A Student's History of England, v. 2: 1509-1689

21. Peace with the Dutch. 1674.– The war with the Dutch was brought to an end by a treaty signed on February 19, 1674. On the 24th Charles prorogued Parliament, and did not summon it again for more than a year. During the interval, he attempted to win friends all round, without committing himself to any definite policy. On the one hand, he remained on friendly terms with Louis, whilst, on the other hand, he offered the hand of Mary, the eldest child of his brother James, to her cousin, William of Orange. William's position was far higher than it had been two years before. He was now at the head of an alliance in which the Emperor Leopold, the King of Spain, and the Duke of Lorraine combined with him to restrain the inordinate ambition of Louis. It is true that his generalship was less conspicuous than his diplomacy, and that in the whole course of his life he never succeeded in beating a French army in the field. Yet even in war his indomitable courage and conspicuous coolness stood him in good stead, and he knew better than most commanders how to gather his troops after a defeat and to place them in strong positions in which the enemy did not dare to attack them. The history of Europe during the remainder of his life was the history of a duel between the ambitious and autocratic Louis and the cool-headed William, the first magistrate of a republic in which his action was checked by constitutional restraints on every side, and the head of a coalition of which the members were always prone to take offence and to pursue their individual interests at the sacrifice of the common good. To win England to the alliance was, for William, a most desirable object, but he knew that James might very well have a son by his second marriage, and, knowing that in that case he would reap no political advantage from a marriage with Mary, he for the present refused the offer of her hand.³¹

CHAPTER XXXIX
DANBY'S ADMINISTRATION AND THE THREE SHORT PARLIAMENTS. 1675-1681

LEADING DATES

Reign of Charles II., 1660-1685

• Rejection of the Non-Resistance Bill 1675

• Marriage of William and Mary Nov. 15, 1677

• The Peace of Nymwegen July 31, 1678

• The Popish Plot 1678

• Dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament Jan. 24, 1679

• The First Short Parliament March 6 – May 27, 1679

• The Second Short Parliament Oct. 21, 1680 – Jan. 18, 1681

• The Third Short Parliament March 21 – March 28, 1681

1. Growing Influence of Danby. 1675.– Charles's effort to govern in his own way having ended in failure, and, in what he thought to be of more consequence, discomfort to himself, he discovered that he would lead an easier life if he were on good terms with his Parliament than if he quarrelled with it. Being now disposed to throw over whatever troublesome convictions he had imagined himself to have, he gave his confidence to Osborne (see p. 607), whom he had recently created Earl of Danby. Danby revived the domestic policy of Clarendon by maintaining, in accordance with the majority of the Cavalier Parliament, the supremacy of the Church of England over Catholics and Dissenters, and, equally in accordance with the majority of that Parliament, opposed Louis abroad.

2. Parliamentary Parties. 1675.– The decision of Charles to support Danby in carrying out a definite policy completed the formation of separate Parliamentary parties. These had, indeed, existed in the Long Parliament under various names, and had reappeared after the Restoration; but in the Cavalier Parliament the minority in favour of toleration had, at first, been exceedingly small, and, though it had grown larger in the days of the Cabal, it had been distracted by distrust of Charles when he appeared as a patron of toleration. The situation was now clear and the leaders distinctly known. On the one side was Danby and 'No toleration,' on the other side was Shaftesbury and 'Toleration for Dissenters only.' Neither side shrank from base means of acquiring strength. The ministers who formed the Cabal are said to have been the first who bribed members of the House of Commons, but it was Danby who reduced bribery to a system which was afterwards extended by his successors. Shaftesbury's followers, on the other hand, were quite ready to enter into the pay of Louis, if he would help them to overthrow Danby and would strengthen them against the king.

