Part 299

ALSO IN: _D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 5, chapter 3._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1686. The consolidation of New England under a royal Governor-General.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1687. Riddance of the Test Act by royal dispensing power.

"The abolition of the tests was a thing resolved upon in the catholic council, and for this a sanction of some kind or other was required, as they dared not yet proceed upon the royal will alone. Chance, or the machinations of the catholics, created an affair which brought the question of the tests under another form before the court of king's bench. {906} This court had not the power to abolish the Test Act, but it might consider whether the king had the right of exempting particular subjects from the formalities. … The king … closeted himself with the judges one by one, dismissed some, and got those who replaced them, 'ignorant men,' says an historian, 'and scandalously incompetent,' to acknowledge his dispensing power. … The judges of the king's bench, after a trial, … declared, almost in the very language used by the crown counsel:

1. That the kings of England are sovereign princes;

2. That the laws of England are the king's laws;

3. That therefore it is an inseparable prerogative in the kings of England to dispense with penal laws in particular cases, and upon particular necessary reasons;

4. That of those reasons, and those necessities, the king himself is sole judge; and finally, which is consequent upon all,

5. That this is not a trust invested in, or granted to the king by the people, but the ancient remains of the sovereign power and prerogative of the kings of England, which never yet was taken from them, nor can be.

The case thus decided, the king thought he might rely upon the respect always felt by the English people for the decisions of the higher courts, to exempt all his catholic subjects from the obligations of the test. And upon this, it became no longer a question merely of preserving in their commissions and offices those whose dismissal had been demanded by parliament. … To obtain or to retain certain employments, it was necessary to be of the same religion with the king. Papists replaced in the army and in the administration all those who had pronounced at all energetically for the maintenance of the tests. Abjurations, somewhat out of credit during the last session of parliament, again resumed favour."

_A. Carrel, History of the Counter-Revolution in England, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _J. Stoughton, History of Religion in England, volume 4, chapter 4._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688. Declarations of Indulgence. Trial of the Seven Bishops.

"Under pretence of toleration for Dissenters, James endeavoured, under another form, to remove obstacles from Romanists. He announced an Indulgence. He began in Scotland by issuing on the 12th of February, 1687, in Edinburgh, a Proclamation granting relief to scrupulous consciences. Hereby he professed to relieve the Presbyterians, but the relief of them amounted to nothing; to the Romanists it was complete. … On the 18th of March, 1687, he announced to the English Privy Council his intention to prorogue Parliament, and to grant upon his own authority entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. Accordingly on the 4th of April he published his Indulgence, declaring his desire to see all his subjects become members of the Church of Rome, and his resolution (since that was impracticable) to protect them in the free exercise of their religion; also promising to protect the Established Church: then he annulled a number of Acts of Parliament, suspended all penal laws against Nonconformists, authorised Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform worship publicly, and abrogated all Acts of Parliament imposing any religious test for civil or military offices. This declaration was then notoriously illegal and unconstitutional. James now issued a second and third declaration for Scotland, and courted the Dissenters in England, but with small encouragement. … On the 27th of April, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of Indulgence for England. … On the 4th of May, by an order in Council, he directed his Declaration of the 27th of April to be publicly read during divine service in all Churches and Chapels, by the officiating ministers, on two successive Sundays—namely, on the 20th and 27th of May in London, and on the 3d and 10th of June in the country; and desired the Bishops to circulate this Declaration through their dioceses. Hitherto the Bishops and Clergy had held the doctrine of passive obedience to the sovereign, however bad in character or in his measures—now they were placed by the King himself in a dilemma. Here was a violation of existing law, and an intentional injury to their Church, if not a plan for the substitution of another. The Nonconformists, whom James pretended to serve, coincided with and supported the Church. A decided course must be taken. The London Clergy met and resolved not to read the Declaration. On the 12th of May, at Lambeth Palace, the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Prelates assembled. They resolved that the Declaration ought not to be read. On Friday, the 18th of May, a second meeting of the Prelates and eminent divines was held at Lambeth Palace. A petition to the King was drawn up by the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own handwriting, disclaiming all disloyalty and all intolerance, … but stating that Parliament had decided that the King could not dispense with Statutes in matters ecclesiastical—that the Declaration was therefore illegal—and could not be solemnly published by the petitioners in the House of God and during divine service. This paper was signed by Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawny of Bristol. It was approved by Compton, Bishop of London, but not signed, because he was under suspension. The Archbishop had long been forbidden to appear at Court, therefore could not present it. On Friday evening the six Bishops who had signed were introduced by Sunderland to the King, who read the document and pronounced it libellous [and seditious and rebellious], and the Bishops retired. On Sunday, the 20th of May, the first day appointed, the Declaration was read in London only in four Churches out of one hundred. The Dissenters and Church Laymen sided with the Clergy. On the following Sunday the Declaration was treated in the same manner in London, and on Sunday, the 3d of June, was disregarded by Bishops and Clergy in all parts of England. James, by the advice of Jeffreys, ordered the Archbishop and Bishops to be indicted for a seditious libel. They were, on the 8th of June, conveyed to the Tower amidst the most enthusiastic demonstrations of respect and affection from all classes. The same night the Queen was said to have given birth to a son; but the national opinion was that some trick had been played. On the 29th of June the trial of the seven Bishops came on before the Court of King's Bench. … The Jury, who, after remaining together all night (one being stubborn) pronounced a verdict of not guilty on the morning of the 30th June, 1688."

