was necessary to convoke the Parliament.

Meeting of

liament.

dulgence.

human industry had covered it were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders might survive In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Holland. Liberty and pure religion, Houses reassembled after a driven by tyrants and bigots from recess of near two years. the ParEurope, might take refuge in the Clifford, now a peer and Lord farthest isles of Asia. The shipping Treasurer, and Ashley, now Earl of in the ports of the republic would suf- Shaftesbury and Lord Chancellor, were fice to carry two hundred thousand the persons on whom the King princiemigrants to the Indian Archipelago. pally relied as Parliamentary managers. There the Dutch commonwealth might The Country Party instantly began to commence a new and more glorious attack the policy of the Cabal. The existence, and might rear, under the attack was made, not in the way of Southern Cross, amidst the sugar canes storm, but by slow and scientific apand nutmeg trees, the Exchange of a proaches. The Commons at first held wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools out hopes that they would give support of a more learned Leyden. The na- to the King's foreign policy, but intional spirit swelled and rose high. sisted that he should purchase that The terms offered by the allies were support by abandoning his whole system firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. of domestic policy. Their chief object The whole country was turned into one was to obtain the revocation of the great lake, from which the cities, with Declaration of Indulgence. Of Declaratheir ramparts and steeples, rose like all the many unpopular steps tion of Inislands. The invaders were forced to taken by the Government the save themselves from destruction by a most unpopular was the publishing of precipitate retreat. Lewis, who, though this Declaration. The most opposite he sometimes thought it necessary to sentiments had been shocked by an act appear at the head of his troops, greatly so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. preferred a palace to a camp, had All the enemies of religious freedom, already returned to enjoy the adulation and all the friends of civil freedom, of poets and the smiles of ladies in the found themselves on the same side; newly planted alleys of Versailles. and these two classes made up nineteen And now the tide turned fast. The twentieths of the nation. The zealous event of the maritime war had been Churchman exclaimed against the doubtful: by land the United Provinces favour which had been shown both to had obtained a respite; and a respite, the Papist and to the Puritan. The though short, was of infinite import- Puritan, though he might rejoice in ance. Alarmed by the vast designs of the suspension of the persecution by Lewis, both the branches of the great which he had been harassed, felt little House of Austria sprang to arms. gratitude for a toleration which he was Spain and Holland, divided by the to share with Antichrist. And all memory of ancient wrongs and humili-Englishmen who valued liberty and ations, were reconciled by the nearness law, saw with uneasiness the deep inof the common danger. From every road which the prerogative had made part of Germany troops poured towards into the province of the legislature. the Rhine. The English government It must in candour be admitted that had already expended all the funds the constitutional question was then which had been obtained by pillaging not quite free from obscurity. Our the public creditor. No loan could be ancient Kings had undoubtedly claimed expected from the City. An attempt to and exercised the right of suspending raise taxes by the royal authority would the operation of penal laws. have at once produced a rebellion; and tribunals had recognised that right. Lewis, who had now to maintain a Parliaments had suffered it to pass uncontest against half Europe, was in no challenged. That some such right was condition to furnish the means of inherent in the crown, few even of the coercing the people of England. It Country Party ventured, in the face of

The

and the

precedent and authority, to deny. Yet | stantly subjected to a severe scrutiny. it was clear that, if this prerogative Men did not, indeed, at first, venture to were without limit, the English govern- pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. ment could scarcely be distinguished But they began to perceive that it was from a pure despotism. That there at direct variance with the spirit of the was a limit was fully admitted by the constitution, and would, if left unKing and his ministers. Whether the checked, turn the English government Declaration of Indulgence lay within from a limited into an absolute moor without the limit was the question; narchy. and neither party could succeed in tracing any line which would bear examination. Some opponents of the government complained that the Declaration suspended not less than forty statutes. But why not forty as well as one? There was an orator who gave it as his opinion that the King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but not with good laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless to expose. The doctrine which seems to have been generally received in the House of Commons was, that the dispensing power was confined to secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted for the security of the established religion. Yet, as the King was supreme head of the Church, it should seem that, if he possessed the dispens-bury, with his proverbial sagacity, saw ing power at all, he might well possess that power where the Church was concerned. When the courtiers on the other side attempted to point out the bounds of this prerogative, they were not more successful than the opposition had been.

Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the It is canKing's right to dispense, not celled, indeed with all penal statutes, Test Act but with penal statutes in mat- passed. ters ecclesiastical, and gave him plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that right they would grant no supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed some inclination to put everything to hazard: but he was strongly advised by Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better times, when the French armies, now employed in an arduous struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose of suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs of disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftes

that a violent reaction was at hand, and that all things were tending towards a crisis resembling that of 1640. He was determined that such a crisis should not find him in the situation of Strafford. He therefore turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, in the House of Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. The King, thus deserted by his ally and by his Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly promised that it should never be drawn into precedent.

