The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume III Part 12

His place was supplied by Captain Munro, and the contest went on with undiminished fury. A party of the Cameronians sallied forth, set fire to the houses from which the fatal shots had come, and turned the keys in the doors. In one single dwelling sixteen of the enemy were burnt alive.

Those who were in the fight described it as a terrible initiation for recruits. Half the town was blazing; and with the incessant roar of the guns were mingled the piercing shrieks of wretches perishing in the flames. The struggle lasted four hours. By that time the Cameronians were reduced nearly to their last flask of powder; but their spirit never flagged. "The enemy will soon carry the wall. Be it so. We will retreat into the house: we will defend it to the last; and, if they force their way into it, we will burn it over their heads and our own."

But, while they were revolving these desperate projects, they observed that the fury of the a.s.sault slackened. Soon the highlanders began to fall back: disorder visibly spread among them; and whole bands began to march off to the hills. It was in vain that their general ordered them to return to the attack. Perseverance was not one of their military virtues. The Cameronians meanwhile, with shouts of defiance, invited Amalek and Moab to come back and to try another chance with the chosen people. But these exhortations had as little effect as those of Cannon.

In a short time the whole Gaelic army was in full retreat towards Blair.

Then the drums struck up: the victorious Puritans threw their caps into the air, raised, with one voice, a psalm of triumph and thanksgiving, and waved their colours, colours which were on that day unfurled for the first time in the face of an enemy, but which have since been proudly borne in every quarter of the world, and which are now embellished with the Sphinx and the Dragon, emblems of brave actions achieved in Egypt and in China, [379]

The Cameronians had good reason to be joyful and thankful; for they had finished the rear. In the rebel camp all was discord and dejection. The Highlanders blamed Cannon: Cannon blamed the Highlanders; and the host which had been the terror of Scotland melted fast away. The confederate chiefs signed an a.s.sociation by which they declared themselves faithful subjects of King James, and bound themselves to meet again at a future time. Having gone through this form,--for it was no more,--they departed, each to his home. Cannon and his Irishmen retired to the Isle of Mull. The Lowlanders who had followed Dundee to the mountains shifted for themselves as they best could. On the twenty-fourth of August, exactly four weeks after the Gaelic army had won the battle of Killiecrankie, that army ceased to exist. It ceased to exist, as the army of Montrose had, more than forty years earlier, ceased to exist, not in consequence of any great blow from without, but by a natural dissolution, the effect of internal malformation. All the fruits of victory were gathered by the vanquished. The Castle of Blair, which had been the immediate object of the contest, opened its gates to Mackay; and a chain of military posts, extending northward as far as Inverness, protected the cultivators of the plains against the predatory inroads of the mountaineers.

During the autumn the government was much more annoyed by the Whigs of the low country, than by the Jacobites of the hills. The Club, which had, in the late session of Parliament, attempted to turn the kingdom into an oligarchical republic, and which had induced the Estates to refuse supplies and to stop the administration of justice, continued to sit during the recess, and hara.s.sed the ministers of the Crown by systematic agitation. The organization of this body, contemptible as it may appear to the generation which has seen the Roman Catholic a.s.sociation and the League against the Corn Laws, was then thought marvellous and formidable. The leaders of the confederacy boasted that they would force the King to do them right. They got up pet.i.tions and addresses, tried to inflame the populace by means of the press and the pulpit, employed emissaries among the soldiers, and talked of bringing up a large body of Covenanters from the west to overawe the Privy Council. In spite of every artifice, however, the ferment of the public mind gradually subsided. The Government, after some hesitation, ventured to open the Courts of justice which the Estates had closed. The Lords of Session appointed by the King took their seats; and Sir James Dalrymple presided. The Club attempted to induce the advocates to absent themselves from the bar, and entertained some hope that the mob would pull the judges from the bench. But it speedily became clear that there was much more likely to be a scarcity of fees than of lawyers to take them: the common people of Edinburgh were well pleased to see again a tribunal a.s.sociated in their imagination with the dignity and prosperity of their city; and by many signs it appeared that the false and greedy faction which had commanded a majority of the legislature did not command a majority of the nation, [380]

