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 House of Bourbon was so situated that one year of moderation
might not improbably be rewarded by thirty years of undisputed
ascendency. Was it possible the politic and experienced Lewis
would at such a conjuncture offer a new and most galling
provocation, not only to William, whose animosity was already as
great as it could be, but to the people whom William had hitherto
been vainly endeavouring to inspire with animosity resembling his
own? How often, since the Revolution of 1688, had it seemed that
the English were thoroughly weary of the new government. And how
often had the detection of a Jacobite plot, or the approach of a
French armament, changed the whole face of things. All at once
the grumbling had ceased, the grumblers had crowded to sign loyal
addresses to the usurper, had formed associations in support of
his authority, had appeared in arms at the head of the militia,
crying God save King William. So it would be now. Most of those
who had taken a pleasure in crossing him on the question of his
Dutch guards, on the question of his Irish grants, would be moved
to vehement resentment when they learned that Lewis had, in
direct violation of a treaty, determined to force on England a
king of his own religion, a king bred in his own dominions, a
king who would be at Westminster what Philip was at Madrid, a
great feudatory of France.

These arguments were concisely but clearly and strongly urged by
Torcy in a paper which is still extant, and which it is difficult
to believe that his master can have read without great
misgivings.23 On one side were the faith of treaties, the peace
of Europe, the welfare of France, nay the selfish interest of the
House of Bourbon. On the other side were the influence of an
artful woman, and the promptings of vanity which, we must in
candour acknowledge, was ennobled by a mixture of compassion and
chivalrous generosity. The King determined to act in direct
opposition to the advice of all his ablest servants; and the
princes of the blood applauded his decision, as they would have
applauded any decision which he had announced. Nowhere was he
regarded with a more timorous, a more slavish, respect than in
his own family.

On the following day he went again to Saint Germains, and,
attended by a splendid retinue, entered James's bedchamber. The
dying man scarcely opened his heavy eyes, and then closed them
again. "I have something," said Lewis, "of great moment to
communicate to Your Majesty." The courtiers who filled the room
took this as a signal to retire, and were crowding towards the
door, when they were stopped by that commanding voice: "Let
nobody withdraw. I come to tell Your Majesty that, whenever it
shall please God to take you from us, I will be to your son what
I have been to you, and will acknowledge him as King of England,
Scotland and Ireland." The English exiles who were standing round
the couch fell on their knees. Some burst into tears. Some poured
forth praises and blessings with clamour such as, was scarcely
becoming in such a place and at such a time. Some indistinct
murmurs which James uttered, and which were drowned by the noisy
gratitude of his attendants, were interpreted to mean thanks. But
from the most trustworthy accounts it appears that he was
insensible to all that was passing around him.24

As soon as Lewis was again at Marli, he repeated to the Court
assembled there the announcement which he had made at Saint
Germains. The whole circle broke forth into exclamations of
delight and admiration. What piety! What humanity! What
magnanimity! Nor was this enthusiasm altogether feigned. For, in
the estimation of the greater part of that brilliant crowd,
nations were nothing and princes every thing. What could be more
generous, more amiable, than to protect an innocent boy, who was
kept out of his rightful inheritance by an ambitious kinsman? The
fine gentlemen and fine ladies who talked thus forgot that,
besides the innocent boy and that ambitious kinsman, five
millions and a half of Englishmen were concerned, who were little
disposed to consider themselves as the absolute property of any
master, and who were still less disposed to accept a master
chosen for them by the French King.

James lingered three days longer. He was occasionally sensible
during a few minutes, and, during one of these lucid intervals,
faintly expressed his gratitude to Lewis. On the sixteenth he
died. His Queen retired that evening to the nunnery of Chaillot,
where she could weep and pray undisturbed. She left Saint
Germains in joyous agitation. A herald made his appearance before
the palace gate, and, with sound of trumpet, proclaimed, in
Latin, French and English, King James the Third of England and
Eighth of Scotland. The streets, in consequence doubtless of
orders from the government, were illuminated; and the townsmen
with loud shouts wished a long reign to their illustrious
neighbour. The poor lad received from his ministers, and
delivered back to them, the seals of their offices, and held out
his hand to be kissed. One of the first acts of his mock reign
was to bestow some mock peerages in conformity with directions
which he found in his father's will. Middleton, who had as yet no
English title, was created Earl of Monmouth. Perth, who had stood
high in the favour of his late master, both as an apostate from
the Protestant religion, and as the author of the last
improvements on the thumb screw, took the title of Duke.

