The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 3

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The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

Volume III

(Chapters XI-XVI)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

CHAPTER XI

William and Mary proclaimed in London--Rejoicings throughout
England; Rejoicings in Holland--Discontent of the Clergy and of
the Army--Reaction of Public Feeling--Temper of the Tories--
Temper of the Whigs--Ministerial Arrangements--William his own
Minister for Foreign Affairs--Danby--Halifax--Nottingham
Shrewsbury The Board of Admiralty; the Board of Treasury--The
Great Seal--The Judges--The Household--Subordinate Appointments--
The Convention turned into a Parliament--The Members of the two
Houses required to take the Oaths Questions relating to the
Revenue--Abolition of the Hearth Money--Repayment of the Expenses
of the United Provinces--Mutiny at Ipswich--The first Mutiny
Bill--Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act--Unpopularity of
William--Popularity of Mary--The Court removed from Whitehall to
Hampton Court--The Court at Kensington; William's foreign
Favourites--General Maladministration--Dissensions among Men in
Office--Department of Foreign Affairs--Religious Disputes--The
High Church Party--The Low Church Party--William's Views
concerning Ecclesiastical Polity--Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury--
Nottingham's Views concerning Ecclesiastical Polity--The
Toleration Bill--The Comprehension Bill--The Bill for settling
the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy--The Bill for settling the
Coronation Oath--The Coronation--Promotions--The Coalition
against France; the Devastation of the Palatinate--War declared
against France

THE Revolution had been accomplished. The decrees of the
Convention were everywhere received with submission. London, true
during fifty eventful years to the cause of civil freedom and of
the reformed religion, was foremost in professing loyalty to the
new Sovereigns. Garter King at arms, after making proclamation
under the windows of Whitehall, rode in state along the Strand to
Temple Bar. He was followed by the maces of the two Houses, by
the two Speakers, Halifax and Powle, and by a long train of
coaches filled with noblemen and gentlemen. The magistrates of
the City threw open their gates and joined the procession. Four
regiments of militia lined the way up Ludgate Hill, round Saint
Paul's Cathedral, and along Cheapside. The streets, the
balconies, and the very housetops were crowded with gazers. All
the steeples from the Abbey to the Tower sent forth a joyous din.
The proclamation was repeated, with sound of trumpet, in front of
the Royal Exchange, amidst the shouts of the citizens.

In the evening every window from Whitechapel to Piccadilly was
lighted up. The state rooms of the palace were thrown open, and
were filled by a gorgeous company of courtiers desirous to kiss
the hands of the King and Queen. The Whigs assembled there,
flushed with victory and prosperity. There were among them some
who might be pardoned if a vindictive feeling mingled with their
joy. The most deeply injured of all who had survived the evil
times was absent. Lady Russell, while her friends were crowding
the galleries of Whitehall, remained in her retreat, thinking of
one who, if he had been still living, would have held no
undistinguished place in the ceremonies of that great day. But
her daughter, who had a few months before become the wife of Lord
Cavendish, was presented to the royal pair by his mother the
Countess of Devonshire. A letter is still extant in which the
young lady described with great vivacity the roar of the
populace, the blaze in the streets, the throng in the presence
chamber, the beauty of Mary, and the expression which ennobled
and softened the harsh features of William. But the most
interesting passage is that in which the orphan girl avowed the
stern delight with which she had witnessed the tardy punishment
of her father's murderer.1

The example of London was followed by the provincial towns.
During three weeks the Gazettes were filled with accounts of the
solemnities by which the public joy manifested itself, cavalcades
of gentlemen and yeomen, processions of Sheriffs and Bailiffs in
scarlet gowns, musters of zealous Protestants with orange flags
and ribands, salutes, bonfires, illuminations, music, balls,
dinners, gutters running with ale and conduits spouting claret.2

