More than once he had been invited by the enemies of the House of Stuart to leave his asylum, to become their captain, and to give the signal for rebellion: but he had wisely refused to take any part in the desperate enterprises which the Wildmans and Fergusons were never weary of planning, [532]
The Revolution opened a new prospect to him. The right of the people to resist oppression, a right which, during many years, no man could a.s.sert without exposing himself to ecclesiastical anathemas and to civil penalties, had been solemnly recognised by the Estates of the realm, and had been proclaimed by Garter King at Arms on the very spot where the memorable scaffold had been set up forty years before. James had not, indeed, like Charles, died the death of a traitor. Yet the punishment of the son might seem to differ from the punishment of the father rather in degree than in principle. Those who had recently waged war on a tyrant, who had turned him out of his palace, who had frightened him out of his country, who had deprived him of his crown, might perhaps think that the crime of going one step further had been sufficiently expiated by thirty years of banishment. Ludlow"s admirers, some of whom appear to have been in high public situations, a.s.sured him that he might safely venture over, nay, that he might expect to be sent in high command to Ireland, where his name was still cherished by his old soldiers and by their children, [533] He came and early in September it was known that he was in London, [534] But it soon appeared that he and his friends had misunderstood the temper of the English people. By all, except a small extreme section of the Whig party, the act, in which he had borne a part never to be forgotten, was regarded, not merely with the disapprobation due to a great violation of law and justice, but with horror such as even the Gunpowder Plot had not excited. The absurd and almost impious service which is still read in our churches on the thirtieth of January had produced in the minds of the vulgar a strange a.s.sociation of ideas.
The sufferings of Charles were confounded with the sufferings of the Redeemer of mankind; and every regicide was a Judas, a Caiaphas or a Herod. It was true that, when Ludlow sate on the tribunal in Westminster Hall, he was an ardent enthusiast of twenty eight, and that he now returned from exile a greyheaded and wrinkled man in his seventieth year. Perhaps, therefore, if he had been content to live in close retirement, and to shun places of public resort, even zealous Royalists might not have grudged the old Republican a grave in his native soil.
But he had no thought of hiding himself. It was soon rumoured that one of those murderers, who had brought on England guilt, for which she annually, in sackcloth and ashes, implored G.o.d not to enter into judgment with her, was strutting about the streets of her capital, and boasting that he should ere long command her armies. His lodgings, it was said, were the head quarters of the most noted enemies of monarchy and episcopacy, [535] The subject was brought before the House of Commons. The Tory members called loudly for justice on the traitor. None of the Whigs ventured to say a word in his defence. One or two faintly expressed a doubt whether the fact of his return had been proved by evidence such as would warrant a parliamentary proceeding. The objection was disregarded. It was resolved, without a division, that the King should be requested to issue a proclamation for the apprehending of Ludlow. Seymour presented the address; and the King promised to do what was asked. Some days however elapsed before the proclamation appeared, [536] Ludlow had time to make his escape, and again hid himself in his Alpine retreat, never again to emerge. English travellers are still taken to see his house close to the lake, and his tomb in a church among the vineyards which overlook the little town of Vevay. On the house was formerly legible an inscription purporting that to him to whom G.o.d is a father every land is a fatherland; [537] and the epitaph on the tomb still attests the feelings with which the stern old Puritan to the last regarded the people of Ireland and the House of Stuart.
Tories and Whigs had concurred, or had affected to concur, in paying honour to Walker and in putting a brand on Ludlow. But the feud between the two parties was more bitter than ever. The King had entertained a hope that, during the recess, the animosities which had in the preceding session prevented an Act of Indemnity from pa.s.sing would have been mitigated. On the day on which the Houses rea.s.sembled, he had pressed them earnestly to put an end to the fear and discord which could never cease to exist, while great numbers held their property and their liberty, and not a few even their lives, by an uncertain tenure. His exhortation proved of no effect. October, November, December pa.s.sed away; and nothing was done. An Indemnity Bill indeed had been brought in, and read once; but it had ever since lain neglected on the table of the House, [538] Vindictive as had been the mood in which the Whigs had left Westminster, the mood in which they returned was more vindictive still. Smarting from old sufferings, drunk with recent prosperity, burning with implacable resentment, confident of irresistible strength, they were not less rash and headstrong than in the days of the Exclusion Bill. Sixteen hundred and eighty was come again. Again all compromise was rejected. Again the voices of the wisest and most upright friends of liberty were drowned by the clamour of hotheaded and designing agitators. Again moderation was despised as cowardice, or execrated as treachery. All the lessons taught by a cruel experience were forgotten.
The very same men who had expiated, by years of humiliation, of imprisonment, of penury, of exile, the folly with which they had misused the advantage given them by the Popish plot, now misused with equal folly the advantage given them by the Revolution. The second madness would, in all probability, like the first, have ended in their proscription, dispersion, decimation, but for the magnanimity and wisdom of that great prince, who, bent on fulfilling his mission, and insensible alike to flattery and to outrage, coldly and inflexibly saved them in their own despite.
