The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

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He addressed himself particularly to the Lord Steward,
Devonshire, with whom he had formerly had some connection of a
friendly kind. The unhappy man declared that he threw himself
entirely on the royal mercy, and offered to disclose all that he
knew touching the plots of the Jacobites. That he knew much
nobody could doubt. Devonshire advised his colleagues to postpone
the trial till the pleasure of William could be known. This
advice was taken. The King was informed of what had passed; and
he soon sent an answer directing Devonshire to receive the
prisoner's confession in writing, and to send it over to the
Netherlands with all speed.729

Fenwick had now to consider what he should confess. Had he,
according to his promise, revealed all that he knew, there can be
no doubt that his evidence would have seriously affected many
Jacobite noblemen, gentlemen and clergymen. But, though he was
very unwilling to die, attachment to his party was in his mind a
stronger sentiment than the fear of death. The thought occurred
to him that he might construct a story, which might possibly be
considered as sufficient to earn his pardon, which would at least
put off his trial some months, yet which would not injure a
single sincere adherent of the banished dynasty, nay, which would
cause distress and embarrassment to the enemies of that dynasty,
and which would fill the Court, the Council, and the Parliament
of William with fears and animosities. He would divulge nothing
that could affect those true Jacobites who had repeatedly
awaited, with pistols loaded and horses saddled, the landing of
the rightful King accompanied by a French army. But if there were
false Jacobites who had mocked their banished Sovereign year
after year with professions of attachment and promises of
service, and yet had, at every great crisis, found some excuse
for disappointing him, and who were at that moment among the
chief supports of the usurper's throne, why should they be
spared? That there were such false Jacobites, high in political
office and in military command, Fenwick had good reason to
believe. He could indeed say nothing against them to which a
Court of Justice would have listened; for none of them had ever
entrusted him with any message or letter for France; and all that
he knew about their treachery he had learned at second hand and
third hand. But of their guilt he had no doubt. One of them was
Marlborough. He had, after betraying James to William, promised
to make reparation by betraying William to James, and had, at
last, after much shuffling, again betrayed James and made peace
with William. Godolphin had practised similar deception. He had
long been sending fair words to Saint Germains; in return for
those fair words he had received a pardon; and, with this pardon
in his secret drawer, he had continued to administer the finances
of the existing government. To ruin such a man would be a just
punishment for his baseness, and a great service to King James.
Still more desirable was it to blast the fame and to destroy the
influence of Russell and Shrewsbury. Both were distinguished
members of that party which had, under different names, been,
during three generations, implacably hostile to the Kings of the
House of Stuart. Both had taken a great part in the Revolution.
The names of both were subscribed to the instrument which had
invited the Prince of Orange to England. One of them was now his
Minister for Maritime Affairs; the other his Principal Secretary
of State; but neither had been constantly faithful to him. Both
had, soon after his accession, bitterly resented his wise and
magnanimous impartiality, which, to their minds, disordered by
party spirit, seemed to be unjust and ungrateful partiality for
the Tory faction; and both had, in their spleen, listened to
agents from Saint Germains. Russell had vowed by all that was
most sacred that he would himself bring back his exiled
Sovereign. But the vow was broken as soon as it had been uttered;
and he to whom the royal family had looked as to a second Monk
had crushed the hopes of that family at La Hogue. Shrewsbury had
not gone such lengths. Yet he too, while out of humour with
William, had tampered with the agents of James. With the power
and reputation of these two great men was closely connected the
power and reputation of the whole Whig party. That party, after
some quarrels, which were in truth quarrels of lovers, was now
cordially reconciled to William, and bound to him by the
strongest ties. If those ties could be dissolved, if he could be
induced to regard with distrust and aversion the only set of men
which was on principle and with enthusiasm devoted to his
interests, his enemies would indeed have reason to rejoice.

With such views as these Fenwick delivered to Devonshire a paper
so cunningly composed that it would probably have brought some
severe calamity on the Prince to whom it was addressed, had not
that Prince been a man of singularly clear judgment and
singularly lofty spirit. The paper contained scarcely any thing
respecting those Jacobite plots in which the writer had been
himself concerned, and of which he intimately knew all the
details. It contained nothing which could be of the smallest
prejudice to any person who was really hostile to the existing
order of things. The whole narrative was made up of stories, too
true for the most part, yet resting on no better authority than
hearsay, about the intrigues of some eminent warriors and
statesmen, who, whatever their former conduct might have been,
were now at least hearty in support of William. Godolphin,
Fenwick averred, had accepted a seat at the Board of Treasury,
with the sanction and for the benefit of King James. Marlborough
had promised to carry over the army, Russell to carry over the
fleet. Shrewsbury, while out of office, had plotted with
Middleton against the government and King. Indeed the Whigs were
now the favourites at Saint Germains. Many old friends of
hereditary right were moved to jealousy by the preference which
James gave to the new converts. Nay, he had been heard to express
his confident hope that the monarchy would be set up again by the
very hands which had pulled it down.