CHAPTER XIV

Disputes in the English Parliament--The Attainder of Russell reversed--Other Attainders reversed; Case of Samuel Johnson--Case of Devonshire--Case of Oates--Bill of Rights--Disputes about a Bill of Indemnity--Last Days of Jeffreys--The Whigs dissatisfied with the King--Intemperance of Howe--Attack on Caermarthen--Attack on Halifax--Preparations for a Campaign in Ireland--Schomberg--Recess of the Parliament--State of Ireland; Advice of Avaux--Dismission of Melfort; Schomberg lands in Ulster--Carrickfergus taken--Schomberg advances into Leinster; the English and Irish Armies encamp near each other--Schomberg declines a Battle--Frauds of the English Commissariat--Conspiracy among the French Troops in the English Service--Pestilence in the English Army--The English and Irish Armies go into Winter Quarters--Various Opinions about Schomberg's Conduct--Maritime Affairs--Maladministration of Torrington--Continental Affairs--Skirmish at Walcourt--Imputations thrown on Marlborough--Pope Innocent XI. succeeded by Alexander VIII.--The High Church Clergy divided on the Subject of the Oaths--Arguments for taking the Oaths--Arguments against taking the Oaths--A great Majority of the Clergy take the Oaths--The Nonjurors; Ken--Leslie--Sherlock--Hickes--Collier--Dodwell--Kettlewell; Fitzwilliam--General Character of the Nonjuring Clergy--The Plan of Comprehension; Tillotson--An Ecclesiastical Commission issued.--Proceedings of the Commission--The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury summoned; Temper of the Clergy--The Clergy ill affected towards the King--The Clergy exasperated against the Dissenters by the Proceedings of the Scotch Presbyterians--Const.i.tution of the Convocation--Election of Members of Convocation; Ecclesiastical Preferments bestowed,--Compton discontented--The Convocation meets--The High Churchmen a Majority of the Lower House of Convocation--Difference between the two Houses of Convocation--The Lower House of Convocation proves unmanageable.--The Convocation prorogued

TWENTY-four hours before the war in Scotland was brought to a close by the discomfiture of the Celtic army at Dunkeld, the Parliament broke up at Westminster. The Houses had sate ever since January without a recess.

The Commons, who were cooped up in a narrow s.p.a.ce, had suffered severely from heat and discomfort; and the health of many members had given way.

The fruit however had not been proportioned to the toil. The last three months of the session had been almost entirely wasted in disputes, which have left no trace in the Statute Book. The progress of salutary laws had been impeded, sometimes by bickerings between the Whigs and the Tories, and sometimes by bickerings between the Lords and the Commons.

The Revolution had scarcely been accomplished when it appeared that the supporters of the Exclusion Bill had not forgotten what they had suffered during the ascendancy of their enemies, and were bent on obtaining both reparation and revenge. Even before the throne was filled, the Lords appointed a committee to examine into the truth of the frightful stories which had been circulated concerning the death of Ess.e.x. The committee, which consisted of zealous Whigs, continued its inquiries till all reasonable men were convinced that he had fallen by his own hand, and till his wife, his brother, and his most intimate friends were desirous that the investigation should be carried no further, [381] Atonement was made, without any opposition on the part of the Tories, to the memory and the families of some other victims, who were themselves beyond the reach of human power. Soon after the Convention had been turned into a Parliament, a bill for reversing the attainder of Lord Russell was presented to the peers, was speedily pa.s.sed by them, was sent down to the Lower House, and was welcomed there with no common signs of emotion. Many of the members had sate in that very chamber with Russell. He had long exercised there an influence resembling the influence which, within the memory of this generation, belonged to the upright and benevolent Althorpe; an influence derived, not from superior skill in debate or in declamation, but from spotless integrity, from plain good sense, and from that frankness, that simplicity, that good nature, which are singularly graceful and winning in a man raised by birth and fortune high above his fellows. By the Whigs Russell had been honoured as a chief; and his political adversaries had admitted that, when he was not misled by a.s.sociates less respectable and more artful than himself, he was as honest and kindhearted a gentleman as any in England. The manly firmness and Christian meekness with which he had met death, the desolation of his n.o.ble house, the misery of the bereaved father, the blighted prospects of the orphan children, [382] above all, the union of womanly tenderness and angelic patience in her who had been dearest to the brave sufferer, who had sate, with the pen in her hand, by his side at the bar, who had cheered the gloom of his cell, and who, on his last day, had shared with him the memorials of the great sacrifice, had softened the hearts of many who were little in the habit of pitying an opponent. That Russell had many good qualities, that he had meant well, that he had been hardly used, was now admitted even by courtly lawyers who had a.s.sisted in shedding his blood, and by courtly divines who had done their worst to blacken his reputation. When, therefore, the parchment which annulled his sentence was laid on the table of that a.s.sembly in which, eight years before, his face and his voice had been so well known, the excitement was great. One old Whig member tried to speak, but was overcome by his feelings. "I cannot," he said, "name my Lord Russell without disorder. It is enough to name him. I am not able to say more."

Many eyes were directed towards that part of the house where Finch sate.

The highly honourable manner in which he had quitted a lucrative office, as soon as he had found that he could not keep it without supporting the dispensing power, and the conspicuous part which he had borne in the defence of the Bishops, had done much to atone for his faults. Yet, on this day, it could not be forgotten that he had strenuously exerted himself, as counsel for the Crown, to obtain that judgment which was now to be solemnly revoked. He rose, and attempted to defend his conduct: but neither his legal acuteness, nor that fluent and sonorous elocution which was in his family a hereditary gift, and of which none of his family had a larger share than himself, availed him on this occasion.

