more certain than that two thirds of the members were either Low Churchmen or not Churchmen at all. A very few days before this time an occurrence had taken place unimportant in itself, but highly significant as an indication of the temper of the majority. It had been suggested that the House ought, in conformity with ancient usage, to adjourn over the Easter holidays. The Puritans and Latitudinarians objected: there was a sharp debate: the High Churchmen did not venture to divide; and, to the great scandal of many grave persons, the Speaker took the chair at nine o'clock on Easter Monday; and there was a long and busy sitting.* was sent down to the Commons. There | ferred from these proceedings that the it would easily have been carried by House of Commons was an assembly two to one, if it had been supported of High Churchmen: but nothing is by all the friends of religious liberty. But on this subject the High Churchmen could count on the support of a large body of Low Churchmen. Those members who wished well to Nottingham's plan saw that they were outnumbered, and, despairing of a victory, began to meditate a retreat. Just at this time a suggestion was thrown out which united all suffrages. The ancient usage was that a Convocation should be summoned together with a Parliament; and it might well be argued that, if ever the advice of a Convocation could be needed, it must be when changes in the ritual and discipline of the Church were under consideration. But, in consequence of the irregular manner in which the Estates of the Realm had been brought together during the vacancy of the throne, there was no Convocation. It was proposed that the House should advise the King to take measures for supplying this defect, and that the fate of the Comprehension Bill should not be decided till the clergy had had an opportunity of declarir g their opinion through the ancient and legitimate organ. This however was by no means the strongest proof which the Commons gave that they were far indeed from feeling extreme reverence or tenderness for the Anglican hierarchy. The bill for settling the oaths had just come down from the Lords framed in a manner favourable to the clergy. All lay functionaries were required to swear fealty to the King and Queen on pain of expulsion from office. But it was This proposition was received with provided that every divine who already general acclamation. The Tories were held a benefice might continue to hold well pleased to see such honour done it without swearing, unless the Govern to the priesthood. Those Whigs who ment should see reason to call on him were against the Comprehension Bill specially for an assurance of his loyalty. were well pleased to see it laid aside, Burnet had, partly, no doubt, from the certainly for a year, probably for ever. goodnature and generosity which beThose Whigs who were for the Com-longed to his character, and partly from prehension Bill were well pleased to a desire to conciliate his brethren, supescape without a defeat. Some of them ported this arrangement in the Upper indeed were not without hopes that mild and liberal counsels might prevail in the ecclesiastical senate. An address requesting William to summon the Convocation was voted without a division: the concurrence of the Lords was asked: the Lords concurred: the address was carried up to the throne by both Houses: the King promised that he would, at a convenient season, do what his Parliament desired; and Nottingham's bill was not again mentioned. Many writers, imperfectly acquainted mons. See A Smith and Cutler's plain Diswith the history of that age, have in-logue about Whig and Tory, 1690. * Commons' Journals, March 28. April 1. 1689; Paris Gazette, April 23. Part of the passage in the Paris Gazette is worth quoting. "Il y eut, ce jour là (March 28), une grande contestation dans la Chambre Basse, sur la proposition qui fut faite de remettre les séances après les fêtes de Pasques observées toujours par l'Eglise Anglicane. Les Protestans conformistes furent de cet avis; et les Presbytériens emportèrent à la pluralitè des voix que les séances recommenceroient le Lundy, seconde feste de Pasques." The Low Churchmen are frequently designated as Pres byterians by the French and Dutch writers of that age. There were not twenty Presbyte rians, properly so called, in the House of Com The House with great energy. But in the | in which our Sovereigns were thenceLower House the feeling against the forward to enter into covenant with the Jacobite priests was irresistibly strong. nation. All parties were agreed as to On the very day on which that House the propriety of requiring the King to voted, without a division, the address swear that, in temporal matters, he requesting the King to summon the would govern according to law, and Convocation, a clause was proposed would execute justice in mercy. But and carried which required every per- about