Meanwhile the remains of James were escorted, in the dusk of the
evening, by a slender retinue to the Chapel of the English
Benedictines at Paris, and deposited there in the vain hope that,
at some future time, they would be laid with kingly pomp at
Westminster among the graves of the Plantagenets and Tudors.

Three days after these humble obsequies Lewis visited Saint
Germains in form. On the morrow the visit was returned. The
French Court was now at Versailles; and the Pretender was
received there, in all points, as his father would have been,
sate in his father's arm chair, took, as his father had always
done, the right hand of the great monarch, and wore the long
violet coloured mantle which was by ancient usage the mourning
garb of the Kings of France. There was on that day a great
concourse of ambassadors and envoys; but one well known figure
was wanting. Manchester had sent off to Loo intelligence of the
affront which had been offered to his country and his master, had
solicited instructions, and had determined that, till these
instructions should arrive, he would live in strict seclusion. He
did not think that he should be justified in quitting his post
without express orders; but his earnest hope was that he should
be directed to turn his back in contemptuous defiance on the
Court which had dared to treat England as a subject province.

As soon as the fault into which Lewis had been hurried by pity,
by the desire of applause, and by female influence was complete
and irreparable, he began to feel serious uneasiness. His
ministers were directed to declare everywhere that their master
had no intention of affronting the English government, that he
had not violated the Treaty of Ryswick, that he had no intention
of violating it, that he had merely meant to gratify an
unfortunate family nearly related to himself by using names and
observing forms which really meant nothing, and that he was
resolved not to countenance any attempt to subvert the throne of
William. Torcy, who had, a few days before, proved by
irrefragable arguments that his master could not, without a gross
breach of contract, recognise the Pretender, imagined that
sophisms which had not imposed on himself might possibly impose
on others. He visited the English embassy, obtained admittance,
and, as was his duty, did his best to excuse the fatal act which
he had done his best to prevent. Manchester's answer to this
attempt at explanation was as strong and plain as it could be in
the absence of precise instructions. The instructions speedily
arrived. The courier who carried the news of the recognition to
Loo arrived there when William was at table with some of his
nobles and some princes of the German Empire who had visited him
in his retreat. The King said not a word; but his pale cheek
flushed; and he pulled his hat over his eyes to conceal the
changes of his countenance. He hastened to send off several
messengers. One carried a letter commanding Manchester to quit
France without taking leave. Another started for London with a
despatch which directed the Lords Justices to send Poussin
instantly out of England.

England was already in a flame when it was first known there that
James was dying. Some of his eager partisans formed plans and
made preparations for a great public manifestation of feeling in
different parts of the island. But the insolence of Lewis
produced a burst of public indignation which scarcely any
malecontent had the courage to face.

In the city of London, indeed, some zealots, who had probably
swallowed too many bumpers to their new Sovereign, played one of
those senseless pranks which were characteristic of their party.
They dressed themselves in coats bearing some resemblance to the
tabards of heralds, rode through the streets, halted at some
places, and muttered something which nobody could understand. It
was at first supposed that they were merely a company of prize
fighters from Hockley in the Hole who had taken this way of
advertising their performances with back sword, sword and
buckler, and single falchion. But it was soon discovered that
these gaudily dressed horsemen were proclaiming James the Third.
In an instant the pageant was at an end. The mock kings at arms
and pursuivants threw away their finery and fled for their lives
in all directions, followed by yells and showers of stones.25
Already the Common Council of London had met, and had voted,
without one dissentient voice, an address expressing the highest
resentment at the insult which France had offered to the King and
the kingdom. A few hours after this address had been presented to
the Regents, the Livery assembled to choose a Lord Mayor.
Duncombe, the Tory candidate, lately the popular favourite, was
rejected, and a Whig alderman placed in the chair. All over the
kingdom, corporations, grand juries, meetings of magistrates,
meetings of freeholders, were passing resolutions breathing
affection to William, and defiance to Lewis. It was necessary to
enlarge the "London Gazette" from four columns to twelve; and
even twelve were too few to hold the multitude of loyal and
patriotic addresses. In some of those addresses severe
reflections were thrown on the House of Commons. Our deliverer
had been ungratefully requited, thwarted, mortified, denied the
means of making the country respected and feared by neighbouring
states. The factious wrangling, the penny wise economy, of three
disgraceful years had produced the effect which might have been
expected. His Majesty would never have been so grossly affronted
abroad, if he had not first been affronted at home. But the eyes
of his people were opened. He had only to appeal from the
representatives to the constituents; and he would find that the
nation was still sound at heart.

