allowed Danby to have his own way in domestic affairs, he refused to allow him to detach England from the French alliance.

It

was not, however, merely his personal interests which drew him to Louis, as he took a real interest in the prosperity of English trade, and was unable to get over his jealousy of the Dutch. In November 1676, he obtained from Louis a treaty by which the French renounced a claim made by them to seize Dutch goods conveyed in English ships, hoping by this to gain the goodwill of Parliament at its next meeting. He could not understand how completely the alarm of his subjects lest their national religion and independence should be assailed by the French had made them forgetful of their commercial jealousy of the Dutch.

5. Two Foreign Policies. 1677. - On February 15, 1677, Parliament again met. Shaftesbury and his allies attempted to steal a march on Danby by producing two old statutes of Edward III. which directed that Parliaments should be held every year, founding on it an argument that the existing Parliament, not having met for a year, had legally ceased to exist. The House of Lords sent Shaftesbury and three other peers to the Tower for their pains, and the Commons contemptuously rejected a

1677

A DUTCH ALLIANCE

613

similar argument put forward in their own House. Danby found himself triumphant. The Commons granted 600,000l. for increasing the navy. Danby then carried a Bill through the House of Lords for securing the Protestant religion in the event of a Catholic-James being, of course, intended-coming to the throne, though the Bill did not pass the Commons, apparently from a feeling that its provisions were insufficient. The eyes of Englishmen were, however, principally fixed on the Continent. In the preceding year the French had gained two great naval victories, in one of which De Ruyter had been slain, and in the spring of 1677 Louis carried one place after another in the Spanish Netherlands. Both Houses now asked Charles to join the alliance against France, whereupon Charles indignantly prorogued Parliament. When he was urged by the Dutch ambassador to act upon the wishes of the Houses he threw his handkerchief into the air, with the accompanying words: "I care just that for Parliament."

6. The Marriage of the Prince of Orange. 1677.- Louis paid to Charles 1,600,000l. for the prorogation which rid France for a time from the danger of a war with England. Charles, however, shrank from a renewal of the struggle with his Parliament on its next meeting, and, though he was resolved not to go to war with France if he could help it, he was ready to help in bringing about a general peace which would relieve him from all further invitation to join the allies. He accordingly welcomed Danby's suggestion that the plan for a marriage between the Prince of Orange and James's daughter Mary should be again taken up, especially as he hoped that it would break down the good understanding which existed between the Prince and Shaftesbury, and would smooth away the hostility of his subjects to his brother's right of succession. William, knowing that the feeling of Englishmen of both parties was in his favour, visited his uncles, and his marriage with Mary took place on November 15, 1677. The marriage, which was to prove of incalculable importance in the future, was of great significance even at the time, as it marked the end of the hostile feeling against the Dutch which, for so many years, had been the dominant note of English foreign politics.

7. Danby's Position. 1677.-Though Danby had brought Charles round to support his foreign as well as his domestic policy, his success was more apparent than real. The fact was that his foreign and domestic policies were inconsistent with one another. In the long run it would be found impossible to contend against the French king and the English Catholics supported by him,

1678

TITUS OATES

615

that he would support them in forcing Charles to dismiss his troops and to dissolve Parliament, some of them even accepting from him gifts of money. Charles, on his part, vacillated, doubting which was the best policy for him to adopt. At one time he was eager to assist the Dutch, and sent troops to their succour in the hope that a victorious army might afterwards be useful to him in England. At another time he made overtures to Louis with the object of securing his support. In the end, on July 31, Louis and the Dutch made peace at Nymwegen without consulting Charles at all. Louis gained Franche Comté and a large number of fortresses on his northern frontier, which had formerly belonged to Spain. Though he had failed to destroy the Dutch Republic, he had shown himself superior in war to a great continental coalition, and had made France the predominant power in Europe.

9. The Popish Plot. 1678. The part played by the king left the English people gravely dissatisfied with him. They feared lest he should seek to overwhelm their liberties by military force and should bring in. French regiments to support his own troops. Their suspicions were heightened by the knowledge that, if Charles died, his brother, an uncompromising Roman Catholic, would succeed him. In August, 1678, a villain appeared to profit by this prevalent distrust. Titus Oates, a liar from his youth up, who had tried various religions and had recently professed himself a Catholic, announced the existence of a great ' Popish plot.' Charles, he said, was to be murdered, and James set upon the throne as the agent of the Jesuits. A French army was to land to support him, and Protestantism was to be absolutely suppressed. It was true that many Catholics were anxious to see James on the throne and had expressed contempt at Charles's conduct in refusing to declare himself one of themselves, but the rest of Oates's story was absolutely false.

10. Growing Excitement. 1678.-Oates's depositions were taken before a Middlesex magistrate, Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey. Not long afterwards Godfrey was found murdered in the fields near Primrose Hill. All London was wild with excitement. It was widely believed that the Papists' had murdered him to punish him for listening to Oates. It was also held to be an undoubted truth that the Papists' were about to set fire to London, and to murder all good Protestants. A joiner named College made his fortune by inventing a pocket flail, tipped with lead, which was called the Protestant flail, and was to be used by sober citizens to brain Popish' assassins. When Parliament met on

October 21 Shaftesbury, who had been liberated early in the year, unscrupulously encouraged belief in the supposed plot. Up to that time Catholic peers had kept their seats in the House of Lords, and a few Catholics had surreptitiously sat in the Commons. A new Test Act was now passed by which they were excluded' from both Houses, though the Duke of York was exempted by name from its operation. Five Catholic peers were thrown into the Tower, and Coleman, the secretary of the Duchess of York, who had in his custody papers implying that James had a design for forwarding the interests of his religion, was tried and executed.

11. Danby's Impeachment and the Dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. 1678-1679.—The mark at which Shaftesbury aimed was the overthrow of Danby. Danby had always, as far as his own opinion went, been a warm antagonist of France, but a minister was still, in those days, in reality the servant of the king, and was bound to carry out his master's orders, even when they were against his own conviction. Danby had, therefore, at the time when the Peace of Nymwegen was under discussion, written letters to Ralph Montague, the English ambassador in France, bidding him to ask Louis for a considerable payment to Charles, and, at the same time, explaining that the money was needed to make Charles independent of Parliament. Montague, having subsequently returned to England, brought this letter before the House of Commons. The House at once impeached Danby, under the false impression that he had been really subservient to France all the while. Charles had become attached to Danby, and knew that, if the proceedings against him were carried on, matters would come to light which he had every reason to conceal. To save himself and his minister, on January 24, 1679, he dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had now sat for more than seventeen years.

12. The Meeting of the First Short Parliament. 1679.— When the elections to a new Parliament-the first of three short Parliaments were completed, Charles found that, with the exception of at most thirty members, the opposition had gained every seat. Bowing to the storm, he sent his brother to Brussels, and expressed his readiness to place himself at the head of the Protestants of the Continent. When, however, Parliament met, on March 6, 1679, it was found that both Houses were more anxious

1 By the Test Act of 1673 offices only were closed to the Catholics (see p. 607); the oath of supremacy, which had to be taken by every member of the House of Commons, being held sufficient to exclude them from that Assembly. Peers might sit in the House of Lords without taking the oath.