his narrative has been subjected to a scrutiny singularly severe and unfriendly. If any Whig thought it worth while to subject Reresby’s Memoirs, North’s Examen, Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution, or the Life of James the Second, edited by Clarke, to a similar scrutiny, it would soon appear that Burnet was far indeed from being the most inexact writer of his time.
FN 219 Dr. Hooper’s MS. narrative, published in the Appendix to Lord Dungannon’s Life of William.
FN 220 Avaux Negotiations, Aug. 10/20 Sept. 14/24 Sept 28/Oct 8 Dec. 7/17 1682.
FN 221 I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting Massillon’s unfriendly, yet discriminating and noble, character of William. “Un prince profond dans ses vues; habile a former des ligues et a reunir les esprits; plus heureux a exciter les guerres qu’a combatire; plus a craindre encore dans le secret du cabinet, qu’a la tete des armees; un ennemi que la haine du nom Francais avoit rendu capable d’imaginer de grandes choses et de les executer; un de ces genies qui semblent etre nes pour mouvoir a leur gre les peuples et les souverains; un grand homme, s’il n’avoit jamais voulu etre roi.”–Oraison funebre de M. le Dauphin.
FN 222 For example, “Je crois M. Feversham un tres brave et honeste homme. Mais je doute s’il a assez d’experience diriger une si grande affaire qu’il a sur le bras. Dieu lui donne un succes prompt et heureux. Mais je ne suis pas hors d’inquietude.” July 7/17 1685. Again, after he had received the news of the battle of Sedgemoor, “Dieu soit loue du bon succes que les troupes du Roy ont eu contre les rebelles. Je ne doute pas que cette affaire ne soit entierement assoupie, et que le regne du Roy sera heureux, Ce que Dieu veuille.” July 10/20
FN 223 The treaty will be found in the Recueil des Traites, iv. No. 209.
FN 224 Burnet, i. 762.
FN 225 Temple’s Memoirs.
FN 226 See the poems entitled The Converts and The Delusion.
FN 227 The lines are in the Collection of State Poems.
FN 228 Our information about Wycherly is very scanty; but two things are certain, that in his later years he called himself a Papist, and that he received money from James. I have very little doubt that he was a hired convert.
FN 229 See the article on him in the Biographia Britannica.
FN 230 See James Quin’s account of Haines in Davies’s Miscellanies; Tom Brown’s Works; Lives of Sharpers; Dryden’s Epilogue to the Secular Masque.
FN 231 This fact, which escaped the minute researches of Malone, appears from the Treasury Letter Book of 1685.
FN 232 Leeuwen, Dec 25/Jan 4 1685/6
FN 233 Barillon, – Jan 31/Feb 10 1686/7. “Je crois que, dans le fond, si on ne pouvoit laisser que la religion Anglicane et la Catholique etablies par les loix, le Roy d’Angleterre en seroit bien plus content.”
FN 234 It will be round in Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. No. 129.
FN 235 Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. No. 128. 129. 132.
FN 236 Barillon Feb 20/March 10 1686/7; Citters, Feb. 16/23; Reresby’s Memoirs Bonrepaux, May 25/June 4 1687.
FN 237 Barillon, March 14/24 1687; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, April 1.; Burnet, i. 671. 762. The conversation is somewhat differently related in Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 204. But that passage is not part of the King’s own memoirs.
FN 238 London Gazette, March 21. 1686/7.
FN 239 Ibid. April 7. 1687.
FN 240 Warrant Book of the Treasury. See particularly the instructions dated March 8, 1687/8 Burnet, i. 715. Reflections on his Majesty’s Proclamation for a Toleration in Scotland; Letters containing some Reflections on his Majesty’s Declaration for Liberty of Conscience; Apology for the Church of England with a relation to the spirit of Persecution for which she is accused, 1687/8. But it is impossible for me to cite all the pamphlets from which I have formed my notion of the state of parties at this time.
FN 241 Letter to a Dissenter.
