policy. After some delay Fagel trans- was every day becoming more and mitted a reply, deeply meditated, and more serious; nor could he, either in drawn up with exquisite art. No person his character of temporal prince or in who studies that remarkable document his character of Sovereign Pontiff, feel can fail to perceive that, though it is cordial friendship for a vassal of that framed in a manner well calculated to court. Castelmaine was ill qualified reassure and delight English Protes- to remove these disgusts. He was tants, it contains not a word which indeed well acquainted with Rome, and could give offence, even at the Vatican. was, for a layman, deeply read in theoIt was announced that William and logical controversy. But he had none Mary would, with pleasure, assist in of the address which his post required; abolishing every law which made any and, even had he been a diplomatist of Englishman liable to punishment for the greatest ability, there was a circumhis religious opinions. But between stance which would have disqualified punishments and disabilities a distinc-him for the particular mission on which tion was taken. To admit Roman Catholics to office would, in the judgment of their Highnesses, be neither for the general interest of England nor even for the interest of the Roman Catholics themselves. This manifesto was translated into several languages, and circulated widely on the Continent. Of the English version, carefully prepared by Burnet, near fifty thousand copies were introduced into the Eastern shires, and rapidly distributed over the whole kingdom. No state paper was ever more completely successful. The Protestants of our island applauded the manly firmness with which William declared that he could not consent to entrust Papists with any share in the government. The Roman Catholic princes, on the other hand, were pleased by the mild and temperate style in which his resolution was expressed, and by the hope which he held out that, under his administration, no member of their Church would be molested on account of religion. he had been sent. He was known all over Europe as the husband of the most shameless of women; and he was known in no other way. It was impossible to speak to him or of him without remembering in what manner the very title by which he was called had been acquired. This circumstance would have mattered little if he had been accredited to some dissolute court, such as that in which the Marchioness of Montespan had lately been dominant. But there was an obvious impropriety in sending him on an embassy rather of a spiritual than of a secular nature to a pontiff of primitive austerity. The Protestants all over Europe sneered; and Innocent, already unfavourably disposed to the English government, considered the compliment which had been paid him, at so much risk and at so heavy a cost, as little better than an affront. The salary of the Ambassador was fixed at a hundred pounds a week. Castelmaine complained that this was too little. Thrice the sum, he said, would hardly It is probable that the Pope himself suffice. For at Rome the ministers of was among those who read this all the great Continental powers exerted celebrated letter with pleasure. themselves to surpass one another in to Rome. He had some months before splendour, under the eyes of a people dismissed Castelmaine in a manner whom the habit of seeing magnificent which showed little regard for the feel- buildings, decorations, and ceremonies ings of Castelmaine's master. Innocent had made fastidious. He always dethoroughly disliked the whole domestic clared that he had been a loser by his and foreign policy of the English go- mission. He was accompanied by several vernment. He saw that the unjust and young gentlemen of the best Roman impolitic measures of the Jesuitical Catholic families in England, Ratcliffes, cabal were far more likely to make the Arundells and Tichbornes. At Rome penal laws perpetual than to bring he was lodged in the palace of the about an abolition of the test. His quarrel with the Court of Versailles 1685. Castelmaine's mbassy * Adda, Nov. house of Pamfili on the south of the and taste are in the deepest decay. stately place of Navona. He was early Foremost among the flatterers was a admitted to a private interview with crowned head. More than thirty years Innocent: but the public audience was had elapsed since Christina, the daughter long delayed. Indeed Castelmaine's of the great Gustavus, had voluntarily preparations for that great occasion descended from the Swedish throne. were so sumptuous that, though com- After long wanderings, in the course of menced at Easter 1686, they were not which she had committed many follies complete till the following November; and crimes, she had finally taken up and in November the Pope had, or her abode at Rome, where she busied pretended to have, an attack of gout herself