THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND
FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES II,

VOLUME 4 (of 5)

(Chapters XVIII-XXII)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Philadelphia
Porter & Coates

Contents

DETAILED CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVII

ON the eighteenth of January 1691, the King, having been detained some
days by adverse winds, went on board at Gravesend. Four yachts had been
fitted up for him and for his retinue. Among his attendants were Norfolk,
Ormond, Devonshire, Dorset, Portland, Monmouth, Zulestein, and the Bishop
of London. Two distinguished admirals, Cloudesley Shovel and George Rooke,
commanded the men of war which formed the convoy. The passage was tedious
and disagreeable. During many hours the fleet was becalmed off the Godwin
Sands; and it was not till the fifth day that the soundings proved the
coast of Holland to be near. The sea fog was so thick that no land could
be seen; and it was not thought safe for the ships to proceed further in
the darkness. William, tired out by the voyage, and impatient to be once
more in his beloved country, determined to land in an open boat. The
noblemen who were in his train tried to dissuade him from risking so
valuable a life; but, when they found that his mind was made up, they
insisted on sharing the danger. That danger proved more serious than they
had expected. It had been supposed that in an hour the party would be on
shore. But great masses of floating ice impeded the progress of the skiff;
the night came on; the fog grew thicker; the waves broke over the King and
the courtiers. Once the keel struck on a sand bank, and was with great
difficulty got off. The hardiest mariners showed some signs of uneasiness.
But William, through the whole night, was as composed as if he had been in
the drawingroom at Kensington. “For shame,” he said to one of the dismayed
sailors “are you afraid to die in my company?” A bold Dutch seaman
ventured to spring out, and, with great difficulty, swam and scrambled
through breakers, ice and mud, to firm ground. Here he discharged a musket
and lighted a fire as a signal that he was safe. None of his fellow
passengers, however, thought it prudent to follow his example. They lay
tossing in sight of the flame which he had kindled, till the first pale
light of a January morning showed them that they were close to the island
of Goree. The King and his Lords, stiff with cold and covered with
icicles, gladly landed to warm and rest themselves. 1

After reposing some hours in the hut of a peasant, William proceeded to
the Hague. He was impatiently expected there for, though the fleet which
brought him was not visible from the shore, the royal salutes had been
heard through the mist, and had apprised the whole coast of his arrival.
Thousands had assembled at Honslaerdyk to welcome him with applause which
came from their hearts and which went to his heart. That was one of the
few white days of a life, beneficent indeed and glorious, but far from
happy. After more than two years passed in a strange land, the exile had
again set foot on his native soil. He heard again the language of his
nursery. He saw again the scenery and the architecture which were
inseparably associated in his mind with the recollections of childhood and
the sacred feeling of home; the dreary mounds of sand, shells and weeds,
on which the waves of the German Ocean broke; the interminable meadows
intersected by trenches; the straight canals; the villas bright with paint
and adorned with quaint images and inscriptions. He had lived during many
weary months among a people who did not love him, who did not understand
him, who could never forget that he was a foreigner. Those Englishmen who
served him most faithfully served him without enthusiasm, without personal
attachment, and merely from a sense of public duty. In their hearts they
were sorry that they had no choice but between an English tyrant and a
Dutch deliverer. All was now changed. William was among a population by
which he was adored, as Elizabeth had been adored when she rode through
her army at Tilbury, as Charles the Second had been adored when he landed
at Dover. It is true that the old enemies of the House of Orange had not
been inactive during the absence of the Stadtholder. There had been, not
indeed clamours, but mutterings against him. He had, it was said,
neglected his native land for his new kingdom. Whenever the dignity of the
English flag, whenever the prosperity of the English trade was concerned,
he forgot that he was a Hollander. But, as soon as his well remembered
face was again seen, all jealousy, all coldness, was at an end. There was
not a boor, not a fisherman, not an artisan, in the crowds which lined the
road from Honslaerdyk to the Hague, whose heart did not swell with pride
at the thought that the first minister of Holland had become a great King,
had freed the English, and had conquered the Irish. It would have been
madness in William to travel from Hampton Court to Westminster without a
guard; but in his own land he needed no swords or carbines to defend him.
“Do not keep the people off;” he cried: “let them come close to me; they
are all my good friends.” He soon learned that sumptuous preparations were
making for his entrance into the Hague. At first he murmured and objected.
He detested, he said, noise and display. The necessary cost of the war was
quite heavy enough. He hoped that his kind fellow townsmen would consider
him as a neighbour, born and bred among them, and would not pay him so bad
a compliment as to treat him ceremoniously. But all his expostulations
were vain. The Hollanders, simple and parsimonious as their ordinary
habits were, had set their hearts on giving their illustrious countryman a
reception suited to his dignity and to his merit; and he found it
necessary to yield. On the day of his triumph the concourse was immense.
All the wheeled carriages and horses of the province were too few for the
multitude of those who flocked to the show. Many thousands came sliding or
skating along the frozen canals from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leyden,
Haarlem, Delft. At ten in the morning of the twenty-sixth of January, the
great bell of the Town House gave the signal. Sixteen hundred substantial
burghers, well armed, and clad in the finest dresses which were to be
found in the recesses of their wardrobes, kept order in the crowded
streets. Balconies and scaffolds, embowered in evergreens and hung with
tapestry, hid the windows. The royal coach, escorted by an army of
halberdiers and running footmen, and followed by a long train of splendid
equipages, passed under numerous arches rich with carving and painting,
amidst incessant shouts of “Long live the King our Stadtholder.” The front
of the Town House and the whole circuit of the marketplace were in a blaze
with brilliant colours. Civic crowns, trophies, emblems of arts, of
sciences, of commerce and of agriculture, appeared every where. In one
place William saw portrayed the glorious actions of his ancestors. There
was the silent prince, the founder of the Batavian commonwealth, passing
the Meuse with his warriors. There was the more impetuous Maurice leading
the charge at Nieuport. A little further on, the hero might retrace the
eventful story of his own life. He was a child at his widowed mother’s
knee. He was at the altar with Diary’s hand in his. He was landing at
Torbay. He was swimming through the Boyne. There, too, was a boat amidst
the ice and the breakers; and above it was most appropriately inscribed,
in the majestic language of Rome, the saying of the great Roman, “What
dost thou fear? Thou hast Caesar on board.” The task of furnishing the
Latin mottoes had been intrusted to two men, who, till Bentley appeared,
held the highest place among the classical scholars of that age. Spanheim,
whose knowledge of the Roman medals was unrivalled, imitated, not
unsuccessfully, the noble conciseness of those ancient legends which he
had assiduously studied; and he was assisted by Graevius, who then filled
a chair at Utrecht, and whose just reputation had drawn to that University
multitudes of students from every part of Protestant Europe. 2
When the night came, fireworks were exhibited on the great tank which
washes the walls of the Palace of the Federation. That tank was now as
hard as marble; and the Dutch boasted that nothing had ever been seen,
even on the terrace of Versailles, more brilliant than the effect produced
by the innumerable cascades of flame which were reflected in the smooth
mirror of ice. 3 The English Lords congratulated
their master on his immense popularity. “Yes,” said he; “but I am not the
favourite. The shouting was nothing to what it would have been if Mary had
been with me.”

A few hours after the triumphal entry, the King attended a sitting of the
States General. His last appearance among them had been on the day on
which he embarked for England. He had then, amidst the broken words and
loud weeping of those grave Senators, thanked them for the kindness with
which they had watched over his childhood, trained his young mind, and
supported his authority in his riper years; and he had solemnly commended
his beloved wife to their care. He now came back among them the King of
three kingdoms, the head of the greatest coalition that Europe had seen
during a hundred and eighty years; and nothing was heard in the hall but
applause and congratulations. 4

But this time the streets of the Hague were overflowing with the equipages
and retinues of princes and ambassadors who came flocking to the great
Congress. First appeared the ambitious and ostentatious Frederic, Elector
of Brandenburg, who, a few years later, took the title of King of Prussia.
Then arrived the young Elector of Bavaria, the Regent of Wirtemberg, the
Landgraves of Hesse Cassel and Hesse Darmstadt, and a long train of
sovereign princes, sprung from the illustrious houses of Brunswick, of
Saxony, of Holstein, and of Nassau. The Marquess of Gastanaga, Governor of
the Spanish Netherlands, repaired to the assembly from the viceregal Court
of Brussels. Extraordinary ministers had been sent by the Emperor, by the
Kings of Spain, Poland, Denmark, and Sweden, and by the Duke of Savoy.
There was scarcely room in the town and the neighbourhood for the English
Lords and gentlemen and the German Counts and Barons whom curiosity or
official duty had brought to the place of meeting. The grave capital of
the most thrifty and industrious of nations was as gay as Venice in the
Carnival. The walks cut among those noble limes and elms in which the
villa of the Princes of Orange is embosomed were gay with the plumes, the
stars, the flowing wigs, the embroidered coats and the gold hilted swords
of gallants from London, Berlin and Vienna. With the nobles were mingled
sharpers not less gorgeously attired than they. At night the hazard tables
were thronged; and the theatre was filled to the roof. Princely banquets
followed one another in rapid succession. The meats were served in gold;
and, according to that old Teutonic fashion with which Shakspeare had made
his countrymen familiar, as often as any of the great princes proposed a
health, the kettle drums and trumpets sounded. Some English lords,
particularly Devonshire, gave entertainments which vied with those of
Sovereigns. It was remarked that the German potentates, though generally
disposed to be litigious and punctilious about etiquette, associated, on
this occasion, in an unceremonious manner, and seemed to have forgotten
their passion for genealogical and heraldic controversy. The taste for
wine, which was then characteristic of their nation, they had not
forgotten. At the table of the Elector of Brandenburg much mirth was
caused by the gravity of the statesmen of Holland, who, sober themselves,
confuted out of Grotius and Puffendorf the nonsense stuttered by the tipsy
nobles of the Empire. One of those nobles swallowed so many bumpers that
he tumbled into the turf fire, and was not pulled out till his fine velvet
suit had been burned. 5

In the midst of all this revelry, business was not neglected. A formal
meeting of the Congress was held at which William presided. In a short and
dignified speech, which was speedily circulated throughout Europe, he set
forth the necessity of firm union and strenuous exertion. The profound
respect with which he was heard by that splendid assembly caused bitter
mortification to his enemies both in England and in France. The German
potentates were bitterly reviled for yielding precedence to an upstart.
Indeed the most illustrious among them paid to him such marks of deference
as they would scarcely have deigned to pay to the Imperial Majesty,
mingled with the crowd in his antechamber, and at his table behaved as
respectfully as any English lord in waiting. In one caricature the allied
princes were represented as muzzled bears, some with crowns, some with
caps of state. William had them all in a chain, and was teaching them to
dance. In another caricature, he appeared taking his ease in an arm chair,
with his feet on a cushion, and his hat on his head, while the Electors of
Brandenburg and Bavaria, uncovered, occupied small stools on the right and
left; the crowd of Landgraves and Sovereign dukes stood at humble
distance; and Gastanaga, the unworthy successor of Alva, awaited the
orders of the heretic tyrant on bended knee. 6

It was soon announced by authority that, before the beginning of summer,
two hundred and twenty thousand men would be in the field against France.
7
The contingent which each of the allied powers was to furnish was made
known. Matters about which it would have been inexpedient to put forth any
declaration were privately discussed by the King of England with his
allies. On this occasion, as on every other important occasion during his
reign, he was his own minister for foreign affairs. It was necessary for
the sake of form that he should be attended by a Secretary of State; and
Nottingham had therefore followed him to Holland. But Nottingham, though,
in matters concerning the internal government of England, he enjoyed a
large share of his master’s confidence, knew little more about the
business of the Congress than what he saw in the Gazettes.

This mode of transacting business would now be thought most
unconstitutional; and many writers, applying the standard of their own age
to the transactions of a former age, have severely blamed William for
acting without the advice of his ministers, and his ministers for
submitting to be kept in ignorance of transactions which deeply concerned
the honour of the Crown and the welfare of the nation. Yet surely the
presumption is that what the most honest and honourable men of both
parties, Nottingham, for example, among the Tories, and Somers among the
Whigs, not only did, but avowed, cannot have been altogether inexcusable;
and a very sufficient excuse will without difficulty be found.

The doctrine that the Sovereign is not responsible is doubtless as old as
any part of our constitution. The doctrine that his ministers are
responsible is also of immemorial antiquity. That where there is no
responsibility there can be no trustworthy security against
maladministration, is a doctrine which, in our age and country, few people
will be inclined to dispute. From these three propositions it plainly
follows that the administration is likely to be best conducted when the
Sovereign performs no public act without the concurrence and
instrumentality of a minister. This argument is perfectly sound. But we
must remember that arguments are constructed in one way, and governments
in another. In logic, none but an idiot admits the premises and denies the
legitimate conclusion. But in practice, we see that great and enlightened
communities often persist, generation after generation, in asserting
principles, and refusing to act upon those principles. It may be doubted
whether any real polity that ever existed has exactly corresponded to the
pure idea of that polity. According to the pure idea of constitutional
royalty, the prince reigns and does not govern; and constitutional
royalty, as it now exists in England, comes nearer than in any other
country to the pure idea. Yet it would be a great error to imagine that
our princes merely reign and never govern. In the seventeenth century,
both Whigs and Tories thought it, not only the right, but the duty, of the
first magistrate to govern. All parties agreed in blaming Charles the
Second for not being his own Prime Minister; all parties agreed in
praising James for being his own Lord High Admiral; and all parties
thought it natural and reasonable that William should be his own Foreign
Secretary.

It may be observed that the ablest and best informed of those who have
censured the manner in which the negotiations of that time were conducted
are scarcely consistent with themselves. For, while they blame William for
being his own Ambassador Plenipotentiary at the Hague, they praise him for
being his own Commander in Chief in Ireland. Yet where is the distinction
in principle between the two cases? Surely every reason which can be
brought to prove that he violated the constitution, when, by his own sole
authority, he made compacts with the Emperor and the Elector of
Brandenburg, will equally prove that he violated the constitution, when,
by his own sole authority, he ordered one column to plunge into the water
at Oldbridge and another to cross the bridge of Slane. If the constitution
gave him the command of the forces of the State, the constitution gave him
also the direction of the foreign relations of the State. On what
principle then can it be maintained that he was at liberty to exercise the
former power without consulting any body, but that he was bound to
exercise the latter power in conformity with the advice of a minister?
Will it be said that an error in diplomacy is likely to be more injurious
to the country than an error in strategy? Surely not. It is hardly
conceivable that any blunder which William might have made at the Hague
could have been more injurious to the public interests than a defeat at
the Boyne. Or will it be said that there was greater reason for placing
confidence in his military than in his diplomatic skill? Surely not. In
war he showed some great moral and intellectual qualities; but, as a
tactician, he did not rank high; and of his many campaigns only two were
decidedly successful. In the talents of a negotiator, on the other hand,
he has never been surpassed. Of the interests and the tempers of the
continental courts he knew more than all his Privy Council together. Some
of his ministers were doubtless men of great ability, excellent orators in
the House of Lords, and versed in our insular politics. But, in the
deliberations of the Congress, Caermarthen and Nottingham would have been
found as far inferior to him as he would have been found inferior to them
in a parliamentary debate on a question purely English. The coalition
against France was his work. He alone had joined together the parts of
that great whole; and he alone could keep them together. If he had trusted
that vast and complicated machine in the hands of any of his subjects, it
would instantly have fallen to pieces.

Some things indeed were to be done which none of his subjects would have
ventured to do. Pope Alexander was really, though not in name, one of the
allies; it was of the highest importance to have him for a friend; and yet
such was the temper of the English nation that an English minister might
well shrink from having any dealings, direct or indirect, with the
Vatican. The Secretaries of State were glad to leave a matter so delicate
and so full of risk to their master, and to be able to protest with truth
that not a line to which the most intolerant Protestant could object had
ever gone out of their offices.

It must not be supposed however that William ever forgot that his
especial, his hereditary, mission was to protect the Reformed Faith. His
influence with Roman Catholic princes was constantly and strenuously
exerted for the benefit of their Protestant subjects. In the spring of
1691, the Waldensian shepherds, long and cruelly persecuted, and weary of
their lives, were surprised by glad tidings. Those who had been in prison
for heresy returned to their homes. Children, who had been taken from
their parents to be educated by priests, were sent back. Congregations,
which had hitherto met only by stealth and with extreme peril, now
worshipped God without molestation in the face of day. Those simple
mountaineers probably never knew that their fate had been a subject of
discussion at the Hague, and that they owed the happiness of their
firesides, and the security of their humble temples to the ascendency
which William exercised over the Duke of Savoy. 8

No coalition of which history has preserved the memory has had an abler
chief than William. But even William often contended in vain against those
vices which are inherent in the nature of all coalitions. No undertaking
which requires the hearty and long continued cooperation of many
independent states is likely to prosper. Jealousies inevitably spring up.
Disputes engender disputes. Every confederate is tempted to throw on
others some part of the burden which he ought himself to bear. Scarcely
one honestly furnishes the promised contingent. Scarcely one exactly
observes the appointed day. But perhaps no coalition that ever existed was
in such constant danger of dissolution as the coalition which William had
with infinite difficulty formed. The long list of potentates, who met in
person or by their representatives at the Hague, looked well in the
Gazettes. The crowd of princely equipages, attended by manycoloured guards
and lacqueys, looked well among the lime trees of the Voorhout. But the
very circumstances which made the Congress more splendid than other
congresses made the league weaker than other leagues. The more numerous
the allies, the more numerous were the dangers which threatened the
alliance. It was impossible that twenty governments, divided by quarrels
about precedence, quarrels about territory, quarrels about trade, quarrels
about religion, could long act together in perfect harmony. That they
acted together during several years in imperfect harmony is to be ascribed
to the wisdom, patience and firmness of William.

The situation of his great enemy was very different. The resources of the
French monarchy, though certainly not equal to those of England, Holland,
the House of Austria, and the Empire of Germany united, were yet very
formidable; they were all collected in a central position; they were all
under the absolute direction of a single mind. Lewis could do with two
words what William could hardly bring about by two months of negotiation
at Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Turin and Vienna. Thus France was found equal
in effective strength to all the states which were combined against her.
For in the political, as in the natural world, there may be an equality of
momentum between unequal bodies, when the body which is inferior in weight
is superior in velocity.

This was soon signally proved. In March the princes and ambassadors who
had been assembled at the Hague separated and scarcely had they separated
when all their plans were disconcerted by a bold and skilful move of the
enemy.

Lewis was sensible that the meeting of the Congress was likely to produce
a great effect on the public mind of Europe. That effect he determined to
counteract by striking a sudden and terrible blow. While his enemies were
settling how many troops each of them should furnish, he ordered numerous
divisions of his army to march from widely distant points towards Mons,
one of the most important, if not the most important, of the fortresses
which protected the Spanish Netherlands. His purpose was discovered only
when it was all but accomplished. William, who had retired for a few days
to Loo, learned, with surprise and extreme vexation, that cavalry,
infantry, artillery, bridges of boats, were fast approaching the fated
city by many converging routes. A hundred thousand men had been brought
together. All the implements of war had been largely provided by Louvois,
the first of living administrators. The command was entrusted to
Luxemburg, the first of living generals. The scientific operations were
directed by Vauban, the first of living engineers. That nothing might be
wanting which could kindle emulation through all the ranks of a gallant
and loyal army, the magnificent King himself had set out from Versailles
for the camp. Yet William had still some faint hope that it might be
possible to raise the siege. He flew to the Hague, put all the forces of
the States General in motion, and sent pressing messages to the German
Princes. Within three weeks after he had received the first hint of the
danger, he was in the neighbourhood of the besieged city, at the head of
near fifty thousand troops of different nations. To attack a superior
force commanded by such a captain as Luxemburg was a bold, almost a
desperate, enterprise. Yet William was so sensible that the loss of Mons
would be an almost irreparable disaster and disgrace that he made up his
mind to run the hazard. He was convinced that the event of the siege would
determine the policy of the Courts of Stockholm and Copenhagen. Those
Courts had lately seemed inclined to join the coalition. If Mons fell,
they would certainly remain neutral; they might possibly become hostile.
“The risk,” he wrote to Heinsius, “is great; yet I am not without hope. I
will do what can be done. The issue is in the hands of God.” On the very
day on which this letter was written Mons fell. The siege had been
vigorously pressed. Lewis himself, though suffering from the gout, had set
the example of strenuous exertion. His household troops, the finest body
of soldiers in Europe, had, under his eye, surpassed themselves. The young
nobles of his court had tried to attract his notice by exposing themselves
to the hottest fire with the same gay alacrity with which they were wont
to exhibit their graceful figures at his balls. His wounded soldiers were
charmed by the benignant courtesy with which he walked among their
pallets, assisted while wounds were dressed by the hospital surgeons, and
breakfasted on a porringer of the hospital broth. While all was obedience
and enthusiasm among the besiegers, all was disunion and dismay among the
besieged. The duty of the French lines was so well performed that no
messenger sent by William was able to cross them. The garrison did not
know that relief was close at hand. The burghers were appalled by the
prospect of those horrible calamities which befall cities taken by storm.
Showers of shells and redhot bullets were falling in the streets. The town
was on fire in ten places at once. The peaceful inhabitants derived an
unwonted courage from the excess of their fear, and rose on the soldiers.
Thenceforth resistance was impossible; and a capitulation was concluded.
The armies then retired into quarters. Military operations were suspended
during some weeks; Lewis returned in triumph to Versailles; and William
paid a short visit to England, where his presence was much needed. 9

He found the ministers still employed in tracing out the ramifications of
the plot which had been discovered just before his departure. Early in
January, Preston, Ashton and Elliot had been arraigned at the Old Bailey.
They claimed the right of severing in their challenges. It was therefore
necessary to try them separately. The audience was numerous and splendid.
Many peers were present. The Lord President and the two Secretaries of
State attended in order to prove that the papers produced in Court were
the same which Billop had brought to Whitehall. A considerable number of
judges appeared on the bench; and Holt presided. A full report of the
proceedings has come down to us, and well deserves to be attentively
studied, and to be compared with the reports of other trials which had not
long before taken place under the same roof. The whole spirit of the
tribunal had undergone in a few months a change so complete that it might
seem to have been the work of ages. Twelve years earlier, unhappy Roman
Catholics, accused of wickedness which had never entered into their
thoughts, had stood in that dock. The witnesses for the Crown had repeated
their hideous fictions amidst the applauding hums of the audience. The
judges had shared, or had pretended to share, the stupid credulity and the
savage passions of the populace, had exchanged smiles and compliments with
the perjured informers, had roared down the arguments feebly stammered
forth by the prisoners, and had not been ashamed, in passing the sentence
of death, to make ribald jests on purgatory and the mass. As soon as the
butchery of Papists was over, the butchery of Whigs had commenced; and the
judges had applied themselves to their new work with even more than their
old barbarity. To these scandals the Revolution had put an end. Whoever,
after perusing the trials of Ireland and Pickering, of Grove and Berry, of
Sidney, Cornish and Alice Lisle, turns to the trials of Preston and
Ashton, will be astonished by the contrast. The Solicitor General, Somers,
conducted the prosecutions with a moderation and humanity of which his
predecessors had left him no example. “I did never think,” he said, “that
it was the part of any who were of counsel for the King in cases of this
nature to aggravate the crime of the prisoners, or to put false colours on
the evidence.” 10 Holt’s conduct was faultless.
Pollexfen, an older man than Holt or Somers, retained a little,—and
a little was too much,—of the tone of that bad school in which he
had been bred. But, though he once or twice forgot the austere decorum of
his place, he cannot be accused of any violation of substantial justice.
The prisoners themselves seem to have been surprised by the fairness and
gentleness with which they were treated. “I would not mislead the jury,
I’ll assure you,” said Holt to Preston, “nor do Your Lordship any manner
of injury in the world.” “No, my Lord;” said Preston; “I see it well
enough that Your Lordship would not.” “Whatever my fate may be,” said
Ashton, “I cannot but own that I have had a fair trial for my life.”

The culprits gained nothing by the moderation of the Solicitor General or
by the impartiality of the Court; for the evidence was irresistible. The
meaning of the papers seized by Billop was so plain that the dullest
juryman could not misunderstand it. Of those papers part was fully proved
to be in Preston’s handwriting. Part was in Ashton’s handwriting but this
the counsel for the prosecution had not the means of proving. They
therefore rested the case against Ashton on the indisputable facts that
the treasonable packet had been found in his bosom, and that he had used
language which was quite unintelligible except on the supposition that he
had a guilty knowledge of the contents. 11

Both Preston and Ashton were convicted and sentenced to death. Ashton was
speedily executed. He might have saved his life by making disclosures. But
though he declared that, if he were spared, he would always be a faithful
subject of Their Majesties, he was fully resolved not to give up the names
of his accomplices. In this resolution he was encouraged by the nonjuring
divines who attended him in his cell. It was probably by their influence
that he was induced to deliver to the Sheriffs on the scaffold a
declaration which he had transcribed and signed, but had not, it is to be
hoped, composed or attentively considered. In this paper he was made to
complain of the unfairness of a trial which he had himself in public
acknowledged to have been eminently fair. He was also made to aver, on the
word of a dying man, that he knew nothing of the papers which had been
found upon him. Unfortunately his declaration, when inspected, proved to
be in the same handwriting with one of the most important of those papers.
He died with manly fortitude. 12

Elliot was not brought to trial. The evidence against him was not quite so
clear as that on which his associates had been convicted; and he was not
worth the anger of the government. The fate of Preston was long in
suspense. The Jacobites affected to be confident that the government would
not dare to shed his blood. He was, they said, a favourite at Versailles,
and his death would be followed by a terrible retaliation. They scattered
about the streets of London papers in which it was asserted that, if any
harm befell him, Mountjoy, and all the other Englishmen of quality who
were prisoners in France, would be broken on the wheel. 13
These absurd threats would not have deferred the execution one day. But
those who had Preston in their power were not unwilling to spare him on
certain conditions. He was privy to all the counsels of the disaffected
party, and could furnish information of the highest value. He was informed
that his fate depended on himself. The struggle was long and severe.
Pride, conscience, party spirit, were on one side; the intense love of
life on the other. He went during a time irresolutely to and fro. He
listened to his brother Jacobites; and his courage rose. He listened to
the agents of the government; and his heart sank within him. In an evening
when he had dined and drunk his claret, he feared nothing. He would die
like a man, rather than save his neck by an act of baseness. But his
temper was very different when he woke the next morning, when the courage
which he had drawn from wine and company had evaporated, when he was alone
with the iron grates and stone walls, and when the thought of the block,
the axe and the sawdust rose in his mind. During some time he regularly
wrote a confession every forenoon when he was sober, and burned it every
night when he was merry. 14 His nonjuring friends formed a
plan for bringing Sancroft to visit the Tower, in the hope, doubtless,
that the exhortations of so great a prelate and so great a saint would
confirm the wavering virtue of the prisoner. 15 Whether
this plan would have been successful may be doubted; it was not carried
into effect; the fatal hour drew near; and the fortitude of Preston gave
way. He confessed his guilt, and named Clarendon, Dartmouth, the Bishop of
Ely and William Penn, as his accomplices. He added a long list of persons
against whom he could not himself give evidence, but who, if he could
trust to Penn’s assurances, were friendly to King James. Among these
persons were Devonshire and Dorset. 16 There is
not the slightest reason to believe that either of these great noblemen
ever had any dealings, direct or indirect, with Saint Germains. It is not,
however, necessary to accuse Penn of deliberate falsehood. He was
credulous and garrulous. The Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain had
shared in the vexation with which their party had observed the leaning of
William towards the Tories; and they had probably expressed that vexation
unguardedly. So weak a man as Penn, wishing to find Jacobites every where,
and prone to believe whatever he wished, might easily put an erroneous
construction on invectives such as the haughty and irritable Devonshire
was but too ready to utter, and on sarcasms such as, in moments of spleen,
dropped but too easily from the lips of the keenwitted Dorset.
Caermarthen, a Tory, and a Tory who had been mercilessly persecuted by the
Whigs, was disposed to make the most of this idle hearsay. But he received
no encouragement from his master, who, of all the great politicians
mentioned in history, was the least prone to suspicion. When William
returned to England, Preston was brought before him, and was commanded to
repeat the confession which had already been made to the ministers. The
King stood behind the Lord President’s chair and listened gravely while
Clarendon, Dartmouth, Turner and Penn were named. But as soon as the
prisoner, passing from what he could himself testify, began to repeat the
stories which Penn had told him, William touched Caermarthen on the
shoulder and said, “My Lord, we have had too much of this.” 17
This judicious magnanimity had its proper reward. Devonshire and Dorset
became from that day more zealous than ever in the cause of the master
who, in spite of calumny for which their own indiscretion had perhaps
furnished some ground, had continued to repose confidence in their
loyalty. 18

Even those who were undoubtedly criminal were generally treated with great
lenity. Clarendon lay in the Tower about six months. His guilt was fully
established; and a party among the Whigs called loudly and importunately
for his head. But he was saved by the pathetic entreaties of his brother
Rochester, by the good offices of the humane and generous Burnet, and by
Mary’s respect for the memory of her mother. The prisoner’s confinement
was not strict. He was allowed to entertain his friends at dinner. When at
length his health began to suffer from restraint, he was permitted to go
into the country under the care of a warder; the warder was soon removed;
and Clarendon was informed that, while he led a quiet rural life, he
should not be molested. 19

The treason of Dartmouth was of no common dye. He was an English seaman;
and he had laid a plan for betraying Portsmouth to the French, and had
offered to take the command of a French squadron against his country. It
was a serious aggravation of his guilt that he had been one of the very
first persons who took the oaths to William and Mary. He was arrested and
brought to the Council Chamber. A narrative of what passed there, written
by himself, has been preserved. In that narrative he admits that he was
treated with great courtesy and delicacy. He vehemently asserted his
innocence. He declared that he had never corresponded with Saint Germains,
that he was no favourite there, and that Mary of Modena in particular owed
him a grudge. “My Lords,” he said, “I am an Englishman. I always, when the
interest of the House of Bourbon was strongest here, shunned the French,
both men and women. I would lose the last drop of my blood rather than see
Portsmouth in the power of foreigners. I am not such a fool as to think
that King Lewis will conquer us merely for the benefit of King James. I am
certain that nothing can be truly imputed to me beyond some foolish talk
over a bottle.” His protestations seem to have produced some effect; for
he was at first permitted to remain in the gentle custody of the Black
Rod. On further inquiry, however, it was determined to send him to the
Tower. After a confinement of a few weeks he died of apoplexy; but he
lived long enough to complete his disgrace by offering his sword to the
new government, and by expressing in fervent language his hope that he
might, by the goodness of God and of Their Majesties, have an opportunity
of showing how much he hated the French. 20

Turner ran no serious risk; for the government was most unwilling to send
to the scaffold one of the Seven who had signed the memorable petition. A
warrant was however issued for his apprehension; and his friends had
little hope that he would escape; for his nose was such as none who had
seen it could forget; and it was to little purpose that he put on a
flowing wig and that he suffered his beard to grow. The pursuit was
probably not very hot; for, after skulking a few weeks in England, he
succeeded in crossing the Channel, and remained some time in France. 21

A warrant was issued against Penn; and he narrowly escaped the messengers.
It chanced that, on the day on which they were sent in search of him, he
was attending a remarkable ceremony at some distance from his home. An
event had taken place which a historian, whose object is to record the
real life of a nation, ought not to pass unnoticed. While London was
agitated by the news that a plot had been discovered, George Fox, the
founder of the sect of Quakers, died.

More than forty years had elapsed since Fox had begun to see visions and
to cast out devils. 22 He was then a youth of pure
morals and grave deportment, with a perverse temper, with the education of
a labouring man, and with an intellect in the most unhappy of all states,
that is to say, too much disordered for liberty, and not sufficiently
disordered for Bedlam. The circumstances in which he was placed were such
as could scarcely fail to bring out in the strongest form the
constitutional diseases of his mind. At the time when his faculties were
ripening, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, were
striving for mastery, and were, in every corner of the realm, refuting and
reviling each other. He wandered from congregation to congregation; he
heard priests harangue against Puritans; he heard Puritans harangue
against priests; and he in vain applied for spiritual direction and
consolation to doctors of both parties. One jolly old clergyman of the
Anglican communion told him to smoke tobacco and sing psalms; another
advised him to go and lose some blood. 23 The young
inquirer turned in disgust from these advisers to the Dissenters, and
found them also blind guides. 24 After some time he came to the
conclusion that no human being was competent to instruct him in divine
things, and that the truth had been communicated to him by direct
inspiration from heaven. He argued that, as the division of languages
began at Babel, and as the persecutors of Christ put on the cross an
inscription in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, the knowledge of languages, and
more especially of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, must be useless to a Christian
minister. 25
Indeed, he was so far from knowing many languages, that he knew none; nor
can the most corrupt passage in Hebrew be more unintelligible to the
unlearned than his English often is to the most acute and attentive
reader. 26
One of the precious truths which were divinely revealed to this new
apostle was, that it was falsehood and adulation to use the second person
plural instead of the second person singular. Another was, that to talk of
the month of March was to worship the bloodthirsty god Mars, and that to
talk of Monday was to pay idolatrous homage to the moon. To say Good
morning or Good evening was highly reprehensible, for those phrases
evidently imported that God had made bad days and bad nights. 27
A Christian was bound to face death itself rather than touch his hat to
the greatest of mankind. When Fox was challenged to produce any Scriptural
authority for this dogma, he cited the passage in which it is written that
Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace with
their hats on; and, if his own narrative may be trusted, the Chief Justice
of England was altogether unable to answer this argument except by crying
out, “Take him away, gaoler.” 28 Fox insisted much on the not
less weighty argument that the Turks never show their bare heads to their
superiors; and he asked, with great animation, whether those who bore the
noble name of Christians ought not to surpass Turks in virtue. 29
Bowing he strictly prohibited, and, indeed, seemed to consider it as the
effect of Satanical influence; for, as he observed, the woman in the
Gospel, while she had a spirit of infirmity, was bowed together, and
ceased to bow as soon as Divine power had liberated her from the tyranny
of the Evil One. 30 His expositions of the sacred
writings were of a very peculiar kind. Passages, which had been, in the
apprehension of all the readers of the Gospels during sixteen centuries,
figurative, he construed literally. Passages, which no human being before
him had ever understood in any other than a literal sense, he construed
figuratively. Thus, from those rhetorical expressions in which the duty of
patience under injuries is enjoined he deduced the doctrine that
selfdefence against pirates and assassins is unlawful. On the other hand,
the plain commands to baptize with water, and to partake of bread and wine
in commemoration of the redemption of mankind, he pronounced to be
allegorical. He long wandered from place to place, teaching this strange
theology, shaking like an aspen leaf in his paroxysms of fanatical
excitement, forcing his way into churches, which he nicknamed steeple
houses interrupting prayers and sermons with clamour and scurrility, 31
and pestering rectors and justices with epistles much resembling
burlesques of those sublime odes in which the Hebrew prophets foretold the
calamities of Babylon and Tyre. 32 He soon
acquired great notoriety by these feats. His strange face, his strange
chant, his immovable hat and his leather breeches were known all over the
country; and he boasts that, as soon as the rumour was heard, “The Man in
Leather Breeches is coming,” terror seized hypocritical professors, and
hireling priests made haste to get out of his way. 33 He was
repeatedly imprisoned and set in the stocks, sometimes justly, for
disturbing the public worship of congregations, and sometimes unjustly,
for merely talking nonsense. He soon gathered round him a body of
disciples, some of whom went beyond himself in absurdity. He has told us
that one of his friends walked naked through Skipton declaring the truth.
34
and that another was divinely moved to go naked during several years to
marketplaces, and to the houses of gentlemen and clergymen. 35
Fox complains bitterly that these pious acts, prompted by the Holy Spirit,
were requited by an untoward generation with hooting, pelting,
coachwhipping and horsewhipping. But, though he applauded the zeal of the
sufferers, he did not go quite to their lengths. He sometimes, indeed, was
impelled to strip himself partially. Thus he pulled off his shoes and
walked barefoot through Lichfield, crying, “Woe to the bloody city.” 36
But it does not appear that he ever thought it his duty to appear before
the public without that decent garment from which his popular appellation
was derived.

If we form our judgment of George Fox simply by looking at his own actions
and writings, we shall see no reason for placing him, morally or
intellectually, above Ludowick Muggleton or Joanna Southcote. But it would
be most unjust to rank the sect which regards him as its founder with the
Muggletonians or the Southcotians. It chanced that among the thousands
whom his enthusiasm infected were a few persons whose abilities and
attainments were of a very different order from his own. Robert Barclay
was a man of considerable parts and learning. William Penn, though
inferior to Barclay in both natural and acquired abilities, was a
gentleman and a scholar. That such men should have become the followers of
George Fox ought not to astonish any person who remembers what quick,
vigorous and highly cultivated intellects were in our own times duped by
the unknown tongues. The truth is that no powers of mind constitute a
security against errors of this description. Touching God and His ways
with man, the highest human faculties can discover little more than the
meanest. In theology the interval is small indeed between Aristotle and a
child, between Archimedes and a naked savage. It is not strange,
therefore, that wise men, weary of investigation, tormented by
uncertainty, longing to believe something, and yet seeing objections to
every thing, should submit themselves absolutely to teachers who, with
firm and undoubting faith, lay claim to a supernatural commission. Thus we
frequently see inquisitive and restless spirits take refuge from their own
scepticism in the bosom of a church which pretends to infallibility, and,
after questioning the existence of a Deity, bring themselves to worship a
wafer. And thus it was that Fox made some converts to whom he was
immeasurably inferior in every thing except the energy of his convictions.
By these converts his rude doctrines were polished into a form somewhat
less shocking to good sense and good taste. No proposition which he had
laid down was retracted. No indecent or ridiculous act which he had done
or approved was condemned; but what was most grossly absurd in his
theories and practices was softened down, or at least not obtruded on the
public; whatever could be made to appear specious was set in the fairest
light; his gibberish was translated into English; meanings which he would
have been quite unable to comprehend were put on his phrases; and his
system, so much improved that he would not have known it again, was
defended by numerous citations from Pagan philosophers and Christian
fathers whose names he had never heard. 37 Still,
however, those who had remodelled his theology continued to profess, and
doubtless to feel, profound reverence for him; and his crazy epistles were
to the last received and read with respect in Quaker meetings all over the
country. His death produced a sensation which was not confined to his own
disciples. On the morning of the funeral a great multitude assembled round
the meeting house in Gracechurch Street. Thence the corpse was borne to
the burial ground of the sect near Bunhill Fields. Several orators
addressed the crowd which filled the cemetery. Penn was conspicuous among
those disciples who committed the venerable corpse to the earth. The
ceremony had scarcely been finished when he learned that warrants were out
against him. He instantly took flight, and remained many months concealed
from the public eye. 38

A short time after his disappearance, Sidney received from him a strange
communication. Penn begged for an interview, but insisted on a promise
that he should be suffered to return unmolested to his hiding place.
Sidney obtained the royal permission to make an appointment on these
terms. Penn came to the rendezvous, and spoke at length in his own
defence. He declared that he was a faithful subject of King William and
Queen Mary, and that, if he knew of any design against them, he would
discover it. Departing from his Yea and Nay, he protested, as in the
presence of God, that he knew of no plot, and that he did not believe that
there was any plot, unless the ambitious projects of the French government
might be called plots. Sidney, amazed probably by hearing a person, who
had such an abhorrence of lies that he would not use the common forms of
civility, and such an abhorrence of oaths that he would not kiss the book
in a court of justice, tell something very like a lie, and confirm it by
something very like an oath, asked how, if there were really no plot, the
letters and minutes which had been found on Ashton were to be explained.
This question Penn evaded. “If,” he said, “I could only see the King, I
would confess every thing to him freely. I would tell him much that it
would be important for him to know. It is only in that way that I can be
of service to him. A witness for the Crown I cannot be for my conscience
will not suffer me to be sworn.” He assured Sidney that the most
formidable enemies of the government were the discontented Whigs. “The
Jacobites are not dangerous. There is not a man among them who has common
understanding. Some persons who came over from Holland with the King are
much more to be dreaded.” It does not appear that Penn mentioned any
names. He was suffered to depart in safety. No active search was made for
him. He lay hid in London during some months, and then stole down to the
coast of Sussex and made his escape to France. After about three years of
wandering and lurking he, by the mediation of some eminent men, who
overlooked his faults for the sake of his good qualities, made his peace
with the government, and again ventured to resume his ministrations. The
return which he made for the lenity with which he had been treated does
not much raise his character. Scarcely had he again begun to harangue in
public about the unlawfulness of war, when he sent a message earnestly
exhorting James to make an immediate descent on England with thirty
thousand men. 39

Some months passed before the fate of Preston was decided. After several
respites, the government, convinced that, though he had told much, he
could tell more, fixed a day for his execution, and ordered the sheriffs
to have the machinery of death in readiness. 40 But he was
again respited, and, after a delay of some weeks, obtained a pardon,
which, however, extended only to his life, and left his property subject
to all the consequences of his attainder. As soon as he was set at liberty
he gave new cause of offence and suspicion, and was again arrested,
examined and sent to prison. 41 At length he was permitted to
retire, pursued by the hisses and curses of both parties, to a lonely
manor house in the North Riding of Yorkshire. There, at least, he had not
to endure the scornful looks of old associates who had once thought him a
man of dauntless courage and spotless honour, but who now pronounced that
he was at best a meanspirited coward, and hinted their suspicions that he
had been from the beginning a spy and a trepan. 42 He
employed the short and sad remains of his life in turning the Consolation
of Boethius into English. The translation was published after the
translator’s death. It is remarkable chiefly on account of some very
unsuccessful attempts to enrich our versification with new metres, and on
account of the allusions with which the preface is filled. Under a thin
veil of figurative language, Preston exhibited to the public compassion or
contempt his own blighted fame and broken heart. He complained that the
tribunal which had sentenced him to death had dealt with him more
leniently than his former friends, and that many, who had never been tried
by temptations like his, had very cheaply earned a reputation for courage
by sneering at his poltroonery, and by bidding defiance at a distance to
horrors which, when brought near, subdue even a constant spirit.

