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

event of the conflict between the court and the Whigs

was no longer doubtful. He then returned to England: but he was

still excluded by the Test Act from all public employment; nor

did the King at first think it safe to violate a statute which

the great majority of his most loyal subjects regarded as one of

the chief securities of their religion and of their civil rights.

When, however, it appeared, from a succession of trials, that the

nation had patience to endure almost anything that the government

had courage to do, Charles ventured to dispense with the law in

his brother's favour. The Duke again took his seat in the

Council, and resumed the direction of naval affairs.


These breaches of the constitution excited, it is true, some

murmurs among the moderate Tories, and were not unanimously

approved even by the King's ministers. Halifax in particular, now

a Marquess and Lord Privy Seal, had, from the very day on which

the Tories had by his help gained the ascendant, begun to turn

Whig. As soon as the Exclusion Bill had been thrown out, he had

pressed the House of Lords to make provision against the danger

to which, in the next reign, the liberties and religion of the

nation might be exposed. He now saw with alarm the violence of

that reaction which was, in no small measure, his own work. He

did not try to conceal the scorn which he felt for the servile

doctrines of the University of Oxford. He detested the French

alliance. He disapproved of the long intermission of Parliaments.

He regretted the severity with which the vanquished party was

treated. He who, when the Whigs were predominant, had ventured to

pronounce Stafford not guilty, ventured, when they were

vanquished and helpless, to intercede for Russell. At one of the

last Councils which Charles held a remarkable scene took place.

The charter of Massachusetts had been forfeited. A question arose

how, for the future, the colony should be governed. The general

opinion of the board was that the whole power, legislative as

well as executive, should abide in the crown. Halifax took the

opposite side, and argued with great energy against absolute

monarchy, and in favour of representative government. It was

vain, he said, to think that a population, sprung from the

English stock, and animated by English feelings, would long bear

to be deprived of English institutions. Life, he exclaimed, would

not be worth having in a country where liberty and property were

at the mercy of one despotic master. The Duke of York was greatly

incensed by this language, and represented to his brother the

danger of retaining in office a man who appeared to be infected

with all the worst notions of Marvell and Sidney.


Some modern writers have blamed Halifax for continuing in the

ministry while he disapproved of the manner in which both

domestic and foreign affairs were conducted. But this censure is

unjust. Indeed it is to be remarked that the word ministry, in

the sense in which we use it, was then unknown.24 The thing

itself did not exist; for it belongs to an age in which

parliamentary government is fully established. At present the

chief servants of the crown form one body. They are understood to

be on terms of friendly confidence with each other, and to agree

as to the main principles on which the executive administration

ought to be conducted. If a slight difference of opinion arises

among them, it is easily compromised: but, if one of them differs

from the rest on a vital point, it is his duty to resign. While

he retains his office, he is held responsible even for steps

which he has tried to dissuade his colleagues from taking. In the

seventeenth century, the heads of the various branches of the

administration were bound together in no such partnership. Each

of them was accountable for his own acts, for the use which he

made of his own official seal, for the documents which he signed,

for the counsel which he gave to the King. No statesman was held

answerable for what he had not himself done, or induced others to

do. If he took care not to be the agent in what was wrong, and

if, when consulted, he recommended what was right, he was

blameless. It would have been thought strange scrupulosity in him

to quit his post, because his advice as to matters not strictly

within his own department was not taken by his master; to leave

the Board of Admiralty, for example, because the finances were in

disorder, or the Board of Treasury because the foreign relations

of the kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It was,

therefore, by no means unusual to see in high office, at the same

time, men who avowedly differed from one another as widely as

ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, or Fox from Pitt.


The moderate and constitutional counsels of Halifax were timidly

and feebly seconded by Francis North, Lord Guildford who had

lately been made Keeper of the Great Seal. The character of

Guildford has been drawn at full length by his brother Roger

North, a most intolerant Tory, a most affected and pedantic

writer, but a vigilant observer of all those minute circumstances

which throw light on the dispositions of men. It is remarkable

that the biographer, though he was under the influence of the

strongest fraternal partiality, and though he was evidently

anxious to produce a flattering likeness, was unable to portray

the Lord Keeper otherwise than as the most ignoble of mankind.

