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tracts came forth by hundreds. Obadiah Walker's press was not less active at Oxford. But, with the exception of some bad translations of Bossuet's admirable works, these establishments put forth nothing of the smallest value. It was indeed impossible for any intelligent and candid Roman Catholic to deny that the champions

skilful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, The Roman Catholics did not yield Sherlock, Prideaux, Whitby, Patrick, the victory without a struggle. The RoTenison, Wake. The rear was brought One of them, named Henry up by the most distinguished bachelors Hills, had been appointed vines over of arts who were studying for dea-printer to the royal household con's orders. Conspicuous amongst and chapel, and had been placed by the recruits whom Cambridge sent to the King at the head of a great office the field was a distinguished pupil of in London from which theological the great Newton, Henry Wharton, who had, a few months before, been senior wrangler of his year, and whose early death was soon after deplored by men of all parties as an irreparable loss to letters.* Oxford was not less proud of a youth, whose great powers, first essayed in this conflict, afterwards troubled the Church and the State during forty eventful years, Francis of his Church were, in every talent Atterbury. By such men as these and acquirement, completely overevery question in issue between the matched. The ablest of them would Papists and the Protestants was de- not, on the other side, have been bated, sometimes in a popular style considered as of the third rate. Many which boys and women could compre- of them, even when they had somehend, sometimes with the utmost thing to say, knew not how to say it. subtlety of logic, and sometimes with They had been excluded by their an immense display of learning. The religion from English schools and pretensions of the Holy See, the authority of tradition, purgatory, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, the adoration of the host, the denial of the cup to the laity, confession, penance, indulgences, extreme unction, the invocation of saints, the adoration of images, the celibacy of the clergy, the monastic vows, the practice of celebrating public worship in a tongue unknown to the multitude, the corruptions of the court of Rome, the history of the Reformation, the characters of the chief Reformers, were copiously discussed. Great numbers of absurd legends about miracles wrought by saints and relics were translated from the Italian, and published as specimens of the priestcraft by which the greater part of Christendom had been fooled. Of the tracts put forth on these subjects by Anglican divines during the short reign of James the Second many have probably perished. Those which may still be found in our great libraries make up a mass of near twenty thousand pages. †

*See the preface to Henry Wharton's Posthumous Sermons.

† This I can attest from my own researches.

universities; nor had they ever, till the accession of James, found England an agreeable, or even a safe, residence. They had therefore passed the greater part of their lives on the Continent, and had almost unlearned their mother tongue. When they preached, their outlandish accent moved the derision of the audience. They spelt like washerwomen. Their diction was disfigured by foreign idioms; and, when they meant to be eloquent, they imitated, as well as they could, what was considered as fine writing in those Italian academies where rhetoric had then reached the last stage of corrup tion. Disputants labouring under these disadvantages would scarcely, even with truth on their side, have been able to make head against men whose style is eminently distinguished by simple purity and grace.*

There is an excellent collection in the British Museum. Birch tells us, in his Life of Tillotson, that Archbishop Wake had not been able to form even a perfect catalogue of all the tracts published in this controversy.

* Cardinal Howard spoke strongly to Burnet at Rome on this subject. Burnet, i. 662. There is a curious passage to the same effect in a despatch of Barillon or Bonrepaux: but I have mislaid the reference.

The situation of England in the strength derived from the support of year 1686 cannot be better described the government. The sincere con

Scotland.

