Princess of Orange were called to the throne, and by which the order of succession was settled, should set forth, in the most distinct and solemn manner, the fundamental principles of the Constitution. This instrument, known by the name of the Declaration of Right, was prepared by a committee, of which Somers was chairman. The fact that the low-born young barrister was appointed to so honorable and important a post in a Parliament filled with able and experienced men, only ten days after he had spoken in the House of Commons for the first time, sufficiently proves the superiority of his abilities. few hours the Declaration was framed and approved by the Commons. The Lords assented to it with some amendments of no great importance.*

In a

The Declaration began by recapitulating the crimes and errors which had made a revolution necessary. James had invaded the province of the Legislature; had treated modest petitioning as a crime; had oppressed the Church by means of an illegal tribunal; had, without the consent of Parliament, levied taxes and maintained a standing army in time of peace; had violated the freedom of election, and perverted the course of justice. Proceedings which could lawfully be questioned only in Parliament had been made subjects of prosecution in the King's Bench. Partial and corrupt juries had been returned. Excessive bail had been required from prisoners; excessive fines had been imposed; barbarous and unusual punishments had been inflicted; the estates of accused persons had been granted away before conviction. He, by whose authority these things had been done, had abdicated the government. The Prince of Orange, whom God had made the glorious instrument of delivering the nation from superstition and tyranny, had invited the estates of the realm to meet and to take counsel together for the securing of religion, of law, and of freedom. The Lords and Commons, having deliberated, had resolved that they would first, after the

* Commons' Journals, Feb. 4, 8, 11, 12; Lords' Journals, Feb. 9, 11, 12

example of their ancestors, assert the ancient rights and liberties of England. Therefore it was declared that the dispensing power, lately assumed and exercised, had no legal existence; that, without grant of Parliament, no money could be exacted by the sovereign from the subject; that, without consent of Parliament, no standing army could be kept up in time of peace. The right of subjects to petition, the right of electors to choose representatives freely, the right of Parliaments to freedom of debate, the right of the nation to a pure and merciful administration of justice according to the spirit of its own mild laws, were solemnly affirmed. All these things the Convention claimed, in the name of the whole nation, as the undoubted inheritance of Englishmen. Having thus vindicated the principles of the Constitution, the Lords and Commons, in the entire confidence that the deliverer would hold sacred the laws and liberties which he had saved, resolved that William and Mary, prince and princess of Orange, should be declared king and queen of England for their joint and separate lives, and that, during their joint lives, the administration of the government should be in the prince alone. After them the crown was settled on the posterity of Mary, then on Anne and her posterity, and then on the posterity of William.

By this time the wind had ceased to blow from the west. On the eleventh of Februáry, the ship in which the Princess of Orange had embarked lay off Margate, and, on the following morning, anchored at Greenwich.* She was received with many signs of joy and affection; but her demeanor shocked the Tories, and was not thought faultless even by the Whigs. A young woman, placed, by a destiny as mournful and awful as that which brooded over the fabled houses of Labdacus and Pelops, in such a situation that she could not, without violating her duty to her God, her husband, and her country, refuse to take her seat on the throne from which her father had just been hurled, should have been sad, or at least serious. Mary * London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1688; Citters, Feb.

was not merely in high, but in extravagant spirits. She entered Whitehall, it was asserted, with a girlish delight at being mistress of so fine a house, ran about the rooms, peeped into the closets, and examined the quilt of the state bed, without seeming to remember by whom those stately apartments had last been occupied. Burnet, who had, till then, thought her an angel in human form, could not, on this occasion, refrain from blaming her. He was the more astonished, because, when he took leave of her at the Hague, she had, though fully convinced that she was in the path of duty, been deeply dejected. To him, as to her spiritual guide, she afterward explained her conduct. William had written to inform her that some of those who had tried to separate her interests from his still continued their machinations: they gave it out that she thought herself wronged; and, if she wore a gloomy countenance, the report would be confirmed. He therefore entreated.

