failed to note and to resent every slight | in other regiments, and particularly offered to Scotland. Officers and men that a body of fusileers which lay at muttered that a vote of a foreign as- Harwich was likely to imitate the exsembly was nothing to them. If they ample set at Ipswich. "If these Scots," could be absolved from their allegiance said Halifax to Reresby, 66 are unsupto King James the Seventh, it must be ported, they are lost. But if they are by the Estates at Edinburgh, and not acting in concert with others, the danby the Convention at Westminster. ger is serious indeed.” * The truth Their ill humour increased when they seems to be that there was a conspiracy heard that Schomberg had been ap- which had ramifications in many parts pointed their colonel. They ought per- of the army, but that the conspirators haps to have thought it an honour to were awed by the firmness of the Gobe called by the name of the greatest vernment and of the Parliament. A soldier in Europe. But, brave and committee of the Privy Council was skilful as he was, he was not their sitting when the tidings of the mutiny countryman; and their regiment, during arrived in London. William Harbord, the fifty six years which had elapsed who represented the borough of Launsince it gained its first honourable dis- ceston, was at the board. His colleagues tinctions in Germany, had never been entreated him to go down instantly to commanded but by a Hepburn or a the House of Commons, and to relate Douglas. While they were in this what had happened. He went, rose in angry and punctilious mood, they were his place, and told his story. The ordered to join the forces which were spirit of the assembly rose to the occaassembling at Harwich. There was sion. Howe was the first to call for much murmuring; but there was no vigorous action. "Address the King," outbreak till the regiment arrived at he said, "to send his Dutch troops Ipswich. There the signal of revolt after these men. I know not who else was given by two captains who were can be trusted." "This is no jesting zealous for the exiled King. The matter," said old Birch, who had been market place was soon filled with pike- a colonel in the service of the Parliamen and musketeers running to and ment, and had seen the most powerful fro. Gunshots were wildly fired in all and renowned House of Commons that directions. Those officers who at- ever sate twice purged and twice extempted to restrain the rioters were pelled by its own soldiers; "if you let overpowered and disarmed. At length this evil spread, you will have an army the chiefs of the insurrection established upon you in a few days. Address the some order, and marched out of Ips- King to send horse and foot instantly, wich at the head of their adherents. his own men, men whom he can trust, The little army consisted of about eight and to put these people down at once." hundred men. They had seized four The men of the long robe caught the pieces of cannon, and had taken posses- flame. It is not the learning of my sion of the military chest, which con-profession that is needed here," said tained a considerable sum of money. Treby. "What is now to be done is At the distance of half a mile from the to meet force with force, and to maintown a halt was called: a general consultation was held; and the mutineers resolved that they would hasten back to their native country, and would live and die with their rightful King. They instantly proceeded northward by forced marches.*

When the news reached London the

dismay was great. It was rumoured that alarming symptoms had appeared

* Commons' Journals, March 15. 1688.

66

tain in the field what we have done in the senate." "Write to the Sheriffs," said Colonel Mildmay, member for Essex. "Raise the militia. There are a hundred and fifty thousand of them: they are good Englishmen: they will not fail you." It was resolved that all members of the House who held commissions in the army should be dispensed from parliamentary attendance,

* Reresby's Memoirs.