than in the words of the French formists were far more numerous than Ambassador. "The discontent," he the Papists and the Protestant Diswrote, "is great and general: but the senters taken together. The Establishfear of incurring still worse evils ed Church of Scotland was the Church restrains all who have anything to of a minority. The lowland population lose. The King openly expresses his was generally attached to the Presbyjoy at finding himself in a situation to terian discipline. Prelacy was abhorred strike bold strokes. He likes to be by the great body of Scottish Protestcomplimented on this subject. He ants, both as an unscriptural and as a has talked to me about it, and has foreign institution. It was regarded assured me that he will not flinch." * by the disciples of Knox as a relic of Meanwhile in other parts of the the abominations of Babylon the Great. empire events of grave import-It painfully reminded a people proud State of ance had taken place. The of the memory of Wallace and Bruce situation of the episcopalian that Scotland, since her sovereigns had Protestants of Scotland differed widely succeeded to a fairer inheritance, had from that in which their English been independent in name only. The brethren stood. In the south of the episcopal polity was also closely assoisland the religion of the state was the ciated in the public mind with all the religion of the people, and had a evils produced by twenty five years of strength altogether independent of the corrupt and cruel maladministration. One of the Roman Catholic divines who Nevertheless this polity stood, though engaged in this controversy, a Jesuit named on a narrow basis and amidst fearful Andrew Pulton, whom Mr. Oliver, in his bio-storms, tottering indeed, yet upheld by graphy of the Order, pronounces to have been a man of distinguished ability, very frankly the civil magistrate, and leaning for owns his deficiencies. "A. P., having been support, eighteen years out of his own country, pretends not yet to any perfection of the English expression or orthography." His spelling is indeed deplorable. In one of his letters wright is put for write, woed for would. He challenged Tenison to dispute with him in Latin, that they might be on equal terms. In a contemporary satire, entitled the Advice, is the following couplet :

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"O del sagro marito fortunata consorte! O dolce alleviamento d' affari alti! O grato ristoro di pensieri noiosi, nel cui petto latteo, lucente specchio d'illibata matronal pudicizia, nel cui seno odorato, come in porto d'amor, si ritira il Giacomo! O beata regia coppia! O felice inserto tra l' invincibil leoni e le candide aquile!"

Clench's English is of a piece with his Tus

can.

For example, "Peter signifies an inexpugnable rock, able to evacuate all the plots of hell's divan, and naufragate all the lurid designs of empoisoned heretics."

Another Roman Catholic treatise, entitled "The Church of England truly represented," begins by informing us that "the ignis fatuus of reformation, which had grown to a comet by many acts of spoil and rapine, had been ushered into England, purified of the filth which it had contracted among the lakes of the Alps."

* Barillon, July 19. 1686.

whenever danger became serious, on the power of England. The records of the Scottish Parliament were thick set with laws denouncing vengeance on those who in any direction strayed from the prescribed pale. By an Act passed in the time of Knox, and breathing his spirit, it was a high crime to hear mass, and the third offence was capital.* An Act recently passed, at the instance of James, made it death to preach in any Presbyterian conventicle whatever, and even attend such a conventicle in the open air.

to

The Eucharist was not, as in England, degraded into a civil test; but no person could hold any office, could sit in Parliament, or could even vote for a member of Parliament, without subscribing, under the sanction of an oath, a declaration which condemned in the strongest terms the principles both of the Papists and of the Covenanters.

In the Privy Council of Scotland there were two parties corresponding

*Act Parl. Aug. 24. 1560; Dec. 15. 1567. † Act Parl. May 8. 1685.

Act Parl. Aug. 31. 1681.

Queens

and

to the two parties which were con- science had to do with Perth's change tending against each other at of religion he amply proved by taking berry. Whitehall. William Douglas, to wife, a few weeks later, in direct Duke of Queensberry, was Lord Trea- defiance of the laws of the Church surer, and had, during some years, which he had just joined, a lady who been considered as first minister. was his cousin german, without waiting He was nearly connected by affinity, for a dispensation. When the good by similarity of opinions, and by simi- Pope learned this, he said, with scorn larity of temper, with the Treasurer of and indignation which well became England. Both were Tories: both him, that this was a strange sort of were men of hot temper and strong conversion.* But James was more prejudices: both were ready to support easily satisfied. The apostates pretheir master in any attack on the civil sented themselves at Whitehall, and liberties of his people; but both were there received such assurances of his sincerely attached to the Established favour, that they ventured to bring Church. Queensberry had early noti- direct charges against the Treasurer. fied to the court that, if any innovation Those charges, however, were so eviaffecting that Church were contem- dently frivolous that James was forced plated, to such innovation he could be to acquit the accused minister; no party. But among his colleagues many thought that the Chancellor had were several men not less unprincipled ruined himself by his malignant eagerthan Sunderland. In truth the Coun- ness to ruin his rival. There were a cil chamber at Edinburgh had been, few, however, who judged more corduring a quarter of a century, a semi-rectly. Halifax, to whom Perth exnary of all public and all private vices; pressed some apprehensions, answered and some of the politicians whose with a sneer that there was no danger. character had been formed there had a peculiar hardness of heart and forehead to which Westminster, even in that bad age, could hardly show anything quite equal. The Chancellor, James Drummond, Earl of Perth, Perth and and his brother, the Secretary Melfort. of State, John Lord Melfort, were bent on supplanting Queensberry. The Chancellor had already an unquestionable title to the royal favour. He had brought into use a little steel thumbscrew which gave such exquisite torment that it had wrung confessions even out of men on whom his Majesty's favourite boot had been tried in vain. * But it was well known that even barbarity was not so sure a way to the heart of James as apostasy. To apostasy, therefore, Perth and Melfort resorted with a certain audacious baseness which no English statesman could hope to emulate. They declared that the papers found in the strong box of Charles the Second had converted them both to the true faith; and they began to confess and to hear mass.† How little con

