inactive till the continental war, having | brought five thousand men into the lasted near seven years, was field was a more important member of terminated by the treaty of the commonwealth of nations.

Peace of
Nime-

guen. Nimeguen. The United Pro- With the sense of national humiliavinces, which in 1672 had seemed to tion was mingled anxiety for civil be on the verge of utter ruin, obtained liberty. Rumours, indistinct indeed, honourable and advantageous terms. but perhaps the more alarming by This narrow escape was generally reason of their indistinctness, imputed ascribed to the ability and courage of to the court a deliberate design against the young Stadtholder. His fame was all the constitutional rights of Englishgreat throughout Europe, and espe- men. It had even been whispered that cially among the English, who regarded this design was to be carried into effect him as one of their own princes, and by the intervention of foreign arms. rejoiced to see him the husband of their The thought of such intervention made future Queen. France retained many the blood, even of the Cavaliers, boil in important towns in the Low Countries, their veins. Some who had always and the great province of Franche professed the doctrine of nonresistance Comté. Almost the whole loss was borne in its full extent were now heard to by the decaying monarchy of Spain. mutter that there was one limitation A few months after the termination to that doctrine. If a foreign force were of hostilities on the Continent brought over to coerce the nation, they came a great crisis in English would not answer for their own patience. England. politics. Towards such a crisis But neither national pride nor anxiety things had been tending during eigh-for public liberty had so great an influteen years. The whole stock of popularity, great as it was, with which the King had commenced his administration, had long been expended. To loyal enthusiasm had succeeded profound disaffection. The public mind had now measured back again the space over which it had passed between 1640 and 1660, and was once more in the state in which it had been when the Long Parliament met.

Violent discontents in

The prevailing discontent was compounded of many feelings. One of these was wounded national pride. That generation had seen England, during a few years, allied on equal terms with France, victorious over Holland and Spain, the mistress of the sea, the terror of Rome, the head of the Protestant interest. Her resources had not diminished; and it might have been expected that she would have been at least as highly considered in Europe under a legitimate King, strong in the affection and willing obedience of his subjects, as she had been under an usurper whose utmost vigilance and energy were required to keep down a mutinous people. Yet she had, in consequence of the imbecility and meanness of her rulers, sunk so low that any German or Italian principality which

ence on the popular mind as hatred of the Roman Catholic religion. That hatred had become one of the ruling passions of the community, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction. The cruelties of Mary's reign, cruelties which even in the most accurate and sober narrative excite just detestation, and which were neither accurately nor soberly related in the popular martyrologies, the conspiracies against Elizabeth, and above all the Gunpowder Plot, had left in the minds of the vulgar a deep and bitter feeling which was kept up by annual commemorations, prayers, bonfires, and processions. It should be added that those classes which were peculiarly distinguished by attachment to the throne, the clergy and the landed gentry, had peculiar reasons for regarding the Church of Rome with aversion. The clergy trembled for their benefices; the landed gentry for their abbeys and great tithes. While the memory of the reign of the Saints was still recent, hatred of Popery had in some degree given place to hatred of Puritanism: but, during the eighteen years which had elapsed since the Restoration, the hatred of Puritanism had abated, and

