IX. 1688. BOOK Europe, than to abandon him upon a throne. His father's execution was still present to his desponding thoughts; and he listened credulously to every suggestion of personal danger, without reflecting either on the difference of the characters or of the times. His terrors were flattered as the result of political wisdom, and he was easily persuaded that his departure would produce a scene of anarchy, which would eventually facilitate the recovery of absolute power. The queen and his son were conveyed secretly to France. His own departure was determined by the prince of Orange's demands, which, however imperious, were requisite for the settlement and security of the nation, and if accepted by James, might still have preserved his descendants on the throne. His hopes were absurdly placed on the public confusion; to increase which, he recalled and burnt the writs for a new parliament; directed Feversham to disband the army; threw the great seal into the Thames; and with a single attendant, embarked at midnight in a small vessel for France. When his flight was discovered next day, an event beyond the expectation of his enemies, completed the consternation and despair of his friends. The populace began to plunder the chapels and houses of papists; but their excesses were soon restrained by the peers and prelates residing in London, who assembled in council to resume the government, and invited the prince of Orange to provide BOOK IX. 1688 for the safety of the state. When the king was intercepted at Feversham, and conducted back to Whitehall, the returning affections of the city might have convinced him that the nation was not yet lost. In this delicate extremity he attempted to resume his authority by an indiscreet proclamation against the late excesses 35; but he was required at midnight to remove from the palace, and was permitted to return to Rochester, with an obvious design to connive at his escape. He was convinced himself that his departure would prove acceptable to the prince; and the few friends who adhered to his fortunes in adversity, urged him to remain. But the despair of life returned. An expression of his father's was remembered; that short is the distance between the prison and the grave of kings; and by the desertion of his king- James dedom which he was destined never to revisit, he kingdom. left his rival an unbloody victory, and a vacant throne 36. serts the Dec. 23, in Scotland The revolution was accomplished in Scotland Revolution with the same ease and success. Athol, lord privy seal and president of the council, was married to the earl of Derby's daughter, who was allied to the house of Orange by her mother, (a descendant of the family of Tremouille in France;) and his personal animosity to Perth, the chancellor, instigated by lord Tarbet and sir John Dalrymple, contributed to strengthen his connection with the prince. IX. 1688. BOOK When the desertion and retreat of the king's forces were reported, Tarbet artfully proposed in council to disband the militia as neither necessary, nor legally kept embodied in peace; and the weak and timid chancellor consented, fearful of offence, and unconscious of their designs. But the forces were no sooner reduced to a few troops for the collection of the revenue, than Athol and his friends represented that it was unsafe to sit longer in council with the chancellor and other papists, incapacitated by law. Destitute of military support, the chancellor was easily intimidated, or persuaded by his friends to abandon a city in which the populace had already risen and proclaimed a reward Dec. 10. for his head 37. When the When the king's forces were partly disbanded, a panic terror had spread through England in a single night, that the Irish soldiers had begun an indiscriminate massacre of protestants; and as the beacons, drums, and bells, communicated the imaginary approach of danger, the people fancied that they heard the distant groans of the dying, and beheld the smoke of the distant villages consumed with flames. From the same reports diffused through Scotland, it appears that a political alarm was widely propagated, to unite and to exasperate the protestants against the state. While the drums beat to arms, and the inhabitants issued, in consternation, from their houses, a report was spread that the papists had 37 Balcarras' Mem. entered Edinburgh, which would be burnt that night. The people rushed to the palace, but were repulsed, and numbers were killed and wounded, by the fire of a company of soldiers, whom the chancellor had left for its defence. The principal citizens, and the leading presbyterians who had repaired to town, joined the populace whom they had incited to the attack. A warrant was procured from Athol and his friends, and intimated by heralds, for the surrender of the palace; and with the assistance of the train-bands, they broke in, and overpowered the military, some of whom were massacred by the popular rage and revenge. The printing-house, the library, chapel, and schools of the Jesuits were demolished or burnt. The abbey church, recently prepared for the new order of the thistle, was defaced; its ornaments and images were consigned to the flames; and the chancellor's lodgings were plundered by the populace, who continued for some days to search and pillage the houses of papists 38. A similar report was productive of the same disorders in the west. On a sudden rumour, universally credited, that the Irish had landed, and after burning Kircudbright, had advanced to Hamilton, six thousand presbyterians appeared in arms. Disappointed of a foreign enemy, they dispersed in small parties, to disarm and dislodge their domes 38 Balcarras's Mem. Wodrow, ii. 649. Hist. Revol in Scotland, p. 24. BOOK IX. 1688. IX. 1688. Clergy expelled. BOOK tic foes. On Christmas day, the episcopal clergy were assailed and dragged from their pulpits or altars; they were conducted through their parishes in mock procession; stript of their gowns, and expelled by force, or were permitted peaceably to depart, on a solemn assurance never to return. Two hundred clergymen of the epicopal persuasion, were thus ejected; and as the same violence prevailed for some weeks through the rest of Scotland, the revolution was almost equally complete in the church and in the state 39. The conduct of the presbyterians was strictly regulated by the expulsion of their own clergy, after the restoration. But when we survey the persecutions which they had endured, and the blood with which the episcopal church was ccmented, instead of blaming their severity, we are rather surprised and pleased that those fierce Cameronians, stigmatized, and pursued by the late government as assassins, abstained from a massacre of the established clergy. Resort of all parties to London. When the presbyterians obtained possession of the capital, the administration devolved on the marquis of Athol and his friends. The duke of Gordon, with a mutinous garrison, retained the castle for James. But the declaration of the prince of Orange was universally received; and the earl of Perth, intercepted in embarking for France, was committed 39 Acts of the United Societies in the West; Wodrow's MSS. Skinner, ii. 517. Somers's Tracts, vi. 133. |