Poussin had been directed to offer to the Lords Justices
explanations similar to those with which Torcy had attempted to
appease Manchester. A memorial was accordingly drawn up and
presented to Vernon; but Vernon refused to look at it. Soon a
courier arrived from Loo with the letter in which William
directed his vicegerents to send the French agent out of the
kingdom. An officer of the royal household was charged with the
execution of the order. He repaired to Poussin's lodgings; but
Poussin was not at home; he was supping at the Blue Posts, a
tavern much frequented by Jacobites, the very tavern indeed at
which Charnock and his gang had breakfasted on the day fixed for
the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green. To this house the
messenger went; and there he found Poussin at table with three of
the most virulent Tory members of the House of Commons,
Tredenham, who returned himself for Saint Mawes; Hammond, who had
been sent to Parliament by the high churchmen of the University
of Cambridge; and Davenant, who had recently, at Poussin's
suggestion, been rewarded by Lewis for some savage invectives
against the Whigs with a diamond ring worth three thousand
pistoles. This supper party was, during some weeks, the chief
topic of conversation. The exultation of the Whigs was boundless.
These then were the true English patriots, the men who could not
endure a foreigner, the men who would not suffer His Majesty to
bestow a moderate reward on the foreigners who had stormed
Athlone, and turned the flank of the Celtic army at Aghrim. It
now appeared they could be on excellent terms with a foreigner,
provided only that he was the emissary of a tyrant hostile to the
liberty, the independence, and the religion of their country. The
Tories, vexed and abashed, heartily wished that, on that unlucky
day, their friends had been supping somewhere else. Even the
bronze of Davenant's forehead was not proof to the general
reproach. He defended himself by pretending that Poussin, with
whom he had passed whole days, who had corrected his scurrilous
pamphlets, and who had paid him his shameful wages, was a
stranger to him, and that the meeting at the Blue Posts was
purely accidental. If his word was doubted, he was willing to
repeat his assertion on oath. The public, however, which had
formed a very correct notion of his character, thought that his
word was worth as much as his oath, and that his oath was worth
nothing.

Meanwhile the arrival of William was impatiently expected. From
Loo he had gone to Breda, where he had passed some time in
reviewing his troops, and in conferring with Marlborough and
Heinsius. He had hoped to be in England early in October. But
adverse winds detained him three weeks at the Hague. At length,
in the afternoon of the fourth of November, it was known in
London that he had landed early that morning at Margate. Great
preparations were made for welcoming him to his capital on the
following day, the thirteenth anniversary of his landing in
Devonshire. But a journey across the bridge, and along Cornhill
and Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, would have been too
great an effort for his enfeebled frame. He accordingly slept at
Greenwich, and thence proceeded to Hampton Court without entering
London. His return was, however, celebrated by the populace with
every sign of joy and attachment. The bonfires blazed, and the
gunpowder roared, all night. In every parish from Mile End to
Saint James's was to be seen enthroned on the shoulders of stout
Protestant porters a pope, gorgeous in robes of tinsel and triple
crown of pasteboard; and close to the ear of His Holiness stood a
devil with horns, cloven hoof, and a snaky tail.

Even in his country house the king could find no refuge from the
importunate loyalty of his people. Reputations from cities,
counties, universities, besieged him all day. He was, he wrote to
Heinsius, quite exhausted by the labour of hearing harangues and
returning answers. The whole kingdom meanwhile was looking
anxiously towards Hampton Court. Most of the ministers were
assembled there. The most eminent men of the party which was out
of power had repaired thither, to pay their duty to their
sovereign, and to congratulate him on his safe return. It was
remarked that Somers and Halifax, so malignantly persecuted a few
months ago by the House of Commons, were received with such marks
of esteem and kindness as William was little in the habit of
vouchsafing to his English courtiers. The lower ranks of both the
great factions were violently agitated. The Whigs, lately
vanquished and dispirited, were full of hope and ardour. The
Tories, lately triumphant and secure, were exasperated and
alarmed. Both Whigs and Tories waited with intense anxiety for
the decision of one momentous and pressing question. Would there
be a dissolution? On the seventh of November the King propounded
that question to his Privy Council. It was rumoured, and is
highly probable, that Jersey, Wright and Hedges advised him to
keep the existing Parliament. But they were not men whose opinion
was likely to have much weight with him; and Rochester, whose
opinion might have had some weight, had set out to take
possession of his Viceroyalty just before the death of James,
and was still at Dublin. William, however, had, as he owned to
Heinsius, some difficulty in making up his mind. He had no doubt
that a general election would give him a better House of Commons;
but a general election would cause delay; and delay might cause
much mischief. After balancing these considerations, during some
hours, he determined to dissolve.