the terms of the oath which reson who held any ecclesiastical or aca-lated to the spiritual institutions of the demical preferment to take the oaths realm there was much debate. Should by the first of August 1689, on pain of the chief magistrate promise simply to suspension. Six months, to be reckoned maintain the Protestant religion estabfrom that day, were allowed to the non-lished by law, or should he promise to juror for reconsideration. If, on the maintain that religion as it should be first of February 1690, he still con- hereafter established by law? tinued obstinate, he was to be finally majority preferred the former phrase. deprived. The latter phrase was preferred by those The bill, thus amended, was sent Whigs who were for a Comprehension. back to the Lords. The Lords adhered But it was admitted that the two phrases to their original resolution. Conference really meant the same thing, and that after conference was held. Compro- the oath, however it might be worded, mise after compromise was suggested. would bind the Sovereign in his exeFrom the imperfect reports which have cutive capacity only. This was income down to us it appears that every deed evident from the very nature of argument in favour of lenity was for- the transaction. Any compact may cibly urged by Burnet. But the Com- be annulled by the free consent of the mons were firm: time pressed: the party who alone is entitled to claim the unsettled state of the law caused in- performance. It was never doubted by convenience in every department of the the most rigid casuist that a debtor, public service; and the peers very re- who has bound himself under the most luctantly gave way. They at the same awful imprecations to pay a debt, may time added a clause, empowering the lawfully withhold payment if the creKing to bestow pecuniary allowances ditor is willing to cancel the obligaout of the forfeited benefices on a few tion. And it is equally clear that no nonjuring clergymen. The number of assurance, exacted from a King by the clergymen thus favoured was not to Estates of his kingdom, can bind him exceed twelve. The allowance was to refuse compliance with what may at not to exceed one third of the income a future time be the wish of those forfeited. Some zealous Whigs were Estates. unwilling to grant even this indulgence: but the Commons were content with the victory which they had won, and justly thought that it would be ungracious to refuse so slight a concession.* A bill was drawn up in conformity with the resolutions of the Committee, and was rapidly passed through every stage. After the third reading, a foolish man stood up to propose a rider, declaring that the oath was not meant to restrain the Sovereign from consenting to any change in the ceremonial of the Church, provided always that episcopacy and a written form of prayer were retained. The gross absurdity of this motion was exposed by several eminent members. Such a clause, they justly remarked, would bind the King under pretence of setting him free.. The coronation oath, they said, was never intended to trammel him in his legis lative capacity. Leave that oath as it excited by disease. Seldom, indeed, is now drawn, and no prince can mis- have the ambition and perfidy of understand it. No prince can seriously tyrants produced evils greater than imagine that the two Houses mean to those which were brought on our exact from him a promise that he will country by that fatal conscientiousness. put a Veto on laws which they may A conjuncture singularly auspicious, a hereafter think necessary to the well- conjuncture at which wisdom and jusbeing of the country. Or if any prince tice might perhaps have reconciled should so strangely misapprehend the races and sects long hostile, and might nature of the contract between him and have made the British islands one truly his subjects, any divine, any lawyer, to United Kingdom, was suffered to pass whose advice he may have recourse, away. The opportunity, once lost, rewill set his mind at ease. But if this turned no more. Two generations of rider should pass, it will be impossible public men have since laboured with to deny that the coronation oath is imperfect success to repair the error meant to prevent the King from giving which was then committed; nor is it his assent to bills which may be pre- improbable that some of the penalties sented to him by the Lords and Com- of that error may continue to afflict a mons; and the most serious incon- remote posterity. veniences may follow. These arguments were felt to be unanswerable, and the proviso was rejected without a division.