It seemed that nothing but blood would satisfy them. The aspect and the temper of the House of Commons reminded men of the time of the ascendency of Oates; and, that nothing might be wanting to the resemblance, Oates himself was there. As a witness, indeed, he could now render no service: but he had caught the scent of carnage, and came to gloat on the butchery in which he could no longer take an active part.
His loathsome features were again daily seen, and his well known "Ah Laard, ah Laard!" was again daily heard in the lobbies and in the gallery, [539] The House fell first on the renegades of the late reign.
Of those renegades the Earls of Peterborough and Salisbury were the highest in rank, but were also the lowest in intellect: for Salisbury had always been an idiot; and Peterborough had long been a dotard. It was however resolved by the Commons that both had, by joining the Church of Rome, committed high treason, and that both should be impeached, [540] A message to that effect was sent to the Lords. Poor old Peterborough was instantly taken into custody, and was sent, tottering on a crutch, and wrapped up in woollen stuffs, to the Tower. The next day Salisbury was brought to the bar of his peers. He muttered something about his youth and his foreign education, and was then sent to bear Peterborough company, [541] The Commons had meanwhile pa.s.sed on to offenders of humbler station and better understanding. Sir Edward Hales was brought before them. He had doubtless, by holding office in defiance of the Test Act, incurred heavy penalties. But these penalties fell far short of what the revengeful spirit of the victorious party demanded; and he was committed as a traitor, [542] Then Obadiah Walker was led in.
He behaved with a pusillanimity and disingenuousness which deprived him of all claim to respect or pity. He protested that he had never changed his religion, that his opinions had always been and still were those of some highly respectable divines of the Church of England, and that there were points on which he differed from the Papists. In spite of this quibbling, he was p.r.o.nounced guilty of high treason, and sent to prison, [543] Castlemaine was put next to the bar, interrogated, and committed under a warrant which charged him with the capital crime of trying to reconcile the kingdom to the Church of Rome, [544]
In the meantime the Lords had appointed a Committee to Inquire who were answerable for the deaths of Russell, of Sidney, and of some other eminent Whigs. Of this Committee, which was popularly called the Murder Committee, the Earl of Stamford, a Whig who had been deeply concerned in the plots formed by his party against the Stuarts, was chairman, [545]
The books of the Council were inspected: the clerks of the Council were examined: some facts disgraceful to the Judges, to the Solicitors of the Treasury, to the witnesses for the Crown, and to the keepers of the state prisons, were elicited: but about the packing of the juries no evidence could be obtained. The Sheriffs kept their own counsel. Sir Dudley North, in particular, underwent a most severe cross examination with characteristic clearness of head and firmness of temper, and steadily a.s.serted that he had never troubled himself about the political opinions of the persons whom he put on any panel, but had merely inquired whether they were substantial citizens. He was undoubtedly lying; and so some of the Whig peers told him in very plain words and in very loud tones: but, though they were morally certain of his guilt, they could find no proofs which would support a criminal charge against him. The indelible stain however remains on his memory, and is still a subject of lamentation to those who, while loathing his dishonesty and cruelty, cannot forget that he was one of the most original, profound and accurate thinkers of his age, [546]
Halifax, more fortunate than Dudley North, was completely cleared, not only from legal, but also from moral guilt. He was the chief object of attack; and yet a severe examination brought nothing to light that was not to his honour. Tillotson was called as a witness. He swore that he had been the channel of communication between Halifax and Russell when Russell was a prisoner in the Tower. "My Lord Halifax," said the Doctor, "showed a very compa.s.sionate concern for my Lord Russell; and my Lord Russell charged me with his last thanks for my Lord Halifax"s humanity and kindness." It was proved that the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth had borne similar testimony to Halifax"s good nature. One hostile witness indeed was produced, John Hampden, whose mean supplications and enormous bribes had saved his neck from the halter. He was now a powerful and prosperous man: he was a leader of the dominant party in the House of Commons; and yet he was one of the most unhappy beings on the face of the earth. The recollection of the pitiable figure which he had made at the bar of the Old Bailey embittered his temper, and impelled him to avenge himself without mercy on those who had directly or indirectly contributed to his humiliation. Of all the Whigs he was the most intolerant and the most obstinately hostile to all plans of amnesty.
The consciousness that he had disgraced himself made him jealous of his dignity and quick to take offence. He constantly paraded his services and his sufferings, as if he hoped that this ostentatious display would hide from others the stain which nothing could hide from himself. Having during many months harangued vehemently against Halifax in the House of Commons, he now came to swear against Halifax before the Lords. The scene was curious. The witness represented himself as having saved his country, as having planned the Revolution, as having placed their Majesties on the throne. He then gave evidence intended to show that his life had been endangered by the machinations of the Lord Privy Seal: but that evidence missed the mark at which it was aimed, and recoiled on him from whom it proceeded. Hampden was forced to acknowledge that he had sent his wife to implore the intercession of the man whom he was now persecuting. "Is it not strange," asked Halifax, "that you should have requested the good offices of one whose arts had brought your head into peril?" "Not at all," said Hampden; "to whom was I to apply except to the men who were in power? I applied to Lord Jeffreys: I applied to Father Petre; and I paid them six thousand pounds for their services."
"But did Lord Halifax take any money?" "No, I cannot say that he did."
