Chapter 6

The English exiles in Holland induced the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II., to attempt an invasion of England, and on June 11, 1685, he landed with about 80 men at Lyme, where he knelt on the shore, thanked God for having preserved the friends of liberty and pure religion from the perils of the sea, and implored the divine blessing on what was yet to be done by land. The little town was soon in an uproar with men running to and fro, and shouting "A Monmouth! a Monmouth! the Protestant religion!" An insurrection was inaugurated and recruits came in rapidly. But Parliament was loyal, and the Commons ordered a bill of attainder against Monmouth for high treason. The rebel army was defeated in a fight at Sedgmore, and Monmouth in his misery complained bitterly of the evil counsellors who had induced him to quit his happy retreat in Brabant. Fleeing from the field of battle the unfortunate duke was found hidden in a ditch, was taken to London, lodged in the Tower, and beheaded, with the declaration on his lips, "I die a Protestant of the Church of England."

After the execution of Monmouth the counties that had risen against the Government endured all the cruelties that a ferocious soldiery let loose on them could inflict. The number of victims butchered cannot now be ascertained, the vengeance being left to the dissolute Colonel Percy Kirke. But, a still more cruel massacre was schemed. Early in September Judge Jeffreys set out on that circuit of which the memory will last as long as our race or language. Opening his commission at Winchester, he ordered Alice Lisle to be burnt alive simply because she had given a meal and a hiding place to wretched fugitives entreating her protection. The clergy of Winchester remonstrated with the brutal judge, but the utmost that could be obtained was that the sentence should be commuted from burning to beheading.

_The Brutal Judge_

Then began the judicial massacre known as the Bloody Assizes. Within a few weeks Jeffreys boasted that he had hanged more traitors than all his predecessors together since the Conquest. Nearly a thousand prisoners were also transported into slavery in the West Indian islands. No English sovereign has ever given stronger proofs of a cruel nature than James II. At his court Jeffreys, when he had done his work, leaving carnage, mourning, and terror behind him, was cordially welcomed, for 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.

The king soon went further. He made no secret of his intention to exert vigorously and systematically for the destruction of the Established Church all the powers he possessed as her head. He plainly declared that by a wise dispensation of Providence, the Act of Supremacy would be the means of healing the fatal breach which it had caused. Henry and Elizabeth had usurped a dominion which rightfully belonged to the Holy See. That dominion had, in the course of succession, descended to an orthodox prince, and would by him be held in trust for the Holy See. He was authorised by law to suppress spiritual abuses; and the first spiritual abuse which he would suppress would be the liberty which the Anglican clergy assumed of defending their own religion, and of attacking the doctrines of Rome.

No course was too bold for James. To confer a high office in the Established Church on an avowed enemy of that Church was indeed a bold violation of the laws and of the royal word. The Deanery of Christchurch became vacant. It was the head of a Cathedral. John Massey, notoriously a member of the Church of Rome, and destitute of any other recommendation, was appointed. Soon an altar was decked at which mass was daily celebrated. To the Pope's Nuncio the king said that what had thus been done at Oxford should very soon be done at Cambridge.

The temper of the nation was such as might well make James hesitate. During some months discontent steadily and rapidly rose. The celebration of Roman Catholic worship had long been prohibited by Act of Parliament. During several generations no Roman Catholic clergyman had dared to exhibit himself in any public place with the badges of his office. Every Jesuit who set foot in this country was liable to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.

But all disguise was now thrown off. Roman Catholic chapels arose all over the land. A society of Benedictine monks was lodged in St. James's Palace. Quarrels broke out between Protestant and Romanist soldiers. Samuel Johnson, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had issued a tract entitled "A humble and hearty Appeal to all English Protestants in the Army," was flung into gaol. He was then flogged and degraded from the priesthood. But the zeal of the Anglican clergy displayed. They were Jed by a united Phalanx, in the van of which appeared a rank of steady and skillful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Prideaux, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. Great numbers of controversial tracts against Popery were issued by these divines.

Scotland also rose in anger against the designs of the king, and if he had not been proof against all warning the excitement in that country would have sufficed to admonish him. On March 18, 1687, he took a momentous step. He informed the Privy Council that he had determined to prorogue Parliament till the end of November, and to grant, by his own authority, entire liberty of conscience to all his subjects. On April 4th appeared the memorable Declaration of Indulgence. In this document the king avowed that it was his earnest wish to see his people members of that Church to which he himself belonged. But since that could not be, he announced his intention to protect them in the free exercise of their religion. He authorised both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters to perform their worship publicly.