FN 242 Wodrow, Appendix, vol. ii. Nos. 132. 134.
FN 243 London Gazette, April 21. 1687 Animadversions on a late paper entituled A Letter to a Dissenter, by H C. (Henry Care), 1687.
FN 244 Lestrange’s Answer to a Letter to a Dissenter; Care’s Animadversions on A letter to a Dissenter; Dialogue between Harry and Roger; that is to say, Harry Care and Roger Lestrange.
FN 245 The letter was signed T. W. Care says, in his Animadversions, “This Sir Politic T. W., or W. T. for some critics think that the truer reading.”
FN 246 Ellis Correspondence, March 15. July 27. 1686 Barillon, Feb 28/Mar 10; March 3/13. March 6/16. 1687 Ronquillo, March 9/19. 1687, in the Mackintosh Collection.
FN 247 Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses; Observator; Heraclitus Ridens, passim. But Care’s own writings furnish the best materials for an estimate of his character.
FN 248 Calamy’s Account of the Ministers ejected or silenced after the Restoration, Northamptonshire; Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses; Biographia Britannica.
FN 249 State Trials; Samuel Rosewell’s Life of Thomas Rosewell, 1718; Calamy’s Account.
FN 250 London Gazette, March 15 1685/6; Nichols’s Defence of the Church of England; Pierce’s Vindication of the Dissenters.
FN 251 The Addresses will be found in the London Gazettes.
FN 252 Calamy’s Life of Baxter.
FN 253 Calamy’s Life of Howe. The share which the Hampden family had in the matter I learned from a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun, dated June 13 1688.
FN 254 Bunyan’s Grace Abounding.
FN 255 Young classes Bunyan’s prose with Durfey’s poetry. The people of fashion in the Spiritual Quixote rank the Pilgrim’s Progress with Jack the Giantkiller. Late in the eighteenth century Cowper did not venture to do more than allude to the great allegorist
“I name thee not, lest so despis’d a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame.”
FN 256 The continuation of Bunyan’s life appended to his Grace Abounding.
FN 257 Kiffin’s Memoirs; Luson’s Letter to Brooke, May 11. 1773, in the Hughes Correspondence.
FN 258 See, among other contemporary pamphlets, one entitled a Representation of the threatening Dangers impending over Protestants.
FN 259 Burnet, i. 694.
FN 260 Le Prince d’Orange, qui avoit elude jusqu’alors de faire une reponse positive, dit qu’il ne consentira jamais a la suppression du ces loix qui avoient ete etablies pour le maintien et la surete de la religion Protestante, et que sa conscience ne le lui permettoit point non seulement pour la succession du royaume d’Angleterre, mais meme pour l’empire du monde; en sorte que le roi d’Angleterre est plus aigri contre lui qu’il n’a jamais ete”–Bonrepaux, June 11/21 1687.
FN 261 Burnet, i. 710. Bonrepaux, May 24/June 4. 1687
FN 262 Johnstone, Jan. 13. 1688; Halifax’s Anatomy of an Equivalent.
FN 263 Burnet, i. 726-73 1.; Answer to the Criminal Letters issued out against Dr. Burnet; Avaux Neg., July 7/17 14/24, July 28/Aug 7 Jan 19/29 1688; Lewis to Barillon, Dec 30 1687/Jan 9 1688; Johnstone of Waristoun, Feb. 21. 1688; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitzwilliam, Oct. 5, 1687. As it has been suspected that Burnet, who certainly was not in the habit of underrating his own importance, exaggerated the danger to which he was exposed, I will give the words of Lewis and of Johnstone. “Qui que ce soit,” says Lewis, “qui entreprenne de l’enlever en Hollande trouvera non seulement une retraite assuree et une entiere protection dans mes etats, mais aussi toute l’assistance qu’il pourra desirer pour faire conduire surement ce scelerat en Angleterre.” “The business of Bamfield (Burnet) is certainly true,” says Johnstone. “No man doubts of it here, and some concerned do not deny it. His friends say they hear he takes no care of himself, but out of vanity, to show his courage, shows his folly; so that, if ill happen on it, all people will laugh at it. Pray tell him so much from Jones (Johnstone). If some could be catched making their coup d’essai on him, it will do much to frighten them from making any attempt on Ogle (the Prince).”