The writs were sent out with all expedition; and in three days
the whole kingdom was up. Never--such was the intelligence sent
from the Dutch Embassy to the Hague--had there been more
intriguing, more canvassing, more virulence of party feeling. It
was in the capital that the first great contests took place. The
decisions of the Metropolitan constituent bodies were impatiently
expected as auguries of the general result. All the pens of Grub
Street, all the presses of Little Britain, were hard at work.
Handbills for and against every candidate were sent to every
voter. The popular slogans on both sides were indefatigably
repeated. Presbyterian, Papist, Tool of Holland, Pensioner of
France, were the appellations interchanged between the contending
factions. The Whig cry was that the Tory members of the last two
Parliaments had, from a malignant desire to mortify the King,
left the kingdom exposed to danger and insult, had
unconstitutionally encroached both on the legislature and on the
judicial functions of the House of Lords, had turned the House of
Commons into a new Star Chamber, had used as instruments of
capricious tyranny those privileges which ought never to be
employed but in defence of freedom, had persecuted, without
regard to law, to natural justice, or to decorum, the great
Commander who had saved the state at La Hogue, the great
Financier who had restored the currency and reestablished public
credit, the great judge whom all persons not blinded by prejudice
acknowledged to be, in virtue, in prudence, in learning and
eloquence, the first of living English jurists and statesmen. The
Tories answered that they had been only too moderate, only too
merciful; that they had used the Speaker's warrant and the power
of tacking only too sparingly; and that, if they ever again had a
majority, the three Whig leaders who now imagined themselves
secure should be impeached, not for high misdemeanours, but for
high treason. It soon appeared that these threats were not likely
to be very speedily executed. Four Whig and four Tory candidates
contested the City of London. The show of hands was for the
Whigs. A poll was demanded; and the Whigs polled nearly two votes
to one. Sir John Levison Gower, who was supposed to have
ingratiated himself with the whole body of shopkeepers by some
parts of his parliamentary conduct, was put up for Westminster on
the Tory interest; and the electors were reminded by puffs in the
newspapers of the services which he had rendered to trade. But
the dread of the French King, the Pope, and the Pretender,
prevailed; and Sir John was at the bottom of the poll. Southwark
not only returned Whigs, but gave them instructions of the most
Whiggish character.

In the country, parties were more nearly balanced than in the
capital. Yet the news from every quarter was that the Whigs had
recovered part at least of the ground which they had lost.
Wharton had regained his ascendency in Buckinghamshire. Musgrave
was rejected by Westmoreland. Nothing did more harm to the Tory
candidates than the story of Poussin's farewell supper. We learn
from their own acrimonious invectives that the unlucky discovery
of the three members of Parliament at the Blue Posts cost thirty
honest gentlemen their seats. One of the criminals, Tredenham,
escaped with impunity. For the dominion of his family over the
borough of St. Mawes was absolute even to a proverb. The other
two had the fate which they deserved. Davenant ceased to sit for
Bedwin. Hammond, who had lately stood high in the favour of the
University of Cambridge, was defeated by a great majority, and
was succeeded by the glory of the Whig party, Isaac Newton.

There was one district to which the eyes of hundreds of thousands
were turned with anxious interest, Gloucestershire. Would the
patriotic and high spirited gentry and yeomanry of that great
county again confide their dearest interests to the Impudent
Scandal of parliaments, the renegade, the slanderer, the
mountebank, who had been, during thirteen years, railing at his
betters of every party with a spite restrained by nothing but the
craven fear of corporal chastisement, and who had in the last
Parliament made himself conspicuous by the abject court which he
had paid to Lewis and by the impertinence with which he had
spoken of William.