That the Declaration was unconstitutional is universally agreed, for a monarch competent to issue such a document is nothing less than an absolute ruler. This was, in point of fact, the most audacious of all attacks of the Stuarts on public freedom. The Anglican party was in amazement and terror, for it would now be exposed to the free attacks of its enemies on every side. And though Dissenters appeared to be allowed relief, what guarantee was there for the sincerity of the Court? It was notorious that James had been completely subjugated by the Jesuits, for only a few days before the publication of the Indulgence, that Order had been honoured with a new mark of his confidence, by appointing as his confessor an Englishman named Warner, a Jesuit renegade from the Anglican Church.

_Petition of the Seven Bishops and their Trial_

A meeting of bishops and other eminent divines was held at Lambeth Palace. The general feeling was that the king's Declaration ought not to be read in the churches. After long deliberation, preceded by solemn prayer, a petition embodying the general sense, was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. The king was assured that the Church still was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. But the Declaration was illegal, for Parliament had pronounced that the sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters ecclesiastical. The Archbishop and six of his suffragans signed the petition. The six bishops crossed the river to Whitehall, but the Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany them. James directed that the bishops should be admitted to the royal presence, and they found him in very good humour, for he had heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the mandate, but wished to secure some little modifications in form.

After reading the petition the king's countenance grew dark and he exclaimed, "This is the standard of rebellion." In vain did the prelates emphasise their protests of loyalty. The king persisted in characterising their action as being rebellious. The bishops respectfully retired, and that evening the petition appeared in print, was laid out in the coffeehouses and was cried about the streets. Everywhere people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the hawkers, and the sale was so enormous that it was said the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few hours by this penny broadside.

The London clergy disobeyed the royal order, for the Declaration was read in only four churches in the city, where there were about a hundred. For a short time the king stood aghast at the violence of the tempest he had raised, but Jeffreys maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand. They were notified that they must appear before the king in Council. On June 8 they were examined by the Privy Council, the result being their committal to the Tower. From all parts of the country came the report that other prelates had signed similar petitions and that very few of the clergy throughout the land had obeyed the king. The public excitement in London was intense. While the bishops were before the Council a great multitude filled the region all round Whitehall, and when the Seven came forth under a guard, thousands fell on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who had confronted a tyrant inflamed with the bigotry of Mary.

The king learned with indignation that the soldiers were drinking the health of the prelates, and his officers told him that this could not be prevented. Before the day of trial the agitation spread to the furthest corners of the island. Scotland sent letters assuring the bishops of the sympathy of the Presbyterians, hostile though they were to prelacy. The people of Cornwall were greatly moved by the danger of Bishop Trelawney, and the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still remembered:

"And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die? Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why."

The miners from their caverns re-echoed the song with a variation:

"Then twenty thousand underground will know the reason why."

The bishops were charged with having published a false, malicious, and seditious libel. But the case for the prosecution speedily broke down in the hands of the crown lawyers. They were vehemently hissed by the audience. The jury gave the verdict of "Not Guilty." As the news spread all London broke out into acclamation. The bishops were greeted with cries of "God bless you; you have saved us all to-day." The king was greatly disturbed at the news of the acquittal, and exclaimed in French, "So much the worse for them." He was at that moment in the camp at Hounslow, where he had been reviewing the troops. Hearing a great shout behind him, he asked what the uproar meant. "Nothing," was the answer; "the soldiers are glad that the bishops are acquitted." "Do you call that nothing?" exclaimed the king. And then he repeated, "So much the worse for them." He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been complete and most humiliating.

_The Prince of Orange_

In May, 1688, while it was still uncertain whether the Declaration would or would not be read in the churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the Hague, where he strongly represented to the Prince of Orange, husband of Mary, eldest daughter of Charles I., the state of the public mind, and had advised His Highness to appear in England with a strong body of troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen at a glance the whole importance of the crisis. "Now or never," he exclaimed in Latin. He quickly received numerous assurances of support from England. Preparations were rapidly made, and on November I, 1688, he set sail with his fleet, and landed at Torbay on November 4. Resistance was impossible. The troops of James's army quietly deserted wholesale, many joining the Dutch camp at Honiton. First the West of England, and then the North, revolted against James. Evil news poured in upon him. When he heard that Churchill and Grafton had forsaken him, he exclaimed, "Est-il possible?" On December 8 the king fled from London secretly. His home in exile was at Saint Germains.