3. The Non-Resistance Bill. 1675.– When Parliament met in April 1675, Danby produced a Bill which was intended to secure his hold on the House of Commons, whatever might be the opinion prevailing in the country. No one was to be allowed to hold office or to sit in Parliament unless he would swear that he believed resistance to the Crown to be in all cases illegal, and that he would never endeavour to alter the government in Church or State. If the Bill had passed, the future liberty of Parliament would have been fettered, and few, if any, who did not approve of the existing Church system could have entered Parliament. The Bill passed the Lords, but while it was still under discussion in the Commons Shaftesbury stirred up so bitter a quarrel between the Houses, that Charles prorogued Parliament before the Bill could be converted into law.

4. Charles a Pensionary of France. 1675-1676.– Parliament, in its distrust of the king, refused him supplies, upon which Charles prorogued it for fifteen months. Louis, who feared lest Parliament should drive Charles into joining the alliance against him, was so pleased to see its sittings interrupted for so long a time that he granted to Charles a pension of 100,000l. a year, to make him independent of his subjects. The result was that whilst Charles allowed Danby to have his own way in domestic affairs, he refused to allow him to detach England from the French alliance. It was not, however, merely his personal interests which drew him to Louis, as he took a real interest in the prosperity of English trade, and was unable to get over his jealousy of the Dutch. In November 1676, he obtained from Louis a treaty by which the French renounced a claim made by them to seize Dutch goods conveyed in English ships, hoping by this to gain the goodwill of Parliament at its next meeting. He could not understand how completely the alarm of his subjects lest their national religion and independence should be assailed by the French had made them forgetful of their commercial jealousy of the Dutch.

5. Two Foreign Policies. 1677.– On February 15, 1677, Parliament again met. Shaftesbury and his allies attempted to steal a march on Danby by producing two old statutes of Edward III. which directed that Parliaments should be held every year, founding on it an argument that the existing Parliament, not having met for a year, had legally ceased to exist. The House of Lords sent Shaftesbury and three other peers to the Tower for their pains, and the Commons contemptuously rejected a similar argument put forward in their own House. Danby found himself triumphant. The Commons granted 600,000l. for increasing the navy. Danby then carried a Bill through the House of Lords for securing the Protestant religion in the event of a Catholic – James being, of course, intended – coming to the throne, though the Bill did not pass the Commons, apparently from a feeling that its provisions were insufficient. The eyes of Englishmen were, however, principally fixed on the Continent. In the preceding year the French had gained two great naval victories, in one of which De Ruyter had been slain, and in the spring of 1677 Louis carried one place after another in the Spanish Netherlands. Both Houses now asked Charles to join the alliance against France, whereupon Charles indignantly prorogued Parliament. When he was urged by the Dutch ambassador to act upon the wishes of the Houses he threw his handkerchief into the air, with the accompanying words: "I care just that for Parliament."

6. The Marriage of the Prince of Orange. 1677.– Louis paid to Charles 1,600,000l. for the prorogation which rid France for a time from the danger of a war with England. Charles, however, shrank from a renewal of the struggle with his Parliament on its next meeting, and, though he was resolved not to go to war with France if he could help it, he was ready to help in bringing about a general peace which would relieve him from all further invitation to join the allies. He accordingly welcomed Danby's suggestion that the plan for a marriage between the Prince of Orange and James's daughter Mary should be again taken up, especially as he hoped that it would break down the good understanding which existed between the Prince and Shaftesbury, and would smooth away the hostility of his subjects to his brother's right of succession. William, knowing that the feeling of Englishmen of both parties was in his favour, visited his uncles, and his marriage with Mary took place on November 15, 1677. The marriage, which was to prove of incalculable importance in the future, was of great significance even at the time, as it marked the end of the hostile feeling against the Dutch which, for so many years, had been the dominant note of English foreign politics.