"And, Mr. Hampden, did not you afterwards send your wife to thank him for his kindness?" "Yes, I believe I did," answered Hampden; "but I know of no solid effects of that kindness. If there were any, I should be obliged to my Lord to tell me what they were." Disgraceful as had been the appearance which this degenerate heir of an ill.u.s.trious name had made at the Old Bailey, the appearance which he made before the Committee of Murder was more disgraceful still, [547] It is pleasing to know that a person who had been far more cruelly wronged than he, but whose nature differed widely from his, the n.o.bleminded Lady Russell, remonstrated against the injustice with which the extreme Whigs treated Halifax, [548]
The malice of John Hampden, however, was unwearied and unabashed. A few days later, in a committee of the whole House of Commons on the state of the nation, he made a bitter speech, in which he ascribed all the disasters of the year to the influence of the men who had, in the days of the Exclusion Bill, been censured by Parliaments, of the men who had attempted to mediate between James and William. The King, he said, ought to dismiss from his counsels and presence all the three n.o.blemen who had been sent to negotiate with him at Hungerford. He went on to speak of the danger of employing men of republican principles. He doubtless alluded to the chief object of his implacable malignity. For Halifax, though from temper averse to violent changes, was well known to be in speculation a republican, and often talked, with much ingenuity and pleasantry, against hereditary monarchy. The only effect, however, of the reflection now thrown on him was to call forth a roar of derision.
That a Hampden, that the grandson of the great leader of the Long Parliament, that a man who boasted of having conspired with Algernon Sidney against the royal House, should use the word republican as a term of reproach! When the storm of laughter had subsided, several members stood up to vindicate the accused statesmen. Seymour declared that, much as he disapproved of the manner in which the administration had lately been conducted, he could not concur in the vote which John Hampden had proposed. "Look where you will," he said, "to Ireland, to Scotland, to the navy, to the army, you will find abundant proofs of mismanagement.
If the war is still to be conducted by the same hands, we can expect nothing but a recurrence of the same disasters. But I am not prepared to proscribe men for the best thing that they ever did in their lives, to proscribe men for attempting to avert a revolution by timely mediation."
It was justly said by another speaker that Halifax and Nottingham had been sent to the Dutch camp because they possessed the confidence of the nation, because they were universally known to be hostile to the dispensing power, to the Popish religion, and to the French ascendency.
It was at length resolved that the King should be requested in general terms to find out and to remove the authors of the late miscarriages, [549] A committee was appointed to prepare an Address. John Hampden was chairman, and drew up a representation in terms so bitter that, when it was reported to the House, his own father expressed disapprobation, and one member exclaimed: "This an address! It is a libel." After a sharp debate, the Address was recommitted, and was not again mentioned, [550]
Indeed, the animosity which a large part of the House had felt against Halifax was beginning to abate. It was known that, though he had not yet formally delivered up the Privy Seal, he had ceased to be a confidential adviser of the Crown. The power which he had enjoyed during the first months of the reign of William and Mary had pa.s.sed to the more daring, more unscrupulous and more practical Caermarthen, against whose influence Shrewsbury contended in vain. Personally Shrewsbury stood high in the royal favour: but he was a leader of the Whigs, and, like all leaders of parties, was frequently pushed forward against his will by those who seemed to follow him. He was himself inclined to a mild and moderate policy: but he had not sufficient firmness to withstand the clamorous importunity with which such politicians as John Howe and John Hampden demanded vengeance on their enemies. His advice had therefore, at this time, little weight with his master, who neither loved the Tories nor trusted them, but who was fully determined not to proscribe them.
Meanwhile the Whigs, conscious that they had lately sunk in the opinion both of the King and of the nation, resolved on making a bold and crafty attempt to become independent of both. A perfect account of that attempt cannot be constructed out of the scanty and widely dispersed materials which have come down to us. Yet the story, as it has come down to us, is both interesting and instructive.
A bill for restoring the rights of those corporations which had surrendered their charters to the Crown during the last two reigns had been brought into the House of Commons, had been received with general applause by men of all parties, had been read twice, and had been referred to a select committee, of which Somers was chairman. On the second of January Somers brought up the report. The attendance of Tories was scanty: for, as no important discussion was expected, many country gentlemen had left town, and were keeping a merry Christmas by the chimney fires of their manor houses. The muster of zealous Whigs was strong. As soon as the bill had been reported, Sacheverell, renowned in the stormy parliaments of the reign of Charles the Second as one of the ablest and keenest of the Exclusionists, stood up and moved to add a clause providing that every munic.i.p.al functionary who had in any manner been a party to the surrendering of the franchises of a borough should be incapable for seven years of holding any office in that borough.
The const.i.tution of almost every corporate town in England had been remodelled during that hot fit of loyalty which followed the detection of the Rye House Plot; and, in almost every corporate town, the voice of the Tories had been for delivering up the charter, and for trusting every thing to the paternal care of the Sovereign. The effect of Sacheverell"s clause, therefore, was to make some thousands of the most opulent and highly considered men in the kingdom incapable, during seven years, of bearing any part in the government of the places in which they resided, and to secure to the Whig party, during seven years, an overwhelming influence in borough elections.
