richly-bound copy of the English Bible, and of exhorting him to prize above all earthly treasures a volume which he had been taught to regard as adulterated with false doctrine, was omitted. What remained, however, after all this curtailment, might well have raised scruples in the mind of a man who sincerely believed the Church of England to be an heretical society, within the pale of which salvation was not to be found. The king made an oblation on the altar. He appeared to join in the petitions of the Litany which was chanted by the bishops. He received from those false prophets the unction typical of a divine influence, and knelt with the semblance of devotion while they called down upon him that Holy Spirit of which they were, in his estimation, the malignant and obdurate foes. Such are the inconsistencies of human nature, that this man, who, from a fanatical zeal for his religion, threw away three kingdoms, yet chose to commit what was little short of an act of apostasy, rather than forego the childish pleasure of being invested with the gewgaws symbolical of kingly power. ** Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, preached. He was one of those writers who still affected the obsolete style of Archbishop Williams and Bishop Andrews. The sermon was made up of quaint conceits, such as seventy years earlier might have been admired, but such as moved the scorn of a generation accustomed to the purer eloquence of Sprat, of South, and of Tillotson. King Solomon was King James. Adonijah was Monmouth. Joab was a Rye House conspirator; Shimei, a Whig libeller; Abiathar, an honest but misguided old Cavalier. One phrase in the Book of Chronicles was construed to mean that the king was above the parlia-. ment; and another was cited to prove that he alone ought to command the militia. Towards the close of the discourse the orator very timidly alluded to the new and embarrassing position in which the Church stood with reference to the sovereign, and reminded his hearers that the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, though not himself a Christian, had held in honor those Christians who remained true to their religion, and had treated with scorn those who sought to earn his Jan. 22 * From Adda's despatch of 1686, and from the expressions of the Père d'Orleans, (Histoire des Révolutions d'Angleterre, liv. xi.) it is clear that rigid Catholics thought the king's conduct indefensible. favor by apostasy. The service in the church was followed by a stately banquet in the hall, the banquet by brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad poetry. This may be fixed upon as the moment at which the enthusiasm of the Tory party reached the zenith. Ever since the accession of the new king, addresses had been pouring in which expressed pròfound veneration for his person and office, and bitter detestation of the vanquished Whigs. The magistrates of Middlesex thanked God for having confounded the designs of those regicides and excluders who, not content with having murdered one blessed monarch, were bent on destroying the foundations of monarchy. The city of Gloucester execrated the bloodthirsty villains who had tried to deprive His Majesty of his just inheritance. The burgesses of Wigan assured their sovereign that they would defend him against all plotting Achitophels and rebellious Absaloms. The grand jury of Suffolk expressed a hope that the parliament would proscribe all the excluders. Many corporations pledged themselves never to return to parliament any person who had voted for taking away the birthright of James. Even the capital was profoundly obsequious. The lawyers and traders vied with each other in servility. Inns of court and inns of chancery sent up fervent professions of attachment and submission. Ali the great commercial societies, the East India Company, the African Company, the Turkey Company, the Muscovia Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Maryland Merchants, the Jamaica Merchants, the Merchant Adventurers, declared that they most cheerfully complied with the royal edict which required them still to pay custom. Bristol, the second city of the island, echoed the voice of London. But nowhere was the spirit of loyalty stronger than in the two universities. Oxford declared that she would never swerve from those reli * London Gazette; Gazette de France; Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 10; History of the Coronation of King James the Second and Queen Mary, by Francis Sandford, Lancaster Herald, Fol. 1687; Evelyn's Diary, May 21, 1685; Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, April 8, 1685; Burnet, i. 628; Eachard, iii. 734; A Sermon preached before their Majesties King James the Second and Queen Mary at their Coronation in Westminster Abbey, April 23, 1685, by Francis, Lord Bishop of Ely, and Lord Almoner. I have seen an Italian account which was published at Modena, and which is chiefly remarkable for the skill with which the writer sinks the fact that the prayers and psalms were in English, and that the bishops were heretics. gious principles which bound her to obey the king without any restrictions or limitations. Cambridge condemned, in severe terms, the violence and treachery of those turbulent men who had maliciously endeavored to turn the stream of succession out of the ancient channel.