Still more cordial was the rejoicing among the Dutch, when they
learned that the first minister of their Commonwealth had been
raised to a throne. On the very day of his accession he had
written to assure the States General that the change in his
situation had made no change in the affection which he bore to
his native land, and that his new dignity would, he hoped, enable
him to discharge his old duties more efficiently than ever. That
oligarchical party, which had always been hostile to the
doctrines of Calvin and to the House of Orange, muttered faintly
that His Majesty ought to resign the Stadtholdership. But all
such mutterings were drowned by the acclamations of a people
proud of the genius and success of their great countryman. A day
of thanksgiving was appointed. In all the cities of the Seven
Provinces the public joy manifested itself by festivities of
which the expense was chiefly defrayed by voluntary gifts. Every
class assisted. The poorest labourer could help to set up an arch
of triumph, or to bring sedge to a bonfire. Even the ruined
Huguenots of France could contribute the aid of their ingenuity.
One art which they had carried with them into banishment was the
art of making fireworks; and they now, in honour of the
victorious champion of their faith, lighted up the canals of
Amsterdam with showers of splendid constellations.3

To superficial observers it might well seem that William was, at
this time, one of the most enviable of human beings. He was in
truth one of the most anxious and unhappy. He well knew that the
difficulties of his task were only beginning. Already that dawn
which had lately been so bright was overcast; and many signs
portended a dark and stormy day.

It was observed that two important classes took little or no part
in the festivities by which, all over England, the inauguration
of the new government was celebrated. Very seldom could either a
priest or a soldier be seen in the assemblages which gathered
round the market crosses where the King and Queen were
proclaimed. The professional pride both of the clergy and of the
army had been deeply wounded. The doctrine of nonresistance had
been dear to the Anglican divines. It was their distinguishing
badge. It was their favourite theme. If we are to judge by that
portion of their oratory which has come down to us, they had
preached about the duty of passive obedience at least as often
and as zealously as about the Trinity or the Atonement.4 Their
attachment to their political creed had indeed been severely
tried, and had, during a short time, wavered. But with the
tyranny of James the bitter feeling which that tyranny had
excited among them had passed away. The parson of a parish was
naturally unwilling to join in what was really a triumph over
those principles which, during twenty-eight years, his flock had
heard him proclaim on every anniversary of the Martyrdom and on
every anniversary of the Restoration.

The soldiers, too, were discontented. They hated Popery indeed;
and they had not loved the banished King. But they keenly felt
that, in the short campaign which had decided the fate of their
country, theirs had been an inglorious part. Forty fine
regiments, a regular army such as had never before marched to
battle under the royal standard of England, had retreated
precipitately before an invader, and had then, without a
struggle, submitted to him. That great force had been absolutely
of no account in the late change, had done nothing towards
keeping William out, and had done nothing towards bringing him
in. The clowns, who, armed with pitchforks and mounted on
carthorses, had straggled in the train of Lovelace or Delamere,
had borne a greater part in the Revolution than those splendid
household troops, whose plumed hats, embroidered coats, and
curvetting chargers the Londoners had so often seen with
admiration in Hyde Park. The mortification of the army was
increased by the taunts of the foreigners, taunts which neither
orders nor punishments could entirely restrain.5 At several
places the anger which a brave and highspirited body of men
might, in such circumstances, be expected to feel, showed itself
in an alarming manner. A battalion which lay at Cirencester put
out the bonfires, huzzaed for King James, and drank confusion to
his daughter and his nephew. The garrison of Plymouth disturbed
the rejoicings of the County of Cornwall: blows were exchanged,
and a man was killed in the fray.6