Such was Fenwick's confession. Devonshire received it and sent it
by express to the Netherlands, without intimating to any of his
fellow councillors what it contained. The accused ministers
afterwards complained bitterly of this proceeding. Devonshire
defended himself by saying that he had been specially deputed by
the King to take the prisoner's information, and was bound, as a
true servant of the Crown, to transmit that information to His
Majesty and to His Majesty alone.

The messenger sent by Devonshire found William at Loo. The King
read the confession, and saw at once with what objects it had
been drawn up. It contained little more than what he had long
known, and had long, with politic and generous dissimulation,
affected not to know. If he spared, employed and promoted men who
had been false to him, it was not because he was their dupe. His
observation was quick and just; his intelligence was good; and he
had, during some years, had in his hands proofs of much that
Fenwick had only gathered from wandering reports. It has seemed
strange to many that a Prince of high spirit and acrimonious
temper should have treated servants, who had so deeply wronged
him, with a kindness hardly to be expected from the meekest of
human beings. But William was emphatically a statesman. Ill
humour, the natural and pardonable effect of much bodily and much
mental suffering, might sometimes impel him to give a tart
answer. But never did he on any important occasion indulge his
angry passions at the expense of the great interests of which he
was the guardian. For the sake of those interests, proud and
imperious as he was by nature, he submitted patiently to galling
restraints, bore cruel indignities and disappointments with the
outward show of serenity, and not only forgave, but often
pretended not to see, offences which might well have moved him to
bitter resentment. He knew that he must work with such tools as
he had. If he was to govern England he must employ the public men
of England; and in his age, the public men of England, with much
of a peculiar kind of ability, were, as a class, lowminded and
immoral. There were doubtless exceptions. Such was Nottingham
among the Tories, and Somers among the Whigs. But the majority,
both of the Tory and of the Whig ministers of William, were men
whose characters had taken the ply in the days of the Antipuritan
reaction. They had been formed in two evil schools, in the most
unprincipled of courts, and the most unprincipled of oppositions,
a court which took its character from Charles, an opposition
headed by Shaftesbury. From men so trained it would have been
unreasonable to expect disinterested and stedfast fidelity to any
cause. But though they could not be trusted, they might be used
and they might be useful. No reliance could be placed on their
principles but much reliance might be placed on their hopes and on their fears;
and of the two Kings who laid claim to the English crown,
the King from whom there was most to hope and most to fear was
the King in possession. If therefore William had little reason to
esteem these politicians his hearty friends, he had still less
reason to number them among his hearty foes. Their conduct
towards him, reprehensible as it was, might be called upright
when compared with their conduct towards James. To the reigning
Sovereign they had given valuable service; to the banished
Sovereign little more than promises and professions. Shrewsbury
might, in a moment of resentment or of weakness, have trafficked
with Jacobite agents; but his general conduct had proved that he
was as far as ever from being a Jacobite. Godolphin had been
lavish of fair words to the dynasty which was out; but he had
thriftily and skilfully managed the revenues of the dynasty which
was in. Russell had sworn that he would desert with the English
fleet; but he had burned the French fleet. Even Marlborough's
known treasons,--for his share in the disaster of Brest and the
death of Talmash was unsuspected--, had not done so much harm as
his exertions at Walcourt, at Cork and at Kinsale had done good.
William had therefore wisely resolved to shut his eyes to
perfidy, which, however disgraceful it might be, had not injured
him, and still to avail himself, with proper precautions, of the
eminent talents which some of his unfaithful counsellors
possessed, Having determined on this course, and having long
followed it with happy effect, he could not but be annoyed and
provoked by Fenwick's confession. Sir John, it was plain, thought
himself a Machiavel. If his trick succeeded, the Princess, whom
it was most important to keep in good humour, would be alienated
from the government by the disgrace of Marlborough. The whole
Whig party, the firmest support of the throne, would be alienated
by the disgrace of Russell and Shrewsbury. In the meantime not
one of those plotters whom Fenwick knew to have been deeply
concerned in plans of insurrection, invasion, assassination,
would be molested. This cunning schemer should find that he had
not to do with a novice. William, instead of turning his accused
servants out of their places, sent the confession to Shrewsbury,
and desired that it might be laid before the Lords Justices. "I
am astonished," the King wrote, "at the fellow's effrontery. You
know me too well to think that such stories as his can make any
impression on me. Observe this honest man's sincerity. He has
nothing to say except against my friends. Not a word about the
plans of his brother Jacobites." The King concluded by directing
the Lords justices to send Fenwick before a jury with all
speed.730

