Part 296

In 1668, the royal treasury being greatly embarrassed by the king's extravagances, an attempt was made "to reduce the annual expenditure below the amount of the royal income. … But this plan of economy accorded not with the royal disposition, nor did it offer any prospect of extinguishing the debt. Charles remembered the promise of pecuniary assistance from France in the beginning of his reign; and, though his previous efforts to cultivate the friendship of Louis had been defeated by an unpropitious course of events, he resolved to renew the experiment. {896} Immediately after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Buckingham opened a negotiation with the duchess of Orleans, the king's sister, in France, and Charles, in his conversations with the French resident, apologised for his conduct in forming the triple alliance, and openly expressed his wish to enter into a closer union, a more intimate friendship, with Louis. … About the end of the year the communications between the two princes became more open and confidential; French money, or the promise of French money, was received by the English ministers; the negotiation began to assume a more regular form, and the most solemn assurances of secrecy were given, that their real object might be withheld from the knowledge, or even the suspicion, of the States. In this stage of the proceedings Charles received an important communication from his brother James. Hitherto that prince had been an obedient and zealous son of the Church of England; but Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation had shaken his religious credulity, and the result of the inquiry was a conviction that it became his duty to reconcile himself with the Church of Rome. He was not blind to the dangers to which such a change would expose him; and he therefore purposed to continue outwardly in communion with the established church, while he attended at the Catholic service in private. But, to his surprise, he learned from Symonds, a Jesuit missionary, that no dispensation could authorise such duplicity of conduct: a similar answer was returned to the same question from the pope; and James immediately took his resolution. He communicated to the king in private that he was determined to embrace the Catholic faith; and Charles without hesitation replied that he was of the same mind, and would consult with the duke on the subject in the presence of lord Arundell, lord Arlington, and Arlington's confidential friend, sir Thomas Clifford. … The meeting was held in the duke's closet. Charles, with tears in his eyes, lamented the hardship of being compelled to profess a religion which he did not approve, declared his determination to emancipate himself from this restraint, and requested the opinion of those present, as to the most eligible means of effecting his purpose with safety and success. They advised him to communicate his intention to Louis, and to solicit the powerful aid of that monarch. Here occurs a very interesting question,—was Charles sincere or not? … He was the most accomplished dissembler in his dominions; nor will it be any injustice to his character to suspect that his real object was to deceive both his brother and the king of France. … Now, however, the secret negotiation proceeded with greater activity; and lord Arundell, accompanied by sir Richard Bellings, hastened to the French court. He solicited from Louis the present of a considerable sum, to enable the king to suppress any insurrection which might be provoked by his intended conversion, and offered the co-operation of England in the projected invasion of Holland, on the condition of an annual subsidy during the continuation of hostilities." On the advice of Louis, Charles postponed, for the time being, his intention to enter publicly the Romish church and thus provoke a national revolt; but his proposals were otherwise accepted, and a secret treaty was concluded at Dover, in May, 1670, through the agency of Charles' sister, Henrietta, the duchess of Orleans, who came over for that purpose. "Of this treaty, … though much was afterwards said, little was certainly known. All the parties concerned, both the sovereigns and the negotiators, observed an impenetrable secrecy. What became of the copy transmitted to France is unknown; its counterpart was confided to the custody of sir Thomas Clifford, and is still in the keeping of his descendant, the lord Clifford of Chudleigh. The principal articles were:

1. That the king of England should publicly profess himself a Catholic at such time as should appear to him most expedient, and subsequently to that profession should join with Louis in a war against the Dutch republic at such time as the most Christian king should judge proper.

2. That to enable the king of England to suppress any insurrection which might be occasioned by his conversion, the king of France should grant him an aid of 2,000,000 of livres, by two payments, one at the expiration of three months, the other of six months, after the ratification of the treaty, and should also assist him with an armed force of 6,000 men, if … necessary. …

4. That if, eventually, any new rights on the Spanish monarchy should accrue to the king of France, the king of England should aid him with all his power in the acquisition of those rights. 5. That both princes should make war on the united provinces, and that neither should conclude peace or truce with them without the advice and consent of his ally.".

_J. Lingard, History of England, volume 11, chapter 6._

ALSO IN: _H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11._

_O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 16._

_G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 2 (volume 1)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1671. The Cabal.

