The Leading Facts of English History Part 70

Parliament now restored the command of the militia to the Kign;[3]

and, for the first time in English history, it also gave him the command of a standing army of five thousand men,--thus, in one way, making him more powerful than ever before (S467).

[3] See Militia Bill, S19 of this Summary.

On the other hand, Parliament revived the practice of limiting its appropriations of money to specific purposes.[4] It furthermore began to require an exact account of how the King spent the money,--a most embarra.s.sing question for a man like Charles II to answer. Again, Parliament did not hesitate to impeach and remove the King's ministers whenever they forfeited the confidence of that body.[1]

[4] See S13 of this Summary.

[1] See S13 of this Summary (Impeachment).

The religious legislation of this period marks the strong reaction from Puritanism which had set in. (1) The Corporation Act (1661) excluded all persons who did not renounce the Puritan Covenant and partake of the Sacrament according to the Church of England, from holding munic.i.p.al or other corporate offices (S472). (2) The Fourth Act of Uniformity (1662)[2] required all clergymen to accept the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England (S472). The result of this law was that no less than two thousand Puritan ministers were driven from their pulpits in a single day. (3) The Conventicle Act (S472) followed (1664). It forbade the preaching or hearing of Puritan doctrines, under severe penalties. (4) The Five-Mile Act (1665) (S472) [3] prohibited non-conforming clergymen from teaching, or from coming within five miles of any corporate town (except when traveling).

[2] The First and Second Acts of Uniformity date from Edward VI (1549, 1552), the Third from Elizabeth (1559) (SS362, 382, 472).

[3] The Five-Mile Act (1665) excepted those clergymen who took the oath of nonresistance to the King, and who swore not to attempt to alter the const.i.tution of Church or State. See Hallam's "Const.i.tutional History of England."

21. Charles II's Cabinet; the Secret Treaty of Dover; the Test Act; the Habeas Corpus Act; Rise of Cabinet Government.

Charles II made a great and most important change with respect to the Privy Council. Instead of consulting the entire Council on matters of state, he established the custom of inviting only a few to meet with him in his cabinet, or private room. This limited body of confidential advisers was called the "Cabal," or secret council (S476).

Charles's great ambition was to increase his standing army, to rule independently of Parliament, and to get an abundance of money to spend on his extravagant pleasures and vices.

In order to accomplish these three ends he made a secret and shameful treaty with Louis XIV of France, 1670 (S476). Louis wished to crush the Dutch Protestant Republic of Halland, to get possession of Spain, and to secure, if possible, the ascendancy of Catholicism in England as well as throughout Europe. Charles, who was dest.i.tute of any religious principle,--or, in fact, of any sense of honor,--agreed to publicly declare himself a Catholic, to favor the propagation of that faith in England, and to make war on Holland in return for very liberal grants of money, and for the loan of six thousand French troops by Louis, to help him put down any opposition in England. Two members of the "Cabal" were acquainted with the terms of this secret Treaty of Dover. Charles made a second secret treaty with Louis XIV in 1678.

Charles did not dare to openly avow himself a convert--or pretended convert--to the Catholic religion; but he issued a Declaration of Indulgence, 1672, suspending the harsh statutes against the English Catholics (S477).

Parliament took the alarm and pa.s.sed the Test Act, 1673, by which all Catholics were shut out from holding any government office or position (S477). This act broke up the "Cabal," by compelling a Catholic n.o.bleman, who was one of its leading members, to resign. Lather, Parliament further showed its power by compelling the King to sign the Act of Habeas Corpus, 1679 (S482), which put an end to his arbitrarily throwing men into prison, and keeping them there, in order to stop their free discussion of his plots against the const.i.tution.[1]

[1] See Habeas Corpus Act in Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments, p.x.x.xii.

But though the "Cabal" had been broken up, the principle of a limited private council survived, and long after the Revolution of 1688 it was revived and the Cabinet, under the lead of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister,[2] in 1721, became responsible for th epolicy of the sovereign.[3] At present, if the Commons decidedly oppose that policy, the Prime minister,[2] in 1721, became responsible for the policy of the sovereign.[3] At present, if the Commons decidedly oppose that policy, the Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, either resigns, and a new Cabinet is chosen, or the Minister appeals to the people for support, and the sovereign dissolves Parliament and orders a new parliamentary election, by which the nation decides the question. This method renders the old, and never desirable, remedy of the impeachment of the ministers of the sovereign no longer necessary. The Prime Minister--who answers for the acts of the sovereign and for his policy--is more directly responsible to the people than is the President of the United States.

[2] See S27 of this Summary.

