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

from obscurity. Our ancient Kings had

undoubtedly claimed and exercised the right of suspending the

operation of penal laws. The tribunals had recognised that right.

Parliaments had suffered it to pass unchallenged. That some such

right was inherent in the crown, few even of the Country Party

ventured, in the face of precedent and authority, to deny. Yet it

was clear that, if this prerogative were without limit, the

English government could scarcely be distinguished from a pure

despotism. That there was a limit was fully admitted by the King

and his ministers. Whether the Declaration of Indulgence lay

within or without the limit was the question; and neither party

could succeed in tracing any line which would bear examination.

Some opponents of the government complained that the Declaration

suspended not less than forty statutes. But why not forty as well

as one? There was an orator who gave it as his opinion that the

King might constitutionally dispense with bad laws, but not with

good laws. The absurdity of such a distinction it is needless to

expose. The doctrine which seems to have been generally received

in the House of Commons was, that the dispensing power was

confined to secular matters, and did not extend to laws enacted

for the security of the established religion. Yet, as the King

was supreme head of the Church, it should seem that, if he

possessed the dispensing power at all, he might well possess that

power where the Church was concerned. When the courtiers on the

other side attempted to point out the bounds of this prerogative,

they were not more successful than the opposition had been.


The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in

politics. It was utterly inconsistent in theory with the

principles of mixed government: but it had grown up in times when

people troubled themselves little about theories.19 It had not

been very grossly abused in practice. It had therefore been

tolerated, and had gradually acquired a kind of prescription. At

length it was employed, after a long interval, in an enlightened

age, and at an important conjuncture, to an extent never before

known, and for a purpose generally abhorred. It was instantly

subjected to a severe scrutiny. Men did not, indeed, at first,

venture to pronounce it altogether unconstitutional. But they

began to perceive that it was at direct variance with the spirit

of the constitution, and would, if left unchecked, turn the

English government from a limited into an absolute monarchy.


Under the influence of such apprehensions, the Commons denied the

King's right to dispense, not indeed with all penal statutes, but

with penal statutes in matters ecclesiastical, and gave him

plainly to understand that, unless he renounced that right, they

would grant no supply for the Dutch war. He, for a moment, showed

some inclination to put everything to hazard; but he was strongly

advised by Lewis to submit to necessity, and to wait for better

times, when the French armies, now employed in an arduous

struggle on the Continent, might be available for the purpose of

suppressing discontent in England. In the Cabal itself the signs

of disunion and treachery began to appear. Shaftesbury, with his

proverbial sagacity, saw that a violent reaction was at hand, and

that all things were tending towards a crisis resembling that of

1640. He was determined that such a crisis should not find him in

the situation of Strafford. He therefore turned suddenly round,

and acknowledged, in the House of Lords, that the Declaration was

illegal. The King, thus deserted by his ally and by his

Chancellor, yielded, cancelled the Declaration, and solemnly

promised that it should never be drawn into precedent.


Even this concession was insufficient. The Commons, not content

with having forced their sovereign to annul the Indulgence, next

extorted his unwilling assent to a celebrated law, which

continued in force down to the reign of George the Fourth. This

law, known as the Test Act, provided that all persons holding any

office, civil or military, should take the oath of supremacy,

should subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation, and

should publicly receive the sacrament according to the rites of

the Church of England. The preamble expressed hostility only to

the Papists: but the enacting clauses were scarcely more

unfavourable to the Papists than to the rigid Puritans. The

Puritans, however, terrified at the evident leaning of the court

towards Popery, and encouraged by some churchmen to hope that, as

soon as the Roman Catholics should have been effectually

disarmed, relief would be extended to Protestant Nonconformists,

made little opposition; nor could the King, who was in extreme

want of money, venture to withhold his sanction. The act was

passed; and the Duke of York was consequently under the necessity

of resigning the great place of Lord High Admiral.


Hitherto the Commons had not declared against the Dutch war. But,

when the King had, in return for money cautiously doled out,

relinquished his whole plan of domestic policy, they fell

impetuously on his foreign policy. They requested him to dismiss

Buckingham and Lauderdale from his councils forever, and

appointed a committee to consider the propriety of impeaching

Arlington. In a short time the Cabal was no more. Clifford, who,

alone of the five, had any claim to be regarded as an honest man,

refused to take the new test, laid down his white staff, and

retired to his country seat. Arlington quitted the post of

Secretary of State for a quiet and dignified employment in the

Royal household. Shaftesbury and Buckingham made their peace with

the opposition, and appeared at the head of the stormy democracy

of the city. Lauderdale, however, still continued to be minister

for Scotch affairs, with which the English Parliament could not

interfere.


