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.

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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.

1679

THE EXCLUSION BILL

617

about the fate of Protestantism at home than about that of Protestants abroad. The Commons renewed the impeachment of Danby, upon which Danby produced a free pardon from the king. The Lords decided that a pardon could not be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, but, in the end, proceedings against Danby were dropped on his being deprived of office and committed to the Tower. By the advice of Sir William Temple, Charles tried a new experiment in government. A new Privy Council was appointed of thirty members, fifteen being ministers of the Crown and fifteen influential lords and commoners, by the advice of which the king was always to be guided. Shaftesbury was appointed President of this Council, but it was soon found to be too large a body to manage affairs which required secrecy, and a small committee was therefore formed out of it for the consideration of all important business.

13. The Exclusion Bill and the Habeas Corpus Act. 1679.— Charles, now that he experienced the strength of the opposition, was prepared to give way on every point except one-the maintenance of his brother's right of succession, which the new House of Commons was prepared to attack. He accordingly offered to place the strongest restrictions upon the power of a Catholic king. To the House of Commons, on the other hand, all restrictions appeared insufficient. The members believed seriously that no law would be able to bind a 'Popish' king. They thought that if he was determined-and it was taken for granted that he would be determined to overthrow the Protestant religion, he would be able to do so. Lord Russell, the eldest son of the Duke of Bedfordthe chief leader of Shaftesbury's party in the House of Commonswas not in the habit of using exaggerated language. Yet even he declared that, if James became king, his subjects must make up their mind to become 'Papists' or to be burnt. An Exclusion Bill was brought in, excluding the Duke of York from the throne. It was read twice, but not passed, as Charles first prorogued, and then, on May 27, dissolved Parliament. The only Act of importance produced in this Parliament was the Habeas Corpus Act, which finally put an end to sundry methods by which the Crown had evaded the rule requiring the issue of writs of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners secured their right to be tried or liberated.

14. Shaftesbury and the King. 1679.-New elections were held, with the result that a House of Commons was chosen even more bitterly hostile to the Court than its predecessor. Shaftesbury

was now at the height of his glory. Oates and other informers were adding new lies to those which they had told before, and the continual trials and executions of the Catholics for participation in the supposed Popish Plot kept the excitement in favour of the Exclusion Bill at a fever heat. Shaftesbury's position was very similar to Pym's in 1641. He had on his side the fundamental principle that a nation cannot safely be governed by a ruler whose ideas on the most important question of the day are directly opposed to those of his subjects, and he was right, as the result showed, in holding that, in the seventeenth century, a Catholic king could not satisfactorily govern a Protestant people. After Danby's fall, the king became the real head of the party opposed to Shaftesbury. His ability had always been great, but hitherto he had alienated those who were disposed to be his friends by attempting to estab lish an absolute government with the help of the king of France and of an army dependent on himself. He now set himself to overthrow Shaftesbury by appealing to a popular sentiment which was quite as strong, and might be stronger, than the dislike of a Catholic successor; that is to say, to the horror with which any. thing which threatened a new civil war filled the hearts of his subjects.

15. Shaftesbury and Halifax. 1679.-Shaftesbury had already allowed it to be known that he intended, if he carried the Exclusion Bill, to propose that the future king should be the Duke of Mon mouth. Monmouth was the eldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, and it was currently, though falsely, believed that Charles had been privately married to his mother, so that he might rightly be regarded as the heir to the Crown. Charles, who knew better than any one else that this story was untrue, stood faithfully by his brother, and, though his constancy made little impression as yet, he had on his side a man whose judgment might usually be taken as an indication of the ultimate decision of public opinion. That man was George Savile, Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Halifax. He had been one of the bitterest enemies of Danby, but he devoted himself to no party. He called himself a Trimmer, as if his business was to trim the boat, and to throw himself against each party in turn as it grew violent in consequence of success. He now supported the king against Shaftesbury, on the ground that it was uncertain whether James would survive his brother, and that, if he did, he was not likely to survive him long; whereas, the succession of the Duke of Monmouth would not only exclude from the throne the Catholic James, but also his daughters, who were both Protestants.