* I will quote some expressions which have been preserved in the concise reports of these as to the sense in which the oath was understood by the legislators who framed it. Musgrave said, "There is no occasion for this proviso. It cannot be imagined that any bill from hence will ever destroy the legislative power." Finch said, "The words established by law,' hinder not the King from passing any bill for the relief of Dissenters. The proviso debates. Those expressions are quite decisive The coro The bill by which the oath was settled passed the Upper House without amendment. All the nation. preparations were complete; and, on the eleventh of April, the coronation took place. In some things it differed from ordinary coronations. The representatives of the people attended the ceremony in a body, and were sumptuously feasted in the Exchequer Chamber. Mary, being not merely Queen Consort, but also Queen Regnant, was inaugurated in all things like a King, was girt with the sword, lifted up into the throne, and presented with the Bible, the spurs, and the orb. Of the temporal grandees of the realm, and of their wives and daughters, the muster was great and splendid. None could be surprised that the Whig aristocracy should swell the triumph of Whig principles. But the Jacobites saw, with concern, that many Lords who had voted for a Regency bore a conspicuous part in the ceremonial. The King's crown was carried by Grafton, the Queen's by Somerset. The pointed sword, emblematical of temporal justice, was borne by Pembroke. Ormond makes the scruple, and gives the occasion for it." Sawyer said, "This is the first proviso of this nature that ever was in any bill. It seems to strike at the legislative power." Sir Robert Cotton said, "Though the proviso was Lord High Constable for the day, looks well and healing, yet it seems to imply and rode up the Hall on the right hand a defect. Not able to alter laws as occasion of the hereditary champion, who thrice more, as if you were so bound up to the ecclesiastical government that you cannot make any new laws without such a proviso." Sir Thomas Lee said, "It will, I fear, creep in requires! This, instead of one scruple, raises that other laws cannot be made without such a proviso; therefore I would lay it aside." flung down his glove on the pavement, and thrice defied to mortal combat the false traitor who should gainsay the title of William and Mary. Among the noble damsels who supported the gorgeous train of the Queen was her rility and sarcasm. They complained beautiful and gentle cousin, the Lady bitterly that the way from the hall to Henrietta Hyde, whose father, Ro- the western door of the Abbey had chester, had to the last contended been lined by Dutch soldiers. Was it against the resolution which declared seemly that an English King should the throne vacant.* The show of enter into the most solemn of engageBishops, indeed, was scanty. The ments with the English nation behind Primate did not make his appearance; a triple hedge of foreign swords and and his place was supplied by Comp-bayonets? Little affrays, such as, at ton. On one side of Compton, the paten was carried by Lloyd, Bishop of Saint Asaph, eminent among the seven confessors of the preceding year. On the other side, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, lately a member of the High Commission, had charge of the chalice. Burnet, the junior prelate, preached with all his wonted ability, and more than his wonted taste and judgment. His grave and eloquent discourse was polluted neither by flattery nor by malignity. He is said to have been greatly applauded; and it may well be believed that the animated peroration in which he implored heaven to bless the royal pair with long life and mutual love, with obedient subjects, wise counsellors, and faithful allies, with gallant fleets and armies, with victory, with peace, and finally with crowns more glorious and more durable than those which then glittered on the altar of the Abbey, drew forth the loudest hums of the Commons.† every great pageant, almost inevitably take place between those who are eager to see the show and those whose business it is to keep the communications clear, were exaggerated with all the artifices of rhetoric. One of the alien mercenaries had backed his horse against an honest citizen who pressed forward to catch a glimpse of the royal canopy. Another had rudely pushed back a woman with the but end of his musket. On such grounds as these the strangers were compared to those Lord Danes whose insolence, in the old time, had provoked the Anglosaxon population to insurrection and massacre. But there was no more fertile theme for censure than the coronation medal, which really was absurd in design and mean in execution. peared conspicuous on the reverse; and plain people were at a loss to understand what this emblem had to do with William and Mary. The disaffected wits solved the difficulty by suggesting On the whole, the ceremony went off that the artist meant to allude to that well, and produced something like a chariot which a Roman princess, lost revival, faint, indeed, and transient, of to all filial affection, and blindly dethe enthusiasm of the preceding De-voted to the interests of an ambitious cember. The day was, in London and husband, drove over the still warm in many other places, a day of general remains of her father.