mansion, which has long since been destroyed. In his hospitable dwelling, the favorite resort, during many years, of wits and poets, the fugitives made a short stay. They could not safely attempt to reach William's quarters; for the road thither lay through a country occupied by the royal forces. It was therefore determined that Anne should take refuge with the northern insurgents. Compton wholly laid aside, for the time, his sacerdotal character. Danger and conflict had rekindled in him all the military ardor which he had felt twenty-eight years before, when he rode in the Life Guards. He preceded the princess's carriage in a buff coat and jackboots, with a sword at his side and pistols in his holsters. Long before she reached Nottingham, she was surrounded by a body guard of gentlemen who volunteered to escort her. They invited the bishop to act as their colonel; and he consented with an alacrity which gave great scandal to rigid Churchmen, and did not much raise his character, even in the opinion of Whigs.* When, on the morning of the twenty-sixth, Anne's apartment was found empty, the consternation was great in Whitehall. While the ladies of her bedchamber ran up and down the courts of the palace, screaming and wringing their hands, while Lord Craven, who commanded the Foot Guards, was questioning the sentinels in the gallery, while the chancellor was sealing up the papers of the Churchills, the princess's nurse broke into the royal apartments crying out that the dear lady had been murdered by the Papists. The news flew to Westminster Hall. There the story was, that her highness had been hurried away by force to a place of confinement. could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it. She had been grossly insulted; she had been threatened; nay, though she was in that situation in which woman is entitled to peculiar tenderness, she had been beaten by her cruel stepmother. The populace, which years of misrule had made suspicious and irritable, was so much excited by these calumnies that the queen was scarcely safe. Many Roman Catholics, and some Protestant Tories whose loyalty was proof to all trials, repaired to When it Nov. 26 Dec. 6 ; Ellis * Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 25, 26, 1688; Citters, Correspondence, Dec. 19; Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Burnet, i. 792; Compton to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 2, 1688, in Dalrymple. The bishop's military costume is mentioned in innumer able pamphlets and lampoons. the palace that they might be in readiness to defend her in the event of an outbreak. In the midst of this distress and terror arrived the news of Prince George's flight. The courier who brought these evil tidings was fast followed by the king himself. The evening was closing in when James arrived, and was informed that his daughter had disappeared. After all that he had suffered, this affliction forced a cry of misery from his lips. "God help me," he said; “ my own children have for saken me. That evening he sate in council with his principal ministers till a late hour. It was determined that he should summon all the lords spiritual and temporal who were then in London to attend him on the following day, and that he should solemnly ask their advice. Accordingly, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the twenty-seventh, the lords met in the dining-room of the palace. The assembly consisted of nine prelates and between thirty and forty secular nobles, all Protestants. The two secretaries of state, Middleton and Preston, though not peers of England, were in attendance. The king himself presided. The traces of severe bodily and mental suffering were discernible in his countenance and deportment. He opened the proceedings by referring to the petition which had been put into his hands just before he set out for Salisbury. The prayer of that petition was, that he would convoke a free parliament. Situated as he then was, he had not, he said, thought it right to comply. But, during his absence from London, great changes had taken place. He had also observed that his people every where seemed anxious that the Houses should meet. He had therefore commanded the attendance of his faithful peers, in order to ask their counsel. For a time there was silence. Then Oxford, whose pedigree, unrivalled in antiquity and splendor, gave him a kind of primacy in the meeting, said that in his opinion those lords who had signed the petition to which his majesty had referred ought now to explain their views. These words called up Rochester. He defended the petition, and declared that he still saw no hope for the throne or the country, but in a parliament. He would not, he said, venture to affirm that, in so disastrous an extremity, even that remedy would be efficacious; but he had no other remedy to propose. Nov. 26 Dec. 6 1688; Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 792; Citters, Clarke's Life of James, ii. 226, Orig. Mem.; Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 26; Revolution Politics. He added that it might be advisable to open a negotiation with the Prince of Orange. Jeffreys and Godolphin followed; and both declared that they agreed with Rochester. Then Clarendon rose, and, to the astonishment of all who remembered his loud professions of loyalty, and the agony of shame and sorrow into which he had been thrown, only a few days before, by the news of his son's defection, broke forth into a vehement invective against tyranny and Popery. "Even now," he said, "his majesty is raising in London a regiment into which no Protestant is admitted." "That is not true," cried James in great agitation from the head of the board. Clarendon persisted, and left this offensive topic only to pass to a topic still more offensive. He accused the unfortunate king of pusillanimity. Why retreat from Salisbury? Why not try the event of a battle? Could people be blamed for submitting to the invader when they saw their sovereign run away at the head of his army? James felt these insults keenly, and remembered them long. Indeed even Whigs thought the lan guage of Clarendon indecent and ungenerous. Halifax spoke in a very different tone. During several years of peril he had defended with admirable ability the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of his country against the prerogative. But his serene intellect, singularly unsusceptible of enthusiasm, and singularly averse to extremes, began to lean