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§ 1. Accession of James II. Struggles between the supremacy of the crown and the liberties of the people. Papists and Puritans. § 2. James's declaration in favour of the Protestant Church, which is falsified by his conduct. Assumes the power of dispensing with the laws. Punishment of Titus Oates § 3. The measures adopted by James to raise supplies.-§ 4. Rebellion in England and Scotland. Invasion of the Dukes of Argyle and Monmouth. They are both defeated and executed.-§ 5. Judge Jeffreys and the "Bloody Assizes." His heartless cruelties. Execution of Lady Alice Lisle. -S 6. Jeffreys' sanguinary career.-§ 7. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Its important results.-§ 8. James assumes the power dispensing with the laws, restores the Roman Catholic services, and establishes religious orders. -§ 9. Increasing prevalence of the Romish religion. -§ 10. James's despotic measures at Oxford.§ 11. His proceeding against the seven bishops for petitioning against the " Declaration of Indulgence." Resistance to the reading of the Declaration; the bishops committed to the Tower. Their trial and acquittal.-§ 12. Feeling exhibited by the army. James's power at an end. Invitation to the Prince of Orange. The royal issue suspected to be spurious. § 13. James's terror and pretended repentance. The Prince of Orange lands at Torbay. § 14. The king, forsaken by his relatives and friends, flies ignominiously from the kingdom, and thus abdicates the throne.

§ 1. THE war between the supremacy of the crown and the liberties of the people, which, with the brief interval

Commonwealth, had lasted since the accession of James I., was continued with greater bitterness than ever after the death of Charles II. The idle sensualist, who coveted unlimited power for the gratification of his tastes and passions, was succeeded by a sincere zealot, who desired to enslave his people, that he might place them, bound hand and foot, at the footstool of the Pope. It was fortunate for England that his ultimate object was incapable of concealment, for the fear of Rome was more effectual in arming the public feeling against, him than if his efforts had been limited to his personal claims. The papist, in fact, was more feared than the despot. The strange thing to us-who look upon our freedom as unassailable by friend or foe, and can scarcely conceive a time when it was in danger-is to see, in the few years of this reign, how nearly the battle was lost.

The great cause of this was the immorality which had sapped the foundations of society and the honour of public men during the last reign. The overstrained preciseness of the Puritans had driven the Cavaliers, and all who pretended to be gentlemen, into the opposite extreme. Everything was debauched-manners, books, theatres, court, and camp. There was nothing left, except in some few quaint old manor-houses and distant farms, on which to build up the family connection, and without that free government is impossible. The hearthstone of the dwelling-house is the altar of national liberty. In this state of sentiment and conduct came James, furious with a real faith-a man with a belief, and what his Ironside predecessor would have named a call. His call was to restore the Catholic Church; and the means he used were the religious indifference of the upper classes, the fear of fanaticism, the machinery of an established government, and the divinity which hedged a king.

§ 2. His proclamation was received with applause; his declaration also of attachment to the Church of England and principles of moderation encouraged the hopes of the nation;

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A.D. 1685.] JAMES'S DECLARATION FALSIFIED.

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but on the first Sunday after his accession a difference was perceptible between his words and actions. He went openly to the mass, and was angry with the Duke of Norfolk for not going into the chapel with the sword of state before him. "Your grace's father would have gone farther," said the king, when Norfolk stopped at the outer door. "Your majesty's father would not have gone so far," replied the duke, and would not move. He next continued the collection of the revenue which had been settled on his brother for life, by his own royal prerogative, and began the use of the dispensing power, on which he placed the whole value of his crown. With that he could do anything, without it, nothing. His dispensing power was a right he claimed to dispense in any particular instance with the action of a law; uniting in this one privilege the qualities of a veto on a law before it was passed, and a commutation or abrogation of a penalty after it was incurred. The first use he made of it was cunningly contrived to disarm opposition; for it was to deliver, by royal warrant, all the Papists and Dissenters who were imprisoned for infringement of the statutes. His next step was to punish his enemies; and the survivors of the Popish plot felt his power. Titus Oates, already condemned to gaol till he paid an impossible fine, was brought up once more, and whipt till people were amazed how he survived the torture. Dangerfield, a worthy rival of Titus, also was scourged, till a barrister, not satisfied even with that amount of pain, murdered him as he staggered behind the cart. It is pleasant to know that this legal aspirant for Court favour was hanged for the brutal deed; and after these two sacrifices to his Church and his revenge, the king took note of his funds, and found it necessary to summon a parliament.

