Part 298

"Dangerfield, a subtle and dexterous man, who had gone through all the shapes and practices of roguery, and in particular was a false coiner, undertook now to coin a plot for the ends of the papists. He … got into all companies, and mixed with the hottest men of the town, and studied to engage others with himself to swear that they had been invited to accept of commissions, and that a new form of government was to be set up, and that the king and the royal family were to be sent away. He was carried with this story, first to the duke, and then to the king, and had a weekly allowance of money, and was very kindly used by many of that side; so that a whisper run about town, that some extraordinary thing would quickly break out: and he having some correspondence with one colonel Mansel, he made up a bundle of seditious but ill contrived letters, and laid them in a dark corner of his room: and then some searchers were sent from the custom house to look for some forbidden goods, which they heard were in Mansel's chamber. There were no goods found: but as it was laid, they found that bundle of letters: and upon that a great noise was made of a discovery: but upon inquiry it appeared the letters were counterfeited, and the forger of them was suspected; so they searched into all Dangerfield's haunts, and in one of them they found a paper that contained the scheme of this whole fiction, which, because it was found in a meal-tub, came to be called the meal-tub plot. … This was a great disgrace to the popish party, and the king suffered much by the countenance he had given him."

_G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 3, 1679._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1679-1681. The Exclusion Bill.

"Though the duke of York was not charged with participation in the darkest schemes of the popish conspirators, it was evident that his succession was the great aim of their endeavours, and evident also that he had been engaged in the more real and undeniable intrigues of Coleman. His accession to the throne, long viewed with just apprehension, now seemed to threaten such perils to every part of the constitution as ought not supinely to be waited for, if any means could be devised to obviate them. This gave rise to the bold measure of the exclusion bill, too bold, indeed, for the spirit of the country, and the rock on which English liberty was nearly shipwrecked. In the long parliament, full as it was of pensioners and creatures of court influence, nothing so vigorous would have been successful. … But the zeal they showed against Danby induced the king to put an end [January 24, 1679] to this parliament of seventeen years' duration; an event long ardently desired by the popular party, who foresaw their ascendancy in the new elections. The next house of commons accordingly came together with an ardour not yet quenched by corruption; and after reviving the impeachments commenced by their predecessors, and carrying a measure long in agitation, a test which shut the catholic peers out of parliament, went upon the exclusion bill [the second reading of which was carried, May 21, 1679, by 207 to 128].

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Their dissolution put a stop to this; and in the next parliament the lords rejected it [after the commons had passed the bill, without a division, October, 1680]. … The bill of exclusion … provided that the imperial crown of England should descend to and be enjoyed by such person or persons successively during the life of the duke of York as would have inherited or enjoyed the same in case he were naturally dead. … But a large part of the opposition had unfortunately other objects in view." Under the contaminating influence of the earl of Shaftesbury, "they broke away more and more from the line of national opinion, till a fatal reaction involved themselves in ruin, and exposed the cause of public liberty to its most imminent peril. The countenance and support of Shaftesbury brought forward that unconstitutional and most impolitic scheme of the duke of Monmouth's succession. [James, duke of Monmouth, was the acknowledged natural son of king Charles, by Lucy Walters, his mistress while in exile at the Hague.] There could hardly be a greater insult to a nation used to respect its hereditary line of kings, than to set up the bastard of a prostitute, without the least pretence of personal excellence or public services, against a princess of known virtue and attachment to the protestant religion. And the effrontery of this attempt was aggravated by the libels eagerly circulated to dupe the credulous populace into a belief of Monmouth's legitimacy."

_H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 12._

ALSO IN: _A. Carrel, History of the Counter-Revolution in England, part 2, chapter 1._

_G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapter 4-8 (volume 1)._

_G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, book 3, 1679-81._

_Sir W. Temple, Memoirs, part 3 (Works, volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1680. Whigs and Tories acquire their respective names.

"Factions indeed were at this time [A. D. 1680] extremely animated against each other. The very names by which each party denominated its antagonist discover the virulence and rancour which prevailed. For besides petitioner and abhorrer, appellations which were soon forgotten, this year is remarkable for being the epoch of the well-known epithets of Whig and Tory, by which, and sometimes without any material difference, this island has been so long divided. The court party reproached their antagonists with their affinity to the fanatical conventiclers in Scotland, who were known by the name of Whigs: the country party found a resemblance between the courtiers and the popish banditti in Ireland, to whom the appellation of Tory was affixed: and after this manner these foolish terms of reproach came into public and general use."