FN 264 Burnet, a. 708.; Avaux Neg., Jan. 3/13 Feb. 6/16. 1687; Van Kampen, Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis.
FN 265 Burnet, i 711. Dykvelt’s despatches to the States General contain, as far as I have seen or can learn, not a word about the real object of his mission. His correspondence with the Prince of Orange was strictly private.
FN 266 Bonrepaux, Sept. 12/22 1687.
FN 267 See Lord Campbell’s Life of him.
FN 268 Johnstone’s Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Arbuthnot’s John Bull; Swift’s writings from 1710 to 1714, passim; Whiston’s Letter to the Earl of Nottingham, and the Earl’s answer.
FN 269 Kennet’s funeral sermon on the Duke of Devonshire, and Memoirs of the family of Cavendish; State Trials; Privy Council Book, March 5. 1685/6; Barillon, June 30/July 10 1687; Johnstone, Dec. 8/18. 1687; Lords’ journals, May 6. 1689. “Ses amis et ses proches,” says Barillon, “lui conseillent de prendre le bon parti, mais il persiste jusqu’a prasent a ne se point soumettre. S’il vouloit se bien conduire et renoncer a etre populaire, il ne payeroit pas l’amende, mais s’il opiniatre, il lui en coutera trente mille pieces et il demeurera prisonnier jusqu’a l’actuel payement.”
FN 270 The motive which determined the conduct of the Churchills is shortly and plainly set forth in the Duchess of Marlborough’s Vindication. “It was,” she says, “evident to all the world that, as things were carried on by King James, everybody sooner or later must be ruined, who would not become a Roman Catholic. This consideration made me very well pleased at the Prince of Orange’s undertaking to rescue us from such slavery.”
FN 271 Grammont’s Memoirs; Pepys’s Diary, Feb. 21. 1684/5.
FN 272 It would be endless to recount all the books from which I have formed my estimate of the duchess’s character. Her own letters, her own vindication, and the replies which it called forth, have been my chief materials.
FN 273 The formal epistle which Dykvelt carried back to the States is in the Archives at the Hague. The other letters mentioned in this paragraph are given by Dalrymple. App. to Book V.
FN 274 Sunderland to William, Aug. 24. 1686; William to Sunderland, Sept. 2/12 1686; Barillon, May 6/16 May 26/June 5 Oct. 3/13 Nov 28/Dec 8. 1687; Lewis to Barillon, Oct. 14/24 1687: Memorial of Albeville, Dec. 15/25. 1687; James to William, Jan. 17. Feb. 16. March 2. 13. 1688; Avaux Neg., March 1/11 6/16 8/18 March 22/April 1 1688.
FN 275 Adda, Nov. 9/19. 1685.
FN 276 The Professor of Greek in the College De Propaganda Fide expressed his admiration in some detestable hexameters and pentameters, of which the following specimen may suffice:
Rogerion de akepsomenos lamproio thriambon, oka mal eissen kai theen ochlos apas
thaumazousa de ten pompen pagkhrusea t’ auton armata tous thippous toiade Rome ethe.
The Latin verses are a little better. Nahum Tate responded in English
“His glorious train and passing pomp to view, A pomp that even to Rome itself was new, Each age, each sex, the Latian turrets filled, Each age and sex in tears of joy distilled.”
FN 277 Correspondence of James and Innocent, in the British Museum; Burnet, i 703- 705.; Welwood’s Memoirs; Commons’ Journals, Oct. 28. 1689; An Account of his Excellency Roger Earl of Castelmaine’s Embassy, by Michael Wright, chief steward of his Excellency’s house at Rome, 1688.
FN 278 Barillon, May 2/12 1687.