The House was in no humour to hear him, and repeatedly interrupted him by cries of "Order." He had been treated, he was told, with great indulgence. No accusation had been brought against him. Why then should he, under pretence of vindicating himself, attempt to throw dishonourable imputations on an ill.u.s.trious name, and to apologise for a judicial murder? He was forced to sit dorm, after declaring that he meant only to clear himself from the charge of having exceeded the limits of his professional duty; that he disclaimed all intention of attacking the memory of Lord Russell; and that he should sincerely rejoice at the reversing of the attainder. Before the House rose the bill was read a second time, and would have been instantly read a third time and pa.s.sed, had not some additions and omissions been proposed, which would, it was thought, make the reparation more complete. The amendments were prepared with great expedition: the Lords agreed to them; and the King gladly gave his a.s.sent, [383]

This bill was soon followed by three other bills which annulled three wicked and infamous judgments, the judgment against Sidney, the judgment against Cornish, and the judgment against Alice Lisle, [384]

Some living Whigs obtained without difficulty redress for injuries which they had suffered in the late reign. The sentence of Samuel Johnson was taken into consideration by the House of Commons. It was resolved that the scourging which he had undergone was cruel, and that his degradation was of no legal effect. The latter proposition admitted of no dispute: for he had been degraded by the prelates who had been appointed to govern the diocese of London during Compton's suspension. Compton had been suspended by a decree of the High Commission, and the decrees of the High Commission were universally acknowledged to be nullities.

Johnson had therefore been stripped of his robe by persons who had no jurisdiction over him. The Commons requested the king to compensate the sufferer by some ecclesiastical preferment, [385] William, however, found that he could not, without great inconvenience, grant this request. For Johnson, though brave, honest and religious, had always been rash, mutinous and quarrelsome; and, since he had endured for his opinions a martyrdom more terrible than death, the infirmities of his temper and understanding had increased to such a degree that he was as disagreeable to Low Churchmen as to High Churchmen. Like too many other men, who are not to be turned from the path of right by pleasure, by lucre or by danger, he mistook the impulses of his pride and resentment for the monitions of conscience, and deceived himself into a belief that, in treating friends and foes with indiscriminate insolence and asperity, he was merely showing his Christian faithfulness and courage.

Burnet, by exhorting him to patience and forgiveness of injuries, made him a mortal enemy. "Tell His Lordship," said the inflexible priest, "to mind his own business, and to let me look after mine." [386] It soon began to be whispered that Johnson was mad. He accused Burnet of being the author of the report, and avenged himself by writing libels so violent that they strongly confirmed the imputation which they were meant to refute. The King, therefore, thought it better to give out of his own revenue a liberal compensation for the wrongs which the Commons had brought to his notice than to place an eccentric and irritable man in a situation of dignity and public trust. Johnson was gratified with a present of a thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred a year for two lives. His son was also provided for in the public service, [387]

While the Commons were considering the case of Johnson, the Lords were scrutinising with severity the proceedings which had, in the late reign, been inst.i.tuted against one of their own order, the Earl of Devonshire.

The judges who had pa.s.sed sentence on him were strictly interrogated; and a resolution was pa.s.sed declaring that in his case the privileges of the peerage had been infringed, and that the Court of King's Bench, in punishing a hasty blow by a fine of thirty thousand pounds, had violated common justice and the Great Charter, [388]

In the cases which have been mentioned, all parties seem to have agreed in thinking that some public reparation was due. But the fiercest pa.s.sions both of Whigs and Tories were soon roused by the noisy claims of a wretch whose sufferings, great as they might seem, had been trifling when compared with his crimes. Gates had come back, like a ghost from the place of punishment, to haunt the spots which had been polluted by his guilt. The three years and a half which followed his scourging he had pa.s.sed in one of the cells of Newgate, except when on certain days, the anniversaries of his perjuries, he had been brought forth and set on the pillory. He was still, however, regarded by many fanatics as a martyr; and it was said that they were able so far to corrupt his keepers that, in spite of positive orders from the government, his sufferings were mitigated by many indulgences. While offenders, who, compared with him, were innocent, grew lean on the prison allowance, his cheer was mended by turkeys and chines, capons and sucking pigs, venison pasties and hampers of claret, the offerings of zealous Protestants, [389] When James had fled from Whitehall, and when London was in confusion, it was moved, in the council of Lords which had provisionally a.s.sumed the direction of affairs, that Gates should be set at liberty. The motion was rejected: [390] but the gaolers, not knowing whom to obey in that time of anarchy, and desiring to conciliate a man who had once been, and might perhaps again be, a terrible enemy, allowed their prisoner to go freely about the town, [391] His uneven legs and his hideous face, made more hideous by the shearing which his ears had undergone, were now again seen every day in Westminster Hall and the Court of Requests, [392] He fastened himself on his old patrons, and, in that drawl which he affected as a mark of gentility, gave them the history of his wrongs and of his hopes. It was impossible, he said, that now, when the good cause was triumphant, the discoverer of the plot could be overlooked. "Charles gave me nine hundred pounds a year. Sure William will give me more." [393]