in order that they might repair instantly in carrying their artillery with them. to their military posts. An address They entered Lincolnshire, and were was unanimously voted requesting the not far from Sleaford, when they learned King to take effectual steps for the that Ginkell with an irresistible force suppression of the rebellion, and to put was close on their track. Victory and forth a proclamation denouncing public escape were equally out of the question. vengeance on the rebels. One gentle- The bravest warriors could not contend man hinted that it might be well to against fourfold odds. The most active advise His Majesty to offer a pardon infantry could not outrun horsemen. to those who should peaceably submit: Yet the leaders, probably despairing of but the House wisely rejected the sug- pardon, urged the men to try the chance gestion. "This is no time," it was of battle. In that region, a spot almost well said, "for any thing that looks surrounded by swamps and pools was like fear." The address was instantly without difficulty found. Here the insent up to the Lords. The Lords con-surgents were drawn up; and the cancurred in it. Two peers, two knights non were planted at the only point of shires, and two burgesses were sent which was thought not to be suffiwith it to Court. William received ciently protected by natural defences. them graciously, and informed them Ginkell ordered the attack to be made that he had already given the necessary at a place which was out of the range orders. In fact, several regiments of of the guns; and his dragoons dashed horse and dragoons had been sent gallantly into the water, though it was northward under the command of Gin- so deep that their horses were forced to kell, one of the bravest and ablest swim. Then the mutineers lost heart. officers of the Dutch army.* They beat a parley, surrendered at disMeanwhile the mutineers were has-cretion, and were brought up to London tening across the country which lies between Cambridge and the Wash. Their way lay through a vast and desolate fen, saturated with the moisture of thirteen counties, and overhung during the greater part of the year by a low grey mist, high above which rose, visible many miles, the magnificent tower of Ely. In that dreary region, covered by vast flights of wild fowl, a half savage population, known by the name of the Breedlings, then led an amphibious life, sometimes wading, and sometimes rowing, from one islet of firm ground to another. The roads were among the worst in the island, and, as soon as rumour announced the approach of the rebels, were studiously made worse by the country people. Bridges were broken down. Trees were laid across the highways to obstruct the progress of the cannon. Nevertheless the Scotch veterans not only pushed forward with great speed, but succeeded * Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 15. 1688; London Gazette, March 18. † As to the state of this region in the latter part of the seventeenth and the earlier part of the eighteenth century, see Pepys's Diary, Sept. 18. 1663, and the Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 1724.

under a strong guard. Their lives were forfeit; for they had been guilty, not merely of mutiny, which was then not a legal crime, but of levying war against the King. William, however, with politic clemency, abstained from shedding the blood even of the most culpable. A few of the ringleaders were brought to trial at the next Bury assizes, and were convicted of high treason; but their lives were spared. The rest were merely ordered to return to their duty. The regiment, lately so refractory, went submissively to the Continent, and there, through many hard campaigns, distinguished itself by fidelity, by discipline, and by valour.*

This event facilitated an important change in our polity, a change The first which, it is true, could not Mutiny have been long delayed, but which would not have been easily ac

March 22.

Bill.

* London Gazette, March 25. 1689; Van Citters to the States General, of Nottingham in the State Paper Office, dated April 1.; Letters July 23. and August 9. 1689; Historical Record of the First Regiment of Foot, printed by authority. See also a curious digression in the Compleat History of the Life and Mili tary Actions of Richard, Earl of Tyrconnel, 1689.

complished except at a moment of disciplined army has ever been a more extreme danger. The time had at costly and a more licentious militia, length arrived at which it was neces- impotent against a foreign enemy, and sary to make a legal distinction between formidable only to the country which it the soldier and the citizen. Under the is paid to defend. A strong line of Plantagenets and the Tudors there had demarcation must therefore be drawn been no standing army. The standing between the soldiers and the rest of the army which had existed under the last community. For the sake of public kings of the House of Stuart had been freedom, they must, in the midst of regarded by every party in the state freedom, be placed under a despotic with strong and not unreasonable rule. They must be subject to a sharper aversion. The common law gave the penal code, and to a more stringent Sovereign no power to control his troops. code of procedure, than are administered The Parliament, regarding them as mere by the ordinary tribunals. Some acts tools of tyranny, had not been disposed which in the citizen are innocent, must to give such power by statute. James in the soldier be crimes. Some acts indeed had induced his corrupt and which in the citizen are punished with servile judges to put on some obsolete fine or imprisonment must in the soldier laws a construction which enabled him be punished with death. The machinery to punish desertion capitally. But this by which courts of law ascertain the construction was considered by all re- guilt or innocence of an accused citizen spectable jurists as unsound, and, had is too slow and too intricate to be apit been sound, would have been far from plied to an accused soldier. For, of all effecting all that was necessary for the the maladies incident to the body purpose of maintaining military disci- politic, military insubordination is that pline. Even James did not venture to which requires the most prompt and inflict death by sentence of a court drastic remedies. If the evil be not martial. The deserter was treated as stopped as soon as it appears, it is ceran ordinary felon, was tried at the as- tain to spread; and it cannot spread sizes by a petty jury on a bill found by far without danger to the very vitals of a grand jury, and was at liberty to avail the commonwealth. For the general himself of any technical flaw which safety, therefore, a summary jurisdicmight be discovered in the indictment. tion of terrible extent must, in camps, The Revolution, by altering the re- be entrusted to rude tribunals composed lative position of the Sovereign and the of men of the sword. Parliament, had altered also the relative position of the army and the nation. The King and the Commons were now at unity; and both were alike menaced by the greatest military power which had existed in Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. In a few weeks thirty thousand veterans, accustomed to conquer, and led by able and experienced captains, might cross from the ports of Normandy and Britanny to our shores. That such a force would with little difficulty scatter three times that number of militia, no man well acquainted with war could doubt. There must then be regular soldiers; and, if there were to be regular soldiers, it must be indispensable, both to their efficiency, and to the security of every other class, that they should be kept under a strict discipline. An ill