FN 279 Memoirs of the Duke of Somerset; Citters, July 5/15. 1687; Eachard’s History of the Revolution; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 116, 117, 118.; Lord Lonsdale’s Memoirs.
FN 280 London Gazette, July 7. 1687; Citters, July 7/17 Account of the ceremony reprinted among the Somers Tracts.
FN 281 London Gazette, July 4. 1687.
FN 282 See the statutes 18 Henry 6. C. 19.; 2 & 3 Ed. 6. C. 2.; Eachard’s History of the Revolution; Kennet, iii. 468.; North’s Life of Guildford, 247.; London Gazette, April 18. May 23. 1687; Vindication of the E. of R, (Earl of Rochester).
FN 283 Dryden’s Prologues and Cibber’s Memoirs contain abundant proofs of the estimation in which the taste of the Oxonians was held by the most admired poets and actors.
FN 284 See the poem called Advice to the Painter upon the Defeat of the Rebels in the West. See also another poem, a most detestable one, on the same subject, by Stepney, who was then studying at Trinity College.
FN 285 Mackay’s character of Sheffield, with Swift’s note; the Satire on the Deponents, 1688; Life of John, Duke of Buckinghamshire, 1729; Barillon, Aug. 30. 1687. I have a manuscript lampoon on Mulgrave, dated 1690. It is not destitute of spirit. The most remarkable lines are these:
Peters (Petre) today and Burnet tomorrow, Knaves of all sides and religions he’ll woo.
FN 286 See the proceedings against the University of Cambridge in the collection of State Trials.
FN 287 Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses; Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber; Citters,
FN March 2/12 1686.
FN 288 Burnet, i. 697.; Letter of Lord Ailesbury printed in the European Magazine for April 1795.
FN 289 This gateway is now closed.
FN 290 Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses; Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy.
FN 291 Burnet, i. 697.; Tanner’s Notitia Monastica. At the visitation in the twenty-sixth year of Henry the Eighth it appeared that the annual revenue of King’s College was 751l.; of New College, 487l.; of Magdalene, 1076l.
FN 292 A Relation of the Proceedings at the Charterhouse, 1689.
FN 293 See the London Gazette, from August 18 to September 1. 1687 Barillon, September 19/29
FN 294 “Penn, chef des Quakers, qu’on sait etre dans les interets du Roi d’Angleterre, est si fort decrie parmi ceux de son parti qu’ils n’ont plus aucune confiance en lui.”–Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Sept. 12/22 1687. The evidence of Gerard Croese is to the same effect. “Etiam Quakeri Pennum iron amplius, ut ante, ita amabant ac magnifaciebant, quidam aversabantur ac fugiebant.”– Historia Quakeriana, lib, ii. 1695.
FN 295 Cartwright’s Diary, August 30. 1687. Clarkson’s Life of William Penn.
FN 296 London Gazette, Sept. 5.; Sheridan MS.; Barillon, Sept. 1687. “Le Roi son maitre,” says Barillon, “a temoigne une grande satisfaction des mesures qu’il a prises, et a autorise ce qu’il a fait en faveur des Catholiques. Il les etablit dans les emplois et les charges, en sorte que l’autorite se trouvera bientot entre leurs mains. Il reste encore beaucoup de choses a faire en ce pays la pour retirer les biens injustement otes aux Catholiques. Mais cela ne peut s’executer qu’avec le tems et dans l’assemblee d’un parlement en Irlande.”
FN 297 London Gazette of Sept. 5. and Sept. 8. 1687
FN 298 Proceedings against Magdalene College, in Oxon, for not electing Anthony Farmer president of the said College, in the Collection of State Trials, Howell’s edition; Luttrell’s Diary, June 15. 17., Oct. 24., Dec. 10. 1687; Smith’s Narrative; Letter of Dr. Richard Rawlinson, dated Oct. 31. 1687; Reresby’s Memoirs; Burnet, i. 699.; Cartwright’s Diary; Citters, Oct 25/Nov 4, Oct 28/Nov 7 Nov 8/18 Nov 18/28 1687.