And now the Commons urged the King to make peace with Holland,

and expressly declared that no more supplies should be granted

for the war, unless it should appear that the enemy obstinately

refused to consent to reasonable terms. Charles found it

necessary to postpone to a more convenient season all thought of

executing the treaty of Dover, and to cajole the nation by

pretending to return to the policy of the Triple Alliance.

Temple, who, during the ascendency of the Cabal, had lived in

seclusion among his books and flower beds, was called forth from

his hermitage. By his instrumentality a separate peace was

concluded with the United Provinces; and he again became

ambassador at the Hague, where his presence was regarded as a

sure pledge for the sincerity of his court.


The chief direction of affairs was now intrusted to Sir Thomas

Osborne, a Yorkshire baronet, who had, in the House of Commons,

shown eminent talents for business and debate. Osborne became

Lord Treasurer, and was soon created Earl of Danby. He was not a

man whose character, if tried by any high standard of morality,

would appear to merit approbation. He was greedy of wealth and

honours, corrupt himself, and a corrupter of others. The Cabal

had bequeathed to him the art of bribing Parliaments, an art

still rude, and giving little promise of the rare perfection to

which it was brought in the following century. He improved

greatly on the plan of the first inventors. They had merely

purchased orators: but every man who had a vote, might sell

himself to Danby. Yet the new minister must not be confounded

with the negotiators of Dover. He was not without the feelings of

an Englishman and a Protestant; nor did he, in his solicitude for

his own interests, ever wholly forget the interests of his

country and of his religion. He was desirous, indeed, to exalt

the prerogative: but the means by which he proposed to exalt it

were widely different from those which had been contemplated by

Arlington and Clifford. The thought of establishing arbitrary

power, by calling in the aid of foreign arms, and by reducing the

kingdom to the rank of a dependent principality, never entered

into his mind. His plan was to rally round the monarchy those

classes which had been the firm allies of the monarchy during the

troubles of the preceding generation, and which had been

disgusted by the recent crimes and errors of the court. With the

help of the old Cavalier interest, of the nobles, of the country

gentlemen, of the clergy, and of the Universities, it might, he

conceived, be possible to make Charles, not indeed an absolute

sovereign, but a sovereign scarcely less powerful than Elizabeth

had been.


Prompted by these feelings, Danby formed the design of securing

to the Cavalier party the exclusive possession of all political

power both executive and legislative. In the year 1675,

accordingly, a bill was offered to the Lords which provided that

no person should hold any office, or should sit in either House

of Parliament, without first declaring on oath that he considered

resistance to the kingly power as in all cases criminal, and that

he would never endeavour to alter the government either in Church

or State. During several weeks the debates, divisions, and

protests caused by this proposition kept the country in a state

of excitement. The opposition in the House of Lords, headed by

two members of the Cabal who were desirous to make their peace

with the nation, Buckingham and Shaftesbury, was beyond all

precedent vehement and pertinacious, and at length proved

successful. The bill was not indeed rejected, but was retarded,

mutilated, and at length suffered to drop.


So arbitrary and so exclusive was Danby's scheme of domestic

policy. His opinions touching foreign policy did him more honour.

They were in truth directly opposed to those of the Cabal and

differed little from those of the Country Party. He bitterly

lamented the degraded situation to which England was reduced, and

declared, with more energy than politeness, that his dearest wish

was to cudgel the French into a proper respect for her. So little

did he disguise his feelings that, at a great banquet where the

most illustrious dignitaries of the State and of the Church were

assembled, he not very decorously filled his glass to the

confusion of all who were against a war with France. He would

indeed most gladly have seen his country united with the powers

which were then combined against Lewis, and was for that end bent

on placing Temple, the author of the Triple Alliance, at the head

of the department which directed foreign affairs. But the power

of the prime minister was limited. In his most confidential

letters he complained that the infatuation of his master

prevented England from taking her proper place among European

nations. Charles was insatiably greedy of French gold: he had by

no means relinquished the hope that he might, at some future day,

be able to establish absolute monarchy by the help of the French

arms; and