The minority exclaimed against the gross injustice of pa.s.sing, rapidly and by surprise, at a season when London was empty, a law of the highest importance, a law which retrospectively inflicted a severe penalty on many hundreds of respectable gentlemen, a law which would call forth the strongest pa.s.sions in every town from Berwick to St. Ives, a law which must have a serious effect on the composition of the House itself.
Common decency required at least an adjournment. An adjournment was moved: but the motion was rejected by a hundred and twenty-seven votes to eighty-nine. The question was then put that Sacheverell"s clause should stand part of the bill, and was carried by a hundred and thirty-three to sixty-eight. Sir Robert Howard immediately moved that every person who, being under Sacheverell"s clause disqualified for munic.i.p.al office, should presume to take any such office, should forfeit five hundred pounds, and should be for life incapable of holding any public employment whatever. The Tories did not venture to divide, [551]
The rules of the House put it in the power of a minority to obstruct the progress of a bill; and this was a.s.suredly one of the very rare occasions on which that power would have been with great propriety exerted. It does not appear, however, that the parliamentary tacticians of that age were aware of the extent to which a small number of members can, without violating any form, r.e.t.a.r.d the course of business.
It was immediately resolved that the bill, enlarged by Sacheverell"s and Howard"s clauses, should be ingrossed. The most vehement Whigs were bent on finally pa.s.sing it within forty-eight hours. The Lords, indeed, were not likely to regard it very favourably. But it should seem that some desperate men were prepared to withhold the supplies till it should pa.s.s, nay, even to tack it to the bill of supply, and thus to place the Upper House under the necessity of either consenting to a vast proscription of the Tories or refusing to the government the means of carrying on the war, [552] There were Whigs, however, honest enough to wish that fair play should be given to the hostile party, and prudent enough to know that an advantage obtained by violence and cunning could not be permanent. These men insisted that at least a week should be suffered to elapse before the third reading, and carried their point.
Their less scrupulous a.s.sociates complained bitterly that the good cause was betrayed. What new laws of war were these? Why was chivalrous courtesy to be shown to foes who thought no stratagem immoral, and who had never given quarter? And what had been done that was not in strict accordance with the law of Parliament? That law knew nothing of short notices and long notices, of thin houses and full houses. It was the business of a representative of the people to be in his place. If he chose to shoot and guzzle at his country seat when important business was under consideration at Westminster, what right had he to murmur because more upright and laborious servants of the public pa.s.sed, in his absence, a bill which appeared to them necessary to the public safety?
As however a postponement of a few days appeared to be inevitable, those who had intended to gain the victory by stealing a march now disclaimed that intention. They solemnly a.s.sured the King, who could not help showing some displeasure at their conduct, and who felt much more displeasure than he showed, that they had owed nothing to surprise, and that they were quite certain of a majority in the fullest house.
Sacheverell is said to have declared with great warmth that he would stake his seat on the issue, and that if he found himself mistaken he would never show his face in Parliament again. Indeed, the general opinion at first was that the Whigs would win the day. But it soon became clear that the fight would be a hard one. The mails had carried out along all the high roads the tidings that, on the second of January, the Commons had agreed to a retrospective penal law against the whole Tory party, and that, on the tenth, that law would be considered for the last time. The whole kingdom was moved from Northumberland to Cornwall.
A hundred knights and squires left their halls hung with mistletoe and holly, and their boards groaning with brawn and plum porridge, and rode up post to town, cursing the short days, the cold weather, the miry roads and the villanous Whigs. The Whigs, too, brought up reinforcements, but not to the same extent; for the clauses were generally unpopular, and not without good cause. a.s.suredly no reasonable man of any party will deny that the Tories, in surrendering to the Crown all the munic.i.p.al franchises of the realm, and, with those franchises, the power of altering the const.i.tution of the House of Commons, committed a great fault. But in that fault the nation itself had been an accomplice. If the Mayors and Aldermen whom it was now proposed to punish had, when the tide of loyal enthusiasm ran high, st.u.r.dily refused to comply with the wish of their Sovereign, they would have been pointed at in the street as Roundhead knaves, preached at by the Rector, lampooned in ballads, and probably burned in effigy before their own doors. That a community should be hurried into errors alternately by fear of tyranny and by fear of anarchy is doubtless a great evil. But the remedy for that evil is not to punish for such errors some persons who have merely erred with the rest, and who have since repented with the rest. Nor ought it to have been forgotten that the offenders against whom Sacheverell"s clause was directed had, in 1688, made large atonement for the misconduct of which they had been guilty in 1683. They had, as a cla.s.s, stood up firmly against the dispensing power; and most of them had actually been turned out of their munic.i.p.al offices by James for refusing to support his policy. It is not strange therefore that the attempt to inflict on all these men without exception a degrading punishment should have raised such a storm of public indignation as many Whig members of parliament were unwilling to face.
As the decisive conflict drew near, and as the muster of the Tories became hourly stronger and stronger, the uneasiness of Sacheverell and of his confederates increased. They found that they could hardly hope for a complete victory. They must make some concession. They must propose to recommit the bill. They must declare themselves willing to consider whether any distinction could be made between the chief offenders and the mult.i.tudes who had been misled by evil example. But as the spirit of one party fell the spirit of the other rose. The Tories, glowing with resentment which was but too just, were resolved to listen to no terms of compromise.