FN 299 “Quand on connoit le dedans de cette cour aussi intimement que je la connois, on peut croire que sa Majeste Britannique donnera volontiers dans ces sortes de projets.”–Bonrepaux to Seignelay, March 18/28 1686.
FN 300 “Que, quand pour etablir la religion Catholique et pour la confirmer icy, il (James) devroit se rendre en quelque facon dependant de la France, et mettre la decision de la succession a la couronne entre les mains de ce monarque la, qu’il seroit oblige de le faire, parcequ’il vaudroit mieux pour ses sujets qu’ils devinssent vassaux du Roy de France, etant Catholiques, que de demeurer comme esclaves du Diable.” This paper is in the archives of both France and Holland.
FN 301 Citters, Aug. 6/16 17/27 1686. Barillon, Aug. 19/29
FN 302 Barillon, Sept. 13/23 1686. “La succession est une matiere fort delicate a traiter. Je sais pourtant qu’on en parle au Roy d’Angleterre, et qu’on ne desespere pas avec le temps de trouver des moyens pour faire passer la couronne sur la tete d’un heritier Catholique.”
FN 303 Bonrepaux, July 11/21. 1687.
FN 304 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Aug 25/Sept 4 1687. I will quote a few words from this most remarkable despatch: “je scay bien certainement que l’intention du Roy d’Angleterre est de faire perdre ce royaume (Ireland) a son successeur, et de le fortifier en sorte que tous ses sujets Catholiques y puissent avoir un asile assure. Son projet est de mettre les choses en cet estat dans le cours de cinq annees.” In the Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, printed in 1690, there is a passage which shows that this negotiation had not been kept strictly secret. “Though the King kept it private from most of his council, yet certain it is that he had promised the French King the disposal of that government and kingdom when things had attained to that growth as to be fit to bear it.”
FN 305 Citters, Oct 28/Nov 7, Nov 22/Dec 2 1687; the Princess Anne to the Princess of Orange, March 14. and 20. 1687/8; Barillon, Dec. 1/11 1687; Revolution
Politics; the song “Two Toms and a Nat;” Johnstone, April 4. 1688; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690.
FN 306 The king’s uneasiness on this subject is strongly described by Ronquillo, Dec. 12/22 1687 “Un Principe de Vales y un Duque de York y otro di
Lochaosterna (Lancaster, I suppose,) no bastan a reducir la gente; porque el Rey tiene 54 anos, y vendra a morir, dejando los hijos pequenos, y que entonces el reyno se apoderara dellos, y los nombrara tutor, y los educara en la religion protestante, contra la disposicion que dejare el Rey, y la autoridad de la Reyna.”
FN 307 Three lists framed at this time are extant; one in the French archives, the other two in the archives of the Portland family. In these lists every peer is entered under one of three heads, For the Repeal of the Test, Against the Repeal, and Doubtful. According to one list the numbers were, 31 for, 86 against, and 20 doubtful; according to another, 33 for, 87 against, and 19 doubtful; according to the third, 35 for, 92 against, and 10 doubtful. Copies of the three lists are in the Mackintosh MSS.
FN 308 There is in the British Museum a letter of Dryden to Etherege, dated Feb. 1688. I do not remember to have seen it in print. “Oh,” says Dryden, “that our monarch would encourage noble idleness by his own example, as he of blessed memory did before him. For my mind misgives me that he will not much advance his affairs by stirring.”
FN 309 Barillon, Aug 29/Sep 8 1687.
FN 310 Told by Lord Bradford, who was present, to Dartmouth; note on Burnet, i. 755.
FN 311 London Gazette, Dec. 12. 1687.
FN 312 Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Nov. 14/24.; Citters, Nov. 15/25.; Lords’ Journals,
FN Dec. 20. 1689.
FN 313 Citters, Oct 28/Nov 7 1687.