*Burnet, i. 584.

† Ibid. i. 652, 653.

"Be of good cheer, my Lord: thy
faith hath made thee whole." The
prediction was correct. Perth and
Melfort went back to Edinburgh, the
real heads of the government of their
country.* Another member of the
Scottish Privy Council, Alexander
Stuart, Earl of Murray, the descendant
and heir of the Regent, abjured the
religion of which his illustrious ances-
tor had been the foremost champion,
and declared himself a member of the
Church of Rome. Devoted as Queens-
berry had always been to the cause of
prerogative, he could not stand his
ground against competitors who were
willing to pay such a price for the
favour of the Court. He had to endure
a succession of mortifications and
humiliations similar to those which,
about the same time, began to embitter
the life of his friend Rochester. Royal
letters came down authorising Favour
Papists to hold offices without show
taking the test. The clergy man
were strictly charged not to religion in
reflect on the Roman Catholic Scotland.
religion in their discourses. The
*Burnet, i. 678.
† Ibid. i. 653.

to the

Catholic

Chancellor took on himself to send the that a sedition as formidable as that of macers of the Privy Council round to Masaniello had been raging at Edinthe few printers and booksellers who burgh. The brothers in return accused could then be found in Edinburgh, the Treasurer, not only of extenuating charging them not to publish any the crime of the insurgents, but of work without his license. It was well having himself prompted it, and did understood that this order was intended all in their power to obtain evidence to prevent the circulation of Protestant of his guilt. One of the ringleaders, treatises. One honest stationer told who had been taken, was offered a the messengers that he had in his shop pardon if he would own that Queensa book which reflected in very coarse berry had set him on; but the same terms on Popery, and begged to know religious enthusiasm, which had imwhether he might sell it. They asked pelled the unhappy prisoner to criminal to see it; and he showed them a copy violence, prevented him from purchasof the Bible.* A cargo of copes, ing his life by a calumny. He and seimages, beads, crosses and censers veral of his accomplices were hanged. A arrived at Leith directed to Lord soldier, who was accused of exclaiming, Perth. The importation of such arti- during the affray, that he should like eles had long been considered as illegal; to run his sword through a Papist, was but now the officers of the customs shot; and Edinburgh was again quiet: allowed the superstitious garments and but the sufferers were regarded as trinkets to pass. In a short time it martyrs; and the Popish Chancellor was known that a Popish chapel had became an object of mortal hatred, been fitted up in the Chancellor's which in no long time was largely house, and that mass was regularly gratified.*

Riots at

Edinburgh.

said there. The mob rose. The The King was much incensed. The mansion where the idolatrous rites news of the tumult reached Anger of were celebrated was fiercely attacked. him when the Queen, assisted the King. The iron bars which protected by the Jesuits, had just triumphed over the windows were wrenched Lady Dorchester and her Protestant off. Lady Perth and some of allies. The malcontents should find, her female friends were pelted with he declared, that the only effect of the mud. One rioter was seized, and resistance offered to his will was to ordered by the Privy Council to be make him more and more resolute.† whipped. His fellows rescued him He sent orders to the Scottish Council and beat the hangman. The city was to punish the guilty with the utmost all night in confusion. The students severity, and to make unsparing use of of the University mingled with the the boot. He pretended to be fully crowd and animated the tumult. convinced of the Treasurer's innocence, Zealous burghers drank the health of and wrote to that minister in gracious the college lads and confusion to words; but the gracious words were Papists, and encouraged each other to accompanied by ungracious acts. The face the troops. The troops were Scottish Treasury was put into commisalready under arms. They were re-sion in spite of the earnest remonceived with a shower of stones, which strances of Rochester, who probably wounded an officer. Orders were given saw his own fate prefigured in that of to fire; and several citizens were killed. his kinsman.§ Queensbury was, indeed, The disturbance was serious; but the Drummonds, inflamed by resentment and ambition, exaggerated it strangely. Queensberry observed that their reports would lead any person, who had not witnessed what had passed, to believe

* Fountainhall, Jan. 28. 168. † Ibid. Jan. 11. 168.

