afterwards Earl of Danby, which lasted from 1673 to 1679. Osborne was opposed to the French Alliance, but unwisely connived at his sovereign's venality. In 1678 Louis took offence at the marriage of Mary, daughter of the duke of York, with William, the young Prince of Orange, and withdrew Charles's pension. Not content with this, he exposed Danby's complicity in the secret negotiations with France, and procured the impeachment of that minister by the Commons. To save him Charles dissolved Parliament. 15. In 1678 the nation was thrown into a state of great excitement by the alleged discovery of a Popish plot. This ridiculous imposture originated with a profligate clergyman, named Titus Oates, who deposed before the Council that the Jesuits had entered into a conspiracy for the murder of the king, and named Coleman, secretary to the duchess of York, as one of the chief actors in it. Coleman's papers were immediately seized, but nothing could be proved from them, except that he had been engaged in a correspondence with the confessor of Louis XIV. on the re-conversion of England. In the midst of this excitement Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, a zealous Protestant magistrate, before whom Oates had first made his depositions, was mysteriously murdered. The Papists were instantly charged with his murder, and the belief in the conspiracy spread like a panic. A contemporary in describing Godfrey's funeral, says "There was all this time upheld among the common people an artificial fright, so as almost every one fancied a popish knife just at his throat. And at the sermon, besides the preacher, two other thumping divines stood upright in the pulpit, one on each side of him, to guard him from being killed while he was preaching by the Papists." Processions were made through the streets and effigies of the pope were carried about, "with the representation of the devil whispering in his ear, and wonderfully soothand caressing him." As soon as Parliament met, Oates was called before the Commons. He there repeated his former statements, and alleged that the queen's physician had engaged to 66 poison the king for 15,000l. He now tried to implicate the queen herself, and had the boldness to impeach her at the bar of the Commons. Aye, Taitus Oates," said he, in his drawling voice, accause Catherine, Queen of England, of haigh traison." The king, however, put a stop to this, and for a time caused Oates to be imprisoned. Coleman was convicted and executed, and numbers of Jesuits met with a similar fate. Lord Stafford was the last victim of this atrocious villany, which sent altogether fifteen innocent men to the scaffold. Oates was convicted of perjury in the following reign, and sentenced to undergo a punishment as brutal as it was illegal. "He was condemned to have his priestly habit taken from him, to be kept a prisoner for life, to be set in the pillory in all the public places through the city, and ever after that set in the pilory four times a-year, and to be whipped by the common hangman from Aldgate to Newgate on one day, and the next from Newgate to Tyburn." After the Revolution he was pardoned, and pensioned with 4007. per annum, a sum which by no means satisfied him, for Charles gave him 600%., 'and sure,' said he, William will give me more.' 66 16. Three parliaments met between 1679 and 1680; the first of which passed the celebrated Habeas Corpus Act, so called from the words with which it begins. It enacted (1) that no one should be sent to a prison beyond sea; (2) that no judge shall refuse a writ of habeas corpus, directing the gaoler to produce the body of his prisoner in court, and to certify the cause of his detention; (3) that every prisoner shall be indicted the first session after his commitment, or else admitted to bail, and if not indicted and tried the second session shall be acquitted; and (4) that no one after being released by order of the court shall be re-committed for the same offence. The popular party, availing themselves of the alarm caused by Oates's absurd fictions, made a strong effort to exclude the duke of York from the succession. A bill for the purpose twice passed the Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords. It was at this period the terms Whig and Tory first came into popular use. Their derivation is obscure, and their mean ing has considerably changed since the time when they first denoted political parties. According to one authority, Whig is derived from a Scotch word, whiggamor, one who drives horses. A party of these whiggamors marched to Edinburgh in 1648, to oppose the king and the duke of Hamilton, "and hence the name of Whig was given to the party opposed to the Court." As a party, the Whigs were the advocates of popular rights. Tory is said to be derived from an Irish word, denoting a robber, and was first applied to the Romanist banditti, who infested that country. The Tories were the stanch supporters of the royal prerogative, and of the hierarchy. In Charles's time they mostly held the doctrine of passive obedience. Occupying a middle ground between Whigs and Tories, were the Trimmers, headed by Halifax. 