"It was remarked that the committee of council, established for foreign affairs, was entirely changed; and that Prince Rupert, the Duke of Ormond, Secretary Trevor, and Lord-keeper Bridgeman, men in whose honour the nation had great confidence, were never called to any deliberations. The whole secret was intrusted to five persons, Clifford, Ashley [afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury], Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. These men were known by the appellation of the Cabal, a word which the initial letters of their names happened to compose. Never was there a more dangerous ministry in England, nor one more noted for pernicious counsels."

_D. Hume, History of England, chapter. 65 (volume 6)._

See, also, CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1673. The Declaration of Indulgence and the Test Act.

"It would have been impossible to obtain the consent of the party in the Royal Council which represented the old Presbyterians, of Ashley or Lauderdale or the Duke of Buckingham, to the Treaty of Dover. But it was possible to trick them into approval of a war with Holland by playing on their desire for a toleration of the Nonconformists. The announcement of the King's Catholicism was therefore deferred. … His ministers outwitted, it only remained for Charles to outwit his Parliament. A large subsidy was demanded for the fleet, under the pretext of upholding the Triple Alliance, and the subsidy was no sooner granted than the two Houses were adjourned. {897} Fresh supplies were obtained by closing the Exchequer, and suspending—under Clifford's advice—the payment of either principal or interest on loans advanced to the public treasury. The measure spread bankruptcy among half the goldsmiths of London; but it was followed in 1672 by one yet more startling—the Declaration of Indulgence. By virtue of his ecclesiastical powers, the King ordered 'that all manner of penal laws on matters ecclesiastical against whatever sort of Nonconformists or recusants should be from that day suspended,' and gave liberty of public worship to all dissidents save Catholics, who were allowed to practice their religion only in private houses. … The Declaration of Indulgence was at once followed by a declaration of war against the Dutch on the part of both England and France. … It was necessary in 1673 to appeal to the Commons [for war supplies], but the Commons met in a mood of angry distrust. … There was a general suspicion that a plot was on foot for the establishment of Catholicism and despotism, and that the war and the Indulgence were parts of the plot. The change of temper in the Commons was marked by the appearance of what was from that time called the Country party, with Lords Russell and Cavendish and Sir William Coventry at its head—a party which sympathized with the Nonconformists, but looked on it as its first duty to guard against the designs of the Court. As to the Declaration of Indulgence, however, all parties in the House were at one. The Commons resolved 'that penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical cannot be suspended but by consent of Parliament,' and refused supplies till the Declaration was recalled. The King yielded; but the Declaration was no sooner recalled than a Test Act was passed through both Houses without opposition, which required from everyone in the civil and military employment of the State the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, a declaration against transubstantiation, and a reception of the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. Clifford at once counseled resistance, and Buckingham talked flightily about bringing the army to London, but Arlington saw that all hope of carrying the 'great plan' through was at an end, and pressed Charles to yield. … Charles sullenly gave way. No measure has ever brought about more startling results. The Duke of York owned himself a Catholic, and resigned his office as Lord High Admiral. … Clifford, too, … owned to being a Catholic, and … laid down his staff of office. Their resignation was followed by that of hundreds of others in the army and the civil service of the Crown. … The resignations were held to have proved the existence of the dangers which the Test Act had been passed to meet. From this moment all trust in Charles was at an end."

_J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, section 3._

"It is very true that the [Test Act] pointed only at Catholics, that it really proposed an anti-Popish test, yet the construction of it, although it did not exclude from office such Dissenters as could occasionally conform, did effectually exclude all who scrupled to do so. Aimed at the Romanists, it struck the Presbyterians. It is clear that, had the Nonconformists and the Catholics joined their forces with those of the Court, in opposing the measure, they might have defeated it; but the first of these classes for the present submitted to the inconvenience, from the horror which they entertained of Popery, hoping, at the same time, that some relief would be afforded for this personal sacrifice in the cause of a common Protestantism. Thus the passing of an Act, which, until a late period, inflicted a social wrong upon two large sections of the community, is to be attributed to the course pursued by the very parties whose successors became the sufferers."

_J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 3, chapter 11._

ALSO IN: _D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 4, chapter 8, and volume 5, chapter 1._

_J. Collier, Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, part 2, book 9 (volume 8)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1674. Alliance with Louis XIV. of France in war with Holland.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1673. Loss of New York, retaken by the Dutch.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1674. Peace with the Dutch. Treaty of Westminster. Recovery of New York.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1675-1688. Concessions to France in Newfoundland.

