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

for both reasons he wished to maintain a good

understanding with the court of Versailles.


Thus the sovereign leaned towards one system of foreign politics,

and the minister towards a system diametrically opposite. Neither

the sovereign nor the minister, indeed, was of a temper to pursue

any object with undeviating constancy. Each occasionally yielded

to the importunity of the other; and their jarring inclinations

and mutual concessions gave to the whole administration a

strangely capricious character. Charles sometimes, from levity

and indolence, suffered Danby to take steps which Lewis resented

as mortal injuries. Danby, on the other hand, rather than

relinquish his great place, sometimes stooped to compliances

which caused him bitter pain and shame. The King was brought to

consent to a marriage between the Lady Mary, eldest daughter and

presumptive heiress of the Duke of York. and William of Orange,

the deadly enemy of France and the hereditary champion of the

Reformation. Nay, the brave Earl of Ossory, son of Ormond, was

sent to assist the Dutch with some British troops, who, on the

most bloody day of the whole war, signally vindicated the

national reputation for stubborn courage. The Treasurer, on the

other hand, was induced not only to connive at some scandalous

pecuniary transactions which took place between his master and

the court of Versailles, but to become, unwillingly indeed and

ungraciously, an agent in those transactions.


Meanwhile the Country Party was driven by two strong feelings in

two opposite directions. The popular leaders were afraid of the

greatness of Lewis, who was not only making head against the

whole strength of the continental alliance, but was even gaining

ground. Yet they were afraid to entrust their own King with the

means of curbing France, lest those means should he used to

destroy the liberties of England. The conflict between these

apprehensions, both of which were perfectly legitimate, made the

policy of the Opposition seem as eccentric and fickle as that of

the Court. The Commons called for a war with France, till the

King, pressed by Danby to comply with their wish, seemed disposed

to yield, and began to raise an army. But, as soon as they saw

that the recruiting had commenced, their dread of Lewis gave

place to a nearer dread. They began to fear that the new levies

might be employed on a service in which Charles took much more

interest than in the defence of Flanders. They therefore refused

supplies, and clamoured for disbanding as loudly as they had just

before clamoured for arming. Those historians who have severely

reprehended this inconsistency do not appear to have made

sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects

who have reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a

foreign and hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him

military resources is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give

him military resources may be only to arm him against the state.

In such circumstances vacillation cannot be considered as a proof

of dishonesty or even of weakness.


These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He

had long kept England passive by promising to support the throne

against the Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the

patriotic counsels of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the

closet, began to inflame the Parliament against the throne.

Between Lewis and the Country Party there was one thing, and one

only in common, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country

Party have been certain that their sovereign meant only to make

war on France, they would have been eager to support him. Could

Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to

make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no

attempt to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of

Charles were such that the French Government and the English

opposition, agreeing in nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his

protestations, and were equally desirous to keep him poor and

without an army. Communications were opened between Barillon, the

Ambassador of Lewis, and those English politicians who had always

professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the greatest dread and

dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of the Country

Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did not

scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for

embarrassing his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of

Russell's offence. His principles and his fortune alike raised

him above all temptations of a sordid kind: but there is too much

reason to believe that some of his associates were less

scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them the extreme

wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the

contrary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny

that they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince

pay them for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of

this degrading charge was one man who is popularly considered as

the personification of public spirit, and who, in spite of some

great moral and intellectual faults, has a just claim to be

called a hero, a philosopher, and a patriot. It is impossible to

see without pain such a name in the list of the pensioners of

France. Yet it is some consolation to reflect that, in our time,

a public man would be thought lost to all sense of duty and of

shame, who should not spurn from him a temptation which conquered

the virtue and the pride of Algernon Sydney.


The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she

occasionally took a menacing attitude, remained inactive till the

continental war, having lasted near seven years, was terminated

by the treaty of Nimeguen. The United Provinces, which in 1672

had seemed to be on the verge of utter ruin, obtained honourable

and advantageous terms. This narrow escape was generally ascribed

to the ability and courage of the young Stadtholder. His fame was

great throughout Europe, and especially among the English, who

regarded him as one of their own princes, and rejoiced to see him

the husband of their future Queen. France retained many important

towns in the Low Countries and the great province of Franche

Comte. Almost the whole loss was borne by the decaying monarchy

of Spain.


A few months after the termination of hostilities on the

Continent came a great crisis in English politics. Towards such a

crisis things had been tending during eighteen years. The whole

stock of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had

commenced his administration, had long been expended. To loyal

enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind

had now measured back again the space over which it had passed

between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the state in which it

had been when the Long Parliament met.


The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of

these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen

England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France,

victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the

terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her

resources had not diminished; and it might have been expected

that she would have been at least as highly considered in Europe

under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing

obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose

utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous

people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and

meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any German or Italian

principality which brought five thousand men into the field was a

more important member of the commonwealth of nations.


With the sense of national humiliation was mingled anxiety for

civil liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, but perhaps the more

alarming by reason of their indistinctness, imputed to the court

a deliberate design against all the constitutional rights of

Englishmen. It had even been whispered that this design was to be

carried into effect by the intervention of foreign arms. The

thought of Such intervention made the blood, even of the

Cavaliers, boil in their veins. Some who had always professed the

doctrine of non-resistance in its full extent were now heard to

mutter that there was one limitation to that doctrine. If a

foreign force were brought over to coerce the nation, they would

not answer for their own patience.


But neither national pride nor anxiety for public liberty had so

great an influence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman

Catholic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling

passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and

profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction. The

cruelties of Mary's reign, cruelties which even in the most

accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which

were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular

martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all

the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep

and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations,

prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those

classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the

throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons

for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy

trembled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys

and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was

still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to

hatred of Puritanism; but, during the eighteen years which had

elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had

abated, and the hatred of Popery had increased. The stipulations

of the treaty of Dover were accurately known to very few; but

some hints had got abroad. The general impression was that a

great blow was about to be aimed at the Protestant religion. The

King was suspected by many of a leaning towards Rome. His brother

and heir presumptive was known to be a bigoted Roman Catholic.

The first Duchess of York had died a Roman Catholic. James had

then, in defiance of the remonstrances of the House of Commons,

taken to wife the Princess Mary of Modena, another Roman

Catholic. If there should be sons by this marriage, there was

reason to fear that they might be bred Roman Catholics, and that

a long succession of princes, hostile to the established faith,

might sit on the English throne. The constitution had recently

been violated for the purpose of protecting the Roman Catholics

from the penal laws. The ally by whom the policy of England had,

during many years, been chiefly governed, was not only a Roman

Catholic, but a persecutor of the reformed Churches. Under such

circumstances it is not strange that the common