CHAPTER VII

JAMES II

The short reign of James afforded to the City a time of continual surprises and ceaseless anxiety, with the corresponding emotions of joy, sorrow, disappointment, and despair.

The reign began with an assurance that the established government, that of Church and State, would be respected and maintained. The King, however, showed what he understood by the proclamation when he continued to receive the customs which had been settled on Charles for life, and which could not be exacted by his successor without the assent of Parliament. James announced his intention of speedily calling a Parliament at the same time as he proclaimed his continuance of taking the customs. In the same illegal way he took over the excise duties.

Meantime the Mayor and Aldermen, in accordance with the successful craft of Charles, were mostly nominees of the King; they were instructed to admit to the liveries of the City Companies none but persons of “unquestionable loyalty”; so that, as Charles had provided, the whole of the governing bodies in the City were mere creatures of the Court.

One can hardly be surprised at the arrest and punishment of Titus Oates when James succeeded. At the same time to flog a man all the way from Aldgate to Newgate, and two days afterwards from Newgate to Tyburn, seems, short of the tortures of a Damiens,[3] the most horrible barbarity ever inflicted on a criminal since the time when a Roman could flog a slave to death. The first day’s march at the cart tail was a mile and a quarter in length; the next was over two miles and a half. Titus was flogged the whole way, with an interval of two days. If the cart was driven slowly, as was always the case, say at the rate of three miles an hour, and if the whip descended fifteen times a minute, the wretched man would receive 375 lashes on the first day, and two days after he would receive 750 lashes. Perhaps the executioner was less rapid in his movements; perhaps the cart moved more quickly. Perhaps the executioner was one of the many who still believed in the perjured wretch and sympathised with him. Yet even the closest friend would have to make a show of laying it on with a will. The man survived, showing how much agony a man may suffer before it kills him.

Short as was the reign of James, it provided for the Londoners many other scenes and dramatic situations.

On July 15 the populace gathered together in immense crowds to witness the execution of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. They brought him out of the Tower surrounded by a strong guard, while commanding officers had orders to shoot the prisoner should any attempt be made at a rescue. This was more than probable, seeing that in the vast concourse of people who were collected on Tower Hill, nine out of ten wished in their hearts that the Protestant champion had won the day at Sedgemoor, while some of them had even been with him on that fatal night, though they were by no means anxious that their friends should know the fact. The prisoner, still young, still the loveliest man to look upon in the three kingdoms, mounted the scaffold; he showed a firm countenance at the end. Did any of the spectators ask each other whether this handsome face had in it the slightest sign of kinship with the black and dour face of Charles? He knelt down; the headsman, trembling, delivered three strokes, then threw down the axe and swore he would not go on; but, taking up the axe again, in two more strokes severed the head from the body. Then the people, sick and sorry, returned to their homes.

The fall of Monmouth offered an opening, which James was not likely to forego, for the enjoyment of private revenge, and for giving a lesson to zealous Protestants. Henry Cornish, late Sheriff, had shown activity against Catholics on the occasion of the Rye House Plot. Let him, therefore, be legally murdered.

Henry Cornish was by trade a “factor”; was Alderman of the Ward of Bassishaw, and a resident in Cateaton Street. As we have seen, he was made Sheriff in 1680 with Slingsby Bethel. The events connected with his election were not calculated to make him a _persona grata_ with the Court. He was not only a Whig but a Presbyterian. He was one of the five Aldermen chosen for the defence of the civic liberties against the _Quo Warranto_. In February 1683 Cornish, with Pilkington, Shute, Bethel, Sir Thomas Player, the City Chamberlain, and Lord Grey of Wark, were brought to trial for the disturbances in June of the preceding year. They were all found guilty and all were fined; Cornish, for his part, had to pay a fine of 1000 marks. He had already been tricked out of his election to the office of Mayor by wholesale tampering with the votes. At the time of the Rye House Conspiracy, one John Rumsay, arrested on suspicion, offered to give evidence implicating Cornish. At the time his offer was not accepted.

