The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 2 - Thomas Babington Macaulay (best ereader for textbooks txt) 📗

would be, not, as heretofore, an immemorial inheritance, but a recent gift which the generous master who had bestowed it might, if such had been his pleasure, have withheld.

William therefore righteously and prudently determined to observe the promises contained in his Declaration, and to leave to the legislature the office of settling the government. So carefully did he avoid whatever looked like usurpation that he would not, without some semblance of parliamentary authority, take upon himself even to convoke the Estates of the Realm, or to direct the executive administration during the elections. Authority strictly parliamentary there was none in the state: but it was possible to bring together, in a few hours, an assembly which would be regarded by the nation with a large portion of the respect due to a Parliament. One Chamber might be formed of the numerous Lords Spiritual and Temporal who were then in London, and another of old members of the House of Commons and of the magistrates of the City. The scheme was ingenious, and was promptly executed. The Peers were summoned to St. James's on the twenty-first of December. About seventy attended. The Prince requested them to consider the state of the country, and to lay before him the result of their deliberations. Shortly after appeared a notice inviting all gentlemen who had sate in the House of Commons during the reign of Charles the Second to attend His Highness on the morning of the twenty-sixth. The Aldermen of London were also summoned; and the Common Council was requested to send a deputation.611

It has often been asked, in a reproachful tone, why the invitation was not extended to the members of the Parliament which had been dissolved in the preceding year. The answer is obvious. One of the chief grievances of which the nation complained was the manner in which that Parliament had been elected. The majority of the burgesses had been returned by constituent bodies remodelled in a manner which was generally regarded as illegal, and which the Prince had, in his Declaration, condemned. James himself had, just before his downfall, consented to restore the old municipal franchises. It would surely have been the height of inconsistency in William, after taking up arms for the purpose of vindicating the invaded charters of corporations, to recognise persons chosen in defiance of those charters as the legitimate representatives of the towns of England.

On Saturday the twenty-second the Lords met in their own house. That day was employed in settling the order of proceeding. A clerk was appointed: and, as no confidence could be placed in any of the twelve judges, some serjeants and barristers of great note were requested to attend, for the purpose of giving advice on legal points. It was resolved that on the Monday the state of the kingdom should be taken into consideration.612

The interval between the sitting of Saturday and the sitting of Monday was anxious and eventful. A strong party among the Peers still cherished the hope that the constitution and religion of England might be secured without the deposition of the King. This party resolved to move a solemn address to him, imploring him to consent to such terms as might remove the discontents and apprehensions which his past conduct had excited. Sancroft, who, since the return of James from Kent to Whitehall, had taken no part in public affairs, determined to come forth from his retreat on this occasion, and to put himself at the head of the Royalists. Several messengers were sent to Rochester with letters for the King. He was assured that his interests would be strenuously defended, if only he could, at this last moment, make up his mind to renounce designs abhorred by his people. Some respectable Roman Catholics followed him, in order to implore him, for the sake of their common faith, not to carry the vain contest further.613

The advice was good; but James was in no condition to take it. His understanding had always been dull and feeble; and, such as it was, womanish tremors and childish fancies now disabled him from using it. He was aware that his flight was the thing which his adherents most dreaded and which his enemies most desired. Even if there had been serious personal risk in remaining, the occasion was one on which he ought to have thought it infamous to flinch: for the question was whether he and his posterity should reign on an ancestral throne or should be vagabonds and beggars. But in his mind all other feelings had given place to a craven fear for his life. To the earnest entreaties and unanswerable arguments of the agents whom his friends had sent to Rochester, he had only one answer. His head was in danger. In vain he was assured that there was no ground for such an apprehension, that common sense, if not principle, would restrain the Prince of Orange from incurring the guilt and shame of regicide and parricide, and that many, who never would consent to depose their Sovereign while he remained on English ground, would think themselves absolved from their allegiance by his desertion. Fright overpowered every other feeling. James determined to depart; and it was easy for him to do so. He was negligently guarded: all persons were suffered to repair to him: vessels ready to put to sea lay at no great distance; and their boats might come close to the garden of the house in which he was lodged. Had he been wise, the pains which his keepers took to facilitate his escape would have sufficed to convince him that he ought to stay where he was. In truth the snare was so ostentatiously exhibited that it could impose on nothing but folly bewildered by terror.