The ill humour of the clergy and of the army could not but be
noticed by the most heedless; for the clergy and the army were
distinguished from other classes by obvious peculiarities of
garb. "Black coats and red coats," said a vehement Whig in the
House of Commons, "are the curses of the nation." 7 But the
discontent was not confined to the black coats and the red coats.
The enthusiasm with which men of all classes had welcomed William
to London at Christmas had greatly abated before the close of
February. The new king had, at the very moment at which his fame
and fortune reached the highest point, predicted the coming
reaction. That reaction might, indeed, have been predicted by a
less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly
ascribed to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the
succession of the seasons and the course of the trade winds. It
is the nature of man to overrate present evil, and to underrate
present good; to long for what he has not, and to be dissatisfied
with what he has. This propensity, as it appears in individuals,
has often been noticed both by laughing and by weeping
philosophers. It was a favourite theme of Horace and of Pascal,
of Voltaire and of Johnson. To its influence on the fate of great
communities may be ascribed most of the revolutions and
counterrevolutions recorded in history. A hundred generations
have elapsed since the first great national emancipation, of
which an account has come down to us. We read in the most ancient
of books that a people bowed to the dust under a cruel yoke,
scourged to toil by hard taskmasters, not supplied with straw,
yet compelled to furnish the daily tale of bricks, became sick of
life, and raised such a cry of misery as pierced the heavens. The
slaves were wonderfully set free: at the moment of their
liberation they raised a song of gratitude and triumph: but, in a
few hours, they began to regret their slavery, and to murmur
against the leader who had decoyed them away from the savoury
fare of the house of bondage to the dreary waste which still
separated them from the land flowing with milk and honey. Since
that time the history of every great deliverer has been the
history of Moses retold. Down to the present hour rejoicings like
those on the shore of the Red Sea have ever been speedily
followed by murmurings like those at the Waters of Strife.8 The
most just and salutary revolution must produce much suffering.
The most just and salutary revolution cannot produce all the good
that had been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds and
sanguine tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still
recent, weigh quite fairly the evils which it has caused against
the evils which it has removed. For the evils which it has caused
are felt; and the evils which it has removed are felt no longer.

Thus it was now in England. The public was, as it always is
during the cold fits which follow its hot fits, sullen, hard to
please, dissatisfied with itself, dissatisfied with those who had
lately been its favourites. The truce between the two great
parties was at an end. Separated by the memory of all that had
been done and suffered during a conflict of half a century, they
had been, during a few months, united by a common danger. But the
danger was over: the union was dissolved; and the old animosity
broke forth again in all its strength.

James had during the last year of his reign, been even more
hated by the Tories than by the Whigs; and not without cause for
the Whigs he was only an enemy; and to the Tories he had been
a faithless and thankless friend. But the old royalist feeling,
which had seemed to be extinct in the time of his lawless
domination, had been partially revived by his misfortunes. Many
lords and gentlemen, who had, in December, taken arms for the
Prince of Orange and a Free Parliament, muttered, two months
later, that they had been drawn in; that they had trusted too
much to His Highness's Declaration; that they had given him
credit for a disinterestedness which, it now appeared, was not in
his nature. They had meant to put on King James, for his own
good, some gentle force, to punish the Jesuits and renegades who
had misled him, to obtain from him some guarantee for the safety
of the civil and ecclesiastical institutions of the realm, but
not to uncrown and banish him. For his maladministration, gross
as it had been, excuses were found. Was it strange that, driven
from his native land, while still a boy, by rebels who were a
disgrace to the Protestant name, and forced to pass his youth in
countries where the Roman Catholic religion was established, he
should have been captivated by that most attractive of all
superstitions? Was it strange that, persecuted and calumniated as
he had been by an implacable faction, his disposition should have
become sterner and more severe than it had once been thought, and
that, when those who had tried to blast his honour and to rob him
of his birthright were at length in his power, he should not have
sufficiently tempered justice with mercy? As to the worst charge
which had been brought against him, the charge of trying to cheat
his daughters out of their inheritance by fathering a
supposititious child, on what grounds did it rest? Merely on
slight circumstances, such as might well be imputed to accident,
or to that imprudence which was but too much in harmony with his
character. Did ever the most stupid country justice put a boy in
the stocks without requiring stronger evidence than that on which
the English people had pronounced their King guilty of the basest
and most odious of all frauds? Some great faults he had doubtless
committed, nothing could be more just or constitutional than that
for those faults his advisers and tools should be called to a
severe reckoning; nor did any of those advisers and tools more
richly deserve punishment than the Roundhead sectaries whose
adulation had encouraged him to persist in the fatal exercise of
the dispensing power. It was a fundamental law of the land that
the King could do no wrong, and that, if wrong were done by his
authority, his counsellors and agents were responsible. That
great rule, essential to our polity, was now inverted. The
sycophants, who were legally punishable, enjoyed impunity: the
King, who was not legally punishable, was punished with merciless
severity. Was it possible for the Cavaliers of England, the sons
of the warriors who had fought under Rupert, not to feel bitter
sorrow and indignation when they reflected on the fate of their
rightful liege lord, the heir of a long line of princes, lately
enthroned in splendour at Whitehall, now an exile, a suppliant, a
mendicant? His calamities had been greater than even those of the
Blessed Martyr from whom he sprang. The father had been slain by
avowed and mortal foes: the ruin of the son had been the work of
his own children. Surely the punishment, even if deserved, should
have been inflicted by other hands. And was it altogether
deserved? Had not the unhappy man been rather weak and rash than
wicked? Had he not some of the qualities of an excellent prince?
His abilities were certainly not of a high order: but he was
diligent: he was thrifty: he had fought bravely: he had been his
own minister for maritime affairs, and had, in that capacity,
acquitted himself respectably: he had, till his spiritual guides
obtained a fatal ascendency over his mind, been regarded as a man
of strict justice; and, to the last, when he was not misled by
them, he generally spoke truth and dealt fairly. With so many
virtues he might, if he had been a Protestant, nay, if he had
been a moderate Roman Catholic, have had a prosperous and
glorious reign. Perhaps it might not be too late for him to
retrieve his errors. It was difficult to believe that he could be
so dull and perverse as not to have profited by the terrible
discipline which he had recently undergone; and, if that
discipline had produced the effects which might reasonably be
expected from it, England might still enjoy, under her legitimate
ruler, a larger measure of happiness and tranquillity than she
could expect from the administration of the best and ablest
usurper.