But, though it was certain that the country could not, at that moment, be secure without professional soldiers, and equally certain that professional soldiers must be worse than useless unless they were placed under a rule more arbitrary and severe than that to which other men were subject, it was not without great misgivings that a House of Commons could venture to recognise the existence and to make provision for the government of a standing army. There was scarcely a public man of note who had not often avowed his conviction that our polity and a standing army could not exist together. The Whigs had been in the constant habit of repeating that standing armies had destroyed the free institutions of the neighbouring nations. The Tories had repeated as constantly that, in our

own island, a standing army had sub-state, yet which every party in the verted the Church, oppressed the gentry, state then regarded with extreme dread and murdered the King. No leader of and aversion. Six months passed; and either party could, without laying him- still the public danger continued. The self open to the charge of gross incon-power necessary to the maintenance of sistency, propose that such an army military discipline was a second time should henceforth be one of the perma- entrusted to the Crown for a short nent establishments of the realm. The term. The trust again expired, and mutiny at Ipswich, and the panic which was again renewed. By slow degrees that mutiny produced, made the first familiarity reconciled the public mind step in the right direction easy; and to the names, once so odious, of standby that step the whole course of our ing army and court martial. It was subsequent legislation was determined. proved by experience that, in a well A short bill was brought in which constituted society, professional soldiers began by declaring, in explicit terms, may be terrible to a foreign enemy, and that standing armies and courts martial yet submissive to the civil power. What were unknown to the law of England. had been at first tolerated as the excepIt was then enacted that, on account tion began to be considered as the rule. of the extreme perils impending at that Not a session passed without a Mutiny moment over the state, no man mustered Bill. During two generations, indeed, on pay in the service of the Crown an annual clamour against the new should, on pain of death, or of such system was raised by some factious lighter punishment as a court martial men desirous to weaken the hands of should deem sufficient, desert his colours the Government, and by some respector mutiny against his commanding of- able men who felt an honest but injuficers. This statute was to be in force dicious reverence for every old constionly six months; and many of those tutional tradition, and who were unable who voted for it probably believed that to understand that what at one stage it would, at the close of that period, be in the progress of society is pernicious suffered to expire. The bill passed may at another stage be indispensable. rapidly and easily. Not a single divi- But this clamour, as years rolled on, sion was taken upon it in the House of became fainter and fainter. The debate Commons. A mitigating clause indeed, which recurred every spring on the which illustrates somewhat curiously Mutiny Bill came to be regarded merely the manners of that age, was added by as an occasion on which hopeful young way of rider after the third reading. orators, fresh from Christchurch, were This clause provided that no court to deliver maiden speeches, setting martial should pass sentence of death forth how the guards of Pisistratus except between the hours of six in the seized the citadel of Athens, and how morning and one in the afternoon. The the Prætorian cohorts sold the Roman dinner hour was then early; and it was empire to Didius. At length these debut too probable that a gentleman who clamations became too ridiculous to be had dined would be in a state in which repeated. The most oldfashioned, the he could not safely be trusted with the most eccentric, politician could hardly, lives of his fellow creatures. With in the reign of George the Third, conthis amendment, the first and most tend that there ought to be no regular concise of our many Mutiny Bills was soldiers, or that the ordinary law, adsent up to the Lords, and was, in a few ministered by the ordinary courts, hours, hurried by them through all its would effectually maintain discipline stages and passed by the King.* among such soldiers. All parties being agreed as to the general principle, a