In a few weeks he brought his sentence before the House of Lords by a writ of error. This is a species of appeal which raises no question of fact. The Lords, while sitting judicially on the writ of error, were not competent to examine whether the verdict which p.r.o.nounced Gates guilty was or was not according to the evidence. All that they had to consider was whether, the verdict being supposed to be according to the evidence, the judgment was legal. But it would have been difficult even for a tribunal composed of veteran magistrates, and was almost impossible for an a.s.sembly of n.o.blemen who were all strongly bia.s.sed on one side or on the other, and among whom there was at that time not a single person whose mind had been disciplined by the study of jurisprudence, to look steadily at the mere point of law, abstracted from the special circ.u.mstances of the case. In the view of one party, a party which even among the Whig peers was probably a minority, the appellant was a man who had rendered inestimable services to the cause of liberty and religion, and who had been requited by long confinement, by degrading exposure, and by torture not to be thought of without a shudder. The majority of the House more justly regarded him as the falsest, the most malignant and the most impudent being that had ever disgraced the human form. The sight of that brazen forehead, the accents of that lying tongue, deprived them of all mastery over themselves. Many of them doubtless remembered with shame and remorse that they had been his dupes, and that, on the very last occasion on which he had stood before them, he had by perjury induced them to shed the blood of one of their own ill.u.s.trious order. It was not to be expected that a crowd of gentlemen under the influence of feelings like these would act with the cold impartiality of a court of justice. Before they came to any decision on the legal question which t.i.tus had brought before them, they picked a succession of quarrels with him. He had published a paper magnifying his merits and his sufferings. The Lords found out some pretence for calling this publication a breach of privilege, and sent him to the Marshalsea. He pet.i.tioned to be released; but an objection was raised to his pet.i.tion. He had described himself as a Doctor of Divinity; and their lordships refused to acknowledge him as such. He was brought to their bar, and asked where he had graduated. He answered, "At the university of Salamanca." This was no new instance of his mendacity and effrontery. His Salamanca degree had been, during many years, a favourite theme of all the Tory satirists from Dryden downwards; and even on the Continent the Salamanca Doctor was a nickname in ordinary use, [394] The Lords, in their hatred of Oates, so far forgot their own dignity as to treat this ridiculous matter seriously. They ordered him to efface from his pet.i.tion the words, "Doctor of Divinity." He replied that he could not in conscience do it; and he was accordingly sent back to gaol, [395]

These preliminary proceedings indicated not obscurely what the fate of the writ of error would be. The counsel for Oates had been heard. No counsel appeared against him. The judges were required to give their opinions. Nine of them were in attendance; and among the nine were the Chiefs of the three Courts of Common Law. The unanimous answer of these grave, learned and upright magistrates was that the Court of King's Bench was not competent to degrade a priest from his sacred office, or to pa.s.s a sentence of perpetual imprisonment; and that therefore the judgment against Oates was contrary to law, and ought to be reversed.

The Lords should undoubtedly have considered themselves as bound by this opinion. That they knew Oates to be the worst of men was nothing to the purpose. To them, sitting as a court of justice, he ought to have been merely a John of Styles or a John of Nokes. But their indignation was violently excited. Their habits were not those which fit men for the discharge of judicial duties. The debate turned almost entirely on matters to which no allusion ought to have been made. Not a single peer ventured to affirm that the judgment was legal: but much was said about the odious character of the appellant, about the impudent accusation which he had brought against Catherine of Braganza, and about the evil consequences which might follow if so bad a man were capable of being a witness. "There is only one way," said the Lord President, "in which I can consent to reverse the fellow's sentence. He has been whipped from Aldgate to Tyburn. He ought to be whipped from Tyburn back to Aldgate."

The question was put. Twenty-three peers voted for reversing the judgment; thirty-five for affirming it, [396]

This decision produced a great sensation, and not without reason. A question was now raised which might justly excite the anxiety of every man in the kingdom. That question was whether the highest tribunal, the tribunal on which, in the last resort, depended the most precious interests of every English subject, was at liberty to decide judicial questions on other than judicial grounds, and to withhold from a suitor what was admitted to be his legal right, on account of the depravity of his moral character. That the supreme Court of Appeal ought not to be suffered to exercise arbitrary power, under the forms of ordinary justice, was strongly felt by the ablest men in the House of Commons, and by none more strongly than by Somers. With him, and with those who reasoned like him, were, on this occasion, allied many weak and hot-headed zealots who still regarded Oates as a public benefactor, and who imagined that to question the existence of the Popish plot was to question the truth of the Protestant religion. On the very morning after the decision of the Peers had been p.r.o.nounced, keen reflections were thrown, in the House of Commons, on the justice of their lordships.

