only by zealots in whom fanaticism had extinguished all reason and charity, that the Roman Catholic was regarded as a man the very tenderness of whose conscience might make him a false witness, an incendiary, or a murderer, as a man who, where his Church was concerned, shrank from no atrocity and could be bound by no oath. If there were in that age two persons inclined by their judgment and by their temper to toleration, those persons were Tillotson and Locke; yet Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of schismatics and heretics brought on him. the reproach of heterodoxy, told the House of Commons. from the pulpit that it was their duty to make effectual provision against the propagation of a religion more mischievous than irreligion itself, of a religion which demanded from its followers services directly opposed to the first principles of morality. His temper, he truly said, was prone to lenity; but his duty to the community forced him to be, in this one instance, severe. He declared that, in his judgment, pagans who had never heard the name of Christ, and who were guided only by the light of nature, were more trustworthy members of civil society than men who had been formed in the schools of the popish casuists.* Locke, in the celebrated treatise in which he labored to show that even the grossest forms of idolatry ought not to be prohibited under penal sanctions, contended that the Church which taught men not to keep faith with heretics had no claim to toleration.† It is evident that, in such circumstances, the greatest service which an English Roman Catholic could render to his brethren in the faith was to convince the public that, whatever some rash men might, in times of violent excitement, have written or done, his Church did not hold that any end could sanctify means inconsistent with morality. And this great service it was in the power of James to render. He was king. He was more powerful than any English king had been within the memory of the oldest *Tillotson's Sermon, preached before the House of Commons, Nov. 5, † Locke, First Letter on Toleration. 1678. man. It depended on him whether the reproach which lay on his religion should be taken away or should be made permanent. Had he conformed to the laws, had he fulfilled his promises, had he abstained from employing any unrighteous methods for the propagation of his own theological tenets, had he suspended the operation of the penal statutes by a large exercise of his unquestionable prerogative of mercy, but, at the same time, carefully abstained from violating the civil or ecclesiastical constitution of the realm, the feeling of his people must have undergone a rapid change. So conspicuous an example of good faith punctiliously observed by a popish prince toward a Protestant nation would have quieted the public apprehensions. Men who saw that a Roman Catholic might safely be suffered to direct the whole executive administration, to command the army and navy, to convoke and dissolve the Legislature, to appoint the bishops and deans of the Church of England, would soon have ceased to fear that any great evil would arise from allowing a Roman Catholic to be captain of a company or alderman of a borough. It is probable that, in a few years, the sect so long detested by the nation would, with general applause, have been admitted to of fice and to Parliament. If, on the other hand, James should attempt to promote the interest of his Church by violating the fundamental laws of his kingdom and the solemn promises which he had repeatedly made in the face of the whole world, it could hardly be doubted that the charges which it had been the fashion to bring against the Roman Catholic religion would be considered by all Protestants as fully established; for, if ever a Roman Catholic could be expected to keep faith with heretics, James might have been expected to keep faith with the Anglican clergy. To them he owed his crown. But for their strenuous opposition to the Ex clusion Bill he would have been a banished man. He had repeatedly and emphatically acknowledged his obligations to them, and had vowed to maintain them in all their legal rights. If he could not be bound by ties like these, it must be evident that, where his superstition was concerned, no tie of gratitude or of honor could bind him. To trust him would thenceforth be impossible; and, if his people could not trust him, what member of his Church could they trust? He was not supposed to be constitutionally or habitually treacherous. To his blunt manner and to his want of consideration for the feelings of others he owed a much higher reputation for sincerity than he at all deserved. His eulogists affected to call him James the Just. If, then, it should appear that, in turning papist, he had also turned dissembler and promise-breaker, what conclusion was likely to be drawn by a nation already disposed to believe that popery had a pernicious influence on the moral character? On these grounds many of the most eminent Roman Catholics of that age, and among them the supreme pontiff, were of opinion that the interest of their Church in our island would be