7. Danby's Position. 1677.– Though Danby had brought Charles round to support his foreign as well as his domestic policy, his success was more apparent than real. The fact was that his foreign and domestic policies were inconsistent with one another. In the long run it would be found impossible to contend against the French king and the English Catholics supported by him, without calling in the aid of those Protestant Dissenters who were most hostile to Louis. Englishmen attached to the Church were being led by their growing distrust of France to a tenderer feeling towards Dissenters, and the spread of this feeling made in favour of Shaftesbury, who favoured toleration, and not in favour of Danby, who opposed it. For the present, however, Danby could count on the Parliamentary majority which agreed with him, and neither he nor the king wished to risk a dissolution.

8. The Peace of Nymwegen. 1678.– When Parliament met in February 1678, Charles appeared full of determination. He declared that, unless Louis agreed to make peace with the Dutch on reasonable terms, he would go to war with France. The Commons at once resolved to grant him 1,000,000l., and to support an army of 30,000 men and a fleet of 90 ships. Before this resolution was embodied in an Act, without which Charles could not touch the money, the followers of Shaftesbury took alarm. They believed – and, as is now known, not without reason – that Charles intended to use the troops to make himself absolute. They not only pressed him to disband what troops he had, but they entered into communication with Louis' ambassador, in the hope that he would support them in forcing Charles to dismiss his troops and to dissolve Parliament, some of them even accepting from him gifts of money. Charles, on his part, vacillated, doubting which was the best policy for him to adopt. At one time he was eager to assist the Dutch, and sent troops to their succour in the hope that a victorious army might afterwards be useful to him in England. At another time he made overtures to Louis with the object of securing his support. In the end, on July 31, Louis and the Dutch made peace at Nymwegen without consulting Charles at all. Louis gained Franche Comté and a large number of fortresses on his northern frontier, which had formerly belonged to Spain. Though he had failed to destroy the Dutch Republic, he had shown himself superior in war to a great continental coalition, and had made France the predominant power in Europe.

9. The Popish Plot. 1678.– The part played by the king left the English people gravely dissatisfied with him. They feared lest he should seek to overwhelm their liberties by military force and should bring in French regiments to support his own troops. Their suspicions were heightened by the knowledge that, if Charles died, his brother, an uncompromising Roman Catholic, would succeed him. In August, 1678, a villain appeared to profit by this prevalent distrust. Titus Oates, a liar from his youth up, who had tried various religions and had recently professed himself a Catholic, announced the existence of a great 'Popish plot.' Charles, he said, was to be murdered, and James set upon the throne as the agent of the Jesuits. A French army was to land to support him, and Protestantism was to be absolutely suppressed. It was true that many Catholics were anxious to see James on the throne and had expressed contempt at Charles's conduct in refusing to declare himself one of themselves, but the rest of Oates's story was absolutely false.

10. Growing Excitement. 1678.– Oates's depositions were taken before a Middlesex magistrate, Sir Edmond Berry Godfrey. Not long afterwards Godfrey was found murdered in the fields near Primrose Hill. All London was wild with excitement. It was widely believed that 'the Papists' had murdered him to punish him for listening to Oates. It was also held to be an undoubted truth that 'the Papists' were about to set fire to London, and to murder all good Protestants. A joiner named College made his fortune by inventing a pocket flail, tipped with lead, which was called the Protestant flail, and was to be used by sober citizens to brain 'Popish' assassins. When Parliament met on October 21 Shaftesbury, who had been liberated early in the year, unscrupulously encouraged belief in the supposed plot. Up to that time Catholic peers had kept their seats in the House of Lords, and a few Catholics had surreptitiously sat in the Commons. A new Test Act was now passed by which they were excluded³² from both Houses, though the Duke of York was exempted by name from its operation. Five Catholic peers were thrown into the Tower, and Coleman, the secretary of the Duchess of York, who had in his custody papers implying that James had a design for forwarding the interests of his religion, was tried and executed.