The spirit of the Jacobites, which had been quelled for a time by the
detection of Preston’s plot, was revived by the fall of Mons. The joy of
the whole party was boundless. The nonjuring priests ran backwards and
forwards between Sam’s Coffee House and Westminster Hall, spreading the
praises of Lewis, and laughing at the miserable issue of the deliberations
of the great Congress. In the Park the malecontents wore their biggest
looks, and talked sedition in their loudest tones. The most conspicuous
among these swaggerers was Sir John Fenwick, who had, in the late reign,
been high in favour and in military command, and was now an indefatigable
agitator and conspirator. In his exultation he forgot the courtesy which
man owes to woman. He had more than once made himself conspicuous by his
impertinence to the Queen. He now ostentatiously put himself in her way
when she took her airing; and, while all around him uncovered and bowed
low, gave her a rude stare and cocked his hat in her face. The affront was
not only brutal, but cowardly. For the law had provided no punishment for
mere impertinence, however gross; and the King was the only gentleman and
soldier in the kingdom who could not protect his wife from contumely with
his sword. All that the Queen could do was to order the parkkeepers not to
admit Sir John again within the gates. But, long after her death, a day
came when he had reason to wish that he had restrained his insolence. He
found, by terrible proof, that of all the Jacobites, the most desperate
assassins not excepted, he was the only one for whom William felt an
intense personal aversion. 43

A few days after this event the rage of the malecontents began to flame
more fiercely than ever. The detection of the conspiracy of which Preston
was the chief had brought on a crisis in ecclesiastical affairs. The
nonjuring bishops had, during the year which followed their deprivation,
continued to reside in the official mansions which had once been their
own. Burnet had, at Mary’s request, laboured to effect a compromise. His
direct interference would probably have done more harm than good. He
therefore judiciously employed the agency of Rochester, who stood higher
in the estimation of the nonjurors than any statesman who was not a
nonjuror, and of Trevor, who, worthless as he was, had considerable
influence with the High Church party. Sancroft and his brethren were
informed that, if they would consent to perform their spiritual duty, to
ordain, to institute, to confirm, and to watch over the faith and the
morality of the priesthood, a bill should be brought into Parliament to
excuse them from taking the oaths. 44 This offer
was imprudently liberal; but those to whom it was made could not
consistently accept it. For in the ordination service, and indeed in
almost every service of the Church, William and Mary were designated as
King and Queen. The only promise that could be obtained from the deprived
prelates was that they would live quietly; and even this promise they had
not all kept. One of them at least had been guilty of treason aggravated
by impiety. He had, under the strong fear of being butchered by the
populace, declared that he abhorred the thought of calling in the aid of
France, and had invoked God to attest the sincerity of this declaration.
Yet, a short time after, he had been detected in plotting to bring a
French army into England; and he had written to assure the Court of Saint
Germains that he was acting in concert with his brethren, and especially
with Sancroft. The Whigs called loudly for severity. Even the Tory
counsellors of William owned that indulgence had been carried to the
extreme point. They made, however, a last attempt to mediate. “Will you
and your brethren,” said Trevor to Lloyd, the nonjuring Bishop of Norwich,
“disown all connection with Doctor Turner, and declare that what he has in
his letters imputed to you is false?” Lloyd evaded the question. It was
now evident that William’s forbearance had only emboldened the adversaries
whom he had hoped to conciliate. Even Caermarthen, even Nottingham,
declared that it was high time to fill the vacant sees. 45

Tillotson was nominated to the Archbishopric, and was consecrated on
Whitsunday, in the church of St. Mary Le Bow. Compton, cruelly mortified,
refused to bear any part in the ceremony. His place was supplied by Mew,
Bishop of Winchester, who was assisted by Burnet, Stillingfleet and Hough.
The congregation was the most splendid that had been seen in any place of
worship since the coronation. The Queen’s drawingroom was, on that day,
deserted. Most of the peers who were in town met in the morning at Bedford
House, and went thence in procession to Cheapside. Norfolk, Caermarthen
and Dorset were conspicuous in the throng. Devonshire, who was impatient
to see his woods at Chatsworth in their summer beauty, had deferred his
departure in order to mark his respect for Tillotson. The crowd which
lined the streets greeted the new Primate warmly. For he had, during many
years, preached in the City; and his eloquence, his probity and the
singular gentleness of his temper and manners, had made him the favourite
of the Londoners. 46 But the congratulations and
applauses of his friends could not drown the roar of execration which the
Jacobites set up. According to them, he was a thief who had not entered by
the door, but had climbed over the fences. He was a hireling whose own the
sheep were not, who had usurped the crook of the good shepherd, and who
might well be expected to leave the flock at the mercy of every wolf. He
was an Arian, a Socinian, a Deist, an Atheist. He had cozened the world by
fine phrases, and by a show of moral goodness: but he was in truth a far
more dangerous enemy of the Church than he could have been if he had
openly proclaimed himself a disciple of Hobbes, and had lived as loosely
as Wilmot. He had taught the fine gentlemen and ladies who admired his
style, and who were constantly seen round his pulpit, that they might be
very good Christians, and yet might believe the account of the Fall in the
book of Genesis to be allegorical. Indeed they might easily be as good
Christians as he; for he had never been christened; his parents were
Anabaptists; he had lost their religion when he was a boy; and he had
never found another. In ribald lampoons he was nicknamed Undipped John.
The parish register of his baptism was produced in vain. His enemies still
continued to complain that they had lived to see fathers of the Church who
never were her children. They made up a story that the Queen had felt
bitter remorse for the great crime by which she had obtained a throne,
that in her agony she had applied to Tillotson, and that he had comforted
her by assuring her that the punishment of the wicked in a future state
would not be eternal. 47 The Archbishop’s mind was
naturally of almost feminine delicacy, and had been rather softened than
braced by the habits of a long life, during which contending sects and
factions had agreed in speaking of his abilities with admiration and of
his character with esteem. The storm of obloquy which he had to face for
the first time at more than sixty years of age was too much for him. His
spirits declined; his health gave way; yet he neither flinched from his
duty nor attempted to revenge himself on his persecutors. A few days after
his consecration, some persons were seized while dispersing libels in
which he was reviled. The law officers of the Crown proposed to institute
prosecutions; but he insisted that nobody should be punished on his
account. 48
Once, when he had company with him, a sealed packet was put into his
hands; he opened it; and out fell a mask. His friends were shocked and
incensed by this cowardly insult; but the Archbishop, trying to conceal
his anguish by a smile, pointed to the pamphlets which covered his table,
and said that the reproach which the emblem of the mask was intended to
convey might be called gentle when compared with other reproaches which he
daily had to endure. After his death a bundle of the savage lampoons which
the nonjurors had circulated against him was found among his papers with
this indorsement: “I pray God forgive them; I do.” 49

The temper of the deposed primate was very different. He seems to have
been under a complete delusion as to his own importance. The immense
popularity which he had enjoyed three years before, the prayers and tears
of the multitudes who had plunged into the Thames to implore his blessing,
the enthusiasm with which the sentinels of the Tower had drunk his health
under the windows of his prison, the mighty roar of joy which had risen
from Palace Yard on the morning of his acquittal, the triumphant night
when every window from Hyde Park to Mile End had exhibited seven candles,
the midmost and tallest emblematical of him, were still fresh in his
recollection; nor had he the wisdom to perceive that all this homage had
been paid, not to his person, but to that religion and to those liberties
of which he was, for a moment, the representative. The extreme tenderness
with which the new government had long persisted in treating him seems to
have confirmed him in his error. That a succession of conciliatory
messages was sent to him from Kensington, that he was offered terms so
liberal as to be scarcely consistent with the dignity of the Crown and the
welfare of the State, that his cold and uncourteous answers could not tire
out the royal indulgence, that, in spite of the loud clamours of the
Whigs, and of the provocations daily given by the Jacobites, he was
residing, fifteen months after deprivation, in the metropolitan palace,
these things seemed to him to indicate not the lenity but the timidity of
the ruling powers. He appears to have flattered himself that they would
not dare to eject him. The news, therefore, that his see had been filled
threw him into a passion which lasted as long as his life, and which
hurried him into many foolish and unseemly actions. Tillotson, as soon as
he was appointed, went to Lambeth in the hope that he might be able, by
courtesy and kindness, to soothe the irritation of which he was the
innocent cause. He stayed long in the antechamber, and sent in his name by
several servants; but Sancroft would not even return an answer. 50
Three weeks passed; and still the deprived Archbishop showed no
disposition to move. At length he received an order intimating to him the
royal pleasure that he should quit the dwelling which had long ceased to
be his own, and in which he was only a guest. He resented this order
bitterly, and declared that he would not obey it. He would stay till he
was pulled out by the Sheriff’s officers. He would defend himself at law
as long as he could do so without putting in any plea acknowledging the
authority of the usurpers. 51 The case was so clear that he
could not, by any artifice of chicanery, obtain more than a short delay.
When judgment had been given against him, he left the palace, but directed
his steward to retain possession. The consequence was that the steward was
taken into custody and heavily fined. Tillotson sent a kind message to
assure his predecessor that the fine should not be exacted. But Sancroft
was determined to have a grievance, and would pay the money. 52

From that time the great object of the narrowminded and peevish old man
was to tear in pieces the Church of which he had been the chief minister.
It was in vain that some of those nonjurors, whose virtue, ability and
learning were the glory of their party, remonstrated against his design.
“Our deprivation,”—such was the reasoning of Ken,—”is, in the
sight of God, a nullity. We are, and shall be, till we die or resign, the
true Bishops of our sees. Those who assume our titles and functions will
incur the guilt of schism. But with us, if we act as becomes us, the
schism will die; and in the next generation the unity of the Church will
be restored. On the other hand, if we consecrate Bishops to succeed us,
the breach may last through ages, and we shall be justly held accountable,
not indeed for its origin, but for its continuance.” These considerations
ought, on Sancroft’s own principles, to have had decisive weight with him;
but his angry passions prevailed. Ken quietly retired from the venerable
palace of Wells. He had done, he said, with strife, and should henceforth
vent his feelings not in disputes but in hymns. His charities to the
unhappy of all persuasions, especially to the followers of Monmouth and to
the persecuted Huguenots, had been so large that his whole private fortune
consisted of seven hundred pounds, and of a library which he could not
bear to sell. But Thomas Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, though not a nonjuror,
did himself honour by offering to the most virtuous of the nonjurors a
tranquil and dignified asylum in the princely mansion of Longleat. There
Ken passed a happy and honoured old age, during which he never regretted
the sacrifice which he had made to what he thought his duty, and yet
constantly became more and more indulgent to those whose views of duty
differed from his. 53

Sancroft was of a very different temper. He had, indeed, as little to
complain of as any man whom a revolution has ever hurled down from an
exalted station. He had at Fressingfield, in Suffolk, a patrimonial
estate, which, together with what he had saved during a primacy of twelve
years, enabled him to live, not indeed as he had lived when he was the
first peer of Parliament, but in the style of an opulent country
gentleman. He retired to his hereditary abode; and there he passed the
rest of his life in brooding over his wrongs. Aversion to the Established
Church became as strong a feeling in him as it had been in Martin
Marprelate. He considered all who remained in communion with her as
heathens and publicans. He nicknamed Tillotson the Mufti. In the room
which was used as a chapel at Fressingfield no person who had taken the
oaths, or who attended the ministry of any divine who had taken the oaths,
was suffered to partake of the sacred bread and wine. A distinction,
however, was made between two classes of offenders. A layman who remained
in communion with the Church was permitted to be present while prayers
were read, and was excluded only from the highest of Christian mysteries.
But with clergymen who had sworn allegiance to the Sovereigns in
possession Sancroft would not even pray. He took care that the rule which
he had laid down should be widely known, and, both by precept and by
example, taught his followers to look on the most orthodox, the most
devout, the most virtuous of those who acknowledged William’s authority
with a feeling similar to that with which the Jew regarded the Samaritan.
54
Such intolerance would have been reprehensible, even in a man contending
for a great principle. But Sancroft was contending merely for a name. He
was the author of the scheme of Regency. He was perfectly willing to
transfer the whole kingly power from James to William. The question which,
to this smallest and sourest of minds, seemed important enough to justify
the excommunicating of ten thousand priests and of five millions of laymen
was, whether the magistrate to whom the whole kingly power was transferred
should assume the kingly title. Nor could Sancroft bear to think that the
animosity which he had excited would die with himself. Having done all
that he could to make the feud bitter, he determined to make it eternal. A
list of the divines who had been ejected from their benefices was sent by
him to Saint Germains with a request that James would nominate two who
might keep up the episcopal succession. James, well pleased, doubtless, to
see another sect added to that multitude of sects which he had been taught
to consider as the reproach of Protestantism, named two fierce and
uncompromising nonjurors, Hickes and Wagstaffe, the former recommended by
Sancroft, the latter recommended by Lloyd, the ejected Bishop of Norwich.
55
Such was the origin of a schismatical hierarchy, which, having, during a
short time, excited alarm, soon sank into obscurity and contempt, but
which, in obscurity and contempt, continued to drag on a languid existence
during several generations. The little Church, without temples, revenues
or dignities, was even more distracted by internal disputes than the great
Church, which retained possession of cathedrals, tithes and peerages. Some
nonjurors leaned towards the ceremonial of Rome; others would not tolerate
the slightest departure from the Book of Common Prayer. Altar was set up
against altar. One phantom prelate pronounced the consecration of another
phantom prelate uncanonical. At length the pastors were left absolutely
without flocks. One of these Lords spiritual very wisely turned surgeon;
another left what he had called his see, and settled in Ireland; and at
length, in 1805, the last Bishop of that society which had proudly claimed
to be the only true Church of England dropped unnoticed into the grave. 56

The places of the bishops who had been ejected with Sancroft were filled
in a manner creditable to the government. Patrick succeeded the traitor
Turner. Fowler went to Gloucester. Richard Cumberland, an aged divine, who
had no interest at Court, and whose only recommendations were his piety
and erudition, was astonished by learning from a newsletter which he found
on the table of a coffeehouse that he had been nominated to the See of
Peterborough. 57 Beveridge was selected to
succeed Ken; he consented; and the appointment was actually announced in
the London Gazette. But Beveridge, though an honest, was not a
strongminded man. Some Jacobites expostulated with him; some reviled him;
his heart failed him; and he retracted. While the nonjurors were rejoicing
in this victory, he changed his mind again; but too late. He had by his
irresolution forfeited the favour of William, and never obtained a mitre
till Anne was on the throne. 58 The bishopric of Bath and Wells
was bestowed on Richard Kidder, a man of considerable attainments and
blameless character, but suspected of a leaning towards Presbyterianism.
About the same time Sharp, the highest churchman that had been zealous for
the Comprehension, and the lowest churchman that felt a scruple about
succeeding a deprived prelate, accepted the Archbishopric of York, vacant
by the death of Lamplugh. 59

In consequence of the elevation of Tillotson to the See of Canterbury, the
Deanery of Saint Paul’s became vacant. As soon as the name of the new Dean
was known, a clamour broke forth such as perhaps no ecclesiastical
appointment has ever produced, a clamour made up of yells of hatred, of
hisses of contempt, and of shouts of triumphant and half insulting
welcome; for the new Dean was William Sherlock.

The story of his conversion deserves to be fully told; for it throws great
light on the character of the parties which then divided the Church and
the State. Sherlock was, in influence and reputation, though not in rank,
the foremost man among the nonjurors. His authority and example had
induced some of his brethren, who had at first wavered, to resign their
benefices. The day of suspension came; the day of deprivation came; and
still he was firm. He seemed to have found, in the consciousness of
rectitude, and in meditation on the invisible world, ample compensation
for all his losses. While excluded from the pulpit where his eloquence had
once delighted the learned and polite inmates of the Temple, he wrote that
celebrated Treatise on Death which, during many years, stood next to the
Whole Duty of Man in the bookcases of serious Arminians. Soon, however, it
began to be suspected that his resolution was giving way. He declared that
he would be no party to a schism; he advised those who sought his counsel
not to leave their parish churches; nay, finding that the law which had
ejected him from his cure did not interdict him from performing divine
service, he officiated at Saint Dunstan’s, and there prayed for King
William and Queen Mary. The apostolical injunction, he said, was that
prayers should be made for all in authority, and William and Mary were
visibly in authority. His Jacobite friends loudly blamed his
inconsistency. How, they asked, if you admit that the Apostle speaks in
this passage of actual authority, can you maintain that, in other passages
of a similar kind, he speaks only of legitimate authority? Or how can you,
without sin, designate as King, in a solemn address to God, one whom you
cannot, without sin, promise to obey as King? These reasonings were
unanswerable; and Sherlock soon began to think them so; but the conclusion
to which they led him was diametrically opposed to the conclusion to which
they were meant to lead him. He hesitated, however, till a new light
flashed on his mind from a quarter from which there was little reason to
expect any thing but tenfold darkness. In the reign of James the First,
Doctor John Overall, Bishop of Exeter, had written an elaborate treatise
on the rights of civil and ecclesiastical governors. This treatise had
been solemnly approved by the Convocations of Canterbury and York, and
might therefore be considered as an authoritative exposition of the
doctrine of the Church of England. A copy of the manuscript was in
Sancroft’s possession; and he, soon after the Revolution, sent it to the
press. He hoped, doubtless, that the publication would injure the new
government; but he was lamentably disappointed. The book indeed condemned
all resistance in terms as strong as he could himself have used; but one
passage which had escaped his notice was decisive against himself and his
fellow schismatics. Overall, and the two Convocations which had given
their sanction to Overall’s teaching, pronounced that a government, which
had originated in rebellion, ought, when thoroughly settled, to be
considered as ordained by God and to be obeyed by Christian men. 60
Sherlock read, and was convinced. His venerable mother the Church had
spoken; and he, with the docility of a child, accepted her decree. The
government which had sprung from the Revolution might, at least since the
battle of the Boyne and the flight of James from Ireland, be fairly called
a settled government, and ought therefore to be passively obeyed till it
should be subverted by another revolution and succeeded by another settled
government.

Sherlock took the oaths, and speedily published, in justification of his
conduct, a pamphlet entitled The Case of Allegiance to Sovereign Powers
stated. The sensation produced by this work was immense. Dryden’s Hind and
Panther had not raised so great an uproar. Halifax’s Letter to a Dissenter
had not called forth so many answers. The replies to the Doctor, the
vindications of the Doctor, the pasquinades on the Doctor, would fill a
library. The clamour redoubled when it was known that the convert had not
only been reappointed Master of the Temple, but had accepted the Deanery
of Saint Paul’s, which had become vacant in consequence of the deprivation
of Sancroft and the promotion of Tillotson. The rage of the nonjurors
amounted almost to frenzy. Was it not enough, they asked, to desert the
true and pure Church, in this her hour of sorrow and peril, without also
slandering her? It was easy to understand why a greedy, cowardly hypocrite
should refuse to take the oaths to the usurper as long as it seemed
probable that the rightful King would be restored, and should make haste
to swear after the battle of the Boyne. Such tergiversation in times of
civil discord was nothing new. What was new was that the turncoat should
try to throw his own guilt and shame on the Church of England, and should
proclaim that she had taught him to turn against the weak who were in the
right, and to cringe to the powerful who were in the wrong. Had such
indeed been her doctrine or her practice in evil days? Had she abandoned
her Royal Martyr in the prison or on the scaffold? Had she enjoined her
children to pay obedience to the Rump or to the Protector? Yet was the
government of the Rump or of the Protector less entitled to be called a
settled government than the government of William and Mary? Had not the
battle of Worcester been as great a blow to the hopes of the House of
Stuart as the battle of the Boyne? Had not the chances of a Restoration
seemed as small in 1657 as they could seem to any judicious man in 1691?
In spite of invectives and sarcasms, however, there was Overall’s
treatise; there were the approving votes of the two Convocations; and it
was much easier to rail at Sherlock than to explain away either the
treatise or the votes. One writer maintained that by a thoroughly settled
government must have been meant a government of which the title was
uncontested. Thus, he said, the government of the United Provinces became
a settled government when it was recognised by Spain, and, but for that
recognition, would never have been a settled government to the end of
time. Another casuist, somewhat less austere, pronounced that a
government, wrongful in its origin, might become a settled government
after the lapse of a century. On the thirteenth of February 1789,
therefore, and not a day earlier, Englishmen would be at liberty to swear
allegiance to a government sprung from the Revolution. The history of the
chosen people was ransacked for precedents. Was Eglon’s a settled
government when Ehud stabbed him? Was Joram’s a settled government when
Jehe shot him? But the leading case was that of Athaliah. It was indeed a
case which furnished the malecontents with many happy and pungent
allusions; a kingdom treacherously seized by an usurper near in blood to
the throne; the rightful prince long dispossessed; a part of the
sacerdotal order true, through many disastrous years, to the Royal House;
a counterrevolution at length effected by the High Priest at the head of
the Levites. Who, it was asked, would dare to blame the heroic pontiff who
had restored the heir of David? Yet was not the government of Athaliah as
firmly settled as that of the Prince of Orange?

Hundreds of pages written at this time about the rights of Joash and the
bold enterprise of Jehoiada are mouldering in the ancient bookcases of
Oxford and Cambridge. While Sherlock was thus fiercely attacked by his old
friends, he was not left unmolested by his old enemies. Some vehement
Whigs, among whom Julian Johnson was conspicuous, declared that Jacobitism
itself was respectable when compared with the vile doctrine which had been
discovered in the Convocation Book. That passive obedience was due to
Kings was doubtless an absurd and pernicious notion. Yet it was impossible
not to respect the consistency and fortitude of men who thought themselves
bound to bear true allegiance, at all hazards, to an unfortunate, a
deposed, an exiled oppressor. But the theory which Sherlock had learned
from Overall was unmixed baseness and wickedness. A cause was to be
abandoned, not because it was unjust, but because it was unprosperous.
Whether James had been a tyrant or had been the father of his people was
quite immaterial. If he had won the battle of the Boyne we should have
been bound as Christians to be his slaves. He had lost it; and we were
bound as Christians to be his foes. Other Whigs congratulated the
proselyte on having come, by whatever road, to a right practical
conclusion, but could not refrain from sneering at the history which he
gave of his conversion. He was, they said, a man of eminent learning and
abilities. He had studied the question of allegiance long and deeply. He
had written much about it. Several months had been allowed him for
reading, prayer and reflection before he incurred suspension, several
months more before he incurred deprivation. He had formed an opinion for
which he had declared himself ready to suffer martyrdom; he had taught
that opinion to others; and he had then changed that opinion solely
because he had discovered that it had been, not refuted, but dogmatically
pronounced erroneous by the two Convocations more than eighty years
before. Surely, this was to renounce all liberty of private judgment, and
to ascribe to the Synods of Canterbury and York an infallibility which the
Church of England had declared that even Oecumenical Councils could not
justly claim. If, it was sarcastically said, all our notions of right and
wrong, in matters of vital importance to the well being of society, are to
be suddenly altered by a few lines of manuscript found in a corner of the
library at Lambeth, it is surely much to be wished, for the peace of mind
of humble Christians, that all the documents to which this sort of
authority belongs should be rummaged out and sent to the press as soon as
possible; for, unless this be done, we may all, like the Doctor when he
refused the oaths last year, be committing sins in the full persuasion
that we are discharging duties. In truth, it is not easy to believe that
the Convocation Book furnished Sherlock with any thing more than a pretext
for doing what he had made up his mind to do. The united force of reason
and interest had doubtless convinced him that his passions and prejudices
had led him into a great error. That error he determined to recant; and it
cost him less to say that his opinion had been changed by newly discovered
evidence, than that he had formed a wrong judgment with all the materials
for the forming of a right judgment before him. The popular belief was
that his retractation was the effect of the tears, expostulations and
reproaches of his wife. The lady’s spirit was high; her authority in the
family was great; and she cared much more about her house and her
carriage, the plenty of her table and the prospects of her children, than
about the patriarchal origin of government or the meaning of the word
Abdication. She had, it was asserted, given her husband no peace by day or
by night till he had got over his scruples. In letters, fables, songs,
dialogues without number, her powers of seduction and intimidation were
malignantly extolled. She was Xanthippe pouring water on the head of
Socrates. She was Dalilah shearing Samson. She was Eve forcing the
forbidden fruit into Adam’s mouth. She was Job’s wife, imploring her
ruined lord, who sate scraping himself among the ashes, not to curse and
die, but to swear and live. While the ballad makers celebrated the victory
of Mrs. Sherlock, another class of assailants fell on the theological
reputation of her spouse. Till he took the oaths, he had always been
considered as the most orthodox of divines. But the captious and malignant
criticism to which his writings were now subjected would have found heresy
in the Sermon on the Mount; and he, unfortunately, was rash enough to
publish, at the very moment when the outcry against his political
tergiversation was loudest, his thoughts on the mystery of the Trinity. It
is probable that, at another time, his work would have been hailed by good
Churchmen as a triumphant answer to the Socinians and Sabellians. But,
unhappily, in his zeal against Socinians and Sabellians, he used
expressions which might be construed into Tritheism. Candid judges would
have remembered that the true path was closely pressed on the right and on
the left by error, and that it was scarcely possible to keep far enough
from danger on one side without going very close to danger on the other.
But candid judges Sherlock was not likely to find among the Jacobites. His
old allies affirmed that he had incurred all the fearful penalties
denounced in the Athanasian Creed against those who divide the substance.
Bulky quartos were written to prove that he held the existence of three
distinct Deities; and some facetious malecontents, who troubled themselves
very little about the Catholic verity, amused the town by lampoons in
English and Latin on his heterodoxy. “We,” said one of these jesters,
“plight our faith to one King, and call one God to attest our promise. We
cannot think it strange that there should be more than one King to whom
the Doctor has sworn allegiance, when we consider that the Doctor has more
Gods than one to swear by.” 61

Sherlock would, perhaps, have doubted whether the government to which he
had submitted was entitled to be called a settled government, if he had
known all the dangers by which it was threatened. Scarcely had Preston’s
plot been detected; when a new plot of a very different kind was formed in
the camp, in the navy, in the treasury, in the very bedchamber of the
King. This mystery of iniquity has, through five generations, been
gradually unveiling, but is not yet entirely unveiled. Some parts which
are still obscure may possibly, by the discovery of letters or diaries now
reposing under the dust of a century and a half, be made clear to our
posterity. The materials, however, which are at present accessible, are
sufficient for the construction of a narrative not to be read without
shame and loathing. 62

We have seen that, in the spring of 1690, Shrewsbury, irritated by finding
his counsels rejected, and those of his Tory rivals followed, suffered
himself, in a fatal hour, to be drawn into a correspondence with the
banished family. We have seen also by what cruel sufferings of body and
mind he expiated his fault. Tortured by remorse, and by disease the effect
of remorse, he had quitted the Court; but he had left behind him men whose
principles were not less lax than his, and whose hearts were far harder
and colder.

Early in 1691, some of these men began to hold secret communication with
Saint Germains. Wicked and base as their conduct was, there was in it
nothing surprising. They did after their kind. The times were troubled. A
thick cloud was upon the future. The most sagacious and experienced
politician could not see with any clearness three months before him. To a
man of virtue and honour, indeed, this mattered little. His uncertainty as
to what the morrow might bring forth might make him anxious, but could not
make him perfidious. Though left in utter darkness as to what concerned
his interests, he had the sure guidance of his principles. But, unhappily,
men of virtue and honour were not numerous among the courtiers of that
age. Whitehall had been, during thirty years, a seminary of every public
and private vice, and swarmed with lowminded, doubledealing, selfseeking
politicians. These politicians now acted as it was natural that men
profoundly immoral should act at a crisis of which none could predict the
issue. Some of them might have a slight predilection for William; others a
slight predilection for James; but it was not by any such predilection
that the conduct of any of the breed was guided. If it had seemed certain
that William would stand, they would all have been for William. If it had
seemed certain that James would be restored, they would all have been for
James. But what was to be done when the chances appeared to be almost
exactly balanced? There were honest men of one party who would have
answered, To stand by the true King and the true Church, and, if
necessary, to die for them like Laud. There were honest men of the other
party who would have answered, To stand by the liberties of England and
the Protestant religion, and, if necessary, to die for them like Sidney.
But such consistency was unintelligible to many of the noble and the
powerful. Their object was to be safe in every event. They therefore
openly took the oath of allegiance to one King, and secretly plighted
their word to the other. They were indefatigable in obtaining commissions,
patents of peerage, pensions, grants of crown land, under the great seal
of William; and they had in their secret drawers promises of pardon in the
handwriting of James.

Among those who were guilty of this wickedness three men stand preeminent,
Russell, Godolphin and Marlborough. No three men could be, in head and
heart, more unlike to one another; and the peculiar qualities of each gave
a peculiar character to his villany. The treason of Russell is to be
attributed partly to fractiousness; the treason of Godolphin is to be
attributed altogether to timidity; the treason of Marlborough was the
treason of a man of great genius and boundless ambition.

It may be thought strange that Russell should have been out of humour. He
had just accepted the command of the united naval forces of England and
Holland with the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. He was Treasurer of the
Navy. He had a pension of three thousand pounds a year. Crown property
near Charing Cross, to the value of eighteen thousand pounds, had been
bestowed on him. His indirect gains must have been immense. But he was
still dissatisfed. In truth, with undaunted courage, with considerable
talents both for war and for administration, and with a certain public
spirit, which showed itself by glimpses even in the very worst parts of
his life, he was emphatically a bad man, insolent, malignant, greedy,
faithless. He conceived that the great services which he had performed at
the time of the Revolution had not been adequately rewarded. Every thing
that was given to others seemed to him to be pillaged from himself. A
letter is still extant which he wrote to William about this time. It is
made up of boasts, reproaches and sneers. The Admiral, with ironical
professions of humility and loyalty, begins by asking permission to put
his wrongs on paper, because his bashfulness would not suffer him to
explain himself by word of mouth. His grievances were intolerable. Other
people got grants of royal domains; but he could get scarcely any thing.
Other people could provide for their dependants; but his recommendations
were uniformly disregarded. The income which he derived from the royal
favour might seem large; but he had poor relations; and the government,
instead of doing its duty by them, had most unhandsomely left them to his
care. He had a sister who ought to have a pension; for, without one, she
could not give portions to her daughters. He had a brother who, for want
of a place, had been reduced to the melancholy necessity of marrying an
old woman for her money. Russell proceeded to complain bitterly that the
Whigs were neglected, that the Revolution had aggrandised and enriched men
who had made the greatest efforts to avert it. And there is reason to
believe that this complaint came from his heart. For, next to his own
interests, those of his party were dear to him; and, even when he was most
inclined to become a Jacobite, he never had the smallest disposition to
become a Tory. In the temper which this letter indicates, he readily
listened to the suggestions of David Lloyd, one of the ablest and most
active emissaries who at this time were constantly plying between France
and England. Lloyd conveyed to James assurances that Russell would, when a
favourable opportunity should present itself, try to effect by means of
the fleet what Monk had effected in the preceding generation by means of
the army. 63
To what extent these assurances were sincere was a question about which
men who knew Russell well, and who were minutely informed as to his
conduct, were in doubt. It seems probable that, during many months, he did
not know his own mind. His interest was to stand well, as long as
possible, with both Kings. His irritable and imperious nature was
constantly impelling him to quarrel with both. His spleen was excited one
week by a dry answer from William, and the next week by an absurd
proclamation from James. Fortunately the most important day of his life,
the day from which all his subsequent years took their colour, found him
out of temper with the banished King.

Godolphin had not, and did not pretend to have, any cause of complaint
against the government which he served. He was First Commissioner of the
Treasury. He had been protected, trusted, caressed. Indeed the favour
shown to him had excited many murmurs. Was it fitting, the Whigs had
indignantly asked, that a man who had been high in office through the
whole of the late reign, who had promised to vote for the Indulgence, who
had sate in the Privy Council with a Jesuit, who had sate at the Board of
Treasury with two Papists, who had attended an idolatress to her altar,
should be among the chief ministers of a Prince whose title to the throne
was derived from the Declaration of Rights? But on William this clamour
had produced no effect; and none of his English servants seems to have had
at this time a larger share of his confidence than Godolphin.

Nevertheless, the Jacobites did not despair. One of the most zealous among
them, a gentleman named Bulkeley, who had formerly been on terms of
intimacy with Godolphin, undertook to see what could be done. He called at
the Treasury, and tried to draw the First Lord into political talk. This
was no easy matter; for Godolphin was not a man to put himself lightly
into the power of others. His reserve was proverbial; and he was
especially renowned for the dexterity with which he, through life, turned
conversation away from matters of state to a main of cocks or the pedigree
of a racehorse. The visit ended without his uttering a word indicating
that he remembered the existence of King James.

Bulkeley, however, was not to be so repulsed. He came again, and
introduced the subject which was nearest his heart. Godolphin then asked
after his old master and mistress in the mournful tone of a man who
despaired of ever being reconciled to them. Bulkeley assured him that King
James was ready to forgive all the past. “May I tell His Majesty that you
will try to deserve his favour?” At this Godolphin rose, said something
about the trammels of office and his wish to be released from them, and
put an end to the interview.

Bulkeley soon made a third attempt. By this time Godolphin had learned
some things which shook his confidence in the stability of the government
which he served. He began to think, as he would himself have expressed it,
that he had betted too deep on the Revolution, and that it was time to
hedge. Evasions would no longer serve his turn. It was necessary to speak
out. He spoke out, and declared himself a devoted servant of King James.
“I shall take an early opportunity of resigning my place. But, till then,
I am under a tie. I must not betray my trust.” To enhance the value of the
sacrifice which he proposed to make, he produced a most friendly and
confidential letter which he had lately received from William. “You see
how entirely the Prince of Orange trusts me. He tells me that he cannot do
without me, and that there is no Englishman for whom he has so great a
kindness; but all this weighs nothing with me in comparison of my duty to
my lawful King.”

If the First Lord of the Treasury really had scruples about betraying his
trust, those scruples were soon so effectually removed that he very
complacently continued, during six years, to eat the bread of one master,
while secretly sending professions of attachment and promises of service
to another.

The truth is that Godolphin was under the influence of a mind far more
powerful and far more depraved than his own. His perplexities had been
imparted to Marlborough, to whom he had long been bound by such friendship
as two very unprincipled men are capable of feeling for each other, and to
whom he was afterwards bound by close domestic ties.

Marlborough was in a very different situation from that of William’s other
servants. Lloyd might make overtures to Russell, and Bulkeley to
Godolphin. But all the agents of the banished Court stood aloof from the
traitor of Salisbury. That shameful night seemed to have for ever
separated the perjured deserter from the Prince whom he had ruined. James
had, even in the last extremity, when his army was in full retreat, when
his whole kingdom had risen against him, declared that he would never
pardon Churchill, never, never. By all the Jacobites the name of Churchill
was held in peculiar abhorrence; and, in the prose and verse which came
forth daily from their secret presses, a precedence in infamy, among all
the many traitors of the age, was assigned to him. In the order of things
which had sprung from the Revolution, he was one of the great men of
England, high in the state, high in the army. He had been created an Earl.
He had a large share in the military administration. The emoluments,
direct and indirect, of the places and commands which he held under the
Crown were believed at the Dutch Embassy to amount to twelve thousand
pounds a year. In the event of a counterrevolution it seemed that he had
nothing in prospect but a garret in Holland, or a scaffold on Tower Hill.
It might therefore have been expected that he would serve his new master
with fidelity, not indeed with the fidelity of Nottingham, which was the
fidelity of conscientiousness, not with the fidelity of Portland, which
was the fidelity of affection, but with the not less stubborn fidelity of
despair.

Those who thought thus knew but little of Marlborough. Confident in his
own powers of deception, he resolved, since the Jacobite agents would not
seek him, to seek them. He therefore sent to beg an interview with Colonel
Edward Sackville.

Sackville was astonished and not much pleased by the message. He was a
sturdy Cavalier of the old school. He had been persecuted in the days of
the Popish plot for manfully saying what he thought, and what every body
now thinks, about Oates and Bedloe. 64 Since the
Revolution he had put his neck in peril for King James, had been chased by
officers with warrants, and had been designated as a traitor in a
proclamation to which Marlborough himself had been a party. 65
It was not without reluctance that the stanch royalist crossed the hated
threshold of the deserter. He was repaid for his effort by the edifying
spectacle of such an agony of repentance as he had never before seen.
“Will you,” said Marlborough, “be my intercessor with the King? Will you
tell him what I suffer? My crimes now appear to me in their true light;
and I shrink with horror from the contemplation. The thought of them is
with me day and night. I sit down to table; but I cannot eat. I throw
myself on my bed; but I cannot sleep. I am ready to sacrifice every thing,
to brave every thing, to bring utter ruin on my fortunes, if only I may be
free from the misery of a wounded spirit.” If appearances could be
trusted, this great offender was as true a penitent as David or as Peter.
Sackville reported to his friends what had passed. They could not but
acknowledge that, if the arch traitor, who had hitherto opposed to
conscience and to public opinion the same cool and placid hardihood which
distinguished him on fields of battle, had really begun to feel remorse,
it would be absurd to reject, on account of his unworthiness, the
inestimable services which it was in his power to render to the good
cause. He sate in the interior council; he held high command in the army;
he had been recently entrusted, and would doubtless again be entrusted,
with the direction of important military operations. It was true that no
man had incurred equal guilt; but it was true also that no man had it in
his power to make equal reparation. If he was sincere, he might doubtless
earn the pardon which he so much desired. But was he sincere? Had he not
been just as loud in professions of loyalty on the very eve of his crime?
It was necessary to put him to the test. Several tests were applied by
Sackville and Lloyd. Marlborough was required to furnish full information
touching the strength and the distribution of all the divisions of the
English army; and he complied. He was required to disclose the whole plan
of the approaching campaign; and he did so. The Jacobite leaders watched
carefully for inaccuracies in his reports, but could find none. It was
thought a still stronger proof of his fidelity that he gave valuable
intelligence about what was doing in the office of the Secretary of State.
A deposition had been sworn against one zealous royalist. A warrant was
preparing against another. These intimations saved several of the
malecontents from imprisonment, if not from the gallows; and it was
impossible for them not to feel some relenting towards the awakened sinner
to whom they owed so much.

He however, in his secret conversations with his new allies, laid no claim
to merit. He did not, he said, ask for confidence. How could he, after the
villanies which he had committed against the best of Kings, hope ever to
be trusted again? It was enough for a wretch like him to be permitted to
make, at the cost of his life, some poor atonement to the gracious master,
whom he had indeed basely injured, but whom he had never ceased to love.
It was not improbable that, in the summer, he might command the English
forces in Flanders. Was it wished that he should bring them over in a body
to the French camp? If such were the royal pleasure, he would undertake
that the thing should be done. But on the whole he thought that it would
be better to wait till the next session of Parliament. And then he hinted
at a plan which he afterwards more fully matured, for expelling the
usurper by means of the English legislature and the English army. In the
meantime he hoped that James would command Godolphin not to quit the
Treasury. A private man could do little for the good cause. One who was
the director of the national finances, and the depository of the gravest
secrets of state, might render inestimable services.

Marlborough’s pretended repentance imposed so completely on those who
managed the affairs of James in London that they sent Lloyd to France,
with the cheering intelligence that the most depraved of all rebels had
been wonderfully transformed into a loyal subject. The tidings filled
James with delight and hope. Had he been wise, they would have excited in
him only aversion and distrust. It was absurd to imagine that a man really
heartbroken by remorse and shame for one act of perfidy would determine to
lighten his conscience by committing a second act of perfidy as odious and
as disgraceful as the first. The promised atonement was so wicked and base
that it never could be made by any man sincerely desirous to atone for
past wickedness and baseness. The truth was that, when Marlborough told
the Jacobites that his sense of guilt prevented him from swallowing his
food by day and taking his rest at night, he was laughing at them. The
loss of half a guinea would have done more to spoil his appetite and to
disturb his slumbers than all the terrors of an evil conscience. What his
offers really proved was that his former crime had sprung, not from an ill
regulated zeal for the interests of his country and his religion, but from
a deep and incurable moral disease which had infected the whole man.
James, however, partly from dulness and partly from selfishness, could
never see any immorality in any action by which he was benefited. To
conspire against him, to betray him, to break an oath of allegiance sworn
to him, were crimes for which no punishment here or hereafter could be too
severe. But to murder his enemies, to break faith with his enemies was not
only innocent but laudable. The desertion at Salisbury had been the worst
of crimes; for it had ruined him. A similar desertion in Flanders would be
an honourable exploit; for it might restore him.

The penitent was informed by his Jacobite friends that he was forgiven.
The news was most welcome; but something more was necessary to restore his
lost peace of mind. Might he hope to have, in the royal handwriting, two
lines containing a promise of pardon? It was not, of course, for his own
sake that he asked this. But he was confident that, with such a document
in his hands, he could bring back to the right path some persons of great
note who adhered to the usurper, only because they imagined that they had
no mercy to expect from the legitimate King. They would return to their
duty as soon as they saw that even the worst of all criminals had, on his
repentance, been generously forgiven. The promise was written, sent, and
carefully treasured up. Marlborough had now attained one object, an object
which was common to him with Russell and Godolphin. But he had other
objects which neither Russell nor Godolphin had ever contemplated. There
is, as we shall hereafter see, strong reason to believe that this wise,
brave, wicked man, was meditating a plan worthy of his fertile intellect
and daring spirit, and not less worthy of his deeply corrupted heart, a
plan which, if it had not been frustrated by strange means, would have
ruined William without benefiting James, and would have made the
successful traitor master of England and arbiter of Europe.

Thus things stood, when, in May 1691, William, after a short and busy
sojourn in England, set out again for the Continent, where the regular
campaign was about to open. He took with him Marlborough, whose abilities
he justly appreciated, and of whose recent negotiations with Saint
Germains he had not the faintest suspicion. At the Hague several important
military and political consultations were held; and, on every occasion,
the superiority of the accomplished Englishman was felt by the most
distinguished soldiers and statesmen of the United Provinces. Heinsius,
long after, used to relate a conversation which took place at this time
between William and the Prince of Vaudemont, one of the ablest commanders
in the Dutch service. Vaudemont spoke well of several English officers,
and among them of Talmash and Mackay, but pronounced Marlborough superior
beyond comparison to the rest. “He has every quality of a general. His
very look shows it. He cannot fail to achieve something great.” “I really
believe, cousin,” answered the King, “that my Lord will make good every
thing that you have said of him.”

There was still a short interval before the commencement of military
operations. William passed that interval in his beloved park at Loo.
Marlborough spent two or three days there, and was then despatched to
Flanders with orders to collect all the English forces, to form a camp in
the neighbourhood of Brussels, and to have every thing in readiness for
the King’s arrival.

And now Marlborough had an opportunity of proving the sincerity of those
professions by which he had obtained from a heart, well described by
himself as harder than a marble chimneypiece, the pardon of an offence
such as might have moved even a gentle nature to deadly resentment. He
received from Saint Germains a message claiming the instant performance of
his promise to desert at the head of his troops. He was told that this was
the greatest service which he could render to the Crown. His word was
pledged; and the gracious master who had forgiven all past errors
confidently expected that it would be redeemed. The hypocrite evaded the
demand with characteristic dexterity. In the most respectful and
affectionate language he excused himself for not immediately obeying the
royal commands. The promise which he was required to fulfil had not been
quite correctly understood. There had been some misapprehension on the
part of the messengers. To carry over a regiment or two would do more harm
than good. To carry over a whole army was a business which would require
much time and management. 66 While James was murmuring over
these apologies, and wishing that he had not been quite so placable,
William arrived at the head quarters of the allied forces, and took the
chief command.

The military operations in Flanders recommenced early in June and
terminated at the close of September. No important action took place. The
two armies marched and countermarched, drew near and receded. During some
time they confronted each other with less than a league between them. But
neither William nor Luxemburg would fight except at an advantage; and
neither gave the other any advantage. Languid as the campaign was, it is
on one account remarkable. During more than a century our country had sent
no great force to make war by land out of the British isles. Our
aristocracy had therefore long ceased to be a military class. The nobles
of France, of Germany, of Holland, were generally soldiers. It would
probably have been difficult to find in the brilliant circle which
surrounded Lewis at Versailles a single Marquess or Viscount of forty who
had not been at some battle or siege. But the immense majority of our
peers, baronets and opulent esquires had never served except in the
trainbands, and had never borne a part in any military exploit more
serious than that of putting down a riot or of keeping a street clear for
a procession. The generation which had fought at Edgehill and Lansdowne
had nearly passed away. The wars of Charles the Second had been almost
entirely maritime. During his reign therefore the sea service had been
decidedly more the mode than the land service; and, repeatedly, when our
fleet sailed to encounter the Dutch, such multitudes of men of fashion had
gone on board that the parks and the theatres had been left desolate. In
1691 at length, for the first time since Henry the Eighth laid siege to
Boulogne, an English army appeared on the Continent under the command of
an English king. A camp, which was also a court, was irresistibly
attractive to many young patricians full of natural intrepidity, and
ambitious of the favour which men of distinguished bravery have always
found in the eyes of women. To volunteer for Flanders became the rage
among the fine gentlemen who combed their flowing wigs and exchanged their
richly perfumed snuffs at the Saint James’s Coffeehouse. William’s
headquarters were enlivened by a crowd of splendid equipages and by a
rapid succession of sumptuous banquets. For among the high born and high
spirited youths who repaired to his standard were some who, though quite
willing to face a battery, were not at all disposed to deny themselves the
luxuries with which they had been surrounded in Soho Square. In a few
months Shadwell brought these valiant fops and epicures on the stage. The
town was made merry with the character of a courageous but prodigal and
effeminate coxcomb, who is impatient to cross swords with the best men in
the French household troops, but who is much dejected by learning that he
may find it difficult to have his champagne iced daily during the summer.
He carries with him cooks, confectioners and laundresses, a waggonload of
plate, a wardrobe of laced and embroidered suits, and much rich tent
furniture, of which the patterns have been chosen by a committee of fine
ladies. 67

While the hostile armies watched each other in Flanders, hostilities were
carried on with somewhat more vigour in other parts of Europe. The French
gained some advantages in Catalonia and in Piedmont. Their Turkish allies,
who in the east menaced the dominions of the Emperor, were defeated by
Lewis of Baden in a great battle. But nowhere were the events of the
summer so important as in Ireland.

From October 1690 till May 1691, no military operation on a large scale
was attempted in that kingdom. The area of the island was, during the
winter and spring, not unequally divided between the contending races. The
whole of Ulster, the greater part of Leinster and about one third of
Munster had submitted to the English. The whole of Connaught, the greater
part of Munster, and two or three counties of Leinster were held by the
Irish. The tortuous boundary formed by William’s garrisons ran in a north
eastern direction from the bay of Castlehaven to Mallow, and then,
inclining still further eastward, proceeded to Cashel. From Cashel the
line went to Mullingar, from Mullingar to Longford, and from Longford to
Cavan, skirted Lough Erne on the west, and met the ocean again at
Ballyshannon. 68

On the English side of this pale there was a rude and imperfect order. Two
Lords Justices, Coningsby and Porter, assisted by a Privy Council,
represented King William at Dublin Castle. Judges, Sheriffs and Justices
of the Peace had been appointed; and assizes were, after a long interval,
held in several county towns. The colonists had meanwhile been formed into
a strong militia, under the command of officers who had commissions from
the Crown. The trainbands of the capital consisted of two thousand five
hundred foot, two troops of horse and two troops of dragoons, all
Protestants and all well armed and clad. 69 On the
fourth of November, the anniversary of William’s birth, and on the fifth,
the anniversary of his landing at Torbay, the whole of this force appeared
in all the pomp of war. The vanquished and disarmed natives assisted, with
suppressed grief and anger, at the triumph of the caste which they had,
five months before, oppressed and plundered with impunity. The Lords
Justices went in state to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral; bells were rung;
bonfires were lighted; hogsheads of ale and claret were set abroach in the
streets; fireworks were exhibited on College Green; a great company of
nobles and public functionaries feasted at the Castle; and, as the second
course came up, the trumpets sounded, and Ulster King at Arms proclaimed,
in Latin, French and English, William and Mary, by the grace of God, King
and Queen of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. 70

Within the territory where the Saxon race was dominant, trade and industry
had already begun to revive. The brazen counters which bore the image and
superscription of James gave place to silver. The fugitives who had taken
refuge in England came back in multitudes; and, by their intelligence,
diligence and thrift, the devastation caused by two years of confusion and
robbery was soon in part repaired. Merchantmen heavily laden were
constantly passing and repassing Saint George’s Channel. The receipts of
the custom houses on the eastern coast, from Cork to Londonderry, amounted
in six months to sixty-seven thousand five hundred pounds, a sum such as
would have been thought extraordinary even in the most prosperous times.
71

The Irish who remained within the English pale were, one and all, hostile
to the English domination. They were therefore subjected to a rigorous
system of police, the natural though lamentable effect of extreme danger
and extreme provocation. A Papist was not permitted to have a sword or a
gun. He was not permitted to go more than three miles out of his parish
except to the market town on the market day. Lest he should give
information or assistance to his brethren who occupied the western half of
the island, he was forbidden to live within ten miles of the frontier.
Lest he should turn his house into a place of resort for malecontents, he
was forbidden to sell liquor by retail. One proclamation announced that,
if the property of any Protestant should be injured by marauders, his loss
should be made good at the expense of his Popish neighbours. Another gave
notice that, if any Papist who had not been at least three months
domiciled in Dublin should be found there, he should be treated as a spy.
Not more than five Papists were to assemble in the capital or its
neighbourhood on any pretext. Without a protection from the government no
member of the Church of Rome was safe; and the government would not grant
a protection to any member of the Church of Rome who had a son in the
Irish army. 72

In spite of all precautions and severities, however, the Celt found many
opportunities of taking a sly revenge. Houses and barns were frequently
burned; soldiers were frequently murdered; and it was scarcely possible to
obtain evidence against the malefactors, who had with them the sympathies
of the whole population. On such occasions the government sometimes
ventured on acts which seemed better suited to a Turkish than to an
English administration. One of these acts became a favourite theme of
Jacobite pamphleteers, and was the subject of a serious parliamentary
inquiry at Westminster. Six musketeers were found butchered only a few
miles from Dublin. The inhabitants of the village where the crime had been
committed, men, women, and children, were driven like sheep into the
Castle, where the Privy Council was sitting. The heart of one of the
assassins, named Gafney, failed him. He consented to be a witness, was
examined by the Board, acknowledged his guilt, and named some of his
accomplices. He was then removed in custody; but a priest obtained access
to him during a few minutes. What passed during those few minutes appeared
when he was a second time brought before the Council. He had the
effrontery to deny that he had owned any thing or accused any body. His
hearers, several of whom had taken down his confession in writing, were
enraged at his impudence. The Lords justices broke out; “You are a rogue;
You are a villain; You shall be hanged; Where is the Provost Marshal?” The
Provost Marshal came. “Take that man,” said Coningsby, pointing to Gafney;
“take that man, and hang him.” There was no gallows ready; but the
carriage of a gun served the purpose; and the prisoner was instantly tied
up without a trial, without even a written order for the execution; and
this though the courts of law were sitting at the distance of only a few
hundred yards. The English House of Commons, some years later, after a
long discussion, resolved, without a division, that the order for the
execution of Gafney was arbitrary and illegal, but that Coningsby’s fault
was so much extenuated by the circumstances in which he was placed that it
was not a proper subject for impeachment. 73

It was not only by the implacable hostility of the Irish that the Saxon of
the pale was at this time harassed. His allies caused him almost as much
annoyance as his helots. The help of troops from abroad was indeed
necessary to him; but it was dearly bought. Even William, in whom the
whole civil and military authority was concentrated, had found it
difficult to maintain discipline in an army collected from many lands, and
composed in great part of mercenaries accustomed to live at free quarters.
The powers which had been united in him were now divided and subdivided.
The two Lords justices considered the civil administration as their
province, and left the army to the management of Ginkell, who was General
in Chief. Ginkell kept excellent order among the auxiliaries from Holland,
who were under his more immediate command. But his authority over the
English and the Danes was less entire; and unfortunately their pay was,
during part of the winter, in arrear. They indemnified themselves by
excesses and exactions for the want of that which was their due; and it
was hardly possible to punish men with severity for not choosing to starve
with arms in their hands. At length in the spring large supplies of money
and stores arrived; arrears were paid up; rations were plentiful; and a
more rigid discipline was enforced. But too many traces of the bad habits
which the soldiers had contracted were discernible till the close of the
war. 74

In that part of Ireland, meanwhile, which still acknowledged James as
King, there could hardly be said to be any law, any property, or any
government. The Roman Catholics of Ulster and Leinster had fled westward
by tens of thousands, driving before them a large part of the cattle which
had escaped the havoc of two terrible years. The influx of food into the
Celtic region, however, was far from keeping pace with the influx of
consumers. The necessaries of life were scarce. Conveniences to which
every plain farmer and burgess in England was accustomed could hardly be
procured by nobles and generals. No coin was to be seen except lumps of
base metal which were called crowns and shillings. Nominal prices were
enormously high. A quart of ale cost two and sixpence, a quart of brandy
three pounds. The only towns of any note on the western coast were
Limerick and Galway; and the oppression which the shopkeepers of those
towns underwent was such that many of them stole away with the remains of
their stocks to the English territory, where a Papist, though he had to
endure much restraint and much humiliation, was allowed to put his own
price on his goods, and received that price in silver. Those traders who
remained within the unhappy region were ruined. Every warehouse that
contained any valuable property was broken open by ruffians who pretended
that they were commissioned to procure stores for the public service; and
the owner received, in return for bales of cloth and hogsheads of sugar,
some fragments of old kettles and saucepans, which would not in London or
Paris have been taken by a beggar.