* Fountainhall, Jan. 31. and Feb. 1. 168.

Burnet, i. 678.; Trials of David Mowbray and
Alexander Keith, in the Collection of State
Trials; Bonrepaux, Feb. 11.

† Lewis to Barillon, Feb. 1.

1686.

Fountainhall, Feb. 16.; Wodrow, book iii. chap. x. sec. 3. "We require," His Majesty graciously wrote, "that you spare no legal trial by torture or otherwise."

§ Bonrepaux, Feb. 18. 1686.

28'

named First Commissioner, and was land. He was a loose and profane made President of the Privy Council: but his fall, though thus broken, was still a fall. He was also removed from the government of the castle of Edinburgh, and was succeeded in that confidential post by the Duke of Gordon, a Roman Catholic.*

concern

ing Scotland.

man: but a sense of honour which his two kinsmen wanted restrained him from public apostasy. He lived and died, in the significant phrase of one of his countrymen, a bad Christian, but a good Protestant.*

James was pleased by the dutiful And now a letter arrived from language which the three Councillors London, fully explaining to the used when first they appeared before His plans Scottish Privy Council the in- him. He spoke highly of them to tentions of the King. What Barillon, and particularly extolled he wanted was that the Roman Lockhart as the ablest and most eloCatholics should be exempted from all quent Scotchman living. They soon laws imposing penalties and disabilities proved, however, less tractable than on account of nonconformity, but that had been expected; and it was rumoured the persecution of the Covenanters at Court that they had been perverted should go on without mitigation.† This by the company which they had kept scheme encountered strenuous oppo- in London. Hamilton lived much with sition in the Council. Some members zealous churchmen; and it might be were unwilling to see the existing laws feared that Lockhart, who was related relaxed. Others, who were by no to the Wharton family, had fallen into means averse to relaxation, felt that it still worse society. In truth it was would be monstrous to admit Roman natural that statesmen, fresh from a Catholics to the highest honours of the country where opposition in any other State, and yet to leave unrepealed the form than that of insurrection and Act which made it death to attend a assassination had long been almost unPresbyterian conventicle. The answer known, and where all that was not of the board was, therefore, less obse- lawless fury was abject submission, quious than usual. The King should have been struck by the earnest in reply sharply reprimanded and stubborn, yet sober, discontent his undutiful Councillors, and which pervaded England, and should ordered three of them, the have been emboldened to try the exLondon. Duke of Hamilton, Sir George periment of constitutional resistance to Lockhart, and General Drummond, to the royal will. They indeed declared attend him at Westminster. Hamilton's themselves willing to grant large reabilities and knowledge, though by no lief to the Roman Catholics; but on means such as would have sufficed to two conditions; first, that similar inraise an obscure man to eminence, ap-dulgence should be extended to the peared highly respectable in one who Calvinistic sectaries; and, secondly, was premier peer of Scotland. Lock- that the King should bind himself by hart had long been regarded as one of a solemn promise not to attempt any the first jurists, logicians, and orators thing to the prejudice of the Protestant that his country had produced, and religion. enjoyed also that sort of consideration Both conditions were highly distastewhich is derived from large possessions; ful to James. He reluctantly for his estate was such as at that time agreed, however, after a dis- gotiations very few Scottish nobles possessed. pute which lasted several days, with the He had been lately appointed Presi- that some indulgence should be dent of the Court of Session. Drum-granted to the Presbyterians: but he mond, a cousin of Perth and Melfort, would by no means consent to allow was commander of the forces in Scot-them the full liberty which he demanded *Fountainhall, March 11. 1686; Adda, for members of his own communion.†

Deputation of Scotch Privy Councillors sent to

March

†This letter is dated March 4. 1686.

Barillon, April 13. 1686; Burnet, i. 370.

Their ne

King.

*The words are in a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun.

† Some words of Barillon deserve to be

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