[3] The real efficiency of the Cabinet system of government was not fully developed until after the Reform Act of 1832 had widely extended the right of suffrage, and thus made the government more directly responsible to the people (S582).

22. The Pretended "Popish Plot"; Rise of the Whigs and the Tories; Revocation of Town Charters.

The pretended "Popish Plot" (1678) (S478) to kill the King, in order to place his brother James--a Catholic convert--on the throne, caused the rise of a strong movement (1680) to exclude James from the right of succession. The Exclusion Bill failed; but the Disabling Act was pa.s.sed, 1678, excluding Catholics from sitting in either House of Parliament; but an exception was made in favor of the Duke of York (S478). Henceforward two prominent political parties appear in Parliament,--one, that of the Whigs or Liberals, bent on extending the power of thepeople; the other, that of the Tories or Conservatives, resolved to maintain the power of the Crown.

Charles II, of course, did all in his power to encourage the latter party. In order to strengthen their numbers in the Commons, he found pretexts for revoking the charters of many Whig towns (S479). He then issued new charters to these towns, giving the power of election to the Tories.[4] While engaged in this congenial work the King died, and his brother James II came to the throne.

[4] The right of election in many towns was then confined to the town officers or to a few influential inhabitants. This continued to be the case until the pa.s.sage of the Reform Bill in 1832.

23. James II; the Dispensing Power; Declaration of Indulgence; the Revolution of 1688.

James II was a zealous Catholic, and therefore naturally desired to secure freedom of worship in England for people of his own faith. In his zeal he went too far, and the Pope expressed his disgust at the King's foolish rashness. By the exercise of the Dispensing Power[1]

he suspended the Test Act and the Act of Uniformity, in order that Catholics might be relieved from the penalties imposed by these laws, and also for the purpose of giving them civil and military offices, from which the Test Act excluded them (S477). James also established a new High Commission Court[2] (S488), and made the infamous Judge Jeffreys the head of this despotic tribunal. This court had the supervision of all churches and inst.i.tutions of education. Its main object was to further the spread of Catholicism, and to silence those clergymen who preached against that faith. The King appointed a Catholic president of Magdalen College, Oxford, and expelled from the college all who opposed the appointment. Later, he issued two Declarations of Indulgence, 1687, 1688, in which he proclaimed universal religious toleration (S488). It was generally believed that under cover of these Declarations the King intended to favor the ascendancy of Catholicism. Seven bishops, who pet.i.tioned for the privilege of declining to read the Declarations from their pulpits, were imprisoned, but on their trial were acquitted by a jury in full sympathy with them (S489).

[2] New High Commission Court: see S19 of this Summary.

These acts by the King, together with the fact that he had greatly increased the standing army, and had stationed it just outside of London, caused great alarm throughout England (S488). The majority of the people of both political parties (S489) believed that James was plotting to "subverty and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of the kingdom."

[3] See the language of the Bill of Rights (Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments), p. x.x.xi.

Still, so long as the King remained childless, the nation was encouraged by the hope that James's daughter Mary might succeed him.

She was known to be a decided Protestant, and she had married William, Prince of Orange, the head of the Protestant Republic of Holland. But the birth of a son to James (1688) put an end to that hope.

Immediately a number of leading Whigs and Tories (SS479, 490) united in sending an invitation to the Prince of Orange to come over to England with an army to protect Parliament against the King backed by his standing army.

24. William and Mary; Declaration of Right; Results of the Revolution.

William came; James fled to France. A Convention Parliament[4] drew up a Declaration of Right which declared that the King had vacated the throne, and the crown was therefore offered to William and Mary (S494). They accepted. Thus by the bloodless Revolution of 1688 the English nation transferred the sovereignty to those who had no direct legal claim to it so long as James and his son were living (S490).

Hence by this act the people deliberately set aside hereditary succession, as a binding rule, and revived the primitive English custom of choosing a sovereign as they deemed best. In this sense the uprising of 1688 was most emphatically a revolution (S491, 492). It made, as Green has said, an English monarch as much the creature of an act of Parliament as the pettiest taxgatherer in his realm (S497).

But it was a still greater revolution in another way, since it gave a deathblow to the direct "personal monarchy," which began with the Tudors two hundred years before. It is true that in George III's reign we shall see that power temporarily revived, but we shall never hear anything more of that Divine Right of Kings, for which one Stuary "lost his head, and another his crown." Henceforth the House of Commons will govern England, although, as we shall see, it will be nearly a hundred and fifty years before that House will be able to free itself entirely from the control of either a few powerful families on the one hand, or that of the Crown on the other.

[4] Convention Parliament: it was so called because it was not regularly summoned by the King,--he having fled the country.

