The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

give a better issue of it than some expect!" May 10, 1685.

Again he says, "The truth is there were many of the new members

whose elections and returns were universally condemned." May 22.


258 This fact I learned from a newsletter in the library of the

Royal Institution. Van Citters mentions the strength of the Whig

party in Bedfordshire.


259 Bramston's Memoirs.


260 Reflections on a Remonstrance and Protestation of all the

good Protestants of this Kingdom, 1689; Dialogue between Two

Friends, 1689.


261 Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Marquess of Wharton, 1715.


262 See the Guardian, No. 67; an exquisite specimen of Addison's

peculiar manner. It would be difficult to find in the works of

any other writer such an instance of benevolence delicately

flavoured with contempt.


263 The Observator, April 4, 1685.


264 Despatch of the Dutch Ambasadors, April 10-20, 1685.


265 Burnet, i. 626.


266 A faithful account of the Sickness, Death, and Burial of

Captain Bedlow, 1680; Narrative of Lord Chief Justice North.


267 Smith's Intrigues of the Popish Plot, 1685.


268 Burnet, i. 439.


269 See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials.


270 Evelyn's Diary, May 7, 1685.


271 There remain many pictures of Oates. The most striking

descriptions of his person are in North's Examen, 225, in

Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, and In a broadside entitled, A

Hue and Cry after T. O.


272 The proceedings will be found at length in the Collection of

State Trials.


273 Gazette de France May 29,/June 9, 1685.


274 Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors, May 19-29, 1685.


275 Evelyn's Diary, May 22, 1685; Eachard, iii. 741; Burnet, i.

637; Observator, May 27, 1685; Oates's Eikvn, 89; Eikwn

Brotoloigon, 1697; Commons' Journals of May, June, and July,

1689; Tom Brown's advice to Dr. Oates. Some interesting

circumstances are mentioned in a broadside, printed for A.

Brooks, Charing Cross, 1685. I have seen contemporary French and

Italian pamphlets containing the history of the trial and

execution. A print of Titus in the pillory was published at

Milan, with the following curious inscription: "Questo e il

naturale ritratto di Tito Otez, o vero Oatz, Inglese, posto in

berlina, uno de' principali professor della religion protestante,

acerrimo persecutore de' Cattolici, e gran spergiuro." I have

also seen a Dutch engraving of his punishment, with some Latin

verses, of which the following are a specimen:


"At Doctor fictus non fictos pertulit ictus


A tortore datos haud molli in corpore gratos,


Disceret ut vere scelera ob commissa rubere."


The anagram of his name, "Testis Ovat," may be found on many

prints published in different countries.


276 Blackstone's Commentaries, Chapter of Homicide.


277 According to Roger North the judges decided that

Dangerfield, having been previously convicted of perjury, was

incompetent to be a witness of the plot. But this is one among

many instances of Roger's inaccuracy. It appears, from the report

of the trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after much

altercation between counsel, and much consultation among the

judges of the different courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield

was sworn and suffered to tell his story; but the jury very

properly gave no credit to his testimony.


278 Dangerfield's trial was not reported; but I have seen a

concise account of it in a contemporary broadside. An abstract of

the evidence against Francis, and his dying speech, will be found

in the Collection of State Trials. See Eachard, iii. 741.

Burnet's narrative contains more mistakes than lines. See also

North's Examen, 256, the sketch of Dangerfield's life in the

Bloody Assizes, the Observator of July 29, 1685, and the poem

entitled "Dangerfield's Ghost to Jeffreys." In the very rare

volume entitled "Succinct Genealogies, by Robert Halstead," Lord

Peterbough says that Dangerfield, with whom he had had some

intercourse, was "a young man who appeared under a decent figure,

a serious behaviour, and with words that did not seem to proceed

from a common understanding."


279 Baxter's preface to Sir Mathew Hale's Judgment of the Nature

of True Religion, 1684.


280 See the Observator of February 28, 1685, the information in

the Collection of State Trials, the account of what passed in

court given by Calamy, Life of Baxter, chap. xiv., and the very

curious extracts from the Baxter MSS. in the Life, by Orme,

published in 1830.


281 Baxter MS. cited by Orme.


282 Act Parl. Car. II. March 29,1661, Jac. VII. April 28, 1685,

and May 13, 1685.


283 Act Parl. Jac. VII. May 8, 1685, Observator, June 20, 1685;

Lestrange evidently wished to see the precedent followed in

England.


284 His own words reported by himself. Life of James the Second,

i. 666. Orig. Mem.


285 Act Parl. Car. II. August 31, 1681.


286 Burnet, i. 583; Wodrow, III. v. 2. Unfortunately the Acta of

the Scottish Privy Council during almost the whole administration

of the Duke of York are wanting. (1848.) This assertion has been

met by a direct contradiction. But the fact is exactly as I have

stated it. There is in he Acta of the Scottish Privy Council a

hiatus extending from August 1678 to August 1682. The Duke of

York began to reside in Scotland in December 1679. He left

Scotland, never to return in May 1682. (1857.)


