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

/> public sympathy. Even Lutherans and Calvinists, who had always

detested the Pope, could not refrain from wishing him success

against a tyrant who aimed at universal monarchy. It was thus

that, in the present century, many who regarded Pius the Seventh

as Antichrist were well pleased to see Antichrist confront the

gigantic power of Napoleon.


The resentment which Innocent felt towards France disposed him to

take a mild and liberal view of the affairs of England. The

return of the English people to the fold of which he was the

shepherd would undoubtedly have rejoiced his soul. But he was too

wise a man to believe that a nation so bold and stubborn, could

be brought back to the Church of Rome by the violent and

unconstitutional exercise of royal authority. It was not

difficult to foresee that, if James attempted to promote the

interests of his religion by illegal and unpopular means, the

attempt would fail; the hatred with which the heretical islanders

regarded the true faith would become fiercer and stronger than

ever; and an indissoluble association would be created in their

minds between Protestantism and civil freedom, between Popery and

arbitrary power. In the meantime the King would be an object of

aversion and suspicion to his people. England would still be, as

she had been under James the First, under Charles the First, and

under Charles the Second, a power of the third rank; and France

would domineer unchecked beyond the Alps and the Rhine. On the

other hand, it was probable that James, by acting with prudence

and moderation, by strictly observing the laws and by exerting

himself to win the confidence of his Parliament, might be able to

obtain, for the professors of his religion, a large measure of

relief. Penal statutes would go first. Statutes imposing civil

incapacities would soon follow. In the meantime, the English King

and the English nation united might head the European coalition,

and might oppose an insuperable barrier to the cupidity of Lewis.


Innocent was confirmed in his judgment by the principal

Englishmen who resided at his court. Of these the most

illustrious was Philip Howard, sprung from the noblest houses of

Britain, grandson, on one side, of an Earl of Arundel, on the

other, of a Duke of Lennox. Philip had long been a member of the

sacred college: he was commonly designated as the Cardinal of

England; and he was the chief counsellor of the Holy See in

matters relating to his country. He had been driven into exile by

the outcry of Protestant bigots; and a member of his family, the

unfortunate Stafford, had fallen a victim to their rage. But

neither the Cardinal's own wrongs, nor those of his house, had so

heated his mind as to make him a rash adviser. Every letter,

therefore, which went from the Vatican to Whitehall, recommended

patience, moderation, and respect for the prejudices of the

English people.248


In the mind of James there was a great conflict. We should do him

injustice if we supposed that a state of vassalage was agreeable

to his temper. He loved authority and business. He had a high

sense of his own personal dignity. Nay, he was not altogether

destitute of a sentiment which bore some affinity to patriotism.

It galled his soul to think that the kingdom which he ruled was

of far less account in the world than many states which possessed

smaller natural advantages; and he listened eagerly to foreign

ministers when they urged him to assert the dignity of his rank,

to place himself at the head of a great confederacy, to become

the protector of injured nations, and to tame the pride of that

power which held the Continent in awe. Such exhortations made his

heart swell with emotions unknown to his careless and effeminate

brother. But those emotions were soon subdued by a stronger

feeling. A vigorous foreign policy necessarily implied a

conciliatory domestic policy. It was impossible at once to

confront the might of France and to trample on the liberties of

England. The executive government could undertake nothing great

without the support of the Commons, and could obtain their

support only by acting in conformity with their opinion. Thus

James found that the two things which he most desired could not

be enjoyed together. His second wish was to be feared and

respected abroad. But his first wish was to be absolute master at

home. Between the incompatible objects on which his heart was set

he, for a time, went irresolutely to and fro. The conflict in his

own breast gave to his public acts a strange appearance of

indecision and insincerity. Those who, without the clue,

attempted to explore the maze of his politics were unable to

understand how the same man could be, in the same week, so

haughty and so mean. Even Lewis was perplexed by the vagaries of

an ally who passed, in a few hours, from homage to defiance, and

from defiance to homage. Yet, now that the whole conduct of James

is before us, this inconsistency seems to admit of a simple

explanation.


At the moment of his accession he was in doubt whether the

kingdom would peaceably submit to his authority. The

Exclusionists, lately so powerful, might rise in arms against

him. He might be in great need of French money and French troops.

He was therefore, during some days, content to be a sycophant and

a mendicant. He humbly apologised for daring to call his

Parliament together without the consent of the French government.