The effect produced by William's letter was remarkable. Every one
of the accused persons behaved himself in a manner singularly
characteristic. Marlborough, the most culpable of all, preserved
a serenity, mild, majestic and slightly contemptuous. Russell,
scarcely less criminal than Marlborough, went into a towering
passion, and breathed nothing but vengeance against the villanous
informer. Godolphin, uneasy, but wary, reserved and
selfpossessed, prepared himself to stand on the defensive. But
Shrewsbury, who of all the four was the least to blame, was
utterly overwhelmed. He wrote in extreme distress to William,
acknowledged with warm expressions of gratitude the King's rare
generosity, and protested that Fenwick had malignantly
exaggerated and distorted mere trifles into enormous crimes. "My
Lord Middleton,"--such was the substance of the letter,--"was
certainly in communication with me about the time of the battle
of La Hogue. We are relations; we frequently met; we supped
together just before he returned to France; I promised to take
care of his interests here; he in return offered to do me good
offices there; but I told him that I had offended too deeply to
be forgiven, and that I would not stoop to ask forgiveness."
This, Shrewsbury averred, was the whole extent of his offence.731
It is but too fully proved that this confession was by no means
ingenuous; nor is it likely that William was deceived. But he was
determined to spare the repentant traitor the humiliation of
owning a fault and accepting a pardon. "I can see," the King
wrote, "no crime at all in what you have acknowledged. Be assured
that these calumnies have made no unfavourable impression on me.
Nay, you shall find that they have strengthened my confidence in
you."732 A man hardened in depravity would have been perfectly
contented with an acquittal so complete, announced in language so
gracious. But Shrewsbury was quite unnerved by a tenderness which
he was conscious that he had not merited. He shrank from the
thought of meeting the master whom he had wronged, and by whom he
had been forgiven, and of sustaining the gaze of the peers, among
whom his birth and his abilities had gained for him a station of
which he felt that he was unworthy. The campaign in the
Netherlands was over. The session of Parliament was approaching.
The King was expected with the first fair wind. Shrewsbury left
town and retired to the Wolds of Gloucestershire. In that
district, then one of the wildest in the south of the island, he
had a small country seat, surrounded by pleasant gardens and
fish-ponds. William had, in his progress a year before, visited
this dwelling, which lay far from the nearest high road and from
the nearest market town, and had been much struck by the silence
and loneliness of the retreat in which he found the most graceful
and splendid of English courtiers.

At one in the morning of the sixth of October, the King landed at
Margate. Late in the evening he reached Kensington. The following
morning a brilliant crowd of ministers and nobles pressed to kiss
his hand; but he missed one face which ought to have been there,
and asked where the Duke of Shrewsbury was, and when he was
expected in town. The next day came a letter from the Duke,
averring that he had just had a bad fall in hunting. His side had
been bruised; his lungs had suffered; he had spit blood, and
could not venture to travel.733 That he had fallen and hurt
himself was true; but even those who felt most kindly towards him
suspected, and not without strong reason, that he made the most
of his convenient misfortune, and, that if he had not shrunk from
appearing in public, he would have performed the journey with
little difficulty. His correspondents told him that, if he was
really as ill as he thought himself, he would do well to consult
the physicians and surgeons of the capital. Somers, especially,
implored him in the most earnest manner to come up to London.
Every hour's delay was mischievous. His Grace must conquer his
sensibility. He had only to face calumny courageously, and it
would vanish.734 The King, in a few kind lines, expressed his
sorrow for the accident. "You are much wanted here," he wrote: "I
am impatient to embrace you, and to assure you that my esteem for
you is undiminished."735 Shrewsbury answered that he had resolved
to resign the seals.736 Somers adjured him not to commit so fatal
an error. If at that moment His Grace should quit office, what
could the world think, except that he was condemned by his own
conscience? He would, in fact, plead guilty; he would put a stain
on his own honour, and on the honour of all who lay under the
same accusation. It would no longer be possible to treat
Fenwick's story as a romance. "Forgive me," Somers wrote, "for
speaking after this free manner; for I do own I can scarce be
temperate in this matter."737 A few hours later William himself
wrote to the same effect. "I have so much regard for you, that,
if I could, I would positively interdict you from doing what must
bring such grave suspicions on you. At any time, I should
consider your resignation as a misfortune to myself but I protest
to you that, at this time, it is on your account more than on
mine that I wish you to remain in my service."738 Sunderland,
Portland, Russell and Wharton joined their entreaties to their
master's; and Shrewsbury consented to remain Secretary in name.
But nothing could induce him to face the Parliament which was
about to meet. A litter was sent down to him from London, but to
no purpose. He set out, but declared that he found it impossible
to proceed, and took refuge again in his lonely mansion among the
hills.739

