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

religious prejudices than he had yet called

on any of his Protestant subjects to make. He was crowned on the

twenty-third of April, the feast of the patron saint of the

realm. The Abbey and the Hall were splendidly decorated. The

presence of the Queen and of the peeresses gave to the solemnity

a charm which had been wanting to the magnificent inauguration of

the late King. Yet those who remembered that inauguration

pronounced that there was a great falling off. The ancient usage

was that, before a coronation, the sovereign, with all his

heralds, judges, councillors, lords, and great dignitaries,

should ride in state from the Tower of Westminster. Of these

cavalcades the last and the most glorious was that which passed

through the capital while the feelings excited by the Restoration

were still in full vigour. Arches of triumph overhung the road.

All Cornhill, Cheapside, Saint Paul's Church Yard, Fleet Street,

and the Strand, were lined with scaffolding. The whole city had

thus been admitted to gaze on royalty in the most splendid and

solemn form that royalty could wear. James ordered an estimate to

be made of the cost of such a procession, and found that it would

amount to about half as much as he proposed to expend in covering

his wife with trinkets. He accordingly determined to be profuse

where he ought to have been frugal, and niggardly where he might

pardonably have been profuse. More than a hundred thousand pounds

were laid out in dressing the Queen, and the procession from the

Tower was omitted. The folly of this course is obvious. If

pageantry be of any use in politics, it is of use as a means of

striking the imagination of the multitude. It is surely the

height of absurdity to shut out the populace from a show of which

the main object is to make an impression on the populace. James

would have shown a more judicious munificence and a more

judicious parsimony, if he had traversed London from east to west

with the accustomed pomp, and had ordered the robes of his wife

to be somewhat less thickly set with pearls and diamonds. His

example was, however, long followed by his successors; and sums,

which, well employed, would have afforded exquisite gratification

to a large part of the nation, were squandered on an exhibition

to which only three or four thousand privileged persons were

admitted. At length the old practice was partially revived. On

the day of the coronation of Queen Victoria there was a

procession in which many deficiencies might be noted, but which

was seen with interest and delight by half a million of her

subjects, and which undoubtedly gave far greater pleasure, and

called forth far greater enthusiasm, than the more costly display

which was witnessed by a select circle within the Abbey.


James had ordered Sancroft to abridge the ritual. The reason

publicly assigned was that the day was too short for all that was

to be done. But whoever examines the changes which were made will

see that the real object was to remove some things highly

offensive to the religious feelings of a zealous Roman Catholic.

The Communion Service was not read. The ceremony of presenting

the sovereign with a richly bound copy of the English Bible, and

of exhorting him to prize above all earthly treasures a volume

which he had been taught to regard as adulterated with false

doctrine, was omitted. What remained, however, after all this

curtailment, might well have raised scruples in the mind of a man

who sincerely believed the Church of England to be a heretical

society, within the pale of which salvation was not to be found.

The King made an oblation on the altar. He appeared to join in

the petitions of the Litany which was chaunted by the Bishops. He

received from those false prophets the unction typical of a

divine influence, and knelt with the semblance of devotion, while

they called down upon him that Holy Spirit of which they were, in

his estimation, the malignant and obdurate foes. Such are the

inconsistencies of human nature that this man, who, from a

fanatical zeal for his religion, threw away three kingdoms, yet

chose to commit what was little short of an act of apostasy,

rather than forego the childish pleasure of being invested with

the gewgaws symbolical of kingly power.254


Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, preached. He was one of those

writers who still affected the obsolete style of Archbishop

Williams and Bishop Andrews. The sermon was made up of quaint

conceits, such as seventy years earlier might have been admired,

but such as moved the scorn of a generation accustomed to the

purer eloquence of Sprat, of South, and of Tillotson. King

Solomon was King James. Adonijah was Monmouth. Joab was a Rye

House conspirator; Shimei, a Whig libeller; Abiathar, an honest

but misguided old Cavalier. One phrase in the Book of Chronicles

was construed to mean that the King was above the Parliament; and

another was cited to prove that he alone ought to command the

militia. Towards the close of the discourse the orator very

timidly alluded to the new and embarrassing position in which the

Church stood with reference to the sovereign, and reminded his

hearers that the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, though not himself