William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of the United Kingdom, and thus was consummated the English Revolution. It was of all revolutions the least violent and yet the most beneficent.

_After the Great Revolution_

The Revolution had been accomplished. The rejoicings throughout the land were enthusiastic. Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch when they learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been raised to a throne. James had, during the last year of his reign, been even more hated in England by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not without cause; for to the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories he had been a faithless and thankless friend.

One misfortune of the new king, which some reactionaries imputed to him as a crime, was his bad English. He spoke our language, but not well. Our literature he was incapable of enjoying or understanding. He never once appeared in the theatre. The poets who wrote Pindaric verse in his praise complained that their flights of sublimity were beyond his comprehension. But his wife did her best to supply what was wanting. She was excellently qualified to be the head of the Court. She was English by birth and also in her tastes and feelings. The stainless purity of her private life and the attention she paid to her religious duties discourages scandal as well as vice.

The year 1689 is not less important in the ecclesiastical than in the civil history of England, for in that year was granted the first legal indulgence to Dissenters. And then also the two chief sections within the Anglican communion began to be called the High Church and Low Church parties. The Low Churchmen stood between the nonconformists and the rigid conformists. The famous Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. It approaches very near the ideal of a great English law, the sound principle of which undoubtedly is that mere theological error ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate.

_The War in Ireland_

The discontent of the Roman Catholic Irishry with the Revolution was intense. It grew so manifestly, that James, assured that his cause was prospering in Ireland, landed on March 12, 1689, at Kinsale. On March 24 he entered Dublin. This event created sorrow and alarm in England. An Irish army, raised by the Catholics, entered Ulster and laid siege to Londonderry, into which city two English regiments had been thrown by sea. The heroic defence of Londonderry is one of the most thrilling episodes in the history of Ireland. The siege was turned into a blockade by the construction of a boom across the harbour by the besiegers. The citizens endured frightful hunger, for famine was extreme within the walls, but they never quailed. The garrison was reduced from 7,000 to 3,000. The siege, which lasted 105 days, and was the most memorable in the annals of the British Isles, was ended by the breaking of the boom by a squadron of three ships from England which brought reinforcements and provisions.

The Irish army retreated and the next event, a very decisive one, was the defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, where William and James commanded their respective forces. The war ended with the capitulation of Limerick, and the French soldiers, who had formed a great part of James's army, left for France.

_The Battle of La Hogue_

The year 1692 was marked by momentous events issuing from a scheme, in some respects well concerted, for the invasion of England by a French force, with the object of the restoration of James. A noble fleet of about 80 ships of the line was to convey this force to the shores of England, and in the French dockyards immense preparations were made. James had persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet should fall in with him, it would not oppose him. Indeed, he was too ready to believe anything written to him by his English correspondents.

No mightier armament had ever appeared in the English Channel than the fleet of allied British and Dutch ships, under the command of Admiral Russell. On May 19 it encountered the French fleet under the Count of Tourville, and a running fight took place which lasted during five fearful days, ending in the complete destruction of the French force off La Hogue. The news of this great victory was received in England with boundless joy. One of its happiest effects was the effectual calming of the public mind.

_Creation of the Bank of England_

In this reign, in 1694, was established the Bank of England. It was the result of a great change that had developed in a few years, for old men in William's reign could remember the days when there was not a single banking house in London. Goldsmiths had strong vaults in which masses of bullion could lie secure from fire and robbers, and at their shops in Lombard Street all payments in coin were made. William Paterson, an ingenious speculator, submitted to the government a plan for a national bank, which after long debate passed both Houses of Parliament.