Then James succeeded. Evidently he regarded Cornish as one of his most dangerous enemies. He waited until the Monmouth rebellion gave him an excuse. There had been an actual rebellion; if it could be proved that Cornish had any hand in it, there would be a way of getting rid of him.

Monmouth was executed on July 15. Three months passed, during which nothing was done to Cornish. This interval was employed, it is now certain, in getting up a case against him; we cannot suppose that James was ignorant of this plot—it was nothing less—to take the life of the sturdy Whig. The man Rumsey found another man, a private enemy to Cornish, named Goodenough, to join him in bearing witness which should implicate Cornish in the Rye House Plot and show him to be a friend of Monmouth. On Tuesday, the 13th of October, Cornish was arrested and taken to Newgate. On the Saturday he learned for the first time that he was in prison on a charge of high treason, and that he would be tried on the Monday. The trial took place accordingly. It was marked by the customary brow-beating and bullying. The man must have known that he was doomed; the fact that two days only were allowed him to prepare his case and bring forward his witnesses might have warned him what to expect.

[4]“His attitude before the judges was calm and dignified. Before pleading not guilty to the charge of having consented to aid and abet the late Duke of Monmouth and others in their attempt on the life of the late King (the Rye House Plot), he entered a protest against the indecent haste with which he had been called upon to plead, and the short time allowed him to prepare his case. He asked for further time, but this the judges refused.

One of the chief witnesses for the Crown was Goodenough, who had a personal spite against Cornish for his having objected to him (Goodenough) serving as under-sheriff in 1680–81, the year when Bethel and Cornish were sheriffs. Goodenough had risked his neck in Monmouth’s late rebellion, but he had succeeded in obtaining a pardon by promises of valuable information against others. With the King’s pardon in his pocket he unblushingly declared before the judges that he, as well as Cornish and some others, had determined upon a general rising in the city at the time of the Rye House Plot. ‘We designed,’ said he, ‘to divide it (_i.e._ the city) into twenty parts, and out of each part to raise five hundred men, if it might be done, to make an insurrection.’ The Tower was to be seized and the guard expelled.

Cornish had been afforded no opportunity for instructing counsel in his defence. He was therefore obliged to act as his own counsel, with the result usual in such cases. He rested his main defence upon the improbability of his having acted as the prosecution endeavoured to make out. This he so persistently urged that the judges lost patience. Improbability was not enough, they declared; let him call his witnesses. When, however, Cornish desired an adjournment, in order that he might bring a witness up from Lancashire, his request was refused. His chief witness he omitted to call until after the Lord Chief Justice had summed up. This man was a vintner of the city, named Shephard, at whose house Cornish was charged with having met and held consultation with Monmouth and the rest of the conspirators. The Bench after some demur assented to the prisoner’s earnest prayer that Shephard’s evidence might be taken. He showed that he had been in the habit of having commercial transactions with Cornish and was at that moment in his debt; that on the occasion in question Cornish had come to his house, but whether he came to speak with the Duke of Monmouth or not the witness could not say for certain; that he only remained a few minutes, and that no paper or declaration (on which so much stress had been laid) in connection with the conspiracy was read in Cornish’s presence; that in fact Cornish was not considered at the time as being in the plot. Such evidence, if not conclusive, ought to have gone far towards obtaining a verdict of acquittal for the prisoner. This was not the case, however. The jury, after a brief consultation, brought in a verdict of guilty, and Cornish had to submit to the indignity of being tied—like a dangerous criminal—whilst sentence of death was passed upon him and three others who had been tried at the same time.

The prisoner was allowed but three clear days before he was hanged at the corner of King Street and Cheapside, within sight of the Guildhall, which he had so often frequented as an Alderman of the City, and on which his head was afterwards placed. He met his end with courage and with many pious expressions, but to the last maintained his innocence with such vehemence that his enemies gave out that he had died in a fit of fury.”

