Brutal outrage

Sir John

Coventry.

CHAP. XII.

dread of popery and of France, and by disgust at the dissoluteness and faithlessness of the court. The taunts which these men uttered against the court exceedingly annoyed Charles, who, on one occasion, attempted to restrain the freedom of speech by disgraceful means. Sir John Coventry, a country gentleman, had, in a debate upon a proposed tax upon playgoers, sneered at the King's profligacy, on which a gang of ruffians, under upon the Duke of Monmouth, waylaid him, and slit his nose. This ignoble revenge, instead of quelling the spirit of opposition, raised such a tempest, that the King was compelled to submit to the cruel humiliation of passing the bill known as the Coventry Act, by which the instruments of his revenge were attainted, and he was deprived of the power of pardoning them; and malicious maiming was made a capital felony (January, 1671).* Another outrage was, about the same time, perpetrated upon the Duke of Ormond by the notorious Colonel Blood, who had been attainted for conspiracy in Ireland. To revenge himself, he attacked the duke's coach in London by night, and succeeded in securing his person. He then bound his victim, mounted him on horseback, and was taking him to Tyburn to be hanged, when Ormond's servants came up and released him (December, 1670). Five months afterwards, Blood almost succeeded, under the disguise of a clergyman, in carrying off the regalia from the Tower. The pardon which the King granted, and compelled Ormond to grant, to this bravo, the royal pension he received, and his constant attendance at the court, threw a mystery around Charles which none could penetrate, but tended to lower still further his already degraded and iniquitous character.

Colonel Blood's crimes.

28. Events which ushered in the second Dutch war. On the 22nd of April, 1671, parliament having granted £800,000, the court, thus emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution of the Treaty of Dover. The financial difficulties, however; were serious, for the ordinary revenue was only sufficient to support a peace establishment, and a war with Holland had already been found enormously expensive. But the ingenuity of Ashley and Clifford soon discovered a resource. They closed the Shutting exchequer, and refused to pay the goldsmiths and bankers, exchequer. who had, according to custom, advanced money to the treasury, in anticipation of the parliamentary subsidies. This caused the bankers to fail in their engagements, and produced a long cessation of business; and, by this iniquitous proceeding, a

up of the

*Macaulay, I., 211-212; Lingard, XI., 350.

1672

the penal

laws against

sum of about £1,300,000 was placed at the disposal of the government. Meanwhile, rapid strides were made towards despotism. The Navigation Act was suspended by royal proclamation; the government took into its own hands the monopoly of certain articles of commerce; and, at length, the King went so far as to issue a Declaration, suspending, by his own Charles authority, the penal laws against Papists and Noncon- suspends formists; allowing the former to worship in their own Noncon houses, the latter to hold open meetings, in licensed formists. rooms. About the same time, a piratical attack was made upon the Dutch fleet from Smyrna, as it sailed up the Channel, in the hope of capturing further supplies for the coming war. But the attack failed, and Charles found himself covered with increased disgrace, both at home and abroad. The declaration of war against Holland immediately followed (March, 1672), Charles setting forth as pretexts-commercial injuries; refusal of the Dutch to strike to the English flag in the declared narrow seas; and Dutch libels upon his majesty. Louis, Holland. in his declaration, simply, but insolently, asserted that he disliked the Dutch republic, and that his glory required him to make war upon it.*

War

against

Southwold

29. The second Dutch war. The Dutch were the first to take the sea, where they maintained the struggle with honour. The Duke of York took the command of the English fleet; and having united with a French squadron, found the enemy lying near Ostend. But the skill of De Ruyter avoided an engagement, and when the English fleet retired to the coast, to take in further supplies of men and provisions, he came out, and a Battle of stubborn battle took place, in Southwold Bay (May 28th), Bay. in which the French had little share. The fight lasted the whole day, with little advantage to either side; the Duke of York was compelled to remove his flag successively to three ships, by the destruction of his vessels; and the Earl of Sandwich, and most of his crew, were lost in the Royal James, which was blown up by a fire-ship. On land, the Dutch were at first borne down by irresistible force. A great French army, under Turenne and Condé, passed the Rhine, and captured the chief fortresses on its banks; three out of the seven provinces of the republic The French were occupied by the invaders, and the French outposts Holland. established themselves in the neighbourhood of Amsterdam. In this crisis, the people were more more enraged against their own government than against the enemy; and although John De Macaulay, I., 223-224; Carrel, 98-99; Lingard, XII., 6-11.

*

overrun

regains

power.

De Witt and his brother murdered.

CHAP. XII.

Witt, the grand pensionary, had done all that man could do, in this hour of peril, popular discontent attributed to him all the misfortunes of the war. The Prince of Orange, then twenty-two years of age, was placed at the head of an army, and, from the first made himself conspicuous, by his ardent and unconquerable spirit, which, though it was disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon roused the courage of his dismayed countrymen. Nothing more was needed to recall to the nation all the merits of a family which had so long been dear to it. The Orange party became triumphant; Cornelius de Witt, the brother of the The Prince pensionary, was arrested upon an accusation of having of orange plotted against the life of Prince William; and when the pensionary went to his prison, at the Hague, to take him away (the judges having banished him), the populace tore both the brothers to pieces, before the palace gate. Suspicious as was this commencement of his great career, the young Prince of Orange proved the deliverer of his country. He rejected all the overtures of Charles and Louis, and spoke only a high and inspiring language to his countrymen ; and he suggested to them that, even if their country was destroyed, the nation might still take refuge in the farthest isles of Asia, and The Dutch emigrate, as one family, to their settlements in the Indian dykes and Archipelago. But before this, there was one other country. resource, which they immediately carried into operation -the dykes were opened, and the whole country was turned into one great lake, from which the cities, with their ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders, bereft of sustenance in that desert of sand and sea, made a precipitate retreat; the guilty league between England and France was powerless; and now the tide of fortune turned fast. Alarmed by the vast designs of Louis, both branches of the great house of General Austria sprang to arms; from every part of Germany French troops poured towards the Rhine; the English government had already expended all the funds which had been obtained by pillaging the public creditor; no loan could be expected from the city; an attempt to raise taxes, by royal authority, would have instantly produced a rebellion; and Louis, who had now to maintain a contest against half of Europe, was unable to furnish means for coercing the English people. It was essential that parliament should be again convoked, and it accordingly met, on the 5th of February, 1673.*