FN 314 Halstead’s Succinct Genealogy of the Family of Vere, 1685; Collins’s Historical Collections. See in the Lords’ Journals, and in Jones’s Reports, the proceedings respecting the earldom of Oxford, in March and April 1625/6. The exordium of the speech of Lord Chief Justice Crew is among the finest specimens of the ancient English eloquence. Citters, Feb. 7/17 1688.
FN 315 Coxe’s Shrewsbury Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Life of Charles Duke of Shrewsbury, 1718; Burnet, i. 762.; Birch’s Life of Tillotson, where the reader will find a letter from Tillotson to Shrewsbury, which seems to me a model of serious, friendly, and gentlemanlike reproof.
FN 316 The King was only Nell’s Charles III. Whether Dorset or Major Hart had the honour of being her Charles I is a point open to dispute. But the evidence in favour of Dorset’s claim seems to me to preponderate. See the suppressed passage of Burnet, i. 263.; and Pepys’s Diary, Oct. 26. 1667.
FN 317 Pepys’s Diary; Prior’s dedication of his poems to the Duke of Dorset; Johnson’s Life of Dorset; Dryden’s Essay on Satire, and Dedication of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy. The affection of Dorset for his wife and his strict fidelity to her are mentioned with great contempt by that profligate coxcomb Sir George Etherege in his letters from Ratisbon, Dec. 9/19 1687, and Jan. 16/26 1688; Shadwell’s Dedication of the Squire of Alsatia; Burnet, i. 264.; Mackay’s Characters. Some parts of Dorset’s character are well touched in his epitaph, written by Pope:
“Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay” and again:
“Blest courtier, who could king and country please, Yet sacred keep his friendships and his ease.”
FN 318 Barillon, Jan. 9/19 1688; Citters, Jan 31/Feb 10
FN 319 Adda, Feb. 3/13 10/20 1688.
FN 320 Barillon,. Dec. 5/15 8/18. 12/22 1687; Citters, Nov 29/Dec 9 Dec 2/12
FN 321 Citters, Oct 28/Nov 7 1687; Lonsdale’s Memoirs.
FN 322 Citters, Nov 22/Dec 2 1687.
FN 323 Ibid. Dec 27/Jan 6 1687/8.
FN 324 Ibid,
FN 325 Rochester’s offensive warmth on this occasion is twice noticed by Johnstone, Nov. 25. and Dec. 8. 1687. His failure is mentioned by Citters, Dec. 6/16.
FN 326 Citters, Dec. 6/16. 1687
FN 327 Ibid. Dec. 20/30. 1687.
FN 328 Ibid March 30/April 9 1687.
FN 329 Ibid Nov 22/Dec 2 1687.
FN 330 Ibid. Nov. 15/25. 1687.
FN 331 Citters, April 10/20 1688.
FN 332 The anxiety about Lancashire is mentioned by Citters, in a despatch dated Nov. 18/28. 1687; the result in a despatch dated four days later.
FN 333 Bonrepaux, July 11/21 1687.
FN 334 Citters, Feb. 3/13 1688.
FN 335 Ibid. April 5/15 1688.
FN 336 London Gazette, Dec. 5. 1687; Citters, Dec. 6/16
FN 337 About twenty years before this time a Jesuit had noticed the retiring character of the Roman Catholic country gentlemen of England. “La nobilta Inglese, senon se legata in servigio, di Corte, o in opera di maestrato, vive, e gode il piu dell’ anno alla campagna, ne’ suoi palagi e poderi, dove son liberi e padroni; e cio tanto piu sollecitamente I Cattolici quanto piu utilmente, si come meno osservati cola.”–L’lnghilterra descritta dal P. Daniello Bartoli. Roma, 1667.
“Many of the Popish Sheriffs,” Johnstone wrote, “have estates, and declare that whoever expects false returns from them will be disappointed. The Popish gentry that live at their houses in the country are much different from those that live here in town. Several of them have refused to be Sheriffs or Deputy Lieutenants.” Dec. 8. 1687.