As soon as a merchant ship arrived in the bay of Galway or in the Shannon,
she was boarded by these robbers. The cargo was carried away; and the
proprietor was forced to content himself with such a quantity of cowhides,
of wool and of tallow as the gang which had plundered him chose to give
him. The consequence was that, while foreign commodities were pouring fast
into the harbours of Londonderry, Carrickfergus, Dublin, Waterford and
Cork, every mariner avoided Limerick and Galway as nests of pirates. 75

The distinction between the Irish foot soldier and the Irish Rapparee had
never been very strongly marked. It now disappeared. Great part of the
army was turned loose to live by marauding. An incessant predatory war
raged along the line which separated the domain of William from that of
James. Every day companies of freebooters, sometimes wrapped in twisted
straw which served the purpose of armour, stole into the English
territory, burned, sacked, pillaged, and hastened back to their own
ground. To guard against these incursions was not easy; for the peasantry
of the plundered country had a strong fellow feeling with the plunderers.
To empty the granary, to set fire to the dwelling, to drive away the cows,
of a heretic was regarded by every squalid inhabitant of a mud cabin as a
good work. A troop engaged in such a work might confidently expect to fall
in, notwithstanding all the proclamations of the Lords justices, with some
friend who would indicate the richest booty, the shortest road, and the
safest hiding place. The English complained that it was no easy matter to
catch a Rapparee. Sometimes, when he saw danger approaching, he lay down
in the long grass of the bog; and then it was as difficult to find him as
to find a hare sitting. Sometimes he sprang into a stream, and lay there,
like an otter, with only his mouth and nostrils above the water. Nay, a
whole gang of banditti would, in the twinkling of an eye, transform itself
into a crowd of harmless labourers. Every man took his gun to pieces, hid
the lock in his clothes, stuck a cork in the muzzle, stopped the touch
hole with a quill, and threw the weapon into the next pond. Nothing was to
be seen but a train of poor rustics who had not so much as a cudgel among
them, and whose humble look and crouching walk seemed to show that their
spirit was thoroughly broken to slavery. When the peril was over, when the
signal was given, every man flew to the place where he had hid his arms;
and soon the robbers were in full march towards some Protestant mansion.
One band penetrated to Clonmel, another to the vicinity of Maryborough; a
third made its den in a woody islet of firm ground, surrounded by the vast
bog of Allen, harried the county of Wicklow, and alarmed even the suburbs
of Dublin. Such expeditions indeed were not always successful. Sometimes
the plunderers fell in with parties of militia or with detachments from
the English garrisons, in situations in which disguise, flight and
resistance were alike impossible. When this happened every kerne who was
taken was hanged, without any ceremony, on the nearest tree. 76

At the head quarters of the Irish army there was, during the winter, no
authority capable of exacting obedience even within a circle of a mile.
Tyrconnel was absent at the Court of France. He had left the supreme
government in the hands of a Council of Regency composed of twelve
persons. The nominal command of the army he had confided to Berwick; but
Berwick, though, as was afterwards proved, a man of no common courage and
capacity, was young and inexperienced. His powers were unsuspected by the
world and by himself; 77 and he submitted without
reluctance to the tutelage of a Council of War nominated by the Lord
Lieutenant. Neither the Council of Regency nor the Council of War was
popular at Limerick. The Irish complained that men who were not Irish had
been entrusted with a large share in the administration. The cry was
loudest against an officer named Thomas Maxwell. For it was certain that
he was a Scotchman; it was doubtful whether he was a Roman Catholic; and
he had not concealed the dislike which he felt for that Celtic Parliament
which had repealed the Act of Settlement and passed the Act of Attainder.
78
The discontent, fomented by the arts of intriguers, among whom the cunning
and unprincipled Henry Luttrell seems to have been the most active, soon
broke forth into open rebellion. A great meeting was held. Many officers
of the army, some peers, some lawyers of high note and some prelates of
the Roman Catholic Church were present. It was resolved that the
government set up by the Lord Lieutenant was unknown to the constitution.
Ireland, it was said, could be legally governed, in the absence of the
King, only by a Lord Lieutenant, by a Lord Deputy or by Lords Justices.
The King was absent. The Lord Lieutenant was absent. There was no Lord
Deputy. There were no Lords Justices. The Act by which Tyrconnel had
delegated his authority to a junto composed of his creatures was a mere
nullity. The nation was therefore left without any legitimate chief, and
might, without violating the allegiance due to the Crown, make temporary
provision for its own safety. A deputation was sent to inform Berwick that
he had assumed a power to which he had no right, but that nevertheless the
army and people of Ireland would willingly acknowledge him as their head
if he would consent to govern by the advice of a council truly Irish.
Berwick indignantly expressed his wonder that military men should presume
to meet and deliberate without the permission of their general. They
answered that there was no general, and that, if His Grace did not choose
to undertake the administration on the terms proposed, another leader
would easily be found. Berwick very reluctantly yielded, and continued to
be a puppet in a new set of hands. 79

Those who had effected this revolution thought it prudent to send a
deputation to France for the purpose of vindicating their proceedings. Of
the deputation the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cork and the two Luttrells
were members. In the ship which conveyed them from Limerick to Brest they
found a fellow passenger whose presence was by no means agreeable to them,
their enemy, Maxwell. They suspected, and not without reason, that he was
going, like them, to Saint Germains, but on a very different errand. The
truth was that Berwick had sent Maxwell to watch their motions and to
traverse their designs. Henry Luttrell, the least scrupulous of men,
proposed to settle the matter at once by tossing the Scotchman into the
sea. But the Bishop, who was a man of conscience, and Simon Luttrell, who
was a man of honour, objected to this expedient. 80

Meanwhile at Limerick the supreme power was in abeyance. Berwick, finding
that he had no real authority, altogether neglected business, and gave
himself up to such pleasures as that dreary place of banishment afforded.
There was among the Irish chiefs no man of sufficient weight and ability
to control the rest. Sarsfield for a time took the lead. But Sarsfield,
though eminently brave and active in the field, was little skilled in the
administration of war, and still less skilled in civil business. Those who
were most desirous to support his authority were forced to own that his
nature was too unsuspicious and indulgent for a post in which it was
hardly possible to be too distrustful or too severe. He believed whatever
was told him. He signed whatever was set before him. The commissaries,
encouraged by his lenity, robbed and embezzled more shamelessly than ever.
They sallied forth daily, guarded by pikes and firelocks, to seize,
nominally for the public service, but really for themselves, wool, linen,
leather, tallow, domestic utensils, instruments of husbandry, searched
every pantry, every wardrobe, every cellar, and even laid sacrilegious hands
on the property of priests and prelates. 81

Early in the spring the government, if it is to be so called, of which
Berwick was the ostensible head, was dissolved by the return of Tyrconnel.
The Luttrells had, in the name of their countrymen, implored James not to
subject so loyal a people to so odious and incapable a viceroy. Tyrconnel,
they said, was old; he was infirm; he needed much sleep; he knew nothing
of war; he was dilatory; he was partial; he was rapacious; he was
distrusted and hated by the whole nation. The Irish, deserted by him, had
made a gallant stand, and had compelled the victorious army of the Prince
of Orange to retreat. They hoped soon to take the field again, thirty
thousand strong; and they adjured their King to send them some captain
worthy to command such a force. Tyrconnel and Maxwell, on the other hand,
represented the delegates as mutineers, demagogues, traitors, and pressed
James to send Henry Luttrell to keep Mountjoy company in the Bastille.
James, bewildered by these criminations and recriminations, hesitated
long, and at last, with characteristic wisdom, relieved himself from
trouble by giving all the quarrellers fair words and by sending them all
back to have their fight out in Ireland. Berwick was at the same time
recalled to France. 82

Tyrconnel was received at Limerick, even by his enemies, with decent
respect. Much as they hated him, they could not question the validity of
his commission; and, though they still maintained that they had been
perfectly justified in annulling, during his absence, the unconstitutional
arrangements which he had made, they acknowledged that, when he was
present, he was their lawful governor. He was not altogether unprovided
with the means of conciliating them. He brought many gracious messages and
promises, a patent of peerage for Sarsfield, some money which was not of
brass, and some clothing, which was even more acceptable than money. The
new garments were not indeed very fine. But even the generals had long
been out at elbows; and there were few of the common men whose habiliments
would have been thought sufficient to dress a scarecrow in a more
prosperous country. Now, at length, for the first time in many months,
every private soldier could boast of a pair of breeches and a pair of
brogues. The Lord Lieutenant had also been authorised to announce that he
should soon be followed by several ships, laden with provisions and
military stores. This announcement was most welcome to the troops, who had
long been without bread, and who had nothing stronger than water to drink.
83

During some weeks the supplies were impatiently expected. At last,
Tyrconnel was forced to shut himself up; for, whenever he appeared in
public, the soldiers ran after him clamouring for food. Even the beef and
mutton, which, half raw, half burned, without vegetables, without salt,
had hitherto supported the army, had become scarce; and the common men
were on rations of horseflesh when the promised sails were seen in the
mouth of the Shannon. 84

A distinguished French general, named Saint Ruth, was on board with his
staff. He brought a commission which appointed him commander in chief of
the Irish army. The commission did not expressly declare that he was to be
independent of the viceregal authority; but he had been assured by James
that Tyrconnel should have secret instructions not to intermeddle in the
conduct of the war. Saint Ruth was assisted by another general officer
named D’Usson. The French ships brought some arms, some ammunition, and a
plentiful supply of corn and flour. The spirits of the Irish rose; and the
Te Deum was chaunted with fervent devotion in the cathedral of Limerick.
85

Tyrconnel had made no preparations for the approaching campaign. But Saint
Ruth, as soon as he had landed, exerted himself strenuously to redeem the
time which had been lost. He was a man of courage, activity and
resolution, but of a harsh and imperious nature. In his own country he was
celebrated as the most merciless persecutor that had ever dragooned the
Huguenots to mass. It was asserted by English Whigs that he was known in
France by the nickname of the Hangman; that, at Rome, the very cardinals
had shown their abhorrence of his cruelty; and that even Queen Christina,
who had little right to be squeamish about bloodshed, had turned away from
him with loathing. He had recently held a command in Savoy. The Irish
regiments in the French service had formed part of his army, and had
behaved extremely well. It was therefore supposed that he had a peculiar
talent for managing Irish troops. But there was a wide difference between
the well clad, well armed and well drilled Irish, with whom he was
familiar, and the ragged marauders whom he found swarming in the alleys of
Limerick. Accustomed to the splendour and the discipline of French camps
and garrisons, he was disgusted by finding that, in the country to which
he had been sent, a regiment of infantry meant a mob of people as naked,
as dirty and as disorderly as the beggars, whom he had been accustomed to
see on the Continent besieging the door of a monastery or pursuing a
diligence up him. With ill concealed contempt, however, he addressed
himself vigorously to the task of disciplining these strange soldiers, and
was day and night in the saddle, galloping from post to post, from
Limerick to Athlone, from Athlone to the northern extremity of Lough Rea,
and from Lough Rea back to Limerick. 86

It was indeed necessary that he should bestir himself; for, a few days
after his arrival, he learned that, on the other side of the Pale, all was
ready for action. The greater part of the English force was collected,
before the close of May, in the neighbourhood of Mullingar. Ginkell
commanded in chief. He had under him the two best officers, after
Marlborough, of whom our island could then boast, Talmash and Mackay. The
Marquess of Ruvigny, the hereditary chief of the refugees, and elder
brother of the brave Caillemot, who had fallen at the Boyne, had joined
the army with the rank of major general. The Lord Justice Coningsby,
though not by profession a soldier, came down from Dublin, to animate the
zeal of the troops. The appearance of the camp showed that the money voted
by the English Parliament had not been spared. The uniforms were new; the
ranks were one blaze of scarlet; and the train of artillery was such as
had never before been seen in Ireland. 87

On the sixth of June Ginkell moved his head quarters from Mullingar. On
the seventh he reached Ballymore. At Ballymore, on a peninsula almost
surrounded by something between a swamp and a lake, stood an ancient
fortress, which had recently been fortified under Sarsfield’s direction,
and which was defended by above a thousand men. The English guns were
instantly planted. In a few hours the besiegers had the satisfaction of
seeing the besieged running like rabbits from one shelter to another. The
governor, who had at first held high language, begged piteously for
quarter, and obtained it. The whole garrison were marched off to Dublin.
Only eight of the conquerors had fallen. 88

Ginkell passed some days in reconstructing the defences of Ballymore. This
work had scarcely been performed when he was joined by the Danish
auxiliaries under the command of the Duke of Wirtemberg. The whole army
then moved westward, and, on the nineteenth of June, appeared before the
walls of Athlone. 89

Athlone was perhaps, in a military point of view, the most important place
in the island. Rosen, who understood war well, had always maintained that
it was there that the Irishry would, with most advantage, make a stand
against the Englishry. 90 The town, which was surrounded
by ramparts of earth, lay partly in Leinster and partly in Connaught. The
English quarter, which was in Leinster, had once consisted of new and
handsome houses, but had been burned by the Irish some months before, and
now lay in heaps of ruin. The Celtic quarter, which was in Connaught, was
old and meanly built. 91 The Shannon, which is the
boundary of the two provinces, rushed through Athlone in a deep and rapid
stream, and turned two large mills which rose on the arches of a stone
bridge. Above the bridge, on the Connaught side, a castle, built, it was
said, by King John, towered to the height of seventy feet, and extended
two hundred feet along the river. Fifty or sixty yards below the bridge
was a narrow ford. 92

During the night of the nineteenth the English placed their cannon. On the
morning of the twentieth the firing began. At five in the afternoon an
assault was made. A brave French refugee with a grenade in his hand was
the first to climb the breach, and fell, cheering his countrymen to the
onset with his latest breath. Such were the gallant spirits which the
bigotry of Lewis had sent to recruit, in the time of his utmost need, the
armies of his deadliest enemies. The example was not lost. The grenades
fell thick. The assailants mounted by hundreds. The Irish gave way and ran
towards the bridge. There the press was so great that some of the
fugitives were crushed to death in the narrow passage, and others were
forced over the parapets into the waters which roared among the mill
wheels below. In a few hours Ginkell had made himself master of the
English quarter of Athlone; and this success had cost him only twenty men
killed and forty wounded. 93

But his work was only begun. Between him and the Irish town the Shannon
ran fiercely. The bridge was so narrow that a few resolute men might keep
it against an army. The mills which stood on it were strongly guarded; and
it was commanded by the guns of the castle. That part of the Connaught
shore where the river was fordable was defended by works, which the Lord
Lieutenant had, in spite of the murmurs of a powerful party, forced Saint
Ruth to entrust to the care of Maxwell. Maxwell had come back from France
a more unpopular man than he had been when he went thither. It was
rumoured that he had, at Versailles, spoken opprobriously of the Irish
nation; and he had, on this account, been, only a few days before,
publicly affronted by Sarsfield. 94 On the
twenty-first of June the English were busied in flinging up batteries
along the Leinster bank. On the twenty-second, soon after dawn, the
cannonade began. The firing continued all that day and all the following
night. When morning broke again, one whole side of the castle had been
beaten down; the thatched lanes of the Celtic town lay in ashes; and one
of the mills had been burned with sixty soldiers who defended it. 95

Still however the Irish defended the bridge resolutely. During several
days there was sharp fighting hand to hand in the strait passage. The
assailants gained ground, but gained it inch by inch. The courage of the
garrison was sustained by the hope of speedy succour. Saint Ruth had at
length completed his preparations; and the tidings that Athlone was in
danger had induced him to take the field in haste at the head of an army,
superior in number, though inferior in more important elements of military
strength, to the army of Ginkell. The French general seems to have thought
that the bridge and the ford might easily be defended, till the autumnal
rains and the pestilence which ordinarily accompanied them should compel
the enemy to retire. He therefore contented himself with sending
successive detachments to reinforce the garrison. The immediate conduct of
the defence he entrusted to his second in command, D’Usson, and fixed his
own head quarters two or three miles from the town. He expressed his
astonishment that so experienced a commander as Ginkell should persist in
a hopeless enterprise. “His master ought to hang him for trying to take
Athlone; and mine ought to hang me if I lose it.” 96

Saint Ruth, however, was by no means at ease. He had found, to his great
mortification, that he had not the full authority which the promises made
to him at Saint Germains had entitled him to expect. The Lord Lieutenant
was in the camp. His bodily and mental infirmities had perceptibly
increased within the last few weeks. The slow and uncertain step with
which he, who had once been renowned for vigour and agility, now tottered
from his easy chair to his couch, was no unapt type of the sluggish and
wavering movement of that mind which had once pursued its objects with a
vehemence restrained neither by fear nor by pity, neither by conscience
nor by shame. Yet, with impaired strength, both physical and intellectual,
the broken old man clung pertinaciously to power. If he had received
private orders not to meddle with the conduct of the war, he disregarded
them. He assumed all the authority of a sovereign, showed himself
ostentatiously to the troops as their supreme chief, and affected to treat
Saint Ruth as a lieutenant. Soon the interference of the Viceroy excited
the vehement indignation of that powerful party in the army which had long
hated him. Many officers signed an instrument by which they declared that
they did not consider him as entitled to their obedience in the field.
Some of them offered him gross personal insults. He was told to his face
that, if he persisted in remaining where he was not wanted, the ropes of
his pavilion should be cut. He, on the other hand, sent his emissaries to
all the camp fires, and tried to make a party among the common soldiers
against the French general. 97

The only thing in which Tyrconnel and Saint Ruth agreed was in dreading
and disliking Sarsfield. Not only was he popular with the great body of
his countrymen; he was also surrounded by a knot of retainers whose
devotion to him resembled the devotion of the Ismailite murderers to the
Old Man of the Mountain. It was known that one of these fanatics, a
colonel, had used language which, in the mouth of an officer so high in
rank, might well cause uneasiness. “The King,” this man had said, “is
nothing to me. I obey Sarsfield. Let Sarsfield tell me to kill any man in
the whole army; and I will do it.” Sarsfield was, indeed, too honourable a
gentleman to abuse his immense power over the minds of his worshippers.
But the Viceroy and the Commander in Chief might not unnaturally be
disturbed by the thought that Sarsfield’s honour was their only guarantee
against mutiny and assassination. The consequence was that, at the crisis
of the fate of Ireland, the services of the first of Irish soldiers were
not used, or were used with jealous caution, and that, if he ventured to
offer a suggestion, it was received with a sneer or a frown. 98

A great and unexpected disaster put an end to these disputes. On the
thirtieth of June Ginkell called a council of war. Forage began to be
scarce; and it was absolutely necessary that the besiegers should either
force their way across the river or retreat. The difficulty of effecting a
passage over the shattered remains of the bridge seemed almost
insuperable. It was proposed to try the ford. The Duke of Wirtemberg,
Talmash, and Ruvigny gave their voices in favour of this plan; and
Ginkell, with some misgivings, consented. 99

It was determined that the attempt should be made that very afternoon. The
Irish, fancying that the English were about to retreat, kept guard
carelessly. Part of the garrison was idling, part dosing. D’Usson was at
table. Saint Ruth was in his tent, writing a letter to his master filled
with charges against Tyrconnel. Meanwhile, fifteen hundred grenadiers;
each wearing in his hat a green bough, were mustered on the Leinster bank
of the Shannon. Many of them doubtless remembered that on that day year
they had, at the command of King William, put green boughs in their hats
on the banks of the Boyne. Guineas had been liberally scattered among
these picked men; but their alacrity was such as gold cannot purchase. Six
battalions were in readiness to support the attack. Mackay commanded. He
did not approve of the plan; but he executed it as zealously and
energetically as if he had himself been the author of it. The Duke of
Wirtemberg, Talmash, and several other gallant officers, to whom no part
in the enterprise had been assigned, insisted on serving that day as
private volunteers; and their appearance in the ranks excited the fiercest
enthusiasm among the soldiers.

It was six o’clock. A peal from the steeple of the church gave the signal.
Prince George of Hesse Darmstadt, and Gustavus Hamilton, the brave chief
of the Enniskilleners, descended first into the Shannon. Then the
grenadiers lifted the Duke of Wirtemberg on their shoulders, and, with a
great shout, plunged twenty abreast up to their cravats in water. The
stream ran deep and strong; but in a few minutes the head of the column
reached dry land. Talmash was the fifth man that set foot on the Connaught
shore. The Irish, taken unprepared, fired one confused volley and fled,
leaving their commander, Maxwell, a prisoner. The conquerors clambered up
the bank over the remains of walls shattered by a cannonade of ten days.
Mackay heard his men cursing and swearing as they stumbled among the
rubbish. “My lads,” cried the stout old Puritan in the midst of the
uproar, “you are brave fellows; but do not swear. We have more reason to
thank God for the goodness which He has shown us this day than to take His
name in vain.” The victory was complete. Planks were placed on the broken
arches of the bridge and pontoons laid on the river, without any
opposition on the part of the terrified garrison. With the loss of twelve
men killed and about thirty wounded the English had, in a few minutes,
forced their way into Connaught. 100

At the first alarm D’Usson hastened towards the river; but he was met,
swept away, trampled down, and almost killed by the torrent of fugitives.
He was carried to the camp in such a state that it was necessary to bleed
him. “Taken!” cried Saint Ruth, in dismay. “It cannot be. A town taken,
and I close by with an army to relieve it!” Cruelly mortified, he struck
his tents under cover of the night, and retreated in the direction of
Galway. At dawn the English saw far off, from the top of King John’s
ruined castle, the Irish army moving through the dreary region which
separates the Shannon from the Suck. Before noon the rearguard had
disappeared. 101

Even before the loss of Athlone the Celtic camp had been distracted by
factions. It may easily be supposed, therefore, that, after so great a
disaster, nothing was to be heard but crimination and recrimination. The
enemies of the Lord Lieutenant were more clamorous than ever. He and his
creatures had brought the kingdom to the verge of perdition. He would
meddle with what he did not understand. He would overrule the plans of men
who were real soldiers. He would entrust the most important of all posts
to his tool, his spy, the wretched Maxwell, not a born Irishman, not a
sincere Catholic, at best a blunderer, and too probably a traitor.
Maxwell, it was affirmed, had left his men unprovided with ammunition.
When they had applied to him for powder and ball, he had asked whether
they wanted to shoot larks. Just before the attack he had told them to go
to their supper and to take their rest, for that nothing more would be
done that day. When he had delivered himself up a prisoner, he had uttered
some words which seemed to indicate a previous understanding with the
conquerors. The Lord Lieutenant’s few friends told a very different story.
According to them, Tyrconnel and Maxwell had suggested precautions which
would have made a surprise impossible. The French General, impatient of
all interference, had omitted to take those precautions. Maxwell had been
rudely told that, if he was afraid, he had better resign his command. He
had done his duty bravely. He had stood while his men fled. He had
consequently fallen into the hands of the enemy; and he was now, in his
absence, slandered by those to whom his captivity was justly imputable. 102
On which side the truth lay it is not easy, at this distance of time, to
pronounce. The cry against Tyrconnel was, at the moment, so loud, that he
gave way and sullenly retired to Limerick. D’Usson, who had not yet
recovered from the hurts inflicted by his own runaway troops, repaired to
Galway. 103

Saint Ruth, now left in undisputed possession of the supreme command, was
bent on trying the chances of a battle. Most of the Irish officers, with
Sarsfield at their head, were of a very different mind. It was, they said,
not to be dissembled that, in discipline, the army of Ginkell was far
superior to theirs. The wise course, therefore, evidently was to carry on
the war in such a manner that the difference between the disciplined and
the undisciplined soldier might be as small as possible. It was well known
that raw recruits often played their part well in a foray, in a street
fight or in the defence of a rampart; but that, on a pitched field, they
had little chance against veterans. “Let most of our foot be collected
behind the walls of Limerick and Galway. Let the rest, together with our
horse, get in the rear of the enemy, and cut off his supplies. If he
advances into Connaught, let us overrun Leinster. If he sits down before
Galway, which may well be defended, let us make a push for Dublin, which
is altogether defenceless.” 104 Saint Ruth might, perhaps,
have thought this advice good, if his judgment had not been biassed by his
passions. But he was smarting from the pain of a humiliating defeat. In
sight of his tent, the English had passed a rapid river, and had stormed a
strong town. He could not but feel that, though others might have been to
blame, he was not himself blameless. He had, to say the least, taken
things too easily. Lewis, accustomed to be served during many years by
commanders who were not in the habit of leaving to chance any thing which
could be made secure by wisdom, would hardly think it a sufficient excuse
that his general had not expected the enemy to make so bold and sudden an
attack. The Lord Lieutenant would, of course, represent what had passed in
the most unfavourable manner; and whatever the Lord Lieutenant said James
would echo. A sharp reprimand, a letter of recall, might be expected. To
return to Versailles a culprit; to approach the great King in an agony of
distress; to see him shrug his shoulders, knit his brow and turn his back;
to be sent, far from courts and camps, to languish at some dull country
seat; this was too much to be borne; and yet this might well be
apprehended. There was one escape; to fight, and to conquer or to perish.

In such a temper Saint Ruth pitched his camp about thirty miles from
Athlone on the road to Galway, near the ruined castle of Aghrim, and
determined to await the approach of the English army.

His whole deportment was changed. He had hitherto treated the Irish
soldiers with contemptuous severity. But now that he had resolved to stake
life and fame on the valour of the despised race, he became another man.
During the few days which remained to him he exerted himself to win by
indulgence and caresses the hearts of all who were under his command. 105
He, at the same time, administered to his troops moral stimulants of the
most potent kind. He was a zealous Roman Catholic; and it is probable that
the severity with which he had treated the Protestants of his own country
ought to be partly ascribed to the hatred which he felt for their
doctrines. He now tried to give to the war the character of a crusade. The
clergy were the agents whom he employed to sustain the courage of his
soldiers. The whole camp was in a ferment with religious excitement. In
every regiment priests were praying, preaching, shriving, holding up the
host and the cup. While the soldiers swore on the sacramental bread not to
abandon their colours, the General addressed to the officers an appeal
which might have moved the most languid and effeminate natures to heroic
exertion. They were fighting, he said, for their religion, their liberty
and their honour. Unhappy events, too widely celebrated, had brought a
reproach on the national character. Irish soldiership was every where
mentioned with a sneer. If they wished to retrieve the fame of their
country, this was the time and this the place. 106

The spot on which he had determined to bring the fate of Ireland to issue
seems to have been chosen with great judgment. His army was drawn up on
the slope of a hill, which was almost surrounded by red bog. In front,
near the edge of the morass, were some fences out of which a breastwork
was without difficulty constructed.

On the eleventh of July, Ginkell, having repaired the fortifications of
Athlone and left a garrison there, fixed his headquarters at Ballinasloe,
about four miles from Aghrim, and rode forward to take a view of the Irish
position. On his return he gave orders that ammunition should be served
out, that every musket and bayonet should be got ready for action, and
that early on the morrow every man should be under arms without beat of
drum. Two regiments were to remain in charge of the camp; the rest,
unincumbered by baggage, were to march against the enemy.

Soon after six, the next morning, the English were on the way to Aghrim.
But some delay was occasioned by a thick fog which hung till noon over the
moist valley of the Suck; a further delay was caused by the necessity of
dislodging the Irish from some outposts; and the afternoon was far
advanced when the two armies at length confronted each other with nothing
but the bog and the breastwork between them. The English and their allies
were under twenty thousand; the Irish above twenty-five thousand.

Ginkell held a short consultation with his principal officers. Should he
attack instantly, or wait till the next morning? Mackay was for attacking
instantly; and his opinion prevailed. At five the battle began. The
English foot, in such order as they could keep on treacherous and uneven
ground, made their way, sinking deep in mud at every step, to the Irish
works. But those works were defended with a resolution such as extorted
some words of ungracious eulogy even from men who entertained the
strongest prejudices against the Celtic race. 107 Again
and again the assailants were driven back. Again and again they returned
to the struggle. Once they were broken, and chased across the morass; but
Talmash rallied them, and forced the pursuers to retire. The fight had
lasted two hours; the evening was closing in; and still the advantage was
on the side of the Irish. Ginkell began to meditate a retreat. The hopes
of Saint Ruth rose high. “The day is ours, my boys,” he cried, waving his
hat in the air. “We will drive them before us to the walls of Dublin.” But
fortune was already on the turn. Mackay and Ruvigny, with the English and
Huguenot cavalry, had succeeded in passing the bog at a place where two
horsemen could scarcely ride abreast. Saint Ruth at first laughed when he
saw the Blues, in single file, struggling through the morass under a fire
which every moment laid some gallant hat and feather on the earth. “What
do they mean?” he asked; and then he swore that it was pity to see such
fine fellows rushing to certain destruction. “Let them cross, however;” he
said. “The more they are, the more we shall kill.” But soon he saw them
laying hurdles on the quagmire. A broader and safer path was formed;
squadron after squadron reached firm ground: the flank of the Irish army
was speedily turned. The French general was hastening to the rescue when a
cannon ball carried off his head. Those who were about him thought that it
would be dangerous to make his fate known. His corpse was wrapped in a
cloak, carried from the field, and laid, with all secresy, in the sacred
ground among the ruins of the ancient monastery of Loughrea. Till the
fight was over neither army was aware that he was no more. To conceal his
death from the private soldiers might perhaps have been prudent. To
conceal it from his lieutenants was madness. The crisis of the battle had
arrived; and there was none to give direction. Sarsfield was in command of
the reserve. But he had been strictly enjoined by Saint Ruth not to stir
without orders; and no orders came. Mackay and Ruvigny with their horse
charged the Irish in flank. Talmash and his foot returned to the attack in
front with dogged determination. The breastwork was carried. The Irish,
still fighting, retreated from inclosure to inclosure. But, as inclosure
after inclosure was forced, their efforts became fainter and fainter. At
length they broke and fled. Then followed a horrible carnage. The
conquerors were in a savage mood. For a report had been spread among them
that, during the early part of the battle, some English captives who had
been admitted to quarter had been put to the sword. Only four hundred
prisoners were taken. The number of the slain was, in proportion to the
number engaged, greater than in any other battle of that age. But for the
coming on of a moonless night, made darker by a misty rain, scarcely a man
would have escaped. The obscurity enabled Sarsfield, with a few squadrons
which still remained unbroken, to cover the retreat. Of the conquerors six
hundred were killed, and about a thousand wounded.

The English slept that night on the field of battle. On the following day
they buried their companions in arms, and then marched westward. The
vanquished were left unburied, a strange and ghastly spectacle. Four
thousand Irish corpses were counted on the field of battle. A hundred and
fifty lay in one small inclosure, a hundred and twenty in another. But the
slaughter had not been confined to the field of battle. One who was there
tells us that, from the top of the hill on which the Celtic camp had been
pitched, he saw the country, to the distance of near four miles, white
with the naked bodies of the slain. The plain looked, he said, like an
immense pasture covered by flocks of sheep. As usual, different estimates
were formed even by eyewitnesses. But it seems probable that the number of
the Irish who fell was not less than seven thousand. Soon a multitude of
dogs came to feast on the carnage. These beasts became so fierce, and
acquired such a taste for human flesh, that it was long dangerous for men
to travel this road otherwise than in companies. 108

The beaten army had now lost all the appearance of an army, and resembled
a rabble crowding home from a fair after a faction fight. One great stream
of fugitives ran towards Galway, another towards Limerick. The roads to
both cities were covered with weapons which had been flung away. Ginkell
offered sixpence for every musket. In a short time so many waggon loads
were collected that he reduced the price to twopence; and still great
numbers of muskets came in. 109

The conquerors marched first against Galway. D’Usson was there, and had
under him seven regiments, thinned by the slaughter of Aghrim and utterly
disorganized and disheartened. The last hope of the garrison and of the
Roman Catholic inhabitants was that Baldearg O’Donnel, the promised
deliverer of their race, would come to the rescue. But Baldearg O’Donnel
was not duped by the superstitious veneration of which he was the object.
While there remained any doubt about the issue of the conflict between the
Englishry and the Irishry, he had stood aloof. On the day of the battle he
had remained at a safe distance with his tumultuary army; and, as soon as
he had learned that his countrymen had been put to rout, he fled,
plundering and burning all the way, to the mountains of Mayo. Thence he
sent to Ginkell offers of submission and service. Ginkell gladly seized
the opportunity of breaking up a formidable band of marauders, and of
turning to good account the influence which the name of a Celtic dynasty
still exercised over the Celtic race. The negotiation however was not
without difficulties. The wandering adventurer at first demanded nothing
less than an earldom. After some haggling he consented to sell the love of
a whole people, and his pretensions to regal dignity, for a pension of
five hundred pounds a year. Yet the spell which bound his followers to
hire was not altogether broken. Some enthusiasts from Ulster were willing
to fight under the O’Donnel against their own language and their own
religion. With a small body of these devoted adherents, he joined a
division of the English army, and on several occasions did useful service
to William. 110

When it was known that no succour was to be expected from the hero whose
advent had been foretold by so many seers, the Irish who were shut up in
Galway lost all heart. D’Usson had returned a stout answer to the first
summons of the besiegers; but he soon saw that resistance was impossible,
and made haste to capitulate. The garrison was suffered to retire to
Limerick with the honours of war. A full amnesty for past offences was
granted to the citizens; and it was stipulated that, within the walls, the
Roman Catholic priests should be allowed to perform in private the rites
of their religion. On these terms the gates were thrown open. Ginkell was
received with profound respect by the Mayor and Aldermen, and was
complimented in a set speech by the Recorder. D’Usson, with about two
thousand three hundred men, marched unmolested to Limerick. 111

At Limerick, the last asylum of the vanquished race, the authority of
Tyrconnel was supreme. There was now no general who could pretend that his
commission made him independent of the Lord Lieutenant; nor was the Lord
Lieutenant now so unpopular as he had been a fortnight earlier. Since the
battle there had been a reflux of public feeling. No part of that great
disaster could be imputed to the Viceroy. His opinion indeed had been
against trying the chances of a pitched field, and he could with some
plausibility assert that the neglect of his counsels had caused the ruin
of Ireland. 112

He made some preparations for defending Limerick, repaired the
fortifications, and sent out parties to bring in provisions. The country,
many miles round, was swept bare by these detachments, and a considerable
quantity of cattle and fodder was collected within the walls. There was
also a large stock of biscuit imported from France. The infantry assembled
at Limerick were about fifteen thousand men. The Irish horse and dragoons,
three or four thousand in number, were encamped on the Clare side of the
Shannon. The communication between their camp and the city was maintained
by means of a bridge called the Thomond Bridge, which was protected by a
fort. These means of defence were not contemptible. But the fall of
Athlone and the slaughter of Aghrim had broken the spirit of the army. A
small party, at the head of which were Sarsfield and a brave Scotch
officer named Wauchop, cherished a hope that the triumphant progress of
Ginkell might be stopped by those walls from which William had, in the
preceding year, been forced to retreat. But many of the Irish chiefs
loudly declared that it was time to think of capitulating. Henry Luttrell,
always fond of dark and crooked politics, opened a secret negotiation with
the English. One of his letters was intercepted; and he was put under
arrest; but many who blamed his perfidy agreed with him in thinking that
it was idle to prolong the contest. Tyrconnel himself was convinced that
all was lost. His only hope was that he might be able to prolong the
struggle till he could receive from Saint Germains permission to treat. He
wrote to request that permission, and prevailed, with some difficulty, on
his desponding countrymen to bind themselves by an oath not to capitulate
till an answer from James should arrive. 113

A few days after the oath had been administered, Tyrconnel was no more. On
the eleventh of August he dined with D’Usson. The party was gay. The Lord
Lieutenant seemed to have thrown off the load which had bowed down his
body and mind; he drank; he jested; he was again the Dick Talbot who had
diced and revelled with Grammont. Soon after he had risen from table, an
apoplectic stroke deprived him of speech and sensation. On the fourteenth
he breathed his last. The wasted remains of that form which had once been
a model for statuaries were laid under the pavement of the Cathedral; but
no inscription, no tradition, preserves the memory of the spot. 114

As soon as the Lord Lieutenant was no more, Plowden, who had superintended
the Irish finances while there were any Irish finances to superintend,
produced a commission under the great seal of James. This commission
appointed Plowden himself, Fitton and Nagle, Lords justices in the event
of Tyrconnel’s death. There was much murmuring when the names were made
known. For both Plowden and Fitton were Saxons. The commission, however,
proved to be a mere nullity. For it was accompanied by instructions which
forbade the Lords justices to interfere in the conduct of the war; and,
within the narrow space to which the dominions of James were now reduced,
war was the only business. The government was, therefore, really in the
hands of D’Usson and Sarsfield. 115

On the day on which Tyrconnel died, the advanced guard of the English army
came within sight of Limerick. Ginkell encamped on the same ground which
William had occupied twelve months before. The batteries, on which were
planted guns and bombs, very different from those which William had been
forced to use, played day and night; and soon roofs were blazing and walls
crashing in every corner of the city. Whole streets were reduced to ashes.
Meanwhile several English ships of war came up the Shannon and anchored
about a mile below the city. 116

Still the place held out; the garrison was, in numerical strength, little
inferior to the besieging army; and it seemed not impossible that the
defence might be prolonged till the equinoctial rains should a second time
compel the English to retire. Ginkell determined on striking a bold
stroke. No point in the whole circle of the fortifications was more
important, and no point seemed to be more secure, than the Thomond Bridge,
which joined the city to the camp of the Irish horse on the Clare bank of
the Shannon. The Dutch General’s plan was to separate the infantry within
the ramparts from the cavalry without; and this plan he executed with
great skill, vigour and success. He laid a bridge of tin boats on the
river, crossed it with a strong body of troops, drove before him in
confusion fifteen hundred dragoons who made a faint show of resistance,
and marched towards the quarters of the Irish horse. The Irish horse
sustained but ill on this day the reputation which they had gained at the
Boyne. Indeed, that reputation had been purchased by the almost entire
destruction of the best regiments. Recruits had been without much
difficulty found. But the loss of fifteen hundred excellent soldiers was
not to be repaired. The camp was abandoned without a blow. Some of the
cavalry fled into the city. The rest, driving before them as many cattle
as could be collected in that moment of panic, retired to the hills. Much
beef, brandy and harness was found in the magazines; and the marshy plain
of the Shannon was covered with firelocks and grenades which the fugitives
had thrown away. 117

The conquerors returned in triumph to their camp. But Ginkell was not
content with the advantage which he had gained. He was bent on cutting off
all communication between Limerick and the county of Clare. In a few days,
therefore, he again crossed the river at the head of several regiments,
and attacked the fort which protected the Thomond Bridge. In a short time
the fort was stormed. The soldiers who had garrisoned it fled in confusion
to the city. The Town Major, a French officer, who commanded at the
Thomond Gate, afraid that the pursuers would enter with the fugitives,
ordered that part of the bridge which was nearest to the city to be drawn
up. Many of the Irish went headlong into the stream and perished there.
Others cried for quarter, and held up handkerchiefs in token of
submission. But the conquerors were mad with rage; their cruelty could not
be immediately restrained; and no prisoners were made till the heaps of
corpses rose above the parapets. The garrison of the fort had consisted of
about eight hundred men. Of these only a hundred and twenty escaped into
Limerick. 118

This disaster seemed likely to produce a general mutiny in the besieged
city. The Irish clamoured for the blood of the Town Major who had ordered
the bridge to be drawn up in the face of their flying countrymen. His
superiors were forced to promise that he should be brought before a court
martial. Happily for him, he had received a mortal wound, in the act of
closing the Thomond Gate, and was saved by a soldier’s death from the fury
of the multitude. 119 The cry for capitulation
became so loud and importunate that the generals could not resist it.
D’Usson informed his government that the fight at the bridge had so
effectually cowed the spirit of the garrison that it was impossible to
continue the struggle. 120 Some exception may perhaps be
taken to the evidence of D’Usson; for undoubtedly he, like every Frenchman
who had held any command in the Irish army, was weary of his banishment,
and impatient to see Paris again. But it is certain that even Sarsfield
had lost heart. Up to this time his voice had been for stubborn
resistance. He was now not only willing, but impatient to treat. 121
It seemed to him that the city was doomed. There was no hope of succour,
domestic or foreign. In every part of Ireland the Saxons had set their
feet on the necks of the natives. Sligo had fallen. Even those wild
islands which intercept the huge waves of the Atlantic from the bay of
Galway had acknowledged the authority of William. The men of Kerry,
reputed the fiercest and most ungovernable part of the aboriginal
population, had held out long, but had at length been routed, and chased
to their woods and mountains. 122 A
French fleet, if a French fleet were now to arrive on the coast of
Munster, would find the mouth of the Shannon guarded by English men of
war. The stock of provisions within Limerick was already running low. If
the siege were prolonged, the town would, in all human probability, be
reduced either by force or by blockade. And, if Ginkell should enter
through the breach, or should be implored by a multitude perishing with
hunger to dictate his own terms, what could be expected but a tyranny more
inexorably severe than that of Cromwell? Would it not then be wise to try
what conditions could be obtained while the victors had still something to
fear from the rage and despair of the vanquished; while the last Irish
army could still make some show of resistance behind the walls of the last
Irish fortress?

On the evening of the day which followed the fight at the Thomond Gate,
the drums of Limerick beat a parley; and Wauchop, from one of the towers,
hailed the besiegers, and requested Ruvigny to grant Sarsfield an
interview. The brave Frenchman who was an exile on account of his
attachment to one religion, and the brave Irishman who was about to become
an exile on account of his attachment to another, met and conferred,
doubtless with mutual sympathy and respect. 123
Ginkell, to whom Ruvigny reported what had passed, willingly consented to
an armistice. For, constant as his success had been, it had not made him
secure. The chances were greatly on his side. Yet it was possible that an
attempt to storm the city might fail, as a similar attempt had failed
twelve months before. If the siege should be turned into a blockade, it
was probable that the pestilence which had been fatal to the army of
Schomberg, which had compelled William to retreat, and which had all but
prevailed even against the genius and energy of Marlborough, might soon
avenge the carnage of Aghrim. The rains had lately been heavy. The whole
plain might shortly be an immense pool of stagnant water. It might be
necessary to move the troops to a healthier situation than the bank of the
Shannon, and to provide for them a warmer shelter than that of tents. The
enemy would be safe till the spring. In the spring a French army might
land in Ireland; the natives might again rise in arms from Donegal to
Kerry; and the war, which was now all but extinguished, might blaze forth
fiercer than ever.

A negotiation was therefore opened with a sincere desire on both sides to
put an end to the contest. The chiefs of the Irish army held several
consultations at which some Roman Catholic prelates and some eminent
lawyers were invited to assist. A preliminary question, which perplexed
tender consciences, was submitted by the Bishops. The late Lord Lieutenant
had persuaded the officers of the garrison to swear that they would not
surrender Limerick till they should receive an answer to the letter in
which their situation had been explained to James. The Bishops thought
that the oath was no longer binding. It had been taken at a time when the
communications with France were open, and in the full belief that the
answer of James would arrive within three weeks. More than twice that time
had elapsed. Every avenue leading to the city was strictly guarded by the
enemy. His Majesty’s faithful subjects, by holding out till it had become
impossible for him to signify his pleasure to them, had acted up to the
spirit of their promise. 124

The next question was what terms should be demanded. A paper, containing
propositions which statesmen of our age will think reasonable, but which
to the most humane and liberal English Protestants of the seventeenth
century appeared extravagant, was sent to the camp of the besiegers. What
was asked was that all offences should be covered with oblivion, that
perfect freedom of worship should be allowed to the native population,
that every parish should have its priest, and that Irish Roman Catholics
should be capable of holding all offices, civil and military, and of
enjoying all municipal privileges. 125

Ginkell knew little of the laws and feelings of the English; but he had
about him persons who were competent to direct him. They had a week before
prevented him from breaking a Rapparee on the wheel; and they now
suggested an answer to the propositions of the enemy. “I am a stranger
here,” said Ginkell; “I am ignorant of the constitution of these kingdoms;
but I am assured that what you ask is inconsistent with that constitution;
and therefore I cannot with honour consent.” He immediately ordered a new
battery to be thrown up, and guns and mortars to be planted on it. But his
preparations were speedily interrupted by another message from the city.
The Irish begged that, since he could not grant what they had demanded, he
would tell them what he was willing to grant. He called his advisers round
him, and, after some consultation, sent back a paper containing the heads
of a treaty, such as he had reason to believe that the government which he
served would approve. What he offered was indeed much less than what the
Irish desired, but was quite as much as, when they considered their
situation and the temper of the English nation, they could expect. They
speedily notified their assent. It was agreed that there should be a
cessation of arms, not only by land, but in the ports and bays of Munster,
and that a fleet of French transports should be suffered to come up the
Shannon in peace and to depart in peace. The signing of the treaty was
deferred till the Lords justices, who represented William at Dublin,
should arrive at Ginkell’s quarters. But there was during some days a
relaxation of military vigilance on both sides. Prisoners were set at
liberty. The outposts of the two armies chatted and messed together. The
English officers rambled into the town. The Irish officers dined in the
camp. Anecdotes of what passed at the friendly meetings of these men, who
had so lately been mortal enemies, were widely circulated. One story, in
particular, was repeated in every part of Europe. “Has not this last
campaign,” said Sarsfield to some English officers, “raised your opinion
of Irish soldiers?” “To tell you the truth,” answered an Englishman, “we
think of them much as we always did.” “However meanly you may think of
us,” replied Sarsfield, “change Kings with us, and we will willingly try
our luck with you again.” He was doubtless thinking of the day on which he
had seen the two Sovereigns at the head of two great armies, William
foremost in the charge, and James foremost in the flight. 126

On the first of October, Coningsby and Porter arrived at the English
headquarters. On the second the articles of capitulation were discussed at
great length and definitely settled. On the third they were signed. They
were divided into two parts, a military treaty and a civil treaty. The
former was subscribed only by the generals on both sides. The Lords
justices set their names to the latter. 127

By the military treaty it was agreed that such Irish officers and soldiers
as should declare that they wished to go to France should be conveyed
thither, and should, in the meantime, remain under the command of their
own generals. Ginkell undertook to furnish a considerable number of
transports. French vessels were also to be permitted to pass and repass
freely between Britanny and Munster. Part of Limerick was to be
immediately delivered up to the English. But the island on which the
Cathedral and the Castle stand was to remain, for the present, in the
keeping of the Irish.

The terms of the civil treaty were very different from those which Ginkell
had sternly refused to grant. It was not stipulated that the Roman
Catholics of Ireland should be competent to hold any political or military
office, or that they should be admitted into any corporation. But they
obtained a promise that they should enjoy such privileges in the exercise
of their religion as were consistent with the law, or as they had enjoyed
in the reign of Charles the Second.