with astrological calculations which caused another postponement. and with the intrigues of the conclave, In January 1687, at length, the solemn and amused herself with pictures, gems, introduction and homage were per- manuscripts, and medals. She now * formed with unusual pomp. The state composed some Italian stanzas in hocoaches, which had been built at Rome nour of the English prince, who, sprung. for the pageant, were so superb that like herself, from a race of kings herethey were thought worthy to be trans-tofore regarded as the champions of the mitted to posterity in fine engravings Reformation, had, like herself, been and to be celebrated by poets in several languages. The front of the Ambassador's palace was decorated on this great day with absurd allegorical paintings of gigantic size. There was Saint George with his foot on the neck of Titus Oates, and Hercules with his club crushing College, the Protestant joiner, who in vain attempted to defend himself with his flail. After this public appearance Castelmaine invited all the persons of note then assembled at Rome to a banquet in that gay and splendid gallery which is adorned with paintings of subjects from the Eneid by Peter of Cortona. The whole city crowded to the show; and it was with difficulty that a company of Swiss guards could keep order among the spectators. The nobles of the Pontifical state in return gave costly entertainments to the Ambassador; and poets and wits were employed to lavish on him and on his master insipid and hyperbolical adulation such as flourishes most when genius * The Professor of Greek in the College De Propaganda Fide expressed his admiration in some detestable hexameters and pentameters, of which the following specimen may suf fice : Ῥωγερίου δὴ σκεψόμενος λαμπροῖο θρίαμβον, "His glorious train and passing pomp to view, reconciled to the ancient Church. A splendid assembly met in her palace. Her verses, set to music, were sung with universal applause: and one of her literary dependents pronounced an oration on the same subject in a style so florid that it seems to have offended the taste of the English hearers. The Jesuits, hostile to the Pope, devoted to the interests of France, and disposed to pay every honour to James, received the English embassy with the utmost pomp in that princely house where the remains of Ignatius Loyola lie enshrined in lazulite and gold. Sculpture, painting, poetry, and eloquence were employed to compliment the strangers: but all these arts had sunk into deep degeneracy. There was a great display of turgid and impure Latinity unworthy of so erudite an order; and some of the inscriptions which adorned the walls had a fault more serious than even a bad style. It was said in one place that James had sent his brother as his messenger to heaven, and in another that James had furnished the wings with which his brother had soared to a higher region. There was a still more unfortunate distich, which at the time attracted little notice, but which, a few months later, was remembered and malignantly interpreted. "O King," said the poet, cease to sigh for a son. Though nature may refuse your wish, the stars will find a way to grant it." 66 In the midst of these festivities Castelmaine had to suffer cruel morti- provoked, threatened to leave Rome. fications and humiliations. The Pope Innocence replied, with a meek impertreated him with extreme coldness and tinence which was the more provoking reserve. As often as the Ambassador because it could scarcely be distinguished pressed for an answer to the request from simplicity, that His Excellency which he had been instructed to make might go if he liked. "But if we must in favour of Petre, Innocent was taken lose him," added the venerable Pontiff, with a violent fit of coughing, which "I hope that he will take care of his put an end to the conversation. The health on the road. English people do fame of these singular audiences spread not know how dangerous it is in this over Rome. Pasquin was not silent. country to travel in the heat of the All the curious and tattling population day. The best way is to start before of the idlest of cities, the Jesuits and dawn, and to take some rest at noon.' the prelates of the French faction With this salutary advice, and with a only excepted, laughed at Castelmaine's string of beads, the unfortunate Ambasdiscomfiture. His temper, naturally sador was dismissed. In a few months unamiable, was soon exasperated to appeared, both in the Italian and in violence; and he circulated a memo- the English tongue, a pompous history rial reflecting on the Pope. He had of the mission, magnificently printed now put himself in the wrong. The in folio, and illustrated with plates. sagacious Italian had got the advantage, The frontispiece, to the great scandal and took care to keep it. He positively of all Protestants, represented Casteldeclared that the rule which excluded maine, in the robes of a Peer, with his Jesuits from ecclesiastical preferment coronet in his hand, kissing the toe of should not be relaxed in favour of Innocent.