§ 3. In answer to his humble supplication, Louis had continued his brother's pension, and had sent him over half a million of livres, which James received with tears of gratitude. But he required a larger and more secure income, and

took great care to get as many of the Tory party returned for the boroughs as he could. They met, and voted him, almost by acclamation, twelve hundred thousand a-year for life, and their dutiful thanks (which, perhaps, he valued more, as showing the success of his manoeuvres,) for the declaration in the royal speech against arbitrary power, and in favour of the Church of England. The Scottish Parliament had been equally complaisant, and Ireland was secured by the dismissal of the Duke of Ormond and the appointment of Lord Clarendon, with the real power in the hands of his partisan Tyrconnel. With three kingdoms at his feet, by the consent of the legal functionaries of them all, it needed only the command of a sufficient number of troops to make his power irresistible. An opportunity for this was presented by the occurrence of an insurrection in England and Scotland at the same time.

§ 4. Argyle was the inadequate leader of the northern rebels; and, almost immediately after landing from Holland, where the plans were laid, he was defeated by the militia of Cantyre, and executed at Edinburgh on the sentence he had incurred in 1681, for objecting to take "the test against any alteration in the government;" and the king turned his undivided attention to the English insurrection under the equally inadequate Duke of Monmouth. This weak and spiritless pretender had married the heiress of Buccleuch, and in other ways become associated with the nobility; but nothing short of fatuity could have tempted him to claim the crown. This, however, he did, and on reaching Taunton, in Somersetshire, assumed the title of king. Parliament gave him no counte nance, and issued an act of attainder condemning him to death, which was read, passed, and received the royal assent all in one day.

At Sedgemoor the armies met-rustics and townsmen forming a confused rabble on one side, and regular troops, commanded by trained soldiers, on the other. Among these

A.D. 1685.]

DUKE OF MONMOUTH.

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last was a Lord Churchill, a personal favourite of the king's, who had learned the art of war under the great Turenne, and afterwards, under the name of Marlborough, eclipsed all the generals whom England has produced, till Wellington arose to surpass, or at least to equal, his exploits. Monmouth had led his motley followers a wild succession of marches to the borders of Wiltshire, and back again. He was disheartened by the coldness or hostility of the places he passed through, and longed for a safe retreat. When the battle was joined, his unpractised levies performed miracles of useless valour, but he soon saw their efforts would be vain. He turned horse and fled, and when the victorious royalists were tired with the slaughter of the peasants, they sent in pursuit and found. the wretched Monmouth crouching in a field of beans, and carried him in triumph into his uncle's presence.

The gratification of James was complete. The young man, who had opposed him so long, and who had ended by assuming his rank and position, disgraced himself by humiliating entreaties for pardon. The king frowned with ferocious hatred, and spurned him as he knelt before him. When hope was finally at an end, Monmouth determined to die with more firmness and courage than he had lived; but his last hour on the scaffold was rendered miserable by the ministrations of the bishops who pretended to prepare him for death. They insisted on his declaration of passive obedience and non-resistance as essential articles of the Christian faith. He professed sorrow for his invasion, and prayed for the king, but steadily declined to make his dying statement "that, under no circumstances, and for no purpose of saving religion and morality, was any opposition to the worst of men and tyrants justifiable by the Divine law." A light on this subject broke in upon their lordships before many years were over, when the decision of the question came home to their own business.

§ 5. And now began a campaign far fiercer and more

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