The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 2

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 2

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The same lesson Somers drew from the history of Rome; and every
scholar who really understands that history will admit that he
was in the right. The finest militia that ever existed was
probably that of Italy in the third century before Christ. It
might have been thought that seven or eight hundred thousand
fighting men, who assuredly wanted neither natural courage nor
public spirit, would have been able to protect their own hearths
and altars against an invader. An invader came, bringing with him
an army small and exhausted by a march over the snows of the
Alps, but familiar with battles and sieges. At the head of this
army he traversed the peninsula to and fro, gained a succession
of victories against immense numerical odds, slaughtered the
hardy youth of Latium like sheep, by tens of thousands, encamped
under the walls of Rome, continued during sixteen years to
maintain himself in a hostile country, and was never dislodged
till he had by a cruel discipline gradually taught his
adversaries how to resist him.

It was idle to repeat the names of great battles won, in the
middle ages, by men who did not make war their chief calling;
those battles proved only that one militia might beat another,
and not that a militia could beat a regular army. As idle was it
to declaim about the camp at Tilbury. We had indeed reason to be
proud of the spirit which all classes of Englishmen, gentlemen
and yeomen, peasants and burgesses, had so signally displayed in
the great crisis of 1588. But we had also reason to be thankful
that, with all their spirit, they were not brought face to face
with the Spanish battalions. Somers related an anecdote, well
worthy to be remembered, which had been preserved by tradition in
the noble house of De Vere. One of the most illustrious men of
that house, a captain who had acquired much experience and much
fame in the Netherlands, had, in the crisis of peril, been
summoned back to England by Elizabeth, and rode with her through
the endless ranks of shouting pikemen. She asked him what he
thought of the army. "It is," he said, "a brave army." There was
something in his tone or manner which showed that he meant more
than his words expressed. The Queen insisted on his speaking out.
"Madam," he said, "Your Grace's army is brave indeed. I have not
in the world the name of a coward, and yet I am the greatest
coward here. All these fine fellows are praying that the enemy
may land, and that there may be a battle; and I, who know that
enemy well, cannot think of such a battle without dismay." De
Vere was doubtless in the right. The Duke of Parma, indeed, would
not have subjected our country; but it is by no means improbable
that, if he had effected a landing, the island would have been
the theatre of a war greatly resembling that which Hannibal waged
in Italy, and that the invaders would not have been driven out
till many cities had been sacked, till many counties had been
wasted, and till multitudes of our stout-hearted rustics and
artisans had perished in the carnage of days not less terrible
than those of Thrasymene and Cannae.

While the pamphlets of Trenchard and Somers were in every hand,
the Parliament met.

The words with which the King opened the session brought the
great question to a speedy issue. "The circumstances," he said,
"of affairs abroad are such, that I think myself obliged to tell
you my opinion, that, for the present, England cannot be safe
without a land force; and I hope we shall not give those that
mean us ill the opportunity of effecting that under the notion of
a peace which they could not bring to pass by war."

The speech was well received; for that Parliament was thoroughly
well affected to the Government. The members had, like the rest
of the community, been put into high good humour by the return of
peace and by the revival of trade. They were indeed still under
the influence of the feelings of the preceding day; and they had
still in their ears the thanksgiving sermons and thanksgiving
anthems; all the bonfires had hardly burned out; and the rows of
lamps and candles had hardly been taken down. Many, therefore,
who did not assent to all that the King had said, joined in a
loud hum of approbation when he concluded.3 As soon as the
Commons had retired to their own chamber, they resolved to
present an address assuring His Majesty that they would stand by
him in peace as firmly as they had stood by him in war. Seymour,
who had, during the autumn, been going from shire to shire, for
the purpose of inflaming the country gentlemen against the
ministry, ventured to make some uncourtly remarks; but he gave so
much offence that he was hissed down, and did not venture to
demand a division.4

