nis subjects. The Lords, seldom disposed to take the lead in opposition to a government, consented to vote him formal thanks for what he had said. But the Commons were in a less

complying mood. When they had returned to their own House there was a long silence; and the faces of many of the most respectable members expressed deep concern. At length Middleton rose and moved the House to go instantly into committee on the king's speech; but Sir Edmund Jennings, a zealous Tory from Yorkshire, who was supposed to speak the sentiments of Danby, protested against this course, and demanded time for consideration. Sir Thomas Clarges, maternal uncle of the Duke of Albemarle, and long distinguished in parliament as a man of business and a vigilant steward of the public money, took the same side. The feeling of the House could not be mistaken. Sir John Ernley, chancellor of the Exchequer, insisted that the delay should not exceed forty-eight hours: but he was overruled; and it was resolved that the discussion should be postponed for three days.*

The interval was well employed by those who took the lead against the court. They had indeed no light work to perform. In three days a country party was to be organized. The difficulty of the task is in our age not easily to be appreciated; for in our age all the nation may be said to assist at every deliberation of the Lords and Commons. What is said by the leaders of the ministry and of the opposition after midnight is read by the whole metropolis at dawn, by the inhabitants of Northum berland and Cornwall in the afternoon, and in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland on the morrow. In our age, therefore, the stages of legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of faction, the opinions, temper, and style of every active member of either House, are familiar to hundreds of thousands. Every man who now enters parliament possesses what, in the seventeenth century, would have been called a great stock of parliamentary knowledge. Such knowledge was then to be ob tained only by actual parliamentary service. The difference between an old and a new member was as great as the difference between a veteran soldier and a recruit just taken from the plough; and James's parliament contained a most unusual

* Commons' Journals; Branston's Memoirs; James von Leeuwen to the States General, Nov. 8, 1685. Leeuwen was secretary of the Dutch embassy, and conducted the correspondence in the absence of Citters. As to Clarges, see Burnet, i. 98.

proportion of new members, who had brought from their country seats to Westminster no political knowledge and many violent prejudices. These gentlemen hated the Papists, but hated the Whigs not less intensely, and regarded the king with superstitious veneration. To form an opposition out of such materials was a feat which required the most skilful and delicate management. Some men of great weight, however, undertook the work, and performed it with success. Several experienced Whig politicians, who had not seats in that parliament, gave useful advice and information. On the day preceding that which had been fixed for the debate, many meetings were held, at which the leaders instructed the novices; and it soon appeared that these exertions had not been thrown away.

*

The foreign embassies were all in a ferment. It was well understood that a few days would now decide the great question, whether the King of England was or was not to be the vassal of the King of France. The ministers of the House of Austria were most anxious that James should give satisfaction to his parliament. Innocent had sent to London two persons charged to inculcate moderation, both by admonition and by example. One of them was John Leyburn, an English Dominican, who had been secretary to Cardinal Howard, and who, with some learning and a rich vein of natural humor, was the most cautious, dexterous, and taciturn of men. He had recently been consecrated Bishop of Andrumetum, and named Vicar Apostolic in Great Britain. Ferdinand, Count of Adda, an Italian of no eminent abilities, but of mild temper and courtly manners, had been appointed Nuncio. These functionaries were eagerly welcomed by James. No Roman Catholic bishop had exercised spiritual functions in the island during more than half a century. No Nuncio had been received here during the hundred and twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the death of Mary. Leyburn was lodged in Whitehall, and received a pension of a thousand pounds a year. Adda did not yet assume a public character. He passed for a foreigner of rank, whom curiosity had brought to London, appeared daily at court, and was treated with high consideration. Both the Papal emissaries did their best to diminish, as much as possible, the odium inseparable from the offices which they filled, and to restrain the rash zeal of James. The Nuncio in particular, declared that nothing could be more injurious to

* Barillon, Nov. 18, 1685.

the interests of the Church of Rome, than a rupture between the king and the parliament.*

Barillon was active on the other side. The instructions which he received from Versailles on this occasion well deserve to be studied; for they furnish a key to the policy systematically pursued by his master towards England during the twenty years which preceded our revolution. The advices from Madrid, Lewis wrote, were alarming. Strong hopes were entertained there that James would ally himself closely with the House of Austria, as soon as he should be assured that his parliament would give him no trouble. In these circumstances, it was evidently the interest of France that the parliament should prove refractory. Barillon was, therefore, directed to act, with all possible precautions against detection, the part of a makebate. At court he was to omit no oppor tunity of stimulating the religious zeal and the kingly pride of James; but at the same time it might be desirable to have some secret communication with the malcontents. Such communication would, indeed, be hazardous, and would require the utmost adroitness; yet it might, perhaps, be in the power of the ambassador, without committing himself or his government, to animate the zeal of the opposition for the laws and liberties of England, and to let it be understood that those laws and liberties were not regarded by his master with an unfriendly eye.t