Three days later, the subject was brought forward by a Whig Privy Councillor, Sir Robert Howard, member for Castle Rising. He was one of the Berkshire branch of his n.o.ble family, a branch which enjoyed, in that age, the unenviable distinction of being wonderfully fertile of bad rhymers. The poetry of the Berkshire Howards was the jest of three generations of satirists. The mirth began with the first representation of the Rehearsal, and continued down to the last edition of the Dunciad, [397] But Sir Robert, in spite of his bad verses, and of some foibles and vanities which had caused him to be brought on the stage under the name of Sir Positive Atall, had in parliament the weight which a stanch party man, of ample fortune, of ill.u.s.trious name, of ready utterance, and of resolute spirit, can scarcely fail to possess, [398] When he rose to call the attention of the Commons to the case of Oates, some Tories, animated by the same pa.s.sions which had prevailed in the other House, received him with loud hisses. In spite of this most unparliamentary insult, he persevered; and it soon appeared that the majority was with him. Some orators extolled the patriotism and courage of Oates: others dwelt much on a prevailing rumour, that the solicitors who were employed against him on behalf of the Crown had distributed large sums of money among the jurymen. These were topics on which there was much difference of opinion. But that the sentence was illegal was a proposition which admitted of no dispute. The most eminent lawyers in the House of Commons declared that, on this point, they entirely concurred in the opinion given by the judges in the House of Lords. Those who had hissed when the subject was introduced, were so effectually cowed that they did not venture to demand a division; and a bill annulling the sentence was brought in, without any opposition, [399]

The Lords were in an embarra.s.sing situation. To retract was not pleasant. To engage in a contest with the Lower House, on a question on which that House was clearly in the right, and was backed at once by the opinions of the sages of the law, and by the pa.s.sions of the populace, might be dangerous. It was thought expedient to take a middle course. An address was presented to the King, requesting him to pardon Oates, [400]

But this concession only made bad worse. t.i.tus had, like every other human being, a right to justice: but he was not a proper object of mercy. If the judgment against him was illegal, it ought to have been reversed. If it was legal, there was no ground for remitting any part of it. The Commons, very properly, persisted, pa.s.sed their bill, and sent it up to the Peers. Of this bill the only objectionable part was the preamble, which a.s.serted, not only that the judgment was illegal, a proposition which appeared on the face of the record to be true, but also that the verdict was corrupt, a proposition which, whether true or false, was not proved by any evidence at all.

The Lords were in a great strait. They knew that they were in the wrong.

Yet they were determined not to proclaim, in their legislative capacity, that they had, in their judicial capacity, been guilty of injustice.

They again tried a middle course. The preamble was softened down: a clause was added which provided that Oates should still remain incapable of being a witness; and the bill thus altered was returned to the Commons.

The Commons were not satisfied. They rejected the amendments, and demanded a free conference. Two eminent Tories, Rochester and Nottingham, took their seats in the Painted Chamber as managers for the Lords. With them was joined Burnet, whose well known hatred of Popery was likely to give weight to what he might say on such an occasion.

Somers was the chief orator on the other side; and to his pen we owe a singularly lucid and interesting abstract of the debate.

The Lords frankly owned that the judgment of the Court of King's Bench could not be defended. They knew it to be illegal, and had known it to be so even when they affirmed it. But they had acted for the best. They accused Oates of bringing an impudently false accusation against Queen Catherine: they mentioned other instances of his villany; and they asked whether such a man ought still to be capable of giving testimony in a court of justice. The only excuse which, in their opinion, could be made for him was, that he was insane; and in truth, the incredible insolence and absurdity of his behaviour when he was last before them seemed to warrant the belief that his brain had been turned, and that he was not to be trusted with the lives of other men. The Lords could not therefore degrade themselves by expressly rescinding what they had done; nor could they consent to p.r.o.nounce the verdict corrupt on no better evidence than common report.

The reply was complete and triumphant. "Oates is now the smallest part of the question. He has, Your Lordships say, falsely accused the Queen Dowager and other innocent persons. Be it so. This bill gives him no indemnity. We are quite willing that, if he is guilty, he shall be punished. But for him, and for all Englishmen, we demand that punishment shall be regulated by law, and not by the arbitrary discretion of any tribunal. We demand that, when a writ of error is before Your Lordships, you shall give judgment on it according to the known customs and statutes of the realm. We deny that you have any right, on such occasions, to take into consideration the moral character of a plaintiff or the political effect of a decision. It is acknowledged by yourselves that you have, merely because you thought ill of this man, affirmed a judgment which you knew to be illegal. Against this a.s.sumption of arbitrary power the Commons protest; and they hope that you will now redeem what you must feel to be an error. Your Lordships intimate a suspicion that Oates is mad. That a man is mad may be a very good reason for not punishing him at all. But how it can be a reason for inflicting on him a punishment which would be illegal even if he were sane, the Commons do not comprehend. Your Lordships think that you should not be justified in calling a verdict corrupt which has not been legally proved to be so. Suffer us to remind you that you have two distinct functions to perform. You are judges; and you are legislators. When you judge, your duty is strictly to follow the law. When you legislate, you may properly take facts from common fame. You invert this rule. You are lax in the wrong place, and scrupulous in the wrong place. As judges, you break through the law for the sake of a supposed convenience. As legislators, you will not admit any fact without such technical proof as it is rarely possible for legislators to obtain." [401]

This reasoning was not and could not be answered. The Commons were evidently flushed with their victory in the argument, and proud of the appearance which Somers had made in the Painted Chamber. They particularly charged him to see that the report which he had made of the conference was accurately entered in the journals. The Lords very wisely abstained from inserting in their records an account of a debate in which they had been so signally discomfited. But, though conscious of their fault and ashamed of it, they could not be brought to do public penance by owning, in the preamble of the Act, that they had been guilty of injustice. The minority was, however, strong. The resolution to adhere was carried by only twelve votes, of which ten were proxies, [402]

Twenty-one Peers protested. The bill dropped. Two Masters in Chancery were sent to announce to the Commons the final resolution of the Peers.