The tenth of January came; and, before the late daybreak of that season, the House was crowded. More than a hundred and sixty members had come up to town within a week. From dawn till the candles had burned down to their sockets the ranks kept unbroken order; and few members left their seats except for a minute to take a crust of bread or a gla.s.s of claret.
Messengers were in waiting to carry the result to Kensington, where William, though shaken by a violent cough, sate up till midnight, anxiously expecting the news, and writing to Portland, whom he had sent on an important mission to the Hague.
The only remaining account of the debate is defective and confused. But from that account it appears that the excitement was great. Sharp things were said. One young Whig member used language so hot that he was in danger of being called to the bar. Some reflections were thrown on the Speaker for allowing too much licence to his own friends. But in truth it mattered little whether he called transgressors to order or not. The House had long been quite unmanageable; and veteran members bitterly regretted the old gravity of debate and the old authority of the chair, [553] That Somers disapproved of the violence of the party to which he belonged may be inferred, both from the whole course of his public life, and from the very significant fact that, though he had charge of the Corporation Bill, he did not move the penal clauses, but left that ungracious office to men more impetuous and less sagacious than himself.
He did not however abandon his allies in this emergency, but spoke for them, and tried to make the best of a very bad case. The House divided several times. On the first division a hundred and seventy-four voted with Sacheverell, a hundred and seventy-nine against him. Still the battle was stubbornly kept up; but the majority increased from five to ten, from ten to twelve, and from twelve to eighteen. Then at length, after a stormy sitting of fourteen hours, the Whigs yielded. It was near midnight when, to the unspeakable joy and triumph of the Tories, the clerk tore away from the parchment on which the bill had been engrossed the odious clauses of Sacheverell and Howard, [554]
Emboldened by this great victory, the Tories made an attempt to push forward the Indemnity Bill which had lain many weeks neglected on the table, [555] But the Whigs, notwithstanding their recent defeat, were still the majority of the House; and many members, who had shrunk from the unpopularity which they would have incurred by supporting the Sacheverell clause and the Howard clause, were perfectly willing to a.s.sist in r.e.t.a.r.ding the general pardon. They still propounded their favourite dilemma. How, they asked, was it possible to defend this project of amnesty without condemning the Revolution? Could it be contended that crimes which had been grave enough to justify resistance had not been grave enough to deserve punishment? And, if those crimes were of such magnitude that they could justly be visited on the Sovereign whom the Const.i.tution had exempted from responsibility, on what principle was immunity to be granted to his advisers and tools, who were beyond all doubt responsible? One facetious member put this argument in a singular form. He contrived to place in the Speaker"s chair a paper which, when examined, appeared to be a Bill of Indemnity for King James, with a sneering preamble about the mercy which had, since the Revolution, been extended to more heinous offenders, and about the indulgence due to a King, who, in oppressing his people, had only acted after the fashion of all Kings, [556]
On the same day on which this mock Bill of Indemnity disturbed the gravity of the Commons, it was moved that the House should go into Committee on the real Bill. The Whigs threw the motion out by a hundred and ninety-three votes to a hundred and fifty-six. They then proceeded to resolve that a bill of pains and penalties against delinquents should be forthwith brought in, and engrafted on the Bill of Indemnity, [557]
A few hours later a vote pa.s.sed that showed more clearly than any thing that had yet taken place how little chance there was that the public mind would be speedily quieted by an amnesty. Few persons stood higher in the estimation of the Tory party than Sir Robert Sawyer. He was a man of ample fortune and aristocratical connections, of orthodox opinions and regular life, an able and experienced lawyer, a well read scholar, and, in spite of a little pomposity, a good speaker. He had been Attorney General at the time of the detection of the Rye House Plot; he had been employed for the Crown in the prosecutions which followed; and he had conducted those prosecutions with an eagerness which would, in our time, be called cruelty by all parties, but which, in his own time, and to his own party, seemed to be merely laudable zeal. His friends indeed a.s.serted that he was conscientious even to scrupulosity in matters of life and death; [558] but this is an eulogy which persons who bring the feelings of the nineteenth century to the study of the State Trials of the seventeenth century will have some difficulty in understanding. The best excuse which can be made for this part of his life is that the stain of innocent blood was common to him with almost all the eminent public men of those evil days. When we blame him for prosecuting Russell, we must not forget that Russell had prosecuted Stafford.
Great as Sawyer"s offences were, he had made great atonement for them.
He had stood up manfully against Popery and despotism; he had, in the very presence chamber, positively refused to draw warrants in contravention of Acts of Parliament; he had resigned his lucrative office rather than appear in Westminster Hall as the champion of the dispensing power; he had been the leading counsel for the seven Bishops; and he had, on the day of their trial, done his duty ably, honestly, and fearlessly. He was therefore a favourite with High Churchmen, and might be thought to have fairly earned his pardon from the Whigs. But the Whigs were not in a pardoning mood; and Sawyer was now called to account for his conduct in the case of Sir Thomas Armstrong.