The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in politics. It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the principles of mixed government: but it had grown up in times when people troubled themselves little about theories.* It had not been very Even this concession was insufficient. grossly abused in practice. It had The Commons, not content with having therefore been tolerated, and had forced their sovereign to annul the Ingradually acquired a kind of prescrip-dulgence, next extorted his unwilling tion. At length it was employed, after assent to a celebrated law, which cona long interval, in an enlightened age, tinued in force down to the reign of and at an important conjuncture, to an George the Fourth. This law, known extent never before known, and for a as the Test Act, provided that all perpurpose generally abhorred. It was in-sons holding any office, civil or military,

*The most sensible thing said in the House of Commons, on this subject, came from Sir William Coventry:-" Our ancestors never did draw a line to circumscribe prerogative and liberty."

should take the oath of supremacy, should subscribe a declaration against Transubstantiation, and should publicly receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. The

The Cabal

the

The chief direction of affairs was now entrusted to Sir Thomas AdminisOsborne, a Yorkshire baronet, tration of who had, in the House of Com- Danby. mons, shown eminent talents for busi

preamble expressed hostility only to the | who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, Papists: but the enacting clauses were had lived in seclusion among his books scarcely more unfavourable to the Pa- and flower beds, was called forth from pists than to the rigid Puritans. The his hermitage. By his instrumentality Puritans, however, terrified at the evi- a separate peace was concluded Peace dent leaning of the court towards Popery, with the United Provinces; with and encouraged by some churchmen to and he again became ambas- Provinces. hope that, as soon as the Roman Ca-sador at the Hague, where his presence tholics should have been effectually was regarded as a sure pledge for the disarmed, relief would be extended to sincerity of his court. Protestant Nonconformists, made little opposition; nor could the King, who was in extreme want of money, venture to withhold his sanction. The Act was passed; and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity of re-ness and debate. Osborne became Lord signing the great place of Lord High Admiral. Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. dissolved. But, when the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out, relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell impetuously on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss Buckingham and Lauderdale from his councils for ever, and appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeaching Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford, who, alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man, refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and retired to his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employment in the Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their peace with the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued to be minister for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament could not interfere.

Treasurer, and was soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality, would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to which it was brought in the following century. He improved greatly on the plan of the first inventors. They had merely purchased orators: but every man who had a vote, might sell himself to Danby. Yet the new minister must not be confounded with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelings of an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did he, in his solicitude for his own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, to exalt the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt it were widely different from those which had been contemplated by Arlington and Clifford. The thought of And now the Commons urged the establishing arbitrary power, by calling King to make peace with Holland, and in the aid of foreign arms, and by expressly declared that no more sup-reducing the kingdom to the rank of a plies should be granted for the war, dependent principality, never entered unless it should appear that the enemy into his mind. His plan was to rally obstinately refused to consent to rea-round the monarchy those classes which sonable terms. Charles found it neces- had been the firm allies of the monsary to postpone to a more convenient season all thought of executing the treaty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by pretending to return to the policy of the Triple Alliance. Temple,

archy during the troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles,

of the country gentlemen, of the clergy, | of the Triple Alliance, at the head of and of the Universities, it might, he the department which directed foreign conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth had been.

leaders were afraid of the greatness of meant only to make war on France, Embar- Lewis, who was not only mak- they would have been eager to support

rassing situation

of the Country

Party.

ing head against the whole him. Could Lewis have been certain strength of the continental that the new levies were intended only alliance, but was even gaining to make war on the constitution of ground. Yet they were afraid to entrust England, he would have made no attheir own King with the means of curb-tempt to stop them. But the unsteaing France, lest those means should be diness and faithlessness of Charles were used to destroy the liberties of England. such that the French government and The conflict between these apprehen- the English opposition, agreeing in sions, both of which were perfectly nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his legitimate, made the policy of the Op- protestations, and were equally desirous position seem as eccentric and fickle to keep him poor and without an army. as that of the Court. The Commons Communications were opened between called for a war with France, till the Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and King, pressed by Danby to comply with those English politicians who had their wish, seemed disposed to yield, always professed, and who indeed sinand began to raise an army. But, as cerely felt, the greatest dread and soon as they saw that the recruiting dislike of the French ascendency. The had commenced, their dread of Lewis most upright member of the Country gave place to a nearer dread. They Party, William Lord Russell, son of the began to fear that the new levies might Earl of Bedford, did not scruple to be employed on a service in which concert with a foreign mission schemes Charles took much more interest than for embarrassing his own sovereign. in the defence of Flanders. They there- This was the whole extent of Russell's fore refused supplies, and clamoured offence. His principles and his fortune for disbanding as loudly as they alike raised him above all temptations had just before clamoured for arming. of a sordid kind: but there is too much Those historians who have severely reason to believe that some of his assoreprehended this inconsistency do not ciates were less scrupulous. It would appear to have made sufficient allow-be unjust to impute to them the extreme ance 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 dis-of public spirit, and who, in spite of honesty or even of weakness. some great moral and intellectual faults, These jealousies were studiously has a just claim to be called a hero, a fomented by the French King. philosopher, and a patriot. It is imposHe had long kept England sible to see without pain such a name the French passive by promising to support in the list of the pensioners of France. embassy. the throne against the Parlia-Yet it is some consolation to reflect ment. He now, alarmed at finding that, in our time, a public man would that the patriotic counsels of Danby be thought lost to all sense of duty and seemed likely to prevail in the closet, of shame, who should not spurn from began to inflame the Parliament against him a temptation which conquered the the throne. Between Lewis and the virtue and the pride of Algernon Country Party there was one thing, and Sidney. one only, in common, profound distrust of Charles. Could the Country Party have been certain that their sovereign

Dealings

of that party with

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

The effect of these intrigues was that England, though she occasionally took a menacing attitude, remained