sury; but the chief management of affairs was left to the Earl of Sunderland, who had asked Louis XIV. for a regular pension. Sunderland, now secretary of state, kept himself in favour at court by condescensions and connivances with Charles's illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth, and his French mistress the Duchess of Portsmouth. But, by the advice of Sir William Temple, Charles constituted a new council of thirty persons, into which were admitted the most daring and most popular leaders of the opposition, with the versatile Shaftesbury for their president. Notwithstanding this calculated kindness, Shaftesbury urged on the commons to ANTONY ASHLEY COOPER, Earl of Shaftesbury. vote the exclusion of the Duke of York from the throne. The accidental burning of a printinghouse in Fetter Lane, which made the vulgar believe that London was to be consumed again by the Papists, and the report that the Duke of York was about returning from the Continent with a French fleet and army, hastened the blow. The commons resolved, nemine contradicente, "That the Duke of York being a Papist, and the hopes of his coming such to the crown, had given the greatest countenance to the present conspiracies and designs against the king and Protestant religion." They also voted addresses requesting his majesty to banish all Papists twenty miles from London, and to put all seaports, fortresses, and ships into trusty hands; and they ordered that their secret committee should prepare to bring before them all such letters and papers as they had in their custody relating to the Duke of York. Lord Russell, though one of the new council of thirty, was selected to desire the concurrence of the lords. The latter took time for consideration. The Duke of Monmouth had been for some time plotting and contriving to prove a lawful marriage between his mother, Lucy Walters, and the king, and Shaftesbury and his party hoped to place the rash young man on the throne and to govern the kingdom in his name. But Charles, though fond of his natural son, would on no account go into this dangerous scheme, and as a medium he proposed that provision should be made by parliament to distinguish a Papist from a Protestant successor; that the authority of a Popish prince should be limited and circumscribed so as to disable him from doing harm. The provisions and limitations which followed, and which were solemnly propounded to both houses by the chancellor, would scarcely have left the shadow of the royal prerogative to the Popish successor; but it is clear that the scheme was thrown into parliament only to gain time. The commons, however, rejected it at once, and proceeded with their famous bill of exclusion, by which the crown was to pass to the next Protestant heir, as if the Duke of York were dead. At the second reading of this bill (on the 21st of May), 207 voted for, and 121 against it. To stay further proceedings the king prorogued parliament. This sudden measure took the exclusionists completely by surprise; and Shaftesbury was so transported with rage, that he exclaimed in the House of Lords that he would have the heads of those who had been the king's advisers upon this occasion. Charles, however, had not courage to act upon the pardon he had granted, and Danby remained a prisoner in the Tower for five years. It was in this stormy session, when some of the worst of passions made the tempest, that one of the greatest blessings we enjoy was secured to the nation. This was the HABEAS CORPUS BILL, which, after being agitated and frustrated for nearly five years, was triumphantly carried, through the energy and influence of Shaftesbury. While in England Papists had been sacrificed to the Popish Plot, in Scotland, a Protestant archbishop had been sent to a bloody grave. Sharp, after six years, had caught Mitchell, who had fired the pistol into his carriage, and that enthusiast had been put to death, with some revolting circumstances. This cruelty and the persecution against the conventiclers called up other assassins. The archbishop and Duke Lauderdale had carried tyranny to its utmost stretch. An army of wild Highlanders had been let loose in the west country, to live upon free quarters; the gentlemen of the country were required to deliver up their arms upon oath, and to keep no horse that was worth more than £4; dragoons were employed to disperse the field meetings, and many a moor and hill-side was made wet with the blood of the Covenanters. At one field all executed. Sir George Wakeman, the queen's physician, and three Benedictine friars, were, however, acquitted by the jury, after a trial in which Oates was convicted of barefaced perjury. Yet, a few weeks after this acquittal, eight priests and monks were executed in the provinces for merely exercising their religious functions. conventicle upwards of a hundred men were said Jeffreys, now recorder of London, and they were to have been butchered in cold blood. In Fife, where the archbishop chiefly resided, the persecution was as keen as in the west country, and it produced one more terrible effect. A small band of men, united by their common enthusiasm and suffering, resolved to take the life of one William Carmichael, “a cruel bloody man," who, through the patronage of Sharp, had obtained a In the month of August Charles fell sick