If Armstrong was not belied, he was deep in the worst secrets of the Rye House Plot, and was one of those who undertook to slay the two royal brothers. When the conspiracy was discovered, he fled to the Continent and was outlawed. The magistrates of Leyden were induced by a bribe to deliver him up. He was hurried on board of an English ship, carried to London, and brought before the King"s Bench. Sawyer moved the Court to award execution on the outlawry. Armstrong represented that a year had not yet elapsed since he had been outlawed, and that, by an Act pa.s.sed in the reign of Edward the Sixth, an outlaw who yielded himself within the year was ent.i.tled to plead Not Guilty, and to put himself on his country. To this it was answered that Armstrong had not yielded himself, that he had been dragged to the bar a prisoner, and that he had no right to claim a privilege which was evidently meant to be given only to persons who voluntarily rendered themselves up to public justice.
Jeffreys and the other judges unanimously overruled Armstrong"s objection, and granted the award of execution. Then followed one of the most terrible of the many terrible scenes which, in those times, disgraced our Courts. The daughter of the unhappy man was at his side.
"My Lord," she cried out, "you will not murder my father. This is murdering a man." "How now?" roared the Chief Justice. "Who is this woman? Take her, Marshal. Take her away." She was forced out, crying as she went, "G.o.d Almighty"s judgments light on you!" "G.o.d Almighty"s judgment," said Jeffreys, "will light on traitors. Thank G.o.d, I am clamour proof." When she was gone, her father again insisted on what he conceived to be his right. "I ask" he said, "only the benefit of the law." "And, by the grace of G.o.d, you shall have it," said the judge.
"Mr. Sheriff, see that execution be done on Friday next. There is the benefit of the law for you." On the following Friday, Armstrong was hanged, drawn and quartered; and his head was placed over Westminster Hall, [559]
The insolence and cruelty of Jeffreys excite, even at the distance of so many years, an indignation which makes it difficult to be just to him.
Yet a perfectly dispa.s.sionate inquirer may perhaps think it by no means clear that the award of execution was illegal. There was no precedent; and the words of the Act of Edward the Sixth may, without any straining, be construed as the Court construed them. Indeed, had the penalty been only fine or imprisonment, n.o.body would have seen any thing reprehensible in the proceeding. But to send a man to the gallows as a traitor, without confronting him with his accusers, without hearing his defence, solely because a timidity which is perfectly compatible with innocence has impelled him to hide himself, is surely a violation, if not of any written law, yet of those great principles to which all laws ought to conform. The case was brought before the House of Commons. The orphan daughter of Armstrong came to the bar to demand vengeance; and a warm debate followed. Sawyer was fiercely attacked and strenuously defended. The Tories declared that he appeared to them to have done only what, as counsel for the Crown, he was bound to do, and to have discharged his duty to G.o.d, to the King, and to the prisoner. If the award was legal, n.o.body was to blame; and, if the award was illegal, the blame lay, not with the Attorney General, but with the Judges. There would be an end of all liberty of speech at the bar, if an advocate was to be punished for making a strictly regular application to a Court, and for arguing that certain words in a statute were to be understood in a certain sense. The Whigs called Sawyer murderer, bloodhound, hangman.
If the liberty of speech claimed by advocates meant the liberty of haranguing men to death, it was high time that the nation should rise up and exterminate the whole race of lawyers. "Things will never be well done," said one orator, "till some of that profession be made examples."
"No crime to demand execution!" exclaimed John Hampden. "We shall be told next that it was no crime in the Jews to cry out "Crucify him."" A wise and just man would probably have been of opinion that this was not a case for severity. Sawyer"s conduct might have been, to a certain extent, culpable: but, if an Act of Indemnity was to be pa.s.sed at all, it was to be pa.s.sed for the benefit of persons whose conduct had been culpable. The question was not whether he was guiltless, but whether his guilt was of so peculiarly black a dye that he ought, notwithstanding all his sacrifices and services, to be excluded by name from the mercy which was to be granted to many thousands of offenders. This question calm and impartial judges would probably have decided in his favour. It was, however, resolved that he should be excepted from the Indemnity, and expelled from the House, [560]
On the morrow the Bill of Indemnity, now transformed into a Bill of Pains and Penalties, was again discussed. The Whigs consented to refer it to a Committee of the whole House, but proposed to instruct the Committee to begin its labours by making out a list of the offenders who were to be proscribed. The Tories moved the previous question. The House divided; and the Whigs carried their point by a hundred and ninety votes to a hundred and seventy-three, [561]
The King watched these events with painful anxiety. He was weary of his crown. He had tried to do justice to both the contending parties; but justice would satisfy neither. The Tories hated him for protecting the Dissenters. The Whigs hated him for protecting the Tories. The amnesty seemed to be more remote than when, ten months before, he first recommended it from the throne. The last campaign in Ireland had been disastrous. It might well be that the next campaign would be more disastrous still. The malpractices, which had done more than the exhalations of the marshes of Dundalk to destroy the efficiency of the English troops, were likely to be as monstrous as ever. Every part of the administration was thoroughly disorganized; and the people were surprised and angry because a foreigner, newly come among them, imperfectly acquainted with them, and constantly thwarted by them, had not, in a year, put the whole machine of government to rights. Most of his ministers, instead of a.s.sisting him, were trying to get up addresses and impeachments against each other. Yet if he employed his own countrymen, on whose fidelity and attachment he could rely, a general cry of rage was set up by all the English factions. The knavery of the English Commissariat had destroyed an army: yet a rumour that he intended to employ an able, experienced, and trusty Commissary from Holland had excited general discontent. The King felt that he could not, while thus situated, render any service to that great cause to which his whole soul was devoted. Already the glory which he had won by conducting to a successful issue the most important enterprise of that age was becoming dim. Even his friends had begun to doubt whether he really possessed all that sagacity and energy which had a few months before extorted the unwilling admiration of his enemies. But he would endure his splendid slavery no longer. He would return to his native country.