To all inhabitants of Limerick, and to all officers and soldiers in the
Jacobite army, who should submit to the government and notify their
submission by taking the oath of allegiance, an entire amnesty was
promised. They were to retain their property; they were to be allowed to
exercise any profession which they had exercised before the troubles; they
were not to be punished for any treason, felony, or misdemeanour committed
since the accession of the late King; nay, they were not to be sued for
damages on account of any act of spoliation or outrage which they might
have committed during the three years of confusion. This was more than the
Lords justices were constitutionally competent to grant. It was therefore
added that the government would use its utmost endeavours to obtain a
Parliamentary ratification of the treaty. 128

As soon as the two instruments had been signed, the English entered the
city, and occupied one quarter of it. A narrow, but deep branch of the
Shannon separated them from the quarter which was still in the possession
of the Irish. 129

In a few hours a dispute arose which seemed likely to produce a renewal of
hostilities. Sarsfield had resolved to seek his fortune in the service of
France, and was naturally desirous to carry with him to the Continent such
a body of troops as would be an important addition to the army of Lewis.
Ginkell was as naturally unwilling to send thousands of men to swell the
forces of the enemy. Both generals appealed to the treaty. Each construed
it as suited his purpose, and each complained that the other had violated
it. Sarsfield was accused of putting one of his officers under arrest for
refusing to go to the Continent. Ginkell, greatly excited, declared that
he would teach the Irish to play tricks with him, and began to make
preparations for a cannonade. Sarsfield came to the English camp, and
tried to justify what he had done. The altercation was sharp. “I submit,”
said Sarsfield, at last: “I am in your power.” “Not at all in my power,”
said Ginkell, “go back and do your worst.” The imprisoned officer was
liberated; a sanguinary contest was averted; and the two commanders
contented themselves with a war of words. 130 Ginkell
put forth proclamations assuring the Irish that, if they would live
quietly in their own land, they should be protected and favoured, and that
if they preferred a military life, they should be admitted into the
service of King William. It was added that no man, who chose to reject
this gracious invitation and to become a soldier of Lewis, must expect
ever again to set foot on the island. Sarsfield and Wauchop exerted their
eloquence on the other side. The present aspect of affairs, they said, was
doubtless gloomy; but there was bright sky beyond the cloud. The
banishment would be short. The return would be triumphant. Within a year
the French would invade England. In such an invasion the Irish troops, if
only they remained unbroken, would assuredly bear a chief part. In the
meantime it was far better for them to live in a neighbouring and friendly
country, under the parental care of their own rightful King, than to trust
the Prince of Orange, who would probably send them to the other end of the
world to fight for his ally the Emperor against the Janissaries.

The help of the Roman Catholic clergy was called in. On the day on which
those who had made up their minds to go to France were required to
announce their determination, the priests were indefatigable in exhorting.
At the head of every regiment a sermon was preached on the duty of
adhering to the cause of the Church, and on the sin and danger of
consorting with unbelievers. 131 Whoever, it was said, should
enter the service of the usurpers would do so at the peril of his soul.
The heretics affirmed that, after the peroration, a plentiful allowance of
brandy was served out to the audience, and that, when the brandy had been
swallowed, a Bishop pronounced a benediction. Thus duly prepared by
physical and moral stimulants, the garrison, consisting of about fourteen
thousand infantry, was drawn up in the vast meadow which lay on the Clare
bank of the Shannon. Here copies of Ginkell’s proclamation were profusely
scattered about; and English officers went through the ranks imploring the
men not to ruin themselves, and explaining to them the advantages which
the soldiers of King William enjoyed. At length the decisive moment came.
The troops were ordered to pass in review. Those who wished to remain in
Ireland were directed to file off at a particular spot. All who passed
that spot were to be considered as having made their choice for France.
Sarsfield and Wauchop on one side, Porter, Coningsby and Ginkell on the
other, looked on with painful anxiety. D’Usson and his countrymen, though
not uninterested in the spectacle, found it hard to preserve their
gravity. The confusion, the clamour, the grotesque appearance of an army
in which there could scarcely be seen a shirt or a pair of pantaloons, a
shoe or a stocking, presented so ludicrous a contrast to the orderly and
brilliant appearance of their master’s troops, that they amused themselves
by wondering what the Parisians would say to see such a force mustered on
the plain of Grenelle. 132

First marched what was called the Royal regiment, fourteen hundred strong.
All but seven went beyond the fatal point. Ginkell’s countenance showed
that he was deeply mortified. He was consoled, however, by seeing the next
regiment, which consisted of natives of Ulster, turn off to a man. There
had arisen, notwithstanding the community of blood, language and religion,
an antipathy between the Celts of Ulster and those of the other three
provinces; nor is it improbable that the example and influence of Baldearg
O’Donnel may have had some effect on the people of the land which his
forefathers had ruled. 133 In most of the regiments there
was a division of opinion; but a great majority declared for France. Henry
Luttrell was one of those who turned off. He was rewarded for his
desertion, and perhaps for other services, with a grant of the large
estate of his elder brother Simon, who firmly adhered to the cause of
James, with a pension of five hundred pounds a year from the Crown, and
with the abhorrence of the Roman Catholic population. After living in
wealth, luxury and infamy, during a quarter of a century, Henry Luttrell
was murdered while going through Dublin in his sedan chair; and the Irish
House of Commons declared that there was reason to suspect that he had
fallen by the revenge of the Papists. 134 Eighty
years after his death his grave near Luttrellstown was violated by the
descendants of those whom he had betrayed, and his skull was broken to
pieces with a pickaxe. 135 The deadly hatred of which he
was the object descended to his son and to his grandson; and, unhappily,
nothing in the character either of his son or of his grandson tended to
mitigate the feeling which the name of Luttrell excited. 136

When the long procession had closed, it was found that about a thousand
men had agreed to enter into William’s service. About two thousand
accepted passes from Ginkell, and went quietly home. About eleven thousand
returned with Sarsfield to the city. A few hours after the garrison had
passed in review, the horse, who were encamped some miles from the town,
were required to make their choice; and most of them volunteered for
France. 137

Sarsfield considered the troops who remained with him as under an
irrevocable obligation to go abroad; and, lest they should be tempted to
retract their consent, he confined them within the ramparts, and ordered
the gates to be shut and strongly guarded. Ginkell, though in his vexation
he muttered some threats, seems to have felt that he could not justifiably
interfere. But the precautions of the Irish general were far from being
completely successful. It was by no means strange that a superstitious and
excitable kerne, with a sermon and a dram in his head, should be ready to
promise whatever his priests required; neither was it strange that, when
he had slept off his liquor, and when anathemas were no longer ringing in
his ears, he should feel painful misgivings. He had bound himself to go
into exile, perhaps for life, beyond that dreary expanse of waters which
impressed his rude mind with mysterious terror. His thoughts ran on all
that he was to leave, on the well known peat stack and potatoe ground, and
on the mud cabin, which, humble as it was, was still his home. He was
never again to see the familiar faces round the turf fire, or to hear the
familiar notes of the old Celtic songs. The ocean was to roll between him
and the dwelling of his greyheaded parents and his blooming sweetheart.
Here were some who, unable to bear the misery of such a separation, and,
finding it impossible to pass the sentinels who watched the gates, sprang
into the river and gained the opposite bank. The number of these daring
swimmers, however, was not great; and the army would probably have been
transported almost entire if it had remained at Limerick till the day of
embarkation. But many of the vessels in which the voyage was to be
performed lay at Cork; and it was necessary that Sarsfield should proceed
thither with some of his best regiments. It was a march of not less than
four days through a wild country. To prevent agile youths, familiar with
all the shifts of a vagrant and predatory life, from stealing off to the
bogs, and woods under cover of the night, was impossible.

Indeed, many soldiers had the audacity to run away by broad daylight
before they were out of sight of Limerick Cathedral. The Royal regiment,
which had, on the day of the review, set so striking an example of
fidelity to the cause of James, dwindled from fourteen hundred men to five
hundred. Before the last ships departed, news came that those who had
sailed by the first ships had been ungraciously received at Brest. They
had been scantily fed; they had been able to obtain neither pay nor
clothing; though winter was setting in, they slept in the fields with no
covering but the hedges. Many had been heard to say that it would have
been far better to die in old Ireland than to live in the inhospitable
country to which they had been banished. The effect of those reports was
that hundreds, who had long persisted in their intention of emigrating,
refused at the last moment to go on board, threw down their arms, and
returned to their native villages. 138

Sarsfield perceived that one chief cause of the desertion which was
thinning his army was the natural unwillingness of the men to leave their
families in a state of destitution. Cork and its neighbourhood were filled
with the kindred of those who were going abroad. Great numbers of women,
many of them leading, carrying, suckling their infants, covered all the
roads which led to the place of embarkation. The Irish general,
apprehensive of the effect which the entreaties and lamentations of these
poor creatures could not fail to produce, put forth a proclamation, in
which he assured his soldiers that they should be permitted to carry their
wives and families to France. It would be injurious to the memory of so
brave and loyal a gentleman to suppose that when he made this promise he
meant to break it. It is much more probable that he had formed an
erroneous estimate of the number of those who would demand a passage, and
that he found himself, when it was too late to alter his arrangements,
unable to keep his word. After the soldiers had embarked, room was found
for the families of many. But still there remained on the water side a
great multitude clamouring piteously to be taken on board. As the last
boats put off there was a rush into the surf. Some women caught hold of
the ropes, were dragged out of their depth, clung till their fingers were
cut through, and perished in the waves. The ships began to move. A wild
and terrible wail rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in
hearts steeled by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even
the stern Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three
years, left the undisputed lord of the bloodstained and devastated island,
could not hear unmoved that bitter cry, in which was poured forth all the
rage and all the sorrow of a conquered nation. 139

The sails disappeared. The emaciated and brokenhearted crowd of those whom
a stroke more cruel than that of death had made widows and orphans
dispersed, to beg their way home through a wasted land, or to lie down and
die by the roadside of grief and hunger. The exiles departed, to learn in
foreign camps that discipline without which natural courage is of small
avail, and to retrieve on distant fields of battle the honour which had
been lost by a long series of defeats at home. In Ireland there was peace.
The domination of the colonists was absolute. The native population was
tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of exhaustion and of despair. There
were indeed outrages, robberies, fireraisings, assassinations. But more
than a century passed away without one general insurrection. During that
century, two rebellions were raised in Great Britain by the adherents of
the House of Stuart. But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at
Scone, nor when the younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard
of that House set up in Connaught or Munster. In 1745, indeed, when the
Highlanders were marching towards London, the Roman Catholics of Ireland
were so quiet that the Lord Lieutenant could, without the smallest risk,
send several regiments across Saint George’s Channel to recruit the army
of the Duke of Cumberland. Nor was this submission the effect of content,
but of mere stupefaction and brokenness of heart. The iron had entered
into the soul. The memory of past defeats, the habit of daily enduring
insult and oppression, had cowed the spirit of the unhappy nation. There
were indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition;
but they were to be found every where except in Ireland, at Versailles and
at Saint Ildefonso, in the armies of Frederic and in the armies of Maria
Theresa. One exile became a Marshal of France. Another became Prime
Minister of Spain. If he had staid in his native land he would have been
regarded as an inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who
drank the glorious and immortal memory. In his palace at Madrid he had the
pleasure of being assiduously courted by the ambassador of George the
Second, and of bidding defiance in high terms to the ambassador of George
the Third. 140 Scattered over all Europe were
to be found brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish
Counts, Irish Barons, Irish Knights of Saint Lewis and of Saint Leopold,
of the White Eagle and of the Golden Fleece, who, if they had remained in
the house of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching regiments or
freemen of petty corporations. These men, the natural chiefs of their
race, having been withdrawn, what remained was utterly helpless and
passive. A rising of the Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be
apprehended than a rising of the women and children against the men. 141

There were indeed, in those days, fierce disputes between the mother
country and the colony; but in those disputes the aboriginal population
had no more interest than the Red Indians in the dispute between Old
England and New England about the Stamp Act. The ruling few, even when in
mutiny against the government, had no mercy for any thing that looked like
mutiny on the part of the subject many. None of those Roman patriots, who
poniarded Julius Caesar for aspiring to be a king, would have had the
smallest scruple about crucifying a whole school of gladiators for
attempting to escape from the most odious and degrading of all kinds of
servitude. None of those Virginian patriots, who vindicated their
separation from the British empire by proclaiming it to be a selfevident
truth that all men were endowed by the Creator with an unalienable right
to liberty, would have had the smallest scruple about shooting any negro
slave who had laid claim to that unalienable right.

And, in the same manner, the Protestant masters of Ireland, while
ostentatiously professing the political doctrines of Locke and Sidney,
held that a people who spoke the Celtic tongue and heard mass could have
no concern in those doctrines. Molyneux questioned the supremacy of the
English legislature. Swift assailed, with the keenest ridicule and
invective, every part of the system of government. Lucas disquieted the
administration of Lord Harrington. Boyle overthrew the administration of
the Duke of Dorset. But neither Molyneux nor Swift, neither Lucas nor
Boyle, ever thought of appealing to the native population. They would as
soon have thought of appealing to the swine. 142 At a
later period Henry Flood excited the dominant class to demand a
Parliamentary reform, and to use even revolutionary means for the purpose
of obtaining that reform. But neither he, nor those who looked up to him
as their chief, and who went close to the verge of treason at his bidding,
would consent to admit the subject class to the smallest share of
political power. The virtuous and accomplished Charlemont, a Whig of the
Whigs, passed a long life in contending for what he called the freedom of
his country. But he voted against the law which gave the elective
franchise to Roman Catholic freeholders; and he died fixed in the opinion
that the Parliament House ought to be kept pure from Roman Catholic
members. Indeed, during the century which followed the Revolution, the
inclination of an English Protestant to trample on the Irishry was
generally proportioned to the zeal which he professed for political
liberty in the abstract. If he uttered any expression of compassion for
the majority oppressed by the minority, he might be safely set down as a
bigoted Tory and High Churchman. 143

All this time hatred, kept down by fear, festered in the hearts of the
children of the soil. They were still the same people that had sprung to
arms in 1641 at the call of O’Neill, and in 1689 at the call of Tyrconnel.
To them every festival instituted by the State was a day of mourning, and
every public trophy set up by the State was a memorial of shame. We have
never known, and can but faintly conceive, the feelings of a nation doomed
to see constantly in all its public places the monuments of its
subjugation. Such monuments every where met the eye of the Irish Roman
Catholics. In front of the Senate House of their country, they saw the
statue of their conqueror. If they entered, they saw the walls tapestried
with the defeats of their fathers. At length, after a hundred years of
servitude, endured without one vigorous or combined struggle for
emancipation, the French revolution awakened a wild hope in the bosoms of
the oppressed. Men who had inherited all the pretensions and all the
passions of the Parliament which James had held at the Kings Inns could
not hear unmoved of the downfall of a wealthy established Church, of the
flight of a splendid aristocracy, of the confiscation of an immense
territory. Old antipathies, which had never slumbered, were excited to new
and terrible energy by the combination of stimulants which, in any other
society, would have counteracted each other. The spirit of Popery and the
spirit of Jacobinism, irreconcilable antagonists every where else, were
for once mingled in an unnatural and portentous union. Their joint
influence produced the third and last rising up of the aboriginal
population against the colony. The greatgrandsons of the soldiers of
Galmoy and Sarsfield were opposed to the greatgrandsons of the soldiers of
Wolseley and Mitchelburn. The Celt again looked impatiently for the sails
which were to bring succour from Brest; and the Saxon was again backed by
the whole power of England. Again the victory remained with the well
educated and well organized minority. But, happily, the vanquished people
found protection in a quarter from which they would once have had to
expect nothing but implacable severity. By this time the philosophy of the
eighteenth century had purifed English Whiggism from that deep taint of
intolerance which had been contracted during a long and close alliance
with the Puritanism of the seventeenth century. Enlightened men had begun
to feel that the arguments by which Milton and Locke, Tillotson and
Burnet, had vindicated the rights of conscience might be urged with not
less force in favour of the Roman Catholic than in favour of the
Independent or the Baptist. The great party which traces its descent
through the Exclusionists up to the Roundheads continued during thirty
years, in spite of royal frowns and popular clamours, to demand a share in
all the benefits of our free constitution for those Irish Papists whom the
Roundheads and the Exclusionists had considered merely as beasts of chase
or as beasts of burden. But it will be for some other historian to relate
the vicissitudes of that great conflict, and the late triumph of reason
and humanity. Unhappily such a historian will have to relate that the
triumph won by such exertions and by such sacrifices was immediately
followed by disappointment; that it proved far less easy to eradicate evil
passions than to repeal evil laws; and that, long after every trace of
national and religious animosity had been obliterated from the Statute
Book, national and religious animosities continued to rankle in the bosoms
of millions. May he be able also to relate that wisdom, justice and time
gradually did in Ireland what they had done in Scotland, and that all the
races which inhabit the British isles were at length indissolubly blended
into one people!

CHAPTER XVIII

ON the nineteenth of October 1691, William arrived at Kensington from the
Netherlands. 144 Three days later he opened the
Parliament. The aspect of affairs was, on the whole, cheering. By land
there had been gains and losses; but the balance was in favour of England.
Against the fall of Mons might well be set off the taking of Athlone, the
victory of Aghrim, the surrender of Limerick and the pacification of
Ireland. At sea there had been no great victory; but there had been a
great display of power and of activity; and, though many were dissatisfied
because more had not been done, none could deny that there had been a
change for the better. The ruin caused by the foibles and vices of
Torrington had been repaired; the fleet had been well equipped; the
rations had been abundant and wholesome; and the health of the crews had
consequently been, for that age, wonderfully good. Russell, who commanded
the naval forces of the allies, had in vain offered battle to the French.
The white flag, which, in the preceding year, had ranged the Channel
unresisted from the Land’s End to the Straits of Dover, now, as soon as
our topmasts were descried twenty leagues off, abandoned the open sea, and
retired into the depths of the harbour of Brest. The appearance of an
English squadron in the estuary of the Shannon had decided the fate of the
last fortress which had held out for King James; and a fleet of
merchantmen from the Levant, valued at four millions sterling, had,
through dangers which had caused many sleepless nights to the underwriters
of Lombard Street, been convoyed safe into the Thames. 145
The Lords and Commons listened with signs of satisfaction to a speech in
which the King congratulated them on the event of the war in Ireland, and
expressed his confidence that they would continue to support him in the
war with France. He told them that a great naval armament would be
necessary, and that, in his opinion, the conflict by land could not be
effectually maintained with less than sixty-five thousand men. 146

He was thanked in affectionate terms; the force which he asked was voted;
and large supplies were granted with little difficulty. But when the Ways
and Means were taken into consideration, symptoms of discontent began to
appear. Eighteen months before, when the Commons had been employed in
settling the Civil List, many members had shown a very natural disposition
to complain of the amount of the salaries and fees received by official
men. Keen speeches had been made, and, what was much less usual, had been
printed; there had been much excitement out of doors; but nothing had been
done. The subject was now revived. A report made by the Commissioners who
had been appointed in the preceding year to examine the public accounts
disclosed some facts which excited indignation, and others which raised
grave suspicion. The House seemed fully determined to make an extensive
reform; and, in truth, nothing could have averted such a reform except the
folly and violence of the reformers. That they should have been angry is
indeed not strange. The enormous gains, direct and indirect, of the
servants of the public went on increasing, while the gains of every body
else were diminishing. Rents were falling; trade was languishing; every
man who lived either on what his ancestors had left him or on the fruits
of his own industry was forced to retrench. The placeman alone throve
amidst the general distress. “Look,” cried the incensed squires, “at the
Comptroller of the Customs. Ten years ago, he walked, and we rode. Our
incomes have been curtailed; his salary has been doubled; we have sold our
horses; he has bought them; and now we go on foot, and are splashed by his
coach and six.” Lowther vainly endeavoured to stand up against the storm.
He was heard with little favour by the country gentlemen who had not long
before looked up to him as one of their leaders. He had left them; he had
become a courtier; he had two good places, one in the Treasury, the other
in the household. He had recently received from the King’s own hand a
gratuity of two thousand guineas. 147 It
seemed perfectly natural that he should defend abuses by which he
profited. The taunts and reproaches with which he was assailed were
insupportable to his sensitive nature. He lost his head, almost fainted
away on the floor of the House, and talked about righting himself in
another place. 148 Unfortunately no member rose
at this conjuncture to propose that the civil establishment of the kingdom
should be carefully revised, that sinecures should be abolished, that
exorbitant official incomes should be reduced, and that no servant of the
State should be allowed to exact, under any pretence, any thing beyond his
known and lawful remuneration. In this way it would have been possible to
diminish the public burdens, and at the same time to increase the
efficiency of every public department. But unfortunately those who were
loudest in clamouring against the prevailing abuses were utterly destitute
of the qualities necessary for the work of reform. On the twelfth of
December, some foolish man, whose name has not come down to us, moved that
no person employed in any civil office, the Speaker, Judges and
Ambassadors excepted, should receive more than five hundred pounds a year;
and this motion was not only carried, but carried without one dissentient
voice. 149

Those who were most interested in opposing it doubtless saw that
opposition would, at that moment, only irritate the majority, and reserved
themselves for a more favourable time. The more favourable time soon came.
No man of common sense could, when his blood had cooled, remember without
shame that he had voted for a resolution which made no distinction between
sinecurists and laborious public servants, between clerks employed in
copying letters and ministers on whose wisdom and integrity the fate of
the nation might depend. The salary of the Doorkeeper of the Excise Office
had been, by a scandalous job, raised to five hundred a year. It ought to
have been reduced to fifty. On the other hand, the services of a Secretary
of State who was well qualified for his post would have been cheap at five
thousand. If the resolution of the Commons bad been carried into effect,
both the salary which ought not to have exceeded fifty pounds, and the
salary which might without impropriety have amounted to five thousand,
would have been fixed at five hundred. Such absurdity must have shocked
even the roughest and plainest foxhunter in the House. A reaction took
place; and when, after an interval of a few weeks, it was proposed to
insert in a bill of supply a clause in conformity with the resolution of
the twelfth of December, the Noes were loud; the Speaker was of opinion
that they had it; the Ayes did not venture to dispute his opinion; the
senseless plan which had been approved without a division was rejected
without a division; and the subject was not again mentioned. Thus a
grievance so scandalous that none of those who profited by it dared to
defend it was perpetuated merely by the imbecility and intemperance of
those who attacked it. 150

Early in the Session the Treaty of Limerick became the subject of a grave
and earnest discussion. The Commons, in the exercise of that supreme power
which the English legislature possessed over all the dependencies of
England, sent up to the Lords a bill providing that no person should sit
in the Irish Parliament, should hold any Irish office, civil, military or
ecclesiastical, or should practise law or medicine in Ireland, till he had
taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and subscribed the
Declaration against Transubstantiation. The Lords were not more inclined
than the Commons to favour the Irish. No peer was disposed to entrust
Roman Catholics with political power. Nay, it seems that no peer objected
to the principle of the absurd and cruel rule which excluded Roman
Catholics from the liberal professions. But it was thought that this rule,
though unobjectionable in principle, would, if adopted without some
exceptions, be a breach of a positive compact. Their Lordships called for
the Treaty of Limerick, ordered it to be read at the table, and proceeded
to consider whether the law framed by the Lower House was consistent with
the engagements into which the government had entered. One discrepancy was
noticed. It was stipulated by the second civil article, that every person
actually residing in any fortress occupied by an Irish garrison, should be
permitted, on taking the Oath of Allegiance, to resume any calling which
he had exercised before the Revolution. It would, beyond all doubt, have
been a violation of this covenant to require that a lawyer or a physician,
who had been within the walls of Limerick during the siege, should take
the Oath of Supremacy and subscribe the Declaration against
Transubstantiation, before he could receive fees. Holt was consulted, and
was directed to prepare clauses in conformity with the terms of the
capitulation.

The bill, as amended by Holt, was sent back to the Commons. They at first
rejected the amendment, and demanded a conference. The conference was
granted. Rochester, in the Painted Chamber, delivered to the managers of
the Lower House a copy of the Treaty of Limerick, and earnestly
represented the importance of preserving the public faith inviolate. This
appeal was one which no honest man, though inflamed by national and
religious animosity, could resist. The Commons reconsidered the subject,
and, after hearing the Treaty read, agreed, with some slight
modifications, to what the Lords had proposed. 151

The bill became a law. It attracted, at the time, little notice, but was,
after the lapse of several generations, the subject of a very acrimonious
controversy. Many of us can well remember how strongly the public mind was
stirred, in the days of George the Third and George the Fourth, by the
question whether Roman Catholics should be permitted to sit in Parliament.
It may be doubted whether any dispute has produced stranger perversions of
history. The whole past was falsified for the sake of the present. All the
great events of three centuries long appeared to us distorted and
discoloured by a mist sprung from our own theories and our own passions.
Some friends of religious liberty, not content with the advantage which
they possessed in the fair conflict of reason with reason, weakened their
case by maintaining that the law which excluded Irish Roman Catholics from
Parliament was inconsistent with the civil Treaty of Limerick. The First
article of that Treaty, it was said, guaranteed to the Irish Roman
Catholic such privileges in the exercise of his religion as he had enjoyed
in the time of Charles the Second. In the time of Charles the Second no
test excluded Roman Catholics from the Irish Parliament. Such a test could
not therefore, it was argued, be imposed without a breach of public faith.
In the year 1828, especially, this argument was put forward in the House
of Commons as if it had been the main strength of a cause which stood in
need of no such support. The champions of Protestant ascendency were well
pleased to see the debate diverted from a political question about which
they were in the wrong, to a historical question about which they were in
the right. They had no difficulty in proving that the first article, as
understood by all the contracting parties, meant only that the Roman
Catholic worship should be tolerated as in time past. That article was
drawn up by Ginkell; and, just before he drew it up, he had declared that
he would rather try the chance of arms than consent that Irish Papists
should be capable of holding civil and military offices, of exercising
liberal professions, and of becoming members of municipal corporations.
How is it possible to believe that he would, of his own accord, have
promised that the House of Lords and the House of Commons should be open
to men to whom he would not open a guild of skinners or a guild of
cordwainers? How, again, is it possible to believe that the English Peers
would, while professing the most punctilious respect for public faith,
while lecturing the Commons on the duty of observing public faith, while
taking counsel with the most learned and upright jurist of the age as to
the best mode of maintaining public faith, have committed a flagrant
violation of public faith and that not a single lord should have been so
honest or so factious as to protest against an act of monstrous perfidy
aggravated by hypocrisy? Or, if we could believe this, how can we believe
that no voice would have been raised in any part of the world against such
wickedness; that the Court of Saint Germains and the Court of Versailles
would have remained profoundly silent; that no Irish exile, no English
malecontent, would have uttered a murmur; that not a word of invective or
sarcasm on so inviting a subject would have been found in the whole
compass of the Jacobite literature; and that it would have been reserved
for politicians of the nineteenth century to discover that a treaty made
in the seventeenth century had, a few weeks after it had been signed, been
outrageously violated in the sight of all Europe? 152

On the same day on which the Commons read for the first time the bill
which subjected Ireland to the absolute dominion of the Protestant
minority, they took into consideration another matter of high importance.
Throughout the country, but especially in the capital, in the seaports and
in the manufacturing towns, the minds of men were greatly excited on the
subject of the trade with the East Indies; a fierce paper war had during
some time been raging; and several grave questions, both constitutional
and commercial, had been raised, which the legislature only could decide.

It has often been repeated, and ought never to be forgotten, that our
polity differs widely from those politics which have, during the last
eighty years, been methodically constructed, digested into articles, and
ratified by constituent assemblies. It grew up in a rude age. It is not to
be found entire in any formal instrument. All along the line which
separates the functions of the prince from those of the legislator there
was long a disputed territory. Encroachments were perpetually committed,
and, if not very outrageous, were often tolerated. Trespass, merely as
trespass, was commonly suffered to pass unresented. It was only when the
trespass produced some positive damage that the aggrieved party stood on
his right, and demanded that the frontier should be set out by metes and
bounds, and that the landmarks should thenceforward be punctiliously
respected.

Many of those points which had occasioned the most violent disputes
between our Sovereigns and their Parliaments had been finally decided by
the Bill of Rights. But one question, scarcely less important than any of
the questions which had been set at rest for ever, was still undetermined.
Indeed, that question was never, as far as can now be ascertained, even
mentioned in the Convention. The King had undoubtedly, by the ancient laws
of the realm, large powers for the regulation of trade; but the ablest
judge would have found it difficult to say what was the precise extent of
those powers. It was universally acknowledged that it belonged to the King
to prescribe weights and measures, and to coin money; that no fair or
market could be held without authority from him; that no ship could unload
in any bay or estuary which he had not declared to be a port. In addition
to his undoubted right to grant special commercial privileges to
particular places, he long claimed a right to grant special commercial
privileges to particular societies and to particular individuals; and our
ancestors, as usual, did not think it worth their while to dispute this
claim, till it produced serious inconvenience. At length, in the reign of
Elizabeth, the power of creating monopolies began to be grossly abused;
and, as soon as it began to be grossly abused, it began to be questioned.
The Queen wisely declined a conflict with a House of Commons backed by the
whole nation. She frankly acknowledged that there was reason for
complaint; she cancelled the patents which had excited the public
clamours; and her people, delighted by this concession, and by the
gracious manner in which it had been made, did not require from her an
express renunciation of the disputed prerogative.

The discontents which her wisdom had appeased were revived by the
dishonest and pusillanimous policy which her successor called Kingcraft.
He readily granted oppressive patents of monopoly. When he needed the help
of his Parliament, he as readily annulled them. As soon as the Parliament
had ceased to sit, his Great Seal was put to instruments more odious than
those which he had recently cancelled. At length that excellent House of
Commons which met in 1623 determined to apply a strong remedy to the evil.
The King was forced to give his assent to a law which declared monopolies
established by royal authority to be null and void. Some exceptions,
however, were made, and, unfortunately, were not very clearly defined. It
was especially provided that every Society of Merchants which had been
instituted for the purpose of carrying on any trade should retain all its
legal privileges. 153 The question whether a
monopoly granted by the Crown to such a company were or were not a legal
privilege was left unsettled, and continued to exercise, during many
years, the ingenuity of lawyers. 154 The
nation, however, relieved at once from a multitude of impositions and
vexations which were painfully felt every day at every fireside, was in no
humour to dispute the validity of the charters under which a few companies
to London traded with distant parts of the world.

Of these companies by far the most important was that which had been, on
the last day of the sixteenth century, incorporated by Queen Elizabeth
under the name of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading
to the East Indies. When this celebrated body began to exist, the Mogul
monarchy was at the zenith of power and glory. Akbar, the ablest and best
of the princes of the House of Tamerlane, had just been borne, full of
years and honours, to a mausoleum surpassing in magnificence any that
Europe could show. He had bequeathed to his posterity an empire containing
more than twenty times the population and yielding more than twenty times
the revenue of the England which, under our great Queen, held a foremost
place among European powers. It is curious and interesting to consider how
little the two countries, destined to be one day so closely connected,
were then known to each other. The most enlightened Englishmen looked on
India with ignorant admiration. The most enlightened natives of India were
scarcely aware that England existed. Our ancestors had a dim notion of
endless bazaars, swarming with buyers and sellers, and blazing with cloth
of gold, with variegated silks and with precious stones; of treasuries
where diamonds were piled in heaps and sequins in mountains; of palaces,
compared with which Whitehall and Hampton Court were hovels; of armies ten
times as numerous as that which they had seen assembled at Tilbury to
repel the Armada. On the other hand, it was probably not known to one of
the statesmen in the Durbar of Agra that there was near the setting sun a
great city of infidels, called London, where a woman reigned, and that she
had given to an association of Frank merchants the exclusive privilege of
freighting ships from her dominions to the Indian seas. That this
association would one day rule all India, from the ocean to the
everlasting snow, would reduce to profound obedience great provinces which
had never submitted to Akbar’s authority, would send Lieutenant Governors
to preside in his capital, and would dole out a monthly pension to his
heir, would have seemed to the wisest of European or of Oriental
politicians as impossible as that inhabitants of our globe should found an
empire in Venus or Jupiter.

Three generations passed away; and still nothing indicated that the East
India Company would ever become a great Asiatic potentate. The Mogul
empire, though undermined by internal causes of decay, and tottering to
its fall, still presented to distant nations the appearance of
undiminished prosperity and vigour. Aurengzebe, who, in the same month in
which Oliver Cromwell died, assumed the magnificent title of Conqueror of
the World, continued to reign till Anne had been long on the English
throne. He was the sovereign of a larger territory than had obeyed any of
his predecessors. His name was great in the farthest regions of the West.
Here he had been made by Dryden the hero of a tragedy which would alone
suffice to show how little the English of that age knew about the vast
empire which their grandchildren were to conquer and to govern. The poet’s
Mussulman princes make love in the style of Amadis, preach about the death
of Socrates, and embellish their discourse with allusions to the
mythological stories of Ovid. The Brahminical metempyschosis is
represented as an article of the Mussulman creed; and the Mussulman
Sultanas burn themselves with their husbands after the Brahminical
fashion. This drama, once rapturously applauded by crowded theatres, and
known by heart to fine gentlemen and fine ladies, is now forgotten. But
one noble passage still lives, and is repeated by thousands who know not
whence it comes. 155

Though nothing yet indicated the high political destiny of the East India
Company, that body had a great sway in the City of London. The offices,
which stood on a very small part of the ground which the present offices
cover, had escaped the ravages of the fire. The India House of those days
was a building of timber and plaster, rich with the quaint carving and
lattice-work of the Elizabethan age. Above the windows was a painting
which represented a fleet of merchantmen tossing on the waves. The whole
edifice was surmounted by a colossal wooden seaman, who, from between two
dolphins, looked down on the crowds of Leadenhall Street. 156
In this abode, narrow and humble indeed when compared with the vast
labyrinth of passages and chambers which now bears the same name, the
Company enjoyed, during the greater part of the reign of Charles the
Second, a prosperity to which the history of trade scarcely furnishes any
parallel, and which excited the wonder, the cupidity and the envious
animosity of the whole capital. Wealth and luxury were then rapidly
increasing. The taste for the spices, the tissues and the jewels of the
East became stronger day by day. Tea, which, at the time when Monk brought
the army of Scotland to London, had been handed round to be stared at and
just touched with the lips, as a great rarity from China, was, eight years
later, a regular article of import, and was soon consumed in such
quantities that financiers began to consider it as a fit subject for
taxation. The progress which was making in the art of war had created an
unprecedented demand for the ingredients of which gunpowder is compounded.
It was calculated that all Europe would hardly produce in a year saltpetre
enough for the siege of one town fortified on the principles of Vauban. 157
But for the supplies from India, it was said, the English government would
be unable to equip a fleet without digging up the cellars of London in
order to collect the nitrous particles from the walls. 158
Before the Restoration scarcely one ship from the Thames had ever visited
the Delta of the Ganges. But, during the twenty-three years which followed
the Restoration, the value of the annual imports from that rich and
populous district increased from eight thousand pounds to three hundred
thousand.

The gains of the body which had the exclusive possession of this fast
growing trade were almost incredible. The capital which had been actually
paid up did not exceed three hundred and seventy thousand pounds; but the
Company could, without difficulty, borrow money at six per cent., and the
borrowed money, thrown into the trade, produced, it was rumoured, thirty
per cent. The profits were such that, in 1676, every proprietor received
as a bonus a quantity of stock equal to that which he held. On the
capital, thus doubled, were paid, during five years, dividends amounting
on an average to twenty per cent. annually. There had been a time when a
hundred pounds of the stock could be purchased for sixty. Even in 1664 the
price in the market was only seventy. But in 1677 the price had risen to
two hundred and forty-five; in 1681 it was three hundred; it subsequently
rose to three hundred and sixty; and it is said that some sales were
effected at five hundred. 159

The enormous gains of the Indian trade might perhaps have excited little
murmuring if they had been distributed among numerous proprietors. But
while the value of the stock went on increasing, the number of
stockholders went on diminishing. At the time when the prosperity of the
Company reached the highest point, the management was entirely in the
hands of a few merchants of enormous wealth. A proprietor then had a vote
for every five hundred pounds of stock that stood in his name. It is
asserted in the pamphlets of that age that five persons had a sixth part,
and fourteen persons a third part of the votes. 160 More
than one fortunate speculator was said to derive an annual income of ten
thousand pounds from the monopoly; and one great man was pointed out on
the Royal Exchange as having, by judicious or lucky purchases of stock,
created in no long time an estate of twenty thousand a year. This
commercial grandee, who in wealth and in the influence which attends
wealth vied with the greatest nobles of his time, was Sir Josiah Child.
There were those who still remembered him an apprentice, sweeping one of
the counting houses of the City. But from a humble position his abilities
had raised him rapidly to opulence, power and fame. At the time of the
Restoration he was highly considered in the mercantile world. Soon after
that event he published his thoughts on the philosophy of trade. His
speculations were not always sound; but they were the speculations of an
ingenious and reflecting man. Into whatever errors he may occasionally
have fallen as a theorist, it is certain that, as a practical man of
business, he had few equals. Almost as soon as he became a member of the
committee which directed the affairs of the Company, his ascendency was
felt. Soon many of the most important posts, both in Leadenhall Street and
in the factories of Bombay and Bengal, were filled by his kinsmen and
creatures. His riches, though expended with ostentatious profusion,
continued to increase and multiply. He obtained a baronetcy; he purchased
a stately seat at Wanstead; and there he laid out immense sums in
excavating fishponds, and in planting whole square miles of barren land
with walnut trees. He married his daughter to the eldest son of the Duke
of Beaufort, and paid down with her a portion of fifty thousand pounds. 161

But this wonderful prosperity was not uninterrupted. Towards the close of
the reign of Charles the Second the Company began to be fiercely attacked
from without, and to be at the same time distracted by internal
dissensions. The profits of the Indian trade were so tempting, that
private adventurers had often, in defiance of the royal charter, fitted
out ships for the Eastern seas. But the competition of these interlopers
did not become really formidable till the year 1680. The nation was then
violently agitated by the dispute about the Exclusion Bill. Timid men were
anticipating another civil war. The two great parties, newly named Whigs
and Tories, were fiercely contending in every county and town of England;
and the feud soon spread to every corner of the civilised world where
Englishmen were to be found.

The Company was popularly considered as a Whig body. Among the members of
the directing committee were some of the most vehement Exclusionists in
the City. Indeed two of them, Sir Samuel Barnardistone and Thomas
Papillon, drew on themselves a severe persecution by their zeal against
Popery and arbitrary power. 162 Child had been originally
brought into the direction by these men; he had long acted in concert with
them; and he was supposed to hold their political opinions. He had, during
many years, stood high in the esteem of the chiefs of the parliamentary
opposition, and had been especially obnoxious to the Duke of York. 163
The interlopers therefore determined to affect the character of loyal men,
who were determined to stand by the throne against the insolent tribunes
of the City. They spread, at all the factories in the East, reports that
England was in confusion, that the sword had been drawn or would
immediately be drawn, and that the Company was forward in the rebellion
against the Crown. These rumours, which, in truth, were not improbable,
easily found credit among people separated from London by what was then a
voyage of twelve months. Some servants of the Company who were in ill
humour with their employers, and others who were zealous royalists, joined
the private traders. At Bombay, the garrison and the great body of the
English inhabitants declared that they would no longer obey any body who
did not obey the King; they imprisoned the Deputy Governor; and they
proclaimed that they held the island for the Crown. At Saint Helena there
was a rising. The insurgents took the name of King’s men, and displayed
the royal standard. They were, not without difficulty, put down; and some
of them were executed by martial law. 164

If the Company had still been a Whig Company when the news of these
commotions reached England, it is probable that the government would have
approved of the conduct of the mutineers, and that the charter on which
the monopoly depended would have had the fate which about the same time
befell so many other charters. But while the interlopers were, at a
distance of many thousands of miles, making war on the Company in the name
of the King, the Company and the King had been reconciled. When the Oxford
Parliament had been dissolved, when many signs indicated that a strong
reaction in favour of prerogative was at hand, when all the corporations
which had incurred the royal displeasure were beginning to tremble for
their franchises, a rapid and complete revolution took place at the India
House. Child, who was then Governor, or, in the modern phrase, Chairman,
separated himself from his old friends, excluded them from the direction,
and negotiated a treaty of peace and of close alliance with the Court. 165
It is not improbable that the near connection into which he had just
entered with the great Tory house of Beaufort may have had something to do
with this change in his politics. Papillon, Barnardistone, and their
adherents, sold their stock; their places in the committee were supplied
by persons devoted to Child; and he was thenceforth the autocrat of the
Company. The treasures of the Company were absolutely at his disposal. The
most important papers of the Company were kept, not in the muniment room
of the office in Leadenhall Street, but in his desk at Wanstead. The
boundless power which he exercised at the India House enabled him to
become a favourite at Whitehall; and the favour which he enjoyed at
Whitehall confirmed his power at the India House. A present of ten
thousand guineas was graciously received from him by Charles. Ten thousand
more were accepted by James, who readily consented to become a holder of
stock. All who could help or hurt at Court, ministers, mistresses,
priests, were kept in good humour by presents of shawls and silks, birds’
nests and atar of roses, bulses of diamonds and bags of guineas. 166
Of what the Dictator expended no account was asked by his colleagues; and
in truth he seems to have deserved the confidence which they reposed in
him. His bribes, distributed with judicious prodigality, speedily produced
a large return. Just when the Court became all powerful in the State, he
became all powerful at the Court. Jeffreys pronounced a decision in favour
of the monopoly, and of the strongest acts which had been done in defence
of the monopoly. James ordered his seal to be put to a new charter which
confirmed and extended all the privileges bestowed on the Company by his
predecessors. All captains of Indiamen received commissions from the
Crown, and were permitted to hoist the royal ensigns. 167
John Child, brother of Sir Josiah, and Governor of Bombay, was created a
baronet by the style of Sir John Child of Surat: he was declared General
of all the English forces in the East; and he was authorised to assume the
title of Excellency. The Company, on the other hand, distinguished itself
among many servile corporations by obsequious homage to the throne, and
set to all the merchants of the kingdom the example of readily and even
eagerly paying those customs which James, at the commencement of his
reign, exacted without the authority of Parliament. 168

It seemed that the private trade would now be utterly crushed, and that
the monopoly, protected by the whole strength of the royal prerogative,
would be more profitable than ever. But unfortunately just at this moment
a quarrel arose between the agents of the Company in India and the Mogul
Government. Where the fault lay is a question which was vehemently
disputed at the time, and which it is now impossible to decide. The
interlopers threw all the blame on the Company. The Governor of Bombay,
they affirmed, had always been grasping and violent; but his baronetcy and
his military commission had completely turned his head. The very natives
who were employed about the factory had noticed the change, and had
muttered, in their broken English, that there must be some strange curse
attending the word Excellency; for that, ever since the chief of the
strangers was called Excellency, every thing had gone to ruin. Meanwhile,
it was said, the brother in England had sanctioned all the unjust and
impolitic acts of the brother in India, till at length insolence and
rapine, disgraceful to the English nation and to the Christian religion,
had roused the just resentment of the native authorities. The Company
warmly recriminated. The story told at the India House was that the
quarrel was entirely the work of the interlopers, who were now designated
not only as interlopers but as traitors. They had, it was alleged, by
flattery, by presents, and by false accusations, induced the viceroys of
the Mogul to oppress and persecute the body which in Asia represented the
English Crown. And indeed this charge seems not to have been altogether
without foundation. It is certain that one of the most pertinacious
enemies of the Childs went up to the Court of Aurengzebe, took his station
at the palace gate, stopped the Great King who was in the act of mounting
on horseback, and, lifting a petition high in the air, demanded justice in
the name of the common God of Christians and Mussulmans. 169
Whether Aurengzebe paid much attention to the charges brought by infidel
Franks against each other may be doubted. But it is certain that a
complete rupture took place between his deputies and the servants of the
Company. On the sea the ships of his subjects were seized by the English.
On land the English settlements were taken and plundered. The trade was
suspended; and, though great annual dividends were still paid in London,
they were no longer paid out of annual profits.

Just at this conjuncture, while every Indiaman that arrived in the Thames
was bringing unwelcome news from the East, all the politics of Sir Josiah
were utterly confounded by the Revolution. He had flattered himself that
he had secured the body of which he was the chief against the machinations
of interlopers, by uniting it closely with the strongest government that
had existed within his memory. That government had fallen; and whatever
had leaned on the ruined fabric began to totter. The bribes had been
thrown away. The connections which had been the strength and boast of the
corporation were now its weakness and its shame. The King who had been one
of its members was an exile. The judge by whom all its most exorbitant
pretensions had been pronounced legitimate was a prisoner. All the old
enemies of the Company, reinforced by those great Whig merchants whom
Child had expelled from the direction, demanded justice and vengeance from
the Whig House of Commons, which had just placed William and Mary on the
throne. No voice was louder in accusation than that of Papillon, who had,
some years before, been more zealous for the charter than any man in
London. 170
The Commons censured in severe terms the persons who had inflicted death
by martial law at Saint Helena, and even resolved that some of those
offenders should be excluded from the Act of Indemnity. 171
The great question, how the trade with the East should for the future be
carried on, was referred to a Committee. The report was to have been made
on the twenty-seventh of January 1690; but on that very day the Parliament
ceased to exist.

The first two sessions of the succeeding Parliament were so short and so
busy that little was said about India in either House. But, out of
Parliament, all the arts both of controversy and of intrigue were employed
on both sides. Almost as many pamphlets were published about the India
trade as about the oaths. The despot of Leadenhall Street was libelled in
prose and verse. Wretched puns were made on his name. He was compared to
Cromwell, to the King of France, to Goliath of Gath, to the Devil. It was
vehemently declared to be necessary that, in any Act which might be passed
for the regulation of our traffic with the Eastern seas, Sir Josiah should
be by name excluded from all trust. 172

There were, however, great differences of opinion among those who agreed
in hating Child and the body of which he was the head. The manufacturers
of Spitalfields, of Norwich, of Yorkshire, and of the Western counties,
considered the trade with the Eastern seas as rather injurious than
beneficial to the kingdom. The importation of Indian spices, indeed, was
admitted to be harmless, and the importation of Indian saltpetre to be
necessary. But the importation of silks and of Bengals, as shawls were
then called, was pronounced to be a curse to the country. The effect of
the growing taste for such frippery was that our gold and silver went
abroad, and that much excellent English drapery lay in our warehouses till
it was devoured by the moths. Those, it was said, were happy days for the
inhabitants both of our pasture lands and of our manufacturing towns, when
every gown, every hanging, every bed, was made of materials which our own
flocks had furnished to our own looms. Where were now the brave old
hangings of arras which had adorned the walls of lordly mansions in the
days of Elizabeth? And was it not a shame to see a gentleman, whose
ancestors had worn nothing but stuffs made by English workmen out of
English fleeces, flaunting in a calico shirt and a pair of silk stockings?
Clamours such as these had, a few years before, extorted from Parliament
the Act which required that the dead should be wrapped in woollen; and
some sanguine clothiers hoped that the legislature would, by excluding all
Indian textures from our ports, impose the same necessity on the living.
173

But this feeling was confined to a minority. The public was, indeed,
inclined rather to overrate than to underrate the benefits which might be
derived by England from the Indian trade. What was the most effectual mode
of extending that trade was a question which excited general interest, and
which was answered in very different ways.