The Commons thought this proceeding unjustifiable in substance and uncourteous in form. They determined to remonstrate; and Somers drew up an excellent manifesto, in which the vile name of Oates was scarcely mentioned, and in which the Upper House was with great earnestness and gravity exhorted to treat judicial questions judicially, and not, under pretence of administering law, to make law, [403] The wretched man, who had now a second time thrown the political world into confusion, received a pardon, and was set at liberty. His friends in the Lower House moved an address to the Throne, requesting that a pension sufficient for his support might be granted to him, [404] He was consequently allowed about three hundred a year, a sum which he thought unworthy of his acceptance, and which he took with the savage snarl of disappointed greediness.

From the dispute about Oates sprang another dispute, which might have produced very serious consequences. The instrument which had declared William and Mary King and Queen was a revolutionary instrument. It had been drawn up by an a.s.sembly unknown to the ordinary law, and had never received the royal sanction. It was evidently desirable that this great contract between the governors and the governed, this t.i.tledeed by which the King held his throne and the people their liberties, should be put into a strictly regular form. The Declaration of Rights was therefore turned into a Bill of Rights; and the Bill of Rights speedily pa.s.sed the Commons; but in the Lords difficulties arose.

The Declaration had settled the crown, first on William and Mary jointly, then on the survivor of the two, then on Mary's posterity, then on Anne and her posterity, and, lastly, on the posterity of William by any other wife than Mary. The Bill had been drawn in exact conformity with the Declaration. Who was to succeed if Mary, Anne, and William should all die without posterity, was left in uncertainty. Yet the event for which no provision was made was far from improbable. Indeed it really came to pa.s.s. William had never had a child. Anne had repeatedly been a mother, but had no child living. It would not be very strange if, in a few months, disease, war, or treason should remove all those who stood in the entail. In what state would the country then be left? To whom would allegiance be due? The bill indeed contained a clause which excluded Papists from the throne. But would such a clause supply the place of a clause designating the successor by name? What if the next heir should be a prince of the House of Savoy not three months old?

It would be absurd to call such an infant a Papist. Was he then to be proclaimed King? Or was the crown to be in abeyance till he came to an age at which he might be capable of choosing a religion? Might not the most honest and the most intelligent men be in doubt whether they ought to regard him as their Sovereign? And to whom could they look for a solution of this doubt? Parliament there would be none: for the Parliament would expire with the prince who had convoked it. There would be mere anarchy, anarchy which might end in the destruction of the monarchy, or in the destruction of public liberty. For these weighty reasons, Barnet, at William's suggestion, proposed it the House of Lords that the crown should, failing heirs of His Majesty's body, be entailed on an undoubted Protestant, Sophia, d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick Lunenburg, granddaughter of James the First, and daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia.

The Lords unanimously a.s.sented to this amendment: but the Commons unanimously rejected it. The cause of the rejection no contemporary writer has satisfactorily explained. One Whig historian talks of the machinations of the republicans, another of the machinations of the Jacobites. But it is quite certain that four fifths of the representatives of the people were neither Jacobites nor republicans.

Yet not a single voice was raised in the Lower House in favour of the clause which in the Upper House had been carried by acclamation, [405]

The most probable explanation seems to be that the gross injustice which had been committed in the case of Oates had irritated the Commons to such a degree that they were glad of an opportunity to quarrel with the Peers. A conference was held. Neither a.s.sembly would give way. While the dispute was hottest, an event took place which, it might have been thought, would have restored harmony. Anne gave birth to a son. The child was baptized at Hampton Court with great pomp, and with many signs of public joy. William was one of the sponsors. The other was the accomplished Dorset, whose roof had given shelter to the Princess in her distress. The King bestowed his own name on his G.o.dson, and announced to the splendid circle a.s.sembled around the font that the little William was henceforth to be called Duke of Gloucester, [406] The birth of this child had greatly diminished the risk against which the Lords had thought it necessary to guard. They might therefore have retracted with a good grace. But their pride had been wounded by the severity with which their decision on Oates's writ of error had been censured in the Painted Chamber. They had been plainly told across the table that they were unjust judges; and the imputation was not the less irritating because they were conscious that it was deserved. They refused to make any concession; and the Bill of Rights was suffered to drop, [407]

But the most exciting question of this long and stormy session was, what punishment should be inflicted on those men who had, during the interval between the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and the Revolution, been the advisers or the tools of Charles and James. It was happy for England that, at this crisis, a prince who belonged to neither of her factions, who loved neither, who hated neither, and who, for the accomplishment of a great design, wished to make use of both, was the moderator between them.