The friends of the Government were greatly elated by the
proceedings of this day. During the following week hopes were
entertained that the Parliament might be induced to vote a peace
establishment of thirty thousand men. But these hopes were
delusive. The hum with which William's speech had been received,
and the hiss which had drowned the voice of Seymour, had been
misunderstood. The Commons were indeed warmly attached to the
King's person and government, and quick to resent any
disrespectful mention of his name. But the members who were
disposed to let him have even half as many troops as he thought
necessary were a minority. On the tenth of December his speech
was considered in a Committee of the whole House; and Harley came
forward as the chief of the opposition. He did not, like some hot
headed men, among both the Whigs and the Tories, contend that
there ought to be no regular soldiers. But he maintained that it
was unnecessary to keep up, after the peace of Ryswick, a larger
force than had been kept up after the peace of Nimeguen. He
moved, therefore, that the military establishment should be
reduced to what it had been in the year 1680. The Ministers found
that, on this occasion, neither their honest nor their dishonest
supporters could be trusted. For, in the minds of the most
respectable men, the prejudice against standing armies was of too
long growth and too deep root to be at once removed; and those
means by which the Court might, at another time, have secured the
help of venal politicians were, at that moment, of less avail
than usual. The Triennial Act was beginning to produce its
effects. A general election was at hand. Every member who had
constituents was desirous to please them; and it was certain that
no member would please his constituents by voting for a standing
army; and the resolution moved by Harvey was strongly supported
by Howe, was carried, was reported to the House on the following
day, and, after a debate in which several orators made a great
display of their knowledge of ancient and modern history, was
confirmed by one hundred and eighty-five votes to one hundred and
forty-eight.5

In this debate the fear and hatred with which many of the best
friends of the Government regarded Sunderland were unequivocally
manifested. "It is easy," such was the language of several
members, "it is easy to guess by whom that unhappy sentence was
inserted in the speech from the Throne. No person well acquainted
with the disastrous and disgraceful history of the last two
reigns can doubt who the minister is, who is now whispering evil
counsel in the ear of a third master." The Chamberlain, thus
fiercely attacked, was very feebly defended. There was indeed in the
House of Commons a small knot of his creatures; and they were men
not destitute of a certain kind of ability; but their moral
character was as bad as his. One of them was the late Secretary
of the Treasury, Guy, who had been turned out of his place for
corruption. Another was the late Speaker, Trevor, who had, from
the chair, put the question whether he was or was not a rogue,
and had been forced to pronounce that the Ayes had it. A third
was Charles Duncombe, long the greatest goldsmith of Lombard
Street, and now one of the greatest landowners of the North
Riding of Yorkshire. Possessed of a private fortune equal to that
of any duke, he had not thought it beneath him to accept the
place of Cashier of the Excise, and had perfectly understood
how to make that place lucrative; but he had recently been
ejected from office by Montague, who thought, with good reason,
that he was not a man to be trusted. Such advocates as Trevor,
Guy and Duncombe could do little for Sunderland in debate. The
statesmen of the junto would do nothing for him. They had
undoubtedly owed much to him. His influence, cooperating with
their own great abilities and with the force of circumstances,
had induced the King to commit the direction of the internal
administration of the realm to a Whig Cabinet. But the distrust
which the old traitor and apostate inspired was not to be
overcome. The ministers could not be sure that he was not, while
smiling on them, whispering in confidential tones to them,
pouring out, as it might seem, all his heart to them, really
calumniating them in the closet or suggesting to the opposition
some ingenious mode of attacking them. They had very recently
been thwarted by him. They were bent on making Wharton a
Secretary of State, and had therefore looked forward with
impatience to the retirement of Trumball, who was indeed hardly
equal to the duties of his great place. To their surprise and
mortification they learned, on the eve of the meeting of
Parliament, that Trumball had suddenly resigned, and Vernon, the
Under Secretary, had been summoned to Kensington, and had
returned thence with the seals. Vernon was a zealous Whig, and
not personally unacceptable to the chiefs of his party. But the
Lord Chancellor, the First Lord of the Treasury, and the First
Lord of the Admiralty, might not unnaturally think it strange
that a post of the highest importance should have been filled up
in opposition to their known wishes, and with a haste and a
secresy which plainly showed that the King did not wish to be
annoyed by their remonstrances. The Lord Chamberlain pretended
that he had done all in his power to serve Wharton. But the Whig
chiefs were not men to be duped by the professions of so
notorious a liar. Montague bitterly described him as a fireship,
dangerous at best, but on the whole most dangerous as a consort,
and least dangerous when showing hostile colours. Smith, who was
the most efficient of Montague's lieutenants, both in the
Treasury and in the Parliament, cordially sympathised with his
leader. Sunderland was therefore left undefended. His enemies
became bolder and more vehement every day. Sir Thomas Dyke,
member for Grinstead, and Lord Norris, son of the Earl of
Abingdon, talked of moving an address requesting the King to
banish for ever from the Court and the Council that evil adviser
who had misled His Majesty's royal uncles, had betrayed the
liberties of the people, and had abjured the Protestant religion.