We should do great injustice to those who held this language, if
we supposed that they had, as a body, ceased to regard Popery and
despotism with abhorrence. Some zealots might indeed be found who
could not bear the thought of imposing conditions on their King,
and who were ready to recall him without the smallest assurance
that the Declaration of Indulgence should not be instantly
republished, that the High Commission should not be instantly
revived, that Petre should not be again seated at the Council
Board, and that the fellows of Magdalene should not again be
ejected. But the number of these men was small. On the other
hand, the number of those Royalists, who, if James would have
acknowledged his mistakes and promised to observe the laws, were
ready to rally round him, was very large. It is a remarkable fact
that two able and experienced statesmen, who had borne a chief
part in the Revolution, frankly acknowledged, a few days after
the Revolution had been accomplished, their apprehension that a
Restoration was close at hand. "If King James were a Protestant,"
said Halifax to Reresby, "we could not keep him out four months."
"If King James," said Danby to the same person about the same
time, "would but give the country some satisfaction about
religion, which he might easily do, it would be very hard to make
head against him."9 Happily for England, James was, as usual, his
own worst enemy. No word indicating that he took blame to himself
on account of the past, or that he intended to govern
constitutionally for the future, could be extracted from him.
Every letter, every rumour, that found its way from Saint
Germains to England made men of sense fear that, if, in his
present temper, he should be restored to power, the second
tyranny would be worse than the first. Thus the Tories, as a
body, were forced to admit, very unwillingly, that there was, at
that moment, no choice but between William and public ruin. They
therefore, without altogether relinquishing the hope that he who
was King by right might at some future time be disposed to listen
to reason, and without feeling any thing like loyalty towards him
who was King in possession, discontentedly endured the new
government.

