The History of England from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 3, Thomas Babington Macaulay [best novels to read for students TXT] 📗

they rest on authority much better than that of Fuller, ought to be received with great distrust.

While Crone was awaiting his trial, another agent of the Court of Saint Germains, named Tempest, was seized on the road between Dover and London, and was found to be the bearer of numerous letters addressed to malecontents in England.644

Every day it became more plain that the State was surrounded by dangers: and yet it was absolutely necessary that, at this conjuncture, the able and resolute Chief of the State should quit his post.

William, with painful anxiety, such as he alone was able to conceal under an appearance of stoical serenity, prepared to take his departure. Mary was in agonies of grief; and her distress affected him more than was imagined by those who judged of his heart by his demeanour.645 He knew too that he was about to leave her surrounded by difficulties with which her habits had not qualified her to contend. She would be in constant need of wise and upright counsel; and where was such counsel to be found? There were indeed among his servants many able men and a few virtuous men. But, even when he was present, their political and personal animosities had too often made both their abilities and their virtues useless to him. What chance was there that the gentle Mary would be able to restrain that party spirit and that emulation which had been but very imperfectly kept in order by her resolute and politic lord? If the interior cabinet which was to assist the Queen were composed exclusively either of Whigs or of Tories, half the nation would be disgusted. Yet, if Whigs and Tories were mixed, it was certain that there would be constant dissension. Such was William's situation that he had only a choice of evils.

All these difficulties were increased by the conduct of Shrewsbury. The character of this man is a curious study. He seemed to be the petted favourite both of nature and of fortune. Illustrious birth, exalted rank, ample possessions, fine parts, extensive acquirements, an agreeable person, manners singularly graceful and engaging, combined to make him an object of admiration and envy. But, with all these advantages, he had some moral and intellectual peculiarities which made him a torment to himself and to all connected with him. His conduct at the time of the Revolution had given the world a high opinion, not merely of his patriotism, but of his courage, energy and decision. It should seem, however, that youthful enthusiasm and the exhilaration produced by public sympathy and applause had, on that occasion, raised him above himself. Scarcely any other part of his life was of a piece with that splendid commencement. He had hardly become Secretary of State when it appeared that his nerves were too weak for such a post. The daily toil, the heavy responsibility, the failures, the mortifications, the obloquy, which are inseparable from power, broke his spirit, soured his temper, and impaired his health. To such natures as his the sustaining power of high religious principle seems to be peculiarly necessary; and unfortunately Shrewsbury had, in the act of shaking off the yoke of that superstition in which he had been brought up, liberated himself also from more salutary bands which might perhaps have braced his too delicately constituted mind into stedfastness and uprightness. Destitute of such support, he was, with great abilities, a weak man, and, though endowed with many amiable and attractive qualities, could not be called an honest man. For his own happiness, he should either have been much better or much worse. As it was, he never knew either that noble peace of mind which is the reward of rectitude, or that abject peace of mind which springs from impudence and insensibility. Few people who have had so little power to resist temptation have suffered so cruelly from remorse and shame.

