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CHAP.

XI.

Danby.

Continental politics, was in his hands. His English counsellors, therefore, however able and active, seldom, during his reign, ventured to meddle with that part of the public business which he had taken as his peculiar province.*

The internal government of England could be carried on only by the advice and agency of English ministers. Those ministers William selected in such a manner as showed that he was determined not to proscribe any set of men who were willing to support his throne. On the day after the crown had been presented to him in the Banqueting House, the Privy Council was sworn in. Most of the Councillors were Whigs: but the names of several eminent Tories appeared in the list.† The four highest offices in the state were assigned to four noblemen, the representatives of four classes of politicians. In practical ability and official experience Danby had no superior among his contemporaries. To the gratitude of the new Sovereigns he had a strong claim; for it was by his dexterity that their marriage had been brought about in spite of difficulties which had seemed insuperable. The enmity which he had always borne to France was a scarcely less powerful recommendation. He had signed the invitation of the thirtieth of June, had excited and directed the Northern insurrection, and had, in the Convention, exerted all his influence and eloquence in opposition to the scheme of Regency. Yet the Whigs regarded him with unconquerable distrust and aversion. They could not forget that he had, in evil days, been the first minister of the state, the head of the Cavaliers, the champion of prerogative, the persecutor of dissenters. Even in becoming a rebel, he had not ceased to be a Tory. If he had drawn the sword against the crown, he had drawn it only in defence of the Church. If he had, in the Convention, done good by opposing the scheme of Regency, he had done harm by obstinately maintaining that the throne was not vacant, and that the Estates had no right to determine who should fill it. The Whigs were therefore of opinion that he ought to think himself amply rewarded for his recent merits by being suffered to escape the punishment of those offences for which he had been impeached ten years before. He, on the other hand, estimated his own abilities and services,

The following passage in a tract of that time expresses the general opinion. "He has better knowledge of foreign affairs than we have; but in English business it is no dishonour to him to be

told his relation to us, the nature of it, and what is fit for him to do.”—An Honest Commoner's Speech.

† London Gazette, Feb. 18. 168.

which were doubtless considerable, at their full value, and thought himself entitled to the great place of Lord High Treasurer, which he had formerly held. But he was disappointed. William, on principle, thought it desirable to divide the power and patronage of the Treasury among several Commissioners. He was the first English King who never, from the beginning to the end of his reign, trusted the white staff in the hands of a single subject. Danby was offered his choice between the Presidency of the Council and a Secretaryship of State. He sullenly accepted the Presidency, and, while the Whigs murmured at seeing him placed so high, hardly attempted to conceal his anger at not having been placed higher.*

CHAP.

XI.

Halifax, the most illustrious man of that small party which Halifax. boasted that it kept the balance even between Whigs and Tories, took charge of the Privy Seal, and continued to be Speaker of the House of Lords.† He had been foremost in strictly legal opposition to the late Government, and had spoken and written with great ability against the dispensing power: but he had refused to know any thing about the design of invasion: he had laboured, even when the Dutch were in full march towards London, to effect a reconciliation; and he had never deserted James till James had deserted the throne. But, from the moment of that shameful flight, the sagacious Trimmer, convinced that compromise was thenceforth impossible, had taken a decided part. He had distinguished himself preeminently in the Convention; nor was it without a peculiar propriety that he had been appointed to the honourable office of tendering the crown, in the name of all the Estates of England, to the Prince and Princess of Orange: for our Revolution, as far as it can be said to bear the character of any single mind, assuredly bears the character of the large yet cautious mind of Halifax. The Whigs, however, were not in a temper to accept a recent service as an atonement for an old offence; and the offence of Halifax had been grave indeed. He had long before been conspicuous in their front rank during a hard fight for liberty. When they were at length victorious, when it seemed that Whitehall was at their mercy, when they had a near prospect of dominion and revenge, he had changed sides; and fortune had changed sides with him. In the great debate on the Exclusion Bill,

* London Gazette, Feb. 18. 168; Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.

London Gazette, Feb. 18. 1688;
Lords' Journals.

CHAP.

XI.

Nottingham.

his eloquence had struck the Opposition dumb, and had put new life into the inert and desponding party of the Court. It was true that, though he had left his old friends in the day of their insolent prosperity, he had returned to them in the day of their distress. But, now that their distress was over, they forgot that he had returned to them, and remembered only that he had left them.*

The vexation with which they saw Danby presiding in the Council, and Halifax bearing the Privy Seal, was not diminished by the news that Nottingham was appointed Secretary of State. Some of those zealous churchmen who had never ceased to profess the doctrine of nonresistance, who thought the Revolution unjustifiable, who had voted for a Regency, and who had to the last maintained that the English throne could never be one moment vacant, yet conceived it to be their duty to submit to the decision of the Convention. They had not, they said, rebelled against James. They had not elected William. But, now that they saw on the throne a Sovereign whom they never would have placed there, they were of opinion that no law, divine or human, bound them to carry the contest further. They thought that they found, both in the Bible and in the Statute Book, directions which could not be misunderstood. The Bible enjoins obedience to the powers that be. The Statute Book contains an Act providing that no subject shall be deemed a wrongdoer for adhering to the King in possession. On these grounds many, who had not concurred in setting up the new government, believed that they might give it their support without offence to God or man. One of the most eminent politicians of this school was Nottingham. At his instance the Convention had, before the throne was filled, made such changes in the oath of allegiance as enabled him and those who agreed with him to take that oath without scruple. "My principles," he said, "do not permit me to bear any part in making a King. But when a King has been made, my principles bind me to pay him an obedience more strict than he can expect from those who have made him." He now, to the surprise of some of those who most esteemed him, consented to sit in the council, and to accept the seals of Secretary. William doubtless hoped that this appointment would be considered by the clergy and the Tory country gentlemen as a sufficient guarantee that no evil was meditated against the Church. Even Burnet, who at a later period

* Burnet, ii. 4.