He begged hard for a French subsidy. He wept with joy over the

French bills of exchange. He sent to Versailles a special embassy

charged with assurances of his gratitude, attachment, and

submission. But scarcely had the embassy departed when his

feelings underwent a change. He had been everywhere proclaimed

without one riot, without one seditions outcry. From all corners

of the island he received intelligence that his subjects were

tranquil and obedient. His spirit rose. The degrading relation in

which he stood to a foreign power seemed intolerable. He became

proud, punctilious, boastful, quarrelsome. He held such high

language about the dignity of his crown and the balance of power

that his whole court fully expected a complete revolution in the

foreign politics of the realm. He commanded Churchill to send

home a minute report of the ceremonial of Versailles, in order

that the honours with which the English embassy was received

there might be repaid, and not more than repaid, to the

representative of France at Whitehall. The news of this change

was received with delight at Madrid, Vienna, and the Hague.249

Lewis was at first merely diverted. "My good ally talks big," he

said; "but he is as fond of my pistoles as ever his brother was."

Soon, however, the altered demeanour of James, and the hopes with

which that demeanour inspired both the branches of the House of

Austria, began to call for more serious notice. A remarkable

letter is still extant, in which the French King intimated a

strong suspicion that he had been duped, and that the very money

which he had sent to Westminster would be employed against

him.250


By this time England had recovered from the sadness and anxiety

caused by the death of the goodnatured Charles. The Tories were

loud in professions of attachment to their new master. The hatred

of the Whigs was kept down by fear. That great mass which is not

steadily Whig or Tory, but which inclines alternately to Whiggism

and to Toryism, was still on the Tory side. The reaction which

had followed the dissolution of the 0xford parliament had not yet

spent its force.


The King early put the loyalty of his Protestant friends to the

proof. While he was a subject, he had been in the habit of

hearing mass with closed doors in a small oratory which had been

fitted up for his wife. He now ordered the doors to be thrown

open, in order that all who came to pay their duty to him might

see the ceremony. When the host was elevated there was a strange

confusion in the antechamber. The Roman Catholics fell on their

knees: the Protestants hurried out of the room. Soon a new pulpit

was erected in the palace; and, during Lent, a series of sermons

was preached there by Popish divines, to the great discomposure

of zealous churchmen.251


A more serious innovation followed. Passion week came; and the

King determined to hear mass with the same pomp with which his

predecessors had been surrounded when they repaired to the

temples of the established religion. He announced his intention

to the three members of the interior cabinet, and requested them

to attend him. Sunderland, to whom all religions were the same,

readily consented. Godolphin, as Chamberlain of the Queen, had

already been in the habit of giving her his hand when she

repaired to her oratory, and felt no scruple about bowing himself

officially in the house of Rimmon. But Rochester was greatly

disturbed. His influence in the country arose chiefly from the

opinion entertained by the clergy and by the Tory gentry, that he

was a zealous and uncompromising friend of the Church. His

orthodoxy had been considered as fully atoning for faults which

would otherwise have made him the most unpopular man in the

kingdom, for boundless arrogance, for extreme violence of temper,

and for manners almost brutal.252 He feared that, by complying

with the royal wishes, he should greatly lower himself in the

estimation of his party. After some altercation he obtained

permission to pass the holidays out of town. All the other great

civil dignitaries were ordered to be at their posts on Easter

Sunday. The rites of the Church of Rome were once more, after an

interval of a hundred and twenty-seven years, performed at

Westminster with regal splendour. The Guards were drawn out. The

Knights of the Garter wore their collars. The Duke of Somerset,

second in rank among the temporal nobles of the realm, carried

the sword of state. A long train of great lords accompanied the

King to his seat. But it was remarked that Ormond and Halifax

remained in the antechamber. A few years before they had

gallantly defended the cause of James against some of those who

now pressed past them. Ormond had borne no share in the slaughter

of Roman Catholics. Halifax had courageously pronounced Stafford

not guilty. As the timeservers who had pretended to shudder at

the thought of a Popish king, and who had shed without pity the

innocent blood of a Popish peer, now elbowed each other to get

near a Popish altar, the accomplished Trimmer might, with some

justice, indulge his solitary pride in that unpopular

nickname.253


Within a week after this ceremony James made a far greater

sacrifice of his own