See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1678-1679. The Popish Plot.

"There was an uneasy feeling in the nation that it was being betrayed, and just then [August, 1678] a strange story caused a panic throughout all England. A preacher of low character, named Titus Oates, who had gone over to the Jesuits, declared that he knew of a plot among the Catholics to kill the king and set up a Catholic Government. He brought his tale to a magistrate, named Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, and shortly afterwards [October 17] Godfrey was found murdered in a ditch near St. Pancras Church. The people thought that the Catholics had murdered him to hush up the 'Popish plot,' and when Parliament met a committee was appointed to examine into the matter. Some papers belonging to a Jesuit named Coleman alarmed them, and so great was the panic that an Act was passed shutting out all Catholics, except the Duke of York, from Parliament. After this no Catholic sat in either House for a hundred and fifty years. But worse followed. Oates became popular, and finding tale-bearing successful, he and other informers went on to swear away the lives of a great number of innocent Catholics. The most noted of these was Lord Stafford, an upright and honest peer, who was executed in 1681, declaring his innocence. Charles laughed among his friends at the whole matter, but let it go on, and Shaftesbury, who wished to turn out Lord Danby, did all he could to fan the flame."

_A. B. Buckley, History of England for Beginners, chapter 19._

"The capital and the whole nation went mad with hatred and fear. The penal laws, which had begun to lose something of their edge, were sharpened anew. Everywhere justices were busied in searching houses and seizing papers. All the gaols were filled with Papists. London had the aspect of a city in a state of siege. The train bands were under arms all night. Preparations were made for barricading the great thoroughfares. Patroles marched up and down the streets. Cannon were planted round Whitehall. No citizen thought himself safe unless he carried under his coat a small flail loaded with lead to brain the Popish assassins."

_Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter. 2 (volume 1)._

{898}

"It being expected that printed Bibles would soon become rare, or locked up in an unknown tongue, many honest people, struck with the alarm, employed themselves in copying the Bible into short-hand that they might not be destitute of its consolations in the hour of calamity. … It was about the year 1679 that the famous King's Head Club was formed, so named from its being held at the King's Head Tavern in Fleet Street. … They were terrorists and spread alarm with great effect. It was at this club that silk armour, pistol proof, was recommended as a security against assassination at the hands of the Papists; and the particular kind of life-preserver of that day, called a Protestant flail, was introduced."

_G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

"And now commenced, before the courts of justice and the upper house, a sombre prosecution of the catholic lords Arundel, Petre, Stafford, Powis, Bellasis, the Jesuits Coleman, Ireland, Grieve, Pickering, and, in succession, all who were implicated by the indefatigable denunciations of Titus Oates and Bedloe. Unhappily, these courts of justice, desiring, in common with the whole nation, to condemn rather than to examine, wanted neither elements which might, if strictly acted upon, establish legal proof of conspiracy against some of the accused, nor terrible laws to destroy them when found guilty. And it was here that a spectacle, at first imposing, became horrible. No friendly voice arose to save those men who were guilty only of impracticable wishes, of extravagant conceptions. The king, the duke of York, the French ambassador, thoroughly acquainted as they were with the real nature of these imputed crimes, remained silent; they were thoroughly cowed."

_A. Carrel, History of the Counter-Revolution in England, part 1, chapter 4._

"Although, … upon a review of this truly shocking transaction, we may be fairly justified … in imputing to the greater part of those concerned in it, rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity than the deliberate wickedness of planning and assisting in the perpetration of legal murders; yet the proceedings on the popish plot must always be considered as an indelible disgrace upon the English nation, in which king, parliament, judges, juries, witnesses, prosecutors, have all their respective, though certainly not equal, shares."