her to make her first appearance with an air of cheerfulness. Her heart, she said, was far indeed from cheerful; but she had done her best; and, as she was afraid of not sustaining well a part which was uncongenial to her feelings, she had overacted it. Her deportment was the subject of reams of scurrility in prose and verse; it lowered her in the opinion of some whose esteem she valued; nor did the world know, till she was beyond the reach of praise and censure, that the conduct which had brought on her the reproach of levity and insensibility was really a sig. nal instance of that perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which man seems to be incapable, but which is sometimes found in woman.*

On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of February, the court of Whitehall and all the neighboring streets were filled with gazers. The magnificent Banqueting House, the master-piece of Inigo, embellished by master-pieces of Rubens, had been prepared for a great ceremony. The walls were lined by the yeomen of the

* Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Review of the Vindication; Burnet, i., 781, 825, and Dartmouth's note; Evelyn's Diary, Feb. 21, 1688.

guard Near the southern door, on the right hand, a large number of peers had assembled. On the left were the Commons, with their speaker, attended by the mace. The northern door opened, and the Prince and Princess of Orange, side by side, entered, and took their place under the canopy of state.

They signified their asof Lords read, in a loud When he had concluded, estates of the realm, re

Both houses approached, bowing low. William and Mary advanced a few steps. Halifax on the right, and Powle on the left, stood forth; and Halifax spoke. The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution which he prayed their highnesses to hear. sent; and the clerk of the House voice, the Declaration of Right. Halifax, in the name of all the quested the prince and princess to accept the crown. William, in his own name and in that of his wife, answered that the crown was, in their estimation, the more valuable, because it was presented to them as a token of the confidence of the nation. "We thankfully accept," he said, "what you have offered us." Then, for himself, he assured them that the laws of England, which he had once already vindicated, should be the rules of his conduct; that it should be his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom; and that, as to the means of doing so, he should constantly recur to the advice of the houses, and should be disposed to trust their judgment rather than his own.* These words were received with a shout of joy which was heard in the streets below, and was instantly answered by huzzas from many thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired from the Banqueting House, and went in procession to the great gate of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads. The kettle-drums struck up;

* Lords' and Commons' Journals, Feb. 14, 1683; Citters, Feb. 15. Citters puts into William's mouth stronger expressions of respect for the authority of Parliament than appear in the journals; but it is clear from what Powle aid that the report in the journals was not strictly accurate,

the trumpets pealed; and Garter king-at-arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen of England; charged all Englishmen to pay, from that moment, faith and true allegiance to the new sovereigns; and besought God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our Church and nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign.*

Thus was consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with those revolutions which have, during the last sixty years, overthrown so many ancient governments, we can not but be struck by its peculiar character. Why that character was so peculiar is sufficiently obvious, and yet seems not to have been always understood either by eulogists or by censors.

The Continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took place in countries where all trace of the limited monarchy of the Middle Ages had long been effaced. The right of the prince to make laws and to levy money had, during many generations, been undisputed. His throne was guarded by a great regular army. His administration could not, without extreme peril, be blamed even in the mildest terms. His subjects held their personal liberty by no other tenure than his pleasure. Not a single institution was left which had, within the memory of the oldest man, afforded efficient protection to the subject against the utmost excess of tyranny. Those great councils which had once curbed the regal power had sunk into oblivion. Their composition and their privileges were known only to antiquaries. We can not wonder, therefore, that, when men who had been thus ruled succeeded in wresting supreme power from a government which they had long in secret hated, they should have been impatient to demolish and unable to construct, that they should have been fascinated by every specious novelty, that they should have proscribed every title, ceremony, and phrase associated with the old

* London Gazette, Feb. 14, 1688; Lords' and Commons' Journals, Feb. 13; Citters, Feb. 1; Evelyn, Feb. 21.