* Father Petre. Castelmaine, much CHAPTER VIII. tion of the Saint James's Palace. THE marked discourtesy of the Pope | lates officiated. The doors were thrown might well have irritated the open to the public; and it was remarked Consecra- meekest of princes. But the that some of those Puritans who had Nuncio at only effect which it produced recently turned courtiers were among on James was to make him the spectators. In the evening Adda, more lavish of caresses and wearing the robes of his new office, compliments. While Castelmaine, his joined the circle in the Queen's apartwhole soul festering with angry ments. James fell on his knees in the passions, was on the road back to England, the Nuncio was loaded with honours which his own judgment would have led him to reject. He had, by a fiction often used in the Church of Rome, been lately raised to the episcopal dignity without having the charge any see. He was called Archbishop of Amasia, a city of Pontus, the birthplace of Strabo and Mithridates. James insisted that the ceremony of consecration should be performed in the chapel of Saint James's Palace. The Vicar Apostolic Leyburn and two Irish pre of presence of the whole court and im- It the British Museum; Burnet, i. 703-705.; *Correspondence of James and Innocent, in The Duke set. On one point, however, James showed some prudence. He did not venture to parade the Papal Envoy in state before the vast population of the capital. The ceremony was performed, on the third of July 1687, at Windsor. Great multitudes flocked to the little town. The visitors were so numerous that there was neither food nor lodging for them, and many persons of quality sate the whole day in their carriages waiting for the exhibition. At length, late in the afternoon, the Knight Marshal's men appeared on horseback. Then came a long train of running footmen; and then, in a royal coach. was seen Adda, robed in purple, with a brilliant cross on his breast. He was followed by the equipages of the principal courtiers and ministers of state. In his train the crowd recognised with disgust the arms and liveries of Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and of Cartwright, Bishop of Chester.† and those who saw the strange sight | dismissed from his posts in the housecould not but think of that day of hold and in the army.* shame when John did homage for his crown between the hands of Pandolph. In a short time a still more ostenHis public tatious pageant was performed reception. in honour of the Holy See. It was determined that the Nuncio should go to court in solemn procession. Some persons on whose obedience the King had counted showed, on this occasion, for the first time, signs of a mutinous spirit. Among these the most conspicuous was the second temporal peer of the realm, Charles Seymour, commonly called the proud Duke of Somerset. He was in truth a man of Somer in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease. The fortune which he had inherited was not adequate to the high place which he held among the English aristocracy but he had become possessed of the greatest estate in England by his marriage with the daughter and heiress of the last Percy who wore the ancient coronet of Northumberland. Somerset was only in his twenty-fifth year, and was very little known to the public. He was a Lord of the King's Bedchamber, and colonel of one of the regiments which had been raised at the time of the Western insurrection. He had not scrupled to carry the sword of state into the royal chapel on days of festival: but he now resolutely refused to swell the pomp of the Nuncio. Some members of his family implored him not to draw on himself the royal displeasure but their entreaties produced no effect. The King himself expostulated. I thought, my Lord," said he, "that I was doing you a great honour in appointing you to escort the minister of the first of all crowned heads." Sir," said the Duke, "I am advised that I cannot obey Your Majesty without breaking the law." "I will make you fear me as well as the law," answered the King, insolently. "Do you not know that I am above the law?" "Your Majesty may be above the law," replied Somerset: "but I am not; and, while I obey the law, I fear nothing." The King turned away in high displeasure; and Somerset was instantly 66 66 Parlia On the following day appeared in the Gazette a proclamation dis- Dissolusolving that Parliament which tion of the of all the fifteen Parliaments ment. held by the Stuarts had been the most obsequious.