11. Danby's Impeachment and the Dissolution of the Cavalier Parliament. 1678-1679.– The mark at which Shaftesbury aimed was the overthrow of Danby. Danby had always, as far as his own opinion went, been a warm antagonist of France, but a minister was still, in those days, in reality the servant of the king, and was bound to carry out his master's orders, even when they were against his own conviction. Danby had, therefore, at the time when the Peace of Nymwegen was under discussion, written letters to Ralph Montague, the English ambassador in France, bidding him to ask Louis for a considerable payment to Charles, and, at the same time, explaining that the money was needed to make Charles independent of Parliament. Montague, having subsequently returned to England, brought this letter before the House of Commons. The House at once impeached Danby, under the false impression that he had been really subservient to France all the while. Charles had become attached to Danby, and knew that, if the proceedings against him were carried on, matters would come to light which he had every reason to conceal. To save himself and his minister, on January 24, 1679, he dissolved the Cavalier Parliament, which had now sat for more than seventeen years.

12. The Meeting of the First Short Parliament. 1679.– When the elections to a new Parliament – the first of three short Parliaments – were completed, Charles found that, with the exception of at most thirty members, the opposition had gained every seat. Bowing to the storm, he sent his brother to Brussels, and expressed his readiness to place himself at the head of the Protestants of the Continent. When, however, Parliament met, on March 6, 1679, it was found that both Houses were more anxious about the fate of Protestantism at home than about that of Protestants abroad. The Commons renewed the impeachment of Danby, upon which Danby produced a free pardon from the king. The Lords decided that a pardon could not be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, but, in the end, proceedings against Danby were dropped on his being deprived of office and committed to the Tower. By the advice of Sir William Temple, Charles tried a new experiment in government. A new Privy Council was appointed of thirty members, fifteen being ministers of the Crown and fifteen influential lords and commoners, by the advice of which the king was always to be guided. Shaftesbury was appointed President of this Council, but it was soon found to be too large a body to manage affairs which required secrecy, and a small committee was therefore formed out of it for the consideration of all important business.

13. The Exclusion Bill and the Habeas Corpus Act. 1679.– Charles, now that he experienced the strength of the opposition, was prepared to give way on every point except one – the maintenance of his brother's right of succession, which the new House of Commons was prepared to attack. He accordingly offered to place the strongest restrictions upon the power of a Catholic king. To the House of Commons, on the other hand, all restrictions appeared insufficient. The members believed seriously that no law would be able to bind a 'Popish' king. They thought that if he was determined – and it was taken for granted that he would be determined – to overthrow the Protestant religion, he would be able to do so. Lord Russell, the eldest son of the Duke of Bedford – the chief leader of Shaftesbury's party in the House of Commons – was not in the habit of using exaggerated language. Yet even he declared that, if James became king, his subjects must make up their mind to become 'Papists' or to be burnt. An Exclusion Bill was brought in, excluding the Duke of York from the throne. It was read twice, but not passed, as Charles first prorogued, and then, on May 27, dissolved Parliament. The only Act of importance produced in this Parliament was the Habeas Corpus Act, which finally put an end to sundry methods by which the Crown had evaded the rule requiring the issue of writs of Habeas Corpus, by which prisoners secured their right to be tried or liberated.

14. Shaftesbury and the King. 1679.– New elections were held, with the result that a House of Commons was chosen even more bitterly hostile to the Court than its predecessor. Shaftesbury was now at the height of his glory. Oates and other informers were adding new lies to those which they had told before, and the continual trials and executions of the Catholics for participation in the supposed Popish Plot kept the excitement in favour of the Exclusion Bill at a fever heat. Shaftesbury's position was very similar to Pym's in 1641. He had on his side the fundamental principle that a nation cannot safely be governed by a ruler whose ideas on the most important question of the day are directly opposed to those of his subjects, and he was right, as the result showed, in holding that, in the seventeenth century, a Catholic king could not satisfactorily govern a Protestant people. After Danby's fall, the king became the real head of the party opposed to Shaftesbury. His ability had always been great, but hitherto he had alienated those who were disposed to be his friends by attempting to establish an absolute government with the help of the king of France and of an army dependent on himself. He now set himself to overthrow Shaftesbury by appealing to a popular sentiment which was quite as strong, and might be stronger, than the dislike of a Catholic successor; that is to say, to the horror with which anything which threatened a new civil war filled the hearts of his subjects.