_C. J. Fox, History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II., introduction, ch._

"In this dreadful scene of wickedness, it is difficult not to assign the pre-eminence of guilt to Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury. If he did not first contrive, he certainly availed himself of the revelations of Oates, to work up the nation to the fury which produced the subsequent horrors. … In extenuation of the delusion of the populace, something may be offered. The defamation of half a century had made the catholics the objects of protestant odium and distrust: and these had been increased by the accusation, artfully and assiduously fomented, of their having been the authors of the fire of the city of London. The publication, too, of Coleman's letters, certainly announced a considerable activity in the catholics to promote the catholic religion; and contained expressions, easily distorted to the sense, in which the favourers of the belief of the plot wished them to be understood. Danby's correspondence, likewise, which had long been generally known, and was about this time made public, had discovered that Charles was in the pay of France. These, with several other circumstances, had inflamed the imaginations of the public to the very highest pitch. A dreadful something (and not the less dreadful because its precise nature was altogether unknown), was generally apprehended. … For their supposed part in the plot, ten laymen and seven priests, one of whom was seventy, another eighty, years of age, were executed. Seventeen others were condemned, but not executed. Some died in prison, and some were pardoned. On the whole body of catholics the laws were executed with horrible severity."

_C. Butler, Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, chapter 32, section 3 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapter 89 (volume 3)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (May). The Habeas Corpus Act.

"Arbitrary imprisonment is a grievance which, in some degree, has place in almost every government, except in that of Great Britain; and our absolute security from it we owe chiefly to the present Parliament; a merit which makes some atonement for the faction and violence into which their prejudices had, in other particulars, betrayed them. The great charter had laid the foundation of this valuable part of liberty; the petition of right had renewed and extended it; but some provisions were still wanting to render it complete, and prevent all evasion or delay from ministers and judges. The act of habeas corpus, which passed this session, served these purposes. By this act it was prohibited to send anyone to a prison beyond sea. No judge, under severe penalties, must refuse to any prisoner a writ of habeas corpus, by which the gaoler was directed to produce in court the body of the prisoner (whence the writ has its name), and to certify the cause of his detainer and imprisonment. If the gaol lie within twenty miles of the judge, the writ must be obeyed in three days; and so proportionably for greater distances; every prisoner must be indicted the first term after his commitment, and brought to trial in the subsequent term. And no man, after being enlarged by order of court, can be recommitted for the same offence."

_D. Hume, History of England, chapter 67 (volume 6)._

"The older remedies serving as a safeguard against unlawful imprisonment, were—

1. The writ of Mainprise, ensuring the delivery of the accused to a friend of the same, who gave security to answer for his appearance before the court when required, and in token of such undertaking he held him by the hand ('le prit par le main').

2. The writ 'De odio et atiâ,' i. e., of hatred and malice, which, though not abolished, has long since been antiquated. … It directed the sheriff to make inquisition in the county court whether the imprisonment proceeded from malice or not. …

3. The writ 'De homine replegiando,' or replevying a man, that is, delivering him out on security to answer what may be objected against him.

A writ is, originally, a royal writing, either an open patent addressed to all to whom it may come, and issued under the great seal; or, 'litteræ clausæ,' a sealed letter addressed to a particular person; such writs were prepared in the royal courts or in the Court of Chancery. The most usual instrument of protection, however, against arbitrary imprisonment is the writ of 'Habeas corpus,' so called from its beginning with the words, 'Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum,' which, on account of its universal application and the security it affords, has, insensibly, taken precedence of all others. {899} This is an old writ of the common law, and must be prayed for in any of the Superior courts of common law. … But this writ … proved but a feeble, or rather wholly ineffectual protection against the arbitrary power of the sovereign. The right of an English subject to a writ of habeas corpus, and to a release from imprisonment unless sufficient cause be shown for his detention, was fully canvassed in the first years of the reign of Charles I. … The parliament endeavoured to prevent such arbitrary imprisonment by passing the 'Petition of Right,' which enacted that no freeman, in any such manner … should be imprisoned or detained. Even this act was found unavailing against the malevolent interpretations put by the judges; hence the 16 Charles I., c. 10, was passed, which enacts, that when any person is restrained of his liberty by the king in person, or by the Privy Council, or any member thereof, he shall, on demand of his counsel, have a writ of habeas corpus, and, three days after the writ, shall be brought before the court to determine whether there is ground for further imprisonment, for bail, or for his release. Notwithstanding these provisions, the immunity of English subjects from arbitrary detention was not ultimately established in full practical efficiency until the passing of the statute of Charles II., commonly called the 'Habeas Corpus Act.'"

_E. Fischel, The English Constitution, book 1, chapter 9._

ALSO IN: _Sir W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, book 3, chapter 8._

_H. J. Stephen, Commentaries, book 5, chapter 12, section 5 (volume 4)._

The following is the text of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679: