The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume IV Part 28

The way through the Borough to the bridge was lined by the Surrey militia; the way from the bridge to Walbrook by three regiments of the militia of the City. All along Cheapside, on the right hand and on the left, the livery were marshalled under the standards of their trades. At the east end of Saint Paul's churchyard stood the boys of the school of Edward the Sixth, wearing, as they still wear, the garb of the sixteenth century. Round the Cathedral, down Ludgate Hill and along Fleet Street, were drawn up three more regiments of Londoners. From Temple Bar to Whitehall gate the trainbands of Middles.e.x and the Foot Guards were under arms. The windows along the whole route were gay with tapestry, ribands and flags. But the finest part of the show was the innumerable crowd of spectators, all in their Sunday clothing, and such clothing as only the upper cla.s.ses of other countries could afford to wear. "I never," William wrote that evening to Heinsius, "I never saw such a mult.i.tude of welldressed people." Nor was the King less struck by the indications of joy and affection with which he was greeted from the beginning to the end of his triumph. His coach, from the moment when he entered it at Greenwich till he alighted from it in the court of Whitehall, was accompanied by one long huzza. Scarcely had he reached his palace when addresses of congratulation, from all the great corporations of his kingdom, were presented to him. It was remarked that the very foremost among those corporations was the University of Oxford.

The eloquent composition in which that learned body extolled the wisdom, the courage and the virtue of His Majesty, was read with cruel vexation by the nonjurors, and with exultation by the Whigs. [823]

The rejoicings were not yet over. At a council which was held a few hours after the King's public entry, the second of December was appointed to be the day of thanksgiving for the peace. The Chapter of Saint Paul's resolved that, on that day, their n.o.ble Cathedral, which had been long slowly rising on the ruins of a succession of pagan and Christian temples, should be opened for public worship. William announced his intention of being one of the congregation. But it was represented to him that, if he persisted in that intention, three hundred thousand people would a.s.semble to see him pa.s.s, and all the parish churches of London would be left empty. He therefore attended the service in his own chapel at Whitehall, and heard Burnet preach a sermon, somewhat too eulogistic for the place. [824] At Saint Paul's the magistrates of the City appeared in all their state. Compton ascended, for the first time, a throne rich with the sculpture of Gibbons, and thence exhorted a numerous and splendid a.s.sembly. His discourse has not been preserved; but its purport may be easily guessed; for he preached on that n.o.ble Psalm: "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord." He doubtless reminded his hearers that, in addition to the debt which was common to them with all Englishmen, they owed as Londoners a peculiar debt of grat.i.tude to the divine goodness, which had permitted them to efface the last trace of the ravages of the great fire, and to a.s.semble once more, for prayer and praise, after so many years, on that spot consecrated by the devotions of thirty generations. Throughout London, and in every part of the realm, even to the remotest parishes of c.u.mberland and Cornwall, the churches were filled on the morning of that day; and the evening was an evening of festivity. [825]

These was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had pa.s.sed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and vigour. Ten years before, it had seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary revolution. Her independence she had reconquered by a not less just and necessary war. She had successfully defended the order of things established by the Bill of Rights against the mighty monarchy of France, against the aboriginal population of Ireland, against the avowed hostility of the nonjurors, against the more dangerous hostility of traitors who were ready to take any oath, and whom no oath could bind.

Her open enemies had been victorious on many fields of battle. Her secret enemies had commanded her fleets and armies, had been in charge of her a.r.s.enals, had ministered at her altars, had taught at her Universities, had swarmed in her public offices, had sate in her Parliament, had bowed and fawned in the bedchamber of her King.

More than once it had seemed impossible that any thing could avert a restoration which would inevitably have been followed, first by proscriptions and confiscations, by the violation of fundamental laws, and the persecution of the established religion, and then by a third rising up of the nation against that House which two depositions and two banishments had only made more obstinate in evil. To the dangers of war and the dangers of treason had recently been added the dangers of a terrible financial and commercial crisis. But all those dangers were over. There was peace abroad and at home. The kingdom, after many years of ignominious va.s.salage, had resumed its ancient place in the first rank of European powers. Many signs justified the hope that the Revolution of 1688 would be our last Revolution. The ancient const.i.tution was adapting itself, by a natural, a gradual, a peaceful development, to the wants of a modern society. Already freedom of conscience and freedom of discussion existed to an extent unknown in any preceding age. The currency had been restored. Public credit had been reestablished. Trade had revived. The Exchequer was overflowing. There was a sense of relief every where, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among the mountains of Wales and the fens of Lincolnshire. The ploughmen, the shepherds, the miners of the Northumbrian coalpits, the artisans who toiled at the looms of Norwich and the anvils of Birmingham, felt the change, without understanding it; and the cheerful bustle in every seaport and every market town indicated, not obscurely, the commencement of a happier age.

[Footnote 1: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande, enrichie de planches tres curieuses, 1692; Wagenaar; London Gazette, Jan. 29. 1693; Burnet, ii. 71]

[Footnote 2: The names of these two great scholars are a.s.sociated in a very interesting letter of Bentley to Graevius, dated April 29. 1698.

"Sciunt omnes qui me norunt, et si vitam mihi Deus O.M. prorogaverit, scient etiam posteri, ut te et ton panu Spanhemium, geminos hujus aevi Dioscuros, lucida literarum sidera, semper praedicaverim, semper veneratus sim."]

[Footnote 3: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande 1692; London Gazette, Feb. 2. 1691,; Le Triomphe Royal ou l'on voit descrits les Arcs de Triomphe, Pyramides, Tableaux et Devises an Nombre de 65, erigez a la Haye a l'hounneur de Guillaume Trois, 1692; Le Carnaval de la Haye, 1691. This last work is a savage pasquinade on William.]

[Footnote 4: London Gazette, Feb. 5. 1693; His Majesty's Speech to the a.s.sembly of the States General of the United Provinces at the Hague the 7th of February N.S., together with the Answer of their High and Mighty Lordships, as both are extracted out of the Register of the Resolutions of the States General, 1691.]

[Footnote 5: Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majeste Britannique en Hollande; Burnet, ii. 72.; London Gazette, Feb. 12. 19. 23. 1690/1; Memoires du Comte de Dohna; William Fuller's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 6: Wagenaar, lxii.; Le Carnaval de la Haye, Mars 1691; Le Tabouret des Electeurs, April 1691; Ceremonial de ce qui s'est pa.s.se a la Haye entre le Roi Guillaume et les Electeurs de Baviere et de Brandebourg. This last tract is a MS. presented to the British Museum by George IV,]

[Footnote 7: London Gazette, Feb. 23. 1691.]

[Footnote 8: The secret article by which the Duke of Savoy bound himself to grant toleration to the Waldenses is in Dumont's collection. It was signed Feb. 8, 1691.]

[Footnote 9: London Gazette from March 26. to April 13. 1691; Monthly Mercuries of March and April; William's Letters to Heinsius of March 18. and 29., April 7. 9.; Dangeau's Memoirs; The Siege of Mons, a tragi-comedy, 1691. In this drama the clergy, who are in the interest of France, persuade the burghers to deliver up the town. This treason calls forth an indignant exclamation,

"Oh priestcraft, shopcraft, how do ye effeminate The minds of men!"]

[Footnote 10: Trial of Preston in the Collection of State Trials. A person who was present gives the following account of Somers's opening speech: "In the opening the evidence, there was no affected exaggeration of matters, nor ostentation of a putid eloquence, one after another, as in former trials, like so many geese cackling in a row. Here was nothing besides fair matter of fact, or natural and just reflections from thence arising." The pamphlet from which I quote these words is ent.i.tled, An Account of the late horrid Conspiracy by a Person who was present at the Trials, 1691.]

[Footnote 11: State Trials.]

[Footnote 12: Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton, at his execution, to Sir Francis Child, Sheriff of London; Answer to the Paper delivered by Mr.

Ashton. The Answer was written by Dr. Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester. Burnet, ii. 70.; Letter from Bishop Lloyd to Dodwell, in the second volume of Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa.]

[Footnote 13: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.]

[Footnote 14: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 71.]

[Footnote 15: Letter of Collier and Cook to Sancroft among the Tanner MSS.]

[Footnote 16: Caermarthen to William, February 3. 1690/1; Life of James, ii. 443.]

[Footnote 17: That this account of what pa.s.sed is true in substance is sufficiently proved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or two slight circ.u.mstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them from papers, now irrecoverably lost, which he had seen in the Scotch College at Paris.]

[Footnote 18: The success of William's "seeming clemency" is admitted by the compiler of the Life of James. The Prince of Orange's method, it is acknowledged, "succeeded so well that, whatever sentiments those Lords which Mr. Penn had named night have had at that time, they proved in effect most bitter enemies to His Majesty's cause afterwards."-ii. 443.]

[Footnote 19: See his Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Mar. 25., April 22., July 11. 1691; Burnet, ii. 71.; Letters of Rochester to Burnet, March 21. and April 2. 1691.]

[Footnote 20: Life of James, ii. 443. 450.; Legge Papers in the Mackintosh Collection.]

[Footnote 21: Burnet, ii. 71; Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 4. and 18. 1690,; Letter from Turner to Sancroft, Jan. 19. 1690/1; Letter from Sancroft to Lloyd of Norwich April 2. 1692. These two letters are among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian, and are printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman.

Turner's escape to France is mentioned in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary for February 1690. See also a Dialogue between the Bishop of Ely and his Conscience, 16th February 1690/1. The dialogue is interrupted by the sound of trumpets. The Bishop hears himself proclaimed a traitor, and cries out,

"Come, brother Pen, 'tis time we both were gone."]

[Footnote 22: For a specimen of his visions, see his Journal, page 13; for his casting out of devils, page 26. I quote the folio edition of 1765.]

[Footnote 23: Journal, page 4]

[Footnote 24: Ibid. page 7.]

[Footnote 25: "What they know, they know naturally, who turn from the command and err from the spirit, whose fruit withers, who saith that Hebrew, Greek, and Latine is the original: before Babell was, the earth was of one language; and Nimrod the cunning hunter, before the Lord which came out of cursed Ham's stock, the original and builder of Babell, whom G.o.d confounded with many languages, and this they say is the original who erred from the spirit and command; and Pilate had his original Hebrew, Greek and Latine, which crucified Christ and set over him."--A message from the Lord to the Parliament of England by G. Fox, 1654. The same argument will be found in the journals, but has been put by the editor into a little better English. "Dost thou think to make ministers of Christ by these natural confused languages which sprung from Babell, are admired in Babylon, and set atop of Christ, the Life, by a persecutor?"-Page 64.]

[Footnote 26: His journal, before it was published, was revised by men of more sense and knowledge than himself, and therefore, absurd as it is, gives us no notion of his genuine style. The following is a fair specimen. It is the exordium of one of his manifestoes. "Them which the world who are without the fear of G.o.d calls Quakers in scorn do deny all opinions, and they do deny all conceivings, and they do deny all sects, and they do deny all imaginations, and notions, and judgments which riseth out of the will and the thoughts, and do deny witchcraft and all oaths, and the world and the works of it, and their worships and their customs with the light, and do deny false ways and false worships, seducers and deceivers which are now seen to be in the world with the light, and with it they are condemned, which light leadeth to peace and life from death which now thousands do witness the new teacher Christ, him by whom the world was made, who raigns among the children of light, and with the spirit and power of the living G.o.d, doth let them see and know the chaff from the wheat, and doth see that which must be shaken with that which cannot be shaken nor moved, what gives to see that which is shaken and moved, such as live in the notions, opinions, conceivings, and thoughts and fancies these be all shaken and comes to be on heaps, which they who witness those things before mentioned shaken and removed walks in peace not seen and discerned by them who walks in those things unremoved and not shaken."--A Warning to the World that are Groping in the Dark, by G. Fox, 1655.]

[Footnote 27: See the piece ent.i.tled, Concerning Good morrow and Good even, the World's Customs, but by the Light which into the World is come by it made manifest to all who be in the Darkness, by G. Fox, 1657.]

[Footnote 28: Journal, page 166.]

[Footnote 29: Epistle from Harlingen, 11th of 6th month, 1677.]

[Footnote 30: Of Bowings, by G. Fox, 1657.]

[Footnote 31: See, for example, the Journal, pages 24. 26. and 51.]

[Footnote 32: See, for example, the Epistle to Sawkey, a justice of the peace, in the journal, page 86.; the Epistle to William Larnpitt, a clergyman, which begins, "The word of the Lord to thee, oh Lampitt,"

page 80.; and the Epistle to another clergyman whom he calls Priest Tatham, page 92.]

[Footnote 33: Journal, page 55.]

[Footnote 34: Ibid. Page 300.]

[Footnote 35: Ibid. page 323.]

[Footnote 36: Ibid. page 48.]

[Footnote 37: "Especially of late," says Leslie, the keenest of all the enemies of the sect, "some of them have made nearer advances towards Christianity than ever before; and among them the ingenious Mr. Penn has of late refined some of their gross notions, and brought them into some form, and has made them speak sense and English, of both which George Fox, their first and great apostle, was totally ignorant..... They endeavour all they can to make it appear that their doctrine was uniform from the beginning, and that there has been no alteration; and therefore they take upon them to defend all the writings of George Fox, and others of the first Quakers, and turn and wind them to make them (but it is impossible) agree with what they teach now at this day." (The Snake in the Gra.s.s, 3rd ed. 1698. Introduction.) Leslie was always more civil to his brother Jacobite Penn than to any other Quaker. Penn himself says of his master, "As abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would fall from him about divine things; it is well known they were often as texts to many fairer declarations." That is to say, George Fox talked nonsense and some of his friends paraphrased it into sense.]

[Footnote 38: In the Life of Penn which is prefixed to his works, we are told that the warrants were issued on the 16th of January 1690, in consequence of an accusation backed by the oath of William Fuller, who is truly designated as a wretch, a cheat and. an impostor; and this story is repeated by Mr. Clarkson. It is, however, certainly false.

Caermarthen, writing to William on the 3rd of February, says that there was then only one witness against Penn, and that Preston was that one witness. It is therefore evident that Fuller was not the informer on whose oath the warrant against Penn was issued. In fact Fuller appears from his Life of himself, to have been then at the Hague. When Nottingham wrote to William on the 26th of June, another witness had come forward.]

[Footnote 39: Sidney to William, Feb. 27. 1690,. The letter is in Dalrymple's Appendix, Part II. book vi. Narcissus Luttrell in his Diary for September 1691, mentions Penn's escape from Sh.o.r.eham to France. On the 5th of December 1693 Narcissus made the following entry: "William Penn the Quaker, having for some time absconded, and having compromised the matters against him, appears now in public, and, on Friday last, held forth at the Bull and Month, in Saint Martin's." On December 18/28.

1693 was drawn up at Saint Germains, under Melfort's direction, a paper containing a pa.s.sage of which the following is a translation