Sunderland had been uneasy from the first moment at which his
name had been mentioned in the House of Commons. He was now in an
agony of terror. The whole enigma of his life, an enigma of which
many unsatisfactory and some absurd explanations have been
propounded, is at once solved if we consider him as a man
insatiably greedy of wealth and power, and yet nervously
apprehensive of danger. He rushed with ravenous eagerness at
every bait which was offered to his cupidity. But any ominous
shadow, any threatening murmur, sufficed to stop him in his full
career, and to make him change his course or bury himself in a
hiding place. He ought to have thought himself fortunate indeed,
when, after all the crimes which he had committed, he found
himself again enjoying his picture gallery and his woods at
Althorpe, sitting in the House of Lords, admitted to the royal
closet, pensioned from the Privy Purse, consulted about the most
important affairs of state. But his ambition and avarice would
not suffer him to rest till he held a high and lucrative office,
till he was a regent of the kingdom. The consequence was, as
might have been expected, a violent clamour; and that clamour he
had not the spirit to face.

His friends assured him that the threatened address would not be
carried. Perhaps a hundred and sixty members might vote for it;
but hardly more. "A hundred and sixty!" he cried: "No minister
can stand against a hundred and sixty. I am sure that I will not
try." It must be remembered that a hundred and sixty votes in a
House of five hundred and thirteen members would correspond to
more than two hundred votes in the present House of Commons; a
very formidable minority on the unfavourable side of a question
deeply affecting the personal character of a public man. William,
unwilling to part with a servant whom he knew to be unprincipled,
but whom he did not consider as more unprincipled than many other
English politicians, and in whom he had found much of a very
useful sort of knowledge, and of a very useful sort of ability,
tried to induce the ministry to come to the rescue. It was
particularly important to soothe Wharton, who had been
exasperated by his recent disappointment, and had probably
exasperated the other members of the junto. He was sent for to
the palace. The King himself intreated him to be reconciled to
the Lord Chamberlain, and to prevail on the Whig leaders in the
Lower House to oppose any motion which Dyke or Norris might make.
Wharton answered in a manner which made it clear that from him no
help was to be expected. Sunderland's terrors now became
insupportable. He had requested some of his friends to come to
his house that he might consult them; they came at the appointed
hour, but found that he had gone to Kensington, and had left word
that he should soon be back. When he joined them, they observed
that he had not the gold key which is the badge of the Lord
Chamberlain, and asked where it was. "At Kensington," answered
Sunderland. They found that he had tendered his resignation, and
that it had been, after a long struggle, accepted. They blamed
his haste, and told him that, since he had summoned them to
advise him on that day, he might at least have waited till the
morrow. "To morrow," he exclaimed, "would have ruined me. To
night has saved me."