A small party, consisting chiefly of merchants resident at Bristol and
other provincial seaports, maintained that the best way to extend trade
was to leave it free. They urged the well known arguments which prove that
monopoly is injurious to commerce; and, having fully established the
general law, they asked why the commerce between England and India was to
be considered as an exception to that law. Any trader ought, they said, to
be permitted to send from any port a cargo to Surat or Canton as freely as
he now sent a cargo to Hamburg or Lisbon. 174 In our
time these doctrines may probably be considered, not only as sound, but as
trite and obvious. In the seventeenth century, however, they were thought
paradoxical. It was then generally held to be a certain, and indeed an
almost selfevident truth, that our trade with the countries lying beyond
the Cape of Good Hope could be advantageously carried on only by means of
a great Joint Stock Company. There was no analogy, it was said, between
our European trade and our Indian trade. Our government had diplomatic
relations with the European States. If necessary, a maritime force could
easily be sent from hence to the mouth of the Elbe or of the Tagus. But
the English Kings had no envoy at the Court of Agra or Pekin. There was
seldom a single English man of war within ten thousand miles of the Bay of
Bengal or of the Gulf of Siam. As our merchants could not, in those remote
seas, be protected by their Sovereign, they must protect themselves, and
must, for that end, exercise some of the rights of sovereignty. They must
have forts, garrisons and armed ships. They must have power to send and
receive embassies, to make a treaty of alliance with one Asiatic prince,
to wage war on another. It was evidently impossible that every merchant
should have this power independently of the rest. The merchants trading to
India must therefore be joined together in a corporation which could act
as one man. In support of these arguments the example of the Dutch was
cited, and was generally considered as decisive. For in that age the
immense prosperity of Holland was every where regarded with admiration,
not the less earnest because it was largely mingled with envy and hatred.
In all that related to trade, her statesmen were considered as oracles,
and her institutions as models.

The great majority, therefore, of those who assailed the Company assailed
it, not because it traded on joint funds and possessed exclusive
privileges, but because it was ruled by one man, and because his rule had
been mischievous to the public, and beneficial only to himself and his
creatures. The obvious remedy, it was said, for the evils which his
maladministration had produced was to transfer the monopoly to a new
corporation so constituted as to be in no danger of falling under the
dominion either of a despot or of a narrow oligarchy. Many persons who
were desirous to be members of such a corporation, formed themselves into
a society, signed an engagement, and entrusted the care of their interests
to a committee which contained some of the chief traders of the City. This
society, though it had, in the eye of the law, no personality, was early
designated, in popular speech, as the New Company; and the hostilities
between the New Company and the Old Company soon caused almost as much
excitement and anxiety, at least in that busy hive of which the Royal
Exchange was the centre, as the hostilities between the Allies and the
French King. The headquarters of the younger association were in Dowgate;
the Skinners lent their stately hall; and the meetings were held in a
parlour renowned for the fragrance which exhaled from a magnificent
wainscot of cedar. 175

While the contention was hottest, important news arrived from India, and
was announced in the London Gazette as in the highest degree satisfactory.
Peace had been concluded between the great Mogul and the English. That
mighty potentate had not only withdrawn his troops from the factories, but
had bestowed on the Company privileges such as it had never before
enjoyed. Soon, however, appeared a very different version of the story.
The enemies of Child had, before this time, accused him of systematically
publishing false intelligence. He had now, they said, outlied himself.
They had obtained a true copy of the Firman which had put an end to the
war; and they printed a translation of it. It appeared that Aurengzebe had
contemptuously granted to the English, in consideration of their penitence
and of a large tribute, his forgiveness for their past delinquency, had
charged them to behave themselves better for the future, and had, in the
tone of a master, laid on them his commands to remove the principal
offender, Sir John Child, from power and trust. The death of Sir John
occurred so seasonably that these commands could not be obeyed. But it was
only too evident that the pacification which the rulers of the India House
had represented as advantageous and honourable had really been effected on
terms disgraceful to the English name. 176

During the summer of 1691, the controversy which raged on this subject
between the Leadenhall Street Company and the Dowgate Company kept the
City in constant agitation. In the autumn, the Parliament had no sooner
met than both the contending parties presented petitions to the House of
Commons. 177 The petitions were immediately
taken into serious consideration, and resolutions of grave importance were
passed. The first resolution was that the trade with the East Indies was
beneficial to the kingdom; the second was that the trade with the East
Indies would be best carried on by a joint stock company possessed of
exclusive privileges. 178 It was plain, therefore, that
neither those manufacturers who wished to prohibit the trade, nor those
merchants at the outports who wished to throw it open, had the smallest
chance of attaining their objects. The only question left was the question
between the Old and the New Company. Seventeen years elapsed before that
question ceased to disturb both political and commercial circles. It was
fatal to the honour and power of one great minister, and to the peace and
prosperity of many private families. The tracts which the rival bodies put
forth against each other were innumerable. If the drama of that age may be
trusted, the feud between the India House and Skinners’ Hall was sometimes
as serious an impediment to the course of true love in London as the feud
of the Capulets and Montagues had been at Verona. 179 Which
of the two contending parties was the stronger it is not easy to say. The
New Company was supported by the Whigs, the Old Company by the Tories. The
New Company was popular; for it promised largely, and could not be accused
of having broken its promises; it made no dividends, and therefore was not
envied; it had no power to oppress, and had therefore been guilty of no
oppression. The Old Company, though generally regarded with little favour
by the public, had the immense advantage of being in possession, and of
having only to stand on the defensive. The burden of framing a plan for
the regulation of the India trade, and of proving that plan to be better
than the plan hitherto followed, lay on the New Company. The Old Company
had merely to find objections to every change that was proposed; and such
objections there was little difficulty in finding. The members of the New
Company were ill provided with the means of purchasing support at Court
and in Parliament. They had no corporate existence, no common treasury. If
any of them gave a bribe, he gave it out of his own pocket, with little
chance of being reimbursed. But the Old Company, though surrounded by
dangers, still held its exclusive privileges, and still made its enormous
profits. Its stock had indeed gone down greatly in value since the golden
days of Charles the Second; but a hundred pounds still sold for a hundred
and twenty-two. 180 After a large dividend had
been paid to the proprietors, a surplus remained amply sufficient, in
those days, to corrupt half a cabinet; and this surplus was absolutely at
the disposal of one able, determined and unscrupulous man, who maintained
the fight with wonderful art and pertinacity.

The majority of the Commons wished to effect a compromise, to retain the
Old Company, but to remodel it, to impose on it new conditions, and to
incorporate with it the members of the New Company. With this view it was,
after long and vehement debates and close divisions, resolved that the
capital should be increased to a million and a half. In order to prevent a
single person or a small junto from domineering over the whole society, it
was determined that five thousand pounds of stock should be the largest
quantity that any single proprietor could hold, and that those who held
more should be required to sell the overplus at any price not below par.
In return for the exclusive privilege of trading to the Eastern seas, the
Company was to be required to furnish annually five hundred tons of
saltpetre to the Crown at a low price, and to export annually English
manufactures to the value of two hundred thousand pounds. 181

A bill founded on these resolutions was brought in, read twice, and
committed, but was suffered to drop in consequence of the positive refusal
of Child and his associates to accept the offered terms. He objected to
every part of the plan; and his objections are highly curious and amusing.
The great monopolist took his stand on the principles of free trade. In a
luminous and powerfully written paper he exposed the absurdity of the
expedients which the House of Commons had devised. To limit the amount of
stock which might stand in a single name would, he said, be most
unreasonable. Surely a proprietor whose whole fortune was staked on the
success of the Indian trade was far more likely to exert all his faculties
vigorously for the promotion of that trade than a proprietor who had
risked only what it would be no great disaster to lose. The demand that
saltpetre should be furnished to the Crown for a fixed sum Child met by
those arguments, familiar to our generation, which prove that prices
should be left to settle themselves. To the demand that the Company should
bind itself to export annually two hundred thousand pounds’ worth of
English manufactures he very properly replied that the Company would most
gladly export two millions’ worth if the market required such a supply,
and that, if the market were overstocked, it would be mere folly to send
good cloth half round the world to be eaten by white ants. It was never,
he declared with much spirit, found politic to put trade into straitlaced
bodices, which, instead of making it grow upright and thrive, must either
kill it or force it awry.

The Commons, irritated by Child’s obstinacy, presented an address
requesting the King to dissolve the Old Company, and to grant a charter to
a new Company on such terms as to His Majesty’s wisdom might seem fit. 182
It is plainly implied in the terms of this address that the Commons
thought the King constitutionally competent to grant an exclusive
privilege of trading to the East Indies.

The King replied that the subject was most important, that he would
consider it maturely, and that he would, at a future time, give the House
a more precise answer. 183 In Parliament nothing more was
said on the subject during that session; but out of Parliament the war was
fiercer than ever; and the belligerents were by no means scrupulous about
the means which they employed. The chief weapons of the New Company were
libels; the chief weapons of the Old Company were bribes.

In the same week in which the bill for the regulation of the Indian trade
was suffered to drop, another bill which had produced great excitement and
had called forth an almost unprecedented display of parliamentary ability,
underwent the same fate.

During the eight years which preceded the Revolution, the Whigs had
complained bitterly, and not more bitterly than justly, of the hard
measure dealt out to persons accused of political offences. Was it not
monstrous, they asked, that a culprit should be denied a sight of his
indictment? Often an unhappy prisoner had not known of what he was accused
till he had held up his hand at the bar. The crime imputed to him might be
plotting to shoot the King; it might be plotting to poison the King. The
more innocent the defendant was, the less likely he was to guess the
nature of the charge on which he was to be tried; and how could he have
evidence ready to rebut a charge the nature of which he could not guess?
The Crown had power to compel the attendance of witnesses. The prisoner
had no such power. If witnesses voluntarily came forward to speak in his
favour, they could not be sworn. Their testimony therefore made less
impression on a jury than the testimony of the witnesses for the
prosecution, whose veracity was guaranteed by the most solemn sanctions of
law and of religion. The juries, carefully selected by Sheriffs whom the
Crown had named, were men animated by the fiercest party spirit, men who
had as little tenderness for an Exclusionist of a Dissenter as for a mad
dog. The government was served by a band of able, experienced and
unprincipled lawyers, who could, by merely glancing over a brief,
distinguish every weak and every strong point of a case, whose presence of
mind never failed them, whose flow of speech was inexhaustible, and who
had passed their lives in dressing up the worse reason so as to make it
appear the better. Was it not horrible to see three or four of these
shrewd, learned and callous orators arrayed against one poor wretch who
had never in his life uttered a word in public, who was ignorant of the
legal definition of treason and of the first principles of the law of
evidence, and whose intellect, unequal at best to a fencing match with
professional gladiators, was confused by the near prospect of a cruel and
ignominious death? Such however was the rule; and even for a man so much
stupefied by sickness that he could not hold up his hand or make his voice
heard, even for a poor old woman who understood nothing of what was
passing except that she was going to be roasted alive for doing an act of
charity, no advocate was suffered to utter a word. That a state trial so
conducted was little better than a judicial murder had been, during the
proscription of the Whig party, a fundamental article of the Whig creed.
The Tories, on the other hand, though they could not deny that there had
been some hard cases, maintained that, on the whole, substantial justice
had been done. Perhaps a few seditious persons who had gone very near to
the frontier of treason, but had not actually passed that frontier, might
have suffered as traitors. But was that a sufficient reason for enabling
the chiefs of the Rye House Plot and of the Western Insurrection to elude,
by mere chicanery, the punishment of their guilt? On what principle was
the traitor to have chances of escape which were not allowed to the felon?
The culprit who was accused of larceny was subject to all the same
disadvantages which, in the case of regicides and rebels, were thought so
unjust; ye nobody pitied him. Nobody thought it monstrous that he should
not have time to study a copy of his indictment, that his witnesses should
be examined without being sworn, that he should be left to defend himself,
without the help of counsel against the best abilities which the Inns of
Court could furnish. The Whigs, it seemed, reserved all their compassion
for those crimes which subvert government and dissolve the whole frame of
human society. Guy Faux was to be treated with an indulgence which was not
to be extended to a shoplifter. Bradshaw was to have privileges which were
refused to a boy who had robbed a henroost.

The Revolution produced, as was natural, some change in the sentiments of
both the great parties. In the days when none but Roundheads and
Nonconformists were accused of treason, even the most humane and upright
Cavaliers were disposed to think that the laws which were the safeguard of
the throne could hardly be too severe. But, as soon as loyal Tory
gentlemen and venerable fathers of the Church were in danger of being
called in question for corresponding with Saint Germains, a new light
flashed on many understandings which had been unable to discover the
smallest injustice in the proceedings against Algernon Sidney and Alice
Lisle. It was no longer thought utterly absurd to maintain that some
advantages which were withheld from a man accused of felony might
reasonably be allowed to a man accused of treason. What probability was
there that any sheriff would pack a jury, that any barrister would employ
all the arts of sophistry and rhetoric, that any judge would strain law
and misrepresent evidence, in order to convict an innocent person of
burglary or sheep stealing? But on a trial for high treason a verdict of
acquittal must always be considered as a defeat of the government; and
there was but too much reason to fear that many sheriffs, barristers and
judges might be impelled by party spirit, or by some baser motive, to do
any thing which might save the government from the inconvenience and shame
of a defeat. The cry of the whole body of Tories was that the lives of
good Englishmen who happened to be obnoxious to the ruling powers were not
sufficiently protected; and this cry was swelled by the voices of some
lawyers who had distinguished themselves by the malignant zeal and
dishonest ingenuity with which they had conducted State prosecutions in
the days of Charles and James.

The feeling of the Whigs, though it had not, like the feeling of the
Tories, undergone a complete change, was yet not quite what it had been.
Some, who had thought it most unjust that Russell should have no counsel
and that Cornish should have no copy of his indictment, now began to
mutter that the times had changed; that the dangers of the State were
extreme; that liberty, property, religion, national independence, were all
at stake; that many Englishmen were engaged in schemes of which the object
was to make England the slave of France and of Rome; and that it would be
most unwise to relax, at such a moment, the laws against political
offences. It was true that the injustice with which, in the late reigns,
State trials had been conducted, had given great scandal. But this
injustice was to be ascribed to the bad kings and bad judges with whom the
nation had been cursed. William was now on the throne; Holt was seated for
life on the bench; and William would never exact, nor would Holt ever
perform, services so shameful and wicked as those for which the banished
tyrant had rewarded Jeffreys with riches and titles. This language however
was at first held but by few. The Whigs, as a party, seem to have felt
that they could not honourably defend, in the season of their prosperity,
what, in the time of their adversity, they had always designated as a
crying grievance. A bill for regulating trials in cases of high treason
was brought into the House of Commons, and was received with general
applause. Treby had the courage to make some objections; but no division
took place. The chief enactments were that no person should be convicted
of high treason committed more than three years before the indictment was
found; that every person indicted for high treason should be allowed to
avail himself of the assistance of counsel, and should be furnished, ten
days before the trial, with a copy of the indictment, and with a list of
the freeholders from among whom the jury was to be taken; that his
witnesses should be sworn, and that they should be cited by the same
process by which the attendance of the witnesses against him was secured.

The Bill went to the Upper House, and came back with an important
amendment. The Lords had long complained of the anomalous and iniquitous
constitution of that tribunal which had jurisdiction over them in cases of
life and death. When a grand jury has found a bill of indictment against a
temporal peer for any offence higher than a misdemeanour, the Crown
appoints a Lord High Steward; and in the Lord High Steward’s Court the
case is tried. This Court was anciently composed in two very different
ways. It consisted, if Parliament happened to be sitting, of all the
members of the Upper House. When Parliament was not sitting, the Lord High
Steward summoned any twelve or more peers at his discretion to form a
jury. The consequence was that a peer accused of high treason during a
recess was tried by a jury which his prosecutors had packed. The Lords now
demanded that, during a recess as well as during a session, every peer
accused of high treason should be tried by the whole body of the peerage.

The demand was resisted by the House of Commons with a vehemence and
obstinacy which men of the present generation may find it difficult to
understand. The truth is that some invidious privileges of peerage which
have since been abolished, and others which have since fallen into entire
desuetude, were then in full force, and were daily used. No gentleman who
had had a dispute with a nobleman could think, without indignation, of the
advantages enjoyed by the favoured caste. If His Lordship were sued at
law, his privilege enabled him to impede the course of justice. If a rude
word were spoken of him, such a word as he might himself utter with
perfect impunity, he might vindicate his insulted dignity both by civil
and criminal proceedings. If a barrister, in the discharge of his duty to
a client, spoke with severity of the conduct of a noble seducer, if an
honest squire on the racecourse applied the proper epithets to the tricks
of a noble swindler, the affronted patrician had only to complain to the
proud and powerful body of which he was a member. His brethren made his
cause their own. The offender was taken into custody by Black Rod, brought
to the bar, flung into prison, and kept there till he was glad to obtain
forgiveness by the most degrading submissions. Nothing could therefore be
more natural than that an attempt of the Peers to obtain any new advantage
for their order should be regarded by the Commons with extreme jealousy.
There is strong reason to suspect that some able Whig politicians, who
thought it dangerous to relax, at that moment, the laws against political
offences, but who could not, without incurring the charge of
inconsistency, declare themselves adverse to any relaxation, had conceived
a hope that they might, by fomenting the dispute about the Court of the
Lord High Steward, defer for at least a year the passing of a bill which
they disliked, and yet could not decently oppose. If this really was their
plan, it succeeded perfectly. The Lower House rejected the amendment; the
Upper House persisted; a free conference was held; and the question was
argued with great force and ingenuity on both sides.

The reasons in favour of the amendment are obvious, and indeed at first
sight seem unanswerable. It was surely difficult to defend a system under
which the Sovereign nominated a conclave of his own creatures to decide
the fate of men whom he regarded as his mortal enemies. And could any
thing be more absurd than that a nobleman accused of high treason should
be entitled to be tried by the whole body of his peers if his indictment
happened to be brought into the House of Lords the minute before a
prorogation, but that, if the indictment arrived a minute after the
prorogation, he should be at the mercy of a small junto named by the very
authority which prosecuted him? That any thing could have been said on the
other side seems strange; but those who managed the conference for the
Commons were not ordinary men, and seem on this occasion to have put forth
all their powers. Conspicuous among them was Charles Montague, who was
rapidly attaining a foremost rank among the orators of that age. To him
the lead seems on this occasion to have been left; and to his pen we owe
an account of the discussion, which gives a very high notion of his
talents for debate. “We have framed”—such was in substance his
reasoning,—”we have framed a law which has in it nothing exclusive,
a law which will be a blessing to every class, from the highest to the
lowest. The new securities, which we propose to give to innocence
oppressed by power, are common between the premier peer and the humblest
day labourer. The clause which establishes a time of limitation for
prosecutions protects us all alike. To every Englishman accused of the
highest crime against the state, whatever be his rank, we give the
privilege of seeing his indictment, the privilege of being defended by
counsel, the privilege of having his witnesses summoned by writ of
subpoena and sworn on the Holy Gospels. Such is the bill which we sent up
to your Lordships; and you return it to us with a clause of which the
effect is to give certain advantages to your noble order at the expense of
the ancient prerogatives of the Crown. Surely before we consent to take
away from the King any power which his predecessors have possessed for
ages, and to give it to your Lordships, we ought to be satisfied that you
are more likely to use it well than he. Something we must risk; somebody
we must trust; and; since we are forced, much against our will, to
institute what is necessarily an invidious comparison, we must own
ourselves unable to discover any reason for believing that a prince is
less to be trusted than an aristocracy.

“Is it reasonable, you ask, that you should be tried for your lives before
a few members of your House, selected by the Crown? Is it reasonable, we
ask in our turn, that you should have the privilege of being tried by all
the members of your House, that is to say, by your brothers, your uncles,
your first cousins, your second cousins, your fathers in law, your
brothers in law, your most intimate friends? You marry so much into each
other’s families, you live so much in each other’s society, that there is
scarcely a nobleman who is not connected by consanguinity or affinity with
several others, and who is not on terms of friendship with several more.
There have been great men whose death put a third or fourth part of the
baronage of England into mourning. Nor is there much danger that even
those peers who may be unconnected with an accused lord will be disposed
to send him to the block if they can with decency say ‘Not Guilty, upon my
honour.’ For the ignominious death of a single member of a small
aristocratical body necessarily leaves a stain on the reputation of his
fellows. If, indeed, your Lordships proposed that every one of your body
should be compelled to attend and vote, the Crown might have some chance
of obtaining justice against a guilty peer, however strongly connected.
But you propose that attendance shall be voluntary. Is it possible to
doubt what the consequence will be? All the prisoner’s relations and
friends will be in their places to vote for him. Good nature and the fear
of making powerful enemies will keep away many who, if they voted at all,
would be forced by conscience and honour to vote against him. The new
system which you propose would therefore evidently be unfair to the Crown;
and you do not show any reason for believing that the old system has been
found in practice unfair to yourselves. We may confidently affirm that,
even under a government less just and merciful than that under which we
have the happiness to live, an innocent peer has little to fear from any
set of peers that can be brought together in Westminster Hall to try him.
How stands the fact? In what single case has a guiltless head fallen by
the verdict of this packed jury? It would be easy to make out a long list
of squires, merchants, lawyers, surgeons, yeomen, artisans, ploughmen,
whose blood, barbarously shed during the late evil times, cries for
vengeance to heaven. But what single member of your House, in our days, or
in the days of our fathers, or in the days of our grandfathers, suffered
death unjustly by sentence of the Court of the Lord High Steward? Hundreds
of the common people were sent to the gallows by common juries for the Rye
House Plot and the Western Insurrection. One peer, and one alone, my Lord
Delamere, was brought at that time before the Court of the Lord High
Steward; and he was acquitted. But, it is said, the evidence against him
was legally insufficient. Be it so. So was the evidence against Sidney,
against Cornish, against Alice Lisle; yet it sufficed to destroy them.
But, it is said, the peers before whom my Lord Delamere was brought were
selected with shameless unfairness by King James and by Jeffreys. Be it
so. But this only proves that, under the worst possible King, and under
the worst possible High Steward, a lord tried by lords has a better chance
for life than a commoner who puts himself on his country. We cannot,
therefore, under the mild government which we now possess, feel much
apprehension for the safety of any innocent peer. Would that we felt as
little apprehension for the safety of that government! But it is notorious
that the settlement with which our liberties are inseparably bound up is
attacked at once by foreign and by domestic enemies. We cannot consent at
such a crisis to relax the restraints which have, it may well be feared,
already proved too feeble to prevent some men of high rank from plotting
the ruin of their country. To sum up the whole, what is asked of us is
that we will consent to transfer a certain power from their Majesties to
your Lordships. Our answer is that, at this time, in our opinion, their
Majesties have not too much power, and your Lordships have quite power
enough.”

These arguments, though eminently ingenious, and not without real force,
failed to convince the Upper House. The Lords insisted that every peer
should be entitled to be a Trier. The Commons were with difficulty induced
to consent that the number of Triers should never be less than thirty-six,
and positively refused to make any further concession. The bill was
therefore suffered to drop. 184

It is certain that those who in the conference on this bill represented
the Commons, did not exaggerate the dangers to which the government was
exposed. While the constitution of the Court which was to try peers for
treason was under discussion, a treason planned with rare skill by a peer
was all but carried into execution.

Marlborough had never ceased to assure the Court of Saint Germains that
the great crime which he had committed was constantly present to his
thoughts, and that he lived only for the purpose of repentance and
reparation. Not only had he been himself converted; he had also converted
the Princess Anne. In 1688, the Churchills had, with little difficulty,
induced her to fly from her father’s palace. In 1691, they, with as little
difficulty, induced her to copy out and sign a letter expressing her deep
concern for his misfortunes and her earnest wish to atone for her breach
of duty. 185 At the same time Marlborough
held out hopes that it might be in his power to effect the restoration of
his old master in the best possible way, without the help of a single
foreign soldier or sailor, by the votes of the English Lords and Commons,
and by the support of the English army. We are not fully informed as to
all the details of his plan. But the outline is known to us from a most
interesting paper written by James, of which one copy is in the Bodleian
Library, and another among the archives of the French Foreign Office.

The jealousy with which the English regarded the Dutch was at this time
intense. There had never been a hearty friendship between the nations.
They were indeed near of kin to each other. They spoke two dialects of one
widespread language. Both boasted of their political freedom. Both were
attached to the reformed faith. Both were threatened by the same enemy,
and would be safe only while they were united. Yet there was no cordial
feeling between them. They would probably have loved each other more, if
they had, in some respects, resembled each other less. They were the two
great commercial nations, the two great maritime nations. In every sea
their flags were found together, in the Baltic and in the Mediterranean,
in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Straits of Malacca. Every where the
merchant of London and the merchant of Amsterdam were trying to forestall
each other and to undersell each other. In Europe the contest was not
sanguinary. But too often, in barbarous countries, where there was no law
but force, the competitors had met, burning with cupidity, burning with
animosity, armed for battle, each suspecting the other of hostile designs
and each resolved to give the other no advantage. In such circumstances it
is not strange that many violent and cruel acts should have been
perpetrated. What had been done in those distant regions could seldom be
exactly known in Europe. Every thing was exaggerated and distorted by
vague report and by national prejudice. Here it was the popular belief
that the English were always blameless, and that every quarrel was to be
ascribed to the avarice and inhumanity of the Dutch. Lamentable events
which had taken place in the Spice Islands were repeatedly brought on our
stage. The Englishmen were all saints and heroes; the Dutchmen all fiends
in human shape, lying, robbing, ravishing, murdering, torturing. The angry
passions which these pieces indicated had more than once found vent in
war. Thrice in the lifetime of one generation the two nations had
contended, with equal courage and with various fortune, for the
sovereignty of the German Ocean. The tyranny of James, as it had
reconciled Tories to Whigs and Churchmen to Nonconformists, had also
reconciled the English to the Dutch. While our ancestors were looking to
the Hague for deliverance, the massacre of Amboyna and the great
humiliation of Chatham had seemed to be forgotten. But since the
Revolution the old feeling had revived. Though England and Holland were
now closely bound together by treaty, they were as far as ever from being
bound together by affection. Once, just after the battle of Beachy Head,
our countrymen had seemed disposed to be just; but a violent reaction
speedily followed. Torrington, who deserved to be shot, became a popular
favourite; and the allies whom he had shamefully abandoned were accused of
persecuting him without a cause. The partiality shown by the King to the
companions of his youth was the favourite theme of the sewers of sedition.
The most lucrative posts in his household, it was said, were held by
Dutchmen; the House of Lords was fast filling with Dutchmen; the finest
manors of the Crown were given to Dutchmen; the army was commanded by
Dutchmen. That it would have been wise in William to exhibit somewhat less
obtrusively his laudable fondness for his native country, and to
remunerate his early friends somewhat more sparingly, is perfectly true.
But it will not be easy to prove that, on any important occasion during
his whole reign, he sacrificed the interests of our island to the
interests of the United Provinces. The English, however, were on this
subject prone to fits of jealousy which made them quite incapable of
listening to reason. One of the sharpest of those fits came on in the
autumn of 1691. The antipathy to the Dutch was at that time strong in all
classes, and nowhere stronger than in the Parliament and in the army. 186

Of that antipathy Marlborough determined to avail himself for the purpose,
as he assured James and James’s adherents, of effecting a restoration. The
temper of both Houses was such that they might not improbably be induced
by skilful management to present a joint address requesting that all
foreigners might be dismissed from the service of their Majesties.
Marlborough undertook to move such an address in the Lords; and there
would have been no difficulty in finding some gentleman of great weight to
make a similar motion in the Commons.

If the address should be carried, what could William do? Would he yield?
Would he discard all his dearest, his oldest, his most trusty friends? It
was hardly possible to believe that he would make so painful, so
humiliating a concession. If he did not yield, there would be a rupture
between him and the Parliament; and the Parliament would be backed by the
people. Even a King reigning by a hereditary title might well shrink from
such a contest with the Estates of the Realm. But to a King whose title
rested on a resolution of the Estates of the Realm such a contest must
almost necessarily be fatal. The last hope of William would be in the
army. The army Marlborough undertook to manage; and it is highly probable
that what he undertook he could have performed. His courage, his
abilities, his noble and winning manners, the splendid success which had
attended him on every occasion on which he had been in command, had made
him, in spite of his sordid vices, a favourite with his brethren in arms.
They were proud of having one countryman who had shown that he wanted
nothing but opportunity to vie with the ablest Marshal of France. The
Dutch were even more disliked by the English troops than by the English
nation generally. Had Marlborough therefore, after securing the
cooperation of some distinguished officers, presented himself at the
critical moment to those regiments which he had led to victory in Flanders
and in Ireland, had he called on them to rally round him, to protect the
Parliament, and to drive out the aliens, there is strong reason to think
that the call would have been obeyed. He would then have had it in his
power to fulfil the promises which he had so solemnly made to his old
master.

Of all the schemes ever formed for the restoration of James or of his
descendants, this scheme promised the fairest. That national pride, that
hatred of arbitrary power, which had hitherto been on William’s side,
would now be turned against him. Hundreds of thousands who would have put
their lives in jeopardy to prevent a French army from imposing a
government on the English, would have felt no disposition to prevent an
English army from driving out the Dutch. Even the Whigs could scarcely,
without renouncing their old doctrines, support a prince who obstinately
refused to comply with the general wish of his people signified to him by
his Parliament. The plot looked well. An active canvass was made. Many
members of the House of Commons, who did not at all suspect that there was
any ulterior design, promised to vote against the foreigners. Marlborough
was indefatigable in inflaming the discontents of the army. His house was
constantly filled with officers who heated each other into fury by talking
against the Dutch. But, before the preparations were complete, a strange
suspicion rose in the minds of some of the Jacobites. That the author of
this bold and artful scheme wished to pull down the existing government
there could be little doubt. But was it quite certain what government he
meant to set up? Might he not depose William without restoring James? Was
it not possible that a man so wise, so aspiring, and so wicked, might be
meditating a double treason, such as would have been thought a masterpiece
of statecraft by the great Italian politicians of the fifteenth century,
such as Borgia would have envied, such as Machiavel would have extolled to
the skies?

What if this consummate dissembler should cheat both the rival kings? What
if, when he found himself commander of the army and protector of the
Parliament, he should proclaim Queen Anne? Was it not possible that the
weary and harassed nation might gladly acquiesce in such a settlement?
James was unpopular because he was a Papist, influenced by Popish priests.
William was unpopular because he was a foreigner, attached to foreign
favourites. Anne was at once a Protestant and an Englishwoman. Under her
government the country would be in no danger of being overrun either by
Jesuits or by Dutchmen. That Marlborough had the strongest motives for
placing her on the throne was evident. He could never, in the court of her
father, be more than a repentant criminal, whose services were overpaid by
a pardon. In her court the husband of her adored friend would be what
Pepin Heristal and Charles Martel had been to the Chilperics and
Childeberts. He would be the chief director of the civil and military
government. He would wield the whole power of England. He would hold the
balance of Europe. Great kings and commonwealths would bid against each
other for his favour, and exhaust their treasuries in the vain hope of
satiating his avarice. The presumption was, therefore, that, if he had the
English crown in his hands, he would put in on the head of the Princess.
What evidence there was to confirm this presumption is not known; but it
is certain that something took place which convinced some of the most
devoted friends of the exiled family that he was meditating a second
perfidy, surpassing even the feat which he had performed at Salisbury.
They were afraid that if, at that moment, they succeeded in getting rid of
William, the situation of James would be more hopeless than ever. So fully
were they persuaded of the duplicity of their accomplice, that they not
only refused to proceed further in the execution of the plan which he had
formed, but disclosed his whole scheme to Portland.

William seems to have been alarmed and provoked by this intelligence to a
degree very unusual with him. In general he was indulgent, nay, wilfully
blind to the baseness of the English statesmen whom he employed. He
suspected, indeed he knew, that some of his servants were in
correspondence with his competitor; and yet he did not punish them, did
not disgrace them, did not even frown on them. He thought meanly, and he
had but too good reason for thinking meanly, of the whole of that breed of
public men which the Restoration had formed and had bequeathed to the
Revolution. He knew them too well to complain because he did not find in
them veracity, fidelity, consistency, disinterestedness. The very utmost
that he expected from them was that they would serve him as far as they
could serve him without serious danger to themselves. If he learned that,
while sitting in his council and enriched by his bounty, they were trying
to make for themselves at Saint Germains an interest which might be of use
to them in the event of a counterrevolution he was more inclined to bestow
on them the contemptuous commendation which was bestowed of old on the
worldly wisdom of the unjust steward than to call them to a severe
account. But the crime of Marlborough was of a very different kind. His
treason was not that of a fainthearted man desirous to keep a retreat open
for himself in every event, but that of a man of dauntless courage,
profound policy and measureless ambition. William was not prone to fear;
but, if there was anything on earth that he feared, it was Marlborough. To
treat the criminal as he deserved was indeed impossible; for those by whom
his designs had been made known to the government would never have
consented to appear against him in the witness box. But to permit him to
retain high command in that army which he was then engaged in seducing
would have been madness.

Late in the evening of the ninth of January the Queen had a painful
explanation with the Princess Anne. Early the next morning Marlborough was
informed that their Majesties had no further occasion for his services,
and that he must not presume to appear in the royal presence. He had been
loaded with honours, and with what he loved better, riches. All was at
once taken away.

The real history of these events was known to very few. Evelyn, who had in
general excellent sources of information, believed that the corruption and
extortion of which Marlborough was notoriously guilty had roused the royal
indignation. The Dutch ministers could only tell the States General that
six different stories were spread abroad by Marlborough’s enemies. Some
said that he had indiscreetly suffered an important military secret to
escape him; some that he had spoken disrespectfully of their Majesties;
some that he had done ill offices between the Queen and the Princess; some
that he had been forming cabals in the army; some that he had carried on
an unauthorised correspondence with the Danish government about the
general politics of Europe; and some that he had been trafficking with the
agents of the Court of Saint Germains. 187 His
friends contradicted every one of these stories, and affirmed that his
only crime was his dislike of the foreigners who were lording it over his
countrymen, and that he had fallen a victim to the machinations of
Portland, whom he was known to dislike, and whom he had not very politely
described as a wooden fellow. The mystery, which from the first overhung
the story of Marlborough’s disgrace, was darkened, after the lapse of
fifty years, by the shameless mendacity of his widow. The concise
narrative of James dispels the mystery, and makes it clear, not only why
Marlborough was disgraced, but also how several of the reports about the
cause of his disgrace originated. 188

Though William assigned to the public no reason for exercising his
undoubted prerogative by dismissing his servant, Anne had been informed of
the truth; and it had been left to her to judge whether an officer who had
been guilty of a foul treason was a fit inmate of the palace. Three weeks
passed. Lady Marlborough still retained her post and her apartments at
Whitehall. Her husband still resided with her; and still the King and
Queen gave no sign of displeasure. At length the haughty and vindictive
Countess, emboldened by their patience, determined to brave them face to
face, and accompanied her mistress one evening to the drawingroom at
Kensington. This was too much even for the gentle Mary. She would indeed
have expressed her indignation before the crowd which surrounded the card
tables, had she not remembered that her sister was in a state which
entitles women to peculiar indulgence. Nothing was said that night; but on
the following day a letter from the Queen was delivered to the Princess.
Mary declared that she was unwilling to give pain to a sister whom she
loved, and in whom she could easily pass over any ordinary fault; but this
was a serious matter. Lady Marlborough must be dismissed. While she lived
at Whitehall her lord would live there. Was it proper that a man in his
situation should be suffered to make the palace of his injured master his
home? Yet so unwilling was His Majesty to deal severely with the worst
offenders, that even this had been borne, and might have been borne
longer, had not Anne brought the Countess to defy the King and Queen in
their own presence chamber. “It was unkind,” Mary wrote, “in a sister; it
would have been uncivil in an equal; and I need not say that I have more
to claim.” The Princess, in her answer, did not attempt to exculpate or
excuse Marlborough, but expressed a firm conviction that his wife was
innocent, and implored the Queen not to insist on so heartrending a
separation. “There is no misery,” Anne wrote, “that I cannot resolve to
suffer rather than the thoughts of parting from her.”

The Princess sent for her uncle Rochester, and implored him to carry her
letter to Kensington, and to be her advocate there. Rochester declined the
office of messenger, and, though he tried to restore harmony between his
kinswomen, was by no means disposed to plead the cause of the Churchills.
He had indeed long seen with extreme uneasiness the absolute dominion
exercised over his younger niece by that unprincipled pair. Anne’s
expostulation was sent to the Queen by a servant. The only reply was a
message from the Lord Chamberlain, Dorset, commanding Lady Marlborough to
leave the palace. Mrs. Morley would not be separated from Mrs. Freeman. As
to Mr. Morley, all places where he could have his three courses and his
three bottles were alike to him. The Princess and her whole family
therefore retired to Sion House, a villa belonging to the Duke of
Somerset, and situated on the margin of the Thames. In London she occupied
Berkeley House, which stood in Piccadilly, on the site now covered by
Devonshire House. 189 Her income was secured by Act
of Parliament; but no punishment which it was in the power of the Crown to
inflict on her was spared. Her guard of honour was taken away. The foreign
ministers ceased to wait upon her. When she went to Bath the Secretary of
State wrote to request the Mayor of that city not to receive her with the
ceremonial with which royal visitors were usually welcomed. When she
attended divine service at Saint James’s Church she found that the rector
had been forbidden to show her the customary marks of respect, to bow to
her from his pulpit, and to send a copy of his text to be laid on her
cushion. Even the bellman of Piccadilly, it was said, perhaps falsely, was
ordered not to chaunt her praises in his doggrel verse under the windows
of Berkeley House. 190

That Anne was in the wrong is clear; but it is not equally clear that the
King and Queen were in the right. They should have either dissembled their
displeasure, or openly declared the true reasons for it. Unfortunately,
they let every body see the punishment, and they let scarcely any body
know the provocation. They should have remembered that, in the absence of
information about the cause of a quarrel, the public is naturally inclined
to side with the weaker party, and that this inclination is likely to be
peculiarly strong when a sister is, without any apparent reason, harshly
treated by a sister. They should have remembered, too, that they were
exposing to attack what was unfortunately the one vulnerable part of
Mary’s character. A cruel fate had put enmity between her and her father.
Her detractors pronounced her utterly destitute of natural affection; and
even her eulogists, when they spoke of the way in which she had discharged
the duties of the filial relation, were forced to speak in a subdued and
apologetic tone. Nothing therefore could be more unfortunate than that she
should a second time appear unmindful of the ties of consanguinity. She
was now at open war with both the two persons who were nearest to her in
blood. Many who thought that her conduct towards her parent was justified
by the extreme danger which had threatened her country and her religion,
were unable to defend her conduct towards her sister. While Mary, who was
really guilty in this matter of nothing more than imprudence, was regarded
by the world as an oppressor, Anne, who was as culpable as her small
faculties enabled her to be, assumed the interesting character of a meek,
resigned sufferer. In those private letters, indeed, to which the name of
Morley was subscribed, the Princess expressed the sentiments of a fury in
the style of a fishwoman, railed savagely at the whole Dutch nation, and
called her brother in law sometimes the abortion, sometimes the monster,
sometimes Caliban. 191 But the nation heard nothing
of her language and saw nothing of her deportment but what was decorous
and submissive. The truth seems to have been that the rancorous and
coarseminded Countess gave the tone to Her Highness’s confidential
correspondence, while the graceful, serene and politic Earl was suffered
to prescribe the course which was to be taken before the public eye.
During a short time the Queen was generally blamed. But the charm of her
temper and manners was irresistible; and in a few months she regained the
popularity which she had lost. 192

It was a most fortunate circumstance for Marlborough that, just at the
very time when all London was talking about his disgrace, and trying to
guess at the cause of the King’s sudden anger against one who had always
seemed to be a favourite, an accusation of treason was brought by William
Fuller against many persons of high consideration, was strictly
investigated, and was proved to be false and malicious. The consequence
was that the public, which rarely discriminates nicely, could not, at that
moment, be easily brought to believe in the reality of any Jacobite
conspiracy.

That Fuller’s plot is less celebrated than the Popish plot is rather the
fault of the historians than of Fuller, who did all that man could do to
secure an eminent place among villains. Every person well read in history
must have observed that depravity has its temporary modes, which come in
and go out like modes of dress and upholstery. It may be doubted whether,
in our country, any man ever before the year 1678 invented and related on
oath a circumstantial history, altogether fictitious, of a treasonable
plot, for the purpose of making himself important by destroying men who
had given him no provocation. But in the year 1678 this execrable crime
became the fashion, and continued to be so during the twenty years which
followed. Preachers designated it as our peculiar national sin, and
prophesied that it would draw on us some awful national judgment.
Legislators proposed new punishments of terrible severity for this new
atrocity. 193 It was not however found
necessary to resort to those punishments. The fashion changed; and during
the last century and a half there has perhaps not been a single instance
of this particular kind of wickedness.

The explanation is simple. Oates was the founder of a school. His success
proved that no romance is too wild to be received with faith by
understandings which fear and hatred have disordered. His slanders were
monstrous; but they were well timed; he spoke to a people made credulous
by their passions; and thus, by impudent and cruel lying, he raised
himself in a week from beggary and obscurity to luxury, renown and power.
He had once eked out the small tithes of a miserable vicarage by stealing
the pigs and fowls of his parishioners. 194 He was
now lodged in a palace; he was followed by admiring crowds; he had at his
mercy the estates and lives of Howards and Herberts. A crowd of imitators
instantly appeared. It seemed that much more might be got, and that much
less was risked, by testifying to an imaginary conspiracy than by robbing
on the highway or clipping the coin. Accordingly the Bedloes,
Dangerfields, Dugdales, Turberviles, made haste to transfer their industry
to an employment at once more profitable and less perilous than any to
which they were accustomed. Till the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament
Popish plots were the chief manufacture. Then, during seven years, Whig
plots were the only plots which paid. After the Revolution Jacobite plots
came in; but the public had become cautious; and though the new false
witnesses were in no respect less artful than their predecessors, they
found much less encouragement. The history of the first great check given
to the practices of this abandoned race of men well deserves to be
circumstantially related.

In 1689, and in the beginning of 1690, William Fuller had rendered to the
government service such as the best governments sometimes require, and
such as none but the worst men ever perform. His useful treachery had been
rewarded by his employers, as was meet, with money and with contempt.
Their liberality enabled him to live during some months like a fine
gentleman. He called himself a Colonel, hired servants, clothed them in
gorgeous liveries, bought fine horses, lodged in Pall Mall, and showed his
brazen forehead, overtopped by a wig worth fifty guineas, in the
antechambers of the palace and in the stage box at the theatre. He even
gave himself the airs of a favourite of royalty, and, as if he thought
that William could not live without him, followed His Majesty first to
Ireland, and then to the Congress of Princes at the Hague. Fuller
afterwards boasted that, at the Hague, he appeared with a retinue fit for
an ambassador, that he gave ten guineas a week for an apartment, and that
the worst waistcoat which he condescended to wear was of silver stuff at
forty shillings a yard. Such profusion, of course, brought him to poverty.
Soon after his return to England he took refuge from the bailiffs in Axe
Yard, a place lying within the verge of Whitehall. His fortunes were
desperate; he owed great sums; on the government he had no claim; his past
services had been overpaid; no future service was to be expected from him
having appeared in the witness box as evidence for the Crown, he could no
longer be of any use as a spy on the Jacobites; and by all men of virtue
and honour, to whatever party they might belong, he was abhorred and
shunned.

Just at this time, when he was in the frame of mind in which men are open
to the worst temptations, he fell in with the worst of tempters, in truth,
with the Devil in human shape. Oates had obtained his liberty, his pardon,
and a pension which made him a much richer man than nineteen twentieths of
the members of that profession of which he was the disgrace. But he was
still unsatisfied. He complained that he had now less than three hundred a
year. In the golden days of the Plot he had been allowed three times as
much, had been sumptuously lodged in the palace, had dined on plate and
had been clothed in silk. He clamoured for an increase of his stipend.
Nay, he was even impudent enough to aspire to ecclesiastical preferment,
and thought it hard that, while so many mitres were distributed, he could
not get a deanery, a prebend, or even a living. He missed no opportunity
of urging his pretensions. He haunted the public offices and the lobbies
of the Houses of Parliament. He might be seen and heard every day,
hurrying, as fast as his uneven legs would carry him, between Charing
Cross and Westminster Hall, puffing with haste and self importance,
chattering about what he had done for the good cause, and reviling, in the
style of the boatmen on the river, all the statesmen and divines whom he
suspected of doing him ill offices at Court, and keeping him back from a
bishopric. When he found that there was no hope for him in the Established
Church, he turned to the Baptists. They, at first, received him very
coldly; but he gave such touching accounts of the wonderful work of grace
which had been wrought in his soul, and vowed so solemnly, before Jehovah
and the holy angels, to be thenceforth a burning and shining light, that
it was difficult for simple and well meaning people to think him
altogether insincere. He mourned, he said, like a turtle. On one Lord’s
day he thought he should have died of grief at being shut out from
fellowship with the saints. He was at length admitted to communion; but
before he had been a year among his new friends they discovered his true
character, and solemnly cast him out as a hypocrite. Thenceforth he became
the mortal enemy of the leading Baptists, and persecuted them with the
same treachery, the same mendacity, the same effrontery, the same black
malice which had many years before wrought the destruction of more
celebrated victims. Those who had lately been edified by his account of
his blessed experiences stood aghast to hear him crying out that he would
be revenged, that revenge was God’s own sweet morsel, that the wretches
who had excommunicated him should be ruined, that they should be forced to
fly their country, that they should be stripped to the last shilling. His
designs were at length frustrated by a righteous decree of the Court of
Chancery, a decree which would have left a deep stain on the character of
an ordinary man, but which makes no perceptible addition to the infamy of
Titus Oates. 195 Through all changes, however,
he was surrounded by a small knot of hotheaded and foulmouthed agitators,
who, abhorred and despised by every respectable Whig, yet called
themselves Whigs, and thought themselves injured because they were not
rewarded for scurrility and slander with the best places under the Crown.

In 1691, Titus, in order to be near the focal point of political intrigue
and faction, had taken a house within the precinct of Whitehall. To this
house Fuller, who lived hard by, found admission. The evil work which had
been begun in him, when he was still a child, by the memoirs of
Dangerfield, was now completed by the conversation of Oates. The Salamanca
Doctor was, as a witness, no longer formidable; but he was impelled,
partly by the savage malignity which he felt towards all whom he
considered as his enemies, and partly by mere monkeylike restlessness and
love of mischief, to do, through the instrumentality of others, what he
could no longer do in person. In Fuller he had found the corrupt heart,
the ready tongue and the unabashed front which are the first
qualifications for the office of a false accuser. A friendship, if that
word may be so used, sprang up between the pair. Oates opened his house
and even his purse to Fuller. The veteran sinner, both directly and
through the agency of his dependents, intimated to the novice that nothing
made a man so important as the discovering of a plot, and that these were
times when a young fellow who would stick at nothing and fear nobody might
do wonders. The Revolution,—such was the language constantly held by
Titus and his parasites,—had produced little good. The brisk boys of
Shaftesbury had not been recompensed according to their merits. Even the
Doctor, such was the ingratitude of men, was looked on coldly at the new
Court. Tory rogues sate at the council board, and were admitted to the
royal closet. It would be a noble feat to bring their necks to the block.
Above all, it would be delightful to see Nottingham’s long solemn face on
Tower Hill. For the hatred with which these bad men regarded Nottingham
had no bounds, and was probably excited less by his political opinions, in
which there was doubtless much to condemn, than by his moral character, in
which the closest scrutiny will detect little that is not deserving of
approbation. Oates, with the authority which experience and success
entitle a preceptor to assume, read his pupil a lecture on the art of
bearing false witness. “You ought,” he said, with many oaths and curses,
“to have made more, much more, out of what you heard and saw at Saint
Germains. Never was there a finer foundation for a plot. But you are a
fool; you are a coxcomb; I could beat you; I would not have done so. I
used to go to Charles and tell him his own. I called Lauderdale rogue to
his face. I made King, Ministers, Lords, Commons, afraid of me. But you
young men have no spirit.” Fuller was greatly edified by these
exhortations. It was, however, hinted to him by some of his associates
that, if he meant to take up the trade of swearing away lives, he would do
well not to show himself so often at coffeehouses in the company of Titus.
“The Doctor,” said one of the gang, “is an excellent person, and has done
great things in his time; but many people are prejudiced against him; and,
if you are really going to discover a plot, the less you are seen with him
the better.” Fuller accordingly ceased to frequent Oates’s house, but
still continued to receive his great master’s instructions in private.