Ronquillo says the same. “Algunos Catolicos que fueron nombrados per sherifes se han excusado,” Jan. 9/19. 1688. He some months later assured his court that the Catholic country gentlemen would willingly consent to a compromise of which the terms should be that the penal laws should be abolished and the test retained. “Estoy informado,” he says, “que los Catolicos de las provincias no lo reprueban, pues no pretendiendo oficios, y siendo solo algunos de la Corte los provechosos, les parece que mejoran su estado, quedando seguros ellos y sus descendientes en la religion, en la quietud, y en la seguridad de sus haciendas.” July 23/Aug 2 1688.
FN 338 Privy Council Book, Sept. 25. 1687; Feb. 21. 1687/8
FN 339 Records of the Corporation, quoted in Brand’s History of Newcastle. Johnstone, Feb. 21. 1687/8
FN 340 Johnstone, Feb. 21 1687/8
FN 341 Citters, Feb. 14/24 1688.
FN 342 Ibid. May 1/11. 1688.
FN 343 In the margin of the Privy Council Book may be observed the words “Second regulation,” and “Third regulation,” when a corporation had been remodelled more than once.
FN 344 Johnstone, May 23. 1688.
FN 345 Ibid. Feb. 21. 1688.
FN 346 Johnstone, Feb. 21. 1688.
FN 347 Citters, March 20/30 1688.
FN 348 Ibid. May 1/11 1688.
FN 349 Citters, May 22/June 1 1688.
FN 350 Ibid. May 1/11 1688.
FN 351 Ibid. May 18/28 1688.
FN 352 Ibid. April 6 1688; Treasury Letter Book, March 14. 1687; Ronquillo, April 16/26.
FN 353 Citters, May 18/28 1688.
FN 354 Citters, May 18/28 1688.
FN 355 London Gazette, Dec. 15. 1687. See the proceedings against Williams in the Collection of State Trials. “Ha hecho,” says Ronquillo, “grande susto el haber nombrado el abogado Williams, que fue el orador y el mas arrabiado de toda la casa de los comunes en los ultimos terribles parlamentos del Rey difunto. Nov 27/Dec 7 1687.
FN 356 London Gazette, April 30. 1688; Barillon, April 26/May 6
FN 357 Citters, May 1/11. 1688.
FN 358 London Gazette, May 7. 1688.
FN 359 Johnstone May 27. 1688.
FN 360 That very remarkable man, the late Alexander Knox, whose eloquent conversation and elaborate letters had a great influence on the minds of his contemporaries, learned, I suspect, much of his theological system from Fowler’s writings. Fowler’s book on the Design of Christianity was assailed by John Bunyan with a ferocity which nothing can justify, but which the birth and breeding of the honest tinker in some degree excuse.
FN 361 Johnstone, May 23. 1688. There is a satirical poem on this meeting entitled the Clerical Cabal.
FN 362 Clarendon’s Diary, May 22. 1688.
FN 363 Extracts from Tanner MS. in Howell’s State Trials; Life of Prideaux; Clarendon’s Diary, May 16. 1688.
FN 364 Clarendon’s Diary, May 16 and 17. 1688.
FN 365 Sancroft’s Narrative printed from the Tanner MS.; Citters, May 22/June 1 1688.
FN 366 Burnet, i. 741; Revolution Politics; Higgins’s Short View.
FN 367 Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 155.
FN 368 Citters, May 22/June 1688 . Burnet, i. 740.; and Lord Dartmouth’s note; Southey’s Life of Wesley.
FN 369 Citters, May 22/June 1 1688
FN 370 Ibid. May 29/June 8 1688.
FN 371 Ibid.
FN 372 Barillon, May 24/June 3 May 31/June 10 1688; Citters, July, 1/11 Adda, May 25/June 4, May 30/June 9, June 1/11 Clarke s Life of James the Second, ii. 158.
FN 373 Burnet, i. 740.; Life of Prideaux; Citters, June 12/22 15/25 1688. Tanner MS.; Life and Correspondence of Pepys.