It may be doubted whether that government was not, during the
first months of its existence, in more danger from the affection
of the Whigs than from the disaffection of the Tories. Enmity can
hardly be more annoying than querulous, jealous, exacting
fondness; and such was the fondness which the Whigs felt for the
Sovereign of their choice. They were loud in his praise. They
were ready to support him with purse and sword against foreign
and domestic foes. But their attachment to him was of a peculiar
kind. Loyalty such as had animated the gallant gentlemen who
fought for Charles the First, loyalty such as had rescued Charles
the Second from the fearful dangers and difficulties caused by
twenty years of maladministration, was not a sentiment to which
the doctrines of Milton and Sidney were favourable; nor was it a
sentiment which a prince, just raised to power by a rebellion,
could hope to inspire. The Whig theory of government is that
kings exist for the people, and not the people for the kings;
that the right of a king is divine in no other sense than that in
which the right of a member of parliament, of a judge, of a
juryman, of a mayor, of a headborough, is divine; that, while the
chief magistrate governs according to law, he ought to be obeyed
and reverenced; that, when he violates the law, he ought to be
withstood; and that, when he violates the law grossly,
systematically and pertinaciously, he ought to be deposed. On the
truth of these principles depended the justice of William's title
to the throne. It is obvious that the relation between subjects
who held these principles, and a ruler whose accession had been
the triumph of these principles, must have been altogether
different from the relation which had subsisted between the
Stuarts and the Cavaliers. The Whigs loved William indeed: but
they loved him not as a King, but as a party leader; and it was
not difficult to foresee that their enthusiasm would cool fast if
he should refuse to be the mere leader of their party, and should
attempt to be King of the whole nation. What they expected from
him in return for their devotion to his cause was that he should
be one of themselves, a stanch and ardent Whig; that he should
show favour to none but Whigs; that he should make all the old
grudges of the Whigs his own; and there was but too much reason
to apprehend that, if he disappointed this expectation, the only
section of the community which was zealous in his cause would be
estranged from him.10

Such were the difficulties by which, at the moment of his
elevation, he found himself beset. Where there was a good path he
had seldom failed to choose it. But now he had only a choice
among paths every one of which seemed likely to lead to
destruction. From one faction he could hope for no cordial
support. The cordial support of the other faction he could retain
only by becoming himself the most factious man in his kingdom, a
Shaftesbury on the throne. If he persecuted the Tories, their
sulkiness would infallibly be turned into fury. If he showed
favour to the Tories, it was by no means certain that he would
gain their goodwill; and it was but too probable that he might
lose his hold on the hearts of the Whigs. Something however he
must do: something he must risk: a Privy Council must be sworn
in: all the great offices, political and judicial, must be
filled. It was impossible to make an arrangement that would
please every body, and difficult to make an arrangement that
would please any body; but an arrangement must be made.

What is now called a ministry he did not think of forming. Indeed
what is now called a ministry was never known in England till he
had been some years on the throne. Under the Plantagenets, the
Tudors, and the Stuarts, there had been ministers; but there had
been no ministry. The servants of the Crown were not, as now,
bound in frankpledge for each other. They were not expected to be
of the same opinion even on questions of the gravest importance.
Often they were politically and personally hostile to each other,
and made no secret of their hostility. It was not yet felt to be
inconvenient or unseemly that they should accuse each other of
high crimes, and demand each other's heads. No man had been more
active in the impeachment of the Lord Chancellor Clarendon than
Coventry, who was a Commissioner of the Treasury. No man had been
more active in the impeachment of the Lord Treasurer Danby than
Winnington, who was Solicitor General. Among the members of the
Government there was only one point of union, their common head,
the Sovereign. The nation considered him as the proper chief of
the administration, and blamed him severely if he delegated his
high functions to any subject. Clarendon has told us that nothing
was so hateful to the Englishmen of his time as a Prime Minister.
They would rather, he said, be subject to an usurper like Oliver,
who was first magistrate in fact as well as in name, than to a
legitimate King who referred them to a Grand Vizier. One of the
chief accusations which the country party had brought against
Charles the Second was that he was too indolent and too fond of
pleasure to examine with care the balance sheets of public
accountants and the inventories of military stores. James, when
he came to the crown, had determined to appoint no Lord High
Admiral or Board of Admiralty, and to keep the entire direction
of maritime affairs in his own hands; and this arrangement, which
would now be thought by men of all parties unconstitutional and
pernicious in the highest degree, was then generally applauded
even by people who were not inclined to see his conduct in a
favourable light. How completely the relation in which the King
stood to his Parliament and to his ministers had been altered by
the Revolution was not at first understood even by the most
enlightened statesmen. It was universally supposed that the
government would, as in time past, be conducted by functionaries
independent of each other, and that William would exercise a
general superintendence over them all. It was also fully expected
that a prince of William's capacity and experience would transact
much important business without having recourse to any adviser.