save their lives and fortunes at the expense of the friends they had encouraged to join in their schemes, they never scrupled to accuse the innocent or reveal the most private letters of their confederates. A disposition so like his own endeared the duke to his father, and he was on the eve of renewing all his former influence when the jealousy of James was awakened. He protested against his nephew's presence in London, and the disappointed courtier became a patriot again. He returned to Holland, the refuge of the oppressed, and protested against the tyranny whose favours he could not share. Scotland, also, had sent over her discontented sons, but of far more honourable natures than the miserable offspring of a harlot and a buffoon. Endurance in that illfated country had reached its limits. Bailey of Jerviswood was convicted on illegal evidence of being a Whig, and, as he was so old and so enfeebled that he might die a natural death if the punishment were long delayed, he was executed on the day of his condemnation. Torture was daily administered to the adherents of the kirk and conventicle, and barren isles in the stormy firths were peopled with thousands of the Cameronians, who perished by cruelty and neglect. Gentlemen of high birth-Scott of Galashiels, Pringle of Torwoodlee, and other proprietors in Selkirkshire-were alarmed or racked into confession; and William of Orange, looking round his apartment at the Hague, and seeing the nobility, wealth, and influence of the two kingdoms represented by the refugees from such hideous oppression, might be pardoned if he already felt a desire to overthrow so unhallowed a dominion, and bring peace and freedom to those distracted countries. Nor was his interest in these great questions remote or unfounded; for his wife, in case of the exclusion or death of her father, was heir-apparent to the crown.

§ 24. But this reign fortunately is drawing to a close, for the period of the "Merry Monarch" is the most melancholy date in our annals. The fugitive of Worcester and exile

A.D. 1684-1685.] ATROCIOUS CRUELTIES OF THE KING. 629

of Breda had made himself an absolute king. Parliaments were abolished, and public opinion crushed by pillory and torture. A little glimpse of satisfaction reaches us from the sight of Titus Oates tried, bullied, and convicted by his former patron, Jeffreys, and fined a hundred thousand pounds for a libel on the Duke of York. The fine was a mere excuse for indefinite confinement, for the sentence included imprisonment till the full amount was paid; but in all other quarters the horizon was hopelessly dark. The frivolous and ungenerous king was to be succeeded by a serious bigot, who would consider generosity a crime, and men's hearts were variously affected when the news spread that Charles had had a fit, and was dying. The Whigs saw an aggravation of their present state, and even the Tories doubted whether their submission would save them and the religion they professed from so zealous a servant of the papacy. Charles recovered his consciousness, and knew his hour was come. One of his favourites, the foreign Duchess of Portsmouth, was anxious for the rites of the Church, and told the French ambassador the king had long been a Catholic. What was to be done? The dying conch was surrounded by English bishops, and it was illegal or indeed unsafe for a confessor to officiate. In this distress a priest was disguised and smuggled into the room (by the door which used to give admission to the dissolute beauties who visited the king), and administered the last offices of the Church, while the lords and bishops in waiting were huddled into a neighbouring closet, from which nothing could be seen of what was going on. Having thus delivered his conscience by conformity to Rome, he carried on the hypocrisy to the end, of listening to the prayers and admonitions of the Protestant prelates. He made an edifying confession of his behaviour to his wife, which was in some degree qualified by the blessings he bestowed on his natural sons, and their bronzed and infamous mothers. One only trait of tenderness on this occasion redeems the heart

lessness of the scene. He thought of the beautiful actress, Nell Gwynne, whom he had not had time to provide for, and said "Don't let poor Nelly starve." He died on the 6th of February, having done more to lower the character of his kingdom, and undermine the morality as well as the liberties of his people, than any of our kings. "In truth, he was a jolly king," and laughed in a free and easy manner at all the restraints of law or religion. For a long time people thought there could be no great harm in a man who had a squeeze of the hand for every visitor, and a jest for every occasion; but it was found, before the end of his career, that in England as well as Denmark, a man can smile, and smile, and be a villain,"-the villany being the more dangerous and infectious from the smile with which it was accompanied. The witty epigram of his courtier may be quoted in serious faith as his epitaph:

66

§ 1. Accession of James II. Struggles between the supremacy of the crown and the liberties of the people. Papists and Puritans. § 2. James's declaration in favour of the Protestant Church, which is falsified by his conduct. Assumes the power of dispensing with the laws. Punishment of Titus Oates -§ 3. The measures adopted by James to raise supplies.-§ 4. Rebellion in England and Scotland. Invasion of the Dukes of Argyle and Monmouth. They are both defeated and executed.—§ 5. Judge Jeffreys and the "Bloody Assizes." His heartless cruelties. Execution of Lady Alice Lisle. $6. Jeffreys' sanguinary career.-§ 7. Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Its important results.-§ 8. James assumes the power of dispensing with the laws, restores the Roman Catholic services, and establishes religious orders. § 9. Increasing prevalence of the Romish religion. - § 10. James's despotic measures at Oxford.§ 11. His proceeding against the seven bishops for petitioning against the Declaration of Indulgence." Resistance to the reading of the Declaration; the bishops committed to the Tower. Their trial and acquittal.-§ 12. Feeling exhibited by the army. James's power at an end. Invitation to the Prince of Orange. The royal issue suspected to be spurious.-§ 13. James's terror and pretended repentance. The Prince of Orange lands at Torbay.§ 14. The king, forsaken by his relatives and friends, flies ignominiously from the kingdom, and thus abdicates the throne.

§ 1. THE war between the supremacy of the crown and the liberties of the people, which, with the brief interval of the

Commonwealth, had lasted since the accession of James I., was continued with greater bitterness than ever after the death of Charles II. The idle sensualist, who coveted unlimited power for the gratification of his tastes and passions, was succeeded by a sincere zealot, who desired to enslave his people, that he might place them, bound hand and foot, at the footstool of the Pope. It was fortunate for England that his ultimate object was incapable of concealment, for the fear of Rome was more effectual in arming the public feeling against him than if his efforts had been limited to his personal claims. The papist, in fact, was more feared than the despot. The strange thing to us-who look upon our freedom as unassailable by friend or foe, and can scarcely conceive a time when it was in danger-is to see, in the few years of this reign, how nearly the battle was lost.

The great cause of this was the immorality which had sapped the foundations of society and the honour of public men during the last reign. The overstrained preciseness of the Puritans had driven the Cavaliers, and all who pretended to be gentlemen, into the opposite extreme. Everything was debauched—manners, books, theatres, court, and camp. There was nothing left, except in some few quaint old manor-houses and distant farms, on which to build up the family connection, and without that free government is impossible. The hearthstone of the dwelling-house is the altar of national liberty. In this state of sentiment and conduct came James, furious with a real faith-a man with a belief, and what his Ironside predecessor would have named a call. His call was to restore the Catholic Church; and the means he used were the religious indifference of the upper classes, the fear of fanaticism, the machinery of an established government, and the divinity which hedged a king.

§ 2. His proclamation was received with applause; his declaration also of attachment to the Church of England and principles of moderation encouraged the hopes of the nation;