‡ Meanwhile new difficulties had arisen in Westminster Hall. Only a few months had elapsed since some Judges had been turned out and others put in for the purpose of obtaining a decision favourable to the crown in the case of Sir Edward Hales; and already fresh changes were necessary. offences The King had scarcely formed that army on which he chiefly de- Military pended for the accomplishing of illegally his designs when he found that punished. he could not himself control it. When war was actually raging in the kingdom, a mutineer or a deserter might be tried by a military tribunal, and executed by the Provost Marshal. But there *Memoirs of the Duke of Somerset ; Van Citters, July 1687; Eachard's History of the Revolution; Life of James the Second, ii. 116, 117, 118.; Lord Lonsdale's Memoirs. ters, July. Account of the ceremony re † London Gazette, July 7. 1687; Van Cit printed among the Somers Tracts. London Gazette, July 4. 1687. the law was what every barrister in the Temple knew that it was not. was now profound peace. The common the raising of the new regiments had law of England, having sprung up in made a great change. There were now an age when all men bore arms occa- in England many thousands of soldiers, sionally and none constantly, recognised each of whom received only eightpence no distinction, in time of peace, between a day. The dread of dismission was a soldier and any other subject; nor not sufficient to keep them to their was there any Act resembling that by duty; and corporal punishment their which the authority necessary for the officers could not legally inflict. James government of regular troops is now had therefore one plain choice before annually confided to the Sovereign. him, to let his army dissolve itself, or Some old statutes indeed made deser-to induce the Judges to pronounce that tion felony in certain specified cases. But those statutes were applicable only to soldiers serving the King in actual war, and could not without the grossest disingenuousness be so strained as to include the case of a man who, in a time of tranquillity, should become tired of the camp at Hounslow, and should go back to his native village. The government appears to have had no hold on such a man, except the hold which master bakers and master tailors have on their journeymen. He and his officers were, in the eye of the law, on a level. If he swore at them he might be fined for an oath. If he struck them he might be prosecuted for assault and battery. In truth the regular army was under less restraint than the militia. For the militia was a body established by an Act of Parlia ment; and it had been provided by that Act that slight punishments might be summarily inflicted for breaches of discipline. It does not appear that, during the reign of Charles the Second, the practical inconvenience arising from this state of the law had been much felt. The explanation may perhaps be that, till the last year of his reign, the force which he maintained in England consisted chiefly of household troops, whose pay was so high that dismission from the service would have been felt by most of them as a great calamity. The stipend of a private in the Life Guards was a provision for the younger son of a gentleman. Even the Foot Guards were paid about as high as manufacturers in a prosperous season, and were therefore in a situation which the great body of the labouring population might regard with envy. The return of the garrison of Tangier and It was peculiarly important to secure the cooperation of two courts, the court of King's Bench, which was the first criminal tribunal in the realm, and the court of gaol delivery which sate at the Old Bailey, and which had jurisdiction over offences committed in the capital. In both these courts there were great difficulties. Herbert, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, servile as he had hitherto been, would go no further. Resistance still more sturdy was to be expected from Sir John Holt, who, as Recorder of the City of London, occupied the Bench at the Old Bailey. Holt was an eminently learned and clearheaded lawyer: he was an upright and courageous man; and, though he had never been factious, his political opinions had a tinge of Whiggism. All obstacles, however, disappeared before the royal will. Holt was turned out of the recordership: Herbert and another Judge were removed from the King's Bench; and the vacant places were filled by persons in whom the government could confide. It was indeed necessary to go very low down in the legal profession before men could be found willing to render such services as were now required. The new Chief Justice, Sir Robert Wright, was ignorant to a proverb; yet ignorance was not his worst fault. His vices had ruined him. He had resorted to infamous ways of raising money, and had, on one occasion, made a false affidavit in order to obtain possession of five hundred pounds. Poor, dissolute, and shameless, he had become one of the parasites of Jeffreys, who promoted him and insulted him. Such was the man who was now selected by James |