The two parties were now in a position closely resembling that in which they had been twenty-eight years before. The party indeed which had then been undermost was now uppermost: but the a.n.a.logy between the situations is one of the most perfect that can be found in history. Both the Restoration and the Revolution was accomplished by coalitions. At the Restoration, those politicians who were peculiarly zealous for liberty a.s.sisted to reestablish monarchy: at the Revolution those politicians who were peculiarly zealous for monarchy a.s.sisted to vindicate liberty.

The Cavalier would, at the former conjuncture, have been able to effect nothing without the help of Puritans who had fought for the Covenant; nor would the Whig, at the latter conjuncture, have offered a successful resistance to arbitrary power, had he not been backed by men who had a very short time before condemned resistance to arbitrary power as a deadly sin. Conspicuous among those by whom, in 1660, the royal family was brought back, were Hopis, who had in the days of the tyranny of Charles the First held down the Speaker in the chair by main force, while Black Rod knocked for admission in vain; Ingoldsby, whose name was subscribed to the memorable death warrant; and Prynne, whose ears Laud had cut off, and who, in return, had borne the chief part in cutting off Laud's head. Among the seven who, in 1688, signed the invitation to William, were Compton, who had long enforced the duty of obeying Nero; Danby, who had been impeached for endeavouring to establish military despotism; and Lumley, whose bloodhounds had tracked Monmouth to that sad last hiding place among the fern. Both in 1660 and in 1688, while the fate of the nation still hung in the balance, forgiveness was exchanged between the hostile factions. On both occasions the reconciliation, which had seemed to be cordial in the hour of danger, proved false and hollow in the hour of triumph. As soon as Charles the Second was at Whitehall, the Cavalier forgot the good service recently done by the Presbyterians, and remembered only their old offences.

As soon as William was King, too many of the Whigs began to demand vengeance for all that they had, in the days of the Rye House Plot, suffered at the hands of the Tories. On both occasions the Sovereign found it difficult to save the vanquished party from the fury of his triumphant supporters; and on both occasions those whom he had disappointed of their revenge murmured bitterly against the government which had been so weak and ungrateful as to protect its foes against its friends.

So early as the twenty-fifth of March, William called the attention of the Commons to the expediency of quieting the public mind by an amnesty.

He expressed his hope that a bill of general pardon and oblivion would be as speedily as possible presented for his sanction, and that no exceptions would be made, except such as were absolutely necessary for the vindication of public justice and for the safety of the state.

The Commons unanimously agreed to thank him for this instance of his paternal kindness: but they suffered many weeks to pa.s.s without taking any step towards the accomplishment of his wish. When at length the subject was resumed, it was resumed in such a manner as plainly showed that the majority had no real intention of putting an end to the suspense which embittered the lives of all those Tories who were conscious that, in their zeal for prerogative, they had some times overstepped the exact line traced by law. Twelve categories were framed, some of which were so extensive as to include tens of thousands of delinquents; and the House resolved that, under every one of these categories, some exceptions should be made. Then came the examination into the cases of individuals. Numerous culprits and witnesses were summoned to the bar. The debates were long and sharp; and it soon became evident that the work was interminable. The summer glided away: the autumn was approaching: the session could not last much longer; and of the twelve distinct inquisitions, which the Commons had resolved to inst.i.tute, only three had been brought to a close. It was necessary to let the bill drop for that year, [408]

Among the many offenders whose names were mentioned in the course of these inquiries, was one who stood alone and unapproached in guilt and infamy, and whom Whigs and Tories were equally willing to leave to the extreme rigour of the law. On that terrible day which was succeeded by the Irish Night, the roar of a great city disappointed of its revenge had followed Jeffreys to the drawbridge of the Tower. His imprisonment was not strictly legal: but he at first accepted with thanks and blessings the protection which those dark walls, made famous by so many crimes and sorrows, afforded him against the fury of the mult.i.tude, [409] Soon, however, he became sensible that his life was still in imminent peril. For a time he flattered himself with the hope that a writ of Habeas Corpus would liberate him from his confinement, and that he should be able to steal away to some foreign country, and to hide himself with part of his ill gotten wealth from the detestation of mankind: but, till the government was settled, there was no Court competent to grant a writ of Habeas Corpus; and, as soon as the government had been settled, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, [410]

Whether the legal guilt of murder could be brought home to Jeffreys may be doubted. But he was morally guilty of so many murders that, if there had been no other way of reaching his life, a retrospective Act of Attainder would have been clamorously demanded by the whole nation.