towards the cause of royalty at the very moment at which those noisy royalists who had lately execrated the Trimmers as little better than rebels were every where rising in rebellion. It was the ambition of Halifax to be, at this conjuncture, the peacemaker between the throne and the nation. His talents and character fitted him for that office; and, if he failed, the failure is to be ascribed to causes against which no human skill could contend, and chiefly to the folly, faithlessness, and obstinacy of the king whom he tried to save. Halifax now gave utterance to much unpalatable truth, but with a delicacy which brought on him the reproach of flattery from spirits too abject to understand that what would justly be called flattery when offered to the powerful is a debt of humanity to the fallen. With many expressions of sympathy and deference, he declared it to be his opinion that the king must make up his mind to great sacrifices. It was not enough to convoke a parliament or to open a negotiation with the Prince of Orange. Some at least of the grievances of which the nation complained should be instantly redressed, without waiting till redress was ་ demanded by the Houses or by the captain of the hostile army. Nottingham, in language equally respectful, declared that he agreed with Halifax. The chief concessions which these lords Dressed the king to make were three. He ought, they said, forthwith to dismiss all Roman Catholics from office, to separate himself wholly from France, and to grant an unlimited amnesty to those who were in arms against him. The last of these propositions, it should seem, admitted of no dispute. For, though some of those who were banded together against the king had acted towards him in a manner which might not unreasonably excite his bitter resentment, it was more likely that he would soon be at their mercy than that they would ever be at his. It would have been childish to open a negotiation with William, and yet to denounce vengeance against men whom William could not without infamy abandon. But the clouded understanding and implacable temper of James held out long against the arguments of those who labored to convince him that it would be wise to pardon offences which he could not punish. "I cannot do it," he exclaimed. "I must make examples, Churchill above all; Churchill whom I raised so high. He and he alone has done all this. He has corrupted my army. He has corrupted my child. He would have put me into the hands of the Prince of Orange, but for God's special providence. My lords, you are strangely anxious for the safety of traitors. None of you troubles himself about my safety." In answer to this burst of impotent anger, those who had recommended the amnesty represented with profound respect, but with firmness, that a prince attacked by powerful enemies can be safe only by conquering or by conciliating. "If your majesty, after all that has happened, has still any hope of safety in arms, we have done; but if not, you can be safe only by regaining the affections of your people." After long and animated debate the king broke up the meeting. "My lords," he said, "you have used great freedom; but I do not take it ill of you. I have made up my mind on one point. I shall call a parliament. The other suggestions which have been offered are of grave importance; and you will not be surprised that I take a night to reflect on them before I decide.” * Clarke's Life of James, ii. 236, Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i. 794; Luttrell's Diary; Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 27, 1688; Citters, Nov. 27 Dec. 7 Citters evidently had his intelligence from one of the lords who ner. At first James seemed disposed to make excellent use of the time which he had taken for consideration. The chancellor Was directed to issue writs convoking a parliament for the thir teenth of January. Halifax was sent for to the closet, had a long audience, and spoke with much more freedom than he had thought it decorous to use in the presence of a large assembly. He was informed that he had been appointed a commissioner to treat with the Prince of Orange. With him were Joined Nottingham and Godolphin. The king declared that he was prepared to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace. Halifax answered that great sacrifices would doubtless be required. "Your majesty," he said, "must not expect that those who have the power in their hands will consent to any terms which would leave the laws at the mercy of the prerogative." With this distinct explanation of his views, he accepted the commission which the king wished him to undertake.* The concessions which a few hours before had been so obstinately refused, were now made in the most liberal manA proclamation was put forth by which the king not only granted a free pardon to all who were in rebellion against him, but declared them eligible to be members of the approaching parliament. It was not even required as a condition of eligi bility that they should lay down their arms. The same Gazette which announced that the Houses were about to meet contained a notification that Sir Edward Hales, who, as a Papist, as a renegade, as the foremost champion of the dispensing were present. As the matter is important, I will give two short paspages from his despatches. The king said, "Dat het by na voor hem unmogelyck was te pardoneren persoonen wie so hoog in syn reguarde schuldig stonden, vooral seer uytvarende jegens den Lord Churchill, wien hy hadde groot gemaakt, en nogtans meynde de eenigste oorsake van alle dese desertie en van de retraite van hare Coninglycke Hoogheden te wesen." One of the lords, probably Halifax or Nottingham, "seer hadde geurgeert op de securiteyt van de lords die nu met syn Hoogheyt geengageert staan. Soo hoor ick," says Citters, "dat syn Majesteyt onder anderen soude gesegt hebben; Men spreekt al voor de securiteyt voor andere, en niet voor de myne.' Waar op een der Pairs resolut dan met groot respect sounde geantwoordt hebben dat, soo syne Majesteyt's wapenen in staat waren om hem te conner mainteneren, dat dan sulk syne securiteyt koude wesen; soo niet, en soo de difficulteyt dan nog te surmonteren was, dat het den moeste geschieden door de meeste condescendance, ei hoe meer die was, en hy genegen om aan de natic contentement te geven, dat syne securiteyt ook des te grooter soude wesen." Letter of the Bishop of St. Asaph to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 17, 1688. |