* Such addresses as these filled, during a considerable time, every number of the London Gazette. But it was not only by addressing that the Tories showed their zeal. The writs for the new parliament had gone forth, and the country was agitated by the tumult of a general election. No election had ever taken place under circumstances so favorable to the court. Hundreds of thousands whom the Popish Plot had scared into Whiggism had been scared back by the Rye House Plot into Toryism. In the counties the government could depend on an overwhelming majority of the gentlemen of three hundred a year and upwards, and on the clergy almost to a man. Those boroughs which had once been the citadels of Whiggism had recently been deprived of their charters by legal sentence, or had prevented the sentence by voluntary surrender. They had now been reconstituted in such a manner that they were certain to return members devoted to the crown. Where the townsmen could not be trusted, the freedom had been bestowed on the neighboring squires. In some of the small western corporations, the constituent bodies were in great part composed of captains and lieutenants of the guards. The returning officers were every where in the interest of the court. In every shire the lord lieutenant and his deputies formed a powerful, active, and vigilant committee, for the purpose of cajoling and intimidating the freeholders. The people were solemnly warned from thousands of pulpits not to vote for any Whig candidate, as they should answer it to Him who had ordained the powers that be, and who had pronounced rebellion a sin not less deadly than witchcraft. All these advantages the predomi nant party not only used to the utmost, but abused in so shameless a manner, that grave and reflecting men who had been true to the monarch in peril, and who bore no love to republicans and schismatics, stood aghast, and augured from such beginnings the approach of evil times.t See the London Gazette during the months of February, March, and April, 1685. † It would be easy to fill a volume with what Whig historians and Yet the Whigs, though suffering the just punishment of their errors, though defeated, disheartened, and disorganized, did not yield without an effort. They were still numerous among the traders and artisans of the towns, and among the yeomanry and peasantry of the open country. In some districts, in Dorsetshire, for example, and in Somersetshire, they were the great majority of the population. In the remodelled boroughs they could do nothing; but, in every county where they had a chance, they struggled desperately. In Bedfordshire, which had lately been represented by the virtuous and unfortunate Russell, they were victorious on the show of hands, but were beaten at the poll.* In Essex they polled thirteen hundred votes to eighteen hundred. At the election for Northamptonshire the common people were so violent in their hostility to the court candidate, that a body of troops was drawn out in the market place of the county town, and was ordered to load with ball. The history of the contest for Buckinghamshire is still more remarkable. The Whig candidate, Thomas Wharton, eldest son of Philip Lord Wharton, was a man distinguished alike by dexterity and by audacity, and destined to play a conspicuous, though not always a respectable, part in the politics of several reigns. He had been one of those members of the House of Commons who had carried up the Exclusion Bill to the bar of the Lords. The court was therefore bent on throwing him out by fair or foul means. The Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys himself came down into Buckinghamshire, for the purpose of assisting a gentleman named Hacket, who stood on the high Tory inter est. A stratagem was devised which, it was thought, could not fail of success. It was given out that the polling would ake place at Ailesbury; and Wharton, whose skill in all the arts of electioneering was unrivalled, made his arrangements pamphleteers have written on this subject. I will cite only one witness, a Churchman and a Tory. "Elections," says Evelyn, "were thought to be very indecently carried on in most places. God give a better issue of it than some expect!" (May 10, 1685.) Again he says, "The truth is, there were many of the new members whose elections and returns were universally condemned." (May 22.) *From a newsletter in the library of the Royal Institution. Citters mentions the strength of the Whig party in Bedfordshire. + Bramston's Memoirs. Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the good Protestants of this Kingdom, 1689; Dialogue between Two Friends, on that supposition. At a moment's warning the sheriff adjourned the poll to Newport Pagnell. Wharton and his friends hurried thither, and found that Hacket, who was in the secret, had already secured every inn and lodging. The Whig freeholders were compelled to tie their horses to the hedges, and to sleep under the open sky in the meadows which surround the little town. It was with the greatest difficulty that refreshments could be procured at such short notice for so large a number of men and beasts, though Wharton, who was utterly regardless of money when his ambition and party spirit were roused, disbursed fifteen hundred pounds in one day, an immense outlay for those times. Injustice seems, however, to have animated the courage of the stout-hearted yeomen of Bucks, the sons of the constituents of John Hampden. Not only was Wharton at the head of the poll, but he was able to spare his second votes to a man of moderate opinions, and to throw out the Chief Justice's candidate.* In Cheshire the contest lasted six days. The Whigs polled about seventeen hundred votes, the Tories about two thousand. The common people were vehement on the Whig side, raised the cry of " Down with the bishops," insulted the clergy in the streets of Chester, knocked down one gentleman of the Tory party, broke the windows, and beat the constables. The militia was called out to quell the riot, and was kept assembled, in order to protect the festivities of the conquerors. When the poll closed, a salute of five great guns from the castle proclaimed the triumph of the church and the crown to the surrounding country. The bells rang. The newlyelected members went in state to the city Cross, accompanied by a band of music, and by a long train of knights and squires. The procession, as it marched, sang, "Joy to Great Cæsar," a loyal ode, which had lately been written by Durfey, and which, though, like all Durfey's writings, utterly contemptible, was, at that time, almost as popular as Lillebullero became a few years later.t Round the Cross the trainbands were drawn up in order; a bonfire was lighted; the Exclusion Bill was burned; and the health of King James was drunk with loud acclamations. The following day was Sun * Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715. See the Guardian, No. 67; an exquisite specimen of Addison's peculiar manner. It would be difficult to find in any other writer such an instance of benevolence delicately flavored with contempt. |