_D. Hume, History of England, chapter 68 (volume 6)._

"The definition of the nickname Tory, as it originally arose, is given in 'A New Ballad' (Narcissus Luttrell's Collection):—

The word Tory's of Irish Extraction, 'Tis a Legacy that they have left here They came here in their brogues, And have acted like Rogues, In endeavouring to learn us to swear."

_J. Grego, History of Parliamentary Elections, page 36._

ALSO IN: _G. W. Cooke, History of Party, volume 1, chapter 2._

_Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 2._

For the origin of the name of the 'Whig party,

See WHIGS (WIGGAMORS); also, RAPPAREES.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1681-1683. The Tory reaction and the downfall of the Whigs. The Rye-house Plot.

"Shaftesbury's course rested wholly on the belief that the penury of the Treasury left Charles at his mercy, and that a refusal of supplies must wring from the King his assent to the exclusion. But the gold of France had freed the King from his thraldom. He had used the Parliament [of 1681] simply to exhibit himself as a sovereign whose patience and conciliatory temper was rewarded with insult and violence; and now that he saw his end accomplished, he suddenly dissolved the Houses in April, and appealed in a Royal declaration to the justice of the nation at large. The appeal was met by an almost universal burst of loyalty. The Church rallied to the King; his declaration was read from every pulpit; and the Universities solemnly decided that 'no religion, no law, no fault, no forfeiture' could avail to bar the sacred right of hereditary succession. … The Duke of York returned in triumph to St. James's. … Monmouth, who had resumed his progresses through the country as a means of checking the tide of reaction, was at once arrested. … Shaftesbury, alive to the new danger, plunged desperately into conspiracies with a handful of adventurers as desperate as himself, hid himself in the City, where he boasted that ten thousand 'brisk boys' were ready to appear at his call, and urged his friends to rise in arms. But their delays drove him to flight. … The flight of Shaftesbury proclaimed the triumph of the King. His wonderful sagacity had told him when the struggle was over and further resistance useless. But the Whig leaders, who had delayed to answer the Earl's call, still nursed projects of rising in arms, and the more desperate spirits who had clustered around him as he lay hidden in the City took refuge in plots of assassination, and in a plan for murdering Charles and his brother as they passed the Rye-house [a Hertfordshire farm house, so-called] on their road from London to Newmarket. Both the conspiracies were betrayed, and, though they were wholly distinct from one another, the cruel ingenuity of the Crown lawyers blended them into one. Lord Essex, the last of an ill-fated race, saved himself from a traitor's death by suicide in the Tower. Lord Russell, convicted on a charge of sharing in the Rye-house Plot, was beheaded in Lincoln Inn Fields. The same fate awaited Algernon Sidney. Monmouth fled in terror over sea, and his flight was followed by a series of prosecutions for sedition directed against his followers. In 1683 the Constitutional opposition which had held Charles so long in check lay crushed at his feet. … On the very day when the crowd around Russell's scaffold were dipping their handkerchiefs in his blood, as in the blood of a martyr, the University of Oxford solemnly declared that the doctrine of passive obedience, even to the worst of rulers, was a part of religion." During the brief remainder of his reign Charles was a prudently absolute monarch, governing without a Parliament, coolly ignoring the Triennial Act, and treating on occasions the Test Act, as well as other laws obnoxious to him, with contempt. He died unexpectedly, early in February, 1685, and his brother, the Duke of York, succeeded to the throne, as James II., with no resistance, but with much feeling opposed to him.

_J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, sections 5-6._

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ALSO IN: _G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth; chapters 8-10 (volume 1)._

_D. Hume, History of England, chapters 68-69 (volume 6)._

_G. W. Cooke, History of Party, volume 1, chapters 6-11._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685. Accession of James II.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (February). The new King proclaims his religion.

"The King [James II.] early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the proof. While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown open, in order that all who came to pay their duty to him might see the ceremony. When the host was elevated there was a strange confusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell on their knees: the Protestants hurried out of the room. Soon a new pulpit was erected in the palace; and, during Lent, a series of sermons was preached there by Popish divines."

_Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (May-July). Monmouth's Rebellion.