To a man of this temper the situation of a minister of state during the year which followed the Revolution must have been constant torture. The difficulties by which the government was beset on all sides, the malignity of its enemies, the unreasonableness of its friends, the virulence with which the hostile factions fell on each other and on every mediator who attempted to part them, might indeed have discouraged a more resolute spirit. Before Shrewsbury had been six months in office, he had completely lost heart and head. He began to address to William letters which it is difficult to imagine that a prince so strongminded can have read without mingled compassion and contempt. "I am sensible,"-such was the constant burden of these epistles,-"that I am unfit for my place. I cannot exert myself. I am not the same man that I was half a year ago. My health is giving way. My mind is on the rack. My memory is failing. Nothing but quiet and retirement can restore me." William returned friendly and soothing answers; and, for a time, these answers calmed the troubled mind of his minister.646 But at length the dissolution, the general election, the change in the Commissions of Peace and Lieutenancy, and finally the debates on the two Abjuration Bills, threw Shrewsbury into a state bordering on distraction. He was angry with the Whigs for using the King ill, and yet was still more angry with the King for showing favour to the Tories. At what moment and by what influence, the unhappy man was induced to commit a treason, the consciousness of which threw a dark shade over all his remaining years, is not accurately known. But it is highly probable that his mother, who, though the most abandoned of women, had great power over him, took a fatal advantage of some unguarded hour when he was irritated by finding his advice slighted, and that of Danby and Nottingham preferred. She was still a member of that Church which her son had quitted, and may have thought that, by reclaiming him from rebellion, she might make some atonement for the violation of her marriage vow and the murder of her lord.647 What is certain is that, before the end of the spring of 1690, Shrewsbury had offered his services to James, and that James had accepted them. One proof of the sincerity of the convert was demanded. He must resign the seals which he had taken from the hand of the usurper.648 It is probable that Shrewsbury had scarcely committed his fault when he began to repent of it. But he had not strength of mind to stop short in the path of evil. Loathing his own baseness, dreading a detection which must be fatal to his honour, afraid to go forward, afraid to go back, he underwent tortures of which it is impossible to think without commiseration. The true cause of his distress was as yet a profound secret; but his mental struggles and changes of purpose were generally known, and furnished the town, during some weeks, with topics of conversation. One night, when he was actually setting out in a state of great excitement for the palace, with the seals in his hand, he was induced by Burnet to defer his resignation for a few hours. Some days later, the eloquence of Tillotson was employed for the same purpose.649 Three or four times the Earl laid the ensigns of his office on the table of the royal closet, and was three or four times induced, by the kind expostulations of the master whom he was conscious of having wronged, to take them up and carry them away. Thus the resignation was deferred till the eve of the King's departure. By that time agitation had thrown Shrewsbury into a low fever. Bentinck, who made a last effort to persuade him to retain office, found him in bed and too ill for conversation.650 The resignation so often tendered was at length accepted; and during some months Nottingham was the only Secretary of State.

It was no small addition to William's troubles that, at such a moment, his government should be weakened by this defection. He tried, however, to do his best with the materials which remained to him, and finally selected nine privy councillors, by whose advice he enjoined Mary to be guided. Four of these, Devonshire, Dorset, Monmouth, and Edward Russell, were Whigs. The other five, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Nottingham, Marlborough, and Lowther, were Tories.651

William ordered the Nine to attend him at the office of the Secretary of State. When they were assembled, he came leading in the Queen, desired them to be seated, and addressed to them a few earnest and weighty words. "She wants experience," he said; "but I hope that, by choosing you to be her counsellors, I have supplied that defect. I put my kingdom into your hands. Nothing foreign or domestic shall be kept secret from you. I implore you to be diligent and to be united."652 In private he told his wife what he thought of the characters of the Nine; and it should seem, from her letters to him, that there were few of the number for whom he expressed any high esteem. Marlborough was to be her guide in military affairs, and was to command the troops in England. Russell, who was Admiral of the Blue, and had been rewarded for the service which he had done at the time of the Revolution with the lucrative place of Treasurer of the Navy, was well fitted to be her adviser on all questions relating to the fleet. But Caermarthen was designated as the person on whom, in case of any difference of opinion in the council, she ought chiefly to rely. Caermarthen's sagacity and experience were unquestionable; his principles, indeed, were lax; but, if there was any person in existence to whom he was likely to be true, that person was Mary. He had long been in a peculiar manner her friend and servant: he had gained a high place in her favour by bringing about her marriage; and he had, in the Convention, carried his zeal for her interests to a length which she had herself blamed as excessive. There was, therefore, every reason to hope that he would serve her at this critical conjuncture with sincere good will.653

One of her nearest kinsmen, on the other hand, was one of her bitterest enemies. The evidence which was in the possession of the government proved beyond dispute that Clarendon was deeply concerned in the Jacobite schemes of insurrection. But the Queen was most unwilling that her kindred should be harshly treated; and William, remembering through what ties she had broken, and what reproaches she had incurred, for his sake, readily gave her uncle's life and liberty to her intercession. But, before the King set out for Ireland, he spoke seriously to Rochester. "Your brother has been plotting against me. I am sure of it. I have the proofs under his own hand. I was urged to leave him out of the Act of Grace; but I would not do what would have given so much pain to the Queen. For her sake I forgive the past; but my Lord Clarendon will do well to be cautious for the future. If not, he will find that these are no jesting matters." Rochester communicated the admonition to Clarendon. Clarendon, who was in constant correspondence with Dublin and Saint Germains, protested that his only wish was to be quiet, and that, though he had a scruple about the oaths, the existing government had not a more obedient subject than he purposed to be.654

Among the letters which the government had intercepted was one from James to Penn. That letter, indeed, was not legal evidence to prove that the person to whom it was addressed had been guilty of high treason; but it raised suspicions which are now known to have been well