Constitutional History of England Volume II Part 31

[710] The letters of Barillon in Dalrymple (pp. 134, 136, 140) are sufficient proofs of this. He imputes to Danby in one place (p. 142) the design of making the king absolute, and says: "M. le duc d'York se croit perdu pour sa religion, si l'occasion presente ne lui sert a soumettre l'Angleterre; c'est une entreprise fort hardie, et dont le succes est fort doutex." Of Charles himself he says: "Le roi d'Angleterre balance encore a se porter a l'extremite; son humeur repugne fort au dessein de changer le gouvernement. Il est neanmoins entraine par M. le duc d'York et par le grand tresorier; mais dans le fond il aimeroit mieux que la paix le mit en etat de demeurer en repos, et retablir ses affaires, c'est a dire, un bon revenu; et je crois qu'il ne se soucie pas beaucoup d'etre plus absolu qu'il est. Le duc et le tresorier connoissent bien a qui ils ont affaire, et craignent d'etre abandonnes par le roi d'Angleterre aux premiers obstacles considerables qu'ils trouveront au dessein de relever l'autorite royale en Angleterre." On this pa.s.sage it may be observed, that there is reason to believe there was no co-operation, but rather a great distrust at this time between the Duke of York and Lord Danby.

But Barillon had no doubt taken care to infuse into the minds of the opposition those suspicions of that minister's designs.

[711] Barillon appears to have favoured the opposition rather than the Duke of York, who urged the keeping up of the army. This was also the great object of the king, who very reluctantly disbanded it in Jan.

1679. Dalrymple, 207, etc.

[712] This delicate subject is treated with great candour as well as judgment by Lord John Russell, in his _Life of William Lord Russell_.

[713] _Parl. Hist._ 1035; Dalrymple, 200.

[714] Louis XIV. tells us, that Sidney had made proposals to France in 1666 for an insurrection, and asked 100,000 crowns to effect it; which was thought too much for an experiment. He tried to persuade the ministers, that it was against the interest of France that England should continue a monarchy. _Oeuvres de Louis XIV._ ii. 204.

[715] Dalrymple, 162.

[716] His exclamation at Barillon's pressing the reduction of the army to 8000 men is well known: "G.o.d's fish! are all the King of France's promises to make me master of my subjects come to this! or does he think that a matter to be done with 8000 men!" Temple says, "He seemed at this time (May 1678) more resolved to enter into the war than I had ever before seen or thought him."

[717] Dalrymple, 178 _et post_.

[718] _Memoirs relating to the Impeachment of the Earl of Danby_, 1710, pp. 151, 227; _State Trials_, vol. xi.

[719] The violence of the next House of Commons, who refused to acquiesce in Danby's banishment, to which the Lords had changed their bill of attainder, may seem to render this very doubtful. But it is to be remembered that they were exasperated by the pardon he had clandestinely obtained, and pleaded in bar of their impeachment.

[720] The impeachment was carried by 179 to 116, Dec. 19. A motion (Dec. 21) to leave out the word traitorously was lost by 179 to 141.

[721] Lords' Journals, Dec. 26, 1678. Eighteen peers entered their protests; Halifax, Ess.e.x, Shaftesbury, etc.

[722] _State Trials_, vi. 351 _et post_; Hatsell's _Precedents_, iv.

176.

[723] Lords' Journals, April 16.

[724] "The lord privy seal, Anglesea, in a conference between the two houses," said, "that, in the transaction of this affair, were two great points gained by this House of Commons: the first was, that impeachments made by the Commons in one parliament continued from session to session, and parliament to parliament, notwithstanding prorogations or dissolutions: the other point was, that in cases of impeachments, upon special matter shown, if the modesty of the party directs him not to withdraw, the Lords admit that of right they ought to order him to withdraw, and that afterwards he ought to be committed. But he understood that the Lords did not intend to extend the points of withdrawing and committing to general impeachments without special matter alleged; else they did not know how many might be picked out of their house on a sudden."

Shaftesbury said, indecently enough, that they were as willing to be rid of the Earl of Danby as the Commons; and cavilled at the distinction between general and special impeachments. Commons'

Journals, April 12, 1679. On the impeachment of Scroggs for treason, in the next parliament, it was moved to commit him; but the previous question was carried, and he was admitted to bail; doubtless because no sufficient matter was alleged. Twenty peers protested. Lords'

Journals, Jan. 7, 1681.

[725] Lords' Journals, April 25; _Parl. Hist._ 1121, etc.

[726] Lords' Journals, May 9, 1679.

[727] Lords' Journals, May 10 and 11. After the former vote 50 peers, out of 107 who appear to have been present, entered their dissent; and another, the Earl of Leicester, is known to have voted with the minority. The unusual strength of opposition, no doubt, produced the change next day.

[728] May 13. Twenty-one peers were entered as dissentient. The Commons inquired whether it were intended by this that the bishops should vote on the pardon of Danby, which the upper house declined to answer, but said they could not vote on the trial of the five popish lords, May 15, 17, 27.

[729] See the report of a committee in Journals, May 26; or Hatsell's _Precedents_, iv. 374.

[730] 13 W. III. c. 2.

[731] _Parl. Hist._ vii. 283. Mr. Lechmere, a very ardent whig, then solicitor-general, and one of the managers on the impeachment, had most confidently denied this prerogative. _Id._ 233.

[732] Instead of the words in the order, "from the proceedings of any other court," the following are inserted, "or any other business wherein their lordships act as in a court of judicature, and not in their legislative capacity." The importance of this alteration as to the question of impeachment is obvious.

[733] Lords' Journals.

[734] Lords' Journals. Seventy-eight peers were present.

[735] _Id._ 4th Dec. 1680.