"The Parliament which assembled on the 22nd of May … was almost entirely Tory. The failure of the Rye-House Plot had produced a reaction, which for a time entirely annihilated the Whig influence. … The apparent triumph of the King and the Tory party was completed by the disastrous failure of the insurrection planned by their adversaries. A knot of exiled malcontents, some Scotch, some English, had collected in Holland. Among them was Monmouth and the Earl of Argyle, son of that Marquis of Argyle who had taken so prominent a part on the Presbyterian side in the Scotch troubles of Charles I.'s reign. Monmouth had kept aloof from politics till, on the accession of James, he was induced to join the exiles at Amsterdam, whither Argyle, a strong Presbyterian, but a man of lofty and moderate views, also repaired. National jealousy prevented any union between the exiles, and two expeditions were determined on,—the one under Argyle, who hoped to find an army ready to his hand among his clansmen in the West of Scotland, the other under Monmouth in the West of England. Argyle's expedition set sail on the 2nd of May [1685]. … Argyle's invasion was ruined by the limited authority intrusted to him, and by the jealousy and insubordination of his fellow leaders. … His army disbanded. He was himself taken in Renfrewshire, and, after an exhibition of admirable constancy, was beheaded. … A week before the final dispersion of Argyle's troops, Monmouth had landed in England [at Lyme, June 11]. He was well received in the West. He had not been twenty-four hours in England before he found himself at the head of 1,500 men; but though popular among the common people, he received no support from the upper classes. Even the strongest Whigs disbelieved the story of his legitimacy, and thought his attempt ill-timed and fraught with danger. … Meanwhile Monmouth had advanced to Taunton, had been there received with enthusiasm, and, vainly thinking to attract the nobility, had assumed the title of King. Nor was his reception at Bridgewater less flattering. But difficulties already began to gather round him; he was in such want of arms, that, although rustic implements were converted into pikes, he was still obliged to send away many volunteers; the militia were closing in upon him in all directions; Bristol had been seized by the Duke of Beaufort, and the regular army under Feversham and Churchill were approaching." After feebly attempting several movements, against Bristol and into Wiltshire, Monmouth lost heart and fell back to Bridgewater. "The Royalist army was close behind him, and on the fifth of July encamped about three miles from Bridgewater, on the plain of Sedgemoor." Monmouth was advised to undertake a night surprise, and did so in the early morning of the 6th. "The night was not unfitting for such an enterprise, for the mist was so thick that at a few paces nothing could be seen. Three great ditches by which the moor was drained lay between the armies; of the third of these, strangely enough, Monmouth knew nothing." The unexpected discovery of this third ditch, known as "the Bussex Rhine," which his cavalry could not cross, and behind which the enemy rallied, was the ruin of the enterprise. "Monmouth saw that the day was lost, and with the love of life which was one of the characteristics of his soft nature, he turned and fled. Even after his flight the battle was kept up bravely. At length the arrival of the King's artillery put an end to any further struggle. The defeat was followed by all the terrible scenes which mark a suppressed insurrection. … Monmouth and Grey pursued their flight into the New Forest, and were there apprehended in the neighbourhood of Ringwood." Monmouth petitioned abjectly for his life, but in vain. He was executed on the 15th of July. "The failure of this insurrection was followed by the most terrible cruelties. Feversham returned to London, to be flattered by the King and laughed at by the Court for his military exploits. He left Colonel Kirke in command at Bridgewater. This man had learned, as commander at Tangier, all the worst arts of cruel despotism. His soldiery in bitter pleasantry were called Kirke's 'Lambs,' from the emblem of their regiment. It is impossible to say how many suffered at the hands of this man and his brutal troops; 100 captives are said by some to have been put to death the week after the battle. But this military revenge did not satisfy the Court."

_J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, pages 764-768._

The number of Monmouth's men killed is computed by some at 2,000, by others at 300; a disparity, however, which may be easily reconciled by supposing that the one account takes in those who were killed in battle, while the other comprehends the wretched fugitives who were massacred in ditches, cornfields, and other hiding places, the following day."

_C. J. Fox, History of the Early Part of the Reign of James II., chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapters 13-28 (volumes 1-2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (September). The Bloody Assizes.