15. Shaftesbury and Halifax. 1679.– Shaftesbury had already allowed it to be known that he intended, if he carried the Exclusion Bill, to propose that the future king should be the Duke of Monmouth. Monmouth was the eldest of Charles's illegitimate sons, and it was currently, though falsely, believed that Charles had been privately married to his mother, so that he might rightly be regarded as the heir to the Crown. Charles, who knew better than any one else that this story was untrue, stood faithfully by his brother, and, though his constancy made little impression as yet, he had on his side a man whose judgment might usually be taken as an indication of the ultimate decision of public opinion. That man was George Savile, Earl, and afterwards Marquis of Halifax. He had been one of the bitterest enemies of Danby, but he devoted himself to no party. He called himself a Trimmer, as if his business was to trim the boat, and to throw himself against each party in turn as it grew violent in consequence of success. He now supported the king against Shaftesbury, on the ground that it was uncertain whether James would survive his brother, and that, if he did, he was not likely to survive him long; whereas, the succession of the Duke of Monmouth would not only exclude from the throne the Catholic James, but also his daughters, who were both Protestants. As Monmouth had no real hereditary right, there was every likelihood that, even if he ascended the throne, his claim would be opposed by partisans of James's eldest daughter, the Princess of Orange, and that a civil war would ensue.

16. The Divine Right of Kings. 1679.– The fear of civil war already frightened some, and would in time frighten more, into the acceptance of a doctrine which seems very absurd now – the doctrine of Divine indefeasible hereditary right – that is to say, that the succession as it was established by English law was established by Divine appointment, so that, though indeed subjects might refuse to obey the king, if he ordered them to commit sin, it was their duty to bear uncomplainingly any punishment that he might impose on them, however tyrannical he might be. Such a doctrine was credited, not because those who held it were absolutely silly, but because they were more afraid of rebellion and civil war than they were of the tyranny of kings. For the present, however, such ideas had little hold on the new Parliament, and Charles prorogued it to give time for them to grow.

17. The Highland Host. 1677-1678.– Events were in the meanwhile passing in Scotland which helped to impress upon those who were easily frightened the idea that the only security against rebellion lay in a general submission to established institutions in Church and State. For many years Lauderdale had been, with Charles's full support, the absolute ruler of Scotland. He put down with a high hand the opposition of noblemen in Parliament, but he could not put down the religious zeal of the peasants, who, especially in the western Lowlands, combined zeal for Presbyterianism and the Covenant with exasperation against a Government which persecuted them. They held meetings for prayer and preaching on the open hill-sides, and the Government, failing to suppress these Conventicles, as they were called, by process of law, sent into the disaffected districts, in 1677, a body of half-savage Highlanders known as the Highland Host, to reduce them to obedience by plunder and outrage.

18. Drumclog and Bothwell Bridge. 1679.– When the Highland Host had done its work it left behind a people whose temper was thoroughly soured. Political hatred of the oppressors mingled with religious zeal. The Covenanters, as those were called who denounced episcopacy as a breach of the Covenant (see p. 525), regarded themselves as God's chosen people and all who supported their persecutors as the children of the devil, against whom it was lawful to draw the sword. To many of the Scottish gentry such talk as this appeared to be contemptible and dangerous fanaticism. Amongst those who strove most heartily against it was an active officer, John Graham of Claverhouse, who, being employed to quiet the country, shot or haled to prison men whom he thought likely to be forward in rebellion. On May 3, 1679, a band of fanatics murdered, on Magus Moor, near St. Andrews, James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews, who was known to be eager to call for the persecution of the Covenanters, and who was peculiarly hated as having been once a Presbyterian himself. On June 3 Claverhouse was driven back at Drumclog by an armed conventicle which he attempted to suppress. The peasants of the West rose in arms and declared against the king's supremacy over the Church, and against Popery, Prelacy, and the succession of the Duke of York, but on June 22, Monmouth, who had been sent at the head of an army against them, defeated them at Bothwell Bridge, near Hamilton, and entirely suppressed the rebellion. Many of the prisoners were executed after being tortured to extract from them information against their accomplices, and this cruelty was exercised under the orders of the Duke of York, who had been sent to Scotland as Lord High Commissioner.³³