He would content himself with being the first citizen of a commonwealth to which the name of Orange was dear. As such, he might still be foremost among those who were banded together in defence of the liberties of Europe. As for the turbulent and ungrateful islanders, who detested him because he would not let them tear each other in pieces, Mary must try what she could do with them. She was born on their soil.
She spoke their language. She did not dislike some parts of their Liturgy, which they fancied to be essential, and which to him seemed at best harmless. If she had little knowledge of politics and war, she had what might be more useful, feminine grace and tact, a sweet temper, a smile and a kind word for every body. She might be able to compose the disputes which distracted the State and the Church. Holland, under his government, and England under hers, might act cordially together against the common enemy.
He secretly ordered preparations to be made for his voyage. Having done this, he called together a few of his chief counsellors, and told them his purpose. A squadron, he said, was ready to convey him to his country. He had done with them. He hoped that the Queen would be more successful. The ministers were thunderstruck. For once all quarrels were suspended. The Tory Caermarthen on one side, the Whig Shrewsbury on the other, expostulated and implored with a pathetic vehemence rare in the conferences of statesmen. Many tears were shed. At length the King was induced to give up, at least for the present, his design of abdicating the government. But he announced another design which he was fully determined not to give up. Since he was still to remain at the head of the English administration, he would go himself to Ireland. He would try whether the whole royal authority strenuously exerted on the spot where the fate of the empire was to be decided, would suffice to prevent peculation and to maintain discipline, [562]
That he had seriously meditated a retreat to Holland long continued to be a secret, not only to the mult.i.tude, but even to the Queen, [563]
That he had resolved to take the command of his army in Ireland was soon rumoured all over London. It was known that his camp furniture was making, and that Sir Christopher Wren was busied in constructing a house of wood which was to travel about, packed in two waggons, and to be set up wherever His Majesty might fix his quarters, [564] The Whigs raised a violent outcry against the whole scheme. Not knowing, or affecting not to know, that it had been formed by William and by William alone, and that none of his ministers had dared to advise him to encounter the Irish swords and the Irish atmosphere, the whole party confidently affirmed that it had been suggested by some traitor in the cabinet, by some Tory who hated the Revolution and all that had sprung from the Revolution. Would any true friend have advised His Majesty, infirm in health as he was, to expose himself, not only to the dangers of war, but to the malignity of a climate which had recently been fatal to thousands of men much stronger than himself? In private the King sneered bitterly at this anxiety for his safety. It was merely, in his judgment, the anxiety which a hard master feels lest his slaves should become unfit for their drudgery. The Whigs, he wrote to Portland, were afraid to lose their tool before they had done their work. "As to their friendship," he added, "you know what it is worth." His resolution, he told his friend, was unalterably fixed. Every thing was at stake; and go he must, even though the Parliament should present an address imploring him to stay, [565]
He soon learned that such an address would be immediately moved in both Houses and supported by the whole strength of the Whig party. This intelligence satisfied him that it was time to take a decisive step.
He would not discard the Whigs but he would give them a lesson of which they stood much in need. He would break the chain in which they imagined that they had him fast. He would not let them have the exclusive possession of power. He would not let them persecute the vanquished party. In their despite, he would grant an amnesty to his people. In their despite, he would take the command of his army in Ireland. He arranged his plan with characteristic prudence, firmness, and secrecy.
A single Englishman it was necessary to trust: for William was not sufficiently master of our language to address the Houses from the throne in his own words; and, on very important occasions, his practice was to write his speech in French, and to employ a translator. It is certain that to one person, and to one only, the King confided the momentous resolution which he had taken; and it can hardly be doubted that this person was Caermarthen.
On the twenty-seventh of January, Black Rod knocked at the door of the Commons. The Speaker and the members repaired to the House of Lords. The King was on the throne. He gave his a.s.sent to the Supply Bill, thanked the Houses for it, announced his intention of going to Ireland, and prorogued the Parliament. None could doubt that a dissolution would speedily follow. As the concluding words, "I have thought it convenient now to put an end to this session," were uttered, the Tories, both above and below the bar, broke forth into a shout of joy. The King meanwhile surveyed his audience from the throne with that bright eagle eye which nothing escaped. He might be pardoned if he felt some little vindictive pleasure in annoying those who had cruelly annoyed him. "I saw," he wrote to Portland the next day, "faces an ell long. I saw some of those men change colour with vexation twenty times while I was speaking."