Thus began, without one dissentient voice in Parliament, without one mur-long succession of Mutiny Bills passed mur in the nation, a change which had become necessary to the safety of the * Stat. 1 W. & M. sess. 1. c. 5.; Commons'

Journals, March 28. 1689.

without any discussion, except when some particular article of the military code appeared to require amendment. It is perhaps because the army became

Suspen

Habeas

Corpus

Act.

thus gradually, and almost impercepti- | was the fashion to call James a tyrant, bly, one of the institutions of England, and William a deliverer. Yet, before that it has acted in such perfect harmony the deliverer had been a month on the with all her other institutions, has throne, he had deprived Englishmen of never once, during a hundred and sixty a precious right which the tyrant had years, been untrue to the throne or respected.* This is a kind of reproach disobedient to the law, has never once which a government sprung from a defied the tribunals or overawed the popular revolution almost inevitably constituent bodies. To this day, how-incurs. From such a government men ever, the Estates of the Realm continue naturally think themselves entitled to to set up periodically, with laudable demand a more gentle and liberal adjealousy, a landmark on the frontier ministration than is expected from old which was traced at the time of the and deeply rooted power. Yet such a Revolution. They solemnly reassert government, having, as it always has, every year the doctrine laid down in many active enemies, and not having the Declaration of Right; and they the strength derived from legitimacy then grant to the Sovereign an extra- and prescription, can at first maintain ordinary power to govern a certain itself only by a vigilance and a severity number of soldiers according to certain of which old and deeply rooted power rules during twelve months more. stands in no need. Extraordinary and In the same week in which the first irregular vindications of public liberty Mutiny Bill was laid on the are sometimes necessary: yet, however sion of the table of the Commons, another necessary, they are almost always foltemporary law, made necessary lowed by some temporary abridgments by the unsettled state of the of that very liberty; and every such kingdom, was passed. Since the flight abridgment is a fertile and plausible of James many persons who were be-theme for sarcasm and invective. lieved to have been deeply implicated Unhappily sarcasm and invective diin his unlawful acts, or to be engaged rected against William were but Unpopuin plots for his restoration, had been too likely to find favourable larity of arrested and confined. During the va- audience. Each of the two cancy of the throne, these men could great parties had its own reasons for derive no benefit from the Habeas Cor-being dissatisfied with him; and there pus Act. For the machinery by which were some complaints in which both alone that Act could be carried into parties joined. His manners gave execution had ceased to exist; and, almost universal offence. He was in through the whole of Hilary term, all truth far better qualified to save a nation the courts in Westminster Hall had than to adorn a court. In the highest remained closed. Now that the ordi-parts of statesmanship, he had no equal nary tribunals were about to resume among his contemporaries. He had their functions, it was apprehended that formed plans not inferior in grandeur those prisoners whom it was not con- and boldness to those of Richelieu, and venient to bring instantly to trial would had carried them into effect with a tact demand and obtain their liberty. A and wariness worthy of Mazarin. Two bill was therefore brought in which em- countries, the seats of civil liberty and powered the King to detain in custody of the Reformed Faith, had been preduring a few weeks such persons as he served by his wisdom and courage from should suspect of evil designs against extreme perils. Holland he had delihis government. This bill passed the vered from foreign, and England from two Houses with little or no opposi- domestic foes. Obstacles apparently tion. But the malecontents out of insurmountable had been interposed doors did not fail to remark that, in between him and the ends on which he the late reign, the Habeas Corpus Act was intent; and those obstacles his had not been one day suspended. It genius had turned into stepping stones.

*Stat. 1 W. & M. sess. 1. c. 2.

* Ronquillo, Mareh. 1689.

William.