287 Wodrow, III. ix. 6.


288 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The editor of the Oxford edition of

Burnet attempts to excuse this act by alleging that Claverhouse

was then employed to intercept all communication between Argyle

and Monmouth, and by supposing that John Brown may have been

detected in conveying intelligence between the rebel camps.

Unfortunately for this hypothesis John Brown was shot on the

first of May, when both Argyle and Monmouth were in Holland, and

when there was no insurrection in any part of our island.


289 Wodrow, III. ix, 6.


290 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. It has been confidently asserted, by

persons who have not taken the trouble to look at the authority

to which I have referred, that I have grossly calumniated these

unfortunate men; that I do not understand the Calvinistic

theology; and that it is impossible that members of the Church of

Scotland can have refused to pray for any man on the ground that

he was not one of the elect.


I can only refer to the narrative which Wodrow has inserted in

his history, and which he justly calls plain and natural. That

narrative is signed by two eyewitnesses, and Wodrow, before he

published it, submitted it to a third eyewitness, who pronounced

it strictly accurate. From that narrative I will extract the only

words which bear on the point in question: "When all the three

were taken, the officers consulted among themselves, and,

withdrawing to the west side of the town, questioned the

prisoners, particularly if they would pray for King James VII.

They answered, they would pray for all within the election of

grace. Balfour said Do you question the King's election? They

answered, sometimes they questioned their own. Upon which he

swore dreadfully, and said they should die presently, because

they would not pray for Christ's vicegerent, and so without one

word more, commanded Thomas Cook to go to his prayers, for he

should die.


In this narrative Wodrow saw nothing improbable; and I shall not

easily be convinced that any writer now living understands the

feelings and opinions of the Covenanters better than Wodrow did.

(1857.)


291 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. Cloud of Witnesses.


292 Wodrow, III. ix. 6. The epitaph of Margaret Wilson, in the

churchyard at Wigton, is printed in the Appendix to the Cloud of

Witnesses;


"Murdered for owning Christ supreme


Head of his church, and no more crime,


But her not owning Prelacy.


And not abjuring Presbytery,


Within the sea, tied to a stake,


She suffered for Christ Jesus' sake."


293 See the letter to King Charles II. prefixed to Barclay's

Apology.


294 Sewel's History of the Quakers, book x.


295 Minutes of Yearly Meetings, 1689, 1690.


296 Clarkson on Quakerism; Peculiar Customs, chapter v.


297 After this passage was written, I found in the British

Museum, a manuscript (Harl. MS. 7506) entitled, "An Account of

the Seizures, Sequestrations, great Spoil and Havock made upon

the Estates of the several Protestant Dissenters called Quakers,

upon Prosecution of old Statutes made against Papist and Popish

Recusants." The manuscript is marked as having belonged to James,

and appears to have been given by his confidential servant,

Colonel Graham, to Lord Oxford. This circumstance appears to me

to confirm the view which I have taken of the King's conduct

towards the Quakers.


298 Penn's visits to Whitehall, and levees at Kensington, are

described with great vivacity, though in very bad Latin, by

Gerard Croese. "Sumebat," he says, "rex sæpe secretum, non

horarium, vero horarum plurium, in quo de variis rebus cum Penno

serio sermonem conferebat, et interim differebat audire

præcipuorum nobilium ordinem, qui hoc interim spatio in

proc¦tone, in proximo, regem conventum præsto erant." Of the

crowd of suitors at Penn's house. Croese says, "Visi quandoquo de

hoc genere hominum non minus bis centum."-Historia Quakeriana,

lib. ii. 1695.


299 "Twenty thousand into my pocket; and a hundred thousand into

my province." Penn's Letter to Popple."


300 These orders, signed by Sunderland, will be found in Sewel's

History. They bear date April 18, 1685. They are written in a

style singularly obscure and intricate: but I think that I have

exhibited the meaning correctly. I have not been able to find any

proof that any person, not a Roman Catholic or a Quaker, regained

his freedom under these orders. See Neal's History of the

Puritans, vol. ii. chap. ii.; Gerard Croese, lib. ii. Croese

estimates the number of Quakers liberated at fourteen hundred and

sixty.


301 Barillon, May 28,/June 7, 1685. Observator, May 27, 1685;

Sir J. Reresby's Memoirs.


302 Lewis wrote to Barillon about this class of Exclusionists as

follows: "L'interet qu'ils auront a effacer cette tache par des

services considerables les portera, aelon toutes les apparences,

a le servir plus utilement que ne pourraient faire ceux qui ont

toujours ete les plus attaches a sa personne." May 15-25,1685.


303 Barillon, May 4-14, 1685; Sir John Reresby's Memoirs.


304 Burnet, i. 626; Evelyn's