To do Fuller justice, he seems not to have taken up the trade of a false
witness till he could no longer support himself by begging or swindling.
He lived for a time on the charity of the Queen. He then levied
contributions by pretending to be one of the noble family of Sidney. He
wheedled Tillotson out of some money, and requited the good Archbishop’s
kindness by passing himself off as His Grace’s favourite nephew. But in
the autumn of 1691 all these shifts were exhausted. After lying in several
spunging houses, Fuller was at length lodged in the King’s Bench prison,
and he now thought it time to announce that he had discovered a plot. 196

He addressed himself first to Tillotson and Portland; but both Tillotson
and Portland soon perceived that he was lying. What he said was, however,
reported to the King, who, as might have been expected, treated the
information and the informant with cold contempt. All that remained was to
try whether a flame could be raised in the Parliament.

Soon after the Houses met, Fuller petitioned the Commons to hear what he
had to say, and promised to make wonderful disclosures. He was brought
from his prison to the bar of the House; and he there repeated a long
romance. James, he said, had delegated the regal authority to six
commissioners, of whom Halifax was first. More than fifty lords and
gentlemen had signed an address to the French King, imploring him to make
a great effort for the restoration of the House of Stuart. Fuller declared
that he had seen this address, and recounted many of the names appended to
it. Some members made severe remarks on the improbability of the story and
on the character of the witness. He was, they said, one of the greatest
rogues on the face of the earth; and he told such things as could scarcely
be credited if he were an angel from heaven. Fuller audaciously pledged
himself to bring proofs which would satisfy the most incredulous. He was,
he averred, in communication with some agents of James. Those persons were
ready to make reparation to their country. Their testimony would be
decisive; for they were in possession of documentary evidence which would
confound the guilty. They held back only because they saw some of the
traitors high in office and near the royal person, and were afraid of
incurring the enmity of men so powerful and so wicked. Fuller ended by
asking for a sum of money, and by assuring the Commons that he would lay
it out to good account. 197 Had his impudent request been
granted, he would probably have paid his debts, obtained his liberty, and
absconded; but the House very wisely insisted on seeing his witnesses
first. He then began to shuffle. The gentlemen were on the Continent, and
could not come over without passports. Passports were delivered to him;
but he complained that they were insufficient. At length the Commons,
fully determined to get at the truth, presented an address requesting the
King to send Fuller a blank safe conduct in the largest terms. 198
The safe conduct was sent. Six weeks passed, and nothing was heard of the
witnesses. The friends of the lords and gentlemen who had been accused
represented strongly that the House ought not to separate for the summer
without coming to some decision on charges so grave. Fuller was ordered to
attend. He pleaded sickness, and asserted, not for the first time, that
the Jacobites had poisoned him. But all his plans were confounded by the
laudable promptitude and vigour with which the Commons acted. A Committee
was sent to his bedside, with orders to ascertain whether he really had
any witnesses, and where those witnesses resided. The members who were
deputed for this purpose went to the King’s Bench prison, and found him
suffering under a disorder, produced, in all probability, by some emetic
which he had swallowed for the purpose of deceiving them. In answer to
their questions he said that two of his witnesses, Delaval and Hayes, were
in England, and were lodged at the house of a Roman Catholic apothecary in
Holborn. The Commons, as soon as the Committee had reported, sent some
members to the house which he had indicated. That house and all the
neighbouring houses were searched. Delaval and Hayes were not to be found,
nor had any body in the vicinity ever seen such men or heard of them. The
House, therefore, on the last day of the session, just before Black Rod
knocked at the door, unanimously resolved that William Fuller was a cheat
and a false accuser; that he had insulted the Government and the
Parliament; that he had calumniated honourable men, and that an address
should be carried up to the throne, requesting that he might be prosecuted
for his villany. 199 He was consequently tried,
convicted, and sentenced to fine, imprisonment and the pillory. The
exposure, more terrible than death to a mind not lost to all sense of
shame, he underwent with a hardihood worthy of his two favourite models,
Dangerfield and Oates. He had the impudence to persist, year after year,
in affirming that he had fallen a victim to the machinations of the late
King, who had spent six thousand pounds in order to ruin him. Delaval and
Hayes—so this fable ran—had been instructed by James in
person. They had, in obedience to his orders, induced Fuller to pledge his
word for their appearance, and had then absented themselves, and left him
exposed to the resentment of the House of Commons. 200 The
story had the reception which it deserved, and Fuller sank into an
obscurity from which he twice or thrice, at long intervals, again emerged
for a moment into infamy.

On the twenty-fourth of February 1692, about an hour after the Commons had
voted Fuller an impostor, they were summoned to the chamber of the Lords.
The King thanked the Houses for their loyalty and liberality, informed
them that he must soon set out for the Continent, and commanded them to
adjourn themselves. He gave his assent on that day to many bills, public
and private; but when the title of one bill, which had passed the Lower
House without a single division and the Upper House without a single
protest, had been read by the Clerk of the Crown, the Clerk of the
Parliaments declared, according to the ancient form, that the King and the
Queen would consider of the matter. Those words had very rarely been
pronounced before the accession of William. They have been pronounced only
once since his death. But by him the power of putting a Veto on laws which
had been passed by the Estates of the Realm was used on several important
occasions. His detractors truly asserted that he rejected a greater number
of important bills than all the Kings of the House of Stuart put together,
and most absurdly inferred that the sense of the Estates of the Realm was
much less respected by him than by his uncles and his grandfather. A
judicious student of history will have no difficulty in discovering why
William repeatedly exercised a prerogative to which his predecessors very
seldom had recourse, and which his successors have suffered to fall into
utter desuetude.

His predecessors passed laws easily because they broke laws easily.
Charles the First gave his assent to the Petition of Right, and
immediately violated every clause of that great statute. Charles the
Second gave his assent to an Act which provided that a Parliament should
be held at least once in three years; but when he died the country had
been near four years without a Parliament. The laws which abolished the
Court of High Commission, the laws which instituted the Sacramental Test,
were passed without the smallest difficulty; but they did not prevent
James the Second from reestablishing the Court of High Commission, and
from filling the Privy Council, the public offices, the courts of justice,
and the municipal corporations with persons who had never taken the Test.
Nothing could be more natural than that a King should not think it worth
while to withhold his assent from a statute with which he could dispense
whenever he thought fit.

The situation of William was very different. He could not, like those who
had ruled before him, pass an Act in the spring and violate it in the
summer. He had, by assenting to the Bill of Rights, solemnly renounced the
dispensing power; and he was restrained, by prudence as well as by
conscience and honour, from breaking the compact under which he held his
crown. A law might be personally offensive to him; it might appear to him
to be pernicious to his people; but, as soon as he had passed it, it was,
in his eyes, a sacred thing. He had therefore a motive, which preceding
Kings had not, for pausing before he passed such a law. They gave their
word readily, because they had no scruple about breaking it. He gave his
word slowly, because he never failed to keep it.

But his situation, though it differed widely from that of the princes of
the House of Stuart, was not precisely that of the princes of the House of
Brunswick. A prince of the House of Brunswick is guided, as to the use of
every royal prerogative, by the advice of a responsible ministry; and this
ministry must be taken from the party which predominates in the two
Houses, or, at least, in the Lower House. It is hardly possible to
conceive circumstances in which a Sovereign so situated can refuse to
assent to a bill which has been approved by both branches of the
legislature. Such a refusal would necessarily imply one of two things,
that the Sovereign acted in opposition to the advice of the ministry, or
that the ministry was at issue, on a question of vital importance, with a
majority both of the Commons and of the Lords. On either supposition the
country would be in a most critical state, in a state which, if long
continued, must end in a revolution. But in the earlier part of the reign
of William there was no ministry. The heads of the executive departments
had not been appointed exclusively from either party. Some were zealous
Whigs, others zealous Tories. The most enlightened statesmen did not hold
it to be unconstitutional that the King should exercise his highest
prerogatives on the most important occasions without any other guidance
than that of his own judgment. His refusal, therefore, to assent to a bill
which had passed both Houses indicated, not, as a similar refusal would
now indicate, that the whole machinery of government was in a state of
fearful disorder, but merely that there was a difference of opinion
between him and the two other branches of the legislature as to the
expediency of a particular law. Such a difference of opinion might exist,
and, as we shall hereafter see, actually did exist, at a time when he was,
not merely on friendly, but on most affectionate terms with the Estates of
the Realm.

The circumstances under which he used his Veto for the first time have
never yet been correctly stated. A well meant but unskilful attempt had
been made to complete a reform which the Bill of Rights had left
imperfect. That great law had deprived the Crown of the power of
arbitrarily removing the judges, but had not made them entirely
independent. They were remunerated partly by fees and partly by salaries.
Over the fees the King had no control; but the salaries he had full power
to reduce or to withhold. That William had ever abused this power was not
pretended; but it was undoubtedly a power which no prince ought to
possess; and this was the sense of both Houses. A bill was therefore
brought in by which a salary of a thousand a year was strictly secured to
each of the twelve judges. Thus far all was well. But unfortunately the
salaries were made a charge on the hereditary revenue. No such proposition
would now be entertained by the House of Commons, without the royal
consent previously signified by a Privy Councillor. But this wholesome
rule had not then been established; and William could defend the
proprietary rights of the Crown only by putting his negative on the bill.
At the time there was, as far as can now be ascertained, no outcry. Even
the Jacobite libellers were almost silent. It was not till the provisions
of the bill had been forgotten, and till nothing but its title was
remembered, that William was accused of having been influenced by a wish
to keep the judges in a state of dependence. 201

The Houses broke up; and the King prepared to set out for the Continent.
Before his departure he made some changes in his household and in several
departments of the government; changes, however, which did not indicate a
very decided preference for either of the great political parties.
Rochester was sworn of the Council. It is probable that he had earned this
mark of royal favour by taking the Queen’s side in the unhappy dispute
between her and her sister. Pembroke took charge of the Privy Seal, and
was succeeded at the Board of Admiralty by Charles Lord Cornwallis, a
moderate Tory; Lowther accepted a seat at the same board, and was
succeeded at the Treasury by Sir Edward Seymour. Many Tory country
gentlemen, who had looked on Seymour as their leader in the war against
placemen and Dutchmen, were moved to indignation by learning that he had
become a courtier. They remembered that he had voted for a Regency, that
he had taken the oaths with no good grace, that he had spoken with little
respect of the Sovereign whom he was now ready to serve for the sake of
emoluments hardly worthy of the acceptance of a man of his wealth and
parliamentary interest. It was strange that the haughtiest of human beings
should be the meanest, that one who seethed to reverence nothing on earth
but himself should abase himself for the sake of quarter day. About such
reflections he troubled himself very little. He found, however, that there
was one disagreeable circumstance connected with his new office. At the
Board of Treasury he must sit below the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The
First Lord, Godolphin, was a peer of the realm; and his right to
precedence, according to the rules of the heralds, could not be
questioned. But every body knew who was the first of English commoners.
What was Richard Hampden that he should take the place of a Seymour, of
the head of the Seymours? With much difficulty, the dispute was
compromised. Many concessions were made to Sir Edward’s punctilious pride.
He was sworn of the Council. He was appointed one of the Cabinet. The King
took him by the hand and presented him to the Queen. “I bring you,” said
William, “a gentleman who will in my absence be a valuable friend.” In
this way Sir Edward was so much soothed and flattered that he ceased to
insist on his right to thrust himself between the First Lord and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In the same Commission of Treasury in which the name of Seymour appeared,
appeared also the name of a much younger politician, who had during the
late session raised himself to high distinction in the House of Commons,
Charles Montague. This appointment gave great satisfaction to the Whigs,
in whose esteem Montague now stood higher than their veteran chiefs
Sacheverell and Littleton, and was indeed second to Somers alone.

Sidney delivered up the seals which he had held during more than a year,
and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Some months elapsed before
the place which he had quitted was filled up; and during this interval the
whole business which had ordinarily been divided between two Secretaries
of State was transacted by Nottingham. 202

While these arrangements were in progress, events had taken place in a
distant part of the island which were not, till after the lapse of many
months, known in the best informed circles of London, but which gradually
obtained a fearful notoriety, and which, after the lapse of more than a
hundred and sixty years, are never mentioned without horror.

Soon after the Estates of Scotland had separated in the autumn of 1690, a
change was made in the administration of that kingdom. William was not
satisfied with the way in which he had been represented in the Parliament
House. He thought that the rabbled curates had been hardly treated. He had
very reluctantly suffered the law which abolished patronage to be touched
with his sceptre. But what especially displeased him was that the Acts
which established a new ecclesiastical polity had not been accompanied by
an Act granting liberty of conscience to those who were attached to the
old ecclesiastical polity. He had directed his Commissioner Melville to
obtain for the Episcopalians of Scotland an indulgence similar to that
which Dissenters enjoyed in England. 203 But the
Presbyterian preachers were loud and vehement against lenity to
Amalekites. Melville, with useful talents, and perhaps with fair
intentions, had neither large views nor an intrepid spirit. He shrank from
uttering a word so hateful to the theological demagogues of his country as
Toleration. By obsequiously humouring their prejudices he quelled the
clamour which was rising at Edinburgh; but the effect of his timid caution
was that a far more formidable clamour soon rose in the south of the
island against the bigotry of the schismatics who domineered in the north,
and against the pusillanimity of the government which had not dared to
withstand that bigotry. On this subject the High Churchman and the Low
Churchman were of one mind, or rather the Low Churchman was the more angry
of the two. A man like South, who had during many years been predicting
that, if ever the Puritans ceased to be oppressed, they would become
oppressors, was at heart not ill pleased to see his prophecy fulfilled.
But in a man like Burnet, the great object of whose life had been to
mitigate the animosity which the ministers of the Anglican Church felt
towards the Presbyterians, the intolerant conduct of the Presbyterians
could awaken no feeling but indignation, shame and grief. There was,
therefore, at the English Court nobody to speak a good word for Melville.
It was impossible that in such circumstances he should remain at the head
of the Scottish administration. He was, however, gently let down from his
high position. He continued during more than a year to be Secretary of
State; but another Secretary was appointed, who was to reside near the
King, and to have the chief direction of affairs. The new Prime Minister
for Scotland was the able, eloquent and accomplished Sir John Dalrymple.
His father, the Lord President of the Court of Session, had lately been
raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Stair; and Sir John
Dalrymple was consequently, according to the ancient usage of Scotland,
designated as the Master of Stair. In a few months Melville resigned his
secretaryship, and accepted an office of some dignity and emolument, but
of no political importance. 204

The Lowlands of Scotland were, during the year which followed the
parliamentary session of 1690, as quiet as they had ever been within the
memory of man; but the state of the Highlands caused much anxiety to the
government. The civil war in that wild region, after it had ceased to
flame, had continued during some time to smoulder. At length, early in the
year 1691, the rebel chiefs informed the Court of Saint Germains that,
pressed as they were on every side, they could hold out no longer without
succour from France. James had sent them a small quantity of meal, brandy
and tobacco, and had frankly told them that he could do nothing more.
Money was so scarce among them that six hundred pounds sterling would have
been a most acceptable addition to their funds, but even such a sum he was
unable to spare. He could scarcely, in such circumstances, expect them to
defend his cause against a government which had a regular army and a large
revenue. He therefore informed them that he should not take it ill of them
if they made their peace with the new dynasty, provided always that they
were prepared to rise in insurrection as soon as he should call on them to
do so. 205

Meanwhile it had been determined at Kensington, in spite of the opposition
of the Master of Stair, to try the plan which Tarbet had recommended two
years before, and which, if it had been tried when he recommended it,
would probably have prevented much bloodshed and confusion. It was
resolved that twelve or fifteen thousand pounds should be laid out in
quieting the Highlands. This was a mass of treasure which to an inhabitant
of Appin or Lochaber seemed almost fabulous, and which indeed bore a
greater proportion to the income of Keppoch or Glengarry than fifteen
hundred thousand pounds bore to the income of Lord Bedford or Lord
Devonshire. The sum was ample; but the King was not fortunate in the
choice of an agent. 206

John Earl of Breadalbane, the head of a younger branch of the great House
of Campbell, ranked high among the petty princes of the mountains. He
could bring seventeen hundred claymores into the field; and, ten years
before the Revolution, he had actually marched into the Lowlands with this
great force for the purpose of supporting the prelatical tyranny. 207
In those days he had affected zeal for monarchy and episcopacy; but in
truth he cared for no government and no religion. He seems to have united
two different sets of vices, the growth of two different regions, and of
two different stages in the progress of society. In his castle among the
hills he had learned the barbarian pride and ferocity of a Highland chief.
In the Council Chamber at Edinburgh he had contracted the deep taint of
treachery and corruption. After the Revolution he had, like too many of
his fellow nobles, joined and betrayed every party in turn, had sworn
fealty to William and Mary, and had plotted against them. To trace all the
turns and doublings of his course, during the year 1689 and the earlier
part of 1690, would be wearisome. 208 That
course became somewhat less tortuous when the battle of the Boyne had
cowed the spirit of the Jacobites. It now seemed probable that the Earl
would be a loyal subject of their Majesties, till some great disaster
should befall them. Nobody who knew him could trust him; but few Scottish
statesmen could then be trusted; and yet Scottish statesmen must be
employed. His position and connections marked him out as a man who might,
if he would, do much towards the work of quieting the Highlands; and his
interest seemed to be a guarantee for his zeal. He had, as he declared
with every appearance of truth, strong personal reasons for wishing to see
tranquillity restored. His domains were so situated that, while the civil
war lasted, his vassals could not tend their herds or sow their oats in
peace. His lands were daily ravaged; his cattle were daily driven away;
one of his houses had been burned down. It was probable, therefore, that
he would do his best to put an end to hostilities. 209

He was accordingly commissioned to treat with the Jacobite chiefs, and was
entrusted with the money which was to be distributed among them. He
invited them to a conference at his residence in Glenorchy. They came; but
the treaty went on very slowly. Every head of a tribe asked for a larger
share of the English gold than was to be obtained. Breadalbane was
suspected of intending to cheat both the clans and the King. The dispute
between the rebels and the government was complicated with another dispute
still more embarrassing. The Camerons and Macdonalds were really at war,
not with William, but with Mac Callum More; and no arrangement to which
Mac Callum More was not a party could really produce tranquillity. A grave
question therefore arose, whether the money entrusted to Breadalbane
should be paid directly to the discontented chiefs, or should be employed
to satisfy the claims which Argyle had upon them. The shrewdness of
Lochiel and the arrogant pretensions of Glengarry contributed to protract
the discussions. But no Celtic potentate was so impracticable as Macdonald
of Glencoe, known among the mountains by the hereditary appellation of Mac
Ian. 210

Mac Ian dwelt in the mouth of a ravine situated not far from the southern
shore of Lochleven, an arm of the sea which deeply indents the western
coast of Scotland, and separates Argyleshire from Invernesshire. Near his
house were two or three small hamlets inhabited by his tribe. The whole
population which he governed was not supposed to exceed two hundred souls.
In the neighbourhood of the little cluster of villages was some copsewood
and some pasture land; but a little further up the defile no sign of
population or of fruitfulness was to be seen. In the Gaelic tongue Glencoe
signifies the Glen of Weeping; and in truth that pass is the most dreary
and melancholy of all the Scottish passes, the very Valley of the Shadow
of Death. Mists and storms brood over it through the greater part of the
finest summer; and even on those rare days when the sun is bright, and
when there is no cloud in the sky, the impression made by the landscape is
sad and awful. The path lies along a stream which issues from the most
sullen and gloomy of mountain pools. Huge precipices of naked stone frown
on both sides. Even in July the streaks of snow may often be discerned in
the rifts near the summits. All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin
mark the headlong paths of the torrents. Mile after mile the traveller
looks in vain for the smoke of one hut, for one human form wrapped in
plaid, and listens in vain for the bark of a shepherd’s dog or the bleat
of a lamb. Mile after mile the only sound that indicates life is the faint
cry of a bird of prey from some stormbeaten pinnacle of rock. The progress
of civilisation, which has turned so many wastes into fields yellow with
harvests or gay with apple blossoms, has only made Glencoe more desolate.
All the science and industry of a peaceful age can extract nothing
valuable from that wilderness; but, in an age of violence and rapine, the
wilderness itself was valued on account of the shelter which it afforded
to the plunderer and his plunder. Nothing could be more natural than that
the clan to which this rugged desert belonged should have been noted for
predatory habits. For, among the Highlanders generally, to rob was thought
at least as honourable an employment as to cultivate the soil; and, of all
the Highlanders, The Macdonalds of Glencoe had the least productive soil,
and the most convenient and secure den of robbers. Successive governments
had tried to punish this wild race; but no large force had ever been
employed for that purpose; and a small force was easily resisted or eluded
by men familiar with every recess and every outlet of the natural fortress
in which they had been born and bred. The people of Glencoe would probably
have been less troublesome neighbours if they had lived among their own
kindred. But they were an outpost of the Clan Donald, separated from every
other branch of their own family, and almost surrounded by the domains of
the hostile race of Diarmid. 211 They were impelled by
hereditary enmity, as well as by want, to live at the expense of the tribe
of Campbell. Breadalbane’s property had suffered greatly from their
depredations; and he was not of a temper to forgive such injuries. When,
therefore, the Chief of Glencoe made his appearance at the congress in
Glenorchy, he was ungraciously received. The Earl, who ordinarily bore
himself with the solemn dignity of a Castilian grandee, forgot, in his
resentment, his wonted gravity, forgot his public character, forgot the
laws of hospitality, and, with angry reproaches and menaces, demanded
reparation for the herds which had been driven from his lands by Mac Ian’s
followers. Mac Ian was seriously apprehensive of some personal outrage,
and was glad to get safe back to his own glen. 212 His
pride had been wounded; and the promptings of interest concurred with
those of pride. As the head of a people who lived by pillage, he had
strong reasons for wishing that the country might continue to be in a
perturbed state. He had little chance of receiving one guinea of the money
which was to be distributed among the malecontents. For his share of that
money would scarcely meet Breadalbane’s demands for compensation; and
there could be little doubt that, whoever might be unpaid, Breadalbane
would take care to pay himself. Mac Ian therefore did his best to dissuade
his allies from accepting terms from which he could himself expect no
benefit; and his influence was not small. His own vassals, indeed, were
few in number; but he came of the best blood of the Highlands; he had kept
up a close connection with his more powerful kinsmen; nor did they like
him the less because he was a robber; for he never robbed them; and that
robbery, merely as robbery, was a wicked and disgraceful act, had never
entered into the mind of any Celtic chief. Mac Ian was therefore held in
high esteem by the confederates. His age was venerable; his aspect was
majestic; and he possessed in large measure those intellectual qualities
which, in rude societies, give men an ascendency over their fellows.
Breadalbane found himself, at every step of the negotiation, thwarted by
the arts of his old enemy, and abhorred the name of Glencoe more and more
every day. 213

But the government did not trust solely to Breadalbane’s diplomatic skill.
The authorities at Edinburgh put forth a proclamation exhorting the clans
to submit to King William and Queen Mary, and offering pardon to every
rebel who, on or before the thirty-first of December 1691, should swear to
live peaceably under the government of their Majesties. It was announced
that those who should hold out after that day would be treated as enemies
and traitors. 214 Warlike preparations were
made, which showed that the threat was meant in earnest. The Highlanders
were alarmed, and, though the pecuniary terms had not been satisfactorily
settled, thought it prudent to give the pledge which was demanded of them.
No chief, indeed, was willing to set the example of submission. Glengarry
blustered, and pretended to fortify his house. 215 “I will
not,” said Lochiel, “break the ice. That is a point of honour with me. But
my tacksmen and people may use their freedom.” 216 His
tacksmen and people understood him, and repaired by hundreds to the
Sheriff to take the oaths. The Macdonalds of Sleat, Clanronald, Keppoch,
and even Glengarry, imitated the Camerons; and the chiefs, after trying to
outstay each other as long as they durst, imitated their vassals.

The thirty-first of December arrived; and still the Macdonalds of Glencoe
had not come in. The punctilious pride of Mac Ian was doubtless gratified
by the thought that he had continued to defy the government after the
boastful Glengarry, the ferocious Keppoch, the magnanimous Lochiel had
yielded: but he bought his gratification dear.

At length, on the thirty-first of December, he repaired to Fort William,
accompanied by his principal vassals, and offered to take the oaths. To
his dismay he found that there was in the fort no person competent to
administer them. Colonel Hill, the Governor, was not a magistrate; nor was
there any magistrate nearer than Inverary. Mac Ian, now fully sensible of
the folly of which he had been guilty in postponing to the very last
moment an act on which his life and his estate depended, set off for
Inverary in great distress. He carried with him a letter from Hill to the
Sheriff of Argyleshire, Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglass, a respectable
gentleman, who, in the late reign, had suffered severely for his Whig
principles. In this letter the Colonel expressed a goodnatured hope that,
even out of season, a lost sheep, and so fine a lost sheep, would be
gladly received. Mac Ian made all the haste in his power, and did not stop
even at his own house, though it lay nigh to the road. But at that time a
journey through Argyleshire in the depth of winter was necessarily slow.
The old man’s progress up steep mountains and along boggy valleys was
obstructed by snow storms; and it was not till the sixth of January that
he presented himself before the Sheriff at Inverary. The Sheriff
hesitated. His power, he said, was limited by the terms of the
proclamation, and he did not see how he could swear a rebel who had not
submitted within the prescribed time. Mac Ian begged earnestly and with
tears that he might be sworn. His people, he said, would follow his
example. If any of them proved refractory, he would himself send the
recusant to prison, or ship him off for Islanders. His entreaties and
Hill’s letter overcame Sir Colin’s scruples. The oath was administered;
and a certificate was transmitted to the Council at Edinburgh, setting
forth the special circumstances which had induced the Sheriff to do what
he knew not to be strictly regular. 217

The news that Mac Ian had not submitted within the prescribed time was
received with cruel joy by three powerful Scotchmen who were then at the
English Court. Breadalbane had gone up to London at Christmas in order to
give an account of his stewardship. There he met his kinsman Argyle.
Argyle was, in personal qualities, one of the most insignificant of the
long line of nobles who have borne that great name. He was the descendant
of eminent men, and the parent of eminent men. He was the grandson of one
of the ablest of Scottish politicians; the son of one of the bravest and
most truehearted of Scottish patriots; the father of one Mac Callum More
renowned as a warrior and as an orator, as the model of every courtly
grace, and as the judicious patron of arts and letters, and of another Mac
Callum More distinguished by talents for business and command, and by
skill in the exact sciences. Both of such an ancestry and of such a
progeny Argyle was unworthy. He had even been guilty of the crime, common
enough among Scottish politicians, but in him singularly disgraceful, of
tampering with the agents of James while professing loyalty to William.
Still Argyle had the importance inseparable from high rank, vast domains,
extensive feudal rights, and almost boundless patriarchal authority. To
him, as to his cousin Breadalbane, the intelligence that the tribe of
Glencoe was out of the protection of the law was most gratifying; and the
Master of Stair more than sympathized with them both.

The feeling of Argyle and Breadalbane is perfectly intelligible. They were
the heads of a great clan; and they had an opportunity of destroying a
neighbouring clan with which they were at deadly feud. Breadalbane had
received peculiar provocation. His estate had been repeatedly devastated;
and he had just been thwarted in a negotiation of high moment. Unhappily
there was scarcely any excess of ferocity for which a precedent could not
be found in Celtic tradition. Among all warlike barbarians revenge is
esteemed the most sacred of duties and the most exquisite of pleasures;
and so it had long been esteemed among the Highlanders. The history of the
clans abounds with frightful tales, some perhaps fabulous or exaggerated,
some certainly true, of vindictive massacres and assassinations. The
Macdonalds of Glengarry, for example, having been affronted by the people
of Culloden, surrounded Culloden church on a Sunday, shut the doors, and
burned the whole congregation alive. While the flames were raging, the
hereditary musician of the murderers mocked the shrieks of the perishing
crowd with the notes of his bagpipe. 218 A band
of Macgregors, having cut off the head of an enemy, laid it, the mouth
filled with bread and cheese, on his sister’s table, and had the
satisfaction of seeing her go mad with horror at the sight. They then
carried the ghastly trophy in triumph to their chief. The whole clan met
under the roof of an ancient church. Every one in turn laid his hand on
the dead man’s scalp, and vowed to defend the slayers. 219
The inhabitants of Eigg seized some Macleods, bound them hand and foot,
and turned them adrift in a boat to be swallowed up by the waves or to
perish of hunger. The Macleods retaliated by driving the population of
Eigg into a cavern, lighting a fire at the entrance, and suffocating the
whole race, men, women and children. 220 It is
much less strange that the two great Earls of the house of Campbell,
animated by the passions of Highland chieftains, should have planned a
Highland revenge, than that they should have found an accomplice, and
something more than an accomplice, in the Master of Stair.

The Master of Stair was one of the first men of his time, a jurist, a
statesman, a fine scholar, an eloquent orator. His polished manners and
lively conversation were the delight of aristocratical societies; and none
who met him in such societies would have thought it possible that he could
bear the chief part in any atrocious crime. His political principles were
lax, yet not more lax than those of most Scotch politicians of that age.
Cruelty had never been imputed to him. Those who most disliked him did him
the justice to own that, where his schemes of policy were not concerned,
he was a very goodnatured man. 221 There
is not the slightest reason to believe that he gained a single pound Scots
by the act which has covered his name with infamy. He had no personal
reason to wish the Glencoe men ill. There had been no feud between them
and his family. His property lay in a district where their tartan was
never seen. Yet he hated them with a hatred as fierce and implacable as if
they had laid waste his fields, burned his mansion, murdered his child in
the cradle.

To what cause are we to ascribe so strange an antipathy? This question
perplexed the Master’s contemporaries; and any answer which may now be
offered ought to be offered with diffidence. 222 The
most probable conjecture is that he was actuated by an inordinate, an
unscrupulous, a remorseless zeal for what seemed to him to be the interest
of the state. This explanation may startle those who have not considered
how large a proportion of the blackest crimes recorded in history is to be
ascribed to ill regulated public spirit. We daily see men do for their
party, for their sect, for their country, for their favourite schemes of
political and social reform, what they would not do to enrich or to avenge
themselves. At a temptation directly addressed to our private cupidity or
to our private animosity, whatever virtue we have takes the alarm. But,
virtue itself may contribute to the fall of him who imagines that it is in
his power, by violating some general rule of morality, to confer an
important benefit on a church, on a commonwealth, on mankind. He silences
the remonstrances of conscience, and hardens his heart against the most
touching spectacles of misery, by repeating to himself that his intentions
are pure, that his objects are noble, that he is doing a little evil for
the sake of a great good. By degrees he comes altogether to forget the
turpitude of the means in the excellence of the end, and at length
perpetrates without one internal twinge acts which would shock a
buccaneer. There is no reason to believe that Dominic would, for the best
archbishopric in christendom, have incited ferocious marauders to plunder
and slaughter a peaceful and industrious population, that Everard Digby
would for a dukedom have blown a large assembly of people into the air, or
that Robespierre would have murdered for hire one of the thousands whom he
murdered from philanthropy.

The Master of Stair seems to have proposed to himself a truly great and
good end, the pacification and civilisation of the Highlands. He was, by
the acknowledgment of those who most hated him, a man of large views. He
justly thought it monstrous that a third part of Scotland should be in a
state scarcely less savage than New Guinea, that letters of fire and sword
should, through a third part of Scotland, be, century after century, a
species of legal process, and that no attempt should be made to apply a
radical remedy to such evils. The independence affected by a crowd of
petty sovereigns, the contumacious resistance which they were in the habit
of offering to the authority of the Crown and of the Court of Session,
their wars, their robberies, their fireraisings, their practice of
exacting black mail from people more peaceable and more useful than
themselves, naturally excited the disgust and indignation of an
enlightened and politic gownsman, who was, both by the constitution of his
mind and by the habits of his profession, a lover of law and order. His
object was no less than a complete dissolution and reconstruction of
society in the Highlands, such a dissolution and reconstruction as, two
generations later, followed the battle of Culloden. In his view the clans,
as they existed, were the plagues of the kingdom; and of all the clans,
the worst was that which inhabited Glencoe. He had, it is said, been
particularly struck by a frightful instance of the lawlessness and
ferocity of those marauders. One of them, who had been concerned in some
act of violence or rapine, had given information against his companions.
He had been bound to a tree and murdered. The old chief had given the
first stab; and scores of dirks had then been plunged into the wretch’s
body. 223
By the mountaineers such an act was probably regarded as a legitimate
exercise of patriarchal jurisdiction. To the Master of Stair it seemed
that people among whom such things were done and were approved ought to be
treated like a pack of wolves, snared by any device, and slaughtered
without mercy. He was well read in history, and doubtless knew how great
rulers had, in his own and other countries, dealt with such banditti. He
doubtless knew with what energy and what severity James the Fifth had put
down the mosstroopers of the border, how the chief of Henderland had been
hung over the gate of the castle in which he had prepared a banquet for
the King; how John Armstrong and his thirty-six horsemen, when they came
forth to welcome their sovereign, had scarcely been allowed time to say a
single prayer before they were all tied up and turned off. Nor probably
was the Secretary ignorant of the means by which Sixtus the Fifth had
cleared the ecclesiastical state of outlaws. The eulogists of that great
pontiff tell us that there was one formidable gang which could not be
dislodged from a stronghold among the Apennines. Beasts of burden were
therefore loaded with poisoned food and wine, and sent by a road which ran
close to the fastness. The robbers sallied forth, seized the prey, feasted
and died; and the pious old Pope exulted greatly when he heard that the
corpses of thirty ruffians, who had been the terror of many peaceful
villages, had been found lying among the mules and packages. The plans of
the Master of Stair were conceived in the spirit of James and of Sixtus;
and the rebellion of the mountaineers furnished what seemed to be an
excellent opportunity for carrying those plans into effect. Mere
rebellion, indeed, he could have easily pardoned. On Jacobites, as
Jacobites, he never showed any inclination to bear hard. He hated the
Highlanders, not as enemies of this or that dynasty, but as enemies of
law, of industry and of trade. In his private correspondence he applied to
them the short and terrible form of words in which the implacable Roman
pronounced the doom of Carthage. His project was no less than this, that
the whole hill country from sea to sea, and the neighbouring islands,
should be wasted with fire and sword, that the Camerons, the Macleans, and
all the branches of the race of Macdonald, should be rooted out. He
therefore looked with no friendly eye on schemes of reconciliation, and,
while others were hoping that a little money would set everything right,
hinted very intelligibly his opinion that whatever money was to be laid
out on the clans would be best laid out in the form of bullets and
bayonets. To the last moment he continued to flatter himself that the
rebels would be obstinate, and would thus furnish him with a plea for
accomplishing that great social revolution on which his heart was set. 224
The letter is still extant in which he directed the commander of the
forces in Scotland how to act if the Jacobite chiefs should not come in
before the end of December. There is something strangely terrible in the
calmness and conciseness with which the instructions are given. “Your
troops will destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Lochiel’s lands,
Keppoch’s, Glengarry’s and Glencoe’s. Your power shall be large enough. I
hope the soldiers will not trouble the government with prisoners.” 225

This despatch had scarcely been sent off when news arrived in London that
the rebel chiefs, after holding out long, had at last appeared before the
Sheriffs and taken the oaths. Lochiel, the most eminent man among them,
had not only declared that he would live and die a true subject to King
William, but had announced his intention of visiting England, in the hope
of being permitted to kiss His Majesty’s hand. In London it was announced
exultingly that every clan, without exception, had submitted in time; and
the announcement was generally thought most satisfactory. 226
But the Master of Stair was bitterly disappointed. The Highlands were then
to continue to be what they had been, the shame and curse of Scotland. A
golden opportunity of subjecting them to the law had been suffered to
escape, and might never return. If only the Macdonalds would have stood
out, nay, if an example could but have been made of the two worst
Macdonalds, Keppoch and Glencoe, it would have been something. But it
seemed that even Keppoch and Glencoe, marauders who in any well governed
country would have been hanged thirty years before, were safe. 227
While the Master was brooding over thoughts like these, Argyle brought him
some comfort. The report that Mac Ian had taken the oaths within the
prescribed time was erroneous. The Secretary was consoled. One clan, then,
was at the mercy of the government, and that clan the most lawless of all.
One great act of justice, nay of charity, might be performed. One terrible
and memorable example might be given. 228

Yet there was a difficulty. Mac Ian had taken the oaths. He had taken
them, indeed, too late to be entitled to plead the letter of the royal
promise; but the fact that he had taken them was one which evidently ought
not to have been concealed from those who were to decide his fate. By a
dark intrigue, of which the history is but imperfectly known, but which
was, in all probability, directed by the Master of Stair, the evidence of
Mac Ian’s tardy submission was suppressed. The certificate which the
Sheriff of Argyleshire had transmitted to the Council at Edinburgh, was
never laid before the board, but was privately submitted to some persons
high in office, and particularly to Lord President Stair, the father of
the Secretary. These persons pronounced the certificate irregular, and,
indeed, absolutely null; and it was cancelled.

Meanwhile the Master of Stair was forming, in concert with Breadalbane and
Argyle, a plan for the destruction of the people of Glencoe. It was
necessary to take the King’s pleasure, not, indeed, as to the details of
what was to be done, but as to the question whether Mac Ian and his people
should or should not be treated as rebels out of the pale of the ordinary
law. The Master of Stair found no difficulty in the royal closet. William
had, in all probability, never heard the Glencoe men mentioned except as
banditti. He knew that they had not come in by the prescribed day. That
they had come in after that day he did not know. If he paid any attention
to the matter, he must have thought that so fair an opportunity of putting
an end to the devastations and depredations from which a quiet and
industrious population had suffered so much ought not to be lost.

An order was laid before him for signature. He signed it, but, if Burnet
may be trusted, did not read it. Whoever has seen anything of public
business knows that princes and ministers daily sign, and indeed must
sign, documents which they have not read; and of all documents a document
relating to a small tribe of mountaineers, living in a wilderness not set
down in any map, was least likely to interest a Sovereign whose mind was
full of schemes on which the fate of Europe might depend. 229
But, even on the supposition that he read the order to which he affixed
his name, there seems to be no reason for blaming him. That order,
directed to the Commander of the Forces in Scotland, runs thus: “As for
Mac Ian of Glencoe and that tribe, if they can be well distinguished from
the other Highlanders, it will be proper, for the vindication of public
justice, to extirpate that set of thieves.” These words naturally bear a
sense perfectly innocent, and would, but for the horrible event which
followed, have been universally understood in that sense. It is
undoubtedly one of the first duties of every government to extirpate gangs
of thieves. This does not mean that every thief ought to be treacherously
assassinated in his sleep, or even that every thief ought to be publicly
executed after a fair trial, but that every gang, as a gang, ought to be
completely broken up, and that whatever severity is indispensably
necessary for that end ought to be used. If William had read and weighed
the words which were submitted to him by his Secretary, he would probably
have understood them to mean that Glencoe was to be occupied by troops,
that resistance, if resistance were attempted, was to be put down with a
strong hand, that severe punishment was to be inflicted on those leading
members of the clan who could be proved to have been guilty of great
crimes, that some active young freebooters, who were more used to handle
the broad sword than the plough, and who did not seem likely to settle
down into quiet labourers, were to be sent to the army in the Low
Countries, that others were to be transported to the American plantations,
and that those Macdonalds who were suffered to remain in their native
valley were to be disarmed and required to give hostages for good
behaviour. A plan very nearly resembling this had, we know, actually been
the subject of much discussion in the political circles of Edinburgh. 230
There can be little doubt that William would have deserved well of his
people if he had, in this manner, extirpated not only the tribe of Mac
Ian, but every Highland tribe whose calling was to steal cattle and burn
houses.

The extirpation planned by the Master of Stair was of a different kind.
His design was to butcher the whole race of thieves, the whole damnable
race. Such was the language in which his hatred vented itself. He studied
the geography of the wild country which surrounded Glencoe, and made his
arrangements with infernal skill. If possible, the blow must be quick, and
crushing, and altogether unexpected. But if Mac Ian should apprehend
danger and should attempt to take refuge in the territories of his
neighbours, he must find every road barred. The pass of Rannoch must be
secured. The Laird of Weems, who was powerful in Strath Tay, must be told
that, if he harbours the outlaws, he does so at his peril. Breadalbane
promised to cut off the retreat of the fugitives on one side, Mac Callum
More on another. It was fortunate, the Secretary wrote, that it was
winter. This was the time to maul the wretches. The nights were so long,
the mountain tops so cold and stormy, that even the hardiest men could not
long bear exposure to the open air without a roof or a spark of fire. That
the women and the children could find shelter in the desert was quite
impossible. While he wrote thus, no thought that he was committing a great
wickedness crossed his mind. He was happy in the approbation of his own
conscience. Duty, justice, nay charity and mercy, were the names under
which he disguised his cruelty; nor is it by any means improbable that the
disguise imposed upon himself. 231

Hill, who commanded the forces assembled at Fort William, was not
entrusted with the execution of the design. He seems to have been a humane
man; he was much distressed when he learned that the government was
determined on severity; and it was probably thought that his heart might
fail him in the most critical moment. He was directed to put a strong
detachment under the orders of his second in command, Lieutenant Colonel
Hamilton. To Hamilton a significant hint was conveyed that he had now an
excellent opportunity of establishing his character in the estimation of
those who were at the head of affairs. Of the troops entrusted to him a
large proportion were Campbells, and belonged to a regiment lately raised
by Argyle, and called by Argyle’s name, It was probably thought that, on
such an occasion, humanity might prove too strong for the mere habit of
military obedience, and that little reliance could be placed on hearts
which had not been ulcerated by a feud such as had long raged between the
people of Mac Ian and the people of Mac Callum More.

Had Hamilton marched openly against the Glencoe men and put them to the
edge of the sword, the act would probably not have wanted apologists, and
most certainly would not have wanted precedents. But the Master of Stair
had strongly recommended a different mode of proceeding. If the least
alarm were given, the nest of robbers would be found empty; and to hunt
them down in so wild a region would, even with all the help that
Breadalbane and Argyle could give, be a long and difficult business.
“Better,” he wrote, “not meddle with them than meddle to no purpose. When
the thing is resolved, let it be secret and sudden.” 232
He was obeyed; and it was determined that the Glencoe men should perish,
not by military execution, but by the most dastardly and perfidious form
of assassination.

On the first of February a hundred and twenty soldiers of Argyle’s
regiment, commanded by a captain named Campbell and a lieutenant named
Lindsay, marched to Glencoe. Captain Campbell was commonly called in
Scotland Glenlyon, from the pass in which his property lay. He had every
qualification for the service on which he was employed, an unblushing
forehead, a smooth lying tongue, and a heart of adamant. He was also one
of the few Campbells who were likely to be trusted and welcomed by the
Macdonalds; for his niece was married to Alexander, the second son of Mac
Ian.

The sight of the red coats approaching caused some anxiety among the
population of the valley. John, the eldest son of the Chief, came,
accompanied by twenty clansmen, to meet the strangers, and asked what this
visit meant. Lieutenant Lindsay answered that the soldiers came as
friends, and wanted nothing but quarters. They were kindly received, and
were lodged under the thatched roofs of the little community. Glenlyon and
several of his men were taken into the house of a tacksman who was named,
from the cluster of cabins over which he exercised authority, Inverriggen.
Lindsay was accommodated nearer to the abode of the old chief.
Auchintriater, one of the principal men of the clan, who governed the
small hamlet of Auchnaion, found room there for a party commanded by a
serjeant named Barbour. Provisions were liberally supplied. There was no
want of beef, which had probably fattened in distant pastures; nor was any
payment demanded; for in hospitality, as in thievery, the Gaelic marauders
rivalled the Bedouins. During twelve days the soldiers lived familiarly
with the people of the glen. Old Mac Ian, who had before felt many
misgivings as to the relation in which he stood to the government, seems
to have been pleased with the visit. The officers passed much of their
time with him and his family. The long evenings were cheerfully spent by
the peat fire with the help of some packs of cards which had found their
way to that remote corner of the world, and of some French brandy which
was probably part of James’s farewell gift to his Highland supporters.
Glenlyon appeared to be warmly attached to his niece and her husband
Alexander. Every day he came to their house to take his morning draught.
Meanwhile he observed with minute attention all the avenues by which, when
the signal for the slaughter should be given, the Macdonalds might attempt
to escape to the hills; and he reported the result of his observations to
Hamilton.

Hamilton fixed five o’clock in the morning of the thirteenth of February
for the deed. He hoped that, before that time, he should reach Glencoe
with four hundred men, and should have stopped all the earths in which the
old fox and his two cubs,-so Mac Ian and his sons were nicknamed by the
murderers,—could take refuge. But, at five precisely, whether
Hamilton had arrived or not, Glenlyon was to fall on, and to slay every
Macdonald under seventy.

The night was rough. Hamilton and his troops made slow progress, and were
long after their time. While they were contending with the wind and snow,
Glenlyon was supping and playing at cards with those whom he meant to
butcher before daybreak. He and Lieutenant Lindsay had engaged themselves
to dine with the old Chief on the morrow.

Late in the evening a vague suspicion that some evil was intended crossed
the mind of the Chief’s eldest son. The soldiers were evidently in a
restless state; and some of them uttered strange cries. Two men, it is
said, were overheard whispering. “I do not like this job;” one of them
muttered, “I should be glad to fight the Macdonalds. But to kill men in
their beds—” “We must do as we are bid,” answered another voice. “If
there is any thing wrong, our officers must answer for it.” John Macdonald
was so uneasy that, soon after midnight, he went to Glenlyon’s quarters.
Glenlyon and his men were all up, and seemed to be getting their arms
ready for action. John, much alarmed, asked what these preparations meant.
Glenlyon was profuse of friendly assurances. “Some of Glengarry’s people
have been harrying the country. We are getting ready to march against
them. You are quite safe. Do you think that, if you were in any danger, I
should not have given a hint to your brother Sandy and his wife?” John’s
suspicions were quieted. He returned to his house, and lay down to rest.

It was five in the morning. Hamilton and his men were still some miles
off; and the avenues which they were to have secured were open. But the
orders which Glenlyon had received were precise; and he began to execute
them at the little village where he was himself quartered. His host
Inverriggen and nine other Macdonalds were dragged out of their beds,
bound hand and foot, and murdered. A boy twelve years old clung round the
Captain’s legs, and begged hard for life. He would do any thing; he would
go any where; he would follow Glenlyon round the world. Even Glenlyon, it
is said, showed signs of relenting; but a ruffian named Drummond shot the
child dead.