It is pleasing to add that four years later an Act of Parliament was passed reversing the attainder of Cornish. It is also pleasing to think that the blood of this innocent man, like the blood of the martyrs, was remembered by his fellow-citizens, that it strengthened the side of freedom and accelerated the fall of James.

On the same day the people of London had a choice between two spectacles: that of Henry Cornish’s hanging, which was calculated to make every citizen thoughtful; or that of the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt at Tyburn—an act of brutal wickedness which ought to have made every citizen mad with indignation. Elizabeth Gaunt was a woman of great piety and charity; she visited the prisoners in the gaols; she relieved the sick; she fed the poor; she helped all who were afflicted, or in want, or in danger. Among others she helped a man named Burton, who was an outlaw, to escape. For this she was actually burned alive! The wretched man, Burton, turned King’s evidence and informed against his benefactress. One feels that it would be a moral lesson if we could ascertain the after-lives of Messrs. Rumsey, Goodenough, and Burton. The unfortunate gentlewoman behaved with fortitude, arranging with her own hands the straw around her so that she might the more quickly die. To us it seems incredible that judges should pass such sentences or should have such cases as those of Henry Cornish and Elizabeth Gaunt brought before them. As for the effect produced by these executions, they might, and no doubt did, terrify for a short time, but it was a terror which led to exasperation.

We must remember that the temper of the City during the whole of the seventeenth century was profoundly hostile to the Catholics. The Gunpowder Plot; the Romish leanings of Laud; the Fire of London; the so-called Romanist plots; the Protestant literature of the period; the terrible stories of the Spanish Inquisition; everything conspired to keep alive the hatred and suspicion of the Catholic Church. And an event which happened in October 1685 taught the people, who were ripe for such a lesson, what was to be expected of a Roman Catholic Government.

From time to time London has been enriched by the arrival of foreigners—Danes, Normans, Flemings, Italians, Palatines—who have brought with them new industries, and have settled down among the people, becoming English in the next generation. The most important of these immigrations was that of 1685, which came over here from France in consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, under which the Protestants of France had enjoyed the freedom of worshipping according to their own religion. A great many of them—probably about 60,000—came to this country, bringing with them what money they had, amounting, as was estimated, to £3,000,000. Among them were artificers of various kinds, especially silk-weavers, gold and silversmiths, watchmakers and carvers.

These refugees came over just before the death of Charles the Second; they were received with warm welcome; collections were made for them. There can be no doubt that the presence of these victims to Catholic bigotry largely stimulated the feeling against Catholicism which two or three years later ended in the expulsion of James. They were always in evidence. “See,” they said, “we are Protestants like yourselves; we have been driven from our own country for no other crime but our religion. What will happen to you when your King has had his own way and turned this country again to the Roman Catholic faith?” This was a question which was asked by everybody, and answered by every man and woman, however mean and illiterate, by one word.

With all these facts before him, in the face of feeling so strong that it seems impossible that he could fail to understand it, James persisted in his purpose. Perhaps he relied on assurances of support from the Catholic gentry; perhaps he thought of using Irish troops; perhaps he even looked forward to assistance from Louis; perhaps he counted on Roman Catholic officers carrying with them the army. However this may be, James resolved that there should be no mistake about his intentions. The laws against the Catholics were disregarded. Roman Catholic chapels were openly built and the Romish services were openly performed in them; there were tumults in the City; the mob would have no wooden gods and tore down the crucifix; they put up a cross and mocked it; they set upon the priests and ill-treated them; they would not believe that the Mayor really wished them to disperse. The trained bands actually refused to disperse the crowd while they were engaged on such pious work. Then James took a step which at first sight appears clever; it was really most unwise. He issued the famous Declaration of Indulgence which suspended all laws against Catholics and Dissenters alike. The Church of England, as he was going to find, was stronger than Roman Catholics and Dissenters put together. Indeed, many of the Dissenters very clearly understood that the Declaration was simply a measure of relief for the Catholics.