a Christian, had held in honour those Christians who remained

true to their religion, and had treated with scorn those who

sought to earn his favour by apostasy. The service in the Abbey

was followed by a stately banquet in the Hall, the banquet by

brilliant fireworks, and the fireworks by much bad poetry.255


This may be fixed upon as the moment at which the enthusiasm of

the Tory party reached the zenith. Ever since the accession of

the new King, addresses had been pouring in which expressed

profound veneration for his person and office, and bitter

detestation of the vanquished Whigs. The magistrates of Middlesex

thanked God for having confounded the designs of those regicides

and exclusionists who, not content with having murdered one

blessed monarch, were bent on destroying the foundations of

monarchy. The city of Gloucester execrated the bloodthirsty

villains who had tried to deprive His Majesty of his just

inheritance. The burgesses of Wigan assured their sovereign that

they would defend him against all plotting Achitophels and

rebellions Absaloms. The grand jury of Suffolk expressed a hope

that the Parliament would proscribe all the exclusionists. Many

corporations pledged themselves never to return to the House of

Commons any person who had voted for taking away the birthright

of James. Even the capital was profoundly obsequious. The lawyers

and the traders vied with each other in servility. Inns of Court

and Inns of Chancery sent up fervent professions of attachment

and submission. All the great commercial societies, the East

India Company, the African Company, the Turkey Company, the

Muscovy Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Maryland

Merchants, the Jamaica Merchants, the Merchant Adventurers,

declared that they most cheerfully complied with the royal edict

which required them still to pay custom. Bristol, the second city

of the island, echoed the voice of London. But nowhere was the

spirit of loyalty stronger than in the two Universities. Oxford

declared that she would never swerve from those religious

principles which bound her to obey the King without any

restrictions or limitations. Cambridge condemned, in severe

terms, the violence and treachery of those turbulent men who had

maliciously endeavoured to turn the stream of succession out of

the ancient channel.256


Such addresses as these filled, during a considerable time, every

number of the London Gazette. But it was not only by addressing

that the Tories showed their zeal. The writs for the new

Parliament had gone forth, and the country was agitated by the

tumult of a general election. No election had ever taken place

under circumstances so favourable to the Court. Hundreds of

thousands whom the Popish plot had scared into Whiggism had been

scared back by the Rye House plot into Toryism. In the counties

the government could depend on an overwhelming majority of the

gentlemen of three hundred a year and upwards, and on the clergy

almost to a man. Those boroughs which had once been the citadels

of Whiggism had recently been deprived of their charters by legal

sentence, or had prevented the sentence by voluntary surrender.

They had now been reconstituted in such a manner that they were

certain to return members devoted to the crown. Where the

townsmen could not be trusted, the freedom had been bestowed on

the neighbouring squires. In some of the small western

corporations, the constituent bodies were in great part composed

of Captains and Lieutenants of the Guards. The returning officers

were almost everywhere in the interest of the court. In every

shire the Lord Lieutenant and his deputies formed a powerful,

active, and vigilant committee, for the purpose of cajoling and

intimidating the freeholders. The people were solemnly warned

from thousands of pulpits not to vote for any Whig candidate, as

they should answer it to Him who had ordained the powers that be,

and who had pronounced rebellion a sin not less deadly than

witchcraft. All these advantages the predominant party not only

used to the utmost, but abused in so shameless a manner that

grave and reflecting men, who had been true to the monarchy in

peril, and who bore no love to republicans and schismatics, stood

aghast, and augured from such beginnings the approach of evil

times.257


Yet the Whigs, though suffering the just punishment of their

errors, though defeated, disheartened, and disorganized, did not

yield without an effort. They were still numerous among the

traders and artisans of the towns, and among the yeomanry and

peasantry of the open country. In some districts, in Dorsetshire

for example, and in Somersetshire, they were the great majority

of the population. In the remodelled boroughs they could do

nothing: but, in every county where they had a chance, they

struggled desperately. In Bedfordshire, which had lately been

represented by the virtuous and unfortunate Russell, they were

victorious on the show of hands, but were beaten at the poll.258

In Essex they polled thirteen hundred votes to eighteen

hundred.259 At the election for Northamptonshire the common

people were so violent in their hostility to the court candidate

that a body of troops was drawn out in the marketplace of the

county town, and was ordered to load with ball.260 The history of

the contest for Buckinghamshire is still more remarkable. The

whig candidate, Thomas Wharton, eldest son of Philip Lord

Wharton, was a man distinguished alike by dexterity and by

audacity, and destined to play a conspicuous, though not always a

respectable, part in the politics of several reigns. He had been

one of those members of the House of Commons who had carried up

the