open their

flood the

alarm at

conquest.

30. Repeal of the Declaration of Indulgence. During the recess, * Macaulay, I., 255-258; Lingard, XII., 11-18; Carrel, 92-103.

1673

dispensing

Clifford had been raised to the peerage and made lord treasurer, and Ashley Cooper had been made Earl of Shaftesbury and lord chancellor, in the room of Bridgeman. On these two ministers the King chiefly depended, in his dealings with the re-assembled parliament. The country party first attacked the Declaration of Indulgence, solely on account of the motives which had prompted it, and the means by which it was pretended to be made effectual. It was generally understood to be an ancient prerogative Extent of of the crown to dispense with penal statutes, in favour of the particular persons, and under certain restrictions. The prerogative. King might stop any criminal prosecution commenced in his courts, or pardon any prisoner. But a pretension, in explicit terms, to suspend a body of statutes, and command the magistrates not to put them in execution, arrogated an absolute power which no benefits of indulgence could induce a lover of constitutional privileges to endure. It was also generally held, that the dispensing power was confined exclusively to secular matters; but the courtiers held that, in matters of religion, the royal supremacy was unlimited. But the Commons voted that The ecclethe King's prerogative, in matters ecclesiastical, does not prerogative extend to repeal acts of parliament, and they addressed cannot rehim to recall his Declaration. For a moment, Charles Parliament. was inclined to resist; but Louis advised him to yield, for the present; signs of disunion and treachery began to appear in the Cabal itself; and the Commons, in a second address, positively denied the King's right to suspend any law. Shaftesbury, with his proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand; he, therefore, turned suddenly round, and acknowledged, Shaftes in the House of Lords, that the Declaration was illegal. treachery to This compelled Charles at once to cancel the Declaration, the court. and he solemnly promised that it should never be drawn into precedent (March 8th, 1673).

peal acts of

bury's

31. The Test Act. Fall of the Cabal. The Commons, however, were not content, even with this concession, but extorted from Charles his unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which continued in force until the reign of George IV.

This law, called the Test Act, provided that all persons holding any office, civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy, should subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, and should publicly receive the sacrament, according to the rites of the Church of England. The preamble expressed hostility only to the papists; but the enacting clauses shut out also the Puritans, who, with much prudence and disinterestedness, supported this measure against the common enemy, and, in return, were promised relief from the persecuting laws against their worship, by the Dissenters' Relief Bill, which passed to the Lords, and would probably have been enacted, had not Charles prorogued the parliament (March 29th, 1673).

CHAP. XII

The effect of the Test Act was decisive. The Duke of York resigned his post of lord high admiral, and was succeeded by Rupert; Lord Clifford also resigned his office; and Schomberg and the papist officers were compelled to quit the army. In the

Second

of York.

midst of these changes, York secretly married the Duchess marriage of of Modena, a Roman Catholic princess, which, together with the failure of a second campaign against Holland, excited fierce opposition in parliament, when it re-assembled (October 20th, 1673). The Commons addressed the King, on his brother's marriage, and they resolved, among other matters, that no supply should be granted until the kingdom was rid of popery and popish counsels. When they drew up a second address (November 4th), the King summoned the Commons to attend him, in the House of Lords; a tumult took place, between his Tumult in messengers and the officers of the lower house, and the parliament. members, having first moved that the French alliance, the King's evil counsellors, and the Duke of Lauderdale were grievances, proceeded, in great confusion, to the upper house, where the King prorogued the parliament to the 7th of January, 1674. In the interval, Shaftesbury was dismissed, Buckingham retired, Arlington retreated into the service of the royal household, but Lauderdale remained in office. The Commons, having thus destroyed Holland. the Cabal, compelled the King to make peace with Holland (February 11th, 1674). Charles, in great annoyance, then prorogued parliament till April, 1675.*

Peace with

SECTION III.-THE DANBY ADMINISTRATION.

1674-1679.

I. THE SECRET ALLIANCE BETWEEN CHARLES AND

LOUIS.

32. Policy of the new administration. The failure of the conspiracy based upon the first part of the treaty of Dover, by the compulsory peace with Holland and the dissolution of the Cabal, compelled Charles to change his policy; and to act more cautiously in the prosecution of the great design. Papists must be openly persecuted, while they were secretly encouraged; the communications with Louis must be maintained, while English interests must be loudly advocated; and parliament must be corrupted and parties divided, until the day came for destroying its influence altogether by a coup d'état. In accordance with these double views, Sir Thomas Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had distinguished himself in the House of Commons by his * Macaulay, I., 228-233; Lingard, XII., 18-43; Hallam, II., 89-93; Carrel, 108-110.

*