of a commission from the council to seek out and ap- fever at Windsor; and the Duke of York, traprehend all nonconformists in Fife. Headed by velling in disguise, came over to look to his inHackston of Rathillet, these men, on Saturday, terests. The duke found that the king had the 3d of May, attempted to surprise Carmichael recovered, and that his son Monmouth was inwhile he was hunting on the moors; but they trusted with the command of the army, was missed him. In the midst of their fury at this more than ever popular, and was backed by a disappointment, a little boy cried out, "There powerful and intriguing faction. A very violent goes the bishop!" Looking as the boy pointed, quarrel between the two dukes was the consethey saw at a short distance a coach drawn by quence; and Charles, to preserve his own transix horses. "Truly," exclaimed the fanatics, quillity, sent his son to Holland and his brother "this is of God! The Lord hath delivered the to Scotland. Monmouth submitted with great wretch into our hands!" John Balfour of Kin- reluctance; but his ally, Shaftesbury, consoled loch put himself in the van, and the nine horse-him with the assurance that his temporary exile men pushed across Magus Muir in pursuit of Sharp. As soon as the archbishop saw them he turned to his daughter Isabel, who was with him, and said, "The Lord have mercy on me, my dear child, for I am gone!" and, the postilion being wounded and the traces cut, James Russell of Kettle soon stood by the coach door, roaring "Judas, come forth!" The old man prayed for that mercy which he had never shown to them or their brethren; his daughter knelt on the ground with him, wept and implored, and tried to shield him with her own person; but they pulled her away, and Balfour, with one stroke, laid the archbishop at his feet. Russell finished the horrible work by hacking the skull to pieces, and then ordering the servants to take away their priest. A few days after this, the assassins were in the west country, where the effect of their presence was soon manifested in a formidable insurrection. The Covenanters beat off with loss three troops of horse that were led against them by the celebrated Graham of Claverhouse. By the advice of Duke Lauderdale, the army in Scotland was concentrated near Edinburgh, and the king sent down the Duke of Monmouth, who had lately married the great Scottish heiress of Buccleuch. Monmouth with 5000 regular troops defeated the insurgents at Bothwell Bridge, and Hamilton Heath, killing 500 of them, and taking 1200 prisoners. Through personal fears and a selfish policy Charles still permitted the Popish Plot to take its sanguinary course in England. On the evidence of Oates, Bedloe, Prance, and one Dugdale, who had taken up the profitable trade of a witness, five Jesuits, with Langhorne, a famous Catholic lawyer, were condemned by the brutal would give him the merits of a martyr in the eyes of the people, and that parliament would insist on his recall. Charles had counted upon a pension of 1,000,000 livres from the French king;' but Louis, who had no present occasion for his services, appended some unpalatable conditions to this new money-treaty, which caused it to drop. The Duke of York advised him to make up for the loss of the French livres by a strict economy of his English guineas, so as to be still in a state to do without parliament; and, in the month of October, when parliament was to meet, he prorogued it again, and announced to his council that he would have no session for a year to come. About the same time Shaftesbury was deprived of the presidency of the council; Lord Halifax, Lord Russell, and Sir William Temple retired, and Lord Essex threw up the treasury in disgust. Essex was succeeded by Hyde, one of the sons of Clarendon, and brother to the Duke of York's first wife; and Hyde, with Sunderland and Godolphin, managed a weak and distracted government. Having lost the king, Louis and Barillon renewed their connection with the patriots, fancying that matters in England would inevitably end in a civil war. We must pass lightly over the disgraceful plots and intrigues which followed. Mrs. Cellier, a Catholic midwife, who was employed by ladies of Charles had told Barillon, the French ambassador and money-agent, that this would be the sure way "de mettre pour 2 At this moment, when Charles was so bold, he did not foresee the failure of his treaty with Louis-he was still counting on the livres, quality in various capacities, and among others, in distributing alms among the distressed prisoners for conscience' sake, found among the inmates of Newgate a very handsome young man named Dangerfield. She discharged the debts for which he was in durance, and introduced him to Lady Powis. Dangerfield, who had led a most profligate life, and had been branded, whipped, and pilloried as a felon, was not very nice as to the means by which he testified his gratitude or procured a livelihood. He turned Catholic, and pretended that, by visiting the coffee-houses in the city, he had discovered a dangerous conspiracy of the Presbyterians against the king's life and government. Lady Powis and the active midwife introduced him to Lord Peterborough: and his lordship conducted him to the Duke of York, who had lately returned from Scotland. The duke, who had suffered so much from