_W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 2._

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"The court met at nine o'clock. The nobility and gentry covered the benches, and an immense concourse of people filled the Hall, and blocked up the adjoining streets. Sir Robert Langley, the foreman of the jury, being, according to established form, asked whether the accused were guilty or not guilty, pronounced the verdict 'Not guilty.' No sooner were these words uttered than a loud huzza arose from the audience in the court. It was instantly echoed from without by a shout of joy, which sounded like a crack of the ancient and massy roof of Westminster Hall. It passed with electrical rapidity from voice to voice along the infinite multitude who waited in the streets. It reached the Temple in a few minutes. … 'The acclamations,' says Sir John Reresby, 'were a very rebellion in noise.' In no long time they ran to the camp at Hounslow, and were repeated with an ominous voice by the soldiers in the hearing of the King, who, on being told that they were for the acquittal of the bishops, said, with an ambiguity probably arising from confusion, 'So much the worse for them.'"

_Sir J. Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England in 1688, chapter 9._

ALSO IN: _A. Strickland, Lives of the Seven Bishops._

_R. Southey, Book of the Church, chapter 18._

_G. G. Perry, History of the Church of England, chapter 30 (volume 2)._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (July). William and Mary of Orange the hope of the nation.

"The wiser among English statesmen had fixed their hopes steadily on the succession of Mary, the elder daughter and heiress of James. The tyranny of her father's reign made this succession the hope of the people at large. But to Europe the importance of the change, whenever it should come about, lay not so much in the succession of Mary as in the new power which such an event would give to her husband, William, Prince of Orange. We have come, in fact, to a moment when the struggle of England against the aggression of its King blends with the larger struggle of Europe against the aggression of Lewis XIV."

_J. R. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, section 7._

"William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the republic of the United Provinces, was, before the birth of the Prince of Wales, first prince of the blood royal of England [as son of Princess Mary, daughter of Charles I., and, therefore, nephew as well as son-in-law of James II.]; and his consort, the Lady Mary, the eldest daughter of the King, was, at that period, presumptive heiress to the crown."

_Sir J. Mackintosh, History of the Revolution in England, chapter 10._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (JULY-NOVEMBER). Invitation to William of Orange and his acceptance of it.