The Gloucestershire election became a national affair.
Portmanteaus full of pamphlets and broadsides were sent down from
London. Every freeholder in the county had several tracts left at
his door. In every market place, on the market day, papers about
the brazen forehead, the viperous tongue, and the white liver of
Jack Howe, the French King's buffoon, flew about like flakes in a
snow storm. Clowns from the Cotswold Hills and the forest of
Dean, who had votes, but who did not know their letters, were
invited to hear these satires read, and were asked whether they
were prepared to endure the two great evils which were then
considered by the common people of England as the inseparable
concomitants of despotism, to wear wooden shoes, and to live on
frogs. The dissenting preachers and the clothiers were peculiarly
zealous. For Howe was considered as the enemy both of
conventicles and of factories. Outvoters were brought up to
Gloucester in extraordinary numbers. In the city of London the
traders who frequented Blackwell Hall, then the great emporium
for woollen goods, canvassed actively on the Whig side.

[Here the revised part ends.--EDITOR.]

Meanwhile reports about the state of the King's health were
constantly becoming more and more alarming. His medical
advisers, both English and Dutch, were at the end of their
resources. He had consulted by letter all the most eminent
physicians of Europe; and, as he was apprehensive that they might
return flattering answers if they knew who he was, he had written
under feigned names. To Fagon he had described himself as a
parish priest. Fagon replied, somewhat bluntly, that such
symptoms could have only one meaning, and that the only advice
which he had to give to the sick man was to prepare himself for
death. Having obtained this plain answer, William consulted Fagon
again without disguise, and obtained some prescriptions which
were thought to have a little retarded the approach of the
inevitable hour. But the great King's days were numbered.
Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily. He
still rode and even hunted;26 but he had no longer that firm seat
or that perfect command of the bridle for which he had once been
renowned. Still all his care was for the future. The filial
respect and tenderness of Albemarle had been almost a necessary
of life to him. But it was of importance that Heinsius should be
fully informed both as to the whole plan of the next campaign and
as to the state of the preparations. Albemarle was in full
possession of the King's views on these subjects. He was
therefore sent to the Hague. Heinsius was at that time suffering
from indisposition, which was indeed a trifle when compared with
the maladies under which William was sinking. But in the nature
of William there was none of that selfishness which is the too
common vice of invalids. On the twentieth of February he sent to
Heinsius a letter in which he did not even allude to his own
sufferings and infirmities. "I am," he said, "infinitely
concerned to learn that your health is not yet quite
reestablished. May God be pleased to grant you a speedy recovery.
I am unalterably your good friend, William." Those were the last
lines of that long correspondence.

On the twentieth of February William was ambling on a favourite
horse, named Sorrel, through the park of Hampton Court. He urged
his horse to strike into a gallop just at the spot where a mole
had been at work. Sorrel stumbled on the mole-hill, and went down
on his knees. The King fell off, and broke his collar bone. The
bone was set; and he returned to Kensington in his coach. The
jolting of the rough roads of that time made it necessary to
reduce the fracture again. To a young and vigorous man such an
accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of William was
not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt that
his time was short, and grieved, with a grief such as only noble
spirits feel, to think that he must leave his work but half
finished. It was possible that he might still live until one of
his plans should be carried into execution. He had long known
that the relation in which England and Scotland stood to each
other was at best precarious, and often unfriendly, and that it
might be doubted whether, in an estimate of the British power,
the resources of the smaller country ought not to be deducted
from those of the larger. Recent events had proved that, without
doubt, the two kingdoms could not possibly continue for another
year to be on the terms on which they had been during the
preceding century, and that there must be between them either
absolute union or deadly enmity. Their enmity would bring
frightful calamities, not on themselves alone, but on all the
civilised world. Their union would be the best security for the
prosperity of both, for the internal tranquillity of the island,
for the just balance of power among European states, and for the
immunities of all Protestant countries. On the twenty-eighth of
February the Commons listened with uncovered heads to the last
message that bore William's sign manual. An unhappy accident, he
told them, had forced him to make to them in writing a
communication which he would gladly have made from the throne. He
had, in the first year of his reign, expressed his desire to see
an union accomplished between England and Scotland. He was
convinced that nothing could more conduce to the safety and
happiness of both. He should think it his peculiar felicity if,
before the close of his reign, some happy expedient could be
devised for making the two kingdoms one; and he, in the most
earnest manner, recommended the question to the consideration of
the Houses. It was resolved that the message should betaken into
consideration on Saturday, the seventh of March.

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