The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 - Thomas Babington Macaulay (novel books to read TXT) 📗

was compelled to submit to the cruel humiliation of passing

an act which attainted the instruments of his revenge, and which

took from him the power of pardoning them.


But, impatient as he was of constitutional restraints, how was he

to emancipate himself from them? He could make himself despotic

only by the help of a great standing army; and such an army was

not in existence. His revenues did indeed enable him to keep up

some regular troops: but those troops, though numerous enough to

excite great jealousy and apprehension in the House of Commons

and in the country, were scarcely numerous enough to protect

Whitehall and the Tower against a rising of the mob of London.

Such risings were, indeed to be dreaded; for it was calculated

that in the capital and its suburbs dwelt not less than twenty

thousand of Oliver's old soldiers.


Since the King was bent on emancipating himself from the control

of Parliament, and since, in such an enterprise, he could not

hope for effectual aid at home, it followed that he must look for

aid abroad. The power and wealth of the King of France might be

equal to the arduous task of establishing absolute monarchy in

England. Such an ally would undoubtedly expect substantial proofs

of gratitude for such a service. Charles must descend to the rank

of a great vassal, and must make peace and war according to the

directions of the government which protected him. His relation to

Lewis would closely resemble that in which the Rajah of Nagpore

and the King of Oude now stand to the British Government. Those

princes are bound to aid the East India Company in all

hostilities, defensive and offensive, and to have no diplomatic

relations but such as the East India Company shall sanction. The

Company in return guarantees them against insurrection. As long

as they faithfully discharge their obligations to the paramount

power, they are permitted to dispose of large revenues, to fill

their palaces with beautiful women, to besot themselves in the

company of their favourite revellers, and to oppress with

impunity any subject who may incur their displeasure.18 Such a

life would be insupportable to a man of high spirit and of

powerful understanding. But to Charles, sensual, indolent,

unequal to any strong intellectual exertion, and destitute alike

of all patriotism and of all sense of personal dignity, the

prospect had nothing unpleasing.


That the Duke of York should have concurred in the design of

degrading that crown which it was probable that he would himself

one day wear may seem more extraordinary. For his nature was

haughty and imperious; and, indeed, he continued to the very last

to show, by occasional starts and struggles, his impatience of

the French yoke. But he was almost as much debased by

superstition as his brother by indolence and vice. James was now

a Roman Catholic. Religious bigotry had become the dominant

sentiment of his narrow and stubborn mind, and had so mingled

itself with his love of rule, that the two passions could hardly

be distinguished from each other. It seemed highly improbable

that, without foreign aid, he would be able to obtain ascendency,

or even toleration, for his own faith: and he was in a temper to

see nothing humiliating in any step which might promote the

interests of the true Church.


A negotiation was opened which lasted during several months. The

chief agent between the English and French courts was the

beautiful, graceful, and intelligent Henrietta, Duchess of

Orleans, sister of Charles, sister in law of Lewis, and a

favourite with both. The King of England offered to declare

himself a Roman Catholic, to dissolve the Triple Alliance, and to

join with France against Holland, if France would engage to lend

him such military and pecuniary aid as might make him independent

of his parliament. Lewis at first affected to receive these

propositions coolly, and at length agreed to them with the air of

a man who is conferring a great favour: but in truth, the course

which he had resolved to take was one by which he might gain and

could not lose.


It seems certain that he never seriously thought of establishing

despotism and Popery in England by force of arms. He must have

been aware that such an enterprise would be in the highest degree

arduous and hazardous, that it would task to the utmost all the

energies of France during many years, and that it would be

altogether incompatible with more promising schemes of

aggrandisement, which were dear to his heart. He would indeed

willingly have acquired the merit and the glory of doing a great

service on reasonable terms to the Church of which he was a

member. But he was little disposed to imitate his ancestors who,

in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, had led the flower of

French chivalry to die in Syria and Egypt: and he well knew that

a crusade against Protestantism in Great Britain would not be

less perilous than the expeditions in which the armies of Lewis

the Seventh and of Lewis the Ninth had perished. He had no motive

for wishing the Stuarts to be absolute. He did not regard the

English constitution with feelings at all resembling those which

have in later times induced princes to make war on the free

institutions of neighbouring nations. At present a great party

zealous for popular government has ramifications in every

civilised country. And important advantage gained anywhere by

that party is almost certain to be the signal for general

commotion. It is not wonderful that governments threatened by a

common danger should combine for the purpose of mutual insurance.