[566]
A few hours after the prorogation, a hundred and fifty Tory members of Parliament had a parting dinner together at the Apollo Tavern in Fleet Street, before they set out for their counties. They were in better temper with William than they had been since his father in law had been turned out of Whitehall. They had scarcely recovered from the joyful surprise with which they had heard it announced from the throne that the session was at an end. The recollection of their danger and the sense of their deliverance were still fresh. They talked of repairing to Court in a body to testify their grat.i.tude: but they were induced to forego their intention; and not without cause: for a great crowd of squires after a revel, at which doubtless neither October nor claret had been spared, might have caused some inconvenience in the presence chamber. Sir John Lowther, who in wealth and influence was inferior to no country gentleman of that age, was deputed to carry the thanks of the a.s.sembly to the palace. He spoke, he told the King, the sense of a great body of honest gentlemen. They begged His Majesty to be a.s.sured that they would in their counties do their best to serve him; and they cordially wished him a safe voyage to Ireland, a complete victory, a speedy return, and a long and happy reign. During the following week, many, who had never shown their faces in the circle at Saint James"s since the Revolution, went to kiss the King"s hand. So warmly indeed did those who had hitherto been regarded as half Jacobites express their approbation of the policy of the government that the thoroughgoing Jacobites were much disgusted, and complained bitterly of the strange blindness which seemed to have come on the sons of the Church of England, [567]
All the acts of William, at this time, indicated his determination to restrain, steadily though gently, the violence of the Whigs, and to conciliate, if possible, the good will of the Tories. Several persons whom the Commons had thrown into prison for treason were set at liberty on bail, [568] The prelates who held that their allegiance was still due to James were treated with a tenderness rare in the history of revolutions. Within a week after the prorogation, the first of February came, the day on which those ecclesiastics who refused to take the oath were to be finally deprived. Several of the suspended clergy, after holding out till the last moment, swore just in time to save themselves from beggary. But the Primate and five of his suffragans were still inflexible. They consequently forfeited their bishoprics; but Sancroft was informed that the King had not yet relinquished the hope of being able to make some arrangement which might avert the necessity of appointing successors, and that the nonjuring prelates might continue for the present to reside in their palaces. Their receivers were appointed receivers for the Crown, and continued to collect the revenues of the vacant sees, [569] Similar indulgence was shown to some divines of lower rank. Sherlock, in particular, continued, after his deprivation, to live unmolested in his official mansion close to the Temple Church.
And now appeared a proclamation dissolving the Parliament. The writs for a general election went out; and soon every part of the kingdom was in a ferment. Van Citters, who had resided in England during many eventful years, declared that he had never seen London more violently agitated, [570] The excitement was kept up by compositions of all sorts, from sermons with sixteen heads down to jingling street ballads. Lists of divisions were, for the first time in our history, printed and dispersed for the information of const.i.tuent bodies. Two of these lists may still be seen in old libraries. One of the two, circulated by the Whigs, contained the names of those Tories who had voted against declaring the throne vacant. The other, circulated by the Tories, contained the names of those Whigs who had supported the Sacheverell clause.
It soon became clear that public feeling had undergone a great change during the year which had elapsed since the Convention had met; and it is impossible to deny that this change was, at least in part, the natural consequence and the just punishment of the intemperate and vindictive conduct of the Whigs. Of the city of London they thought themselves sure. The Livery had in the preceding year returned four zealous Whigs without a contest. But all the four had voted for the Sacheverell clause; and by that clause many of the merchant princes of Lombard Street and Cornhill, men powerful in the twelve great companies, men whom the goldsmiths followed humbly, hat in hand, up and down the arcades of the Royal Exchange, would have been turned with all indignity out of the Court of Aldermen and out of the Common Council. The struggle was for life or death. No exertions, no artifices, were spared. William wrote to Portland that the Whigs of the City, in their despair, stuck at nothing, and that, as they went on, they would soon stand as much in need of an Act of Indemnity as the Tories. Four Tories however were returned, and that by so decisive a majority, that the Tory who stood lowest polled four hundred votes more than the Whig who stood highest, [571] The Sheriffs, desiring to defer as long as possible the triumph of their enemies, granted a scrutiny. But, though the majority was diminished, the result was not affected, [572] At Westminster, two opponents of the Sacheverell clause were elected without a contest, [573] But nothing indicated more strongly the disgust excited by the proceedings of the late House of Commons than what pa.s.sed in the University of Cambridge. Newton retired to his quiet observatory over the gate of Trinity College. Two Tories were returned by an overwhelming majority. At the head of the poll was Sawyer, who had, but a few days before, been excepted from the Indemnity Bill and expelled from the House of Commons. The records of the University contain curious proofs that the unwise severity with which he had been treated had raised an enthusiastic feeling in his favour. Newton voted for Sawyer; and this remarkable fact justifies us in believing that the great philosopher, in whose genius and virtue the Whig party justly glories, had seen the headstrong and revengeful conduct of that party with concern and disapprobation, [574]
It was soon plain that the Tories would have a majority in the new House of Commons, [575] All the leading Whigs however obtained seats, with one exception. John Hampden was excluded, and was regretted only by the most intolerant and unreasonable members of his party, [576]