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

scruple about paying tithe.

They were, therefore, far removed from the scene of political

strife. They also, even in domestic privacy, avoided on principle

all political conversation. For such conversation was, in their

opinion, unfavourable to their spirituality of mind, and tended

to disturb the austere composure of their deportment. The yearly

meetings of that age repeatedly admonished the brethren not to

hold discourse touching affairs of state.295 Even within the

memory of persons now living those grave elders who retained the

habits of an earlier generation systematically discouraged such

worldly talk.296 It was natural that James should make a wide

distinction between these harmless people and those fierce and

reckless sects which considered resistance to tyranny as a

Christian duty which had, in Germany, France, and Holland, made

war on legitimate princes, and which had, during four

generations, borne peculiar enmity to the House of Stuart.


It happened, moreover, that it was possible to grant large relief

to the Roman Catholic and to the Quaker without mitigating the

sufferings of the Puritan sects. A law was in force which imposed

severe penalties on every person who refused to take the oath of

supremacy when required to do so. This law did not affect

Presbyterians, Independents, or Baptists; for they were all ready

to call God to witness that they renounced all spiritual

connection with foreign prelates and potentates. But the Roman

Catholic would not swear that the Pope had no jurisdiction in

England, and the Quaker would not swear to anything. On the other

hand, neither the Roman Catholic nor the Quaker was touched by

the Five Mile Act, which, of all the laws in the Statute Book,

was perhaps the most annoying to the Puritan Nonconformists.297


The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though,

as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned

politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one

of them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and

fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had constant access to

the royal ear. This was the celebrated William Penn. His father

had held great naval commands, had been a Commissioner of the

Admiralty, had sate in Parliament, had received the honour of

knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The son

had been liberally educated, and had been designed for the

profession of arms, but had, while still young, injured his

prospects and disgusted his friends by joining what was then

generally considered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been

sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had

been tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the

law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled to his family,

and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful protection that,

while all the gaols of England were filled with his brethren, he

was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions without

molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had obtained,

in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from the crown, the

grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then

peopled only by Indian hunters, he had invited his persecuted

friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when James

mounted the throne.


Between James and Penn there had long been a familiar

acquaintance. The Quaker now became a courtier, and almost a

favourite. He was every day summoned from the gallery into the

closet, and sometimes had long audiences while peers were kept

waiting in the antechambers. It was noised abroad that he had

more real power to help and hurt than many nobles who filled high

offices. He was soon surrounded by flatterers and suppliants. His

house at Kensington was sometimes thronged, at his hour of

rising, by more than two hundred suitors.298 He paid dear,

however, for this seeming prosperity. Even his own sect looked

coldly on him, and requited his services with obloquy. He was

loudly accused of being a Papist, nay, a Jesuit. Some affirmed

that he had been educated at St. Omers, and others that he had

been ordained at Rome. These calumnies, indeed, could find credit

only with the undiscerning multitude; but with these calumnies

were mingled accusations much better founded.


To speak the whole truth concerning Penn is a task which requires

some courage; for he is rather a mythical than a historical

person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising

him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond

the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which

the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The

respectable society of which he was a member honours him as an

apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally

regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile

admirers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. The

French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they

regarded as his superstitious fancies in consideration of his

contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence,

impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has

thus become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for

probity and philanthropy.


Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was

without doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of

religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of

mankind. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions

more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of

enlarged minds: and as the proprietor and legislator of a

province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his

possession, afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had

the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into

practice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to

existing institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour as

a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a savage

people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, and as a

lawgiver who, in an age of persecution, made religious liberty

the cornerstone of a polity. But his writings and his life

furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. He

had no skill in reading the characters of others. His confidence

in persons less virtuous than himself led him into great errors

and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great principle sometimes

impelled him to violate other great principles which he ought to

have held sacred. Nor was his rectitude altogether proof against

the temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and

polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which he now mingled.

The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and

intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, places, and

pardons was incessant. It was natural that a man who was daily

seen at the palace, and who was known to have free access to

majesty, should be frequently importuned to use his influence for

purposes which a rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of

Penn had stood firm against obloquy and persecution. But now,

attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the

insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran

diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution began to give way.

Titles and phrases against which he had often borne his testimony

dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It would be well

if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances with

the fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be concealed that

he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not merely

by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by the

general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly protested

that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he had never

received any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though he

might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have made a

hundred and twenty thousand pounds.299 To this assertion full

credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well as to

cupidity; and it is impossible to deny that Penn was cajoled into

bearing a part in some unjustifiable transactions of which others

enjoyed the profits.


The first use which he made of his credit was highly commendable.

He strongly represented the sufferings of his brethren to the new

King, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant

indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics,

without showing similar favour to other classes which were then

under persecution. A list was framed of prisoners against whom

proceedings had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for

not going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been

produced to the government. These persons were discharged, and

orders were given that no similar proceeding should be instituted

till the royal pleasure should be further signified. In this way

about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of

Roman Catholics, regained their liberty.300


And now the time had arrived when the English Parliament was to

meet. The members of the House of Commons who had repaired to the

capital were so numerous that there was much doubt whether their

chamber, as it was then fitted up, would afford sufficient

accommodation for them. They employed the days which immediately

preceded the opening of the session in talking over public

affairs with each other and with the agents of the government. A

great meeting of the loyal party was held at the Fountain Tavern

in the Strand; and Roger Lestrange, who had recently been

knighted by the King, and returned to Parliament by the city of

Winchester, took a leading part in their consultations.301


It soon appeared that a large portion of the Commons had views

which did not altogether agree with those of the Court. The Tory

country gentlemen were, with scarcely one exception, desirous to

maintain the Test Act and the Habeas Corpus Act; and some among

them talked of voting the revenue only for a term of years. But

they were perfectly ready to enact severe laws against the Whigs,

and would gladly have seen all the supporters of the Exclusion

Bill made incapable of holding office. The King, on the other

hand, desired to obtain from the Parliament a revenue for life,

the admission of Roman Catholics to office, and the repeal of the

Habeas Corpus Act. On these three objects his heart was set; and

he was by no means disposed to accept as a substitute for them a

penal law against Exclusionists. Such a law, indeed, would have

been positively unpleasing to him; for one class of Exclusionists

stood high in his favour, that class of which Sunderland was the

representative, that class which had joined