FN 374 Sancroft’s Narrative, printed from the Tanner MS.
FN 375 Burnet, i. 741.; Citters, June 8/18 12/22. 1688; Luttrell’s Diary, June 8.; Evelyn’s Diary; Letter of Dr. Nalson to his wife, dated June 14., and printed from the Tanner MS.; Reresby’s Memoirs.
FN 376 Reresby’s Memoirs.
FN 377 Correspondence between Anne and Mary, in Dalrymple; Clarendon’s Diary, Oct. 31. 1688.
FN 378 This is clear from Clarendon’s Diary, Oct. 31. 1688.
FN 379 Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 159, 160.
FN 380 Clarendon’s Diary, June 10. 1688.
FN 381 Johnstone gives in a very few words an excellent summary of the case against the King. “The generality of people conclude all is a trick; because they say the reckoning is changed, the Princess sent away, none of the Clarendon family nor the Dutch Ambassador sent for, the suddenness of the thing, the sermons, the confidence of the priests, the hurry.” June 13. 1688.
FN 382 Ronquillo, July 26/Aug 5. Ronquillo adds, that what Zulestein said of the state of public opinion was strictly true.
FN 383 Citters, June 12/22 1688; Luttrell’s Diary, June 18.
FN 384 For the events of this day see the State Trials; Clarendon’s Diary Luttrell’s Diary; Citters. June 15/25 Johnstone, June 18; Revolution Politics.
FN 385 Johnstone, June 18. 1688; Evelyn’s Diary, June 29.
FN 386 Tanner MS.
FN 387 This fact was communicated to me in the most obliging manner by the Reverend R. S. Hawker of Morwenstow in Cornwall.
FN 388 Johnstone, June 18. 1688.
FN 389 Adda, June 29/July 9 1688
FN 390 Sunderland’s own narrative is, of course, not to be implicitly trusted, but he vouched Godolphin as a witness of what took place respecting the Irish Act of Settlement.
FN 391 Barillon June 21/June 28 June 28/July 8 1688; Adda, June 29/July 9 Citters June 26/July 6; Johnstone, July 2. 1688; The Converts, a poem.
FN 392 Clarendon’s Diary, June 21. 1688.
FN 393 Citters, June 26/ July 6. 1688.
FN 394 Johnstone, July 2. 1688.
FN 395 Ibid.
FN 396 Johnstone, July 2. 1688. The editor of Levinz’s reports expresses great wonder that, after the Revolution, Levinz was not replaced on the bench. The facts related by Johnstone may perhaps explain the seeming injustice.
FN 397 I draw this inference from a letter of Compton to Sancroft, dated the 12th of June.
FN 398 Revolution Politics.
FN 399 This is the expression of an eye witness. It is in a newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection.
FN 400 See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials. I have taken some touches from Johnstone, and some from Van Citters.
FN 401 Johnstone, July 2. 1688; Letter from Mr. Ince to the Archbishop, dated at six o’clock in the morning; Tanner MS.; Revolution Politics.
FN 402 Johnstone, July 2. 1688.
FN 403 State Trials; Oldmixon, 739.; Clarendon’s Diary, June 25, 1688; Johnstone, July 2.; Citters, July 3/13 Adda, July 6/16; Luttrell’s Diary; Barillon, July 2/12
FN 404 Citters, July 3/13 The gravity with which he tells the story has a comic effect. “Den Bisschop van Chester, wie seer de partie van het hof houdt, om te voldoen aan syne gewoone nieusgierigheyt, hem op dien tyt in Westminster Hall mede hebbende laten vinden, in het uytgaan doorgaans was uytgekreten voor een grypende wolf in schaaps kleederen; en by synde een beer van hooge stature en vollyvig, spotsgewyse alomme geroepen was dat men voor hem plaats moeste maken, om te laten passen, gelyck ook geschiede, om dat soo sy uytschreeuwden en hem in het aansigt seyden, by den Paus in syn buyck hadde.”