most effectually promoted by a moderate and constitutional policy; but such reasoning had no effect on the slow understanding and imperious temper of James. In his eagerness to remove the disabilities under which the professors of his religion lay, he took a course which convinced the most enlightened and tolerant Protestants of his time that those disabilities were essential to the safety of the state. To his policy the English Roman Catholics owed three years of lawless and insolent triumph, and a hundred and forty years of subjection and degradation. Many members of his Church held commissions in the newly-raised regiments. This breach of the law for a time passed uncensured; for men were not disposed to note every irregularity which was committed by a king suddenly called upon to defend his crown and his life against rebels. But the danger was now over. The insurgents had been. vanquished and punished. Their unsuccessful attempt had strengthened the government which they had hoped to overthrow. Yet still James continued to grant com missions to unqualified persons; and speedily it was announced that he was determined to be no longer bound by the Test Act; that he hoped to induce the Parliament to repeal that act; but that, if the Parliament proved refractory, he would not the less have his own way. As soon as this was known, a deep murmur, the forerunner of a tempest, gave him warning that the spirit before which his grandfather, his father, and his brother had been compelled to recede, though dormant, was not extinct. Opposition appeared first in the cabinet. Halifax did not attempt to conceal his disgust and alarm. At the council board he courageously gave utterance to those feelings which, as it soon appeared, pervaded the whole nation. None of his colleagues seconded him, and the subject dropped. He was summoned to the royal closet, and had two long conferences with his master. James tried the effect of compliments and blandishments, but to no purpose. Halifax positively refused to promise that he would give his vote in the House of Lords for the repeal either of the Test Act or of the Habeas Corpus Act. Some of those who were about the king advised him not, on the eve of the meeting of Parliament, to drive the most eloquent and accomplished statesman of the age into opposition. They represented that Halifax loved the dignity and emoluments of office; that, while he continued to be lord president, it would be hardly possible for him to put forth his whole strength against the government; and that to dismiss him from his high post was to emancipate him from all restraint. The king was peremptory. Halifax was informed that his services were no longer needed, and his name was struck out of the Council Book.* His dismissal produced a great sensation, not only in England, but also at Paris, at Vienna, and at the Hague; for it was well known that he had always labored to counteract the influence exercised by the court of Versailles on English affairs. Louis expressed great pleasure at the * Council Book. The erasure is dated Oct. 21, 1685. Halifax to Chesterfield; Barillon, Oct. 1. news. The ministers of the United Provinces and of the house of Austria, on the other hand, extolled the wisdom and virtue of the discarded statesman in a manner which gave great offense at Whitehall. James was particularly angry with the secretary of the imperial legation, who did not scruple to say that the eminent service which Halifax had performed in the debate on the Exclusion Bill had been requited with gross ingratitude.* It soon became clear that Halifax would have many followers. A portion of the Tories, with their old leader, Danby, at their head, began to hold Whiggish language. Even the prelates hinted that there was a point at which the loyalty due to the prince must yield to higher considerations. The discontent of the chiefs of the army was still more extraordinary and still more formidable. Already began to appear the first symptoms of that feeling which, three years later, impelled so many officers of high rank to desert the royal standard. Men who had never before had a scruple, had on a sudden become strangely scrupulous. Churchill gently whispered that the king was going too far. Kirke, just returned from his western butchery, swore to stand by the Protestant religion. Even if he abjured the faith in which he had been bred, he would never, he said, become a papist. He was already bespoken. If ever he did apostatize, he was bound by a solemn promise to the Emperor of Morocco to turn Mussulman.† While the nation, agitated by many strong emotions, looked anxiously forward to the reassembling of the houses, tidings, which increased the prevailing excitement, arrived from France. The long and heroic struggle which the Huguenots had maintained against the government had been brought to a final close by the ability and vigor of Richelieu. That * Barillon, Oct. 26 1685; Louis to Barillon, Oct. 27 Nov. 1 There is a remarkable account of the first appearance of the symptoms of discontent among the Tories in a letter of Halifax to Chesterfield, written in October, 1685. Burnet, i., 684. |