XI.

felt a strong antipathy to Nottingham, owned, in some me- CHAP. moirs written soon after the Revolution, that the King had judged well, and that the influence of the Tory Secretary, honestly exerted in support of the new Sovereigns, had saved England from great calamities.*

No man so young Shrews

The other secretary was Shrewsbury.+ had within living memory occupied so high a post in the bury. government. He had but just completed his twenty-eighth year. Nobody, however, except the solemn formalists at the Spanish embassy, thought his youth an objection to his promotion. He had already secured for himself a place in history by the conspicuous part which he had taken in the deliverance of his country. His talents, his accomplishments, his graceful manners, his bland temper, made him generally popular. By the Whigs especially he was almost adored. None suspected that, with many great and many amiable qualities, he had such faults both of head and of heart as would make the rest of a life which had opened under the fairest auspices burdensome to himself and almost useless to

his country.

The naval administration and the financial administration The Board were confided to Boards. Herbert was First Commissioner of of Admiralty. the Admiralty. He had in the late reign given up wealth and dignities when he had found that he could not retain them with honour and with a good conscience. He had carried the memorable invitation to the Hague. He had commanded the Dutch fleet during the voyage from Helvoetsluys to Torbay. His character for courage and professional skill stood high. That he had had his follies and vices was well known. But his recent conduct in the time of severe trial had atoned for

These memoirs will be found in a manuscript volume, which is part of the Harleian Collection, and is numbered 6584. They are in fact, the first outlines of a great part of Burnet's History of His Own Times. The dates at which the different portions of this most curious and interesting book were composed are marked. Almost the whole was written before the death of Mary. Burnet did not begin to prepare his History of William's Reign for the press till ten years later. By that time his opinions, both of men and of things, had undergone considerable changes. The value of the rough draught is therefore very great: for it contains some facts which he afterwards thought

it advisable to suppress, and some
judgments which he afterwards saw
cause to alter. I must own that I
generally like his first thoughts best.
Whenever his History is reprinted, it
ought to be carefully collated with this
volume.

When I refer to the Burnet MS. Harl.
6584, I wish the reader to understand
that the MS. contains something which
is not to be found in the History.

As to Nottingham's appointment, see
Burnet, ii. 8.; the London Gazette of
March 7. 1683; and Clarendon's Diary
of Feb. 15.

London Gazette, Feb. 18. 168.
Don Pedro de Ronquillo makes
this objection.

CHAP.
XI.

The Board of Trea

sury.

The Great Seal.

all, and seemed to warrant the hope that his future career would be glorious. Among the commissioners who sate with him at the Admiralty were two distinguished members of the House of Commons, William Sacheverell, a veteran Whig, who had great authority in his party, and Sir John Lowther, an honest and very moderate Tory, who in fortune and parliamentary interest was among the first of the English gentry.* Mordaunt, one of the most vehement of the Whigs, was placed at the head of the Treasury; why, it is difficult to say. His romantic courage, his flighty wit, his eccentric invention, his love of desperate risks and startling effects, were not qualities likely to be of much use to him in financial calculations and negotiations. Delamere, a more vehement Whig, if possible, than Mordaunt, sate second at the board, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Two Whig members of the House of Commons were in the Commission, Sir Henry Capel, brother of that Earl of Essex who died by his own hand in the Tower, and Richard Hampden, son of the great leader of the Long Parliament. But the Commissioner on whom the chief weight of business lay was Godolphin. This man, taciturn, clearminded, laborious, inoffensive, zealous for no government, and useful to every government, had gradually become an almost indispensable part of the machinery of the state. Though a churchman, he had prospered in a Court governed by Jesuits. Though he had voted for a Regency, he was the real head of a Treasury filled with Whigs. His abilities and knowledge, which had in the late reign supplied the deficiencies of Bellasyse and Dover, were now needed to supply the deficiencies of Mordaunt and Delamere.†

There were some difficulties in disposing of the Great Seal. The King at first wished to confide it to Nottingham, whose father had borne it during several years with high reputation. Nottingham, however, declined the trust; and it was offered to Halifax, but was again declined. Both these lords doubtless felt that it was a trust which they could not discharge with honour to themselves or with advantage to the public. In old times, indeed, the Seal had been generally held by persons who were not lawyers. Even in the seventeenth

* London Gazette, March 11. 168.
+ Ibid.

I have followed what seems to me
the most probable story. But it has
been doubted whether Nottingham was
invited to be Chancellor, or only to be

First Commissioner of the Great Seal. Compare Burnet, ii. 3., and Boyer's History of William, 1702. Narcissus Luttrell repeatedly, and even as late as the close of 1692, speaks of Nottingham as likely to be Chancellor.

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