Meanwhile, both the disciples of Somers and the disciples of
Trenchard were grumbling at Harley's resolution. The disciples of
Somers maintained that, if it was right to have an army at all,
it must be right to have an efficient army. The disciples of
Trenchard complained that a great principle had been shamefully
given up. On the vital issue, Standing Army or no Standing Army,
the Commons had pronounced an erroneous, a fatal decision.
Whether that army should consist of five regiments or of fifteen
was hardly worth debating. The great dyke which kept out
arbitrary power had been broken. It was idle to say that the
breach was narrow; for it would soon be widened by the flood
which would rush in. The war of pamphlets raged more fiercely
than ever. At the same time alarming symptoms began to appear
among the men of the sword. They saw themselves every day
described in print as the scum of society, as mortal enemies of
the liberties of their country. Was it reasonable,--such was the
language of some scribblers,--that an honest gentleman should pay
a heavy land tax, in order to support in idleness and luxury a
set of fellows who requited him by seducing his dairy maids and
shooting his partridges? Nor was it only in Grub Street tracts
that such reflections were to be found. It was known all over the
town that uncivil things had been said of the military profession
in the House of Commons, and that Jack Howe, in particular, had,
on this subject, given the rein to his wit and to his ill nature.
Some rough and daring veterans, marked with the scars of
Steinkirk and singed with the smoke of Namur, threatened
vengeance for these insults. The writers and speakers who had
taken the greatest liberties went in constant fear of being
accosted by fierce-looking captains, and required to make an
immediate choice between fighting and being caned. One gentleman,
who had made himself conspicuous by the severity of his language,
went about with pistols in his pockets. Howe, whose courage was
not proportionate to his malignity and petulance, was so much
frightened, that he retired into the country. The King, well
aware that a single blow given, at that critical conjuncture, by
a soldier to a member of Parliament might produce disastrous
consequences, ordered the officers of the army to their quarters,
and, by the vigorous exertion of his authority and influence,
succeeded in preventing all outrage.6

All this time the feeling in favour of a regular force seemed to
be growing in the House of Commons. The resignation of Sunderland
had put many honest gentlemen in good humour. The Whig leaders
exerted themselves to rally their followers, held meetings at the
"Rose," and represented strongly the dangers to which the country
would be exposed, if defended only by a militia. The opposition
asserted that neither bribes nor promises were spared. The
ministers at length flattered themselves that Harley's resolution
might be rescinded. On the eighth of January they again tried
their strength, and were again defeated, though by a smaller
majority than before. A hundred and sixty-four members divided
with them. A hundred and eighty-eight were for adhering to the
vote of the eleventh of December. It was remarked that on this
occasion the naval men, with Rooke at their head, voted against
the Government.7

It was necessary to yield. All that remained was to put on the
words of the resolution of the eleventh of December the most
favourable sense that they could be made to bear. They did indeed
admit of very different interpretations. The force which was
actually in England in 1680 hardly amounted to five thousand men.
But the garrison of Tangier and the regiments in the pay of the
Batavian federation, which, as they were available for the
defence of England against a foreign or domestic enemy, might be
said to be in some sort part of the English army, amounted to at
least five thousand more. The construction which the ministers
put on the resolution of the eleventh of December was, that the
army was to consist of ten thousand men; and in this construction
the House acquiesced. It was not held to be necessary that the
Parliament should, as in our time, fix the amount of the land
force. The Commons thought that they sufficiently limited the
number of soldiers by limiting the sum which was to be expended
in maintaining soldiers. What that sum should be was a question
which raised much debate. Harley was unwilling to give more than
three hundred thousand pounds. Montague struggled for four
hundred thousand. The general sense of the House was that Harley
offered too little, and that Montague demanded too much. At last,
on the fourteenth of January, a vote was taken for three hundred
and fifty thousand pounds. Four days later the House resolved to
grant half-pay to the disbanded officers till they should be
otherwise provided for. The half-pay was meant to be a retainer
as well as a reward. The effect of this important vote therefore
was that, whenever a new war should break out, the nation would
be able to command the services of many gentlemen of great
military experience. The ministry afterwards succeeded in
obtaining, much against the will of a portion of the opposition,
a separate vote for three thousand marines.

A Mutiny Act, which had been passed in 1697, expired in the
spring of 1698. As yet no such Act had been passed except in time
of war; and the temper of the Parliament and of the nation was
such that the ministers did not venture to ask, in time of peace,
for a renewal of powers unknown to the constitution. For the
present, therefore, the soldier was again, as in the times which
preceded the Revolution, subject to exactly the same law which
governed the citizen.