[736] Lords' Journ. March 24, 1681. The very next day the Commons sent a message to demand judgment on the impeachment against him. Com.

Journ. March 25.

[737] Shower's _Reports_, ii. 335. "He was bailed to appear at the Lords' bar the first day of the then next parliament." The catholic lords were bailed the next day. This proves that the impeachment was not held to be at an end.

[738] Lords' Journals, May 22, 1685.

[739] Upon considering the proceedings in the House of Lords on this subject, Oct. 6 and 30, 1690, and especially the protest signed by eight peers on the latter day, there can be little doubt that their release had been chiefly grounded on the act of grace, and not on the abandonment of the impeachment.

[740] Bishop Parker is not wrong in saying that the House of Commons had so long accustomed themselves to strange fictions about popery, that, upon the first discovery of Oates's plot, they readily believed everything he said; for they had long expected whatever he declared.

_Hist. sui temp._ p. 248 (of the translation).

[741] _Parl. Hist._ 1024, 1035; _State Trials_, vii. 1; Kennet, 327, 337, 351; North's _Examen_, 129, 177; Ralph, 386; Burnet, i. 555.

Scroggs tried Coleman with much rudeness and partiality; but his summing up in reference to the famous pa.s.sage in the letters is not deficient in acuteness. In fact, this not only convicted Coleman, but raised a general conviction of the truth of a plot--and a plot there was, though not Oates's.

[742] _Examen_, p. 196.

[743] R. v. Farwell and others; _State Trials_, viii. 1361. They were indicted for publishing some letters to prove that G.o.dfrey had killed himself. They defended themselves by calling witnesses to prove the truth of the fact, which, though in a case of libel, Pemberton allowed. But their own witnesses proved that G.o.dfrey's body had all the appearance of being strangled.

The Roman catholics gave out, at the time of G.o.dfrey's death, that he had killed himself; and hurt their own cause by foolish lies. North's _Examen_, p. 200.

[744] It was deposed by a respectable witness, that G.o.dfrey entertained apprehensions on account of what he had done as to the plot, and had said, "On my conscience, I believe I shall be the first martyr." _State Trials_, vii. 168. These little additional circ.u.mstances, which are suppressed by later historians, who speak of the plot as unfit to impose on any but the most bigoted fanatics, contributed to make up a body of presumptive and positive evidence, from which human relief is rarely withheld.

It is remarkable that the most acute and diligent historian we possess for those times, Ralph, does not in the slightest degree pretend to account for G.o.dfrey's death; though, in his general reflections on the plot (p. 555) he relies too much on the a.s.sertions of North and l'Estrange.

[745] _State Trials_, vii. 259; North's _Examen_, 240.

[746] _State Trials_, vol. vii. _pa.s.sim_. On the trial of Green, Berry, and Hill, for G.o.dfrey's murder, part of the story for the prosecution was, that the body was brought to Hill's lodgings on the Sat.u.r.day, and remained there till Monday. The prisoner called witnesses who lodged in the same house, to prove that it could not have been there without their knowledge. Wild, one of the judges, a.s.suming, as usual, the truth of the story as beyond controversy, said it was very suspicious that they should see or hear nothing of it; and another, Dolben, told them it was well they were not indicted. _Id._ 199. Jones, summing up the evidence on Sir Thomas Gascoigne's trial at York (an aged catholic gentleman, most improbably accused of accession to the plot), says to the jury: "Gentlemen, you have the king's witness on his oath; he that testifies against him is barely on his word, and he is a papist" (_Id._ 1039): thus deriving an argument from an iniquitous rule, which, at that time, prevailed in our law, of refusing to hear the prisoner's witnesses upon oath. Gascoigne, however, was acquitted.

It would swell this note to an unwarrantable length, were I to extract so much of the trials as might fully exhibit all the instances of gross partiality in the conduct of the judges. I must, therefore, refer my readers to the volume itself, a standing monument of the necessity of the revolution; not only as it rendered the judges independent of the Crown, but as it brought forward those principles of equal and indifferent justice, which can never be expected to flourish but under the shadow of liberty.

[747] _State Trials_, 119, 315, 344.

[748] Roger North, whose long account of the popish plot is, as usual with him, a medley of truth and lies, acuteness and absurdity, represents his brother, the chief justice, as perfectly immaculate in the midst of this degradation of the bench. The _State Trials_, however, show that he was as partial and unjust towards the prisoners as any of the rest, till the government thought it necessary to interfere. The moment when the judges veered round, was on the trial of Sir George Wakeman, physician to the queen. Scroggs, who had been infamously partial against the prisoners upon every former occasion, now treated Oates and Bedloe as they deserved, though to the aggravation of his own disgrace. _State Trials_, vii. 619-686.

[749] _State Trials_, 1552; _Parl. Hist._ 1229. Stafford, though not a man of much ability, had rendered himself obnoxious as a prominent opposer of all measures intended to check the growth of popery. His name appears constantly in protests upon such occasions; as, for instance, March 3, 1678, against the bill for raising money for a French war. Reresby praises his defence very highly. P. 108. The Duke of York, on the contrary, or his biographer, observes: "Those who wished Lord Stafford well were of opinion that, had he managed the advantages which were given him with dexterity, he would have made the greatest part of his judges ashamed to condemn him; but it was his misfortune to play his game worst, when he had the best cards."--P.

637.

[750] I take this from extracts out of those sermons, contained in a Roman catholic pamphlet printed in 1687, and ent.i.tled "Good Advice to the Pulpits." The protestant divines did their cause no good by misrepresentation of their adversaries, and by their propensity to rudeness and scurrility. The former fault indeed existed in a much greater degree on the opposite side, but by no means the latter. See also a treatise by Barlow, published in 1679, ent.i.tled, "Popish Principles pernicious to Protestant Princes."