But in the seventeenth century no such danger existed. Between

the public mind of England and the public mind of France, there

was a great gulph. Our institutions and our factions were as

little understood at Paris as at Constantinople. It may be

doubted whether any one of the forty members of the French

Academy had an English volume in his library, or knew

Shakespeare, Jonson, or Spenser, even by name. A few Huguenots,

who had inherited the mutinous spirit of their ancestors, might

perhaps have a fellow feeling with their brethren in the faith,

the English Roundheads: but the Huguenots had ceased to be

formidable. The French, as a people, attached to the Church of

Rome, and proud of the greatness of their King and of their own

loyalty, looked on our struggles against Popery and arbitrary

power, not only without admiration or sympathy, but with strong

disapprobation and disgust. It would therefore be a great error

to ascribe the conduct of Lewis to apprehensions at all

resembling those which, in our age, induced the Holy Alliance to

interfere in the internal troubles of Naples and Spain.


Nevertheless, the propositions made by the court of Whitehall

were most welcome to him. He already meditated gigantic designs,

which were destined to keep Europe in constant fermentation

during more than forty years. He wished to humble the United

Provinces, and to annex Belgium, Franche Comte, and Loraine to

his dominions. Nor was this all. The King of Spain was a sickly

child. It was likely that he would die without issue. His eldest

sister was Queen of France. A day would almost certainly come,

and might come very soon, when the House of Bourbon might lay

claim to that vast empire on which the sun never set. The union

of two great monarchies under one head would doubtless be opposed

by a continental coalition. But for any continental coalition

France singlehanded was a match. England could turn the scale. On

the course which, in such a crisis, England might pursue, the

destinies of the world would depend; and it was notorious that

the English Parliament and nation were strongly attached to the

policy which had dictated the Triple Alliance. Nothing,

therefore, could be more gratifying to Lewis than to learn that

the princes of the House of Stuart needed his help, and were

willing to purchase that help by unbounded subserviency. He

determined to profit by the opportunity, and laid down for

himself a plan to which, without deviation, he adhered, till the

Revolution of 1688 disconcerted all his politics. He professed

himself desirous to promote the designs of the English court. He

promised large aid. He from time to time doled out such aid as

might serve to keep hope alive, and as he could without risk or

inconvenience spare. In this way, at an expense very much less

than that which he incurred in building and decorating Versailles

or Marli, he succeeded in making England, during nearly twenty

years, almost as insignificant a member of the political system

of Europe as the republic of San Marino.


His object was not to destroy our constitution, but to keep the

various elements of which it was composed in a perpetual state of

conflict, and to set irreconcilable enmity between those who had

the power of the purse and those who had the power of the sword.

With this view he bribed and stimulated both parties in turn,

pensioned at once the ministers of the crown and the chiefs of

the opposition, encouraged the court to withstand the seditious

encroachments of the Parliament, and conveyed to the Parliament

intimations of the arbitrary designs of the court.


One of the devices to which he resorted for the purpose of

obtaining an ascendency in the English counsels deserves especial

notice. Charles, though incapable of love in the highest sense of

the word, was the slave of any woman whose person excited his

desires, and whose airs and prattle amused his leisure. Indeed a

husband would be justly derided who should bear from a wife of

exalted rank and spotless virtue half the insolence which the

King of England bore from concubines who, while they owed

everything to his bounty, caressed his courtiers almost before

his face. He had patiently endured the termagant passions of

Barbara Palmer and the pert vivacity of Eleanor Gwynn. Lewis

thought that the most useful envoy who could be sent to London,

would be a handsome, licentious, and crafty Frenchwoman. Such a

woman was Louisa, a lady of the House of Querouaille, whom our

rude ancestors called Madam Carwell. She was soon triumphant over

all her rivals, was created Duchess of Portsmouth, was loaded

with wealth, and obtained a dominion which ended only with the

life of Charles.


The most important conditions of the alliance between the crowns

were digested into a secret treaty which was signed at Dover in

May, 1670, just ten years after the day on which Charles had

landed at that very port amidst the acclamations and joyful tears

of a too confiding people.


By this treaty Charles bound himself to make public profession of

the Roman Catholic religion, to join his arms