James next took up his late brother’s plan, which was to gain over the Corporations in the country; six Commissioners were sent round to turn out all those persons who were in favour of the Test Act and the penal laws. The companies of London were treated in this way, with the result that some 900 persons were turned out of the Courts of Assistants. As for the City itself, which, it must be understood, was still deprived of its charter, Jeffreys was instructed to inform the Aldermen that in future their Court should recommend to the Crown persons fit to be Aldermen. Many of the Aldermen resigned rather than vote an address to the King for this liberty, which was in reality another link in the chain which kept the City in servitude. Recommending to the King is not exactly the same thing as free election. However, they did recommend and nominate persons to serve, but it was found extremely difficult to get any one to accept office. No less than £8500 were paid in fines by those who refused.

In a very short time the City offices were nearly all held by Dissenters. A Dissenter was Lord Mayor, one Sir John Shorter, said to be an Anabaptist. The installation of Sir John was accompanied by a great dinner, to which every Alderman contributed £50; the King was present, with the Queen and the Papal Nuncio. The City Companies had turned out most of their Church of England members, and the Lord Mayor, Sir John Shorter, “a very odd, ignorant person, a mechanic, I think, and an Anabaptist” (Evelyn), openly attended a conventicle every Sunday.

Among those who accepted office was William Kiffin. He was a leading Nonconformist in the City. Two of his grandsons, Benjamin and William Hewling, had been executed by Jeffreys for their share in the Monmouth rebellion. He was just seventy years of age, and had retired from active business when the King sent for him and made him accept office by telling him that if he refused he might be fined £20,000 or £30,000, or anything that the judges pleased. So the old man accepted. His account of the work entrusted to the Court of Aldermen is amazing. The King used to send them lists of liverymen who were to be turned out of their companies, with other lists of those to be put in. There were seven hundred so discharged without any charge or accusation, and all Protestants of the Church of England.

The winter of 1687–88 passed quietly; but there were messengers secretly passing between London and Holland and the end was rapidly approaching. The King received addresses from all quarters thanking him for his Declaration of Indulgence; not only from Nonconformists about the country, but from the newly reformed City Companies, of whom, however, not all were found to join in the cry of gratitude. It would seem, however, as if the absence of any rebellion, coupled with the fact of their dutiful addresses, made James believe that he had a clear majority in support of his Declaration of Indulgence. He seems never to have understood the strength and the magnitude of the Established Church, just as he certainly never understood the strength and the extent of the popular hatred of his own Church. To the latter form of ignorance we may ascribe James’s acts and their consequences. He could not understand how the Catholic Church could be so deeply hated. Himself the son of a Catholic; his second wife a Catholic; his brother’s wife a Catholic; surrounded by Catholics in his own house, he was in no way able to comprehend why the country hated and feared his religion. In the same way the mediæval Jew could not understand that he was loathed and hated. Why should he be? He was a man, like the Christian, of similar body parts, and passions. He could never understand it. Now that loathing has become a thing of the past, he cannot yet understand it. So with James; he could not understand it.

In the spring, therefore, of 1688 James, still unable to understand, issued a Second Declaration of Indulgence. Another interesting and dramatic spectacle was, in consequence of this mistake, provided by James for his loving subjects of London. This was the carriage of the Seven Bishops by water to the Tower. Their arrest was the King’s reply to their petition praying that the clergy might not be compelled to read the Second Declaration of Indulgence from the pulpit in the midst of public service. Only a few of the London clergy obeyed the order; one of them told the people that though he was ordered to read it, they were not ordered to hear it, and so waited till the Church was empty before he read it. In some churches the congregation, with one accord, rose and left the church as soon as the clergyman began to read the Declaration.

The objections of the Bishops are stated by Evelyn:—

“Not that they were averse to the publishing of it for want of due tendernesse towards Dissenters, in relation to whom they should be willing to come to such a temper as should be thought fit, when that matter might be consider’d and settl’d in Parliament and Convocation; but that, the Declaration being founded on such a dispensing power as might at pleasure set aside all Laws Ecclesiastical and Civil, it appear’d to them illegal, as it had done to the Parliament in 1661 and 1672, and that it was a point of such consequence that they could not so far make themselves parties to it, as the reading of it in Church in time of divine service amounted to.”