At Auchnaion the tacksman Auchintriater was up early that morning, and was
sitting with eight of his family round the fire, when a volley of musketry
laid him and seven of his companions dead or dying on the floor. His
brother, who alone had escaped unhurt, called to Serjeant Barbour, who
commanded the slayers, and asked as a favour to be allowed to die in the
open air. “Well,” said the Serjeant, “I will do you that favour for the
sake of your meat which I have eaten.” The mountaineer, bold, athletic,
and favoured by the darkness, came forth, rushed on the soldiers who were
about to level their pieces at him, flung his plaid over their faces, and
was gone in a moment.

Meanwhile Lindsay had knocked at the door of the old Chief and had asked
for admission in friendly language. The door was opened. Mac Ian, while
putting on his clothes and calling to his servants to bring some
refreshment for his visitors, was shot through the head. Two of his
attendants were slain with him. His wife was already up and dressed in
such finery as the princesses of the rude Highland glens were accustomed
to wear. The assassins pulled off her clothes and trinkets. The rings were
not easily taken from her fingers but a soldier tore them away with his
teeth. She died on the following day.

The statesman, to whom chiefly this great crime is to be ascribed, had
planned it with consummate ability: but the execution was complete in
nothing but in guilt and infamy. A succession of blunders saved three
fourths of the Glencoe men from the fate of their chief. All the moral
qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and Glenlyon
possessed in perfection. But neither seems to have had much professional
skill; Hamilton had arranged his plan without making allowance for bad
weather, and this in a country and at a season when the weather was very
likely to be bad. The consequence was that the fox earths, as he called
them, were not stopped in time. Glenlyon and his men committed the error
of despatching their hosts with firearms instead of using the cold steel.
The peal and flash of gun after gun gave notice, from three different
parts of the valley at once; that murder was doing. From fifty cottages
the half naked peasantry fled under cover of the night to the recesses of
their pathless glen. Even the sons of Mac Ian, who had been especially
marked out for destruction, contrived to escape. They were roused from
sleep by faithful servants. John, who, by the death of his father, had
become the patriarch of the tribe, quitted his dwelling just as twenty
soldiers with fixed bayonets marched up to it. It was broad day long
before Hamilton arrived. He found the work not even half performed. About
thirty corpses lay wallowing in blood on the dunghills before the doors.
One or two women were seen among the number, and, a yet more fearful and
piteous sight, a little hand, which had been lopped in the tumult of the
butchery from some infant. One aged Macdonald was found alive. He was
probably too infirm to fly, and, as he was above seventy, was not included
in the orders under which Glenlyon had acted. Hamilton murdered the old
man in cold blood. The deserted hamlets were then set on fire; and the
troops departed, driving away with them many sheep and goats, nine hundred
kine, and two hundred of the small shaggy ponies of the Highlands.

It is said, and may but too easily be believed, that the sufferings of the
fugitives were terrible. How many old men, how many women with babes in
their arms, sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow; how many,
having crawled, spent with toil and hunger, into nooks among the
precipices, died in those dark holes, and were picked to the bone by the
mountain ravens, can never be known. But it is probable that those who
perished by cold, weariness and want were not less numerous than those who
were slain by the assassins. When the troops had retired, the Macdonalds
crept out of the caverns of Glencoe, ventured back to the spot where the
huts had formerly stood, collected the scorched corpses from among the
smoking ruins, and performed some rude rites of sepulture. The tradition
runs that the hereditary bard of the tribe took his seat on a rock which
overhung the place of slaughter, and poured forth a long lament over his
murdered brethren, and his desolate home. Eighty years later that sad
dirge was still repeated by the population of the valley. 233

The survivors might well apprehend that they had escaped the shot and the
sword only to perish by famine. The whole domain was a waste. Houses,
barns, furniture, implements of husbandry, herds, flocks, horses, were
gone. Many months must elapse before the clan would be able to raise on
its own ground the means of supporting even the most miserable existence.
234

It may be thought strange that these events should not have been instantly
followed by a burst of execration from every part of the civilised world.
The fact, however, is that years elapsed before the public indignation was
thoroughly awakened, and that months elapsed before the blackest part of
the story found credit even among the enemies of the government. That the
massacre should not have been mentioned in the London Gazettes, in the
Monthly Mercuries which were scarcely less courtly than the Gazettes, or
in pamphlets licensed by official censors, is perfectly intelligible. But
that no allusion to it should be found in private journals and letters,
written by persons free from all restraint, may seem extraordinary. There
is not a word on the subject in Evelyn’s Diary. In Narcissus Luttrell’s
Diary is a remarkable entry made five weeks after the butchery. The
letters from Scotland, he says, described that kingdom as perfectly
tranquil, except that there was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical
questions. The Dutch ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to
their government. They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention
that a collier had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the
Edinburgh mail had been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet
long and seven feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen. But it is not
hinted in any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any
extraordinary occurrence in the Highlands. Reports that some of the
Macdonalds had been slain did indeed, in about three weeks, travel through
Edinburgh up to London. But these reports were vague and contradictory;
and the very worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth.
The Whig version of the story was that the old robber Mac Ian had laid an
ambuscade for the soldiers, that he had been caught in his own snare, and
that he and some of his clan had fallen sword in hand. The Jacobite
version, written at Edinburgh on the twenty-third of March, appeared in
the Paris Gazette of the seventh of April. Glenlyon, it was said, had been
sent with a detachment from Argyle’s regiment, under cover of darkness, to
surprise the inhabitants of Glencoe, and had killed thirty-six men and
boys and four women. 235 In this there was nothing very
strange or shocking. A night attack on a gang of freebooters occupying a
strong natural fortress may be a perfectly legitimate military operation;
and, in the obscurity and confusion of such an attack, the most humane man
may be so unfortunate as to shoot a woman or a child. The circumstances
which give a peculiar character to the slaughter of Glencoe, the breach of
faith, the breach of hospitality, the twelve days of feigned friendship
and conviviality, of morning calls, of social meals, of healthdrinking, of
cardplaying, were not mentioned by the Edinburgh correspondent of the
Paris Gazette; and we may therefore confidently infer that those
circumstances were as yet unknown even to inquisitive and busy
malecontents residing in the Scottish capital within a hundred miles of
the spot where the deed had been done. In the south of the island the
matter produced, as far as can now be judged, scarcely any sensation. To
the Londoner of those days Appin was what Caffraria or Borneo is to us. He
was not more moved by hearing that some Highland thieves had been
surprised and killed than we are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattle
stealers has been cut off, or that a bark full of Malay pirates has been
sunk. He took it for granted that nothing had been done in Glencoe beyond
what was doing in many other glens. There had been a night brawl, one of a
hundred night brawls, between the Macdonalds and the Campbells; and the
Campbells had knocked the Macdonalds on the head.

By slow degrees the whole truth came out. From a letter written at
Edinburgh about two months after the crime had been committed, it appears
that the horrible story was already current among the Jacobites of that
city. In the summer Argyle’s regiment was quartered in the south of
England, and some of the men made strange confessions, over their ale,
about what they had been forced to do in the preceding winter. The
nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it resolutely; their
secret presses went to work; and at length, near a year after the crime
had been committed, it was published to the world. 236 But the
world was long incredulous. The habitual mendacity of the Jacobite
libellers had brought on them an appropriate punishment. Now, when, for
the first time, they told the truth, they were supposed to be romancing.
They complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was
regarded by the public as a factious lie. 237 So late
as the year 1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his
darling tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn
from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted
whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe. There
were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who had
never heard of that massacre, or who regarded it as a mere fable. 238

Nevertheless the punishment of some of the guilty began very early. Hill,
who indeed can hardly be called guilty, was much disturbed. Breadalbane,
hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience or the dread of
retribution. A few days after the Macdonalds had returned to their old
dwellingplace, his steward visited the ruins of the house of Glencoe, and
endeavoured to persuade the sons of the murdered chief to sign a paper
declaring that they held the Earl guiltless of the blood which had been
shed. They were assured that, if they would do this, all His Lordship’s
great influence should be employed to obtain for them from the Crown a
free pardon and a remission of all forfeitures. 239
Glenlyon did his best to assume an air of unconcern. He made his
appearance in the most fashionable coffeehouse at Edinburgh, and talked
loudly and self-complacently about the important service in which he had
been engaged among the mountains. Some of his soldiers, however, who
observed him closely, whispered that all this bravery was put on. He was
not the man that he had been before that night. The form of his
countenance was changed. In all places, at all hours, whether he waked or
slept, Glencoe was for ever before him. 240

But, whatever apprehensions might disturb Breadalbane, whatever spectres
might haunt Glenlyon, the Master of Stair had neither fear nor remorse. He
was indeed mortified; but he was mortified only by the blunders of
Hamilton and by the escape of so many of the damnable breed. “Do right,
and fear nobody;” such is the language of his letters. “Can there be a
more sacred duty than to rid the country of thieving? The only thing that
I regret is that any got away.” 241

On the sixth of March, William, entirely ignorant, in all probability, of
the details of the crime which has cast a dark shade over his glory, had
set out for the Continent, leaving the Queen his viceregent in England. 242

He would perhaps have postponed his departure if he had been aware that
the French Government had, during some time, been making great
preparations for a descent on our island. 243 An
event had taken place which had changed the policy of the Court of
Versailles. Louvois was no more. He had been at the head of the military
administration of his country during a quarter of a century; he had borne
a chief part in the direction of two wars which had enlarged the French
territory, and had filled the world with the renown of the French arms;
and he had lived to see the beginning of a third war which tasked his
great powers to the utmost. Between him and the celebrated captains who
carried his plans into execution there was little harmony. His imperious
temper and his confidence in himself impelled him to interfere too much
with the conduct of troops in the field, even when those troops were
commanded by Conde, by Turenne or by Luxemburg. But he was the greatest
Adjutant General, the greatest Quartermaster General, the greatest
Commissary General, that Europe had seen. He may indeed be said to have
made a revolution in the art of disciplining, distributing, equipping and
provisioning armies. In spite, however, of his abilities and of his
services, he had become odious to Lewis and to her who governed Lewis. On
the last occasion on which the King and the minister transacted business
together, the ill humour on both sides broke violently forth. The servant,
in his vexation, dashed his portfolio on the ground. The master,
forgetting, what he seldom forgot, that a King should be a gentleman,
lifted his cane. Fortunately his wife was present. She, with her usual
prudence, caught his arm. She then got Louvois out of the room, and
exhorted him to come back the next day as if nothing had happened. The
next day he came; but with death in his face. The King, though full of
resentment, was touched with pity, and advised Louvois to go home and take
care of himself. That evening the great minister died. 244

Louvois had constantly opposed all plans for the invasion of England. His
death was therefore regarded at Saint Germains as a fortunate event. 245
It was however necessary to look sad, and to send a gentleman to
Versailles with some words of condolence. The messenger found the gorgeous
circle of courtiers assembled round their master on the terrace above the
orangery. “Sir,” said Lewis, in a tone so easy and cheerful that it filled
all the bystanders with amazement, “present my compliments and thanks to
the King and Queen of England, and tell them that neither my affairs nor
theirs will go on the worse by what has happened.” These words were
doubtless meant to intimate that the influence of Louvois had not been
exerted in favour of the House of Stuart. 246 One
compliment, however, a compliment which cost France dear, Lewis thought it
right to pay to the memory of his ablest servant. The Marquess of
Barbesieux, son of Louvois, was placed, in his twenty-fifth year, at the
head of the war department. The young man was by no means deficient in
abilities, and had been, during some years, employed in business of grave
importance. But his passions were strong; his judgment was not ripe; and
his sudden elevation turned his head. His manners gave general disgust.
Old officers complained that he kept them long in his antechamber while he
was amusing himself with his spaniels and his flatterers. Those who were
admitted to his presence went away disgusted by his rudeness and
arrogance. As was natural at his age, he valued power chiefly as the means
of procuring pleasure. Millions of crowns were expended on the luxurious
villa where he loved to forget the cares of office in gay conversation,
delicate cookery and foaming champagne. He often pleaded an attack of
fever as an excuse for not making his appearance at the proper hour in the
royal closet, when in truth he had been playing truant among his boon
companions and mistresses. “The French King,” said William, “has an odd
taste. He chooses an old woman for his mistress, and a young man for his
minister.” 247

There can be little doubt that Louvois, by pursuing that course which had
made him odious to the inmates of Saint Germains, had deserved well of his
country. He was not maddened by Jacobite enthusiasm. He well knew that
exiles are the worst of all advisers. He had excellent information; he had
excellent judgment; he calculated the chances; and he saw that a descent
was likely to fail, and to fail disastrously and disgracefully. James
might well be impatient to try the experiment, though the odds should be
ten to one against him. He might gain; and he could not lose. His folly
and obstinacy had left him nothing to risk. His food, his drink, his
lodging, his clothes, he owed to charity. Nothing could be more natural
than that, for the very smallest chance of recovering the three kingdoms
which he had thrown away, he should be willing to stake what was not his
own, the honour of the French arms, the grandeur and the safety of the
French monarchy. To a French statesman such a wager might well appear in a
different light. But Louvois was gone. His master yielded to the
importunity of James, and determined to send an expedition against
England. 248

The scheme was, in some respects, well concerted. It was resolved that a
camp should be formed on the coast of Normandy, and that in this camp all
the Irish regiments which were in the French service should be assembled
under their countryman Sarsfield. With them were to be joined about ten
thousand French troops. The whole army was to be commanded by Marshal
Bellefonds.

A noble fleet of about eighty ships of the line was to convoy this force
to the shores of England. In the dockyards both of Brittany and of
Provence immense preparations were made. Four and forty men of war, some
of which were among the finest that had ever been built, were assembled in
the harbour of Brest under Tourville. The Count of Estrees, with
thirty-five more, was to sail from Toulon. Ushant was fixed for the place
of rendezvous. The very day was named. In order that there might be no
want either of seamen or of vessels for the intended expedition, all
maritime trade, all privateering was, for a time, interdicted by a royal
mandate. 249 Three hundred transports were
collected near the spot where the troops were to embark. It was hoped that
all would be ready early in the spring, before the English ships were half
rigged or half manned, and before a single Dutch man of war was in the
Channel. 250

James had indeed persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet should
fall in with him, it would not oppose him. He imagined that he was
personally a favourite with the mariners of all ranks. His emissaries had
been busy among the naval officers, and had found some who remembered him
with kindness, and others who were out of humour with the men now in
power. All the wild talk of a class of people not distinguished by
taciturnity or discretion was reported to him with exaggeration, till he
was deluded into a belief that he had more friends than enemies on board
of the vessels which guarded our coasts. Yet he should have known that a
rough sailor, who thought himself ill used by the Admiralty, might, after
the third bottle, when drawn on by artful companions, express his regret
for the good old times, curse the new government, and curse himself for
being such a fool as to fight for that government, and yet might be by no
means prepared to go over to the French on the day of battle. Of the
malecontent officers, who, as James believed, were impatient to desert,
the great majority had probably given no pledge of their attachment to him
except an idle word hiccoughed out when they were drunk, and forgotten
when they were sober. One those from whom he expected support, Rear
Admiral Carter, had indeed heard and perfectly understood what the
Jacobite agents had to say, had given them fair words, and had reported
the whole to the Queen and her ministers. 251

But the chief dependence of James was on Russell. That false, arrogant and
wayward politician was to command the Channel Fleet. He had never ceased
to assure the Jacobite emissaries that he was bent on effecting a
Restoration. Those emissaries fully reckoned, if not on his entire
cooperation, yet at least on his connivance; and there could be no doubt
that, with his connivance, a French fleet might easily convoy an army to
our shores. James flattered himself that, as soon as he had landed, he
should be master of the island. But in truth, when the voyage had ended,
the difficulties of his enterprise would have been only beginning. Two
years before he had received a lesson by which he should have profited. He
had then deceived himself and others into the belief that the English were
regretting him, were pining for him, were eager to rise in arms by tens of
thousands to welcome him. William was then, as now, at a distance. Then,
as now, the administration was entrusted to a woman. Then, as now, there
were few regular troops in England. Torrington had then done as much to
injure the government which he served as Russell could now do. The French
fleet had then, after riding, during several weeks, victorious and
dominant in the Channel, landed some troops on the southern coast. The
immediate effect had been that whole counties, without distinction of Tory
or Whig, Churchman or Dissenter, had risen up, as one man, to repel the
foreigners, and that the Jacobite party, which had, a few days before,
seemed to be half the nation, had crouched down in silent terror, and had
made itself so small that it had, during some time, been invisible. What
reason was there for believing that the multitude who had, in 1690, at the
first lighting of the beacons, snatched up firelocks, pikes, scythes, to
defend, their native soil against the French, would now welcome the French
as allies? And of the army by which James was now to be accompanied the
French formed the least odious part. More than half of that army was to
consist of Irish Papists; and the feeling, compounded of hatred and scorn,
with which the Irish Papists had long been regarded by the English
Protestants, had by recent events been stimulated to a vehemence before
unknown. The hereditary slaves, it was said, had been for a moment free;
and that moment had sufficed to prove that they knew neither how to use
nor how to defend their freedom. During their short ascendency they had
done nothing but slay, and burn, and pillage, and demolish, and attaint,
and confiscate. In three years they had committed such waste on their
native land as thirty years of English intelligence and industry would
scarcely repair. They would have maintained their independence against the
world, if they had been as ready to fight as they were to steal. But they
had retreated ignominiously from the walls of Londonderry. They had fled
like deer before the yeomanry of Enniskillen. The Prince whom they now
presumed to think that they could place, by force of arms, on the English
throne, had himself, on the morning after the rout of the Boyne,
reproached them with their cowardice, and told them that he would never
again trust to their soldiership. On this subject Englishmen were of one
mind. Tories, Nonjurors, even Roman Catholics, were as loud as Whigs in
reviling the ill fated race. It is, therefore, not difficult to guess what
effect would have been produced by the appearance on our soil of enemies
whom, on their own soil, we had vanquished and trampled down.

James, however, in spite of the recent and severe teaching of experience,
believed whatever his correspondents in England told him; and they told
him that the whole nation was impatiently expecting him, that both the
West and the North were ready to rise, that he would proceed from the
place of landing to Whitehall with as little opposition as when, in old
times, he returned from a progress. Ferguson distinguished himself by the
confidence with which he predicted a complete and bloodless victory. He
and his printer, he was absurd enough to write, would be the two first men
in the realm to take horse for His Majesty. Many other agents were busy up
and down the country, during the winter and the early part of the spring.
It does not appear that they had much success in the counties south of
Trent. But in the north, particularly in Lancashire, where the Roman
Catholics were more numerous and more powerful than in any other part of
the kingdom, and where there seems to have been, even among the Protestant
gentry, more than the ordinary proportion of bigoted Jacobites, some
preparations for an insurrection were made. Arms were privately bought;
officers were appointed; yeomen, small farmers, grooms, huntsmen, were
induced to enlist. Those who gave in their names were distributed into
eight regiments of cavalry and dragoons, and were directed to hold
themselves in readiness to mount at the first signal. 252

One of the circumstances which filled James, at this time, with vain
hopes, was that his wife was pregnant and near her delivery. He flattered
himself that malice itself would be ashamed to repeat any longer the story
of the warming pan, and that multitudes whom that story had deceived would
instantly return to their allegiance. He took, on this occasion, all those
precautions which, four years before, he had foolishly and perversely
forborne to take. He contrived to transmit to England letters summoning
many Protestant women of quality to assist at the expected birth; and he
promised, in the name of his dear brother the Most Christian King, that
they should be free to come and go in safety. Had some of these witnesses
been invited to Saint James’s on the morning of the tenth of June 1688,
the House of Stuart might, perhaps, now be reigning in our island. But it
is easier to keep a crown than to regain one. It might be true that a
calumnious fable had done much to bring about the Revolution. But it by no
means followed that the most complete refutation of that fable would bring
about a Restoration. Not a single lady crossed the sea in obedience to
James’s call. His Queen was safely delivered of a daughter; but this event
produced no perceptible effect on the state of public feeling in England.
253

Meanwhile the preparations for his expedition were going on fast. He was
on the point of setting out for the place of embarkation before the
English government was at all aware of the danger which was impending. It
had been long known indeed that many thousands of Irish were assembled in
Normandy; but it was supposed that they had been assembled merely that
they might be mustered and drilled before they were sent to Flanders,
Piedmont, and Catalonia. 254 Now, however, intelligence,
arriving from many quarters, left no doubt that an invasion would be
almost immediately attempted. Vigorous preparations for defence were made.
The equipping and manning of the ships was urged forward with vigour. The
regular troops were drawn together between London and the sea. A great
camp was formed on the down which overlooks Portsmouth. The militia all
over the kingdom was called out. Two Westminster regiments and six City
regiments, making up a force of thirteen thousand fighting men, were
arrayed in Hyde Park, and passed in review before the Queen. The
trainbands of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey marched down to the coast. Watchmen
were posted by the beacons. Some nonjurors were imprisoned, some disarmed,
some held to bail. The house of the Earl of Huntingdon, a noted Jacobite,
was searched. He had had time to burn his papers and to hide his arms; but
his stables presented a most suspicious appearance. Horses enough to mount
a whole troop of cavalry were at the mangers; and this evidence, though
not legally sufficient to support a charge of treason, was thought
sufficient, at such a conjuncture, to justify the Privy Council in sending
him to the Tower. 255 Meanwhile James had gone down
to his army, which was encamped round the basin of La Hogue, on the
northern coast of the peninsula known by the name of the Cotentin. Before
he quitted Saint Germains, he held a Chapter of the Garter for the purpose
of admitting his son into the order. Two noblemen were honoured with the
same distinction, Powis, who, among his brother exiles, was now called a
Duke, and Melfort, who had returned from Rome, and was again James’s Prime
Minister. 256 Even at this moment, when it
was of the greatest importance to conciliate the members of the Church of
England, none but members of the Church of Rome were thought worthy of any
mark of royal favour. Powis indeed was an eminent member of the English
aristocracy; and his countrymen disliked him as little as they disliked
any conspicuous Papist. But Melfort was not even an Englishman; he had
never held office in England; he had never sate in the English Parliament;
and he had therefore no pretensions to a dignity peculiarly English. He
was moreover hated by all the contending factions of all the three
kingdoms. Royal letters countersigned by him had been sent both to the
Convention at Westminster and to the Convention at Edinburgh; and, both at
Westminster and at Edinburgh, the sight of his odious name and handwriting
had made the most zealous friends of hereditary right hang down their
heads in shame. It seems strange that even James should have chosen, at
such a conjuncture, to proclaim to the world that the men whom his people
most abhorred were the men whom he most delighted to honour.

Still more injurious to his interests was the Declaration in which he
announced his intentions to his subjects. Of all the State papers which
were put forth even by him it was the most elaborately and ostentatiously
injudicious. When it had disgusted and exasperated all good Englishmen of
all parties, the Papists at Saint Germains pretended that it had been
drawn up by a stanch Protestant, Edward Herbert, who had been Chief
Justice of the Common Pleas before the Revolution, and who now bore the
empty title of Chancellor. 257 But it is certain that Herbert
was never consulted about any matter of importance, and that the
Declaration was the work of Melfort and of Melfort alone. 258
In truth, those qualities of head and heart which had made Melfort the
favourite of his master shone forth in every sentence. Not a word was to
be found indicating that three years of banishment had made the King
wiser, that he had repented of a single error, that he took to himself
even the smallest part of the blame of that revolution which had dethroned
him, or that he purposed to follow a course in any respect differing from
that which had already been fatal to him. All the charges which had been
brought against him he pronounced to be utterly unfounded. Wicked men had
put forth calumnies. Weak men had believed those calumnies. He alone had
been faultless. He held out no hope that he would consent to any
restriction of that vast dispensing power to which he had formerly laid
claim, that he would not again, in defiance of the plainest statutes, fill
the Privy Council, the bench of justice, the public offices, the army, the
navy, with Papists, that he would not reestablish the High Commission,
that he would not appoint a new set of regulators to remodel all the
constituent bodies of the kingdom. He did indeed condescend to say that he
would maintain the legal rights of the Church of England; but he had said
this before; and all men knew what those words meant in his mouth. Instead
of assuring his people of his forgiveness, he menaced them with a
proscription more terrible than any which our island had ever seen. He
published a list of persons who had no mercy to expect. Among these were
Ormond, Caermarthen, Nottingham, Tillotson and Burnet. After the roll of
those who were doomed to death by name, came a series of categories. First
stood all the crowd of rustics who had been rude to His Majesty when he
was stopped at Sheerness in his flight. These poor ignorant wretches, some
hundreds in number, were reserved for another bloody circuit. Then came
all persons who had in any manner borne a part in the punishment of any
Jacobite conspirator; judges, counsel, witnesses, grand jurymen, petty
jurymen, sheriffs and undersheriffs, constables and turnkeys, in short,
all the ministers of justice from Holt down to Ketch. Then vengeance was
denounced against all spies and all informers who had divulged to the
usurpers the designs of the Court of Saint Germains. All justices of the
peace who should not declare for their rightful Sovereign the moment that
they heard of his landing, all gaolers who should not instantly set
political prisoners at liberty, were to be left to the extreme rigour of
the law. No exception was made in favour of a justice or of a gaoler who
might be within a hundred yards of one of William’s regiments, and a
hundred miles from the nearest place where there was a single Jacobite in
arms.

It might have been expected that James, after thus denouncing vengeance
against large classes of his subjects, would at least have offered a
general amnesty to the rest. But of general amnesty he said not a word. He
did indeed promise that any offender who was not in any of the categories
of proscription, and who should by any eminent service merit indulgence,
should receive a special pardon. But, with this exception, all the
offenders, hundreds of thousands in number, were merely informed that
their fate should be decided in Parliament.

The agents of James speedily dispersed his Declaration over every part of
the kingdom, and by doing so rendered a great service to William. The
general cry was that the banished oppressor had at least given Englishmen
fair warning, and that, if, after such a warning, they welcomed him home,
they would have no pretence for complaining, though every county town
should be polluted by an assize resembling that which Jeffreys had held at
Taunton. That some hundreds of people,—the Jacobites put the number
so low as five hundred,—were to be hanged without mercy was certain;
and nobody who had concurred in the Revolution, nobody who had fought for
the new government by sea or land, no soldier who had borne a part in the
conquest of Ireland, no Devonshire ploughman or Cornish miner who had
taken arms to defend his wife and children against Tourville, could be
certain that he should not be hanged. How abject too, how spiteful, must
be the nature of a man who, engaged in the most momentous of all
undertakings, and aspiring to the noblest of all prizes, could not refrain
from proclaiming that he thirsted for the blood of a multitude of poor
fishermen, because, more than three years before, they had pulled him
about and called him Hatchetface. If, at the very moment when he had the
strongest motives for trying to conciliate his people by the show of
clemency, he could not bring himself to hold towards them any language but
that of an implacable enemy, what was to be expected from him when he
should be again their master? So savage was his nature that, in a
situation in which all other tyrants have resorted to blandishments and
fair promises, he could utter nothing but reproaches and threats. The only
words in his Declaration which had any show of graciousness were those in
which he promised to send away the foreign troops as soon as his authority
was reestablished; and many said that those words, when examined, would be
found full of sinister meaning. He held out no hope that he would send
away Popish troops who were his own subjects. His intentions were
manifest. The French might go; but the Irish would remain. The people of
England were to be kept down by these thrice subjugated barbarians. No
doubt a Rapparee who had run away at Newton Butler and the Boyne might
find courage enough to guard the scaffolds on which his conquerors were to
die, and to lay waste our country as he had laid waste his own.

The Queen and her ministers, instead of attempting to suppress James’s
manifesto, very wisely reprinted it, and sent it forth licensed by the
Secretary of State, and interspersed with remarks by a shrewd and severe
commentator. It was refuted in many keen pamphlets; it was turned into
doggrel rhymes; and it was left undefended even by the boldest and most
acrimonious libellers among the nonjurors. 259

Indeed, some of the nonjurors were so much alarmed by observing the effect
which this manifesto produced, that they affected to treat it as spurious,
and published as their master’s genuine Declaration a paper full of
gracious professions and promises. They made him offer a free pardon to
all his people with the exception of four great criminals. They made him
hold out hopes of great remissions of taxation. They made him pledge his
word that he would entrust the whole ecclesiastical administration to the
nonjuring bishops. But this forgery imposed on nobody, and was important
only as showing that even the Jacobites were ashamed of the prince whom
they were labouring to restore. 260

No man read the Declaration with more surprise and anger than Russell. Bad
as he was, he was much under the influence of two feelings, which, though
they cannot be called virtuous, have some affinity to virtue, and are
respectable when compared with mere selfish cupidity. Professional spirit
and party spirit were strong in him. He might be false to his country, but
not to his flag; and, even in becoming a Jacobite, he had not ceased to be
a Whig. In truth, he was a Jacobite only because he was the most
intolerant and acrimonious of Whigs. He thought himself and his faction
ungratefully neglected by William, and was for a time too much blinded by
resentment to perceive that it would be mere madness in the old
Roundheads, the old Exclusionists, to punish William by recalling James.
The near prospect of an invasion, and the Declaration in which Englishmen
were plainly told what they had to expect if that invasion should be
successful, produced, it should seem, a sudden and entire change in
Russell’s feelings; and that change he distinctly avowed. “I wish,” he
said to Lloyd, “to serve King James. The thing might be done, if it were
not his own fault. But he takes the wrong way with us. Let him forget all
the past; let him grant a general pardon; and then I will see what I can
do for him.” Lloyd hinted something about the honours and rewards designed
for Russell himself. But the Admiral, with a spirit worthy of a better
man, cut him short. “I do not wish to hear anything on that subject. My
solicitude is for the public. And do not think that I will let the French
triumph over us in our own sea. Understand this, that if I meet them I
fight them, ay, though His Majesty himself should be on board.”

This conversation was truly reported to James; but it does not appear to
have alarmed him. He was, indeed, possessed with a belief that Russell,
even if willing, would not be able to induce the officers and sailors of
the English navy to fight against their old King, who was also their old
Admiral.

The hopes which James felt, he and his favourite Melfort succeeded in
imparting to Lewis and to Lewis’s ministers. 261 But for
those hopes, indeed, it is probable that all thoughts of invading England
in the course of that year would have been laid aside. For the extensive
plan which had been formed in the winter had, in the course of the spring,
been disconcerted by a succession of accidents such as are beyond the
control of human wisdom. The time fixed for the assembling of all the
maritime forces of France at Ushant had long elapsed; and not a single
sail had appeared at the place of rendezvous. The Atlantic squadron was
still detained by bad weather in the port of Brest. The Mediterranean
squadron, opposed by a strong west wind, was vainly struggling to pass the
pillars of Hercules. Two fine vessels had gone to pieces on the rocks of
Ceuta. 262
Meanwhile the admiralties of the allied powers had been active. Before the
end of April the English fleet was ready to sail. Three noble ships, just
launched from our dockyards, appeared for the first time on the water. 263
William had been hastening the maritime preparations of the United
Provinces; and his exertions had been successful. On the twenty-ninth of
April a fine squadron from the Texel appeared in the Downs. Soon came the
North Holland squadron, the Maes squadron, the Zealand squadron. 264
The whole force of the confederate powers was assembled at Saint Helen’s
in the second week of May, more than ninety sail of the line, manned by
between thirty and forty thousand of the finest seamen of the two great
maritime nations. Russell had the chief command. He was assisted by Sir
Ralph Delaval, Sir John Ashley, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Rear Admiral
Carter, and Rear Admiral Rooke. Of the Dutch officers Van Almonde was
highest in rank.

No mightier armament had ever appeared in the British Channel. There was
little reason for apprehending that such a force could be defeated in a
fair conflict. Nevertheless there was great uneasiness in London. It was
known that there was a Jacobite party in the navy. Alarming rumours had
worked their way round from France. It was said that the enemy reckoned on
the cooperation of some of those officers on whose fidelity, in this
crisis, the safety of the State might depend. Russell, as far as can now
be discovered, was still unsuspected. But others, who were probably less
criminal, had been more indiscreet. At all the coffee houses admirals and
captains were mentioned by name as traitors who ought to be instantly
cashiered, if not shot. It was even confidently affirmed that some of the
guilty had been put under arrest, and others turned out of the service.
The Queen and her counsellors were in a great strait. It was not easy to
say whether the danger of trusting the suspected persons or the danger of
removing them were the greater. Mary, with many painful misgivings,
resolved, and the event proved that she resolved wisely, to treat the evil
reports as calumnious, to make a solemn appeal to the honour of the
accused gentlemen, and then to trust the safety of her kingdom to their
national and professional spirit.

On the fifteenth of May a great assembly of officers was convoked at Saint
Helen’s on board the Britannia, a fine three decker, from which Russell’s
flag was flying. The Admiral told them that he had received a despatch
which he was charged to read to them. It was from Nottingham. The Queen,
the Secretary wrote, had been informed that stories deeply affecting the
character of the navy were in circulation. It had even been affirmed that
she had found herself under the necessity of dismissing many officers. But
Her Majesty was determined to believe nothing against those brave servants
of the State. The gentlemen who had been so foully slandered might be
assured that she placed entire reliance on them. This letter was admirably
calculated to work on those to whom it was addressed. Very few of them
probably had been guilty of any worse offence than rash and angry talk
over their wine. They were as yet only grumblers. If they had fancied that
they were marked men, they might in selfdefence have become traitors. They
became enthusiastically loyal as soon as they were assured that the Queen
reposed entire confidence in their loyalty. They eagerly signed an address
in which they entreated her to believe that they would, with the utmost
resolution and alacrity, venture their lives in defence of her rights, of
English freedom and of the Protestant religion, against all foreign and
Popish invaders. “God,” they added, “preserve your person, direct your
counsels, and prosper your arms; and let all your people say Amen.” 265

The sincerity of these professions was soon brought to the test. A few
hours after the meeting on board of the Britannia the masts of Tourville’s
squadron were seen from the cliffs of Portland. One messenger galloped
with the news from Weymouth to London, and roused Whitehall at three in
the morning. Another took the coast road, and carried the intelligence to
Russell. All was ready; and on the morning of the seventeenth of May the
allied fleet stood out to sea. 266

Tourville had with him only his own squadron, consisting of forty-four
ships of the line. But he had received positive orders to protect the
descent on England, and not to decline a battle. Though these orders had
been given before it was known at Versailles that the Dutch and English
fleets had joined, he was not disposed to take on himself the
responsibility of disobedience. He still remembered with bitterness the
reprimand which his extreme caution had drawn upon him after the fight of
Beachy Head. He would not again be told that he was a timid and
unenterprising commander, that he had no courage but the vulgar courage of
a common sailor. He was also persuaded that the odds against him were
rather apparent than real. He believed, on the authority of James and
Melfort, that the English seamen, from the flag officers down to the cabin
boys, were Jacobites. Those who fought would fight with half a heart; and
there would probably be numerous desertions at the most critical moment.
Animated by such hopes he sailed from Brest, steered first towards the
north east, came in sight of the coast of Dorsetshire, and then struck
across the Channel towards La Hogue, where the army which he was to convoy
to England had already begun to embark on board of the transports. He was
within a few leagues of Barfleur when, before daybreak, on the morning of
the nineteenth of May, he saw the great armament of the allies stretching
along the eastern horizon. He determined to bear down on them. By eight
the two lines of battle were formed; but it was eleven before the firing
began. It soon became plain that the English, from the Admiral downward,
were resolved to do their duty. Russell had visited all his ships, and
exhorted all his crews. “If your commanders play false,” he said,
“overboard with them, and with myself the first.” There was no defection.
There was no slackness. Carter was the first who broke the French line. He
was struck by a splinter of one of his own yard arms, and fell dying on
the deck. He would not be carried below. He would not let go his sword.
“Fight the ship,” were his last words: “fight the ship as long as she can
swim.” The battle lasted till four in the afternoon. The roar of the guns
was distinctly heard more than twenty miles off by the army which was
encamped on the coast of Normandy. During the earlier part of the day the
wind was favourable to the French; they were opposed to half of the allied
fleet; and against that half they maintained the conflict with their usual
courage and with more than their usual seamanship. After a hard and
doubtful fight of five hours, Tourville thought that enough had been done
to maintain the honour of the white flag, and began to draw off. But by
this time the wind had veered, and was with the allies. They were now able
to avail themselves of their great superiority of force. They came on
fast. The retreat of the French became a flight. Tourville fought his own
ship desperately. She was named, in allusion to Lewis’s favourite emblem,
the Royal Sun, and was widely renowned as the finest vessel in the world.
It was reported among the English sailors that she was adorned with an
image of the Great King, and that he appeared there, as he appeared in the
Place of Victories, with vanquished nations in chains beneath his feet.
The gallant ship, surrounded by enemies, lay like a great fortress on the
sea, scattering death on every side from her hundred and four portholes.
She was so formidably manned that all attempts to board her failed. Long
after sunset, she got clear of her assailants, and, with all her scuppers
spouting blood, made for the coast of Normandy. She had suffered so much
that Tourville hastily removed his flag to a ship of ninety guns which was
named the Ambitious. By this time his fleet was scattered far over the
sea. About twenty of his smallest ships made their escape by a road which
was too perilous for any courage but the courage of despair. In the double
darkness of night and of a thick sea fog, they ran, with all their sails
spread, through the boiling waves and treacherous rocks of the Race of
Alderney, and, by a strange good fortune, arrived without a single
disaster at Saint Maloes. The pursuers did not venture to follow the
fugitives into that terrible strait, the place of innumerable shipwrecks.
267

Those French vessels which were too bulky to venture into the Race of
Alderney fled to the havens of the Cotentin. The Royal Sun and two other
three deckers reached Cherburg in safety. The Ambitious, with twelve other
ships, all first rates or second rates, took refuge in the Bay of La
Hogue, close to the headquarters of the army of James.

The three ships which had fled to Cherburg were closely chased by an
English squadron under the command of Delaval. He found them hauled up
into shoal water where no large man of war could get at them. He therefore
determined to attack them with his fireships and boats. The service was
gallantly and successfully performed. In a short time the Royal Sun and
her two consorts were burned to ashes. Part of the crews escaped to the
shore; and part fell into the hands of the English. 268

Meanwhile Russell with the greater part of his victorious fleet had
blockaded the Bay of La Hogue. Here, as at Cherburg, the French men of war
had been drawn up into shallow water. They lay close to the camp of the
army which was destined for the invasion of England. Six of them were
moored under a fort named Lisset. The rest lay under the guns of another
fort named Saint Vaast, where James had fixed his headquarters, and where
the Union flag, variegated by the crosses of Saint George and Saint
Andrew, hung by the side of the white flag of France. Marshal Bellefonds
had planted several batteries which, it was thought, would deter the
boldest enemy from approaching either Fort Lisset or Fort Saint Vaast.
James, however, who knew something of English seamen, was not perfectly at
ease, and proposed to send strong bodies of soldiers on board of the
ships. But Tourville would not consent to put such a slur on his
profession.

Russell meanwhile was preparing for an attack. On the afternoon of the
twenty-third of May all was ready. A flotilla consisting of sloops, of
fireships, and of two hundred boats, was entrusted to the command of
Rooke. The whole armament was in the highest spirits. The rowers, flushed
by success, and animated by the thought that they were going to fight
under the eyes of the French and Irish troops who had been assembled for
the purpose of subjugating England, pulled manfully and with loud huzzas
towards the six huge wooden castles which lay close to Fort Lisset. The
French, though an eminently brave people, have always been more liable to
sudden panics than their phlegmatic neighbours the English and Germans. On
this day there was a panic both in the fleet and in the army. Tourville
ordered his sailors to man their boats, and would have led them to
encounter the enemy in the bay. But his example and his exhortations were
vain. His boats turned round and fled in confusion. The ships were
abandoned. The cannonade from Fort Lisset was so feeble and ill directed
that it did no execution. The regiments on the beach, after wasting a few
musket shots, drew off. The English boarded the men of war, set them on
fire, and having performed this great service without the loss of a single
life, retreated at a late hour with the retreating tide. The bay was in a
blaze during the night; and now and then a loud explosion announced that
the flames had reached a powder room or a tier of loaded guns. At eight
the next morning the tide came back strong; and with the tide came back
Rooke and his two hundred boats. The enemy made a faint attempt to defend
the vessels which were near Fort Saint Vaast. During a few minutes the
batteries did some execution among the crews of our skiffs; but the
struggle was soon over. The French poured fast out of their ships on one
side; the English poured in as fast on the other, and, with loud shouts,
turned the captured guns against the shore. The batteries were speedily
silenced. James and Melfort, Bellefonds and Tourville, looked on in
helpless despondency while the second conflagration proceeded. The
conquerors, leaving the ships of war in flames, made their way into an
inner basin where many transports lay. Eight of these vessels were set on
fire. Several were taken in tow. The rest would have been either destroyed
or carried off, had not the sea again begun to ebb. It was impossible to
do more, and the victorious flotilla slowly retired, insulting the hostile
camp with a thundering chant of “God save the King.”

Thus ended, at noon on the twenty-fourth of May, the great conflict which
had raged during five days over a wide extent of sea and shore. One
English fireship had perished in its calling. Sixteen French men of war,
all noble vessels, and eight of them three-deckers, had been sunk or
burned down to the keel. The battle is called, from the place where it
terminated, the battle of La Hogue. 269

The news was received in London with boundless exultation. In the fight on
the open sea, indeed, the numerical superiority of the allies had been so
great that they had little reason to boast of their success. But the
courage and skill with which the crews of the English boats had, in a
French harbour, in sight of a French army, and under the fire of French
batteries, destroyed a fine French fleet, amply justified the pride with
which our fathers pronounced the name of La Hogue. That we may fully enter
into their feelings, we must remember that this was the first great check
that had ever been given to the arms of Lewis the Fourteenth, and the
first great victory that the English had gained over the French since the
day of Agincourt. The stain left on our fame by the shameful defeat of
Beachy Head was effaced. This time the glory was all our own. The Dutch
had indeed done their duty, as they have always done it in maritime war,
whether fighting on our side or against us, whether victorious or
vanquished. But the English had borne the brunt of the fight. Russell who
commanded in chief was an Englishman. Delaval who directed the attack on
Cherburg was an Englishman. Rooke who led the flotilla into the Bay of La
Hogue was an Englishman. The only two officers of note who had fallen,
Admiral Carter and Captain Hastings of the Sandwich, were Englishmen. Yet
the pleasure with which the good news was received here must not be
ascribed solely or chiefly to national pride. The island was safe. The
pleasant pastures, cornfields and commons of Hampshire and Surrey would
not be the seat of war. The houses and gardens, the kitchens and dairies,
the cellars and plate chests, the wives and daughters of our gentry and
clergy would not be at the mercy of Irish Rapparees, who had sacked the
dwellings and skinned the cattle of the Englishry of Leinster, or of
French dragoons accustomed to live at free quarters on the Protestants of
Auvergne. Whigs and Tories joined in thanking God for this great
deliverance; and the most respectable nonjurors could not but be glad at
heart that the rightful King was not to be brought back by an army of
foreigners.

The public joy was therefore all but universal. During several days the
bells of London pealed without ceasing. Flags were flying on all the
steeples. Rows of candles were in all the windows. Bonfires were at all
the corners of the streets. 270 The sense which the government
entertained of the services of the navy was promptly, judiciously and
gracefully manifested. Sidney and Portland were sent to meet the fleet at
Portsmouth, and were accompanied by Rochester, as the representative of
the Tories. The three Lords took down with them thirty-seven thousand
pounds in coin, which they were to distribute as a donative among the
sailors. 271 Gold medals were given to the
officers. 272 The remains of Hastings and
Carter were brought on shore with every mark of honour. Carter was buried
at Portsmouth, with a great display of military pomp. 273
The corpse of Hastings was brought up to London, and laid, with unusual
solemnity, under the pavement of Saint James’s Church. The footguards with
reversed arms escorted the hearse. Four royal state carriages, each drawn
by six horses, were in the procession; a crowd of men of quality in
mourning cloaks filled the pews; and the Bishop of Lincoln preached the
funeral sermon. 274 While such marks of respect
were paid to the slain, the wounded were not neglected. Fifty surgeons,
plentifully supplied with instruments, bandages, and drugs, were sent down
in all haste from London to Portsmouth. 275 It is
not easy for us to form a notion of the difficulty which there then was in
providing at short notice commodious shelter and skilful attendance for
hundreds of maimed and lacerated men. At present every county, every large
town, can boast of some spacious palace in which the poorest labourer who
has fractured a limb may find an excellent bed, an able medical attendant,
a careful nurse, medicines of the best quality, and nourishment such as an
invalid requires. But there was not then, in the whole realm, a single
infirmary supported by voluntary contribution. Even in the capital the
only edifices open to the wounded were the two ancient hospitals of Saint
Thomas and Saint Bartholomew. The Queen gave orders that in both these
hospitals arrangements should be made at the public charge for the
reception of patients from the fleet. 276 At the
same time it was announced that a noble and lasting memorial of the
gratitude which England felt for the courage and patriotism of her sailors
would soon rise on a site eminently appropriate. Among the suburban
residences of our kings, that which stood at Greenwich had long held a
distinguished place. Charles the Second liked the situation, and
determined to rebuild the house and to improve the gardens. Soon after his
Restoration, he began to erect, on a spot almost washed by the Thames at
high tide, a mansion of vast extent and cost. Behind the palace were
planted long avenues of trees which, when William reigned, were scarcely
more than saplings, but which have now covered with their massy shade the
summer rambles of several generations. On the slope which has long been
the scene of the holiday sports of the Londoners, were constructed flights
of terraces, of which the vestiges may still be discerned. The Queen now
publicly declared, in her husband’s name, that the building commenced by
Charles should be completed, and should be a retreat for seamen disabled
in the service of their country. 277

One of the happiest effects produced by the good news was the calming of
the public mind. During about a month the nation had been hourly expecting
an invasion and a rising, and had consequently been in an irritable and
suspicious mood. In many parts of England a nonjuror could not show
himself without great risk of being insulted. A report that arms were
hidden in a house sufficed to bring a furious mob to the door. The mansion
of one Jacobite gentleman in Kent had been attacked, and, after a fight in
which several shots were fired, had been stormed and pulled down. 278
Yet such riots were by no means the worst symptoms of the fever which had
inflamed the whole society. The exposure of Fuller, in February, had, as
it seemed, put an end to the practices of that vile tribe of which Oates
was the patriarch. During some weeks, indeed, the world was disposed to be
unreasonably incredulous about plots. But in April there was a reaction.
The French and Irish were coming. There was but too much reason to believe
that there were traitors in the island. Whoever pretended that he could
point out those traitors was sure to be heard with attention; and there
was not wanting a false witness to avail himself of the golden
opportunity.