It was only in matters relating to the army that the government
found the Commons unmanageable. Liberal provision was made for
the navy. The number of seamen was fixed at ten thousand, a great
force, according to the notions of that age, for a time of peace.
The funds assigned some years before for the support of the civil
list had fallen short of the estimate. It was resolved that a new
arrangement should be made, and that a certain income should be
settled on the King. The amount was fixed, by an unanimous vote,
at seven hundred thousand pounds; and the Commons declared that,
by making this ample provision for his comfort and dignity, they
meant to express their sense of the great things which he had
done for the country. It is probable, however, that so large a
sum would not have been given without debates and divisions, had
it not been understood that he meant to take on himself the
charge of the Duke of Gloucester's establishment, and that he
would in all probability have to pay fifty thousand pounds a year
to Mary of Modena. The Tories were unwilling to disoblige the
Princess of Denmark; and the Jacobites abstained from offering
any opposition to a grant in the benefit of which they hoped that
the banished family would participate.

It was not merely by pecuniary liberality that the Parliament
testified attachment to the Sovereign. A bill was rapidly passed
which withheld the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act, during
twelve months more, from Bernardi and some other conspirators who
had been concerned in the Assassination Plot, but whose guilt,
though demonstrated to the conviction of every reasonable man,
could not be proved by two witnesses. At the same time new
securities were provided against a new danger which threatened
the government. The peace had put an end to the apprehension that
the throne of William might be subverted by foreign arms, but
had, at the same time, facilitated domestic treason. It was no
longer necessary for an agent from Saint Germains to cross the
sea in a fishing boat, under the constant dread of being
intercepted by a cruiser. It was no longer necessary for him to
land on a desolate beach, to lodge in a thatched hovel, to dress
himself like a carter, or to travel up to town on foot. He came
openly by the Calais packet, walked into the best inn at Dover,
and ordered posthorses for London. Meanwhile young Englishmen of
quality and fortune were hastening in crowds to Paris. They would
naturally wish to see him who had once been their king; and this
curiosity, though in itself innocent, might have evil
consequences. Artful tempters would doubtless be on the watch for
every such traveller; and many such travellers might be well
pleased to be courteously accosted, in a foreign land, by
Englishmen of honourable name, distinguished appearance, and
insinuating address. It was not to be expected that a lad fresh
from the university would be able to refute all the sophisms and
calumnies which might be breathed in his ear by dexterous and
experienced seducers. Nor would it be strange if he should, in no
long time, accept an invitation to a private audience at Saint
Germains, should be charmed by the graces of Mary of Modena,
should find something engaging in the childish innocence of the
Prince of Wales, should kiss the hand of James, and should return
home an ardent Jacobite. An Act was therefore passed forbidding
English subjects to hold any intercourse orally, or by writing,
or by message, with the exiled family. A day was fixed after
which no English subject, who had, during the late war, gone into
France without the royal permission or borne arms against his
country was to be permitted to reside in this kingdom, except
under a special license from the King. Whoever infringed these
rules incurred the penalties of high treason.

The dismay was at first great among the malecontents. For English
and Irish Jacobites, who had served under the standards of Lewis
or hung about the Court of Saint Germains, had, since the peace,
come over in multitudes to England. It was computed that
thousands were within the scope of the new Act. But the severity
of that Act was mitigated by a beneficent administration. Some
fierce and stubborn non-jurors who would not debase themselves by
asking for any indulgence, and some conspicuous enemies of the
government who had asked for indulgence in vain, were under the
necessity of taking refuge on the Continent. But the great
majority of those offenders who promised to live peaceably under
William's rule obtained his permission to remain in their native
land.