The Bishops were sent to the Tower for refusing to give bail, “as it would have prejudiced their Peerage. The concern of the people,” says Evelyn, “was wonderful, infinite crowds on their knees begging their blessing and praying for them as they passed out of the barge along the Tower wharf.”

That was on the 8th of June. On the 13th Evelyn visited four of the Bishops in the Tower. On the 15th they were brought to Westminster, where their indictment was read and they were called in to plead. They were called upon to give bail, but they refused; in the end they were dismissed on their own recognizances to appear that day fortnight.

On the 29th they appeared and the trial took place. It lasted from nine in the morning until six in the evening. At that hour the jury, who had been drawn from Middlesex, not from London, retired to consider their verdict. They could not at first agree, and were locked up all night. All were for acquittal except one. At last he, too, agreed with the others.

“When this was heard,” says Evelyn, “there was great rejoicing: and there was a lane of people from the King’s Bench to the waterside on their knees, as the Bishops passed and repassed, to beg their blessing. Bonfires were made that night and bells rung, which was taken very ill at Court.”

It is pleasing to note that the Bishops not only refused to give bail, but refused to pay any fees to the Lieutenant of the Tower.

It was during their short imprisonment that the Prince of Wales, the Elder Pretender, was born, “which will cause disputes,” says Evelyn.

Well assured of the spirit in which he would be received, the Prince of Orange made haste to prepare for his descent on England. In September the news came that a fleet of sixty sail was in readiness. Then James began to make concessions. The City should have its charter returned. This was done. But the City was no more inclined to Catholicism than before.

The rest we know; William landed on the 5th of November.

James sent for the Mayor and Aldermen, entrusted the care of the City to them, and instructed them, should he fall in battle, to proclaim the infant Prince of Wales successor to the Crown. He then set out for the west, to meet the invader. His army deserted him, and he returned to London, where there had been some riots and plundering of Roman Catholic chapels. A fortnight later, the Queen and her child having been got safely out of the country, James himself attempted to escape. As soon as this fact was known, many of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, met at the Guildhall and there drew up a declaration that they would stand by the Prince of Orange in maintaining the religion, the rights, and the liberties of the country. The declaration was communicated to the Court of Aldermen, who called a Court of Common Council, at which another address to the same effect was drawn up. James, as we know, failed in his first attempt to escape, being stopped by certain fisher folk at Feversham. Lord Winchilsea, for whom he sent, persuaded him to return to London. He was received, we are told, with the liveliest indications of joy, as if he had been the best Prince in the world. Perhaps the historian mistook rejoicings over the capture of a prisoner for those over the return of a well-beloved sovereign. A London mob may be fickle, but there was absolutely no reason for such a change of front as would justify a demonstration of joy. Rather must we believe that every shout which went up meant that the King was in the hands of his faithful subjects, and that the faithful subjects would be able to give him the same trial, with the same termination of it, which they gave to his father.

Another of those dramatic scenes which enlivened the City during this reign was provided by the flight and capture of Judge Jeffreys.

The Judge, who had presided over the butcheries in the west of England, who became the willing creature and tool of James in every illegal act, was regarded all over the country with a hatred exceeding that which any Englishman has achieved for a thousand years and more. No one knew this better than himself. When, therefore, the power of his master crumbled away he sought safety in flight.

Why he did not escape to France; whether his nerve failed him; whether there was no time; whether there was no one he could trust, one knows not. It is, however, certain that he was suffering from a cruel disease, which caused him the greatest agonies and was partly the cause of that roaring voice, those bullying tones, which made him the terror of the Court and aggravated the agonies of punishment. I think it not impossible that a severe attack of this disease prevented him from moving till it was too late; he then assumed the disguise of a sailor and took refuge in a humble tavern at Wapping. Here, however, he was recognised as he looked out of a window, and was dragged out and committed to prison, having been so roughly handled by the mob that he died of the injuries he received. According to another account, however, he drank to excess, and so killed himself. As for the King, he was permitted to escape, the Prince of Orange doubtless feeling that though he did not hesitate about taking his father-in-law’s place, he did not desire his head.