Yet the intellect of Guildford was clear, his industry great, his

proficiency in letters and science respectable, and his legal

learning more than respectable. His faults were selfishness,

cowardice, and meanness. He was not insensible to the power of

female beauty, nor averse from excess in wine. Yet neither wine

nor beauty could ever seduce the cautious and frugal libertine,

even in his earliest youth, into one fit of indiscreet

generosity. Though of noble descent, he rose in his profession by

paying ignominious homage to all who possessed influence in the

courts. He became Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and as such

was party to some of the foulest judicial murders recorded in our

history. He had sense enough to perceive from the first that

Oates and Bedloe were impostors: but the Parliament and the

country were greatly excited: the government had yielded to the

pressure; and North was not a man to risk a good place for the

sake of justice and humanity. Accordingly, while he was in secret

drawing up a refutation of the whole romance of the Popish plot,

he declared in public that the truth of the story was as plain as

the sun in heaven, and was not ashamed to browbeat, from the seat

of judgment, the unfortunate Roman Catholics who were arraigned

before him for their lives. He had at length reached the highest

post in the law. But a lawyer, who, after many years devoted to

professional labour, engages in politics for the first time at an

advanced period of life, seldom distinguishes himself as a

statesman; and Guildford was no exception to the general rule. He

was indeed so sensible of his deficiencies that he never attended

the meetings of his colleagues on foreign affairs. Even on

questions relating to his own profession his opinion had less

weight at the Council board than that of any man who has ever

held the Great Seal. Such as his influence was, however, he used

it, as far as ho dared, on the side of the laws.


The chief opponent of Halifax was Lawrence Hyde, who had recently

been created Earl of Rochester. Of all Tories, Rochester was the

most intolerant and uncompromising. The moderate members of his

party complained that the whole patronage of the Treasury, while

he was First Commissioner there, went to noisy zealots, whose

only claim to promotion was that they were always drinking

confusion to Whiggery, and lighting bonfires to burn the

Exclusion Bill. The Duke of York, pleased with a spirit which so

much resembled his own supported his brother in law passionately

and obstinately.


The attempts of the rival ministers to surmount and supplant each

other kept the court in incessant agitation. Halifax pressed the

King to summon a Parliament, to grant a general amnesty, to

deprive the Duke of York of all share in the government, to

recall Monmouth from banishment, to break with Lewis, and to form

a close union with Holland on the principles of the Triple

Alliance. The Duke of York, on the other hand, dreaded the

meeting of a Parliament, regarded the vanquished Whigs with

undiminished hatred, still flattered himself that the design

formed fourteen years before at Dover might be accomplished,

daily represented to his brother the impropriety of suffering one

who was at heart a Republican to hold the Privy Seal, and

strongly recommended Rochester for the great place of Lord

Treasurer.


While the two factions were struggling, Godolphin, cautious,

silent, and laborious, observed a neutrality between them.

Sunderland, with his usual restless perfidy, intrigued against

them both. He had been turned out of office in disgrace for

having voted in favour of the Exclusion Bill, but had made his

peace by employing the good offices of the Duchess of Portsmouth

and by cringing to the Duke of York, and was once more Secretary

of State.


Nor was Lewis negligent or inactive. Everything at that moment

favoured his designs. He had nothing to apprehend from the German

empire, which was then contending against the Turks on the

Danube. Holland could not, unsupported venture to oppose him. He

was therefore at liberty to indulge his ambition and insolence

without restraint. He seized Strasburg,, Courtray, Luxemburg. He

exacted from the republic of Genoa the most humiliating

submissions. The power of France at that time reached a higher

point than it ever before or ever after attained, during the ten

centuries which separated the reign of Charlemagne from the reign

of Napoleon. It was not easy to say where her acquisitions would

stop, if only England could be kept in a state of vassalage. The

first object of the court of Versailles was therefore to prevent

the calling of a Parliament and the reconciliation of English

parties. For this end bribes, promises, and menaces were

unsparingly employed. Charles was sometimes allured by the hope

of a subsidy, and sometimes frightened by being told that, if he

convoked the Houses, the secret articles of the treaty of Dover

should be published. Several Privy Councillors were bought; and

attempts were made to buy Halifax, but in vain. When he had been

found incorruptible, all the art and influence of the French

embassy were employed to drive him from office: but his polished

wit and his various accomplishments had made him