* rejoicing. The churches were filled in the morning: the afternoon was spent in sport and carousing; and at night bonfires were kindled, rockets discharged, and windows lighted up. The Jacobites however contrived to discover or to invent abundant matter for scur *Lady Henrietta, whom her uncle Clarendon calls "pretty little Lady Henrietta," and "the best child in the world" (Diary, Jan. 1687), was soon after married to the Earl of Dalkeith, eldest son of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. †The sermon deserves to be read. See the London Gazette of April 14. 1689; Evelyn's Diary; Luttrell's Diary; and the despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors to the States General. A chariot ap bites wrote on this subject will be found * A specimen of the prose which the Jacoamong the Somers Tracts. The Jacobite verses were generally too loathsome to be quoted. I select some of the most decent lines from a very rare lampoon: "The eleventh of April has come about, "He has gotten part of the shape of a man, A Frenchman named Le Noble, who had been banished from his own country for his crimes, but, by the connivance of the police, Promo Honours were, as usual, liberally | war was already raging in one part of bestowed at this festive season. the empire: foreign war was impending. tions. Three garters which happened At such a moment a minister, whether to be at the disposal of the Crown were Whig or Tory, might well be uneasy; given to Devonshire, Ormond, and but neither Whig nor Tory had so Schomberg. Prince George was created much to fear as the Trimmer, who Duke of Cumberland. Several emi- might not improbably find himself the nent men took new appellations by common mark at which both parties which they must henceforth be desig- would take aim. For these reasons nated. Danby became Marquess of Halifax determined to avoid all ostenCaermarthen, Churchill Earl of Marl- tation of power and influence, to disarm borough, and Bentinck Earl of Port- envy by a studied show of moderation, land. Mordaunt was made Earl of and to attach to himself by civilities Monmouth, not without some murmur- and benefits persons whose gratitude ing on the part of old Exclusionists, might be useful in the event of a counwho still remembered with fondness terrevolution. The next three months, their Protestant Duke, and who had he said, would be the time of trial. If hoped that his attainder would be re- the government got safe through the versed, and that his title would be summer it would probably stand.* borne by his descendants. It was remarked that the name of Halifax did not appear in the list of promotions. None could doubt that he might easily have obtained either a blue riband or a ducal coronet; and, though he was honourably distinguished from most of his contemporaries by his scorn of illicit gain, it was well known that he desired honorary distinctions with a greediness of which he was himself ashamed, and which was unworthy of his fine understanding. The truth is that his ambition was at this time chilled by his fears. To those whom he trusted he hinted his apprehensions that evil times were at hand. The King's life was not worth a year's purchase the government was disjointed, the clergy and the army disaffected, the parliament torn by factions: civil against Meanwhile questions of external policy were every day becoming The more and more important. The coalition work at which William had France. toiled indefatigably during many gloomy and anxious years was at length accomplished. The great coalition was formed. It was plain that a desperate conflict was at hand. The oppressor of Europe would have to defend himself against England allied with Charles the Second King of Spain, with the Emperor Leopold, and with the Germanic and Batavian federations, and was likely to have no ally except the Sultan, who was waging war against the House of Austria on the Danube. of the Pa Lewis had, towards the close of the preceding year, taken his ene- The demies at a disadvantage, and vastation had struck the first blow before latinate. they were prepared to parry it. But that lurked in Paris, and earned a precarious live-blow, though heavy, was not aimed at lihood as a bookseller's hack, published on this the part where it might have been occasion two pasquinades, now extremely mortal. Had hostilities been commenced on the Batavian frontier, William and his army would probably have been detained on the continent, and James might have continued to govern England. Happily, Lewis, under an infatuation which many pious Protestants confidently ascribed to the righte ous judgment of God, had neglected the point on which the fate of the whole civilised world depended, and had made * Reresby's Memoirs. |