The arrangements were expeditiously made. On the evening of Saturday the twenty-second the King assured some of the gentlemen, who had been sent to him from London with intelligence and advice, that he would see them again in the morning. He went to bed, rose at dead of night, and, attended by Berwick, stole out at a back door, and went through the garden to the shore of the Medway. A small skiff was in waiting. Soon after the dawn of Sunday the fugitives were on board of a smack which was running down the Thames.614

That afternoon the tidings of the flight reached London. The King's adherents were confounded. The Whigs could not conceal their joy. The good news encouraged the Prince to take a bold and important step. He was informed that communications were passing between the French embassy and the party hostile to him. It was well known that at that embassy all the arts of corruption were well understood; and there could be little doubt that, at such a conjuncture, neither intrigues nor pistoles would be spared. Barillon was most desirous to remain a few days longer in London, and for that end omitted no art which could conciliate the victorious party. In the streets he quieted the populace, who looked angrily at his coach, by throwing money among them. At his table he publicly drank the health of the Prince of Orange. But William was not to be so cajoled. He had not, indeed, taken on himself to exercise regal authority: but he was a general and, as such, he was not bound to tolerate, within the territory of which he had taken military occupation, the presence of one whom be regarded as a spy. Before that day closed Barillon was informed that he must leave England within twenty-four hours. He begged hard for a short delay: but minutes were precious; the order was repeated in more peremptory terms; and he unwillingly set off for Dover. That no mark of contempt and defiance might be omitted, he was escorted to the coast by one of his Protestant countrymen whom persecution had driven into exile. So bitter was the resentment excited by the French ambition and arrogance that even those Englishmen who were not generally disposed to take a favourable view of William's conduct loudly applauded him for retorting with so much spirit the insolence with which Lewis had, during many years, treated every court in Europe.615

On Monday the Lords met again. Halifax was chosen to preside. The Primate was absent, the Royalists sad and gloomy, the Whigs eager and in high spirits. It was known that James had left a letter behind him. Some of his friends moved that it might be produced, in the faint hope that it might contain propositions which might furnish a basis for a happy settlement. On this motion the previous question was put and carried. Godolphin, who was known not to be unfriendly to his old master, uttered a few words which were decisive. "I have seen the paper," he said; "and I grieve to say that there is nothing in it which will give your Lordships any satisfaction." In truth it contained no expression of regret for pass errors; it held out no hope that those errors would for the future be avoided; and it threw the blame of all that had happened on the malice of William and on the blindness of a nation deluded by the specious names of religion and property. None ventured to propose that a negotiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigid discipline of adversity seemed only to have made more obstinate in wrong. Something was said about inquiring into the birth of the Prince of Wales: but the Whig peers treated the suggestion with disdain. "I did not expect, my Lords," exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead, who had commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edgehill, "I did not expect to hear anybody at this time of day mention the child who was called Prince of Wales; and I hope that we have now heard the last of him." After long discussion it was resolved that two addresses should be presented to William. One address requested him to take on himself provisionally the administration of the government; the other recommended that he should, by circular letters subscribed with his own hand, invite all the constituent bodies of the kingdom to send up representatives to Westminster. At the same time the Peers took upon themselves to issue an order banishing all Papists, except a few privileged persons, from London and the vicinity.616

The Lords presented their addresses to the Prince on the following day, without waiting for the issue of the deliberations of the commoners whom he had called together. It seems, indeed, that the hereditary nobles were disposed at this moment to be punctilious in asserting their dignity, and were unwilling to recognise a coordinate authority in an assembly unknown to the law. They conceived that they were a real House of Lords. The other Chamber they despised as only a mock House of Commons. William, however, wisely excused himself from coming to any decision till he had ascertained the sense of the gentlemen who had formerly been honoured with the confidence of the counties and towns of England.617

The commoners who had been summoned met in Saint Stephen's Chapel, and formed a numerous assembly. They placed in the chair Henry Powle, who had represented Cirencester in several Parliaments, and had been eminent among the supporters of the Exclusion Bill.

Addresses were proposed and adopted similar to those which the Lords had already presented. No difference of opinion appeared on any serious question; and some feeble attempts which were made to raise a debate on points of form were put down by the general contempt. Sir Robert Sawyer declared that he could not conceive how it was possible for the Prince to administer the government without some distinguishing title, such as Regent or Protector. Old Maynard, who, as a lawyer, had no equal, and who was