king of imitating the worst crimes of his brother of France. The dragonades, it was said, had begun. There was, indeed, reason for alarm. It had occurred to James that he could not more effectually break the spirit of an obstinate town than by quartering soldiers on the inhabitants. He must have known that this practice had sixty years before excited formidable discontents, and had been solemnly pronounced illegal by the Petition of Right, a statute scarcely less venerated by Englishmen than the Great Charter. But he hoped to obtain from the courts of law a declaration that even the Petition of Right could not control the prerogative. He actually consulted Wright on this subject; but the result of the consultation remained secret, and in a very few weeks the aspect of affairs became such that a fear stronger than even the fear of the royal displeasure began to impose some restraint even on a man so servile as the chief justice.

While the lords lieutenants were questioning the justices of the peace, while the regulators were remodeling the boroughs, all the public departments were subjected to a strict inquisition. The palace was first purified. Every battered old Cavalier who, in return for blood and lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained some small place under the keeper of the wardrobe or the master of the harriers, was called upon to choose between the king and the Church. The commissioners of customs and excise were ordered to attend his majesty at the Treasury. There he demanded from them a promise to support his policy, and directed them to require a similar promise from all their subordinates.† One custom-house officer notified his submission to the royal will in a way which excited both merriment and compassion. "I have," he said, "fourteen reasons for obeying his majesty's commands, a wife and thirteen young children." Such reasons were indeed cogent; yet there were not a few instances in

Ibid., April, 1688; Treasury Letter Book, March 14, 1687; Ron quillo, April 18. Citters, May 1, 1688.

18

which, even against such reasons, religious and patriotic feelings prevailed.

There is reason to believe that the government at this time seriously meditated a blow which would have reduced many thousands of families to beggary, and would have disturbed the whole social system of every part of the country. No wine, beer, or coffee could then be sold without a license. It was rumored that every person holding such a license would shortly be required to enter into the same engagements which had been imposed on public functionaries, or to relinquish his trade.* It seems probable that, if such a step had been taken, the houses of entertainment and of public resort all over the kingdom would have been at once shut up by hundreds. What effect such an interference with the comfort of all ranks would have produced must be left to conjecture. The resentment produced by grievances is not always proportioned to their dignity; and it is by no means improbable that the resumption of licenses might have done what the resumption of charters had failed to do. Men of fashion would have missed the chocolate house in St. James's Street, and men of business the coffee-pot, round which they were accustomed to smoke and talk politics, in Change Alley. Half the clubs would have been wandering in search of shelter. The traveler at nightfall would have found the inn where he had expected to sup and lodge deserted. The clown would have regretted the hedge ale-house, where he had been accustomed to take his pot on the bench before the door in summer, and at the chimney corner in winter. The nation might, perhaps, under such provocation, have risen in general rebellion without waiting for the help of foreign allies.

It was not to be expected that a prince who required all the humblest servants of the government to support his policy on pain of dismission, would continue to employ an attorney general whose aversion to that policy was no secret. Sawyer had been suffered to retain his situation Citters, May, 1688.

more than a year and a half after he had declared against the dispensing power. This extraordinary indulgence he owed to the extreme difficulty which the government found in supplying his place. It was necessary, for the protection of the pecuniary interests of the crown, that at least one of the two chief law officers should be a man of ability and knowledge, and it was by no means easy to induce any barrister of ability and knowledge to put hinself in peril by committing every day acts which the next Parliament would probably treat as high crimes and misdemeanors. It had been impossible to provide a better solicitor general than Powis, a man who indeed stuck at nothing, but who was incompetent to perform the ordinary duties of his post. In these circumstances, it was thought desirable that there should be a division of labor. An attorney, the value of whose professional talents was much diminished by his conscientious scruples, was coupled with a solicitor whose want of scruples made some amends for his want of talents. When the government wished to enforce the law, recourse was had to Sawyer. When the government wished to break the law, recourse was had to Powis. This arrangement lasted till the king obtained the services of an advocate who was at once baser than Powis and abler than Sawyer.

No barrister living had opposed the court with more virulence than William Williams. He had distinguished himself in the late reign as a Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he had been chosen speaker of the House of Commons. After the prorogation of the Oxford Parliament, he had commonly been counsel for the most noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition. He was allowed to possess considerable parts and knowledge. His chief faults were supposed to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet suspected that he had faults compared with which rashness and party spirit might well pass for virtues. The govern

ment sought occasion against him, and easily found it. He had published, by order of the House of Commons, a

narrative which Dangerfield had written. This narrative, if published by a private man, would undoubtedly have been a seditious libel. A criminal information was filed in the King's Bench against Williams: he pleaded the privileges of Parliament in vain; he was convicted and sentenced to a fine of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually paid; for the rest, he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had been injuriously mentioned in Dangerfield's narrative, was encouraged, by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action, and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was, indeed, a way which, to a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell himself to that government of which he had been the enemy and the victim. He might offer to go on the forlorn hope in every assault on those liberties and on that religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. He might expiate his Whiggism by performing services from which bigoted Tories, stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney, shrank in horror. The bargain was struck. The debt still due to the crown was remitted. Peterborough was induced, by royal mediation, to compromise his action. Sawyer was dismissed. Powis became attorney general. Williams was made solicitor, received the honor of knighthood, and was soon a favorite. Though in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his abilities, learning, and energy were such that he completely threw his superior into the shade.*

Williams had not been long in office when he was required to bear a chief part in the most memorable state trial recorded in the British annals.

* London Gazette, Dec. 15, 1687. in the Collection of State Trials.

See the proceedings against Williams “Ha hecho," says Ronquillo, "grande

susto el haber nombrado el abogado Williams, que fue el orador y el mas arrabiado de toda la casa des comunes en los ultimos terribles parlamentos del Rey difunto."

Nov. 27

Dec. 7'

1687.

On the twenty-seventh of April, 1688, the king put forth a second Declaration of Indulgence. In this paper he recited at length the declaration of the preceding April. His past life, he said, ought to have convinced his people that he was not a man who could easily be induced to depart from any resolution which he had formed; but, as designing men had attempted to persuade the world that he might be prevailed on to give way in this matter, he thought it necessary to proclaim that his purpose was immutably fixed, that he was resolved to employ those only who were prepared to concur in his design, and that he had, in pursuance of that resolution, dismissed many persons from civil and military employments. He announced that he meant to hold a Parliament in November, at the latest; and he exhorted his subjects to choose representatives who would assist him in the great work which he had undertaken.*

It

This declaration at first produced little sensation. contained nothing new; and men wondered that the king should think it worth while to publish a solemn manifesto merely for the purpose of telling them that he had not changed his mind.† Perhaps James was nettled by the indifference with which the announcement of his fixed resolution was received by the public, and thought that his dignity and authority would suffer unless he without delay did something novel and striking. On the fourth of May, accordingly, he made an order in council that his declaration of the preceding week should be read, on two successive Sundays, at the time of divine service, by the officiating ministers of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. In London and in the suburbs the reading was to take place on the twentieth and twenty-seventh of May, in other parts of England on the third and tenth of June. The bishops were directed to distribute copies. of the declaration through their respective dioceses.‡

• London Gazette, April 30, 1688; Barillon, Citters, May 1688.

April 26

May 6

London Gazette, May 7, 1688.