In the case of one great offender there were some circumstances
which attracted general interest, and which might furnish a good
subject to a novelist or a dramatist. Near fourteen years before
this time, Sunderland, then Secretary of State to Charles the
Second, had married his daughter Lady Elizabeth Spencer to
Donough Macarthy, Earl of Clancarty, the lord of an immense
domain in Munster. Both the bridegroom and the bride were mere
children, the bridegroom only fifteen, the bride only eleven.
After the ceremony they were separated; and many years full of
strange vicissitudes elapsed before they again met. The boy soon
visited his estates in Ireland. He had been bred a member of the
Church of England; but his opinions and his practice were loose.
He found himself among kinsmen who were zealous Roman Catholics.
A Roman Catholic king was on the throne. To turn Roman Catholic
was the best recommendation to favour both at Whitehall and at
Dublin Castle. Clancarty speedily changed his religion, and from
a dissolute Protestant became a dissolute Papist. After the
Revolution he followed the fortunes of James; sate in the Celtic
Parliament which met at the King's Inns; commanded a regiment in
the Celtic army; was forced to surrender himself to Marlborough
at Cork; was sent to England, and was imprisoned in the Tower.
The Clancarty estates, which were supposed to yield a rent of not
much less than ten thousand a year, were confiscated. They were
charged with an annuity to the Earl's brother, and with another
annuity to his wife; but the greater part was bestowed by the
King on Lord Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; During some
time, the prisoner's life was not safe. For the popular voice
accused him of outrages for which the utmost license of civil war
would not furnish a plea. It is said that he was threatened with
an appeal of murder by the widow of a Protestant clergyman who
had been put to death during the troubles. After passing three
years in confinement, Clancarty made his escape to the Continent,
was graciously received at St. Germains, and was entrusted with
the command of a corps of Irish refugees. When the treaty of
Ryswick had put an end to the hope that the banished dynasty
would be restored by foreign arms, he flattered himself that he
might be able to make his peace with the English Government. But
he was grievously disappointed. The interest of his wife's family
was undoubtedly more than sufficient to obtain a pardon for him.
But on that interest he could not reckon. The selfish, base,
covetous, father-in-law was not at all desirous to have a
highborn beggar and the posterity of a highborn beggar to
maintain. The ruling passion of the brother-in-law was a stern
and acrimonious party spirit. He could not bear to think that he
was so nearly connected with an enemy of the Revolution and of
the Bill of Rights, and would with pleasure have seen the odious
tie severed even by the hand of the executioner. There was one,
however, from whom the ruined, expatriated, proscribed young
nobleman might hope to find a kind reception. He stole across the
Channel in disguise, presented himself at Sunderland's door, and
requested to see Lady Clancarty. He was charged, he said, with a
message to her from her mother, who was then lying on a sick bed
at Windsor. By this fiction he obtained admission, made himself
known to his wife, whose thoughts had probably been constantly
fixed on him during many years, and prevailed on her to give him
the most tender proofs of an affection sanctioned by the laws
both of God and of man. The secret was soon discovered and
betrayed by a waiting woman. Spencer learned that very night that
his sister had admitted her husband to her apartment. The
fanatical young Whig, burning with animosity which he mistook for
virtue, and eager to emulate the Corinthian who assassinated his
brother, and the Roman who passed sentence of death on his son,
flew to Vernon's office, gave information that the Irish rebel,
who had once already escaped from custody, was in hiding hard by,
and procured a warrant and a guard of soldiers. Clancarty was
found in the arms of his wife, and dragged to the Tower. She
followed him and implored permission to partake his cell. These
events produced a great stir throughout the society of London.
Sunderland professed everywhere that he heartily approved of his
son's conduct; but the public had made up its mind about
Sunderland's veracity, and paid very little attention to his
professions on this or on any other subject. In general,
honourable men of both parties, whatever might be their opinion
of Clancarty, felt great compassion for his mother who was dying
of a broken heart, and his poor young wife who was begging
piteously to be admitted within the Traitor's Gate. Devonshire
and Bedford joined with Ormond to ask for mercy. The aid of a
still more powerful intercessor was called in. Lady Russell was
esteemed by the King as a valuable friend; she was venerated by
the nation generally as a saint, the widow of a martyr; and, when
she deigned to solicit favours, it was scarcely possible that she
should solicit in vain. She naturally felt a strong sympathy for
the unhappy couple, who were parted by the walls of that gloomy
old fortress in which she had herself exchanged the last sad
endearments with one whose image was never absent from her. She
took Lady Clancarty with her to the palace, obtained access to
William, and put a petition into his hand. Clancarty was pardoned
on condition that he should leave the kingdom and never return to
it. A pension was granted to him, small when compared with the
magnificent inheritance which he had forfeited, but quite
sufficient to enable him to live like a gentleman on the
Continent. He retired, accompanied by his Elizabeth, to Altona.

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