Lewis, when he dictated these instructions, did not foresee how speedily and how completely his uneasiness would be removed by the obstinacy and stupidity of James. On the twelfth of November, the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee on the royal speech. The solicitor-general, Heneage Finch, was in the chair. The debate was conducted by the chiefs of the new country party with rare tact and

* Dodd's Church History; Leeuwen, Nov. 7, 1685; Barillon, Dec. 24, 1685. Barillon says of Adda, "On l'avoit fait prevenir que la sureté et l'avantage des Catholiques consistoient dans une réunion entière de sa Majesté Britannique et de son parlement." Letters of Innocent to James, dated and 1685; Despatches of Adda, Nov. and Nov. 16, 1685. The very interesting correspondence of Adda, copied from the Papal archives, is in the British Museum. Additional MSS. No. 15395.

July 27
Aug. 6

Sept. 23
Oct. 3

+ This most remarkable despatch bears date the th of Novem. ber, 1685, and will be found in the Appendix to Mr. Fox's History.

address. No expression indicating disrespect to the sovereign. or sympathy for rebels was suffered to escape. The western insurrection was always mentioned with abhorrence. Nothing was said of the barbarities of Kirke and Jeffreys. It was admitted that the heavy expenditure which had been occasioned by the late troubles, justified the king in asking some further supply; but strong objections were made to the augmentation of the army, and to the infraction of the Test Act.

The subject of the Test Act the courtiers appear to have carefully avoided. They harangued, however, with some force, on the great superiority of a regular army to a militia. One of them tauntingly asked whether the defence of the kingdom was to be intrusted to the beef-eaters. Another said that he should be glad to know how the Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion before Monmouth's scythemen, would have faced the household troops of Lewis. But these arguments had little effect on Cavaliers who still remem bered with bitterness the stern rule of the Protector. The general feeling was forcibly expressed by the first of the Tory country gentlemen of England, Edward Seymour. He admitted that the militia was not in a satisfactory state, but maintained that it might be remodelled. The remodelling might require money; but, for his own part, he would rather give a million to keep up a force from which he had nothing to fear, than half a million to keep up a force of which he must ever be afraid. Let the trainbands be disciplined; let the navy be strengthened, and the country would be secure. A standing army was at best a mere drain on the public resources. soldier was withdrawn from all useful labor. He produced nothing; he consumed the fruits of the industry of other men; and he domineered over those by whom he was supported. But the nation was now threatened, not only with a standing army, but with a Popish standing army; with a standing army officered by men who might be very amiable and honorable, but who were, on principle, enemies to the constitution of the realm. Sir William Twisden, member for the county of Kent, spoke on the same side, with great keenness and loud applause. Sir Richard Temple, one of the few Whigs who had a seat in that parliament, dexterously accommodating his speech to the temper of his audience, reminded the House that a standing army had been found, by experience, to be as dangerous to the just authority of princes as to the liberty of nations. Sir John Maynard, the most learned lawyer of his time, took part in the

The

debate. He was now more than eighty years old, and could well remember the political contests of the reign of James the First. He had sat in the Long Parliament, and had taken part with the Roundheads, but had always been for lenient counsels, and had labored to bring about a reconciliation between the king and the Houses. His abilities, which age had not impaired, and his professional knowledge, which had long overawed all Westminster Hall, commanded the ear of the House of Commons. He, too, declared himself against the augmentation of the regular forces.

After much debate, it was resolved that a supply should be granted to the crown; but it was also resolved that a bill should be brought in for making the militia more efficient. This last resolution was tantamount to a declaration against the standing army. The king was greatly displeased; and it was whispered that, if things went on thus, the session would not be of long duration.*

On the morrow the contention was renewed. The language of the country party was perceptibly bolder and sharper than on the preceding day. That paragraph of the king's specch which related to supply preceded the paragraph which related to the test. On this ground Middleton proposed that the paragraph relating to supply should be first considered in com. mittee. The opposition moved the previous question. They contended that the reasonable and constitutional practice was, to grant no money till grievances had been redressed, and that there would be an end of this practice if the House thought itself bound servilely to follow the order in which matters were mentioned by the king from the throne.

The division was taken on the question whether Middleton's

* Commons' Journals, Nov. 12, 1685; Leeuwen, Nov. 3; Barillon, Nov. 2; Sir John Bramston's Memoirs. The best report of the debates of the Commons in November, 1685, is one of which the history is somewhat curious. There are two manuscript copies of it in the British Museum, Harl. 7187; Lans. 253. In these copies the names of the speakers are given at length. The authors of the Life of James published in 1702 transcribed this report, but gave only the initials of the speakers. The editors of Chandler's Debates and of the Parliamentary History guessed from these initials at the names, and sometimes guessed wrong. They ascribe to Waller a very remarkable speech, which will hereafter be mentioned, and which was really made by Windham, member for Salisbury. It was with some concern that I found myself forced to give up the belief that the last words uttered in public by Waller were so honorable to him.