25. Bill of Rights; the Commons by the Revenue and the Mutiny Act obtain Complete Control over the Purse and the Sword.

In order to make the const.i.tutional rights of the people unmistakably clear, the Bill of Rights, 1689,--an expansion of the Declaration of Right--was drawn up (S497). The Bill of Rights[1] declare: (1) That there should be no suspension or change in the laws, and no taxation except by act of Parliament. (2) That there should be freedom of election to Parliament and freedom of speech in Parliament (both rights that the Stuarts had attempted to contrl). (3) That the sovereign should not keep a standing army, in time of peace, except by consent of Parliament. (4) That in future no Roman Catholic should sit on the English throne. This last clause was reaffirmed by the Act of Settlement, 1701 (S497).[2]

[1] Bill of Rights: see Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments, p. x.x.xi.

[2] See, too, Const.i.tutional Doc.u.ments, p. x.x.xii.

This most important bill, having received the signature of William and Mary, became law. It const.i.tutes the third great written charter or safeguard of English liberty. Taken in connection with Magna Carta and the Pet.i.tion of Right, it forms, according to Lord Chatham, *the Bible of English liberty* (S497).

But Parliament had not yet finished the work of reform it had taken in hand. The executive strength of every government depends on its control of two powers,--the purse and the sword. Parliament had, as we have seen, got a tight grasp on the first, for the Commons, and the Commons alone, could levy taxes; but within certain very wide limits the personal expenditure of the sovereign still practically remained unchecked. Parliament now, 1689, took the decisive step of voting by the Revenue Act (1) a specific sum for the maintenance of the Crown; and (2) of voting this supply, not for the life of the sovereign, as had been the custom, but for four years (S498). A little later this supply was fixed for a signle year only. This action gave to the Commons final and complete control of the purse (SS498, 588).

Next, Parliament pa.s.sed the Mutiny Act (1689) (S496), which granted the King power to enforce martial law--in other words, to maintain a standing army--for one year at a time, and no longer, save by renewal of the law. This act gave Parliament complete control of the sword, and thus finished the great work; for without the annual meeting and the annual vote of that body, an English sovereign would at the end of a twelvemonth stand penniless and helpless.

26. Reforms in the Courts; the Toleration Act; the Press made Free.

The same year (1689) Parliament effected great and sorely needed reforms in the administration of justice (S492).

Next, Parliament pa.s.sed the Toleration Act, 1689 (S496). This measure granted liberty of worship to all Protestant Dissenters except those who denied the doctrine of the Trinity.[1] The Toleration Act, however, did not abolish the Corporation Act or the Test Act[2]

(SS472, 477), and it granted no religious freedom to Catholics.[3]

Still, the Toleration Act was a step forward, and it prepared the way for that absolute liberty of worship and of religious belief which now exists in England.

[1] Freedom of worship was granted to Unitarians in 1812.

[2] The Act of Indemnity of 1727, and pa.s.sed from year to year, suspended the penalties of the Test and the Corporation Acts; they were both repealed in 1828.

[3] Later, the fear that James II might be invited to return led to the enactment of very severe laws agaisnt the Catholics; and in the next reign (Anne's) the Act of Occasional Conformity and the Schism Act were directed against Protestant Dissenters.

In finance, the reign of William and Mary was marked by the practical beginning of the permanent National Debt in 1693 and by the establishment in 1694 of the Bank of England (S503).

Now, too, 1695, the English press, for the first time in its history, became, in large measure, free (SS498, 556), though hampered by a very severe law of libel and by stamp duties.[4] From this period the influence of newspapers continued to increase, until the final abolition of the stamp duty (1855) made it possible to issue penny and even halfpenny papers at a profit. These cheap newspapers sprang at once into an immense circulation among all cla.s.ses, and thus they became the power for good or evil, according to their character, which they are to-day; so that it would be no exaggeration to say that back of the power of Parliament now stands the greater power of the press.

[4] Debates in Parliament could not be reported until 1771 (S556), and certain Acts (1793, 1799) checked the freedom of the press for a time. See May's "History of England."

27. The House of Commons no longer a Representative Body; the First Two Georges and their Ministers.

But now that the Revolution of 1688 had done its work, and transferred the power of the Crown to the House of Commons, a new difficulty arose. This was the fact that the Commons did not represent the people, but stood simply as the representative of a small number of rich Whig landowners.[1] In many towns the right to vote was confined to the town officers or to the well-to-do citizens. In other cases, towns which had dwindled in population to a very few inhavitants continued to have the right to send two members to Parliament, while, on the other hand, large and flourishing cities had grown up which had no power to send even a single member (S578). The result of this state of things was that the wealthy Whig families bought up the votes of electors, and so regularly controlled the elections (S538).