the hatred of Popery had increased. | account of his merits; not because he The stipulations of the treaty of Dover had been an accomplice in a criminal were accurately known to very few: transaction, but because he had been a but some hints had got abroad. The most unwilling and unserviceable acgeneral impression was that a great complice. But of the circumstances, blow was about to be aimed at the which have, in the judgment of posProtestant religion. The king was sus-terity, greatly extenuated his fault, his pected by many of a leaning towards contemporaries were ignorant. In their Rome. His brother and heir presump-view he was the broker who had sold tive was known to be a bigoted Roman England to France. It seemed clear Catholic. The first Duchess of York that his greatness was at an end, and had died a Roman Catholic. James doubtful whether his head could be had then, in defiance of the remon- saved. strances of the House of Commons, Yet was the ferment excited by this taken to wife the Princess Mary of discovery slight, when com- The PoModena, another Roman Catholic. If pared with the commotion pish plot. there should be sons by this marriage, which arose when it was noised abroad there was reason to fear that they might that a great Popish plot had been debe bred Roman Catholics, and that a tected. One Titus Oates, a clergyman long succession of princes, hostile to of the Church of England, had, by his the established faith, might sit on the disorderly life and heterodox doctrine, English throne. The constitution had drawn on himself the censure of his recently been violated for the purpose spiritual superiors, had been compelled of protecting the Roman Catholics from to quit his benefice, and had ever since the penal laws. The ally by whom the led an infamous and vagrant life. He policy of England had, during many had once professed himself a Roman years, been chiefly governed was not Catholic, and had passed some time on only a Roman Catholic, but a perse- the Continent in English colleges of cutor of the reformed Churches. Under the order of Jesus. In those seminaries such circumstances it is not strange that the common people should have been inclined to apprehend a return of the times of her whom they called Bloody Mary.

Fall of

Danby.

Thus the nation was in such a temper that the smallest spark might raise a flame. At this conjuncture fire was set in two places at once to the vast mass of combustible matter; and in a moment the whole was in a blaze. The French court, which knew Danby to be its mortal enemy, artfully contrived to ruin him by making him pass for its friend. Lewis, by the instrumentality of Ralph Montague, a faithless and shameless man who had resided in France as minister from England, laid before the House of Commons proofs that the Treasurer had been concerned in an application made by the Court of Whitehall to the Court of Versailles for a sum of money. This discovery produced its natural effect. The Treasurer was, in truth, exposed to the vengeance of Parliament, not on account of his delinquencies, but on

he had heard much wild talk about the best means of bringing England back to the true Church. From hints thus furnished he constructed a hideous romance, resembling rather the dream of a sick man than any transaction which ever took place in the real world. The Pope, he said, had entrusted the government of England to the Jesuits. The Jesuits had, by commissions under the seal of their society, appointed Roman Catholic clergymen, noblemen, and gentlemen, to all the highest offices in Church and State. The Papists had burned down London once. They had tried to burn it down again. They were at that moment planning a scheme for setting fire to all the shipping in the Thames. They were to rise at a signal and massacre all their Protestant neighbours. A French army was at the same time to land in Ireland. All the leading statesmen and divines of England were to be murdered. Three or four schemes had been formed for assassinating the King. He was to be stabbed. He was to be poisoned in his

medicine. He was to be shot with silver | some hot-headed Roman Catholic, driven bullets. The public mind was so sore to frenzy by the lies of Oates and by and excitable that these lies readily the insults of the multitude, and not found credit with the vulgar; and two events which speedily took place led even some reflecting men to suspect that the tale, though evidently distorted and exaggerated, might have some foundation.