19. Petitioners and Abhorrers. 1680.– Encouraged by his success in Scotland, Charles dismissed Shaftesbury from the presidency of the Council and got rid of his principal supporters. Temple's reformed Council came thereby to an end. When Monmouth returned from Scotland his father refused to see him and sent him away from London. In the beginning of 1680 Shaftesbury's party sent up numerous petitions to ask Charles to allow Parliament to meet, and his opponents sent up petitions expressing abhorrence at such an attempt to force the king's will. For a time the two parties were known as Petitioners and Abhorrers, names which were soon replaced by those of Whigs and Tories. These celebrated names were at first merely nicknames. The courtiers called the Petitioners Whigs – an abbreviation of Whigamore, the name by which the peasants of the west of Scotland were familiarly known, from the cry of 'Whiggam' with which they were accustomed to encourage their horses. The name Whig therefore implied that the petitioners were no better than Covenanting rebels. The Petitioners, on the other hand, called their opponents Tories – the name given to brigands in Ireland, implying that they were no better than Popish thieves.

20. The Second Short Parliament. 1680-1681.– Each party did all that could be done to court popularity. Monmouth made a triumphant progress in the west of England. On the other hand, James, on his return from Scotland, had a good reception even in London, the headquarters of his opponents. On June 26, 1680, Shaftesbury appeared at Westminster and indicted James as a recusant. At last, on October 21, the second Short Parliament met. The Exclusion Bill was rapidly passed through the Commons. In the Lords, Halifax carried the House with him by an eloquent and closely-reasoned speech, in which the claims of the Princess of Orange were dwelt on as superior to those of Monmouth, and the Bill was, in consequence, rejected. On December 29 Lord Stafford, a Catholic peer, was executed on a false charge of a design to murder the king. When he protested his innocence on the scaffold, shouts were raised of "God bless you, my lord! We believe you, my lord!" Charles saw in these shouts an indication that the tide of opinion was turning in his favour, and, on January 18, 1681, dissolved Parliament.

21. The Third Short Parliament. 1681.– Charles summoned a new Parliament to meet at Oxford, where it would not be exposed to any violent interruption by Shaftesbury's 'brisk boys' – as his noisy London supporters were called – who might, it was feared, repeat the exploits of the City mob in 1641 (see p. 535). The new House of Commons was again predominantly Whig, and it was thought by the Whigs that Oxford had been selected as the place of meeting because the University was eminently Tory, with the deliberate intention of overpowering them by force. Their alarm increased when they learned that the king was bringing his guards with him. Accordingly the Whigs armed themselves and their servants in self-defence, and, in this guise, rode into Oxford. Parliament was opened on March 21, 1681, and Charles then offered to assent to any scheme for stripping his brother of royal authority, if only he were recognised as king. Shaftesbury replied that the only way of ending the dispute was to declare Monmouth heir to the Crown. As the Commons supported Shaftesbury, Charles, on March 28, dissolved his third Short Parliament. So much was he afraid that the Whig members and their servants might lay violent hands on him, that he drove in one coach to Christchurch Hall, where the House of Lords was sitting, and sent his robes by another, in order that it might not be guessed that a dissolution was intended. He soon found that he could now count on popular support in almost every part of England. The mass of people judge more by what they see than by what they hear. The pistols in the hands of the Whig members when they rode into Oxford had driven into men's heads the belief that they intended to gain their ends by civil war, and, much as the nation disliked the idea of having a 'Popish' king, it disliked the idea of civil war still more, and rallied round the king.