17. Failing to exclude James from the succession, some imprudent Whigs made an attempt to procure it for the duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles; but the project met with no sympathy, and for a time did great injury to the popular party. A reaction in favour of the Court set in, and, from this time to the end of the reign, Charles's rule was completely despotic. Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Lord Essex, Lord Russell, Algernon Sydney, and Hampden, alarmed at this change, consulted on the means to be employed for restoring a constitutional government. Shaftesbury was for resorting to force. He boasted that he would walk the king leisurely out of the kingdom, and make James a vagabond on the earth like Cain. His counsel, however, met with no encouragement; and, disgusted at his ill success, he withdrew to Holland, where he soon after died. A few reckless members of the party proposed among themselves to shoot the king from a place called Ryehouse, which he frequently passed in going to Newmarket. One of them turned informer, and implicated in the plot most of the Whig leaders. Russell, Essex, and Sydney were arrested. Monmouth was obliged to withdraw to Holland. Hateful to the king on account of his popularity, and to the duke of York for supporting the Exclusion Bill, Russell was sentenced to death, on the most insufficient evidence, and executed. Sydney met with the same fate. Essex committed suicide. 18. Early in 1685 Charles himself died, after lingering a few days, from an attack of apoplexy. Several of the bishops, who attended his death-bed, tried to persuade him to partake of the holy communion, but he steadfastly refused. A disguised priest ultimately administered to him the communion of the Romish Church, after, it is said, having extorted from him a promise to make an open declaration of his faith in case he should recover. The most absurd stories were circulated about the cause of his death. It was commonly believed at the time that he had been poisoned. Charles was tall, dark, and harsh-featured. Indolence, profligacy, and ingratitude were the most prominent features of his character. He hated public business, and sneered at patriotism. He held that all men are actuated by self-interest, and denied every obligation of gratitude. As despotically inclined as his brother, he had not the same courage to set the nation at defiance, nor the same energy to consummate his wishes. He is said to have been witty and agreeable; but these attractions scarcely suffice to make a man great or rescue vice from universal odium. One of his companions wrote for him the following epitaph, which, with the exception of the third line, is scarcely overdrawn :Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, Whose word no man relies on; Who never said a foolish thing, The influence of his example, combined with the reactionary tendencies which always follow a period of great restraint, led, in this reign, to a terrible decline in morality, from which the nation did not wholly recover until the next century. 19. Contemporaries.-France, Louis XIV.; Germany, Leopold I.; England, Milton, Dryden, and Butler, poets; Sir William Temple, statesman; Pepys and Evelyn, the authors of two valuable diaries. JAMES II. Born A.D. 1633; Reigned 3 years (1685-1688). 1. Family.-James was the second son of Charles I. He was twice married; first, to Anne, daughter of Lord Clarendon; and afterwards to Marie d'Este, daughter of the Duke of Modena, and familiarly known as "Italian Molly." By his first wife he had two daughters; Mary, who married the Prince of Orange, and Anne. By his second marriage he had only one son who reached maturity-the unfortunate James Francis Edward. It was commonly believed at the time that the young prince was not the son of James, but an infant palmed off as such by the Jesuits, to ensure a Romanist succession. 2. Chronicle.-As soon as James ascended the throne, he declared it his fixed intention to maintain the government both of church and state in its integrity. This intelligence was received by the nation with great joy, and the king's accession met with no opposition from any quarter. The old ministers of the crown were retained, and every assurance was given that could appease the anticipators of innovation. This contentment was not to continue long. The king shortly after issued several illegal proclamations, and on the second Sunday of his reign went in public to hear mass. The Duke of Norfolk, who in his official capacity had to bear the sword of state, stopped at the door of the chapel and refused to proceed any further. "My lord," said James, "your father would have gone further." "Your majesty's father," replied the duke, "would not have gone so far." 3. The laws affecting Romanists were suspended, and all those who had been imprisoned in the late reign, on religious grounds, were liberated. The Protestant Dissenters shared in this privilege, but not for long. Within three weeks of James's accession, Baxter, the great dissenting leader, was prosecuted for certain views H |