nicely distinguishing between the perjured accuser and the innocent magistrate, had taken a revenge of which the history of persecuted sects furnishes but too many examples. If this were so, the assassin must have afterwards bitEdward Coleman, a very busy, and terly execrated his own wickedness and not very honest, Roman Catholic in- folly. The capital and the whole nation triguer, had been among the persons went mad with hatred and fear. The accused. Search was made for his pa- penal laws, which had begun to lose pers. It was found that he had just something of their edge, were sharpened destroyed the greater part of them. anew. Everywhere justices were busied But a few which had escaped contained in searching houses and seizing papers. some passages such as, to minds strongly All the gaols were filled with Papists. prepossessed, might seem to confirm the London had the aspect of a city in a evidence of Oates. Those passages in-state of siege. The trainbands were deed, when candidly construed, appear under arms all night. Preparations to express little more than the hopes were made for barricading the great which the posture of affairs, the predi- thoroughfares. Patrols marched up lections of Charles, the still stronger and down the streets. Cannon were predilections of James, and the rela- planted round Whitehall. No citizen tions existing between the French and thought himself safe unless he carried English courts, might naturally excite under his coat a small flail loaded with in the mind of a Roman Catholic lead to brain the Popish assassins. The strongly attached to the interests of his corpse of the murdered magistrate was Church. But the country was not then exhibited during several days to the inclined to construe the letters of Pa- gaze of great multitudes, and was then pists candidly; and it was urged, with committed to the grave with strange some show of reason, that, if papers and terrible ceremonies, which indicated which had been passed over as unim- rather fear and the thirst of vengeance portant were filled with matter so sus- than sorrow or religious hope. The picious, some great mystery of iniquity Houses insisted that a guard should be must have been contained in those do- placed in the vaults over which they cuments which had been carefully com- sate, in order to secure them against a mitted to the flames. second Gunpowder Plot. All their proA few days later it was known that ceedings were of a piece with this deSir Edmondsbury Godfrey, an eminent mand. Ever since the reign of Elizabeth justice of the peace who had taken the the oath of supremacy had been exacted depositions of Oates against Coleman, from members of the House of Comhad disappeared. Search was made; mons. Some Roman Catholics, howand Godfrey's corpse was found in a ever, had contrived so to interpret this field near London. It was clear that oath that they could take it without he had died by violence. It was equally scruple. A more stringent test was clear that he had not been set upon by now added: every member of Parliarobbers. His fate is to this day a se- ment was required to make the Declacret. Some think that he perished by ration against Transubstantiation; and his own hand; some, that he was slain thus the Roman Catholic Lords were by a private enemy. The most impro- for the first time excluded from their bable supposition is that he was mur-seats. Strong resolutions were adopted dered by the party hostile to the court, against the Queen. The Commons in order to give colour to the story of threw one of the Secretaries of State the plot. The most probable supposi- into prison for having countersigned tion seems, on the whole, to be that commissions directed to gentlemen who

were not good Protestants. They impeached the Lord Treasurer of high treason. Nay, they so far forgot the doctrine which, while the memory of the civil war was still recent, they had loudly professed, that they even attempted to wrest the command of the militia out of the King's hands. To such a temper had eighteen years of misgovernment brought the most loyal Parliament that had ever met in England.

Meanwhile the courts of justice, which ought to be, in the midst of political commotions, sure places of refuge for the innocent of every party, were disgraced by wilder passions and fouler corruptions than were to be found even on the hustings. The tale of Oates, though it had sufficed to convulse the whole realm, would not, unless confirmed by other evidence, suffice to destroy the humblest of those whom he had accused. For, by the Yet it may seem strange that, even old law of England, two witnesses are in that extremity, the King should necessary to establish a charge of treahave ventured to appeal to the people; son. But the success of the first imfor the people were more excited than postor produced its natural consetheir representatives. The Lower quences. In a few weeks he had been House, discontented as it was, con- raised from penury and obscurity to tained a larger number of Cavaliers opulence, to power which made him than were likely to find seats again. the dread of princes and nobles, and But it was thought that a dissolution to notoriety such as has for low and bad would put a stop to the prosecution of minds all the attractions of glory. He was the Lord Treasurer, a prosecution which not long without coadjutors and rivals. might probably bring to light all the A wretch named Carstairs, who had guilty mysteries of the French alliance, earned a livelihood in Scotland by and might thus cause extreme perso- going disguised to conventicles and nal annoyance and embarrassment to then informing against the preachers, Charles. Accordingly, in January led the way. Bedloe, a noted swindler, 1679, the Parliament, which had been followed; and soon, from all the in existence ever since the beginning brothels, gambling-houses, and spungof the year 1661, was dissolved; and ing houses of London, false witnesses writs were issued for a general election. poured forth to swear away the lives of During some weeks the contention Roman Catholics. One came with a over the whole country was story about an army of thirty thousand tion of fierce and obstinate beyond ex-men who were to muster in the disample. Unprecedented sums guise of pilgrims at Corunna, and to were expended. New tactics were sail thence to Wales. Another had employed. It was remarked by the been promised canonisation and five pamphleteers of that time as something hundred pounds to murder the King. extraordinary that horses were hired A third had stepped into an eating at a great charge for the conveyance of house in Covent Garden, and had there electors. The practice of splitting heard a great Roman Catholic banker freeholds for the purpose of multiply-vow, in the hearing of all the guests ing votes dates from this memorable and drawers, to kill the heretical struggle. Dissenting preachers, who tyrant. Oates, that he might not be had long hidden themselves in quiet nooks from persecution, now emerged from their retreats, and rode from village to village, for the purpose of rekindling the zeal of the scattered people of God. The tide ran strong against the government. Most of the new members came up to Westminster in a mood little differing from that of their predecessors who had sent Strafford and Laud to the Tower.