"Early in September, Jeffreys [Sir George Jeffreys, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench], accompanied by four other judges, set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as long as our race and language. … At Winchester the Chief Justice first opened his commission. Hampshire had not been the theatre of war; but many of the vanquished rebels had, like their leader, fled thither." Two among these had been found concealed in the house of Lady Alice Lisle, a widow of eminent nobility of character, and Jeffreys' first proceeding was to arraign Lady Alice for the technical reason of the concealment. {905} She was tried with extraordinary brutality of manner on the part of the judge; the jury was bullied into a verdict of guilty, and the innocent woman was condemned by the fiend on the bench to be burned alive. By great exertion of many people, the sentence was commuted from burning to beheading. No mercy beyond this could be obtained from Jeffreys or his fit master, the king. "In Hampshire Alice Lisle was the only victim: but, on the day following her execution, Jeffreys reached Dorchester, the principal town of the county in which Monmouth had landed, and the judicial massacre began. The court was hung, by order of the Chief Justice, with scarlet; and this innovation seemed to the multitude to indicate a bloody purpose. … More than 300 prisoners were to be tried. The work seemed heavy; but Jeffreys had a contrivance for making it light. He let it be understood that the only chance of obtaining pardon or respite was to plead guilty. Twenty-nine persons, who put themselves on their country and were convicted, were ordered to be tied up without delay. The remaining prisoners pleaded guilty by scores. Two hundred and ninety-two received sentence of death. The whole number hanged in Dorsetshire amounted to seventy-four. From Dorchester Jeffreys proceeded to Exeter. The civil war had barely grazed the frontier of Devonshire. Here, therefore, comparatively few persons were capitally punished. Somersetshire, the chief seat of the rebellion, had been reserved for the last and most fearful vengeance. In this county two hundred and thirty-three prisoners were in a few days hanged, drawn and quartered. At every spot where two roads met, on every market place, on the green of every large village which had furnished Monmouth with soldiers, ironed corpses clattering in the wind, or heads and quarters stuck on poles, poisoned the air, and made the traveller sick with horror. … The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits rose higher and higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way that many thought him drunk from morning to night. … Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest. … Yet those rebels who were doomed to death were less to be pitied than some of the survivors. Several prisoners to whom Jeffreys was unable to bring home the charge of high treason were convicted of misdemeanours and were sentenced to scourging not less terrible than that which Oates had undergone. … The number of prisoners whom Jeffreys transported was eight hundred and forty-one. These men, more wretched than their associates who suffered death, were distributed into gangs, and bestowed on persons who enjoyed favour at court. The conditions of the gift were that the convicts should be carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their banishment should be some West Indian island. … It was estimated by Jeffreys that, on an average, each of them, after all charges were paid, would be worth from ten to fifteen pounds. There was therefore much angry competition for grants. … And now Jeffreys had done his work, and returned to claim his reward. He arrived at Windsor from the West, leaving carnage, mourning and terror behind him. The hatred with which he was regarded by the people of Somersetshire has no parallel in our history. … But at the court Jeffreys was cordially welcomed. He was a judge after his master's own heart. James had watched the circuit with interest and delight. … At a later period, when all men of all parties spoke with horror of the Bloody Assizes, the wicked Judge and the wicked King attempted to vindicate themselves by throwing the blame on each other."

_Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _Sir James Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England, chapter 1._

_Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapter 100 (volume 3)._

_G. Roberts, Life of Monmouth, chapter 29-31 (volume 2)._

See, also, TAUNTON: A. D. 1685.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1686. Faithless and tyrannical measures against the New England colonies.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687; and MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1689. The Despotism of James II. in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1681-1689.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1686. The Court of High Commission revived.

"James conceived the design of employing his authority as head of the Church of England as a means of subjecting that church to his pleasure, if not of finally destroying it. It is hard to conceive how he could reconcile to his religion the exercise of supremacy in an heretical sect, and thus sanction by his example the usurpations of the Tudors on the rights of the Catholic Church. … He, indeed, considered the ecclesiastical supremacy as placed in his hands by Providence to enable him to betray the Protestant establishment. 'God,' said he to Barillon, 'has permitted that all the laws made to establish Protestantism now serve as a foundation for my measures to re-establish true religion, and give me a right to exercise a more extensive power than other Catholic princes possess in the ecclesiastical affairs of their dominions.' He found legal advisers ready with paltry expedients for evading the two statutes of 1641 and 1660 [abolishing, and re-affirming the abolition of the Court of High Commission], under the futile pretext that they forbade only a court vested with such powers of corporal punishment as had been exercised by the old Court of High Commission; and in conformity to their pernicious counsel, he issued, in July, a commission to certain ministers, prelates, and judges, to act as a Court of Commissioners in Ecclesiastical Causes. The first purpose of this court was to enforce directions to preachers, issued by the King, enjoining them to abstain from preaching on controverted questions."

_Sir James Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England, chapter 2._