In 1694 the king and the nation mourned the death from small-pox, a disease always working havoc, of Queen Mary. During her illness William remained day and night at her bedside. The Dutch Envoy wrote that the sight of his misery was enough to melt the hardest heart. When all hope was over, he said to Bishop Burnet, "There is no hope. I was the happiest man on earth; and I am the most miserable. She had no faults; none; you knew her well; but you could not know, none but myself could know, her goodness." The funeral was remembered as the saddest and most august that Westminister had ever seen. While the queen's remains lay in state at Whitehall, the neighbouring streets were filled every day, from sunrise to sunset, by crowds that made all traffic impossible. The two Houses with their maces followed the hearse, the Lords robed in scarlet and ermine, the Commons in long black mantles. No preceding sovereign had ever been attended to the grave by a Parliament: for till then the Parliament had always expired with the sovereign. The gentle queen sleeps among her illustrious kindred in the southern aisle of the Chapel of Henry the Seventh.

The affection of her husband was soon attested by a monument the most superb that was ever erected to any sovereign. No scheme had been so much her own, and none so dear to her heart, as that of converting the palace at Greenwich into a retreat for seamen. As soon as he had lost her, her husband began to reproach himself for neglecting her wishes. No time was lost. A plan was furnished by Wren; and soon an edifice, surpassing that asylum which the magnificent Louis had provided for his soldiers, rose on the margin of the Thames. The inscription on the frieze ascribes praise to Mary alone. Few who now gaze on the noble double edifice, crowned by twin domes, are aware that it is a memorial of the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of William, and of the greater victory of La Hogue.

On the Continent the death of Mary excited various emotions. The Huguenots, in every part of Europe to which they had wandered, bewailed the Elect Lady, who had retrenched her own royal state in order to furnish bread and shelter to the persecuted people of God. But the hopes of James and his companions in exile were now higher than they had been since the day of La Hogue. Indeed, the general opinion of politicians, both here and on the Continent, was that William would find it impossible to sustain himself much longer on the throne. He would not, it was said, have sustained himself so long but for the help of his wife, whose affability had conciliated many that were disgusted by his Dutch accent and habits. But all the statesmen of Europe were deceived: and, strange to say, his reign was decidedly more prosperous after the decease of Mary than during her life.

During the month which followed her death the king was incapable of exertion. His first letter was that of a brokenhearted man. Even his martial ardour had been tamed by misery. "I tell you in confidence," he wrote to Heincius, "that I feel myself to be no longer fit for military command. Yet I will try to do my duty: and I hope that God will strengthen me." So despondingly did he look forward to the most brilliant and successful of his many campaigns.

All Europe was looking anxiously towards the Low Countries. A great French army, commanded by Villeroy, was collected in Flanders. William crossed to the Continent to take command of the Dutch and British troops, who mustered at Ghent. The Elector of Bavaria, at the head of a great force, lay near Brussels. William had set his heart on capturing Namur. After a siege hard pressed, that fortress, esteemed the strongest in Europe, splendidly fortified by Vauban, surrendered to the allies on August 26, 1695.

_The Treaty of Ryswick_

The war was ended by the signing of the treaty of Ryswick by the ambassadors of France, England, Spain, and the United Provinces on September 10, 1697. King William was received in London with great popular rejoicing. The second of December was appointed a day of thanksgiving for peace, and the Chapter of St. Paul's resolved that on that day their new Cathedral, which had long been slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship. There was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and vigour.

Ten years before it had seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less just and necessary war. All dangers were over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious vassalage, had resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. Public credit had been re-established; trade had revived; the Exchequer was overflowing; and there was a sense of relief everywhere, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among the mountains of Wales and the fens of Lincolnshire.

Early in 1702 alarming reports were rife concerning William's state of health. Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily, and it soon became evident that the great king's days were numbered. On February 20 William was ambling on a favourite horse, named Sorrel, through the park of Hampton Court. The horse stumbling on a mole-hill went down on his knees. The king fell off and broke his collar-bone. The bone was set, and to a young and vigorous man such an accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of William was not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt that his time was short, and grieved, with such a grief as only noble spirits feel, to think that he must leave his work but half finished. On March 4 he was attacked by fever, and he was soon sinking fast. He was under no delusion as to his danger. "I am fast drawing to my end," said he. His end was worthy of his life. His intellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was the more admirable because he was not willing to die. From the words which escaped him he seemed to be frequently engaged in mental prayer. The end came between seven and eight in the morning. When his remains were laid out, it was found that he wore next to his skin a small piece of black silk riband. The lords in waiting ordered it to be taken off. It contained a gold ring and a lock of the hair of Mary.

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