"In July, in almost exact coincidence of time with the Queen's accouchement [generally doubted and suspected], came the memorable trial of the Seven Bishops, which gave the first demonstration of the full force of that popular animosity which James's rule had provoked. Some months before, however, Edward Russell, nephew of the Earl of Bedford, and cousin of Algernon Sidney's fellow-victim, had sought the Hague with proposals to William [prince of Orange] to make an armed descent upon England, as vindicator of English liberties and the Protestant religion. William had cautiously required a signed invitation from at least a few representative statesmen before committing himself to such an enterprise, and on the day of the acquittal of the Seven Bishops a paper, signed in cipher by Lords Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley, by Compton, Bishop of Northampton, by Edward Russell, and by Henry Sidney, brother of Algernon, was conveyed by Admiral Herbert to the Hague. William was now furnished with the required security for English assistance in the projected undertaking, but the task before him was still one of extreme difficulty. … On the 10th of October, matters now being ripe for such a step, William, in conjunction with some of his English advisers, put forth his famous declaration. Starting with a preamble to the effect that the observance of laws is necessary to the happiness of states, the instrument proceeds to enumerate fifteen particulars in which the laws of England had been set at naught. The most important of these were—

(1) the exercise of the dispensing power;

(2) the corruption, coercion, and packing of the judicial bench;

(3) the violation of the test laws by the appointment of papists to offices (particularly judicial and military offices, and the administration of Ireland), and generally the arbitrary and illegal measures resorted to by James for the propagation of the Catholic religion;

(4) the establishment and action of the Court of High Commission;

(5) the infringement of some municipal charters, and the procuring of the surrender of others;

(6) interference with elections by turning out of all employment such as refused to vote as they were required; and

(7) the grave suspicion which had arisen that the Prince of Wales was not born of the Queen, which as yet nothing had been done to remove.

Having set forth these grievances, the Prince's manifesto went on to recite the close interest which he and his consort had in this matter as next in succession to the crown, and the earnest solicitations which had been made to him by many lords spiritual and temporal, and other English subjects of all ranks, to interpose, and concluded by affirming in a very distinct and solemn manner that the sole object of the expedition then preparing was to obtain the assembling of a free and lawful Parliament, to which the Prince pledged himself to refer all questions concerning the due execution of the laws, and the maintenance of the Protestant religion, and the conclusion of an agreement between the Church of England and the Dissenters, as also the inquiry into the birth of the 'pretended Prince of Wales'; and that this object being attained, the Prince would, as soon as the state of the nation should permit of it, send home his foreign forces. About a week after, on the 16th of October, all things being now in readiness, the Prince took solemn leave of the States-General. … On the 19th William and his armament set sail from Helvoetsluys, but was met on the following day by a violent storm which forced him to put back on the 21st. On the 1st of November the fleet put to sea a second time. … By noon of the 5th of November, the Prince's fleet was wafted safely into Torbay."

_H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _G. Burnet, History of My Own Time, 1688 (volume 3)._

_L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 18, chapters 1-4 (volume 4)._

_Lord Campbell, Lives of the Lord Chancellors, chapters 106-107: Somers (volume 4)._

_T. P. Courtenay, Life of Danby (Lardner's Cab. Cyclop.), pages 315-324._

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1688 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER). The Revolution. Ignominious flight of James.