While these things were passing, the members of both Houses were
from every part of the kingdom going up to Westminster. To the
opening of the session, not only England, but all Europe, looked
forward with intense anxiety. Public credit had been deeply
injured by the failure of the Land Bank. The restoration of the
currency was not yet half accomplished. The scarcity of money was
still distressing. Much of the milled silver was buried in
private repositories as fast as it came forth from the Mint.
Those politicians who were bent on raising the denomination of
the coin had found too ready audience from a population suffering
under severe pressure; and, at one time, the general voice of the
nation had seemed to be on their side.740 Of course every person
who thought it likely that the standard would be lowered, hoarded
as much money as he could hoard; and thus the cry for little
shillings aggravated the pressure from which it had sprung.741
Both the allies and the enemies of England imagined that her
resources were spent, that her spirit was broken, that the
Commons, so often querulous and parsimonious even in tranquil and
prosperous times, would now positively refuse to bear any
additional burden, and would, with an importunity not to be
withstood, insist on having peace at any price.

But all these prognostications were confounded by the firmness
and ability of the Whig leaders, and by the steadiness of the
Whig majority. On the twentieth of October the Houses met.
William addressed to them a speech remarkable even among all the
remarkable speeches in which his own high thoughts and purposes
were expressed in the dignified and judicious language of Somers.
There was, the King said, great reason for congratulation. It was
true that the funds voted in the preceding session for the
support of the war had failed, and that the recoinage had
produced great distress. Yet the enemy had obtained no advantage
abroad; the State had been torn by no convulsion at home; the
loyalty shown by the army and by the nation under severe trials
had disappointed all the hopes of those who wished evil to
England. Overtures tending to peace had been made. What might be
the result of those overtures, was uncertain; but this was
certain, that there could be no safe or honourable peace for a
nation which was not prepared to wage vigorous war. "I am sure we
shall all agree in opinion that the only way of treating with
France is with our swords in our hands."

The Commons returned to their chamber; and Foley read the speech
from the chair. A debate followed which resounded through all
Christendom. That was the proudest day of Montague's life, and
one of the proudest days in the history of the English
Parliament. In 1798, Burke held up the proceedings of that day as
an example to the statesmen whose hearts had failed them in the
conflict with the gigantic power of the French republic. In 1822,
Huskisson held up the proceedings of that day as an example to a
legislature which, under the pressure of severe distress, was
tempted to alter the standard of value and to break faith with
the public creditor. Before the House rose the young Chancellor
of the Exchequer, whose ascendency, since the ludicrous failure
of the Tory scheme of finance, was undisputed, proposed and
carried three memorable resolutions. The first, which passed with
only one muttered No, declared that the Commons would support the
King against all foreign and domestic enemies, and would enable
him to prosecute the war with vigour. The second, which passed,
not without opposition, but without a division, declared that the
standard of money should not be altered in fineness, weight or
denomination. The third, against which not a single opponent of
the government dared to raise his voice, pledged the House to
make good all the deficiencies of all parliamentary fund's
established since the King's accession. The task of framing an
answer to the royal speech was entrusted to a Committee
exclusively composed of Whigs. Montague was chairman; and the
eloquent and animated address which he drew up may still be read
in the journals with interest and pride.742

Within a fortnight two millions and a half were granted for the
military expenditure of the approaching year, and nearly as much
for the maritime expenditure. Provision was made without any
dispute for forty thousand seamen. About the amount of the land
force there was a division. The King asked for eighty-seven
thousand soldiers; and the Tories thought that number too large.
The vote was carried by two hundred and twenty-three to sixty-
seven.