Popish plots, turned a ready ear to this Protestant plot, which might bring ruin on his bitterest enemies, the Puritans. He gave Dangerfield twenty guineas, and sent him to the king, who gave him forty. Being thus regularly installed in his new trade, Dangerfield, a few days after, gave information that papers and documents of the most convincing kind would be found in the possession of Colonel Mansel, who was to be quarter-master of the Presbyterian army. Mansel's lodgings were searched, and a bundle of papers was found behind his bed. But the forgery was clumsy; Mansel proved that the informer had put the papers in his room, and Dangerfield was sent back to Newgate. But the times were favourable for men of his genius; and, shifting his ground with alacrity, he declared that he had been induced by the midwife and Lady Powis to fabricate a plot for the purpose of covering a real one, conducted, not by the Presbyterians, but by the Catholics; that notes and the documents on which the sham plot was founded were concealed in a meal-tub in Mrs. Cellier's house. And, upon search there, the meal-tub was found and the papers in them. The tables being thus turned, the midwife was sent to Newgate and Lady Powis to the Tower. But the grand jury ignored the bill against the lady, and the midwife was acquitted upon trial at the Old Bailey. Alarmed at the long recess, people from all parts of the country began to petition the king for the speedy meeting of parliament; and seventeen peers of the realm joined in this prayer. The court issued a proclamation against improper petitions, and canvassed for counter-petitions with very considerable success. petitions, Charles ventured to recall his brother from Scotland, and to declare, upon oath, before the privy council, that Monmouth was illegitimate. To drive that prince away, Shaftesbury presented the Duke of York to the grand jury of Middlesex as a Popish recusant; but the judges baulked him by instantly discharging the jury. The Duke of Monmouth, by Shaftesbury's desire, had returned suddenly and secretly to London, some time before the Duke of York. It was midnight when he reached the city; but as soon as his name was heard he was enthusiastically welcomed by the people. Charles ordered him to quit the kingdom, but Shaftesbury kept him where he was; and, as the king could no longer help meeting parliament, the Duke of York was sent back to Edinburgh. The session was opened on the 21st of October. The commons instantly began to wreak their vengeance on the counterpetitioners, to fondle the old Popish Plot, and to patronize Dangerfield and the meal-tub plot. Thus encouraged, the felon accused the Duke of York of having instigated him not only to frame his first story against the Presbyterians, but also to murder the king. On the 26th of October Lord Russell carried a motion that the house should take into consideration how to suppress Popery and prevent a Popish successor; on the 2d of November the exclusion bill against the Duke of York was introduced, and it was reported on the 8th. The king (who, however, would have sold his brother for £600,000) tried to divert the storm, but the bill passed the commons on the 11th November, and on the 15th, Lord Russell, escorted by the exclusionists, carried it to the upper house. The king was present at the debate, and personally solicited the peers, who threw out the bill by a majority of sixty-three to thirty. The commons then turned back to the Popish Plot, to keep the rancour of the people alive; and Lord Stafford, one of the five lords in the Tower, was brought to trial before his peers, who in such a case were quite ready to concur with the commons. The witnesses against him were Oates, Dugdale, and Tuberville-a new witness, as deeply sunk in villany and infamy as either of the old practitioners. The old earl-he was in his seventieth year- made an excellent defence, and, by himself and witnesses, proved discrepancies, flat contradictions, and perjury in the evidence of his accusers; yet the lords found him guilty by a majority of fifty-five to thirty-one.' Charles, In the rage of her disappointment because the exclusionists had not succeeded, the Duchess of Portsmouth attended Stafford's trial, "dealing sweetmeats and stiles among his prosecutors." This French mistress had been flattered by the hope Encouraged by the passionate ex-if not by a positive promise-that, if the Duke of York should A.D. 1680. pressions of loyalty and attachment be set aside, her own children, after some unexplained process to regular succession set forth in these counter of legitimation, should succeed to the throne. Shaftesbury, Halifax, and Sunderland deluded her, by turns, in this strange who had been present at the trial in Westmin- | tant Dissenters was giving encouragement to ster Hall, and who was convinced that Stafford Popery. Here the usher of the black rod knocked was innocent of the imputed treason, yet signed at the door, and summoned them to attend his the death-warrant with no other mitigation than majesty in the other house. Charles then prothat he should be simply beheaded. The sheriffs rogued the parliament to the 30th of the month, of London (Bethell and Cornish) questioned whe- and a few days after dissolved it by proclamather the king had the power to alter the sentence