And so James vanished from the scene and a new king reigned. But neither in the reign of William nor in that of any following sovereign were there so many splendid sights and anxious moments as in that of the unfortunate king whom we have learned to despise more profoundly than any other sovereign who ever sat upon the sacred Coronation chair.

The events connecting London with the reign of James II. belong for the most part to the history of the country. I have not thought it necessary, therefore, to dwell at length upon them.

The following, on the condition of London after the abdication, is an extract from the _English Courant and London Mercury_. It is quoted by Malcolm (_Manners and Customs_, 1811):—

“No sooner was the King’s withdrawing known, but the mobile consulted to wreak their vengeance on papists and popery: and last night began with pulling down and burning the new-built Mass-house near the arch, in Lincolns Inn Fields: thence they went to Wild-house, the residence of the Spanish Ambassador, where they ransackt, destroy’d and burnt all the ornamental and inside part of the chappel, some cartloads of choice books, manuscript, etc. And not content here, some villanous thieves and common rogues, no doubt, that took this opportunity to mix with the youth, and they plunder’d the Ambassador’s house of plate, jewels, mony, rich goods, etc.: and also many other who had sent in there for shelter their money, plate, etc.: among which, one gentlewoman lost a trunk, in which was £800 in mony, and a great quantity of plate. Thence they went to the Mass-house, at St. James’s, near Smithfield, demolisht it quite; from thence to Blackfryers near the Ditchside, where they destroy’d Mr. Henry Hill’s printing-house, spoil’d his forms, letters, etc., and burnt 2 or 300 reams of paper, printed and unprinted: thence to the Mass-house in Bucklersbury and Lime-street, and there demolisht and burnt as before: and this night they went to the Nuncio’s, and other places at that end of the town; but finding the birds flown, and the bills on the door, they drew off: thence they went into the City, threatening to pull down all papists’ houses, particularly one in Ivy Lane, and the market house upon Newgate Market, for no other reason but that one Burdet, a papist, was one of the farmers of the market; but by the prudence of the citizens and some of their trained bands, they were got off without mischief doing anywhere.

Tuesday night last, and all Wednesday, the apprentices were busy in pulling down the chappels, and spoiling the houses of papists: they crying out the fire should not go out till the Prince of Orange came to town. There were thousands of them on Wednesday at the Spanish Ambassador’s, they not leaving any wainscot withinside the house or chappel, taking away great quantities of plate, with much money, household goods and writings, verifying the old proverb ‘All fish that came to the net.’ The spoil of the house was very great, divers papists having sent their goods in thither, as judging that the securest place.

Then they went to the Lord Powis’s great house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, wherein was a guard, and a bill upon the door, ‘This house is appointed for the Lord Delameer’s quarters:’ and some of the company crying, ‘Let it alone, the Lord Powis was against the Bishops going to the Tower,’ they offered no violence to it.

Afterwards they marched down the Strand with oranges upon their sticks, crying for the Prince of Orange, and went to the Pope’s Nuncio’s, but finding a bill upon the door, ‘This house is to be let,’ they desisted. Lastly, they did some damage to the house of the resident of the Duke of Tuscany, in the Haymarket, carrying away some of his goods, when one Captain Douglas, coming thither with a company of trained bands to suppress them, a soldier, unadvisedly firing at the boys with ball, shot the Captain through the back, of which he lyes languishing. They also went to the houses of the French and other Ambassadors, but finding them deserted and the landlords giving them money, they marched off.

On Thursday, an order of the Lords coming forth, warning all persons to desist from pulling down any house, especially those of the Ambassadors, upon penalty of the utmost severity of the law to be inflicted on them: since which they have been very quiet.”