The malecontents flattered themselves, during a short time, that
the vigorous resolutions of the Commons would be nothing more
than resolutions, that it would be found impossible to restore
public credit, to obtain advances from capitalists, or to wring
taxes out of the distressed population, and that therefore the
forty thousand seamen and the eighty-seven thousand soldiers
would exist only on paper. Howe, who had been more cowed than was
usual with him on the first day of the session, attempted, a week
later, to make a stand against the Ministry. "The King," he said,
"must have been misinformed; or His Majesty never would have
felicitated Parliament on the tranquil state of the country. I
come from Gloucestershire. I know that part of the kingdom well.
The people are all living on alms, or ruined by paying alms. The
soldier helps himself, sword in hand, to what he wants. There
have been serious riots already; and still more serious riots are
to be apprehended." The disapprobation of the House was strongly
expressed. Several members declared that in their counties every
thing was quiet. If Gloucestershire were in a more disturbed
state than the rest of England, might not the cause be that
Gloucestershire was cursed with a more malignant and unprincipled
agitator than all the rest of England could show? Some
Gloucestershire gentlemen took issue with Howe on the facts.
There was no such distress, they said, no such discontent, no
such rioting as he had described. In that county, as in every
other county, the great body of the population was fully
determined to support the King in waging a vigorous war till he
could make an honourable peace.743

In fact the tide had already turned. From the moment at which the
Commons notified their fixed determination not to raise the
denomination of the coin, the milled money began to come forth
from a thousand strong boxes and private drawers. There was still
pressure; but that pressure was less and less felt day by day.
The nation, though still suffering, was joyful and grateful. Its
feelings resembled those of a man who, having been long tortured
by a malady which has embittered his life, has at last made up
his mind to submit to the surgeon's knife, who has gone through a
cruel operation with safety, and who, though still smarting from
the steel, sees before him many years of health and enjoyment,
and thanks God that the worst is over. Within four days after the
meeting of Parliament there was a perceptible improvement in
trade. The discount on bank notes had diminished by one third.
The price of those wooden tallies, which, according to an usage
handed to us from a rude age, were given as receipts for sums
paid into the Exchequer, had risen. The exchanges, which had
during many months been greatly against England, had begun to
turn.744 Soon the effect of the magnanimous firmness of the House
of Commons was felt at every Court in Europe. So high indeed was
the spirit of that assembly that the King had some difficulty in
preventing the Whigs from moving and carrying a resolution that
an address should be presented to him, requesting him to enter
into no negotiation with France, till she should have
acknowledged him as King of England.745 Such an address was
unnecessary. The votes of the Parliament had already forced on
Lewis the conviction that there was no chance of a
counterrevolution. There was as little chance that he would be
able to effect that compromise of which he had, in the course of
the negotiations, thrown out hints. It was not to be hoped that
either William or the English nation would ever consent to make
the settlement of the English crown a matter of bargain with
France. And even had William and the English nation been disposed
to purchase peace by such a sacrifice of dignity, there would
have been insuperable difficulties in another quarter. James
could not endure to hear of the expedient which Lewis had
suggested. "I can bear," the exile said to his benefactor, "I can
bear with Christian patience to be robbed by the Prince of
Orange; but I never will consent to be robbed by my own son."
Lewis never again mentioned the subject. Callieres received
orders to make the concession on which the peace of the civilised
world depended. He and Dykvelt came together at the Hague before
Baron Lilienroth, the representative of the King of Sweden, whose
mediation the belligerent powers had accepted. Dykvelt informed
Lilienroth that the Most Christian King had engaged, whenever the
Treaty of Peace should be signed, to recognise the Prince of
Orange as King of Great Britain, and added, with a very
intelligible allusion to the compromise proposed by France, that
the recognition would be without restriction, condition or
reserve. Callieres then declared that he confirmed, in the name
of his master, what Dykvelt had said.746 A letter from Prior,
containing the good news, was delivered to James Vernon, the
Under Secretary of State, in the House of Commons. The tidings
ran along the benches--such is Vernon's expression--like fire in
a field of stubble. A load was taken away from every heart; and
all was joy and triumph.747 The Whig members might indeed well
congratulate each other. For it was to the wisdom and resolution
which they had shown, in a moment of extreme danger and distress,
that their country was indebted for the near prospect of an
honourable peace.