This false witness was named Robert Young. His history was in his own
lifetime so fully investigated, and so much of his correspondence has been
preserved, that the whole man is before us. His character is indeed a
curious study. His birthplace was a subject of dispute among three
nations. The English pronounced him Irish. The Irish, not being ambitious
of the honour of having him for a countryman, affirmed that he was born in
Scotland. Wherever he may have been born, it is impossible to doubt where
he was bred; for his phraseology is precisely that of the Teagues who
were, in his time, favourite characters on our stage. He called himself a
priest of the Established Church; but he was in truth only a deacon; and
his deacon’s orders he had obtained by producing forged certificates of
his learning and moral character. Long before the Revolution he held
curacies in various parts of Ireland; but he did not remain many days in
any spot. He was driven from one place by the scandal which was the effect
of his lawless amours. He rode away from another place on a borrowed
horse, which he never returned. He settled in a third parish, and was
taken up for bigamy. Some letters which he wrote on this occasion from the
gaol of Cavan have been preserved. He assured each of his wives, with the
most frightful imprecations, that she alone was the object of his love;
and he thus succeeded in inducing one of them to support him in prison,
and the other to save his life by forswearing herself at the assizes. The
only specimens which remain to us of his method of imparting religious
instruction are to be found in these epistles. He compares himself to
David, the man after God’s own heart, who had been guilty both of adultery
and murder. He declares that he repents; he prays for the forgiveness of
the Almighty, and then intreats his dear honey, for Christ’s sake, to
perjure herself. Having narrowly escaped the gallows, he wandered during
several years about Ireland and England, begging, stealing, cheating,
personating, forging, and lay in many prisons under many names. In 1684 he
was convicted at Bury of having fraudulently counterfeited Sancroft’s
signature, and was sentenced to the pillory and to imprisonment. From his
dungeon he wrote to implore the Primate’s mercy. The letter may still be
read with all the original bad grammar and bad spelling. 279
The writer acknowledged his guilt, wished that his eyes were a fountain of
water, declared that he should never know peace till he had received
episcopal absolution, and professed a mortal hatred of Dissenters. As all
this contrition and all this orthodoxy produced no effect, the penitent,
after swearing bitterly to be revenged on Sancroft, betook himself to
another device. The Western Insurrection had just broken out. The
magistrates all over the country were but too ready to listen to any
accusation that might be brought against Whigs and Nonconformists. Young
declared on oath that, to his knowledge, a design had been formed in
Suffolk against the life of King James, and named a peer, several
gentlemen, and ten Presbyterian ministers, as parties to the plot. Some of
the accused were brought to trial; and Young appeared in the witness box;
but the story which he told was proved by overwhelming evidence to be
false. Soon after the Revolution he was again convicted of forgery,
pilloried for the fourth or fifth time, and sent to Newgate. While he lay
there, he determined to try whether he should be more fortunate as an
accuser of Jacobites than he had been as an accuser of Puritans. He first
addressed himself to Tillotson. There was a horrible plot against their
Majesties, a plot as deep as hell; and some of the first men in England
were concerned in it. Tillotson, though he placed little confidence in
information coming from such a source, thought that the oath which he had
taken as a Privy Councillor made it his duty to mention the subject to
William. William, after his fashion, treated the matter very lightly. “I
am confident,” he said, “that this is a villany; and I will have nobody
disturbed on such grounds.” After this rebuff, Young remained some time
quiet. But when William was on the Continent, and when the nation was
agitated by the apprehension of a French invasion and of a Jacobite
insurrection, a false accuser might hope to obtain a favourable audience.
The mere oath of a man who was well known to the turnkeys of twenty gaols
was not likely to injure any body. But Young was master of a weapon which
is, of all weapons, the most formidable to innocence. He had lived during
some years by counterfeiting hands, and had at length attained such
consummate skill in that bad art that even experienced clerks who were
conversant with manuscript could scarcely, after the most minute
comparison, discover any difference between his imitations and the
originals. He had succeeded in making a collection of papers written by
men of note who were suspected of disaffection. Some autographs he had
stolen; and some he had obtained by writing in feigned names to ask after
the characters of servants or curates. He now drew up a paper purporting
to be an Association for the Restoration of the banished King. This
document set forth that the subscribers bound themselves in the presence
of God to take arms for His Majesty, and to seize on the Prince of Orange,
dead or alive. To the Association Young appended the names of Marlborough,
of Cornbury, of Salisbury, of Sancroft, and of Sprat, Bishop of Rochester
and Dean of Westminster.

The next thing to be done was to put the paper into some hiding place in
the house of one of the persons whose signatures had been counterfeited.
As Young could not quit Newgate, he was forced to employ a subordinate
agent for this purpose. He selected a wretch named Blackhead, who had
formerly been convicted of perjury and sentenced to have his ears clipped.
The selection was not happy; for Blackhead had none of the qualities which
the trade of a false witness requires except wickedness. There was nothing
plausible about him. His voice was harsh. Treachery was written in all the
lines of his yellow face. He had no invention, no presence of mind, and
could do little more than repeat by rote the lies taught him by others.

This man, instructed by his accomplice, repaired to Sprat’s palace at
Bromley, introduced himself there as the confidential servant of an
imaginary Doctor of Divinity, delivered to the Bishop, on bended knee, a
letter ingeniously manufactured by Young, and received, with the semblance
of profound reverence, the episcopal benediction. The servants made the
stranger welcome. He was taken to the cellar, drank their master’s health,
and entreated them to let him see the house. They could not venture to
show any of the private apartments. Blackhead, therefore, after begging
importunately, but in vain, to be suffered to have one look at the study,
was forced to content himself with dropping the Association into a
flowerpot which stood in a parlour near the kitchen.

Every thing having been thus prepared, Young informed the ministers that
he could tell them something of the highest importance to the welfare of
the State, and earnestly begged to be heard. His request reached them on
perhaps the most anxious day of an anxious month. Tourville had just stood
out to sea. The army of James was embarking. London was agitated by
reports about the disaffection of the naval officers. The Queen was
deliberating whether she should cashier those who were suspected, or try
the effect of an appeal to their honour and patriotism. At such a moment
the ministers could not refuse to listen to any person who professed
himself able to give them valuable information. Young and his accomplice
were brought before the Privy Council. They there accused Marlborough,
Cornbury, Salisbury, Sancroft and Sprat of high treason. These great men,
Young said, had invited James to invade England, and had promised to join
him. The eloquent and ingenious Bishop of Rochester had undertaken to draw
up a Declaration which would inflame the nation against the government of
King William. The conspirators were bound together by a written
instrument. That instrument, signed by their own hands, would be found at
Bromley if careful search was made. Young particularly requested that the
messengers might be ordered to examine the Bishop’s flowerpots.

The ministers were seriously alarmed. The story was circumstantial; and
part of it was probable. Marlborough’s dealings with Saint Germains were
well known to Caermarthen, to Nottingham, and to Sidney. Cornbury was a
tool of Marlborough, and was the son of a nonjuror and of a notorious
plotter. Salisbury was a Papist. Sancroft had, not many months before,
been, with too much show of reason, suspected of inviting the French to
invade England. Of all the accused persons Sprat was the most unlikely to
be concerned in any hazardous design. He had neither enthusiasm nor
constancy. Both his ambition and his party spirit had always been
effectually kept in order by his love of ease and his anxiety for his own
safety. He had been guilty of some criminal compliances in the hope of
gaining the favour of James, had sate in the High Commission, had
concurred in several iniquitous decrees pronounced by that court, and had,
with trembling hands and faltering voice, read the Declaration of
Indulgence in the choir of the Abbey. But there he had stopped. As soon as
it began to be whispered that the civil and religious constitution of
England would speedily be vindicated by extraordinary means, he had
resigned the powers which he had during two years exercised in defiance of
law, and had hastened to make his peace with his clerical brethren. He had
in the Convention voted for a Regency; but he had taken the oaths without
hesitation; he had borne a conspicuous part in the coronation of the new
Sovereigns; and by his skilful hand had been added to the Form of Prayer
used on the fifth of November those sentences in which the Church
expresses her gratitude for the second great deliverance wrought on that
day. 280
Such a man, possessed of a plentiful income, of a seat in the House of
Lords, of one agreeable house among the elms of Bromley, and of another in
the cloisters of Westminster, was very unlikely to run the risk of
martyrdom. He was not, indeed, on perfectly good terms with the
government. For the feeling which, next to solicitude for his own comfort
and repose, seems to have had the greatest influence on his public
conduct, was his dislike of the Puritans; a dislike which sprang, not from
bigotry, but from Epicureanism. Their austerity was a reproach to his
slothful and luxurious life; their phraseology shocked his fastidious
taste; and, where they were concerned, his ordinary good nature forsook
him. Loathing the nonconformists as he did, he was not likely to be very
zealous for a prince whom the nonconformists regarded as their protector.
But Sprat’s faults afforded ample security that he would never, from
spleen against William, engage in any plot to bring back James. Why Young
should have assigned the most perilous part in an enterprise full of peril
to a man singularly pliant, cautious and selfindulgent, it is difficult to
say.

The first step which the ministers took was to send Marlborough to the
Tower. He was by far the most formidable of all the accused persons; and
that he had held a traitorous correspondence with Saint Germains was a
fact which, whether Young were perjured or not, the Queen and her chief
advisers knew to be true. One of the Clerks of the Council and several
messengers were sent down to Bromley with a warrant from Nottingham. Sprat
was taken into custody. All the apartments in which it could reasonably be
supposed that he would have hidden an important document were searched,
the library, the diningroom, the drawingroom, the bedchamber, and the
adjacent closets. His papers were strictly examined. Much food prose was
found, and probably some bad verse, but no treason. The messengers pried
into every flowerpot that they could find, but to no purpose. It never
occurred to them to look into the room in which Blackhead had hidden the
Association: for that room was near the offices occupied by the servants,
and was little used by the Bishop and his family. The officers returned to
London with their prisoner, but without the document which, if it had been
found, might have been fatal to him.

Late at night he was brought to Westminster, and was suffered to sleep at
his deanery. All his bookcases and drawers were examined; and sentinels
were posted at the door of his bedchamber, but with strict orders to
behave civilly and not to disturb the family.

On the following day he was brought before the Council. The examination
was conducted by Nottingham with great humanity and courtesy. The Bishop,
conscious of entire innocence, behaved with temper and firmness. He made
no complaints. “I submit,” he said, “to the necessities of State in such a
time of jealousy and danger as this.” He was asked whether he had drawn up
a Declaration for King James, whether he had held any correspondence with
France, whether he had signed any treasonable association, and whether he
knew of any such association. To all these questions he, with perfect
truth, answered in the negative, on the word of a Christian and a Bishop.
He was taken back to his deanery. He remained there in easy confinement
during ten days, and then, as nothing tending to criminate him had been
discovered, was suffered to return to Bromley.

Meanwhile the false accusers had been devising a new scheme. Blackhead
paid another visit to Bromley, and contrived to take the forged
Association out of the place in which he had hid it, and to bring it back
to Young. One of Young’s two wives then carried it to the Secretary’s
Office, and told a lie, invented by her husband, to explain how a paper of
such importance had come into her hands. But it was not now so easy to
frighten the ministers as it had been a few days before. The battle of La
Hogue had put an end to all apprehensions of invasion. Nottingham,
therefore, instead of sending down a warrant to Bromley, merely wrote to
beg that Sprat would call on him at Whitehall. The summons was promptly
obeyed, and the accused prelate was brought face to face with Blackhead
before the Council. Then the truth came out fast. The Bishop remembered
the villanous look and voice of the man who had knelt to ask the episcopal
blessing. The Bishop’s secretary confirmed his master’s assertions. The
false witness soon lost his presence of mind. His cheeks, always sallow,
grew frightfully livid. His voice, generally loud and coarse, sank into a
whisper. The Privy Councillors saw his confusion, and crossexamined him
sharply. For a time he answered their questions by repeatedly stammering
out his original lie in the original words. At last he found that he had
no way of extricating himself but by owning his guilt. He acknowledged
that he had given an untrue account of his visit to Bromley; and, after
much prevarication, he related how he had hidden the Association, and how
he had removed it from its hiding place, and confessed that he had been
set on by Young.

The two accomplices were then confronted. Young, with unabashed forehead,
denied every thing. He knew nothing about the flowerpots. “If so,” cried
Nottingham and Sidney together, “why did you give such particular
directions that the flowerpots at Bromley should be searched?” “I never
gave any directions about the flowerpots,” said Young. Then the whole
board broke forth. “How dare you say so? We all remember it.” Still the
knave stood up erect, and exclaimed, with an impudence which Oates might
have envied, “This hiding is all a trick got up between the Bishop and
Blackhead. The Bishop has taken Blackhead off; and they are both trying to
stifle the plot.” This was too much. There was a smile and a lifting up of
hands all round the board. “Man,” cried Caermarthen, “wouldst thou have us
believe that the Bishop contrived to have this paper put where it was ten
to one that our messengers had found it, and where, if they had found it,
it might have hanged him?”

The false accusers were removed in custody. The Bishop, after warmly
thanking the ministers for their fair and honourable conduct, took his
leave of them. In the antechamber he found a crowd of people staring at
Young, while Young sate, enduring the stare with the serene fortitude of a
man who had looked down on far greater multitudes from half the pillories
in England. “Young,” said Sprat, “your conscience must tell you that you
have cruelly wronged me. For your own sake I am sorry that you persist in
denying what your associate has confessed.” “Confessed!” cried Young; “no,
all is not confessed yet; and that you shall find to your sorrow. There is
such a thing as impeachment, my Lord. When Parliament sits you shall hear
more of me.” “God give you repentance,” answered the Bishop. “For, depend
upon it, you are in much more danger of being damned than I of being
impeached.” 281

Forty-eight hours after the detection of this execrable fraud, Marlborough
was admitted to bail. Young and Blackhead had done him an inestimable
service. That he was concerned in a plot quite as criminal as that which
they had falsely imputed to him, and that the government was to possession
of moral proofs of his guilt, is now certain. But his contemporaries had
not, as we have, the evidence of his perfidy before them. They knew that
he had been accused of an offence of which he was innocent, that perjury
and forgery had been employed to ruin him, and that, in consequence of
these machinations, he had passed some weeks in the Tower. There was in
the public mind a very natural confusion between his disgrace and his
imprisonment. He had been imprisoned without sufficient cause. Might it
not, in the absence of all information, be reasonably presumed that he had
been disgraced without sufficient cause? It was certain that a vile
calumny, destitute of all foundation, had caused him to be treated as a
criminal in May. Was it not probable, then, that calumny might have
deprived him of his master’s favour in January?

Young’s resources were not yet exhausted. As soon as he had been carried
back from Whitehall to Newgate, he set himself to construct a new plot,
and to find a new accomplice. He addressed himself to a man named Holland,
who was in the lowest state of poverty. Never, said Young, was there such
a golden opportunity. A bold, shrewd, fellow might easily earn five
hundred pounds. To Holland five hundred pounds seemed fabulous wealth.
What, he asked, was he to do for it? Nothing, he was told, but to speak
the truth, that was to say, substantial truth, a little disguised and
coloured. There really was a plot; and this would have been proved if
Blackhead had not been bought off. His desertion had made it necessary to
call in the help of fiction. “You must swear that you and I were in a back
room upstairs at the Lobster in Southwark. Some men came to meet us there.
They gave a password before they were admitted. They were all in white
camlet cloaks. They signed the Association in our presence. Then they paid
each his shilling and went away. And you must be ready to identify my Lord
Marlborough and the Bishop of Rochester as two of these men.” “How can I
identify them?” said Holland, “I never saw them.” “You must contrive to
see them,” answered the tempter, “as soon as you can. The Bishop will be
at the Abbey. Anybody about the Court will point out my Lord Marlborough.”
Holland immediately went to Whitehall, and repeated this conversation to
Nottingham. The unlucky imitator of Oates was prosecuted, by order of the
government, for perjury, subornation of perjury, and forgery. He was
convicted and imprisoned, was again set in the pillory, and underwent, in
addition to the exposure, about which he cared little, such a pelting as
had seldom been known. 282 After his punishment, he was,
during some years, lost in the crowd of pilferers, ringdroppers and
sharpers who infested the capital. At length, in the year 1700, he emerged
from his obscurity, and excited a momentary interest. The newspapers
announced that Robert Young, Clerk, once so famous, had been taken up for
coining, then that he had been found guilty, then that the dead warrant
had come down, and finally that the reverend gentleman had been hanged at
Tyburn, and had greatly edified a large assembly of spectators by his
penitence. 283

CHAPTER XIX

WHILE England was agitated, first by the dread of an invasion, and then by
joy at the deliverance wrought for her by the valour of her seamen,
important events were taking place on the Continent. On the sixth of March
the King had arrived at the Hague, and had proceeded to make his
arrangements for the approaching campaign. 284

The prospect which lay before him was gloomy. The coalition of which he
was the author and the chief had, during some months, been in constant
danger of dissolution. By what strenuous exertions, by what ingenious
expedients, by what blandishments, by what bribes, he succeeded in
preventing his allies from throwing themselves, one by one, at the feet of
France, can be but imperfectly known. The fullest and most authentic
record of the labours and sacrifices by which he kept together, during
eight years, a crowd of fainthearted and treacherous potentates, negligent
of the common interest and jealous of each other, is to be found in his
correspondence with Heinsius. In that correspondence William is all
himself. He had, in the course of his eventful life, to sustain some high
parts for which he was not eminently qualified; and, in those parts, his
success was imperfect. As Sovereign of England, he showed abilities and
virtues which entitle him to honourable mention in history; but his
deficiencies were great. He was to the last a stranger amongst us, cold,
reserved, never in good spirits, never at his ease. His kingdom was a
place of exile. His finest palaces were prisons. He was always counting
the days which must elapse before he should again see the land of his
birth, the clipped trees, the wings of the innumerable windmills, the
nests of the storks on the tall gables, and the long lines of painted
villas reflected in the sleeping canals. He took no pains to hide the
preference which he felt for his native soil and for his early friends;
and therefore, though he rendered great services to our country, he did
not reign in our hearts. As a general in the field, again, he showed rare
courage and capacity; but, from whatever cause, he was, as a tactician,
inferior to some of his contemporaries, who, in general powers of mind,
were far inferior to him. The business for which he was preeminently
fitted was diplomacy, in the highest sense of the word. It may be doubted
whether he has ever had a superior in the art of conducting those great
negotiations on which the welfare of the commonwealth of nations depends.
His skill in this department of politics was never more severely tasked or
more signally proved than during the latter part of 1691 and the earlier
part of 1692.

One of his chief difficulties was caused by the sullen and menacing
demeanour of the Northern powers. Denmark and Sweden had at one time
seemed disposed to join the coalition; but they had early become cold, and
were fast becoming hostile. From France they flattered themselves that
they had little to fear. It was not very probable that her armies would
cross the Elbe, or that her fleets would force a passage through the
Sound. But the naval strength of England and Holland united might well
excite apprehension at Stockholm and Copenhagen. Soon arose vexatious
questions of maritime right, questions such as, in almost every extensive
war of modern times, have arisen between belligerents and neutrals. The
Scandinavian princes complained that the legitimate trade between the
Baltic and France was tyrannically interrupted. Though they had not in
general been on very friendly terms with each other, they began to draw
close together, intrigued at every petty German court, and tried to form
what William called a Third Party in Europe. The King of Sweden, who, as
Duke of Pomerania, was bound to send three thousand men for the defence of
the Empire, sent, instead of them, his advice that the allies would make
peace on the best terms which they could get. 285 The
King of Denmark seized a great number of Dutch merchantships, and
collected in Holstein an army which caused no small uneasiness to his
neighbours. “I fear,” William wrote, in an hour of deep dejection, to
Heinsius, “I fear that the object of this Third Party is a peace which
will bring in its train the slavery of Europe. The day will come when
Sweden and her confederates will know too late how great an error they
have committed. They are farther, no doubt, than we from the danger; and
therefore it is that they are thus bent on working our ruin and their own.
That France will now consent to reasonable terms is not to be expected;
and it were better to fall sword in hand than to submit to whatever she
may dictate.” 286

While the King was thus disquieted by the conduct of the Northern powers,
ominous signs began to appear in a very different quarter. It had, from
the first, been no easy matter to induce sovereigns who hated, and who, in
their own dominions, persecuted, the Protestant religion, to countenance
the revolution which had saved that religion from a great peril. But
happily the example and the authority of the Vatican had overcome their
scruples. Innocent the Eleventh and Alexander the Eighth had regarded
William with ill concealed partiality. He was not indeed their friend; but
he was their enemy’s enemy; and James had been, and, if restored, must
again be, their enemy’s vassal. To the heretic nephew therefore they gave
their effective support, to the orthodox uncle only compliments and
benedictions. But Alexander the Eighth had occupied the papal throne
little more than fifteen months. His successor, Antonio Pignatelli, who
took the name of Innocent the Twelfth, was impatient to be reconciled to
Lewis. Lewis was now sensible that he had committed a great error when he
had roused against himself at once the spirit of Protestantism and the
spirit of Popery. He permitted the French Bishops to submit themselves to
the Holy See. The dispute, which had, at one time, seemed likely to end in
a great Gallican schism, was accommodated; and there was reason to believe
that the influence of the head of the Church would be exerted for the
purpose of severing the ties which bound so many Catholic princes to the
Calvinist who had usurped the British throne.

Meanwhile the coalition, which the Third Party on one side and the Pope on
the other were trying to dissolve, was in no small danger of falling to
pieces from mere rottenness. Two of the allied powers, and two only, were
hearty in the common cause; England, drawing after her the other British
kingdoms; and Holland, drawing after her the other Batavian commonwealths.
England and Holland were indeed torn by internal factions, and were
separated from each other by mutual jealousies and antipathies; but both
were fully resolved not to submit to French domination; and both were
ready to bear their share, and more than their share, of the charges of
the contest. Most of the members of the confederacy were not nations, but
men, an Emperor, a King, Electors, Dukes; and of these men there was
scarcely one whose whole soul was in the struggle, scarcely one who did
not hang back, who did not find some excuse for omitting to fulfil his
engagements, who did not expect to be hired to defend his own rights and
interests against the common enemy. But the war was the war of the people
of England and of the people of Holland. Had it not been so, the burdens
which it made necessary would not have been borne by either England or
Holland during a single year. When William said that he would rather die
sword in hand than humble himself before France, he expressed what was
felt, not by himself alone, but by two great communities of which he was
the first magistrate. With those two communities, unhappily, other states
had little sympathy. Indeed those two communities were regarded by other
states as rich, plaindealing, generous dupes are regarded by needy
sharpers. England and Holland were wealthy; and they were zealous. Their
wealth excited the cupidity of the whole alliance; and to that wealth
their zeal was the key. They were persecuted with sordid importunity by
all their confederates, from Caesar, who, in the pride of his solitary
dignity, would not honour King William with the title of Majesty, down to
the smallest Margrave who could see his whole principality from the
cracked windows of the mean and ruinous old house which he called his
palace. It was not enough that England and Holland furnished much more
than their contingents to the war by land, and bore unassisted the whole
charge of the war by sea. They were beset by a crowd of illustrious
mendicants, some rude, some obsequious, but all indefatigable and
insatiable. One prince came mumping to them annually with a lamentable
story about his distresses. A more sturdy beggar threatened to join the
Third Party, and to make a separate peace with France, if his demands were
not granted. Every Sovereign too had his ministers and favourites; and
these ministers and favourites were perpetually hinting that France was
willing to pay them for detaching their masters from the coalition, and
that it would be prudent in England and Holland to outbid France.

Yet the embarrassment caused by the rapacity of the allied courts was
scarcely greater than the embarrassment caused by their ambition and their
pride. This prince had set his heart on some childish distinction, a title
or a cross, and would do nothing for the common cause till his wishes were
accomplished. That prince chose to fancy that he had been slighted, and
would not stir till reparation had been made to him. The Duke of Brunswick
Lunenburg would not furnish a battalion for the defence of Germany unless
he was made an Elector. 287 The Elector of Brandenburg
declared that he was as hostile as he had ever been to France; but he had
been ill used by the Spanish government; and he therefore would not suffer
his soldiers to be employed in the defence of the Spanish Netherlands. He
was willing to bear his share of the war; but it must be in his own way;
he must have the command of a distinct army; and he must be stationed
between the Rhine and the Meuse. 288 The
Elector of Saxony complained that bad winter quarters had been assigned to
his troops; he therefore recalled them just when they should have been
preparing to take the field, but very coolly offered to send them back if
England and Holland would give him four hundred thousand rixdollars. 289

It might have been expected that at least the two chiefs of the House of
Austria would have put forth, at this conjuncture, all their strength
against the rival House of Bourbon. Unfortunately they could not be
induced to exert themselves vigorously even for their own preservation.
They were deeply interested in keeping the French out of Italy. Yet they
could with difficulty be prevailed upon to lend the smallest assistance to
the Duke of Savoy. They seemed to think it the business of England and
Holland to defend the passes of the Alps, and to prevent the armies of
Lewis from overflowing Lombardy. To the Emperor indeed the war against
France was a secondary object. His first object was the war against
Turkey. He was dull and bigoted. His mind misgave him that the war against
France was, in some sense, a war against the Catholic religion; and the
war against Turkey was a crusade. His recent campaign on the Danube had
been successful. He might easily have concluded an honourable peace with
the Porte, and have turned his arms westward. But he had conceived the
hope that he might extend his hereditary dominions at the expense of the
Infidels. Visions of a triumphant entry into Constantinople and of a Te
Deum in Saint Sophia’s had risen in his brain. He not only employed in the
East a force more than sufficient to have defended Piedmont and
reconquered Loraine; but he seemed to think that England and Holland were
bound to reward him largely for neglecting their interests and pursuing
his own. 290

Spain already was what she continued to be down to our own time. Of the
Spain which had domineered over the land and the ocean, over the Old and
the New World, of the Spain which had, in the short space of twelve years,
led captive a Pope and a King of France, a Sovereign of Mexico and a
Sovereign of Peru, of the Spain which had sent an army to the walls of
Paris and had equipped a mighty fleet to invade England, nothing remained
but an arrogance which had once excited terror and hatred, but which could
now excite only derision. In extent, indeed, the dominions of the Catholic
King exceeded those of Rome when Rome was at the zenith of power. But the
huge mass lay torpid and helpless, and could be insulted or despoiled with
impunity. The whole administration, military and naval, financial and
colonial, was utterly disorganized. Charles was a fit representative of
his kingdom, impotent physically, intellectually and morally, sunk in
ignorance, listlessness and superstition, yet swollen with a notion of his
own dignity, and quick to imagine and to resent affronts. So wretched had
his education been that, when he was told of the fall of Mons, the most
important fortress in his vast empire, he asked whether Mons was in
England. 291 Among the ministers who were
raised up and pulled down by his sickly caprice, was none capable of
applying a remedy to the distempers of the State. In truth to brace anew
the nerves of that paralysed body would have been a hard task even for
Ximenes. No servant of the Spanish Crown occupied a more important post,
and none was more unfit for an important post, than the Marquess of
Gastanaga. He was Governor of the Netherlands; and in the Netherlands it
seemed probable that the fate of Christendom would be decided. He had
discharged his trust as every public trust was then discharged in every
part of that vast monarchy on which it was boastfully said that the sun
never set. Fertile and rich as was the country which he ruled, he threw on
England and Holland the whole charge of defending it. He expected that
arms, ammunition, waggons, provisions, every thing, would be furnished by
the heretics. It had never occurred to him that it was his business, and
not theirs, to put Mons in a condition to stand a siege. The public voice
loudly accused him of having sold that celebrated stronghold to France.
But it is probable that he was guilty of nothing worse than the haughty
apathy and sluggishness characteristic of his nation.

Such was the state of the coalition of which William was the head. There
were moments when he felt himself overwhelmed, when his spirits sank, when
his patience was wearied out, and when his constitutional irritability
broke forth. “I cannot,” he wrote, “offer a suggestion without being met
by a demand for a subsidy.” 292 “I have refused point blank,”
he wrote on another occasion, when he had been importuned for money, “it
is impossible that the States General and England can bear the charge of
the army on the Rhine, of the army in Piedmont, and of the whole defence
of Flanders, to say nothing of the immense cost of the naval war. If our
allies can do nothing for themselves, the sooner the alliance goes to
pieces the better.” 293 But, after every short fit of
despondency and ill humour, he called up all the force of his mind, and
put a strong curb on his temper. Weak, mean, false, selfish, as too many
of the confederates were, it was only by their help that he could
accomplish what he had from his youth up considered as his mission. If
they abandoned him, France would be dominant without a rival in Europe.
Well as they deserved to be punished, he would not, to punish them,
acquiesce in the subjugation of the whole civilised world. He set himself
therefore to surmount some difficulties and to evade others. The
Scandinavian powers he conciliated by waiving, reluctantly indeed, and not
without a hard internal struggle, some of his maritime rights. 294
At Rome his influence, though indirectly exercised, balanced that of the
Pope himself. Lewis and James found that they had not a friend at the
Vatican except Innocent; and Innocent, whose nature was gentle and
irresolute, shrank from taking a course directly opposed to the sentiments
of all who surrounded him. In private conversations with Jacobite agents
he declared himself devoted to the interests of the House of Stuart; but
in his public acts he observed a strict neutrality. He sent twenty
thousand crowns to Saint Germains; but he excused himself to the enemies
of France by protesting that this was not a subsidy for any political
purpose, but merely an alms to be distributed among poor British
Catholics. He permitted prayers for the good cause to be read in the
English College at Rome; but he insisted that those prayers should be
drawn up in general terms, and that no name should be mentioned. It was in
vain that the ministers of the Houses of Stuart and Bourbon adjured him to
take a more decided course. “God knows,” he exclaimed on one occasion,
“that I would gladly shed my blood to restore the King of England. But
what can I do? If I stir, I am told that I am favouring the French, and
helping them to set up an universal monarchy. I am not like the old Popes.
Kings will not listen to me as they listened to my predecessors. There is
no religion now, nothing but wicked, worldly policy. The Prince of Orange
is master. He governs us all. He has got such a hold on the Emperor and on
the King of Spain that neither of them dares to displease him. God help
us! He alone can help us.” And, as the old man spoke, he beat the table
with his hand in an agony of impotent grief and indignation. 295

To keep the German princes steady was no easy task; but it was
accomplished. Money was distributed among them, much less indeed than they
asked, but much more than they had any decent pretence for asking. With
the Elector of Saxony a composition was made. He had, together with a
strong appetite for subsidies, a great desire to be a member of the most
select and illustrious orders of knighthood. It seems that, instead of the
four hundred thousand rixdollars which he had demanded, he consented to
accept one hundred thousand and the Garter. 296 His
prime minister Schoening, the most covetous and perfidious of mankind, was
secured by a pension. 297 For the Duke of Brunswick
Lunenburg, William, not without difficulty, procured the long desired
title of Elector of Hanover. By such means as these the breaches which had
divided the coalition were so skilfully repaired that it appeared still to
present a firm front to the enemy. William had complained bitterly to the
Spanish government of the incapacity and inertness of Gastanaga. The
Spanish government, helpless and drowsy as it was, could not be altogether
insensible to the dangers which threatened Flanders and Brabant. Gastanaga
was recalled; and William was invited to take upon himself the government
of the Low Countries, with powers not less than regal. Philip the Second
would not easily have believed that, within a century after his death, his
greatgrandson would implore the greatgrandson of William the Silent to
exercise the authority of a sovereign at Brussels. 298

The offer was in one sense tempting; but William was too wise to accept
it. He knew that the population of the Spanish Netherlands was firmly
attached to the Church of Rome. Every act of a Protestant ruler was
certain to be regarded with suspicion by the clergy and people of those
countries. Already Gastanaga, mortified by his disgrace, had written to
inform the Court of Rome that changes were in contemplation which would
make Ghent and Antwerp as heretical as Amsterdam and London. 299
It had doubtless also occurred to William that if, by governing mildly and
justly, and by showing a decent respect for the ceremonies and the
ministers of the Roman Catholic religion, he should succeed in obtaining
the confidence of the Belgians, he would inevitably raise against himself
a storm of obloquy in our island. He knew by experience what it was to
govern two nations strongly attached to two different Churches. A large
party among the Episcopalians of England could not forgive him for having
consented to the establishment of the presbyterian polity in Scotland. A
large party among the Presbyterians of Scotland blamed him for maintaining
the episcopal polity in England. If he now took under his protection
masses, processions, graven images, friaries, nunneries, and, worst of
all, Jesuit pulpits, Jesuit confessionals and Jesuit colleges, what could
he expect but that England and Scotland would join in one cry of
reprobation? He therefore refused to accept the government of the Low
Countries, and proposed that it should be entrusted to the Elector of
Bavaria. The Elector of Bavaria was, after the Emperor, the most powerful
of the Roman Catholic potentates of Germany. He was young, brave, and
ambitious of military distinction. The Spanish Court was willing to
appoint him, and he was desirous to be appointed; but much delay was
caused by an absurd difficulty. The Elector thought it beneath him to ask
for what he wished to have. The formalists of the Cabinet of Madrid
thought it beneath the dignity of the Catholic King to give what had not
been asked. Mediation was necessary, and was at last successful. But much
time was lost; and the spring was far advanced before the new Governor of
the Netherlands entered on his functions. 300

William had saved the coalition from the danger of perishing by disunion.
But by no remonstrance, by no entreaty, by no bribe, could he prevail on
his allies to be early in the field. They ought to have profited by the
severe lesson which had been given them in the preceding year. But again
every one of them lingered, and wondered why the rest were lingering; and
again he who singly wielded the whole power of France was found, as his
haughty motto had long boasted, a match for a multitude of adversaries. 301
His enemies, while still unready, learned with dismay that he had taken
the field in person at the head of his nobility. On no occasion had that
gallant aristocracy appeared with more splendour in his train. A single
circumstance may suffice to give a notion of the pomp and luxury of his
camp. Among the musketeers of his household rode, for the first time, a
stripling of seventeen, who soon afterwards succeeded to the title of Duke
of Saint Simon, and to whom we owe those inestimable memoirs which have
preserved, for the delight and instruction of many lands and of many
generations, the vivid picture of a France which has long passed away.
Though the boy’s family was at that time very hard pressed for money, he
travelled with thirty-five horses and sumpter mules. The princesses of the
blood, each surrounded by a group of highborn and graceful ladies,
accompanied the King; and the smiles of so many charming women inspired
the throng of vain and voluptuous but highspirited gentlemen with more
than common courage. In the brilliant crowd which surrounded the French
Augustus appeared the French Virgil, the graceful, the tender, the
melodious Racine. He had, in conformity with the prevailing fashion,
become devout, had given up writing for the theatre; and, having
determined to apply himself vigorously to the discharge of the duties
which belonged to him as historiographer of France, he now came to see the
great events which it was his office to record. 302 In the
neighbourhood of Mons, Lewis entertained the ladies with the most
magnificent review that had ever been seen in modern Europe. A hundred and
twenty thousand of the finest troops in the world were drawn up in a line
eight miles long. It may be doubted whether such an army had ever been
brought together under the Roman eagles. The show began early in the
morning, and was not over when the long summer day closed. Racine left the
ground, astonished, deafened, dazzled, and tired to death. In a private
letter he ventured to give utterance to an amiable wish which he probably
took good care not to whisper in the courtly circle: “Would to heaven that
all these poor fellows were in their cottages again with their wives and
their little ones!” 303

After this superb pageant Lewis announced his intention of attacking
Namur. In five days he was under the walls of that city, at the head of
more than thirty thousand men. Twenty thousand peasants, pressed in those
parts of the Netherlands which the French occupied, were compelled to act
as pioneers. Luxemburg, with eighty thousand men, occupied a strong
position on the road between Namur and Brussels, and was prepared to give
battle to any force which might attempt to raise the siege. 304
This partition of duties excited no surprise. It had long been known that
the great Monarch loved sieges, and that he did not love battles. He
professed to think that the real test of military skill was a siege. The
event of an encounter between two armies on an open plain was, in his
opinion, often determined by chance; but only science could prevail
against ravelins and bastions which science had constructed. His
detractors sneeringly pronounced it fortunate that the department of the
military art which His Majesty considered as the noblest was one in which
it was seldom necessary for him to expose to serious risk a life
invaluable to his people.

Namur, situated at the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse, was one of
the great fortresses of Europe. The town lay in the plain, and had no
strength except what was derived from art. But art and nature had combined
to fortify that renowned citadel which, from the summit of a lofty rock,
looks down on a boundless expanse of cornfields, woods and meadows,
watered by two fine rivers. The people of the city and of the surrounding
region were proud of their impregnable castle. Their boast was that never,
in all the wars which had devastated the Netherlands, had skill or valour
been able to penetrate those walls. The neighbouring fastnesses, famed
throughout the world for their strength, Antwerp and Ostend, Ypres, Lisle
and Tournay, Mons and Valenciennes, Cambray and Charleroi, Limburg and
Luxemburg, had opened their gates to conquerors; but never once had the
flag been pulled down from the battlements of Namur. That nothing might be
wanting to the interest of the siege, the two great masters of the art of
fortification were opposed to each other. Vauban had during many years
been regarded as the first of engineers; but a formidable rival had lately
arisen, Menno, Baron of Cohorn, the ablest officer in the service of the
States General. The defences of Namur had been recently strengthened and
repaired under Cohorn’s superintendence; and he was now within the walls.
Vauban was in the camp of Lewis. It might therefore be expected that both
the attack and the defence would be conducted with consummate ability.

By this time the allied armies had assembled; but it was too late. 305
William hastened towards Namur. He menaced the French works, first from
the west, then from the north, then from the east. But between him and the
lines of circumvallation lay the army of Luxemburg, turning as he turned,
and always so strongly posted that to attack it would have been the height
of imprudence. Meanwhile the besiegers, directed by the skill of Vauban
and animated by the presence of Lewis, made rapid progress. There were
indeed many difficulties to be surmounted and many hardships to be
endured. The weather was stormy; and, on the eighth of June, the feast of
Saint Medard, who holds in the French Calendar the same inauspicious place
which in our Calendar belongs to Saint Swithin, the rain fell in torrents.
The Sambre rose and covered many square miles on which the harvest was
green. The Mehaigne whirled down its bridges to the Meuse. All the roads
became swamps. The trenches were so deep in water and mire that it was the
business of three days to move a gun from one battery to another. The six
thousand waggons which had accompanied the French army were useless. It
was necessary that gunpowder, bullets, corn, hay, should be carried from
place to place on the backs of the war horses. Nothing but the authority
of Lewis could, in such circumstances, have maintained order and inspired
cheerfulness. His soldiers, in truth, showed much more reverence for him
than for what their religion had made sacred. They cursed Saint Medard
heartily, and broke or burned every image of him that could be found. But
for their King there was nothing that they were not ready to do and to
bear. In spite of every obstacle they constantly gained ground. Cohorn was
severely wounded while defending with desperate resolution a fort which he
had himself constructed, and of which he was proud. His place could not be
supplied. The governor was a feeble man whom Gastanaga had appointed, and
whom William had recently advised the Elector of Bavaria to remove. The
spirit of the garrison gave way. The town surrendered on the eighth day of
the siege, the citadel about three weeks later. 306

The history of the fall of Namur in 1692 bears a close resemblance to the
history of the fail of Mons in 1691. Both in 1691 and in 1692, Lewis, the
sole and absolute master of the resources of his kingdom, was able to open
the campaign, before William, the captain of a coalition, had brought
together his dispersed forces. In both years the advantage of having the
first move decided the event of the game. At Namur, as at Mons, Lewis,
assisted by Vauban conducted the siege; Luxemburg covered it; William
vainly tried to raise it, and, with deep mortification, assisted as a
spectator at the victory of his enemy.

In one respect however the fate of the two fortresses was very different.
Mons was delivered up by its own inhabitants. Namur might perhaps have
been saved if the garrison had been as zealous and determined as the
population. Strange to say, in this place, so long subject to a foreign
rule, there was found a patriotism resembling that of the little Greek
commonwealths. There is no reason to believe that the burghers cared about
the balance of power, or had any preference for James or for William, for
the Most Christian King or for the Most Catholic King. But every citizen
considered his own honour as bound up with the honour of the maiden
fortress. It is true that the French did not abuse their victory. No
outrage was committed; the privileges of the municipality were respected,
the magistrates were not changed. Yet the people could not see a conqueror
enter their hitherto unconquered castle without tears of rage and shame.
Even the barefooted Carmelites, who had renounced all pleasures, all
property, all society, all domestic affection, whose days were all fast
days, who passed month after month without uttering a word, were strangely
moved. It was in vain that Lewis attempted to soothe them by marks of
respect and by munificent bounty. Whenever they met a French uniform they
turned their heads away with a look which showed that a life of prayer, of
abstinence and of silence had left one earthly feeling still unsubdued. 307

This was perhaps the moment at which the arrogance of Lewis reached the
highest point. He had achieved the last and the most splendid military
exploit of his life. His confederated foes, English, Dutch and German,
had, in their own despite, swelled his triumph, and had been witnesses of
the glory which made their hearts sick. His exultation was boundless. The
inscriptions on the medals which he struck to commemorate his success, the
letters by which he enjoined the prelates of his kingdom to sing the Te
Deum, were boastful and sarcastic. His people, a people among whose many
fine qualities moderation in prosperity cannot be reckoned, seemed for a
time to be drunk with pride. Even Boileau, hurried along by the prevailing
enthusiasm, forgot the good sense and good taste to which he owed his
reputation. He fancied himself a lyric poet, and gave vent to his feelings
in a hundred and sixty lines of frigid bombast about Alcides, Mars,
Bacchus, Ceres, the lyre of Orpheus, the Thracian oaks and the Permessian
nymphs. He wondered whether Namur, had, like Troy, been built by Apollo
and Neptune. He asked what power could subdue a city stronger than that
before which the Greeks lay ten years; and he returned answer to himself
that such a miracle could be wrought only by Jupiter or by Lewis. The
feather in the hat of Lewis was the loadstar of victory. To Lewis all
things must yield, princes, nations, winds, waters. In conclusion the poet
addressed himself to the banded enemies of France, and tauntingly bade
them carry back to their homes the tidings that Namur had been taken in
their sight. Before many months had elapsed both the boastful king and the
boastful poet were taught that it is prudent as well as graceful to be
modest in the hour of victory.

One mortification Lewis had suffered even in the midst of his prosperity.
While he lay before Namur, he heard the sounds of rejoicing from the
distant camp of the allies. Three peals of thunder from a hundred and
forty pieces of cannon were answered by three volleys from sixty thousand
muskets. It was soon known that these salutes were fired on account of the
battle of La Hogue. The French King exerted himself to appear serene.
“They make a strange noise,” he said, “about the burning of a few ships.”
In truth he was much disturbed, and the more so because a report had
reached the Low Countries that there had been a sea fight, and that his
fleet had been victorious. His good humour however was soon restored by
the brilliant success of those operations which were under his own
immediate direction. When the siege was over, he left Luxemburg in command
of the army, and returned to Versailles. At Versailles the unfortunate
Tourville soon presented himself, and was graciously received. As soon as
he appeared in the circle, the King welcomed him in a loud voice. “I am
perfectly satisfied with you and with my sailors. We have been beaten, it
is true; but your honour and that of the nation are unsullied.” 308

Though Lewis had quitted the Netherlands, the eyes of all Europe were
still fixed on that region. The armies there had been strengthened by
reinforcements drawn from many quarters. Every where else the military
operations of the year were languid and without interest. The Grand Vizier
and Lewis of Baden did little more than watch each other on the Danube.
Marshal Noailles and the Duke of Medina Sidonia did little more than watch
each other under the Pyrenees. On the Upper Rhine, and along the frontier
which separates France from Piedmont, an indecisive predatory war was
carried on, by which the soldiers suffered little and the cultivators of
the soil much. But all men looked, with anxious expectation of some great
event, to the frontier of Brabant, where William was opposed to Luxemburg.

Luxemburg, now in his sixty-sixth year, had risen, by slow degrees, and by
the deaths of several great men, to the first place among the generals of
his time. He was of that noble house of Montmorency which united many
mythical and many historical titles to glory, which boasted that it sprang
from the first Frank who was baptized into the name of Christ in the fifth
century, and which had, since the eleventh century, given to France a long
and splendid succession of Constables and Marshals. In valour and
abilities Luxemburg was not inferior to any of his illustrious race. But,
highly descended and highly gifted as he was, he had with difficulty
surmounted the obstacles which impeded him in the road to fame. If he owed
much to the bounty of nature and fortune, he had suffered still more from
their spite. His features were frightfully harsh, his stature was
diminutive; a huge and pointed hump rose on his back. His constitution was
feeble and sickly. Cruel imputations had been thrown on his morals. He had
been accused of trafficking with sorcerers and with vendors of poison, had
languished long in a dungeon, and had at length regained his liberty
without entirely regaining his honour. 309 He had
always been disliked both by Louvois and by Lewis. Yet the war against the
European coalition had lasted but a very short time when both the minister
and the King felt that the general who was personally odious to them was
necessary to the state. Conde and Turenne were no more; and Luxemburg was
without dispute the first soldier that France still possessed. In
vigilance, diligence and perseverance he was deficient. He seemed to
reserve his great qualities for great emergencies. It was on a pitched
field of battle that he was all himself. His glance was rapid and
unerring. His judgment was clearest and surest when responsibility pressed
heaviest on him and when difficulties gathered thickest around him. To his
skill, energy and presence of mind his country owed some glorious days.
But, though eminently successful in battles, he was not eminently
successful in campaigns. He gained immense renown at William’s expense;
and yet there was, as respected the objects of the war, little to choose
between the two commanders. Luxemburg was repeatedly victorious; but he
had not the art of improving a victory. William was repeatedly defeated;
but of all generals he was the best qualified to repair a defeat.

In the month of July William’s headquarters were at Lambeque. About six
miles off, at Steinkirk, Luxemburg had encamped with the main body of his
army; and about six miles further off lay a considerable force commanded
by the Marquess of Boufflers, one of the best officers in the service of
Lewis.

The country between Lambeque and Steinkirk was intersected by innumerable
hedges and ditches; and neither army could approach the other without
passing through several long and narrow defiles. Luxemburg had therefore
little reason to apprehend that he should be attacked in his
entrenchments; and he felt assured that he should have ample notice before
any attack was made; for he had succeeded in corrupting an adventurer
named Millevoix, who was chief musician and private secretary of the
Elector of Bavaria. This man regularly sent to the French headquarters
authentic information touching the designs of the allies.

The Marshal, confident in the strength of his position and in the accuracy
of his intelligence, lived in his tent as he was accustomed to live in his
hotel at Paris. He was at once a valetudinarian and a voluptuary; and, in
both characters, he loved his ease. He scarcely ever mounted his horse.
Light conversation and cards occupied most of his hours. His table was
luxurious; and, when he had sate down to supper, it was a service of
danger to disturb him. Some scoffers remarked that in his military
dispositions he was not guided exclusively by military reasons, that he
generally contrived to entrench himself in some place where the veal and
the poultry were remarkably good, and that he was always solicitous to
keep open such communications with the sea as might ensure him, from
September to April, a regular supply of Sandwich oysters.

If there were any agreeable women in the neighbourhood of his camp, they
were generally to be found at his banquets. It may easily be supposed
that, under such a commander, the young princes and nobles of France vied
with one another in splendour and gallantry. 310

While he was amusing himself after his wonted fashion, the confederate
princes discovered that their counsels were betrayed. A peasant picked up
a letter which had been dropped, and carried it to the Elector of Bavaria.
It contained full proofs of the guilt of Millevoix. William conceived a
hope that he might be able to take his enemies in the snare which they had
laid for him. The perfidious secretary was summoned to the royal presence
and taxed with his crime. A pen was put into his hand; a pistol was held
to his breast; and he was commanded to write on pain of instant death. His
letter, dictated by William, was conveyed to the French camp. It apprised
Luxemburg that the allies meant to send out a strong foraging party on the
next day. In order to protect this party from molestation, some battalions
of infantry, accompanied by artillery, would march by night to occupy the
defiles which lay between the armies. The Marshal read, believed and went
to rest, while William urged forward the preparations for a general
assault on the French lines.