tion, appointing the new parliament to meet on of the lords, which included or implied all the the 21st of March-not at Westminster but at horrid formalities of hanging, bowelling, &c., Oxford." and they applied to the two houses; but Charles was firm; the lords told the sheriffs that their scruples were unnecessary, and that the king's warrant ought to be obeyed. And, accordingly, on the 29th of December, the old nobleman was decapitated upon Tower-hill. In the short interval Charles made some changes in his cabinet, and opened another negotiation with the French king for more money. In the preceding year, in his irritation at Louis's parsimony, he had concluded a treaty with the Spanish court for the maintenance of the peace of Nimeguen; but now, in consideration of 2,000,000 livres for the present year, and 1,500,000 for the three following years, he engaged to abandon Spain and do the will of France.3 Sixteen peers petitioned the king against hold The House of Commons withA.D. 1681. held the supplies, and assailed the embarrassed and beggared court with various bills, for banishing "the most considerable Papists;" for getting up a Protestant association against Popery and a Popish successor; for making the parliament at Oxford, a place where the ing the raising of money without consent of par- two houses might be deprived of freedom of deliament high treason; for securing the regular bate, and exposed to the swords of the Papists, meeting of parliament; and for dismissing cor- who had crept into the ranks of the royal guards. rupt judges. These bills were followed up by a It appears, indeed, that the popular party feared remonstrance, in which the commons required the king and his troops, and that the king feared his majesty's assent to the exclusion of his bro- them and the people: both went to Oxford as if ther. On the 7th of January Charles, by mes- they were going to a battle. The king opened the sage, told the commons that he could never con- session in a confident tone; but it was soon found sent to the bill of exclusion, which had been that, in the fierce struggle at the elections, the thrown out by the lords. This message threw Whigs had had the better of the Tories (these the house into a fury. Lord Russell, his rela- terms were now becoming the common designative Lord Cavendish, Montague, the ex-ambas- tions of the two great parties), and that the presador, Sir Henry Capel, Mr. Hampden, Colonel sent parliament was as resolute as the last to Titus, and others, moved and carried in a series exclude the Duke of York. On the morning of of votes that no supply should be granted with- the 28th of March, when the parliament was a out the bill for excluding the Duke of York;' week old, the king put the crown and the robes that the Earl of Halifax and other ministers were of state into a sedan-chair, got into it himself, promoters of Popery, &c. That night Charles hastened privately to the place where the lords made up his mind to dissolve this parliament; met, and dissolved this his fifth and last parliaand, to take the commons by surprise, he stole into ment. And after this step both the sovereign and the House of Lords at an early hour on the follow- the representatives of the people scampered away ing morning. But the commons got notice, and in from the learned city of Oxford as if they were one short quarter of an hour they tumultuously retreating from some furious enemy. The Whigs voted that those who attempted to defeat the ex- put forth "A Modest Defence of the late Parliaclusion bill were traitors sold to France; that ment," and proclaimed everywhere that its disthe Papists were the authors of the great fire of solution was intended as a prelude to the entire London; that the Duke of Monmouth had been subversion of the constitution. The Tories, on deprived of his offices through the Duke of York, the other side, showered congratulatory addresses and ought to be restored to them; that the city upon the sovereign; and the clergy and the two of London had merited the thanks of the house; universities descanted on the Divine right, and that the infliction of the penal laws upon Protes- declared that it belonged not to subjects either to way; and it appears certain that, under her influence, the king several times was more than half disposed to go along with the exclusionists, even without their money. "I hope," said Colonel Titus, "we shall not be wise as the frogs, to whom Jupiter gave a stork for their king. To trust expedients with such a king on the throne would be just as wise as if there were a lion in the lobby, and we should vote to let him in, and chain him, instead of fastening the door to keep him out." Before this the anxious eyes of many politicians had been turned towards Holland. In the course of the debate Sir Robert Markham proposed that, upon the death of the present king, the Prince of Orange should rule conjointly with James, his father-in-law. 2 Parl. Hist.; A. Sidney's Letters; Reresby's Journal. 3 Dalrymple, Memoirs, and Appendix; Mazure, Ilistoire de la Révolution de 1688 en Angleterre. From create or censure, but to honour and obey their the court, the grand jury ignored the bill. At this critical season, William, Prince of As if Louis XIV. should attack the Low Countries, 2 Burnet, Roger North; Ralph, 3 Dalrymple: Mazure. |