A disposition to triumph over the fallen has never been one of the besetting sins of Englishmen: but the hatred of which Jeffreys was the object was without a parallel in our history, and partook but too largely of the savageness of his own nature. The people, where he was concerned, were as cruel as himself, and exulted in his misery as he had been accustomed to exult in the misery of convicts listening to the sentence of death, and of families clad in mourning. The rabble congregated before his deserted mansion in Duke Street, and read on the door, with shouts of laughter, the bills which announced the sale of his property. Even delicate women, who had tears for highwaymen and housebreakers, breathed nothing but vengeance against him. The lampoons on him which were hawked about the town were distinguished by an atrocity rare even in those days. Hanging would be too mild a death for him: a grave under the gibbet too respectable a resting place: he ought to be whipped to death at the cart's tail: he ought to be tortured like an Indian: he ought to be devoured alive. The street poets portioned out all his joints with cannibal ferocity, and computed how many pounds of steaks might be cut from his well fattened carca.s.s. Nay, the rage of his enemies was such that, in language seldom heard in England, they proclaimed their wish that he might go to the place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, to the worm that never dies, to the fire that is never quenched. They exhorted him to hang himself in his garters, and to cut his throat with his razor. They put up horrible prayers that he might not be able to repent, that he might die the same hardhearted, wicked Jeffreys that he had lived, [411] His spirit, as mean in adversity as insolent and inhuman in prosperity, sank down under the load of public abhorrence. His const.i.tution, originally bad, and much impaired by intemperance, was completely broken by distress and anxiety.

He was tormented by a cruel internal disease, which the most skilful surgeons of that age were seldom able to relieve. One solace was left to him, brandy. Even when he had causes to try and councils to attend, he had seldom gone to bed sober. Now, when he had nothing to occupy his mind save terrible recollections and terrible forebodings, he abandoned himself without reserve to his favourite vice. Many believed him to be bent on shortening his life by excess. He thought it better, they said, to go off in a drunken fit than to be hacked by Ketch, or torn limb from limb by the populace.

Once he was roused from a state of abject despondency by an agreeable sensation, speedily followed by a mortifying disappointment. A parcel had been left for him at the Tower. It appeared to be a barrel of Colchester oysters, his favourite dainties. He was greatly moved: for there are moments when those who least deserve affection are pleased to think that they inspire it. "Thank G.o.d," he exclaimed, "I have still some friends left." He opened the barrel; and from among a heap of sh.e.l.ls out tumbled a stout halter, [412]

It does not appear that one of the flatterers or buffoons whom he had enriched out of the plunder of his victims came to comfort him in the day of trouble. But he was not left in utter solitude. John Tutchin, whom he had sentenced to be flogged every fortnight for seven years, made his way into the Tower, and presented himself before the fallen oppressor. Poor Jeffreys, humbled to the dust, behaved with abject civility, and called for wine. "I am glad, sir," he said, "to see you."

"And I am glad," answered the resentful Whig, "to see Your Lordship in this place." "I served my master," said Jeffreys: "I was bound in conscience to do so." "Where was your conscience," said Tutchin, "when you pa.s.sed that sentence on me at Dorchester?" "It was set down in my instructions," answered Jeffreys, fawningly, "that I was to show no mercy to men like you, men of parts and courage. When I went back to court I was reprimanded for my lenity." [413] Even Tutchin, acrimonious as was his nature, and great as were his wrongs, seems to have been a little mollified by the pitiable spectacle which he had at first contemplated with vindictive pleasure. He always denied the truth of the report that he was the person who sent the Colchester barrel to the Tower.

A more benevolent man, John Sharp, the excellent Dean of Norwich, forced himself to visit the prisoner. It was a painful task: but Sharp had been treated by Jeffreys, in old times, as kindly as it was in the nature of Jeffreys to treat any body, and had once or twice been able, by patiently waiting till the storm of curses and invectives had spent itself, and by dexterously seizing the moment of good humour, to obtain for unhappy families some mitigation of their sufferings. The prisoner was surprised and pleased. "What," he said, "dare you own me now?" It was in vain, however, that the amiable divine tried to give salutary pain to that seared conscience. Jeffreys, instead of acknowledging his guilt, exclaimed vehemently against the injustice of mankind. "People call me a murderer for doing what at the time was applauded by some who are now high in public favour. They call me a drunkard because I take punch to relieve me in my agony." He would not admit that, as President of the High Commission, he had done any thing that deserved reproach. His colleagues, he said, were the real criminals; and now they threw all the blame on him. He spoke with peculiar asperity of Sprat, who had undoubtedly been the most humane and moderate member of the board.

It soon became clear that the wicked judge was fast sinking under the weight of bodily and mental suffering. Doctor John Scott, prebendary of Saint Paul's, a clergyman of great sanct.i.ty, and author of the Christian Life, a treatise once widely renowned, was summoned, probably on the recommendation of his intimate friend Sharp, to the bedside of the dying man. It was in vain, however, that Scott spoke, as Sharp had already spoken, of the hideous butcheries of Dorchester and Taunton. To the last Jeffreys continued to repeat that those who thought him cruel did not know what his orders were, that he deserved praise instead of blame, and that his clemency had drawn on him the extreme displeasure of his master, [414]

Disease, a.s.sisted by strong drink and by misery, did its work fast. The patient's stomach rejected all nourishment. He dwindled in a few weeks from a portly and even corpulent man to a skeleton. On the eighteenth of April he died, in the forty-first year of his age. He had been Chief Justice of the King's Bench at thirty-five, and Lord Chancellor at thirty-seven. In the whole history of the English bar there is no other instance of so rapid an elevation, or of so terrible a fall.

The emaciated corpse was laid, with all privacy, next to the corpse of Monmouth in the chapel of the Tower, [415]