First

general

1679.

VOL. L..

eclipsed by his imitators, soon added a large supplement to his original narrative. He had the portentous impudence to affirm, among other things, that he had once stood behind a door which was ajar, and had there overheard the Queen declare that she had resolved to give her consent to the assassination of her husband. The vulgar believed, and the highest magistrates pretended to believe, even such fictions as these.

I

and religion of the nation was to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. The King was in great perplexity. He had insisted that his brother, the sight of whom inflamed the populace to madness, should retire for a time to Brussels: but this concession did not seem to have produced any favourable effect. The Roundhead party was now decidedly preponderant. Towards that party leaned millions who had, at the time of the Restoration, leaned towards the side of prerogative. Of the old Cavaliers many participated in the prevailing fear of Popery, and many, bitterly resenting the ingratitude of the prince for whom they had sacrificed so much, looked on his distress as carelessly as he had looked on theirs. Even the Anglican clergy, mortified and alarmed by the apostasy of the Duke of York, so far countenanced the opposition as to join cordially in the outcry against the Roman Catholics.

The chief judges of the realm were corrupt, cruel, and timid. The leaders of the Country Party encouraged the prevailing delusion. The most respectable among them, indeed, were themselves so far deluded as to believe the greater part of the evidence of the plot to be true. Such men as Shaftesbury and Buckingham doubtless perceived that the whole was a romance. But it was a romance which served their turn; and to their seared consciences the death of an innocent man gave no more uneasiness than the death of a partridge. The juries partook of the feelings then common throughout the nation, and were encouraged by the bench to indulge those feelings without restraint. The multitude applauded Oates and his confederates, hooted and pelted the witnesses who appeared on behalf of the accused, and shouted with joy when the verdict of Guilty was pronounced. It was in vain that the sufferers appealed to the respect- The King in this extremity had reability of their past lives: for the course to Sir William Temple. Temple's public mind was possessed with a be- Of all the official men of that plan of golief that the more conscientious a age Temple had preserved the Papist was, the more likely he must be fairest character. The Triple Alliance to plot against a Protestant government. had been his work. He had refused to It was in vain that, just before the cart take any part in the politics of the passed from under their feet, they re- | Cabal, and had, while that administrasolutely affirmed their innocence: for tion directed affairs, lived in strict the general opinion was that a good Papist considered all lies which were serviceable to his Church as not only excusable but meritorious.

House of

vernment.

privacy. He had quitted his retreat at the call of Danby, had made peace between England and Holland, and had borne a chief part in bringing about While innocent blood was shedding the marriage of the Lady Mary to her Violence under the forms of justice, the cousin the Prince of Orange. Thus he of the new new Parliament met; and such had the credit of every one of the few Commons. was the violence of the predo- good things which had been done by the minant party that even men whose government since the Restoration. Of youth had been passed amidst revo- the numerous crimes and blunders of lutions, men who remembered the the last eighteen years none could be attainder of Strafford, the attempt on imputed to him. His private life, the five members, the abolition of the though not austere, was decorous: his House of Lords, the execution of the manners were popular; and he was King, stood aghast at the aspect of not to be corrupted either by titles or public affairs. The impeachment of by money. Something, however, was Danby was resumed. He pleaded the wanting to the character of this royal pardon. But the Commons treated respectable statesman. The temperathe plea with contempt, and insisted ture of his patriotism was lukewarm. that the trial should proceed. Danby, He prized his ease and his personal however, was not their chief object. dignity too much, and shrank from They were convinced that the only responsibility with a pusillanimous fear. effectual way of securing the liberties | Nor indeed had his habits fitted him