"The declaration published by the prince [on landing] consisted of sixteen articles. It enumerated those proceedings of the government since the accession of the king, which were regarded as in the greatest degree opposed to the liberty of the subject and to the safety of the Protestant religion. … To provide some effectual remedy against these and similar evils, was the only design of the enterprise in which the prince, in compliance with earnest solicitations from many lords, both spiritual and temporal, from numbers among the gentry and all ranks of people, had now embarked. … Addresses were also published to the army and navy. … The immediate effect of these appeals did not correspond with the expectations of William and his followers. On the 8th of November the people of Exeter received the prince with quiet submission. The memory of Monmouth's expedition was still fresh and terrible through the west. On the 12th, lord Cornbury, son of the earl of Clarendon, went over, with some officers, and about a hundred of his regiment, to the prince; and most of the officers, with a larger body of the privates belonging to the regiment commanded by the duke of St. Alban's, followed their example. Of three regiments, however, quartered near Salisbury, the majority could not be induced to desert the service of the king. … Every day now brought with it new accessions to the standard of the prince, and tidings of movements in different parts of the kingdom in his favour; while James was as constantly reminded, by one desertion after another, that he lived in an atmosphere of treachery, with scarcely a man or woman about him to be trusted. The defection of the lords Churchill and Drumlaneric, and of the dukes of Grafton and Ormond, was followed by that of prince George and the princess Anne. Prince George joined the invader at Sherburne; the princess made her escape from Whitehall at night, under the guardianship of the bishop of London, and found an asylum among the adherents of the prince of Orange who were in arms in Northamptonshire. By this time Bristol and Plymouth, Hull, York, and Newcastle, were among the places of strength which had been seized by the partisans of the prince. His standard had also been unfurled with success in the counties of Derby, Nottingham, York, and Cheshire. … Even in Oxford, several of the heads of colleges concurred in sending Dr. Finch, warden of All Souls' College, to invite the prince from Dorsetshire to their city, assuring him of their willingness to receive him, and to melt down their plate for his service, if it should be needed. So desperate had the affairs of James now become, that some of his advisers urged his leaving the kingdom, and negotiating with safety to his person from a distance; but from that course he was dissuaded by Halifax and Godolphin. In compliance with the advice of an assembly of peers, James issued a proclamation on the 13th of November, stating that writs had been signed to convene a parliament on the 15th of January; that a pardon of all offences should previously pass the great seal; and that commissioners should proceed immediately to the head-quarters of the prince of Orange, to negotiate on the present state of affairs. The commissioners chosen by the king were Halifax, Nottingham, and Godolphin; but William evaded for some days the conference which they solicited. In the meantime a forged proclamation in the name of the prince was made public in London, denouncing the Catholics of the metropolis as plotting the destruction of life and property on the largest possible scale. … No one doubted the authenticity of this document, and the ferment and disorder which it spread through the city filled the king with the greatest apprehension for the safety of himself and family. On the morning of the 9th of December, the queen and the infant prince of Wales were lodged on board a yacht at Gravesend, and commenced a safe voyage to Calais. James pledged himself to follow within 24 hours. In the course of that day the royal commissioners sent a report of their proceedings to Whitehall. The demands of the prince were, that a parliament should be assembled; that all persons holding public trusts in violation of the Test-laws should relinquish them; that the city should have command of the Tower; that the fleet, and the places of strength through the kingdom should be placed in the hands of Protestants; that the expense of the Dutch armament should be defrayed, in part, from the English Treasury; and that the king and the prince, and their respective forces, should remain at an equal distance from London during the sitting of parliament. James read these articles with some surprise, observing that they were much more moderate than he had expected. But his pledge had been given to the queen; the city was still in great agitation; and private letters, intimating that his person was not beyond the reach of danger, suggested that his interests might possibly be better served by his absence than by his presence. Hence his purpose to leave the kingdom remained unaltered. At three o'clock on the following morning the king left Whitehall with sir Edward Hales, disguising himself as an attendant. The vessel provided to convey him to France was a miserable fishing-boat. It descended the river without interruption until it came near to Feversham, where some fishermen, suspecting Hales and the king to be Catholics, probably priests endeavouring to make their escape in disguise, took them from the vessel. … The arrest of the monarch at Feversham on Wednesday was followed by an order of the privy council, commanding that his carriage and the royal guards should be sent to reconduct him to the capital. … After some consultation the king was informed that the public interests required his immediate withdrawment to some distance from Westminster, and Hampton Court was named. James expressed a preference for Rochester, and his wishes in that respect were complied with. The day on which the king withdrew to Rochester William took up his residence in St. James's. The king chose his retreat, deeming it probable that it might be expedient for him to make a second effort to reach the continent. … His guards left him so much at liberty, that no impediment to his departure was likely to arise; and on the last day of this memorable year—only a week after his removal from Whitehall, James embarked secretly at Rochester, and with a favourable breeze safely reached the French coast."

_R. Vaughan, History of England under the House of Stuart, volume 2, pages 914-918._

ALSO IN: _Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapters 9-10 (volume 2)._

_H. D. Traill, William the Third, chapter 4._

_Continuation of Sir J. Mackintosh's History of the Revolution in 1688, chapters 16-17._

_Sir J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 1, books 6-7 (volume 2)._

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ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY). The settlement of the Crown on William and Mary. The Declaration of Rights.